Forgotten Realms General?

Sure, you, as the DM, essentially play the part of Ao, the overseer and babysitter of the divine toddlers that is the Faerunian pantheons.

You can elevate, include, demote as you wish.

Does that make the Avatar Crisis a timeout and the Sundering the end of a play date?

Yes. Yes, it does. This is remarkably apt.

Incorrect. Ao is subservient to a greater power, implied heavily to be the DM. Still, DMs have the right to add deities as they wish.

Personally, I never have. Part of the appeal for me with the Realms is that the pantheon is so well described and fleshed out. I have no need to add to it.

Close enough.

>Incorrect. Ao is subservient to a greater power, implied heavily to be the DM.
That's always been retarded.

Canon is canon, stupid as you may feel it is. Personally, I quite liked it. It was a minor and nice nod to DMs.

There's never been any instance of so-called "canon" that's completely fucking retarded?

And Ao shouldn't answer to anybody, because you as the DM are Ao. Otherwise, it's like saying the Lady of Pain is answerable and subservient to a great power.

It's completely unneeded and deliberately obnoxious.

i was thinking of doing a character from the dale lands who's family had been killed by a zhentarim raid. does that sound legit?

>overdone as fuck
>child of sembian spies killed by the zhentarim in the court of corrmandyr taken in by a purple dragon knight that found the child
>you start off as a fighter and will multiclass into rogue as your uncle visits the court and recognizes you for whom you are and offers to start training you as he did his younger brother. after that, you go your own way to avenge your parent's death.

What system are people playing in?

>Forever DM is massive FR fanboy
>Half the group has read at least a dozen FR novels
>All games take place in FR pre-spellplague
>Newer/less well-read members (including 2 females) sit in awkward silence as the FR nerds discuss or argue over aspects of the setting midgame

2e. The last good one.

Neverwinter Nights

Baldur's Gate II and Throne of Bhaal bro.

5e

Any good as a system? The SCAG was very meh.

Baulders Gate doesn't have roleplaying servers

My group is 15 years ongoing with a few who have played since 2e and we love it. We played 4e for a brief time before dumping it for Pathfinder until 5e came out.

To be honest, we're running 5e with 3e FR flavor. The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book from 3e is our primary source material until a lot more comes out for 5e. As far as we're concerned, the Spellplague never happened.

im playing a lathander cleric atm during the time of troubles

Are you trying to convert and/or smite everyone blatantly evil?

I'm spreading the words of Lathander by erecting a temple in his name in the town of Tilverton to house the Blade of Lathander we have left over from the curse of the azure bonds adventure.

But yes there has been quite a lot of undead smiting and my character is constantly trying to get the party rogue to step out of the shadows and into the light.

>the Spellplague never happened.
It sure didn't. And good stuff. 1e and especially 2e Realms had the best fluff and best supplements.

How are you finding the lowered power levels running in 5e?

Good stuff.

That's what Lathander would've wanted.

How is Forgotten Realms across all five editions of D&D? What are the strengths and the flaws of each?

the 100 year time jump completely fucked over FR.

or rather the fact that nothing that happened in those 100 years has been fleshed out has fucked FR over.

all the pre spellplague stuff is pretty good desu

1e and 2e had the best fluff and best supplements bar none. Lands of Intrigue, the Faiths & Avatars line, Cloak and Dagger, all of these came from this time period.

3e was alright, the supplements got more crunch heavy and stats heavy, which is alright if you want those kinds of games. They did include the mercantile monopolizing Red Wizards faction so that was pretty great and Bane got brought back from the dead, triumphantly exploding from the shell of his son's body.

4e had the Spellplague and the sundering of Abeir-Toril into Abeir and Toril. 4e Realms was good if you didn't have any investment in the setting beforehand and liked a fucked up Realms.

5e brought back a huge number of deceased deities into the pantheons again and basically retconned what happened in 4e without calling it a retcon.

I have a copy of Forgotten Realms, but I never got around to reading it, and I really love Ebberon. What are the best things about Forgotten Realms?

