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I know that WotC was planning on publishing a book for Nentir Vale. Has it been cancelled? I seem to remember it was. I hope not, it is the one book on their schedule that I really did want to buy. I like mini-settings, and WotC hasn't published one since Jakandor and Thunder Rift.

Yes, it was.

There is still a Nentir Vale Monster Vault coming out though.

Crud. I thought it was still in the catalog, but I see I was thinking of the Neverwinter Nights thing...

Seanchai

Quote from: danbuter;444731it is the one book on their schedule that I really did want to buy.

I don't believe it! The first 4e book I am interested in? Cancelled?

WotC truly doesn't want my money...

Dumbfuck, I have the PHB (oh, and the Forgotten Realms and Dark Sun setting books). I don't really care for the system. I'd still buy setting stuff I like. I would love to give WotC money for a product, but you take the time to bitch about me not wanting to pay them for products I don't need and you appear to be offended on behalf of a corporation. Maybe you should seek psychiatric help.

edit: added the Dark Sun book. Don't know how I forgot it, as it is very, very good.

My campaign is way too far along for me to be able to use much official info about the Nentir Vale.  Still, it's too bad they cancelled it as it might have had some interesting tidbits to add in.

Overall, the settings for 4e have been kind of weak IMO.  The two tiny books approach doesn't nearly seem to cover enough and they were waaaay too crunch focused.  Plus, they were all retreads.

I would have liked to have seen more on a new, different setting that fit in with 4e's design philosophy better.  Fleshing out the Nentir Value might have done that.

I agree. One book on just the Vale would have been great. Due to the smaller area, they could have had multiple page write-ups for every location. Maybe mini-settings just don't do well commercially, though.

Quote from: jgants;444906Still, it's too bad they cancelled it as it might have had some interesting tidbits to add in.

And maps. I don't care too much about info, but I always love a good map.

Seanchai

Danbuter, was your post directed at me?

Maybe you got the tone of the message wrong and suspected irony where there was none. My Cancelled? remark in italics was my honest outbreak of disbelief, not a snarky impersonation of your OP.

I used your quote to actually show that here are already two people who would have loved to buy a Nentir Vale book.

The whole Nentir Vale stuff that was (seemingly) only hinted at in adventures (and of which I read about on blogs like D&D Doodles (http://dandddoodles.blogspot.com/)) sounded intriguing to me.

Apologies, then. Your post read like a RPGNet passive-aggressive troll. Read it once with their standard sarcasm and see what I mean.

I see...

But then, all is well.

Well, depending on how much you like the Nentir Vale, you could always borrow a friend's copy of the DM Kit and photocopy the 20 page write-up on the Nentir Vale therein. It adds the odd detail here and there on space gained by leaving out all NPC stat blocks from DMG 1, and the accompanying adventure in the kit features a couple of new locations in the Vale, replete with maps. A handy way to get those maps is to check the cartography gallery for the product, which I believe is behind the DDI paywall.

I originally yearned for a Nentir Vale book, but the added details in the DM Kit left me lukewarm. In the end, it's a good base to work from, nothing more, and sadly never got complemented by a decent adventure like its ancestor did in Red Hand of Doom.

Quote from: Windjammer;445292I originally yearned for a Nentir Vale book, but the added details in the DM Kit left me lukewarm. In the end, it's a good base to work from, nothing more, and sadly never got complemented by a decent adventure like its ancestor did in Red Hand of Doom.

A "Nentir Vale" book probably would have had a bigger impact if it was released back in the summer of 2008.  Today, it would seem kinda superfluous or meh.

Perhaps back in 2008, they were originally betting on the 4E Forgotten Realms being a huge hit.  Nentir Vale may very well have been an afterthought.

I thought it was initially meant as more of base from which to build your own setting than anything else.

Quote from: Aos;445340I thought it was initially meant as more of base from which to build your own setting than anything else.

I assumed it was going for the same feel as the whole Known World vibe from the D&D expert set.

I was never expecting a full-fledged setting per se, but I figured they would slowly flesh out the surrounding areas with modules and things.  Which they kind of, sort of did - just not very well IMO.

But then, I never understood why WotC didn't try to capitalize more on putting out adventure sets that would fit well with the new edition.

Why were there not more printed maps?  Or packs of miniatures specifically sold for an adventure set?  Or why did most adventures not specifically tie-in with dungeon tiles?  Why did miniature releases rarely ever have anything to do with the actual book content coming out - whether core book, setting, or adventures?

