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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Uzzy" data-source="post: 3938070" data-attributes="member: 51590">Again, this might be a long one. Well, this is a problem with firstly how much detail you can pack into a campaign setting book, and secondly one of the consequences of a metaplot. Naturally, there has to be a decision as to how much detail they can put into a book. Too much at it becomes overburdened with details and can really overwhelm the reader. You can hardly have a Ptolus  level of detail for each and every town in the entire Realms. There might also be objections from people who don't want too much detail, so they can stick in their own taverns and temples and shops etc.I personally think that the FRCS managed this quite well. They give over a hundred and thirty pages to the geography of the Realms, but still couldn't fit everything in. The only real way I can see of allowing people to know everything about a town without giving them that much reading is to make smaller towns. Either that or they concentrate on the Heartlands, which are Waterdeep, Cormyr, the Dalelands and the Western Heartlands. That might work, though plenty of people would miss various areas. Secondly, novel writers have always put in new NPC's, plots, groups in towns and cities, and often done lasting damage to them, or added to them. Short of updates in Dragon or in a document released every year updating the Realms, nothing can really be done about this, unless you stop the Metaplot in the Realms. I think lots of people would still read the novels for the pleasure of them. Apparently the Novel section of the Realms is quite a big bigger then the gaming section, in terms of revenue. Ah, I see now. Well, I agree to an extent. The new campaign setting book could do a much better job of presenting what the Realms is to the public. The point about the Tree of Souls, incidentally, is wrong. Elven souls upon death normally go to Arvandor, the home plane of the Elven Gods. The Tree of Souls was created during the Sundering, when a circle of high elven mages sacrificed themselves to change the face of Faerún, creating the island of Evermeet. Their souls were absorbed into the tree, which powers High Magic on Evermeet (or in Myth Drannor now)Anyway, the Grand History of the Realms is indeed a bit dry. It's meant as a Reference book, rather then something that you should read in one sitting. Again, that's something that the next campaign setting book could clearly improve on. It didn't need the big reset button being pressed to achieve this. The fact Azoun IV died is mentioned in the FRCS though. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Surely this is a problem with the players though, correcting DM's? It could happen in any setting really. You could, however, tell players in your group that this is MY realms, and that some changes can be expected, whether minor or major. Making the setting your own should be encouraged! It even is, in the Running the Realms section. The setting shouldn't be blamed for the silly things some players do.The second a PC in your home campaign makes his first decision, the campaign has changed from the canon. In my own game, I follow the Realms Canon for the most part, with the exceptions that there has been no Elven Crusade, Yúlash is a free and independent city thanks the to work of the PC's etc etc. I bought the Realms books because I like the setting, and it saves me the hassle of creating my own. I've adapted the setting to serve my needs though. Actually, we know of how some of the changes are being implemented. The last page of the Grand History of the Realms showed us some. So it's incorrect to say that we've not seen how they are implementing the changes.</blockquote>

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