Erik,
To continue that discussion on the wizards.com boards:
Sure, there's a difference in tone, though it's a qualitative thing and not a quantitative thing such as 'less subtle'. You see the subtlety in things whose wavelength you're on. The Realms is certainly a secondary world for its own sake and not a utilitarian place to set adventures. It has more non-S&S in it -- more Tolkien and Dunsany, for one -- than Greyhawk, but on the other hand Ed Greenwood is a working, productive part of the S&S tradition whereas Gary's setting hasn't been since 1988. So I don't deny the aspect you called 'history porn', and I'm kind of glad you're calling it how you see it, but the Realms is not 'the "history porn" setting' predominantly: it is, as I've said, a sword and sorcery setting. Now, I like both worlds and I have no interest in 'generic' adventures given Realms names; neither am I liable to use unmodified such adventures given Greyhawk names in a Greyhawk campaign, but that's a good plan for the sake of familiarizing that world. I'm also glad you realize that an adventure with Greyhawk names is no harder to convert to one's home campaign than a 'generic' one actually set in a stand-alone world the reader knows nothing about.
The god stuff you mention, though, is errant, exceptional stuff that was done to the Realms against its nature, mostly by the Avatar novels (one series out of many). (You can't characterize the Realms by its most ill-judged product any more than the WoG.) The point being that an authentically Realmsian adventure for Dungeon would not be historical, or superheroic, but along the lines of Haunted Halls of Eveningstar, Halls of the High King, "Irongard", or "The Haunted Well" (the second stonedelve that Ed submitted to Dungeon years past). It is partly true that this isn't the direction the published Realms has gone in, in which case, you get a chance to help it out while publishing modules more to your own taste.
I certainly have nothing against FR, provided most of it's excesses are trimmed-away. Drow have been done to death, ditto eeeeeeeevil wizards, the NPC power level is through the room and the setting often seems more focused on pushing novels than being gamable, but all these things crept in after Ed Greewood sold his world to TSR. For what it's worth, I really enjoyed the old FR. The original "Grey Box" still has a permanent place on my shelf (right next to my Greyhawk stuff, actually).
I can't deny that FR can still be used for traditional S&S-type adventures. It can. I also can't deny, however, that TSR and WotC have not promoted this aspect heavily over the course of the setting's published run, choosing instead to focus on the "epic fantasy" (high-powered heroes saving the world from huge catastrophes that leave it forever changed) and "kitchen sink" (Egypt here, Mesoamerica there, China over the next hill...) aspects of the setting, often at the expense of the original S&S tone (which reminded me more of Fritz Lieber's Lankhmar stuff than anything in Ed's early writings).
But TSR and WotC don't present the setting this way for no reason. They so it because epic fantasy has a big audience.
Erik's point in the other thread (I think...) was that WotC's D&D settings currently support high-powered epic fantasy (Forgotten Realms) and magitech pulp noir fantasy (Eberron) while the grittier, less flashy and less epic classic S&S-oriented tone of Greyhawk and other earlier D&D products (including Grey Box era FR) has been left by the wayside, so to speak.
At least that's how I see it.
As to how WotC is currently publishing the Realms, obviously some novels feature the mighty of Faerûn -- while others don't (and few look set to in the next few years), and I don't see that focus in the current sourcebooks like Serpent Kingdoms. And the Realms Ed writes about, in sourcebooks and "Realmslore" on wizards.com and on the candlekeep.com boards, is hardly at all the worse for wear for the various publishing and promotional abuses. The Realms adventure modules have never veered epic-way -- the good ones have, though, had a larger share of setting detail, including history, than Gygax's compact, adventure-above-all Greyhawk modules. But we don't have to argue about that -- Erik gets to decide, within whatever latitude Wizards gives him, what kind of Realms adventures to publish. In the article I linked to we see that Peter Archer, the fiction editor, correctly recognizes the Realms as S&S (in contradistinction to Dragonlance and Eberron), and I think Rich Baker does, so Wizards is not going to tell Erik off if he follows.
