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Yes, that happens occasionally. That's extremely rare. 'High deity intervention' (compared, say, to other D&D settings) is a Realms canard that came about through people misinterpreting the gods walking Toril in the Avatar trilogy (not the most reliable Realmslore at the best of times) as...

Where in the Realms is this happening, anyway?

There aren't: few small towns have temples to Shar, though large ones will have shrines or at least cells of worshippers. How easily the character could find and get help from such depends on his or her status in her church. But the above assumption (though not demand!) is understandable...

Steven Schend's three Undermountain adventures, available as free downloads, are much more worthwhile than Ruins of Undermountain II.

The original term 'cyberpunk' was apposite enough (though its authors usually called it 'the Movement' instead) -- less applicable to its 'guns and chrome' degradations. Similarly, calling all fantastic Victoriana/Victorian-influenced fantasy 'steampunk' is your usual sloppy language drift.

Expedition to Undermountain has more breadth than any other Undermountain source, with its overview of a score of dungeon levels. Undermountain excels in exactly the things you're looking for, with its factions and plots quite as important as the dungeon layout. Though how well the presentation...

The problem is that larger-than-life stylization is personal; one person's fantastic is another person's cartoonish and juvenile. As Dyne says, it is, and it's bound to be as long there's any art direction at all, or even if there isn't. For me, too much of it looks transparently like what a...

Here's a map that adds the new chasm on the p. 49 map to the overall level 1 map, so you can see how it corresponds to the p. 19 map. The map on p. 20 only shows about a seventh of level 2. The p. 91 map is southwest of that area.

Somewhat. I like James Luceno's work, though I liked this one less than Cloak of Deception and Labyrinth of Evil. I think it's a good Star Wars novel. Depends what you're after. It's finite time that makes those 'reviews' such a waste of it, in my opinion. You have to wade through dozens to...

In terms of technical draftsmanship, I'd say the 1986–1999 and 2000– art is on a par and better than earlier. Quality is something different and bigger -- how well the art works for its purpose, for your sensibility, and what it expresses -- too subjective to judge definitively.

Maybe because they're realizing the need to promote the SWRPG to D&D players (and to Star Wars fans) better than last time. Maybe because SWRPG players are aware of D&D far more than vice versa.

You're misreading my attitude completely. I'm just surprised anyone would give much credence to those 'reviews', and letting you know what the Rise of the Empire era actually is to help avoid future confusion.

There's a non sequitur! That kind of improbable Games Workshop-inspired spiky armour is extremely culturally specific, albeit a culture that's nonsense. Comparing 2007 D&D art to 2000, we can see that the original self-consciously 'edgy' direction has been softened. And I'd be in favour of very...

You pay attention to amazon.com 'reviews'? Dark Lord isn't 'utter crap'. Neither are Jude Watson's Last of the Jedi young-adult books, or the Dark Times comics, also set in the early Empire period. OK. But the Rise of the Empire era as used by Lucas Licensing is 1000 to 0 BBY.

Not organized crime, thieves' guilds as seen in D&D. Good.

Not really. Ruins of Undermountain describes in detail most rooms of level 1 except those pasted onto the edges of the map, and key rooms in levels 2 and 3. Expedition details rooms visited in the course of its specific adventures into Halaster's halls. Eric Boyd has discussed that:

Joe Fischer's original ranger class, yes, though it diverged. The original D&D elves owe more to folkloric sources and Shakespeare than to Tolkien. Dwarves, orcs, goblins, and werebears also have multiple roots. Law/chaos also Moorcock. Well, Christian-inflected Western culture generally. Yes...

Even with the developer's role in RPG books, the author is by the far the best advance indicator of a new book's quality and how you'll like it. The undervaluing of authors is one of the main creative problems of the RPG culture and industry, fostered by the long history of publishers playing...

As has been said, you can't hope to fully describe Undermountain in a book this size. You either give thorough descriptions of a few levels or you overview the whole thing and detail small sections. You might argue that it shouldn't have been done without more pages, but I don't think it's...

Not novel readers in general, but the portion of the novel readers for whom the RSEs are a draw, after having been trained to expect escalating spectacle (as Jim Butler admitted on REALMS-L) since 1989. If the RSEs occurred organically and credibly from the setting, and their effects were...