I love Golarion and I spent a lot of time going over the Inner Sea world guide and other sources to learn about the world. Unfortunately, my DM loooves FR and decided to start a campaign there. I only say unfortunately because I know close to nothing about FR besides the little I learned from Neverwinter Nights 2 and my short time playing DnD 4E, which broke my DMs heart and he refuses to acknowledge. So the FR Wiki apparently is a mix of good and bad information.
So does anyone know of any good online sources to learn about Forgotten Realms? Or dates at least so I can sort out what will be good and bad info... So far I've gotten away with playing a cloistered cleric of Kelemvor who is just now venturing out and my friend is explaining everything to me as his Sun Elf Wizard.
Yeah, I'm looking for one, but I have to keep checking back in the local shop for when someone sells one or search online, and I've been slacking trying to find a copy.
We get to play pretty much Bi-Weekly now and we're all amazed how fast we're leveling so I'm worried I may need a new character soon so I want some more information. I picked the country of Ormath as my home, which I've found nothing on and I want to avoid this happening again.
I'm grabbing the Cormyr eBook soon (I anticipate playing yet another knightly character) to get some information, but I'm hoping for an online source I can browse at my leisure.
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Good luck with your search for the 3.0 FR campaign setting book (it is, without a doubt, the guidebook for the Realms).
I agree with LH about how the Realms were butchered for 4E - it made the changes from 1E to 2E with the Time of Troubles seem tame in comparison. Yes, the death of multiple deities and drastic shake-up of the world order in a 6month in-world period utterly pales into insignificance. I'm a Realms fan, and I flat-out refuse to acknowledge the changes made. (Fortunately my home game is currently set prior to the 3.0 timeline, so I haven't had to ignore anything, yet.)
I read aaaall of Kelemvor's story on the Wiki, I love him. Being a Cleric of his was set. I'm considering grabbing Time of Troubles before Cormyr...
In the short time I played 4E, I played in a game where Cyric was manipulating everything so I learned a whole bunch there. I had a pretty sweet Elven Avenger of Tempus, but most of what I did learn isn't applicable.
You could also try and find a copy of the "Grand History of the Realms". It's a lot to take in, but a very useful resource.
Sweet, that's awesome. I'll have to check that out when I get home.
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I didn't know Greyhawk had a devoted following, I always thought was just "Generic DnD Setting"
Best advice I could give is to keep a lid on how much information you take in. It's a good setting, but it has problems. The biggest being there is SOOOO much that has been written about it. A friend of mine once joked that even the homeless bum you might cross in game might have his own trilogy.
The third edition book is a good start. I remember around that time the devs were talking about putting the focus of the game back on the PCs. Then I saw the fullpage statblock for Elminster, totally out of place and for no reason, on page 6. FR's other big problem is that there are too many all powerful NPC's that put there nose in everything.
I had thought of starting a PF based FR game. My thought was to run it with the same feel as the old 1st edition boxed set. No Time of Troubles, no Spellplague or anything else. Next idea: Nuke Shadowdale. Get rid of the Knights of Myth Drannor, and Elminster. I'm debating on if I would want the sisters in game or not.
As others have said, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (3.0) is without a doubt the best source. Lost Empires of Faerun (3.5) is another book chock-a-bock full of history and general background. Finally, depending on where the game is set, the regional books are all quite good.
I didn't know Greyhawk had a devoted following, I always thought was just "Generic DnD Setting"
As did I, mostly because I didn't get into the hobby until ~2002. At that time Greyhawk publishing was in firm decline, and finding out setting info required you to dig through books from older editions that weren't financially viable for me (at least not when I was buying 2-3 WotC books a month as a teen). I was brought into the hobby on a steady diet of Forgotten Realms. It wasn't until my current long term GM (5 years now) started introducing elements of Greyhawk into the world that I really got an interest in it.
Having had a bit of time now to play around with Greyhawk and read up on it (and being a bit older and perhaps less enamored with level 37 archmages and drow rangers) I can honestly say it's one of the more interesting settings I've seen (both homebrew and published). There's enough detail for a GM to draw out plenty of plots, but not so much as to sufficate him (as I often felt was the case in Forgotten Realms). It's a setting at accommodates all levels of play very smoothly, with its own distinctive NPCs, cities, and gods. You should give it a closer look.
