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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/11/07/tabletop-review-arkham-
case-files-deep-morgue-call-of-cthulhu/
Call of Cthulhu may have a very easy system to learn and play, but it’s not the easiest system to write for. Things like Pagan Publishing’s Bumps in the Night and Modiphius’s Achtung! Cthulhu left something to be desired. Even things published directly by Chaosium can be less than impressive. Just look at Ghosts in the House.
Now this doesn’t mean that all third party Call of Cthulhu publishers do a bad job with the license. Goodman Games’ Age of Cthulhu adventures are always top notch. Arc Dream’s The Unspeakable Oath magazine is a lot of fun (when it comes out). Hebanon Games puts out some great adventures and of course there is always Cubicle 7′s Cthulhu Britannica line.
I bring all this up because today I’m looking at a newcomer to the Call of Cthulhu system: Solace Games and their first adventure, Arkham Case Files: Deep Morgue. The name implies that this is the first in a series of adventures. Unfortunately, while the adventure uses the mechanics behind the Call of Cthulhu system nicely, the adventure itself is an example of what happens when you don’t have some pretty intense Lovecraft fans vetting out what gets published. The end result is something more Resident Evil than you would expect (or want) from a Call of Cthulhu adventure . By that I mean it’s very combat oriented and there’s not a lot of investigating. This will turn out a lot of long time Call of Cthulhu fans, as will the VERY different take on Deep Ones that will have most that get this adventure scratching their head and wondering if anyone at Solace Games has ever read The Shadow Over Innsmouth. The take on Deep Ones is more a mix of a Wight (anything killed by it rises as a weird waterlogged undead creature) and an Eveil Larry Talbot as its main impetus is to try and be turned human. As I’ve said, Deep Morgue really feels like the team behind it have never read anything by Lovecraft or his contemporaries and it’s a little bit insulting in that regard. If you’re a purist you’ll want to stay well away from this adventure.
Now that said, if you’re looking for something that feels more like a survival horror video game, Deep Morgue isn’t a bad adventure and well worth the two dollar price. Sure there are still some problems, like a lack of motivation for the primary antagonist other than the “I want to be human again” thing which doesn’t hold water, or the fact the adventure expects the Keeper to make up a plot hook as to why the adventurers are in this little backwater town, but those are things that a good Keeper can fix and/or fill in. The adventure is well laid out and the setting of a morgue filled with zombies is creepy, if not cliché. The maps are really, REALLY terrible, but the artwork is incredibly good for a budget indie piece. I’m not sure how one can be so good why the other is nothing more than badly scratched out lines on a page. Next time I hope they get the interior artist to do the maps as what’s here just wouldn’t cut it for anything professionally published.
The story is pretty cut and dry. The Investigators are in the small town of Newburyport for whatever reason when they get a mysterious phone call from an anonymous stranger telling them to go to investigate the town morgue as strange goings-on are afoot. The problem with this is twofold. The first is that somehow the Investigators are “known” figures, which rarely ever happens in a Call of Cthulhu campaign. This isn’t Ghostbusters after all. The second is that although the adventure doesn’t specifically list a time period, it would have to be in the 1990s or modern era as how else is a person going to get a random call from a mysterious stranger (plus one NPC has computer use as a skill, so that kind of defines the era even if the adventure doesn’t specifically list the time period, which is sloppy). Maybe in the 1920s if someone calls a hotel room, but that’s just going to stretch believability even further as how would someone know who they are, what room they are in and that they have ties to anything supernatural or occultish? There’s no Keeper’s section to give the person running the adventure any background knowledge so they are just as much in the dark as the players. This is another one of those things where you have to wonder if they people at Solace have ever played Call of Cthulhu are aren’t thinking of something like Chill because this just doesn’t fit the game setting at all. Thankfully this can easily be reworked by a quality Keeper for a more ominous feel as well as one where the players don’t have some weird reputation.
From there the players go to the morgue and fight a lot of monsters. There are ten zombies, one Deep One and one “cultist” in this small adventure. For a game that emphasizes hack and slash, that’s not so bad. For Call of Cthulhu? That’s an insane amount of monsters to have to deal with and all but guarantees a TPK for most troupes that play through this. Ouch. Again, Solace wrote this for a survival horror audience and combat oriented characters, but the former isn’t what people look for (or want) in a Call of Cthulhu adventure and the latter doesn’t happen that often because character tend to be middle aged librarians or door to door salesman instead of Chris Redfield or Lara Croft.
Overall, I’m going to be VERY KIND here and give this a thumb’s in the middle. For the first CoC offering by a very small indie startup company, this isn’t horrible. The art is good, the premise of the adventure is sound and the layout is well done. The scripting of the adventure is pretty terrible though, as are both the feel and tone. A little more mystery, a little less hack and slash. A little more storytelling, a little less forcing the Keeper to fill in the blanks. Most of all, a little more thought regarding why people play Call of Cthulhu and the type of adventures they actually play the system for. If Solace Games can keep all of that in mind, their second CoC offering should be a LOT better than their first. There’s promise here, but not a lot of follow through.
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Originally published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/11/02/tabletop-review-childre
n-of-the-revolution-vampire-the-masquerade-20th-anniversary-
edition/
White Wolf’s first Kickstarter project, Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition Companion was a financial success, but a huge failure in the eyes of critics and fans alike. Plagued by massive delays, backers were outraged with the final product which was formatted poorly, typo laden, lacking any real content and massively overpriced. Fifty dollars for eighty pages of crap was what it boiled down to. If you visit the Kickstarter project page you can still see irate backers complaining about this thing.
I bring this up because Children of the Revolution was White Wolf’s second Kickstarter project and the thing nearly failed because of how bad the V20 Companion turned out to be and because of how poorly White Wolf handled the whole affair. In fact, it came down to the wire (twenty-two hours or so before deadline) for Children of the Revolution to be funded. In the end, it had only half the backers and little over half the funds that the V20 Companion raised. Like many who were unhappy with how White Wolf and Onyx Path handled the V20 Companion I refused to back Children of the Revolution because I didn’t want to pay sixty dollars for a book that would have been the same low level of quality. Now, the physical copy of Children of the Revolution that backers were supposed to receive still has not arrived (three months late and counting) but the Print on Demand version, which is nearly half the price but lacking the faux leather cover, can be obtained easily. Ouch. As well, Kickstarter backers had to pay $25 or more for just the PDF while it’s on DrivethruRPG.com for “only” $17.99. Bigger ouch. So once again, White Wolf and company have kind of screwed over their most loyal customers and charged them MORE for getting the project out the door in the first place. At least they got their PDF in early September. That’s…something I guess.
The good news is that Children of the Revolution is a vastly superior product that the V20 Companion. It has nearly double the page count and some very nice artwork. The problem is that the book is of limited use to most people that play Vampire: The Masquerade. That doesn’t mean the book is bad by ANY stretch of the imagination. I rather enjoyed reading it. It’s just that the contents are nothing but NPC biographies and stat blocks, so it’s really only useful if the Storyteller isn’t that good at making his own characters. The book contains eighteen different biographies and an eight page introduction discussing how the core thirteen Clans deal with rebellion. Again, it’s an interesting read, but it’s not a book many will find a use for in their own campaign. As a fun foray into V:TM fiction, it is well written, but still way overpriced for what you are getting. I could recommend this in its PDF form for $9.99, but not for $17.99. Aside from that the book is laid out better and contains far less typos and content errors than the V20 Companion. I’m not a fan of the extremely small type or the font it is in, as it makes the PDF hard to read, especially on an iPad or Kindle Fire, but it is what it is.
One amusing note, the timeline for upcoming Onyx Path products is massively incorrect and it’s amusing to see things like Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition listed as coming out in October 2012, when the Kickstarter for it just ended on November 1st. You would think they would have corrected this on a product released in late October 2012, but it shows you that neither the editing side of the Onyx Path nor it’s relations side are not where they need to be. I am quite excited to see a ton of Mummy: The Curse items on the docket for 2013 though.
So who are the eighteen Kindred in Children of the Revolution? Here’s a quick rundown for you:
Lados: The Lion of Bactria -8th Generation Malkavian from Greece.
Lizette Cordoba: The Poet of the People’s Occupation – 10th Generation Toreador from modern times and the Occupy XYZ movement.
The Nabataean: Pawn of Ancients – 7th Generation Lasombra (Should be Antitribu, but isn’t listed as one) who is a little too attached to his sire.
Svein Fortinbras: Azrael – 12th Generation Follower of Set and member of a Lordi wanna-be band.
Lady Margaret Willoughby: Keeper of the Lost Secret – 9th Generation Tremere from the Victorian era who was a prisoner of the Sabbat and now stays simply because she knows no other way.
Meixiu: The Black Dragon Princess – 10th Generation Malkavian whose artwork makes her look Hispanic instead of Asian and who resides here in Washington D.C. while desperately searching for the Bái Zé Tu,a grimoire that may only exists in her own delusions.
Edgardo Robbia: The Robber -8th Generation Brujah who tries to pit the Sabbat and Camarilla (and the Anarchs) all against each other to help further his own arms deals.
Dastur Anosh: The Seraph Dying & Reborn – 5th Generation Assamite Antritribu and original Seraph to the Black Hand who faked his own death in order to hide from his enemies in the Tal’Mahe’Ra.
Laurette Morel: The Coquette of Cannes – 8th Generation Torreador whose arts of choice are the cinema…and Necromancy.
MaryAnn Fletcher: The Hangman’s Bride – 8th Generation Nosferatu whose speech impediment made those around her think she was a stupid or mentally handicapped. A Nosferatu named Warwick (You might know him from a certain “By Night…” book) saw her for what she was and turned Ms. Fletcher into one of his spies. Unfortunately for her she was horribly burned when a tavern was set ablaze and embraced after the fact. Truly horrific and by far the most interesting character in the book.
