# New Forgotten Realms designed by FR haters?



## rounser (Mar 23, 2009)

> The design team in a pod cast said they knew little of the setting and he had never liked it anyhow, and they did not even know why it was called Forgotten realms.



From RPG.net.  Is this true?


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## Charwoman Gene (Mar 23, 2009)

rounser said:


> From RPG.net.  Is this true?




No.

A link to the claim would help me better disprove it.


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## Shemeska (Mar 23, 2009)

I doubt it. I really, truly doubt it.

Maybe they're getting confused with the interview where one of the 4e designers didn't know what/where Bytopia was?


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## EroGaki (Mar 23, 2009)

rounser said:


> From RPG.net.  Is this true?





Personally, I wouldn't be surprised. But I doubt it is true.


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## D'karr (Mar 23, 2009)

rounser said:


> From RPG.net.  Is this true?




Sure, why not.  I read it on the internet, it must be true.


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## Holy Bovine (Mar 23, 2009)

rounser said:


> From RPG.net.  Is this true?




Did you read it on the internet?
Did the person writing it assume a Voice of Authority?
Do you want to believe it?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then the statement is true.  You can't post lies on the internet.


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## rounser (Mar 23, 2009)

> A link to the claim would help me better disprove it.



Buried somewhere in this thread in the first half dozen pages:
[D&D4e] What makes it not feel like D&D? - RPGnet Forums
I copied it when read but can't seem to locate it now.


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## rounser (Mar 23, 2009)

> Did you read it on the internet?
> Did the person writing it assume a Voice of Authority?
> Do you want to believe it?
> 
> If you answered yes to any of these questions then the statement is true. You can't post lies on the internet.



I asked if it was true, I didn't say I believed it.  You and your sarcasm can kindly go jump in a lake.


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## GnomeWorks (Mar 23, 2009)

Holy Bovine said:
			
		

> Did you read it on the internet?
> Did the person writing it assume a Voice of Authority?
> Do you want to believe it?
> 
> If you answered yes to any of these questions then the statement is true. You can't post lies on the internet.




The topic was presented as, "Hey, I heard/read this, is it true?," not as, "Hey, I heard/read this, it *must* be true!"

The latter might be worthy of ridicule; the former is most certainly not.


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## avin (Mar 23, 2009)

Holy Bovine said:


> Did you read it on the internet?
> Did the person writing it assume a Voice of Authority?
> Do you want to believe it?
> 
> If you answered yes to any of these questions then the statement is true.  You can't post lies on the internet.




He never said it was true, he was asking around after reading some other forum.

I think that some people that worked on FR4E could dislike it, why not? But that won't make them sabotage the book. Changes were made mostly due the big magic changes of fourth edition.


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## Mournblade94 (Mar 23, 2009)

EroGaki said:


> Personally, I wouldn't be surprised. But I doubt it is true.




It couldn't exist on a website because I imagine WOTC would take it down.

Another community I am with is working on making a continuation of 3rd edition realms, but it is just transfered between people.


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## Toben the Many (Mar 23, 2009)

If the poster is referring to the podcast I'm thinking about then the designers never said that they *hated* Forgotten Realms. Only that they didn't know why it was called "Forgotten" Realms when every inch of the campaign world had been written about, documented, and cataloged. What they wanted to do was return a sense of mystery and exploration to the Realms. 

Far from "hating" the Forgotten Realms. 

As usual, internet hyperbole strikes again.


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## Jack99 (Mar 23, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> It couldn't exist on a website because I imagine WOTC would take it down.




Sorry, but what couldn't exist on a website?


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## dmccoy1693 (Mar 23, 2009)

I remember someone at WotC saying post-announcement/pre-launch that they were changing the realms for several reasons.  Those reasons included that they had a difficult time to get people to write realms materials due to the sheer depth of established realms canon they would have to comb through to make sure they do not violate something somewhere.  While it would be ideal to have realms junkies to write realms material, someone that familiar with the realms is few and far inbetween.

Plus they wanted to take D&D in a different direction:  no vancian magic, elves have shorter life spans, dwarves no longer live inside of mountains/have darkvision, dragonborn, etc.  Not having the game's signature setting follow in those changes would be a rather difficult sell.  

They didn't change the realms because they "hated" the realms, but because it made good business sense.


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## Keefe the Thief (Mar 23, 2009)

Questions like that are best answered on Richard Bakers "Ask the Realms Designers" thread over at Wotc. He´ll answer every design question you can yield over time, and if it has already answered, some poster will tell you so (and usually point you to the answer). Its a useful thread (well, except when Razz begins to threadcrap, but thats another issue entirely).


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## Filcher (Mar 23, 2009)

I imagine the WotC design conversation went like this: 

1. Wow. 4E classes and monsters are radically different from 3.5. What does this do to the Realms? 

2. Well crap. We can't retcon the whole thing. That would destroy ALL verisimilitude in the setting. We need some sort of story reset.

2a. You're kidding me. Another Realms Shattering Event? 

2b. You have a better idea? 

2c. No. 

3. Okay. Well we could go back to the beginning to the Realms. Grey-box it again. 

4. No, that would destroy all the history we've built up over the last 20 years. We don't want to wipe the slate clean, just make room for the new stuff. 

5. Okay, let's go the other direction with a Realms Shattering Event. That explains the new mechanics. 

6. And, as a bonus, it doesn't invalidate the history. For those players that know it, the history is still true, though distant. And for new players, the catalog of backstory isn't such a huge hurdle, because it's 100 years distant. Everybody wins. 

====

Of course, everyone didn't win, but the Realms are huge IP gold mine for WotC. I don't think they treated it with disdain, or hired people that hated it to write it.


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## Mournblade94 (Mar 23, 2009)

dmccoy1693 said:


> I remember someone at WotC saying post-announcement/pre-launch that they were changing the realms for several reasons. Those reasons included that they had a difficult time to get people to write realms materials due to the sheer depth of established realms canon they would have to comb through to make sure they do not violate something somewhere. While it would be ideal to have realms junkies to write realms material, someone that familiar with the realms is few and far inbetween.




It was no more difficult to write in the realms than any other setting. You focused on one area, and took it from there. Even if you were not familiar with the realms you could write a module. if its a sourcebook, than the writer must be a bit more familiar. Still it was not difficult to become reasonably familiar with the realms in a few games sessions. I think WOTC changed the realms because they assumed intellectual laziness on the part of the fanbase. 

There is no shortage of comic book writers, and they all manage to craft good stories in a vast shared world.




dmccoy1693 said:


> Plus they wanted to take D&D in a different direction: no vancian magic, elves have shorter life spans, dwarves no longer live inside of mountains/have darkvision, dragonborn, etc. Not having the game's signature setting follow in those changes would be a rather difficult sell.




yes this was one of the reasons. They made FR "generic." 



dmccoy1693 said:


> They didn't change the realms because they "hated" the realms, but because it made good business sense.



I do not think they hated the realms.

Banking on gamers being intellectually lazy is not good business sense. 

There were people that enjoyed the diversity and complexity of the realms. Yet there were people that enjoyed specific areas and new nothing of the lore outside of a 'zone'. There were then people that complained the realms were complicated and they did not want to play in the realms because they felt overwhelmed. WOTC catered to the third block of people that really didn't care, leaving the players that enjoyed the complexity; this sends a message whether true or false, that the old fans don't matter. 

It is not that hard to follow a story like the Forgotten Realms. Some people on the internet treat reading and playing in the realms like it is learning Physical Chemistry. ITs not. Anyone could play in the realms. If a person really wanted to play in the realms, but did not because 'there is too much to read' that is just laziness. 

Maybe other people can find forgotten realm websites in support of 4e, but all the fansites for Forgotten Realms that I frequent are pretty upset about the changes. Forgotten Realms anchored a good percentage of this niche in D&D now many of them are moving on. Paizo has a lot of the old realms creative force signing up with them. They will easily put out products of the same quality as WOTC.


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## dmccoy1693 (Mar 23, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> Banking on gamers being intellectually lazy is not good business sense.




While Realms devotees love the intricate history of the Realms, most gamers can't even tell the difference between Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms (quote from Mike Mearls where he says as much).  Then there's the question of bringing in the next generation of gamers.  As someone that went from a casual gamer to a hardcore gamer less than 10 years ago, I am not interested in reading fiction or adventures from 20 years ago.  So I am not going to be writing Realms material.  I'm not alone on that. 

That's not to say I'm opposed to research, but if I can choose writing an Eberron adventure or a FR adventure, I'd pick Eberron simply because there is much less material I have to know.


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## Xyxox (Mar 23, 2009)

Filcher said:


> 6. And, as a bonus, it doesn't invalidate the history. For those players that know it, the history is still true, though distant. And for new players, the catalog of backstory isn't such a huge hurdle, because it's 100 years distant. Everybody wins.
> 
> ====
> 
> Of course, everyone didn't win, but the Realms are huge IP gold mine for WotC. I don't think they treated it with disdain, or hired people that hated it to write it.





And sadly, it looks like it has ended up as one huge bucket of sloppy fail.


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## Scribble (Mar 23, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> I think WOTC changed the realms because they assumed intellectual laziness on the part of the fanbase.




You're free to think what you want, but I don't think laziness had anything to do with it on anyone's side. I'm sure there were thousands of untold stories you can tell about the realms before. But sometimes it's nice to be able to tell the story you want to tell, and not the story you want to tell molded into shape by over 20 years worth of other stories. It's not laziness that drives that, just the desire to tell your story in your own voice.

All that stuff that happened in the realms in the past? Awesome, I can use that if I want to. I can look back on that and enjoy it if I want to. I'm also looking forward to the new stories though. The fresh ideas and original thoughts we'll see going forward. 



> Anyone could play in the realms. If a person really wanted to play in the realms, but did not because 'there is too much to read' that is just laziness




Again with calling people lazy... You say laziness, I say too much work for something supposed to be an activity someone does with his free time.


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## Piratecat (Mar 23, 2009)

I was going to close this, but we'll give it a chance. Whether you love the Realms or hate them, be respectful and polite to the people who disagree with you. I'm pretty sure you'll prefer it to what happens if you slip into hostility and insults.


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## Fenes (Mar 23, 2009)

All I can say is that if those writers of the new Realms did not hate the Forgotten Realms then in my opinion they really did a good - an excellent job - of faking such hate.


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## JRRNeiklot (Mar 23, 2009)

> Plus they wanted to take D&D in a different direction:  no vancian magic, elves have shorter life spans, dwarves no longer live inside of mountains/have darkvision, dragonborn, etc.  Not having the game's signature setting follow in those changes would be a rather difficult sell.




Yeah, they didn't do it because they hated FR, that's just silly.  They did it because they hated D&D.

_Waves bye from the thread. ~ PCat_


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## Henry (Mar 23, 2009)

I'll add two thoughts:

1) Ed Greenwood has some writing credit on the project, and it's on record that he's the one who dreamed up Lost Abeir, so if the people who wrote it didn't like the Realms, he's one of them. 

2) Emotions definitely rode high on the kickstart of the Realms, both in the teeth-gnashing leading up to the release, as well as the people defending what the 4E Realms has become. Having gained an appreciation of the Realms back during the old DC Comic book days, and rediscovering it in 2001 thanks to a very good DM, I did give the new Realms a chance, and found that I do like a lot of what they've done.

Taken by itself, I think a lot of the Realms ideas would have been better received by some people had it not borne the FR name. By itself, there's a lot of "Scarred Lands" flavor to me from the areas outside the Western Heartlands and the Sword Coast - a feel of a place torn apart, and ripe with adventure hooks due to the ripping. To me, it feels like Toril has not been meshed with Returned Abeir, more like it's been meshed with Scarn -- I'm not saying it's good or bad, that's just the flavor I get from it. I liked the "set-piece" feel I got with the 1987-2007 Realms, but I can also see a lot of the appeal of making a lot of stuff unknown again.


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## Xyxox (Mar 23, 2009)

Henry said:


> I'll add two thoughts:




and do it in two posts.



_EDIT: Curse you, sluggish internet! Extra removed. --Henry_


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## Mournblade94 (Mar 23, 2009)

dmccoy1693 said:


> While Realms devotees love the intricate history of the Realms, most gamers can't even tell the difference between Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms (quote from Mike Mearls where he says as much).




I have not met someone yet who is familiar with gaming (note I do not mean 'just entered the hobby') that would not be able to tell the difference between the two.  I know the quote from Mike Mearls.  I didn't agree with it then, and I don't agree with it now since every gamer I know CAN tell the difference between the two.  Mike Mearls job is to make a product and convince people to buy it.    



dmccoy1693 said:


> Then there's the question of bringing in the next generation of gamers.
> As someone that went from a casual gamer to a hardcore gamer less than 10 years ago, I am not interested in reading fiction or adventures from 20 years ago. So I am not going to be writing Realms material. I'm not alone on that.




Simply you wouldn't have too.  You have the main source book.  Everything you need is ultimately in there for casual purposes.  If you want to write stuff for hardcore gamers THEN you would go to the richer sourcebooks.



dmccoy1693 said:


> That's not to say I'm opposed to research, but if I can choose writing an Eberron adventure or a FR adventure, I'd pick Eberron simply because there is much less material I have to know.




OK so why water the FR down then?  If Eberron was there for the people that didn't want to do alot of research, why not leave Forgotten Realms for those people that prefer elaborate stories.  Sure the history of those old stories are still there, but the 4e realms is set 100 years in the future to make many of those stories completely irrelevant.

Writing for Forgotten Realms was no more difficult than writing for STAR WARS.



Scribble said:


> You're free to think what you want, but I don't think laziness had anything to do with it on anyone's side. I'm sure there were thousands of untold stories you can tell about the realms before. But sometimes it's nice to be able to tell the story you want to tell, and not the story you want to tell molded into shape by over 20 years worth of other stories. It's not laziness that drives that, just the desire to tell your story in your own voice.




Then why use the Forgotten Realms?  Why not use Eberron, or a homebrew world, or bring back Dark Sun, or Planescape, or even Greyhawk.  

I have always been able to add my own voice to the Realms.  Never once did I feel constrained (and I have made alot of my own realms stories).  People get caught up in the amount of lore without seeing that if you focus on an area, there really may not be that much history.  Don't use Shadowdale or Waterdeep.  Use Athkatla, Berdusk, or Scornubel.  I have developed Scornubel far above what is developed in any of the guides.

the reason I cannot buy this argument is because there are plenty of campaign worlds out there.  If one wanted to tell a story in the Forgotten Realms in the first place, why would the lore discourage them?  A majour reason for the realms was its rich lore and history.  If someone did not want that background why would they want to use the realms? 



Scribble said:


> All that stuff that happened in the realms in the past? Awesome, I can use that if I want to. I can look back on that and enjoy it if I want to. I'm also looking forward to the new stories though. The fresh ideas and original thoughts we'll see going forward.




I am hard pressed to see how a storyteller (DM, Writer, whatever) could not tell an original story with fresh ideas in what was the Forgotten Realms before the change.  If you want a new city make it.  A new villain; make it.  Even Marvel Comics can come up with original storiesthat do not impact their universe on a cosmic level.



Scribble said:


> Again with calling people lazy... You say laziness, I say too much work for something supposed to be an activity someone does with his free time.




Then that would not be the setting for you.  Understandable.  I would not call you lazy for not wanting to use the realms.  Why would someone want to use the Realms if they did not want to explore the lore?

The Realms that is published now, is completely different from the Realms that stood the test of time.  it is a completely different campaign setting.


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## dmccoy1693 (Mar 23, 2009)

Henry said:


> Taken by itself, I think a lot of the Realms ideas would have been better received by some people had it not borne the FR name.




QFT.  Infact, that has been most of my problem with 4E.  I'm sure it is a great game, but it is not what I want in a game bearing the name Dungeons and Dragons.  If I can't take a 1E book of fluff (ignoring all stats), use it in any later version of D&D and feel like I am playing the same game, but with different mechanics, then its D&D.  4E doesn't inspire that feeling, from everything I have seen.  That's why it is not D&D to me.  That's why Pathfinder is D&D to me.


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## Mournblade94 (Mar 23, 2009)

Henry said:


> I'll add two thoughts:
> 
> Taken by itself, I think a lot of the Realms ideas would have been better received by some people had it not borne the FR name. By itself, there's a lot of "Scarred Lands" flavor to me from the areas outside the Western Heartlands and the Sword Coast - a feel of a place torn apart, and ripe with adventure hooks due to the ripping. To me, it feels like Toril has not been meshed with Returned Abeir, more like it's been meshed with Scarn -- I'm not saying it's good or bad, that's just the flavor I get from it. I liked the "set-piece" feel I got with the 1987-2007 Realms, but I can also see a lot of the appeal of making a lot of stuff unknown again.




Exactly.  The new Realms isn't garbage in its content.  It is only garbage in it being the heir to a great campaign setting yet being nothing like its pregenator.


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## dmccoy1693 (Mar 23, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> OK so why water the FR down then?




Honestly, I can't answer that.  To me, that made (and still makes) no sense.  If I had my choice, I would have went to a different part of the realms.  You can screw with the mechanics all you want there and not invalidate any of the realms, simply by saying that the wizards learned to tap into Mystra differently there, or its an entirely different god.  No need to alter the realms, AGAIN.  That still makes much more sense to me.

But I'm not incharge.


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## Fenes (Mar 23, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> The reason I cannot buy this argument is because there are plenty of campaign worlds out there.  If one wanted to tell a story in the Forgotten Realms in the first place, why would the lore discourage them?  A majour reason for the realms was its rich lore and history.  If someone did not want that background why would they want to use the realms?




That sums it up perfectly. They made the Realms a setting for those who did not want the Realms (and were unwilling or unable to simply cut out all the lore themselves), but something new. And there was no reason at all to do this, other than to milk the name, or to destroy something you hate - maybe both.


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## Scribble (Mar 23, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> Then why use the Forgotten Realms?  Why not use Eberron, or a homebrew world, or bring back Dark Sun, or Planescape, or even Greyhawk.




Because parts of the Realms spoke to that particular author?  Art is funny like that. 



> I have always been able to add my own voice to the Realms.  Never once did I feel constrained (and I have made alot of my own realms stories).  People get caught up in the amount of lore without seeing that if you focus on an area, there really may not be that much history.  Don't use Shadowdale or Waterdeep.  Use Athkatla, Berdusk, or Scornubel.  I have developed Scornubel far above what is developed in any of the guides.




That's cool. Rememebr the part where I said there are probably tons of untold stories in the old realms? But sometimes people want to use other parts. Again art is like that. 

Look how many times Batman has had a "restart?"

And even those parts that don't have much detail are still touched in various ways by the 20+ years of history in other parts. 

Another counter argument I have is that you can use the same "laziness" argument in favor of changing the realms up. If you don't people get lazy and rely on 20 years of history to create their story insted of thinking up new ones. Instead of unique stories we get formulaic plug in the pieces. 



> the reason I cannot buy this argument is because there are plenty of campaign worlds out there.  If one wanted to tell a story in the Forgotten Realms in the first place, why would the lore discourage them?  A majour reason for the realms was its rich lore and history.  If someone did not want that background why would they want to use the realms?




Because they like the overall picture of the Realms, but their story won't quite fit within the nitty gritty framework. They have an idea for the Realms but someone eleses idea that happened to come first invalidates it. 

Lots of reasons.




> I am hard pressed to see how a storyteller (DM, Writer, whatever) could not tell an original story with fresh ideas in what was the Forgotten Realms before the change.  If you want a new city make it.  A new villain; make it.  Even Marvel Comics can come up with original storiesthat do not impact their universe on a cosmic level.




Sure no argument there. No argument that DMs are creative and can create all sorts of neat stuff no matter what the setting.




> Then that would not be the setting for you.  Understandable.  I would not call you lazy for not wanting to use the realms.  Why would someone want to use the Realms if they did not want to explore the lore?




Because again, the Big Picture is interesting, but all the lore is more work then it's worth. 



> The Realms that is published now, is completely different from the Realms that stood the test of time.  it is a completely different campaign setting.




Sure, it's a different period in the history of the realms. The realms that existed in 2007 was a completely different campaign setting then the one that existed in 1987. Only thing constant is change. I'm looking forward to seeing what the new stories that crop up out of the Realms are.


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## Obryn (Mar 23, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> I have not met someone yet who is familiar with gaming (note I do not mean 'just entered the hobby') that would not be able to tell the difference between the two.  I know the quote from Mike Mearls.  I didn't agree with it then, and I don't agree with it now since every gamer I know CAN tell the difference between the two.  Mike Mearls job is to make a product and convince people to buy it.



I think gamers, by and large, do know the difference between the two.  I think you miss the point, though, when you think this is what he was talking about.

I think the point was that both FR and Greyhawk are, at their root, generic fantasy settings.  Don't get me wrong - both developed in their own ways and have built up their own lore - but by and large, any adventure found in one could be found in the other just as easily.  This shouldn't be surprising - both were designed to be, more or less, settings where one can play AD&D.  So, they had all the trappings of AD&D.  Unless you bring up specific place names or god names, I doubt you could watch a game and figure out which setting it's in.



> Then why use the Forgotten Realms?  Why not use Eberron, or a homebrew world, or bring back Dark Sun, or Planescape, or even Greyhawk.



I'll turn this around - why _not_ the Forgotten Realms?



> I have always been able to add my own voice to the Realms.  Never once did I feel constrained (and I have made alot of my own realms stories).  People get caught up in the amount of lore without seeing that if you focus on an area, there really may not be that much history.  Don't use Shadowdale or Waterdeep.  Use Athkatla, Berdusk, or Scornubel.  I have developed Scornubel far above what is developed in any of the guides.



I take it, though, that you are also very familiar with the Realms.  You seem pretty attached to Realmslore and the history, so it strikes me as disingenouous that you could talk about how easy it is to make adventures there.



> the reason I cannot buy this argument is because there are plenty of campaign worlds out there.  If one wanted to tell a story in the Forgotten Realms in the first place, why would the lore discourage them?  A majour reason for the realms was its rich lore and history.  If someone did not want that background why would they want to use the realms?



...and this kinda contradicts your previous point.  If one wants to tell a story in the Realms, by this argument, one should also take the time to learn the (rich/too rich) history.  It's not a simple process anymore.



> Then that would not be the setting for you.  Understandable.  I would not call you lazy for not wanting to use the realms.  Why would someone want to use the Realms if they did not want to explore the lore?



You keep repeating this point.  Are you saying that the Realms should be a difficult world to write adventures in?



> The Realms that is published now, is completely different from the Realms that stood the test of time.  it is a completely different campaign setting.



I agree that it's a different setting.  So ... go ahead and use the other Realms.  It's kinda your call, as I see it.

-O


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## Scribble (Mar 23, 2009)

dmccoy1693 said:


> QFT.  Infact, that has been most of my problem with 4E.  I'm sure it is a great game, but it is not what I want in a game bearing the name Dungeons and Dragons.  If I can't take a 1E book of fluff (ignoring all stats), use it in any later version of D&D and feel like I am playing the same game, but with different mechanics, then its D&D.  4E doesn't inspire that feeling, from everything I have seen.  That's why it is not D&D to me.  That's why Pathfinder is D&D to me.




To each his own man... I've personally been opening and using a lot of my earlier supplments lately far more then I ever did in recent years. To ME it feels like an old friend from my past has come back into my life... Just a bit more in shape, and extroverted then he once was! 

If Pathfinder creates that feeling for you... Right on! Win Win!


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## Arnwyn (Mar 23, 2009)

rounser said:


> From RPG.net.  Is this true?



Like what some others said: It wouldn't surprise me if it were true, but I doubt it.


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## grimslade (Mar 23, 2009)

I don't think there was a hatred of FR on the design team. I think there was a bit of indifference. I don't believe there was an active FR campaign going on at WotC when 4E was being designed and a lot of the designers and developers were lightly exposed to FR. The Design and Development articles leading up to the FR launch had lots of tidbits like this. The FR boards on Gleemax/WotC were a good place for designer comment, mostly Rich Baker Must Be Stopped (I think he had his name legally changed). There was nothing nefarious in what happened to FR. WotC wanted the Golden Goose to keep laying golden eggs, but they wanted the gold inside too. So we have Zombie Gander to contend with.

First, I like 4E FR. I can dream of a million campaigns using the material in the FRCB. I like the concept of Returned Abeir. I enjoy the fantastic and magical landscapes torn by an arcane apocalypse. The parts I don't enjoy I can handwave away. Some places need more handwaving, some need wind-generating, vigorous handwaving. All in all, New FR is fun to play in with neat places to kill neat enemies and take their neat stuff.

The problem is the setting seems rushed and a jumbled tossed salad of concepts instead of a unified setting. Part of this is intent the juxtaposition of Returned Abeir and Faerun creates tension and uncertainty for adventurers to overcome. In hindsight, I think 100 years is too little a time difference for the setting jump. And right out of the gate at the release of 4E was too soon for the setting. The setting needed more in game and development time to gel. Saying a thousand year jump before the release was akin to saying discontinued, but I think it would have been a cleaner break. Of course, the other alternative was to rename the setting Returned Abeir and discontinue FR. I think the setting would have had less detractors that way, but maybe not.


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## Roman (Mar 23, 2009)

Fenes said:


> All I can say is that if those writers of the new Realms did not hate the Forgotten Realms then in my opinion they really did a good - an excellent job - of faking such hate.




ROFL, but considering what has been done it rings eerily true! 



Mournblade94 said:


> the reason I cannot buy this argument is because there are plenty of campaign worlds out there.  If one wanted to tell a story in the Forgotten Realms in the first place, why would the lore discourage them?  A majour reason for the realms was its rich lore and history.  If someone did not want that background why would they want to use the realms?
> 
> ...
> 
> ...




I am in complete agreement with you here. It's not that the new setting is necessarily bad, it's just that it isn't Forgotten Realms any more. 

To be honest, I don't even see much commercial sense in it. After all, WotC has another wildly successful setting, Eberron, that does not have the backlog of lore, does not have such high-level NPCs and so on - so they already cater to the market of gamers that prefers that. Even if that market is bigger, wouldn't it also make sense to support, perhaps with fewer sourcebooks if it is not as big as the other market, the market of gamers who love FR and its complexity, lore, characters and so on?


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## Henry (Mar 23, 2009)

Scribble said:


> To each his own man... I've personally been opening and using a lot of my earlier supplments lately far more then I ever did in recent years. To ME it feels like an old friend from my past has come back into my life... Just a bit more in shape, and extroverted then he once was!




I had a similar feeling when I ran my 4E Eberron game last year. I picked up the Eberron Campaign book from 3.5, starting drafting 4E NPCs to go with it, and didn't skip a beat.  The only thing I missed was the Dragonmarks, and fortunately I didn't have any players interested in a Dragonmarked Heir, but thanks to Spellscars and multiclassing I have an idea how they would work in Eberron, and I imagine if I pick up my 4E Eberron game this year, the Eberron Player book will be out by then, and the point will be moot.


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## Mournblade94 (Mar 23, 2009)

Obryn said:


> I'll turn this around - why _not_ the Forgotten Realms?




I was only referring to this question in the context of someone that thought the realms was too much work.



Obryn said:


> I take it, though, that you are also very familiar with the Realms. You seem pretty attached to Realmslore and the history, so it strikes me as disingenouous that you could talk about how easy it is to make adventures there.




I have never read an Eberron book.  If I was asked to write an adventure for it I would be able to create a good, relevent, adventure with only perusing the main source book for Eberron.  The realms was the same.    If however you wanted to write a realms changing campaign, maybe then you would have to research more.



Obryn said:


> ...and this kinda contradicts your previous point. If one wants to tell a story in the Realms, by this argument, one should also take the time to learn the (rich/too rich) history. It's not a simple process anymore.




In that quote above I am assuming the context of an individual that thinks the realms is too 'hard', 'much', 'complex', 'esoteric', and other appropriate words.  In that context, I asked why would someone then want to use the realms.



Obryn said:


> You keep repeating this point. Are you saying that the Realms should be a difficult world to write adventures in?




It is not a difficult world with which to work.  I did repeat this using the assumption I described above.



Obryn said:


> I agree that it's a different setting. So ... go ahead and use the other Realms. It's kinda your call, as I see it.
> 
> -O




It most certainly is a players call.  Some people though need support for their favourite setting.  I am not one of those, I could write adventures for the forgotten realms all I want, or modify modules for the setting.  Someone that wanted support though is pretty much shagged if they don't like the DRASTIC change, and shift of complete paradigm.  It is no longer the campaign setting they wanted, nor is it the one they have come to accept.

Its one thing to come up with a new rules system.  People choose campaigns for a particular spectrum of adventure they enjoy.  Many FR fans feel as if that spectrum was changed on them completely.  INstead of green realms they are now playing red realms.

It is no different that saying 'we are now discontinuing Star Wars material and giving you this new campaign setting'.  Ok Star Wars fans, we are taking away the force.  There are many empires now Klingon and Romulan are some of them.  The entire new republic/rebel alliance/republic is now being called star fleet.

If you liked Star Trek that is great.  If you liked Star Wars though you are screwed.  The rub though is that Star Trek already exists, there is no where for Star Wars fans to go and have their product supported.


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## jbear (Mar 23, 2009)

I strongly doubt that someone who hates the realms would be assigned to redesign it for a new product release.

I am running the realms and I find the new story very inspiring. Mystra dead, a mad god her assassin, the lost continent returned, the underdark layed bare... 

What I would have found more incomprehensible would have been a FR Campaign release that was little more than rewriting a previous campaign guide with 4e statistics. I'm not really sure what people are advocating or how they think they could have done it better when they slam the new FR.


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## Shazman (Mar 23, 2009)

Well, I would say that it is highly likely that the FR design team didn't like many aspects of the setting just like the 4E design team seemed to not like many aspects of D&D.


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## Ed_Laprade (Mar 23, 2009)

I've been gaming for over 30 years and the only difference between Greyhawk and The Forgotten Realms that I'm aware of is that E Gary wrote one and Ed Greenwood wrote the other. But then, the GMs I've played with usually made their own worlds. Or put their setting in GH or FR and we didn't see much of it outside of a few towns and cities, plus wilderness and dungeons. They just weren't important enough to us. (We were there to kill things and take their stuff!)

Oh yeah, and is anyone going to explain _why_ the Realms are Forgotten? (And frankly, I wish they were. There'd be a lot less arguing going on here if they/it were/was.)


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## Obryn (Mar 23, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> I was only referring to this question in the context of someone that thought the realms was too much work.
> ...
> I have never read an Eberron book.  If I was asked to write an adventure for it I would be able to create a good, relevent, adventure with only perusing the main source book for Eberron.  The realms was the same.    If however you wanted to write a realms changing campaign, maybe then you would have to research more.
> ...
> ...



I'll be honest here - it seems like you want to have your cake and eat it too.  That is, have a hugely detailed world with abundant lore, but also have a setting that's light enough for casual DMs to just feel like jumping in.

I haven't felt like FR has been that kind of world since the grey box - my favorite version, fwiw.



> It most certainly is a players call.  Some people though need support for their favourite setting.  I am not one of those, I could write adventures for the forgotten realms all I want, or modify modules for the setting.  Someone that wanted support though is pretty much shagged if they don't like the DRASTIC change, and shift of complete paradigm.  It is no longer the campaign setting they wanted, nor is it the one they have come to accept.



If they want to play the old realms, there's a _ton_ of material available for it.  Literally, staggering amounts - which is either a perk or a problem here, depending on your perspective.

For the 1e/2e conversion, FR underwent a big ol' cataclysm.  It shook up the setting.  I wasn't paying enough attention to know if there was a similar shake-up for 2e/3e.  For 3e/4e...  Well, lets face facts - the games have some different assumptions.  

If you want to keep game mechanics (particularly involving magic) consistent with world-logic, in a world which shows a historical narrative awareness of D&D rules changes, you simply have to change some things.  I'd say the Spellplague and Returned Abeir are a pretty good example of changing things. So, with that in mind, let me switch it around - how would you have handled the 3e/4e Realms conversion?



> Its one thing to come up with a new rules system.  People choose campaigns for a particular spectrum of adventure they enjoy.  Many FR fans feel as if that spectrum was changed on them completely.  INstead of green realms they are now playing red realms.
> 
> It is no different that saying 'we are now discontinuing Star Wars material and giving you this new campaign setting'.  Ok Star Wars fans, we are taking away the force.  There are many empires now Klingon and Romulan are some of them.  The entire new republic/rebel alliance/republic is now being called star fleet.
> 
> If you liked Star Trek that is great.  If you liked Star Wars though you are screwed.  The rub though is that Star Trek already exists, there is no where for Star Wars fans to go and have their product supported.



So are you arguing that there shouldn't _be_ a 4e Forgotten Realms?

That would be ... kinda shocking, frankly.

-O


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## Primal (Mar 23, 2009)

Scribble said:


> Again with calling people lazy... You say laziness, I say too much work for something supposed to be an activity someone does with his free time.




Well, as far as the designers/authors go... they get *paid* to read that stuff. If an author says that it's too much work to keep consistent to existing Realmslore, maybe it's time to get a new job? 

As far as DMs go, I can understand that it's a lot of extra work, if you have no previous knowledge of the Realms. However, how is it any different from DMs new to Eberron having to read dozens of accessories PLUS dozens of novels? Oh, and the Dragonshard articles as well. I have only read a single Eberron book ('Tales from the Last War'), but I've also taken a glimpse at some of the accessories and articles, and seems to me that the same depth of details and "burden of lore" is there as well.

So how is Eberron, with all that lore I "should" read before running it, any different from FR? Because as far as I'm concerned, most of the FR products released during the AD&D era were not that relevant, and probably almost half of the products released during the 3E era were regional books -- which, in my rough estimation, probably brings the amount of "required reading" on par with Eberron.

If I think it's too much trouble (as those who thought running FR was) to start an Eberron campaign, can I now cry: "It's too much work! I want the 'Mournplague' to happen! Give me Eberron that does not require me to read and memorize *dozens* of books!"


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## Ulrick (Mar 23, 2009)

Ed_Laprade said:


> ...
> 
> Oh yeah, and is anyone going to explain _why_ the Realms are Forgotten? (And frankly, I wish they were. There'd be a lot less arguing going on here if they/it were/was.)




About 20 years ago, a friend explained to me that Toril and Earth at one time had some sort of connection, via magical portals. People mingled freely between the two worlds, and its why Earth has legends about giants and elves and the like.  At some point, the connection was lost/broken and became only a myth.  Eventually even the myth became....FORGOTTEN! 

EDIT: And here's wikipedia to the rescue...
Forgotten Realms - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read the 2nd paragraph


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## Mournblade94 (Mar 23, 2009)

Obryn said:


> I'll be honest here - it seems like you want to have your cake and eat it too.  That is, have a hugely detailed world with abundant lore, but also have a setting that's light enough for casual DMs to just feel like jumping in.
> 
> I haven't felt like FR has been that kind of world since the grey box - my favorite version, fwiw.




Actually it is my feeling that the realms were easy enough for a casual DM to just jump right in.  Where is it that a new DM wishes to focus?  Set an adventure in Waterdeep you might need some background.  You want a port city setting, yet you don't want lore?  Ok use Zassespur.  If you THOUGHT however that the realms was too complex why then use it?  There is nothing about any campaign world I find too complex.  It may seem daunting at first until you explore.  Start small, then work your way out, like you are making your own campaign world using a small town.

If I had my choice, I would choose the rich lore over simplicity in any campaign setting I choose.



Obryn said:


> If they want to play the old realms, there's a _ton_ of material available for it.  Literally, staggering amounts - which is either a perk or a problem here, depending on your perspective.




I agree with you that the Realms material will always be available.  For some people I know, the realms is like their comic books, they want to see what is in store for the setting.  They were not however expecting the setting to completely change.



Obryn said:


> For the 1e/2e conversion, FR underwent a big ol' cataclysm.  It shook up the setting.  I wasn't paying enough attention to know if there was a similar shake-up for 2e/3e.  For 3e/4e...  Well, lets face facts - the games have some different assumptions.




The changes to the 2nd edition realms were the gods, and some nations were turned on their head.  IN THIS change, you have a complete change in morphology.  Waterdeep known for its great harbour, suddenly has sunk its entire navy, and its Harbour is jammed with ships that now becomes a new ward.  It is no longer your great merchant city.  I can't remember all the changes quite frankly because I haven't opened the book in months.



Obryn said:


> If you want to keep game mechanics (particularly involving magic) consistent with world-logic, in a world which shows a historical narrative awareness of D&D rules changes, you simply have to change some things.  I'd say the Spellplague and Returned Abeir are a pretty good example of changing things. So, with that in mind, let me switch it around - how would you have handled the 3e/4e Realms conversion?




Simply you have Eberron with many many fantastical elements.  I would have left the landscape very much the same as is, but perhaps changed some nations around if I wanted to go a cataclysm route.

Most likely since the magic system changed, I perhaps would of made Mystra the guardian of the weave trying to keep it from fracturing.  Somehow instead of the weave it rips into some realmsian form of powersources.  Wars may be fought but there would not suddenly be utterly alien phenomenon.

Forgotten Realms was a good place to adventure where you could have your standard medieval city or fantastical magic city.  Now the designers have decreed that the non fantastical is no longer fun, so they needed to make everything alien.  For some reason WOTC seems to think they are really capable of defining fun.

4e was a majour change (most of which I am unapologetically against), but the Realms did not need need a change in form to conform to the new rules set.



Obryn said:


> So are you arguing that there shouldn't _be_ a 4e Forgotten Realms?
> 
> That would be ... kinda shocking, frankly.




Well WOTC still may need to sell some novels...

4e forgotten realms is related to previous edition forgotten realms in only the vaguest sense.  It is a different world using names from a previous campaign world.

For all purposes though, if I had my choice of having this remnant be the realms or WOTC not printing it, I would choose they retire the realms.


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## Scribble (Mar 23, 2009)

Primal said:


> Well, as far as the designers/authors go... they get *paid* to read that stuff. If an author says that it's too much work to keep consistent to existing Realmslore, maybe it's time to get a new job?




Sure... Who argued that? 

You do also have to consider that if a setting isn't inspiring your authors (paid or not) something needs to happen. 

I don't know if this was really happening or not, but it's a thought.



> As far as DMs go, I can understand that it's a lot of extra work, if you have no previous knowledge of the Realms. However, how is it any different from DMs new to Eberron having to read dozens of accessories PLUS dozens of novels? Oh, and the Dragonshard articles as well. I have only read a single Eberron book ('Tales from the Last War'), but I've also taken a glimpse at some of the accessories and articles, and seems to me that the same depth of details and "burden of lore" is there as well.




There's a lot no doubt, but certainly no where near 20 years worth.




> So how is Eberron, with all that lore I "should" read before running it, any different from FR? Because as far as I'm concerned, most of the FR products released during the AD&D era were not that relevant, and probably almost half of the products released during the 3E era were regional books -- which, in my rough estimation, probably brings the amount of "required reading" on par with Eberron.
> 
> If I think it's too much trouble (as those who thought running FR was) to start an Eberron campaign, can I now cry: "It's too much work! I want the 'Mournplague' to happen! Give me Eberron that does not require me to read and memorize *dozens* of books!"




Sure why not?


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## Mournblade94 (Mar 23, 2009)

Primal said:


> Well, as far as the designers/authors go... they get *paid* to read that stuff. If an author says that it's too much work to keep consistent to existing Realmslore, maybe it's time to get a new job?




If you are getting PAID to write an adventure or novel and choose not too because the realms are too complex, then yes you need to get another job.



Primal said:


> As far as DMs go, I can understand that it's a lot of extra work, if you have no previous knowledge of the Realms. However, how is it any different from DMs new to Eberron having to read dozens of accessories PLUS dozens of novels? Oh, and the Dragonshard articles as well. I have only read a single Eberron book ('Tales from the Last War'), but I've also taken a glimpse at some of the accessories and articles, and seems to me that the same depth of details and "burden of lore" is there as well.
> 
> So how is Eberron, with all that lore I "should" read before running it, any different from FR? Because as far as I'm concerned, most of the FR products released during the AD&D era were not that relevant, and probably almost half of the products released during the 3E era were regional books -- which, in my rough estimation, probably brings the amount of "required reading" on par with Eberron.
> 
> If I think it's too much trouble (as those who thought running FR was) to start an Eberron campaign, can I now cry: "It's too much work! I want the 'Mournplague' to happen! Give me Eberron that does not require me to read and memorize *dozens* of books!"




Very true what you say.  Yet Eberron as a world has a paradigm that fits well within the 4e design philosophy.  They need no excuses to drastically change anything.  Eberron will not need to be shoehorned into 4e it will fit nice.  

FR had to be shoehorned, but they used a shoehorn several sizes to large.


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## Cadfan (Mar 23, 2009)

For those worried that the forgotten realms were designed by people who hate the forgotten realms:

If I'd designed it, you'd know.


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## Primal (Mar 23, 2009)

Scribble said:


> Sure... Who argued that?
> 
> You do also have to consider that if a setting isn't inspiring your authors (paid or not) something needs to happen.




I thought the issue was not about whether FR inspires writers or not, but rather the "burden of lore" they need to read to avoid conflict canon Realmslore? If it was not inspiring, I don't think there would be such an overwhelming number of FR novels published lately (I honestly can't even keep up with reading them). 

I might not always feel inspired in my job, but I can't go and demand my boss "shakes things up" just so that I could feel more inspired about my work again. Honestly, if you're a professional writer who only writes when inspiration or mood strikes, maybe it's not the ideal job for you?



> There's a lot no doubt, but certainly no where near 20 years worth.




Well, most of the FR products published by TSR during the years just before its dying trashes isn't actually worth buying (or reading). Volo's Guides, the "Deity Books" and several others (i.e. all the stuff written by Greenwood, Schend and Boyd) is another matter. All in all, the books that matter probably have about the same amount of lore that Eberron books. Of course, YMMV.



> Sure why not?




"I want the MOURNPLAGUE to happen before I'll touch Eberron! You hear that, designers?!? Strip it down to the core so I won't have to read X books on Aeryni elven habits or Dragonmarks or the events of the Last War, or the noble Houses, or the history of Xen'drik..."


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## Scribble (Mar 23, 2009)

Primal said:


> I thought the issue was not about whether FR inspires writers or not, but rather the "burden of lore" they need to read to avoid conflict canon Realmslore? If it was not inspiring, I don't think there would be such an overwhelming number of FR novels published lately (I honestly can't even keep up with reading them).




The burdon of lore I'm talking about in so far as writers are concerned is the lore contradicts a story they want to tell, so they can't tell it, or they have to heavily modify it to make it fit. 



> I might not always feel inspired in my job, but I can't go and demand my boss "shakes things up" just so that I could feel more inspired about my work again. Honestly, if you're a professional writer who only writes when inspiration or mood strikes, maybe it's not the ideal job for you?




Inspired to do your job, and "doing your job" are two different things.  It's possible to still meet your demanded work output without being inspired, but that's all you're doing. Just meeting your deadlines with something that meets the criteria. Inspiration helps you meet those deadlines with material that goes above and beyond what would otherwise "meet expected criteria." 

Sure, Heath ledger could have just played a part as "the joker." He could have just done the lines, and moved on, but instead he was inspired to add somethign to the role. He went above and beyond and consequently helped the film do the same.

And I feel somewhat bad for you if your employer is that hard nosed that they never accept any employee input. My company is going through some changes right now, partially inspired by customer demand, but a whole lot of it was inspired by employee thoughts and opinions on what will help us do our jobs more effectively and less stressfully. 



> Well, most of the FR products published by TSR during the years just before its dying trashes isn't actually worth buying (or reading). Volo's Guides, the "Deity Books" and several others (i.e. all the stuff written by Greenwood, Schend and Boyd) is another matter. All in all, the books that matter probably have about the same amount of lore that Eberron books. Of course, YMMV.




The very fact that someone else's milleage might vary, pretty much invalidates this statement. There's a whole lotta stuff out there for FR. Just because YOU didn't care about it doesn't mean it didn't matter to others. (Or effect what could and couldn't be done in the realms as they stood.)



> "I want the MOURNPLAGUE to happen before I'll touch Eberron! You hear that, designers?!? Strip it down to the core so I won't have to read X books on Aeryni elven habits or Dragonmarks or the events of the Last War, or the noble Houses, or the history of Xen'drik..."




If there are enough of you it might happen. Which I'd be cool with too. New stories.


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## Primal (Mar 24, 2009)

Scribble said:


> The burdon of lore I'm talking about in so far as writers are concerned is the lore contradicts a story they want to tell, so they can't tell it, or they have to heavily modify it to make it fit.




And how is the different from authors writing for Eberron? I just don't see the difference between reading a lot, and reading...almost as much. And, And, unless they're offering a finished manuscript to the publisher, why can't you just write your story based on the relevant material? If you absolutely want to change a detail, you can discuss it with the publisher, and I don't see a problem with it unless you want to make major "shake-ups" to the whole are your story is based in. And it's not like the Realms didn't get its share of RSEs in novels, right? 




> Inspired to do your job, and "doing your job" are two different things.  It's possible to still meet your demanded work output without being inspired, but that's all you're doing. Just meeting your deadlines with something that meets the criteria. Inspiration helps you meet those deadlines with material that goes above and beyond what would otherwise "meet expected criteria."
> 
> Sure, Heath ledger could have just played a part as "the joker." He could have just done the lines, and moved on, but instead he was inspired to add somethign to the role. He went above and beyond and consequently helped the film do the same.
> 
> And I feel somewhat bad for you if your employer is that hard nosed that they never accept any employee input. My company is going through some changes right now, partially inspired by customer demand, but a whole lot of it was inspired by employee thoughts and opinions on what will help us do our jobs more effectively and less stressfully.




You're correct -- indeed, professional writing is mostly about "doing your job", whether you're inspired or not. You just need to sit down and write, or you'll never meet deadlines. Now, speaking of fantasy authors who write for existing settings, in some cases you probably "connect" to the setting and feel more inspired than in others, but the fact is that you can't moan and groan to the publisher about not being able to write because the setting doesn't inspire you enough and therefore it needs to change. Of course, if several of your "co-workers" feel the same way, there may be something wrong, but if the reason is simply that you don't want to do research before you start writing, you are probably not of the type fit to do it for living. 

Employee imput is one thing, but it's a bit different in the public institutions -- feedback is great, but rarely leads to any major changes. After all, once everyone has done something in a certain way for the last thirty, forty years, it's useless to try to reason about how it could be done in a better and more efficient way (I've tried this many times, believe me). 

Anyway, your company is clearly a private business, and they listen to their customers and employees; that's great. But I can't imagine a Microsoft freelancer telling Bill Gates that "I'm not inspired by this Vista and I need to read too many manuals, so how about we scrap it all and start to work on another OS". 

As far as FR is concerned, apparently WoTC thought that enough FR fans (and customers who were not fans) were unhappy with FR, and took a risk by turning it all upside down. New stories aplenty, sure, but to me it seems (and this is all based on anecdotal evidence, but anyway) that the risk didn't pay off as well as they thought it would (hence the "three books per setting" policy, methinks, at least for FR -- I suspect Eberron might get more support if it sells better).   



> The very fact that someone else's milleage might vary, pretty much invalidates this statement. There's a whole lotta stuff out there for FR. Just because YOU didn't care about it doesn't mean it didn't matter to others. (Or effect what could and couldn't be done in the realms as they stood.)




Well, do YOU consider the Marco Volo-goodness or Demihumans/Priests/Wizards of the Realms actually relevant products containing much Realmslore? A lot of the stuff they produced during that era are not actually high on my "must-own-and-use" list. Feel free to argue about it, but if we asked a thousand FR fans who've been aboard since those days, I don't think their opinion would vary a lot from mine.



> If there are enough of you it might happen. Which I'd be cool with too. New stories.




Yep, new stories! I hope that the designers and everyone else who feels the same way are monitoring this thread...


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## Nivenus (Mar 24, 2009)

No.

I can't really spite people for disliking things in the new edition of FR (even though I like alot, though not all, of it) but this is a misinterpretation or straight out lie.

Let's look at the development team, shall we, who divided the work roughly equally between them?

*Bruce R. Cordell*
This is the single most reasonable designer to levy the charge against, but only because he's had little work in FR. He's also the one who's responsible for many of the things old-school FR players dislike the most - such as the new importance of aberrant creatures like aboleths (or as some call them, "tentacled beasties"), which, looking at his bibliography, seems to be a preoccupation of his. However, he's an FR novelist, which if anything should show an interest in the setting. He also worked on the Underdark supplement for 3rd edition, so he isn't alien to the setting.

*Ed Greenwood*
Ummm... anyone claiming Greenwood hates FR has as much credibility as someone claiming Lucas hates Star Wars (not to say that Lucas hasn't done some things that fans such as myself vehemently dislike). Greenwood _created_ the setting and indeed, comments on forums suggest that he's responsible for much of what's in 4e - such as the return to player-focused FR or the primordials (their role in FR ties into an idea he'd had running around for some years called the "Sleeping Gods"). Not to mention that he's responsible for an entire chapter of the book - the one devoted to the new continent Returned Abeir. Greenwood very much likes FR and, from all indications, very much likes 4e FR.

*Chris Sims*
Chris Sims is somewhat unfamiliar with the setting, much like Cordell, but he's worked on a few sourcebooks such as The Shining South prior to his work on the FRCG. Overall, he's pretty new to WotC's roster in all regards, not just for FR. He did, however, work on Eberron in 3.5, which may be part of the reason why he might be interpreted as hostile to FR (which is ridiculous, if you ask me).

*Rob Heinsoo*
Rob Heinsoo was the creative lead for 4e in general so I can understand why those who don't like 4e would level blame against him. But he's not hostile to FR. In fact, he was one of the lead designers for the 3e FRCS as well as its Monstrous Compendium companion.

*Logan Bonner*
Bonner's another outsider imported from Eberron. This hardly means he's actually hostile, however.

*Robert J. Schwalb*
Robert J. Schwalb's originally from Green Ronin but he transferred over to D&D in late 3.5 for work on Tome of Magic and Fiendish Codex II. His work in 4e seems focused primarily on magic and its use, given his work on AP, AV, and DP. He doesn't appear hostile to FR, but I will admit he's not very experienced with either.

*Rich Baker*
Not to be confused with the similarly named Keith Baker and Rich Burlew . Rich Baker's been with FR since 2e. He's openly devoted to the Realms and openly supportive of it. He interacts with the fans on a regular basis and is understanding of their issues with changes to the setting. The only reason I can imagine someone would say he hates FR is because of his openly stating some issues with a few of FR's pre-4e characteristics (such as its transplanted Earth cultures or the sheer number and the concept of Ao).


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## Mouseferatu (Mar 24, 2009)

Primal said:


> Well, as far as the designers/authors go... they get *paid* to read that stuff.




Just to be clear... No, we don't.

We get paid by the word. Period. Any outside research or reading that we have to do is just that--outside.

I get paid the same whether I'm writing for core D&D or for Forgotten Realms, and if the former requires I know material from four books, and the latter from twenty-four... Well, it's more cost-effective for me _and_ for WotC to keep me on the former. And there comes a point where the ratio of effort to payment simply makes further research non-viable for the amount of income.

If that becomes the case for the _bulk_ of freelancers, Forgotten Realms becomes unsustainable. Now, that specific point of no return differs from freelancer to freelancer, and some begin with a greater knowledge of FR than others. But that doesn't change the fact that, as people move on and new people become writers, the settings that require heavy research beyond a certain point simply cease attracting skilled writers.

Is that what happened with FR? I have no idea. But claiming that we "get paid" to keep up with this degree of material is simply false.


----------



## The Little Raven (Mar 24, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> Writing for Forgotten Realms was no more difficult than writing for STAR WARS.




Having worked on a licensed property in my previous job as a programmer, I can tell you that creating authorized content for an existing license is a pain in the ass. You pitch your totally awesome story, and then meet up with some guy from the company that explains in detail why your awesome story totally sucks for the license. You get reams of information that you have to cross-reference to ensure consistency. You get a list of "do's and don'ts." Then, when you finally get it all together, they excise one-quarter of it because they feel that it doesn't add value to the license.

Anyone suggesting that working on official products for a world with the depth of content that FR has (millions of words) is easy has never worked on something of that nature before.


----------



## Shemeska (Mar 24, 2009)

*Playing devils advocate perhaps*



Mouseferatu said:


> Is that what happened with FR? I have no idea. But claiming that we "get paid" to keep up with this degree of material is simply false.




Well, I assumed that he was talking about someone working for WotC full-time, and not freelancers.

To be fair though, I would approach writing something for FR as a bit daunting, depending on what region of the world we're talking about. Anything vaguely planar or fiendish related to FR, not a problem at all for me, but anything else I'd feel compelled to seriously read the source material in depth before feeling comfortable writing something new on the topic. If I didn't feel I knew the base material enough to do it justice, I wouldn't try.

But you freelance as a full-time job, and anyone else doing so would have to take something like that into consideration, because as you said, it does impact a job's cost effectiveness given the research time involved. Now I don't by any means have writing as a full-time job, so I can worry less about such things and can afford to absorb myself in a dozen books to pick out obscure tidbits of lore if I want, but how many people like yourself that are actually in WotC's sights can say the same? I don't know. I won't say it's not a problem for WotC to get writers who really know the bulk of the setting's lore. Writing for 4e FR is probably easier since much of the pre-4e lore is irrelevant now, or just retconned entirely.


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## Mouseferatu (Mar 24, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> Well, I assumed that he was talking about someone working for WotC full-time, and not freelancers.




Even if he was, though, those guys are _insanely_ busy with writing, designing, developing, meetings, etc.

Obviously, a certain degree of familiarity with past material is indeed to be expected, even demanded. I'm not saying it's not. I do a pretty hefty amount of research for some projects, even as it is. (You'd be surprised how much re-reading of old planar material I did before writing the first _Codex of Betrayal_ article.)

But the level of familiarity being discussed, with settings as in-depth as old FR, simply isn't something that most writers, be they full-timers or freelance, can reasonably acquire if they don't already have it. (And most who already have it will eventually reach a point where they can't keep up.) Yes, there will always be a few who _are_ that familiar, but they're the minority.


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## MichaelSomething (Mar 24, 2009)

So the solution to the problem is to find people who know a lot about The Forgotten Realms and have them write all the material?  I guess all the Forgotten Realms uber-fans need to start stepping up.      

Better get writing Mournblade94


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## El Mahdi (Mar 24, 2009)

As to the Star Wars comparison, with Star Wars books there actually are people at Skywalker Ranch who have the job of checking work for accuracy with the setting/cannon. I'm not sure if WoTC has a department that dedicated to this like Skywalker Ranch does, but I'd doubt it. A library of material, Yes. A Library _staff_? I'd doubt it. The best bet you'd have for FR, other than reading and researching everything yourself, would be to ask Ed Greenwood himself. But it's very likely that with the shared nature of FR, it's possible even he doesn't know everything.


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## Primal (Mar 24, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Even if he was, though, those guys are _insanely_ busy with writing, designing, developing, meetings, etc.
> 
> Obviously, a certain degree of familiarity with past material is indeed to be expected, even demanded. I'm not saying it's not. I do a pretty hefty amount of research for some projects, even as it is. (You'd be surprised how much re-reading of old planar material I did before writing the first _Codex of Betrayal_ article.)
> 
> But the level of familiarity being discussed, with settings as in-depth as old FR, simply isn't something that most writers, be they full-timers or freelance, can reasonably acquire if they don't already have it. (And most who already have it will eventually reach a point where they can't keep up.) Yes, there will always be a few who _are_ that familiar, but they're the minority.




I can understand your point there, Ari, because like you said, it's a bit different for freelancers (i.e. you're only paid on basis of word count). However, if you're a designer or author on a regular payroll, I think it's part of the job. In my job, I need to read a lot of books which are "required reading" (I'm a librarian), and let me tell you that I couldn't care less about most of them. It's also expected that I keep up with what's happening in the publishing industry, and all-too-many websites related to literature and libraries. It's all part of my job description. If I get to read (every once in a while) something that I actually *like*, it feels great. In an ideal world, I could just concentrate on reading fantasy and science fiction and RPGs, and concentrate only on them in collection development. Yet this is what I chose to do for a living, so I'm not complaining.

If the full-time designers are really that busy, to me it implies that something should be done; whether they need more staff or simply some adjustments to schedules/how things are done, I don't know. Just let me ask something: will Eberron be "rebooted" as well as soon as the current authors are no longer writing for it, so that the "new crowd" won't have to read 50+ accessories plus novels just to get the facts right? And is it really the best way to handle things? I mean, there are pretty good Wikis out there, and maybe WoTC could co-operate with the fans in updating them, so that freelancers and staffers would always find up-to-date information quickly?


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## Obryn (Mar 24, 2009)

Primal said:


> If the full-time designers are really that busy, to me it implies that something should be done; whether they need more staff or simply some adjustments to schedules/how things are done, I don't know.



I'd say, in FR's case, they agreed that something should be done.

And then they did it.  So we have this thread.

As for hiring more staff...  I doubt that WotC can afford to keep a full-time Realmslore Keeper on staff, given recent layoffs.

-O


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## El Mahdi (Mar 24, 2009)

Obryn said:


> I'd say, in FR's case, they agreed that something should be done.
> 
> And then they did it. So we have this thread.
> 
> ...




But Dude, that would be the coolest job title *EVAR*: _Realmslore Keeper_.  It would almost be worth a crappy job just to have that title.


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## Obryn (Mar 24, 2009)

El Mahdi said:


> But Dude, that would be the coolest job title *EVAR*: _Realmslore Keeper_.  It would almost be worth a crappy job just to have that title.



And if the Realms pulled in as much cash as Lucasfilm, I'm sure we'd have one!

-O


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## RefinedBean (Mar 24, 2009)

Obryn said:


> And if the Realms pulled in as much cash as Lucasfilm, I'm sure we'd have one!
> 
> -O




Maybe WotC could license the Realms out to Lucasfilm.  I'd like to see George Lucas' take on Drizz't.

Actually, I'd like to see ENworld's reaction to the news.


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## Jack99 (Mar 24, 2009)

RefinedBean said:


> Maybe WotC could license the Realms out to Lucasfilm.  I'd like to see George Lucas' take on Drizz't.
> 
> Actually, I'd like to see ENworld's reaction to the news.




Something like 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 followed by a 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 or two. Then there will surely be a 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 or perhaps rather a thousand. A lot of people will be 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 or banned, while I personally will just be doing this:


----------



## Mournblade94 (Mar 24, 2009)

Nivenus said:


> No.
> 
> I can't really spite people for disliking things in the new edition of FR (even though I like alot, though not all, of it) but this is a misinterpretation or straight out lie.
> 
> ...




I do not like the 4e realms and I can find little to redeem it (Though returned Abeir bothers me the least of all changes).  Despite this, I would never say the designers changed the realms because they HATE it, or wanted to ruin it.  I think the failure of the product is more an action of slapping the FR label on the front cover and using FR names, than the actual design ideas.

the flavour of the realms is completely changed.


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## Imaro (Mar 24, 2009)

These were the design principles as stated in Dragon 366...

 1. it’s exactly what it says it is: a world of ancient 
realms to explore and discover.

2. it’s a thousand stories, all happening at once.

3. it’s a place where your character can be the most 
important person in the world or die in anonymity.

4. it’s a fully realized world, full of history and 
legend.

5. it’s a vibrant, ever-changing world that is constantly 
moving forward.

6. it’s core D&D “plus.”

7. it’s contemporary fantasy.

8. it’s 50% all new.

9. We’re not retconning. We’re assuming that 
everything that was, was.

Well I don't think they "hated" the FR... but some of these principles seem at odds with a concern or respect for any previous realmslore... notably number 7 & 8.


----------



## Mournblade94 (Mar 24, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Just to be clear... No, we don't.
> 
> We get paid by the word. Period. Any outside research or reading that we have to do is just that--outside.
> 
> ...




I doubt that is what happened to the FR, because there were plenty of skilled writers right up to the end.  The cormyr to anauroch campaign is great.

I understand it may not be cost effective for you to write for the realms.  I am sure your a skilled writer and perhaps it was a loss for the realms you did decide it was not cost effective to write for the realms.  There are writers willing to write for the setting.



The Little Raven said:


> Having worked on a licensed property in my previous job as a programmer, I can tell you that creating authorized content for an existing license is a pain in the ass. You pitch your totally awesome story, and then meet up with some guy from the company that explains in detail why your awesome story totally sucks for the license. You get reams of information that you have to cross-reference to ensure consistency. You get a list of "do's and don'ts." Then, when you finally get it all together, they excise one-quarter of it because they feel that it doesn't add value to the license.
> 
> Anyone suggesting that working on official products for a world with the depth of content that FR has (millions of words) is easy has never worked on something of that nature before.




I am really speaking towards an individual DM making modules or his own campaign material.  For your own material there is no one that can tell you that this or that can or cannot be done.

As you know, if someone chooses to write for licensed material (And Lucasarts is the WORSE) what you explained above is the nature of that beast.

If you want to tell your own story and not have it conflict do not use licensed material.



MichaelSomething said:


> So the solution to the problem is to find people who know a lot about The Forgotten Realms and have them write all the material? I guess all the Forgotten Realms uber-fans need to start stepping up.
> 
> Better get writing Mournblade94




I would write material for the old realms in a heart beat  I am better off writing after I catch the writing call adverts, which I never seemed to do


----------



## Jack99 (Mar 24, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> I do not like the 4e realms and I can find little to redeem it (Though returned Abeir bothers me the least of all changes).  Despite this, I would never say the designers changed the realms because they HATE it, or wanted to ruin it.  I think the failure of the product is more an action of slapping the FR label on the front cover and using FR names, than the actual design ideas.
> 
> the flavour of the realms is completely changed.




Technically, it's not really a failure just because you and the 200 people you hang out with on certain FR boards hate it. If the remaining 5 million players love it, it's actually a success.

(yes, numbers pulled out of my .... hat, but calling something a failure without having anything but anecdotal evidence is wrong)


----------



## Mournblade94 (Mar 24, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> Technically, it's not really a failure just because you and the 200 people you hang out with on certain FR boards hate it. If the remaining 5 million players love it, it's actually a success.
> 
> (yes, numbers pulled out of my .... hat, but calling something a failure without having anything but anecdotal evidence is wrong)




Certainly it is not any sort of moral failing that I said ...
It is a FAILURE.

Yes it is opinion.

You must not have an easy time reading opinion pieces in papers, if you need to point out when someone offers opinions without empirical evidence.

Thank you for bothering to point out it was merely my opinion.  I was sure I was speaking empirically.


----------



## Piratecat (Mar 24, 2009)

RefinedBean said:


> Maybe WotC could license the Realms out to Lucasfilm.  I'd like to see George Lucas' take on Drizz't.
> 
> Actually, I'd like to see ENworld's reaction to the news.



"Meesa hava big kitty and two pokey-sticks! But are vewwy lonely. Awwww." - Driz'zzz Binks.


----------



## Jack99 (Mar 24, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> Certainly it is not any sort of moral failing that I said ...
> It is a FAILURE.
> 
> Yes it is opinion.
> ...




My pleasure. Glad to have enlightened you.


----------



## Mournblade94 (Mar 24, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> My pleasure. Glad to have enlightened you.




You did well contributing where you were able.  I look forward to future contributions.

_You've won a free threadban for a personal attack! Congratulations!  ~ PCat_


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## Jack99 (Mar 24, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> You did well contributing where you were able.  I look forward to future contributions.




Attempts at personal attacks are frowned upon on this board. Even disguised as sarcasm.

However, I just want to point out something. Saying 4e FR is a failure is not an opinion, that's stating a fact. Saying you do not like it, is an opinion. This is why I posted my first comment. You are of course 100% entitled to your own opinion, and hell, you might even be right, according to a majority of those who post on messageboards. There certainly seems to be a lot of discontent. But that doesn't change what is a fact and what is an opinion.

Although I prefer 4e FR to 3.x FR, I completely understand the frustrations you (and those who agree with you) have. I felt the same when I thought they ruined the FR I loved (when they made the 3.x version).

Cheers


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## Arnwyn (Mar 24, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Even if he was, though, those guys are _insanely_ busy with writing, designing, developing, meetings, etc.
> 
> Obviously, a certain degree of familiarity with past material is indeed to be expected, even demanded. I'm not saying it's not. I do a pretty hefty amount of research for some projects, even as it is. (You'd be surprised how much re-reading of old planar material I did before writing the first _Codex of Betrayal_ article.)
> 
> But the level of familiarity being discussed, with settings as in-depth as old FR, simply isn't something that most writers, be they full-timers or freelance, can reasonably acquire if they don't already have it. (And most who already have it will eventually reach a point where they can't keep up.) Yes, there will always be a few who _are_ that familiar, but they're the minority.



Cry me a river!

Really now - anyone who's a professional has something called "professional development"... such as doctors, or even accountants like me. Regardless of how "insanely busy" it is at work, we're still expected to keep up with information relevant to doing our jobs and maintaining our status in the profession.

Reading up on FR stuff - when one is a full-time WotC employee and writes for said setting - is hardly something that one can't "reasonably acquire".

Of course, if the answer is "they don't get paid enough to do that" - well, that opens up a whole 'nother can of worms that could conceivably cast an... uncharitable... light on said employees, in some peoples' (very reasonable) opinion.

With that said, the "few who are that familiar", "minority" or not, could be enough to handle WotC's relatively light writing duties (due to how they're releasing setting books/articles these days).


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## genshou (Mar 24, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> Now the designers have decreed that the non fantastical is no longer fun, so they needed to make everything alien.  For some reason WOTC seems to think they are really capable of defining fun.



This statement is so true I had to stop in the middle of reading the thread to quote it.  I could play and enjoy 4E if I wasn't being constantly reminded by the rulebooks that the 4E designers are Superior and my gaming style is BadWrongFun.

In much the same way, I could play and enjoy 4E Forgotten Realms if it didn't scream at me that richly detailed settings with plenty of backstory and events happening outside of the PCs' little "bubble" are BadWrongFun settings.


----------



## EATherrian (Mar 24, 2009)

Piratecat said:


> "Meesa hava big kitty and two pokey-sticks! But are vewwy lonely. Awwww." - Driz'zzz Binks.




I'm not sure if that's the best or worst image I've had in my head.  

To keep with the topic, I doubt that anyone involved with the new FR hated the setting.  I'm thinking that design principles and former canon clashed, and when that happens the new design generally wins.  I don't much like the new FR since I was mostly a fan of the historical continuity of the setting (Historian so be kind), and my favorite areas are gone, but I can see where it is successful from certain design goals.


----------



## Cadfan (Mar 24, 2009)

Arnwyn said:


> Of course, if the answer is "they don't get paid enough to do that" - well, that opens up a whole 'nother can of worms that could conceivably cast an... uncharitable... light on said employees, in some peoples' (very reasonable) opinion.



This, and the rest of your post, is silly.

Look, I work in an area where I often have multiple clients and potential clients.  If one client wants me to come in, work a week, and then go home with a check, and another client wants me to do research on his idiosyncratic needs on my own time before coming in, working for a week, and going home with a check, then all things being equal, _screw_ that second guy.  I don't owe him anything.

You want extra work, you pay for it.  You don't pay for it, and, unless I haven't got anything better to do, I don't work.


----------



## genshou (Mar 24, 2009)

Exactly.  It fits the design goals of 4E, not the wishes of the former player base.  During the initial buzz over 4E it became quite apparent that WotC was more interested in bringing in the MMO crowd than retaining their current customer base (plus they knew a lot of the current customer base would just go to 4E whether they really liked it or not).  I would imagine the Realms got the same scrutinization before they decided it was marketable with these sweeping changes.  And if it helps the setting sell well, that's better than if they'd never released a 4E Forgotten Realms at all.

Either way, I won't be running it if I'm looking for the type of campaign a 3.x Forgotten Realms would give me.  But that's like saying I won't bring a life jacket on a mountain climbing expedition.


----------



## Arnwyn (Mar 24, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> This, and the rest of your post, is silly.



Of course it isn't.

But your post explains a lot. Thanks for your "comment", Cadfan!


----------



## Obryn (Mar 24, 2009)

genshou said:


> This statement is so true I had to stop in the middle of reading the thread to quote it.  I could play and enjoy 4E if I wasn't being constantly reminded by the rulebooks that the 4E designers are Superior and my gaming style is BadWrongFun.



This is so far outside my experience that I have to ask - though this might not be the thread for it - where this is coming from?

I agree that the 4e books encourage people playing the game to have fun.  I don't see where it tells me that any kind of fun I'm having is badwrong.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

I mean, it's a collection of rules, and like any collection of rules it will say, "These are the rules to the game.  The game is fun."  But that's pretty much par for the course for any RPG, IMHO.  If an RPG isn't fun, then why play it?



> In much the same way, I could play and enjoy 4E Forgotten Realms if it didn't scream at me that richly detailed settings with plenty of backstory and events happening outside of the PCs' little "bubble" are BadWrongFun settings.



Again, I just don't get it.  I have never felt like 4e - or 3e or 1e - has ever tried to tell me where I should find my fun.  Only that I should find it, wherever it is.

-O


----------



## Shazman (Mar 24, 2009)

Well, I don't know about the rulebooks, but prior to 4E there were all kinds of comments from the designers that bascially did say that certain things about the game or certain ways of playing the game were 'badwrongfun".


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## Spatula (Mar 24, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> There is no shortage of comic book writers, and they all manage to craft good stories in a vast shared world.



But... superhero comics are continuously rebooting individual characters (all the time) or (not quite as often) the entire shared universe.  Because they face the same problems.  And they get the same flack from the fans for it.

At the end of the day, the writers are there to write what appeals to _them_, and to get a paycheck.  Satisfying the whims of obsessive collectors isn't going to appeal to the writer unless the writer is an obsessive collector himself, like Mark Waid.


----------



## Cadfan (Mar 24, 2009)

Arnwyn said:


> Of course it isn't.
> 
> But your post explains a lot. Thanks for your "comment", Cadfan!



If Job A pays $50 an hour for 10 hours of work, and Job B pays $50 an hour for 10 hours of work while also requiring 10 unpaid hours outside of the job, then Job B is really paying $25 an hour for 20 hours.

Therefore, all things being equal, I only take Job B if I haven't got anything more profitable to do with those 20 hours.

An accountant should understand that, as should any small business owner or freelancer.


----------



## Piratecat (Mar 24, 2009)

Enough, guys.


