Points of Light and the Forgotten Realms

[an_idol_mind]

They’d also be able to address many of the common problems non-FR fans have had with the setting.

This is what I think might be the problem if they reboot the Realms. Despite the fact that I don't like a lot of what the Realms has to offer, I've long been of the mind that changing it to a grittier setting would not be the best way to go. The Realms has been D&D's most popular setting for close to a generation now. The reason it's popular is because of the many fans of what the Realms are now and have been during most of its lifespan -- a huge, detailed, wondrous world with high magic, meddling gods, and crazy old wizards who could accidentally level a continent if they don't take their medication. Changing it to fit the model presented by Salvatore would be stripping a lot of what the Realms is to those fans.

Sure, they might pull in a boatload of new fans to cover the potential fans they lose. History, however, suggests that they won't. Not too many settings have survived such a drastic change. Greyhawk floundered for years after the Greyhawk Wars before finally being put down. Mystara went through major upheaval during Wrath of the Immortals, was effectively rebooted to appeal to non-Mystara fans, and failed after a decade of success. Dark Sun lost a lot of its fans through the reboot introduced by the Prism Pentad and the revised boxed set. Not too many settings survive the reboot button well.

The one thing I think a rebooted Realms will have going for it is that Ed Greenwood and R.A. Salvatore will probably continue to write for it. Driz'zt will still sell books, and Greenwood's work as the setting's creator will probably help draw in older fans. Still, tearing up the Realms and starting over would be a very dangerous path to walk at best. I think WotC would be better served to let the Realms be the Realms, and craft a new setting if they really want to highlight their new campaign model.

 

[freyar]

I think you are right humble minion. I only own some FR products and read through some of the Books but even I can see that these Realms won't be the old 1ed/2ed/3xed any more.
The feel of the few pages of the new Salvatore Book almost read like a crossover between Greyhawk and FR.
Notice something?
WoC know that there are many gamers who like Greyhawk.
Why not change FR so that bot "Greyhawkers" and "Realmers" get something they like?
Crazy idea?

The problem, I think, is that neither GH or FR fans will be happy with this "merged" setting, since it will probably lack the flavor of either.

I also think that the humble minion is right. It would have been fine to "pare down" the setting somewhat, but this is such a setting wipe that it's hard to see how the, well, joviality of the setting can be left intact.

 

[Samuel Leming]

Unless the 4E realms is truly a "travesty", they'll lose about four customers in the long run, I suspect.

Lose four, but gain four thousand.

Anyway, Ruin Explorer supports more ruins to explore, obviously. If those runs are the ghost-haunted ruins of Waterdeep, all the better! Maybe we can kick around Khelben's skull, or fight his lich or something? That'd be nice

Nah, not Waterdeep. That would be cutting a little too deep. Now the ruins of Silverymoon would make a good adventure...

All those 3.5 FR supplements are filled to the brim with locations begging to be turned into dungeons.

Sam

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Huh, I didn't read the sample chapter before, now I have...

CCC = KKK = R.A. Salvatore is a tasteless assbastard. They're even called "The Night Riders". Does the man not have one original bone in his body? That's the sort of nincompoopery I would have thought was beneath me when I was thirteen, no joke...

However, I choose to believe that the generally crumminess of the said chapter related directly to it being written by an awful awful author, and that it does not reflect on the quality or character of the 4E FR accurately. Nor, likely, are the events of the past, as described in the clumsy exposition, handled with accuracy.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

The problem, I think, is that neither GH or FR fans will be happy with this "merged" setting, since it will probably lack the flavor of either.

I also think that the humble minion is right. It would have been fine to "pare down" the setting somewhat, but this is such a setting wipe that it's hard to see how the, well, joviality of the setting can be left intact.

Call it Grey-Realms or Forgotten-Hawks and it is jovial and funny

Anyway, the "Setting Merge" was just a crazy idea with no facts that might verify it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Nah, not Waterdeep. That would be cutting a little too deep. Now the ruins of Silverymoon would make a good adventure...

If they don't burn Waterdeep to the ground, they're wimps. Sad little wimps who should be ashamed of themselves. You don't do a "points of light" setting reboot and leave the most important and powerful city on the northern Sword Coast still standing!

Plus, who doesn't want to kill Khelben "Blackstaff"' Arunsun's inevitably lich? He wasn't Good-aligned! They can't pretend he wouldn't do it, the egotistical bastard! Anyway, I know I want to kill 'im. God, my players would love that so much. I guess if they forgot to burn down Waterdeep, I can always do it by myself...

Then again I was sorely disappointed when I misread that sample and thought Drizzt was actually going to die... Fiddlesticks...

