Faerûn To Be Destroyed In 1385 Dale Reckoning ?

WithinAmnesia

The Spell Plague...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daksqex8zUE
Concept: Have No Dungeons and Dragons Forth Edition for Faerûn? Yes, No?

Flashburn

I'm not sure what you're asking here...

elminster

Flashburn said:

I'm not sure what you're asking here...

I believe what is being asked is if the spellplague (and subsequently 4th edition) should be ignored.

lroumen

my followup question... what does fifth edition bring to the world over fourth edition?

Flashburn

elminster said:

Flashburn said:

I'm not sure what you're asking here...

I believe what is being asked is if the spellplague (and subsequently 4th edition) should be ignored.

If that's the case, then yes. 4th edition was a disaster.

SethDavis

(Probably off topic)

I've never played D&D, so I'm not sure how valid this video guy's rant is. That said, he has solidly convinced me that 4th is vastly superior to whatever he was playing before.

How in the Abyss was roleplaying a mage as a thief supposed to work in combat?

Having a map with defined positions is a problem?

It sounds like what he wants is the madness we made up in third grade, complete with "No, I'm not here, I'm over there" and "Ha, I'm a dragon now". Please tell me both he and I are missing the point.

elminster

SethDavis said:

I've never played D&D, so I'm not sure how valid this video guy's rant is. That said, he has solidly convinced me that 4th is vastly superior to whatever he was playing before.

He's convinced me of the stylishness of wearing a collared shirt underneath a sweater.

deltago

SethDavis said:

(Probably off topic)
How in the Abyss was roleplaying a mage as a thief supposed to work in combat?

It was the opposite, he wanted to roleplay a thief pretending to be a mage. That in 3.5 can be easily fubbed with Use Magic Device. His quibble was that he didn't want the other players to meta game that he was actually a thief.

elminster said:

SethDavis said:

I've never played D&D, so I'm not sure how valid this video guy's rant is. That said, he has solidly convinced me that 4th is vastly superior to whatever he was playing before.

He's convinced me of the stylishness of wearing a collared shirt underneath a sweater.

This comment made me watch the video, then it made me cringe.

semiticgoddess

I've heard complaints about the Spellplague, not in regards to the edition change, but to the continuity problem. The complaint I heard was that the Spellplague destroyed a whole bunch of very cool stuff, without actually introducing new content to compensate. It's my understanding that Mulhorand and the Mulhorandi pantheon was destroyed by the Spellplague... and was replaced by nothing.

Contrast that with the Time of Troubles. Bhaal and Bane died, but Cyric arose. Mystra died, and was replaced by Midnight. Myrkul died and was replaced by Kelemvor. Magic ceased to function for a while, but it didn't permanently destroy all magic items short of artifacts. Nor did the Time of Troubles wipe out entire regions or civilizations or religions.

As a writer, I can see a purpose for stuff like the Spellplague. If you want to burn down a magical forest or tear down a mountain, that's fine. But you'd better make something very cool grow in the remains of the forests, and make the fallen mountain more than a pile of lifeless rubble.

Replace what you destroy, and make the new thing better. Otherwise you're not a creator--you're just tearing apart another person's creation, because you lacked the imagination to create your own.

Grum

Semiticgod: That was very insightful. It hits the nail on the head. Gamesworkshop just finished destroying the warhammer setting in the way you described and it suffers for the exact reasons you laid out. Great post, as it holds true across settings and even genres.

WithinAmnesia

Table Top Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.. I was literally raised on Baldur's Gate and when I first played The Table Top Dungeons and Dragons I found it to be quite free flowing and more of an interactive story than a full on ' Game game' (if I am reaching you here that is).

For Instance:

Dungeons Master's 'Plan': Players go to town, go to the tavern, learn of the 'troubles', equip gear, find the 'cult' and go dungeon diving into cave out side of town, beat the cultists and save the day.

What Actually Happened: The Whole Party went to town, found the brothel (on the D.M.'s Grid Map), got sh*tfaced drunk, killed the guard after mistakenly thinking that he was calling us chicken (he was looking for chickens but we were too drunk) took his platemail armour and gear, my friend was about to die in an ambush and rolled a natural 20 on a d20 and ripped someones dick off (his choice as a Gnome with 18 Strength vs Humans) and successfully fled the scene, blew up the brothel with a random dropped potion of explosions, infiltrated the corrupted mayor's mansion after rolling a natural 20 to convince the guards that we were owl watchers and silenced the mayor (from screaming) with a scroll from random loot, Everyone jumped on him and pinned him down, poisoned him (with a poisoned macguffin dagger found from the burnt wenches of the exploded brothel) and took the 'legal' ownership papers and 'legally' acquired the trading guild in the town (and ran it like a boss) and paid off the starving garrison with the mayor's gold stash (the town lost their food from the 'cult') and saved the day that way.

So I like the free flowing goofy chaotic antics of table top Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

That above scenario was played within Advanced Dungeons and Dragons '2.5 Edition / 3.5 Edition.

WithinAmnesia

Flashburn said:

I'm not sure what you're asking here...

Is Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition a worthy successor to Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Edition?

Dee

I think this question is coming a few years late to the party.

Vallmyr

I haven't played 4th edition so I can't comment on the actual gameplay but from a lore perspective I absolutely adore the addition of the Feywild (or was that in prior editions?) and that gnomes are considered Fey. I RP my gnomes even in Baldur's Gate that they are Fey and that explains the entire Illusionist Mage thing because I imagine Faeries and stuff to focus on illusion and enchantment spells.

