Wilderlands too old?

[Mystery Man]

True. To point to drivethrurpg.com for more info on Tarantis is a bit weird for a campaign setting. The paragraph on the city in the boxed set is about the same size as the one in the Player's Guide.

The Tarantis region is given 22 pages worth of stuff.

 

[robertsconley]

I agree that the lack of "cohesiveness" is a strength.
But the encounters are so... pointless. I mean it's like this, "A portal to the dark realms has opened up here and it has inflicted the local wildlife with the fiendish tempalte. Currently at the top of the food chain are six fiendish (CR 4)* giant frogs! If the party overcomes the giant frogs, they discover the undigested remains of 4 bloodstones at 50 gp each.)

That doesn't do a lot for me.

There a lot of different types of descriptions too you have

Shewolf is the market for various miners in this
region. The gold from Omen is warehoused here
before shipment to the City State. The mining guild
has an important hall here. It operates a very lucrative
exchange market for merchants from City-State
and Thunderhold. Shewolf is under the direct
authority of the Overlord. Lord Gorogatan operates
an elite force to guard the gold and the exchange
consisting of 25 Ftr3s and 6 Ftr5s.

This

Most of the marble in the City State comes
from Flint. This town has little but the quarries.
The miners live in barracks and there is little else
other than an assortment of taverns. Gang warfare
is rife in the town with rival gangs of miners engaging
in bloody battles nearly every night. Lord Disbad
is high in the Hellbridge Temple and has been
brought in to restore order to the town.

or this

This keep is the site of a wizard conclave lead
by Serinal. The conclave was very old and respected
among the wizard community. Twenty
years ago many of the members of the conclave began
to fight among themselves and the conclave
went into decline. Serinal was elected the leader of
the conclave and began to revitalize it. Today it is
growing and has attracted several bright young wizards.

Each of which could be a source for an adventure. There are hundreds more of these throughout the boxed set.

 

[Turjan]

The Tarantis region is given 22 pages worth of stuff.

You are talking about the map. Joe and I were talking about the city, and that information amounts to roughly half a page (a bit less, actually). The reference to drivethrurpg.com regarding more information on the city was not my idea, but is given in the boxed set. However you want to put it, but the city is not detailed in this product.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I can imagine an alternate reality where "bottom-up" playground settings were the norm, and "top-down" story-driven settings were deemed bizarre and unusable when somebody finally brought one out as a nostalgia item. D&D in this alternate reality would probably be a lot more fun.

As far as leaving the setting undeveloped on a low level so as not to restrict DM creativity, I think the objecters have failed to consider the hundreds (thousands?) of man hours that went into the Wilderlands box set's creation. If you think a lone DM under normal circumstances can create anything approaching that amount of material...well, you're being completely unrealistic.

I compeltely disagree with that. I know that I have this much material in notes alone for old campaign worlds and doubt that I'm the only one. I can't be the only person who used to have friends who loved to sketch things like cities. Heck, even had some of the lame names myself back in the day like "Mage Port" an island refuge where mages went to get away from those who would kill them for mastering the forces of magic. etc.. etc.. .etc...

 

[JoeGKushner]

The Tarantis region is given 22 pages worth of stuff.

But the infomration on Tarantis itslef is considerally less. Like about three paragraphs or so if I'm recalling correctly no? and no map of the city either. :\

 

[JoeGKushner]

Book one, page 2.

www.dexonline.com

Uh, looking over it this weekend, and unless I missed something, that's a TABLE OF CONTENTS, and a very weak one at that. It's one entry per chapter which amounts to one entry per section no? Please tell me I'm missing the index. In a book this size to not have an index...

 

[Psion]

I can't speak to the quality of the boxed set since I don't have it, but this discussion does have me thinking that it's not for me, as I mentioned on the NG forum.

As far as leaving the setting undeveloped on a low level so as not to restrict DM creativity, I think the objecters have failed to consider the hundreds (thousands?) of man hours that went into the Wilderlands box set's creation. If you think a lone DM under normal circumstances can create anything approaching that amount of material...well, you're being completely unrealistic.

If you think I need to, you are being completely unrealistic. All I need to come up with is ~ 4 encounters per session. Albeit I do beleive in "status quo" encounters, I don't beleive that one's entire gaming experience should be made up of them. I think that "idea mines" that one can pull from are useful, but think it's generally best when the GM can pick and choose what would make an interesting encounter for his group and situation. For those purposes, I find that the en Route series, the Foul Locales series, and Cities and Settlements make good resources.

Of course, perhaps wilderlands would be a good addition to these sorts of "enounter idea" books if you cherry pick from it. But I personally don't find the sales pitch that there is all this stuff out there that your players will randomly run into particularly compelling.

 

[robertsconley]

Uh, looking over it this weekend, and unless I missed something, that's a TABLE OF CONTENTS, and a very weak one at that. It's one entry per chapter which amounts to one entry per section no? Please tell me I'm missing the index. In a book this size to not have an index...

What type of index are you looking for a list of all hill giant locations? Remember like a module the Wilderland is kryed by map and hex number.

 

[robertsconley]

I can't speak to the quality of the boxed set since I don't have it, but this discussion does have me thinking that it's not for me, as I mentioned on the NG forum.

If you think I need to, you are being completely unrealistic. All I need to come up with is ~ 4 encounters per session. .

SO what happens when the players want to take the left fork of the road instead of the right. Or go off the road and see what beyond the other side of the hill and they keep persisting on doing this.

 

[JoeGKushner]

What type of index are you looking for a list of all hill giant locations? Remember like a module the Wilderland is kryed by map and hex number.

Something that gave me a list of cities would be nice for example. Or monsters.