With Bruce Cordell at the helm, the new Forgotten Realms will essentially become the "Thundarr the Barbarian" world. Count on not only bizarre geography, but also aliens from Far Realm, psionic aboleth, scores of dead gods floating in the Astral plane, transplanted lands and dragonpeople from "Abeir" (which didn't exist until recently).
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Selune's moon and her tears eventually crashes into Toril too, and launches a new world of superscience and sorcery for 5th Edition. Bleah. Terrible. BOO!!!
Dude! I LOVED Thundarr the Barbarian!
Dude! I LOVED Thundarr the Barbarian!
As a cartoon, it was my favorite.
As a replacement for the old Forgotten Realms... not so much.
My own favorite was the first edition FR box cover- fantastic art and intriguing too- it made me want to pick it up and find out more.
This new cover is more then a bit bland and really gives no flavor of what FR is all about- this could be art for any generic product.
I don't want to heap too much judgement without some sort of deeper information, but I have to agree that so far this isn't the Forgotten Realms they are showing us.
Anyone remember that module Wizards put out during the 2e to 3e conversion - basically it was an Armageddon storyline that would wipe the campaign world and fix the world to the game rules?
Looks like Wizards should have just added that as a prerequiste module to starting a Forgotten Realms campaign in 4e - except without the fixing part.
*PS - I also thought Thundarr rocked! Destroyed modern world to fantasy world, with all the bizzare trappings - cool. Fantasy world to destroyed fantasy world with the same names - not so much. Besides, FR doesn't have Moks to make it more fun ;-)
...Besides, FR doesn't have Moks to make it more fun ;-)
Yep, dragonpeople don't make up for the lack of Moks. :(
Bruce is a solid writer. I think his involvement in the project bodes well for it being a cool campaign setting when all is said and done.
Yes. But the trashing of the historical Realms on the road to get there is the rub. Creatively, the Spellplague strikes me as the laziest sort of concept. Rather than present something new in an organic way from what has gone before, they hit the apocalypse button.
If Paizo were the caretakers of Faerun, I can't imagine your designers deciding on such a course of action. The "nuking" of the Realms--and not daily powers, skill points or any other crunch-- is the number one reason I choose Pathfinder Chronicles (and the Pathfinder RPG that supports it) for my game.
As typified by the Pathfinder goblin, the classic D&D world has plenty of life left.
Bruce is a solid writer. I think his involvement in the project bodes well for it being a cool campaign setting when all is said and done.
True that. If I could only play one official D&D adventure, I'd have Bruce write it. Bastion of Broken Souls remains the cleverest adventure the Wizards team ever produced for D&D.
Mike
Bruce is a solid writer. I think his involvement in the project bodes well for it being a cool campaign setting when all is said and done.
Cool for who exactly? The young, hip, WoW crowd that'll abandon D&D just as quickly as a new MMORPG is released they want to attract in replacement of some of us old farts or stubborn grognards (yet loyal to a fault with D&D)?
The point a lot of us Realms fans/customers are making is whether or not 4E Realms is successful, it's still not THE Forgotten Realms anymore. And that is what turns a lot of people off to it.
Old farts? How old are you?
I know players in their 40s who are going to at least try before blasting it out of hand.
Bruce is a solid writer. I think his involvement in the project bodes well for it being a cool campaign setting when all is said and done.
It may be "cool" for some, but what they've done to the Realms is to utterly diminish it such that it is barely recognizable. It's a damn shame, really. Floating earth motes, scores of dead gods, massive NPC death, WoW-ish landscapes, replacing continents and nations with a wave of a hand - all of these things greatly diminish the Realms.
The might just as well rename it Forgotten RSEs, because while this new setting might be "cool" in the eyes of some, it's a tragic abomination for most long-timers who have supported the setting through the years.
Bruce is a solid writer. I think his involvement in the project bodes well for it being a cool campaign setting when all is said and done.It may be "cool" for some, but what they've done to the Realms is to utterly diminish it such that it is barely recognizable. It's a damn shame, really. Floating earth motes, scores of dead gods, massive NPC death, WoW-ish landscapes, replacing continents and nations with a wave of a hand - all of these things greatly diminish the Realms.
