Points of Light and the Forgotten Realms

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I like Elminister as a recluse.

I know folks bring up Greyhawk as having powerful uber wizards, but the organization created by Mordenkainen was aggressively neutral. It is easier, I think, to say that the uber group doesn't want to get involved when they are intentionally ambiguous or non-committal. Some have called Mordenkainen's stance as militant neutrality. Kind of a "don't bother me, I don't care about you" is more believable when they are neutral.

If El drifted to neutrality like Mordenkainen, reclusiveness and detachment from affairs would go down better.

 

[grimslade]

I like Elminister as a recluse. I think this solves most of the problems. But his depiction in the novels would have to match.

A jump forward (whether 10 or 100 years) would be a natural breakpoint to emphasize this aspect of his personality.

I like Elminster as a recluse too, makes him even more like Gandalf though. A benevolent divine agent who shows up to push heroes in the right direction and to throw down when there is need. Most times he's off researching the origins of orc haiku for glimpses of prophecy and hitting the astral club scene, romancing anything with legs. <shudder>

 

[Sunderstone]

I'm glad to know that you are so in tune with people running Realms campaigns. I've run Forgotten Realms campaigns for 20 years, and I've never had a problem with the idea that a handfull of really high level characters can't defend an entire continent by themselves.

I guess Merlin handled all of the problems everywhere in Camelot as well.

But yeah, its great that you know so well how every person that runs a Realms campaign is running it.

As an FR DM since the grey box, im with Whizbang on this. From the looks of more than a few posts here, others feel the same. Alot of us even like the idea of the reboot.

Here's a sample of some of the major changes I made to my FR, due to all the novels and superheroes before I gave up on the setting......

The Simbul of Aglarond - Mysteriously catatonic. This kept secret from most of Aglarond.
Elminster - Out worldwalking (yet again). Looking for a cure for the Simbul.
Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon and Drizzt Do'Urden - Missing upon the last visit by Drizzt. No one has seen her or Drizzt leave Silverymoon. Some anti- Drizzt drow propaganda has circulated quietly.
Halaster Blackcloak and Undermountain - Removed, neither exists.
Zhentarim - Fzoul Chembryl and the Banites maintain firm control over the Black Network. The Cyricists have all but been eradicated from Darkhold. A few Cyricists remain as spies pretending to be Banites. Sememmon and Ashemmi remain deserters and have no plans to return to the Black Network.
The Shadovar - The events that transpired at Evereska remain. The melting of the High Ice has not happened and the Shades have no plans of staying in Anauroch. The Battle at Tilverton happened but for the simpler reason of Conquest.
Shade had wanted to establish a foothold in the centrally-located Cormyr. Since the destruction of Tilverton, Shade has retreated to Anauroch once more. Currently the Shadowvar are disturbingly quiet as they continue to gather intelligence in utmost secrecy, preferring to kill themselves over capture.
The Drow - The War of The Spider Queen has not happened. Lolth is still active. The events at Ched Nasad did occur however, with the smaller houses still making a bold attempt to seize power in a coup. Menzoberranzan however, has never been under siege. The Jaezred Chaulssin have always existed in secret and continue to hatch plots (one of which was the recent slave uprising) against the predominantly female menzoberranyr hierarchy in efforts to undermine their control. Lolth continues to watch these events unfold to see if her subjects are worthy of survival and her attention all the while reveling in the chaos of these events.
King Obould - King Obould maintains a firm grasp of his humanoid hordes in the Spine of the World having lost the Citadel of Many Arrows. He has since set his sights on Mithril Hall as its location is closer and easier than striking in the middle of the Silver Marches to reclaim Citadel Felbarr. The Dwarves of Mithril Hall are largely unaware of the coming storm, but they have noticed increased humanoid and giant activity in the area.


I have alot more changes on another txt file but you get the picture. Too many RSEs and Super heroes from the novels indeed.

On a side note I always wanted to run City of the Spider Queen but decided against it. My players and I talked about it afterwards and their comments went like "If we failed to stop her (Irae T'sarran, the bbeg iirc), its not like Elminster would let the undead run amok in the dales anyway."
Only one of my players even reads the novels but only the Drizzt books. He also agrees that there are too many superpowered folks to make anything epic for PCs look believable.

