DeMunkining Forgotten Realms

[TechnoViking]

I plan to start running a Fantasy Hero for a local gaming club. To attract new players from D&D, I'm going to use Forgotten Realms as my game world.

 

For the record, I like Forgottem Realms, but I think it has gotten to high powered/munkin over the years.

 

What suggestions do you have to de-munkin the Forgotten Realms. Here is what I have so far:

 

1. 80% less drow , and no drow player characters.

2. Eleminster should be de-powered and not common NPC.

3. No gods walking around.

 

Any other ideas?

 

Mike

[Captain Obvious]

I didn't really have a problem with the Drow except for all the pointless extra powers they had. The concept of evil underground elves was pretty cool overall. Actually building a Drow character in Hero would seem pretty difficult though, unless you were working with 200 points or more.

 

My biggest problem with the Forgotten Realms was all the pervasive magic (a problem with D&D as a whole really). Too many butchers/bakers/candlestick-makers in too many towns are 3rd level wizards with a Continual Light spell on in their workspace, or an illusion of a bag of rags over their money chest. There was nothing mysterious and dangerous about magic at all. It was just too utilitarian.

 

In short, less widespread use of magic, and less use of magic for frivolous things....

[Nolgroth]

Re: DeMunkining Forgotten Realms

 

Originally posted by Mike Basinger

...

What suggestions do you have to de-munkin the Forgotten Realms. Here is what I have so far:

 

1. 80% less drow , and no drow player characters.

2. Eleminster should be de-powered and not common NPC.

3. No gods walking around.

 

Any other ideas?

 

Mike

 

The drow came along before Forgotten Realms. It was only with the advent of Dizzt Do'Urden that playing drow really became a big thing. My big problem with the Drow (and ultimately D&D) was their seemingly race-wide natural ability to cast spells. It made them quite formidable in the right circumstances. Later editions tried to cut that down by saying that the drow powers faded as they left the Underdark. Whatever. Now, to cut my long-windedness down a little, it would be cool to "tweak" the drow and make some minor magics part of their required study as youngsters. It would allow them to learn different abilities and it would allow you (as GM) to build it into their cultural package instead of their racial one. The same thing with the two weapon fighting. It could also be built into a specialized professional archetype: Drow warrior. Just a thought.

 

Elminster wasn't ever a problem for me because I never ran him as an NPC. He was a distant and legendary figure that the PCs heard of. My problem with the Realms wasn't Elminster, per se, it was Elminster, Khelben Blackstaff and about twenty other magi with the ability to level the face of Faerun. Blech! I also think the Public ID of all these magi was a little overdone as well. I always thought that one of the staples of fantasy was the aged and powerful wizard in a remote tower. Just my opinion.

 

Gods walking around was pretty common in many mythologies (Greek and Norse to name two). The trick is to have them not play a significant role. Whenever I bothered with gods, I usually made them as information providers.

 

I agree with Captain Obvious. Magic loses a little bit of its curiosity value when every single merchant has some magical theft deterent device. The presence of powerful magic items should be rare and IMHO described thoroughly. One of the things that ultimately made me sick of D&D was the requirement of magical weapons to harm a creature and the huge number of magical items in the game to allow that to work. If I never see a Sword +1 used in a game again, it'll be too soon. Instead, make them vulnerable to certain materials. Silver and iron were both pretty common materials said to harm oogly critters. Gold was also one, though not nearly as common.

 

Cut down on the presence of high-end, world saving adventures. Most high-level D&D games could easily become Champions in Faerun. Now, if that is what you want to portray...

 

There are a lot of interesting groups in the Forgotten Realms. There are two large pirate groups, the Harpers, the Zhentarim, the Cult of the Dragon. Adjust their goals to less "lofty" or "attainable" and you have some interesting fare their. Any one of the bad guy groups can provide dozens of adventures worth of story ideas.

