It's been a while since I posted here, about three and a half years I think. But now that 4E is dead, has anyone heard what's going to happen to Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance or any of the other settings? Up until the Spell Plague and the Destruction of Forgotten Realms, I read every FR novel that came out, but the changes made to the setting and the mass kill off of so many established characters made me walk away from the book series (For which I was thankful for the Pathfinder fiction line). I have noticed that since the 4E roll out, the number of novels being put out has declined, and i'm not seeing alot of stuff from established D&D authors (Except Salvator, but I'm not even going to touch the whole good Drow/evil Drow catastrophy that played out during the crossover to 4E).
So I guess what I'm asking is if anyone's heard anything?
You honestly think that WotC is going to admit that they screwed up the setting? Corporations never admit mistakes, unless under litigation.
The old setting is dead and will never return. Sorry. :( I loved it, too.
You honestly think that WotC is going to admit that they screwed up the setting? Corporations never admit mistakes, unless under litigation.
The old setting is dead and will never return. Sorry. :( I loved it, too.
Forgotten Realms is going to be supported from the start of the new "iteration/edition."
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You honestly think that WotC is going to admit that they screwed up the setting? Corporations never admit mistakes, unless under litigation.
The old setting is dead and will never return. Sorry. :( I loved it, too.
Forgotten Realms is going to be supported from the start of the new "iteration/edition."
Not just that, they've also made it clear that their Forgotten Realms setting support will cover the entire history of the Realms so that DMs can choose to set their game in whatever time period they prefer.
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(I know I posted it elsewhere)
Drizzt is going to drink several potions of haste and run so fast that he goes back in time and fixes the Spellplauge.
Mostly**
Scott, I think what the OP is talking about is retconning or removing the Spellplauge. "Covering the entire history"* doesn't change the tac nuking of the Realms that coincided with the 3.x/4.x timeline. I've been told it was an attempt to make the setting fit the new rules, rather than the other way 'round. (yes, hearsay since I don't remember where).
*
Edit:
**
As an avid scribe over at Candlekeep, the consensus has been pretty heated. One group wishes to remove the Spellplague by Reset to earlier timelines and everything afterwards is up in the air. Another want to reboot, meaning a better explination of the changes while supporting all the eras of play. And a 3rd want an alternative timeline that supports both pre- and post-spellplague but not One of them being Canon (guess which one, hm?)
For myself, I hope they continue to support the Spellplague but take time and delve deeper into different eras of play. Make me want to adventure in a pre- Time of Troubles Realms. Make me want to play in a Age of Magic/High Netheral campaign. Yet understand that there are some that actually do like a lot of the changes and support those that like 1479 DR Realms too. But I don't believe an "alternate timeline" is the answer or commonly called a "Star Trek" reboot where at X time, two paths emerge.
I guess my stipulation is for them to keep supporting the decisions they made, even if they smooth out those decisions in a future event. So, tone down the Spellplague, but don't wipe away it's existance either.
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Scott, I think what the OP is talking about is retconning or removing the Spellplauge. "Covering the entire history"* doesn't change the tac nuking of the Realms that coincided with the 3.x/4.x timeline.
This.
I am not a person who keeps grudges too long, but in this case, years after the fact I still got a seething burning hatred for WotC over doing this, after people on their own messageboards were yelling for months on end "What the hell are you guys doing?!?". They don't have the excuse that nobody told them that what they were doing would upset fans.
The old Realms are dead. They won't be supported by novels anymore and knowing that the Stupidpocalypse is coming shortly down the line would make any such novels shallow, anyway.
****, I hate WotC for killing the Realms.
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Scott, I think what the OP is talking about is retconning or removing the Spellplauge. "Covering the entire history"* doesn't change the tac nuking of the Realms that coincided with the 3.x/4.x timeline.This.
I am not a person who keeps grudges too long, but in this case, years after the fact I still got a seething burning hatred for WotC over doing this, after people on their own messageboards were yelling for months on end "What the hell are you guys doing?!?". They don't have the excuse that nobody told them that what they were doing would upset fans.
The old Realms are dead. They won't be supported by novels anymore and knowing that the Stupidpocalypse is coming shortly down the line would make any such novels shallow, anyway.
****, I hate WotC for killing the Realms.
This link is required reading for anyone who uses terms like "seething burning hatred" when referring to changes to a make-believe game world.
As for grudges, if you possess a "seething burning hatred" over something like a change to a make-believe world years after the fact, then yes, you keep grudges too long.
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This link is required reading for anyone who uses terms like "seething burning hatred" when referring to changes to a make-believe game world.Scott, I think what the OP is talking about is retconning or removing the Spellplauge. "Covering the entire history"* doesn't change the tac nuking of the Realms that coincided with the 3.x/4.x timeline.This.
I am not a person who keeps grudges too long, but in this case, years after the fact I still got a seething burning hatred for WotC over doing this, after people on their own messageboards were yelling for months on end "What the hell are you guys doing?!?". They don't have the excuse that nobody told them that what they were doing would upset fans.
