An example of a supplement that is too vague too be useful

Currently looking at FR3 (Empires of the Sands) by Scott Haring (1988).  Scott also wrote Gaz11 (Republic of Darokin) (1989) and part of DSL1 (Otherlands) (1990)  (I don't know which part, the caverns at Krynn's south pole, the sea-elf kingdoms, or the idyllic tropical island "little Taladas"). 

 

In the introduction Scott admits to suffering severe writers block while writing Empires and clearly is less than pleased with the final product.  (He also talks about James Ward destroying part of his office and thanks his mom for letting him borrow her computer to type up Empires). 

 

Empires describes Amn, Tethyr and Calimshan.  The famous city of Baldur's Gate is close to but north of Amn.  Amn looks to be based on historic Venice (a naval superpower in the Mediterranean for a period of time).  Tethyr is based on France in chaos during the reign of terror during the French Revolution.  Calimshan is based on ancient Persia.

 

One thing that makes many of these classic materials interesting is that they were written in an era when it was ok to create fantasy works that were closely paralleling real world history or cultures.  Now that sort of writing is discouraged.  The main reason for discouraging this sort of writing is sound and a good one (avoiding being insensitive to others).  However these classic D&D materials that are loosely based on real world history and culture can offer inspiration for world building and adventure design that is often lacking from the newer more sterile writing.  However, Empires of the Sands is not one of those classic supplements that has many great ideas based on world history and cultures.

FR3 falls into the category of source material that is too thin to be of much use.  It has almost no statistics so it is not a time-saver for the DM, and the ideas presented are not very imaginative or clever, and there are few adventure hooks to use.  It also has issues with population density, for example describing medium-sized cities as having 375,000 people.  It also makes a silly error regarding FR1 (Waterdeep and the North).  In FR1 the "Lords of Waterdeep" are described as an elite, close-knit, group.  FR3 treats them like "Lords" is a synonym for noble and thus a very non-exclusive group.  So the writing and editing in FR3 are a bit lacking.

Overall it isn't very good.  It takes a relatively blank canvas and leaves that canvas relatively blank.  It has some ok (if cliche) ideas but the execution of those ideas is very poor.  The supplement doesn't move much beyond the following description- Amn is like medieval Venice, Tethyr is like 1790s France, and Calimshan is like ancient Persia.  So FR3 is good if you are looking to collect the complete FR series but otherwise has little value to the current gamer.

2 out of 5 stars