D&D General Did you realize The Forgotten Realms is the most written fantasy world ever?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not sure that Mystara or Thunder Rift are improved by combining them in canon. Modular settings are great and should be encouraged.

 

[Voadam]

I'm not sure that Mystara or Thunder Rift are improved by combining them in canon. Modular settings are great and should be encouraged.

One of the PDF reviews mentions there is a later adventure that connects Thunder Rift to Mystara.

"It can be dropped into any world pretty easily (the D&D Cycolpaedia Screen includes Escape from Thunder Rift, an adventure to connect it to Mystara)"

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

One of the PDF reviews mentions there is a later adventure that connects Thunder Rift to Mystara.

"It can be dropped into any world pretty easily (the D&D Cycolpaedia Screen includes Escape from Thunder Rift, an adventure to connect it to Mystara)"

That actually makes sense to me, though, as a bridge product designed to pull people from the Black Box and Thunder Rift into the Cyclopedia ecosystem, such as it was.

But in general, more modular settings, please.

 

[500 Toads]

There might be a lot of novels set in FR, but from a GM "worldbuilding data" perspective I'm not sure that there's any sourcebooks on the level of e.g. Runequest's Guide to Glorantha, Argan Argar Atlas, Glorantha Sourcebook and the Cults of Runequest series; or even Paizo's Lost Omens series. For instance, SCAG probably devotes roughly the same number of words to Elf player options as it does to details about major cities such as Waterdeep or Neverwinter (which don't get all that much); while there's details on not just demographics and myths in Glorantha, but everything from multiple calendar systems to seasonal weather patterns to trade and taxation for fleshing out how the various peoples (and other sentient species) live.

 

[Voadam]

Most settings in the TSR era were a bit hit-and-miss. Some genius, some regrettable. Basic/Known World/Mystara had some of each. What’s really surprising to me is how much volume there was.

The 90s TSR had a lot of setting volume going on. It was pretty great.

Mystara had the Gazetteer series of kingdom gazeteers, the mini Thunder Rift setting, the Hollow World boxed set, a few HW empire sourcebooks, and some miscellaneous stuff.

Forgotten Realms had a series of regional sourcebooks that started in 1e, core setting boxed sets, more regional setting boxed sets, and then a series of 3e regional sourcebooks (plus big campaign setting hardcovers in 4e and 5e).

Even Greyhawk had in addition to its big 2e Boxed sets (From the Ashes for the main setting, City of Greyhawk boxed set) its own regional setting sourcebooks detailing things like the Valley of the Mage and Rary the Traitor's Bright Desert.

Most every setting in 2e got its own series of regional sourcebooks (Dark Sun, Birthright, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, and even Dragonlance had the Taladas boxed set and stuff like the Other Lands sourcebook and things on the Minotaurs). Lankhmar was just the campaign book and then adventures though.

 

[Epic Meepo]

There might be a lot of novels set in FR, but from a GM "worldbuilding data" perspective I'm not sure that there's any sourcebooks on the level of e.g. Runequest's Guide to Glorantha, Argan Argar Atlas, Glorantha Sourcebook and the Cults of Runequest series; or even Paizo's Lost Omens series. For instance, SCAG probably devotes roughly the same number of words to Elf player options as it does to details about major cities such as Waterdeep or Neverwinter (which don't get all that much); while there's details on not just demographics and myths in Glorantha, but everything from multiple calendar systems to seasonal weather patterns to trade and taxation for fleshing out how the various peoples (and other sentient species) live.

I wouldn't limit myself to SCAG when looking for GM world building info about the Realms.

As just one example, SCAG doesn't say much about Waterdeep. But Waterdeep and the North, Volo’s Guide to Waterdeep, City of Splendors: Waterdeep, the City of Splendors boxed set, and the City System boxed set (which includes twelve full-color, fold-out city maps) all describe Waterdeep in great detail. And that's saying nothing about the many adventures set in Waterdeep, the campaign setting book entries on Waterdeep, the magazine articles about Waterdeep, the Skullport sourcebook, and various products related to Undermountain, all of which further detail parts of the city. I'm not sure there are many cities with more GM world building info available.

Edit: And that's fairly representative of the amount of detail available for many popular regions of the setting.

 

[Dioltach]

Most seem to be a little more than 100 pages in length and I assume around 30K words. With a little over 3,300 in the main series that's probably around 33 million words.

Or 99 million.

 

[Voadam]

I wouldn't limit myself to SCAG when looking for GM world building info about the Realms.

As just one example, SCAG doesn't say much about Waterdeep. But Waterdeep and the North, Volo’s Guide to Waterdeep, City of Splendors: Waterdeep, the City of Splendors boxed set, and the City System boxed set (which includes twelve full-color, fold-out city maps) all describe Waterdeep in great detail. And that's saying nothing about the many adventures set in Waterdeep, the campaign setting book entries on Waterdeep, the magazine articles about Waterdeep, the Skullport sourcebook, and various products related to Undermountain, all of which further detail parts of the city. I'm not sure there are many cities with more GM world building info available.

Edit: And that's fairly representative of the amount of detail available for many popular regions of the setting.

Yes, but most of those (the 1e-3e material) are set 100 years in the past for the current setting timeline after big world changing events of spellplague and planets conjoining and then the soft reset back, so this means either messing with timeline stuff and just using long dead people and long past plots and elements as if they are current, or just using that stuff as a historical basis to inform the current world building. Broad strokes 5e FR reset to be a lot like 1e-3e FR, so you can use the various bartenders and trade routes and nobles and such if you want, but its a bit like saying there is a huge amount of 1926 guidebooks to use in setting play in a city set in 2026.

 

[humble minion]

Yes, but most of those (the 1e-3e material) are set 100 years in the past for the current setting timeline after big world changing events of spellplague and planets conjoining and then the soft reset back, so this means either messing with timeline stuff and just using long dead people and long past plots and elements as if they are current, or just using that stuff as a historical basis to inform the current world building. Broad strokes 5e FR reset to be a lot like 1e-3e FR, so you can use the various bartenders and trade routes and nobles and such if you want, but its a bit like saying there is a huge amount of 1926 guidebooks to use in setting play in a city set in 2026.

Agreed. There seemed to be a deliberate effort in the 4th ed FR material to obsolete as much of the prior material as possible. Not to say there's stuff you can't mine, especially since the 5th ed soft reset, but that egg can never truly be unscrambled.

Still, in the context of the thread topic, a pre-Spellplague FR supplement is no more of less useful/relevant to a modern FR campaign than (for example) a Horus Heresy novel is to the post-Indomitus 40k setting. And hell, vast amounts of the Star Wars Legends canon have now been explicitly supplanted by the newer Disney material and now exist in an entirely separate and incompatible timeline.

 

[GreyLord]

Or 99 million.

Oops...my terrible aptitude at math comes out when I'm tired. Thanks for pointing this out.