AnakinMiller
03-08-2003, 07:56 AM
Poorly written material does not sell. Gamers always say they would pay money for a cheap, crappy copy of some long abandoned campaign setting, but in truth, they wouldn`t. When a publisher begins to steadily put out lousy material, just as TSR did toward the end of its life, it loses its popularity. The 3rd Edition core books have been out for about 3 years now, and have already outsold the 2nd Edition core books. Quality has a direct bearing on popularity.
Quality is in the eye of the beholder. The only thing that is selling extremely well is the FR setting. That is unavoidable, unfortunately. Has anyone seen anymore Greyhawk material? Strange that since D&D 3e`s default world is Greyhawk. Speaking of Quality in Core books, I have been disappoited severely with the 3e Core books. The Manual of the Planes was terrible. The Deities and Demigods smacked me as a munchin fest. I hate the fact that they put stats on gods. No PC should be able to take on a god and actually have such a good chance at victory that stats are needed. The epic level handbook? I sold it 2 hours after I bought it. That the most Uber Munchin Fest book I think I have ever read. It was like reading my HackMaster books (well not exactly, I know HackMaster is ment to be a monty haul filled joke. The book of Vile Darkness while different, was useless in my games. I don`t tend to run high demonic/corruption plotlines.
Now I offer these items as the qualities I love about Birthright:
The fact that it did not....
have drow.....
have gnomes.....
have half dragons....
have 100001 different gods whose portfolios ranged from "The god of apples picked on tuesdays" to the Evil Lord of the Western Most Peak of the Southern Mountain Range of Doom.....
have an oriental/eastern/kung-fu/ninja setting......
have 23rd level bards/wizards/thieves on every corner......
have more than 2 dozen true wizards in anuire.......
have more than a dozen dragons in the world.....
have orcs, orges, 32 different species of dragons.....
allow demihuman subraces.....
gunpowder..... (Ok maybe it did but its still damn primitive and not widely used (ie waves of cerilia from Dragon Magazine))
I prefer a setting with more restrictions and less options. If you want to play in a campaign where you are an elven battle monk who hangs out with Johny the Gnoll and Markus the Barbarian why in the hell are yall setting it in Cerilia? Drop your group in a world whose history and racial interaction works for the party idea. Cerilia is not about multiracial interaction. It is a world filled with bigotry and outright racial hatred.
Humans hate Elves/Half-Elves/Orogs/Goblins/Gnolls
Elves/Hlf Elves hate Humans, Gnolls, Goblins
Orogs hate Humans/Elves/Goblins/Dwarves/Gnolls
Dwarves hate everyone else
Goblins hate Elves/Half-Elves/Humans/Orogs/Dwarves
Would I disallow Goblins as PCs? Not automatically. While goblins are hated outright in many areas of Cerilia, in the Northern Marches and Western Coast there are some neutral human/goblin interaction.
Would I disallow Gnolls as a PC? Yes, unless I was running a campaign set in or around the Gnoll fords in the Vos neck of the woods.
Would I disallow Minotaurs as a PC? Yes.... I saw enough players trying to cheese for super stats with those in 2e and I`ll be damned if a Minotaur is gonna come to power as a regent anywhere in Anuire (which is where I typically set my games.)
If anyone on the design team is reading this and keeping any sort of tally, but me down for a thumbs up on the idea for a sidebar entry on goblins PCs but a thumbs down on any planetouched, gensai, gnolls, etc.
That`s not what I`m disputing. Without the spirit and fervor of the people on this forum, this would never have come to be. Remaining true to the spirit of Birthright is essential, but there has to be new growth.
But the growth that is being suggested does not remain true to the spirit of Birthright. What is being suggested is to add a bunch of garbage that needs to stay in the forgotten realms. I find no reason to allow Planetouched/Gensai/Minotaur/Gnoll/Saghauin/Monk/Gnome/Psionic PCs
There are no psionics either...same reasoning
Just to play devils advocate, there where psionics in cerilia. The Hydra is formed from a former Psionicist. It is to my knowledge the only one mentioned in cannon material. The Campaign Setting recommended disallowing them.
Which speaking of that, I believe that the final draft of the Atlas of Cerilia should have another sidebar recommending banning Psionics/Planetouched/Gensai/Minotaurs/Gnolls/Saghauin/Monks/Gnomes
Magic items are much easier to acquire than feats. Magic items require the money and the availability, not having to wait two or three levels until you get another feat.
I personally believe aquiring feats should be easier than aquiring magic items in Cerilia. There simply are not many magic items floating around. The campaign is a low magic one. There are not hordes of items to found/bought/sold/auctioned. Getting a feat in the archery chain of feats would often be much easier than gaining a magical bow.
Stub file failed:
dos4gw.exe no such file or directory
You don`t have the Dos4Gw file on your computer. You need it in one of your path directories for the program to work. Many older Dos programs required this file.
Monks in Cerilia
(Sorry if this has been beaten to death, I`ve been offline since the day the alpha draft of BR d20 was released.)