Silverymoon is cutting too light, frankly. You gotta burn down some places that someone actually cares about, if you're going to burn Sembia, Thay etc. as well.

PS - The "merging of two worlds" line does imply something funky. I do wonder if we'll have to put up with the lame Greyhawk gods in the FR (which has a large "god surplus" at the best of times).

 

[Samuel Leming]

Sure, they might pull in a boatload of new fans to cover the potential fans they lose. History, however, suggests that they won't. Not too many settings have survived such a drastic change. Greyhawk floundered for years after the Greyhawk Wars before finally being put down. Mystara went through major upheaval during Wrath of the Immortals, was effectively rebooted to appeal to non-Mystara fans, and failed after a decade of success. Dark Sun lost a lot of its fans through the reboot introduced by the Prism Pentad and the revised boxed set. Not too many settings survive the reboot button well.

I don't know about Mystara, but the Greyhawk Wars and Dark Sun reboots probably failed because of poor product quality. They just plain stank.

Still, tearing up the Realms and starting over would be a very dangerous path to walk at best. I think WotC would be better served to let the Realms be the Realms, and craft a new setting if they really want to highlight their new campaign model.

But what would they sell if they don't reboot?

Sam

 

[freyar]

Plus, who doesn't want to kill Khelben "Blackstaff"' Arunsun's inevitably lich? He wasn't Good-aligned! They can't pretend he wouldn't do it, the egotistical bastard! Anyway, I know I want to kill 'im. God, my players would love that so much. I guess if they forgot to burn down Waterdeep, I can always do it by myself...

Canonwise, (spoiler)

Spoiler

the book Blackstaff seems to have wiped out that possibility.

On reason some people have been getting annoyed with the FR novels is this sort of thing happening too much recently. In retrospect, some of it actually seems to signal the 4e apocalypse a little.

 

[an_idol_mind]

I don't know about Mystara, but the Greyhawk Wars and Dark Sun reboots probably failed because of poor product quality. They just plain stank.

True, poor product did have a lot to do with it. But pissing off the old fan base by totally warping the setting certainly didn't help matters.

But what would they sell if they don't reboot?

First of all, a lot of people were wondering the same thing at the end of 2nd edition, when the Realms had so very many products out there. WotC still managed to continue the setting for another seven years.

Second of all, there's a surprising amount of area in the Realms that either hasn't been explored by official supplements or hasn't been updated in many years. The setting is flat out HUGE.

Third of all, as the Realms is a living world that has an advancing timeline, there are a lot of areas that could be updated to reflect recent events. Shadowdale just recently got sacked by the Zhents. The city of Hope was recently created. Undermountain and Waterdeep have both gone through upheaval. The setting is changing all the time. You don't need to jump it forward 100 years, kill off most of the beloved NPCs, and wreck much of the world just to publish new product.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't know about Mystara, but the Greyhawk Wars and Dark Sun reboots probably failed because of poor product quality. They just plain stank.

Precisely - Also note that they came out before our culture as a whole was really familiar with the concept of "reboots" - we've seen, in the the 2000s, dozens of licenses/IPs get "rebooted", and in the vast majority of cases, the reboot has been more popular than the pre-reboot version (prime examples are in the recent movie reboots of Spiderman, Transformers, etc. - or of Battlestar Galactica and so on).

As you say, the Dark Sun and GH reboots were godawful.

Most good, successful reboots work on this principle:

1) Distill the essence of what makes the setting/character great.

2) Reinfuse it into a more "up-to-date" version.

3) Profit.

The Dark Sun reboot was more like:

1) Completely change Dark Sun and ignore all the stuff that made the setting genuinely special, going as far as to directly contradict it.

2) ???

3) Profit.

Only, obviously, it failed to profit, because they didn't take Dark Sun and make it cooler and more "Dark Sun"-ish, just modernized, they just pee'd all over it. It wasn't the new Battlestar Galactica, it was the old Battlestar Galatica after they got to Earth and started footling around on flying motorcycles...

Mystara failed because the "reboot" (unless we mean Red Steel) wasn't a true reboot, it was just updating the setting somewhat. A setting so conceptually out-of-date and out-of-step with the times that it was truly mindblowing. In the era of Planescape, there was no room for a thoughtless, utterly unreal (and not in a good way) "I thought it was cool at the time!" setting like Mystara.

Reboots are the win, but they need to follow the formula - distill the essence, then reinfuse it - Whether the 4E FR does this or not will likely determine it's popularity - that and how much they let eejits like Salvatore fondle and caress the setting inappropriately - If the CCC are canon, well, that's a baaaaaad sign.