It must be terribly boring for you in between edition changes, then, since you perceive the game settings themselves as absolutely static. Weird how some folk seem to discern “adventures” occurring within those settings, innit?
How depressing that the RPGs based on Martin’s works insist on including those characters, instead of offering the buyer something entirely new that they haven’t seen before. The RPGs must not be targeted at Martin’s fans, I guess. (But of course that goes without saying, since a loyal fan doesn’t buy anything.)
I presume that since you’re a ‘huge fan’ of Martin, you don’t own any of his books. Or is a ‘huge fan’ different from a ‘loyal fan’ in that respect?
WotC is in the business of selling as many books as possible.
WotC seems to believe that radically changing the *Forgotten Realms * is a good business decision. They think that new players won’t care, casual fans (such as myself) will lap it up, and die-hard fans (such as you) will either like it or grumble and buy it anyway; they estimate that the actual number of fans who will cease buying FR products as a result of their change will be negligible.
I believe this plan will work. You believe it won’t. Let’s wait and see.
Unfortunately, they have a monopoly, and no one else can offer that product. Moreover, this particular plan doesn’t work because they will never, ever tell us if how sales turn out.
We’ll know by how many supplements they produce. If they publish a dozen FR books a year, we’ll know it’s a success. WotC, like TSR before them, are no fools. If no-one’s buying a game world, they won’t waste money producing new material for it.
And also… “monopoly”? Only in the sense that all copyrights are monopolies.
Yikes, I didn’t mean to represent myself as a die-hard fan. Truth be told (embarrassed as I am to admit it after crabbing on so long), I’ve never been much into Forgotten Realms myself (though like you, I do own some product). The title of the setting has always turned me off a bit: how great can it really be if it’s “forgotten?” Plus I’ve never been able to take the name “Faerun” seriously.
I just tend to empathize with the passionate fans over those who insist that “it’s all just a business.” While this may be true, it’s a business that explicitly encourages people to make an emotional investment in the product; to exercise their imagination and seek out the enrichment of shared experiences with people of similar interests. Of course the fans are going to be upset when that setting changes: it’s the most natural response in the world. It’s true whether the product in question is 4E Forgotten Realms, or Batman Forever, or Star Trek: Enterprise.
That’s the way it used to be, anyway. Maybe the idea of passionate emotional attachment to an RPG is out of date. I always got the impression that the original producers of Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, etc. were just as emotionally invested in the settings as the fans, and consequently made horrible business decisions on account of being too attached to the material. Personally I liked the idea that a sword-and-sorcery RPG was made by guys who obviously loved classic sword-and-sorcery fiction and wanted to share that experience with others, like me.
These days it seems like it’s a mark of contempt to care too much about the “fluff.” The games are careful exercises in perfect mathematical balance that are designed to appeal equally to the pen-and-paper RPG fan, the MMORPG player, and the 12-year old CCG maniac down the block. Bah. Take your damn non-Vancian magic system and stay off my lawn.
Apropos of nothing much, I hear DC is planning to give Superman the grim/gritty treatment to appeal to fans of the profitable Batman franchise. That sounds like a very prudent business decision. Who is spending more these days, Batman fans or Superman fans? Ergo, change Superman to resemble Batman.
I honestly don’t know whether WotC’s plan will work or not. I expect it will, insofar as they will produce the new FR materials for as long as it’s profitable to them. I also predict that the 4E FR crowd will have learned their lesson, and not invest much emotional attachment in the setting. As the saying goes, a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
My question has always been, “Forgotten by whom?” I’ve never played in the setting or purchased any of the game material (I started playing D&D not long after Eberron was introduced and decided to focus my attention there rather than try to play “catch up” with FR), but I’ve read a couple of the novel trilogies (Niles’ The Moonshae Trilogy and Salvatore’s The Dark Elf trilogy) and noticed that some of the characters refer to the world as “the Realms”, but none of the characters seemed to have “forgotten” where they live …
Is this with regard to future Superman movies? That idea would make perfect sense anyway, since Superman as portrayed in the most recent movie bore little resemblance to the Superman of the current comics. The comic book Superman has been “grittier” for some time now.
Anyway, my impression of 4E is mostly positive so far. I’ve never played a MMORPG (don’t have a computer that can handle the graphics on any of them) so I can’t comment on any similarities there. I also haven’t had a gaming group for more than a year, so I haven’t actually played 4E yet. But reading through the PHB I like what I see, in particular the fact that many of the problems that prompted me to quit my gaming group have been addressed.
