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Sill Alias
Senior Scribe
Kazakhstan
588 Posts |
 Posted - 04 May 2010 : 06:56:08
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Poll Question:
I was wondering about how many people are influenced by many things in this life to enter the Realms. I met the Forgotten Realms through the game Baldur's Gate 2. And what about you? If it is too embarrassing, you may just leave anonymous vote.
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You can hear many tales from many mouths. The most difficult is to know which of them are not lies. - Sill Alias
"May your harp be unstrung, your dreams die and all your songs be unsung." - curse of the harper, The Code of the Harpers 2 ed.
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Jelennet
Learned Scribe
Russia
131 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 07:17:24
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| I played BG 1 and 2. And they were wonderful! They are still my favorite games. Later I found a novel about Drizzt an bought it, because he was in the game. Now I am a Forgotten Realms fan. |
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Sill Alias
Senior Scribe
Kazakhstan
588 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 07:27:15
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| I first played the BG2, but stopped on the prologue. Then read the Dark Elf. Then I heard of his appearance in the game. But mostly it was because I shattered to bits the language barrier. The system of the Realms amazed me with complexity and simplicity at the same time. Now I love this world. |
You can hear many tales from many mouths. The most difficult is to know which of them are not lies. - Sill Alias
"May your harp be unstrung, your dreams die and all your songs be unsung." - curse of the harper, The Code of the Harpers 2 ed.
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Jakk
Great Reader
Canada
2165 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 07:29:43
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I bought the "Original Grey Box" Forgotten Realms campaign setting when it was first released back in 1987, and it still rates as one of my ten favourite Realms products ever released; it's probably even still in the top five. I've done all my gaming since then in the Realms (including Kara-Tur and Zakhara) with the exception of two short campaigns in homebrew worlds (one based heavily on Tolkien's Middle-Earth, the other based heavily on mediaeval Europe; both very magic-light). The only other world that has captured my attention the way the Realms has is Golarion (Pathfinder / Paizo), and I've been too busy pondering and refining Realmslore for my own take on the Realms to read much of the Pathfinder material that I've purchased with what would have been my 4E gaming budget.  |
Playing in the Realms since the Old Grey Box (1987)... and *still* having fun with material published before 2008, despite the NDA'd lore.
If it's comparable in power with non-magical abilities, it's not magic. |
Edited by - Jakk on 04 May 2010 07:31:33 |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31701 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 08:14:49
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My first experience with the "written" Realms was with the Darkwalker on Moonshae novel by Doug Niles. Initially, I was looking for more DRAGONLANCE fiction [Dragons of Autumn Twilight served as my introduction to this style of fantasy-fiction several years before] when I managed to pick up a copy, shortly after its initial release here in Australia [from the local library]. It was, as I recall, just a few weeks past its publication in the US. Intensely curious with this new trilogy, I read the entire novel in less than three days and was immediately entranced with this strange fantasy land called the Moonshae Isles. I wanted more!
From there, I learned of Ed's 1987 FR boxed set which was just beginning to be sold here in Australia, and also of the fact that the Moonshae Islands were detailed inside the boxed set as part of the Realms [which was actually the first section of the Old Gray Box that I read when I first got it home]. Moving out from the Moonshae Islands, I then started to read about the main continent of Faerûn, where I slowly became aware of just how fantastic the world around the Moonshaes was.
The old SSI games for the C64/Amiga were my first experience with the "electronic" Realms. |
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Doc Filth
Seeker
55 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 08:27:55
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| I'm slightly embarrassed to admit it was through the Dark Elf trilogy. A mate of mine who was really into all the Drow stuff lent them to me, and I was sufficiently interested by the hints of the rest of the world to go out and buy the 2nd Ed campaign setting. The Realms wasn't my first AD&D world (I'd dabbled a bit with Al-Qadim first), but it sucked me in pretty quickly. |
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Cleric Generic
Senior Scribe
United Kingdom
565 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 08:30:23
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Ooo, nostalgia...
