mbassoc2003 wrote:I suspect most of them look at something put out by FGG or Raggi and think to themselves, "Yeah, my product is almost as good as that." That's the same level of delusion that has them watching football and thinking, "Yeah, I could have done that if I'd applied myself."

Raggi's stuff (Lamentations of the Flame Princess...sigh) ain't all that great. He's had the good sense to get some decent artwork of... questionable content... but the writing is ho-hum, and the game design is recycled junk.

This being meant to point out that there's no accounting for taste, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and all that rot. Just 'cause you don't like it or I don't like it doesn't mean it isn't worth publishing, whether in .pdf or in print.

Except Wilmark Dynasty. Despite the fact that I'm a native Delawarean and acquainted with one of the authors, you don't get much worse than that (hi John!). I wouldn't have been as generous as some in describing the artwork in those dogs.

Just for the record, I hate the MM2 cover too, think WG4 is great despite Eric Nelson Shook's mom's cover art , and think we should give everyone a break who's trying to write something for use as an RPG product and let history decide...

Gnat the Beggar wrote:They were not born famous either.

I was thinking the same thing.  TSR had these guys on staff because it was cheaper to pay them a base wage and have them pump out a ton of artwork.  Makes me wonder what their payment per piece of art would be.  Once they made a name for themselves, they became commission artists and commanded a lot more coin.  When TSR was under good management, I'm sure a lot of things like cost of art was looked at very carefully.

I finished reading the book, Against the Giants, by Ru Emerson.  It was not exactly a great read, and it seemed like every other giant died by some arrow or blade to the eye, but I enjoyed it enough.

I ran this campaign BITD, and it gave the players quite a challenge.  Reading this account gave me some good ideas about how to add flavor and details to the experience if I were to run the adventure again.  I enjoyed reading about what the characters were seeing and then reading the module and how EGG described everything.  While the book doesn't follow the module series descriptions exactly, it's close enough.

The thing that bothered me the most was how the wizard's spells were different from spells listed in the Player's Handbook.  Fireballs barely made any explosion at all.  The wizard also had more spells than any 12th level magic user I ever knew.  The paladin and his spells were way too powerful unless he was 18th level or something in my opinion.

There were other odd occurrences l found ridiculous, like the time they are running for their life, climb down a staircase from the first level of the Hill Giant fort, make the staircase above collapse with a spell that makes the joints of stones come apart, find themselves at the bottom of the staircase and go to sleep, recovering spells and healing up!     The staircase has collapsed so the giants can get to them or see them.  Whatever.

The best part was the final battle with Eclavdra.   She was described differently than I imagined and was wicked evil.  Several characters die really fast in that final battle, which is quite a change of pace from the rest of the book where, for the most part, they barely escape ruin left and right.

The characters weren't really fleshed out well, although some of the characters were somewhat interesting like the twin, half-elf ranger girls.  The author tried to build characters, but mostly failed.  The author tried to create some suspense and mystery, but failed at that too.  No character was lovable, funny, or cute.

Anyway, glad I read it, but I can't give it an endorsement.  You have to really like the modules to make it worth your while.  

Kingofpain89 wrote:
I happened across this site the other day and found quite a few really decent maps posted.  I noticed some that looked strangely familiar and when I took a closer look realized they were city and dungeon maps from Bard's Tale 2.  I still have a folder full of those.  

Oh, wow, that really brings back memories. I remember drawing maps while playing the Bard's Tale games to make it easier to get around. There were so many damn random encounters that one misstep or wrong turn on the way back to resupply could mean the end. Did the same with Ultima 3 and some others Commodore 64 games. Good times.

benjoshua wrote:I finished reading the book, Against the Giants, by Ru Emerson.  It was not exactly a great read, and it seemed like every other giant died by some arrow or blade to the eye, but I enjoyed it enough.

Yeah, I remember that aspect of playing it. Inevitably the PCs try to short-circuit the giants' giantness by piercing brains or slashing throats, often after immobilizing them by magical or other means. Then come the arguments as to whether such a thing is permissible by the rules. Are any of the giants named Harald or Harold?

sauromatian wrote:
Yeah, I remember that aspect of playing it. Inevitably the PCs try to short-circuit the giants' giantness by piercing brains or slashing throats, often after immobilizing them by magical or other means. Then come the arguments as to whether such a thing is permissible by the rules. Are any of the giants named Harald or Harold?

I don't remember a Harald or Harold.  And speaking of immobilizing them, there were several occasions where the magic user put giants to sleep with a spell, including the frost giant king and queen at the same time!  So much for only working on lower hit dice monsters.  

If it's eBay, you can always hit them with negatives.

Japan is getting hammered. Another quake just hit at magnitude 6.6, an entirely new quake in an entirely new location that is not an aftershock.  Pretty awful stuff. Just hope those nuclear plants hold on, some are damaged, but from what I have read they are literally the best constructed nuclear plants on earth because of where they are (in Japan) and can withstand a hellacious amount of damage.  

My daughter works on a cruise ship off Hawaii, she called at 3 am my time to let us know they were taking the ships out to sea (which is better than sitting in a port when a tsunami hits).  She just posted that except for a few high waves and minimal flooding the Hawaiian Isles look fine and they have been told the danger is over.

Mike B.

For arthritic bowlers?  Who needs it?

http://www.armslist.com/posts/110905/ok ... all-cannon