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Post by geneweigel on Jul 26, 2005 12:13:40 GMT -5
Word on the street is that M&T is very well done and not afflicted by the editorial mistakes of the PHB. I haven't seen it myself so I can't really comment. However, this does give me hope for Yggsburgh and DC (by the way, the former has been at the printer since 7/12 and the latter is supposed to go to print the end of the month). I'd really like to hear how it is. That is, if anybody that I know around here picks it up.
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Post by Scott on Jul 26, 2005 12:33:14 GMT -5
At this point, the only C&C rules material that I'm interested in is the optional stuff EGG is including with Yggsburgh, but that could change if I hear good stuff about the M&T book.
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dcas
Warlock
Duke of Pennsylvania, Knight Commander
Posts: 481
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Post by dcas on Jul 26, 2005 13:44:09 GMT -5
Has that actually been verified (that Yggsburgh is at the printer)? The last news I saw was that it was planned to be at the printer on July 11th. Davis Chenault posted something in the DF C&C forum about it. He said it had been at the printer since 7/12 and that they had made some last-minute edits to the bluelines, and that the presses were scheduled to roll 7/25. Try here (search for "davis")
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Jul 26, 2005 13:57:51 GMT -5
Yeah, I'd missed that announcement (I was still going by the announcement at the TLG site). Very cool. So, assuming no printing SNAFUs this should actually be out by GenCon (and available from amazon by probably the end of August). Now we just need to convince Gary to stop wasting time posting to web-fora and get cracking on volumes 2-7!
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dcas
Warlock
Duke of Pennsylvania, Knight Commander
Posts: 481
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Post by dcas on Jul 26, 2005 15:10:20 GMT -5
Yeah, I'd missed that announcement (I was still going by the announcement at the TLG site). Very cool. So, assuming no printing SNAFUs this should actually be out by GenCon (and available from amazon by probably the end of August). Now we just need to convince Gary to stop wasting time posting to web-fora and get cracking on volumes 2-7! I do check TLG's web site from time to time but I don't put a whole lot of stock into what I read there.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Jul 27, 2005 0:17:54 GMT -5
My copy of HoMP from amazon was waiting for me when I got home from work today, and I spent most of the evening perusing it and reading the first few sections (26pp of the ~260pp total). First impression is that Gene was either being extremely generous or deliberately sarcastic in his praise of the physical product -- it's a complete mess both in layout and editing, just what you'd expect based on TLG's previous track record. The actual content is much more promising (the core idea is brilliant, and I detect a more-than-slight influence from P.J. Farmer's "World of Tiers" series), but at least the sections I've read so far (the introductory material and the first pane) have all been very heavily scripted, to a distressing extent that feels at times more like reading a "choose-your-own-adventure" book than an rpg module -- long blocks of narrative text (including lots of 'assumed actions' by the players) followed by something like "assuming the party proceeds, continue with" and then another long block of narration. For example, here's the way a "garden" area is described:I mean, honestly, I can't even imagine actually reading that to a group of players, and that's just one paragraph of many (though perhaps one of the more purple). Furthermore, interaction with NPCs gives specific "lines of dialogue" for the NPCs to speak. Admittedly this has been mostly 'scene-setting' material with little actual in-game consequence, and hopefully the more action-intensive sections of the module aren't also written in such a style. If I were to actually run this adventure, I feel I'd have a lot of re-writing to do in the sections I've read so far, and that's generally not a good sign in a module. More comments to come (perhaps) after I've read more of the actual 'meat' of the module -- the other 50 panes.
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Post by geneweigel on Jul 27, 2005 6:55:50 GMT -5
I hope I didn't steer you wrong but finish it and see. That particular description is for characters coming back to recover over and over again tothat area most likely looking for food at some point. The dialogue is all over the book but theres a ton of dialogue snippets in the "recovery area", described in the beginning, to break the repetitiveness of coming back and forth from the panes. I think the layout has vastly improved compared to LOST CITY OF GAXMOOR, DARK DRUIDS and THE HERMIT. As for the absence of illustrations, I'm glad that there isn't inaccurate illustrations over the text. Things that would have made it more interesting: 1) SOMETHING VISUAL TO WRAP YOUR HEAD INTO THE AREA I'll admit I wish there was some stylized mapping to innacurately visualize the layout (ala WHITE PLUME MOUNTAIN's area map) but that would be a tall order methinks. 2) VISUAL LEJENDARY SHIT I think the Lejendary creatures got the shaft with the illustrators of GARY GYGAX'S BEASTS OF LEJEND CYCLOPEDIA OF CREATURES and would have like to have seen them here perhaps. 3) LESS USE OF 3e's INTERPRETATION OF "UNIVERSALLY SOUND" FANTASY MONSTERS While the "2e-3e dweeb culture" at ENWORLD might find concepts like the "tiefling" a pleasant surprise in a Gygax adventure, I find that it denigrates the entire work at the expense of the old time fan. There is no way that the concept of the "living screwing the dead and producing blue lipstick wearing glam warriors" is going to enter into the campaign of anyone that I'm willing to play with. Period.
