Wizards in a rough patch?

[Turjan]

See: Exalted

I see that you are not a fan of Exalted: The Fair Folk .

It got diluted. And worse, it got heroic. Not in a "We're the heroes struggling against a grim world" way, but in a "We've made it green!" way. Blech.

That was a severe negligence of the original Dark Sun feeling. We don't need 'Mulhorand II".

And even for Eberron, the thing I love about is that I don't need to buy an endless supply of books to have fun with it. The core really is very complete, and leaves things vague enough that I can do what I want with it, without having to worry about setting bloat.

I don't know much about Eberron. When I see Eberron stuff, I have often to think of Futurama. I like Futurama, but not with swords.

 

[Nightfall]

Oh come! You know you want to see Bender and Fry duke it out ala Kill Bill Vol 1!

 

[Turjan]

See the problem is when you start a campaign setting where do you go? I mean seriously, do you go from Mithril to Hollowfaust to Vesh and just not explore other parts? I mean it might seem obvious NOW but there were and probably still are other considerations. I agree that Vesh could have been made a focus but let's be honest it's not the ONLY adventuring stomping ground and the Scarred Lands had/has plenty.

I can have a whole FR campaign in Waterdeep, the North and the Savage Frontier. I can also have a second campaign there. The core of Ghelspad was much more diverse and full of unique ideas that could last for ages. But don't get sidetracked by my mentioning of Vesh. Vesh was an example. An obvious example. An obvious example that wasn't touched at all! There are enough others.

While there were certainly changes, (Faithful and Forsaken for starters), not all of it was necessarily bad. I mean for me, if we compared Xendrik with Termana, other than probably more dragons and drow, Termana had some cool stuff.

I sure needed that standard D&D stuff that had already better Scarred Lands correspondents. I needed that as much as athlete's foot.

(Come. You KNOW you wanted to know more about the Jack of Tears. He's damn cool.) Admittedly some was a little off. (Mike Mearls did his thing but it wasn't a BAD thing. Well not horrible anyway...)

Yes, the Jack of Tears is cool. But when I read "Blood Bayou", I wasn't pleased at all. Where did this god come from? You know, I like what Mike Mearls does with mechanics. But when he writes for settings, he is often slightly off from the feeling of that setting. It's not only in the Scarred Lands, where I think he missed the mark, I had a similar feeling with his Diamond Throne stuff. It feels slightly wrong to me.

My point is this: Scarred Lands changes probably would have occurred REGARDLESS of what was said by fans. Some of it was inevietable.

I really cannot see why any of those changes look inevitable to you. They are inevitable because the author didn't care for the setting. That's how I feel about it. YMMV.

 

[Nightfall]

Mike does write off, but he's not the only one. My point is that there were OTHER facts that caused the change and thus led to the shift. Mike wasn't the only one.

Really? Cause when I play in FR it always ends the same. Orcus wins.

My point with Termana is this: Ghelspad might be the focus for many people but many people wanted to know "Hey what's over there?" So Termana was the response.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

However, I would have preferred that variations from the traditional been done as supplements with each supplement specifically devoted to examining a specific fantasy style/feel with classes, PrCs, etc. appropriate for that style of fantasy rather than the "contemporary fantasy with a 'modern' attitude towards wierdness an variety" as you put it. I would have found supplements designed for specific fantasy styles defintiely been more useful and interesting.

Whereas I, and probably too many other gamers for Wizards to be entirely happy with, wouldn't even be playing D&D if all there was to it was pale imitations of Tolkien, except in segregated (ghettoised?) "add-on" supplements.

I love that ideas like the Green Star Adept are to be found in the "base D&D" Complete series - and I don't think I'd ever even use the Green Star Adept. If, however, the only place I could ever find interesting, strange, imaginative material like that was in some "Heroes of Weirdness" supplement for an otherwise medieval-Tolkien-traditional D&D game, I wouldn't even be playing in the first place.

Anymore than I cared to play MERP way back when.

There's a reason they made Eberron, after all, and it wasn't "sticking to tradition" by any means. I like a mix between the feel of the Forgotten Realms and Eberron - and stuff that doesn't necessarily have a place "as-is" in either - in the "base" product range.

 

[hong]

See: Exalted

I would love to see a Creation gazetteer, along the lines of the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer or even the FRCS. Creation is, if anything, not balkanised enough.

Sure, they SAY in the core book that the Threshold and the Scavenger Lands are full of petty kingdoms, city-states and tributary nations to the Realm, but little else in the line supports that feel. Instead, what information you have is for the Realm, which is a gigantic island fleshed out in excruciating detail; Halta, which is a gigantic empire in the NE; Lintha, which is another gigantic region in the SW; etc.

WW's schtick when it comes to locale books appears to be to take a locale and flesh it out to the Nth degree. This is great when a campaign has limited geographical scope, so you're likely to spend most or all of your time in one city or country or whatever. For something like Exalted, however, where Creation-spanning adventures are quite within the scope of the game, it does little to engender a feeling of a variegated, chaotic, disorganised world. Surely not all kingdoms are the size of Halta, or all pirate fleets as big as those of Lintha.

 

[Testament]

I suppose you are right. WotC sees this most probably as a no-win situation. It doesn't matter how a putative Dark Sun book would look like, a lot of people would complain. Additionally, we see how much problems athas.org has with being accepted (there are lots of complaints about their conversions) and how vocal the negative reaction to the Dungeon/Dragon special was. The case is most probably irredeemable.

I know I'm gonna regret bringing this up, but what was wrong with the Dungeon/Dragon special on Dark Sun? Having never played old DS or any old editions of D&D, I have no reference point.

 

[wedgeski]

Knowing someone with an on-line RPG store puts me in the position of being able to browse masses of material before committing to a purchase, and my overwhelming impression of Wizards is that they're simply releasing too many books at the moment. Having said that I think the average quality is very good and very readable, especially in their core campaign settings (Eberron/FR). Even as a non-fan of both of these campaigns I can recognise the commitment that they are being shown, and I respect that.

Being able to browse the environment, races, and other books often allows me to get the initial 'This is cool!' reflex out of my system and I rarely buy these kinds of books from Wizards. I did however lay down the goods for Lords of Madness which I thought was absolutely excellent.

 

[tetsujin28]

I see that you are not a fan of Exalted: The Fair Folk .

I'm actually not a fan of any of the stuff past the core and the old storyteller's companion that came with the GM's screen. Dragonblooded was ok, but I didn't get the jollies out of it that it seems everyone else did. And the rest, including the fan-fave Games of Divinity, was just blah.

That was a severe negligence of the original Dark Sun feeling. We don't need 'Mulhorand II".

Totally.

I don't know much about Eberron. When I see Eberron stuff, I have often to think of Futurama. I like Futurama, but not with swords.

It's less Futurama, and more Indiana Jones. With politics, conspiracies, and magical trains.

 

[Babylon Knight]

and drow