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When they made the switch to 4E and nuked the Realms in a giant magical storm-apocalypse, and then fast forwarded the Realms one hundred year in the future, this is when I switched to Golarion/Paizo.
Now, out of curiosity, I followed one of our fellow Paizo board members' link to the dreaded WotC website, where things come and go daily, and saw this:
WANTED: Elminster Must DieWinner: Congrats to Robert Jazo, the winner of our Elminster Must Die contest! The winning tweet that earned he and a guest a trip to Gen Con Indy 2011:
@WotC_Novels #elminster must die! At 1267 winters old he is personally responsible for bankrupting Social Security in the Realms.
Way to go, Robert! And thanks to all who participated in the contest. The judges had a lot of fun poring through all the tweets that came in to make the case on whether Ed Greenwood's famed Elminster should live or die. If you missed them, search for #elminster.
Yes folks, they held an "Elminster must die" tweet contest. I don't know about Mr. Greenwood, but if this was me, I'd be royally pissed and flip that company the bird whenever I could. What an utter lack of respect for an iconic character that has sustained TSR, WotC, Hasbro, etc. in a number of ways over the last 20 years.
I know some of you don't share my previous love for the Realms so I'll leave it at that... but regardless of the character itself and what happens to it in canon, I find WotC's attitude, promotions and general attitude towards this long-standing hobby AND towards one of their long-standing author a bit appalling, as everyone knows that Ed had a lot of fun with El over the years. Shame on them.
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PDK, as a lover of the Realms I simply refuse to acknowledge what WoTC did to them. They have this desire to destroy other peoples work for some reason, did the same thing to Krynn. >:/
Although I detest Elminster, this is just stupid. But I expect their handling of FR to be nothing but. Besides I have enough Realms material going all the way back to box set to keep me and MY Realms going for a loooooooooong time. :D
I´ve played in the realms since 2nd edition, yet, when 4th came, it was just a shadow (No pun intended) of what it was...
A lot of good memories, but current administration turned a really good setting into crap XD
I agree! I am a long time, hard core Realms Fan. And I just recently read a novel, "The God Catcher" and wanted to cry... :(
I am not sure if it was the fact that I could hear the dice rolling, or if it was the "Plague Storm" or whatever they call it.
I chalk it up as one more reason to *not* dip into 4th ed.
(btw, the thing I liked *most* about the realms was the deities; varied enough to be able to fit any character of faith you wanted. Strict enough that your choice mattered.)
GNOME
FYI, this is a contest referencing the title of this book:
Elminster Must Die: The Sage of Shadowdale (The Elminster Series) by Ed Greenwood (Hardcover - Aug 3, 2010)
It's not a "tweet us why we need to off Elminster". It also looks like it was supposed to be humorous. Although honestly, I am very much not a fan of 4E and think that what was done to the Realms is crap.
Randy
Growing Up Gamers
I remember reading once in an interview with mr Greenwood that there are some (secret and never actually described in public) condition that would return ownership of Forgotten Realms setting to their creator. One can only dream that they occur, Ed Greenwod regains command and brings Forgotten Realms to Pathfinder...
EDIT: when it comes to 4th edition FR I am of mixed feelings - I have no problem with Spell Plague and 100 years jump but I can't stand mass deicide that occured and not because I am against deicide, quite contrary, I am quite in favor of it, but because they killed lots of gods I like for reason no other than "you/we are too stupid to handle more than 20 deities". And the setting description became much more bland and vague than it was in previous iterrations.
This contest aside, for classic FR fans, the setting was killed off by WoTC a long time ago. I never had much use for Elminster (he was never relevant in any of the realms games I've run) but I certainly wouldn't disrespect the setting in the way WoTC has. They've contrived and twisted the setting into an unrecognizable mess.
I'm hoping to get a classic FR PbP game up and running soon; I can assure you, it won't ever recognize the events of the spellplague, and we may never even have the time of troubles.
itits not like its hard now. Elminster was like 1 rogue/2 fighter/ and like 36 mage/archmage. But with them nuking the realms and mystra dying, he lost all of his power and just pouted in his house. So he's like a 3 lvl character. Congrats, he can die to a rust monster.
I used to love WOTC but after seeing what they've done to dnd and to magic (I played back when it first came out, its no longer the same game) I give up. Ill just stick to Paizo and see what miracles they continue to crap out.
My hatred for Elminster and the Realms knows few bounds. However, this contest seems to be in poor taste, considering what else was done to the world(although it lead to some interesting fiction- I love Richard Lee Beyer's work as well as Paul S. Kemp, I'll read their forays into what's left of FR anytime).
