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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/02/14/tabletop-review-colonia
l-gothic-gazetteer/
Of all the Colonial Gothic material to review, this is an odd one to do later in the series because it is such essential setting information for the core book. Gazetteer was released in 2010, after a smattering of modules and after the revised edition of the core rulebook the year before. While some setting information sourcebooks had been released, this book had a broader scope that covered the colonies you would probably play in using the core book. Most of the colonies get their own chapter, with a few additional chapters dedicated to things like native tribes and an adventure.
Essential History
The book kicks off with a chapter on the basics of Colonial American history: wars, settlements, and the various acts (laws impressed upon America by the British). After that, each colony basically does the same, giving a brief history first followed by various nuggets of knowledge concerning the area. For instance, there is a section on the geography of each area as well as important locations and a few notable local legends or areas that might be adventure seeds. The only break from this pattern is in the section on Native American tribes, which turns out to be fairly comprehensive as far as I can tell. While not giving you a ton of information on the tribes, each one is given page real estate according to their presence in colonial life. The last chapter is an adventure involving the players intercepting a letter and then being asked to infiltrate a British fort.
Low Detail, More Overview
For a game master who is serious or wants to get serious about his commitment to a more historical Colonial Gothic game, this book is a must. It takes a bunch of necessary facts that are easy to grasp and organizes them by colony, then presents them according to type. It’s definitely not exhaustive, and the level of detail is more of a bird’s-eye view than anything else, but unless your players are hardcore into the historical detail aspect, it will suffice. Rogue Games continues to expand upon certain events or locations with entire sourcebooks so, while you will have to buy another book if you really want finer detail, you can get it if you want and you can pick and choose where you want your graininess. I find it a nice quick reference for historical timelines and important cities, I don’t use the mysteries as they tend to be sort of old-timey-American-legends type of things, and many of them I find silly. If you already know your American history cold or have other reference books around you want to use, you might skip this book. Otherwise, it’s a nice reference to have and read through for a general picture of each colony and its history.
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Originally published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/02/13/tabletop-review-how-to-
spice-up-your-game/
How To Spice Up Your Game is a short book about using techniques to better play tabletop role-playing games. If that sounds horribly dumb and dry to you, trust me it’s not, this is actually quite a good little book. I did not expect much from the title, to be honest. It’s not professionally produced or anything, but it is nicely laid out, has a nice background, and lots of illustrations of dice. This book is focused on material for game masters, and if you are looking for more material like that check out a few of the other books I’ve reviewed in this area:
The GM’s Field Guide To Players
Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Session Prep
This book is very straightforward in its approach; there is no foreword or lengthy sections explaining things about game mastering, there is only a brief introduction and then six techniques of spiciness. Each technique is a different chapter and contains smaller sections explaining the concept, the effect on gameplay, ways to implement the concept, tips, and examples. Each chapter makes up about three pages.
The first chapter, for example, is about the concept of “restricted knowledge” which is a pretty common and well-known tool with GMs (if not always well-implemented). This really needs no explanation as it is exactly what you think it is: essentially keeping players from playing the game from the meta level instead of the character level by letting individual characters have knowledge instead of the entire table. Some other concepts need more explaining, like the next chapter which is entitled “Explore the World”. You really need to read this chapter through to figure out what the author means by this and how it affects play, as the title is too opaque and the implementation not obvious enough for someone to grasp it immediately.
Overall, I was really impressed with this book. Though small, there are a lot of really great ideas that are well explained and presented here. Each concept is presented in such a way that you can read it and find yourself nodding your head, instantly thinking about your gaming group or a game you have run and where you could have used these concepts. The chapter on “representation”, where you help your players visualize the game world by using real world analogs or other helpful correlations, happened to hit home for me regarding a game I am running right now, and how I could help the players visualize the place they are in right now and involve them more in the space. The author offers variants and shallower or deeper levels of all of the techniques, so that a GM can play around with using these ideas and see if they need to really focus on them or if they can keep them in the background. The cost does seem a bit prohibitive, but I have no qualms about saying this is worth the six bucks being asked. It’s a bit steep for a short, non-professional book on GMing, but this is really good stuff and I will be printing out a copy of this to keep on hand. Now that is saying something!
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Originally Posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/02/12/book-review-deadlands-n
oir-tenement-men-savage-worlds/
Yesterday I reviewed the “dime novel” Blood and Roses, based on the Deadlands Noir campaign setting for Savage Worlds. Today it’s Tenement Men. Although both were released simultaneously, Tenement Men takes place first chronologically. Only one character and a single MacGuffin connect the two, but both are pivotal to each story, and you may find yourself a bit confused if you read them out of order. I know I had to stop and say, “Why does this name sound so familiar?” and “Why do both stories have the same MacGuffin?” It wasn’t until I finished Tenement Men that I realized I had read them out of order. There’s no indication on the tales that one comes before the other, which is a shame, as it would have been an easy notation for Pinnacle to make. Instead, the only way to discover that the two tales are rather connected (even though they are by two different authors) is the same way I did – by just plowing through them and making connections.
Tenement Men is a bit of an odd duck. It’s a continuation of the adventures of a private dick named Harvey Jenkins. Now when I say that, you probably assume that this means Harvey is the protagonist in Blood and Roses, but that’s incorrect. He’s actually the protagonist of the four part audio drama, Hard Boiled in the Big Easy. Tenement Men is a continuation of the events in that tale. It helps to have listened to it, but the story will still make sense if you haven’t – you just won’t be getting the bigger picture. If you’re interested in listening to it (it’s about forty minutes long), you can do so by going to Pinnacle’s YouTube channel and clicking on the appropriate links there. There are only seven videos, four of which are the audio drama, so I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble finding it.
So let’s talk Tenement Men. Like 99.99% of all Noir tales, this one begins with a dame. This particular lady of the night isn’t a femme fatale or a moll looking to con a private dick into taking a case that’s more trouble that she’s paying. No, this particular lady happens to be a voodoo high priestess, and the person that saves Harvey Jenkins from sleeping with the fishes in his original tale. Seems someone’s stolen some bad juju from her shop and she needs Jenkins to track it down. She did save his life after all. What follows is a tale that wonderfully blends Noir with survival horror. More importantly, Tenement Men feels like a role-playing adventure turned into a narrative tale. You can almost visualize the DM at the table with his players, watching them roll dice to determine the fate that will eventually unfold. Blood and Roses, while still an excellent story, felt like a “just” a story and not an ancillary product to a roleplaying game. Both have their positives because of this, but if you’re looking for which story gives you more of a feel for what PLAYING Deadlands Noir would be like, this is the one.
Harvey Jenkins ends up cruising through the Big Easy as the story keeps getting bigger… and weirder. Although Tenement Men starts as a simple recovery tale, it ends up becoming a full fledged adventure involving hunting down a missing person, forming a love/hate relationship with a member of the Black Hand (the Mafia in Deadlands Noir, not a sect of ancient vampires ala Vampire: The Masquerade), forming a party with a super scientist pal by the name of Doc Carver and finally, a full out hack and slash battle against some truly creepy monsters. Not only is the description of these things freaky, but you never get to know what they actually are or how they came about, which adds even more to the ominous tone of the entire tale. I love that their isn’t some sort of exposition as to what Harvey and his team encounters. They’re just simply there, and it’s very Lovecraftian in that respect, which is how I like my spooky stories.
The story resolves nicely, but as you move on to Blood and Roses you’ll see how the events of this story affect the next. It may be the Big Easy, but the city’s smaller than you think (says a person that’s walked nearly every square inch of it). I will say that I’m disappointed that a character from this story not only looks and sounds VERY different when he reappears in Blood and Roses, but he’s killed off rather as an afterthought, which is a shame, as I actually thought he had just as much potential as the two protagonists. Ah well, that’s what the Manitou are for, yes?
When all is said and done, Tenement Men is a great read and a story that makes you want not only more fiction, but to pick up whatever else comes out for the Deadlands Noir setting. I have only one quibble, but it is a big one, and that’s that the story costs $3.99 when it is only seventeen pages long. That’s rather pricey for a short story and about twice as much as you’d find something of similar length or longer for your e-reader. Because of that, you might want to wait for a sale or a permanent price reduction. For the cost of both stories, you can pick up full supplements or sourcebooks from DriveThruRPG, and you’ll get more value out of something like that. Still, Tenement Men is a great read, as it’s a story that will stick in your head for some time. If you’re already invested into Deadlands Noir, you probably won’t mind overpaying for this creepy little short story.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/02/13/tabletop-review-trouble
-at-nivens-creek-wayfarers/
Author's Note: This product was actually available for FREE on this site a year ago.Now it's been re-released for five dollars, which is a bit nonsensical. The free version has also been removed meaning that if you didn't pick this up last year, you're stuck having to pay the five dollars. The below review as for the original free version of the product. I enjoyed it for what it was but I had to knock the score down for the strange and sudden decision to charge for a formally free adventure.
I’m a sucker for free adventures with foreboding names and so when I saw Trouble at Niven’s Creek, I knew I was going to download it. Of course, the fact it was a free adventure with one of the neatest covers I’ve seen in a while didn’t hurt either. Even though DriveThruRPG.com lists Trouble at Niven’s Creek as a OGL/d20 adventure, it’s actually for the Wayfarers Roleplaying Game. More specifically it’s for the Revised version of Wayfarers…which won’t be out until later this year. This made going through the adventure a bit more difficult. After all, it’s filled with system specific terminology and without the core rulebook, the lexicon can come across a bit nonsensical. The good news is that the original version of the Wayfarers core rulebook is on Drivethrurpg.com for less than four dollars. Which means if you download this adventure and the system seems like an interesting one, you can always try to make it work with the original version of the rules or wait for the Revised edition to be released.
