Goodman Games

Sorry, I should have been more specific. Dragora's text is printed over a simple white background, making it much easier for me to read. The only place Dragora strays from the white backgrounds is on page 40 (the conclusion, which is no big deal) and on page 47 (the OGL, which doesn't matter to me at all, nor to anyone else I should think).

The art in Dragora was a little more to my liking. I think the whole module seems closer to a "2e" look, for whatever reason. I prefer the way Sellswords uses smaller illustrations to Dragora's full page pieces, but all in all I like Dragora's art better (though there is less art overall in Dragora).

The Punjar map itself is quite nice. It was the battlemap I was talking about. The battlemap isn't altogether useless, it's just that I'd prefer to see resources spent elsewhere. As I said it's a bit odd to have one of the maps printed inside the back cover (although I don't know what else you'd put there since you already have the Punjar map on the other half...).

Again, I mean it all constructively. I do think both modules are excellent, maybe some of the best I've seen from Goodman Games. I think I'm going to run Dragora's Dungeon starting this week (since we had a party wipe last session...).

One question: both modules use the word Bruised as a descriptor, but the stat blocks use the word Bloodied. These terms are interchangeable, right?

Interesting perspective on the battle map. I guess myself and our group are totally the opposite. We'd happily pay a few, heck several, more dollars if every encounter in a module had a gorgeous full color battle map. We love using tiles, flipmats, printed battle maps, and tons of the minis.

I just wanted give a counter balance because we were all just talking about this the other night and really liked how modules were now including battle maps. To us, we think these save the gm a lot of time and adds some nice immersion for the players.

On the topic of maps. Does anyone have a more detailed map of the area around Punjar? We are pretty sure we are going to be basing our upcoming 4E campaign off of these Punjar modules and it would nice to have the area mapped out. Something like the Nentir valley was done for the default 4E world. I would happily pay for a Punjar area gazetteer.

I’d like to second AtroCat’s opinion and say I’m one of these people that don’t mind paying a few extra bucks for the battle mat and other cool accessories in an adventure. I find I get a lot out of them and my players seem to as well.

Yes, those are interchangeable. Let's just say that's a legacy of the twisty-turny road to the GSL...

I'd figured that was the case. Thanks for the reply.

Hey guys. First time poster but I have a couple questions about the module after reading through the first half.

I found myself staring at the battle map of the slums and trying to get a good mental picture of the ally-way while I was reading and was kind of confused by the elevation changes going up and down the stars and just plain wondering about how high the walls and roofs were and what was under floors and what was occupying suggested under-stories.

I know it is all rather beside the point in the otherwise juicy encounter writing but I was having a hard time stringing it all into a sense of a physical place other than the atmospheric descriptors.

It just seems that the text dove straight into the encounters before giving some more wide-angle overview, like describing the outer streets surrounding the slum compound or a nice text-blurb about the charnal tower and the swarming bats. What borders the main warehouse? Maybe it's just a feature of 4e to focus much more on encounter setups but I was just trying to figure out how I would frame the scenes to my players.

Otherwise I think the colored battlemaps are nice, as long as they don't choke all of an adventures encounters in tight spaces. (it conceptually works for the alleyways). I think if everyone starts feeling that they have to provide full size maps of their encounters it will stunt the writing of modules simply on printing expenses.

Thanks guys. Keep it up. I look to the DCC for good adventure examples.

Greengoat,

Thanks for playing the adventure and offering up some good critiques.

You're right about cramped quarters of the slums. During design, it seemed fitting for the slum setting, but it wouldn't work to squeeze everything onto a battle map of that size if we were doing – say – a sprawling dungeon. But in this case it seemed the form fit the function. We'd like to keep including battlemaps in some of the adventures, so this is something we'll need to puzzle out in the next couple months.

Re: Missing wide angle. Good call. I'll remember this next time around. Part of it was an intentional "I need to focus the players on *this* aspect or else," but that doesn't excuse leaving the DM up in the air, unable to imagine the slums.

I'm smacking myself for not including a nice side view, with elevations. It would have been a beautiful illustration and really useful to DM and players.

//H

Edit: Re - answers to the elevation questions and undestories. I wrote up another post here someplace answering that. Let me track it down.

Found it. Hope this helps.



//H

That totally would have filled in a lot of the details but I know how illustrations and cartography is a bit more of a pain to coordinate in publishing.

But like I said, the characters, encounters setups, treasure, and adventure seeds are all really great and flavor-packed.

