Saturday, April 27, 2013

Age of Wormy writing and Return of the Edition Warrior


So I'm flicking through Dungeon mag's and reminesing. Then I notice I'm reading one of the issues and its really, really badly written and badly edited (I'm guessing). Its an age of worms adventure and people have nothing but great things to say about this adventure path -they say "yes its a bit rail-roady, but for all that still good". So I fond myself reading this drivel on the page and I turn back the pages to find out who wrote this pile of poo and I should have guessed.

The Three Faces of Evil  Issue #125 Written by Mike Mearls.


Ahh he comes back to haunt us again as if Iron Heroes and Gimmicks guide to gadgets where not bad enough ... here is yet another fine example of his work in print. Essentially this guy keeps publishing crap. Polished, tidy, high production value, stuff but it's still poop.

And Hasbro has him in a key position for D&D. Sigh they really should be paying attention. 

Funny thing is someone in Hasbro is possibly thinking we should buy "Pathfinder". The thing is damn it they (Hasbro) have D&D. If it wasn't for Mike Mearls there would never have been a need for Pathfinder in the first place.

Anyway go play Labyrinth Lord and don't worry. Or hackmaster 5 aka hackmaster advanced.

Just so you know this is what Mr Mike wrote; the mine dungeon has a "garrison" in the dungeon. It's larger than the one in the town  - which maned by goodly aligned folks - The dungeon garrison is considerably larger than the one above the mine, by quite a bit and they are all evil. Yep ...There are three evil cult factions. All are vastly overpowered for the assumed 3rd level PC party expected to go in and to the job. There are missing or simply wrong stats and NPC numbers (as in how many cultists are in the encounter) etc. It's really bad ...there is a doorway seperating two of the evil factions which hate each other. One maybe, inch and a half? Wood door. Evil on both sides. Yet no conflict at, for, or over the door. I was surprised and yet not surprised in retrospect. 

It was good they managed building 5e the way they did. It would have been a massive shame to see the original fantasy game lose its crown and never get it back. I'm glad it turned out fine. 
   

2 comments:

  1. I hated that adventure path...

    To be honest, I really don't think the "Adventure" paths are all that great.

    I am currently reading through "Kingmaker" and while I love the sandbox feel, I find numerous problems with the writing and design.

    The extra level of rules for kingdom design and generally the moronic map designs of certain sites and dungeons...

    They all are designed in such a way as to allow for 8x11 sheets to be printed for "battle mats", meaning the maps are all designed for miniature play....bad map design pure and simple.

    ERIC!

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  2. Yeah too right. Its a pity as the idea of a grand campaign is good. I guess the best thing for them is to use them as a source of inspiration.

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