Jürgen Hubert
First Post
Can you specify what you mean with "baroque"?
Presentation of the 4E Forgotten Realms (and other settings)
- Thread starter Jürgen Hubert
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Can you specify what you mean with "baroque"?
I bought the PG for the Swordmage, feats, rituals and that stuff, and don't really care about FR. That said, I've read a novel or three, and played in the setting enough to have a vague sense of the organizations, and that was the biggest thing I noticed lacking in the PG: organizations.
The plug-and-play style does work for DMs like me, but not having some kind of point of reference in a campaign setting's player's guide is kind of sloppy. If the campaign guide is like that, then that's really bad, IMO. I'd rather have the stuff developed in the setting material and pull what I don't want out, rather than have to put tons of stuff back in just to make it sensible.
The_Gneech
Explorer
Hrm ... well ... there was a certain "early Renaissance" feel in terms of the illustrations, as well as the whole "canvas covers" motif. Such as:
It just seemed more unique, I suppose. The 4E FR stuff I saw looked pretty much like all the other 4E stuff I saw. (Mind you, I'm not particularly for or against FR one way or the other, I just don't like everything being shoved into the same mold.)
-The Gneech
Fallen Seraph
First Post
I am glad they stuck with the Corebooks theme, I find it the most easiest to read and prioritize for use then any other books previously.
I personally quite like the split, since it essentially made a Crunch and Fluff book, this allows those that care more about Crunch to pick up Crunch one that cares about Fluff to pick up Crunch or those that want both to get both.
It is also a smart business model for WoTC in that by having this Crunch heavy book it means that those not interested in FR may still buy it because well in essence it is PHB 1.5.
I personally quite like the split, since it essentially made a Crunch and Fluff book, this allows those that care more about Crunch to pick up Crunch one that cares about Fluff to pick up Crunch or those that want both to get both.
It is also a smart business model for WoTC in that by having this Crunch heavy book it means that those not interested in FR may still buy it because well in essence it is PHB 1.5.
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
Can you elaborate on what you mean with "point of reference"?
delericho
Legend
Okay, I'll try to answer that. For the FRCS and ECS, I'm working off memory, while I haven't finished the Pathfinder book yet, so the answer will be necessarily incomplete.
FRCS (3e): Ironically, the biggest strength of this book is also its big weakness. Because the font size is so small, and there is so much information packed in there, it took me a long time to read and assimilate all that information. It also remains hard to find things quickly, a significant weakness when running the game at the table.
The other criticisms I have of the book are to do with content - I'm not really a fan of FR.
Eberron: I may be mis-remembering, but I seem to recall that this book didn't come with a poster map of the setting, and that that came with Dragon later. If correct, this strikes me as a rather terrible omission. Almost unacceptable.
However, two things I did particularly like about that book: right at the start, there is a list of ten key truths about the setting, which did a really good job of setting the tone of the whole. Also, the full-page artwork between chapters was particularly good, again setting the tone of the book very well.
Pathfinder: Three things leap out at me, all from the chapter on the nations of the setting (which is as far as I've gotten). The first is that it sometimes feels a bit like a "tick-box" world design - there's the Egypt-analogue, the Viking-land, the Barrier Peaks equivalent, the devil-ruled nation, the demon-ruined land, the Pirate-city, and so on and so forth. It's well written, and probably does all this by design, but that was the sense I got from it.
Secondly, I think the book maybe tries to cover too much in too little space. There is a distinct feeling that a great deal has been glossed over. Although, oddly, I suspect it covers a lot less than the FRCS, and may well spend a greater word-count on each nation (on average). Perhaps its an artifact of this being a new world while FR is twenty+ years old - the FRCS thus gives the impression of distilling all that accumulated lore, while PF just presents most of what exists.
Thirdly, the nations are presented in strict alphabetical order, which means they tend to jump around the map. I think I would have preferred that they divide the map into regions, and discussed the nations in regional areas of about six or so. They would also have benefitted from diagrams showing (in brief) the relationships between the various nations. (Of course, this would mean cutting something else. My vote is for the Prestige Classes, because, frankly, we have enough by now.)
General: One thing that has occurred to me recently concerns the presentation of the history of the world. Typically, this is given a chapter in the book, quite late on, and starts at the creation of the world, covers a bunch of legends, and then deals with recent history briefly at the end. This makes a certain sense, in that it's all done chronologically (as does presenting nations alphabetically), but I also think it's sub-optimal.
The thing is, the recent history of the world is generally the most important part. And, in fact, it goes a long way towards setting the scene for the current state of the world. As such, I wonder if perhaps that should not only be presented before the ancient history of the world, but should in fact be divorced from the history chapter entirely, and instead presented in the introduction/overview section of the world, or even at the start of the chapter detailing the nations of the world.
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
Good points. How to present the history of a setting best is also something that I've been wondering about lately...
I'm not sure if it'd really work on a world-spanning campaign setting, but in the current campaign I'm working on, I placed the recent history in the introductory/overview chapter to, obvious to me at least, set the scene.
The more ancient history is getting peppered around the mini-campaign guide in sidebars, generally nearby some current setting component or game mechanic that's relevant (a tale of an ice dragon by an ever-frozen pond, the ancient lord's secret betrayal near the ruins of his actions, the formation of the shadowy Dour near the paragon path, etc). Of course, the vast majority of these will be relevant to the game, and again, it's certainly not on scale of a great continent- or world-spanning setting (my campaign setting is pretty much confined to an area about the size of Liechtenstein), but then, my whole guide is probably only going to be a dozen pages tops, so maybe a longer guide would have more room.
I'd probably include a chronological listing of the sidebars in the index.
I didn't find the inforamtion in the players' guide all that compelling, frankly. Had it not had some interesting crunch, I'd not have bought it.
The campaign guide was too blah also. I didn't think the information about unique terrain and magical areas and whatnot was detailed, specific, or interesting enough. That should be part of what sets Faerun apart from other worlds.
Not a fan of this presentation at all.
I understand wanting to print books with content players want, but I don't see how page after page of uninteresting writing accomplishes that (wow, that's harsh, but that's how I feel).
The campaign guide was too blah also. I didn't think the information about unique terrain and magical areas and whatnot was detailed, specific, or interesting enough. That should be part of what sets Faerun apart from other worlds.
Not a fan of this presentation at all.
I understand wanting to print books with content players want, but I don't see how page after page of uninteresting writing accomplishes that (wow, that's harsh, but that's how I feel).
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
So, what would you do differently?
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