Nasch the Circassian: Serpent Among Kings -7th Generation Venture who betrayed his clan for the Followers of Set.
Marc de Brabant: Shadow Prince Apostate – 10th Generation Gangrel monk from the 12th century. Very high generation for that time period.
Roderigo al-Dakhil: Lich of the Dead City – 6th Generation Nagaraja who almost single handedly guided the Sabbat from their true purpose soon after their formation and made them into the ineffectual band of psychos they are today.
Andrew Seneca: Emissary of Lies – 8th Generation Venture born into slavery who fought vehemently against giving his fellow African-Americans the same rights as other American citizens.
Jaromir Cerny: The Judas of Prague – 9th Generation Old Clan Tzimisce who worked tirelessly to bring about the fall of communism in the former Czechoslovakia before being embraced. Once becoming undead, he finally succeeded…
Colm Oliver: Autarkis at Large – 11th Generation Brujah. Kind of a stereotype this one is. Almost a parody of the typical Brujah with a little Guy Fawkes thrown in for good measure. The least interesting out of all the characters.
Esperanza Lucifer: The Devil’s Darling – 5th Generation Lasombra and very cheesy pirate filled with every trope you can think of, right down to being a Dread Pirate Roberts from The Princess Bride rip off. This reads like a Mary Sue style character that some player foisted upon a game that every other member of the troupe grew to hate. By far the worst character in the book and it pretty much hits every character creation pet peeve most V:TM players have. How the hell did this make it into the book is beyond me and it’s a sure sign of how far White Wolf’s creative has fallen since the 90s.
Apacia: The Queen of Tombs – 6th Generation Cappadocian of the Sabbat. For some reason she takes the form of a serpentine woman but yet has no points in Serpentis, which is either a huge editing gaffe or just plain stupid.
So that’s what you get. Basically it’s a little more than a dollar per character (More if you get the print version), which sounds rather pricey when you think about it. Although the entire book is interesting, the last three characters in it are downright terrible and it makes me sad to think they are actually canon Kindred now. Another three are truly well written and quite imaginative, while the other dozen are just kind of in the middle. Their bios are fun to read through, but are easily forgettable and even the most devout Vampire: The Masquerade fan won’t lose any sleep if they don’t pick this one up. Again, very few gamers will ever actually USE Children of the Revolution, but it is a nicely done, if way overpriced piece of V:TM fiction. If you really need a book of nothing but NPC information and stats, there are other options out there for you from previous editions of Vampire: The Masquerade – but if you already own those and you’re desperate for what little new content for the game there is, you might as well pick up Children of the Revolution. It’s a much better purchase than the V20 Companion, but once again, you won’t get much use out of this unless you’re just looking for something Kindred related to read.
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Originally published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/11/01/tabletop-review-high-sc
hool-of-the-damned/
When I first made grabby hands for this, I was expecting something along the lines of the High School of the Dead anime in an RPG form. This it is not, but it has a few similar ideas. This is an RPG based around surviving the zombie apocalypse, and it was more in the product description that high school is even mentioned at all as the RPG goes far deeper into the world than the title would have you believe even though you start off as high school students. This isn’t a bad thing, and I do like the material they have presented in the book as far as information goes, but personally, if I was picking up a zombie apocalypse RPG, this one would not be it. There is some good information in here, and while I think the system itself is pretty streamlined and functional, there are other existing RPGs that my particular group of players would work better with. If you’re in need of a sourcebook for expanded information or really love the White Wolf system which this D10 system is inspired from, you couldn’t go wrong with this one. Let’s take a look.
The game itself gives you Green Bay for the setting, which was interesting to me as not many games I’ve played are set in that area. Most would shoot for New York City or Detroit for a game like this. With that there’s lots of information on locations and maps of the city in the book right off the bat to get you invested in the setting and what was there before the dead started taking over. Bear in mind not all of these are real locations as they’ve been changed to protect the innocent from being devoured. It gives some good background on the city, though – how to get around, what you might encounter, and so on depending on when you start your game up. After the extensive look at Green Bay they delve a little bit more into the timeline of the way things went south fast, as well as how one might survive with zombies mucking about. All good info to have.
From there we move into a quick glossary on terms you’d come across in the game world broken down into people places and things, but instead of dwelling on too many things it moves right into weapons and descriptions for all of them and then vehicles. I don’t know that we needed a summary on weapons and then stats on them later instead of marrying the two up as we’re dealing with modern weapons here, so it’s not too far of a stretch for most people who are picking this up to know what’s what. Following that we have the actual glossary of game terms most tabletop players will already know but first time or newer players might need a refresh on. Finally we get to the nitty gritty and what gives this game its name and player creation.
The game uses the D10 System, which is a takeoff of White Wolf’s Storyteller system, which I’m sure many gamers are familiar with. Character creation is based around coming up with the concept of your character and then going about creating a high school survivor to run amok with in the zombie apocalypse. First they have broken down some very basic social archetypes to play with, calling them cliques, that you start with. After that you figure out what kind of personality your character will have and then you can assign your starting points. From there it’s picking skills, advantages and disadvantages, and then rounding out your character. Anyone familiar with White Wolf’s games will be able to do this pretty quick. Even those not familiar with them should be able to make a character with the system fairly quickly, well as long as you have an idea in mind.
After the Character Creation section we move into Weapons and Equipment where we go into more detail, but the weapons get descriptions all over again, making the previous fluff in the quick description section completely unnecessary. Explosives and armor follow with stat blocks for every item detailed. Rules finally come around to making an appearance.
The D10 system uses only D10 dice. You have so many dice that you get in your dice pool along with any skill or stat modifiers which you roll against a difficulty that the GM chooses. Anything above is a success, below is a failure. Instead of using 0 for a ten, 0 is instead a zero, meaning a critical failure instead of the usual one. This means 9’s are good and in fact you re-roll those and keep adding to the total. Combat using a basic phase round with initiative, taking actions, holding actions, and rolling against another person’s or NPC’s dice pool to attack or defend. Finally we get to the part where we find out how to actually increase one of your character’s skills or attributes. While I like the system on paper, I don’t find this system works for my group. It’s too easy to not give out enough points or too many points. I’ve been on the receiving end of a GM that was extremely stingy with points and made it far too difficult to do much of anything after a few sessions even when we were getting extremely creative. Sure it’s a neat way to do it away from the experience model, but it just doesn’t work for the people I run with.
Last but not least, the GM’s section, affectionately referred to as The Director’s Cut. There’s a decent stat block right in the first few pages to try and combat the stingy points GM I was just talking about in here but it’s just as easy for a GM to ignore that entirely. It gives some great suggestions here though and I think it might even apply over to a White Wolf campaign as well, so if I’m running either in the future I’ll definitely be using it. Running a Game is decidedly brief, but the Zombie ‘bestiary’, zombie creation rules, as well as the rules for the disease that’s causing the zombies to rise are all decent with some great detail. The NPC section detailing the People of Green Bay is a bit light however. While there are some decent character descriptions and renderings for each, there aren’t any stats, so any GM running their player’s in a meeting with them is going to have to either have the forethought to do it ahead of time, or make it up on the fly. These are the kinds of people you’re going to run into more than anything else, and while having the combat stats for zombies is a must, a fully fleshed out NPC can really save a GMs bacon.
Overall for the price, it’s not a bad RPG. A lot of the concepts and rules are very straight-forward and fleshed out, which is a good thing. I do think I’ll end up using it as more of a resource of information for other zombie games as I’m not a big fan of the D10 system, but if I had the right group I’d use it. I do think there are slightly better Zombie apocalypse RPGs out there. My probable choice for my own group would be Dead Reign just because it fits the gun-toting, kill everything in sight and loot the corpse, mentality of most of the people I play with. While it can work with High School of the Damned, you need the right kind of group looking to get more into character than waste zombies, and anyway we slice it will be a short campaign, probably an October run as it fits in with Halloween.
I do have a few issues with the book itself. Reprinting the weapon descriptions twice seems a tad strange, even in a PDF. If it was a printed version I’d be really annoyed. The maps look like they were all pulled from Google, which isn’t bad and I can get behind a version made to look like that, except that they look like they were all pulled from Google. There are typography issues throughout the book, and the layout feels strange, almost like this was a rough assemble and it made it loose onto the web and the real version never made it out. It feels like it was put together in Word. Palladium Books has this problem with theirs as well as far as layout goes, but theirs still feel more professional than this. My other issue lies with the artwork. It is all over the place. Bits and pieces of it look like they go to the same game, but then you look at another and it feels completely out of place. There’s just no real cohesion here. Some of the art doesn’t even look like it originated from the idea for the game and instead belonged in a futuristic game instead. The CGI art and the 2D artwork don’t compliment each other at all. None of it is bad or terrible, it just makes the game itself feel very cobbled together into some kind of Frankenstein Monster. I can understand using different artists, but I’d like to see a common theme in there keeping it all together and the book is just missing that. My other problem is with the charts. The yellow highlighting make them very hard to read and that’s not something you really want with your stat blocks when you’re trying to weed out information.
This makes the book a little hard to recommend. The setting itself is great and the detailing that went into laying out a fictitious and yet still real feeling Green Bay to romp in makes this very healthy for use as an extra sourcebook just to have your players romp in a new and unknown area. Unless of course you’re from Green Bay. On the other hand, as an actual RPG book, it feels a little unprofessional and rough around the edges and could use a little more polish. I’ve seen them put it on sale for up to half off, and at that price I’d definitely pick it up, but the full $19.95 would not be in the cards for me even as a PDF.
