Wizards 2008 releases?

[Kae'Yoss]

I have half suspected for a few weeks now (I'm a bit slow), that after the Grand History of the Realms, there might not be any more Realms books, or at the very least, some sort of grand concluding product for the realms in '08.

Nah, can't quite see it. As long as those things sell, they're bee made and sold. Plus, There's already a couple of novels scheduled for '09, and even one for early '10

http://www.o-love.net/realms/fr_books_date.html

And that's only books that finish some trilogy or other, I guess that before we get there, those numbers will be greatly bolstered by new series and the occasional single product.

With the death of so many characters

It's not as if the Realms are in danger of running out of novel characters, or that this was a first.

with the release of the trilogy of Supermodules

Which I'd call more a beginning - the beginning of modules made by Wizards.

and even the article in Dragon last month (which is another RSE of minor proportions).

What's a minor RSE? A room-shaking event?

However, death has never been a career ending injury in the Realms, so nothing is ever set in stone, and I could be wrong.

Well at least one of those characters mentioned is gone for good - the work he did required his life force, and it cannot be taken back.

Which leads to something else:

There's not only ends, but also beginnings:
The Deep Immaskari started trading with the surface
Myth Drannor was regained and made into an elven city again (oh, and the last chapter of the Last Mythal series plays 5 years after the other events, and apparently the Realms were still standing.


The sky is not falling quite yet, and I doubt they will, at least as long as there's profit in the Realms. I doubt Wizards would to an oWoD with the FR.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I can also see the RSE events though building to a major cataclysm with world wide ripples that can be used to justify major rule changes for 4e. Sort of like what they did for 3E. If the rules need a new cosmology or magic system what better way to include it in the existing campaign worlds.

 

[Razz]

I have half suspected for a few weeks now (I'm a bit slow), that after the Grand History of the Realms, there might not be any more Realms books, or at the very least, some sort of grand concluding product for the realms in '08. With the death of so many characters, a flurry of huge Realm changing events over the past year, with the release of the trilogy of Supermodules (and the hidden RSE in Undermountain), and even the article in Dragon last month (which is another RSE of minor proportions). I suspect that they are building up to something pretty impressive.

However, death has never been a career ending injury in the Realms, so nothing is ever set in stone, and I could be wrong.

It's getting ridiculous, honestly. I can't pick up a Realms novel without some RSE happening in it anymore. It's not even about the characters in the novels anymore, it's about them stopping, cushioning, or failing from stopping the RSE.

Isn't that something PCs in the Forgotten Realms GAME is supposed to be doing!?

If I don't read the novels, however, I'm lagging sorely behind in Realms lore only to pick up the next Realms sourcebook and find the whole setting turned upside-down. Thanks to the novels.

I like Realms novels that go more into the characters, the land, the people, and the history of the Realms. What these characters go through in reaction to the world, its dangers, and its joy. Not a novel that seeks to destroy those aspects before they can even be told!

It's as if Realms novels are turning FR into another Dragonlance. One cataclysmic catastrophe after the next, like atom bombs exploding in different portions of the Realms. (leaving Kara-Tur, Maztica, and Zhakara completely in ignorance of it all, too, places that really need more novels set in to attract more of an audience)

 

[johnnype]

Who's complaining about Eberron being static?

I am. I've read eight or so of the Eberron novels and in the end found them to be wanting. Not necessarily because they are bad but because I fail to see their relevance in the setting. One of the authors (I think it was Keith Baker) said that at the end of each and every novel all the "toys" were put back into their chest and in doing so the setting reverts back to it's original shape. That was the nail in the coffin for me.

Count me as one who likes metaplot and who thinks it trivially easy to ignore if I don't like it.

 

[freyar]

I am. I've read eight or so of the Eberron novels and in the end found them to be wanting. Not necessarily because they are bad but because I fail to see their relevance in the setting. One of the authors (I think it was Keith Baker) said that at the end of each and every novel all the "toys" were put back into their chest and in doing so the setting reverts back to it's original shape. That was the nail in the coffin for me.

Count me as one who likes metaplot and who thinks it trivially easy to ignore if I don't like it.

