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Shattering Lore For Laughs
imaginaerum1
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 378 Arc User
Has Neverwinter become a comedy game? A parody of Dungeons and Dragons? These "April Fools" items that aren't going away after April Fools is done are shattering the lore, for the sake of a few laughs and a bunch of zen sales.
Edit:
Gelatinous cubes are apparently were mounts in the Underdark due to some crack-addled work done during the 3.5 era, but they never should have been. They were mindless eating machines, sucking every crumb of organic matter out of the conveniently 10'x10' dungeon hallways. If you were in the middle of one, you were most likely dead already.
Green slime should never be companions. It's a slimy substance that drops from above and dissolves things. It is not a jello blob, it doesn't bounce around from place to place. Hell, I'm not even sure how it gets on the ceiling in the first place to drop on you.
If these were temp items, lasting only for, say, the first week of April, I'd say sure, go for it. But these are permanent items. Items that people played a "skirmish" over and over to get, or spent zen on. This was either a horrendous mistake, or proof that the devs really don't care one whit about D&D canon lore. I'm betting on both.
-- @Gruffydd
Edit:
Gelatinous cubes are apparently were mounts in the Underdark due to some crack-addled work done during the 3.5 era, but they never should have been. They were mindless eating machines, sucking every crumb of organic matter out of the conveniently 10'x10' dungeon hallways. If you were in the middle of one, you were most likely dead already.
Green slime should never be companions. It's a slimy substance that drops from above and dissolves things. It is not a jello blob, it doesn't bounce around from place to place. Hell, I'm not even sure how it gets on the ceiling in the first place to drop on you.
If these were temp items, lasting only for, say, the first week of April, I'd say sure, go for it. But these are permanent items. Items that people played a "skirmish" over and over to get, or spent zen on. This was either a horrendous mistake, or proof that the devs really don't care one whit about D&D canon lore. I'm betting on both.
-- @Gruffydd
Post edited by imaginaerum1 on
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Comments
The green slime and mimic, along with some of the other fantastic companions I can rationalize. The slime could be held by magic and directed by the "owner". It's a stretch and seeing them everywhere is sort of weird, but the cubes are just way over the top. A little farcical goes a long way and this is a lot and it's just a drag.
If nothing else please tone down the sloshy gurgles so I can pretend they aren' there.
The table top skirmish is different and a nice nostalgic throwback. Even though it's sort of an immersion breaker, I liken it to telling a story. Since it's instanced people can choose to join it or not and thus it doesn't intrude on the world at large. The gelatinous cubes are a pandora's box unleashed. You can't put them back because people paid for them and they really change the feel of the game.
Also, lighten up.
I understand your pain.
These Items should only be usable in a timeslot surrounding said event, e.g. sledges around x-mas, water bombs around midsummer etc.
IMO the only thing that breaks immersion is that all of these people around me are riding and wearing things which should be incredibly unique. But that is to be expected with an MMO as everybody wants their characters to be unique. It is no different here than in any other D&D game really except that when I played Neverwinter Nights there were only a handful of players in any given area or if I play Baldur's Gate there were only NPC's.
These mounts, IMO, more resemble magical trinkets than actual mounts. In my opinion they all seem like Jarlaxle's nightmare figurines and Drizzt's unicorn mount. The summoned mounts are actually illusions of a sort and not physical creatures.
For instance in the novels it is explained that Guenwhyvar is the astral essence of the panther. She is a physical being from another plane. The figurine has a magical link to her essence. However the mounts they ride are magical constructs and are not living breathing entities.
If Guenwhyvar's figurine is broken she would live happily in the astral plane. If the mount's figurines were broken the constructs themselves would be destroyed.
If you apply that concept to Neverwinter...
We are not riding on actual nightmares, just a magical construction of the likeness of a Nightmare.
Similarly it could be rationalised we are not riding in an actual Gelatinous Cube but are simply in a substance which is visually similar.
We're playing a game where we pretend to be creepy-looking devil people throwing around giant balls of ice, stocky dwarves running around stabbing dragons with longswords, halflings with daggers stabbing giants in their ankles until the giants die, half-elves shooting Godlasers and calling upon the power of the gods to heal massive wounds, magical elves with bows using nature magic to kill skeletons with arrows and knives, humans with gigantic swords playing ping-pong with Kobolds...