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Originally published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/10/31/tabletop-review-colonia
l-gothic-the-french-indian-war/
Colonial Gothic is one of those games I dream about getting really into. I love the theme, I love the setting, and I love that effort has been put in to allow for a historically accurate game. Rogue Games has put out plenty of material for it too, and I will be reviewing a few pieces that we have here at DHGF, starting with The French-Indian War.
The book is divided into three main sections: a portion covering the history of the war and the factions involved in it, a portion with various additional rules including rules for mass combat, and a section containing a series of adventures set in this period of history. There is also an appendix with stats for various characters the players might run into.
War never changes
This particular war occurred right smack in the middle of the 18th century and was sparked primarily by a spat between Britain and France over Ohio territory. I won’t go through the history of the conflict, this book does it for you. The first chapter takes you through the various battles of the war and incidents that drove it. The second chapter is about the various locations important to the war, which means lots of forts and trading posts. This chapter includes a lot of maps which is great, some of them are rather grainy but tend to be labeled so that the important parts are at least pointed out. Chapter three deals with groups and personalities involved in the struggle. This section gives real groups that were a part of the struggle and also details how they can be flavored to fit in with the setting of Colonial Gothic. Each topic in these chapters explains what role the entity had in the war, and contains useful and interesting information that help to piece together the multi-faceted puzzle of powers involved.
Rules of Engagement
Section two begins with some new backgrounds and several backgrounds from the core rulebook that have been modified specifically for use in a French-Indian War setting. Players can choose from “Indian Trader”, a soldier in the British army, a colonist, or even a Native American, among others. Chapter five is a bit of a laugh, it’s essentially one page of new skills. Moving on…chapter six details the rules for mass combat. The whole ordeal is too complicated to explain here, but essentially units (or, depending on your level of granularity, whole armies) are given a numerical rating made of up several different factors. Rolls are made, totals are compared, and then a chart is consulted to see what the outcome is. In a nutshell, that’s mass combat, but there are a lot of possible exceptions. While I am really interested in conducting a mass combat using these rules, I am almost confident it would take at least an hour with armies of any size, so I think the possibility that combat could take up most of a session is a pretty good one.
Ohio Territory: Land of Adventure
The third section of the book is an impressive list of possible wartime events that the players can take part in. They are presented in sketch format with a brief description of the event and then some notes for the Gamemaster. While they are historical for the most part, they incorporate the supernatural flavor of Colonial Gothic. There are a TON of these events, and a GM could potentially take a whole string of them together to build a campaign or a session on.
The last portions of the book are an appendix and a short bibliography listing references used by the author (one of which is the movie The Last of the Mohicans). In the appendix are such personalities as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, who are such mythic figures I wouldn’t even want players to meet them in a game. I mean, as a GM how do you roleplay George f-in Washington? I guess ol’ GW seems like a person of such an opposite personality from me, I would just mess up any possible version of his personality I could try and portray.
Digressions aside, this is a really great book. If you like Colonial Gothic this is a great supplement for taking the game out of the Colonies and more into the wilder territories of the West. The mass combat rules are very interesting, if a bit complicated and fiddly. While some might just throw out those rules or avoid mass combat altogether, I could see putting together some nice battles and getting a little game-within-a-game action with some nice tactical action at the unit level. The thought of players caught up in a large-scale battle has always intrigued me, and I would be interested to pursue it using this ruleset. Aside from the new rules and backgrounds, the historical information is really succinct and covers a lot of topics well enough to get an idea of how to use them, not to mention the whole conflict is absolutely fascinating for an armchair history lover like myself. It’s not exhaustive, but this gets you enough information to spark your imagination and make your players think you know your colonial history. Bryce presents his information authoritatively and with a decent bibliography to back him up. I would bet just reading the title and knowing about the general feel of Colonial Gothic would tell you whether you are interested or not; and if you are interested, I say definitely get this.
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Originally published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/10/22/tabletop-review-the-gms
-field-guide-to-players/
So, The GM’s Field Guide to Players interests you eh? Lookin’ to ID some wild gamers lurking around your table? Let me tell you what, stranger: I’ll give you the lowdown on this here learnin’ book.
You got yer talkers, and you got yer walkers:
This book seems kind of short for the subject matter, as I’m sure seasoned GMs could write volumes about the players they have had who did this or that too much, or ruined this game, or whatever. Upon reading it though, you start to see that the book is an excellent length. It is not exhaustive and droning about players and what they tend to do, but it doesn’t just throw out a few blurbs and a paragraph of advice either. Cherie manages to focus in on some gamer sub-types and then describe what she means by the label she uses. For instance, there’s “The Power Gamer”. Okay, I don’t even have to describe this person, but Cherie describes him thus: “Power Gamers tend to get a lot of flack. Other players don’t understand the joy Power Gamers find in collecting increasingly powerful abilities. Our modern world often to [sic] leaves us feeling small, insignificant, and powerless. Gaming can counter those feelings and allow players have [sic] a chance to be powerful forces in a world…” Besides the typing slip-ups there (which are rare, actually), you can see that Cherie makes an effort to see the game from the perspective of the type of player that she is describing. Why does a Power Gamer crave power? Why does a Meta-Gamer have to be Meta all the time? (Okay, I made that last one up.)
Not every player type she describes in the first part of the book is meant to be seen as a problem player, they are just types of players that she has categorized. There is a latter section dedicated to that, though, which I will get to. Other character types in the first section include “The Socialite”, “The Mechanic”, and “The Character Actor”.
So, you got Crazy Joe sittin’ at your table. What to do?
I’ve sat at tables with gamers that I really, really was not appreciating, and then when I think about problem gamers… ugh. I’m not talking about players that you just don’t think are the greatest, I mean players who are wrecking a session or ruining someone else’s good time, or even just wasting time or not paying attention; the players who are real problems. If you think it’s hard to play with these people, try GMing them.
This book goes with some great approaches for dealing with problem players, but they are for mature people. If your 12-year-old brother is playing in your game and causing problems, these solutions might not work. Let’s take step two: “Communicate, communicate, communicate”. Since when is your little brother Joe going to listen when you take him aside, sit him down and tell him that he can’t just go around asking NPCs if they want to see his “pants dragon”? Okay, maybe that’s more 14-year-old behavior. Okay, okay, I did that last week in a game of Burning Wheel. Seriously though, Cherie takes a very mature approach to things, emphasizing the diplomatic options before the nuclear option (i.e. kick their ass out of the game).
How many a**holes we got on this ship anyhow?
The last section of the book details types of problem players, what they do, and ways to try and deal with them. You’ve got “The Flaky Gamer,” who might be late, absent, or just plain not care about the game. There’s also “The Munchkin,” perhaps somewhat immortalized in Steve Jackson’s card game of a similar name. Cherie describes the Munchkin like this: “The Munchkin is a Power Gamer gone bad. All power gamers want to “win,” but in the case of the Munchkin, that desire goes out of control…” Ok, now for my favorite one: “The Persistent Noob.” This is the guy who never remembers the damn rules to the game no matter how much they play. I know, some games are quite crunchy and complicated, but it can be grating when a player does not make the effort to learn even the most basic level of rules. See how I fit that mini-rant in there? That was sneaky.
This book is a great little resource for GMs, and I would definitely recommend it if you can spare the seven bucks. I know some people balk at anything more than a few bucks for a product like this, but it is quite well presented and written very thoughtfully. It’s obvious that Cherie has put a lot of thought into it and if you are a GM who runs games regularly I would bet money that you would get some use out of this. Those interested in more can visit rpgGM.com for articles and other musings from the folks who brought you this book.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/10/15/tabletop-review-shadowr
un-sacrificial-limb/
Sacrificial Limb is the second in the new line of Boardroom Backstabs adventures that Catalyst Game Labs is putting out for Shadowrun. I absolutely HATED the first one (Damage Control) and it’s a toss-up between whether that or Romero and Juliette is the worst thing put out for Shadowrun this year (or in some time actually). So it was with great trepidation that I went into Sacrificial Limb, expecting the worst. Thankfully, Sacrificial Limb turned out to be an excellent product and a vast improvement over Damage Control. While it isn’t the best product put out for Shadowrun this year, it’s still a fine adventure that includes multiple outcomes based on how players might react to the situations within.
This particular adventure takes place over seven scenes, although only scene six OR seven will occur at the end, based on choices the players make through the other five scenes. The goal of Sacrificial Limb is for the players to infiltrate Knight Errant itself (A private police force controlled by the MegaCorp Ares for newcomers to Shadowrun.) and do well enough in the initial trainee program to be assigned to OSP, or the Office of Special Projects. Players will never be quite sure as to who is hiring him them for this mission and why, but rest assured that neither the players nor their Ms. Johnson will be expecting what awaits them at OSP. For both parties it’s equal parts massive paydirt and horror, and the climax promises to be an exceptionally memorable one for anyone that has played Shadowrun for an extended period of time. The downside is that yes, you DO need to have played Shadowrun for some time for the payoff to be fully effective or even dramatic for you. Otherwise the reaction could range anywhere from “Okay?” to “Let’s help XXX out!”
One of the things I really liked about Sacrificial Limb is that it constantly gives you options to pad the adventure out into a full length chronicle that you and your gaming troupe can spend months on. The ideas aren’t just cheap filler either. Instead they are actual solid subplots that let Sacrificial Limb become a full chronicle, where characters NPCs become recurring allies or antagonists, to help the GM plant small seeds about what the eventual climax will be. I also really liked the maps and handouts. While they weren’t, say, Chaosium level quality, I thought they were especially helpful for running the core storyline of the adventure. A quality handout can push a fun adventure into the realms of a memorable one. Because Shadowrun tends to have things in a virtual sense rather than a physical or tactile one, it’s hard to do really good handouts for the system. I mean, it’s one thing to make a realistic leathered parchment containing a horrible spell in a forgotten language. It’s another to replicate a trid or an income message via the Matrix. I also really liked the artwork here. One thing I noticed is that it featured the same team of runners throughout, instead of random pictures semi-based on the topic at hand. That was a nice touch you don’t see very often.
