D20 Collecting

Posts: 210 · Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 10:22 pm

FormCritic wrote:

And....it's gone! Did someone here get it?

I went in to buy it about a couple of hours after you had originally posted it and it was already gone....the acaeum effect... Very Happy

Posts: 210 · Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 10:23 pm

FormCritic wrote:

http://www.trolllord.com/store/10sale.html

A link to the pdf for Troll Lord Games' current "$10 Sale."

The title is ironic because there's a whole bunch of C&C modules on sale for $5.

thanks for the heads up...I just went and bought a bunch of stuff...

Posts: 5194 · Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:39 pm

It's a big week for RPG sales in general. Glad Acaeum members are getting their share. Very Happy

Posts: 1924 · Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 11:08 am

It's almost worth buying them and paying the shipping to the UK for prices this low. Shame we don't have anything (to my limited knowledge) like this over here. Confused

Posts: 4569 · Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:07 pm

FormCritic wrote:

And....it's gone! Did someone here get it?

Yep.

Posts: 118 · Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 8:32 pm

FormCritic wrote:

http://paizo.com/store/sale

The flagship is GOODMAN GAMES. They are offering the Goodman versions of Thieves Fortress of Badabaskor for $2 and Citadel of Fire for $3.

IF you call your self a collector, these two items have to be in your D20 collection. At these prices, you need to hit this sale ASAP.

Thanks, FormCritic!

My Paizo mailer arrived today with my copies of Badabaskor and CoF. Awesome D20 goodness at prices too good to pass up.

Posts: 5194 · Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:21 pm

Awright!

My copies of Citadel of Fire and Thieves Fortress of Badabaskor arrived on Wednesday...after ordering them late Sunday, so pretty good.

I also completed my set of Wicked Fantasy Factory modules from Goodman. Those are pretty cool adventure ideas.

Posts: 5194 · Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 12:06 am

http://cgi.ebay.com/THE-TOMB-OF-ABYSTHOR-d20-Sword-Sorcery-Adventure-D 1_W0QQitemZ200440628246QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item 2eab314416

Tomb of Abysthor $31 including shipping.

Posts: 4023 · Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:51 am

FormCritic wrote:

Awright!

My copies of Citadel of Fire and Thieves Fortress of Badabaskor arrived on Wednesday...after ordering them late Sunday, so pretty good.

I also completed my set of Wicked Fantasy Factory modules from Goodman. Those are pretty cool adventure ideas.

I enjoyed Thieves Fortress of Badabaskor the best, really made that module more then the original.

I'm curious about those Wicked Fantasy Factory modules, think I have the first (or one of them at least), just wondering if the others are any good.

ShaneG.

Posts: 5194 · Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 3:52 pm

The Wicked Fantasy Factory line is a series of modules build around single, set-piece scenarios. Thus, Throwdown With the Arm Ripper. Very Happy

The emphasis is on gruesome, cartoon-like combat...a sort of anti-Dragonlance approach to gaming. There are no romantic plotlines aside from rescuing entirely grateful wenches.

Minor monsters are known as "mooks" and they have one hit point.

The bosses are...you know...worth killing. Smile

Players are encouraged to decide on a special finishing blow their character will use when an opponent is low on hit points...something silly and dramatic.

Frankly, a number of TSR products could have benefited from the Wicked Fantasy Factory approach.

Posts: 5194 · Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 4:08 pm

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130374046112&ssPage Name=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

These have come down slightly in price over the last six months.

In my opinion, the place to start collecting Necromancer Games is Tome of Horrors.

Posts: 300 · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 8:28 am

Interesting D20-items-not-on-ebay...

http://www.nobleknight.com/ProductDetailSearch.asp_Q_ProductID_E_21474 26783_A_InventoryID_E_2147696365

Nobleknight is offering 7 Blackmoor softcover books from Goodman/Zeitgeist/Code Monkey for $69.95... bargain Smile

Posts: 1753 · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 9:45 am

davidc wrote:

Interesting D20-items-not-on-ebay...

http://www.nobleknight.com/ProductDetailSearch.asp_Q_ProductID_E_21474 26783_A_InventoryID_E_2147696365

Nobleknight is offering 7 Blackmoor softcover books from Goodman/Zeitgeist/Code Monkey for $69.95... bargain Smile

Decent price, but I have heard bad things about these books. Anyone here have a review of these Blackmoor releases?

Posts: 2196 · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 10:27 am

$70 is probably getting closer to what they're worth together, but they're also available separately on NKG - e.g. $8.50 for Dave Arneson's Blackmoor which was meh-ish, but would've more happily waited to pick it up at that price rather than as a new hardback.
Would also mean that Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor can be avoided as that was pretty much slated across the board (much better sticking with what there is in FFC, no doubt...).

Posts: 4569 · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 10:47 am

A lot of the Blackmoor bandwagon stuff is pretty crap. Dungeons is an absolute crock.

Posts: 5194 · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 10:49 am

JasonZavoda wrote:

Decent price, but I have heard bad things about these books. Anyone here have a review of these Blackmoor releases?

I own Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor and the Player's Guide to Blackmoor.

Like a lot of the early D20 items, these publications are interesting but can be uneven. I would certainly not call them junk.

