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!)

 

[Shemeska]

I don't think there is an expert on the post Sundering realms, too little of it has been written.

I suspect that was the point of the 4e changes, and by extension the 5e material that keeps that in play. With the prior and substantial body of lore being largely made irrelevant, it opened up the setting for in-house authors and designers who might not have had the experience and expertise with FR compared to long-term experts outside the company. Given how the changes then were made with little to no consultation with Greenwood, Salvatore, and others at the time, it seems something geared towards the internal team or possibly new authors in mind like Evans who had no prior experience with the setting.

5e was heavily promoted as wanting to embrace the setting and bring it back in line with what its fans wanted, but given the quotes above regarding how little consultation was made with many of the setting's experts, it's quite troubling (doubly so with the continuity errors that have popped up with regards to Tiamat in FR as portrayed in the recent 5e modules).

 

[HobbitFan]

I hope WOTC can find it within themselves to do right by the Realms and by the fans, new and old.

 

[Irennan]

@gyor Ed has written and turned a lot of lore on regions, organizations, deities and so on in the post Sundering Realms. It's up to WotC to decide when to release it.

For example here (http://theedverse.com/#comment-1681059936) he says that basically every region of the world has been covered, and here (http://theedverse.com/#comment-1746433518) that he has written about Eilistraee in the new era (which leads me to guess that the same holds true for the other deities). However, everything is in WotC's hands now.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Hold on a second: not all that you're saying here is true.

If you go to Candlekeep today and ask Ed Greenwood a question about the post-Spellplague Realms, you might just get an answer about the post-Spellplague Realms the very same day.

The same can be said if you ask Brian Cortijo a question at Candlekeep.

That, and Ed's been writing extensively about the post-Spellplague Realms since 4E was released, in both novels, regular Dragon and Dungeon articles, free articles on the WotC website, and at Candlekeep. That’s years of work.

Yes, some lore lords of the Realms have stuck to the pre-Spellplague Realms. For example, George Krashos just gifted the scribes of Candlekeep with a High History of Impiltur (it's a fantastic read, too), and he's said he isn't looking to go past the Spellplague, because the era of time he's interested in is what he considers the sweet spot.

So yeah, some are sticking to the pre-Plague Realms, but some are not. (snip)

Gee, that was unnecessarily pedantic.

Look at the overwhelming bulk of the conversations and posts at Candlekeep: they're about the pre-Plague Realms. Sure, Ed can throw off ideas for you about any era of the Realms, published or not, but the reality is that the overwhelming focus on discussion at Candlekeep in about the pre-Plague Realms.

Is that a fair enough assessment of the current state of play or do I need to dig through a couple of years' worth of questions to Ed and analyse them by era and provide you with a percentage?

(BTW, I was also really happy to see George's work on Impiltur finally getting released. I compiled all of his posts on various forums into another document last year so am looking to merge the two at some point. Unfortunately some of it is copyrighted material - like the entire Dragon article - so I suppose I will be keeping it for personal use.)

(snip) I'm a fan of Salvatore too, and I turned forty this year, so not every fan is a "young" fan.

Granted I don't buy all of his novels, but lately he's been hitting one home run after another. Some of his books I have dog-eared and filled with bookmarks, because there are passages in them worth reading again and again.

There's no denying his (positive, in my not so humble opinion) influence on the Realms.

Not looking to get all fanboy on you here; just trying to demonstrate that pigeonholing authors doesn’t give an accurate reflection of what’s going on and who their fanbase is. (snip)

Yeah, I understand my perspective on RAS is not shared by a lot of people otherwise he wouldn't be a best-selling author. He reminds me, though, of George Lucas in that he has become a parody of his former self. With the Star Wars franchise we got the gungans; with the Drizzt franchise we got dwarves that are inevitably brain-damaged and speech-impaired and possibly saddled with the worst names in fantasy fiction.

Exhibit one: Pi(c)kel. So named because RAS thought it would be funny to name a green-haired dwarf after a pickle and he wanted to see if he could sneak it past his editor.

But hey, taste is a subjective thing.

I will always be grateful to RAS for two things: The Crystal Shard which remains, even to this day, a marvellous fantasy adventure and for generating enough sales from his books to contribute to making the Realms financially attractive enough to TSR/WotC that they kept the setting alive.

Anyway, the real point of my posts is to say to people who like the Realms that it is highly unlikely that WotC is going to be supporting it in the way they did in the past so it's probably a good time to develop a strategy for coping with such an eventuality. My strategy is to use the 4E Realms with as much of the old material as possible... and also to finally getting around to using Eberron and then Dark Sun to run some other games. (And I cannot believe I waited so long to get into Eberron: it's brilliant!)

 

[TarionzCousin]

I think it's worth mentioning that Candlekeep is a phenomenal source of lore and answers about Faerun.

 

[Selvarin]

Thanks, Irennan. It's worth reading the writer's own words sometimes.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Gee, that was unnecessarily pedantic.

What I was trying to convey was the idea that it is never wise to attach a game designer’s name to a sweeping generalization unless you know for damn sure what you’re saying is true.

Otherwise you end up pushing fiction as though it’s truth—even if that wasn’t your intent (which I am sure it wasn’t)—and that fiction propagates until everyone assumes it’s true, and I know for a fact this is what vexes and frustrates people like Ed Greenwood, because the person that does the most work relaying answers to questions posed by fans to Ed has said as much.

Look at the overwhelming bulk of the conversations and posts at Candlekeep: they're about the pre-Plague Realms. Sure, Ed can throw off ideas for you about any era of the Realms, published or not, but the reality is that the overwhelming focus on discussion at Candlekeep in about the pre-Plague Realms.

Of course this is true—provided you count all conversations from before the Spellplague existed.

If you look only at conversations at Candlekeep from the Spellplague onward, then no it’s not true that the “overwhelming focus” is on the pre-Plague Realms. Have a look at the forums today: plenty of post-Spellgplague talk.

Feel free to get cracking on a several years worth study of posts if you disagree.

***********

I don’t get why people are so dead set on making things into an either/or here.

All the work on the Realms from the point WotC realized they screwed up onward has been to flesh out the post-Plague era and weave the pre and post eras together. Regardless of the level of support WotC publishes, what we’re going to see at the start of the 5E Realms is more of this kind of work.

If it succeeds, then there’s no point to looking at the current published Realms as a place with little support, because you have everything from word #1 published in a 1979 issue of The Dragon until now to use in your game.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I like your edited reply a lot lot better, Sanishiver. NB: I never misrepresented Ed and reject that implication utterly.

I suspect our positions are actually otherwise quite similar. My point in commenting is more about being prepared for a lack of 5E support. You seem to have more confidence that WotC will be supporting FR. I will be happy if I am wrong, and there is a better than 50% chance that I am wrong.

 

[Sailor Moon]

I have this god awful feeling that what we are going to get is a continuation of the campaign guide format from 4th edition and all lore related subject will be in online articles that might come out every few months.

I've noticed how we keep getting referred back to all the old material. That's great and all but I want continuous and currently supported material.

 

[Derren]

WotC knows that they cant please everyone and as passing the work of designing rules onto their customers worked so well they probably decided that instead of saying something and angering someone they simply stay nothing and let everyone guessing.