Dungeons, Cities, and Psionics

It's time to check in with the table-top scene, with a slew of products from earlier this year. With one exception, everything I have to discuss today is from Wizards of the Coast (WotC). The well-known maker of Dungeons and Dragons is having a banner year, a year they've been referring to as the 'Year of Dragons'. Their draco-specific products will get a look here on the site in a month or two, and later this month I should have a full report on the 4th Edition of the Shadowrun RPG. Today, though, we've got demons, psionics, epic-level play, and a second Player's Handbook. Oh yeah, and a 670-page, $120 sourcebook called Ptolus. Read on for my impressions of these great excuses to throw a d20.

Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss
James Jacobs, Erik Mona, Ed Stark
$29.95, 160 pages

The first in a series of sourcebooks detailing the denizens of the outer planes, Hordes of the Abyss is a title squarely aimed at the GM. Penned by some well-known alumni of Dungeon magazine, this text is a rare accessory, in that almost every D&D GM could make use of it at one point or another. Because of the popularity of the Abyss and its denizens throughout Dungeons and Dragons lore, after a certain point you can be certain your players will either be fighting, summoning, or visiting creatures from this horrific lower plane. It follows the same template as most location-specific sourcebooks; there are new feats, monsters, and spells, and a large section detailing the geography of the area. The most enlightening part of the book deals with the powerful, but fickle, demon princes that rule over the various layers. They're given statistics, but I find the material on who's squabbling with who much more interesting. If your players are even vaguely interested in traveling the planes, plot hooks like Graz'zt's war with Demogorgon or the machinations of Dagon are great ways to get players interested. This is a textbook example of what a great GM accessory should be; concise, specific, and heavily detailed.

Players Handbook II
David Noonan
$34.95, 224 pages

The Dungeon Master's Guide II (DMG II) gave GMs the tools they needed to run a better game. The Player's Handbook II (PHB II) aims to provide players with the tools to make and run a better character. There are some crunchy bits here, with new classes and spells filling out parts of the book, but even more space is spent on coming to understand your character and their place in the world. Every class is given a new look, examining not only what it can do but what role it should play in an adventuring party. How to act as an adventuring party is also explored, with game mechanics assigned to roleplaying elements like camp preparation and team-building exercises. Gamers familiar with White Wolf's titles will recognize the section on character backgrounds: archetypes that a player looking for a hook can exploit to get inside the head of his new avatar. While I'm very glad to have it on my shelf, I don't see this as a required text for every D&D player. There's nothing in here that a player absolutely has to have. New players are probably going to get more out of it than veterans; those who do purchase it will be getting a lot for their money.

Power of Faerûn
Ed Greenwood and Eric L. Boyd
$29.95, 160 pages

Power of Faerûn is a GM-specific text that offers reams of advice for dealing with players that are powerful enough to move mountains, found kingdoms, and win wars. Where many other WotC texts focus on mechanics, Power has almost no references to the D&D rules-set; consumers who like their sourcebooks crunchy should be advised. What Greenwood and Boyd fill the book with, instead, are hundreds of plot hooks and guidelines for running high level campaigns. If your players want to become nobility, build a keep, and tame the frontier, this book has exactly what you'll need. It's set in the Realms, of course, but many of the suggestions they make could be easily translated to other fantasy settings with a little work. I'm not sure how many DMs actually run epic-level campaigns, to be truthful, but it is still one of the more useful Realms supplements I've read. While the book is intended for epic play, every chapter is essentially a framework for an entire campaign. I highly recommend this to GMs looking for inspiration and a campaign workbook.

Complete Psionic
Bruce R. Cordell and Christopher Lindsay
$29.94, 160 pages

Unlike the other 'Complete' books, which provide variations on a theme for the core classes, Complete Psionic only increases options for campaigns which use the 'mind magic' introduced in the Expanded Psionics Handbook. With rules for psionics-using races, several new classes, abilities, and monsters, GMs that have a use for this material will be undoubtedly pleased. As far as I know, though, only a small percentage of campaigns actually use the obscure rules referenced in this book. Most campaigns stay close to the D&D world described in the core books, which have no mention of the sometimes confusing and often broken mechanics associated with psionics. Thus, for something like 99% of all D&D players and GMs, this book is completely useless. Considering the high utility factor of the other books in the 'Complete' series, or even the 'Races' series, the narrow focus of this text seems disappointing and wasteful.

