Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting

[IronWolf]

updated on 22-NOV-02

OK... before we begin, let us first look at the advertizing copy:

Welcome to Faerûn, a land of high magic, terrifying monsters, ancient ruins and hidden wonders. -- True. This is not your typical run-of-the-mill campaign setting. It has a lot of stuff going on within those covers. A lot of stuff. And it is all very interesting to read.

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting presents the most comprehensive fantasy world ever described! -- Debatable. I have also gotten a copy of Kingdoms of Kalamar, and it is pretty damn good too (see my review on these pages). Is FR more "comprehensive" than KoK? How about the Living Greyhawk campaign? To be honest, I don't know but each of these has a lot going on. I suppose it would be tough to disprove the statement in court, so let us move on...

So you just paid US$40 for a hardback book. What did you get?

• A double-folded full color map of Faerûn
• 320 pages of material that includes:
• Two full pages of Table of Contents
• Introduction (2 pages)
• Chapter 1: Characters (46 pages)
• Chapter 2: Magic (22 pages)
• Chapter 3: Life in Faerûn (22 pages)
• Chapter 4: Geography (134 pages)
• Chapter 5: Deities (28 pages)
• Chapter 6: History (12 pages)
• Chapter 7: Organizations (12 pages)
• Adventure: Color of Ambition (4 pages)
• Chapter 8: Running the Realms (13 pages)
• Adventure: Green Bones (6 pages)
• Chapter 9: Monsters (7 pages)

In other words, they packed in a lot of material. And this is not even a good indication of the other sorts of stuff in the book. Important NPCs, for example, are scattered throughout the book. They are not, as I first feared, hard to find. They are well placed and fit with the text they are integrated with quite well. The layout is much better than the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual (although it suffers from a few of the same pitfalls of letting short sections, like feats, cross page lines needlessly).

The map is perfect and readable. The material in the book is well presented. This is the way most all of the D&D books should have been put together. Some people have complained about the cover. It does seem more flexible than previous books, but seems no less sturdy. I think that the quality of the production was excellent.

Do I have any complaints? Yes. A few. But those are more to do with the setting itself -- not the quality of this book. FR is not for everyone. But if you have enjoyed it i the past -- you will enjoy this latest incarnation very well. If you disliked it in the past -- there is not much here to make you change your mind. But the book is still worth getting (and that means it is worth it even at the full price, in my opinion) just for ideas that can be mined from it, some very cool feats, spells, races, monsters and classes. Take a look -- I think you will like it.

 

[Doomsdaisy]

For anyone who is new to D&D 3e or Forgotten Realms, the FR campaign setting can be a great buy or a terrible waste of your money. It all depends on your style of play, and preferences.

The Forgotten Realms is quite possibly the most detailed campaign world ever created. In 2e, dozens of sourcebooks, modules, boxed sets, etc. were published along with a raft of novels. Unfortunately, in the last days of TSR, the quality of these materials was by no means consistent, especially the novels which suffered the fate of many licensed products used as cash cows.

So, it is refreshing to see the FR campaign setting all in one book, but at $56.00 Canadian ($40US), I really wonder if the book is worth it.

If you are a FR fan, have been playing it for a while, or have read a lot of the other sourcebooks and/or novels, buy it and quit reading this review now.

For the rest of you, I recommend that you seriously consider what you want out of a campaign setting before putting down your hard-earned cash.

Binding and Cover Appearance:
I could almost swear that the cover is flimsier than the three Core Rulebooks for 3e. It doesn't have the glossy coating, instead it has a more matte coating, with a slightly greasy feel to it. Not bad, just different. Even after only two days of reading, the front and back covers are beginning to bow out a bit. I inspected my core books which have suffered nearly 9 months of mishandling, and none of them show similar bowing.

The binding is also different. It lacks the looseness of the Core Rulebooks, making it difficult to keep the book open to a specific page without some substantial 'breaking in'.

Overall, the binding is cheaper than the Core Rulebooks. We'll have to see how well it holds up over time.

Interior art, and pull-out map:
Some very helpful illustrations of races and detail maps of areas. I liked being able to flip back a few pages rather than have to fumble with the poster map to reference a location being discussed in the text. I still love poster maps, though. I do think it was a mistake to not overlay a hex grid or better yet, latitude and longitude lines. I'm the kind of person who wants to know exactly where on a globe something is. So far, the only mention of such detail is a sidebar that says the city of Waterdeep is approximately 45 degrees north latitude.

My only complaint is that the interior art tends towards the small side, and seems infrequent. Much of it seems to be used to illustrate important NPC's rather than help with mood or show locales of interest. Much of the 'mood' art is done in a soft, grey tones that I found to be muddy and indistinct. Personal preference, I guess.

Don't get me wrong, the art is very good, but I found myself either wanting more of it, or wanting what was there to be larger or more distinct.

Content:
The variety of races throw a bit of a curve at folks (like me) used to the standard seven. Most of them are well balanced, but there's a few that should give DMs pause before allowing them, especially since some of their penalties can be bought off with feats.

The regional feats are a fun idea, and encourages people to put more thought about their character's backgrounds. Or maybe you'll just end up with a lot of cookie-cutter characters where all the wizards come from one area, and all the rangers from another simply because your players want the feats those areas provide. With the vast variety provided, I don't think there's really any danger of the latter except with the most aggressive powergamers. The vast majority of them can be transferred to any campaign world with ease.

