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I really like the Golarion setting for Pathfinder. I plan on using it when I next run a D&D game. It feels like a weird mix of the Known World, but with the supplements and adventures that were coming out when Forgotten Realms was in 2e. What I mean is that it gets tons of support, novels are starting to appear (and Prince of Wolves is very good if you liked Ravenloft), and it just feels very alive. I hope this continues, as I think the world is one of the better ones that have been released for D&D style games.

I used Golarion for my 4E sandbox game back in 2009.  My game was mostly in Varisia, which had some areas mapped out and some details.

At the time we were basically using Golarion as a shoo-in, instead of using the 4E Forgotten Realms which the other players didn't really like much.

Quote from: danbuter;429264I really like the Golarion setting for Pathfinder. I plan on using it when I next run a D&D game. It feels like a weird mix of the Known World, but with the supplements and adventures that were coming out when Forgotten Realms was in 2e.

I've thumbed through the campaign setting book and I agree. I really like the world they've set up, and it does look a lot like what GAZ series-era Mystara could have looked like.

Quote from: danbuter;429264What I mean is that it gets tons of support, novels are starting to appear (and Prince of Wolves is very good if you liked Ravenloft), and it just feels very alive. I hope this continues, as I think the world is one of the better ones that have been released for D&D style games.

I fear this will be ultimately bad for the setting. It sure as hell killed my interest in FR in the 2e era (I only warmed up to FR much later, when I discovered the 1e boxed set).

In a way, it is for me too. In that I am not using it as a setting in and of itself, but I am liberally ripping it off for my own game, just like I did FR 2e. :cool:

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;429285In a way, it is for me too. In that I am not using it as a setting in and of itself, but I am liberally ripping it off for my own game, just like I did FR 2e. :cool:

I did that too with the 3E/3.5E version of Forgotten Realms, whenever I was DMing a game with players whom I knew were FR "canon lawyers".

After awhile, I started using the Castlemourn setting in such games with FR "canon lawyers" as players.  With Castlemourn, the only thing these FR "canon lawyers" could say is that Castlemourn was designed by their "hero" Ed Greenwood (and very little else).

Yeah! Fucking golarion, piece of shit-- wait... you were saying "its like the 2e Realms" as a compliment?!

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;429305Yeah! Fucking golarion, piece of shit-- wait... you were saying "its like the 2e Realms" as a compliment?!

In answer to your question,


I mean don't get me wrong. I didn't actually RUN the 2e realms, and the Mary Sue Elminster was at its height (and it was the intro to the 2e Drow of the Underdark that convinced me of it). But that era gave me:
1) A ton of cities via the CC map pack for CR.
2) Lots of cool ideas about magic.
3) Undermountain
4) The 3 deities books, which gave the most in-depth and flavorful treatments of deities/religions to date, and ruined me for products to follow.

True story about the last one: In my heyday as a reviewer, I started working with an online mag by Steve Jackson game called D20 weekly. One of the reviews I wrote for them was the 3e Deities and Demigods, which I pretty much slammed for being a monster manual because it was such a step backwards to the Jim Wardish "Deity monster manual" from the 2e FR deity books.

Unfortunately for me, about the time I polished off the review and submitted it, the editor of the very same book took over as editor of D20 Weekly, and he took it personally and threw the review back in my face. What finally was printed in d20 weekly was a kidgloved version.

But yeah. 2e FR wasn't all awesome. But it sure delivered some awesome. And Golarion is a bit like FR sans an Elminster-figure. (Edit: Or Drizzt figure.)

Quote from: danbuter;429264Golarion - it feels like when FR was 2e

Yes, this is EXACTLY it - which is why I stopped purchasing Golarion products.

While I thought parts of FR 2e were overdone, there were a hell of a lot of good products released for it. The Waterdeep box set is still one of the best city supplements ever made. Same with the deities books. And a lot of the novels were excellent (though I didn't like the Disaster of the Year crap that occurred with Odom).

Basically, at this point, I don't want setting products to do the imagining for me. I loathe over-developed settings and storylines and metaplot and nitpicky "canon" bullshit and so on. I don't hate Golarion, and as a matter of fact, what I have (a bunch of supplements, the first three or four adventure paths for it, and the campaign setting of course), I like greatly.

