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<blockquote data-quote="Garnfellow" data-source="post: 2761912" data-attributes="member: 1223">Well, Sean, I think you missed my point. The MoF couldn't decide if it was really a fish or really a fowl. It's not that I hate the Realms or object to any trace of Realms lore in my core books -- but in MoF there's just enough Realms stuff to annoy buyers who hate Faerun, and just not enough info to really satisfy the big fans of the Realms or &quot;convert&quot; those people who don't run the Realms. Frankly, I found most of those &quot;In the Realms&quot; paragraphs in MoF to be rather superficial and superfluous. They felt like the old &quot;Ecology&quot; paragraphs in 2e, where the designers were often clearly just trying to pad out the monster entry to fit one page.&nbsp; None of these paragraphs inspired me enough to pull out my Forgetten Realms books and run a game there; really good sidebars will do that. I realize that it's a difficult struggle to find just the right balance when catering to two different audiences, but in my opinion, the newer WotC monster books do a far better job of providing sidebars of the right depth for &quot;In Eberron&quot; or &quot;In the Realms&quot;. Currently I don't run either setting, but recently I've seen several sidebars that made the setting sound so cool that I wanted to try them out immediately.For some great examples of monster books that effectively pull in setting specific info, I like the Monsternomicon or Races of Avidnu, where the background is woven tightly into the monster description, with plot hooks, history, and some new game mechanics. (Or for that matter, your New Argonauts book, with its nifty Knowledge (history) line.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Garnfellow, post: 2761912, member: 1223"] Well, Sean, I think you missed my point. The MoF couldn't decide if it was really a fish or really a fowl. It's not that I hate the Realms or object to any trace of Realms lore in my core books -- but in MoF there's just enough Realms stuff to annoy buyers who hate Faerun, and just not enough info to really satisfy the big fans of the Realms or "convert" those people who don't run the Realms. Frankly, I found most of those "In the Realms" paragraphs in MoF to be rather superficial and superfluous. They felt like the old "Ecology" paragraphs in 2e, where the designers were often clearly just trying to pad out the monster entry to fit one page. None of these paragraphs inspired me enough to pull out my Forgetten Realms books and run a game there; really good sidebars will do that. I realize that it's a difficult struggle to find just the right balance when catering to two different audiences, but in my opinion, the newer WotC monster books do a far better job of providing sidebars of the right depth for "In Eberron" or "In the Realms". Currently I don't run either setting, but recently I've seen several sidebars that made the setting sound so cool that I wanted to try them out immediately. For some great examples of monster books that effectively pull in setting specific info, I like the Monsternomicon or Races of Avidnu, where the background is woven tightly into the monster description, with plot hooks, history, and some new game mechanics. (Or for that matter, your New Argonauts book, with its nifty Knowledge (history) line.) [/QUOTE]

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