The prestige classes are rarely groundbreaking. Most of them offer one power or group of powers in exchange for something simple such as Wizard's bonus feats, or a Cleric's ability to turn undead. In contrast to the prestige classes in the DMG, Sword and Fist, and Defenders of the Faith, the Forgotten Realms' prestige classes are quite easy to qualify for. Some of them could be selected without hardly any planning at all since the requirements are things that I imagine most players are picking for their Wizards or Clerics. Most of them are only 5 levels too. This makes them fun to get, but without the long term commitment that one might feel towards a 10 level prestige class. Only a couple of them are FR dependent, so you could easily transfer them to another campaign world.

The Magic section includes more Domains than you can shake a stick at. Though it seems kind of silly to bother to create a domain when its only available to one or two gods out of 80+ gods. Apparently the FR gods like to micromanage things. Where's the domain for Small, Squishy, Yellow Things that go Eep?

In such a big book, I also was a little dissapointed at how few new spells were presented – only 38, many of which are domain spells for all those zillions of new domains since there were none existing that were specific enough for all those new domains. The spells are all nicely balanced, though, and most will transfer to another campaign world with little work.

What little new items are discribed seem unnecessary, or are redundant from other books. I would have liked to see a LOT of new items to buy, find, or use, or none at all. The two dozen new items and weapons detailed just seems rather pointless to have included since most of them are not that groundbreaking. I did like the inclusion of two drugs that were essentially male and female versions of oral contraceptives. That explains why adventurers never have offspring in every town they pass through.

The geography and locations section is as good as any I've seen, though the authors seem to sometimes dwell on certain little areas that don't really strike me as all that interesting. I get the impression that the authors are providing more info on regions that are well covered in previous 2e supplements or novels simply because it exists. For someone like me who knows next to nothing of Realms history, I sometimes felt like I was in a history class where I should have taken a prerequisite course.

The Deities section miffed me because while there are 80+ deities listed, most don't have information beyond their domains and favoured weapons. Less than half do. Why were the other 50 even mentioned if they're not important enough to really detail?

The History chapter comes towards the back. Here's that prerequisite class that I should have taken before reading the gazetteer. This section is good, and should have been in front of the book. Start with the beginning of the world and work forward... it makes sense.

The Organizations chapter should also have been farther forward rather than tucked in the back. It explains oh so much about the forces at work in all those countries that were mentioned before it.

One thing that cheeses me off is the inclusion of two adventures towards the back. To me, these seem to be a waste of space that should have gone to something that added more to the campaign setting... Like all those gods that weren't described.

There are also some 'new' monsters too. Most of them I recognize from 2e sources. I'll never say a bad thing about new monsters. The more the merrier.

Overall, the Realms is quite different from the default Greyhawk setting of 3e. Some major differences are:
The Realms is a high magic setting. First level characters get to start out with minor magic items (potions and scrolls mostly). Magic teleportation portals litter the landscape, players will soon be throwing +1 weapons along the side of the road as deadweight, and characters will never be at a loss for where to sell or purchase magic items.

The Realms have a lot of NPCs who are bigger, stronger, and tougher than the PCs will ever be. I laughed at the section that told how one section extolled the DM to 'Make the PCs the stars' when practically every geographic region detailed had a major (15th – 30th level) NPC complete with an illustration. It says a lot when the book begins with a preface by Elminster (the Reams' greatest mage) and then goes on with his statistics before practically anything else. To me, this says that the authors are more fascinated by their own creation than with providing useful details that a DM for a 1st level party could use.

The Realms have seen many, many hands adding elements. Novels, sourcebooks, computer RPGs all added their own to the whole, and the whole is rather muddled at times since there will always be debates over what is 'cannon' and what isn't. If you're new to FR like I am, your players may know more about it than you, and constantly be calling you on details.

There's a rule when buying fish – always buy fish whole, with the head, fins, and tail. The more intact the fish is, the fewer hands have handled it between the time it was caught, and the time you bought it. The fish which is the Realms has seen so many hands that it has been ground to a fine paste and put in a can.

In closing, I applaud the authors for doing their best to squeeze the bloated body of the Forgotten Realms into can. A 320 page oil drum, but still a can.

Simply put, if you're a fan of the Realms, and this review infuriated you, you won't mind spending the money for the book.

If you've never set foot in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, I suggest you read some positive reviews, flip through the book at your local game store or book shop. If you want a ready-made campaign with the traits I listed above, go for it. Otherwise, invest in another product or just make up your own setting.

As for me, I'm keeping the book since it was a gift. I'll take what I want, and leave the rest.

 

[JeffB]

I must admit, I'm an oddity among most gamers: I tend to be a fence-sitter(though not purposefully so). Gamers tend to be some of, if not THE, most opinionated & stubborn people I know. On matters game related, they tend to the extremes of like & dislike. Such is the way when topics such as rules-systems and campaign settings are discussed. Perhaps no other D&D setting has led to more arguments than the Forgotten Realms. No matter what you might find as a strength or weakness of the setting, the next guy has the completely opposite feeling. Greyhawkers complain of "borrowed" ideas, poor novels, and uber-NPC's who steal the show. Mystaran explorers complain of too much detail w/ no room left to inject any "personal" flavor. Ravenlofters, Spelljammers, Berks, and Dark Sun converts speak of the "evils' of such a "generic" fantasy setting. However, there are just as many who praise the Realms for all these things..it's just plain NUTS!!