I don't mind metaplot --- I find a lot of the FR metaplot from the FRCS and the few other books I have pretty interesting. And I don't mind just ignoring metaplot that I either don't like or don't know about. What I found annoying recently was buying an FR novel -- which I don't do that often due to lack of shelf space -- and having a major character death and RSE without any of the reasoning explained within the novel itself. (Note that this novel was a standalone novel.) Maybe I just don't read enough FR novels, but it was aggravating. The older Realms novels I've read made sure you knew what was going on and why it was important. Anyway, my 2cp. I doubt I'll buy any novels by that author again, which is sad because there were definitely some interesting ideas.

 

[Jhaelen]

I don't mind metaplot --- I find a lot of the FR metaplot from the FRCS and the few other books I have pretty interesting. And I don't mind just ignoring metaplot that I either don't like or don't know about. What I found annoying recently was buying an FR novel -- which I don't do that often due to lack of shelf space -- and having a major character death and RSE without any of the reasoning explained within the novel itself. (Note that this novel was a standalone novel.) Maybe I just don't read enough FR novels, but it was aggravating. The older Realms novels I've read made sure you knew what was going on and why it was important. Anyway, my 2cp. I doubt I'll buy any novels by that author again, which is sad because there were definitely some interesting ideas.

Well, at the time the novels killed the Darksun setting for me. I really enjoyed reading the Prism Pentad, but I knew right from the beginning, the events would never happen that way in my campaign.
In my Darksun campaign Rikus didn't survive the assassination attempt on Kalak. Kalak also didn't die in the attempt - he just had to retreat to 'recover' from the failed ascension ritual to reappear later as an athasian 'dracolich'

But since later supplements assumed the events in the novels to be canon, I no longer had any use for them. Really a pity!

So, I absolutely prefer the Eberron approach on novels not affecting the 'officual' campaign setting.

 

[Sucros]

Last Mythal and War of the Spider queen ending spoilers, be warned.

The way I see it, there are two major veins of RSEs. There's the "Lolth takes her realm from the abyss and starts a new plane" and then there's "Elves return to Myth Dranor". The rest are localized and easy to ignore. Don't like that a certain character is dead? Then he's not dead. Don't want to worry about a massive rage of wyrm dragons sweeping across faerun? Nothing happened.

The other two are much more deep in impact. The lolth issue cements the FR "bastard" cosmology in cannon (ug ug ug) has a direct effect on the source material, and is way too large for the PCs to be involved in. While this led to novels that some people enjoyed, it's a large blemish on the material for players.

The second I don't mind at all. It's not by mistake that Myth Dranor is dead in the center of the early maps of the forgotten realms. Once upon a time, the RoMD were the central focus of the setting, the big dungeon. Returning the elves to it revitalizes the old dungeon and brings it in line with the plot-driven dungeoning style of modern modules. Where once people delved the ruins in search of wealth, or perhaps the missing princess of cormyr (to trade in for wealth) now they have story reasons to delve the catacombs. The players aren't mindlessly looting anymore, they're actively participating in history. It makes the granddaddy of FR dungeons interesting and accessable again. I love it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My concern about the Lolth stuff is that the players can't participate in it, in any way. At least with Myth Drannor, an elf group can participate in clearing part of the ruins, get involved in the politics of the new city and so on.

An event where players are forced to be spectators is crappy DMing and shouldn't be excused when it happens in a novel, either, since those spill over into the game setting.

 

[Shazman]

More spoilers










Why can't palyer's take part in it? The FR super-advneture City of the Spider Queen takes place during Lloth's Silence. The whole trilogy reads like a high level adventure. I think it would be fun to run a group of drow PC's on a wild goose chase (separate and distinct from the novel party) to find out the cause of Lloths' Silence. Throw in your own twists to make the story yours, and you've got a great story. If you don't like the story. Big deal! Anyone whose not a drow won't know or care about it! Running a group of elven PC's clearing out Myth Drannor would't be too bad either. Embrace the novel metaplots and make them your own or forget they exist. So what if the Shade Enclave arrived from the Shadow Plane, raging dragons have wreaked havoc in the countryside, Lloth didn't answer prayers for a few months, and the elves returned to Myth Drannor after routing a fey'ri army. In the end, it won't affect most commn folk or PC's unless you really want them to. Most of these so-called RSE's ususally just end up as blurbs in later novels. Not that Realms Shaking if you ask me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

-10 points for "Lloth."

"City of the Spider Queen" isn't the characters participating in diddly. That's players dealing with the consequences of cooler, higher-level NPCs doing awesome stuff, i.e. the very worst things that the Forgotten Realms is accused of being by its detractors.