Forgotten Realms

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Forgotten Realms
Designers
Ed Greenwood
Publication1987–current
GenresFantasy
LanguagesEnglish
Media typeGame accessories, novels, role-playing video games, comic books

Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories.[1] Several years later, it was published for the D&D game as a series of magazine articles, and the first Realms game products were released in 1987. Role-playing game products have been produced for the setting ever since, in addition to novels, role-playing video game adaptations (including the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game to use graphics), comic books, and the film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.[2]

Forgotten Realms is a fantasy world setting, described as a world of strange lands, dangerous creatures, and mighty deities, where magic and supernatural phenomena are quite real. The premise is that, long ago, planet Earth and the world of the Forgotten Realms were more closely connected. As time passed, the inhabitants of Earth had mostly forgotten about the existence of that other world – hence the name Forgotten Realms. The original Forgotten Realms logo, which was used until 2000, had small

runic letters
that read "Herein lie the lost lands" as an allusion to the connection between the two worlds.

Forgotten Realms is one of the most popular D&D settings,[3][4] largely due to the success of novels by authors such as R. A. Salvatore and numerous role-playing video games, including Pool of Radiance (1988), Eye of the Beholder (1991), Icewind Dale (2000), and the Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate series.

Creative origins

Ed Greenwood in 2008

Waterdeep before creating a group known as the Knights of Myth Drannor in the Shadowdale region. Greenwood felt that his players' thirst for detail made the Realms what it is: "They want it to seem real, and work on 'honest jobs' and personal activities, until the whole thing grows into far more than a casual campaign. Roleplaying always governs over rules, and the adventures seem to develop themselves."[6] Greenwood has stated that his own version of the Forgotten Realms, as run in his personal campaign, is much darker than published versions.[8]

Starting in 1979, Greenwood published a series of articles that detailed the setting in

spells.[7] When Gary Gygax "lost control of TSR in 1985, the company saw an opportunity to move beyond Greyhawk and introduce a new default setting".[9]: 87  In 1986, TSR began looking for a new campaign setting for AD&D,[5]: 72  and assigned Jeff Grubb to find out more about the setting used by Greenwood as portrayed in his articles in Dragon.[9]

Greenwood states that Grubb asked him "Do you just make this stuff up as you go, or do you really have a huge campaign world?", and Greenwood answered "yes" to both questions.

AD&D 2nd edition.[6] Greenwood agreed to work on the project and began working to get Forgotten Realms officially published.[10] He sent TSR a few dozen cardboard boxes stuffed with pencil notes and maps, and sold all rights to the setting for a token fee.[6] He noted that TSR altered his original conception of the Realms being a place that could be accessed from Earth, as "[c]oncerns over possible lawsuits (kids getting hurt while trying to 'find a gate') led TSR to de-emphasize this meaning".[6]

Jon Peterson, author of Dungeons and Dragons Art and Arcana: A Visual History, said that Greenwood "was that rare obsessive DM who just seemed to have more ideas and energy to pour into his world than even the folks at TSR did. Naturally when TSR was shopping for new campaign worlds as part of their cross-media strategy, they had to get the Forgotten Realms. R. A. Salvatore took Greenwood's world and created characters and stories for it that made him a bestselling author and sustained TSR as a major fantasy book publisher".[11]

Publication history

1985–1990

In 1985, the AD&D

Forgotten Realms Campaign Set by one month.[14]

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Set was later released in 1987

computer role-playing games set in the Forgotten Realms.[16]

TSR began incorporating elements by other designers into the Forgotten Realms, including the Moonshae Isles by

Zeb Cook.[5]: 73  The setting also provided a new way for TSR to market its Battlesystem rules, which it had supported with the Bloodstone adventure sequence which started with Bloodstone Pass; the last two adventures in the series, The Bloodstone Wars (1987) and The Throne of Bloodstone (1988), were unambiguously set in the Forgotten Realms.[5]: 74  Some characters from Egg of the Phoenix (1987) by Frank Mentzer were incorporated into The Savage Frontier (1988).[5]
: 40 

The compilation module Desert of Desolation reworked the previous adventures to fit as part of the Forgotten Realms.[17] The module Under Illefarn published in 1987 is set in the Forgotten Realms,[15]: 108  as is the module released in 1988, Swords of the Iron Legion.[15]: 103 

Origins Award for "Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1988".[21]

Several supplements to the original boxed set were released under the first edition rules, beginning with Waterdeep and the North,[5]: 73  which was followed by Moonshae in 1987, and Empires of the Sands, The Magister, The Savage Frontier, Dreams of the Red Wizards, and Lords of Darkness in 1988.[15]: 96–97  The City System boxed set was released in 1988, and it contained several maps of the city of Waterdeep.[15]: 89  Ruins of Adventure, a module based on the computer game Pool of Radiance, was also released in 1988.[15]: 113 

The boxed set

Kara-Tur, and was designed to be used with the 1986 book Oriental Adventures, which officially placed the book in the Forgotten Realms world.[15]
: 103 

In 1989,

Forgotten Realms comics written by Grubb.[5]: 75  Each issue contains twenty-six pages, illustrated primarily by Rags Morales and Dave Simons. Twenty-five issues were published in total, with the last being released in 1991. A fifty-six page annual
Forgotten Realms Comic Annual #1: Waterdhavian Nights, illustrated by various artists, was released in 1990.

Curse of the Azure Bonds, a module based on the role-playing video game of the same name, was released in 1989.[15]: 97 

1990–2000

Forgotten Realms video games
1988
Baldur's Gate III

To transition the Forgotten Realms from first edition AD&D to the ruleset's second edition, a story involving the gods being cast down was planned by TSR management from the top-down and started with Hall of Heroes (1989) and continued with a three-adventure Avatar series (1989) and a three-novel Avatar series (1989), and some stories in the comic book.[5]: 84  TSR adjusted the timeline of the Forgotten Realms by advancing the calendar one year forward to 1358 DR, referring to the gap as the Time of Troubles.[9]

In early 1990, the hardcover

Maztica
.

The original gray boxed set was revised in 1993 to update it to AD&D 2nd edition, with the release of a new Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting boxed set containing three books (A Grand Tour of the Realms, Running the Realms, and Shadowdale) and various "monster supplements".

anthologies were also released throughout the 1990s, which led to the setting being hailed as one of the most successful shared fantasy universes of the 1990s.[24] By the first quarter of 1996, TSR had published sixty-four novels set in the Forgotten Realms out of the 242 novels set in AD&D worlds.[25]: 20  These novels in turn sparked interest in role-playing by new gamers.[26]

Numerous Forgotten Realms

MMORPG).[31] In 1998, Baldur's Gate, the first in a line of popular role-playing video games[32] developed by BioWare and "considered by most pundits as the hands-down best PC roleplaying game ever", was released.[1] The game was followed by a sequel, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, in 2000 and Icewind Dale, a separate game that utilized the same game engine as Baldur's Gate. Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor was released in 2001. Several popular Forgotten Realms characters such as Drizzt Do'Urden and Elminster
made minor appearances in these games.

2000–2008

When

Origins Award for Best Role-Playing Game Supplement of 2001 in 2002.[35] The timeline was officially advanced from 1358 DR to 1372 DR.[9] The adventure City of the Spider Queen (2002) did not meet its projected sales targets, so Wizards of the Coast cut back on production of new adventures.[33]
: 165 

In 2002, BioWare released Neverwinter Nights, set in the northern reaches of Faerûn and operating on the revised 3.0 rules for D&D. It was followed by two expansion packs: Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark. A sequel using version 3.5 of the rules was produced by Obsidian Entertainment in 2006, and was followed by the expansion sets Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir. The Forgotten Realms Deluxe Edition compilation was released in 2006, containing the Baldur's Gate series (excluding the Dark Alliance games), Icewind Dale series, and all Neverwinter Nights games before Neverwinter Nights 2.

2008–2014

With the release of Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition in 2008, Wizards opted for a publishing plan featuring a series of six books per year – consisting of three core rulebooks as well as three setting books – beginning with the Forgotten Realms. The company started the cycle with the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide (2008), the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide (2008), and Scepter Tower of Spellgard.[33]: 190  These books updated the Forgotten Realms to the newest rules system which altered the setting drastically to make it fit with the 4th edition concept of "Points of Light".[33]: 190 

The main lore change centered around an event called the Spellplague in 1385 DR.[9] This cataclysm was unleashed when the goddess of magic Mystra was killed, "transforming whole nations and altering creatures. In addition, parts of Toril have fused with its long-lost twin world Abeir, whisking away some countries and adding new ones. The Underdark is more open to the surface. Thay has become a nightmare land of death and the Elves, sensing the newfound connection to the Feywild, have returned to Faerûn in force".[36] The event moved the fictional world's timeline 94 years into the future to 1479 DR.[9] The Spellplague acted as "a narrative justification for design changes".[9]: 107 

In 2008, the Forgotten Realms also became the setting for the RPGA's sole living campaign,

Living Forgotten Realms, replacing Living Greyhawk
.