Trouble at Niven’s Creek is for three to five players between 0 and 2nd level. Yes, there are 0 level characters in Wayfarers. It threw me off a bit at first too, but I remembered 1st Ed AD&D had something similar going on with Cavaliers. That’s not the only thing that will throw you for a loop as you read the adventure. Trouble at Niven’s Creek has neither a clear beginning or ending. Instead, it leaves that in the hands of the GM. This is a bit odd, especially for an adventure that says it was, “created to be run at a convention or as an introductory adventure.” I would think an either of those would be a little more concrete or hand holding, but that’s not how Wayfarers does things. The writers of the adventure itself seem to pride themselves on that, but it also makes the adventure a bit inaccessible to new GMs.
The adventurer revolves around a group of missing surveyors. This party went to explore “The Tomb of Vey Moss” and never came back. The PCs are there to solve what went wrong and recover any bodies that they can. The adventure then hinges on exploring the Tomb along with the DM deciding who betrays who as well as why, when, where and how. The adventure itself gives you a set of possible outcomes but they are only vague threads that the GM need to fully flesh out.
It’s not just the endings that the adventure is sparse on details with, but with locations and NPCs as well. The major NPCs only get about a paragraph of description while minor NPCs get a sentence. The entire town of Niven’s Creek only gets three-fourths of a page. For GMs and players who like a lot of detail to their published adventures, Trouble at Niven’s Creek will probably rub them the wrong way. “How big is this building? What can I search?” Etc. Etc. For a GM just looking for a few plot threads that they can weave into their own unique story however, I can definitely see this adventure going over well.
The one thing that is nicely detailed is the Tomb of Vey Moss itself. I won’t spoil things, but the whole plot of the Tomb reminds me of my old Rastipede from Spelljammer. This fourteen room dungeon gets six pages of description. It’s not the most intricate of interesting of locales, but it’s fine for low level characters. The Tomb contains a nice variety of monsters and magical items for the party to find, although it does seem to have a LOT more treasure than one would expect for an introductory level adventure. The adventure concludes with several pages of monster stats, NPC stats, a list of magic items, a random monster chart and finally, some pre-generated characters. In fact the only thing missing from this adventure is a set of quick start rules. I’m not sure why Trouble at Niven’s Creek doesn’t have QSRs, as that seems like a glaring oversight. After all, the Revised rules that the adventure is made for aren’t out yet and so something should be included to make it a) playable and b) decipherable to newcomers. Sure the contents will make sense to those that already own the original version of Wayfarers, but a free introductory adventure needs to be inviting and sadly, that’s something Trouble at Niven’s Creek just ISN’T.
I found the system in Wayfarers to be interesting, and this particular adventure piqued my interest enough that I’ll probably pick up the Revised rules once those are released, but for now I can’t really recommend the adventure. Newcomers won’t be able to make heads or tails of what is going on and people who already own the older version of Wayfarers will probably want to wait for Revised before picking this up. At the same time, the adventure IS free and it’s an interesting look at a system most gamers are probably unfamiliar with so although I can’t outright recommend, I can say that those gamers who are always interested or curious about gameplay mechanics might enjoy pouring this adventure over.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/02/11/book-review-deadlands-n
oir-blood-and-roses-savage-worlds/
Blood and Roses is a short story that came about as a result of funders meeting one of many stretch goals for Deadlands Noir when it was first pitched over at Kickstarter. I’ve loved everything released for Deadlands Noir so far, be it the core campaign setting or its first adventure, The Old Absinthe House Blues. In fact, Deadlands Noir was a close contender for our “Best Campaign Setting” award in our 2012 Tabletop Gaming Awards. If only it hadn’t been released so very close to the end of the year. Ah well, if you’d like to learn more about the setting, feel free to check out my reviews of what’s out so far. If you’re just here to get the scoop on the dime novel, then keep reading…
Blood and Roses is a very fun short story that hits all the typical Noir clichés. Smart mouthed unflappable protagonist? Check. Femme Fatale? Check. Mysterious MacGuffin? Check. Intimidating man from a powerful organization? Check. The ability to turn one’s own blood into an acidic mystical weapon? Chec….wait. That’s not normally in a Noir story! Which, of course, is where the Deadlands aspect comes in, and what really makes the story stand out from the more generic Noir style stories penned every day. Take our main character, Jacob Toso. He’s not a private dick, but a piano player who works at various locations around the Big Easy, tickling ivories for pay. Before the story even gets going, Toso is advised by a not so mysterious stranger to keep his nose clean and not to help out a young lady. Of course, Toso hasn’t even met the lady in question, piquing his curiosity and thus making him far more willing to help an acquaintance by the name of Gretta once she actually does show back up in his life.
From there, the story hits all the bases you expect from a Noir tale. You have an item everyone wants, a dead body here or there, involvement by the local crime syndicate, a Nazi or two, and of course, a few betrayals along the way. Because it’s Deadlands though, the story wouldn’t be complete without a bit of magic and some otherworldly horror along the way. In this case, you have a gris-gris bag that acts as the MacGuffin in this tale, and a very subtle homage to The Dunwich Horror, which might be missed unless you’re a big Call of Cthulhu or Lovecraft fan. The story wraps up nicely and left me hoping that this will be the first of many dime novels featuring Mr. Toso, although I’d like to see a full-fledged Deadlands Noir novel as well, considering the core line has a few out there.
For those looking for game mechanics, you’ll find that the last page of the PDF is Jacob Toso’s stats, so that your players can encounter him in-game as an NPC (hopefully a friendly one…). About the only bad thing I can say about Blood and Roses is that $3.99 is rather pricey for a nineteen page story, especially when only fourteen of the pages are actual story, and all of the art is reused from the core setting book. The price alone makes it hard to recommend to gamers who didn’t get this for free via the Kickstarter campaign Pinnacle had for Deadlands Noir, especially when you can get full adventures or supplements for a system for that much these day. Heck, you can even get full digital novels for your e-reader for the same cost. Although Blood and Roses is a very fun piece that makes me want to read more about Jacob Toso and his continuing adventures in the Big Easy, you probably shouldn’t pay more than $1.99 for this due to its brevity, especially if you are new to the setting or are just looking for some RPG fiction to pass the time. The only people that will find it worth the current cover price are people like myself who adore Deadlands Noir.
Again, I really enjoyed the story, but when a digital short story costs almost as much as a full length paperback, it’s a bit overpriced. Here’s hoping we’ll get a sale or price drop soon so everyone can enjoy this. It’s a great gateway into Deadlands Noir and you don’t need to know anything about the setting or even tabletop RPGS at all to enjoy it.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/02/05/tabletop-review-the-rui
ns-of-old-soguer-4e/
The Ruins of Old Soguer (pronounced so’-qwair according to the adventure text) is an adventure for Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition for characters of levels 10-11. It is a location-based adventure that is part of a larger campaign called The Heir of Soguer, but can be a standalone adventure as well.
The story begins when the young heir to the defunct Kingdom of Soguer has conquered one of the counties of that kingdom. When he asked the local religious leader to coronate him as the next king so that he can reunite the kingdom, they refused. A vision had told the priests that he could not be king until his grandfather’s sword and crown were recovered. The adventure starts when a call goes out for heroes to recover the sword and crown from the ruins of the kingdom’s old capital city. The heroes (i.e. the PCs) must travel to the city and bring back the artifacts.
The premise is very simple and straightforward. Because of that, this adventure could be dropped into just about any campaign setting. All you need is an area with a kingdom that has fallen apart and needs to be reunited. With the level of this adventure set at 10-11, this adventure could be a capstone adventure for a heroic-tier campaign set around this ruined kingdom.
The adventure seems reasonably well written, but one thing that turned me off a little bit is the overall amateurish look of the adventure. The artwork is cartoony and the monster stat blocks do not follow the 4e monster stat block formatting. The stat blocks are all green without the organization by action type common in 4e.
Speaking of stat blocks, there are very few in this adventure, so anyone running it has to do some homework to have the stats for each creature on hand while running the adventure. I am sure the authors did not want to violate copyright law by writing down official 4e stats for these monsters, but they could have created their own tweaked versions of these monsters. This adventure would be much more useful if stat blocks for creatures were included.
Some of the monsters chosen are not good choices for a 10-11th level adventure. In one case, a group of 5th level monsters are used when level appropriate minions would have been better. In another spot, a level 22 standard monster was used as a solo creature. The authors could have created a 13th level solo version of this creature. In the former case, the 5th level monsters have defenses and attack bonuses too low to be of any threat to the PCs, and in the latter case, the 22nd level monster would have defenses and attack numbers too high for the encounter to be interesting. For example, a typical 10th level PC has an attack bonus around +15-16, and would need an 18 or 19 to hit this monster. Most 4e players do not like missing that much. One of the custom monsters in the adventure has a similar AC.
