Rich Baker on the Spellplague and other stuff.

[IconoclastX]

Perhaps I can make this clearer:

Rabid fans, as in genuinely "rabid" ones, tend to fixate on a particular iteration of a setting. In the case of the Forgotten Realms, virtually everyone who describes themselves as a "rabid" fan fixates on the 1E Grey Box (which was a beautiful thing, I admit) version of the FR. Most of these "rabid fans" denounce a hell of a lot of the 2E stuff, and often the 3E stuff as well.

OK, with that definition I can definitely see the point about rabid fans not being of much use in keeping the setting alive.

WotC do a lot of market research. They aren't stupid, and they're very interested in making money. They know that the current rabid fans alone will not keep FR viable in the long-term. Hence the changes - they want to do two things:

1) To win back the ex-FR-fans, who are numerous. Killing off various NPCs, PoL'ing the setting and so on seems appealling to me, as someone who was once a big FR fan, but now hasn't bought any FR books for a while.

2) To get the "new generation" interested, who were perhaps previously play 3E Greyhawk or homebrew or Eberron or what have you. A "return to the FR's old style" would be extremely unlikely to be appeal to this group, so a new style was needed.

And this is where I think you'll come to the point of getting the question "why not create a new setting that can adequately encapsulate all the great things you want to showcase for 4e?" From my standpoint, you would also get the second question "Why ruin the Forgotten Realms, instead?"

Let's say that WotC sold off the rights to FR to some other company, and that company made these huge fluff and timeline changes. I think the tolerance level would have been even lower.

I suspect that WotC is really just counting on name recognition to pull people in, reusing the brand for something that it has never stood for before. I guess that's part of why I'm annoyed, too - it just seems disingenuous.

 

[vagabundo]

Thanks, and right on, I always like to bring a little joy into people's lives.

And I was beginning to think I was the only one who knew what a lemon-party was, I myself just found out this weekend, so kudos.

You have just permanently blinded me. Why did you ruin mine eyes!!!!

Damn google images....

 

[glass]

Heh. Thats supposed to convince someone they aren't inept? Repeatedly saying 'I don't know how this works' isn't exactly inspiring. Nor is saying that blowing up the world wouldn't be useful, so if we're contradicting old fluff, screw it.

What old fluff are they contradicting?


glass.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And this is where I think you'll come to the point of getting the question "why not create a new setting that can adequately encapsulate all the great things you want to showcase for 4e?" From my standpoint, you would also get the second question "Why ruin the Forgotten Realms, instead?"

Let's say that WotC sold off the rights to FR to some other company, and that company made these huge fluff and timeline changes. I think the tolerance level would have been even lower.

I suspect that WotC is really just counting on name recognition to pull people in, reusing the brand for something that it has never stood for before. I guess that's part of why I'm annoyed, too - it just seems disingenuous.

The reason not create a new setting, is that new settings generally sell poorly at first, and that we've had quite a number of new settings over the course of 3E, both official and unofficial (particularly Eberron). Creating a new setting is really only likely to appeal to extant D&D players, and the setting's attractiveness to the market is likely to be untested. Even a very cool setting might actually only appeal to a very small section of the player base.

To, your "Why ruin the FR?" question has the flipside - "Why not fix the FR?" - I mean, they're going to have to change the FR somewhat to fit with 4E (they always have, and always will, change the FR). For you, the FR is ruined and it's "disingenuous" - For me, there's nothing "disingenuous" about it, any more than it was disingenous of Lucas to connect the Episodes 1,2,3 with the 4,5,6. It's a different setting, with mostly different characters, but there elements, particularly thematic elements, and places, which stay constant.

I lost interest when the 3E FR *failed* to change, personally, when it was just "more of the same" in the worst possible way (to my mind - specifically it a megacrapton of useless crunch based on many of the more dull aspects of the FR - whilst maintaining the uber-NPCs, the dull, safe parts of the setting, and so on). 4E FR promises to draw me back, by offering me the stuff that I liked about the Realms (parts of the sword coast, the history of the FR, all it's cool fallen magical empires and all these familar names and places, a certain visual style and style of name, and so on), whilst throwing overboard much of that which I disliked.

I'm not sure about everything, like, the Dragonborn particularly, and their kingdom, but something like blowing up Dullhorand (Fauxgypt or whatever you want to call it) sounds like a great idea to me, as does killing off Mystra and the pointless, aesthetically annoying Chosen, and trimming down the god-list a bit (not too much, I hope).

 

[kennew142]

I guess the difference is that there is this level that exists with the Forgotten Realms that doesn't seem to exist for any other game setting (at least not to the same degree) - a dedicated core who feel they have invested in the setting (not just monetarily, and perhaps specifically *not* monetarily) over the many years it has been around who find it repulsive to make such changes all in the pursuit of a buck (and, IMO, just so some people can get their names on an important book in the industry). I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I think that's where it's coming from.

