Time Frame (and Patience)

This is one of several thoughts/suggestions regarding the upcoming fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons (5e). Relevant news items: nytimes and wizards.

Specifically regarding the Forgotten Realms…

Resurrect the Arcane Age product line.
With a new name. Something less specific. Use this avenue for visiting the societies of both the past and future Realms. Develop this product line to include Imaskar, Aryvandaar, the Sarrukh empires, etc. Develop the post-spellplague Realms as a setting in this product line, so that those who enjoy it can continue to play there and have a framework for developing the Realms in that timeline.

For the main product line…

Rewind to 1357 DR. Freeze.
In ten years, it will be 2022 on Earth but the year will still be 1357 in the Realms. Why? Because once you started telling us about 1367, you never went back to fill in the rest of the Realms. Instead, you started over with the so-called Heartlands in 1367. On this subject, lose the term “Heartlands.” It’s a stupid term, because every place is the heart of the land to those who live there. Calling Cormyr and the Dales the Heartlands is not only arbitrary, it’s exclusionist. You want the Realms to be inclusionist, because that’s what will make products sell. Drop “the Heartlands” like a plague-ridden hot potato. Anyway, it was the same again in 1372, and again in 1479. Stop doing that. Seriously. Stop.

There’s been a continuous push to move along the timeline, but ironically it’s made the Realms stagnant because you kept giving us books about the same places over and over again. You’ve still never really developed Lapaliiya, or Narfell, or hundreds of other places. But we have all kinds of info about Cormyr (and the Dales, and Waterdeep). Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those places, but I get really sick of seeing Cormyr in every campaign setting when the other major continents haven’t been touched in one yet.

You really think you’ll run out of things to write about? Then you are doin it wrong, and you should move over and let someone else take the helm. I could give you a list of products that would take you 100 years to publish, all without advancing the timeline. Ed could probably multiply that by 100.

Tell us about the Realms. Develop the whole planet, and do it pretty much equally. Go ahead and tell us more about Cormyr every once in a while, but stop “quitting early” with regards to the rest of the Realms just so that you can start over with the part you know a lot about. Quit updating stat blocks… instead, give us all-new stuff in every single product. Just stop the timeline, for the main product line, and use the revamped Arcane Age line to talk about future and past civilizations… that’s what the line was made for.

So it’s 1357, period. The Time of Troubles may happen next year, or it may not, depending on who’s DMing. There is no return of Netheril, or Myth Drannor, or Imaskar, or Miyeritar, yet. Those places live in the past, and perhaps the future, along with post-spellplague Abeir-Toril. Tell us about Now, and tell us something about the past and future, but leave the decisions up to individual gaming groups.

On a related note… patience.

You have to quit killing great product lines.
I’m referring to Arcane Age, but not just Arcane Age. I don’t claim to have all the answers regarding why many people didn’t buy into Al-Qadim and Maztica and Kara-Tur and the Hordelands, but they were good ideas. Maybe you should have tested the waters with a sourcebook (and maybe a few short stories in some of the Realms anthologies) before betting the farm on them as full campaign settings. I dunno.

But that way, if there wasn’t a huge deluge of interest immediately, you’re not so deeply invested. You can periodically dip a toe in the water with some short stories and maybe an adventure here and there, and — speaking for Al-Qadim at least, interest would surely have developed.

But you pounced on it, despaired at the lack of immediate overwhelming enthusiasm from the customers, and made a full retreat to pretend it never happened, and thus came out of it with gum in your hair and a toilet paper tail on your shoe. Seriously, though… I have to think you just weren’t looking at the Al-Qadim sales figures in the right light. The product was great. Therefore something else was to blame for any lack of success. Spelljammer and Ravenloft, too, most especially Masque of the Red Death… so much potential there. You kept Planescape going for a while, which was great, but you eventually ditched that too. Neat ideas… somebody just decided that the ball should be dropped. Get rid of that person; they’re the problem… the ideas are not the problem.

In the meantime, since you’re not using them, how about you give those old copyrights to me. I need to pay off student loans and I’m pretty sure any one of your “failed” settings could be an answer. Or give me the green light to reboot the Arcane Age line, and I’ll be set with a steady income and plenty of writing to do for the rest of my life.

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