D&D 5E Escapist article on SCAG is Brutal.

[DEFCON 1]

But do we really need a write up on them in a book with so little page count? I'd have preferred earth genasi (which have an established history of being in the sword coast region AND they aren't just Dwarven drow).

Buying this book solely for the crunch IS a waste of money. This is not PHB 2 or Complete Warrior. This is a handful of pages of actual crunch in a book filled with no crunch. People wanting a book of crunch are not serviced by this book.

Unless of course a person feels that they want and need "official" crunch and thus don't care how much they spend to get it.

People have been able to get crunch for free for more than a year. It's all over the downloads section here on EN World if they wanted it. And yet we've spent more than 12 months seeing thread after thread after thread of people with their knickers in a bunch complaining that they had "all this money" burning holes in their pockets but WotC wasn't giving them anything to spend it on. Well, now they have something to buy. So if having "official" crunch is so gosh-darned important, then they'll spend the money regardless of how much crunch is in it. And if they don't... then it just shows how full of crap they were these past 16 months.

 

[pukunui]

To be quite blunt, that is not the Forgotten Realms and that is where WoTc will always fail when it comes to that setting. The popularity and uniqueness of the setting is based around it having so much lore that you don't need to fill in a lot of blanks unless you want to. The setting is based around heavy and detailed lore.

It's a good thing then that all that lore is readily available online, both for free (via sites like the FR wiki) and for a fee (via dndclassics)! Filling in the blanks on the 5e map should be quite easy.

WotC really wants you to make the Realms your own this time around, and they're going you plenty of space in which to let your imagination run free. If they haven't touched on your favorite corner of Faerûn yet, why not do it yourself? Why can't you come up wih your own updated lore for what some place like Nathlan or Luiren is like in the 1490s DR? Why do you need WotC to tell you?

I feel like I might be the only one who noticed the they made a typo on the Wood Elves, calling them "Sy'tel'quessir". I wonder what other mistakes they have in the book.

On page 127, "Moonshae" is repeatedly misspelled as "Moonshea".

 

[Shasarak]

WotC is too late for the money burning a hole in my pocket. That money went to Kobold for their Tomb of Monsters with lots of nice crunch and beautiful art as well.

 

[DEFCON 1]

WotC is too late for the money burning a hole in my pocket. That money went to Kobold for their Tomb of Monsters with lots of nice crunch and beautiful art as well.

I'm pretty sure WotC is quite fine and happy you did that. It means you're still playing the game and that's really all they want. The longer you play, the more you get others to play, and eventually the coins will find their way to WotC at one point or another.

 

[Shasarak]

I'm pretty sure WotC is quite fine and happy you did that. It means you're still playing the game and that's really all they want.

And I am happy that they are happy that I am spending money elsewhere, even though it does not directly help them make their 100,00 unit target.

The longer you play, the more you get others to play, and eventually the coins will find their way to WotC at one point or another.

That was how it used to work in the old days of the OGL

 

[BryonD]

Unless of course a person feels that they want and need "official" crunch and thus don't care how much they spend to get it.

People have been able to get crunch for free for more than a year. It's all over the downloads section here on EN World if they wanted it. And yet we've spent more than 12 months seeing thread after thread after thread of people with their knickers in a bunch complaining that they had "all this money" burning holes in their pockets but WotC wasn't giving them anything to spend it on. Well, now they have something to buy. So if having "official" crunch is so gosh-darned important, then they'll spend the money regardless of how much crunch is in it. And if they don't... then it just shows how full of crap they were these past 16 months.

Guilty

At $25 I went ahead and bought it knowing it would be a let down (it was). But it was something and it was cheap, so I bought it hoping that success leads to a better production rate in the future.
Now if they make me wait another year for this pittance again, I won't buy it because next time around it will just be telling them that this model is ok.

 

[Jester David]

So as much SCAG is a poor substitition for a campaign guide (not the fault of the authors, they had thier hands tied behind they're backs), its still you best shot to run the 5e realms, but you may have to reference previous editions at times as well, especially if you move outside the sword coast.

What we really need is the FRCG.

First off, excellent post. Nice summary. Have some xp.

Second, I think the issue is time and workload. WotC doesn't have the staff to write a new FRCS. Not really. They're down to three members of the D&D RPG team, and they're mostly management at this point.
Meanwhile, they're working with licence partners. But those are often overworked with their own projects and the efforts of taking on a big adventure (and dealing with WotC's oversight, which is apparently very hands on and a lot of work). Green Ronin is the biggest of the companies and even they couldn't get SCAG out in time to pair with Out of the Abyss.

Campaign settings for products you own are a crazy amount of work, and making a giant 300-page book for someone else and responding to constant feedback is a project that eats an entire year. No one likely wants to put their own books on hold for that length of time when they could do two or three in-house projects for the same amount of effort.
For example, Kobold Press kinda wants to do a Midgard Campaign Setting for 5e. But haven't because they did their Southlands book this year and want to do other projects for a year. The idea of just updating a book that was already done for a new edition scared Wolfgang Baur.

 

[JohnLynch]

Unless of course a person feels that they want and need "official" crunch and thus don't care how much they spend to get it.

People have been able to get crunch for free for more than a year. It's all over the downloads section here on EN World if they wanted it. And yet we've spent more than 12 months seeing thread after thread after thread of people with their knickers in a bunch complaining that they had "all this money" burning holes in their pockets but WotC wasn't giving them anything to spend it on. Well, now they have something to buy. So if having "official" crunch is so gosh-darned important, then they'll spend the money regardless of how much crunch is in it. And if they don't... then it just shows how full of crap they were these past 16 months.

By this logic had WotC out out a book with 1 page of crunch and charged $100 then people who didn't buy that book would have no leg to stand on. You can take this stance if you so wish but it seems ridiculous to me.

 

[pukunui]

Am I the only one who is actually glad that the SCAG isn't overloaded with new character options? I like the slow approach WotC is taking. In fact, I'm even a bit leery of introducing the few new options that are in the book. (I haven't introduced any of the Unearthed Arcana playtest material into my games.)

Back in the day, I bought screeds of D&D books of various editions, and I've got the complete set of SWSE books. After a while, it just gets so hard to keep track of everything! These days, I'd much rather have just one book to reference. With the SCAG, we've now got two books. In a few years' time, how many more books will be added to that list?

 

[Hussar]

That is not even a little bit true.

An entire edition based on bringing back the play of the past and I'm not even a little bit right? LOL. Tradition and lore is EXTREMELY important in D&D. Change even minor elements and people lose their collective minds. The one thing that the past six or so years has proven is just how change adverse D&D players are. Good grief, Paizo's entire marketing push was based on how little they were changing the game. With 5e, WOTC doubled down by giving us an edition that we're supposed to be able to play in any edition style.

And it's "not even a little bit true"?