The City of Brass

[ColonelHardisson]

You're forgetting Night Below and the Dark Sun flipbook adventures (which were sort of halfway boxed sets).

No, I'm not, actually. I don't feel their contents justified their boxes. The next one to come close was Birthright. There were a lot of handouts in various boxed sets, such as The City of Greyhawk or Land of Fate or City of Delights, and they were nice, but I felt they weren't all that useful as handouts to players, which obviates the need to have them as separate pages in a box.

 

[ruleslawyer]

In the case of most of the 2e sets that I own, I feel that the maps alone are worth it. I desperately miss my 2e City of Splendors boxed set (still in the hands of one of my former players) when I'm running the current Waterdeep game.

 

[Turjan]

I must be the only person who finds boxed sets to be unwieldy.

In principle, you are right. My old Dark Sun boxed sets are a pain to store.

But I'm pretty sure that this will not be the case with the boxed set from Necromancer. I have the Wilderlands boxed set. It has the exact same outer dimensions as a book, and it doesn't contain any empty space, but is completely filled with books and maps. This means that I can actually put it on the shelf in the exact way as my books: upright, standing on its edge, in between other books. I can make a photograph tonight if you don't believe it.

 

[Treebore]

If nothing else I can back up Turjan, all 3 of mine are on the top right shelf of my bokshelves, oriented upright just like the other hardbound D&D books I have up there right along side them. They store very nicely. So have all my other boxed sets, guess that is because I always put them on bookshelves the same way. The only one that got beat up was my boxed set of FR's The North. That was because I was dumb enough to think one trip in a gym bag wouldn't hurt it much.

 

[Lucias]

Very true.



Actually, Kuntz wrote about 40,000 words of the published ms.

I've see Kuntz's original draft and I've seen the final draft. 40,000 words is entirely too generous. The original draft is little more than a handful of notes. Knight built on the foundation of Rob's stuff and added a lot of his own flavor, vastly improving the product.

 

[grodog]

I've see Kuntz's original draft and I've seen the final draft. 40,000 words is entirely too generous. The original draft is little more than a handful of notes. Knight built on the foundation of Rob's stuff and added a lot of his own flavor, vastly improving the product.

Lucias, I was managing the relationsihp between Kenzer (via Brian Jelke) and Rob Kuntz while Rob's leg was broken with multiple fractures during the summer of 2003 and he was offline. I have copies of the completed City of Brass ms. Rob wrote (which clocks in at 86,718 words), and I have copies of what he had turned into Kenzer before he went offline. To state that Rob's original draft "original draft is a little more than a handful of notes" is a gross mischaracterization.

Your seemingly-low opinion of Mr. Kuntz's work, and the desire to laud your DM's work are both fine opinions, but you obviously lack the full picture of the facts of the situation. I have nothing against Jeff Knight's efforts (he did a good job of expanding upon Rob's ms., "finishing the house from the foundation and framing" to paraphrase David Kenzer), so please refrain from grinding an axe over what was obviously an unfortunate situation all-around.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

If nothing else I can back up Turjan, all 3 of mine are on the top right shelf of my bokshelves, oriented upright just like the other hardbound D&D books I have up there right along side them. They store very nicely. So have all my other boxed sets, guess that is because I always put them on bookshelves the same way. The only one that got beat up was my boxed set of FR's The North. That was because I was dumb enough to think one trip in a gym bag wouldn't hurt it much.

I'm not going to dispute others' experences, but I have owned a lot more than 3 boxed sets over the years. The number would have to be dozens, with both TSR and other companies. I store them upright on the bookshelf just like books. I take good care of my books in general. No matter how carefully I've handled them, boxed sets have almost uniformly gotten rattier-looking over the years, in comparison to books.

 

[Kafkonia]

I plan to have my players experience all the "fun" stuff in the multiverse. They will be the envy of the Sensates when they are done.

It doesn't pertain to the City of Brass exactly, but I'd suggest checking out the Classic Play Book of the Planes (which was an impulse buy for me last week.) It has some really neato ideas in it, including an extraplanar city where, upon becoming a citizen, everyone is granted one wish. This might give you some ideas on how to expand upon the existing information on the City of Brass.

 

[Faraer]

It's sad that we won't get the whole of Rob's City of Brass, but failing that, the published Kenzer book is the closest to definitive we're going to see.

 

[Treebore]

No, it isn't. Here is a blurb that the author of Necromancer Games describes what "City of Brass" is going to be like:


"... COB finally arrives. A Epic level (Probably in the 25th level range) campaign adventure of around 160+ pages with something like 40 pages of monsters, + new treasure + relics + spells + magic items, a large Other Planer city and a good sized and almost "Wilderlands" detailed plane comprising something like 200-ish plus pages. "

Unfortunately, he was talking about it be eligible for the Ennies in 2008.