WotC just mailed out VILLAGE OF HOMMLET 4E..got mine

[Windjammer]

I'm simply suggesting that if Village of Hommlet 4E had appeared with no-one's name on the cover except "Andy Collins", then this fellow's review would probably have accused Wizards of staking claim to iconic material they didn't create.

Look, saying it twice doesn't it lend your suggestion more credibility. There was no complaint of Castle Greyhawk 3.5 being plagiaristic in nature, which makes your claim for 4E Hommlet quite far fetched. How far would you go? That there should have been an uproar because 4E core books, using the D&D brand and lots of the game's proper names, should have used Gary Gygax name on the cover - as opposed to the "Dedicated to the memory of GG" on the inside - to prevent such complaints?

 

[Thanlis]

In any case, I don't feel too sour about missing out on this any more. Thing is, a friend of mine did a digital photo of the map and sent it to me. And guess what. They messed up the scale of the moat house by 1/3. The entrance room, right after crossing the drawbridge, should be 12 by 12 squares. It's now 8 by 8. Same for all the other rooms. All dimensions shrunk by a third. There's a hilarious 3 by 3 squares room in one corner. The tactical usability of such rooms for 4E play is practically nil - it's all window dressing. What used to be a dungeon (even before the module hit underground) in T1 is now a single encounter.

Mearl's moathouse also has three 2x3 rooms in it, fwiw.

I don't see this as an issue, in any case, considering that the majority of the fight is going to take place in the entrance room and the room up the stairs, which have plenty of room for a 4e fight. On the other hand, researching this did give me the amusing pleasure of looking back at the original module, which calls for nine men to hide in rubble in a 20' x 30' room. You give a little, you get a little...

 

[ExploderWizard]

Mearl's moathouse also has three 2x3 rooms in it, fwiw.

On the other hand, researching this did give me the amusing pleasure of looking back at the original module, which calls for nine men to hide in rubble in a 20' x 30' room. You give a little, you get a little...

And whats wrong with that? Three man sized creatures can comfortably fit in a 10 x 10 square without having to get too friendly. The concept of every entity needing it's own 5 x5 square to maintain life support is the reason that modern maps have to be so huge.

 

[Thanlis]

And whats wrong with that? Three man sized creatures can comfortably fit in a 10 x 10 square without having to get too friendly. The concept of every entity needing it's own 5 x5 square to maintain life support is the reason that modern maps have to be so huge.

Fitting in the room is not a problem. However, that's an awful lot of rubble if they're all able to hide effectively in it.

 

[darjr]

There is a new 2 sided color map, you say? It is a cheap version of a Paizo Flip Mat, I say.

I laughed out loud when I read this. He's going to knock it because the included poster isn't of the same type as a $13 product? I own a Paizo flipmat and it is great, however, I did not expect the included poster map to be of that level.

 

[darjr]

Not really, though a poster at Paizo raised a couple of interesting observations.


While I think that final line has some bite - especially since WotC put Gygax' name on the cover, implying a sort of cooperative authorship - I've also heard of other people's experience who ran the thing on its own terms (i.e. scratched the whole idea that this was an attempt to re-capture T1) and they enjoyed the module thoroughly.

I think the post is overly critical. The cover, I think, is the temple at it's height.

The knock about reused art is backwards, I expected and wanted some of the original art. In fact I think it didn't go quite far enough with the original art.

I do agree that more could have been spent on the NPC's and the village.

The tactical maps could have been much smaller, however count me as one who likes to have everything to run an encounter present without page flipping.

The Poster map is of the same type as those in H1, is it a knock that those are not $13 flip mats?

Finally, Andy Collins, imho, shows his love of the original in this work.

I'm sorry this isn't a full review.

 

[MerricB]

I'm in the same boat. I can get as far as getting a list of scenarios(completed the Herald DM test), selecting adventures, and even scheduling an event but still no ability to actually download/ obtain the selected adventures.

Once you've scheduled an event (and set up the adventures that you'll play in it), go to the "My Events" tag to download the adventures.

You can't download the adventures before scheduling them.

Cheers!

 

[TheNovaLord]

post man bought it all the way to blighty for me this morning

quite nice actually

 

[ExploderWizard]

Once you've scheduled an event (and set up the adventures that you'll play in it), go to the "My Events" tag to download the adventures.

You can't download the adventures before scheduling them.

Cheers!

I did that. I even got an e-mail confirmation of an event #, but didn't see any download links under "My Events". It would be great if they could include the links in the confirmation e-mail.

 

[avin]

Now that you're talking about that, it's just me or it doesn't make sense that you choose an adventurer to run before reading it?

There should be available to DMs reading before chosing which one they wanna run.