Something tells me radiant citadel can be twisted into a pretty interesting dystopia. I'm thinking a vibe where the citizens are in a consistent state of dread of their councilors, shield bearers are generally low in morale, and the mind destroying magic is portrayed as some Psycho Pass-esque deal with fatal blind spots. I think that'd be a fun scenario to wrap the players up in. At least that'd be more interesting than any of the adventures in the book.
I mean, as written Radiant Citadel is still pretty screwed, there’s a massive cyclone just outside city limits that constantly poses a constant existential threat.
WOW. I do not think they realize how dystopian a society they have created with The Radiant Citadel. I would LOVE to see a guy run this setting on TH-cam with just enough realism to show what would REALY happen in a world like that.
It would be a test of how quickly, one or more of the following... 1) The channel was false-flagged and / or taken down... 2) The participants doxxed... 3) The participants swatted... etc... But it would be entertaining to read the comments of those who sincerely love Radiant Citadel and think it is heaven given form in the D&D setting.
The Drow secretly manipulate a hoard of orcs into conquering that place just to trade with the orcs to gather slaves. The bodies of the Shieldbearers shall hang from the Temples of Lolth and their shields heated and then hammered into the temple doors.
Playing a group of freedom fighters liberating the Radiant Citadel and slaying the citadel’s evil secret rulers… I like it. Not enough to pay money for any of the materials, but I like it.
I was thinking the same thing. Make the woketards that rule the Retardian Citadel the bad guys who need to be killed to free the enslaved population who only want to live their lives.
From the Polygon article: "The starting adventure, “Salted Legacy,” has players trying to stop a feud between merchants in a Thai-inspired night market, which requires earning renown by participating in a hot pepper-eating contest and a cooking challenge." What?? How is a hot pepper eating contest and cooking challenge in a Thai-inspired night market NOT a trope? Really??? Like, that's what they came up with for making a Thai-inspired adventure? FOOD?!?!? They couldn't use any of the awesome Thai folklore or mythology? Nothing with ghosts or spirits? Wow. Just wow.
The "Asian" (remember to them ALL cultures in Asia are the same and the people all look the same too) is really a US born person with exactly ZERO idea of Thai culture if that person is even from Thai descent.
@@TiaraStarbrighter Yeah. I guess I don't so much have a problem with them creating something that is different from Euro-centric culture. It's just that they could have drawn deeper into the respective folklore and mythology of each of the cultures a bit more and created more heroic storylines, instead of the trendy "let's role play what we like to do in real life" vibes that the newer people seem to like. I think role playing games should involve exploration, mystery, adventure, heroes, villains, drama, and even horror. But...cooking contests? Proms? No thanks.
@@BillAllanWorld There's only so much you can do in a short level 1 adventure. And the book contains a gazetteer for each setting with additional plot hooks and DM inspirations for each setting that draws on the culture and folklore. The beauty of an anthology it it's multiple small adventures for you to plug-and-play, so if you don't want to run a silly level 1 adventure with minimal-combat solving a mystery in a night market, then play one of the others. The very next adventure in the book in a horror plot. One of the later adventures involves you trying to stop an erupting volcano. Another's a dungeon crawl. Another involves you picking a side in a revolution and fighting against or alongside angels in the desert. Also, for the record, the "cooking competition" involves the party doing combat with giant prawns. It's not just a cooking competition.
Unlike Candlekeep Citadel, the authors of the individual adventures in Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel aren't credited with their adventure (this is from D&D Beyond so I don't know if the physical book shows the names or not).
They’re credited in the physical book but not the adventures themselves… which is a shame since so many of them are clearly personal to each of the authors.
@@Willie5000 that is a strange choice... put all the author names in a big pile in the back of the book.... does it even say what they wrote when listing their names?
It is odd. That being said, I know they had a lot of peer-review sessions, and effectively all worked on all of the adventures together. Coulda also just been a line count thing so they couldn't space it nicely within the page limit. The gazetteers really fill up a lot of the book. We know some of the writers had a lot more to say about their settings they likely couldn't fit based on the Journeys Beyond the Radiant Citadel supplement they released on dmsguild.
I am looking forward to hearing about pallets and pallets of these sitting unsold and gathering dust in warehouses and distribution centers everywhere.
@@TheMaleRei Maybe, but this another reason why I just walked away from D&D. I really do wish it would have just gone away when TSR went tits up. I suspect that Wizards of the Woke's target audience is not actually spending money on any of this crap, if they spend money on tabletop at all. My suspicion is that they just virtue signal on YT and discord and mooch off their DM, who may or may not have actually bought one copy of the book, assuming they did not bootleg a scanned pdf somewhere.
@@bopaintsminis Huh. Whelp, I can't tell if *my* reply got memory-holed by Ewe-Tube or yours. Either way - WOTC is spending valuable time and money and printing and processing power to virtue signal as they are. But you are doubtless correct, the $$$ from their "neu" fans is far less than from their legacy fans.
@@TheMaleRei And I am done with D&D, and I am surely not giving money to Wizards. They buttered their own bread, along with Paizo. There are other games and other game companies, and I have enough rpgs on my bookshelf to never have to spend another dime again (except on minis and paints, of course- and then there is 3D printing). The problem is not the games, but the gamers. When they call even writing your own adventures or choosing which rules to use v. RAW a "homebrew" you know you're in trouble. It's this kind of lack of independent thinking that fosters dependence on companies like Wizards of the Woke. Remember the Three Rules of Hobbying: 1.) Have fun 2.) Your hobby your way. 3.) No one company has a monopoly on your hobby (In this case, "D&D is not The Hobby and The Hobby is not D&D).
Counter-deconstruction is in order. Run this setting as the thinly veiled 1984 we all know it is, with the PCs enforcing the rules for Big Brother. The PCs could either serve as a strike team against dissenters, slowly making their way to the upper goverment echelons (making for a villain campaign), or trying to topple the goverment and shutting down them portals pemenantly (more anarchistic style play).
Any rational and civilized society that was on the border of a place organized and run in such a fashion would look over at it in horror and disgust at the mindless dystopia it will devolve into and may even prepare to deal with it out of humanitarian compassion. Those of us with a more barbaric nature just see free real estate.....
on the note of consensus, since you mentioned studying the history of Poland for the future book, I would like to also point towards the politics of of 17-18th century and the concept of Liberum Veto. In your example the extremist wins by shouting the loudest, that ios one way for consensus to fail, in case of Liberum Veto any noble could simply veto a legislation he didn't like even if it was already passed. It's the opposite problem in which nothing is ever achieved by the consensus
Tbh i would want a 3rd party D&D campaign set in the Planescape setting where the adventurers must acquire an item of great importance from the Radiant Citadel while it's being invaded by Demonic forces of the Abyss... Or being trampled on by the Great Modron March
Their main advertisement was who was writing that rather than the product itself. That was the reason I've been ignoring that book. Huh I once owned a copy of Planescape, this doesn't interest me.
Pundit, I see a solution here. Reasonable, rational, sometimes anarchist sometimes left person that I am, I would even throw a few bucks into seeing this happening: ... borrow or pirate a copy of Radiant Citadel. Get some of your favourite optimised minmaxing players. Run the game strictly to the poorly thought-out, badly background/economy-sourced setting rules. AND LET YOUR PLAYERS BURN THROUGH THE CITADEL, TAKE OVER THE CONSENSUS COUNCIL, TURN IT INTO A RESOURCE MACHINE AND LAUNCH AN ATTACK ON SIGIL. And then... POD LIVE STREAM CAST IT. Address it directly by name to the creators of the individual chapters of the modules getting DESTROYED. And teach them a goddamn f*cking lesson.
