Quote from: Haffrung;678061Yeah, it fills me with horror and sadness to consider that the Forgotten Realms novels are more commercially popular than the FR roleplay material, and perhaps more than D&D itself. For a 12 year old to read it as a supplement to playing D&D is one thing. To read that dreck for its own sake is appalling.

How do you type with your nose held so high, and your pinky finger raised like that?

Quote from: Haffrung;678061Yeah, it fills me with horror and sadness to consider that the Forgotten Realms novels are more commercially popular than the FR roleplay material, and perhaps more than D&D itself. For a 12 year old to read it as a supplement to playing D&D is one thing. To read that dreck for its own sake is appalling.

A good buddy of mine's father is a rough and tumble southern trucker.  He's a great man with no D&D knowledge.   Years back, he asks my friend "I've been reading these great books about an elf named Drizzt.  Have you heard of him?"  My buddy silently screamed:)

At least he wasn't reading Spellfire.

Quote from: Mistwell;678068How do you type with your nose held so high, and your pinky finger raised like that?

I'm sure people looked down on Howard and Lovecraft because they were pulp writers which was about the same level of prestige in those days as writing gaming fiction is today, I guess.

Only the march of time will determine who will last...

You dont need to play out restoring the realms. Just put it back the way it was.

Poor Forgotten Realms...

The ultimate in design by committee. Expect the evilest of gods to win, with lots of spiky armor and name apostrophes. Pray that a Bubbahotep or Brosephus, god of keggers, doesn't slip in.

But I have a nice copy of grey box, so everything is OK.

Quote from: Mistwell;678068How do you type with your nose held so high, and your pinky finger raised like that?

Probably the same way I do.

By looking down his nose.

I prefer to look down my nose at all of you with my head turned at a slight sideways angle.

Although I'm sure Haffrung probably has his own method.

But, I'd have to compare technique with him at The Club later to be sure though...

.

To be fair, there are some very good FR novels. Sadly, there are also a whole bunch of really bad ones.

Just one more things that shows that 4e wasn't "real" D&D.  Now before people get their panties in a bunch, I'm not saying 4e is a bad game, or a bad rpg.  For all purposes, 4e is an excellent fantasy tactical rpg.  One of the best out there.

However, if you have to move/change/remove a ton of your brand identity, then you no longer have the same product.  Certain things, for better or worse, made D&D what it was.  They include things like Vancian magic, mundane class options, etc.  If you get rid of all those things that made D&D what it was, including the setting, and have to change all that radically, then you have a new standalone game, regardless of what it says on the cover.

New Coke might have said "Coca-Cola" on the bottle, but it sure as hell wasn't Coke.

The trouble with so many of the FR novels is that the author thinks that the protagonist should be the most pompous ass possible.

Which to be fair, isn't unknown in the fantasy fiction D&D is based on, Cugel and the Grey Mouser/Fafhrd are all major league dicks most of the time, and Conan flirted with that a lot.

Quote from: JRT;678080I'm sure people looked down on Howard and Lovecraft because they were pulp writers which was about the same level of prestige in those days as writing gaming fiction is today, I guess.

Only the march of time will determine who will last...

I wonder how many Haffrung's it took to turn Robert E. Howard to suicide in his generation?

Quote from: Mistwell;678209I wonder how many Haffrung's it took to turn Robert E. Howard to suicide in his generation?

Zero, but one mother.

Quote from: Rincewind1;678211Zero, but one mother.

Well certainly that played a meaningful role in what happened.  But I think Weird Tales getting behind on their payments to Howard was also a contributing smaller factor, along with Weird Tales readership never getting above 50K while other more mainstream short story authors got far more readers, mostly due to snobbish criticism of pulp like Weird Tales as classes rubbish intended for the lowest common denominator in society.

And one day slash fanfic will be truly appreciated for the brilliance it is.

This is awesome. It warms my heart.

Wotc has now admitted that:

1. 4e system sucked
2. 4e setting sucked

... and plan to back-pedal the entire 4e failed experiment.

Across the land, 4vengers are wallowing in rage and disbelief.

I like experiments.  If the current setting needs to be redeveloped then it might make an excellent venue to drum up interest and try something new in the process.  

Now whether this will be executed correctly is another matter.