224 page book on Drow yet...

[WarlockLord]

I like the drow. While I have read the Drizz't books, those weren't what got me into drow. What got me into drow was the PC game Lords of Magic (the Special Edition. You know, with the quest pack). Anyway, I tried the death quest and it was awesome. There's something cool about a dark elf necromancer who goes around killing weakling happy elves and turning their worthless corpses into undead horrors. Then I read War of the Spider Queen, with Pharaun Mizzrym. Boom. As a result, I enjoy playing drow wizards (usually different in personality).

However, I have made one Drizz't clone. I was making a homebrew campaign, and I thought "Hey, it might be fun to make fun of those armies of drow rangers". Thus, Blizzit Blowurden was born. He went around fighting PCs with his 2 scimitars: Dinkle and DethIcing. His tagline? "I am not Drizz't Do'Urden. I am but another cheap ripoff."

Anyway, I like drow, unless they are Drizz't ripoffs. Those I hate.

 

[Fishbone]

I hate Drow. Can't we all just hate?
Hey, if this was about Elves there would be 10 pages proclaiming the greatness of Dwarves, as it should be.
The next Book in the Series
Drow in Chainmail Bikinis Riding Legendary Dragons Casting Spellz0rz:I'm in UR b00kz mocking UR paine.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Drow are one of the game's iconic creatures. And they're hardly a "narrow elven subrace". The fact that they work great as villains on all levels and as player characters to boot means that a large book on them might be significantly *less* unnecessary than a book on an entire plane that only really works as villains for higher-level characters

They're one enemy among many. One with a vocal following, but fey and giants and undead and abberations and kobolds and orcs and ninjas and pirates and robots and dinosaurs all have a vocal following.

And you're wrong about fiends being exclusively high-level threats. RTFM. There's a HUGE spread of CR of fiends of various stripes, of dragons, of undead, of aberations, even of dinosaurs. Meanwhile, there's one CR of drow. 2. That's not even useful as cannon fodder at middle levels.

Those accounts of individual "breaking points" seem to be far more common when drow are discussed....

Because "the rebel dark elf" is one of the archetypes that brings it out, or that attracts these types of players. "Hawt elf chick" is another. I'm sure there are more.

Yeah, I guess so. But those are low-level threats, and usually either pure brutes or using simple ambushes. You can only write so much about orc berserkers before you repeat yourself. Drow are probably more complex than these three races combined.

Okay, see, this is an exact step in the WRONG direction. I could pull any random monster out of the MM and say the same thing. "Oh, the balor is usually just a pure melee monster who walks all over a party unless they're super-high level, so obviously the Ythrak is more deserving of a 224 page book about it's culture and habitat! It's a much more complex creature!"

It boils down to personal preference. Drow as presented in the core are just stealth poison enemies in the underdark. *Orcs* are more complex in the core, since they're a monster race with half-offspring as a PC race, and thus a 224 page book on orcs would be useful to everyone who sees the half-orc and kind of wants to play one. Kobolds have as much development as Drow do, a little more, in fact. Goblins, as I've shown in my Goblonomicon articles, are *begging* to be done right.

When you write about drow, you're not going to just write about drow assassins. You're going to write about drow cities and drow gear and drow politics and drow religion and drow culture. When you write about orcs, you're not just going to write about orc berserkers. You'll write about orc shamans, and orc war machines, and orc champions, and orc religion and orc reproduction and orc-human interaction and half-orcs and orc commerce.

No, drow are no more complex than any other MM creature, and significantly less complex than most of them. The biggest difference is that more people are *interested* in drow, because drow are *kewler*. Which is okay, but let's not fool ourselves into putting them on some objective pedestal of entitlement. They get the big treatment because WotC knows they're going to sell books by simple virtue of drow being sexy, and while orcs may have more words devoted to them in the core rules, orcs are not sexy.

It might hurt those creatures' feelings not to get a book, but who cares? They're imaginary creatures. But the customers, and the people who get their money from this stuff, they are very real. So let's try not to hurt them and/or their feelings by making books to sell better.

