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Revel's End... magi-tech that jumps the shark!
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8929818" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>This is the major problem, and frankly people denying it's an issue are being a bit silly.</p><p></p><p>Particularly in the Forgotten Realms. The design and approach and reason-to-exist would all fit for the 1920s-ish-themed Eberron. They're a terrible fit for the 1600s-ish-themed Forgotten Realms. Magitech is absolutely present in the FR - but it's almost exclusive from the past, or associated tightly with Gond, neither of which is the case here.</p><p></p><p>The other big issue is that it's really tonally discordant for the FR on a number of levels, not least:</p><p></p><p>1) It's controlled by the Lords' Alliance, which is pretty wacky, because them working together on something like this seems pretty unusual and worthy of further examination. But no real reasoning is given, despite it obviously having to have been a hell of a thing to build.</p><p></p><p>2) It's run by someone "Lawful Good" but seems to basically be an appalling "black site" with absolutely no access to justice or law, which whilst perhaps free of physical torture, is being fed prisoners by a bunch of corrupt and dodgy cities with very contrary laws, and some of which don't even have laws really allowing them to imprison people. Waterdeep, for example, is both deeply corrupt (with laws essentially meaning that any non-citizen is basically going to be convicted of whatever the hell they feel like - not atypical in history, but also obviously not something compatible with Lawful Good), and explicitly has no laws permitting imprisonment for over a year (if I'm reading correctly), so we can safely assume all the people here via Waterdeep were imprisoned extrajudicially (more severe punishments are death, maiming, exile, and so on).</p><p></p><p>Now, let's be real, adventurers are an extrajudicial bunch. That's not the issue, they're breaking in, anyway - but portraying this place as a sort of Lawful Good thing is absolutely psychotic stuff.</p><p></p><p>Especially as it's a panopticon, which, without delving too deep into philosophy, is essentially a form of torture. It's pretty funny that the person who wrote this knew enough about panopticons to use the name in describing the place, but little enough not to realize that. That's got to be pretty rare!</p><p></p><p></p><p>I would go as far as to say it definitely doesn't.</p><p></p><p>The idea of there being some sort of fantasy prison black site to break into is a reasonable one, but the context for this is utterly bizarre.</p><p></p><p></p><p>The trouble with this entire post is that it utterly decontextualizes Revel's End.</p><p></p><p>But WotC put it in a context. And that context is the FR, and a specific part of the FR even.</p><p></p><p>Decontextualized, Revel's End could fit well into some people's D&D games, for sure. It could fit well into Eberron, where spellcasters actually operate in the way described. Spellcasters in Eberron, are practical, not mystical. Not so the FR. The FR is an explicitly mystical setting, which has very limited magitech, and most of which, as I noted above, is either ancient, or associated with Gond. You can sneer all you like about wizards not being dunces for once, but Eberron is the setting where that works well, and the FR is a very different setting, consistently so even in modern incarnations.</p><p></p><p>So what you're saying is both true, reasonable and imho <em>totally irrelevant</em>, because of the decontextualization. We're not talking about "D&D" in general. We're talking about a specific time and place within the FR.</p><p></p><p>The reality is simple - the adventure was lazily written and conceptualized. It reminds me of the sort of disconnected thing I might have come up with when I was 14, and not in a good way. It's further evidence that WotC just doesn't hire particularly good writers. For more evidence you can see things like the bizarre overdetail on Prisoner 13's tattoos. It's not a huge issue - the FR has always had some dumb adventures written for it. This is just one of the first to essentially confuse Eberron and the FR.</p><p></p><p>(I would note Continual Light/Flame is not at all unusual in the FR, but the rest of what's going on is certainly remarkable - and it's further laziness that the common FR convention of having the Light/Flame be inside globes isn't followed.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8929818, member: 18"] This is the major problem, and frankly people denying it's an issue are being a bit silly. Particularly in the Forgotten Realms. The design and approach and reason-to-exist would all fit for the 1920s-ish-themed Eberron. They're a terrible fit for the 1600s-ish-themed Forgotten Realms. Magitech is absolutely present in the FR - but it's almost exclusive from the past, or associated tightly with Gond, neither of which is the case here. The other big issue is that it's really tonally discordant for the FR on a number of levels, not least: 1) It's controlled by the Lords' Alliance, which is pretty wacky, because them working together on something like this seems pretty unusual and worthy of further examination. But no real reasoning is given, despite it obviously having to have been a hell of a thing to build. 2) It's run by someone "Lawful Good" but seems to basically be an appalling "black site" with absolutely no access to justice or law, which whilst perhaps free of physical torture, is being fed prisoners by a bunch of corrupt and dodgy cities with very contrary laws, and some of which don't even have laws really allowing them to imprison people. Waterdeep, for example, is both deeply corrupt (with laws essentially meaning that any non-citizen is basically going to be convicted of whatever the hell they feel like - not atypical in history, but also obviously not something compatible with Lawful Good), and explicitly has no laws permitting imprisonment for over a year (if I'm reading correctly), so we can safely assume all the people here via Waterdeep were imprisoned extrajudicially (more severe punishments are death, maiming, exile, and so on). Now, let's be real, adventurers are an extrajudicial bunch. That's not the issue, they're breaking in, anyway - but portraying this place as a sort of Lawful Good thing is absolutely psychotic stuff. Especially as it's a panopticon, which, without delving too deep into philosophy, is essentially a form of torture. It's pretty funny that the person who wrote this knew enough about panopticons to use the name in describing the place, but little enough not to realize that. That's got to be pretty rare! I would go as far as to say it definitely doesn't. The idea of there being some sort of fantasy prison black site to break into is a reasonable one, but the context for this is utterly bizarre. The trouble with this entire post is that it utterly decontextualizes Revel's End. But WotC put it in a context. And that context is the FR, and a specific part of the FR even. Decontextualized, Revel's End could fit well into some people's D&D games, for sure. It could fit well into Eberron, where spellcasters actually operate in the way described. Spellcasters in Eberron, are practical, not mystical. Not so the FR. The FR is an explicitly mystical setting, which has very limited magitech, and most of which, as I noted above, is either ancient, or associated with Gond. You can sneer all you like about wizards not being dunces for once, but Eberron is the setting where that works well, and the FR is a very different setting, consistently so even in modern incarnations. So what you're saying is both true, reasonable and imho [I]totally irrelevant[/I], because of the decontextualization. We're not talking about "D&D" in general. We're talking about a specific time and place within the FR. The reality is simple - the adventure was lazily written and conceptualized. It reminds me of the sort of disconnected thing I might have come up with when I was 14, and not in a good way. It's further evidence that WotC just doesn't hire particularly good writers. For more evidence you can see things like the bizarre overdetail on Prisoner 13's tattoos. It's not a huge issue - the FR has always had some dumb adventures written for it. This is just one of the first to essentially confuse Eberron and the FR. (I would note Continual Light/Flame is not at all unusual in the FR, but the rest of what's going on is certainly remarkable - and it's further laziness that the common FR convention of having the Light/Flame be inside globes isn't followed.) [/QUOTE]
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