This past weekend I got the latest in the "environmental series" from Wotc. Following on the heels of the fantastic Frostburn (which was a generally fine product and had good use of Greyhawk material for a "default" product), I was really looking forward to Sandstorm. Well, Sandstorm blows.
It is nowhere near as good as Frostburn. Use of GH material is almost nonexistent. The PrCs use the new "expanded" format, which means there are fewer PrCs and those there are have lots of fluffy, useless filler; the PrCs in Sandstorm generally suck in any case. Not all monsters are illustrated. None of the deity entries are illustrated.
The basic concept is even flawed. Where Frostburn covered cold climates, Sandstorm covers its own sandy invention - The Waste. What a perfect description of this product. _________________ GVD
Ungh! What a stab to read before I go out to my LGS this afternoon. I wasn't banking on GH material (or PrC's for that matter), I never do with wotc anymore, but the rest of it I am hoping will be useful environmentally for my future Baklunish West campaign efforts. I will still buy it and see if my assessment concurs with yours later.
I agree with GVD.
The whole concept of "The Wastes" is severely strained, and wastes (no pun intended) an area with great potential.
Rather than dwell on real desert and semi-desert conditions, it strives to create a variety of vaguely relevant magical environments to spend most of its effort on. Indeed, that makes me wonder if the water environment book will find itself combining wetlands with actual oceans to make its page count.
Likewise GVDs note about excessively padded Prestige Class descriptions. While it does have the fortunate effect of limiting the number thrown out there, it is a massive waste of book space. And that same sentiment extends to the lack of illustration for certain monsters. The dire jackal, turtle, and vulture are absurdly hilarious, so it is a 50/50 thing just how amusing the dire hippopotamus would be.
The overuse of Arab/Egyptian themes is also a major waste of the book. While such material can be quite good, the Al-Qadim line was of very high quality, it would be nice to see any of the other slew of desert and semi-desert cultures presented as a default some time, once, ever, maybe.
Coming on the heels of Races of the Wild and having the same gratuitous padding noted by GVD, it would look like WotC is rushing books out before the next edition change. I wouldn't give any of these books more than a 3-4 year shelf life before a new version is available to lighten your wallet and burden your bookshelf. It remains to be seen how much their captive RPGA audience will support sales of these books.
Well, I just flipped through it quickly. I hate to agree, but WOTC strikes again. I think we will all be playing D&D long years after these books are forgotten.
Seems silly really.. a market of people wanting to buy, and this is the best they can do.
The overuse of Arab/Egyptian themes is also a major waste of the book. While such material can be quite good, the Al-Qadim line was of very high quality, it would be nice to see any of the other slew of desert and semi-desert cultures presented as a default some time, once, ever, maybe.
This is an excellent point. I have never met anyone who used the Deities and Demi-gods pantheons wholesale or even in greater measure.
More to the point, I think, there is a cautionary note for GH. Erypt? Sounds like Egypt. Zindia? Sounds like India. Nippon? Sounds like, well, Nippon! Etc.
I can live with these veiled fantasy names. Thankfully, Nippon, which is an actual name of course, seems to have the alternate canon name of Ruujin (sp).
I would be loath to see the real would analog cultures wholesale imported into these areas, however. Some fantasized version would, IMO, be much preferable. A connection, then, not a copy.
Sandstorm is a bad example, to a degree, of relying to heavily on real world mythology as immediate fantasy touchstone. IMO.
Samwise wrote:
Coming on the heels of Races of the Wild and having the same gratuitous padding noted by GVD, it would look like WotC is rushing books out before the next edition change. I wouldn't give any of these books more than a 3-4 year shelf life before a new version is available to lighten your wallet and burden your bookshelf. It remains to be seen how much their captive RPGA audience will support sales of these books.
Personally, I hope they announce 4E tommorrow. It can't come soon enough, IMO. And I hope it is written in a way that forces the use of minatures. And I hope it is utterly incompatible with 3E (and of course 2E, 1E and ODD). I think Wotc is cruising for a bruising and I would love to seem them thugged-up in the marketplace. Maybe then a nice round of high level firings will clean the lingering stench of TSR out of the place. One big, colossal, all consuming, devouring mistake to make Hasbro get "medievel" on Wotc's posterior and throw out the "old guard" is all I ask. I don't want much. And as Don Rickles says in that voice of his, "I'm a nice guy." _________________ GVD
Expect 4E in 2007. At least if I'm reading the current product schedule right. Maybe 2006 if they decide to accelerate, but i suspect they will balk at trying for a 3 year cycle.
