Is Ptolus living up to the hype?

(Note: Please do not construe this as a jab at Ptolus, Monte Cook, or Malhavoc Press. This is an honest and genuine inquiry attempting to assess the practical value of Ptolus: Monte Cook's City by the Spire.)

When Ptolus was still under preorder, I was preparing to start a new campaign with my players after a relatively lengthy Greyhawk campaign (Greyhawk was an easier setting for those who were new to 3e D&D since they could get away with just having to learn the rules in the Player's Handbook that govern their characters).

The two settings under consideration were Ptolus, which was not yet released, and Eberron, of which I had almost every book released so far and with which I was already somewhat familiar. I read through the Ptolus Player's Guide and encouraged my players to do the same to consider it as a potential candidate for our campaign "reboot." They found the Ptolus Player's Guide interesting, especially since it assumed the core rules in all aspects and because all they would need to play is the free Player's Guide, which they obviously already had.

In the end, I decided to not order Ptolus and instead chose to use my current collection of Eberron books for the following reasons:

1. I didn't know what to expect of Ptolus just yet, and $120 was a lot of money to spend on good faith.

2. I already had an investment of time and money in Eberron, and I didn't want that to be a wasted.

3. I liked Eberron a lot and had been anticipating running it or playing in it since it came out. (In fact, it was the setting I first wanted to use when I first started DMing, but I chose Greyhawk for reasons state above.)

4. I felt like I was being coerced to preorder a product I knew very little about just so that I could access additional content that's being given away for free anyway (Delver's Guild Web site and other pre-order goodies). However I understand the reasons from a marketing and promotional standpoint. (Perhaps Monte should consider a paid subscription service to the Delver's Guild web site for those who didn't preorder?)

So why am I writing this post? Ptolus intrigues me still. In the end, I don't regret my decision, but I'm considering getting the PDFs (searchable, portable, and economical) for future use. I'd like to know if after everyone has had time to read the massive book and actually use the setting, does the setting (not the book itself) live up to its hype in terms of the playing/game mastering experience of a Ptolus campaign?

Does it match the hype? I don't know because the hype was not that consistant. Ever since it was announced plenty of people have spoken about it negatively and positively. But I never heard a lot of "This is going to be the bestest ever!!" type of hype.

I am very pleased with Ptolus. I have not had a chance to read the whole thing, nor have I played it. What I have read is very good. THere is a lot there and it might be a little hard to run because of that. Eberron for instnace was orgianlly a much smaller book with a slow and steady support. That is a lot easier to deal with for me then 700 pages all at once.

Crothian said:

THere is a lot there and it might be a little hard to run because of that. Eberron for instnace was orgianlly a much smaller book with a slow and steady support. That is a lot easier to deal with for me then 700 pages all at once.

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That was actually another reason why I had decided against Ptolus. I was able to absorb Eberron a book at a time, and most of the books reinforced or expanded the material already presented in the Eberron Campaign Setting.

However the individual PDFs for Ptolus might seem less daunting than the 700+ pages of the book.

I'm still chewing through my copy, but it's easily the most useful setting book I've ever come across. It does what it says on the label more than any product of its kind that I've ever seen. It's both complete enough and has enough open vistas for me to drop in pretty much any urban adventure or campaign idea into the city and the material in the book has let me run a wild and woolly Praemal campaign quite well.

My only regret is that Monte's stepping out of the rpg game for now and can't oversee all of his previous Ptolus adventures (which were genericized) brought up to 3.5 and re-Ptolusized.

There seem to be two schools of thought where Ptolus is concerned:

First, there is definitely a group of people who are very impressed with the organization, the level of detail, and the sheer bulk of the thing. The two gripes that these people have are that many magic items mentioned in the book aren't actually statted up therein (the reader is referred to another product for the stats) and that the information on the city beneath the city (the first city of Ptolus, now buried) is very sparse.

Second, there is definitely a group of people who are impressed with the organization, the level of detail, and the sheer bulk of the thing -- but who are severely disappointed that, thematically, the book brings nothing new to the table. These folks could care less about omitted magic items, and are more concerned with the lack of new and interesting ideas in the book (many of them have compared it to a more detailed Waterdeep).

