Will 4E Eberron be as bad as FR?

[I'm A Banana]

Fanboys and haters aside...

I believe that the first setting that WotC published -had- to conform to as much of a 'general base line' as possible in order to accomodate as many people. You can't make your first published setting be a 'niche' setting, it's just not usually a feasible way to do things.

I think you're pretty right here. I do think 4e FR does have some potential without blowing it up, and the answer would be to give a very FOCUSED campaign. Highlight a few cities (Silverymoon, the Dalelands, whatever), and give hooks related to those cities, with perhaps some hooks that threaten multiple cities -- the FRCG as a "book of hooks" isn't a bad plan. You don't need the sweeping encyclopedic overview that 3e gave (and that also lets you release a "Realms Cyclopdia" at a later date with a bunch of collected fluff for those interested, if you'd like -- I mean, you DO have one of the biggest fantasy brand names in existence, guys).

I think 4e FR had the right idea about making the setting less intimidating for newbies and less about the good, powerful, magical forces in the world. They could've even introduced the Spellplague as a building force, something the PC's could fight against rather than something that was already omnipresent, giving the DM's a way to make magic less happy-shiny-Mystara if they wanted, without depriving DM's who liked that of their fun times.

I like the idea of blowing up the realms for my home game, but it's not something I'd want to force down the throats of the true fans, and, in my mind, the previous players of D&D are the best recruiting tool D&D can have, since you always need players.

Also, there's this...

Since, as I said, I believe unique cosmologies to be one of the best things about different settings, I don't see this as boding well for WotC settings.

It would be a stupid move on their part, sacrificing huge amounts of Eberronic flavour, backstory and epic plot points to meet the hubris of designers pet new cosmologies

I heard what Glyfair heard about Eberron 4e's cosmology, and, as I mentioned upthread, I'm sure a lot of the 4e changes will be of these "philosophical, not functional" changes for Eberron. That doesn't make them smart moves, but it does limit their damage, at least.

But the philosophy kind of makes me angry when I think about it being applied to something like Dark Sun. Eberron is only as different as the kitchen sink philosophy will let it be (and it does a nice job). But there are some amazing settings that 4e might yet drag around the corpse of that would be kind of ruined, IMO, by forcing a lot of 4e's philosophies on them. On that note...

My guess is that by the time 5th edition comes around, the Forgotten Realms setting will suffer the fate that Greyhawk did in 3rd. The setting didn't fit with the developers' ideas of what a D&D setting should be, and now they have lost many of the fans that kept it popular so long.

FR is still a pretty strong name...all it takes is one half-decent Drizzit movie to make it hot again (yes, I know, not necessarily an optimistic projection, but bear with my theory here ).

I would expect 5e FR to either go back to a middle ground between 3e and 4e or to be completely ignored as a game setting and just pushed as a novel/game/toy brand.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

New Forgotten Realms is friggin' awesome! But it's the worse thing in the world if you go in looking for old Forgotten Realms.

Pretty much my opinion. 3e FRCS is one of the best D&D books I've seen, and overall an excellent gaming product... but its greatest strength is also its biggest problem: the amount, and density, of information it presents.

I'm one of those gamers who's happy to toss canon overboard when it conflicts with my ideas of what's fun, and how my campaign should go - but a lot of people aren't. And new players and DMs especially can get overwhelmed by the amount of stuff the 3e Realms has.

With 4e, they shook things up and changed the presentation somewhat. There's still Cormyr, and Dalelands, and Waterdeep and Silverymoon, with fairly small changes, for those who hearken back to previous editions... and lots of altered regions for those who want to explore the changed Realms, or plop their own ideas down somewhere without having to displace big chunks of existing stuff.

They also cleaned up the sprawling pantheon a bit, and eliminated or weakened some of the most prominent NPC forces, both of which have been repeatedly brought up in the past when people have complained about the issues they have with FR: a God for everything, and an archmage around every corner.

And the best thing about this all is: you don't have to buy the new campaign setting! Just get the player's guide for the (fine) crunch, and use it with the old setting information from 3e book; I know one long-running campaign where they did exactly this.

