There are so many big announcements coming out of E3 that I don't know I can do them all justice here, but as a fan since the original on the N64, I've got to talk Smash Bros.
Smash Bros. Ultimate is the game that's going to finally get me to stop procrastinating and get a Nintendo Switch (I always intended to, but given that I've had my PS4 for like two years (maybe 3?) and have only a couple games for it, I'm hesitant to shell out for consoles these days (it feels as if they're coming faster these days, but I think it's actually just that I'm getting older and five years feels a lot shorter than it once did.)
So what's the deal with Smash Bros. Ultimate?
The biggest thing is: every single character that has ever been in a Smash Bros. game is coming back.
Yes, that means Snake, Dr. Mario, Pichu, Young Link, Toon Link, Cloud, Ryu, Roy... I'm saying that it's seriously everyone.
Everyone.
Smash has always been a more-the-merrier kind of game, and now that will mean a roster that's pushing 60 fighters.
It's not all old ones though. Remember in the intro to Melee how we saw Samus fighting Ridley?
Bam: we're getting Ridley!
We're also getting Daisy, Luigi's Peach equivalent.
Which means that the actress who plays the main character of the new Star Wars movies is now fully represented by Smash Bros. characters.
Anyway...
It looks like they're simplifying some Final Smashes - notably the Landmaster is gone, replaced with a bombardment of Arwings. As someone who's not really concerned about the eSports angle, I'm more of a fan of "the crazier the better" for this game, so I worry a bit about homogenization.
I'll be very curious to see how many stages the game has - I love all the fighters, but environments are also very important.
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Sunday, June 10, 2018
Elder Scrolls VI Announced. And That's About It!
I had honestly given up hope and stopped watching their conference, but here it is, a teaser for Elder Scrolls VI!
Yeah, see that? Lots of details about...
Ok, so we got basically nothing except confirmation that it's actually going to happen. As a big Skyrim fan, I've been waiting for... seven years now for a new game in the main series. With Elder Scrolls Online seeming to take up much of their brand energy, I started to worry that I sounded like one of those people constantly asking for Warcraft 4.
But it's coming! So that's a relief.
Now, the question is what its story will be about and where it's set. Given the landscape, I'd guess High Rock, the land of the Bretons, as it has a fairly Ireland-esque look to it (I was hoping for a desert-like Hammerfell.) But who really knows?
Given that Skyrim could end in various different ways - with the province either exiting the Empire or remaining part of it - I wonder how they'll decide the "canon" ending, or if they'll keep Skyrim's state intentionally vague.
Yeah, see that? Lots of details about...
Ok, so we got basically nothing except confirmation that it's actually going to happen. As a big Skyrim fan, I've been waiting for... seven years now for a new game in the main series. With Elder Scrolls Online seeming to take up much of their brand energy, I started to worry that I sounded like one of those people constantly asking for Warcraft 4.
But it's coming! So that's a relief.
Now, the question is what its story will be about and where it's set. Given the landscape, I'd guess High Rock, the land of the Bretons, as it has a fairly Ireland-esque look to it (I was hoping for a desert-like Hammerfell.) But who really knows?
Given that Skyrim could end in various different ways - with the province either exiting the Empire or remaining part of it - I wonder how they'll decide the "canon" ending, or if they'll keep Skyrim's state intentionally vague.
"Shadows Die Twice" is Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Well, I sure as hell want to see a Bloodborne II, but the "Shadows Die Twice" teaser From released a while back is not that.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice appears to be set in a Medieval Japan or a Japan-like fantasy world. It appears you will play as a ninja who has seemingly died but been brought back with a strange artificial arm (the object in the teaser) and you can apparently come back from the dead.
It's unclear if this is going to be a Soulslike game or something else, but the tone certainly looks distinct with its apparent emphasis on something of a more straightforward story (though I can't comment too much on that as the trailer more or less just shows the ninja being badass and fighting some giant dude.
I'm still hoping we might get a Bloodborne II at some point, but we're going to have to table it for now.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice appears to be set in a Medieval Japan or a Japan-like fantasy world. It appears you will play as a ninja who has seemingly died but been brought back with a strange artificial arm (the object in the teaser) and you can apparently come back from the dead.
It's unclear if this is going to be a Soulslike game or something else, but the tone certainly looks distinct with its apparent emphasis on something of a more straightforward story (though I can't comment too much on that as the trailer more or less just shows the ninja being badass and fighting some giant dude.
