Thursday, December 18, 2008

Judges Guild Modules

Note that Goodman's line of Judges Guild are also included in the sales.

Goodman Judges Guild Page
Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor
Citadel of Fire
Dark Tower

I did the maps and layout for all three and I am co-author (with Bob Bledsaw since it is a remake) of Fortress Badabaskor. So if you want to see how I write up dungeons in addition to mini-setting this is your chance. Badabaskor is probably the closest thing you will get to a sandbox dungeon. Like the original it isn't a place that you hit and clean out. But a location that you can revisit over and over again.

There is now a 10th circle of hell reserved for 3.X stat blocks. I don't have any serious issues with 3.5 as a game or using stat blocks. Writin them however is a whole different story. I have to do a lot technical writing as a software developer often to exacting standards. Writing 3.X stat blocks is the most miseriable piece of technical writing I have ever had to do.

Citade of Fire is similar to Badabaskor but centered around a wizard's tower and the nearby communties. It is probably has the most stuff packed in and includes the citadel, a village, and a necropolis among other thigns.

Dark Tower is a straightforward conversion of the original. However as classic the original was there were some issues in the layout and format and I think even if you don't like 3.X you will find this version a lot easier to use.

So again after Decemeber 31st you won't be able to get this anymore new.

Note: Please don't let the presence of 3.x stat block turn you off of these three modules. We were able to up the page count on all of them so nothing was cut due to the presence of the stat blocks.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I just recently obtained Wilderlands of High Fantasy, so I am also considering getting these items. I have seen one or two of them in my local game store, and may yet pick them up. However, if they are very heavy on D20/3e statblocks, then I probably will not.

Having put together a fair few of those myself, I can empathise with your view of them. It is somewhat like a block building game, but one which discourages deviation form pre existing explicit instructions on how to build.

Xeveninti said...

I agree that the 3.5E stat blocks are an unholy pain in the rear.

What do you think of the way 4E does it? It seems to be easier.

Robert Conley said...

Matthew,

Yes they heavy on the stat block but... They didn't loose anything because of that. It was supposed to be 48 pages but instead came in at 64 pages. The same for Citadel and Dark Tower. Both larger. If I had written it for Fight On! The only difference is that the stats would be one liners. Everything else I wouldn't change.

M.gunnerQuist,

I cheated and used DM Genie for the number. I still had to make sure all the semi-colon, colons, commas, and bold text were there.

4th edition is absolutely 1000% better than 3.X in this regard. By luck I have a HP Photo Printer and used to print up cards for the handful of 4e games I ran.

Note that I think 4e is a good game, even outstanding in some respects but is not the Dungeons and Dragons game.

For me the lesson of 4e as far as stats go is that for any RPG including OD&D look really careful at the powers you put into your monster. Go for a handful of interesting and memorable powers instead of a laundry list of 20 or 30 powers.

Unknown said...

Picked up Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor yesterday; looking forward to reading it!