D&D 5E Why FR Is "Hated"

[Selvarin]

In a novel, Elminster isn't an NPC.

It's his story and his adventures, so he's effectively a PC. The writer has to make it interesting, or what's the point?

But even if he's a schemer, that doesn't mean he is personally showing up to take care of everything - that's why he's more of a quest giver and source of knowledge in the supplements.

You can use him for that or choose to have him remain "off screen" when running your own adventures.

Elminster is an NPC in the FR campaign world setting line who has been used to introduce people to X, Y, Z, Current Clack, on a few occasions lead players into an an adventure, and what not.

Elminster is also a character in the FR novel series, and yes, he is effectively the PC in those stories.

Both are true. However, the Second bleeds into the First in the Realm of Perception and colors it. I'm not disagreeing that he can't be ignored, etc., I'm just saying I see how some people let that color their perception of the campaigns setting.

And this is coming from someone who's a fan of the setting and has filters-set-high in order to sift out that which detracts from the material I find most useful and enjoyable.

 

[Shasarak]

That was oh so long ago, and I can't remember with any certainty. I think I just named them and never did more than that, although I might have done some up with the abbreviated inline statblock used for monsters, since AD&D just wrote up NPCs (like scouts, soldiers, merchants, etc) as monsters in the Monstrous Compendiums.

However wrong I am about the details, I do know I did not use the rules for PCs since I thought "NPCs use the same rules as PCs" was one of the cool new things about 3e.

Ok, i always remember the adventures that detailed NPCs like Burne (8th level magic-user) and Rufus (6th level Fighter).

 

[Mirtek]

Please show me where Elminster is depicted as a "notorious busybody who gets into everyone's business". (And not a Dragon Magazine article)

In an actual FR supplement or other official source.

How about basically every novel about him (only exception his origin trilogy). He's meddling all over the realms in each of them, and not only in epic world ending threats, but boring every day stuff.

There's one instance where he justifies not doing more to aid Shandryl but reading Storm his to-do-list for the day and boy was most of it boring low to mid-level stuff. Much of it als directly aimed at such adventurer groups. Yes, El was truly teleporting all over the realms just to appear in low level adventurers quest

Most Elminster novels read at times as if Ed is deliberately trolling people complaining about Elminster doing to much.

But in actual adventures and FR setting material, Elminster doesn't go around getting up in everyone's business.

Ob boy he does. And does it a lot. It's almost all he does. He admitted to another character in one of the last books how this new "bill of rights" the late king of Cormyr was writing was actually his doing and he was literally hidding under the kings bed, to sneak out at night and carefully re-write certain passages of the various drafts until the final declaration was done. And he was doing that for some weeks! WTF Elminster, WTF?!?

El doing spellbattles with the likes of Larloch, Tanthul or just a dracolich if far rarer in his novels than either seeing him meddling everywhere or talking about how he meddled everywhere.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I never felt that Forgotten Realms had thought things through enough. For example, Secret Councils as heads of government just begs for a coup with new guys as the Secret Council and no one else knowing the better. It's just off-putting.

If you're talking about Waterdeep (and forgive me if you're not), then yes coups and attempted coups have happened in the past. We know of at least two (Kerrigan the Arcanist, and during the Guildwars), and it wouldn't be surprising if there were more that haven't become common knowledge. That's why the position of Open Lord was instituted, as a check against such thing.

(Good list of historians by the way, although I disagree with Renfrew on the Anatolian Hypothesis, which I don't think fits the archaeological and especially linguistic evidence very well. Hittite and other Anatolian languages are too derived from PIE to be the ancestors to the rest, especially in regards to the laryngeals)


Sent from my VS987 using EN World mobile app

 

[Satyrn]

Here is how I think - I loathe the idea of priests routinely creating food and water for communities in general but loathe it even more when campaign designers fail to address the huge impact that would have on a society. If food and water are plentiful without tilling the soil then most people won't be peasants. Land won't be as economically important. The economically powerful, therefore, will have built their wealth some other way than being barons and the like.

Aye. It's because things like that I grew to dislike the 3e way to handle NPCs.

It's why, even if I run the Realms (when, actually, since I'll be doing so when we start Out of the Abyss) , I will be excising the idea that NPCs are like PCs at all. Priests will not be clerics. Sages will not be wizards. Thieves and assassins will not be rogues. Witches will not be warlocks. Aragorn, even though he's a Ranger, is not a ranger.


None of the NPC will have abilities or powers just because they fill a role similar to what a PC class represents. Rather, they will simply have whatever abilities and powers they need to fill their role. To start with, Church priests do not need to be able to create food and water, and so they can't.

The PCs are always special snow flakes.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't know anything about an Empire of Shade. Chult feels like any other jungle setting to me. The execution on Sembia, etc. I found lacking when I was considering running Forgotten Realms. I looked at the map and where the trade was and the roads and everything and it felt like a mess that didn't really make much sense to work the way it did. The FRealms felt somewhat anachronistic in execution.

