Forgotten Realms Player's Guide: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement (Forgotten Realms Supplement)

I do not understand what Wizards of the Coast is thinking. You create specific settings like the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk and Eberron so that you can create an unique experience out of playing in each world. But 4E removes all the unique aspects of a setting and blends in the stuff from other setting.

There is nothing in this entire book that says "This is the Forgotten Realms"! The art, the classes, the nations; nothing "feels" like the Realms. The book adds the Drow and the Gensai to playable races, but they give the Gensai a "World of Warcraft" makeover that renders them to silly to play.

Also, Aasimar, the divine planetouched race are now called Divas, once again proving that the 4E designers number 1 goal to destroy all conections with the Dungeons & Dragons that Gary Gygax created.

Too bad, that's the game I want to play.

I have already reviewed the FRCS and commented on how poor it was. While nicely laid out, the book does nothing to change my opinion on the destruction of the best campaign setting that was ever created. What is striking is the comments on how people were glad that this edition was widdled down to nothing to make it easier and more shallow! Really? That is what you want in a game? Obviously this is designed for the RPGADD players. Little substance lots of flash. Here we call it....video games. If you want a simple and sparsely fleshed out product then the FR should not be that setting. Look to Ebberon, Greyhawk, or even Dragonlance. The Mystique of the FR was its richness of both setting AND characters. What a travesty! Oh but thank goodness they kept the Warlock...best class ever! (sarcasm). Spell-scarred? Oh how Earthdawn! The rituals varied from kinda interesting to just plain dumb. Was there really any real playtesting? Well I could ramble on, but as you can see...FR please RIP!

This feels a little like flogging a dead horse because I already expressed my disappointment, nay, disgust at the blasé manner in which Which 20+ years of material had been cast aside with the 4th ed Campaign Setting. This book does nothing to improve my opinion, in fact it somehow manages to worsen it by not adding any depth whatsoever to a "new" Realms already devoid of soul. Pathfinder and the existing Forgotten Realms books is where my future lie with this dead shell of a world, at least I have the option of ignoring 4th ed and sticking with a system that will continue to use, improve and support 3.5.

The forgotten realms supplement for the 3rd Edition rules was the best supplement of them all. The fourth edition version, by comparison is a severe and painful let-down. They took out much of the fantastic content that had previously been included. Very sad.

If you read the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide called 'Paradigm Shift,' I gave it high marks because I thought they were going to organize it as such:
Campaign Guide - DM guide to Forgotten Realms that includes: Deities & geographical information.
Players Guide - Races & Classes, new spells and abilities, regional bonuses.

I felt that the Campaign Setting (ver. 3.0) had lots of races, deities, geographical info, etc. and went into more depth, but didn't cover so many regions. Therefore, I was totally happy that they were going to reorganize the books and fill it with more information over the span of two books. But a reorganization wasn't actually what happened. So here are the pro's and con's:

Pro's: I like the rituals section, it was big and had many cool rituals. I think the regional info is helpful (but misplaced) for making new characters. The drow and genesi are cool. The stuff they put in was cool and overall I do enjoy the book, despite my laundry list of complaints below.

Con's: There were only two new races. Drow and genesi. Where are the other races of Forgotten Realms? For example they could have added duergar, svirfneblin, etc. So it's not like they needed to go out on a limb to invent new races.
Also(if you think about it), there was only 1 new class; the swordmage. The swordmage wasn't bad, but it didn't wow me either. Adding a class called a Dark Pact warlock is not a new class. It's a rip-off... it's just another warlock. Whether the dark pact specialty is cool or not is irrelevant.. I was hoping for new classes. Then there is the spellscarred 'class.' I like spellscarred and will definitely use it, but it feels more like a multi-class rather than a class in-itself (if you follow the story line, spell scarring is a condition that affects you and you can pick up new abilities based on your infection). It can be played as a class... but really feels more like a prestige class, multi-class, etc. instead of a class in it's own right. EDIT: AFTER READING THE SPELLSCAR IN ENTIRETY, IT ACTUALLY IS SOLELY A MULTICLASS, NOT MEANT FOR A PRIMARY CLASS.
I felt they repeated a great deal of information in this book that could and should have been consolidated it into the Campaign Guide. Because of the lack of information revealed about this product before it's release, Wizards never made it clear that the Campaign Guide was for DM's only... so players who are into FR are probably going to buy both. Thus, it just doesn't make sense to have two books with regional information, cosmology, etc. The Almanac section repeated nearly everything already said in the Campaign Guide. The new information (such as the calendar, climate & geography, etc.) SHOULD have been organized into the Campaign Guide, not the players guide.
Also, I was expecting the same structural format as the Players Handbook. I thought I was buying a book that had races, classes, abilities & magic, rituals, just as the players handbook contains, but more specific to the Forgotten realms campaign. Regional information and paragon / epic paths are useful to a player, but only singularly so. Once a player picks their regional roots and picks a path, they are done with those sections of this book they don't need to read any more. This consequently takes up a full 30% of the book.

Finally, I felt a $29.95 sugg. retail price for a book of 160 pages is a rip-off. Overall, I am happy I bought it...it will definitely add to the fun of my game, but was a disappointing buy at the same time. I wouldn't say it sucks, but it certainly didn't meet my expectations either. I feel happier I paid less than $20 for it.