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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DM_Jeff" data-source="post: 2984163" data-attributes="member: 3687">Hi All,NOTE: I am, like MerricB, an official WotC optimist. I like my purchase of this book and think that discussion might help, but portions of it, from a design point, truly baffle me. I will discuss some of the dungeons and story here and so there will be spoilers. If you’re playing in this, please go elsewhere. If you’re a DM who wants to join in, welcome!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> During this discussion with other owners (and those curious) of the Forgotten Realms regional book ‘Mysteries of the Moonsea’, I hope to tackle some of the following questions. Did the design memo actually go out to all four of the writers? Why don’t wizards have familiars <UPDATE: Question answered, thanks!> What’s with the tattooed slaves? Were the developers too intimidated to take a more active hand in the final text?Overview: Mysteries of the Moonsea is 160 page FR sourcebook/”adventure toolkit”. It introduces the Moonsea region and sets the tone. Four authors were given the four main compass points to tackle in their assignment. Each section gives a good overview but little meat & potatoes on the area. It introduces a city in each region which characters can visit and explore. Each region also has a number of very well developed, fully stated NPCs and their roles in the region. Each section then hosts about a half-dozen adventures, half in the city described and half in the immediate wilderness. This book is best used by DMs who are good and comfortable at improvisation; react creatively to simple seeds and big blank spots, and who enjoy the toolbox effect. It is not a good book for someone looking for a complete adventure path or who wants loads of nuances and detail on the region and its background with new rules.I really like how they covered the areas and the cities. Sure, they could have flooded me with info, but this gives me most of what I need to run the area and leaves me plenty of room to throw in my own stuff too. The NPCs in each section are great and useful. With that in mind, however, I came across some truly peculiar trends. The adventures are a really mixed bag, however. Some show real time and thought put behind them and others remind me of dungeons I’d draw when I was 13, stocking them with things from the Monster Manual with no rhyme or reason for them to be there except for characters to kill them. I grade the adventures thus:Melvaunt and the North, A-. Good adventures, combat and role-playing intensive, good ties to overarching thread.Hillsfar and the South, D. Adventure sites with monsters. Kill everything. No ties to the overarching thread.Mulmaster and the East, C+ Mediocre adventures, basic ties to the overarching thread.Zhentil Keep and the West, B+ Creative locations, fine adventures, basic ties to the overarching thread.So, onto the things I’d like someone to roll 10 or higher and assist me with a +2 bonus…• How are you going to use the adventures? Are you planning on nixing any or writing others? Which ones and how? I do NOT like the “I just watched Raiders of the Lost Arc” adventure set in Mulmaster and the East (and, aren’t Yaun-Ti cold blooded? What are they even doing up here?). I also am not fond of the “attack of the plants” of Hillsfar and the South, or its “old portal elf tower” with a basic alphabetized listing of devils guarding a bunch of rooms. • How are you using the tattooed slaves? There are hints that Thay is trying to take over Zhentil Keep, and strong hints that the tattoos are robot-controlling magic turning slaves into Regdar the Mighty. How are you using them? How are you threading them through Hillsfar and the South, which makes no mention of them? (I’m not sure having the PCs go to Hillsfar just to track down the ship’s home port from adventure #1 and then get sidetracked by a bunch of unrelated quests is conductive to a good campaign). My wife is convinced Sean Reynolds was brought in as a writer at the last minute and didn’t get the tattooed slaves memo!  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /> More as I get feedback. Anyone have any thoughts or impressions of the content of this book?-DM Jeff</blockquote>

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