[QUOTE=Phase42]
What I really don’t get is why they’re converting FR to 4e before Eberron.
[/QUOTE]
I would hazard it’s because Forgotten Realms is by far the more popular.
And they’re definitely not concerning themselves with Greyhawk. The ‘core’ pantheon now includes FR deities as well as Greyhawk. I’m not even sure if they’ll continue Living Greyhawk, though they’d be fools not to. I do know they’re planning on starting a Living Forgotten Realms campaign, though.
[QUOTE=Bosstone]
I would hazard it’s because Forgotten Realms is by far the more popular.
And they’re definitely not concerning themselves with Greyhawk. The ‘core’ pantheon now includes FR deities as well as Greyhawk. I’m not even sure if they’ll continue Living Greyhawk, though they’d be fools not to. I do know they’re planning on starting a Living Forgotten Realms campaign, though.
[/QUOTE]
I was sort of enthused when I heard they had a Living Greyhawk chapter near me, until I learned that the Orlando chapter is…one of those forgettable duchys/counties between Iuz and Nyrond :mad:
[QUOTE=Ludovic]
I was sort of enthused when I heard they had a Living Greyhawk chapter near me, until I learned that the Orlando chapter is…one of those forgettable duchys/counties between Iuz and Nyrond :mad:
[/QUOTE]
Ha ha, we get to be Nyrond proper. 
I was actually considering picking LG back up – stopped playing when I found a regular home group – and then I got the news that they were stopping in a couple months due to 4E coming out. I’m waiting to see the full breadth of 4E before I decide whether to continue LG: The Next Generation or pick up Living FR, but from what I’ve heard I’ll probably just continue playing 3.5 with my home group.
[QUOTE=Lightray]
And why should they “New Coke it” for the Forgotten Realms? There is a long history of the Forgotten Realms being updated in cataclysmic and apocalyptic ways to reflect a new rules edition, or core game sourcebook, or whatever – Time of Troubles doesn’t ring a bell for anyone? Or that invasion by the faux-Mongols? Or the goofiness with the Manshoon-clones? In Faerûn, if you don’t have at least one apocalypse by tea-time, you should start to worry.
[/quote]
This one is rather more excessive. No previous “crisis” resulted in the extinction of civilization.
Actually, I think that would have gone over better. Saying “OK, this is a little complicated, we’re going to go back and redo it a bit, keeping the basics of what but cutting some of the endless uber-mages and whatever.”
Problematically, they tried to keep the setting consistent through the edition changes. They originally didn’t have as many ridiculous wizards and so on, but they kept accumulating. By 3rd ed., it was too darn easy to get high level (you can go from 1 to 20 in about three months of good adventuring now). Additionally, everyone wasn’t ruinning around with a few really good items anymore. They were handling a small arsenal. This meant that, say, a mid-level wizard was in no danger from even an army of orcs. That used to not be the case; a high-level character would want backup before going after the kobolds and whatnot, lest he fall prety to the traps and whatnot. Low-level stuff was once still pretty dangerous and worth being careful about even at higher levels.
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
Problematically, they tried to keep the setting consistent through the edition changes…
[/QUOTE]
Yeah. And I wasn’t even thinking of the power-creep problem that the Forgotten Realms suffered over time. I was more thinking of the other campaign settings tacked-on to the Forgotten Realms.
Kara-Tûr got tacked on. And the pseudo-Mongols in-between. The Desert of Desolation series: stuck into the Realms. Matzica. Al-Qadim. Boggles the mind, trying to figure out how all of those entire civilizations are there so close to each other, yet having such little impact on each other. (for all their distance and separation, Imperial Rome and Imperial China had significant influence on each other).
Add in the craziness of the edition-change events, and all the many novels, and the Forgotten Realms are just one big, hot mess. Some sort of reboot button was definitely needed.
[QUOTE=Phase42]
What I really don’t get is why they’re converting FR to 4e before Eberron. Eberron is the “current” setting, and those players who prefer the newer setting seem more likely to be willing to switch to 4e. Indeed, the anti-4e vitriol seems mostly absent on the official Eberron forums. And simply because Eberron is still so new, it wouldn’t require an apocalyptic reboot to simplify conversion. There’s just not that much to convert, compared to FR.
[/QUOTE]
Missed this before. I actually think that there is more to convert in Eberron – for all its whacky add-ons, the Forgotten Realms sticks pretty closely to core races and classes. It’s in add-ons where the Realms would need shiny new rules conversions.
But several of Eberrons central components – Artificers, Warforged, Shifters, Changelings, and various psionic-related stuff – are not going to be in the intial 4.0 core rules. And although there’s been speculation that changelings might slip in early, none of these elements have been discussed much in the development blogs and such. Other than that psionics are definitely for later, not sooner.
Eberron would simply require more developer time to get revamped than the Forgotten Realms. And, IMO, the Forgotten Realms needs a facelift much more than still-young Eberron.
Now there’s an idea – they should just nuke anything in the realms they don’t want to convert over until later.
Sorry for bumping a really old thread, but the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide is out now, and I thought it would be interesting to see how many of the OP’s complaints about the new setting hold up now that we’ve got the actual book in our hands. Turns out, almost none.
