Wizards in a rough patch?

[Greg K]

Wingsword,

Just face, Greg is a greybeard.

Nightfall,
Just make sure you smile when you say that

 

[Turjan]

Heh. I have never heard of a "deluxe" setting book, at least one published by WotC. Heck, not even TSR.

Well, with "deluxe" I mean something that's not so common anymore today: some nice large foldout maps and some relevant maps and artwork within the book.

 

[tetsujin28]

Just to make that clear: I'm not criticizing that WotC publishes more and more books that resemble prior 3rd party offerings. It's just the case that those WotC books are often not very interesting for owners of those 3rd party harbringers. I suppose that's what tetsuijn meant in the first place .

Pretty much. I don't buy books to replicate content I already have. I want new, cool stuff. And settings is one of the (few) things that TSR did right. Bring 'em back, and you'll have loads of happy customers.

 

[tetsujin28]

But many people are . Many people don't like it to have their settings diluted in concept by a constant flood of supplements.

See: Exalted

The original Forgotten Realms were a very nice setting. If you look at today's polls, it's still the North or the Silver Marches that get the most votes, except that you will hear remarks that those regions got unnecessarily cluttered with detail.

Ah, heck yeah! Whilst I do like Mulhalrond and the South, the North, the Silver Marches, and the Dales are the heart of the Realms. If you're playing anywhere else, you're kind of missing out on what makes the Realms the Realms.

Dark Sun also suffered from that fate. The original boxed set is a wonderful setting. Just look at that evocative map sheet with details from the city of Tyr. Later on, metaplot and clutter struck, and it wasn't such a strong idea anymore.

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.

If you just have one book and, perhaps, a single adventure, that's most of the time enough support for a setting. Long going series of supplements should be confined to the generic stuff, like Greyhawk and Eberron.

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.

 

[Nightfall]

Nightfall,
Just make sure you smile when you say that

Always, Greg.

Turjan,

No...I think what killed it was the fact there was zippo communication between various parties about what the Scarred Lands was and thus there was a hard time building between what the Scarred Lands was. Metaplotting didn't kill it. (Didn't help it I'll grant you but didn't kill it either.) Various sourcebooks that controdicted themselves didn't. It was just no consenus about where the Scarred Lands was going OR how to keep it together.

This is of course my biased opinion but don't confuse my "Dark Sun should evolve like the rest of us." with "Scarred Lands never changes." Because in my mind SL is ALWAYS changing. I just favor metaplotting with adventures, not novels.

(would also add neither he nor a few developers had much input in some changes and there was always stuff going on above the developers/editors they had no control over.)

 

[Greg K]

It's funny, actually, that you talk about "anime" inspirations (which I must say, in the interests of full disclosure, I absolutely don't see in revised Third Edition products - and I would see it if it were there, because I'm severely allergic to anime) and then mention you'd consider buying Complete Warrior, which is one of the only revised Third Edition supplements I can think of that arguably takes any inspiration from anime movies and shows - the kensai prestige class.

The Complete Warrior is on my list, not because I think it is a superb product ( I would rate it a 3 out of 5 whereas I would give most WOTC products a 2), but rather because there is enough material that I wouldn't ban. I can say the Samurai and most of the PrCs (including the Kensai) would be on my banned list

In any case . . . D&D shouldn't restrict itself to the tired imitations of Tolkienesque pseudo-medieval fantasy that was its stock in trade in the Seventies and Eighties. There's actually nothing wrong with taking inspiration from other areas of speculative fiction - whether it be old-school Howard-and-Leiber sword-and-sorcery or truly contemporary fantasy with a "modern" attitude towards weirdness and variety.

I have no problem with the game not restricting itself. 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.

 

[Nightfall]

See: Exalted Ah, heck yeah! Whilst I do like Mulhalrond and the South, the North, the Silver Marches, and the Dales are the heart of the Realms. If you're playing anywhere else, you're kind of missing out on what makes the Realms the Realms.

Funny I thought Damara, Vassa and Narfell were what made the Realms cool. Oh wait that's the Orcus fan boy in me.

 

[Turjan]

No...I think what killed it was the fact there was zippo communication between various parties about what the Scarred Lands was and thus there was a hard time building between what the Scarred Lands was. Metaplotting didn't kill it. (Didn't help it I'll grant you but didn't kill it either.) Various sourcebooks that controdicted themselves didn't. It was just no consenus about where the Scarred Lands was going OR how to keep it together.

It's the dilution of a strong idea by too much unnecessary material. Why not make something about Vesh? Something that fits the idea of the setting? But no, we see lots of change to make it "interesting". Bah!

This is of course my biased opinion but don't confuse my "Dark Sun should evolve like the rest of us." with "Scarred Lands never changes."

I didn't confuse that. I just saw you as an advocate for changes that destroyed the orignal theme of Athas, and I pointed to changes that destroyed the original theme of the Scarred Lands and lead to a loss of the customer base. I thought you could somehow relate to this example of where changes like this often lead .

 

[Nightfall]

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. 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. (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...) My point is this: Scarred Lands changes probably would have occurred REGARDLESS of what was said by fans. Some of it was inevietable. But I will agree some of it could have been avoided. (At least the raising of a god anyway. But that's Byers for you. He and I already have issues and they come well after this trilogy.)

Nope I can't relate cause I'm unrelateable Sage.

 

[Greg K]

And settings is one of the (few) things that TSR did right. Bring 'em back, and you'll have loads of happy customers.

I agree the settings were great. I will add that I do think that the 2e Complete Class Handbooks would have been great if not for the mechanics of pre 3.x DND. If 2e had 3.X's vastly improved core mechanics (including feats, skill system, and class variants), the use of both variant classes (as per the 3.0 PHB/p.94, 3.5 PHB/p.110 and Unearthed Arcana) and an occasional new base class in place of the mechanical aspects of the kits while keeping the mechanical aspects in house would have resulted in class variants that were balanced. Combining kits that utilized 3.x improved mechanics with the rest of the material in the 2e class books (taking account any 3.x mechanical changes ), the Complete Class Books would have been blown away their 3.x counterparts. My opinion of course.