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Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, 4th Edition | 
 enlarge | Authors: Bruce R. Cordell, Ed Greenwood, Chris Sims, Philip Athans
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $21.36
You Save: $18.59 (47%)
New (36) Used (7) from $21.36
Rating:  65 reviews
Sales Rank: 13184
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 4th
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0786949244
Dewey Decimal Number: 793
EAN: 9780786949243
ASIN: 0786949244
Publication Date: August 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Dark perils and great deeds await!
Welcome to Faerun, a land of amazing magic, terrifying monsters, ancient ruins, and hidden wonders. The world has changed since the Spellplague, and from this arcane crucible have emerged shining kingdoms, tyrannical empires, mighty heroes, and monster-infested dungeons. The Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide presents a world of untold adventure; a land of a thousand stories shaped by the deeds of adventurers the likes of which Faerun has never seen before.
This book includes everything a Dungeon Master needs to run a D&D campaign in the Forgotten Realms setting, as well as elements that DMs can incorporate into their own D&D campaigns. The book provides background information on the lands of Faerun, a fully detailed town in which to start a campaign, adventure seeds, new monsters, ready-to-play non-player characters, and a full-color poster map of Faerun.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 60 more reviews...
 Exactly what this DM needs January 7, 2009
Jacob G Corbin (Prairie Village, Kansas United States)
My first exposure to the Forgotten Realms was through the classic PC game Baldur's Gate way back at the turn of the century. The game was fascinating and well-written so I thought I'd investigate the world it took place in. That...was a mistake. I ran up against an opaque wall of impenetrable backstory and a setting where demigods battled through a world I found almost painfully generic; the sort of world I could read about in dozens of better-written fantasy novels if I'd a yen to.
Of course, it's not quite fair to accuse a roleplaying setting of being unoriginal. The point of DN&D, after all, isn't to tell a new story but to let players experience the thrill of roleplaying some of their favorite archetypes. But I found no hook, nothing to draw me in as a storyteller, certainly not compared to the rich and evocative Planescape or the atmospheric Dark Sun.
This brings us to fourth edition. The new edition of D&D captured my group's attention and we've found it meshes with our style perfectly. And since I approved of so much of what the designers did, I figured I'd take a chance on this guide.
I'm so glad I did. While the history of this imaginary place may have been "rich" to some reviewers, I found it a tedious recitation of names. (And of course, it hasn't gone away - they can still adventure to their hearts' content in whatever region or period of time they want.) The new edition focuses on giving DMs - the storytellers - the *tools to tell a story*. Each region has been given a flavor, with enough plot hooks to support a campaign, but enough backstory left unsaid to allow the DM room to customize to his heart's content. This is a good thing, because ultimately WotC or Ed Greenwood doesn't run my table - I do.
Instead of a wall of made-up history, it gives the prospective DM an embarrassment of riches in terms of setting and plot. There are easily a dozen places in the new Realms I want to set a campaign in. I think there's more than enough material here for a single DM literally to game the Realms for the entire likely lifespan of fourth edition, and it's all good stuff. At the book's absolute worst it retains a bit of the old generic-fantasy feeling in certain areas, like Cormyr and the Dalelands, but still provides cool plot hooks for those places, and they stand out and feel fresh anyway by dint of being so traditional in the midst of a world now brimming with exotic locales and monsters.
One of the featured reviewers complains that characters no longer feel like small wheels in a big world. This complaint baffles me. Since my job is to entertain my players, the gameworld is going to center around them. They don't give me their valuable time and attention for me to recount the adventures of a bunch of NPCs; if they wanted that, they'd read a book or watch a movie. I understand that a lot of the diehard Forgotten Realms fans are upset that their imaginary friends are no longer with us, but I find it hard to sympathize.
 How to Use This Horrible, Horrible Book January 1, 2009
Colin J. Sullivan (Los Angeles, CA United States)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
It IS possible to use this book. Here is an example of how to use the 4th Edition FRCG to actually play a 4E D&D game in the Forgotten Realms:
1) Open the pitifully dull and inaccurate map, pick a location. For example, Nathlekh, a city featured in FRCG author Bruce R. Cordell's latest novel, "Plague of Spells."
