Thursday, February 2, 2012

Dragon Editorial By Chris Perkins

This is two days in a row I've blogged about Chris Perkins. Weird. Anyhow, Wizards of the Coast has just posted a new editorial by Chris titled FR'eak for Dragon #408. Note, this article is open for the general audience to download so check it out, it's a quick read. Okay Greyhawk fans, don't get riled up, but as you may have guessed from the title, the focus of the editorial is actually about the Realms. Sure it's not my typical subject matter, but I did spot a few points that Perkins made which interested me. Let me break it down for you:

"Player’s Option: Heroes of the Elemental Chaos hits stores this month, just in time for players to create elemental-themed heroes for The Elder Elemental Eye™, the next D&D Encounters™  season."

First, I'm not entirely up on all 4e era products but I am amused that "Player's Option" has again led quickly to a new edition. I'm just saying...Also the highly successful D&D Encounters organized play seems to be moving along just fine and have once again wisely chosen a Greyhawkian source to draw inspiration from (their current storyline is Beyond the Crystal Cave). I'd be curious to hear from anyone who plays or runs D&DE how this next storyline stacks up.

"This year in the magazines, we’re taking a break from the Nentir Vale “points of light” setting to shine a light on the Forgotten Realms as well as some of our other popular worlds, past and present. You’ll see more Eberron® articles, more Dark Sun® articles, and even some content for Ravenloft®, Planescape®, and the World of Greyhawk. But the Realms, in particular, will receive a lot of love."

Wow. In case the first sentence slipped by you in the flurry of name dropping, Chris said Dragon will be taking a break from the Nentir Vale setting (the default 4e setting) for a YEAR. This is easily because of the retro-movement going on involving D&DNext. You know what? That's great! Yes, there will be alot of Forgotten Realms articles coming down the pike, but the rest of the lineup looks promising to me too, and hey look, he didn't leave out good ol' Greyhawk! No "points of light setting" means no strip-mining for place names too. If anyone reading is a Greyhawk fan and an aspiring writer for Wizards, now is your chance! All I ask for is some fairly new content not the usual rehash. My mouth is already watering.

"I’ve never run a Forgotten Realms campaign, but I’ve plundered a lot of FR content for my home campaigns over the years."

I will give Perkins props on plundering FR for ideas, but after reading this, what I want to know is who at Wizards DOES play Forgotten Realms? (besides Ed of course) I know this isn't the first time I've seen someone in their industry say that they don't run FR. I may be a stodgy old Greyhawk fan, but I've at least tried to run Forgotten Realms a few times since the first grey boxed set. Yes, I know running the Realms isn't a requirement to work for the company, so this is based on nothing. It's just that sometimes I get the gut feeling the folks who currently develop the Realms (yes you too Ed) are really only in it to write novels (or now make boardgames) and don't really use the setting they promote as #1. Take all that with a grain of salt though. Anyhow, I am sincerely excited to see more Forgotten Realms articles out of Perkins and Dragon if it also means more love for those old die-hard settings including our World of Greyhawk. Stay tuned, 2012 should be interesting.

Update 4/30/2021: I've updated the broken 4E link to direct you to DMsGuild where you can DL issue #208.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds FR'antastic! Absolutely FR'abulous! The Realms need some love lately, so it's okay if WotC has them in their sites. It is certainly better than if they rushed to pigeonhole Greyhawk into something just for its name's sake. Especially with 5E 'round the corner.

Kepping my fingers crossed to see what may be done for Greyhawk. Hang on to those Griffon reins, it's going to be a bumpy flight.

Ciao!
GW

Valkaun_Dain said...

Seems like I read somewhere recently that the FR specific adventures they released during the 3.5 era did not sell very well.Isn't that a good enough indication that they should make their adventures more easily slotted into various campaign settings? How hard would that be, really?

Mike Bridges said...

Valkaun: Really easy. They seemed to demand that GH and other worlds be able to slot into any world, so why not FR?

Grendelwulf: Yee haw!