I made a blank map...

Grützi

Should be playing D&D instead
First of all: Thank you for the flattering review :)
Let me comment on some things to clear stuff up ;)

I've got no problem with the exclusion of the wilderness/lore/backgroudn sections. I would still love to hear your detailed toughts on these parts .. .but apart from the contest, just for myself.

I've said my part about the icons already, I'm simply glad they work so well.
A few words about the outside (better immersion for players) and multiple ways in (more tactical possibilities) are a must for most dungeons.

Area 2:
The dead dwarf in the pool was really the first idea I had ... I always like to scare a little here and there.
Clarify getting knocked down the catwalk ... dully noted :)

Area 3:
Yeah ... I find it very hard to design a puzzle that is engaging, yet not too hard. Glad you think it works.
In hindsight the randomization of the boon and loot is a mistake. I tought it would add an element of suspense to the game .. but that really only concerns the DM ... so not good.

Area 4:
The handout:
5
The idea is fo the DM to give the handout to players who look closer at the inscription and nothing else. The ancestors guided your way in Area 3, the engravings are not symetrical ... maybe someone gets the clue. I need to make that much clearer in the text to the DM.

Area 5:
Honestly ... I totally didn't think about including lava damage ... ;)

Organic to the dungeon:
I think this adds much to any dungeon if loot is not just laying around but an active part of the dungeon itself. I love me some little mechanics that allow the party to tinker with stuff.

Area 10:
Yeah ... The only room on two pages ( a fact I really don't like), but i wanted to do the complexity of the situation justice.
I can see how all this is a bit much, but I wanted the players to have some fun in getting their cool powers (if any).
Maybe the whole thing could be trimmed down mechanically without loosing too much ... will look into that.
The treasure... it's a bit much yeah ... but you witness the quasi ressurection of a dead god in the ruins of an ancient, high-tech dwarven ruin ...
I really like to for dungeons to change the party ... so the place isn't totally forgotten in the next game ... this way the group will remember ... thats why i put the godsoul fragments in.

Area 11:
In my headcanon the whole secret passage was just a nifty way for the working dwarves to circumvent the hall of ancestors without having to revere them everytime they walk trough it.
But ignoring the ancestors isn't that wise so the coinslot was installed to make the dwarves pay.
You are absolutely right about it tough, it needs to be communicated to the DM better.

Treasure in 12 and 13:
The intention was to show, that the cult only hastily stuffed furniture into these rooms and didn't really look. They are not interested in money after all.

Rustrot art:
I will try to get some thing done ... simply didn't have the time (deadlines are the death of artistry ....)

Walking to the BBEG:
glad you caught that ;)

No book monsters:
Players fear what they don't know ... that creates intense and fun play (for a certain definition of fun ;) )
And I love me some non-standard monsters.

"Failed novelist syndrome":
Yeah :) I tried to trim it down to the absolute basics that were needed for the DM to
a) understand the background well enough to DM it
b) to give him a feeling for the world so he can communicate that to the players.
I love it when an adventure has a rich and interesting background ... most "plug-and-play"-adventures are rather thin on the background ... just a personal preference of mine.

To many boons:
Maybe ... but I am a strong follower of player empowerment. The shrine of the cupreous Lady for example... Player sacrifices something, interacts with world and setting and gets a a little extra.

Layout: One room per page.
That was a mostly deliberate choice. I like to print stuff out when i DM so having one page per room makes it easier for me to organize stuff.
That being said I'm a total newb in this whole layouting thing ... there is much to learn.
Putting room 5 and 6 on one page was done exactly because of the reinforcements. All following rooms flee foward towards 10.

Mechanics in general:
I lean rather heavily on the side of small mechanics, rules or even minigames to make things more intersting. That can be ahrd for many DMs ... you said yourself, that the DM has much to keep track of in this adventure. It comes easily to me, especially if i wrote the mechanic myself, but I can see that it's not for everyone

PS:
Oh and if it wasn't that clear from the theme ... I work in electronics (UPS systems if anyone cares) :p
 
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Malrex

So ... slow work day? Every day?
Boom!!! Grats Grutzi!!
Very solid scoring and review DangerousPuhson!