Launch an attack on Sigil? Even experienced Bloods know that it's super barmy trying to take on The Lady. Can't think of a quicker way to end up in da Dead Book. The Leatherheads who wrote this steaming pile of shit are super Clueless and barmy about how the Planes work. What are they thinking? That they're going to say "Muh diversity and inclusion" will keep The Lady from Mazing em? Or accusing The Lady of being problematic to Tieflings isn't going to stop her floating her shadow over you.
Probably yes but there is a fun bit about the Citadel's defenses that are made up of: a giant shield that blocks teleportation and attacks, constant sunlight for Undead, a dozen arch-mages plus 20 mages led by an ancient brass dragon, and lastly the leader of the shieldbearers (uses the Assassin stats) leads an undefined number of Veterans (I'd say 20-40 is a fair assumption). So not completely undefended
@@RPGPundit It's not curious at all. It's standard. The audience they are catering to have taken over the commercial groups so they advertise it there, and outside of that, they have to hide it to get others to buy it.
I read that section. I get what they were trying to say? It reads like the opening line fome babylon 5 But. They did not run with that. They could have built up the illusion of this utopia outpost and then shown us the kinks in the armor and the actual politics and factions and dangers Like i said. I am still flabbergasted that they messed up such an easy project. Literly just steal from ds9/babylon 5
I've long said that I heavily dislike Planescape and Sigil, since when I started gaming. But looking at this "city" makes me thinking I was too harsh on Sigil...
WoTC is probably thinking they're making a utopian society in The Radiant Citadel much like Lancer, but like Lancer before it given the right GM, it's actually more akin to high fantasy style 1984 or Brave New World.
Good non-western settings/games: - Sword & Caravan and Arrows of Indra - Dragon Fist - Legend of the Five Rings and Bushido - The Chrysanthemum Throne (to be released later this year)
I'd add Kara Tur/OA, Al Qadim, Maztica, parts of Ravenloft & Faerun etc..., aka the shit that the woke bash all the time. Which not to say some of Radiant Citadel's doesn't have some good some good subsettings, it's just that none of them really get the kind of proper space and development they deserved. For example I like that Godsbreath avoids the temptation to be victim porn for the pleasure of white woke liberals and instead focuses on how wonderful Southern culture is by making a fantasy version. Like usual WotC tries to do too many different competing things in one book with not enough space. It's hard to do a bunch of new settings just with such limited room for setting development. These subsettings don't even have prior editions. RC likely will be a fire and forget it setting like Ghostwalk that has no long term effects on D&D going forward with the possible exception of the occasional mention of the RC itself, but it's connected civilizations will likely be ignored outside of unofficial dmsguild products. This will be an orphaned product.
I would suspect the point is to scout for talent and cherry-pick the most interesting settings to make into splat books later on because, yes, some of these are too interesting to be confined to a 2-3 page gazetteer.
@@midnightgreen8319 Is that one of the Southlands nations from Midgard (Kobold Press' setting). Southlands is also amazing predominately none white settin book.
Strange enough your synopsis of a setting makes me want to run a game in this setting. Almost Cyberpunk levels of dystopia and has a lot of good intrigue plot hooks. Imagining bribing a councilor to import goods through connections. Then starting a coup d'état by shutting the city down with your imported goods and then taking over. Sounds like a great campaign if you go completely 180 on the setting goals. Also those Wizard's are doing some horrifying experiments with those brain wiped people Mengele tier hybrids. Lmao WotC actually created something interesting by mistake.
This sounds like a perfect example of "High Fantasy" product! Only someone who was high, and everything they knew was a fantasy, could write this drivel. I like to think of this as the difference between hype and reality. They tell you it is perfect. You get there and find out it is shit.
So the writers decided to create Magic Lobotomies. Very fitting seeing as the left came up with lobotomies in the first place, why not redo it in modern times.
They always throw the most inconvenient of their own side to their enemies side. The Nazis were socialists and fascism was created by marxists from the Italian Academia never forget about it.
Even beyond the horrible implications, why do these people that can poof away antisocial inclinations need the adventurers? It also reminds me of the dreaded Book of Exalted Deeds, that had poisons that weren't evil because they only harm evil people. As someone who always plays paladins, I find it repugnant.
@@innocentsmith6091 All the crap of the Nazis were white supremacists is a hoax, they were socialists who persecuted and murdered everyone who refused to comply to their regime including other germans.
@@innocentsmith6091 And the KKK were the paramilitary branch of the Democrat party in United States who commited acts of terrorism and violence against both blacks and Republicans even if they were white.
The authors of the book explicitly stated that the "era of D&D being about violent adventurers is over" and that they wanted the scenarios in the game to often have other ways of dealing with problems besides combat.
That's why all of the adventures in the book take place in the different locations connected to the city. It's meant to be a hub city/homebase for the party by default.
@@RPGPundit The "era of D&D being about violent adventurers is over" - that's a sign. WOTC is lost. Of course it's been lost for a while, but, here we are.
you just described the d&d movie perfectly, the costumes are the most repellent imo. The funny thing is the fauna made of cristal & others rare gem that can be rapidly decimated by the xorn in addition to the pests that can come from other planes makes it clear that they did not think beyond their comfort bubble.
Not to mention the rogue phantasmal killer rampaging throughout the deep ethereal. That unkillable threat is guaranteed to find the citadel and everyone will be powerless to stop it.
They don't want any western influences in the book. But the word Citadel comes from western sources. Like I said on Twitter, if I was a writer on this book, I'd be offended that WOTC is using the color of my skin, not my skill or talent as a writer to promote it.
I thought the wheel chair accessible dungeon was the limit but the deranged social setting described here and presented as a utopia really makes me wonder about the authors. I can confidently say if my gaming group played in this setting they would raze it to the ground. It sounds like some sort of layer of hell pretending to be a heaven. I actually might use this!
Brave New 1984 fantasy dystopia fuel. Now who wants to run an online game where the war in avernus turns on the radiant citadel in an infernal/abyssal version of a "have a heart" campaign because fiends don't want the third party competition from a group being worse than they are?
This book and the Strixhaven book have something in common for me. In both cases, I read the blurb, though, "So what the hell is this about?" and could not come up with a clear answer. You can read the blurbs for Curse of Strahd or Shadow of the Dragon Queen and get a pretty good idea of what they will be about. It might or might not be something you are interested in but at least you will have a good idea of what it is. After reading the blurb for Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, I have no idea what it is supposed to be. There's a magic city? You do...things? Stuff? Multiverse something something? This tells me nothing.
I hail from Wisconsin, Green Bay Wisconsin actually. I am half Native American and half Mexican. I was adopted by my aunt and uncle as a baby. My uncle's Native American and his wife is of German and Norwegian ancestry. Why am I saying this? Because I'm a gamer. I've been playing role-playing games since 1987. All my friends growing up were white. 98% of my friends right now are white. I got into Dungeons & Dragons with my white cousins when I was a kid. I am a minority. Oh and I'm heterosexual. I'm not just into Dungeons & Dragons I like other role-playing games too. When I read that there was a creative team comprised of only people of color, I was really skeptical. Plus as we all know there's been plenty of garbage being cranked out by WOTC for some years now. Then I read it was going to have like all of the "Woke" themes splattered everywhere. I didn't even have a high hopes about the book. Everything that wizards makes is crap now. I did like Tasha's, don't get me wrong. Do I agree with everything that was in it? No. But it doesn't matter I like new spells and class subclasses and all that other junk. The point of my tangent is: Just because you're a non-person of color transgender lesbian homosexual being doesn't make you a good writer. It just makes you a being. I don't think race or fucking sexual orientation or politics for that matter should factor into gaming. Good writing is good writing. And shit writing is shit writing. It's a goddamn shame what has befallen our beautiful game of Dungeons & Dragons. Regardless of any politics, Dungeons and Dragons used to be beautiful and amazing and epic. Like I said I've been gaming since 1987. I've watched it rise and then turn into what we're all dealing with at the present...