(From a collecting standpoint, remember that a lot of the rarest and most expensive D&D collectibles...some of the most sought-after items...are completely useless as gaming material. I kick myself for not buying them at 99 cents, but my much younger self couldn't see any reason to buy such pathetic junk. I was a gamer as opposed to a collector.)

I liked getting Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor because it filled in the Blackmoor dungeon level descriptions that never made it into First Fantasy Campaign back in the 1970's.

(Arneson printed the maps in First Fantasy Campaign, but had misplaced the room descriptions...and apparently couldn't be bothered to re-constitute them in some form. Typical of some of the classic D&D items, the most important information was left out because of what appears to have been sloth on the writer's part.)

I felt that the historic value of these two D20 items was double their game value. D&D 3.0/3.5 is a highly technical game that not all writers were able to handle with skill. You can't just grab the old manuscript and re-type the stats...as was done with the first, failed attempt at a D20 Dark Tower. (Which was unplayable and not really a D20 module at all.)

(If you want to read a module where the writers were actual masters of the D20 system, acquire and read Lost City of Gaxmoor from Troll Lord Games. That module was a good example of the flexibility and power of the D20 rules, from a small group of old-school writers.)

Some have been critical of the quality of layout in the D20 Blackmoor publications. Ian has given them bad reviews, but he tends to be a rather sharp critic of printing and page design. I am less critical of the Blackmoor layout and I think the maps are relatively good.

My own beef with a number of D20 items is computer mapping programs used to replace an actual graphic artist. These maps often includes color maps brute force translated into nearly useless black and white maps. (Fast Forward Entertainment did this in every product I've seen and the result was hideous.) The Blackmoor books I have were not guilty of this.

I cannot tell you the game value of the other Blackmoor items because I don't have them. I haven't collected the other items because their prices have generally been too inflated. Even at $69 plus shipping, it's still $10 per book...so there ya go.

Obviously, Noble Knight has not been able to sell them or there wouldn't be such a discount on them.

With this particular set, I will probably do what I did with the Rob Kuntz Maze of Zayene/Garden of the Plantmaster set that Noble Knight puts up from time to time. Presumably, this set will show up on Ebay shortly.

I will consistently place what I think is a reasonable snipe and wait until the first group of buyers gets bored and goes away. After the Acaeum Effect subsides, I will score one of the lots for the price it should have been all along.

Posts: 4023 · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 11:01 am

Dave Arneson's Blackmoor 4E (Don't Own)
Clock & Steam (Own but haven't read much yet)
Player's Guide to Blackmoor (If 4e then don't own)
Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor (Did not care for this at all)
The Wizards Cabal (Can't recall this one)
Redwood Scar (Didn't put me off, so must have been alright)
Dave Arneson's Blackmoor (of course this has merit as a good book)

However if you can get City of Gods and Temple of the Frog you'll have the best Blackmoor books for 3.x

ShaneG.

Posts: 2196 · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 11:21 am

FormCritic wrote:

I liked getting Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor because it filled in the Blackmoor dungeon level descriptions that never made it into First Fantasy Campaign back in the 1970's.

Well, only three of those levels were "originals" (which isn't mentioned in Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor's preview .pdf intro, at least - is that restated elsewhere, anyone??) so adding another ten new levels out of the blue probably won't help to clarify matters any.
Dunno... might be tempted if there was enough additional feel for the original and how that developed over time - as opposed to carrying out an airbrush - treatment but FFC's treatment seems reasonably "honest" without having to cross-check against a further 300 pages which presumably had limited input from Dave and thus any apparent additional historic value might actually be somewhat misplaced?

FormCritic wrote:

(Arneson printed the maps in First Fantasy Campaign, but had misplaced the room descriptions...and apparently couldn't be bothered to re-constitute them in some form. Typical of some of the classic D&D items, the most important information was left out because of what appears to have been sloth on the writer's part.)

Thanks for the reminder and general feedback. Might well follow suit and keep an eye on Aaron's eBay listings, too. Wink

Posts: 5194 · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 11:47 am

If Arneson had little to no input on Dugeons of Castle Blackmoor, then its value is much reduced...roughly on the level of the Highlander movie sequels.

I am not inclined to be merciful to D&D writers who put their name on a product they merely waved at during its creation. This would add to my generally negative perception of Arneson and his contributions to the hobby.

When Tim Kask's account of the writing of the original Blackmoor supplement is considered, it is entirely possible that Arneson never even saw a manuscript version of the Zeitgeist publications.

If anyone knows of an interview where Arneson discussed his role in the creation of these D20 products, I would be interested in reading it. My suspicion is that Arneson would have been very unlikely to give credit for the writing to other people.

Posts: 2196 · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 12:04 pm

"Lead designer" stated in http://watermark.rpgnow.com/pdf_previews/51492-sample.pdf and when there are multiple credits for "Game mechanics" that's looking rather much like a rewrite/hack into "modern" playing style/content.
I don't recognise (m)any of the names as people who had long involvement with Dave, either... a pity, then, that the likes of Greg Svenson contributed all of one page by way of an introduction (in the preview, anyhow), rather than any apparent hands-on content/direction/etc., or even further reminiscences.

ah... *g* re. the comment from the "Executive producer" (etc.) on the Zeitgeist Games fora, at the foot of that page...