Quote from: oggsmash on March 23, 2022, 08:08:13 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 23, 2022, 07:54:33 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on March 23, 2022, 07:46:17 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 23, 2022, 07:00:30 PM
You simply can't accept or perhaps cannot understand the concept of differing world laws.

And neither can you, cuz all you're doing is proposing some sort of "enhanced virtues" BS (whatever that even means) as an ill defined handwaviun measure, then falling back on some vague appeal to possibilities as means for us to accept that even makes sense. Or that altering people's virtues as a means to indirectly enforce certain behavior somehow doesn't entail magic brainwashing or wouldn't have negative consequences. You even claim that people would still be able to make their own choices (somehow) when the idea that some "virtue enhancing" magic that prevents them from engaging in certain behaviors pretty much precludes the possibility of making their own choices.

I'm talking about world laws (torg) or planar traits (D&D) that apply to all creatures in that world. IRL, we have world laws that give us physics, chemistry, and other hard sciences. We also have less rigid soft sciences. In other worlds, this doesn't have to be the same. Looney Tunes operates in with world laws that considerably alter physics. Four-color comics operate with world laws that alter behavioral norms. A D&D world could exist where the natural state of every person was to have morality and virtues that would make a (1e-3e) paladin proud. And still, some of those paladin-like folks might fall because they still have free will.

  With those conditions it certainly seems plausible...but I am not so sure it would be the most fun place for my group to adventure, or even visit beyond a quick pop in and pop out.  It seems like the sort of place that would rate about a paragraph in the old Q1 module as a dimension you could enter through one of the many dimensional gates there.

Not that I care at all about D&D at this point, but I think the product we are discussing is providing a little utopia to go to between adventures. The other worlds you might adventure in don't have to be utopias (but you can try and spread yours to them...).

Well I'm sure WOTC will send SUCKER!, er, Thank You! notes to everyone here who has so graciously given them free advertising.

Can someone point me to the link where WotC says there are "no intrigues, no lurking monsters, no gritty crime-ridden streets" or something of the sort?

It will be strange if that is the case. Combat used to be one of the three pillars of 5e, and this is not the first module I hear is "combat light" (The Wild Beyond the Witchlight being the other).

Not that I've read any of these modules, but CoS, ToA and a=Avernus are decent enough - with lots of combat - despite the abysmal organization (and the blatant railroad of the latter, and weak beginnings of all campaigns).

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 23, 2022, 08:14:58 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on March 23, 2022, 08:08:13 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 23, 2022, 07:54:33 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on March 23, 2022, 07:46:17 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 23, 2022, 07:00:30 PM
You simply can't accept or perhaps cannot understand the concept of differing world laws.

And neither can you, cuz all you're doing is proposing some sort of "enhanced virtues" BS (whatever that even means) as an ill defined handwaviun measure, then falling back on some vague appeal to possibilities as means for us to accept that even makes sense. Or that altering people's virtues as a means to indirectly enforce certain behavior somehow doesn't entail magic brainwashing or wouldn't have negative consequences. You even claim that people would still be able to make their own choices (somehow) when the idea that some "virtue enhancing" magic that prevents them from engaging in certain behaviors pretty much precludes the possibility of making their own choices.

I'm talking about world laws (torg) or planar traits (D&D) that apply to all creatures in that world. IRL, we have world laws that give us physics, chemistry, and other hard sciences. We also have less rigid soft sciences. In other worlds, this doesn't have to be the same. Looney Tunes operates in with world laws that considerably alter physics. Four-color comics operate with world laws that alter behavioral norms. A D&D world could exist where the natural state of every person was to have morality and virtues that would make a (1e-3e) paladin proud. And still, some of those paladin-like folks might fall because they still have free will.

  With those conditions it certainly seems plausible...but I am not so sure it would be the most fun place for my group to adventure, or even visit beyond a quick pop in and pop out.  It seems like the sort of place that would rate about a paragraph in the old Q1 module as a dimension you could enter through one of the many dimensional gates there.

Not that I care at all about D&D at this point, but I think the product we are discussing is providing a little utopia to go to between adventures. The other worlds you might adventure in don't have to be utopias (but you can try and spread yours to them...).

  Also I can see it....I just do not see a market for it.  Paragraph on a sheet of paper in my notebook.  Not a 40-50 dollar book.   I am same, no D&D for me, but if they at least had inspired setting  material I would be tempted to buy it (I can convert D&D material to GURPS or SW just about on the fly at this point, or at least within a certain band) for rip off material and a time saver for cooking up maps and story ideas.

In retrospect, I'm sorry about bringing up heaven. That's too charged with real-world beliefs, and we are talking about fiction here.

Also, to clarify, I know nothing about WotC's Radiant Citadel. I haven't read it, and am making no comment about that product in particular. I avoid talking about products based solely on marketing and/or hearsay. This is a digression about utopias in fantasy fiction in general.

