Hey all...As a newer DM that had not played the game sing the early 80s, I am running a now three-year-old campaign that takes place in the Moonshae Isles, and which started with the very old level zero adventure, Treasure Hunt.  After three years, the characters have just achieved level 4 (yes, levels are achieved slowly!) and the story takes place at the tail end of DR 1475.  Now, our campaign is dealing with the spellplague as it is known on the Wikis and elsewhere, but also the deep lore of the campaign as I am running it can come directly from those  wikis, but with a fair amount of historical homebrew tossed in...almost as a parallel dimesion to what the actual lore is.  For example: while adrift at sea, one of my players found a message in a bottle...a deed from King Tristian Kendrick to Caer Corwell as he (for story reasons) is lost at sea and presumed dead.  If you know the "accepted lore", this is perhaps a lost tale?  I don't know.  Another example: Abier-Toril.  In my campaign, Abier (the sister planet to Toril) was destroyed in a war eons ago, and is now the astroid rubble known as "The Tears of Selune"...obviously counter to traditional "wiki lore".  So my question is this:  Why not?  Is it my newness to DMing and homebrewing that makes me feel like I am doing something wrong here, or am I on the right track regarding running a fourth level campaign, as an old guy who hadn't DMed in 30+ years for anything higher than a third-level party?  Just curious.

Nothing wrong with telling your own story. As long as everyone is having fun and returning to the table, you're doing great.

Classic settings are wonderful, but ultimately a jumping off point for an infinite multiverse of possible worlds to explore. Take what you find useful from the Wikis and improvise the rest.

Forgotten Realms, or really any established game world (Krynn, Eberon, Exandria etc) that's been around for a while comes with lore that can be thought to be daunting.  But the truth is no one polices anyone else's games.  I believe 5e's "official" take on lore and canon as of a few years ago has continued to be what you see set out there should be inspirational not insistent.  A lot of "established" lore isn't internally consistent anyway.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but my favorite take on "Lore" is the Alien RPG which had license to all the movies, novels and comics.  Some of that is contradictory, for example in William Gibsons screenplay for Alien 3, Newt and Hicks live.  But it's all put into a timeline.  GameMuthurs, as they're called, are encouraged to treat the whole timeline as rumors, stories you'd here about in bars, or late nights on watch, or see extended YouTube videos about, the truth of it all is up to the GameMuthur.  So in the uncommon but possible situation where you take on a new player who takes themself to be a FR afficianado and does some "But Harpers erradicated that faction in DR 7684" you can say, "you're character may think they know that, but it's not necessarily the case."

When I play in what I call more "canonical" spaces (Star Wars, Trek for example) the way I run the table is "my game, my world on my word" but I keep things or enough things loose and open enough that players who want to bring in their favorite aspect of the franchise, we can usually make it happen in the campaign.  However, they're proclamation of anything they feel is or should be canon has no binding power over me.  Player really wants them to get their ship repaired at the Ring of Kafrene.  If that side trip to a players favorite locale won't hurt the game, and may prove interesting contacts, I make it so.  

Fun fact, the Forgotten Realms when it initially was released, it was presumptive that people would mark up their books and maps making the world their own Forgotten Realms, it was sort of the point.  

In other words, my opinion, you're doing it right, except for the worry.  If a player is challenging you on canon to put the brakes on the course of the game, that's a missing the forest for the trees play style.   

Canon only matters as long as you want to stick with it.

It's your story.

D&D is an interactive game, pretty much by definition, you can't stick to canon because there is no accounting for your stories. No matter what you do, your party will depart from canon. And that's a good thing - your stories should have consequences and impact on the story. It's what makes things fun. There are two advantages to sticking closely to canon:

1. You can tell your players to go away and read up on FR lore without stressing about alterations. They can find that lore and all be on the same page as to what's happened so far in the world.

2. If you run official adventures (or official lore), you'll know that it'll make sense without adaptation.

Beyond that, it doesn't matter. Personally, I run FR as canon except for whatever actions the party has made previously (including previous campaigns) and where I've stated things less than accurately (I'll either keep the revised version or put it down to in-game myths, legends or misunderstandings). 

