RPGPundit Reviews: The Majestic Wilderlands

This is a review of Supplement VI: The Majestic Wilderlands by Robert S. Conley. This is a supplement for the Swords & Wizardry D&D-clone, though in fact the game would be playable with essentially any variation of D&D (but especially old D&D, RC D&D, or 1e D&D) or any clone thereof.

I have to say this: I wasn't really sure when I'd find a product of the "Old School Revolution" that I could absolutely and unequivocally endorse; I knew what I didn't like about the majority of OSR stuff (how derivative it felt), but I wasn't sure what was the precise alternative.  Well, the Majestic Wilderlands is it.

This is (at least) the third version of the Wilderlands that I know of; the original Judges Guild supplements, the Necromancer D20 remakes, and now this one.  While not nearly as detailed as the relatively recent D20 remake, I think that this sourcebook would now be the very first one I would turn to if I wanted to make a Wilderlands game happen.

And above all that, it is far from being a "clone" of the original setting material from Judges Guild. Quite the contrary, you could think of it as a "re-imagining"; the Majestic Wilderlands is completely loyal to all of the essence of the original Wilderlands products, but doesn't slavishly reproduce it, instead it is the author's own version, with his own setting details and his own house rules.

And what house rules, and what details!  The book, which comes in a small sized, well bound softcover 140 page format is not only a very easy read but has useful stuff pretty much from start to finish.

The first half of the book is essentially house rules, the second half is essentially setting.  The first part begins with new character classes; from the basic D&D classes you get subclases/variants like the Berserker, Knight, Soldier, Paladin (of Mitra), Myrmidon (of Set), Mage of the order of Thoth, Artificer, Wizard, Rune-caster, Theurgist, Clerics/priests specialized according to deity (with the 10 major deities of the Wilderlands represented), Burglars, Thugs, Mountebanks, agents of the Claws of Kalis (a relatively evil deity), and Merchant Adventurer.  Whew!

Each entry for class is only a page to page-and-a-half long; including an experience table (with hit dice, save, and relevant bonuses/abilities), and a bullet-form description of special abilities for the class, plus a basic description of what the class is.  For example, a Thug is the rank and file tough-guy of a gang, thieves' guild, or secret-society. The class requires Str 10 as a prerequisite, and any alignment is permitted. Thugs' Prime Attribute is Strength, they gain 1d6 hp per level, they fight using the Cleric combat table, they gain bonuses to damage based on their strength, can use leather armor and shield, and the basic rogue weapons.  They have bonuses for various abilities (Athletics, Area Knowledge, Intimidation, and Locution; bonuses of which are on the XP table). Finally, at 9th level a Thug can form his own gang and obtain followers.

Magic-using classes differ from one another based primarily on the type of magic they can use. Order of Thoth mages have the "shield of magic" (a magic-resistance aura), Artificers don't cast memorized spells and instead they make magic items, Wizards cast fewer spells but don't have to memorize them, rune-casters don't memorize spells and instead create magic runes, Theurgists cast rituals only and can combine their power with other Theurgists, and Clerics cast spells of different sorts and in different ways depending upon their deity of choice.

If all these new basic classes weren't enough, there are also new "Non-adventuring" classes.  These classes (Craftsmen, Hedge Mages, Priests and Scholars) cannot gain XP in the normal fashion; instead, their level is determined by the number of years they have been practicing their chosen class. These classes are generally not very suitable for "regular" adventuring, being more of an NPC class, but I could see these being classes for player classes in a more politically-oriented city-based campaign, and they're more creative than your standard NPC class.

Races in the Wilderlands do NOT have their own classes, instead you choose race and then class. There are no default class or level limits for non-human races in the book, though a DM could easily choose to add them. The races are not balanced as such, there is no effort to mechanically make non-human races unpalatable; instead the author suggests that the barrier to playing demi-humans should be social more than anything else, as the setting is heavily human-oriented.
There are a ton of races available.  Elves, Halflings, Half-elves, Dwarves, Gnomes (ugh!), Orcs, Goblins, Reptile men, Lizard men (who differ from the aforementioned Reptile men in that they're swamp-folk while the Reptile Men are desert-folk), Serpent men, Viridians (green-skinned but otherwise human-looking Demons, and were once the brutal rulers of much of the setting but are now nearly extinct), and half-viridians (humans, or sometimes goblins, with viridian blood).