The Forgotten Realms has for the past 12 or so years been the best selling line of campaign materials for the D&D game. Over those 12+ years we have seen numerous boxed sets, a hardcover, and countless other softcover books for both updating and expanding the ever-changing Realms. This latest "core" book for the Realms updates it into the wildly successful D&D 3rd edition rules, and for many folks has brought either a fresh new perspective to the Realms, or has even made the most devout "realms-basher" sit up and take notice.


THE BOOK

The new FRCS is a BIG hardcover book, w/ a hefty price tag of $40 U.S for it's 320 pages. A far as looks go, I would say this is as nice as it has ever been for a D&D product, and perhaps ANY rpg product. Full color, and most of the art is quite good (though I still cannot stand 3E halflings..hee hee). The pages are made out to look like an ancient tome with dirt, tears and other marks..quite cool to look at. Of course looks are not everything. Personally, I would prefer a more utilitarian B&W book w/ less art for perhaps 10-15 bucks cheaper, however WOTC has said that The Realms are going to be it's premiere line of gaming products, and I cannot argue with that regarding amount of content, and how it looks. This book is PACKED with info, due it's hefty page count and small typeface (but still comfy to read size-wise). It also includes a full-color pull out map of the continent of Faerun (which is the heart of the FR campaign).

The first 2 chapters deal with Characters options and Magic "exclusive" to the Realms. This includes the various demi-human subraces (yes I still use the 1&2E term), new feats based on a PC's home region, Prestige Classes,and spells. Pretty much "rules-stuff". I'm not a "rules guy" and generally abhor extra complexity added to my games, but I find most of this stuff useful without adding complexity, and enjoyable to read regardless. Since 3E lends itself to lots of extra "power ups", this will be the players fave section. I would also note that most of this stuff is quite ueable in a non-FR campaign.

The rest of the book is the "meat" of the FRCS, and as a DM the parts I find most useful. We have chapters dealing with everyday life in Faerun,commerce, climate, religion & magic in society,technology(or lack thereof),regional decriptions(interspersed w/ a few of the realms (in)famous NPC's as well as some new ones),Deities, history, power groups, A DM's section, and some monsters and a couple of scenarios. All of this text is full of adventure hooks, and crunchy bits...just the kind of gaming stuff I like to read. I liken these parts of the book to a "Realms Construction Set", providing enuff detail for a DM to work with, without so much to constrain him. The FRCS is a great starting over point for Realms fans who have become a bit burned-out on the setting due to its' prior volumes of overwhelming detail, or for others who may have shyed away from the Realms because of it.

As I said before this book is packed with info, and will not dissapoint most folks. I have heard complaints that perhaps the scope of this product was too great, and that a more narrow but better detailed book should have been written. Perhaps for the current Realms fan this would be a good way to go, but as a draw for new players, or folks who have for one reason or another ignored the setting, I think the way the FRCS is presented works. It gives enough detail for a DM to get the ball rolling in the "most popular" areas of Faerun, while still providing at least a kickstart for people who would startup a campaign eleswehere in the Realms. This has always been an argument among Realms fans: Some want more detail on geographic areas of the Realms that could result or have resulted in poor sales figures. Others are happy w/ the focus WOTC has kept on the "heartlands" of Faerun (since they are the most popular and well-used geographic regions). I personally am a member of the latter camp, though as a GH fan who has begged and pleaded for more GH products, I can certainly sympathize. Be that as it may, I think the FRCS hit's its mark as the "core" book,. much moreso than previous FR "core" boxed sets. I hate to say that, because I really do love that tattered "old grey box" on my shelf, but I will refrain from taking us on a nostalgia trip.

"BUT DOES IT ...?"

IMO, The FRCS does a marvelous job of "fixing" many of the percieved problems with FR materials of the past. Rules-wise the new 3E system has helped tremendously of course to balance some of the more questionable rules glitches that plagued the previous incarnations of D&D & FR in particular,such as power levels of specialty priests, different forms of magic & spells, and magic items.

Many FR fans have voiced that past products contained too much background without enough meat and crunchy bits for gaming. Other Realms fans disagree, stating that the lengthy prose of past products is what gave the Realms it's unique feel, and provided their inspiration. The new FRCS is definitely written in the "crunchy bits" gaming style. While I prefer a mix of both styles, If I had to choose one, I defenitely would go w/ crunchy bits. I think this new "direct" approach really adds some extra appeal to the setting, especially for those new to the setting, or those who have been skeptical. While previous FR products might have been more fun to read, there's no doubt in my mind that the dry,matter of fact, style of the new FRCS is much more useful to this DM. And I do believe that with this new empahasis WOTC has put on "making the realms your own" & "lots o' crunchy bits", it will start to appeal to many who have not given FR the time of day in the past. It certainly has changed my own perspective of the setting, and though I've never been a "realms basher" , I find the things that used to annoy me about FR much easier to deal with either in game or out of game. Much less emphasis has been put on the major NPC's of the Realms which until recently have been the biggest bane of the setting for most fans and non-fans alike. I have to say that this book has taken me from a love-hate relationship w/ the Realms to a considerably more positive one (and this is coming from a dyed-in-the-wool Greyhawk fan!).

