In 2008, much to our surprise, Wizards of the Coast blew up the Forgotten Realms.

That’s not literal. Rather, Wizards of the Coast took a setting that had been happily available as a published setting for Dungeons & Dragons since 1987, and decreed that it was now 100 years in the future. Almost everyone you cared about was dead, and the world had significantly changed.

By doing so, they squandered a lot of good will, and it can’t have helped the fortunes of Dungeons & Dragons fourth edition much.

Why was this done? As far as I can tell, there were two primary reasons:

• There was so much stuff for the Forgotten Realms that new players were very intimidated by the setting
• There was so much stuff for the Forgotten Realms that designers were constantly infringing on canon and getting called out on it by gamers

Both are valid reasons, although I think it’s easier to deal with the first than the second.

It occurs to me that the amount of material available for the Forgotten Realms is dwarfed by the amount of material available for the Marvel line of comics. But there are people happily jumping into writing Marvel comics and running Marvel RPGs (and, dare I say it, reading Marvel comics and watching their shows).

The Marvel Cinematic Universe can be considered a campaign inspired by all that came before. It’s recognisably Marvel, but not exactly the comic book universe.

I think that while there is some truth in a lot of material makes it hard for people to approach a setting, there’s more truth in that you can get into any setting if it has a good entry point. The TV shows provide such an entry point. So do certain comics, though not all. And the campaign adventures that Wizards have been releasing are good entry points into the lore of the Forgotten Realms.

Where things get problematic is when you rely on your audience knowing the setting inside-out.

And, of course, you’ve still got to tell compelling stories to get people interested in your setting!

Gary Gygax suggested that campaigns of Dungeons & Dragons should begin small, in a town with a nearby dungeon. Then, as you got more familiar with the game, you expanded outwards: the province, the country, the neighbouring realms, the world! Running games in an established setting is also like that: start small, get familiar with one area, and then expand as you feel more confident about your campaign.

I do think the blowing up of the Forgotten Reams was more was due to a problem with designers writing for the setting (where a product that contradicted previous works faced significant criticism), rather than how difficult it was to introduce new players. We’ve seen this occur in many other fields. Some people get very annoyed when the newest book or film changes one detail or another from previous works. I’m sure there’s people outraged at the MCU, just as people analyse all the Star Trek, Star Wars and Doctor Who stories and get very annoyed when this happens.

It’s very hard to write material when you have to fact check it against twenty years of previous writings. Or even longer!

I seem to remember an interview with Terrance Dicks, one-time script editor of Doctor Who, who noted that continuity was only what you could remember. In the days he was writing Doctor Who, he had it easy: It was shown once, and then very rarely repeated. Once, if that. It wasn’t until 1983 that the first Doctor Who serial was available to purchase on tape, which you could watch again, and again, and again. So, in the first twenty-odd years of Doctor Who, if you contradicted something that came before, only a very few people would realise – and they likely couldn’t check! When faced with a choice between keeping to previous continuity or telling a good story, Dicks chose to tell a good story every time.

He had it easy! For, once you put things in a form that people can actually check, then you get that problem. In fact, it’s not that many people who care, but they’re the type of people who write reviews.

If you’re running a home campaign, you’re much closer to that maxim of Terrance Dicks. It’s likely that the events of most sessions aren’t written down anywhere, and, even if they are, nobody goes back to check. You need to keep continuity with what people can remember. If you’re adapting an existing setting, you might need to discuss with your players about how much of it is based on existing material. That’s a Session 0 thing; to set expectations so that players aren’t surprised when you diverge from what they believe the canon of the setting is. Tell a good story first.

Published work set in an official setting when people can check your work? I suddenly understand the desire to blow up the Realms!

It is notable that Wizards haven’t felt the need to release much Realms material in Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition except as it supports adventures, and a solitary setting book that looks at the area where most of the early adventures takes place: the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, which is often referred to as SCAG because we don’t like typing or saying all the words of its title! Almost all the earlier material is on the DMs Guild if you want to look.

Having a lot of detail for a setting engages certain people, who are also the people who will criticise you when you get it wrong. Having too little detail means that DMs are forced to make everything up themselves. There’s no happy medium – every person wants a different amount of details, but it’s a case of being aware of how people react to detail, and knowing when you can ignore previous continuity in pursuit of a good story.