I'm curious to know if any of you have run a game set in the Forgotten Realms in an OSR game. Like perhaps Basic Fantasy, OSE or Swords & Wizardry. Also have any of you put a new or weird spin on the realms?
Closest I've done is 1e AD&D
...and then I just used the old gray campaign box, with little supplementary bits from a few other products.
With the crazy high level of magic stuff being thrown in as early as 2e, I think it might be hard to do OSR. It would feel a little too gonzo for me. You also have less of an unexplored, sandbox flavor as well, since the described and mapped out nearly everything.
On the other hand, if you just want to use those rules and don't necessarily want the OSR 'feel', you could probably run using later campaign info.
But there is a lot of blank spaces on the maps at least on the world maps I've seen. Also I was thinking more of a Grim Dark/Sword & Sorcery version of the Realms.
Over the years they just seemed to fill in more and more of the blank areas.
Grimdark would mean you definitely want to go back to the beginning...even with 2e they were definitely making it a high fantasy world.
Quote from: moonsweeper on December 13, 2020, 10:38:36 PM
With the crazy high level of magic stuff being thrown in as early as 2e, I think it might be hard to do OSR. It would feel a little too gonzo for me. You also have less of an unexplored, sandbox flavor as well, since the described and mapped out nearly everything.
The 1e gray box had the Symbul, Khleben, Elminister, and a couple other mid-20th level magic-users, so the crazy high level of magic predates 2e. If you want to revert back to when the Realms felt mysterious and dangerous and had more of a sword & sorcery feel, you might have to draw the line even earlier, and only rely on Greenwood's various
Dragon magazine articles. The tipping point might have been
Dragon #110, where Elminster was outed as a 26th level magic user with all kinds of special mary sue powers and spells that basically made him unkillable. Prior to that, as far as readers knew, he was just a sage.
That is true, but I think it was easier to tune that stuff out at that stage. Plus there was still quite a bit more 'unknown' on the map.
I also imagine it would be easier to get the gray box info than all the old Dragon stuff. (unless there is a compilation still floating around.)
Ran a wonderful S&W game for a few years, using only the OGB (pre TOT) that I prefer and a few bits from other products as i saw fit (Volos guide to the Dalelands and FR1 e.g. ).
Changed/ignored things as I always do. Canon be damned in RPG settings.
"My Realms" feels a fair bit more S&S/Wilderlands.
I've run realms games most recently with D6 Fantasy, both RaW and with mods, and had ran campaigns in the realms in 1e, 2e, and 3e. Current playtests for bolting 3e content/conversions on to D6 Fantasy system use realms as a testbed, either undermountain (2e box set) or ruins of zhentil keep (also a 2e box set).
As far as changes, I'm good with canon up to the deification of Kelemvor, I mean, i like having zhentil keep in ruins so players can clean it out and rebuild it, I don't mind the second incarnation of cyric (though the first was better) but I insist on having Myrkul, or Velsharoon as god of the dead, and I like to use NE druids devoted to either as villains...unless its pre-destruction-of-zhentil-keep. I was fine with Cyric as a hades-like god of the dead. Followers of Bane, wether Bane is alive or not, are great villains so long as someone grants them their spells.
I dislike the strong good or neutral npcs like elminster or the sisters, they are too powerful to be useful, there is little they could have pcs do that they could not do themselves, and having them off on other planes doing shit and thus not available is advisable.
I think if you use 1st ed material and avoid the "civilised" parts you could have a decent OSR game. Somewhere like the Moonshaes seems ripe for OSR-style shenanigans. Celts vs vikings, few mages (if any), bronze vs iron age civilisations, longboat rides between the islands, a war that has officially ended but could flare up at any time, a "big evil monster/god" to defeat. As people have said, there are bits you'll have to ignore/change, but I think it could work.
Quote from: moonsweeper on December 14, 2020, 08:58:50 AM
That is true, but I think it was easier to tune that stuff out at that stage. Plus there was still quite a bit more 'unknown' on the map.
I also imagine it would be easier to get the gray box info than all the old Dragon stuff. (unless there is a compilation still floating around.)
There's nothing wrong with stealing stuff from the gray box, the problem is it became treated as inviolable canon, and what I found so compelling about Greenwood's early magazine articles was the sense of mystery and danger. Lords with odd secrets, strange mysterious deaths, legendary figures who vanished and whose items or legacy live on in new hands, the halls or relics lost empires, and so on. The maps and encyclopedia of the gray box explained too much. It was better when nobody knew what was happening in the next town, Elminster's true nature was unknown, and there was only a general idea of where things were on the map.