I'm still hoping we might get a Bloodborne II at some point, but we're going to have to table it for now.
Saturday, June 9, 2018
The Naaru, the Light, and Good versus Law
The cutscene called "The Rejection of the Gift" was a huge curveball thrown into the lore of World of Warcraft. It was the first time we saw a Naaru, a being of pure light, and not one going through its evil void cycle, but a full-fledged holy Naaru, act in a way that most of us would consider evil.
Illidan Stormrage is, I think, a perfect example of the Chaotic Neutral character. He's not a good guy - see all the people he has sacrificed and all the bad things he did on Outland (let's never forget that he was perfectly happy to have corrupted Fel Orcs fighting for him) but his intentions were all for the greater good. He wasn't there to become a tyrant (or at least he didn't think he was) but his good intentions (and ultimately, results) balanced out his evil deeds. Ultimately, he wanted to tear down the Burning Legion, and he was willing to use both good and evil to do so. In fact, his decision to stay at the Seat of the Pantheon may be the most chaotic neutral thing he's done: "I've brought my enemy low. I really don't care how you guys rebuild after it. I'm out!"
The Naaru have generally been seen as unequivocally good since their introduction along with the Draenei in the Burning Crusade. After all, the Draenei are one of the most unambiguously good groups of people in the game, and they learned their kindness, heroism, and forgiving values from these crystal entities.
Now, for the record, we've seen the Light used by villains in the past. The Scarlet Crusade has many priests and paladins in its ranks, and we were told early on that people can channel the light if they believe they are righteous, regardless of whether they're actually correct in that belief. That, of course, opens the floodgates to any zealot who believes hard enough that they are on the right side of history, which, you know, has plenty of real-world examples of that not going so well (see any religious extremists from any religious faith.)
We've learned more about the Light and its distinction from the Void. While in one way it's simply the essence of existence versus the essence of non-existence, apparently part of the way that this manifests in the Warcraft universe is that the Light believes in one narrow possibility and the Void believes in an infinite number of possibilities. Essentially, it's a conflict between determinism and non-determinism. But while we generally mark the present by how the past is sort of retroactively deterministic (there was only one past, as far as we know,) and how the future is in a kind of superposition (quantum physics says that the future is actually non-deterministic and only probabilistic,) the Void doesn't even really care about where we are in the timeline, and is happy to entertain all possibilities for past, present, and future, while the Light looks at the whole timeline as a single true possibility.
What's really interesting about Xe'ra actions in the Rejection of the Gift is that, while super creepy, it's clear that she believes she is doing Illidan a favor. It's clear that the Light brings people joy, happiness, and a sense of purpose, and I don't think there's any Lightforged individual who regrets doing it.
That could mean one of two things: either it's an unquestionably good idea to become Lightforged because it just makes your whole existence more joyful, happy, good, and meaningful... or part of becoming Lightforged involves getting totally brainwashed.
But here's the question: is there actually a difference?
I actually entertained this idea once: imagine if, when you were Undead in the Scourge, you never felt pain anymore and only felt a sense of peace and joy and comfort. And naturally, remembering the pain of life, with all its insecurities and anxieties, you wanted to impart this blissful state to those who you cared about so that they would share in it. From your perspective, you're doing a favor by infecting them with the plague and ridding them of their curse of flesh, but as we all know, the living look on this with horror.
Being Lightforged is a lot prettier than that, but to an outsider who values making their own choices - who values freedom more than joy - it's horrific.
There's some datamined stuff (actually you might be able to do it on Beta if you've done the quests,) in which we find out that the Mag'har (Draenor B's orcs, formerly the Iron Horde, but kind of the generation after that as now the timeline has caught up,) are now in a desperate fight against the Draenei, who have gone on a crusade to convert the planet to the worship of the Light. It's jarring because it paints the Draenei as villains, with Yrel, the most likable character from that expansion, as the big bad. One of the greatest horrors that the Mag'har speak about is that there are some Orcs who have become "Lightbound," which seems to be the equivalent of Lightforged, and have joined the Draenei.
There's a lot of talk about this: like whether they only seem so villainous because we're seeing it from the Orcs' side of things. But as upsetting it is to see "good guys" becoming villainous, it does present a way for the Alliance - a Lawful Good faction if ever there was one - to become something the Horde actually has a reason to fight against. I wrote a while ago about how the problem with the Horde is actually a problem with the Alliance - that the Horde seems to always start conflicts with the Alliance without provocation. Well, this is maybe the first time when it actually seems like the Horde are the wronged party here.
