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12 months ago ::
Jun 18, 2012 - 11:38AM
#161
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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I never understood the 'less is more' argument where flavor is concerned. I have a job, a wife, a stepson, a dog, a house, two vehicles to maintain and many other hobbies than D&D. When I was 12? Hell, I could devote hours daily to creating worlds - and I did, too. Now? I can't. So a rich world is better for me. If I want some powerful mage NPC to be there to speak with my PCs or whatever, why should I have to spend an hour or more crafting him when Greenwood's already spent decades detailing Elminster for me?
Ignoring existing content (fluff) is always easier than adding it. The best part? You can still add fluff of your own if you'd like.
I don't buy campaign settings to end up writing a campaign setting - I buy them because they offer me a detailed world I can adapt to my group a hell of a lot faster than I could play fill in the blanks with some purposefully underdeveloped setting.
Most people don't get that! I'm too busy with my own life to devote enough time to write my own worlds and whatnot. Well, I can, but there goes what little free time I don't have. Those who preach modularity and don't want the Realms to be filled to the brim with options you can toss away speak hypocrisy. So, modular Realms is what we need! Support for older eras, while keeping something like the Spellplague and beyond as a possibility would be nice... That or multi-support and ending the plague on a footnote.
Disgruntled ghost of the Knights of W.T.F.
(Keep D&D alive, end the edition wars!)
"And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Disclaimer: Most of my posts are based on opinions (and are sometimes humorous, other times inspirational)
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12 months ago ::
Jun 18, 2012 - 11:44AM
#162
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Date Joined:
Jan 27, 2010
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I think a good campaign setting as two features
1. Campaign areas that cater to 'Canon'
2. Campaign areas that cater to 'Canon' free games.
If some areas are barred from novels and dragon magazine articles DM's will feel free to ignore Canon and have the best of both worlds. There really is no need to destory the entire campaign world with a crazy spell plague.
For the most part I did that with Damara and Vassa for my FR campaigns. The bloodstone lands campaign source book gave me the framework, but it really left everything open to my own interpretation, and I didn't have to worry about entire cities being destoryed. Like what happened with Zhentil keep or the attack on Daggerdale. Needless to say, I was rather upset when King Gareth was dead and Bloodstone village was a smoldering ruin in 4e.
The one thing we need in the FR setting are high quality detailed maps and edition transferable campaign books. The FR adventures book is a good example of the kind of material that I'm looking for in the 5e setting.
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12 months ago ::
Jun 18, 2012 - 7:56PM
#163
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Actually after all this talk about old school, I have gone back to reading up on the world of Mystra.
I figure that that is the safest way - not much chance of WotC coming back and ruining that world.
=;0)
Pro DnD Member of the Axis of Awesome Fighters: Using socks to kill monsters since 2012 DnD Next: Now with more then 4 minutes of Roleplay per gaming hour Spoiler:
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12 months ago ::
Jun 18, 2012 - 8:10PM
#164
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Date Joined:
Sep 25, 2007
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Actually after all this talk about old school, I have gone back to reading up on the world of Mystra.
I figure that that is the safest way - not much chance of WotC coming back and ruining that world.
=;0)
If you meant Mystara, which I think you must have because Mystra is a goddes of magic not a world... then I think you are missing something pretty plain:
B2 - Keep on the Borderlands (and the Caves of Chaos) are in the B - as in Basic - series of modules.
Those are Mystara came from.
Seems to me that you should be more expecting that WotC will use more of that material, not less from now on.
Careful, man. That much logic might be illegal on the internet. - Salla
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12 months ago ::
Jun 18, 2012 - 9:40PM
#165
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the spellplague needs to be downplayed into a foot note. the 100 year timejump needs to be forgottened.
what was done to the realms can only be undone with a reboot,sadly this is not the right way to go either, as wotc has already stated that they feel that they must respect the work of the indiviual authors....
moving forward and correcting the mistakes made, and restore the missing deities back to the realms is still the most logical state of affairs.
that said, if you don't like the Realms don't pick it up in 5e and look at DS or eberron.
at your table your the dm, you have the right to use or disuse anything you don't like.
that said, less is not more. wotc added the fuel to the fire when they through out the roll of years section making the lore worthless with a bunch of haters stating too much lore and too many potent npcs.
the best part of the FR lore to me was the roll of years and the listing of major happenings each year of the calendar of Harptos.
I could go on and on... but whats the point.
