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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faraer" data-source="post: 3918831" data-attributes="member: 6318">The Realms was conceived independently of D&D and later partly adapted to its monsters and magic.Yes. The change to its flavour is evident from both the known changes and the tone of the designers' discussion. We don't know its extent, though.There was the option, but Wizards mainly decided against it.Dwarf mages were introduced via a retconned historical event called the Thunder Blessing. (I still don't understand the thinking there: instead of dwarven wizards being rare and special they became almost normal, just as halfling thieves becoming run-of-the-mill.) Monasteries of fighting-monks cropped up. The Red Wizards of Thay set up enclaves in some towns selling magic items, matching the new easier magic item creation rules. Things like that: some done with care, others not so much. Modest changes compared to the 4E ones. The designers then talked about 3E as a new, better lens to view the setting through (in some ways there were right, in others I think wrong and perhaps disingenuous) -- they aren't (with one or two exceptions) talking that way about the 4E Realms.Because the 2E rules had a weaker underlying philosophy than 1E or 3E, multiple interpretations flourished (which, it seems, eventually hurt sales), the Realms' included. Realms magic, for instance, was always only roughly approximated by D&D rules. Its complex, sophisticated but mostly unpublished underlying structure we saw mainly in examples, inferences, and isolated sections (as in Volo's Guide to All Things Magical).I don't think it's fair to call it a straitjacket, because outside tournament play 1E assumes DMs make selective exceptions like this without needing explicit rules guidance. But allowing human multiclassing, in particular, suited the Realms well. And Realms characters (PCs very much included) often have strange personal powers that 'broke the rules', though which system facilitates them better is arguable.Druids are important in Realms continuity as behind-the-scenes actors, it just happened that (like most priesthoods) they weren't glamorously highlighted in published Realmslore as some other elements were.Again, while that's partly true, a lot of it's in the skewed way the Realms was presented by TSR and Wizards of the Coast, who were, for instance, keener to give us god stats than detailed treatments of their priesthoods.</blockquote>

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