There’s a confluence of three things going on right now:
- I’ve been working on a lot of Eclipse Phase adventures, and trying hard to evolve their presentation to make them easier to absorb when first reading and easier to run at the table without a ton of page-flipping — especially page-flipping that requires leaving one book for another. Shameless plug: we just released Overrun which is the first adventure where we really took extra development time to address these things. (Print Pre-Order + PDF • PDF)
- I’ve been running a D&D5e game for family via Roll20, which is my first time DMing D&D5e and my first time using Roll20. I’ve started out (We actually have two different games going, one started last year when we were visiting Lake Geneva — it seemed appropriate!) using Wizards’ introductory boxed set stuff and the Stranger Things boxed set. I absolutely do not have time to build my own adventures right now for D&D, and I’m not particularly interested in diving deeply into any one particular setting.
- DMsGuild is doing a promotion until May 17th where creators are getting 100% royalties, which is a great deal for creators as the normal royalty at DMsGuild is 50% to them.
So I put out a call on Twitter for DMsGuild adventures that have a unique presentation or break the norm in some ways — part research, part fun — and a slew of titles were recommended to me.
This is what I’ve bought, with a short description as to why! Everything is based on the page on DMsGuild and the previews the creator shared.
- Flight of the Magpies: An Ebberon Adventure — I would have passed this by if I had been scrolling, based on the cover. But author Marco Michelutto has used the preview function to show the entire book and the inside is much nicer than the cover. A quick glance shows some rough edges but after peeking the inside I eagerly added it to my cart.
- Keep of the Kobold Queen — I turned 40 this year. 8-bit retro sprites? Yes please. The graphic design is totally in-line with the art. This was a snap-add plus hollerin’ at the creator on twitter about how awesome it looks.
- Weekend at Strahd’s — Awesome 80s vibe. One player plays Strahd’s corpse. I think I know just the guy.
- AE01-01 Fired & Forgotten — This came well-recommended, and looked to have some nice DM helpers even though some of the presentation threw me off initially.
- The Princess Project — nine adventures about twisting fairytale tropes and dethroning the patriarchy? I wasn’t planning on picking up larger anthology-style titles, but this one is the exception.
- Amarune’s Adventures: The Ghosts of the Glimmersea — This feels like a somewhat standard "adventure with a point and a lot of sandbox" from a quick skim but it seemed very concise for the breadth of ground covered.
- Murder on the Eberron Express — this adventure’s title made me laugh because of the Eclipse Phase adventures we’re working on, one starts with "Murder" and another ends with "On the $Spoiler Express" (they’re unrelated to each other.) I like the idea of running a train mystery whodonuit in D&D, especially for my family, who are into that trope.
- Myriad, City of Tiers — higher level than I was looking for, but the oversized landscape layout on this book is interesting at first glance. Myriad has a lot of praise for being cross-referenced/hyperlinked, which is interesting to me as I consider that "standard" for a PDF RPG book — but I suspect it’s less common on DMsGuild. I’m picking it up based on the visual concept and quality, but I sure wish the preview included more information about the adventure itself, and not the mechanical bits that go with the adventure.
- The Secrets of Skyhorn Lighthouse — This title is free, and otherwise I wouldn’t be picking it up, as there’s no PDF preview and I see a few red flags to me in the images used as the preview. But it’s free, has a ton of positive reviews, and there are giant hunter sharks!
- The Magister’s Tomb — This two-page adventure features the whole thing in the preview. Deciding how to preview small books is difficult, so I’m rewarding them with a purchase. The adventure looks very sandboxy and, obviously, concise.
- Good Country Dyin’ — another title that made me laugh. The preview is the whole book, and I liked the use of photographs. Is this going to be D&D Hinterkaifeck?
Eleven titles in the first batch. I’ve got some reading — and DMing! — to do. Drop me a line on twitter @adamjury if you have any other titles to recommend!