Karmic_vegeance
First Post
Ah, so that's what those little squiggles were! It didn't help that I ended up lowering the resolution even more in order to use the maps in Maptool.
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The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
You have only hours to wait...
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
Colmarr
First Post
+1 to everything said above. Very pleased to see my name in the playtesters.
Any chance of having the map jpgs posted in the subscriber area, [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION]? I believe you've already posted most of them in this forum, except the Coaltongue.
And [MENTION=8701]d20Monkey[/MENTION], any chance of those pixels-per-squares you said you'd post over on the Fantastic Maps blog?
Can't wait for next week, and apparently neither can my players. Sent an email about 4 hours ago asking them to confirm their availability for next week. I've had 4 affirmative replies already, and I normally wouldn't get 4 replies at all.
Any chance of having the map jpgs posted in the subscriber area, [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION]? I believe you've already posted most of them in this forum, except the Coaltongue.
And [MENTION=8701]d20Monkey[/MENTION], any chance of those pixels-per-squares you said you'd post over on the Fantastic Maps blog?
Can't wait for next week, and apparently neither can my players. Sent an email about 4 hours ago asking them to confirm their availability for next week. I've had 4 affirmative replies already, and I normally wouldn't get 4 replies at all.
gideonpepys
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
I forgot about that. I'm there too. Wow!
Just got to subdue my excitement now until September when our campaign can start.
IMHO, this really is the best adventure to have been published in the 4th edition era. Well done, guys.
High praise indeed!
gideonpepys
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
And I'm not prone to hyperbole.
Seriously, since the release of 4th edition my players and I have gamed exclusively in 3E settings that I have converted on the fly: Monte Cook's Ptolus, primarily.
Our campaign has been on the go for three years, but for almost all of that time I have been keeping a look out for a product I could switch to in order that I could cut down on my prep time.
No product until Zeitgeist (other than the WotBS - but it wouldn't be 100% accurate to claim that as being of the 4th edition era) has caught my attention, but I really did not expect the execution to be anywhere near as close to my own sensibilites as it is.
It is also cleverly structured and mature in tone, which is a real breath of fresh air.
Seriously, since the release of 4th edition my players and I have gamed exclusively in 3E settings that I have converted on the fly: Monte Cook's Ptolus, primarily.
Our campaign has been on the go for three years, but for almost all of that time I have been keeping a look out for a product I could switch to in order that I could cut down on my prep time.
No product until Zeitgeist (other than the WotBS - but it wouldn't be 100% accurate to claim that as being of the 4th edition era) has caught my attention, but I really did not expect the execution to be anywhere near as close to my own sensibilites as it is.
It is also cleverly structured and mature in tone, which is a real breath of fresh air.
ridingsloth
First Post
A quick review
Sadly, RPGNow won't let me review a product unless I buy it from them, and I can't find it on Paizo.com, but I wanted to review the first adventure. So! I'll do it here.
Warning: this review contains minor spoilers.
This book, like the Player's and Campaign Guides before it, is simply beautiful. The full color page design makes it pleasant to read, the illustrations do a great job of bringing the unique world to life, and the maps are detailed, clear, and interesting. I'm a huge fan of having so many maps on so many different scales. We've got the World Map, a map of the titular Island, several City-level maps, and a panoply of tactical level battle maps. The battle maps are particularly well thought out, with helpful annotations for elevation that make it much easier to understand where things are relative to each other.
The handouts, particularly the NPC handouts for the PCs are a stroke of genius. It is obvious that a lot of thought went into this campaign from the very beginning. Having a simple way to keep track of the cast for both the players and the DM is a tremendous time-saver, and will spare me a lot of frustration when I have to remind the PCs for the third time who they're talking to.
This first adventure was a real pleasure to read for me too, on a DMing level. Each scene is tagged with various descriptors that make it obvious how it should be approached like "social", "tactical", "real time", or "montage". Again, it's clear that a lot of thought went into making each encounter and challenge both interesting and unique. Of particular note, just looking at Act I, we have a minor investigation that makes use of a very nicely designed extended skill check with a hard time limit, and a set-piece battle with a plethora of modifiers, counter-modifiers, environmental hazards, unique items, and a ticking clock. These are the kind of well thought out encounters that make running a game like this a pleasure. That a series of possible outcomes and alternate solutions, complete with real repercussions, were also detailed makes my life that much easier, and deserves a huge thanks.
Length-wise, I think this adventure looks about right. That is, I think that my playing group should wrap it up just in time for the second one to be released. Or about 3 months time playing 4 or so hours a week (with, no doubt, several weeks off in there). Only time will tell! I sure hope so, because my players are excited about this game in a way that they haven't been for months or years. There's just something about a steampunk D&D world set in Central America with strong philosophical overtones that they find compelling.
