Quote from: Haffrung;1103021Certainly not what I'm doing. Everything you say is true. But pretending that a king in a hereditary feudal system could openly defy the convention of having children - and would want to put his dynasty at risk by not producing an heir - is what's silly. Or at least so incongruous that I'll change it for my game. Not because "ew, there's gayness in this adventure," but because "wtf, that doesn't make any sense."

Yeah, my own setting is decidedly post-post-apocalyptic where 99% of the population of a "modern" magitech world died in a Catalclysm and another 90% of those died of famine and disease in the immediate aftermath. Populations of millions were reduced to thousands and tech basically went back to the early Iron Age (it would have been stone age, but fire magic and the ready availability of salvageable steel from the ruins prevented that).

200 years later and small realms with populations in the tens of thousands surrounded by a hundred miles of monster-haunted ruin-filled wilderness are the norm. You can sleep with whoever you want on the side and no one particularly cares (beyond the usual gossip), but if you're not married and making babies you're seen as endangering the future of civilization for your selfish pleasure.

In the pre-modern world, your children were your social security/retirement plan. If you didn't have family to support you once you were too frail to work you were dead in pretty short order.

I'm not giving WotC any of my money, but I am curious... is there ANY mention of a succession plan involving the gay co-kings? Because if they don't have something in place I can't imagine them ruling for long without some sort of coup due to their endangering the security of the realm by not having legitimate heirs. I mean, lack of an heir was a huge cause for concern even when it was a heterosexual king & queen failing to produce, but the co-kings don't even have the caveat of "they're trying" to appease those concerned. It's quite literally "we don't care if the kingdom goes to crap after we're dead."

Since the general advice here when there is a request for more gay relationships is to add them yourself if you need them, the reverse applies for this adventure. Tweaked because the rulers are a gay couple? Change it. I have no fascination with making my FR games realistic and there is plenty of evidence of rulers in actual medieval Europe being homosexual or bisexual. Maybe they had a wife for political or bloodline purposes, but not because they wanted them as a bed partner. Not much of a stretch for gnomes who live a very long time to have a gay ruling couple.

Quote from: camazotz;1103018I think it would be more interesting to reflect some pseudo-historical context. Nobility was hereditary (and iirc FR has this element as well), so two gay kings would be essentially a termination of the bloodline, potentially, with the need for heirs to come from close relatives. The two kings could have marriages of convenience while secretly seeking their actual relationship with one another, embroiling estranged an unhappy wives and "required by tradition and station" children caught in the mix. So much more interesting to add these elements in, reflecting what likely has happened in the historical past, but in a reasonably safer fantasy realm for exploration of the story ideas.

This would make for an interesting adventure setting all by itself. Imagine the convoluted plots and court intrigue that could be generated from two gay kings (or queens) who are married but must produce heirs in order to continue the dynasty. I'd love to GM or be a Player in that.

Quote from: Chris24601;1103034In the pre-modern world, your children were your social security/retirement plan. If you didn't have family to support you once you were too frail to work you were dead in pretty short order.

I'm not giving WotC any of my money, but I am curious... is there ANY mention of a succession plan involving the gay co-kings? Because if they don't have something in place I can't imagine them ruling for long without some sort of coup due to their endangering the security of the realm by not having legitimate heirs. I mean, lack of an heir was a huge cause for concern even when it was a heterosexual king & queen failing to produce, but the co-kings don't even have the caveat of "they're trying" to appease those concerned. It's quite literally "we don't care if the kingdom goes to crap after we're dead."

^^This^^

Ruling dynasties must consider more than "It's good to be the King" when they rule, they must also consider what happens to the nation after they die. For those rulers who only consider their own times and not the future of the realm, they are likely to be dethroned by their own court who has more of an interest in keeping the realm secure for future generations.

About the only way I could see the gay kings angle going is if it was Elder/Junior sort of arrangement where the Elder King picks his Junior King/Lover and then when the Elder King dies, the Junior becomes the Elder and picks a new Junior.

