Sandstorm

[Fellfrosch]

Read it here: http://www.timewastersguide.com/view.php?id=1061

I was really impressed with Sandstorm, and I think a desert campaign could be a lot of fun. I just wish they had more setting info, so you could do such a campaign more easily.

[42]

So Sandstorm is better than Frostburn because you like deserts better than tundras?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I don't think that's a fair assessment of the review. He likes it because a) deserts have more potential for being used than tundras, and b) they did a better job creating the material with this one than they did with Frostburn (which, yes, was pretty lame).

[42]

I guess I'm not seeing why deserts have more potential than tundras.

I agree with Fell in that I can imagine "pyramids, pharaohs, mummies, ancient tombs, nomads, Bedouins, Arabian knights, genies, lost civilizations, death cults, horse cultures, and more..."

But when it comes to tundras I think of vikings, eskimoes, gold-mining, artic wolves, caribou, Czars, Mongolian horse lords, glacier tombs, whaling, long boats, cave men, secret civilizations, artic exploration, treacherous mountian adventures, and a whole lot more.

So I guess I don't agree with Fell's assessment.

[Mr_Pleasington]

I'm a big fan of arctic settings also.  There's as much potential for adventure there as as desert setting.  Plus, you get to wear coats.

[Fellfrosch]

If there's just as much icy potential as desert potential (which may be true) then lets just say that Frostburn didn't use its available source material nearly as well as Sandstorm did.

This may be simply because icy stuff is even less prevalent than desert stuff (which is, as I said, far less prevalent than European stuff). Consider the Indiana Jones movies: over the course of the three we've had multiple desert scenes, some of them very long and involved, whereas there's only one icy mountain scene and it's fairly short. In the past few years we've had two mummy movies, Scorpion King, Sahara, Hidalgo, and plenty of other desert movies, but the only icy mountain movie I can think of is one scene for Sky Captain.

Now, it may have been wrong for me to say that icy mountains have little potential, but I don't think I'm out of line in saying that deserts are generally more popular and evocative, and that RPGs haven't taken advantage of them nearly as much as they could. So maybe Sandstorm is better simply because it drew on easier source material, but the fact remains that I thought it used its source material much better than Frostburn did. All the cool things that 42 mentions would make for a great setting, but Frostburn didn't really get into any of them.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Czars and Mongolian horsemen are more "steppes" than "tundra" and don't even really meet "frostfell" environment most of the time. Just about everything else on that list can be anywhere else and doesn't rely on the cold, necessarily. Now, not everything in the desert has to be desert, but it's got that flavor. I think there's a reason Egypt is more romanticized than Antarctica.

[Entsuropi]

I find ice more interesting myself. It just looks nicer, and has all sorts of cool problems related to it.

But then I despise being too warm (sad fact: I find britain too hot some of the time), and sand has never been my friend.

[Eagle Prince]

I have Frostburn and Sandstorm.  They are both good.  More of a DM boook, compared to the Complete class books that are more like player option stuff.  The preview on the DnD website is a good taste of what it is like:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/177390000

I got a chance to already try out some of Frostburn.  It was able to make the enviroment a factor to even 15th level characters in a fair way.  So I think it did a good job.  I think if you can make the enviroment a factor to even high-level characters.. dangerous, interesting, etc, then that is a good RPG book.  Complete and Races books are fun because of all the options it gives you, but I think the enviroment books are better then any of those because this will make the game more fun then a certain feat, prestige class, or new PC race.  Plus it makes DMing easier.  So I think either of these enviroment books are better than any of the Complete books, Races of books, or the older 3.0 splatbooks.