Only the Lonely: Why We Demand Official Product

[Oofta]

Here's the thing. I have very, very limited time and I don't even had time to prepare everything for my adventures, let alone the rest of the game world. If you do, great. Now, I'm very good at improvisation, so it doesn't bother me to make something up on the fly. However, many DMs are not good at improvisation and need those details figured out in advance.

I generally only have time to create an outline for my adventures with some encounters and have to improvise everything in-between. Were I one of the many DMs who wasn't good at improvisation, I wouldn't be able to DM a game that wasn't pre-made. Having an updated version of Greyhawk with those details filled in by WotC would allow those DMs to run Greyhawk.

You can't just expect those sorts of DMs to just "make a decision" when it comes up. Creativity is not the same as making a ruling on a rule.

I've been running my own home campaign for decades. I've never figured out all the details ahead of time. I simply have a list of random names sorted by race and gender that (nowadays) I get off the internet.

But I don't understand how anyone would run an ongoing campaign unless rely solely on published mods. The moment you go off the rails in my game, you have the possibility of changing the world. The Purple Pony? Yeah, that burned down after an idiot wizard cast fireball. The king? Well, unfortunately the PCs didn't stop that assassination attempt. And so on.

As far as details of taverns and the like, there are plenty of generators out there. But how much of that is in any source book to begin with?

Last, but not least, I simply don't care about details until they matter. Personally I find running a published mod much more time consuming.

But how to do a home campaign is a separate topic.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I've been running my own home campaign for decades. I've never figured out all the details ahead of time. I simply have a list of random names sorted by race and gender that (nowadays) I get off the internet.

But I don't understand how anyone would run an ongoing campaign unless rely solely on published mods. The moment you go off the rails in my game, you have the possibility of changing the world. The Purple Pony? Yeah, that burned down after an idiot wizard cast fireball. The king? Well, unfortunately the PCs didn't stop that assassination attempt. And so on.

As far as details of taverns and the like, there are plenty of generators out there. But how much of that is in any source book to begin with?

Last, but not least, I simply don't care about details until they matter. Personally I find running a published mod much more time consuming.

But how to do a home campaign is a separate topic.

I've found that to be the case more and more.....that running published material is actually more time consuming for me than just making my own.

I mean, my game ostensibly takes place primarily in the Forgotten Realms and Sigil, both published settings, but other than the points on the maps, everything else is largely stuff I've made up, or cobbled from the interesting bits of lore I've retained over the years.

 

[jmucchiello]

My question about the ranger who is both 14th and 15th level: How will the players find out his level? Why are they talking to this ruler? Are they actually in combat with him? Where's his army of soldiers to protect him? Why would his class/level matter? When do PCs ever know the class/level of an NPC?

 

[Maxperson]

I've been running my own home campaign for decades. I've never figured out all the details ahead of time. I simply have a list of random names sorted by race and gender that (nowadays) I get off the internet.

Nobody can ever figure out all the details. When I was younger, though, I did my darnedest to detail as much as I could about how many guilds were in town, what sort they were, who was in charge, plots, inns, yada yada. I just can't come close to matching that time, now.

But I don't understand how anyone would run an ongoing campaign unless rely solely on published mods. The moment you go off the rails in my game, you have the possibility of changing the world. The Purple Pony? Yeah, that burned down after an idiot wizard cast fireball. The king? Well, unfortunately the PCs didn't stop that assassination attempt. And so on.

I think that the party altering the game world is simply accepted. When people talk about players knowing canon better than they do, it's concerning the back story of the campaign setting, not about changes wrought by the players and DM during game play.

As far as details of taverns and the like, there are plenty of generators out there. But how much of that is in any source book to begin with?

At this point in my life, I make use of those generators and I just bought Remarkable Inns & Their Drinks from Nordgamesllc.com. I saw the creator's stuff at an event and it's good quality. The inns are fantastic.

Last, but not least, I simply don't care about details until they matter. Personally I find running a published mod much more time consuming.

I've actually started using them sometimes. It gives me something to fall back on so that I can create my own adventures in the limited amounts of time that I have. It takes the players several sessions to get through the pre-written one and I can have a few of my own ready when they finish. Then if life gets busy for me and the go through my stuff, I can whip out another pre-written one down the road.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

My question about the ranger who is both 14th and 15th level: How will the players find out his level? Why are they talking to this ruler? Are they actually in combat with him? Where's his army of soldiers to protect him? Why would his class/level matter? When do PCs ever know the class/level of an NPC?

Even if the PCs did end up fighting the ruler I wouldn't tell them their class and level.

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm still making what I like, I'm just plugging it all the bits from a published book that I like first, and then padding it out with homebrew and additional elements in whatever way seem to make sense for what I want out of it,

 

[jmucchiello]

My question about the ranger who is both 14th and 15th level: How will the players find out his level? Why are they talking to this ruler? Are they actually in combat with him? Where's his army of soldiers to protect him? Why would his class/level matter? When do PCs ever know the class/level of an NPC?

Even if the PCs did end up fighting the ruler I wouldn't tell them their class and level.

That's my point. How do these players find out the ranger is NOT the required level for their head-canon?

 

[Urriak Uruk]

If people have different views on what's good out of the current options, I'm not sure how introducing yet another option will change that. It just creates another thing that people might like or dislike compared to the other options.


I personally don't see where this image of GH comes from. As I already posted I own nearly every pre-3E GH book (all the campaign guides, all or nearly all the modules). The first village published is Hommlet, and it does have adventurers in the pub. Greyhawk City is big and pretty cosmopolitan. There is no indication that peasants in places like Furyondy or Nyrond or Keoland aren't treated nicely. There is very little presentation of feudalism - rather there are a lot of Counts and Dukes Palatine, independent Princes, etc.

The rulers of the pseudo-vikings all have levels in illusionist as well as fighter. The king of Furyondy is a paladin. The ruler of the City of Greyhawk is a thief (in the D&D sense, ie a pickpocket and second-story man), and has a guildmaster thief and assassin on his town council. None of this is terribly realistic. It's pulp through-and-through.

...Your argument is don't add new options because people have disagreements about the current options? Wtf?

Also your examples are all the rulers of various places. Compared to FR, where practically every other NPC you meet can do magic or is a good fighter (literally in Dragon Heist one of the detectives has spells, and it's assumed most detectives do), rulers having magic is incredibly tame. Hell it's practically expected that the ruler and his close advisers all have stats more similar to PCs; they're in charge.

Greyhawk City is explicitly described as the exception in the world, that most nations do not follow. It's the equivalent of Venice or something.

 

[MarkB]

Stone, sand stone, wax tablet. I want to know!

That is, of course, a matter of personal preference, but I'd favour stone. Wax tends to go squidgy when left in a pocket, and while sandstone has its place I've never really favoured it for D&D. It feels more appropriate to a grittier rule system.

 

[jasper]

The most important thing to me that official settings can give us a common world. I can go to any RPG club and all the players know the setting immediately. They know the major NPCs, movers and shakers, history, geography, cultures etc... It makes creating a new party already immersed in the world very easy.

Polishes my geek badge.
Answer these questions 3. Use the Realms, 5E and Season 8
1. Who is the blood baron.
2. What is masked lord job?
3. What is the stats of the Blood Baron.