CONCLUSION

It is this reviewers opinion that the FRCS is quite possibly the best RPG camapign setting book ever published as far as production values, and amount of useful gaming l material is concerned. I have played, and owned many various RPG's and gravitate towards games that have very well designed campaign settings...Middle-Earth, Glorantha, Tekumel, etc. While I'm not sure that FR will ever touch those three in creativity, and originality, I will say the the new FRCS holds great promise, and might just suprise some people like myself who have sat on the fence, or for folks who might not have given the Realms a fair shake. I would gladly pay twice the admission price of the FRCS for a setting book done in similar style for the abovementioned worlds or Greyhawk. The FRCS has defenitely raised the bar, both for quality of FR products, and as a standard other companies should strive for in their own products.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

WotC launched their premium campaign setting with the impressive Forgotten Realms Hardcover - artistically one of the finest gaming books ever produced. The premium quality is reflected in the price unfortunately - but luckily the material presented in it and the strong supporting supplements that have followed in its wake makes the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting a must-buy for most DMs.

The Stuff

The game mechanics in this book are absolutely magnificent. This book takes the core races and classes of the PHB and gives them a colourful refurbishment. The subraces of Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings add tremendously to the game - so much that I personally would never go back to the standard races. The best part is the addition of the three races of Planetouched - the Planescape favourites Aasimar, Genasi and Tiefling - great races that make a fine addition to any campaign.

I consider most of the Prestige Classes in this book essential for any fantasy campaign: Arcane Devotee, Archmage, Divine Disciple, Divine Champion, Divine Seeker, Guild Thief, Hierophant, and Runecaster are generalistic PrCs that fill essential roles fantasy mythology.

The new concept of Regional Feat is a jewel - imaginative and evocative feats that add tremendously to your characters background. Add to this the pletora of new clerics domains - including unvaluable ones like Craft, Darkness, Moon, Orc, Ocean, Spell and Thievery - surely domains that would have been in the core books had space permitted so. As an additional bonus you'll get nifty new spells and game mechanics for interesting magical variants such as Rune Casting, Spellfire, The Shadow Weave (with its Shadow Adept PrC) and Wild Magic (many of which are further expanded on in Magic of Faerûn).

The FRCS also offers a wide variety of colourful gods - including all the extra demi-human deities you'll need - most of which are easily adaptable to any setting or campaign. The material presented is very useful and one can only start to guess how much more value this material will gain when Faiths and Pantheons is released.

The monsters in the FRCS are simply awesome. The Shades are one of the coolest concepts I've seen for a long long time. I love the idea of Shades - it's a new addition to the Realms and could turn out to be THE VILLAINS of the new FR....

The Fluff

Unlike most campaign settings, "fluff" is not the right word for the informative - non game-mechanic - content of this book. Everything is presented in a way that is useful and applicable. The Geographic regions are superbly described. All the useful statistics like Capital, Population (and racial percentages), Government, Religions, Imports, Exports, Alignment, Life and Society, Major Geographical Features, Important Sites,Regional History and Plots and Rumours are right at your fingertips. Important NPCs, close-up maps and trademaps are also included. This is the format all campaign sourcebooks should follow - it's a shining example of organisatorial skill and methodic thinking. Wonderful is an understatement.

Another great feature of this product is the Life in Faerûn chapter - essentially a DM's Guide to Running the Realms. It includes great information about everything from Time and Seasons to Coin and Commerce on to Craft and Engineering. Religion, Holy Days, Magic in Society and more is presented in a way that makes it immediately useful. There IS no fluff in this book. It's the ultimate tool-box for running a campaign and it covers an impressive amount of space.

Final Words

The FRCS laid the groundwork for the following supplements. The impressive design, wonderful artwork and high text density has set an example for fantasy game design. Luckily, the supplementary products - Magic of Faerûn and Lords of Darkness - have fully lived up to the incredible standard set by the FRCS. Look out for my upcoming reviews of those. Buy this book. You won't regret it, if for nothing else than the awe-striking effect it will have on you....

-Zarrock

 

[Arnwyn]

The format for all future campaign settings...

Indeed, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (FRCS) is not only a game book, but a work of art. They went all out with the production quality on this one.

All the other reviews have covered this book very well, so I'll just note what I found to be this book's strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths: Most of it.
The character creation section was very well done, with a myriad of character races, all detailed in PHB style. For those running FR campaigns, this section is an absolute godsend, noting the PHB races and loads of FR-specific ones that we've all known and loved from the Realms for years. It was particularily nice to see the aasimar, tiefling, and genasi show up (originally from Planescape and well-detailed in the Planewalker's Handbook for 2e), since FR has always been fairly integrated with the planes.

The Life in Faerun chapter is also a fantastic chapter. In the past, most campaigns have ignored the everyday life of the Realm. This chapter describes very well what it's like to simply live in such a world. Other authors take note - this was brilliant.

And what I cheered about the most: a map of trading commodities, and a list of imports/exports for each region of Faerun. How great is that? To date, no other (D&D)setting I know has included such valuable information.

There are new prestige classes, and they are appropriate - both for the setting, and for what prestige classes were "meant" to be (as noted in the DMG). They're not like some of the travesties found in WotC's class books. The Harper and Red Wizard were especially appreciated.

Other nice aspects of this book include additional domains to fit the myriad of gods in the FR setting, 2 mini-adventures (not very good ones, but nice that they're there), a good-looking map, and an absolutely wicked index that makes finding things a snap.

Weaknesses: Not much.
As mentioned above, though there are 2 adventures, they aren't that inspired. Fairly dull, actually. The higher-level one (a dragon's lair) is better than the low-level one.

