D&D 5E A brief rant about Rime of the Frost Maiden, farming, logistics, and ecology

Mallus · Oct 9, 2020

PointOfIsnpiration said:
Druids are actively hunting people in the wilderness, so unlikely that'd go well.

Cool idea for an adventure or one-shot thought!

That's what I was thinking. "Gathering firewood" becomes another reason to push into the monster-infested borderlands (err, forests). It's exactly the sort of thing people living in a D&D setting should be doing.

Full disclosure: my idea of what D&D settings should be are, alas, shaped by AD&D. Specifically, all those wonderful random encounter charts. Going outside under any circumstance is dangerous! Heck, popping out for a beer at might in the middle of a big city is serious business, ie you have a nonzero chance of encountering demons, devils, night hags, and rakshasas.

Mallus · Oct 9, 2020

Jd Smith1 said:
Remember the extensive predators?

You mean the ones that traditionally exist in every published D&D setting, and any homebews that use the random encounter charts usually included in the core rules. Those extensive predators?

(bit of a sore point for me - our 3rd & 4th level Labyrinth Lord PCs recently lost all our horses, and nearly our lives, to a random encounter involving, like 10 griffins while traveling from our town to the big city)

Look, I'm not saying Rime makes sense. I'm saying it doesn't make measurably less sense than your baseline D&D environment (except for those temperatures averages...).

Shardstone · Oct 9, 2020

Mallus said:
That's what I was thinking. "Gathering firewood" becomes another reason to push into the monster-infested borderlands (err, forests). It's exactly the sort of thing people living in a D&D setting should be doing.

Full disclosure: my idea of what D&D settings should be are, alas, shaped by AD&D. Specifically, all those wonderful random encounter charts. Going outside under any circumstance is dangerous! Heck, popping out for a beer at might in the middle of a big city is serious business, ie you have a nonzero chance of encountering demons, devils, night hags, and rakshasas.

For what its worth, I LOVE your version of D&D - I just wish the game would lean more in that direction instead of half-assing both ways.

Protonicmass · Oct 9, 2020

doctorbadwolf said:
And Europe literally has experienced a winter that lasted all the way through to the next winter, which...is literally 2 years of winter.

Well, it wasn't an intermediate god's winter, so...

Zaukrie · Oct 9, 2020

If the magic use is keeping everyone alive, no problem (not sure people are saying that, but it is hard to tell), then the adventure is a lot less urgent and dangerous.

Clearly, imo,, the lack of summer and difficulty getting food is part of the point of the adventure. There should be problems caused by this....there is hunger, there are people sick and dying.......so, the question becomes, how bad is it? How are the towns surviving is part of what is happening in the adventure, at least when I read it. Therefore I'd think asking the question and thinking about the implications (for how you play) is part of what makes the adventure more immersive.

I don't think there is a right/wrong here...people play differently. But, that level of cold for that long? In my world, that would not be survivable by this many people this easily. I'm not sure how I'll change things up, but I'll change some things for sure.

Protonicmass · Oct 9, 2020

Zaukrie said:
There should be problems caused by this....there is hunger, there are people sick and dying.......so, the question becomes, how bad is it? How are the towns surviving is part of what is happening in the adventure, at least when I read it. Therefore I'd think asking the question and thinking about the implications (for how you play) is part of what makes the adventure more immersive.

I don't think there is a right/wrong here...people play differently. But, that level of cold for that long? In my world, that would not be survivable by this many people this easily. I'm not sure how I'll change things up, but I'll change some things for sure.

As bad as it can. Characters are supposed to be level 17 by the time they're done, they better know how to haul their asses around.

Zaukrie · Oct 9, 2020

Protonicmass said:
As bad as it can. Characters are supposed to be level 17 by the time they're done, they better know how to haul their asses around.

By then they've already defeated Auril......I'm more concerned about before that happens.....Frankly, I'm not sure I love most of what happens after they beat Auril, so I am re-thinking everything after they get to a level to think about taking her on.

Wasteland Knight · Oct 9, 2020

PointOfIsnpiration said:
After reading this thread, I still don't get it.

Why is it so hard for WotC just to provide some written out possibilities for how the people are surviving? Why can't they just include a paragraph, or a break-out box, or a column, or even a footnote about how magic is used? I know for some GMs (and me too, actually) love coming up with their own reasonings, but that doesn't excuse WotC here. For a 50 dollar hardback adventure, they should, at the MINIMUM, give a roll table with ways the tentowners have survived so far.
[edited for length]
That's it. That's all I'd ask for. For an adventure costing $50 in the store, yes, I want the option to have some kind of logic to it. I know a lot of people in this thread are apparently very against logic, and think that anyone that asks for it are overly willful and being stubborn, but no, we're not - we just want our money to actually buy a good adventure, and more importantly, we WANT WotC to put out good adventures. I want WotC to be the BEST it can be, and I strongly believe that until they start handling their books with a little bit more gravitas, they won't be able to achieve their true potential.

Is it wrong of me to want them to be better? Is wanting improvement an erroneous thought? Why is it that on this forum, when people want something improved, a whole army of people manifest from the darkness to tell us how FOOLISH we are for wanting such a thing?

I'm completely with you. A premium, professional product being sold for not insignificant money should be better. And "better" doesn't mean a long treatment of crops, supply chain, etc., it simply means a modest amount of internal logic.

There have been several posts in this thread, starting with the OP, that laid out some really good points about the basic premise, how it would affect the population, and ways to create some internal logic.

That's what I would expect from WOTC, but sadly, they fall far short.

Also, the amount of pushback in this thread against very reasonable criticism is laughable.

Protonicmass · Oct 9, 2020

Wasteland Knight said:
I'm completely with you. A premium, professional product being sold for not insignificant money should be better. And "better" doesn't mean a long treatment of crops, supply chain, etc., it simply means a modest amount of internal logic.

There have been several posts in this thread, starting with the OP, that laid out some really good points about the basic premise, how it would affect the population, and ways to create some internal logic.

That's what I would expect from WOTC, but sadly, they fall far short.

Also, the amount of pushback in this thread against very reasonable criticism is laughable.

So true!

Wasteland Knight · Oct 9, 2020

PointOfIsnpiration said:
I find it hilarious how you boil our arguments down to Firewood Gathering. At least try to argue in good faith.

I'd agree with you. A lot of Straw Men are being used to support WOTC.

D&D 5E A brief rant about Rime of the Frost Maiden, farming, logistics, and ecology

Mallus

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