Thinking 1e (gray box and early supplements) for setting, and 5e for system, because all the cool kids seem to be doing it.
I've always wanted to set a game in Luskan. Captains of the People vs. Arcane Brotherhood, pirates, Old Illusk and all that northern wilderness to hexcrawl through.
i dont know much about the forgotten realms but its my understanding they have an extremely well developed underdark.
I like Icewind Dale. It's got the whole rustic thing kicking for it, and the Legacy of the Crystal Shard product that came out a couple of years ago gives quite a bit of info on it that is useful outside of the adventure that came with it.
I was actually thinking about running a 5e game in the realms for my group, and was thinking of using the old grey box as well.
Well, it sounds like you already know what you want. Luskan and Icewind Dale and nearby Neverwinter. That region comes at the periphery of the Starter Set maps and thus rich with activities just a short jaunt down south. And already has a 5e compatible Legend of the Crystal Shards adventure, which Skywalker here said is very good. That is atop the Starter Set's mini-sandbox around Phandalin south of Neverwinter. Great place to start!
Were you looking for other places in FR to tempt and tease you from your already desired and solidly supported location?
Or were you looking for ideas to populate the region with other things to do?
edit: Luskan & Mirabar should be plenty of space, to be honest. The big thing is populating the vast expanse between with interesting things. That's about you making the Realms your own.
I regret I didn't get the chance to run a Neverwinter city campaign in 4e. The book was interesting and it was the first time I could see myself using Forgotten Realms.
I like the Sword Coast, just because there's so much you can do with it.
I don't know much about the Realms, but WotC recently put out a Baldur's Gate book that seems decent. It has some plot threads and a good guide to the city.
i hear thay is lovely this time of year
I did a sandbox mini campaign using Legacy of the Crystal Shard that worked great - our main ruleset was Warhammer Fantasy Battle, with PCs leading small hosts vs the White Witch's forces. The campaign setting book is (a) rulesless and (b) great; we ignored the scenario book. Or there's the 4e & 5e playtest rules stats of course.
Western Heartlands will always be my favorite, especially in the 1e era. Demons, Zhents, Candlekeep, and so much other fun stuff.
PCs are a Zhentarim cell based out of the Keep with orders to conquer Hillsfar and 1,000 gold in seed money.
Quote from: Opaopajr;822784Well, it sounds like you already know what you want. Luskan and Icewind Dale and nearby Neverwinter. That region comes at the periphery of the Starter Set maps and thus rich with activities just a short jaunt down south. And already has a 5e compatible Legend of the Crystal Shards adventure, which Skywalker here said is very good. That is atop the Starter Set's mini-sandbox around Phandalin south of Neverwinter. Great place to start!
I've been meaning to look into LotCS for a while now. Good to know it's set close enough.
And I've wanted to run a game in Luskan ever since playing the (2003) Neverwinter Nights single-player campaign and infiltrating Luskan. The whole Sword Coast region strikes a nice balance of heterogeneous, scheming city-states and untamed wilderness.
Quote from: Opaopajr;822784Were you looking for other places in FR to tempt and tease you from your already desired and solidly supported location?
But of course. :)
Quote from: finarvyn;822833I don't know much about the Realms, but WotC recently put out a Baldur's Gate book that seems decent. It has some plot threads and a good guide to the city.
Cool! I might look into it too.
Quote from: danbuter;822928Western Heartlands will always be my favorite, especially in the 1e era. Demons, Zhents, Candlekeep, and so much other fun stuff.
Cormyr does have the whole High Medieval, nearly fairy tale-ish thing going on for it.
Quote from: Old One Eye;822929PCs are a Zhentarim cell based out of the Keep with orders to conquer Hillsfar and 1,000 gold in seed money.
Intriguing, but I'm not really up for an "evil PCs" game just now.
I'm rather partial to the Dale Lands. My first D&D exper ience was actually with a second edition starter box before I went and played the older stuff. We used the second edition FR boxed set (which I still have.) If I play in the FR again, I would use that little set to run It.
The Dale Lands have small towns to rest at, lots ruins, the crag keep, Cormanwhatever forest full of elves and occasionally drow. There's plent of gobs, hobs, and gnolls to pester them with. I think it's a great fit for 5th edition too.
Quote from: The Butcher;822969Intriguing, but I'm not really up for an "evil PCs" game just now.
i have been itching to run an evil party for weeks myself.
If temptation is your thing, it's really just all too big.
Tabaxiland = unknown island supposedly filled with nothing but Tabaxi and their culture.
Anchorômé = Native North America with a mix of man-sized Ants and their own society
Maztica = Mesoamerica Aztec & Maya (& Inca at Lopago) during the discovery and conquista phase from Amn.