Really, I think they could have built on the tactical combat approach with more synergy between goodies while at the same time including interesting world info.

Sadly, WotC completely fumbled the ball IMO.  I think 4e has some of the best core rules yet, but the attempts at adventure modules, settings, and game merchandising have been pathetically awful for the most part.

Quote from: jgants;445356I assumed it was going for the same feel as the whole Known World vibe from the D&D expert set.

I was never expecting a full-fledged setting per se, but I figured they would slowly flesh out the surrounding areas with modules and things.  Which they kind of, sort of did - just not very well IMO.

But then, I never understood why WotC didn't try to capitalize more on putting out adventure sets that would fit well with the new edition.

Why were there not more printed maps?  Or packs of miniatures specifically sold for an adventure set?  Or why did most adventures not specifically tie-in with dungeon tiles?  Why did miniature releases rarely ever have anything to do with the actual book content coming out - whether core book, setting, or adventures?

Really, I think they could have built on the tactical combat approach with more synergy between goodies while at the same time including interesting world info.

Sadly, WotC completely fumbled the ball IMO.  I think 4e has some of the best core rules yet, but the attempts at adventure modules, settings, and game merchandising have been pathetically awful for the most part.

I largely agree, but because I can't help myself, I have to point out that the 4e Dark Sun books are top notch- but I haven't hit the table with them, so I'm mostly speaking in regards to the non mechanical side of things.

Quote from: ggroy;445294they were originally betting on the 4E Forgotten Realms being a huge hit.

I really can't see in what form, circumstance and/or universe the FR 4E could become such.

You guys do realize that just about all the really good maps related to the Nentir Vale have been posted to the web?  Not just to the WotC site either.

Using either 'BING" or Google I found at least 7 really good Nentir vale and Fallcrest maps and at least a dozen wikipedia-type articles usable as a GM resource.

All the map images were downloadable or easily saved to computer.


- Ed C.

Quote from: ggroy;445294Perhaps back in 2008, they were originally betting on the 4E Forgotten Realms being a huge hit.  Nentir Vale may very well have been an afterthought.

If so, WoTC is truly staffed by retards. Because anyone who's seen any of the evidence can tell you what the results are when you take a known and beloved world and replace it with one that is hugely and radically changed.  All they had to do was to see with their fucking eyes, and remember whether the original Imperium or "The new era" was more popular, or nWoD or oWoD.  Or, for fuck's sake, their own Greyhawk! They made this mistake before, with From the Ashes; even though From the Ashes was excellent and Greyhawk was by then a not-so-popular setting.

But really, I can't fucking think of a single case where an rpg company made huge and radical changes to an established game setting and ended up WINNING in the long term as far as fans were concerned.  These sorts of changes always, in the very best of scenarios, split the fandom.  In the worst, they are universally reviled.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;445493If so, WoTC is truly staffed by retards. Because anyone who's seen any of the evidence can tell you what the results are when you take a known and beloved world and replace it with one that is hugely and radically changed.  All they had to do was to see with their fucking eyes, and remember whether the original Imperium or "The new era" was more popular, or nWoD or oWoD.  Or, for fuck's sake, their own Greyhawk! They made this mistake before, with From the Ashes; even though From the Ashes was excellent and Greyhawk was by then a not-so-popular setting.

But really, I can't fucking think of a single case where an rpg company made huge and radical changes to an established game setting and ended up WINNING in the long term as far as fans were concerned.  These sorts of changes always, in the very best of scenarios, split the fandom.  In the worst, they are universally reviled.

RPGPundit

Definitely.

I remember some friends who were hardcore Greyhawk fans, who didn't like the Greyhawk Wars.  Some of these individuals do not even consider the Greyhawk Wars to be legitimate Greyhawk canon in their own games.

Wonder whose idea it was exactly for 4E Forgotten Realms by doing a huge "realms shattering event", and whether this individual has already been fired.

Quote from: RPGPundit;445493If so, WoTC is truly staffed by retards. Because anyone who's seen any of the evidence can tell you what the results are when you take a known and beloved world and replace it with one that is hugely and radically changed.  All they had to do was to see with their fucking eyes, and remember whether the original Imperium or "The new era" was more popular, or nWoD or oWoD.  Or, for fuck's sake, their own Greyhawk! They made this mistake before, with From the Ashes; even though From the Ashes was excellent and Greyhawk was by then a not-so-popular setting.

