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| Autres commentaires laissés par cet éditeur: |
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The following review was originally posted at Roleplayers Chronicle and can be read in its entirety at http://roleplayerschronicle.com/?p=35263.
Your characters have checked out of the SciFi Bar, eaten at the SciFi Diner, and blown up the Reactor. It’s time to leave, and what better way than in the Type A Far Trader ? This is a well-depicted battlemat of a small two-level spaceship. Those familiar with the Traveller RPG will feel right at home, but this works well for any space-related gaming venue. The outside of the hull is included as well, perfect for scrabbling over the surface in zero-G or blasting away in the spaceport before struggling into the ship!
OVERALL
The Type A Far Trader is an excellent battlemat, allowing the players to indulge in mayhem on the inside or outside of a sci-fi spaceship. It is complete with an upper upper deck, lower deck, air raft bay, and top outer surface of the ship.
RATINGS
Publication Quality: 10 out of 10
Scrying Eye Games has done an excellent job of sizing the map segments across multiple pages. My suggestion for the best final result is to cut the white edges off after printing without scaling, since the original scale is set to one square equals five feet. Laminate the pieces, then use glossy tape on the butted edges so that, once assembled, nothing shifts or stains when players get excited and scatter snacks in their haste to sweep the decks with plasma weapons.
Visual Appeal: 10 out of 10
This map depicts an excellent environment for a high-quality sci-fi experience. There is a visually-appealing main cargo bay, with two levels of corridors, crew compartments, equipment storage areas, and nice tactical features. It also has a clean sci-fi look, just the sort of thing for a nice blaster pistol duel or neural net hacking job. The various levels can be used for game play whether the characters are with or without gravity or atmosphere.
Desire to Use: 9 out of 10
I’m more of a high fantasy player, but the next time I use a spaceship this battlemat will come into play! The Type A Far Trader “HIMS Easy Money” is the perfect place for aerospace intrigue and heroics, should you have even the slightest interest in the sci-fi genre, so grab your plasma rifle and blast away or just hurl a nice antimatter grenade across the cargo bay and seal your suit before the atmosphere blows!
Overall: 10 out of 10
The Type A Far Trader is an excellent addition to your sci-fi environments and a quality piece from Scrying Eye Games. This battlemat provides an excellent site for an encounter, or an appealing means of interplanetary propulsion for the characters or their foes.
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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Don't let the big ol' zombie art fool you. "Welcome to Mortiston, USA" is a deluxe post-apocaplyptic campaign setting where the living are more of a threat than the dead. Or, as the setting says, "People complicate everything and desperate people with weapons only make it worse".
Mortiston starts with a bang -- three of them, in fact. A low-tech terrorist explosion starts a fire at the deserted Moriston All School. This is followed by the terrorist's low-yield nuke, destroying four blocks of the city, sending an EMP pulse through the entire town, disintegrating most of the city's firemen, deputies, reporters, and National Guardsmen, and setting off a firestorm that lasts five days. A military train, rerouted earlier in the day, is caught in the explosion and crashes into the telephone exchange building. All this before 12 o'clock.
Interestingly, the actual explanation for the zombies is left up to the GM, though the designer includes the origin he used in his version of the campaign. While Mortiston plots out the web of factions and personalities in the town, and includes a timeline of events, it's still flexible enough for the GM to add and modify. (A GM could even remove the zombies entirely!) The timelines are packed with adventure seeds of scenes for the GM to develop.
Primer: This section is an overview of the campaign. Besides what I've mentioned above, the Mortiston describes itself as a generic zombie apocalypse setting for multiple licensed RPGs: Outbreak: Undead, Savage Worlds, The Modern Path for Pathfinder, and OGL Modern. System-specific details are mostly NPC stats, and don't get in the way of the rest of the campaign. The primer also notes that the symptoms of radiation sickness are the same as those of the initial stage of the zombie virus -- it may be amusing to roleplay paranoid zombie-fearing players vs. unconvinced NPCs, or even run a version of this campaign with no zombies at all.
Timelines: The campaign provides a 24-hour timeline of the day of the disaster, a 111+ day timeline, and a summary of the the Stages of the Apocalypse. The 24-hour timeline is well-detailed, covering four pages of events. The 111+ day one is two pages, only highlighting major occurances every few days. The Stages provides an overview of the Mortison County as it declines. These timelines provide a framework for running the campaign over time, although the GM will still have to develop them.