One thing I really didn’t like about Sacrificial Limb is that there isn’t anything after the climax. What I mean is that the players enter OSP, realize where it is and the creepiness going on there, and then… the adventure doesn’t give any real way to wrap things up for either possible ending that you can get. That was a real disappointment, as everything else was so well written and laid out. There aren’t any real hints as how to run anything once players are in OSP. It’s as if the adventure was released unfinished, and this really drags down the quality of what was an otherwise truly excellent release by CGL. Scenes six and seven read (and feel) more like a rough draft brainstorming session, and so it’s up to the GM running Sacrificial Limb to really work out all possible outcomes that players might try for and the results of the actions. Both end scenes are less fleshed out that what you see in adventure compilations like Jet Set or Corporate Intrigue. There is a good chance that at least one character will walk away very different from how they were before they entered OSP (no spoilers here for once, as it’s a very good twist that I don’t want to ruin) and an even greater chance that the players will cause a major Sixth World player to come crashing down in the world of corporate intrigue due to what’s going on at OSP, so it’s all the more imperative that whoever is running this is aware of how the ball gets dropped with the ending of the adventure and is thusly prepared for the amount of legwork needed to get things awesome instead of falling apart.
All in all, Sacrificial Limb is a VAST improvement over Damage Control, and is filled with nearly everything you need to make the adventure one that you and your friends will talk about long after you’ve completed it. It’s well written and covers nearly every snafu players could throw at it. You get to travel to some uncommon locations, like Detroit, as well as one very infamous city, as the PCs climb through the ranks of Knight Errant’s training grounds. There are a lot of memorable NPCs, and depending on how players get through the adventure, their actions could really shake up the Sixth World in some subtle but dramatic ways. The fact you’re getting what could be a full chronicle/campaign for only eight dollars is an incredible deal. Basically, if you’re looking for an outside the box adventure to play and something that offers a nice climax that players won’t see coming until they know exactly where OSP is located and what it is up to (or they’ve read the adventure ahead of time… spoilsports), Sacrificial Limb is as much fun to read through as it is to play, and will definitely be a talking point both in the metaplot of the Sixth World and on Shadowrun oriented websites/forums for some time to come.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/10/09/tabletop-review-a-taste
-for-murder/
One of my all time favorite board games is Clue. The fun in using different tactics to try and deduce the killer, location, and weapon in a grisly murder is something I can never get enough of. Interestingly enough, the film adaptation of that game is one of my favorite movies. If you haven’t seen it, do so now. You won’t regret it.
I mention this because the description of A Taste For Murder instantly reminded me of the classic board game. It involves a character getting murdered, and various characters going around trying to figure out who the culprit is. Of course, as I would discover upon reading the book, there is a lot more to it than that.
A game of ATFM is meant to be a one off game that you play to have some fun. Once the killer has been caught, the game is over. There is no combat, leveling, stats, or overly complex mechanics to get in your way. There are, however, a loose set of rules on how to get the game going.
First, you need a character. You merely need a name, gender, and general personality during setup. Then, you need to establish a relationship with the other player characters. These don’t need to be too specific, but you can have fun with them. For example, the book shows a gardener whose relationship to the lady of the house is “blackmailing her”. These relationships should be designed to create instant talking points. It isn’t enough to say “such and such is this person’s daughter”.
After initial setup, everyone is given six dice, all six-sided. These are then distributed on the character sheet however the player wishes. These are called “influence dice”, and are used to determine how many dice you roll when influencing a specific character. So, in a game with four people, each person would need to distribute their six dice to the other three characters in order to represent their influence each of them. You can do this however you like. Two on each? Sure. Six on one and none on the others? That’s fine as well.
Gameplay then moves forward into the first act, where the characters each get a turn to influence one other character. The two players involved roleplay a situation in which one player would try to get the other to do something they wouldn’t normally agree to do. There are two dice, called the “black die” and the “white die”. These “dice” are actually diagrams that have several terms listed on them. The black die has more negative terms, while the white die has more positive ones. For example, the black one has bloodletting and wanton destruction. These dice are awarded to players that exemplify the marked term during the roleplaying session. So, if one player acts in a way that causes wanton destruction, the other players could award him/her the black die.
What do these dice matter? Well, the success of an attempted influencing is determined by dice rolls. Each player rolls when determining this outcome, even the ones not participating in the exchange. The “attacker”, so to speak, rolls the number of influence dice that they have over that character, while the defending player counters with their influence over the attacker. The other players do the same as the attacker. Whichever player has the highest single die roll decides if the attempt was successful. If the attacker wins, he/she steals an influence die from the defender. If the defender wins, the attacker must move one of his/her influence dice over to another player on his sheet. Thus, a successful attempt grants you more influence over a player, while a failed attempt gives you less.
After everyone is given a turn to gain influence, it’s time for someone to die. Yes. One of the player characters will become the murder victim. Interestingly enough, the players vote on who the unfortunate one is. That person decides how they died and where they were found, and then surrenders their characters sheet and all dice. They’re not out of the game, however. Instead, they become the inspector, who will try to solve the case in the second act.
The second act has each player trying to gain influence and/or investigating other players. Influence attempts work the same way as before, but investigations are different. The roleplaying is still played out, and the dice rolls work the same. However, a successful investigation reveals some clue about that player’s motivation for murder. For example, the gardener’s relation to the lady in my above example was that he was blackmailing her. If she is killed, and he is successfully investigated, new light is shown on this fact. The group then decides on the new bit of information. They could decide that he was blackmailing her because he was her illegitimate son and she wanted to keep it secret. New information is meant to be more shocking and scandalous than the piece that came before it. When a person has been successfully investigated three times, they are a final suspect. When two players have reached this point, the game progresses.
So what does this inspector do? Well, he doesn’t get any influence dice, but get gets two investigation dice. He also participates in each roll, and gets a chance to investigate one player each turn. A successful investigation gives him an extra die to work with. This makes him a powerful player in the game.
When the two suspects have been decided, the game moves to its conclusion. The suspects give one last plea to their innocence and are awarded the black/white dice if they fit those categories. Everyone rolls the appropriate dice, and the winner decides who the killer is. That person goes to jail, and the game is over. It’s kind of anticlimactic, but it brings a decisive end to the game.
ATFM is really about creating a fun roleplaying environment where improvisation is required to make the game interesting and score those elusive bonus dice. There are a number of examples throughout the book to inspire you. In addition, the setting for the game is 1930′s England, and there are many pages dedicated to helping you set the tone. There are pages dedicated to understand social hierarchies, sex relations, and what would bring about the most scandal. The book even includes authentic English recipes and instructions on how to brew a proper cup of tea. It’s true you could use the gameplay mechanics and use them for another setting, but I wouldn’t recommend it. After all, goofing off in English accents and acting foppish in general is one of the most fun parts of roleplaying this game.
Overall, this is a pretty fun game. The key here is that players not take things too seriously. It’s meant to be funny and almost random. The group deciding key events helps keep things moving, and reacting to a bit of scandalous information is a big draw here. There’s no way to “win” really, unless you don’t want to be called the winner. There is still strategy though. You can forgo investigating people and instead attempt to gain more influence, thus making is less likely that you will lose future investigation attempts. You can also target players that have low influence on you to give you a better chance at winning dice rolls. Or, if you want to be the killer, you could do the opposite.
Anyway, if you’re looking for a fun one off roleplaying game that doesn’t have a lot of complex rules and mechanics, this one can definitely fit the bill. If nothing else, the book itself is an entertaining read. I found myself laughing out loud at several points just reading the examples. This is a pretty sweet party game.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/09/27/tabletop-review-lords-o
f-olympus/
So I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with Greek Mythology. When I first saw God of War, I nearly jumped through the roof with excitement. Unfortunately, most RPGs I’ve seen don’t really cater to that particular interest. Sure, there’s the odd minotaur or two, but it’s mostly elves, goblins, and the like. Lords of Olympus appealed to me for this reason alone.
Also, I was intrigued by the diceless aspect of the game. I’ve played a couple of home made diceless variations, but never an actual published title. I was very interested how the rules would work for character creation, combat, and basic gameplay. Add in the fact that characters play as demi-gods right off the bat, and this is one interesting premise for a game.
Let’s start with the character creation process. At the beginning, each player is given one-hundred points. The first thing to do with these points is to bid on the game’s four primary traits. These are ego, might, fortitude, and prowess. Ego governs the use of mental powers, might is a measure of pure physical strength, fortitude determines how long you can stay in battle, and prowess is all about physical skill and cunning. When I say players bid on these traits, I mean that they bid in order to get the highest ranks. Each trait comes with three basic ranks and then some higher ones for further specialization. A mortal rank in fortitude means you’re going to die easy, while a first class rank in fortitude means you can fight for days on end with no problem.
When bidding, players submit secret ballots with their bids. The gamemaster (GM) then announces the high bid, and then plays the role of auctioneer. The books gives a very specific example where the GM riles the players up and tries to convince them to raise the bid as high as he/she can. Whoever gets the win gets the highest class, while the others rank down based on how much they’re willing to spend. So, if the top bid was ten points, that’s what it would cost to get a first class rank. If the second highest bid was six, then that would be second class. Players can buy up to a higher class, but they will end up being slightly lower ranked than someone who bought that class first.