The sourcebook's next act of genius is a simple but effective skill-system (termed "abilities"). An ability roll is a simple D20 roll, where 15 or more (after appropriate bonuses or mods are added or subtracted) is a success (natural 1s always fail, natural 20s always succeed, regardless of modifier).  If I have understood the system correctly, any character can attempt any ability; but each class type has certain abilities they roll with a bonus (the Rogue getting the best bonuses, specifically to all of the obvious "rogue" abilities).
The Abilities section is a great example of true innovation within Old-School sentiment. Its something that clearly would NEVER have been written up in the old-school era, it depends on the inspiration of later concepts (mainly D20), but the way its presented is utterly and completely old-school in its aesthetic.  It is what Gygax and co. SHOULD have made skills look like, rather than crazy Thief percentile rolls and non-weapon proficiencies.

After that you get a couple of pages of optional combat rules, clearly house rules that you can take or leave; stuff like "head shots" and "mounted combat" rules.
The next section details some new magic rules. It explains how the Shield of Magic ability works (essentially its a magic resistance), and how rituals work. Here, the author is clearly inspired by no less than 4e; but the Ritual rules work perfectly for both the Old School style and the Swords & Sorcery genre aesthetic of the Wilderlands. Some new spells/rituals are provided in the book, mainly spells to create magic items (vastly simplifying the normally Byzantine item-creation rules found in old-school games); and there's even a "Disenchant" spell a la 4e/WoW. I don't know if Conley added that as a fuck-you to someone (the anti-4e crowd, perhaps?), or as a joke, or if he just thought it was a good idea. I don't think it particularly hurts the product, anyways.

There's a very short monster section with stats for the Wilderland's Dragons, the amphibious Boglings, and some contextual information (but not actual stats) for Vampires and Werewolves (as well as the "Wild Hunt"), who are creations of the blood goddess Kalis.  Then there's 5 pages of magic items, pretty much all high-level artifacts of major renown in the Wilderlands.

That finishes the "house rules" section. If these first 85 pages were all that the book consisted of, it would already be spectacular. If you have ZERO interest in the Wilderlands as a setting, all of this material (9/10ths of which are in no particular way bound to the Wilderlands setting in particular) would be more than enough to make this book a must-buy sourcebook for old-school D&D fun. But then we get to the second half of the book, which details the Wilderlands themselves.

I will reveal that I've always loved the Wilderlands. It is one of the four published settings from 1e or earlier that I absolutely love (the other three being, in no particular order, Greenwood's Forgotten Realms, the Known World of Mystara, and full-gonzo Blackmoor). Conley's own Wilderlands are the same place, but with some significant differences from the original setting.

From what I can see, Conley starts with the original Judges' Guild products as his base, pretty much ignores the stuff in the D20 sourcebook or any other later details, and advances the base JG-era timeline by three years. His wilderlands is one where the City-State of the World Emperor (Viridistan) has all but collapsed as the last of the Viridian Emperors has died; and even the City-State of the Invincible Overlord is going through major upheaval. In other words, the most powerful central states of the region have gone to shit.  And you need to remember here, the "regular" wilderlands are already a fairly chaotic and lawless place. Conley's Wilderlands are a place in a state of total madness where almost anything can happen, and the various states are fighting to see who will survive, who will pass into history, and who will end up becoming the next major ruler of the central area of the setting.

Those of you have the (also really great) D20 set of the Wilderlands will note that they had chosen to go into massive hex-by-hex detail of the setting. Conley has chosen to go almost the opposite route; no doubt in part because of time-constraints, but also in part because of different priorities of the types of games he's interested in running. The D20 Wilderlands were set up as an intricate "Sandbox" for wandering-party play. Conley's Majestic Wilderlands are set up for a group to base itself in one region and to gradually become intricately involved in the local situation. His emphasis is not in mere adventuring, but to focus on things like politics, war, trade, culture, etc.