See, I think that the Draenei get a huge benefit from Velen. And my interpretation of what this benefit is is that while Velen is deeply religious on a personal level, he is ultimately a secularist. Secularists are not anti-religious, and they're not even necessarily irreligious. But what they fundamentally believe and respect is that one must tolerate a fellow person's religious beliefs or the lack thereof.
Velen may believe in the Light. He might desire to become one with the Light when he finally dies (like his Draenor-B counterpart.) He may believe that everyone in the world would be a whole lot better off if they accepted the Light into their hearts.
But he does not push it on people.
He respects that others have different traditions. Shamans are in touch with the invisible spirit world. Druids are tied into the great connections between all living things. He has a nuanced enough understanding of the world to see that the Light is part of the equation that adds up to goodness in the world, and it's the one that he chooses to pursue, but that that goodness, whether it is one and the same as the light or something greater, comes to different people in different ways.
The Light was seen for most of Warcraft's history as being good itself, but to introduce some nuance to their world, Blizzard is showing it to be more of an embodiment of Lawful Good - and sometimes that skews more toward good, sometimes more toward law.
It is the heroic figure who uses the Light in the name of good, but as we've seen, this is not the only form it takes.
Illidan Stormrage is, I think, a perfect example of the Chaotic Neutral character. He's not a good guy - see all the people he has sacrificed and all the bad things he did on Outland (let's never forget that he was perfectly happy to have corrupted Fel Orcs fighting for him) but his intentions were all for the greater good. He wasn't there to become a tyrant (or at least he didn't think he was) but his good intentions (and ultimately, results) balanced out his evil deeds. Ultimately, he wanted to tear down the Burning Legion, and he was willing to use both good and evil to do so. In fact, his decision to stay at the Seat of the Pantheon may be the most chaotic neutral thing he's done: "I've brought my enemy low. I really don't care how you guys rebuild after it. I'm out!"
The Naaru have generally been seen as unequivocally good since their introduction along with the Draenei in the Burning Crusade. After all, the Draenei are one of the most unambiguously good groups of people in the game, and they learned their kindness, heroism, and forgiving values from these crystal entities.
Now, for the record, we've seen the Light used by villains in the past. The Scarlet Crusade has many priests and paladins in its ranks, and we were told early on that people can channel the light if they believe they are righteous, regardless of whether they're actually correct in that belief. That, of course, opens the floodgates to any zealot who believes hard enough that they are on the right side of history, which, you know, has plenty of real-world examples of that not going so well (see any religious extremists from any religious faith.)
We've learned more about the Light and its distinction from the Void. While in one way it's simply the essence of existence versus the essence of non-existence, apparently part of the way that this manifests in the Warcraft universe is that the Light believes in one narrow possibility and the Void believes in an infinite number of possibilities. Essentially, it's a conflict between determinism and non-determinism. But while we generally mark the present by how the past is sort of retroactively deterministic (there was only one past, as far as we know,) and how the future is in a kind of superposition (quantum physics says that the future is actually non-deterministic and only probabilistic,) the Void doesn't even really care about where we are in the timeline, and is happy to entertain all possibilities for past, present, and future, while the Light looks at the whole timeline as a single true possibility.
What's really interesting about Xe'ra actions in the Rejection of the Gift is that, while super creepy, it's clear that she believes she is doing Illidan a favor. It's clear that the Light brings people joy, happiness, and a sense of purpose, and I don't think there's any Lightforged individual who regrets doing it.
That could mean one of two things: either it's an unquestionably good idea to become Lightforged because it just makes your whole existence more joyful, happy, good, and meaningful... or part of becoming Lightforged involves getting totally brainwashed.
But here's the question: is there actually a difference?
I actually entertained this idea once: imagine if, when you were Undead in the Scourge, you never felt pain anymore and only felt a sense of peace and joy and comfort. And naturally, remembering the pain of life, with all its insecurities and anxieties, you wanted to impart this blissful state to those who you cared about so that they would share in it. From your perspective, you're doing a favor by infecting them with the plague and ridding them of their curse of flesh, but as we all know, the living look on this with horror.
Being Lightforged is a lot prettier than that, but to an outsider who values making their own choices - who values freedom more than joy - it's horrific.