It should be noted that this system is well designed for pitting the players against each other. The game is, in fact, designed for characters to act independently, and therefore look out solely for their own self interest. This certainly is a unique way to set things up, and it will take a special group to play this game properly. I mean, there technically are provisions to make the game a team effort, but the author clearly doesn’t want this to happen.
There are a number of powers and abilities that can be bought with extra points. Of key note here are abilities that allow you to alter probability, travel between worlds, and even create new worlds. Player characters start off incredibly powerful, as you may have gathered. They’re meant to fight supernatural creatures, deal with the politics of the gods, and stake their own legacy. It’s also worth mentioning here that there is no one setting you have to adhere to. The game uses a multiverse. Each universe has its own rules for science, magic, and the like. One minute you could be in classical Greece, and then the next you could be in a laser pistol duel in the year 3000. The Greek pantheon is what binds them all together, as they are the only true gods.
When it comes to performing tasks and fighting battles, it’s all about those traits I mentioned earlier. In a straight up fight, someone with a high prowess is going to win most of the time. In a psychic battle, the winner is the one with the best ego. However, the game is designed so that through conversation, the player can attempt to maneuver themselves into a favorable situation in the event an opponent has a higher rank than them. For example, ducking behind cover can make it hard for your opponent to hit you, or getting them to walk on a patch of ice could tip things in your favor. In this way, performing tasks requires descriptive comments from both the player and the GM. The less specific you are, the more likely that things will turn out against your favor.
Advancement is also fairly unique. The GM seems to hold onto characters sheets for the entire game, thus giving players nothing to do but roleplay. When it comes time to “level up” as it were, the GM assigns points to the players. The players than make a list of the advancements they’d like to make and rank them in terms of importance. The GM uses this list to grant them new abilities. Also of note is the fact that the GM is to hold a private meeting with the players to discuss these advancements. This furthers the idea that this game was designed to be competitive from the ground up. After all, what other reason would there be for the players to keep these things secret?
More than half of the book is dedicated to a full on encyclopedia of divine Greek figures. The Titans, Primordials, and Olympians are all accounted for. Each of these characters is given traits, personalities, allies, foes, and histories. The player characters are likely to be children of the gods, and this can come into play. For example, Hera might have something against a son of Zeus, and therefore go out of her way to make life hell for him. The list of Greek figures contains even the most obscure characters. It’s pretty darn comprehensive.
My biggest problem with the game is that it all but actively endorses cheating, bribery, and collusion among players and GMs. Additional points can be handed out to players who do something to help the game outside of the game. The book mentions a player being awarded points for bringing snacks for the group. This opens the door for a player to pay a GM off and/or blackmail them in order to get a better character. I’m sure stuff like this happens in other games, but this book seems to outright welcome it. The fact that the GM has complete control over everything in the game is pretty damning as well. The GM makes all calls as to whether a plan succeeds, what kinds of skills a character is likely to have, what a newly discovered world will hold, etc.
What this game requires is trust. The players have to trust the GM implicitly, and he/she needs to take the trust very seriously. If not, this game can disintegrate rapidly. Also, in a competitive game, there are moments when only one player will be actively roleplaying. In these times, the other players are likely going to need something to do so as to avoid boredom. They’ll likely play some other game. That’s just odd.
Overall, it’s going to take a very particular group to play this game and play it right. For those that do get into it, I’m sure the sense of freedom will be exhilarating. If you’re part of a group that’s looking to avoid a mess of stats and instead focus on playing a role, this game is worth checking out.
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thanks for the review. I just wanted to clarify a few points:
The game doesn't actually encourage players to cheat OUT OF CHARACTER, nor is the player bonus for snacks either obligatory or a "bribe." It is one of many ways that players can get extra points IF the GM agrees along with a long-term commitment to do so. It's not like "I'll buy the GM a KFC bucket and get 10 points." It's about "Jerry brings the chips and dips for everyone every week, so we should compensate him with 10 points."
Thanks again. |
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/09/26/tabletop-review-creatio
n-the-world-building-game/
la création du monde… quelle tristesse. Une nuit sombre et colère… J’ai créé mes craintes. « Fin !
[cue the opening bars of Carmina Burana]
O Fortuna, velut luna, statu variabilis !
Welcome to Creation: The World Building Game where players create, with or without the aid of a GM, one or more worlds.
I was ready to trash this game. It looks like it was made in WordPad, it had less than enthusiastic reviews on DriveThruRPG, and I didn’t think 17 pages was enough to cover the subject of world-building as an RPG in and of itself. However, I liked it a little more than I thought I would. Here’s the basic premise: the players are gods or goddesses of varying power (depending on how many Creation Points they have) and create various things on a world or in the universe. Sounds cool? Certainly.
First off, it’s painfully obvious that this is an amateur effort. The text is in a conversational High-School-essay style, it meanders, the examples reek of young-minded fantasy clichés (“An example of a … artefact is an armour that prevents the wearer from ever dying and they are constantly healed as long as they wear the armour, the armour itself can never be destroyed” which comes from an example about gods creating artifacts in the world), and overall the game is about making stuff up around a table (unless you decide to incorporate the rules for a single die-roll to determine combat between gods). I’m not knocking diceless roleplaying, but I’m knocking diceless roleplaying.
Second, the things that you can do as a being of immense power have no rules of their own as to how they work out. I guess you just talk about them, describe them, and say what they do, which again is making stuff up around a table. Of course, RPGs are about making stuff up around a table, but the making of the stuff is within and governed by a framework of rules and usually is in keeping with a storyline that some plucky GM has drafted for the session if not the campaign. So anyway, say you create a monster on a world somewhere; the rules say that the monster can do whatever and can be killed by a certain amount of heroes depending on how strong it is etc. but there are no rules governing that part of the game. Wait, another god can create a Hero to slay the monster! Yes, the rules do say that, however they also say that the Hero has free will and may refuse the command of his higher power to go and slay that monster… so who gets to say whether or not he does? I don’t know, the book does not say.
So what did I like about the game? I like the concept. I like the simple rules of making stuff with a set amount of points, and there being a mechanism for getting points back based on how well you describe (or roleplay I suppose) the action that your god is taking. I like the range of actions that was thought up, everything from “Create food staple” to “Plane of existence”, and more. There are some neat ideas here, and in its present form I think it is playable, but not really that interesting to me. I can sit around and world-build all I want without any rules (as this game is perilously close to being without rules) either in a group or by myself, then have players play in that world, so why would I want to impose rules on my world-building? This might be a fun exercise for imaginative youth, even though some of the ideas you can get into might be a little mature (e.g. creating prophecies, underworlds, race, ecosystem), maybe some folks in the young teens would get a kick out of it.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/09/25/tabletop-review-shadowr
un-elven-blood/
Now THIS is more like it. The last few Shadowrun releases have disappointed me a bit. Romero and Juliette was flat out terrible. Land of Promise, while well-written, was far too short for what the subject matter needed. Then things like Mil Tech Spec 2, Used Car Lot, Sprawl Sites: North America and Magical Societies were a stream of mediocrity broken up only by the awesome Assassin Nation and The Clutch of Dragons release. So while 2011 was an amazing year for Shadowrun, 2012 has been blatantly less so. Well, Elven Blood is thankfully a step back in the right direction. Originally planned as a convention exclusive, things have changed, and CGL has made this collection of five adventures available to general public – something I specifically asked for in my Land of Promise review. For your $6.99, you’re getting five fun missions that revolve around elves in some way, nearly 100 pages of content, and best of all, it’s done in the Shadowrun Missions format, which makes things exceptionally easy to run, no matter how inexperienced your troupe’s GM is. You can’t beat the price, as it’s a little over a dollar an adventure, and after playing all five, you and your friends will no doubt have cause to debate the old Sixth world adage about trusting an elf…
Your first adventure is called Ancient Pawns, which is a direct sequel to Elven Fire, a first edition Shadowrun adventure. Unlike the debacle with Romero & Juliette‘s better half, Elven Fire IS readily available for purchase still. The only downside is that it’s first edition, so those of you who haven’t been playing Shadowrun that long may need some help converting the adventure to 20AE if you want to play it. This adventure places the PCs in the middle of a civil war of sort. There’s an Elven gang known as the Ancients. The current leader of the local chapter is a lady named Sting, while her lieutenant, Belial has decided it’s his time to go for the top spot. Instead of some sort of knockdown drag out fight, forcing members of the gang to choose sides, both potential leaders of the gang enlist proxies for them and send them off on a “Scavenger Hunt” – sixth world style. Activities range between saving some bliss enslaved prostitutes from a set of dwarven pimps to hijacking a truck. Of course, for those that want a little more violence, there’s also options like taking out a gang of trolls or a local Humanis chapter. All in all, it’s a set of easy activities for the PCs and at the end of the day, they should have the leader of the Ancients indebted to them.
I really liked Ancient Pawns. It’s a really fun adventure and it’s proof that not every adventure has to be grimdark or change the face of the Sixth World in order for players to have a good time. It’s about as light-hearted as a Shadowrun adventure gets and I’d purchase the collection just for this one. In fact, it would be a wonderful adventure for anyone completely new to Shadowrun, as it gives you a taste of various missions and a strong ally in Seattle. 1 for 1.
Hopping the Fence is your second adventure in Elven Blood, and it’s the first of four slightly connected adventures within the Tir Tairngire. Hopping the Fence is your standard smuggling adventure. You’ll be getting goods and services from across and into the Tir. There are a few unique aspects to this adventure however. You’ll be having to deal with the largest dairy farm in North America, a helicopter based shoot ‘em up, and who their employer really is. Again, this isn’t a hard adventure by any means, but it’s a nice balance between roll-playing and role-playing, which means all of your players should be happy with this one. As well, Hopping the Fence is another great adventure for newcomers to Shadowrun. It’s very straight forward, there aren’t a lot of layers or any backstabbing going on, so this works great as a “Gamer’s First Smuggling Run” adventure. Lots of fun here. 2 for 2.
