D&D 5E (2024) How excited are you for the 2 upcoming Forgotten Realms books?

[THEMNGMNT]

If you don't like something in the books you can just, you know, change it. Because that's what Dungeon Masters do.

 

[Li Shenron]

I had to vote "D&D is dead to me" because I'm long off the hook with the edition by now, so I am unlikely to purchase any new book. But if I'm going to buy anything, it's definitely going to be settings books, because I'm done with players material until 7e (I don't play half editions, and apparently neither even-numbered ones), and on the adventures modules side I still have too many from previous editions I haven't run yet. But settings books are always quite nice to read, even if I don't use them in a game... now the SCAG was very poor IMHO so the precedents for FR books in 5e aren't exactly promising, but I'll always keep an eye open.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

If you don't like something in the books you can just, you know, change it. Because that's what Dungeon Masters do.

Sounds like you don't need to change anything about the existing Forgotten Realms then because all DMs will already change things for their own campaign?

 

[Maenalis]

If you don't like something in the books you can just, you know don't buy them.

 

[Corinnguard]

If you don't like something in the books you can just, you know don't buy them.

That's going to require you to wait and read several reviews of the two books in order to get the idea of what you are not going to like what's in either one of them.

RPG books are a mix of stuff the designers think you are going to like and stuff that you aren't going to like. If it's more of the former than the latter, you'll probably be more likely to buy the material. If it's more of the latter, then you'll probably be better off looking at the material you do like off of a SRD.

 

[Maenalis]

...I will wait with my purchase until @MerricB writes a review and @SlyFlourish makes a video about them. ...

 

[Remathilis]

Without a doubt, a multi author series was commissioned to undo the damage of 4e.

That doesn't mean we have a safe evergreen setting however.

You have two choices when it comes to D&D settings: changing or dead. There is no evergreen and alive.

Eberron is probably their most static world (there is no Metaplot, the only changes come with edition switches) and I can count a Baker's dozen of changes from 3.5 to 5.24. The introduction of 4e (and later) species, the changes to dragonmarks on other species flip-flipping every book, the planar arrangement, the dwarves connection with the Daelkyr, the role of certain monsters in the setting (gnolls being a good example). You get the point. The setting has changed to match the core books of the current version. Every setting does that to a greater orb lesser degree. Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Planescape, Ravenloft, Greyhawk. They call changed. Some very little (Greyhawk) some a whole lot (Ravenloft). But no setting remains evergreen.

Well, one did. Birthright. That setting has not changed since it's original box set. That is the D&D evergreen setting: a tree growing out of it's grave. For everything else, I can point you to a dozen things that changed with every new campaign book. That's the nature of the beast.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Literally, if I have a little bit of free time to let my mind wander, I am thinking about these two books.
I watched the Todd Kenreck interview on youtube (several times), read the summary on dndfan, read the forum topic here...
I'm still constantly thinking about: which parts of Toril they have left out that I would have liked to read more about, what old prestige classes I would like to return, how much I hate the Spellplague, what the current lore might be about the weave... etc.

And then I remember how much I dislike the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide book and start to think about something else and more fun (like paying taxes and dental root canals and the like).

I will wait with my purchase until @MerricB writes a review and @SlyFlourish makes a video about them. But I have the feeling they are either going to be (or are) as "bad/useless" (in my humble opinion) as the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide book, or they are going to be my most used books off all time.

So: How excited are you for the 2 upcoming Forgotten Realms books?

The SCAG was designed with Jeremy Crawford's mimimalist gamist setting philosophy in mind, abit by Green Ronin (hence why it has an ad for Green Ronin products in the back), these books are designed with James Wyatt's much more deep lore nerd, deep cuts design philosophy instead with Ray Winningers support (back when he was the boss). This will in many ways he a very different beast to the SCAG.

James Wyatt has a much, much better track

 

[Scribe]

You have two choices when it comes to D&D settings: changing or dead. There is no evergreen and alive.

False. How many adventures could FR support?

Well, I could run 100s in a Shadowdark setting...so I'm going to assume 'more than you will run in your life'.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I'm excited for new subclasses and character options (feats, spells, magic items).

I love the forgotten realms as a setting. It's what I grew up playing with for my first D&D campaigns, and spent over a decade reading novels from the forgotten realms and loving them - but that was all in the 90's and early 00's. Unfortunately nothing WotC has done with FR since 4th Edition has interested me at all - my excitement about the setting books at this point is extremely low. The quality of the Sword Coast Adventures Guide doesn't help, though it is a mostly new team at D&D now compared to then so there may be a small bit of hope that new voices are able to turn things around with the setting.

I believe I heard it was James Wyatt as lead for these books, and no one has more experience and better experience at world building then James Wyatt at WotC. Both MtG and D&D side. He also has FR experience.