2) Search for Nathlekh in the Index or Table of Contents of the FRCG. Hmm, not there. Search for the region labeled next to it, "Nathlan." Nope, not there either. Nathlekh is next to Long Arm Lake, maybe that's in there... Nothing. Well, the Vilhon Reach is now called the Vilhon Wilds; maybe it's there- okay, Vilhon's in the Table of Contents... but nothing on Nathlekh.
3) Check the other closest region, the Dragon Coast. We're in luck- there's an entire paragraph about Nathlan, which includes a couple of sentences about Nathlekh! It turns out that Nathlekh is the capital of the Shou "County" of Nathlan, and it used to be the "City of Cats." Hmm. So how was the County of Nathlan created, who are these Shou people, and why was it called the City of Cats?
4) Search the Forgotten Realms wiki articles and Candlekeep(.com) threads/answers from Ed Greenwood about Nathlekh, before going to other references.
5) Search through the 3.0E FRCS for any background information on the city and county. Nothing on Nathlekh, but some decent information about the Tuigan Horde, the Golden Way and other clues as to why the Shou humans of distant Kara-tur would be in a city in western Faerun.
6) Check through my 1st and 2nd Edition sources on .pdf for more info- interesting bits on the Dragon Reach and whole sourcebooks devoted to the Vilhon Reach and the Horde Campaign. Okay, that pretty much answers the Shou question.
7) Find references in Powers & Pantheons (AD&D book) and Faith & Pantheons (3E book) to Nobanion, the interloper Lion God of the Gulthmere Forest neighboring Nathlekh, who drove off the worshippers of the beast god Malar in the Vilhon Reach and Dragon Reach and was venerated in Nathlekh, the Gulthmere Forest, and by the wemics of the (former) Shining Plains. Nathlekh, the City of Cats, used to be filled with good-aligned werefelines of all types, and there Nobanion's greatest temple had a Festival of the Pride, a ten-day ceremony during the month of Ches. The only problem is that the Day of Mourning -uh, Spellplague- apparently destroyed Nobanion, the Shining Plains, and all the wemics and werefelines, leaving Nathlekh all to the Shou immigrants.
8) Conclude that while there's not a lot of info about Nathlekh out there, I now have plenty of background history to provide an interesting context for the city and its current status. I think I'll use some of this "City of Cats" stuff anyway.
9) Flesh out the city locations by mixing in a couple of forgotten shrines to Nobanion with the distinctly Shou culture, plus the entire paragraph on Nathlan County provided the 4th Edition FRCG. Throw in a little of the inexplicable anti-fey sentiment and the Shou-only prejudice of the townsfolk from the Plague of Spells book to bring it up to 1479 DR.
10) Write a little background on key NPCs- there's no way to stat any of them out. If there's a fight, I'll just pull something out of the Monster Manual. I'll figure out a way to include a couple Shou weretigers and werelions.
11) Paste over any incongruous bits with the all-purpose deus ex machina of the Day of Mourning- I mean, Spellplague- and we're ready to play!
So, if you use the 4th Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide as a Panglossian treatise ("All is for the best in this, the best of all possible Forgotten Realms"), and use all previous edition materials and online sources as the actual references, it is possible to cobble enough information together to actually play 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons in this campaign world.
For purposes of an actual "book review," I agree with what everyone else has said:
-- Dubious organization of chapters/ sections
-- Inexcuseable lack of detail/ huge font size/ tons of white space
-- Comprehensive excision of all contextual background history that would give weight to the latest "Realms-Shaking Events."
-- Referencing items covered in the FRPG with no cross-reference or cursory explanation. (Genasi, spellscars, etc.)
-- Pitiful map that is both inaccurate and woefully incomplete (Is that formerly coastal city now landlocked or not? I'll have to check the city description, if there is one, to be sure...)
