What do you think about the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Book

[Tuerny]

I am pretty happy with the book. I mostly picked it up to have something to read at Gen Con, but now I am tempted to run the setting for the first time in many, many years. It seems that the changes they have made make it really playable for the type of campaigns I like to run. So I definitely feel positive about it. I am indifferent about the Loudwater section too, but don't hate it.

 

[TheSleepyKing]

4E is a lot more do-it-yourself friendly than 3.5 was (IMO, at least; not trying to start edition wars), so I wonder if a less exhaustively-detailed FR setting book isn't a good thing, letting me breath a little more of my own interests into the setting.

I suspect a fair number of people will agree with you. I actually like the details, since I figure as a DM I can choose whether or not to use them (so it's better to have them than not). In fact, it's the all the detail that attracted me to FR in the first place. On the other hand, I can definitely see how some DMs might find those details a straightjacket, especially if they have players that are deeply steeped in Realmslore and demand to play in the canonical realms. For those DMs, the 4e realms will probably be a breath of fresh air.

 

[Echohawk]

A note to WoTC: we’re not buying this as a coffee-table book, or for casual reading on a train. It's not a magazine and we're not casual readers. We want content, and the more content there is, the more value we’re going to perceive in a book.

Ahem! I'll thank you not to speak on my behalf there.

Since I don't DM in the Realms, I am buying this as a coffee-table book or for casual reading on a train. (Except for the train part.) I plan on mining it for ideas, and for that, this format suits me much better than the 3ed campaign setting book.

Sure, I realize that my needs don't represent the entire potential market for this product, but WotC has delivered something that works for me.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I’m just going through the book now, but my initial impressions are not good. Compared to the tour-de-force that was the 3E FRCS (probably the best DM product of the 3E era, IMO), I finding the 4e FRCG a disappointment. While I appreciate the notion of giving DMs the room to insert their own stories into a setting, the 4e Realms (so far) doesn’t feel like a living world.

Clearly the designers have run with the idea that regions and enemies should be able to be lifted wholesale from the Realms for placement in other settings. I suppose that might make the book more appealing to DMs who don’t run the Realms, but for those of us that do, it kinda sucks. What we’re left with is a setting without a thematic core or a sense of connectedness. Each element tends to stand on its own without much reference to those around it. And none, I have to say, is that compelling on its own. It’s not hard for a DM to come up with a nation with three or four major cities and a couple of ideas for major dungeons. What’s hard is to come up with an entire world, to create a complex mythology and history, to layer in the elements that turn cities and nations into a living, breathing world. That’s what I want in a campaign guide – not what we’ve got here, which is more like a kit of readymade city and dungeon ideas with few details attached.

And I hate, hate the new granny-type + white space layout that has been borrowed from the core books. A note to WoTC: we’re not buying this as a coffee-table book, or for casual reading on a train. It's not a magazine and we're not casual readers. We want content, and the more content there is, the more value we’re going to perceive in a book. The brilliance of the 3E FRCS was that it was bursting at the seams with details, plot hooks and locations. I don’t think anybody complained that the type was too small or that there wasn’t enough leading between lines of text. There was so much more information in that book, simply because the designers made maximum use of the available space. The seemingly much lower word count in the 4e Forgotten Realms book leaves a lot to be desired. Even when you’re devoting several pages to a region, it feels like you’re just skimming the surface. Major settlements are being skipped over or given the most cursory treatment because you’ve left no space to detail them.

And Loudwater. Why? Really, this seems like a total waste of space. We already have a starter town (of about the same size, too) in the DMG. You could have just said, “if you want a starter town, you can use Fallcrest. A good place to put it would be here…” What would have been awesome is if the designers had devoted that space to describing a major region in depth. A 32-page section on Cormyr, for example, would have been great.

Sorry if I’m sounding negative, but the new setting is a major disappointment when compared to the 3E and previous FR products. It has some good things about it – for a start it brings back some mystery to the realms, and leaves spaces for DMs to fill in with their own ideas, but it seems incomplete overall. I’d probably have a higher opinion of it if I knew that at some stage there would be additional material to provide greater depth to the setting, but at this stage it doesn’t appear there will be (and I’m not that interested in collating snippets from Dragon), so I’d have to recommend giving this one a pass.