For me I think it was either Baldur's Gate or one of the old Gold Box games (the one where you team up with Drizzt and that Aaracocra). I can't remember if they were also my first contact with DnD as well, but I think they probably were.
After that, I only really got into it properly ages later upon the release of the 3e FRCS. |
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dragonfriend
Seeker
Italy
65 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 12:02:57
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| I was looking for a campaign setting to use in my first DM experience after years as a player. Tired of Karameikos and Dragonlance I went to a store in Milan, 100km from my home. I was tempted by Dark Sun, first edition. But money wasn't enough to buy the old complete psionic's handbook too. So I picked up the other boxed set, the one with a world and a mage with a red hat on the cover. It was love for 15 years :) |
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sfdragon
Great Reader
2285 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 13:57:20
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| Baldur's gate series and IceWind Dale series. |
why is being a wizard like being a drow? both are likely to find a dagger in the back from a rival or one looking to further his own goals, fame and power
My FR fan fiction
Magister's GAmbit
http://steelfiredragon.deviantart.com/gallery/33539234 |
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Ashe Ravenheart
Great Reader
USA
3240 Posts |
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Alisttair
Great Reader
Canada
3054 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 14:07:13
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| Through the rumors for me...there was the Eye of the Beholder game but seeing the advertisements in comic books for Relams prodcuts and the information at the back of the 2E reprints of the PH and DMG tempted me and I got into reading The Legacy and then buying the 2E campaign setting and it just got more and more from there |
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Anauria - Survivor State of Netheril as penned by me:
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skychrome
Senior Scribe
713 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 16:36:07
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Consciously it was BG2.
Technically it was the Eye of the Beholder series, but I did not asociate it with the realms yet, plus it had little lore apart from the nice intro in the handbook.
I got in touch with D&D many years before that, but that was Oerth only. So all the praise goes to BG2.
I wish, WoTC and game producers fully understood what the BG series has achieved for the realms! |
"You make an intriguing offer, one that is very tempting. It would seem that I have little alternative than to answer thusly: DISINTEGRATE!" Vaarsuvius, Order of the Stick 625 |
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Jorkens
Great Reader
Norway
2950 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 17:16:22
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I was looking for a campaign setting, preferably Dragonlance or Greyhawk. None of them was in the shop at the moment, so I took the 2nd ed. Forgotten Realms box (the gold one with the horseman from the Grey box) instead and liked it. In other words, just a coincidence.
And Dragonfriend; how is it possible to ever get tired of Karameikos? |
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Hawkins
Great Reader
USA
2131 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 19:35:38
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| I read Darkwalker on Moonshae, then ended up skipping to Darkwell when my local library did not have Black Wizards. From there I went on to read the Icewind Dale Trilogy and I was hooked. |
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Elfinblade
Senior Scribe
Norway
377 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 19:59:29
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| I stumbled across a bookstore that was selling tons of old books for near-giveaway prices. The first two that caught my eyes was Homeland and Soldiers of Ice. Can't remember which of the two i read first, but both got me hooked on the Realms. I had been playing around with the old grey box since the late eighties/early nineties, but those were the first novelizations of the Realms for my own part. |
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Brimstone
Great Reader
USA
3285 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 20:16:08
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Other for me.
I was bored and some of the guys/gals were playing D&D, I was in the Army at that time May of 1996.
So I played, and it as in the Realms. High Moors, Hobgoblins, and a Fair Maiden that needed rescuing...
So you could say it was by accident that I found you guys/gals... |
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to be nurtured like a precious flower, for it is the most precious
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then, well, the arts of reading, writing, and listening true, and they
will lead you to the greatest art of all: understanding."
Alaundo of Candlekeep |
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Alystra Illianniis
Great Reader
USA
3750 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 21:14:06
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Filth
I'm slightly embarrassed to admit it was through the Dark Elf trilogy. A mate of mine who was really into all the Drow stuff lent them to me, and I was sufficiently interested by the hints of the rest of the world to go out and buy the 2nd Ed campaign setting. The Realms wasn't my first AD&D world (I'd dabbled a bit with Al-Qadim first), but it sucked me in pretty quickly.
