D&D 5E Hope for Nerath? (On D&D Next Campaign Settings and a Plea to WotC)

[Remathilis]

Also, look at all the setting books that were released by WotC before Eberron.

Unless you consider Oriental Adventures and Ghostwalk to be settings, I think Forgotten Realms pretty much gets 100%.

WotC had given up Greyhawk to the Living/RPGA. It did the excellent Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (and the less awesome D&D Gaz) but 3e was the era where they weren't going to do a lot of settings. They shipped Ravenloft off to Arhaus, rolled PS into the core, gave Dragonlance back to Weiss/Hickman, and forgot Dark Sun existed (along with Spelljammer, Mystara, Birthright, and a bunch of other niche settings). Until Eberron, WotC only HAD Realms to do!

Still, it was Pelor, not Lathander in the PHB and the modules.

 

[Dire Bare]

This gets bandied about alot, but I can't think of too many examples of it. I have found a few examples of "Realms origin" stuff appearing in generic 2e stuff (the examples that I can think off are wild mages in Tome of Magic, crusader, monk, and shaman classes in Spells and Magic, and Saurials in Complete Humanoid's Handbook). There were some references to world specific subraces in the various racial handbooks, but they had just as many Krynn references in those as Toril ones. Once WotC bought TSR, I saw FAR MORE Greyhawk references than Realms ones. I guess you can say that moving Kara Tur, Al-Quadim and Mazitca to the same world counts, but that seemed more like a ploy to get Realms players to buy three settings that didn't have much standing strength on their own.

What I think makes most people think of Realms as the "default" 2e setting was the novels and computer games. There were no "generic" D&D novels, so the most generic often were the Realms ones. Likewise, Realms was used for a huge amount of Gold-box games, Neverwinter Nights (both versions), and the Baldur's Gate/Infinity Engine games. While there were some non-Realms games, it was usually another setting (Ravenloft, Planescape, or Dark Sun).

Beyond that, and a couple of cross-references in Planescape, Ravenloft, or Spelljammer, Realms stuff seemed pretty centered on the Realms. It was probably their biggest, and most prolific setting (and hence why so much of their stuff seemed to feel like it was generic) but 2e had few overt Realms references beyond its line. It certainly felt larger than its GH references (or Mystara, or Birthright, or any other setting that was "generic" fantasy) but if 2e was intended to be "default Realms" it didn't do a good job of dovetailing in..

EDIT: A thought. Dragon accepted an inordinate amount of Realms-dressed articles. Perhaps the fact that much of Dragon Mag had Realm-themed stuff has lead to this?

Well, it was a long time ago, and I no longer have my books. I know FR was never truly the official setting, and I don't remember a lot of FR lore from the hardback rule books. I do remember that FR was certainly prolific and likely their biggest brand within D&D, but that of course is different than being a default setting. I really do remember in the brown player's books (Complete Book of <insert race or class here>) and the blue DM's books (specifically, the Complete Necromancer's book springs to mind) that when fluffy examples were given, they were most often Realms lore. But, I could be misremembering . . . .

 

[Dire Bare]

Also, look at all the setting books that were released by WotC before Eberron.

Unless you consider Oriental Adventures and Ghostwalk to be settings, I think Forgotten Realms pretty much gets 100%.

Not really the same thing. I don't think many folks would argue that Forgotten Realms, out of all the various settings, got the most attention, during 2E, 3E, and even currently with 4E. But that is different from being the default setting, like Nerath is for 4E, and Greyhawk was for 3E (well, at least in the beginning of 3E).

The Realms has never been officially the default setting, but as I've mentioned above, I remember it being pretty close to it during 2E (that is, if I remember correctly).

 

[Yora]

WotC had given up Greyhawk to the Living/RPGA. It did the excellent Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (and the less awesome D&D Gaz) but 3e was the era where they weren't going to do a lot of settings. They shipped Ravenloft off to Arhaus, rolled PS into the core, gave Dragonlance back to Weiss/Hickman, and forgot Dark Sun existed (along with Spelljammer, Mystara, Birthright, and a bunch of other niche settings). Until Eberron, WotC only HAD Realms to do!

Still, it was Pelor, not Lathander in the PHB and the modules.

Yet as someone who didn't know Greyhawk before, I don't know anything about Greyhawk after it either.
The Gods in the PHB and the names on Spells, and even the references to places in Fiendish Codex and other were just names. It was never mentioned anywhere, that those names had been used before in a setting called Greyhawk.

 

[delericho]

I was one of the folks that was mightily disappointed when the Nentir Vale Gazetteer was cancelled;

Actually, I was glad of this. One of the things I liked most about PoL-land was that it was left undefined, and so open for the DM to do what he liked with it. I always felt that the more WotC fleshed out the Nentir Vale, the less utility that setting had. (And for those who wanted a detailed setting, there were plenty of options out there...)

Which is where the plea comes in. Dearest Wizards of the Coast, please can we have a new campaign setting for 5th edition? My recommendation would be to have two parallel publication lines for setting:

1) D&D Classic Settings...

2) New Setting (or two)...

The problems with this are two-fold:

1) The majority of gaming groups don't use any setting - they homebrew, or don't give any great thought to the setting at all.

2) Even those groups who do use a setting typically only use one, so multiple settings inherently compete with one another.

During 3e days, WotC dealt with this through three mechanisms: firstly, they concentrated all of their resources on a single* setting (Forgotten Realms); secondly, they priced setting books at a premium, so that they had to sell fewer copies to make them worthwhile to publish; and thirdly, they filled those setting books with a great deal of 'crunch', meaning that they were of significant use to people who weren't using the setting - the FRCS for example contains dozens of races, spells and magic items that can be used just as easily in a Greyhawk/Eberron/homebrew campaign.

