Pathfinder: "Rise of the Runelords Map Folio" [RPG]

 It's ironic that during the whole three years I ran Rise of the Runelords, I was never able to obtain the Rise of the Runelords Map Folio.  Long out of print, the prices on eBay were in the hundreds of dollars.  Then, about a month ago, I found a perfectly nice copy at a double-digit price!

A lot of the people who bought the product when it first came out in 2008 absolutely hated it, and were scathing in their reviews online.  The problem in retrospect is that this was the very first Paizo "map folio" for an adventure path, and people bought it with completely the wrong expectation of what it would contain.  Buyers who expected it to contain a series of 1"-gridded tactical maps for encounters in the AP so they could just plop down minis and go (without needing hand-drawn flip-mats) quickly learned the error of their thinking.   On the other hand, it's also not like modern Paizo map folios which are four large posters showing specific geographic areas in great detail.

 Instead, the product is essentially a colle
cted reprinting of all the encounter maps that appeared in the AP at their original (half- or full-page) size.  In other words, there's about fifteen single pages of maps that work well as handouts or to use behind a GM screen without messy photocopying--but there's nothing in the folio that doesn't also appear exactly the same in the regular issues of the AP.  The only exception is what the back cover of the folio describes as "two huge poster maps."  I think it is fair to criticise Paizo for exaggerating these, as each of the poster maps is just four panels.  Still, I quite like them: one is of Sandpoint and the other is of the entire region that the AP takes place in (oddly lacking in a numerical distance scale), and both are clear and vibrant.  I would have loved to have these laminated and on the table when I actually ran the adventure.

Once you know what you're getting, the product makes more sense.  It's handy, though un-essential, for running the AP.  And I would definitely emphasize that (apart from collectors) no one should pay big bucks for it.