What should the Realms Lose?

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Ditch the fiction. The rest will take care of itself.

 

[GVDammerung]

Elminster. He has been so overexposed. So turned into an uber-wizard's sterotype of an uber-wizard. He is a bad "dirty old man" joke. And he is written like a guy who keeps farting and thinks no one can smell or that it smells GOOD. Kill Elminster.

In the alternative, if this is not palatable, then reduce his role to near zero within the setting. Sit him in Shadowdale and keep him there with his mouth shut. Send him off to the planes. Just don't let him be a gad-about-the-Realms, commenting on everything or getting his nose in things. In other words, let him retire.

And don't let him work through catspaws or allies either. Retire should mean retire. Only if you purposefully go to Shadowdale should he matter.

Elminster is beyond boring. He is annoying and as the poster-boy for rthe Realms, he does the Realms no favors by being annoying.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The Forgotten Realms are heading for a proverbial rebooting in the mechanical form of 4E and the story form of Mystra dying and so forth and so on.

Some like the idea while others are skeptical on the issue.

Those who are enthusiastic on the subject say the setting needs this, most often saying something to the effect of a need to trim the fat or to rid the setting of things it does not need. This may be true, but the idea of losing things the setting does not need is vague.

What are some things you think the setting needs to lose?

An often cited example is the Chosen – high powder heroes who (A) do all the work, leaving the work and/or (B) use and abuse the PCs.

What else do you think needs to go and why? Please be specific.

Remove a lot of deities. Mystra (I hate the idea of a deity of magic, doubly so because she's good-aligned and interventionist; why can't the Weave take care of itself? Shouldn't it be the job of the PCs and other heroes to protect the Weave from horrible villains instead of Chosen?) Incidentally, this automatically weakens Chosen. Then, wait a hundred years and they're all dead of old age! Well, that's the way I think it should work; only a few of them have the ability to make Potions of Immortality or what not. I don't think Chosen abuse the PCs (only Khelben really has that kind of personality, from what I've read) but they certainly steal the show.

Remove Eilistraee, as I think she's a dumb concept. If a drow wants to "go good", they should do it by themself, with intense RP, instead of "oh look, a naked drow cleric. *Zap* Alignment change!" I used to joke that simply seeing a cleric of Eilistraee was enough to make a female drow go good; finally, it took a six-part book series to fix that... in book six.

Bluntly, remove a lot of deities; there's too many, especially for racial deities. I note that a lawful evil elven cleric is out of luck, unless there's some extremely obscure deity I haven't read about somewhere. I found myself groaning when reading "Siege of Darkness" where the dwarf priestess is praising all those dwarf deities, and I have no idea who any of them are! I looked them up. I pride myself on having a strong memory, but I can only recall two or three of them, with prompting. Creating strong pantheons might work, but that might just be stepping on Eberron's toes, and that still doesn't solve the problem of evil elven deities who aren't drow.

Remove elf-worship and elf-itis. The next time an elf says "that's good human work, but of course not as good as an elf could make it" I'm going to organize an elf lynching. Elf-itis needs to go as well; even for a fantasy setting it breaks the suspension of disbelief to have so many elf types around.

Make the villains competent, please!

Remove Gondism from the gnomes. They don't need to be a one-note humorous mechanically-inclined species.

Focus only on the cool areas. Mulhorand is, IMO, an example of an uncool area; ummm... is that just a copy of Egypt?

 

[ashockney]

Things I'd love to do in the realms reboot...

Ok, the dieties are tremendously out of control. There are books upon books, and they were not all fully covered, nor were all the dieties from regions outside the core world explored. Yikes.

I like the idea of how they've split up the maps into regions, and layed specific opponents, unique environments, and quests in each region. There are also some common themes throughout the realms (ie, Zhents, Red Wizards, Bane/Cyric, etc.) no matter where you seem to find yourself.

I've got significantly less concern with the powerful npcs. In order to maintain versimilitude, if my characters will be 30th level, I'd like for them to not be the only one that powerful in the area. This also begs the question why any 30th level challenge doesn't simply destroy the entire region/world? These powerful npcs help to maintain some kind of balance, and then let the new PC's tip the scales, and really make a difference.

I was really pleased with what I've read with the Shadowdale module so far. I'd like to see them continue to shake up the realms, and move the stories/regions forward, to differentiate the play experience. These changes would also help to spruce up the stale elements of the cool familiar villians of the realms.

Some big, mysterious interestings plots would also be way, way cool. It seems like there's a lot of the realms that has been explored, explored, and explored. What's left to do? What's new? What's the catch?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

In order to maintain versimilitude, if my characters will be 30th level, I'd like for them to not be the only one that powerful in the area.

NPCs can gain levels over time, but by that high level, the number of them should be very low. If the PCs are 30th-level in the Realms, they should be the movers and shakers.

This also begs the question why any 30th level challenge doesn't simply destroy the entire region/world?

I believe that's called a Realms Shattering Event (TM), and those come every hundred years or so. If those events hit every year, that's a problem with the Realms, and hurts versimilitude.

 

[BluWolf]

Get rid of the weave.

Get rid of the perpetual uber-dudes.

Tone down the over all power level.

Make the Realms a little more neutral versus lawful.

 

[Nifft]

World Wide War. Plethora of uber NPCs vs. myriad Gods. Most die on both sides.

There is much rejoicing.

Cheers, -- N

 

[SPECTRE666]

The major thing the setting needs to lose are the incompetent villains. Either the Red Wizards, the Cult of the Dragon and the Zhentarim need to get some real nastiness and, above all, effectiveness to them, or they need removed and replaced with organisations that do have these things.

Im not so sure that the Dead Wizards, oh I mean Red Wizards are going to make it past the spellplague. Snicker, snicker. Yeah my point exactly

 

[Arkhandus]

World Wide War. Plethora of uber NPCs vs. myriad Gods. Most die on both sides.

There is much rejoicing.

Cheers, -- N

Oh yes, absolutely!!

As long as that smug bastard Elminster's dead.

 

[danbuter1]

Do a 4e setting book placed during the time of the 1e boxed set. No Time of Troubles, Elminster is just a crabby sage in a little backwater, the Zhentarim are dangerous and run by Manshoon, the Red Wizards are in-your-face evil, etc.