----------



## Scribble (Mar 24, 2009)

Primal said:


> And how is the different from authors writing for Eberron? I just don't see the difference between reading a lot, and reading...almost as much.




Well, to begin with, I don't believe I ever said it was? I think you're putting words in my mouth there man. But- the difference between a lot and even "almost as much" (which I still don't think I agree that everron has anywhere NEAR the amount of info 20+ years of source matrial, novels, short stories, and articles has given the Realms.) can mean the difference between what's in your head, and somethign else. 



> And, And, unless they're offering a finished manuscript to the publisher, why can't you just write your story based on the relevant material? If you absolutely want to change a detail, you can discuss it with the publisher, and I don't see a problem with it unless you want to make major "shake-ups" to the whole are your story is based in. And it's not like the Realms didn't get its share of RSEs in novels, right?




I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here. Sorry maybe it's early and I'm out of it or something.

But if you're asking why can't you just write within the limitations? Well, again, because the limitations don't allow you to tell the story that's in your head. Mayeb I'm having a hard time explaining it. I'm pretty sure though that if you ask just about any artist whether they'd preffer more limits and guides to their work or less, they'd choose less. Sometimes a story just wants to be told. The more limits you place on it, the more times you have to change it, the less you feel like you're telling the story that actually wanted to be told, and the less interest or drive you have for it.  I'm sorry I can't really explain it any other way then that. The less drive you have for it, the more you feel like you're just filling out a form. You do it because it has to get done sure, but is that REALLY what we want from authors of a setting that's entirely imaginary? 




> You're correct -- indeed, professional writing is mostly about "doing your job", whether you're inspired or not. You just need to sit down and write, or you'll never meet deadlines.




Sure, all jobs are to an extent. But I feel the more creative freedom an author has, the more he'l be able to bring to the table. I've seen it a ton of times in books, movies, games... When a creative person does something just to "meet the deadline" you can really tell it. It's boring, it's formulaic, and usually un-original.

Again that's really not something I want in a product designed to be used in a creative capacity.



> Now, speaking of fantasy authors who write for existing settings, in some cases you probably "connect" to the setting and feel more inspired than in others, but the fact is that you can't moan and groan to the publisher about not being able to write because the setting doesn't inspire you enough and therefore it needs to change.




What's with words like "moan and groan?" I feel like all statements like that do is attempt to sidestep the conversation by painting people as childish or spoiled. It's possible for someone to speak their feelings about something without "moaning and groaning."



> Of course, if several of your "co-workers" feel the same way, there may be something wrong, but if the reason is simply that you don't want to do research before you start writing, you are probably not of the type fit to do it for living.




Maybe the difference isn't that they just "don't want to do the research" as opposed to they don't have the time/ability to do all that reseach in a given day, or for a given product.



> Employee imput is one thing, but it's a bit different in the public institutions -- feedback is great, but rarely leads to any major changes. After all, once everyone has done something in a certain way for the last thirty, forty years, it's useless to try to reason about how it could be done in a better and more efficient way (I've tried this many times, believe me).




Hrmm... this is pretty contrary to almost every company I've worked with. The statement that "the only thing constant is change" comes from the fact that things in business change almost on a daily basis. Sure people might not like change, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.



> Anyway, your company is clearly a private business, and they listen to their customers and employees; that's great. But I can't imagine a Microsoft freelancer telling Bill Gates that "I'm not inspired by this Vista and I need to read too many manuals, so how about we scrap it all and start to work on another OS".




If freelancers start finding it way to hard to code for Vista, and find they can do what they want to do much more easily with, say, I dunno- Apple? You had better believe gates (well Ballmer more then likely) is going to listen. A system is only as good as the programs that run on it.

If the coders feel it's easier to do what they want to do for Apples, that's more incentive for people to switch to Apple. That's not something Microsoft wants!



> As far as FR is concerned, apparently WoTC thought that enough FR fans (and customers who were not fans) were unhappy with FR, and took a risk by turning it all upside down. New stories aplenty, sure, but to me it seems (and this is all based on anecdotal evidence, but anyway) that the risk didn't pay off as well as they thought it would (hence the "three books per setting" policy, methinks, at least for FR -- I suspect Eberron might get more support if it sells better).




I don't think that policy has anything to do with whether the setting is well received or not. I'm pretty sure that idea comes from an attempt at less product line redundancy, and less fan "sectioning."

When you market a product for a specific "line" it's really most likely only going to be bought by fans of that line. If it says Eberron FR people probably aren't going to buy it. So you're splitting your resources. You now have to create products for FR fans, Eberron fans, and fans of just generic D&D.

The way they have it now, they only have to do "specific" marketing for 2 books a year, the rest is marketed towards ALL players of D&D, including the specific campaign fans.

Sure, if Eberron becoems the most popular setting we might see a few more articles then other sets in Dragon/Dunegon, but I very much doubt we'll be seeing an extended line of books.



> Well, do YOU consider the Marco Volo-goodness or Demihumans/Priests/Wizards of the Realms actually relevant products containing much Realmslore? A lot of the stuff they produced during that era are not actually high on my "must-own-and-use" list. Feel free to argue about it, but if we asked a thousand FR fans who've been aboard since those days, I don't think their opinion would vary a lot from mine.




Don't know and don't really care. My point was that since they exist, they exist as part of the FR canon, whether people thought it was "good" canon, or "bad" canon. Lot's of people think Drizzt is lame. Doesn't mean he's not part of the FR history.


----------



## El Mahdi (Mar 24, 2009)

Piratecat said:


> "Meesa hava big kitty and two pokey-sticks! But are vewwy lonely. Awwww." - Driz'zzz Binks.




That, Sir, is a Court Martial offense.  You should be ashamed of yourself.


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## Primal (Mar 24, 2009)

Scribble said:


> Well, to begin with, I don't believe I ever said it was? I think you're putting words in my mouth there man. But- the difference between a lot and even "almost as much" (which I still don't think I agree that everron has anywhere NEAR the amount of info 20+ years of source matrial, novels, short stories, and articles has given the Realms.) can mean the difference between what's in your head, and somethign else.




I didn't mean to -- that was a generic comment based on what's become a mantra ("Burden of Lore and Mary Sues needed to go") to many who defend the changes. I'm sorry if it sounded like that. 

I still stand behind my point that Eberron has thousands of pages of quality lore (at least that's what my friends playing in Eberron say) vs. a similar amount in FR; of course, if we count *everything* that's ever published for FR (including all the material that was later corrected/"retconned" by FR Lorelords or outright ignored by fans), it's different. 



> I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here. Sorry maybe it's early and I'm out of it or something.
> 
> But if you're asking why can't you just write within the limitations? Well, again, because the limitations don't allow you to tell the story that's in your head. Mayeb I'm having a hard time explaining it. I'm pretty sure though that if you ask just about any artist whether they'd preffer more limits and guides to their work or less, they'd choose less. Sometimes a story just wants to be told. The more limits you place on it, the more times you have to change it, the less you feel like you're telling the story that actually wanted to be told, and the less interest or drive you have for it. I'm sorry I can't really explain it any other way then that. The less drive you have for it, the more you feel like you're just filling out a form. You do it because it has to get done sure, but is that REALLY what we want from authors of a setting that's entirely imaginary?




In the end, most authors are faced with the fact that you always more or less write according to limitations imposed on you by the publisher; if I submitted a FR novel to WoTC, I'm fairly sure that I'd have to rewrite large parts of it, or they might even do it themselves (as happened in editing with many of Ed's novels; 'Spellfire' was mangled so badly that IIRC Ed didn't even recognise some parts of it). That's what you have to accept, if you want to become an aspiring author. Even if you wrote a novel set in your own world, in very few cases it would be published "as is". 

When you do something you enjoy for living, such as writing RPG stuff or fantasy fiction, it's not the same as writing material for your campaign or . If you still can get satisfaction and feel inspired, that's great; but professional authors can't always wait for the inspiration to hit them, or argue that something in the setting must change or they can't write the stuff they were hired to do. I once read Stephen King saying that to be a successful author you need to write every day -- whether you feel like it or not.

FR and Eberron may be imaginary worlds, but I wonder how many fans they would have without the depth and quality of lore that's both "accurate" and internally consistent? 



> Sure, all jobs are to an extent. But I feel the more creative freedom an author has, the more he'l be able to bring to the table. I've seen it a ton of times in books, movies, games... When a creative person does something just to "meet the deadline" you can really tell it. It's boring, it's formulaic, and usually un-original.
> 
> Again that's really not something I want in a product designed to be used in a creative capacity.




Not necessarily. Using FR as an example, I can't really recommend too many novels published during the first ten years when the authors had more "creative freedom" (often resulting in contradictory or simply bad stuff). For example, Anthony was apparently given "free reins" with 'Escape from Undermountain', even though Waterdeep and Undermountain was pretty well detailed in several FR accessories, and the end product conflicts canon on every page. If they had limited his creative input, I believe the novel would have been better, or at least more coherent and consistent with the existing Realmslore ('Once Around the Realms' is in a league of its own, but let's not get there). Then there were novels and accessories that detailed unexplored areas; this, as we know, resulted in RW cultures being more or less "shoehorned" into FR among other things. Boring? Formulaic? Yes and yes, even though the authors (to my knowledge) had free hands with most of those areas.  

If this all comes down to "better creative results without any restraints", wouldn't that kind of imply that details and history are bad for RPG settings? And that all those setting-specific DDi articles shouldn't be published, as well? Especially as you can't expect every freelancer to commit to the subscription.



> What's with words like "moan and groan?" I feel like all statements like that do is attempt to sidestep the conversation by painting people as childish or spoiled. It's possible for someone to speak their feelings about something without "moaning and groaning."




Alright, that was meant as a sarcastic comment; of course people are free to discuss their feelings.  



> Maybe the difference isn't that they just "don't want to do the research" as opposed to they don't have the time/ability to do all that reseach in a given day, or for a given product.




Well, then there's a problem; I can understand why it's different for freelancers, but if designers on regular payroll do not find time to do research on subjects they write about... maybe it's time for change? I mean, adding a few consultants/specialists to their payroll, or using them as freelancers would help a lot. Building a wiki in co-operation with the fans (since fans do them anyway) for each campaign setting would also help tremendously in the long run.

Also, when you're researching a subject, you don't need to memorize everything -- just find the things that matter. Whether you're writing an essay or article, you need to use reliable sources, but not everything you read -- if an average student can do that, why couldn'tRPG authors? 



> Hrmm... this is pretty contrary to almost every company I've worked with. The statement that "the only thing constant is change" comes from the fact that things in business change almost on a daily basis. Sure people might not like change, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.




It depends. Some of my friends work in (privately-owned) companies in which employee imput is not really expected or appreciated. Also, change for the sake of change, especially constant change, is not necessarily a good thing; there should be a logical reason for change.

Anyway, customers are another thing, but in public libraries it's often different, i.e. the customer is usually wrong. I'll give you a couple of examples here. Not so long ago there was a customer feedback research conducted in my library about should we arrange fiction by genres or not. The result was that overwhelming majority of the patrons said "Yes, I want more genres!", but the assistant chief librarian (surprised by the result) thought it would be too much work, and told everyone: "We're professionals and they are not, which means that in this case their opinion does not matter. Period." Another example are RPGs, which are usually (in my country) shelved in the youth and children department, regardless of the fact some of them contain material that would automatically land them in the lending department if they were not games ("It's a game, so it's for kids!"). When I vehemently argued that they should be transferred (not only because of the content, but also because no gamer I know would look for them in their current location), I was told that it's a "good idea" (and this happened like four years ago). The thing is, anything tying up library resources is often seen as bad, even if it would be logical change that would benefit the patrons and/or staff...



> If freelancers start finding it way to hard to code for Vista, and find they can do what they want to do much more easily with, say, I dunno- Apple? You had better believe gates (well Ballmer more then likely) is going to listen. A system is only as good as the programs that run on it.
> 
> If the coders feel it's easier to do what they want to do for Apples, that's more incentive for people to switch to Apple. That's not something Microsoft wants!




And what if they find MAC OS just as difficult and complex? And, in case, if they switch from Microsoft to Apple, they probably need to spend quite a lot of time in researching the code before they can start working on it, right? 



> I don't think that policy has anything to do with whether the setting is well received or not. I'm pretty sure that idea comes from an attempt at less product line redundancy, and less fan "sectioning."
> 
> When you market a product for a specific "line" it's really most likely only going to be bought by fans of that line. If it says Eberron FR people probably aren't going to buy it. So you're splitting your resources. You now have to create products for FR fans, Eberron fans, and fans of just generic D&D.
> 
> The way they have it now, they only have to do "specific" marketing for 2 books a year, the rest is marketed towards ALL players of D&D, including the specific campaign fans.




Well, I'm not exactly convinced this strategy worked with FR that well. Of course, I don't know the sales figures, but my educated guess is that most "old guard" fans didn't buy the books. Whether they managed to hook in enough new customers, I can't say, but I seriously doubt it. IIRC, they didn't announce this "three-books-per-setting" policy until FR vented their anger at the changes. Now, it may or may nor have anything to do with it,but before that they said that additional books are possible, if the sales are good. 



> Sure, if Eberron becoems the most popular setting we might see a few more articles then other sets in Dragon/Dunegon, but I very much doubt we'll be seeing an extended line of books.




I wouldn't be suprised, because originally the FR designers promised the same for FR if it sells enough. 



> Don't know and don't really care. My point was that since they exist, they exist as part of the FR canon, whether people thought it was "good" canon, or "bad" canon. Lot's of people think Drizzt is lame. Doesn't mean he's not part of the FR history.




Some of that lore has already been "retconned" and patched up, i.e. there are many products that had problems with internal consistency and canon and they no longer contain "accurate" canon lore. Plus, I don't know if anyone actually uses stuff from products like Marco Volo-adventures -- I don't. And neither do I use Drizzt, even though I don't think he's "lame" (if a PC insisted on finding him, it might be another matter). And even if I wrote a novel about a drow swordsman in the Silver Marches, I doubt I would use direct references to Drizzt. Neither do I think "But what will Drizzt or Alustriel or Bruenor do about it?" whenever I'm running an adventure there.


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## Primal (Mar 24, 2009)

Obryn said:


> I'd say, in FR's case, they agreed that something should be done.
> 
> And then they did it.  So we have this thread.
> 
> ...




I'm not entirely sure that it was better than using one of the FR Lorelords as a freelance consultant, or even building a Wiki in co-operation with the fans (just as I suggested). 

I wonder how the designers will get their facts straight with 4E Eberron, if they're really so busy that they can't find the time to research any material?


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## Mouseferatu (Mar 24, 2009)

Primal said:


> if they're really so busy that they can't find the time to research any material?




I've been trying to avoid getting back into this, but that's _not_ what I said. In fact, I very clearly said that a certain amount of research was expected and even demanded. Please don't take my words out of context like this.


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## Dausuul (Mar 24, 2009)

I am not and have never been a Realms fan, so I can't claim a personal connection here.

I will say this: The more lore is piled onto a setting, the less interested I am in running a game there, even if I like the core setting concept. I love the concept of Dark Sun, but I wouldn't want to run a game in the setting as it was by the end of 2E - and not just because the new lore sucked, although it did suck most grievously. The mere existence of the lore is something I don't like and don't want. It's like listening to a clever joke that is  dissected and explained at laborious length; the original funny is lost.

What I want from a setting is inspiration, space to build, and some basic material to kick-start scenarios - "This is the sort of stuff you'll find if you go to the city of Urik." I want the setting to pose questions, not answer them. As DM, answering the questions is _my_ job.

From this standpoint, the 4E Realms are a big success for me. To the extent that the core of the setting appeals to me - which isn't a lot, but isn't nothing - I no longer have to clean away the accumulated cruft of decades. I'm still not inclined to run a game there, but it is now a "Nah, probably not" rather than a "No, no, and _hell_ no!"


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## Primal (Mar 24, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> I've been trying to avoid getting back into this, but that's _not_ what I said. In fact, I very clearly said that a certain amount of research was expected and even demanded. Please don't take my words out of context like this.




Ari, that wasn't a jab at you; it was a generic comment at people posting (not only on this board, mind you) that FR needed to change because nobody could keep track of all that's happening, but they seem to do just fine with all that Eberron stuff, which to me seems to be nearly as intimidating in depth and scope that the "Burden of Lore" FR suffered from.

(if I had meant it as a jab at you, I would have quoted your post, not Obryn's)


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## Scribble (Mar 25, 2009)

Primal said:


> A bunch of stuff.




I was going to create a bigger reply, but eventually realized I'm basically saying the same thing over again.

Some limitations aren't bad. They can even be helpful, and spark creativity.

I'm only arguing that it's possible for those limitations to get so many in  number, that instead of spraking creativity or adding benefit, they become only a hinderance. At that point in my opinion something needs to happen to fix that. 

You can fix it through a total reboot, or by shaking the world up a bit. WoTC seems to have chosen the second option. They added an event that opens up the world, while not invalidating (mostly) any of the past history, creativity, or canon.

Whether you like it or not is your own choice. I don't realy care. I just understand one of the reasons they might have done the change.


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## Wormwood (Mar 25, 2009)

Dausuul said:


> I will say this: The more lore is piled onto a setting, the less interested I am in running a game there, even if I like the core setting concept.



This.

Generally, I buy the core setting book and skip everything after that. It worked for my Grey Box Realms games, it worked wonders for Eberron (as well as Werewolf the Apocalypse, Vampire the Requiem and Fading Suns).

I want just enough setting to give me room to play, not so much that I feel walled in.


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## Mouseferatu (Mar 25, 2009)

Primal said:


> Ari, that wasn't a jab at you; it was a generic comment at people posting (not only on this board, mind you) that FR needed to change because nobody could keep track of all that's happening, but they seem to do just fine with all that Eberron stuff, which to me seems to be nearly as intimidating in depth and scope that the "Burden of Lore" FR suffered from.
> 
> (if I had meant it as a jab at you, I would have quoted your post, not Obryn's)




Okay, I can accept that. I thought it was directed at my comments, what with the "no time to research" bit, but I admit that I haven't read _every_ other post, so others could have said something similar. Sorry for jumping to conclusions.

That said... 

There's a level of research that's reasonable, and a level of research that's not. What that level is depends, to an extent, on the individual. But the truth is, there's an _enormous_ amount of FR lore going back to 1E. Eberron's only had a few years of material.

Now, you're correct that if you limit yourself to 3E stuff, the quantities become much more similar. But the presence of the earlier FR stuff means that

A) There will always be portions of the market that _aren't_ satisfied with writers only going back to 3E stuff, and

B) There's a sense of obligation on the part of at least some writers not to majorly contradict earlier stuff, even if the official assignment doesn't include anything beyond 3E.

That's _one_ of the reasons I personally never tried to write for FR. My sense of responsibility to the lore is greater than my ability to keep up with said lore.


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## genshou (Mar 25, 2009)

Obryn said:


> This is so far outside my experience that I have to ask - though this might not be the thread for it - where this is coming from?
> 
> I agree that the 4e books encourage people playing the game to have fun.  I don't see where it tells me that any kind of fun I'm having is badwrong.  Quite the opposite, in fact.
> 
> I mean, it's a collection of rules, and like any collection of rules it will say, "These are the rules to the game.  The game is fun."  But that's pretty much par for the course for any RPG, IMHO.  If an RPG isn't fun, then why play it?



If you're asking me to pull out my 4E PHB and a red pen and make the pages bleed from all the grievous wounds every place where I got the impression I was being talked down to, I'm sorry to disappoint you but I haven't touched a 4E book since the day the FLGS got them, and I'm not going to again.

You can definitely find PLENTY of that attitude by reading their online articles, though.


> Again, I just don't get it.  I have never felt like 4e - or 3e or 1e - has ever tried to tell me where I should find my fun.  Only that I should find it, wherever it is.
> 
> -O



Regarding the setting, it's far more difficult to quantify as it's more a perception based on information that's trickled down from others who have actually read/played the 4E Forgotten Realms setting.


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## Spatula (Mar 25, 2009)

Primal said:


> I still stand behind my point that Eberron has thousands of pages of quality lore (at least that's what my friends playing in Eberron say) vs. a similar amount in FR; of course, if we count *everything* that's ever published for FR (including all the material that was later corrected/"retconned" by FR Lorelords or outright ignored by fans), it's different.



What else would you count except for everything?  Who gets to decide what gets considered "valid" research and what doesn't?  No matter what you do, factions of the obsessive collector brigade are going to be pissed off for changing what's been written in some book.

As an aside, Eberron's only been out for 5 years, while FR has existed since the tail end of 1e (87? 88? so over 20 years).  And FR was _the_ flagship setting for the bulk of that.  If the two have the same amount of "quality" lore, than maybe FR deserved to get blown up.


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## Obryn (Mar 25, 2009)

genshou said:


> If you're asking me to pull out my 4E PHB and a red pen and make the pages bleed from all the grievous wounds every place where I got the impression I was being talked down to, I'm sorry to disappoint you but I haven't touched a 4E book since the day the FLGS got them, and I'm not going to again.
> 
> You can definitely find PLENTY of that attitude by reading their online articles, though.



OK, so basically there's a lot of it, and it's everywhere, but there's nothing specific you can point out because you're worried about ... cooties?



> Regarding the setting, it's far more difficult to quantify as it's more a perception based on information that's trickled down from others who have actually read/played the 4E Forgotten Realms setting.



And yet you can speak so eloquently of its flaws!  Amazing!  Have you always had this talent for critiquing books you've never read?


Not everyone will like 4e.  Many people will not like it, and that's fine - it's wonderful that we have so many different flavors of D&D that people can play.  And it's great that you've found the version you like and don't care for the new one.  So why not stick to talking about what you love about your favorite kind of D&D without making kind of baseless claims about a version you really don't know much about?

-O


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## jdrakeh (Mar 25, 2009)

Obryn said:


> OK, so basically there's a lot of it, and it's everywhere, but there's nothing specific you can point out because you're worried about ... cooties?




Actually, I don't think he can point out anything because, by his own admission, he hasn't touched the books since the day they arrived at the FLGS 



			
				genshou said:
			
		

> I'm sorry to disappoint you but I haven't touched a 4E book since the day the FLGS got them, and I'm not going to again.




See? I bet that made reading them in any depth very, very, difficult


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## Arnwyn (Mar 25, 2009)

Dausuul said:


> I will say this: The more lore is piled onto a setting, the less interested I am in running a game there, even if I like the core setting concept.



Interesting. It's completely the opposite for me: I'm only interested in purchasing a setting if it has a significant amount of lore available.



> From this standpoint, the 4E Realms are a big success for me.  //  I'm still not inclined to run a game there, but it is now a "Nah, probably not" rather than a "No, no, and _hell_ no!"



Oh... so it's not a success to you. 



			
				Obryn said:
			
		

> OK, so basically there's a lot of it, and it's everywhere, but there's nothing specific you can point out because you're worried about ... cooties?



Since you seem to be _insisting_, the most often-quoted example is in one of those early 4e preview books ("Worlds and... something" and the other one). Says something along the lines of "If you're doing x, then you're not having as much fun as you could." A reasonable person could interpret this as one example, as per genshou: "that the 4E designers are Superior and my gaming style is BadWrongFun."

Some evangelists have tried to defend that clear error by claiming it's "hyperbole to make a point" or being "cute" or some other such nonsense, but it's pretty much undefendable without looking foolish. Not necessarily a big deal, but it's an easy target and example of one of WotC's early marketing mistakes, and it does bother a number of people - legitmately so, regardless of whether one "disagrees" that said people should be bothered or not. Supposedly they're getting better, though, such as in the most recent Heinsoo interview.


