Hello

[T'risstree Helviiryn]

WotC = Wizards of the Coast.

They are the company that bought out TSR back in 1997.

TSR was the company founded by Mr Gary Gygax, the man who essentially created Dungeons and Dragons back in the early 1970's.

WotC created the card game Magic which is still quite popular.

They took over TSR and their franchises and set about remaking them into a new game and produced D&D 3rd edition. It proved quite popular and a couple of years later, some say in a purely money grabbing excersise, they brought out D&D 3.5. In all, 3.5 is a better game. In the middle of the decade or so? WotC was bought out by HASBRO, the huge toy corporation.

anyway, around 2008 WotC wanted to remake D&D again with 4E or 4th edition. They used their line of Forgotten Realms novels like R A Salvatore's drizzt books, specifically The Orc King, to foreshadow the dramatic changes that they were planning. In the Lady Penitent series, they really did a number on one of their more popular figures in the Forgotten realms pantheion. That being Eilistraee who they had killed off because in their new world, there was no room for good drow fighting against Lloth. They wanted to make D&D like World of Warcraft, simple, black & white and easy to play. as tal said, this pissed off a whole heap of folks and fans of the game and although 4E has sold well, WotC really screwed the pooch and alienated a whole bunch of people unnecessarily too I might add with the direction they choose to go.

It's been speculated that they might bring back Eilistraee in the future? Its possible as Ed Greenwood has always stated that nothing dies forever in FR, dead gods can come back.
Meh...I would like it if they did but I'm never going to buy their products again. 4E is not a game I want to play. My friends who I still game with when time and RL permit are happy to network play NWN and 3.5 D&D. That's good enough for us.

[T'riss'ae_d'wylthen]

Aaah ok thanks for the incite . Now that I've been informed...yeah now I think I'm a bit peeved at that too... Coming from the view of someone who's just getting into D&D.

[Talwyn Aureliano]

The thing to remember is WotC is first & foremost a business and they need to make money in order to stay open.

Saying that, they still could have brought out 4E, called it D&D lite instead, as that is what it is, not gone ahead with their stupid realms nuking program and they'd have still made money.

I've worked in both the private & public sectors and have friends who are high powered business people involved in marketing, coroprate finance etc, and even they looked at what WotC did and scratched their heads

It is not a good business strategy to upset your loyal custmor base. It's as simple as that really. sure they've made money on 4E and they made all the changes because they wanted to get away from the established canon that was Forgotten Realms. But by doing so, they forced people to make a choice. That choice was you either come along and pay large amounts of cash for a new and ultimetaly poorer role playing system or tell them to go and f*ck 'em selves. No one likes being forced into anything and thats exactly what they did. Its amazing really that those who made those decisions back in 2007/8 still have their jobs. Yes the numbers are good but if I was a HASBRO exec, I'd look at what they had done and would have fired the lot of them for pissing off a sizable portion of their customer base. Most serious D&D players have left WotC and have moved over to a company named PAIZO and their Pathfinder roleplaying d20 system. Utterly brilliant marketing strategy eh? Drive off your customers to the competition. I still can't believe it even though its now 3 years gone since it all went down.

My hope is that the current band of idiots in charge of WotC get fired soon. The sad thing is though that this is unlikely to happen and Ed Greenwoods wonderfully realised fantasy campaign setting called Forgotten Realms, will lurch on in its butchered format. And for us here, those that love the idea of a beautiful Drow female goodess who wanted to redeem her people from the darkness, will have to keep alive her name and cult despite what those who control the copywrite and Intellectual Property have done.

[Kiaransalyn]

Hi Talwyn,

Thanks for your comments. I want to reply to them a little, hopefully to clarify.

[quote="Talwyn Aureliano":43upgekn]I gather that since you are not going with a canonial setting, it's a wholey new realm and not FR? [/quote:43upgekn]

The setting I have in mind is a demiplane, formed by characters whose home plane is Faerun. The PCs will arrive from Faerun, there may even be portals back to Faerun. So the setting isn't a new realm, it's based strongly on FR. The background of the PCs and the NPCs is FR.

My reasons for doing this are as follows:
Back in the day, I ran a number of games on a NWN server and on bulletin boards. When the game has a strong canon-derived/influenced setting disputes can arise when canon NPCs act counter to the expectations of some. Also when new players join, if they use the canon setting as their start-point they may not realise that the game's setting has changed somewhat.

For example, in a game set in Menzoberranzan new players would always assume that House Baenre is the ruling house.

The other reason is that the game will say, "Take what you know, and build something you want to see happen."

