Just to be clear-this is my first real exposure to running an FR campaign. I always avoided it for all the baggage it seemed to carry. How ironic then that I'm so disappointed with the lack of information I found in the new book.

To put it mildly, the book is seriously light on content. I'm on the fence about returning the book. The only reason I'm considering holding onto it, is because I'm waiting to see how much they add via Dragon. (The Cormyr piece in Dragon is the only reason I didn't immediately return the book. I'm willing to give this a little time to shake out.)

I'd say this book is a 50K foot view of FR. But I would have preferred a 1K foot view of at least ONE of the "classic" adventuring areas (i.e. Dalelands or Cormyr). The feeling I'm left with is one of casual knowledge. I really don't feel I have enough information to run my own detailed campaign in any of these settings.

The capital city of Cormyr has 4 paragraphs! I can't run an adventure in a capital city described in 4 paragraphs. If I wanted to "fill in the details," I wouldn't have bought a "Campaign Setting Guide."

It really seems unclear who this book is for. It seems to me; all you've done is ticked off your fan base, and confused new readers.

I'm not looking for something on the scale of Monte Cook's Ptolus campaign setting (though PLEASE let him convert that to 4E!-I'd return this in a heartbeat).

Also, the introductory adventure took up way too much space that could have been better served adding much needed depth to this book. The 'starter adventure' should have been saved for Dungeon. Really pointless.

In summary: Careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
I wanted a "fresh start" on FR. Not a blank slate with a few scratches.
Overall, I'm very disappointed and wouldn't recommend this product.

The new FRCG is not perfect. Far from. But let's get the facts straight here people.

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide is not a "travesty" nor is it "the end of the Realms." A quick look at the people writing the book will reveal as much, many of whom have worked in the Realms for years and love it as much as most fans. Unlike those who post a review before reading the book, however, these people aren't hung up on maintaing the Realms exactly the same way for decades on end. Change comes eventually and in this case, I think most of the changes are done well.

Let's get to what the guide does well. First off, lore. This book is almost nothing but. There's a little crunch in here but what the book is really about is the fluff and most of it is well-written and with a set of details that makes the Realms come alive as a world again - just a century later and with some changes. It doesn't have as much lore as 3e Realms has, but let's remember that 3e Realms had seven years of support, whereas 4e Realms has been out for only a few months. Likewise, 3e Realms built heavily upon the foundations of 1st and 2nd edition Realms, whereas 4e Realms is more than a century after the base year for 3.5

The book also posseses a nice, readable format as well as a nice set of new enemies to play with at the end of the book. Many of the new countries to explore are interesting and while places like Neverwinter, Luskan, Unther, Mulhorand, and Halruaa will be missed new locations like Tymanther, Returned Abeir, or Akanul have the potential to be just as interesting, as does the new Shadow Empire of Netheril if the writers play it right. Overall, this is an interesting fantasy world to explore all on its own, without even taking into account the planes, which also get some attention in this book (though less than I would have liked).

Now let's get down to some of the major criticisms of the book. First of all, alot's changed. But not quite as much as you might expect. Though every region has been transformed in some manner, many have only endured only marginal changes. Take Waterdeep, Baldur's Gate, or Amn, the three great coastal cities of 4e Realms. All three are instantly recognizable from their original renditions, though with a few alterations. BG, for instance, is now much larger. But other than minor changes like these they remain much the same. The same goes for many other regions, including Cormyr, Chult, the Silver Marches, and the Underdark.

As for whether or not Ed Greenwood has forsaken the 4e realms - he has not. In fact, if anything, he shows more enthusiasm for it than 3e. He loves the new ruleset (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXvq4-GbuNI) and, if the fact his name is on the book cover doesn't convince you, keep in mind that he wrote up the lore for an entire continent on his own - Returned Abeir, which is certainly a major change in Realms lore. Naysayers who want to shout about Greenwood hating the new Realms just don't have anything to base their claims on.

Are the gods reduced in number? Yes, and in some cases drastically so, though it's not as though there's only a dozen gods now (indeed - there's about a dozen greater gods ruling over pantheons of lesser gods). Also, consider that the book doesn't detail anything on Zakhara or Kara-Tur aside from a brief mentioning (much like 3e FR) and so whether or not the pantheons of that land remain intact is an open question. One does still have a right to complain in this department though, as more than a handful of important gods have taken the fall.

Now there are somethings worthy to complain about. Though the format for the chapters is alright the overall outline for the book itself is very badly done. The most interesting and detailed chapters are, oddly enough, placed at the BACK of the book rather than the front, where one would might expect them to be. Instead, the first three or four chapters, which are more or less glorified appendicies, are placed up front. This makes for a jarring format.

The map, while by most standards well-done and detailed, is less than what has come before for Realms fans and has substantially less detail. Furthermore, for all the promotion of the Underdark and of Returned Abeir a map for them does not exist in comparison.

The art, is, however, fabulous, much like most of 4e's art.

Bottom line: The book is well-written with lots of lore and ideas for DMs (players, however, need the FRPG companion). It's not a "rape" of the Realms, having, after all, been written by many of the minds behind the Realms for the best ten years. It is, however, a big change. If you can get past the 100 year jump and Spellplague buy the book. If you can't move on, don't - you'll only be wasting your money and fueling your frustration.

Personally - I enjoyed it.

Forgotten Realms has been a favorite fantasy setting of mine forever now. This latest edition is an abomination of all previous incarnations of the Realms. Ed Greenwood - how could you possibly condone your name being associated with this farce in any way? I actually feel gutted, disgusted, lifeless - and oh those are 3 words that can summarize the 4th edition of the realms. But if you'd like more, read on.

All of the color, the mystery, the excitement, the lore, the flavor, the history, the peoples, the locations, the empires, the wondrous places - all - GONE! All because the Spellplague (a.k.a WOTC money plague) was created and WOTC decided that a complicated setting was too much for their new target audience - 9-12 yr olds. How is this justified? Well, Wizards say that now you have all the control, you create the lands as you see fit for your campaign, you populate them and decide what monsters and heroes are a part of them. If I wanted that, I wouldn't pay good money for it, I would just make my own generic world to be populated by cookie-cutter NPC's - oh wait a second - that's just what this is! So people like Lady Alustriel, Szass Tam, Manshoon, Kheben Blackstaff, and many, many others are now simply background material if mentioned at all. Supposedly this is to allow the PC's to be stars of the show without such high-level NPC interference. Let me tell you something - I have been in many Realms based campaigns. I have been in games where NO and I mean NO high level NPC's of Faerun EVER come in contact with the PC's. So, if you are in a campaign where the adventure party in Thay comes across Szass Tam (even though they are 4th level, out of heals/spells, no magic items and have just fought a army of wraiths, ghouls, zombies, and other undead fiends) and are total party killed/wiped out - or even sillier - Drizz't Do"Urden "mysteriously" appears in Chult where the party is to help the struggling PC's out - YOU HAVE A TERRIBLE DM WHO IS RUNNING THE GAME WRONG - don't blame the setting for your horrible experience!!!.

