Slavers may not be a good adventure module, but the information about several locations around Woolly Bay was invaluable.
As for The Scarlet Brotherhood, at least it gave us hard facts about Amedio and Hepmonaland for the first time (discounting internet articles published earlier).
*Shudders*
The Doomtracter, umm, Doomgrinder was quite possibly THE worst adventure for Greyhawk I've ever read.
Ok, Gargoyle and Childs Play were much MUCH worse modules, but they didn't have all the lead-up and hype that The Doomgrinder had. I know that I was actually naive enough to be excited about its release ("At last! The secrets of this strange artifact revealed!").
By Istus, it was harder to stomach then a 12-hour marathon of Americal Idle or the Anna Nicole show!
Hrrrmmmm, what else?
Fate of Istus was a real stinker when you actually read it. It was basically a "book of lairs" written by several authors who had very little grasp of the overall plot. The adventure itself was clumsy, uncomplicated, and a real disappointment. I revised the living shizzle out of that thing and only barely managed to run it with any level of satisfaction.
Vecna Reborn -SUCKED- something that was never meant to be sucked. Vecna Lives! was good, but only after seriously revising it (I also involved the manifestation of Vecna with the players when they were first-level, so there was a hell of a build-up!). Die! Vecna Die! Likewise needs serious work, but can be a heck of an epic adventure if you weave things into your campaign properly.
I could go on, but this has already been too wordy. ;D
The rest at least have some use.
But as far as disappointing...
Slavers was moderately disappointing but not crushingly
Crypt of Lyzandred and Star Cairns are lame as adventures, though they have potential for random source ideas (I haven't read Doomgrinder)
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil was, I think, way lame. It reads barely better than a disjointed set of random monster encounters in a dungeon crawl.
Temple of Elemental Evil was slightly lame. It had tremendous potential, though, with a little tightening and editing of the dungeon (which was a bit out of control).
"Howl from the north" was also quite disapointing, i waited better from the sequel of 5 shall be 1.
But, as stupid fan do, i bought them all...
But i am still hoping to see someday great module or extension for greyhawk that i can be be proud of.
The flaw in the work wasn't the breakdown of the material from its former singular component (or my imagined belief in such a singular component), but the sheer amount of cross referencing made in the material to other rulebooks. The inclusion of the Half-Orc was a plus as well as the printing of the Thug kit but overall the references to other books caused problems for me.
The next MAJOR flaw was the lack of information on the deities of the world... we get a chart listing these deities but no descriptions of the deities or their specialty priests. A nice list of symbols but as I was looking at the product (before this my exposure was limited to Temple of Elemental Evil for the most part) I was thinking to myself "who the f*** are these gods! Where are the descriptions... oh From the Ashes and I went and looked for it and saw a FIFTY FRICKIN' DOLLAR PRICE TAG.
The next flaw was the referencing to materials from the early days and the From the Ashes period in such a way that you had to read the old material to get a good idea what was being talked about. Sure they weren't 100% essential but it would have helped if they were a little bit clearer on the topic.
The final flaw was that the material focused solely on the Domain of Greyhawk which frustrated me to no end.
So, in the beginning the material was NO HELP to an aspiring Greyhawk DM.
Aside from these problems though, the material was very well written and gave a great overview of the DOmain of Greyhawk and decent enough explorations of various regions. It felt like you were reading about a world out of Lieber, TOlkien and Vance all rolled into one and the artwork captured the feel of Greyhawk perfectly.
But again... totally USELESS in many, many ways until... The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. Oh man do these books help a DM out with interesting detail about the area around Greyhawk and the lack of crunch material makes it portable to a 3E campaign with little to no work. Awesome stuff in this day and age and very useful.
In 2E and 1998, it made me understand why the setting was canned.
But hell, the 98 revival was still better than Time of the Lance.
JAson
Originally posted by Mortepierre
As for The Scarlet Brotherhood, at least it gave us hard facts about Amedio and Hepmonaland for the first time (discounting internet articles published earlier).
