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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaro" data-source="post: 5673789" data-attributes="member: 48965">Now I feel like you might be misrepresenting exactly what you get with Hammerfast... As far as antagonists in Hammerfast go... here's just a few and it seems significantly more than a handful, and quite a few based in the actual town of Hammerfast as opposed to just the surrounding area... 1. Serlek's Gang2. Carthain's Gang3. The Rockguard Clan4. Joren Deathkeeper5. The Circle of Stone6. Thar7. Calastryx8. Trade Guild9. Lore Guild 10. Craft Guild11. Orc Tribes: Bloodspear Orcs/Weeping Skull Tribe12. Queen Stravalla of Winter's Mourning13. Spider Goblins14. Swiftriver Halfling Clan15. The Deep Burrow Gang (kobolds)16. Barrthak the dwarf lich17. Baldreg Skullbreaker the high priest of Gruumsh There are also many that I didn't list that can become anatagonists or allies depending on the actions of the PC's. Just reading through the book there are tons of adventure hooks in the actual city... from the political maneuverings of the Guilds, the goals of various NPC's, the machinations of the Stone Circle and so on. So I disagree that Hammerfast is suppose to serve mainly as a backdrop and homebase for adventuring in the wilderness.  So again... it's an argument of more, not necessarily anything they do differently, since the goals and plots of the antagonists I listed above are all in the actual Hammerfast product. Now Hammerfast does (and IMO rightly so) leave how these factions interact with each other and with the players up to the DM... but that's a question of what do you want decided for you and what do you want more freedom with.   What do color details have to do with whether something is a campaign setting or a backdrop? IMO, Everwatch in Dragon magazine is a backdrop and homebase for PC's... neither NWCS or Hammerfast are this.  More and more this seems like a taste issue. I find those details you dismiss are what makes the setting of Hammerfast come alive for me... while telling me what the interactions and relationships of factions is something I want the ability to do for myself in a sandbox...YMMV of course.  Oh, and for the record... Hammerfast also details locations of adventure around it such as Two Roads, or HighPeak among others. So the difference again seems to boil down to more.  Now this I can somewhat understand because there are no themes in Hammerfast, though honestly I find themes a good addition to 4e... I also find the ones in NWCS slightly limiting since there are only so many themes and they are very specific... if you don't particularly care for any of them or they don't fit your character concept then they don't matter. Moreso, IMO, since Hammerfast is set in the default world it's easy enough for the players and DM to tie almost any theme into the setting and this provides alot more variety... and allows for as tight or loose a connection as the DM and players want in your campaign.  So it seems your argument rests mainly on the inclusion of very specific themes? Fair enough, though for $10 I can get more than enough themes and backgrounds to tie vastly more character concepts into Hammerfast along with a multitude of other stuff... vs. the cost of the NWCS.  So again, IMO... Hammerfast was a better bang for my buck.</blockquote>

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