Look What ED GREENWOOOD Is Doing! Forgotten Realms: The Unofficial, Non-Canon, Unlicensed, Utterly U

There's no news of an official Forgotten Realms book for D&D (at least not yet), but Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood is forging ahead with his own! Greenwood is writing Forgotten Realms: The Unofficial, Non-Canon, Unlicensed, Utterly Unapproved 50-Year History under the auspices of The Ed Greenwood Group and plans to release it at Gen Con in August this year, and once a week there will be updates on the web where he'll "peek behind the curtain and let you know something else about the untold history of the Realms, things you’ve never known".
Here's the full announcement:

"Welcome to the unofficial history of the Forgotten Realms.® Have you ever wondered why I, the guy who created the Realms in the first place, decided to share it with the wider world? Do you want to hear behind-the-scenes stories, some of those that can now be told, about why things are the way they are? Why, for instance, that from the beginning the Forgotten Realms® maps didn’t have hexes all over them, so the rivers didn’t run in little diagonal lines along the edges of hexes, but rather the maps looked like maps of real places, rather than game maps? Ever wondered about things like that?

Well, for the answers to those questions and many others, just keep visiting our site throughout the year because once a week we’ll peek behind the curtain and let you know something else about the untold history of the Realms, things you’ve never known. Things you may not even have thought to ask about, things that are deep dark secrets of the Realms.

See you every week, throughout the year!

The Ed Greenwood Group will launch its first projects in August at GenCon 2015 in Indianapolis—Forgotten Realms: The Unofficial, Non-Canon, Unlicensed, Utterly Unapproved 50-Year History by Ed Greenwood, curated by Brian Cortijo and All is Lust: Letters With a Hooded Lady by Ed Greenwood and The Hooded One.

Join us at RealmsSecretariat.com each week as Ed Greenwood continues the tale of how the Forgotten Realms went from a short story to becoming one of the world’s most beloved shared settings. All stories are totally unofficial—100% unapproved—not authorized, sanctioned, censored, or redacted in any way. Herewith we present the unvarnished Ed Greenwood and his take on the past fifty years."
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[video=youtube;XFdU3fUeBSI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XFdU3fUeBSI[/video]
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[Irennan]

If that were the case, then my only interest in 5e would be completely gone. Especially after all their talking about Ed's being at the helm again, about the Realms being restored and so on.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I would say that it just means that Ed had to get this produced in time for the 50th anniversary.

Sorry bro, meant to give XP for your post.

******

WotC hasn't quit the sourcebook market, in my opinion. If we don't get an FRCS, we'll get the Realms in pieces: adventures, small region sourcebooks and novels, plus computer games.

 

[Zireael]

Ain't the name Forgotten Realms trademark or something? I guess WotC wouldn't send Ed Greenwood a C&D letter. Too much bad press. Maybe.

Heh

Can't wait for GenCon then.

 

[Queer Venger]

Is anyone on this thread going to Gencon? I'll be attending and would be great if we could meetup at the Candlekeep gathering. Ive heard of it but never attended it. I think this year its going to be "Women of the Realms" so probably will feature major female NPCS. Should be great!!

Here is more info.

 

[Cyberqat]

Okay, the old guy weighs in. I stared in this hobby with the three little OED books and Greyhawk back in 76. I also spent my young adult life in Maidson, WI down the road from Lake Geneva. My mom, who was a freelance writer, wrote the first popular press article on Dungeons and Dragons.

This is the actual, sordid tale of the early history of TSR and D&D.

OED was a collaboration between Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and the Blume brothers. They had a tiny little company that had previously published wargaming miniatures rules (Chaimail, Tractics). It also published a little single-color newsletter that was one step up from being run off on a mimeograph machine called "The Strategic Review". At the time, the big players in war games were a company called SPI and, to a lesser extent, Avalon Hill.

The original D&D rules were actually a "cap system' for adding "heroes" to their existing Chainmail fantasy miniatures rules. There was one sentence, a;most an afterthought, that said "oh and you can play this just with pen and paper if you don't want to bother with miniatures." And thus, roleplay gaming was born.

The OED rules were *very* simple and heavily inspired by the characters and monsters of Lord of the Rings. Most of what you think of as D&D, which would become canonized in AD&D, were in fact player created extensions. Players would send these into the Strategic review (which became Dragon Magazine a bit later) and they would print them for use by other fans.

D&D was created mostly by the players and this is something you should never, ever forget.

