I don't know if Jackie and Cassie are really that bad. Champions of Darkness came out a long time ago. Nothing since has been as bad. Quite the opposite. There are also a lot of salvageable ideas in it, such as the Hunting club and a good number of the PrCs.Drinnik Shoehorn wrote: If you use this statement, then Jackie and Cassandra are making a poor job of their work. Thier "little picture" (The Barovia section of Gaz 1, meant to be the definitive source of information on Barovia to date) was made null thanks to the next published book CoDorkness, which introduced poorly thought out concepts and badly written ideas, especially the Cold War section.
Some people may think J&C may be making a good job, but believe me, I wouldn't shed a tear if they where replaced. Hell, they've got Steve Miller writing for them now, give him the flaming job, no one writing on the line has more experience than him. The idea of J&C being his superior is laughable, it's like a college grad being made supervisor of a 20 verteran at a job.
Consider it a lesson learned. As for the conversions to 3.5., they did have a very limited time to actually make the conversion. Converting and laying out two books does take time, so I can see where mistakes were made (particularly in naming certain ideas as optional and the lack of applying errata). They were trying to squeeze extra books into the schedule after all.
And while I would love to have the Kargatane or Steve developing the setting, I would rather have them writing the actual books. You can either have them toss a general idea at a bunch of author and let them run with it, or you can have them take the big amorphous notion and hammer it into a hundred little plot points.
I don't know them personally, nor do I know exactly what their exact responsibilities are, so I cannot pass judgement. Am I supporting them whole heartedly... no. Masque of the Red Death was good, but had MASSIVE editing faults. I don't know if that is their fault, or the editing staffs. I do know that Legacy of the Blood is much better in editing.
The Kargatane has said that there was a complete lack of direction for the line. That they recieved very little guidence. The line was being converted, so I can understand why moving the uber-plot wouldn't be on their minds. The Time of Unparalelled Darkness is, what, 22 to 25 years away? Hardly a priority when you first need to get the domains translated.
And what if they had decided to make the plot move in an overt way? If they had decided to kill off Gabrielle or Malacchio when presenting Invidia, what would the response have been. People would have been up in arms! What if Keening was absorbed by the Shadow Rift? Everyone has a favorite domain and set of NPCs. Few realize that moving foreward the Meta-plot will result in more Requim like events which will CHANGE you favorite realm. Who here still calls Darkon Necropolis and uses the Demilords instead of Azalin?
The Developers let those that had immersed themselves in the setting have fairly free reign in writing for it. They let others have that same freedom, to varying degrees of success. I have yet to see one book that is utterly useless though (I admit that CoD does come close).
I'm not saying that we shouldn't be critical, but calling someone imcompetent without having a complete idea as to their duties and actions is unfair and uncalled for. Why does it always have to go to personal attacks? How often have you cursed the name of Dale Donovan, the editor of the Ravenloft Player's Handbook, Denizens of Dread and Masque of the Red Death. I would think that it was his job to ensure these mistakes were corrected.