Chris Perkins had a live Twitch feed going not that long ago, and I'm going to quote something that a viewer reported:
One thing he said is that he isn't interested in re-releasing a huge sourcebook for the Forgotten Realms, because it would require them making a ton of arbitrary decisions about what's happening where.
Another thing he said is that he's not particularly interested in rereleasing stuff from the past, like Eberron, etc., because the source books are already there, and they're largely amenable to 5e already.
Now, if that's an accurate summation... I'm not sure how else to take that statement except for "You won't see the old settings updated any more." If accurate, that strongly implies that WotC may use the old settings as window dressing, such as borrowing the name of the Yawning Portal and the owner without really getting into what made Durnan or the location special, but we're not going to see a Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, like we got in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions. We're not going to find out what the canonical / chronological events of Faerun after 4th edition were. We may see mentions of nautiloids thrown to Spelljammer fanboys in a Yolo's Guide, but we wont' be getting a book that lays out what's been happening, timeline-wise, for Spelljammer, or Dark Sun, or Greyhawk, or Sigil, or Eberron. WotC may come out with entirely new settings, but the old settings are just there to mine useful / profitable chunks of stuff out of, and otherwise are going to just... sit there.
Am I wrong?
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No, that sums it up well enough. Honestly though, he's not wrong either. What's the point of investing in, what is basically, mostly reprinted material with some slight updates, some of which will piss people off, when players who really really want that setting information already have it or can probably easily get access to it elsewhere?
This is probably going to be something of a new age for 5e, where we sort of tread water in the various Forgotten Realms locations until WotC can drop a new setting on us or something.
I don't see how it's thrown away. This weekend will be the 66th session of our group's Planescape game in 5e, which our DM is running by adapting the old material to 5e's mechanics whenever necessary. He still has all his original books, but even if he didn't, he could have picked up every single one of the setting material books on the DM's Guild. And the same is true for Dark Sun, Eberron, Dragonlance, and so forth--the material is there online for anyone to pick up and run games from.
Eventually it will just confuse people. So much takes place in the Forgotten Realms that it just makes sense to publish a book especially since all the reverse changes in 5th edition.
In otherwords, if you are going to have a default setting you must have that setting in print or everyone will leave that setting.
There is definintely more fresh material that could be released. And, if not, open up settings to the DMsGuild. As mentioned elsewhere Keiths Eberron blog is 300+ pages strong. There are the 13 planes, etc. (Of course they dont want to confuse things - which is why they should have started with the world that was already better, more deeply integrated with D&D) ;)
So, here's something that's been nagging me, lately: I like how DDB is shaping up. I did a test run, last session, and just needed CoS and the DDB Compendium (plus combat tracker, but that'll come). I'm really looking forward to having the full rules and the adventures available so I can travel super light. I typically either home brew my setting or use Eberron. Occasionally, I'll use Greyhawk, but I've just never been drawn to the Realms.
Does this mean that DDB could win me to going all digital, but then have a gap in supporting the setting I'm using? I get that home brew is home brew and that I'm on my own (duh). But, I don't see WotC making the 3.5 ECS (for example) available for DDB and, even if they did, Curse wouldn't exactly be able to make the mechanics therein usable for the Character Manager. I don't like the odds, there.
If there's some sort of path where WotC might open up, say, Eberron on DMs Guild and Keith turns out a bunch of work (which, I believe, he's open to), that work could get licensed to DDB and I be able to buy it? What would be extra-awesome (and totally out of Curse's control) is if WotC had a mechanism for marking certain setting content on DMs Guild as being "canon" or otherwise "approved" content, so the fans had a reasonable agreement on what constituted the "normal" 5E implementation of conversions and setting updates.
As a side thought on all this, I have a couple different home brews that each have their own lore and house rules for flavor. Does anyone know if the Campaign Manager is going to have multiple campaign "buckets" to separate out that stuff?