The might just as well rename it Forgotten RSEs, because while this new setting might be "cool" in the eyes of some, it's a tragic abomination for most long-timers who have supported the setting through the years.
I'm not the biggest Realms fan in the world, but the changes in 4E Realms sounds pretty interesting to me. I kind of take for granted that the Realms will be brought, kicking and screaming, through a RSE every edition change. It's their thing.
Cheers! :)
I'm not the biggest Realms fan in the world, but the changes in 4E Realms sounds pretty interesting to me. I kind of take for granted that the Realms will be brought, kicking and screaming, through a RSE every edition change. It's their thing.
Cheers! :)
Unfortunately, these huge changes may kill the setting for old-timers. And there may not be enough people that are new to the setting that support it.
Unfortunately, these huge changes may kill the setting for old-timers. And there may not be enough people that are new to the setting that support it.
As the 'official Living campaign' and one and only campaign setting released in 2008, I rather imagine it'll be just as popular and quite possibly even more.
What is it folks are complaining about in the image? Isn't that some netherese shadow knight on a dragon over a flying city? That sounds pretty FR to me.
Or is it just a lot of 'Change scary'? Unless I was _deeply_ rooted in one of the four or so nations that, well, expired in this particular RSE... it still looks like Realms to me.
I got into Forgotten Realms early on in 3rd Edition, but the settings...completeness (?) made it difficult to plan/run adventures. Everything seemed mapped out, and too many NPCs were epic level.
The way the realms is "shaping" up, as it were, appeals to me as it sounds more open now.
I got into Forgotten Realms early on in 3rd Edition, but the settings...completeness (?) made it difficult to plan/run adventures. Everything seemed mapped out, and too many NPCs were epic level.
The way the realms is "shaping" up, as it were, appeals to me as it sounds more open now.
The first published setting I played in was the Forgotten Realms. I felt the same way as you. Of course, I quickly jumped on board for Eberron when it released because it did leave a place for the players characters to adventure and be significant.
Since Eberron won't be out for a while, I may pick up this "new" FR setting. I'm glad they are shaking it up.
Bruce is a solid writer. I think his involvement in the project bodes well for it being a cool campaign setting when all is said and done.
Maybe if it wasn't FR. He's already off on the wrong foot with his rather... "sub-standard"... FR novels.
In any case, I'm glad some people like the FR shake-up. I personally despise it (and certainly won't be spending any more of my money on it).
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
|
Fair enough.
I completely understand why a Realms fan would be apprehensive about what's happening to the setting. I went through the Greyhawk Wars, which were pretty cataclysmic to what Greyhawk was as a setting.
All I am saying is that I trust Bruce Cordell to come up with some great ideas because he is the best writer working at Wizards of the Coast. Whether or not those ideas mesh well with the historical Realms we won't know until it comes out, but I have confidence that, as a stand-alone product, it will probably be pretty neat.
Being hugely in the minority here, still here's my take. I love the Forgotten Realms. It's what got me hooked on D&D in the first place, and was really the first D&D setting I ever got to explore. I love it deeply. That said, Forgotten Realms is defined by two things--continual, massive, setting sweeping changes and fans complaining about them. To love the Forgotten Realms is to love a world where the gods are periodically kicked out of heaven and forced to war on earth. It's to love a world where within a generation the largest magical kingdom ever known got turned into a desert, it's floating cities crashing into the sand, and the goddess of magic blowing herself up. It's that kind of setting. Always will be. I just take this as one more turn of the intricate history of the Realms. I don't plan to play just in the 4e era--any more than 3rd edition kept me from telling stories from back in the days of Imaskar or Netheril. It's all just one big setting for me, and the fact that they keep releasing new and unfolding changes to it is part of what keeps me interested.
I don't know this acronym. What is "RSE"?
I don't know this acronym. What is "RSE"?
A "Realm Shaking Event", or at least that is how I always read it.
Cheers! :)
Bruce is a solid writer. I think his involvement in the project bodes well for it being a cool campaign setting when all is said and done.
