underwhelmed with Neverwinter Campaign Setting

[Dannyalcatraz]

Neverwinter is meant to be a heroic-tier campaign setting, so it stands to reason there wouldn't be paragon paths.

OK, that makes sense, to a point. It makes sense that you wouldn't include PPs in a setting limited to Heroic tier...but I'm puzzled as to why you'd make a setting limited to Heroic tier. It seems an unnecessary self-imposed handicap in the product.

Or has there been some kind of announcement that there will be a Paragon level (and maybe Epic level) expansion of it down the road?

 

[KarinsDad]

OK, that makes sense, to a point. It makes sense that you wouldn't include PPs in a setting limited to Heroic tier...but I'm puzzled as to why you'd make a setting limited to Heroic tier. It seems an unnecessary self-imposed handicap in the product.

Or has there been some kind of announcement that there will be a Paragon level (and maybe Epic level) expansion of it down the road?

I haven't heard that an expansion is in the works, but then again, at Paragon and Epic levels, our PCs are rarely anywhere near their starting city. They are all over the continents and in other planes of existence. Some of the heroic plot and story elements will continue into Paragon, but a lot of it is now beneath the notice of the heroes who have bigger fish to fry.

 

[S'mon]

I was aware that NWCS was a campaign guide and not a Player's Option book, bestiary, or adventure. My disappointment is that there seems to be little information on the setting that seems useful. Looking through it, I have no idea where to start the adventurers, nor a place that would be a good adventure locale, nor a compelling antagonist or story arc.

In short, why not pick up a novel such as Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn or George R R Martin's Game of Thrones to be inspired by a setting and characters?

A roleplaying game supplement should contribute directly to the game more than giving inspiration and ideas to a DM, something that is found in better quality and more affordably in the fantasy fiction section of a local library.

Give suggestions of story arcs that a group can follow. Suggest an adventure to the ruined keep where the unholy monks control access to the portal that leads to the treasury so the group can pilfer the coffers of the corrupt noble family. Otherwise, all we have are unconnected characters inhabiting random sites.

I agree, though if they put out enough Neverwinter adventures in Dungeon that may enable the DM to put something together without having to do all the real work himself.

To me the NWCS felt not so much like a novel, more like a writer's bible for a TV series or similar. It would make a good basis for the creation of novels, adventures, video games... but compared to every other city sourcebook I've seen, it is remarkably lacking in stuff that can be used without the extensive preparation of exactly the kind I buy RPG materials to avoid. Not just the lack of encounters, floorplans, adventures - there are remarkably few detailed NPCs either, and those are nearly all bad-guy faction leaders (and their motivations are mostly just 'My Faction FTW!'). IMO the FRCG took a far better approach in its Loudwater section with its paragraphs on the personality/character of various interesting friendly NPCs for me to use, combined with pictures for many of them. It has really helped bring my campaign to life.

 

[delericho]

Yeah, I don't think NWCS is necessarily bad... But I checked the book out and honestly think Hammerfast, at $15, is a much better deal as a sandbox setting, than the NWCS at $40. Just my opinion though.

$40?

It's $25 on Amazon and you lucky Americanos get free shipping. Just count yourself lucky you don't live on the arse-end of the earth and have to pay $62 RRP for it ($35 shipped from Amazon).

Be fair. When doing a price comparison, you really have to use the RRP. Otherwise, you're comparing apples with oranges.

 

[delericho]

I can only imagine that the advent of DDi has seen a drop in the purchases of crunch-heavy books.

This is a very good point, and really quite worrying. Several years ago, WotC took the view that fluff-heavy books just didn't sell well enough to bother with. That's why their offerings for the last several years of 3e and first years of 4e were so extremely crunch-heavy.

But now the DDI has taken the wind out of the sales of crunch-heavy books too. (Yes, pun intended.) I suppose some people might have shifted to fluff-heavy books... but I do doubt that.

I guess that's probably why the release schedule has been curtailed recently. I just hope the DDI is doing well enough by itself to keep them going.

 

[Kzach]

1) Did you notice that I said "a variety of reasons"? Of course not. Amazingly enough, I know people who do not have the ability to shop online at all. For them, there is no "cheaper place" than the local bookstore.

What a load of rubbish.

2) Did you notice that the price I said I'd pay for it was even lower than the price Amazon's selling it for? Thus, I can still say "It is too expensive for me; I don't think it is worth its price." Even at Amazon's price. My position stands.

Your price expectation is ridiculous and it's absurd to expect something of this size and composition to be sold for such a low amount.

You don't subscribe to DDI and you refuse to pay a reasonable price for a book. Answer honestly now, do you use CBLoader and download PDF's? Do you feel WotC owes you? Have you actually paid for anything WotC has produced in the last twelve months? I'd be willing to be the real answer is no.

