Also this was released today, "Characters from the classic D&D cartoon get a makeover in this internal art from a chapter opener in the new Player's Handbook. Artist Credit: Dmitry Burmak"

You do make a good point about the Book of Wonders, though it hadn't been written yet at the time of the setting (unless I'm very mistaken about that).

As to the magic items, I derived them from a variety of Arab, Chinese, Turkik, Indian, and steppe tribesman sources, but at this point I'll be damned if I can sort them out. Some of them are a lot more famous than others, and some had a lot more detail while in others I had to extrapolate and just fill in the blanks with my own ideas of exactly what they do.

According to Game Informer — "the surprising importance and inclusions of what is arguably the oldest D&D campaign setting of them all – Greyhawk."

So how does Greyhawk fit in? According to GI, the Dungeon Master's Guide contains a sample setting—and that setting is, indeed, Greyhawk. Not only that, but the book will come with a double-sided poster map with the City of Greyhawk on one side and the Flannaes on the other—the eastern part of one of Oerth's four continents.



Even as the multiverse of D&D worlds sees increased attention, the Dungeon Master's Guide also offers a more discrete setting to get gaming groups started. After very few official releases in the last couple of decades, the world of Greyhawk takes center stage.

The book fleshes out Greyhawk to illustrate how to create campaign settings of your own. Greyhawk was the original D&D game world crafted by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, and a worthy setting to revisit on the occassion of D&D's golden anniversary. It's a world bristling with classic sword and sorcery concepts, from an intrigue-laden central city to wide tracts of uncharted wilderness. Compared to many D&D campaign settings, it's smaller and less fleshed out, and that's sort of the point; it begs for DMs to make it their own.

The book offers ample info to bring Greyhawk to life but leaves much undetailed. For those eager to take the plunge, an included poster map of the Greyhawk setting sets the tone, and its reverse reveals a map of the city of the same name. "A big draw to Greyhawk is it's the origin place for such heroes as Mordenkainen, Tasha, and others," Perkins says. "There's this idea that the players in your campaign can be the next great world-hopping, spell-crafting heroes of D&D. It is the campaign where heroes are born."
- Game Informer�

If the market wants to destroy itself, then be my guest. I've done everything I could do.

I'm sure lore, or "background and conceits", can be used well, but after my experiences with the Vampire LARPers and Blizzard games I'm just exasperated with the entire concept. It's used badly more often than it's used well.

If I want to play a vampire mad scientist, then the Vampire LARPers would force me to play as a samosa clan (or whatever, I don't care to get the name right) that has a ton of other baggage that I'm not interested in. I have never appreciated D&D's division of races, backgrounds, classes, factions, etc. more than I have after experiencing that dumpster fire fandom.

If I want to play voracious space bugs, then my options don't look good. Tyranids are a faceless force of nature and don't have any utility as a storytelling tool beyond that because they can't have characters, dialogues, or proximate objectives. Also, I'm not spending a fortune on figurines to those assholes at GW. The zerg are a fucking joke, dumb animals under the control of a psychotic succubus with boyfriend/daddy issues. It's so obnoxious.

I am writing original settings with backstories (like that not!SST thing), because I am exasperated with this kinds of things but I still want to see them done well. I'm more interested in exploring themes and plots than I am expositing trivia, so I don't limit myself to only those settings.

On the other hand, I don't have as much motivation to write as I would like. Beyond general self-doubt in my writing ability, I don't get the impression that there's an audience.

I posted 10,000+ words of original fiction to one of those fiction writing sites a couple months ago. It currently sits at a paltry 70 views.

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Quote from: Ratman_tf on May 14, 2024, 04:05:12 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 14, 2024, 02:35:51 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on May 13, 2024, 01:07:42 PM

Quote from: Omega on May 13, 2024, 01:35:07 AM

QuoteI never understood classifying Darkman as a superhero movie. It's like saying Evil Dead 2 is a superhero movie. Kinda, sorta, maybe if you squint and broaden the definitions to their maximum.

er. The Darkman movie about the scientist who is disfigured and fights crime using synthetic skin to disguise himself as different people?

Thats like claiming Batman isnt a superhero because he has no superpowers?

Darkman is a deranged psychopath. He doesn't fight crime. He wants cruel and bloody revenge on the specific criminals who caused his situation. Even at their worst, "dark and gritty" superheroes like Batman or Punisher still have some kind of code of morals and a goal to help people. Darkman is just some poor guy's ID run rampant. If anything, he has a lot more in common with supervillians.

Agreed but then... Isn't The Crow the same? He's NOT fighting criminals, hes getting cruel and bloody revenge on those who killed him and his fiance.

And I looooove them both.

I love Darkman. (Haven't seen The Crow. ) I just don't put it in the same category as "Superhero".

QuoteFurthermore, isn't Batman, Punisher, The Executioner (especially those who do kill) just extending his revenge to ALL criminals? Just playing devils advocate here but you could make THAT argument and not be 100% wrong.

Yes. That's why I said *If you squint really hard*. Mostly because superheroes as a genre can include other stuff. Marvel in the 80's ripped of The Terminator (Cable) and Alien (The Brood) So you could argue that X-Men is a Sci Fi and/or Horror comic. But I think at that point the genre categories are pretty much useless. 
I could argue if Punisher is a superhero, why not John Rambo? They're both pretty similar characters. Military veterans who had a traumatic experience and went rogue.

You totally need to see the Crow, the original one with Brandon Lee (RIP). Totally worth it and holds up really well.

Heard back, here's what they told me:

QuoteYep.  Working to restore the DB.  I dropped the ball when moving to another server.  Hope to get the full site up soon, but no ETA as of yet.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 11, 2024, 10:19:57 PMWelcome to the Mos Eisley Cantina of RPG forums. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Find a seat, order a drink and enjoy. We've got cookies.

Just watch out for the occasional Stormtrooper to come into a thread and try shitting it up.

Quote from: RNGm on May 14, 2024, 11:00:18 AMWell, you certainly showed them (IDW) by repeatedly continuing to buy them despite how bad they were.  Companies will never learn a lesson unless their customers do first.  Knowing it was so bad so recently and that the RPG license was likely acquired a while back when they were still in control/the current thing, did you do some research on the RPG to see if it was more of the same before buying it?   It may sound like harsh words from a stranger online but I'm a fellow (former) fan of many properties that have been utterly ruined over the past decade by woke nonsense that will never be taken back and had to learn the same lesson myself.  Trust but verify doesn't work with the woke; it's more like verify and assume until proven otherwise.

It was impossible to know the contents before buying. They had no previews of the books. Renegade usually doesn't do previews. So you don't know until you have the books in hand.

I realized what they were like after the PDF was made downloadable. But that's not preview material. That came with the purchase of the hardback book. Again, you have no idea until way after you pay. After you are stuck.

Renegade claims that their version of the Transformers RPG is its own interpretation of the property. But it isn't. It's mostly based on the IDW Comics. The whole structure of character generation is based on those IDW books.

Contacted them over on the twatter. Just now, let's wait to get a response.