Page 87 contains an overview map of the whole Wilderlands, and the subsequent pages break that down into different broad regions, detailing all the peripheral and central areas of the standard Wilderlands setting. The peripheral areas provide regions to play old-school adventures set in Viking realms, the mysterious orient, tundra and desert environments, dark cultures of human sacrifice, pirate-infested seas, wild "frontier" regions, barbarian plains, intrigue-heavy merchant states and more. Each of these regions are detailed only in three-to-five paragraph chunks, that focus on the overall nature and culture of the region as well as author-advice on what kind of adventuring is good to run in the region. One could argue that players with no previous knowledge of the Wilderlands might find this section too sparse to be really useful, though I think the idea is that the GM should try to fill these areas in with his own materials.

The "central" area of the wilderlands is then given a more focused level of detail.  The areas encompassing Viridistan, Tharia, Antil, and the original City State of the Invincible Overlord are then given more detail, along with another smaller-scale map, and a few city maps for the important cities of the area. These maps are relatively small in size; don't expect street-by-street information here.
The whole central "main campaign" area has about 26 pages of direct descriptive material dedicated to it, still not huge on detail but enough that you can definitely use it as the basis for a campaign; even so, DM filling-in-of-blanks is essentially required here. These Wilderlands, far from the D20 version with its hex-by-hex pre-prepared detail, are made for the DM who wants to have a lot of space to make his own version of the world.

Another six pages are dedicated to describing the major religions of the setting, and then the last seven pages are dedicated to giving more information about the major races (the significant human races, and the major demihuman races) of the setting.

There is no question that this is an old-school setting book. Half of the material is in the form of house rules; but these rules are not there so that players can "optimize" their character, they are there to create the right emulation of the spirit of the world you will play in. They are, in essence, setting detail in the form of rules. The actual setting material is set up for the GM that wants enough guidelines to easily set up a framework for his campaign, but enough space to make that campaign his own. Don't expect the 3e Forgotten Realms book here; these are the do-it-yourself Wilderlands.

My conclusion is that, without a doubt, this is the best "Old School Renaissance" product I've seen, and a guide of sorts to the kind of direction the OSR's general direction should head in. If you want to play in the Wilderlands, this book is the starting point for that, which you must then fill in with your own version of the setting or with material from the original Judges Guild (or the D20 Wilderlands set). If you don't give a damn about the Wilderlands, you can still cut and paste the first 85 pages of this book whole-hog into any D&D game and it will vastly enrich the basic structural rules of D&D (and, of course, you can just mix-and-match, cherry picking the rules, classes, races, and magic you want); and you can also cannibalize some of the best ideas from the setting section of the book.

I don't know if I'll be playing a game actually set in the Wilderlands at some point. I would like to. What I do know is that whenever I run a D&D game from here on in, and I'm bound to do that sooner or later, this book will find its use as a supplement to those rules.
And anyone who is ever thinking of running D&D in any of its pre-2e versions has a reason to buy this book.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Stanwell Deluxe Smooth + Stockebbye's Proper English

First off thanks for the great review. I appreciate you going in-depth as to why you liked it which helps with future products I write.

Quote from: RPGPundit;367787This is (at least) the third version of the Wilderlands that I know of; the original Judges Guild supplements, the Necromancer D20 remakes, and now this one.  

There is also James Mishler's Wilderlands of High Adventure. Sadly he had to shutter his doors recently at Adventure Games Publishing.

Quote from: RPGPundit;367787And above all that, it is far from being a "clone" of the original setting material from Judges Guild. Quite the contrary, you could think of it as a "re-imagining"; the Majestic Wilderlands is completely loyal to all of the essence of the original Wilderlands products, but doesn't slavishly reproduce it, instead it is the author's own version, with his own setting details and his own house rules.

The Majestic Wilderlands is me starting off with the original JG Wilderlands around 1980 and using it as my main fantasy setting for the past 30 years. When the Necromancer d20 project started all of the authors realized that ALL of our respective campaigns were wildly divergent and not very compatible. This and the fact Bob Bledsaw had unpublished notes led to Clark Peterson and Bob Bledsaw coming up with a baseline background the rest of us worked off of. My portion of the Necromancer Wilderlands (Map 5 (City-State), Map 8 (Barbarian Altanis) is all new material written from looking at Bob's notes and the original material with a fresh eye.