[quote="Talwyn Aureliano":43upgekn]I am also curious as to what happened to your old forums? Did it fall apart? shut down due to lack of interest/participation? [/quote:43upgekn]

It is, as you might have expected, a long story. There were a number of factors that cause Menzoberranzan to fall apart. One was a number of the team members doing the bulk of the work. One of those team members was me (I used to joke about wishing I could be paid to be a full-time DM). About five years ago I left the forums because my new job meant I had to move countries. That was one factor. Another factor was getting the forums hacked and they never seemed to recover after that. If your forum goes away then the community loses its heart. There are other factors too.

My advice, based on that experience is, protect your forums, make sure they have minimal down-time. Respect your moderators, chances are they are working full-time and doing this for a hobby. And finally, if you can do something yourself, do so.

[Kiaransalyn]

[quote="Talwyn Aureliano":37eqsdxk] one of the biggest shocks to D&D was WotC's nuking of FR with its spellplague and fastfwd time jump. This stunned people/fans etc and removed them from what they knew and were comfortable with to an alien and unfamiliar setting. But I digress..[/quote:37eqsdxk]

I sorry I reminded you of Wizards of the Cost and $Ed.

I've read your subsequent posts, and I agree with all that you said. I spent a number of years on the Candlekeep forums, but in the end I had to find something that suited me more. Candlekeep's a lovely forum, but the attitude to $ Ed was to deal with it even if you don't like it. The forum had a nice chance to really show how much they disliked the changes but no real action was ever taken. And there was a lot of upset people. A good proportion moved to the Paizo forums. However, the Pathfinder setting has never appealed to me.

There could have been any number of strategies that WotC could have done. I'm sure everyone's discussed them already. Basically, they ripped anything up and started again.

[Talwyn Aureliano]

I hear what your saying friend Kiaransalyn.

Candlekeep tries to walk a delicate line between those that loath all that happened in $Ed and those who embrace the new system. It's got to the point where its just not worth speaking your mind or being honest as all it does is provoke a flame war between the true believers and the appologists for $Ed.

I pop in from time to time as there are useful tidbits of lore that come out and still some rlevent discussions going on but on the whole, I stopped paying any interest after the $Ed fiasco.


Oh, I didn't mean to say you reminded me of $Ed with your RP idea/campiagn setting. I was wanting to clarify where you were coming from so to speak in regards to the setting. Heh...it's funny really in that the $Ed changes have cut so deeply in the minds of the true believers that any new milieu is regarded critically

I hear you on moving over to PAIZO as well. While I like what they are doing, it's not where I want to play. I liked FR and still do. It is the best fantasy world so far and it has so much to offer still. Ed Greenwood, the poor bastard, got royally shafted by WotC with $Ed. He had to watch them rape his creations until they were no longer his at all. He can't let go becuase he still gets some royalty cheques from them even though the amounts are pathetically small. I genuinely feel sorry for the guy but at the same time know that its his own fault in a way as he didn't get a decent contract when he signed FR over to TSR back in the 80's. Too much the eager fanboi and far too willing and naive with his creation when he essentially gave it away for next to nothing. Sad but true.

But most of all, which I think Ed feels deeply but isn't allowed to say anything publically, is the death of Eilistraee. She was his special creation for his dear female friend. Her, and along with Torm, Lloth, Mystra and a few other other FR's dieties, are the most credible and popular with the fans. WotC got rid of her because she didn't fit into their black&white play-by-the-numbers $ed game and universe. I often ask if they really knew what they were doing when they directed Lisa smedman to kill off Eilistraee in the final book? <sigh>

Anyway, enough of the dirges of the past.

So you used to host a NWN server eh? Shir'le was thinking of having one along the lines of here.

I agree that things can get tricky with players when it comes to matters of canon and they'll always be people who will find obscure references that contradict what the DM's of the server are doing with their campaign.

Oh, btw, I don't think this forum is in any danger of falling over just yet. The numbers are down but there are a few die hard misfits, like me , who keep the place alive and it's a nice peaceful sorta place that doesn't attract the uber griefers and troublemakers.

Personally I'd like to see a NWN persistant world server up and running based on FR and focusing on the Chosen. I think it'd have to be set away from major canon sites like skullport, perhaps one of the smaller shrines or temples? It'd have to be password protected to screen out the griefers and idiots that just log in and cause trouble too. There are still a few PW servers out there that are based on Drow but I haven't played NWN for ages and would only do so if I knew who I was playing with.

I'd also not want to have to start at Lv1 and grind my way up as I'm not interesting in constant powergaming questing for phatlewt 'n levels.