But that's me. The game world is your baby, do whatever you think will be fun for your table. Use the canon as inspiration if you want, and as much or as little as you like. You'll lose the advantages I mentioned above to a relevant degree and you'll have to rewrite stuff to make it make more sense with your changes (Eg if there is a cult that worships the moon...how would they have been affected by its destruction? How would that affect the course of history? If they'd taken over a country in canon, would they have had their morale broken by its destruction? Would that have prevented their take over? If so, who replaced them in your version? And so forth). If you think that effort is worth it...then crack on!

There is no reason why you can't do what you say. If you are willing to put the effort in to harmonise everything, then your changes can make the game world much better.

My first question would be how familiar are your players with The Lore?
Do they care?

The party I DM for are a quite varied in their knowledge of this, so I went through the roll of years, gathered those players round and stickied it on our Discord that 1490DR is "our" cut off point - anything before in sourcebooks etc. is canon and I'm doing what the hell I want after and we're "good" on that and it works.  It's a happy solution that allows me to have a whole lot of source material to draw on, but plenty of wiggle room in my campaign to try and have an interactive/reactionary world for the party.

You can literally do whatever you want, agents of WotC aren't going to bust into your house like the ATF in the middle of the game if you make a change, lol.  That's the beauty of the game.

I absolutely LOVE how the option to just enjoy it and stop overthinking is SO dominant.  As some have stated, FR lore often contradicts itself, and I know, because I own and have read (many times) my massive library of FR novels.  There are a lot of inconsistencies already, so making it your own is perfect.  Enjoy!

Quote from brewdude1966 >>

... or am I on the right track regarding running a fourth level campaign, as an old guy who hadn't DMed in 30+ years for anything higher than a third-level party?  Just curious.

 Your homebrewing is fine. Where I think you might better serve your group is to start advancing a little faster than 1 level per year of play.

Good stories have rising tension, often coupled with rising stakes. It's very hard to do that when the party - and the things they fight - remain at the same power level for many, many sessions. This is why D&D has level progression in the first place.

Now I'm not saying your game isn't fun. Clearly you're doing some things right if your group is lasting years. But as a DM, I'm always looking to improve, and if you're the same I would suggest that you could improve your games by not being afraid of level progression.

If you don't like higher-level content, that's fine. In that case, wrap up the campaign at level 5 or so and start a new one. I think you'd find that you can run more impactful narratives if you use rising tension/stakes the peak at a climax rather than just kind of grinding through the same rouge's gallery of low level monsters session after session.

About the only thing I'd say regarding breaking lore is to make sure everyone is on the same page. If you have a couple players who are big on the lore and like to apply it in their roleplay, they'll definitely want to know what parts have been changed, at least in terms of the "common knowledge" of the setting.

Nothing wrong with taking something that is established and exploring something new with it!

(especially when it’s a setting designed to get people actually PLAYING D&D…)

For instance…I’ve turned Asmodeus into a flamboyant, corporate overlord who treats the 9 Hells like his personal business…with SINISTER UNDERTONES.

Meanwhile, Helm is collaborating with Hoar to reconcile his personal guilt for being responsible for the death of the Goddess of Magic…by protecting the new goddess of magic.

One of my players is now running one of the Ten Towns; and Khelben Blackstaff kind of misses his wife.

Drizzt has become a washed-up heroic figure (again); and his old frenemy Artemis Entreri is weirdly a member of Force Grey.

…absolutely NOTHING is off the table; provided that you are…well…playing on a table.

There is NO Forgotten Realms game out there ( not even Greenwood’s technically) that doesn’t have some homebrew alteration of “Lore”, so don’t worry about yours. In mine Teshendale was taken over by adventurers in 1364 and is now a major power having conquered Zhentil Keep, Phlan and the Raven’s Nest. What is good about the FRs is that they have been updating events so you don’t have to invent the whole thing.going forward - just change the things that don’t fit your version.

I have completely replaced Amn with my own work in my home Forgotten Realms Campaign.  It's your world and your sandbox.  

Just have fun it's your game, your Forgotten Reamls and thus you make what you want of the existing lore. It's not like Canon police will come bust our door if you don't conform to it ! ☺

To me, lore is great support material but should never be a obstacle to my own creativity ideas and lore conception. If it work for my campaign, great i use it but if it doesn't, i can freely ditch it or modify it as i see fit as lore serve me, not the opposite.