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All you game masters with players vying to be the next batman finally are delivered an adventure and setting worthy of the broodiness that your players crave.
Bedlam in Bedlam is the quintessential adventure for game masters who have players itching for a dark comic book setting. Bedlam in Bedlam, by Plain Brown Wrapper Games, contains both a great adventure and a detailed setting within its 200 pages. I felt like that guy who goes to a grocery store and realizes that there was a ham tucked underneath the cart that he forgot to pay for. Something felt wrong getting all the goodness in Bedlam for nothing, considering the low cost and detail put into it.
The adventure involves government superchildren and breaking into a government facility to save them. This is a simple plot if we are talking cheesy four color, but in a gritty campaign world like Bedlam, things are a bit murky. Some of the government are good guys and some of them are not. Some are trying to help you orchestrate the break-in while some assume that you helping them.
With so much intrigue, the writer does a organized job of helping the gamemaster run the game. There is first an overall overview and then a remarkably done more chapter by chapter overview. This is a notion that d20 adventure providers have yet to grab. Instead of writing adventures like novels, where the GM has to get to the last page to find out what is going on, Bedlam writes the adventure for the Game master. Like other adventures from the publishers, hints and tips are scattered throughout for ?what if? incidents involving the PCs. Each chapter has great descriptions and colorful maps for pc use.
All that alone is worth the price of admission. But one of the appendixes? is a 30 page layout of Bedlam including a map and detailed information about the government, neighborhoods and other factions. It?s written so well that if you do not have a detailed home city, you can easily slip it as yours.
For the Game Master
Bedlam spells out everything for you so there is little guessing as to what could happen next. The adventure has a lot of paths the PCs could go, which makes for a satisfying adventure for them and prevents the feeling of being railroaded.
The Iron Word
Brown Paper Bags adventures have steadily gotten better and this one has reached a pinnacle. This is the type of adventure and setting that players have wanted for some time.
LIKED: - adventure has many non-linear moments that give the PCs results for their actions and does not make them feel boxed into the module
- This is two products in one. A great campaign setting and a great adventure
- The descriptions really put you into the dingy city of Bedlam
- Nice color maps
- unique villians and allies (figuring out who is who is even better)
DISLIKED: - still no bookmarks on products. This is one of their biggest products yet and its really inconvenient to navigate through.
QUALITY: Very Good
VALUE: Very Satisfied
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Publisher Reply: |
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I am pleased to report that we have just uploaded a new version of "Bedlam in Bedlam" that is heavily bookmarked. Thanks a lot for taking the time to bring the problem to our attention. Feedback like this from our readers is critical for us to have. |
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13 Shades of Darkness 2.0 is a good product with some rather memorable villains. As the blurb says it contains a variety of villains at a variety of power levels.
Upon reviewing the book I???ve found that there are only a few characters that I myself would (or have used), the Contessa (a Big Bad in my setting), Dr. Jack, and Captain Kill You. It???s not that the other villains aren???t well crafted or interesting; it???s more just a matter of personal taste I suppose. I didn???t think the characters fit that well in my setting. They???re too dark or just too strange.
That being said I still recommend this book to anyone looking for an interesting villain for a darker setting.
LIKED: see above
DISLIKED: see above
QUALITY: Acceptable
VALUE: Satisfied
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The Promise of Purgatory fulfills is an excellently crafted adventure for your Mutants and Masterminds 2nd edition campaign that fulfills its guarantee by offering you a variety of unique baddies, devices and NPCs for any genre you are running.
The adventure follows a mysterious band of mercenaries attack on an FBI transport helicopter. There are six scenes that are very smartly broken up and spread apart over several days. This allows the adventure parts to be performed between other smaller adventures, helping to present a very full campaign world. The adventure starts off with news footage of the attack, then moves on to bank robberies, prison breaks, secret base assaults and a little bit of dimension travel. In the end, you find out that some evil mastermind is behind everything with plans on achieving immortality. Beyond the adventure, there are over 40 pages of helpful NPCs including backgrounds, stats and tactics. There are even extra NPCs in case you need to fill in some of the areas, such as the case with the prison break. Though, as suggested in the text, some scenes work great if you insert one of your campaigns reoccurring villains into a particular area.