@@RPGPundit This seems poorly thought out they nerf combat which is 30-90% of the game. Although, fantasy cafe and refugee hotel might work with these types. Same people that think Victoria professors have sex in a story rpg is interesting I'm sure :/
I guess I'm not the only one who heard your review and started thinking how great of a dystopia that would be to play in (for some reason it made me think of the movie Brazil).
world building wise, if the taxes and tariffs were not so high that a profit could not be made, and there was no cheaper option, i could still see it happening. i mean if their monopolizing interdimensional/ interplanetary trade, why wouldn't they make it as expensive as they could get away with?
Please report to the top of the stepped pyramid in the center of the Citadel tomorrow. Our records show that you haven't paid your taxes so it looks like you are hired until we have taken from you what is required for everyone else's needs. The obsidian tecpatl you shall need to provide yourself but seeing what race you are you should already have one of those on you right? The victims will start arriving sometime after lunch since the Shield Bearers have such a damnable time herding them up the steps to the alter. Seems that the people who don't want to pay their "fair share" can be rather creative and inventive in finding ways to evade capture. Iregardless we shall expect you there at dawns first light to do whatever ritual it is that _your people_ perform in preparation of feeding to the Sun the souls of these lawless Capitalist pigs. The 6PM show you shall be performing will be held in the presence of divinity, the Creators of the Citadel. Then those who displeased our august overlords, including sometimes even an Overlord themselves who has been canceled by The Collective for questioning The Will of the People, shall be ritualisticaly humiliated and eliminated by you for their personal gratification. Don't be late.....😑
@@geekybugle4241 you gotta laugh at these lunatics and what better way than to pull on a skin suit of them and just go as full bat💩 crazy down their own rabbit hole they just keep digging.
Well, you can check out the OSR as a movement. Look for my early video entitled "The OSR is Cutting Edge" as a starting point if you haven't watched that.
To be fair, arepas are from most of south america, and the ones im from (Colombia), we make them with melted cheese inside, there can be egg, or meat, and the are also sweets ones too! (I just love food), or the simple ones, grilled with ham, cheese and bacon on top!
Arepas are mostly just Colombia and Venezuela. They aren't native to Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay or most of Brazil. Not sure about the rest of the region. Anyways, arepas have now, recently become well-known outside of VEN/COL because of the millions of Venezuelan refugees from communism coming over and opening restaurants. Love the Venezuelan anti-communists, but do not care for the arepas. Empanadas are way better.
@@RPGPundit i dont blame you, in Colombia every region has their own arepa and i admit some of them are bland and tasteless, i come from the coastal region and we put a lot of meat in our food, also our empanadas with hot sauce are legendary
RC needed to be multiple books, a core setting book, an adventure book, and a player options book, instead it gets 1 book with far too few pages, to try and get everything it sets out to do done, leaving alot of wasted potential. This is an extremely common problem in 5e, with only a few exceptions.
Made a post today regarding needing a D+D alternative, because of Radiant Citadel being so far beyond the Pale, and everyone recommended your channel and, yep, I found the right place. Exactly my conclusions on this garbage book, and it is basically the last straw for me with WoTC.
Thank you! For an alternative ruleset to D&D, check out the OSR movement (I did an early video in this channel called "The OSR is cutting edge" which gives a good intro), and especially my own Lion & Dragon RPG.
Would love to run it just to destroy it with the hand of... realism. Imagine opening a portal allowing ACCURATEL orcs goblins and drows to immigrate to this Radiant Setting. The city would not surive a week.
@@Fernoll Ah but see what they'd really mean is Orcs are welcome in the working class neighborhoods (esp if said neighborhoods house dissidents), not in their posh gated communities.
Ethereal Plane connected to most of the outer planes iirc, nothing more realistic than someone from sigil just randomly exiting out of a portal and after returning to sigil, they just tell the devils or demons about easy pickings on the ethereal plane.
Good thing this is a fantasy setting and a complete work of fiction because this world would collapse inside a week; month if they're lucky in reality.
You know what I've noticed about wizards of the woke they have no idea what they are doing they couldn't find their own ass with their own hands. I mean is it me or is that because of diversion inclusion they start to put it in all these Tieflings into all of their settings. I mean in second edition they were exclusive only to planescape I mean you can do the whole traveling but they were mainly concentrated in planescape and in the city of doors because hello they're playing touched and the idea is if they go to the world they would probably be outed as themes and persecuted.
gotta agree with the comments here. you accidentally made an awesome pitch for the book. i would love to play in a game where we liberate and destroy the radiant concentration camp.
Me being black myself age 32 also new to learning to DM and I got the book for the simple fact it has race stereotypes and elements to it. It’s a great book for the table and people of color me myself to enjoy the day of the dead (Día de los Muertos) in a fantasy setting that you can play at the table
Glad to hear this... im seeing a lot of hidden racism in the comments. Feels like people are just scared black n brown people and asians are replacing white people... like guys white people still control this goddamn industry and gatekeep it heavily. It makes no sense to me.
You used the correct word, "stereotypes". Not just stereotypes, but specifically leftist stereotypes of what they envision foreign cultures to be. As a Latino, I can tell you that specifically the "dia de los muertos" thing is ridiculous.
@@RPGPundit yeah I personally dont understand that one since a lot of mexicans I know don't really like how it's been americanized... But then again that's just what I heard and its more annoying to put everyone from one race into one category and assume they all agree. I'd understood that these designers/writers were of those ethnicities. The whole point of the project from what I'd heard was to add imagery and flavour that wasn't just the traditional nordic/greek and western flavouring Just add more cultural diversity to make the world seem bigger or maybe make people relate and see themselves in the stories. You'd be surprised at the amounts of stuckup manchild dms wont let ppl play a black or gay character for example A lot of people I know have said they liked seeing their cultures mythology influence in it.
@@RPGPunditalso I will say, WoTC often don't pull things off well but to say theyre morally wrong and need to be cancelled... like I just dont understand this view point. Theyre just coming up with some game ideas and you can use the core idea and build around that If you dont like it just dont buy the adventure right
Even before I learned about how awful and unethical this project was the art struck me. It struck me as garish, eye-gouging, and hideous. It's not DnD.
I found the art for a lot of the adventures quite nice actually. In the Mists of Manivarsha, in particular, had some of my favorite of the book. Which pieces bothered you in particular? Just the cover art or...? The maps tho, I'll agree, are lacking. Dunno why they've stopped doing color maps.
Would be kind of interesting to have a version of this book but written by someone who understands what living in east Berlin was like. A set of segregated planes that are all shithole communist controlled but also described with positive spin and newspeak to obfuscate that there are other planes/realities that are not shitholes. There could be little mini adventures, but the larger meta adventure is for the players to slowly discover that things are being hidden from them and the true end goal is to sucessfully flee the communist citadel to one of the free planes of existance. :)
One day they will remove all weapons and harmful magik from the game, and will implement rules for protesting and canceling , and sign crafting, and every player will be seeking that dwarven +5 sign of convincing...
Thanks for the warning about the book. Blue Rose's setting was pretty bad as it was a pastiche of the well till recently sane proggy Valdemar but this sounds next level bad.
It's the same "bait and switch" we are seeing in movies like Dr. Strange, where it was actually a movie about the Scsrlet Witch and America Chavez, and Obi Wan which ended up being about Reva (the bestest ever Inquisitor). The Radiant Citadel sounds like a commie nightmare.
Imagine playing a D&D game where you "heroically" eat chilis to defeat the evil ideological opposition by dramatic posing! FFS! WTF even is this garbage?
