D&D 5E Where in FR do you want the next big adventure book to go?

[Azzy]

The original problem example that I cited way back where you have a fewmegacities that wield tremendous clout yet lack so much as the cohesiveness to bother pretending they exist within a nation someone bothers to draw on the map. Having dozens of nations like FR for a RPG is likely too much to differentiate or support in any meaningful fashion because expecting people to read a few decades of FR novels is unrealistic, but wen a setting is known for three or so major cities you keep pointing a spotlight at likewaterdeep daggerford & icewind dale & so forth but can't be bothered to mark out nation borders it's a problem.

Many pre-modern nations did not have clearly demarcated borders—especially in places without hard geographical features. In such areas, the exact position of the border (if conceived at all) could fluctuate over time due to dominance (or lack thereof) of, and the ability to maintain, areas contested by bordering polities. Reflecting this, some settings (like Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, etc.) don't have borders marked on their maps.

The cities of the Sword Coast are like the late medieval Italian city-states, but in a larger, more sparsely populated area. They control their immediate surroundings, but since there is so much area between them and the next polity there isn't much point in having clearly demarcated borders. As they aren't exactly bumping into each other, they aren't competing for land (and most of them exist in the mutually beneficial Lords' Alliance), so they have a lot of room to claim without offending their closet neighbors if they need to expand. Outside of their immediate sphere of control are marches—with autonomous towns, villages, or thorpes or unsettled wilderness.

 

[tetrasodium]

Many pre-modern nations did not have clearly demarcated borders—especially in places without hard geographical features. In such areas, the exact position of the border (if conceived at all) could fluctuate over time due to dominance (or lack thereof) of, and the ability to maintain, areas contested by bordering polities. Reflecting this, some settings (like Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, etc.) don't have borders marked on their maps.

The cities of the Sword Coast are like the late medieval Italian city-states, but in a larger, more sparsely populated area. They control their immediate surroundings, but since there is so much area between them and the next polity there isn't much point in having clearly demarcated borders. As they aren't exactly bumping into each other, they aren't competing for land (and most of them exist in the mutually beneficial Lords' Alliance), so they have a lot of room to claim without offending their closet neighbors if they need to expand. Outside of their immediate sphere of control are marches—with autonomous towns, villages, or thorpes or unsettled wilderness.

Spoiler: Europe 500ad

Spoiler: Europe 1000ad

Spoiler: europe 1500ad

Your point is valid that they didn't have gps level precision, but they sure as heck knew what lands they taxed patrolled & clamed as their own along with the rough area where their foes allies & trading partners did the same to the point where they could point at them on a map. There is also the problem that too many of the major cities in FR are very much beyond dark ages london & such going back to how FR can't be all points in history simultaneously.

 

[Azzy]

Spoiler: Europe 500ad

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Spoiler: Europe 1000ad

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Spoiler: europe 1500ad

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Your point is valid that they didn't have gps level precision, but they sure as heck knew what lands they taxed patrolled & clamed as their own along with the rough area where their foes allies & trading partners did the same to the point where they could point at them on a map. There is also the problem that too many of the major cities in FR are very much beyond dark ages london & such going back to how FR can't be all points in history simultaneously.

It would be more interesting if you provided maps from those time periods to see how they depicted their own borders as opposed to the modern estimates.

 

[R_J_K75]

That's a different problem, there are apparently hundreds of them and I'd wager that a significant chunk of them are dressed up like they are eberron's dragonmarked houses but larger or the east india trade company; but the world shows no evidence of such a power & they certainly don't act like a power of that scale when robbed of their very FR specific plot armor. They don't act like mercantile companies, grow, wield their power against the nobles/ruling body, join & consume each other, or any of the other things such a organization does. Because everything else is an empty shell of plot armor they don't have any logical structure. There aren't even any nations in the world for them to operate within/between but instead of building corporatocracies or something you have these plot armor castle towns pretending to be megacities that wield tremendous clout yet are somehow able to function despite a level of infrastructure & management of the surrounding area that makes the darkest corner of the dark ages seem positively well oiled. The overuse of plot armor protected loose threads that go nowhere & creation of hollow do nothing groups to provide continuity porn means that players & GM's can't simply infer how the world will react to an action simply by thinking as a human player/gm in terms of most authors are human.
Someone brought up fixing these kind of problems would require deciding if x or Y event happened & shaping things from there, but that's absurd because it's not like FR has some deeply respected continuity bible like a lot of tv shows/comic books/etc have. The past shapes the present yes, but you can't view the present by looking at all possible pasts and refusing to condense them into a present with bones made of something other than plot armor

Continuity porn and plot armor? You lost me. Regardless you dont have to live and die by the Forgotten Realms continuity porn but if you do, be sure to wear your plot armor.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It would be more interesting if you provided maps from those time periods to see how they depicted their own borders as opposed to the modern estimates.