There's some datamined stuff (actually you might be able to do it on Beta if you've done the quests,) in which we find out that the Mag'har (Draenor B's orcs, formerly the Iron Horde, but kind of the generation after that as now the timeline has caught up,) are now in a desperate fight against the Draenei, who have gone on a crusade to convert the planet to the worship of the Light. It's jarring because it paints the Draenei as villains, with Yrel, the most likable character from that expansion, as the big bad. One of the greatest horrors that the Mag'har speak about is that there are some Orcs who have become "Lightbound," which seems to be the equivalent of Lightforged, and have joined the Draenei.
There's a lot of talk about this: like whether they only seem so villainous because we're seeing it from the Orcs' side of things. But as upsetting it is to see "good guys" becoming villainous, it does present a way for the Alliance - a Lawful Good faction if ever there was one - to become something the Horde actually has a reason to fight against. I wrote a while ago about how the problem with the Horde is actually a problem with the Alliance - that the Horde seems to always start conflicts with the Alliance without provocation. Well, this is maybe the first time when it actually seems like the Horde are the wronged party here.
See, I think that the Draenei get a huge benefit from Velen. And my interpretation of what this benefit is is that while Velen is deeply religious on a personal level, he is ultimately a secularist. Secularists are not anti-religious, and they're not even necessarily irreligious. But what they fundamentally believe and respect is that one must tolerate a fellow person's religious beliefs or the lack thereof.
Velen may believe in the Light. He might desire to become one with the Light when he finally dies (like his Draenor-B counterpart.) He may believe that everyone in the world would be a whole lot better off if they accepted the Light into their hearts.
But he does not push it on people.
He respects that others have different traditions. Shamans are in touch with the invisible spirit world. Druids are tied into the great connections between all living things. He has a nuanced enough understanding of the world to see that the Light is part of the equation that adds up to goodness in the world, and it's the one that he chooses to pursue, but that that goodness, whether it is one and the same as the light or something greater, comes to different people in different ways.
The Light was seen for most of Warcraft's history as being good itself, but to introduce some nuance to their world, Blizzard is showing it to be more of an embodiment of Lawful Good - and sometimes that skews more toward good, sometimes more toward law.
It is the heroic figure who uses the Light in the name of good, but as we've seen, this is not the only form it takes.
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
Ah, the Timing of Book Releases
For the last year, the players in my D&D campaign have been stuck in a region of the Shadowlands (my world's version of the Shadowfell because when the DMG has a chapter called "making a multiverse," I can't say no to changing everything a little bit.) They are only about two or three sessions from getting out (there's basically one last area for them to explore and beat the "final boss.")
So naturally this is when Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes would come out with a ton of Shadowfell creatures like the Sorrowsworn - monstrous representations of the dark emotions of the plane (to be fair, my version of the Shadowfell is somewhat more colorful - it's more like the Dark World from A Link to the Past mixed with a bunch of imagery from Stephen King's Dark Tower series.)
So I'm preparing to run a session tonight and I'm really wrestling with the urge to throw in some of these guys before the final battle. The thing is, even a relatively simple fight in D&D can take a long time, and we've got a hard four hour limit tonight (and we never start on time.)
There are at least four fights that should be happening in the final "dungeon" of the adventure, so adding a fifth is, I think, a bit tricky. But on the other hand, these monsters are so cool!
I'm tempted to just make a single-monster encounter, which ought to go quickly, though that might not give "The Lost" a chance to show off his cool moves. I suppose an alternative would be to replace the humanoid guards in one planned encounter with one of these guys, though it might make the fight harder than I intended.
We'll see!
(Edit: well, one of the wizards polymorphed it into a frog after one attack, then had her familiar take the frog up into a lightning storm, and the fighter caught it with his axe on the way down. So...)
So naturally this is when Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes would come out with a ton of Shadowfell creatures like the Sorrowsworn - monstrous representations of the dark emotions of the plane (to be fair, my version of the Shadowfell is somewhat more colorful - it's more like the Dark World from A Link to the Past mixed with a bunch of imagery from Stephen King's Dark Tower series.)
So I'm preparing to run a session tonight and I'm really wrestling with the urge to throw in some of these guys before the final battle. The thing is, even a relatively simple fight in D&D can take a long time, and we've got a hard four hour limit tonight (and we never start on time.)
There are at least four fights that should be happening in the final "dungeon" of the adventure, so adding a fifth is, I think, a bit tricky. But on the other hand, these monsters are so cool!
I'm tempted to just make a single-monster encounter, which ought to go quickly, though that might not give "The Lost" a chance to show off his cool moves. I suppose an alternative would be to replace the humanoid guards in one planned encounter with one of these guys, though it might make the fight harder than I intended.
