[UPDATED AGAIN!] PRINCES OF THE APOCALYPSE - First Review!

The first comments on Princes of the Apcalypse are in. Fildrigar is the first to rate and comment on the adventure in EN World's ratings system, and gives it a score of 5/5. The adventure doesn't technically hit the shelves until April 7th (or March 27th - next Friday - in preferred stores), so I'm not sure how Fildrigar got hold of one, but there it is!

[UPDATE -- the author has deleted his review.]

UPDATE 2 -- he has kindly reposted it!

Click on the image below, read the comment, and as soon as you get your copy be sure to rate and comment on it yourself!

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[Prism]

It is, but only from a certain point of view </kenobi>.

As someone who picked up the game while Gygax was still actively writing stuff, his work has always had a special charm -- even though I generally ran in a homebrew setting. When the FR gray box came onto the scene, it had its own character, so to speak, which didn't wow me, but wasn't horribly offensive, either. As it gained steam, though, it seemed to take elements that were strongly tied to Greyhawk and co-opt them. That has, in large part, driven my disdain of the Realms becoming the default setting of D&D.

There's no good reason why Elemental Evil stuff couldn't work just fine outside the Realms, and I'm actually all for treating the Realms fairly in the appendix. Officially placing the latest installment of Elemental Evil in the Realms, though, feels a bit like another cup of salty urine being dumped on an old wound.

As long as things are relatively easy to relocate to, say, Eberron or my 30-year-old home brew, I won't yelp too much. I get the benefit of an assumed/default setting and the Greyhawk ship has sailed. If the Tyranny of Dragons modules are more representative -- a lackluster adventure that I found too hard to decouple from the Realms -- then my purchasing of future adventures will be pretty limited. Unfortunately, with four kids, a full-time job, and multiple volunteer/extracurricular activities, most of what I want to buy is adventures that are fun and easy to run. The high school/college GM in me shudders at the thought, but it's the reality of my stage of life.

Edit: This wasn't intended as a setting/edition/whatever flame, and I hope it doesn't read that way. Please go back to discussing the adventure.

I like both worlds pretty evenly and our high level campaign does a fair bit of plane jumping between the two when needed. I'm happy this adventure seems to cover the elemental princes theme without dragging Tharizdun into the plot. I'm not against Tharizdun being a multiverse threat rather than a Greyhawk threat (we certainly use him like that), but I don't feel this adventure needed that and there are enough big threats to FR without another one being brought in.

The concept of elemental evil and in particular the elemental princes predate the original temple of elemental evil in Greyhawk as they appeared in Fiend Folio first so I reckon its fair game to set this in FR. I am aware that using the term elemental evil still has the perception of being a Greyhawk thing though - and rightly so considering the fame of the original adventure - even if that's not entirely correct

 

[DMZ2112]

I'm happy this adventure seems to cover the elemental princes theme without dragging Tharizdun into the plot.

This is such a minor concern that I hesitate to even mention it, but I was actually turned off by how non-committal the adventure was about Tharizdun. It actually uses the phrase "The Elder Elemental Eye -- whatever that is" at one point.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I know Tharizdun being the EEE is controversial canon, but that's not really the point. The EEE ought to be /something/ specific. If this stuff is really a multiversal threat, then /own/ it and make it a multiversal threat. Don't tell me the threat of elemental evil crops up on multiple worlds independently for coincidental world-specific reasons. As Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade would say, that's like peeing in my mouth and telling me it's raining. I know it's not raining -- you're peeing in my mouth.

Between me and Mercule this is becoming another pee thread. Dammit.

The concept of elemental evil and in particular the elemental princes predate the original temple of elemental evil in Greyhawk as they appeared in Fiend Folio first so I reckon its fair game to set this in FR.

It's absolutely fair game. The economics of doing so are clear, and even setting cynicism aside elemental evil /should/ be a credible multiversal threat to the worlds of D&D. It's only unfortunate because this could have been an opportunity to provide greater clarity about the post-Spellplague crises of the Sword Coast /or/ an opportunity to provide some information about the post-post-Living Greyhawk crises of Verbobonc and Dyvers, and instead it is fully relevant to neither setting.*

I guess what I'm saying is, yeah, leave Greyhawk to Greyhawk, but even more importantly if you're going to do the Forgotten Realms, /do the Forgotten Realms/.


*What I was secretly hoping was that Princes of the Apocalypse would involve traveling between Faerun and the Flanaess through the inner planes, setting up a third adventure path set on Oerth, followed by a fourth AP that would take us from Greyhawk to Athas through the astral... but I'm just much better at this than the guys at Wizards.

 

[Fildrigar]

I just uploaded my guide to integrating LMoP with PotA. It includes some general ideas to help the flow of the adventure for newer DMs. It's a living document, I plan on fleshing it out further.


http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?434896-Integrating-LMoP-with-PotA