| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Azar |
Posted - 28 Jan 2022 : 11:38:01
Hello there.
Check this out.
quote:
...Monsters of the Multiverse seems to set the stage for a move away from the Forgotten Realms as the chief campaign setting for the game...
There was a time when I would have considered this development concerning; however, Wizards of the Coast's present handling of the Realms makes such a change welcome. |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 10 Feb 2022 : 01:15:25
You can read an overview here, if you're interested.
https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-full-glorious-history-of-nutsr.684697/ |
| Azar |
Posted - 09 Feb 2022 : 22:54:02
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
quote:
Originally posted by Scots Dragon
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
Can we conduct a séance with TSR and ask them if they're interested in being resurrected?
A bunch of reactionary weirdos revived the brand recently with an intention of releasing a new version of Star Frontiers. Probably best to be wary of what we wish for.
A bunch of reactionary weirdos possessed enough capital to bring a company back from the dead  ? Forsooth?
There were like 2 or 3 TSRs co-existing, very briefly, and then it got really freaking messy. I don't have the links handy, but there's been a couple of articles about it on ENWorld.
A corporate tug-of-war, huh? It is a shame how TSR was treated while on its deathbed... |
| Scots Dragon |
Posted - 04 Feb 2022 : 00:14:00
Maybe they're hoping some distance will help give the setting a bit of a kick when it makes a triumphant return.
We can only live in hope.
I am not especially hopeful. |
| Seethyr |
Posted - 03 Feb 2022 : 22:23:51
quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
quote:
Originally posted by Scots Dragon
quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
I would much rather see them move on from D&D entirely.
I mean, they've put out more Magic: The Gathering tie-ins than anything actually D&D related in the past few years so... they might as well.
Yes, just looking at the history of releases, one can see that there has been a gradual but continuous shift away from FR since 2018 or so. We went from every book having an FR tie-in (Volo's and Xanathar's Guides, all the FR adventure paths) to almost none of them having one (Tasha's, Mordenkainen's, Fizban's, etc.). And this year we're getting a Critical Role adventure, not long after a Critical Role campaign setting. So the writing is definitely on the wall at this point. FR is old and dated; Critical Role is the new hotness.
I almost feel sorry for Larian Studios. By the time Baldur's Gate 3 comes out, FR will be yesterday's news.
Ugh that truth bomb hurts. |
| HighOne |
Posted - 03 Feb 2022 : 20:42:53
quote:
Originally posted by Scots Dragon
quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
I would much rather see them move on from D&D entirely.
I mean, they've put out more Magic: The Gathering tie-ins than anything actually D&D related in the past few years so... they might as well.
Yes, just looking at the history of releases, one can see that there has been a gradual but continuous shift away from FR since 2018 or so. We went from every book having an FR tie-in (Volo's and Xanathar's Guides, all the FR adventure paths) to almost none of them having one (Tasha's, Mordenkainen's, Fizban's, etc.). And this year we're getting a Critical Role adventure, not long after a Critical Role campaign setting. So the writing is definitely on the wall at this point. FR is old and dated; Critical Role is the new hotness.
I almost feel sorry for Larian Studios. By the time Baldur's Gate 3 comes out, FR will be yesterday's news. |
| Scots Dragon |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 22:05:11
quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
I would much rather see them move on from D&D entirely.
I mean, they've put out more Magic: The Gathering tie-ins than anything actually D&D related in the past few years so... they might as well. |
| HighOne |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 17:23:04
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
There were like 2 or 3 TSRs co-existing, very briefly, and then it got really freaking messy. I don't have the links handy, but there's been a couple of articles about it on ENWorld.
It's like when a band's 1st drummer and 2nd drummer go to court over the right to use the band's name.
Edit: Actually, it's more like the son of the 1st drummer and the wife of the 2nd drummer.
quote:
Originally posted by George Krashos
I would be very glad to see them move on from the Realms.
I would much rather see them move on from D&D entirely. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 16:19:39
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
quote:
Originally posted by Scots Dragon
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
Can we conduct a séance with TSR and ask them if they're interested in being resurrected?
A bunch of reactionary weirdos revived the brand recently with an intention of releasing a new version of Star Frontiers. Probably best to be wary of what we wish for.
A bunch of reactionary weirdos possessed enough capital to bring a company back from the dead ? Forsooth?