We'll see!
(Edit: well, one of the wizards polymorphed it into a frog after one attack, then had her familiar take the frog up into a lightning storm, and the fighter caught it with his axe on the way down. So...)
Sunday, June 3, 2018
Critical Role Campaign One
After the Raven Queen knows how many hours, I've finished the first campaign of Critical Role, probably the most popular D&D game podcast/streaming show.
I've been keeping up with campaign two as it's been going, meaning that I'm fully caught up on the game.
It's pretty interesting to see how it evolved over time. I remember in early episodes feeling that it was very mechanical, involving a ton of combat that wasn't terribly interesting to listen to, but I think the special juice of having people watching the game really encouraged the players to take their characters seriously and make for a compelling story experience.
It certainly doesn't hurt that the folks at Critical Role are a bunch of accomplished voice actors, and if you give actors big emotions to play, it's like catnip (believe me, most of my friends are actors.)
I'm a story-minded person in general, and RPGs are of course the game genre most concerned with storytelling, which is probably why you might notice that most of my posts here are about story or world-building. Certainly, the mechanics of a game can be a fun puzzle or challenge of skill, but to me, the reward is in seeing the story progress - whether it's the culmination of some epic battle against the forces of evil or some small personal struggle to defeat one's inner demons. (And of course, the fantasy genre, which is the most popular one for RPGs, often has a person's inner demons turn out to be literal demons that might destroy the world.)
I think that RPGs, particularly the player-driven tabletop variety (though if done well, digital RPGs can do this too,) blend the interactivity of a game with an emotional connection one expects out of other media like books, movies, or television. I don't want to get into spoiler territory because there's literally weeks of story to get through if you want to experience all of Critical Role's first campaign (at least the part they streamed.) But the end of the campaign leaves basically the whole cast teary-eyed and you'd have to really not be paying attention or have a heart of stone to think that was unwarranted.
Games are a medium that always struggles with whether or not it is art. I'll grant that it's often unfair to compare its storytelling capabilities as its sole artistic merit, as I think that elegance of gameplay is just as much an art form as cinematography or editing, but the way that a tabletop RPG functions as collaborative storytelling has the potential, if you have people who contribute to that story earnestly, to be incredibly touching.
I would love to be able to run a campaign like the one that they did. And of course I'm loving the second campaign.
I've been keeping up with campaign two as it's been going, meaning that I'm fully caught up on the game.
It's pretty interesting to see how it evolved over time. I remember in early episodes feeling that it was very mechanical, involving a ton of combat that wasn't terribly interesting to listen to, but I think the special juice of having people watching the game really encouraged the players to take their characters seriously and make for a compelling story experience.
It certainly doesn't hurt that the folks at Critical Role are a bunch of accomplished voice actors, and if you give actors big emotions to play, it's like catnip (believe me, most of my friends are actors.)
I'm a story-minded person in general, and RPGs are of course the game genre most concerned with storytelling, which is probably why you might notice that most of my posts here are about story or world-building. Certainly, the mechanics of a game can be a fun puzzle or challenge of skill, but to me, the reward is in seeing the story progress - whether it's the culmination of some epic battle against the forces of evil or some small personal struggle to defeat one's inner demons. (And of course, the fantasy genre, which is the most popular one for RPGs, often has a person's inner demons turn out to be literal demons that might destroy the world.)
I think that RPGs, particularly the player-driven tabletop variety (though if done well, digital RPGs can do this too,) blend the interactivity of a game with an emotional connection one expects out of other media like books, movies, or television. I don't want to get into spoiler territory because there's literally weeks of story to get through if you want to experience all of Critical Role's first campaign (at least the part they streamed.) But the end of the campaign leaves basically the whole cast teary-eyed and you'd have to really not be paying attention or have a heart of stone to think that was unwarranted.
Games are a medium that always struggles with whether or not it is art. I'll grant that it's often unfair to compare its storytelling capabilities as its sole artistic merit, as I think that elegance of gameplay is just as much an art form as cinematography or editing, but the way that a tabletop RPG functions as collaborative storytelling has the potential, if you have people who contribute to that story earnestly, to be incredibly touching.
I would love to be able to run a campaign like the one that they did. And of course I'm loving the second campaign.
Saturday, June 2, 2018
Wait, No, There's Another One: Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage
So as it turns out, much like Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat way back when 5e was first published, Waterdeep is going to be an adventure split into two books.
