Goodman Games Known Realms

Kheti sa-Menik

First Post
Has anyone seen a review of this product? It looks pretty cool but it's rather pricey..both in box and pdf.
I've liked their DCC modules, am running Idylls of the Rat King.
Is the quality of this Guide to the Known Relams worth the money?
Convince me to buy/not buy it.
 

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I haven't seen it myself but there are a bunch of people around here who speak highly of it, and there are some free previews that you can download over at Goodman's site.

As for a review, I haven't noticed a formal one, but there was a big thread here discussing it fairly recently and I bet that someone with search capabilities will come along and post a link to it soon.
 

I'm still reading and digesting reviews, but agree that the price is a bit high for me, anyway. So, if I decide to buy, it'll be online from BAMM or Amazon - $42-44.00 for the boxed set! :cool:
 

My review is in Scrye #104. Very, very positive. It's an amazing setting if you like classic campaign settings like Greyhawk, Mystara, Wilderlands, Aerth, or early Forgotten Realms. Of the campaign settings currently available, I put it on about equal footing with the Wilderlands (and note I say that when I will be publishing my own products for the Wilderlands)! It comes down to matters of DM style.

With Known Realms, you get the big picture on a vast canvas. In detail it is somewhere between the Greyhawk boxed set and the original Forgotten Realms boxed set. It has cultural differences along the lines of Mystara, but with a more realistic geography and a hint of Gygax's Aerth (the Known Realms is even named Aereth). As compared to the Wilderlands boxed set (same price), which gives you minute details about tons and tons and tons of locales and encounters.

Essentially, if you like having a campaign setting as a broad backdrop or if you like building your own elements within a pre-constructed design, Known Realms is for you. If you want something where you can pretty much just pick up and play, you would want Wilderlands. But then, with the Known Realms, you also have the Dungeon Crawl Classics, which tie in directly to the setting and give you plenty of pre-designed adventure goodness.

Bottom line is, IMO, Known Realms is the best classic broad campaign setting available on the market today. Wilderlands is the best setting for the minutiae. If you can get both boxed sets, you can use the cities, towns, villages, ruins, and encounters from the Wilderlands to flesh out Known Realms.

Oh, and if you have Ptolus, you could even work that in, as the lands to the far east (the Known Realms "Orient" is actually in the West). It would take some work to fit together the mythoi, but for cities, Ptolus can't be beat (and I say that when there are few bigger fans of the City State of the Invincible Overlord than I). Wilderlands + Known Realms + Ptolus = Super Mega Kamehameha Campaign!
 
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I haven't actually seen the product as yet but I haven't read a post from someone saying something negative about the setting if that's any help. The price is a little high for most people to just take a chance on it without knowing a bit more about it though.

Olaf the Stout
 

Man, if I hadn't bought Ptolus, this would be my campaign world. Mystara for 3.5 with a clean slate and no decades of accumulated conflicting lore (and resulting cranky fandom) just sounds so awesome to me.

The notion that it could be "off the edge of the map" with Praemal is really appealing, though ... Maybe it could be west of Palastan, etc., but before the Lands of the Diamond Throne ...
 

I'm currently running a campaign in the Known Realms and I'm really enjoying it. The setting has a feel to it very much like the 1E Forgotten Realms boxed set.
 

Does Amazon.com even have it yet? I had it pre-ordered from them, but ended up cancelling it (and probably stupidly, used the money to buy NWN2, which I ended up not liking very much)
 

My only complaint about the setting, and it is an extremely monor one, is that the maps look too modern. I think it would have been much cooler to go with "old map" style, but I don't know of a single setting that has done maps that way anyhow.

I would love to see setting maps done in the style of 600 to 800 A.D. I think it would help the "flavor" immensely. Plus they would be so innaccurate a DM could squeeze whole continents in without messing up scale, etc...

But other than that I rank this setting in a essential tie with Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Erde, Scarred Lands, Mystara, Wilderlands, and Kalamar. I like them all pretty much equally for different reasons. If I had to pick an absolute favorite I would pick Wilderlands, but not by much of a margin.
 


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