I am doing exactly that, and as a reward for a good weekend I ordered myself a poster of the world map.
All I have left is magical properties of flowers and cooking herbs and spices, a tarot deck, and final write ups on 12 cultures.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I am only talking about 5e - I've been playing TTRPGs on & off for 20years, but actual D&D I've only played in the 5e era, so I don't have any lore as they've hardly published any in 5e materials. I know a bit more about the Realms from various PC games over the years (eg. The Neverwinter nights series is a particular favourite & I'd love a Neverwinter book), but as for actual 5e TTRPG material I own, it's very lore lite.
I've played lots of other games from Warhammer Fantasy to Vampire to Paranoia to Call of Cthulu over the years & all of them have felt packed with lore & story, whilst FR just feels bland. As I mentioned to before, even as "generic European medieval Fantasy that ignores modern sensibilities", then Warhammer Fantasy's Old World really leans into that & makes it interesting.
...
I mean, this is my fundamental complaint, I'm new to the Forgotten Realms/Faerun as a TTRPG setting - I don't want to dig around the wiki, not least because I don't know where I'd start.
I want to pay professionals to give me updated rule/lore books with all my world building done in a readable & comprehensible fashion - why isn't WotC taking my money to give me the updated current state & relationships of the various peoples nations of Faerun? I've not been playing in the FR for decades, and the system (and so setting) has boomed since 5e - I was playing other systems before.
The massive success of settings Kickstarters for 5e shows there's an apatite for published settings information.
Your position isn't unreasonable, but one of D&D5's stated design goals was to not reprint existing material, which is why DMsGuild.com exists.
Fans may be willing to Kickstart settings, but each of those is being produced by a different publisher, all with relatively small-scale print-run targets. The general consensus in the community and industry is that TSR, the company that originally published D&D, went bankrupt partially because they split the fanbase of D&D by publishing so many different settings themselves. Everyone picked their favorite, and no one bought enough of everything to keep the press solvent. I'm personally doubtful; TSR was apparently so badly managed that I'm not sure focusing on a single setting would have saved them, but regardless it is a lesson that every Wizards-produced edition of D&D has taken to heart.
D&D3 had three traditional settings, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron, of which only FR and Eberron received multiple lore releases (Greyhawk was treated as the "default" setting for all core rulebooks, but it only ever got one setting-specific release).
D&D4 had four, an unnamed original core setting, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and Dark Sun, but only the original core setting received multiple lore releases -- the other three were limited to two books apiece (FR did get two city settings as well, Neverwinter and Menzoberranzan).
D&D5 is up to a whopping nine, just as many as AD&D2, but only Eberron has really gotten more than a single release -- the Spelljammer box barely has enough pages to qualify as a single sourcebook.
If you want to start getting into Forgotten Realms and you don't want to faff around with the wiki (although, I agree with Bill that the Forgotten Realms wiki on Fandom is probably the best universal D&D lore resource ever created, barring a few setting-specific limitations), I recommend starting here: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/28729/Forgotten-Realms-Campaign-Setting-3e
That is a real setting book, of the sort that would have inspired Golarion, and there are dozens of supplements for D&D3 besides. General consensus among fans is that the Sundering event more or less reset the setting to the way it was in this book, retconning most of what was written for D&D4, although some elements of the D&D4 material are still relevant. If you need more detail than that, you can go back to the AD&D2 material for an even deeper lore dive, but conversion may become trickier as the rules won't be as familiar, and there was a timeline update between AD&D2 and D&D3, so not all the material is still completely accurate.
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J Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
Why did 5e lead off with the SCAG? Because that is if not the most used section it is close and it is where they were setting a number of their earlier extended modules/campaign books. Oh, how do I know there are at least 35? Because I just counted the ones in my collection and I know I’m missing at least one or two. Do I remember it all? Of course not - that is why I keep all those books - so I can look stuff up when I need it.
Execpt it's almost been a decade since 5e was published, so long in fact that a new edition will be out soon & SCAG is still the only real lore book on areas of Faerun. They didn't just start with it, they finished with it. A quick Google actually shows me that before that there were two general FR books in 2008 for 4e & before that the previous FR book was in 2003 for the underdark.
Now, I can't actually find anywhere to legally purchase those early 2000s source books, let alone updated versions, so forgive me whilst give money to people who actually seem to care about the setting they're writing for and are keeping it up to date.
I am only talking about 5e - I've been playing TTRPGs on & off for 20years, but actual D&D I've only played in the 5e era, so I don't have any lore as they've hardly published any in 5e materials. I know a bit more about the Realms from various PC games over the years (eg. The Neverwinter nights series is a particular favourite & I'd love a Neverwinter book), but as for actual 5e TTRPG material I own, it's very lore lite.
I've played lots of other games from Warhammer Fantasy to Vampire to Paranoia to Call of Cthulu over the years & all of them have felt packed with lore & story, whilst FR just feels bland. As I mentioned to before, even as "generic European medieval Fantasy that ignores modern sensibilities", then Warhammer Fantasy's Old World really leans into that & makes it interesting.
...
I mean, this is my fundamental complaint, I'm new to the Forgotten Realms/Faerun as a TTRPG setting - I don't want to dig around the wiki, not least because I don't know where I'd start.
I want to pay professionals to give me updated rule/lore books with all my world building done in a readable & comprehensible fashion - why isn't WotC taking my money to give me the updated current state & relationships of the various peoples nations of Faerun? I've not been playing in the FR for decades, and the system (and so setting) has boomed since 5e - I was playing other systems before.
The massive success of settings Kickstarters for 5e shows there's an apatite for published settings information.
Your position isn't unreasonable, but one of D&D5's stated design goals was to not reprint existing material, which is why DMsGuild.com exists.
Fans may be willing to Kickstart settings, but each of those is being produced by a different publisher, all with relatively small-scale print-run targets. The general consensus in the community and industry is that TSR, the company that originally published D&D, went bankrupt partially because they split the fanbase of D&D by publishing so many different settings themselves. Everyone picked their favorite, and no one bought enough of everything to keep the press solvent. I'm personally doubtful; TSR was apparently so badly managed that I'm not sure focusing on a single setting would have saved them, but regardless it is a lesson that every Wizards-produced edition of D&D has taken to heart.
D&D3 had three traditional settings, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron, of which only FR and Eberron received multiple lore releases (Greyhawk was treated as the "default" setting for all core rulebooks, but it only ever got one setting-specific release).
D&D4 had four, an unnamed original core setting, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and Dark Sun, but only the original core setting received multiple lore releases -- the other three were limited to two books apiece (FR did get two city settings as well, Neverwinter and Menzoberranzan).