My ideal would be for players to pick their levels in their application to join. The range would be between 5 and 12 as that's a good enough range for PC's to do a lot of things but not be uber powerful. Of course you'd need a exp filter for the higher levels which would slow them right down and allow the lower ones to catch up.

I'd have a few NPC shops and a temple for supplies and then two realms: the surface and the Underdark for the characters to go out and adventure in. Probably have some simple AI quests that players can engage in if there isn't any DM action going on plus scripted wandering monsters for each map. The main purpose though would be to role play and yeah, occasionally go and bash something too If there were enough players then you could have PvP action but I'm always really wary of that as I've been both giver and reciever of PvP joy and most of the time it never really is that much fun for all involved unless you like kniving people in game

Anyway,I look forward to what you've got planned.

[Ra'Sona Races-The-Wind]

Well, it's always brilliant to have someone else on the boards! I'm afraid this is pretty much my first dedicated RP forum and I don't know anything about 'open house' events but I'm always keen to join these sandbox-type RPs and am definitely interested in that.

Welcome, and roll to oppose grapple because it's a glorious day and I'm initiating hugs.

[Kiaransalyn]

[quote="Talwyn Aureliano":14til5nm]Candlekeep tries to walk a delicate line between those that loath all that happened in $Ed and those who embrace the new system. It's got to the point where its just not worth speaking your mind or being honest as all it does is provoke a flame war between the true believers and the appologists for $Ed. [/quote:14til5nm]

The problem is that by staying on the fence the forum pleases no-one. Certainly, after $ Ed appeared there was a lot of scribes at Candlekeep who were very displeased (to put it mildly). A good number have left. 3rd Ed FR was a vibrant setting, and it was interesting to note that the changeover between 2nd Ed and 3rd Ed caused less acrimony than the changeover between 3.5 and $th Ed. To me, WotC showed their true colours with V3.5. Instead of issuing one book illustrating the rule changes, they reissued all three core books. Now with $th Ed the number of core rulebooks has increased.

[quote="Talwyn Aureliano":14til5nm] I liked FR and still do. It is the best fantasy world so far and it has so much to offer still. Ed Greenwood, the poor bastard, got royally shafted by WotC with $Ed. He had to watch them rape his creations until they were no longer his at all. He can't let go becuase he still gets some royalty cheques from them even though the amounts are pathetically small. I genuinely feel sorry for the guy but at the same time know that its his own fault in a way as he didn't get a decent contract when he signed FR over to TSR back in the 80's. Too much the eager fanboi and far too willing and naive with his creation when he essentially gave it away for next to nothing. Sad but true. [/quote:14til5nm]

I don't know Ed personally, so I can't comment on his feelings. It may be as an author, writer or creator he can detach himself from his creation. Certainly if you're writing or creating as a livelihood, you have to let other people get involved.

That said, I have heard other people say he's not happy. But I've also heard others say he's supportive of the changes.

For me, the big problem with the changes was the fact that you either adapted or faded away. I was faced with wholesale changes to something that I enjoyed, and I had to decide do I go along with those changes or stop where I am.

People have often said that I could always cherry-pick, taking what I want for my home-setting. But my home setting has nothing to do at all with FR. I enjoyed FR for what it was, a richly detailed setting. It was as enjoyable as Arcanis, Ptolus and Kalamar. Now it isn't.

[quote="Talwyn Aureliano":14til5nm]But most of all, which I think Ed feels deeply but isn't allowed to say anything publically, is the death of Eilistraee. She was his special creation for his dear female friend. Her, and along with Torm, Lloth, Mystra and a few other other FR's dieties, are the most credible and popular with the fans. WotC got rid of her because she didn't fit into their black&white play-by-the-numbers $ed game and universe. I often ask if they really knew what they were doing when they directed Lisa smedman to kill off Eilistraee in the final book? <sigh>[/quote:14til5nm]

The Lady Penitent (LP) series was just awful. As were the final few books of the War of the Spider Queen (WotSQ). The WotSQ series took six books to end at an unchanged situation. The first few were exciting but they ended as a damp squib.

However, I particularly disliked the LP books. In fact, I gave up reading them. I bought the first then heard about the second. I also read the free excerpt and what I saw were drow goddesses acting and speaking like Valley Girls. It was if Clueless was crossed with Lolth and Kiaransalee.

The problem is when deities can be killed. To my mind this should be impossible. They have so many ways of seeing the future, so many servants and so many unique powers. They can teleport without error, they do not need to breathe and have incredible elemental resistances. The death of Selvetarm in the first book was just dumb. Selvetarm could have teleported immediately, and broken the grapple. Failing that he could have teleported into the heart of a volcano or an equally hostile environment. And as a deity, he has the capability to form that plan in such a situation.

