D&D 5E Any Realms news?

[Sailor Moon]

Sure, I don't disagree with you... my only thought is that it'll tend towards later just so that the stuff they currently have on the docket for the Realms gets published so as to give more stuff to truly change entire book sections. Because while things like the pantheon has seen a HUGE shake up and which impacts the entirety of Faerun in huge ways... the "Deities" section of the campaign guide is but a small section of the book. The re-split of Abeir and Toril will produce huge changes for those half-dozen sections of the map that overlapped in 4E... but in the actual Geography section, that's only six sections out of how many areas to be detailed? And those sections constitute only just how many paragraphs/pages of information? And as far as Organizations are concerned... even in the 3E guide that only encompassed 10 pages of material in a 300 page book. So despite what could have huge ramifications on Faerun as a whole... in the actual book, it would probably only result in a small percentage change as far as page space is concerned.

That's really my only thought. How much of the book sections themselves have seen enough change from the 4E book to warrant the book being produced again? That I couldn't really say. And for the stuff that has changed... what is the best, most efficient, or financially viable way to get that stuff out there? Web enhancement articles? Soft cover small area campaign books that will see changes every year? A full campaign guide? Or relying on those DMs that truly care about "up-to-date" info to actually purchase the products that has seen the changes take place? I don't know what is the right answer... all I know is that WotC does not seem to want to just release "product" for the sake of having product out there. Yeah it sucks for those DMs who want all the official lore combined into a singular form, but I have to imagine that they just don't think it's financially or creatively worthwhile to do at this point in time. Maybe there just isn't enough people out there who would buy the book to warrant spending all that time and resources to put it together?

I would say there is a whole legion of Realms fans who hated the 4th edition changes and are anxiously waiting for a 5th edition FRCG. Especially since the theme now is to bring back the "Old Realms" as much as possible.

A thick FRCG and regional web articles is somewhere you can't go wrong.

 

[DEFCON 1]

A thick FRCG and regional web articles is somewhere you can't go wrong.

Heh heh... at least until you find out just how much of the 4E Realms does not in fact get rolled back. They're not going to be wiping away 100+ years of history after all.

 

[Parmandur]

I think the Sword Coast Legends news, considering that they have been working on it for two years, demonstrates several things. For one, WOTC has a plan, secondly that this plan includes the Realms, and perhaps most vital they are able to keep this plan secret for multiple years.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

What I find interesting is that they went "whole-hog" with 5e, more or less, retruning the game to a closer sembelance of what it was pre-4e and pre-3e...with more "vagaries" in the writing style and a "rulings not rules" general approace, placing most of the direction of the campaign firmly in the hands of the DM's rather than Players. What did this do? Well, as near as I can tell, it brought in new people, and a LOT of older types who had stuck with ODD/BECMI/1e/2e campaigns or went with one of their OSR clones.

Right now, I think 5e has the most positive vibe from the majority of D&D players...weather they were old-school or new. Why? The WotC guys made a conscious effort to try and include the old guard.

Now...FR. I think it would be a HUGE mistake to just "continue with a post-Sundering world". I've never been a big FR fan, but one thing I always hated was when they started to include changes to the world via other sources like novels (primarily). I find it a bit perplexing to see WotC think "lets bring in the old guard with this edition" (re:5e rules) and at the same time think "lets only go with the new stuff with this edition" (re:FR spellplague and sundering and whatever). I guess it feels like a mega-car shop place selling rebuilt muscle cars from the 50's to 70's to get people into the store, then telling them "No, we only sell parts for italian sports cars built after 2000".

I've said it before, and I'll say it again... this whole idea of "branching out and linking up" the D&D brand through other sources is a horrible, horrible idea that is doomed to failure. Thinking that a group of D&D'ers are likely to go buy/try a video game based in FR, or read novels, or try out some CCG based on D&D, is, IMHO, stupid. It's the same thing that got TSR in a lot of trouble... having so-o-o many things on it's plate that it couldn't support any of them (game systems, worlds, etc.). But this time, it's even *more* diverse, with most of the stuff not even being usable at the table when running a game of D&D set in the Realms...