10/10
Would bang

What edition?

The best things about Forgotten Realms?

Sexy sado masochistic drow. "There's no safe word where you're going, pretty lady."

3.5, thinking about getting the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (so 3.5 & 5th)

had a fun campaign where our party was a genasi paladin, imaskari mage and a netherese mage. Basically it was a buddy cop/archer where we went around diffusing potential situations and taking out members of our nations who threatened the delicate peace. We were noble warriors trying to keep the cold war cold.

Access the 1e and 2e troves for the 1e and 2e supplements. Read through those instead.

I recommend Lands of Intrigue for the nations of Amn, Tethyr and Calimshan, the Faiths & Avatars line for sweet details on the Faerunian faiths (they are hands down some of the best supplements to come out of any setting), Cloak and Dagger for organizations.

FR is similar to Greyhawk in that it's high fantasy, but also bears some real world analogues and influences.
What specifically would you like to know?

What would you say is the best thing about Forgotten Realms as a campaign setting?

whats the kobold lore? Where the kobolds at?

The sheer abundance of lore and that it's all quite well written even if it gets a bit purple prose.
On the other hand, this extensive development of the setting might also be a bit off-putting to some players and DMs who might want more freedom to develop their own version of the setting. This doesn't preclude these players or DMs to build the Realms as they see fit, Ed has said so.

A potential problem might be the high-leveled NPCs that might solve every problem of the setting, but they're easily taken care of.

Dunno much about kobold lore though.

Kobolds are shit.

Gnome detected.

Humans are the shit in the FR. Elves are sorta coming back after their self imposed exile, but they were diminishing.

The dwarves also had problems with fertility but Moradin rewarded them with increased fertility, except the duergar and derro got nothing. Because Moradin is racist.

Not yet.

My next game will be using Pathfinder, with DSP's psionics and Path of War.

Were you Harpers?

>playing pathfinder
Bro.

Someone should convert the god avatar stats to PF or 5e.

You really need to read through a few supplements, my definition of best would be different to your definition of best.

I would definitely recommend tracking down the pdf supplements of the older editions. 3e and later editions really don't show you the writing quality of the Realms.

What should be purged from the Realms.

Definitely Mystra and her everything.

Why do you have to hate on Mystra?

What incarnation is she as of 5e?

From AD&D, or 3.0?

Some of them might not work of PF, because Paizo would use mythic levels.

I don't know if any avatars for Golarion have been written as enemies yet.

The same one from 4th edition, since she didn't die during the Sundering.

If the realms are so interesting, why were they forgotten?

Because some people want to forget about the:

BDSM femdom drow
CG dual-wielding ranger drow
Hippie drow
Year of the Drow
LG/NG/CG undead Elves

I've also had players forget, or never knew, that Baldur's Gate, those Salvatore books, and Neverwinter Nights take place in the Forgotten Realms.

Why did they get rid of the spell plague? Best thing to happen to the Realms.

>Otherwise, it's like saying the Lady of Pain is answerable and subservient to a great power.

Well, not answerable, just unable to overcome and trapped at the mercy of. Because she's a Darklord, of course, with Sigil being her Dread Domain. Or something close to that effect. Sigil's a weird one, I'll grant you, but there have been stranger Domains and odder Darklords.

>because you as the DM are Ao

No, I'm not. I'm the DM. Ao is just another NPC.

A lot of people hated it.

Well I guess I asked a simple question and got a simple answer.

Is there a setting that can compete with Forgotten Realms?

The problem with Spellplague is that all it did was turn Forgotten Realms into a bloodier, more boring version of Eberron.

>Because she's a Darklord, of course, with Sigil being her Dread Domain.
That's a unique theory. Haven't run into that one before. Have any supporting documentation to back up that position? Or are you just making a statement based on observation?

Nah he's just talking out of his arse.

Wasn't she murdered by Cyric though?

Ideally from AD&D and from the Faiths & Avatars series; I don't think the gods themselves would have stats but their avatars certainly might.