It's all fine and well, but why are we having this in Pathfinder RPG General Discussion? :)
Shut up and pick up a weapon!
Well, on the bright side..
They can ruin the new stuff, but they can't make you buy it.. and most importantly: the 4E gestapo won't come to your house and steal your good ole stuff :)
-S
Well, on the bright side..
They can ruin the new stuff, but they can't make you buy it.. and most importantly: the 4E gestapo won't come to your house and steal your good ole stuff :)
-S
wotc came in my house with a g*****mn succubi and stole my baby!
Well, on the bright side..
They can ruin the new stuff, but they can't make you buy it.. and most importantly: the 4E gestapo won't come to your house and steal your good ole stuff :)
-S
you're right, but my personal disgust for Wotc, is that they come across like they would do exactly that, if they could legally get away with it.
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Never really got into the Realms - the only published campaign world I ever bought into was Greyhawk - but there were some cool elements to the setting which I liked.
However, when I was handed a copy of the "Elminster Must Die" book last Gen Con, my first thought was "Truer words were never spoken."
It's made worse by them putting everything out as a badly overpriced hardcover.
Though even as a softcover I'd likely find most things WotC has released in the last few years overpriced,
wotc came in my house with a g*****mn succubi and stole my baby!Well, on the bright side..
They can ruin the new stuff, but they can't make you buy it.. and most importantly: the 4E gestapo won't come to your house and steal your good ole stuff :)
-S
Dammit, woman! That ain't no succubus! That's the got-damn Loch Ness monster! You keep givin' him $3.50 and he'll keep comin' back!
after how my past DM once played Elminster, I'm happy he's dead.
However such a Twitter is grotesque. 4E seems to be more kidfriendly, and this has the feeling of a lynchmob...
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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This thread is (now?) in the 4th Edition forum, and we've promised Lisa and Vic that we would play nice with the Wizards folks in here.
There have been publicity campaigns for "Character X must die!" for decades now. It's a marketing tactic, and we buy the product to find out who thinks our beloved Character X must die and what will eventually save him / her.
A fun contest to invite people to submit humorous reasons that Character X should die is part of that, and gathers attention and interest. Making the entries tweets is trendy, and probably helps them build a database of fans.
Having said all that, is "he's old and the Dales have Social Security" really the best, funniest reason that people could come up with? Really?
Dammit, woman! That ain't no succubus! That's the got-damn Loch Ness monster! You keep givin' him $3.50 and he'll keep comin' back!wotc came in my house with a g*****mn succubi and stole my baby!Well, on the bright side..
They can ruin the new stuff, but they can't make you buy it.. and most importantly: the 4E gestapo won't come to your house and steal your good ole stuff :)
-S
She gave him three-fiddy!
I don't even know what the spellvirus is, I just had to throw in with Chef's dad. :)
I remember when Ed was first working on FR. I was not impressed with the world, though I have grown to enjoy his locales and interplays between characters and 'monsters'. I have always admired the immense ammount of material that has been produced...for roleplay. But finding a FR book by Greenwood in the Dollartree struck me as fitting.
Could you please take your Edition Warring elsewhere? This has nothing to do with the Pathfinder RPG.
It has even less to do with 4th edition.
Don't care much for the new edition but this sounds just like what comics companies did with Superman, Robin, Captain America, etc, etc. If Ed wants to do something with Elminster that's his call. Just to say that I loved the 3rd Ed Forgotten Realms book just for the shear mass of ideas. Even if I never used the setting itself I've used plenty of the material and modified it for my home-brew campaign world. Will be doing the same with the Inner Sea Guide when it comes out too!
I really think people may be overreacting just a tad, perhaps to further justify any hatred of WotC and painting them as big bad villains.
Agreed.
Don't care much for the new edition but this sounds just like what comics companies did with Superman, Robin, Captain America, etc, etc......!
*sudden horrific mental image of Black Lantern Elminster rising up to smite the Realms as a Rogue 1/Fighter 2/Necromancer 36*
With all those social security payments, on top of all that loot he's gotten, plus whatever he could have pinched from his 'boss' .... Holy Hells, can you imagine the Epic items he's been crafting to take revenge on the people who killed him off?
Don't care much for the new edition but this sounds just like what comics companies did with Superman, Robin, Captain America, etc, etc......!*sudden horrific mental image of Black Lantern Elminster rising up to smite the Realms as a Rogue 1/Fighter 2/Necromancer 36*
With all those social security payments, on top of all that loot he's gotten, plus whatever he could have pinched from his 'boss' .... Holy Hells, can you imagine the Epic items he's been crafting to take revenge on the people who killed him off?
