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These two are quite bad by modern standards. Cliché, minimal plot, and impractical to run numbers of enemies in Descent. Out of the Abyss may not be well regarded, but it does the Underdark better (more detail, more interesting, more choices for the players). They did several things first, but...

I still refer to mine sometimes. It's a dense encyclopaedia-type book, very dry, with a lot of technical (facts, not feelings) information on a lot of different places. It's a good reference, but it doesn't suggest how to turn the information in the book into interesting adventures. Very light...

People with very dark skin tones tend to look more grey when they blanche. "Tans easily" describes me too, is classed as Type 4 by the cosmetic industry and is associated with Mediterranean folk. Hence the family rumours that my great grandfather was a Greek sailor.

Generic fantasy get pretty boring after a while, you have to mix up the genres to keep it interesting. But, in the 22 years since the movies, Tolkien has been passing out of fashion in pop culture, and is being incorporated into high culture instead. And I think modern fantasy is itself moving...

Those are not the authors I would think of when describing Exandria. It’s modern, not retro. It’s high magic, with magically flying ships a standard means of travel, it has gunpowder, and people generally dress in 17-18th century-ish styles rather than Hollywood medieval, there are no...

Dark Sun is a completely different type of setting that will appeal to a completely different type of player. They aren’t really comparable at all. One feature of Exandria is its a positive setting. The world is not a generally terrible place, people are not universally horrible, and heroes can...

Not having seen Critical Role, I just took that as meaning the gods are not Earthly beings. It does say they were “new”, suggesting they were, like the world, newly created. Not that I see any problem with them being from somewhere else. Several FR gods are too. Not to mention Cthulhu and his...

Why? There is a lot more depth than there was in Greyhawk at the same point. Things get fleshed out with time. And CotN adds a lot more depth to some adventure hubs. Why would a villain have to be a god? There are shedloads of mortal villains to choose from, who are far less cliche than evil...

I think there was a brief reference to events in Thay somewhere in SCAG, but I’m not in position to look it up at the moment.

The thing about Ank’Harel is it’s actually a nice place where you want to spend time, and care if it’s threatened. Not one of your typical wretched hives of scum and villainy that most fantasy cities are. CotN has a couple of other nice adventure base camps as well. It’s a shame the adventure...

This bit of lore isn’t actually in the setting book. I assume they are getting it from the the Critical Role stream, and is therefore not relevant to the OP. The setting has to be taken only on material in the source books. Clearly it’s a meta reference to the deities being lifted from Netir...

But you pretty much have to do that, as you have to tailor the encounters to the PC abilities. You can’t just write an adventure and expect it to work for any group of PCs of the same level. It doesn’t work like that.

What you are asking for is not “making it easier” though. You can’t get any easier than “loosey goosey” as you put it.

Don’t worry, the gerbil is a stoner monk and could kick your ass despite its lack of artistic ability.

It purports to advise the DM. It's an illusion of progress. The characters will level up, come what may. And the monsters will get tougher to compensate, come what may. The PCs have to level up at the end of Chapter 1, because otherwise Chapter 2 will be too difficult.

I favour acrylics, but that's because I haven't got space to keep an oil painting set up whilst I work on it. You can also use the same paints to paint minis!

Oils require a lot more time and space. You are talking about weeks vs an afternoon. But they are far more forgiving than acrylics or water colours. It's easy to fix mistakes or change something that isn't working. I hate water colour, it is really really hard!

It's perfectly simple. FR has a ridiculous number of sentient species, and more are added every time some supplement or monster manual is published. If they all came from other worlds there would be twenty spaceships landing every minute.

I’ve never heard anyone complain the high level adventures are too difficult! I usually subtract at least one from the level WotC suggest for anything over 9.

XP rules have always been hand waved for combat as well as non-combat encounters. Different tables play D&D with different emphasis, and XP is awarded to reward the activates the table wants to encourage, in a quantity to match the desired rate of levelling. Ergo Gygax awarded XP for killing...