The problem is how difficult it is to get information on the setting as a whole, since the vast majority of the books are older or out of print, and Gary wasn't ever as prolific as Ed in terms of fielding questions about the setting.
Removed post with copyright infringement.
Vive le Tharizdun!!
EDIT: There were 5 published by New {i]Infinities[/i]
During the 2nd edition days, there were a lot of small gazeteers that covered specific areas, much like what Paizo does with the 64 page campaign setting books. I had the "Savage Frontier" book which came with a map (covering Waterdeep and further north). I believe most of it was noncrunch material. Occassionally, I see used copies show up at gamestores but I don't know if Wizards has started selling those as PDFs. Highly recommended if you can find one on the specific area you are looking for. Like others have said, the 3E campaign book is very good as well.
You just need to keep in mind that the transfer through editions did not leave FR untainted. The original setting was, in essence, what it was supposed to be. When shifted over to 3x, they tried to make it a 'progression' of timeline, so factions changed/rose/fell from power, expanded information, etc. When they went over to 4e, the 'progression' became a downright cornholing.
It was almost like someone said 'hey, we got this IP here, but its stale and stinks of people who no longer hold favor with us. Let's tear it apart, make some strange new story as to why, and throw some iconics in there to make it all mash together.' then they told everyone remotely involved in it to write to their specifications.
Admittedly, the last novel line pretty much became Elminster/Khelben/some other chosen of mystra jumps in and saves the day. I think alot of the changes were kneejerk reactions to this, and hence forth, lets kill mystra, blow up all the chosen, and put our own new heroes in the line up.
I apologize for my earlier post. I didn't realize. Here's a quick recap of the non-offending portion of it:
Third party sellers are selling the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3e book at amazon.com here for as little as $13.61, but if you want to be sure of getting the detachable map with it, you may have to pay as much as $33.95. Noble Knight Games has it for $28 here.
(I was fortunate enough to get it, complete with map, from a third-party seller through amazon, for only $5.)
The Dragon's Trove is offering the Grand History of the Realms book for $29.95 here.
Moving on...
Yes, Greyhawk has a following. I first looked into it by getting the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, which gave me a fascination for the setting that I've never felt for Forgotten Realms.
Oh yeah. I can say one more thing. You can buy a PDF of "Grand History of the Realms" for $14.99 from DriveThruRPG. Link.
You should know that the 3.0 Forgotten Realms book was updated with a supplement named Player's Guide to Faerun (3.5 edition), and it is essential to actually playing FR as a result.
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@ Kairos Dawnfury,
Nice.
While I don't have any numbers I'm pretty sure there are still (though we're dwindling) more GH players than any other setting.
Years ago when "favorite settings" Forums on the Boards here were in vogue GH always blew away the others -- in fact FR usually had to fight Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Dragonlance and Planescape for 2nd place.
Consider this, from '74 to '89 there were only two real settings, GH and Mystara. And the little bit of Mystara that was really cool -- such as the Isle of Dread mentioned earlier -- was shoehorned into EVERYONE's GH game as if it was GH. And there's still a whole lot of us that played in the 80s -- and taught legions of gamers in the 90s & 00s how to play D&D -- with GH as the setting.
Of course, Paizo's messageboards circa 2005-2007 is not likely the best place to go looking for unbiased opinions on settings. Back when there were only a hundred or so of us that posted regularly -- before WotC killed D&D and lost the Edition Wars -- the Paizo Lords-of-the-Boards were long-time GH gamers that had been the ones to publish, either back in the day in print or online in PDF, much of the GH lore. Heck, one of the guys that Paizo selected as a judge for its Dungeon #116 "List of Greatest Adventures" article was not an industry guy at all -- he just started the big GH website. Lisa Stevens and Erik Mona both got there starts in the industry with GH products and were GH players above anything else.
But yes, we Grognards are getting fewer and fewer compared to the masses of new gamers who don't realize that Iomedae is just a cheap rip-off of Mayaheine, Rovagug is a blatant plagiarism of Tharizdun, etc., etc.
Yet sadly there are no GH novels worth using for anything save kindling.
Yet sadly there are no GH novels worth using for anything save kindling.
Well... none of them were worth reading twice. But when I read the first two Paul Kidd Greyhawk novels (mentioned by Lincoln Hills above) I thought they were amusing enough to keep me reading, and the main characters were memorable.