D&D5 is up to a whopping nine, just as many as AD&D2, but only Eberron has really gotten more than a single release -- the Spelljammer box barely has enough pages to qualify as a single sourcebook.
If you want to start getting into Forgotten Realms and you don't want to faff around with the wiki (although, I agree with Bill that the Forgotten Realms wiki on Fandom is probably the best universal D&D lore resource ever created, barring a few setting-specific limitations), I recommend starting here: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/28729/Forgotten-Realms-Campaign-Setting-3e
That is a real setting book, of the sort that would have inspired Golarion, and there are dozens of supplements for D&D3 besides. General consensus among fans is that the Sundering event more or less reset the setting to the way it was in this book, retconning most of what was written for D&D4, although some elements of the D&D4 material are still relevant. If you need more detail than that, you can go back to the AD&D2 material for an even deeper lore dive, but conversion may become trickier as the rules won't be as familiar, and there was a timeline update between AD&D2 and D&D3, so not all the material is still completely accurate.
Thanks for all the background, and I know D&D has lots of official settings - that's actually part of the issue. It's clear they treat FR as the default, so it'd be nice if they went all in. Or if not all in on FR, then all in on a setting. Pick one and do it well rather than having a whole bunch & doing them badly.
They could sell a whole load of updates to their old books to work with DDB if nothing's really changed. Thanks for the tip on the DMs guild 3e product, but it's really a patch - a good setting book introduces new (sub)classes, items, monsters etc. If I'm going of a 3rd party product from DMs guild based on old source books & have to homebrew it to work with 5e, then I might as well go with something more modern & professionally written than FR to homebrew onto DDB.
They could sell a whole load of updates to their old books to work with DDB if nothing's really changed. Thanks for the tip on the DMs guild 3e product, but it's really a patch - a good setting book introduces new (sub)classes, items, monsters etc. If I'm going of a 3rd party product from DMs guild based on old source books & have to homebrew it to work with 5e, then I might as well go with something more modern & professionally written than FR to homebrew onto DDB.
I'm not sure if there's a misunderstanding here or not, but for the sake of being clear: that D&D3 FR Campaign Setting book on DMsGuild.com is not a third-party release. It's an official Wizards of the Coast product from 2001.
The rest of your point stands, I just wanted to be sure I'd been clear.
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J Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
Yeah, to back up DMZ2112 here, there is a lot of Older material from the 3 and 3.5 era that is still official Wizards material, only sold therough DMsGuild because they get a pretty hefty cut and don't have to set it up through normal distribution and clutter their product mix. Most of their main outlets (which, iirc, are hobby stores and comic book stores and odd shops) wouldn't order such anyway, so this gives them the ability to publish on demand in a format desired and still benefit from teh prior product line.
I mean, there are reasons that OneBookShelf is partners with Wizards on DMsGuild.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Oh right - didn't realise there was first party stuff on DM's Guild. I've only ever used it for homebrew & when the Radiant Citadel authors put out additional info on that setting book. Seems a bit weird i can't buy the pdf direct from WotC so they make 100% profit. But thanks for the clarification both!
I'm pretty sure Wizards makes all the profit they want to off OBS sales. :D They certainly do off the 3rd-party content.
The back catalog of 1st-party material on DMsGuild is quite robust at this point; they already had a bunch of AD&D material archived from a brief period in the early 2000s when Wizards was selling through DriveThruRPG, and they've been adding to it bit by bit again over the last decade. I've even splurged on a few print-on-demand titles to fill out gaps on my AD&D2 collection shelves.
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J Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
Re: WotC churning out lore I think it's one of those some players "want it one way, but it's the other way" situations.
I am very confident WotC won't be getting around to putting out extensive definitive guides to the Forgotten Realms because the D&D brand has significant "been there, done that" experience with putting out heavily supported worlds. Looking ahead to the remainder of the 5e product cycle, we got a revisited setting book in Planescape (that I hope will take lessons learned from the product design flop of Spelljammer) and the Bigby's book on Giants (which will be setting agnostic like Fizbans). And then we're onto whatever OneDnD starts calling itself when officially released, and that edition or consolidation is clearly planning on building off what WotC believes was 5e's success, and that includes "thin" setting resources.
The reason the present iteration of FR exists in its present what critics mights call "half baked" condition is because WotC philosophy has developed toward world building as more a build your own burger bar approach instead providing a finished meal. This philosophy is most forcefully articulated in its statement on canon and lore I'll link and its celebration of its "multiversal" approach to the game which for some reason I can't find (mechanically reflected in Tasha's and Fizbans if you read them closely re the Blue Veil and how far Dragonsight can reach, and likely elsewhere):
You can also see how SCAG gives DMs a lot of flexibility with Faerum and the larger world in this passage
Farther to the west, past even Evermeet, are untold, unknown lands beyond the Trackless Sea. Many explorers have visited such lands, and some have even returned, bearing tales that change from generation to generation about exotic locales, from island chains that are the sites of countless shipwrecks, to fearsome feather-clad warriors, and vast continents that suddenly appeared where nothing — or something very much different — had rested only seasons prior.
Faerun is a continent in the world of Toril and the DM and campaign are granted license to build something as consistent or inconsistent with their Faerun campaign once they're ready to move beyond it.
Kickstarters are great, but from the figures I'm seeing with great exception their product output and sales lifetime tend to be a lot shorter than what Wotc wants for its D&D books, which they'd prefer to be consumed in a sort of mix and match have it your way approach. I think the WotC approach does service the campaign in a developed world player with the building blocks to either homebrew or buy into elsewhere in the D&D market. WotC's approach definitely maintains the buyer base of the more casual players we just don't see on forums or D&D community spaces but are certainly a driver of D&D sales.
All that said, DMsGuild is an excellent resource for FR, and not just in the reprints. DMsGuild has a great search filter. One thing you could do is enter "Ed Greenwood" select "Forgotten Realms" and 5e, and you'll see Ed Greenwood actually at least lended his name if not outright contributed to a number of DMsGuild products covering the Forgotten Realms in 5e mechanics, some of which do have subclasses and other character options for particular areas. I remember he had his name on a Candlekeep Sourcebook that went deeper into the history and staffing of Candlekeep than the official WotC anthology, even making more direct continuity lines to the Baldur's Gate series. A broader strategy would be taking Forgotten Realms based works in whatever edition and doing the same search with those designers names. A lot of veteran and current pros with significant experience writing for WotC put stuff out there. DMsGuild review system isn't bad, but if there's a title your on the fence on, there's a number of YouTubers who dedicate a significant amount if not the entirety of their time reviewing DMsGuild products that googling a DMsGuild title will often take you to the content to see if it's really what it's selling itself as.