Ptolus: Monte Cook's City by the Spire
Monte Cook, Sue Weinlein Cook, Todd Lockwood, et. al.
$119.99, 640 pages

A tour de force project from Malhavoc press, Ptolus is breathtaking (and backbreaking) to read. When I mentioned it earlier this year in connection to the freebie Player's Guide, I had no idea what I was getting myself in for. I sat down to flip through the book after last month's Gen Con, intending to skim enough to get an idea of the setting and pass on to you the salient points. Instead, I delayed this article by reading through the entire text cover-to-cover. The reason? It's special. Frustratingly, it's hard to pin down exactly what's special about it without doing a lot of arm waving. Ptolus isn't likely to bring many new players to D&D, being as niche and jargony as any other setting you're likely to encounter. I also don't think the well known settings that WotC publishes have anything to worry about; the Realms and Eberron are going to continue to outsell the books associated with the 'City by the Spire'.

Despite that, I found Mr. Cook's offering to be invigorating. A campaign setting built during the development process for the newer editions of Dungeons and Dragons, Ptolus is the hand-worn world used to test many of the concepts found in the Player's Handbook and Dungeons Master's Guide. Despite being so closely associated with core D&D, the setting still has enough deviation from the norm (guns, a few new races, technology) to make stale situations fresh. The book's astonishing size is due to the sheer amount of detail available. Each district of the city is described, as are important factions, several dungeons, the history of the world, technology, and magic. Probably the most surprising element of the text is its accessibility. Although there is a mountain of information available, each chapter is laid out in an intuitive fashion. Each district description contains only what's useful for running that area of the city; there are shops and streets listed, but no attempt is made to flesh out every single building. The book's utility is aided by sidebars on every single page (containing page references to key elements), several detailed glossaries and appendices, dozens of maps, and copious illustrations.

The book's extraordinarily high production value is breathtaking to behold. Not just the value of the layout, paper, and binding (although those are all amazing) ... the production value of the world has been polished to a mirror finish. That's really what makes Ptolus special; years of running characters through this setting has made Mr. Cook's vision crystal clear. His deep understanding of the 'City by the Spire', and his talent as a GM, is passed undiminished to the reader. As someone who runs games regularly, I found the book almost leaps from your hands with sheer potential. Some settings and sourcebooks leave you bewildered, wondering when you'll actually make use of the content you've purchased. Ptolus not only made me want to run games in the setting, it's inspired me to make other games and worlds better.

Given the cost, I expect few people will rush out and purchase this massive setting. Via DriveThruRPG, though, you can buy the entire book in sections in PDF format. Heck, if you're even vaguely interested the first chapter is free for the taking. At the end of the day, the Ptolus line is a testament to what a small publisher can do if with the proper inspiration. I don't think that this Mr. Cook's opus is going to change the way the industry works ... but I certainly hope it opens some eyes.

Survival against all odds.

[rascanban]

I'm impressed by the survival of this genre, especially with electronic and internet-enabled versions available. You don't have to go out looking for some friends to get together and play for hours and hours. You just turn on the PC and fire up text MUDs or MMORPGs. And with all of the challenges of the old and the advantages of the new, this still survives? Impressive indeed.

Wotc corporate greed

[Anonymous Coward]

Another printing of Dungeons and Dragons manuals.... Is this anything but another attempt to suck every last penny from loyal players.

Re:Survival against all odds.

[jzoetewey]

I suppose it is survival against all odds if what you get out of roleplaying games is the opportunity to kill monsters. A computer game can do that better and with less hassle (and getting one's friends in one room can be a major hassle).

If what you get out of roleplaying games is the opportunity to hang around with your friends, it's not survival against all odds at all. Computers don't do that better.

If what you primarily want to get out of role playing games is the improvised co-creation of a story, it's also not too much of a surprise. Computers allow you to create a story of a kind, but you can only interact with the world in ways that the designers allowed for (I admit that some give you a lot of possibilities).

Basically, table top gaming scratches a different itch. When I play roleplaying games, I come up with an idea for a game, campaign or character and get an experience more similar to creating something. When I play a computer game, I use other people's pre-defined characters or character concepts, explore a pre-defined world and solve pre-defined puzzles.