So, I guess the answer is... If you're looking for new or different setting ideas, skip Ptolus. If you're looking for a wealth of ideas you've seen elsewhere, but would prefer to have them in one excellently organized, indexed, and compiled volume, grab a copy without delay.

jdrakeh said:

So, I guess the answer is... If you're looking for new or different setting ideas, skip Ptolus. If you're looking for a wealth of ideas you've seen elsewhere, but would prefer to have them in one excellently organized, indexed, and compiled volume, grab a copy without delay.

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I disagree... Main new idea is a city where all D&D core rules apply.

Thunhus

Thunhus said:

I disagree... Main new idea is a city where all D&D core rules apply.

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Well, I meant a new thematic ideas (i.e., a complete re-invention or wholesale ejection of the standard D&D assumptions), not a different application of existing ideas (er... those same standard assumptions of D&D). Anyhow, this isn't really a new idea -- all of the original AD&D core rules applied to both the cities of Greyhawk (the city) and Waterdeep.

Granted, those cities weren't as detailed as Ptolus in a single volume, but they took full advantage of all the game rules. So far as I can tell, the only truly new thing about Ptolus is its attention to detail, breadth of information, and exquisite organization. In these regards, it puts other D&D products to shame.

jdrakeh said:

Well, I meant a new thematic ideas (i.e., a complete re-invention or wholesale ejection of the standard D&D assumptions), not a different application of existing ideas (er... those same standard assumptions of D&D). Anyhow, this isn't really a new idea -- all of the original AD&D core rules applied to both the cities of Greyhawk (the city) and Waterdeep.

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No, they didn't. Grabbing the DMG statistical breakdowns of the appropriate version of the game wouldn't have given you either of those cities, whether talking about class, race or economic sector. In addition, the impact of magic on the societies was never dealt with, but sort of hand-waved away.

"What, there are at least 50 people able to cast 9th level spells in town? Well, we named two of them and the others ... moved. That's right, they moved. And left no forwarding address. Shut up."

But then, you seem to think 100 percent of the people who've bought Ptolus fall into one of two camps of disappointed people.

I havent spent much time with the book yet but heres what i can tell you from spending a few hours with it.

Its the kind of product that just answers your questions. When it talks about something it actually has CONTENT there. It doesnt just have a paragraph or two about a location, guild, organization, person, ect. like every other product we are used to. Its indexed to the max, which is awesome. The side bars on each page are simply amazing and help so much when trying to absorb it all. Its by FAR the most complete city ive seen, and i absolutely love it for that.

I think Monte hit the nail on the head here. I just wish he had done the exact same thing for Greyhawk instead.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

But then, you seem to think 100 percent of the people who've bought Ptolus fall into one of two camps of disappointed people.

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I didn't say that -- in fact, the first group I mention is very ecstatic about Ptolus. I mentioned they have two recurring complaints about items being talked about but not statted up in the book and not enough detail being offered on the old city, but nowhere did I say that they they were disappointed. Quite the contrary -- they love Ptolus. Having complaints isn't the same thign as being disappointed.

[Note: I did say that the secodn group was disappointed, but they very specifically used that word themselves, so... err... are they lying? I doubt it.]

Incidentally, those are the two camps that I've actually seen post about Ptolus. I suspect a "Love every last bit of it" camp exists, only because such a camp always exists, but I never take them seriously where products are concerned because of their wild bias -- if their favorite author crapped on a plate, they'd eat it and declare with a wide, brown, smile that it was a wonderful five course meal.

Regarding Waterdeep and Greyhawk, I don't recall there being fixed demographic breakdowns of race/class frequency in my AD&D 1e core rulebooks. So far as I could tell, all of the rules in the AD&D 1e core rulebooks make an appearance in Greyhawk and Waterdeep. I don't recall either city (in AD&D 1e, anyhow) specifically ignoring the core rules as you claim they do.

[Edit: I just re-checked my original AD&D DMG to see if I could find the fixed race/class demographics that you cited, but couldn't locate them. Do you have page number handy?]

[Re-Edit: You're right about the effects of magic upon early AD&D cities not being fully explored, but that doesn't mean that they ignored the core rules, it merely means that they didn't take the time to spell everything out in the detail that Ptolus did (which I already pointed out in the post that you replied to). That said, the effects of magic on society being spelled out like that isn't a new idea either -- Eberron did a pretty good job of this.]