Dragon Heist will take players from level 1 to 5, dealing with the various factions in the city. The idea is that if DMs and player groups are getting antsy to get out of the city, they can then continue on with their own campaign or maybe pick up in some other campaign.
Dungeon of the Mad Mage continues on from the Dragon Heist story and takes players into the Undermountain - the massive dungeon that exists beneath Waterdeep. And this one is meant to take players from 5 to 20.
Yes, this is the first published adventure meant to take players all the way to the level cap (even Out of the Abyss only took them to 15.)
And the concept of Dungeon of the Mad Mage is that this will be a Mega Dungeon - the rest of the campaign is set in this single, massive dungeon complex. You'll descend through different levels of the dungeon, each of which have their own factions and stories. Meanwhile, the Mad Mage Hallaster, a super-powerful and totally insane archmage, will wander the dungeon.
I like that they seem to be getting creative with the recent adventures. Tomb of Annihilation, with its nasty death mechanics and its emphasis on grim humor has a very different feel from the other published adventures, and this looks like it'll be a fair departure from other ones as well.
Dragon Heist will take players from level 1 to 5, dealing with the various factions in the city. The idea is that if DMs and player groups are getting antsy to get out of the city, they can then continue on with their own campaign or maybe pick up in some other campaign.
Dungeon of the Mad Mage continues on from the Dragon Heist story and takes players into the Undermountain - the massive dungeon that exists beneath Waterdeep. And this one is meant to take players from 5 to 20.
Yes, this is the first published adventure meant to take players all the way to the level cap (even Out of the Abyss only took them to 15.)
And the concept of Dungeon of the Mad Mage is that this will be a Mega Dungeon - the rest of the campaign is set in this single, massive dungeon complex. You'll descend through different levels of the dungeon, each of which have their own factions and stories. Meanwhile, the Mad Mage Hallaster, a super-powerful and totally insane archmage, will wander the dungeon.
I like that they seem to be getting creative with the recent adventures. Tomb of Annihilation, with its nasty death mechanics and its emphasis on grim humor has a very different feel from the other published adventures, and this looks like it'll be a fair departure from other ones as well.
Friday, June 1, 2018
D&D's Next Adventure Book is Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
Man I wish I had enough time and open schedules to do all these freaking things. I loved reading D&D's adventure book from last year, Tomb of Annihilation, though I have no idea when I'd actually be able to run it (it's hard enough to get my group to meet once a week for my homebrew campaign.) I've become a bit of an obsessive collector of 5e books (I think at this point I'm only lacking the Hoard of the Dragon Queen/Rise of Tiamat books.)
Anyway, another chunk of change will be going to Wizards of the Coast in September for their next book: Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.
The new adventure takes place entirely within the city of Waterdeep, the biggest city and de facto capital of Faerun in the Forgotten Realms setting. As a huge fan of RPGs going into urban settings (see all my gushing about the Suramar quests in World of Warcraft's Legion expansion,) I'm pretty damned excited about this.
Apparently the way it will work is that the adventure can have a number of different enemies - it looks as if the Zhentarim, the Xanathar gang, and other factions will be trying to secure some large treasure and it's the players' job to prevent them from getting it.
The book should go into quite a bit of detail about Waterdeep and its various districts, and it'll also apparently get into details about how to run a city with, you know, laws and guards.
The adventure will emphasize roleplay and taking a non-violent approach - encouraging the party to defeat the bad guys not through combat but by playing politics and intrigue right - they say that while you might have the opportunity to kill, say, the Xanathar, it's much more likely that it will kill you.
The book is set to come out in September.
Anyway, another chunk of change will be going to Wizards of the Coast in September for their next book: Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.
The new adventure takes place entirely within the city of Waterdeep, the biggest city and de facto capital of Faerun in the Forgotten Realms setting. As a huge fan of RPGs going into urban settings (see all my gushing about the Suramar quests in World of Warcraft's Legion expansion,) I'm pretty damned excited about this.
Apparently the way it will work is that the adventure can have a number of different enemies - it looks as if the Zhentarim, the Xanathar gang, and other factions will be trying to secure some large treasure and it's the players' job to prevent them from getting it.
The book should go into quite a bit of detail about Waterdeep and its various districts, and it'll also apparently get into details about how to run a city with, you know, laws and guards.
The adventure will emphasize roleplay and taking a non-violent approach - encouraging the party to defeat the bad guys not through combat but by playing politics and intrigue right - they say that while you might have the opportunity to kill, say, the Xanathar, it's much more likely that it will kill you.
The book is set to come out in September.
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