 

I would also choose a place to focus the campaign. I had the old module "Under Illefarn" and I based my entire campaign around Daggerford until the characters were almost 10th level. Worked very well. Other good spots are Moonshaes or the Dalelands. Large enough to explore but tight enough in consitency to keep it easy.

 

Never use the novels. One thing I can't stand is cameo appearances by Cadderly, Drizzt, or any other character from one of the novels. I totally discount the novels when using the Forgotten Realms.

 

Well, those are my highly opinionated ideas. Hope they provide some inspiration and help.

[Garlak]

Originally posted by Captain Obvious

I didn't really have a problem with the Drow except for all the pointless extra powers they had. The concept of evil underground elves was pretty cool overall. Actually building a Drow character in Hero would seem pretty difficult though, unless you were working with 200 points or more.

 

My biggest problem with the Forgotten Realms was all the pervasive magic (a problem with D&D as a whole really). Too many butchers/bakers/candlestick-makers in too many towns are 3rd level wizards with a Continual Light spell on in their workspace, or an illusion of a bag of rags over their money chest. There was nothing mysterious and dangerous about magic at all. It was just too utilitarian.

 

In short, less widespread use of magic, and less use of magic for frivolous things....

 

I completly agree.

 

If everyone as seen magic then it is no more special then a dwarf blacksmith in your town.

It becomes dull and flavorless.

 

If every player character that is heroic meets Elminster then he looks less powerful and less important.

He becomes just another NPC.

 

After a while the players will have so many magic items that they might think: Its just a +3 Longsword.

Which makes magic items trivial.

 

One thing I love about Earthdawn is that magic items have history.

That makes them unique and interesting.

Maybe you can try that for FR.

Instead of players finding a +3 Longsword they could find Lord Draco's Longsword.

Who was know as a great leader.

Maybe is sword had something to do with that.

[Tasha]

Re: DeMunkining Forgotten Realms

 

Originally posted by Mike Basinger

I plan to start running a Fantasy Hero for a local gaming club. To attract new players from D&D, I'm going to use Forgotten Realms as my game world.

 

For the record, I like Forgottem Realms, but I think it has gotten to high powered/munkin over the years.

 

What suggestions do you have to de-munkin the Forgotten Realms. Here is what I have so far:

 

1. 80% less drow , and no drow player characters.

2. Eleminster should be de-powered and not common NPC.

3. No gods walking around.

 

Any other ideas?

 

Mike

 

I currently run a Forgotten realms Game. I run it using D&D as I cannot get my group to use FH.

 

I can understand that you are sick of Drizzt clones, but it can be fun to break Stereotypes by playing heroic Dark Elves. Just tell the players that they can't have any of the special abilities besides the Darkvision. It was a part of Drow lore that they lost their powers when away from the Underdark.

 

I take the 7 Sisters and Elminster and just assume that their Attension is elsewhere. There are rumors of what they are doing, but no one ever sees them. They are like the President, you may be lucky to see him in your lifetime, but it is possible that you would never see him in person.

 

BTW the gods haven't walked Faerun in years, so there is little chance of the players feeling left out.

 

I love running the Realms they have lots of detail and humanity. Faerun does have some capacity for munchkinism, but like many games that depends mostly on the players and GM. I don't believe that it is built into the world. Remember in the books we are always seeing the view point of the PCs and their supporting characters, not the regular people.

 

Just my 2c

 

Tasha

[TechnoViking]

What do people think of the Shadow weave magic in the latest incarnation of Forgotten Realms?

 

Mike

[Steve Long]

Mike, perhaps it would make more sense to approach the problem by asking yourself two questions:

 

1. What do you want in a Fantasy gaming world -- what will make it fun for you to run?

 

2. What do the prospective players want in a Fantasy gaming world (or what do you think they'll want)?

 

Obviously if you don't like the world, it will just make running the game -- already no easy task, from my perspective -- all the harder. So you should like the world. It helps that you already like FR, but you need to like the "feel" too.

