D&D 5E No Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting in development?

Lord Blackstone · Aug 16, 2014

https://twitter.com/brianrjames/status/500048492254224384

Can anyone confirm this? If confirmed that seriously sucks.. and the burning question if WHY????

KarinsDad · Aug 16, 2014

Maybe earlier sales?

Campaign settings tend to sell mostly to DMs.

Plus, there are dozens of FR information sources from the last nearly 3 decades. It's not like their isn't a plethora of material out there.

DEFCON 1 · Aug 16, 2014

Yes, at a Tyranny of Dragons seminar here at GenCon Mike Mearls said a Realms campaign setting book won 't come out for quite a while. Reason being that they are trying to stop "proscibing" information about the Realms in a top-down omniscient view, but rather give info in stories and rumors so that players no longer have to feel like they need to run the Realms the "right" way due to official canon.

Case in point are the deities. The PH lists a whole heap of gods, many of which people inthe Realms would consider "dead". But while rumors across Faerun suggest some have come back... not many really know as of yet. And the designers want to allow the DMs to decide for themselves just which gods have returned or not.

At some point in the future they might bring all the info together into a book... but not any time soon. I would say not before 2016 at the earliest.

Lord Blackstone · Aug 16, 2014

I own most of the other FR materials... its just shocking to me....

KarinsDad · Aug 16, 2014

Lord Blackstone said:
I own most of the other FR materials... its just shocking to me....

No doubt.

If I was DMing (I'm playing instead), I would just pull out all of my old FR stuff and pick and chose what I wanted to use. As is, I will probably give that stack to my DM and say "Have at it". :erm:

Mental note: go find all of my old FR stuff...

Lord Blackstone · Aug 16, 2014

What really shocks me the most... if they aren't going to produce a Forgotten Realms Campaign Sourcebook anytime soon... what about all the other settings... This has seriously bummed me out.

The Myopic Sniper · Aug 16, 2014

I am not really surprised by this given their general strategy to limit book and splat bloat. Although, if they produced a bunch of reasonably priced boxed sets with a bunch of maps in them and a 32 or 64 page booklet giving a broad overview of each setting as a DM tool, I might jump on each of those. Just give me the tools and I will figure out what to do with it. All the historical detail and what-not can be made available on the internet for those who want a more in depth look. I am not sure that a 400 page tome of hyperdetailed history really has enough of a market to deserve their investment in time and resources into developing.

Yeah, they could throw special classes, feats and spells unavailable anywhere else to get players to buy as well, but that is the total opposite of their stated plans for this edition.

I think it is a good call on their part.

Remathilis · Aug 16, 2014

Lord Blackstone said:
What really shocks me the most... if they aren't going to produce a Forgotten Realms Campaign Sourcebook anytime soon... what about all the other settings... This has seriously bummed me out.

Whaa?!

If they are not going to support their primary setting (for modules and living gaming) I don't expect much for other settings.

Which is disappointing. Some settings don't need much (Greyhawk or Mystara) but some have some unique elements (Eberron's artificers, Dark Sun's defilers, Planescape's factions, Dragonlance's wizard orders and knighthoods) I'd like to see done. It's hard to say "Pick your own" when we don't have a mechanical way of expressing those things.

This is bodeing poorly for the "multiverse" aspect.

Lord Blackstone · Aug 16, 2014

Remathilis said:
Whaa?!

If they are not going to support their primary setting (for modules and living gaming) I don't expect much for other settings.

Which is disappointing. Some settings don't need much (Greyhawk or Mystara) but some have some unique elements (Eberron's artificers, Dark Sun's defilers, Planescape's factions, Dragonlance's wizard orders and knighthoods) I'd like to see done. It's hard to say "Pick your own" when we don't have a mechanical way of expressing those things.

This is bodeing poorly for the "multiverse" aspect.

Exactly. WTF... still shocked by this news.. it was the thing I was looking forward the most. I was under the impression that the Multiverse would take front and center in this edition...