Far Realms poll

[Psion]

...and module writing. Heart of Nightfang Spire, anyone?

If Thoughts Could Kill is one of my favorite adventures of all time. (shrug)

 

[Psion]

Is Guide to the Ethereal Plane that bad?

It's not exactly exciting, but not the book I was thinking of.

No, the particular objects of my ire here are Die Vecna Die (which pretty much breaks every Planescape convention) and Planar Handbook (which, while a nice mechanical supplement in some ways, doesn't support PS enough, going out of its way to invent new stuff that doesn't fit instead of supporting what already exists for PS.)

 

[JoeGKushner]

My choice wasn't listed: Yes, but only if the Call of Cthulhu folks (Chaosium) did it under contract to WotC.

As far as I'm concerned, they are the only people that could do it justice.

I'd like to see it sometime in my lifetime unlike say Pulp Cthulhu d20.

 

[Piratecat]

No, the particular objects of my ire here are Die Vecna Die (which pretty much breaks every Planescape convention)...

For what it's worth, Die, Vecna, Die! was not a designer-driven book. Monte once mentioned that it was, shall we say, not how the designers would have handled things if they were given any choice from management.

 

[Psion]

For what it's worth, Die, Vecna, Die! was not a designer-driven book. Monte once mentioned that it was, shall we say, not how the designers would have handled things if they were given any choice from management.

Hmmm. Good to know.

So, which management is responsible here?

 

[zypherillius]

Descriptions of far realms

MOtP gives a great brief description of the far realms, and i voted for 'id buy it at any cost' crowd. i dont think it would work so well as its own book, being as the more you know about it, the less you can leave it undefinable, i think it would be a better idea to just publish a few monster ideas beyond the two or three in the ELH and applying the psuedonatural template to any creature.
in the complete arcane, the alieniest PrC does a good job at capturing the flow of far realms influence, and something along that line would work well, not so much a basic idea of it, but its reaching effects on the great wheel so the plane can still be developed by the dm, but enough is definable so players can have a basic concept of how warped it is.

 

[Hussar]

Add me to the chorus of those who loved Dragon 330. That Far Realms article has seen light in a number of my games. Heck, I've just ported it into my World's Largest Dungeon game currently. That dream sequence scared the crap out of my players.

Add to that 348's critters and we've got LOTS of fun coming.

 

[Kelleris]

Yeah, maybe it should be done Lords of Madness style, with different chapters about different groups that visited the Far Realms and came back. So, a chapter on kaorti, a chapter on ... uh ... yeah. More chapters after that.

But the point is, each chapter would present one view of the Far Realms, and none of the views would agree with each other. Depending on who (or what) the PCs encounter, their information about the Far Realms would be different.

It's still up to the DM what "local conditions" hold if the PCs ever decide to visit, but he'd have several cool vistas to draw from.

Anyway... someone go write it! Now!

Thanks, -- N

Oomgy! That's a great idea!

I'd plump for one of the chapters being centered around an adventuring party that went there and came back "different," though. Not only is it a ready-made adventure seed, I've always been of the opinion that more products should make mention of the exploits of the PCs contemporaries.

 

[Arnwyn]

Besides the cover, 330 might have also suffered due to including two Eberron-themed articles, one of which was fiction.

I think that's a lot closer to the truth, IMO.

 

[Erik Mona]

Besides the cover, 330 might have also suffered due to including two Eberron-themed articles, one of which was fiction. I have no idea if two setting-specific articles in an issue normally hurts sales, but that jumped out at me.

It really depends on the setting, but your fiction observation is a strong one. My suspicion is that in many cases fiction does not help sell the magazine. There are certainly exceptions (a George R.R. Martin excerpt, an Elaine Cunningham story), but I think you're on to something.

--Erik