Now let’s look closer at the adventure itself. The adventure is broken down into three parts:
Part 1: The Journey to Soguer
Part 2: The Ruins of Old Soguer
Part 3: The Fall of Soguer
Part 1 has the PCs travel down a river and through a swamp to get to the ruined city. This is a short section with only a couple encounters. The first thing that stands out to me here is that there is only one way given to reach the city of Soguer. It seems that, if this city were the kingdom’s capital in the lifetime of the young heir’s grandfather, there should be some roads going there also. If I were going to run this adventure, I would expand on the area and provide alternate routes for the party to reach the city.
Part 2 is the heart of the adventure. It details the ruins of the old city and the dangerous monsters that have taken up residence since its fall. This is my favorite part of the adventure. This part could even be taken out and used for a generic ruined city in any campaign setting. This part takes up about half of the adventure text, and overall is very well done (except for the previously mention problems with the monster selections and stat blocks). There is sufficient detail for a sandbox exploring of the city without any mission for the PCs beyond treasure hunting.
Part 3 is the climax of the adventure, and has the PC travel to the land of the dead to retrieve the deceased king’s sword and crown. This is an interesting twist that should be very unexpected by the players involved in the adventure. The final confrontation with the king gives the PCs the option of a skill challenge to convince him to relinquish his sword and crown, or if that fails (or the PCs decide not to use that option), they can fight him (and his dragon).
At the end of the adventure there is a new magic item: The Flask of Renewal. This item gives you the option of drinking a small sip each day to act as a healing potion, or draining the entire thing for a huge healing boost once, but it ceases to function. I give them a thumbs up for this nice little item.
In summary, there is a lot to like in this adventure. Especially for someone like me that likes to take general story ideas and pieces of adventure and mash them together with pieces of other adventures. However, whether it is run like that or as intended, it will require some DM work to pull monster stats (which is not too hard to do if you have a DDi account) and redesign a few encounters to make them more level appropriate.
The price tag of $7.99 seems a little steep for this adventure, especially with the release of official 4e adventure PDFs through www.dndclassic.com for around the same price, and older edition adventures that could be converted for a lower price, but in the end I would recommend it since it is a decent adventure for under ten bucks
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thanks so much for the thoughtful and thorough review.
-Adam |
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/12/17/tabletop-review-appendi
x-n-adventures-toolkit-2-the-vile-worm-dungeon-crawl-classic
s/
Almost two months ago I reviewed the first of the Appendix N Adventures Toolkits: The Ruins of Ramat. I really enjoyed it and, even though Brave Halfling Publishing is a bit behind on their release schedule, I was still chomping at the bit for the next entry in the series. What can I say? I love Dungeon Crawl Classics. Now I’ve got The Vile Worm in my hands, and while it’s shorter and not as good as the first release in the series, it’s still a fun (albeit quite brief) adventure for the system. The Vile Worm might even work as a side story or short encounter between major adventures due to its brevity.
The Vile Worm is a pretty simple, linear affair, and it is designed for eight to twelve Level One characters. I know that sounds like a lot if you haven’t played Dungeon Crawl Classics but trust me, it’s about par for the system. Each gamer plays two to three characters because the death toll in this system is so high. It sounds pretty crazy, but the emphasis with this system is roll-playing over role-playing and combat over characterization.
The story of The Vile Worm is fairly straight forward. The players come across a deranged hermetic berserker who is sacrificing people to a gigantic worm. The players have to take down this sin against nature and free the family that he has currently imprisoned. The players have to survive the monsters, navigate the berserker’s lair and try to not get impregnated by the worm and end up as a host to larvae. After that, the players must do battle with an even older and larger creature that they won’t see coming. As I said earlier, it’s a fairly straight forward affair, but the battles are memorable and it’s nowhere near as vicious to the PCs as most Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures. It shouldn’t take more than two hours to play through this unless the DM is REALLY padding things out for the players.
About the only down side to The Vile Worm is how expensive it is. With a price tag of nearly six bucks for only fourteen pages, The Vile Worm is way too expensive for what you get. I could get TWO Shadowrun Missions for the same price, and they’re twice the page length (or more!) and in full colour! A fourteen page document really shouldn’t be running more than three bucks at most. My guess is the cost is primarily due to the art by guys like Mark Allen and Andy Taylor. Still, that’s a LOT of money for such a small adventure, and my fear is that the cost per page will simply be too much for the majority of gamers, especially in this day and age.
My advice would be not to pick this up on its own due to the six dollar price tag for only fourteen pages, four of which are covers and legal mumbo jumbo. Instead, go for the subscription, which should bring the price down dramatically. Make sure you know and love Dungeon Crawl Classics first, or you’ll just end up with a bunch of adventures you’ll never use. Still, Appendix N Adventure Toolkits are proving to be the best third party releases for the DCC system. After only two, I’m quite satisfied, and I can’t wait to see what Brave Halfling Publishing puts out next.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/31/tabletop-review-the-lad
der/
Let’s say you’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons before. In this hypothetical, you’ve joined a friend’s campaign due to that friend talking incessantly about how awesome it is. You have no idea how to play, but you want your character to climb a wall. You’re asked to make a “climb check”. This requires rolling a twenty sided die, something you’ve likely never seen before because you’re used to playing board games like Monopoly and Life. You take the result here, add in your climb score, which is created by adding your strength bonus and ranks in that skill. The strength bonus, of course, is determined by taking your strength score, subtracting ten, dividing by two, and then rounding down. That number isn’t right yet. You still have to subtract points because your character is wearing armor, which weighs him down.
My point is that pen and paper games can seem like high end calculus to a beginner, and for any given action, there’s usually a good deal of math involved. The dice can seem alien, as can the list of skills and seemingly random numbers attached to them. Something as simple as climbing a wall has a whole lot that goes into it. For experienced players, such math is second nature, and is done almost instantaneously. For a beginner, it might just seem overly complicated.
The Ladder is a game that aims to simply pen and paper rules to the point where a beginning player can quickly feel right at home. Key to this goal is the fact that only six sided dice are used, and rolls don’t involve adding or subtracting any sort of modifier. Skills are relegated to a simple ladder system that uses words like “good”, “poor”, and “expert” to define character’s abilities. This is a noble goal, to be sure. Let’s see how it pans out.
When you create a character using the rules of The Ladder, you have a pretty easy task. You select six “assets” that you want your character to have. These should relate to the them of the campaign as described by your Gamesmaster. So, you’re in modern times, good assets to have might be “driving” or “computer skills”. Of these six assets, you can choose to become an expert in two of them. The other four you’re considered “good” at. Next up to create a few character flaws that add to your character’s personality. Maybe your character is scared of heights. Maybe he’s got asthma. After that, the rest is even simpler, and amounts to nothing more than creating some background information, such as defining features, and home location. You could easily create a character in a minute or two.
At the heart of the game is the ladder system itself. For each skill, you have a rating on the ladder. The idea is that if you’re good at something, you’ll succeed at related tasks most of the time. So if you’re good at driving, chances are you’ll make that turn without a problem. The kicker is that you do still roll a die. On a roll of two through five, nothing happens. Your outcome stays the same as it would have been without the die roll. On a roll of a one or six, however, things start to get interesting. These numbers represent the chance that any person may at some point exceed or fail to meet their normal skill level. For example, even a master martial artist can miss a kick, and a novice baseball player can still hit a home run. Rolling a six moves your attempt up the ladder, while rolling a one moves you down the ladder. Rolling either prompts a second roll. So, if you roll a six, you’ve exceeded your expectations, and get to roll again. Another six means you do even better. You keep going until you don’t roll a six. This sets up the chance, although unlikely, that you can can pull off something amazing.
The ladder system is definitely interesting. For most actions, it has a nice feeling to it. You have a pretty good idea of how you’ll perform on any given task, yet there’s always a chance that something can go wrong/right. Also in play is the “wonky ladder” system where some outside influence can affect the likelihood of your place on the ladder being changed. For example, let’s say you want to perform a running jump. The trouble is that you’re on a patch of ice. This results in a bad wonky ladder, and when you go to make your jump roll, you’ll go down a ladder on a roll of a one AND a two. This gives the system some flexibility when dealing with extraordinary circumstances.
It’s when there’s conflict that one starts to see some serious flaws in the system. Logically, it makes sense that someone ranked good at something should almost always defeat someone ranked poorly at the same task. However, when it comes to this game, it can often feel like your roll means nothing. If you’re down more than a rung, you have to hope your opponent rolls multiple ones in a roll, or that you roll multiple sixes in a row just to avoid an abysmal outcome. In combat, things get even more redundant. Winning a roll awards the victor points. A certain number of points is needed to win. This means that even if the lesser player has a miraculous roll, they’ll still likely lose because they can’t possibly meet that total number of points before their superior opponent. It takes some of the chance and fun out of conflict, and makes things more of a foregone conclusion. It may be logical, but it’s not as much fun.
Advancement in the game comes via “plot points” that are awarded by the GM. These can be cashed in to improve an existing skill, add a skill, or used to bump yourself up a ladder in times of need. The GM is encouraged to stem too much growth, however, as one shouldn’t be an expert in too many fields. It’s definitely interesting to watch a character grow, and this system can easily be used to create a very specific build.
