Reddit reviews Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying, Forgotten Realms Setting)

Agreed. It's ridiculous that they don't have a more comprehensive book for FR given how heavily it's used for 5e.

The 3e edition campaign setting book is still my goto for FR lore. Course it's before the spellplague and a good ways in the past from 5e but it's loaded with great stuff. NPCs, organizations, governments, lore that are mostly still applicable to 5e FR. It details a much larger area than just the Sword Coast North and Chult. It's the best FR campaign book out there imo.

My recommendation would be to go pick up some 2nd, 3rd or 4th edition sourcebooks for dirt cheap at Half Price Books or online. The Forgotten Realms sourcebook from 3.5 is what I am currently using, it has a removable foldout map of Faerun, and detailed lists of major sights throughout the realms, including descriptions of the major cities, ruins, etc.

I've heard good things about the Greenwood Forgotten Realms book as well.

You can probably also find sourcebooks specific to Waterdeep, Neverwinter, etc. though I don't know the specific titles.

The point is that generally speaking the edition doesn't matter when it comes to background materials, physical descriptions, major characters, history, politics, factions, maps, etc. It just doesn't. So do yourself a favor and buy this stuff cheap from older editions.

Also, keep in mind that while you are building off of an existing world, and there is something cool about that, the minute you start to play in it it's YOUR world. None of these sourcebooks are going to have every single detail fleshed out, and often will just give you the flavor of a particular city, a few major landmarks, etc. From there on you should create your own landmarks, taverns, interesting characters, history, etc.

This is the book that I use a lot:
http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/0786918365/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417478819&sr=1-2&keywords=FOrgotten+Realms

Here are more:

http://www.amazon.com/Greenwood-Presents-Elminsters-Forgotten-Realms/dp/0786960345

Neverwinter book:
http://www.amazon.com/Neverwinter-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Supplement/dp/0786958146/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417478789&sr=1-4&keywords=Neverwinter+source+book

Waterdeep book:
http://www.amazon.com/City-Splendors-Waterdeep-Roleplaying-Supplement/dp/0786936932/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417478895&sr=1-1&keywords=Waterdeep

http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Realms-Atlas-Karen-Fonstad/dp/0880388579/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417478853&sr=1-3&keywords=FOrgotten+Realms

Hope that helps. Also buy 4th edition stuff now if you ever think you want it. Lots of stores are having fire sales moving their 4th ed stuff.

Is this the one you are referring to?

http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/0786918365/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1459344620&sr=8-1&keywords=forgotten+realms+campaign+setting

This book from 3E. Its actually one of the absolute best written D&D books covering a setting there is. Stunningly detailed. Pick it up on Amazon if you can.

https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/0786918365/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509952365&sr=8-1-fkmr2&keywords=forgotten+realms+3e

Happy to help!

Getting started... hmm... I think everyone will have different advice on this. Here's mine.

Give your players a reason to band together in the game, a challenge that requires all of their different skills, or an enemy tough enough that all of them really feel like they've contributed to defeating it.

One thing I'd try to do is start with smaller, one-off, episodic adventures - perhaps short enough to resolve in one or two sessions. You can start linking this into your grand, complex campaign narrative soon enough, but to start with this will give everyone a nice feeling of accomplishment. Delayed gratification is a great tool for later on, but it's nice to start by establishing a proper sense of having achieved something.

World-building is a great way to build immersion. When they visit the tavern they could hear rumours about what's happening in distant lands, some of which they might want to follow up! It helps if things make sense - why is this town here? What is this dungeon, why has it fallen into evil hands? What motivates character x to do action y? Politics? Religion? History? Geography?

This can be a HUGE amount of work for a committed DM (though it's also fun!). A nice way to get into this kind of depth without so much work is to get hold of a campaign setting (I like the 3E Forgotten Realms one: http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/0786918365/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381667228&sr=1-1&keywords=forgotten+realms+campaign+setting) and use that as a starting point. Or, even better - just set it in a universe you're already nerdily knowledgeable about. Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Greendale Community College, etc... carve out your own corner.

You don't NEED to. Anything you need is in the book really. You can get older campaign setting material (I think 3e's is the closest to 5e in "timeline" since they basically retconned what 4e did to the setting).

The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (SCAG) is 4/5ths lore for the very region that their adventures are set in.

There is a pretty active Forgotten Realms wiki.
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Sword_Coast
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Sword_Coast_North

2e book http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Volo%27s_Guide_to_the_Sword_Coast

3e Campaign Setting
https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/0786918365

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting may be exactly what you're looking for if you haven't already read it. It's written as a combination history tome/encyclopedia.