-- Intentionally designed lack of NPCs and NPC stats in a system where NPCs aren't built with the same rules as PCs.
-- Complete failure to convey the sense of grandeur and history of the Forgotten Realms.
To be fair, there were some things I liked:
-- Nice interior art
-- Background information on regions organized by skill check/DC
-- Region sections include 'mini maps' (which would have been more useful had they provided the detail lacking in the full-size map.)
-- Satisfies my completist urge to have the latest Realmslore, such as there is of it.
Crap December 22, 2008
Rikki Walker (SLC,UT,USA)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Where to begin?? 4th Edition D&D is crap. 4th edition Forgotten Realms is crap. Wizards of the Coast or whatever the hell their name is now suck in every way but the good one. I get the feeling that the place has been taken over by bean counters who have no concept of what business they are in or what it takes to make good fantasy and fascinating adventure; look at the way they have been screwing Weis and Hickman for example. Its hard to believe that some of them who have actually written some very good books like Rich Baker are behind this monumental change from something that was fun and fresh to something that is choked in rules and feats and other lame, stupid changes.
not one red cent December 16, 2008
Denver Duane Starkey (Texas US)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I haven't actualy bought this book , but i had a good deal of time to look it over in teh bookstore the other day. what i saw disgusted me to the core. Fr WAS the greatest campaign world that D&D ever had. This is not FR, This is a "new" world with FR's name slapped on , this is the death of FR, I think it is safe to say that when 5th ed does role around FR will not even get a single book. In fact , I think i would ahve prefered that this edition instead of this. they gutted out every thing that made Fr what it was and replaced it with this cookie cutter campaigne. I agree with teh person who said "i think it is WoTC's mission to kill Fr" i can guarantee you that Eberron doesnt get such a enormous face lift as FR did for their cheep tacky 4e rules that play more like a WoW game than a pen and paper RPG.
FR is gone and for this gamer what they are wanting to call Fr , will most assureingly be TRUELY FORGOTTEN.
Devoid of Life December 14, 2008
Azer Kain En (Columbus, OH USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
For old players of the old realms the new realms may end up being a hollow and empty place best avoided.
So much has changed with 4th edition that I really feel that they should have just came up with a new campaign world or two for 4th. I mean, how many times can Mystra die or the weave get reshaped because of some catastrophe? Is it going to be every new edition?
I always felt that a thinning of the realms was coming in the new edition when authors would get embarrassed by contradicting cannon in their many books.
Funny isn't it though, we all know that the same miss mashed flood of books and material is going to bloat the realms yet again. Guess Mystra is going to have to die again when 5th edition comes around and we'll have to get rid of half the continent again (chuckling).
If only some of the authors researched the realms as much as my players.
Funny thing is, I never really found the plethora of content available in previous editions to be a problem. The great thing about the realms for me was always that there was a flood of ideas and I could pick and choose what I wanted to run. I always disclaimed to my players that in my realms we weren't necessarily following cannon though I adhered as much I could. I thought that was reasonable since I didn't have multiple editors looking over my work who could miss the same things I had missed.
Overall, this product leaves a stale taste in my mouth. Mainly because of the vast amounts of information that was just washed away, hence the one star rating. And the reasoning behind the powerwashing is weak at best given the fact that we know the realms is just going to bloat itself all over again in 5th edition.
The same problem plagues authors as often plagues players...they want to write/play high level characters because they don't find lower level characters all that interesting to write/play. In both instances that is more a problem with the writer/player's imagination and ability to craft or be apart of an interesting story involving less powerful pc's and npc's. Some realms novels accomplish this, but not enough.
Had every other novel series put out not been some world changing cataclysmic event, maybe the 2.x/3.x realms would not have gotten so garbled.
Anyhow...I digress...I think from this review you can see where my frustration comes and though its more a review of the intention behind this product, it is still relevant to the end product.
I'm sure there are people out there who love the new edition and all that has been done...I'm glad for them, for me, I'll be sticking with the 3.5 realms.
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