D&D 4th Ed. Character building

[Valmy]

I bet making Baldur's Gate big and important had nothing to do with Bioware.  Funny considering they picked that city (along with Amn for the second game) for their game precisely because it was comparatively obscure.

[Oexmelin]

Forgotten Realms was always lame.

Give my Dark Sun back.

Ditto. But I prefer the original Tekumel setting, which Dark Sun shamelessly plundered.

[vinraith]

Thanks for the litany of horror, Neil. I'd no idea they'd so badly gutted my beloved Realms.

[Neil]

The thing that sucks about the realms is Ed Greenwood, or whoever, adds a new cataclysm every five years realm time that effectively makes all your adventuring meaningless.

It's a marketing thing, and has nothing to do with Greenwood, whose campaign differs significantly from the published materials.

The Time of Troubles was mandated by TSR in order to account for the changes that came in when AD&D went to the 2nd edition.  Even so, the changes were somewhat unpopular, since their main in-universe changes were the deaths of three popular adversaries, the gods Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul, and their replacement with the single new god Cyric, who was always a putz.  They also killed all the assassins, slightly altered Mystra's personality, added wild magic and dead magic, and cut out psionics (for a while).

The change to the 3rd edition really wasn't that big a deal in-universe, with the only major changes I can think of offhand being the death of Xvim/rebirth of Bane and the conquest of Unther by Mulhorand, as well as a diminuation of the coolness of the drow.  In my opinion, this was a changeover done right: a few mechanical issues were fiddled with (the ability of dwarves to cast magic being a result of the Thunder Blessing, that sort of thing), but minimal alterations to the setting.

[Neil]

I bet making Baldur's Gate big and important had nothing to do with Bioware.  Funny considering they picked that city (along with Amn for the second game) for their game precisely because it was comparatively obscure.

Well, nothing other than name recognition.  It's basically a second Waterdeep, only less orderly.

[Neil]

Meh WOTC is really devoted to raping my childhood.  I hope they drop the realms and just focus on fucking up Eberron which is already lame to begin with.

That'll never happen.  If they drop the Realms, the IP reverts to Greenwood (as per the terms of the original contract), and no company would ever allow a potential source of revenue for video games and novels to slip away.

Instead, if they aren't interested in a setting, they fuck it up into something that they are interested in.  That's what happened with the 4e Realms.  They didn't like all that backstory, but they had to keep using the setting.

[Neil]

Forgotten Realms was always lame.

Give my Dark Sun back.

I really liked the Realms.  In fact, I enjoyed all of the 'Golden Years' settings of the 2nd edition, to one degree or another.  It was fun watching them unify the settings.

[Valmy]

The change to the 3rd edition really wasn't that big a deal in-universe, with the only major changes I can think of offhand being the death of Xvim/rebirth of Bane and the conquest of Unther by Mulhorand, as well as a diminuation of the coolness of the drow.  In my opinion, this was a changeover done right: a few mechanical issues were fiddled with (the ability of dwarves to cast magic being a result of the Thunder Blessing, that sort of thing), but minimal alterations to the setting.

I agree.  I liked the slight changes for 3rd Ed and the fact they repaired alot of the damage done by the ToT lameness.

[Valmy]

I really liked the Realms.  In fact, I enjoyed all of the 'Golden Years' settings of the 2nd edition, to one degree or another.  It was fun watching them unify the settings.

I still have all my Planescape stuff.  It will always be my favorite setting since...technically...it was all the 2nd Ed settings put together.

[Neil]

I really liked the Realms.  In fact, I enjoyed all of the 'Golden Years' settings of the 2nd edition, to one degree or another.  It was fun watching them unify the settings.

I still have all my Planescape stuff.  It will always be my favorite setting since...technically...it was all the 2nd Ed settings put together.

Indeed.  Planescape and Spelljammer were the lynchpins that connected everything together.  That said, I thought that Planescape was better as a place for established characters to adventure in, and I didn't like the effects that Spelljammer had on existing game worlds.  Still, no world was perfect.

You know what I really liked?  The Taladas setting for Dragonlance.

[Valmy]

You know what I really liked?  The Taladas setting for Dragonlance.

Yeah whatever happened to that setting anyway?  Heck whatever happened to Dragonlance period it slowly faded away after 1st Ed as a D&D setting though alot of novels have been written about it.

[Oexmelin]

IIRC, the authors of the setting wanted to have a more complete control over «what happened».

[Valmy]

IIRC, the authors of the setting wanted to have a more complete control over «what happened».

IIRC that was exactly why they made Taladas so there was a place to adventure in 2nd Ed.

I guess that is what happened.  They made Taladas and it was not successful and that was that for Dragonlance as a game setting.

[Neil]

You know what I really liked?  The Taladas setting for Dragonlance.

Yeah whatever happened to that setting anyway?  Heck whatever happened to Dragonlance period it slowly faded away after 1st Ed as a D&D setting though alot of novels have been written about it.

Weis and Hickman have the gaming rights back, and were publishing d20 supplements for it.  As for Taladas, it was just one boxed set, one adventure and a brief storyline in the Dragonlance comics.  For a series as dependent upon the novels as Dragonlance, it didn't have much of a chance without significant support in the novels, which was impossible since all people were interested in reading about was Sturm, kender and Raistlin.

[Valmy]

which was impossible since all people were interested in reading about was Sturm, kender and Raistlin.

Sturm?  Didn't he die in Dragons of the Winter Night?  I mean there are a zillion DL books and that is book 2.