D&D 5E Mike Mearls did an interview for Escapist Magazine and reveals PHB classes, races, and much more

[SigmaOne]

4e tried the generic none setting and it ended up turning into the Nentir Vale setting, but lore just kept being added bit by bit.

I think this is the crux. Adventures need a setting, and a cohesive setting allows for cohesive adventures. With Tyranny of Dragons, they want the PCs to see how their actions impact the greater world, and so they need the greater world to actually be fleshed out and a part of the adventure.

The setting needs to be the generic medieval fantasy that new players will expect, and most people who don't homebrew play with. FR is about as generic as you can get (if you ignore Time of Troubles, Spellplague, and the Sundering, which to a large extent you can), it's the most popular, and it's there. They own it. I suppose they might have used Greyhawk, but there are likely many more complications with that.

People who aren't playing the adventure lines will certainly be able to ignore any FR content in the basic books. And I think people who want to play the adventures in their own worlds will be able to drop them in, with some tweaks as per usual, just as well as those adventures in "non-settings".

Sure some people hate FR. Everything is hated by some people, and some people hate everything.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No figures at all but [MENTION=9327]Halivar[/MENTION] a couple of posts later rather suggests there are people who won't touch it because FR.

Er, sorry, no, you should probably re-read that because you're wrong - his post he explicitly states that he hates GH equally to the FR, but that didn't stop him getting/playing 3.XE. He specifically says "ignore setting material", not "don't buy books with setting material!".

So he supports my contention, not yours. He's not happy with it, but doesn't care enough to not buy 5E because of it.

Now that's an interesting question, but I suspect it would annoy both FR fans who aren't seeing "their" logo on FR products and people who really dislike FR and don't want anything to do with it if FR material was published without any identification.

We've seen the covers. They don't have FR logos. Do you think they will acquire them?

You're being very silly about "FR fans". They won't be upset unless FR-specific products don't have the FR logo, obviously.

I suppose one thing I question is why they need a setting at all? DIY worked for me back in 1980, at a time when adventures didn't rely on existing settings.

Because not everyone is you and it's not 1980? Seems like the answer is self-evident.

People are far more time-poor now than in 1980, especially adults, who are now the main market for D&D (rather than kids/teens), and pre-written settings have been established as a concept for decades, whereas in 1980, they were still kind of a new idea.

Some players, natural storytellers with a strong ability to build worlds and the like, and a decent amount of time, do not need or likely want a setting - but equally it doesn't harm them. My wife started with 4E and has a homebrew setting entirely disconnected from any other D&D setting, but even she found borrowing some of the gods was handy.

For others, who can come up with adventures, but struggle with worlds, towns, rulers and so on, especially the time-poor, settings are a god-send.

Other still really LOVE settings even though they don't strictly need them, and the FR is an easy one to get into (or can be - late 2E not so much).

So it's smart to offer a light default setting, if you want to increase D&D's audience, rather than decrease it. It also makes visual styling and branding easier.

Other settings will come, too, I think you can count on that, and the DMG is designed to specifically help homebrewers.

 

[Dausuul]

4e tried the generic none setting and it ended up turning into the Nentir Vale setting, but lore just kept being added bit by bit.

Yeah, pretty much. I'm an inveterate homebrewer and no fan of FR; go back to early 4E and you can find me arguing furiously against having a default. But at this point I will grudgingly concede that D&D needs a home for its adventure lines. You just can't create good adventures in a generic setting.

And the Realms are the natural choice for that home. First, and most importantly, they outshine all others in popularity. Second, the "kitchen sink" nature of the Realms means they can accommodate a wide variety of themes and environments. Third, the setting has a huge amount of history and lore, more than any other, which really adds to its depth.

 

[The Hitcher]

The most interesting thing in the interview (from my perspective) is this part:

There's also an element there too with the characters, the pre-gens, a guide into the story of the adventure. Your flaws, your bonds, your traits, are all tied into the story of the adventure. We built those characters so that they have ties that link into the adventure. So there's one character whose backstory is that they were refugees from this town that was overrun by monsters and now they want to go back and reclaim it, and that's a town that shows up in the adventure as a place you go explore. So when the DM says here's this NPC the characters can say "Oh, I know that person" or that's an enemy, or a friend, or an old mentor, to really get people moving with the adventure. So when the players sit down they really have their roles in mind. It shows players it's not just about learning the rules or fighting monsters and stuff, there's the whole roleplaying element of it.

