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[Vocenoctum]

I think he's referring to the somewhat shaky idea that since Ed imagined a few of the characters from the Forgotten Realms as a child, the whole setting as a creative enterprise predates first edition D&D.

I'm not sure I buy it, but it's an argument I've seen posited more than a few times online.

--Erik

Right, well I know FR existed before being published and such, in Dragon also. I can't see how that would have any influence on the Demonweb Pits though...

I mean, does it come down to age of the authors?

 

[Felon]

You are pretty much spot on that the distributors (and the larger retail chains) are the ones that "assist" WOTC in setting the MSRP of their products.

Well, the retailers are WotC's customers, after all. I suppose they should listen to them.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Yeah, "Ed was messing about with what would become the Forgotten Realms in the late Sixties" is not equal to "Ed laid out everything about the world and its cosmology and just everything before D&D was even a twinkle in Gygax's eye".

I seriously doubt that the Demonweb Pits, specifically, existed before the Forgotten Realms became a game setting.

 

[Faraer]

Right, well I know FR existed before being published and such, in Dragon also. I can't see how that would have any influence on the Demonweb Pits though...

I'm sure it didn't, since Gary didn't know about the Realms till 1979 at the earliest. You said the Demonweb Pits predated the Realms; they don't.

I think he's referring to the somewhat shaky idea that since Ed imagined a few of the characters from the Forgotten Realms as a child, the whole setting as a creative enterprise predates first edition D&D.

Not the whole setting, but most of the critical elements were in place by 1974; far more than a few characters.

 

[Erik Mona]

Mmmm hmmm.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Realms has suffered 17 years of ill-conceived RSEs inflicted on it for short-term novel sales, but even so the lore (including published adventures and novels) is far more full of the small, local tales which suit it and which it was created for.

Please define "RSE" for those of us who don't have their Elminster Crime Fighter Club decoder rings with us.

Why would we like the destruction of what we love?

Or, alternately, why wouldn't struggling to save what you view as the "heart" of the Realms elevate this adventure above "oh, we can go rescue that town we never heard of and save the NPCs we don't care about?"

Big trilogies of hardcover adventures should aspire to be the Lord of the Rings, not The Village of Hommlet.

This series has been met in large part with weary groans on the Candlekeep.com boards.

Any time a love of canon supercedes a campaign setting being the setting for heroic adventure, it's time to start smashing away at canon, IMO.

Threatening Shadowdale (which will be undone by the end of the trilogy, I'm confident) is a lot different from, say, the Greyhawk Wars or any of the insanity inflicted on Krynn or even all of Toril's gods smacking the crap out of each other while PCs stood around and watched.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Any time a love of canon supercedes a campaign setting being the setting for heroic adventure, it's time to start smashing away at canon, IMO.

Truer words on this topic have ne'er been uttered.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Truer words on this topic have ne'er been uttered.

And are you going to have a say in what is done about it Ari? You seem to be on the cover of every second book WotC releases these days!

Olaf the Stout

 

[Faraer]

RSE is Realms-Shattering or -Shaking Event (which is the way this trilogy is being sold).

Or, alternately, why wouldn't struggling to save what you view as the "heart" of the Realms elevate this adventure above "oh, we can go rescue that town we never heard of and save the NPCs we don't care about?"

Potentially it could, and the fact that a lot's conceptually at stake (not necessarily for particular PC groups, who all care most about different things) is what makes it a delicate and difficult project, because the opportunity only plausibly comes once.

Big trilogies of hardcover adventures should aspire to be the Lord of the Rings, not The Village of Hommlet.

You can't have The Lord of the Rings -- the climax of an epoch, fruition of many plot threads -- annually.

Any time a love of canon supercedes a campaign setting being the setting for heroic adventure, it's time to start smashing away at canon, IMO.

The problem is too much canon where many of us don't want it, in the ongoing timeline which makes DMing harder if you don't follow it. That said, Eric has made hints about flexible placement which increase my optimism.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You can't have The Lord of the Rings -- the climax of an epoch, fruition of many plot threads -- annually.

In the last year, there's been orcs on the march -- which has been going on since the 3E FRCS hit the streets -- and some dragons spazzed out. Neither were the Lord of the Rings.

The problem is too much canon where many of us don't want it, in the ongoing timeline which makes DMing harder if you don't follow it.

And I can respect that. I'm one of the people who found the Old World of Darkness to be greatly burdened by its advancing timeline.

That said, WotC has been a lot better about this stuff than TSR. No one's game has been really impacted if they weren't interested in, say, dragons spazzing out, for instance.