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Post by Scott on Jul 27, 2005 7:12:55 GMT -5
I'm going to write a short story about Gene the Glib, a bard adventurer, and his band of merry tieflings.
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Post by geneweigel on Jul 27, 2005 7:52:48 GMT -5
I'm going to write a short story about Gene the Glib, a bard adventurer, and his band of merry tieflings. ...and their never ending battle against the evil scourge of the Empire of Lamers?? Hmmm... Gene the Glib: Pass me a spyglass, boy...er..gir-...whatever. Tiefling #1: Here milord, we remain faithful to the cause. Gene the Glib Where's your fellow defector brethen? Tiefling #1 I will see... Tiefling #1 transforms into Tiefling #2.Gene the Glib Ah there you are boy...er...gir-...whatever! I see the movement of the enemy in the camps...wait...whats this? The entire non-"tiefling defector" regiments of my army have defected? Then what the heck am I fighting for? Tiefling #2: We've manipulated you into fighting for a revival of 2e's PLANESCAPE series of adventures. Gene the Glib: KHAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Post by mistere29 on Jul 27, 2005 8:07:37 GMT -5
Foster, I appreciate the effort you make reveiw product, both here, and at K&K.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Jul 27, 2005 10:29:22 GMT -5
I think the layout has vastly improved compared to LOST CITY OF GAXMOOR, DARK DRUIDS and THE HERMIT. Well, on that scale I suppose you're right, but compared to, say, what TSR was producing in 1978, they've still got a long way to go. The main thing is that AFAICT so far there was no practical reason whatsoever for making this into a boxed set instead of a single book (hardbound or softbound). You'd think seeing 3 booklets and a stack of 19 looseleaf sheets that the books would be divided in some thematic manner, and that the looseleaf sheets would be handouts of some kind, but neither assumption is correct. The division of book 1 (80pp, intro & panes 1-9), book 2 (84 pp, panes 10-33), and book 3 (104pp, panes 34-51 & appendices) seems completely arbitrary, and the art on the looseleaf sheets is not S1 or S3 style scene-setting illustrations to be shown/given to the players, but rather just standard illustrations that I can only guess weren't included in the actual books because that would've complicated the layout process (actually some of the illos may well be things to be shown to players, but I was so turned off by most of them (about half drawn by everyone's favorite artist, IYKWIM) that I didn't spend much time studying them. If they wanted this to be a boxed set and to have it be more than a gimmick, they should've been really daring and bound each pane separately -- many would be either a single sheet or a 4-page folio, but some would be as much as a 16 or 24 page booklet. Chaosium did this back in the 80s with Borderlands (for RQ) and Masks of Nyarlathotep (for CoC) and it was a great idea, emphasizing the episodic and non-linear nature of the area (which is in fact true -- the first 49 panes can be played in any order the players or referee desire, and the organization in the book is by color and shape, not "intended playing order" by any means). The interior layout of the books is decent (the margins are very narrow and the text is bigger than the old TSR books, which creates a slightly crowded feel IMO (similar to the C&C PHB), and the text isn't justified so the right margins are jagged, which looks terribly sloppy to me, but is something I'm seeing more and more of so I guess it's considered acceptable nowadays), but in the ~35pp I've read so far I've found formatting and editing errors all over the place. The use of fonts is complex -- a standard font for normal text, a sans-serif font for text to be read aloud, italics for certain rules-notes, and LA rules-text in shaded boxes -- and I've seen a ton of errors (material that obviously shouldn't be read aloud in sans-serif, LA material not in boxes, material that says it's italicized ("see the italicized text below") that isn't, and even a handful of bracketed "Editor's Notes" saying what font sections are supposed to be in (oops!)). I've also spotted various typos and punctuation mistakes, and at least one place where a paragraph ends mid-sentence. I'd say I've seen an average of at least one error (formatting or editing) per page so far. Not absolutely terrible (like "Dark Druids"), and easy enough to ignore, but not by any means what I'd consider professional standard.