And I thought Thomas Reid's novelization of The Temple of Elemental Evil was worth reading just for that one surprise twist...
Of course, this contradicted official Greyhawk continuity, but who cares? You know, at the time that I read the novel, I had never seen the "Temple of Elemental Evil" module, and until reading the novel, I had always thought that the Scarlet Brotherhood had killed him!
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I have an introduction to the Realms here. It covers the factual, behind-the-scenes history of the setting and also some of the fictional background.
One of the most exhaustive sites out there is Candlekeep. It can be a bit daunting in its size, but when you get in there there's some great info to be found. Realms creator Ed Greenwood used to post there a lot, and I believe the 4E Realms is not very popular on there, so most of the material is for the original incarnation of the setting.
I have quite a lot of both the 2E and 3E material for the game. There was not much on Ormath, aside from it being on the Shining Plains so it was a waystop for people travelling from the Vilhon Reach region to the Western Heartlands/Amn region. Not a huge amount going on there for most of its history. I'll double check my VILHON REACH sourcebook and see if there's any further detail there.
While I don't have any numbers I'm pretty sure there are still (though we're dwindling) more GH players than any other setting.
I don't think so. The Realms have always been TSR and WotC's #1, best-selling setting. They have been continuously in print from 1987 to now, and the current and temporary limbo-like state between 4E and 5E is the longest period between fresh FR material (and the novels are still coming out like clockwork). It is by far both company's biggest-selling novel line; R.A. Salvatore has sold 30 million + novels in the FR alone.
Compared to GREYHAWK, there's no real comparison. GREYHAWK has been in print and in vogue for only relatively brief periods of D&D's history.
In a popularity poll on a forum, yes, I can see GREYHAWK winning. It's old-school, it's the original, it's Gygax's and it's not as overpowered and over-detailed as the Realms.
Consider this, from '74 to '89 there were only two real settings, GH and Mystara
In that same period you also had DRAGONLANCE (1984) and RAVENLOFT had been introduced through adventure modules (although the original black box didn't come out until 1990). FORGOTTEN REALMS came out in 1987. SPELLJAMMER came out in 1989. There was also ORIENTAL ADVENTURES (1985-88, when it became part of FR).
So there were a few campaign settings out there.
I have an introduction to the Realms here. It covers the factual, behind-the-scenes history of the setting and also some of the fictional background.
I wrote up a whole long post about skipping the 3rd edition book (which was pretty good, actually) and getting:
--old issues of Dragon
--the Campaign Box
--the Pools of Radiance video game
--copies of The Crystal Shard, Darkwalkers on Moonshaes and Azure Bonds
but Wertzone beat me to it.
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Great to read a thread about the Realms where no one (yet, I fear) felt the need to go into a great rant about Elminster and other powerful NPC's. I still love the setting way more than Golarion and am a bit depressed that it was taken down so brutally by WotC.
I am perfectly happy with how this thread went, no apologies needed!
My GM loves Greenwood and talked our Rogue into being a spellfire channeler. She has fried many Big Bads.
I found a neat book at B&N, Elminster's Guide to the Forgotten Realms, as far as I know, it seems to be 2nd at the latest because they didn't have Kelemvor in it. Basically Greenwood talking about how people live in FR, learned a lot of great roleplaying tips.
As far as Greyhawk, my old DM basically went all homebrew, so we never ever touched Greyhawk besides the gods.
And I love Mystara only because I used to play the DnD Arcade games like crazy on my emulator.
I found a neat book at B&N, Elminster's Guide to the Forgotten Realms, as far as I know, it seems to be 2nd at the latest because they didn't have Kelemvor in it. Basically Greenwood talking about how people live in FR, learned a lot of great roleplaying tips.
The Guide is actually a relatively new book, but it's based more on Ed's home campaign than the current Realms and written with an eye towards appealing to fans of all the setting's iterations. Hence all the operational ground-level details and stuff about how society works rather than big metaplot and rules content. I think it's the kind of thing Ed prefers writing, lots of similarities with the old Volo's Guide to X books from 2e that he's said are his favorites.
It really is a great book. One of the ones you can open up to just about any page with text on it and start getting game ideas. My players will probably never forgive me. :)
So you want to learn about the FR...Ok here you go...
Go kidnapped Ed Greenwood, Geoff Grub, and Richard Baker( not Keith Baker he wrote Eberron).
