I suppose some of you have heard that there's finally going to be something of a campaign book for 5e on the Realms.  Apparently its going to focus on only one area of Faerun, the Sword Coast, but it will update the whole situation in the Realms as of 5e.

Only, Wizards has licensed it out to Green Ronin.

What do you think about that?

Green Ronin is a great outfit. Good move on WotC's part.

edit: They *BETTER* do a book for each subsection of the Faerun as an ongoing thing.

Quote from: RPGPundit;843762I suppose some of you have heard that there's finally going to be something of a campaign book for 5e on the Realms.  Apparently its going to focus on only one area of Faerun, the Sword Coast, but it will update the whole situation in the Realms as of 5e.

Only, Wizards has licensed it out to Green Ronin.

What do you think about that?

I am a bit surprised Green Ronin would say yes and not focus on stuff like their Ice and Fire games.

I've been led to believe that the WotC staff for D&D is tiny, but damn, that's...not the move I would have made.

I thought 5th made money on it's release, so why not, idk, do this sort of thing themselves?

I don't mind who makes it, as long as it's decent quality content-wise and the physical quality of the book and WotC gives it the nod.

I haven't gotten into 5E yet, and Forgotten Realms has never been my thing, so my opinion only matters so much. Personally, I prefer setting books with a narrower focus. It's easier to get a book with more playable content that way. World books often feel more like a teaser for the narrower books that come later.

Well, it's in good hands, although i'm not too thrilled on the fine focus on one area of a massive setting. Whatever, i've still got all my other FR stuff from other editions. I'm not interested in 'canon' so it's no biggy.

Green Ronin are a safe pair of hands to do updates to beloved settings - look at the bang-up job they did of WFRP 2E. (Just about the only thing I dislike about it is the Storm of Chaos stuff, and their hands were kind of tied on that.)

As far as the regional focus goes, I think it works for Forgotten Realms because that world has seen such a vast amount of material published for it that at this point a whole-world overview would be just that - a broad overview that doesn't go into much fine detail. Hopefully they will be sensible about which worlds they take this regional approach with in future and which they take a broader approach with. (It'd be ludicrous to do Planescape or Ravenloft in this style, for instance, but it'd work for Dark Sun - especially since the interesting part of that setting is the core region under the sway of the Dragon-Kings and its surrounding environs anyway.)

On top of that, thanks to Baldur's Gate and sequels the Sword Coast has become the iconic region of the Realms for a wide audience anyway (and the upcoming Sword Coast Legends videogame seems to be playing on that), so they've picked the right region to focus on first. Since they'll be including a brief overview of the Realms too ("Discover the current state of the Forgotten Realms and its deities after the Spellplague and the second Sundering"), and since they'll be providing a whole heap of Realms-specific backgrounds and subclasses and races in the book, it seems to me that it'd be reasonably easy to use the book to run adventures set elsewhere in the Realms by either making up the fine detail yourself or updating older materials. Plus, if they've already covered the Realms-specific crunch and the campaign setting overview in this book, then hopefully subsequent regional modules will either be slimmer and cheaper affairs (because they won't need the same page count) or they'll use the same page count to cover a broader area to a similar level of detail.

Lastly, based on what's actually in the book, it looks like this is a core setting book designed for both players and DMs to use rather than a DMs-only book. That's commercially sensible - selling to a broader audience makes the project more viable - and I also think there'll be advantages in play. Having a background book designed for players to read will allow them to get up to speed on the campaign setting; keeping such setting material player-facing means that they'll have to keep some things mysterious, which not only allows them to use that for Adventurers' League fodder but also allows GMs to come up with their own explanations for setting mysteries and adapt it accordingly.

Bottom line: Wizards have my attention with this one, and that's pretty much the first time they have done with any of their Realms products.

One further thought: it seems to me that the 5E official adventures so far have been pretty focused on the Sword Coast region, so putting out the book after Rage of Demons might indicate that Wizards plan for the next round of adventures to take place elsewhere in the Realms (or even a different campaign setting). After the starter set adventure plus three big campaigns in the area, it'd make sense for Wizards to move on to a different adventure locale to keep things varied, plus this way they can say to people worried about canon "We've told the stories we intended to tell in the Sword Coast, now the setting guide is out there you can tell your own stories set there and not worry about them conflicting too much with future 'canon'."

Excellent product announcement.

Green Ronin have proven they can do video game tie ins (dragon age), they can work well as sub contractors (WHFRP), they do good D&D (freeport trilogy et al) and they love the game, which really helps. [Yes I know someone will nitpick about everyone of those statements, but in truth, they're proven pair of hands, nitpick if you want.]

Focusing on a regional area is perfect for any rpg setting, it allows development and focus whilst enough range for most campaigns and avoids the huge 'atlas' effect of a whole world in a book.

It mixes a bit of setting, a bit of rules, a bit of plots, enough for all.

The Sword Coast has very recognition amongst non tabletop gamers who only play D&D as a computer game. The book will sell to CRPG players as well as tabletop. Some will come across to the table, but however it plays, it'll generate a good bedrock of sales.

It keeps the external D&D talent in the fold and within the brand, whilst having no extra people on the payroll for HASBRO to sack.

Good play.

Quote from: tzunder;843791The Sword Coast has very recognition amongst non tabletop gamers who only play D&D as a computer game. The book will sell to CRPG players as well as tabletop. Some will come across to the table, but however it plays, it'll generate a good bedrock of sales.

That's a good point - Sword Coast Legends is going to have a Neverwinter Nights style create-your-own adventure facility, and I can see people getting into that side of it wanting to buy this supplement just for the local lore and adventure ideas.

'Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide'? That's a very focused kind of setting supplement, which I personally like. Have a smaller region well detailed and leave the rest vague for GMs and players to use as they see fit. This also allows for specialized books to be published on individual regions for the hard core fans.

Not 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 time around.

I have to wonder if this is a sign that the setting support is going to be very limited and this one was only done to support the computer game side of things, since they've been doing more for the FR in the computer games being developed.  If that's the case, they might have gone to Green Ronin since they did the Dragon Age RPG rules.

I suspect we probably won't see a lot of detailed campaign support--I doubt Eberron, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, or others will get this treatment.

Possibly  - but then why spend the in-house dev team's very limited time tinkering with Eberron conversions or psionics stuff if there's no product down the line that would use them?