In 2011, the Neverwinter Campaign Setting was released which launched the 4th edition's first major multimedia release. The Forgotten Realms city setting spawned four novels by R. A. Salvatore called the Neverwinter Saga, a comic book, and a board game called The Legend of Drizzt, as well as two video games – the Facebook game Heroes of Neverwinter (2011–2012) and a MMORPG called Neverwinter (2013).[37] Laura Tommervik, from the Wizards of the Coast marketing team, explained the approach: "We use Neverwinter as the connective tissue across multiple product categories. The transmedia campaign is an opportunity for fans to experience the brand however they choose to".[37]

In 2013, Wizards of the Coast announced a year-long event called the

D&D Encounters in-store play event, a free-to-play mobile game Arena of War (2013), and a collaborative novel series: The Companions (2013) by R. A. Salvatore, The Godborn (2013) by Paul S. Kemp, The Adversary (2013) by Erin Evans, The Reaver (2014) by Richard Lee Byers, The Sentinel (2014) by Troy Denning, and The Herald (2014) by Ed Greenwood.[38][40] Liz Schuh, Head of Publishing and Licensing for Dungeons & Dragons, said:[41]

The Sundering is the last of a series of ground-shaking events. It really affects the whole world of the Forgotten Realms in a major way. You may remember when the Spell Plagues began, the two worlds of the Forgotten Realms, Abeir and Toril, crashed together. That created both geographic changes (the map of the Forgotten Realms and Faerûn actually changed due to that collision), and also changed the way magic works. It changed the pantheon of the gods. The Sundering is all about those two worlds separating—coming apart—and the process of that separation is really the story that we're telling over the next year. At the end of this story arc, Abeir and Toril will be separate again, and many of the things that happened when they crashed together will go back to the way they were before. So magic will be much like it was before the Spell Plague. Markings that marked spell-plagued people and animals will fade and go away. It's really about moving the Forgotten Realms forward, but also about bringing it around to the most beloved and most fondly remembered Forgotten Realms.

The result of The Second Sundering, in game terms, was the transition from 4th edition rules to 5th edition rules of Dungeons & Dragons, published in 2014.[9][42]

2014–present

When D&D 5th edition was published in 2014, Wizards of the Coast announced that the Forgotten Realms would continue to serve as the official campaign setting for its upcoming published adventure materials.[43][44][45] The village of Phandalin in the Forgotten Realms acted as the primary setting for the new 5th edition Starter Set (2014) which was published before the release of three new core rulebooks.[46] "Tyranny of Dragons" was the first multimedia storyline for the new edition and included two adventure modules, Hoard of the Dragon Queen (2014) and The Rise of Tiamat (2014), and an update to the Neverwinter (2013) video game.[9][47][48] The next two storylines, "Elemental Evil" which included Princes of the Apocalypse (2015) and "Rage of Demons" which included Out of the Abyss (2015), were also set in the Forgotten Realms.[9][49][50]

The first campaign guide for the new edition, the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (2015), was released on November 3, 2015, and only covered a fraction of the Forgotten Realms.[51][9] It describes the 2013 Sundering event, referred to as the Second Sundering in the book, and its consequences in game terms and lore.[52] The video game Sword Coast Legends (2015) published by Digital Extremes was also released in the same month as the tabletop campaign guide.[51][53]

5th edition details on "the rest of Faerûn had been untouched until the Tomb of Annihilation (2017), an adventure that leaves the northern Sword Coast for the southern jungles of Chult".[9]: 101  The official Dungeons & Dragons actual play web series Rivals of Waterdeep, which premiered in 2018, is set in the Forgotten Realms. It has adapted adventure modules such as Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (2018), Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus (2019) and Candlekeep Mysteries (2021) which are also set in the Forgotten Realms.[54][55]

Fictional setting

Main article: Faerûn

The focus of the Forgotten Realms setting is the continent of Faerûn, the western part of a continent that was roughly modeled after the Eurasian continent on Earth.

cottage industry
.