Personalities: Mortiston provides nineteen colorful NPCs, with half a page for background, and another half for stats. Many of them are tied to the eight factions in the game, so will likely encounter PCs face-to-face in the game. Pretty obviously, more than nineteen people survived, so the GM will have to create additional NPCs for players to interact with. Unfortunately, the campaign does not have an index, making it tricky to find references to the Personalities versus NPCs mentioned only in the Places of Interest.
Places of Interest: Similar to Personalites, Places of Interest features about 30 locations in Mortiston. Besides a background and any people associated with the location, each entry has very useful descriptions of its "Relationship to other groups" (ie. factions), Resources (for scavenging), and a short timeline of the condition of the location. Special Locations in Mortiston are briefly mentioned in the GM notes.
Factions of Mortiston: After the detail and color of the Personalities and Places of Interest, I was somewhat disappointed in the Factions sections. At two pages, this section spends only a few paragraphs on each faction. However, a GM can rely upon standard tropes (eg. criminals vs. law) The information is nonetheless useful, detailing the number of people in each faction, their fighting ability, and relationships with the other factions. Most of the color of the factions are covered in Personalities and Places of Interest.
GM Notes: This section contains the already mentioned Stages of the Apocalypse and Special Locations in Mortiston. The section also provides a description of Utilities and Communications after a post-apocalyptic attack, a list of Neighborhoods in Mortiston, a Weather table, maps of effects caused by the terrorist attack, and other notes. While I found the Utilities and Communications section usefully detailed, I found the Locations and Neighborhoods to be scanty compared to the much more detailed Places of Interest.
What Will Michael Do: As an alternative to simply letting the town die out, the campaign ends with a climactic "ultimate monster", in the form of the militant Michael Sparks and charismatic Reverand Thompson. This section has a summary of how they will destroy and take over Moriston, although, again, the GM will have to work out the details.
Webpage support: For a free sample character and location, see DriveThruRPG's entry for the publisher, Scrying Eye Games. You will find there several other freebies for their other products. The designer's blog, 365ZED.com has additional Mortiston notes and material, including a free Fiasco Mortiston playset, sample characters, and more. Scrying Eye Games own website has little additional information about Mortiston and the designer's webpage's last entry was in December 2012.
Fiasco: On the designer's website, he includes a free standalone Fiasco playset based on Mortiston. Fiasco is a non-conventional storytelling game, in which a playset establishes the relationships and motivations of the players, as well as the location where the story takes place. The players then create the scenes and play out the story, improving details as the game session plays. Thus, the player-generated specifics of a Fiasco playset can compliment the broad overview of a campaign (and do much of the work for the GM!). The GM himself can modify the playset and interrupt play (eg. adding the plot-twisting Fiasco "Tilt") as necessary -- even stealing ideas generated in the Fiasco play session for the overall campaign. Fiasco sessions have a reputation for dark endings, well-suited for "Welcome to Mortiston, USA".
EEP!: EEP! 1 is the first "Extended Electronic Package" for "Welcome to Mortiston, USA", and is available as a separate $2.99 purchase from DriveThruRPG.net. I am not clear if other EEPs will be made, and when EEP! 1 was originally written.
PDF: The download comes in both a colored and black-and-white format. I particularly liked that the formats allowed printing of individual sections and NPC and location pages without widows and orphans. Most of the art is useful (eg. NPC and locations pictures), reducing the amount of ink and toner used for GMs wanting a hardcopy.
Overall, Mortiston is an excellent post-apocalyptic campaign setting. But like all campaign settings, the GM will have to work on the specifics, or use a system, like Fiasco, which will do this for him.
| Classement: | | [4 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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The following review was originally posted at Roleplayers Chronicle and can be read in its entirety at http://roleplayerschronicle.com/?p=33922.
The Foul Strumpet is a well-depicted battlemap of a steampunk airship. A gas bag suspends the upper and lower decks of a hanging ship, with large props that drive the entire thing forward with a suitable trail of fumes. This battlemat is a perfect example of how helium is better than hydrogen, because the gas bag is obviously not a hot air balloon. It would not do to be under the bag if the contents could explode from one tiny spark, so the vote goes to helium – or some suitably inert fantasy equivalent!
OVERALL
The Foul Strumpet is an excellent battlemat, allowing the players to indulge in mayhem on several levels of a steampunk airship. It is complete with an upper gas bag, surface deck, and lower deck.