As D&D took off and TSR started making real money, a number of bad things happened. The first thing was that Gygax and the Blumes pushed Dave Arneson out of the business. He sued TSR and eventually won a settlement, you can find more abotu that if you google it. (In fact TSR was in court a total of 4 times and never, ever won a court case.)

In a plot worthy of Shakespeare, the Blumes then pushed Gygax out and took over the entire company themselves. They ran it into the ground with bad management and eventually sold it to the heirs of the Buck Rogers creator.

When D&D started, there were no worlds or even modules. Just rules. We made the adventures and settings up ourselves. While TSR eventually started selling pre-canned adventures under the name "modules", a great many of us never used them, preferring our own imaginations.

Ed Greenwood was one such GM with a particularly detailed and interesting world. One of his friends went to work for TSR and encouraged him to bring it to them and them to look at it. You can read all about that in the intro to "Elminsters Guide to the Forgotten Realms." It started as modules and grew into a complete campaign setting offering hitting its height, IMO, in the City of Splendours boxed set. To this day one of the most detailed and lovingly created setting products of all time.

TSR, however, was having more and more difficult times financially. In the end they committed the cardinal sin of all business-- they started suing their own customers. Depserate for every dime, they tried to shut down the free flow of fan made game materials between fans, in particular suing computer bulletin board systems that had come into being for the purpose of fans trading advice and information. (A BBS system is the precursor to this sort of forum before there was the internet.)

When they were just about dead, WOTC bought them, which leads to a whole different chapter I wont get into except to say that WOTC polished and centralized the campagin settings business.

Some people like where WOTC has taken the FR recently. Otehr people (mysel included) feel that it has been watered down and confused for purely marketing reasons. As an example, if you read Elminsters Guide to the Forgotten Realms you will notice that Dragonborn and Tieflings are not mentioned. These come from other less financially successful D&D settings (Eberron and Planescape) and TSR pulled them over into FR with 5E, mostly cause a segment of their audience really liked them.

I for one am greatly enjoying Ed's first book on *his* realms. It is the one I grew to love and the one that loosely inspired my own game world. I am thus looking forward to everything else he publishes about them.

 

[Dire Bare]

Some people like where WOTC has taken the FR recently. Otehr people (mysel included) feel that it has been watered down and confused for purely marketing reasons. As an example, if you read Elminsters Guide to the Forgotten Realms you will notice that Dragonborn and Tieflings are not mentioned. These come from other less financially successful D&D settings (Eberron and Planescape) and TSR pulled them over into FR with 5E, mostly cause a segment of their audience really liked them.

With the info we have so far, this book won't be Greenwood's own version of the Realms, but rather a history of how the Realms was developed. Although it may very well include elements of Ed's own campaign.

Both dragonborn and tieflings in the Realms go back to 2E. Dragonborn weren't called that (I forget their actual name) and were some sort of savage dragonfolk used as mercenaries by bad guys (maybe the Zhents). I remember seeing them in one of the many Monstrous Compendium appendixes. Tieflings got added to the Realms during the 2E era for the same reason they appeared during 3E, 4E, and 5E . . . they are cool and folks wanted to play them in the Realms!

While neither race may have been Greenwood's ideas to incorporate in the Realms, it's a shared world setting now and isn't really "his" anymore. Plus, I don't think it bothers him, as he seems to have been very supportive of what others have brought to the Realms.

 

[Shasarak]

While neither race may have been Greenwood's ideas to incorporate in the Realms, it's a shared world setting now and isn't really "his" anymore. Plus, I don't think it bothers him, as he seems to have been very supportive of what others have brought to the Realms.

I agree, I believe Ed has been clear that his home game is quite different then the "official" Realms

 

[Irennan]

Yeah, to my understanding, it is drastically different from WotC's Realms.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

For a very detailed account of what [MENTION=6791901]Cyberqat[/MENTION] summarized above regarding TSR, see the article "The Ambush at Sheridan Springs" by Jon Peterson.

 

[Cyberqat]

Tiefling are not 2E FR or core 2E PHB. Nor are Dragonborn. Neither were
part of Ed's FR which was conceived in 2E.

(I played 2e extensively.)

Tiefling came in with 2E Planescape.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiefling

The Dragonborn came in in 3.5 and were chiefly developed in Eberron.
(You are correct however that there was a suggestion of them in WOTCs FR for 3.5)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonborn