The Sundering has launched...

[billd91]

2) This wouldn't be the first time WotC piggybacked their PnP material to a video game. Does no one remember the massive push behind "Neverwinter" (novels, source book, Encounters adventure) - years before the game itself even came out?

Which Neverwinter game are you referring to? The Bioware one or the SSI/America OnLine version from 1991? If you're referring to the Bioware one, my guess is most of the other Neverwinter stuff that came before that game was probably part of an active cross-promotion with the original Neverwinter Nights game.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Which Neverwinter game are you referring to? The Bioware one or the SSI/America OnLine version from 1991? If you're referring to the Bioware one, my guess is most of the other Neverwinter stuff that came before that game was probably part of an active cross-promotion with the original Neverwinter Nights game.

Actually, I think he's referring to the free-to-play Neverwinter MMO that was released in June. The Neverwinter Campaign Setting book and Encounters season I think were meant to be released alongside it concurrently, but the game got pushed back.

 

[BC1]

Yes, the MMO was what I was referring to. It was kind of comical to look at the copyright date on Salvatore's "Gauntlgrym" and see it was 2009. I think the sourcebook came out a year later. All for the "upcoming" video game.

 

[Blackwarder]

Just finished reading The Companions. I came to the book very skeptical, I stoped reading any FR book (mainly the Drizzt ones tbh since they were the ones I read) when 4e came out, it simply didn't feel like the realms to me, and in the first couple of chapters I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and make me throw the book in frustration (not really, I'm reading it on my iPad and my iPad is precious to me *gollum* *gollum*) but it never happened and I was quickly pulled into this great story.

so if you haven't, go and read it, it's great.

Warder

 

[RangerWickett]

World shaking events are boring as ****. Especially when you try to start a new era in an intellectual property with one.

I don't care at all about your stupid world yet, guys. I don't care that you're blowing it up, or bringing gods back, or using the most cliched 'Extreme Fantasy Doom' word of them all: sunder.

(Well I kind of care that you're using that word, because it sounds ridiculous, to the point that it was parodied by Penny Arcade with their fake fantasy setting's timeline, which had The Great Breakening, The Sundering, The Unsundering, and then The Resundering.)

Just start a new story, don't make it about world-shaking events, and let me grow attached to characters and locations. All you need to do is obliquely reference, "Oh yeah, some real crazy s*** went down a decade ago," and let that be that . . . for a few books. Then eventually, once we care about these characters, weave that backstory in so that it matters to what's happening now.

To me, starting with a multi-author interconnected world-spanning plot line is just getting ahead of yourself. Prove to me that you know what you're doing with one amazing story -- basically, get people talking about Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man -- and then see if you can build enough trust to create The Avengers.

 

[RangerWickett]

[MENTION=6688285]Blackwarder[/MENTION], talk to me about the story. Why is it worth reading, especially if I've already swum in the waters of Salvatore for many an hour in my childhood? Is there anything really new?

 

[billd91]

Just start a new story, don't make it about world-shaking events, and let me grow attached to characters and locations. All you need to do is obliquely reference, "Oh yeah, some real crazy s*** went down a decade ago," and let that be that . . . for a few books. Then eventually, once we care about these characters, weave that backstory in so that it matters to what's happening now.

Trouble is they had one and they screwed it up. FR didn't start with any world-shaking events that I'm aware of and it built up a stable of characters that people were genuinely interested in. And then they started in with the world-shaking events with each edition change. I might argue that it has become something of a sacred cow for the owners of D&D to have some campaign event in FR to "justify" the changes in the mechanics from edition to edition - of course I'd be more inclined to say that was what should have been ground into hamburger rather than have the tradition continue.

Given my druthers, I'd turn the clock back on FR to before the Spellplague debacle and quietly pretend it never happened or that it was a "Days of Future Past" alternate timeline. Reboot from there.

 

[Alzrius]

I might argue that it has become something of a sacred cow for the owners of D&D to have some campaign event in FR to "justify" the changes in the mechanics from edition to edition - of course I'd be more inclined to say that was what should have been ground into hamburger rather than have the tradition continue.

To be fair, that did solve the problems of reconciling game material-based changes with their in-game reflections. It is possible to simply retcon any changes (which, if I recall correctly, was what they did from 2E to 3.X) as having "always been that way," but sometimes the changes are big enough that you need a reason for why things are suddenly so different.

Given my druthers, I'd turn the clock back on FR to before the Spellplague debacle and quietly pretend it never happened or that it was a "Days of Future Past" alternate timeline. Reboot from there.

When I heard about how some of the forthcoming adventures will let groups report how the adventure went, and that will be incorporated into future Realms material, I wanted to start a movement to have end their report with "and then the PCs went back in time and stopped the Spellplague."

 

[BC1]

To be fair, that did solve the problems of reconciling game material-based changes with their in-game reflections. It is possible to simply retcon any changes (which, if I recall correctly, was what they did from 2E to 3.X) as having "always been that way," but sometimes the changes are big enough that you need a reason for why things are suddenly so different.

They sort of did that between 2nd and 3rd, though they had to go and add in new mechanics like the Dark Weave and mess with the cosmology (FR was no longer part of the Great Wheel with the other worlds but was its own thing). No Realms-shattering event was really needed since the mechanics weren't changing that much. 4E needed something because of major changes to gameplay and the introduction of races like Dragonborn, but I think everyone agrees that the method, plus the setting's tone, were way off from what players wanted.

 

[Manbearcat]

World shaking events are boring as ****. Especially when you try to start a new era in an intellectual property with one.

I don't care at all about your stupid world yet, guys. I don't care that you're blowing it up, or bringing gods back, or using the most cliched 'Extreme Fantasy Doom' word of them all: sunder.

(Well I kind of care that you're using that word, because it sounds ridiculous, to the point that it was parodied by Penny Arcade with their fake fantasy setting's timeline, which had The Great Breakening, The Sundering, The Unsundering, and then The Resundering.)

Just start a new story, don't make it about world-shaking events, and let me grow attached to characters and locations. All you need to do is obliquely reference, "Oh yeah, some real crazy s*** went down a decade ago," and let that be that . . . for a few books. Then eventually, once we care about these characters, weave that backstory in so that it matters to what's happening now.

To me, starting with a multi-author interconnected world-spanning plot line is just getting ahead of yourself. Prove to me that you know what you're doing with one amazing story -- basically, get people talking about Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man -- and then see if you can build enough trust to create The Avengers.

This post is a flawless victory. When I quipped "weak" earlier in the thread, this was the post that I didn't write.