Neverwinter CS = First RPG book to focus on a city EVER?!

RPGPundit · August 13, 2011, 03:30:37 AM

If it was a typo they should do the minute amount of manning-up it takes to say "that was a typo". Instead of trying to cover it up with the most idiotic statement in their company history.

Seriously, the stupid, it burns.

RPGPundit

Benoist · August 13, 2011, 09:38:25 AM

Quote from: Zachary The First;473366Let's not forget the other exciting titles coming soon from WotC!

Tome of Things Your Character Might Purchase (160pp)
Coming September 2011

For the first time in recorded RPG history, a book all about additional weapons, items, equipment, and treasure! Now your characters will have something to spend all that gold on!

Return To The Return To The Tomb of Horrors (48pp)
Coming October 2011

For the first time in recorded RPG history, here's an incredibly challenging dungeon to your players! Since the hobby was invented in the early spring of 2008, no dungeon has been as deadly! D&D will also introduce traps, a new challenge that should confuse and entertain all but the most min/maxed of characters!

Drow With Two Swords And A Magical Goddamn Panther Trilogy (TBD)
Coming November 2011

Supplementing the incredible lore of this new Forgotten Realms setting (originally created by Ari Marmell) comes a groundbreaking fantasy trilogy. Witness as a noble-hearted drow attempts to leave the evils of an underground matriarchal realm and live a life of goodness and freedom in Faerun. Fortunately, a stout dwarf, powerful barbarian, mischievous halfling, and an appropriate love interest will accompany him each step of the way. We at WotC can guarantee you this is the first time gaming fiction has been in print! Join us for the founding of a new genre!

Greyhawk Campaign Setting (224pp)
Coming December 2011

Prepare yourself. For the first time ever, an entire fantasy campaign world, fresh from the fertile mind of Rich Baker and mapped in intricate detail and described before your very eyes. After the Mageblight Moon crashes into The Flanaess, this world of high magic is cast into a cataclysm where only those wearing spiky armor and an inordinate amount of decorative buckles can hope to survive. Explore the enchanted city of Greyhawk, now caught in a terrible civil war between its Dragonborn and Warforged factions!

Quoting this post for repetition.

Exploderwizard · August 13, 2011, 11:45:35 AM

There are tribesmen in the Amazonian rainforest who know more about the history of D&D than the WOTC gang.

They should just punt and sell the damn IP to someone who knows what to do with it.

Insufficient Metal · August 13, 2011, 11:57:17 AM

Quote from: Zachary The First;473366Let's not forget the other exciting titles coming soon from WotC!

I wish I could sig this entire post.

Zachary The First · August 13, 2011, 06:25:12 PM

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;473625I wish I could sig this entire post.

Thanks for the compliment!

RPGPundit · August 15, 2011, 11:46:38 AM

My god man, what were they thinking?!! How can the largest gaming company in the world be this incompetent at this sort of thing?!!

RPGPundit

jgants · August 15, 2011, 12:15:21 PM

Quote from: Pete;473334Yeah, as a recovering 'lowercase 4' 4venger, WotC has been bugging the hell out of me for the past year. I thought they were onto something and had things figured out with Essentials and Gamma World, but they've been running around like headless chickens and throwing spaghetti at the wall, hoping something will stick, with the D&D line ever since.

At this point, I think it's best to let it die for a year or two and do a reboot.

Yeah, that was kind of my thought as well.

I liked the original 4e game (despite that their marketing, and I don't just mean communications, was horrible from day 1), but they are flailing like crazy at the moment and I really don't understand how it is good for the brand or the company to never have a single, consistent focus for the product.

Benoist · August 15, 2011, 01:49:31 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;473894My god man, what were they thinking?!! How can the largest gaming company in the world be this incompetent at this sort of thing?!!

RPGPundit

Maybe because they are the largest company in the world...