All that said, DMsGuild is an excellent resource for FR, and not just in the reprints. DMsGuild has a great search filter. One thing you could do is enter "Ed Greenwood" select "Forgotten Realms" and 5e, and you'll see Ed Greenwood actually at least lended his name if not outright contributed to a number of DMsGuild products covering the Forgotten Realms in 5e mechanics, some of which do have subclasses and other character options for particular areas.
It's actually even better than that; Greenwood actively supports the Forgotten Realms directly by releasing his own products through DMsGuild, and Keith Baker directly supports Eberron in the same way. Pretty cool unintentional (?) consequence.
I'm sure Ed isn't first author on everything his name is on, but he definitely is on quite a few products.
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J Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
Re: WotC churning out lore I think it's one of those some players "want it one way, but it's the other way" situations.
I am very confident WotC won't be getting around to putting out extensive definitive guides to the Forgotten Realms because the D&D brand has significant "been there, done that" experience with putting out heavily supported worlds. Looking ahead to the remainder of the 5e product cycle, we got a revisited setting book in Planescape (that I hope will take lessons learned from the product design flop of Spelljammer) and the Bigby's book on Giants (which will be setting agnostic like Fizbans). And then we're onto whatever OneDnD starts calling itself when officially released, and that edition or consolidation is clearly planning on building off what WotC believes was 5e's success, and that includes "thin" setting resources.
The reason the present iteration of FR exists in its present what critics mights call "half baked" condition is because WotC philosophy has developed toward world building as more a build your own burger bar approach instead providing a finished meal. This philosophy is most forcefully articulated in its statement on canon and lore I'll link and its celebration of its "multiversal" approach to the game which for some reason I can't find (mechanically reflected in Tasha's and Fizbans if you read them closely re the Blue Veil and how far Dragonsight can reach, and likely elsewhere):
You can also see how SCAG gives DMs a lot of flexibility with Faerum and the larger world in this passage
Farther to the west, past even Evermeet, are untold, unknown lands beyond the Trackless Sea. Many explorers have visited such lands, and some have even returned, bearing tales that change from generation to generation about exotic locales, from island chains that are the sites of countless shipwrecks, to fearsome feather-clad warriors, and vast continents that suddenly appeared where nothing — or something very much different — had rested only seasons prior.
Faerun is a continent in the world of Toril and the DM and campaign are granted license to build something as consistent or inconsistent with their Faerun campaign once they're ready to move beyond it.
Kickstarters are great, but from the figures I'm seeing with great exception their product output and sales lifetime tend to be a lot shorter than what Wotc wants for its D&D books, which they'd prefer to be consumed in a sort of mix and match have it your way approach. I think the WotC approach does service the campaign in a developed world player with the building blocks to either homebrew or buy into elsewhere in the D&D market. WotC's approach definitely maintains the buyer base of the more casual players we just don't see on forums or D&D community spaces but are certainly a driver of D&D sales.
All that said, DMsGuild is an excellent resource for FR, and not just in the reprints. DMsGuild has a great search filter. One thing you could do is enter "Ed Greenwood" select "Forgotten Realms" and 5e, and you'll see Ed Greenwood actually at least lended his name if not outright contributed to a number of DMsGuild products covering the Forgotten Realms in 5e mechanics, some of which do have subclasses and other character options for particular areas. I remember he had his name on a Candlekeep Sourcebook that went deeper into the history and staffing of Candlekeep than the official WotC anthology, even making more direct continuity lines to the Baldur's Gate series. A broader strategy would be taking Forgotten Realms based works in whatever edition and doing the same search with those designers names. A lot of veteran and current pros with significant experience writing for WotC put stuff out there. DMsGuild review system isn't bad, but if there's a title your on the fence on, there's a number of YouTubers who dedicate a significant amount if not the entirety of their time reviewing DMsGuild products that googling a DMsGuild title will often take you to the content to see if it's really what it's selling itself as.
Thanks for that link & this gem from it:
"The most important reason why we maintain our own continuity, separate from other expressions and earlier editions of D&D, is to lessen the burden on DMs. "
So their official position is now essentially "Go & homebrew your own world because that's easier for you than us supplying any details" so with that in mind, I'm not going to modernize old FR books, but just switch to a 3rd party setting. Lots of good ones out there - it was the freshness of Golarion that started this thread, but it's certainly not the only one around. WotC can kiss my money goodbye - I'll only be buying adventures from now on & even those only if I can drop them in elsewhere (eg. Candlekeep Mysteries, Yawning Portal & Radiant Citadel type books).
All that said, DMsGuild is an excellent resource for FR, and not just in the reprints. DMsGuild has a great search filter. One thing you could do is enter "Ed Greenwood" select "Forgotten Realms" and 5e, and you'll see Ed Greenwood actually at least lended his name if not outright contributed to a number of DMsGuild products covering the Forgotten Realms in 5e mechanics, some of which do have subclasses and other character options for particular areas.
It's actually even better than that; Greenwood actively supports the Forgotten Realms directly by releasing his own products through DMsGuild, and Keith Baker directly supports Eberron in the same way. Pretty cool unintentional (?) consequence.
I'm sure Ed isn't first author on everything his name is on, but he definitely is on quite a few products.
Yeah, that may well be true, but in light of the recent news that Demiplane Nexus is going to start supporting 5e & become actual competition to DDB, I doubt his GMs Guild will end up on it or DDB, whilst I suspect a lot of 3PP modern fantasy worlds will be well supported. I want to use a setting where I don't have to homebrew so much myself.
I think the problem is they are over populated with game designers and understaff with content/story writers. The timeline and lore for Forgotten Realms needs to be advanced. How many times are we going to get a Temple of Elemental Evil reprint? How many times are we going to revisit Undermountain. So many of the campaigns and adventures have been conversions of prior editions. Which I appreciate, but it's time for the lore to move forward. Way way way past time.
"The most important reason why we maintain our own continuity, separate from other expressions and earlier editions of D&D, is to lessen the burden on DMs. "
So their official position is now essentially "Go & homebrew your own world because that's easier for you than us supplying any details" so with that in mind, I'm not going to modernize old FR books, but just switch to a 3rd party setting. Lots of good ones out there - it was the freshness of Golarion that started this thread, but it's certainly not the only one around. WotC can kiss my money goodbye - I'll only be buying adventures from now on & even those only if I can drop them in elsewhere (eg. Candlekeep Mysteries, Yawning Portal & Radiant Citadel type books).