Ah, don't be embarrassed! Drizzt was my first intro to the Realms, too. I had already read the DL Chronicles books, and liked Krynn well enough, but some characters just didn't appeal to me. The elves there seemed too stuck-up. (Not like FR odesn't have that, too, but it just seems less prevalant here) Then a friend told me about the drow ranger, and I read the books and was hooked. I had also played D&D for about a year or so, and it just seemed like such a great world that now it's the only one I routinely buy novels or gamebooks for!
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Basil the Geek
Acolyte
USA
16 Posts |
Posted - 04 May 2010 : 23:37:13
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I first read about the Realms in Dragon magazine then met Ed at a Con. Eventually the Grey Box Realm’s set came out and when I saw it on the shelf I thought, LOL Hey I know this guy, and bought it in the hopes of at least some meager amount of my wealth going towards helping a decent fellow get ahead in this world doing something he loves.
I promptly forgot about it, the box gathering dust on my bookshelf for a few years, then all of the sudden my gaming friends in college all wanted to try this fun new campaign world called the Forgotten Realm’s they’d been hearing about. There was a problem though as I was about to graduate, had just signed my life away to the Army, gotten married, had a kid and having no time for fun and games anymore. I passed the Grey Box on to a good friend still in school.
While stationed at Ft Devans Mass, I found a little time to adventure with a Realms gaming group from a nearby comic/games store but left before really getting to know anyone well. Later I had heard that one of those who frequented our sessions had written for the Realms quite a bit.
A few years later, after the Army, I returned to the Realms through that good friend I gave the Grey Box set to. She introduced me to a dedicated Realms group about the time the D20 system came out. She later took off to help create L5R and write for WOTC. Those few of us remaining players have continued the campaign ever since, although, rather sporadic as of late and have yet to try 4th ed. Heck, we’re still enjoying mucking about the early 1370’s.
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Edited by - Basil the Geek on 04 May 2010 23:39:55 |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36779 Posts |
Posted - 05 May 2010 : 01:14:19
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I came to the Realms in a more roundabout way than most...
I'd read several of the Endless Quest books and a couple of other "Choose Your Own Adventure" clones before I moved down here in '87. But that was it for me and fantasy...
Shortly before I moved from California, a friend and another guy were discussing a novel one of them had. I'd not read the novel, but I noted the cover.
When I moved down here, I one day found myself in the school library. I saw that book on a shelf, picked it up and read it. I enjoyed it, and wound up reading pretty much all of the woefully small section of fantasy novels my school offered.
I became friends with another guy. He showed me the Dragonlance comics. I was intrigued, and started reading them. Then I asked if there was any novels to go with them, because he mentioned that certain characters were from something else...
So I read some of the Dragginglance novels, and liked them.
Sometime after that, I stumbled across a copy of the novel Shadowdale in a store. On the back, it said it was by the same publishers that did the Dragonlance books... So I gave it a shot.
I enjoyed it, and started looking for other FR novels. I acquired a couple of other novels and FR9 The Bloodstone Lands. But I wasn't hooked yet... The thing that finally hooked me is when I decided to buy the Forgotten Realms Adventures hardcover. After I read that, then I was hooked. |
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4685 Posts |
Posted - 05 May 2010 : 01:34:08
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| Well I have not yet voted, because not sure if other applies. D&D I learned of far sooner then I learned of FR. I papered and penciled D&D years before the ability to access the internet existed, before I had a personal computer. I have since my start in D&D have encountered FR on the Net and have purchased FR materials. I just do not recall which was first. This upstart Candlekeep clearly was not my first. |
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"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
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GRYPHON
Senior Scribe
USA
527 Posts |
Posted - 06 May 2010 : 14:48:48
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| Our normal gaming session. Greyhawk just didn't do it for us... |
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BARDOBARBAROS
Senior Scribe
Greece
581 Posts |
Posted - 15 May 2010 : 19:38:26
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| Played a computer game... the Eye of the Beholder series... |
BARDOBARBAROS DOES NOT KILL.
