jgbrowning
Hero
I'm not normally one to comment on reviews, but I think I should for this one.
Firstly, I'm glad wocky did this review as reviews are always appreciated, even when the reviewer doesn't like the product. This is because every review, good or bad, gives a potential customer more information to make a better decision whether or not to purchse. I do think the poor rating is a little harsh, but my opinion on the matter isn't important.
As with MMS:WE the goal is to explain how things work. Unlike MMS:WE the scope is much larger. MS:EC explains how ecology works and how ecology and culture are interrelated.
The book is very much focused on world-level issues as stated. I think wocky was looking for a product that was less a world-builder and more of a campaign builder. A work that would focus on making good maps for your gaming. A work that would focus on placing set numbers of monsters in relation to humanoid populations for your campaign. A work that would provide listings of social taboos for societies based on a random roll method or on earth examples. MS:EC doesn't do that. However, we do discuss how these aspects work from a larger perspective and how to create them in your world. There are many examples imbedded within the book.
The place of monsters in a food web is the book, but we don't have a list of monsters and where in the web they are mostly because this depends on what other monsters are around. For example: a Bugbear may be the top predator of one web in one location, but near the bottom in another. We also don't give territory sizes because these vary so much as to be practically useless information. Lion prides, for example, can have territories between 10-120 square miles depending on terrain. Any advice we could provide a gamemaster on placing monster numbers would probably be more innaccurate than accurate. But this is what he wanted, and he's correct in stating that that is not in the book. I spent around a week trying to figure out how to measure calorie denseness compared with calorie consumption, but gave up once I realized how complex it would be and how difficult it would be to accurately simplify into something a GM would actually use.
MS:EC is a book designed to "pop" ideas in your head that lead you to make up stuff for your campaign. We give guidelines, but we don't have tables to roll on to determine social taboos. We give advice on what makes a good world map with seven example maps, but we don't go down past the macro level. We don't provide information on how you can make your campaign more south-east asian, but we do provide information on typical social aspects of cultures living in rainforests.
I think wocky wants a product with a smaller focus. Because of the size of the subject the book isn't one to tell you how to run a game set in caverns, its one that will give you lots of information about caves, allowing you to pull the cool ideas from the real world into your game. As he says, we don't explain how to implement those ideas in your game: we provide no rules because any rules would be inadequate or worse than no rule.
Lastly, I'll end with firstly.
Thanks to wocky for the review. Although I disagree with his assesment, they take time, they take effort and they're appreciated.
joe b.
Firstly, I'm glad wocky did this review as reviews are always appreciated, even when the reviewer doesn't like the product. This is because every review, good or bad, gives a potential customer more information to make a better decision whether or not to purchse. I do think the poor rating is a little harsh, but my opinion on the matter isn't important.
As with MMS:WE the goal is to explain how things work. Unlike MMS:WE the scope is much larger. MS:EC explains how ecology works and how ecology and culture are interrelated.
The book is very much focused on world-level issues as stated. I think wocky was looking for a product that was less a world-builder and more of a campaign builder. A work that would focus on making good maps for your gaming. A work that would focus on placing set numbers of monsters in relation to humanoid populations for your campaign. A work that would provide listings of social taboos for societies based on a random roll method or on earth examples. MS:EC doesn't do that. However, we do discuss how these aspects work from a larger perspective and how to create them in your world. There are many examples imbedded within the book.
The place of monsters in a food web is the book, but we don't have a list of monsters and where in the web they are mostly because this depends on what other monsters are around. For example: a Bugbear may be the top predator of one web in one location, but near the bottom in another. We also don't give territory sizes because these vary so much as to be practically useless information. Lion prides, for example, can have territories between 10-120 square miles depending on terrain. Any advice we could provide a gamemaster on placing monster numbers would probably be more innaccurate than accurate. But this is what he wanted, and he's correct in stating that that is not in the book. I spent around a week trying to figure out how to measure calorie denseness compared with calorie consumption, but gave up once I realized how complex it would be and how difficult it would be to accurately simplify into something a GM would actually use.
MS:EC is a book designed to "pop" ideas in your head that lead you to make up stuff for your campaign. We give guidelines, but we don't have tables to roll on to determine social taboos. We give advice on what makes a good world map with seven example maps, but we don't go down past the macro level. We don't provide information on how you can make your campaign more south-east asian, but we do provide information on typical social aspects of cultures living in rainforests.
I think wocky wants a product with a smaller focus. Because of the size of the subject the book isn't one to tell you how to run a game set in caverns, its one that will give you lots of information about caves, allowing you to pull the cool ideas from the real world into your game. As he says, we don't explain how to implement those ideas in your game: we provide no rules because any rules would be inadequate or worse than no rule.
Lastly, I'll end with firstly.
Thanks to wocky for the review. Although I disagree with his assesment, they take time, they take effort and they're appreciated.joe b.