For the Game Master
If anything, the writers at Plain Brown Wrapper games know Mutants and Masterminds. More importantly, they know what Dungeon Master need in a well crafted adventure. Instead of the adventure being written as A, B and C, the game masters have taken into account the unpredictability of a typical party. There are a few text boxes spread throughout that tell the DM where to go if the PCs perform actions that go to different parts of the adventure. A great example is early in the adventure when smart PCs will try to visit a person in prison well before the actual adventure leads there. The writers take this into account and explain how to handle it.
The story is obviously more important the combat, which is a positive for this adventure. Everything is explained very well to the game master and there is little box text. Most of the stuff read allowed to the PCs are either stuff you can throw on a handout or ?news cast? reports. This allows the GM to really integrate their own elements into the adventure.
The books big negative is that with 130 pages of excellent, page turning material, there are no bookmarks. This is a horrible deletion from the book and really take away from the work within it. For instance, there are many times when the PCs encounter NPCs and their stats are 100 pages away in the Appendix.
Another downside is the lack of tactics for many of the major NPCs. The book is not completely devout of tactics, but one can tell it was not the major priority of the writer.
The Iron Word
If you want a good overarching storyline for your campaign world that you can filter in at your own intervals, this is a good buy. Though you will be doing a LOT of page flipping and memorization of appendix pages throughout.
You will also want to familiarize yourself with NPC powers well before session as the tactics leave something to be desired.
LIKED: - Great multiple adventure story arch
- Good story that has good A, B and C villians
- Allows PCs to be creative and smart
DISLIKED: - No bookmarks
- light on tactics
QUALITY: Very Good
VALUE: Very Satisfied
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Publisher Reply: |
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NOW WITH BOOKMARKS!
I am pleased to report that we have just uploaded a revised version of Promise of Purgatory that fixes most of the problems our readers have pointed out. It has tons of bookmarks, the NPCs aren't all crammed into the back of the book and we've fixed numerous little typos and glitches throughout the text.
Our thanks goes out to everyone who took the time and trouble to comment. That kind of feedback is essential for us to have. |
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The Sting of Death drops the ball a notch for Plain Brown Wrapper Games, whom follows the Promise of Purgatory with slightly above average effort.
The String of Death is multi-part adventure that you can integrate into your campaign over several sessions or several months. It seems that one of the most haneous evil beings ever created has managed to find its way into the mortal well again after it was assumed it was destroyed in the 6th century. Just as with their first adventure, the books is broken down into scenes followed by a very hefty supply of NPCs, maps and suggestive ideas.
The thing that is not included is a tight summary at the beginning and again, the lack of any bookmarks.
For the DM
You will have to read through the adventure very well considering there?s no summary at the beginning or end. Though The Sting of Death does seem to notice its lack of a summation, and provides more detailed overviews of the chapter as you get further in the adventure.
Once you figure out what its about, and have some way of keeping track of what is on what page, you will find a good series of plots for your PCs. The adventure starts off with a simple bank robbery, moves on to some revelations about a secret cult, and then your PCs will eventually get to make a great little road trip to our favorite evil town in Eastern Europe, Transylvania. I can really see myself running this adventure to begin a story arch after the major arch we?re running now is finished.
There is also a really good amount of box text that once again allows your PCs to do some mystery solving on their own without box text leading them from point A to point B.
Just about every NPC has some type of background points in this adventure. However, with so many NPCs at one time and so many personalities I found it a bit too overly done. You will probably want to pick and choose which NPC backgrounds you will actually role play out.
The Iron Word
A decent adventure from Plain Brown Wrapping games, it is somewhat hurt by a bit too much detail. It is, however, well written and your PCs will enjoy the mystery solving, bad guy fighting and change in sceneries from their usual home town.
I am really disappointed in no bookmarks in this type of adventure. The adventure is purposely designed to be something you flip through, to give the PCs the maximum choice. However, with no device to help one navigate, it becomes tedious.
