Ok forgotten realms really never interested me before. It basically killed a ton of sacred cows, and a lot of characters that I despised. Setting wise I like what I see.

However that being said it has all the weaknesses of 4th edition to hold it back. If you don't like 4e you won't like this one.

I think the 3E FRCS is by far a better book all around, but the setting itself is rather generic.

This "book" was a waste of a tree. No Anaroch?? Give me a break! Hey Wizards of the Coast, you have successfully killed D&D with 4.0 and ruined a perfectly good campaign setting. Whats next? You gonna bring back Dark Suns and piss all over that???

Well i'm not a supporter of the new dnd 4th edition. But aside from that I checked out this book and read it quite throughly. It's not so bad, BUT it lacks all FR atmosphere. basically the FR is all about high level gaming and NPC's. Come on I mean elminster, simbul, etc. But now poof all gone. Now as for myself I never liked how the FR was so magic oriented and well frankly it had a magic arms race going on over there, BUT that was the FR like it or not. So basically this ripped the whole heart out of the setting and replaced it with a weird jarvic artificial heart, which well doesn't work really. Just don't use it, keep the old FR setting book from 3.x. You'll do a lot better that way.

This book, like any book redefining a well-loved and followed product is torn between keeping the good of old, and finding its own voice.

It absolutely found its own voice. The merits of that voice are, to say the least, questionable. The redefined realms could just as well be any of a huge number of more or less indistinguishable homebrew worlds.

As for keeping the old, the Spellplague might as well have been called Armageddon. Some of the names remain the same, and you might even run into a few "familiar faces", but the entire setting has changed so much that these seem to be anachronistic throwbacks, rather than reminders of old.

As for the book itself: Quite gutsy, starting off with an adventure. Very time-oriented, very much in what seems to be 4th Editions "ready to go right now" philosophy. Kudos for seeing it through with such consequence. If only the adventure had felt less like generic filler, this might have been easily another star. Production values are good, too. All in all not the best deal, but there is worse in the RPG market.

WOTC has recently made many questionable decisions regarding its D&D franchise, but most have at least some semblance of justification given by a 4th edition fanboy. However, this product lacks any soul, has poor production quality, and completely rewrites the history of Forgotten Realms to justify the new magic system of 4th edition.

Gone are the great characters such as Manshoon of the Zentarium and the Red Wizards of Thay. Gone is the Hosttower and practically every Wizard kingdom. Enter monolithic evil forces all worshiping bane. Enter ignoring over 120 books of source material over 30 years. Enter removing some of the most loved NPCs of the Realms such as Elminster with two sentence explanations.

Frankly, this product ended all fleeting loyalty I have for WOTC. I will never again play another game set in Forgotten Realms or buy a computer game based on this setting.

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

After spending some time with this book, I can say two things about it with certainty, if you are against 4e, you shouldn't have bought the book in the first place.

Secondly, if you are silly enough to be convinced that there is no going back to the way things were, you deserve that "I just wasted 50 bucks" feeling.

This book passed the test, it was fun to read with and without the crunchy bits. The areas were well laid out, the changes were interesting (if a bit contrived here and there), and the realms are still a high magic playground full of incredible sights and sounds.

I hopped on board with 2nd edition, and muddled through 3rd as well. I never liked having 100+ gods, and dealing with the accumulated deitrus of 30+ years of splat was becoming more than burdensome. Life is about change. If you want to keep "your" older realms, nobody is making you shell out 50 bucks for this book. If it was getting a bit...stale for you, this is the ticket to a brave (and interesting)new world.

I feel like there's something completely wrong with this book. Nothing about this waste was at all impressive. And next time, release the campaign guide with the idea that a player is going to read it. Screw the separate player's guide. Complete campaign rules is the way to go. Is WotC eager to burn bridges? Apparently so.

This book was a huge letdown.. I have been a huge fan of the realms since the release of the gray box set. First off its more of a book for the DM with very little player information. Players will want the player's guide to be released in September. Many of the god's that have been a part of the realms for the longest time are gone and for no good reason. Races that have existed in the realms since the start are just gone in a way with very little information as to why. Meanwhile races that have been optional for the most part now have realms of there own which has led to some butchering of the history associated with the realms(Abeir)... All I can say positive is atleast it is recognizeable as the realms and it has some nice artwork.

I just couldn't do it. I tried playing in these new Realms, but...they weren't the Realms I know and love. Changing things up, making them different...that's one thing, but to alter the Realms so drastically that they're barely recognizable is yet another. I did what Greenwood asked and gave them a shot, though, and I still didn't like what I saw.