Hard facts? I disagree. IMO, SB is the single most poorly researched and unimaginative piece of garbage ever written for Greyhawk. What could have been a truly original look at the native cultures of the regions was just a rehash of stupid stereotypes.
Jason
Originally posted by protonik
What do you expect?
From the author of SB? Not much.
From a Greyhawk product? I expect something that tries to give us a little more creative fantasy than "Olman are kinda like Aztec/Mayan cultures. They're naughty, they eat people, worship weird gods and use human sacrifice."
Roger Moore's 'Green Nightmare' article from Oerth Journal is far superior. At the risk of sounding full of myself, I think the relevant articles I've written for Canonfire are far better. SB was garbage.
Originally posted by protonik
What do you expect? Greyhawk is stereotypical fantasy.
No, actually, Greyhawk is PROTOTYPICAL fantasy. But let's stay on topic.
.
My main beef with the Scarlet Brotherhood presentation of Amedio and the Suel is that the two had nothing to do with each other! The Scarlet Brotherhood could have been bumped up to a 72 or 96 or whatever-page supplement easily... and the Amedio & Hepmonaland DESERVED their own articles.
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Regular Greyhawk steals its "bits" from Tolkein, Vance, and so forth. In the jungles of the south we have a chance to steal classic archetypes from a whole new bank of authors!
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Had I written such a supplement myself, I would have focused on Africa as envisioned by Haggard ('Allan Quartermain'), Burroughs ('Tarzan'), and similar authors. Dark, savage tribes! Ancient temples to primeval gods! Dangerous beasts and men of iron thews! Sweltering swamps and the black foliage of the Dark Continent which veils forever the secrets of... etc.
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And I definitely wouldn't have cut-and-paste big ol' chunks of the 'Aztec Mythos' and 'African Mythos' from the 1st-ed Deities and Demigods.
in SKR's defence the Olman were already saddled with the meso-american steriotype (and pantheon) well before he wrote the Scarlet Brotherhood accessory.
Originally posted by cwslyclgh
in SKR's defence the Olman were already saddled with the meso-american steriotype (and pantheon) well before he wrote the Scarlet Brotherhood accessory.
One module, and one ruined city did not have to become the hard and fast model for the entire culture.
Besides, in reading Tamoachan, there's enough little details here and there to suggest that the authors actually did some research on their subject matter.
SB's treatment of the Olman is cribbed solely from that module and the Deities & Demigods write up of the aztec gods.
One module, and one ruined city did not have to become the hard and fast model for the entire culture.
Ahh, but they did, Rich.
As for the "Meso-American stereotype", it bears mentioning that:
1. Not every Meso-American culture cut the hearts out of people on a mass production basis. Or even on an occasional basis for that matter.
2. Compared to certain sacrificial patterns of other cultures, focusing on that aspect to the degree portrayed in the accessory is excessive at the least. I've never seen any calls for a Thillronian Barbarian accessory to involve detailed explanations of how to perform the various human sacrifices the Norse practiced. Or an obsessive focus on Magna Mater cults having self-castrated male clerics.
The Al-Qadim setting managed to produce an entire line of products on a non-standard (that is to say non-European) culture that included the less pleasant elements without focusing on them exclusively, or even making them the main element.
Game products can be well researched. And they can be well written. You just have to expect that as the standard and make it clear when products don't meet it.
As to the meso-American thingamajig... there was a module beforehand and if SKR had veered from that module even an inch most of the GH community would have been all over his crap like maggots on rotten meat so he was in a no win situation on that one. You would have B****ed if he did veer and you would have B****ed if he hadn't.
Jason
I wouldn't. I would much rather be called a heretic and deal with that than have some poor product connected to me.
Higher standards.
They are possible.
As far as the Doomgrinder goes it was lame. The only thing that would have redeemed it would have been getting to keep the damn thing and using it to lay waste to Iuz, the Scarlet Brotherhood, etc. Our DM wouldn't play ball. He's stingy.
Originally posted by Samwise
So given a choice between doing a good product that ignored something that was of limited Greyhawk applicability in the first place and doing a poor product that was compatible with that product, you would choose to do a poor product so people couldn't accuse you of contradicting anything.