LIKED: - nice puzzle/myster solving
- good setup of the adventure and nice pacing
- good detail on the major npcs
DISLIKED: - too much detail on minor npcs
- no bookmarks and weak summaries
QUALITY: Acceptable
VALUE: Satisfied
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thanks for taking the time and trouble to give us such detailed suggestions on how to improve this product. That kind of feedback is invaluable to us! We have now released a new, updated version of "The Sting of Death" that is heavily bookmarked throughout and includes a summary of the plot in the introduction. |
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The Sting of Death by Plain Brown Wrapper Games is an extensive adventure module for Mutants and Masterminds (2nd Edition). The product includes three versions of the adventure, two full-color (one normal, one landscape) and a printer friendly version (which still weighs in at 98-pages, 95 after you drop the cover and OGL).
The core plot of the adventure arc is that the powerful evil supernatural being known as Death?s Sting, thought killed in the 6th century, is about to return to the mortal world, as his cult has long predicted. The adventure has a nice progression starting with a bank robbery, into dealing with a cult and its summoned demons and finally a trip to Transylvania to prevent the return of Death?s Sting to the mortal world.
The adventure is broken down into seven chapters with an aftermath suggesting further adventures. The scenario follows a nice build up of danger and the GM is provided with advice to keep the game moving and on the plot while allowing deviance from the script presented. An interesting choice by the writer was to give the GM the option of including personalized members of the various innocent bystanders, police and mooks (cultists, time traveling Nazi super soldiers) encountered. These are highly detailed character descriptions giving full game statistics and personalities to otherwise faceless minions. An interesting design choice to allow more roleplaying opportunities then is usual for this genre.
The adventure is scaled for a standard group for four Power Level 10 heroes, the introduction says that it is easy to scale up or down but simply adding more mooks (as is the suggestion for the bank raid) does not a challenge for supers make. The later chapters lack even suggestions that basic to adjust for differing power levels leaving the GM on his own for that. So, a GM will have to look at each encounter and balance it against his team as best he can.
The adventure is supported by color maps, character illustration and a huge cast (everything from bank tellers to a cabal of Rumanian officers who lead the coup establishing the Greater Union of Transylvania) but it does not hang together as well as it should. Even if you do not use the adventure as written there are enough characters here that could be used as villains, mooks and background elements in your game world with only a few changes. However, if you are interested in pitting your superteam against occult horrors and cultists, this might be the adventure for you.
LIKED: Lots of fully described characters, mostly non-superpowered.
QUALITY: Acceptable
VALUE: Satisfied
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Publisher Reply: |
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We have now upload a new version of "The Sting of Death" , in which every chapter includes tips and suggestions for adjusting the challenge to match your Player Characters. It also contains lots of other fixes (for example, it's full of bookmarks now) thanks to comments from our readers. Our thanks goes out to everyone who left feedback on this product. All of it was extremely helpful. |
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This book provides 13 villains unified by the theme by having gained their abilities from supernatural or magical means (or, in some cases, are simply supernatural beings) ranging from simple lone villains to a godlike being that could destroy the world. In addition, there are statistics for various assistants and mooks (including zombie Avon ladies) that might be needed.
For me, most of these characters just do not fit in my mental comic book universe, they are too dark or too warped. I did like the more traditional comic book type characters like: Captain Skumbag, super thug for hire. Reverend Strange, a Victorian Satanist back from hell and seeking vengeance on those who defeated him, or their descendants. And the classically campy vampire, Contessa Von Blut.
One of the strengths of this collection is that each character comes with three, fairly extensive, scenario outlines which often tie in with other characters in the collection. This makes it easy to build an occult conspiracy subplot into a campaign.
A good collection if your M&M campaign runs to the dark and macabre, not so useful if you prefer your superheroes in four colors.
LIKED: See above.
DISLIKED: See above.
QUALITY: Acceptable
VALUE: Satisfied
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This book fulfills all it's goals...It's a good book FILLED with villains, each of which has a unique "air" to him, and seems worth using.
A lot of work was clearly put into making these guys neat...And they have nice teams, too...
Vampire Girl is working as the "Mystic Guide" for our team...
LIKED: Good villains, of all power levels, with unique plots.
I liked the dark humor...HK-47 and Black Whirlwind would love these guys...
Everything from PL8-PL20...For all games...