 

[Dead Scribe]

OK, that makes sense, to a point. It makes sense that you wouldn't include PPs in a setting limited to Heroic tier...but I'm puzzled as to why you'd make a setting limited to Heroic tier. It seems an unnecessary self-imposed handicap in the product.

Because their research indicates that most games understandably fall within the Heroic tier. And because they wanted to make Neverwinter a tightly focused product. It's not a book about an entire world--it's a campaign focused on one city and the areas immediately surrounding it. Ten levels is a very reasonable scope for this kind of game--and I welcome a chance to let players dive right into intrigue, rather than having to wean them onto real adventure by fighting dumb kruthiks for a level or two.

There are a lot of valid criticisms to be made of the book--the Themes are not balanced particularly well, the racial variants aren't very interesting, there's no index, etc. But what bothers me is that most of the complaints in this thread aren't valid criticisms of what the book is. Instead it's grumbling about what the book isn't.

It seems weird to be 'disappointed' by what it is, because it implies that somehow you expected something different. WOTC has been pretty up front about what this book is. The first thing it says in the Introduction when you open the book is that this is a setting for low level characters. I'm pretty sure that Introduction was released for free on the wizards.com website weeks ago. And if you have questions about the design of the book, they have a free article on the wizards.com website, on the front page right now, that explains their philosophy behind making this book the way that they did.

 

[Kobold Boots]

1) Convenience is subjective. I find it convenient to be able to walk into a store and have my product in hand day 1, along with being able to browse an entire store without the "blinders" that a search engine necessarily imparts upon the shopper. Shopping online, I have to be fairly specific about what I'm looking for, and the results may contain wildly extraneous results. If I go into my FLGS and ask for RPGs, I'll be sent to RPGs. I just tried that at Amazon, and was directed to computer games first.

2) Price is but one way in which retailers compete in the market, and depth of product choices can be an advantage or disadvantage depending upon the exact details. You can have any product in the world to sell me, but if I can't find it for whatever reason, I'll look elsewhere.

I buy from places I like & trust; from retailers who are not cross-subsidizing products; from stores with well-informed & helpful employees. And I'm happy to pay extra for that. And just so we're perfectly clear on that, that does NOT mean I don't buy things online.

Is it a losing battle? Only time will tell.

In reply:

1. Borders is out of business. The three in my area only sold out of RPG products when they were marked 50% off. Some sections of the stores are still full at 60% off. People only start buying stuff when the price meets the value of a product and it costs more to produce a quality product than most are willing to spend to turn it over quickly.

2. Other major book retailers are hurting. Turn over of RPG products at Barnes and such is slow. Stuff sits for up to 180 days without moving. Again this is a personal experience and baed on observation. I'd bet that returns to publisher are around 30% if not higher at base retail.

3. The four hobby store owners I know in the area all hold second jobs and make around $10- 14,000 USD take home annually from their store. My take on that is that the hobby store industry doesn't make enough money in its current configuration to sustain itself long term except in particular circumstances.

My statement to you earlier had nothing to do with insulting you or your preferences, it's just simply that all of the strategic forces in the pub industry align to the death of the RPG browsing store approach considering the flattening effect of the Internet. The things that you like won't be able to be supported given the required sales price to make the product move.

Of course, that's unless the browsing stores turn into cafes and have another stream of income to keep them liquid. That seems to be a solid approach provided you're not supporting too large a location. (Didn't save Borders because the stores were too big etc.)

 

[Umbran]

What a load of rubbish.

Surveys indicate that less than 80% of households in the US have broadband access. So, maybe not so much rubbish.

You can argue, perhaps, that they could go to their public library (if it has internet access), or a friend's place. That if they *really* want to save a few bucks, they still have options. But I think it is beginning to stretch the point.

There's folks out there who want to game who are working on extremely limited budgets. I used to be one of them, so I understand the pain, there.

 

[Dead Scribe]

Surveys indicate that less than 80% of households in the US have broadband access. So, maybe not so much rubbish.

Um, probably still rubbish. The U.S. Census Bureau indicates that in 2009, just shy of 70% of U.S. households have broadband access. I mean let's be real, it's 2011, not 2000--the audience for RPGs today almost universally has internet access at home. You can barely even apply for a job without internet access these days.

Computer and Internet Use - Internet Use in the United States: October 2009 - U.S. Census Bureau

But, whatever. If you don't want to spend X dollars on a roleplaying game product, then don't. I don't care how you buy it either. I kinda care if people are misrepresenting what the product is, or how it was presented though. Neverwinter's price isn't really out of line with the price of similar books.