The Trouble With Union

[Razz]

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.

If it was so heavily playtested, why are so many people complaining about the book? I wonder who the playtesters were because it was obvious they were content with what was made...

 

[Kahuna Burger]

How to make a better City of Union?

.....

Who's gonna sweep the trash out of the street? No one! The city cleans itself. Who's gonna quard the entries? No one! The city doesn't need sentinels. And so on. Who builds the mansions and palaces? No one! If the city deems you worth, it creates a home for you. If it wants you to leave, your building disappears..

I like it, but wouldn't go with the "alive" aspect. I'd go for some variation on the psionic power that lets you create a little pocket universe - this one is a continuously "not quite done" state and can be effected by the will of anyone powerful enough who enters it....

 

[Piratecat]

If it was so heavily playtested, why are so many people complaining about the book? I wonder who the playtesters were because it was obvious they were content with what was made...

Never assume that. Players give feedback and recommendations. Designers are under no obligation to take it.

For that matter, take a look at the first 3e Psionics book. I was deeply involved in playtesting, and Bruce Cordell was paying attention, and I think the book was much better for it -- but he disagreed with us in some areas (psionic combat, I'm looking at you!), and some stuff he agreed with still didn't get changed, and we underestimated the importance of some things (MAD). Playtesting helps greatly, but isn't a panacea.

 

[Drowbane]

...Its not Sigil....

Or, "its a half-assed Sigil".

I think it would be alot easier to come up with a "What is right about Union" list.

...How to make a better City of Union?...<snip>

I could use something like that.

 

[Ripzerai]

other fantasy RPG cities out there, many if not most of them perfectly balanced for "realistic" play. The only real difference between Union and the average fantasy RPG city is that it isn't balanced like that.

You still seem to be saying exactly what I accused you of saying before - that the only "real difference" between cities is their power level. I don't understand why the fact that it's built on floating islands in a twilight demiplane by a race of enigmatic and slightly malevolent planar merchants doesn't count as a real difference. The lay-out of the city, its origin, its purpose, and its peculiar mix of inhabitants seem vastly more important differences than the character levels involved. An "epic" version of Greyhawk or Freeport or Waterdeep would still be Greyhawk or Freeport or Waterdeep. All the high level characters would inevitably cause changes, but they'd still be recognizable and distinctive from one another. An epic Greyhawk would never be mistaken for an epic Freeport, and neither would ever be mistaken for Union, and that's because the "epicness" of a city isn't the most important difference a city can have.

Why must every single city be "realistically" balanced even though these are fantasy cities we're considering?

Of course they don't have to be "realistic" - Union's built on flying rocks in another dimension! But they should make sense given the assumptions of that dimension and the characters around them. I don't necessarily have a problem with Union having a lot of epic characters. My main concern isn't that Union has a lot of epic characters in it, but that it behaves as if low-level characters don't vastly outnumber them without providing an explanation for why this would be the case. There are any number of incentives the mercanes could use, if their pockets were deep enough, to attract a number of powerful clients, and they could have any number of reasons to want to do so (although this is still such a stretch, given how I would expect epic adventurers to behave, that I would strongly argue against it). But they have no reason to actively turn away less powerful clients, which is what Union as it's been described would require.

Using the word "balanced" in this context prejudices the argument by implying that cities are something that should or can be balanced for a particular average party level the way an individual encounter can be. If you're looking for that sort of "balance" in a city, you don't really want a campaign setting; you want a dungeon level, or the equivalent. Certainly an individual encounter in Union, in an epic campaign, should be balanced for epic play, but that's a long way from warping the entire setting to suit whatever level your PCs happen to be at.

Union is mundane if the main premise is removed, in the context of what is already in print.

I agree, with the caveat that you're not correctly identifying its main premise. You seem to be under the impression that the only point to Union is that it's "like every other city only EPIC," which would be the most boring premise imaginable. It doesn't even qualify as a premise, any more than "like any other monster only EPIC" is the premise for a worm that walks or an umbral blot.

Union's premise is that it's an artificial city, recently built by a race of aliens for the sake of trade across planes and worlds. This is a very cool premise, and not mundane at all.

Making Union the sort of city where 21st level characters have to run from town guards in the same way that 1st level characters do is what makes it mundane, and makes epic adventures in general seem mundane. This misguided view of "balance" is the primary and most cogent criticism of the city. Epic characters are so beyond that, and I can't see a good reason for sacrificing suspension of disbelief to pursue that sort of counterproductive goal.

