I'm hoping this will be something along the lines of the excellent 4E Neverwinter Nights Campaign Setting.

For people hoping to see official D&D material published for other settings, I wouldn't hold your breath. It's clear by now that to the Wotc, D&D is simply an avenue for selling Forgotten Realms branded products. As for as they're concerned, D&D is the Forgotten Realms. The video games and the books, both inseparable from the Realms, are the core products lines. The tabletop D&D game simply serves as another way to fuel interest in those lines.

And with another product outsourced, it's also clear that the tabletop RPG department is basically a skeleton crew of project and license managers at this point. WotC no longer creates tabletop D&D content anymore, it simply outsources it to other mid-sized RPG companies. That's a pretty sad state of affairs.

Quote from: Haffrung;844177I'm hoping this will be something along the lines of the excellent 4E Neverwinter Nights Campaign Setting.

For people hoping to see official D&D material published for other settings, I wouldn't hold your breath. It's clear by now that to the Wotc, D&D is simply an avenue for selling Forgotten Realms branded products. As for as they're concerned, D&D is the Forgotten Realms. The video games and the books, both inseparable from the Realms, are the core products lines. The tabletop D&D game simply serves as another way to fuel interest in those lines.

And with another product outsourced, it's also clear that the tabletop RPG department is basically a skeleton crew of project and license managers at this point. WotC no longer creates tabletop D&D content anymore, it simply outsources it to other mid-sized RPG companies. That's a pretty sad state of affairs.

To be completely fair though, and as much as I hate the setting in general, it has been the best selling setting for years.

And really, Magic is their bread and butter.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;844185To be completely fair though, and as much as I hate the setting in general, it has been the best selling setting for years.

True. But there's a difference between supporting the most popular setting, and making setting not only the default for the game, but making non-D&D stories that take place in the setting pre-eminent over D&D itself. Everything D&D is now tied into the FR meta-story. As recently as 4E, we had support for several settings, including the generic WotC-created setting of Nerath. Something pretty fundamental has changed, and it gives us insight into where WotC sees the tabletop D&D RPG as a product line.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;844185And really, Magic is their bread and butter.

Well yes. But even in the Forgotten Realms/D&D stream (and I think they are now essentially the same thing in the eyes of Hasbro), the tabletop RPG is almost an afterthought, about on a par with the D&D boardgames, and far below the Forgotten Realms video games and novels.

Quote from: tenbones;843764edit: They *BETTER* do a book for each subsection of the Faerun as an ongoing thing.

I agree with this part completely. I have a couple of AD&D books that do this, from like 1989, and I really think they should go back to this, even if it's an update.
That and I think they are doing better with the nature of the art by having fully clothed people. Though if they do it in black and white in order to lower prices I wouldn't object a bit.

Unfortunately I haven't really read anything by Green Ronin and can't comment on whether or not they're a good publisher.

Quote from: Haffrung;844245Well yes. But even in the Forgotten Realms/D&D stream (and I think they are now essentially the same thing in the eyes of Hasbro), the tabletop RPG is almost an afterthought, about on a par with the D&D boardgames, and far below the Forgotten Realms video games and novels.

That's simply a matter of money.  RPGs make so little compared to those other products.

my problem with FR is that there really doesn't seem to be anything for the PCs to do.  
Why bother trying to save the world?  Greenwood's pet NPC will save the day when he hears about the problem.  
Try to carve out a section of the land to become the ruler?  Sorry, every square inch of the planet, both above ground and under it have been mapped out and belong to someone else (along with the moons).  and Gods help you if you try to take over someone else's throne, because they are either friends of the pet NPC mentioned above, or someone just as bad ass.
Same problem I have with Battletech, all the big battles have been written up in novels that are all canon, and if you try to change anything then the purists will rant and rave at you about how you are doing it wrong.

Quote from: Jame Rowe;844373Unfortunately I haven't really read anything by Green Ronin and can't comment on whether or not they're a good publisher.

This doesn't depend on Green Ronin's quality as a publisher as those books will be published by WotC, done in WotC's 5e style and layout (which is -IMHO- heaps and bounds above GR's art direction).
Green Ronin will write and develop the products.

The strange thing about this semi-outsourcing of writing (e.g. Kobold's Tyranny of Dragons, Sasquatch's Elemental Evil) is that on the WotC homepage the product authors are listed as "by Wizards RPG team".

Quote from: Christopher Brady;844389That's simply a matter of money.  RPGs make so little compared to those other products.

Of course. The question is whether D&D benefits from being licensed by a company that regards it as an afterthought, and markets the game as a kind of second-rate supplement to its more lucrative product lines.

