WotC Can we salvage Toril?

[Shiroiken]

I'll admit being the default setting finally, for first time with 5e, seems to have no real benifit for the Forgottens Realms. Defauft settings seem cursed.

Becoming the default setting is pretty much how it dies. While I'm not a fan of post-Gygax Greyhawk, WotC doomed it completely by making it the default setting in 3E.

 

[Yora]

Forgotten Realms is not a bad concept. It's just become a mess of too much stuff being crammed in, some poorly execeuted additions, and then a series of rushed and not thought through revisions.

I think there could be a really great D&D setting for the future if you start with the original Campaign Set and supplements for 1st edition and start to expand and polish it up with the experiences and lessons learned over the last 30 years.

First, stick to Faerûn. Nobody wants to see 80s carricatures of South America and Asia by people whose main reference are kung fu movies. If someone has a decent idea for such setting, it could be worth a shot, but lack of one does not need to stand in the way of a new Forgotten Realms.

Forgotten Realms was never big on evil demihuman hordes in the early years. In the oldest material they get mentioned to be living on the fringes but mostly doing their own thing. I'm not sure why you would even want to have orcs in a setting if they aren't a barbarian horde threatening human frontier settlements, but you'd barely notice if they are gone completely. You could have a distinction between the drow people and the mad tyrannical church of Lolth, and wouldn't have to ditch much there either to appease twitter.
And I would say, off you go.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Becoming the default setting is pretty much how it dies. While I'm not a fan of post-Gygax Greyhawk, WotC doomed it completely by making it the default setting in 3E.

I think constant re-writes and updates are how a setting dies.

 

[Yora]

It's not just the constant changes, but that they seem to never get anywhere.
3rd edition had the Return of the Shades and the Silence of Lolth as big events, but then not much actually came from it in the end. I've got no ideas what the shades did once they were back, or if they are even acknowledged in 5th edition, and the Silence of Lolth ultimately didn't change anything.

 

[Wilphe]

Because you can pick and choose what happens in your Forgotten Realms. Take 1e-3e as your base and then you can cannibalize portions of 4e and 5e that you like, ditching the rest.

Firstly, that sounds like a fluff version of the Oberoni fallacy.

Yes I can do that, but not having to do your own work is one reason to buy an established setting in the first place

Secondly, one of the attractions of FR is that it is a rich, developed and popular setting and some people want to use the official version

Thirdly, the Realms have had shakeups before, every edition change in fact, but I don't think they involved radical timeskips or geography changes

 

[Scars Unseen]

Thirdly, the Realms have had shakeups before, every edition change in fact, but I don't think they involved radical timeskips or geography changes

I guess we can establish the First Maxim of the Forgotten Realms: The more a Realms Shaking Event shakes the Realms, the shakier the Realms become as a setting.

 

[bennet]

Thirdly, the Realms have had shakeups before, every edition change in fact, but I don't think they involved radical timeskips

adding 100 years in 4e isn't radical? kills every human unless you make up some dumb excuse as to why still alive.

 

[Azzy]

adding 100 years in 4e isn't radical? kills every human unless you make up some dumb excuse as to why still alive.

I think Wilphe is specifically calling out 4e's changes as different from the other Realms-shaking events.

 

[Wilphe]

Yep

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I just realized Greggy C would have just been happy with a really good world map and WotC hasn't been even able to do that for us yet.