Many other posts have touched upon other numerous terrible attributes of this book - the pantheon makes no sense, deities gone for no reason, others ascended for even more obscure reasons, fewer pages but higher price, the map is terrible, etc.

Stay far, far, away from this. The Realms are Officially Dead! Product Suicide by WOTC. Do not spend one cent on any more of their 4th edition B.S. MMORPG wanna be product. I would give negative stars if I could. One is way too generous.

A setting that I once felt rivaled that of even Middle Earth in its wonder and creativity itself is no more. Thanks WOTC for ruining a beautiful world and taking advantage of your loyal fan base. For shame!

Not a fan of 4th edition. I bought this sourcebook for pure reading enjoyment of events and history of the Realms. But the format is disjointed and unorganized. This is proabaly the 2nd failure in the realms by Wizards, they try to cover too much, fail to provide any in depth, or new material.
Don't recommend it or the 4th core rulebooks

Well, i guess I finally have a reason to stop playing D&D. I've been a gamer since I was in grade school, starting with the boxed D&D sets. I've played every edition of D&D up until this one, amazingly enough with the same group of friends I've had for years. 4th ED has been a real disappointment, this book drives the last nail into the coffin. This book butchers my favorite setting with weak descriptions, poor chapter organization, and frankly not enough value for the amount charged. Wizards is charging full price for 2 forgotten realms sourcebooks of lousy material. Maybe I've just gotten older and resistant to change, but D&D hit its peak with 3.5ed, the 4th ed rules are just a dumbed down, lowest common denominator attempt to woo the MMORPG/ADHD crowd back to pen and paper gaming. It made my inner child cry.

I have been a fan of the Realms for over 20 years and enjoyed my first look at the 4th edition rule set. But I was growing very concerned over the direction the design team was taking with my beloved Realms. 100 year time jumps, the killing off of many of the deities, the complete obliteration of whole nations.

As it turned out, it was even worse than I thought. Whole land masses were swapped with another world simply for the sake of introducing certain 4e things like the dragonborn. Mulhorand? Gone. Neverwinter? Destroyed for no apparent reason. The Zhents? A shell of themselves. The Harpers? Pathetic little group. I don't even want to discuss what happened to the various dieties.

Whats worse is that the book is not even well written. The lore is kept to a minimum, which is very un-Realms like. Unfortunately, Bruce Cordell had a lot to do with this volume. Never a good thing.

The only half way decent part was the Returned Abeir section. Maztica has been replaced with a new land mass filled with dragon emperors, Dawn Titans, and rebellious people. It would have made much more sense to merely introduced this land in an effort 4th-edition-ize the Realms, but the design team decided a better idea would be to junk decades of lore and campaigning.

The real reason behind this devastation is the effort to decrease the homework for the novelists. Two of the designers, Rich Baker and Bruce Cordell, as well as others, have been criticized for errors in lore when writing their novels. The simplest way to protect themselves was to remove the lore. Which they have done. Unfortunately, they have removed my interest, as well. Not to mention put out a subpar product.

This is the biggest disappointment I have ever seen in a product. Originality? None. Destruction? Just the best campaign setting ever invented.

Let's start with the Spellplague...ummmm can anyone say...Earthdawn? What a total rip off!

Now the pantheons...originally one f the largest of any setting. Now? Dumbed down to a mere fraction. Mystra is dead...again (gee who really wants to take that mantle when the gods die off every ten to twenty years). Cyric is alive and kicking....bummer and now Mask is gone. Tyr died fighting the demonic hordes....yawn and Helm...well let's just say all unoriginal and non-thrilling.

Time frame? 100 years in the future...why you ask. Because it was such a rushed and horribly done creation that they can call it optional future rules so we don't have to use this garbage.

The point of these should be to continue the good and rich history of the product line and improve on it...not what WOC did. Lets create a simple and dumbed down game designed for the minis gamer and X-box generation and remove ALL of the good qualities of a RPG...slap the Realms name on it to sell books with no real thought of the history of the product. If we true gamers wanted this scaled down skeleton world we would have gone out and bought Greyhawk or Ebberon. You took the flagship and sank it right to the bottom.

All I can say is goodbye forever to you and thank Paizo for releasing the Pathfinder world which blows away 4E and the world is rich...like the FR used to be.

Our entire gaming group is now done with the Forgotten Realms of new and we will used the 3E material and continue the world on our own...how it should be continued.

One side not as to why I could give it 1 star...Bringing back Netheril was a great move and anticipated...too bad the rest of the world blows.

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide (FRPG) is a lightweight tome, but this belies the tasty, crunchy bits inside. Two races (drow and genasi), a major new class (swordmage), a smattering of Paragon Paths, and a dainty, but worthy collection of Rituals fill this narrow volume. I would not necessarily purchase it for the cover price, but Amazon's reduced price suits the content quite well. I don't run a Forgotten Realms campaign any more, but I have already found plenty of use for the FRPG's tidbits. Martial class lovers might find the FRPG less useful than more arcane and divine types, but if you are in the latter camp you'll want this book. Until the new Arcane and Divine supplements are published next year, this is the only book that will broaden the options of your casters.

Hmm, I think most of the reviews speak for themselves, the only ones positively reviewing so far I think are plants, judging by the way they are only reviewing 4th ed stuff nothing else ever. Personally I always thought Forgotten Realms kind of sucked, but this setting is the worst, full of typos and head smacking dumbness. Of course I didn't buy the darn thing, but I have skimmed through it. I am not sure of what use it would be to anyone. I say this as a proud DM who has always been about creativity (now I guess GM typically since I play generic systems / roleplaying games I made up). I say skip the sissy cat published stuff and make up yourself, what better opportunity to stick it to the mainstream game systems, which by most accounts now all suck

I have to be honest. When fourth edition first came out, i looked at the tiny number of pages per book (juxtaposed with the high price tags), the large lettering, and the in general poor reviews. I almost stuck with 3rd edition. I'm glad i didn't however as fourth edition has proven to be more flexible and capable in my gaming sessions. The books did not suffer from poor writing or space allotments as i previously feared.

That being said, THIS particular book DOES suffer from those problems. I cannot in good faith recommend this book to anyone, while the hopefully more complete player's guide is on the horizon.