Quote from: RPGPundit;367787Magic-using classes differ from one another based primarily on the type of magic they can use.

Most of the material behind the classes were developed from campaigns where everybody played members of the same organization. For example an all mage campaign where everybody was a member of the Order of Thoth. Another all City-Guards, etc.

While these campaigns were run mostly using GURPS. I never strayed far from the AD&D tropes I started out with so when I returned to using S&W I found that I could port over much what was developed.

Quote from: RPGPundit;367787instead, their level is determined by the number of years they have been practicing their chosen class.

Jeff Rients came up with the idea for a Hedge Mage that used this concept. When I saw I knew I found the mechanic for non-adventuring classes. Asked his permission and he generously gave it.

http://jrients.blogspot.com/2009/03/more-class-musings.html

Quote from: RPGPundit;367787The sourcebook's next act of genius is a simple but effective skill-system (termed "abilities"). An ability roll is a simple D20 roll, where 15 or more (after appropriate bonuses or mods are added or subtracted) is a success (natural 1s always fail, natural 20s always succeed, regardless of modifier).  

Because of the theme campaigns I ran (mage, thief, city guard, etc) and the fact I used Fantasy Hero, and GURPS for a long period of time meant that there were a lot of stuff in the Majestic Wilderlands that didn't fit in the traditional D&D set of classes particularly for non-combat stuff. So classes that are good at things other than fighting, casting, or praying are going to be important.

The idea that any character can do anything, within reason, came from the Old School Primer and enjoyed a lot of acceptance throughout my target audience. So to me the solution was to keep that idea but make the Rogues classes better at certain things than anybody else.

The dice mechanic gave me a lot of headache as I fussed around with a 3d6 roll high system for too long. Finally I said screw it and opted for the d20 mechanic which worked out great.  I have to acknowledge Castle & Crusade and their SIEGE mechanic as being there first. Although I feel my version is a little better because I get into specifics more than SIEGE does.

Quote from: RPGPundit;367787If I have understood the system correctly, any character can attempt any ability;

Yup you got it. Anybody can find traps or pick locks it just a Burglar is way better at it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;367787there's even a "Disenchant" spell a la 4e/WoW. I don't know if Conley added that as a fuck-you to someone (the anti-4e crowd, perhaps?), or as a joke, or if he just thought it was a good idea.

A good idea because it implied by how magic works in the Majestic Wilderlands. Magic is about channeling mana through force of will (cleric have divine aid). Magical device concentrate mana into a physical object therefore if you can break the bindings you should get some of it back.

In my opinion Rituals are one of the best mechanics to come out of 4e for older editions of D&D. Particularly if you want a higher level of magic for your setting. Since I been always a "magic shop exists" type of referee it is a good for the Majestic Wilderlands".

Quote from: RPGPundit;367787From what I can see, Conley starts with the original Judges' Guild products as his base, pretty much ignores the stuff in the D20 sourcebook or any other later details, and advances the base JG-era timeline by three years.

The original JG Start Date is 4433 BCCC. Supplement VI is 4436 BCCC but my home campaign is now up to 4454 BCCC (the Overlord of City-State is dead of natural causes leaving a minor heir)

The reason I chose the 4436 date is because it is basically when the Wilderlands game I was running ceased to be the Wilderlands of High Fantasy and became the Majestic Wilderlands.

Quote from: RPGPundit;367787Those of you have the (also really great) D20 set of the Wilderlands will note that they had chosen to go into massive hex-by-hex detail of the setting. Conley has chosen to go almost the opposite route; no doubt in part because of time-constraints,

I expanded the scale from 5 miles per hex to 12.5 miles per hex. What happened that the player traveled from City-State to Viridistan and it took only a week of in-game time. The players were expecting a month based on a bunch of stuff I did. After the campaign I saw their point and expanded the scale. All the original settlements became large and important settlements with smaller villages put in when I needed them.

