Why is Forgotten Realms the first setting?

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I think the computer games point is fairly significant.

If they want to continue to have computer games support their latest editions it makes sense to bring FR into the 4E fold first since that's where the most and most succesful of their electronic franchises have been set.

Plus FR was due for a revision, 4E is coming out, why not do both at once?

 

[KingCrab]

I can see almost all the new material, tieflings, Eladrin, etc - being focused almost entirely on the OTHER side of the world. With the Spell Plague, and the subsequent fast forward of the timeline, you simply have to connect the two sides somehow and you can slot in all your new 4e material with a mininum of fuss. "Where were the Eladrin?" Well, they were always there, but, because they were on the other side of the planet, you never met them. Now your Realms get to be twice as big!

My prediction anyway.

I think that's the likelihood. Unfortunately, you can only do the other side of the world once so they might get stuck come 5th edition.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Something to remember as well that was mentioned in the (oh bugger I forgot his name) podcast by Gamer0 - They are going to expand FR far beyond Faerun. Toril has gotten all the source material for years, but, what about the other half of the equation - Abeir?

I can see almost all the new material, tieflings, Eladrin, etc - being focused almost entirely on the OTHER side of the world. With the Spell Plague, and the subsequent fast forward of the timeline, you simply have to connect the two sides somehow and you can slot in all your new 4e material with a mininum of fuss. "Where were the Eladrin?" Well, they were always there, but, because they were on the other side of the planet, you never met them. Now your Realms get to be twice as big!

My prediction anyway.

This would be quite cool if true.

 

[Hussar]

Well they did say that Dragon 359 had spoilers and the other half of Toril was specifically mentioned...

 

[jensun]

Tieflings could easily find a place in the Empire of Iuz because of its once high demon population. Dragonborn are a little trickier, but I prefer having things in a core book that I won't use to not having things I'd like/need to use. I'm, therefore, more concerned about the lack of gnomes/bards/druids/monks than about the 'excess' of dragonborn/warlocks/warlords.

It's always easier to forbid than to create.

I absolutely agree, Tieflings are a clear fit not just into Iuz but also the Great Kingdom under Ivid.

Assuming that Greyhawk receives any new product finding somewhere to squeeze the Dragonborn in to will be difficult, maybe the jungles of the south or the deserts to the west.

As far as home campaigns go of course you can leave anything out that you want. In terms of missing stuff I suspect we will see the missing classes and races in due course in subsequent PHB's.

 

[Mostlyjoe]

I absolutely agree, Tieflings are a clear fit not just into Iuz but also the Great Kingdom under Ivid.

Assuming that Greyhawk receives any new product finding somewhere to squeeze the Dragonborn in to will be difficult, maybe the jungles of the south or the deserts to the west.

As far as home campaigns go of course you can leave anything out that you want. In terms of missing stuff I suspect we will see the missing classes and races in due course in subsequent PHB's.

*eyes the new races*

Where the hell did you all come from?

Oh us? We've been hidding.

All of you?

Well, ya. The Underdark you know...

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I can see almost all the new material, tieflings, Eladrin, etc - being focused almost entirely on the OTHER side of the world.

Um, Eladrin are just high elves. Or star elves or whatever the hell FR calls them. "Elves" are wild elves (or wood elves or moon elves or something).

Tieflings are already in FR, I'm pretty sure.. at least, they made it into Neverwinter Nights, which is set in FR. In the 4e default campaign they're a true-breeding race with a long history, but for FR they can just use the backstory they've already got. The only new race they've gotta squeeze in is the Dragonborn.

Class-wise, warlords are cake to fit in, and I think warlocks are already in there.

As for the disappearance of monks, gnomes, et cetera... well, gnomes and half-orcs are presumably gonna be in the MM, so that won't be an issue at all. Monks and bards and sorcerers and druids are a bit tougher, but I see no reason they can't just stick them in the 4e FRCS, either as new classes (doubtful for Monk I'd say) or as the 4e equivalent of prestige classes.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

And it's not been doing as well as WotC would've liked. They need to draw in the legions of Forgotten Realms fans, not the smaller legion of Greyhawk fans, to buy more of their products and such.

