2006 - Green Ronin returns to adventures with Bleeding Edge line

[Crothian]

Schwalb wrote it, it's going to be good. I like him and think he does good stuff.

 

[Melan]

Still a bad value, though. $11 for 32 pages vs. $16 for 64?

Not necessarily. I would prefer a tightly written 32 page adventure to a worse 64 or 128 pager. Clear, concise writing is a valuable skill which has to be recompensated (and one I regrettably don't possess ). Of course, I have no idea about the actual contents of the module, except that Mr. Schwalb writes pretty well elsewhere. I also don't want any more hard to manage, extensive mini-campaigns in 128 page books, unless they are big dungeons. So I am definitely in the market for 32 page releases, and would prefer them to other formats.

That said, I don't care for the premise or the marketing, since I am perfectly happy with old school adventures. Not because of nostalgia, but rather because I enjoy that style, "aping" or not. If you want bleeding edge, whatever that is, you might like this one.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

I'm afraid I really didn't get any sense, from the blurb, what makes this "bleeding edge." The plot seems cool, don't get me wrong, but I don't see anything in it that I haven't seen variations on before.

That was my thought on reading the blurb. Saying something is "bleeding edge" doesn't necessarily make it so. I like GR quite a bit, but until I know more about what exactly this is, it's not going on my "must buy" list.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Hey, from a PR point of view, it makes perfect sense to bash the last trend ("nostalgia products") so all those who didn't like the turn towards it will jump on my bandwagon instead. Is all chest-beating and proclaiming who's the biggest ape in the jungle anyway.

The plot sounds interesting as far as one can judge from an ad blurb, and yeah, it's nothing I haven't seen or read before. But still looks interesting none the less.

 

[rjs]

Summon Dr. Evil

Hey folks, since some one said Schwalb three times, I had to appear. (It’s a good thing you didn’t say it in a mirror!)

First off, aside from a little rib nudging, there was no slight intended towards Goodman or Necromancer (in fact, you’ll note I’ve written for both companies and we’re all chums). What we want to do, right from the outset, is to set this series apart from other classic themed adventures. Our friends at Necro and Goodman have their corner of the adventure market well covered and we’re not stepping into their territory.

The big goal for the BE adventures is to step beyond the classic dungeon concepts and really explore the culture of 3.x by building on the assumptions of the current rules set as well as the material found in other d20 books.

These adventures are for our favorite RPG and so every BE adventure will have some level of dungeon crawling—D&D is a nostalgia game after all. But the difference is that the current edition has left behind many of the classic notions of 1e/2e. And so, we’re not building massive sprawling dungeons, but instead story-driven adventures that feature a good mix of investigation, intrigue, cool NPCs, and of course, exciting combats. These adventures are non-linear, providing a number of events and adventure locations the GM is free to build upon to customize it to his campaign, while having one central plot that threads through it all.

Part of the thing these adventures do differently is presentation. The adventures make full use of the new stat-block formats for easier play for instance. Plus, each adventure makes use of existing d20 material outside of the SRD. There’s a wealth of material out there just waiting to be plundered and put to good use. For example, in MoS, you’ll find creatures from the Book of Fiends and Advanced Bestiary, NPCs using classes from the APM and the Master Class Series, and all sorts of cool nuggets from a variety of other sources—we include everything you need to run the encounter and tips for scaling if you don’t have the resources we’ve used. OK, I’m still being vague… but you’ll have to wait and see.

For those looking for longer adventures, we’re designing BE adventures to be able to interlink. You could run them all together as a campaign or separately, in between chapters of your regular campaign. This said, each adventure is complete and gives you everything you need to run it and you won’t need any of the others to have a great time. If these do well, however, I wouldn’t be surprised to see longer ones.

 

[BryonD]

Schwalb wrote it, it's going to be good.

That seems a safe starting position!

 

[Stormborn]

rjs, thanks for the info. That sounds like everything I would want in a published adventure. Looking forward to it and the entire line.

 

[JimAde]

Question for rjs: Any chance of this coming out as a PDF as well? For adventures, it's really my preferred medium.

Looks good.

 

[rjs]

Thanks all!

Question for rjs: Any chance of this coming out as a PDF as well? For adventures, it's really my preferred medium.

Looks good.

I'd say there's a d@mn good chance we'll release it both in PDF and in print.

 

[jester47]

Hey, from a PR point of view, it makes perfect sense to bash the last trend ("nostalgia products") so all those who didn't like the turn towards it will jump on my bandwagon instead. Is all chest-beating and proclaiming who's the biggest ape in the jungle anyway.

The plot sounds interesting as far as one can judge from an ad blurb, and yeah, it's nothing I haven't seen or read before. But still looks interesting none the less.

Nostalgia products is not really a trend, unless you count 5 years and running as a trend. People really like the old style. This site used to have a huge library of conversions from the Eric Noah's 3rd Ed News site days, might still. Necromancer Games, and Goodman Games, the only companies that seem to have made a profit from writing adventures both use nostalgia as a main selling point. Ye Old Style is still alive and kicking.