I think that, in terms of revising an old world or creating a new one, the smart move for WotC from a business standpoint is to create a whole new world, as it means generating new material they can do promotions around. Revising an old world seems more like something a DM would do on their own, because the source books are all around and can be found, though some more difficultly than others, and it's really a matter of understanding the basics as combined with the fluff and lore to make those worlds to be a 5e campaign. Why work on a reprint of an old campaign setting when they can't be certain that everyone would purchase it?
If that's what Perkins intended by his statements then I'm going to have to vehemently disagree with him on the subject.
I only got into Dark Sun because of 4e and now it's one of my favorite settings just behind Eberron. If they hadn't sat down and picked through the old material and cataloged things of such importance that new players could pick it up and read from a singular book to get a firm grasp on the subject in the context of the current edition's design paradigms and with appropriate lore updates as necessary then I'd probably have never penetrated the setting in the first place and would never have spent my money on it.
Not every group has a dnd veteran who has books going all the way back to AD&D that you can pick through. In fact to my reckoning most groups probably don't. Reintroducing settings to the current editions with just a campaign guide and maybe a monster manual is a great way to get people who see the sometimes 30+ supplements and adventure modules from prior editions that they do not already own to go "Huh this is interesting enough to invest time/money into".
I'm still sifting through the old 2e Dark Sun stuff to this day and I wouldn't be doing so if 4e hadn't bitten the bullet on the topic in the first place. Also get Keith Baker on staff with some kind of Eberron project, there's still so much to be added/updated to that setting. Please. I would happily spend money on it.
Not every group has a dnd veteran who has books going all the way back to AD&D that you can pick through. In fact to my reckoning most groups probably don't.
That may be true, but each group probably has one player (or DM) who might be willing to get lost in a setting wiki online for hours on end. I personally spent a few hours recently of the Forgotten Realms wiki looking for some inspiration for my campaign since we loosely take place in the Realms to slot in interesting published campaigns every now and again.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
That may be true, but each group probably has one player (or DM) who might be willing to get lost in a setting wiki online for hours on end. I personally spent a few hours recently of the Forgotten Realms wiki looking for some inspiration for my campaign since we loosely take place in the Realms to slot in interesting published campaigns every now and again.
They have to be aware of the setting, first. And, not just aware, but actually have enough info to spark the research into it. This is the thing that frustrates me most about the primacy of the Realms -- it's a self-perpetuating cycle. I actually don't care if any other setting gets as much info as the Realms does. Most of them, I'd rather not have that sort of ongoing tinkering. I'd just like two things:
Make a real escape hatch for other settings. Curse of Strahd was a great start. Too bad they put the Five Factions info in there, but not a huge deal as long as there are products that support other settings.
Create products that aren't there to detail the Realms, adventures set in the Realm, books that are named after someone/something in the Realms, etc. Other than the core three books, have there been any books that serve Greyhawk, Eberron, Krynn, Dark Sun, or Planescape as well as they serve Forgotten Realms? That means the IP for those settings were as well promoted, the adventure could be run without any more modification, the lore applied equally, etc.?
Ravenloft is an odd case. Obviously, CoS is useful to any Ravenloft ran and the story hooks aren't a huge part of the whole thing -- once you're there, your motivation has little to do with where you came from. But, it's still soft-oriented towards starting in the Realms, rather than being generic. Initially, I took it as a positive sign of things to come. My optimism has waned, but I'd love to see something that stoked it.
All we really need is a print book with the mechanical elements of the major settings, and enough info to spark interest, and then open them up on DMs guild.
We don't need a new ECS. We just need 5e versions of the player and DM options that would be in such a book
All we really need is a print book with the mechanical elements of the major settings, and enough info to spark interest, and then open them up on DMs guild.
We don't need a new ECS. We just need 5e versions of the player and DM options that would be in such a book
For my purposes, this is quite true.
