Wilderlands - box set and/or player's guide?

[Mercurius]

I'm interested in the Wilderlands setting but am not sure if I want to shell out the cash for the box set. I'm tempted to just get the $13 Player's Guide PDF...in terms of the setting, what is the difference between these two items? From what i can tell, the Player's Guide is more of a traditional setting book while the box set seems to be a detailed encyclopedia of locations. Yes? No? What's the deal?


(Sorry to hear about Bob Bledsaw's illness).

 

[Melan]

You are correct. The player's guide is adequate - and may actually be preferable - for running a "standard" campaign in the setting. What the boxed set offers is the hexcrawl experience; the fun of dropping the party in a location, saying "Do what you will." and watching the consequences.

 

[Treebore]

Check out the Players Guide, when you get hooked by the material buy the boxed set, then buy the modules from Goodman Games and the excellent new material from Adventure Games Publishing.

 

[Mark Hope]

The Players Guide is as described - a general guide to the setting that covers races, religion, classes and the like without getting into much detail on the locations themselves. I'd definitely pick up the boxed set. It is packed with sandboxy goodness with adventure seeds under every stone in every hex - an almost overwhelming flood of goodness that still manages to leave lots of room for DM creativity. One of the best buys of 3e imho, and due to the lightness of the stats, easily useable with other editions too. If you like these, check out the City State of the Invincible Overlord hardback, which covers the Wilderlands' most famous city in depth.

 

[S'mon]

I bought the Players' Guide and put off buying the boxed set for a good while, but I'm really glad I eventually bought it. It's wonderful IMO - amazing, fantastic, etc etc. Really great value, gives you everything you need to run a Wilderlands campaign, yet doesn't constrain the GM at all in adding his own stuff. I think it's the best designed campaign setting I've ever seen. My only advice is to go back to Bledsaw's original 15 miles per hex scale, at 5 miles per hex it can feel cramped and raises some plausibility issues. At 15/hex it works great.

 

[jdrakeh]

You are correct. The player's guide is adequate - and may actually be preferable - for running a "standard" campaign in the setting. What the boxed set offers is the hexcrawl experience; the fun of dropping the party in a location, saying "Do what you will." and watching the consequences.

Good summation. Also, IIRC, isn't some of the rule information (for creating characters and such) in the PG not reprinted in the box set?

 

[S'mon]

Good summation. Also, IIRC, isn't some of the rule information (for creating characters and such) in the PG not reprinted in the box set?

Only the players' guide has the variant races & classes, deity descriptions and (surprisingly) monster stats. You really need it for a 3e Wilderlands game, and it's good even for a different ruleset (C&C etc). The boxed set has the true history, more detailed region descriptions, and hex-by-hex descriptions, about 1/5 of all the hexes are keyed.

 

[Melan]

Good summation. Also, IIRC, isn't some of the rule information (for creating characters and such) in the PG not reprinted in the box set?

Correct; I think neither are deities, information on magical tomes, etc. But it is still viable to run a campaign based on the box alone, and substituting your own gods, using standard classes, etc.

 

[S'mon]

substituting your own gods

Wilderlands explicitly uses real-world pantheons (Norse, Greek, Egyptiab, even Chinese) derived from eg 1e Deities & Demigods or OD&D Gods, Demigods & Heroes, plus its own deities, plus whatever you like.

 

[jdrakeh]

But it is still viable to run a campaign based on the box alone, and substituting your own gods, using standard classes, etc.

That's honestly more true to form, if you've seen the original Wilderlands (I'm sure that you have). There wasn't much to it in the way of stats/rules.