D&D 5E Campaign setting strategy: Would a big campaign setting guide followed by regional books be better?

redrick said:

Realistically, I don't think the Sword Coast setting book is an indicator that we'll get books for all the other regions of the Realms. That seems contrary to what Wizards has been doing thus far. More likely, if the AP's get moved to another region of the Realms, we might see a setting book to supplement that.

If that is the case, I could see the value of Wizards doing a short little "Quick Guide to the Sundering" PDF for folks who are familiar with earlier versions of the Realms and want to keep up to date with Wizards Universe Continuity. There are people who seem to care about that, and hopefully it wouldn't be too expensive to produce. (And if it helps to sell a few old FR PDFs off of dndclassics, that can't hurt Wizards either.)

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The problem with their overall plan is the fact that the Forgotten Realms is the worst setting to use for a release schedule that is a trickle. They should have either gone with Greyhawk or the Nentir Vale because neither one are so heavily lore ridden as FR. FR's popularity and selling point for all these years is not Drizzt or was it the Baldur's Gate games, it is the vast amounts of lore and detail that went into it. Wizards decided to go with FR because of it's popularity but decided to leave out the reason it became popular in the first place.

I also wish they would stop with these ham fisted stories and give us more tools to create our own. It's almost like if you don't like their stories then you are stuck with the core three so off you go. This game is supposed to be about imagination but so far it mostly promotes others and not the consumers.

Those box sets were fun. I think they should go back to those for campaign settings, but use the bigger boxes (a la the 5e starter set or the 4e nouveau red box) so they could be bigger, better. I'd pay for those.

Corpsetaker said:

Better for everyone.

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Well, not everyone. For example, it would not be better for me. And if your own poll in this thread that you created is any indications, it's quite possibly a minority everyone for whom the creation of a big campaign guide versus a regional guide would be better.

Right now Wizards is taking a big gamble because they are narrowly focusing on a specific area that many people are either tired of or don't like. The chances are higher that people will not like the area and not purchase the book. You have a greater chance of people buying an overall book because it has all areas and caters to everyone.

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This might be the case. But if your very own poll in this thread is any indication, it doesn't appear so at this time. However polls are very, very tricky. Even a minor change or error in wording can give you wildly different results.

I am currently looking at the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Guide for 3rd edition and it's a perfect setup because they took the most widely known areas and went into just enough detail to get you started by detailing the "important sites" of those areas.

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No, it's not the perfect setup. If it was the perfect setup it would appeal to all gamers. But it doesn't. It might be the perfect setup for you and that's great! However I just finished reading the 3e FRCS as was suggested to me by others in a completely different thread. It's nice but it's just too much info about too large an area for me to easily use and remember. In fact, it's so much information that I'm actively discouraged from using the FR which is a bummer. I'm hoping that the current region guide will work better for me. It certainly can't work any worse for me.

I want both... I want an overall campaign setting book and I also want regional books that go into more detail about a particular area. That said, I'd be very surprised if we see anything else beyond the SCAG book. I have a feeling that it's all the setting material we'll see on the Realms.

And, I expect the other settings to be treated this way as well. Release a couple of APs in a setting and then finish it off with a setting book of the region where those adventures took place. And so on, and so forth...

Corpsetaker said:

Better for everyone.

Right now Wizards is taking a big gamble because they are narrowly focusing on a specific area that many people are either tired of or don't like. The chances are higher that people will not like the area and not purchase the book. You have a greater chance of people buying an overall book because it has all areas and caters to everyone.

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Or... they are taking less of a gamble financially because they've already designed, developed, mapped, illustrated and written so much information about the Sword Coast already for 5E (with all the playtest modules and the three APs). Thus, a lot of the development of this book is just taking that which is already completed and bringing it all together doing reorganization and editing to put it into chapter book form, plus then filling in the other sections on the towns and areas that have not yet been worked on. So the time and cost on the development of this book is quite possibly much less than if they were going to have to do the entire rest of the continent.