You have described perfectly how a FRCS should look in 2008:
- Easy to pilfer stuff because many (most?) buyers just rip some information out for instant use.
- Layout! that deserves the name: don´t be afraid to use whitespace, make it readable on the train (oh, how i wish the times in my life would return when the train is not the only place where i have time to read RPGs).
- Make it easy to understand and easy to use in actual play.

Seems about right.

 

[Scribble]

You have described perfectly how a FRCS should look in 2008:
- Easy to pilfer stuff because many (most?) buyers just rip some information out for instant use.

I agree... I personally like a campaign to give me towns and settings, and leave the relationship to other countries, and history to me, and my players.

- Layout! that deserves the name: don´t be afraid to use whitespace, make it readable on the train (oh, how i wish the times in my life would return when the train is not the only place where i have time to read RPGs).
- Make it easy to understand and easy to use in actual play.

Seems about right.

These two I think are related. Being easy to read/use in play is a MUST. I can't remember (more true the older I get ) every little detail about the setting. Give me something I can grab, and scan in play without taking a half hour to get the answer.

 

[johnnype]

SleepyKings description upthread is what I needed to hear. Thank you for taking the time to write down your impressions.

I'm certain to end up buying the book anyway but at least I know what to expect now.

 

[Darrin Drader]

So I just have one question for the people who have the 4E FR setting. I'm really on the fence about getting it. On one hand, I've done a fair amount of FR work, but on the other hand, I really have my doubts about the whole spellplague and skipping forward 100 years. Add to that the fact that I'm not interested in running 4E, and this purchase becomes a very quesitionable one for me.

So for those who have it, how much of this book is rules and how much is fluff? If there is a bunch of rules content, what does it consist of, and how many pages are tied up in it? If I get it and if I ever run it (two very large ifs right now) it will be run using the PRPG.

 

[Furry_Thing]

So I just have one question for the people who have the 4E FR setting. I'm really on the fence about getting it. On one hand, I've done a fair amount of FR work, but on the other hand, I really have my doubts about the whole spellplague and skipping forward 100 years. Add to that the fact that I'm not interested in running 4E, and this purchase becomes a very quesitionable one for me.

So for those who have it, how much of this book is rules and how much is fluff? If there is a bunch of rules content, what does it consist of, and how many pages are tied up in it? If I get it and if I ever run it (two very large ifs right now) it will be run using the PRPG.

I'd say it's at least 90% fluff. Besides a handful of new rituals and some magic items, the only real crunchy bits are the easily ignored stat blocks. You could easily use it as a worldbook for any system you wanted to.

 

[Vael]

I only managed to skim through it lightly, but it does seem to be mostly fluff. There's a handful of new monsters and some stated foes, Ssaz Tamm (sp?) is introduced in his 4e glory (I was underwhelmed, he's 30th level Elite and he seemed kinda wimpy for such an awesome necromancer), and there's crunch involving some new elements to the Realms, like Earth Nodes, which are locations of concentrated magic. There's arcana DCs for detecting them and such.

I admit, I'm not interested in playing in FR. I've enjoyed a few FR novels (can't stand Salvatore though, his writing style bugs me) and played Neverwinter Nights, but I'm not all that interested in running an FR campaign, so I didn't buy it.

I did really like the book though, it seemed well organized, concise and lays out everything in broad strokes, allowing DMs to put their own spin on it. If this is a sign of what the Eberron book will look like, then I'll quite pleased with it.

 

[Jack99]

I'd say it's at least 90% fluff. Besides a handful of new rituals and some magic items, the only real crunchy bits are the easily ignored stat blocks. You could easily use it as a worldbook for any system you wanted to.

Closer to 95% definitely. 2 rituals, 3 magic items (or so), and what, 20 stat blocks? Really, the crunch is almost non-existent.