Copyright 2011 Wizards of the Coast.

Before I started writing this post, I was convinced the Neverwinter Campaign Setting was the last setting book for D&D 4th Edition. Turns out there were two more published in the following year, one for Undermountain and another for Menzonberranzan.

I didn’t even remember these books existed, which I guess makes sense since they seem to have a much narrower potential audience. Neverwinter, in contrast, is probably the most famous place in the Forgotten Realms, and at the time of this book’s release in 2011 it was even known to a lot of people who were outside of the FR fan community.

That’s because by that point in time the city had already been the setting for two successful computer games! Neverwinter Nights came out in 2002. It’s the game that put Bioware on the map, and it didn’t take long for it to develop a huge trove of fan-created modules and expansions, in addition to the official ones it got in the years following its release. The sequel was developed by Obsidian and came out in 2006, and though it was less open to fan additions it kept getting expansions up to 2009.

And there was also the third big game featuring Neverwinter, the MMORPG of the same name. It was developed concurrently with the book, something the book itself makes a point of advertising in a side box in its introduction. I think the book came out a little earlier than the game, because delays are a fact of life in video game development, but they’re much more integrated than I thought at first. The MMO is still active as of this writing, over a decade after its launch.

Of course, the Neverwinter Campaign Setting is also perfectly capable of standing on its own merits. It places a much greater emphasis on the “campaign” part of “campaign setting”, which was a novel approach when it came out and influenced the presentation of most 5e campaign books too.

The Book’s Introduction

The very first thing we see after the table of contents is an Introduction chapter that explains its approach in a very concise manner. The book cover the city of Neverwinter and its immediate surroundings, focusing on a small area of a larger, already-published setting (Forgotten Realms). It’s not a static atlas or travelogue - it’s a tool for running a campaign. It’s meant to be easy for a GM to customize, and its player options help build PCs that are deeply involved with several big plots that can make permanent changes to the setting.

The book is geared towards the Heroic tier (levels 1-10), so all threats and challenges in the area are appropriate for characters of those levels. This includes the main villains of the piece. Your PCs will not be stuck fighting the grunts and flunkies of some epic-level villain. They will get to face legendary threats on their own, without any overpowered NPCs around to bail them out or to steal the scene.

I’m paraphrasing the book here, and I like that these assurances are right on the first page. It’s an important thing to include when dealing with the Forgotten Realms, which has been traditionally full of untouchable epic villains and scene-stealing epic NPCs.

The also emphasizes that the situation presented in its pages is a starting point - it’s a situation that will quickly begin changing as soon as the actual game starts. The PCs are not only expected but encouraged to get in there and meddle with things. There is plenty of intrigue going on and adventure hooks are everywhere, but the story itself is not on rails. Just as the PCs are encouraged to change things, the GM is encouraged to adapt to their actions and not try to force a pre-determined outcome. This is a very nice sentiment! Let’s see if they manage to uphold it.

Rules-wise, the book is going to make heavy use of character themes. Themes were introduced in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting book as a new “thing” to complement your class in the Heroic tier, just like paragon paths and epic destinies do later. Dark Sun had several Athas-specific themes, and I think Dragon Magazine introduced a few other more generic ones later. Neverwinter presents its own set of themes, which are even more specific than Dark Sun’s - each of them ties into one of the major plot threads they describe here, and some of them even make the PC in question the “main character” of that thread.

As for required book, the core set is a given - that can either be the PHB+DMG duo or the equivalent Essentials set of Rules Compendium and “Heroes of…” books, though it’s going to place a bit more emphasis on the latter. In both cases the Monster Vault is recommended over the Monster Manual, and the Forgotten Realms books (Player’s Guide and Campaign Setting) are nice-to-haves in order to flesh out the wider setting and give players a few more options.

Over the next few posts, we’ll be looking a the book chapter by chapter. Some chapters my take up more than one post. This should take a lot less time than the monster books did, but I hope you enjoy it just the same.