Union could be awesome, if its actual premise is seen and developed - what are the real goals of the mercanes, what are they after, where did the city come from and how is it affecting the politics of the planes? And how do the politics of the planes affect it? How many 20+ level characters it has is completely beside the point.

 

[Ripzerai]

let me get the first response out of the way.

Its not Sigil.

There. That is the most common reason.

The most common reason, as this thread makes clear, is that people think epic characters shouldn't be having the exact same sorts of adventures and power dynamics as 1st level characters.

Another popular reason is that it's not sufficiently different from Sigil. No Sigil fan has ever claimed that no other city can possibly have portals in it; we just think that other portal-cities should be distinctive, since there's not much point in having Sigil and a watered-down version of Sigil in the same campaign.

As it happens, I think Union is sufficiently different from Sigil. But no one thinks "it's not Sigil" is a good enough reason to not like something. Quite the opposite. We want it to be as much not-Sigil as possible, even those of us who love Sigil. You've gotten things backwards.

 

[Shemeska]

Another popular reason is that it's not sufficiently different from Sigil. No Sigil fan has ever claimed that no other city can possibly have portals in it; we just think that other portal-cities should be distinctive, since there's not much point in having Sigil and a watered-down version of Sigil in the same campaign.

Absolutely. To many folks, myself included, Union comes off in many ways as trying to be Sigil without being Sigil, and it ends up looking like a stripped down, 2nd class City of Doors. Other planar cities, despite having portals of their own, have never gotten the same criticism as Union, because they're distinctive enough on their own to not look like any sort of generic planar city jacked up on steroids. Tunarath, Dis, the City at the Center, the City of Brass, the City of Glass, the various Gatetowns, the Citadel of Ice and Steel, Shrakatlor, etc all possess a distinct flavor.

Union, depending on who you ask, either doesn't have enough distinct flavor of its own beyond its average citizen level being 21+, or the flavor that it does have wasn't presented in such a way or developed enough to make it stand out above and beyond the goofy aspect of epic level beat cops and near-epic fishmongers. I'm inclined to think that it's the latter, and that the city has the potential to be saved from itself.

 

[DCrane1]

Well, most of this seems to mesh with my own gripes about Union. One analogy a player of mine gave that kind of made since was that Sigil is like a flea mart, where one can find anything if they look hard enough. Union is like Christie's auction house, where one goes to find something quickly, and to spend a lot of money.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I think the idea that everyone in Union is high-level is a stupid idea.

That's why in my campaigns the average Union Sentinel is a 1st-level Warrior and the average shopkeeper is a 1st-level expert because it doesn't make any sense that they'd be higher level. Sure there's a bunch of epic level characters, but you'll most likely hit a 1st level character if you swing a dead-cat.

If they wanted a truly epic city where only high level characters existed, they'd have to think a lot more into how magic can be implemented into such a city. And there should be all sorts of magical creations and constructs like iron golems running around the streets to serve the interests of such high-level characters.

 

[Kem]

As it happens, I think Union is sufficiently different from Sigil. But no one thinks "it's not Sigil" is a good enough reason to not like something. Quite the opposite. We want it to be as much not-Sigil as possible, even those of us who love Sigil. You've gotten things backwards.

Ok I think I should clarify a bit. A lot of posts are sounding out what I ment but I don't think its clear after reading

A big problem people have with Union is that Sigil would have been a better replacement.

Instead its not Sigil. But its not really anything else either. It just is.

If in Planescape, Sigil was replaced with Union, who would have liked it? I am not saying "It's not Sigil" to mean its not a carbon copy, but because it has nothing that makes it stand out. When you see "Sigil" you have thoughts going through your head that aren't there for any other city someone mentions.

Its the difference between thinking of New York City, and then thinking of Commack on Long Island. One is a bustling city with things going on, its own flavor that you don't really get anywhere else, clear mental images of things that only exist there, or that make it unique. The other is an average suburban town.

Now if you want to compare Chicago and New York City you can't really say the same as with Commack. Chicago has its own flavor too. Same with New Orleans, or LA, or Boston, or Tampa.

When I say its not Sigil, I mean its just not in the same league as it.