My initial idea was to have some bigger worms for the mole-men to fight, but I thought to how my group, the murder hobos that they are, would of more than likely fought the mole-men--so I was trying to make it not all about fighting--and was one of the reasons to add Filmigar.
I added low oxygen component because I did some research on moles and they can survive in low oxygen places so I wanted to explore that a little bit.

Anyways! Appreciate the thoughts and comments! Thanks!
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Would love to, but all my spare cycles (precious few) are taken up getting prepped for the home campaign.
It ended up being a nice contest (even if Byrce didn't chime in---maybe you should put the winner on his To Do List for the blog).

Congratulations to Grutzi!
 

TerribleSorcery

Should be playing D&D instead
Fuck it I'll try - I love participating in stuff. But I didn't even sign up for this forum until after the original deadline so gimme a few, and don't let me derail your existing schedule
 

Grützi

Should be playing D&D instead
Brookmere said:
Hello, new here. I saw Malrex post about this on MeWe and it looked fun.

I came up with a goofy idea while taking my kids to the nature reserve yesterday.

I'm going to try to put something together before the deadline, but if I don't make it, it will still push me to get my ideas down.
Brookmere wanted to participate too ...

I have nothing against a bit of further competition, even if it means wating another few days ;)
Either I remain the winner (more power to me ;-P) or I get a nice adventure out of it (more fun for me ;-P)

@squeen:
I am equal parts exited and terrified of Bryce looking at my adventure.

And if some external party would like to judge this I wouldn't stand against that either ... this way DangerousPuhson could also partake.
 

TerribleSorcery

Should be playing D&D instead
Follow-up question: I'm a dab hand with notepad, but what do you fellows use to create those nice PDFs? I have never even tried that shit.
 

Grützi

Should be playing D&D instead
TerribleSorcery said:
Follow-up question: I'm a dab hand with notepad, but what do you fellows use to create those nice PDFs? I have never even tried that shit.
I usually just sacrifice someones firstborn ... If that doesn't do the trick ... PDF Creator is free, like Malrex said.
I use Word where I can save a file to PDF directly.
 

Grützi

Should be playing D&D instead
Quick Update:
Here is Version 2 of the cistern:
The cistern of the three-eyed dwarves

And separate maps and handouts here:
Maps

Fixed a few spelling issues, hyperlinked the whole thing trough, did a little layout work and changed some things in response to DangerousPuhsons review.
Now I only need to draw me up some rustrot creatures and put them in there too ;)

Further update:

rustrot scout.jpg
Rustrot scout
Rustrot stinger.jpg
Rustrot Stinger
Rustrot dwarf zombie.jpg
Rustrot dwarf zombie
Rustrot Hive.jpg
Rustrot Hivemind

And my son won't be thrilled what daddy's been doing with his crayons :p
 
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Brookmere

A FreshHell to Contend With
I’m still working on mine. I lost a week because we took care of a puppy, and we’re cat people. I don’t think I’ll dethrone anyone. 🙂 No need to consider me for the contest. I’m more interested in constructive feedback.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Quick Update:
Here is Version 2 of the cistern:
The cistern of the three-eyed dwarves
...
And my son won't be thrilled what daddy's been doing with his crayons :p
@Grutzi: A few nits---please take as constructive criticism.

I do love the icons, but they are eating up too much real-estate.

Consider,

a) making them smaller (note find images that look good when small is an art in-and-of-itself)
b) having the text flow around them to eliminate margins on subsequent lines
c) trimming away the gray background to alpha (or pure white)---It's a common problem with scanned images.
d) push those nicely decorated margins out a bit more!
e) shrink the font a teeny-bit more

...and that might allow you to get everything to fit in a (magical) two-column format. Leave the page-per-room format behind.