This is actually the exact opposite of the truth. Living Greyhawk was created with planned obsolescence in mind. All the Triads were told to make only 5 year story arcs because that's as long as the campaign was going to run.

However, the campaign dramatically exceeded the expectations of the RPGA. They expected most of the LG players to jump ship to Legacy of the Green Regent when they introduced it. They figured that the sales of the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer were quite small but the sales of the FR books were large so everyone would jump at the chance to play FR in a Living format. However, the play numbers on the campaign were disappointingly low.

The problem wasn't the campaign world it was set in. As far as I can tell, the feedback was that people didn't like the new rules that they created for Legacy of the Green Regent. There were level bumps every couple of month so everyone always had about the same level of character even if you hadn't earned them and there was only ONE storyline for the whole world so there was no regional flavor like there was in LG.

The same feedback was given to them when they created Mark of Heroes. People wanted regional flavor, not just one storyline.

However, some people liked the level bump system, so they tested out having a level bump campaign WITH "regions", which was Xen'drik Expeditions. Which I hear succeed pretty well, but they kept getting comments telling them that they wanted a campaign where you have to earn all your levels and didn't just get free ones. A campaign without a planned ending like XE has.

And it was about then that 4th Edition was also in the early planning stages. But the 5 year deadline on LG was coming up. So they just renewed it and said that LG would just continue forever given the popularity of it.

Now that we know more, my best guess is that they were told to extend LG until the release of 4e. I also know that Living Forgotten Realms was planned almost from the the very planning stages of 4e. 4e WAS planned knowing that it would be running in a Living format at some time and that it needed certain rules changes to make it easier to run by 10s of thousands of DMs with less rules variation and easier understanding of the rules.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Drastically changing an existing setting that many fans are really attached to is really risky business. They could have really counted on fans to keep supporting the realms by buying the books. If they piss off all the existing ones, they lose opporunities to make a lot of money.

People are willing to accept a lot more than you give them credit for. Some really die hard fans on the internet will refuse to accept the Spellplague as happening to THEIR world. The vast majority of them will instead pick up the next FR novel that takes place in 4e FR and say to their friends "Did you see the new novel? I didn't see that coming...I wonder what will happen next. Can't wait until the next part in the series comes out." Most will have no idea that the changes had anything to do with 4e D&D as I think most FR fans don't even know that the world is based on a D&D game at all.

I don't think that the REAL die hard fans of FR are informed about the game side of things at all anymore. The changes will be able to make some of the plot lines less confusing and reduce the barrier of entrance to the novels. No longer is the next book part 15 of the Drizzt series but is instead a new series with a new hero that takes place in the future, so don't worry you don't have to read the previous 80 novels to know what's going on(I know this isn't entirely true, but people have that perception of it).

Meanwhile, the changes themselves are aimed at making the games easier to play in and to run. They are setting up the new Realms to be a place that it is easier to be a hero in and to give a good reason for the new races to exist so that when people pick up the 4e books they aren't going to say, "Let's not switch to the new edition, we play in FR and there are no Dragonborn or Eladrin in that world, so these new game books are obviously not for us."

Instead they get a bunch of benefits: A game world that people already know and are invested in, extra sales due to brand recognition, increased tie in with 4e thereby increasing sales of 4e, and changes to make people who hadn't considered buying FR before due to problems they saw with it change their mind, and likewise reducing the barrier to entrance on the RPG side of things as you no longer have to read the 30 books that have already come out to know everything about the Realms.

Seems to be good for the novel side of things and good for the RPG side of things. The only thing that it's bad for are people who refuse to accept any change in the Realms(or at least one this big) or who refuse to start their campaigns over again in a new time period.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Well they did say that Dragon 359 had spoilers and the other half of Toril was specifically mentioned...

Was there not also soemthing in one of the podcasts about the creation of the Weave causing the existance of a parallel Toril and now that the Weave is gone the two Torils will merge.