 

But of course, the players have to like things, too. It's not much fun to try to game in a world where many of the suppositions just aren't what you like in Fantasy (as I have learned the hard way from trying to drag power gamers and their ilk into some of my more "flavorful" worlds ).

 

Using the FR should help ease newcomers into FH, but if you diverge too much from what they expect when they hear the words "Forgotten Realms," you'll end up shooting yourself in the foot. Maybe if you just settle for (a) removing the "casual" use of magic by Joe Tradesman (restricting spellcasting only to intelligent, highly-trained people who've devoted much of their lives to the pursuit) and ( damp down the high power levels of the most powerful (and/or remove their ability to influence the world somehow), you'll strike the right balance between "better feel" and "familiarity."

 

Good luck!!

[tetsujin28]

Die Elminster, die.

[Herolover]

I have always thought that the Forgotten Realms was a good campaign setting, but never liked the pervasiveness of magic and high/powerful people.

 

I mean, as someone pointed out, it seems that every 3rd person has spells they can cast and every 10th person is someone so powerful that normal people don't even stand a chance.

 

Overall, IMO, to make the FR something I would want to play you would have to cut down on the power levels, but that is just MO.

 

Using a setting that everyone knows is a good idea, but if you try to change to much of the setting they won't be able to recognize it and won't like it.

 

I would reccomend you sit down with the players and tell them what you want to do and see what they think.

[badger3k]

my 2 scents

 

I'm running a Realms campaign in 3.5e now, and I also cut down on the magic and magic items. The spells are really powerful too - when I was over at the wotc discussion boards (esp the 3.5 whine board) many people had problems with unbalanced spells from the setting. Now however spells are converted (or not) is all up to you, but I'd agree with toning things down.

 

Playing a drow that's good is rapidly becoming the standard. The race is supposed to be evil, but now it seems like every other drow is secretly good! I'd keep them bad since they should be BAD.

 

(hmm - 3 cents now) - I'd also drop the spellfire. I like the idea, but it can only work in a high-powered/high-fantasy campaign. Having the inborn ability to absorb the power of spells is a little beyond most typical campaigns (at least the ones I've run/known about).

 

Other than that, I like the Realms - there's a lot of good background material out there (even free stuff for 2ed off the website). (I mainly post this because until I found 3e and did not have enough time to convert spells and items and such, I was going to run a Realms FH campaign).

 

Good luck and have fun.

[Killer Shrike]

Ive always been a Greyhawk player personally, and never liked the Realms.

 

What I dont like about it is that the focus is not on the PCs, IMO. So, that is the first thing I would change -- removal or nerfing of the uber-NPCs.

 

IMO Elminster is the all time worst example of the "DM's powermongering 'PC'" -- propagated on the entire setting by Greenwood. We've all seen GMs with an overpowered pet PC thats just better than every PC in the group and just randomly has whatever ability they need or gets whatever item that they want because the GM is on a big self-massaging power trip. Elminster is that to the nth power to me and would definitely get the Axe, along with the Symbul and really any character over 20th level. A lot of 18th-20th level characters would get an eyeballing too, and many of them would be done away with as well.

 

The Gods would keep themselves out of direct mortal affairs. We dont need Helm popping in for tea every third tuesday.

 

Drow would be thought a myth in many lands, because nobody would see one above -300 feet in elevation, and every other PC wouldnt be a puerile dual weilding Drizzle fan boy (as an aside I once wanted to play a character named Fritz Foe-warden. He was a white skinned human that wanted to be drow; he would have tried to dual wield, but he wasnt actually a Ranger and lacked proficiency. He would have died his hair white and used soot to blacken his face. He would have worn armer painted black, and weilded scimitars for no reason, not actually being from a desert culture. What Vanilla Ice was to rap, Fritz would have been to the drow. This was all an across the table "subtle" FU to another player working on his 5th consecutive lame Dritz clone. I dont think the dim wit even understood why everone else was laughing their arses off -- we got into such a fit of mocking D&D in general we ended up playing WHFRPG instead. What did the drow wannabe ask to play? Dark Elves of course )

