[Necromancer/Judge's Guild] Wilderlands campaign setting

[Buttercup]

Anything in the Player's Guide that you must have? Well, how about the calendar, or the gods, or the Judge's History Timeline? There are some new races and sub-races, if you're interested in that sort of thing. There are three classes specific to the setting--Amazon Warrior, Alchemist and Sage. There are some monsters and some spells and some setting specific domains. And there's a gazetteer. And a beautiful color map.

Whether you must have these things, I can't say. I know I sure think they're swell. Will I use every last bit in my game? Probably not. But I'll use most of it.

 

[brvheart]

If you look in the section on d20/OGL Publishers, there's a long thread about the guide. Seems to have been very well received.

I have the old City State of the Overlord (the Quik-link reprint) so I definitely plan on picking this setting up as soon as I can afford it (which unfortunately won't be any time soon).

Umm, there was no Quik-link reprint. We reprinted this ourselves in 1999. I did the scanning and editing to make it as close to the original revised edition as possible. Unfortunately, our printer messed it up a bit so the index was a page off for the second half.

No one is more dissapointed with the delays more than I am. I am no cheerleader for Necromancer. I work for Bob directly for Judges Guild. The original release dates were somewhat over optimistic. And yes, the delay did make it a better product. 3.5 did slow things down quite a bit, production schedules some also. As has been noted, no one does this full time, not even Clark or Bill. They all have full time jobs and sometimes real life gets in the way. Bob was more interested in getting it right than getting it done fast. The same for Clark and Bill. Bob kept adding and making changes to it as time progressed. Remember that this is nearly 30 years worth of work being consolidated here. I am thank-ful that Necromancer has taken the time and the resources to do this and they have IMHO, done it well with a lot of help from a lot of people. Is it essential to running a campaign in the Wilderlands? No, you could use the material that was done from 1975-1985, but the material here has a lot of value added stuff that isn't anywhere else. Information on the geography, gods and culture of the Wilderlands that won't be even in the boxed set. I am proud of this work. I recommend it to anyone that wants to run a Wilderland campaign.

Greg Geilman
Production Coordinator
Judges Guild

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Let me add in my own perspective. I was one of the people who volunteered to help get the Wilderlands material put together. I did a very minor job: I formatted and fleshed out the entries for towers and castles on two of the Wilderlands maps. One would think this was a pretty minor job, and it was - except in the case of the Wilderlands material, it still amounted to a pretty good-sized chunk of material on its own, that took days to finish my part of it. The glimpses I got of the work of others indicates there is a truly massive amount of material that makes up the Wilderlands. I have no idea how it's going to be edited down to a size that will make it both affordable to make and affordable to buy, and my guess is that's why it's taking so long. I'm really looking forward to it, though. Sure, my helping out with it might color my perspective, but the reason I volunteered to help with it in the first place was precisely because of how cool the Wilderlands is. I didn't do it to get paid; I did it to help get the Wilderlands out to a modern audience. A lot of others volunteered for exactly the same reason. Would I like to have seen it before now? Sure. But I'm one of a few people who realizes, even in a small way, just how big a job it is getting it ready.

 

[Buttercup]

I am proud of this work.

You should be. It's excellent.

 

[Buttercup]

...is the Wilderlands Player's GUide a d20 system or OGL product?

There is very little OGC in the book. Clark mentioned something about this on the Necromancer boards. I didn't really understand, not being a lawyer, but he said that he had to be very careful due to prior copyrights or something.

 

[Grazzt]

One question just dawned on me, is the Wilderlands Player's GUide a d20 system or OGL product? It has rules modifying advancement, doesn't it?

The book carries the d20 license and a copy of the OGL (1.0a). There aren't really any rules for modifying advancement (like telling you how to apply XP or whatever), just a new XP table for slower leveling.

 

[Grazzt]

There is very little OGC in the book. Clark mentioned something about this on the Necromancer boards. I didn't really understand, not being a lawyer, but he said that he had to be very careful due to prior copyrights or something.

There is some OGC in the book (some stuff in the Characters chapter, the Gods chapter, and the Monsters chapter), but just not a lot since its a licensed product.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

I have the PG, and I really like it a lot. It is the first setting in a long time that makes me wish I were starting a new campaign soon. In the campaign I DM, there will definitely be opportunities for the characters to adventure in the Wilderlands.

My favorite thing is the vague fill-in-the-blanks approach to the Wilderlands and the wide-open air of intrigue. I absolutely love

Spoiler

how almost all of the major governments/rulers are evil - lawful, but evil

. I really like the inclusion of some topics that sometimes get sugar-coated or softballed, such as slavery or gender differences (Amazons vs. Anitllians - great stuff). I like the alternate experience table. In addition to the classes that Buttercup mentioned above, I also like the alternate witch class.

The map is fine if not inspired. The new monsters are designed mostly to be playable as characters, which I can see adding a lot of exotic flair to the world.

The only irksome thing in the whole book is that the numbers for many of the settlements' populations are just too low. I know the Wilderlands are supposed to be sparsely settled - and I like that concept a lot - but some of the numbers given are too low to support the described economy and activities of the town.

Overall, it's a great book. It made me feel that sense of wonder, and that's too rare a thing these days.

 

[Melan]

I'm surprised by the lack of discussion about the Judge's Guild's Wilderlands campaign. Granted the player's guide has only been published recently, but with amount of good press Necromancer Games has gotten around here* and the amount of old school players on the boards, I would think that there would be a fair bit of interest.

Don't forget that unlike many publishers, Necromancer has their own high profile messageboards, which means most topics come up over there. The JG subforums are reasonably well populated and there is a lot of discussion on them.

Does anyone have an opinions about this setting, either in it's new Necromancer/JG incarnation or with the JG originals?

Yup. Much like the good Colonel, I did some work on the boxed set (village and citadel descriptions), and I have been a total fan since I heard about the world.

It isn't easy to capture what makes the setting awesome, but I think its attitude has a lot to do with it. It struck me as soon as I read the old Wilderlands of High Fantasy booklet and looked at the maps: the world was developed through active Judging. It is customized for your own home campaign - heck, it reminds you about a home campaign. Most worlds are all about the big picture. History, cosmology, wide brushes. Home campaigns (classical ones, at least) are about the local village, the abandoned tower, the lair where the four dozen giant frogs live. It is what you use in your everyday DMing, the little bits that make a campaign go.

Now take that and apply it meticulously to a "huge" world. Sure, the entire setting is smaller than the Mediterranean, but you have sparse descriptions about all towns, lairs, many ruins and castles. It is a humongous collection of Judging (DMing ) notes, just like what you used to do for yourself. These notes are sparse (a paragraph or two in the boxed set for each - look here for the Rorystone Road download to see what I mean), and it is easy to interpret them as you like. For example, an island may have an abandoned city guarded by "mutated white carnivorous apes". It is an idea you may expand or improvise on if the player characters find the city during their explorations.

Which brings us to exploration. Since the world maps are very detailed in the boxed set (the one you see in the PG is broken into 18 chunks, each about eight times as large as the Rorystone Road's area), you can have your players go off on a tangent. Maybe they heard about an Ominous Idol beyond the Carnelian Plains, or maybe they just want to know what is there. Traditionally, home campaigns are all about this, and official settings gloss over it. Here it is all yours. You can insert your own mini-settings in the framework (as I have done). The Campaign Hexagon System encourages the attitude... You have this cool map with numbered hexes, and so do the players (maybe their maps will be in a free web download - I don't know, ask the Orcus ), except the player map only shows the coastlines and the really well known places. You have to map the rest yourself. That's cool as well.

Canon. While the Wilderlands is very "classical D&D" by default (lots of untamed wilderness, sword&sorcery cities, dungeons and ruins), it is very easy to adapt. One of the designers who worked on the boxed set has a much more "mediaeval" feeling campaign there, and he uses GURPS in his games. Mine is light on demihumans and more Howardian, low level and less treasure and shinies-heavy than standard 3e. I use a light d20-OD&D variant. These are just two examples, but you can adapt it as you wish. Bob Bledsaw, the founder of JG has played very different campaigns in the very same setting. Again, it is all yours. There won't be novels, I don't think there will be a series of "regional supplements" (maybe one for the first map, but not much beyond that, and even that is optional - I certainly don't utilize the material contained in it, since I don't even own the original series).

What else? I like the amazon class a lot (and have ported it into the aforementioned d20-OD&D hybrid), as well as the other bits in the Player's Guide. But, having read some material from the Boxed Set - yea, it is even better.

 

[Davelozzi]

Don't forget that unlike many publishers, Necromancer has their own high profile messageboards, which means most topics come up over there. The JG subforums are reasonably well populated and there is a lot of discussion on them.

Yes, I'm aware of their boards and have poked around there a bit, but I anytime you're at the publisher's own website you're bound to get a more biased sampling of opinions, which is why I was hoping for some discussion here.

Thanks for the info everyone, it definately sounds like this is worth a look, assuming it' still available around here. But since we have a number of cool game shops in the area, I'm not too worried about it.