I would also ditch the horizontal lines in favor of a blank-line paragraph break. I think that's enough because you already have the icons. Also, you can use indents inside a multi-paragraph section and save the blank-line break as a subsection delimiter. Also, your icons were fighting with your lines---so eliminating them is a win-win IMHO.

On the artwork: I like it! Get it in there! But I think the traditional two-step process of getting line art ready for production can add polish. By that I mean, pencils first (or crayon) followed by inking. Consider getting some fine-tipped Microline pens. Scan in your sketched originals and print them (very light). Ink over the print to add definition to the hard edges/shadows, then scan in the inked version. You can then threshold the scan so that only the ink remains and then realign it on top of your original sketch-layer and play with the relative exposure/transparency. I do all the digital composting in the free version of Adobe Photoshop called GIMP at 600dpi so detail is not lost. I can digitally edit, and then shrink everything back down with a good (cubic) filter. Shrinking artwork is an old trick to make you look like a much better artist, and the two-pass approach forces some mental clean-up. Don't ink the original---you might screw up or inadvertently take all of its original charm away.

PITA? Worth it?

Cheers!
 
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DangerousPuhson

Should be playing D&D instead
Scan in your sketched originals and print them (very light). Ink over the print to add definition to the hard edges/shadows, then scan in the inked version. You can then threshold the scan so that only the ink remains and then realign it on top of your original sketch-layer and play with the relative exposure/transparency.
Dude's drawing in crayons and you want him to jump straight into digital inking? lol
 

Grützi

Should be playing D&D instead
@squeen:
Don't sweat it ... I can take a bit of criticism. I also rather like to be told a harsh, even bitter truth than a sugarcoated lie ;)

I'm playing around with the layout and stuff to see what looks best and works for me and others.
I'll try your suggestions. That the Icons "eat" the lines bugs me too ... but you're right that I probably won't need the lines anyway ...

I'm a bit familiar with GIMP and Photoshop ... but most of the time I outsource such stuff to my gf (who is much better at digital media than I am... at least in the 2D division). But she's currently finishing her master thesis ... so here I am ... all alone :-/ :p

What's PITA mean?

@DangerousPuhson:
I'm rather shitty at the whole drawing at the computer thing ... and I don't have a ton of experience with 2D programs.
What I am halfway good with is 3D modeling ... which I mostly use to create Maps or props and handouts for my games.
(With a method I personally call the "Overkill"-Method :p)
The icons were in fact created in 3ds max ... by modeling the whole thing and rendering it in top view
13

Here are the maps I made for my current SWN-Game
Maps for SWN

Just to be clear: I'm still nowhere near "professional" level ... just dabling ;)
 
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squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Dude's drawing in crayons and you want him to jump straight into digital inking? lol
(blithely ignoring the clear logic of Puhson's statement)

...The method I mentioned for inking is nice because you don't ever really have to futz with drawing via mouse or need a Watcom tablet/pen, you just sketch with a crayon/pencil, ink by hand, and then composite digitally. I guess you need access to a decent scanner/copier or need to be pretty good at framing things with your phone.

The key in GIMP menu-speak is to Layer->Transparency->Add Alpha Channel, and then using one of the selection tools in the palette (e.g. magic wand or select-by-color) and playing with the Threshold number to make all of the background dissappear for layer alpha-compositing.

Honestly, you probably know all this if you are modeling icons in 3D and producing maps of that quality, but just in case...

[begin nostalgic rant]...There was a time in the ancient past---like 15 years ago---when the Great Promise of the Internet was to share information that makes us all smarter and more creative---but then mighty Commerce, sensing Profit, took control of cyberspace and reminded us that we are just dumb, incapable consumers---who's only purposes in life is to provide a bank routing number for the thrice-blessed Monthly Payment and occasionally broadcast images to other consumers inside our factionalized social-units of what we have just purchased for dinner...[end rant].

Sorry. Drifted off there for a bit. Umm...now, where was i?
Right....umm...you probably already knew how to do that in GIMP.
 
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