 

[Fenes]

Even if they "fix" FR in 5E, unless it's done by retconning the spellplague/return to the time before the 100 years jump, I won't be interested. I am not advancing my campaign(s) 100 years, so anything tehy add is useless for me other than to mine for ideas - and those I can get from far better sources like countless novels (not the FR ones, of course).

 

[rounser]

but its greatest strength is also its biggest problem: the amount, and density, of information it presents.

See, IMO this is exactly NOT the niche for FR. I suspect that it's a Catch 22 - that the reason why it's a big brand and was popular is because it's richly detailed and developed, not despite it. Of course there were whiners - there is about anything mainstream and popular. You want stone soup, either release a setting that is that or shove off and make a homebrew like good canon-phobics should (nothing wrong with that). You want a place for your wacky new implied setting, don't mutilate FR in it's image.

What a waste.

There are corners of the 1E-3E FR that are stone soup, and could have been promoted as such to DMs who wanted or needed that from it. e.g. The Korinn Archipelago. Or they could have rebooted just the classic adventuring portal areas, like Eveningstar/Waterdeep/Shadowdale, and put fresh blood in that way. That would have been a lot more interesting than another gods soap opera cataclysmic shakeup bollocks thing like they did, and is so easy to save to disbelieve in and ignore.

 

[Nymrohd]

They could always have published FR, focusing only on 3-4 regions (The North, The Western Heartlands, The Heartlands, The Moonsea) and only have fast information on the rest like with the AD&D box. . .

 

[I'm A Banana]

They could always have published FR, focusing only on 3-4 regions (The North, The Western Heartlands, The Heartlands, The Moonsea) and only have fast information on the rest like with the AD&D box. . .

The secret to presenting something complex as simple is to master how the information is presented. Just detailing a few major areas has a few tremendous benefits on that side. The risk is that you don't get to someone's pet favorite region, but, heck, 4e took that option ANYWAY, and with a less destructive take on 4e FR, you could still say "The stuff beyond these region is for you as a DM to decide; these regions are also capable of being dropped into your homebrew. If you liked some particular location in earlier FR, that location is still there, even if we don't mention it. What happened to it, or is happening to it, is up to you to decide."

That's a TREMENDOUS benefit for homebrewers, and not a bad deal for true fans, who know enough of this stuff anyway that WotC doesn't need to tell them how to have a good time. But with that idea, suddenly, I can plop Shadowdale or Waterdeep into my own setting, complete with assorted plot hooks; and if I'm new to the Realms, I get to see how they're different and awesome in a daily "at the table" kind of way simply by getting a new city to journey to. And if WotC is still comitted to the "2 books and out" model (which is a pretty good model), it could even help them to direct new fans to old material -- the pdfs of earlier edition work, the novels...

Actually, the more I think about it, the more the "2 books and out" model does have one kind of glaring issue: any new fans that FR picks up won't have anywhere else to turn for new FR D&D information (or repackaged old FR information). They might have novel lines to follow, bu there'd be no game material support for the setting. I wonder how this objection was over come in the board rooms there...

 

[Fenes]

Actually, the more I think about it, the more the "2 books and out" model does have one kind of glaring issue: any new fans that FR picks up won't have anywhere else to turn for new FR D&D information (or repackaged old FR information). They might have novel lines to follow, bu there'd be no game material support for the setting. I wonder how this objection was over come in the board rooms there...

Three possibilities:

1. They do not care at all about game support for the line. FR is dead.

2. They will publish more books anyway.

3. They will add more digital content ("it's not a book!")

 

[Drkfathr1]

Sig line from Keith Baker:

Keith Baker
Eberron Designer
I am NOT a 4E designer, and nothing I say on the subject should be considered official or even necessarily accurate!
Warning! Any posts I make concerning Eberron are unofficial and could be contradicted in future material.

 

[Imaro]

Sig line from Keith Baker:

Keith Baker
Eberron Designer
I am NOT a 4E designer, and nothing I say on the subject should be considered official or even necessarily accurate!
Warning! Any posts I make concerning Eberron are unofficial and could be contradicted in future material.

Thanks for poiinting that out... I again reiterate, that I will praise and promote a book after I have actually seen and read said book...

 

[Fenes]

I'd like to point out that 3 books is not really much support for a setting. That's just one more than the Wheel of Time had, and who here considers that setting supported?