Quote from: Chainsaw;746324I thought the review was a fun read. Geoffrey should be happy people are now talking about IotU again. I would venture to say it had mostly been forgotten at this point.

I don't know what kind of deal McKinney has with James Raggi/LotFP; but I'm quite sure Raggi is crying all the way to the bank about this review.

I hope he's cutting you a check, heh.

Quote from: Steerpike;745700Isn't that why Zak from D&D With Pornstars got banned? (i.e. for defending Numenera)

Zak got banned for asking questions; more specifically for asking for evidence supporting posters positions, and then asking again when they simply repeated their assertions with different words but without any support.  

Quote from: Malfi;745750I understand exactly why pundit and the 10 foot pole blog didn't like the product. I think I would agree, though I haven't read the book.
But what about this? Maybe it was that things were trully so subtle nobody noticed them?

Quoted from geoffrey(in the other forum):

As a result of their explorations, the players discovered some of the underlying mysteries of the Isle. I don't want to spoil things too badly, so let me just give a few pointers:

1. Why are there 13 [14 if you count the Gemini twins as two] Zodiac mages? Shouldn't there be 12 [13 if you count the Gemini twins as two]?

2. If you plot the locations of the Zodiac mages on a hex map, what do you see?

3. What is the significance of the star Sirius?

4. What is the common factor amongst all the magic statues? Where did they come from? Whom do they really represent? Why do they look like pagan Roman statues?

5. Who are the two divinities who grant powers to clerics? Hint: The good clerics dress like Knights Hospitaller.

6. So who must the evil clerics worship? Uh, huh. And where does Dante say that he resides?

7. Why are the monsters all hostile? What is their origin? Could #6 and #7 have anything in common?

8. Why are most of the monsters chimeric?

9. Isn't it strange that there seems to be no undead on the Isle?

Etc.

There are more layers of intentional design in Isle of the Unknown than there are in Carcosa. Perhaps I can be faulted for being too subtle, though when writing my fear was of being too obvious. Perhaps I overcompensated by being too subtle, but I don't think so. I don't want to bludgeon the referee over the head. I want to give him cool stuff to use. I don't want to tell him how to use it. It's really none of my business how he uses it. I want to tease, to tempt, to suggest, to allude, to make a creative use of implications and silences. I want to arouse the referee's imagination. I don't want to smother it.

If this is the case, it would seem the author wrote the module expecting that the readers would be just like him, namely people who always try to read between the lines, and enjoy doing so. This ignores the inconvenient fact that a lot of people don't read between the lines, don't think trying to decipher what someone really means, when they say something that isn't what they mean, is a worthwhile or productive pursuit, and take things as face value, exist in significant numbers in this hobby.

The above 9 points (well, 8, since I'm not a fan of undead and wouldn't question why they aren't around) do give the setting more depth, but by leaving them implicit rather than making them explicit (even if he doesn't answer them) he's produced something more suited to a critical theory discussion in a lit class than a gaming product.

Quote from: RPGPundit;746422No, not really. Vitriolic statements are part of the Pundit package.  Many people will choose to read my reviews over someone else's because they know that besides the informative part, they'll get to see me say something outrageous.  

In other words, I don't think reviews need to be boring.

RPGPundit

That's why I do. Whatever your stance on a subject or a review it's never boring and pretty much always informative in my opinion.

Quote from: Marleycat;746764That's why I do. Whatever your stance on a subject or a review it's never boring and pretty much always informative in my opinion.

So, you like the Pundit package, then?

(hurr hurr hurr...)

Quote from: apparition13;746706This ignores the inconvenient fact that a lot of people don't read between the lines, don't think trying to decipher what someone really means, when they say something that isn't what they mean, is a worthwhile or productive pursuit, and take things as face value, exist in significant numbers in this hobby.

I agree with you on this.  At the very least, a note in the introduction on "If you read between the lines you will find some very interesting implications" might have been in order.  Although if I'm buying a product as a referee, I may get pissed at that kind of coy shit.  If there is a pattern to all those things, then fucking SAY SO!

On the other hand, I'm just as disinterested in it by the fact that it's a $30US hardcover.  That kind of shit needs to die, frankly; I'm tired of this hobby's ridiculously high production values.  I don't NEED a fucking hardcover game book.

