Quote from: Warthur;624288This is quite possible, although there's a reason people do that: under TSR, at least, the course of the Forgotten Realms setting was basically steered not by gaming products but by the novels. This obviously wasn't true of the grey box and other early material, but once the tie-in novels really began picking up steam they became the driving force. The Time of Troubles, for instance, was basically depicted through a series of novels - so far as I remember there was no campaign published in which you could play through the Time of Troubles and even if there were the novels still provided the canonical lowdown on what happened (including who got to be the new gods).

If it's clear that the designers and publishers of a setting are seeing it through a novelisation lens, then it's hard not to take it that way yourself.

Yes, I see this as well for 2e AD&D and later FR materials.  As Raven pointed out, there was a trilogy of modules set during the Time of Troubles.

Quote from: Reckall;624508I'm getting the whiff that this thread could be summed up as "The best edition of the Forgotten Realms is a case of 500 office paper sheets: 500 totally blank maps for you to fill up and nothing else: AWESOMIUM!!!!111" :rolleyes:

That's exactly the sort of people (DIY gaming enthusiasts) who are less inclined to like FR, and they may indeed be overrepresented here.

FR 1e feels like Ed Greenwood's home game notes. There's a nice sense of comprehensiveness and consistency but not a lot that galvanizes the imagination. Also too many high levels NPCs, which is not bad per se but it's a warning bell (and suggests to me that Mr. Greenwood as of 1987 didn't really grok the level system except as a measure of "how awesome this NPC should be", and he wants them all to be awesome. Low-level NPCs get to be awesome too!). It's pretty much the anti-Vornheim.

To be perfectly honest, after re-reading the gray box (for the Nth time) and reading FR1 and FR5, spurred by this thread, I must admit to myself and to the world that my fondness towards FR 1e has less to do with any intrinsic merit of the setting itself, and more with my sentimental memories of being enthralled by lush Elmore and Easley covers of 2e-era FR supplements, and later playing a bunch of PC games set in the Realms. In other words, plain old nostalgia.

I'd still run a game set in Luskan, though, with PCs dungeon-crawling through Old Illusk and/or smuggling and piracy across the Sword Coast, and getting caught in the intrigues of the Five Captains and the Host Tower of the Arcane between expeditions. Or a kingdom-building campaign in the Dales. There sure is room for cool gaming in the Realms, it's just that I don't see a lot that makes it stand out compared to, say, Greyhawk or Mystara.

Quote from: Raven;624322There was a series of three Avatar Trilogy modules. I can't speak for the quality however I expect they weren't very good.

I'd be interested in how they did it. Was a Dragonlance-type deal where you played the characters from the novels? Could you use your own characters and play through the plot of the novels (rather making subsequent products not very useful for your campaign unless you end up making all the choices the characters in the novels make)? Or are your characters just witnessing a whole bunch of shit going down whilst the official characters do their thing?

Quote from: Warthur;624528I'd be interested in how they did it. Was a Dragonlance-type deal where you played the characters from the novels? Could you use your own characters and play through the plot of the novels (rather making subsequent products not very useful for your campaign unless you end up making all the choices the characters in the novels make)? Or are your characters just witnessing a whole bunch of shit going down whilst the official characters do their thing?

The Avatar Trilogy of modules include:

• FRE1: Shadowdale
  
• FRE2: Tantras
  
• FRE3: Waterdeep
  

It is not like the DragonLance series of modules where you play characters from the novels.  You can play any characters in this series of modules.  They provide several characters from the novels as NPCs, and only require that one of the NPCs accompany the characters because the NPC is necessary for the plot and events.  The events in the modules are loosely based on the events in the novels and are not identical.  The characters do become intertwined with the events from the novels, but still have options to 'opt out' of continuing on in the Avatar series.

Quote from: Drohem;624544It is not like the DragonLance series of modules where you play characters from the novels.  You can play any characters in this series of modules.  They provide several characters from the novels as NPCs, and only require that one of the NPCs accompany the characters because the NPC is necessary for the plot and events.  The events in the modules are loosely based on the events in the novels and are not identical.  The characters do become intertwined with the events from the novels, but still have options to 'opt out' of continuing on in the Avatar series.

Huh, interesting.

I guess the key question is: when the novels and the modules conflicted, which were taken as being canon in later FR products?

Quote from: Reckall;624508I'm getting the whiff that this thread could be summed up as "The best edition of the Forgotten Realms is a case of 500 office paper sheets: 500 totally blank maps for you to fill up and nothing else: AWESOMIUM!!!!111" :rolleyes:

I don't see how that follows at all. Quite the contrary, the debate seems to be about which edition best strikes the BALANCE between an impressive plethora of material and room/space for a GM to add his own stuff to.

RPGPundit

Sure, some are looking for this balance (me among them). But just look at the poll results, match it with all the orgasmatic talk re: "1E was full of VOID for me to fill!!!!" and you get the gist.

If with 1E we actually mean "Grey Box + some key supplements", then the preference becomes more reasonable - only to be sunk anyway by all brouhaha about "the Metaplot" (AKA: the easiest think to throw out the FR for any DM worth his salt, except when it it actually useful).

Honestly, and speaking for myself, I never felt that "Info on a setting = being tied to a reclined chair and forcefully waterboarded with it". As I said, maybe that's me and others' experiences may vary. But info = ideas and choice. Void = I do better with scrap paper and an hisory book. And the Grey Box, to me, was little better than some maps packaged with vaacum.