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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 7294047" data-attributes="member: 12731">After reading several posters recommending Primeval Thule, I perused the 5E Campaign Setting book.But to my bewilderment, I found little to recommend. It's still regular D&D! Fine, so the campaign world might excite people, but I thought Primeval Thule's popularity was because it made D&D into sword & sorcery. I was confused - until I found <a href="https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16559.phtml" target="_blank">this review</a>. It still gives a good grade, but it makes it all clear. Primeval Thule isn't sword & sorcery at all. Not mechanically, at any rate.It isn't natural humans vs unnatural and unique monsters. It's the standard suspects (humans, elves, dwarves and what not) versus templated and standardized creatures. It might not feature Orcs and Dragons, but it still features most of Monster Manual - and much more importantly, every giant lizard or sabre-tooth cat is fundamentally "yet another one", as opposed to every ape man being essentially an unique and therefore unknowable entity. Primeval Thule isn't low-magic. Any setting which allows characters to stat up regular wizards is pretty fracking far from being low-magic. To me, "low-magic" means throwing out all or nearly all default spellcasting classes (for player characters anyway). Why? Because their power balance relies on magic being safe and dependable, and that's a big no-no in sword & sorcery! The rest of the review rants on the game being too modern and not whole-heartedly enough embracing the sword & sorcery ethos. I'm not sure a game absolutely must promote and decontroversify subjects like murder, inequality, slavery, racism and prostitution. I think the potential customer of today wants to see as much beefcake and strong warrior woman as he or she wants to see cheesecake and muscular male heroes. (I know what I don't want to see: a sanitized book where nudity and sexuality has been scrubbed away. And now I'm talking pictures. The text definitely does not have to endorse the fantasy-ancient way of living, but it certainly should evoke it) My verdict is: keep looking.ZappPS. (The poster above has a really good idea - banning every caster except Warlock*. And I imagine it's not the Eldritch Blast spammer he's talking about. To that I would add a more poisonous and less flippant version of the Wild Surges table and have that apply to all spells)*) and maybe a toned-down version of Arcane Trickster, where the player is asked to avoid any spell that is overtly magical.</blockquote>

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