So as far as your summation, you're right. However, the only nuance I'd point out is that where you find something worthy of contempt, WotC actually sees it as a flourishing business model. You yourself admit you'll likely keep buying the anthologies as long as they continue being presented in a format that's ready for any game world. Sure WotC would love D&D consumers to buy everything, but they're well aware most D&D consumers don't buy into everything. So the product line becomes a piecemeal patchwork where folks seek out particular products for character options, magic, and monsters, and the lore side of things is more on the spark of inspiration level rather than a thoroughly built world. And for many D&D players, that's exactly what they want. You dropped a nod to Vampire earlier on. So the 1st edition of Vampire, actually the first edition of the entire World of Darkness run in many ways was yes a very well developed game world, so well developed that a lot of players who weren't in on the ground floor day one of the core rules would often find the entry point pretty stifling. (I remember being frustrated by the whole Final Nights/Gehena closing up shop of the game world, since I thought it was sort of a lame resolution so bucked it like many and did my own thing). A lot of game publishers were caught up in that trap in the late 90s, and the industry at least on the game system side generally took lessons from heavily developed worlds as often an impediment to game growth (unless it's an outside IP like Star Trek/Wars LOTR etc, developing games in those properties comes with a fanbase used to following along).
Folks putting out a rich game world books are in a very niche space. Yes Golarion is likely #2 in the D&D derived game space, but they don't have anywhere near the marketshare Hasbro does, nor do I think they necessarily want to be in that space. Pathfinder has always been floated as something a bit more 'serious' than 5e's "lighter" approach. And I say this as someone's whose favorite actual play group does mostly Pathfinder, I love their sessions, but I could really tell you what's going on with any degree of depth. Also I say all this as someone who spends considerably more on 3rd party D&D content than I do WotC official releases, and considerably more than that on other systems with varying degrees of "official worlds" (I really like Alien which takes all the lore of the movies, comics, video games and novels, and "puts it out there" as rumor for the GameMuthur to decide what's really true in their game).
I'll also say I wish WotC would put more behind their "enabling" philosophy for DMs and put out more material with consideration toward stronger world building toolset. VGtR was great in not just providing guidance on building a Domain of Dread, but just running varieties horror in D&D. They could do more on how to run war, and court/politics, and (ahem) exploration than their current production line does. Dragonlance could have been much better in this way.
All that said, DMsGuild is an excellent resource for FR, and not just in the reprints. DMsGuild has a great search filter. One thing you could do is enter "Ed Greenwood" select "Forgotten Realms" and 5e, and you'll see Ed Greenwood actually at least lended his name if not outright contributed to a number of DMsGuild products covering the Forgotten Realms in 5e mechanics, some of which do have subclasses and other character options for particular areas.
It's actually even better than that; Greenwood actively supports the Forgotten Realms directly by releasing his own products through DMsGuild, and Keith Baker directly supports Eberron in the same way. Pretty cool unintentional (?) consequence.
I'm sure Ed isn't first author on everything his name is on, but he definitely is on quite a few products.
Yeah, that may well be true, but in light of the recent news that Demiplane Nexus is going to start supporting 5e & become actual competition to DDB, I doubt his GMs Guild will end up on it or DDB, whilst I suspect a lot of 3PP modern fantasy worlds will be well supported. I want to use a setting where I don't have to homebrew so much myself.
So there's business side of things that demiplane's move will make interesting. I'm actually curious what Paizo thinks of all this since they're the largest stakeholder game system in Demiplane to date and 5e SRD stuff will be in competition on what they may to some degree thought of as "their" platform. Also, let's note your desire to dive into Demiplane may require patience. The Pathfinder nexus is still in alpha. The announcement was a teaser, and back when Adam was the face of DDB "we never give timetables" was their policy well before WotC bought the site.
So One Bookshelf runs DMsGuild, it also runs DriveThruRPG where many, close to all major TTRPGs can be purchased in PDF and sometimes PoD format. One Bookshelf recently merged with Roll20, likely to allow for better management of Roll20s own marketplace but also to allow better porting of DriveThru stuff into Roll20s space (I don't know if DemiPlane was a known thing at the time, but I think there was at least talk of it). Of course, DMsGuild also supports development for its content for I think Fantasy Grounds and Foundry, and those arrangements are going to still be in place.
Basically there are at least two major platforms being developed with the potential for non "official WotC" releases being entertained in these spaces. It's an interesting time for the industry, and I see players being presented with a lot of options in the next couple of years.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I think the problem is they are over populated with game designers and understaff with content/story writers. The timeline and lore for Forgotten Realms needs to be advanced. How many times are we going to get a Temple of Elemental Evil reprint? How many times are we going to revisit Undermountain. So many of the campaigns and adventures have been conversions of prior editions. Which I appreciate, but it's time for the lore to move forward. Way way way past time.
I 99% agree with this - you can see it in the lore parts of their books - take Radiant Citadel, the first part of the book was a great new setting with lots of lore, but it still felt underdeveloped. It was only when the actual writes of the book released more lore on GMs guild that I realised it being underdeveloped was a WotC editorial choice. It wasn't even released by WotC on GMs guild, but by the writers themselves.
"The most important reason why we maintain our own continuity, separate from other expressions and earlier editions of D&D, is to lessen the burden on DMs. "
So their official position is now essentially "Go & homebrew your own world because that's easier for you than us supplying any details" so with that in mind, I'm not going to modernize old FR books, but just switch to a 3rd party setting. Lots of good ones out there - it was the freshness of Golarion that started this thread, but it's certainly not the only one around. WotC can kiss my money goodbye - I'll only be buying adventures from now on & even those only if I can drop them in elsewhere (eg. Candlekeep Mysteries, Yawning Portal & Radiant Citadel type books).
So as far as your summation, you're right. However, the only nuance I'd point out is that where you find something worthy of contempt, WotC actually sees it as a flourishing business model. You yourself admit you'll likely keep buying the anthologies as long as they continue being presented in a format that's ready for any game world. Sure WotC would love D&D consumers to buy everything, but they're well aware most D&D consumers don't buy into everything. So the product line becomes a piecemeal patchwork where folks seek out particular products for character options, magic, and monsters, and the lore side of things is more on the spark of inspiration level rather than a thoroughly built world. And for many D&D players, that's exactly what they want. You dropped a nod to Vampire earlier on. So the 1st edition of Vampire, actually the first edition of the entire World of Darkness run in many ways was yes a very well developed game world, so well developed that a lot of players who weren't in on the ground floor day one of the core rules would often find the entry point pretty stifling. (I remember being frustrated by the whole Final Nights/Gehena closing up shop of the game world, since I thought it was sort of a lame resolution so bucked it like many and did my own thing). A lot of game publishers were caught up in that trap in the late 90s, and the industry at least on the game system side generally took lessons from heavily developed worlds as often an impediment to game growth (unless it's an outside IP like Star Trek/Wars LOTR etc, developing games in those properties comes with a fanbase used to following along).