Technically I could still do a hex by hex approach but it would be absolute murder to write for little gain. However I ran the campaign for so long I pretty know what in each region and extrapolate the fine details when needed. So running the campaign in a sandbox style is still the way I go.

For times I need stats for when players become rulers I have a variety of shortcuts I use to extrapolate the needed data.

Quote from: RPGPundit;367787There is no question that this is an old-school setting book. Half of the material is in the form of house rules; but these rules are not there so that players can "optimize" their character, they are there to create the right emulation of the spirit of the world you will play in.

I believe D&D supplements are at their best when they implement D&D for a particular sub-genre or setting. You don't feel like the author is trying to "fix" D&D. Just saying "Here what I did and why I did it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;367787What I do know is that whenever I run a D&D game from here on in, and I'm bound to do that sooner or later, this book will find its use as a supplement to those rules.

Which was the point of me including the rules and why I wrote everything the way I did. I am glad my intent came across. If I going to write about my home campaign I am going damn well make sure comes with some useful stuff for your own game even in the setting section.

Again thanks for the review.

Rob Conley

Thank you for the added design notes in your response here, its interesting to read about that.

RPGPundit

Ordered. I'm curious to see how your skill resolution mechanic turned out, Rob.

I've had this book for a few months now, and think that it absolutely rocks.  I wholeheartedly agree with the ranking of '9'.  

In terms of how it compares to other materials being produced by the OSR, I would say that Melan's 'Fomalhaut' setting matches estar's Majestic Wilderlands in terms of originality and 'wow' effect.  Unfortunately, though, Fomalhaut is spread out in different articles, and is not as complete (in terms of its description of the setting) as the MW.

I also think that 'Engines and Empires' (a setting and supplement for Labyrinth Lord) is remarkably unique and intriguing (it's essentially a 'steampunk' setting for OD&D).

Quote from: Benoist;367890Ordered. I'm curious to see how your skill resolution mechanic turned out, Rob.

Thanks.

The reason I messed with the 3d6 for so long is because I liked a bell curve better than a linear progression. But I wanted a roll high that complicated things to the point where even my rule lawyer players didn't get it. So ultimately I jettisoned it in favor of a simple 1d20 roll.

Some of the individual abilities descriptions were compiled from old Judges Guild stuff but back in the day the mechanic of choice was percentile. So I divided everything by 5 to make the success chance or modifier for a d20.

After I did that I went through everything and looked at would be a good base chance of success. 25% to 33% seems to work as the average chance of success for a difficult task. So I decided on 15+ (30%, 15,16,17,18,19,20) as the base chance of success.

So if the older system say climbing a rough wall was 35% for a character then my text will say you get a +1 modifier for climbing a rough wall. It not a perfect translation but it seem to work for much of the stuff I found. Then for the new abilities not covered by older editions it served as a good bench mark for extrapolating equivalent levels of difficulties.

While all this could be used as some type of universal task mechanic. I generally refrained from doing that like C&C's Siege Engine. Instead I focused on each individual ability and coming up with unique stuff for each. A 70's era designer would be generally using percentiles with a list of relevant modifiers.

I'm still playing with several ideas on skill resolution mechanics for OD&D myself, and thought at some point of using 3d6 precisely because of the bell curve of probabilities.

I ended up coming back to a d20 for sake of simplicity myself. I was considering using different types of modifiers based on relevance to the class level and background of the character and ability scores, and just reach a target difficulty number.

There are so many possibilities as far as skill resolution mechanics are concerned that it's very, very much up to what you end up feeling better with in the end.

Your take seems really interesting in the way it'd be in line with Judges' Guild guidelines on percentile checks. If it works for me, I'll just run with it. If not, then I'll have another example to draw ideas from. It's win-win, really, from that point of view. Repeat that x times all over the house rules part of the supplement, and I'm ecstatic already.

Now, put the actual setting on top of it, which to me seems very interesting, since it seems to look at the area around the City State in a broader, top-down fashion, than the Wilderlands of High Fantasy boxed set did with its wealth of details, and I can safely predict I'll be a very happy camper indeed when I finally hold the book in my hands!