In a way you don't have to imagine. In Greenwood's book, Shadows of Doom, Elminster loses his magic and wanders around going all Doctor Who on the bad guys with his brain and array of magic items.
IMHO it and it's two sequels are the best Forgotten Realms books Greenwood has written.
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This is just what Mystara went through 15 years ago. The Setting ended with the Night Dragon Syn taking up residence in Glantri - you know she will eventually discover the Radiance, and will suck the Nucleus of the Spheres Dry (Draw off 5000 RAD) resulting in an explosion that will take out the City of Glantri and cause the collapse of the Gravity resisting Caverns of the Shadow Elves effectivly dropping the Broken Lands, Republic of Darokin, Western Alfhiem, and Southern Glantri into a selection of thousand feet deep craters seperated by a maze of narrow land bridges; and Magic will cease to function as a consequence.
Ironicly ideal for a 4E Setting. Then it was abandoned to the fans.
When they made the switch to 4E and nuked the Realms in a giant magical storm-apocalypse, and then fast forwarded the Realms one hundred year in the future, this is when I switched to Golarion/Paizo.
Now, out of curiosity, I followed one of our fellow Paizo board members' link to the dreaded WotC website, where things come and go daily, and saw this:
WANTED: Elminster Must DieWinner: Congrats to Robert Jazo, the winner of our Elminster Must Die contest! The winning tweet that earned he and a guest a trip to Gen Con Indy 2011:
@WotC_Novels #elminster must die! At 1267 winters old he is personally responsible for bankrupting Social Security in the Realms.
Way to go, Robert! And thanks to all who participated in the contest. The judges had a lot of fun poring through all the tweets that came in to make the case on whether Ed Greenwood's famed Elminster should live or die. If you missed them, search for #elminster.
Yes folks, they held an "Elminster must die" tweet contest. I don't know about Mr. Greenwood, but if this was me, I'd be royally pissed and flip that company the bird whenever I could. What an utter lack of respect for an iconic character that has sustained TSR, WotC, Hasbro, etc. in a number of ways over the last 20 years.
I know some of you don't share my previous love for the Realms so I'll leave it at that... but regardless of the character itself and what happens to it in canon, I find WotC's attitude, promotions and general attitude towards this long-standing hobby AND towards one of their long-standing author a bit appalling, as everyone knows that Ed had a lot of fun with El over the years. Shame on them.
Overreacting much? Firstly, it's the title of the newest Ed Greenwood novel Elminster Must Die (like those have posted) and guess what....he doesn't die in the end, at least his conscious doesn't. The best part about this is your no longer a WotC customer so you've really nothing invested in the Realm's current state so why all the hoop-la?
And FWIW, I'm a big Realms fan of both pre- and post-spellplague Faerûn. The whole constest idea was a marketing ploy to get people interested in what's going on with the novel, character, setting, etc...
Deep breaths buddy, everything's gonna be ok.
Interesting discussion as always. I personally lost interest in FR when novels by hack writers I had never heard of became canon and overwrote/massively changed the setting I had enjoyed from the original sourcebooks.
Seriously, even the worst Star Wars expanded universe novel is probibly better than some of the realms fiction that went out. I am still irate about the whole Cyric destroys Zhentil keep crap.
Anyway, I did buy the 4e FR hearcover but found what they done mostly incomprehensible. In my opinion, from a sheer design perspetive, I would have designed a new world. But that can be expensive and time consuming, so they just sacrificed FR instead and changed it to suit.
Interesting discussion as always. I personally lost interest in FR when novels by hack writers I had never heard of became canon and overwrote/massively changed the setting I had enjoyed from the original sourcebooks.
Seriously, even the worst Star Wars expanded universe novel is probibly better than some of the realms fiction that went out. I am still irate about the whole Cyric destroys Zhentil keep crap.
Anyway, I did buy the 4e FR hearcover but found what they done mostly incomprehensible. In my opinion, from a sheer design perspetive, I would have designed a new world. But that can be expensive and time consuming, so they just sacrificed FR instead and changed it to suit.
The "make-over" was done to make areas of Faerûn that were sorely lacking in lore and creativity more interesting. Hence why Mulhorand, Unther, Maztica bit the bullet. Personally, I'm all for this as I've found these areas of Faerûn the worst parallells to our own world which makes them quite borning and un-original IMO.