Amn = Fantasy Spain + Portugal ruled by mercantile guilds, now with conquistadors in Maztica.
Tethyr = Fantasy cosmopolitan confederacy Occitan + Italy with druids, elves, dwarves, halflings, pirates, knights, frontiersman, & an ancient mythal megapolis deathtrap dungeon that rivals Undermountain (Shoon).
Calimshan = fantasy human + genie extra planar culture based on a mix of Arabian Night tropes, empire conquest v. Beholders, and the biggest city on Faerûn, the 2 million people behemoth Calimport and its 52 city districts.
Chult = dinosaurs walk the earth in steamy jungles.
Unther = Babylonia found a planar gate and conquered a swath of Faerûn, bringing its gods. Cuneiform, theocracy, warring states.
Mulhorand = Egypt found a planar gate and conquered another swath of Faerûn bringing its gods. Arbitrarily still then walking 50' statues, undying theocracy oppressive to wizards.
Chessenta = Greece found a planar gate and conquered a swath of Faerûn bringing its gods. Spear and shields and sandals, arenas, boats!
Thay = Slave holding magocracy whose upper class shaves itself bald. Rebelled from Unther & Mulhorand oppression and took to necromancy.
.... this can go on all day. Kara-Tur attached continent gives Tiger-headed Opium Nightmare, to Three Kingdoms China, to two versions of Japan, to massive Tibet and Korea. Connecting Faerûn & Kara-Tur is ginormous Ta'an Mongolia, Gobi, Taklamakan, Kush section. Another whole other continent for Al-Qadim's Zakhara continent, where the gods mostly play nice in a kathenotheistic polytheism society amid Sinbad & Al-addin tales. Massive glacial North Pole "continent" Pelvuria where giants, Saami, Inuit, Aleut, and Norsemen all fight....
Are you just looking for stuff to throw at you and see what sticks? We can get into IIRC UFOs and Spelljammer ships if you like. Lantan the tech paradise. Halruaa the magi-tech paradise. Menzoberranzan the drow "capitol" city. Skullport the Waterdeep underground.
Structure helps to pare down. Also, ideas just pick a region, it's the fleshing it out that matters. What is it are you looking for besides simple inspiration?
Sword Coast because ... Baldur's Gate. Loved that game, Icewind Dale or Neverwinter not so much.
If you have any familarity with BG1, one could create a pretty decent low level hexcrawl in that area without a lot of work. Lots of lairs, dungeons, woods, badlands and eccentric quest givers.
Considering inspiration, I find the Dalelands, Cormyr, and Sword Coast the most banal of the offerings available because it has the most extant canon to parse through. That means wading through "fan-mines," where players hop on expecting X canon, while GM is trying to sell Y new content. Doable, but you have to get everyone on the same page, which may take some un-learning.
However, you get ready-made melodrama content. And plenty of that from which to choose, to boot. The challenge is knowing when to stop and make it yours. Also, when to hold back and tease out what's expected, such as the first visit to a wondrous named city (Luskan, Waterdeep, Neverwinter, etc.).
My biggest gripe with GMs using pre-fab settings like FR is the forgetting of adding their own material — or at least porting in other pre-fab into unoccupied space. There's deliberately a lot of space left blank; this is where GMs mark up their territory. This is where all those little "starter village adventures" and "beginner dungeon mines" goes in between.
Luskan can be the fabled pirate city of Tortuga goal to a whole bunch of low level adventure preparation. To have other places between the map dots to go is explicitly your responsibility. And goodness knows they've given more than enough space for you to do so. (Luskan to Mirabar is around 200+ miles. Luskan to Neverwinter is around 160+ miles. Luskan to Icewind Dale is around 140+ miles, half over rough terrain.)
Quote from: Opaopajr;823040Calimshan = fantasy human + genie extra planar culture based on a mix of Arabian Night tropes, empire conquest v. Beholders, and the biggest city on Faerûn, the 2 million people behemoth Calimport and its 52 city districts.
i think you just sold me on the realms
The area around Tantras was always my favorite.. forgetting what it was called just now..
Tantras is near Raven's Bluff in The Vast, east of Sembia across to the eastern shore of Dragon's Reach, south of Moonsea, west of Impiltur.
I'm partial to the region north of Waterdeep (centered around Silverymoon), and then the Dalelands and the Moonshae Isles.
Waterdeep!
WATERDEEP!!!
Go with big city that has cool maps.
- Ed C.
My longest campaign was set in Cormyr. My second longest was set in Sembia. Though I customized them a great deal.
