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<blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 3765909" data-attributes="member: 5948">A fair bit of truth here.&nbsp; Novels drive FR, no point arguing about it.But I don't necessarily think RSEs are what sell the books.&nbsp; As far as I know (I have to admit my tolerance for FR novels has basically gone through the floor since I discovered the existence of better stuff out there) pretty much every single FR trilogy in the past few years has been a RSE of some sort or another.&nbsp; But (and I stand to be proved wrong by bestseller lists, sales figures etc) the heroes of series like Return of the Archwizards, Last Mythal, Rage of Dragons, etc, etc, etc don't seem to have nearly the same traction as the characters from earlier novels - the Icewind Dale and Dark Elf trilogies, and the Arilyn Moonblade books in particular (the Erevis Cale books might be a more recent example, though admittedly I haven't read them and only going on hearsay).&nbsp; And notably, none of these series had any great metaplot/setting implications.&nbsp; Small-scale plots lead to greater intimacy with the characters lead to more emotional involvement lead to greater reader loyalty.&nbsp; Or at least that's my experience, as one guy who kept on reading the Drizzt novels way, waaay after they'd polevaulted the megalodon.My gut feeling is that small-scale, lower-level FR novels can sell just as well as the drearily repetitive apocalypses that seem to beset poor old Faerun every second Thursday.&nbsp; The main problem I see is that the current regular FR novel customers - overwhelmingly young adults, at a guess - probably LIKE the RSEs and will miss them if they go, and it will require a non-trivial level of writing skill to convince them that low-level stuff can be just as cool and interesting.&nbsp; Of course, the whole setting reboot is a convincing argument that pleasing 'current customers' is not WotCs priority 1 in the whole business...</blockquote>

[QUOTE="humble minion, post: 3765909, member: 5948"] A fair bit of truth here. Novels drive FR, no point arguing about it. But I don't necessarily think RSEs are what sell the books. As far as I know (I have to admit my tolerance for FR novels has basically gone through the floor since I discovered the existence of better stuff out there) pretty much every single FR trilogy in the past few years has been a RSE of some sort or another. But (and I stand to be proved wrong by bestseller lists, sales figures etc) the heroes of series like Return of the Archwizards, Last Mythal, Rage of Dragons, etc, etc, etc don't seem to have nearly the same traction as the characters from earlier novels - the Icewind Dale and Dark Elf trilogies, and the Arilyn Moonblade books in particular (the Erevis Cale books [i]might[/i] be a more recent example, though admittedly I haven't read them and only going on hearsay). And notably, none of these series had any great metaplot/setting implications. Small-scale plots lead to greater intimacy with the characters lead to more emotional involvement lead to greater reader loyalty. Or at least that's my experience, as one guy who kept on reading the Drizzt novels way, waaay after they'd polevaulted the megalodon. My gut feeling is that small-scale, lower-level FR novels can sell just as well as the drearily repetitive apocalypses that seem to beset poor old Faerun every second Thursday. The main problem I see is that the current regular FR novel customers - overwhelmingly young adults, at a guess - probably LIKE the RSEs and will miss them if they go, and it will require a non-trivial level of writing skill to convince them that low-level stuff can be just as cool and interesting. Of course, the whole setting reboot is a convincing argument that pleasing 'current customers' is not WotCs priority 1 in the whole business... [/QUOTE]

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