I don't know if anyone has seen this interview with RA Salvatore. It's pretty interesting, specifically about the difference between how 4e addressed the Realms and how 5e is different.
RA Salvatore Interview

Short version: when he and Ed Greenwood got out of the meeting with Wizards back in 2006, they felt gutted. Management told these two guys who have been working in the Realms longer than anyone that they were going to do this fast forward, and they could get in line.  Bob told Ed to not worry, because in five years when they realized how badly they screwed up, Ed and Bob would have a game plan.

Fast forward to a couple years ago, when just that happened. He talks about how James Wyatt was telling them how badly 4e had gone off the rails (his words, not mine), and Bob Salvatore just says, 'it's cool, I got this.'

Nice interview.

His optimism for the future is infectious.

Frankly, this looks like a colossal clusterfuck born out of a fundamental misunderstanding of why Forgotten Realms fans didn't like what WotC did to the Forgotten Realms with 4E.

WotC's brand manager talks about restoring a "dynamic" of "gods above men" that was lost in 4E, apparently out of the belief that if they can restore this "dynamic" they'll have somehow fixed the problem.

But this lost "dynamic" is not what people were upset about.

See, people become fans of fictional settings because of the specific content of those settings. The familiarity of the setting is comforting and their mastery of the fictional lore of the setting is rewarding. The reason fans of the Forgotten Realms didn't like the Spellplague is because you blew up the setting: The specific content was eradicated. The familiarity was lost. And the fictional lore they had mastered became irrelevant. And it also made continuing existing Forgotten Realms campaigns (some of which people had been running for years or even decades) using the new material impossible.

Apparently they believe that they can solve this problem by blowing the setting up again. But that's not going to solve anything. They're just repeating the exact same mistake they made 5 years ago.

Quote from: Opaopajr;678118Poor Forgotten Realms...

The ultimate in design by committee. Expect the evilest of gods to win, with lots of spiky armor and name apostrophes. Pray that a Bubbahotep or Brosephus, god of keggers, doesn't slip in.

THEN I'd buy it.

JG

Obviously the answer is to restore Myrkul, Bane and Bhaal.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;678227Frankly, this looks like a colossal clusterfuck born out of a fundamental misunderstanding of why Forgotten Realms fans didn't like what WotC did to the Forgotten Realms with 4E.

WotC's brand manager talks about restoring a "dynamic" of "gods above men" that was lost in 4E, apparently out of the belief that if they can restore this "dynamic" they'll have somehow fixed the problem.

But this lost "dynamic" is not what people were upset about.

See, people become fans of fictional settings because of the specific content of those settings. The familiarity of the setting is comforting and their mastery of the fictional lore of the setting is rewarding. The reason fans of the Forgotten Realms didn't like the Spellplague is because you blew up the setting: The specific content was eradicated. The familiarity was lost. And the fictional lore they had mastered became irrelevant. And it also made continuing existing Forgotten Realms campaigns (some of which people had been running for years or even decades) using the new material impossible.

Apparently they believe that they can solve this problem by blowing the setting up again. But that's not going to solve anything. They're just repeating the exact same mistake they made 5 years ago.

Because they got away with "blowing up the setting" before with Time of Troubles, if not so severely, and for much the same reason: To adapt the setting to the new edition of rules.  It's just that much more obvious with New D&D because as I've said elsewhere, the last edition of FR was an attempt to cram the many-shaped pegs of Forgotten Realms into the round hole that is 4th Edition D&D.

It's somewhere between nostalgia and selective amnesia.

JG

Quote from: JonWake;678216I don't know if anyone has seen this interview with RA Salvatore. It's pretty interesting, specifically about the difference between how 4e addressed the Realms and how 5e is different.
RA Salvatore Interview

That interview says an whole lot about how bad 4E was bad for fans and WOTC.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;678227Apparently they believe that they can solve this problem by blowing the setting up again. But that's not going to solve anything. They're just repeating the exact same mistake they made 5 years ago.

