The Trouble With Union

[Sejs]

Suggestion to redeem Union:

Union. The city. The entire city. Is alive.

It's a transcendental pan-dimensional living entity. Ancient and alien but without malice. In fact the city itself is only marginally aware of its own existance, barely able to comprehend of the idea of things beyond 'self', 'not-self', and 'here'.

It attracts so many epic-level beings by simple nature of its function. It's pervasive. Subtly calling out to beings of singular personal power, drawing them step by soft step towards itself. Encouraging them to settle and stay.




... because Union eats them.



And it does it so slowly they don't even realize it's happening.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

After browsing the EnWorld boards for a while, I have noticed that many people don't like the city of Union, from the Epic Level Handbook. While I agree it has some problems, I am just wondering what it is that makes some people dislike it so much.

You remember in Diablo 2, that when you completed the game, you started over at the beginning again, but all the monsters were buffed up to be an adequate challenge for a high-level character? That's Union, in a nutshell, but Union also buffed the commoners, blacksmiths, cutpurses, bagel vendors, etc.

 

[Sejs]

That's Union, in a nutshell, but Union also buffed the commoners, blacksmiths, cutpurses, bagel vendors, etc.

Bill: *sees Tom eating a bagel* Hey Tom, you get that from that new bakery down the street?

Tom: *nods, munching away happily*

Bill: How is it?

Tom: *swallowing* Epic.

 

[Ripzerai]

The thing is, there is something appealing about a city comprised of so many epic level characters.

I guess that's a matter of personal opinion. It just seems silly to me to have all these heroes of legends go to live in the same place. Even Tanelorn wasn't like that - most of its citizens were perfectly ordinary. The point of Tanelorn was that it was a place of respite from the endless war between Law and Chaos, so Elric, Rakhir, John Daker, and other aspects of the Champion Eternal found it soothing. But they rarely stayed long, and they hardly ever met each other in the same aspect of the city. John Daker's version of Tanelorn turned out to be our Earth's London.

The Argonauts traveled together, but after the quest (or during the quest) they went their separate ways. To have Heracles, Jason, Orpheus, Atalanta, Castor and Pollux and the others all go live in the same apartment complex afterwards would seem odd. They each had their own myths to complete, their own stories to finish.

I don't find the idea appealing at all, but your mileage must vary.

Removing that basic assumption pretty much kills any chance of making Union different or unique. It just becomes another fantasy RPG city.

Really? It sounds like you're saying that no fantasy RPG city has any chance of being different or unique unless it's stocked with epic heroes out the wazoo. That can't be what you meant; but I can't figure out how to read that sentence in any other way.

Of course it's possible to make a city different or unique without making 20+ characters the norm - if you can't make a city built on floating islands in a twilight demiplane by an enigmatic race of planar merchants unique, there's something wrong. I'm not sure what you must have really meant to say.

The best I can come up with is, "it kills any chance of making Union unique in the exact way I want it to be unique," but that would be a pretty weak criticism. It'd be exactly like saying that because Union isn't entirely populated by sentient badgers, that would kill any chance of making it a city entirely populated by sentient badgers. It'd be just like every other fantasy RPG city, in the sense that no other fantasy RPG city, to my knowledge, is populated entirely by sentient badgers either. It's a true statement, but not a very persuasive argument. Most cities find other ways to be different.

 

[I'm A Banana]

"Yeah, you were a paragon and 36th level and did these impossible quests and stuff, but now you're immortal you're just a teeny weeny little nothing in a biiiig pond again."

Nothin' says you need to do that, though. These should all be OPTIONS for high-level play (along with the option to keep it just like regular-level play if that's what you want). Becoming one of the gods is certainly one thing that a lot of fantasy coolness revolves around. If you like being big fish in a small pond, you can do that for an adventure. If next week that's old and you want to do a little bit of world-saving, you can do that. If the week after that you'd rather deal with problems that can't be solved with a sword and spell, you can do that.

I mean, certainly even level 1 adventures have a lot of variety in the kinds of stuff you can do (including world-saving and problem-solving). There should be a difference, however, in the kinds of stuff you can do at level 1 and the kinds of stuff you can do at level 21, even if it's a change in degree or feel, and not so much a change in direct percentage odds.

 

[Razz]

It's simple, really. They rushed the Epic Level Handbook out.

See, they were already working on 3.5E, as Monte Cook said, sometime soon when 3E was released.

Why didn't they release a 3.5E Epic Level Handbook after 3.5E was released and given themselves more time to truly make epic level feel different and more balanced and accessible?

I truly think WotC rushed the book out for whatever reason.

And why they never revised the Epic Rules or why not a SINGLE WotC staff wants to even speak about epic material is what's making it more mysterious.

 

[JustKim]

I truly think WotC rushed the book out for whatever reason.

Not so. The progress of the ELH was a very public thing, apparently you don't remember. It was the last book given to playtest groups, because one of the playtest groups leaked the text of the book several months before its release. There was a lot of speculation as to whether the leaked text actually was the ELH, and when it turned out to be so, a lot of people were underwhelmed.

Given that it was actually the last book to be extensively playtested out of house, and the book's publication was not changed even with the leaked contents all over the internet, the idea that it was rushed is absurd.

 

[Faraer]

It's funny people comparing Union to Sigil; I was never enthusiastic about Sigil because D&D already had an urban planar nexus in Odd Alley/Weird Way (as well as the World Serpent Inn). Not that there shouldn't be more than one version of the concept.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Not so. The progress of the ELH was a very public thing, apparently you don't remember. It was the last book given to playtest groups, because one of the playtest groups leaked the text of the book several months before its release. There was a lot of speculation as to whether the leaked text actually was the ELH, and when it turned out to be so, a lot of people were underwhelmed.

Given that it was actually the last book to be extensively playtested out of house, and the book's publication was not changed even with the leaked contents all over the internet, the idea that it was rushed is absurd.

So, it's not accidentally underwhelming. It's deliberately underwhelming?

Wait, maybe it's some kind of crazy Pandora's Box conspiracy. They sent out different manuscripts to each playtesting group. When the leak happened, Wizards responded with "THE CHOICE IS MADE. THE TRAVELLER HAS COME." They released the leaked manuscript as the final product, destroying the other, better books that might have been...

 

[JustKim]

Yes, that sounds like the standard WotC supervillainy as I have been led to understand it.