D&D 5E (2024) How excited are you for the 2 upcoming Forgotten Realms books?

[Bae'zel]

I'm glad that they're making 2 books: player-facing and DM-facing. More space for more content, and I don't just mean more stat blocks or sub classes.

I want clear listing of factions, what they want and how they operate. Right now I'm hopping between a few books, including Ed Greenwood's "Elminster's Forgotten Realms" to get SOME idea how things piece together. Poorly. I kind of felt that Larian studios did a better job in a video game though. Reading up on Shar, for example... Um... Sexy nude assassin ladies? Whut Things have changed in the past 10 years I think.

 

[Parmandur]

I'd pick Wyatt despite Fizbans & Bigby's not because of them, rather his history of success world building products.

Tondo doing Book of Many Things really has no relevance, it's not a setting book, it's support for an accessory, it tells us nothing about how Tondo approaches setting building.

The fact that HoF takes Faction Renown from GGtR & Piety/Divine Renown system from Theros suggests combines them while mixing in some new systems like Bastions & Dragon's Egg, has Wyatt finger prints all over it.

We know Tondro is the product lead, because he said so on his personal Substack blog last year.

 

[Gradine]

Feels like quite a gap between “a little” and “very.” I’d probably describe my level of excitement as, like, average to slightly above average.

Yeah, this was my issue with the poll. I went with a "a little" as where I'm at is closer to there than "very". New options are always fun and I'm not not a fan of the Realms

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not a huge fan of the Realms and I've not liked the direction they've taken the setting since 4E. I might get some use out of it for my Greyhawk setting, but I doubt I'll use any of the lore they have.

I haven't seen anything for the Realms since the 3e era that added to the setting in a way that mattered positively to me. 4e went in a direction I didn't like, and 5e was mostly a rehash (and the things that weren't were not interesting to me).

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, this was my issue with the poll. I went with a "a little" as where I'm at is closer to there than "very". New options are always fun and I'm not not a fan of the Realms

Same!

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's going to require you to wait and read several reviews of the two books in order to get the idea of what you are not going to like what's in either one of them.

RPG books are a mix of stuff the designers think you are going to like and stuff that you aren't going to like. If it's more of the former than the latter, you'll probably be more likely to buy the material. If it's more of the latter, then you'll probably be better off looking at the material you do like off of a SRD.

And you can expect few folks to take your opinion seriously unless you've read the books cover to cover and used them extensively in actual play anyway.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You have two choices when it comes to D&D settings: changing or dead. There is no evergreen and alive.

Eberron is probably their most static world (there is no Metaplot, the only changes come with edition switches) and I can count a Baker's dozen of changes from 3.5 to 5.24. The introduction of 4e (and later) species, the changes to dragonmarks on other species flip-flipping every book, the planar arrangement, the dwarves connection with the Daelkyr, the role of certain monsters in the setting (gnolls being a good example). You get the point. The setting has changed to match the core books of the current version. Every setting does that to a greater orb lesser degree. Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Planescape, Ravenloft, Greyhawk. They call changed. Some very little (Greyhawk) some a whole lot (Ravenloft). But no setting remains evergreen.

Well, one did. Birthright. That setting has not changed since it's original box set. That is the D&D evergreen setting: a tree growing out of it's grave. For everything else, I can point you to a dozen things that changed with every new campaign book. That's the nature of the beast.

You're not wrong, but there's a difference between changes that add elements to a setting and changes that subtract and/or replace elements.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You once again ignore my point to answer your own strawman. GG. Not discussing it further.

What does "GG" mean?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Maybe I'm weird but...I LIKE changing things. I NEVER run an adventure or setting as written. I ALWAYS tweak it.

Specific to the Forgotten Realms...I think there is a LOT of bad lore and content in the Realms. TONS. Going all the way to 1E. But there are also a lot of gems.

So I remove what I don't like and put the focus on the elements I do like. For me, that isn't work. It's fun.

Sure, but it also doesn't require you buy two more books.