Vote for your Forgotten Realms!

[dead]

The new edition of D&D has been released. It combines all the best aspects of previous editions and is an instant success. The gaming community is united and the edition wars are over! You are the Brand Manager of the Forgotten Realms setting for the new edition. Your design team has come back to you with the following options on how to launch the Forgotten Realms setting under the new edition. Which would you choose?

 

[IronWolf]

I would go with the Gray Box era. Lots of areas left for the DM to fill, not a lot of canon to conflict with. It was an unexplored world.

 

[Ahnehnois]

FR was beautifully presented in 3e and seemed faithful to earlier incarnations. I would want to see it return to this; the full use of magic and the diverse settings. I suppose advancing the timeline and having more earth-shaking events would be the best way to do this.

 

[Squizzle]

Go nuts, do whatever you want. Treat it as a learning experience so that a later Dark Sun release turns out well.

 

[Shemeska]

Ignore the Spellplague and anything after it as if they never existed, reboot to any point in or around 1372DR.

Alternatively, apologize to the fanbase and reboot to some point pre-Spellplague.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

None of the above.

Go PRE-Gray box. Delve into the "not totally explored hints/lore/origins of continents, characters, and legends before they are made."

 

[jaerdaph]

I would go with the Gray Box era. Lots of areas left for the DM to fill, not a lot of canon to conflict with. It was an unexplored world.

I've been flirting with that idea a lot myself lately.

 

[Festivus]

I have grown fond of the current setting and would vote to continue it. Too much upheaval would equate to nobody wanting to play the setting I suspect.

 

[El Mahdi]

As the OP requested, I'm looking at this from the standpoint of a Brand Manager, not what I like as my own personal favorite.

As much as the original Grey Box, and/or Ed's original vision might be my favorites, they've already been done. All the source material is already published and out there for those who want it (except of course the pdf's are unavailable). So those would be out for me.

Having another World Shaking event ala the Time of Trouble or the Spellplague will just alienate even more fans (although I didn't have a problem with changes, I could just ignore and alter as needed, some were quite rabid about things changing). So, if it was my decision, no more World Shaking events (at least for the next couple of editions).

Going back and doing a Spellplague Era campaign would be cool, but not as the big default campaign world. I'd do this more like the Netheril: Empire of Magic mini-campaign/box set from AD&D 2E.

So, that leaves me with what I feel is the most feasible, continue the 4E timeline. This has the least chance of more fan alienation, progresses the campaign enough where I can publish material that people will buy, and creates new npc's and world politics to exploit in adventures (modules and Dungeon Magazine).

Of course, my home FR game will continue to be a hybrid of the 4E timeline with 3E geography and my own houseruled D20 rules set.

 

[IronWolf]

As the OP requested, I'm looking at this from the standpoint of a Brand Manager, not what I like as my own personal favorite.

What if the brand manager sat down and tried to figure out what would bring people back to the Forgotten Realms? And part of this examination revealed that finding a way back to a similar style of the Gray Box era would possibly be this draw, while attracting people that had never played in the Forgotten Realms?

As much as the original Grey Box, and/or Ed's original vision might be my favorites, they've already been done. All the source material is already published and out there for those who want it (except of course the pdf's are unavailable). So those would be out for me.

Yes - but out of print. What about a Return to Forgotten Realms? A new sourcebook that might be a partial reprint with updated art, maybe some extra maps or something of the like?

Of course, it is hard to rollback a timeline - but if a brand manager saw it as a way to bring more people back to the Realms, maybe it would be worth finding a way?

You might risk alienating some of the 4e version fans, but possibly at the benefit of bringing a large number of fans back. Given the hypothetical situation of no more edition wars and such - I think a revert to the Gray Box era could at least be considered a possibility and worthy of evaluation.

All hypothetical situations of course. As you said the likely real occurrence is that FR DMs will continue to adapt and mold the bits they like from any edition and still give FR the feel they want - even without supporting content from WotC.