Presentation! Saga Style

Star Wars Saga - one of the best product lines by WotC, blending 3.5, D20 modern/future, and a few things that were going to end up in 4e. One aspect I really liked about how Saga was handled was in the presentation. I'd like to see something similar with 5e.

Step 1: Forgotten Relms treated as the defacto/Core Setting. And this is from a guy that isn't that fond of Forgotten Realms - but it would be perfect as Forgotten Relms has a timeline that spans all (or just about all) editions, allowing for new, optional rules to be easily introduced on a per-era basis like how Saga did with Mass Battles and other stuff.

Step 2: That doesn't mean leaving other settings in the dust. Eberron, Darksun, and even Greyhawk can appear in sidebars. Now, fancy setting specific stuff can be left out - Serpent Kingdoms, Quori, whatever - this is just how the general rules relate to a specific setting. Forgotten Realms just serves as a common denominator/backdrop. It can still have it's setting specific book. One of the nice thing about later 3.5 books is that they often had "Okay, this is how this works in this main setting, and this is how it can be adapted for either Eberron or Forgotten Realms." Like "Elf" would have a sidebar/footnote with a brief (sentence or two) description of how they differ in Dark Sun and Eberron. Also, this can lead to future upsales of new setting books - because setting books have many more details on history and culture.

Step 3: Profit.

Now, I suppose there's going to be these reactions to my proposal:

"I don't want to buy every book to play in the Forgotten Realms"
Wait - why would you have to? Core Rules are core rules - so you'd need the core books + the setting book. Splats are still optional. In 3.5 you didn't need Serpent Kingdoms to play a FR campaign involving Waterdeep and the Underdark.

"Why is there no love for Greyhawk?"
Greyhawk was skipped for a full edition, and was only half-looted for 3e/3.5. Forgotten Realms is the top D&D setting.

"What about x race?"
*Shrug* Dunno. Now you're asking about specifics that are unreleased and probably undecided by WotC. My bet is that they'll go for a set of traditional fleshed-out core races in the Player's Handbook, and have an appendix of various racial abilities for other races while lacking all but the barest of descriptions.

"I don't want to see Forgotten Realms butchered up!"
Forgotten Realms would serve as the main example, instead of WotC creating a whole new setting or semi-setting (like Nettier Vale from 4e). Again, this would cover just the core rules and enough fluff to get things started. Details on the setting would be in the FR's rulebook - things like detailed histories, what is going on in different eras, etc.

And there's probably some others. Heck, this modularity may even harken back to the days of the Forgotten Realms box sets for 2e. There's a lot of stuff that went untapped (or barely tapped) in 3.5 and 4e from the 2e era, even if all the FR 3.5 books got a bit textbooky.

No. Just, no.

Well, that's not a very helpful response.

I don't care if you disagree, but please be constructive or informative with your disagreement.

I guess I'm not clear on how your suggestions reflect SAGA?

I'm not sure how you make the jump from Saga Edition presentation (a good thing) to Forgotten Realms used in the core books as the default setting (not a good thing).

Transbot9 said:

Star Wars Saga - one of the best product lines by WotC, blending 3.5, D20 modern/future, and a few things that were going to end up in 4e.

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SWSE was absolutely brilliant. I would very much like to think WotC can do better, but they could do a hell of a lot worse than to just reskin it into D&D 5e.

That said...

Step 1: Forgotten Relms treated as the defacto/Core Setting.

Click to expand...

Nope, forget it.

Many, many more people play D&D in settings other than FR than use FR. Making the FR the core setting would alienate a huge part of the customer base, and is a losing strategy.

Moreover, there's a big question: which Forgotten Realms? There's "Grey Box" Realms, post Time-of-Troubles Realms (2nd Ed), the 3e Realms (which are mostly a continuation of 2nd Ed, but which are retconned in parts), and the post-Spellplague Realms.

I would support WotC doing a "Forgotten Realms Saga Edition". I have no problem with them supporting the setting that way. But don't make it the core, because you'll be losing a lot of players in the process... myself included.

I have to say, when Star Wars Saga came out, I really didn't care that much for it. I know a lot of folks out there do like it, but before we hold this up as a model for next, keep in mind some of us dropped it after the first few sessions. It was the first star wars game I didn't enjoy.

I'm equating George Lucas's demand on the Expanded Universe franchise to remain true to itself (aka - a mostly solid canonical universe, even if there are a few ad-hocs here and there) with the general consistancy of the Forgotten Realms, along with a similar timeline with multiple eras. There is a question of where to have the starting point (somewhere in the middle? My FR lore isn't that strong to pick a point).

I'm not sure how using FR is inherently alienating to non-FR players, and I'm one of them. I've been a player in one short campaign in the setting, but that's it. I've never DMed the setting, I've barely played the setting, and I was kinda off-put on the setting by how 3e presented it, despite the claim of many forum members that it was the best setting presentation of all of 3e/3.5 (I did eventually read most of the 3.5 setting books and a handful of novels). Using the generalities of Greyhawk or Nettier Vale (which wasn't originally ment to be a setting). One way or another, I still reskin it as something else.

I'm not saying to copy the mechanics of Saga. There were some balance issues (especially when dealing with starship and normal scale), and it wasn't perfect. What I'm thinking of is strictly on the presentation side of things: You have your "core" era, probably based on the 3e/3.5 books, another book that covers 2e or even 1e era FR, and a third book covering the era of 4e FR.

Transbot9 said:

I'm equating George Lucas's demand on the Expanded Universe franchise to remain true to itself (aka - a mostly solid canonical universe, even if there are a few ad-hocs here and there) with the general consistancy of the Forgotten Realms, along with a similar timeline with multiple eras. There is a question of where to have the starting point (somewhere in the middle? My FR lore isn't that strong to pick a point).

I'm not sure how using FR is inherently alienating to non-FR players, and I'm one of them. I've been a player in one short campaign in the setting, but that's it. I've never DMed the setting, I've barely played the setting, and I was kinda off-put on the setting by how 3e presented it, despite the claim of many forum members that it was the best setting presentation of all of 3e/3.5 (I did eventually read most of the 3.5 setting books and a handful of novels). Using the generalities of Greyhawk or Nettier Vale (which wasn't originally ment to be a setting). One way or another, I still reskin it as something else.

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I think I tend to prefer more setting neutral for the core (to make it easier to spin it into specific settings). For me, the 2E presentation worked very well (and that was a system known primarily for its multitude of settings). I found it pretty easy to tailor it to my home campaign, and I used it easily enough to run stuff like ravenloft. But I could be wrong. FR is popular so makes asnmuch sense for a default as GH.

Transbot9 said:

Well, that's not a very helpful response.

I don't care if you disagree, but please be constructive or informative with your disagreement.

Click to expand...

I fail to see the connection of Saga = Forgotten Realms. Saga's presentation isn't all that removed from 3.5 (unless you count the square books). I'd prefer a lightly flavored core (like 3.5 had) rather than a default world with its own mythos.