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## filthgrinder (Mar 25, 2009)

Arnwyn said:


> Says something along the lines of "If you're doing x, then you're not having as much fun as you could." A reasonable person could interpret this as one example, as per genshou: "that the 4E designers are Superior and my gaming style is BadWrongFun."





Well, I don't know if that is a reasonable interpretation. The designers said that one of the guiding principles in making the new edition was to try and make the funnest game possible, and in each situation when they make a choice, they should side with whats fun. I think thats a reasonable statement. They aren't saying that YOU aren't having fun doing what you are doing, or that the old version isn't fun. They are saying that they want the new version to be fun, and when choosing to implement something, the principle should be, "is this fun or is this work".

The reasonable view of that is, "ok, they want to make all parts of the game fun." The "hater" view of that is, "THEY ARE SAYING SOMETHING ISN'T FUN! THEY ARE SAYING I'M NOT HAVING FUN! THEY HATE ME AND SPIT ON ME WHAT JERKS!"


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## Obryn (Mar 25, 2009)

Arnwyn said:


> Since you seem to be _insisting_, the most often-quoted example is in one of those early 4e preview books ("Worlds and... something" and the other one). Says something along the lines of "If you're doing x, then you're not having as much fun as you could." A reasonable person could interpret this as one example, as per genshou: "that the 4E designers are Superior and my gaming style is BadWrongFun."



Wait, so this is still going back to the marketing?  Aren't we to the point where the game can be evaluated on its own merits and the stuff in the actual books, rather than based on some people who weren't marketers trying to pretend they were marketers like two years ago?  I'm confused as to why this would still be relevant?



> Some evangelists have tried to defend that clear error by claiming it's "hyperbole to make a point" or being "cute" or some other such nonsense, but it's pretty much undefendable without looking foolish. Not necessarily a big deal, but it's an easy target and example of one of WotC's early marketing mistakes, and it does bother a number of people - legitmately so, regardless of whether one "disagrees" that said people should be bothered or not. Supposedly they're getting better, though, such as in the most recent Heinsoo interview.



I don't think one has to be an "evangelist" to think it's silly to take offense at that.   I mean, "indefensible" is a pretty strong term.  I can understand that it bothers you, but I don't have to agree that it _should_ bother anyone at all.

Once again, this isn't anything in a rulebook.  It's basically some thing some guy said.

Honestly, I place little weight on what the designers say, and don't know why I should...  They wrote the books, so their part is basically done - and whether or not they succeeded is a question that's answered by whether or not I can have fun playing the game; not based on an old interview or press release which was (basically) a gamer geek gushing about something he's proud of.


So basically...  I'm still looking for stuff in the actual rulebooks where it calls play-styles out as being badwrongfun, or - that if you're having fun in some way other than the designers intended, you're doing it wrong.  Like I said, I really don't see it.  The 4e DMG always encourages groups to find their fun, but it doesn't tell them there's stuff they _shouldn't_ find fun.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

-O


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## Bacons (Mar 25, 2009)

I remembered this offending material, so I looked it up. It's from the '_Races & Classes_' marketing book.

_"But when's the last time you saw a PC make a Profession check that had a useful effect on the game? (Hint: If it was recently, your game is probably not as much fun as D&D should be. Sorry.)"_

The bit in parenthesis was a stupid joke that shouldn't have made it into publication. I think, given the material surrounding that bit, that the people who wrote and edited it thought they were being funny about having to put ranks in Profession skills all the time if you wanted to stay current for a relatively esoteric check. Obviously, it offended people more than it amused, but I don't think it's particularly ingenious to decide the whole system is talking down to the players and dictating their fun based on a lame joke in a promotional book from before said system was even published.


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## Shazman (Mar 25, 2009)

In Races and Classes they did say that if you used profession or craft skills in your games, then your games weren't fun.  I don't remember the exact wording, but that is basically what they said.  So they were implying that if you had enough immersive roleplaying in your games that you actually cared about your PC's background skills, then you were having badwrongfun.  Obviously, their preferred playstyle of mindlessly slaying everything their PC's came into contact with was so much more fun than games with a significant amount of roleplaying.  Those types of comments are not something to be defended.  They should have never been printed.


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## Cadfan (Mar 25, 2009)

Bacons said:


> I remembered this offending material, so I looked it up. It's from the '_Races & Classes_' marketing book.
> 
> _"But when's the last time you saw a PC make a Profession check that had a useful effect on the game? (Hint: If it was recently, your game is probably not as much fun as D&D should be. Sorry.)"_
> 
> The bit in parenthesis was a stupid joke that shouldn't have made it into publication. I think, given the material surrounding that bit, that the people who wrote and edited it thought they were being funny about having to put ranks in Profession skills all the time if you wanted to stay current for a relatively esoteric check. Obviously, it offended people more than it amused, but I don't think it's particularly ingenious to decide the whole system is talking down to the players and dictating their fun based on a lame joke in a promotional book from before said system was even published.



Its arguably a technically true statement, using profession as written.  All it can do for you is earn you a trivial amount of gold.  The only thing an actual profession roll accomplishes per the rules is earning you 1/2 your check result in gold pieces.  Assuming a level 1 character, maxed ranks in profession, +4 intelligence modifier, and rolling a 20, the best you're going to earn is 14 gold pieces.

The rules also mention, in the retry section, attempts to accomplish a specific task.  It is not clear what this means, as no other section of the rules include using an actual skill check to accomplish specific tasks.  No DCs are given, no guidelines suggested, and in fact the only references to anything other than earning a weekly income are references to knowledge you possess as a result of being trained in the profession skill.

Of course its entirely possible that your game uses the profession skill to roll other homebrew things that have meaningful effects on your game.  Or you might have a game in which a dozen gold pieces is actually important (I'd like to run a game like that, actually).  In which case, kudos.  But by the rules, all it produces for you is an amount of gold that at low levels is only slightly relevant, and at high levels is absolutely trivial.


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## Roman (Mar 25, 2009)

Roman said:


> To be honest, I don't even see much commercial sense in it. After all, WotC has another wildly successful setting, Eberron, that does not have the backlog of lore, does not have such high-level NPCs and so on - so they already cater to the market of gamers that prefers that. Even if that market is bigger, wouldn't it also make sense to support, perhaps with fewer sourcebooks if it is not as big as the other market, the market of gamers who love FR and its complexity, lore, characters and so on?




Sorry about quoting myself, but I am wondering if any of the market-minded individuals can go about explaining the market logic of the FR changes given the above? To me it just seems that instead of taking two markets and catering to both through different products (though supporting the bigger market more of course), WotC has decided to take one market only and to split it in two (Eberron and Forgotten Realms). This is obviously a simplification (there is probably significant market-overlap, part of the complexity-loving FR market might have jumped on board anyway, etcetera), but this is what seems to me to have happened in principle.


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## Arnwyn (Mar 25, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Wait, so this is still going back to the marketing?  Aren't we to the point where the game can be evaluated on its own merits and the stuff in the actual books, rather than based on some people who weren't marketers trying to pretend they were marketers like two years ago?  I'm confused as to why this would still be relevant?



*shrug* Beats me. You're obviously directing that at the wrong person.



> I don't think one has to be an "evangelist" to think it's silly to take offense at that.   I mean, "indefensible" is a pretty strong term.  I can understand that it bothers you, but I don't have to agree that it _should_ bother anyone at all.



*shrug* I do - comes with the territory of defending foolish statements, actually. But telling people how they should feel doesn't get you very far at ENWorld. Something to keep in mind.



> Once again, this isn't anything in a rulebook.  It's basically some thing some guy said.



That's something you can continue to argue with genshou about. I simply provided a possible helpful answer because you were asking while (rudely) talking about "cooties". You two can blather about the rest of the details.

Can't help you with the rest of the stuff, I'm afraid. "Rulebooks", WotC books, whatever. I'm not very pedantic. That's for you and genshou to sort out.



			
				filthgrinder said:
			
		

> Well, I don't know if that is a reasonable interpretation. The designers said that one of the guiding principles in making the new edition was to try and make the funnest game possible, and in each situation when they make a choice, they should side with whats fun.



Don't worry, it is reasonable. But siding with "whats fun" and trying to define it is the rub, isn't it? (Hint: You can't, regardless of what people say.)

*sigh* Only gamers would try to objectively measure "fun". This thread is 3.9 ounces of "fun", BTW.

/hijack [This has little to do with FR, which I'm more interested in reading about.]


----------



## Scribble (Mar 25, 2009)

Roman said:


> Sorry about quoting myself, but I am wondering if any of the market-minded individuals can go about explaining the market logic of the FR changes given the above? To me it just seems that instead of taking two markets and catering to both through different products (though supporting the bigger market more of course), WotC has decided to take one market only and to split it in two (Eberron and Forgotten Realms). This is obviously a simplification (there is probably significant market-overlap, part of the complexity-loving FR market might have jumped on board anyway, etcetera), but this is what seems to me to have happened in principle.




While you might have two groups of customers that would buy your products, you don't have unlimited resources to spend on products to be sold to those two groups. If you market core D&D stuff, and then specialized stuff, you have to split your resources between those two, and end up doing extra work and sometimes double duty as you create a "normal" version of soemthing and then a "specialized" version. 

In this case, you're not really "splitting" the market so much anymore. You're really only doing specialized products for 2 books a year. Everything else is designed to be marketed towards the entire customerbase, no matter which specialized campaign book they use (if any.)

So instead of say, a book of new D&D races, then a book of new FR races, and a book of new Eberron races, you just put out the new D&D races, and then maybe an article in dragon about how each race exists in the various specialized campaign settings. Individual groups can decide which ones they do or don't like in their game.


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## Obryn (Mar 25, 2009)

Arnwyn said:


> *shrug* Beats me. You're obviously directing that at the wrong person.



You responded, so I'm responding back to you.  I didn't realize you were playing Interwebs Metacritic and didn't have a horse in this race.

(rest of post edited.)

-O


----------



## Primal (Mar 25, 2009)

Spatula said:


> What else would you count except for everything? Who gets to decide what gets considered "valid" research and what doesn't? No matter what you do, factions of the obsessive collector brigade are going to be pissed off for changing what's been written in some book.




Well, the rule is that if sources contradict each other, newest Realmslore always "trumps" older stuff, right? For example, a Dragon article lists Alusair as FTR 20, but FRCS has a "corrected" stat set which trumps the Dragon article. And it's not the only case in which an accessory or article has updated previously published lore. Now, if I write a new adventure series about Marco Volo, I might change his stats completely and maybe even swap his class to ranger, and regardless of what some "obsessive collector brigade" might say, that would be the new "canon" (if it slipped past in editing; and such slips surely happened often in TSR). Of course, this might be "corrected" later on, but it's what you roll with for some time, unless you want to ignore his new "canon" stats. 

I'm not sure I get your point about "valid research"... isn't it quite obvious that you look up which sources (books, novels, articles) may contain information that is relevant to what you're writing? For example, if you're writing an adventure in Cormyr, you might take a look at campaign settings, Cormyr-module, Four from Cormyr, Volo's Guide to Cormyr, Cormyr: A novel, etc. Likewise, if you're including stuff about the Eldreth Veluuthra in your article/accessory/novel/short story, you should take a look at Cloak & Dagger and Champions of Ruin, at least (and in this case CoR always "trumps" the lore in C&D). And so on. It isn't too hard to narrow down the list to sources that have the information you need for the level of details and Realmslore you're intending to use.

As for the changes, and people being upset, I know a lot of people were p****d off at the design team for not following up on such 2E plot hooks as the Manshoon Wars or the Rise of Iyachtu Xvim (Xvim and his followers were a major threat in my group, and we were not happy about Bane just popping back into the Realms with a parlor trick) -- that didn't prevent them from playing in the Realms, however, because it didn't change things a lot in the big picture. Sure, they dropped the ball with the best hooks, and introduced others that made little sense to many, but at least it was still more or less the same Realms.

  Change isn't bad, if it is logical; the events of the Spellplague are not, at least by my standards. You see, I think they took the "lazy" option in it all, saying: "Let's reboot everything with a huge magical catastrophe,and let's leave the details out... well, we don't need to think too hard about it, because it's *magic*, after all". When people started to point out inconsistencies on the message boards, they replied: "We're not retconning anything, because as far as we're concerned, it always was that way." Sure, I wonder how SW fans would feel if Saga 2nd Edition removed the Light Side of the Force and rendered all Jedi powerless ("Look, the Dark Side is a power of its own, separate from the "Good" Force, and that's why the Sith still have their powers... as far as we are concerned, it was always that way!"). 



> As an aside, Eberron's only been out for 5 years, while FR has existed since the tail end of 1e (87? 88? so over 20 years). And FR was _the_ flagship setting for the bulk of that. If the two have the same amount of "quality" lore, than maybe FR deserved to get blown up.




Yes, FR was the flagship for TSR, which practically meant that a lot of products got the FR logo slapped on them ; some didn't have anything to do with FR (such as the Great Khan Game), while others were more or less succesfully "Realmsified" ("Hey, we could publish that adventure in the Realms... hmmm... what's that country? Cromyr? Kormar? Something like it. Yeah, that's what we are gonna do!"). More often than not, the products contained contradictory lore or were clearly just dropped into FR without necessary research and changes.

And this publishing policy and sloppy editing/attention to internal consistency resulted in holes a Netherese city could fly through; which meant that such authors as George Krashos, Eric Boyd, Steven Schend and Ed Greenwood has their hands full in trying to patch it all up in the final years of TSR (and they did a remarkable job). Most of the 3E stuff is "decent enough", and anything done by the Lorelords mentioned in the previous sentence is excellent in quality (by my standards). As far as I'm concerned, most of the AD&D stuff published by TSR does not compare to their work or Eberron stuff (based on what I've heard from friends who run Eberron). Now, the last I counted Eberron had something like 40+ or 50+ accessories published so far, plus quite a many novels and Dragonshard articles, to boot. That's a lot to read, surely, but if I wrote an article on House D'Cannith, would I really need to read *all* of them? And even if I did, I think it's not much less than reading the most popular and up-to-date FR accessories and articles.

Anyway, I don't think an occasional "bad" article or book merits "blowing up" the setting -- especially if later on the published stuff will be "corrected" (such as in the case of many inconsistencies in FR).


----------



## Spatula (Mar 26, 2009)

Primal said:


> I'm not sure I get your point about "valid research"...



You said:



Primal said:


> I still stand behind my point that Eberron has thousands of pages of quality lore (at least that's what my friends playing in Eberron say) vs. a similar amount in FR; of course, if we count *everything* that's ever published for FR (including all the material that was later corrected/"retconned" by FR Lorelords or outright ignored by fans), it's different.



...which I read as saying that writers should only look at the "quality" lore and ignore the rest.



Primal said:


> It isn't too hard to narrow down the list to sources that have the information you need for the level of details and Realmslore you're intending to use.



With over 20 years of published material (including novel lines and Dragon articles), I don't think it's so simple.  Also, information about topics tends to get spread around; it's not enough to simply look at the stuff that is supposed to be focusing on the subject.  I see this a lot in Eberron, where information on the structure of the Church of the Silver Flame can be found in the ECS, the Eberron Player's Guide, Sharn: City of Towers, Five Nations, and Faiths of Eberron (some of it contradictory).  And there's probably other details added in other books that I don't own, as well...  It's not as simple as saying, "Oh, Silver Flame, I'll grab the ECS and Faiths of Eberron and I'm good."



Primal said:


> Change isn't bad, if it is logical; the events of the Spellplague are not, at least by my standards. You see, I think they took the "lazy" option in it all, saying: "Let's reboot everything with a huge magical catastrophe,and let's leave the details out... well, we don't need to think too hard about it, because it's *magic*, after all".



No argument there.  I think they could have achieved much of the same results, with less outcry, simply by advancing the timeline far enough and retconning the edition differences (in much the same way as sorcerers were retconned in and specialty priests retconned out with 3e).



Primal said:


> Now, the last I counted Eberron had something like 40+ or 50+ accessories published so far, plus quite a many novels and Dragonshard articles, to boot.



Unless I've simply missed a ton of WotC's marketing, that number looks to be at least two times too large.


----------



## genshou (Mar 26, 2009)

Obryn said:


> OK, so basically there's a lot of it, and it's everywhere, but there's nothing specific you can point out because you're worried about ... cooties?



Well, yes.  That and there is no longer a FLGS within 100 miles.  Places like Barnes & Noble usually seal the expensive books to prevent damage.  Besides, the hour or two of free time I get a day is used for far more enjoyable things than reading a book I have no interest in.


> And yet you can speak so eloquently of its flaws!  Amazing!  Have you always had this talent for critiquing books you've never read?



I'll be happy to discuss that further with you if you will promise not to post in a passive-aggressive manner about it.


----------



## Obryn (Mar 26, 2009)

genshou said:


> Well, yes.  That and there is no longer a FLGS within 100 miles.  Places like Barnes & Noble usually seal the expensive books to prevent damage.  Besides, the hour or two of free time I get a day is used for far more enjoyable things than reading a book I have no interest in.



Right, which is why I'm confused why you'd spend your limited free time online, basically taking swipes at a game you admittedly neither know or care about, rather than posting about a game you both like and know about.



> I'll be happy to discuss that further with you if you will promise not to post in a passive-aggressive manner about it.



No, I think it's pretty clear you've reached your conclusions.  Besides, it's been covered hundreds of times on this forum already.  I'll just go back to an old thread and figure out what you will say; you can go back to an old thread and figure out what I'll say; and that's every inch of ground we could possibly cover.

-O


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## Echohawk (Mar 26, 2009)

Spatula said:


> Unless I've simply missed a ton of WotC's marketing, that number looks to be at least two times too large.




I count 22 game products, 30 novels and three miscellaneous Eberron products:
[sblock]*Game products*
2004/06	Eberron Campaign Setting
2004/07	Shadows of the Last War
2004/09	Whispers of the Vampire's Blade
2004/11	Sharn: City of Towers
2005/01	Grasp of the Emerald Claw
2005/04	Races of Eberron
2005/07	Deluxe Dungeon Master's Screen
2005/07	Five Nations
2005/08	Deluxe Eberron Character Sheets
2005/08	Explorer's Handbook
2005/10	Magic of Eberron
2006/01	Player's Guide to Eberron
2006/04	Voyage of the Golden Dragon
2006/07	Secrets of Xen'drik
2006/09	Faiths of Eberron
2006/11	Dragonmarked
2007/02	Secrets of Sarlona
2007/04	Eyes of the Lich Queen
2007/06	Forge of War
2007/10	Dragons of Eberron
2008/02	City of Stormreach
2008/03	An Adventurer's Guide to Eberron
(22)

*Novels*
2005/02	The City of Towers
2005/03	Marked for Death
2005/05	The Crimson Talisman
2005/08	The Binding Stone
2005/10	The Orb of Xoriat
2006/01	Road to Death
2006/02	The Shattered Land
2006/03	The Grieving Tree
2006/04	Tales of the Last War
2006/05	Thieves of Blood
2006/06	Voyage of the Mourning Dawn
2006/07	In the Claws of the Tiger
2006/09	Blood and Honor
2006/10	Queen of Death
2006/11	The Gates of Night
2006/12	The Killing Song
2007/02	Flight of the Dying Sun
2007/03	Forge of the Mindslayers
2007/04	Bound by Iron
2007/05	Night of the Long Shadows
2007/06	Legacy of Wolves
2007/07	The Left Hand of Death
2007/08	Storm Dragon (hardcover)
2007/10	Rise of the Seventh Moon
2008/02	Sea of Death
2008/03	The Darkwood Mask
2008/05	Storm Dragon (paperback)
2008/06	Dragon Forge (hardcover)
2008/08	The Doom of Kings
2008/10	When Night Falls
2008/11	The Queen of Stone
2009/04	Dragon Forge (paperback)
(30)

*Other stuff*
2005/09	Dragonshard (PC game)
2006/06	Eye of the Wolf (comic)
2006/06	Dragons: Worlds Afire (anthology novel)
(3)[/sblock]


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## Edena_of_Neith (Mar 26, 2009)

(humor)

  Don't always believe what you read online.

  Otherwise, you might start believing me.  And this would be a foolish thing to do.
  After all, if you believe me, then I have a 161st level character I simply must show you.  (It's legit.  Really!  Why, I can even go into the details of why.  Honest ...)

  As for the Forgotten Realms, bah ... people have always hated them.  And other people have always loved them.
  It's always been that way, always will be.
  Just so long as Arilyn Moonblade eventually becomes Queen of Evermeet, everything will be just fine with me, regarding this setting.


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## Hussar (Mar 26, 2009)

Bacons said:


> I remembered this offending material, so I looked it up. It's from the '_Races & Classes_' marketing book.
> 
> _"But when's the last time you saw a PC make a Profession check that had a useful effect on the game? (Hint: If it was recently, your game is probably not as much fun as D&D should be. Sorry.)"_
> 
> The bit in parenthesis was a stupid joke that shouldn't have made it into publication. I think, given the material surrounding that bit, that the people who wrote and edited it thought they were being funny about having to put ranks in Profession skills all the time if you wanted to stay current for a relatively esoteric check. Obviously, it offended people more than it amused, but I don't think it's particularly ingenious to decide the whole system is talking down to the players and dictating their fun based on a lame joke in a promotional book from before said system was even published.




Let's face it though, they've got a point.  How often is your game dramatically changed by a Profession check?  How many profession checks has your entire party made in the last ten sessions?

Now, compare that to how many attack rolls, Spot checks, or saving throws, all of which are likely a heck of a lot more interesting than a profession check will ever hope to be.

Whether you like the way its worded or not, he's got a pretty strong point.


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## Fenes (Mar 26, 2009)

FWIW, I own the FR 4E CS.  It failed to deliver any fleshed out regions or locations, it just has some sketches of some countries, so generic you'd not know it was FR apart from some names left.

It's a new setting, and it's a shame that they had to wreck an established setting for it.


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## Spatula (Mar 26, 2009)

Echohawk said:


> I count 22 game products



That sounds about right.  And 5 of those are adventures, and 2 are misc game products (DM screen & character sheets).  So, 15 Ebrron game books to-date.



Echohawk said:


> 30 novels



Wow!  That's a surprising amount to me, but then I'm not particularly interested in D&D novels.

Thanks for taking the time to compile that.


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## Bacons (Mar 26, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Let's face it though, they've got a point.  How often is your game dramatically changed by a Profession check?  How many profession checks has your entire party made in the last ten sessions?
> 
> Now, compare that to how many attack rolls, Spot checks, or saving throws, all of which are likely a heck of a lot more interesting than a profession check will ever hope to be.
> 
> Whether you like the way its worded or not, he's got a pretty strong point.




Haha oh man, I guess I was unclear, because I seem to have two replies thinking I am in deep hate with the profession check comment. I don't care about Profession checks. Obviously, though, somebody out there must be playing a Profession Check Frenzy game, because people are getting pretty worked up about the comment, and extrapolating it to become the whole attitude of everything associated with 4e. I don't think the joke should have been published, but purely because I think it was a PR/marketing gaffe; somebody was always going to take it crazy seriously and be offended by it.


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## mhacdebhandia (Mar 26, 2009)

Shazman said:


> Obviously, their preferred playstyle of mindlessly slaying everything their PC's came into contact with was so much more fun than games with a significant amount of roleplaying.



Oh, yeah, *OBVIOUSLY*. What a bunch of crap.


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## Keefe the Thief (Mar 26, 2009)

Fenes said:


> FWIW, I own the FR 4E CS.  It failed to deliver any fleshed out regions or locations, it just has some sketches of some countries, so generic you'd not know it was FR apart from some names left.
> 
> It's a new setting, and it's a shame that they had to wreck an established setting for it.




