I was kind of disappointed to find out that the new Menzoberranzan book was edition-free. I was wondering if this has actually netted them any more sales or not.
I think it is a great idea to make setting sourcebooks edition neutral. I buy setting books to get more ideas and background information on an area, not for the game rules.
It's a fantastic idea. The book becomes 100 percent useful for all editions and for people who play Savage Worlds, GURPS and other systems. I love, love, love my systemless Freeport book and I've held off on buying other fluff-heavy D&D supplements in recent years (like the Dungeon Survival Guide) because the crunch was wasted space for me.
Yes, I too hope that the Dragon and Dungeon Magazines can satisfy that need. The articles have been quite fluffy lately: it would be a good idea switching to a fluffy book which can appeal to non-Fourther customers and putting crunch in the magazines for us Fourthers who subscribe.
I had been disinterested because I thought it was a 4e book. I am now mildly interested, but am skeptical about this era of WotC doing anything with the Forgotten Realms.
I would sooner go find a 2e Menzo Boxset and perhaps the 2e Drow of the Underdark (both FR flavored).
Edition free in terms of not using one edition's game mechanics? Or edition free in terms of timeline in the FR setting? Because I don't particularly care about the ruleset used, but if it's "edition neutral" only in terms of rules or lack thereof, but it's presenting the city in a distinctly post-Spellplague era, I'm utterly disinterested.
This could be awesome or it could be a case of ignoring it on my part. Hopefully awesome.
The press made it clear that it is able to support several timelines - classic FR, War of the Spider Queen, Post-Spellplague... Judging by WotC's recent activity, I will bet it's lip service to the latter