But that still isn't remotely like the modern notion of "gay marriage." Its more akin some extreme take on the Athenian/Spartan "pederasty as preparation for manhood" situation and they'd still have to have wives on the side even if the gay lovers angle were the important one in terms of succession (because propagation of the species/retirement plan is always going to be a thing) and the entire culture would probably incorporate aspects of this into its foundations (i.e. the military engages in it to promote unit bonding and it'd probably be part of many master/apprentice relationships in general).

Frankly, if it were incorporated in a fashion that would actually jive with the needs of pre-modern civilization this would probably just be labeled as a curiosity/local color; its the fact that very likely NO thought at all was given to anything other than "look how woke we are" and so falls apart into a situation where the completely ignored logical consequences are probably a more interesting campaign setting (one laden with intrigues and very likely civil war) than the adventure could ever hope to be.

Plus, I stand by my original statement that default murderhobo procedure will see the insane tyrant gay gnome impaled on the end of a PC's spear nine times out of ten. PCs as a rule don't go about trying to give therapy and marriage counseling to evil tyrants who've locked their more benevolent spouse in a tower somewhere. Similarly, having mercy on the evil tyrant because they're insane makes no more sense than having mercy on them for having a goatee, faceless minions and a preference for black capes. Insane tyrant is a trope where the default trope response is "throw them down the inevitable chasm they've included in their architecture."

Its like the author expects the PCs to automatically behave like the other type of PC and engage in sympathetic hugging it out with the tyrant because they have approved minority status instead of doing the sensible thing of putting his head on a pike and leaving the benevolent spouse in charge.

Quote from: S'mon;1102858So, I got my EK yesterday. One adventure (set in the Forgotten Realms) involves two homosexual gnome 'kings' who are married to each other and co-rule in tandem, only one has gone mad and imprisoned the other.

Holy fucking shit, Batman! The very first portrayal of gay characters in an RPG, and one is a villian! Don't WOTC know that gay people are oppressed? We don't need to be making gay characters antagnoists, and encouraging violence against gays. Put an orange goblin in the game, call him "King Drumph", and make it so he's the evil co-king who put the heroic gay gnome in prison so he could Make the Kingdom Great Again. And he can only be defeated by having gay gnomes butt-fuck each other. Then we'll all get some Starbucks and talk about Climate Justice.

Quote from: Chris24601;1103041About the only way I could see the gay kings angle going is if it was Elder/Junior sort of arrangement where the Elder King picks his Junior King/Lover and then when the Elder King dies, the Junior becomes the Elder and picks a new Junior.

That approach would require a knowledge of history on the part of WOTC. I suspect they lack that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrarchy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarchy

If you want real world reference material on the madness of kings you're spoiled for choice.

Caligula, so they say, wanted to marry a horse.

Quote from: mightybrain;1103045If you want real world reference material on the madness of kings you're spoiled for choice.

Caligula, so they say, wanted to marry a horse.

It was a very beautiful horse.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1103043Holy fucking shit, Batman! The very first portrayal of gay characters in an RPG, and one is a villian! Don't WOTC know that gay people are oppressed? We don't need to be making gay characters antagnoists, and encouraging violence against gays. Put an orange goblin in the game, call him "King Drumph", and make it so he's the evil co-king who put the heroic gay gnome in prison so he could Make the Kingdom Great Again. And he can only be defeated by having gay gnomes butt-fuck each other. Then we'll all get some Starbucks and talk about Climate Justice.

The orange goblin is an interesting idea, though, if we want the symbolic analogue to be more accurate, I feel goblins are too intelligent, ordered, and savvy as a stand-in. Perhaps an orange ear seeker? :-)

Quote from: camazotz;1103018I think it would be more interesting to reflect some pseudo-historical context. Nobility was hereditary (and iirc FR has this element as well), so two gay kings would be essentially a termination of the bloodline, potentially, with the need for heirs to come from close relatives. The two kings could have marriages of convenience while secretly seeking their actual relationship with one another, embroiling estranged an unhappy wives and "required by tradition and station" children caught in the mix. So much more interesting to add these elements in, reflecting what likely has happened in the historical past, but in a reasonably safer fantasy realm for exploration of the story ideas.

