Glade Riven
Adventurer
Star Wars Saga - one of the best product lines by WotC, blending 3.5, D20 modern/future, and a few things that were going to end up in 4e. One aspect I really liked about how Saga was handled was in the presentation. I'd like to see something similar with 5e.
Step 1: Forgotten Relms treated as the defacto/Core Setting. And this is from a guy that isn't that fond of Forgotten Realms - but it would be perfect as Forgotten Relms has a timeline that spans all (or just about all) editions, allowing for new, optional rules to be easily introduced on a per-era basis like how Saga did with Mass Battles and other stuff.
Step 2: That doesn't mean leaving other settings in the dust. Eberron, Darksun, and even Greyhawk can appear in sidebars. Now, fancy setting specific stuff can be left out - Serpent Kingdoms, Quori, whatever - this is just how the general rules relate to a specific setting. Forgotten Realms just serves as a common denominator/backdrop. It can still have it's setting specific book. One of the nice thing about later 3.5 books is that they often had "Okay, this is how this works in this main setting, and this is how it can be adapted for either Eberron or Forgotten Realms." Like "Elf" would have a sidebar/footnote with a brief (sentence or two) description of how they differ in Dark Sun and Eberron. Also, this can lead to future upsales of new setting books - because setting books have many more details on history and culture.
Step 3: Profit.
Now, I suppose there's going to be these reactions to my proposal:
"I don't want to buy every book to play in the Forgotten Realms"
Wait - why would you have to? Core Rules are core rules - so you'd need the core books + the setting book. Splats are still optional. In 3.5 you didn't need Serpent Kingdoms to play a FR campaign involving Waterdeep and the Underdark.
"Why is there no love for Greyhawk?"
Greyhawk was skipped for a full edition, and was only half-looted for 3e/3.5. Forgotten Realms is the top D&D setting.
"What about x race?"
*Shrug* Dunno. Now you're asking about specifics that are unreleased and probably undecided by WotC. My bet is that they'll go for a set of traditional fleshed-out core races in the Player's Handbook, and have an appendix of various racial abilities for other races while lacking all but the barest of descriptions.
"I don't want to see Forgotten Realms butchered up!"
Forgotten Realms would serve as the main example, instead of WotC creating a whole new setting or semi-setting (like Nettier Vale from 4e). Again, this would cover just the core rules and enough fluff to get things started. Details on the setting would be in the FR's rulebook - things like detailed histories, what is going on in different eras, etc.
And there's probably some others. Heck, this modularity may even harken back to the days of the Forgotten Realms box sets for 2e. There's a lot of stuff that went untapped (or barely tapped) in 3.5 and 4e from the 2e era, even if all the FR 3.5 books got a bit textbooky.
Step 1: Forgotten Relms treated as the defacto/Core Setting. And this is from a guy that isn't that fond of Forgotten Realms - but it would be perfect as Forgotten Relms has a timeline that spans all (or just about all) editions, allowing for new, optional rules to be easily introduced on a per-era basis like how Saga did with Mass Battles and other stuff.
Step 2: That doesn't mean leaving other settings in the dust. Eberron, Darksun, and even Greyhawk can appear in sidebars. Now, fancy setting specific stuff can be left out - Serpent Kingdoms, Quori, whatever - this is just how the general rules relate to a specific setting. Forgotten Realms just serves as a common denominator/backdrop. It can still have it's setting specific book. One of the nice thing about later 3.5 books is that they often had "Okay, this is how this works in this main setting, and this is how it can be adapted for either Eberron or Forgotten Realms." Like "Elf" would have a sidebar/footnote with a brief (sentence or two) description of how they differ in Dark Sun and Eberron. Also, this can lead to future upsales of new setting books - because setting books have many more details on history and culture.
Step 3: Profit.
Now, I suppose there's going to be these reactions to my proposal:
"I don't want to buy every book to play in the Forgotten Realms"
Wait - why would you have to? Core Rules are core rules - so you'd need the core books + the setting book. Splats are still optional. In 3.5 you didn't need Serpent Kingdoms to play a FR campaign involving Waterdeep and the Underdark.
"Why is there no love for Greyhawk?"
Greyhawk was skipped for a full edition, and was only half-looted for 3e/3.5. Forgotten Realms is the top D&D setting.
"What about x race?"
*Shrug* Dunno. Now you're asking about specifics that are unreleased and probably undecided by WotC. My bet is that they'll go for a set of traditional fleshed-out core races in the Player's Handbook, and have an appendix of various racial abilities for other races while lacking all but the barest of descriptions.
"I don't want to see Forgotten Realms butchered up!"
Forgotten Realms would serve as the main example, instead of WotC creating a whole new setting or semi-setting (like Nettier Vale from 4e). Again, this would cover just the core rules and enough fluff to get things started. Details on the setting would be in the FR's rulebook - things like detailed histories, what is going on in different eras, etc.
And there's probably some others. Heck, this modularity may even harken back to the days of the Forgotten Realms box sets for 2e. There's a lot of stuff that went untapped (or barely tapped) in 3.5 and 4e from the 2e era, even if all the FR 3.5 books got a bit textbooky.