Just my 2¢.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Irennan]

Sure, I don't disagree with you... my only thought is that it'll tend towards later just so that the stuff they currently have on the docket for the Realms gets published so as to give more stuff to truly change entire book sections. Because while things like the pantheon has seen a HUGE shake up and which impacts the entirety of Faerun in huge ways... the "Deities" section of the campaign guide is but a small section of the book. The re-split of Abeir and Toril will produce huge changes for those half-dozen sections of the map that overlapped in 4E... but in the actual Geography section, that's only six sections out of how many areas to be detailed? And those sections constitute only just how many paragraphs/pages of information? And as far as Organizations are concerned... even in the 3E guide that only encompassed 10 pages of material in a 300 page book. So despite what could have huge ramifications on Faerun as a whole... in the actual book, it would probably only result in a small percentage change as far as page space is concerned.

That's really my only thought. How much of the book sections themselves have seen enough change from the 4E book to warrant the book being produced again? That I couldn't really say. And for the stuff that has changed... what is the best, most efficient, or financially viable way to get that stuff out there? Web enhancement articles? Soft cover small area campaign books that will see changes every year? A full campaign guide? Or relying on those DMs that truly care about "up-to-date" info to actually purchase the products that has seen the changes take place? I don't know what is the right answer... all I know is that WotC does not seem to want to just release "product" for the sake of having product out there. Yeah it sucks for those DMs who want all the official lore combined into a singular form, but I have to imagine that they just don't think it's financially or creatively worthwhile to do at this point in time. Maybe there just isn't enough people out there who would buy the book to warrant spending all that time and resources to put it together?

Yeah, I see your point. They'll publish the book when such a move will be profitable in their book. Nonetheless, Ed has been writing huge quanitities of lore for the FR, so I guess that the changes brought by the Sundering are truly big.

And if said changes don't actually deserve a new book and they wanted people to buy older ones, then -as I said- they should do a broad update covering what changed in the pantheon/organizations/regions and then reference to the book they wish their customers to use.

On a side note, IMO you are underestimating the entity of Abeir Swapping with Toril. It's not merely a matter of geography. What happened to those regions while there in the other world? What will happen between Mulhorand/Unther? What will be the reaction of people inhabiting the swapped nations (especially when confronted with the population of eventual fragments of Tymather/whatever remaining on Toril) and so on are all questions that will need an answer.

 

[Irennan]

Heh heh... at least until you find out just how much of the 4E Realms does not in fact get rolled back. They're not going to be wiping away 100+ years of history after all.

They are basically reverting the changes through in world deus ex machina, though (just like they implemented them, making previous ''history'' moot in the new era --even though FR authors have been trying to tie the two parts as of recent--. And of those 100 years of history, only a really minor part is actually ''history'', the rest is mostly blank space). They have said that the Realms had gone off track, or something along those lines, then they talked about restoring the feel and ''old faces'' coming back and so on. Given that so many of the end 3e and 4e changes were about removing stuff, I'd say that it is a pretty major change.

 

[Blackwarder]

I would realy like to seethem going forward with products like MiBG a or LotCS, adventures with regional source booklets combined.

Just my 2 cents.

Warder

 

[Irennan]

Regional sourcebooks+adventure would also be cool, especially combined with a broad update articles.

 

[Sailor Moon]

I want to see less emphasis on career spanning adventures.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Anyone heard anything new about what's going on with the Forgotten Realms, in terms of either the RPG Setting or the novels?

The complete set of core rulebooks have only been available for what, two months now?

We're already getting Realms adventures, which is news of a sort.

And besides, for third edition it was a good eight months between the last core rulebook's release and the publication of the FRCS.

These things take time. Patience, m'kay?