Presentation of the 4E Forgotten Realms (and other settings)

[Jürgen Hubert]

Now that the 4E books for the Forgotten Realms setting have been out, I was wondering what everyone thought of it.

Not of the setting in itself - the Spellplague and other setting changes have been discussed at length. No, I'm wondering what you think of the overall presentation of the books, since I plan to publish a setting of my own one day.

- Was the split between a Player's Handbook and a Campaign Guide appropriate? What information should have been in the other book?

- What material was inappropriate for the books? What information was missing which you would have wanted?

- What did you like/dislike about the general layout of the books.

And finally:

- Given a similar amount of setting material, how would you structure the core book (or books) of a campaign setting?

 

[delericho]

I haven't looked at the 4e Realms books in detail, so will keep my comments general.

In principle, I like the idea of having a Players' book and a DM's book. Provided there is enough material to justify the two books, maintain separation of topics, while avoiding excessive overlap (more than about 2%) between the books.

I also really like the idea of presenting the complete setting in a very small number of books, and then stopping. This allows the DM to fill in the gaps as he sees fit, without feeling the need to stay current, or having canon step all over the work he's done fleshing out his world. I'm far from convinced that that is the best solution for FR, given the reams of existing canon on this setting, but there it is.

That said, the single best campaign setting book I have seen was the 3e FRCS, which was absolutely packed with information. I also quite liked the Eberron setting book (the first book; I didn't read any of the supplements), and am thoroughly enjoying the Pathfinder setting book.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

That said, the single best campaign setting book I have seen was the 3e FRCS, which was absolutely packed with information. I also quite liked the Eberron setting book (the first book; I didn't read any of the supplements), and am thoroughly enjoying the Pathfinder setting book.

Is there anything about these books which you didn't like, or where you could see room for improvement in terms of overall presentation and/or structure?

 

[Nebulous]

I disliked the layout of the books, mostly because they adhered so strongly to the core books, and i didn't like that stark white layout either. Too clinical, like reading a textbook.

The art in the FRCS 4e is very, very hit or miss...mostly miss. The art in the FRPG was much, much better, as if they hired a whole new team of artists.

By going with the normal font size they failed to pack in as much information as the 3e FRCS, and that was a major misstep i think. Since there is not going to be additional setting material coming out (aside from DDI, which might be why they chose this route) i would have thought they would pack as much material in as possible, especially considering that they did it before and created one of the best campaign books ever.

AND...

...probably the biggest thing that bothered me was the poor maps, and the lack of a geographical overlook. Someone unfamiliar with the Realms would have no idea where these little countries are in relation to the others. Yes, you can pull out the big poster map and pore over that, but it needed a two page spread in the book itself, outlining (in color preferably, or color-coded somehow) each kingdom.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

By going with the normal font size they failed to pack in as much information as the 3e FRCS, and that was a major misstep i think.

Did anybody else have any problems with the font size?

Some time ago, I ran a poll that asked for the preferred font size for gaming books. A 10 point font was the most popular choice - and unless I am mistaken, that's what the 4E books are using.

 

[Henry]

In principle, I liked the split idea (I got to look at a member of the gaming group's copies of them). In practice, I don't like the split, because it's what is in part prohibiting me from picking up the two books - the cost, though I might pick them up from a discount retailer at Christmas.

 

[The_Gneech]

I rather liked the "baroque" look of the 3E stuff; the 4E FR stuff looks just like all the other 4E stuff (whether that's good or bad is up to the individual). My point is just that I liked the tangible difference in flavor it had before.

-The Gneech

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I don't like the organisation and presentation of the material in the DM book.

The country write-ups feel like of collection of unrelated Dragon articles, not like a concise book. Nearly all "articles" are missing the context of the country. There are too few references to neighbouring areas, Realms-wide organisations and villains. IMHO they've gone too far in the direction of pick-and-play style, seeing each entry as independent, generic topic. Especially for a completely new setting, this would mean the absence of style and story concepts fitting to the world.

I'm not a fan of White Wolf's massive, 100 pages long stories in the front of their books, either, but WotC missed the balance in the FRCG.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Another question: How did everyone like the examples for character origins and motivations? Were they useful, or should they have been cut and replaced with something else?

 

[Imban]

Now that the 4E books for the Forgotten Realms setting have been out, I was wondering what everyone thought of it.

Not of the setting in itself - the Spellplague and other setting changes have been discussed at length. No, I'm wondering what you think of the overall presentation of the books, since I plan to publish a setting of my own one day.

- Was the split between a Player's Handbook and a Campaign Guide appropriate? What information should have been in the other book?

Sure, if you think having campaign settings act at least partially as generic splatbooks is a virtue. The Player's Guide contained plenty of information I'd rather have been in the Campaign Guide, though - the Player's Guide descriptions of countries containing information the Campaign Guide descriptions lacked being the most obvious problem, because while DMs are going to buy both, needing to cross-reference is kind of annoying unless you're actually putting out real setting supplements with more information.

- What material was inappropriate for the books? What information was missing which you would have wanted?

The Player's Guide needed to toss the pages and pages of uninspired character hooks at the end of each country - when you demand there be a Plot Hooks section with 4-6 plot hooks explicitly delineated for every country, you easily get 4 outright bad ones for every good one. I mean, heck, look at the character motivations for Akanul for a super-blatant example. Working plot hooks into the text and letting players pick them out themselves always seemed better in my experience.

- Given a similar amount of setting material, how would you structure the core book (or books) of a campaign setting?

Campaign guide is basically as the FR Campaign Guide, though I'd try to include more connection between countries - there's not much of a feeling that anyone in the world is doing anything - most "plots and adventure sites" are static things that will be there in 20 years, too. If I had to lose something, it'd be the adventure, unless I really thought it brought out the flavor of the campaign setting. (And for what it's worth, I don't think the FR one does. I never really thought there was an explicit flavor to old FR that could be brought out in a single adventure, and if they tried making an Explicitly FR Flavor in the new one, well, they certainly published an introduction adventure that wouldn't be inappropriate in GenericD&DLandia.)

Even then, their current model says they're publishing a standalone adventure for each campaign setting, too, so.

Player's Guide is as written, only the country writeups are halved in size, removing the explicit "plot hooks" section, and focused on general knowledge about that country. If we end up with extra space, include a section on heroic (or at least non-villainous) organizations that the PCs could belong to. Like the Harpers, who get reduced to all of one line in the Player's Guide.