If people like D&D they should go after old-school 2nd edition or even 3rd edition stuff. Plenty of D&D but without the bullshit. Incidentally, I picked up Sword and Caravan and it's legit a great book.
Thank you very much! 2e or 3e are OK, but check out the OSR rulesets; like if you enjoyed Sword & Caravan, check out Lion & Dragon; the best D&D ruleset for medieval authentic play. Spread the word, share the video!
That's very high praise. Of course, it could just be the accent; we're both Albertan. We studied in the same university. So did Ezra Levant. The U of A has a lot to answer for.
No where in the adventures are the pcs charged taxes. In the short citadel setting chapter, it's mentioned in a blurb about the economy and that there's a fee to get into the citadel like with Candlekeep and its book fee, but it's donation based and mostly for wealthy merchants.
The fee is what you call a Poll Tax. Or are you saying that you support a society where there's no wealth tax on adventurers? Why not them? Is it because they earned it and took risks that others wouldn't in order to get their fortunes? Because if that's your argument...
@@RPGPundit No, my argument is you can handwaive the taxes if you don't want to use it. Just like you can handwaive the book donation for Candlekeep or guild fees in Waterdeep. It's your table, and you don't have to charge your players for shit if you don't want to. Gold in 5e is irrelevant anyway because Wizard spellbooks are the only real gold sink. I think you're being disingenuous and hyper fixating on a small detail (The sheer idea of taxes being mentioned in a section about a city's economy. Something that has been mentioned in plenty of other city settings.) in a setting that doesn't actually affect any of the adventures in the book because they don't even take place in the Citadel. I also think you're assuming things about me as a person because I said the make believe taxes in this make believe game don't even have to apply to the players, as it says in the book, and you can handwaive them because taxes might not be important to your campaign or particularly fun or interesting. (They certainly aren't important to the adventures in the book.)
Reminds me of my sister, such a normie, she has played D&D several times, but she is not passionate and invested in it, she doesn't read the gamebooks, sourcebooks, etcetera. All of it is just for the fun of it. Exactly like the new D&D movie, normies like her will say 'It looks fun, really good special effects and handsome familiar actors'. So superficial roleplayers and uninitiated normies will flock and attempt to invade our spaces and demand that our games be modified to suit them, these arrogant superficial dilettantes. I really abhor these chaotic Leftists. Infuriating.
I wonder if its the Mindflayer refugee that does the 'lobotomising'? We've got the setting all wrong, really you play as the liberators of this tyrannical place. 😂🤣😂
Something tells me radiant citadel can be twisted into a pretty interesting dystopia. I'm thinking a vibe where the citizens are in a consistent state of dread of their councilors, shield bearers are generally low in morale, and the mind destroying magic is portrayed as some Psycho Pass-esque deal with fatal blind spots. I think that'd be a fun scenario to wrap the players up in. At least that'd be more interesting than any of the adventures in the book.
That's exactly what I plan on doing with it.
It's "free" real estate.....
They say so themselves.
That's how I would run it! Is sounds like a terrible place honestly and it sounds like a dystopian society!
I mean, as written Radiant Citadel is still pretty screwed, there’s a massive cyclone just outside city limits that constantly poses a constant existential threat.
... Twisted?
I think that I would legitimately rather live under the whims of the Lady of Pain. At least the rules are cut and dry in Sigil.
WOW. I do not think they realize how dystopian a society they have created with The Radiant Citadel. I would LOVE to see a guy run this setting on TH-cam with just enough realism to show what would REALY happen in a world like that.
It would be a test of how quickly, one or more of the following...
1) The channel was false-flagged and / or taken down...
2) The participants doxxed...
3) The participants swatted...
etc...
But it would be entertaining to read the comments of those who sincerely love Radiant Citadel and think it is heaven given form in the D&D setting.
If I ran this setting Id have the PC be the people fighting a revolution to free the city form the grasp of the tyrannical overlords.
Going by the comments under the movie trailer, regular gamers don't even know tieflings don't have to have funny skin colors.
What's a tiefling?
**pages through MM**
**MM2 & Fiend Folio**
Nope... Nothing there about them.
****yeet****
The big mistake is that they have solid eye colors. No white in their eyes.
The irony is if you ran The Radiant Citadel setting exactly as written but as an antagonists, you'd have a the beginnings of a decent campaign.
The Drow secretly manipulate a hoard of orcs into conquering that place just to trade with the orcs to gather slaves.
The bodies of the Shieldbearers shall hang from the Temples of Lolth and their shields heated and then hammered into the temple doors.
Facts
The Radiant Citadel is clearly run by villains.
Playing a group of freedom fighters liberating the Radiant Citadel and slaying the citadel’s evil secret rulers…
I like it. Not enough to pay money for any of the materials, but I like it.
I was thinking the same thing. Make the woketards that rule the Retardian Citadel the bad guys who need to be killed to free the enslaved population who only want to live their lives.
From the Polygon article: "The starting adventure, “Salted Legacy,” has players trying to stop a feud between merchants in a Thai-inspired night market, which requires earning renown by participating in a hot pepper-eating contest and a cooking challenge."
What?? How is a hot pepper eating contest and cooking challenge in a Thai-inspired night market NOT a trope? Really??? Like, that's what they came up with for making a Thai-inspired adventure? FOOD?!?!? They couldn't use any of the awesome Thai folklore or mythology? Nothing with ghosts or spirits?
Wow. Just wow.
The "Asian" (remember to them ALL cultures in Asia are the same and the people all look the same too) is really a US born person with exactly ZERO idea of Thai culture if that person is even from Thai descent.
@@geekybugle4241 Iron law of woke projection strikes again.
@@TiaraStarbrighter Yeah. I guess I don't so much have a problem with them creating something that is different from Euro-centric culture. It's just that they could have drawn deeper into the respective folklore and mythology of each of the cultures a bit more and created more heroic storylines, instead of the trendy "let's role play what we like to do in real life" vibes that the newer people seem to like. I think role playing games should involve exploration, mystery, adventure, heroes, villains, drama, and even horror. But...cooking contests? Proms? No thanks.
Did you actually read the entire adventure and not just a two sentence synopsis? How do you know it doesn't go deeper than that?
@@BillAllanWorld There's only so much you can do in a short level 1 adventure. And the book contains a gazetteer for each setting with additional plot hooks and DM inspirations for each setting that draws on the culture and folklore.
The beauty of an anthology it it's multiple small adventures for you to plug-and-play, so if you don't want to run a silly level 1 adventure with minimal-combat solving a mystery in a night market, then play one of the others. The very next adventure in the book in a horror plot. One of the later adventures involves you trying to stop an erupting volcano. Another's a dungeon crawl. Another involves you picking a side in a revolution and fighting against or alongside angels in the desert.
Also, for the record, the "cooking competition" involves the party doing combat with giant prawns. It's not just a cooking competition.
"We don't care about money"
"We have very high taxation"
🤔🤨😵
That's a surprisingly common formula for progressives.
Progressives will give you the shirt off someone else's back.
Unlike Candlekeep Citadel, the authors of the individual adventures in Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel aren't credited with their adventure (this is from D&D Beyond so I don't know if the physical book shows the names or not).
Interesting. They're really covering it up.
They’re credited in the physical book but not the adventures themselves… which is a shame since so many of them are clearly personal to each of the authors.
@@Willie5000 that is a strange choice... put all the author names in a big pile in the back of the book.... does it even say what they wrote when listing their names?
@@marhawkman303 Nope, which is pretty strange - even as someone who actually **likes** Radiant Citadel...
It is odd. That being said, I know they had a lot of peer-review sessions, and effectively all worked on all of the adventures together. Coulda also just been a line count thing so they couldn't space it nicely within the page limit. The gazetteers really fill up a lot of the book. We know some of the writers had a lot more to say about their settings they likely couldn't fit based on the Journeys Beyond the Radiant Citadel supplement they released on dmsguild.