DEFCON 1 said:

Or... they are taking less of a gamble financially because they've already designed, developed, mapped, illustrated and written so much information about the Sword Coast already for 5E (with all the playtest modules and the three APs). Thus, a lot of the development of this book is just taking that which is already completed and bringing it all together doing reorganization and editing to put it into chapter book form, plus then filling in the other sections on the towns and areas that have not yet been worked on. So the time and cost on the development of this book is quite possibly much less than if they were going to have to do the entire rest of the continent.

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I doubt the SCAG book will retread old material from the APs, that would be kinda disappointing for many people (although maybe not me as much because I haven't bought any APs yet).

On an unrelated note, I keep seeing people say in threads how little known the Sword Coast area is... I'm not sure why people would say that. There are many supplements on it already plus the Baldurs Gate games. I'd personally say it's one of the best known areas of the Realms.

graves3141 said:

On an unrelated note, I keep seeing people say in threads how little known the Sword Coast area is... I'm not sure why people would say that. There are many supplements on it already plus the Baldurs Gate games. I'd personally say it's one of the best known areas of the Realms.

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Please list those supplements, particularly those covering the southern Sword Coast (what used to be called the Western Heartlands). AFAIK, the only supplement specifically about that region is Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast, which is great if you're after tavern menus but leaves something to be desired as the main sourcebook on an area.

Staffan said:

Please list those supplements, particularly those covering the southern Sword Coast (what used to be called the Western Heartlands). AFAIK, the only supplement specifically about that region is Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast, which is great if you're after tavern menus but leaves something to be desired as the main sourcebook on an area.

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Aren't all the APs set in the Sword Coast? Tons of info there and likely more to come in Out of the Abyss. Forgotten Realms Adventures has info on cities like Baldurs Gate. 3E City of Spendors and the big 2E Waterdeep boxed set detail the biggest city on the Sword Coast (Ruins of Undermountain detail the dungeon under that city). That seems like a lot to me but to each his own.

Staffan said:

Please list those supplements, particularly those covering the southern Sword Coast (what used to be called the Western Heartlands). AFAIK, the only supplement specifically about that region is Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast, which is great if you're after tavern menus but leaves something to be desired as the main sourcebook on an area.

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3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide.
Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast.
Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate II.
Waterdeep.
Waterdeep City of Splender's.
Calimport.
Empires of the Shining Sea.
FR16 Complete Collection.
Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms.
Player's Guide to Faerun.
City of Splenders Waterdeep.
Various 2nd edition Forgotten Realms Boxsets.

Corpsetaker said:

3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide.
Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast.
Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate II.
Waterdeep.
Waterdeep City of Splender's.
Calimport.
Empires of the Shining Sea.
FR16 Complete Collection.
Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms.
Player's Guide to Faerun.
City of Splenders Waterdeep.
Various 2nd edition Forgotten Realms Boxsets.

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I asked about the Western Heartlands. That's the region south of Waterdeep, north of Amn, and west of Anauroch/Cormyr. This part:



3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide - 8 pages
Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast - I'll give you this, but it's way too "tourist guide-y". It's not an appropriate primary sourcebook on the region.
Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate II - Amn and Tethyr. Wrong region.
Various Waterdeep products - Waterdeep is very well covered, it's the land south of it I'm after.
Calimport - wrong region.
Empires of the Shining Sea - wrong region.
FR16 Complete Collection - FR16 is The Shining South. Covers Halruaa, Dambrath, Luiren, Durpar, and Ulgarth. WAY wrong region. If you meant the whole set 1-16, none of them cover the Western Heartlands, except incidentally (e.g. FR15 Gold and Glory is about mercenary companies, and some of those mercenary companies are active in the Western Heartlands).
Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms - fiction disguised as a sourcebook. Completely useless.
Player's Guide to Faerun - Player-focused book that's pretty much all rules. It has like one paragraph on the Westen Heartlands.
Various 2nd edition Forgotten Realms Boxsets. - the core 2e FR set has about 20 pages on Western Heartlands, and is probably the best source for it.

To use a real-world analogue, it's like I'm asking for a book on France, and you say "But France is already well-described, just look at these books about Paris, Spain, and Turkey."