The 4e campaign guide for the Forgotten Realms is the first step into the classic high fantasy setting into the newest edition of Dungeons and Dragons. I'll have to admit, it was much lighter on details than I expected, especially considering just how rich the 3e version of this book was. However, reading through this I came upon a realization: This book isn't meant to be the same style of book as the older version of the game.

It's meant to be a framework for DMs and players alike to be able to look into and craft their own campaign, with their own heroes and plots, free of being overshadowed by the Elminsters and the Drizzts of the old world. And this, in my opinion, it does very well.

All in all, a solid product, even if it isn't what it used to be.

This might have been a good setting if it wasn't named after Forgotten Realms. Some geographical features are same as earlier but it just makes it harder to accept what have WotC done to masterpieces what previous editions of FR truly were (and still are, at least for me, because even if my group switches to 4th edition rules, I'll insist we play in "old" setting).
I'm still waiting for someone from WotC to smile and add: "NOT!" after claiming this is Forgotten Realms...

This book is great for anyone starting out in the Forgotten Realms, as there is a clean slate from which to begin your campaign. For the avid Realms fans, there is enough information to carry you over into 4th and many of your favorite characters and locales are still there for you to enjoy. Overall, a good start for Forgotten Realms in the 4th edition setting, very impressive.

Unfurtunately for me, I didn't buy this book from amazon, trying to be loyal to my local game store.

The tragic result of this being that I paid almost $40 (taxes, blech) for garbage, instead of $25 for garbage.

If you are going to stab me for $40, sell me something that doesn't make me feel like I should have taken 2 twenties, set them on fire, and saved myself the trip to get this wretched thing.

Intricacies aside, which have already been discussed by other reviews, I would like to point out that I actually like 4E. I like the play, the build options available for multiple classes, and adjustable difficulties in the monster manual.

Paladins that aren't human, or have an 18 charisma?

This means you have more than a 1/216 chance to be able to play one.

Fighters can do more than smash heads, halflings have a point to playing them apart from size advantage in combat, Wizards can influence battle in the scale to which they are intended, and (imagine this) don't have to sit on the bench every time there is a fight.

However this book is a farce.

Not the funny, Mel Brooks-type farce.

Light your $20 bills on fire, save the shipping.

In keeping pace with the release of the 4th edition, FR has shaken things up themselves. 100yrs have passed and the landscape although familiar, has changed drastically. The book describes the events and changes in a manner that is easily understood for firstimers to the realms and devistastingly brutal to the oldtimers. A few points of interest are detailed in depth, but for the most part, descriptions are generalized allowing DM's their creative input. I enjoyed reading about the changes to the realms, almost as much as I anticipate adventuring within them.

This book was interesting to read but I think the map could have been done better.

The Original Forgotten Realms caught my attention for its depth and rich information, granted, all books were a bit disorganized, but you managed to get the information you wanted out of them in a reasonable time frame.

This latest release is so incredibly disordered and lacking in information that it will mind bog you when you try to find what you're looking for.

This book begins with Loudwater and an adventure there... instead of a more in depth introduction about the realms and what's new.

They also mention 10 Important Facts of changes between this edition and the previous... a subject that should have taken an entire chapter. It only took half a page

Take the gnomes for instance, I was very interested to see the explanation (not to say excuse) they would use to get rid of the gnomes in Faerun, perhaps the spellplague had some particular effect on "gnome genetics" and no gnome would ever be the same...
All I found about gnomes was that they are called the "Quiet ones."

There is no explanation on races like in the previous prints of the Forgotten Realm Campaign Guides, and not much on specific characters (like Elimster, Drizzt, and other known famous characters)

I have nothing against 4e, I actually welcome it, but looking at products like this makes me wonder if WotC can be as competent and interesting it once was.

Very good book with a lot of adventures hooks
The 4e FRCG offers more directly useful information than the 3e FRCS.
Everything in a 4e region entry is useful to you as a GM, whereas there's info in a 3e region entry that many GMs likely won't use.It matches up with the feel of the PHB and DMG. It's all about adventuring opportunities in a points-of-light world, and less about painting a tapestry of cultural details about the Realms
I didn't like the index, it leaves out all the details I might actually want to find in a index

I will admit up front that I don't like 4th Edition, in fact I seriously doubt that the designers could have created a game that I would dislike more. It is like every aspect of gaming that I like was removed or changed in its creation. But I also admit I love the Forgotten Realms. This is the setting where I became a DM for the first time and where the actual setting became an important part of my game experience. So I had to pick up the 4th edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide. Partly because it is like a car accident on the highway, you just gotta look to see how bad it is, and partly because this was one last chance for Wizards of the Coast to win over 4E hold-outs like myself.

Sorry, WotC, but you failed.

First off, let's throw out the entire 4E vs 3E argument. Even then, this is still a terrible book. The entire format of this book is just "wrong". Think about it, this is the first 4E Forgotten Realms book, the introduction to the Realms for a new generation of gamers. Unfortunately, that introduction does not start till page 82! In your typical Role Playing Book, Each chapter of the book build upon the last chapter. In a Player Guide, you start with ability scores, then race, classes, skills, feats, equipment and spells. But not in this book, the chapters look like they were just thrown together randomly starting with an Adventure. Of course there are a lot of aspects of the adventure that do not make any sense unless you have already read the rest of the book. Also, the adventure is rather bland, just a basic Goblin hunt. The original Forgotten Realms Grey Boxed set had an adventure too, a quick trip into the legendary Myth Drannor. Personally, I think this 4E adventure would have been rejected by Dungeon magazine for being to generic.

As I read the next few chapters, I wondered if somehow this book was accidentally assembled backwards because we have a group of little chapters that traditionally would be in the back of the book; Glossary, Time line, Magic Items, Local Treasures, and Languages & Realms speak, which leaves out the traditional "Well Met" greeting by the way.

Next we get to Magic and the Spellplague, Plaguechanged and Spellscars. Get used to these three words because you will be seeing them about every other page. Now what does a Spellscar do for your PC? I don't know, that information will be in the Next Forgotten Realms book. Yeah, page after page of this book referencing something that you will need to buy another book to use.

Next we have the planes (Say goodbye to the Planescape setting) and the gods of the Realms, and they still need two full pages to list them all, but they simplify thing by not providing anything more that a single sentence to define most of them. This is strange, on one hand they want you to forget the past editions of the Forgotten Realms, but on the other you are going to need those books to get the information you need because they have already said there will only be three 4E Realms books.

Finally we are 82 pages into the book and we get to the actual Forgotten Realms. There is an interesting sidebar here where they point out that the majority of the NPCs mentioned in this book are presented without statistics. They say this is because it is your game and you can stat them to fit your world.

