Finally Updated the Mythosa Gazetteer
OK, it's finally done. The religion book has been updated for a little while to match the changes to Mythosa and the map, and now that the current campaign has more-or-less finished up (about 4 AM last Saturday), I can post the updated gazetteer (fortunately, the finale also finished as I hoped it would, so I didn't have to re-write that last part of the updated history). Though in the actual game the PCs fought a severely-weakened Orcus (a full-strength Orcus would have beat their asses to a pulp - they're around level 17). I used the Zoroastrian name for Asmodeus in the gazetteer for the demon for copyright reasons. And, yes, I realize that in D&D "Asmodeus" is a devil while "Orcus" is a demon. Deal with it.
After a brief hiatus to the the real world as well as one of the other guys running an adventure I'll be DMing the new campaign. I'm looking forward to it, as I've discovered I'm not really a fan of high-level campaigns (this is not just because of my regular group but due to some other high-level adventures I've played in in the recent past). High-level stuff can be fun, don't get me wrong. But week after week of it I don't enjoy. Primarily for two reasons: the first is that the combats take forever. Everybody either has a bazillion actions to run through or too many options to quickly decide what is tactically most advantageous at that given moment. The other reason is that it seems like at high-level characters are defined not by their backgrounds or personalities, but by the rules they have at their disposal - it's all about the feats, or the magic items, or the spells...not about the characters.
Mike Mearls sums up my feelings pretty well in the Darkness & Dread d20 book (from FFG) when he describes the appeal of "dark horror gaming":
The key to a horror game is that you must use your own planning, inventiveness, and quick thinking to survive. You cannot simply rely on an optimal selection of feats or magic items to pull through an adventure. Roleplay becomes much more important, while good tactics trump class abilities and spells.
Granted, he's taking about horror gaming and not "heroic fantasy" or whatever you want to label a typical D&D campaign, but the point is the same. And I wouldn't say this is just a 3.0/3.5 issue; it would apply to high level in any edition.
Actually, there's a third point as well: As a DM, there's a buttload of stuff you have to keep track of when it comes to running high-level stuff. The abilities of monsters and NPCs for one. Each player has one character to keep track of and optimize; the DM has numerous creatures and characters to handle, and it's difficult to recall exactly everything each opponent can do much less what each of those things mean. Not to mention preparation is a pain since you have so much more to consider if you actually want an adventure to be a challenge. You don't want to negate or circumvent your players' characters' abilities - that's a cop-out. You should be able to use all your nifty abilities and swag once you hit higher levels. But at the same time as a DM you need to put something together that will still interesting. It's not hard for an entire adventure to come to a quick conclusion because you didn't account for a particular spell or item one of the PCs had.
After a brief hiatus to the the real world as well as one of the other guys running an adventure I'll be DMing the new campaign. I'm looking forward to it, as I've discovered I'm not really a fan of high-level campaigns (this is not just because of my regular group but due to some other high-level adventures I've played in in the recent past). High-level stuff can be fun, don't get me wrong. But week after week of it I don't enjoy. Primarily for two reasons: the first is that the combats take forever. Everybody either has a bazillion actions to run through or too many options to quickly decide what is tactically most advantageous at that given moment. The other reason is that it seems like at high-level characters are defined not by their backgrounds or personalities, but by the rules they have at their disposal - it's all about the feats, or the magic items, or the spells...not about the characters.
Mike Mearls sums up my feelings pretty well in the Darkness & Dread d20 book (from FFG) when he describes the appeal of "dark horror gaming":
The key to a horror game is that you must use your own planning, inventiveness, and quick thinking to survive. You cannot simply rely on an optimal selection of feats or magic items to pull through an adventure. Roleplay becomes much more important, while good tactics trump class abilities and spells.
Granted, he's taking about horror gaming and not "heroic fantasy" or whatever you want to label a typical D&D campaign, but the point is the same. And I wouldn't say this is just a 3.0/3.5 issue; it would apply to high level in any edition.
Actually, there's a third point as well: As a DM, there's a buttload of stuff you have to keep track of when it comes to running high-level stuff. The abilities of monsters and NPCs for one. Each player has one character to keep track of and optimize; the DM has numerous creatures and characters to handle, and it's difficult to recall exactly everything each opponent can do much less what each of those things mean. Not to mention preparation is a pain since you have so much more to consider if you actually want an adventure to be a challenge. You don't want to negate or circumvent your players' characters' abilities - that's a cop-out. You should be able to use all your nifty abilities and swag once you hit higher levels. But at the same time as a DM you need to put something together that will still interesting. It's not hard for an entire adventure to come to a quick conclusion because you didn't account for a particular spell or item one of the PCs had.
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