D&D 5E Where in FR do you want the next big adventure book to go?

[tetrasodium]

There certainly are merchant costers in FR, they are outlined in the 2E campaign set, and there is mention of trade goods in the 3e campaign setting. And if Im not mistaken there are trade routes mentioned in various other supplements, for example, the 2E city of splendors. But that would be a cool 5E supplement, one that has never been done is a book on merchant costers, trade routes and goods in the Realms all in one book.

That's a different problem, there are apparently hundreds of them and I'd wager that a significant chunk of them are dressed up like they are eberron's dragonmarked houses but larger or the east india trade company; but the world shows no evidence of such a power & they certainly don't act like a power of that scale when robbed of their very FR specific plot armor. They don't act like mercantile companies, grow, wield their power against the nobles/ruling body, join & consume each other, or any of the other things such a organization does. Because everything else is an empty shell of plot armor they don't have any logical structure. There aren't even any nations in the world for them to operate within/between but instead of building corporatocracies or something you have these plot armor castle towns pretending to be megacities that wield tremendous clout yet are somehow able to function despite a level of infrastructure & management of the surrounding area that makes the darkest corner of the dark ages seem positively well oiled. The overuse of plot armor protected loose threads that go nowhere & creation of hollow do nothing groups to provide continuity porn means that players & GM's can't simply infer how the world will react to an action simply by thinking as a human player/gm in terms of most authors are human.
Someone brought up fixing these kind of problems would require deciding if x or Y event happened & shaping things from there, but that's absurd because it's not like FR has some deeply respected continuity bible like a lot of tv shows/comic books/etc have. The past shapes the present yes, but you can't view the present by looking at all possible pasts and refusing to condense them into a present with bones made of something other than plot armor

 

[Demetrios1453]

There aren't even any nations in the world for them to operate within/between

Outside the Sword Coast and the Dalelands/Moonsea, and inhospitable areas like deserts, tundra, jungles, and steppes that wouldn't be able to support large, long-term stable nations in any medieval-technology level world (like our own during that period), the entire continent of Faerun (and, moreover, the rest of the world beyond) is basically filled with nations. Every bit of it, with boundaries bumping right up against each other, with border conflicts and all. The whole reason for the original post is to showcase those nations beyond the Sword Coast - the somewhat unfortunate fact that the development team has focused in on that politically atypical area gives rise to misconceptions like this (and the irritating fact that they blew up the two large states in the region in the transition to 5e (for Luruar/Silver Marches) and in Descent to Avernus (for Elturgard, although Elturgard might somehow still manage to pull out of the mess in the latter); granted, Najara still exists, but it's definitely not a typical state). The area focused on 5e products manages to stop exactly where the large organized nations begin, at the borders of Amn and Cormyr. Widen your viewpoint beyond the Sword Coast, and you'll see that statements such as "there aren't even any nations in the world" are utter nonsense....

 

[tetrasodium]

Outside the Sword Coast and the Dalelands/Moonsea, and inhospitable areas like deserts, tundra, jungles, and steppes that wouldn't be able to support large, long-term stable nations in any medieval-technology level world (like our own during that period), the entire continent of Faerun (and, moreover, the rest of the world beyond) is basically filled with nations. Every bit of it, with boundaries bumping right up against each other, with border conflicts and all. The whole reason for the original post is to showcase those nations beyond the Sword Coast - the somewhat unfortunate fact that the development team has focused in on that politically atypical area gives rise to misconceptions like this (and the irritating fact that they blew up the two large states in the region in the transition to 5e (for Luruar/Silver Marches) and in Descent to Avernus (for Elturgard, although Elturgard might somehow still manage to pull out of the mess in the latter); granted, Najara still exists, but it's definitely not a typical state). The area focused on 5e products manages to stop exactly where the large organized nations begin, at the borders of Amn and Cormyr. Widen your viewpoint beyond the Sword Coast, and you'll see that statements such as "there aren't even any nations in the world" are utter nonsense....

Nations have borders. Continent sized ones have regions like states & provinces. The relations between nations color the world. In FR all of those things are "don't look behind the curtain". I'm aware of the existence of those nations you cite, but even adjacent ones are little more than a sham that rarely even connects to the rest of the world. The fact that places like waterdeep daggerford icewind dale & so forth claim a mantle of power far above their foundation of not even having borders on a map or things like roads within their own nation completely wipes away the relevance of every sham of a nation invoked into existence for some random adventure or book at one point to never be remembered again & it actually makes those sham "nations" all the more problematic

 

[Azuresun]

You don't like FR. We get it.

 

[Demetrios1453]

You don't like FR. We get it.

I hesitated to even respond to him, given his obvious and overwhelming bias in this matter, but the massive misrepresentation that "there aren't even any nations in the world" was so blatantly incorrect that I couldn't help myself.

