When did Forgotten Realms shift its geographic focus?

[Yora]

In the AD&D Box Sets, the organization and different amounts of regional content make it very clear that the writers considered the heart of the setting to be The Dalelands, Cormyr, and the Moonsea. Many of the modules and supplements also focused on this region.

But when 3rd edition came around, this was something of an old hat. All the action was based on the Sword Coast and the North, with one adventure series set in Cormyr, one late, unconventional, and unpopular supplement for the Moonsea, and absolutely no content at all for the Dalelands. And to my knowledge, they were never revisited again.

How did that happen? For the Sword Coast, I can think of two big attractions: Drizzt and Baldur's Gate. To me, these actually were my first encounters with the setting. And when I startes looking into the campaign setting and the supplements for 2nd edition, I was actually quite surprised that there was so much talk of Cormyr, the Dales, and the Moonsea.
Was the popularity of these two works the sole reason why WotC pretty much abandoned the "eastern Heartlands"? Or was there anything else going on internally that made them no longer want to touch them?
We got a book "Unapproachable East", because I quess Rashemen and Thay are (or was that just Minsc and Edwin?), but there even was "Shining South", which I think was pretty obscure.

[LibraryOgre]

Bear in mind that some of the earliest supplements were also "Waterdeep and the North" and "The Savage Frontier", which were also the North, so I don't know that I would blame everything on Baldur's Gate or Drizzt.

I don't know how much the emphasis has switched, but I'd say the AD&D offerings were pretty diverse in location.

[Mutazoia]

Much like everything else, I would have to say the biggest contributing factor is Market Value. Back when the Forgotten Realms came out, large campaign settings were pretty popular, and people still bought modules. TSR put out a ton of supplements for the Realms over the years (I know, I have all of them) that covered two continents and part of a third.

But modern players don't go in for that kind of stuff as much now days. They are more comfortable with home-brew settings, and mostly just pick the bones of new settings for the juicy new classes/spells/skills/equipment. And all of that is eventually available for free on the SRG. So when WOTC (and by default their financial over-lords Hasbro), don't see sales figures reaching a set goal, they drop the project like a bag full of maggots. From what I have seen, there wasn't a huge mountain of interest in the re-release of the Realms for 3.X Players that started with 3.X didn't have much interest beyond curiosity, and the older players (like myself) already had all the info, and could easily convert what they wanted from one edition to another...there wasn't really a ton of edition specific material that couldn't easily be adapted.

And then, there is also the internet, where shady characters lurk in back alleyways, offering things that they don't have the legal where-with-all to offer. Sell one FR book at a game store, and a few hours later, it's available for free. Not really conducive to sales numbers. If people aren't buying it, why continue to make it?

[Khedrac]

I think one of the key points is that The Dales was where at least one of Ed Greenwood's home campaigns was set (there's a Dragon article he wrote referring to his campaign back when Tymora was still Tyche). Waterdeep and its environs was always the Greyhawk equivalent - i.e. a big city with opportunity for siting adventures all around it.

[Mechalich]

I think this shift may actually be a metaplot issue. During the early 3e period when FR got a new campaign setting, the Dales/Cormyr/Moonsea area was in a lot of flux. Cormyr, in particular, got totally landscaped in 2000 with Death of a Dragon and I don't think Ed Greenwood had decided exactly what he wanted to do with the kingdom after that. Manshoon, long the region's principle villain was dead/cloned and the Zhents were kind of used up as a villain as a result.

At the same time, the official in-universe transition to 3e - The Return of the Archwizards, was set primarily on the western side of Anauroch with the returned Shadovar squaring off against the various powers there. It also dumped Elminster into Hell and took him off the board for a while, further marginalizing the Dalelands.

[Yora]

I had not been thinking about those book at all, having never read them. But this sounds like a very plausible argument.

[LibraryOgre]

I think this shift may actually be a metaplot issue. During the early 3e period when FR got a new campaign setting, the Dales/Cormyr/Moonsea area was in a lot of flux. Cormyr, in particular, got totally landscaped in 2000 with Death of a Dragon and I don't think Ed Greenwood had decided exactly what he wanted to do with the kingdom after that. Manshoon, long the region's principle villain was dead/cloned and the Zhents were kind of used up as a villain as a result.

At the same time, the official in-universe transition to 3e - The Return of the Archwizards, was set primarily on the western side of Anauroch with the returned Shadovar squaring off against the various powers there. It also dumped Elminster into Hell and took him off the board for a while, further marginalizing the Dalelands.

I'd say some of this was also caused by the Fall of Zhentil Keep. While the Zhentarim were active everywhere, destroying their main base of operations really de-emphasized their influence.

[Darth Ultron]

Well, it depends, on the focus....if you could call it that.

Late 80's 1E: The Forgotten Realms here did not have much focus. The campaign box had slightly more coverage of Cormyr and the Dalelands: but only in ''a couple more paragraphs". The box gave a couple paragraphs to each place scattered from Evermeet to Thay...except Sembia as that was left blank for DMs to fill. Shadowdale gets a bit more then other places.

