Clockwork Adventures: A Steampunk Campaign Sourcebook

[Clockwork Adventures]

Epicyclic Games is proud to announce the September release of their first Dungeoons and Dragons 4th Edition supplement "Clockwork Adventures: A Steampunk Campaign Sourcebook".

Clockwork Adventures provides supplemental rules to introduce elements of Victorian fantasy to your Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition games. You'll experience the mystery and intrigue of the Victorian age, strange and unexplored new worlds, thrilling steam powered science fiction, wondrous carnival sideshow freaks, and bizarre occult horrors lurking under gas lit streets.
Included in this release, you will find:

9 brand new Victorian character classes including the dauntless Explorer, the vigilant Investigator, and the auspicious Gambler.

Exciting pieces of technological equipment including new weapons, armor, and of course firearms!

Over 150 new monsters and other adversaries, plus many new templates for creating your own unique encounters.

New feats and epic destinies to customize your Victorian heroes.

Rules and suggestions for introducing Steampunk into an existing Dungeons and Dragons campaign, or for taking advantage of other D20 products in a purely Victorian setting.

Check us out on our website at www.ClockworkAdventures.com, and look for us on Facebook, Myspace, and other forums and social networking sites. If you have any questions, feel free to drop us a line! Many thanks in advance for your warm welcome!

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Any chance of this being released for Pathfinder/3.X? It sounds interesting, but I am not at all a fan of 4e.

Good luck with it, either way. I am always happy to see more steampunkery.

The Auld Grump

 

[dnd.geek]

Any chance of this being released for Pathfinder/3.X? It sounds interesting, but I am not at all a fan of 4e.

Good luck with it, either way. I am always happy to see more steampunkery.

Ditto!

 

[Clockwork Adventures]

The rules for 3.5 and 4th editions are so drastically different that it would be impossible for us to do a "port" of the game, and we simply do not have the manpower to write two completely different games simultaneously.

I have been hearing a lot of people on different forums saying the same thing, and I wonder if any of you could let me know specifically what it is about 4th that you don't like. I have a few issues with the current edition myself. After all, I've been playing D&D since the very first edition. I do feel that 4th has put more emphasis on combat at the expense of roleplaying, and has nearly eliminated the open-endedness of previous editions. The lack of crafting skills in particular worried me when I first picked up 4th.

However, I do feel that for the casual gamer and the hardcore combatant, 4th has previous editions beat in spades. I appreciate the effort that has (seemingly) been made to prevent such things as "hulking hurlers" and their kin. I like that 4th has made each character class important in every encounter, as opposed to older editions in which the fighter pretty much carried the majority of encounters while the magic users carefully hoarded their spells for later in the day. Improvements like these have relieved a lot of inter-player tensions at my casual gaming table.

Still I understand that many gamers, particularly older gamers and those more interested in roleplaying, prefer 2nd and 3rd editions. We understood that position when we began working on Clockwork Adventures. To try to fix the issue we have included new crafting skills and new uses for standard skills. Hopefully these will help preserve the feeling of being an active participant in the game world, as well as enhance the DIY nature that is so common in fans of the Steampunk genre.

I'd love to hear what others have to say on this subject. Let me know what you like/dislike about 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions. Your input may even influence our upcoming releases.

In further news, the mailing list is up on the Clockwork Adventures home page. Go sign up for the newsletter today to receive sneak peeks, exclusive content, and information about upcoming promotions!

 

[Krivvin]

The rules for 3.5 and 4th editions are so drastically different that it would be impossible for us to do a "port" of the game, and we simply do not have the manpower to write two completely different games simultaneously.

I have been hearing a lot of people on different forums saying the same thing, and I wonder if any of you could let me know specifically what it is about 4th that you don't like. I have a few issues with the current edition myself. After all, I've been playing D&D since the very first edition. I do feel that 4th has put more emphasis on combat at the expense of roleplaying, and has nearly eliminated the open-endedness of previous editions. The lack of crafting skills in particular worried me when I first picked up 4th.

However, I do feel that for the casual gamer and the hardcore combatant, 4th has previous editions beat in spades. I appreciate the effort that has (seemingly) been made to prevent such things as "hulking hurlers" and their kin. I like that 4th has made each character class important in every encounter, as opposed to older editions in which the fighter pretty much carried the majority of encounters while the magic users carefully hoarded their spells for later in the day. Improvements like these have relieved a lot of inter-player tensions at my casual gaming table.

Still I understand that many gamers, particularly older gamers and those more interested in roleplaying, prefer 2nd and 3rd editions. We understood that position when we began working on Clockwork Adventures. To try to fix the issue we have included new crafting skills and new uses for standard skills. Hopefully these will help preserve the feeling of being an active participant in the game world, as well as enhance the DIY nature that is so common in fans of the Steampunk genre.

I'd love to hear what others have to say on this subject. Let me know what you like/dislike about 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions. Your input may even influence our upcoming releases.

In further news, the mailing list is up on the Clockwork Adventures home page. Go sign up for the newsletter today to receive sneak peeks, exclusive content, and information about upcoming promotions!

Roleplaying isn't something that NEEDS rules. Seeing people stating that it's problematic for books to not have as much detail on roleplaying as they do combat, which NEEDS rules or at least benefits from focused emphasis on RULES. Seeing people say such a thing is worrisome for me. A lack of rules for a theoretical concept doesn't mean that it's gone. I don't need them to show me where roleplaying is to have roleplaying in 4th Edition. I don't see anything in 4th Edition that has taken away from the freedom of 3rd edition. Just because certain things are highlighted doesn't mean that the options that weren't in any books aren't still available for you to put forth into your own games. This magical piece is something I call: imagination.

If anything, D&D has its roots in developing rules and creating options when they didn't originally exist. By that, I mean the rules that came from the great Gary Gygax when he was bringing adventuring control thematics to wargaming.