quote:

---

Originally posted by Knight of the Gate

I completely agree with your assessment, froglegg; My onliest beef is that now all those NDAs will NEVER be lifted, and while we can give our own answers to those many, many, many unanswered questions, we will never know what the designers intended when they wrote them. That's really the only thing that grieves me; that we will never know what SES, GK, Ed, and the rest *intended* for the Realms. And to my way of thinking, that's a crime. Really. I have spent years and years and thousands of dollars supporting the FR brand, mostly so I could find out what happened. Now I will never know what Khelben planned for the Moonstars, or what the pyramids under Ascore were meant to do, or what lingering influence Myrkul might have had on Laeral, or what sort of Royal Mage Caladnei would have made, or the outcome of Malthiir's efforts to resist Mulmaster and the Zhents, or how Durnan and Mirt met, or why it is that Sylune can't... you get the point. I feel cheated. I could give a rat's behind about rules changes, but the time-jump is nothing less than a slap in the face.
I am taking my FR campaign in the same direction. I'm resetting to 1360, and having my PC's help found Luruar (or not). It's thrilling, and it reminds me of my first love of the Realms; but it doesn't answer a single question, and that will always make me feel cheated.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Judd

I am playing a game out of the gray box too, pre ToT.

Let's meet in the Yawning Portal and toast it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sylrae

Hey guys. I agree. You don't have to use 4e to enjoy the realms, not does someone using post spellplague need to ruin your fun.

Daviot: I use the PFRPG Rules and 1e-3.5e setting as well! PM Me and maybe we can exchange some converted materials? What have you got?

Personally, I'm in the middle of prepping an FR game. We're going to start with 1385DR right before the death of mystra. Then the game is going backward in time to 714 DR or maybe a bit before that. After that, every future campaign is going to continue from 714 DR. Other than what the players interfere with, history will unfold as it did in canon. Future games are going to take past games as canon though from this point on. :)

I don't have much of a use for 4e FR stuff beyond the occasional Idea, but I can still go around collecting old books, and the content that fans are writing/compiling lately using all the old lore as references is fantastic. I've loved all of Snowblood's Articles, and while Elves of Faerun won't see wholesale use in my games, I'm sure I'll appropriate parts of it for my game.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mournblade

Froggleg I agree. I pretty much have fallen in love with the realms again by working out ways the Spell plague was averted. My Current campaign is 1400DR.

One thing I have noticed though. Since 4e's release there has been very little in the way fo netbooks and such here. There are projects I am working on for the realms. I just finished a majour Mass Effect alternity milestone so I started working on the Realms again.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Snowblood

Well we use 2nd edition rules (lightly applied), original D&D combat system like experts/masters etc (makes combat deadly and quick as it should be after all swords are mighty sharp)....and 3.5 for monsters HD........and even fourth edition lore...that coz we like to time jump all over the shop & sample all the wares the realms emporium has to offer.....and what we don't know or what Ed can't tell us...we make up.....after all its a fantasy setting not ye olde Eurasia....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brimstone

The next time I run a Realms game it will be 1358 using the 4E Rules.

My homebrew will use the 3E rules. I have been thinking about making it an E-6 game.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dalor Darden

SWEET!

My wife likes to play D&D too...and now her sister has moved in with us...and their friend; so I have THREE women thinking about having me run a D&D game for them.

It will be weird...but one thing I will never have to worry about is them saying something like: "Well, I'm going to go wench it up now!" and expect me to play the part of their target whore!

Could be a role-playing intense game!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jorkens

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dalor Darden

SWEET!

My wife likes to play D&D too...and now her sister has moved in with us...and their friend; so I have THREE women thinking about having me run a D&D game for them.

It will be weird...but one thing I will never have to worry about is them saying something like: "Well, I'm going to go wench it up now!" and expect me to play the part of their target whore!

Could be a role-playing intense game!

---

Don't feel to safe. I remember the first campaign I played with my wife; in the first session she hit on Gellana Mirrorshade whilst investigating Bhalite murders in Baldurs gate. And most women I have gamed with up through the years could be just as raunchy as any males.

Then again, it might just be the kind of people I know.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Knight of the Gate

I completely agree with your assessment, froglegg; My onliest beef is that now all those NDAs will NEVER be lifted, and while we can give our own answers to those many, many, many unanswered questions, we will never know what the designers intended when they wrote them. That's really the only thing that grieves me; that we will never know what SES, GK, Ed, and the rest *intended* for the Realms. And to my way of thinking, that's a crime.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Knight of the Gate
I have spent years and years and thousands of dollars supporting the FR brand, mostly so I could find out what happened.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Varl

quote:

---

Originally posted by Knight of the Gate
I have spent years and years and thousands of dollars supporting the FR brand, mostly so I could find out what happened.

---

This trend is a sad testimony to the entertainment industry these days. While completely unrelated, over the past 5 years or so, I've had no less than 4+ television shows canceled in a similar fashion, leaving us the fans, grieving and at a total loss how they can just kill a series with absolutely no concern over finishing storylines. Carnivale, Six Feet Under, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Flash Forward, and others. The same pangs of disappointment have made me swear off series tv. I refuse to let them get my hopes up yet again on a series that looks good only to have them yank it after one season and with many unresolved cliffhangers.

This was one of the many reasons I decided to not pursue 4e Realms (or 3e Realms for the most part). The usable lore is the one redeeming feature for me of any new edition that is, ironically, backwards compatible with any edition because of what it is. Lore is king; the rest is merely math.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by froglegg

I am happy to report that my wife has agreed to play a one on one Forgotten Realms Campaign. We will be useing the 1st edition AD&D rules set with just a few house rules. The game will pick up at the 1st day of Hammer 1358DR and she will be playing a magic-user. She will be starting in one of the hearts of evil.....Zentel Keep!
I am thinking that this has dark and gritty written all over it.

