D&D 5E With the release of each new setting book, the SCAG looks worse and worse...

[gyor]

I'm personally a little torn on this; I think the SCAG does it's job, being a guide to the Sword Coast. It certainly isn't a guide to all of the Forgotten Realms, and was never intended to be. And I certainly wouldn't be upset if FR got another setting book detailing areas beyond the Sword Coast, with updated art and less-stereotypical lore.

However, I struggle to believe that Forgotten Realms deserves a second book. People are quick to point out that it appears like the most popular setting, but I believe that has more to do with it being the most known setting (it is the default in 5e, and has been in place in the most editions of D&D).

And the other setting books that have/will be released are not exactly guides to their entire planet's of material either. Ravnica and Theros are, but are both incredibly monolithic in their content (Ravnica is one city, and Theros is dominated by the same culture and pantheon). Eberron and Wildemount are arguably just as limited in scope as the SCAG is, as Eberron is a guide to Khorvaire (there is precious little material about anywhere else), and Wildemount even admits in its name that it is a guide to its one continent, not all of Exandria.

Plus, Forgotten Realms has benefited (or been hurt by, depending on your POV) from being 5e's default setting. There have been a total of ELEVEN adventures books or boxed sets that are in Forgotten Realms, and their release has given even deeper content for the Underdark, Chult, Waterdeep, Baldur's Gate, and Undermountain.

I fully expect that this pattern, of the annual adventure book containing content for FR, will continue.

I'll ask FR fans this; would you be willing to trade one more setting book, for not getting annual adventure books? I doubt it, but I'm perhaps mistaken.

It deserves it because the Forgotten Realms has consistently delivered more then any other setting, even when 4e divided the Forgotten Realms fan base. There are a huge amount of FR fans who want a book like this.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

The opinion of someone who is a professional writer (as well as a teacher), yes.

This means nothing. Actually, less than nothing if at all possible.

I think we've all known so-called professionals and teachers who didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground. Those two things do not mean that the person in question is a SKILLED professional nor an ADEQUATE OR BETTER teacher.

 

[the Jester]

It deserves it because the Forgotten Realms has consistently delivered more then any other setting, even when 4e divided the Forgotten Realms fan base. There are a huge amount of FR fans who want a book like this.

I'd argue that the FR has consistently been pushed harder than any other setting. Its delivery of more than any other setting was created artificially, initially by people trying to push out Gygax and all his IP, and later by virtue of sheer momentum.

It's a matter of being a self-fulfilling prophecy- "This setting will do best, so we'll focus most of our efforts on it." Well, of course it does best when you focus most of your efforts on it! Even in the 3e era, which was supposedly using Greyhawk as the core setting, there was very little actual Greyhawk material published, with a lot of name-dropping of deities in the core rules but not much else.

Anyway, the question isn't "Does FR deserve another setting iteration for 5e," it's would that sell? I think it probably would- not to me, but to many- so I don't think it's a credit to the Realms themselves, but rather to how hard they've been marketed, and for how long.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And there are folks at WotC and among freelancers that they use or could use that are huge Realm Sages, huge realms fans.

And they are making lots of FR stuff. It just isn't in one ten million page volume describing the whole of the setting with the words OFFICIAL CANON stamped on the front.

And the SCAG was well written by folks that loved the setting, but with one fatal flaw, it wasn't big enough

And why do you think is was so short? It didn't need to be. It wouldn't have been significantly more expensive to manufacture with an additional 100 pages. It's short because they didn't want to make it any longer.

Your really projecting up in the writers of the SCAG, they wrote in first person to boost immersion and to be creative.

They wrote in 1st person so it didn't exactly duplicate the 3rd edition book, which is in 3rd person.

And the writing is boring (so was the 3rd edition book it reproduces). Dull and lifeless. Compare it to the vigour and life of the Eberron and Widlemont books. Those books where longer because the writers where enjoying writing them and didn't want to stop.

 

[gyor]

I'd argue that the FR has consistently been pushed harder than any other setting. Its delivery of more than any other setting was created artificially, initially by people trying to push out Gygax and all his IP, and later by virtue of sheer momentum.

It's a matter of being a self-fulfilling prophecy- "This setting will do best, so we'll focus most of our efforts on it." Well, of course it does best when you focus most of your efforts on it! Even in the 3e era, which was supposedly using Greyhawk as the core setting, there was very little actual Greyhawk material published, with a lot of name-dropping of deities in the core rules but not much else.