Monks have absolutely NO place in Cerilia. There is not a single culture here that would create the Ki wielding mystic warriors. If you want to play a character that fights unarmed, then roll up a fighter and take unarmed fighting feats. It lets you play the concept of an unarmed warrior. You don`t get all the Ki and other "magic" monk abilities, but then again you shouldn`t. Sorry no Jackie Chan vs. The Black Knight.
-Anakin Miller
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Quality is in the eye of the beholder. The only thing that is selling extremely well is the FR setting. That is unavoidable, unfortunately. Has anyone seen anymore Greyhawk material? Strange that since D&D 3e`s default world is Greyhawk. Speaking of Quality in Core books, I have been disappoited severely with the 3e Core books. The Manual of the Planes was terrible. The Deities and Demigods smacked me as a munchin fest. I hate the fact that they put stats on gods. No PC should be able to take on a god and actually have such a good chance at victory that stats are needed. The epic level handbook? I sold it 2 hours after I bought it. That the most Uber Munchin Fest book I think I have ever read. It was like reading my HackMaster books (well not exactly, I know HackMaster is ment to be a monty haul filled joke. The book of Vile Darkness while different, was useless in my games. I don`t tend to run high demonic/corruption plotlines.
Now I offer these items as the qualities I love about Birthright:
The fact that it did not....
have drow.....
have gnomes.....
have half dragons....
have 100001 different gods whose portfolios ranged from "The god of apples picked on tuesdays" to the Evil Lord of the Western Most Peak of the Southern Mountain Range of Doom.....
have an oriental/eastern/kung-fu/ninja setting......
have 23rd level bards/wizards/thieves on every corner......
have more than 2 dozen true wizards in anuire.......
have more than a dozen dragons in the world.....
have orcs, orges, 32 different species of dragons.....
allow demihuman subraces.....
gunpowder..... (Ok maybe it did but its still damn primitive and not widely used (ie waves of cerilia from Dragon Magazine))
I prefer a setting with more restrictions and less options. If you want to play in a campaign where you are an elven battle monk who hangs out with Johny the Gnoll and Markus the Barbarian why in the hell are yall setting it in Cerilia? Drop your group in a world whose history and racial interaction works for the party idea. Cerilia is not about multiracial interaction. It is a world filled with bigotry and outright racial hatred.
Humans hate Elves/Half-Elves/Orogs/Goblins/Gnolls
Elves/Hlf Elves hate Humans, Gnolls, Goblins
Orogs hate Humans/Elves/Goblins/Dwarves/Gnolls
Dwarves hate everyone else
Goblins hate Elves/Half-Elves/Humans/Orogs/Dwarves
Would I disallow Goblins as PCs? Not automatically. While goblins are hated outright in many areas of Cerilia, in the Northern Marches and Western Coast there are some neutral human/goblin interaction.
Would I disallow Gnolls as a PC? Yes, unless I was running a campaign set in or around the Gnoll fords in the Vos neck of the woods.
Would I disallow Minotaurs as a PC? Yes.... I saw enough players trying to cheese for super stats with those in 2e and I`ll be damned if a Minotaur is gonna come to power as a regent anywhere in Anuire (which is where I typically set my games.)
If anyone on the design team is reading this and keeping any sort of tally, but me down for a thumbs up on the idea for a sidebar entry on goblins PCs but a thumbs down on any planetouched, gensai, gnolls, etc.
That`s not what I`m disputing. Without the spirit and fervor of the people on this forum, this would never have come to be. Remaining true to the spirit of Birthright is essential, but there has to be new growth.
But the growth that is being suggested does not remain true to the spirit of Birthright. What is being suggested is to add a bunch of garbage that needs to stay in the forgotten realms. I find no reason to allow Planetouched/Gensai/Minotaur/Gnoll/Saghauin/Monk/Gnome/Psionic PCs
There are no psionics either...same reasoning
Just to play devils advocate, there where psionics in cerilia. The Hydra is formed from a former Psionicist. It is to my knowledge the only one mentioned in cannon material. The Campaign Setting recommended disallowing them.
Which speaking of that, I believe that the final draft of the Atlas of Cerilia should have another sidebar recommending banning Psionics/Planetouched/Gensai/Minotaurs/Gnolls/Saghauin/Monks/Gnomes
Magic items are much easier to acquire than feats. Magic items require the money and the availability, not having to wait two or three levels until you get another feat.
I personally believe aquiring feats should be easier than aquiring magic items in Cerilia. There simply are not many magic items floating around. The campaign is a low magic one. There are not hordes of items to found/bought/sold/auctioned. Getting a feat in the archery chain of feats would often be much easier than gaining a magical bow.
Stub file failed:
dos4gw.exe no such file or directory
You don`t have the Dos4Gw file on your computer. You need it in one of your path directories for the program to work. Many older Dos programs required this file.
Monks in Cerilia
(Sorry if this has been beaten to death, I`ve been offline since the day the alpha draft of BR d20 was released.)
Monks have absolutely NO place in Cerilia. There is not a single culture here that would create the Ki wielding mystic warriors. If you want to play a character that fights unarmed, then roll up a fighter and take unarmed fighting feats. It lets you play the concept of an unarmed warrior. You don`t get all the Ki and other "magic" monk abilities, but then again you shouldn`t. Sorry no Jackie Chan vs. The Black Knight.
-Anakin Miller
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.