No, I agree, I'm just pointing out that saying a drow book is more superfluous than, say, a book on fey, is an entirley valid viewpoint. Fighting it by pretending that drow are somehow a more complex imaginary creature than faeries isn't going to be a position I let someone hold without pointing out that it's wrong.

Drow have a broad appeal, but it's still fair to say that a book on drow is more unnsessecary than a book on (insert random creature here). Not that it won't sell well or that there's not an audience for it or that people won't appreciate it, just that there's creatures who aren't as sexy that some people love that could have benefited from a broad treatment, too. Specifically, these creatures haven't been given a lot of attention in any D&D product to date (can anyone mention even one good Fey supplement D&D has had since dialgo's day?). Drow have.

Wizards is too large to cater to minorities. I don't think they can make (m)any small print run books. You have to turn to 3rd-party d20 publishers for that.

It's one of the classic marketing questions. Do you give the market what you know they'll buy, or do you give them something they might not want yet, but will once they see it? WotC is pretty good at playing both ends of the spectrum.

It is precisely because they are so large that they are good at trying new things, too. And they do. The Tome of Magic and the Tome of Battle were both amazing titles that did some brand new things with the game. No one knew they wanted to play a Swordsage until they saw it in the book. Drow of the Underdark, a big book about Drow, doesn't promise anything we don't already know.

A book on Fey wouldn't be about catering to the minorities. It would be about making people want to use Fey as much, or even more thtan, they want to use their old favorites. Not very many people use fey today, until they see WotC make fey cool in "The Courts of Faerie."

Drow, methinks, will continue with or without this book, making it something of a lazy cash-in for the company. Kind of like the Spell Compendium, which I'm on record as denouncing because useful and popular, sure, but it doesn't *add* anything to the game. Unless this book surprises me, I think it'll be in the same boat.

I'm okay with that. I don't have to like every WotC title that screams down the pipe. But I'm an opinionated loudmouth, and this is the internet, I'm going to make my views known.

 

[Psion]

No one is telling you how to play your game, so "badwrongfun" doesn't apply here. Rather, the OP and others are saying that a big book on one elven subrace isn't a good use of WotC's time and effort.

I mean, Orcs and Goblins and Kobolds have been staple villains of D&D for just as long as the drow. I'm willing to wager that more people have faught goblins than have faught drow.

Right... but they are treated like rank-and-file troops that you hacked up on your way to decent levels. Adventures based solely on goblins or orcs lack the distinction of being numbered among the best that D&D had to offer.

 

[Umbran]

Fighting it by pretending that drow are somehow a more complex imaginary creature than faeries isn't going to be a position I let someone hold without pointing out that it's wrong.

Okay, smilie face or not...

Let's be clear here - this is a matter of preferences. There is no "RIGHT" or "WRONG" about it. Some people would like one book, others another. That's all. Telling people they are wrongity-wrong-wrong, with wrong sauce, about their preferences will only end in tears. So please stop doing so, even with smilies.

 

[Seeten]

Just to be clear, I don't play hawt chicks to "get it on" with Fred across the table. I do it because I enjoy it. I don't do sex at the gaming table, but I am not offended when people do, nor do I back out of a situation that arises.

Calling me a pervert for playing a female character is ridiculous, and certainly on these boards, not particularly tolerated. You are right, though, that our gaming styles are not compatible. I won't say why, but it is certainly clear. Lucky, then, that we don't game together.

We don't need the PHB. There was a PHB in 2e, and a PHB in 1e, and further a PHB in 3.0. Yet, we have one. Guess what? Y'all bought it.

We didn't need MM4 with 36 of the same monsters as MM1, but guess what? It sold. You know why? People want it.

Drow book? Guess what. I want it. Friends of mine want it. People on these boards want it. Some 2e book, that I own, no less, doesnt mean a thing for 3e. Further, if they can change all the iconic information on fiends, why can't they do it for drow? They can. You may not be interested in the PrC's, or feats, or whatever else is in the book. I am.