There are some inconsistencies with previous FR material, which is something that really gets my goat. Some of the gods' weapons were very odd, and the "thunder blessing" of the dwarves (many dwarf twins being born) was also a little bit, um, kooky. IMO, of course. All of this is moot if you're new to FR, though.

The map, while nice-looking, is less than useful, as the scale is so huge (1"=120 miles). Turns out to be a pretty picture, as opposed to tracking characters' movements.

The NPCs are scattered throughout the geography chapter (in the areas that they "hang out" the most), so it makes them a little difficult to find (the index is great, though).

I'd say that the geography section is weak, but what does one expect? Faerun is a big place, and it's not reasonable to expect good detail on all the areas.

If we're all lucky, this book will set the trend for future campaign settings.

 

[dnd3dm]

I own two copies of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (FRCS). I keep one at home, so it remains in good shape,
and I take the other with me to games, and it gets beaten up. I do this so I don't have to run out to the store
immediately when my books become really "well-traveled". Yes, I paid around eighty bucks for both at once at my
local hobby store. But the FRCS, probably the best of the hardcover Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks WOTC has
put out, is well worth the forty dollar cost per unit. I consider the FRCS as much of a core rulebook as the Player's
Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide or Monster Manual, because of the quality and breadth of its contents.

Now that you know that this will be a favorable review, let us get the flaws described and out of the way. I will
admit that I came into this with some big expectations. No book is perfect, of course, and if this one included
everything that I, an FR fan all through second edition, wanted it to contain, it would be about six- or eight-hundred
pages in length and cost about sixty or eighty dollars, which almost no one would want to pay.

Anyway, my biggest problems with it are the lack of magic item descriptions (those are in Magic of Faerun), and
that the adventures in the back are a waste of space. I also wish they had devoted some more space to the gods
(of which there are over one-hundred and twenty, but only around thirty are given any detail) or at least the
cosmology, since it is so different then from that of Oerth (Greyhawk). Finally, it is a tad difficult to find a region in
the Geography chapter (though the index and table of contents help with this). Most of these are just nitpicks from a
fanboy, but bear with me.

The thing that bugs me the most about the absence of magic items in this tome is that it describes quite a few
NPCs in detail who have fairly unique items, such as Elminster's eversmoking pipe, or Elaith Craulnober's moonblade.
I'd like to know what these do, otherwise I feel like the NPCs aren't really complete. I suppose the DM could make
something up, but since the Realms are such magical places, it seemed wrong to completely shove off the magic
item section in another book like Magic of Faerun (MoF). (Moonblades are in fact detailed in MoF.) Also related to this
are unique spells such as the Simbul' s synstodweaomer, which could have described in the spell section, but
only gets a passing phrase in that NPC's description.

The adventures in the back are not a great use of space. The first, The Color of Ambition, which is for beginning level
(1st or 2nd) characters pits the PCs against the Red Wizards of Thay, setting them against a slave smuggling operation
from a Thayan enclave. This one may not be original, but it actually has some promise, since it showcases some of the
more notorious villains of the Realms, and how one might use them. The second, Green Bones, for 16th level characters,
is a small dungeon crawl culminating in an encounter with an undead green dracolich. The one thing that the first
scenario has over the second is that it does encourage some role-playing, while the latter adventure is mostly combat.
Dracoliches are, in my opinion, a little too tough for most groups unless they are quite resourceful. Moreover, there is a
big gap between 1st and 16th level; in my experience, many groups never make it that high. An adventure for 16th
level characters just does not seem to be that usable to me. I would have preferred to see one adventure for 1st to
3rd level characters, maybe just The Color of Ambition, and the rest of that space devoted to something else like gods,
magic items, or more spells. If they were adamant about putting in two adventures, the second should have been
for characters of levels between fifth and ninth, in my thinking.

I realize that most of this book was devoted to geography and Realms-specific rules, which I like, but the section on
the deities is too thin, and they should have explained Toril's cosmology, or planar layout, a little better, since it
doesn't use the Great Wheel detailed in Manual of the Planes as Oerth, the D and D campaign world, does. They
should have put the monster section containing creatures such as the rothe, the riding lizards, and the dracolich
template into the Monsters of Faerun book, since they already put out the separate monster volume anyway.
However, my favorite gods and goddesses, like Mystra, Tyr and Torm got detailed entries, and I realize that
the Realms deities filled up three second edition volumes, so they couldn't have put all of them in. I would like more
than just a sentence on each of the gods homes, though, and a paragraph or two about using this book with
Manual of the Planes. However, the chief demihuman racial gods are the same as in the Player's Handbook, and
Faiths and Pantheons will be out a month from the time of this writing, so this nitpick of mine is pretty minor, except
that you have to shell out another thirty bucks to get the rest of the gods. But then, you also have to pay another thirty for
MoF to get the magic items and the rest of the spells, and about twenty-two dollars to get the rest of the monsters.

The last of my problems is trying to find the region you are interested in, especially during game play, and it's a
little more difficult to find an NPC. The NPCs are listed with the regions they normally frequent, but if you are
unable to find the region, then you can't find the NPC, either. Before I forget, my last little complaint is that the
history chapter should have been in the front of the book, or at least before the Daily Life and Geography chapters.

Those are the negatives. I will point out the good parts now. These will be brief, as others have described them
as well in their reviews.

