D&D General What Is In The New FR Books That IS Useful Outside FR?

[FitzTheRuke]

Is that usable, though? Does it count as "generic" if I have to.ignore and/or rewrite the lore. Why shouldn't I just start from first principles, rather than have to convert lore?

Aside from how you can just use the stuff you like, there is also a thing called "schismogenesis". I won't get in to the whole theory on my phone, but my point is: It is often nice to have an example, if only so you know what you don't want.

If there is a particular thing that you don't like in FR lore, you may be "forced" to think about what you would do instead, in its place. This leads you to come up with things that you would never have thought of otherwise.

 

[Zardnaar]

If the Realms doesn't exist in your universe, you don't even have to file off the serial numbers and change the coins.

DM: As you approach the city, 6 Purple Dragon Knights ride out to meet you.
Player(s): Aren't those from the FR?
DM: The FR doesn't exist in my game, but I like the Purple Dragon Knights, so I'm using them.
Player(s): Cool!

And then play moves on.

You could make them evil. The purple dragon is an ancient black one with a skin condition.

 

[Maxperson]

You could make them evil. The purple dragon is an ancient black one with a skin condition.

That would be a cool twist.

 

[Reynard]

Out of curiosity, what do the short adventures look like? What level ranges? How deeply tied to the Realms?

 

[Parmandur]

Out of curiosity, what do the short adventures look like? What level ranges? How deeply tied to the Realms?

There is one traditional (as in with named and detailed NPC and all the usual informstion) for Level 1-3 that is 16 pages long, and then 50 Adventures spread across 50 pages in the DM book that cover Level 1-13, in a similar style to the 5 sample Adventures in the DMG: each has a map and a bullet point lost of major points and enemies to be encountered. They have one on Beyond as a free sample.

 

[Reynard]

There is one traditional (as in with named and detailed NPC and all the usual informstion) for Level 1-3 that is 16 pages long, and then 50 Adventures spread across 50 pages in the DM book that cover Level 1-13, in a similar style to the 5 sample Adventures in the DMG: each has a map and a bullet point lost of major points and enemies to be encountered. They have one on Beyond as a free sample.

The mini adventure/outline thing is one of the elements I like from 2024. It feels closer to what GMs actually need, rather than 150 page campaign length adventures.

 

[Parmandur]

The mini adventure/outline thing is one of the elements I like from 2024. It feels closer to what GMs actually need, rather than 150 page campaign length adventures.

I think there is room for both, but for a Setting book like this, 50 low-prep Adventures with Mike Schley maps is better than a 50 page highly detailed adventure would be for showing off the range of stories for the Setting.

And being low prep, the amount of details that need to be changed if you want to pick one up and run it in Eberron or homebrew is equally low effort.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Out of curiosity, what do the short adventures look like? What level ranges? How deeply tied to the Realms?

Am reading them at the moment, they are very much in the style of the short DMG adventures. The easiest to change are the general FR ones, since changing the framing and fleshing them out is all that are needed.
The specific regional ones need a bit more work but given that they are so brief and need the DM to create a framing to naturally introduce them into a campaign anyway, this is not a lot of extra work, since a lot of it would have to be done anyway.