The main thing I like is that it’s an almost complete redoing of the system, as opposed to being simply an evolution of the previous edition. The root cause of my leaving my gaming group was that my DM was one of those guys who’d been playing the game and DMing since 1st Ed., and I didn’t know anything before 3.5 (in other words, I had no preconceptions). When I started playing I bought the core rulebooks and I read them cover to cover. When I didn’t understand how something worked, I posted on the WotC D&D forums and asked questions until I was clear on nearly everything. With my DM, OTOH, it became increasingly clear as time went by that he had merely skimmed the 3.5 books to learn the new basic mechanics. As a result, he grossly misinterpreted many of the 3.5 rules because his interpretations were rooted in how things worked in previous editions. He was, figuratively speaking, using 1st Ed. rules with 3.5 numbers plugged into them.
One of my reasons for quitting was that I was tired of being a “rules lawyer”. I tried not to be one, but when the DMs misunderstanding of “concentration checks” was completely crippling spellcasters almost to the point of uselessness, and his misunderstanding of two-weapon fighting was resulting in rangers who went through groups of monsters like a lawnmower and left the party’s fighter standing around with nothing to hit, I had to speak up. But I had to speak up so often that I was starting to look like a dick.
I suspect that there may have been a lot of 3.5 players with a similar problem, because a number of the specific issues I had seem to have been addressed with 4E. So I for one love the fact that 4E appears to mostly throw previous systems out the window. It will force “old school” players and DMs to rethink their approaches. Years of experience with previous editions should manifest itself in improved roleplaying and critical thinking skills, not in “I already know how this works, so I don’t need to study the mechanics”.
I won’t argue that Superman couldn’t stand a change. I just wish this wasn’t the time for it, is all. The ugly post-9/11 shame all over The Dark Knight might have been appropriate there; but I think America needs Superman more than ever as an ideal to strive toward, instead of a flawed, morally compromised reflection of our own failures. I want hope, not a murky Iraq parable that illustrates how true heroism is impossible without dark deeds, and that idealism is a naive and misguided illusion.
Yes, I realize I’m reading quite a lot into a few vague lines.
Not to hijack the thread or anything but Chasoium seems to do the exact opposite of WOTC when it comes to their flagship RPG Call of Cthulhu. They refuse to change anything about it for fear of alienating the die-hard fans and as such the product today is essentially unchanged from what what it was back in the 80s. I rarely buy CoC products because I can buy the bulk of them on eBay for less money.
I happen to think WOTC’s plan will work unless they just put out a product that nobody likes.
A lot of DnD players are a bit of "rules lawyers’, at least in my limited experience they are.
If the rules are too vague (which the “per encounter” rule sounds like it might be), or if there are too many logical inconsistancies, then the fans aren’t going to be happy…
(Sorry, I was talking about the 4e ruleset. Changing Faerun is, of course, completely up to the intellectual property owners. A fan of the old Campaign setting, or any other, can probably “set the clock back” to play in an older setting if they really want to.)
I believe that Greenwood’s original intent was that the Realms had been “forgotten” by Earth – that at one point in time, Earth knew of the existence of the Realms.
Maybe the name “Faerun” looks more serious when it is wearing its hat: “Faerûn”?
Tho’ I originally thought that Faerûn = the Forgotten Realms = the world of the Realms. Apparently, not, since Abeir-Toril = the world, until it = twin worlds separated at birth. And now Faerûn = a continent – even though I’m not clear on how the continents are divided up on “Toril”.
We haven’t found it to be very difficult to decide when an encounter begins and when one ends. Although I can tell you that it’s a pain in the rear when you use up all your encounter powers only to be greeted by another wave of zombies before the encounter has ended.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that Faerun is only the western, “European” part of the continent, with Kara-Tur in the east, Al-Qadim in the south and the pseudomongol steppes in the middle. No India, though. Nagas and Rakashas aside, the Subcontinent has always gotten short shrift in D&D.
Not neccessarily. They can publish several books (a a dozen is well outside of what just about anyone expects - 3E FR had barely more books than that in total) and still recoup something on it, since they tend to be a volume shipper. But it may not really be a success in tyhe sense of getting a lot of good play.
Just so.
I assumed this as well, since many of the human nations of Faerun originally came from Earth, officially. This is why their deities are often from old Earth civilizations and their cultures mirror ours.
From what I understand, you have to wait 10-15 minutes while taking no activity more strenuous than reading a book for encounted powers to reset themselves. I like to think of it as a heartrate thing, or even better - as a matter of adrenaline levels. Once your stats return to normal, you get your powers back.
In other words, if you’re character could be having a cigarette break, the encounter is over. Hey! Maybe I should have my character take *actual * cigarette breaks after fights! Wouldn’t that be cool?
What’s to know? You finish the encounter, you tell the DM you’re taking a 15-minute break. If you get attacked in the middle, you kill them and then say you’re taking another break.
Now, if your DM is the kind that who likes to see you running away from enemies… well, then you have a problem.
I’ve had nothing but DM’s that end up making the party flee, squeeling like little girls.
The thing is, some players get bored after a while, and they need a little unpredicability inserted into their games, like some delayed action spell that goes off, or some guard patrol wanders in when you least expect it.