One of my big concerns with the Realms is that it's the only game in town and the only one to which new players are being introduced. I don't like that, at all. As much as I'd like some support for Eberron (personal favorite), it's even more important to me that any competition exists for the Realms. This would be true, regardless of the setting that occupied that position.
I feel like new players aren't really being introduced to the Forgotten Realms. They are being introduced to hints about this setting, but don't have nearly enough solid material to actually run a game in the Realms.
I think they really need to just do a poll and make an introductory source books for the top 3 settings to start. Make the setting books all lore and history without specific rules that would have to change each edition. Just the fluff and flavor of the setting to use as a guide on the type of games to play there. I am sure it would wind up being Realms, Eberron at the top with one other.
Then publish each new Rule book as setting neutral maybe with a few notes on how they might fit into those settings. That would cover a wider range of players than the current all Realms books. Each year there after they can take a new poll and see what people want.
Setting specific adventures could be made for a smaller level range like old modules (or like adventure paths) and placed in the DM's Guild along side fan made ones for those that want them. They don't need to constantly print expansions to those settings, but maybe a small book here or there based on demand.
I don't want them to go crazy and publish a new unneeded splat book every month but as it is I don't feel as though they are taking advantage of the full potential of the brand that has been developed over the past 40+ years.
I feel like new players aren't really being introduced to the Forgotten Realms. They are being introduced to hints about this setting, but don't have nearly enough solid material to actually run a game in the Realms.
They may not be given much info -- or just enough to get it wrong -- but they're not being given any info, to speak of, for anything else. In actually talking to new players, they sometimes don't realize that some of the other settings are actually D&D settings as opposed to just random pantheons in the PHB appendix. This makes me said, not because I'm overly invested in any other setting (though I do like some), but because D&D shouldn't be synonymous with any single setting.
I think they really need to just do a poll and make an introductory source books for the top 3 settings to start. Make the setting books all lore and history without specific rules that would have to change each edition. Just the fluff and flavor of the setting to use as a guide on the type of games to play there. I am sure it would wind up being Realms, Eberron at the top with one other.
Then publish each new Rule book as setting neutral maybe with a few notes on how they might fit into those settings. That would cover a wider range of players than the current all Realms books. Each year there after they can take a new poll and see what people want.
This would make me happy in ways words fail to describe.
To bring this back to the reason this forum exists: The overuse of the Realms is threatening the DDB customer base -- at least for folks like me. I feel like the D&D brand and the Realms brand are converging. I'm turned off by the Realms, specifically, but also just want to play D&D to explore different settings, including home brew. If I cannot play D&D without constantly having the Realms thrown in my face, I'll find another game to play. That means I won't have any need of this wonderful and promising platform Curse is building.
Now, I fully realize that there may be more business to be gained by focusing on the Realms than by giving me a "safe space" in the product catalog. If that's the case, I respect the business decision. A a loyal customer (and one with a better than average disposable income) of the D&D brand for 35 years, though, I'm being very clear in communicating this as clearly and directly as I can: The primacy and exclusiveness of the Realms in D&D is weakening the appeal of the D&D brand, to me.
I feel like new players aren't really being introduced to the Forgotten Realms. They are being introduced to hints about this setting, but don't have nearly enough solid material to actually run a game in the Realms.
SCAG has plenty of info to run in the Realms, and even the other books are focused on the Realms, and have more than enough info to run a game.
I feel like new players aren't really being introduced to the Forgotten Realms. They are being introduced to hints about this setting, but don't have nearly enough solid material to actually run a game in the Realms.
SCAG has plenty of info to run in the Realms, and even the other books are focused on the Realms, and have more than enough info to run a game.
I feel like new players aren't really being introduced to the Forgotten Realms. They are being introduced to hints about this setting, but don't have nearly enough solid material to actually run a game in the Realms.
SCAG has plenty of info to run in the Realms, and even the other books are focused on the Realms, and have more than enough info to run a game.
But does it have enough information for you run in the Forgotten Realms. Or is it going to be a water downed Forgotten Realms that is basically 90% homebrew.