Quote from: oggsmash on March 23, 2022, 08:08:13 PM
  With those conditions it certainly seems plausible...but I am not so sure it would be the most fun place for my group to adventure, or even visit beyond a quick pop in and pop out.  It seems like the sort of place that would rate about a paragraph in the old Q1 module as a dimension you could enter through one of the many dimensional gates there.

For utopias in fantasy fiction, I picture places like Tolkien's Rivendell, or the Emerald City after the second Oz book, or Narnia's Cair Paravel in its Golden Age. It's a nice place to visit, and you can have interesting discussions, and nothing bad happens there. It's a place to rest and relax and socialize, and characters can retire there and live happily ever after. Active characters can still go out from there into the wider world, though, to have dangerous adventures.

I think modern fantasy fiction tends to not have places like this, being more focused on grim-and-gritty. I don't want every setting to have these, but I think they're good as an option and I don't think there's anything fascist about them.

  50 bucks is a big ask for what amounts to a big old tavern to rest in.

Quote from: oggsmash on March 23, 2022, 08:46:34 PM
  50 bucks is a big ask for what amounts to a big old tavern to rest in.

According to the description, the book isn't primarily a setting book about the Radiant Citadel. It's a collection of 13 short adventures. Here's the official description:

QuoteJourneys through the Radiant Citadel is a collection of thirteen short, stand-alone D&D adventures featuring challenges for character levels 1–14. Each adventure has ties to the Radiant Citadel, a magical city with connections to lands rich with excitement and danger, and each can be run by itself or as part of an ongoing campaign. Explore this rich and varied collection of adventures in magical lands.

• Thirteen new stand-alone adventures spanning levels 1 to 14, each with its own set of maps
• Introduces the Radiant Citadel, a new location on the Ethereal Plane that connects adventurers to richly detailed and distinct corners of the D&D multiverse
• Each adventure can be set in any existing D&D campaign setting or on worlds of your own design
• Introduces eleven new D&D monsters
• There's a story for every adventuring party, from whimsical and light to dark and foreboding and everything in between

It hasn't come out yet, but I suspect it will be similar to the Candlekeep Mysteries book that I do have. That book has about 10 pages about the setting of Candlekeep itself, but almost all the rest of the 224 pages is split among the 17 short adventures. Only one of those adventures is set within Candlekeep itself. The rest all have an initial hook within Candlekeep but then the main action takes place elsewhere.

Quote from: jhkim on March 23, 2022, 09:00:44 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on March 23, 2022, 08:46:34 PM
  50 bucks is a big ask for what amounts to a big old tavern to rest in.

According to the description, the book isn't primarily a setting book about the Radiant Citadel. It's a collection of 13 short adventures. Here's the official description:

QuoteJourneys through the Radiant Citadel is a collection of thirteen short, stand-alone D&D adventures featuring challenges for character levels 1–14. Each adventure has ties to the Radiant Citadel, a magical city with connections to lands rich with excitement and danger, and each can be run by itself or as part of an ongoing campaign. Explore this rich and varied collection of adventures in magical lands.

• Thirteen new stand-alone adventures spanning levels 1 to 14, each with its own set of maps
• Introduces the Radiant Citadel, a new location on the Ethereal Plane that connects adventurers to richly detailed and distinct corners of the D&D multiverse
• Each adventure can be set in any existing D&D campaign setting or on worlds of your own design
• Introduces eleven new D&D monsters
• There's a story for every adventuring party, from whimsical and light to dark and foreboding and everything in between

It hasn't come out yet, but I suspect it will be similar to the Candlekeep Mysteries book that I do have. That book has about 10 pages about the setting of Candlekeep itself, but almost all the rest of the 224 pages is split among the 17 short adventures. Only one of those adventures is set within Candlekeep itself. The rest all have an initial hook within Candlekeep but then the main action takes place elsewhere.

  Saw a summary detailing a few of those.  Did not look amazing.  I thought the yawning portal was pretty good.    Maybe these are a good deal better than they look.    Again, a pretty big ask unless there is something very compelling between the covers.

Quote from: oggsmash on March 23, 2022, 09:05:26 PM

Quote from: jhkim on March 23, 2022, 09:00:44 PM
It hasn't come out yet, but I suspect it will be similar to the Candlekeep Mysteries book that I do have. That book has about 10 pages about the setting of Candlekeep itself, but almost all the rest of the 224 pages is split among the 17 short adventures. Only one of those adventures is set within Candlekeep itself. The rest all have an initial hook within Candlekeep but then the main action takes place elsewhere.

  Saw a summary detailing a few of those.  Did not look amazing.  I thought the yawning portal was pretty good.    Maybe these are a good deal better than they look.    Again, a pretty big ask unless there is something very compelling between the covers.

