JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Trove of Treasure Maps is another product in the GameMaster’s Workshop line by Kenzer and Company. These books are meant to be useful to Hackmaster and d20 players and often provide details on where to place information in both the Kalamar and Hackmaster settings.
The Trove is a collection of various maps with brief adventure notes to help the GM. When I first heard of this product, I thought of Map Folio I by Wizards of the Coast. While many of the maps in that book were beautiful, they weren’t real useful as that’s all they were, maps. In addition, despite their pleasing appearance, they didn’t lend themselves to game play very much.
Well, there’s good new and bad news about these maps. The bad news is that these maps are like real treasure maps and come in a variety of forms that often rely on the character to figure out what its trying to say. Some of these are more professional looking than others. For example, The Tomb of Prince Thiebault Ironhelm shows a nice side view of a mountain stronghold with a close up on the middle mines and the tomb itself. Others like the Battle of Murning Heights are almost childish in their composition. This doesn’t detract from what the map is showing but it’s certainly not a map mean to be used in actual game play, but rather as a prop or tool to lead the party around.
In addition, they don’t come with complete game stats, but rather, with some game stats and a lot of recommendations as to where the actual game stats can be found. Further bad news is that some of these recommended books go beyond the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide to second tier books like Fiend Folio.
The good news is that they include details about the map’s history as well as a game master key for each location marked on the game master’s map. That’s right, the game master’s map. The book includes two maps, one for GMs and another for players. Unfortunately, the book is stapled so the ease of removing a map, like you can in Map Folio I, is missing and you have to either copy the maps or remove the staples or tear them out along the precut lines.
GMs who enjoy watching player’s squirm and are looking for a way to part them from hard earned coin to decipher these maps will enjoy the product. The dual maps is a useful tool. The extra word a GM has to do in referencing the various monsters and insuring the proper level character gets the proper map, reduces the overall utility of the maps.
The Trove is a collection of various maps with brief adventure notes to help the GM. When I first heard of this product, I thought of Map Folio I by Wizards of the Coast. While many of the maps in that book were beautiful, they weren’t real useful as that’s all they were, maps. In addition, despite their pleasing appearance, they didn’t lend themselves to game play very much.
Well, there’s good new and bad news about these maps. The bad news is that these maps are like real treasure maps and come in a variety of forms that often rely on the character to figure out what its trying to say. Some of these are more professional looking than others. For example, The Tomb of Prince Thiebault Ironhelm shows a nice side view of a mountain stronghold with a close up on the middle mines and the tomb itself. Others like the Battle of Murning Heights are almost childish in their composition. This doesn’t detract from what the map is showing but it’s certainly not a map mean to be used in actual game play, but rather as a prop or tool to lead the party around.
In addition, they don’t come with complete game stats, but rather, with some game stats and a lot of recommendations as to where the actual game stats can be found. Further bad news is that some of these recommended books go beyond the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide to second tier books like Fiend Folio.
The good news is that they include details about the map’s history as well as a game master key for each location marked on the game master’s map. That’s right, the game master’s map. The book includes two maps, one for GMs and another for players. Unfortunately, the book is stapled so the ease of removing a map, like you can in Map Folio I, is missing and you have to either copy the maps or remove the staples or tear them out along the precut lines.
GMs who enjoy watching player’s squirm and are looking for a way to part them from hard earned coin to decipher these maps will enjoy the product. The dual maps is a useful tool. The extra word a GM has to do in referencing the various monsters and insuring the proper level character gets the proper map, reduces the overall utility of the maps.
