Thursday, July 21, 2016

In Case You Haven't Heard...



Maze of the Blue Medusa is stunning.

-Vanessa Veselka


One of the biggest releases, I think, in the history of D&D publishing

-Ben Milton, Questing Beast


This book is a deep, luxurious bed for Dungeon Masters to roll in

-Jay Murphy


Nothing like Maze of the Blue Medusa has come along before….Each element of Maze of the Blue Medusa is near perfect. And I dare hazard to say that the entire thing is greater still than the sum of its parts…Maze of the Blue Medusa is in some higher tier than The Best.

-Bryce Lynch, TenFootPole


It kicks WotC's books' ass in every department, and it's made by 3 people.

-Ludifex


After 36+ years of gaming, precious little seems "new" to me.  This feels new. 

-Tim Brannan, The Other Side


If a regular old dungeon were presented with this level of clarity and efficiency, it would be excellent, but Maze of the Blue Medusa combines accessible presentation with a dungeon that's genuinely fantastic and eerie.

-James Holloway


It's gorgeous it's thought-provoking, it contains some of the most interesting and strange dungeon rooms ever published, and above all else, it is by far the most respectfully made TRPG book in years. Bottom Line: Maze of the Blue Medusa is a masterpiece and will likely be held up as the new gold standard of megadungeon book design…

-Kiel Chenier, Dungeons & Donuts


This is news to nobody even remotely interested in interesting roleplaying at this point but it's a masterpiece, rich and strange and brutal and so very sad. 

-Stasis Engine


Maze of the Blue Medusa is fun to read, it looks wonderful, and it's designed to be useful; there are plenty of game books that fit into one of those categories, fewer that fit into two, and not many at all that fit into all three, let alone doing so while describing a setting that can provide months, if not years, of continuous play. 

-Kelvin Green


 Just freaking wow. 

-They Might Be Gazebos


It’s a work of art in the truest sense, 

-Defy Danger


Huge and very well made

-David Browe


To Zak Sabbath & Patrick Stuart:  This thing, Maze of the Blue Medusa, which you have created together is stupefying. Assimilation could change your brain.  I think it changed mine.

-Ro Annis


 Let's put it this way: it's a dungeon you actually want to read the prose in. To grown adults.

-Kenneth Hite


It may be one of the most sublimely weird things I've ever read in gaming

-Blackwingedheaven


Forgive me for all the "unique"s and "different" and "rich" and all those words that I used but I'm just trying to--it's just difficult to really explain the vastness of these characters...If you can get through this thing and your players can tackle this you're going to have tons of stories

-SavageGM


Every page of it is making me go wow.

-memynameandmyself


Probably the single best RPG supplement I have ever read.

-Steve Sims


Clearly jam-packed with awesome ideas.

-Monte Cook


Nerds: This may be the best D&D book of the year.

-Ramanan S


FUCKING AMAZING

-Nathan Strong


Maze of the Blue Medusa is a damn fine book.

-pxxzaJosie


...might actually top Red & Pleasant Land!

-James Gavin


Maze of the Blue Medusa might be the most delightfully weird gaming book I've ever read.

-Jeremy Puckett


It's definitely one of the best looking books ever published for the OSR, or for RPGs in general.

-Andy Markham


This is the most dungeony dungeon. It has everything you'd expect in a big dungeon: different factions, shifting alliances, magic fountains, cursed treasures, teleportation, strange poisons, history, traps, trick doors, secret passages, rooms with no entrances, riddles, pits, everything.

-Nate Lumkin


 fucking amazing

-acep hale


It's just astonishing. Beautiful art, evocative text, great quality, nice weight in your trembling hands and just lots and lots and lots of cool encounters, areas and--just everything.

-Karl Stjernberg

...this work achieves what Tegel Manor attempted and nobody else has gotten very close to since: an intricate, interacting environ where something new and interesting happens around every corner that still attends to the practical issues of trying to DM such a beast.

-Jeff Rients

Ah-May-Zing.

-China MiƩville

--

Ennie nominated for:

Best Adventure
Best Cartography (won Silver)
Best Electronic Book (physical ones weren't ready in time for judging) (won Gold)
Best Writing (won Silver)
Product of the Year
-
And if you don't have one, get one.


10 comments:

Dada Dan Akiko said...

I expect such endorsment from Vin Diesel and Marylin Manson too

Fuck Nazis said...

Yeah, let's see what Vin thinks of it!
For all we know, there could be a MotBM movie in a few years.

Patrick Mallah said...

So busy and full is my life that I have not yet had the opportunity to finish reading all of Maze of the Blue Medusa, and for that, I am sorry. Sorry to you, sorry to humanity, and sorry, most of all, to myself.

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Excellent accolades.

Best of luck to ya. See you at the ENnies award night.

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Excellent accolades.

Best of luck to ya. See you at the ENnies award night.

Nagora said...

Why is anyone even going to bother entering? This stuff is like some alien future technology landing in 1851 and being entered into the Great Exhibition against steam trains and the latest in cast iron kettles.

Zak Sabbath said...

Thanks but you're banned.

You need to address the points left hanging in previous conversations
(for example):
http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-worlds-most-difficult-subject.html?zx=b1407fb4c4169c5f

This isn't Youtube, you can't just say random bs and run away.

Nagora said...

Sorry, didn't realise you were serious about providing proof of a PoV I had explained. I don't think discussions work that way. I'm more of a "I said I think this and why, then you say if you think that's wrong or not and why" kindof a guy.

You seem to want every point made to apply universally and if it doesn't you claim that it's glib or ask for proof. Of course people talk in generalisations; there's not enough time to always be exhaustively specific about everything.

I could just as easily asked you to "prove" your claim that '"violence is wish-fulfilling" doesn't fit many uses of violence in art.'

Of course it depends on what you admit as Art, but Movies, television, comics, gaming, and a lot of literature argues that there is at least some doubt that you are correct. The "High Arts" of painting and sculpture are certainly on your side - I have thought about what you said; I never dismiss it out of hand - but does that mount up to "not many" do?

Anyway, never mind. I'm sure you don't give a toss and I'm tired of your insistence in making every exchange into a fight when the differences between our opinions on almost everything are very slight indeed. I enjoy examining those differences; you seem to find them a personal slight of some sort. I'm sure it would be different face-to-face but on the Interweb it's clearly not working.

Keep up the good work with the books.

Zak Sabbath said...

And of course the whole reason that people have to write essays and blog entries and books about things is to repair the damage done by people like you speaking in ill thought out generalizations.

Zak Sabbath said...

You of course can ask for proof (and must if you don't agree with me) and then I have to provide it.

Anything less than that results in a discussion where neither side learns anything, which was pointless to start and a waste of time.

The only reason to talk about art on the Internet is because you think it's important and if it's important then it is 100% imperative that you decide who is right and who was wrong or whether both people are wrong.

I can easily prove that violence as wishful fulfillment doesn't fit many uses of violence in art for example:
in the movie bullet in the head there is a terrifying and effective scene where the main character is forced to kill an American POW there is absolutely no part of that scene and no role in that scene that I would like to take part in yet I find it very powerful.

There I proved it. Unless you can prove that i was lying then you made a mistake or I (and everyone else who has ever claimed to have seen an affecting scene of undesirable violence) is decieving themselves for some purpose you can prove.

Since you foolishly made a generalized statement one example alone completely punctures your argument it doesn't have to be most scenes of violence just simply a scene of violence will prove you wrong.

You should now admit that or make a counterargument which addresses what you think I got wrong.

Of course you must always justify everything you say here and never speak in bland generalizations or else you just get the Stupid and poorly thought out Internet vagaries and platitudes which don't help anybody make art or run a game or anything else and there's no point to writing anything.