D&D 5E The case for (and against) a new Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book

[Snarf Zagyg]

Forgotten Realms still has Greenwood, Greyhawk has Like Gygax ...

Wasn't Mearls a Greyhawk fan?

And doesn't this mean no Greyhawk, given ... events?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Probably something in between. Apparently, the greater part of D&D fans now weren't born yet when the original came out. Heck, a sizeable percentage weren't born yet when the 4E version came out.

I think any in-between would fail harder than either extreme, frankly. The 2E-style one would do something new, different, and exciting for 5E (particularly with a boosted start and higher challenge), whilst still providing races, subclasses, and mechanics usable in other settings, even though that setting was designed not to use other material. Grogs would love it, new players would love it.

The Full Reboot would allow them to ensure full compatibility with all 5E material, whilst giving people a fairly wild new setting (albeit no doubt a lot safer than 2E version), wouldn't "rock the boat", and would generally be a pretty safe bet, even though it might cause a million grognards to cry out in pain. It might even be exciting and different enough that grogs such as myself might recover from the pain and say "this isn't my Dark Sun, but it is cool...".

Whereas a middle-ground would be like 4E, but changing even more stuff, which would mean you changed enough stuff to annoy the grogs and invalidate older material and existing ideas about DS, but you also didn't do enough new stuff to make it actually exciting, and you don't give new people any taste of what made DS special, so they're just like "What, is this just D&D in a Mad Max gimp suit?". I would honestly rather see a full reboot which just worked from the high concept than a half-way house, which changed tons of stuff to make it safe and more "standard 5E", but tried to otherwise bend/break lore to fit that. That just smells like what 4E did to the FR (and again, I loved 4E, but that wasn't pretty).

So kind of derailing here.

 

[Undrave]

They should do an Icewind Dale Adventure Guide, that'd be cool. Some wintery themed subclasses and monsters, some ideas for wilderness challenges maybe... Some iconic items... could work.

 

[Magister Ludorum]

I think Greyhawk is perfect for a SCAG size book myself. Reset to the original boxed set/folio and expand the information on the gods and some subclasses and BAM.

When I run Greyhawk, I always run it from the Folio edition with my own 5e conversion notes.

I am not a fan of WOTC doing a new Greyhawk setting because I don't trust them not to "Spell Plague It Up".

I DO want them to open up Greyhawk and Mystara for 3rd parties on DMSGUILD.

I won't give my opinion on revisiting Dark Sun or Planescape because I don't want to yuck other gamers' yum, and I don't want to invite too much nerd rage.

 

[Parmandur]

They should do an Icewind Dale Adventure Guide, that'd be cool. Some wintery themed subclasses and monsters, some ideas for wilderness challenges maybe... Some iconic items... could work.

Dollars to donuts we see an Adventure book that uses Icewind Dale as a springboard, and has a detailed regional Gazeeter, in the near future.

 

[Parmandur]

When I run Greyhawk, I always run it from the Folio edition with my own 5e conversion notes.

I am not a fan of WOTC doing a new Greyhawk setting because I don't trust them not to "Spell Plague It Up".

I DO want them to open up Greyhawk and Mystara for 3rd parties on DMSGUILD.

I won't give my opinion on revisiting Dark Sun or Planescape because I don't want to yuck other gamers' yum, and I don't want to invite too much nerd rage.

If they made a book that treated Greyhawk similarly to Ghosts of Saltmarsh...that could be really good.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Problem is that FR already has a setting book, The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

Now I know some of you will say, "But that's not all of FR, that's just the Sword Coast!" And that's true, but that's true for both Wildemount and Eberron.

The new Eberron book, despite all of it's praise, is not a guide to all of Eberron. It is guide to Khorvaire, with a handful of pages meant for the other continents... this is one of the primary reasons why Keith Baker is working on another Eberron book right now.

The new Wildemount book is perhaps more honest in its title, but also remains devoted entirely to one continent; it is not a guide to all of Exandria.