The old Realms are dead. They won't be supported by novels anymore and knowing that the Stupidpocalypse is coming shortly down the line would make any such novels shallow, anyway.
****, I hate WotC for killing the Realms.
Yeah, yeah, we all know that you'd defend WotC even if they'd take a dump on your doorstep. I'm not that majorly upset about 4E, after all it made Pathfinder become the number one RPG.
But if you think being passionate about the utter annihilation of a fictional setting by incredibly poor decisions of the publisher, despite a pretty damn large public outcry well in advance of said changes, makes people dumb, then whatever. You are not someone I want to talk to.
****, I hate WotC for killing the Realms.
+1
Like Blackdragon I haven't posted here for quite a while :) I hope D&D Next truly supports all eras of play in the FR. I believe however that even if this is the case, the old setting is dead (and it still hurts btw). New FR supplements should logically take place after the spellplague. That said, I would appreciate if WOTC created a new and original setting to support the next edition, something rich and involved, similar to what Paizo has done with Golarion.
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I honestly think my biggest problem with 4E was what they did with Forgotten Realms. There were just so many bad decisions in the last half dozen books attached to the change over. Killing Mystra, Mask and Eilistraee for starters. Here's a simple guideline any time you are in the middle of a story and you say Cut! Now lets jump X numebers of years into the future (This includes Battlestar Galactica) it's a bad idea. But to jump a full hundred years into the future? Awful!
What truely confused me about 4E was the whole 'Points of Light' we're not going to have a setting for the core, and then they put out a general world set of novels. What? Are the books now cannon or aren't they?
Personally I'm amazed that Ed Greenwood hasn't shown up at WoTC with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a flamethrower. IF I had built the world I'd be rabid over what they did to it.
I'm amazed as well, but the good thing is that the FR player community is so large, and there is so much material available, that even if WOTC changed mind and definitely pulled the plug from the FR, the setting would still be supported online by the community. The Forgotten Realms will never be forgotten, that's just impossible :)
Well, there is the viable option that they could shoehorn everything of a Realmslore point of view into the timeline before the spellplague. After all, they did advance the timeline of things almost 100 years in the process of 3.5e to 4e, and if I recall correctly (being an avid Realms fan and owning every Realms item in print, although I'm going off memory here), I believe the main Realms timeline for 1e, 2e, 3.0e, and 3.5e only goes forward more or less about 80 or so 'in-game' timeline years. Thirty-ish actual years of product releases (excluding specialized things like Netheril that operate outside the normal timeline) means they have enough 'gap' time to fulfill any future 5e product releases for the Realms for the foreseeable future if they chose to do it that way.
Of course, that would be less than satisfying, but it wouldn't surprise me if that was how they did it as far as Realmslore goes. While I am not adverse to the idea of the spellplague (it is an interesting plot device from a storyline point-of-view - not a game mechanical one), the mass changes to the landscape with Abeir-Toril merging, the change of continents and nations, and mass deicide were the things I hated most.
I'm amazed as well, but the good thing is that the FR player community is so large, and there is so much material available, that even if WOTC changed mind and definitely pulled the plug from the FR, the setting would still be supported online by the community. The Forgotten Realms will never be forgotten, that's just impossible :)
It put a major, major dent into my desire to play in the Realms. Well, and I began buying AP's, which are put in Golarion.
I'd love to see the whole timeline with the Spellplague reversed, but I am realistic enough to know that it'll never happen. Besides being difficult from the mechanical standpoint, WotC would have to admit to having been wrong. And as I said, corporations never do that of their free will, even if they well know that they screwed up.
It put a major, major dent into my desire to play in the Realms. Well, and I began buying AP's, which are put in Golarion.
I completely understand, but it is not the end either. It is not that difficult to adapt a module or even a whole campaign to the FR given the richness of the setting. Also don't forget that there are still people playing Mystara out there !
The next time I run a homebrewn game, I wouldn't find it impossible to do it in the Realms. But for bought AP's, reworking them to be outside Golarion is a bit too much work at this time in my life.
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Yeah, yeah, we all know that you'd defend WotC even if they'd take a dump on your doorstep.
Cute. You'll note, of course, that I didn't actually defend WotC at all in that post. I just took exception to your attitude. I wonder why you conflate the two.
I'm not that majorly upset about 4E, after all it made Pathfinder become the number one RPG.
Rah rah.
But if you think being passionate about the utter annihilation of a fictional setting by incredibly poor decisions of the publisher, despite a pretty damn large public outcry well in advance of said changes, makes people dumb, then whatever. You are not someone I want to talk to.
I didn't say anyone was dumb. The page I linked to uses the word, though I think it's more for the sake of the catchiness of the play-on-words than anything else.