Geography

Main article: Abeir-Toril
Forgotten Realms partial map

The Forgotten Realms is part of the fictional world of

Maztica,[56] and other yet unspecified landmasses.[34] Kara-Tur, roughly corresponding to ancient East Asia, was later the focus of its own source book Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms, published in 1988.[15]: 103 [58] There is also a vast subterranean world called the Underdark beneath the surface.[22]: 98, 138 [50]

In early editions of the setting, The Realms shared a unified cosmology with various other campaign settings called the Great Wheel. In this way each of the Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings were linked together to form one interwoven world connected by various planes of existence. With the release of the 2001 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, the setting was given its own distinct and separate cosmological arrangement, with unique planes not explicitly connected to those of the other settings.[34][59]

Religion

Religion plays a large part in the Forgotten Realms, with deities and their followers being an integral part of the world. Deities interact directly in mortal affairs, answer prayers, and have their own personal agendas. All deities must have worshipers to survive, and all mortals must worship a patron deity to secure a good afterlife. A huge number of diverse deities exist within several polytheistic pantheons; a large number of supplements have documented many of them, some in more detail than others.[60][61] Greenwood created a pantheon of gods for his home Dungeons & Dragons game, in his Forgotten Realms world, which were introduced in his article "Down-to-earth divinity" from Dragon #54 (October 1981).[62]

When the Forgotten Realms was published as a setting in 1987, the pantheon added Waukeen, the goddess of trade, money, and wealth, who was created by one of Jeff Grubb's players, and added to the Forgotten Realms by Grubb.[citation needed] Tyche was replaced with Tymora, and the elemental lords from Melniboné were replaced by Akadi, Grumbar, Istishia, and Kossuth.[63]

Much of the history of the Forgotten Realms detailed in novels and source books concerns the actions of various deities and The Chosen (mortal representatives with a portion of their deities' power) such as

The Avatar Trilogy.[64]

Characters

The setting is home to several noteworthy recurring characters that have gained wider reception, including:

  • The Companions of the Hall, a group of adventurers that were created by R. A. Salvatore[65][66] and introduced in The Crystal Shard (1988).[67][68][69] Each of these characters "fit into an RPG archetype".[70] They include:
    • Drizzt Do'Urden, a drow, or dark elf, ranger who is the main character of 34 novels.[67] Drizzt is noted for his commitment to friendship and peace, which is contrary to the stereotype of his people.[71] Drizzt as a character is often used to represent issues of racial prejudice, particularly in The Dark Elf Trilogy.[72][73] Drizzt is also troubled by the lifespan discrepancy between himself and his human romantic interest Catti-Brie.[74]
    • Wulfgar, a massive human barbarian;[75] in The Crystal Shard, Wulfgar's combat prowess is significant enough that along with Drizzt and his magic panther Guenhwyvar, they manage to "beat 25 giants by themselves".[67] As a character, Wulfgar exemplifies "the strong, honest, hot-headed young warrior hero type common to adventure stories and similar to Howard's creation Conan".[76]
    • Bruenor Battlehammer, a dwarven fighter who retakes Mithral Hall with the help of the other Companions.[67][70][77] He was one of the first friends Drizzt made upon leaving the Underdark and both Catti-Brie and Wulfgar are his adopted children.[78][70] Rob Bricken for io9 highlighted Bruenor as "a dwarf that hits pretty much every fantasy stereotype, including his desire to reclaim an ancestral home that his people were chased out of after they dug too far and awakened a monster".[67]
    • Catti-brie, a human archer who would later develop abilities as a spellcaster;[67][70][79] in The Crystal Shard, Drizzt referred to her as his soulmate.[67] Catti-Brie is favored by Mielikki, a goddess associated with forests and nature spirits, and she bears the deity's mark. Bricken argued that her characterization in The Icewind Dale Trilogy is limited,[67] while Aidan-Paul Canavan maintained that she becomes a "hero" only in later novels.[80]
    • Regis, a
      J.R.R. Tolkien's hobbits. Bricken noted that Regis is a rogue who "set himself apart a bit by carrying a crystal pendant he can use to charm people", though he is sometimes forced into dangerous situations and "ends up saving the day, Bilbo-style", such as in the final battle of The Crystal Shard.[67]
  • Elminster, a wizard also known as the Sage of Shadowdale;[81] he is "a founding member of the Harpers and one of the oldest surviving and most powerful Chosen of Mystra".[82] The Harpers are a semi-secret organization; Jonathan Palmer, for Arcane magazine, called them "Laudable" and commented that they are "fighters for freedom and justice".[83] Bricken described Elminster as "the most powerful, important, and smartest wizard in the Forgotten Realms, and one of the setting's most important characters [...] more Merlin than Gandalf, which makes him less enigmatic and prone to tomfoolery than other major fantasy wizards, which I count as a good thing".[84]
  • Volothamp Geddarm, a human adventurer who is famed within the setting Faerûn for the number of guidebooks he writes about the various regions within the Realms. The character's name is often attributed in real-world D&D publications as the in-universe narrator of said works.[85] Paul Pettengale from Arcane described him as "one of those characters that everyone's heard about, and one that just about every Dungeon Master must have been tempted to introduce to their campaign at some point or another".[86]
  • Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun, developed by Greenwood and game designer Steven Schend, is a character noted for his appearances in several novels set in the Forgotten Realms,[22][87] as well as the 2004 video game Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone.[88] A powerful wizard renowned for his namesake staff, in earlier editions he is the Archmage of Waterdeep, leading member of the Harpers, and one of Mystra's Chosen.[22] Prior to his death, Khelben passes the Blackstaff to his apprentice Tsarra,[87] who takes up residence at Blackstaff Tower in Waterdeep and inherits his memories and legacy. Writer Aubrey Sherman said he is an example for the importance of a wand or staff behind the conception of a wizard archetype and listed the character among D&D's notable wizards.[89][87]
  • Jarlaxle, also a character by R. A. Salvatore, was introduced in the 1990 novel
    Bregan D'aerthe. Anglistics scholar Caroline de Launay characterized Jarlaxle as an independent character inclined to "subtle manoeuvres",[91] while Hoffer explained that he is an amoral villain who has "plenty of contingencies and secret plots".[90] When comparing the plot of The Dark Elf Trilogy to a game of chess, de Launay assigned Jarlaxle the role of the knight.[91] Theo Kogod, for CBR, wrote that Jarlaxle is "in many ways [...] a dark reflection of the heroic and honorable Drizzt. He used lies, manipulation and cunning to rise as high as a male Drow could within his culture, but in the end, he also left his home behind. [...] In Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Jarlaxle is trying to leverage himself to become accepted as a legitimate member of the Lords' Alliance. He is one of four possible main villains in the campaign".[92]
  • Artemis Entreri, a human assassin described by Bricken as "cold-blooded" and Drizzt's "equal in fighting and opposite in morality", a mirror image of how Drizzt would have ended up if he had remained part of the universally evil drow society instead of forsaking it.[93]
  • Gromph Baenre is
    Archmage of the city of Menzoberranzan, the City of Spiders. Gromph is a rival in power to the other archmages of the Forgotten Realms, such as Elminster and Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun. In a review of the 1995 novel Daughter of the Drow, Gideon Kibblewhite for Arcane, called Gromph the "only interesting character" in the book, describing him as "the bitter and twisted archmage", and lamented that "he rarely makes an appearance after the opening".[94]
  • Liriel Baenre is the daughter of Gromph Baenre; she originally belonged to House Vandree before her talent for arcane spellcasting was discovered by Gromph.[95] After being sent away to hone her magical talent rather than study as a priestess, Liriel uses a book given by her father to travel to the surface lands, where she encounters followers of the goddess Eilistraee, the Dark Maiden of benevolent drow, comes to possess the magical artifact known as the Windwalker, and eventually settle down on the surface world permanently. Liriel was created by Elaine Cunningham for Daughter of the Drow, and is described by Trenton Webb of Arcane as "the oddest Drow" due to her lack of traits deemed as stereotypical of her people.[96]
  • Erevis Cale, first introduced in the short story "Another Name For Dawn" published in issue 277 of
    shade; being imbued with the essence of matter integral to the Plane of Shadow brings about drastic changes to his appearance and physiology. Don D'Ammassa described Erevis Cale as "a man tormented by questions of right and wrong".[97]
  • Alustriel Silverhand is the ruler of the city of Silverymoon in "The North" of the setting. Writing in 2000, Envoyer magazine reviewer Stylo counted her among the most prominent Forgotten Realms characters thanks to R.A. Salvatore's novels.[98]
  • Red Wizards of Thay.[99][100]