Personally I have three problems with this; One, when I pay $30 for a book, I would like it to be finished! Not finishing the book is lazy, bragging about it in a sidebar is brazenly lazy. Two, 4E is new! We need examples to understand how to create those statistics. And three is one of the hidden flaws of 4th edition. In previous editions, NPCs used the same rules that players did. You could sum up a NPC with a single word and number. Town Mayor; Bard 5, Sheriff; Ranger 6, Innkeeper; Rogue 4. But under 4th edition, NPCs use the same rules as Monsters and the monster rules cannot be simplified like this. You would have to provide a full stat block for each NPC or provide nothing, as they did here.

Next we get to the actual nations of the realms, which brings us to the Map. Almost all the 1st and 2nd edition Forgotten Realms products came with maps and they were magnificent. The map included here is far from magnificent. It is vague and inaccurate, Candlekeep is described as being 100ft of the coast but the map shows it about 50 miles inland. And there is a small section of the map with each of the nation entries, but many of the cities and locations mentioned are not shown on the map.

As to the nations themselves, well if you are an old fan, this is the part of the book that will really have you shaking you head. I don't know what it was about the Shining South that offended the designers, but no nation there survived intact. In fact just about everything I liked about the realms is gone or destroyed. Everything that made the realms unique and set it apart from other setting has been washed away. The Harpers, the Zhentarim, nations of Halflings, Wizards and Half elven Drow Amazons all gone. The nations based on historical cultures of our world have also been eliminated. The Realms of 4E just does not feel like the realms and the chapter on Returned Abeir really proves it. There is nothing about this new continent that feels like the Forgotten Realms at all. In fact for a moment I thought maybe someone had included a preview of 4E Eberron in this book, because that is what this new area really looks like, even the sky is a different color here.

Next we see the Underdark and then a chapter on threats of the Realms. Interesting to note that two minor creatures from Returned Abeir get two full pages each, while classic creatures get a sidebar. Kir-lanan, the godless gargoyles are now devout worshipers of Shar and the Draegloth demons are now hot Drow babes with four arms. Why? I don't know, ask the guy who put breasts on the Dragonborn.

I really don't know why all of this had to be changed for 4th edition. Why not have a nation of Saurials instead of Dragonborn? Why destroy so much of the work of previous writers and designers? Why eliminate everything that made the Realms unique? Here was a chance to bring back some of the longtime gamers who were shoved aside for 4E, but instead many aspects of this book seemed designed to push us even further away. The book will touch upon something from 100 years ago, but not explain it at all.

Overall, this is a depressing book. To see something that I have enjoyed for all these years destroyed just to make a World of Warcraft knock-off just does not make sense. If I wanted to play WoW, I would be playing it, I want to play D&D in the Forgotten Realms, but the realms presented here should be forgotten. So much of it is just so bland and uninspiring. With each Paizo Pathfinder book, I want to see more. But with each 4E book I see, I am left wondering why did they try to fix something that was not broken.

This book just reminds me that 4E is just a game I have no desire to play.

As a first time player of any version of D&D, I never quite "got" the forgotten realms setting before. I perceived it as vanilla, generic fantasy filled with fiction established heroes. What was the point of setting a story here when player characters end up playing second fiddle?

Going through the book, this is not the case. 100 years have passed since the last edition, and due to all sorts of events, things apparently have changed. There are a lot of bad places, other things need cleaning up, new locations to explore, old gods are dead and have been replaced.
In short, there are a lot of things in the world worth exploring.

My only, and major complaint, was that this book was more intended as a companion to the Player's Guide, a book that of this writing, has not come out yet. As such, while there are neat places and issues to deal with, one can't really make the most of this book without it.

A word of warning: the book is heavily slanted to game master use, even including an adventure in the FRONT of the book. While I bought it to figure out what everything did for my group's campaign and it has done its job, in its text bookish way, it felt like there should have been a "player tour of the locals" somewhere in the book.

It's always interesting to read people's reviews of these books. Why? Because they don't seem to pay attention to what the designers set out to do.

4th edition is contraversial, for the simple reason that it requires a points of light setting, where kingdoms have collapsed and dungeons and dragons are a'plenty. 3E FORGOTTEN REALMS DIDN'T HAVE THIS. If anything it was a nice storybook that, while beautiful, was untouchable.

4th edition changed this permanently. Like the transformation or not, Forgotten Realms is now a place that can be freely played in without the age old fear of being trounced by Drizzt do Urden or Elminster.

Ultimately this book is a gaming book, not a story book, and the former is accomplished. A star was taken out for the crappy 4th edition style, which has very cheap printing. Be careful.

For the dungeon master looking for a fun setting with some interesting background to play your game in, you need look no further than this new campaign guide for 4th Edition Forgotten Realms. If you're new to the Realms, or have played it in the past, the book is well-organized and will give you the info you need to build characters, story and NPCs to make an exciting FR campaign. For the most part I think you can ignore the low scores here by some reviewers, as I think it reflects more their backwards unhappiness with 4E than it does this particular book.

I have played Forgotten Realms (FR) sense 3rd ed. and I have to say that this is by far the best edition yet! They layout is sensible, it's easy to read, without endless amounts of needless/useless details just taking up space. This book instead crams in as much useful info as possible. The stated creatures are nice, and the fact that I have read over 1/2 of it already and still not even a mention of Drizzit...thank god.

Whether your a fan of FR or just looking for a good setting for 4th ed, I recommend this book for any DM. If you are just looking to play in the setting, don't bother. There is NOTHING in this book for players, only DM's.

If you are looking for Forgotten Realms, might I suggestForgotten Realms Campaign Setting (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying, Forgotten Realms Setting)?

Fourth edition takes another step in furthering itself from Dungeons and Dragons altogether by adding Forgotten Realms' new changes to the mix. The continent of Faerun has been shattered by Spell Plague. In short, this means they skip 100 years in the future. Apparently (now, they say this in the text), the Weave, the thing that creates magic in Faerun, was unimportant to its use. In short this setting has been neutered from its original. Massive retconning has taken place to change much of the history to the point that they have simply ignored things that occurred in the past, or blatantly changed it.

Evil is evil and good is good, and one of the worst parts of these changes is that the complicated evils of the past (the Zhents and the Black Network, the Red Wizards of Thay in their Magocracy) have been changed to be unrecognizable. Many of the changes completely go in the opposite direction of every piece of lore that had been before 4th edition occurred.

If you are a new player of 4th edition (read: World of Warcraft) you may enjoy this setting. But anyone who has enjoyed Forgotten Realms in the past for its intricacy, detail and story would do best to steer clear of this abomination.

Also, like the other 4th edition books, this too contains recycled artwork.