All deities are a lot more subtle than the books portray them. Their abilities alone (eg Intelligence, Wisdom) suggest this.

I've always thought that the drow would be better served if the Dark Seldarine were House Drow/Quellar Illythiiri, with Lolth as the Matron Mother, Vhaeraun as First Boy/House Rogue, Selvetarm as House Fighter, Eilistraee as First Daughter/House Priestess and Kiaransalee as House Wizard. Given drow culture, their pantheon should be a 'tight pantheon' to my thinking. That would make their opposition to the Light Seldarine stronger and make for interesting stories and games. (There's a nice parallel to the Seelie and Unseelie Courts too.)

[quote="Talwyn Aureliano":14til5nm]Oh, btw, I don't think this forum is in any danger of falling over just yet.[/quote:14til5nm]

That's nice to know. I'd like to be a member of a forum where I can enjoy good debate and have some writing practice via the roleplaying.

[Talwyn Aureliano]

[quote:bnkrquhd]I've always thought that the drow would be better served if the Dark Seldarine were House Drow/Quellar Illythiiri, with Lolth as the Matron Mother, Vhaeraun as First Boy/House Rogue, Selvetarm as House Fighter, Eilistraee as First Daughter/House Priestess and Kiaransalee as House Wizard. Given drow culture, their pantheon should be a 'tight pantheon' to my thinking. That would make their opposition to the Light Seldarine stronger and make for interesting stories and games. (There's a nice parallel to the Seelie and Unseelie Courts too.) [/quote:bnkrquhd]

Now that is a much more intelligent and well thought out concept that WotC could of embraced. Just think of it, its easy to kill your enemy but far more delicious and mind shattering to bend them to your way of thinking! Just imagine what the ending would have been like at the end of the LP series if Lloth hadn't killed her daughter but instead turned her to the dark side
Man that would have been a real plot twist!

Yep, I really dig your idea of the drow pantheon being in complete opposition to the Light seldarine. It makes total sense!
Why didn't those idiots at WotC think of it?
It woulkd have been a much more believable outcome and would have sloted in with their notion of "all drow are evil".

[Kiaransalyn]

[quote="Talwyn Aureliano":3v0n83l3]Now that is a much more intelligent and well thought out concept that WotC could of embraced. Just think of it, its easy to kill your enemy but far more delicious and mind shattering to bend them to your way of thinking! Just imagine what the ending would have been like at the end of the LP series if Lloth hadn't killed her daughter but instead turned her to the dark side
Man that would have been a real plot twist! [/quote:3v0n83l3]

The nice thing is that Eilistraee might not even have to have changed her alignment either. Just how many drow daughters work against their mothers within the confines of their House anyway?

[quote="Talwyn Aureliano":3v0n83l3]Yep, I really dig your idea of the drow pantheon being in complete opposition to the Light seldarine. It makes total sense![/quote:3v0n83l3]

Thanks!

[Talwyn Aureliano]

Didn't Eilistraee shift her AL when she absorbed Vhaerun after knocking him off?

I had heard, and I may be wrong, that she moved from Neutral Good to True Neutral?

I think that if we followed you idea of a united Drow Pantheon, then I don't think have having a good aligned goddess within it would work. It would if she was TN and did work to undermine her mothers schemes constantly.

The other failure of the outcome of the LP series is that [and I haven't seen any evidence but there may be some] Correlon and the rest of the Seldarine have done SFA after Eilistraee was killed. In fact, even before she was killed, there is bugger all evidence to show that Correlon was actively trying to thwart is insane wife's schemes and redeem her people. As far as I'm aware, he kicks them out after Lloth goes nuts and evil and then ignores the whole mess. He did bugger all to aid his daughter and only stepped in AFTER she gets executed to stop Lloth absorbing her realm. In my book, that's just plain pathetic. It's also really poor characterization and inconsistent story telling. Correlon knows his daughter is one of the good guys and so do the rest of the Seldarine but what support do they actually give her aprt from a pat on the back and a "you go girl!" Utterly ridiculous.
No doubt theres some bullshit answer which equates to him not being able to intervine becuase of blah blah blah.... This is another weak construct as he's supposed to be the Uber Elf god and thus is only bond by Ao and therefoire should be allowed to act, even subtly, when dealing with Lloth and aiding his little drow girl.

Hmm...I might take this topic over to CK and see what comes out.

[Kiaransalyn]

[quote="Talwyn Aureliano":3qygfqiu]Didn't Eilistraee shift her AL when she absorbed Vhaerun after knocking him off?