Here it is on Amazon

You're right, there are a lot of books that focus on specific aspects of FR, but this is the book that I'm using for general knowledge.

Boy you aren't kidding, there just really isn't much about Sossal in any sourcebooks I can find, even going back to earlier editions. The old boxed set only has:

>AT A GLANCE: Far to the North, on the far side of the Great Glacier, is the legendary kingdom of Sossal. This remote nation is the home of Sossarhim, a very pale, very blond race that dresses in
white, and can conceal themselves among the ice.

...etc. The 3e book has a similar short blurb, where it otherwise explains pages about the other nations of the Cold North. The most interesting sources I could find seem to be from the 2e splatbooks "Wizards and Rogues of the Realms" and "Warriors and Priests of the Realms". From W&P:

> Sossal This fantastic kingdom of pale, blonde humans is the
northernmost nation in the Realms. Their ability to flourish in such frigid conditions is a source of amazement to others. Their warriors are unparalleled in arctic survival and cold-weather combat. Warriors of Sossal have very pale skin, ice-blue eyes, and pale blonde hair.

...and so forth. W&P has some good roleplaying notes for the warriors, and W&R has an interesting take on the wizards. But as for maps or cities or anything like that, it seems to be overlooked.

Try to get your hands on the 3e setting book. It comes with a giant map and a lot, I mean a lot, of content. Here's the Amazon link:

https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/0786918365

I'm partial to the 2nd Edition Campaign Setting (Grey Box). They look to go for outrageous prices on Ebay, but if you can find one at a used bookstore I'd snap it up.

One of my beefs with Forgotten Reams is that TSR/Wizards took a charming setting, and tried to introduce in-game events to reflect rule changes. Things like the Spell Plague, and replacing cool deities like Myrkul and Bane with lamo poseur deities like Cyric and Kelemvor.

With 5E, I've decided I'm taking my FR back to Ed Greenwood's 2E Grey Box roots, and ignoring all the crap that came after.

Sadly, there is no PDF of the 2E campaign setting on www.dndclassics.com, but the 3E PDF is available for $15.99. I haven't looked at that, but it seems to get high marks on Amazon!.

In addition to the Cleric Quintet, I really liked the Elfsong books by Elaine Cunningham, if you'd rather explore by fiction.

Finally, once you have a general feel for the Realms, Candlekeep! and the Wiki! are great for looking up any particular bit of info.

The spellplague is a cataclysmic event that happened between third and fourth edition to explain the several mechanic changes that were made during that transition.

Also a lot of time passed in Forgotten Realms oficial timeline and many iconic NPC's and organizations either died or changed. They have to come up with crazy explanations why famous characters are still alive, such as Volo and the inkeeper at the Yawning portal. The Zentarim, for example, used to be one of the main antagonists and are now portrayed as a necessary evil kind of faction.

What I did for my Tomb of Annihilation campaing was just to run it during the more familiar and grounded 3.0 days campaing setting days. 1374 DR - The year of the Lighning storms to be precise.In my game, instead of the spellplague, there was a violent Tsunami 9 years ago that hit the right side of the penninsula. Mezro vanished, the other towns and ports were destroyed and the economic collapse made Amnian colonists decide to move on to Maztica and other places, granting Nyanzaru independence. Without the power of Mezro the undead started to spread inside the jungle and are now becoming a real concern to the merchant princes.

I would suggest buying one of the 3rd or 4th edition Forgotten Realms setting books. You can buy them used on Amazon for a fairly reasonable price.

It will cover most of the game world though it does kinda focus on the Inner Sea and Sword Coast so most of the detail is there.

Being old rule books they will have some old rules and old magic items but you can try to update those if they don't already appear in the Sword Coast guide. I just wish they would put a 5th edition version out. I would grumble but still buy it.

For 5th edition, I think one will be released this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5SD2VfL5OY

My favorite one will always be this one: https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/0786918365/

Akuma mentioned it, and I also want to suggest picking up the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. It's absolutely phenomenal in terms of detail about regions, events, history, setting, etc. You will see a lot of mechanics for 3.x, but it's easy enough to disregard or even use their fluff to convert and make stuff for 5e FR.

Also worth picking up is the 4th edition book (Ed Greenwood Presents) Elminster's Forgotten Realms. It has a lot of "on the ground, personal level" detail and fluff, like what people eat in different regions, how they worship, etc. Neat book, fun read.

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting is an official book from Wizards of the Coast. It was printed during 3.0, but the genasi races shouldn't need anything changed to be usable in 3.5 games.

You can also find each race online:

Air Genasi

Fire Genasi

Water Genasi

Earth Genasi