But really, I can't fucking think of a single case where an rpg company made huge and radical changes to an established game setting and ended up WINNING in the long term as far as fans were concerned.  These sorts of changes always, in the very best of scenarios, split the fandom.  In the worst, they are universally reviled.

RPGPundit

This isn't the first time this has happened in the Realms though, is it?  Wasn't there some kind of "War of the Gods" where a bunch of major changes happened in the pantheon?  How was that received by Realms-fans?

Strangely, film series, book series, computer games, comic books, and even (more rarely) TV shows can do very well (artistically and commercially) with radical reinventions... The difference, I suppose, is that the RPG core experience is roughly equivalent to what the other forms would label "fanfic", which thrives on a completely static base.

Quote from: Esgaldil;445533Strangely, film series, book series, computer games, comic books, and even (more rarely) TV shows can do very well (artistically and commercially) with radical reinventions...

Would the 2009 Star Trek movie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_%28film%29) be an example of this?

I haven't seen it, but it certainly did well enough commercially.  Batman would be my first example of a property that is both recognizable and coherent and has been very well served (not all the time, but often enough) by reinventions and radical revisions.  You could even call Lord of the Rings a reinvention of the "Middle Earth for Dummies" Tolkien created in The Hobbit.

Quote from: Esgaldil;445541Batman would be my first example of a property that is both recognizable and coherent and has been very well served (not all the time, but often enough) by reinventions and radical revisions.

Are you thinking of the Dark Knight limited series for Batman?

Quote from: ggroy;445496Wonder whose idea it was exactly for 4E Forgotten Realms by doing a huge "realms shattering event", and whether this individual has already been fired.

I don't care for it myself, but I do understand why they did it. It's easier to shatter the Realms then insert Dragonborn, Eladrin, et al., than pretend they existed all along.

Seanchai

Quote from: ggroy;445496Wonder whose idea it was exactly for 4E Forgotten Realms by doing a huge "realms shattering event", and whether this individual has already been fired.

Very unlikely. The main decision for overhauling the Forgotten Realms came not from the RPG department, but from the novels chief editor, Phil Athans. FR had accumulated so much canon that

1. given the scarcity of 'white spaces' on the map, it was hard to comission or write new novels

2. the number of canon competent authors had become small, and required heavy editing efforts to keep the novel output canon-consistent (cf. the alleged problems with the Battletech novels, where author 2 doesn't know what author 1 did)

It felt a bit bizarre (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drdd/20080828a) when Athans and Cordell tried to convince their RPG audience that the old Realms posed analogous problems for RPG players.

But this doesn't change the fact that, to all appearances, FR novels continue to be hotsellers, not least since WotC wisely supplemented their output of new novels with the fat 'trilogy' collector's editions of the bestsellers of yesteryear... good stuff by Rich Baker and Paul S. Kemp.*

So the question is: was the overhaul worth it? Did the loss of lots of RPG fans of the setting even matter in the larger picture of keeping the much MUCH larger novels market in tact? For comparison, look at Dragonlance. Do you have any idea of how many novels WotC continues to put out (often just releases of old stuff) every year, even now, despite not supporting the setting in their RPG line?

4E Realms is a classic case where RPG'ers don't see the forest for the trees. It's the novels, stupid!

*Btw I kinda dig Baker's 4E FR novels too... Swordmage, Avenger, ... but then I dig 4E Realms as a RPG setting too, so you might disregard my opinion here. ;

I really like Rich Baker's contribution to the RPG side of Dark Sun- namely the 4e CG, the 2e Valley of Dust and Fire and some of the stuff he did on the DS monster books; I'm tempted to look at some of his novels. But, man, I've never read any good gaming fiction...

Quote from: misterguignol;445506This isn't the first time this has happened in the Realms though, is it?  Wasn't there some kind of "War of the Gods" where a bunch of major changes happened in the pantheon?  How was that received by Realms-fans?

There was a (very, very bad) cycle of novels and modules about the gods being thrown down from they thrones by the Ubergod (already a stupid idea by itself: a pantheon should have a leader, like Zeus, not a "god of the gods"). Some gods died and other stuff happened.

The whole fracas was only a (badly, badly thought) way to upgrade the setting to 2E. For example, since the God of Murder died, all of sudden all the assassins in the Realms disappeared - because 2E had no Assassin class and this had somehow to be reflected in the setting (I kid thee not: this was what the creative minds at TSR were able to pull out from their collective hats). Many players simply shrugged and moved on.