So you liked Tales from the Yawning Portal? I avoided that because my inclination was to just run the original material using 5E rules. I had already run both Sunless Citadel and Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan using the original modules and 5E rules/stats. Did the book seem worthwhile to someone who already has the original material?

Of the official WotC modules, I'm most familiar with Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Out of the Abyss. Both of those were pretty bad, in my opinion. I thought that Candlekeep Mysteries was much better than those two. It's a collection of short adventures rather than an epic path, but the quality of each was better than the sections in the former. I haven't used Candlekeep in play yet, though.

Quote from: jhkim on March 23, 2022, 09:21:07 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on March 23, 2022, 09:05:26 PM

Quote from: jhkim on March 23, 2022, 09:00:44 PM
It hasn't come out yet, but I suspect it will be similar to the Candlekeep Mysteries book that I do have. That book has about 10 pages about the setting of Candlekeep itself, but almost all the rest of the 224 pages is split among the 17 short adventures. Only one of those adventures is set within Candlekeep itself. The rest all have an initial hook within Candlekeep but then the main action takes place elsewhere.

  Saw a summary detailing a few of those.  Did not look amazing.  I thought the yawning portal was pretty good.    Maybe these are a good deal better than they look.    Again, a pretty big ask unless there is something very compelling between the covers.

So you liked Tales from the Yawning Portal? I avoided that because my inclination was to just run the original material using 5E rules. I had already run both Sunless Citadel and Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan using the original modules and 5E rules/stats. Did the book seem worthwhile to someone who already has the original material?

Of the official WotC modules, I'm most familiar with Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Out of the Abyss. Both of those were pretty bad, in my opinion. I thought that Candlekeep Mysteries was much better than those two. It's a collection of short adventures rather than an epic path, but the quality of each was better than the sections in the former. I haven't used Candlekeep in play yet, though.

  I thought it was pretty good. I had 1e versions of 4 of the modules in the book, that were lost to me thanks to bootcamp and leaving them with a young brother....who managed to lose them.  So it was largely a nostalgia purchase.  I also find it super useful since I do not run D&D ( I will play it, but GM'ing it does not interest me) and the DM (interesting enough, is the same brother who lost the original modules) needs all the creative inspiration he can get.   So I cant give an honest answer here, if I still had those modules (Shrine/White plume/G1-3/Tomb of horrors) I do not know if I would have bought it for value...but I probably still would have picked it up for consolidation of nostalgia (which is the real reason I initially got it when I was DM'ing).

   The longer book sized modules/campaigns for D&D do not interest me at all.  I do have Rappan Athuk, but that is really a whole bunch of (lots of times unrelated) smaller adventures.  I suspect my preference in fiction reading (short story versus epic novel) might influence that.  I *might* DM RA, but I could see me doing a conversion to SW for that one, waiting on the print version of savage pathfinder to consider seriously.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on March 23, 2022, 08:27:08 PM
Can someone point me to the link where WotC says there are "no intrigues, no lurking monsters, no gritty crime-ridden streets" or something of the sort?

It will be strange if that is the case. Combat used to be one of the three pillars of 5e, and this is not the first module I hear is "combat light" (The Wild Beyond the Witchlight being the other).

Not that I've read any of these modules, but CoS, ToA and a=Avernus are decent enough - with lots of combat - despite the abysmal organization (and the blatant railroad of the latter, and weak beginnings of all campaigns).

Sounds like the city itself is a safe haven and any fighting is to be done outside the dimension.
Its similar I guess to how Rodenberry's Pax organization was peaceful. But everywhere around them tended to be very not.
Of so it suggests the place is screening entrants or has some system for dealing with troublemakers.

QuoteJourneys Through the Radiant Citadel features 13 adventures, all written by people of colour. Here's a quick peek at three of them, as details start to emerge across the internet!

    Salted Legacy (1st level, Surena Marie). Rival merchant families are at war in the Night Market. Various challenges such as a timed cooking challenge.
    Written in Blood (3rd level, Erin Roberts). Based on the black experience in the Southern US, features a haunted farm and commoners who becoming violent; the adventurers need to figure out why without harming them.
    Shadow of the Sun (11th level, Justice Arman). Persian-themed, factions in a city ruled by a celestial being are in conflict.

The lovely thing about the years beyond 1974 is we have other options for fantasy RPGs to play. First, we had Tunnels & Trolls and soon RuneQuest, Palladium Fantasy, Fantasy Hero, Chartmaster and many more. Today we have the option of THOUSANDS of RPGs written in the past 4.8 decades to play instead of D&D.

We literally have 1000s of choices. Easily a 100 good-enough RPGs to replace ever having to touch a WotC shitstain book ever again.

There's zero reason for anyone to give WotC a dime unless you enjoy gobbling down their retarded woke bullshit.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 23, 2022, 11:16:16 AM
I'd sooner run Blue Rose, at least that has the possibility of conflict. Ye gods and little fishes.