I just don't want that amount of detail. I'm more likely to go for the Majestic Wilderlands, the Grey Box FR or the 1983 World of Greyhawk boxed set these days, because I want the setting to be mine, not [insert 'canon' publisher's name here]'s. The more detail you add to your published setting over time, the more likely I am to discard entire parts of the background, which will have repercussions on the interest I might have on other products down the line, etc.

In the end, I don't want that amount of detail. It smothers my imagination instead of firing it up.
So I'm no longer purchasing Golarion products.

I've always liked FR 1e best...the Grey Box and the first few supplements like Waterdeep and the North and the Savage Frontier were the best, and most often used in my games back then.  It all went to shit after novels started coming out based in the world. (I didn't even mention the "D" word)

When an RPG publisher comes up with a line of novels set in the RPG setting of their choice, I know that for me, it jumped the shark.

Glorarion seems pretty good to me so far, but the only thing I've invested anything in is the "Kingmaker," adventure path with some of the associated books (the River Kingdoms and Glorarion god-pantheon run down) tacked on to get a better feel for that general world area.

Might look at the "larger picture," of the place, though, going on what you guys are saying.

Golarian is a great 1st to 10th level setting made by designers experienced with 1st to 10th level play. They should definitely stop trying to pretend otherwise.

Quote from: Benoist;429353When an RPG publisher comes up with a line of novels set in the RPG setting of their choice, I know that for me, it jumped the shark.

Does that include a comic book series? Cause one of the settings in your sig has one.

Jus' sayin'.

Quote from: danbuter;429264What I mean is that it gets tons of support, novels are starting to appear (and Prince of Wolves is very good if you liked Ravenloft), and it just feels very alive. I hope this continues, as I think the world is one of the better ones that have been released for D&D style games.

Quote from: Benoist;429353When an RPG publisher comes up with a line of novels set in the RPG setting of their choice, I know that for me, it jumped the shark.

I picked up the two already released Pathfinder novels.

So far after reading a few chapters, they're kind of a "generic" read.  If they continue to read this way, I may very well not even end up finishing these two books.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;429464Does that include a comic book series? Cause one of the settings in your sig has one.

Jus' sayin'.

Somehow I wouldn't define the Ptolus comics to be part of that paradigm for me, no. They were conceived in parallel to the book itself, and were part of the way the setting was showcased. They were not altering the setting, or proposing any "timeline", or "metaplot" onto the setting. Ptolus is also a one-man design, which seems quite different to me from settings like Forgotten Realms or Golarion.

My original statement probably wasn't accurate in terms of fiction, but in terms of novels based on a gaming setting, it really seems to be like each time such a setting starts to come up with novels based on it, it starts to go down in quality, if not dive immediately into depths of crap for me, as far as I'm concerned.

Then, maybe it's just the authors' style of fiction I really dislike. I can't stand anything by Elaine Cunningham, for instance. Don't get me wrong: she's a lovely person and everything. I just can't stand her writings for the love of God. That just rubs me the wrong way. God her elves. I'm going to have nightmares tonight.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;429312But yeah. 2e FR wasn't all awesome. But it sure delivered some awesome. And Golarion is a bit like FR sans an Elminster-figure. (Edit: Or Drizzt figure.)

I remember being underwelmed up stat by the First Edition of the Forgotten Realms. I was really disappointed - and that feeling never totally left me. My two quibbles - even before reading the books - were an uninteresting landmass and vast area of the continent that screamed "Fill me with something! Put together some names and let's decide later what is actually here - which led to many overlapping and uninteresting kingdoms/cultures.

However, they slowly grew on me, exp. after I started to adapt them to my personal gaming style. And the quantity of stuff that they wrote for the FR over the decades guaranteed that, even if only by chance, you got some cool things/places/ideas. Just don't mention the truly horrifying saga of "The Time of Troubles" (AKA "The Avatar Saga") - something I wonder why was not killed on day one of the 1E ---> 2E brainstorming.

Still, IMHO the 3E FR Setting stands as the paragon of how a book setting should be written - even if I would have liked more a similar book for another setting. Same for books like "Races of Faerun", which I read because the cultural backgrounds and the rest of the fluff is often well thought out - and deserving of a better place.