There were like 2 or 3 TSRs co-existing, very briefly, and then it got really freaking messy. I don't have the links handy, but there's been a couple of articles about it on ENWorld. |
| Scots Dragon |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 10:56:45
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
quote:
Originally posted by Scots Dragon
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
Can we conduct a séance with TSR and ask them if they're interested in being resurrected?
A bunch of reactionary weirdos revived the brand recently with an intention of releasing a new version of Star Frontiers. Probably best to be wary of what we wish for.
A bunch of reactionary weirdos possessed enough capital to bring a company back from the dead ? Forsooth?
Turns out the majority of reactionary weirdos are funded really well by capitalist causes. But I'll avoid getting into that. |
| Azar |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 09:53:40
quote:
Originally posted by Scots Dragon
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
Can we conduct a séance with TSR and ask them if they're interested in being resurrected?
A bunch of reactionary weirdos revived the brand recently with an intention of releasing a new version of Star Frontiers. Probably best to be wary of what we wish for.
A bunch of reactionary weirdos possessed enough capital to bring a company back from the dead ? Forsooth? |
| Scots Dragon |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 07:45:28
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
Can we conduct a séance with TSR and ask them if they're interested in being resurrected?
A bunch of reactionary weirdos revived the brand recently with an intention of releasing a new version of Star Frontiers. Probably best to be wary of what we wish for. |
| Azar |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 07:19:50
Can we conduct a séance with TSR and ask them if they're interested in being resurrected? |
| Scots Dragon |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 07:17:08
quote:
Originally posted by AJA
quote:
Originally posted by George Krashos
I would be very glad to see them move on from the Realms.
-- George Krashos
Oof. What is "Things My Younger Self Would Never, Not In A Million Years, Believe I Would Ever Say." 
To be fair, that ship sailed in 2008 |
| AJA |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 06:45:36
quote:
Originally posted by George Krashos
I would be very glad to see them move on from the Realms.
-- George Krashos
Oof. What is "Things My Younger Self Would Never, Not In A Million Years, Believe I Would Ever Say." |
| Azar |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 02:51:17
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
I have a sneaking suspicion that these changes may have stemmed from the shunning of Planescape.
Shunning Planescape is one thing. I can understand arguments against "fragmenting" D&D into a whole pile of different settings. Planescape and Spelljammer, by their very nature, are always going to not-quite-fit into a nice, clean, simplified group of setting products. Especially since WotC (and other companies) offer a bunch of other non-D&D settings - some fans will be eager to see these interconnected, some fans will be vehemently opposed to the idea.
But I don't agree with shunning Planescape while simultaneously robbing Planescape. The monsters created for that setting were created for that setting. They were part of a different "ecosystem". And they were somebody else's work. It speaks much about the (lack of) ethics and (lack of) creativity within WotC when they have to steal from themselves, when they pretend otherwise and hope their customers won't notice.
Planescape simultaneously works well as an independent setting and a collection of materials on the planes; myself, I simply pick what I want (say, information on Elysium from Planes of Conflict) and excise the rest (e.g., the jargon/slang endemic to Sigil). With a modicum of effort, Wizards of the Coast could have easily - easily - brought back Planescape in an updated format friendly to those who are looking to get into multiversal adventures and those who simply want lore-rich accounts of planes that can be readily adapted for their campaigns...be they set in Greyhawk, The Forgotten Realms, a homemade setting or something else entirely.
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
I have a sneaking suspicion that these changes may have stemmed from the shunning of Planescape.
Shunning Planescape is one thing. I can understand arguments against "fragmenting" D&D into a whole pile of different settings. Planescape and Spelljammer, by their very nature, are always going to not-quite-fit into a nice, clean, simplified group of setting products. Especially since WotC (and other companies) offer a bunch of other non-D&D settings - some fans will be eager to see these interconnected, some fans will be vehemently opposed to the idea.
But I don't agree with shunning Planescape while simultaneously robbing Planescape. The monsters created for that setting were created for that setting. They were part of a different "ecosystem". And they were somebody else's work. It speaks much about the (lack of) ethics and (lack of) creativity within WotC when they have to steal from themselves, when they pretend otherwise and hope their customers won't notice.
