Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neil Bishop" data-source="post: 3990446" data-attributes="member: 55494">I think you have hit the nail on the head here.It doesn't matter if FR4E's campaign setting is a marvellous piece of work (I think most people, according to various reviews etc..., consider the FRCS for 3E to be outstanding) because, within no time, a series of novels will come out and resolve some of the interesting plot hooks that are to be found in the new campaign setting.This is what happened in 3E. Obould the orc king was revealed as a potential BBEG in the FRCS and then also in Silver Marches, an outstanding regional supplement. What does WotC do next? They hand off the whole plot hook to a hack writer (1) and he resolves the plot hook in a trilogy.Also, FR3E suffered from not having an introductory adventure or series of introductory adventures that would show a new FR DM how to use the setting as his own campaign world. Will this be addressed or, like in 3E, will the first adventure be a mini-campaign for 10th+ level characters where the backstory is only fully known after about four years as it gradually resolved in a series of six novels?I suppose my essential point is this: the campaign setting can be good or bad, that's almost irrelevant, what really matters is whether there will be a clear and defined strategy as to how the novels and the game world will interact. (2)1: I know R A Salvatore is a best-selling author and from time-to-time can write well. However, he has become almost a parody of himself, just as George Lucas did with Return of the Jedi and great chunks of prequel episodes. And RAS suffers from the George Lucas "ewok and gungans" syndrome with clinically insane characters with really stupid names and strange  speaking patterns (normally with dwarves: witness the dwarf, Athrogate, in the Artemis novels [and what's with naming a male assassin after a Greek goddess?] or those insane and inane Bouldershoulder Brothers in the cleric series).2: Of course, I don't think there will be for two reasons: (i) I am sure that the novels are significantly more profitable than the game world; and (ii) I don't think that this sort of strategic thinking is something that WotC would like to do for fear of it tying their hands if they have a new idea later.</blockquote>

Verification