I had heard, and I may be wrong, that she moved from Neutral Good to True Neutral?

I think that if we followed you idea of a united Drow Pantheon, then I don't think have having a good aligned goddess within it would work. It would if she was TN and did work to undermine her mothers schemes constantly. [/quote:3qygfqiu]

Just taking a step to the side before returning to your points.
I've never really taken to alignment. My own take on it is that some entities have it, particularly outsiders like devils, demons and archons for example. A small number of mortals have them, eg saintly clerics and archdruids. However, the majority of mortals don't. The Players Handbook says that alignment shouldn't be a straitjacket, yet I've seen too many arguments over alignment (and please don't mention Planescape). Alignment also leads to illogical consequences, e.g. why do a large number of drow NPCs have Protection against Good? Surely, in a setting where everyone is evil, a spell that boosts your protection against all (Shield of Faith) would be better. Why defend yourself against the small chance that a good-aligned adventurer might attack you when you're a drow living in a drow city?

I like the step Arcanis has taken with alignment, which is that the gods do not have alignment, they are above it.

I don't think alignment should be done away with, but it shouldn't take the form of a force that can be blocked with most characters. I hope I haven't opened up another can of alignment worms now.

To return to the drow pantheon. I would see a drow pantheon as chaotic neutral. One or two members of that pantheon could be evil or good. The uniting principle would be chaos though.

I don't know what happened when Eilistraee absorbed Vhaeraun. In my book it never happened and the two are still there.

[quote="Talwyn Aureliano":3qygfqiu]The other failure of the outcome of the LP series is that [and I haven't seen any evidence but there may be some] Correlon and the rest of the Seldarine have done SFA after Eilistraee was killed. Hmm...I might take this topic over to CK and see what comes out.[/quote:3qygfqiu]

That's a good point about why Correllon did nothing. Similarly, why didn't Shevarash get involved?

From my point of view this illustrates the problem of writing extensively about deities in novels. They act like mortals and have mortal frailties, even if that isn't the intention. Deities should inspire characters to act.

[Talwyn Aureliano]

[quote:mtsi3syc]I've never really taken to alignment[/quote:mtsi3syc]

excuse me for a minute

[runs off to get the choir]

[youtube:mtsi3syc]z-Rp-gRBl9c[/youtube:mtsi3syc]

I Absolutely Agree!

Alignment was always meant to be a guideline and never set in stone tablets.

Yes there are couple of classes that must adhere to a strict moral/ethical stance like paladins and druids and of course Chaotic Evil is pretty must as bad as you can get but everything else was suggestions.

It's really refreshing to have intelligent discusions about D&D you know?

'scuse me...I've got something in my eye

[Kiaransalyn]

[quote="Talwyn Aureliano":117wnmzy]Alignment was always meant to be a guideline and never set in stone tablets.

Yes there are couple of classes that must adhere to a strict moral/ethical stance like paladins and druids and of course Chaotic Evil is pretty must as bad as you can get but everything else was suggestions. [/quote:117wnmzy]


It's worth mentioning that chaotic evil needn't equate to chaotic stupid.

In my mind, evil can equate with selfishness and meanness, whereas good equates to altruism and consideration. Law can equate to a structured, methodical approach and Chaos to the Spur of the Moment, or a dislike of authority. All nine of the alignments can be seen to have within them a rich complexity.

I've often thought of Capitalism as being Chaotic Evil. There's no planning to it, Communism was/is described as a planned economy. Good business ideas emerge along with bad business ideas, all depending on the individual - so it's a chaotic system.

Capitalism is also based on the acquisition of wealth. 'Greed is good' to quote Gordon Gecko. And the best way to acquire wealth is to have a large profit margin. And if someone is making a profit, someone else is making a loss. So it can be seen as an evil system, because ultimately it's about the accumulation of wealth.

With a bit more time, I could probably construct a better argument. I'm sure others could construct good counter arguments. The point is just to say that the main economical system of the western world can be seen as chaotic evil, and yet most of us wouldn't say we live in a CE society nor that we are CE. (Hmm, [i:117wnmzy]Protection against Banks[/i:117wnmzy] would have been a good spell to have a few years ago.)

All of which is meant to illustrate the point that alignment should be taken as a very rough guide. After all if CE was exactly as described by many then they would die out from murder, infanticide and general savagery.

[quote="Talwyn Aureliano":117wnmzy] It's really refreshing to have intelligent discusions about D&D you know? [/quote:117wnmzy]

Thank you. I'm also happy to discuss drow breast size too though.

[T'riss'ae_d'wylthen]

@.@ *ish getting dizzy from massive D&D discussions...*