As for a round of firings helping, it won't. What probably needs to be done is break WotC up. Split off the RPG division from the CCG into two completely separate companies. Then they won't have to deal with CCG marketing concepts being put on RPG products. Not that the CCG paradigm isn't good mind you - for CCGs. No one can deny the success of M:tG. But it doesn't work as well with RPGs. It didn't for TSR. It isn't for WotC. Then they need to figure out a way to reconcile the module vs. rules supplement sales issue.
I agree Sam, firings wont help. Most of the people who have turned out the horrendus products in the complete/environmental line have other quality work to their name. They are capable, I just dont think they are being given the time and/or resources.
I agree Sam, firings wont help. Most of the people who have turned out the horrendus products in the complete/environmental line have other quality work to their name. They are capable, I just dont think they are being given the time and/or resources.
Breaking up is hard to do, though.
I am all for the creatives, those who do the actual writing. It is my opinion that they are being poorly lead and that those in management positions have lost significant touch with the very game they are charged with overseeing. That said, I believe in second and third chances but at some point a continued failure to lead in a position of responsibility, or of imagination/innovation, should have, IMO, consequences. That it has not is a function, I believe, of TSR's general poor management, Wotc's (pre-Hasbro) timidity in the first years after the acquisition and Hasbro's "hands-off" management of its Wotc subsidiary.
If I had a property like the Forgotten Realms, I would not allow it to twist in the wind and slowly atrophy as it has been allowed to happen. If I had a property like Greyhawk, with such a storied past and loyal fanbase, I would not have cut the setting loose or used it for spare parts. If I wanted to launch Eberron or any new setting, I would do so within the context of my overall product mix and in a way that looked to expand my market rather than preaching to the choir - requiring my existing customers to either purchase another line of products or migrate from one of my lines to another. It likely would not have been Eberron in any case because the whole setting search was a poor development idea, IMO, even if an interesting marketing scheme.
Wotc's present "strategy" is reductionist - attempting to make more money off the same customers with only lip service paid to expanding the consumer base. Say what anyone will about Lorraine Williams, she saw the need for new customers and acted - even if that meant a wasteful "roll-over" strategy that saw one crop of 14 year olds replaced by a new crop every so many years. In fact, I will argue that Lorraine Williams laid the necessary groundwork for 3E and the OGL to be a success - her rollover strategy made it possible for Wotc to engage their initial "give us another look/welcome back" strategy (which has now all but played out) by making sure a generation of 14 year olds had heard of and played AD&D at one time and might be tempted to come back, if only for a time.
Wotc Hasbro is now living off Lorraine William's fumes IMO and near to running on management empty. There will be no "return of the gamers" and OGL to ensure 4E gets off to a good start. The great shame, IMO, is that, having coaxed many of "Lorraine's kids" back, Wotc Hasbro has proved incapable of either retaining them in large numbers or replacing them. In such an environment, the OGL (whatever its other flaws and strengths) now fractures and cannibalizes Wotc's limited market. Wotc now climbs back aboard the tried and true "release treadmill" that has proven of only temporacy succor, at best, in the past. It will surely not satisfy in a d20 environment, hastening 4E.
Wotc's best chance, given what appears to be their mindset, for 4E is to play off the success of the D&D minis. But they better hurry before the bud comes off that rose. Yes. Such a strategy is reductionist but it has an appearence of novelty that may appeal to fans (if they move quickly enough) and will, more importantly, give Hasbro execs the illusion that something meaningful is going on in the D&D back-40. That is important, as 3.5E more than amply demonstrated.
I hate to say it but IMO things will only get better after they get a whole lot worse. I'm looking for a 4E D&D meltdown. Hasbro then steps in and removes Wotc management and "assumes control" with toy executives, who preceed to create their own disaster. The D&D brand is trivialized, marginalized and rendered worth very little in a period of years. This sets up an eventual sale or license of D&D or parts thereof, including Greyhawk. D&D becomes subversive and a cult phenonemon again as it starts very close to where it all began.
