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Mr. Winburn has done a very nice job in capturing the moody essence of 'Dark Fantasy'. I consider the heroes and creatures contained in Volume I to be in the category of 'super-heroic' and many viewers will be inspired by them. What I mean by that, is that most of the dark heroes and villians are mighty-thewed,wielding large weapons of mayhem! And although I prefer my artwork a bit more 'realistic', Mr. Winburn's visions are great stuff indeed! Hopefully later volumes will contain more examples of sorcery-inspired subjects and maybe some scenery as well. We GMs can always use a crumbling ruin or inn interior to show to our players.
The only other suggestion I have is to possibly go with 'themed' volumes: Dragons, Dungeon Denizens, Dark Heroes, etc.
I give Dark Fantasy Volume I, 3 stars out of 5: Good job, sir- looking foreward to more!
David B. Semmes
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Unfortunately, this Goblin primer was disappointing. It purports to be for Pathfinder goblins, but the goblins presented here are nothing like the goblins presented in the Pathfinder Bestiary, if anything it makes them seem like nothing more than crude halflings obsessed with penis size and breasts. I realize breeding is important to goblin society but the constant references to it in the primer were extraneous and detracted from the overall product. Unless you are planning to do something completely, radically different with goblins in a homebrew setting, this primer is pretty much useless. I will say that the goblin statistics and traits presented are pretty solid and could provide inspiration if you were looking for the aforementioned drastically different goblin schtick, and most importantly, it is only a buck.
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This is a superior piece of space opera, good-looking, energetic and just a bit over-the-top, giving character-generation options and campaign nuggets to describe Mafia-run worlds and hardened children of the empire of crime anywhere.
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If this is Skortched Urf's idea of what a campaign setting is supposed to be, then they need to go back and read any of the 3E campaign setting books by WotC, all this book has is a random grab bag of character creation stuff, and mentions of things that happened with no real context at all. It feels like a world with a lot of interesting history and backstory, but none of it is here, and none of it is really told to us. And i understand that they are aiming for the feel of the early image books. Guess what, those books mostly sucked till 2 or 3 years into the runs and they started to explore the backhistory of that newly created world. There is none of that here, and that makes this book less than useless to me. When i buy a campaign setting, thats what i want, not random stuff in a sack that i have to piece together myself.
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Underwhelming. Art work is good, but the value of the product is low.
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Adventurers Wanted, Volume 2 is a 7-page PDF (6 pages if you remove the OGL page) compatible with the D20 3.5/OGL system written by David Caffee, Illustrated by Anthony Cournoyer and published by Scorched Urf’ Studios. This product is part of the Adventurers Wanted line.
The layout is full page for the Adventurers Wanted posters and two columns for the adventure text itself. The only art is the Cournoyer piece that is repeated, naturally, on each of posters. Its lists itself as being an OGL product (even including the OGL) but the suggested monsters are described and organized for 4e D&D. Confusing that.
The idea behind adventurers wanted is to have small adventures that can be easily included in any campaign, ready to be stitched into an ongoing game with minimal preparation. The poster -which comes in English, Dwarven and Elvish versions- frame the situation and present a route for adventure for the player characters.
The basic adventure that follows is more sketched than fully prepared, a pretty classic ‘monster hunt’ in dangerous territory. Some suggestions are made as to opposition and challenges along the way as well as other store threads and complications that could be added. But it is really bare bones, no maps, no suggestions for presenting the named villain, Dragon Bone, or suggestions for what the massive bone club he uses (from which he gets his name) really is.
This product suffers from the same flaws as the first one in this line, it provides too loose of a frame work to be just dropped into a game which is its stated design aim. For future products in this line the following would be excellent improvements: the information on major non-player characters could be expanded, more adventure options could be provided and suggestions for obstacles and setting various scenes (especially the confrontation with the main villain) could be included.
Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.