Thanks Harley

I picked up my copy of this last night and cannot wait to run it. It's my first DCC, and it'll be my first time DMing. I have been extremely pleased with the quality of the content as well as the printing. I do have one request, though: Would it be possible to post a .pdf of the map tile on the inside-back cover page to print like the roof tiles? I don't want to have to damage the book or remove the cover for the encounter it requires.

The reviews at ENworld directly let to my purchase, along with the book I got at Free RPG Day which already had me intrigued, so your marketing works!

I love the battlemap! Do any of your other DCCs include a color battlemap? I have far more money than time when it comes to prepare encounters, so I'd gladly pay extra for the maps.

Samphis,

Thanks for picking up Sellswords. I hope it is a good run for you. Let us know if you run into any problems or questions.

//H

I'm still waiting for mine. . . .

It didn't work for me, the map prints out pretty small, a little less than 1/2 inch per square. Can anybody give me any tips?

Thanks, Don H.

Hmm, do you normally have any problems printing from PDF's? It should print out just like a normal PDF.

Still waiting. . . .


[Edit-- It is taking forever for my comic book store to get a copy of this module in.]

Nope, I usually do fine with PDFs. I've got a lot of my Goodman modules through RPGNow. In this case, the map looks like a small graphic in the PDF that's the same size as the page - and it prints the same way. I've tried changing the print parameters to no page scaling but that doesn't help. I assume it's because I want it to print as a battle-size map and it's not to that scale in the PDF.

The color 2-5B map in the same module is a bigger scale and prints out OK for battle-maps.

Thanks, Don H.

I wish I could help but I'm not sure how. On my computer it prints okay. I would suggest the RPG Now forums or help email - this may be something related to computer settings that they've encountered before.

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding. I checked with RPGNow who said to upgrade my Reader - but of course that didn't help.

I can read and print the PDF fine - except for the battlemaps on pages 43-44. They print out as 8.5 x 11 pages, not in scale to use. Earlier in this thread, it sounded like someone said they should print out as battlemaps. They don't. They also have the ID numbers on them. Maybe they're not the battlemaps at all? Maybe the battlemaps are in a different file from the PDF? I don't know, but I bought the PDF and this is what I got. I can take the graphics and blow them up but they've still got the ID numbers on them. How do I get the real battlemaps?

Don Harrington

Ahh... I see now. When you buy DCC #53: Sellswords of Punjar as a PDF, you should get two PDF documents. One contains the module. On page 44 of this module is a B/W version of the map. It's actually slightly different than the battle map (it shows the portcullis in 2-5, for example) and is the DM's map. You should also get a second PDF file that is 8 pages long. In this second PDF file are the color battle maps suitable for printing to scale.

It sounds like you somehow only got one of the two PDF's. Try re-downloading the file and see if you get both files.

The light bulb goes off! I looked and there was a second file on RPGNow, it just had the exact same name as the module so I didn't catch that it was different. Say, these maps look right purty in color, too.

Thanks a million.

Don Harrington

I got it today! Reading it now and am planning on using this adventure this Saturday in conjuntion with part one of The Coils of Set.

Harley, I've only made it to the befouled fountain but I'm loving the overall feel of this module.

Thanks, Jedi. I hope you guys enjoy it ...

//H

We are going to start around 10 am (CDT) today and I have a question.

What is a duelist's dagger in fourth edition?

Well, we finished it tonight. I'll work on posting how it went soon.

But I'll say this, I had to work on the fly adjudicating the monster's hit points and such to Castles & Crusades. I don't think I did too bad. What is with monsters having over one hundred hit points in a first level module! Has WotC made the 4th edition adventures super heroes?

Harley, the module is excellent! Great mood and good setting.

I do HIGHLY recommend for future release not making dark, reduced copies of the large maps for DMs to use in lieu of the color poster map. Please translate these fancy maps into the traditional blue color simple maps for ease of use. Also, the illustrations are good, but do not reflect the feel of Goodman Games in my opinion. The drawings inside the module really made me feel I was running a Necromancer Games product.

Here is how the players scored your adventure Harley:

Ragnar1965: 7 out of 10
JediWife: 8 out of 10
Nightwing: Got ill and had to leave right after the battle with the captain of the dogmen so didn't stay to finish. No score from him.
Trevor: 8 out of 10
Alex (Trevor's 13-year old son who pinch-hit for Nightwing and ran Greyson): 6 out of 10.

For any undecided, we had $14.99 worth of fun and then some!

Questions:

1. Orcus is mentioned. How will Orcus fit in to the Aereth pantheon? Will there be cross over with the default setting as far as planes and deities?

2. It also mentions taking levels in other classes or changing classes. I don't see how this would work in 4E.

3. Where is Castle Mortis located, I can't seem to find it on the world map?

Thanks for the help.