Melan · August 15, 2011, 02:35:05 PM

Quote from: Benoist;473267From there on RPGnet:
QuoteI e-mailed them about this yesterday. I got a reply from customer service explaining that Neverwinter was the first single book focused on a single city, all previous efforts had been boxed sets.
[/URL]

There goes my "they may have meant it to say the first book on Neverwinter" theory. :hmm: Well, whatever, there are better things to be concerned with. [edit]Like, say, I reread Khare: Cityport of Traps on my vacation last week. It was published in the Steve Jackson's Sorcery! gamebook line, and shows it was written for a young audience, and some of the encounters require a major suspension of disbelief, but damn it is one fine city, and John Blanche's art really gives it its seedy character. There should be more cities like that for role-playing games.[/edit]

DKChannelBoredom · August 15, 2011, 03:48:30 PM

Quote from: Melan;473923Like, say, I reread Khare: Cityport of Traps on my vacation last week. It was published in the Steve Jackson's Sorcery! gamebook line, and shows it was written for a young audience, and some of the encounters require a major suspension of disbelief, but damn it is one fine city, and John Blanche's art really gives it its seedy character. There should be more cities like that for role-playing games.

Oh yes - the Fighting Fantasy cities, like Blacksand and Khare are awesome. I remember buying the Danish version of Khare: Cityports of Traps when I was around 15, and can still vividly remember art from the book, like the youths with fireball eyes and the bearded undead coming apart, with each appendix attacking you, or that Mindflayer lookalike with a meatcleaver, standing in his kitchen! Gotta look for that book next time I visit my parents.

Planet Algol · August 15, 2011, 03:54:22 PM

Both Khare and Blacksands operate under the wonderful conceit of a "hive of scum and villany" as an urban dungeon; something that seems to be sorely underutilized in RPG cities aside from the City State of the Invincible Overlord, and to a somewhat lesser degree Zothay and Vornheim. Not to denigrate the two aforementioned products, but they don't have the explicit "city as dungeoncrawl vibe" possessed by the Fighting Fantasy books and the CSIO.

Melan · August 15, 2011, 04:11:10 PM

Sure. Actually, one of my reasons for rereading Khare was to pick up ideas for my next campaign - implementing the "city-as-dungeoncrawl" aspect was one of the things that fascinated me. It is actually not very easy; there are a few tricks like using City Encounters and its companion volume for nighttime encounters (mine; currently Hungarian only, and TBR), but a complex, living environment:

either produces very high "scene complexity", making it hard to GM,
or you can end up with too much abstraction, with the PCs zigzagging through the city between points (hubs) of adventure.

Khare did give some very good ideas, though.

Planet Algol · August 15, 2011, 04:36:03 PM

Well, the ironfisted railroading certainly keeps Khare and Blacksands manageable. Another conceit that works in their favour is "The hive of scum and villany as mythic underworld," these shitholes are so far beyond the pale that they don't operate according to logic and reason.

Planet Algol · August 15, 2011, 04:39:38 PM

Also City Encounters is a fine, fine volume and highly useful for more than city encounters. In my last session in a wilderness environment it was used with wonderfully sardonic effect.

Patrick Y. · August 15, 2011, 05:34:16 PM

Quote from: Zachary The First;473366Let's not forget the other exciting titles coming soon from WotC!

Drow With Two Swords And A Magical Goddamn Panther Trilogy (TBD)
Coming November 2011

Supplementing the incredible lore of this new Forgotten Realms setting (originally created by Ari Marmell) comes a groundbreaking fantasy trilogy. Witness as a noble-hearted drow attempts to leave the evils of an underground matriarchal realm and live a life of goodness and freedom in Faerun. Fortunately, a stout dwarf, powerful barbarian, mischievous halfling, and an appropriate love interest will accompany him each step of the way. We at WotC can guarantee you this is the first time gaming fiction has been in print! Join us for the founding of a new genre!

The whole post was great, but this one slew me.