Actually, BR was pretty great. --- Yeah, I know your comment was three pages ago, and I know that this probably is not interesting to you, in the least, but...
I bought that book by accident, back in the day, and never regretted the purchase in the least. (I thought it was the True20 basic manual. True story.)
I personally am probably never going to level my PC in the Wedding Planner Prestige Class, but - daaaaamn, that was a great game: Deep, and smart, and genuine.
Gayer than my sleeveless pink shirt with Viggo Mortensen's face on it, but, in two words, pretty awesome.

"Schneider's Citadel", in turn. Deep? Smart? Genuine, most of all? - Yeah, uuuhm, probably not.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 23, 2022, 05:54:09 PM

Quote from: RandyB on March 23, 2022, 05:45:53 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 23, 2022, 05:25:41 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 23, 2022, 05:16:38 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 23, 2022, 05:03:46 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 23, 2022, 05:01:11 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on March 23, 2022, 04:56:04 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 23, 2022, 04:49:54 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on March 23, 2022, 04:43:11 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 23, 2022, 03:56:14 PM
I already commented in the other thread regarding this, but I'll repeat something of what I said there:

What they think they wrote is an Utopia, and like ALL Utopias, once you scratch the surface you realize it's just another Dystopia.

If you want an expanded explanation go read my post there.

  I think Utopia is closer for some people than others, to be honest.  That book seems to be a utopia for people who have never really worked hard, struggled, or had to fight for anything.  I know a couple people who homestead, and they seem to be the happiest people I know.  I would not say they live in a utopia....but if your general quality of life is about maxed out according to your desires, and you literally get up every day happy to do what you do, be where you are, and with the people around you....I guess they could call it a utopia. 

    The problem is many of these utopias are IME imagined by people who are simply miserable.  Every day.

It's a fascist Dystopia. Their book not your friends lifestyle.

  I agree there, my idea being "utopia" is possible on a personal small community level.  Large scale...no.

With sufficient magic, anything is possible.

Yep, magic ensuring everybody has only happy-happy thoughts, where happy-happy is defined by Big Brother, who is of course always watching you.

So, fascism, magically enforced fascism.

Your assumptions are showing. There are better ways of accomplishing utopia via magic thab by emulating fascist control.

Oh really!? Please do illuminate us with ONE of those.

A magical equivalent of Larry Niven's tasp - perpetual stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain.

No, that doesn't sound interesting to me, either.

So, exactly what I said? Happy-Happy thoughts enforced by magic, where Happy-Happy is defined by Big Brother. How the fuck isn't that fascism?

Yep. Of the Brave New World kind, not the Animal Farm/1984 kind.

Quote from: RandyB on March 24, 2022, 08:08:49 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 23, 2022, 05:54:09 PM

Quote from: RandyB on March 23, 2022, 05:45:53 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 23, 2022, 05:25:41 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 23, 2022, 05:16:38 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 23, 2022, 05:03:46 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 23, 2022, 05:01:11 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on March 23, 2022, 04:56:04 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 23, 2022, 04:49:54 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on March 23, 2022, 04:43:11 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 23, 2022, 03:56:14 PM
I already commented in the other thread regarding this, but I'll repeat something of what I said there:

What they think they wrote is an Utopia, and like ALL Utopias, once you scratch the surface you realize it's just another Dystopia.

If you want an expanded explanation go read my post there.

  I think Utopia is closer for some people than others, to be honest.  That book seems to be a utopia for people who have never really worked hard, struggled, or had to fight for anything.  I know a couple people who homestead, and they seem to be the happiest people I know.  I would not say they live in a utopia....but if your general quality of life is about maxed out according to your desires, and you literally get up every day happy to do what you do, be where you are, and with the people around you....I guess they could call it a utopia. 

    The problem is many of these utopias are IME imagined by people who are simply miserable.  Every day.

It's a fascist Dystopia. Their book not your friends lifestyle.

  I agree there, my idea being "utopia" is possible on a personal small community level.  Large scale...no.

With sufficient magic, anything is possible.

Yep, magic ensuring everybody has only happy-happy thoughts, where happy-happy is defined by Big Brother, who is of course always watching you.

So, fascism, magically enforced fascism.

Your assumptions are showing. There are better ways of accomplishing utopia via magic thab by emulating fascist control.

Oh really!? Please do illuminate us with ONE of those.

A magical equivalent of Larry Niven's tasp - perpetual stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain.

No, that doesn't sound interesting to me, either.

So, exactly what I said? Happy-Happy thoughts enforced by magic, where Happy-Happy is defined by Big Brother. How the fuck isn't that fascism?

Yep. Of the Brave New World kind, not the Animal Farm/1984 kind.

EXACTLY!