Adventures in Faerun provides a new template for D&D campaign setting books - short, impactful adventures that can be plugged into almost any adventure, deep dives into a handful of locales, and plenty of room for further exploration in campaign books or future content. This book is much bigger and deeper than past campaign setting books - it's probably the "biggest" campaign setting book since Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and is much better organized. When coupled with Heroes of Faerun, Adventures in Faerun marks a complete turnaround for the campaign setting product released by Wizards of the Coast, although I'm most interested in whether the Forgotten Realms books succeed because of the overall depth of the setting or if it's due to a concerted effort to provide more for their readers.
Mini-Adventures in Overdrive
The first chapter of Adventures in Faerun is a collection of mini-adventures written in the style of sample adventures found in the Dungeon Master's Guide. Each adventure contains a hook, a series of small encounters, and a conclusion, as well as (in many cases) a map. For the most part, these maps aren't populated with descriptions or even secondary items of interest such as hidden treasure. All of that is up to the DM to fill out either on their own beforehand or on the fly.
It seems like D&D is sticking with these stripped down and simple adventures, and honestly that's probably a good thing. While many of the adventures in Adventures in Faerun fall into some kind of specific Forgotten Realms theme, either based on the region it takes place in or due to some tie to a god, faction, or high magic associated with the Realms, these adventures can be inserted into any campaign rather easily. I could easily turn any of these mini-adventures into something that could fill a session of play, with only the scantest bit of modification needed to fit the adventure into some greater storyline.
Honestly, these adventures are some of the more useful tools to be presented to DMs in a while. Some of the adventures feel a bit formulaic, but I do feel that collections of adventures coupled with other content (such as the gazetteers we see later in the book) are infinitely useful as they cut down on prep-time considerably.
A Different Approach To Gazetteers
The bulk of Adventures in Faerun is dedicated to five deep dives into various regions of the Forgotten Realms. Each region is meant to represent a different kind of playstyle within D&D - the Dalelands represents exploration of tranquil regions filled with lost ruins and secrets while Icewind Dale represents survival horror. While each of these chapters has one or more gazetteers digging into sites of interests and key NPCs, the contrasting campaign styles that take place in these regions are also delved into via a DM-facing section giving guidance but not guides on how to incorporate the chilly isolation of winter into an Icewind Dale campaign or how to deal with the competing intrigues of genies.
While relatively brief, I think this guidance builds off what we saw with Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, in which various Domains represented different kinds of horror, but in a way that's less divisive to purists. Instead of molding a world to fit a specific kind of story, the book instead shows how to fit a kind of story into a specific region. This doesn't mean that you can't build a horror campaign in the Moonshae Isles or an intrigue campaign in Icewind Dale, but it provides some more helpful examples as to how the varied world of the Forgotten Realms can be used to a DM's advantage.
I also liked that each section provides a general outline on how to pace several kinds of campaigns within each section. This gives DMs more of a hook on how to craft a campaign than what we saw in the Spelljammer or Planescape boxed sets, but still provides a general level of freedom to build the campaign the way they'd like. When coupled with the short adventures we find in this book, I wonder if this will be the new way forward for campaign guidance from Wizards. Given that the full-length campaigns of recent years have fallen flat, it might be easier to stick with broad brushes and individual mini-adventures that can be plugged in at a DM's leisure.
A Step Up For Campaign Setting Books
Wizards of the Coast has struggled with campaign setting books over the past few years. The Spelljammer boxed set was really lacking and the Planescape book felt like it barely scratched the surface of what made that setting feel so unique. The Dragonlance campaign setting material was widely panned by fans of that setting as well (although that may have been mired by the rocky relationship between Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman and Wizards at that time as well). Wizards hasn't put out a truly good campaign setting book since Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, and even that book was controversial due to how much it changed various Domains of Dread.
In contrast with more recent setting books, this is truly a return to form. Although not exhaustive by any means, Adventures in Faerun (and its sister book Heroes of Faerun) feels like a fantastic showcase of the Forgotten Realms. While we've seen some of these regions before in Fifth Edition books, providing a dedicated space for this kind of content makes it feel important rather than just filler for a campaign.
While my D&D campaigns always take place in bespoke settings, I've always turned to campaign setting books for inspiration on what I'm running next. There are several kernels and plot hooks that have gotten the gears turning on future campaigns in this book. Plus, the mini-adventures are useful tools for any DM to have in their back pocket as well. While one could argue about the overall price point of these two books, this is some of the best campaign setting material we've gotten from Wizards of the Coast in quite some time.