RATINGS
Publication Quality: 10 out of 10
Scrying Eye Games has done an excellent job of sizing the battlemap segments across multiple pages. My suggestion for the best final result is to cut the white edges off after printing without scaling, since the original scale is set to one square equals five feet. Laminate the pieces, then use glossy tape on the butted edges so that, once assembled, nothing shifts or stains when players get excited and scatter snacks in their haste to sweep the decks with projectile weapons.
Visual Appeal: 10 out of 10
This map has perfectly captured the qualities of the steampunk experience. Steam, smoke, cannons, and all sorts of nice tactical features are presented with great quality. It also has a stylish Victorian look, just the sort of thing for a nice parasol or cutlass. The various levels can be used for game play whether the characters are in, on, or under the depicted surfaces.
Desire to Use: 9 out of 10
I’m more of a high fantasy player, but the next time I use an airship I’m using this battlemap! The Foul Strumpet is the perfect place for aeronautical derring-do and hijinks, should you have a fancy for the steampunk genre. What you get is a complete airship experience, so grab your aether pistol and blast away or just drop a nice crate of impact bombs on the helpless fools below!
Overall: 10 out of 10
The Foul Strumpet is an excellent addition to your steampunk environments and a quality piece from Scrying Eye Games. The Foul Strumpet provides the Game Master with an excellent site for an encounter or a tasteful means of long-distance propulsion for the characters and their foes.
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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(Thanks to the publisher for fixing the misisng page). Although my personal taste favours the Future Aramad series, this is a well done deck plan that provides an interesting change of style for an adventure.
| Classement: | | [4 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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R�ponse Editeur: |
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Thanks. There are a lot of the older ships we can't do due to licencing issues, but we'll cover all the Mongoose Traveller ships we can and a several new designs (some based on old ideas, some new.) |
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An excellent detiled boat for Traveller, Aaron H has already said everything, so ditto.
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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This is a 1" square map of a snowy creek 8x10'. It has some trees, a fallen one across the creek, some brush and the straight creek and a few scattered rocks. Someone might find it useful for an outdoor wintery crossing, ambush or other fantasy scenario. I'd like to see more of this kind of map, it's not bad looking and would be great for a short outdoor winter campaign setting.
| Classement: | | [4 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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I'm very fond of Scrying Eye Games for their modern tile sets, which are in short supply. They also aren't afraid to try esoteric environments like a flooded sewer or a a coolant system on a spaceship. That said, Scrying Eye Games products are specifically meant to be print products -- or in other words, you buy them on heavy card stock like I did (at Gen Con one year I bought every modern set they had).
Unfortunately, this does not translate directly over to PDf. There are a lot of dotted black and white lines, as you can see from the cover. This means that these maps cannot simply be used as is -- you need to cut them up. That's fine if your plan is to use these tiles on a physical tabletop, but not all that helpful if you plan to use it on a virtual tabletop like Roll20.
The water is suitably realistic, with interesting shadows and ripples, but the walls consist almost entirely of big Xs with yellow and black hazard markings along the corners. This almost exclusively skews the set toward a futuristic setting or a modern water treatment plant. There's also some shoreline content, which I would have preferred to see more of.
The real purpose of this set is a sci-fi water treatment plant, and if that's what you're looking for this set will be perfect. But as is, they're not suitable for sewers. The water's a little too clear, the text a little too crisp.
| Classement: | | [3 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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R�ponse Editeur: |
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1) Yup, we love to do things that nobody else does. Thanks!
2) The "big x" is not wall. It is catwalk over water. You can see the water through the grill.
3) The fantasy version will be released in a few weeks, along with the rest of the dungeon sets they match.
4) Its the exact same art from the printed product. VTT versions will be licensed through D20Pro and maybe Fantasy Grounds.
5) If we put things in the water, someone complains. If we put nothing in the water, someone complains. No win either way. ;-) |
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This set provides a nice top-down view of a trim galley with a couple of sails to supplement the single bank of oars. The vessel is fully-decked so you don't get to see the rowing benches below, nor any of the living accommodations.
The plan is at a 1" = 5 feet scale with a square grid. This makes a nice size for miniatures use but, despite the 'product blurb' warning that alternate scales are available so to make sure you purchase the one you need, you don't get to find this out until you have bought it! It also appears to be the single version available, at least here on DriveThruRPG.
Instructions for use are clear and straightforward. There are two bonus tiles provided. One is just sea and the other is a beach. Both could be printed repeatedly should you need more to lay out the scene that you require.