John

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by froglegg

quote:

---

Originally posted by Knight of the Gate

I completely agree with your assessment, froglegg; My onliest beef is that now all those NDAs will NEVER be lifted, and while we can give our own answers to those many, many, many unanswered questions, we will never know what the designers intended when they wrote them. That's really the only thing that grieves me; that we will never know what SES, GK, Ed, and the rest *intended* for the Realms. And to my way of thinking, that's a crime. Really. I have spent years and years and thousands of dollars supporting the FR brand, mostly so I could find out what happened. Now I will never know what Khelben planned for the Moonstars, or what the pyramids under Ascore were meant to do, or what lingering influence Myrkul might have had on Laeral, or what sort of Royal Mage Caladnei would have made, or the outcome of Malthiir's efforts to resist Mulmaster and the Zhents, or how Durnan and Mirt met, or why it is that Sylune can't... you get the point. I feel cheated. I could give a rat's behind about rules changes, but the time-jump is nothing less than a slap in the face.
I am taking my FR campaign in the same direction. I'm resetting to 1360, and having my PC's help found Luruar (or not). It's thrilling, and it reminds me of my first love of the Realms; but it doesn't answer a single question, and that will always make me feel cheated.

---

This is what can be so liberating about your reset to 1360DR! That means you put on your best ED Greenwood hat you got and get buck wild! You answer every last question that you have just exactly as Knight of the Gate wants it! And with what ever your players do you factor that in to. The power is all your's!

John

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jakk

quote:

---

Originally posted by froglegg

quote:

---

Originally posted by Knight of the Gate

I completely agree with your assessment, froglegg; My onliest beef is that now all those NDAs will NEVER be lifted, and while we can give our own answers to those many, many, many unanswered questions, we will never know what the designers intended when they wrote them. That's really the only thing that grieves me; that we will never know what SES, GK, Ed, and the rest *intended* for the Realms. And to my way of thinking, that's a crime. Really. I have spent years and years and thousands of dollars supporting the FR brand, mostly so I could find out what happened. Now I will never know what Khelben planned for the Moonstars, or what the pyramids under Ascore were meant to do, or what lingering influence Myrkul might have had on Laeral, or what sort of Royal Mage Caladnei would have made, or the outcome of Malthiir's efforts to resist Mulmaster and the Zhents, or how Durnan and Mirt met, or why it is that Sylune can't... you get the point. I feel cheated. I could give a rat's behind about rules changes, but the time-jump is nothing less than a slap in the face.
I am taking my FR campaign in the same direction. I'm resetting to 1360, and having my PC's help found Luruar (or not). It's thrilling, and it reminds me of my first love of the Realms; but it doesn't answer a single question, and that will always make me feel cheated.

---

This is what can be so liberating about your reset to 1360DR! That means you put on your best ED Greenwood hat you got and get buck wild! You answer every last question that you have just exactly as Knight of the Gate wants it! And with what ever your players do you factor that in to. The power is all your's!

John

---

I understand that point of view, John, and to some extent I agree with it. My biggest complaint is what KotG mentioned: we'll never know what might have been, because anything that doesn't get published gets locked up in the NDA vaults. Where the rulesets are concerned, it seems that more options are always better (in this respect, 4E is no different from 3.x or 2E), but as soon as it comes to a campaign setting, they clam up and say "less is more" like a mantra, like they're trying hard to convince themselves of the truth of what they're saying. I would love to see campaign settings pursue a more hypothetical approach to timeline advancement, rather than carving everything in stone... mostly because the only way to undo things is to smash the stone, and that's not really helping anybody. The whole reason I buy a campaign setting, rather than create my own, is so that the design work is done for me. With the Realms pre-Spellplague, I had that. With the Realms post-Spellplague, I don't have that, and it's not about what got blown up or changed or retconned into or out of existence. It's about the simple fact that if I want to set a game in the post-Spellplague Realms, by the time I've done the work to make it a setting that my players want to play in, I've either done enough work to have created my own world from scratch, or simply gone back to using all of my pre-Spellplague Realms sources as if nothing had happened... and if you're going to do that, then why bother have the Spellplague happen at all?

It's all a matter of preference for detail; my players and I like a lot of detail, and that makes the pre-Spellplague Realms the setting we prefer to play in. Sadly for me, the absence of new products supporting my preferred game setting is causing my interest to wane, particularly when a game system like Pathfinder and a setting like Golarion exist to give me back everything that the new edition and the Spellplague took away. I have plenty of my own ideas for reimagining the Realms, but what I want is the old lore that we all know about but will likely never see: the complete Haunted Halls, the Cormyr Royal Lineage, Ed's original Netheril, Ed's original Unther and Mulhorand, and so much more. The only reason I put up with the Time of Troubles in my campaigns was because I hadn't started DMing in the Realms until after the Forgotten Realms Adventures hardback came out, so I was used to the changes. I'm in the process now of going back and changing many things, but I'm doing it as a massive retcon rather than a setting reboot, because I don't want to send everything right back to 1358. I have three parties of adventurers from past campaigns who have become notable powers in their own right and none of their accomplishments will be affected by my retcons, and I don't want to lose them as plot hooks for future campaigns.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say here; I'll stop rambling now. Thank you to froglegg for making this scroll in the first place and letting me know that at least one other person feels exactly the same way I do about the Realms.

---