The important part is that basically the Forgotten Realms were left unchanged, to the point that you could use the earlier supplements with minimal work. The same happened when they moved from 2E to 3E.

Today there is almost no relationship between the setting developed byTSR/Wizards for almost 25 years and the current one. This also means that all the earlier supplements are basically outdated (before you had to adapt the crunch, but you could keep the fluff and the flavour). Not to mention that the old setting provided a lot of background and ideas for those wishing to write a novel based on it. In all fairness, however, I don't know how the "novels based on RPG's market" is currently going. I remember there was a time when TSR's real money came from it.

Quote from: Windjammer;4455791. given the scarcity of 'white spaces' on the map, it was hard to comission or write new novels

Maybe. As a writer (and as a writer of serialized stories where many authors contribute, even if for the comic book market) I would find much easier to put together a story for the old Forgotten Realms (1E-3E) than for the new: the potential story hooks are much more, and, IMHO, much more interesting than the "adventures in World of Warcraft!!" offered by the FR 4E. But maybe it's just me.

Quote2. the number of canon competent authors had become small, and required heavy editing efforts to keep the novel output canon-consistent

I could understand that if the FR 4E weren't incompatible even with themselves - let alone the past stuff (the level of blatant retconning is surreal...)

Quotegood stuff by Rich Baker and Paul S. Kemp.

I read "Forsaken House" by Baker. I hope that he has improved, because that book was truly amateurish.

Quote from: Reckall;445584There was a (very, very bad) cycle of novels and modules about the gods being thrown down from they thrones by the Ubergod (already a stupid idea by itself: a pantheon should have a leader, like Zeus, not a "god of the gods"). Some gods died and other stuff happened.

The whole fracas was only a (badly, badly thought) way to upgrade the setting to 2E. For example, since the God of Murder died, all of sudden all the assassins in the Realms disappeared - because 2E had no Assassin class and this had somehow to be reflected in the setting (I kid thee not: this was what the creative minds at TSR were able to pull out from their collective hats). Many players simply shrugged and moved on.

The Avatar Trilogy?  (The Time of Troubles).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Avatar_Series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_Troubles_%28Forgotten_Realms%29

Quote from: Windjammer;445579Very unlikely. The main decision for overhauling the Forgotten Realms came not from the RPG department, but from the novels chief editor, Phil Athans.

Phil Athans left WotC back in mid-2010.

http://fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/end-of-part-two/


(No idea whether he left voluntarily, or was laid off or fired).

Quote from: ggroy;445594The Avatar Trilogy?  (The Time of Troubles).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Avatar_Series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_Troubles_%28Forgotten_Realms%29

That one. A guy hated it so much that he took the trouble to write a colossal review of the modules (http://en.wordpress.com/tag/the-worst-adventure-ever/). Stuff of legend.

I re-wrote the whole affair for my campaign, taking inspiration from both the Iran-Contra scandal and Tom Clancy's "Clear and Present Danger" - with the Gods taking the place of the real world bigwigs.

The interesting thing is that the basic ideas I wrote around (the lawful gods accidentally creating the devils while fighting the demons and then starting the Blood War to cover the snafu) come from the basic D&D lore itself. How TSR managed to put together such a bad storyline with all the good stuff ready to use they could simply refer to is beyond me.

Quote from: misterguignol;445506This isn't the first time this has happened in the Realms though, is it?  Wasn't there some kind of "War of the Gods" where a bunch of major changes happened in the pantheon?  How was that received by Realms-fans?

That was the Time of Troubles, which carried the game from 1e to 2e. It was also received poorly by many fans.

edit: looks like this has already been covered. Another horrible example from D&D's past is Dark Sun. The very first novels published for it completely changed the setting.

The time of troubles was a megaevent that created some controversy in its day; but differed in several key areas.  First, it was relatively early in the Realm's history as an RPG setting.
Second, it made no real major changes in the setting, whereas the 4e changeover basically altered the setting at every level.

RPGPundit

The Times of Trouble sucked. Forgotten Realms = Grey Box, plus the 3rd ed Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book to cherry pick elements to include in the game, as a source of inspiration. I take it from there.

Quote from: Benoist;445885The Times of Trouble sucked. Forgotten Realms = Grey Box, plus the 3rd ed Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book to cherry pick elements to include in the game, as a source of inspiration. I take it from there.

The 3E Forgotten Realms campaign setting book was good for cherry picking from.

Not really sure about the other 3E/3.5E FR books.