As a huge Spelljammer fan, I'm quite willing to say: Planescape was the better setting, in pretty much every way. I don't like it as much as Spelljammer, but it was integrated in with the existing stuff much better, it fitted in with the existing stuff better, and was a far more cohesive and well-planned setting than Spelljammer ever thought about being.
If I had to connect all the settings again today, I'd start with Planescape.
I think they'd be well-off to relaunch that setting, but I fear their current multiversal focus and the mangling of everything planar they've done will mean that it would be changed into something barely recognizable. They're happy to mangle what others have done, but they'll not even think about doing the same to their own stuff.
I like to plunder Spelljammer for its monsters. Incidentally, Baldur's Gate 2 of all games features a Beholder variant that canonically originates from Spelljammer.
quote:
Originally posted by Gyor
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
Hello there.
Check this out.
quote:
...Monsters of the Multiverse seems to set the stage for a move away from the Forgotten Realms as the chief campaign setting for the game...
There was a time when I would have considered this development concerning; however, Wizards of the Coast's present handling of the Realms makes such a change welcome.
It ironically backs up my belief that a FRCG for 5.5e is coming 2024, because it ends the idea of exploding piecemeal various regions of FR via hard cover adventures.
Hot damn...only a decade late   . |
| Gyor |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 02:19:18
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
Hello there.
Check this out.
quote:
...Monsters of the Multiverse seems to set the stage for a move away from the Forgotten Realms as the chief campaign setting for the game...
There was a time when I would have considered this development concerning; however, Wizards of the Coast's present handling of the Realms makes such a change welcome.
It ironically backs up my belief that a FRCG for 5.5e is coming 2024, because it ends the idea of exploding piecemeal various regions of FR via hard cover adventures. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 01 Feb 2022 : 13:32:27
quote:
Originally posted by Seethyr
At this point I don’t even care anymore what is done and what change is made into what. I just want something to remain the go to lore for more than a decade. I have maintained lore of my own for decades with friends and keep trying to explain away changes so that there is at least an awkward shoehorn into current canon. The reason I do this is so that ALL materials including old and new can be used. But the changes and retcons are so common now I can’t even trust that within an edition it’ll stay the same. Sorry for my rant, it’s just frustrating.
I hear you on that. My personal take is becoming that there's very little different between the spirit world and the feywild, and they're just another name for the "bright land that's right next to the prime, as opposed to the dark land that is the shadowfell".... and that you must transfer THROUGH it to get to other "deeper" lands. In essence, it becomes another form of "astral" but not to the planes of alignment. In some places, they may call it the feywild and in others they may call it the spirit world. Primal spirits and archfey inhabit it, and in some places it may be extremely savage and dangerous, while in others extremely peaceful and pleasant. Like someone was talking about before with Ravenloft and the plane of shadow, you can turn a corner and just suddenly "find yourself there".... and long ago this is how so many fey ended up in Toril.
To note, the "deeper" places that the spirit world/feywild might connect to might be the unusual places some of us have thought about. For instance, a plane of limitless light or radiance, a plane of faerie, there might be a beastlands place that's nothing but animals, a place of vast plant life filled with waterfalls and pools, a place of intelligent items/constructs, etc.... |
| Scars Unseen |
Posted - 01 Feb 2022 : 09:13:29
I agree that WotC do themselves a disservice with all the constant changes. It may be intended to keep new material relevant so that people need to keep buying books, but in reality it does the opposite. With all the changes, the best thing you can do as a group is find your own personal cutoff point and never buy any products after that. It's the only way to have a stable setting with their ongoing strategy of always going forward (but only in limited regions) and refusing to even acknowledge past canon. For some people, that may be the Grey Box, for some it may be the 3E FRCS, but if you're actually running a game, it's going to be somewhere, and products after that point aren't much use seemingly by design. |
| Seethyr |
Posted - 31 Jan 2022 : 20:14:26
At this point I don’t even care anymore what is done and what change is made into what. I just want something to remain the go to lore for more than a decade. I have maintained lore of my own for decades with friends and keep trying to explain away changes so that there is at least an awkward shoehorn into current canon. The reason I do this is so that ALL materials including old and new can be used. But the changes and retcons are so common now I can’t even trust that within an edition it’ll stay the same. Sorry for my rant, it’s just frustrating. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 31 Jan 2022 : 15:53:41
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Was there not a counterpart to the Shadowfell? It seems reasonable that if you've got a dark, run-down imitation of the Prime, there should also be an imitation of the Prime where everything is bright and new and spotless.
