Before you read… yes, this is a rant. 🙂
The Forgotten Realms has been the only published setting I’ve ever played in… if I wasn’t playing in the Realms, I was playing in someone’s home brewed campaign setting… I have fond memories of pulling out the poster map in the old grey box and plotting a few days worth of travel… I was given the 3rd Ed. Realms book as a gift and enjoyed reading it if just for the background fluff, and to see where everyone was, although I didn’t really play much 3rd. Ed. Realms…
I recently browsed a friend’s 4th Ed. Realms stuff, and two things stuck out:
1. Charging us for 2 books worth of 1 books content is sneaky. Bad, bad Wizard’s.
2. Can’t the 4th Edition ruleset function outside the “points-of-light” setting? Of course it can.
What is the point of trying to make the setting fit the implied one in the DMG? Doesn’t that kill originality? Seriously, what is the point of that? Is every published setting going to be retconned to a “point-of-light”?
I find it silly. DMG Implied is DMG implied, Realms is Realms, and Dragonlance is Dragonlance. They don’t need to match.
What do you think?
www. Newbie DM .com 
Jeff Greiner
November 15, 2008
Well, I’ve read, reviewed, and DMed a campaign in the 4e Realms at this point, using the books provided and I can have come to these conclusions…
1. Splitting things into two books is actually a very good idea. Putting them into one book would have driven the price to at least $50 or $60. Right now you very much only need to buy the players book if you are a player, and the campaign book if you are a DM. There is absolutely no NEED to buy both, so for most people it’s actually a savings.
2. I both agree and disagree with you on the points of light idea being forced onto the Realms. Are some of the changes to the Realms making it MORE points of light-ish? I think you can safely make that argument. But as Ed Greenwood himself told me in an interview I had with him, the Realms has always been a points of light setting, we just didn’t have that terminology to apply to it.
3. My final assessment of the two books is that what is there is actually quite good and makes for a really fun setting to play in that feels distinctly like the Realms. However, there is a lot that is not there at all. In the Players Guide this is an outright failing. In the Campaign Guide this would be quite forgivable if there were more books coming out in the near future…but the current WotC plan is to NOT produce more books. So the biggest failing of the new Realms is what they aren’t doing…not in what they did do.
newbiedm
November 15, 2008
Jeff, how were the old Realms “point of light-ish” in your opinion?
I know you didn’t say that, but do you agree?
davethegame
November 15, 2008
I have to chime in and say I agree with Jeff on #1 by far. DMs buy the DM book, Player’s buy the Player book, and that’s really all you need. And since that’s it, I don’t have to deal with “Dragon Ninjas of Faerun” sucking up more money.
Wyatt
November 15, 2008
Ditto on the above. The division between the books was a good idea. I never liked the realms, but the Campaign Guide helped me feel more involved with them, just because it shook up the history of the world so that I didn’t need to ingest all the stuff from the novels and such. It felt like a new world for me – and that I can enjoy. But that’s more a result of the reboot than anything. The books could have gone a bit more in-depth, I suppose.
newbiedm
November 15, 2008
@all – I get you with the books, although I like as much in one volume as possible… But my main issue is still the need to create a “points of light” feel to the Realms, just because the implied seting in the DMG is like that.
I don’t see the need, as the ruleset can be applied to any setting. One thing has nothing to do with the other.
Does anyone know if Eberron is going to be “Points of Lightisized?”
M Harnish
November 16, 2008
From what I’ve seen so far, I get the impression that WotC is homogenizing all of the campaign settings in order to make them fit the PHB mold: Instead of each setting containing unique races (e.g., Eberron’s warforged), it looks like every setting is going to suddenly find itself populated with the exact same races. For example, there really isn’t any reason why the FR couldn’t have left out dragonborn to stay closer to the original FR. I shudder to think what Eberron is going to look like after the homogenization process is done.
Jeff Greiner
November 16, 2008
@newbiedm The old Realms was often very points-of-light prior to the 4e time jump (or so the argument goes) in that you still have large points of civilization surrounded by large portions of untamed wilderness. Some parts of the Realms exemplified this more than others, and I would probably argue that that is still true in 4e.
Cormyr is very much NOT points-of-light in the 4e Realms (although you could say that Cormyr itself is a point of light and it is surrounded by hostile environments and I think that would be accurate), the Silver Marches always did have sort of this odd combination of being described as a frontier collection of loosely tied civilizations while facing the paradox of Silverymoon being a hub of trade and learning (that’s as much true in 4e as before). The Moonsea has always been VERY points of light.
Some of the points of light in the 4e Realms are dimmer, some are brighter, and some are about the same. But it does seem to me, upon closer examination (and believe me, I was crazy-mad when I first saw the new Realms and also argued that they were forcing points of light into the old setting) I do have to agree with Greenwood’s statement that the old Realms had plenty of points of light to it. And I would go further that the Realms old and new are both complex enough that you can run a very points of light style game in some areas but have a very different sort of story in a different part of the world.
That’s what I love about the complexity of the Realms. It provides chances to tell the stories you want to tell and then see how all those sorts of stories impact each other.
If anyone wanted to hear that interview I had with Greenwood where the subject came up you can find it here: http://thetome.podbean.com/2008/09/12/the-tome-ep-82-ed-greenwood-origins-08/