It's fantastic that the focus is on narrative and roleplaying, right from the get-go.

This is also the reason that they've decided to tie the whole thing into the into the FR. I don't love the setting, but after reading various interviews I am sold on the Tyranny of Dragons adventure, so I'm going to give it a chance.

Will it work? Would generic have been better? How about we wait until we actually see it before we argue about it endlessly?

Oh, I forgot - no D&D thread can be allowed to pass five pages without devolving into a completely speculative and utterly boring argument.

 

[Halivar]

So he supports my contention, not yours. He's not happy with it, but doesn't care enough to not buy 5E because of it.

I'll go a step further and say I'm perfectly fine with it. In fact, it was the right decision. I have no love for FR, but if you're going to have a meta-setting (and you should), it should be the setting that will have the most draw. Clearly that's FR.

And I will do as I have always done; homebrew something personal and compelling for my group.

 

[gyor]

I'm not sure what the subclasses names will be, but I think I have the gist of it.

Wizards will have all 8 schools of magic, so Clerics are likely to have 8 domains as well.

I'm betting Warlock will have at least Star Pact, Fey Pact, and Infernal Pact, each with the a tome, blade, and chain verison of said pact.

Paladin will likely have Cavalier, Avenger, either Greyguard or Blackguard (I'd prefer Blackguard), and maybe Favoured Soul.

Sorceror will have Dragon and Wild magic blood lines and I think likely Elemental as well, outside chance of Favoured Soul.

I'm betting Monks have at least 4 monastic traditions to choose from. I hope Drunken Master is one of them or Desert Wind.

Barbarian will have mix of more traditional and primal magic subclasses.

I'm betting that Rogues will get 6 subclasses, inbetween clerics/wizards and fighters.

Rangers, Bards, and Paladins will likely get the same amount of Subclasses as each other.

Just some guesses of mine.

 

[Umbran]

The great thing about these rules is that they are the default in Basic, thus virtually every adventure will assume such a refresh timer, and that will mean, even if the game isn't as gritty as some of us would like, it's far closer to a classic D&D feeling, makes you feel immersed in the story instead of the story being window dressing in between contrived combat set piece scenarios laid out like improbable bread crumbs towards your Destiny(tm). (as per Kobold press designer's opinions on the new rules).

No, no no. You misunderstand. The great things about these rules is that they are new. Which means a new start. It also means it becomes really, astonishingly easy to see old edition warring in them

This thread isn't about 4e. If you hadn't noticed, 4e isn't going forward. So, can we please leave the hyperbolic potshots at 4e behind us, folks? You are beating a dead horse, already, and it gets old. Really old. Annoyingly old. Astonishingly old. Continuing to beat on the game doesn't convince anyone of anything. It no longer provides new insight.

Move on, already, to something constructive.

Thank you.

 

[Agamon]

It's also got a very large segment of the potential audience who despise it, and will be less likely to buy anything because of the FR logo. And given that adventures can and have defined locations and groups I don't see much reason to think using FR makes it easier, unless the idea is that making it unusable without the main FR Sourcebook(s) will increase sales of those.

A number of people also despise (a wee bit of a strong word, I think) Greyhawk, and I don't think that hurt 3e sales much.

They tried staying setting neutral in 4e, but with how flavorless the core books were, they eventually made Nentir Vale a thing. Some flavor and familiarity in rules can certainly make it easier to digest.

 

[the Jester]

A number of people also despise (a wee bit of a strong word, I think) Greyhawk, and I don't think that hurt 3e sales much.

You are correct, and with luck, the touch of the Realms on the 5e core will be as light as the touch of Greyhawk on 3e. After all, there really wasn't much GH lore in the core, excluding the deity list.

I agree that adventures do best when part of an existing setting, too, even though this particular setting drives me, personally, away from buying them. And who knows- after I hear some reviews and get some more information about just how closely the adventure is tied to the setting and how easy it would be to adapt, I absolutely may reconsider.

 

[Mistwell]

What's even more shocking to me is that it means Paizo has more people working on the Pathfinder RPG than Wizards at this point, which is something I would have never conceived just three or four years ago.

Naw that is a count of people directly working on the RPG. Paizo's count includes everyone - guys packing boxes and doing shipping, guys stacking and tracking inventory, accounting, marketing, human resources, customer service, facilities, other products, etc.. It could be Paizo has more people directly working on writing rules than WOTC (you said 12, which might be correct I don't know), but we don't really know. And then outsourcing plays a role here too..