DM_Jeff
Explorer
So I almost posted this under humor. Yesterday I went and visited my friend a gaming distributor, and came home with MM5, Shadowdale Scouring the Land, and D1 Crown of the Kobold King. I wanted to read all three, and was really itching to look through MM5. But my daughter wanted to go swimming...
So we played in the pool for over an hour. And after we spalshed around and had fun, we both floated for a while, and I may have dozed off for a moment. When I awoke, I was staring up at the sky, into a GIANT CLOUD SHAPED LIKE THE PAIZO GOLEM.
No, I'm not kidding. I blinked and did a double-take, and ran like an idiot into the house to get the camera. By the time I came out, it had dispersed. My daughter got out and I went in and went straight for D1 to see what they were cooking up Post-Dungeon Magazine, seeing this an an omen. 
This isn't a review, just musings. Crown of the Kobold King is Paizo's 2nd Gamemastery Module. The first, D0, is the neat little thing I picked up at Free RPG Day (and you can get on their website apparently). Crown of the Kobold King is 32 pages, full color. It looks like they pulled the pages out of Dungeon Magazine and slapped a cover on it. Layout it familiar and clear. It's written by Nicolas "Responsible for Viktor Saint Demain" Logue who also worked on WotC's Eye of the Lich Queen and is quickly becoming a new favorite of mine. Cartography by Chris West is always a joy. The art was good. Color only makes it better.
D1 helps alleviate my fears that the new Paizo stuff wouldn't be as interesting with access only to the SRD. That's because the best stuff they do is mood and flavor, and egads the module drips the stuff off the pages into your lap. If this campaign world is the one they intend to market with their Pathfinder series, great.
It takes a que from something I did years ago in a corner of my campaign world. The players asked for gritty and grim, and I delivered in spades. Hardly Any NPC was really good. There was greed, corruption, sad history of the land, grim situations and moral pitfalls that totally sucked the players in, and this does the same thing. The NPCs, many of who are rat-bastages, help motivate the PCs into action. The fact that it involves kids in danger will strike a chord with may players. For me, it was a joy to read because of the writing style. The kobolds are what I'll call "tragically comedic". They are a threat, but they're still kobolds, and the relation and personality between the kobold king, his advisor/seer, and his wife are hilarious. Making for great roleplaying when the party gets to them, I'm sure.
It's a crawl for 2nd level characters, and a dangerous one, too. There's plenty of designer notes ala "Red Hand of Doom" offering DM tips and insight into why stuff was included. The one thing I noted as interesting was that though 32 pages I saw a listing for "treasure" only twice, in nearly 30 locations. And none of them contained any healing magic, and the module is quite fight-heavy. It begs for a smart party, who I see working around a few of the threats. I'll assume that the DM is left to populate the stock MM monsters referenced with appropriate treasure.
The rooms are great. None are empty for the party wander through aimlessly, and there is GREAT ancient history tied to the location (left for the party to piece together as they explore). Super atmosphere. The variety of creatures too is commendable. They use plenty of things besides kobolds, give it reason to be there, and toss in two new monsters of their own creation.
Then, just when the party is hit with lots of bad guys and terrible situations, they meet an NPC or two who are really good and need real help, giving the hero in the PCs a needed boost to try their best.
Overall, it's like "the best of a Dungeon Magazine module", but even better because there was room to detail history and NPC relations, key to making this stand out among modules of today. So I had a very good read. I liked it. And moreso, I am now interested in their new campaign world!
Anyone else looked through this and had impressions to share?
-DM Jeff
So we played in the pool for over an hour. And after we spalshed around and had fun, we both floated for a while, and I may have dozed off for a moment. When I awoke, I was staring up at the sky, into a GIANT CLOUD SHAPED LIKE THE PAIZO GOLEM.
No, I'm not kidding. I blinked and did a double-take, and ran like an idiot into the house to get the camera. By the time I came out, it had dispersed. My daughter got out and I went in and went straight for D1 to see what they were cooking up Post-Dungeon Magazine, seeing this an an omen. This isn't a review, just musings. Crown of the Kobold King is Paizo's 2nd Gamemastery Module. The first, D0, is the neat little thing I picked up at Free RPG Day (and you can get on their website apparently). Crown of the Kobold King is 32 pages, full color. It looks like they pulled the pages out of Dungeon Magazine and slapped a cover on it. Layout it familiar and clear. It's written by Nicolas "Responsible for Viktor Saint Demain" Logue who also worked on WotC's Eye of the Lich Queen and is quickly becoming a new favorite of mine. Cartography by Chris West is always a joy. The art was good. Color only makes it better.
D1 helps alleviate my fears that the new Paizo stuff wouldn't be as interesting with access only to the SRD. That's because the best stuff they do is mood and flavor, and egads the module drips the stuff off the pages into your lap. If this campaign world is the one they intend to market with their Pathfinder series, great.
It takes a que from something I did years ago in a corner of my campaign world. The players asked for gritty and grim, and I delivered in spades. Hardly Any NPC was really good. There was greed, corruption, sad history of the land, grim situations and moral pitfalls that totally sucked the players in, and this does the same thing. The NPCs, many of who are rat-bastages, help motivate the PCs into action. The fact that it involves kids in danger will strike a chord with may players. For me, it was a joy to read because of the writing style. The kobolds are what I'll call "tragically comedic". They are a threat, but they're still kobolds, and the relation and personality between the kobold king, his advisor/seer, and his wife are hilarious. Making for great roleplaying when the party gets to them, I'm sure.
It's a crawl for 2nd level characters, and a dangerous one, too. There's plenty of designer notes ala "Red Hand of Doom" offering DM tips and insight into why stuff was included. The one thing I noted as interesting was that though 32 pages I saw a listing for "treasure" only twice, in nearly 30 locations. And none of them contained any healing magic, and the module is quite fight-heavy. It begs for a smart party, who I see working around a few of the threats. I'll assume that the DM is left to populate the stock MM monsters referenced with appropriate treasure.
The rooms are great. None are empty for the party wander through aimlessly, and there is GREAT ancient history tied to the location (left for the party to piece together as they explore). Super atmosphere. The variety of creatures too is commendable. They use plenty of things besides kobolds, give it reason to be there, and toss in two new monsters of their own creation.
Then, just when the party is hit with lots of bad guys and terrible situations, they meet an NPC or two who are really good and need real help, giving the hero in the PCs a needed boost to try their best.
Overall, it's like "the best of a Dungeon Magazine module", but even better because there was room to detail history and NPC relations, key to making this stand out among modules of today. So I had a very good read. I liked it. And moreso, I am now interested in their new campaign world!
Anyone else looked through this and had impressions to share?
-DM Jeff
