Wilderlands too old?

[JoeGKushner]

Actually you point out a rather huge flaw in the billing of this product. It is by no stretch of the imagaination the "most detailed campaign setting ever". I've always wondered how they can say that being a long time FR user it just makes me kinda giggle.

As far as innovation goes, perhaps I used the wrong word. Whatever I didn't think of myself to me, is innovation. Which is a lot.

Yeah, I was always a little surprised that they billed this as the most comprehensive setting ever.

And for the record, I'm not trying to attack anyone's opinions. Just pointing out where my own mind takes me and trying to see where other's are coming from. If this comes across as confrontational, I assure you, it's just the poor effect of communicating over the net.

 

[GVDammerung]

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!"

. . .
Opinions?

I think this is an excellent summation of the product. It is a collection of locations more than a setting, as settings have come to be known.

As such, a new player with awareness of other settings from which they might choose will find WL starkly different.

If what you want is an "off the rack" setting, complete with plots and NPC agendas that all work together to produce a unified whole, WL will not provide this kind experience. If you just want to knock around a setting, free and easy, without metaplot complications, WL supports this kind of experience at a level of detail like no other setting.

WL is good or less good depending on what you are looking for in a setting. I think it is nice to have the option of a WL setting available.

That said, what is not nice, IMO, is WL's disrespect for both itself and its players' intelligence as reflected in its choice of names. You provide a good example of this - "Slayer's Citadel" Run by "Slayer." This is brainless, lazy fantasy of the "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" sort. I'll call the villian, "Evilyn!" Get it? "Evil," with "lyn?" "Evilyn!" Clever huh? No. Not clever. Brainless and lazy. WL goes in for this way too much. This might have gone over in the early days for want of anything to compare but with good fantasy now more widely available and popular, I question whether "Slayer" running "Slayer's Citadel" will attract many gasps of "KOOL!" I figure Skeletor looses his appeal about age 11. But I could be wrong.

 

[howandwhy99]

When looking at other settings, most of them ahve a Hook if you will.

Dragonmech has lunar monsters, mechs, and a moon falling!

Iron Kingdoms uses some fantastic art and steam tech to really get the full metal mentallity started.

Scarred Lands, in it's time, had the whole gods and titans and blood sea and other bits that made it stand out from other settings.

What would you say are the hooks that Wilderlands has that other settings don't or don't do as well? A Conan feel? Well, we've got the Conan game for that. A wide open expansive area that the GM can customize? Well, the details are so light in some cases, that homebrew may be the answer, or if the person has the old Greyhawk books or even the original boxed set of the Forgotten Realms where everything isn't detailed...

Some of the races are nice touches, but unless I havne't seen them yet, they don't actually show up in the boxed set, but rather in En World's print mag (and I think reprinted on the web site), and the Player's Guide. Demi-Giants are still cool!

I think it is best understood in the context of the times it was written. Most of the Wilderlands was released in the 1970's. Worlds didn't need a hook back then. What you needed what a sandbox of good ideas to build your own world. Homebrew was how EVERYONE played as settings were rare. Greyhawk didn't come out until 1980. And even then the standard was for very light, flexible worlds, not complete detail.

I think a good way to look at the changes through the 80's and 90's is: world's stopped being playgrounds and started being stories. Instead of reading fiction or modules and dreaming up stories, DM's could purchase a world that contained a preconcieved story. I think the huge success of Dragonlance had something to do with that.

Forgotten Realms has many many different "movers and shakers" in the world (gods, power groups, villians, etc.), but very few undefined areas. I love Forgotten Realms, but find most players disagree whenever I use it as a customized, homebrew setting. They believe it must be "as written". (what do you mean there are no Dalelands?)

Greyhawk was more and more colored in during the 80's too. And the original modules and NPCs became it's "core story".

Wilderlands is a collective world that purposefully is set up not to limit the referee, while not being completely without rationale. IOW, it has a loose structure, but one easily modified. The titans of Scarred Lands can be ported in, as well as FR's The North, Greyhawk City, Glantri, gully dwarves, warforged, and even more without losing the central world. I think the world is meant to "entice the imagination with possibilities" rather than "awe the reader with actualities".

 

[Krypter]

I'm not a nostalgic old gamer (heck, I was _born_ in the late 70s), and I really like this boxed set. Yes, it's mostly a collection of encounters and locations, but almost every one of them makes me think "COOL!"

I'm really tired of campaign settings that tell me which colour of shoes the second blacksmith on Cobblestone Way is wearing in the third month. I don't want to read a textbook of history, backstory, zillions of NPCs, and their geneaology before I start an adventure. I want my fantasy "S&S style", and in this product I've got it.

 

[DaveMage]

Yeah, I was always a little surprised that they billed this as the most comprehensive setting ever.

I'm guessing that they meant "in one box". FR probably is the most comprehensive setting ever, but that's spread through 100+ products.

Now, granted, I think the WLD, albeit one location, is the most comprehensive "setting", but the Wilderlands Box Set probably has more encounter locations than any other (non-WLD) product.

 

[der_kluge]

I was never familiar with Wilderlands when it first came out. I was a toddler then.

I am really impressed with the boxed set, currently, however. So, there is no nostalgia factor for me.

I think some of it is a bit dry, though, but some of the locations are very flavorful, and very imaginative. It's a vast plethora of ideas I can mine from.

And I think the Player's guide has some of the religion and world-specific stuff. Though, I agree that it does seem a bit sparse - I think that was original intention. It was a basis for someone's campaign world, not a whole world you could use from the start. I like that.

If I ever run a campaign in it, I think it might be neat to use select FR deities, since I have the Faiths and Avatars and Demihuman Deities books - there is a ton of fluff on the FR gods that I can incorporate without too much difficulty.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I was never familiar with Wilderlands when it first came out. I was a toddler then.

I am really impressed with the boxed set, currently, however. So, there is no nostalgia factor for me.

I think some of it is a bit dry, though, but some of the locations are very flavorful, and very imaginative. It's a vast plethora of ideas I can mine from.

And I think the Player's guide has some of the religion and world-specific stuff. Though, I agree that it does seem a bit sparse - I think that was original intention. It was a basis for someone's campaign world, not a whole world you could use from the start. I like that.

If I ever run a campaign in it, I think it might be neat to use select FR deities, since I have the Faiths and Avatars and Demihuman Deities books - there is a ton of fluff on the FR gods that I can incorporate without too much difficulty.

Interesting. You're impressed with the boxed set but would use the greater details of another company's product. It's a win-win situation, but it does bring up the point of why not just use the home set of the FR deities in the first place.

i suspect it's probalby "cannon" burnout where players get upset if the GM changes too much of the core of a setting. The Wilderlands is great for that.

 

[Garnfellow]

How is the editing on this product? I had this on my "must buy" list but then started reading reports of typos and editing gaffes and put in on my "wait for reviews" list. Are these boo-boos the exception or a real problem?

 

[JoeGKushner]

How is the editing on this product? I had this on my "must buy" list but then started reading reports of typos and editing gaffes and put in on my "wait for reviews" list. Are these boo-boos the exception or a real problem?

At 400 pages (what is it, 410 pages), there were bound to be some. the more annoying typos, also minor, are on the maps.

I'd say the exceptions as opposed to a "real" problem. But I'm not John cooper.

 

[Cam Banks]

If I were 12 years old again and this was given to me, and I hadn't seen anything else that was produced for D&D since, say, 1983, I would probably have thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Now, as a 34-year old, I have no interest in this sort of thing at all.

Cheers,
Cam