D&D 5E Sundering - So what happened?

[Dartavian]

We all have our own opinions of the FR novels and their authors. We all have our favorite version of the FR setting. Just use the one that you and your group enjoys the most. If you like Leira, then use her, whether or not you use the old greybox FR setting or whichever FR setting is the newest and shiniest. If you like the greybox, but wish to purchase newer FR setting versions for the system statblocks and easier, faster conversion, that's cool. It's an RPG. You don't have to have everything written down as law or follow the novels and newer edition versions as canon. Use what you and your group likes best.

I couldn't agree more, If they want a static story everyone might as well stay home and read a book. It is your group, your world and your game, everything else is simply background material for your unlimited imagination and for you and your friend to enjoy.

 

[Perun]

Why should Leira be dead in your games, and why would you have to wait and hope for the possibility that Leira might return in 5th edition Forgotten Realms? I too, always liked Leira as a goddess in the Forgotten Realms. It's your choice in your games whether or not you follow the events of some really horribly written books, puposed to explain changes in a game system.

I've read several of the FR novels, and there are few that I've liked. Those I have liked still do not rank very high amongst so many fantasy books and series from much better authors with much better writing skills, and who were not leashed by game system dogma. I've used a couple of homebrew settings for most of my D&D gaming, but as far as published settings go, FR was my first, and one of my favorites that my group and I return to from time to time. So, even though I've played post 2eAD&D "Time of Troubles", 3e and 4e, I've never stopped using the AD&D greybox Forgotten Realms Campaign setting.

In our FR based games, Leira is still the Lady of the Mists. Bane, Myrkul, and Bhaal still are the gods of tyranny, death, and murder. Elminster is just the sage of Shadowdale. Not the god that Greenwood has written Elminster into being just because Elminster is his character in his setting and so that no player character can ever match him. And Drizzt is just some drow that surfaced in the north that players from that region may, or may not have heard of. And not the iconic "every drow character made, ever" that all the Drizzt fanbois hopping the Drizzt bandwagon have made him to be.

We all have our own opinions of the FR novels and their authors. We all have our favorite version of the FR setting. Just use the one that you and your group enjoys the most. If you like Leira, then use her, whether or not you use the old greybox FR setting or whichever FR setting is the newest and shiniest. If you like the greybox, but wish to purchase newer FR setting versions for the system statblocks and easier, faster conversion, that's cool. It's an RPG. You don't have to have everything written down as law or follow the novels and newer edition versions as canon. Use what you and your group likes best.

That all goes without saying. On the rare occasions that I DMed (and DMed in FR... that was a long time ago), I always "ruled" that the theory about Leira feigning her own death at the hands of Mask was actually true.

Anyways, I agree with what you said, I'd just like to see her back in the pantheon in the 5e. Well, her and the Mulhorandi pantheon. I'm not holding my breath on either account, though.

Regards.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Id like a 2e flavour realms but without elminster or similar old super power npcs, keep netheril, and bring back some cool old gods like bhaal etc. Id rather not have dragonborn, but I can put up with them if I must. Id also scratch eladrin, genasi, goliaths.

 

[Nya]

Me personally, I gave up on the meta-plot with the Time of Troubles. Should I run a Forgotten Realms campaign, I will want the original triumvirate of evil: Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul. The original Forgotten Realms campaign setting is where it's at for me!

These are my realms, too. Without those three something is missing.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I appreciate the details in this thread, but it's all still very confusing to me, due to the scope of the changes and the fact that I don't read the novels since I don't enjoy them. I would love it if WotC would summarize the changes between the 4e campaign guide and the timeline of the Forgotten Realms referred to in the PHB in a pdf, and include an updated map or two. Even just a few pages would help. At first I was kind of excited to get back into the FR, but this mess makes me want to just use the FR gods, races, etc in the PHB in a homebrewed world.

I think we will eventually get a settled 5E version of FR in writing but, right now, we're watching sausages being made (referring to the quote attributed to Bismarck that one should never watch sausages or laws being made).

I've been running FR since the OGB, and have been a fan since Ed's original Dragon articles, but I would go mad if I tried to include the novels in my games. But I don't. When 4E came out I realised I had a version of FR that worked for me and I am just sticking with it. It's less silly, more dark, lower magic, and has fewer bad comic book moments than the novels have.

And I really do think the key to running successful FR games is for the DM and the players to ignore the novels - especially novels written to segue between editions - and simply build on the other material that is published. Even better, go back to the OGB and go from there.

 

[Prism]

Yeah… Telamont and the princes outmatched Elminster and ALL the Chosen of Mystra (together, at the same time) in the Return of the Archwizards trilogy.

Further, per their written stats, Telamont was a more powerful caster than either of them. The following is from 3e sources (when epic levels were a significant measure of power):

Spoilers from the Herald..............






Once you get to 20th level caster in 3e its not really linear any more. Anyway, at this point Elminster has pretty much got the full power of the returning weave to fuel him - or so it seems. He's certainly not simply Elminster the 20th plus level wizard

Larloch has found his own way of elevating his powers beyond mere caster levels

And Telamont is alone. The princes of shade have been slowly dying off over the sundering from several books and more in the Herald

Besides all of this I doubt any novel writers worry too much about published stats that they were nothing to do with

 

[CM]

All these reversions sound just as ham-fisted as every other Realms-shattering event. I suppose I at least get to pick and choose which events I'm going to incorporate.

I wait with bated breath to see how Halruaa gets resurrected.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

All these reversions sound just as ham-fisted as every other Realms-shattering event. I suppose I at least get to pick and choose which events I'm going to incorporate.

I wait with bated breath to see how Halruaa gets resurrected.

I suspect it will be even more poorly written and poorly thought-out that those really epic shark-jumping moments in comic books where they go, "Damn, we better go back and write a new origin story now!"

Honestly, I think The Sundering is a profoundly stupid idea. The only reason the timeline is being advanced is because R A Salvatore's turgid dreck generates more revenue, and substantially more profit, than any FR-branded RPG product. RAS is behind this and it's purely business (not that there is anything wrong with that... per se).

If you were trying to resurrect the Realms in a creative sense you would either go back to the OGB and start again with Ed's vision or you would go to the later years of 3.xE and get rid of the Spellplague and the 4E changes. In spirit, this is the latter. It's funny how the Adventurers League suggests the 3E FRCS as source material but ignores the 4E FRCG.

But, again, this is about RAS and his fans. It makes sense business-wise but I suspect we will see all the old complaints about FR flooding the boards in very short order.

Anyway, I have my 4E FRCG and everything that came before that so I am happy.

 

[GSHamster]

Out of curiousity, anyone know why they're killing off the Princes of Shade? They seemed like decent enough villains to me (though I didn't pay close attention).

 

[variant]

Out of curiousity, anyone know why they're killing off the Princes of Shade? They seemed like decent enough villains to me (though I didn't pay close attention).

Can't have anyone competitive against Elminster and company.