Drizzt's Home Town
I'm not going to say that this was necessarily one of my favourite products, but other than the rule books, and some of the more general accessories, this was one product that I seemed to get some value for my money. As I was reading through Menzoberranzan I was developing an adventure that would make full use of the box set and effectively send the players on a journey around Menzoberranzan and adjacent parts of the Underdark. I believe that it was one of the few campaigns that I ran where we managed to complete it.
This box set is simply a further addition to the many other products featuring the drow. I believe that in second edition there was a race book, this box set, and another product dealing with the Underdark in general but with some emphasis on the drow, particularly since when you mention the word Underdark in a Dungeons and Dragons setting people seem to automatically think of the drow (despite there being other races down there, including the immensely cool Mind Flayers – though for some reason they seems to stand out in the Dungeons and Dragons setting – to me they seem more at home in Call of Cthulu).
This particular product deals with one of the many cities of the Drow that are found scattered about the Underdark (and also goes to further expand that adjacent region). Mind you, it is not that Menzoberranzan is the only city, or even the biggest, drow city in the Underdark, but it is the one that is probably the most well known because there is an entire novel in the Drizzt series is set there. Anyway, any place that can be considered the home town of Drizzt is probably going to receive more attention than it otherwise would have.
Sometimes I wonder whether it would be cool getting paid to write stuff like this, and in a way it probably would be, but then I wonder if it is actually adding anything to the collection of human knowledge. My response to that is 'probably not'. The reason that I say this is because in reality it is a game, and even if people buy it, they are not necessarily going to read it, and even if they do read it, it is not going to sit with them for the rest of their life unlike a play like, say, Hamlet, or the teachings of Jacques Rosseau. In the end this product is a game, and while it may offer enjoyment, and a form of escapism, to the owner and his or her friends, it does little more beyond that.
