D&D 5E Does it seem like Nerath was dropped like a bad habit?

Jester David · Aug 11, 2014

Tony Vargas said:
That's like saying Forgotten Realms alternates between that, Toril, and the Sword Coast.

Not... really.

In the Realms "Nerath", "Nentir Vale", and "the Points of Light world" would equate with "Netheril", "Silver Marches" and "Kitchen Sink".
Forgotten Realms is the brand name, which means nothing in-world. Nentir Vale doesn't have that. Toril is the name of the planet. Nentir Vale doesn't have that, it was always just "the world".

They could give it a name or some branding, but the world was meant to be generic, so there's little they could call it that wouldn't either be gibberish or extremely hard to trademark.

Tony Vargas said:
I guess there's only so many gratuitous mentions they could throw in. Maybe they'll get around to Dragonborn from Arkhosia or whatever, eventually. Probably not, because...

Adding too much flavour to the Point of Light world was tricky, as it defeated the purpose of the setting: a blank canvas that DMs could make their own. It's like releasing a full-colour colouring book.

Tony Vargas said:
Between 4e fans necessarily including all those D&D-loyalists who adopt each new edition with enthusiasm, and there being no legal possibility of a Pathfinder-like alternative for any 4e holdouts, it was probably a no-brainer for WotC to decide to cater heavily to those feelings.

From what WotC has said about the response to their surveys, it sounds like the majority of players are not edition warriors who really hew to a single edition. So focusing a concentrated effort on 4e fans seems unnecessary as just making a new edition will attract most.
Lapsed fans are someone they do need to target, as they're not currently customers.

Six months from now, when the DMG is out and everyone's seen what they can do with 5e (or can't) is when WotC will likely take stock of the situation and see how everyone feels about the game. If 90% of former 4e players came along with the update and seem happy then making a concentrated and focused effort for those remaining 10% seems unnecessary. If 75% updated to Next and there's some unhappy grumblings from that group, then maybe something extra can be done.

Yes, it would be nice if WotC supported 100% of fans of all editions and settings, but that's unlikely to be financially viable.

Malshotfirst · Aug 11, 2014

Zaran said:
So far I'm liking what I'm seeing in the PHB but I noticed one thing that kind of bothers me. There is mention of Dragonlance, Greyhawk, and of course Forgotten Realms all through the PHB but NOTHING about Nerath. Now I understand that this world never got a setting although the Monsters of Nerath gave us a lot of that and of course all of the adventures did as well. It just seems like omitting mention of Nerath is telling that we won't be seeing that world and I think that's a mistake. Nerath has advantage of barely being used except for John Roger's comic series (and possibly a novel that I didn't read?) and it's ripe for a GM to use that Points of Light idea that 4th edition brought to us. It would be a shame if it was just dropped from supported worlds just because it hasn't spilled over the other mediums that WotC is trying to cover.

Plus, we have that cool Conquest of Nerath board game that no longer has any connection to the rest of DnD.

That was SUCH a good comic. I'd rather have a one hundred more issues of Fell's Five than the pathfinder comic. The only thing that comes close is Rate Queens, from Image.

Whizbang Dustyboots · Aug 11, 2014

I sold all my 4E materials early on, but I definitely think it's a mistake to not have any Nentir Vale/Nerath material in 5E. At the very least, it seems like a great Web product for WotC to whip up.

Whizbang Dustyboots · Aug 11, 2014

Jester Canuck said:
Yes, it would be nice if WotC supported 100% of fans of all editions and settings, but that's unlikely to be financially viable.

Depending on how complete the canceled Nentir Vale 4E setting book was, releasing it (either as a 4E or 5E product) at RPGNow seems like a no-brainer.

Of course, they still haven't finished off their older materials -- there's still no Thunder Rift, for instance, which is arguably an ancestor to Nentir Vale and was designed to serve the same purpose for BD&D.

Jester David · Aug 11, 2014

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
Depending on how complete the canceled Nentir Vale 4E setting book was, releasing it (either as a 4E or 5E product) at RPGNow seems like a no-brainer.

Of course, they still haven't finished off their older materials -- there's still no Thunder Rift, for instance, which is arguably an ancestor to Nentir Vale and was designed to serve the same purpose for BD&D.

They had a campaign setting book? I hadn't heard that. When did they say that?

Agamon · Aug 11, 2014

Nerath is a bad "example" world. It was meant to be open and a canvas for the DM. People and places get mentioned over and over in the PH from FR, GH, DL, RL, etc because they have a rich history behind them. Nerath didn't, that wasn't the point of it. So that we haven't heard about it makes sense.

I wouldn't be surprised if Nerath/Nentir Vale are mentioned in the DMG as an example of creating your own setting.

Remathilis · Aug 12, 2014

Nerath is the complete opposite of what the designers were going for in this iteration.

The Nentir Vale is a great sandbox, but much of the world beyond it was a hodge podge of famous D&D names ripped out and reused without original context (Tomb of Horrors, Isle of Dread, Soth, Strahd, Pelor, Bane) as if to create a "best of" album. On the one hand, being generic and open allowed DMs to fill in the blanks. On the other hand, it didn't do a lot to make it unique against Faerun or Oerth.

I imagine Fallcrest and Nentir might again appear somewhere, But its hard to name check it when a lot of its names come from other places anyway.

thewok · Aug 12, 2014

Malshotfirst said:
That was SUCH a good comic. I'd rather have a one hundred more issues of Fell's Five than the pathfinder comic. The only thing that comes close is Rate Queens, from Image.

Indeed. I loved that group. The Pathfinder comic is okay, but Fell's Five was awesome.

Dungeoneer · Aug 12, 2014

1) I agree with [MENTION=37579]Jester Canuck[/MENTION] that Nerath/Nentir Vale/Points of Light had a branding problem. In my game group we refer to it as Nentir Vale or PoL. I feel like PoL is probably as close to an official name as it has.

2) Unlike most settings, which are grand, sweeping things, the Nentir Vale was designed to be local local local. I was always under the impression that the idea was that you could drop it into just about any established setting with very few changes (aside from the World Axis cosmology, which is not really necessary to make things work). I would argue that by the end of 4e it wasn't, strictly speaking, a tabula rasa. The parts of it that were detailed were quite detailed and extremely flavorful. It's just that it didn't go out of its way to define every ancient religion, every god in its pantheon or seventeen millennia of history and backstory the way other settings do.

3) Although NV never got its Gazetteer, it did get the Monster Vault: Threats to Nentir Vale, which actually winds up being an excellent setting book. Additionally, virtually all the official 4e modules carve out little sections of the NV. The end result is a setting that is fairly well documented, in a highly distributed sort of way.

4) The Dawn War is awesome and needs to be part of the D&D cosmology forever and ever. It's a brilliant re-imagining of the classic D&D cosmologies. People who hate on 4e just don't know what they are missing.

Beleriphon · Aug 12, 2014

Dungeoneer said:
4) The Dawn War is awesome and needs to be part of the D&D cosmology forever and ever. It's a brilliant re-imagining of the classic D&D cosmologies. People who hate on 4e just don't know what they are missing.

I did like the Dawn War immensely. I even like its inclusion in the Forgotten Realms. Seriously, Mt Hotsenow blowing up becaues a Primordial started to wake is awesome!