It is the same old realms, just 100 years into the future. And slimming down the setting in order to somewhat resemble the Grey Box again in scope gets a big thumbs up from me. Sketches, some NPCs, some info about current events... THAT is the realms. Not 100 supplements detailing everything. YMMV.


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## Fenes (Mar 26, 2009)

Keefe the Thief said:


> It is the same old realms, just 100 years into the future. And slimming down the setting in order to somewhat resemble the Grey Box again in scope gets a big thumbs up from me. Sketches, some NPCs, some info about current events... THAT is the realms. Not 100 supplements detailing everything. YMMV.




You could chuck that setting into another setting, just change the names and vary the time jump. What makes the realms is the lore - if you're digging in old skuld, what will you find? The skuld from 3E, the one from "Old Empires"? Or something you made up since you didn't want to read up?

That's the question the writers will have to answer: If you write whatever for the new realms, will you ignore their history? Or will you read up anyway, to describe their past?


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## Ariosto (Mar 26, 2009)

My preference in an _RPG_ setting is to get a snapshot of one point in time. I don't see how (or why) one would keep events in one's campaign in synchrony with whatever pops into (perhaps even non-playing) heads at a game company; my guess is that Ed Greenwood does not!

Continuity is more significant in a fiction series, but the FR novel line seems to me too many volumes, by too many hands, to expect thorough consistency. A reasonable standard, I think, might lie somewhere between Burroughs' Tarzan novels and the Perry Rhodan or Marvel Comics magazine lines.


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## Primal (Mar 26, 2009)

Spatula said:


> You said:
> 
> ...which I read as saying that writers should only look at the "quality" lore and ignore the rest.




No, not ignore the rest... update, change, correct and improve it, using the "quality" lore (such as written by the authors I mentioned) as a source of inspiration. As an example, I wish they had "corrected" Halaster's appearance (which was unfortunately "reimagined" in 'Escape from Undermountain') to match Ed's more sinister vision in the Undermountain Boxed Set. Of course, if the information is already updated in another source, and there's no logical reason to "mess" with that, you could ignore the original source. 



> With over 20 years of published material (including novel lines and Dragon articles), I don't think it's so simple. Also, information about topics tends to get spread around; it's not enough to simply look at the stuff that is supposed to be focusing on the subject. I see this a lot in Eberron, where information on the structure of the Church of the Silver Flame can be found in the ECS, the Eberron Player's Guide, Sharn: City of Towers, Five Nations, and Faiths of Eberron (some of it contradictory). And there's probably other details added in other books that I don't own, as well... It's not as simple as saying, "Oh, Silver Flame, I'll grab the ECS and Faiths of Eberron and I'm good."




Which was kind of my point, i.e. that it's not much easier to research Eberron lore than FR lore. Now, as I admit below, I was wrong about the number of Eberron supplements, which makes it easier than I claimed, but in time I'll have no doubt that Eberron will be just as much "burdened" by lore as FR was perceived to be. I hope to be wrong, but I have a hunch that in a couple of years FR will become a setting for novels without any DDi support anymore. 

Information seeking is not that hard; bibliographies and indexes (such as the Dragondex for all the FR articles) help there a lot. Of course, in some cases small details (such as about religions) may be included in books that do not seem relevant, but then again, it may not always be absolutely necessary to read all the "tidbits". For example, if I'm not dealing with the "deepest" layer of details with the Church of the Silver Flame, the newest sources may be enough for my project. 

And, as I have already said, newest FR material "trumps" older lore (such as, sadly, with Halaster's appearance); I suspect that this also the case with Eberron, too, so if ECS and Faiths of Eberron have contradictory details, you go with what's in FoE.



> No argument there. I think they could have achieved much of the same results, with less outcry, simply by advancing the timeline far enough and retconning the edition differences (in much the same way as sorcerers were retconned in and specialty priests retconned out with 3e).




Many specialty priests actually were later published as prestige classes, such as they're now being published as paragon paths -- both working solutions, in my opinion. 

I don't think advancing the timeline or the Spellplague were obligatory for implementing 4E changes; it could have been done in other ways. If Mystra and her Chosen really, *really* absolutely had to be taken out of the picture, this, too, could have been in ways that make sense. For example, Shar's "decline" hinted at in 3E lore and the events of the last adventure trilogy could have resulted in "corruption" of the Weave and Mystra's descent into madness. As her final, desperate act, she and the other deities of Magic would have sacrificed themselves, to "fix"/rebuild the Weave in a new form (i.e. to confirm to the 4E mechanics); the backlash of the deaths of these deities would have driven the Chosen mad, and diminished Shar's power as the Shadow Weave would have been affected, too. AO, not Shar, would have then decreed that no new deity shall hold power over the "New Weave", thus leaving the pantheon without a deity of magic. I don't know about you, but that would make more sense to me than the current "story", and yet accomplished the same (sans destroying the Weave, naturally). 



> Unless I've simply missed a ton of WotC's marketing, that number looks to be at least two times too large.




Actually, it seems that you're correct; my bad. I didn't check the number of Eberron titles before posting, which was unprofessional of me. I guess I just trusted on my memory, i.e. reading/hearing about "50+ Eberron books", but didn't realize it included novels as well. Sorry about that.


----------



## Spatula (Mar 26, 2009)

Primal said:


> No, not ignore the rest... update, change, correct and improve it, using the "quality" lore (such as written by the authors I mentioned) as a source of inspiration.



But who gets to decide which lore is quality?  That's what I was talking about earlier when I mentioned valid research.  The lore that you think is trash is another fan's treasure.  No matter what you do, some longtime collector is going to be upset.



Primal said:


> Which was kind of my point, i.e. that it's not much easier to research Eberron lore than FR lore. Now, as I admit below, I was wrong about the number of Eberron supplements, which makes it easier than I claimed, but in time I'll have no doubt that Eberron will be just as much "burdened" by lore as FR was perceived to be.



Well, Eberron has a built-in limit in that its timeline has not, is not, and ideally will not ever advance.  Once something is detailed in the "snapshot" of the setting, there's not much point in revisiting it, barring edition revisions like we'll soon be seeing in the 4e book (dragonmarks available to all races, etc.).


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## JoeGKushner (Mar 26, 2009)

Must be what happened to Spider Man. Too much history and backstory for the new writers to keep track of and since they're not paid to read that backlog, it's better to make it irrelevant and make up new stuff.

I hope historians don't start doing this! I mean, there's way too much backstory there! It's not their job when writing papers to keep up with al lthat. It's not feasible!



Mouseferatu said:


> Just to be clear... No, we don't.
> 
> We get paid by the word. Period. Any outside research or reading that we have to do is just that--outside.
> 
> ...


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## Lurks-no-More (Mar 26, 2009)

I found my old "grey box" FR books last weekend, and have been reading them again. It's remarkable how sparse the world they describe actually is, even though the books _imply_ a lot of history and background. 4e FR seems to me like a step back towards this, and as much as I like the 3e FRCS, I think it's probably a wise decision overall. 

I also don't quite get the complaints about FR lore being ditched: the new gamers coming to D&D and FR are frankly better off without having to digest all the information from the start, and the older ones _already have all that_. The past hasn't been significantly retconned (as far as I noticed), so if you're someone who loves the background stuff, you can use it all. In fact, if you hate the spellplague and the time jump, you can use the old fluff and new crunch without all that much effort.


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## Lurks-no-More (Mar 26, 2009)

JoeGKushner said:


> Must be what happened to Spider Man. Too much history and backstory for the new writers to keep track of and since they're not paid to read that backlog, it's better to make it irrelevant and make up new stuff.



Actually, what my Marvel-reading friends have been complaining is that first they make the old stuff irrelevant, _and then repeat the old stuff again._


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## Wormwood (Mar 26, 2009)

Lurks-no-More said:


> Actually, what my Marvel-reading friends have been complaining is that first they make the old stuff irrelevant, _and then repeat the old stuff again._



Which is why I prefer Ultimate Spider-Man, and probably why I prefer 4e Realms as well.

Although as I implied upthread, I'd probably be happiest playing _just _Grey Box with 4e.


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## Imaro (Mar 26, 2009)

Lurks-no-More said:


> ...
> 
> I also don't quite get the complaints about FR lore being ditched: the new gamers coming to D&D and FR are frankly better off without having to digest all the information from the start, and the older ones _already have all that_. The past hasn't been significantly retconned (as far as I noticed), so if you're someone who loves the background stuff, you can use it all. In fact, if you hate the spellplague and the time jump, you can use the old fluff and new crunch without all that much effort.




This logic assumes that the whole point of the FRPG and FRCS is to sell to a new audience and/or those who didn't like or were unconcerned with the Forgotten Realms before 4e, of course then I wonder (if one was unable to do this without potientially alienating a large part of the established fanbase) why not just create a new setting for new players and or those who didn't like FR?  I also think anyone who doesn't want to be involved deeply in lore has a simple solution... ignore it.  It's easier and less time consuming for one to ignore the canon they don't want than it is for someone to research, find, and fill in what is left out.  

Also I don't need tons of "lite" settings, at a certain point it defeats the purpose of a setting.  I think Greyhawk would have been a good setting to publish as a "lite" setting since it was kept very bare bones during the 3e era... Eberron is another semi-lite setting I just don't see why every setting should be dealt with in this manner... and if you want to make lite settings and aren't just trying to herd people toward DDI by skimping on info, then create 2 products like the 3e Greyhawk Gazetteer and the Living Greyhawk sourcebook and let the fans decide and sales speak for what they want.


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## Lurks-no-More (Mar 27, 2009)

Imaro said:


> This logic assumes that the whole point of the FRPG and FRCS is to sell to a new audience and/or those who didn't like or were unconcerned with the Forgotten Realms before 4e, of course then I wonder (if one was unable to do this without potientially alienating a large part of the established fanbase) why not just create a new setting for new players and or those who didn't like FR?



Because FR is a well-known brand? 

Or because the WotC designers and developers felt that they could trim off a lot of the detailed lore and still keep the "core identity" of FR? (Whether you think they succeeded or failed, I think this is a reasonable assumption.)



> I also think anyone who doesn't want to be involved deeply in lore has a simple solution... ignore it.  It's easier and less time consuming for one to ignore the canon they don't want than it is for someone to research, find, and fill in what is left out.



Surprisingly enough, it's not that easy. People have a tendency to adhere to a perceived canon, because it's official. I've seen this with _Star Wars_, _Traveller_, WoD and _Exalted_, and others. (The evidence for this are the continuous arguments about what is and isn't canonic in the settings...) 



> Also I don't need tons of "lite" settings, at a certain point it defeats the purpose of a setting.



Of course, but I think FR in 4e isn't anywhere near light enough for that.



> I think Greyhawk would have been a good setting to publish as a "lite" setting since it was kept very bare bones during the 3e era...



Greyhawk's problem, in my opinion, is that it has laid fallow for so long that the remaining fans have fractured - some like pre-Wars GH, others like the post-Wars version, some like the 3e version as seen in RPGA, and most of them (especially the ones staying with the older takes) have developed the setting into their preferred directions. I'm convinced that even if Gygax were to rise from the dead and write 4e Greyhawk, more than half of the fans wouldn't be satisfied.


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## Henry (Mar 27, 2009)

JoeGKushner said:


> I hope historians don't start doing this! I mean, there's way too much backstory there! It's not their job when writing papers to keep up with all that. It's not feasible!




Oh no, historian is much too honorable a profession to revise subject matter. 

More seriously -- Star Trek, Star Wars, Transformers -- most any other decades-long property you could name; reboots or retcons are pretty commonplace , which is why it doesn't bother me much.


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## El Mahdi (Mar 27, 2009)

Henry said:


> Oh no, historian is much too honorable a profession to revise subject matter.
> 
> More seriously -- Star Trek, *Star Wars*, Transformers -- most any other decades-long property you could name; reboots or retcons are pretty commonplace , which is why it doesn't bother me much.




Blasphemy!

Star Wars doesn't allow Retcons! (that is unless your last name is Lucas)


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## D'karr (Mar 27, 2009)

Henry said:


> Oh no, historian is much too honorable a profession to revise subject matter.
> 
> More seriously -- Star Trek, Star Wars, Transformers -- most any other decades-long property you could name; reboots or retcons are pretty commonplace , which is why it doesn't bother me much.




You know, this is just a game setting.  I just can't muster the enthusiasm to get this worked up about it.


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## Primal (Mar 28, 2009)

Lurks-no-More said:


> I found my old "grey box" FR books last weekend, and have been reading them again. It's remarkable how sparse the world they describe actually is, even though the books _imply_ a lot of history and background. 4e FR seems to me like a step back towards this, and as much as I like the 3e FRCS, I think it's probably a wise decision overall.
> 
> I also don't quite get the complaints about FR lore being ditched: the new gamers coming to D&D and FR are frankly better off without having to digest all the information from the start, and the older ones _already have all that_. The past hasn't been significantly retconned (as far as I noticed), so if you're someone who loves the background stuff, you can use it all. In fact, if you hate the spellplague and the time jump, you can use the old fluff and new crunch without all that much effort.




As Imaro said, it's easier to ignore canon lore (I personally ignore all RSEs and major events in novels, unless I can somehow work them effortlessly into my campaigns) than recreate the same level of details; I suspect most new DMs do that anyway. Of course, if your players mostly care only about "getting the ball rollin'" and the way to the nearest dungeon, you don't need a lot of details. As a DM, I *need* to prepare at least 30-40 NPCs before each campaign starts (local rulers/nobles, high priests/clergy, guard commanders, innkeepers/shopkeepers and other movers-and-shakers) because my players like interacting with them and often want to know as much as possible about local affairs and personalities (not just the names of the shops, NPCs or what they look like -- history, landmarks, organizations etc. are important "fluff" for them, too). For example, when they're selling gear, they want to role-play it, and it's not as easy as saying "Alright, there's a dwarven merchant named Dougal McGruff who you could do business with" -- they want to know the name and location (on the village/town/city map) of *every* potential merchant they could sell their gear to ("He is rumored to a fence? Alright, we won't be selling to him... but what do we know about the 'Dragon's Den' and its proprietor?").

Now, if I were to run my games in 4E FR, that would be loads and loads of extra work; I wouldn't have the same details I now have (note: some of which I may ignore/rewrite as best fits the campaign). You see, even the Grey Boxed Set included villages and cities with keyed maps; it was a solid foundation to build on, to which every regional book and Volo's Guide added more names, locations and details. How much of that information is "viable" in 4E? All the NPCs are dead, and most of the businesses run by different people, many of the spells and magic items and monsters not converted to the 4E rules... yes, the history is there, to be recounted to PCs with relevant skills, or included in occasional hand-outs, but what other use would I have from all that material? Local customs and laws, trade and politics... all that have probably been affected by the Spellplague. A concrete example: how much lore given in Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast and FR Adventures still applies for Baldur's Gate, with its population of two million or so?

So, in my opinion it isn't exactly "back to the good ol' days of the Grey Boxed Set" type of situation, because that was, to me, a milestone in RPG setting design; lots of flavourful NPCs and their histories (i.e. "Here's how an armorer-turned-adventurer lived his life, and this is what an infamous wizard belonging to Cult of the Dragon does and thinks, and how about this Beholder serving the will of Bane? *This* is why he's allied with the Zhentarim", etc.), rumours, spellbooks, keyed settlement maps, organizations (including merchant companies), adventuring companies, poisons... breathtakingly well written glimpses into a hundred little things. And, back then, we knew there would be *more* of the stuff coming out, so even if we didn't know much about, say, Archenbridge, it would be detailed later on in an upcoming product. Even after all these years, I'm still using the Grey Boxed Set in my games, and also as a source of inspiration.

Where's that same quality or loving attention to detail in content and writing? Because I don't see it in FRCG anymore. Sure, holes ("mystery", if you define "blank" slate as that) and "freedom" and wonders aplenty everywhere (such as the motes); yet all of it seems to be written without any passion or emotional attachment. For me, at least, you can't compare the two; one is an outstanding and inspiring source, and the other is not. I'm not against change, but pray tell me: where's that same *spirit* and *feel* of the Realms I fell in love with? And why and how did it become the most popular D&D setting, if the "burden of lore" and depth of details in FR was indeed so horrifying as WoTC has claimed?


----------



## Primal (Mar 28, 2009)

Spatula said:


> But who gets to decide which lore is quality?  That's what I was talking about earlier when I mentioned valid research.  The lore that you think is trash is another fan's treasure.  No matter what you do, some longtime collector is going to be upset.




Well, the fans would, naturally. In literature, there are many, many canonical lists of important works (most of which are subjects of passionate debate, naturally), but "quality lore" could be determined by sales and/or public vote, i.e. by asking the fans which books they consider to be the "best" (and I'm fairly sure that the works of all the authors I mentioned would on the list). As for collectors... I can only speak for myself and the other collectors I know, but regardless of the fact that we may own them, I don't think people would mind if most of the lore in 'Jungles of Chult' or the 'Marco Volo'-series would not make it to the list.

I don't see why such a poll could not be conducted on the Internet; after all, it seemed to work just fine for WoTC as a source for marketing research on the 4E FR changes (i.e. the most vocal FR/Elminster/Mystra haters apparently "outvoted" everyone else, which resulted in the events of the Spellplague).


----------



## jdrakeh (Mar 28, 2009)

Primal said:


> So, in my opinion it isn't exactly "back to the good ol' days of the Grey Boxed Set" type of situation, because that was, to me, a milestone in RPG setting design; lots of flavourful NPCs and their histories (i.e. "Here's how an armorer-turned-adventurer lived his life, and this is what an infamous wizard belonging to Cult of the Dragon does and thinks, and how about this Beholder serving the will of Bane? *This* is why he's allied with the Zhentarim", etc.), rumours, spellbooks, keyed settlement maps, organizations (including merchant companies), adventuring companies, poisons... breathtakingly well written glimpses into a hundred little things. And, back then, we knew there would be *more* of the stuff coming out, so even if we didn't know much about, say, Archenbridge, it would be detailed later on in an upcoming product. Even after all these years, I'm still using the Grey Boxed Set in my games, and also as a source of inspiration.




I love my Grey Box because it's a bare-bones kind of setting that only briefly touches on many aspects of the Realms and leaves the rest up to my own imagination. My Grey Box isn't the massive, encyclopedic, collection of NPCs and incredibly detailed information on every known aspect of life in the Realms that you describe it as. My Grey Box must be from an alternate Earth.


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## carmachu (Mar 28, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> Very true what you say. Yet Eberron as a world has a paradigm that fits well within the 4e design philosophy. They need no excuses to drastically change anything. Eberron will not need to be shoehorned into 4e it will fit nice.




Isnt that slightly incorrect though? I recall WotC wanting to do a more massive change to eberron until a outcry went up and tehy changed their mind.

I dont think initially they cared much. They were planning on changing for changes sake.


----------



## jdrakeh (Mar 28, 2009)

carmachu said:


> Isnt that slightly incorrect though? I recall WotC wanting to do a more massive change to eberron until a outcry went up and tehy changed their mind.
> 
> I dont think initially they cared much. They were planning on changing for changes sake.




Prior to the release of D&D 4e, many vocal anti-4e opponents _claimed_ that Eberron (as well as all other official D&D settings) were going to be re-written from the ground up for 4e but, so far as I know, there wasn't any truth to it. 

WotC never (again, to my knowledge) announced that they were re-writing Eberron (or any other setting) from the ground up, nor did they ever announce that fan outrage caused them to scrap these plans that they never announced in the first place.

I think that _changes_ have been discussed for several settings but the idea that they're all going to be _setting-shattering changes_ was one that disgruntled fans, not WotC, put forth.


----------



## carmachu (Mar 28, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> Prior to the release of D&D 4e, many vocal anti-4e opponents _claimed_ that Eberron (as well as all other official D&D settings) were going to be re-written from the ground up for 4e but, so far as I know, there wasn't any truth to it.
> 
> WotC never (again, to my knowledge) announced that they were re-writing Eberron (or any other setting) from the ground up, nor did they ever announce that fan outrage caused them to scrap these plans that they never announced in the first place.
> 
> I think that _changes_ have been discussed for several settings but the idea that they're all going to be _setting-shattering changes_ was one that disgruntled fans, not WotC, put forth.





You'd appear to be wrong.

I know I heard they did plan earth shattering changes or advance the timeline but changed their mind. And look what I came across:



> From James Wyatt's blog:
> 
> "Hey Eberron fans,
> 
> ...




If I judge his blog right, they DID plan on advancing the timeline much akin to FR, but heard the fans and changed their mind.


----------



## Bluenose (Mar 28, 2009)

Primal said:


> As Imaro said, it's easier to ignore canon lore (I personally ignore all RSEs and major events in novels, unless I can somehow work them effortlessly into my campaigns) than recreate the same level of details; I suspect most new DMs do that anyway. Of course, if your players mostly care only about "getting the ball rollin'" and the way to the nearest dungeon, you don't need a lot of details. As a DM, I *need* to prepare at least 30-40 NPCs before each campaign starts (local rulers/nobles, high priests/clergy, guard commanders, innkeepers/shopkeepers and other movers-and-shakers) because my players like interacting with them and often want to know as much as possible about local affairs and personalities (not just the names of the shops, NPCs or what they look like -- history, landmarks, organizations etc. are important "fluff" for them, too). For example, when they're selling gear, they want to role-play it, and it's not as easy as saying "Alright, there's a dwarven merchant named Dougal McGruff who you could do business with" -- they want to know the name and location (on the village/town/city map) of *every* potential merchant they could sell their gear to ("He is rumored to a fence? Alright, we won't be selling to him... but what do we know about the 'Dragon's Den' and its proprietor?").




If sticking with canon is that important, and not having to make things up is also important, then you've got a serious problem running an FR game. Because most places just don't have enough detail for you. You HAVE to make up most of the information your players demand outside a tiny number of places. Also, even if you play in one of those and the players show no interest at all in going somewhere else you will run out of adventure hooks in that location at some point, after which you have to Make Stuff Up. 



> Where's that same quality or loving attention to detail in content and writing? Because I don't see it in FRCG anymore. Sure, holes ("mystery", if you define "blank" slate as that) and "freedom" and wonders aplenty everywhere (such as the motes); yet all of it seems to be written without any passion or emotional attachment. For me, at least, you can't compare the two; one is an outstanding and inspiring source, and the other is not. I'm not against change, but pray tell me: where's that same *spirit* and *feel* of the Realms I fell in love with? And why and how did it become the most popular D&D setting, if the "burden of lore" and depth of details in FR was indeed so horrifying as WoTC has claimed?




Why did the Realms become the most popular D&D setting? It didn't. That's Homebrew Game. 

By a huge margin.

I


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## JoeGKushner (Mar 28, 2009)

Bluenose said:


> Why did the Realms become the most popular D&D setting? It didn't. That's Homebrew Game.
> 
> By a huge margin.
> 
> I




Really? Sounds like poll time!

Or, he could've been saying, or meaning, the most popular published D&D setting. But hey, whatever floats your boat man.


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## jdrakeh (Mar 28, 2009)

carmachu said:


> You'd appear to be wrong.




 So I am. Still, it has almost no bearing on this thread one way or the other.


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## carmachu (Mar 28, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> So I am. Still, it has almost no bearing on this thread one way or the other.





Actually it does. One poster made the claim that Eberron fit perfectly and needed no fixing to fit, yet WotC planned on changing it anyway. The the fans spoke and they chanegd their mind.

FR was changed despite a similar outcry, and one does wonder if it was done inspite of that. Was was one radicaly changed, and one left alone despite similar outcries. One then can start to wonder why they HAD to make the changes made, and wonder a bit more if the original poster's question, do/did the designers disliked FR has some traction.