Yeah, in 4e's "what we're gonna do" plans, basically the feywild and shadowfell were supposed to be "mirrors" of the prime like you describe. So, like the "feydark" in the "feywild" might have been mirrored over versions of cities in Toril's underdark. That was the initial plan. I don't think it was exactly shown that way.
At the same time, that's exactly what the "spirit world" was also described as in 3e.... a place where the waterfall is on the prime would be a much more majestic waterfall in the spirit world, etc....
Meanwhile, in Kara-tur, there was no astral connection in 3.5e to their lands, rather you went to the spirit world. At this point, they've done so many things like this, it's just a mess. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 31 Jan 2022 : 05:01:04
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
I have a sneaking suspicion that these changes may have stemmed from the shunning of Planescape.
Shunning Planescape is one thing. I can understand arguments against "fragmenting" D&D into a whole pile of different settings. Planescape and Spelljammer, by their very nature, are always going to not-quite-fit into a nice, clean, simplified group of setting products. Especially since WotC (and other companies) offer a bunch of other non-D&D settings - some fans will be eager to see these interconnected, some fans will be vehemently opposed to the idea.
But I don't agree with shunning Planescape while simultaneously robbing Planescape. The monsters created for that setting were created for that setting. They were part of a different "ecosystem". And they were somebody else's work. It speaks much about the (lack of) ethics and (lack of) creativity within WotC when they have to steal from themselves, when they pretend otherwise and hope their customers won't notice.
As a huge Spelljammer fan, I'm quite willing to say: Planescape was the better setting, in pretty much every way. I don't like it as much as Spelljammer, but it was integrated in with the existing stuff much better, it fitted in with the existing stuff better, and was a far more cohesive and well-planned setting than Spelljammer ever thought about being.
If I had to connect all the settings again today, I'd start with Planescape.
I think they'd be well-off to relaunch that setting, but I fear their current multiversal focus and the mangling of everything planar they've done will mean that it would be changed into something barely recognizable. They're happy to mangle what others have done, but they'll not even think about doing the same to their own stuff. |
| questing gm |
Posted - 31 Jan 2022 : 03:14:11
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Karsus
-I may be misremembering, but wasn't "Shadowfell" an amalgamation of the Plane of Shadows and the Negative Energy Plane?
How I understand it now, according to Ed:
quote:
What Shar did was successfully manipulate Cyric into murdering Mystra, causing the Spellplague (as the dying Weave ‘went wild,’ great ripples crashing across it from Weave anchor to Weave anchor). As existing wards and spells failed all across Toril, and wizards went mad, Shar was busy elsewhere. Out among the planes, to be precise.
Where, caused by the widening ripples, the Elemental and Energy Planes collapsed, merging roilingly into the Elemental Chaos.
Shar played lockkeeper, exerting all of her personal power (and she’s one of the few deities who can work with necrotic energies without being diminished or altered by them, and understands the properties of necrotic energy) to steer as much as she could of the necrotic energies flowing from the collapsing Negative Energy Plane so that rather than being lost into the stew of Elemental Chaos, they flowed into her home plane, the existing Plane of Shadow (we wrote of this on page 69 of the 4e Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide).
This changed the Plane of Shadow, and clergy of Shar will tell you that “the Shadowfell” (Shar’s name for the altered Plane of Shadow), was her “creation.” So it is, but she didn’t create it out of nothing. If I took the outer panels off my old tractor and replaced them with pieces of a Ferrari, I have ‘made’ something new, but it’s still my old tractor, that I bought rather than made from the ground its tires sit on, up, underneath.
With its new necrotic energies, the altered Plane of Shadow gained some new properties. Many souls of the dead came now to the Shadowfell, and had to pass through it to get to the Fugue Plane. And—and this was the entire reason why Shar acted as she did, hoping to increase her own power and reach thereby—the necrotic energies of the Shadowfell were the new energy source for, and root source of, all shadow magic. The power and reach of shadow magic cast/called upon in the Prime Material Plane (on Toril) had been subtly ebbing and fading for some time, and by this move Shar boosted shadow magic and her own might, in the Realms.