Quote from: Benoist;367929Now, put the actual setting on top of it, which to me seems very interesting, since it seems to look at the area around the City State in a broader, top-down fashion, than the Wilderlands of High Fantasy boxed set did with its wealth of details, and I can safely predict I'll be a very happy camper indeed when I finally hold the book in my hands!

I will get to the detail level eventually although it will be more Harn style detail than hex by hex. Simply because in the Majestic Wilderlands each Hex is 12.5 miles not 5. 12.5 because it works out to 5 leagues of 2.5 miles each. Which happens to equal the same distance a person walking over level terrain.

The maps will be looking like this

http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit/beta/Campaign_Map_Ghinor.jpg

and this

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/S2JmRso-NEI/AAAAAAAAAuI/9W0k5mpWaIU/s1600-h/Region,+Gormmah+Sm.jpg

But likely I will doing a city, Viridistan or City-State first. Probably Viridistan as that not been done in any form. While not a reprint and representing my own version doing Viridistan the city will make it appealing to fans of WoHF as well people who like my stuff.

The base outline that I am currently detailing. It is the last of the hand draw maps I ever before switching to drawing on the computer.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/SfxaUGaOshI/AAAAAAAAAVM/NrYF9MgzgTc/s1600-h/Viridstan.jpg

But before any of that occurs I need to finish up the adventure Scourge of the Demon Wolf which is set in Dearthmead near City-State.

Quote from: estar;367938http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit/beta/Campaign_Map_Ghinor.jpg

(...)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/S2JmRso-NEI/AAAAAAAAAuI/9W0k5mpWaIU/s1600-h/Region,+Gormmah+Sm.jpg

Great maps. I have a preference for the first one, if you need feedback on that front. It seems clearer to me. I like the color scheme too.

Quote from: estar;367938http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/SfxaUGaOshI/AAAAAAAAAVM/NrYF9MgzgTc/s1600-h/Viridstan.jpg

AH Now you're talking!

You know my weakness for hand-drawn maps. I particularly like the way it emulates actual, real floor maps. The shape of the fortifications for instance, which is not boxed and artificially made to stick to the grid, but rather emulates what genuine fortifications would look like. You probably didn't need me to tell you this, but as a Frenchman who grew up in Normandy, fascinated by all the medieval remnants that surrounded me, I've seen my share of castles and maps of such citadels, so I thought I might as well rave about it.

Very well done indeed!

Quote from: Benoist;368011You know my weakness for hand-drawn maps. I particularly like the way it emulates actual, real floor maps. The shape of the fortifications for instance, which is not boxed and artificially made to stick to the grid, but rather emulates what genuine fortifications would look like. You probably didn't need me to tell you this, but as a Frenchman who grew up in Normandy, fascinated by all the medieval remnants that surrounded me, I've seen my share of castles and maps of such citadels, so I thought I might as well rave about it.

Very well done indeed!

Thanks. I draw the same way on the computer as well. And it especially easier now that I have bamboo Pen Tablet to use.

This is my handdrawn version of City-State

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/SOloVZwyVfI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/WopJw8UqztA/s1600-h/CSIO_HandDrawn_SM.jpg

The very first computer map I did which is a version of the above done in 1992. Need to do some work on it to bring it up to the standards I use today mostly replacing the solid fills with the textures I use.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/SqhNipCoHoI/AAAAAAAAAag/o4Y9KKVFYks/s1600-h/Map_Key.jpg

A grayscale version of the stuff I am doing now.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/S52ee7_Bg-I/AAAAAAAAAwc/E1DW2v4MgDo/s1600-h/Kenesla.jpg

I try to make the layout as natural and realistic as I can. I find doing that makes the game more interesting on both sides of the screen. Mostly because when people build stuff a particular way they do it for a reason.

That can be used to generate...

more adventure.

Which after all the point of the game.

Quote from: estar;368061http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/SOloVZwyVfI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/WopJw8UqztA/s1600-h/CSIO_HandDrawn_SM.jpg

Love this. Absolutely love it.
I'd smooth out the crayon strokes a bit (using the kleenex trick I talked about in the mapping thread) if it was my own artwork (not telling you to do it, especially since it's a valuable piece of archive now), but that's exactly the sort of map that I absolutely love. It's alive. I can see your work on it.

