The More Things Change

[Wizards of the Coast]

The Forgotten Realms is rife with great characters -- Drizzt Do'Urden, Elminster, Erevis Cale -- to name just a few. But perhaps the greatest character inhabiting the Forgotten Realms is Faerun itself.

Read The More Things Change on D&D Insider here!

 

[variant]

Drizzt, Elminster, and the rest of the 'iconic' characters need to go the way of the dodo before Forgotten Realms could ever be seen as viable in my eyes.

 

[Jupp]

But please keep the iconic villains. Some of them were quite rad and wouldn't want to see them go over the plank.

 

[beholdsa]

I agree with variant. The problem with gaming in the Realms is the iconic characters.

 

[VinylTap]

Its like DND's version of Space Marines!

 

[Zaukrie]

I have never understood the issue with iconics. Every world with demons, dragons, beholders......would haveany powerful good creatures, or it would be overrun.

 

[Stormonu]

I don't understand the issue either. No one is forcing the RPG community to have them show up in their games; they are simply characters of the world.

I don't think I've heard anyone complain about Luke & company in a Star Wars game, for instance.

 

[Janaxstrus]

I've played in, and DMed the Forgotten Realms for 20 years.
I've never encountered the almost urban-legendary "OMG the uber-NPCs are ruining my campaign!!11oneoneeleven" syndrome.

Just because some DMs are bad, and trounce over their PCs, doesn't mean the setting is bad. Just because there are characters that are powerful in the world doesn't make PCs irrelevant. Local police aren't irrelevant just because the FBI exists. When the PCs make it to a level more akin to the big NPCs, it doesn't mean that every problem is Elminster's problem. Every orc raid or dragon attack isn't something that Drizzt, Khelben, Alias, Erevis, Cadderly or whoever else has to handle.

 

[Jacob Marley]

Drizzt, Elminster, and the rest of the 'iconic' characters need to go the way of the dodo before Forgotten Realms could ever be seen as viable in my eyes.

Why should WotC care about you as opposed to the fans who made the setting popular? For 25 years the setting has included these iconics and has been a viable setting to those people.

 

[JeffB]

I do not understand the problem either. Very easy to handwave them out of the gaming environment. It*is* annoying when their deeds pervade RPG books though. Thats the real issue IMO. I did a rewrite years back when 3e came out, trying to right the wrongs (as they seemed to me) but I was constantly changing things, Too much damn work.

Thus over the years I have grown ever more fond of that OGB,and first few FRx supplements. True the OGB is filled with near useless info about other adventuring bands and timelines of the deeds of others, but there is a great start there for a DM to do their own thing, and then pickand choose or not from the plethora of later products.

I am looking forward also to Eds FR book coming out soon, as his world as he created and envisioned it, and the lame TSR/WOTC flesh golem of the past 20 years or so are apparently two very different things.