Why do I like Canonfire so much? Leaving aside the outstanding contributions of its members , it is a lifeboat when the good ship Titanic, I mean D&D, hits the iceberg. _________________ GVD
As an note, if you read the individual sections of Sandstorm, several of them are of decent to high quality. It is the overall presentation that makes it fall flat. That I blame on the project and product managers, and not the authors. It isn't that hard to say "No more Arab or Egyptian stuff this time around." Unfortunately that seems to require something that is lacking is said people, and thus they do need replacing.
Several months ago, a worker at my FLGS recommended Liber Mortis. I recently bought it and am seriously disappointed. I thought there would be rules for creating compelling shades, animii, and sword wraiths, but none of these monsters were included. However, it appears that a version of Wolfgang Bauer's True Ghouls was included. I was hoping to buy Races of the Wild, but after purchasing Races of Stone, I was wary. When I reviewed RotW a few weeks ago, it appeared to lack adequate production standards.
In contrast, I'm pleased by a Privateer Press publication, the Iron Kingdoms World Guide. One way I read that book is to imagine what a quality World of Greyhawk book might look like. Are other GH fans familiar with the Iron Kingdoms setting? Its production values seem relatively high compared to WotC products.
Several months ago, a worker at my FLGS recommended Liber Mortis. I recently bought it and am seriously disappointed. I thought there would be rules for creating compelling shades, animii, and sword wraiths, but none of these monsters were included. However, it appears that a version of Wolfgang Bauer's True Ghouls was included. I was hoping to buy Races of the Wild, but after purchasing Races of Stone, I was wary. When I reviewed RotW a few weeks ago, it appeared to lack adequate production standards.
In contrast, I'm pleased by a Privateer Press publication, the Iron Kingdoms World Guide. One way I read that book is to imagine what a quality World of Greyhawk book might look like. Are other GH fans familiar with the Iron Kingdoms setting? Its production values seem relatively high compared to WotC products.
Liber Mortis is not to undead what the Draconomicon was to dragons (and where were the Gem Dragons, even so). I thought Liber Mortis was okay. For me, it was a "must buy" because I have this thing for necromancy. Everybody needs a hobby. It could have been so much more, and so easily, however. I'm more upset with Sandstorm dropping the ball after Frostburn was so good.
The Iron Kingdoms are AWESOME!
Great map. And every setting makes its first impression with its map, or lack thereof. ::cough:: Eberron ::cough::
Unique addition of steam-tech to classic "Medieval Fantasy" in a way that feels "medieval," not "punk" or "renaissance" or "victorian" or just wierd.
Unique addition of guns to classic "Medieval Fantasy" in a way that feels "medieval," not "punk" or "renaissance" or "victorian" or "western" or just wierd.
Detail that is magnificently cohesive and coherent.
Only 3 books to buy and it is ALL there!!!
The political setup is a bit two-dimensional, IMO, and the map is very "full" but these are relatively middling quibbles in the overall scheme of things.
If I did not have a Greyhawk game going on, I think I could switch to IK without too much trouble. Matter of fact, what got me to thinking about Chainmail was the thought that the IK setting could be dropped into NW Oerik without a hitch (Yeah. Yeah. Read the paladins of Murylynd Dragon article or Roger Moore's Sorcerous Sixguns Dragon article which
documents EGG flip-flopping on gunpowder in Greyhawk).
I absolutely agree about the IK as a model for how to present gaming material. If Privateer Press was not slower than slow with releases, I think the IK could have changed the market for RPGs (back 2 years ago?). Now? It kicks but will not revolutionalize the market, IMO.
Definately worth the money, IMO. But nearly $120 (3 books) if you are not going to play it? I've read a friend's copy of the books but I'm still working on the wife to let me get these. _________________ GVD
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Ungh! What a stab to read before I go out to my LGS this afternoon. I wasn't banking on GH material (or PrC's for that matter), I never do with wotc anymore, but the rest of it I am hoping will be useful environmentally for my future Baklunish West campaign efforts. I will still buy it and see if my assessment concurs with yours later.
It can't come soon enough, IMO. 
And I hope it is written in a way that forces the use of minatures. 
And as Don Rickles says in that voice of his, "I'm a nice guy." 
That said, I believe in second and third chances 
but at some point a continued failure to lead in a position of responsibility, or of imagination/innovation, should have, IMO, consequences. That it has not is a function, I believe, of TSR's general poor management, Wotc's (pre-Hasbro) timidity in the first years after the acquisition and Hasbro's "hands-off" management of its Wotc subsidiary.
