D&D General Ed Greenwood's $5K Contract To Sell The Forgotten Realms

D&D historian Ben Riggs has a copy of Ed Greenwood's original Forgotten Realms contract and spends a few words covering it, calling it "The best $5,000 D&D Spent". The setting was sold to TSR for $4,000 in 1987, with another $1,000 for comsulting services.

Ed Greenwood, the creator of the Realms, said he never regretted the decision to sell the property to TSR, the first company to make D&D. The five grand he made was $4,000 for the Realms itself, and then $1,000 for services as a design consultant. (That’s $13,000 in 2022 dollars).

The Best $5000 D&D Spent: Buying the Forgotten Realms — Ben Riggs

How did D&D manage to snag its flagship setting for the price of a car?

www.writerbenriggs.com

 

[Ulfgeir]

That was cheap.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, the opening line pretty much says it all. TSR made the best investment it possibly could have.

Out of curiosity, I wonder how much WotC paid for Eberron?

 

[delericho]

Yeah, the opening line pretty much says it all. TSR made the best investment it possibly could have.

Out of curiosity, I wonder how much WotC paid for Eberron?

Eberron was the winner of the 2002 setting search competition. Apparently, the first prize was $100k.

IIRC there were also prizes for two runners-up settings. I forget the amounts of those prizes.

 

[wedgeski]

Yeah, the opening line pretty much says it all. TSR made the best investment it possibly could have.

Out of curiosity, I wonder how much WotC paid for Eberron?

Whatever the prize money was for the competition it won.

Wikipedia says $100k.

 

[EthanSental]

That boxed set was one of my favorite rpg childhood memories, fired up the imagination every time I opened it.

 

[Dioltach]

That boxed set was one of my favorite rpg childhood memories, fired up the imagination every time I opened it.

I sold mine just the other day, along with all my other 1e and 2e books and boxed sets.

 

[Alzrius]

Maybe Riggs can put to rest that persistent rumor that Ed's original contract with TSR stipulated that they have to return all rights to the Forgotten Realms to him if they don't publish at least one book for the setting per year.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

D&D historian Ben Riggs has a copy of Ed Greenwood's original Forgotten Realms contract and spends a few words covering it, calling it "The best $5,000 D&D Spent". The setting was sold to TSR for $4,000 in 1987, with another $1,000 for comsulting services.

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Ed Greenwood, the creator of the Realms, said he never regretted the decision to sell the property to TSR, the first company to make D&D. The five grand he made was $4,000 for the Realms itself, and then $1,000 for services as a design consultant. (That’s $13,000 in 2022 dollars).

The Best $5000 D&D Spent: Buying the Forgotten Realms — Ben Riggs

How did D&D manage to snag its flagship setting for the price of a car?

www.writerbenriggs.com

Ed is too nice, his setting has to to be worth $100s of millions of dollars by now, and he git screwed out of his novel deal, he should have sued WotC for millions.

If the D&D movie is a hit, the Forgotten Realms' value could go even higher into the Billions of Dollars of value like Star Wars and Marvel.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Ed is too nice, his setting has to to be worth $100s of millions of dollars by now, and he git screwed out of his novel deal, he should have sued WotC for millions.

If the D&D movie is a hit, the Forgotten Realms' value could go even higher into the Billions of Dollars of value like Star Wars and Marvel.

You have to remember that Ed's FR and the whole FR we have now (well, before the 5e over-focus on the Sword Coast) are two different beasts. It did not have the huge backlog of lore and adventures, many regions weren't even there.

Though I agree that 5k $ is kinda cheap, even with the conversion rate. But it was a deal with TSR, not WotC. And to be worth billions, the FR would need to be leveraged way more than they are now: cross-media production, 2-3 movies per year, merch, etc

As of now, we dont even have a boxed set setting for the FR