Prince of Ravens by Richard Baker

I mentioned, some time ago, Amazon having a few Forgotten Realms novels for sale for $2.99. Prince of Ravens by Richard Baker was one of them. The same book in the same format is now $6.15. I wonder where Amazon comes up with these prices eh?

I finally managed to get around to reading it. It's not a bad yarn but I have some 'issues' with it if you will. Let me say that there will be spoilers.

In designing your campaign, there are many options. In resuming a campaign, there are many options. Prince of Ravens takes one of the heroes of the Forgotten Realms and puts him in the 'new' setting of the Forgotten Realms some one hundred years after his own timeline. The immense problems in terms of suspension of disbelief hit hard and fast for me.

For one thing, if I read a book by say Mark Twain or Harold Lamb, or something from an even older time, the language is different. Oh sure, it's still English but the way words are used, indeed, the very words used, are massively different in style and tone.

If I go to an old neighborhood, the buildings are different. The very designs are different. In some areas, the buildings may be so worn down and dilapidated that its a safety hazard even to be near them.

Food changes. The types of food popular now are not in any way, shape or form the foods that people even fifty years ago were eating.

Jack, the main hero who is time lost, basically comes into Ravensbluff going, "Man, it sucks that everything and everyone I ever loved is dead, but hey, some style changes to clothing and I'm good to go again man. Awesome."

The problem with a generic setting like the Forgotten Realms is fully showcased here in that it remains a generic setting for this tale as Jack is able to easily fit into the modern world with such little difficulty that its evident the more things change, the more they stay the same.

So what's my point? In a fantasy setting, all of this can be explained with a wave of the hand. Yeah, pretty much. But I guess my point is, in designing your campaign, you still wind up using all the static elements that were used so predominatnly before without bringing in the things that were supposed to make the setting what it is now, like Swordmages, like Dragonborn, like Spellplague, and other bits, that Richard has used in other novels, don't change the setting.  It may be strange to think it, but companies can still write stories about their characters in those 'olden' times. How many Batman, Spiderman, and even Conan origins have we been subject to? Learn from the properties some of your more fantastic elements seek to emulate.

One thing that Richard does well here, which is a tremendous paint in many role playing games that are detail intensive, is multiple parties of adventurers with the unexpected popping up. For example, Jack is looking for a book. They encounter some villains and battle. As they move forward, they encounter another group of adventurers. Plus some more villains and their leader! While not breaking out into a three way brawl, the battle in a role playing game, like Rolemaster or 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons, could be a huge time sink as you now have multiple groups of characters to run as the GM and interact with the players.

There are also cases of characters 'breaking' the rules. One of the characters is the 'warlord' who is immune to all magic, both good and bad. At the end of the novel, Jack loses his own spellcasting ability and the 'warlord' gains access to magic. In a point based game like Hero or GURPS, that might be considered a 'radiation' accident via the old Marvel Super Heroes where there were in game reasons for why your character changed.

If players want to change their characters, see if you can build it into the game itself as opposed to bringing in a whole new character but only do so if it fits the feel and mood of the campaign proper. You don't want Spellplagues and Wildmagic and other nonsense popping up every other session because someone wants to play the latest and greatest class race combo.

Prince of Ravens is a very character driven story and provides a quick look as to how an out of time character might interact with the new setting and finds it same as it ever was.

Forgotten Realms Kindle Books $2.99 Sale?

Elaine Cunningham, author of several Forgotten Realms novels, twitted that while organizing links to her material, that Evermet was $2.99 in Kindle Format. For those who know me, $2.99 is my 'sweet spot' as a purchaser. I have a few used book stores around me and while I can't always select what they have, there are enough books on the dollar spinner racks to keep me busy, well, forever. These are all 'luxury' purchases if you will.

So I went to check it out. While I've read several of Elaine's books, that one I had never gotten to. Sure enough, $2.99. I also picked up some others.

Prince of Ravens: I like Richard Baker's work. Not too crazy about taking a character from one era of the Forgotten Realms to another, but I'll give it a try. Odd how that happens eh? Drizzt, Elminster and Jack too? Wonder if maybe they shouldn't have split their reader base? Ah, what do I know.

The Masked Witches: Alright, I liked the book description. I figure for the price I'll give it a shot.

Charon's Claw: I think the last R A Salvatore book I read was The Orc King and I read it at Borders while waiting for my girlfriend. I suppose I could go to the library for some of this material but again for the price...

Shadowbane: Eye of Justice: Magic swords and vigilante killers? Okay, I'll try it out.

Mind you, they had more than these but I figured that was enough for me. Good hunting!   

The Last Mythal by Richard Baker

So over here Amazon has the Last Mythal omnibus edition in Kindle format for $9.99. It's not as great as 99 cents or $1.99 but it is exactly the type of behavior I want to see Wizards of the Coast taking so I'm supporting it by buying it again, even though I have the original trilogy in the box set.

By offering the books individually, it allows the user to 'sample' the series. I've seen some initiatives where the first book is either free or at a greatly reduced price. The thing with Wizards of the Coast though, and I'm not saying this for one hundred percent truth, is that they generally do not offer their ebooks in collected editions.

By offering their collected editions in ebooks at an affordable price, if they at least have an author you like, such as Richard Baker or Mel Odom or Richard Lee Bryers, you can get some great deals. But only if they continue to offer these types of collection.

If you want to see this type of behavior continue, make a purchase and then let WotC know that you purchased it because the price and format was right.

Final Gate by Rich Baker

The Final Gate by Rich Baker is the third and final volume of the Last Mythal.

1. High Level artifacts in play? Check. The stakes in the game go beyond Myth Drannor itself as there is a nexus or master series of portals that a demon lord is trying to gain control of in order to massively expand his influence.

2. Sacrifices? Check. Not all of the characters have made it through all three books alive and most of them have not made it out unscarred or unchanged.

3. Epic Villains? It seems that each of the Monster Manuals for 4th edition picked a big bad to lead the cover and I'm assuming as a big boss for the final encounter.  Here we have much the same with an exiled demon lord branded by the High Elf pantheon leader himself coming to blows with many of the characters here in one way or another.

4. Trying it all together? The book relies on an artifact introduced in the first book and does a nice job of trying up various lose ends brought about by various factions and their actions in earlier books.

Final Gate makes the enemies foes that we want to see get their just deserts. They attack on a personal level and insure that the battle is not just one of good versus evil or right versus wrong but rather an event where there is a bit of payback desired.

It brings together events and characters from previous books in a way that flows organically and allows the reader to follow along on even some of the larger expeditions taken without losing the reader. Overcomplicating a plot can be the death of a good adventure. When its broken down into bite sized chunks, even if those chunks are quite large in and of themselves, as long as its defined, the party should be able to grasp it.

Its epic in scope. While the elves making a so called Return to the mainland is huge, the Nexus beyond that is an even bigger potential threat to everyone's way of life. The stakes have been raised in each book going from what might be the end of a Paragon campaign all the way through an Epic one.

Rich Baker does a great job of bringing numerous elements that at first appear to have nothing to do with one another, and indeed until this series was written, may never had had anything to do with one another, and shows the reader that the wider the setting, the larger the net and the greater the potential payoff.

Farthest Reaches by Rich Baker

For some campaigns, the source material may be almost limitless. There may be fiction lines, comic lines, numerous gaming source books, various editions to wade through and other material that only a true devotee would want to see acknowledged like terrible movies or nostalgic carton television shows.

The Forgotten Realms hits many of those points and in The Last Mythal Book II, Rich Baker takes us to a few spots that are out and about in search of lost lore and lost history.

In your own campaign, do you have places that you always mean to add to the campaign but never get around to it? Do you have numerous locations that you'd like to have set pieces in but time is against you?

Work against those standards by building the events and the important characters that will be interacting with the party. There is no need to detail the whole of Thay if the party is going to perform a quick jail break after gathering some first hand information from a few contacts and well wishers.

Have the party explore the Ruins underneath the Shades in Anauroch and snub their noses at the shadow lords.

Have the party search out sunk ships off lost islands in the Sea of Fallen Stars with appropriate guides and captains and enemies of those allies coming after them.

The size of the campaign, both in terms of years and in terms of sheer scope, can sometimes seem overwhelming.

Break it down into tasks that need to be accomplished and reminders that the players don't necessarily have to see all of the setting, meet all of the Non-Player Characters and fight all of the unique monsters of each region to have them stick out in their mind.

In addition to taking his characters all over the Realms in this novel, Rich also show cases one of the problems with dealing with high level magic and power. The consquences of power can often bring about a physical change in a character. In this case, the High Mage earns himself the essence of an immortal eledarin. I know the naming can be confusing for those just getting started with 4e, but in brief, to cast high magic, the caster must have some type of immortal life force augmenting his own. For his foes, their choice was simple; demon essence.

By taking on the essence of the eladrin, the High Mage avoids the obvious pit trap and earns the power he seeks but at the same time, the essence of the immortal is not that of the high elves and it causes the character to undergo some physical changes.

Physical changes are often seen as a price of power. After all, doesn't everyone know Railisitn by his Time Glass Eyes? Is Elric not known for his black blade in addition to his albinoism? Such features are popular and a quick way to showcase the unique nature of the character.

When writing up such side effects, unless there is some actual game advance to them, the GM should not beat the players over the head with numerous penalties and bonuses. The thing is to make the player feel that his character is special and to have the cast of the setting treat them that way. If as a GM you must do this with game mechanics, you might be going about it the wrong way to begin with because at that point, it becomes another tool for players to attempt to min-max.

Use the campaign to the fullest or just use the parts you want but never worry about how you're going to do it. Just do it one piece at a time like the old Johnny Cash song.

Forsaken House by Rich Baker

So now that the end of the second quarter and the month of June is behind me, I can stop working 60+ hours a week and read a book. The Forgotten Realms line often has what I call 'popcorn' books that are quick to read and often entertaining. Since I usually run a FR game, I also take a few odd ends and notes here and there.

Rich Baker's book has many a good idea for inspriation in gaming. The scopes of this series are epic and high involving the return of many of the elves to the mainland of the Forgotten Realms campaign. Almost an anti-retreat as it were.

The first thing I'd note, is that the main character is tossing spells like prismatic spray and disintegrate about as main spells and not as some last minute hoarded magic. With that in mind, if you haven't run a game in a while and have a definitive campaign arc, start your next game off at the cust of epic level. Use those often unusued books and get some milage out of them. The old basic sets even had rules for immortals.

The second thing is that there is a huge swathe of history in the Forgotten Realms. Does it make sense all the time? Probably not. But much like say, the Green Lantern series from DC comics, it does allow the GM to literally pull things from out of the backside and say, "Yeah, it's been here all along its just that you didn't know it." and often when such events happen, it's because a higher power was supposed to be keeping track of things. In this case, it's the demonfay, a group of elves that have given in to the temptation of demon alliances.

The third thing, is hit them at home. In the Goodman Game adventure, Dragora's Dungeon, the players start the adventure off under assault at their own home. In this book, as the main character enjoys the scenic beauty of his home, it comes under assault. Few things will get a body as motivated as possible as getting an attack in their own house.

Note this can be grossly abused though and shouldn't be taken out all that often. If you punish the players by continuously assaulting them in their own house, even if they make real efforts to safe guard their home, this might be seen in some circles as 'dick DMing'. The point isn't to punish the players but to get the game moving with some action.

Fourth thing, the magic items! Here we have a series of gems that have a wide range of uses. In 4e, this wouldn't necessarily be possible and indeed, in many editions, weapons and magic items often have powers that just run outside the game. As long as the GM is controlling when access to those abilities is possible, it shouldn't be a campaign breaker. Sure, the item can do Y, but it only does it when the GM wants. Now on the other hand, if the players come to rely on that ability, then the GM is either allowing that ability to manifest too often, building that ability into his campaign to be used too often, or the players are trying to abuse the in-house system the GM has set up.

Fith thing, epic scope. The elves returning to the mainland is an epic thing. Are there similiar efforts in your own campaign that could be made by the players? Can they restore one of the fallen empires? Can they bring forth a new age? Can they create a demi-plane where the dragonborn's ancient empire lives again?