This game attempts to make things simpler, and for the most part it manages. It can get a bit over complicated when it comes to degrees of injury and how that affects your ladder scores, but the system is still one that can be used to ease a beginner into the world of pen and paper games. I can’t say it’s better than it’s more complicated brethren, but it does offer some appeal to those looking for a rules-light adventure.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/30/tabletop-review-colonia
l-gothic-new-france/
This review is part of a series of ongoing reviews of material for the Colonial Gothic RPG, a role-playing game set in Colonial America with supernatural and horror elements. For other reviews in the series check out this list:
-Colonial Gothic Rulebook Second Edition
-The Ross-Allen Letters
-Organizations: The Templars
-The French-Indian War
Now, on to the review!
Have you ever thought Colonial Gothic was missing something? Something…a little more French? Maybe you wondered: “do we have to play this game in the boring old 13 original colonies?” Or perhaps you thought out loud while reading some other sourcebooks: “yeah, yeah, but what about CANADA?” Well my friends, I’m going to tell you about a book that will blow the beaver pelts right off of your fur trade, because this is Colonial Gothic: New France written by Rogue Games’ resident New France correspondent Gabriel Brouillard. With this book, you’ll feel like you can take your table straight up to the French holdings in the North.
Parlez Vous “Cult Activity?”
Ok, so I have to mention something right off: this book is not really about supernatural stuff. It’s geared toward a mostly historical presentation of New France during the 18th century up through the end of the Revolutionary War. I say “mostly historical” because the book states that the facts as we know them are bent a bit to make the sourcebook more attuned the game rather than just a source of historical information. What would really bump these books to another level of awesomeness is if certain things were labeled as historical and non-historical. Perhaps, if only there were some sort of symbol that could be used to denote things which may require clarification or special mention, something like the things I might put around *this* word…that would be quite useful. For instance, if I were to write: George Washington led his troops on a yellow horse, which was colored in that manner because he superstitiously powdered it in Turmeric before a major military movement or engagement*. That kind of notation would let people know that I made that sh– up.
So what are the historical parts then, what does Brouillard have to tell us? The book starts off with the beginning of France’s involvement in the New World, and then continues on detailing milestones which mostly involve major conflicts like wars with the British or edicts passed by the British or…British occupation. Ok, a lot of it has to do with Britain, but at the time those Brits were all up in everybody’s business, so it’s no wonder they ended up getting booted off of the island (eventually). The major periods include “The Golden Age of New France”, a time of growth and prosperity for the settlers there; the period around the French-Indian War, where Britain and France once again came into conflict; and the period of the Revolutionary War, where French sympathizers aided against the British and where those seeking refuge from the war traveled North to New France. All told, this book encompasses the early 1700s, and then from about 1756 to 1783 with snippets from other parts of the 18th century.
Oh Acadia
Chapter 2 is a run-down of colonies in New France, most of which are recognizable names today (to Americans anyway) like Montreal, Canada, Newfoundland, and Quebec. Each colony gets a brief description of how it was founded and notable things that happened there. Following that are descriptions and illustrations of forts and trading posts, and then a good many pages discussing the various kinds of people that would populate a French colony. There is a passage about how at one point immigration was limited to Catholics and any others wanting to come had to renounce their faith and convert. This made it a bit harder to get people over to New France! Land was controlled by this group and handed down to seigneurs to be further divided among the settlers. In this way the regions of New France were populated, so the book explains. This chapter also includes an interesting portion about a group of one hundred merchants who basically were given a monopoly on the lucrative fur trade in exchange for bringing settlers to New France. Is this true or not? I assume it is at least partly true, but there is nothing in the book letting me know one way or the other, and while I am somewhat knowledgeable about the period I don’t know about anything like that. Again, some symbol might come in handy here to let the reader know what the author has made up for the game world.
Chapters 3 and 4 contain information on the various organizations and groups one might find in New France, like the aforementioned merchant cabal. The non-native ones are few but include the Spain-established Knights of Malta. Other groups mentioned are mostly native tribes including the murky “Mandoag” which are a ubiquitous and shadowy native group found in nearly all Colonial Gothic books I’ve seen. Other native tribes like the Huron and even the Inuit are mentioned, each getting their own paragraph or two of brief history and description. There is no really detailed information here, but it does give you some names to throw around and add a little authenticity to your game. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 are each dedicated to one of the important historical periods I mentioned earlier. For each period there is a longer description of the events that transpired and how they affected New France, as well as groups involved and important personalities with adventure hooks including them. These chapters have some really nice information on these periods and what they meant to the development of New France; for instance the French-Indian War chapter goes on about the French generals as they struggled to keep the British from taking Quebec, and gives several adventure scenarios involving different groups like the Freemasons, or legends like hidden Templar riches.
Duels!
The last four chapters are a smattering of rules on various topics. There are some new backgrounds added like French Catholic priest and Coureur des Bois, a person who goes out into the wild to trade with native peoples. Some backgrounds are just New France versions of the ones found in the core book, like Rural and Urban Colonist. You’re given two entire pages of French names from the period, how cool! Enjoy naming your French colonist “Michaud St. Pierre”. There is a chapter dedicated to duels. Yes, in case the honor of your character or your character’s charge is tarnished in some way, you can now look at these rules and see whether you prefer a sword duel or a pistol duel, and if the latter which set of rules you would like to abide by. The last two chapters are some adventure seeds in the form of mysteries (real or not? I don’t know!) that can be turned into Colonial Gothic sessions and a short chapter containing a few monsters. The adventures are interesting and peculiar, like high-quality roads being mysteriously built in the middle of nowhere and a magnetic hill…not sure how to turn those into riveting adventures but who knows.
Overall, this book is great if you want to run an adventure in Canada or other French-owned territories, or if you are looking for more information for a campaign during the French-Indian war. Gabriel does a great job of condensing information and whipping up some adventure ideas, as well as giving Game Masters what they need to help make the game authentic in the French territories. Great supplement for Colonial Gothic.
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Originally published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/30/tabletop-review-ravenlo
ft-the-created-advanced-dungeons-dragons-second-edition/
So here we are again with another of the first electronic reprints from the Ravenloft campaign setting. First Children of the Night: Vampires and now The Created. These are some odd choices to be sure, as neither was very well received in their day. I’m surprised things like the core campaign setting or books like Darklord and adventures such as Ship of Horror or Book of Crypts didn’t go live first. Still, it’s better to have some Ravenloft stuff back in print rather than having to scrounge on Ebay for the books.
The Created was originally written in 1993 by Bruce Nesmith, who video game fans might know as part of the Fallout 3 and Skyrim teams. Before that though, he was penning pen and paper adventures for TSR. The Created is designed for a party between Levels 2 through 4, although you might want to err on the side of caution with the higher levels. It’s a very odd adventure to be sure as it really doesn’t fit the “Gothic Horror” motif that Ravenloft was meant to imbue. Instead it’s more of a B-Horror Movie for kids as The Created tells a darkly twisted version of Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket not included.
The biggest problem with the adventure is that is completely does away with all the mystery and ambience of the Ravenloft setting. In the course of the adventure, players are there when the land is first drawn into the Dark Domain and then end up killing the Darklord and getting out of Ravenloft. First, killing a Darklord and escaping Ravenloft are both meant to be nigh impossible. Crafting an adventure when you do both, and at such low levels, feels like an affront to the system. It’s doubly odd because Nesmith was the one who laid out much of the cardinal rules for the setting back in the early 90s and then goes right ahead and designs an adventure where you break all of them. It’s very jarring and it’s one of the reasons diehard Ravenloft fans look at The Created with a bit of disdain.
Another reason is simply the plot of The Created does not work for the setting it is designed for. This is an adventure that requires a very specialized DM as it’s very hard to play this adventure dark and serious. Anyone I’ve ever talked to who has tried has mentioned it has been a spectacular failure – and that includes people who have written for this very setting or other horror games like Call of Cthulhu and All Flesh Must be Eaten. In fact, the only way I’ve ever heard of the adventure working is by pulling it out of Ravenloft completely and making it a campy horror-comedy. After all, the entire adventure has you dealing with murderous puppets that take over an entire village. This of course is a huge red flag for any Ravenloft adventure because, if it inspires snotty remarks or outright laughter instead of feelings like dread or foreboding, it’s a failure. Now the core concept of the adventure isn’t a terrible one. Look at horror movies like Puppet Master, Demonic Toys or Child’s Play. Both used the concept of evil living murderous children’s toys…but at the same time they were played for equal parts laughter AND Gore – neither of which is the mood nor theme Ravenloft is meant to invoke. Think of this as the equivalent of the Blood Brothers adventures Chaosium used to put out for Call of Cthulhu Again, the adventure CAN work; after all, Pupaphobia is a real condition. I’ve just never seen nor heard of it working the way it was meant to. This is one of those cases where it’s probably best left in the hands of its creator or when your gaming troupe is made up of people who thought Silence was scary rather than terrible.
NOW, with all these disclaimers about The Created out of the way, I can say that the adventure is a finally crafted one. It’s well laid out, the adventure progresses nicely, and it’s balanced in such a way that adventurers should have an uphill battle to face, but not face a TPK (Total Party Kill) at the hands of puppets. I will say that the core enemy you encounter, the Carrionette, is worth far more XP than you expect and teams with mages and/or druids should level up handily in this thing. I also want to praise the art. I’ve always liked Dave Simon’s artwork and it was a big part of the Ravenloft draw for me in my childhood. The interior artwork in this adventure is still top notch and worthy of praise. The cover art by Brom is equally awesome and is easily the creepiest piece of this whole adventure.