And on other games...

[Cheetahfeathers]

D&D is good if you want to play a kill them and take their stuff style of game... which isn't a bad thing if you enjoy it. D&D can be used for other things, but it's not the best tool for the task of many other styles of games. Check out Burning Wheel [burningwheel.org] for one. It's a great system for fantasy RP similar to what you find in D&D setting, but with a different direction for what the game rules encourage players to explore. If you like to focus primarily on character's past, ethics, beliefs, goals and dreams, then this game suits that style of storytelling much better than D&D.

hope its worth it

[Anonymous Coward]

Alot of people cry and moan about Dnd, that its to complex or that its to simple or that they just dont like using D20. All of these always make me feel sad about the next generation of table top gamers, its like we are a dying species that people are trying to activally hunted to death. It also makes me sad when I see book products for prices over $20 or when the writers play a game of one ups manship with one another. Not only are fewer people enjoying role playing, but the ones who do play are more concerned with the "roll" aspect of it. I hope these books don't subscribe to the same idea that options and variety make for better game play, I hope that they are more about having fun with the game...

then again i guess some people enjoy that aspect of the game....

Re:Survival against all odds.

[grc]

The simple fact that all RPG games are run by a HUMAN give RPG the edge it needs for survival. No computer run game will ever match the endless possibilities that a human DM can come up with. There are great tools out there which a HUMAN DM can use as an aide to his abilities and to allow for gaming between geographically separated players. One of the best out there is Battlegrounds: RPG Edition, an excellent tool from http://www.battlegroundsgames.com/ [battlegroundsgames.com].

Re:Survival against all odds.

[kidtexas]

I always thought computer game RPG's kinda sucked. Why even call them RPG's? My friends and I used RPG's (D&D, Shadowrun, Top Secret... Fuck Whitewolf and Magic) as an excuse to hang out, eat snack food, and generally goof off for a couple hours in a town where their was nothing to do. The whole point was that it was social and there was interaction with friends. It's a creative and social outlet -- something that PC RPG's lack in my mind.

Re:Survival against all odds.

[pdboddy]

Tabletop has declined greatly, especially compared to it's peak, probably in the eighties somewhere. But it will survive simply because it is not a video game. While finding a group to play in can be difficult depending on where you are, tabletop is a social activity. It is more enjoyable to see and hear how people roleplay their character, than to read text off the computer screen, or listen to a scratchy, tinny voice mumble (or scream) their part. You don't have to fuss with cables and IP addresses (assuming you've carted your pc elsewhere for a LAN party). And I have had times online where waiting around for the character types you need for your group takes more time than it would to gather the same five or six folks at your house... :P Getting out of the house to travel to another person's house may be the most exercise some folks get. :P Tabletop roleplaying also requires imagination, creativity, and improves both, as well as social skills. On an MMORPG, it's twitch, twitch, twitch to see who can click the mouse button fastest. You can also buy the entire D&D line for the same price as moderately capable computer. A hundred bucks will get you the three main D&D books, and your imagination should be able to fill in the rest, really. Other table top games are just as good, with lower prices (less books required). Tabletop won't go away entirely, as long as folks possess an imagination, and a desire to roleplay.

Complete Psionic quibbles and suckage

[wembley fraggle]

I agree with the premise: Complete Psionic was a pretty bad book. So bad, in fact, that some denizens of the D&D Psionics board banded together and wrote an alternative supplement that is easily 10 times better.

But don't go bad-mouthing psionics in your review. The base system is clear and well-thought-out. It's not broken at all, although it is misunderstood. It's even part of the core rules and SRD, so there's no reason why you can't read about it for yourself. No, Complete Psionics is bad because it lacked anything good. Nearly all of it was recycled from Dragon magazines or other supplements. There were nearly no good PrCs or powers to speak of. There were a handful of good ideas in there, but 80% of it was drek that nobody would use. That's why Complete Psionic was crap.

Open?

[redcorsair]

I think we D&Ders sometimes forget: this is an open system. You should not just go by whats in the books but also use your imagination and make something that is truly yours. I have no problem with people using what WotC gives us, but they seem to give us a whole lot of stuff we really don't need.