Fallout 76. I know I’m supposed to be working on some Forgotten Realms stuff, but damn it! I love me some Fallout by Bethesda and Fallout 76 has my brain on fire. So this is a quick post about the trailer, and what it’s telling us about the world 20 years after the War and the world around Vault 76 in West Virginia. If you haven’t watched the E3 presentation yet, hit this up first:
So, I’ve been banging on about the state of the Forgotten Realms for some time, culminating in the Tomb of Annihilation multi part review.[1] While talking with a friend of mine, he asked what I would do to address the issues with the campaign setting, and what approaches I would take to it that didn’t involve throwing it all out and ignoring hat it ever existed. So, after a lot more discussion, and a lot of thought on the matter, I’ve decided to embark on a new series of posts called “Fixing the Realms”. In part one, I’m going to look at the world building that went into it, and how that has left us in the position we’re in today.
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In the 1980’s, underground comics had a bit of a revolution, and one of the lead, definitely not Comics Code Authority friendly, titles was Eastman and Laird’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. A rough, gritty comic packed with death, violence, and lacking in pizza obsession, it had little resemblance to what it would become as an animated adaptation aimed at kids. This property was picked up by Palladium Books, then an up and comer in the RPG industry, and turned into the now cult TMNT and Other Strangeness RPG (TMNTOS). However, Kevin Siembieda, the head of Palladium Books, had a moment of clarity then. Realizing that licences don’t always last forever, he tasked Erick Wujcik with coming up with an in-house property to use the systems they’d developed for TMNTOS. The result was After the Bomb, a post apocalypse RPG.
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It’s not inaccurate to say that Dungeons & Dragons is both the largest and most famous fantasy roleplaying game on the planet. But those well deserved accolades don’t mean that it’s the best, or only, fantasy roleplaying experience. Speaking from experience, I know I’m not the only player or DM who’s sat down at one point or another and determined that D&D, while good at what it does, isn’t always the best fit for what you want to do or the playstyle of the group.
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It is safe to say, without much doubt, that the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons (4e D&D) is the most contentious edition of the game ever to issued by either TSR or Wizards of the Coast (WotC). It was also the shortest-lived edition since the game made the leap from the 1974 “Original D&D” to Basic and 1st Edition in 1977, lasting only four years (2008-2012) before work on its replacement started. So what happened? How did everything unfold so disastrously? This post is going to be an AAR (after action review) of 4e D&D.
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