It's very attractive and should a sea battle with elves (or anyone else owning an elegant war galley) be in your plot it would be a nice image to put before your players.
| Classement: | | [4 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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This is a great little encounter map. The only criticism I have is that I wish the PDF wasn't password protected so I could pull this into my Virtual Table Top program to use for an encounter there.
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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The mere sight of these tiles is enough to trigger a clausrophobia attack!
If you have need for lots of narrow twisting corridors, bestrewn with pits, crossed by suberranean rivers and with an assortment of traps magical and mechanical, this is well worth a look.
The presentation is nice and crisp, with a good geomorphic design. The tiles are ink-hungry but it's well worth it for the results - a dramatic and quite terrifying display on your tabletop.
All you need to do is decide on a layout (or indeed randomise the tiles, the geomorphic design facilitates this) and pick out whatever monsters, traps and other hazards you want to use... then find a way to get those suckers, er, sorry, player characters to go there...
If a classic 'dungeon crawl' features in your plans, this is a good resource for presenting it vividly to your players.
| Classement: | | [4 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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This mapset presents a quite varied and interesting tavern, which can provide considerable scope for your game. Most of it is open-plan on a single level, but there are several features that take it beyond a big room for drinking (and brawling) in.
Two main entraces both lead into the main drinking area, furnished with a bar and several tables with benches. There's a nice big fireplace, and some bar stools for those who want to belly up to the bar rather than sit at a table. Next to the drinking area there is a performance area with a proper stage and benches for the audience, and a backstage area that gives plenty of space for actors or bards to relax before a show.
Whilst most of the place is open-plan, there are some private rooms. Two square ones are furnished with heaps of cushions, oriental style, and one contains a long table with chairs around it, suitable for business meetings and similar discussions. Another exit is behind these rooms, so you do not have to walk through more public areas to reach them if you'd rather not be seen!
The final feature on the large ground floor is not one but two large multi-seat rest rooms, which are situated between the main tap room and the private rooms. Whilst that particular need is catered for, there are no facilities for staff - no break room, office or kitchen. This is a place for drinking and entertainment, it seems.
Further plans are provided for a stable block and a small cellar which is, we are told, under the stage.
Everything is clearly-drawn and well-detailed. Inns are always useful, as a GM I reckon I cannot have too many different inn plans tucked away - there are not many chain outlets in your average fantasy world after all! - but this is a nice distinctive one that may well become a favourite watering hole for your characters.
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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Maps. Gamers always need maps! (And I happen to like them anyway...)
This 'freebie' introduces a new product line intended to provide quality maps in a way that is easy to use. The concept is simple: each set is to include three copies of the same map - a simple sketchmap for player use, a more detailed player map and one for the DM. Naturally, the DM will be privy to information that the players do not have, at least not until they go and investigate for themselves!
Whilst billed for D&D 4e, the maps will do fine for the fantasy ruleset of your choice.
The notes provided give ideas for using the maps, even down to suggestions for making good table props in the shape of an aged and tattered sketch map that the characters might find in the course of their adventures.
Naturally, it will be up to the DM to populate the map with NPCs, monsters and whatever else he decides will be there; and he will have to add his own notes or key.
So, this introductory set depicts the township of Fao and the ruins of Fao Keep (or so it says...). It's a reasonably-sized settlement, over an hundred buildings with a small river, a nearby lake and a partial wall around it. Is this wall supposed to be the ruined keep? I cannot see anything else keep-like. The DM's map is provided with a square grid and scale, the others have no indication of size. The place looks real, a sensible and natural arrangement of buildings and roads with a good scattering of trees. Everything is well-presented, crisp and clear.
A good start, and a neat way to demonstrate the quality and nature of future offerings.
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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Traveller players have long been familiar with the Type A Far Trader, it's a real workhorse of the star lanes in the far future... but here is a delightfully-detailed set of floorplans showing an entire ship in 25mm scale ready for you to print out (or visit a copy shop - these are beautiful enough to warrant getting a professional job done!) and use, especially if you use miniatures in your game.
One useful feature is that the OUTSIDE of the ship is included as well as the more usual deckplans of the interior. Maybe you could skirmish in space - a boarding action by some dastardly pirates to beat off, perhaps (or BE the dastardly pirates, your morals are your own affair!). Or maybe you want to leave port right now and customs officials, the repo man or whatever local disturbance has led to your hurried departure needs to be played out across your hull before you raise ship.