Yup. Awesome.

Quote from: estar;368061The very first computer map I did which is a version of the above done in 1992. Need to do some work on it to bring it up to the standards I use today mostly replacing the solid fills with the textures I use.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/SqhNipCoHoI/AAAAAAAAAag/o4Y9KKVFYks/s1600-h/Map_Key.jpg

That's particularly interesting to me when compared to the previous hand-drawn map. Just talking about my personal feelings now, of course. I can see how, as a map, it's clearer, with more contrast in colors, a more schematic feel to it. As such, it may fulfill its role better. But at the same time, to me, the computerized version loses something compared to the hand drawn version. It's colder, and more impersonal, if that makes any sense.

Quote from: estar;368061A grayscale version of the stuff I am doing now.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/S52ee7_Bg-I/AAAAAAAAAwc/E1DW2v4MgDo/s1600-h/Kenesla.jpg

I love these maps. You did the maps of the Wilderlands boxed set too, didn't you? I love the style you're using there. It's super clear and schematic, as I talked about before, but somehow it has more soul, or personality, than the previous map did. Which is strange, since it's B&W, as compared to the color map above. It probably has to do with the way your mapping on software evolved overtime. What do you think? Am I making any sense to you?

Quote from: estar;368061I try to make the layout as natural and realistic as I can. I find doing that makes the game more interesting on both sides of the screen. Mostly because when people build stuff a particular way they do it for a reason.

That can be used to generate...

more adventure.

Which after all the point of the game.

Well, speaking for me and my games, specifically I can tell you you're spot on, as far as I'm concerned. Here's the thing: if I can visualize the area from the map, then I can describe it through words much more vividly, drawing from things I've seen in life and experiences I've had like, say, walking through a medieval village in France.

And indeed, it'll generate many more adventures. Maybe it's just an NPC that pops up there because I thought of this stone arc over the street and placed him there begging for some coin, or that hafling-owned bakery shop in that corner I wouldn't have included otherwise... anything really.

Quote from: Benoist;367890Ordered. I'm curious to see how your skill resolution mechanic turned out, Rob.

There's the Pundit Bump at work, folks.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Benoist;368091It's colder, and more impersonal, if that makes any sense.

Which is strange, since it's B&W, as compared to the color map above. It probably has to do with the way your mapping on software evolved overtime. What do you think? Am I making any sense to you?

Yup, the main problem with the first map it is all flat fills, the second has textures. Do it right it makes all the difference in the world. That is the main reason but also there is 15+ years of experience between the first and second map.

Quote from: Benoist;368091Well, speaking for me and my games, specifically I can tell you you're spot on, as far as I'm concerned. Here's the thing: if I can visualize the area from the map, then I can describe it through words much more vividly, drawing from things I've seen in life and experiences I've had like, say, walking through a medieval village in France.

And indeed, it'll generate many more adventures. Maybe it's just an NPC that pops up there because I thought of this stone arc over the street and placed him there begging for some coin, or that hafling-owned bakery shop in that corner I wouldn't have included otherwise... anything really.

Part of what I am trying to do is experiment with presentation of stuff. The Scourge of the Demon Wolf is a adventure module and hundreds of them been done. If I add a dash of this and a dollop of that, hopefully it useful as a book of sites as well. Without distracting from it's main purpose as an adventure module. Part of that is going the extra mile and adding little details to the maps to inspire the referee.

You will see that with the Majestic Wilderlands where I use the rule section to hit you with little doses of the setting and then you get to the final section that ties it all together.

Quote from: Benoist;368091I love these maps. You did the maps of the Wilderlands boxed set too, didn't you?

No I did not, although I did proof checked the CSIO Map. I did all the maps for the three Goodman Games remakes; Thieves of Badabaskor (which I wrote), Citadel of Fire, and Dark Tower.

Quote from: RPGPundit;368134There's the Pundit Bump at work, folks.

RPGPundit

LOL Nice try. I did mention that I would purchase it in the near future earlier, though you are right in the sense that it prompted me to order the work "now" as opposed to "a few weeks from now". So there was a little bump. Perhaps not the alpha male bump you were confident I was confirming here, though.