I do think that your reaction speaks to the overly-entitled, overly-invested position that the page I linked to warns of. You aren't just passionate about this. You are hyper-passionate. Tone the radicalized language back, and your position will appear much more reasonable.
By the way, I bolded the portions of the above post that involve subjective assumptions on your part, most of which I don't agree with.
You honestly think that WotC is going to admit that they screwed up the setting? Corporations never admit mistakes, unless under litigation.
The old setting is dead and will never return. Sorry. :( I loved it, too.
You're right. There is no precedence for WotC to produce materials for a campaign setting that are set in a time frame that fans love more than materials covering later years. A return to the parts of the setting that fans truly loved would be impossible.
Oh, wait...
Well, the Rebellion Era is still the standard era for Star Wars even though I think at least three new eras have been introduced since.
There's a thirteen year timeframe after the City of Shade stuff to use in which the Spellplague does not exist. Which is about as long as the time between the City of Shade appearing and the Time of Troubles. You can advance the timeline by about a year ten times and still no spellplague in sight.
I found this strange piece on the enworld home page today:
Amazon.com now lists Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms: A Dungeons & Dragons Supplement. I will see what I can find out about this hardcover due October 16, 2012 in the next few weeks.
Probably that will be one of those no-edition books like Grand History of the Realms last time.
Isn't Elminster pretty much done in the P-SP-continuity? The world of Elminster would be the 1350s to 1370s in my book.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
<snip>
Still not wanting to talk to you. Because you are insufferable and have been so for years.
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You honestly think that WotC is going to admit that they screwed up the setting? Corporations never admit mistakes, unless under litigation.
The old setting is dead and will never return. Sorry. :( I loved it, too.
You're right. There is no precedence for WotC to produce materials for a campaign setting that are set in a time frame that fans love more than materials covering later years. A return to the parts of the setting that fans truly loved would be impossible.
Oh, wait...
What I want is a complete rollback of the Spellplague and the whole 100 year time-jump. I won't get that. I know that, I am not delusional.
Playing in the old timeline doesn't really cut it, because you know that just a few years down the line everything your characters strived for will be destroyed and meaningless.
And it was an incredibly dumb mistake... wait, no it wasn't. It was an incredibly dumb premeditated disaster, of which they were warned about for months in advance by their existing fan-base. They wanted to create a new fan-base and they were willing to sacrifice their old one, which they mostly did. With the absolutely offensive and mostly illogical way in which they deliberately destroyed the old setting.
Argh. Getting angry again. I'll better stop for now. -.-
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Still not wanting to talk to you. Because you are insufferable and have been so for years.
Well!
At the very least I have consistency going for me!
****, I hate WotC for killing the Realms.+1For a contrast, I hate the Realms for killing D&D.
That probably requires a little elaboration. The Realms are the setting where the love-in with magic, magic-users, and "magic can do anything! Anything!" really started to gain traction. Every Realms supplement put in more magic stuff, spells or items, to make it plain that the best way to do something was through magic, that mundane skill was less important. This isn't something that is justified by AD&D or B/X-BECMI, magic was powerful but had real limits. FR started the process of taking those limits away, and I'm convinced this was what led to 3rd edition being explicitly designed not just to give more power to all types of spellcaster and to increase the emphasis on magic items, but to reduce the abilities of everyone who wasn't explicitly magical. And that's not D&D in the original sense of the game.
I fear I do not see the correlation between the Realms being a setting which was explicitly designed as high-magic and the shift from second edition "Your magic items are what you find, if your DM is nice enough to let you find it" philosophy ( which I partially like, partially not, given that it is very dependent on the capriciousness of DM's ) and the "You need to have to be this tall to pass" third edition philosophy of absolutely needing the big six items to progress after a certain level.
Let's not forget, the "official setting" of third edition was Greyhawk. Most "named magic spells" were still from Greyhawk Wizards.
As for spellcasters being made more powerful than melee, uh, pardon me? How was that different in second edition? Yeah, low-level spellcasters were made more durable over time in third edition, but as soon as a second edition Wizard reached fifth level, he still was able to cast Fireball and Fly and Haste and so completely outclass melee. There is not that big a change from old to new, from what I've seen.
Of course if you are going back even further in your comparison, I cannot really talk about that. I began playing with AD&D, back in 1998.
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Still not wanting to talk to you. Because you are insufferable and have been so for years.Well!
At the very least I have consistency going for me!
Some of us like that consistency in you. It also helps bring out the "Best" in certain people apparently.
As someone who was quite resistant to the changes WotC made to 4e, I've come around and kind of like them just fine. Of course Drizzt helps with that, as do the current books. Hell post spellplague, the Drizzt novels have become a lot of fun again if for no other reason he's no longer tied down to where he was.
After that, I started to enjoy the world for what it was now rather than what it used to be. I understand people being upset that their old place is no more but things change and the Realms haven't been an exception in a long time. Goddess of Magic dies? It's been done.