Domestic Tranquility is an interesting adventure as it combines Romeo & Juliette with an ECW style Fatal Four Way. The players are still in the Tir (specifically Portland, OR) on a tourist visa, thanks to their employer from Hopping the Fence. Suddenly, in the midst of pomp and circumstance, gang related fatalities occur. This greatly annoys the PC’s employer, so he throws a few credsticks their way to solve the problem – permanently. What I love about this adventure is how open ended it is. The GM can decide the real cause of the violence and the players can decide to solve things diplomatically or with unchecked violence. It’s a lot of fun and it’s so great to see a published adventure being THIS flexible. It’s so well designed that it can accommodate any and every mix of player types. Although players that choose to say, shoot Smiles-Like-the-Sun in the head during a meeting of all four gangs to remove a bone of contention between them might find themselves in a more… stressful situation than others. 3 for 3.
The fourth adventure in Elven Blood is entitled Grocery List. This adventure is basically a series of fetch quests straight out of a video game RPG. PCs will be gathering five powerful reagents. Now this might not sound like the most exciting adventure, but there are three things to remember. The first is that PCs will be out in the wilderness, and thus outside their element (unless someone made a D&D style Elven Ranger…). The second is that players will effectively be poaching from the High Prince himself, which means stealth and subtlety is key. Third, some of these components don’t want to be poached. Smart DMs will want to peruse books like Parabotany to give the adventure even more flavor and/or depth. I also really enjoyed that the way the adventure ends is up to the GM. You’re given a choice between an encounter with a group of Paladins who catch the players poaching or a dragon. I think the vast majority of GMs will go the dragon route for the sheer coolness of it. However, my suggestion would be to run the dragon only if the PCs are good at keeping their hunting activities on the down-lo. If they’re loud and blatant, they should have to deal with the High Prince’s warriors instead. The only downside to this adventure is that some players and/or characters will balk at the killing of magical/Awakened species. Shadowrunners may all be mercs, but quite a few have a code of ethics. If you find wetworks style missions are ones your players refuse to do, you might have even more trouble asking them to, say, get the beak of an innocent griffon. All in all, another fantastic adventure that should make you want to run all of Elven Blood as a formal campaign, especially for newcomers to Shadowrun. 4 for 4.
The final adventure in Elven Blood is The Hung Over and makes for a nice finale while also bringing back NPCs from throughout the collection. The adventure starts with the PCs waking up in a hospital with no memory of recent events or how they ended up wearing nothing but dressing gowns. After locating their stuff and getting out of the hospital, the runners catch up with their boss, and discover they were in the midst of making some deliveries to various organizations when they were set up, taken down, drugged and dumped in a land rover. Now the PCs have to who did it and why. There are four possible options that the GM can choose from, although only one really works for the full flow of the adventure. The other three are definitely doable, but it will feel forced, more or less, if it is one of them. Still, it’s nice to have options. The adventure ends in a nice little bloodbath, with the PCs getting some cathartic revenge with the help of Sting and some Ancients from the first adventure. Everything wraps up nicely, and it’s a good, climactic and interesting way to wrap up the collection as a whole. 5 for 5.
Overall, Elven Blood is the best adventure collection Shadowrun has seen this year. You’re paying like $1.40 per adventure, and each one of them is wonderful, so this is an unbelievably good deal. Add in the fact that each adventure uses the Shadowrun Missions layout (although lacking the full colour spread of that line) and you have a terrific collection that anyone could run with little to no fuss. If you’re even remotely a fan of Shadowrun, you’re going to want to pick this up. I still can’t believe they considered making this a convention exclusive, as it would have deprived the vast majority of gamers the chance to read/play/experience/run this, and that would have been a damn shame. Seriously, go over to DriveThruRPG.com right now and pick this up. It’s one of the best adventure collections I’ve read this year, and arguably the best Shadowrun release of 2012 to boot.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/09/21/tabletop-review-shadowr
un-missions-romero-juliette/
If you’ve been reading my reviews of various Shadowrunproducts for a while, then you know I’m a huge fan of the Shadowrun Missions series. These adventures are exceptionally cheap, costing less than a comic book, but are of extremely high quality. With full color artwork, comprehensive instructions to help even the most inexperienced Gamesmaster run the adventure, and great storylines, Shadowrun Missions adventures are the best deal in gaming today.
…then there’s Romero & Juliette. This thing is almost the antithesis of Shadowrun Missions. While it’s not the worst product for Shadowrun CGL has put out this year (that would be Damage Control), it is the worst Shadowrun Missions release I’ve ever encountered. I’m honestly sitting here writing this, shaking my head, unable to figure out how this got released in this condition.
Let’s start with the editing job. Yes, I know CGL has been slacking in the editing department this year, but Romero and Juliette is a copy editor’s nightmare. If this is the condition it was released in, I’d hate to see earlier drafts. Typos and grammatical errors litter this piece from beginning to end. Usually it’s just simple little mistakes like, “As the runners leave the meeting with Nazaire, they witness as pedestrian being gunned down in a gangland-style hit.” They add up quickly though and you’ll be noticing sentences with MULTIPLE errors in them like, “Either this guy is good enough to give out is real name without having to worry anout it, or he’s a rank amateur.” This is the sloppiest I’ve ever seen CGL and it’s a damn shame.
Now let’s talk the adventure itself. Romero & Juliette is meant to be a direct continuation of nearly three year old Shadowrun Mission from 2012 – Humanitarian Aid. There’s a couple problems here though. Humanitarian Aid is not freely available to the general public. Try and find it on DrivethruRPG.com or RPGNow.com. You won’t. Try looking for it on the official Shadowrun website. You won’t. Do a Google search and you’ll find only vague references to this nebulous adventure. Why is it harder to find than some of the items in Dunkelzahn’s will? It was a convention exclusive. Yes, they actually released an adventure to the general public that is a direct sequel to a convention exclusive and the adventure strongly encourages the GM to have read through Humanitarian Aid to boot. This is a decision that is so incredibly boneheaded, I don’t even know where to begin. It’s like common sense just dissipated here. How can you make a direct sequel to something very few people will be able to find and even less have directly experienced? To make things even worse for this adventure, let’s take a look at last year’s Shadowrun Mission entitled On a Silver Platter. This Mission was a direct sequel to yet another 2010 convention exclusive entitled Copycat Killer. Yet On a Silver Platter included said convention exclusive for free, and it was a far superior adventure to boot. So not only does Romero & Juliette ignore last year’s precedent for a similar situation, but the team behind it seems to have forgotten Humanitarian Aid was a convention exclusive. I have no words other than this is yet another example of how Romero & Juliette is not only the exact opposite of everything a Shadowrun Mission should be, but is the first real black mark on what has otherwise been an amazing season of adventures. If you’re going to do something like this, make sure the first “chapter” in the adventure path is available SOMEHOW, be it as a bonus, an add-on, or just sold seperately. The idea is to draw the audience in for more, not frustrate them when they can’t get the full picture.
Then there’s the plot. Romero & Juliette is meant to be a Halloween themed adventure. So much potential here with that theme. What do they give us instead? Zombies. Boring, overdone, uninspired zombies. Look, here’s the thing. Unless you are playing All Flesh Must be Eaten, Call of Cthulhu, or Ravenloft where all of your characters are first or second level, zombies really don’t work in a tabletop roleplaying game. They especially don’t work in the Sixth World. Seriously? Zombies in SHADOWRUN? Where half the player characters are cyborgs? Where dragons walk down the street with impunity? Where vampires and ghouls are not uncommon sights and there is even a large scale effort to let the undead be treated as equals with the rest of metahumanity? How can even the most inexperienced runner be phased by a zombie? Hell, even a mundane resident of the Sixth World should be nonplussed at the concept of shambling corpses. I’ll take dealing with a horde of zombies than five minutes in Bug City any day. The whole adventure just falls apart on the idea that characters or their players would remotely be bothered by the concept of zombies. It’s just terrible in concept and execution, and how this got through quality control is beyond me. I know it’s not just me because EVERY SINGLE SHADOWRUN GAMER I KNOW sighed in dismay when I told them what Romero & Juliette was about. Hell, go play the old Shadowrun game for the Sega Genesis. Your character is blowing up literally dozens of ghouls at the very beginning of the game. Zombies are lower on the undead pecking order, so how is this even remotely interesting to anyone? Bottom line: an entire adventure revolving around zombies is a sign that you are at the point of creative bankruptcy…unless of course you’re talking about All Flesh Must Be Eaten. That system gets a pass because well, it’s ALL about zombies and someone keeps coming up with insane but original twists on the motif.
There is so much missed opportunity here. Look at all the things they could have done instead. The adventure involves an artifact known as the Jade Cup. Instead of tying into zombies, why not tie it into something else Halloween but that also works in the Sixth World? Why not bring in a mummy? Holy crap, you don’t see many of those in Shadowrun…but they can fit in pretty easily. Why not a werewolf? You could replace the whole “Shedim possessed corpses” (which is pretty tired and played out itself) with a disease that is a mixture of lycanthropy, hypertrichosis and some sort of super rabies. So it won’t be pure horror fantasy but it will still fit Shadowrun wonderfully. Why not do an adventure that touches on the themes and plot threads from Another Rainy Night? Vampires are not only a good theme for a Halloween adventure, but there is so much going on with the ones in the Sixth World, I can’t believe they haven’t been touched in forever and a day. Again, I’m just really disappointed this adventure even got approved by someone, much less actually published.