Saying you don't want the book because it caters to a playstyle you don't appreciate is juvenile. Saying its been done before is so redundant I can't imagine whats worse, we're debating 4th edition, and new core books, while you complain Drow have been done already.

Again, Really.

My first post was worded strongly, because a lot of people are being ridiculous on this thread.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I don't do sex at the gaming table, but I am not offended when people do

Don't people get rooms any more?

 

[Seeten]

What'd be the fun in that? heh. You knew what I meant

 

[Kae'Yoss]

What'd be the fun in that? heh. You knew what I meant

Well, I guess that's the kind of place this is, Jen: A lot of attractive people not doing much work... and having affairs!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Telling people they are wrongity-wrong-wrong, with wrong sauce, about their preferences will only end in tears. So please stop doing so, even with smilies.

Okay, but then you open up the floor to me claiming that the ythrak is the most complex and socially interesting monster in the MM and that it surely deserves more attention than any other creature in the history of the game because it is clearly a deep, potent beast.

....ah, if only the flumph were in the core, I could claim the same of it.

Right... but they are treated like rank-and-file troops that you hacked up on your way to decent levels. Adventures based solely on goblins or orcs lack the distinction of being numbered among the best that D&D had to offer.

Well, and drow have been treated in many campaigns like low-level assassins that harass and annoy you until you get to 5th level. At least kobolds get the distinction of being trapmasters, and goblins are animal trainers.

Being the focus of classic adventures I'll cede, but the reason they're the focus of classic adventures is exactly why a book about drow is pretty superfluous compared to a book about goblins or orcs. We know how cool drow are. We have great adventures and wonderful supplements that spand the game's history to tell us that. Making the ythrak that sexy would add some dimension to the game, rather than re-treading old stomping grounds. Making fey that sexy would not only add some dimension, but deepen the appeal and use of a large portion of the core books. Making orcs that sexy would allow players and DMs to get a new handle on one of the species that is the thickest in fantasy and mythic literature, yet in D&D is only low-level cannon fodder.

Again, I'm wondering what this book will give us that is *new*, and not just telling us what we already know for $30 and new artwork. Drow are sexy. We know that. Drow sell books. WotC knows that, 3rd parties know that.

We don't need the PHB. There was a PHB in 2e, and a PHB in 1e, and further a PHB in 3.0. Yet, we have one. Guess what? Y'all bought it.

....we don't need one of the core books because this was covered in earlier editions using different rules?

We didn't need MM4 with 36 of the same monsters as MM1, but guess what? It sold. You know why? People want it.

We didn't need old threats done in a new way to make them fresh and easy to use?

Drow book? Guess what. I want it. Friends of mine want it. People on these boards want it. Some 2e book, that I own, no less, doesnt mean a thing for 3e. Further, if they can change all the iconic information on fiends, why can't they do it for drow? They can. You may not be interested in the PrC's, or feats, or whatever else is in the book. I am.

Because drow have been done culturally and mechanically, and drow only have a CR of 2, compared to the CR of 1-20 for the fiends. It's like, if darkmantles somehow became totally sexy and were featured in great adventures and had novels written about them. It's still a very narrow focus for a big book.

Drow get a book because they are sexy and it will sell. It's good sales practice, but it's not very inspiring game design practice. WotC's dips into the cash bucket to repackage what we've already seen disappoint me (Spell Compendium). Unless this book does something amazingly new with Drow (which it can still do, I still have faith!), it will probably dissapoint me.

Buy it and enjoy it, but don't expect me to stand up and applaud WotC for giving us the same stuff with new artwork. Indeed, you can reliably expect me to say they should've spent their time and effort on something that would add more to the game. If DotU takes this in a new direction (drow shadow magic? A fully-detailed enclave of drow a la Saltmarsh? Could work...), I'll get on the bandwagon, and until then, the book has not demonstrated any value to me. Because I don't place value on the simple fact that there are drow in something.