So what is The Created about besides insidious puppets? Well, not much. It’s the Pinocchio story except in this case the puppet his desire to be a real boy makes him a homicidal maniac with magical powers and an army of evil miniature wooden doom instead of embarking of a light hearted romp with some furries and into the belly of a whale. Indeed, Maligno (the core antagonist) has only one goal in mind –to murder all the adults in the village of Odiare and then live happily ever after with the children of the town. All the puppets love the kids and vice versa for some reason – yet someone no one thought of the fact that children do eventually grow up? I guess if the PCs fail you’d have a Children of the Corn with marionettes ending.
The PCs end up coming to town the night of a huge puppet show. It’s also the night Maligno puts his insidious plan in to acting, drawing the attention of the Dark Domain. From the moment the adults are taken out, the party will discover they are in a different plane of reality where the old rules need not necessarily apply and some new horrible ones have taken their place. Plus, there is a small army of puppets taking to beat them up and possess their bodies. I will say that the adventure IS designed for the players to fail at first so there is a section that, much like some JRPG video games, the players cannot win despite their best efforts. I’m never a fan when this form of storytelling rears its head in any sort of game, as it puts the players in a passive role rather than the active one is was meant to be. Still, I can let it slide here, because it leads to a truly weird situation that, as I have previously mentioned, has never failed to elicit laughter rather than horror in everyone I know that has ever played this adventure. At least it’s a memorable occurrence even if it wildly misses its intended goal. From there it’s up to players to…resolve the situation and then find some way to kill Malignio and escape the Dark Domain…or at least this particular piece of it. I will say that I enjoyed that the adventure focuses more on thinking and stealth than hack and slash combat. In this regard, The Created should challenge gamers that are more used to roll-playing than role-playing. If you’re looking for a dungeon crawl…this is pretty far from that.
So yes, the adventure is completely playable and it’s an interesting one to be sure. Sure it doesn’t work AT ALL as an actual Ravenloft branded product and it does deserve its negative reputation for being open of several adventures where you actually KILL a Darklord (always a big no-no), but if you take the adventure on its own, either played for camp value or in a vacuum, it’s still a serviceable product that a group of gamers can have fun with.
Is The Created one of the lesser Ravenloft adventures from the Second Edition era? Yes, there’s no doubting that. It takes a very specific DM AND gaming group to make evil puppets work in any form remotely close to scary. Still, if you can find that right mix or you just want a weird adventure to make your friends laugh with, The Created isn’t a bad choice. Just know if you’re looking at things in terms of the Ravenloft branding, The Created is towards the bottom of the barrel. Here’s hoping DNDClassics.com starts putting up the high quality pieces the Ravenloft campaign setting was known for though as right now, all we’re getting is middle of the road pieces.
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Originally published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/29/tabletop-review-dungeon
s-expansion-dragon-fang-mountains/
Late last year, I reviewed a new solo adventure game called Dungeons. It provided a simple system of D6 rolls and delivered a fun but challenging game. Here we are now, early in 2013, and the game’s first expansion has come out. This expansion adds two new heroes to choose from and its own set of quests, encounters, and events.
Firstly, it should be noted that this expansion and all of its content is one hundred percent interchangeable with the original game. You can take one of the new heroes into an old quest, and one of the old heroes into the new quests. None of the rules have changed.
The first new hero is the Treasure Seeker, one that I came to love very quickly. A Treasure Seeker has solid stats all around, but can’t use magic. He makes up for this in a couple of ways. Firstly, he starts off with a crossbow, which is the most powerful ranged weapon in the game. Before combat even starts, the Seeker will get to throw three dice worth of damage at his opponent. His other attribute is even better. When rolling for treasure (something you do after every victory in combat), you actually get to roll twice and choose the roll you prefer. Will I take two gold pieces instead of one? Hell yes. Will I take the magic weapon instead of a measly potion? Hell yes. This ability is pretty darn fantastic, and makes the Treasure Seeker an easy choice for any quest.
The other new hero is the Runecaster. Runecasters are dwarfs who’ve somehow earned the ability to cast magic. They have the same basic stats as a dwarf, but start off with weaker armor to offset the fact they can use one magic die. However, the Runecaster has its own list of spells to work from, separate from the spells used in the original game. In combat, you have three options. Rain of Stone can be used as a low rent ranged attack. Ranged attacks are always good, so it has some use. Stonehammer is a spell that doubles the amount of damage you do. Rockskin reduces all incoming damage by one. Outside of combat, you have One With the Earth. This spell, if successful, allows you to full heal any time you come across an area with nothing in it. The downside of these spells is that they are reasonably hard to cast, and you only have one magic die to try and cast them. If it fails, you’ve wasted a turn. This is compounded by the fact that Runecasters, as dwarfs, have a speed of one. This means the enemy always gets to attack first. Without that extra armor, they become highly susceptible to damage. I played a few games with the Runecaster, and they all ended shortly.
There are six new quests with this expansion, and they’ve definitely gotten more interesting, if more challenging as well. Most have special rules. For example, one quest allows you to make two treasure rolls. However, there is a chance that the treasure can be cursed, which can permanently lower one of your stats, or even cost you all of your equipment. It’s a risky choice to say the least. Other examples include a quest where “nothing” areas are replaced with treacherous terrain that can cause you damage.
Let’s not forget about the new encounters. You have a whole new encounter list to make a roll for, and there are several new foes to go along with it. These include demons, elementals, and even fellow adventurers. One thing to note is that the version I got did not include the information for the Drake, which was the quest enemy for one of the six new quests. I have been told this should be fixed soon though. All of these new monsters are pretty tough, so you’ll be thankful when you get a giant rat to contend with.
Finally, there are the new events. Events involve something beyond combat happening, such as a cave in, finding a treasure room, or something more dynamic. These definitely add flavor to your game. I was not a fan of the events list for this expansion. There are only a couple of them that offered any choice to the player, something I liked greatly about the first game. A lot of them are also downright mean, forcing you to lose a piece of equipment, take significant damage, or even take a stat penalty. There are a couple of good ones too, but they’re much harder to come by.
All told, this expansion manages to take an already challenging game and ratchet up the difficulty even further. I played probably close to a dozen games and never got out of the first quest. I suppose I can chalk this up to crappy luck to some degree, but it’s still worth mentioning. If you’ve got a warrior all ready to go from a previous quest, it could be fun to test him with these new options.
If you enjoyed playing Dungeons, then this expansion is pretty much a no brainer. It offers new quests, events, and monsters to mix things up, and gives two interesting new heroes to try out. It’s only a buck and a half, and the game is still fun to play when you can’t get a proper role playing session together. It should be noted that you can’t play the expansion without the core rules, however, so this is for players of that only.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/29/tabletop-review-the-tro
llmanac-tunnels-trolls/
I was never a big Tunnels & Trolls gamer as a kid – mainly because I didn’t know anyone that played it. As I’ve gotten older though, I’m really finding I enjoy the system for its wit and whimsy, along with the adventures people write for T&T. That said, I still haven’t found anyone else that plays the game, outside of online forums. However I’m hoping that changes with the release of Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls as its Kickstarter campaign has over 1,700 backers, two of which I not only know, but have are writers for the site! In preparation for the release of DT&T I’ve been flipping through some third party releases for the system, one of which, The Trollmanac is what we’re reviewing today.
The Trollmanac is a collections of snippets and pieces from the Trollish Delver website. Now you might be asking, “Why should I pay for something that is free on the internet?” Well , the same reason you purchase web comic collections. You get everything in one spot, without having to have dozens of bookmarks on your computer, and Cthulhu forbid the website ever goes away, you still have your copy. Considering The Trollmanac is less than two dollars at the time of writing this, you’re getting a pretty good deal. Hell, there are two full solo adventures in this compilation alone, which should make it worth the while of anyone even remotely interested in Tunnels and Trolls.
So what’s in this collection? A lot of different things, all of which I found to be a lot of fun. There are basically seven sections, and we’ll look at each one in turn.
First up is “Character Types.” Here you are getting six different new classes for your Tunnels & Trolls game. The Skywatcher seems to be part astrologist and part astronomer. The Storyteller feels like a specialized Bard. The Ministrel is the more stereotypical bard you see in games like D&D, although this one is the only Bard I know that gets to use “Enter Sandman” as a magic spell. The Wytchfinder, well… finds witches. The Burglar is a disguise and lockpicking specialist, and the Wildfarer is like a D&D ranger. All are pretty interesting and would be a lot of fun to use in a game.
“Character Options” are basically ways to modify an existing class to make the character stand out a little more. The Lifekeeper is a healing based mage. Godsword is the equivalent of a D&D Cleric, since Tunnels & Trolls lacks that option. The Assassin is a warrior that relies on stealth instead of heavy armour and brute strength. Again, all are fun. I liked the Assassin best here.
“Kindred” are new races for your Tunnels & Trolls game. The Darkwitch Night Elves are basically Drow, which is the only negative I had for this book. Not everything needs DARK ELVES you know? The Toath are the mushroom people out of Super Mario Bros. The Automatons are basically Warforged. This is the weakest section in the book, and I personally didn’t care for any of these races, but I know others will get a kick out of them.
“Monsters” gives you a horde of new creepy crawlies to throw at players. The Icy Deathseeker is a snowy assassin. The Hexwood Crawlers are sharp toothed little animals that attack in packs. The Green Man is straight out of United Kingdom folklore. The Hulking Hornblower is a giant golem. The Bliztfrost Razor is basically a Winter Wolf. The Shivering Crawler is an odd mix between a Bullywug and a Carrion Crawler. The Hoboleth is a weird collection of eyeballs. Bashannonoth sounds a lot like the Black Dogs of British folklore.
