It occurs to me how DIFFERENT the experience of the early adopters will be, from the experience of those who get the book. One of the stylistic features of the quickstart was it sketched a setting suggestion for the game group to fill in. It sounds like the final book will be much more filled in.
I like both styles. I think when people get the book they’ll have the choice game groups generally face presented with a more fleshed out setting; whether they’ll go Alternate Universe and cherry pick what’s in the book, or whether they’ll use it as a support for their campaign, as a trellis supports a rose bush.
I think there’s a useful third path that could be considered. What if the book offered a sketch of another place in the world? A place that had all the ambiguity of the quickstart, that could be fleshed out, and where the rules of supernatural activity and so on could operate differently as the table group decided (without contradicting what goes on in Duskwall)?
The book could say “Here’s Duskwall with neighborhoods and detail and so on. Now here’s a colony, across the Ink Sea some distance, with its own funky thing going on. Improvise the hell out of it.” Keep the new undefined setting to 3-5 pages.
I feel like that could be a way to offer both styles in one book. Just a thought.
My version of “fleshed out” is not Forgotten Realms. It’s still as sketchy as ever — there’s just more sketch to work with.
This is what I would expect from the various cities (excluding Duskwall) that are on the map. And the wastelands between cities, beyond the lightning fences, might hold all manner of unknown locales.
That’s a pretty good idea, just enough of a mouthful of some other place to get you started as an alternative, fill-in-the-blanks setting.
But I’d just as soon see some companion books come out that flesh out these other places as well as Duskwall will be fleshed out. Having new places to play with new ideas and new problems is always fun. Blades in the Dagger Isles would be quite different from Duskwall. So I hope that’s in the cards.
Chris O’Keefe Yep. There will be supplements for the rest of the Shattered Isles. Maps, factions, playbooks, crews, situations, the works.
Careful there John! My hype levels are already dangerous!
Even if the Duskwall map were suddenly totally filled, it would be fine so long as there is a second, blank city map for customization
And the Vx principle of ‘choices from lists’ that infuses all the *world games is what makes this so exciting. Whether it’s as sparse as one of Marshall Miller’s dungeon starters, or as detailed as a Tremulus playset, the ‘springboard’ for group created content that inspires their fictional milieu.
I LOVE Andrew’s stuff for dusk wall. But I love the potential inherent in further worlds of scoundrel goodness.
Yeah, exactly, Noofy.
I just want the districts to be labelled. 😉