Use 'enhanced interrogation' techniques to make them tell you everything...
Oh wait you want leagle ways...um...the suggestion above are all good ones.
Disclaimer: The above is a joke...I in no way advocate or approve of kidnapping people or Torture.
Why do you say torture when discussing enhanced interrogation techniques? Are you trying to spread disinformation, citizen Kretzer?
OP: Where to go for info depends on what energy you want to put into it. The simplest course is probably the FRCS 3.0, as was said above. Beyond that, things get a bit complicated. There are a ton of second edition books with material, quite a few third edition ones as well, but most define various areas, and much like Golarion, the different areas are very different. I will see if I can find anything about Ormath, but don't hold your breath. :-)
But, if you treat them to a nice meal....
You would think so...unfortunaly people seem to be still upset over the whole kidnapping thing...I don't know why...not that I ever had any experience with this of course...I am totaly just assuming there. ;)
Why do you say torture when discussing enhanced interrogation techniques? Are you trying to spread disinformation, citizen Kretzer?
What can I say...I am a rebel.
In all seriousness the best way to learn about the Realms is probably the old grey(or some have call it green...) 1st ed campaign box. As I believe if you want to learn about something you should start at the beginning.
Now that is rather expensive...though in my opinion probably worth every penny just as something to read.
it's based more on Ed's home campaign
This is an interesting point to make, though not hugely relevant for gameplaying purposes: Greenwood's FORGOTTEN REALMS aren't actually the same as what has been seen in print over the last 26 years. Greenwood's REALMS are basically the Heartlands, Waterdeep and IIRC the North; a lot of the rest of Faerun and certainly everything beyond was created by other people (starting with Jeff Grubb) for the 1987 boxed set and onwards, though some of it also by Greenwood (the Border Kingdoms, which he developed a lot of in DRAGON Magazine, for example).
There was a thread on Candlekeep years ago where Greenwood said that 'his' Realms were somewhat different in feel and tone, more low-level and with less borrowing of fantasy archetypes. I think he specifically said the Moonshae Isles didn't exist in his original version, to start with. I think this is why he seemed pretty relaxed about whatever was done to the FR in 1-3E, since the biggest changes were mostly outside the Heartlands and the ones inside it were ones he himself had come up with (like the situation in Cormyr, which he instigated himself in his novel cowritten with Troy Denning).
4E, which effected everything and killed off a ton of NPCs, seems to have been the only time that Greenwood was moved to speak openly of his disapproval of what WotC had done to his world, and even then in a very polite, "It's not what I would have done, and I'm still on board to help [mitigate the damage] take the Realms in an exciting new direction," kind of way.
I'd be very interested to see more of Greenwood's original REALMS concept, but I don't think there's much more out there.
In all seriousness the best way to learn about the Realms is probably the old grey(or some have call it green...) 1st ed campaign box. As I believe if you want to learn about something you should start at the beginning.
Now that is rather expensive...though in my opinion probably worth every penny just as something to read.
Well... it's not necessarily SO expensive, if you're not fussy. The Hit Pointe is selling the complete set in Good / Very Good condition for $13. Noble Knight Games is selling the books only in Fair condition for $8.50 or the whole set in Very Good / Near Mint for $30 here.
There is also the second edition campaign setting box, which is certainly not up to the quality of the gray box, but is also more polished and in line with the other realms products out there. I would also like to suggest the Volo's guides, which give a "civilian's" look of the areas in question, i.e. Settlements, shops, inns, and so on.
There is also the second edition campaign setting box, which is certainly not up to the quality of the gray box, but is also more polished and in line with the other realms products out there. I would also like to suggest the Volo's guides, which give a "civilian's" look of the areas in question, i.e. Settlements, shops, inns, and so on.
I merely suggested the Grey Box to because it is logical to start there.
But I second the Volo's Guides...those were a fun read.
Gray box is a beautiful piece of work. There is a reason quite a few people go back to it for getting a fresh Realms. However, it is also this freshness that gets its information at odds with what came later, which is considered standard for most of the other stuff published. Just thought I'd mention it.
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It is easy to go OTT in explaining the FR to people. It's a bit like being a fan of the SONG OF ICE AND FIRE books and when the TV show starts you present your non-book-reading friends with a 20-page primer on the backstory, geography and who the hell everyone is. It might be useful but there's probably a lot of unnecessary information in there they don't really need (and if they do need it, the show should explain it when it becomes important).
