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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 5377625" data-attributes="member: 1106">Bioware was an amazing company, and responsible for BG2.  They took the cream of 2E and FR and turned it into something special.  Because it's a computer game they have to be specific about details, and realise the realms in full colour.  They also probably had a much bigger budget than WOTC had with the FRCS, and were able to use millions of lines of code rather than a strictly limited page count.  WOTC and TSR approach FR from completely a different direction by comparison (limited page count + way way way too much scope = stone soup compared to your average CRPG, which can be good if you want to fill in the details I suppose...).The way around this, IMO, is to restrict scope similarly to the way Bioware did (i.e. one big city and it's immediate surrounds in both BG1 and BG2).  To get up on my soapbox, the oft-overlooked aspect of using an entire world as a setting is that you're sacrificing quality for quantity.  There are various mercantile reasons (and perhaps reasons of tabletop tradition) why WOTC cannot produce a 320 page book for something the size of, say, Thunder Rift (which is about the size of Bioware's scope with the BG games), which is why the support you're hinting at does not exist.  Something that size gets 32 pages spent on it.(FR flavour is marvellous IMO, but if you don't like it and want a campaign setting that's standalone, Bioware game size, has all D&D's classic cliches intact and stops the PCs wandering "off the map", I'd recommend Thunder Rift.)What's the answer, if you want to replicate a Bioware-like experience with tabletop?  Condense all the colour and adventure from an entire world into a few tens of miles (e.g. Bioware raided arguably some of the best of 2E's incredible Encyclopedia Magica for their magic items, and that's over a 1000 pages of them), set up hundreds of optional mini-quests, and tie that in to an over-riding campaign arc divided into three acts.That's an incredible amount of work, but it's arguably much more useful than spreading yourself across a wide area (i.e. what most people talk about when they think of settings).  In fact, FR originally effectively got played as a series of little mini-settings (Eveningstar + Haunted Halls, Shadowdale + Myth Drannor, Waterdeep + Undermountain), so if you're looking at FR in particular check those out.  And remember that the key to replicating something as good as these CRPGs is to restrict campaign scope.And even if you do all that, IMO there's one more "gotcha"....I wouldn't recommend any WOTC edition of D&D for this style of campaign.Why?  Because the rate of advancement and the length of a single combat in both 3E and 4E, when played on the tabletop, just takes too long and players level too fast.  IMO this is pure poison for the epic kind of campaign BG2 represents, because you simply can't run enough adventures in the time and levels available.  You could monkey with the experience tables to solve the levelling too fast problem, but single combats will still drag outrageously in a way that previous editions just didn't.  So I'd recommend AD&D 1E, 2E, or BECMI (or some similacrum thereof) for this style of campaign.  Ed Greenwood himself stayed with 2E for his home games, apparently.</blockquote>

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