The 1E place books, immediately covered a lot more of the land: Moonshae, Waterdeep, The Savage Frontier, The Lands of Intrigue, The Old Empires and Thay. Note, there was no 1E Cormyr or Dalelands book: you just had what was in the campaign box. So you had a whole book of Thay, and ten pages total about Cormyr.

Early 90's 2E The Forgotten Realms here, again, did not have much focus. They collected a lot of the 1E lore and added it to the campaign setting book. The Realms is broken down into the now classic lands for the first time, and each area is given roughly the same amount of space(but not always equal). Cormyr and the Dales as just spots, like anywhere else. Shadowdale gets a huge spotlight, as it gets it's own book as a ''typical dale".

The 2E Cormyr book...is one of the worst FR books ever made. Huge font type, lots of art, and very little details. The book barley tells you anything about Cormyr, and you still have to refer back to the campaign setting book. The Dalelands book is only slightly better, as it has some details. In all 2E mostly ignores these two spots.

2E FR Adventures is a good book, and covers a couple places across the Heartlands from Baldur's Gate to Procampur. Each city gets a map and two pages of lore. There is more information on Suzil in FR Adventures then in the two pages then the whole Cormyr book.

2E gives us the era of Box Sets: The North, Waterdeep, Undermountain, Spellbound(the east), The lands of Intrigue, and Zhentil Keep. 2E also gives a lot of books to areas like The Great Glacier, Chult, the Shining South, Calimport, Evermeet, the Moonsea, the Villion Reach and Ravens Bluff. Calimport and Ravens Bluff are both excellent books with small font type and lots and lots and lots of details: a far cry from the waste of paper of the Cormyr and Dalelands books. The Thay or Tethyr books in the boxed sets have about one hundred times more information then the Cormyr or Dalelands book. The Tethyr book even has a nice royal bloodline history...something they could not bother to put in the Cormyr book, but hey that book does tell you the King's Forest has trees in it.

2E also massive expands the Realms with more boxed sets beyond Faerûn: Maztica, Kara Tur, The Horselands, and Zakhara.

2E also gives us the best lore and fluff books ever: the Volo Guides. The Dalelands and Cormyr both get one, and they are both great books. This is the first time we get any real details about both places.

Some 2E adventures are set in the Heartlands: The Dalelands and Cormyr. But really they do cover a lot of places from Waterdeep to Tethyr to Icewind Dale.

2E also gives us video games. A couple are set in the Hearlands, but the big focus is the mostly blank cities of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter. The city of Baldur's Gate is then ''given" to the video game folks to expand ''unofficially". Though some of this later made it into the official Realms in the abhorrently miss titled Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate II. The Baldur's Gate games do bring a lot of people to the Realms. As does Neverwinter.

2000 Dystopia 3E The Forgotten Realms here, is a shadow of what it was. The campaign Book is great: each set location is given a set amount of detail. But, they don't cover everything...but it's understandable, as the Realms are huge, and as it's it's already a big book. Again, there is not much focus here: the Realms are made up of many places.

3E only gets one place softcover, the Silver Marches, and it's a good book.

3E does have great hardcovers, adding some(but not all) of the 2E information to new and expanded information. The Unapproachable East, The Shining South, Waterdeep, the Moonsea, the Serpent Kingdoms, and Underdark all get books. Some of the other no location hardcovers also have information on places.

The 'Tearing of the Weave' hardcover book adventure is set in Cormyr and the Dales and the Desert, and the books do have some detail...but are mostly adventures.

There is no hardcover or even soft cover Cormyr or the Dales book. Oddly: Thay is the country that has been given a good amount of detail in each edition 1-3, far, far, far, far more then Cormyr and the Dales.

Neverwinter video games reach their peak here.

2008 Lets just Forget Them 4E Ugh...so this mess happens. In the 4E video game Realms....Neverwinter is the ''only" place that gives big coverage and attention. The campaign book is a joke, telling you nothing other then ''there are trees in Cormyr". Loudwater, comes out of nowhere. Of course like half the books geography is also ''well we blew up that old stuff you liked and wow..zap zap..look at the cool stuff and places that fell out of the sky".

2014 now 5E Ummm...well no campaign guide. The focus is just on Waterdeep, The Sword Coast, Neverwinter and Baldur's Gate. With some adventures to the Heartlands and Thay.


Novel wise, they are set all over the world. There is no focus. Ed Greenwood ''likes" The Dalelands and Cormyr, and sets most of his novels in that area. Cormyr does get an excellent history novel(too bad we can't get Waterdeep or Thay one...maybe we could talk them into a Cities of the Sword Coast: Waterdeep, Neverwinter and Baldur's Gate trilogy).


So....really, until the last couple years, the Realms has had no Focus.

[Digitalelf]

So....really, until the last couple years, the Realms has had no Focus.

Pretty much what Darth Ultron said... Only thing "wrong" that I found in Darth's post was that the Kara-Tur boxed set was a product of 1st edition, not 2nd edition. But other than that very small error, the post was spot on IMHO.

[Florian]

It´s also interesting to note that Silver Marches sold so badly, they instantly decided to not continue the "places"-series, like, at all, never ever, which explains a lot about 4E and 5E.

[Yora]

That book really felt a lot like an updated version of a 2nd edition box set.