Wilderlands too old?

[Numion]

- being 25, my attraction to the world has nothing to do with "nostalgia" or "rose coloured glasses". That's a cheap argument, and I wish people stopped using it.

It is sometimes used cheaply, but you have to be fair and acknowledge that the sword swings both ways. The settings marketing has no qualms sprinkling about the words first and classic. From the Judges Guild site:

The First and Best!
The Wilderlands of High Fantasy was the first campaign setting ever fully fleshed out in print for fantasy roleplaying and now Necromancer Games brings this classic Judges Guild setting to d20!
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A Judges Guild classic brought up to date for revised 3rd Edition play.
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The first and most detailed campaign ever produced.
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The setting for the popular City State of the Invincible Overlord and other classic Judges Guild products.
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The original Judges Guild campaign setting, this new version has return-to-the-classics appeal for all gamers.

The question whether it's just nostalgia or not is sometimes justified. The publishers have no problem with the free publicity it creates, Wilderlands had much more hype coming out the door than most current campaign settings. So it's a valid question, because people need to know if it lives up to the hype.

 

[JoeGKushner]

One thing I've heard a few times, is that since there isn't a lot of cannon (fiction or books), that the GMs feel more comfortable saying "No" to a player or not worrying about a player knowing how the setting is supposed to work.

Now one question I have in that regard, is what if the player also has the Wilderlands? Would the GM of such a situation be upset again and leave another campaign setting behind because it counters what the player knows?

 

[KenSeg]

One of the things that disturbs me as an older gamer reading this and other threads and listening to comments from many of my fellow gamers is the desire to have everything created for you. I have been playing D&D in one form or the other for almost 30 years now. The only thing that will enable any gamer to enjoy such a long love affair with their hobby is imagination and creativity.

I have purchased many of the boxed settings over the years, although never to run them as written but simply for ideas to spark my own imagination. Why? You will never find a box set that will make everyone in your group happy. No setting creator knows you and your players like you do. Only the DM and players can create a world that will continue to be enjoyable to you for decades, long after Company XYZ has stopped putting out one supplement after another.

Reading over the Wilderlands setting, I find it a good compromise of enough framework for those DMs who need a kick start and leaving you enough room to create years of adventures for your friends to make memories to last a lifetime.

-KenSeg
-Gaming since 1978

 

[JoeGKushner]

What you say is true Ken, but many gamers, especially those that get older, don't necessarily have the time to create things whole cloth, especially when getting "the most detailed campaign setting ever!" One of the appeals of the "campaign in a box" settings, is that it gives you time to customize little bits for your group without having to do so whole cloth.

 

[diaglo]

What you say is true Ken, but many gamers, especially those that get older, don't necessarily have the time to create things whole cloth, especially when getting "the most detailed campaign setting ever!" One of the appeals of the "campaign in a box" settings, is that it gives you time to customize little bits for your group without having to do so whole cloth.

the FRCS ran into this problem. when introduced it was like the designers said lets take all the stuff we like and ignore everything else ever written for the FR until we write another book about it.

thus also why WotC put out the setting search. something new but different. in other words, something that didn't have baggage.

i don't think JG did this. i think they took what they did previously. all of what they did. and said here it is updated. and what you don't see here can be found in product A, B, C.

 

[JoeGKushner]

i think they took what they did previously. all of what they did. and said here it is updated. and what you don't see here can be found in product A, B, C.thus also why WotC put out the setting search. something new but different. in other words, something that didn't have baggage.

Well, they've worked very hard to insure that it does have baggage with novels, upcoming online game play and other bits.

Damn fine details in the rpg books though. Still digging Magic of Eberron.

i think they took what they did previously. all of what they did. and said here it is updated. and what you don't see here can be found in product A, B, C.

I was disappointed by the number of references to other products. I would've loved to at least seen some city maps like the Forgotten Realms Adventures hardcover for 2nd ed.

 

[gizmo33]

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.

I think it's part of the genius of Tolkien that many folks have so deeply internalized the issues of language within their fantasy. IMO there's nothing wrong with someone named "Slayer" except that it sounds strange because we're not used to descriptive names in English, although we take such things for granted if the name were Elvish for "Slayer".

Evilyn's parents were probably not trying to be clever so much as give their daughter a name that would be recognized by evil deities so that she would get special consideration by them. They took the English word for Evil and combined it with a common feminine ending. Had they done the same thing in Orcish it wouldn't look as weird.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I think it's part of the genius of Tolkien that many folks have so deeply internalized the issues of language within their fantasy. IMO there's nothing wrong with someone named "Slayer" except that it sounds strange because we're not used to descriptive names in English, although we take such things for granted if the name were Elvish for "Slayer".

Evilyn's parents were probably not trying to be clever so much as give their daughter a name that would be recognized by evil deities so that she would get special consideration by them. They took the English word for Evil and combined it with a common feminine ending. Had they done the same thing in Orcish it wouldn't look as weird.

And Spider Man's name is Spider Man because he catches thieves just like flies!

No, those names were lame. Something like Korath the Slayer, or Korath, who demands his men call him Slayer, would be far more sensible. Some stuff from the seventies should've stayed there.

 

[gizmo33]

No, those names were lame. Something like Korath the Slayer, or Korath, who demands his men call him Slayer, would be far more sensible. Some stuff from the seventies should've stayed there.

My guess is that Korath probably means Slayer in Orcish. So somewhere in fantasy land, two orcs are having the exact mirror image of this conversation and one of them is saying "now Korath is a lame name, but Slayer the Korath, that's far more sensible."

 

[diaglo]

Some stuff from the seventies should've stayed there.

funny coming from a guy named Joe.