It bears a bit of thought.


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## jdrakeh (Mar 28, 2009)

carmachu said:


> One poster made the claim that Eberron fit perfectly and needed no fixing to fit, yet WotC planned on changing it anyway. The the fans spoke and they chanegd their mind.
> 
> FR was changed despite a similar outcry, and one does wonder if it was done inspite of that. Was was one radicaly changed, and one left alone despite similar outcries. One then can start to wonder why they HAD to make the changes made, and wonder a bit more if the original poster's question, do/did the designers disliked FR has some traction.
> 
> It bears a bit of thought.




_Nothing_ you have (or anybody else) posted indicates that anybody at WotC _hates_ FR. That said, I'm well aware that some people are _always_ going to immediately jump to that conlusion and ignore dozens of other, much more likely, possibilities along the way. 

WotC changed FR when some fans said they didn't want that to happen? _WotC hates FR!_ 

That massive leap in logic doesn't take into consideration things like the portion of the fanbase who was complaining, the then current state of FR product sales, and dozens of other variables that are far more likely to have impacted the decision to alter FR rather than pure, unreasoned, hatred


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## D'karr (Mar 28, 2009)

carmachu said:


> FR was changed despite a similar outcry
> It bears a bit of thought.




I does bear a bit of thought.  The FR books where being developed almost at the same time that the 4e books were being developed.  So fans could not have made a "similar" outcry, since the books went to print way before the "fans" had too much of an inkling of what 4e looked like.

The outcry for Eberron, started after the FR books were published.  They (WotC) has had more than a year to make changes to Eberron, if they so chose.

I don't mind the changes to either setting.  Like I said before, it is a "game setting".  My nerdrage meter does not even register a blip for this event.

After all, there was a ton of outcry from "fans" when 3e changed FR, and some other outcry when TSR published "From the Ashes" for Greyhawk.  The world did not end then, it has not ended now.  I still don't see the need for all the "sky is falling" attitude.

If someone doesn't like the changes to the setting, then they don't have to use them.  Isn't the idea of a "game setting" to give the DM a base that he can tailor to whatever he wants?  This fixation with canon is silly IMO.

Treat the books as a buffet.  Take what you like and use it to your hearts content.  Leave anything that does not please your game palate.


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## carmachu (Mar 28, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> _Nothing_ you have (or anybody else) posted indicates that anybody at WotC _hates_ FR. That said, I'm well aware that some people are _always_ going to immediately jump to that conlusion and ignore dozens of other, much more likely, possibilities along the way.
> 
> WotC changed FR when some fans said they didn't want that to happen? _WotC hates FR!_
> 
> That massive leap in logic doesn't take into consideration things like the portion of the fanbase who was complaining, the then current state of FR product sales, and dozens of other variables that are far more likely to have impacted the decision to alter FR rather than pure, unreasoned, hatred



What I have is simply food for thought:

Bother eberron fans and FR fans had an outcry at fast folwarding the setting 100years and basically, for all intents and purpose, wreck the setting for the fans.

On one hand, they listened to eberron fans and backed down.

On a second hand, they went ahead and changed the setting. Much to a good number of long time fans digust.

Why? why did they leave one unchanged and not another? Did they hate the setting? Maybe, maybe not. Did they want to bring it to a more POL variation? Maybe, maybe not. Did they just want to change for change sake-as seen in a few of teh 4e changes? Maybe. maybe not.

To say it has NO bearing on the discussion is flat out wrong. Does it mean or even indicate they favor one setting over another? maybe, maybe not.

It is, however, relevant, no matter how many times you say its not.


Let me state for the record: I got no dog in this fight. I dislike the FR setting before 4e, and nothings changed. I dont care for Eberron either.  I'm a much more old school Greyhawk one.


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## carmachu (Mar 28, 2009)

D'karr said:


> I does bear a bit of thought. The FR books where being developed almost at the same time that the 4e books were being developed. So fans could not have made a "similar" outcry, since the books went to print way before the "fans" had too much of an inkling of what 4e looked like.
> 
> The outcry for Eberron, started after the FR books were published. They (WotC) has had more than a year to make changes to Eberron, if they so chose.
> 
> I don't mind the changes to either setting. Like I said before, it is a "game setting". My nerdrage meter does not even register a blip for this event.




I'm curious to see the sales of the FR book, and what they were and such.  In the end, if sales werent good, perhaps thats an indicator of what they might want to reconsider next time.

But here's a thought again: if your going to sell to folks, your customers, wouldnt you want to gauge a bit what they DO want or liked in a setting, before changing? It doesnt necessarily mean you will listen or even impliment any of the changes, but I wouldnt ignore my target audience either.... from a business POV.

I dont care for either FR or Eberron myself. But I just wanted to correct an incorrect thought running through.


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## Fenes (Mar 28, 2009)

The FR changes remind me of Star Wars Galaxies' NGE. I'd not have expected a company to make a similar blunder, but alas, they never learn.


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## Charwoman Gene (Mar 28, 2009)

carmachu said:


> Why? why did they leave one unchanged and not another?




Because they had time to course correct on Eberron.  I think they would have course corrected on FR, but there was absolutely no way to change course.


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## JoeGKushner (Mar 28, 2009)

Charwoman Gene said:


> Because they had time to course correct on Eberron.  I think they would have course corrected on FR, but there was absolutely no way to change course.




I believe we saw posts to this effect. The ships had already been burned so to speak.


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## Shemeska (Mar 28, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> That massive leap in logic doesn't take into consideration things like the portion of the fanbase who was complaining, the then current state of FR product sales, and dozens of other variables that are far more likely to have impacted the decision to alter FR rather than pure, unreasoned, hatred




And in this instance I'm rather inclined to agree with you. I truly, utterly doubt that anyone on the 4e design team hates FR. The accusation strikes me as silly.

The WotC design team couldn't have changed their plans in light of the negative reaction from FR fans to 4e FR before they'd actually released to books and gotten the reaction that they ultimately did. Given that they appear to have then taken a step back and reevaluated what they were going to do to 4e Eberron, it looks like they might have learned a lesson from what happened with FR. And if that's the case, it's a smart move on their part (though it still remains to be seen, given that the Eberron cosmology is still getting the full 4e treatment).

That said, I'd also suspect that some of the massive changes to 4e FR were also influenced by a very large lack of experience by most members of the 4e design team when it comes to FR. Without a ton of experience, they probably weren't as invested in the setting as it was prior to 4e compared to some other writers, and as a result they might have been more inclined to change things and put their own mark on the setting. I don't agree in any way whatsoever with what they ultimately did, but I can understand perhaps where they might be coming from.


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## Mouseferatu (Mar 28, 2009)

carmachu said:


> Bother eberron fans and FR fans had an outcry at fast folwarding the setting 100years and basically, for all intents and purpose, wreck the setting for the fans.




Nope.

The original plan was to advance Eberron by _two years_. Not 100. Not 10.

Two.

It was _never_ going to be as earth-shaking as the FR changes were. There were going to be a few political changes, maybe a few border shifts, and the introduction of a few new factions.

Fans objected primarily for two reasons:

1) It was said a while back that Eberron would never advance with any sort of "metaplot," and they wanted to keep it where it was, and

2) Some heard about the changes to FR and _assumed_ the plan was as drastic, even though James Wyatt had said, in public, that it was not.

So yes, WotC did change their mind about advancing Eberron. But no, the situation was _never_ even remotely analogous to the FR situation.


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## jdrakeh (Mar 28, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> That said, I'd also suspect that some of the massive changes to 4e FR were also influenced by a very large lack of experience by most members of the 4e design team when it comes to FR.




I'm not too quick to equate fan lurve to _experience_ or suggest that fan lurve qualifies one to write actual game supplements — have you ever read FR fan fic?


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## D'karr (Mar 28, 2009)

carmachu said:


> But here's a thought again: if your going to sell to folks, your customers, wouldnt you want to gauge a bit what they DO want or liked in a setting, before changing? It doesnt necessarily mean you will listen or even impliment any of the changes, but I wouldnt ignore my target audience either.... from a business POV.




After seeing some of the "conversations" on these and other boards, I'm not sure that I wouldn't flat out ignore "THAT" target audience.

Since you can't please everyone, it seems reasonable that I would "sell" to the biggest target audience, not the ones that scream the loudest.


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## Uzzy (Mar 28, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> The WotC design team couldn't have changed their plans in light of the negative reaction from FR fans to 4e FR before they'd actually released to books and gotten the reaction that they ultimately did.




Grand History of the Realms, where the main changes between pre-Spellplague Realms and post can be found, was released on 18th September, 2007. The FRCG was released 19th August 2008. Was that not enough time to change things?



> That said, I'd also suspect that some of the massive changes to 4e FR were also influenced by a very large lack of experience by most members of the 4e design team when it comes to FR. Without a ton of experience, they probably weren't as invested in the setting as it was prior to 4e compared to some other writers, and as a result they might have been more inclined to change things and put their own mark on the setting. I don't agree in any way whatsoever with what they ultimately did, but I can understand perhaps where they might be coming from.




Here we go. Various podcasts with the chief designers for the post-Spellplague Realms mentioned that they hadn't ran a game of D&D in the Realms for over two years. Perhaps if Greenwood, Baker (that's Rich, not Keith), Boyd and Schend were the designers, things would have been different.


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## jdrakeh (Mar 28, 2009)

D'karr said:


> Since you can't please everyone, it seems reasonable that I would "sell" to the biggest target audience, not the ones that scream the loudest.




This.


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## Shemeska (Mar 28, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> I'm not too quick to equate fan lurve to _experience_ or suggest that fan lurve qualifies one to write actual game supplements — have you ever read FR fan fic?




I'm not sure where "fan lurve" comes into anything I said really. *shrug* When I said experience, that's what I meant, aka having written for the setting before, preferably multiple times, and by extension having a firm knowledge of the setting material and its history.

And no, I can't really say that I've read FR fanfic.


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## Shemeska (Mar 28, 2009)

Uzzy said:


> Grand History of the Realms, where the main changes between pre-Spellplague Realms and post, was released on 18th September, 2007. The FRCG was released 19th August 2008. Was that not enough time to change things?




Hmm. You've got a point there. I'd forgotten about the material that WotC tacked on to the last pages of GHotR. They probably could have changed things at that point, because yeah, the reaction wasn't good as I recall. I don't know by what point they'd written and locked into stone what ultimately happened to 4e FR.

They had to have been aware of how the 4e material added to GHotR was received, but they stuck to their decision regardless. Unless the design team were to comment, I can't do much more than speculate as to why they did what they did.


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## drothgery (Mar 28, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Nope.
> 
> The original plan was to advance Eberron by _two years_. Not 100. Not 10.
> 
> Two.




That's what I thought. Thanks, Ari.


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## jdrakeh (Mar 28, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> They had to have been aware of how the 4e material added to GHotR was received, but they stuck to their decision regardless. Unless the design team were to comment, I can't do much more than speculate as to why they did what they did.




But. . . but. . . the GHotR was received very positively, wasn't it?  I mean, with _very_ few exceptions. Why would WotC _want_ to change that?


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## Uzzy (Mar 28, 2009)

To be fair on the FR designers, they did respond to the fans in one issue. Someone mentioned that Tyr was silly, and gave some reasons as to why that was. Rich Baker agreed.. and they killed off Tyr. Go team. 

Anyway, you are being sarcastic there, jdrakeh? Right? >.>


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## Shemeska (Mar 28, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> But. . . but. . . the GHotR was received very positively, wasn't it?  I mean, with _very_ few exceptions. Why would WotC _want_ to change that?




The GHotR was received very positively, or perhaps more specifically the text that Brian James and Ed Greenwood wrote got nearly monolithic praise.

Two exceptions to the praise however, but none of them reflect on the great job that James and Greenwood did:

1) The fact that outside of a map or two, virtually every piece of artwork was recycled, and one picture had nothing to do with the scene it was supposed to have been illustrating (the death of a dragon was instead illustrated by a picture of an Eberron warforged being repaired).

2) The several lines of 4e FR events that were tacked on at the very end of the book, which as I understand it, were added on to the text by the WotC design team and were not produced by James or Greenwood. Those few lines of text talking about the 4e death of Mystra and several other gods were met with a rather large torrent of protest.


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## jdrakeh (Mar 28, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> Two exceptions to the praise however, but none of them reflect on the great job that James and Greenwood did:
> 
> 1) The fact that outside of a map or two, virtually every piece of artwork was recycled, and one picture had nothing to do with the scene it was supposed to have been illustrating (the death of a dragon was instead illustrated by a picture of an Eberron warforged being repaired).
> 
> 2) The several lines of 4e FR events that were tacked on at the very end of the book, which as I understand it, were added on to the text by the WotC design team and were not produced by James or Greenwood. Those few lines of text talking about the 4e death of Mystra and several other gods were met with a rather large torrent of protest.




Those must have been pretty minor complaints outside all but the most diehard fan communities. I don't recall too many people complaining about either of those things here, for example (in fact, based on ENWorld feedback alone, I was pretty convinced that the book was nothing short of perfect).


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## JoeGKushner (Mar 28, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> Those must have been pretty minor complaints outside all but the most diehard fan communities. I don't recall too many people complaining about either of those things here, for example (in fact, based on ENWorld feedback alone, I was pretty convinced that the book was nothing short of perfect).




I disagree.

I'll agree to the two bones of contention against it and add a third.

Price.

This was material free off the net (for the most part) with reused art and unlike the Rules Compendium, where the rules being reprinted was actually noticible in the lowered cover price, the Grand History was a cash grab in it's full price.

As a reference work, it's a great piece though. Hard to bash the whole utility of it based off the destruction of three previous settings worth of material in a few pages.


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## D'karr (Mar 28, 2009)

JoeGKushner said:


> I disagree.
> 
> I'll agree to the two bones of contention against it and add a third.
> 
> ...




According to some WotC could have charge $2.00 for the book and it would have been a cash grab.  That complaint is leveled at them at least once a month.


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## JoeGKushner (Mar 28, 2009)

D'karr said:


> According to some WotC could have charge $2.00 for the book and it would have been a cash grab.  That complaint is leveled at them at least once a month.




Perhaps if there hadn't been something of a direct correlation between two books coming out at exactly the same time I'd be more "yeah, internet rage" as opposed to thinking it a cash grab myself.

1. Rules Compendium: 160 pages, reused art, great utility; $26.95

2. Grand History: 160 pages, mostly taken from the net, reused (and inappropriate art), great utiliyt; $29.95. 

Minor price difference overall, but it screams cash grab to me.


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## jdrakeh (Mar 28, 2009)

Uzzy said:


> Anyway, you are being sarcastic there, jdrakeh? Right? >.>




About the GHotR being a smash hit? No. I absolutely thought it _was_ a smash hit based on fan response here at ENWorld, at RPGNet, and at the WotC forums. I mean, I do recall the usual five or six members of the "WotC killed my puppy!" crowd screaming that it was horrible but, outside of that, I recall the response being overall positive. 

I don't recall _any_ of this supposedly widespread outrage about the 4e content therein or the price of the book or anything else being trotted out in _this_ thread. I recall the product receiving high marks frome people who weren't wearing their unfettered hatred of WotC on their sleeves. 

Somebody suggested that WotC should have changed this and I honestly wondered why they'd want to. Why would you want to change a product to ignore the demands of the many and, instead, cater to the demands of the few? That makes absolutely no sense to me.


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## Shemeska (Mar 28, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> Somebody suggested that WotC should have changed this and I honestly wondered why they'd want to. Why would you want to change a product to ignore the demands of the many and, instead, cater to the demands of the few? That makes absolutely no sense to me.




You've said something like this twice now and it really miscatagorizes what folks have complained about, or just completely ignores what people have made complaints about in this thread itself. The only complaints the book really had were the massive recycling of artwork and the page of 4e material tacked awkwardly into the back of the book. Nobody has suggested that anything else needed to be changed, nor that the vast majority of the text of the GHotR was anything other than good.


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## D'karr (Mar 28, 2009)

JoeGKushner said:


> Minor price difference overall, but it screams cash grab to me.




Because printing a color, hardbound book that will probably have "less" demand than a core book is not cheap.

If the book had been $50 then I could see a cash grab, but not for what you posted.


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## JoeGKushner (Mar 28, 2009)

D'karr said:


> Because printing a color, hardbound book that will probably have "less" demand than a core book is not cheap.
> 
> If the book had been $50 then I could see a cash grab, but not for what you posted.




So when every other book is 160 pages for the same price, even though they have less demand than a core book...? Not following the arguement. If saying that they charged more than they did for a "core book" then why are all of the other core books not cheaper than the $29.95 price tag?


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## Uzzy (Mar 28, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> About the GHotR being a smash hit? No. I absolutely thought it _was_ a smash hit based on fan response here at ENWorld, at RPGNet, and at the WotC forums. I mean, I do recall the usual five or six members of the "WotC killed my puppy!" crowd screaming that it was horrible but, outside of that, I recall the response being overall positive.
> 
> I don't recall _any_ of this supposedly widespread outrage about the 4e content therein or the price of the book or anything else being trotted out in _this_ thread. I recall the product receiving high marks frome people who weren't wearing their unfettered hatred of WotC on their sleeves.
> 
> Somebody suggested that WotC should have changed this and I honestly wondered why they'd want to. Why would you want to change a product to ignore the demands of the many and, instead, cater to the demands of the few? That makes absolutely no sense to me.




I see. You have market research that shows that the 4th Edition Realms is categorically what the 'many' wanted? Interesting.

Yes, most people liked the Grand History. I loved it! Though, there are two points I'd bring up. Firstly, it's the diehard fans who would buy a product like the Grand History. Most of them appreciated that too. Heck, it's loved over at Candlekeep!

However, it's the last two pages of the Grand History that get the bad rep, thanks to them sticking the changes to the Realms there. Most of which were nonsensical, unneeded and violated all previous references to the gods in question (Seriously, Sune forcing Tymora into a forced marriage, and Tymora going along with it?)

So, when you and I say that the Grand History was loved by the fans, what we actually mean is 'It's loved by the fans, with the exception of the last two pages, which are utterly abhorrent.'


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## Nightson (Mar 28, 2009)

JoeGKushner said:


> So when every other book is 160 pages for the same price, even though they have less demand than a core book...? Not following the arguement. If saying that they charged more than they did for a "core book" then why are all of the other core books not cheaper than the $29.95 price tag?




Because demand for those is still high enough for WotC to use a bigger printing run I'd wager.  A smaller printing run for a book that most people aren't going to buy is going to cost more.  Of course I can't be certain that's why there's a price difference.


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## JoeGKushner (Mar 28, 2009)

Nightson said:


> Because demand for those is still high enough for WotC to use a bigger printing run I'd wager.  A smaller printing run for a book that most people aren't going to buy is going to cost more.  Of course I can't be certain that's why there's a price difference.




But then my point again, every book that has a smaller print run would cost more no? And yet, every book with the same page count has the same price. So, no, not seeing it.


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## jdrakeh (Mar 28, 2009)

Uzzy said:


> I see. You have market research that shows that the 4th Edition Realms is categorically what the 'many' wanted?




No. I didn't claim that. My observations are just that. Observations. I never claimed that they were anything more. That said, if you want to play that card, where is _your_ proof that WotC hates FR, that the majority of the market wanted FR to remain unchanged, etc? You can't provide that kind of data for your claims either, eh? That seems like a rather unfair double standard you have there. 



> So, when you and I say that the Grand History was loved by the fans, what we actually mean is 'It's loved by the fans, with the exception of the last two pages, which are utterly abhorrent.'




No, that's not what _I_ mean. Please don't to tell me what I mean. You're in no position to do that. What _I_ mean is that, prior to this thread, I've seen no massive outpouring of nerd rage over the last two pages of GHotR. And in this thread, I haven't seen that, either. I've just seen three or four posters _saying_ that there _is_ such a massive outpouring but utterly failing to produce it.


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## Teemu (Mar 28, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> What _I_ mean is that, prior to this thread, I've seen no massive outpouring of nerd rage over the last two pages of GHotR. And in this thread, I haven't seen that, either. I've just seen three or four posters _saying_ that there _is_ such a massive outpouring but utterly failing to produce it.



There was a big outrage over the changes when they were revealed, on the WotC Realms boards. It was largely just the few regulars, though, a handful of very vocal fans who were disappointed. What I find interesting is that these diehard fans would've probably preferred a 4e FR campaign book with hardly any changes at all, basically a reprint of the 3e book with some 4e rules attached. That would've been a cash grab if anything.


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## Shemeska (Mar 28, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> What _I_ mean is that, prior to this thread, I've seen no massive outpouring of nerd rage over the last two pages of GHotR. And in this thread, I haven't seen that, either. I've just seen three or four posters _saying_ that there _is_ such a massive outpouring but utterly failing to produce it.




This took around ten seconds to find. There were plenty of upset people regarding the 4e changes inserted into GHotR when it was released, that thread being just one example. Maybe you missed it all the first time around, but you may have just not been looking, because there was plenty here and a firestorm over on WotC and Candlekeep.


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## Uzzy (Mar 28, 2009)

Teemu said:


> There was a big outrage over the changes when they were revealed, on the WotC Realms boards. It was largely just the few regulars, though, a handful of very vocal fans who were disappointed. What I find interesting is that these diehard fans would've probably preferred a 4e FR campaign book with hardly any changes at all, basically a reprint of the 3e book with some 4e rules attached. That would've been a cash grab if anything.




Actually, I'd have enjoyed a new campaign book that brought the setting up to date, did a better job of concentrating on key areas, like the Dalelands, Cormyr, Sembia and the Moonsea and threw in the 4th Edition Rules. Plenty of new stuff that could have been written.


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## jdrakeh (Mar 28, 2009)

Teemu said:


> It was largely just the few regulars, though, a handful of very vocal fans who were disappointed.




Yeah, I saw _that_. I don't classify that as large. Loud? Absolutely. Large? No way. Pretty much the same thing happened here and at RPGNet. A handful of people screamed very loudly about how WotC were evil, money grubbing, hellspawn but everybody else seemed completely unbothered by the pages in question and generaly sung the praises of the book as a paradigm of value and quality.


----------



## Uzzy (Mar 28, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> No. I didn't claim that. My observations are just that. Observations. I never claimed that they were anything more. That said, if you want to play that card, where is _your_ proof that WotC hates FR, that the majority of the market wanted FR to remain unchanged, etc? You can't provide that kind of data for your claims either, eh? That seems like a rather unfair double standard you have there.




Firstly, I never claimed that WoTC hates FR. The key designers of the new FR didn't have experience of the Realms, as shown by their lack of playtime in it. I'll further argue that many wanted the Realms to stay unchanged, going by consistently good sales figures for the FR setting books during the 3rd Edition times. 



> No, that's not what _I_ mean. Please don't to tell me what I mean. You're in no position to do that. What _I_ mean is that, prior to this thread, I've seen no massive outpouring of nerd rage over the last two pages of GHotR. And in this thread, I haven't seen that, either. I've just seen three or four posters _saying_ that there _is_ such a massive outpouring but utterly failing to produce it.




You should really look at Candlekeep someday. Plenty of criticism towards the last two pages of GHoTR, and the 4th Edition Realms. Or you could just look in the link Shem provided.


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## D'karr (Mar 28, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> This took around ten seconds to find. There were plenty of upset people regarding the 4e changes inserted into GHotR when it was released, that thread being just one example. Maybe you missed it all the first time around, but you may have just not been looking, because there was plenty here and a firestorm over on WotC and Candlekeep.




I guess about 12 people does not make "plenty" in my book.

In that thread I see what I see in all these threads.  The same people arguing back and forth.  Just because I can post 5,000 times in less than 2 hours does not make me "plenty" of people.