Folks putting out a rich game world books are in a very niche space. Yes Golarion is likely #2 in the D&D derived game space, but they don't have anywhere near the marketshare Hasbro does, nor do I think they necessarily want to be in that space. Pathfinder has always been floated as something a bit more 'serious' than 5e's "lighter" approach. And I say this as someone's whose favorite actual play group does mostly Pathfinder, I love their sessions, but I could really tell you what's going on with any degree of depth. Also I say all this as someone who spends considerably more on 3rd party D&D content than I do WotC official releases, and considerably more than that on other systems with varying degrees of "official worlds" (I really like Alien which takes all the lore of the movies, comics, video games and novels, and "puts it out there" as rumor for the GameMuthur to decide what's really true in their game).
I'll also say I wish WotC would put more behind their "enabling" philosophy for DMs and put out more material with consideration toward stronger world building toolset. VGtR was great in not just providing guidance on building a Domain of Dread, but just running varieties horror in D&D. They could do more on how to run war, and court/politics, and (ahem) exploration than their current production line does. Dragonlance could have been much better in this way.
All that said, DMsGuild is an excellent resource for FR, and not just in the reprints. DMsGuild has a great search filter. One thing you could do is enter "Ed Greenwood" select "Forgotten Realms" and 5e, and you'll see Ed Greenwood actually at least lended his name if not outright contributed to a number of DMsGuild products covering the Forgotten Realms in 5e mechanics, some of which do have subclasses and other character options for particular areas.
It's actually even better than that; Greenwood actively supports the Forgotten Realms directly by releasing his own products through DMsGuild, and Keith Baker directly supports Eberron in the same way. Pretty cool unintentional (?) consequence.
I'm sure Ed isn't first author on everything his name is on, but he definitely is on quite a few products.
Yeah, that may well be true, but in light of the recent news that Demiplane Nexus is going to start supporting 5e & become actual competition to DDB, I doubt his GMs Guild will end up on it or DDB, whilst I suspect a lot of 3PP modern fantasy worlds will be well supported. I want to use a setting where I don't have to homebrew so much myself.
So there's business side of things that demiplane's move will make interesting. I'm actually curious what Paizo thinks of all this since they're the largest stakeholder game system in Demiplane to date and 5e SRD stuff will be in competition on what they may to some degree thought of as "their" platform. Also, let's note your desire to dive into Demiplane may require patience. The Pathfinder nexus is still in alpha. The announcement was a teaser, and back when Adam was the face of DDB "we never give timetables" was their policy well before WotC bought the site.
So One Bookshelf runs DMsGuild, it also runs DriveThruRPG where many, close to all major TTRPGs can be purchased in PDF and sometimes PoD format. One Bookshelf recently merged with Roll20, likely to allow for better management of Roll20s own marketplace but also to allow better porting of DriveThru stuff into Roll20s space (I don't know if DemiPlane was a known thing at the time, but I think there was at least talk of it). Of course, DMsGuild also supports development for its content for I think Fantasy Grounds and Foundry, and those arrangements are going to still be in place.
Basically there are at least two major platforms being developed with the potential for non "official WotC" releases being entertained in these spaces. It's an interesting time for the industry, and I see players being presented with a lot of options in the next couple of years.
You make a good point that WotC probably think of it as a flourishing business model, but given their comments of how D&D is "undermonitised" & the amount you, I & I suspect many, many DMs spend on 3rd party settings & supplements it's just a little weird to me that they don't sell their settings harder. It's a lot of money I've spent just in the last couple of weeks with Paizo & Demiplane, just on Golarion lore books from the PF2e "Lost Omens" line. One way of making more money from us is to give us those optional lore books!
I agree with you on VRGtR - it's a great book. If their approach is going to be "go and homebrew it", then start selling us books on how to homebrew in the world they've created. That would actually be a good compromise for me. There's decent fan creation on GMs guild on building feywild Domains of delight inspired by VRGtR - but books on building kingdoms, secret societies, guilds etc. would all be welcome and a book of taverns (including NPCs), a book of shops (including new items) etc. that can be dropped into any generic fantasy setting would be nice, too.
One Bookshelf also run Pathfinder infinite & storytellers vault, so they're already part of the Pathfinder & Vampire ecosystems alongside Demiplane too. It'll be interesting to see how & if those products integrate with Demiplane when they get around to implementing homebrew. I didn't know they'd been bought by roll20, though. But I suspect that Demiplane & roll20 cater to different enough audiences that onebookshelf could conceivably start selling through Demiplane as a 3PP themselves - at least for the systems Demiplane caters to. It'd be nice for gamers if they did, because I'd love my pdfs from them to be in the more mobile friendly web versions Demiplane uses. But yes, lots of interesting options, which can only be a good thing for the hobby.
Worldbuilder’s Journal: a licensed product: The Worldbuilder's Journal of Legendary Adventures (Dungeons & Dragons): 365 Questions to Help You Create Mythical Characters, Storied Worlds, and Unique Campaigns https://a.co/d/22jxHFV
Randy Ellefson’s whole series is there (Greenwood does blurbs for him).
there are other places besides the community one.
that Worldbuilder book is a tiny thing, and is just writing prompts.
all of that said, they really do need to dramatically up the investment in the settings so they can begin to maximize both merchandising from Novels and create merchandising materials, since they don’t appear to be doing so with the the support tools, merch, and venues for the settings they suggest people make.
I am wholly about making your own setting, myself. Have been since I picked up my brand new shiny DMs Guide for AD&D. It is why I went into the fields I did, and why I was so damned annoying when I did (my doctorate is in Sociology, my two masters are psychology and religion, so I don’t get invited to dinner parties but I do D&D games). So I agree that if they are going to make that their direction, then they need to come up with a lot more stuff to enable it so the 15 year olds getting their DM on aren’t drawn down that same path.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
First off, Wow! Apparently there are a zillion and three things out in the gaming world that have developed since I left gaming, about 24 years ago. Most everything you're talking about is brand new to me, but also old and obsolete in the eyes of those who've been keeping up to date. I'm not cheering or cursing any currently published lore; I know too little to have an opinion on that matter.
What I will say, as one who wrote home brew lore, long before that term referred to something other than a beverage making process, that it is one of the toughest ways that someone can exercise their imagination. It has it's rewards, but a high wage, relative to the effort involved, is not one of the perks. Even back in the stone age days, I learned that most people at the table had virtually no interest in the lore. I also learned that those players who enjoyed the lore aspect of the game would often bring up questions that I had not once considered, when carefully crafting this place, and its inhabitants, and its civilizations, and their laws. . . If a question demanded an answer, for lore's sake, I would add this question to my checklist of all that goes on in this world, and provide the answer for that question in other editions.
