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<blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7146707" data-attributes="member: 6778044"><p>OK, I'll try to sell you. Although the arguments can work for some other settings as well.</p><p></p><p>To start, I think that the Gray Box combined with <em>Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms</em> and the 2e Volo's guides are what make the Realms for me. Nearly everything Ed wrote as a supplement was great.</p><p></p><p>So what drew me to the Realms was it's depth. Especially back in 1987. Ed's approach, which was highlighted by articles like the <em>Ecology of..</em> series, took immersion in a campaign world much farther than anything that had come before. This is also reflected in the sheer number of stories and such in the background. The secret organizations, the history, the lore around a lost spellbook, rather than just "here's a few new spells." The Volo's Guides took this to a new level.</p><p></p><p>Despite the quality variation and the decisions that TSR and WotC have made over the years, the sheer amount of material is a huge benefit. Especially if your players have access to some of it and read it on their own. Immersion is one of the more challenging things in an RPG. Having a common knowledge of the world helps with that immensely. In my Realms, anything that's published is part of the campaign, although the accuracy varies. Heard rumors of a new race of dragon people in the east? Yeah, the reality is that didn't happen in my world, and that's just tall tales. But the HotDQ/RoT story - that's probably 80% true. And that's lore that can come into play to add color to what's at the table.</p><p></p><p>Most of the Greenwood penned Realms is not just earth reskinned (like Mystara and a lot of the non-Greenwood penned Realms). It's a unique place with its own history and stories, peoples, and places. He can certainly rewrite such source material (the bedine of Anauroch for example), although I suspect that approach was not a decision he made. </p><p></p><p>It is a setting that you can read about, and as a DM (and somebody who likes to read about it), that provides a lot of material to spark my ideas. And really I think that's its biggest strength. You don't have to read all of it. Your players can read different parts of it than you do. One of my players was a minor noble from Waterdeep. I loaned her a copy of <em>Volo's Guide to Waterdeep</em>. She loved it. And since I haven't read it in a while, and certainly didn't have it memorized, it made her (and her character) the expert on Waterdeep. She picked out her favorite taverns, places to shop, she "knew" people. And when she referenced them, I had a reference to go back to in terms of lore (along with other published resources).</p><p></p><p>The reality is, that a significant portion of the text of the 3e FRCS, and even SCAG and other 5e materials are copy/pasted right out the the 1e products and/or Volo's Guides. While it seems like there are mountains of material, 60%+, perhaps as much as 80%+, has been published multiple times. That's one of the things that WotC references now when they've said that they probably won't release a new CS. The material is already there to be found.</p><p></p><p>Another aspect that I really like is that it's a living campaign. The fact that story material is released on a regular basis provides continuous background, sort of ongoing news of the world. It makes the world seem larger than it otherwise would. If you choose (like me) not to actually run these story-lines, the epic nature of many of them becomes a strength. Obviously that's not what really happened, it's just the nature of a bard's tale. Something might have happened, but it wasn't quite like that!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ilbranteloth, post: 7146707, member: 6778044"] OK, I'll try to sell you. Although the arguments can work for some other settings as well. To start, I think that the Gray Box combined with [I]Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms[/I] and the 2e Volo's guides are what make the Realms for me. Nearly everything Ed wrote as a supplement was great. So what drew me to the Realms was it's depth. Especially back in 1987. Ed's approach, which was highlighted by articles like the [I]Ecology of..[/I] series, took immersion in a campaign world much farther than anything that had come before. This is also reflected in the sheer number of stories and such in the background. The secret organizations, the history, the lore around a lost spellbook, rather than just "here's a few new spells." The Volo's Guides took this to a new level. Despite the quality variation and the decisions that TSR and WotC have made over the years, the sheer amount of material is a huge benefit. Especially if your players have access to some of it and read it on their own. Immersion is one of the more challenging things in an RPG. Having a common knowledge of the world helps with that immensely. In my Realms, anything that's published is part of the campaign, although the accuracy varies. Heard rumors of a new race of dragon people in the east? Yeah, the reality is that didn't happen in my world, and that's just tall tales. But the HotDQ/RoT story - that's probably 80% true. And that's lore that can come into play to add color to what's at the table. Most of the Greenwood penned Realms is not just earth reskinned (like Mystara and a lot of the non-Greenwood penned Realms). It's a unique place with its own history and stories, peoples, and places. He can certainly rewrite such source material (the bedine of Anauroch for example), although I suspect that approach was not a decision he made. It is a setting that you can read about, and as a DM (and somebody who likes to read about it), that provides a lot of material to spark my ideas. And really I think that's its biggest strength. You don't have to read all of it. Your players can read different parts of it than you do. One of my players was a minor noble from Waterdeep. I loaned her a copy of [I]Volo's Guide to Waterdeep[/I]. She loved it. And since I haven't read it in a while, and certainly didn't have it memorized, it made her (and her character) the expert on Waterdeep. She picked out her favorite taverns, places to shop, she "knew" people. And when she referenced them, I had a reference to go back to in terms of lore (along with other published resources). The reality is, that a significant portion of the text of the 3e FRCS, and even SCAG and other 5e materials are copy/pasted right out the the 1e products and/or Volo's Guides. While it seems like there are mountains of material, 60%+, perhaps as much as 80%+, has been published multiple times. That's one of the things that WotC references now when they've said that they probably won't release a new CS. The material is already there to be found. Another aspect that I really like is that it's a living campaign. The fact that story material is released on a regular basis provides continuous background, sort of ongoing news of the world. It makes the world seem larger than it otherwise would. If you choose (like me) not to actually run these story-lines, the epic nature of many of them becomes a strength. Obviously that's not what really happened, it's just the nature of a bard's tale. Something might have happened, but it wasn't quite like that! [/QUOTE]
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