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

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Then I’m really not sure what you’re saying because it really looks like your saying writing lore takes talent and writing rules doesn’t.

Try to explain better in the long post above.

 

[Hussar]

I definitely believe that RPG are more a matter of WRITERS than GAME DESIGNERS and I would gladly leave the seconds to board and wargaming with only a strict consultancy in RPG rules aspects.

Not ignoring the rest of your very well put point.

Just pulling this bit out as to why we disagree here. The notion that RPG's are meant to be read is something I never liked about RPG's. It's why I never bothered getting into any published setting until much, much later. I had zero interest in reading about someone else's game, other than maybe to mine an idea or two for my own.

So, it's really just a different approach to gaming. I far, far prefer RPG's to be games, rather than something that I read.

 

[Marandahir]

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.

The runner-up settings are also property of WotC if they want to develop them.

That said: Keith Baker would be the first one to say that Eberron did not exist as the setting we know during the setting search competition. That was a winning pitch; the setting was co-written in collaboration between him and certain WotC staff. That's why he doesn't claim his Eberron is the Canon Eberron, but recognises that people still want to know how he'd run Eberron or expand out elements of Eberron.

Ed Greenwood's Realms are different: he had created the Realms, at least the ones we classically consider the Realms as opposed to other regions of Toril, well before it was a D&D Setting - perhaps as early as 1968. But Kara-Tur was created entirely separately and originally envisioned as a region of the World of Greyhawk, and Greenwood was never fully on-board with the pasting of it into Toril. Al-Qadim was made later, but Zakhara's pasting into Toril was also an afterthought. and Greenwood was never a big fan of the fantasy counterpart regions like Maztica. They weren't part of his Realms. His Realms were essentially the Moonshaes to Thay West to East, and Icewind Dale to Chult North to South. So he sold that to them, and then TSR built up Abeir-Toril by pasting in other properties they had as they realised FR was far more popular than their other generic fantasy settings.

 

[AnotherGuy]

There's a lot of rosy-coloured nostalgia glasses being worn when it comes to TSR-era lore. There was an awfully large amount of rubbish generated, but the sheer titanic volume of material being produced meant that a lot of gems came along too, and that's what sticks in the mind now. It's Sturgeon's Law in action. If you increase the size of the pie, then the 10% of the pie that's good is larger.

Out of interest what was some of the awfully large amount of rubbish generated during TSR-era? I have always seen this claim be made on these boards and have wondered what was considered crud during that period.

 

[delericho]

The runner-up settings are also property of WotC if they want to develop them.

Indeed. Although my understanding is that some of that material has already been seen in other places - some of it pulled into Eberron as it was published, and some in other places. (After all, if you've got the core of two settings that were good enough to pay for, why wouldn't you put that material to use?)

So I'm not sure whether there really are two settings sitting there for WotC to use.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Not ignoring the rest of your very well put point.

Just pulling this bit out as to why we disagree here. The notion that RPG's are meant to be read is something I never liked about RPG's. It's why I never bothered getting into any published setting until much, much later. I had zero interest in reading about someone else's game, other than maybe to mine an idea or two for my own.

So, it's really just a different approach to gaming. I far, far prefer RPG's to be games, rather than something that I read.

But indeed you'll agree that a big part of the renewed success of D&D is due to Critical Role, that is a show and definitely a NARRATION. This to say that aside our personal tastes, a big part of RPG is narration, and to narrate you desperately need good writers. You also need good game designer indeed but why, while the last are here around, the first are almost nowhere to be found? My hypothesis: it is a matter of corporate approach to production and costs.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Indeed. Although my understanding is that some of that material has already been seen in other places - some of it pulled into Eberron as it was published, and some in other places. (After all, if you've got the core of two settings that were good enough to pay for, why wouldn't you put that material to use?)

So I'm not sure whether there really are two settings sitting there for WotC to use.

While reading your post I was reflecting: the way Ravenloft has been released, the editorial choices made etc. all make me think that there is a precise and scientific decision to not produce splat book. Confine the lore into marginal aspects of adventures, just to add color and keep the lore at lowest rate. Now I'm curious as a monkey if there is a reason behind this choice aside the one I already give to me: costs and maximize profit.

 

[Marandahir]

Indeed. Although my understanding is that some of that material has already been seen in other places - some of it pulled into Eberron as it was published, and some in other places. (After all, if you've got the core of two settings that were good enough to pay for, why wouldn't you put that material to use?)

So I'm not sure whether there really are two settings sitting there for WotC to use.

Truth. This was what WotC did with other settings too - Dominaria for example is stitched together from various D&D home settings used by developers of Magic: The Gathering.

I wouldn't be surprised if elements of runner-ups were recycled into elements of M:tG planes, either.

 

[Marandahir]

While reading your post I was reflecting: the way Ravenloft has been released, the editorial choices made etc. all make me think that there is a precise and scientific decision to not produce splat book. Confine the lore into marginal aspects of adventures, just to add color and keep the lore at lowest rate. Now I'm curious as a monkey if there is a reason behind this choice aside the one I already give to me: costs and maximize profit.

Anyone can write a lore book. There are lots of great Ravenloft lore titles on DM's Guild. More to the point, you're competing with past editions if the main purpose is lore.

You can't ignore lore - and have to advance it to reflect the changing mores of the target audience - but if you're publishing for a game, you need to provide tools for the players of the game to play the game in that context. So it definitely needs to be focused on what you're trying to accomplish with the book.

 

[Hussar]

But indeed you'll agree that a big part of the renewed success of D&D is due to Critical Role, that is a show and definitely a NARRATION. This to say that aside our personal tastes, a big part of RPG is narration, and to narrate you desperately need good writers. You also need good game designer indeed but why, while the last are here around, the first are almost nowhere to be found? My hypothesis: it is a matter of corporate approach to production and costs.

I honestly have no idea as to the impact of critical role. I don’t know.

I do know that DnD was growing by leaps and bounds before Critical Role so it is a bit hard to say which drives which.

Like I said we are not going to agree here. For me, I barely bought any adnd books at the time other than what we would call rules splats now.

All that world building stuff? Totally passed me by.