A great event that punches magic users in the throat? That too! Culling of deities?
... hell most of this looks done before. The really new thing is the time skip.
Disclaimer: I still think Helm died like a chump but after watching Revenge of the Sith and seeing so many SUPPOSED bad A Jedi getting shot in the back or gunned down, I've seen chump killings before.
So saying WotC made a huge mistake? That depends on who you ask I guess. There are a lot of people who disagree passionately (some over passionate) but just because the majority of an internet messageboard screams something, doesn't make it true over-all. (This is by no means stating that it ISN'T the majority. I don't know or claim to ... I'm just saying the internet is the internet)
Some of us like that consistency in you. It also helps bring out the "Best" in certain people apparently.Still not wanting to talk to you. Because you are insufferable and have been so for years.Well!
At the very least I have consistency going for me!
Well, I do know when a discussion will inevitably come down to an internet shouting match. Would you have preferred that?
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Well, I do know when a discussion will inevitably come down to an internet shouting match. Would you have preferred that?Some of us like that consistency in you. It also helps bring out the "Best" in certain people apparently.Still not wanting to talk to you. Because you are insufferable and have been so for years.Well!
At the very least I have consistency going for me!
Why does it have to come down to an internet shouting match? Hell most of the posts I've read from Scott in the past have always been pretty even and tempered with the OTHER guys yelling at him.
Usually looks like the shouting is one sided and needs to be checked. Agree to disagree but getting upset over it is just silly. Of course, this is the internet and I guess that's par for the course ... but it doesn't mean it SHOULD be.
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I guess I'm one of the few who liked the changes the did to 4E FR. Not all of them most of them. Removing the excess amount of gods which I nevberr liked. Did we really need 2-4 versions of a war god. The abundance of hugh level NPCs. Not much of a game breaker yet it was annoying how in the novels they always seemed so powerless. Not to mention a large chunk of the evil organizations should have been wiped off the map. A loss of wonder since almost every corner of the realms was inhabited. Either way for me even with all the falws of FR no matter the edtion I will still play it more than any other setting and that to me shows the strength of the background.
If they choose a background liek they did with 3.5 I hope they make it FR. I never liked how they choose Greyhawk then tossed that aside for FR. I get that FR was and is moe profitable yet why invest time and effort into making Greyhawk the standard background if your not going to use it.
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So, a lot of FR fans didn't like what happened in 4e. So, WotC is going back and making a sourcebook and supplemental material that covers the time before the Spellplague, essentially reviving that time those fans liked, and said fans are still upset. Wow.
You know what's awesome about imaginary places? When someone changes something, you can imagine it as something else. Not like there isn't already a library's worth of printed previous edition material for this setting already.
New stuff would be awesome of course, and hey! New stuff is coming. I'm failing to see the reason for the squabbling in this thread.
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The problem with the timeline jump for me is akin to the timeline jump from 3067 to 3130 in Battletech to the Click version, but worse.
Initially, all we got from the Dark Age was "Here's where we are now" when we had 15-20 years of getting from 3025 to 3067* For many Battletech fans, it was frustrating. The later fleshing out/retcons (Oh, it's just the RotS that did the huge disarming, the others not so much; here are your house factions, those inital factions were just small groups; etc.) helped. In the end though, it was Catalyst's work on making the Jihad Sourcebooks that 'catch us up' to the beginning of the RotS (and now we're jumping 10 years again).
With the Realms it was worse. The nuking was revealed poorly. (Mystra gets killed and the weave explodes! You know, unlike all the other times the God/ess of magic was killed. Major cities are destroyed! Well except for the major cities everyone loves, like Waterdeep and Baldur's gate. Mythals explode! Well, except for the one in Waterdeep. Powerful NPCs are killed! Except for Drizzt and Elminster, oh and the Simbul.) It was also akin to one of my complaints about the Last Mythal series. Yeah the elves restored Myth Drannor and slaughtered the Fey'ri. Ahrem, isn't that the players' job?
With the nuking, we got the destruction of several continents, cultures, etc. while others remained intact. We got the destruction of 'sacred cows' while others were left standing. I won't say it didn't please anyone, but for me it destroyed the flavour of what made Faerun, well, Faerun. As a new campaign setting nuked realms would have been interesting. As an 'update' to an old setting, well, it's not the Realms to me.
Also the difference between say, Pre-Nuke vs Post-Nuke Realms and Arcane Age Realms and Pre-Nuke Realms (again to me) is that no one played in Arcane Age realms prior to Pre-Nuke Realms. We knew they existed, and things happened, but there wasn't any emotional attachment until after the fact. Again to compare with Battletech. The game 'started' in 3025. We knew the Star League was (comparitvely) more peaceful and bright and shiny, but no one had any investment in the Star League, in the way they had investment in the houses.
I hope that helps.
*
Playing in the old timeline doesn't really cut it, because you know that just a few years down the line everything your characters strived for will be destroyed and meaningless.