Quote from: Matt;843813Not sure why anyone gives a shit who produces the book/box/pamphlet/whatever. Isn't it the quality of the final product that matters?

Also not sure why anyone wants a retread of the Forgotten Realms. Sucked first four times around.

Fixed it for you.

BTW, if Drizzt gets hit by a train, I'll be happy.

QuoteWith new character backgrounds and class options, players will love the storytelling possibilities of playing a noble of Waterdeep, an elf bladesinger, or one of the other new options, while Dungeon Masters will relish a book full of mysterious locations and story hooks to keep players adventuring on the Sword Coast for years to come.

I suppose this will be some comfort for those bemoaning the lack of post-PHB player content for 5e.  I get that these folks are mostly talking about more stuff with which they can make characters that interest them, but every bit of GM content is ultimately for the players, too.  

For those that want to be updated on the "common knowledge" current state of the realms, this ought to be nice. I'm not sure how mysterious locations can be if they are published in player facing books, though.  Is it the case that DM material for FR will come exclusively through published adventures (like the Dessarin Valley in PotA and the UnderdarkShadowBad in Rage of Demons), or will there also be a DM's Guide to the Sword Coast?

Quote from: JasperAK;844488BTW, if Drizzt gets hit by a train, I'll be happy.

As much as I would love him and Elminister to be set on fire and tossed down the abyss, it's not happening, simply because Salvatore and Greenwood are back at the helm.

GR is slowed down on their Dragon Age and Game of Thrones licenses due to clearance and review by Martin and Bioware, so if they have time to take this on, I think you could do far worse for the Sword Coast than the Freeport people.  

I hope GR plans to keep the generic versions of AGE and Chronicles going though.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;844006Where does it say that "WotC isn't publishing"?


Some clarification over at ENWorld:

This sounds to me like corporate spin-doctoring.  The D&D division in WoTC is tiny, and I think this is the only way they can get these books out and spend their own time focusing on the adventures, which they've decided is what will make more money for them now.

Quote from: RPGPundit;844639This sounds to me like corporate spin-doctoring.  The D&D division in WoTC is tiny, and I think this is the only way they can get these books out and spend their own time focusing on the adventures, which they've decided is what will make more money for them now.

That's not "spin-doctoring", that's just a description of how publishing works in today's publishing industry (or probably even the publishing industry, ever).
The way TSR worked, with an army of in-house writers, layouters, artists, etc., is not the usual way. And even TSR didn't do it that way all their time, they've cut their staff and relied more and more on freelancers.

Today, in the biggest publishing houses, significant parts of the process are outsourced to freelancers, editors, typesetters/layouters (often in other countries), cover design (every art agency can follow a CI bible), while the writers are hardly ever employed in-house.

Publishers look for content to publish, and sometimes they discover the writing talent themselves, sometimes there's an agent middle-man, and sometimes they know that they want a book about topic X and start looking for freelancers who are capable of writing it according to the product specs.  Sometimes the publisher only wants the raw text, giving the rest of the work to either in-house editors or other freelancers, and sometimes a publisher commissions an almost print-ready product.
But it is still the publisher who is publishing, bearing the business risk, and who controls what is published.

It's the same kind of deal that existed for 13 years between Schmidt Spiele and the people behind FanPro. Schmidt Spiele knew next to nothing about RPGs and commissioned the German D&D translators to write a game for them, and the FanPro team worked with an army of freelancers for the various tasks necessary to build and retain the whole Das Schwarze Auge RPG line.
But it was Schmidt who ordered specific types of product ("our customer reps told us that the big department chains can handle 1 new boxed set and 4 modules per half-year", "solo adventures are doing well, so half of the modules must be solo", "from a new age book deal we have an overstock of wooden rune tiles - use them in the next boxed set").

A variant would be the deal between Uhrwerk (new publisher of Space 1889) and Ulisses (current publisher of Das Schwarze Auge):
Uhrwerk has a sublicense for another continent on the DSA world, and they develop, write or commission (to their own freelancers), print and distribute the products on their own, following an approval round with Ulisses (who check the content for inconsistencies with DSA canon).
In this case Uhrwerk is the publisher.

The Uhrwerk team is tiny as well (3 people), and they manage Space 1889, Hollow Earth, Splittermond, Engel, Dungeonslayers (and 2 spin-offs), DSA Myranor, Deadlands (WW + HoE), Contact, The One Ring, 13th Age, L5R, and Malmsturm (a standalone FATE game), again with the help of lots of freelancers.

Quote from: CRKrueger;844625I hope GR plans to keep the generic versions of AGE and Chronicles going though.

Threadjack. Are those any good?