The character creation chapter is great. The section on the various player character races is one of the most complete
I have yet seen. It takes the races from the PH and not only adapts them to the Realms, it also presents variants
such as the strongheart halfling, and the gold dwarf, which are interesting alternatives to the standard 7 in the PH.
It also presents races such as the aasimar, tieflings, and genasi, who were originally from the Planescape campaign
for second edition.

It also provides some much needed options, such as lots of new feats, many of which are specific to the region the
character comes from or has lived in for a while. My favorites are Spellcasting Prodigy and Greater Spell Penetration
(for the shameless power-gamer in me), Improved Familiar, which finally provides a game-balanced way to get a
pseudodragon as a pet, and Education, which allows you to simulate a character who has had formal schooling.
There are a number of prestige classes, some of which are only five levels, but most of which are at least decent.
My favorites out of these include the Divine Disciple (a class for divine casters) and the PurpleDragon Knight of
Cormyr, both of which are five levels. The prestige class in here that I don't like is the Runecaster, whose ability to
inscribe runes of divine spells make some of them way too handy. If have the Travel domain from the PH or the Time
domain in this book, you can make potentially make haste, or teleport into runes that others can use whenever they
want, which strikes me as broken. The best part of the chapter on characters, in my opinion, is the section on new cleric
domains. It greatly expands the depth and breadth that a deity can have, and helps to illustrate the diversity of the
Realms as a whole.

The Life in Faerun chapter is a prize. Ever wanted to know how the other (non-adventuring) half lives? It's all here.
The calendar of the Realms, forms of government, and the impact of religion and magic on everyday life are all
delved into here. Overall, the setting could be characterized as somewhere between late medieval feudalism
and early Renaissance culture. The latter is true particularly in the cities. And as other people have mentioned, the
map of imports, exports and trade routes is unique. In what other game product are you going to find something
like that? The color fold-out map that comes with the book isn't quite as useful, since it covers such a large area at once.

Although it's a bit of a jumble, the Geography chapter is the main course of the book. Here you find nearly everywhere
in Faerun detailed just enough to make it distinctive, but with enough latitude left for each DM to make it unique.
Every area has at least a couple of adventuring hooks to get the gears in your devious brain moving.

A chapter on History, which should have been toward the front, and a section on the gods, on which I have already
commented, follows the Geography chapter. The good stuff back here is the chapter on running the Realms. It goes
over various famous dungeons and adventuring sites of the Realms, such as the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar
and Dragonspear Castle, in short paragraphs. It also gives the DM brief blurbs on which monsters might be found
where, where to start a campaign, and how to go about developing an area that hasn't been covered in too much
detail. All of these are handy additions to the advice and tips in the DMG. Handing out experience points to an
adventuring party is also clarified, especially where it relates to races like aasimar and tieflings, which are slightly
more powerful than standard PC races.

In conclusion, this book is the new model for how a Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting should be presented.
Even Wizards themselves will have trouble topping it.

-Gary Townsend
dnd3dm@netscape.net

 

[Messageboard Golem]

This and other reviews can be found at http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/darkcitadel/roleplay/roleplay.html

Introduction: I anticipated this book so highly until I finally got my grimy paws all over it, and boy was I happy when I cracked this thing open and took a peek. Up until this point, I had been on the cusp over the D20 system. I was very disappointed with the revamping of the magic system, the redefining of all of the spells (which made all the extras in the Tome of Magic, The Complete Wizard's Handbook, and other spell sources totally useless and un-canon if you will), the Assassin as a prestige class, the lack (or omission) of certain creatures from the exceptionally lean Monster Manual, and the general blah-ness of both Sword and Fist and Defenders of the Faith. These were exceptional let-downs, partially because I had been so enthused by the Player's Handbook, and everything that followed just didn't seem to make par. The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting would make or break 3rd Edition (and thereby D20) for me.

Cover: The cover looked beautiful. Like the core rulebooks, it had a very old feel to it, but unlike the others, it didn't have that glossy finish that wears away only after a hundred and fifty million fingerprint smudges mar the surface. The device on the cover was interesting; overall, it was pretty decent.

World Detail and Setting Background: The pugnatious Elminster fashions a nice introduction to the book, which gives a brief description of the feel of the Realms and is designed to hook the reader. I plowed through this part, knowing full well the basic background from the old revised boxed set from 2nd Edition. There is a rather large section on character creation and how the races and classes relate to the various areas of the Realms. Magic is fairly well detailed (much more extensively than in any other book), and various different types are illustrated in passing, especially the incredible shadow weave. The "Life in Faerun" chapter was very much like the introductory chapter to The Grand Tour of the Realms from the revised boxed set, but it did detail the various languages much better. It failed to show examples of the new alphabets, and they screwed up on the Thorass and Espruar alphabets, only giving a translation from Dethek into Roman for the different letters. In addition, they ditched Auld Wyrmish for the "3rd Edition" standard, Draconic, which I can accept, but am mildly annoyed at. I liked Auld Wyrmish very much, and I thought it added a great deal of flavor to the Realms. Nor did they list the languages of the giants (Jotun, Jotunhaug, Jotunstein, etc. from Giantcraft), nor did they list Drowic or High Drow, but since they are somewhat obscure, I'll let it slide. The "Running the Realms" chapter was very good, equivalent to the old book from the old boxed set, but they also had a comprehensive list of dungeons, which I found absolutely wonderful. The History chapter and the Geography chapter were so jam-packed with information it was incredible, and for the first time in any of their basic core setting material they described the events in the Time of Troubles. A political map of the Realms (AT LAST!!!!) was provided (something I have craved for a long time), and the descriptions of the different regions and nations within Faerun was very complete and thorough, touching every major political, magical, and divine power. The Religion section was very thorough as well, although only a few of the gods were detailed (see the free band-aid posted on the web-enhancement section of Wizards' website for the rest of the gods).