Anyway, the question isn't "Does FR deserve another setting iteration for 5e," it's would that sell? I think it probably would- not to me, but to many- so I don't think it's a credit to the Realms themselves, but rather to how hard they've been marketed, and for how long.

Absolutely wrong, other settings have recieved major pushes, none have taken off like FR, not Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Darksun, Planescape, ect...

 

[gyor]

And they are making lots of FR stuff. It just isn't in one ten million page volume describing the whole of the setting with the words OFFICIAL CANON stamped on the front.

And why do you think is was so short? It didn't need to be. It wouldn't have been significantly more expensive to manufacture with an additional 100 pages. It's short because they didn't want to make it any longer.

They wrote in 1st person so it didn't exactly duplicate the 3rd edition book, which is in 3rd person.

And the writing is boring (so was the 3rd edition book it reproduces). Dull and lifeless. Compare it to the vigour and life of the Eberron and Widlemont books. Those books where longer because the writers where enjoying writing them and didn't want to stop.

It was released early in 5e, while the edition was still finding it's groove. It's was experimental and it was actually made by a smaller company who didn't have a say in how big the book would be, WotC did.

The other setting books were bigger because WotC allowed them to be bigger, writers for publishers don't get to just pick how big a book is going to be, they have page and even word limits given by the company.

You really are projecting your dislike of the Forgotten Realms hard on these writers.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It deserves it because the Forgotten Realms has consistently delivered more then any other setting, even when 4e divided the Forgotten Realms fan base. There are a huge amount of FR fans who want a book like this.

This is a backward argument; FR has delivered more because it has been the most published. That's not an argument for it being published even more, I'd argue that it's an argument for the opposite.

The second part, that there are a huge amount of FR fans who want this, is also not an argument. I can easily argue that Dark Sun fans want their own setting book, and Greyhawk fans want their own book (if the SCAG isn't a book for FR, Saltmarsh certainly isn't one for GH).

And every time someone posts a poll on "which setting should get a setting book next," Dark Sun is the runaway winner. So popularity doesn't support you entirely here.

 

[the Jester]

Absolutely wrong, other settings have recieved major pushes, none have taken off like FR, not Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Darksun, Planescape, ect...

Not one of those has received a major push for five editions in a row. Nor has any other setting ever received anything like the amount of work that FR has from 1e onward. How many FR products got pushed out over the years?

I'd argue that GH was a smash success in 1e, up until Gygax got booted. DarkSun was also extremely well-received in the 2e era- well received enough to get updates in 3e and 4e.

As to the others- look, a lot of settings look pretty similar to an outsider. DL, GH, and FR are pretty much bog-standard generic fantasy (from that perspective), so if one of them has 20 books on the shelf and the others are lucky to have two or three, it's pretty obvious where a newbie is going to tend to go.

And remember that the vast majority of settings got pushed at the same time (during the 2e era), with them all competing with each other for the "not bog standard fantasy setting crown". So DarkSun, Planescape, Jakandor, Conclave of Dragons or whatever it was called, Birthright, Mystara, all that stuff was competing with each other.

 

[Prakriti]

It's short because they didn't want to make it any longer.

Actually, I think deadlines are the real answer. The SCAG could have been and should have been longer, but the writers ran up against a deadline. "Ship it" being the watchword of the publishing industry (whether it's books or video games), it's not surprising when something is released half-finished or only half as robust as it was first meant to be.

For what it's worth, I suspect Xanathar's Guide ran into the same issue, and that's why the Elven, Halfling, Gnomish, and Dwarven lore ended up in Tome of Foes instead of Xanathar's Guide, where it would have made the most sense.

 

[Maxperson]

Absolutely wrong, other settings have recieved major pushes, none have taken off like FR, not Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Darksun, Planescape, ect...

I think there are two reasons for that. First is that the Forgotten Realms is a kitchen sink setting, as are Greyhawk and I think Eberron. The others, Darksun, Planescape, etc. are niche settings that rely heavily on a specific theme, so will appeal to fewer people than a kitchen sink setting. Greyhawk and Eberron are also very popular due to their kitchen sink nature. The second reason is sheer amount of lore. In 2e the Realms received a zillion times more support and lore than Greyhawk, which propelled it way out in front with regard to popularity. In 3e, WotC went with the popular and supported it a zillion times more than Eberron and Greyhawk. Had the latter two settings received the same support, I think they would be more popular and you'd see a much narrower gap.