All planes change, over time, influenced by energies leaking from, and actual invasions from, adjacent planes; the planes don’t exist in isolation, but affect each other constantly (though post-Spellplague, the Astral Sea and the Elemental Chaos surround and separate the other planes, and so act as buffers between them). So the Plane of Shadow has been called many things by sentient mortals, down the ages, such as Shadowland, Shadow, and “the demiplane of Shadow,” and these different terms don’t always merely denote different mortal ways of viewing the same thing, they actually describe different versions of the same plane as it evolves.
Source: https://twitter.com/TheEdVerse/status/1259164665290113026
|
| Ayrik |
Posted - 31 Jan 2022 : 02:16:44
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
I have a sneaking suspicion that these changes may have stemmed from the shunning of Planescape.
Shunning Planescape is one thing. I can understand arguments against "fragmenting" D&D into a whole pile of different settings. Planescape and Spelljammer, by their very nature, are always going to not-quite-fit into a nice, clean, simplified group of setting products. Especially since WotC (and other companies) offer a bunch of other non-D&D settings - some fans will be eager to see these interconnected, some fans will be vehemently opposed to the idea.
But I don't agree with shunning Planescape while simultaneously robbing Planescape. The monsters created for that setting were created for that setting. They were part of a different "ecosystem". And they were somebody else's work. It speaks much about the (lack of) ethics and (lack of) creativity within WotC when they have to steal from themselves, when they pretend otherwise and hope their customers won't notice. |
| Azar |
Posted - 31 Jan 2022 : 01:23:56
I have a sneaking suspicion that these changes may have stemmed from the shunning of Planescape. |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 30 Jan 2022 : 19:59:19
quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
I've always just assumed the Feywild to be another word/verbiage for Faerie and the same with the Shadowfell and Plane of Shadow. You're gonnna find the vast majority of monsters from these places in their respective new names so...
-I may be misremembering, but wasn't "Shadowfell" an amalgamation of the Plane of Shadows and the Negative Energy Plane? Whereas "Feywild" was just a rename for the Plane of Faerie, with nothing else in particular shuffled in (in this case, Positive Energy Plane would be most relevant here, to make it an opposite of "Shadowfell"). |
| Diffan |
Posted - 30 Jan 2022 : 19:03:08
quote:
Originally posted by George Krashos
I would be very glad to see them move on from the Realms.
-- George Krashos
They've tried: Mythic Odyssey's of Theros, Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, Eberron: Rising from the Last War, & Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos but then people complained about it. My hope is that they start writing adventures for other settings. Curse of Strahd was fine, didn't involve the Realms unless you wanted it to and I think the same was done with Ghosts of Saltmarsh that gave you ideas where to put it IF you wanted to use the Realms.
More of that would be nice. |
| Diffan |
Posted - 30 Jan 2022 : 18:54:20
I've always just assumed the Feywild to be another word/verbiage for Faerie and the same with the Shadowfell and Plane of Shadow. You're gonnna find the vast majority of monsters from these places in their respective new names so... |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 30 Jan 2022 : 17:17:18
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Was there not a counterpart to the Shadowfell? It seems reasonable that if you've got a dark, run-down imitation of the Prime, there should also be an imitation of the Prime where everything is bright and new and spotless.
-Technically, I guess it was supposed to be the "Feywild". Going by what Wiki has to say, the 4e DMG said, "Finding some things of the Prime too 'bright' or too 'dark,' the Primordials tore these parts from the Prime, creating the Feywild and the Plane of Shadow (which later became the Shadowfell), respectively." The "Feywild" isn't particularly much of an opposite of the Plane of Shadow, but hey. |
| Azar |
Posted - 30 Jan 2022 : 02:30:35
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
I was never keen on both the Feywild and the Shadowfell; those planes of existence gave me the impression that someone at WOTC was trying to stand out and/or justify setting changes involving monsters.
I've long considered both of them to be just random, pointless changes. There's been a lot done to the setting, over the years, that seemed like they were making changes just for the sake of making changes, and not because there was any intent to add to or further develop the setting.
Wizards of the Coast - particularly in regards to The Forgotten Realms - perplexes me: they invent substitute settings while they neglect readily expandable legacy material (i.e., The Plane of Shadow and whatever plane Titania and Oberon inhabited pre-Feywild) and they perpetually neglect virtually EVERY region other than The Western Heartlands. |
| George Krashos |
Posted - 30 Jan 2022 : 02:26:03
I would be very glad to see them move on from the Realms.
-- George Krashos |
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