Reception

In his book

Tekumel",[1] and that it "may be the most widely played-in game setting in RPG history".[1] Similarly, in literature, the novels written in the Forgotten Realms setting have formed one of "the industry's leading fantasy series".[101] Over time these novels have gained "unprecedented popularity",[102] which led, as Marc Oxoby noted in his book, The 1990s, to the novels having an "extraordinary shelf life", remaining in print for many years.[102] This popular reception has also been reflected in public libraries; for example, Joyce Saricks states in The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction that the novels have been among the most requested books by fans of the fantasy genre.[103]

Brian Silliman, for SYFY Wire, described the Forgotten Realms as "a classic fantasy backdrop" and highlighted that "at one time in our history, our world and this one were connected, but over time this magical realm was, well, forgotten. It is an ideal place for any D&D adventure, inspiring limitless possibilities for any smirking dungeon master".[104]

Philip J. Clements called the Forgotten Realms "highly popular", "an unusually well-developed D&D setting" and "more-or-less the flagship setting for D&D". He also noted that it has received the greatest number of supplements.[105]

The 4th edition update to the Forgotten Realms brought massive lore changes which were "tied to a number of other design philosophies" and the Forgotten Realms "simultaneously had become a grittier setting, on the edge of collapse, while also becoming a more fantastic one, full of wonder and mystery".[106] Jason Wilson, for VentureBeat, highlighted that unlike the Time of Troubles cataclysm, the 4th edition Spellplague cataclysm was "one players never embraced in the same manner as the earlier disaster".[107] Shannon Appelcline, author of Designers & Dragons, wrote:

[The 4th edition] Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide may be the most controversial D&D book ever produced by Wizards. That's entirely due to the large-scale destruction of the Realms. Similar updates have been tried by other companies — to reinvigorate settings, to make them more accessible to new players, or to make them more adventuresome. [...] It never seems to go well, because old fans feel left behind. With that said, some folks did love the changes, because the setting was now more playable, more accessible, more fantastic, and more PC centered. [...] Meanwhile, a series of adventures and novels called The Sundering (2013–2014) reversed many of the 4e changes to the Realms, but without rebooting the timeline. Instead, the Realms continues to evolve and advance, as it has since its earlier days.[106]

R. A. Salvatore was also publicly unhappy with the 4th edition changes to the Forgotten Realms:[108]

[B]asically, we authors were handed a document and told how things were going to be. We were asked our opinions, but they mattered very little – the changes were being driven from a different direction. [...] To have characters that have built such a strong history, then have that upset on the orders of someone else was very disconcerting. I will admit that the abrupt changes forced me into an uncomfortable place, and from that place came some of the better things I've written, but I very much preferred the way it was done this time, with 5th Edition and the changes, where we, the authors, were told what was happening to the game and asked how we could make the world and the lore live and breathe it.

Aubrey Sitterson, for

PC Magazine, included the Forgotten Realms in a 2015 roundup of the "11 Best Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Settings" and wrote that "for most people, Forgotten Realms is synonymous with Dungeons & Dragons, and with good reason: it's the setting that played home to the massively popular Baldur's Gate video game, as well as R. A. Salvatore's Drizzt books. Currently, it's the only campaign setting actively supported by D&D makers Wizards of the Coast, which would be restrictive if Forgotten Realms wasn't such an incredibly diverse place, housing classic European middle ages tropes, as well as a heroic fantasy take on African, Middle Eastern, and other real-world cultures".[109]

Christian Hoffer, for ComicBook.com, reported that Wizards of the Coast's 5th edition publishing strategy, which focuses on the Forgotten Realms and newer intellectual property for campaign settings, has created a rift in the fan base where some "feel that this push for new players has come at the cost of keeping the game's current players sated" by not updating campaign settings that "predate the Forgotten Realms". Hoffer highlighted that Wizards of the Coast has a much slower publication schedule than with previous editions with a focus on quality and profit and "the D&D teams knows that they have plenty of great campaign settings in their back pocket and are either actively developing more settings or have ideas for them further down the line".[110]

See also

References

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External links

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