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<blockquote data-quote="Galfridus" data-source="post: 35316" data-attributes="member: 119">Re: Having cake and eating it tooI have to agree with this; the Realms book packs an incredible amount of stuff into a single volume. The problem with &quot;if you don't like it, change it&quot; and the Realms is that if you change the Realms too much, you take away the familiarity that the players have. I would hate to be playing in something I thought was the Realms only to find out I had made some critical, fatal assumption about how things worked.But that's irrelevant to me: all I took from the Realms book was their format for writing up nations, regions, and deities for my homegrown world. That alone has been a great help!I think my biggest frustation with this aspect of the Realms is the spillover effect it has. Players jump at increased magic, and get caught up in a cross-world arms race. Players want to use cool stuff, no matter what world it comes from. Sure, as DM I can turn it down, but I get sick of turning it down constantly. And with 3E there has been actual rules escalation: the &quot;+2 to 2 skills&quot; feats. When they first came out, the stock answer was: &quot;They're Realms regional feats, that keeps them balanced against Skill Focus.&quot; Now you see them in the 3E splatbooks as standard rules items. Gr.As for the NPCs: it's a well-known standard of DMing that you don't upstage the PCs with uber-NPCs. The Realms is an incredibly public world, and Elminster (and later Drizzt) is its spokesperson. Most of what I know about the Realms I read in Elminster's voice. It seems very self-indulgent to give such a character incredible power -- especially when he seems so blase about using it. It's a use of power where skill and effort would have been so much better.I don't doubt this for a minute -- in fact, I wouldn't hesitate if my DM wanted to run a game in the Realms (though I might make a few wisecracks). A good DM can overcome anything. It's just not something that I would want to take on as DM.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Galfridus, post: 35316, member: 119"] [b]Re: Having cake and eating it too[/b] I have to agree with this; the Realms book packs an incredible amount of stuff into a single volume. The problem with "if you don't like it, change it" and the Realms is that if you change the Realms too much, you take away the familiarity that the players have. I would hate to be playing in something I thought was the Realms only to find out I had made some critical, fatal assumption about how things worked. But that's irrelevant to me: all I took from the Realms book was their format for writing up nations, regions, and deities for my homegrown world. That alone has been a great help! I think my biggest frustation with this aspect of the Realms is the spillover effect it has. Players jump at increased magic, and get caught up in a cross-world arms race. Players want to use cool stuff, no matter what world it comes from. Sure, as DM I can turn it down, but I get sick of turning it down constantly. And with 3E there has been actual rules escalation: the "+2 to 2 skills" feats. When they first came out, the stock answer was: "They're Realms regional feats, that keeps them balanced against Skill Focus." Now you see them in the 3E splatbooks as standard rules items. Gr. As for the NPCs: it's a well-known standard of DMing that you don't upstage the PCs with uber-NPCs. The Realms is an incredibly public world, and Elminster (and later Drizzt) is its spokesperson. Most of what I know about the Realms I read in Elminster's voice. It seems very self-indulgent to give such a character incredible power -- especially when he seems so blase about using it. It's a use of power where skill and effort would have been so much better. I don't doubt this for a minute -- in fact, I wouldn't hesitate if my DM wanted to run a game in the Realms (though I might make a few wisecracks). A good DM can overcome anything. It's just not something that I would want to take on as DM. [/QUOTE]

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