If your DM is ignoring the 4E Realms (a very good move), then all you really need is the 3E FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign setting book. Even that's probably overwhelming in the amount of info it presents people. The Old Grey Box (the campaign 'book' for 1E) is great, but quite a bit out of date now. The 2E boxed set is a bit more up to date (there's only four years between the 2E boxed set and the 3E campaign setting, though a fair bit goes down in that time), but realistically I think the 3E book is the one to go for. Plus if you're playing FR in PATHFINDER, the 3E book is more compatible with the rules you already know.
Trying to cram the Realms down to the basics (this is the 3E incarnation):
Geography
The 'Forgotten Realms' are the nations and city-states of the continent of Faerun, located on the planet Abeir-toril (aka just Toril). Faerun is a large continent stretching from icy lands in the north to subequatorial, warm lands in the south. The Realms have a large inland sea in the middle: a very rough rule of the thumb is that the lands north of the Inner Sea are more dangerous, with more numerous monsters and fewer nations and kingdoms. South of the Inner Sea the lands are warmer and more populous.
Races
Humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, planetouched, orcs, goblins, wemics, thri-kreen, saurials (humanoid dinosaurs, not dragonborn whom they resemble), dragons and pretty much all of the usual suspects. If it's in the Monstrous Manual, it's probably in the Realms somewhere (including the tarrasque, but not draconians or half-giants).
Religion
The Realms have something like 120 named gods and demigods, the overwhelming majority of which a player will never even hear of during a campaign. The major ones are Cyric (God of Lies and Deceit), Bane (Evil in general), Kelemvor (Death), Mystra (Magic), Oghma (Knowledge), Shar (Shadows and Darkness), Sune (Love), Talos (Chaos and Storms), Talona (Pain, Suffering and Disease), Tempus (War and Battle), Torm (Honour) and Tyr (Justice). You probably don't need to know much more than that :-)
Feel
The Realms is a pretty standard medieval fantasy world, with the Europe-like lands lying north of the Inner Sea and the lands to the south more resembling Arabian, Africa and Middle-eastern nations. The vast steppes to the east resemble Mongolia and Central Asia, and beyond them lies the Asian-like lands of Kara-Tur. In broad terms, the Realms are pretty much a traditional Medieval European fantasyland except roving bands of orcs are more common ;-)
The 1E Realms are a fairly standard setting with not a huge focus on epic characters and powerful magic. By 3E the Realms had become a 'high-level' setting, with plenty of Level 30+ wizards and priests wandering around. 2E is somewhere in the middle. The Realms is still characterised as a high-magic setting, though in practice I find this varies by DM. DMs can emphasise the magic and break out wizards armed with a five-page spell-lists if they want to, but plenty (especially veterans of older editions) prefer to downplay magic in the setting and take out elements they feel are too overpowered (like the Red Wizards of Amazon.com).
I think that's about as basic a basic overview as you're going to get.
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Should perhaps add Chauntea (fertility, agriculture), Lathander (mornings, sun), and Silvanus (wild nature) just to complete the greater gods, and Tymora (good luck) and Mielikki (rangers) for adventurer utility.
Deities were definitely the first thing I dug into, I love the diverse choices since my characters always follow one to help nail down a role play style early (and just bought the Shadowdale ebook to learn about time of troubles). My Knight/Paladin Junkie self is pulled to Tyr and Kelemvor. I was actually able to get ahold of the 3.0 Campaign guide and I love the side bar detailing how the different Paladins of different deities operate. There's so much good info, I gotta slow down a little to prevent some metagaming.
You all have been great help. A lot of the stuff listed here, I'm pretty sure my buddy has and I may be able to borrow.
I am glad we could help. If you are interested in the gods, there are three books of them for 2nd edition that are generally unmatched regarding such supplements. Faiths and Avatars, about the bigger gods, Powers and Pantheons about demigods and exotic pantheons for other areas, and Demihuman deities, about the elven and dwarven etc pantheons. For me, the book that got me hooked was Forgotten Realms Adventures, the update book for the second edition of the game (and the Time of Troubles). Oh... And don't start with Shadowdale. Elfshadow, or Azure Bonds, or Shadow's Witness are much better starting points. The Avatar trilogy is an acquired taste.