WotC's Chris Perkins Talks Realms & Sundering

Den of Geek has a lengthy interview with Chris Perkins about the Forgotten Realms and The Sundering. He also very briefly touches on other settings, indicating that WotC hopes that other worlds will be covered in the future if the right story comes along. On past controversial changes to settings, he says "Our guiding principle is to embrace the past and not pass judgment or rewrite history. We’d rather let the fans tell us what they like about the Realms and focus on those elements going forward." (thanks to MerricB for the scoop!)

 

[Sailor Moon]

DM: Okay everyone! Before we begin making characters, I just want to let you know that anything in the Realms you have knowledge of, please go ahead and ignore that. I am creating my own version of the setting but still using a lot of the same places.

Cheers.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I find it kind of sad that you blame it on the Forgotten Realms when the real issue is a DM that needs to a grow pair. "Guys let's play in my original version of the Forgotten Realms" isn't that difficult to say, especially to friends.

And it's just as easy for a friend to reply, "No thanks. Give me the Realms as written or I walk." ...which leaves the game short a player, people disappointed and the DM left in a bind.

I think most groups can and do work things out--I've had a DM say the exact same thing to me that you suggest above, and we ended up having a pretty good time--but to suggest it's all on the DM is to view the world with one eye closed.

Players can and do have expectations. It's not unreasonable for someone to dive into the Realms and then look for a game where what they've read (whether novels or sourcebooks) is what's presented at the gaming table.

 

[Irennan]

@sanishiver Well, that goes for any setting. Ofc players have expectation and those may clash with whatever thing the DM wants to do with the setting they're using for their campaign. What you describe is a totally generic thing. However you don't smash a setting for something -IMO- so trivial and that people should be able to sort by themselves.

If the setting is so vast and detail/minutiae-rich that this sort of stuff comes up more frequently, then:

1)change its presentation (put the essentials in a CS book, then all the details in various optional supplements), don't blow things up and destroy so much of what other readers love and are invested into

2)if a player is a canon-fanatic to the point where they would throw a tantrum for something as trivial as a tavern name, or that they would ruin a session by saying stuff like ''omg who cares, the Simbul will take care of that'', then -again- this problem could happen with any setting, it is with the player and DMs may want to talk to them to settle things down or -in the case of an unreasonable person- reconsider if/how such a player would contribute in any positive way to the game.

Really, messing with a setting in such a drastic way just for this is -IMHO and bluntly said- quite stupid (and it costed them a lot of customers -- or so I guess, considering their recent backpeddling).

 

[Gnarl45]

And it's just as easy for a friend to reply, "No thanks. Give me the Realms as written or I walk." ...which leaves the game short a player, people disappointed and the DM left in a bind.

And your players can always do that for many other things. They can say they don't want to play in your homebrew campaign, in another campaign, in your linear adventure, in your sandbox adventure, etc... Yes, there are plenty of things the players can do to make it impossible for the group to play together (and so can a DM).

Players can and do have expectations. It's not unreasonable for someone to dive into the Realms and then look for a game where what they've read (whether novels or sourcebooks) is what's presented at the gaming table.

It's normal for players to have expectations but it's silly to expect the FR to be like in your novels. A campaign setting is not static. The only time the world is exactly like in your books and novels is when you start the campaign, and that's assuming you start it at the exact moment the novels end.

Any player-interact with the FR has the potential to destroy cannon. And the more they interact with it, the more the FR they are playing in and the FR they are reading about will be different. The DM also needs to change things to create adventures. What are you going to say to your DM if he wants Zhentil Keep to invade Shadowdale? Sorry, that's breaking cannon?

I'm not saying any of this to be offensive. It's just that if you actually want to play in the FR, the world will be different than in your novels. That's what makes it fun. You get to write a story in an alternate timeline in a setting that strongly ressembles the FR.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Canon can be followed or it can be broken depending on the group.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Well, that goes for any setting. Ofc players have expectation and those may clash with whatever thing the DM wants to do with the setting they're using for their campaign. What you describe is a totally generic thing.

Except it's not.

Just because DMs can have problems with player expectations doesn't mean all of those problems are the same, or that they have the same root cause. It doesn't follow that we can conclude that all such problems fall under the label of "generic."

Look, I'm not arguing that the Realms needs to be blown up a second time, or that the Spellplague was a good idea. I'm arguing that issues DMs and players have with the Realms, like and others have described, are real--even years after 4E hit the stands.