HE DECAPITATES!!!
"The city changes, but the fools within it remain always the same" (Edwin Odesseiron- Baldur's gate 2) |
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Genis
Learned Scribe
USA
226 Posts |
Posted - 15 May 2010 : 22:06:04
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| Dragonlance did the job for me actually, I got into Dragonlance because my aunt bought me a book at a garage sale one summer, and after that I have a friend who would always read these books with elves on the front and I was like hey, I liked DL whynot try these books? It turns out to be a forgotten realms book and boom. Done. |
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Kerrigan
Acolyte
Germany
31 Posts |
Posted - 16 May 2010 : 09:15:01
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For me it was Baldur's Gate 1 (circa 1999) -> Baldur's Gate 2 (as soon as it was released) -> first FR-Novel ("Cleric Quintet") ca. 2001 -> Drizzt Series (2002-2004) -> D&D 3rd Edition Players Guide in 2004
:D
Since then, a lot of D&D-sessions, gaming materials and FR-novels have followed. |
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Sandro
Learned Scribe
New Zealand
266 Posts |
Posted - 16 May 2010 : 10:40:49
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Baldur's Gate 1, at about the age of 7 (some ten years ago now), with a friend with whom I now play D&D.
Didn't know what I was getting myself into. |
"Gods, little fishes, and spells to turn the one to the other," Mordenkainen sighed. "It's started already..." |
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Joran Nobleheart
Senior Scribe
USA
495 Posts |
Posted - 16 May 2010 : 10:44:38
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| An old manager I had at a movie theatre I worked at back in 1999. He convinced us all to roll up characters, and that's where the journey for me began. |
Paladinic Ethos
Saint Joran Nobleheart |
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froglegg
Learned Scribe
317 Posts |
Posted - 16 May 2010 : 13:41:17
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I was home on leave from the army back in 1987 and I walked into The All-Star Book and Record Shop in Elizabeth City NC. I saw The Old Grey Box and it said at the bottom. (Forgotten Realms-a new campaign world for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Game!)The Realms had me from hello! I had tryed and tryed and tryed again to get into The World of Greyhawk, but it just never click. But like I said above, the Realms had me from hello.
John |
Long live Alias and Dragonbait! Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb the Realms need you more then ever!
On my word as a sage nothing within these pages is false, but not all of it may prove to be true. - Elminster of Shadowdale
The Old Grey Box gets better with age! |
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Zireael
Master of Realmslore
Poland
1190 Posts |
Posted - 16 May 2010 : 17:59:29
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| I played BG 1 borrowed from a friend. Then I bought it for myself. Then BG 2. Then I learned there were books set in the same world. The first I bought was... "Baldur's Gate II" by Philip Athans. Luckily, I bought "Legacy" almost immediately. And I sank into the Realmsian novels. |
SiNafay Vrinn, the daughter of Lloth, from Ched Nasad!
http://zireael07.wordpress.com/ |
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dragonfriend
Seeker
Italy
65 Posts |
Posted - 16 May 2010 : 18:18:47
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quote:
Originally posted by Jorkens
And Dragonfriend; how is it possible to ever get tired of Karameikos?
It was too small and i didn't want to be a DM in the same world of my previous DM. And, sorry, I never liked the Known World that much. (but I loved Red Steel ) |
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Quale
Master of Realmslore
1757 Posts |
Posted - 16 May 2010 : 22:43:49
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| What about the Five Shires? |
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dragonfriend
Seeker
Italy
65 Posts |
Posted - 17 May 2010 : 06:07:07
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quote:
Originally posted by Quale
What about the Five Shires?
never red. I know some of the lands of the known world like Glantry, Darokin, Ylaruam (i liked it). Too much of them. |
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How did you met with the Realms?
