D&D 5E Is R.A. Salvatore's "Hero" the last Forgotten Realms book?

[Jester David]

They already have that

Kinda.
They have a Realms, but every author is off in their own corner of the world doing their own thing. They all have their own backstory and details that make it hard for any of the current books to serve as a good introductory point,

Does anyone really believe the WOTC movie will be any good? Better than warcraft?

Well, it's the "D&D movie" not the "WotC movie". The "WotC movie" would be the story of the corporation's founding and rise to success...

Plus, there's no reason a D&D movie doomed to fail any more than the Warcraft movie was doomed to be bad. Warcraft *could* have been good.
Plus, it's not like the two franchises are remotely the same, beyond belonging to the fantasy genre.

The argument that they have made enough books seems silly. Maybe they are selling/leasing the publishing rights. Isn't drizzt usually on the best sellers when new books get released

They used to be. I'm uncertain if they still are.
But, the thing is, the more books there are in a series, the more intimidating that series is to new readers. The harder it is for new people to break into. Plus, having a beginning and an end makes the series attractive, so you don't have to wait for new books for year after year: you can just read to the end.
And long running series get repetitive after a while. It was said that a couple of the later Drizzt books were fairly derivative of the early ones, and the most recent trilogy has actually undone some of the changes to the series. If the series continues, it will be akin to a comic where it keeps rebooting every few years to keep the character constant and iconic.

 

[tglassy]

I enjoyed Warcraft...

 

[Willie the Duck]

I enjoyed Warcraft...

I think... at least for the purposes of the discussion at hand, the real question is whether film-production investors like the movie.

 

[Prakriti]

I guess we'll learn more once the next issue of Dragon+ goes live.

Anyone know when that will be?

 

[flametitan]

You could say that. I would say that the whole 5e kinda- sorta- wiping away all the 4e changes at least makes a continuity snarl. Still it's certainly not like Marvel or DC or Transformers or other IPs which have made movie series in the past decade.

The biggest example of snarl I can think of for the 5e events is mostly in the timing of them all. Archmage, if I recall, suggests that Rage of Demons happens after Tyranny of Dragons in 1486, while the AL season 1 events are supposed to be concurrent with the Hardcovers, but takes place in 1489.
Additionally, the AL modules have their Rage of Demons event take place after the Elemental Evil Season, whereas Chris Perkins said at gamehole that Rage of Demons took place while the Sundering was still happening (And is supported by Ashes in the Tyrant being mid-Sundering but having events from Rage affecting it), placing it before Princes of the Apocalypse, which is set a couple years after the Sundering.

This suggests that Rage of Demons is either a very long event in-universe, or we have continuity errors.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

My guess, and it's just a guess, is that there will still be novels, but they want them to be direct tie-ins with the story lines. I also suspect that they plan to do a non-Realms story line in the near future. This would let them drop, say, a Greyhawk story, adventurer's guide, and a tie-in novel that doesn't have any prequels to impede picking it up.

 

[Parmandur]

The biggest example of snarl I can think of for the 5e events is mostly in the timing of them all. Archmage, if I recall, suggests that Rage of Demons happens after Tyranny of Dragons in 1486, while the AL season 1 events are supposed to be concurrent with the Hardcovers, but takes place in 1489.
Additionally, the AL modules have their Rage of Demons event take place after the Elemental Evil Season, whereas Chris Perkins said at gamehole that Rage of Demons took place while the Sundering was still happening (And is supported by Ashes in the Tyrant being mid-Sundering but having events from Rage affecting it), placing it before Princes of the Apocalypse, which is set a couple years after the Sundering.

This suggests that Rage of Demons is either a very long event in-universe, or we have continuity errors.

Based on things Perkins has said, and the guide in Sky Kings Thunder on how to integrate the other APs, the issue isn't that the continuity is confusing: they have given up on metaplot entirely. There is no set date for these APs, they take place in a zone of quantum uncertainty in the multiverse; they might even take place on other planets!

People are overly dismissive of the movies rile; it may suck, or it may be a loser at the BO (it can suck and be a hit, or be great and a bomb). But undoubtedly the media land for the next few years are built around it. Hence what is happening with the novels.

 

[jayoungr]

For reference, here are links to what Google caches I could find of the previous thread:

Page 2 (partial)
Page 5
Page 10

P.S. I loved Warcraft even in the form that made it to the theaters, and I think a lot of people's complaints about the pacing and characterization would have gone away if the studio hadn't insisting on cutting 40 minutes out of it. Which may be relevant to the chances for a D&D movie.

 

[Mirtek]

My guess, and it's just a guess, is that there will still be novels, but they want them to be direct tie-ins with the story lines.

They already tried that unsuccessfully, the time needed to churn out a novel simply doesn't line up with the release schedule of the APs. That's why all the novels with the RoD tie in didn't come out until we were already well into CoS

They simply underestimated the difficulty to sync those two media

Based on things Perkins has said, and the guide in Sky Kings Thunder on how to integrate the other APs, the issue isn't that the continuity is confusing: they have given up on metaplot entirely. There is no set date for these APs, they take place in a zone of quantum uncertainty in the multiverse; they might even take place on other planets!

Which was of course double disappointing, meaning all their pep talk during the lead up to 5e and the sundering where they promised to get an internal "realms traffic cop" to make the continutiy even more tight and avoid lore errors, etc. was just outright lying to the realms fans to just keep them quite.

But undoubtedly the media land for the next few years are built around it. Hence what is happening with the novels.

I also still doubt that as the reason. They haven't even finished the script or the casting yet. The movie is easily 3 years or more away. Way too early let everything drie up in expectation of a movie that might not even be in theaters yet in 2020. They could finish entire new novel trilogies by the time the movie is close enough to finish to start with earliest advertising

 

[Willie the Duck]

Which was of course double disappointing, meaning all their pep talk during the lead up to 5e and the sundering where they promised to get an internal "realms traffic cop" to make the continutiy even more tight and avoid lore errors, etc. was just outright lying to the realms fans to just keep them quite.

We don't know if it is lying or not, and we certainly don't know their motivations. It could be that they had the best of intentions, but changed their minds when they realized the challenges that they were up against. About the only thing we can say for sure is that it is unfortunate.