Chris Perkins had a live Twitch feed going not that long ago, and I'm going to quote something that a viewer reported:
One thing he said is that he isn't interested in re-releasing a huge sourcebook for the Forgotten Realms, because it would require them making a ton of arbitrary decisions about what's happening where.
Another thing he said is that he's not particularly interested in rereleasing stuff from the past, like Eberron, etc., because the source books are already there, and they're largely amenable to 5e already.
Now, if that's an accurate summation... I'm not sure how else to take that statement except for "You won't see the old settings updated any more." If accurate, that strongly implies that WotC may use the old settings as window dressing, such as borrowing the name of the Yawning Portal and the owner without really getting into what made Durnan or the location special, but we're not going to see a Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, like we got in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions. We're not going to find out what the canonical / chronological events of Faerun after 4th edition were. We may see mentions of nautiloids thrown to Spelljammer fanboys in a Yolo's Guide, but we wont' be getting a book that lays out what's been happening, timeline-wise, for Spelljammer, or Dark Sun, or Greyhawk, or Sigil, or Eberron. WotC may come out with entirely new settings, but the old settings are just there to mine useful / profitable chunks of stuff out of, and otherwise are going to just... sit there.
Am I wrong?
⬐ If you thought I added value to the conversation, please let me know!
No, that sums it up well enough. Honestly though, he's not wrong either. What's the point of investing in, what is basically, mostly reprinted material with some slight updates, some of which will piss people off, when players who really really want that setting information already have it or can probably easily get access to it elsewhere?
This is probably going to be something of a new age for 5e, where we sort of tread water in the various Forgotten Realms locations until WotC can drop a new setting on us or something.
If so, that's quite disappointing.
I knew that 4th Edition hurt D&D in the eyes of Hasbro, but not that it hurt enough to throw away decades of work.
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I don't see how it's thrown away. This weekend will be the 66th session of our group's Planescape game in 5e, which our DM is running by adapting the old material to 5e's mechanics whenever necessary. He still has all his original books, but even if he didn't, he could have picked up every single one of the setting material books on the DM's Guild. And the same is true for Dark Sun, Eberron, Dragonlance, and so forth--the material is there online for anyone to pick up and run games from.
Eventually it will just confuse people. So much takes place in the Forgotten Realms that it just makes sense to publish a book especially since all the reverse changes in 5th edition.
In otherwords, if you are going to have a default setting you must have that setting in print or everyone will leave that setting.
That feels a bit shortsighted on Chris' end.
There is definintely more fresh material that could be released. And, if not, open up settings to the DMsGuild.
As mentioned elsewhere Keiths Eberron blog is 300+ pages strong. There are the 13 planes, etc.
(Of course they dont want to confuse things - which is why they should have started with the world that was already better,
more deeply integrated with D&D) ;)
So, here's something that's been nagging me, lately: I like how DDB is shaping up. I did a test run, last session, and just needed CoS and the DDB Compendium (plus combat tracker, but that'll come). I'm really looking forward to having the full rules and the adventures available so I can travel super light. I typically either home brew my setting or use Eberron. Occasionally, I'll use Greyhawk, but I've just never been drawn to the Realms.
Does this mean that DDB could win me to going all digital, but then have a gap in supporting the setting I'm using? I get that home brew is home brew and that I'm on my own (duh). But, I don't see WotC making the 3.5 ECS (for example) available for DDB and, even if they did, Curse wouldn't exactly be able to make the mechanics therein usable for the Character Manager. I don't like the odds, there.
If there's some sort of path where WotC might open up, say, Eberron on DMs Guild and Keith turns out a bunch of work (which, I believe, he's open to), that work could get licensed to DDB and I be able to buy it? What would be extra-awesome (and totally out of Curse's control) is if WotC had a mechanism for marking certain setting content on DMs Guild as being "canon" or otherwise "approved" content, so the fans had a reasonable agreement on what constituted the "normal" 5E implementation of conversions and setting updates.
