To what degree is the Realms still Greenwood's?

[FourthBear]

I think Greenwood really shines in spontaneous details and histories which really give a sense of verisimilitude and depth to his RPG work. Looking back to even his earliest articles in Dragon magazine way back when, his magical item descriptions, spells and ecology articles really seems to paint a world very well. Most other articles simply didn't manage that sense that we were seeing pieces of a much larger world.

That said, I can't say that I've found his actual world-building remarkable. Not that mine's much better, but Greenwood is about the same as many DMs in terms of creating cosmologies, political entities and organizations (although very prolific). I mean, *how* many cities and countries did he create with masked, unknown rulers? Do we really need yet another merchant kingdom or Epcot-like pastiche realm? The Sword Coast and the Dales are pretty much a sea of ill-defined communities that have fascinating detail, but don't really fit together that well. Certainly, the first Waterdeep supplement is stunning in the detail of the noble houses, street plans, NPCs and such. I feel like I understand Eberron's political structures and distinctive character far better after reading its guides than decades of reading Realms material.

 

[Uzzy]

Greenwood might have had (or has) a railroading streak (The PCs are about to be slain by a drow army when, seemingly out of nowhere, Elminster shows up with a handful of Meteor Swarms!).

Ed used Elminster and the like as background characters, giving quests, bit of advice from time to time etc. Never did he use them to teleport in and save the PC's.

Anyway, I believe that contractually, the Realms are not Ed's anymore. He writes many products and novels for WoTC, and anything he writes is automatically considered canon (so his many answers to questions over at Candlekeep are FR Canon). WoTC could probably cut him out all together, but I wouldn't like to see the response to a move like that.

 

[Mercurius]

That said, I can't say that I've found his actual world-building unremarkable. Not that mine's much better, but Greenwood is about the same as many DMs in terms of creating cosmologies, political entities and organizations (although very prolific). I mean, *how* many cities and countries did he create with masked, unknown rulers? Do we really need yet another merchant kingdom or Epcot-like pastiche realm? The Sword Coast and the Dales are pretty much a sea of ill-defined communities that have fascinating detail, but don't really fit together that well. Certainly, the first Waterdeep supplement is stunning in the detail of the noble houses, street plans, NPCs and such. I feel like I understand Eberron's political structures and distinctive character far better after reading its guides than decades of reading Realms material.

I think you point out right here why the Forgotten Realms is so popular: it isn't that remarkable, just good to very good AND very detailed, the latter aspect being the difference maker. There have been more conceptually creative D&D settings over the years--Dark Sun, Birthright, Spelljammer, Planescape, perhaps Eberron--but they are too specialized to have the longevity that FR has.

 

[Raloc]

Well put Mercurius. The detail is definitely why I've mostly played Realms since I started (not too long compared to the grognards). I've built up a good system that allows me to DM the way I like (pretty much completely on the fly, except for certain locations of interest that might need complex traps or riddles) by using the FRI Atlas in conjunction with many of the supplements to give me an idea of what a particular place will be like for the players. Then I expand it with challenges I had saved up before hand and we're rolling along.

 

[Faraer]

So back to my question: How much of the Realms is Ed Greenwood, in the past and now? My assumption is that the first box set is 100% Greenwood, with that percentage going down the years.

See my first post here. This time last year, I'd have said that apart from the RSEs, the published game setting, but even more so the underlying setting, is very much largely Ed's in spirit and detail. He has no formal control, but is often consulted by other authors and contributes a lot of uncredited lore behind the scenes.

But how much is he involved with in this new darker Spellplagued Realms?

He took part in the consultation, but none of it is what he would have done. He's contributing 50,000 words to the Forgotten Realms Campaign guide, and has discussed the new Realms at Candlekeep.com.

You can get a sense of how a game designer might DM based upon their designed setting. And yes, I agree that the FR are filled with "uber-NPCs", which makes me think that Greenwood might have had (or has) a railroading streak (The PCs are about to be slain by a drow army when, seemingly out of nowhere, Elminster shows up with a handful of Meteor Swarms!).

We know quite a bit about his DMing from his own accounts, those of his long-time players, and some he's DMed at conventions. His campaign is extremely open-ended, with literally dozens of plots going on at once, a lot of PC initiative, crazy fun, and intense roleplaying. Not railroaded.

I'm assuming he is at least being consulted, but that might just be polite for "We're going to do what we like, but we thought we'd let you know just out of faux courtesy."

It's pretty clear they'd be doing what they're doing with or without him.

At least in my opinion, Ed Greenwood's always been a much better worldbuilder than author, and the Realms authors (who are all much better authors than worldbuilders, even if some of them have been downright poor authors) are the ones who should have less influence on the setting.

He's certainly a gifted and technically able author and prose stylist.

Another thing to consider is that while the first Greyhawk campaign setting book was close to 100% Gygax, it wasn't 100% his personal Greyhawk campaign. It seems to have been a campaign setting he loosely based on his, and his gaming group's, personal Greyhawk campaign.

Gary created the geography of the 1980 folio for that product; the setting of his home campaign originally geographically mirrored North America, but his players pressured him to switch to the published world.

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that much of that Greenwood doesn't take credit for. He may have made them, but he may not have been the one responsible for their power level.

His Realms certainly has lots of powerful wizards, though they feature in the sources disproportionately, and a lot of the stats were indeed contributed by others. Moreover, that means something very different in a knockabout roleplaying-over-rules campaign where PCs accomplish much through intrigue and NPCs are mysterious than in a strict-stats powergaming one.

I mean honestly..even elministers pipe and pieweed are magical.

Not the weed, he usually smokes thalander and phaelder flower. We know about his pipe, of course, because people asked.

 

[GreyOne]

I used to love when Greenwood put snippets of Realmslore in his early Dragon magazine articles. When the boxed set came out, it was a favourite campaign setting though I recognized that his influence was going to be less and less. Today's Forgotten Realms to me suffers from too much "Too Many Chefs" syndrome.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

The Realms ceased to be Greenwood's the moment he signed that contract with TSR.

As for how much still has his original feel to it, 5%, maybe.

 

[Cmarco]

I dunno, folks. Greenwood's writing entertains me plenty. I quite enjoy it, and I can only hope to be half the author he is.

 

[kennew142]

I have never been able to finish an Ed Greenwood novel. I've read a lot of terrible FR novels in my time, but Greenwood is one of the few authors whose prose style was so repellent to me that I couldn't bring myself to finish a single book.

 

[vulcan_idic]

I have never been able to finish an Ed Greenwood novel. I've read a lot of terrible FR novels in my time, but Greenwood is one of the few authors whose prose style was so repellent to me that I couldn't bring myself to finish a single book.

Does this mean that Mr. Greenwood is a poor writer or that you just don't like his style? If you've never managed to finish Moby Dick or Ulysses or War and Peace does this mean that Herman Melville, James Joyce, or Leo Tolstoy are bad writers or that you just aren't fond of their style? Just because you don't like someone's work doesn't make them a bad author, just like my dislike of anise doesn't mean it's a bad flavor - it's just not the one for me.