cthulhudarren wrote:I went ahead and bought all three of the CE series.
Thanks.
The idea behind the CE series is to give elements that everyone can use within their campaigns....relatively small locations that can be played in a single session if desired, as well as extra "Quest for It" materials - oracular sources, chances to gain special powers, patrons, gods, places to learn spells. Treasure maps appear in a lot of old school products, and have already appeared in DCC products, so the CE series also tries to give judges places that those maps can lead to. Most of these areas have enough stuff going on to draw the PCs back over the course of a campaign. All of them are intended to have material that can be used beyond the initial "adventure" the module is used for.
I believe that you should get a minimum of 2 hours play time out of each hour of prep you do. I have tried to follow that mantra with my written work...for each dollar you spend, there needs to be a minimum of $2 value. And I hope that there is far more value than that for most judges.
CE 1: With a focus on thieves, this short adventure gives a moderate level solo thief or halfling a chance to pull off a major heist. Materials are supplied of great interest to wizards and elves. A Neutral deity is introduced fitting for use with clerics.
CE 2: With a focus on wizards and elves, this short adventure adds a new patron, a new patron spell, and some good opportunities for role-playing. There is also considerable treasure if the party is both bold and powerful. Should the judge need to seed information or adventure hooks, means are given. Should the party be seeking specific information, CE2 offers an oracle.
CE 3: A swamp-based location with a non-human cult, a hidden treasure (judges who wish to supply treasure maps to their players take note!), opportunities for strange alliances, and a backdrop onto which more adventures can easily be devised. The setting can be used in conjunction with the Sunken City modules by Jon Marr (Purple Sorcerer), who had a chance to read and comment on the module, and gave permission to suggest its use with the Sunken City in Purple Duck's ad copy. (And, really, if you don't have all of Jon Marr's modules, why don't you?!?!)
CE 4: Upcoming. With a focus on warriors, this module offers the Seven Deadly Skills of Sir Amoral the Bastard, a chance for wizards and elves to learn spells, new monsters usable elsewhere by the judge, a suggested dungeon expansion, and an inconvenient oracle.
CE 5 to CE 15: ?????? In progress. Part of the process is going through the rule book and seeing where the judge is likely to need extra material, but where the extra material is not necessarily easy to produce. Basically, the whole series is to save the judge's bacon when he needs certain types of material fast, to do it with enough panache that the players want to return to the materials repeatedly, and to give the judge the time and leeway to do his own thing. Every CE encourages the judge to use the materials creatively. The core rulebook gives a lot of areas where judges are encouraged to exercise their own creativity; we have tried to do the same here.
Basically, this is a product I saw a need for in my home game. Since I was going to write this stuff anyway, I thought others might be interested, and Purple Duck's Mark Gedak agreed.