And last time I checked, Waterdeep, The North, Candlekeep, the Moonsea, Myth Drannor, Calimshan, Sembia, Cormyr, Aglarond, Thay, The Demon Lands, The Eastern Regions, etc.. are all doing well, if with a tad-bit up heval. So little has changed in that regard. As for it looking like another setting (something many FR4E haters now spew), that's just hate speaking as much of what makes the Forgotten Realms unique are still there. And just because they consolidated the Pantheon from 60+ Gods to about 30+ still makes it the most diverse Cosmos of any other setting in 4E to date.
What it comes down to his mechanics and the edition change. I've found that most people who now hate the Forgotten Realms (as opposed to pre-spellplague) also hate 4E. Even if the Forgotten Realms sufferd little changes to 4E, these people would still hate 4E. So why not change the whole setting over? Do you honestly think those who are proponents of FR would buy anything FR if there were huge ties to the mechanics of 4E? Probably not or very little, espically how much the mechanics tie into the setting. Best to start fresh and carry over as many Realms fans as possible with the sweeping changes and make up the difference in new players from LFR.
Heh, I don't like the changes at all. What was wrong with Thay for example? Did they really have to bring all those dead empires back from the dead? Was Haluraa way too wondrous? Did we really need... ah, who cares now? All the changes I see was to increase contrast on good/evil border and make majority of the places eeeevil with some goodygoody enclaves. The old realms were about something else. New ones removed too much the patina and shades of gray that really added a great part of the flavour the Realms had and returned the setting to generic setting, which I'm not sure it was for the best. They could have made any OTHER generic setting. Nenthir Vale, whatever. I'd like it more readily than the old Realms moulded to this.
Could you please take your Edition Warring elsewhere? This has nothing to do with the Pathfinder RPG.
Actually the world in which pathfinder is played very much has to to do with pathfinder
Edit: The changes to FR are teh suck
Insightful and erudite.
Well, I can see the realms splitting to different eras. Having the ancient realms (Netheril, Crown Wars, perhaps these two and a few others could be separate as well), then the realms before the Spellplague (agai possible sub-eras), The apocalyptic Spellplague itself (and the plot line with returning Shade, war with Phaerimm) and the "New Realms". The timeline is there, but wholly different feel from each. There is really a lot of precedent to this. Most obvious being our own history (Stone Age, Middleages, Renaissance, etc.), but also the Star Wars Universe for example. And as the Battletech universe prooved, the sundering can happen again when applied changes are too large and split the fan base (timeline after Clan invasion was quite consistent (not saying that all great) till the Jihad but just see some debate about the Dark Age and you'll see what I mean).
EDIT: Well, I don't really think that it was the lack of lore, but the problems looking too local. 4E is a lot about being HEROIC (nope, merely heroic is not big enough). The PCs hve to stick above the crowd unless they are trying hard not to and have to solve equally magnificent problems. Who cares about goblins stealing turnips, let them plot to summon a lesser demon to eat the villagers (and you guess this wasn't their idea, but someone from the church of Talos has his hands in this). The old Realms IMHO had a lot of relatively mundane problems running about without being overly connected (you know, side quests), but I feel this aspect being somewhat supressed. I can't say how much of this can be atributed to the overal 4E philosophy and how much to greatly reduced page count (if the original plan was to publish only two books and some minimal amount of adventures). Perhaps these were meant to be supplemented later via insider (I'm not touching that thing, so I can't really say).
What it comes down to his mechanics and the edition change. I've found that most people who now hate the Forgotten Realms (as opposed to pre-spellplague) also hate 4E. Even if the Forgotten Realms sufferd little changes to 4E, these people would still hate 4E. So why not change the whole setting over? Do you honestly think those who are proponents of FR would buy anything FR if there were huge ties to the mechanics of 4E? Probably not or very little, espically how much the mechanics tie into the setting. Best to start fresh and carry over as many Realms fans as possible with the sweeping changes and make up the difference in new players from LFR.
I think they screwed up and believe that they figured that our, after the fact of course. None of this is to say that they did it intentionally - probably sounded like a great idea at the time but in the end not their most inspired move.
You mention that most FR haters are also 4E haters and that they would therefore not buy the books. Not so sure about that at all - if they continued to develop FR fluff in ways that the hard core enjoyed I suspect that a lot of them would buy the material and just convert it to their favorite game system.
Furthermore there is a branch of 4E detractors that, while arguing that 4E 'is not D&D' don't necessarily consider it a bad game. Some of them might choose to try it 'as a not-D&D-but-still-possibly-fun-fantasy-RPG' and find that they like it.
