She-Hulk series from Disney+ is mostly awful, but what do I know? I only read the comics

Variety article on She-Hulk finale. (SPOILERS)

I watched all of She-Hulk and then read this article. (see above link to Variety piece) SPOILERS follow if you haven't seen the show.

From the article: "Reading the script, it was so true. There’s so much resistance to a woman just existing in that space of superheroes. There’s always going to be that. I sort of anticipated it. It’s why I also feel it’s important. There’s such an entitlement to space held by certain people, and to even exist as She-Hulk is like a fuck-you, and I love that."

No, there is not a lot of resistance to a woman existing in a space of superheroes, if there were, we would not have characters like She-Hulk or Wonder Woman or the myriad of female heroes out there. There is resistance however, to a female superhero done wrong. "Captain Marvel" to me is a great example of a superhero done right by the MCU, even though there were trolls saying she was OP and all that. Get over it, she's OP in the comics too and always was!

Disney's She-Hulk is done wrong, mostly by an actress who does not embody the character (she feels more like someone reacting and spitting out dialogue than someone embodying a character.) When SMG played Buffy as an example, she made me believe she was Buffy, she gave the character life, this actress' portrayal is conversely mostly lifeless.)

Kevin Feige had a huge hand in that finale, which is probably why it's so poor. Why are producers shaping shows instead of letting talented writers do the work? She Hulk writers are not talented, Jen is such a great character but in this show she is reduced to a feminist parody of herself who hates all men. Even the one dude who was good to her in the end turns out to be evil and fucks her over, because of course he does, he has yy chromosomes.

Just about the best thing about that finale is a clever homage or reproduction of the Bill Bixby/Ferrigno series from the 80s, but the writes manage to miss an opportunity there too, absent is a character like Mr. McGee, the journalist. Bruce Banner takes his place dressed in Bixby garb from the intro. I think having a female version of McGee would have worked better, or maybe have one of the Intellegencia, but that's a minor nitpick when there is much else that is bad.

But apart from all that, the best these writers can do is break the fourth wall and that is a narrative device that is mishandled imo because in the comics it was used efficiently but here it is mostly used to insult the viewer, i.e. "Isn't it so clever? or we are using this technique or x y z is happening because of this...." just in case the audience doesn't get the simple gag, let's explain it to them.

In conclusion, if you want a good She Hulk series read the comics by John Byrne. If you want a really bad She Hulk series then give this show a go.

The Lich King rises again

My dealings with the Lich King as a faithful servant in game in 2022.

 

World of Warcraft was one of my favorites mmos in the 2000s, starting with 2007 but I never really got to experience the full impact of Wrath of the Lich King because even though I started playing after TBC, I was mostly a casual and doing low level newbie stuff and content. I played on and off from 2008 to about 2014 and then didn't really log on again until classic dropped in the summer of 2019. 

I distinctly recall playing a good chunk of it in 2007-08, staying up late on weekend nights doing dungeons or world and pvp. I recall how fun it was to make alts of the different races on the horde side. Even though I did buy Warcraft 2 when it was new, I never really got into the RTS as much as I did the mmo. 

This is a good time to get back into wow, or at least that is what Blizzard wants us to believe with the upcoming release of WoTLK classic later this month. 

So it is the hopes of the developer that they are banking on nostalgia when they had (arguably) their most successful expansion and they want us all to experience it, especially those of us who didn't experience it to the fullest. They are certainly making it easy as they gave me a free level 50 boost and have made Shadowlands free content, which they usually do before another expansion drops. Thus I have been playing Shadowlands and trying to get my warrior to max level, but really it is just biding my time until Classic WotLK drops. 

I have been thinking a lot about classic versions of games versus their modern counterparts because of my involvement with D&D 5e and the ongoing debates about game mechanics of old and new ones being added to that game, especially with the recent announcement of the One D&D playtest. 

And let's be honest, what is wow but a better version of the official D&D video games and mmos? I think DDO is great, but it never really captured the mainstream's attention or became part of the zeitgeist quite like wow did. DDO and Neverwinter are fun mmos in their own right, but wow was virtual D&D done right, if you don't believe me, remember how influential mmos and wow in particular were to the design of D&D 4e in 2008? That was not an accident. 

I suppose as long as there is legacy content in any medium, there will always be the possibility of debates about which version (or in the case of D&D which edition) was actually best. While I am not an old gronard or hating on 5e like many people do online, I do realize that these type of arguments will always exist and people will have their preferences about which version of whatever game they like best.