I don't see this groundswell of fury that threatens to overwhelm world.  YMMV.


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## jdrakeh (Mar 29, 2009)

D'karr said:


> I guess about 12 people does not make "plenty" in my book.
> 
> In that thread I see what I see in all these threads.  The same people arguing back and forth.  Just because I can post 5,000 times in less than 2 hours does not make me "plenty" of people.
> 
> I don't see this groundswell of fury that threatens to overwhelm world.  YMMV.




This was exactly my point. It's a storm in a teacup, so far as I'm concerned. The awesome gale of fan rage being referred to in this instance just doesn't exist, AFAICT. All I see is a lot of hyperbole. 

Also, FWIW, Candlekeep is _clearly_ a fansite devoted to one very specific niche of D&D and in no way representative of D&D players as a whole. Suggesting otherwise is more than a little incredulous.


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## carmachu (Mar 29, 2009)

D'karr said:


> After seeing some of the "conversations" on these and other boards, I'm not sure that I wouldn't flat out ignore "THAT" target audience.
> 
> Since you can't please everyone, it seems reasonable that I would "sell" to the biggest target audience, not the ones that scream the loudest.





You know, thats the EXACT attitude that encapsulates 4e perfectly, they "screw it, we'll do it our way whether you like it or not. Damn the torpedos, full steam ahead."

Whether its FR, GSL, or 4e in general, it seems very much so, with little room for debate.


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## rounser (Mar 29, 2009)

> This was exactly my point. It's a storm in a teacup, so far as I'm concerned. The awesome gale of fan rage being referred to in this instance just doesn't exist, AFAICT. All I see is a lot of hyperbole.



So the overwhelmingly negative amazon reviews for the new FR book aren't representative either, I suppose?


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## Nightson (Mar 29, 2009)

rounser said:


> So the overwhelmingly negative amazon reviews for the new FR book aren't representative either, I suppose?




67 reviews does not a comprehensive survey make, especially when it's a self selected sample.


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## SPECTRE666 (Mar 29, 2009)

I support what happened in the Realms. Sure if Steven Schend and the old TSR Crew were still writing for the Realms full-time I seriously doubt that this would have happened. Candlekeep per the Mods have stated that Candlekeep is open to the 4E Realms. They may not agree with what has happened but they wont isolate any pro 4e threads, like some fans wanted. Candlekeep is getting better because of it. 

The Hooded One recently stated that Ed originally did not want to tell stories about El and the other Chosen, but TSR and WotC wanted him to. Now they go and remove them.  Sage at Candlekeep said that he did not post on the WotC boards for a year because of the arguements that always surrounded Ed on the WotC forums. So for 4E WotC stuck Ed off into his own little corner (Returned Abeir) and removed the stumbling block so to speak from the Realms. Its like enjoying Eberron and hating Keith Baker, I dont get it. Yet some people hate Ed.  

They wanted to open up space for the authors to write new stories in. I for one dont use realms novels for cannon. I just want to read a good story. Mistshore is actually a part of Ed's home game. Go figure.  The 4E Novels are really good. 

Rich "who must be stopped" Baker stated that we as fans would never know of the Battles that he fought for the Realms before the announcement. 

People have been complaining about the direction the Realms have been taking since the advent of 3E.  If anything since the Times of Troubles.  So fans complining about the direction of the Realms is nothing new. 

*SPECTRE/18DELTA/BRIMSTONE*


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## Jack99 (Mar 29, 2009)

SPECTRE666 said:


> People have been complaining about the direction the Realms have been taking since the advent of 3E.  If anything since the Times of Troubles.  So fans complining about the direction of the Realms is nothing new.
> *SPECTRE/18DELTA/BRIMSTONE*




When I read these boards, I think I must be the only person in the world who thought the Times of Trouble were cool.


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## jdrakeh (Mar 29, 2009)

Nightson said:


> 67 reviews does not a comprehensive survey make, especially when it's a self selected sample.




It also has nothing to do with the immediate subject at hand, which was the purported fan reaction to a handful of pages at the back of the GHotR product


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## rounser (Mar 29, 2009)

> 67 reviews does not a comprehensive survey make, especially when it's a self selected sample.



No, but there's a point where dismissing a host of sources (amazon, multiple forums etc) each as a vocal minority becomes just special pleading.


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## Fenes (Mar 29, 2009)

rounser said:


> No, but there's a point where dismissing a host of sources (amazon, multiple forums etc) each as a vocal minority becomes just special pleading.




If you do not blindly love all things WotC you're a minority for some people, no matter how many you number.

It really reminds me of the NGE from Star Wars Galaxies, same "if you don't like it you're a minority!" claims.


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## Doc_Klueless (Mar 29, 2009)

rounser said:


> No, but there's a point where dismissing a host of sources (amazon, multiple forums etc) each as a vocal minority becomes just special pleading.



I don't have a dog in this fight, but I have an observation (which doesn't deal with self-selection, which is its own horrendous problem with internet surveys/reviews).

In order to add together those different sources, one must show that each person within them are unique (that is the same person didn't post a negative review in each area) and that if there are non-uniques, they are only counted once.


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## jdrakeh (Mar 29, 2009)

Doc_Klueless said:


> I don't have a dog in this fight, but I have an observation (which doesn't deal with self-selection, which is its own horrendous problem with internet surveys/reviews).
> 
> In order to add together those different sources, one must show that each person within them are unique (that is the same person didn't post a negative review in each area) and that if there are non-uniques, they are only counted once.




That's an astute observation, of course, but the current matter isn't even _that_ complicated. The fact is that 12 complaintants, 100 complaintants, 1,000 complaintants, or even _10,000_ complaintants doesn't come _close_ to comprising a majority of D&D players. 

So far, I've seen proof of a few dozen complaintants at _most_ (and that's being pretty generous). Is that a majority of D&D players? I don't think so. I mean, I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain that more than a few dozen people are playing D&D worldwide.


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## Piratecat (Mar 29, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> When I read these boards, I think I must be the only person in the world who thought the Times of Trouble were cool.



Yeah, pretty much.


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## Phaezen (Mar 29, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> When I read these boards, I think I must be the only person in the world who thought the Times of Trouble were cool.






Piratecat said:


> Yeah, pretty much.




I actualy quite liked the concept, so there are two of us.  YThe rest of you are a minority


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## Primal (Mar 29, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> This took around ten seconds to find. There were plenty of upset people regarding the 4e changes inserted into GHotR when it was released, that thread being just one example. Maybe you missed it all the first time around, but you may have just not been looking, because there was plenty here and a firestorm over on WotC and Candlekeep.




I completely agree. I also remember seeing a huge backlash directed at the design team over on the WoTC and Candlekeep forums for those pages in GHoTR. I personally hated stuff back then, and I still hate it today. Yet I happily dished out 35 euros for GHoTR, even though the art is recycled and the last pages are just ****; not only did I want to support Brian's marvelous work, but I've also got a lot of use out of the book.


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## Primal (Mar 29, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> I love my Grey Box because it's a bare-bones kind of setting that only briefly touches on many aspects of the Realms and leaves the rest up to my own imagination. My Grey Box isn't the massive, encyclopedic, collection of NPCs and incredibly detailed information on every known aspect of life in the Realms that you describe it as. My Grey Box must be from an alternate Earth.




No, it is not a "massive collection of NPCs" but it has a variety of NPCs from different "walks of life", with well-written backgrounds. It also has basic info on adventuring companies and merchant companies and deities, books and spells and poisons unique to the realms, several keyed village/town/city maps, rumours from all over the Realms, two adventures, consensus of the whole population of Shadowdale, and "bare-bones" descriptions of many, many settlements. I don't think 4E FRCG, especially as I think it's nowhere near as inspiring or well-written as the Grey Boxed Set, can compare to that.


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## Primal (Mar 29, 2009)

Bluenose said:


> If sticking with canon is that important, and not having to make things up is also important, then you've got a serious problem running an FR game. Because most places just don't have enough detail for you. You HAVE to make up most of the information your players demand outside a tiny number of places. Also, even if you play in one of those and the players show no interest at all in going somewhere else you will run out of adventure hooks in that location at some point, after which you have to Make Stuff Up.




Sticking to canon is not as important as having a detailed setting (did you note that I tend to ignore all RSEs, unless they fit my campaign?). Now, I could grab any Volo's Guide, for example, and run a game in most of the settings described in them. Add in the boxed sets and FR Adventures, and there's no need for "extra" details. Just to name a few such places: Scornubel, Arabel, Suzail, Elturel, Hill's Edge, Berdusk, Silverymoon -- not to mention, naturally, Waterdeep. And, whatever details I might feel are still missing to satusfy my players, I could do myself. With Volo's Guide to the North, I could have a pretty decent "Tour de North"-type of campaign, with even smaller settings detailed "well enough" (major inns, shops, NPCs, adventure locations) for me to use them with minor tweaks. 

And, yes, I have to "Make Stuff Up" for each session anyway (the session's adventure, at least) -- that wasn't the point. If the players wouldn't want the level of details they do, I wouldn't *force* it on them. Also, over the years I've kind of learned how to "hook" them; no need to worry about "wasting" adventure hooks. For example, if I tried the old cliché with the "mysterious employer" at the local inn + lots of combat encounters, they wouldn't think it was a fun session. Spending half the session in role-playing with themselves and the NPCs, with adventure hooks tied to character backgrounds... now, that's their idea of fun. 

Anyway, my point was, I'd have to start with a "clean slate" in 4E FR, because I could hardly expect to grab my 2E/3E accessories and use the stuff "as is". In fact, it would probably be easier to pick a small village and start from scratch, than trying to update the info and the maps. 



> Why did the Realms become the most popular D&D setting? It didn't. That's Homebrew Game.
> 
> By a huge margin.
> 
> I




I suspect that you realized I'm talking of D&D settings *published* by TSR/WoTC.


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## EmboldenedNavigator (Mar 29, 2009)

Reading the new FR book, I wondered why they didn't just have Abeir be its own world that was parallel to and somehow connected with Toril. Sort of like the shadow world that its conceived as being: a reflection but otherwise new and different. Have the same gods, the same basic tropes, organizations and characters who have counterparts in Toril, but acknowledge that Toril was still Toril and, if old school players desired, could be supported with the crunch written for the new Abeir setting.


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## Wormwood (Mar 30, 2009)

Primal said:


> I don't think 4E FRCG, especially as I think it's nowhere near as inspiring or well-written as the Grey Boxed Set, can compare to that.



I don't dislike the current FRCG as much as most, but I otherwise completely agree with your post.

The Grey Box is full of flavor, history, and (most of all) possibilities. As a bonus, it is damn near system-neutral. 

So much so, in fact, that I'm going to use it---and ONLY it---for my next campaign. And honestly, I *look forward* to having my group come up with fun and creative ways of incorporating 4e's races/classes into the setting. 

Hmm. I wonder what I'm going to do with Sembia . . .


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## Primal (Mar 30, 2009)

Wormwood said:


> I don't dislike the current FRCG as much as most, but I otherwise completely agree with your post.
> 
> The Grey Box is full of flavor, history, and (most of all) possibilities. As a bonus, it is damn near system-neutral.
> 
> ...




Use a lot of backstabbing, conspiring merchants as NPCs in the campaign?


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## Wormwood (Mar 30, 2009)

Primal said:


> Use a lot of backstabbing, conspiring merchants as NPCs in the campaign?



Ah, but that's the genius of the Grey Box: Sembia is undefined and wide open for DMs to use as they see fit.

I was considering placing Freeport in it, actually.


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## SPECTRE666 (Mar 30, 2009)

Wormwood said:


> I was considering placing Freeport in it, actually.



Freeport in any setting is full of win. 

*SPECTRE*


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## Scribble (Mar 30, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> When I read these boards, I think I must be the only person in the world who thought the Times of Trouble were cool.




I liked the story, but some of the results bugged me. 

My friend and one of my players was a big Cyric fan, and he was one of those power gamer tyopes that always also tried to use Chaotic Evil as a way of rationalizing screwing everyone else in the game... So as a result that kind of tainted my view of Cyric.


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## avin (Mar 30, 2009)

Before playing Baldur's Gate I my only FR experience was in an one shot game where I was a Bladesinger.

BG is about Time of Troubles repercussion, focusing the death of Bhaal. I played Tales of the Sword Coast, BG II and its expansion only to have some sympathy for Bhaal and prejudice against Cyric.

Humans killing Gods were not my campaign focus nor will be so I can't say good things about it.


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## Shemeska (Mar 30, 2009)

I'll raise my hand to be counted among the people who liked the Time of Troubles. The story and fallout, and of particular note* the subsequent development of that fallout, were both interesting in their own right, and full of plot hooks to play with. But even though I like it, Kelemvor is still boring to me.

And this purely speculation on my part since I wasn't playing D&D yet, but perhaps the dislike of the ToT had more to do with some of the kneejerk reaction that 2e in general faced initially than it did the actual changes to 2e FR?

*to differentiate why perhaps I like it, but not something like the Spellplague


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## D'karr (Mar 30, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> I'll raise my hand to be counted among the people who liked the Time of Troubles. The story and fallout, and of particular note* the subsequent development of that fallout, were both interesting in their own right, and full of plot hooks to play with. But even though I like it, Kelemvor is still boring to me.
> 
> And this purely speculation on my part since I wasn't playing D&D yet, but perhaps the dislike of the ToT had more to do with some of the kneejerk reaction that 2e in general faced initially than it did the actual changes to 2e FR?
> 
> *to differentiate why perhaps I like it, but not something like the Spellplague




Because the kneejerk reaction that 4e receives has nothing to do with how 4e FR is disliked by some.


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## Scribble (Mar 30, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> And this purely speculation on my part since I wasn't playing D&D yet, but perhaps the dislike of the ToT had more to do with some of the kneejerk reaction that 2e in general faced initially than it did the actual changes to 2e FR?




I think that was probably part of it. I don't think that was everyone's reason, but I can see that as being a part of it definitely.


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## Fenes (Mar 31, 2009)

The time of troubles were among the first novels I read. I like the idea, though some of the consequences seem silly to me now, and in my campaign those were greatly changed.


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## Shemeska (Mar 31, 2009)

D'karr said:


> Because the kneejerk reaction that 4e receives has nothing to do with how 4e FR is disliked by some.




Except that many people were unhappy with 4e FR months before 4e was actually released, courtesy of the last page or two in GHotR which listed some of the looming 4e FR setting changes.


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## Lurks-no-More (Mar 31, 2009)

Uzzy said:


> To be fair on the FR designers, they did respond to the fans in one issue. Someone mentioned that Tyr was silly, and gave some reasons as to why that was. Rich Baker agreed.. and they killed off Tyr. Go team.



And a great thing, too. Never liked the "real-world" gods in FR, with Tyr and Mielikki as the two big offenders (and, of course, the whole Egyptian pantheon in Mulhorand...). Torm does the job much better, I think, and he's a FR deity from the start.


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## DracoSuave (Mar 31, 2009)

Going to the original topic, dunno if it was said.... but I hardly doubt a design team that has Ed Greenwood on it could be described as 'FR-hating' seeing as he invented the Realms.

It's propaganda.


And Time of Troubles did suck, imho.


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## SPECTRE666 (Mar 31, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> Going to the original topic, dunno if it was said.... but I hardly doubt a design team that has Ed Greenwood on it could be described as 'FR-hating' seeing as he invented the Realms.
> 
> It's propaganda.
> 
> ...



True, but WotC told Ed what was happening to the Setting at GENCON 2005. That was after most of the changes were decided apon.

*SPECTRE*


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## Uzzy (Mar 31, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> Going to the original topic, dunno if it was said.... but I hardly doubt a design team that has Ed Greenwood on it could be described as 'FR-hating' seeing as he invented the Realms.
> 
> It's propaganda.




A quote here, from Ed Greenwood himself.



> This is indeed the Big Risk in all of this, the “roll of the dice” that I wish someone had never decided to make (because I personally value the ongoing development of a shared and unbroken imaginary Grand History of a fictional fantasy setting as something magnificent in itself, an achievement we should all continue to contribute to).
> Yet it’s happening regardless of my personal wants, and I choose to be onboard trying to paddle and steer, rather than left behind swimming in the water, calling out that perhaps we should have set a different course.




Source

Hardly seems as if he's the most enthusiastic participant ever. Of further importance would be the fact he only worked on Returned Abier, not the actual Realms.


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## Uzzy (Mar 31, 2009)

Lurks-no-More said:


> And a great thing, too. Never liked the "real-world" gods in FR, with Tyr and Mielikki as the two big offenders (and, of course, the whole Egyptian pantheon in Mulhorand...). Torm does the job much better, I think, and he's a FR deity from the start.




While you may have a point with Mulhorand, I quite liked Tyr, Mielikki, Loviatar etc. Heck, Sune is Aphrodite, Lathander is Apollo, Selúne is Selene and Shar is Nyx, if you want to take a very loose view of the differences between the real world counterparts and the FR gods.

That said, I loved the Triad. Three different aspects of Paladinhood, Torm being the destroyer of evil, Tyr being the lawgiver, and Ilmater being the one who alleviated the suffering of the common people. It added something to the Realms, something I enjoyed.


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## teitan (Mar 31, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> There is no shortage of comic book writers, and they all manage to craft good stories in a vast shared world.




You still reading comic books? Marvel seems to ignore anything from before 2000, or seeks to alter it beyond recognition. They published a best of Spider-man HC series and NONE of it was from before JMS took over. Heck, it was JMS run which pales in comparison to Lee, Stern, DeFalco, and Michelenie. Roger Stern was asked to pitch a Doc Ock Year One story back when Spidey 2 was about to come out and they rejected it because it used too much continuity and went with a story that was not canon, even using Ock's more current costume rather than the classic attire the story would have called for... 

DC has Geoff Johns thank god. LOL


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## Primal (Apr 1, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> Going to the original topic, dunno if it was said.... but I hardly doubt a design team that has Ed Greenwood on it could be described as 'FR-hating' seeing as he invented the Realms.
> 
> It's propaganda.
> 
> ...




I think it sucked, too; not only had my players read the novels by the time I tried to introduce it to "my" Realms (by running the official adventures), but my campaigns also suffered from losing Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul -- all of who were my favorite deities (and their followers were my favorite villains as a DM). How could I replace them with Cyric? 

It's wasn't just me; Myrkul and Xvim were very popular among the DMs I know (for example, in one of the campaigns I'm playing in we're still hunting the Crown of Horns after all these years). 

Then, during 2E, Xvim ascended to divinity, and I slowly grew to like him enough to introduce the Risen Godson to my then-current campaign (and I foreshadowed it in a major way). And what did they do next? Killed him, that's what they did; turned out it had been the "new" Bane (I had pictured Bane as Witch King of Angmar-ish, but now he appeared as a naked, green and bald giant... ) in disguise. So, overnight, Bane had returned... but not into my campaign. I decided to go with Cyricists, for a while, so that I could "play up" the ascension of Bane (Xvimists quickly "faded" into the background as their god struggled against his father). I began to like Cyric, too, as years went by, and thought I would never use Bane again in my Realms. And what happened next... is that Cyric is imprisoned for a 1000 years. *Sigh*. Yeah, Bane would still be a choice for me, if I chose to run 4E FR, but his "new looks" don't appeal to me (even less his new symbol, the pronged weird claw-thing). 

Damn you, design team... why have you always killed/imprisoned my favorite evil deities? If you had to kill someone, why not the "Gothic Chakram Chick", i.e. oh-so-overused Shar? 

On-Topic: I don't think they hate FR; they just don't have any great passions about it (IIRC none of the WoTC staff had run FR campaigns in-house for years). Ed, who certainly loves the Realms, was given a "new" corner of FR to write about, so that the fans couldn't claim he was left out; yet his work would not "jeopardize" their new goal for less details in the main areas, because it would be about a relatively distant part of the setting.


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## Aberzanzorax (Apr 1, 2009)

Ya know, I've thought this for some time. 

Why not have realms campaigns run at different eras?

You could do the "far future" era past the spellplague (do 1000 years, not just 100).

You could have ancient netheril.

You could have the standard realms.



You'd have interconnectivity, multiple related worlds, and flexibility.


I could run my campaign in any, and even TIME TRAVEL between them!


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## Primal (Apr 1, 2009)

Wormwood said:


> Ah, but that's the genius of the Grey Box: Sembia is undefined and wide open for DMs to use as they see fit.
> 
> I was considering placing Freeport in it, actually.




How about replacing Luskan with it, or calling Freeport Luskan? I think it would fit perfectly.


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## Hussar (Apr 1, 2009)

Honestly, I think most of the reaction to the ToT modules is due to the fact that these modules are very badly written adventures.  Very heavy handed, extremely railroady and they sideline the PC's in favor of Mary Sue style NPC's in a number of places.

While I'm sure some of it is 2e backlash, there are some pretty solid reasons for not liking these modules.


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## Shemeska (Apr 1, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Honestly, I think most of the reaction to the ToT modules is due to the fact that these modules are very badly written adventures.  Very heavy handed, extremely railroady and they sideline the PC's in favor of Mary Sue style NPC's in a number of places.
> 
> While I'm sure some of it is 2e backlash, there are some pretty solid reasons for not liking these modules.




And see, that's a perspective I'm not familiar with. I never played the ToT modules, or even read them. I'm familiar with the ToT via the novels and later sourcebooks touching upon them. If the modules were that railroady, I can easily see how it would sour people on the events.


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## Wormwood (Apr 1, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> If the modules were that railroady, I can easily see how it would sour people on the events.



I thought the novels were okay, but the modules were *awful*. They are shameful testimonials to the art of poor adventure design, useful only as a threat to naughty players who refuse to eat their vegetables. 

That said, I don't know anyone who actually played the stupid things (a quick perusal cured most groups that I knew). In my experience, the ToT primarily pissed off those who liked the Realms as they were, and many of them blamed 2e as the catalyst for this unwelcome change.

That said, _Forgotten Realms Adventures _was such a fun read for me that I got over my initial nerdrage fairly quickly.


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## Arnwyn (Apr 1, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> And this purely speculation on my part since I wasn't playing D&D yet, but perhaps the dislike of the ToT had more to do with some of the kneejerk reaction that 2e in general faced initially than it did the actual changes to 2e FR?



I started with 2e... and the ToT still sucked.

So I, personally, doubt it.


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## Bishop Odo (Apr 9, 2009)

When I first read the title of this post, some time ago, I thought you where some hater and full of it.  Then I just read the Forgotten Realms 4th rewrite book or a least, I got a long look at my local store.  Christ, what the heck did they do, merge two realms of reality, kill off or replace an unpopular continent.  Why? Just because it did not sell and it was cheaper to merge a beloved setting, with some new area to sell more stuff.  WOTC, suck it up and just move on, create something original if you need to... Has all the talent left, that’s what I really want to known and now all this PDF crud.  

Pathfinder where are you.


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## Henry (Apr 9, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> And see, that's a perspective I'm not familiar with. I never played the ToT modules, or even read them. I'm familiar with the ToT via the novels and later sourcebooks touching upon them. If the modules were that railroady, I can easily see how it would sour people on the events.




You said you'd read the novels? Then you've read the modules, too.  The NPCs were the stars, and you either played the pre-gens, and did what was required at the key points, or you got out of their way. You aren't an adventurer in that series, you're a tourist.

That said, I didn't mind most of the ToT. It wasn't that bad, but they killed off three deities with a lot of good characterization, and replaced them with one serial killer of a god. Basically, a lot of the complaints that people have leveled at the 4E Realms, could be leveled at the 2E Realms, for a lot of the same reasons - the god reductions, the changes in magic, the remodelling of some established locales (like Tantras), etc.


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