Wilderlands too old?

[JoeGKushner]

Is the Wilderlands setting too old and standard to be of interest to newer generations of players and game masters or are many people just settinged out so to speak?

For me, it's a great book based almost solely on nostalgia. If I just started gaming though, I don't know if this would be my first, second, or even third choice though.

While I'm still reading through it, it seems more a collection of locations in some ways than a solid setting. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. For example, in the boxed set, we don't get a lot of breakdowns on say, religion. Gods pop up here and there as well as a ton of old names that in the 70s must've sounded cool, but now... "Slayer's Citadel... formerly run by a warrior called Slayer!" or grids with nothing but an encounter "xxxx Frogs! We have giant frogs man! They're like 15 of them! Wow nostalgia!"

The art is good and the layout is simple but so far, I'm not seeing a lot of why NEW players would be flocking to this over say Iron Kingdoms.

Opinions?

 

[Numion]

As I've grown older I've started to want more finished and easy-to-use adventures or whole campaigns. Like Shackled City or maybe Ptolus. I'm finally starting to DM SC this saturday, BTW, and that's really what I'm looking for. 'Carefree' DMing for friggin' twenty levels.

Wilderlands I'm not too familiar with, but it seemed like a 'construct your own campaign on top of this'-type of deal. Not really interesting for me, since the world itself (like Forgotten Realms which I use) is just a backdrop in my style of DMing. The adventure at hand is the focus, and those are what I need and what I'm going to buy.

Thus, not very interesting.

 

[diaglo]

Opinions?

i've got a metric ton(ne) of them. but due to the most recent posting by Daniel and Russ on the Rules Forum and Meta. i'll just say i know why i somewhat agree with you and somewhat disagree.

no way i can say it politely.

 

[JoeGKushner]

i've got a metric ton(ne) of them. but due to the most recent posting by Daniel and Russ on the Rules Forum and Meta. i'll just say i know why i somewhat agree with you and somewhat disagree.

no way i can say it politely.

Well, you're one of the old school people. You might, like me, own several older bits.

Are there things you like and dislike about it? I was bummed in reading about Tantris as like a two-paragraph bit and glad that I have the original booklets. It's like "Here's some vague bits of information now run with it!"

One of the best things about the Forgotten Realms Adventure hardcover for 2nd ed (well, bring FR to 2nd ed), was the numerous city maps and locations. Lots of ideas to mine there.

This has part of that feeling, but despite the girth of it, not the completeness.

 

[DaveMage]

I think it's a perfect base for any style of campaign.

I like the general lack of "cohesiveness" since it allows me to customize it to be whatever I want it to be.

I had never bought a Judges Guild product before NG re-introduced them, and I'm very impressed with the box set.

As for the "giant frogs"-like encounters, I like random encounters, so these work for me.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I think it's a perfect base for any style of campaign.

I like the general lack of "cohesiveness" since it allows me to customize it to be whatever I want it to be.

I had never bought a Judges Guild product before NG re-introduced them, and I'm very impressed with the box set.

As for the "giant frogs"-like encounters, I like random encounters, so these work for me.

I agree that the lack of "cohesiveness" is a strength.

But in many caes, a GM can home brew a similiar setting and customize it for his own taste with less purchase required.

Some of the setting is "cohesive" like the overall technology level, the "fallen empires" feel, and the general low level of the rulers. Very Conan like in many ways despite magic being a viable power. Simliar to old old Greyhawk before more details became available.

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.

 

[Numion]

I think it's a perfect base for any style of campaign.

I like the general lack of "cohesiveness" since it allows me to customize it to be whatever I want it to be.

This is just what makes it uninteresting to me. It's as perfect as you make it, because I don't think any setting is perfect for any style of play without modifications. "Jack of all trades, but master of none".

I don't have the time to customize something to be perfect (and there's no guarantee I could make it perfect even if I did have time :\ ), so the more complete solutions available today are more to my and my wallets liking (like the aforementioned Shackled City and maybe Ptolus).

 

[heirodule]

I'm really happy with it, though I never ran it before. I shoehorned my homebrew setting into it.

My PCs are using Plane Shift, and one of them had to do one as an emergency get-out-of-abyss. I was very pleased to be able to plop him down 50-500 miles away from where he wanted to be and know just where he was and what he would encounter there.

 

[DaveMage]

But in many caes, a GM can home brew a similiar setting and customize it for his own taste with less purchase required.

Some of the setting is "cohesive" like the overall technology level, the "fallen empires" feel, and the general low level of the rulers. Very Conan like in many ways despite magic being a viable power. Simliar to old old Greyhawk before more details became available.

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.

Well, I think they are "pointless" to give a DM the opportunity to expand on them (adventure ideas) or to just use them as a random encounter.

I see what you're saying, but I don't see it as a weakness of the system - I see it as a strength. But different strokes, and all that...

 

[Odhanan]

Is the Wilderlands setting too old and standard to be of interest to newer generations of players and game masters or are many people just settinged out so to speak?

One thing we tend to do as old timers is underestimate newbies. We also tend to not really think in terms of how we started, but how we think people should start from our accumulated experience's point of view, which leads to wrong interpretations of what newbies need.

I was enchanted when I started DMing D&D with the old Karameikos Gazetteer. I don't think newbies would mind so much about what a product is like since they do not have the high standards gamers usually have. Given this context, I would say the Wilderlands are an excellent place to start. Two reasons for it:

1 - This is a setting that is easily played as is. It gives all the locations you'd need to run a traveling adventuring party's explorations (when we started RPGs, we weren't looking for huge backgrounds with plots and subplots - we wanted to get things rolling and discover a fantasy world - Wilderlands allow this).
2 - This is an inclusive setting, in the sense the DM can come up with new materials and make the Wilderlands his own. That's the key in my opinion.

One thing to clearly remember is that there isn't such a thing as an evolution of products for someone that would start roleplaying games, because there isn't any prior experience of what products have been compared to how they are now. So they'd take a first product for itself and appreciate it for its own qualities, not in comparison to other products they don't know.

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.

I bet you anything that's not what you'd have thought first when you were a newbie.