“Items” gives you several new magic items for players to monkey around with. The Oak Staff of the Seven Flames is insanely powerful and is best left as a MacGuffin or unobtainable artifact. Gorgon-zola is petrifying cheese that showcases the sense of humour T&T is so well known for having. The Sword of Absolute Awesomeness is similar to the Oak Staff, but for Warriors instead of Mages. Gloves of Chainbind give a player a special grapple attack. After this, the section turns into three smaller sections (Magic Items, Awesome Armour, and Weapons of the Uber-Awesome) containing even more magic items. The Pruning Shears of the Damned are my favorite.
“Guides” is a section of mini-essays on how to DM a Tunnels and Trolls game better. It’s a sad state of affairs that the first essay is on playing vampires, but look what’s happened to them in this day and age. Other essays include optional combat rules, how to run an Uruk (orc) and one on running sea based adventurers. All three essays are well done and a lot of fun to read despite their brevity.
Finally, we come to the two solo adventures. It’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure, but where you roll dice. Both adventures are short but cute and well worth the asking price of this collection. “The Creeper in the Temple” has you going one on one with a fiendish thingie while “The Mine of the Witch King” is a bit longer and more involved.
All in all, The Trollmanac is a fantastic collection, especially for the low, low asking price. You do need to be quite familiar with Tunnels and Trolls to get any use out of the collection (or to even understand it) but for those of you who love the second oldest fantasy RPG system, you should definitely snag this ASAP.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/28/tabletop-review-ravenlo
ft-children-of-the-night-vampires-advanced-dungeons-dragons-
second-edition/
So this is a bit of an odd duck, considering Children of the Night: Vampires is roughly seventeen years old. Since January 22nd, though, Wizards of the Coast and DriveThruRPG have teamed up to bring us DNDClassics.com, a website where you can purchase long since out of print Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks, supplements, adventures and more – albeit in PDF format. Currently, there are eighty-eight products available for download, with more coming every month. I decided to start with Children of the Night: Vampires for four reasons. The first is that I have a soft spot for 2nd Edition AD&D. The second is that Ravenloft is my favorite campaign setting for D&D. The third is the inherent comedy whenever I write about vampires. The fourth is that, as far as Ravenloft products go, Children of the Night: Vampires is the most infamous and often subjected to a lot of scorn. Why is that, you might ask? Two words: Jander Sunstar.
Jander Sunstar is an elven vampire, and the protagonist of the very first Ravenloft novel, Vampire of the Mists, by Christie Golden. Jander is one of the most popular characters from the second edition D&D novels, forcing TSR and Ms. Golden to bring him back in three different prequels. Notice the word prequels. This is important, because Jander dies at the end of the novel. Don’t talk to me about spoilers – the book is over twenty years old. That’s like saying “Raistlin dons the black robes” is a spoiler. Anyway, this adventure collection brought Jander Sunstar back to life, via the dues ex machina of the Ravenloft Mists. That alone brought outrage from Ravenloft fans across the board. The icing on the cake, however, was that everything about the stat block was messed up. Not only did it not match the official stats released in the 1992 trading card set (which were, in and of themselves, subject for contentious debate), but what was presented as Jander Sunstar in no way shape or form matched the character from the novel. From a warrior who could stand toe to toe with the biggest Lord of Ravenloft and who even took on Tiamat herself… to a pale mockery that only had a single attack per round, a THAC0 of 1 and 68 Hit Points. That’s pretty bad for what was supposed to be what we would now call an Epic Level Fighter AND the oldest and arguably most powerful vampire in the Dark Domain.
Anyway, the whole Jander Sunstar section alone was ridiculed by fans and critics alike, and thus the entire book received a lot of scorn, even if much of the conversation revolved around whether the authors of Children of the Night had ever read Vampire of the Mists. I myself passed on the book back in 1996, as the bad publicity and the fact I was doing some writing for Vampire: The Masquerade and Call of Cthulhu at the time kept me too busy for D&D. Now, however, with the re-release of the book and the launch of DNDClassics.com, it was the perfect opportunity for me to pick up Children of the Night: Vampires and see if it really deserved the initial ire it brought about, or if it truly does deserve to be amongst the first Ravenloft titles for electronic distribution.
Children of the Night: Vampires contains thirteen different vampires, showcasing the wide variety of fanged undead Second Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons had to offer. Along with each vampire was an accompanying adventure which highlighted the creature. The book does suggest not to play all of these adventures in a row, as any D&D party would get sick of vampire oriented adventures after a while. The adventures are also not presented in any sort of order. Indeed, some adventures that appear earlier in the book are meant to be sequels to adventures that appear later, which makes of an odd read. As well, adventures aren’t presented in any sort of level based order, meaning a high level adventure may occur in the book before a low or medium level adventure. This isn’t a big deal, but it’s worth keeping in mind as you read through the book. Finally, the book makes constant reference to other sourcebooks or supplements that are currently unavailable on DNDClassics.com. While none are necessary to run any of these adventures, owning or having read them (or even a 3rd/3.5 Edition version from Sword and Sorcery) will make understanding the ins and outs of both the adventure and the setting a LOT easier. Now, with all of that precursory information out of the way, let’s actually look at the contents of this adventure collection, shall we?
The book opens with Jander Sunstar and, admittedly, this section is truly as abominable as detractors have said for all these years. It really does seem like the authors were given a synopsis of the book and told to run with that. It’s bad. Let’s just leave it at that. The adventure “The Charnel House”, however, is a pretty fun one, putting the players in the middle of a subtle but deadly war between the elven vampire and a pack of vampyres (living humanoids that drink blood). It’s a fun adventure, and through it all, players who haven’t read Vampire of the Mists won’t know who to side with, although those that have will have to keep player knowledge separate from character knowledge. Sure, it’s silly that they brought the character back to undeath, but Jander was crazy popular in the 2e era, so it makes sense that TSR would try to make as much money off him as they could. So the bad news is the Jander Sunstar section does deserve its infamy, but the good news is this is as bad as the book gets, so everything gets positive from here on in.
The next vampire is Audun Beck, who is a Sea Vampire. I don’t even remember Sea Vampires as a possible variant, so I’m assuming it’s just made up for this book. Basicallym Beck lives underwater on a submerged vessel named the Illsongm along with his crew of sea zombies and jolly rogers during the day; by night, they rise as one to plunder and feed. The adventure, “The Rewards of Courage,” pits characters between Levels 5-9 against Beck and his crew after they sack a seaside town. Then it’s an attempt to hunt down the ghost ship and put it to rest. It’s an okay adventure. Sea-based Ravenloft adventures have never been very good, and Beck is a bit silly (giant vampire octopus form?), but a good DM can make this work.
Vampire number three is Lyssa Von Zarovich, who debuted in this book but gained a modicum of popularity in the tail end of 2e and through Sword and Sorcery’s version of the campaign setting that they put out for 3/3.5 Edition. Lyssa is the grand-niece of Strahd, and although she considers herself a bitter enemy of the count, he finds her more of a foppish amusement. Lyssa’s adventure, “The Turning Day,” sees Lyssa’s celebration of her undeath-day anniversary being interrupted by not just the players, but the devil Strahd himself, along with a curse that will become synonymous with all incarnations of Lyssa from here on in. A great introduction to the character and a memorable adventure.
We’re four vampires in now with the introduction of Moosha. This is a desert vampire (another new variant) who feeds not on blood, but the hydration of his victims. Moosha is a horrible scarred monster, accompanied by a legion of Jackals. He’s a very unique undead, and with his background and domain, you could design an entire mini-campaign around him. Indeed, the writers seem especially fond of this idea, giving you a host of ideas to make this possible. The adventure, “The Wild Child,” is basically an introduction to the domain of Sebua, Moosha, and his primary victims. PCs can end up with a retainer here if the play their cards right, and can experience a pretty dramatic adventure. The adventure really does feel like a set-up for a longer term experience, which is just fine, and depending on how the PCs react, the DM might just have a powerful recurring antagonist to throw at them.
Our fifth vampire, Myxitizajal, is perhaps the lowlight of the book, issues with Jander notwithstanding. It’s definitely the stupidest concept in the book, along with the worst name. Basically Myxitizajal (oh my poor spell check) is a vampire Ixitxachitl, which is a race of intelligent, sentient manta rays. Yep. I’m all for fantasy races, but this is just lame. The adventure “The Ritual Repeats,” however, is pretty cool. It’s akin to what would happen if the Dark Powers that govern Ravenloft watched the movie Groundhog Day and decided to do their own spin on it. Can the PCs stop the daily slaughter of islanders at the hands of Myxitizajal, or will they become doomed to take part in the recurring events themselves?
Our sixth vampire, Lady Adeline, is an odd one. I say odd because she’s meant to be a Silvanesti from Krynn, but the writers of her bio don’t seem to have the faintest idea of how the race OR the Dragonlance campaign setting is meant to be. It’s just terribly done. Maybe the writers just can’t do elvish undead? That said, the rest of the character is pretty awesome. You have a vampire that is somewhat gorgon-esque (or in D&D terms, Medusa-esque) which makes for an interesting opponent, along with a shocking reveal once you see what she looks like under her veil. It also helps that Lady Adeline is an ally of Von Kharkov, who is one of the most under appreciated Darklords in Ravenloft. There’s a lot of storytelling potential here with this elven vampire. The adventure “Maze of Thorns,” unfortunately, isn’t a very good one. It has Lady Adeline luring people into a HEDGE MAZE OF DOOM. Right, I know. It’s a silly concept and who in Ravenloft would be silly enough to enter a mysterious maze next to a town of deformed people? It’s not something most players, and thus their characters, would fall for. Pass on the adventure, but a good DM can definitely make excellent use of the character.
Don Pablo is our seventh vampire, and no, he doesn’t have a chain of Mexican restaurants. Despite the bad choice of names for this man, he’s a very interesting antagonist. In fact, he’s not even a vampire. He’s a vorlog, a person who was in the midst of a change into a vampire when he was “saved” by someone killing the master vampire. So basically, he’s a human with an aversion to sunlight, budding fangs and a few vampire abilities, like enhanced strength and charm powers. The odd thing is that Don Pablo is listed as Chaotic Evil, but he is not even remotely portrayed as that in his bio or the accompanying adventure. Maybe True Neutral or Chaotic Neutral, but he’s not really evil as much as he is despondent and slightly mad. It’s an interesting idea for a character, although not one with a lot of replay value, if you know what I mean. Dan Pablo’s corresponding adventure, “The Victim,” is a really good one, perhaps the best in the book. It completely flip-flops who you think of as the monster, with a human being the actual bad guy in the adventure while the Chaotic Evil monster is actually the sympathetic victim. It’s a nice way to mix things up while staying true to the spirit of the Ravenloft setting.
Number eight in this collection is Alexi, who is a very weird but very well done vampire. First, he is Vistani, which really shakes things up. Second, he’s very young and impressionable. This means he is not evil and that if the PC’s do a good job, they can inspire the youth to be a force for good… or as much of a force for good that a vampire in Ravenloft can be. Third, he’s a big coward. Seriously. He’s an immortal undead with power beyond imagination, and he’d run away from a gully dwarf if it shook its fist at him. That’s a gold mine of roleplaying opportunities right there. The adventure that showcases Alexi is “To Conquer Fear,” and it’s meant to help the PCs see that not all vampires are evil. In it, Alexi is still firmly under the thumb of his cruel master, and it’s up to the adventuring party to free Alexi and, perhaps more importantly, make Alexi want to be like them rather than his evil sire.
The ninth vampire in Children of the Night: Vampires is up there with the undead manta ray as the stupidest in the book. Jack Bequick is a vampire clown. Yes, you read that right. Even worse, he’s a permanently invisible evil clown that can only be seen, and thus drink blood, when his victim is afraid of him (perhaps he should be incorporeal but the book repeatedly uses invisible so…). It’s just a really terrible concept all around, and I have to wonder if there was a bet going on between the writers as to who could make the worst vampire. Unlike ol’ Myxitizajal, who at least has a quality adventure to go with him, “Jack’s House of Horrors” should only be run by a DM who wants his players to hate him. It’s an EEEEEVIL FUNHOUSE complete with mimes and goblins. Ick. Stay away. Stay far, far away.
Number ten brings us into the home stretch. Lady Heather Shadowbrooke is one of my favorites in this collection. She’s a vampire druid who can only feed on animals and trees. She drains sap instead of blood in that case, you see. Now you’re probably thinking, “Wow. That’s pretty easy compared to how other vampires have it.” Remember though, she’s a Druid with a capital D, so animals and plants mean more to her than humanoids. Plus, her bite instantly kills. Still, she tries to be the best druid she can be, even though she’s gone completely crazy and has a were-warthog and a blood sucking shambling mound for allies. Her adventure “The Missing Druids” has you looking for, well… you can probably guess from the name. In it, Heather allies herself with your party to help out. She makes for an interesting ally, but unfortunately, you find out that she is what happened to the druids, and conflict inevitably ensues. The end result is doing battle with a tragic but insane antagonist that may or may not become a recurring enemy if the DM handles things appropriately.
Ezra is the eleventh vampire, and he’s the closest to your stereotypical vampire. At least for D&D that is. He runs a Thieves’ Guild, which makes sense due to vampiric powers like Spider Climb. The adventure that revolves around Ezra, “Guild of Thieves” is also your run of the mill dungeon crawl for characters between Levels 7 and 10. However, there’s a catch, as it leads into the next vampire and his adventure, which can, if the DM is kind, provide a way out of The Dark Domain and back to wherever they came from… or someplace else. Who knows? Adventurers can try to infiltrate the Thieves’ Guild, or go for an all out assault. This whole section is standard fare, but sometimes that’s a good thing.
Mulger D’Ajust is the penultimate vampire, and get this – he’s a dwarf. Even weirder, he’s a dwarven sage with a penchant for all things magical. This was pretty outside the box for Second Edition AD&D, where Dwarves could only be Fighters, Thieves or Clerics. He’s also a dwarf that used magic to break free from Azalin’s control, which is pretty damn impressive. As you can imagine, Mulger is a pretty bad ass vampire… even if his stats don’t support his bio. Still, he’s a great concept and one that could make for an interesting recurring character for the PCs, perhaps even an uncomfortable ally. The adventure, “The Way Out,” gives players a chance to escape Ravenloft. Unfortunately, the gateway is in a mine controlled by Mulger and his crew, who are currently doing some excavation work in there. You can imagine what happens next. This is another mid-level dungeon crawl, and one with a potentially huge rewards – perhaps too big for a throw away encounter like this. As such, you may want to do some building up for it. Unless, of course, your PCs are just sick of the Dark Domain. Then this doesn’t need to be a culmination.
Unfortunately, the last vampire in the book joins our manta ray and invisible clown in the triad of terrible ideas. Marla is a Penanggalan, which is meant to be a female vampire whose head can detach and become a flying four foot long snake with a human head. Yes, it’s as stupid as it sounds, and this is one of those times where something that is supposed to be horrific in a high fantasy setting will instead inspire laughter. It’s just a bad all-around idea. Marla’s adventure, “Love Lies Dying” is an uninteresting affair where a pair of lovers are eloping and, together with the PCs, spend the night in a creepy monastery where the quasi-vampire tries to pick them off one by one. So the book ends as badly as it begins, but at least the middle is quite nice.
As we look back, we see I enjoyed eight of the thirteen vampires and nine of the thirteen adventures. That’s a quality rate of 65%. That means roughly two-third of the book is good, which is far better than one would have expected, considering the infamous reputation this title has. What this shows me is that one huge mistake was enough to overshadow the good bits of this book, at least in the eyes of Second Edition Ravenloft fans. In my opinion, even though the Jander Sunstar issue does live up to its infamy, the good in the book outweighs the bad. The PDF is a bit pricey (ten dollars compared to the fifteen dollar price tag the book had when it was in print), but it’s still one old school Ravenloft fans might want to pick up and see what they missed all those years ago. Who knows? They might actually come to appreciate what’s here.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/21/deadlands-noir-the-old-
absinthe-house-blues-savage-worlds/
Earlier this month, I reviewed the Deadlands Noir campaign setting and absolutely fell in love with it, to the point where I’m STILL kicking myself for not taking part in its original Kickstarter campaign. Since then, Pinnacle Entertainment has released the first adventure for the setting, entitled The Old Absinthe House Blues, and I knew I had to see if it was just as good. As the adventure was originally a free Kickstarter stretch goal to backers of a certain dollar amount, I’ll admit to being a bit shocked at the price tag on this adventure. With a page count of only thirty-two pages, it’s hard to justify the $9.99 price tag for this adventure, especially when it’s a) almost a fifth the size of Deadlands Noir but roughly half the cost b) just a PDF and c) crazy expensive compared to adventures like the Shadowrun Missions series, which is the same size, full colour and only $3.99 per adventure. The good news is that, while The Old Absinthe House Blues is pretty expensive compared to similarly sized adventures from other systems, it’s a really fun adventure that works as an excellent introduction to not only the Deadlands Noir campaign setting, but the Savage Worlds. Pinnacle does have you over a barrel right here.
If you’ve read Deadlands Noir (or my review of it), then you know to expect two things. The first is that you’ll need a copy of Savage Worlds in order to play this adventure, as that is the rules system it uses. The other is that the adventure is set in and around New Orleans in the 1930s. Eventually, we’ll see other locals for Deadlands Noir, so just hang in there if The Big Easy isn’t your preference.
If you haven’t picked up Deadlands Noir, you really should grab that before getting The Old Absinthe House Blues. Again, you will need copies of Deadlands Reloaded and Savage Worlds for rules and mechanics, and the aforementioned Deadlands Noir for setting information. So that’s three whole books just to play The Old Absinthe House Blues, which is a bit of a sorespot to me, but seeing as I only get PDFs of RPGs these days, it’s not like having all these books to play an adventure is going to break my back or take up a lot of space. Still, couple the need to purchase three books on top of a ten dollar adventure and the cost is going to add up quickly for newcomers, perhaps even to the point where it drives them away. So if you’re gaming on a tight budget, The Old Absinthe House Blues might not be where you want to begin with this system.
