Gary's World Builder and Living Fantasy..your thoughts

[gariig]

I read through Monte's last line of sight where he discussed some of his most used books. One that came up was Gary Gygax's World Builder. Basically, it gives fluff that you can use to make your world come alive. Sounds good to me as I have enough books of feats, PrCs, and other crunchy rules to throw in. However, I have no way of immersing my PCs more into the culture and lifestyle of my fantasy setting, albeit high fantasy(FR). I know it got Monte's recommendation, but I'm looking for board recommendation and thoughts on the book.

The other book is Living Fantasy. This one seems more geared towards how things interrelate with each other. It looks damn interesting and a great read, but I wanted some board opinions again to see if it is worth picking up.

One last question, any more books like these that are more fluff then crunch. I still need to get Magical Midevil Society: Western Europe but I don't know of any others.

Thanks,

Gariig

 

[johnsemlak]

Well, I think the best answer for books that provide good fluff is to find good history or other non-fiction books at the library or in your bookstore (particularly those which provide information like that in aMMS:WE or Gary Gygax's Fantasy Worlds Series.

Not that those aren't good books. I want to get the World Builder myself. But I think there are few books on this.

For pure fantasy fluff, I personally like many of the books in the Scarredl Lands line. They provide a great deal of flavor detail. For example, the book Scarred Lands Campaign Setting: Ghelspad as only one short chapter containing any crunch (some prestige classes). Overall, the books make intereting reading.

 

[francisca]

Well, World Builder is good at what it is. A big book of terms to describe the world around your players. It's much more of a book to thumb through and get the creativity rolling than an actual sourcebook to me.

Hope that helps.

 

[Silveras]

Yes, the World Builder is laid out as mostly a hodge-podge of interesting facts, names for things, and tables. Much like the old 1st Edition DMG's assorted tables of goodies.

In Living Fantasy, my favorite part is the collection of a bunch of "day in the life of" pieces. Shows what is typical day is like for a fair number of medieval fantasy staple characters - merchants, for example.

 

[Macbeth]

I didn't like World Builder much. All it was was a collection of vaguely fantasy buildings, place, etc. I can find a few dozen types of houses online, thank you all the same. For some people, the book might work, but for me, I prefer to go with what I know. Having to look in a book just to find another kind of clothing isn't my style.

 

[Faraer]

If you specifically like the Gygaxian sensibility, or play in the World of Greyhawk, both books are a must.

If not: World Builder is a very handy way to have a lot of lists and terminology on hand that would otherwise require a lot of reference books. It's useful for detail and inspiration when preparing to DM. Some reviews indicate that's not helpful to some people, which I don't quite understand.

Living Fantasy explains Gary's vision of how a quasi-medieval D&D-type society works. It's well thought out and makes a lot of things explicit that were implicit in AD&D for years. Its use to you depends on how close your campaign world is to a historical base and to Gary's interpretation of how magic and other fantasy ideas fit in. Which is not that close to the Forgotten Realms, though even so there's inspiration there and easily adaptable ideas.

 

[Faraer]

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[Faraer]

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[The Troll Lord]

Hallo from the Dens

Hello all,

I don't usually post over in these forums as its not for us publishers, eh? But someone alerted me to this so I thought I would at least give you guys a little more direction. Last night I reformatted the Living Fantasy page and put 4 short pdfs samples up for those of you who want to get an idea what Living Fantasy is. Please stop by, when you have the time, and have a look. The link is here: http://www.trolllord.com/id188.htm

As for the World Builder, it is sold out. We sold the last copy on Monday and I know all distributors and Barnes and Noble are sold out as well. You may of course find copies at your local stores who have sold them yet. Annnnddddd . . . . well there was something else but it escapes me now.

Thanks for listening and thanks to all for the kind words.

Steve

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Hello all,

As for the World Builder, it is sold out. We sold the last copy on Monday and I know all distributors and Barnes and Noble are sold out as well. You may of course find copies at your local stores who have sold them yet. Annnnddddd . . . . well there was something else but it escapes me now.

Thanks for listening and thanks to all for the kind words.

Steve

Are you going to reprint it?