Just bought Planescape and I, Tyrant...and now I need a pep talk

[teitan]

I would say don't look at the WOTC stuff outside of the early FR material like Silver Marches and Lords of Darkness, instead go to third party publishers like Green Ronin and Sword and Sorcery and as much as I witch about SOv. Press DL prices, even that is a great place to go for the "soul" of the game as opposed to mostly bones. Hasbro (not WOTC) clearly doesn't understand what made D&D popular, and WOTC sure did because early 3e products were awesome, soulful products I remember from 1e and 2e days. Just look at the LGG or FRCS to see my point...

S&SS have done an excellent job of creating a flavourful world in the Scarred Lands and the various sourcebooks, including the mechanics. Green Ronin's Races of Renown series is also EXCELLENT and my favourite series of race books.

The art in the DL books might not be up to the 1e and 2e DL artwork but the text is awesome and reminds me of why I love DL until I turn the books over and see the price, thank god for Ebay... anyway.

Yeah, all the flavour is in 3rd party material and you would do well to look it over because it rocks that much if you find the right companies (usually former early WOTC staffers and some of the White Wolf guys are a good indication of high quality if they are on staff).

I also can't recommend the Kalamar material highly enough.

Jason

 

[Olive]

I have no memories of MANUAL OF THE PLANES for 3e...yet I read it cover to cover. But man, there are paragraphs I skimmed today in Planescape that I won't easily forget. "Exploring the skull of a dead god" is suggested as a typical adventure.

So you missed the half page on dead gods from MotP then? Or the description of Xaxox in the Far Realms?

Regardless, yes there is less fluff in 3e products. But at least the fluff that is there has some kind of internal consistancy, and when my players ask 'could I do that?" I can tell them how they could. I use very little fluff from products but a lot of rules.

What WotC did was have the gall to assume that the people playing the game wanted to creatwe their own wonderous worlds, not copy other peoples. And I thank them for it!

I would like a few more pages of fluff for inspiration sometimes, but it's the rules that usually spark my imagination for how it would fit into my world, for the potential of the horrors I can expose the PCs to.

 

[Derulbaskul]

I find the same with Dungeon magazines. The 1E and 2E issues are much, much better for idea mining but, at the same time, I have no desire to ever play 1E, 2E or OD&D ever, EVER again.

Anyway, I put this down to the the fact that little space was taken up with stats meant that there seemed to be much more flavour. I don't think the writers for the different editions differ in terms of their creativity or skill; I simply put it down to the current need to use so much space for stat blocks in the current edition must come at the cost of other content.

I still think this is a small price to pay for a better ruleset but I also think that in the future there will be very few 3E/3.5E products, if any, that will evoke the same feelings of nostalgia that some of the classic products do now.

 

[Alzrius]

And what are DM_Jeff and Alzrius talking about?

The same thing Vindicator was talking about. 2E gave you the entire campaign with flavor already added in; 3(.5)E gave you toolkits - some assembly required.

For starters, 2E didn't have much more flavor,

It seems pretty obvious to say that it did, simply because so many of the products had a higher ratio of fluff to crunch (a significant amount of this was due to the maintaining of existing campaigns, which was not entirely separate from the fact that they also published adventures then too).

and where it did, it either was inopportune or it had the wrong effect - racial restrictions, for example, or muddy alignment descriptions.

The race restrictions are a mechanics thing, not flavor. Likewise, how good the flavor was or was not is a matter of opinion...2E had more, that's what we can say objectively.

Then, 3E does not have much flavor either, so I can't convince you otherwise. The flavor has always been in the settings, and it still is in the settings.

Agreed, so it seems odd to say that 2E didn't have more flavor, since it had more settings.

 

[the Jester]

Vindicator, I feel your pain.

If you want a good way to find excellent fluff in 3e/3.5, I recommend watching for Bruce Cordell's name on a product. I have not yet been disappointed by him.

I'm surprised, btw; I thought the 3e MotP was great. More adventure hooks than any other dnd book I own!

 

[Pants]

I'm surprised, btw; I thought the 3e MotP was great. More adventure hooks than any other dnd book I own!

Oh damn straight. Every page has a plot-hook and its fun reading too!

 

[LondonReign]

I find the same with Dungeon magazines. The 1E and 2E issues are much, much better for idea mining but, at the same time, I have no desire to ever play 1E, 2E or OD&D ever, EVER again.

Owning about 95 or the 112 issues of Dungeon to date, I'd have to agree with you...but in addition to this being an issue of 3e style combined with the extra spaces required for stat blocks, I think "crunch" is in style right now over "fluff".

By I think the tide is turning, or at least evening out. At least I hope so.

 

[Derulbaskul]

Notwithstanding my previous comments, I think Maure Castle in Dungeon 112 represents the best Dungeon adventure I have yet to read.

Simply superb.

 

[Psion]

Here's the problem: I went home and spent an hour or so reading through parts of I, TYRANT and the PLANESCAPE DM's Guide. And I found myself wondering, "Where is this kind of incredible, near-poetic flavor text in 3/3.5e? They've got our mechanics right, but where's our spirit?"

In third party books.

No question, 3/3.5 is simply magnificent in its mechanics and crunch. But when I read the stuff I bought today I found myself wondering if that's all that's left--mechanics. I have no memories of MANUAL OF THE PLANES for 3e...yet I read it cover to cover. But man, there are paragraphs I skimmed today in Planescape that I won't easily forget. "Exploring the skull of a dead god" is suggested as a typical adventure.

Really? I love planescape and all, but I got loads of inspiration from MotP.

While I love planescape, I think they went overboard on flavor text. I mean I really had no problems with the random snippets, but when they wrote DM only descriptions in earlier PS products, I hate that they wrote it in cant. They really went overboard.

Did WotC fire all the poets and philosophers who wrote PLANESCAPE and I,TYRANT and replace them with accountants and computer programmers? [/b]

As a matter of fact they did. Most of their big name authors are now working elsewhere now.

However, Cordell, who I beleive wrote I, Tyrant wrote parts of MotP.

 

[BigAlzBub]

The problem with flavour is that it's not to everyones taste. It much better to keep the core books clean, and add all the fluff to world books. I also don't remember 2nd ed being any different, it just had rules (and a few GH specific spells). I think everyone assumes that 2nd ed had more flavour because it was made by TSR and they created loads of different worlds.