Sounds like they wrote a Lawful Evil society without even realising they were writing a Lawful Evil society!
Well put!
You can't say that!
Alignment is problematic and was created by the patriarchal colonizers!
Plot twist: The Radiant Citadel is actually inside the Nine Hells.
Thats the Woke ideaology summed up
@@ATG913
If that was a retcon, it would almost be worth it!
I am looking forward to hearing about pallets and pallets of these sitting unsold and gathering dust in warehouses and distribution centers everywhere.
Nah.
WOTC will sooner donate them to school libraries for charity as a tax write off.
It was all part of the plan!
@@TheMaleRei Maybe, but this another reason why I just walked away from D&D. I really do wish it would have just gone away when TSR went tits up.
I suspect that Wizards of the Woke's target audience is not actually spending money on any of this crap, if they spend money on tabletop at all. My suspicion is that they just virtue signal on YT and discord and mooch off their DM, who may or may not have actually bought one copy of the book, assuming they did not bootleg a scanned pdf somewhere.
@@bopaintsminis
Huh.
Whelp, I can't tell if *my* reply got memory-holed by Ewe-Tube or yours.
Either way - WOTC is spending valuable time and money and printing and processing power to virtue signal as they are.
But you are doubtless correct, the $$$ from their "neu" fans is far less than from their legacy fans.
@@TheMaleRei And I am done with D&D, and I am surely not giving money to Wizards. They buttered their own bread, along with Paizo. There are other games and other game companies, and I have enough rpgs on my bookshelf to never have to spend another dime again (except on minis and paints, of course- and then there is 3D printing).
The problem is not the games, but the gamers. When they call even writing your own adventures or choosing which rules to use v. RAW a "homebrew" you know you're in trouble. It's this kind of lack of independent thinking that fosters dependence on companies like Wizards of the Woke.
Remember the Three Rules of Hobbying:
1.) Have fun
2.) Your hobby your way.
3.) No one company has a monopoly on your hobby (In this case, "D&D is not The Hobby and The Hobby is not D&D).
Kinda tempted to have a go at a 'Brave New World' type campaign now
**PC revolt intensifies**
Dude you should read T.J. Bass' scifi first, it will give you so many ideas
Counter-deconstruction is in order.
Run this setting as the thinly veiled 1984 we all know it is, with the PCs enforcing the rules for Big Brother.
The PCs could either serve as a strike team against dissenters, slowly making their way to the upper goverment echelons (making for a villain campaign), or trying to topple the goverment and shutting down them portals pemenantly (more anarchistic style play).
Any rational and civilized society that was on the border of a place organized and run in such a fashion would look over at it in horror and disgust at the mindless dystopia it will devolve into and may even prepare to deal with it out of humanitarian compassion.
Those of us with a more barbaric nature just see free real estate.....
on the note of consensus, since you mentioned studying the history of Poland for the future book, I would like to also point towards the politics of of 17-18th century and the concept of Liberum Veto. In your example the extremist wins by shouting the loudest, that ios one way for consensus to fail, in case of Liberum Veto any noble could simply veto a legislation he didn't like even if it was already passed. It's the opposite problem in which nothing is ever achieved by the consensus
Yes, I was thinking about the golden veto when I read that section that was sent to me from the book. It was a disaster.
If "It's set inside a Dyson sphere, ffs" isn't the tagline for World of the Last Sun, it needs to be.
Good point!
"How do you stop people committing crimes with no force?"
"Magic lobotomy. Great, right?"
Spread the word, share the video!
Tbh i would want a 3rd party D&D campaign set in the Planescape setting where the adventurers must acquire an item of great importance from the Radiant Citadel while it's being invaded by Demonic forces of the Abyss... Or being trampled on by the Great Modron March
Their main advertisement was who was writing that rather than the product itself.
That was the reason I've been ignoring that book.
Huh I once owned a copy of Planescape, this doesn't interest me.
But as I point out in the video, that was not advertised directly, in the book. If they were so proud of it, why wasn't it on the back cover blurb?
@@RPGPundit interesting I'll check that out the next time I visit a game shop if they stock that book!
Pundit, I see a solution here. Reasonable, rational, sometimes anarchist sometimes left person that I am, I would even throw a few bucks into seeing this happening:
... borrow or pirate a copy of Radiant Citadel. Get some of your favourite optimised minmaxing players. Run the game strictly to the poorly thought-out, badly background/economy-sourced setting rules.
AND LET YOUR PLAYERS BURN THROUGH THE CITADEL, TAKE OVER THE CONSENSUS COUNCIL, TURN IT INTO A RESOURCE MACHINE AND LAUNCH AN ATTACK ON SIGIL.
And then... POD LIVE STREAM CAST IT. Address it directly by name to the creators of the individual chapters of the modules getting DESTROYED. And teach them a goddamn f*cking lesson.
This is a certified Banana Republic moment.
WAAAGH!
That's a lot of work... but it would be SO fun. I'd watch the hell out of it.
Launch an attack on Sigil?
Even experienced Bloods know that it's super barmy trying to take on The Lady.
Can't think of a quicker way to end up in da Dead Book.
The Leatherheads who wrote this steaming pile of shit are super Clueless and barmy about how the Planes work.
What are they thinking? That they're going to say "Muh diversity and inclusion" will keep The Lady from Mazing em? Or accusing The Lady of being problematic to Tieflings isn't going to stop her floating her shadow over you.
@@sadwingsraging3044 'Ere we go!
Sounds like a useful setting which a competent party with a small invading army could have fun utterly destroying...
While simultaneously liberating the local population from mass mind control and literal brainwashing by the elites!
murderhobos unite
God and Devils unite against this so called sanity... "Put their false righteousness to wrest. Their flame of fake ambitions ends now."
Probably yes but there is a fun bit about the Citadel's defenses that are made up of: a giant shield that blocks teleportation and attacks, constant sunlight for Undead, a dozen arch-mages plus 20 mages led by an ancient brass dragon, and lastly the leader of the shieldbearers (uses the Assassin stats) leads an undefined number of Veterans (I'd say 20-40 is a fair assumption). So not completely undefended
PCs as Shield Bearers - TPK every session! :D
I observed the same thing about the lack of diversity-based selling points on the official product page on their website.
Curious, right? Spread the word, share the video!
@@RPGPundit It's not curious at all. It's standard. The audience they are catering to have taken over the commercial groups so they advertise it there, and outside of that, they have to hide it to get others to buy it.
I read that section. I get what they were trying to say? It reads like the opening line fome babylon 5 But. They did not run with that. They could have built up the illusion of this utopia outpost and then shown us the kinks in the armor and the actual politics and factions and dangers
Like i said. I am still flabbergasted that they messed up such an easy project. Literly just steal from ds9/babylon 5
So one provides inspiration, the other sounds like either a complete mess or secretly a terrifying nightmare?
Indeed. Spread the word, share the video!
I've long said that I heavily dislike Planescape and Sigil, since when I started gaming. But looking at this "city" makes me thinking I was too harsh on Sigil...
Yeah, its a weird feeling!
WoTC is probably thinking they're making a utopian society in The Radiant Citadel much like Lancer, but like Lancer before it given the right GM, it's actually more akin to high fantasy style 1984 or Brave New World.
Good non-western settings/games:
- Sword & Caravan and Arrows of Indra
- Dragon Fist
- Legend of the Five Rings and Bushido
- The Chrysanthemum Throne (to be released later this year)
I'd add Kara Tur/OA, Al Qadim, Maztica, parts of Ravenloft & Faerun etc..., aka the shit that the woke bash all the time. Which not to say some of Radiant Citadel's doesn't have some good some good subsettings, it's just that none of them really get the kind of proper space and development they deserved. For example I like that Godsbreath avoids the temptation to be victim porn for the pleasure of white woke liberals and instead focuses on how wonderful Southern culture is by making a fantasy version.
