Nations of Barsaive (Throal and Serpent River)

[Magic_Octopus]

I'm having a tough time finding any reviews of Nations of Barsaive 1 & 2. Are they worth buying? They look intriguing, especially as Throal was written by Robin D. Laws.

More specifically, do these books give good ideas for and inspire adventures rather than contain interesting fluff? And do they give the GM good ideas on how to describe the different locations? I find that many RPG sourcebooks are good at telling you about history and important personae, but when the characters go to the places described the GM has to come up with what the places and people actually look and feel like.

[Flowswithdrek]

[Magic_Octopus]

Thanks, Flowswithdrek, your post is very informative. You made both of the books sound very interesting and potentially very useful.

I don't have any FASA adventures, but what you describe sounds like what I'd like for a location sourcebook to have - definitely more like GM advice than text to be read out loud. What I'd like to be able to do is give different locales character, and I don't think you do that by reminiscing history but giving evocative descriptions and playing interesting NPCs.

I do find a lot of RPG fluff interesting. But I'm at the point where I have tons of bedside reading, and will rather buy books that actually help me in creating a campaign. I also want to become a better GM, and can't spend too much time reading stuff that doesn't help me.

[Slimcreeper]

The Nations and Serpent River are very good. If you just want a bunch of new rules and items and monsters, they do have some of that. Mostly it is places to play and reasons to do so.

[BahtRastard]

Yeah, I made the mistake of letting my circle 7 group set up shop there while they circled up and researched the last bit of history the Swordmaster needed for Purifier. Now the Windling Thief wants to start an Occupy Throal movement.....