Personaly I've never been impressed by his writing. Dark Vision was the only book I've read by him that wasn't like pulling teeth. Lady of Poison read like a level on a really bad video game. To get through it was an act of will (and a lack of other reading material). Stardeep I got about 20 pages in before putting it down and reading Paul Kemp's bokk Shadowstorm in about three days. I still haven't gone back to Stardeep. I did enjoy the Return to the Tomb of Horrors, but he also had a great piece of work to start from in the original (Gygax). My problem with his writing is that it never really felt like the Realms. It was very generic and tended to be written like it was an adapted module and not a story. If they really wanted to do something great with the FR they should have gotten Greenwood, Cuningham, Kemp, Denning, Smedman, Baker, or any over the other proven writers who have shown a deeper understanding of FR.
All I am saying is that I trust Bruce Cordell to come up with some great ideas because he is the best writer working at Wizards of the Coast.
And here in lies our problem.
I got into Forgotten Realms early on in 3rd Edition, but the settings...completeness (?) made it difficult to plan/run adventures. Everything seemed mapped out, and too many NPCs were epic level.
The way the realms is "shaping" up, as it were, appeals to me as it sounds more open now.
This I never understood. Even the damned WotC staff said this.
What beholdens you people to HAVE to pour through all of that? What beholdens you to have to use those NPCs or to even say they exist in your game at all? It's your FR game, run it as you please.
But there are those of us that do enjoy that level of depth and detail, and it's not fair that just because some people don't like the depth and largeness of the Realms have to be catered to an ruining it for the rest of us.
Omit what you don't want or need. Simple. It's not so simple the other way around. For me, I spend too much time developing adventures and really hate to have to fill in a lot of blanks for a pre-published setting. The Realms (current Realms, anyway) has developed that world for me to great detail already, so I don't need to worry about that part. I can actually just worry about adventure-making rather than world-building.
This I never understood. Even the damned WotC staff said this.
What beholdens you people to HAVE to pour through all of that? What beholdens you to have to use those NPCs or to even say they exist in your game at all? It's your FR game, run it as you please.
But there are those of us that do enjoy that level of depth and detail, and it's not fair that just because some people don't like the depth and largeness of the Realms have to be catered to an ruining it for the rest of us.
Omit what you don't want or need. Simple. It's not so simple the other way around. For me, I spend too much time developing adventures and really hate to have to fill in a lot of blanks for a pre-published setting. The Realms (current Realms, anyway) has developed that world for me to great detail already, so I don't need to worry about that part. I can actually just worry about adventure-making rather than world-building.
If I ignore what's written, why am I even buying the FR books? But if the setting is so detailed that playing adventures in it feels forced, well, why am I even buying the FR books again?
I think the changes sound interesting too, enough so that I might try a game out there (although PoL fits how I generally run my games so ...)
Cheers! :)
I got into Forgotten Realms early on in 3rd Edition, but the settings...completeness (?) made it difficult to plan/run adventures. Everything seemed mapped out, and too many NPCs were epic level.
The way the realms is "shaping" up, as it were, appeals to me as it sounds more open now.This I never understood. Even the damned WotC staff said this.
What beholdens you people to HAVE to pour through all of that? What beholdens you to have to use those NPCs or to even say they exist in your game at all? It's your FR game, run it as you please.
But there are those of us that do enjoy that level of depth and detail, and it's not fair that just because some people don't like the depth and largeness of the Realms have to be catered to an ruining it for the rest of us.
Omit what you don't want or need. Simple. It's not so simple the other way around. For me, I spend too much time developing adventures and really hate to have to fill in a lot of blanks for a pre-published setting. The Realms (current Realms, anyway) has developed that world for me to great detail already, so I don't need to worry about that part. I can actually just worry about adventure-making rather than world-building.
I dont know, if a LOT of people are saying this, maybe there is a grain of truth?
Its easier to add things where nothing is officially mapped than it is to go around and erase towns and cities off the map, and then explain to your players that, "By the by, none of this stuff actually exists."If I wanna do a play-by-post, or introduce players to my FR campaigns, hopefully the character they bring to the table isnt from an area that I wiped off the map to make room for my campaign. That, and I also have to spend time telling the players what is and isnt accurate from the books.
Another big issue is the staggering amount of history and population.
This is why I like Eberron: its more of a sandbox setting. Some basic things are stated, but largely the game is really open ended. Even things like NPCs and events are up to the DM to define (which is why they dont explain what caused the Mournland).
....Its easier to add things where nothing is officially mapped than it is to go around and erase towns and cities off the map, and then explain to your players that, "By the by, none of this stuff actually exists."