Quote from: Opaopajr;823040If temptation is your thing, it's really just all too big.
Wow! Thanks for the encyclopedic rundown. Very helpful.
I have this weird nostalgic love/hate thing with FR, borne of Jeff Easley covers and SSI PC games. Generally speaking, I've found that sticking to 1e material (and thus avoiding later transplants, e.g. Mulhorand, Unther, Maztica, Kara-Tur, Zakhara) and toning down NPCs is the way to go for me.
I like the vast swathes of wilderness, the patchwork of petty kingdoms and city-states, the Lankhmaresque feel of roguish but decent adventurers helping preserve a delicate balance between good and evil that preserves the Realms a rugged but thriving (maybe even idyllic) world.
Which is why I think 5e, eschewing the name-level stronghold and domain mini-game (like every edition since AD&D 2e) should work better with FR. Greyhawk is ripe for an ambitious adventurer's claims to manifest destiny. In Toril I get the sense that experienced adventurers are less likely to found a city or a kingdom, than they are to "adopt" an existing one, either as an open ruler (Alustriel of Silverymoon, Nasher of Neverwinter, the Captains of Luskan) or as an advisor, defender or
éminence grise (Elminster) or something in between (the ever-secretive Lords of Neverwinter).
Dunno if any of this makes sense to anyone else, but that's how I see it.
Chessenta, Mulhorand, & Unther are from 1e. Yes, the transplant Greeks, Babylonians, and Egyptians are from 1e. No, it's nowhere as ridiculous as it sounds.
As for stronghold/domain game, it's there, if you want it. In fact Lands of Intrigue goes into claiming the Eastern hinterlands of Tethyr & Calimshan for one's very own starter kingdom. And they also gave Duke and Marquis stats on major Amn and Tethyr lands, along with ruling NPCs with plots and motivations, just in case.
Really, I only just got into Forgotten Realms in the past 3 years, having never read the novels, played the video games, ran the adventure modules... nothing. This has been more of a blessing than not. It's nowhere as bad as people are talking about so far as I've seen.
Granted there's a bucket of potential Mary Sues in the making. But I'd like to think any GM worth their salt knows how to not be a douche masturbating all over their players' faces at the table. Given the angst nowadays, high school with FR & Dragonlance at their prime must have been a very awkward time...
So, did you choose anything yet? What exactly do you want to do with your little slice of the realms? What are you pitching to your players?
Quote from: Opaopajr;823935Chessenta, Mulhorand, & Unther are from 1e. Yes, the transplant Greeks, Babylonians, and Egyptians are from 1e. No, it's nowhere as ridiculous as it sounds.
As we've established in a previous thread :D I'm not opposed to having cultures calqued from history, au contraire. But generally speaking I perceive the "genericness" of FR, while bland at times, does have something going on for it.
Quote from: Opaopajr;823935As for stronghold/domain game, it's there, if you want it. In fact Lands of Intrigue goes into claiming the Eastern hinterlands of Tethyr & Calimshan for one's very own starter kingdom. And they also gave Duke and Marquis stats on major Amn and Tethyr lands, along with ruling NPCs with plots and motivations, just in case.
Interesting. I might look into it. What edition is this for, again?
Quote from: Opaopajr;823935Really, I only just got into Forgotten Realms in the past 3 years, having never pread the novels, played the video games, ran the adventure modules... nothing. pThis has been more of a blessing than not. It's nowhere as bad as people are talking about so far as I've seen.
Like everything else on the Internet, there
is quite a bit of exaggeration.
Quote from: Opaopajr;823935Granted there's a bucket of potential Mary Sues in the making. But I'd like to think any GM worth their salt knows how to not be a douche masturbating all over their players' faces at the table. Given the angst nowadays, high school with FR & Dragonlance at their prime must have been a very awkward time...
Tell me about it! :eek: The high school group had a ton of FR novel/canon wank going on. The group I've had since college were huge DL nerds and still annoy me to no end (we played a recent AD&D 2e one-shot initially set in Krynn, actually).
Some people improved with age, though. Some... didn't.
Quote from: Opaopajr;823935So, did you choose anything yet? What exactly do you want to do with your little slice of the realms? What are you pitching to your players?
I'm on vacation right now and still toying with the idea. I want a game that's less Conan and more Lankhmar than my usual games, if that makes any sense, and FR in general seemed a good fit.
Quote from: Koltar;823663Waterdeep!
WATERDEEP!!!
Go with big city that has cool maps.
- Ed C.
You're really Ed Greenwood, aren't you? ;)
Lands of Intrigue are 2e. Though I believe Amn, Tethyr, & Calimshan are also in Empire of the Sands 1e.