Talking of the narrative stuff, I confess I feel embarassed every time I even just think of using one of the "staple" Realms characters: Elminster, The Seven Sisters, Drizzt and the like. I actually use Elminster, but my version of it: i.e., basically Hitler from the Youtube parodies. My players' characters are inept Harpers (Pst: the players don't know that...) Elminster sends them as far as possibile from where important stuff is happening. The character manage to stumble on the important stuff anyway. Dire things happen. Elminster is informed. Youtube parodies ensue.

I have read some novels too. "Darkwalker on Moonshae" was good, the rest of the trilogy was rubbish. Elaine Cunningham's books are good, too: they are mature enough to present the Harpers as a shadowy organization, with many streaks of grey: the result are novels with a definite "Robert Ludlum" atmosphere.

But, talking as a professional writer and editor, some of the books put out by TSR/Wizards are dire. I sadly bought the first book in "The Last Mithal" trilogy, and it is beyond redemption. The writing stumbles from amateurish ("We have already alerted our spies on Faerun!" say the elves of Evermeet. No one calls his own scouts/informers/collaborators "spies". Maybe "agents", or one of the other nouns), to illogical (lot of tedious writing is spent explaining how a character "never left Evermeet"; but, as soon as she is on Faerun, her ranger skills allow her to recognize "troll tracks"; WHERE on Evermeet she ever saw troll tracks?) to sheer embarassing (a 300 years old elf, who traveled Faerun for the better part of his life, is surprised to learn how, after 50 years, most of the humans he traveled with are either old or dead...)

Not to mention how the writer fails to do what every DM does for the weekly session: i.e. look at a map of the places he describes, and read stuff about them on the manuals. And I won't go into the plot proper. Sometimes I wonder: is there one editor checking this stuff before it is pushed out?

The irony is that my player actually *like* my version of the Forgotten Realms. I have suggested to switch to either Golarion or even Mystara, but they just say: "There are so many places we still haven't visited!" Maybe I'm too good :)

If you just get the main setting book and maybe the religion book, you'd have tons of info, but also lots and lots of space to fill in, for those interested in that.

Quote from: Benoist;429483My original statement probably wasn't accurate in terms of fiction, but in terms of novels based on a gaming setting, it really seems to be like each time such a setting starts to come up with novels based on it, it starts to go down in quality, if not dive immediately into depths of crap for me, as far as I'm concerned.

Then, maybe it's just the authors' style of fiction I really dislike. I can't stand anything by Elaine Cunningham, for instance. Don't get me wrong: she's a lovely person and everything. I just can't stand her writings for the love of God. That just rubs me the wrong way. God her elves. I'm going to have nightmares tonight.

Oh, I've yet to read RPG-setting-linked fiction I can stomach. But I've only ever see the phenomenon you speak of occur with TSR/WotC. My point here being that your thumbrule here seems too much of a sweeping generalization to hold as general principle.

That being said, I do agree with you about its impact on FR (and Dark Sun, which was the real travesty), which was why I only plundered the setting instead of running it out of the box.

Quote from: Benoist;429353When an RPG publisher comes up with a line of novels set in the RPG setting of their choice, I know that for me, it jumped the shark.

Half the time, I feel that way the moment I see that a book has in-game fiction, never mind outside novels.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Benoist;429483I can't stand anything by Elaine Cunningham, for instance. Don't get me wrong: she's a lovely person and everything. I just can't stand her writings for the love of God. That just rubs me the wrong way. God her elves. I'm going to have nightmares tonight.

I read your post after posting mine :D Ironically, the two books I read written by her ("Shadowblade" and "Evermeet") were among the very few I would save among the general mediocrity of FR's novels. As I wrote, "Shadowblade" had a really nice "Robert Ludlum-esque" atmosphere, a good plot (well, I didn't saw the twist coming) and presented the Harpers as a shadower organization than the usual "secret agents for the Good!!!111" portrayal.

Anyway, to me a good novel set in a GdR setting should be the opportunity to show "things in motion": how places, organizations, cultures, politics and what else act and interact in the daily life beyond their dry descriptions. If done right, it would be stimulating (and those precious few that did it right were stimulating). However, when you see how the "author" never even bothered to look at a map of the area he is setting the story in, you really wonder what "professionalism" means for them...