I especially like the new artwork depicting the Qualinost "cityscape". Now if only the DLCS geography section was as detailed, then I'd be in gamer heaven. Any chance of us seeing that (in a new supplement)? Please? :Doh wait. :D
Yes, very cool, plenty of info. on the city.
I was hoping that the DLCS would have been more detailed as well. I actually was hoping that it would have been formatted like the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. No setting book is as extensive as the FRCS even the new Eberron Campaign Setting falls short of the standard that the FRCS has set for campaign setting books.
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I was hoping that the DLCS would have been more detailed as well. I actually was hoping that it would have been formatted like the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. No setting book is as extensive as the FRCS even the new Eberron Campaign Setting falls short of the standard that the FRCS has set for campaign setting books.
I think the biggest problem is that because Dragonlance was no longer a bread winner for WotC, the DLCS was not allocated as high a page count as the FRCS had. If the DLCS was as many pages...it would have been a much better product (it would have been just as good, if not better, than the WotL is).
That's just my personal opinion...and in all actuality, may be wrong.
Is FR really that great of a bread winner for WOTC anymore? The only thing I see out on the shelves are their expanisions like Races of Faerun and there are always many copies of them. I havent seen a module for FRCS in such a long time, not like our near and dear Dragonlance and the world of Krynn.
Is FR really that great of a bread winner for WOTC anymore?
It doesn't matter if they are anymore...they certainly were when the book was written, and even a year ago it was the "bread winner" RPG world. Must think "relative." :D
I would love to see Dragonlance start printing books for different regions, but I don't foresee this ever happening. I'm happy with the products that have come out and the ones slated for the future, so no reason to complain.
I've played in Forgotten Realms about as much as Dragonlance, and personally I like them both. But if you add all the players from every other campaign world, not counting homebrew, you still wouldn't equal Forgotten Realms. Its by far the favorite, and I don't think you'll see it go anywhere. I think they are slowing down on how much they are making for it (note I said slowing, not stopping, as in one or two products less) because they really want to promote Eberron, which makes sense. I personally believe if more people would actually give Eberron a chance, a lot of people would play in it. But I think most people made up their mind early and never bothered checking it out.
The FRCS is fantastic as books go. When you add onto that the Player's Guide to Faerun they made, any FR player or Dm had everything they needed at their fingertips. I'm glad to hear that the War of the Lance book has a good amount of geography, it was needed. I reference my old Tales of the Lance book a lot when doing things. That thing has seen more wear and tear than anything else.
The FRCS is fantastic as books go. When you add onto that the Player's Guide to Faerun they made, any FR player or Dm had everything they needed at their fingertips. I'm glad to hear that the War of the Lance book has a good amount of geography, it was needed. I reference my old Tales of the Lance book a lot when doing things. That thing has seen more wear and tear than anything else.
Knowledge is a two-edged sword, especially in the hands of a rules lawyer. It seems like no matter what group I ran there was always one or two them, except when it came to DL. They would quote some novel or an old sourcebook, it was really quite annoying. I tried to aviod the use of the DM is always right rule, as it irritates me when the DM throws that about too much. So I tried saying if I haven't read it or if I don't have that book, the point is moot. That didn't work well either, as I didn't really care for the few FR novels I read, so I just stopped reading them.
That's why whenenver I DM'd a FR game I had the characters start at a major city like Waterdeep or Silerymoon. As they walked up to the cities walls, the heads of Eleminster, the Seven Sisters, Drizzit, and every other uber powerful character from FR, were on pikes. Inevitably they would argue that I couldn't do that, and I would tell them I could and if they didn't like it they could leave. I only had one person ever leave.
Anyway that's why I prefer DL, even if you do have people that know everything, I've found they're less likely to throw it at you. For some reason they understand that DL game is about telling a story rather than a bunch of rules.
I haven't started DMing Eberron yet, but I can guarantee my brother will read a crapload when we start. My little brother likes to know everything so whether we play Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, etc he will read up on stuff. The good part is he doesnt read novels, so I always can take ideas and stories from them. He actually stopped reading the Monster Manual so that when we play he doesn't know every statistic heh.
A little bit of knowledge never really mattered much to me. The only time I ever really got annoyed was when I threw Knights of Neraka at my group and he was throwing out statistics of what it all takes to exactly be one, what level they had to be, and the abilities they had. But it wasn't a big deal because some of them werent exactly Knights yet, so not all of them had the same powers. And several of them were different classes, so he still had to figure out what they were.
I dunno, my party ended up preventing an Ogre Chiefton from becoming an Ogre Titan and it didn't bother me much that my brother knew exactly what the Ogres were doing. He still had to figure out how to prevent it. I put the disclaimer right when we started that not everything will be the same as what you read in the books. I don't think its possible for anyone to run a game exactly how the d&d books and novels have stuff. You eventually have to do something, which may go against a future product. Or have a good idea that you need to change around some things.
I like the detail of FR because I don't have to come up with every little tidbit to run an adventure. I have a lot of things going on, and while I devote a lot of time to D&D, I don't want to spend my time coming up with *everything*. The FRCS was a very nice book and should be praised as an example of what a Campaign Setting book should be. I enjoy the DLCS, but fact is, the geography needed more. Thats why I'll wait for the War of the Lance book and see how it is. Seems like it is good.
I personally like my players having more knowledge than less. I'm sure a lot of people would rather their characters not know anything and have to figure out everything on their own.. but how do you decide what the characters would know just for growing up in the world? I change things around anyways.. even if they know the Knights of Neraka run a city, it might be a little different next time. Three of my players know basically jack about Dragonlance, beyond the Chronicles, so having my little brother there to fill in some things never bothered me.