So what do we have so far? A badly edited adventure with a plot that a ten year old could have come up and it’s tied to a convention only exclusive. At this point the question shouldn’t be what’s so bad about Romero and Juliette, but what is actually GOOD about it? Well it’s surprising to say, but there are some things. The first is that it’s not too late for CGL to edit this PDF and rerelease it, perhaps tied in with a copy of Humanitarian Aid. It doesn’t have to be a two for one either. Just make the first adventure of the two publicly available SOMEHOW. The next is the art. It’s a lot of fun and fits the theme of the adventure wonderfully. Of course, there’s also the core format of Shadowrun Missions. These things are designed so wonderfully it’s hard to find fault with the format. Whether you’re a veteran GM running one of these at a convention or it’s your first time running an adventure for ANY system whatsoever, the Shadowrun Missions format has you covered. It basically holds the hand of a GM, telling them what to say, what the stats of enemies are, potential trouble areas, ways to make the adventure harder or easier based on the skill level of the troupe, and so much more. Legwork, NPCs, maps, and everything you need for the adventure save for dice and PCs are contained in this PDF. These things are top notch in terms of format and layout, even when the writing and editing goes tits up. I also like the locale of Shirley’s Ghost and the idea of an annual mock battle with the Halloweeners. That’s about all the niceness I can throw at this adventure though.
All in all, while this is the worst adventure for the Shadowrun Missions line in some time in terms of both plot and editing, the adventure IS playable even if it is boring and trite. I suppose newcomers to Shadowrun or people who are obsessed with zombies might have some fun with this, but I found it to be god awful in nearly every way. The only thing saving this is the fact that CGL can fix some of the errors with a rerelease and that the Shadowrun Missions format is so amazingly good. Other than that though, I would advise running screaming from this pile of drek. Get all the other Shadowrun Missions from this season instead. Seriously though. Steven? Jason? If you want a Halloween themed adventure in the future, you can do a LOT better. Hell, you can hardly do WORSE. Grab someone that has written for a horror line but that also knows Shadowrun extremely well and let them go to town. Don’t let something like this happen again, please.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/09/20/tabletop-review-blood-s
orcery-vampire-the-requiem/
Blood Sorcery is the newest supplement for the New World of Darkness’ Vampire: The Requiem. Of course there are rules for blood sorcery in the core V:TR rulebook, so it’s not as if you’re getting a new facet of the game with this book. It also means if you’re low on disposable income, you can get by just fine without it. That said, Blood Sorcery is a well written supplement that guarantees to enhance the entire premise and use of blood sorcery in your chronicle. So if you have PCs that use either Theban or Cruac sorcery, this book can give them an entirely new dimension for their art…as well as an entirely new way to use it mechanics-wise. All in all, Blood Sorcery is one of the best Vampire: The Requiem supplements I’ve ever read; let’s see why.
Blood Sorcery consists of three different chapters interspersed by five short pieces of fiction that revolve around the vampires Boon and Kitty. These five pieces cover a span of seventy-one years and not only showcase the sad and pathetic lives of these two Kindred, but also the art of blood sorcery itself. The fiction is well done. Usually I don’t care for the fiction in V:TR (or New World of Darkness in general), but this was especially good. The caveat is that unless you’re quite familiar with V:TR, you’ll probably get lost on both the nuances and details alike, but for those who enjoy the NWoD, you’re in for a treat here. Things end about as one would imagine (It’s White Wolf fiction about vampires after all…), but the fiction here is as good as the actual mechanics and that’s a rare thing for any system.
The first chapter, “Rites of Damnation,” is all about reinventing how the Storyteller and his troupe use blood sorcery in their chronicle. You are given an entirely new set of rules for how to build a character that uses either path of blood sorcery, but also how to use it in terms of mechanics and rolls of the dice. This is an entirely optional system and it does not replace the original rules for blood sorcery unless you, the Storyteller want them to. If you like the rules in the core V:TR book and don’t want to rock the boat…don’t use them! Even then, you’ll still find some great things of use in this supplement.
So what are the new Blood Sorcery rules? Well, honestly, after re-reading the book twice, I feel like things are more like Thaumaturgy from Vampire: The Masquerade, and to me that’s a good thing. I’m not saying blood sorcerers in V:TR are going to begin to resemble the Tremere from Vampire: The Masquerade, but rather that the new blood sorcery is more flexible in terms of what you can do with it and how a character builds it up. It’s very customizable and the end result is a combination of the old V:TM discipline and rituals that remind me of something straight out of Mage: The Ascension. The requirements to become a blood sorcerer (or -ess) are unchanged. The core change is that now, instead of purchasing rituals with experience points via the dots in Disciplines, they now learn rituals and rites through common “themes,” which are basically Thaumaturgy paths. If you have dots in more than one path, you can combine two (or more) to make a whole new ritual. Say a vampire has dots in both the creation and destruction path. They can use the power of both “themes” to create a ritual that transfers blood from another Kindred into his or herself. Half the book alone is devoted to this new way of playing blood sorcery, so expect an in-depth and detailed look at this process.
Chapter Two is “Threnodies.” Unlike the rituals of Chapter One, a Threnody is one part sacrifice and one part song. Now the song could be a mantra, a poem, literally singing, or something else, but it is required. Threnodies also specifically channel the Beast, making them far more dangerous to perform. The sacrifice part can also be pretty harsh (especially Animalism’s. Ouch) and these two factors combined will probably keep most PCs from performing them. For the more inhumane and sadistic Kindred though, this is definitely something to check out. Threnodies are died to specific disciplines rather than the “themes” in Chapter One. Be warned that this chapter is pretty intense. At times I felt like I was reading an old Black Dog V:TM publication in this chapter. It’s all really good stuff, but the power of the threnodies comes with a price tag only a few will be willing to pay.
The final chapter, and my personal favorite, is “Antagonists.” There’s a lot of great potential NPCs and/or enemies here. The backgrounds for each are incredibly well done and I’d have recommended Blood Sorcery just for this chapter alone. It’s that good. Inside you’ll find The Sons of Phobos, the exceptionally creepy Empty Liars, the Prince of Riots, Mister Fixer, The Prophet of the Eyeless Face, the Wild Priest, and The Ash That Devours. All of them are especially fun to read about. I think the most fun to add to a chronicle would be The Prophet of the Eyeless Face as it could fit in anywhere, remain extra creepy no matter what and gives the PCs a real enigma to deal with. The Ash That Devours is almost something out of Call of Cthulhu or the Crimson Death from Forgotten Realms and could be a great creature to base an adventure around. There’s so much an enterprising Storyteller can do with just this chapter.
All in all, as I said at the beginning of this review, Blood Sorcery is one of the best Vampire: The Requiem supplements I’ve ever read. It’s high quality from cover to cover and it’s well worth picking up even if you’re a casual fan of the New World of Darkness. If you have the disposable income to spend, then definitely head on over to DriveThruRPG and pick this up. You won’t be sorry.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/09/19/tabeltop-review-castles
-crusades-players-handbook-fifth-edition/
I give a lot of love to Castles & Crusades. In the past year alone I’ve reviewed eight products from this line with the newest edition of the Player’s Handbook being the ninth. I love the system and have since I purchased the first edition hardcover Player’s Handbook back in 2004. I even picked up the Kindle version of Fourth Edition to support the line. However, when Troll Lords ran a Kickstarter for Fifth Edition, I decided to pass. I didn’t really need a third copy of the book and I knew I’d be getting a review copy of the PDF. I have to admit though, the Kickstarter offered some amazing deals and the 223 people who partook in it got more than their money’s worth.
The biggest change to the book is that it is now in full colour with some great new artwork by Peter Bradley and others. Other than that, the game is almost exactly the same as it has been since first edition. Even the layout and flow of the book is almost exactly the same. There are 146 pages in 5e compared to 128 in 1e, but most of the extra pages are in spell descriptions and then little bits and pieces added here and there like the new optional rules. Basically if you already have an earlier version of the book, you don’t need to get this unless you just want the new snazzy colour artwork.
If you’ve never played Castles & Crusades, it’s one of the oldest “Old School Renaissance” style Dungeons & Dragons clone. It’s a mix of first, second and third edition rules with some unique twists all its own. Still, if you’ve played a TSR version of D&D, you’ll probably be able to jump into C&C with nary a hiccup. Troll Lord calls it their “Siege Engine,” but really it’s the same Gygaxian product you’ve known and loved most of your life. It’s my personal favorite OSR game and honestly, I embraced it all the harder when Wizards released…ick, Fourth Edition D&D.
You have seven races (Human, Halfling, Half-Orc, Half-Elf, Dwarf, Gnome and Elf) and thirteen classes (Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Knight, Ranger, Wizard, Illusionist, Cleric, Druid, Thief, Assassin, Bard & Monk). All are your basic D&D classes except for Knight which similar to the Cavalier from Unearthed Arcana. I do tend to play the Knight or Assassin in C&C. They’re a lot of fun.
The biggest difference between C&C and OD&D is probably the concept of primary and secondary attributes. In D&D attributes picked what class you could be and whether you got bonus experience or not. In C&C primary attributes give you a modifier to any skill checks (straight out of third edition D&D) that you have to make. Humans get three primary attributes while all other races get two. It’s not a huge difference, but as many gamers will tell you, a 1 or even a 2 can make all the difference in an important roll.
The book is primarily about making characters as you would guess from the name.116 pages of the book are devoted to character creation, along with an explanation if stats, races, classes, spells and weapons. The rest of the book is primarily for the Castle Keeper or DM, although any C&C fan can (and should!) read it. There’s a lot of information about combat here. For those that are interested, C&C does use Third Edition D&D style combat rolls rather than the old school THACO. Honestly, C&C is very much a D&D clone, so if you’ve played first, second or third edition from that series, you should be able to pick up the mechanics of C&C without missing a beat.