The problem for WotC is that the post-Spell Plague Forgotten Realms has been a thud, but they can't undo it without another apocalyptic event (or so they think), and they cannot continue the setting in its current form (since it has alienated so many fans).

The reason for this has nothing to do with the FR as a RPG setting. If the FR were merely a RPG setting, a complete reboot might work.

The Spell Plague cannot be undone because of the Forgotten Realms novels.  The fiction line is (I'm quite certain) more profitable for WotC than the RPG line.  And WotC does not want to tell the fans of its Forgotten Realms novels: "Guys, those last 15 books you bought and read?  None of that happened.  It was all just a bad dream that Elminster had after eating too many spicy Calamshite kabobs."  

Not only would this annoy those fans who had purchased read those books, it would ensure that those books do not sell in the future (since most fans would not want to buy books that no longer are 'cannon').

So WotC is stuck with a post-Spell Plague Forgotten Realms.  And they think that the only way to get the FR back to something that resembles the version that people actually liked, is through some kind of major event that undoes the Spell Plague.

I'm only a casual fan of the FR (at best), but it is rather sad to see what 4e did to the setting.

Having bought The Companions, and it being the 1st Forgotten Realms novel I've bought since the 1990s I'd say their strategy is working. Further even though I may not use D&D Next rules (though I may) I intend to use the Forgotten Realms  setting perhaps with RuneQuest; so I'II be buying those books too. Again I haven't bought any RPG Forgotten Realms stuff since the 1990s.

Well, I'm glad here at least they're publicly (and not just privately) admitting what a clusterfuck their choices for FR and 4e were.

Once again, I could say I told them so, I literally did, but of course they know that already.


Also, I'm glad it sounds like Ed has a meaningful plan.


RPGPundit

I agree. I'm a Greyhawk fan first and foremost, but I'm willing to listen to what they have coming for FR. This is as close as we'll get to them admitting they royally screwed things up, I think.

Quote from: Spinachcat;678008DC and Marvel know that "shaking up" the canon with "world changing events" is great for sales and that's why its done over and over. Forgotten Realms already has had God Wars before so its a good move.

Yeah, but at least with Marvel and DC you know the usual canon was going to settle in before to long.  Things changed, but mostly stayed the same overall.

It's a totally different animal. With comics, you at least get new storylines, new match ups etc.

With an RPG setting, people already have lots of material to game with. When you're re-booting, you need to walk the line between different enough that people who already own the last iteration buy the new one, and being familiar enough that it's recognisable as your intellectual property.

Quote from: Spinachcat;678008DC and Marvel know that "shaking up" the canon with "world changing events" is great for sales and that's why its done over and over. Forgotten Realms already has had God Wars before so its a good move.

The joke of course is what the bulk of the FR fanbase is never going to agree what is "Classic FR" because it all depends on whether you are more of a FR RPGer or FR novel reader or FR video game player.

It is prefence of course, butI grew tired of the constant shake ups back in the 90s. They did it a lot with the Ravenloft setting, and while I loved the line, I felt those constant developments to the setting didn't add anything of value for a GM like me (who had been along from the beginning) and created a higher barrier of entry for the new GM just encountering Ravenloft. I think you also ended up with something quite convoluted and inelegant. It never deterred me from buying the new boxed sets or material (because they often came with mechanicl revisions or expanded info). It just never felt like the best way to approach a setting to me. If they want to include a timeline of future events in the core, i think that can be helpful though.

Quote from: One Horse Town;678308It's a totally different animal. With comics, you at least get new storylines, new match ups etc.

With an RPG setting, people already have lots of material to game with. When you're re-booting, you need to walk the line between different enough that people who already own the last iteration buy the new one, and being familiar enough that it's recognisable as your intellectual property.

The 'quality' of a reboot matetrs as well.

Comic books have had some epicly mind numbingly stupid retcons.

But if a setting reboot/retcon/etc...is well done I don't really have a problem with it.

If the reboot would not mesh with a campaign I am running, I would just ignore the reboot until I started a new campaign.

I guess setting reboots would piss of someone using the same setting for many years; that might be a real pain.