With everything else we accept as being possible in a fantasy world of magic, I could easily grok a magic urn that accepts seed from both kings and then acts as a womb for their child.

Quote from: cranebump;1103055Perhaps an orange ear seeker? :-)

Wouldn't that better represent his Twitter account?

Quote from: cranebump;1103055The orange goblin is an interesting idea, though, if we want the symbolic analogue to be more accurate, I feel goblins are too intelligent, ordered, and savvy as a stand-in. Perhaps an orange ear seeker? :-)

What are you, a fucking Nazi? Go back to oppressing women.

King Drumpf is a goblin alright, but he's got a huge chunk of his brain missing. So this brain damage make him more stupid than anything. He's the stupidest!

Quote from: S'mon;1103010Comparing the two I'd say the EK is better - it has full character generation rules in a 64 page book very reminiscent of Moldvay Basic. Unlike the SS it has enough magic items for a full campaign, and I think a greater variety of monsters. It has 128 pages - 64 + 64 - compared to SS 32 +64; and it has a bunch of nice cards for combat, initiative, conditions etc. Also very nice double sided poster map of the Phandalin region in 5 mile hexes.

Edit: Both have dice. The SS has pregens; the EK has printed blank PC sheets.

I think overall the best thing is to use both together as a single sandbox campaign. However unike the SS the EK has enough material to run a completely different campaign.

That actually sounds pretty good compared to the starter. I think too the Starter assumed the players would have access to the Basic PDFs.

Could not get out today to look for Essentials but plan to tomorrow.

Quote from: S'mon;1103010Comparing the two I'd say the EK is better - it has full character generation rules in a 64 page book very reminiscent of Moldvay Basic. Unlike the SS it has enough magic items for a full campaign, and I think a greater variety of monsters. It has 128 pages - 64 + 64 - compared to SS 32 +64; and it has a bunch of nice cards for combat, initiative, conditions etc. Also very nice double sided poster map of the Phandalin region in 5 mile hexes.

Edit: Both have dice. The SS has pregens; the EK has printed blank PC sheets.

I think overall the best thing is to use both together as a single sandbox campaign. However unike the SS the EK has enough material to run a completely different campaign.

Thanks for the summary. I think I'll go with EK.

Quote from: S'mon;1103010Comparing the two I'd say the EK is better - it has full character generation rules in a 64 page book very reminiscent of Moldvay Basic. Unlike the SS it has enough magic items for a full campaign, and I think a greater variety of monsters. It has 128 pages - 64 + 64 - compared to SS 32 +64; and it has a bunch of nice cards for combat, initiative, conditions etc. Also very nice double sided poster map of the Phandalin region in 5 mile hexes.

Edit: Both have dice. The SS has pregens; the EK has printed blank PC sheets.

I think overall the best thing is to use both together as a single sandbox campaign. However unike the SS the EK has enough material to run a completely different campaign.

Quote from: jhkimEDITED TO ADD: I don't know about the Essentials Kit. Other than this background bit in an adventure, how is it?

Quote from: S'mon;1103017The adventure looks a lot like the one in the SS, maybe a bit better presentation.

Everything else is great; the rule book & accessories are great. The cards are too flimsy - edges ripped when I separated them - but look very useful and come with a fold-out cardboard box to store them. The Sidekicks rules & sample Sidekick NPCs look a lot of fun for smaller groups. Albeit the art on their handout cards does make them look like whey-faced 2019 Seattle-ites; reminiscent of mid '90s TSR art where the NPCs all look like corn-fed Lake Geneva-ites.
So far my impression is the EK is just as fantastic as I hoped, Gay Gnomes or Gnot.

Thanks. That's good to hear after disappointment with the Starter Set. What's the point of a boxed set with no usable components?

I agree there's always been a tendency for D&D to reflect modern-day sensibilities and mores (like Lake Geneva and Seattle), which goes past the illustrations. Still, background details are pretty easily personalized by the GM.