As long as my enthusiasm for the project remained high, the occasional purchases of my work helped, then I would continue to build on these worlds. Eventually, my passion for writing about worlds and their people steered me toward writing stories and novels, instead. The pay is still low for the hours involved, but steadier, and the lore does not have to provide for what's under that stone, that was never turned over, or that valley over there, that the reader will not visit, or the current political upheaval going on two continents away, at least not in this particular book.
An acquaintance, from higher up in the video gaming industry, tells me that turnover in lore writers is very high, and burnout is often cited as the reason for leaving. I do not know if that is also true of written book lore writing, but it may be a possibility. A large, for profit, company is always weighing the costs of fresh lore, The Writers' Wages, against the current profitability of just letting it ride. That hard equation will likely never go away as a primary corporate decision maker.
To the OP, I am truly sorry that you have not yet found the more satisfactory lore that you are searching for. I hope that some of what others here have offered will help some. Don't give up; there are always writers out there who share your passion for detail, and are doing their single best to provide others with wondrous worlds, and endless sandboxes to play in.
To the OP, I am truly sorry that you have not yet found the more satisfactory lore that you are searching for. I hope that some of what others here have offered will help some. Don't give up; there are always writers out there who share your passion for detail, and are doing their single best to provide others with wondrous worlds, and endless sandboxes to play in.
As the OP, don't be sorry, I've found lots of excellent lore - indeed it was finding good lore from other parties that made me question why WotC don't really have much. It turns out that they do, but it's all old. Paizo on the other hand has put out 13 lore books, with two more scheduled close enough for pre-order since 2019. As well as 11 rules books & 1 close enough to allow preorders, that also contain setting information. Not even starting to count any actual adventures that give more specific info.
And that's just a single publisher - may other parties have written great D&D settings - my lament is just that WotC have stopped.
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I am doing exactly that, and as a reward for a good weekend I ordered myself a poster of the world map.
All I have left is magical properties of flowers and cooking herbs and spices, a tarot deck, and final write ups on 12 cultures.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Your position isn't unreasonable, but one of D&D5's stated design goals was to not reprint existing material, which is why DMsGuild.com exists.
Fans may be willing to Kickstart settings, but each of those is being produced by a different publisher, all with relatively small-scale print-run targets. The general consensus in the community and industry is that TSR, the company that originally published D&D, went bankrupt partially because they split the fanbase of D&D by publishing so many different settings themselves. Everyone picked their favorite, and no one bought enough of everything to keep the press solvent. I'm personally doubtful; TSR was apparently so badly managed that I'm not sure focusing on a single setting would have saved them, but regardless it is a lesson that every Wizards-produced edition of D&D has taken to heart.
D&D3 had three traditional settings, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron, of which only FR and Eberron received multiple lore releases (Greyhawk was treated as the "default" setting for all core rulebooks, but it only ever got one setting-specific release).
D&D4 had four, an unnamed original core setting, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and Dark Sun, but only the original core setting received multiple lore releases -- the other three were limited to two books apiece (FR did get two city settings as well, Neverwinter and Menzoberranzan).
D&D5 is up to a whopping nine, just as many as AD&D2, but only Eberron has really gotten more than a single release -- the Spelljammer box barely has enough pages to qualify as a single sourcebook.
If you want to start getting into Forgotten Realms and you don't want to faff around with the wiki (although, I agree with Bill that the Forgotten Realms wiki on Fandom is probably the best universal D&D lore resource ever created, barring a few setting-specific limitations), I recommend starting here: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/28729/Forgotten-Realms-Campaign-Setting-3e
That is a real setting book, of the sort that would have inspired Golarion, and there are dozens of supplements for D&D3 besides. General consensus among fans is that the Sundering event more or less reset the setting to the way it was in this book, retconning most of what was written for D&D4, although some elements of the D&D4 material are still relevant. If you need more detail than that, you can go back to the AD&D2 material for an even deeper lore dive, but conversion may become trickier as the rules won't be as familiar, and there was a timeline update between AD&D2 and D&D3, so not all the material is still completely accurate.
J
Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
Execpt it's almost been a decade since 5e was published, so long in fact that a new edition will be out soon & SCAG is still the only real lore book on areas of Faerun. They didn't just start with it, they finished with it. A quick Google actually shows me that before that there were two general FR books in 2008 for 4e & before that the previous FR book was in 2003 for the underdark.
Now, I can't actually find anywhere to legally purchase those early 2000s source books, let alone updated versions, so forgive me whilst give money to people who actually seem to care about the setting they're writing for and are keeping it up to date.
Have a good rest!
Thanks for all the background, and I know D&D has lots of official settings - that's actually part of the issue. It's clear they treat FR as the default, so it'd be nice if they went all in. Or if not all in on FR, then all in on a setting. Pick one and do it well rather than having a whole bunch & doing them badly.
They could sell a whole load of updates to their old books to work with DDB if nothing's really changed. Thanks for the tip on the DMs guild 3e product, but it's really a patch - a good setting book introduces new (sub)classes, items, monsters etc. If I'm going of a 3rd party product from DMs guild based on old source books & have to homebrew it to work with 5e, then I might as well go with something more modern & professionally written than FR to homebrew onto DDB.
I'm not sure if there's a misunderstanding here or not, but for the sake of being clear: that D&D3 FR Campaign Setting book on DMsGuild.com is not a third-party release. It's an official Wizards of the Coast product from 2001.
The rest of your point stands, I just wanted to be sure I'd been clear.
J
Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
Yeah, to back up DMZ2112 here, there is a lot of Older material from the 3 and 3.5 era that is still official Wizards material, only sold therough DMsGuild because they get a pretty hefty cut and don't have to set it up through normal distribution and clutter their product mix. Most of their main outlets (which, iirc, are hobby stores and comic book stores and odd shops) wouldn't order such anyway, so this gives them the ability to publish on demand in a format desired and still benefit from teh prior product line.
I mean, there are reasons that OneBookShelf is partners with Wizards on DMsGuild.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Oh right - didn't realise there was first party stuff on DM's Guild. I've only ever used it for homebrew & when the Radiant Citadel authors put out additional info on that setting book. Seems a bit weird i can't buy the pdf direct from WotC so they make 100% profit. But thanks for the clarification both!
I'm pretty sure Wizards makes all the profit they want to off OBS sales. :D They certainly do off the 3rd-party content.
The back catalog of 1st-party material on DMsGuild is quite robust at this point; they already had a bunch of AD&D material archived from a brief period in the early 2000s when Wizards was selling through DriveThruRPG, and they've been adding to it bit by bit again over the last decade. I've even splurged on a few print-on-demand titles to fill out gaps on my AD&D2 collection shelves.
J
Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
Re: WotC churning out lore I think it's one of those some players "want it one way, but it's the other way" situations.