Fair enough. I'd say that pretty much applies to most settings....don't you? Like I said...are the differences between Oerth, Mystara, Golarion, and the Realms really that different? Can't the Scarlet Brotherhood be moved over to the Realms with ease? Can't the Circle of Eight or Castle Greyhawk?

Then there's always the question of what a DM does with the source material. Maybe one DM can take a bog standard fantasy trope and do somethib really cool with it for his game, while another may need all the coolness baked in without any ability to add his own.

Sure, Chult seems like many other jungle settings. So do Xen'drik, the Amedio Jungle, the Mwangi Expanse...and so on. And likely the jungles of 98% of home brewed worlds. I mean...it's a jungle, how unique are they? One's got dinosaurs and the other's got drow and the other has Aztecs....and all could be shuffled among their various home settings with little disruption to the rest of it.

As for the trade routes and roads...it seems an odd reason to dismiss a setting, to me, but okay. I don't know if I've ever looked at a fantasy setting map and thought to myself "now there are some verisimilitudinous trade routes, by George", but to each his own.

Super powerful wizard is super powerful wizard is super powerful wizard. Just because Mordenkainen didn't have direct dealings with gods doesn't mean that he's not a super famous, super powerful, super influential wizard on par with the others.

Don't be silly....the Greyhawk NPC that trapped NINE gods wasn't Mordenkainen, it was Zagyg.

 

[Caliban]

How about basically every novel about him (only exception his origin trilogy). He's meddling all over the realms in each of them, and not only in epic world ending threats, but boring every day stuff.

There's one instance where he justifies not doing more to aid Shandryl but reading Storm his to-do-list for the day and boy was most of it boring low to mid-level stuff. Much of it als directly aimed at such adventurer groups. Yes, El was truly teleporting all over the realms just to appear in low level adventurers quest

A) That's a novel. In a novel, Elminster isn't an NPC, he's effectively a PC because the story is about him.

B) I'm referring to campaign source material. Novels don't qualify, especially ones published years after the campaign sourcebooks, and probably years after the FR campaign I was running.

C) What novel, and when was it published?

Most Elminster novels read at times as if Ed is deliberately trolling people complaining about Elminster doing to much.

Probably true.

Ob boy he does. And does it a lot. It's almost all he does.

No, it really isn't.

He admitted to another character in one of the last books how this new "bill of rights" the late king of Cormyr was writing was actually his doing and he was literally hidding under the kings bed, to sneak out at night and carefully re-write certain passages of the various drafts until the final declaration was done. And he was doing that for some weeks! WTF Elminster, WTF?!?

In one of the Elminster novels. Not actual campaign source material then.

 

[prosfilaes]

So where do these Museums that employ these archaeologists get their displays? Who is going out and getting the stuff until the PCs spontaneously appear in the campaign?

In real life, from archaeologists who leave town when the Nazis or rebels with AK-47s show up. Or, in many cases, die or get taken hostage. Very few real-life archaeologists have any skill in jumping onto a moving tank, unlike Indiana Jones. I'm not saying that there are no adventuring NPCs, but that NPCs can gain levels without adventuring, and that adventuring, on the whole, is fairly rare.

Why would I worship a town Cleric that can not armour up to crack a few Orc skulls every now and then?

PCs worship gods, not NPCs. A number of adventuring clerics probably do look down upon the priests (leveled or not) that spend their time bringing solace and comfort to the flock, but if you are really concerned about it, the PC should probably worship a god that encourages adventuring clerics, like a god of war. Of course, the local priest of peace and love may not be thrilled about raising your cleric of war, but that's your problem.

 

[Mirtek]

A) That's a novel. In a novel, Elminster isn't an NPC, he's effectively a PC because the story is about him.

B) I'm referring to campaign source material. Novels don't qualify, especially ones published years after the campaign sourcebooks,

Yet FR novels are canon

and probably years after the FR campaign I was running.

Whatever FR campaign we are running is unimportant to FR canon

C) What novel, and when was it published?

Either Crown of Fire (1994) or Hand of Fire (2002). But it's not as if not every Elminster novel or novel just featuring Elminster has such nonsense

 

[Satyrn]

Ok, i always remember the adventures that detailed NPCs like Burne (8th level magic-user) and Rufus (6th level Fighter).

As I said, I don't remember much. I just looked up an adventure I ran (Endless Armies; from 2e's Maztica so this Realms relevant! ) out of curiosity. This looks vaguely familiar:

Priests (Delian, Elkhound, and Wadsworth): Int Average; AL LN; AC 4; MV 12; HD 2; hp 12; THAC0 20; #AT 1; Damage 1-6 + 1/ 1-6; SA & SD Spells as 2nd level priests; SZ M; ML 14

It's more than I use now. I kinda like the Int rating, but I wouldn't bother using it unless it was out of the ordinary on the NPC - there's no need to call out a wizard as having a high Int, for example.

Edit - so yeah, those are clearly clerics, and no doubt Burne's a wizard and Rufus a fighter, and all of them essentially do use the same rules as a PC, but they leave out so many things, too, even the basics like a Strength score. That's the sort of thing I was trying to say earlier.