Races: The races were all there, and fairly well detailed. The overall feel, however, is changed. This time around (quite unlike the boxed set), the races are back on the upswing. Dwarves are expanding again, retaking their old homes, and the elves are leaving Evermeet (what the hell???). They totally did away with the negative, grim outlook on the future of the Dwarves as a dying race, headed for extinction, which gave them such a fantastic (although fatalistic) and tragic battle against inevitability. Likewise, elves were retreating to Evermeet, whose king was recently assassinated. But now, all of a sudden, the Thunder Blessing has pushed Dwarven youth to retake their old ancestral homes, and the young elves who have never seen Faerun also wish to bring about a rebirth of Elven society and Elven kingdoms in the Realms. To me this is just some idiotic ploy to try to put yet another band-aid on something that was too dark and too tragic (and hence, too constrasting) to the "NEW" outlook of the Forgotten Realms. They are appealing to all of the young kids who are too unimaginative to try 2nd Edition, but got pulled in by the cool art and new movie of 3rd Edition. The genasi and the aasimar were a great addition, but the writers revealed where tieflings come from, something that was kept secret in the 2nd Edition Planescape boxed set. So now, every plot line that every tiefling's DM had held back for that ultimate plot twist was just ruined. The new rules for "Powerful Races" were indeed good for balancing the abilities of races that seem ahead of others, but in practice, it can get really cumbersome when the party's 3rd level sorcerer can stand up to more punishment than the 1st level Drow cleric. It could use a little tuning.

Classes: Nothing new. Everything is the same. The monk is munchkin, and shouldn't belong in the Forgotten Realms (EVER!), but that is another argument. As for the Prestige Classes, they were overall excellent. The Guild Thief, Purple Dragon Knight, Hathran, Harper Scout, Runecaster, Red Wizard, and War Wizard were all well developed and fit their niches perfectly, especially since they have existed since 1st Edition Forgotten Realms (just not as Prestige Classes), and hence, they were my absolute favorites.

Feats: The whole regional feat system was a fantastic development, which encourages and helps players to tailor characters to their origins. Definitely a great innovation. Also, I must comment on the use of feats for the mastery of alternate forms of magic, such as the Shadow Weave and Rune Magic, which is a welcome and versatile development on Wizards' part. This really helped to flesh the Realms out even further.

Magic: All of the domains and spells I had hoped for and more, honestly. They were relatively faithful in their translations of the newer spells from the older ones. Many of the domains and spells were definitely needed to represent the diversity in the divine portfolios. Some were disappointed in the lack of spells, but I was not. I actually expected less after the disappointment of some of the other WotC D20 products, but this was fulfilling.

Monsters: Not many of them, but the ones they included were actually very good, and very world-specific. The addition of the kir-lanaans was actually a nifty idea, although some might disagree. I was glad they put in rothe and tressyms, but I wish they had put a few more Realms-specific animals and creatures in the book, instead of leaving them for the Monsters of Faerun book later.

Adventures: The adventures are definitely not incredible. Indeed, it can be argued that they are not even proper for 1st level characters to start with, which was originally the regular formula for most campaign settings. Honestly, they could have been pushed to the very back. Their position really messed up the layout of the book, and just created a general sense of confusion when reading or paging through the book.

Overall: All-together, this book was the best buy I think I have ever made for the D20 system. Although it was a bit pricy, the art work was incredible (but that isn't incredibly important to me, although it makes the book nice to look at) and the amount of information that they packed into the book was incredible (although they could have saved me the printer paper and ink and just put the extra 8 or 9 pages with the rest of the gods in the damn book just for completeness' sake). This book proved to me that Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition had some merit, and it managed to soften me up to the system as a whole, making me much more objective of it and approving of its versatility and open-endedness now that I had seen it in action.

 

[Vanuslux]

I had been looking forward to the 3rd Edition relaunch of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting with much anticipation and great expectations. The Forgotten Realms novels were what lured me into fantasy role-playing and I was a big fan of the setting back in the 2nd Edition days.

Appearances - Gone are the days of the classic boxed set format for campaign settings. The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (FRCS) is a gorgeous 320 page hardbound book with a map gooed to the back cover. The map is pretty nice, though it doesn't cover as large of an area as I would have liked. Aside from one annoyance, the layout of the book is quite likeable. The interior art ranges from mediocre to quite good, with most of it just being nice but dull.

Content -

Introduction: Just a few pages of overview to get us reacquainted with the setting and give us the stats for Elminster, the single most annoying character in all of role-playing. Don't get me wrong...I don't care that he's uber-powerful. I'm just sick to death of the fact that he's everywhere you turn in the Forgotten Realms. Absence makes the heart grow fonder...so take a vacation already.

Chapter 1 - Characters: This book cuts to the chase and goes straight to how to make a character in the Forgotten Realms. 46 pages of races, racial variants, feats, and prestige classes. The presentation is good, and I have few complaints about the crunchy stuff except that the prestige classes seem like they're overpowered. I somehow expected that from the Forgotten Realms though.