[Yamo]

Drow would be thought a myth in many lands, because nobody would see one above -300 feet in elevation, and every other PC wouldnt be a puerile dual weilding Drizzle fan boy (as an aside I once wanted to play a character named Fritz Foe-warden. He was a white skinned human that wanted to be drow; he would have tried to dual wield, but he wasnt actually a Ranger and lacked proficiency. He would have died his hair white and used soot to blacken his face. He would have worn armer painted black, and weilded scimitars for no reason, not actually being from a desert culture. What Vanilla Ice was to rap, Fritz would have been to the drow. This was all an across the table "subtle" FU to another player working on his 5th consecutive lame Dritz clone. I dont think the dim wit even understood why everone else was laughing their arses off -- we got into such a fit of mocking D&D in general we ended up playing WHFRPG instead. What did the drow wannabe ask to play? Dark Elves of course )

 

Now that's entertainment!

 

I'll just second everyone elses' emotions here. Cut down on the magic, especially the magic items and the magic bent to mundane uses. Ditch the uber-NPCs. Discourage the worst cliches (Drizzt clones, etc). Do all that and you have a fine setting on your hands.

 

It seems like you have a pretty clear grasp of what you dislike about the setting already, so just follow your instincts about that and you can't go wrong.

[CleverName]

Re: DeMunkining Forgotten Realms

 

Originally posted by Mike Basinger

I plan to start running a Fantasy Hero for a local gaming club. To attract new players from D&D, I'm going to use Forgotten Realms as my game world.

 

For the record, I like Forgottem Realms, but I think it has gotten to high powered/munkin over the years.

 

What suggestions do you have to de-munkin the Forgotten Realms. Here is what I have so far:

 

1. 80% less drow , and no drow player characters.

2. Eleminster should be de-powered and not common NPC.

3. No gods walking around.

 

Any other ideas?

 

Actually Mike I like this list as a starting point and would argue against some of the others re: their dislike of the pervasivenss/utilitarian nature of magic in FR (and D&D). I personally do not like FR, but a LOT of folks do like it -- I'd worry about asking this leopard to change its spots.

 

Personally, I'd be wary of playing in a FH version of some other game's setting - that comes from personal experience and the fact that I don't think it plays to FH's remarkable strengths. Not my flagon of ale. BUT, FH is intrinsically more adaptable than pretty much any fantasy game system out there and can model D&D magic pretty well.

 

So, if you are trying to lure D&D players into giving FH a try, I feel like what they are likely to do is point out every place where FH fails to allow them to do what a 6th level wizard could do, rather than see all the new vistas that FH opens up for them. If you throw on top of that, that you are going to de-magic FR, well, I think , as Steve pointed out, you've given them another reason to dislke FH.

 

So, being that FH is as open as you want it be, rules-wise, and given the fact that FR is a super-duper, magic- rich world, I think you should shoot for a high-magic campaign -- bascially "outmagic"ing D&D!

 

Look at the hoops D20 has to jump through to allow Elminister the ability to wield a sword well and cast spells - he has to be a high-level, multiclassed, uber-complicated character. Not so with FH.

 

Play to FH's strengths. You can kind'a have your cake and eat it too since you can have sword-wielding mages that don't have to be demigod's power-wise.

[Uncle Shecky]

Originally posted by Garlak

...

One thing I love about Earthdawn is that magic items have history.

That makes them unique and interesting.

Maybe you can try that for FR.

Instead of players finding a +3 Longsword they could find Lord Draco's Longsword.

Who was know as a great leader.

Maybe is sword had something to do with that.

 

I never played Earthdawn, but I love the way they handle enchanted items. For example, all the abilities of an enchanted weapon can only be used by someone with knowledge of the weapon's history. For every piece of important information about the weapon (its name, who forged it, where, when, why, and what happened to it), a new power is unlocked, until the weapon's full capabilities are available to the user. If you know nothing about the weapon, it's normal or only minimally-enchanted in your hands.

