What I don't get RE: FR and High Level NPC's

[Traycor]

If it's the little ubiquitous NPC's that supposedly fill every village that are your problem, ignore them.

If the solution of a "Good DM" is to ignore these characters, then doesn't it make sense for the designers to cut down on the number of them littering every square inch of the world?

It seems like the very people that are opposed to thinning those numbers in 4E never use those characters anyways. It sounds like you should be the ones championing the new direction with high lvl NPC's.

 

[DM_Blake]

It's true, in my 18 years of DMing The Realms, the player's characters have yet to hobnob with Drizzt or have a cuppa with Elminster or what have you.

But I do still think there are too many golden boys in FR.

I can see the need to clean up Toril a little bit – it has become a bit polluted for me.

I am curious to know why it needs to be cleaned up?

As I see it, the Player group is not the only group of heroes in the world. There are other heroes.

Some of those have fallen and will never be heard from again. Others, retired to a more stable lifestyle while they were still relatively obscure (hence the occasional level 5 retired fighter tavernkeeper, etc.).

But some, a few, have risen to great fame (or notoriety) and are now legends througout the world. These few might be retired, or they might still be crusading to save the world some more.

That doesn't mean they have to infringe on the PCs, or ever even cross their path.

But I don't see why they need to be cleaned up. not from the Realms. Other campaign settings might only need one group of heroes. In those campaign settings, every single NPC can be common, ordinary, and not famous (although it's hard to imagine that the PCs can do something, specifically that they can rise to high levels and become famous, but no NPC could ever duplicate the success).

But for the Forgotten Realms, the world is big enough, and the monsters numerous enough, to justify other heroes.

 

[Brian Compton]

If the solution of a "Good DM" is to ignore these characters, then doesn't it make sense for the designers to cut down on the number of them littering every square inch of the world?

It seems like the very people that are opposed to thinning those numbers in 4E never use those characters anyways. It sounds like you should be the ones championing the new direction with high lvl NPC's.

I never said "ignoring NPC's" equals "good DM'ing." Many DM's can use these NPC's just fine and run great games that their players enjoy. Others run games where names like Elminster are heard, but it's the equivalent of hearing about King Arthur or Hercules in world history. Everyone can run the game they want, NPC's or no NPC's.

Likewise, it isn't the little ubiquitous NPC's that people are up in arms about (truthfully, I could care less about them- they're nameless numbers in a book most often, nothing more). It's the major characters that are being killed off for no good reason than their existence somehow causes people to find fault with FR as a game setting.

Which leads me to ask: how many of the people commenting here have actually played in an FR game? Did you have a negative experience and, if so, why? Is that what's driving your negative feelings toward the setting? Or are your comments based on things you've heard? I'm just curious.

 

[Eldragon]

I am curious to know why it needs to be cleaned up?

As I see it, the Player group is not the only group of heroes in the world. There are other heroes.

There will certainly be other heroes, and always room for more heroes in FR. But if you were to look at the FR books outside of an RPG context, they have gotten pretty stale. The same heroes keep coming back again and again to save the day. The writers need to retire some characters and start introducing others. Of course, its hard to introduce new "epic" heroes when the old ones are still around.

If a new book were to come out, with a new band of heroes battling evil, its hard to justify the major NPCs not showing up to save the day. In an RPG setting its a little easier because the DM can wave his hands and say "sorry, Eliminster is busy" and most players will be ok with that.

I feel that at some point, beloved characters need to be written out of the story and let a new generation of characters come into play. Preferably these new characters have not achieved godhood.

 

[BlackMoria]

So we have an ever-increasing number of completely irresponsible ex-heroes. I find this explanation more than a bit lacking.

Oh ... Really?

The clique old chestnut of the Baron or Mayor appoaches the party to help with some problem. Why? The Baron is higher level than the party. The Baron has retainers and commands the local militia. The baron has political influence with nearby towns or with the king. The Baron has a hell of lot more resources than a party of low level adventurers to deal with the problem. Why isn't the Baron getting off his royal sorry ass and cowboying up to deal with the problem?

Yet this setup I have seen in modules time and again. Yet, reading some comments from others in this thread, it appears the apathetic Baron is only a problem unique to the FR campaign setting but isn't a problem in any other setting.

Yeah, right :\

Temple of Elemental Evil - why isn't the higher level NPCs in the various churches (like the Church of St Cuthbert) and the ex-adventurers in the keep in town dealing with the growing cult of elemental evil in their own backyard? I don't hear people complaining about those high level NPCs. Yet we have ex-adventurers and the cleric of the church of St Cuthbert kicking back and letting a much lower level party of adventurers deal a problem right in their own backyard. Last time I checked, that adventure was a Greyhawk, not a FR adventure.

