The Forgotten Realms, also known as the lands of Faerun, is your standard fantasy setting in that it’s a world that’s made for the important people to be epic heroes in the end. The struggle for characters isn’t if they can become a hero, but what sort of hero they are going to become. It’s very much in the realm of a Lord of the Rings or Wheel of Time, where there isn’t a question that they are going to become the heroes of the story or who those heroes are, but the question is how that story will unfold for them becoming a hero.

Now, if you’re reading this and that sounds great, that’s why it’s their main setting. It allows you to be that hero it allows you to play in tropes that you’re going to be very familiar with. People know Lord of the Rings or understand the concepts of that type of story telling because how it’s been integrated into society. And it is also nice because basically anything goes for a story. Just from what has been officially released from Dungeons and Dragons, you have adventures where you can fight dragons, demons, giants, pull a heist, defeat a god, and more. It is made to have something for everyone.

That’s also the weakness of it. It’s very generic because of that. You can’t but in an odd quirk about it if you’re going to have any sort of adventure there. As we get into some of the other worlds you can play in, in Dungeons and Dragons, you’ll find that they are more tailored for a specific style of game. Because this is more generic, it’s more versatile, but it’s always going to feel a little bit plain. I would refer to The Forgotten Realms as D&D’s starter world. It’s a good thing for that, but for people who have been steeped in fantasy for a long time, or in RPG’s for a long time, it’s going to feel a little bit too vanilla.

Let’s talk a little bit about what The Forgotten Realms has for people to explore. Again it’s fairly standard as well, you have a handful of nations, but then city states and towns scattered across the realm. Unlike a Star Wars planet, there is a diverse ecosystem that you can play your games in, again, giving you that massive variety of locations so that the world can support whatever type of game you want to play in it. A lot of the adventures are at least going to start from the Sword Coast and the main city there is going to be Waterdeep. Waterdeep does offer you some interesting things, basically masked lords who are running the city, but keeping their identities secret (or most are). If you want to play a more political and smaller game without characters wandering through the world, Waterdeep is where you’re likely going to set the game.

There are more things to talk about as we look at races and classes. Though, this is going to be fairly boring, again. Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition is set in The Forgotten Realms, that means that all the races and classes from the players handbook are going to work just fine in your game. If you want to play something more unique, there are options for those in some of the expanded content for the game, but you’re mainly going to see your standard races and standard classes in there. This, again, is going to be good for that starter setting for players who know some about fantasy but aren’t ready to jump into a fantasy where tropes don’t hold up and expectations are being subverted.

And, finally, just to talk about magic and the gods of this world. This is a pretty high magic world. While I’m going to get to worlds that have more magic, being a caster isn’t something that would be all that surprising. Especially with how the gods interact with the world. They are very much a part of it, and for that reason you have Clerics and Paladins who are going to be casting divine magic that you could see around the lands. There are Wizarding schools and plenty of beings who will be happy to make a pact with you. Again, it feels somewhat basic with their magic and gods. They want it to be normal so that players don’t have to feel like they need to play the outcast character if they are playing someone who is all about proselytizing or if they have magic.

So, to wrap up, The Forgotten Realms are a great starter location. It’s going to be a little bit bland, but it’s going to be familiar to even people who don’t know a ton about fantasy, because this is standard fantasy and parts of the world are even standard writing/story. Would I play a game in the Forgotten Realms, sure I would, though, I’d try to push it weirder than the setting would normally go to create a sort of unique feel to the game that makes it feel different than Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time.

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Forgotten Realms
This is a high fantasy setting where you’re going to see all the content (almost) from Wizards of the Coast coming out in. It’s your typical fantasy setting where Dwarves act like Dwarves and Elves act like Elves. This setting can be seen as a little bit vanilla in how standard it is, but it also makes it an amazing jumping off point for new players because it has a level of familiarity to it. The main cities in the Forgotten Realms are going to be Waterdeep and Baldur’s Gate.

Eberron
Eberron is a very different setting than your typical fantasy setting. Magic is basically used as technology in this world. And it isn’t just a world where you have your standard races that you can play, there are shifters, changlings, and monstrous races that you can play as well. What also makes this setting unique is that the setting and call the adventures are set after this great war has ended when a country wiped off the map do to some cataclysm, but it’s never stated what it is, so it leaves it open for players and DM’s to decide for their campaign. The setting is very pulp and noir in it’s feel.

Ravenloft
Another different sort of setting where it’s less your standard fantasy setting and more focused on a Victorian Gothic setting. It is also going to be focused on a lower level of magic. The land is ruled by a vampire, Strahd, that is basically locked into the cursed land and most adventures set in Ravenloft are going to be about finding out Strahd’s history and then dealing with him. In 5th Edition the Curse of Strahd adventure pulls players from the Forgotten Realms and sticks them into this setting that is different than the world that they know and they are stuck there until they can defeat Strahd, if they ever leave.

Dragonlance
One of the first, if not the first D&D setting, Dragonlance is going to be another epic fantasy setting. The world is greatly influenced by the deities and a lot of the stories revolve around the good deities fighting the evil deities or the return of dragons after centuries of absence. It’s going to be much more in the standard version of fantasy and another good jumping off world that you could use to introduce Dungeons and Dragons.

Grey Hawk
As compared to the epic fantasy settings, Grey Hawk is more of a sword and sorcery setting. It is going to be darker and more dangerous for your characters. Magic is going to be less common than some settings. Grey Hawk is more of a world that is on it’s way out and the adventures that you might be more about keeping the world going versus bringing the world into a new great place which some Epic Fantasy stories can focus on more so.

Spelljammer
Now, if you want something completely different. Spelljammer is kind of a setting, but it can hit up most settings as you have magically powered space ships. This is going to be a game where you want to hop between a lot of worlds, have grand space exploration sort of adventures, versus a more traditional traveling adventure like Lord of the Rings. It really isn’t something that they’d call it’s own setting anymore, but it’s something that you could easily focus on to move between the worlds in your own campaign.

Dark Sun
This used to be a great world, but now, magic has defiled and the land and use of magic can make it even worse. And there is a god-like Sorcerer King who is ruling and can you stay out of their wrath or will they crush you and your party as you try to survive the harsh lands. Dark Sun is going to be a lower magic game that is much more focused on the survival throughout the lands and avoiding the halflings who are jungle cannibals. There are some new races that you can play in this setting as well and one of the biggest types of magic is psionics.

Birthright
If you want to play that extremely epic nation level game, Birthright is going to be the setting of you. In Birthright every player is going to be connected to a nation and have some sort of royal blood. These campaigns are going to be more about that nation ruling, epic wars, versus that smaller adventuring party. Birthright is a setting you’re going to have to come up with or tweak combat for to make it done at a bigger scale.

Planescape
This setting wraps several planes of existence into a single setting. It also takes it out of the normal medieval fantasy setting and puts it into a more Victorian and pseudo-steam punk world. There is a city of Sigil which is the home base for the players and is generally where you are going to be sending them out to the other planes to have their adventures and then returning back to Sigil to resupply, recover, and get new adventures.

Now, that’s just the start of Dungeons and Dragons settings. There are new ones being created as well as old ones that might come back. Most of these settings don’t have official books for fifth edition, but if you find older world setting books, you’d be able to turn them into something that you can use in 5e.

Do you have a favorite setting or is there a setting that you’ve really wanted to play in?

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