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Message: <blockquote data-quote="teitan" data-source="post: 1495639" data-attributes="member: 3457">Well, I have been gaming in the Forgotten Realms for two years now. I used to absolutely HATE the setting in 2E, after a love affair in 1E, early 2E.. then it just went insane and the villains went all Laurel and Hardy on us.When I bought the FRCS I was reticent. I mean for the last SEVERAL, and I mean SEVERAL, years, FR had this huge Drow explosion and it really sucked the life out of the Drow as villains, so I was dreading that being an issue. The L&H issues with the BBEG and the over-inflation of power in the NPCs was also a concern, but I bought it anyway because my players voted for the Realms (frigging fragging Baldur's Gate games). Boy did the designers really dress that stuff up and make it all purty and fun again.The Forgotten Realms is the largest, most detailed setting that has ever been seen in any form, next to the Bible. The theme of the setting is very simple, exploring ancient ruins and fight the forces of evil wherever they maye emerge. Straightforward as all get out. The Forgotten Realms are known not just for the size of the map but for what it includes. Any campaign you can imagine can be set in the Realms, from EGyptian style adventure to desert survival to Arabian adventure to Arthurian Romance. You name it, the Realms can accomadate it for you.The races have only minor differences, Elves are taller and their is a race of halflings that can read minds. You also have expansion to the races such as moon elves, sun elves, wild elves and Svirfneblin, Aasimar, Tieflings, Genasi and Races of Faerun provides even more...Unlike other settings, all you need to play FR is the core book, the Forgotten Realms Campaign setting. Contained therein is enough information for years and years of campaigning and just enough detail to help you start and if you want more, there is almost twenty years of material out there for the setting, such as the excellent FR1-16 series. Sadly the majority is out of print for the 1e and 2e days but inexpensively available on Ebay and as ESDs on the SVGames website and a lot of the material has been updated in recent products like the excellent (very FR1-16 feeling) Silver Marches, Unapproachable East (Thay etc.) and Underdark as well as the upcoming Serpent Kingdoms, Shining SOuth and Waterdeep sourcebooks.Like I said though, if you don't care about the intricate details you need just the FRCS to play with and make it up as you go! One of the great things about this book is that it provides a nice little sidebar on monsters that were part of the Faerun compendium of monsters and what a DM who doesn't have the book can replace these monsters with. Very helpful to me in my early campaign because I didn't want to pay the inflated price on that particular TINY, LITTLE book (22 bucks for 96 pages????), Thank god for Ebay. But these sidebars really help.Another nifty thing is that the sourcebooks that might relate to another D&D sourcebook provides you with the information you need to understand and use the supplement in EVERY aspect without having to purchase that other book. Example: Faiths & Pantheons is the deity supplement that further details the core group of deities from the campaign setting book and also provides some good information on the other deities listed, but not described in the book. At the same time WOTC also released Deities & Demigods, a sourcebook of Greyhawk and real world deities that explained the mechanics of godhood in the D&D game terms. WEll, the same information is presented in Faiths & Pantheons as it relates to Faerun, so what would have been a messy situation at TSR (needing to have De&De to understand F&P) was turned into a great thing. Similar things occured with the Races of Faerun and Savage Species sourcebook. WOTC really helps a DM and his players out as opposed to hindering them.FR is a great, expansive world that has shed its former habits, thankfully. When you play FR you ARE playing D&D.</blockquote>

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