3e I liked
4e was a disapointment and it used a horrible vomit color scheme on the maps.
5e, we'll see
a mask everyone has at least two of, one they wear in public and another they wear in private.....
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12 months ago ::
Jun 18, 2012 - 9:44PM
#166
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2001
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A retcon's the only way. There's simply no way to undo the massive amount of damage that the Spellplague inflicted on the Realms without one. As for respecting the work of the individual authors, I think most of them would be happy to see the old Realms back. From what I understand, most of them hated the changes, and some even stopped writing Realms novels altogether because the Spellplague ruined the novel series' which they were working on.
On the bright side there's the fact that there wasn't a whole lot of material released on the 4E Realms, so ignoring it all is a pretty easy choice. And didn't they retcon away a bunch of stuff when they released Dark Sun for 4E? If they're willing to do it once they're probably willing to do it again, especially when the change is as reviled and destructive as the Spellplague.
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12 months ago ::
Jun 18, 2012 - 9:49PM
#167
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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A retcon's the only way. There's simply no way to undo the massive amount of damage that the Spellplague inflicted on the Realms without one. As for respecting the work of the individual authors, I think most of them would be happy to see the old Realms back. From what I understand, most of them hated the changes, and some even stopped writing Realms novels altogether because the Spellplague ruined the novel series' which they were working on.
On the bright side there's the fact that there wasn't a whole lot of material released on the 4E Realms, so ignoring it all is a pretty easy choice. And didn't they retcon away a bunch of stuff when they released Dark Sun for 4E? If they're willing to do it once they're probably willing to do it again, especially when the change is as reviled and destructive as the Spellplague.
If everyone must insist on a retcon, at least allow for modules that permit play in an era! This edition is about being modular, not my vision is better than your's. While I agree that the spellplague was a debacle that was made to appease those who didn't like the game, there should be methods to appeal to both parties. Perhaps, modularity does just that.
Disgruntled ghost of the Knights of W.T.F.
(Keep D&D alive, end the edition wars!)
"And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Disclaimer: Most of my posts are based on opinions (and are sometimes humorous, other times inspirational)
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12 months ago ::
Jun 18, 2012 - 9:53PM
#168
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2001
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The problem with that is that the Spellplague is still there, ruining the setting which existed before and preventing any further development of it. As long as the Spellplague future remains you can't develop the setting and the timeline or continue novel series which began just prior to the Spellplague and which would've continued on after the Spellplague if WoTC hadn't decided to blow up the Realms and interrupt all those stories. If you do that then you get a world frozen in stasis. The Spellplague has to go in order to get a living, breathing and evolving campaign setting again (One that evolves naturally, that is, as opposed to one that evolves by executive fiat according to the dictates of what they think people who don't play the Realms want).
The only way it can stay and still work was if it were turned into a parallel universe. A possible future for the Realms which exists in another reality, while the real Realms keeps going along without having to concern itself with the Spellplague.
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12 months ago ::
Jun 18, 2012 - 9:57PM
#169
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the retcon is a reboot. and wotc wont do it if they feel that they must respect the work of the authors,
its not just the articles of DDI or the setting books. its the novels too.
and there were the Ed Greenwood presents:WAterdeep, th e transition series by RA Salvatore, the sage of shadowdale line by Ed Greenwood, theswordmage novels by Richard baker and others. and that is after Lisa's illreciceved LP trilogy.....
they could reboot itvia retcon and that like they did DS, however DS had only a few novels and a whole lot of nothing else.
the Realms are not so luck, but we'll wait and see.
4e realms=nightmare with vomit paint scheme
a mask everyone has at least two of, one they wear in public and another they wear in private.....
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12 months ago ::
Jun 18, 2012 - 10:01PM
#170
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2001
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Sure, they wrote novels in the Spellplague era, but think about it: If you were to ask RA Salvatore, Ed Greenwood, etc, which would they prefer, to keep those novels in canon or go back to the Pre-Spellplague Realms and be able to write there, what would they say?
I don't know any of them personally so I can't really say, and neither am I a betting man. But if I were a betting man, I'd bet on 9/10 of the writers who wrote for the Spellplague Realms to give a thumbs up to pulping that work so that they could go back to writing for the Pre-Spellplague Realms. And the writers who haven't written anything for the Realms because of the Spellplague would certainly be happy to come back once they can continue writing the novels and characters they'd been writing before the Spellplague.
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