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Post by geneweigel on Jul 27, 2005 12:20:14 GMT -5
Not absolutely terrible (like "Dark Druids"), and easy enough to ignore, but not by any means what I'd consider professional standard. I will never forget the scene (straight out Spinal Tap) regarding the darkened almost blackened covers that were curling at GenCon 2002...
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Post by grodog on Jul 28, 2005 0:53:38 GMT -5
Hmmm, well, with TLG raising the price of this to $40 (vs. Amazon's still-listed $20), I was thinking about ordering it, but I'm not sure it's worth it, based on the comments you've collectively posted above.
If you had to rate HoMP on a 1-10, with 1 being The Hermit, and 10 being G3 or S1, how would HoMP fare? That score would be a gestalt score, rating the quality of the module, the editing, the maps, the art---the whole kit and kaboodle.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Jul 28, 2005 11:48:22 GMT -5
I hate to pass 'final' judgment having read so little of the book (I've only read the intro and panes 1-6, about 1/6 of the total pagecount) but so far I'm afraid I'd place it around a 4 or 5 (i.e. on about the same level as the "Dungeonland" modules). In addition to the production issues noted above (which aren't enough to 'wreck' the module, but are enough to be distracting, at least to me), of the 6 pane descriptions I've read so far, only 2 of them were really interesting, which isn't so bad except that the way the module is set up you have to play through all 51 panes in order to complete it. I get the feeling that if I ever decide to run this module I'll do it as the "hall of several panes," picking and choosing the 21 or so most interesting/unique ones, and leaving a lot of the "gate in, fight some generic bad-guys, gate out" stuff on the cutting room floor., both because I don't find those types of encounters particularly interesting and also because I can't imagine I'd ever finish the entire thing as written -- Gary's playtest group spent a full year on it playing once a week; for a group that meets every other week or once a month that'd be more like 2-4 years on the same module!
BUT keep in mind that I've only read a comparatively little bit of the module (even though I've read about 40pp), and enough good stuff in panes 7-51 could easily still push this up to an "8" or "9" (but I'm afraid based on the production issues and the 'problem' of scale it's already lost any chance of being a "10").
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Post by Faraer on Jul 30, 2005 17:00:38 GMT -5
Hi,
I have my copy of HoMP now, and have read parts. Certainly the layout is mediocre, and it doesn't need to be three books and the spines should show which book is which, and the expansive d20 and less-expansive LA stats make it harder to read, and it's a long unwieldy sub-campaign of which only some panes can be easily adapted for independent use... but there's a lot of good material here, and I don't think anyone who likes Gary's adventures will be too disappointed. It's certainly in the slightly absurdist Zagygian mode, with the tone of panes varying from entirely serious to near EX territory. There's a Castle Greyhawk-style dungeon level, a white dragon lair, a pun-based adventure, finally a losel write-up and village, a very useable new ooze (from Beasts of Lejend), and lots more stuff I haven't looked closely at yet.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Jul 31, 2005 12:43:48 GMT -5
I'm currently reading the 'Castle Greyhawk-style dungeon level' and am loving it -- my favorite section of the module so far -- but beware that the map for the level is really messed up and doesn't match the text descriptions at all (for instance, the text describes a 40'x30' room with an exit on the opposite wall, while the map shows a 30'x30' room with no exits). My guess is that the cartographer hard a hard time deciphering Gary's hand-written map and just guessed how things were supposed to look without bothering to ask Gary or even read the text.
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Post by Faraer on Jul 31, 2005 18:17:02 GMT -5
At last, the DM can get in on the struggling-with-mapping fun.
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dcas
Warlock
Duke of Pennsylvania, Knight Commander
Posts: 481
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Post by dcas on Aug 1, 2005 9:25:26 GMT -5
I'm currently reading the 'Castle Greyhawk-style dungeon level' and am loving it -- my favorite section of the module so far -- but beware that the map for the level is really messed up and doesn't match the text descriptions at all (for instance, the text describes a 40'x30' room with an exit on the opposite wall, while the map shows a 30'x30' room with no exits). My guess is that the cartographer hard a hard time deciphering Gary's hand-written map and just guessed how things were supposed to look without bothering to ask Gary or even read the text. Who did the cartography?
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Post by Faraer on Aug 1, 2005 18:08:40 GMT -5
Jason Walton.
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Post by grodog on Aug 10, 2005 20:35:25 GMT -5
Hmmm, I'm still not sold. I'll have to talk my FLGS into letting me open the box, then figure out if it looks fun enough, I guess.... Thanks for all of the responses and comments
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