...And it breaks your immersion that some crazy-*** wizards somewhere came up with a less acidic gelatinous cube, a magical sled, and an enchanted waterskin that shoots harmless balls of water? No, it's not in the official lore, but then again, neither is anything you've ever done in a tabletop session of Forgotten Realms. No, not even LFR, it isn't canon either. Having *that* many tieflings and drow wandering around the surface in the middle of day in a social gathering place doesn't make that much sense in the lore either, and yet there they all are(And whatever is left of Vhaeraun is undoubtedly proud) walking around PE. (Hell, there's plenty of random drow commoner NPCs, nevermind the seven thousand Drow HRs named Drizzt.)
Honestly... It's FR. Given Ed Greenwood, gelatinous cube mounts probably aren't even close to the weirdest thing to happen in the Realms.
Gelatinous Cube
Gelatinous cubes are not mounts for the faint of
heart, or for those in a particular hurry. Bizarre “cav-
alry” in Underdark wars, gelatinous cubes are used to
herd opposing troops and chew through defensive
lines, or to protect valuable spell-
casters after their magic is spent.
Cube riders require special gear just
to survive the ride. The “saddle” for a
cube is a special magic item, an
amulet
of ooze riding
(see the sidebar). The
amulet activates a force sphere when-
ever the wearer comes in contact with
an ooze. Then, with some effort, the
rider nudges the sphere to the center
of the cube and rides safely inside. It
takes 1 minute to fully mount or dis-
mount a gelatinous cube; once inside,
a cube rider can’t be dislodged by any
normal means. Ride checks incur a –5
circumstance penalty if the rider is
not fully mounted.
Gelatinous cubes are air-permeable, so breathing is
never an issue. However, carrying a rider disorients a
cube’s ability to find prey by scent—everything
smells like food when an organic creature occupies
its center. Denied their sense of smell, occupied
cubes sense prey solely through vibration.
Although cubes are nonintelligent (and therefore
untrainable), they can be directed. “Steering” a gelati-
nous cube is an odd art. Taking advantage of the
cube’s impaired senses, a rider creates vibrations
within its mass by banging on the force sphere. With
practice, specific vibrations can fool the cube into
sensing external movement. Thus, the cube contin-
ually chases phantom “food” in the direction the
rider indicates.
A rider must exit his cube at a decent speed (at least
faster than the cube’s land speed of 15 feet), since the
cube immediately tries to engulf any food that sud-
denly appears near it.
Carrying Capacity:
Light 198 lb., medium 396 lb.,
heavy 600 lb.;
DC Young/Adult:
—/29;
Young Price:
5,000 gp;
Training Cost:
—
Siderbar mentioned above: New Magic Item:
Amulet of Ooze Riding
Any time the wearer of this
amulet comes into contact
with an ooze, a sphere of
force springs up around the
wearer. The sphere prevents
any contact with an ooze and
protects the wearer from
direct attacks by oozes.
Caster Level:
7th; Prerequi-
sites: Craft Wondrous Item,
Otiluke’s resilient sphere; Market
Price:
28,000 gp.
Quest ID: NW-DPCZNUVQ7
Aye. Getting worked up about "lore" or "immersion" in an MMO always seems like a futile gesture.
Of course, in the case of D&D, our group never really got attached to lore in the first place. We played published modules in between our own adventures, but I don't think we ever defined which D&D world we were in (well, except when we tried that one Bloodright? campaign). Maybe it was easier to ignore the campaign settings back in 1st & 2nd ed. - I don't recall the modules being very strictly defined. Meh, whatever.
Game. Set. Match. Well played sir.
/thread
Indeed. Us Lvl 60 DMs craft our own worlds and lore. I always found that way more fun than playing bought modules. Ravenloft was an exception however. In any case 'lore' is just history and that's written by the winners, so treat everything you hear with caution
That said, I stand corrected. Some crack-monkey working for the company back during the 3.5 days came up with gelatinous cube mounts. A terrible, terrible idea that apparently was at least confined to the Underdark. Now they're everywhere in the middle of the city, along with an assortment of other gigantic critters that would be of extreme concern to any rational guardsman or city administrator.
Honestly, a lot of these things (repetetive grinds, etc) have somewhat bugged me, but I was able to shrug it off with "well, it's an MMO, you end up with that kind of thing". But the Cube and the Slime as permanent additions to the game environment was just too much. Even if lore-approved, it turns the game silly.
I usually used my own worlds and lore too. But we're not in my own worlds and lore, unless you happen to be playing one of my Foundries. We're in the Forgotten Realms, an established world with an established and very detailed structure. If they're going to use a specific setting, they should stick to it.