 

The funny thing is, Forgotten Realms was once more like Earthdawn in that way. About 20 years ago, when Greyhawk was the official AD&D setting, Ed Greenwood wrote great articles in Dragon Magazine, using his campaign world (FR) to flesh out the details of whatever game item or mechanic was being described. He wrote an article about magic swords that described only 6 weapons, but each description included a long history of the weapons manufacture, use, and disappearance; and these stories were rich enough to serve as hooks for entire campaigns.

 

That's why FR became a published setting: everyone wanted to see this great place he was describing, with its fascinating history and treasures. Once it was published, it became watered down and generalized: too many novels, too many cooks, etc. Throw out all the tacked on crap, and FR can be a great setting.

 

IMHO, common magic (especially magic items) ruin most fantasy settings. I solved this in my games with a simple rule: all magic items (beyond healing herbs) are unique. There are no Rings of Protection +1, Wands of Frost, or Vorpal Swords; instead, one person might own M'az greb's Ring of Salvation, the Icy Talon of Shoom, or Brak's Blade. There can be multiple items in the world conveying the same kind of protection--they might even be identical in game terms--but they didn't all come off the MagiCo assembly line.

 

Magic items aren't available from street vendors and corner potion shops either: they are jealously guarded treasures that one would keep as secret as possible or sell only out of desperation. Use your magic sword in a tavern brawl, and every thief in the city will have a dagger at your throat. In this kind of setting, magic items are even more important and powerful, but they don't pollute the world. And characters must rely on their own abilities much more, saving magic for problems with no other solution. That kind of campaign isn't to everyone's liking, but it worked for us.

 

If you pursue the other option, high magic, than go whole hog. If magic is so common you can buy it at the general store, then everyone will have it and use it. It should be the technology of that world, and that will lead to constant innovation in the complexity and abilites of items. The middle ground presented in most D&D settings is the least believable and least intersting to me: too common to be special, too limited to change society.

[Storn]

I've run my Realms game off and on for 7 years. I'm on my 8 mini-campaign. I've use a variety of systems, Hero, Gurps, d20, Unisystem... but it is now Savage Worlds.

 

My campaign started on a whim, with just the map. I made all kinds of geopolitical assumptions in those first few sessions before ever getting the published material. Those assumptions worked great.

 

I decimated the population in 700 years of war and famine. The last 100 have been relatively quiet since it was a vast land and very little population.

 

Magic is coming back. It was very low ebb for awhile, but it is returning with a vengence.

 

I let the players think that the Drow existed, then only to tell them that was lies created by the Elves who exiled their fellow elves into the desert for saving the Younger Races from genocide in the Time before Time. Yup, all of humanity, dwarfdom, orcdom owe the "Drow" (now the Kholtar) their very existence. That was a very fun switcheroo.

 

I killed off Elminster, well retired him. Elminster had been around a mighty long time, he wanted to die and pass on. So he did. His son is a player character, raised in a pocket dimension of magic by Mystara. He is a bit whacked out and lacking in social graces, but has a good heart.

 

Now in my 8th campaign, war rages across the continent, magic has returned, gates pop up often. Human mages are being born in higher numbers then ever recordded. Elven forests are expanding as well as their populations. Dwarves were on the verge of extinction, but they too have had an dramatic increase in birth rates. The desert kingdoms are united under a former slave, who freed all the slaves... throwing that economy into total dissarray. Myth Drannor is being rebuilt. Mind Flayers rule the Mageocracy of Thay. Zhentil Keep has fallen to Thay.

 

yup, I love my Realms.

 

and no Drow as are portrayed by the published material...

[tiger]

I use a combo of the Western shores and FR.

 

I use Waterdeep, Ravensbluff, Myth Drannor(Only reachable by a hidden gate), Anarouch and of course Undermountain. I plan on adding in Z-Keep and a few others here and there.

