Dungeon Crawl Classics #35: Gazetteer of the Known Realms
This gorgeous boxed set features three full-color maps, two world books, and two all-new d20 adventure modules designed to tie together every detail from every Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure -- every location, every NPC, every pregen, every unique item, every new deity, and everything else! Scheduled to ship in September 2006.
IMP GMG5034..........................$69.99
The image of the cover is evocative... extremeley evocative... of the classic D&D Gazetteers, with a map background and a mix of characters, heroic and villainous, over the map... it is obvious that whoever planned this out was aware of, if not a fan of, the old Gazetteers!
This has the potential to be very, very cool. I've always been a fan of the DCC series, with its classic sensibilities...
Otherwise this very cool news for Mystara.
As for whether it will be available overseas, I guess that depends on where Goodman Games is available otherwise...
Jakob, you might want to try this shop:
http://www.dragonworld.de/catalog/default.php
It's located in Hamburg, and they will send you everything for a reasonable price. I've bought from the often enough, and they always were 100% reliable.
Sorry, Jakob, for the misunderstanding, but it is not a reprint of Mystara... it is simply a product that appears to have been influenced by Mystara...
As for whether it will be available overseas, I guess that depends on where Goodman Games is available otherwise...
No chance we can convince them to buy the Mystara lisence and set their modules there instead? Would have been neat...
Regardless, I am curious to what this setting will look like....
Havard
Take a look at the product overview: goodman-games.com/5034preview.php
Still, it's better to have an influence than nothing at all...
Roger
Looking at the cover art and the boxed-set style publication, certainly there is a Mystan influence, but i'm not so sure about IVID's bet... The map pretty much looks like a distorted Mediterranean sea.
Take a look at the product overview: goodman-games.com/5034preview.php
Still, it's better to have an influence than nothing at all...
Thanks for the link Roger!
The influence looks very clear, especially on the box cover, though I agree that the map doesn't appear anything similar to Mystara. It looks very nice though!
This is exactly the sort of product I would have *liked* to see for Mystara....
Havard
This box may be worth looking into afterall
Havard
I wonder if this will be the end of the DCC line... After all, they created a setting... Now, to play it...
the next logical step would be to make a booklet detailing each country.... ;)
Yeah, but I wonder how they do that since the world is apparently specifically constructed out of the adventures... Not too much room for new things, I guess.
Well, I might be wrong, but from what I've seen of these Dungeon Crawl Classic adventures, they have about as much effect on a setting as the old B series (B10 excluded), meaning that the setting will have alot of room beyond whats going on in those dungeons...
I might be wrong though. :P
Havard
The more I see and hear about DCC World, the more interested I become... the world itself, as well as the physical production values, like the DCC modules, were designed to appeal to old RPG grognards like ourselves...
The DCC World, which is known as Aereth, is much, much bigger than just the DCC adventures found upon it... the guys at Goodman Games are using it as a basis for all their DCC adventures going forward (though all DCC adventures will be designed to be dropped into just about any campaign, or none, as the DM wishes).
The more I see and hear about DCC World, the more interested I become... the world itself, as well as the physical production values, like the DCC modules, were designed to appeal to old RPG grognards like ourselves...
I'll probably check this one out. I am curious if nothing else, to how they have solved things. I wasnt too interested in the Dungeon-based modules since I hardly ever run such adventures anymore. However, it seems like they are advancing their nostalgia to the Gaz era, which is what got me into gaming, so that is really sweet. Plus, when I met Joseph Goodman a couple of years ago, he seemed like a really nice guy, so thats worth supporting too I guess
Havard
Heyya folks. Thanks for your interest, and thanks to Shane for pointing me this way.
The world was designed to be able to accept lots of new adventures --- new towns, cities, countries, even continents as needed. (There’s tons of unknown realms remaining to compliment the known ones.) The only change you’ll see in the DCC line is that instead of having random place names, the DCCs have place names drawn from Áereth.
As for inspiration from Mystara, as I mentioned to Shane, the Áereth design concept can best be plotted on 3 point continuum. Draw a triangle between the design concepts of Mystara, Wilderlands, and Greyhawk, and Áereth falls somewhere in the middle:
Áereth is not as sci-fi as Wilderlands, not as eclectic as Mystara, and not as settled as Greyhawk. But it certainly has influences from all three settings. Folks looking for an exclusively "Mystara-ian" world might be disappointed though. That said, there's no reason it can't exist on the same planet as mapped Mystara.
If anyone ends up picking up the setting, let me know what you think. Critiques and complaints welcome.
//Harley
However, now that they have a campaign setting, things shift even more in their favor. Why? Because this is how I originally discovered Mystara - module by module. Besides, the hardest part of DMing for me is creating adventures - I love to adapt/change/tweek/whatever existing stuff to no end, but I get severe writer's block at the beginning.
So while it isn't Mystara, I think the feel of it is close enough for me to recapture a bit of the "good ol' days." Perhaps I will invest in them...sometime...in the future...maybe...
Heyya folks. Thanks for your interest, and thanks to Shane for pointing me this way.
The world was designed to be able to accept lots of new adventures --- new towns, cities, countries, even continents as needed. (There’s tons of unknown realms remaining to compliment the known ones.) The only change you’ll see in the DCC line is that instead of having random place names, the DCCs have place names drawn from Áereth.
As for inspiration from Mystara, as I mentioned to Shane, the Áereth design concept can best be plotted on 3 point continuum. Draw a triangle between the design concepts of Mystara, Wilderlands, and Greyhawk, and Áereth falls somewhere in the middle:
Áereth is not as sci-fi as Wilderlands, not as eclectic as Mystara, and not as settled as Greyhawk. But it certainly has influences from all three settings. Folks looking for an exclusively "Mystara-ian" world might be disappointed though. That said, there's no reason it can't exist on the same planet as mapped Mystara.
If anyone ends up picking up the setting, let me know what you think. Critiques and complaints welcome.
//Harley
While I am personally unlikely tro switch to another setting right now, I can only speak in favour of Mr Stroh's works in general.
Certainly one of the finest writers around, and you people might indeed give his stuff - the DCC setting included - a look.
Ah, the days of $12 box sets...
The "DCC World" box set is available now folks. Looks pretty cool, the only thing stopping me from purchasing it today is the price tag.
Ah, the days of $12 box sets...
Yeah, it is a bummer. Now if Amazon will only honor my pre-order.
As for the pricing, well, the original Dawn of the Emperors boxed set contained a 128-page DMs Guide, two 32-page Player's Guides (one for each empire), and two full-size maps, and retailed at $12 in 1989, which is equal to $18.70 today with just regular inflation (actually, a bit more, as the inflation calculator only goes up to 2005). So that's 192 pages of gazetteer (no adventure) and two double-sided maps for around $20. A 32-page module from the same era would have run around $8, which is equal to about $12.50 today.
DCC #35 includes 256 pages of gazetteer, and two complete 32-page adventures (64 pages total) and four full-color maps (single sided) for $70.
So, add together the 192 pages and four maps from DotE at $12 in 1989 dollars, add to that 64 additional pages of gazetteer at about $10 (the cost of a 64-pager in the day), and add in the $16 for two 32-page adventures, and you've got an equivalent of $38 in 1989 dollars... which is about $60 in today's dollars. Considering that Goodman is printing far, far fewer DCC #35s that TSR printed of DotE's back in the day, the $70 price tag is really a deal...
Of course, the problem is that in the last two decades, salaries and wages have not kept up with the rate of inflation for the vast majority of people... so it is a big investment...