SEVEN STRONGHOLDS REVIEW

[King_Stannis]

i agree about atlas. i have gotten good use of their products.

in fact, a few weeks ago i got "backdrops", a supplement that details about 15 or so places you can visit in any city, etc. they have a bathhouse, a tavern, a market, a caravanserai as well as others. each place comes with a map and a short description. there's also a few other goodies - magic items, etc.

at $8.95 it was probably a tad overpriced, but i will find great use for it. if you're the kind of dm who likes to drop things in on short notice, i'd pick it up.

 

[Glyfair]

i agree about atlas. i have gotten good use of their products.

in fact, a few weeks ago i got "backdrops", a supplement that details about 15 or so places you can visit in any city, etc. they have a bathhouse, a tavern, a market, a caravanserai as well as others. each place comes with a map and a short description. there's also a few other goodies - magic items, etc.

at $8.95 it was probably a tad overpriced, but i will find great use for it. if you're the kind of dm who likes to drop things in on short notice, i'd pick it up.

Comparatively, I'd say Seven Strongholds is of much more use than Backdrops. Backdrops had far too little detail on the areas for my use, although it did have some good ideas (the library sidebar is one I will use at one point). I think another page of text for each area, detailing more mundane details about the area, would be more to my taste.

Seven Strongholds goes into a reasonable amount of detail about each setting. Enough so you could run it with a quick read through and reference, but not so much that customization becomes a major chore. Additionally, Robin Laws has a section on all but one stronghold on a different way to use that stronghold (and that one stronghold doesn't have the section detailed because the variation is built into the main text).

Glyfair of Glamis

 

[Falcon]

I think Seven Strongolds is an excellent buy. All kinds of ideas, plots, sub-plots, and what I really appreciate is how seamless the integration of the various strongholds would be at different points in the campaign I run.