Ravnica and Theros are "full setting guides," but that is because they are extremely narrow in scope compared to the traditional D&D settings. They're great books, but are consistent in theme.

So you can't really write even a second FR book that covers all of FR. It is perhaps the most broad and exhaustively made setting in all of D&D; not singular book, or even two books, can hope to cover all of its content.

Now, I actually think an FR box set is a good idea. I don't think it could cover all of FR's content either, but I think a box that serves as a basic introduction to FR is a great idea for a third box to fit into Target's demand for them. Combine the Laeral Silverhand stuff with a new adventure and some of the Sword Coast Guide rules, and there is a new box right there.

 

[Parmandur]

Problem is that FR already has a setting book, The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

Now I know some of you will say, "But that's not all of FR, that's just the Sword Coast!" And that's true, but that's true for both Wildemount and Eberron.

The new Eberron book, despite all of it's praise, is not a guide to all of Eberron. It is guide to Khorvaire, with a handful of pages meant for the other continents... this is one of the primary reasons why Keith Baker is working on another Eberron book right now.

The new Wildemount book is perhaps more honest in its title, but also remains devoted entirely to one continent; it is not a guide to all of Exandria.

Ravnica and Theros are "full setting guides," but that is because they are extremely narrow in scope compared to the traditional D&D settings. They're great books, but are consistent in theme.

So you can't really write even a second FR book that covers all of FR. It is perhaps the most broad and exhaustively made setting in all of D&D; not singular book, or even two books, can hope to cover all of its content.

Now, I actually think an FR box set is a good idea. I don't think it could cover all of FR's content either, but I think a box that serves as a basic introduction to FR is a great idea for a third box to fit into Target's demand for them. Combine the Laeral Silverhand stuff with a new adventure and some of the Sword Coast Guide rules, and there is a new box right there.

SCAG is also a big seller after nearly five years in print: it's not been poorly received.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Problem is that FR already has a setting book, The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

Now I know some of you will say, "But that's not all of FR, that's just the Sword Coast!" And that's true, but that's true for both Wildemount and Eberron.

The new Eberron book, despite all of it's praise, is not a guide to all of Eberron. It is guide to Khorvaire, with a handful of pages meant for the other continents... this is one of the primary reasons why Keith Baker is working on another Eberron book right now.

The new Wildemount book is perhaps more honest in its title, but also remains devoted entirely to one continent; it is not a guide to all of Exandria.

Ravnica and Theros are "full setting guides," but that is because they are extremely narrow in scope compared to the traditional D&D settings. They're great books, but are consistent in theme.

So you can't really write even a second FR book that covers all of FR. It is perhaps the most broad and exhaustively made setting in all of D&D; not singular book, or even two books, can hope to cover all of its content.

Now, I actually think an FR box set is a good idea. I don't think it could cover all of FR's content either, but I think a box that serves as a basic introduction to FR is a great idea for a third box to fit into Target's demand for them. Combine the Laeral Silverhand stuff with a new adventure and some of the Sword Coast Guide rules, and there is a new box right there.

That's not a really true comparison, as the Sword Coast is much smaller than Khorvaire and Wildemount. It would be like having a whole book on Breland and the relegating everything else, including the other nations in Khorvaire, to a sentence or two. Heck, Xen'drick in the 5e Eberron book received probably 10x the coverage than Cormyr did in SCAG, and it's an entirely different, mysterious continent, not a well-known, next-door land.

 

[Parmandur]

That's not a really true comparison, as the Sword Coast is much smaller than Khorvaire and Wildemount. It would be like having a whole book on Breland and the relegating everything else, including the other nations in Khorvaire, to a sentence or two. Heck, Xen'drick in the 5e Eberron book received probably 10x the coverage than Cormyr did in SCAG, and it's an entirely different, mysterious continent, not a well-known, next-door land.

You might want to take a look at the maps again, in terms of scale.