Appendix A in this Fifth Edition has some new things that weren’t in the original game. These includes multi-classing (taking two different classes like say, Cleric and Paladin) or “Class and a Half.” Multi-classing rules aren’t new to D&D gamers, but it was something that wasn’t in the first few editions of C&C. Multi-classing actually does its own thing rather than following any previous D&D or AD&D rules. Here when a C&C character levels up he gains a level in both classes. However to gain a level, the character has to have all the experience needed from both classes plus a little extra. So things are slow going here if you want to multi-classing. There’s no 5th Level Fighter/2nd Level Wizard things going on here. As well, demi-humans can only take up to two classes and humans up to three. These are some interesting choices and I’m not sure how many people would choose to multi-class in this situation unless the ENTIRE PARTY is multiclassing. Otherwise you’ll be left behind big time.
Class and a Half is the really weird one though. A player picks a primary class and then a supporting class. Basically it is the same as multi-classing, but the secondary class only goes up every two levels. So a Fighter/Mage in this case would start off as a Level 1 Fighter. Then when he has enough experience, he would become a Level 2 Fighter/Level 1 Wizard. Then it would be a Level 3 Fighter/Level 1 Wizard and then a Level 4 Fighter/Level 2 Wizard, It’s not very complicated, but you do have to pay VERY close attention to your experience points to make this work. Again, I’d stick to a single class, especially since C&C is very hack and slash combat oriented.
Overall, this is the same exact Castles & Crusades its fans have always loved, albeit it with some minor tweaks here and there and so new gorgeous full color art. I’m a huge fan of the system and can definitely recommend it to any fantasy gaming fan (although not necessarily the published adventures). If you already own a previous version of the Player’s Handbook, it’s probably not worth getting this unless you just want the art. As well, $21 for the PDF is a bit pricey compared to other games, especially when you realize that you could get a physical copy of the book for only ten dollars more (or roughly the same price if you purchased the hardcover book via the Kickstarter campaign!) If you don’ have a Player’s Handbook though, this Fifth Edition is definitely the way to go. Castles & Crusades has never looked better (or more colourful!) and it’s hands down the best version so far. That said, you can find older versions for a lot less, but no matter what edition of the PH you pick up, you should definitely pick up SOME version of Castles and Crusades if you’re an old school D&D fan, or a fan of fantasy RPGs in general.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/09/19/tabletop-review-the-cri
mson-pact-castles-crusades/
The Crimson Pact is a continuation of the Castles and Crusades adventure line that began with The Goblins of Mount Shadow. These adventures take place in a quasi-Celtic world. In fact, it’s meant to be a direct continuation but Cthulhu knows you’d never get that from reading it. After all The Goblins of Mount Shadow is supposedly meant for Level 1 characters while The Crimson Pact is for Levels 3-8. Of course, C&C adventures always have this insane level range that is nowhere realistic. The Goblins of Mount Shadow would wipe out any first level party, which is why in my review I suggested PCs be AT LEAST Level 3. The Crimson Pact is similar as third level characters should not be routinely dealing with hags and formorians. Definitely err on the higher side of the level suggestion unless you want to see a TPK (Total Party Kill) early on.
Perhaps the oddest thing about the two adventures is that The Goblins of Mount Shadow directly ends with the start of the The Crimson Pact with the whole “To Be Continued” vibe. Meanwhile, The Crimson Pact doesn’t make a single reference to The Goblins of Mount Shadow and while it sets up the adventure storyline, this particular publications lacks all of the WORLD setup that was in the previous adventure. This means if someone picks up The Crimson Pact blindly, they’d have no idea it was part of an adventure path or that it is outside the default generic C&C world. I’m guessing the staff at Troll Lords assumed people would just know this but you know what happens when you assume… On the other hand, The Crimson Pact is able to stand on its own without your gaming troupe having had even the slightest bit of exposure to The Goblins of Mount Shadow, which is a nice change of pace from the Adventures of the Powder River series Troll Lord has been putting out over the past few months. Basically, people that own and/or have played The Goblins of Mount Shadow will get more out of The Crimson Pact, but it is no way a necessary experience.
This adventure puts PCs into quite a predicament from the get-go, but by the time the adventure is done, the start will seem like a Caribbean holiday by comparison. A chance encounter with a snooty elf leaves the PCs with a shard of an ancient sword. Unfortunately, the elf has stolen said shard (and its two brethren) from three local tribes of barbarians. The tribes accuse each other of stealing the shards and all out war amongst them is about to begin unless the PCs can figure out what exactly happened. From there characters will have to use a portal to the Otherworld (Feywild) where they must attempt to get the other two shards back from the elf…who wants the PCs’ shard equally as bad. Throw in a ton of encounters with the Gwiddonod (think Drow but more Amazonian) a lot of hags and then a spectacular battle between the light and dark fey where the PCs will have to escape by the seat of their pants (armour?) while earning the eternal rue or the dark fey and this one adventure should keep your PCs busy for multiple sessions – if they are able to survive that long.
The Crimson Pact is only twenty-seven pages, but it feels a lot longer. This is probably because there is so much combat and dungeon crawling that you can easily get about four to six play sessions out of this one adventure unless the Keeper streamlines things. That’s a great deal when you think about it. I’ll admit I prefer my adventures to be more story oriented than dice hucking combat, but the battles here are pretty neat (although the climactic one will be a headache for even the most experienced Keeper if they want to fully run it) and there’s a lot of great storytelling opportunities here as well. You’ve got to placate the warring tribes, deal with the Gwiddonod, try and make friends with some of the light fey so you don’t have even more enemies coming after the party and more. There are a lot of difference ways the adventure can turn out (admittedly, most are bad for the PCs), but if the PCs can get through it, it’ll be an adventure that they will be talking about for a long time to come. Even better, this adventure sets up so many potential other plot hooks, than an enterprising Keeper will be able to come up with his own adventures based on them. Unlike The Goblins of Mount Shadow , there wasn’t any hints of further adventures for this path to be forthcoming, which is a shame as this is one of the best series Troll Lord has put out for Castles & Crusades is some time. However, with the aforementioned dangling plot threads, the Keeper shouldn’t need any more. Saves money and paper I suppose!
The adventure also gives you the stats of six new monsters for your C&C game: Alder Tree Hag, Baobhan Síth, Fomori, Athach, Gwiddon and Pixie. These should be a wonderful addition to any Keeper’s libram of antagonists, especially since C&C is a bit lacking in the monster area. There is also a page of maps, but honestly, these are the weakest part of the adventure as they just looking graph paper that someone scanned in. Maybe I’m spoiled by the ones in Dungeon Crawl Classics, but I do feel they could have done a LOT better here.
All in all this new quasi-Celtic setting has been a great move for Castles & Crusades and really seems to have revitalized the system. Troll Lord has now put out two excellent adventures and I hope the streak of high quality continues for some time to come. Will there be more? Only time will tell, but I truly hope so.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/09/18/tabletop-review-monster
s-of-sin-2-envy/
Introduction: This product is designed for the Pathfinder RPG, but can easily be modified for any D20 system and other fantasy games at the mere whim from a DM. This watermarked PDF contains a number of monsters/encounters that are related to one of the Deadly Sins, primarily Envy, in the case of this supplement. Not only does this supplement contain some monsters for an adventuring party to encounter, it also includes a template and a special creature that is the embodiment of Envy. There is also a section that provides information for those who are using the Midgard Campaign Setting and how to implement this product in collusion with it.
Contents: As stated earlier, this ten-page PDF contains three new monsters:
Bone Swarm – This is simply an undead swarm that has the ability to create undead skeletons if they manage to overwhelm and kill their victims. They also have a very neat grapple attack when they encompass their foes in combat.
Emerald Eye – a tiny crystalline construct that can compel other creatures to compulsively desire some object or perhaps a person via a special attack akin to psionics.
Re-echo Doppelganger – This is an interesting monster and a favorite of the group that helps me review these supplements. It has the ability to mimic perfectly not only the foe it fights, but the combat feats of foes or anyone in combat. It also has the special ability to mimic the weapons possessed by its foes, down to their exact magical properties, with the added feature of making it one size larger and one enhancement bonus greater. This was truly a neat monster, and it will be certainly be thought of later on.
The supplement also provided a creature that it describes as the Embodiment of Evil. Look and respect this creature as something akin to an avatar of a demigod or perhaps some other type of super powerful entity, like a demon lord or a devil of some kind. This is a creature to be used as a final boss monster, and probably one that can never truly be defeated, but one that can be dismissed. This is simply the physical representation of raw emotion, Envy.
The template that is provided assigns the Envy trait to player characters or NPC’s with a 2 CR added. With this ability, there are added skills with either bonuses or penalties.
Positive Notes: I really enjoyed reading this supplement. The new monsters always encourage possible new adventures and plot hooks. The templates add flavor both to player characters and possible encounters. The artwork contained within is well done, and the piece is very easy to read and comprehend. The entire layout of this supplement screams professionalism and it was certainly done in that fashion. I really enjoyed the Re-echo Doppelganger and the Embodiment of Envy.
Negative Notes: I am not a huge fan of psionics being introduced into the Pathfinder setting as of yet, so the introduction here of the Emerald Eye construct and its psionic abilities was a bit too much. I feel there are other ways for this particular creature to manipulate others, with other abilities or spell like powers, without having to rely on psionics. It was a well thought of concept and will do well in other fantasy gaming settings that utilize psionics and such abilities.
Overall Review: Excellent and well done supplement. I am looking forward to seeing more of these particular products in the future. This has a lot of promise and has piqued my interest very highly. A DM of any caliber can use this product with some excellent results.
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