Greetings!

Let them all be thrown screaming into the Wall of the Faithless forever and ever. Their weeping and gnashing of teeth is like sweet music to the Righteous and the Faithful!:D

Beyond the bare sketchings of cosmology in the Grey Box, I don't see how anyone could take Forgotten Realms cosmology seriously in any way. Whenever I did run FR campaigns back in the day, I just ordered the cosmology as I saw fit. Simple. Good alignment goes to Elysium, neutrals go to the forest, and evil characters get sent to the Abyss. I don't recall too many players ever getting into the cosmology of their characters after they died. Their characters died--time to roll up a new character!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Jaeger;1122545So not the Christian perspective.

The commas in the sentence serve a purpose. The part you emphasized: Statement, clarification of statement, where it goes wrong.

Quote from: Jaeger;1122545Yeah well, It's written by people who do not understand real world religions or how they actually work.

If I could describe it  - it comes across as a hodgepodge religion put together by aethiests/agnostics based upon what they think religions/religious people are like.

That's my point. It's the clash between the unquestioned assumptions built into the pieces they adopt with a poor understanding of what makes religion tick, and what that combination of pieces actually says about the setting, that makes the Avatar trilogy so unpalatable. There are always some weird genre or authorial assumptions we have to accept when reading a piece of fiction, but that's one of the biggest breaks in versimilitude I can think of, and I've read a lot of books.

Quote from: SHARK;1122546...
Beyond the bare sketchings of cosmology in the Grey Box, I don't see how anyone could take Forgotten Realms cosmology seriously in any way. ...

LOL but they do!

It's quite unbelievable. But yeah, I've seen people get into the "mythology" of the forgotten realms...

Playing in a D&D campaign for the first time in years, I've had my PC be an "athiest"  towards the FR cosmology to hilarious effect from the other PC's in the group who's players are atheists in real life. (Be careful what you say about the "gods" they could get mad at you!) - (but they're just super-powerful assholes who don't deserve an ounce of worship!)

Hilarious to see them stick up for a badly broken cosmology...

Quote from: Jaeger;1122553LOL but they do!

It's quite unbelievable. But yeah, I've seen people get into the "mythology" of the forgotten realms...

Playing in a D&D campaign for the first time in years, I've had my PC be an "athiest"  towards the FR cosmology to hilarious effect from the other PC's in the group who's players are atheists in real life. (Be careful what you say about the "gods" they could get mad at you!) - (but they're just super-powerful assholes who don't deserve an ounce of worship!)

Hilarious to see them stick up for a badly broken cosmology...

Greetings!

*Laughing* Exactly, Jaeger! I mean, I was always more into my own campaign world, even back then, as now. I did do some FR though, though as the years progressed, I also read many of the novels, and within the game books, the spellfires, the changing, whatever. Gods dying left and right, "new" gods rising and taking their places, all kinds of divine goddesses breeding with Elminster and these seven special women, as well as an endless cohort of special NPC's in the FR that all seemed to keep a bed warmed for their goddess lover or god lover of choice...the special "Chosen" babies...the changing of cosmology with new novels or editions...AARRGGHH, you know? It all just seemed to become this huge, incoherent, and entirely silly mess.

I'm quite familiar with the history, doctrines, organization, and theology of Christianity and several other world religions, as well as ancient pagan religions, and the FR cosmology seemed increasingly stupid and cartoonish, in a terrible way. The FR cosmology didn't even hold a baseline of inspiration of the consistency, interest, intrigue, or beauty of any world religion. You know? Put some fucking effort into the cosmology of a major game world. I increasingly felt like the people in charge had barely read one book of world religion, sprinkled with a few books on mythology. The cosmology of a "C" grade college student instead of a team of educated, thoughtful adults charged with putting together and writing a cosmological system and framework for a major game line of the largest RPG company in the world. Pretty pathetic. As time got on, the FR cosmology has merely become even more stupid, shallow, and nonsensical. And YES! My god, people take that shit so *seriously*!!? *laughs* Give me a break, you know?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Pat;1122544I was pointing out the clash between the authorial voice and the setting, and you're trying to justify the setting as if some nonsense henotheistic malthestic-in-denial quasi-religion in a game was a real thing, and somehow both fair and just.

Its not "fair" (as if anything is) but it is just from the perspective of what Gods would do if given the chance.

Quote from: Jaeger;1122553Hilarious to see them stick up for a badly broken cosmology...

Friends dont let friends play gimped characters.

That was one thing I like about 4e FR; I could just use the 4e cosmology, which is IMO by far the best effort TSR/WoTC ever put into creating a cosmology. I still tend to use it in 5e.

Quote from: S'mon;1122575That was one thing I like about 4e FR; I could just use the 4e cosmology, which is IMO by far the best effort TSR/WoTC ever put into creating a cosmology. I still tend to use it in 5e.

This one?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4167[/ATTACH]

Quote from: Aglondir;1122715This one?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4167[/ATTACH]

Yes - I tweak it a bit but overall it works well for me.

Quote from: Aglondir;1122715This one?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4167[/ATTACH]

I love how Sigil is just floating out there unconcerned and unconnected to anything else.

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1122740I love how Sigil is just floating out there unconcerned and unconnected to anything else.

It would look messy if you draw lines from Sigil to everywhere.

Quote from: S'mon;1122735Yes - I tweak it a bit but overall it works well for me.

Yeah, that's my favorite as well. I like it better than the Great Wheel.

Quote from: Pat;1122498They lost me with the Avatar trilogy.

Exactly. That was the point of no return.

The great wheel isn't really ideal, but I utterly despised the stupid 4e cosmology.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1123071The great wheel isn't really ideal, but I utterly despised the stupid 4e cosmology.

Why? What didn't work for you with the 4e cosmology?

The Astral Sea gave us Planar Sailing which was an interesting option versus the Planescape movement via doors. It brought a Spelljammer quality of sorts to planar exploration. The Feywild, Shadowfell and Elemental Chaos were interesting because you didn't have to use them as entirely different space, instead you could drop a small segment into various terrains in your setting.

I found 4e's cosmology among the best bits of 4e because you could easily integrate planar intrusions and adventures at low and mid levels, but maintain their exotic and dangerous nature. Yes, all this is high fantasy, but that was 4e's core focus.

But I recognize that radically changing the cosmology played havoc with FR canon. My appreciation for the cosmology was as a jumping off point for creating high fantasy homebrew settings.