I will admit that I am a bit excited about another expansion launch, no I am not talking about Dragonflight, I am talking about Wrath Classic, we all knew it was coming after Blizzard made Classic TBC a thing. I really like the feeling of a full world and servers teeming with new and returning players and I think Wrath Classic will bring that kind of excitement back to wow. 

For the horde!!!

My list of the 8 best D&D 5e campaign settings ranked

 I wanted to make a video for my channel about this, but alas the best plans...etc. So in lieu of that I am making this post discussing all the settings that have been published by WotC since 5e debuted in 2014 and there have been quite a few, almost as many as source books (all of which I own) with three more coming our way in a few days with the re-introduction of the Spelljammer setting from the second edition days.

So remember this list is fairly subjective and totally my impression of the setting books so if you have a different ranking, that is totally fine and you are entitled to your opinion. Also for this list, I skipped Acquisitions Incorporated since it's such a niche setting and hardly anyone ever plays this from what I can tell, but I am putting Spelljammer at No. 8

OK, so now that we know the ground rules, here we go! Coming in at no. 7: Strixhaven.

Strixhaven A Curriculum of Chaos, Wizards of the Coast

As many of you probably know, this is one of three setting books based on Magic the Gathering, and in my opinion, the least interesting of the trio. I know some will disagree, but there is one thing this book and the others prove: That capitalism is alive and well in 2022 as these many setting books based on a relatively new setting to D&D (compared to Grayhawk or even Spelljammer for example) is proof that Wizards isn't shy about capitalizing on the ongoing popularity of its most successful property to date.

Coming in at No. 6: Ravenloft!

While it is certainly true that Ravenloft is one of the classic settings for D&D dating back to the game's second edition, the brainchild of the supremely talented and vastly underrated (imo) couple Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, who also penned the Dragonlance modules and novels based on that setting, here's the thing, while I love gothic horror and vampires, this setting is fairly limited to a specific genre, dealing with body horror and spooks and the like, a genre which isn't my absolute favorite in the vast multiverse of D&D.

Now don't get me wrong, Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft has a lot to offer DMs and players, especially if horror is their cup of tea. 

New character options are very flavorful and interesting including the hexblood who are descendants of hags, the reborn which are essentially reborn creatures with some very cool skills and features due to the fact that they, much like Frankenstein's famous monster, are reanimated corpses or entities that have returned from the great beyond and of course the Damphirs which are neither vampires nor human but something of a cross of both. 

Coming in at No. 5 is the Sword Coast, the Forgotten Realms, which is the default setting for 5th edition, which is another reason it doesn't rank a lot higher on my list. There are many issues with the Forgotten Realms, another classic D&D realm but one which has been bled to death in 5e on purpose!

It almost feels as though this book, as thorough as it is with its descriptions of Fearun and the Forgotten Realms could and should have been twice as long, given how much history there is to all the locations dating back to second edition and early editions of the game. 

Want to see the entire list? Well I was going to type this all out but I am feeling lazy so how about we skip to the video version and save me all the possible Carpal Tunnel? 

 

Dragons of Stormwreck Isle: Should you pick it up?

The new 5e starter set which includes the adventure "Dragons of Stormwreck Isle" dropped yesterday as a Target exclusive and if you are keen on watching reviews or unboxing videos of the product, there's a good number of them on the interwebs.

I have gone back and forth in my head whether or not to pick this up from WotC and to put in an order from Target because I do enjoy new adventure models, which is essentially what this is, overall if you are a new DM or player and thinking of getting this set, I would recommend against it, as you can pick up the 2019 Essentials Kit, which is a better value in my opinion.

I think I would only recommend this set to those among us who enjoy collecting RPG and specifically D&D stuff. I actually personally own the 3.5 starter box, the 4th edition red box and three of the 5e box sets WotC put out so far, the original 2014 set, the 2019 Essentials Kit and the branded "Stranger Things" box set. That last one was a gift though, not something I would have bought myself.  I have a link here to my Youtube Channel's video I recorded 8 years ago when the first 5e starter set came out if you are curious on my thoughts on that from back in the day.

I also recently watched a pretty good series detailing and ranking the starter set all the way back to the pre first edition Moldvay and Mentzer days to the current 5th edition and realized that the 2nd edition set may be the best one, but sadly I never picked that one up and would have to shell out some coin to get my hands on it.

Sadly, this set is a bit a letdown in my opinion, especially after the April preview video which Wizards put out hyping this thing up as some sort of gateway to digital content for n00bs. It's a head scratcher then that this set appears to only come with a sheet of paper which lists all the digital D&D related sites and links, without even including codes to discounted or free digital content which the Essentials Kit did have. 