The point being, it's not possible, since prior to 1507 accurate maps (and hence clearly defined boarders) did not exist.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Yeah, those maps are not really great. Roman control over the Anatolian centre consisted of isolated fortresses and not much else.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah, those maps are not really great. Roman control over the Anatolian centre consisted of isolated fortresses and not much else.

That level of precision your calling for is fine for local & hyperlocal maps, but a map that shows every continent ocean, sea, large lake, mountain range, sizable plain, sizable desert & so forth. Such maps completely nullify "but they didn't have accurate maps" type excuses for poor worldbuilding.

@R_J_K75 I linked it in an earlier post, here you go: Continuity porn, Plot Armor, see also this rather fitting summary of the mess

 

[Dragonsbane]

Took my answer:
Straight outa Faerun, to be blunt.

Don't we have decades of Realms stuff? Other settings would be great for adventures. Please. lol

 

[humble minion]

Realistically, it's going to be another FR campaign book, though personally I'd love another Ravenloft-inspired campaign (this one focusing more on the gaslight elements of the setting - vicious murderers in foggy cobblestoned alleyways, natural philosophers creating appalling mockeries of life with blasphemous experiements, mad scientists, occult secret societies etc...), and I'd damn near commit murder for a level 5-20 Dark Sun sandbox which replays the Prism Pentad with PCs as the heroes, and with some of the dumb removed...

But, if it's going to be FR...

(and we all know it is...)

To be really FR-iconic, something around Myth Drannor, with mythals and lost cities and ancient elven politics and magic. The bad guys could be House Dlardrageth (or even the phaerimm, Anauroch is just nearby after all). Just keep Elminster the hell out of it

The Great Rift and the Shaar. This whole area has been ignored since 4e arbitrarily blew it up in a half-paragraph of detailless text, because that's the sort of pointlessly destructive thing that 4e liked to do to FR. There's literally no current 5e info on this place - which means, since there's no status quo to be overturned, it's the perfect place for a stronghold-building campaign! Reclaim and rebuild a dwarven city in what used to be the Great Rift, or try to weld the various peoples of the Shaar desolation into a new nation to face ... something ... coming out of the Underchasm.

Thay, Aglarond, and Rashemen. The 3e material for this part of the world was Just So Good, there's a lot to mine here. I'd make the plotline about the Simbul trying to resurrect herself. From memory, the Zulkir of Enchantment knew her true name, and he was known for making intelligent weapons, that'd be a way to bring Thay into it...

The Old Empires. Gods walking the streets, mummies, a nation of annihilation cultists, and the shattered remnants of fallen earthmotes and of the dragonborn kingdoms that vanished with the Second Sundering. This is a wild, gonzo sort of place that is unlike anywhere else in Faerun - you could do something really different and interesting here.

 

[Inchoroi]

My wife would say that she would kill someone for an AP set in Karatur, but I doubt something like that would happen.

I expect yet another AP set somewhere around the Sword Coast. And, you know, if its a good and long AP, I wouldn't even be terribly mad? Like, give me Age of Worms set in FR. That's a campaign I've always wanted to run, but have never had an opportunity or the time to go and fix its issues. The Daggerford region already has good maps, after all.

I will mention that Mike Schley did maps for the Vaasa region, as well.

However, in the end, I also expect the adventure to be, well, not my cup of tea. The only APs (for 5e, anyway) I've bought were Storm King's Thunder (because my wife made me), Princes of the Apocalypse (because I ran it when it came out), Tomb of Annihilation (because I enjoy torturing my players with jungles), and Rime of the Frostmaiden (because my wife made me).

My annoyance with the official APs is based on two things: the setting, which I admit is not that bad but that I am biased against, and the fact that they are so short. I and my players love long-ass campaigns. Its disappointing to stop at level 11; sure, I can pad out stuff a bit, but I don't have time to add +-9 levels of content; that's why I run APs to begin with.