Like usual WotC tries to do too many different competing things in one book with not enough space. It's hard to do a bunch of new settings just with such limited room for setting development. These subsettings don't even have prior editions. RC likely will be a fire and forget it setting like Ghostwalk that has no long term effects on D&D going forward with the possible exception of the occasional mention of the RC itself, but it's connected civilizations will likely be ignored outside of unofficial dmsguild products. This will be an orphaned product.
I would suspect the point is to scout for talent and cherry-pick the most interesting settings to make into splat books later on because, yes, some of these are too interesting to be confined to a 2-3 page gazetteer.
I like Nyambe as well.
@@midnightgreen8319 Is that one of the Southlands nations from Midgard (Kobold Press' setting). Southlands is also amazing predominately none white settin book.
@@gyorgyor7765 No it's a African inspired campaign setting that was done for 3rd edition. Its a really cool setting though.
So the problematic spells, like charm person, sleep, and dominate are bad in earlier editions but the massive mind control magic in this book is okay?
Even in-universe the mind control magic is described as “controversial” - which is a little vague.
Strange enough your synopsis of a setting makes me want to run a game in this setting. Almost Cyberpunk levels of dystopia and has a lot of good intrigue plot hooks. Imagining bribing a councilor to import goods through connections. Then starting a coup d'état by shutting the city down with your imported goods and then taking over. Sounds like a great campaign if you go completely 180 on the setting goals. Also those Wizard's are doing some horrifying experiments with those brain wiped people Mengele tier hybrids. Lmao WotC actually created something interesting by mistake.
No… you created the interesting campaign
Taking the shit WoTC puts out and turning it into fertilizer for a good campaign. I’ll gladly pirate it for this.
This sounds like a perfect example of "High Fantasy" product!
Only someone who was high, and everything they knew was a fantasy, could write this drivel.
I like to think of this as the difference between hype and reality. They tell you it is perfect. You get there and find out it is shit.
Let me tell you about the age of *High Adventure* !
_Violence is problematic!_ 😡
Ah,,, a Fifth edition player I see...
Absolute genius post. I'm borrowing it in the future.
So, they lack the strength of their convictions... So they want to keep everything secret..
Yup. Spread the word, share the video!
So the writers decided to create Magic Lobotomies. Very fitting seeing as the left came up with lobotomies in the first place, why not redo it in modern times.
They always throw the most inconvenient of their own side to their enemies side. The Nazis were socialists and fascism was created by marxists from the Italian Academia never forget about it.
Even beyond the horrible implications, why do these people that can poof away antisocial inclinations need the adventurers?
It also reminds me of the dreaded Book of Exalted Deeds, that had poisons that weren't evil because they only harm evil people. As someone who always plays paladins, I find it repugnant.
What?! And by that, I mean I’m more confused than shocked at this.
@@innocentsmith6091 All the crap of the Nazis were white supremacists is a hoax, they were socialists who persecuted and murdered everyone who refused to comply to their regime including other germans.
@@innocentsmith6091 And the KKK were the paramilitary branch of the Democrat party in United States who commited acts of terrorism and violence against both blacks and Republicans even if they were white.
Someone looked at the CHAZ or whatever in Seattle and went "Yeah this totally works for a fantasy setting"
yup. Spread the word, share the video!
That's exactly what it reminded me of
The radiant Citadel sounds like it was designed to enforce a state of non-adventure.
The authors of the book explicitly stated that the "era of D&D being about violent adventurers is over" and that they wanted the scenarios in the game to often have other ways of dealing with problems besides combat.
That's why all of the adventures in the book take place in the different locations connected to the city. It's meant to be a hub city/homebase for the party by default.
@@RPGPundit
The "era of D&D being about violent adventurers is over" - that's a sign.
WOTC is lost.
Of course it's been lost for a while, but, here we are.
you just described the d&d movie perfectly, the costumes are the most repellent imo.
The funny thing is the fauna made of cristal & others rare gem that can be rapidly decimated by the xorn in addition to the pests that can come from other planes makes it clear that they did not think beyond their comfort bubble.
Not to mention the rogue phantasmal killer rampaging throughout the deep ethereal. That unkillable threat is guaranteed to find the citadel and everyone will be powerless to stop it.
It sounds like the D&D equivelent of Minority Report meets 1984.
They don't want any western influences in the book. But the word Citadel comes from western sources. Like I said on Twitter, if I was a writer on this book, I'd be offended that WOTC is using the color of my skin, not my skill or talent as a writer to promote it.
Absolutely. These people don't realize what a humiliation it is. They're a modern day minstrel show for white leftists.
I thought the wheel chair accessible dungeon was the limit but the deranged social setting described here and presented as a utopia really makes me wonder about the authors. I can confidently say if my gaming group played in this setting they would raze it to the ground. It sounds like some sort of layer of hell pretending to be a heaven. I actually might use this!
This was the year I decided to end my DnD Beyond sub and no longer support WotC as a company. Sad its come to this.
Well, check out the OSR! You'll find much better material there. Look at my RPGPundit Presents PDF series for starters.
Radiant Citadel... somehow it reminds me Alexander Zinoviev's book "The Radiant Future" about soviet society.
I'm not sure that's accidental.
@@RichardChappell1 I doubt they read Zinoviev or even Lenine. I red Lenin and even him is probably to hard for them.
@@jarosawknas8947 I don't suggest they read it - they probably heard about it from their socialist friends...
No cops, so I'm bringing in my AR from that other plane of existence.
I can make this setting work.
Brave New 1984 fantasy dystopia fuel.
Now who wants to run an online game where the war in avernus turns on the radiant citadel in an infernal/abyssal version of a "have a heart" campaign because fiends don't want the third party competition from a group being worse than they are?
"If you're watching this, you're not a regular gamer."
Well, it's true.
Regular
👇
Normie
Next Campaign: Murder hobos become Shield Bearers with the secret goal of over throwing the regime and become king or rob the Treasury 🤣
This book and the Strixhaven book have something in common for me. In both cases, I read the blurb, though, "So what the hell is this about?" and could not come up with a clear answer. You can read the blurbs for Curse of Strahd or Shadow of the Dragon Queen and get a pretty good idea of what they will be about. It might or might not be something you are interested in but at least you will have a good idea of what it is. After reading the blurb for Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, I have no idea what it is supposed to be. There's a magic city? You do...things? Stuff? Multiverse something something? This tells me nothing.
I just found this channel and this is the first video I've seen, so far, good impression.
Thank you. Check out the other videos, and spread the word by sharing them!
I hail from Wisconsin, Green Bay Wisconsin actually. I am half Native American and half Mexican. I was adopted by my aunt and uncle as a baby. My uncle's Native American and his wife is of German and Norwegian ancestry. Why am I saying this? Because I'm a gamer. I've been playing role-playing games since 1987. All my friends growing up were white. 98% of my friends right now are white. I got into Dungeons & Dragons with my white cousins when I was a kid. I am a minority. Oh and I'm heterosexual.
I'm not just into Dungeons & Dragons I like other role-playing games too.
When I read that there was a creative team comprised of only people of color, I was really skeptical. Plus as we all know there's been plenty of garbage being cranked out by WOTC for some years now. Then I read it was going to have like all of the "Woke" themes splattered everywhere. I didn't even have a high hopes about the book. Everything that wizards makes is crap now. I did like Tasha's, don't get me wrong. Do I agree with everything that was in it? No. But it doesn't matter I like new spells and class subclasses and all that other junk.