Here is a short breakdown of the upcoming and recent releases from Wizards and my reaction to them based on my level of excitement about acquiring the product. 

• Monsters of the Multiverse: released May 17, 2022. Still not sold on this book, I already own "Volo's Guide to Monsters" and "Mordenkeinen's Tome of Foes" and they are essentially the same monsters with some new streamlined mechanics and tweaks such as the removal of racial bonuses. Also the lore is removed, no thank you, I will stick with the old books.
• Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel: released July 19, 2022. Also not sure about this one, on the one hand, the concept of real world myths which are different than the usual D&D fare of high fantasy and influenced by Dark Ages, Celtic, Norse and other familiar western mythologies is intriguing, and as much as I want to support the POC authors which contributed to this anthology of one-shots, I guess this doesn't pique my interest enough to want to run them or incorporate them into bigger and existing campaigns. Currently I am DMing and playing games in the Forgotten Realms, the default setting for 5e, so it makes more sense for me to incorporate one-shots from, say, "Candlekeep Mysteries," an anthology book that already sits on my shelf. 
•  Spelljammer Adventures In Space: August 16, 2022. I know a lot of people are hyped about this release, but other than the recognizable Mincs and Boo, I have no connection to this setting, as I did not play a lot of D&D in 1989 when 2e was popular (though I wished I had) I think if I wanted to play a space fantasy RPG I would have chosen to go with Paizo's "Starfinder" or something similar to it eons ago, but it's a personal preference. Not all that hyped about this release tbh. You can preorder the entire set on Amazon and other retailers for about $42 which is actually pretty cheap, considering adventure books run about $50 but I think I will pass for now.
• Starter Set: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle.  released Aug. 1, 2022. I think I pretty much covered this one.
• Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen: release date, late 2022. This one was quite possibly the one I was mostly excited about, until I read that they had messed with the Kender and were open to making other changes to the Dragonlance lore. No!!! If they change too much, I am sticking to my 2e Dragonlance modules and books, especially the excellent 1e "Dragonlance Adventures" which is still one of my favorite old school campaign setting books.

The problem with Storm King's Thunder and 5e modules overall

"Lear the Giant King" from Dungeon Magazine No. 78 (2000)

I have been incorporating elements of premade 5e modules into my D&D homebrew which I have been running twice a month at the local library. 

With 5e being eight years old now, there is a lot of material that WotC has put out during the years, including a plethora of what we used to refer to as "prefabs," or pre-written campaign modules for DMs to run if they are short on time or to draw inspiration from. After collecting all the source books for DM (except for a few of the campaign settings that I am not that keen on, I am looking at you "Acquisitions Incorporated") I have invested in "Storm King's Thunder", although it is not the latest adventure book I purchased, that would be "Candlekeep Mysteries." which as some of you know, is just a series of one-shots you can drop into your ongoing campaigns.

But even though this book has been out for quite a while (first print 2016 if I am not mistaken) I chose it to represent some of the problems a DM will experience trying to run the adventure as written, and as an example of what Wizards gets right in their pre-written adventure books and why they are sometimes problematic. I won't get too deep into what is wrong with the book, since it has been out a number of years, there is plenty out in the interwebs if you want to read a review or if you are on the fence about picking it up or whether or not to run it.

Instead, I will discuss what attracted me to it and what my plans are with the adventure now that I own it in hopes that others will benefit from such information. Now, first off: Upon careful examination of the story, it was fun to discover that the game designers drew inspiration from many old D&D books, adventures and sources and that it is influenced by the old Shakespeare play "King Lear."

Maybe that is why the adventure starts off with a Dramatis Personae with the main members of the adventure's cast of characters listed in alphabetical order for easy reference. There are a lot of NPCs in this book and the index lists all of them, over 60! Of course, it will be up to the DM and players whether they interact or use them all.  

 The adventure centers on King Hekaton, the most powerful of the giants, and his daughters and what happens in the aftermath of the shattering of the ordning, a caste system imposed upon Giant society by their gods. The adventure can be ran with the initial chapter in the book which takes PCs from levels 1 to 4 or with other published adventures that accomplish the same thing. Personally, one thing that I find Wizards got right is setting up a lot of their pre-written stories in the Forgotten Realms, so that DMs can theoretically flow players from one to the other seamlessly. At least that was the goal, but of course, this doesn't always work out in practice.