Admittedly I am a dyed-in-the-wool GH fan. It pained me greatly for many years to see the setting seemingly drift away. When I saw an ad a few years pre-3e (in Dungeon magazine actually, I think) that mentioned the reintroduction of Greyhawk along with a classic 0% body fat, Jeff Dee drawing and the caption "What the hell's a baatezu?" I wanted to stand up and cheer. I believe it was around the time of the 25th anniversary when the Return To... modules began coming out. I think the S&S had been missing for awhile. With all due respect to Mr. Greenwood who is obviously a genius, I don't think it was just the avatar crap and historical pornography (I love that phrase) that had ruined the Forgotten Realms for me. In my opinion as a novelist Mr. Greenwood stinks. Perhaps it was the tail wagging the dog, but since my loyalty forced me to buy every new D&D novel I felt like if I saw another high-power wizard duel with a new Elminster Doomsday spell cleverly prepared for just such a situation I think I would've vomited. I don't think he's written anything decent since Spellfire and that was obviously heading in the direction of the Uber-powerful NPC (Shandril Shessair, 16-year-old Dracolich Slayer). His Shadow of the Avatar trilogy actually finally broke me of my habit of buying everything that was printed (which actually saved me a ton of money for which I should thank him).
All that aside I have to agree with Yamo. The Gray Box for all its disorganization and seemingly incomplete musings was true S&S. I haven't read Lieber, but it really reminded me of Howard (and not the campy Conan modules). However, as FR's popularity surged that feel quickly went away. Enter 2e and all the attendant watering down...
I'm extremely thankful for the direction Dungeon has gone with Erik and the gang (and not just because they let me write some of it). Quite honestly I'd renew my subscription every year even if they were putting out a load of crap (which they have done at times in the past it seems to me) but that's because I'm a junkie. I'd buy, I just wouldn't enjoy it.
Perhaps my views of S&S and GH are colored by the 1e classic adventures seen through the eyes of an entranced grade-schooler, but the inherent aura of mystery that surrounded the Ghost Tower or the secrets in either Saltmarsh or the Slavers Stockade (take your pick) still draw me 20+ years later.
We seem to have a sympathetic publisher in Paizo with Erik and his compatriots at the helm, and I'd like to see more of that style once again. They have shown a willingness to publish it when sent to them. Ultimately I'm enough of a pragmatist to know WotC may never go that direction. I'm also a lover of the game so I don't join the WotC hate-mail club either. As long as they're alive the game's alive. In the meantime Dungeon is doing a great job of supporting that style in addition to a myriad of other things. So I'm going to keep sending in GH material (much of it nostaligic in nature to try and recapture the thrill of a first sighting of Iggwilv's Horn or a Great Green Demon Face) and hope that others do to. To me (and I'm probably in a minority here) all the supplements in the world can't take the place of a fantastically-written adventure that takes your mind away to the Misty Mountains cold or a Lost City of the Elders. Even if it's a 16-page minimalist piece that leaves you wondering, well just exactly what IS in Keraptis' Indoctrination Center?
Just FYI, Ed never meant to use Elminster and the Seven Sisters as novel protagonists, but was asked to by TSR in the form 'this is what the next novel of yours is about, and if you don't write it we'll get someone else to'. His favoured fiction protagonists are Mirt, Durnan, and the Knights of Myth Drannor, who are finally (after 19 years) getting their spotlight in a trilogy beginning 2006.
I think that is a good direction. I look forward to seeing it.
Right now there's no in-print adventure for the Realms that you can point to and say, *that's* how they should be. Scenarios by Eric Boyd set in Waterdeep are upcoming, and that's great -- "Sleep of Ages" (#69) and "Eye of Myrkul" (#73) were outstanding.
Lost dungeons of Faerûn
The vast backlog of unpublished Realmslore includes quite a few dungeons. Here are some of them: all these have been at least partially designed, some more than twenty years ago, and some fully written up (though not for 3E rules).
Caverns of the Claws
Crypt of Shadows
Dungeon of Death
Dungeon of the Crypt
Dungeon of the Ruins
Haunted Halls, level 2
Haunted Well
Nameless Dungeon
Undermountain, levels 4-9, plus sublevels
Warriors' Crypt
Dungeon of the Ruins was done in Dungeon 101 Prison of the Firebringer...
Wasn't Dungeon of Death done in a Dungeon Crawl module by the same name?
Greg V wrote: Wasn't Dungeon of Death done in a Dungeon Crawl module by the same name? Yes it was,I have the module. On another note,Forest of Blood appeared in Dungeon#103.
Yup, for some reason TSR and Wizards commissioned different versions of two dungeons that were already designed. (I think the same happened with Durlag's Tower in Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast.) I listed them for completeness (though the list is far from complete).
Recent threads in General Discussion
|