I can point out similar instances of the higher-ups ducking their responsible and imposing on a lower level party of 4 to 5 people to save their town/village/whatever in dozens of printed modules.

The 'why aren't the high level NPCs dealing with this?' is indefensible as a argument in light of 30 years of published adventures. The Baron is asking the party for their help because THAT is the adventure or plot hook.

 

[DM_Blake]

There will certainly be other heroes, and always room for more heroes in FR. But if you were to look at the FR books outside of an RPG context, they have gotten pretty stale. The same heroes keep coming back again and again to save the day.

Because that's where the money is.

J. K. Rowling didn't suddenly introduce a new main character, or group, halfway through the Harry Potter stories.

Nobody tunes in to their favorite TV show to find their favorite characters have been written off and replaced by new ones.

Once a writer has established a hero that his audience loves, he sticks with it, because that's where the money is.

The writers need to retire some characters and start introducing others. Of course, its hard to introduce new "epic" heroes when the old ones are still around.

And cut their own financial throats?

It takes just as long to write 300 pages about some new hero as it takes to write 300 pages about an established one. It takes just as much of that auther's life to create that either novel.

In exchange for spending a portion of his life writing the book, he gets a percentage of the book's sales.

Wo, which should he do? Spend all that time to make a a few thousand dollars, or spend the same amount of time to make hundreds of thousands of dollars?

If a new book were to come out, with a new band of heroes battling evil, its hard to justify the major NPCs not showing up to save the day.

No, it's easy to jsutfiy in many ways.

Why didn't Gandalf and Elrond take the ring to Mount Doom and destroy it? Why didn't Elrond join the Fellowship? Why did Gandalf leave it (twice)?

In an RPG setting its a little easier because the DM can wave his hands and say "sorry, Eliminster is busy" and most players will be ok with that.

Bingo!

It's not hard at all to justify missig heroes. They have lives too. Often they're working on the bigger problem, or a different problem, or the current problem just hasn't reached their attention yet. Or they just plain old think that the party of 8th level heroes can handle the troll dungeon and it would be beneath their effort, and embarrassing for that party, when the level 20 archmage shows up to upstage them - they have better things to do.

I feel that at some point, beloved characters need to be written out of the story and let a new generation of characters come into play. Preferably these new characters have not achieved godhood.

When the beloved character isn't profitable any more, then it's time to retire him. How many Conan books were there? Sherlock Holmes stories? Tarzan? Superman comics?

Until then, Write the novel, please the fans, and make the big bucks.

It's not hard for a DM to work around it.

 

[Cyronax]

Actually, the details of NPCs in the gray box aren't really going to tell you "which alignments [have] the most high level representatives." That's a respective sampling, most of whom are intended to be people the characters can meet and interact with, not prospective foes. Note, for example, that none of the Zulkirs of Thay is listed in the boxed set; nor is more than one beholder (Manxam), no dragons, no senior members of the Zhentarim other than Fzoul, Sememmon, and Manshoon, and no senior members of the Cult of the Dragon. Et cetera.

Excellent point. Check mate

C.I.D.

 

[Faraer]

There is an optimum density of high level NPCs. Many people feel that FR has got this number wrong and has erred on the high side.

This is monoptic one-true-wayism. There's no single ideal density for everyone, because everyone has different preferences for how settings work. For instance this one:

I prefer to think each danger that happens is fairly far and few between and that the PCs are ALWAYS needed to stop it. I dislike throwing out hints in any of my games about OTHER adventurers who are stopping evils. I prefer the illusion that adventurers are just as rare as the problems and the PCs always end up being in the right place to stop the bad guys.

Whereas I and many others love the multiplicity, feel it makes for a far more real-seeming world than a pruned one with little going on around the PCs. I think diversity is good, and since Eberron already works this way, it's destructive to just undo all Ed's design of the high-level milieu to make every setting work the same.

This is a hard discussion to carry on, though, because of ideas like this --

Bhaal's followers are trying to take over the world? Sorry that's too hard for you, but luckily Elminster has it covered while you fight these orcs.

doesn't it make sense for the designers to cut down on the number of [high-level characters] littering every square inch of the world?

-- which are simple factual mistakes. Elminster just doesn't do that: Not in the novels, the short stories, or the sourcebooks. He's a retired sage who fosters the Art and tries to influence the Realms by manipulating others. His acts are tightly constrained by his divine obligations and political pacts he's made (as seen in "So High a Price").

