Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1124714Well, I enjoy small, niche settings.  I usually don't like other peoples' take on small, niche settings. And while my own settings are definitely niche, they are derived largely from Western European fantasy (mostly Roman, Celtic, and  Norse), with a smattering of Native American, Egyptian, and occasionally some tiny piece of something else (e.g. Sumerian, Slavic).  That is, primarily I'm not buying someone else's setting to play or explore it.  I'm buying it to mine some nugget to use in my own campaigns.  The more niche their setting is, the less it matches my preferences, the less likely it is to correspond to something that I'll use.  At least on average--every now and then something completely different but niche could be helpful.  Yet, I don't usually want to waste the time to wade through a bunch of settings to find that helpful one--the work/reward ratio is poor from my perspective.

Every now and then, I'll get some benefit out of a setting because it is coherent enough to provide me a reaction.  For example, I'm never going to run Pundit's medieval authentic stuff.  I'm not interested in running a medieval authentic campaign.  I am, however, very interested in running pre-medieval and alternate fantasy not really medieval that derives from another fantastical pre-medieval world. (That is, one of my own settings that is pre-medieval projected into a later era.)  Thinking about what it means to be an "authentic medieval" game is a useful marker, even though I'm not going to do that.  For a different setting to be useful to me, it may or may not matter that it be true to the source material, but it is vital that it be true to itself--whatever that means.

I think this gets back to the way most people are adept at recognizing that they are dissatisfied with something, but lousy at telling you why.  You've got Joe Gamer out there getting a little bored with whatever setting he has been playing.  So he expresses that as he wants something New, Different, Exotic!  You give him 57 varieties of exactly what he asked for, and he isn't happy with any of them.  Because what he really wanted was an interesting, slightly different twist on what he was doing before.  Of course, a lot of lazy authors take that too literally, as well, where the put out the same old stuff with nothing changed but a twist on  the surface (e.g. "It's just like Forgotten Realms with lots of Pirates and Muskets").  That might be a playable concept for a setting for some people, but to make it work, they have to extrapolate the differences into the setting.

Greetings!

Excellent, my friend!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Eldritch_Knight;1125149Now you got ME interested in the setting...

Welcome Aboard Eldritch_Knight!

The original Al-Qadim is worth hunting down on eBay. I never needed anything beyond the core book, but some of the supplemental stuff was fun, like the Complete Sha'ir book which introduced cool new wizard variants. Most weren't great PC classes, but very flavorful NPCs.

Quote from: tenbones;1124039What's to grok? Sinbad! Ali-Baba and the 40 Thieves! Sherezade! all the classic Ray Harryhausen movies! Then toss in some D&D-style Vancian magic and conceits.

It's racist and should be banned. Everything the white patriarchy has produce should be recreated by women and POC and the originals destroyed.  Even Cliffhanger  https://deadline.com/2019/05/cliffhanger-reboot-jason-momoa-ana-lily-amirpour-cannes-female-1202608726/

All hail the Soc-Justice future my leader.
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Quote from: Gagarth;1125197It's racist and should be banned. Everything the white patriarchy has produce should be recreated by women and POC and the originals destroyed.  Even Cliffhanger  https://deadline.com/2019/05/cliffhanger-reboot-jason-momoa-ana-lily-amirpour-cannes-female-1202608726/
...

I actually read the linked bit about the Cliffhanger reboot...

"...when audiences are crying out for bold departures and off-beat takes on tried and trusted genre formulas. ..."

Ummm, no they're not.


And WOTC will never release a setting that has even a whisper of unwokeness to it.

6e will be the new 4e.

Overall 5e official product has been mostly very low-key to nearly nil on its wokeness.

Instread what I keep seeing are just little meaningless insertions that go nowhere and impact nothing most of the time. They are just there and no ones crowing their presence so to me the product itself hasnt been JSW'd yet.

The couple of the WOTC staff on the other hand suffer from severs foot in mouth SJW disease.