Except... this isn't the case unless you make it so. From the sound of it, I'm in the same boat as you - 4E isn't what drove me from WotC to Paizo (in fact, I own the core three and the PHB2/DMG2, and would gladly play in a 4E game if someone offered to run it - but I'm no longer buying 4E rulebooks, and I'm no longer willing to run it myself, Pathfinder is 'my' D&D), the Spellplague and the 100-year leap in the Forgotten Realms setting did that. I bought much more FR books than I did non-setting books for 3.5 - in fact, the FR is what brought me into D&D in the first place. I jumped on Pathfinder not long after the Core Rulebook was released, though it took me a couple of years to get invested in Golarion at all - instead, I planned on running the Forgotten Realms in Pathfinder, and began to update some of my favorite setting material to the new and improved rules. And in my Realms... there is no Spellplague. In fact, everything that lead up to the transition is as non-canon as it gets at my table. If enough time passes that the Spellplague 'should' occur by WotC's FR canon... well, that matters as much to me as any random FR fanfic online does. Nothing at all. Beyond what's written in the 3.0/3.5 FR sourcebooks I've invested so much in, nothing is written in stone, and I'm more than happy to ignore any and all changes made after that point.
But then, as someone who's run more Star Wars than he has D&D, I'm used to ignoring 'canon' that I don't like. (Yuuzhan Vhong? Never happened in my galaxy. And when Vader killed Palpatine... he stayed dead. Good luck trying to convince me otherwise. :p)
So, a lot of FR fans didn't like what happened in 4e. So, WotC is going back and making a sourcebook and supplemental material that covers the time before the Spellplague, essentially reviving that time those fans liked, and said fans are still upset. Wow.
Actually, I found a whole lot of what came out of the 3E Realms objectionable, too.
But to address your comment: Why on earth would I possibly believe that they're going to do any better job with the 5E Realms than they did with 4E (or 3E, for that matter)?
They're many of the same people, working with the same impulses, working for the same company — they decry high level NPCs, and then write all about them. They deplore RSEs, and then come up with more than ever were before.
I expect nothing good to come from it. I could be pleasantly surprised, but calling in an obscure Chinese video game company to help out doesn't exactly fill me with optimism.
That probably requires a little elaboration. The Realms are the setting where the love-in with magic, magic-users, and "magic can do anything! Anything!" really started to gain traction. Every Realms supplement put in more magic stuff, spells or items, to make it plain that the best way to do something was through magic, that mundane skill was less important. This isn't something that is justified by AD&D or B/X-BECMI, magic was powerful but had real limits. FR started the process of taking those limits away, and I'm convinced this was what led to 3rd edition being explicitly designed not just to give more power to all types of spellcaster and to increase the emphasis on magic items, but to reduce the abilities of everyone who wasn't explicitly magical.
I don't really see why you put this on the Realms. The "more power / spells / badass prestige classes" is a trend that started with 3.0 and continued in 3.5 accross all settings. And it continued with Pathfinder, where the base classes are more powerful again ! As a GM I'm very happy to set a tone closer to the FR grey box with less magic items and a little less emphasis on the figures of the Realms, even though I used the updates on the setting provided on the 3rd edition FR books.
And that's not D&D in the original sense of the game.
I don't know what's the original sense of the game, and I don't really care either, I'm merely a player / GM found of the FR and of Planescape. I do hope that Monte Cook and Mearls find out though :) Because if they don't, I surely won't.
I planned on running the Forgotten Realms in Pathfinder, and began to update some of my favorite setting material to the new and improved rules. And in my Realms... there is no Spellplague.
Same here.
With the Realms it was worse. The nuking was revealed poorly.
I could not have said it better. Cataclysmic events have a tendency to happen quite often in the Realms. But until the Spellplague, all these were woven together in a complex fabric that had cohesion even though it was built upon layers and layers of history.
IMHO, it could have been the same for the spellplague. I can see very well how this particular event could be used effectively from the narration point of view. But the implementation of this idea resulted in one of the worse plots, possibly the worst, I have ever read in my gaming history ... and I have grey hair.
Why does it have to come down to an internet shouting match? Hell most of the posts I've read from Scott in the past have always been pretty even and tempered with the OTHER guys yelling at him.
Usually looks like the shouting is one sided and needs to be checked. Agree to disagree but getting upset over it is just silly. Of course, this is the internet and I guess that's par for the course ... but it doesn't mean it SHOULD be.
Since I already said that I don't want to talk with Scott, I think it would be ungracious to talk about him, too. To stay consistent with what I said before, I'd have to ignore his inevitable rebuttal and that would be just double douchy from me.
So, a lot of FR fans didn't like what happened in 4e. So, WotC is going back and making a sourcebook and supplemental material that covers the time before the Spellplague, essentially reviving that time those fans liked, and said fans are still upset. Wow.
