Perkins' Foreword From OUT OF THE ABYSS

hawkeyefan · Aug 20, 2015

rets82 said:
That is an awesome list Zil. While I certainly have not gotten to all of those I have read several and enjoyed them to different degrees. I was being a bit of a smart ass with my question mostly because I really do not get all the hate any time FR or Salvatore stuff is posted about. Maybe I just have bad taste. Happy reading what ever you are in to.

You'll find stuff of higher quality than Salvatore on Zil's and God's lists, for sure...but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the Drizzt books. I mean, just because Citizen Kane exists doesn't mean there's no place for King Kong.

I'd also add Scott Lynch and Patrick Rothfuss to those lists as other recent examples.

God · Aug 20, 2015

Morrus said:
I didn't' ask "How much Drizzit is too much?"; I asked "How much Drizzit do you think they got on it?" -- completely different question!

The answer is not none, so by default must be too much.

(I suppose I try to be too clever sometimes. Has led to all sorts of misunderstandings over the ages. )

Uder · Aug 20, 2015

Life is too short to read Salvatore... much less re-read! I hope Perkins was well-paid.

rangergcg · Aug 20, 2015

Has anyone here played "The accursed tower" module written by Salvatore and his gaming group (the Seven Swords) ?
IMHO this is one the best 1st level modules ever written for D&D (great fun both for players and DM) : wilderness encounters, a real (and fun) dungeon, and some interesting twists.

And guess what ? Drizzt and even Regis are there as NPCs but without ever stealing the show from the PCs.

I think we should wait and see the ideas Perkins and co. have come out with.

Scrivener of Doom · Aug 20, 2015

rangergcg said:
Has anyone here played "The accursed tower" module written by Salvatore and his gaming group (the Seven Swords) ?
IMHO this is one the best 1st level modules ever written for D&D (great fun both for players and DM) : wilderness encounters, a real (and fun) dungeon, and some interesting twists. (snip)

Yes, it's surprisingly good.

But have you read FR9 The Bloodstone Lands, his only other RPG credit with TSR? One of the Nar tribes he named is Far Quey. Yep, f*** you. No wonder he went on to name his dwarves so badly (Pikel, for example, was his version of "pickle" because he thought it would be a funny name to give a dwarf with green hair).

I'm convinced the reason he never grokked FR names was because he worked on that book that used the Bloodstone adventures as inspiration. (Yes, the adventures where a monk was named Kane. I'm only surprised that they didn't manage to fit in a wizard named Merlin or Gandalf as well.)

Anyway, if he writes any dialogue for kuo-toa, at least we have the Star Wars prequels so that we know to read it in Jar-Jar Binks' voice.

(snip) I think we should wait and see the ideas Perkins and co. have come out.

Well, it's not like we have any other choice.

delericho · Aug 20, 2015

Lidgar said:
From the Tweet:

"Out of the Abyss cover - [MENTION=98644]Jacob[/MENTION]sontyler illustrates Demogorgon demolishing Menzoberranzan after a spell goes wrong!"

I think the likelihood that the adventure will at least partly take place in that dark city is quite high.

Indeed. Though it is possible (albeit unlikely) that that might be depicting a scene from before the start of the actual adventure.

rangergcg · Aug 20, 2015

Scrivener of Doom said:
But have you read FR9 The Bloodstone Lands, his only other RPG credit with TSR?

No, I didn't even know he had written a sourcebook for the FR. Here is something I have to read !

pemerton · Aug 20, 2015

rets82 said:
If Salvatore is the worst writer on earth what kind of novels do the Drizzt haters read?

I don't read much fiction, but in fantasy I'm a big fan of Tolkien, and also enjoy REH's Conan. I want to like Lovecraft, but find him pretty hard going.

My favourite author is Graham Greene, and I think his Catholic existentialism has quite a big impact on how I approach RPGing. Other influences are Wagner's Ring Cycle (which also has something of an existentialist vibe) and 90s Hong Kong martial arts cinema.

Scrivener of Doom · Aug 20, 2015

pemerton said:
I don't read much fiction, but in fantasy I'm a big fan of Tolkien, and also enjoy REH's Conan. (snip)

I'm a fan of both Howard and Tolkien, but I also don't read much fiction and fantasy fiction makes up a small subset of the fiction I do read.

If Salvatore is the worst writer on earth what kind of novels do the Drizzt haters read?

[MENTION=6790371]rets82[/MENTION], you need a little bit of training in logic. This makes no sense. Hating or disliking Drizzt suddenly doesn't reduce the number of novels in the world to choose from by any appreciable amount. Believe it or not, there are other novels you can read. I'll echo [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s recommendation of REH in large part because you can legally and freely download the Conan novels from Project Gutenberg in Oz.