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The Cult of Abaddon - Release from NuTSR/TheEvilDM
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<blockquote data-quote="Deset Gled" data-source="post: 8872058" data-attributes="member: 7808"><p>I was given a hard copy of Cult of Abaddon for Xmas! I don't know exactly when/where the copy that I have was purchased (the module has been "out of stock" on the DHSM website for a couple months), but I can confirm that it is slightly different from the one that was sold during TSR Con (in March).</p><p></p><p>As a general review: the printing quality is not terrible, but it's also not particularly good. It's saddle stapled, and the cover is low gloss. I've had cheap booklets printed from Office Depot before with same day turnaround, and this feels like almost exactly the same product. There's no shame in that, but it also makes it hard to justify the $15 price tag. It also makes it seem even weirder that the product is "out of stock" online. I have suspicions that it is still for sale in the "Museum", along with all the other TSR logo products that they took off the website.</p><p></p><p>As a bonus, the copy that I got is signed by the editor: Justin Lanasa.</p><p></p><p>For the real fun, though, lets go over the version differences. It looks like someone (maybe Lanasa, but I would never assume he did any actual work) tried to do a bit of editing cleanup with relatively little success. The first difference I noted is on the back cover. In the PDF, there was an inexplicable note by the ISBN that the cover art was by "Madre Shipton":</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]270748[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>This was also seen on the first printing from TSR Con (note: these images come from pro-NuTSR reviewer Jason Schattner):</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]270749[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>But it has now been changed to properly credit the artist:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]270750[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>That's a good change, and I support it.</p><p></p><p>Here's an example of editing the text that doesn't go so well. This is from the original PDF. Note the minor errors where it says "He is appears also sick" and "any weapon he has made while drunk may loo great when picked up". Simple errors, easy to fix:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]270751[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Again, in the TSR Con printing, we can see that the text is the same. There was one slight change in the header (the page was originally going to be on a right page, but due to printing got shifted to a left page), but is otherwise identical:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]270752[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>In the current printing they fixed the typos in "is appears" and "look":</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]270753[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>But they also managed to screw up "20% chance" and change it to "2 chance". Also, for some reason they also changed "there are a myriad of tools" to "there is a myriad of tools". I am pretty sure "are" is actually grammatically correct in this case. What I really can't understand is how anyone decided that one word needed to be changed while the rest of the terrible writing remains unedited.</p><p></p><p>As a final example, here are the original GM notes from the PDF:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]270754[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Which were updated with these changes:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]270755[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Let's start by stating that the rules for falling damage are, as written, terrible. If falling damage is actually 6d6 for falling 30 feet, just say that. The word salad is just silly; the fact that they take a paragraph to write it and still don't explicitly state the 6d6 total is outright stupidity. Obviously, whoever was editing this read that garbage paragraph and realized it needed help. But they though the way to fix it would be to change "Each" to "Every" and "but would actually be" to "Still, it would be". WTF? How do either of those changes actually help? I feel like I'm losing intelligence every time I try to compare the two paragraphs.</p><p></p><p>Likewise, I guess someone wanted to change "sparse reward" to "a scant reward" in the last sentence. I see it as a meaningless but benign change. But the person making that edit couldn't take the time to change "Gm" to "GM" or spell "whim" correctly? And that's without getting into a discussion of apostrophes, or consistency betwee GM vs DM vs Referee.</p><p></p><p>All told, the changes are very minor. Just baffling. The major issues of stealing work from Alekzander Zagorulko, Axebane, and Kimagu are still there. The module is still very basic and short; it's impressive how many typos they can fit into the small amount of text. It's definitely not worth $15.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Deset Gled, post: 8872058, member: 7808"] I was given a hard copy of Cult of Abaddon for Xmas! I don't know exactly when/where the copy that I have was purchased (the module has been "out of stock" on the DHSM website for a couple months), but I can confirm that it is slightly different from the one that was sold during TSR Con (in March). As a general review: the printing quality is not terrible, but it's also not particularly good. It's saddle stapled, and the cover is low gloss. I've had cheap booklets printed from Office Depot before with same day turnaround, and this feels like almost exactly the same product. There's no shame in that, but it also makes it hard to justify the $15 price tag. It also makes it seem even weirder that the product is "out of stock" online. I have suspicions that it is still for sale in the "Museum", along with all the other TSR logo products that they took off the website. As a bonus, the copy that I got is signed by the editor: Justin Lanasa. For the real fun, though, lets go over the version differences. It looks like someone (maybe Lanasa, but I would never assume he did any actual work) tried to do a bit of editing cleanup with relatively little success. The first difference I noted is on the back cover. In the PDF, there was an inexplicable note by the ISBN that the cover art was by "Madre Shipton": [ATTACH type="full" width="627px" alt="CoA pdf madre.JPG"]270748[/ATTACH] This was also seen on the first printing from TSR Con (note: these images come from pro-NuTSR reviewer Jason Schattner): [ATTACH type="full" width="376px" alt="CoA JS madre.JPG"]270749[/ATTACH] But it has now been changed to properly credit the artist: [ATTACH type="full" width="609px" alt="CoA phys madre.jpg"]270750[/ATTACH] That's a good change, and I support it. Here's an example of editing the text that doesn't go so well. This is from the original PDF. Note the minor errors where it says "He is appears also sick" and "any weapon he has made while drunk may loo great when picked up". Simple errors, easy to fix: [ATTACH type="full" width="611px" alt="CoA pdf village.JPG"]270751[/ATTACH] Again, in the TSR Con printing, we can see that the text is the same. There was one slight change in the header (the page was originally going to be on a right page, but due to printing got shifted to a left page), but is otherwise identical: [ATTACH type="full" width="630px" alt="CoA JS village.JPG"]270752[/ATTACH] In the current printing they fixed the typos in "is appears" and "look": [ATTACH type="full" width="640px" alt="CoA phys village.jpg"]270753[/ATTACH] But they also managed to screw up "20% chance" and change it to "2 chance". Also, for some reason they also changed "there are a myriad of tools" to "there is a myriad of tools". I am pretty sure "are" is actually grammatically correct in this case. What I really can't understand is how anyone decided that one word needed to be changed while the rest of the terrible writing remains unedited. As a final example, here are the original GM notes from the PDF: [ATTACH type="full" width="690px" alt="CoA pdf gm.JPG"]270754[/ATTACH] Which were updated with these changes: [ATTACH type="full" width="649px" alt="CoA phys gm.jpg"]270755[/ATTACH] Let's start by stating that the rules for falling damage are, as written, terrible. If falling damage is actually 6d6 for falling 30 feet, just say that. The word salad is just silly; the fact that they take a paragraph to write it and still don't explicitly state the 6d6 total is outright stupidity. Obviously, whoever was editing this read that garbage paragraph and realized it needed help. But they though the way to fix it would be to change "Each" to "Every" and "but would actually be" to "Still, it would be". WTF? How do either of those changes actually help? I feel like I'm losing intelligence every time I try to compare the two paragraphs. Likewise, I guess someone wanted to change "sparse reward" to "a scant reward" in the last sentence. I see it as a meaningless but benign change. But the person making that edit couldn't take the time to change "Gm" to "GM" or spell "whim" correctly? And that's without getting into a discussion of apostrophes, or consistency betwee GM vs DM vs Referee. All told, the changes are very minor. Just baffling. The major issues of stealing work from Alekzander Zagorulko, Axebane, and Kimagu are still there. The module is still very basic and short; it's impressive how many typos they can fit into the small amount of text. It's definitely not worth $15. [/QUOTE]
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