The new campaign is strong on campaign and adventure seeds for the DM. Unlike the 3e campaign book, this is for the DM only and therefore is not a good purchase for players. However, for a DM, when you read the write up for each region, you will be inspired to run a game. That game is yours.

while not a perfect book by any means.....the 4th edition realms setting is full of goodness...

pros:
1. something that was somewhat stale is now fresh again!
2. very easy to use layout to make things less a headache for the already stressed dm.
3. setting is now more "focused." doesnt contain useless redundant information, or redundant overlapping deities. Not over ran by overshadowing NPC's...

this book does what it aims to do...which is provide a great format for a game master to learn the feel, and the information of the realms for running a game there. and it does this very well...

my only complaing is that older realms fans will notice that some of the changes were very "forced" because of the edition changes. the writing wasnt done in a graceful way so as not to make this seem so obvious.

a few aspects (8-10%) of the changes feel like they tried to pound a square peg through a circle hole with a large hammer.

but dont let that distract you from picking up what is a really good book. Some of the bad ratings on here are left by a vocal minority that despise change of any form.

When I saw the way my beloved Forgotten Realms was being treated I nearly cried. What happened? Where did it go? Why did they bother calling it Forgotten Realms because I don't see any relationship between this hollow shell and it's predecessor. I see an empty, dry, barren world. I'm not talking about the geography and climate. I'm referring to the thought and passion that went into this product, which is clearly none at all.

I'm not going to comment on how this is different from the previous settings, or how I feel about deities being moved around, that DOESN'T matter.

What matters is this:

The format of this books makes it easy to find information you need to run the adventures you want. There is no digging required to run the adventure you want, it all right there in a page format.

The content is -interesting- remember old entries that were just 'meh', they are pretty much gone, every location has something to offer.

Just the DM content. I hate having my book open to the page I want, then a player needing the book to look up his PrC ... We finally have a seperate source that allows us literary solitude.

I wasnt all the excited for 4e, I personally think the system is dumbed down and caters to the anime-fan boys and WOW crowd. However, I bought the core set cause Im a collecter too, and like that I bought the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide.
I was excited about the new realms. I love the old realms, but the new one seemed interesting enough.
However, upon reading it I disovered that they included very little lore. This, I, believe, was done to make the game more newbie friendly. You know what? I got into 3e in 2001 and started DMing in Forgotten Realms on a whim when I bought the book when it came out new. Therewa no trouble for me as a Realms noob.
However, they might have been genuine in their desire for change. Sounds familiar. . .
Anyway, the lay out is too text book. Its reads well, but compare it to the beautiful 3e realms books and this falls short.
The content is low too. Sure they arent really filling in the 100 year gap They simply start you 100 years in the future, with a this is how things are now.
For new fans who never wanted to get into the old realms because of all the books I say shame on you, but this book is for you.
For old fans and new fans who arent intimidated, I say get this book if you are a collector like me, or i you like the change and want to include it in your game. However, a word of caution. Alot of the old books are null and void in 4e. For instance most of the shining south 3.5 book is worthless in fr4e. However, books like champions of ruin or Lost empires of Faerun are also still good in regards to Lore and info, not rules if you play 4e rules.

I would recommend that if you are also playing in the realms that you stick with 3.5 or a previous edition. 4e rule are not well suited to the flavor of the realms.

Anything that can help de-emphasize the persistant FR problem of overpowered and over-important NPCs is a good thing. I especially like Elminster being now an old senile coot sitting on a farm and complaining how everything has changed.

I might actually take a more serious look into using FR now in 4e. Unlike in prior editions where it seemed every area had some horrifically epic-level NPC squatting on it, and every small town had a slightly less epic NPC squatting on it.

I would like to preface by stating that I have been an avid fan of D&D, most of its campaign worlds (including FR) and the fun the game brings to the table. That said, let's take a look at the new FR 4.0 Campaign Guide.

Without reiterating much of what has already been pointed out in other reviews regarding the format and editing job in the book (who opens a campaign guide with an adventure instead of information about the campaign world and its residents first?) to the true heart of the book: the history of the realms, or lack there of.

We are told that a powerful spell plague came upon the realms and destroyed many of the gods and territories of the realms, even driving other gods away (in case there is a strong demand to bring them back I would think) and we are supposed to start playing in a new realm 100 years after this horrific set of events (a.k.a. the spellplague). After looking at the "new" realms and the beautiful map that accompanied the book, I did like the feel of the geographical changes, 'it was cool' but after a closer examination it felt like I was just looking at a different version of Azeroth. Flying earthmotes and Netheril reawakened = Nax. Chult now resembles Un'goro Crater with a smoking volcano in the midst as well. There are other references as well. I just feel as if Wizards' approach to 4th edition was fostered in a need to compete with the growing MMO community (i.e. WoW) and have often times just replicated the game on several levels rather than building on the masterpiece they created in 3.5 and solidifying it. There was no need to kill the Realms.

I think they could have done a better job with this book and with several aspects of the game but there is always hope things could change for the better and we could end up seeing a blend of the best of 3.5 and 4th in the future.

-L

First of all let me say this review is written from the point of view of a gamer who has used the Forgotten Realms as his primary game world for a little over 18 years but is willing to embrace a new system when it works such as the transition between 2nd and 3rd ed.

I had already felt like D&D had been destroyed by the 4th ed. I hated the video game approach to the game and laughed at the explanation that they are taking the game back to "role playing". As I have said elsewhere regarding this subject, If you need a new system to inject role playing into a game, you're doing it wrong. I also laughed when I read that the reason the Realms has changed so much is to better reflect the new system. This baffled me, it still does. They didn't need to tear apart the Realms when the 3rd edition came out.

"That's OK though" I thought. "Forgotten Realms has always been about the lore and substance of the world, I can still use the 4th ed Realms books for their information rather that their implemented rules" (I still have many 1st and 2nd edition books that serve this purpose admirably). With growing incredulity I watched the writers gloss over almost everything of any interest.

Things that are major issues to fans receive little or, more often, no explanation. For example (SPOILER ALERT) the entry on The Silver Marches (Now called Luruar for no explained reason) casually states "Before she passed away, High Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon founded a mutual defense league in the region." That's the soul mention of Alustriel in the entire book. No how, when or why. Just "passed away". This would mean nothing to the casual reader but to myself and countless other fans of the Realms it requires a little more than that. To put it into broader terms, this would be like reading and loving the Sherlock Holmes stories and then picking up a book one day and reading "Before he died, Watson was a close friend and confidante to Holmes" with no further explanation or insight as to why or how this major character was tossed aside without rime or reason.