Sixth thing, keep the variety up. While the main thrust of the book deals with the elves and their corrupted cousins, there are other elements afoot. For example, demons and devils and mercenary outer planar fiends. Past those though, the adventurers still encounter a few random beasts on the road. Past that even, the enemey armies they face often have vile mercenary races working with them that fall into the standard forces of evil; orcs, ogres, trolls. By allowing a center enemy to take stage, the GM shouldn't forget all of the other wonders that the system has within it.

Indeed, in a game like 4e that doesn't necessarily rely on the players fighting one big bad at a time as was often the case in the previous editions, it almost encourages the GM to come up with reasons why a wide vareity of forces such as this would be gathered together. Strong leadership, bribes, alliances and outright enslavement of the others is as good a cause as any in this case.

Seven thing, end clean but leave plenty of room for further adventurers. I've read a few books that end on a cliffhanger. I hate that. I much rather prefer an ending where the book is finished, the reader knows that there are other elements that will be coming down the line, and other conflicts that will be taken up and the reader has more to look forward to then "how the hell is the main character getting out of this."

Rich Baker is a solid writer and his books have many ideas perfect for stealing for that high level campaign you've always wanted to try out.

The City of Ravens by Richard Baker

I'll be discussing the City of Ravens, written by long term Forgotten Realms author Richard Baker. Any page references used will be from the paperback.

"How do you intend to divide five gems, Jack? Four or six present no problem, of course, but five are difficult to split between two partners." (pg. 5)

One of the things that may not always be thought of before the group actually hits the road, is how to split the money. In most of the groups I've run and those that I've been a player in, for the most part, it wasn't a big issue. All coins were split evenly. Gems and jewelry or other art objects were sold. Magic items were given to the person who could use them best, or sold and the funds evenly split.

There were a few tense times when multiple people wanted an item that anyone could use. I'm sure those groups I was involved in during those terse times aren't alone. Having some sort of plan ahead of time might have smoothed out even those transactions.

"The Game of Masks?" Jack tried not to wince. The Game was a noble diversion, an ongoing series of play acting events wherein the participants took on various roles and tried to solve puzzles, stumble through a plot or play at great deeds." (pg. 38)

One of the reasons I tend to favor city based adventurers isn't that it's an escape from the dungeon. After all, there are often dungeons in the castle. The sewers under the streets can be considered dungeons. The maze like alley ways of the dock wards are another dungeon.

No, I tend to enjoy cities because there is often more to do for those whose interest do not rest soley on testing their powers in new and interesting ways against monsters of various caliber. In a city, you can do wine tasting contests, engagements of skill, and even things like the old Game of Masks.

"In the name of all the gods, why should I know who that was? He was your identical twin! Are you telling me that you have no idea why someone who looks exactly like you showed up at my doorstep, ushered me into the coach, and started pawning at me like a lovesick orc?" (p.148)

Individuals who make a name of themselves also make a face for themselves. Others might decide to put that face and reputation to their own use. In a gmae like Dungeons and Dragons, there are spells, monsters, magic items, and other methods of capturing an individual's likeness and then using that reptuation to perform various acts, all of which might not be what the original would have done. It can be quite a challenge to overcome a perception problem where everyone who believed the character to be one way, now have to ponder if the character was every truly that way.

"I... I think I'm all right," the mouse piped. "Oh thank you, Master! Thank _" And that was all, for at that moment the wheel of a passing cart rolled right over mouse and wizard's hand both, crushing each beyond hope of repair. (pg 98)

The hand of fate is often fickle. Try to make sure that the fickle nature of reality is helping the players as much as it is hindering them. There's no shame in allowing a few entertaining moments to happen and help the players out of a jam, especially if it's one that they couldn't avoid or one brought on soley by poor dice rolls. If it's organic and follows the rest of the campaign, the player's probably won't mind being saved in suc ha fashion.

The City of Ravens is another of what I call my 'popcorn' books. It's not a deep read, but it's a fun one and Richard Baker does a solid character whose a well intentioned rogue with a dash of magical ability. The Forgotten Realms setting, especially the city of Ravensbluff itself, gets some well deserved attention here and provides the reader with much to draw on ranging form the city's vast history, to various liquors, to the material I've quoted above.