Note that WotC redid Darksun to be very true to the original, while still updating the elements that had to be updated to bring it in line with 4E and that became, for a few days, a best seller on Paizo - indicating that a fair number of non 4E players picked it up, quite possibly in part because everyone was saying that it was a great fluff book - which it really is - no matter what edition or even any fantasy RPG you happen to play.
Heh, I don't like the changes at all. What was wrong with Thay for example? Did they really have to bring all those dead empires back from the dead? Was Haluraa way too wondrous? Did we really need... ah, who cares now? All the changes I see was to increase contrast on good/evil border and make majority of the places eeeevil with some goodygoody enclaves. The old realms were about something else. New ones removed too much the patina and shades of gray that really added a great part of the flavour the Realms had and returned the setting to generic setting, which I'm not sure it was for the best. They could have made any OTHER generic setting. Nenthir Vale, whatever. I'd like it more readily than the old Realms moulded to this.
Ironic how WotC made FR more black-and-white with the same edition in which they effectively neutered alignment. I feel like that says something about the game and its players...
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Heh, I don't like the changes at all. What was wrong with Thay for example? Did they really have to bring all those dead empires back from the dead? Was Haluraa way too wondrous? Did we really need... ah, who cares now? All the changes I see was to increase contrast on good/evil border and make majority of the places eeeevil with some goodygoody enclaves. The old realms were about something else. New ones removed too much the patina and shades of gray that really added a great part of the flavour the Realms had and returned the setting to generic setting, which I'm not sure it was for the best. They could have made any OTHER generic setting. Nenthir Vale, whatever. I'd like it more readily than the old Realms moulded to this.Ironic how WotC made FR more black-and-white with the same edition in which they effectively neutered alignment. I feel like that says something about the game and its players...
So what is the new Alignment System?
Approachable.....Caustic.....Murderous
Do you honestly think those who are proponents of FR would buy anything FR if there were huge ties to the mechanics of 4E?
That's quite the "if". Of course they would buy FR stuff, 4e or otherwise, if it kept up the great focus on flavor it did for years.
espically how much the mechanics tie into the setting.
WTF? If that's the case, that's a 4e change (though some 3e had this problem as well, rectified in later books like Shining South, Waterdeep, etc).
Personally, I'm all for this
Oh. That explains your post.
Back to original topic: Original poster grossly overreacted.
New FR still 'teh suck'.
...Ironic how WotC made FR more black-and-white with the same edition in which they effectively neutered alignment. I feel like that says something about the game and its players...
I wouldn't say neutered. They removed law/chaos axis.
Now you have paladin/good/neutral/evil/munchkin ;)
...Ironic how WotC made FR more black-and-white with the same edition in which they effectively neutered alignment. I feel like that says something about the game and its players...I wouldn't say neutered. They removed law/chaos axis.
Now you have paladin/good/neutral/evil/munchkin ;)
Ha, yeah, but alignment doesn't matter anymore. No [enforced] restrictions, no alignment spells, nothing about alignment actually affects anyone. Alignment has become simply a "how I intend to generally role play my character" label. It's got no teeth; in other words, neutered. :)
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I really think people may be overreacting just a tad, perhaps to further justify any hatred of WotC and painting them as big bad villains.Agreed.
Agreed a second time.
And to go a bit further on the matter
When FR first hit 4th edition, I had my own knee jerk reactions. I wasn't a fan of everything that had been done and I felt like my favorite world had basically been taken away.
It really hasn't though.
There are really only 2 avenues these changes affect people not wanting to go along with them, and that seems to be the novel line (which can be a big one) and other media (video games, etc).
There is already so much old FR stuff published and out there pre 4th edition ... honestly in order to keep making decent money they likely had to do something. There may have been a lot of realms left unexplored but are any of those locales popular enough to sell?
Unless people play in the RPGA stuff (and I'd wager more people don't than do) than I don't think it matters much. There are so many different Realms these days, people can pick what they like. Pre time of trouble, post, post spell plague ... etc etc.
And I'm the first to admit it's hard to disconnect from the feeling of "I want what's RAW as of now, not before. Other wise some how it doesn't count." This really isn't true.
I've even come back to FR because I missed it. Setting up my campaign now and I've yet to decide if I'm going to count the spellplague and 4th edition lore or not. I probably will or a version of it just because ... after I took a step back and chilled out for awhile I guess I just didn't care as much as I used to. It's a game thats supposed to be fun so that's what I'll have with it.