WotC's Chris Perkins Talks Realms & Sundering

Den of Geek has a lengthy interview with Chris Perkins about the Forgotten Realms and The Sundering. He also very briefly touches on other settings, indicating that WotC hopes that other worlds will be covered in the future if the right story comes along. On past controversial changes to settings, he says "Our guiding principle is to embrace the past and not pass judgment or rewrite history. We’d rather let the fans tell us what they like about the Realms and focus on those elements going forward." (thanks to MerricB for the scoop!)

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I also want a detail rich, definitive Forgotten Realms product or set of products. Give me a thousand pages of detail spread across multiple volumes.

Let Greyhawk be low-detail, with one book or boxed set covering the setting.

Honest response?

Use 3.xE or earlier. FR is NEVER going to get the support it had in the past. It simply doesn't make enough money or sell enough books.

Forget the timeline advancement and choose an earlier iteration of FR and build from there. That's what I am doing although, oddly enough for a long-time FR fan, I am doing it with the 4E version of FR (I like the points-of-light nature of everything and the clear slate). My other choice would be to wind back the clock to 1372 DR and start afresh with 3E's FRCS and the simply superb Silver Marches. There's at least a decade's worth of gaming there!

There is so much detail from the past readily available in PDF form so why wait for WotC to make up its mind if and how it will support a post-Sundering version of FR, especially when the only reason the whole 4E era isn't being retconned is because Drizzt makes more money than anything else?

 

[Sailor Moon]

Overwriting isn't always a GM-driven decision; it's often more of a group by group decision. I normally avoid the realms not because I mind overwriting, but because my player who knows it gets quite upset when I do.

If the DM winds up with 3 fans of FR's setting detail, and overwrites it, he's now got 3 unhappy players, and if he changes too much, may wind up down 3 players. (I've seen this more often than I care to think about, hence why I only use published settings when either my players don't know them, know them only through me, or when the setting is the whole reason for the game (eg: Trek, Firefly, One Ring, Pendragon).

You would still have to contend with this even if the FR book is bare bones because of the novels. Also, if the majority of your players wants the Realms the way it is by the canon then a bare bones FR book still won't do you any good.

Not sure where you were trying to go with your post.

 

[Selvarin]

Running through all of the comments so far...

What do about Halruaa? As far as I'm concerned it's crusade time for Mystrans. Let them go and reclaim the lost cities


As for what else happened in the Sundering, umm...The open septic in the Shaar is being (or has been) filled by some magic elemental earth. Uhhh yeah. (That's one place where I'm going straight back to Pre-Spellplague. Sorry Troy Denning, your book didn't make the cut.)


OK, someone please clarify the part on Myth Drannor--is it destroyed AND abandoned once again or did it merely suffer heavy damage?

Guess I'll go with the following: Use the old 2E maps but make selective use of 3E/4E material. The rest will be as it was.

 

[Irennan]

Myth Drannor has suffered heavy damage. Ed wrote an article about that for the ''Forging the Realms series''. You can find it in WotC's site archive, I guess.

And I'd like to see Halruaa re-taken/restored, it is one of my favorite areas and I was saddened to see it get LOLNUKED.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Honest response?

Use 3.xE or earlier. FR is NEVER going to get the support it had in the past. It simply doesn't make enough money or sell enough books.

Forget the timeline advancement and choose an earlier iteration of FR and build from there. That's what I am doing although, oddly enough for a long-time FR fan, I am doing it with the 4E version of FR (I like the points-of-light nature of everything and the clear slate). My other choice would be to wind back the clock to 1372 DR and start afresh with 3E's FRCS and the simply superb Silver Marches. There's at least a decade's worth of gaming there!

There is so much detail from the past readily available in PDF form so why wait for WotC to make up its mind if and how it will support a post-Sundering version of FR, especially when the only reason the whole 4E era isn't being retconned is because Drizzt makes more money than anything else?

Ultimately, because I don't want to. I want an up to date and detailed set of books describing the setting as it is now, in addition to how it was. I like canon.

And I'm not looking for 3E style support either. I can't follow that. What I want is something like a two or three volume set that is the end all, be all of the Forgotten Realms.

The original Iron Kingdoms is the model I'm after here. They had two 400 page books, the Character Guide and The World guide. And eventual a book on a particular city. Combined, they provided a rich and detailed setting for which I don't think I'll ever need another sourcebook.

 

[gyor]

I wouldn't mind an updated and much bigger Grand History of the Realms.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I wouldn't mind an updated and much bigger Grand History of the Realms.

Here here!

If this book focused on dungeons of the Realms (explicitly avoiding Undermountain in favor of lesser known or as yet unknown dungeons), I might even purchase two copies--one to put on my bookshelf and one to dogear, write marginalia in, highlight and use the hell out of.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Sanishiver, what you said makes sense.

How does the Sundering fit in then? Ed and Bob actually said that the Sundering would be fixing the Realms and returning it to a state that felt to them like the early days of the setting. And they said it would be done for Realms fans, old, young, novel and RPG-lover alike. The fans haven't seen any of that.

I worry that somebody at WotC is smiling really big, thinking that it's somehow good that people are wondering what the hell is going on, because he or she thinks what WotC is generating is anticipation when in fact they're inspiring equal parts apathy and frustration.

I haven't been too concerned about how the Sundering will play out in the sourcebooks and future novels. I'm assuming we'll see events unfold in the novels and ultimately the 5E version of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide.

It sure wouldn't hurt if WotC opened up a little, though.

What does concern me is this post by Brian R. James over at Candlekeep:

I have not been asked to consult as an "expert" on the 5E Realms, and as far as I'm aware, neither has George Krashos, Eric Boyd, Tom Costa, Steven Schend or anyone else you might name. The only folks contributing to the 5E Realms beyond WotC employees Matt Sernett and Chris Perkins are the Sundering authors themselves.

Many of you may recall that James Wyatt invited many of us Realms lorelords to a design summit roughly three years ago. Sadly, the meeting was little more than a PR stunt to get us "old guard" on board with the Sundering. No such meeting has been held since, so it comes as no surprise to us that the realmslore that trickled out thus far has been sparse and underwhelming.

Preserving continuity is only a challenge for WotC because their pride prevents them from reaching out to the very individuals with the knowledge to help.

What I don't like is the idea that Perkins is pointing the authors to consultants whom Perkins considers to be "continuity experts" when none of the above named people are on that list.

Who's left? Somebody with an internet connection that knows how to look thinks up on the Forgotten Realms Wiki?

EDIT: I just learned that WotC has stopped releasing Forging the Realms articles, without explanation. As well that there are still articles that WotC has received from Ed Greenwood that have not been released yet. I hope whatever is left is being saved for something interesting.

 

[HobbitFan]

Man, what is WOTC doing?

 

[Irennan]

These news are all so damn discouraging...

EDIT: I just learned that WotC has stopped releasing Forging the Realms articles, without explanation. As well that there are still articles that WotC has received from Ed Greenwood that have not been released yet. I hope whatever is left is being saved for something interesting.

How much lore do the own that we will likely never see for whatever reason?