The player characters are either gumshoes by trades or roped into the role for whatever reason. They’ve been hired by the bartender of The Old Absinthe House to find the joint’s missing torch singer, one Ms. Delilah Starr. Seems she played her regular gig Friday night, but never showed up to work on Saturday. Sounds like a simple missing person’s fetch quest, right? Well it’s not. The adventure throws everything but the kitchen sink at the PCs, including an unrequited would-be amour, an evil oil company (is there any other kind?),a bunch of petty thugs, some voodoo magic for good measure and an unwholesome beast out to turn the PC’s insides into their outsides. Characters will be going everywhere from New Orleans proper to a bayou swamp inhabited with spooky things in spooky locations. The Old Absinthe House Blues is a pretty turbulent affair, and there’s a good chance at least one player character will bite it through the progression of the adventure. It’s a fairly creepy adventure that will have you wondering who is the bigger evil in the adventure – man or monster – and it blends supernatural horror and two fisted pulp drama together in a way that it is hard to imagine one without the other. By the time all is said and done, you’ll have been given a taste of everything Deadlands Noir has to offer, and you’ll want to come back for more.
One thing I should mention is that The Old Absinthe House Blues is pretty different from regular Deadlands and Deadlands Reloaded adventures that I have played or red through in the past. This is not an adventure fraught with fast paced actions or shoot ‘em ups. Sure, there are times where combat is the answer (perhaps the only answer in fact), but The Old Absinthe House Blues has more in common with Call of Cthulhu adventures than the Weird West Deadlands is typically known for. There’s a lot of legwork, research, hobnobbing and persuading here. There is at least one point where the PCs will encounter an alien horror that defies understanding, and their best option is for flight over fight. Honestly, with a little bit of tweaking, you could actually make The Old Absinthe House Blues work as a 1920s/30s Call of Cthulhu affair, and it would still work wonderfully. I bring this up for two reasons. The first is this means The Old Absinthe House Blues is a wonderful way to introduce people to Savage Worlds or Deadlands who primarily play games like Chill, Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu or Gumshoe. There’s a strong crossover appeal, and it will help with the learning curve of the new system, as Deadlands has some very unique quirks that people tend to either really love or really hate, like the deck and chips mechanics. The other is that the slow pace of this adventure coupled with the more cerebral gameplay might be a turn-off to others, especially those who want a more traditional Deadlands adventure or something hack and slash based. Personally, I loved this adventure and found it to be exactly the sort I love to run/play, but then, my favorite games are Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun and Vampire: The Masquerade, so I’m not your typical Deadlands player.
The Old Absinthe House Blues should take between one and three sessions of a few hours, depending on the players progress. It’s a fairly linear adventure, but there is room for deviation and places where the authors suggest throwing in some of those Savage Tale side stories from the Deadland Noir core rulebook. It’s full of memorable characters and does a good job of combining the core theme of Deadlands proper with the grit and locales of a Noir setting. The adventure also sports some excellent art, some helpful handouts for players and some reference maps for the Marshall/Keeper/DM/GM/Whatever to use. The Old Absinthe House Blues is a solid affair from beginning to end, and it’s a great companion piece to the core Deadlands Noir campaign setting. The worst thing I can say about the adventure is that it’s priced a bit too high compared to its contemporaries, but even then you’ll get your money’s worth out of The Old Absinthe House Blues and then some. At this point, my biggest concern is whether or not Pinnacle can keep a string of high quality Deadlands Noir releases coming, and the speed at which they do it. After all, there’s so much potential in this setting and we’ve only got a single city locked down so far. So far the Deadlands Noir setting is two for two in terms of quality releases and I can’t wait to see what’s next.
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Originally published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/17/tabletop-review-hercyni
an-grimoire-vol-1-no-1castles-crusadeslabyrinth-lord/
So this was an interesting product I had to pick up. Hercynian Grimoire an irregular periodical covering Castles & Crusades but also includes Labyrinth Lord conversions for all new items, creatures and the like. There is absolutely no art in the piece to speak of and yet the issue has an extremely high price for the page count of ten dollars. The one-two punch of no art and sticker shock will no doubt keep a good portion of interested gamers away from this piece and I can’t blame them for that. However those that do pay the inflated cost will find a very well written collection of articles that will no doubt enhance your Castles & Crusades experience. Let’s take a look at what you get with this inaugural issue.
“Glowing Words” – a column by the main writer introducing the periodical. It also plugs the author’s upcoming Chronicles of Mhoriedh line. It’s short and sweet while conveying the tone and reason of the magazine.
“Gnolls – The Hyena Men” – this four page article is similar to the “Ecology of…” articles we used to see in TSR’s old Dragon magazine. It gives a description of the creature, racial abilities and the how Gnolls can be found in The Olden Lands (again, harkening back to the upcoming campaign setting) You’re also given stats, age categories and optional special abilities. It’s very well written and a great way to kick off the publication.
“Gnoles, the Mannish-Beasts” – a one page follow up to the previous column featuring human/Gnoll hybrids. Ick. It’s another well written piece but Gnoll on Human sex? What a terrible mental image.
“D66 Ferocious Fighters” – a three page table of random NPC fighters. I’ve never understood the point of randomized tables like these and never will.
“Spells Arcane and Occult –” an article about a single spell named “Alasadree’s Empowerment of the Ultranic Orb.” This spell has six different versions, ranging from healing to a orb based version of Tasha’s Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter” where you dance instead of cackle. It’s a very interesting spell but the problem is that it is listed as a Level One spell when the wide range of effects alone make that too powerful to be a potential “first ever spell” for a neophyte caste. Add in that each effect on their own is extremely powerful (wizards that can cast healing magic? That’s way too broken). This is the same author that wrote the completely unbalanced spells for Magificent Miscellaneum, so I’m not surprised that we’re got another article where the spells are overpowered and under-leveled. Interesting ideas, but utterly no sense of balance.
“Spell Songs of Salamacine” – three witch spells. One is a Level 4 spell, one is a Level 1 and one is a Level 2. The Level 4 spell, “Salamacine’s Malevolent Melody” is actually nicely balanced, which was a unexpected surprised. It’s basically a possession via remote control spell. “Motive Melody” is the Level 1 spell and allows a caste to animate one inanimate object per level plus an extra 1d6 to do simple, mundane tasks. Not a bad spell, but I’d excise the extra 1d6 as once again, it unbalances things.”Siren Song” is a Level 2 spell and it’s basically an enhanced Charm Person. It makes another balanced spell between power and casting level, so I was pretty happy with this article. It’s the first spell article between the two recent C&C publications I’ve reviewed where I haven’t wondered if the writer has his mages casting Wish as a fourth or fifth level spell.
“D66 Fairies and Nymphs” – another random chart, but this time it’s filled with fairies and nymphs instead of warriors. Blah. It also takes up a whopping SIX PAGES of the publication, which boggles my mind.
“Gnoll Encounter Table” – this keeps in with the theme of the first two articles and it’s a nicely laid out random encounter table. There are only two small problems. The first is that it probably should have been placed at the tail end of the two Gnoll based articles for a better flow of the magazine and the other is that the random chart talks about nine different maps without alluding where to find them or what the writer is talking about. My assumption is that these are maps that we will see in the forthcoming Chronicles of Mhoriedh campaign setting.
“Magical Miscellanea” – a one page article highlighting ten new magic items. They’re all interesting. Nothing you’ll want to base an adventure around, but also nothing that will break your game.
“Monstrous Menagerie” – This is a collection of various creatures and monsters to use against your players. There are three Hyena creatures, which I might have put as a separate article and moved towards the beginning of the Grimoire to keep all the related material together. You then get a set of ten “thunder beasts” which, again, I think could have had their own separate article instead of lumping this class of creatures and the hyenas into a single one.
“D666 Demonic and Devilish Traits” – a cute play on the D66 charts, but again, another chart of randomized bits no one really ever asks for or needs.
“D66 Underworld Oddities” – ANOTHER randomized chart. Sheesh.
“Olden Lands Preview: Alspadia” – this is most likely what will draw people to the Grimoire as it’s a sneak peak of the upcoming campaign setting the author has put together. It’s a very well done piece that reminds me of the excellent Ravenloft Gazetteers Sword & Sorcery put out in the 1990s. You get a nice amount of information of the cities, prominent locations and culture of Alspadia and it makes me want to learn more about the setting. Mission accomplished here.
“Olden Lands Preview: The Oldenwoods” – an article that is pretty similar to the previous one, but with a different location within the campaign setting. It’s only a page long but it’s also well done and serves its purpose here.
“Olden Lands Preview: The Blood God” – a third straight preview article about The Olden Lands, but this time it’s about a major deity rather than a location. It’s a pretty grim god, and the article gives you information about the hierarchy of its following along with information about how the deity conducts itself through its worshippers. A nice way to end the publication.
All in all, the first issue of Hercynian Grimoire is a fun one. Although I’d have reorganized things a bit and dropped all the random tables save for the Gnoll encounter one, this was a pretty strong first issue. I was happy to see the author did a better job with balancing spells than in his previous publication for Troll Lord Games, but I still think this is one area where his writing needs a bit of guidance. I loved the Olden Lands previews and the Gnoll articles and hope to see pieces like this will become the focus for future issues. At the end of the day I’m quite happy with the piece and wil;l be back for future issues, but price and art aren’t an issue for me. For everyone else, I have to give this a thumb’s in the middle due to the high cost (a better price point would probably be around five dollars – half of what is being charged here, especially with the lack of art) and the absence of any art. Still, a great first effort and I can’t wait to see what is next.
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