Lets try this again- 4E FR Campaign Guide

[JeffB]

Just wanted to bump to say I got a good looksee at the 4E FRCG (and PG) finally.

I can see how the FR scholars may not like it- It certainly is not as packed with info as the core 3E book was. When that book was released I gave it a pretty glowing review here- I still think it's a fantastic example of a "all you'll need" campaign setting book.

But the 4E FRCG is certainly MUCH easier on my aging eyes, and as a starting point for a new FR campaign it's considerably more detailed/useful than the 1E grey Box, or 2E revised Grey box (The DMs and Shadowdale booklets were not terribly useful, IME). It is also better organized than those two boxed sets (Though I agree the Loudwater chapter would be better off at, or at least near , the back of the book).

The map- I didn't think it was bad as it was made it out to be, I think the 2E boxed set maps are still the best , but the 4E map would suit my needs (as did the 1E and 3E maps)

Thanks everyone for the comments

 

[Primal]

Just wanted to bump to say I got a good looksee at the 4E FRCG (and PG) finally.

I can see how the FR scholars may not like it- It certainly is not as packed with info as the core 3E book was. When that book was released I gave it a pretty glowing review here- I still think it's a fantastic example of a "all you'll need" campaign setting book.

But the 4E FRCG is certainly MUCH easier on my aging eyes, and as a starting point for a new FR campaign it's considerably more detailed/useful than the 1E grey Box, or 2E revised Grey box (The DMs and Shadowdale booklets were not terribly useful, IME). It is also better organized than those two boxed sets (Though I agree the Loudwater chapter would be better off at, or at least near , the back of the book).

The map- I didn't think it was bad as it was made it out to be, I think the 2E boxed set maps are still the best , but the 4E map would suit my needs (as did the 1E and 3E maps)

Thanks everyone for the comments

Well, in terms of quality and scope of lore, I personally don't think FRCG can ever compare to the Grey Boxed Set. YMMV, of course. Plus a lot of the changes just don't make sense to me (except for the obvious "we need to take it apart" reason). And Loudwater... well, if one is into hammering the players on the head with (unrealistic and badly-written) plot hooks, NPCs and encounters, you might get something out of it. I would at least tear out the town map with its 20 or so residential (i.e. non-keyd) locations (which are supposed to house *thousands* of people) and replace it with my own.

The world map looks... visually bleak and unappealing to me -- plus it's very rushed. I mean, the lack of details, clear stroke lines around the roads, "rough" and angular edges in bodies of water (take a look at Wyverwater, for example), forests look like they're clone stamped from Google Earth maps (which they probably are) and so on.

This book would not have a lot of value for me, but that's just my personal opinion.

 

[JeffB]

Having just got a copy of the OGB after many years- and having read it thoroughly again, I have to say it's awesome in some respects and yet has some serious flaws as a tool for starting a FR campaign. Half of the "lore" in the OGB revolves around NPCs and what other people are doing in the Realms. Reading through the monthly history of 1356 and 1357 is a simply a journal of "here's something cool this month thts going on, and here's how an NPC Adventuring company or other NPCs solved everything and tied up the loose ends". Not to mention there is way too much info detailing NPCs in general and useless things like the entry of "Adventuring Companies" (that got a couple pages??! why?) . None of that information is useful to me as a DM (had it simply been a month by month journal of happenings with no solutions, that would be FAR more useful). Overall I'd say roughly half of the OGB is excellent, and the other half is Useless.

Irregardless of the timeline/canon changes or what I may or may not think of them, the FRCG struck me as more useful a tool for starting a FR campaign from scratch ( though of course it's not really all that "new"- so therefore doesn't have the lustre/impact the OGB did way back when)

EDIT-sorry for the overuse of "useless" and "useful"- perhpas a bit extreme, but that is how the material strikes me in the OGB- extremely bad or extremely good.