Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, 4th Edition by Bruce R. Cordell, Ed Greenwood, Chris Sims, Philip Athans Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, 4th Edition
Book Review: New mysteries abound!
Summary: 5 Stars
The 4e Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide has brought some new and exciting events to the campaign. I especially enjoy the earthmotes (floating islands) concept; which looks to be craftable with a level 30 ritual, and the Returned Abeir is very intreging. Definetly an area player's will be running to once they are of a high enough level. Seriously, as others have said, the details are in the areas of Faerun and less on a diatribe of history. Plus, the Player's Guide will introduce us to more NPCs and about Spellscar's. Book Review: Get out the dice!
Summary: 5 Stars
What a lot of people don't realize is that, with the advent of AD&D 2nd edition the Forgotten Realms sacrificed some of its originality and has subsequently become a core setting for dungeons and dragons, whatever the edition might be. Because of this it tends to wrap itself around and morph into whatever D&D happens to be at the time. I bought this book fully expecting this to be Forgotten Realms "through the 4th edition looking glass" and it did not disappoint.
From the get-go, starting at chapter 1, you are thrown into a town and start adventuring right away. I found this exciting. Then, as a cool down, you are taken through a brief tour of the lore and lands of the realms. This book gave me exactly what I would be looking for, the information I needed to immediately start my own 4th edition FR campaign.
Some previous reviews are correct in the fact that it doesn't flesh everything out, many of the histories that some of the previous say are lacking are in a Grand History of the Realms from what I hear, but that's not important to me.
What this book gives you is a solid foundation and me, being a DM of many many years, likes to take things like that and color them in my own way. I am sure details on the different areas and settings will be released in future supplements, but I am not concerned about that. I am the DM, when it comes down to it, its my job to "flesh things out". Hope this review helps.
Book Review: A cursory effort at best - and the map... ugh.
Summary: 1 Stars
I have been very optimistic about upcoming products due to the quality of 4E products to date. In short, however, this product lacks depth and quality. The art is good, but when comparing this to the 3E campaign guide, this is a shadow of that book. While the prior campaign guide contained loads of quality background information and crunchy bits (rules, etc.), this contains neither. And the colorless, low-detail map was the biggest disappointment of all.
I agree with one of the prior reviewers that it would be better to adapt the 3E material for 4E than waste money on this supplement. Save your money for something much better.
Book Review: See my comment to Xom...
Summary: 4 Stars
Overall, this book isn't as good as its 3.X edition predecessor, but still a great book and just what you need to get your realms campaign off and running. See my comment to Xom's review for my take on some of the complaints about this book.Book Review: The Forgotten Realms lie in ruins
Summary: 2 Stars
Having received and read the 4th edition rules recently, I was anxious to see how Wizards would treat my favorite setting, the Forgotten Realms. The Forgotten Realms (FR) have allways been a fairly standard campaign world, and I have considered that the main strength of the setting. It was a setting in which wizards, dragons, heroes and villains prospered, but none dominated. No huge cataclysms or specific perks were entered into the FR setting. It was just a plain fantasy setting. With it's huge history and detail, any adventurer placed in the FR felt like a guest in the Realms, a small part of it's huge story and background. That all has changed. The new fourth edition Forgotten Realms campaign focusses on the heroes instead of the campaign setting itself.
Although this at first would look like a very good thing, it essentially means the Realms lack depth. The same depth that made the Realms the most popular D&D setting in the first place. The 4th edition campaign setting is placed 100-odd years later than the 3rd edition. This is perhaps unsurprisingly, because of the many, many changes the 4th edition rules have made compared to the third edition. Whereas the 3rd and 2nd edition of the core D&D rules were generally using the same system, the fourth is different. And it shows in the Realms, and feels rather forced-upon the setting. The thing that strikes me most, and which I thoroughly dislike about this book, is that no particular attention is dealt to the events between the third edition and this new, revised edition. The rich history of Faerun, which has always driven the campaign, is now gone. In the fourth edition campaign setting, a total of 2 (two) pages is spent on Faerun's history - the equivalent of: "and there was light". Recent eventes are covered by two lines at most, from which we must deduct the state of the Realms. Hints are given as to what has happened to our favorite nations, heroes and even gods, but no where is to be read what exactly happened.
The book subsequently concentrates on describing locales and a few protagonists. Considering Faerun has changed tremendously, describing the reasons for those changes would have made for a far more involving campaign setting. Additionally, the many characters and orders of the FR campaign setting, like Elminster, Khelben, the Harpers and so on, are all suspiciously missing in this edition, with only a side-remark spent at best.
Now on the book itself: I really don't know who has editted this book, as well as the Player's Handbook, but it's disastrous. The PHB already left me mind-boggling when reading it, refering to abilities and systems unknown to the reader when reading from front-to-back. The Forgotten Realms Setting is doing the same, starting with a little adventure and subsequently turning to two pages of history and then... magical items and treasure! Just as in the PHB powers were described before the combat sequence, in the FRCS, magical items are deemed more important than the Realms itself. This is not just a fluke - the next chapter is on the Realms of the Gods (Cosmology) while the Gods itself, frequently referenced to, are not introduced until a chapter later! Had I not known most of the gods from previous editions, I would have been puzzled. The artwork itself is nice and frequent, but lacks the detail of previous editions, as well as a short undersign about what exactly is depicted. The artwork is fitting, but seems hurried.
The core part of the book covers the geography of Toril, as it should. This part concentrates primarily on why adventurers should be in that part of Toril and what they can experience in that particular region. Again, a focus on the adventurer instead of the setting, with only little history and main players (NPC's). The book concludes with a decent description of protagonists, however it's too focussed on encounters to my liking, instead of the underlying motives of these protagonists.
Concluding, I am very disappointed in this edition of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. All the flavour that made the Realms my favorite campaign setting is gone. Or is it? Given the frequent hints about recent history as well as characters, I can't help but wonder whether Wizards won't disclose this information in another supplement. Even if it were to be covered in another supplement, it should not be. The Realms is more than just geography, it is being part of a huge detailed history and playing with notorious non-player-characters like Elminster, Khelben, Drizzt and Manshoon. That is what made the Realms the most popular role-playing setting. For me, it no longer is.
I suggest adapting the third edition FR setting for the new fourth edition rules, if you are inclined to use these rules. This campaign book could have offered so much - but provides so little.