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!)

 

[Sailor Moon]

I think Wizards is still caught up in the whole " let's not talk about it because we might scare them away" fallacy.

 

[Irennan]

If "hands off" is the 5E approach, why did Ed and Bob say they were excited for the 5E FR and that fans had good stuff coming.
Why did they do the Sundering?
Because with no follow up it looks a whole lot like the "Fix the Realms" talk was just hype to sell the Sundering books.

I cannot say anything about this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was true, it's just corporate PR working as intended. Also using a ''hand off'' approach would be same as saying that the Realms won't receive any relevant support (they will only put out some generic adventure and like 3 novels/year, most of which are going to be damned Drizzt). The reason they have to release a minimum of FR material every year is that if they don't, the ownership of the IP goes back to Ed.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I'm busy. I'm continuing to run my 4E game, researching stuff for my blog articles, and prepping for my 5E game in mid-Jan.

I really don't need (or want! ) any more stuff. After all, I have Eberron as well....

 

[Queer Venger]

I love Eberron, I have all the 4e setting books, even if I never liked 4e I decided not to get rid of my Eberron and Dark Sun campaign books. But for me Eberron is too high magic for a default setting, I much prefer FR for my run-of-the-mill D&D campaign world.

I do agree that we will receive a FR campaign material, whether box set or book (not books I think), specially since its the official default setting.

 

[aramis erak]

I think Wizards is still caught up in the whole " let's not talk about it because we might scare them away" fallacy.

I suspect it's far more to do with "Let's not commit to dates and products so that we don't get lambasted for missing them." Which is becoming the dominant mode in the industry. Look at all the hate spewed about the quality issues with HotDQ. (And for the record, I like HotDQ, but note a few genuine quality control issues that imply rushing during layout.)

 

[Ahrimon]

I'll wait to see if they ever actually release some details on the sundering. I'm not buying and reading 5 books just to get a vague idea of what changes.

4e was the best thing to happen to the realms since the original grey box IMO. I didn't buy any of the 3x books because I was already tired of players ranting about campaigns where the DM didn't stick to their precious cannon. I could care less what the inn of a town was called but you'd hear players throwing epic tantrums if the DM changed it. Or doing their nerd laugh if the DM had the details wrong. Not for me. Wipe out all of that dreck and drizzle and give me a world with rich with history but light on minutia and details.

 

[Selvarin]

The old Grey box is still my favorite. Sure, a lot of places received small blurbs but it was a start. And the paper...that fake scroll paper look. Loved it.

Y'know, I'll settle for fewer--but better quality--FR products. If it takes them a little longer, so be it. And more non-Drizzt novels. I've been rereading Rich Baker's books on Jack Ravenwild, I've rather enjoyed it. I'd seriously love to see a line of 'revisited' novels. We saw the continuations of several story lines (e.g., Erevis Cale and Farideh) in the Sundering series, I hope a few more pop out.

Ahrimon, hmm. That sucks. While at the time I may have been of the same mind, these days I look upon a lot of those 3.x FR books as 'helpful guides' at best. I still bought them, in the end though I didn't make much use of the material.

 

[Gnarl45]

I'll wait to see if they ever actually release some details on the sundering. I'm not buying and reading 5 books just to get a vague idea of what changes.

4e was the best thing to happen to the realms since the original grey box IMO. I didn't buy any of the 3x books because I was already tired of players ranting about campaigns where the DM didn't stick to their precious cannon. I could care less what the inn of a town was called but you'd hear players throwing epic tantrums if the DM changed it. Or doing their nerd laugh if the DM had the details wrong. Not for me. Wipe out all of that dreck and drizzle and give me a world with rich with history but light on minutia and details.

I find it kind of sad that you blame it on the Forgotten Realms when the real issue is a DM that needs to a grow pair. "Guys let's play in my original version of the Forgotten Realms" isn't that difficult to say, especially to friends.

 

[Ahrimon]

I find it kind of sad that you blame it on the Forgotten Realms when the real issue is a DM that needs to a grow pair. "Guys let's play in my original version of the Forgotten Realms" isn't that difficult to say, especially to friends.

I don't blame the forgotten realms. It's the players on both sides of the table that have ruined the setting for me. Both DM and player who worship at the feet of cannon but you hear about the players messing with a DMs game more than a DM ram-roding a world towards their players because, well, a DM creates the world. Just last week on these forums I read about a DM remembering a game where the DM was having some undead invasion heading towards some kingdom and players basically said "Meh, the Symbul(?) will take care of it it's her kingdom and she's a high level XYZ who can do ABC." The DM knew a little about the kingdom, but didn't have those details. His entire game was derailed because the players started metagaming the session.

To be fair I take this stance in general for life. Rabid fans of anything will ruin something for me. If I'm going to enjoy something, let me enjoy it and don't shove it in my face. So, I loved the 4e Realms. It was a world still rich in history but all of those annoying details had been rendered obsolete and I could once again DM a game without having to worry about an overly enthusiastic fan trying to tell me I'm doing something wrong.

 

[Gnarl45]

I don't blame the forgotten realms. It's the players on both sides of the table that have ruined the setting for me. Both DM and player who worship at the feet of cannon but you hear about the players messing with a DMs game more than a DM ram-roding a world towards their players because, well, a DM creates the world. Just last week on these forums I read about a DM remembering a game where the DM was having some undead invasion heading towards some kingdom and players basically said "Meh, the Symbul(?) will take care of it it's her kingdom and she's a high level XYZ who can do ABC." The DM knew a little about the kingdom, but didn't have those details. His entire game was derailed because the players started metagaming the session.

This kind of stuff happened in my games too! But it's not that hard to manage. If you need to change something in the game setting, you just do it. The players are already changing cannon by playing in the setting. They're heroes that might accomplish great things and their accomplishments will never make it to the official FR cannon. I've never been embarassed to ask the players for more details on an area either. If I don't remember the name of the tavern in the village of Trollsnott, it doesn't hurt to ask the players.

To be fair I take this stance in general for life. Rabid fans of anything will ruin something for me. If I'm going to enjoy something, let me enjoy it and don't shove it in my face. So, I loved the 4e Realms. It was a world still rich in history but all of those annoying details had been rendered obsolete and I could once again DM a game without having to worry about an overly enthusiastic fan trying to tell me I'm doing something wrong.

If you don't use the lore of a campaign setting as a source of inspiration for your adventures, what's the point of playing in the setting? If you need a map with names on it, you just need to google fantasy maps. If you want both the map and the rich history, you can advance the timeline 10 years.