That WotC went the Spellplague approach was the wrong response, but it was a response to a real issue.

When someone replies with "the DM needs to grow a pair" all they're really demonstrating is they have either no grasp of what it's like for other gamers, or they don't care.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

It's normal for players to have expectations but it's silly to expect the FR to be like in your novels.

My last major Realms campaign went for over a decade, and at the start it was based around the events in the novels "Beyond the High Road" and "Death of the Dragon" to much success.

I think everyone--even the Realmslore version of rules laywers--understands a campaign setting isn't static. The issue isn't cleaving to Realmslore to the point of insanity, the issue is that some players and some DMs cleave to as much Realmslore as they can because that's how they enjoy the setting, while others aren't interested nearly as much, and this can sometimes cause problems.

This was well understood when the Realms first saw print; that's why the concept of the unreliable narrator exists that DMs would have a means of dealing with players who would otherwise quote sourcebooks and source material chapter and verse at the gaming table.

Apologies if my post sounds argumentative. I'm going to let this and the prior post stand for a while and then come back to re-read it and see if there's a better way to put these ideas down.

 

[Irennan]

Except it's not.

Just because DMs can have problems with player expectations doesn't mean all of those problems are the same, or that they have the same root cause. It doesn't follow that we can conclude that all such problems fall under the label of "generic."

Look, I'm not arguing that the Realms needs to be blown up a second time, or that the Spellplague was a good idea. I'm arguing that issues DMs and players have with the Realms, like and others have described, are real--even years after 4E hit the stands.

That WotC went the Spellplague approach was the wrong response, but it was a response to a real issue.

When someone replies with "the DM needs to grow a pair" all they're really demonstrating is they have either no grasp of what it's like for other gamers, or they don't care.

Sorry for laughing at your post, @sanishiver, I didn't mean it, I misclicked the button (edit: nvm, found out that the action can be undone).

Back to the reply, so you are saying that a player's expectations would never clash with what their DM may want to do when playing -say- in Eberron? To me that sounds like a very strange thing to say. DMs often draw inspiration from settings and their version may be different from the official one, with varying degrees of satisfaction among players. For example a player could even outright refuse to play in the DM's homebrew world or in X version of any Y world. At the end it is not a setting-specific problem, but a personal one that should be solved between DMs and players, not by WotC.

Granted, it might happen more frequently when it comes to the Realms, due to more details/vastity, but still remains something that should be solved at a personal level and case by case, and I've already talked about that.

 

[Selvarin]

Yep, WotC saw an issue. Non-FR players had an issue regarding the overabundance of material and Canon experts. They felt the entry cost was too high, etc., so why bother. And WotC's response was to blow the whole place up.

They wanted Realms gamers to grow in number (and buy stuff), so they went after most of the sacred cows--Mystra, Elminster, the Seven Sisters (among other uber-beings sucking the collective air from the room)--and then went beyond. 4E was the perfect excuse. But the calculation of gaining new people vs. losing old timers was a fine one.

Perception is Reality, as they say. So they got a few new fans but the net loss was greater.

To me it's like a rock-country band who's at saturation point with those who like the rock side but they see some room for those who prefer country. So their next album goes full-hillbilly, they get some more country fans but the rest don't bite since they never considered the band to be 'true country'. Meanwhile, those on the rock side are put off and stop showing up. (Think Alan Thicke's "Paula" album in terms of sales tanking.)

Now the band's back, they got rid of the banjos and plan on NOT playing anything from the last album, more or less.

Oh well, 4E Realms served its purpose. Those who like the idea of the Realms but hate the canon can start with 4E version, those who didn't can ignore it.


Hmm, I forget. What was the question or point? My bad.

OK, back to the other point--yes, a problem with the Realms is that for those fans the published Realms is their Realms. So with a DM who makes a lot of changes it's as if someone went and repainted their favorite sports car. Yeah they'll walk out whereas if faced with a campaign setting their unfamiliar there's no such baggage.

 

[Derren]

They wanted Realms gamers to grow in number (and buy stuff), so they went after most of the sacred cows--Mystra, Elminster, the Seven Sisters (among other uber-beings sucking the collective air from the room)--and then went beyond. 4E was the perfect excuse. But the calculation of gaining new people vs. losing old timers was a fine one.

I am sure many FR fans would be quite happy with getting rid of those Mary Sues. The problem was "the beyond" and changing the overall feeling of the setting. Problem is, the worst PnP NPC characters sell the most novels.