As a side thought on all this, I have a couple different home brews that each have their own lore and house rules for flavor. Does anyone know if the Campaign Manager is going to have multiple campaign "buckets" to separate out that stuff?
I think that, in terms of revising an old world or creating a new one, the smart move for WotC from a business standpoint is to create a whole new world, as it means generating new material they can do promotions around. Revising an old world seems more like something a DM would do on their own, because the source books are all around and can be found, though some more difficultly than others, and it's really a matter of understanding the basics as combined with the fluff and lore to make those worlds to be a 5e campaign. Why work on a reprint of an old campaign setting when they can't be certain that everyone would purchase it?
If that's what Perkins intended by his statements then I'm going to have to vehemently disagree with him on the subject.
I only got into Dark Sun because of 4e and now it's one of my favorite settings just behind Eberron. If they hadn't sat down and picked through the old material and cataloged things of such importance that new players could pick it up and read from a singular book to get a firm grasp on the subject in the context of the current edition's design paradigms and with appropriate lore updates as necessary then I'd probably have never penetrated the setting in the first place and would never have spent my money on it.
Not every group has a dnd veteran who has books going all the way back to AD&D that you can pick through. In fact to my reckoning most groups probably don't. Reintroducing settings to the current editions with just a campaign guide and maybe a monster manual is a great way to get people who see the sometimes 30+ supplements and adventure modules from prior editions that they do not already own to go "Huh this is interesting enough to invest time/money into".
I'm still sifting through the old 2e Dark Sun stuff to this day and I wouldn't be doing so if 4e hadn't bitten the bullet on the topic in the first place. Also get Keith Baker on staff with some kind of Eberron project, there's still so much to be added/updated to that setting. Please. I would happily spend money on it.
That may be true, but each group probably has one player (or DM) who might be willing to get lost in a setting wiki online for hours on end. I personally spent a few hours recently of the Forgotten Realms wiki looking for some inspiration for my campaign since we loosely take place in the Realms to slot in interesting published campaigns every now and again.
Ravenloft is an odd case. Obviously, CoS is useful to any Ravenloft ran and the story hooks aren't a huge part of the whole thing -- once you're there, your motivation has little to do with where you came from. But, it's still soft-oriented towards starting in the Realms, rather than being generic. Initially, I took it as a positive sign of things to come. My optimism has waned, but I'd love to see something that stoked it.
All we really need is a print book with the mechanical elements of the major settings, and enough info to spark interest, and then open them up on DMs guild.
We don't need a new ECS. We just need 5e versions of the player and DM options that would be in such a book
We do bones, motherf***ker!
I feel like new players aren't really being introduced to the Forgotten Realms. They are being introduced to hints about this setting, but don't have nearly enough solid material to actually run a game in the Realms.
I think they really need to just do a poll and make an introductory source books for the top 3 settings to start. Make the setting books all lore and history without specific rules that would have to change each edition. Just the fluff and flavor of the setting to use as a guide on the type of games to play there. I am sure it would wind up being Realms, Eberron at the top with one other.
Then publish each new Rule book as setting neutral maybe with a few notes on how they might fit into those settings. That would cover a wider range of players than the current all Realms books. Each year there after they can take a new poll and see what people want.
Setting specific adventures could be made for a smaller level range like old modules (or like adventure paths) and placed in the DM's Guild along side fan made ones for those that want them. They don't need to constantly print expansions to those settings, but maybe a small book here or there based on demand.
I don't want them to go crazy and publish a new unneeded splat book every month but as it is I don't feel as though they are taking advantage of the full potential of the brand that has been developed over the past 40+ years.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
We do bones, motherf***ker!
Check out this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Forgotten_Realms_modules_and_sourcebooks
You can run a game, sure. Can you run a game in the Realms like those of us who remember that boxed set can? Not really.
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SCAG does have a lot of info about the Sword Coast. Each locations has suggestions about main NPC and monsters.