Apparently they are sham nations without any borders or roads now. He's obviously never looked at any non-Sword Coast product in the setting (well, other than likely rejecting them out of hand without opening), as they all objectively have both (and the roads aren't sparse either), as well as complex histories, politics, economics, and international relationships, all written down EXTENSIVELY (some would say overly-extensively - the main complaint you usually see about the setting is that it's too detailed) in dozens, if not hundreds, of FR products. Basically, he's shown himself to be utterly unknowledgeable about the setting by making such claims in the face of hard, printed evidence to the contrary.

If anyone wants a good map, sourced from 2e and 3e products (From what we've seen, the 5e map will still look pretty similar to this, with some changes that really doesn't dramatically affect the number of nations or roads), that shows the multitudinous nations of Toril (with borders and innumerable roads even!), go here (but be aware, it's very large):

http://www.pvpchamps.com/TorilMap.jpg

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I hesitated to even respond to him, given his obvious and overwhelming bias in this matter, but the massive misrepresentation that "there aren't even any nations in the world" was so blatantly incorrect that I couldn't help myself.

I mean, have they never heard of Thay? Cormyr? Calimshan? There are dozens of others. FR has countries.

 

[darjr]

I'd like to see some of the bigger 'places' that are not whole regions

 

[Azzy]

Straight outa Faerun, to be blunt.

Is that like Straight Outta Compton?

Yeah, I'd be partial to see an adventure explore the regions beyond the continent of Faerun.

I think they are going to finish the "Big Three" cities of the Sword Coast within the near future. These cities are Waterdeep (WD: DH, DotMM), Baldur's Gate (BG: DiA), and Neverwinter (which has not yet been done). I would like them to do Neverwinter just to get more information about that city in 5e, but the main place I would want them to do the next big adventure book is Anauroch.

Okay, I wouldn't mind a gazetteer of Neverwinter, now that you mention it. But that's mainly because some of my friends got me hooked on the Neverwinter MMO.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Okay, I wouldn't mind a gazetteer of Neverwinter, now that you mention it. But that's mainly because some of my friends got me hooked on the Neverwinter MMO.

That's part of the reason why I mentioned it and why I think it's likely WotC will go there soon. Baldur's Gate's and Neverwinter's popularity and status is partially due to the games that take place there.

 

[tetrasodium]

I hesitated to even respond to him, given his obvious and overwhelming bias in this matter, but the massive misrepresentation that "there aren't even any nations in the world" was so blatantly incorrect that I couldn't help myself.

Apparently they are sham nations without any borders or roads now. He's obviously never looked at any non-Sword Coast product in the setting (well, other than likely rejecting them out of hand without opening), as they all objectively have both (and the roads aren't sparse either), as well as complex histories, politics, economics, and international relationships, all written down EXTENSIVELY (some would say overly-extensively - the main complaint you usually see about the setting is that it's too detailed) in dozens, if not hundreds, of FR products. Basically, he's shown himself to be utterly unknowledgeable about the setting by making such claims in the face of hard, printed evidence to the contrary.

If anyone wants a good map, sourced from 2e and 3e products (From what we've seen, the 5e map will still look pretty similar to this, with some changes that really doesn't dramatically affect the number of nations or roads), that shows the multitudinous nations of Toril (with borders and innumerable roads even!), go here (but be aware, it's very large):

http://www.pvpchamps.com/TorilMap.jpg

Spoiler: were you trying to wow me with pixels to make up for the lack of nations?

You've badly misunderstood. I kinda figured when your gigantic one hundred and sixtey five megjpg finished loading that it would have nation borders mapped out or something given your assertion or at least be something other than a gigantic keyless worlf map of FR with what may or may not be every road ever scrawled on a random chunk of ,map for every FR adventure novel or game since the eighties.. You've changed nothing despite the earlier claim someone made that FR is covered with nations (true), those nations have less cohesion than epcot's nations of the world where at least nearby regions that influenced each other's style in the world are near each other. Someone else ignored that I spoke about hw the best known cities of the setting don't even have nation borders & brought up that fr is covered with nations so I responded to that tangential point. Try as you might to claim otherwise,

Spoiler: This is a capitol city with no nation

The original problem example that I cited way back where you have a fewmegacities that wield tremendous clout yet lack so much as the cohesiveness to bother pretending they exist within a nation someone bothers to draw on the map. Having dozens of nations like FR for a RPG is likely too much to differentiate or support in any meaningful fashion because expecting people to read a few decades of FR novels is unrealistic, but wen a setting is known for three or so major cities you keep pointing a spotlight at likewaterdeep daggerford & icewind dale & so forth but can't be bothered to mark out nation borders it's a problem.