Or even, whilst this is NOT recommended, you may have occasion to go EVA when in Jump space. A fault in the Lanthanum grid might need attending to... or some other problem that a Referee dreams up... space rot eating your hull?
This is a ship to be proud of, your home from home in the spaceways... enjoy!
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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This set features MANY small seacraft, and all are done with beautiful detail. Even things like floating barrels add to the fun.
What surprized me was with all of the beautiful artwork it was followed up by lousy layout. The ships are on a watery set of bases, and they look INCREDIBLE, however, some of the boats that are one inch wide by 4 inches long have the squares in bizarre places.
You would think that if you were going to have a small canoe 1"x4" that the tip of the bow would align with the edge of the first square, and the stern would align with the edge of the fourth square. Instead, the tip of the bow is about 1/4" in, and the stern is hanging over 3/4" (or there abouts).
I understand it is a free set, but these sets are supposed to show the quality of hte publisher's work. I think had the boats had LESS per page, then they could have aligned them differently, and REALLY had an awesome set.
I would have liked to give this set the full 5/5 stars, because of the truly amazing artwork, but the alignment just looks off in my opinion.
| Classement: | | [4 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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The following review was originally posted at Roleplayers Chronicle and can be read in its entirety at http://roleplayerschronicle.com/?p=20887.
Roads-2-Nowhere is part of the TopoTiles set of modular battlemap tiles from Scrying Eye Games designed under a specific theme but for universal applications. Urban Crawl carries a post-apocalyptic theme with possible use in modern and sci-fi applications. The set consists of generic road tiles with small attached buildings that can ultimately be used for a variety of purposes. The set is post-apocalyptic themed, however, as the associated elements (such as the ruined or rusted cars, broken pavement sections, tossed buildings, and random “destruction”) fall under what you would envision in a post-apocalyptic setting.
As is common with almost all of Scrying Eye Games’ battlemaps, there are an abundance of minute details (such as the small pieces of debris in the buildings, the grass protruding from the cracks in the pavement, and the sewer grates on the road) that make the battlemap visually appealing. In addition, the tiles are designed to be used in any configuration by offering very generic designs that can be mixed and matched at your leisure.
OVERALL
Urban Crawl is a good set of battlemap tiles, although the title really doesn’t fit the theme. To me it has more of a suburban if not rural feel as the roads are sparsely populated and the buildings quite small. However, I would not rate a product based on its name but rather its design and functionality and it could be used as the outskirts of an urban area.
The set of included roads comes in two flavors: 2-lane and 4-lane. The 2-lane roads appear to be one way streets due to the white lines in the center instead of yellow (although it can easily be used as a bi-directional street), while the 4-lane roads appear to be bi-directional. Linking these two flavors together is a single intersection with four lanes going one direction and two lanes going the other. At least, I believe the purpose of that tile is to link the two together. I would like to point out that this set is designed for a neighborhood or industrial park and not the open road as there is only one 4-lane tile and it happens to be straight.
RATINGS
Publication Quality: 8 out of 10
Urban Crawl is a good set of tiles that look great and provide a decent number of options. I would like to see more 4-lane road options and additional items such as front yards, back yards, alleys, intersections with street lights, and commercial buildings. Still, as-is, Urban Crawl is a good set of tiles with a lot of options. The tile format presents the user with an endless number of combinations.
Visual Appeal: 10 out of 10
Scrying Eye Games is one of the best battlemap-makers when it comes to detail. They always include a lot of little things to their battlemaps that make them interesting and believable. And besides the tiles, you get a heck-of-a-lot of add-on elements to further flavor the tiles you decide to use. A lot of work and dedication goes into making these maps and the visual appeal truly pays off.
Desire to Use: 8 out of 10
When I think of a suburban wasteland, wiped out by some apocalyptic event, this really matches my vision. I like the use of the street tiles combined with the various buildings, although I think more options should be available for buildings and streets. Many mapmakers ignore the post-apocalyptic theme and this one not only embraces it, it really fits what that vision of wasteland would be. It definitely needs more options, but there at least plenty here to get you started, and the price is extremely reasonable.
Overall: 9 out of 10
If you are running a post-apocalyptic setting in a suburban environment, Urban Crawl is a great set of tiles to show your players what the city looks like after that apocalyptic event. The decay of the surroundings are prevalent and the obvious neglect (because everyone in that area died) really comes through. It really has that “What happened here?” look to every single tile, producing a very cohesive battlemap for post-apocalyptic settings.
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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