 

I also use an old module called the Free City Of Haven & Moria. All these with the write of of the Western Shores in the old Fantasy Hero gives me quite a bit to work with.

[TechnoViking]

Rolling my own

 

The local gaming club votes on the games they want to play every semester. My Fantasy Hero campaign did not get enough votes, so it may be a mid-semester replacement or start next semester.

 

So I'm taking the time to make a game world true to Fantasy Hero, rather than bootstraping Fantasy Hero to a D&D world.

 

Thanks for the advice,

Mike

[CleverName]

Re: DeMunkining Forgotten Realms

 

Originally posted by Mike Basinger

Any other ideas?Mike

 

Mike I think a lot of the de-munchkinifying can be handled in-game using the rules for FH. Just tell the PCs that they are making up 150 point characters and pass out some pre-made up NPCs, of various power levels to show them the "scale" of your game. I think this will solve a lot of the "demigod" problem.

 

I would also be up-front about how many D&Disms you are going to port over and what you are leaving behind - pointing out what FH has to offer that d20 doesn't.

 

For example, you can say something like since the idea of colleges of magic is intrinsic to FR, we are going to use them. BUT in FH FR. they are social constructs, not "classes." Joining a college gives one access to higher powered spells, etc. Hard-core D&D players will have to get the fact that some of D&D's class/race based prohibitions aren't going to be there. For instance, you may not choose to implement the concept of specialty mages -- since that's really a d20 game "balance" mechanic. There are no silly XP penalites for race - powerful races just cost more points in FH.

[Ace of Spades]

Start Small

 

Everyone has different styles of planning and running games and many of them are great. Here is my own for what it is worth.

 

I've always been more comfortable in using the general history of a campaign whether it is the Forgotten Realms setting or Ravenloft or the L5R background information as just large scale background information.

 

Sure that is what has happened or may be happening in the great grande scale of world events but it has pretty much zero to do with the day to day lives of the little guy with the dagger in his boot and his wizard buddy scraping up a living in some village beset with local bandits.

 

To often game masters, in my view, make the same mistake that film directors make. They mistake the big save the world, flash special effects, uber characters doing uber things story with a -good- story. How many times have we all been to fantasy or science fiction or adventure films where the uber unstoppable hero with the flashy special effects was in all honesty rather dull.

 

In fact I've often found my stories to be MUCh more enjoyable and successful when the characters while heroic and involved in important local events are not particularly uber in themselves.

 

If you write interesting settings, interesting character backgrounds and interactions and a fun / exciting story it really doesn't matter one bit how over the top the background campaign is.

 

Reworking someone elses material, rolling Obi Wan Kenobi into a star wars game or pulling the uber samurai in the L5R books into the evenings table top L5R game really seems to be the approach of a less experienced storyteller in my view. I am always much more interested in the story when it seems original. A little harder to do? Sure. But much more rewarding.

 

ANyway that's all i have to spin. Good luck on your game. Sounds like fun!

 

Ace

[bjbrown]

I wouldn't start with Forgotten Realms and then decide what I wanted to modify. I would start with my own world, and then borrow from Forgotten Realms (and whatever other sources) as needed. It's a change in perspective- I think it's harder to fix what you don't like about one setting than to pull what you like from it.

My own current Fantasy Hero campaign is an original world to the extent that I devised the map for it and wrote some of the history for it. However, when I need distinctive culture for elves or dwarves, I don't write that myself- I use that material from the Complete Book of _____. Several organizations in my campaign are borrowed from the old Greyhawk setting and merely given different names. Many of the spells in AD&D have counterparts in my Fantasy Hero campaign (to the extent that active points allow). Whenever I need some sort of material that I don't want to take the time to write, I have an AD&D supplement to fill in the material.

Though I haven't actually played AD&D in a long time now, I can't imagine that players' reluctance to try a system other than AD&D would be based to attachment to a particular world setting. I would think it's fear of a new rule system. (The new lite version of the Hero System rules in the works should be helpful with recruiting players who play other systems.)