Civilization hasn’t been “extinguished.” Most of the major kingdoms are largely unchanged. Waterdeep’s still there. Elminster is still farting around in the Dalelands. Baldur’s Gate is bigger than ever. Rasheman, Cormyr, and Amn are pretty much the same. Thay’s gotten even eviler under Szass Tam’s rule. Some kingdoms are gone, but they’re mostly minor or perephrial states: Mulhorandi, Halruaa, Lantan, and so forth. They did flatten Neverwinter, and Zhentil Keep’s been conquered by Netheril, but for the most part, the major settings are still there.
There’s still a huge multiplicity of Gods: about eighty or so by my count, and only three that have been explicitly said to be dead (Mystra, Tyr, and Azuth, that I’ve seen so far.) None of new deities from the core 4th ed. books show up at all. They did reorder the cosmos pretty drastically, bringing it in line with what they did in 4th edition, but the practical effects on gameplay are pretty minor. Does it really matter if the Abyss is four doors down from the Nine Hells, or if it’s buried at the bottom of the Primordial Chaos? It’s still the same place once you’re inside it.
So, yeah. Major change? Sure. But not any bigger than anything we’ve seen between any other editions. It’s hardly the post-apocalyptic hellhole that the OP painted it as.
[QUOTE=Miller]
Elminster is still farting around in the Dalelands.
[/QUOTE]
I distinctly remember that one of their goals was to get rid of all the old NPCs and start fresh, and that specifically included Elminster. I guess fan backlash was too much.
I believe that Elminster “still farting around” is actually that he’s crazy, hearing voices in his head, and not willing to use any magic because he thinks it’ll let the voices out. Hardly the solution to prevent a “fan backlash”.
Drizzt, unfortunately, is supposedly still around.
Also I thought I saw mention of Asmodeus as a god now, which would be at least one carryover god from the 4e core. Plus, of course, the whole gods-primordials cosmology from core was welded on with Abeir coming over, too.
But the last time I found the Realms interesting, all we knew about them was from Ed’s articles in Dragon, so I’m hardly qualified to say whether the fannish histrionics were justified here.
After playing 4E for a while, it’s bitch-hard to do it without maps, which sucks. And, generally, pretty much every complaint mentioned in the thread is accurate. Further, system is completely divorced from effect. How does a Paladin mark someone? Can other people tell?
Right now, I have a Paladin that hides, marks people, then ignores them.
[QUOTE=Lightray]
I believe that Elminster “still farting around” is actually that he’s crazy, hearing voices in his head, and not willing to use any magic because he thinks it’ll let the voices out.
[/QUOTE]
Nope. Still wrong. He’s no longer “the Chosen of Mystra” (for obvious reasons), and he’s described as being more reclusive and bitter (also for obvious reasons), but he’s otherwise unchanged.
Probably, although as near as I can tell, he doesn’t appear anywhere in the book.
This is true, although Asmodeus was a character in previous editions of Forgotten Realms, so it’s not something grafted on out of the blue. The in-game explanation for his rise to godhood is that he was able to kill a weakened Azuth and absorb his deific powers.
From the description of the ability: “You boldly confront a nearby enemy, searing them with divine light if it ignores your challenge.” It’s pretty clearly not something you can do surreptitiously.
Yes, but mechanically, there’s no ruling about the matter. Mechanics are divorced from flavor. Pain in the ass.
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath]
Yes, but mechanically, there’s no ruling about the matter. Mechanics are divorced from flavor. Pain in the ass.
[/QUOTE]
Do you really need a mechanic to tell you you can’t boldly confront someone while using stealth?
[QUOTE=Miller]
Do you really need a mechanic to tell you you can’t boldly confront someone while using stealth?
[/QUOTE]
The way the game is? Yes. The various abilities simply have no actual effect other than the listed one. Mark abilities in particular just do something mysteriously and with no logical pattern. At all.
Actually, I’ve heard tell they drastically revised things more or less because because so many people were pissed.
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
The way the game is? Yes. The various abilities simply have no actual effect other than the listed one. Mark abilities in particular just do something mysteriously and with no logical pattern. At all.
[/quote]
Can you expand on this? I don’t see what’s so difficult to understand about the mark abilities.
Yeah, right.
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
Plus, there’s the little problem of none of it making damn sense. … And that’s just the point - it was totally out of the fucking blue makes no sense I have no fucking plot but need to sell some books STUPID!
[/QUOTE]
It makes perfect sense- too many dudes were just going to use their old Faerun books, so they had to fuck over the world to sell more books. :mad: WoTC has never cared for D&D except as a cash-cow.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
It makes perfect sense- too many dudes were just going to use their old Faerun books, so they had to fuck over the world to sell more books. :mad: WoTC has never cared for D&D except as a cash-cow.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, it’s almost like they think they’re running a business or something!
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
It makes perfect sense- too many dudes were just going to use their old Faerun books, so they had to fuck over the world to sell more books. :mad: WoTC has never cared for D&D except as a cash-cow.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Miller]
Yeah, it’s almost like they think they’re running a business or something!
[/QUOTE]
Coca-Cola thought they were running a business too. New Coke proved that “pissing away brand loyalty” can be a poor business strategy.
The difference being, while I’ve had more than a few Cokes in my life, I only need a single Player’s Handbook. What good are loyal fans if they’re not buying any books?