For Pathfinder, you could replace mythic with divine ranks, they'd work like mythic but would also attach an appreciable bonus to attacks, damage, spells, saves and whatnot.

With their avatars, the already statted demon lords and Great Old Ones might be a good starting point to work off of.

How might you go about statting them?

It didn't make enough people who did not care/ did not like FR like it, and it made too many people who did like it drop it to be profitable,I guess.

I was a fairly content FR fan before that happened. After that. I mostly washed my hands off the setting. I could ignore a book or five with BS NPCs or developments, but when you officially nuke the setting and splice it with another one just to make sure all the 4E BS can work in it? Eff that.

I could have cared for Dark Sun if I enjoyed 4E and had a decent DM for it, or for Planescape or Spelljammer if they got any support. As it is, I got into Golarion.

I think she was only half dead.

Not stable enough to maintain the Weave, but alive enough to transfer her consciousness into a bear in Elminster Must Die.

To fans of the FR, what do you like best of about the setting?

She was, then she reformed or something.

I think it made no sense. Previously, when Mystra died, magic stopped, rather than go haywire. The whole cataclysm would work a lot better if she was "poisoned" instead.

Ha, Cyric can't even get the execution of his portfolio right. What a failure of a god.

And for his failure, I think he was downgraded to only being the god of Strife.

It's depth. I know a lot of people say it is a shallow Tolkien rip off. But owning all the books I do there is just a lot to it. I exclude all major characters and keep it to the fluff for every area and nation. There are yeeears worth of content in a massive world that gives some structure and genuine feel of a breathing world to my players.

So, Bhaal got handed back the portfolio of murder and Leira got handed back the portfolio of illusions?
Is Cyric even a greater god at this point?

Mystra never even died. She was badly wounded, and shattered. Parts of her went wild, the only conscious part hid in the form of some magical bear that Elminster spent 100 years looking for.

Greater/Intermediate/Lesser isn't a distinction that 5e makes anymore.

I'm pretty sure Cyric will lose Strife to the reborn Myrkul by the next edition anyway.

Did they use murdered at any point? Or something similarly meaning? Cos I don't think Wizards understands what those words mean if nothing catasphoric happened to her.

Yes, at the start of 4e they said Cyric murdered her, and all the printed content for 4e used "murdered." But Greenwood and Salvatore retconned it.

>hating on based Cyric
What are they doing?

This. Definitely this.

You don't even need any of the named characters, just the fantastic fluff.

Because post-Spellplague FR was really badly received. And they decided to turn things back to roughly AD&D stuff, hence bringing back Bane and Bhaal and Thay being evil wizards instead of happy merchants.

>Thay happy merchants
But this was one of the best things to come out of the 3e FR.

Bane was already brought back in 3e, dude.

Yes, as if Eberron itself isnt already boring enough.

Eberron is a legitimately good setting in its own right. Also much better than FR in many ways.

I liked Spellplague FR. Am I the only one?

Yes, yes you are.

Why would you shit on the setting like that?

They definitely should've consulted Geeenwood more.

Aren't duergar evil though? Aren't they the dwarven equivalent of drow, even to the point that their skin and hair are permanently cursed to grey, to show their true nature?

Duergar aren't inherently evil, Moradin just abandoned them to the Mind Flayers because their patron god was exiled.

What's the rarest and most obscure elven race in Forgotten Realms?

They are sociopathic monsters who are incapable of loving their own family, kidnap, enslave, and torture other races, and literally celebrate whenever a female of their race is knocked up by a devil.

Mate, that's fucking evil.

Pulled from my ass, but I like the theory. It also keeps things "tight" - the Dark Powers are established as being able to block the powers of deities, so folding Sigil into that gives us the smallest number of moving parts. Of course, the Lady herself is the one who supposedly keeps the deities out of Sigil, but perhaps the answer to that is that Her Serenity is herself one of the Dark Powers, who has become a Darklord as well for some inscrutable reason.

The ultimate point simply being that I don't mind Ao having a boss.

Star Elves, perhaps?