Calimport, the capitol of Calimshan, is the largest city on Faerûn with 2 million people and something like 52 city districts. It has its own 2e supplement of its own. If you want to do Lankhmar visits Aladdin, not a bad starting point.
That said, if you want to do more Den of Thieves, Isle of Tortuga in British Isles, Scandinavia you'd be hard pressed to beat Luskan. It already has a long pirate history, built atop the lost Orc city ruins of Illusk, and established from refugees of legendary floating Netheril itself – now the blasted wastes of Anauroch. There's plenty of city maps of Luskan and nowhere the canon "fan-mines" as Waterdeep, not that that should matter as I assume you can handle your table of players.
The idea of running a game with nothing but a copy of the 1e FR boxed set, ACKS and maybe the gazeteer for the chosen adventuring area sounds pretty enticing.
I'm a fan of the 2E Realms and have a lot of material for it but even then the ridiculous proliferation of magic and superpowerful npc's bothered me. I don't even have to worry about canon wanks in the group aside from my own tendancy to overindulge.
I'm not terribly knowledgable of the FR lore, but Impiltur always seemed interesting to me, just because of the lack of other things writing about it.
Yeah, The Vast, that was it! I like that, apart from Raven's Bluff, there was relatively less information about that region than some of the more typical (cormyr, waterdeep, shires, etc). Just enough that you could build your own thing around it. Plus it seemed to have more of a Sword & Sorcery style to it.
I'd need to look, it might not have been in the original box... but I remember seeing the Great Rift and going, "oh yeah! That's it!"
I used the Dragon Coast - specifically Elversult and Westgate. Gives you access to the entirety of the Sea of Fallen Stars as well as being the trade-route to the Sword Coast if you wanna do Baldurs Gate and points further north all the way up to Icewind Dale. It's also the main trade-stop to points south. You really can't go wrong.
QuoteI used the Dragon Coast - specifically Elversult and Westgate. Gives you access to the entirety of the Sea of Fallen Stars as well as being the trade-route to the Sword Coast if you wanna do Baldurs Gate and points further north all the way up to Icewind Dale. It's also the main trade-stop to points south. You really can't go wrong.
This is a really strong option. Westgate is an evil city there are plenty of things for PC's to do there. You could run an all good or all evil group there. I could also see using it in a Sanctuary style city based campaign.
QuoteYeah, The Vast, that was it! I like that, apart from Raven's Bluff, there was relatively less information about that region than some of the more typical (cormyr, waterdeep, shires, etc). Just enough that you could build your own thing around it. Plus it seemed to have more of a Sword & Sorcery style to it.
I ran a very successful campaign there. The weakest part was Ravensbluff, but its easily ignored. Start the campaign in Maskyr's Eye or if you want a city based campaign give a long hard look at Calaunt. Also to the North are the City States of the Moonsea, to the west the Bloodstonelands, & three major cities each with its own character Calaunt/Procampur/Tantras. I think it's very S&S too.
I personally am enamored with city based campaigns so I look to Sembia. The Forgotten Realms Adventure hardback has excellent thumbnail sketches of the cities of the Western Heartland including the amazingly dark cities of the Sembian coast. Saerloon & Selgaunt with their vast populations & dark underworlds for example:
QuoteNotable Rogues' and Thieves' Guilds:
Saerloon has at least two shadowy organizations
of the lawless.
• The Night Knives are an autonomous
group having no relationship to bands active
in other cities with similar names.
They number some 40 thieves, smugglers,
and fences (T1s through T7s, with a few
low-level wizards and priests of Mask),
and have been infiltrated by both Zhentarim
and Harper agents, who occasionally
butcher each other.
• The Eyeless Mask is a more sinister organization,
dedicated to the slavery of all
mages, priests, and nobility. It kidnaps
anyone of those three groups that it can,
and slays those it cannot kidnap. Its members
do not hesitate to prey upon visitors
to the city. This organization consists of
over two dozen very secretive agents of
Thay, slavers who are after all the wealth
and magic they can grab, while at the
same time seeking to weaken the western
Inner Sea lands magically so that they will
be less able to resist a future invasion
(Thay, like Zhentil Keep and Mulmaster,
harbors dreams of eventually ruling all
Faerun). The ranks of the Eyeless Mask
include 14 Red Wizards, several thieves,
some priests(faiths unknown), and various
warriors.
Quote• Cult of the Dragon: This secretive organization
is widespread in Saerloon. Adventurers
will usually only encounter a
Cult strike force, typically 2-5 evil fighters
and 2-8 thieves (for levels, roll 2d4 for
each), led by a NE W12 to W16 (40%
chance of W(N) 12-16).