Quote from: RPGPundit;1120735I actually quite like the Realms in their original version, particularly including some of what Greenwood said about how they were meant to be before they were somewhat sanitized by Williams-era TSR.

Probably wouldn't have been so bad if Lorraine hadn't been hellbent on monetizing the Buck Rogers IP at the expense of, well, everything else.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1120888Essentially, everything that was done with the realms subsequent to its original release tended toward making it worse.

The novels played a major role in its debasement. Even Ed is guilty but, as he has explained, he preferred to write novels about putting his characters in un-Realms-ish situations rather than have other writers do the same.

Practically anything that isn't by Ed or Eric Boyd just doesn't feel right, IMO. Some of Steven Schend's stuff is also good and Rich Baker is very reliable.

One of the reasons I like the 4E version of the Realms is that it helped my players grok that I wanted a Realms that was more Greenwoodian and far less Salvatorean/pastiche-ian. I just wish it had come with a decent map.

4e Realms was neither Greenwoodian nor Salvatorian.  That was specifically the idea of 4e to take a big steaming dump on the Realms which no other Realms author managed to do no matter how Mary Sue their protagonists were.

Quote from: Shasarak;11211494e Realms was neither Greenwoodian nor Salvatorian.  That was specifically the idea of 4e to take a big steaming dump on the Realms which no other Realms author managed to do no matter how Mary Sue their protagonists were.

I know it's not but, because it was such a radical departure from the past, my players accepted the way I wanted it rebuilt free from the novels that they enjoy. It's Greenwoodian now.

Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1121175I know it's not but, because it was such a radical departure from the past, my players accepted the way I wanted it rebuilt free from the novels that they enjoy. It's Greenwoodian now.

I did something similar with my 4e lvl 1-29 Realms Loudwater Campaign - toned down the specifically-4e stuff, turned up the Greenwoodian flavour. Worked pretty well at least for the first 20 levels!

Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1121175I know it's not but, because it was such a radical departure from the past, my players accepted the way I wanted it rebuilt free from the novels that they enjoy. It's Greenwoodian now.

4e Realms did seem to be designed for people who never liked the Realms.

Quote from: S'mon;1121190I did something similar with my 4e lvl 1-29 Realms Loudwater Campaign - toned down the specifically-4e stuff, turned up the Greenwoodian flavour. Worked pretty well at least for the first 20 levels!

There's an element of tabula rasa about the 4E version of FR that I embrace(d); as someone who followed your Loudwater campaign from the beginning, I think that's true of the way you also approached the revised world.

Quote from: Shasarak;11211944e Realms did seem to be designed for people who never liked the Realms.

There's an element of truth in that statement - and yet I have been a fan of FR since the original articles in the pages of The Dragon (as it was, IIRC), have run campaigns since the OGB, and yet I still really like the 4E Realms. (Obviously, I'm an outlier.) The 4E Realms did what I wanted it to do: It got the metaplot out of the world I wanted to run. Also, I had been wanting a more dystopian Realms for some time because there is even more for my PCs to do.

But I will never say a kind word about the map that was put together for FR4E. That was and will always be an abomination that is simply unfit-for-purpose while looking like the near-random smearing of the contents of a sick baby's nappy. I wonder if it might have been better received if the map wasn't inspired by baby shit and if Ed had been persuaded/contracted to write lore on the important areas of Faerun instead of creating a boring new continent with too little detail to make it truly interesting. (I would have loved Returned Abeir to have replaced Halruaa on the map.)

i was a fan until kelemvor became a god then i'm like "into the trash it goes"

Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1121433There's an element of tabula rasa about the 4E version of FR that I embrace(d); as someone who followed your Loudwater campaign from the beginning, I think that's true of the way you also approached the revised world.

Yeah, I'm not into Metaplot at all, hate the stuff. But I liked the idea of Greenwoodian Realms as a lost Golden Age, and the PCs fighting to restore it & turn back the 'Points of Light' 4e dystopia. Having Orcus as the BBEG worked well. Only thing I didn't like was that Epic Tier PCs tended to outgrow the setting. Heroic & Paragon were great.

I'm enjoying the Princes of the Apocalypse 5e sequel to Loudwater - http://frloudwater.blogspot.com/ - session 14 today then off to see Sabaton at Wembley Arena! :cool:
But it doesn't carry the same dramatic weight, 5e Realms is a lot less grim and there's not much sense the world is on a knife edge.

Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1121433There's an element of tabula rasa about the 4E version of FR that I embrace(d); as someone who followed your Loudwater campaign from the beginning, I think that's true of the way you also approached the revised world.

There's an element of truth in that statement - and yet I have been a fan of FR since the original articles in the pages of The Dragon (as it was, IIRC), have run campaigns since the OGB, and yet I still really like the 4E Realms. (Obviously, I'm an outlier.) The 4E Realms did what I wanted it to do: It got the metaplot out of the world I wanted to run. Also, I had been wanting a more dystopian Realms for some time because there is even more for my PCs to do.

I too am still a fan of the 4th Edition Realms. Partly because of the rule-set but also because it felt like a new leaf. Some of the complaints, like having far too many mid- to high-level NPCs was valid, especially as one leveled up. At low levels all that stuff was somewhat beneath the scope of these "super" heroes but when you start hitting 14th+ level then yeah they should definitely be taking notice. I remember playing in the super-adventure Shadowdale: Scouring of the Land and the lore had to blow up Elminster's house (of course, he's not home) and state many times that No, he wasn't going to come help his actual neighborhood and no, don't expect any of his friends, the Knight of Myth Drannor, OR any of the high-leveled Elven NPCs in the region to interfere with an actual invasion.

So when they basically blew up part of the Realms and scattered the remains of the multitude of NPCs (jumping a century can do that) it was a breath of fresh air. Not to mention they removed FR-Egypt and Mexico which I always thought were really boring places that I'd never use in my games, with more interesting aspects.

Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1121036The novels played a major role in its debasement.

They so absolutely did. The FR was mainly ruined by the novels.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1121748They so absolutely did. The FR was mainly ruined by the novels.

Don't remind me.  The drow scene was awful enough.

Quote from: Batman;1121463I too am still a fan of the 4th Edition Realms. Partly because of the rule-set but also because it felt like a new leaf. Some of the complaints, like having far too many mid- to high-level NPCs was valid, especially as one leveled up. At low levels all that stuff was somewhat beneath the scope of these "super" heroes but when you start hitting 14th+ level then yeah they should definitely be taking notice. I remember playing in the super-adventure Shadowdale: Scouring of the Land and the lore had to blow up Elminster's house (of course, he's not home) and state many times that No, he wasn't going to come help his actual neighborhood and no, don't expect any of his friends, the Knight of Myth Drannor, OR any of the high-leveled Elven NPCs in the region to interfere with an actual invasion.

So when they basically blew up part of the Realms and scattered the remains of the multitude of NPCs (jumping a century can do that) it was a breath of fresh air. Not to mention they removed FR-Egypt and Mexico which I always thought were really boring places that I'd never use in my games, with more interesting aspects.

Great points which I agree with.

For my current campaign, FWIW, I blew up Elminster's house yet again as part of the background to the game. (It's set in Shadowdale and Daggerdale so I needed him permanently removed, not just simply spellplagued into insanity.)

Neither the not-Egypt or the not-Mexico were part of the real Realms; these were part of the post-Ed pastiche. It's funny how often he gets blamed for TSRisms that he had nothing to do with. That said, I quite like Scott Bennie's take on the Old Empires which included, inter alia, not-Egypt, not-Greece, and not-Babylon. However, I like my 4E version of the Realms without them a lot more.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1121748They so absolutely did. The FR was mainly ruined by the novels.

I would really love it if Ed did a new OGB set, say, 5 years before the original OGB and based entirely on his version of FR. No novels. No metaplot. No ridiculous NPCs. But lots of hooks for adventures and campaigns.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1121748They so absolutely did. The FR was mainly ruined by the novels.

Ironically, the main reason that FR is the most recognized D&D setting--known even by some outside the hobby--is also the novels, as well as the video games. Most of what I "know" (or used to know, since it's been a while and I've forgotten a lot of it) about the FR came from the novels and video games.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1121791Ironically, the main reason that FR is the most recognized D&D setting--known even by some outside the hobby--is also the novels, as well as the video games. Most of what I "know" (or used to know, since it's been a while and I've forgotten a lot of it) about the FR came from the novels and video games.

EDIT:

Quote from: Snowman0147;1121756Don't remind me.  The drow scene was awful enough.

And I was one of the people that contributed to it.