Chapter 2 - Magic: Magic is a central part of the Forgotten Realms, so I was surprised that this chapter was only 22 pages long. A lot of different types of magic are touched upon very briefly, but it's obvious that they saved the meaty stuff for the Magic of Faerun supplement. I was delighted, however, by the load of new domains and thrilled that they didn't include the loathsome concept of prestige domains. The news spells struck me as run-of-the-mill, but not bad.

Chapter 3 - Life in Faerun: Another 22 page long chapter, this one a pleasant overview of what life is like in the land of Faerun. The seasons, the languages, the coinage and things like that, with a handful of new equipment. The weapons are cool and most of the items having a degree of usefulness like insect netting and bandoleers. However, I do question the sense of not one, but two herbal contraceptives (one for each gender, and far more effective than any drug available today). All in all a decent chapter.

Chapter 4 - Geography: Here lies 134 pages of information about the diverse regions of Faerun. I really fell in love with this chapter. Not only does each entry have the basic stats (Capital, population, imports/exports, etc), history, major geographical features, important locations, and societal information, but it they each also have plots and rumors associated with the area which makes it hard to read any given entry without getting a good idea for an adventure or even campaign. I could have done without the NPCs in each entry, but they didn't bother me either.

Chapter 5 - Deities: The gods of the Forgotten Realms are real movers and shakers, rarely content to leave the mortal's to their own devices. This 28 page chapter gives a nice run down of a hefty number of deities, and the information is pretty useful for both DM and players. Definitely an excellent chapter.

Chapter 6 - History: I'm not a real history buff in real life, and I'm not much more interested in the history of a fantasy world. I'm more into current events. That is why I'm glad this chapter was a scant 12 pages. It covers some of the major points and gives an "abbreviated" timeline. That's pretty much all I care to know.

Chapter 7 - Organizations: I was disappointed in this chapter, as I would have liked it to have taken a cue from the Geography chapter and included plots and rumors. At only 12 pages, there really isn't enough room to do justice to the 12 organizations represented, especially with NPC stats taking up most of that space.

Chapter 8 - The Color of Ambition: A 4 page mini-adventure. Not bad, not great. It's just there. I would rather it not have been, but at least it didn't take up much space.

Chapter 9 - Running the Realms: This is an eccentric 14 page chapter that is hard to describe. It is mostly a DM's grab-bag. A list of some known dungeons, level adjustments for a handful of races, tips on running a campaign. Stuff like that. Mostly useful, if somewhat chaotic.

Chapter 10 - Green Bones: Another short adventure, this one 6 pages long and no more special than the other one. What really annoys me is that they didn't group the adventures together. Putting a useful chapter between them just highlights their near uselessness.

Chapter 11 - Monsters: This chapter is 8 pages of spiffy critters. Not a whole lot of them, mind you. Just some lizards, a winged cat, the death tyrant beholder, dracolich, kir-lanan gargoyle, rothe (underdark cattle), and shade. Good stuff, but left me wanting more.

Index - This book has an awesome index. Enough said.

In Conclusion - The FRCS is a big, cool, expensive book. It met my expectations and surpassed a few of them. There were some minor disappointments, but mostly nitpicks. There's a lot of stuff crammed into these pages, though most of it is setting specific. Hence its usefulness to non-Forgotten Realms gamers is diminished greatly...but that's generally how it is with setting books.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

This is actually the first D&D supplement I got since the early 1990s when I got a boatload of Classic D&D material, and I have to say the technical quality of the book was what blew me away this time. I read some of the other reviews and I found it somewhat funny that so many reviews focused on presentation, which has, in my opinion, always been of secondary priority. But the excellent technical execution does leave a good taste in the mouth.

So, now I have the book I have dreamed of having for about 5 or 6 years, since I first heard of Forgotten Realms. And yes, after careful examination and working on adventures based on the book, I have to say this is a very good book, well worth the 50 euro price tag.

The book goes on very well describing the general geography and the history of the Realms, and I especially value the chapters describing the life on Faerûn - very good look on what's going on. The only problem I see with the descriptions of the places is that they're not very detailed - but at least there's some description for most of the places, enough that the DM can make a credible work of describing different places without buying another $upplement (and besides, WotC freebie PDFs of earlier editions of FR supplements are very very nice and are easy to adapt). In short, the geography descriptions are detailed enough, and if they aren't, at least detailed enough to get imagination rolling. Nice enough to shape the Realms to everyone's tastes.

The character details, especially the new prestige classes, are pretty good and very nicely adaptable. I like the character region system where characters get languages, extra starting equipment based on their home region, in addition to the choice of regional feats - this gives characters nice feel and helps shaping the character background. FR characters, including the nice examples of FR heroes, villains and legends sprinkled through the book, have their unique feel of their own. The chapter on deities and cosmology is very nice, and undoubtedly of great fun when pondering the world's spiritual side.

There are some minor flaws, even if their fixing would mean increasing the page count... I would have wanted more of map pages. The poster map is good, but difficult to use at times. Only two insert maps are included, naturally for the two suggested areas of placing the campaign in (The Silver Marches and the Dalelands).

Also, I'd have wished for one of the two-page full maps (for example, the political map) to have page numbers for each nation - This would have made finding different places much easier for the uninitiated, now I got very familiar with the index.

Also, it's too bad that the Monsters and Magic have been largely split to supplements of their own - I'd have really wished for both, or at least the Monsters, to be included to the book (well, it's not like the world is unrecognizable with just the Monster Manual creeps...)

In short, a very good book and well worth its price.