But Wizards is coming out with a hardback that combines a number of adventures I don't own (Dead in Thay, Sunless Citadel, Forge of Fury) plus White Plume Mountain, converted to D&D5.
Okay, I'm in.
I've read mostly "meh" reactions and strongly negative ones . . . but hey, there is stuff I loved for 1st edition in there. I'm curious how it will read for 5th edition. I'd like to see the re-done maps and art. So yeah, sign me up for the Yawning Portal:
The price is a bit steep, but hey, White Plume Mountain.
I'm still not sure what I'll do with WPM. I'd like to run it for my group straight-up with S&W, or AD&D 1st edition, or something of that sort, just because I'd like to share the experience. It's a funhouse, with the emphasis on fun. But if a 5th edition version comes out and it's good, maybe I can run it with that. That would be new for all of us, and 5th runs pretty smoothly. I could convert it to GURPS, but part of the enjoyment for me is the nostalgia of the original unfiltered by my conversions.
We'll see.
* "That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me."
I'd love to play that again. I was honestly waiting for it to be a level of Felltower.
ReplyDeleteIt could be, but converted to GURPS, a lot of the challenges just aren't challenging at all. It assumes a very different spell system. I'd have to litter the place with magic-resistant construction, No Mana Zones, add spellcasting to most of the encounters so they aren't trivial, add minions to the bosses so they aren't hacked down by 6-7 attacks in one second, etc. I could do all of that, but it would really just be "some highlights of S2 plus its magic weapons" and not really the same challenge.
DeleteI find the WotC pricing model encouraging, frankly. If we posit that 5e is about 40% of a $25M per year market, that means that they're probably doing about $10M a year in RPGs, which is 200,000 books a year. Now, probably not all of that $10M is $50 hardbacks, but what else do they get revenue on these day?
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying it's overpriced, I'm saying $50 for a hardback is a lot for me to spend to get another copy of White Plume Mountain to add to my monochrome Silver Anniversary version, original version (two copies), S1-4 collected version, and Return to White Plume Mountain pile.
DeleteThe great part of titles like this is I know exactly what they mean by "Yawning Portal" but a more literal interpretation is just a great mental image. Like the doorknob in Disney's Alice In Wonderland being tired after a day's work being a knob.
ReplyDelete