I am very confident WotC won't be getting around to putting out extensive definitive guides to the Forgotten Realms because the D&D brand has significant "been there, done that" experience with putting out heavily supported worlds. Looking ahead to the remainder of the 5e product cycle, we got a revisited setting book in Planescape (that I hope will take lessons learned from the product design flop of Spelljammer) and the Bigby's book on Giants (which will be setting agnostic like Fizbans). And then we're onto whatever OneDnD starts calling itself when officially released, and that edition or consolidation is clearly planning on building off what WotC believes was 5e's success, and that includes "thin" setting resources.
The reason the present iteration of FR exists in its present what critics mights call "half baked" condition is because WotC philosophy has developed toward world building as more a build your own burger bar approach instead providing a finished meal. This philosophy is most forcefully articulated in its statement on canon and lore I'll link and its celebration of its "multiversal" approach to the game which for some reason I can't find (mechanically reflected in Tasha's and Fizbans if you read them closely re the Blue Veil and how far Dragonsight can reach, and likely elsewhere):
Try 1: https://dnd.wizards.com/news/dnd-canon
You can also see how SCAG gives DMs a lot of flexibility with Faerum and the larger world in this passage
Faerun is a continent in the world of Toril and the DM and campaign are granted license to build something as consistent or inconsistent with their Faerun campaign once they're ready to move beyond it.
Kickstarters are great, but from the figures I'm seeing with great exception their product output and sales lifetime tend to be a lot shorter than what Wotc wants for its D&D books, which they'd prefer to be consumed in a sort of mix and match have it your way approach. I think the WotC approach does service the campaign in a developed world player with the building blocks to either homebrew or buy into elsewhere in the D&D market. WotC's approach definitely maintains the buyer base of the more casual players we just don't see on forums or D&D community spaces but are certainly a driver of D&D sales.
All that said, DMsGuild is an excellent resource for FR, and not just in the reprints. DMsGuild has a great search filter. One thing you could do is enter "Ed Greenwood" select "Forgotten Realms" and 5e, and you'll see Ed Greenwood actually at least lended his name if not outright contributed to a number of DMsGuild products covering the Forgotten Realms in 5e mechanics, some of which do have subclasses and other character options for particular areas. I remember he had his name on a Candlekeep Sourcebook that went deeper into the history and staffing of Candlekeep than the official WotC anthology, even making more direct continuity lines to the Baldur's Gate series. A broader strategy would be taking Forgotten Realms based works in whatever edition and doing the same search with those designers names. A lot of veteran and current pros with significant experience writing for WotC put stuff out there. DMsGuild review system isn't bad, but if there's a title your on the fence on, there's a number of YouTubers who dedicate a significant amount if not the entirety of their time reviewing DMsGuild products that googling a DMsGuild title will often take you to the content to see if it's really what it's selling itself as.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Here is a link to the full list of FR lore books, modules etc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Forgotten_Realms_modules_and_sourcebooks
you should be able to use it to lan out your campaign as well as for looking up stuff to purchase on DMsguild
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
It's actually even better than that; Greenwood actively supports the Forgotten Realms directly by releasing his own products through DMsGuild, and Keith Baker directly supports Eberron in the same way. Pretty cool unintentional (?) consequence.
I'm sure Ed isn't first author on everything his name is on, but he definitely is on quite a few products.
J
Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
Thanks for that link & this gem from it:
"The most important reason why we maintain our own continuity, separate from other expressions and earlier editions of D&D, is to lessen the burden on DMs. "
So their official position is now essentially "Go & homebrew your own world because that's easier for you than us supplying any details" so with that in mind, I'm not going to modernize old FR books, but just switch to a 3rd party setting. Lots of good ones out there - it was the freshness of Golarion that started this thread, but it's certainly not the only one around. WotC can kiss my money goodbye - I'll only be buying adventures from now on & even those only if I can drop them in elsewhere (eg. Candlekeep Mysteries, Yawning Portal & Radiant Citadel type books).
Yeah, that may well be true, but in light of the recent news that Demiplane Nexus is going to start supporting 5e & become actual competition to DDB, I doubt his GMs Guild will end up on it or DDB, whilst I suspect a lot of 3PP modern fantasy worlds will be well supported. I want to use a setting where I don't have to homebrew so much myself.
I think the problem is they are over populated with game designers and understaff with content/story writers. The timeline and lore for Forgotten Realms needs to be advanced. How many times are we going to get a Temple of Elemental Evil reprint? How many times are we going to revisit Undermountain. So many of the campaigns and adventures have been conversions of prior editions. Which I appreciate, but it's time for the lore to move forward. Way way way past time.
So as far as your summation, you're right. However, the only nuance I'd point out is that where you find something worthy of contempt, WotC actually sees it as a flourishing business model. You yourself admit you'll likely keep buying the anthologies as long as they continue being presented in a format that's ready for any game world. Sure WotC would love D&D consumers to buy everything, but they're well aware most D&D consumers don't buy into everything. So the product line becomes a piecemeal patchwork where folks seek out particular products for character options, magic, and monsters, and the lore side of things is more on the spark of inspiration level rather than a thoroughly built world. And for many D&D players, that's exactly what they want. You dropped a nod to Vampire earlier on. So the 1st edition of Vampire, actually the first edition of the entire World of Darkness run in many ways was yes a very well developed game world, so well developed that a lot of players who weren't in on the ground floor day one of the core rules would often find the entry point pretty stifling. (I remember being frustrated by the whole Final Nights/Gehena closing up shop of the game world, since I thought it was sort of a lame resolution so bucked it like many and did my own thing). A lot of game publishers were caught up in that trap in the late 90s, and the industry at least on the game system side generally took lessons from heavily developed worlds as often an impediment to game growth (unless it's an outside IP like Star Trek/Wars LOTR etc, developing games in those properties comes with a fanbase used to following along).
Folks putting out a rich game world books are in a very niche space. Yes Golarion is likely #2 in the D&D derived game space, but they don't have anywhere near the marketshare Hasbro does, nor do I think they necessarily want to be in that space. Pathfinder has always been floated as something a bit more 'serious' than 5e's "lighter" approach. And I say this as someone's whose favorite actual play group does mostly Pathfinder, I love their sessions, but I could really tell you what's going on with any degree of depth. Also I say all this as someone who spends considerably more on 3rd party D&D content than I do WotC official releases, and considerably more than that on other systems with varying degrees of "official worlds" (I really like Alien which takes all the lore of the movies, comics, video games and novels, and "puts it out there" as rumor for the GameMuthur to decide what's really true in their game).
