The City of Brass

[Digitalelf]

I bought Necromancer Games boxed set and read through it. From what I read, I like it. But I much preferred TSR's version from the old 2e "Secrets of the Lamp" boxed set (which I ran a few times for a couple of different groups with much success).

I have not had the chance to use Necromancer Games version, but I was wondering if anyone here has, and if so, what their thoughts of it are (including thoughts/opinions of all other versions of the City they have encountered)...

-That One Digitalelf Fellow-

[Molech]

I've heard nothing but good things about it and the few times I've browsed through it I liked it. Once I find a place for it in my homebrew Cosmology I'll fork over the $$ and buy it. I think that's the key; if you can find a place in your campaign to use it it's money well spent.

-W. E. Ray

[Rockheimr]

I would suggest merging the two boxed sets, as both have strengths and weaknesses ... so just keep the strengths.

I recall the older supplements map was preferrable to the city in a bowl version of the newer supplement, however I really liked a lot of the individual locations (shops etc) of the newer one.

Been a while since I read both however, so can't give much more detail at the mo.

[Gary McBride]

I picked up "City of Brass" at Gencon last year. It is a fine and weighty product jammed with ideas and source material for visiting the fabled city of the efreet.

It is not a perfect product alas. Editing -- the editing is sub-par. Typos and grammar errors abound. They rarely if ever get in the way of understanding but they are prolific enough to be annoying.

But it is worth slogging though that slight annoyance to get to the gold mine of ideas contained within. If you are running Al-Qadim or an Arabian Nights style fantasy campaign, this product is an amazing discovery. If you are not, you should still get this product and it will convince you that you should be.

Another grand effort by the folks at Necromancer.

Gary

[Digitalelf]

Rockheimr wrote:

I would suggest merging the two boxed sets, as both have strengths and weaknesses ... so just keep the strengths.

I was planning on doing just that. In fact, I even picked up a PDF version of the Hackmasters City of Brass accecory just to see if it had anything I could take and use (and it does, just not as much as the two "D&D" versions do)...

-That One Digitalelf Fellow-

[Robert Miller 55]

Maybe the playtest notes the author posted over on ENWorld would help you out.

[delabarre]

I got this for Christmas last year off my Amazon wishlist and read through it. Offhand, I'm not totally convinced I'd run it exactly as written. However there is a tremendous amount of information there and I suspect that it would make a good launch platform for a long story arc or even an entire AP.

Some of my quibbles:

* I thought the cosmic backstory behind the genies, the CoB, and the overall story arc was kind of contrived and awkward. There were some nuggets of inspiration in there (like the historical break between the djinn and the efreet explaining the long-standing antipathy between the two races) but overall it read very amateurishly. The thing with the djinni princess bothered me for some reason.

And don't even get me started on the Grand Sultan of the Efreet's name.

* The CoB, as they laid it out, seemed...too small. Maybe this is because it's a 3D, multilevel city as mapped, but my concept of the CoB is that it would be like LA or NYC in size. (It's supposed to be a trading hub of the multiverse.) Obviously a city that size would be difficult if not impossible to write up, but...

The good:

* I liked the diversity of NPCs in the efreeti Sultan's faction. I would expand on that to create a whole organization of spys, assassins, soldiers, advisors, priests, etc. that all serve the Sultan and advance his agenda.

* It leads up to a pretty decent epic-level climax at the end.

[varianor]

I used some things from it for an adventure that was entitled In Search of the City of Brass, but by definition the PCs never got there. I'd like to run a game set in it.

Vis-a-vis feeling small? I think that's because there are a handful of well described locations and yet they only scratch the surface of the city. We are all living in the shadow of the 800+ pages of Ptolus these days, aren't we?