It didn't take too long to sadly see that the Realms no longer existed. Now I'm not talking about "The Realms you knew no longer exist due to a great calamity" kind of no longer existed, I'm talking about the kind of "no longer existing" that involves throwing out every single piece of what makes something appealing, intriguing and deep, and replacing it with something else that calls itself by the same name but is simply a shadow of it's predecessor. I can only describe it as...well, empty. This word kept coming back to me as I turned page after soulless page. Empty. The heart of the Realms has been ripped out and replaced by a clockwork replica that tries to do the job but is so distant from the original it might as well be something else entirely.

WOTC could almost have released this as a new campaign setting and got away with it. Change the names, countries etc and voila, new money making scheme. This is to the Realms what the Highlander, Robocop and The Crow sequels were to their original incarnations. An Insult. They took a wonderful, creative concept that fans embraced and loved and then decided to ignore everything that came before it and turn it into an empty shell of it's former self.

The only people I can see enjoying this game are the people who were introduced to D&D via 4th ed and have never heard of the Forgotten Realms before and good luck to them. It just saddens me that they missed out on such a good thing.

I always liked to remain relatively faithful to official Realms canon for simplicities sake. That way, when new books or source material came out that is specific to events or history, I don't have to twist things around too much to make use of it. With all the little details and events taken care of in the official lore, I could concentrate on merging my game/story into that world and use the wealth of information as a foundation to build upon. I have now abandoned official Realms at this point and will do as I damn well please because I no longer care what WOTC do with it because I won't be buying it. (I know I could have done this anyway as any game world is the DM's to do with as he/she pleases but I explained why I didn't). I;ll start by fully embracing the Pathfinder system by Paizo Publishing, currently available as a free beta PDF, which both streamlines and expands upon the 3.5 core rules under the open game license. Wow, that sounded like an infomercial, I swear it wasn't. I just like 3.5 and would rather give my money to a company who is going to do something with it when the 500+ page final release comes out next year.

This book reminds me of nothing so much as the original, much beloved "gray box" that was the first introduction to Ed Greenwood's marvelous fantasy world for tens of thousands of readers two decades ago. Here again, at long last, is literally untold danger and mystery and excitement. Here's an invitation to join in a fresh creative enterprise with other players and game masters, readers and writers--an invitation composed of stories, legends, and sometimes, threats.

Over the years, the Realms setting has been enriched by the contributions of hundreds of writers, designers, artists, editors, and coders. But that enrichment came at the price of codification. For some, it seemed that every corner was mapped, every character measured, by what came to be competing, overlapping, and sometimes contradictory rules sets. The bewildering amount of accumulated material threatened to collapse the Realms under their own weight.

Now, the clarion call of the new fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons has been sounded in the Realms, and the Realms are reborn. Now is the time for new adventures and adventurers, new stories and storytellers, new legends.

Forget the nay-sayers. This is a great New Realms for 4th Edition. If you dont like 4th Edition, Use the 3.5 rules and play in the 3.5 Realms! You have a hundred year gap for goodness sake. This is a really good product! Index does suck, Wizards has a hard time with these unfortunatley. MAP also need work, an easy web enhancement though can correct this!

Having read through the campaign guide and what a lot of people are saying, I think this is a good book for Dungeons and Dragon's 4th edition. 4th edition is a very different game from 3.0 or 3.5, and I think the transition and 100 year jump is handled in-game very well.

People haven't liked the book because it "lacks depth" and "focuses only on the PCs", but that's what 4.0 does. The PCs are the most important part of 4.0 (unlike previous editions) so this makes sense. Otherwise the book would be out of place.

That being said, I don't think that the book focuses too much on the PCs; while I would enjoy more fluff and flavour instead of grand sample encounters, overall the book is decent.

I have been DMing for FR since 1989-1990, skipping a bit of lore during the end of the 2nd edition. However I was quite pleased that with the advent of the 3rd edition, lot of consistency was added to the setting, finally tieing together all the loose product informations that were created in years of realmslore.
This is not only the worst ever product I have ever read by WOTC/TSR, but it's surely the worse ever for D&D, challenging even adventures like "Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga". There is not a single reedming thing about it. Horrible artwork, sparse information, lack of ideas, total lack of consistency. The 4E was not very good for a D&D game (if the name was different the rule set per se qould have been decent). But THIS is absolutely appalling.

First off: this is not the worst RPG product I have ever seen. (I think that anyone who has won a prize at a gaming convention, where prizes are usually cast-offs - I mean, *donations!* - from the sellers' boothes, will agree. I think I've only ever used one supplement I acquired in this way.) However, now that this declaration is out of the way, I must say: even though worse RPG books exist, this one deserves a low rating because it is such a downgrade compared to the previous book that described the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

This 4th version of the setting is intended to get rid of a number of qualities that supposedly deterred people from roleplaying in the Forgotten Realms previously: too many gods, too many high-level NPCs, too many different cultures and nations, too much accrued lore. Apparently the history of the Realms and its various personalities were problems rather than assets. Thus, the changes between the previous edition and this edition were intended to make it attractive for a new audience.

Well, unfortunately, I don't think it has succeeded. It can't please old fans, because it has destroyed so much that was characteristic of the Realms. But I don't think it can please new ones either, because it spends so much time saying "such-and-such was like this before, but now it's like this." It doesn't always explain the significance of the changes, though - so new readers are left scratching their heads wondering why the devs bothered mentioning the fact that things used to be different at all. For instance: the attempt to copy Eberron with the "10 things you need to know about the Realms" doesn't actually succeed in copying it well, because half of them seem to be more concerned with telling old fans that things aren't the same as they used to be, rather than encapsulating what the setting is *now*. (Incidentally, the magical catastrophe of the Spellplague and the resulting plague areas and spellscars are obviously rip-offs of Eberron's Day of Mourning, Mournland, and dragonmarks, respectively. But we already have one Eberron - and a darned good setting it is too. Why try to make FR into a weak copy?) In other cases, though, when some references to changes from the old situation might prove an interesting read for everyone (e.g. a description of whatever it was that led to the current religious situation, where it's no longer necessary to worship gods and the Wall of the Faithless is gone), there is not even the slightest bit of explanation. It's almost as if explanations were made in none of the cases where they should have been and in all of the cases when they shouldn't have been.

Anyway, the chapters proper start off with a look at the town of Loudwater. This town was chosen to be a close-up example and a base for a number of possible adventures, but it is difficult to muster any enthusiasm about it whatsoever - it's just that boring and generic. Also, the fact that this section and the various possible adventures are put first in the book, before almost anything else about the setting is explained, will no doubt be confusing to those approaching the setting for the first time.

