The best adventure nobody's running! What gives?

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

The Gryphon's Legacy was a really cool 1-3 level adventure from Gaslight Press for their Sun & Scale setting that featured a "living castle" environment (meticulously detailed so you knew where any NPC was at any given time or how they would respond in an alarm). I gave this a "thumbs up" review awhile ago and nobody responded. Another guy reviewed it positively a week or two back and I was the only one to reply, LOL.

What's the deal? Does nobody else have this adventure? It was heavily advertised for months in advance in Dragon and Dungeon, had a gorgeous cover painting by Sam Wood, beautiful map, easy to navigate layout, slick paper, interesting conflict (must protect helpless peasants but at same time must root out ghostly bandits plaguing the area)... If you win, you get a castle and village to run (of course, it will cost a lot to rebuild and grow, hehe)! What more do you guys want? I thought this was one of the best 3e adventures yet.

I also heard a rumor that Gaslight Press was out of business. Can anyone confirm? I hope not, because I was looking forward to more releases from them...

 

[Glyfair]

I picked this up a while back. I liked how it looked, so picked it up. I've went through it once briefly.

I think right now it had three problems:

1) There are a lot of companies, and a lot of products. A new company has to put something different or extrememly outstanding to get noticed. By now most people have their favorite companies and aren't looking for another one.

2) There are so many adventures out there that an adventure is just not a good way to break into the d20 market right now. I'm not looking for any and I was buying just about everything in the first year or so of d20.

3) Lack of reviews/word of mouth: A company put out a series of adventures called something like "Hiero's Journey." I decided to wait until I heard a few reviews before I bought them. I saw none for the first couple of months it was out (well, maybe one). So, I never picked htem up.

I think a d20 company that wants to start now has to have some sort of edge to do something. Get a "name" to do your first product. Put out some innovative product at a reasonable price. Keep a vocal presence on places like the ENBoards. Give away samples online or in gaming magazines.

Glyfair of Glamis

 

[Crothian]

Ugh, modules. I picked upo the first four core modules, and I've got two others just casue they were water damaged and cost a buck each.

There are just so many it's impossible to know what's any good. I'm not currently running a game, so I've just stopped looking at them altogether. I will say that these one does sound interesting and I might end up picking it up.

Any other great modules out there?

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

If Gaslight is out of business, then you'd do well to pick it up sooner rather than later, as I expect it will vanish from store shelves shortly, never to reappear.

 

[The Traveler]

The market's glutted with adventures. They seem to be the first thing any d20 company publishes. I pretty much limit myself to Necromancer and Fiery Dragon unless I get a big recommendation, because I've found that those two game studios develop stuff that I like. I just don't know that about *insert random d20 flavour-of-the-week company here*...

 

[cbatt]

I was "that other guy" who plugged The Gryphon's Legacy last week. I'm still in the planning stages, but I plan to play it either this weekend or the next. Kantrip is right about this one, it's quite fantastic.

The "living castle" idea isn't exactly new, I've done this sort of thing many times over the years, but it is the first time I've seen it in a published module and it's a welcome boon. It frames the adventure for the DM and cuts down on what I call "absorption time" which is what occurs after I've read an adventure once and am trying to wrap my head around the nuances so that I can try to see the whole picture and get an idea of the potential "flow" of things.

The art isn't bad. I found the provided setting material to be very compelling. The premise of the campaign is also a nifty twist (the PCs are going to the castle to reclaim it for the kingdom and establish it as a small holding for themselves). The adventure is also populated with many potential side treks and also includes a solid half dozen seeds for continuing the adventure/campaign.

To bad that it isn't getting recognition, but I agree that there's a huge glut of d20, or more acurately, DnD 3e compatible product on the shelves these days. Hopefully they'll stay in business long enough to produce some follow-up material.

In the meantime, this is a second voice recommending the product. If you see it on the shelves, don't pass it up.

 

[jollyninja]

i personally just rarely play or DM low level modules, it's fairly easy to challenge low level characters. it would have to be freaking spectacular for me to care enough to buy it.

if i heard about a great module for low magic (as in if your party has no magic, you could still run it) level 15-17 parties i might pick it up because that's a little harder to plan for.

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

I rarely buy adventures myself (sourcebooks are a different matter), but I still look at everything that comes to my local game store that's d20. I was impressed enough with Gryphon's Legacy to shell out my $10 for it with no regret. That is the ONLY full length (non-mini) d20 module I have bought in a year. That says something about how good I thought Gryphon's Legacy is!

 

[Eben]

I feel it's difficult to get a good idea about an adventure. I rarely buy them because you can never be sure about the quality of o product before it has stood the test of time. The only adventure I am just starting to think of buying,is Green Ronin's Freeport series. People continue to say good things about them and clearly the company has decided to keep supporting this material.
But I honestly can't think of anything else I would want to spend my money on.
Plus, my experience tells me that wehave more fun playing aventures we design ourselves. Published adventures tend to push the storyline in a certain direction. Takes away the dynamic of the story, IMHO.

 

[Crothian]

I went to my local store today and they didn't have it.