Wizards are doing that thing where they toss out previews of an upcoming product each time their Extra Life charity team hits another fundraising target. So far the book's preface is up here, and the upcoming previews include the following:

Table of Contents
New Cantrip: Greenflame Blade
New Background: Urban Bounty Hunter
New Roguish Archetype: Mastermind
Duergar race entry, including subrace traits.
Full, updated, high res, labeled map of the northwest portion of Faerün, from Amn to Icewind Dale and the Moonshae Isles to the Dalelands.

The scope of the map makes it seem to me like the scope of the supplement is pretty big - it covers about half-to-two-thirds of the map in the 1E Grey Box, which considering how much development the setting has seen over the years is pretty good going (and represents more than a large enough area for campaigning in). Plus the preface lays it out in black and white - the supplement's going to cover the Sword Coast and northern regions in detail, but also give a broad look at Faerun and Toril as a whole.

EDIT: Main page for previews is here if people want to follow what comes out.

Table of Contents is up.

Interestingly, there's an appendix entitled "Class Options In Other Worlds", with entries for Dragonlance, Eberron, Greyhawk, and homebrewed worlds. Presumably, these are suggestions on how to adapt the various new class options in this book to other campaign worlds, which should at least make this book a little more useful to those who aren't into the Realms.

I'm a little sorry to see Ravenloft and Planescape not on the list, particularly since Wizards' surveys a while back established that those two settings are actually still quite popular with the fanbase, but then again I guess you don't need to work so hard to explain how the class options in question ended up in those settings - people of the appropriate classes went adventuring in the planes/got caught in the mists, taught others, boom done.

On the other hand, it's interesting that Wizards are working in a bit of official support for those settings in this book, which suggests to me that they at least have ambitions to give them the full 5E treatment at some point.

160 pages, 100 of setting and 60 rules. About what I expected. Looks a good supplement to the existing three campaigns and starter set.

The Moonshae Islands are included?  Cool.  I always liked the "Vikings-versus-Celts" vibe of the 1e version of that region.  It's a pity that it subsequently was neglected.  (However, I'm not sure how it changed in later editions, esp. with the 'Spell Plague' [ugh].)

The Sword Coast always was my favourite part of the FR, primarily because of my deep affection for the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale CRPGs, but also because the original (1e) version of the Savage Frontier was excellent -- essentially the Wilderlands area of the FR (which shouldn't be surprising, I guess, given that it was written by Jacquays).

Looking forward to this...

Interesting.  60 pages of rules, but how much of those are going to be older-edition style "tons of new feats/prestige classes/spells and other shit that will totally wreck the power level and balance of the game, for your players to whine about wanting to have so they can min-max their PC" variety?
I suspect perhaps not that much.  At least, I hope.

With each new announced release the more I'm realizing that I'm perfectly happy with sticking to the core books and doing everything myself. Even the UA articles and errata have felt extraneous. Oh well.

Quote from: RPGPundit;859146Interesting.  60 pages of rules, but how much of those are going to be older-edition style "tons of new feats/prestige classes/spells and other shit that will totally wreck the power level and balance of the game, for your players to whine about wanting to have so they can min-max their PC" variety?
I suspect perhaps not that much.  At least, I hope.

Looking at the extra life page that has the additional previews linked from it, things like the new backgrounds or class specialities seem to have been carefully built using the parameters of the existing ones, so hopefully the new options will add choice without bringing in power creep.

Of those 55 pages of rules, 3 seem to be about converting this stuff to other settings, 10 are dedicated to backgrounds (which tend not to add that much power), 18 seem to be about contextualising the various races in the Realms, leaving 24 covering class stuff and spells. The spells are only cantrips, and some of the class stuff seems to be setting flavour rather than crunch, like suggesting Realms-specific patrons for warlocks and the like.

Quote from: Necrozius;859150With each new announced release the more I'm realizing that I'm perfectly happy with sticking to the core books and doing everything myself. Even the UA articles and errata have felt extraneous. Oh well.

That may be a good thing. Not a bad thing.

The new stuff does not have that overpowered "gotta have it to be uber!" feel so far.

I wonder if they'll do that for the entire run, where they break down the setting into several regional books.

If they do just one a year they would have a fair amount covered by the end of 5e. Depending on how much is covered in each one. Like a glorified Gazetteer.

I'm hoping for regional guides for Kara-Tur and Zakhara to cover the OA/Al-Qadim bases myself.

Are you kidding? In these times of social media outrage and accusations of cultural appropriation, Oriental Adventures would be a PR nightmare because of the title alone.

If they hired actual Asian or Islamic people with a good grasp of history and folklore, it could work.

Quote from: Warthur;859266I'm hoping for regional guides for Kara-Tur and Zakhara to cover the OA/Al-Qadim bases myself.

Unless WOTC starts major cross platform story lines in one of these regions it isn't likely to happen. FR as a setting to play tabletop games in, is a distant concern these days.

Quote from: Necrozius;859272Are you kidding? In these times of social media outrage and accusations of cultural appropriation, Oriental Adventures would be a PR nightmare because of the title alone.

They'll probably call the OA one the Kara-Tur Adventurer's Guide for precisely that reason.

QuoteIf they hired actual Asian or Islamic people with a good grasp of history and folklore, it could work.

Frankly, I'd say that this is a good idea regardless of whether or not you're worried about the PR or accusations of cultural appropriation. You don't need to hail from a particular part of the world to write a game about it - I don't see Qin: the Warring States or Weapons of the Gods getting much stick (or, for that matter, Pundit's own India-inspired game, despite the fact that he's a favoured target of protest) - but at the same time you just don't get the same take on a culture by reading about and studying it or even visiting it than you do if you grew up in it, and the experience of such contributors in my view can only enrich and improve the end product. (And if they can help you sell it in their community, all the better.)

They wouldn't necessarily have to be direct hires either; given that Wizards seem to like the idea of bringing in third parties to produce material for 5E, this might be the sort of project which is perfect for collaborating with a suitable third party publisher.

Quote from: Warthur;859276...Frankly, I'd say that this is a good idea regardless of whether or not you're worried about the PR or accusations of cultural appropriation... you just don't get the same take on a culture by reading about and studying it or even visiting it than you do if you grew up in it, and the experience of such contributors in my view can only enrich and improve the end product. (And if they can help you sell it in their community, all the better.)

Agreed: it would be win-win: respectful of those cultures AND being more accurate and rich.