D&D 5E Forgotten Realms

[Scrivener of Doom]

With a small font like the 3e FRCS and 320 pages, I'm not sure you need a narrow focus!

I consider the 3e FRCS one of the best presentations of a campaign setting, especially a new edition of an existing setting, ever done. Even as someone who is not particularly a fan of FR, I was blown away by just how much that book manages to cram in.

And yet...

The fact that that book has such a density of text and such a large page count is also perhaps its biggest weakness also. There's just so much there that it can be overwhelming. I can't help but feel that a much smaller and lighter volume (actually, something like the 4e Eberron books (I don't have the 4e FR ones)) might be more approachable, if not better - what you lose in comprehensiveness, you gain in approachability.

Though maybe a "halfway house" is actually the best of both worlds - the dense, 320-page book for the dedicated fan, coupled with a 64ish page primer for the newcomer to the setting.

(I would be surprised if it was the format of the 4e books that was in any way to blame for what happened. It appears that the objection was to the content of the books, and specifically to the changes that had been wrought, and probably to the time jump more than anything else.)

My post obviously wasn't clear.

What I was describing was a product along the lines of Elminster's Guide to the Forgotten Realms to be published a year or so after the official 5E campaign setting to allow the new version of FR to settle down, as it were, and attract a fan base.

And then Ed can be unleashed to write the product he's probably wanted to write since the OGB was first published....

 

[delericho]

My post obviously wasn't clear.

What I was describing was a product along the lines of Elminster's Guide to the Forgotten Realms to be published a year or so after the official 5E campaign setting to allow the new version of FR to settle down, as it were, and attract a fan base.

And then Ed can be unleashed to write the product he's probably wanted to write since the OGB was first published....

Ah, I see. Given how well-received "Elminster's Guide to the Forgotten Realms" has been, I'd be inclined to second that motion.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The fact that that book has such a density of text and such a large page count is also perhaps its biggest weakness also. There's just so much there that it can be overwhelming. I can't help but feel that a much smaller and lighter volume (actually, something like the 4e Eberron books (I don't have the 4e FR ones)) might be more approachable, if not better - what you lose in comprehensiveness, you gain in approachability.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. And as I mentioned in the "how should they do the campaign settings" thread... my personal preference and belief for a much more usable campaign product would be to do another Nentir Vale / Neverwinter type campaign book. Select one specific area of the Realms and really delve into the details of the space-- Icewind Dale, Cormyr, the Dalelands, or something like that.

You can go into more specifics about the certain towns, litter it with many more adventure sites and plot hooks, make it large enough to travel across to give you "road adventures", but small enough that something that happens on one end will actually have an impact on the other end. Make it such that 95% of all the detail within the book is actually capable of being reached and used in a normal campaign.

You can't really do that with a full world. Invariably, you'll start in one small section, rarely leave it for quite a while, then perhaps the group goes on the road to some other nation... but even then, the campaign will never hit three-fourths of all the locations and stuff in the book-- rendering those sections less optimally useful for most players and campaigns.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I agree with this wholeheartedly. And as I mentioned in the "how should they do the campaign settings" thread... my personal preference and belief for a much more usable campaign product would be to do another Nentir Vale / Neverwinter type campaign book. Select one specific area of the Realms and really delve into the details of the space-- Icewind Dale, Cormyr, the Dalelands, or something like that.

You can go into more specifics about the certain towns, litter it with many more adventure sites and plot hooks, make it large enough to travel across to give you "road adventures", but small enough that something that happens on one end will actually have an impact on the other end. Make it such that 95% of all the detail within the book is actually capable of being reached and used in a normal campaign.

You can't really do that with a full world. Invariably, you'll start in one small section, rarely leave it for quite a while, then perhaps the group goes on the road to some other nation... but even then, the campaign will never hit three-fourths of all the locations and stuff in the book-- rendering those sections less optimally useful for most players and campaigns.

That's also an interesting idea.

Neverwinter Campaign Setting was an outstanding product, and I find myself strangely enamoured with the Legacy of the Crystal Shard which manages to bring Icewind Dale to life in only 64 pages or so. (Actually, I really like everything about the format of The Sundering adventures so far, including the ability to download stats for the ruleset a group prefers. Long may this continue!)

