Best Forgotten Realms books (any edition)

[JeffB]

The only ones that ever got a lot of mileage out of me

OGB- 1st boxed set
FR5- The Savage Frontier
FR1- Waterdeep and the North
Haunted Halls of EveningStar
Cloak & Dagger

I had a large collection of 2E era FR items, and many of the original 3E books but I never got much use out of it. The 3E book was pretty awesome as a "all you'll need" book, but I actually prefer the 4E FRCS from a usability/inspiration point of view despite the smaller word count.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I'll give the contrarian opinion that I found the 3e FRCS incredibly boring.

However, 3e FR-era Underdark was an excellent supplement. You could run an entire campaign in the Underdark just using this book (well, plus the PH/DMG/MM obviously). The 4e Underdark is pretty good as well, though it's no longer FR-specific.

I am also fond of the 2e (I think? maybe 1e) FR supplement Dwarves Deep. But that is more because I really like dwarves than because of any inherent excellence in the material.

 

[UniversalMonster]

The 4e Campaign Guide and the 4E Players Guide to the Realms are hands down the best sourcebooks for actually gaming in the Realms. I like Haunted Halls of Eveningstar (it's thin and includes Tressym and helplessly sleeping female captives in a dungeon..which gives me extra Greenwood). I also like the Jeff Grubb Forgotten Realms Adventures hardback, and the Drow of the Underdark trade paperback with the black cover.

 

[Shazman]

#1) Forgotten Realms Player's Guide, because it has the Swordmage in it. #2) Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, because it cleared away all of the crap that was the FR and tried to make it gameable. Everything else ranks approximately dead last.

There are so many things wrong with this post, that I don't even know where to begin.

 

[Shazman]

4e Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide. Because it takes 20+ years of uninspired material, kills it, and takes its stuff

This post is also filled with wrongness.

 

[DaveMage]

1. Faiths & Avatars, Powers & Pantheons & Demihuman Deities
2. Undermountain Box Set
3. Volo's Guides (wonderful flavor)
4. Ruins of Myth Drannor Box Set

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I'll pick up the resurrection:

Gray Box
FR1
Faiths and Pantheons
Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue
Volo's Guides
Ruins of Undermountain
3e FRCS

 

[Dragonfriend]

Empires of the Shining Sea above all!

 

[S'mon]

I think if I GM'd the Realms I'd aim to stick with the 1e Grey Box, I think it works better than the directions TSR subsequently took the setting in. Listed NPC levels are too high though, I think Greenwood's perspective on what being high level entails is different from mine, and those listed super-NPCs subsequently warped the setting. So I'd probably halve NPC levels, at least for the uber-NPCs.

 

[angelababy]

One of the first campaign settings I bought as a newbie DM. From the design and layout to the sheer amount of comprehensive content I don't believe it can be beat.Some people hated it in large part because it was one of the books that did not spend pages and pages describing a region in detail.I could run endless campaigns just with that book alone.