By and large, the book tends towards vagueness and blandness. There are a few nice exceptions (such as the table of art-type treasure), and it's difficult to go too wrong with some of the iconic areas like Rasheman and Cormyr... However, I found myself wondering why some of the gods were in the book at all - and, considering that the devs killed off quite a lot of the old ones or amalgamated them into other ones, that's saying something. In terms of the gods that the devs didn't cull, some of the choices are quite baffling. The drow deity of oozes is now a greater god in the main pantheon? Tyr, Mask, and Mystra (gods of paladins, thieves, and magicians, respectively) are gone - but minor halfling goddess of beauty Sheela Peryroyl is now a standard god? This problem with the gods carries through to nations and geography as well: nearly all of the new countries are less interesting, rich, and uniquely Realmsian than those they replaced. Where, exactly, was the central vision when this book was being put together? Finally, although the page count of the FRCG is not a huge amount smaller than the 3e FRCS, the print size is so much bigger that it really has far, far, far less content in it by far than its predecessor.

There is so much more I would like to write about, but it would be too long for an Amazon review. Suffice it to say: while there is an amount of good work in this book, it is so poor by comparison to the third edition version of the campaign setting that I cannot but give it one star. If you want to play 4e D&D in the Forgotten Realms, my personal advice is that you pick up a copy of the 3e FRCS and work out your own adaptation of 4e magic (and the rest) to the campaign setting. It could scarcely make less sense than the one published here, so what do you have to lose?

Forgotten Realms has always been my favorite campaign setting. I've dabbled in others, disliked some, and enjoyed others(Dark Sun), but alway I've come back to the Realms since I started playing with 2nd Edition.

This version of the Realms has changed A LOT, and all you have to do to find out how many gamers feel about it is read the reviews above, or browse some online gaming forums. Many people are not pleased. The best thing to do is read a copy before you buy it, because the opinions of this edition are generally extremely positive or extremely negative.

I admit that some of the changes are jarring, but I am in the camp that the Realms needed a stiff kick in the ribs to shake the dust off. I like a lot of the ideas, and am looking forward to running my own game in the new FR. My 3rd edition FR book will stay with me, as much of the information is still valuable, AND... nothing stops people from running 4e in the old 3e Realms, it wouldn't take much work at all, and it's something I'm interested in trying despite being pleased with the new Realms. The sad thing too, is that the 4e version, being the smelly new kid on the bus, has a lot going against it. FR has decades of past material, story, plot, and information... and now this new one shows up and throws much of it out the window.

I give it a high rating because A-I love Forgotten Realms, and B-Forgotten Realms is like pizza or sex: Even if it's less than fantastic, it's still pretty good.

Four stars instead of five because, as mentioned in other reviews, some of the art is sub-par, and fails to capture the fantastic visuals that FR is capable of. Also, the map is just not clear. The 3e map was simple, yet highly detailed, and the text stood out well, while the new map just seems muddy, and the text is outlined in a way that just blends it into the background. And, in a way, I'm sad that many of the long-time characters are dead and/or missing.

Again, take the time to peruse before you buy. But then, even if you plan to run 4e in the old 3e Realms, this version has quite a bit of useful crunch, so it may be worth picking up regardless.

The flavor and richness that made Forgotten Realms so compelling as a campaign setting are no longer present. What's left is an "also ran" product with updated "stuff" to fill-in the mechanics gap created by 4e. For those uninitiated in the FR setting it does not impart the deep history or the FR Setting. The previous editions books provide this information, in some instances, very thoroughly. This edition is disappointing. So... 2 marks for adding 4e mechanics and some flavor, missing 3 marks for neglecting the aspects of the setting that made it unforgettable, mediocre integration of artwork, a pathetic (weak, weak, weak) map, and forgetting the point of having the setting in the first place.
To my way of thinking (and role-playing) I buy a campaign setting to make the role-playing experience more engrossing. The flavor of the campaign is what makes it worth-while... new toys and feats and powers and such are always nice... for me, they are not enough to justify the purchase. Sad, as this has always been my favorite "high-fantasy" setting.

Ever since the 4th edition came out, I've been really displeased with it. I can understand some of the need to dummy the game down, because skill selections can take a long time. I was sick of all the different prestige classes to "cheddar" their characters. But they really slaughtered it.

course this review is not about 4th ed. it's about the 4th ed campaign book..for FR. I don't get at all why the campaign book came out first, or even why it had to be 2 books (besides taking us for more money) but no information in the book tells you anything about creating characters to play in the realms. There is a bunch of info about how the Realms was ripped apart, mostly seems to be an effect of how magic has changed in D&D. They wanted to remove the weave, so they had Cyric kill Mystra, and kill of Azuth (still not sure how Asmodeus can become a Greater God by absorbing the power of a Lesser God) I mean I like the idea that he is a Greater God, but they could have come up with something better than that.

So the "Spellplague" has blasted Toril, wiped out Maztica, Unther and Mullhorand.. thus making only the FR Gods around, ridding themselves of the Aztec and Egyptian Dieties.. and while there are mention of Gensai and Tiefling there has been no mention of Aasimar. So what am I going to do with my Aasimar priest of Anhur? huh? I'm fond of Aasimars, and was glad they were included in 3e, but now they seem to have excluded them again.

I thought some of the info in the book was interesting, but I don't really like the changes they made. I was curious, why wasn't Kelemvor involved in imprisoning Cyric? I mean he and Midnight were close before they became gods, and seemed to have the same closeness when they were gods, so why didn't he do anything about it?

I like that they got rid of Tyr (norse god anyway), and made Torm a greater god, but I just don't like how 4ed is heading. They gave plenty of info on the cities, and possible campaigns, but I just don't like all the changes.

Course the book itself isn't bad, I just wish they were more creative about it. I'm going to give the book a 3 star, but really I would give it a 2 1/2.

I don't like what they are doing to realms, so even if I end up playing 4e (which I doubt).. I'll stay in the past, thank you very much.

This is the best Forgotten Realms setting. I have all of them and I have to say this is my favourite. There is high quality artwork. Many beautiful pictures. There are plenty of place descriptions, full of plots, that inspire the DM for creating interesting adventures. I'm glad that the authors have left out many history, religion, treasure and monster details and they have centered the book to the adventures the DM can create. It is certainly help my job, as a DM, very much. I'm very pleased with Forgotten Realms and I'm gonna buy all the line of products.

Well, I was very excited with the new changes in FR that the Wizards have announced. I brought the book, and when I saw the first chapter... That was an adventure in a core book... IN THE FIRST CHAPTER!!!

