The Trouble With Union

[werk]

I wonder who the playtesters were because it was obvious they were content with what was made...

I often hear comments like yours and think, wow, these people really put a lot more weight on playtesting than I do.

IME playtesters' comments were not heavily regarded prior to publication of 3.0. In the books that I playtested, there were very, very few changes from the version we tested and the released version, and none of our comments were addressed until 3.5.

It seemed more like a tactic to instill some sort of ownership to the customer base.

Maybe my experience is tainted by the fact that we came in late on playtesting, and most of the glory work had been completed (?), I don't know. I do know that I still see groups asking hard questions or houseruling around problems we spotted immediately in our group.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Well, with all due respect to the members that believe that the City of Union is "Broken"; "Weak"; "Hopelessly Boring"--and so on--I have to say that I disagree. I think Colonel Hardisson has it right. The City of Union is fine, at the end of the day. What did many members really *expect* such an entry--in the ELH--to really *be*? Bottom line, they only have so many pages that they could devote to different topics, and a close reading of the Union material--as I did again last evening--shows exactly that: The City of Union is a quick, generic, sketch-pad of a place for DM's to use quickly as is, when they need someplace different or weird for epic level players to go--or the DM can eff with it to properly tailor it to their own campaign. That's all the City of Union was ever meant to be, or do. It is merely a quick, rough sketchpad. I got that impression early on--from the authors own commentary--and as I reviewed further, nothing in the City of Union surprised me. It was all pretty basic, generic stuff, ready for me to rip into and make unique.

By the way, I did just that. I spent about six hours writing up a whole new palette for the City of Union to fit into. I now have a interesting, epic-level planar city that players can visit, and jump into all kinds of strange adventures! It wasn't that hard, really. So, I don't know. I think some of you guys kinda had far too high expectations. Or maybe you didn't get the same concepts I did from a close reading of the introductory material for Union. Union *can't* be like "Planescape"--because Union doesn't have a whole game-line devoted to developing it--Union had what? 20 pages? maybe a few more or less? That's not much to work with, in all fairness.

Cheers though!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Piratecat]

IME playtesters' comments were not heavily regarded prior to publication of 3.0.

I had a different experience. Playtesting 3e and the PsiHB, we felt like our comments were given a lot of weight.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Hmmm...yeah, playtesting is well and good, but how much of it is actually used is another matter entirely. Some of the things WOTC has put out....it's just amazing that the mechanical holes big enough to drive a train through were never noticed

Weird, heh?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK