Quote from: Exploderwizard;859273Unless 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.

That's likely to be the case for anywhere outside the Sword Coast, though.

The model they are going with seems to be to put out some published adventures and run some Adventurer's League stuff in a setting first, and then bring out the sourcebook for that setting once the preceding material has whetted people's appetites and gotten people engaged with the setting. It's the reverse of the way most settings are published, and it's the sort of model which I suspect can only work if you have an organised play program as extensive as Wizards', but it's a clever idea: the adventures and AL stuff allow them to gauge the appetite for a full-blown campaign setting guide, so if a particular setting tanks they can just move away from it for the next big organised play story/adventure module and not revisit it, they can get an income stream from the adventures as people are into the whole organised play/plot-of-the-season model purchase them, and they can sell the campaign setting both to the organised play sorts as a souvenir of their adventures in the region and to people who prefer to cook up their own adventures (who are more likely to buy campaign setting guides than modules).

I wouldn't be too surprised if they moved on from the Sword Coast as a setting for published adventures - or at most put out one or two adventures after this - before taking things to a different region of the Realms, or indeed a different campaign setting altogether. That way they can say "we've told the stories we intend to tell in this region, so if you want to keep adventuring there get the campaign guide and see what future you and your group dream up for the Sword Coast", and start the process of building up a head of steam for the next campaign setting book.

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.

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

Bullshit.  Even if it was written by people from the ethnic groups that those settings are mean to represent, there would still be people raising hell because they weren't the right kind of representatives.

I doubt we will see more region books for FR any time soon. Other than more adventures, next up is likely to a Monster Manual or Unearthed Arcana.

I expect that we may get a region book for another setting like Eberron or Greyhawk, should the adventures move to that location.

Quote from: Necrozius;859277Agreed: it would be win-win: respectful of those cultures AND being more accurate and rich.

Except these arent historical recreations of real cultures. OA and Kara-tur were pattered on fantasy mashups of various ninja, martial arts, wuxia, and samurai movies from China, Japan and other eastern countries. Who themselves arent usually representing anything historically accurate.

In other words, it's a funhouse mirror version of Asian cultures just like much of D&D is a funhouse mirror version of medieval Europe.

Quote from: Warthur;859317In other words, it's a funhouse mirror version of Asian cultures just like much of D&D is a funhouse mirror version of medieval Europe.

Remember when we were allowed to enjoy that?  Before the Internet came along and ruined it all?  I miss those days.

I'm not averse to a 'Gazetteer' style of hard covers for the Realms.

Quote from: Skywalker;859304...
I expect that we may get a region book for another setting like Eberron or Greyhawk, should the adventures move to that location.

I'm sceptical that we'll see much, if anything, for Greyhawk from WotC for 5e.  For better or worse, GH is (viewed as) not distinct enough from the FR.  (Yes there are important differences between the two setting, including in tone, but they both are regarded as 'vanilla D&D' settings.)  The fact that the Elemental Evil stuff (which I've always regarded as paradigmatically Greyhawkian) was reworked for the FR suggests that this is the case.

Consequently, I would expect something for Eberron or Dark Sun to be far more likely than anything for Greyhawk.

(Personally, I would most like something for Planescape. But I'm not holding my breath…)

Quote from: Akrasia;859328I'm sceptical that we'll see much, if anything, for Greyhawk from WotC for 5e.  For better or worse, GH is (viewed as) not distinct enough from the FR.  (Yes there are important differences between the two setting, including in tone, but they both are regarded as 'vanilla D&D' settings.)  The fact that the Elemental Evil stuff (which I've always regarded as paradigmatically Greyhawkian) was reworked for the FR suggests that this is the case.

Consequently, I would expect something for Eberron or Dark Sun to be far more likely than anything for Greyhawk.

(Personally, I would most like something for Planescape. But I'm not holding my breath...)

You see, on the one hand I'd be tempted to agree with you, particularly since Wizards' own poll found that Dark Sun, Eberron and Planescape rank alongside Forgotten Realms in the top tier of popularity, and there's a distinct second tier of somewhat less popular settings like Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Spelljammer and then another big gap before the remaining settings come in. I would have thought that we'd see the top-tier settings getting attention first - in fact, if anything I'd have thought we'd see Planescape at the front of the queue so as to provide a mechanism for people in the Adventurer's League to transfer their favourite characters from the Realms to whichever prime material world is next.

But then the table of contents for the SWAG clearly shows there's a section on using the new class material in there in Greyhawk and Dragonlance, and I start to wonder.

It is, of course, possible that they may let a third party take on those settings whilst Wizards focus their attention on the top-tier ones.

Part of the problem for Greyhawk is that it is also the least represented in the novel department. Norton and Kidds books are about all that come to mind. Were Gygax's Gord books set in Greyhawk?

Quote from: Omega;859364Part of the problem for Greyhawk is that it is also the least represented in the novel department. Norton and Kidds books are about all that come to mind. Were Gygax's Gord books set in Greyhawk?

They were - in fact, when Gygax left TSR he kept the IP rights to Gord and put out a few more novels. The post-TSR novels end up diverging from TSR's Greyhawk continuity in some significant ways.

Spoiler

The major one being that Oerth blows up at the end of the Gord series.

Is there any reason why they need an Urban Bounty Hunter and a plain ol' Bounty Hunter? Does the Urban Bounty Hunter only hunt criminals within the city? (seems like a needless delineation--isn't a bounty hunter a bounty hunter?):confused: