Wilderlands of High Fantasy - Wots...Uh The Deal?

[robertsconley]

...

Oooh.

I'd love to hear more on how the Wilderlands are like pulp fantasy. A comparison of the different approaches that Eberron and the Wilderlands take to emulating pulp fantasy would be even cooler.

City States, the fact they are are islands of civilization in the wilderness. The fact that many of them have neutral or evil rulers supporting slavery. Glorious Kings in shining armor are not a really big part of the setting. The fact with Sword and Spell you can hack your own barony out of the wilderness and actually be somewhat independent. Even Viridstan the one major empire on the maps is really just a big powerful city-state dominating its hinterland.

To be frank another reason was because Conan and LoTR was really only models that was back then. F

 

[trancejeremy]

I dunno about it being "Politically Incorrect!", but I would say it's large & dull. Some interesing parts, but a lot of it seems like it was simply cobbled together at random, rolled up on a table or by computer. Or perhaps how Family Guy is written - by Manatees in a tank randomly picking balls with words on it and stringing them together.

Like for instance

"2125 The Clay Pot. Under a pile of rocks is a large clay pot full of wax. A pack of 17 wild dogs nest within the rocks"

OKay, that's definitely one of the lamer entries. But a good chunk of them are pretty boring, and some are gibberish. The best ones are where locations have ties to each other, but there don't seem to be all that many of those.

 

[Treebore]

I dunno about it being "Politically Incorrect!", but I would say it's large & dull. Some interesing parts, but a lot of it seems like it was simply cobbled together at random, rolled up on a table or by computer. Or perhaps how Family Guy is written - by Manatees in a tank randomly picking balls with words on it and stringing them together.

Like for instance

"2125 The Clay Pot. Under a pile of rocks is a large clay pot full of wax. A pack of 17 wild dogs nest within the rocks"

OKay, that's definitely one of the lamer entries. But a good chunk of them are pretty boring, and some are gibberish. The best ones are where locations have ties to each other, but there don't seem to be all that many of those.

Could you freshen my memory. Is there anything Necromancer has done that you said anything positive about?

Wilderlands is very evocative and gives me tons of ideas as I read through them. Plus I also enjoy the tongue in cheek humor (Such as the "Rolling Stones" and others) written throughout.

Take Trancers example of dull and lame. I look at it and say, "Why the heck would anyone hide a pot of wax like that?" Then the answer becomes, "It is holy wax, meant to be used to make Holy candles at "x" temple. A first level party needs to be hired to recover this pot of holy wax. I now have a first level adventure hook that is extremely unusual. After all, who goes on adventures to recover a pot of Holy Wax."

So it may be dull to some, but to people like me it sparks my imagination and helps me come up with wierd adventure ideas that my players would never anticipate me coming up with.


I recommend buying not only the WL boxed set, CSIO, and the Players Guide, but Caverns of Thracia, plus Tegal Manor when it comes out. Plus there are a LOT of Necromancer and Goodman modules that will fit very well into this setting.

 

[elijah snow]

Necromancer definitely produces quality products, despite the fact that I primarily enjoy "3rd Edition Rules, 3rd Edition Feel" (I know, I know, I can hear people screaming to unleash the hounds of hell).

I have RARE, Glades of Death, and the Grey Citadel. RARE is just plain awesome.

Let's just say, though, that I only have the coin for one Wilderlands purchase... still not sure which it should be.

 

[robertsconley]

Necromancer definitely produces quality products, despite the fact that I primarily enjoy "3rd Edition Rules, 3rd Edition Feel" (I know, I know, I can hear people screaming to unleash the hounds of hell).

I have RARE, Glades of Death, and the Grey Citadel. RARE is just plain awesome.

Let's just say, though, that I only have the coin for one Wilderlands purchase... still not sure which it should be.

CSIO if you are looking to add something to a specific area of your campaing. WoHF (the boxed set) If you want to add an expansion area for players to explore.

Also this will give a taste of the boxed set. http://www.judgesguild.com/pdf/rorystone.pdf which Clark and I wrote as a preview of the Boxed Set.

Rob Conley

 

[Ranes]

My thoughts are;

"Guy's a Floyd fan!"

My first thoughts too but this thread is of interest to me for other reasons. I have bought a couple of NG products and have been less than impressed but I like a lot of what I've heard about this stuff. I managed to resist picking up the boxed set last week. I've managed to resist picking up CSIO for months. A combination of comments in this thread (I'm looking at you, Teflon Billy) and the arrival of payday are beginning to make tomorrow look expensive.

Thanks to everyone who's contributed to the thread.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Could you freshen my memory. Is there anything Necromancer has done that you said anything positive about?

To the best of my knowledge he has never made a positive comment on any subject.

 

[Odhanan]

Necromancer definitely produces quality products, despite the fact that I primarily enjoy "3rd Edition Rules, 3rd Edition Feel" (I know, I know, I can hear people screaming to unleash the hounds of hell).

No hounds unleashed here. For me the "3rd Edition Rules, 3rd Edition Feel", that's Ptolus. It's different than Wilderlands of High Fantasy, and honestly, saying one is superior to another would be like saying "hey, spoons are so much better than forks!" They're just different, designed for different types of D&D entertainment (the RPG products I mean, not the utensils ). And both are extremely cool by my book.

 

[Blustar]

When I first heard Necromancer Games slogan "3rd editon rules, 1st edition feel" I didn't really "get it"

Seriously, I was aware of 1E products (I've been around the game since my twelfth year), but I wasn;t really certain what was supposed to make, say, Rappan Athuk more "First Edition-ey" than anything else. I really didn't understand how "old School" was diferentiating itself from "regular joe" D&D.

These proiducts really make it clear...and it is good

Wilderlands itself is pretty much what I like to work with in a published setting: an incredibly broad and shallow collection of brief descriptions, plot hooks and completed "Grunt Work"

Something like Forgotten Realms is less useful to me as everything is so exhaustively detailed (right dow to who the real protagonists of the setting are) that a lot of the joy I get from DM'ing--world creation--is simply not avaialble without discarding much of the purchase.

The "feel" that they describe definitly seems to be more of what my friends and I had during our tenure with 1E. The current game's near obsession with the idea of good battling evil is anathema to what we used to do.

Wilderlands comes a lot closer to our old games, which were alot more "Our side vs Their side" rather than "good vs evil".

City State of the Invincible Overlord and Bard's Gate are both consideably more detail than I am used to or--technically--need, but both are so well put together, their utility high enough and their adherence to their "theme" consistent enough that they have great use as both Setting elements and adventures in themselves.

Earlier in the thread Odhanan said...

[bq]...Wilderlands is really cool if you want to have a setting that is S&S in feel (not "wee-wee let's play with the elves" nice but rather "let's explore these unknown regions where Gnolls and Lizardmen are rumored to have raised a ziggurat in honor of some dark and evil god of old and steal the fist-sized gem it holds" kind of S&S) but isn't special enough as to override the specificities of the adventures you want to play...[/bq]

...and I've got to tell you, that really gets the feel of things about right

Can you please list some examples of this blatant obsession with Good vs. Evil in the core rules that wasn't there in 1ed? I won't even include 2ed which we know did away with all grey areas to appeal to the masses. Really, why do you think all 3rd edtion players play good vs. evil? I don't see it in the core rules anywhere espousing this type of gameplay.

The base world in 3.x is Greyhawk and correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Iuz an "evil" adversary? Or were the Pc's supposed to ally with him? How about the ToEE? Didn't all these good aligned heavyweights come and save the day in Emridy Meadows. Weren't the PC's supposed to fight evil? (all this in 1ed too)

"Old School" had plenty of Good vs. Evil and I know that D. Arneson was very much a Tolkien fan and there was much Evil in his campaign world.

There are plenty of 3.x settings with slavery, zigurrats, reptilian kingdoms, and also the "us vs them" dynamic.

And the "wee wee lets play with elves" is a pretty ignorant statement as you understand very little of what Elves are supposed to be like. Blame D&D for elves who are too "human". The wussification of Elves came from "old school" authors trying to make them more human -like so you could roleplay them I guess. Even Tolkien elves are supposed to be warlike and angelic as well as artistic. ( Hence they can see into the other planes of existence because they live in both at the same time) Not to mention elves as described by Poul Anderson in "The Broken Sword".

They probably never should have been PC races. Last time I checked, WoHF (which I own) has elves...so does Rappan Athuk...

There are plenty of "old-schooll" settings for d20/3.x including Wilerlands, THieves World, Conan, etc.. so where's the rub? There's something for everyone.


Blue

 

[Odhanan]

And the "wee wee lets play with elves" is a pretty ignorant statement as you understand very little of what Elves are supposed to be like. Blame D&D for elves who are too "human".

Well, thanks for the blatantly ignorant attack against me, if you don't mind me saying! You're giving me intentions I don't have and reading way too much into the statement, pal!

1/ My statement had nothing to do with edition wars. I'm both a fan of OD&D, AD&D and Third Edition. People around here know this about me already.

2/ I wasn't making any statement of what elves should or shouldn't feel like in a fantasy setting or RPG. That's another topic altogether. If you want to talk about it, great! Let's create a topic and talk about it, and you may be surprised by what I'd have to say about it. But please don't imagine intentions I don't have or worse, pretend like you know my IQ, tastes in literature and previous readings.

Thanks!