An Unprecedented Event

As the title says, I’m thinking of doing something I’ve never done before in my role-playing career: run a game in a published setting. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve never “turned my nose up” at campaign settings, on the contrary, I’ve kept up with pretty much every setting published since 2e…but, I’ve never ran a game in one. I always felt it was “bad form,” as Captain Hook would say, to use someone else’s world. To me it was saying that their world was better than mine and that my ideas weren’t good enough…which is bullshit, of course, but I’ve always been a bit “off.” I have used published adventures in my campaigns before, I've made quite a nice BECMI campaign based around The Keep on the Borderlands and The Isle of Dread, but I've never used a whole campaign setting. Anyway, I’m bringing this up because I’ve been reading the 4e Forgotten Realms campaign guide (mainly to see if it is as bad as everyone says it is), and it has really sparked my interest in running a Realms based game…something other campaign guides usually fail to do. Now the Forgotten Realms and I have never been “close.” I always preferred Dragonlance, Ravenloft, and Dark Sun to the Realms, but I’ve always respected it as a nice, fleshed out world. I have to admit, I like what WOTC did with 4e Forgotten Realms (I will blog more about this later), and I think it’s a nice starting place for DMs to enter into the world. Not to mention, WOTC is releasing a new NEVERWINTER campaign setting which will just add more to the Realms.

So, next chance I have to DM a 4e game, I think I will run a campaign set in the Realms!

LOUDWATER

So, I'm finally reading the 4e campaign guide to Forgotten Realms...it only took me a year or so to get around to it, and I must say, the presentation of Loudwater at the beginning of the book is excellent! It's introduced as a starting "home" for characters and is full of adventure hooks that will allow players the opportunity to explore the neighboring regions and beyond. Of course, in true 4e fashion, it starts off beginning characters in the middle of a battle. I'm more into exploring than fighting, but, nonetheless, the encounter isn't too bad.

A map of Loudwater is given with details covering every building in the town. There's also a nice list of NPCs that send players off on various adventures. The town also features a criminal gang that is operating within the town's limits...which provides a nice starting adventure for beginning characters.

All-in-all, I'm enjoying the FR campaign guide so far. I know there are many (many) people out there who dislike what the design team did to the Realms, but, honestly, I think it was about time to shed some of its years of history.

Anyway, if anything else catches my attention, I'll write a post about it.