The book does have a nifty handy flowchart which details this and notes that chapter 2 is intended for characters that are level 5 where the PCs can then explore three areas with multiple encounters. This happens again two chapters later where PCs are given the choice between five different areas to explore and again after Chapter 10 where there is a choice of two ways to conclude the adventure.

Michael Selinker's adaptation of the Shakespeare play which was published in the magazine came during that nebulous time in D&D history when the game was transitioning from AD&D 2nd edition into the radical revamp WotC made which eventually led to 3rd edition, but the adaptation still follows 2e rules as evidenced by creatures and NPC stat blocks which still make mention of older game mechanics like THACO. Just like Lear, the protagonist of SKT, King Hekaton has gone missing and part of the adventure hook is for the PCs to go searching for him. Unfortunately, even though the book is rife with tensions and political intrigue concerning the king's court and the turmoil which engulfs it after the king goes missing, and following the events of chapter 2, the largest chunck of the book, Chapter 3 "The Savage Frontier" is dedicated to locations in the Sword Coast that the PCs can explore.

Many critics have pointed out, and I concur, this is where SKT starts to break down as the pages and pages of locations detailed in the book, while interesting, could have been presented as a separate supplement or as part of the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. 

So here's the bottom line: I don't regret investing in SKT, I remember walking into the hobby shop and going through all the printed adventures looking for a good one to engage my players who are currently embroiled in a combination of a homebrew with elements of the original starter set adventure with portions of the "Essentials Kit" module just to keep things interesting. I remember being excited over the prospect of having a big epic adventure involving the giants as part of our ongoing 5e campaign, but the best way to run this, upon careful study, is to take bits and parts of it and use them separately. This is how a lot of DMs approach 5e prefabs and SKT is no exception.

Chapter 3 does have a useful section and tables for random wilderness encounters, as well as suggested encounters for the many locations of the North such as Amphail, the Grandfather Tree, Beorunna's Well, Icewind Dale and Waterdeep. I have not done a deep study of how interconnected these encounters are in relation to the overall main narrative, but I have seen reviews which suggest that they are not.

In conclusion, it takes a bit of work to incorporate pre-written adventures into existing or homebrews for 5e, but with a little bit of work, a DM can draw inspiration from their story hooks or even lift whole sections without having to run them as written, grabbing encounter and interesting story elements and tweaking them for their own purposes. It is clear to me now that this was the intended consequence of making the Forgotten Realms the default setting for 5e, although of course, there are many other settings including some that are unique to this system including the "Magic the Gathering" inspired setting like Ravnica and Strixhaven. 

Storm King's Thunder by Wizards of the Coast (2016)

Getting ready for RvR: DAOC Classic server on the way?

I thought for the inaugural post for this blog I would briefly mention my return to Dark Age of Camelot in 2022. There are still some die-hard players who love this mmo and are playing it today. Usually when I do a search with the /who command I get at least 75 players on a weekend night, which is pretty decent for a game that is this old.

Chris Neal of the Massively Overpowered game site posted early in 2022 that Broadsword producer Talal “Eldariian” Saad had mentioned a classic new DAOC server promising big things like content that will be larger in scope and scale, longer periods of access to server dynamics, the ability to focus on or remove specific expansion features, and “wholly new and very exciting objectives,” all while offering players a level playing field to start off with. The dev. team for DAOC is pretty small so it is not any wonder that here we are 6 months later and this is still being developed.

Why do I get the inkling that we will probably get a DAOC classic server before Camelot Unchained, the RvR three faction mmo being developed by Mark Jacobs and his team, ever sees the light of day. I mean, here we are in mid July 2022, almost a decade after I first heard about this project and even though it entered beta 1 phase four years ago, and over $4 million has been pledged, still no concrete release date for the updated game has been forthcoming. 

At any rate, I felt an itch to play DAOC and even though I still have my wow account, I am thinking of alternating between these two mmos in the near future. It was relatively easy to join the Raven of Vallhala guild on the Ywain 4 server and spent a good amount of time in the old ToA expansion continent leveling and preparing to get my template for RvR.

I had a max level character back in the day and playing a zerker is rather easy, you pretty much get angry and beat up on mobs, the skills are relatively easy to acquire and learn. The only other Dark Age related news we had recently is that the traveling merchants have returned. According to a community post earlier this month, prices have been adjusted for some of the stores and a wide range of items were added including event and campaign items, including a bigger selection of potions.

The merchants can be found in Midgard just outside of Svasud Faste in the Vale of Murlan, in Albion just outside of Castle Sauvage in Camelot Hills and in Hibernia just outside of Druim Ligen in Connacht. This even will run until Monday, August 1.