If I wanna do a play-by-post, or introduce players to my FR campaigns, hopefully the character they bring to the table isnt from an area that I wiped off the map to make room for my campaign. That, and I also have to spend time telling the players what is and isnt accurate from the books.
Another big issue is the staggering amount of history and population.
This is why I like Eberron: its more of a sandbox setting. Some basic things are stated, but largely the game is really open...Antioch: (edited for tense)
Before I get drawn into a point by point debate, may I inquire have you ever actually run a Forgotten Realms game, and if so how long did it last before you abandoned it as being 'unusable'? I get the impression that many of those who are excited by Wizards of the Coasts 4E 'take' on the Forgotten Realms have never actually attempted to run a game there, precisely because it has not previously fit their style of game. I would be interested in discovering how far my impression is correct.
I used to run in, and play in, FR back when it was released. We had a really big FR buff in the group, the guy who reads all the novels and buys all the FR supplements (whether or not he will use them, of course).
I was able to run three short-lived campaigns, and attempted to plan more with a lot of difficulty due to overcrowding. I'm looking foward to it because it appears to address my own personal problem of too much baggage.So, I DID use it and AM looking forward to FR4E.
|
With Bruce Cordell at the helm, the new Forgotten Realms will essentially become the "Thundarr the Barbarian" world. Count on not only bizarre geography, but also aliens from Far Realm, psionic aboleth, scores of dead gods floating in the Astral plane, transplanted lands and dragonpeople from "Abeir" (which didn't exist until recently).
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Selune's moon and her tears eventually crashes into Toril too, and launches a new world of superscience and sorcery for 5th Edition. Bleah. Terrible. BOO!!!
Best left forgotten realms. Too cheesey for me, always has been. BRING BACK DRAGONLANCE AND GREYHAWK!
|
Bruce is a solid writer. I think his involvement in the project bodes well for it being a cool campaign setting when all is said and done.
It doesn't matter who writes for it. Once they decided to take the "Let's nuke it from orbit." approach to convert it to 4E, Forgotten Realms was history in everything but name. They only kept the name for brand recognition.
Best left forgotten realms. Too cheesey for me, always has been. BRING BACK DRAGONLANCE AND GREYHAWK!
What about Mystara ?
|
|
Being hugely in the minority here, still here's my take. I love the Forgotten Realms. It's what got me hooked on D&D in the first place, and was really the first D&D setting I ever got to explore. I love it deeply. That said, Forgotten Realms is defined by two things--continual, massive, setting sweeping changes and fans complaining about them. To love the Forgotten Realms is to love a world where the gods are periodically kicked out of heaven and forced to war on earth. It's to love a world where within a generation the largest magical kingdom ever known got turned into a desert, it's floating cities crashing into the sand, and the goddess of magic blowing herself up. It's that kind of setting. Always will be. I just take this as one more turn of the intricate history of the Realms. I don't plan to play just in the 4e era--any more than 3rd edition kept me from telling stories from back in the days of Imaskar or Netheril. It's all just one big setting for me, and the fact that they keep releasing new and unfolding changes to it is part of what keeps me interested.
If you take a look at the other RSE's that ushered in new editions, they really weren't that significant in the long run. A few dead gods, a few new gods, some wild magic areas were the result of the transition to 2E. These are minor things, especially compared to what they are doing to the Realms to usher in 4E. There wasn't even a major change to bring the Realms into 3rd edition. You had Shade return, and some plot lines were advanced, but that's it. You didn't have the death of scores of major gods and NPC's along with major landscape changes,a change to how magic works, and the merging of two worlds. One of these worlds was only brought into existance so it could be merged with the main world to explain some of the more radical changes. There is no valid comparison to what they are doing for 4E with all of the previous RSE's combined. They are killing the setting and replacing it with a mangled imposter. I hope it comes back to bite them in the butt.
I don't intend to defend WotC's team and what they are doing with what i like to call "Toril 4".
But despite a few previews, honestly we don't much yet what it's going to look like.
I mean, we know about the fallen gods, and some cosmetic changes to the magic weave and some regions, but not much more.
So i wait until i see the result.
My guess is that they try to make the world more exotic and more mundane at the same time, so it can attract more players.