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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Frostmarrow" data-source="post: 178082" data-attributes="member: 1122">$100 bucksWell, you asked (rant):If I were to invest $100 in a gaming product I would expect a full color, perfect bound version of a module such as RttToEE. But I would demand even more from the module. I would expect the maps to be hand-drawn (or computer rendered in a hand-drawn fashion) in full color and in five feet squares scale. I would demand that there were more role-playing opportunities with information on how to overcome obstacles and monsters without having to resort to violence including guidelines for xp-awards.The module should be so pretty that I would set it up on my kitchen table for weeks and eat elsewhere. (Not at all unlikely.) I would like to have full color portraits of important NPCs which I could post on the walls of our gaming club. I'd hope the module was epic in scope. With that I don't necessarily mean that it must be a world saving campaign. With epic I mean that I would expect some planar travel, a major battle between thousands of soldiers and an encounter with an actual god. If I could get counters and maps for the battle - so much the better.I would expect the module to support a coherent setting with PrCs and feats that makes sense. Not just PrCs for the sake of PrCs. I would like the module to have a game altering option built in. For example what if a god has totally cut off all teleport-travel and it's up to the characters to try and convince her to re-open the channel or congratulate her for her effort?I would expect that the module had lot's of player information too. Such as an Indiana Jones-ish Journal written a long time ago that early on becomes the character's property and can be used as a reference for the players throughout the entire campaign! A diary with scribbled notes, attachments and hand-drawn full color pictures of things the characters are likely to find.I would like the module to boast a meta-game on top of the regular adventure. What if the players can be drawn into an ongoing play-by-email game where they decide things the characters hold no sway over? For example the players could play out the war and the troop movements inbetween sessions from the general's point of view.Well, that's sort of what I would expect from such a pricey product. I would love it if the game-designers were to steal a few ideas from excellent computer games such as Metal Gear Solid or Icewind Dale.MGS: In this game you are expected to think out of the box so to speak. In game you need a telephone number but it's nowhere to be found. Then a character in the game tells you to look at the back of the game's casing. You look at the cassette and there it is! At another point in the game a villain is reading your mind and dodges ALL your attacks. But if you unplug your control unit and plug it in port B the villain can no longer read your mind which makes it easy for you to beat him. Marvelously immersive. In a RPG-module perhaps you need to search the actual room for some vital clue.Icewind Dale: Since the computer only offers you a limited number of maps and skins the designers re-use elements in the game. You return many times to the same maps but with different missions. This makes it worth it to put an obcene amount of work into one map. The limited number of skins means that you won't encounter the entire MM but you will encounter more varied monsters of the same kind; such as skeletons and burning skeletons or spell-casting skeletons and so on. Adds flavor.In a RPG-module perhaps you get skeleton minis that are used in several incarnations throughout the campaign.</blockquote>

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