To be summerise what I am trying to say above, I think the FR team need to think more about the NPCs in the Sourcebook and flesh out their lives a little so us struggling unimaginitive DMs who want to use them in the game have some hooks to build on. There are clever people over in WOTC, think of something for me guys!!

vagabundo, Ed has done this work more thoroughly than you have any idea of. I appreciate that the information is scattered across a lot of sources, and hasn't always been clearly explained, but it's there, and it's quite consistent. As DM Blake says, they have lives, and we know a good deal about them. Read The Seven Sisters, for instance, which is a wonderful sourcebook that shows much more than its ostensible subject. Is there anything a little more specific I can help you with?

It's a good thing that there are exactly as many evil threats as there are high-level NPCs. If there were too many, everyone would be doomed.

No, because the Realms -- even the grossly distorted Realms of the RSEs -- almost never faces literally world-shattering threats. It isn't that kind of setting. It has often suffered less total dangers and catastrophes, and many are readily chronicled in sources like Grand History of the Realms.

The mages of Netheril caused at least as much strife as they put down.

They also tend to come across as more fallible; admittedly, I haven't read too much FR stuff since my college days, but I do remember a lot of Dragon articles where Ed made a point of stressing that Elminster is wiser and stronger than all these young punk adventurers (who were frequently cited as a cause of much unwanted strife and foolishness). Perhaps the intention was to encourage players to "play nicer" in the setting instead of going wholly psychopath, but I bet it didn't help that whole public perception about the NPCs being more favored than your own PCs.

Interesting observation. But no, Elminster is used there as a semi-comic affectedly world-weary unreliable narrator to encourage the DM to change the material as she wishes. Fallible is exactly what he is -- we're not supposed to take literally either the lore or El's grumblings.

 

[Traycor]

Which leads me to ask: how many of the people commenting here have actually played in an FR game? Did you have a negative experience and, if so, why? Is that what's driving your negative feelings toward the setting? Or are your comments based on things you've heard? I'm just curious.

I have played FR on several occassions and DM'd it as well. For me, yes these characters did pose a problem. I'm one of those crazies that feels compelled to stick to the lore of the world (I don't read all the novels or anything like that) but I do like to be true to the world itself. It's kind of annoying when I want a group of lvl 1 players to save a small obscure town from a goblin raid, only to look up that town and see that it has a lvl 10 guard, a lvl 12 wizard, and a temple with a lvl 16 cleric. In a place with a population of 100 or less. It's like... WHAT?! The wizard or cleric could blast the entire problem without barely lifting a finger. Even the fighter would have to be someone of great renown in the surrounding area to have reached such a high level, so the villagers would turn to him to mop up such a threat. That's lots of past combat right there, and against more than goblins.

And this happens everywhere I turn when I run FR. My PC's like to free roam and chase the story as they please. So I don't get much chance to prep locations since I often don't know where they will end up and need to quickly run a location straight out of the book. But even if I do my best to stay away from "power hubs" like Waterdeep or whatnot, I still find high level NPC's dribbling out my ears left and right.

Likewise, it isn't the little ubiquitous NPC's that people are up in arms about (truthfully, I could care less about them- they're nameless numbers in a book most often, nothing more). It's the major characters that are being killed off for no good reason than their existence somehow causes people to find fault with FR as a game setting.

Hmm... I don't think most of the major characters are actually going to be "killed off". More likely they will just be shifted in such a way as to be preoccupied by assumption. So if people are mad about Elminster or Alustriel, then their ire is misplaced. They've already stated that the most iconic characters aren't going anywhere anyways.

As an example, I am expecting (pure speculation) for Elminster to be turned into a demigod of magic after the fall of Mystra. It would keep him in the world, but take him out of the picture. Characters like Drizzt will stick around, and Manshoon and Fzowl(sp?) will still be there because they are villains. Alustriel will likely remain a leader (and thus always busy). Some of the chosen or other high lvl good NPC's might die, but come on... they aren't going to kill off all the characters people know and love. How would they sell any novels that way. Those characters are iconic and bankable.

It's the random lvl 18 wizards and mundane lvl 20 clerics that are getting the boot.

 

[MerricB]

Temple of Elemental Evil - why isn't the higher level NPCs in the various churches (like the Church of St Cuthbert) and the ex-adventurers in the keep in town dealing with the growing cult of elemental evil in their own backyard? I don't hear people complaining about those high level NPCs. Yet we have ex-adventurers and the cleric of the church of St Cuthbert kicking back and letting a much lower level party of adventurers deal a problem right in their own backyard. Last time I checked, that adventure was a Greyhawk, not a FR adventure.

If you check the adventure, most of the NPCs will become involved once they become aware of the threat. They're not aware at the beginning of the adventure.

Nor are the NPCs of particularly high levels. Indeed, by the end of the adventure, the PCs will be their peers. Otis, the highest-level NPC (10th!) does accompany the PCs to the Temple.

Cheers!