Wizards shoulde have thought, if a DM wants to run a adventure, he'll buy one adventure book. The atual adventure books from the D&D 4th are great! But an opening new lvl adventure in a small town like Loudwater

Then the Campaign setting begins in the second chapter. The history of the Realms is to briefly. There no description about the people o Faerun, the time, the races and everything else that had in the previous versions. This version of the setting looks like more a "hey, this is supplement for old FR gamers play the setting in 100 years in the apocalyptical future". That's no good.

The 3.0 art is far better and deeper. It's like you have opened a old tome in Candlekeep to read a encyclopedia about the book. This new one... well it's just ok, looks like an core D&D rulebook, but the pictures are inferior the other 3 books.

About the lack in the details about the realms, i don't think that's that bad, cause it restrains a lot of the creativity from players and DMs, but this lack is a very big, if you never read one FR previous books. And this feeling comes all the way long through the pages. I hope that this don't happen with the FR Player's Handbook. And maybe, they should have released both Player's and DM at the same time. But I don't know what passes in the Wizards editors and marketing menagers to do this in this shape.

Well, my recomendations is, if you REALLY want to play the Forgotten Realms in the 100 dark future, it's ok to have the book and never forget the old ones. But if you are new to the Realms... forget about it, buy the 3.0 previous version and adapt the cenary to the new D&D 4 rules (what isn't that hard, since it's a scenary, no and rulebook)

This is the first book I have ever considered returning. The lack of depth, detail, and ideas make it the worst book by WoTC that I have ever read. It is Forgotten Realms dumb down to a kids book. It is a smattering of half-baked ideas, large font text, re-used art, and a bad map. The editing was looked like kids play and rushed. I have read Dr. Seuss books better written than this.

I was expecting to find the details of the events that has reshaped Faerun as we knew it from the 2nd and 3rd ed- but no- this book doesn't spend more than two pages on that particular detail.It does however spend plenty of time explaining the nations, regions, characters and such -not in any detail- but enough to allow a DM to use the bits and pieces.

I was also hoping the find a little bit more detail about the genassi but that is not here either.

Overall- I do not think this is an essential purchase, let's hope the player's guide will be better...

I was so excited when I recieved this in the mail the other day, but when I flipped open the book my first reaction was shock. The illustrations were sparse and flat out boring (the maps look like they were made with free internet software!), there seemed no rhyme or reason to the overall layout of the material, and the areas were written like a "sneek-peek" preview from a gaming mag rather than content from the actual book. I quickly checked the back of the book to see if this was really a WOTC licensed setting; I just couldn't believe the poor treatment to such an important franchise.

Trusting in the great authors who took part in this book, I decided to be open minded and read it anyways. I can say without a shadow of doubt, this is probably one tenth the value of the 3.0 version of the same setting. It's missing classes, races, in depth time lines, key NPC's, and illustrations that really felt like the Realms. I understand the idea is to expand on all this later, but to say this all a DM needs to run a FR campaign is grossly misleading.

Worst WOTC product I've ever seen.

One of the reasons others are giving this book a bad review, in my opinion, is that it doesn't match what many are expecting from this book. They were expecting the Campaign Setting all over again.

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (3.0) was a fantastic book that contained much in the way of history, notable NPC's, races, etc. It is a fascinating read, even if you are not familiar with Forgotten Realms in the D&D context, but instead know of it through novels.

Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide (4E)is a paradigm shift. It isn't meant to be the same as the book above. It is specifically empty of races, NPC's (except a few), and so on. Races should be reserved for the upcoming Players Handbook.

The problem with a familiar and favorite setting (such as the Star Wars or Star Trek universe, and Forgotten Realms) is that when people play games within the universe or write fan fiction, there are always critics who quickly point out the inaccuracies. While these critics, as personified by the comic book guy in the Simpsons, are usually correct... it's extremely irritating and takes players out of the game and into a debate.

This book is set 100 years in the future. Many of the cities, towns, customs, and governments are the same and yet this book adds a mega-hook called the spell plague that changes the magic, terrain, and living organisms to varying degrees, just enough that adventurers don't quite know what to expect in the world any more. This allows DM's to be creative and make adventures without being rigidly held in a world that has already been defined. So the focus on this book is the new Pantheon, and an alphabetical encyclopedic account of nearly every region in Toril. Additionally, it has a large section describing fanatical cults and religions.

So here is one way to use the book. Open the map, pick an area, read about it. You will find the government, customs, and laws. You will know the major religions and threats of that area. You are given several hooks into plot possibilities. Filling out the details is up to the DM's creativity. I believe adding more to this book would be a serious mistake. It is just enough to get things going, but not enough to secure a straight jacket on your home-grown adventure.

They put the power back into the hands of the DM, and returned the suspense of the game to the players. Furthermore, I believe that the old book is still valid as historical reference and so using these two books together adds great fun to the game. Finally, it allows authors to continue writing without worrying about what is canon, apocrypha, etc.

I really, really wanted to love the Realms 4th edition. Truly, I had high expectations, even though I was kind of averse to the whole 100 years go-ahead idea.

I have been playing, on and off, since the late 80s. I have had the grey box, the gold box, the third edition, a gazillion supplements. I loved almost everything about the Realms, particularly the novels with their inspiring characters.

Let's face it, the third edition FR campaign setting hardcover didn't win prizes and awards out of hearsay, it was truly amazing and loved by many. A hard task to match or surpass such an item!

But this... this is disappointing. I like the layout, the concept, the intentions. But the sheer insubstantiality, the neglect of follow-up on heroes (why do they still have some of the same villains and no heroes?) that many love dearly... Abeir is not so important to old school peeps, they could have significantly downsized that part... The deities and cosmology? Way too little! What's with the adventure, irrelevant in a core campaign book as it is, and at the very beginning of the book?! What kind of editorial decision is that?!

Many plead that the FR Player's Guide will fill gaps, expand on X and Y... Well sorry folks, if the core book cannot account for such important features like its predecessors, well it is kind of embarrassing to call it a core campaign guide, isn't it? And why should the players know anything about the history, cosmology, geography, politics, heroes, etc.? I have a feeling they won't, because it won't be there, it will be in several other books we will have to pay good $$$ for. I'm not against expansions, options et cetera, but this whole thing feels rushed.

Rushed. I love the WoW floating motes, I can see them in WoW, mind you, instead of imagining them in my Realms. Cutting down on the gods might be cool, but neglecting all but the greater gods is also a big no-no. Talking about genasi all over the Abeir cross-over is fun, but not providing once an idea of what a genasi is besides the glossary entry, what they look like, etc. is not going to help newbies to the Realms. I had forgotten what they were, and had to look them up wikipedia... 35 pages of precious info lost to an adventure... in the core book. A good, what, EIGHT pages on history, traveling, current era, what gives?

I really want to like 4E, and the Realms again. Please make me see wonders, old and new.