And it's cost them one sale, at least.  If this thing cost ten bucks, I'd buy it just because I could probably glean ten bucks' worth of fun ideas from it.  But no way am I paying thirty.

Quote from: Old Geezer;746781So, you like the Pundit package, then?

(hurr hurr hurr...)

Watch it there!;)

Quote from: Old Geezer;746781So, you like the Pundit package, then?

(hurr hurr hurr...)

I loled...

Quote from: Old Geezer;746782On the other hand, I'm just as disinterested in it by the fact that it's a $30US hardcover.  That kind of shit needs to die, frankly; I'm tired of this hobby's ridiculously high production values.  I don't NEED a fucking hardcover game book.

It's 30 bucks now? Got mine for 15 when it came out.

To add to the conversation, I haven't found any use for it at all. The illustrations are good, and the book is put together well, and it looks pretty on my shelf, but I'm not really into hexcrawls (probably because I've never ran one or played in one. At least not knowingly). I found most of the monsters tedious and non-sensical - not weird or horiffic as per LotFP standard, but pretty much how pundit put it.
I do like the statues and the various high level magic users. The short descriptions don't irk me at all; I prefer less info than more. I did in fact use at least one of the animated statues (or someone based on it) in a game. So I guess I did actually find a use for the book. On a scale of 1 to 5, I'd give it a solid 2.5

So the question might be then...

Was there ever a setting book that was as plot blank like this for O or A D&D?

Even Isle of Dread had stuff going on in the various areas.

Closest I can think of is Karameikos in the X part of BX. Which is just a map and not much else other than a paragraph or three mention each of Specularum, Black Eagle Barony, Luln, and Gnomes. Roll wandering wilderness monster table...

Quote from: Omega;746821So the question might be then...

Was there ever a setting book that was as plot blank like this for O or A D&D?

Even Isle of Dread had stuff going on in the various areas.

Closest I can think of is Karameikos in the X part of BX. Which is just a map and not much else other than a paragraph or three mention each of Specularum, Black Eagle Barony, Luln, and Gnomes. Roll wandering wilderness monster table...

Well first Karameikos (one of my favorite RPG sourcebooks ever) is for Classic BECMI D&D (1983), not OD&D (1974), and not AD&D. And the Grand Duchy has IMO just the right amount of detail to be coherent as is, and welcoming of the players and DM's imagination in such a way that the setting can be taken in any sorts of directions, explicitly so, in the section about different adventures and imports pertaining to level ranges. I think it's a model of the genre, actually.

Now, going back to Original Dungeons & Dragons (1974-77), I'm struggling to find official TSR comparisons. The closest would be the first module, G1, but then, it had a fuckton of details more than what seems to be in Isle of the Unknown, and doesn't seem to fit the same category, because it's not an hex crawl, World of Greyhawk having been described in a way that was more article by article, matter of interest by matter of interest, along with an obvious one-paragraph-or-two gazetteer and the awesome Darlene map, in both Folio and Boxed set forms.

No. The real comparison resides with the Wilderlands. That seems to be the point of origin here, and in that sense I see what McKinney is trying to say. But it's like trying to be even more terse than the Wilderlands themselves, while taking all the wrong cues from some very terse Judges Guild modules like Tegel Manor, and calling it an homage. It just doesn't work that way, and I can understand how that comes off as revisionism. Sounds like poor design, to me.

Quote from: Chainsaw;746475I hope he's cutting you a check, heh.

Nope.  Though The Wench has suggested I should start charging a fixed fee for reviews, given how many books I get these days.  I have my doubts about how that would go over, though.

Quote from: Marleycat;746764That's why I do. Whatever your stance on a subject or a review it's never boring and pretty much always informative in my opinion.

Thank you!

Quote from: RPGPundit;746881Nope.  Though The Wench has suggested I should start charging a fixed fee for reviews, given how many books I get these days.  I have my doubts about how that would go over, though.

Well, as a personal reaction, I would consider it grossly unethical and I wouldn't participate.

Quote from: RPGPundit;746881Nope.  Though The Wench has suggested I should start charging a fixed fee for reviews, given how many books I get these days.  I have my doubts about how that would go over, though.

Free hardcopy book is quite enough already IMO.