Chaosium on the other hand cant stop beating you over the head with how racist, sexist, whatever-ist everyone was in the past and how horrible it is to like this stuff. But buy our product! Would not surprise me if they forced FFG to insert that "misgendered" character into the 3e Arkham Horror expansion.

Quote from: Omega;1125237Overall 5e official product has been mostly very low-key to nearly nil on its wokeness.
...

Really?

My group wanted to play the official 5e Waterdeep heist AP. So I'm in it.

It's a wokeapalooza.

From the early introduction of gay couple NPC's, to the basically gay pride parade set piece, to the tolerance for all races big bad Waterdeep has... The woke is sprinkled all over the place.

Really? Thats alot more than the low key stuff in Strahd. Tomb, or Dragons. Essentialls just has that weird throwaway bit with the gnomes. If ever get ahold of it will have a glance through Waterdeep and see. Still waiting on Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

As discussed in older threads.

Curse of Strahd has the totally throwaway mention of a crossdressing vishtani kid, how Barovia is a "diverse land", the gay relation of some knights, and even that was pretty much throwaway. The biggest is at the start where they go on about how Strahd is a "sexual predator" and Vampire = rapist. Other than that the insertions are meaningless.

Tomb of Annihilation has a throwaway mention of a guy and his husband, a cultist and her male and female incubus cohorts and possibly one or two other throwaways. Nothing really standing out.

Dont recall anything in the two Tyranny of Dragons books. But those were outshourced and not direct WOTC product. (which may be true of other books or modules as well.)

Essentials has the infamous crazy married gnome kings and so far havent seen anything else in there. And the gnome one is pretty much meaningless too.

Descent into Avernus havent had a read through yet.

I've only had a glance at Out of the Abyss and cant speak really on any of the others yet. I just assumed that the others were more of the same. Mostly meaningless entries. I have a suspicioun that even Waterdeeps insertions will turn out to be mostly meaningless.

Quote from: Aglondir;1124956I have two full shoeboxes of LBS. Regretfully, not much from the final set, The Awakening, which is hard to find. If I ever run it, I'm going to create two decks to use for random encounters: One of NPCs and one of events. Draw one card from each, so you get "Fatima, assassin" and "Knife fight."  You could do that with other CCGs as well.

That is a great idea! And one that I have been working on here as my lil' pet project with MtG cards as a resource for a competing hegemon. Just search this forum, it is around.

... which reminds me, now that I am indoors. I should finish those other mini-adventures drafted for that ersatz Eastern-European "Baroness Necromancer of the Ice Age Swamps."

(Been otherwise very busy trying to keep older family supplied & connected.)

Quote from: Jaeger;1125218I actually read the linked bit about the Cliffhanger reboot...

"...when audiences are crying out for bold departures and off-beat takes on tried and trusted genre formulas. ..."

Ummm, no they're not.


And WOTC will never release a setting that has even a whisper of unwokeness to it.

6e will be the new 4e.

Batman now Chinese and Alfred is his gay uncle  https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/first-look-batman-meets-gossip-150001236.html

Quote from: Omega;1125294... Essentialls just has that weird throwaway bit with the gnomes. ...
...
Curse of Strahd has the totally throwaway mention of a crossdressing vishtani kid, how Barovia is a "diverse land", the gay relation of some knights, and even that was pretty much throwaway. The biggest is at the start where they go on about how Strahd is a "sexual predator" and Vampire = rapist.
...
Tomb of Annihilation has a throwaway mention of a guy and his husband, a cultist and her male and female incubus cohorts and possibly one or two other throwaways. Nothing really standing out.
...
Essentials has the infamous crazy married gnome kings ....

And that's just off the top of your head... Yikes!!

Quote from: Omega;1125294...
...throwaway mention ...
Other than that the insertions are meaningless.....

Except they're not meaningless. Not throwaway.

You remember them. Lots of people do.

That's how SJW's work: a little here, a little there. Slowly upping the ante until it all becomes Normal...

SJW Entryism of any kind or amount must be called out and stamped out.

Otherwise be prepared for Everything you Like about D&D to be Perverted, Inverted, and Subverted, until the "D&D" you loved is unrecognizable.

