D&D 5E What is the future of the forgotten realms?

[GuyBoy]

Elminster appeared in my kitchen last night and told me that he had personally advised WOTC to step back from the tired old Realms setting, and focus on Greyhawk and Dark Sun because they’re far more interesting and exciting.

 

[Mercurius]

Elminster appeared in my kitchen last night and told me that he had personally advised WOTC to step back from the tired old Realms setting, and focus on Greyhawk and Dark Sun because they’re far more interesting and exciting.

Hopefully that also means that he's made an appearance at the WotC offices in an attempt to convince them to dial back the Realms to the gray box version, for the "revisited" product in 2024.

 

[GuyBoy]

Hopefully that also means that he's made an appearance at the WotC offices in an attempt to convince them to dial back the Realms to the gray box version, for the "revisited" product in 2024.

Well, he asked me to pack him a Brie and bacon ciabatta before he left, so he was clearly going somewhere....

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm not really sure what you're saying. They've already published a couple settings that are different enough to the Realms, and required minimal new rules, and they're publishing several classic settings--and probably another Magic plane and up to new settings--before the revised rules come out. The point being, I think the 5E rules as-is can accommodate a range of settings.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding?

Oh they published them... but they didn't change any rules to support the themes and tone of those settings. The closest they were willing to do was a couple more race/class/feat additions to a core system still tuned to epic heroic fantasy. At the core 5e is timed for a specific type of game using 5es baselines and it goes a step further by coding against attempts at small changes away from that.

Heck vrgtr didn't include spell changes or even rest mechanic changes & because they pegged classes to different rest schedules with an encounter budget leagues beyond all but the grindiest grondfests they really cant do that without changing a bunch of classes. Can you imagine darksun with Outlander goodberru create food & water etc and PCs who start at least one with gear that can only be described as pre-cleansing war legendary assortments far beyond what they should ever be able to find on most shops?... I can but not sure how it could be called dark sin or athas as opposed to some random desert in fr.

 

[not-so-newguy]

The frequency that I picked up through my tinfoil hat tells me that WOTC will not abandon FR as long as 5e is the latest edition.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

No, WotC are finding room in their schedules to support other settings, but there is loads of FR stuff in the pipeline. In addition to the movie, and inevitable tie-in merchandise, there is the high profile BG3, something going on with the Neverwinter Nights franchise, another Salvatore Drizzt book, and we have just had the Extra Life Minsc and Boo book.

I'm glad to see the appearance of non-FR set adventures, and look forward to seeing an Eberron adventure path, and perhaps a Planeswalker adventure connecting Theros and Ravnica.

 

[humble minion]

There is zero chance of WotC abandoning the Forgotten Realms in the run-up to a big-budget hollywood movie set there, and with Baldur's Gate III coming out soon.

Much as I personally would like a redone 400+ page FR campaign setting book to replace SCAG, I reckon after Witchlight we'll be back to the usual story of FR being a vaguely default setting that gets fleshed out in fits and starts, and the usual schedule of the hardback adventures being set there every second half of the year.

 

[ReshiIRE]

Well they are called the Forgotten Realms. May they be forgotten again...

No but seriously, there's zero chance of Forgotten Realms not being the default in the future. There will be plenty of support for it, especially I would say leading up to the 50th Anniversary.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I wish, but I dont think they will....

to the Nentir Vale we go!

 

[DEFCON 1]

I suspect the designers at WotC put far less thought and concern about when and where they do material using Faerunian names than all of the rest of us who are watching from the outside. Sure seems like all of us get much more worried or bent out of shape about it than they ever do.