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The Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide (FRCG) is a setting book for Wizards of the Coast's (WotC) Dungeons and Dragons, 4th edition. The Forgotten Realms was created by Ed Greenwood and released by TSR in 1987 and over the years the Realms has acquired hundreds of thousands of words of material. WotC has put the extensive backstory and continuity behind as the 4th edition Realms is set 100 years after the 3rd edition and has undergone a major disaster that drastically altered the setting.
Appearance
At 288 pages this book contains a wealth of information. The visual production values remain high with full color art and maps throughout the book. There is less illustrative art in this book than in most Wizards of the Coast products due to the large number of maps. Once again each chapter gets a large image, with the most outstanding one in front of the Magic chapter giving a nod to the original boxed set cover from 1987.
In this edition of the Forgotten Realms, WotC has adopted a new style of cartography that is more modern in appearance and looks like a satellite image, whereas older edition had more illustrative styles and looked more like Tolkien's maps from the Lord of the Rings. The book includes a large poster map with four panels that depicts the portion of the continent that makes up the Forgotten Realms. This map is functional, as it shows how all of the areas detailed in the book fit together, but it is also incomplete. A whole island continent was added in this edition and does not have its own large format map. The continent of Returned Abeir has only a single page map in the book, with accompanying small maps in the geographical descriptions. The maps in the book are sections copied from the large poster map.
Setting
The Realms has undergone a major shift in setting, even more drastic than the changes wrought by the Time of Troubles. It is now 1479, a century after the previous edition and in a way a much reduced Realms. The catastrophe was caused by the murder of the goddess of magic which caused the collapse of magical laws resulting in the Spellplague. This cataclysm caused Abeir to merge with Toril and removed several old regions, replacing them with new ones, including an entire continent. In conjunction with the death of Mystra, the pantheon of gods underwent major upheavals as well. Gods were killed, some entities were merged or revealed as simply aspects of other deities, and still other gods revealed themselves as Primordials. All of this change was intended to prune the pantheon and bring it in line with the new core D&D cosmology. This reviewer feels that it was taken too far as he enjoyed the larger pantheon and the idea that older demihuman gods were simply aspects of human gods did not sit well either.
The geographic changes were very welcome. Some of the places removed, such as Unther and Mazteca felt out of place in the Realms and with their removal the focus was refined. There are still many different cultures in the Realms, most being modelled on real world ones. The most significant change is that the power of most of the nations has been greatly reduced to fit with the "points of light" design theme. The new continent of Returned Abeir offers a distinct contrast to Faerun as most of the continent is ruled by dragons or rebellious humanoid servants of dragons. This area also allowed the introduction of the new races from the Player's Handbook, for example the dragonborn are the predominant servants of the dragons on Returned Abeir.
Most of the book is dedicated to describing the various regions of the Realms with each one receiving a two page write up. Each region begins with a brief overview, followed by a lore section with various bits that can be learned by characters via skill checks. Notable settlements are described next, followed by two or three plot hooks. The hooks are useful to inspire DMs to run adventures in each region and are reminiscent of the old Rumors section in the original boxed set. No statistics are given in these hooks, just a short back story hinting at what kinds of hazards may be in the area.
Another part of the book introduces a starting region, much like Winterhaven in the Dungeon Master's Guide. Loudwater is a small frontier town surrounded by hostile wilderness. The description of the town is sufficient to provide a good balance of role playing opportunities while allowing a DM to improvise as necessary. It could be criticised as cliche, but as an introductory town for players new to the Realms, or gaming in general, it is a good fit as it contains all of the standard fantasy tropes. This chapter includes a short adventure set near Loudwater, and several further adventure hooks. Unlike the plot hooks in the regional descriptions the hooks associated with Loudwater receive an encounter, with only the High Forest description lacking one. This reviewer started his first Realms game in Loudwater and has found it to be a serviceable location.
Characters
There are some chapters that would be of use to characters, namely the Adventuring chapter, along with parts of the Magic, Cosmology, and Pantheon chapters. The regional descriptions in the FRCG are aimed at DMs with player-oriented ones in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide. The chapters on Loundwater and Threats should definately be left to the DM as they reveal setting elements that characters can eventually discover.
System
Little by the way of mechanics is introduced in this book. This is not surprising as the main focus is on the setting of the Realms. What little there is, is mainly a few new artifacts, new monsters and NPCs in the Threats chapter. All of the encounters in the Loudwater section use monsters from the Monster Manual.
In Play
The FRCG has been very useful in running my campaign. Loudwater is detailed enough that over the course of running the provided mini adventures other plot lines will open up allowing a well tailored game for a specific group. Once this campaign has ended there are several other areas that this reviewer cannot wait to run games in. The support provided by the Living Forgotten Realms aids in providing adventures for many of the regions in the Realms.
Conclusion
Wizards has done an excellent job of condensing over twenty years of Realms lore into one book. This reduction has dramatically lowered the entry commitment to get involved in the Realms since there is much less backstory to know, but for an old veteran this reviewer felt a bit disconnected from the new edition. While some of the changes were not to this reviewer's liking, they are easily remedied, though the majority of the changes have been to the good and provide a new vision for the Realms that should serve it well for the next (hopefully) twenty years.
