D&D 5E What of the already done settings do you think WotC is revisiting for a Setting Book?

[Henadic Theologian]

Oh, hey. Forgot about "Adventures in the Forgotten Realms," which is just about to take FLGS, Walmart and Target by storm within the month.

Chapters too and big Momma Amazon.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Maybe some of the older folks here, but I sure hope FR doesn't outlive me, I'm not even 20 yet! If WotC (or whatever company is making D&D then) is still publishing FR material when I'm on my death-bed, I swear that I will make a pact with the Raven Queen to let me become a Revenant to kill that bloated setting once and for all!

(I don't actually hate the FR, I just prefer other settings, most notably Exandria and Eberron, and think that it is too bloated and problematic for modern D&D.)

Yes it will out live you, but that doesn't mean I expect you to die young or anything, it just means FR has staying power to go for many more generations, like how people still listen to Mozart and put their own spins on his classical music.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Oh, hey. Forgot about "Adventures in the Forgotten Realms," which is just about to take FLGS, Walmart and Target by storm within the month.

I mean, it's MtG so MtG people will buy it, and maybe some serious D&D/FR fans, not general audience.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yes it will out live you, but that doesn't mean I expect you to die young or anything, it just means FR has staying power to go for many more generations, like how people still listen to Mozart and put their own spins on his classical music.

ROFL.

The FR ain't Mozart mate. There is no real genius there. Some talent, I'm sure, but more Salieri than Mozart, just a Salieri lucky enough to not have to directly compete with a Mozart. Also not many people "put their own spin" on Mozart just FYI beyond, like, staging and a certain kind of show-off-y virtuoso.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I mean, it's MtG so MtG people will buy it, and maybe some serious D&D/FR fans, not general audience.

Don't bet on that, its looking like this is going to be hugely profitable set, most likely THE most profit set MtG has ever had, I think it will pull in a much larger set of D&D players then you think.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Don't bet on that, its looking like this is going to be hugely profitable set, most likely THE most profit set MtG has ever had, I think it will pull in a much larger set of D&D players then you think.

I dunno. If MtG has been steadily growing I could see it be technically the most profitable, but unless it's a gigantic jump from recent sets, I don't think that would mean much. If MtG has been declining and this reverses it, that would be more interesting.

And I really doubt it's going to bring in many D&D players. Nor would it need to in order to be successful, because the people who spend $$$ on MtG are MtG fans, not dabblers.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Only getting started? Someone wasn't playing D&D in the 1990s!

The is moribund now compared to how it used to be, in terms of the amount of attention and description its getting, yeah that includes all the FR-set adventures as FR.

The novels and so on are only selling to an aging audience. The video games are introducing it to new people - but in a such bland and forgettable and non-FR-ish way that people will barely know or care that it's the FR. This was a specific criticism I had of BG3 before I played it. It remains a specific criticism I have of BG3 after playing it, unfortunately. It's also true of the latest sadly-terrible game, which could be in any rando fantasyland.

The movie is a chance to flip that a bit, but... uhhhhh... judging from the set-photos, it's gonna be SUPER-generic, like "Do they even know it's a specific fantasy setting?" levels of generic. I hope that's just a natural result of a film being shot vs a film being shown of course, but LotR did not look that generic when being shot.

Possibly the TV show will help?

And now it has Exandria to compete with for "generic fantasy setting". The "kids today" are much more likely to pursue Exandria fan material than FR fan material (i.e. books, shows, etc.), like drastically so.

So I think we're actually on the edge of a precipice for the FR. It may survive and come back as an interesting setting people actually actively want to use, if the movie and TV show help, and if the new setting book is FR and makes a compelling case for the FR.

Or it may face the same fate Greyhawk has. Greyhawk is dead. Sometimes people dig up bits of it and sell them to the faithful (c.f. Saltmarsh etc.) or just those who have heard of its magical powers, but it's dead. It was basically dead in 3E even though it was the official setting and had a whole RPGA-type campaign going (ultimately rejected as non-canon by WotC). FR may continue to be the default D&D setting in this edition and the next, but unless people start getting actually interested in the FR as its own thing again, it's on the road to being Greyhawk 2, another dead generic setting that used to be big.

We shall see, but I don't think "just getting started" is really it. It's at a risky point. Either it renews itself and draws in an audience (probably via TV/movies) or it'll start to look awfully replaceable and low-priority.

If this book isn't an FR book, I think I'll need to declare the FR to be in a coma, frankly. Because the situation will be little different to GH and 3E, where it got a little support at the start of the edition, continued to be the "default setting" for adventures, but never saw anything more. If so we could see "BRING BACK THE FR!" campaigns as soon as * checks watch * 2030.

According WotC the Forgotten Realms is still the most popular setting, not CR.

And yeah they don't use the FR logo anymore, which btw I miss, but D&D is kind of the new FR logo as its the default setting. When most folks interested in D&D see D&D on a product, they think FR unless its for a specific other setting.

FR kind of ate D&D, because in a sense for example Ravenloft at first in 5e was functionally treated as a part of FR until this year, and Eberron was added to FRs cosmology.

FR is about to get a 100 million dollar movie and TV show, if successful it will make FR the most profitable IP WotC has. Its already about to be the most profitable MtG setting as well as D&D setting.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

When most folks interested in D&D see D&D on a product, they think FR unless its for a specific other setting.

[Citation needed]

If I look at discussion of D&D online it looks like most people are running their own homebrew settings, or specific other settings, rather than the FR, the FR reddit isn't particularly active (obviously it has about 5% as many members/activity as Critical Role). I think based on what I've seen, particularly of people under about 35, is that they're very rarely looking to play in the FR.

I daresay an actually-good FR book, unlike SCAG (which even has a horrible acronym) could help turn that around, but I do think it very much needs turning around.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I mean, it's MtG so MtG people will buy it, and maybe some serious D&D/FR fans, not general audience.

If it brings in at the low end 1 in 10 TTRPG D&D player fans and 1 in 20 FR fans (ones that say just read the novels or pkay the video games), that will be a huge boost in profits for MtG.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I mean, it's MtG so MtG people will buy it, and maybe some serious D&D/FR fans, not general audience.

[Citation needed]

If I look at discussion of D&D online it looks like most people are running their own homebrew settings, or specific other settings, rather than the FR, the FR reddit isn't particularly active (obviously it has about 5% as many members/activity as Critical Role). I think based on what I've seen, particularly of people under about 35, is that they're very rarely looking to play in the FR.

I daresay an actually-good FR book, unlike SCAG (which even has a horrible acronym) could help turn that around, but I do think it very much needs turning around.

The internet isn't the real world or reflective of it, if it was one look at twitter would have me moving into a bomb shelter for the next 20 years.

I will admit FR has got stale since most the novel line was ended, but it wasn't just FR that was burned by the idea that WotC isn't a novel company, its a made a mess of MtG's fiction line too, to a lesser degree.

But hopefully that will change and things will liven up soon.