Edition Signature Settings (and a farewell to the Realms)

[Hjorimir]

I wouldn't be too quick to discount the idea of Al'Qadim making a show; it was more popular that one might think at first glance. I've seen dozens of polls here at ENWorld over the years and Al'Qadim is constantly surprising in its following.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I expect to see more accompoaying articles in Dungeon and Dragon, to adapt other products to specific settings.

This trend started in the FR and Eberron articles for the KotS adventure, where the designer has really taken pains to tie the adventure to the setting. Compared to the former way of dropping some hints to a possible location at most, this is a welcome service.

This may go even further. An adventure with adaption notes and a Dragon article defining the location in detail or another article describing some NPCs and a group or secret societies from the Realms.

Concerning the signature setting for 4e we might see ... nothing.

If WotC goes for the toolbox approach, designing material to be adaptable to different settings and providing support for this adaption via DDI, what would they need a SigSet for? Who do they want to sell it to? FR, Eberron, or Greyhawk fans?

Of course, I don't know which they are working towards, but hey! wild speculation is the way of the internet.

Huldvoll

Jan van Leyden

 

[delericho]

It is hard to believe that after September 16th, there will be no more new Forgotten Realms material printed by Wizards of the Coast. At least if WotC stays true to their word ("two books, one adventure for each setting").

It doesn't seem to make much sense to make huge changes to the world, and thus alienate a huge number of fans, if you're then only going to publish three books. Surely, in that case, it would be better to make the minimal required changes, and take the hit for "selling all the same stuff again"?

So, I would expect FR to continue having books published, but probably at a rather reduced rate. Of course, I'm probably wrong.

As for the signature setting of 4e, I'm thinking it probably won't be a specific published setting, but rather the whole "points of light" concept that will appear in countless homebrews.

 

[JPL]

With Pathfinder's rising popularity, and with Greyhawk dwindling into the past and the Realms re-made in a seemingly unpopular way . . . .

By the hammer of Thor, the first FR book has a street date of TODAY, and you've already concluded that it's "seemingly unpopular"?

The Realms, as I understand it, will contain within it everything that's in your 4.0 PHB. Dragonborn, warlocks, slightly taller halflings, etc. Because the campaign setting will be limited to 3 books rather than 300, I'd wager it will be an easier thing to plug in new stuff as new stuff is introduced to 4.0.

I think the flagship campaign setting for 4.0 is Fallcrest, that humble little point of light in the back of the DMG. That's what a gaming group needs, more than page after page of history and lore and metaplot --- just a place to go between adventures, a place to call home. So many campaign settings give you so much that you DON'T need while skipping the stuff you DO need --- like a reasonably detailed home base.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

It doesn't seem to make much sense to make huge changes to the world, and thus alienate a huge number of fans, if you're then only going to publish three books. Surely, in that case, it would be better to make the minimal required changes, and take the hit for "selling all the same stuff again"?

Not really, the idea was to make the Realms as playable as possible. The sort of thing a DM can buy 1 book, read it and start running a game next week.

All the changes to the Realms were to accomplish a couple of things:
a) Reduce the amount of lore and "things needed to know" to run a game. i.e. lower the barrier to entry for players and DMs.
b) Change the facts of the campaign to make them easier to run games in. For instance, making cities more friendly to the "standard" races, make the world easier to adventure in(filled with ancient ruins, monsters to kill, no established powerful lawful forces, no powerful NPCs who want to do the PCs job for them, plenty of evil plots and organizations, etc)

It would defeat point A to print more books. The idea is to keep info about the Realms small and allow DMs to make up the rest. It feeds into the whole philosophy behind 4e: Let the DM have the power.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I wouldn't characterise 'Greyhawk' as 'barely used'. It was probably the 2nd most popular setting after FR.

Dragonlance is the setting which was so successful as a published world of novels and game supplements that TSR decided to pay Ed Greenwood to turn his Dragon material into a second proper setting.

If Greyhawk comes after the Forgotten Realms, it definitely comes after Dragonlance - though it's obvious that the Forgotten Realms pretty quickly overran Dragonlance in popularity starting in the late Eighties and through the Nineties, especially after the two classic Dragonlance trilogies were over with (the Chronicles in 1984-5, and the Legends in 1986).

Greyhawk had a lot of currency as the default setting for Gygax-era Dungeons & Dragons, and further life as a published setting in the more traditional sense later on, but if we're talking about real popularity in the "loved by most at the height of D&D's success in the Eighties" sense, Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms have no real competition.

I mean, the main Dragonlance books hit the New York Times best seller list, and R. A. Salvatore's novels did the same later on. That exposure alone pretty much guarantees that thousands if not tens of thousands more DMs used those settings than Greyhawk.

 

[Wraith101]

Don't forget Wizards has two more Setting Search worlds hidden away somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised to see one of them in 2011 if not 2010.

Other than that, I think it would be a toss between Ravenloft, Dark Sun and OA / Rokugan.

 

[Grimstaff]

I wouldn't be surprised if 4E heralds the "Return of the Homebrew".

This said, I'd like to see a detailed 4E "Toolbox" book on developing, maintaining, and tracking your own campaign setting.

 

[Obryn]

I would give my right arm for a new Dark Sun setting.

That is, I would if it's original Dark Sun - complete with all the Sorcerer-Kings slowly transforming into Dragons. Post-Prism-Pentad Dark Sun was ... well, I kinda hated it a little bit.


In other news, the new FR book is the first Forgotten Realms purchase I've even considered since the 3.0 Campaign Guide. If it really does chop out all the accumulated lore, they've brought a customer back to the fold.

-O

 

[Phaezen]

I wouldn't be surprised if 4E heralds the "Return of the Homebrew".

This said, I'd like to see a detailed 4E "Toolbox" book on developing, maintaining, and tracking your own campaign setting.

This, right here. Possibly something a 3PP could look at. nudge nudge wink wink.

Phaezen