My only real complaint is that the battle maps are pretty low-res when I try to pull them out of the PDF to print. It'd be nice if nice big JPGs of these maps were available.
On the whole, this adventure is everything I was hoping for and, honestly, a good bit that I didn't know to hope for (but will now find sorely lacking in other products). Bravo to the entire team for putting together a really top-notch product. Game on!
*****
Sadly, RPGNow won't let me review a product unless I buy it from them, and I can't find it on Paizo.com, but I wanted to review the first adventure. So! I'll do it here.
Warning: this review contains minor spoilers.
This book, like the Player's and Campaign Guides before it, is simply beautiful. The full color page design makes it pleasant to read, the illustrations do a great job of bringing the unique world to life, and the maps are detailed, clear, and interesting. I'm a huge fan of having so many maps on so many different scales. We've got the World Map, a map of the titular Island, several City-level maps, and a panoply of tactical level battle maps. The battle maps are particularly well thought out, with helpful annotations for elevation that make it much easier to understand where things are relative to each other.
The handouts, particularly the NPC handouts for the PCs are a stroke of genius. It is obvious that a lot of thought went into this campaign from the very beginning. Having a simple way to keep track of the cast for both the players and the DM is a tremendous time-saver, and will spare me a lot of frustration when I have to remind the PCs for the third time who they're talking to.
This first adventure was a real pleasure to read for me too, on a DMing level. Each scene is tagged with various descriptors that make it obvious how it should be approached like "social", "tactical", "real time", or "montage". Again, it's clear that a lot of thought went into making each encounter and challenge both interesting and unique. Of particular note, just looking at Act I, we have a minor investigation that makes use of a very nicely designed extended skill check with a hard time limit, and a set-piece battle with a plethora of modifiers, counter-modifiers, environmental hazards, unique items, and a ticking clock. These are the kind of well thought out encounters that make running a game like this a pleasure. That a series of possible outcomes and alternate solutions, complete with real repercussions, were also detailed makes my life that much easier, and deserves a huge thanks.
Length-wise, I think this adventure looks about right. That is, I think that my playing group should wrap it up just in time for the second one to be released. Or about 3 months time playing 4 or so hours a week (with, no doubt, several weeks off in there). Only time will tell! I sure hope so, because my players are excited about this game in a way that they haven't been for months or years. There's just something about a steampunk D&D world set in Central America with strong philosophical overtones that they find compelling.
My only real complaint is that the battle maps are pretty low-res when I try to pull them out of the PDF to print. It'd be nice if nice big JPGs of these maps were available.
On the whole, this adventure is everything I was hoping for and, honestly, a good bit that I didn't know to hope for (but will now find sorely lacking in other products). Bravo to the entire team for putting together a really top-notch product. Game on!
*****
Sadly, RPGNow won't let me review a product unless I buy it from them, and I can't find it on Paizo.com, but I wanted to review the first adventure. So! I'll do it here.
Thanks for the awesome review!
I uploaded it to paizo.com at the same time as I did here at EN World and rpgnow. Unfortunately, paizo.com has a manual approval process by Paizo staff, so the release there always lags behind by a few days. But it'll appear soon enough!
Rugult
On Call GM
Ajar
Explorer
I bumped my ENWorld sub up to silver once my friends roped me into DMing Zeitgeist for them. I've been poring over the PG and CG to get ready, and started reading the first adventure last night. I'll post some more thoughts once I've had a chance to read the whole thing, but I'm going to have to be diligent in my prep -- our first session will be on the 30th, and I'm going away this weekend! I want to make sure I lay all of the right groundwork from the very beginning, to try and get them involved in the story and, hopefully, thrill them with the revelations down the road.
We'll be playing remotely, using Google+ hangouts for videoconferencing, plus some kind of virtual whiteboard/tabletop when we need to move tokens in a fight. I think I'm also going to put the setting maps up on the whiteboard when we aren't in combat, just for context.
I don't know much about my PCs yet, since they're still digesting the background materials. I was thinking I might suggest a Google+ hangout devoted to collaborative character creation. We'll see!
We'll be playing remotely, using Google+ hangouts for videoconferencing, plus some kind of virtual whiteboard/tabletop when we need to move tokens in a fight. I think I'm also going to put the setting maps up on the whiteboard when we aren't in combat, just for context.
I don't know much about my PCs yet, since they're still digesting the background materials. I was thinking I might suggest a Google+ hangout devoted to collaborative character creation. We'll see!
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