I wouldn't. I would much rather be called a heretic and deal with that than have some poor product connected to me.
Higher standards.
They are possible.
Who said that was what SKR did? I was pointing out that Greyhawk people tend to be more vocal about EVERYTHING. Considering the high quality of SKR's FR work, I imagine he did an excellent job on SLavers but GH fans being what they are, they cry FOUL.
Even in your statement you show the two sided coin of GH fans...
Jason
Originally posted by protonik
Who said that was what SKR did? I was pointing out that Greyhawk people tend to be more vocal about EVERYTHING. Considering the high quality of SKR's FR work, I imagine he did an excellent job on SLavers but GH fans being what they are, they cry FOUL.
Even in your statement you show the two sided coin of GH fans...
Jason
\
You did. When you tried excusing the weak and uncreative presentation of the Olman because of the Tamoachan module.
And you can imagine whatever you like, Slavers is poor work. It is poorly imagined, and derives most of its "punch" from rehashes of previous material. Worst of all the encounters are little more than overblown adventures, nowhere near complete in form and substance.
As for Greyhawk fans, I am one of their biggest critics around here. That doesn't mean Slavers is somehow quality material just because a Greyhawk geek doesn't like it.
I should also note that the post you were replying to was a specific criticism of the Scarlet Brotherhood, but as I said in my first post Slavers is pretty poor work as well.
Overall, if the best defense you can offer for those is that Greyhawk fans hate everything you are a perfect example of people who will settle for anything as long as it says Greyhawk on it.
Dragon Mountain wasn't a Greyhawk product, though I agree with you that it is a very poor piece. Any module that starts off by telling the DM to cheat by ignoring certain rules so the monsters have a better chance is not a particularly good example of high design. (The module directs to ignore the multiple attacks against low HD monsters of AD&D so the Kobolds will have a better chance. That is the equivalent of saying no iterative attacks for a high BAB in D20.)
The module directs to ignore the multiple attacks against low HD monsters of AD&D so the Kobolds will have a better chance. That is the equivalent of saying no iterative attacks for a high BAB in D20.
not realy... it is more like disallowing the cleave and great cleave feats... in 1-2e warriors got 1 attack per experience level against creatures with less then 1 full hit die... so a 20th level fighter could get 20 attacks against a band of kobolds.... the reasoning behind it is basicaly the same as that behind the cleave/great cleave feats...
note that they suggested limiting multiple attacks against low HD monsters... the warriors still got thier multiple attacks for thier higher level (3 attacks every 2 rounds at levels 6-12, and 2 attacks per round at level 14+) which they get against any opponent regardless of HD (and which are the equivilent of iterative attacks for a high BAB in 3e).
note also that only warriors (fighters, Paladins, and Rangers) got multiple attacks per round in 1-2e
Originally posted by protonik
As to the meso-American thingamajig... there was a module beforehand and if SKR had veered from that module even an inch most of the GH community would have been all over his crap like maggots on rotten meat so he was in a no win situation on that one.
Your point is possibly valid, but IMO doesn't apply in this case. As I mentioned, Tamoachan is one ruined city in one module. The Olman people ruled a huge empire. Had the author (I've been purposely avoiding naming names so as not to be assumed to be making a personal attack. Sean's other Greyhawk work was decent, honestly I'm not a great fan of his work, but my main complaint here is with SB, not the man in general or his overall body of work) simply said, "suprisingly to the SB explorers, the culture revealed at Tamoachan is only a small sampling of the diversity of the Olman people," it's my guess that most Greyhawk fans would have accepted it. True, you can't ignore Tamoachan, and you can't change the canon derived from that module, but we're talking about the entire Olman, Amedi and Touv cultures from the vast Amedio and Hepmonaland regions. It's my belief that applying the limited and shallow stereotypes about savage primitive cultures to the entirety of 3 races made this sourcebook utterly worthless.
Not to mention I disliked the entire "SB become a naval superpower and conquer the Azure Sea" plotline, but that, to be fair, was canon that Sean was shackled to from day one, we've got Jim Ward to thank for that garbage, iirc.