Just look at what they did to Marvel and DC comics...

Look at what they are already getting away with in 5e. "Throwaway" my ass. The normalization is clearly already working...

Anyone here really think that they won't double down HARD with 6e?

I think a 6e release for the 50th anniversary of D&D will be too hard for WOTC to pa$$ up.

5e will have been out 9 years by then, 1 longer than 3e. The perfect excuse for a double down...



On topic:
And despite having a cool sounding name: Al-Quadim will never be re-introduced by current year WOkeTC. Because sometimes the obvious is obvious.

Greetings!

You know, it is a shame that WOTC has just consigned the Al Quadim Campaign setting into oblivion. I remember buying most everything for the Al Quadim Campaign setting, and I always enjoyed everything they presented. The campaign setting usually featured detailed, interesting adventures, and fairly well-developed NPC's and villains. I also recall that nearly with every module, there were extensive maps and floor plans of all kinds of buildings, fortifications, palaces, and intriguing adventure locations. All of which was flavoured nicely with fantastic Arabian themes and writing. I think the Al Quadim Campaign setting is an outstanding example of a campaign setting done right, from start to finish.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1125450Greetings!

You know, it is a shame that WOTC has just consigned the Al Quadim Campaign setting into oblivion. I remember buying most everything for the Al Quadim Campaign setting, and I always enjoyed everything they presented. The campaign setting usually featured detailed, interesting adventures, and fairly well-developed NPC's and villains. I also recall that nearly with every module, there were extensive maps and floor plans of all kinds of buildings, fortifications, palaces, and intriguing adventure locations. All of which was flavoured nicely with fantastic Arabian themes and writing. I think the Al Quadim Campaign setting is an outstanding example of a campaign setting done right, from start to finish.
...

And that's the real shame.

WOkeTC wouldn't  have to create "new" content from scratch.

They already have all the content they need. They would just need a competent line developer to bring it all together in a cohesive whole. Editing, reformatting, and new art all around for a clean look.

But like most things un-Woke, the Muggle's will try and memory hole that which they do not approve of.

Quote from: Gagarth;1124686A setting with no white or Asian people and Orc adjacent races which are all evil.  Only an alt-right fascist could have written this.

A black version of MYFAROG?

Quote from: Jaeger;1125449And that's just off the top of your head... Yikes!!

Except they're not meaningless. Not throwaway.

1: Thats because we had a few threads on this recently.

2: They are throwaway and meaningless because they do nothing and no ones ever mentioned them even being there. Usually with this SJW nonsense they crow it so you know it. The stuff I mentioned tends to be one sentence or less and easy to miss. Its not at all in your face SJW rhetoric like that new trans character in 3e Arkham Horror.

Other than that bit on Strahd so far all the ones I've seen seem more like someone had a mandate to have X representation and someone else just dropped it in with zero fanfare. Resistance?

Quote from: SHARK;1125450Greetings!

You know, it is a shame that WOTC has just consigned the Al Quadim Campaign setting into oblivion. I remember buying most everything for the Al Quadim Campaign setting, and I always enjoyed everything they presented. The campaign setting usually featured detailed, interesting adventures, and fairly well-developed NPC's and villains. I also recall that nearly with every module, there were extensive maps and floor plans of all kinds of buildings, fortifications, palaces, and intriguing adventure locations. All of which was flavoured nicely with fantastic Arabian themes and writing. I think the Al Quadim Campaign setting is an outstanding example of a campaign setting done right, from start to finish.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Jaeger;1125456And that's the real shame.

WOkeTC wouldn't  have to create "new" content from scratch.

They already have all the content they need. They would just need a competent line developer to bring it all together in a cohesive whole. Editing, reformatting, and new art all around for a clean look.

But like most things un-Woke, the Muggle's will try and memory hole that which they do not approve of.

WOTC doesnt work that way. Theyd more likely release PDFs of the boxed sets and books in their original formats and then, if ever, do a setting overview or book like they have for other settings so far.