Let me start off by saying I’m having a blast playing this game. I’ve Played BG 1 & 2 for like 20 years regularly, and was always intrigued by the Forgotten Realms.
So about four years ago, I’ve bought a bundle off the first 30 books about Drizzt Do’Urden, a Drow Ranger, by R. A. Salvatore. If you did not know about these books, I’d like to recommend them wholeheartedly to you, if you love the world of BG3. The books are true to the material, and offer deep insights into Faerûn.
They have their ups and downs, but I’ve read 14 books so far, and I’ve been deeply involved so far.
This series was amazing… until it wasn’t.
Right around the time D&D shifted to 4th Edition, the writing quality of these books dropped so drastically that, combined with how everyone I talked to felt about 4E, it honestly felt like Salvatore was trying to get himself fired so he wouldn’t have to write for 4th Edition anymore. (If you have never had the misfortune of trying it, 4E is basically D&D for people who would rather be playing WoW.)
Considering how much 5e sucks, I can’t imagine writing for it is any more pleasant.
That said, everything up until the beginning of the Spellplague was fucking incredible, and The Sellswords spin-off series, too. (I still can’t decide if I like Drizzt or Artemis Entreri better, but it doesn’t matter because Jarlaxle is the best.)
God damn it. I’m currently in the beginning of the Sellswords series, and hands down the first of those (Servant of the shard iirc?) was so amazing, I could not stop reading. But yeah, I figured that it would turn bad. Some of the first 10 were really bad too (like Salvatore literally wrote something in the likes of “and he sliced him with his sword, marking him with an X across his chest”), but in total: I loved that journey so far.
Later in the series a lot more characters become the focus and I enjoyed that quite a bit. It feels the series has a constant of Drizzt but it’s best when that anchor is used to show other players stories. Jarlaxle, Kimmueriel (sp?), Artemis, Yvonnel, Gromph, the second round Harpells, the Xorlarrans, the Avendrow etc. And even as someone whose spent a really large amount of time with the series I would say I mostly ignore the Drizzt monologueing feels like mostly catch up content or insights that already made themselves clear and mayhaps our author just filling pages…
I always loved Drizzt’s monologues. >…>