delericho said:
I'm aware of that. But how often can they resell the same material to the same people? The current books are extremely high quality, for the most part, and extremely detailed. Doesn't there come a point where people say, "yes, it's nice, but I've already got it?"
I could well be wrong, of course.
3e has a Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. 3.5 has the Player's Guide, large parts of which are the same stuff as in the FRCS (just revised, as 3e was revised). Those weren't the first Campaign Settings. I know 2e had one, maybe 1e had one, too, and maybe there were revised versions of some or all of those.
I don't think it will be the last.
Don't forget that it's not just the same book with the rules part replaced with a new one. The Realms are no dead world, there's things happening.
A lot of the things from the current FRCS are out of date - borders have been redrawn, cities have been altered, rulers changed, important characters have died, new important characters appeared - and the 4e FRCS will reflect that.
And I expect the next edition to have essentially the same rules at its core, perhaps with fundamental overhauls of one or two areas. I doubt, therefore, whether there would be that huge number of people ready to shell out several hundred dollars on new versions of the same setting.
Same setting, different stuff.
Of course, there will be a new FRCS (as I said, with updated information).
They might give us a new Deities book (with upated info about agendas and the like), a new magic book (including the old spells updated to the new rules, and special magic rules for Faerûn, again, updated for the new edition), and a Races book (yet again containing new rules info). Maybe even a new book about organizations (with all the new stuff that happens to them. Plus info about good and evil ones this time).
We'll get these books eventually, spread over the first couple of years.
But we won't get Silver Marches 4e, Unapproachable East 4e, and so on. They will continue with their old scheme about regional books: Do new stuff, or stuff that has not been done in a very long time.
They'll probably do some Serpent Kingdom/ Dragons of Faerûn/ Lost Empires style books, too, again stuff that wasn't there before.
If they keep the Realms, then they would, of course, be mad to produce a new and similar world. However, if they don't then I can see a niche existing. The trick would be to make it generic enough to appeal to the masses, but different enough in the execution to not just be "FR redux".
Why would they do that? They would
- give up an established product that generates revenue
- abandon customers who might very well take their business elsewhere after that
- invest time and money into a new product that might tank and that is similar to one they already have.
- have a new, vanilla setting that would have to compete with the other vanilla settings out there and, of course, the Realms.
- hurt their novel line - the FR novels support the FR supplements (and vice versa).
The Realms would have to do pretty bad for them to consider abandoning them to introduce something that is pretty much the same thing.
Basically, the problem I see with the Realms is that there's now so much accumulated lore that it's nigh impossible for a newcomer to get into the setting, especially when confronted with experts. Sure, there's an emphasis on "making the Realms your own", but that only helps so far. And can still leave newcomers floundering.
So you don't want a detailed setting? You want one without much to it? Good for you, but I wouldn't buy such a thing. If I want a framework I have to flesh out myself, I use the "Greyhawk Lite" stuff from the core rulebooks.
The FRCS does a good job introducing someone to the Realms. If you think it is not sufficient, tell Wizards so they focus their efforts on making the FRCS 4e more beginner-friendly.
Encountering experts might be a problem - or a boon, if they're willing to tell you the stuff you want or need to know. Plus, if you now make a new campaign setting, sooner or later there will be experts on that as well.
I guess even now there are already Eberron experts, and Eberron has only been around since after 3.5.
Face it: Whenever you have a detailed setting, you'll have people knowing a lot about that setting. Not doing a detailed setting isn't the way to go - people want detailed settings, and a setting with hardly any detail means a setting with hardly any books to sell.
Finally, there already is a setting that doesn't get much detail: GreyHawk. They have the right product for everyone: GH for the light fans, and FR for the detail-freaks. And they're not going to replace FR with another detail-intensive setting.