As far as what is available in the game: it's vetted by Wizards of the Coast (Good friend of mine works there and they are literally one mile up the road from where I am sitting at work right now - Yes: I do know some of those guys and gals). WotC knows what is and is not in the rules; they made them up.
Though there is "such a thing" as GC Mounts, but only under certain and specific circumstances, the issue is how do you enforce those certain and specific circumstances in an MMO? Why does THAT player get to have a GC mount but I don't? Why does THAT player get to have a Unicorn but I don't?
This is the "problem" with the way things are: if you want to go all canon regarding D&D Rules and what is "plausible" or "immersive" or not, then you need to find a way to restrict each and every player to the specific circumstances and abilities that allow them to have certain things or do certain things.
However, because this is a game everything needs to be equally "balanced", therefore those restrictive set of circumstances and reason that [name your race and class] would have to be galavanting around in a GC cannot be embraced. So *everyone* gets to have a GC, or Unicorn, or Tiger, or Heavy Howler, or Beetle, or... I could go on, but digress.
So all you immersionists and lore-canon-police really need to lighten-up just a touch.
It's a *game* designed for *fun* and to be *fun* requires *equality* across the board, even if it breaks a few 'soft-rules'.
It's an MMO and that does throw out a lot of the rules then and there. Let's pretend this was a single player game and you could buy a Cube mount. The OP would gawk but look away because it's not for them but they'll continue on. The fact of the matter is it is customization for everybody's character.
You may be a good aligned character all clad in white with a halo to top it off. You obviously won't be riding a howler.
However if somebody makes a character they feel is a darker, more sinister character they very well may want to ride a howler and that is in no way immersion breaking.
However as this is an MMO and you are surounded by other players with "unique" characters that is where the immersion breaking is really coming from. Think of it in terms of Elminster. Elminster does wacky stuff that is absolutely nowhere in the rule books. The imagination is the limit. That's fine. Hell the end all and be all says it's fine because it is his sandbox.
The problem is that there are hundreds of Elminster's running through town at any given time.
That makes it look like a circus more than a D&D game due to the frequency of the unique and rare appearances. It gets to a point that being normal is abnormal and that is what causes the immersion breaks. However that is just something which will exist in an MMO.
But "It's magic" IS the explanation of a huge chunk of stuff in the actual lore
Half Owl Half bears?? A wizard did it.
Living treasure chests that eat you? A wizard did it.
Crystal Parrots that serve as telepathic burgalar alarms? A wizard did it.
as for the comment about "silliness" not belonging in D&D I just have three words
Giant
Space
Hamster
^^^
the naysayers are just grumpy and dont want people having fun. if you dont wanna play a fantasy game that is a bit whimsical, go play dark souls. imma enjoy sloshing around inside my jelly cube.
The fact that they are lore-approved makes your opening thread a pos.
Except in the Foundry, where we *STILL* don't have access to it.
A lot of those "a wizard did it" explanations were added after the fact. Some of them make sense, some don't, but there had better damned well be a STORY behind it, rather than just "a wizard did it". Technically, yes, each and every one of these weird creations can be explained by a lunatic with access to the Wish spell. It's a cop-out explanation, though.
Re: Giant Space Hamsters...
Spelljammer. I really, really learned to hate Spelljammer. Most of the worst crack-addled decisions to come out of pre-3rd edition AD&D were from that setting. Mind you, I did get some chuckles from the descriptions of the hamsters, especially the increasingly-desperate explanations the gnomes gave as to "why", but it really didn't fit in. Then again, neither did a lot of the critters from the various odd-setting expansions to the Monstrous Compendium.
Additionally, nobody ever told me there were fire-breathing phase doppelganger giant space hamsters.
The cubes aren't a deal breaker for me, but they are really loud and PE has turned into a sloshy sounding place. For the moement they sort of stand out like a sore thumb. I don't think they should have added them, but it's in now and it can't be removed.
Out of this I hope they tone down the volume of the mount and I hope they consider future additions and how it will impact the circus effect, especially in PE.
This is very true. Why not add adverts from Starbucks, McDonalds, and Logitech. We could say wizards used dimensional portals and brought these businesses into the game world. Why? Because it would be way over the top and over the line. It would ruin the feel of the gameworld. It's important to consider how these additions affect the feel of the game.
there is a line and i believe that's too much of an extreme.
i am 100% positive that changes that would cross the official D&D immersion line would not happen... meaning if WotC doesn't approve, it won't happen in neverwinter.