Vasculio

I remember back when 3rd edition just came out... me and my brother went into the hobby town store and i remember overhearing a guy telling the clerk how he despised 3rd edition. I imagine he wasn't the only one... Learning first and second editions took along time to master. I wonder what his reply would be today for the 4th edition?! Hmm... lol

Calmar

It won't stop in 1385. It's more like the timeline becoming a bit hazy and then 5th Edition begins. :P

chbrooks

The Spellplague is comparable to the Time of Troubles in that it was a major world-shaking event that came with a new edition of D&D. The difference is that the Time of Troubles introduced a few significant changes, such as the death of several gods and the rise of Cyric, but left most of the setting intact. The Time of Troubles also sparked a time jump of about 10 years, which left most of the Realms' well-known NPCs alive.

The Spellplague involves a ton of gods dying, Toril getting merged with another world so creatures like dragonborn could get introduced, Mystra getting killed, Cyric being placed under house arrest, and a lot of NPCs dying off. The timeline jumped 100 years forward, which meant that only a handful of long-lived NPCs were still alive. Even then, several major characters were drastically changed - for example, Elminster lost a lot of his magical might.

As 4th edition ended and 5th edition came in, a lower-key event called The Sundering happened. Basically, the Sundering is a big reset button - Toril's map went back to the way it used to be, Mystra came back to life, Elminster got his power back, and even a lot of Drizzt's old companions got resurrected.

The 5th edition Forgotten Realms is still about 100+ years ahead of where the 2nd edition Forgotten Realms were, but a lot of the old lore is back. The thing is, though, that nobody knows exactly how much has stayed changed and how much has reverted back to the old days. Unlike every other edition of D&D aside from the pre-1987 versions of the game, 5th edition doesn't have a setting book for the Realms. Players can learn a little bit from the handful of adventures that have been released in the past year (almost entirely set in the Sword Coast near Neverwinter because they want to tie in with the MMO), but most of the rest of the Forgotten Realms is a bunch of question marks for the time being.

Jarrakul

On the Spellplague, I'm entirely with @semiticgod. Tearing things down is fine, but replace them with something better, or at least different. Don't replace them with nothing. If you want a setting to have less, I get that, but you can just make a new setting with less stuff without destroying all the old stuff that lots of people liked.

On 4E D&D, I don't really have much problem with it as a system. Or rather, I don't like it, but I don't think it's fundamentally terrible, and I think its existence adds something to the space of pen and paper RPGs that people can chose from. I do, however, have a problem with it being D&D. If it were released under any other name, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but there's a certain D&D-ness that's lost in some of the 4E changes. Hypothetically, if D&D 6E goes to a die pool system like Shadowrun or the White Wolf systems, I would probably consider that a mechanical improvement, but I would still be upset that it was called D&D, because that's less of a reasonable progression of the system and more of a swerve off into an entirely different direction. That's basically how a felt about 4E too, except that I didn't especially like a lot of the changes in the first place.

jacobtan

FR had a body of lore
Built up in the years before
Along came the Spellplague
A 5E story so vague
And the body of lore is no more

ElDiablo

Now im glad to have old stuff back and i DO prefer 3.5 realms over 4th BUT I would argue that there were a few fun addition.

One example would be the Orc Kingdom of Many-Arrows. Having orcs have some kinda civcilization brutal as it may be makes playing half orc much more feasable.

Dragon born i also find a cool race to play, though returned abier was not all that interresting.

I also thinkthere were some good stories being told through some of 4E The Unclean/undead/unholy trillogy one of em. and having this ' Dark period' showing how fragile the world can be will be good for future storytelling i think.

that beiong said i MIGHT change my opinion if Wizards keeps doingh so patheticly little in regards to world lore in the coming future.

Jarrakul

Technically, the Kingdom of Many-Arrows was founded before the Spellplague. Not by much, granted, but still. I definitely agree that it's a cool addition, and it does seem to be much more important in the 4E Realms.

WithinAmnesia

Jarrakul said:

Technically, the Kingdom of Many-Arrows was founded before the Spellplague. Not by much, granted, but still. I definitely agree that it's a cool addition, and it does seem to be much more important in the 4E Realms.

"Technically, the Kingdom of Many-Arrows was founded before the Spellplague."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ALwKeSEYs

Vallmyr

Kingdom of Many-Arrows?

Does this have to do with the Orc Obould Many-Arrows from the original Neverwinter Nights?

WithinAmnesia

Vallmyr said:

Kingdom of Many-Arrows?

Does this have to do with the Orc Obould Many-Arrows from the original Neverwinter Nights?

"The Kingdom of Many-Arrows was an orc kingdom founded by Obould Many-Arrows in 1371 DR and recognized as a sovereign realm by several of the Silver Marches signatories the following year. It stretched from Mithral Hall in the west to the Moonwood in the east and to the Evermoors in the south."

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Many-Arrows

Jarrakul

@Vallmyr, it does, but he's actually primarily from the Drizzt books (and NWN didn't really do him justice). King Obould Many-Arrows became god-king (literally; he's basically the avatar of Gruumsh) of a massive orc horde and decided to carve out a piece of the north for his people.

Vallmyr

Ahhhh ok. Thanks! n_n
I've only read The Dark Elf Trilogy and have only just started on the Icewind Dale Trilogy.