 

[William Ronald]

Elminster could still be good, but might be a bit more careful of involving people in his plans if a few friends died when a plan went horrifically bad. So, he might turn into more of an advisor, and working behind the scenes.

He could move more from the old wizard in the tower to someone working closely with an organization like the Harpers. So, keeping Elminster busy in a new setting, and making sure that people know he is busy might be a good idea. Maybe give the Sage role to another character, who is primarily a sage and source of information.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I know folks bring up Greyhawk as having powerful uber wizards, but the organization created by Mordenkainen was aggressively neutral. It is easier, I think, to say that the uber group doesn't want to get involved when they are intentionally ambiguous or non-committal. Some have called Mordenkainen's stance as militant neutrality. Kind of a "don't bother me, I don't care about you" is more believable when they are neutral.

If El drifted to neutrality like Mordenkainen, reclusiveness and detachment from affairs would go down better.

The irony is that, in the real world, powerful forces that uphold the status quo -- which is what Militant Neutral does, effectively -- are seen as the bad guys.

But yeah, that's a much more gameable powerful NPC to have around. Heck, it even allows Mordy and company to be used as villains without them having to start whacking their buddies and head off to the Bright Desert for a bunch of years.

 

[Uzzy]

Sure, people's experiences vary. They often have poor DM's, who have not read the FRCS, including 'Concerns of the Mighty'. I'm curious as to what part of that sidebar you don't understand, Whizbang.

One more time: It's a load of crap for someone to ALWAYS be busy, especially if something is happening in their town. If the NPCs in question are really good aligned, the notion that they will let evil go by right under their noses, because the PCs, or someone, will take care of it, then they're not good-aligned any more.

Alright. So everyday Elminster is in Shadowdale he systematically wipes out all the evil threats in the area for a few years, letting the people there live in peace and prosperity. Then he hears word of a Shade plot the other side of Faerún, and goes off to deal with that. Shadowdale, with it's only experienced defender gone, is easy pickings for Fzoul and his Zhentarim, who have engineered the situation, ensuring Elminster hears of the Shade plot. Elminster returns after a couple of tendays to discover Shadowdale conquered, it's people enslaved and a large Zhent army encamped and waiting for El to return.

Elminster may be good aligned, but he's not stupid. He knows fully well he can't solve everything, and even if he did, that would simply make him a Tyrant. Something he doesn't want to be. Furthermore, he knows he can't always be there, so other heroes need to step up to the plate to ensure Shadowdale doesn't fall to the first band of orcs. Additionally, his solving of everything would lower the overall level of magic in the Realms, with many in Shadowdale not seeing the point of learning the Art in order to protect themselves, as Elminster's there to do it for them. Strife brings about new Art, more mages, more power for Mystra. Not that Elminster would engineer strife, of course.

As an FR DM since the grey box, im with Whizbang on this. From the looks of more than a few posts here, others feel the same. Alot of us even like the idea of the reboot.

Well met Sunderstone. Yes, many here have said a reboot would make them interested in the Realms. I'm not denying that. My point is that a reboot would lose a lot of fans of the current Realms, who are essential to keeping the Realms going. This is a social activity, after all, and there is no better incentive to buy a new Realms sourcebook then your group mentioning it favourably. It's the best advertisement I can think of! A rebooted Realms would offer nothing to me. I'm sure even in your variant Realms, you could find uses for many of the current Sourcebooks, no?

 

[humble minion]

If it were up to me, there's a passably simple method I'd use for dealing with uber-NPC syndrome.

Basically, the Chosen are the ones who are the main problem. Drizzt is only one guy with no magic, and whatever you think about the novels, he's only got a 5ft reach and (since he has no wizards in the party, the careless fool!) is generally limited to getting where he needs to go by foot. He isn't going to be a major political power any time soon. Cormyr, as pointed out above, is a keg of political gunpowder and any 'named' characters there have got their hands full trying to hold onto their heads. Khelben is gone, Halaster is gone, Shandril is gone, Manshoon (or his various clones) is still spending his time fighting amongst himself, the Simbul (when used properly) is basically the only thing holding the Aglarond line against all of Thay at once, and so hardly has time to be blipping all over the Realms on a regular basis.