You know what's awesome about imaginary places? When someone changes something, you can imagine it as something else. Not like there isn't already a library's worth of printed previous edition material for this setting already.
New stuff would be awesome of course, and hey! New stuff is coming. I'm failing to see the reason for the squabbling in this thread.
There's a plethora of reasons to be highly sceptical of WotC. They already showed their lack of respect for the opinion of the fans of the "old" Realms. And it's not only that they nuked the old setting, but how they did it, which is in a highly nonsensical way. Ask a fan of Eilistrae what they thought of how their favorite goddess ( and her followers ) were handled.
The problem with just making a sourcebook for the old setting is that we basically don't need it, outside of updating some stuff to the new rules. They won't bring out something more detailed than the old campaign setting and we already have that. They will very surely not bring out sourcebooks for the still missing regions of the old setting.
And the main problem here still is that we know that the Spellplague will happen a few years down the line, with all the stupidity it brought in its wake.
Except... this isn't the case unless you make it so. From the sound of it, I'm in the same boat as you - 4E isn't what drove me from WotC to Paizo <snip> the Spellplague and the 100-year leap in the Forgotten Realms setting did that. I bought much more FR books than I did non-setting books for 3.5 - in fact, the FR is what brought me into D&D in the first place. I jumped on Pathfinder not long after the Core Rulebook was released, though it took me a couple of years to get invested in Golarion at all - instead, I planned on running the Forgotten Realms in Pathfinder, and began to update some of my favorite setting material to the new and improved rules. And in my Realms... there is no Spellplague. In fact, everything that lead up to the transition is as non-canon as it gets at my table. If enough time passes that the Spellplague 'should' occur by WotC's FR canon... well, that matters as much to me as any random FR fanfic online does. Nothing at all. Beyond what's written in the 3.0/3.5 FR sourcebooks I've invested so much in, nothing is written in stone, and I'm more than happy to ignore any and all changes made after that point.
But then, as someone who's run more Star Wars than he has D&D, I'm used to ignoring 'canon' that I don't like. (Yuuzhan Vhong? Never happened in my galaxy. And when Vader killed Palpatine... he stayed dead. Good luck trying to convince me otherwise. :p)
It's a problem of mentality, I think. For me, when something happens in "canon", it has happened. I just cannot unthink it that easily, unless some better work of an alternate timeline is there to take my mind off the now unappealing main timeline ( which is why I have less problems with Star Wars or Buffy the Vampire Slayer... there are good works of fan-fiction to replace the "gone bad" canon stuff ).
So, while I planned to take your approach, it simply didn't work out for me as well as for you.
Oh, and as for Star Wars, if you haven't already, check out the Star Wars: Legacy comics. Best work of Star Wars fiction of the last decade.
Yeah, yeah, we all know that you'd defend WotC even if they'd take a dump on your doorstep.Cute. You'll note, of course, that I didn't actually defend WotC at all in that post. I just took exception to your attitude. I wonder why you conflate the two.
I'm not that majorly upset about 4E, after all it made Pathfinder become the number one RPG.Rah rah.
But if you think being passionate about the utter annihilation of a fictional setting by incredibly poor decisions of the publisher, despite a pretty damn large public outcry well in advance of said changes, makes people dumb, then whatever. You are not someone I want to talk to.I didn't say anyone was dumb. The page I linked to uses the word, though I think it's more for the sake of the catchiness of the play-on-words than anything else.
I do think that your reaction speaks to the overly-entitled, overly-invested position that the page I linked to warns of. You aren't just passionate about this. You are hyper-passionate. Tone the radicalized language back, and your position will appear much more reasonable.
By the way, I bolded the portions of the above post that involve subjective assumptions on your part, most of which I don't agree with.
Overly invested is having personally read over a hundred novels in this setting. This is more that my next fvie favorite authors combined. Because these books come from a shared setting, it isn't treated like each individual author is a seperate entity, but one piece of a much larger story. The fact that so many of their books ended up on the New York Times Best Sellers List means that up until the Spell Plague, they were doing something right with the books. Honestly they could fix it like every comic book continuity problem that Marvel & DC comics tends to have. They just wipe it away with a weak story and drive on like it didn't happen. They wiped out something like five years of Spiderman in just two issues of weak story. My wife was screaming about it for a month.
Eh, based on the spellscarred ability "Mask of Midnight", I've been presuming that somehow Mystra (the Midnight incarnation) had survived in some form or another, tortured, tangled, and in a bad way. Which is why many of the bindings and limits of magic became unraveled but not all.
I'm expecting that, if they progress the setting, they'll do something with that. Where Mystra was kind-of-sort-of (but not quite, really) dead. Kind of like a lich, or something similar. Possibly an entirely new incarnation, however, and she might be only tangentially connected to Midnight, if at all. Could even be in charge of both Weaves (the Weave and Shadow Weave, Shar having lost it) which would be sort of a coup. If she was Unaligned (or whatever 5E variant of CN they come up with), she'd be pretty close to the original Mystra, too (before the LN post-Netheril Mystra).