DISLIKED: Hm...there weren't enough PL10 villains who I could use...Some of the best ones are high PL...
Art wasn't the best in the world...but it gives good mental images...
QUALITY: Excellent
VALUE: Very Satisfied
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I wish I had read the reviews before buying this clip art pack (stupid stupid stupid!). 300dpi images are great IF you can print them bigger than 1" x 1". Most of these are very small and even at 300dpi and are too amaturish for a real print project.
LIKED: The basic idea
DISLIKED: Quality of images for price
QUALITY: Disappointing
VALUE: Disappointed
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Words fail me, avoid at all costs.
Bad art, poorly written, and just plain dull to read
DISLIKED: Virtually everything
QUALITY: Disappointing
VALUE: Disappointed
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Publisher Reply: |
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As you can see from these reviews, this book gets a lot of strong reactions--people seem to either love it or hate it. I strongly recommend looking at the demo before you buy it, to see which category you fall into. |
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These images are of pretty lousy quality. I won't be using any of them for anything. I'm highly disappointed in this product, which is supposedly an updated, improved version. I can't help wondering if I got the wrong product by mistake. There's definitely more than 69 weapons in the file.
LIKED: The basic shapes of the weapons look like they'd be really good if the image quality were in any way decent.
DISLIKED: The image quality is just plain bad. They're also very tiny.
QUALITY: Poor
VALUE: Ripped Off
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It is hard to comment on clip-art, as its use is limited. However, the art is decent, especially if you like guns. And I do.
QUALITY: Acceptable
VALUE: Satisfied
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First of all, WOW! The publisher has really worked hard to maximize the different ways this product can be used by providing different versions for use on-screen, printer-friendly and so forth. And since I bought this product it's already been updated once.
The goal of this product was to make a lot of bad guys without a lot of new material, just using what's in the M&M book. And that's been done very well. The author's introduction makes it clear what sort of game world these villains come from, and so some head-scratching designs (like the not-funny clown villain) are explained there.
An explanation is not really an excuse, though. There are a fair chunk of these villains that are extremely specialized to a slightly light-hearted and/or self-consciously "sick" sense of humor and aren't easily translated into other worlds or tones. I'm not saying these bad guys should be taken out - on the contrary! I think that there should be multiple versions of these bad guys to be used, perhaps just with a few sentences for each version in a sidebar of some kind, as the M&M sourcebooks themselves do.
Another great strength of this product is the scenarios provided for each villain. Even for villains identified as "short-timers" - they come in for a rampage or a caper and then they're gone forever - are given a handful of well-fleshed-out ideas for GMs to steal.
Finally, attention is given to villain teams and organizations. These are well-done and well-themed.
LIKED: Great PDF features, great scenarios, great teams, good villains in general. Awesome to see someone just use the M&M books "straight" as much as possible.
DISLIKED: Some villains don't seem appropriate for all worlds and are difficult to translate on your own.
QUALITY: Acceptable
VALUE: Very Satisfied
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Despite a weak presentation this is the most useful Superlink-product I ever bought. There are at least two unusual and inventive outlines for adventures with each villain, each outline at least half a page long. The villains themselves are much more inspired by real-world pop-culture and politics then by comic books and you don't have the feeling that it is a recombination of the same old cliches. (Although a few cliches like the misunderstood Indian are present.) The art is good enough to give your players an impression of their foes, although there exist 2 very different styles within the pages.
QUALITY: Very Good
VALUE: Very Satisfied
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You have to buy this set of spells because, well, you bought the others and they kicked kobold tail. Plus, if you're like me you want to have stuff that other gamers don't have.
QUALITY: Excellent
VALUE: Very Satisfied
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I like this book. It has a lot of neat ideas. The artwork is decent (a lot better than I can do, so I can't complain). I recommend it to anybody. Even if people don't want to use what it contains, it is good to get ideas flowing in your mind.
LIKED: It is written in a way that the contents can be "ported" to any setting.
DISLIKED: Some of the items were mere "hacks" of equipment that already exists. I did not like some of the weapon stats (but that is easy enough to change).
QUALITY: Very Good
VALUE: Very Satisfied
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