The anonymous, disposable main characters of recent RSE novels are still there on the whole, but realistically nobody's going to notice if they fade away never to be mentioned again. Quick, without looking it up, can anyone tell me the name of the unspeakably naff hero from the Return of the Archwizards series? The Threat From The Sea series? Thought not.

So, the way I'd do it is have the Weave/Shadow Weave conflict come to a head. Shar takes on Mystra, and like matter and antimatter this results in them both going foom. Mystra is gone, dead, annihilated, and the same with Shar - except for the measure of power they entrusted to their respective Chosen. So, Elminster, Alustriel, and the rest are now the anchors of the Weave. If they die, the consequences for magic across the Realms will be catastrophic. So in campaign setting terms, they become liabilities to be protected rather than assets. They CAN'T go out adventuring - even a demon lord wandering around, or Thay conquering Mulhorand, or the Crypt of Sleeping Lizards awakening is less of a threat to the stability of the Realms than risking Qilue or someone getting ganked and having the Weave further destabilised. They basically have to stay reclusive and heavily warded, and work through emissaries - Elminster once more becomes a stay-at-home sage and Alustriel will have to return her focus to Silver Marches politics (all as nature intended!)

Now, I'm aware there's more than a little bit of irony in my using an RSE to accomplish this after having bemoaned them so much earlier in this thread (and it's something that might be best handled off-screen and then left as a mystery for PCs to discover the details of), but this would accomplish a number of things.
- Iconic Realms NPCs stay alive and accessible for setting fans, but no longer do PC-type stuff
- Timeline need not be advanced too far, and major political units remain recognisable and in place, if rather more precariously so, so ongoing campaigns are not messed with too much
- many good-aligned regions (the Dales, Silver Marches, etc) suddenly lose their 'big guns', with destabilisation/fragmentation inevitably resulting "But WHY won't Lady Alustriel come out of her palace and save our village from the dragon?!", leaving a darker (dare I say points-of-lightier!) setting with more for PCs to do
- 3e's overwhelming and slightly tedious focus on Shar and the Shades as bad guys can be toned down, since they're in the same boat as the good guys re: the Shadow Weave

Sure, there's problems (what to do with clerics of Shar or Mystra, for one!) but if I could come up with this after thinking for two minutes, surely WotC could, if they wanted to, find a way to reboot the Realms without such a massive overturning of all things familiar as seems to be the current plan.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Sure, people's experiences vary. They often have poor DM's, who have not read the FRCS, including 'Concerns of the Mighty'. I'm curious as to what part of that sidebar you don't understand, Whizbang.

I'm curious why you think that, because my opinion differs from yours, I didn't understand something.

 

[Uzzy]

Because the sidebar 'Concerns of the Mighty' explains quite clearly WHY Elminster and the other Chosen don't go out to destroy each and every evil being in Faerún. It's right there in the FRCS, in black and white. I even linked to a great explanation over at the WoTC boards. Yet people continue to complain about Elminster and the other Chosen. It's either stubbornness or a misunderstanding. If you'd like, I'd be happy to go through Concerns of the Mighty with you.

If a DM in Greyhawk used Mordenkainen wrongly, and had him interfering with PC's plans in the name of neutrality, we would rightly call that bad DMing. If a DM in Dragonlance had Raistlin pop up and consistently save the day, making the PC's obsolete, we would rightly call that bad DMing. Yet misusing the big NPC's in the Realms is not referred to as such, it's referred to as problems in the setting, despite the quite clear explanations given in the FRCS itself.

Perhaps it's like the continual 'Elminster is Ed Greenwood's Mary-Sue' fallacy though. No amount of proof will convince people. No amount of Ed pointing out simple things like the fact he was eight when he made Elminster will convince them.

 

[Baby Samurai]

Elminster and the other Chosen don't go out to destroy each and every evil being in Faerún.

In my buddy's ongoing FR campaign, everybody has their own Realms, that has been going for about 18 years, Elminster was slain by Asmodeus around the timeline just after the Yamun Kahan/Azoun/Horde fiasco.

In my FR campaign Elminster is still alive and kicking, but Drizzt is working as rough trade on the streets of Calimport.