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Adventurers Wanted, Volume 1 is a 9-page PDF (8 pages if you remove the OGL page) for the D20 3.5/OGL system written by David Caffee, Illustrated by Larry Elmore and published by Scorched Urf’ Studios. This product is premier volume for the Adventurers Wanted line.
The layout is full page for the Adventurers Wanted posters and two columns for the adventure text itself. The only art is the Elmore piece that is repeated, naturally, on each of posters.
The idea behind adventurers wanted is to have short adventures that can be easily included in any campaign, ready to be added into an ongoing game with minimal preparation. The poster -which comes in English, Dwarven and Elvish versions- frame the situation and present a route for adventure for the player characters.
The basic adventure that follows is functional if lacking in surprises or options. While perfectly serviceable, and the character of the Duchess is well drawn for a short product, it would be better if more option for the path of the adventure was provided. Additionally, especially for an productdesigned to assist a GM by providing a ready to run adventure, the advice of “A cunning DM will find all sorts of obstacles to throw in the party’s way” is self-evident, some actual suggestions for obstacles would be more helpful.
This is an acceptable start for this product line and it shows promise and achieves its aim, just. For future products, the information on major non-player characters could be expanded, more adventure options could be provided and suggestions for obstacles and various scenes could be included.
Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.
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I've never played this system, but I've bought just about every one of the Otherverse America products to raid for ideas, because I've bought some of my favorite products from this publisher.
For someone running a sprawling, several year cosmic supers campaign, this Guide is an invaluable resource of interesting alien race ideas. GMs will be able to get a wealth of good ideas from this pdf, whether you are running space opera, high-tech modern, future or superhero. The art is evocative and the races are imaginative - not just some rehash. This product has the virtue of being simply different than most star-spanning products out there, and both the art and storytelling offer a great deal of uniqueness.
I can't speak to the character builds or how they run, because my game is stuck in another system and so I convert everything, but I hope to one day run an Otherverse America or Psi-Watch focused campaign. For anyone else running supers or space, let me also recommend Psi-Watch or Galaxy Command.
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Useful and sensible ideas for one of the game's underrated items, with some low-level magic.
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Not one of their more restrained supplements nor really what I was hoping to see, with Snoop Doggy Dogg (it's pretty much just him) shadow-jumping, morphing into a weredog and various other homages crammed into 10 creaking levels. Apparently there aren't any female Doggs, funny that. Grab it for a brief read, if that sounds like it would enhance your day.
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Her various different covers show an interesting range, after I worked out how the real people described relate to her use of their identities. I'm not sure why this needs stats (or refers to the Traveller setting, though I'm not averse to more third-party support for those rules) as it's mostly either wish-fulfilment or justification for the GM to mess with the party in any way he wants.
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Though meant primarily for the Otherverse America setting, this template is actually pretty adaptable to any d20 Modern or d20 Fantasy setting, and that includes any game using the Pathfinder RPG system. Heck, I've been using this template in my own d20 Modern campaign as a race in and of itself, and there are plenty of times when its unique characteristics (e.g., Quick Reflexes, Combat Crush, and Totally Fearless...Kinda) come in handy. Even the drawbacks gave the Troublemaker template a very distinctive flavor that makes it stand out personality wise from a lot of other races. All in all, I'm impressed with this work and would definitely recommend it to future purchasers.
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I'm actually pretty impressed with this little PDF. Chris Field really goes into detail to describe this race from appearence to culture and even talking about its reproduction cycle. Also, the very idea of the Trius is very unique--a race of nearly human aliens with the psionic ability to replicate itself--and the traits Chris has given it are pretty fitting for a Dreamscarred Press OGL game or a game using the more modern Pathfinder RPG system. Not only that, but they're also surprisingly well-balanced. In short, this document is five pages worth downloading.
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Variant items for dealing with specific undead monsters and their abilities. Contains good additions for a PC's arsenal in undead heavy campaigns, but little else beyond an expanded item list.
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I downloaded the file again and like Mark said the bugs have been fixed. Five stars!
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