The Real Forgotten Realms, Part 1: I'll Show You How Deep The Rabbit Hole Goes

Let's face the uncomfortable truth: the Forgotten Realms, as presented in 5e by Wizards of the Coast, sucks. And it sucks hard.

It's boring and overloaded, unspecific and too much, obsessed with the history of D&D and yet somehow not considering its own canon. It's a fucking mess, and I can't blame anyone for hating it or disliking it.

However, I love the Forgotten Realms. I love the setting, I love the stories, and I love talking about it, playing in it, and sharing it with people. I keep having these conversations with people, on blogs, in chatrooms, on forums, in my own games, and they always end the same way: "Jeez, I thought the Forgotten Realms sucked, Erika. But you make it interesting and cool." (This is my paraphrasing, but I've honestly had people tell me this a lot.)

And I have this conversation a lot. And I enjoy having it? But I have it a LOT. Like probably more than I talk about my actual real life stuff.

So I'm going to try and put it all down here, every little piece I can think of. I can't show you all the secrets, I can't cut out parts of every book to show you all my favourite bits of lore. But I can explain it, and reference it, and tell you why I love this setting. Why it is so good, so fun to play in, why it's a blast to run, and why I keep coming back to it - as a roleplaying game, not a collection of novels, not a metaplot, not a fangirl convention over Drizzt.

I'm going to show you how the Forgotten Realms is good.

Consider me Morpheus. I'm going to show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. I can take you to the forgotten other world you never knew existed. You take the red pill, and I'll show you the real Forgotten Realms. You take the blue pill, and you wake up next to a pile of 5e adventures and can forget this ever happened. It's your choice, and I can't make it for you.

(Aside: Yes, the above image got tainted by alt-right idiots and frankly I don't give a shit. It's my metaphor as a trans woman, and I'm using it. So there. Also, the actual red pill is literally pregnant horse piss and it tastes like hell.)

Here's your blue pill:

And here's the red pill: 

For those of you who aren't aware, the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is the current FR campaign setting book for 5th edition. You can buy it on Amazon, and people really like the bladesinger wizard in it.

The other book is the original Forgotten Realms Campaign Set, the first campaign setting, designed for 1st edition AD&D, back in 1987. You can buy a scan from DriveThruRPG, and people really like the old-school sandbox world it offers.

Note that you don't have to be old-school to take this journey. The 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting is my personal favourite, and that's pretty new school. Plenty of feats, class options, and tieflings right in the core rules. To understand the setting, to really understand what makes it tick, you should start back at the beginning though. I recommend reading the FR Campaign Set (also called the Old Gray Box) at some point, but you don't have to do it right now if you don't want to. (This is also why I've tagged this post as PLOG for the Possum Laws of Gaming - you can join this journey with whatever D&D you'd like.)

Life is crazy for me and everyone else right now, but I'll try to update this series once a week. I have no plans, no progression. Just ideas and a bunch of practice at showing people why the FR is cool.

NEXT: What The Forgotten Realms Isn't, And What It Really Is