The point of my tangent is:
Just because you're a non-person of color transgender lesbian homosexual being doesn't make you a good writer. It just makes you a being. I don't think race or fucking sexual orientation or politics for that matter should factor into gaming. Good writing is good writing. And shit writing is shit writing. It's a goddamn shame what has befallen our beautiful game of Dungeons & Dragons. Regardless of any politics, Dungeons and Dragons used to be beautiful and amazing and epic. Like I said I've been gaming since 1987. I've watched it rise and then turn into what we're all dealing with at the present...
Absolutely right!
Did Wotc added 30-100 non-lethal combat powers/spells? Or add new money & crafting rules? Does The Radiant Citial raids other planes to survive?
No. No. And no (though they send "shieldbearers" to other planes to find refugees to bring to the Radiant Citadel).
@@RPGPundit This seems poorly thought out they nerf combat which is 30-90% of the game. Although, fantasy cafe and refugee hotel might work with these types. Same people that think Victoria professors have sex in a story rpg is interesting I'm sure :/
Yup.
Would love to hear your thoughts on the TSR vs WotC debacle & the allegedly leaked Star Frontiers proposed races.
I've commented about that on Twitter, and on theRPGsite.
I suspect it is a fraud, It is claimed that an "insider" leaked the info and looks manufactured.
Wait, who's doing what horrible thing to Star Frontiers?
Oh, I see. Someone is either doing a false flag or is hard trolling Twitter lefto-racists. Lol.
So nobody plays a Rogue in Radiant Citadel? The class that is specifically played to be a thief and pickpocket
Sounds like a place where violence would erupt almost instantly and the wizards would be evil overlords running the whole place inside a year.
Well it sounds like a place where that already happened and what we're seeing is the aftermath after the populace was pacified.
Stumbled onto this? Do i have to bring my own table to TTrpgs or will the DM provide one?
Usually provided.
I guess I'm not the only one who heard your review and started thinking how great of a dystopia that would be to play in (for some reason it made me think of the movie Brazil).
world building wise, if the taxes and tariffs were not so high that a profit could not be made, and there was no cheaper option, i could still see it happening. i mean if their monopolizing interdimensional/ interplanetary trade, why wouldn't they make it as expensive as they could get away with?
Have you ever tried to de-program a 5E player?
Try hunger...
Get them prepared for what they are -building- devolving into.
I don't cross paths with too many 5e players in my circles.
I would be deeply offended if someone wanted to hire me because I'm Maya. Fuck that noise.
Please report to the top of the stepped pyramid in the center of the Citadel tomorrow.
Our records show that you haven't paid your taxes so it looks like you are hired until we have taken from you what is required for everyone else's needs.
The obsidian tecpatl you shall need to provide yourself but seeing what race you are you should already have one of those on you right?
The victims will start arriving sometime after lunch since the Shield Bearers have such a damnable time herding them up the steps to the alter. Seems that the people who don't want to pay their "fair share" can be rather creative and inventive in finding ways to evade capture.
Iregardless we shall expect you there at dawns first light to do whatever ritual it is that _your people_ perform in preparation of feeding to the Sun the souls of these lawless Capitalist pigs.
The 6PM show you shall be performing will be held in the presence of divinity, the Creators of the Citadel. Then those who displeased our august overlords, including sometimes even an Overlord themselves who has been canceled by The Collective for questioning The Will of the People, shall be ritualisticaly humiliated and eliminated by you for their personal gratification.
Don't be late.....😑
@@sadwingsraging3044 LOL
@@geekybugle4241 you gotta laugh at these lunatics and what better way than to pull on a skin suit of them and just go as full bat💩 crazy down their own rabbit hole they
just
keep
digging.
Maiar? 😉😆
A normal DnD party would take over the city by level 5
Yes, except that the book includes some handwavey super magic that would actually suppress any attempt at regime change.
@@RPGPundit that's what counter spell is for lol
@@RPGPundit btw big fan. My DMing style barrows heavily from what I've learned from you, Mercer, and Seth Skorkowsky.
Sounds like a great place to conquer.
Where do we find out more about pre-wizards D&D?
Well, you can check out the OSR as a movement. Look for my early video entitled "The OSR is Cutting Edge" as a starting point if you haven't watched that.
Planescape is cringe and silly, but it was actually conducive to adventure.
Yes, it certainly looks better by comparison.
There is no crime in the radiant cictidel for the same reason there is no crime in burning man, is a convetion of aristocrats.
Except it's not, really, if taken as written. According to the book all the cultures there are basically refugees.
@@RPGPundit doesn't every derazinated urban aristocrat believes themselves a refugee among a sea of plebian?
Summon Meatball!
If I recall, she didn't show up to this one...
@@RPGPundit she was behind your books
To be fair, arepas are from most of south america, and the ones im from (Colombia), we make them with melted cheese inside, there can be egg, or meat, and the are also sweets ones too! (I just love food), or the simple ones, grilled with ham, cheese and bacon on top!
Arepas are mostly just Colombia and Venezuela. They aren't native to Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay or most of Brazil. Not sure about the rest of the region. Anyways, arepas have now, recently become well-known outside of VEN/COL because of the millions of Venezuelan refugees from communism coming over and opening restaurants. Love the Venezuelan anti-communists, but do not care for the arepas. Empanadas are way better.
@@RPGPundit i dont blame you, in Colombia every region has their own arepa and i admit some of them are bland and tasteless, i come from the coastal region and we put a lot of meat in our food, also our empanadas with hot sauce are legendary
RC needed to be multiple books, a core setting book, an adventure book, and a player options book, instead it gets 1 book with far too few pages, to try and get everything it sets out to do done, leaving alot of wasted potential.
This is an extremely common problem in 5e, with only a few exceptions.
That’s the least of its problems
WotC are lazy fucks
More preocupied with "Sensitivity reading" and shit, than actually putting up a good content/material for their games...
Made a post today regarding needing a D+D alternative, because of Radiant Citadel being so far beyond the Pale, and everyone recommended your channel and, yep, I found the right place. Exactly my conclusions on this garbage book, and it is basically the last straw for me with WoTC.
Thank you! For an alternative ruleset to D&D, check out the OSR movement (I did an early video in this channel called "The OSR is cutting edge" which gives a good intro), and especially my own Lion & Dragon RPG.
Is that a wizard with a musket?
It is indeed!
Would love to run it just to destroy it with the hand of... realism. Imagine opening a portal allowing ACCURATEL orcs goblins and drows to immigrate to this Radiant Setting. The city would not surive a week.
"Orcs are welcome!"
@@Fernoll Lmao yeah let's see how orcs and drows from AD&D and 3.5 would deal with that commie settlement.
@@Fernoll Ah but see what they'd really mean is Orcs are welcome in the working class neighborhoods (esp if said neighborhoods house dissidents), not in their posh gated communities.
Ethereal Plane connected to most of the outer planes iirc, nothing more realistic than someone from sigil just randomly exiting out of a portal and after returning to sigil, they just tell the devils or demons about easy pickings on the ethereal plane.
Radiant Citadel , the cringe that keep on giving .
Indeed! Spread the word, share the video!
As others have noted, a realistic setting run by infallible narcissists would collapse faster than you can say Daenerys Targaryen.
Absolutely. Spread the word, share the video!
Good thing this is a fantasy setting and a complete work of fiction because this world would collapse inside a week; month if they're lucky in reality.
About as long as it took the CHAZ to.
You know what I've noticed about wizards of the woke they have no idea what they are doing they couldn't find their own ass with their own hands. I mean is it me or is that because of diversion inclusion they start to put it in all these Tieflings into all of their settings. I mean in second edition they were exclusive only to planescape I mean you can do the whole traveling but they were mainly concentrated in planescape and in the city of doors because hello they're playing touched and the idea is if they go to the world they would probably be outed as themes and persecuted.
gotta agree with the comments here. you accidentally made an awesome pitch for the book. i would love to play in a game where we liberate and destroy the radiant concentration camp.
