Advanced Adventures Compendiums

[Demiurge]

I was looking to purchase a couple modules in the Advanced Adventures line by Expeditious Retreat to run at some upcoming cons and noticed these on Lulu:

http://www.lulu.com/product/hardcover/a ... 1/18492371
http://www.lulu.com/product/hardcover/a ... 2/18492377

They are hardcover and each have 10 modules and sell for $50 each. That's $5 a module, which is less than I bought most of my 1e modules for back in the 80's!

I've been happy with a few of the modules in the AA line in the past so I ordered them both. Lulu is constantly running discounts of up to 20% (NOVBOOKS11 until the end of the month) which brings the price down more. They also now have a reasonable shipping fee if you don't mind waiting a few extra days.

I'll update with the quality of the books once they arrive.

[ArgoForg]

I would be very interested in hearing about the quality of printing on these. I considered picking some of the AA line up at Gen Con when I got the OSRIC hardcover, but I really couldn't justify the price they were asking for single modules when I could grab most of the Dungeon Crawl Classics at a two-for-one clip.

[Omote]

The print quality for Lulu is top-notch. I'm also looking into picking up these bad boys.

~O

[redwullf]

The print quality for Lulu is top-notch. I'm also looking into picking up these bad boys.

I would not agree that this is true across the board. I would say that all of my Lulu hardbacks have ranged from "decent" quality to "very good." Sometimes they seem...hastily...assembled. I've purchased most of my FRPG sims via Lulu, and some have arrived in excellent, professional shape, while a few others (like my LL book) arrives with slightly wonky covering on the spines, as if they ran out of glue. My Dark Dungeons book (and OSRIC) look breathtaking from the outside, but exhibit some printing artifacts every few pages on the inside (like smears).

Having said that, the quality "in general" is good enough to allow me to recommend Lulu to anyone. Just be aware that sometimes the quality of the book may not be top notch, but will definitely be serviceable.

[Omote]

Well Redwullf, I have had nothing less than top-notch print quality and binding from Lulu. For POD products, Lulu is the best in my opinion. I have purchased, probably 25 products from Lulu, many of which have been hardcover, or softcover books with hundreds of pages. I'll stand by my high quality review of Lulu at this point.

Though, I have noticed some low resolution images come out pixilated from time to time. I would wager that this issue is not one of Lulu's, but from the author.

~O

[Demiurge]

They arrived today and the quality of the hardback looks good.





Now the the Cyber Monday coupon is burning a hole in my pocket!

[Omote]

Thanks Demi!

~O

[Omote]

Picked up both of these just now with the Cyber Monday code "CYBERMONDAY305" for a 30% discount. Now, I feel much better.

~O

[Frost]

Sweet. I'm curious to hear some reviews.

[finarvyn]

From the pictures, these look like great products. I have a hard time with a hardback for my adventures, however. That just seems so wrong somehow.

Modules should be thin little things that I can beat on and use. I'm afraid that with a hardback I would never use it, or I'd have to track down the PDF and print that as needed, or would have to find a Xerox machine and copy pages as needed. I'm just not sure I'd use a hardback.

[mgtremaine]

I feel the same way as Fin. They look really nice, and I was tempted but something seems just slightly off. I own several of these as normal modules and several more as PDF. These days I find that I like having both softcover and PDF so I can print out parts that I want to change or scribble on as the adventure is run. Would suck if I did that to a hardback Heck it sucks that I wrote and highlighted in my g1-g3 modules as a kid, what was I thinking!


-Mike