Reports and News from D&D XP

[Mercule]

Yay! I helped write a "feeler" project!

Hey, you helped write one of the three products of the year I'm "very likely" to buy.

 

[Vocenoctum]

What do you think I'm assuming, exactly? I haven't drawn any definitive conclusions about how the D&D roleplaying game is doing. I have pointed out that:

Actually, I doubt you're assuming anything. You're just using innuendo to try to make a point where there isn't one. You bring this up whenever discussion about the success of D&D comes up.

4) The last time I heard the "best ever" statement, a friend of mine lost her job to layoff weeks after --as did the man who *made* the statement. I suppose my perspective is different in wanting people to have good professional prospects in hobby games instead of being a fan of the brand, but there you go. That's my bias.

And this is because of the failure of D&D in the market place or because of the overall state of Hasbro at the time? Because only one of those two has ANY bearing on this discussion, and since it's the latter, it would seem to just be more innuendo.

 

[Pbartender]

I'd like to know more about this. Have a link to a past thread or an actual play or anything? Pretty please?

I'm sorry that I can't oblige... It was a live game at a sort of tri-annual minicon held at Games Plus in Mount Prospect. You might check the Chicago Gameday archives here. I know there's some good pictures of the Iron Heroes vs. White Plume Mountain in the Flickr archive...

...Like the Iron Heroes fighting a giant crab inside a magical bubble in the middle of a cavern full of scalding water at the Heart of White Plume Mountain.

Suffice it to say that Iron Heroes mixes admirably with Old School Grognard D&D Adventures.

I have to admit that I have never seen the point of calling your setting "Greyhawk" if you're not using more setting information than what you find in those sources.

For instance, the article "Core Beliefs: Wee Jas" talks about the fallen Suloise empire. While I guess in some ways it would be entertaining to take these names and make up whatever you like about them, I don't see how your setting is "Greyhawk" as opposed to "a homebrew using some Greyhawk names" if you don't go into extra setting information to determine what Veluna and Furyondy and the Free City of Greyhawk are supposed to be like - and if you're not using any of the locations of Greyhawk, it's really not Greyhawk you're playing in.

So I guess I have a question: how do you make your games Greyhawk games as opposed to what Third Edition would call core D&D games?

But that's my point, at least... I can keep my own homebrew setting and still include Greyhawk stuff without it turning into, specifically, the Greyhawk setting. Does that make sense? It's much harder to do that with locations, adventures and material from other WotC settings.

For example, here's a map that I designed for a D&D 3.5 campaign that I ran a few years back:

The whole campaign was based around conversions of old classic D&D modules that I had been fond of in my youth, and most of my players had never heard of. The locales and their names, though relating the specific places in the Greyhawk world, were "generic" enough that I could shuffle them around and piece them back together as a "minisetting" unto themselves.

Last fall, my wife took my notes from that campaign, expanded on a few things, spun the timeline forward a few hundred years... And placed the equally setting-generic Elsir Vale on the other side of the Barrier Peaks, so she could run us through the Red of Hand of Doom.

That's why I like Greyhawk material... Because it's usuable, even if I'm not playing in Greyhawk.

 

[Mouseferatu]

You mind at all if I swipe that map? (Purely for personal, non-professional use, of course.)

 

[Pbartender]

You mind at all if I swipe that map? (Purely for personal, non-professional use, of course.)

It's not my best, but go ahead and help yourself.



So, I keep looking at the title of the thread, and I can't help but thinking...

4th Edition will be entitled: "Dungeons & Dragons XP Home Edition" for a simpler, mechanically lighter game, and then maybe "Dungeons & Dragons XP Professional" for those of us who want all the extra options and add-ons.

 

[eyebeams]

Actually, I doubt you're assuming anything. You're just using innuendo to try to make a point where there isn't one. You bring this up whenever discussion about the success of D&D comes up.

What innuendo? You obviously think I have some kind of agenda. Like you, I tire of innuendo easily and thus, I am tired of yours. Out with it then. Tell me what you think my hidden agenda/point/innuendo/motive is, here.

Here. I'll even help you by *telling* you:

In my view, people should *always* turn a critical eye toward these kinds of statements when they come from *any* source. This is not because of some kind of slanted distrust. This is a basic obligation as a responsible consumer. and certainly a prerequisite for making responsible statements.

That means that when people cleave to broadly defined or ill-defined statements, it's responsible to say, "Wait just a minute, here. What do we really know?" and present alternatives -- to generate discussion in many directions.

And this is because of the failure of D&D in the market place or because of the overall state of Hasbro at the time? Because only one of those two has ANY bearing on this discussion, and since it's the latter, it would seem to just be more innuendo.

Who exactly brought up "the failure of D&D in the marketplace?" besides you?

 

[Mouseferatu]

It's not my best, but go ahead and help yourself. ;

Well, it's far better than I can usually manage. I'm a writer, not a cartographer, for a very good reason.

And thanks.

 

[MerricB]

Well, it's far better than I can usually manage. I'm a writer, not a cartographer, for a very good reason.

You mean the same reason that I'm a commentator and not an artist?

Cheers!

 

[Mouseferatu]

You mean the same reason that I'm a commentator and not an artist?

Something like that, yes.

Sadly, that artwork is still better than I could manage. It's why I got a friend of mine, who's in both art and advertising, to design my Mouseferatu logo.

(I've also got a really nifty version of "Mouseferatu" by Rich Burlew, but I'm not tearing my signed copy of Paladin Blues apart to scan it.)

 

[eyebeams]

Damn; that's pretty much the only map you need for about a solid year of gaming.