I'll also say I wish WotC would put more behind their "enabling" philosophy for DMs and put out more material with consideration toward stronger world building toolset. VGtR was great in not just providing guidance on building a Domain of Dread, but just running varieties horror in D&D. They could do more on how to run war, and court/politics, and (ahem) exploration than their current production line does. Dragonlance could have been much better in this way.
So there's business side of things that demiplane's move will make interesting. I'm actually curious what Paizo thinks of all this since they're the largest stakeholder game system in Demiplane to date and 5e SRD stuff will be in competition on what they may to some degree thought of as "their" platform. Also, let's note your desire to dive into Demiplane may require patience. The Pathfinder nexus is still in alpha. The announcement was a teaser, and back when Adam was the face of DDB "we never give timetables" was their policy well before WotC bought the site.
So One Bookshelf runs DMsGuild, it also runs DriveThruRPG where many, close to all major TTRPGs can be purchased in PDF and sometimes PoD format. One Bookshelf recently merged with Roll20, likely to allow for better management of Roll20s own marketplace but also to allow better porting of DriveThru stuff into Roll20s space (I don't know if DemiPlane was a known thing at the time, but I think there was at least talk of it). Of course, DMsGuild also supports development for its content for I think Fantasy Grounds and Foundry, and those arrangements are going to still be in place.
Basically there are at least two major platforms being developed with the potential for non "official WotC" releases being entertained in these spaces. It's an interesting time for the industry, and I see players being presented with a lot of options in the next couple of years.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I 99% agree with this - you can see it in the lore parts of their books - take Radiant Citadel, the first part of the book was a great new setting with lots of lore, but it still felt underdeveloped. It was only when the actual writes of the book released more lore on GMs guild that I realised it being underdeveloped was a WotC editorial choice. It wasn't even released by WotC on GMs guild, but by the writers themselves.
You make a good point that WotC probably think of it as a flourishing business model, but given their comments of how D&D is "undermonitised" & the amount you, I & I suspect many, many DMs spend on 3rd party settings & supplements it's just a little weird to me that they don't sell their settings harder. It's a lot of money I've spent just in the last couple of weeks with Paizo & Demiplane, just on Golarion lore books from the PF2e "Lost Omens" line. One way of making more money from us is to give us those optional lore books!
I agree with you on VRGtR - it's a great book. If their approach is going to be "go and homebrew it", then start selling us books on how to homebrew in the world they've created. That would actually be a good compromise for me. There's decent fan creation on GMs guild on building feywild Domains of delight inspired by VRGtR - but books on building kingdoms, secret societies, guilds etc. would all be welcome and a book of taverns (including NPCs), a book of shops (including new items) etc. that can be dropped into any generic fantasy setting would be nice, too.
One Bookshelf also run Pathfinder infinite & storytellers vault, so they're already part of the Pathfinder & Vampire ecosystems alongside Demiplane too. It'll be interesting to see how & if those products integrate with Demiplane when they get around to implementing homebrew. I didn't know they'd been bought by roll20, though. But I suspect that Demiplane & roll20 cater to different enough audiences that onebookshelf could conceivably start selling through Demiplane as a 3PP themselves - at least for the systems Demiplane caters to. It'd be nice for gamers if they did, because I'd love my pdfs from them to be in the more mobile friendly web versions Demiplane uses. But yes, lots of interesting options, which can only be a good thing for the hobby.
Worldbuilder’s Journal: a licensed product: The Worldbuilder's Journal of Legendary Adventures (Dungeons & Dragons): 365 Questions to Help You Create Mythical Characters, Storied Worlds, and Unique Campaigns https://a.co/d/22jxHFV
Randy Ellefson’s whole series is there (Greenwood does blurbs for him).
there are other places besides the community one.
that Worldbuilder book is a tiny thing, and is just writing prompts.
all of that said, they really do need to dramatically up the investment in the settings so they can begin to maximize both merchandising from Novels and create merchandising materials, since they don’t appear to be doing so with the the support tools, merch, and venues for the settings they suggest people make.
I am wholly about making your own setting, myself. Have been since I picked up my brand new shiny DMs Guide for AD&D. It is why I went into the fields I did, and why I was so damned annoying when I did (my doctorate is in Sociology, my two masters are psychology and religion, so I don’t get invited to dinner parties but I do D&D games). So I agree that if they are going to make that their direction, then they need to come up with a lot more stuff to enable it so the 15 year olds getting their DM on aren’t drawn down that same path.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
First off, Wow! Apparently there are a zillion and three things out in the gaming world that have developed since I left gaming, about 24 years ago. Most everything you're talking about is brand new to me, but also old and obsolete in the eyes of those who've been keeping up to date. I'm not cheering or cursing any currently published lore; I know too little to have an opinion on that matter.
What I will say, as one who wrote home brew lore, long before that term referred to something other than a beverage making process, that it is one of the toughest ways that someone can exercise their imagination. It has it's rewards, but a high wage, relative to the effort involved, is not one of the perks. Even back in the stone age days, I learned that most people at the table had virtually no interest in the lore. I also learned that those players who enjoyed the lore aspect of the game would often bring up questions that I had not once considered, when carefully crafting this place, and its inhabitants, and its civilizations, and their laws. . . If a question demanded an answer, for lore's sake, I would add this question to my checklist of all that goes on in this world, and provide the answer for that question in other editions.
As long as my enthusiasm for the project remained high, the occasional purchases of my work helped, then I would continue to build on these worlds. Eventually, my passion for writing about worlds and their people steered me toward writing stories and novels, instead. The pay is still low for the hours involved, but steadier, and the lore does not have to provide for what's under that stone, that was never turned over, or that valley over there, that the reader will not visit, or the current political upheaval going on two continents away, at least not in this particular book.
An acquaintance, from higher up in the video gaming industry, tells me that turnover in lore writers is very high, and burnout is often cited as the reason for leaving. I do not know if that is also true of written book lore writing, but it may be a possibility. A large, for profit, company is always weighing the costs of fresh lore, The Writers' Wages, against the current profitability of just letting it ride. That hard equation will likely never go away as a primary corporate decision maker.
To the OP, I am truly sorry that you have not yet found the more satisfactory lore that you are searching for. I hope that some of what others here have offered will help some. Don't give up; there are always writers out there who share your passion for detail, and are doing their single best to provide others with wondrous worlds, and endless sandboxes to play in.
As the OP, don't be sorry, I've found lots of excellent lore - indeed it was finding good lore from other parties that made me question why WotC don't really have much. It turns out that they do, but it's all old. Paizo on the other hand has put out 13 lore books, with two more scheduled close enough for pre-order since 2019. As well as 11 rules books & 1 close enough to allow preorders, that also contain setting information. Not even starting to count any actual adventures that give more specific info.
And that's just a single publisher - may other parties have written great D&D settings - my lament is just that WotC have stopped.