I still think we will see a world book, but I hope it begins with a fairly focussed look at one area, and that that area includes a really good map that inspires a real sandbox feel.

 

[seregil]

I agree with this wholeheartedly. And as I mentioned in the "how should they do the campaign settings" thread... my personal preference and belief for a much more usable campaign product would be to do another Nentir Vale / Neverwinter type campaign book. Select one specific area of the Realms and really delve into the details of the space-- Icewind Dale, Cormyr, the Dalelands, or something like that.

You can go into more specifics about the certain towns, litter it with many more adventure sites and plot hooks, make it large enough to travel across to give you "road adventures", but small enough that something that happens on one end will actually have an impact on the other end. Make it such that 95% of all the detail within the book is actually capable of being reached and used in a normal campaign.

You can't really do that with a full world. Invariably, you'll start in one small section, rarely leave it for quite a while, then perhaps the group goes on the road to some other nation... but even then, the campaign will never hit three-fourths of all the locations and stuff in the book-- rendering those sections less optimally useful for most players and campaigns.

What you have just described is Kingdoms of Kalamar. In addition, Kalamar's timeline will never move. The downside to Kalamar is that it's a bit bland, whereas FR 1E was flavourful. If Kenzer could run FR 1e, it would be great.

 

[DEFCON 1]

What you have just described is Kingdoms of Kalamar. In addition, Kalamar's timeline will never move. The downside to Kalamar is that it's a bit bland, whereas FR 1E was flavourful. If Kenzer could run FR 1e, it would be great.

I actually own one of the KoK books (can't remember if its the actual setting book or one of the other ones), and my initial impressions of it were that it still seemed "too large". Perhaps I need to go back and revisit it.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

What you have just described is Kingdoms of Kalamar. In addition, Kalamar's timeline will never move. The downside to Kalamar is that it's a bit bland, whereas FR 1E was flavourful. If Kenzer could run FR 1e, it would be great.

How I wish we had a product like the KoK Atlas for the Forgotten Realms!

And the real downside to Kalamar is the horrible naming system (IMO).

 

[SkidAce]

...You can't really do that with a full world. Invariably, you'll start in one small section, rarely leave it for quite a while, then perhaps the group goes on the road to some other nation... but even then, the campaign will never hit three-fourths of all the locations and stuff in the book-- rendering those sections less optimally useful for most players and campaigns.

Rendering those sections available for the next campaign?

 

[TarionzCousin]

But yeah, setting heroes suck. I will never use FR because the first player that says he's looking for Drizz't is getting an ogre spear in the face.

This is why you should run FR.

"What? Where did it come from? There aren't even any ogres in all of Silverymoon!" said the sad player.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Rendering those sections available for the next campaign?

Sure, but even then, how much will any of that stuff ever get hit by any player? When you have something like what, 50+ different nations or areas across Faerun (which is probably a very conservative estimate)... you'd need to play several games at once for like only 3 month campaigns to eventually make use of a good percentage of everything that would have gotten written in the book.

I'm not saying that a giant campaign book is a bad idea in of itself... but I do not think it is as inherently useful (and thus more likely to be bought) as a smaller, individual campaign zone book. And when you add on top of that the idea that other game products in that line would be set in that zone, the odds of a DM seeing use out of the product and thus choosing to buy it, I would suspect would be greater. I know for myself... I picked up the Hammerfast and King of the Trollhaunt Warrens products specifically because they described sections of the Nentir Vale that I knew my players intended on heading to in my Nentir Vale campaign. But if I had a campaign set in Waterdeep, I'd be less likely to pick up a Mulhorand sourcebook or a product set there (even with the idea that I could certainly repurpose it for outside of Waterdeep if I really wanted to.)

And another reason is simply the fact that a campaign zone (like Nentir Vale) can more easily get rooted up and plopped down into a existing world, thus rendering the products even possibly useful for DMs who already have their own campaign worlds. A complete world setting is again, not as inherently useful for that type of player, because they most likely aren't going to drop an entire continent into the world, whereas a small duchy or a city and its environs they just might.

I'm basically just thinking of the total amount of wordcount that would get the most use for the most amount of players (and thus the most amount of people buying the book). And in my mind, a book like Neverwinter would accomplish that better than another Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.