Anyway, that's my guess. (Along with finding out that Amaunator isn't really Amaunator, but rather Lathander dawning a mask - GET IT?!? ... sorry.)
As I've said before, the Spellplague... kind of works as a historical event. It's kind of stupid to inflict into a current game, and the time jump is a poor move, despite that.
It's an interesting event, and I can see the benefits in what they did. I hated it at the time (and in many ways I still do), and I was frustrated with the changes (and in many ways I still am), but I understand many of the reasons, and talking to many current fans has helped me. But really? It's still kind of a jerk move. It also contradicts a lot of canon, as-written.
It's a problem of mentality, I think. For me, when something happens in "canon", it has happened. I just cannot unthink it that easily, unless some better work of an alternate timeline is there to take my mind off the now unappealing main timeline ( which is why I have less problems with Star Wars or Buffy the Vampire Slayer... there are good works of fan-fiction to replace the "gone bad" canon stuff ).
So, while I planned to take your approach, it simply didn't work out for me as well as for you.
I prefer to think of the events I don't like as being bad fan-fiction that just happens to have been printed by the same company that printed the actual Forgotten Realms setting previously.
If that doesn't work for you, though, how about running a campaign with the end goal being the prevention of the Spellplague and Mystra's death? If your players take an active hand in 'setting things straight', it might be easier for you to establish your very own alternate universe-type campaign setting. :-)
Oh, and as for Star Wars, if you haven't already, check out the Star Wars: Legacy comics. Best work of Star Wars fiction of the last decade.
...I might have to change my previous statement to "Yuuzhan Vhong? Don't exist in my galaxy... unless I'm running a Legacy campaign." ;-) I'm not sure if I liked it better than the KotOR comics, and I still hold the Darth Bane trilogy over both of those as far as Star Wars fiction goes, but yeah, I love me some Legacy. :-)
I prefer to think of the events I don't like as being bad fan-fiction that just happens to have been printed by the same company that printed the actual Forgotten Realms setting previously.
If that doesn't work for you, though, how about running a campaign with the end goal being the prevention of the Spellplague and Mystra's death? If your players take an active hand in 'setting things straight', it might be easier for you to establish your very own alternate universe-type campaign setting. :-)
It's a good idea, but it will have to wait at least a year, until I finish up my current Carrion Crown campaign and have time to prepare something homebrewn.
...I might have to change my previous statement to "Yuuzhan Vhong? Don't exist in my galaxy... unless I'm running a Legacy campaign." ;-) I'm not sure if I liked it better than the KotOR comics, and I still hold the Darth Bane trilogy over both of those as far as Star Wars fiction goes, but yeah, I love me some Legacy. :-)
I really love the characters and the setting. I hope we'll get more comics in that setting in the future, written Jon Ostrander and penciled by Jan Durseema. :)
<snip>Still not wanting to talk to you. Because you are insufferable and have been so for years.
You called me to tell me you're giving me the silent treatment? I don't think you know how these things work.
<snip>Still not wanting to talk to you. Because you are insufferable and have been so for years.
You called me to tell me you're giving me the silent treatment? I don't think you know how these things work.
** spoiler omitted **
As I said, because I refuse to discuss with him, it would be douchy to then go and talk badly about him.
Ask a fan of Eilistrae what they thought of how their favorite goddess ( and her followers ) were handled.
I'm still annoyed that Talos was 'revealed' to be Gruumsh and Malar 'defected' to Silvanus!
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I'm still annoyed that Talos was 'revealed' to be Gruumsh and Malar 'defected' to Silvanus!Ask a fan of Eilistrae what they thought of how their favorite goddess ( and her followers ) were handled.
Link? I don't remmeber seeing this at all. Then again it's not the first time a FR god impersonated another one.
Ask a fan of Eilistrae what they thought of how their favorite goddess ( and her followers ) were handled.
To be fair though the whole botched monstrosity that was the War of the Spider Queen did occur under 3.5 FR and not 4E. I'm not saying they handled it coprrectly under 4E as I too liked Elisatrae yet it's somethingh that was in the works imo lokk before 4E was to be released.
Link? I don't remmeber seeing this at all. Then again it's not the first time a FR god impersonated another one.I'm still annoyed that Talos was 'revealed' to be Gruumsh and Malar 'defected' to Silvanus!Ask a fan of Eilistrae what they thought of how their favorite goddess ( and her followers ) were handled.
It was actually reveiled that Talos was actually Gruumsh, though I doubt many Talosians believe that. It was a way for Gruumsh to obtain more followers from races outside of Orcs. The same way Sehanine Moonbow is really another aspect of Selûne. A moon goddess appearing to multiple races in their own preceived form will likely be given different names. Those different aspects then grow/manifest into different portfolios and beliefs. Not really that unheard of even in Real World mythology. Heck, Lathander has been Amaunator for a long time and there is possibly a "thrid face of Dusk" too.
