Would you like Maddman's Forgotten Realms?

[dystmesis]

I had this idea once, only for Eberron, when I thought about all the spoilerific information that's given in the campaign setting book, such as Kaius being a vampire, the lord of blades leading a warforged army, etc.

 

[Jhaelen]

In fact, this Realms is a gritty, low power world.
[...]
The real Realms is a harsh place where people scrape to get by and heroes are few and far between, and live lives that are nasty, brutish, and short.
[...]
Does this sound fun at all, or would it merely antagonize those that like the Realms as-is?

Sounds like fun to me, but then again, why would you want to call it the Forgotten Realms? By removing and changing everything typically associated with FR, it's rather pointless to keep the setting.

Just use the default setting and call it a day.

 

[MrMyth]

Sounds like fun to me, but then again, why would you want to call it the Forgotten Realms? By removing and changing everything typically associated with FR, it's rather pointless to keep the setting.

Just use the default setting and call it a day.

I think you are missing the point. The entire goal of the campaign is to present the players with a brutal harsh world that exists in specific counterpoint to the legends and myths their characters know. The grim nature is emphasized by the way it contradicts the tall tales and epic stories that have no truth to them.

Sure, he could create his own setting in which to do this. At which point he needs to find a way to convincingly share those epic stories with his players before tearing them down. By using an existing setting, that framework is already there, and far more ingrained into his players that anything he could possibly do in a home-brewed campaign.

The very point is that he isn't removing everything associated with FR, he is specifically reimagining it for the direct purpose of comparison with the original. Take FR out of the picture entirely, and the whole concept falls apart.

I think it's a brilliant idea, and one I'm tempted to steal for my own whenever I get back to running a campaign!

 

[Desdichado]

Hm, perhaps I am not making myself clear. I don't think I am missing the point.

Yeah, really you are. This isn't "The Realms, except without all the Realms-specific things" it's "The Realms with all the Realms-specific things subverted and turned on their heads."

It's a pretty time-honored way to make something fresh again.

 

[SPECTRE666]

The Cult of the Dragon are the Good guys, those Zhent loving Harpers have ruined the Cult of the Dragon's rep...

Mystra is really a tyrant, that Bane is trying to overthrow...

I could go wild with this stuff. Sure its Bizzaro Realms, but it sounds like fun Bizzaro Realms...

 

[GlassJaw]

I love this idea. A LOT.

One thing I would do is really explore the reasons behind the "false" legends and stories. Why are things not what people believe and been told?

The Cult of the Dragon are the Good guys, those Zhent loving Harpers have ruined the Cult of the Dragon's rep...

This is a good example. If the CotD are really the good guys, who is spreading misinformation about them and why? What is to be gained by thwarting the CotD?

This really embraces the "grayness" of the setting. Put the PCs in the middle of these conflicts and let them choose who to side with (and make sure the decision isn't a clear one!).

 

[Barastrondo]

When you rework Alice in wonderland, do you start by saying, "Well, there's no Cheshire Cat, no Mad Hatter, no Queen of Hearts, and Alice walks not through a fantastic world but a blasted plain...," and expect someone to think that you are playing with the original Alice themes interestingly?

I was reading the original post as more of a "Well, the Queen of Hearts and her retinue aren't actual playing cards come to life, but rather a human kingdom that uses playing card suits as their heraldry, and the Cheshire Cat isn't a cat, but rather a vagabond minstrel who named himself after a feline, and the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle are titles of knights who use fantastic beasts as heraldry, and so on." There is a Drizzt (or was), but not a literal one. There was a Bruenor. Elminster is around, but if you visit Shadowdale you find he's "simply" a very well-learned sage.

The thing that makes the Forgotten Realms even more appropriate to this is that they still have a lot of "characters" in the form of geography: nations, ruins, woods, deserts, etc. Waterdeep is still a character. The religions are the same. There's a lot left of the Realms even if you turn the 11 back down to a 3 or 4.

Do you start describing an Arthurian retelling by saying you've removed Merlin, Mordred, and Morgan le Fay?

You could, particularly if you're trying to avoid the feel of predestination or if you're pitching a low-to-no magic or "historical fiction" game. In fact, Arthurian retellings go all over the place: admittedly, the recent King Arthur movie is one of the poorest, but its flaw wasn't the absence of actual magic or the Morgause/Mordred subplot, it was the absence of the big fatal love triangle. The Mabinogion's very Arthurian, and it lacks at least two out of those three characters.

Would it be an Arthurian game for people who really love the high-magic approach to Arthurian legend, or whose favorite characters are the magicians? No, absolutely not. But it could still be called Arthurian, and specifically a retelling.

 

[maddman75]

Latest innovation for this idea - use middle ages Call of Cthulhu rules for the game, or possibly 2e WHFRP.

My view is not to make bad guys good and good guys bad, but to make them both gray. For instance, maybe the Zhentarim and the Harpers are not really secret societies, but trade consortiums. They both do the same sorts of things, mostly just moving merchandice around. They might occasionally do some smuggling, but are not generally involved in murder. Or heroism. The PCs have just heard good about the Harper and bad about the Zhents because of where they are from. If they'd been born in Immersea or Zhentil Keep, they'd hear how the Zhentarim are travelling heroes and adventurers, and the evil Harpers want to rule the world from the shadows.

Cult of the Dragon is simply that, a cult that worships dragons. They don't make undead dragons or anything, though they are secretive and may have blood rites. Both these bloody rituals and the evil nature of dragons make them seem evil.

Also no metallic dragons, or maybe ones that are mindless killing machines just like the chromatics.

 

[MrMyth]

The Cult of the Dragon are the Good guys, those Zhent loving Harpers have ruined the Cult of the Dragon's rep...

Mystra is really a tyrant, that Bane is trying to overthrow...

I could go wild with this stuff. Sure its Bizzaro Realms, but it sounds like fun Bizzaro Realms...

And the thing is, you don't even need to have any 'good guys' in a setting where everything can be cast in shades of gray. The Cult of the Dragon might simply be a group that has unearthed some ancient skeletons of what they think are dragons, and prays fervently to them. And go out of their way to seek out living evil dragons, who typically proceed to eat them. They don't have to do anything evil to get a reputation as a creepy, obsessed group - one that, perhaps, makes a good scapegoat for other more competent villains.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It sounds like a good game to me.



RC