* Of course, you're going to point out my mistake here - Eberron. However, Eberron was very definitely a special case. Firstly, it came late in the edition cycle, when the FR releases had distinctly slowed down. Secondly, and probably most importantly, Eberron had massive hype due to the "Setting Search" competition that WotC did. This more or less guaranteed that Eberron would be a hit, at least in those first few releases.

The upshot is that I would be very surprised if WotC provided significant support for any setting beyond FR (though there may well be a 'default' setting in the core books). Even the 3-book model from 4e looks unlikely to continue - after FR, Eberron and Dark Sun, they seem to have abandoned it.

 

[AlioTheFool]

I've never even played anything pre-4e aside from Neverwinter Nights 2, and I'm already sick of the Forgotten Realms, too.

I played Neverwinter 1 (including expansions) and read a few Elminster novels in addition to your stuff, but otherwise, this.

Erm, the Forgotten Realms has never actually been central campaign setting of any edition of D&D.


(and TBH, I doubt it will be for 5th either).

According to Matt James yesterday, and he probably knows better than most of us, Wizards is making Realms the default 5E setting.

This gets bandied about alot, but I can't think of too many examples of it. I have found a few examples of "Realms origin" stuff appearing in generic 2e stuff (the examples that I can think off are wild mages in Tome of Magic, crusader, monk, and shaman classes in Spells and Magic, and Saurials in Complete Humanoid's Handbook). There were some references to world specific subraces in the various racial handbooks, but they had just as many Krynn references in those as Toril ones. Once WotC bought TSR, I saw FAR MORE Greyhawk references than Realms ones. I guess you can say that moving Kara Tur, Al-Quadim and Mazitca to the same world counts, but that seemed more like a ploy to get Realms players to buy three settings that didn't have much standing strength on their own.

What I think makes most people think of Realms as the "default" 2e setting was the novels and computer games. There were no "generic" D&D novels, so the most generic often were the Realms ones. Likewise, Realms was used for a huge amount of Gold-box games, Neverwinter Nights (both versions), and the Baldur's Gate/Infinity Engine games. While there were some non-Realms games, it was usually another setting (Ravenloft, Planescape, or Dark Sun).

Beyond that, and a couple of cross-references in Planescape, Ravenloft, or Spelljammer, Realms stuff seemed pretty centered on the Realms. It was probably their biggest, and most prolific setting (and hence why so much of their stuff seemed to feel like it was generic) but 2e had few overt Realms references beyond its line. It certainly felt larger than its GH references (or Mystara, or Birthright, or any other setting that was "generic" fantasy) but if 2e was intended to be "default Realms" it didn't do a good job of dovetailing in..

EDIT: A thought. Dragon accepted an inordinate amount of Realms-dressed articles. Perhaps the fact that much of Dragon Mag had Realm-themed stuff has lead to this?

Yeah, I don't think Realms has ever been the "true dedicated" setting of any edition, but it's received so much attention it's ridiculous. Video games, novels, supplements in every edition, and "Living Forgotten Realms" as the organized play setting is a lot of attention.

I get that FR has its fans, but not everyone is a fan. Personally, I've seen enough of it to never want to see it again. I'm a Dragonlance fan. I would also take Eberron and Mystara over Forgotten Realms. Instead, Wizards continues to pump out source material for FR. That's fine for them, I won't tell them how to run their business (they likely make more on FR than any other setting) but I'm done buying any material for that setting. I honestly just don't like it, at least in large part because it's far too fleshed out. It's also filled with superheroes. I know Elminster was technically knocked down a few pegs with Mystra's passing, but he's still more powerful than most PCs, and there are other figures in the setting who are overpowered too. (And yes, this is coming from a Dragonlance fan. At least in Krynn's modern age there is a lot of room for PC storytelling.)

As I said above, there are settings I'd like to see central, but I wouldn't mind a new wide-open setting, like Nentir Vale was, as the "default." (D&D Basic had Threshold as the default home, and while it wound up getting fleshed out into Mystara, it was just a small home town to start.) They could then flesh out Nerath, and provide supplements for the myriad other settings (which I don't understand why they don't do more, I know I'd happily purchase them).

 

[jadrax]

According to Matt James yesterday, and he probably knows better than most of us, Wizards is making Realms the default 5E setting.

This comment needs a link or at least a quote.

OK, I found it 'Already announced that FR is the default setting for 5e.' - Matt James, Twitter, 4th July 2012.

The problem is, Matt appears to be wrong as no such announcement has been made to my knowledge?

Also its worth noting that as far as I can see, Matt is not claiming insider knowledage here, its claiming it was reported on ENWorld.

 

[delericho]

According to Matt James yesterday, and he probably knows better than most of us, Wizards is making Realms the default 5E setting.

Damn.

Yeah, I don't think Realms has ever been the "true dedicated" setting of any edition, but it's received so much attention it's ridiculous.

The 2nd Edition "Forgotten Realms Adventures" hardback claimed that it was the default setting of 2nd Edition. Of course, that was a supplement, not the core rules.

I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now - IMO, 4e had the right idea (at the start of the edition at least) in having a very light assumed world that the DM could then use, alter, or throw out with impunity.

 

[AlioTheFool]

This comment needs a link or at least a quote.

He said it on Twitter. You're free to look at his timeline if you'd like.

 

[AlioTheFool]

Damn.



The 2nd Edition "Forgotten Realms Adventures" hardback claimed that it was the default setting of 2nd Edition. Of course, that was a supplement, not the core rules.

I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now - IMO, 4e had the right idea (at the start of the edition at least) in having a very light assumed world that the DM could then use, alter, or throw out with impunity.

I never owned the 2e materials, so thanks for that info! And agreed on all other points.