To be fair though the whole botched monstrosity that was the War of the Spider Queen did occur under 3.5 FR and not 4E. I'm not saying they handled it coprrectly under 4E as I too liked Elisatrae yet it's somethingh that was in the works imo lokk before 4E was to be released.Ask a fan of Eilistrae what they thought of how their favorite goddess ( and her followers ) were handled.
I never read the book series but Elistraee is alive and well in my post-Spellplague Realms and I even did a lot of mechanical works in the form of Paragon Paths and divinity feats for her clergy/followers as well.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I liked the Elisatrae followers in WotSQ. Lisa Smedman did a good job at giving us good .
I even liked the first book of the 'brown is good, black is evil' trillogy. I know ganking a (semi-popular) evil deity would upset some, but the 'masked dancer' goddess that came out of it looked to be an interesting schism/direction on where the two churches (and Eilistrae) were going from there. Then it went south.
One other thought on Arcane age vs Spellplauge.
Arcane Age to modern, we have survivors, not just the City of Shade. It would be possible to 'save yourself' with the fall of Nethril, but even then, you (the player) knew Nethril was going to fall in the true timeline. Sure, your mad wizard fred might survive the disruption of the weave, and be able to keep his tower off plane or in the middleo f nowhere intact, to make your footprint, but you knew going in that the Realms would change.
Modern to Spellplauge doesn't even get you that. Entire continents destroyed. Your character set a city in Maztica? Gone. Your character built a wizard's school in Halruaa? Paved over by a new continent. Wizard's advice to players who had set up in such places? "Sorry to hear it, start a new game."
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It was actually reveiled that Talos was actually Gruumsh, though I doubt many Talosians believe that. It was a way for Gruumsh to obtain more followers from races outside of Orcs. The same way Sehanine Moonbow is really another aspect of Selûne. A moon goddess appearing to multiple races in their own preceived form will likely be given different names. Those different aspects then grow/manifest into different portfolios and beliefs. Not really that unheard of even in Real World mythology. Heck, Lathander has been Amaunator for a long time and there is possibly a "thrid face of Dusk" too.
I don't see why that would be a problem really. It makes sense imo and I never liked the whole "I'm a good of orcs so only orcs can worship me" type of logic. In one of my FR games the group I was running the game for converted a tribe of hobgoblins to worship Tempus. They are gods why should they be limited by race.
I never read the book series but Elistraee is alive and well in my post-Spellplague Realms and I even did a lot of mechanical works in the form of Paragon Paths and divinity feats for her clergy/followers as well.
Your not missing much really:
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The only FR novels that made me go WHAT? Not to mention the only FR series I sold off to the used bookstore.
Yeah and WotSQ really suffered badly from the use of multiple authors. Normally I'm not opposed to this and it has had some great results in the past! But this series... woo boy. There was just too much of characters acting WAY out of character... well, as they were written by the other authors, anyway.
And some of the plot threads started by one author were just ignored by the next author... or resolved in the first chapter of the next book and then cast aside, never to be mentioned again.
Sorry for the aside. I just really hated this series for its poor plot structure. :)
I don't see why that would be a problem really. It makes sense imo and I never liked the whole "I'm a good of orcs so only orcs can worship me" type of logic. In one of my FR games the group I was running the game for converted a tribe of hobgoblins to worship Tempus. They are gods why should they be limited by race.
It was actually reveiled that Talos was actually Gruumsh, though I doubt many Talosians believe that. It was a way for Gruumsh to obtain more followers from races outside of Orcs. The same way Sehanine Moonbow is really another aspect of Selûne. A moon goddess appearing to multiple races in their own preceived form will likely be given different names. Those different aspects then grow/manifest into different portfolios and beliefs. Not really that unheard of even in Real World mythology. Heck, Lathander has been Amaunator for a long time and there is possibly a "thrid face of Dusk" too.
Agreed. Espically after the Time of Troubles, where Gods power was often a direct reflection of their worship. It only makes sense for Gods to obtain as many followers as possible, and thats likely to breach different races as well. Espically something as broad a "Storms and Destruction".
I never read the book series but Elistraee is alive and well in my post-Spellplague Realms and I even did a lot of mechanical works in the form of Paragon Paths and divinity feats for her clergy/followers as well.Your not missing much really:
** spoiler omitted **
Wow, pretty uninsipring from the looks of it. Glad I didn't delve into that one.
The only FR novels that made me go WHAT? Not to mention the only FR series I sold off to the used bookstore.Yeah and WotSQ really suffered badly from the use of multiple authors. Normally I'm not opposed to this and it has had some great results in the past! But this series... woo boy. There was just too much of characters acting WAY out of character... well, as they were written by the other authors, anyway.
I noticed it the most with Pharaun from the second to the third book. From his best straight to his worst. It got better, but the changes in stile often were quite significant.