The City of Ravens Bluff is like a campaign guide: LC1, LC2, LC3, LC4 all fit into the CoRB (LC0?). (Although there is overlap: LC1 provides the campaign guide function, although to a lesser extent).
Just a note, I have talked with Ed Greenwood about this one, and he wasn't very happy when it saw print (I think he has gone into the reasons for this in the Candlekeep forums). Ed is very concerned about the quality of the stuff that he makes, and if something isn't up to par (either that he wrote, or that bears the
FR logo) when it sees print, he makes this known.
That said I have read The City of Ravens Bluff, and I actually couldn't find anything wrong with it, other than the fact that it sort of ignored all of the contributions of Polyhedron writers over the years (for example, if there was a Polyhedron article about a bakery, that bakery might get a paragraph of description). What they should have done: include the paragraph of descrip, along with a very quick reference (P40.10 would be Polyhedron 40, page 10, for example). Also, it would have been interesting to see an index of all the RPGA adventures that took place in the Living City (there were hundreds, but they were already using a lot of mouse type in that book).
All told, if you are picking up LC1, LC2, LC3, LC4, I would still recommend The City, to give things an overall context to fit into (be sure that you're getting the fold-out map if you pick it up). If not, then I would recommend LC1 to give a sense of how LC2, LC3, and LC4 fit into things.
Hope that answers your question,
John
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