Fallcrest may be the single best chapter in the book.

It’s very well done. There’s a good amount of information, considering the limited page count, yet there’s plenty of room to make adjustments and slot your own creations into the town. The wider environment is sketched out in less detail, but filled with possible plot hooks and adventure sites. The whole thing reminds me of Hommlet, actually. (That’s a good thing.)

The adventure is very straightforward, but it does seem good for getting the rules straight. Be careful of that last encounter, though. It can be pretty tough.

BTW, I am a fan of the much-maligned “points of light” approach. A well-populated area won’t support a whole lot of top-level carnivores. (And please don’t use the “but it’s magic” excuse.)

i just wanted to say that silver marches are my favorite realms setting. i always loved the fantasy atmosphere of borderland frontier communities: strong castles below high mountains and surrounded with dark forests filled with orcs and other monstrosities …thinking of that i just want to take my axe and go hunting. back in the days i ran a short campaign (with lots of energy spent into it) sat around sundabar – it was fun although it ended in TPK

anyway, it seems Troy your game will be lots of fun, i envy your players

cheers

It’s the most “points of light”-y part of the setting, which fits really well with 4e’s shift. I’m interested to see how they tweak the rest of Faerun to fit that mold — if they do.

And I am happy that we decided to do so, because we spent more time in Fallcrest than in Kobold Hall. The players enjoyed visiting the different sites and what not, and I had plenty of good material to work with using what was in the DMG. We only played one encounter of Kobold Hall before we decided to call it a night, but no one felt cheated or got bored.

The new DMG is a great starting point for beginning DMs just learning the game. It is by far my favorite of the new core books as a GM. The section on Fallcrest also leads easily into Keep on the Shadowfell which I will be running soon. They did a good job of making it easy to start a campaign with the core books, while still giving you good hooks into other published adventures. I might have Keep on the Shadowfell on the shelf for a while, since my players have already shown interest in other things in the Fallcrest area.