EN World Review – Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue by Wizards of the Coast
It is Wednesday once again, dear Readers, and I am still experiencing the afterglow of a very memorable and exciting GenCon! Thankfully, I have not had any bouts of the dreaded “con crud” that I’ve heard about from other gamers, and I am quite grateful for that. And as you have probably read in my previous blogs this week, I had a very eventful and busy time during my “best four days of gaming” and met a lot of very cool gamers, bloggers, and writers from all over the community.
In fact, during the GenCon Keynote, I ran into Jeff Greiner of the Tome Show and both the James Brothers – Matt and Brian. Actually, I ran into Jeff a number of times as he was taping many of the seminars I was attending for his podcasts, so he quickly became my unofficial con buddy since we probably spent half of GenCon in the same seminar room!
But I bring up the James Brothers here because Brian, along with Eric Menge, have just scored a major WotC release in the new Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue supplement for the Forgotten Realms. Not only was the release accompanied by a major convention, but also as part of a new media blitz called Rise of the Underdark, with D&D Encounters, D&D Lair Assault, and in-game DDO drow events!
For more information about the Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue supplement, please click the link below and head over to EN World for the full review details:
Review of Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue by Wizards of the Coast
Overall, I really enjoyed this setting, and it’s story and fluff heavy style without any crunch make it usable by any edition of D&D gamer, along with Pathfinder players, DragonAGE fans, and anyone who just wants to plunk down a major drow Underdark metropolis in their campaign! I’m pleased to see a book like this, particularly in the wake of my petition calling on WotC to make more material available to more editions of D&D – and I hope the trend continues! Of course, I would love to see some drow specific material pop up in DDI for 4E fans, but there’s plenty of gaming content in this new release – and the chance to play an evil Drow campaign to boot!
So until next blog… I wish you happy gaming!
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Meh- the fact it’s edition neutral annoys me. I want some crunch- 4th style. If this is the last book 4th edition gets then was a terrible ending it is.
Heroes of the Astral Sea please or another Monster Vault!!
I’ve ghosted this site for a while. Menzoberranzan,, what a joke! At GenCon Paizo had a ton of new releases, Wizards had one! And something we’ve seen over and over- Menzoberranzan.
The issue my group has with D&D Next is that they stopped working on 4th. At least when 4th edition was announced they released several 3.5 products.
Wizards had a lot of chest puffing with show at GenCon and little else. Just don’t let a silly game with Chris Perkins et all turn your colors. I’m reading a different tune being sung now and after all that glitter falls to dust you are left with D&D Next; Mike Mearl’s 2nd edition Frankenstein.
@Suzz – Well first I thank you for commenting, and appreciate you ghosting my site! I have to agree with you regarding how the support for 4E has fallen away, and it depresses me something awful. But I disagree with Menzoberranzan, and I really enjoyed the supplement – the fact that it was system neutral did not bother me as much as its short page count, and I kinda assumed that they would be supporting Menzo with DDI articles for 4E. In fact, I’m still holding out for that.
And as far as Next is concerned, no, I would not replace my D&D 4E game with Next. But I have come to realize that the current (and previous) rules set is just the foundation Core of a system, and not the complete product. I still think it is possible to take the Core and introduce additional rules to increase its complexity – possibly to the point where it would be comparable to 3.5 and 4E. I say only possibly because I also could see it going the other way too. But that’s why I’m continuing my playtesting, albeit in small doses, so that I can give feedback as the game continues to evolve. I will continue to be an outspoken skeptic of the D&D Next, but I have decided to be more constructive, in the hopes of seeing it turn into something I want to play. If not, I’ve got alot of 4E content, plus older edition stuff I can adapt, to keep me running D&D campaigns for the next decade!