D&D (2024) Forgotten Realms Player Guide

[Jolly Ruby]

Id rather they do not! I love having Neverwinter as a ruined occupied city in full reconstruction mode, on the verge of a civil war between the occupying forces and the rebels looking to put a real Alagondar king on the throne.

I fear it would just become yet another fairly stable huge city on the Coast instead of the chaotic cityscape described in the 4e manual.

I mean, I also love the 4e's chaotic cityscape, but my players mostly solved it through the last decade and even found the real Alagondar heir in my last RotF campaign! I need some fresh chaos to replace the old chaos

 

[Parmandur]

The 3e FRCS only had 133 pages in its geography chapter, which also included quick overviews of areas beyond Faerûn, as well as Realmspace. The Dalalands took up 24 pages in that chapter, but they won't need as much in the general geography chapter since they'll have their own in depth section elsewhere. So I'm thinking nearer 100 pages would be more likely.

Hmmmm...

Thinking about 5E equivalents here...

Rising from thr Last War gave 47 pages for a Gazateer of all Khorvaire, and 31 pages for Sharn specifically. (The 80-ish page Chapter 1 would be all Player's Guide to faerun dtuff)

The Explorers Guide to Wildemount gave 100 pages to a full Gazateer of the continent, divided mostly into 4 larger zones.

SCAG covers the Savage Frontier and Western Heartlands in 59 pages.

The description days the DM book will be "a treasure trove of information and resources for Dungeon Master's to create their own epic fantasy adventures. It will also contain five in-depth setting guides for iconic locations 8n the Forgotten Realms that support a variety of adventure genres..."

So the book outside the five in-depth areas will have enough information for using rhe FR as a Setting. Let's say maybe 32 pages per '
"in-depth setting": that would be 160 pages. Let's say that the whole of Faerun gets a Khorvaire or Wildelands style overview, 50-100 pages.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Hmmmm...

Thinking about 5E equivalents here...

Rising from thr Last War gave 47 pages for a Gazateer of all Khorvaire, and 31 pages for Sharn specifically. (The 80-ish page Chapter 1 would be all Player's Guide to faerun dtuff)

The Explorers Guide to Wildemount gave 100 pages to a full Gazateer of the continent, divided mostly into 4 larger zones.

SCAG covers the Savage Frontier and Western Heartlands in 59 pages.

The description days the DM book will be "a treasure trove of information and resources for Dungeon Master's to create their own epic fantasy adventures. It will also contain five in-depth setting guides for iconic locations 8n the Forgotten Realms that support a variety of adventure genres..."

So the book outside the five in-depth areas will have enough information for using rhe FR as a Setting. Let's say maybe 32 pages per '
"in-depth setting": that would be 160 pages. Let's say that the whole of Faerun gets a Khorvaire or Wildelands style overview, 50-100 pages.

It nay be that the non in-depth stuff is just general DM advice on how to run such areas.

Honestly, it's really anyone's guess which book the general setting geographic info will go until we get a bit more info.

 

[Parmandur]

It nay be that the non in-depth stuff is just general DM advice on how to run such areas.

Honestly, it's really anyone's guess which book the general setting geographic info will go until we get a bit more info.

Oh, yeah, dealing in pretty wild speculation at this point.

Though looking at the description the Player's Guide, "The Forgotten Realms Player Guide contains everything players and Dungeon Masters need to play in this beloved D&D setting. It contains a setting overview for new and returning players..."

That suggests that a good deal of the Setting details will be in the Player's Book.

 

[pukunui]

Actually, given the split into two full hardcovers, I think it is way more likely that combined they can be comparable to the FRCS as a resource, they suggested their goal was to not repeat information between the books.

It's big enough that they had to split it into 2 books, the Factions, Spells, New Kinds of Spells, and Player Options in one, Setting and DM stuff in the other, so yeah it might be as detailed as FRCS, at minimum E: RftLW.

Upon further reflection: yes, having two books instead of one means they can include more content overall than what is in the Ravenloft book. However, I remain doubtful that they will go into any more detail about specific regions than the Ravenloft book does. I suspect we will still get a fairly high-level view of each with few meaty details. WotC just doesn't do books as densely packed with content as the 3e FRCS anymore.

I also doubt they plan to reprint the Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate setting primers from Rime and Descent respectively whole-cloth, for instance. We'll probably get condensed versions of them. Hopefully they will include some adventure seeds to give DMs ideas, though. That was one of the best parts of the old FR grey box.

As much as I love Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, we had excelent guides for both in BGDiA and RotF, I ran an entire campaign from level 1 to 7 using only the Baldur's gazetteer. I wish they published something about Neverwinter instead.

Yes! Once again, WotC failing to synergize - an updated gazetteer of Neverwinter would've been a nice way to follow up on the movie. It might not have done as well as they'd hoped in the theater, but it's been pretty popular on streaming and just won an award, didn't it? It seems silly of WotC to continue to not capitalize on that.

 

[Parmandur]

Upon further reflection: yes, having two books instead of one means they can include more content overall than what is in the Ravenloft book. However, I remain doubtful that they will go into any more detail about specific regions than the Ravenloft book does. I suspect we will still get a fairly high-level view of each with few meaty details. WotC just doesn't do books as densely packed with content as the 3e FRCS anymore.

Almost certainly, but this does suggest more crunch and more gruff than SCAG did, or even more that Rising from the Last War did for Eberron.

I also doubt they plan to reprint the Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate setting primers from Rime and Descent respectively whole-cloth, for instance. We'll probably get condensed versions of them. Hopefully they will include some adventure seeds to give DMs ideas, though. That was one of the best parts of the old FR grey box.

Yeah, Descent into Avernus and Rime of the Frost Maiden ate still fir sake, so I doubt this will contain exact repeats, as they probably want these books to boost those sales.

 

[pukunui]

Almost certainly, but this does suggest more crunch and more gruff than SCAG did, or even more that Rising from the Last War did for Eberron.

Yeah, see, I like the Eberron book, but even it takes a frustratingly light touch at times. At least with Eberron, there are 3e era books that can provide some more detail (although still not that much in the grand scheme of things). 3e was really the high point of setting detail.

Yeah, Descent into Avernus and Rime of the Frost Maiden ate still fir sake, so I doubt this will contain exact repeats, as they probably want these books to boost those sales.

Exactly.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Nothing in current D&D is medieval (nor even gritty)

And that's correct, because even the designers have said that default D&D is in the Renaissance era.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, see, I like the Eberron book, but even it takes a frustratingly light touch at times. At least with Eberron, there are 3e era books that can provide some more detail (although still not that much in the grand scheme of things). 3e was really the high point of setting detail.

I blame the existence of the internet. Large fictional reference books don't have the same market they used to. Considering how 3.x went down, may not have 20 years ago.

 

[Jolly Ruby]

Grey Box had a primer to the realms in the players booklet, and the crunchier mechanics like subduing a dragon, wilderness traveling and some adventures on the DM's booklet. I think these new books will be similar: Player's book have character options, factions and general knowledge stuff like the gods, calendar and specifics about the species in the Realms, while the DM's book have the plot hooks, dungeons, maps, monsters and DM faced mechanical stuff.