Me being black myself age 32 also new to learning to DM and I got the book for the simple fact it has race stereotypes and elements to it. It’s a great book for the table and people of color me myself to enjoy the day of the dead (Día de los Muertos) in a fantasy setting that you can play at the table
Glad to hear this... im seeing a lot of hidden racism in the comments. Feels like people are just scared black n brown people and asians are replacing white people... like guys white people still control this goddamn industry and gatekeep it heavily.
It makes no sense to me.
You used the correct word, "stereotypes". Not just stereotypes, but specifically leftist stereotypes of what they envision foreign cultures to be. As a Latino, I can tell you that specifically the "dia de los muertos" thing is ridiculous.
@@RPGPundit yeah I personally dont understand that one since a lot of mexicans I know don't really like how it's been americanized...
But then again that's just what I heard and its more annoying to put everyone from one race into one category and assume they all agree.
I'd understood that these designers/writers were of those ethnicities. The whole point of the project from what I'd heard was to add imagery and flavour that wasn't just the traditional nordic/greek and western flavouring
Just add more cultural diversity to make the world seem bigger or maybe make people relate and see themselves in the stories.
You'd be surprised at the amounts of stuckup manchild dms wont let ppl play a black or gay character for example
A lot of people I know have said they liked seeing their cultures mythology influence in it.
@@RPGPunditalso I will say, WoTC often don't pull things off well but to say theyre morally wrong and need to be cancelled... like I just dont understand this view point.
Theyre just coming up with some game ideas and you can use the core idea and build around that
If you dont like it just dont buy the adventure right
Makes me want to dig out my old 'Price of Freedom' RPG where the players play freedom fighters in America fighting Communists, "Red Dawn" style.
_Wolverines!_
Even before I learned about how awful and unethical this project was the art struck me. It struck me as garish, eye-gouging, and hideous. It's not DnD.
I found the art for a lot of the adventures quite nice actually. In the Mists of Manivarsha, in particular, had some of my favorite of the book.
Which pieces bothered you in particular? Just the cover art or...? The maps tho, I'll agree, are lacking. Dunno why they've stopped doing color maps.
it sounds more like soft social conditioning that really makes zero sense. than a proper gaming setting.
Social conditioning
👇
Grooming
I’m gunna run this campaign but, I’ll have the citadel invaded by Caucasian male conquerors that enslave the city.
I can share all of the 5e books with you for review commentary purposes etc via Dnd beyond if you like
The fact that people don't mind losing money on every deal to support a ridiculous ideology kind of sums up WOTC and Hasbro in general doesn't it?
I want to tax my players, shit's hilarious
Would be kind of interesting to have a version of this book but written by someone who understands what living in east Berlin was like.
A set of segregated planes that are all shithole communist controlled but also described with positive spin and newspeak to obfuscate that there are other planes/realities that are not shitholes. There could be little mini adventures, but the larger meta adventure is for the players to slowly discover that things are being hidden from them and the true end goal is to sucessfully flee the communist citadel to one of the free planes of existance. :)
Ha! That's essentially what I did with my 'radiant citadel' parody in my Last Sun campaign.
One day they will remove all weapons and harmful magik from the game, and will implement rules for protesting and canceling , and sign crafting, and every player will be seeking that dwarven +5 sign of convincing...
Thanks for the warning about the book. Blue Rose's setting was pretty bad as it was a pastiche of the well till recently sane proggy Valdemar but this sounds next level bad.
What really miffs me is that we could have had Sigil come back but instead we get this steaming bile of dung.
14:00 KITTY!!!!!
Why do they even live on the citadel when it’s constantly on the verge of destruction? What does the citadel actually provide that the people don’t?
Sounds like a place ripe for insurrection.
Spread the word, share the video!
It's the same "bait and switch" we are seeing in movies like Dr. Strange, where it was actually a movie about the Scsrlet Witch and America Chavez, and Obi Wan which ended up being about Reva (the bestest ever Inquisitor).
The Radiant Citadel sounds like a commie nightmare.
Yup. Spread the word, share the video!
Imagine playing a D&D game where you "heroically" eat chilis to defeat the evil ideological opposition by dramatic posing!
FFS! WTF even is this garbage?
Spread the word, share the video!
It's the ultimate fantasyland. Now if we can only figure out how to get ALL of the democrats to move there!
If people like D&D they should go after old-school 2nd edition or even 3rd edition stuff. Plenty of D&D but without the bullshit. Incidentally, I picked up Sword and Caravan and it's legit a great book.
Thank you very much! 2e or 3e are OK, but check out the OSR rulesets; like if you enjoyed Sword & Caravan, check out Lion & Dragon; the best D&D ruleset for medieval authentic play. Spread the word, share the video!
Sounds like they're trying to create Rise of the Shield Hero.
Sir you remind me of Jordan Peterson, great job keep up the good work.
That's very high praise. Of course, it could just be the accent; we're both Albertan. We studied in the same university. So did Ezra Levant. The U of A has a lot to answer for.
You may not like socialism but it's capitalism that allows books like this to be made
"I never really liked Planescape" ... Ditto, never saw a setting trying so hard.
And yet Planescape looks fantastic compared to this thing they did now.
I’ve never thought this hard about a game in my life.
Well, that's probably best in your case. We wouldn't want you to pop something.
LOL! Charge Adventurers taxes?! My party would raze the city and muderhobo the entire population before paying a single copper in ‘taxes.’
No where in the adventures are the pcs charged taxes. In the short citadel setting chapter, it's mentioned in a blurb about the economy and that there's a fee to get into the citadel like with Candlekeep and its book fee, but it's donation based and mostly for wealthy merchants.
The fee is what you call a Poll Tax. Or are you saying that you support a society where there's no wealth tax on adventurers? Why not them? Is it because they earned it and took risks that others wouldn't in order to get their fortunes? Because if that's your argument...
@@RPGPundit No, my argument is you can handwaive the taxes if you don't want to use it. Just like you can handwaive the book donation for Candlekeep or guild fees in Waterdeep. It's your table, and you don't have to charge your players for shit if you don't want to. Gold in 5e is irrelevant anyway because Wizard spellbooks are the only real gold sink.
I think you're being disingenuous and hyper fixating on a small detail (The sheer idea of taxes being mentioned in a section about a city's economy. Something that has been mentioned in plenty of other city settings.) in a setting that doesn't actually affect any of the adventures in the book because they don't even take place in the Citadel.
I also think you're assuming things about me as a person because I said the make believe taxes in this make believe game don't even have to apply to the players, as it says in the book, and you can handwaive them because taxes might not be important to your campaign or particularly fun or interesting. (They certainly aren't important to the adventures in the book.)
if nothing else, i appreciate your passion
Reminds me of my sister, such a normie, she has played D&D several times, but she is not passionate and invested in it, she doesn't read the gamebooks, sourcebooks, etcetera. All of it is just for the fun of it. Exactly like the new D&D movie, normies like her will say 'It looks fun, really good special effects and handsome familiar actors'. So superficial roleplayers and uninitiated normies will flock and attempt to invade our spaces and demand that our games be modified to suit them, these arrogant superficial dilettantes.
I really abhor these chaotic Leftists. Infuriating.
k
I wonder if its the Mindflayer refugee that does the 'lobotomising'? We've got the setting all wrong, really you play as the liberators of this tyrannical place. 😂🤣😂
Mindflayering is a Religion of Peace, bigot.
@@RPGPundit You're right, I was being culturally insensitive. An apologise for my backward ways. I would be honoured to partake in your practices.