Obviously WotC needs to make money, but I suspect there is a feeling out there that they didn't need to, from the point of view of one of the people I describe above, ruin the FR to do it. Especially when even Rich Baker makes these major changes sound so totally arbitrary.

To begin, I didn't mean to snipe in my post above, but I have to stop reading the FR forums. It is hard to have some posters (not you) implying that those of us who are excited about the upcoming changes in the FR aren't real fans. As for myself, I have purchased every version of the FR campaign setting, all of the supplements that I know of (even the wretched Ravensbluff ) and most of the novels. I have played in FR in every iteration of the setting, and have GMed in 1e and 3e.

All of the above describes most of my gaming group. We love FR, and we think it is getting better in the next edition.

And Ruin Explorer, I will second most of what you said in your last post about FR.

 

[mudbunny]

I heard he basically just attends lemon-parties in Calimport these days.

That is so wrong.

Funny, but wrong.

 

[Kraydak]

Can anyone explain to me how the Spellplague helps solve any important issues? I can see how a 100yr time jump clears up an overweighty canon, but the spellplague seems... gratuitous.

So, spellplague proponents, what benefit does the spellplague have, that is not already covered by the time line advance?

 

[JohnSnow]

Well, I wouldn't describe myself as a "rabid" Forgotten Realms fan, although I've run FR games using the Grey Box, the Forgotten Realms Adventures Second Edition hardcover, the newer box set, and the 3e books. Each version had things I liked and things I disliked, and I suspect that will be true about the 4e version as well.

In the grey box, the Realms felt new. They truly felt like a vista of adventure, with all sorts of plots, secret societies, and the like. The vistas of adventure were enormous. The early setting updates were fantastic, from Waterdeep and the North to The Bloodstone Lands. And there were wonderful adventures too, like Under Illefarn. Not to mention there was some wonderful support info for setting a campaign in the Moonshae Isles.

But for all that, the grey box Forgotten Realms was about a world in decline. Dwarves were dying off, elves were departing for Evermeet. It was like Middle-Earth in the last days of the Third Age. And while that's an okay setting for a while, it feels...depressing as you keep playing in it.

Forgotten Realms Adventures updated the world to post Time of Troubles, and advanced the timeline about 3 years. The setting got a shift to match the newly-released 2nd Edition of the game. And then not much happened for a couple years. This set added some nice detail to more areas, but the newly "activist" gods kinda bugged me.

Then came the 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms Boxed Set. Again, it added some wonderful new detail, and more NPCs that one could use to drive plot hooks. We had the PC's first adventure set in Shadowdale and facing the drow - IMO, one of the best intro adventures published in a campaign setting up until that point. Then there was the fantastic Sword of the Dales adventure series, and more stuff dealing with various other parts of the realms.

But this is when one started to get the impression that the Realms was just TOO big. There were hundreds of NPCs, many of them very nosy, like the Seven Sisters. And while I liked the Harpers, I liked them better as subtle agents than active super-mages. The whole "Chosen of Mystra" thing really took off in this edition, and became even more codified in 3e. They even had Khelben settle down with Laeral, and Elminster with the Simbul, and...

The 3e Forgotten Realms fixed a lot of the old "depressing" vibe, what with the Elven Retreat being over, and the booming birth rate among dwarves. On the other hand, the setting became even more high magic, and one started to think every person in the Realms was an ex-adventurer. And to me, you start to wonder what the role of heroes is when the mundanes are all heroic.

I'd LOVE to learn in 4e that many of the Chosen have bought it. Elminster, Khelben, and maybe two or three of the sisters can survive. But let's see Khelben back to pretending to be his own grandson, or Elminster as the wise old sage, but greatly reduced in actual power by the Spell Plague.

As for Elminster, he's a canny fellow, and would be pretty impressive as less of a busybody and more of a meddler. To me, El works best as a plot device - the kind of person who's always pointing people in the direction of trouble, but for one reason or another, can't actually get involved himself. He doesn't have to be "weak," but for him to have come off the Spell Plage somewhat "weakened" might be a dramatic improvement. Then, he'd actually have need for other adventurers again.

I think the Fourth Edition Realms holds a lot of promise. If nothing else, I might loot it for good ideas again. And that's something I haven't done much in 3e.

 

[glass]

Is anyone else reminded of The Simpsons at all in this thread?


glass.

 

[kennew142]

Can anyone explain to me how the Spellplague helps solve any important issues? I can see how a 100yr time jump clears up an overweighty canon, but the spellplague seems... gratuitous.

So, spellplague proponents, what benefit does the spellplague have, that is not already covered by the time line advance?

It provides an element of danger, a force that wrecked havoc across Faerun and still lies hidden, waiting to reemerge at any time. For me, the benefits are mainly conceptual. I like the concept. I think it makes the Realms more interesting. I already have about a dozen story ideas that use the spellplague - and I haven't even seen the book yet.