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As you’d expect if you’re familiar with LZW’s early “ground sets,” the basic offering here consists of a series of snow-covered tiles with a dirt path through each tile. The path patterns are a bit more varied and interesting than in most of the LZW ground sets, but what really sets this pack apart are the layer options. Using PDF layers, you can add in extra trees (both deciduous and evergreen), stones, and so forth. The 1" square grid is off by default, but you can turn it on with a click. One note of warning: when you turn a layer on or off, that choice affects all pages, so you’ll probably want to print your pages one at a time, customizing them to taste in between. LZW still needs a better English-speaking editor to clean up their introductions and instructions; otherwise, this is an excellent tile pack.
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This 24" x 32" map set presents a ruined temple or arcane campus of some sort, complete with a summoning circle and central courtyard (both shown in the cover art). It’s done in Alida Saxon’s signature impressionistic water-color style. There are almost two dozen distinct “rooms” on the map, giving you a small dungeon worthy of a night’s exploration.
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Some map products commend themselves as merely “useful.” Others—like this one—scream “Use me!” at the top of their lungs. Although I tend to prefer a more “realistic” style over Alida Saxon’s soft-edged watercolor-type style, I found my mind racing with story ideas and adventure hooks to get the players in my D&D campaign to visit this place. Small stone spires jut high above the clouds, and atop these are small lawns, dwellings, a statue, and mysterious standing stones. Just getting from one spire to another could pose a reasonable challenge for even mid-range PCs. “Above the Clouds” surely qualifies as my favorite Alida Saxon map to date (June 9, 2012). Like most Story Maps, the whole assembled map measures 24 x 32 inches, and features a square grid. My only concern is that the 8x8 tiles might get clipped on some printers, especially older printers requiring more than a quarter-inch margin.
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This track is creepy and aesthetically pleasing at the same time—an impressive combination. The melody line sounds just like it’s coming from an eerie music box, evoking all sorts of images of a haunted or otherwise corrupted nursery. This piece would make a great background score for a kids’ room in a haunted house, a creepy encounter in a toy store, or anything like that. The track loops well, though not quite seamlessly. The ID3 tags need to be cleaned up; I think this is one of Fishwife Games’s earlier releases, and they’re doing better with the ID3 tags in more recent pieces. Overall, I’d rate this as one of Woodrum’s stronger pieces.
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The jazzy saxophone riff that dominates this track is enjoyable enough, and pretty catchy, although quite simple and repetitive, almost minimalist. The crowd noise sound effects at the beginning and end of the track make the piece loop seamlessly, a major “pro” for background music. The crowd noise suggests to me a busy bar or diner, perhaps with live music sponsored by the establishment, or perhaps with the music provided by an independent musician playing outside for tips. I couldn’t really pick out the money or the guns (although the cops-and-jazz combo is a recognizable cliché of modern detective fiction). You could probably use this piece in a period game (think Call of Cthulhu) as well as a more modern setting, or even in an alien cantina. The ID3 tags need to be cleaned up; I think this is one of Fishwife Games’s earlier releases, and they’re doing better with the ID3 tags in more recent pieces.
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Wow, this map is huge—60" wide by 40" tall when fully assembled! A relatively thin, rather precarious ice bridge spans a cold (but not frozen-over) river flowing by what appears to be a keep entrance. Just about any fantasy RPG could easily lead to an encounter in such a place, whether you’re using the Illfrost setting (which I know nothing about, outside of the maps) or not. In fact, just a slight trimming of the map or slight redefinition of the player’s perceptions could adjust the map enough to be used for modern games as well as fantasy—think of an expedition to Antarctic mountains of madness and the like. This could even be an alien planetscape on a largely frozen world. The map has enormous flexibility and great story potential, as well as excellent replay value. It could easily serve as a set-piece for many encounters on the edge of a snowbound/icebound village or keep. The artwork does take up the entire page, though the pages are tiled with overlap, so you shouldn’t run into any difficulty unless you’re using an older inkjet printer that leaves a generous white margin on the edges of the printed page. I didn’t go all the way to five stars for this map for one reason only: the grid sits “below” the upper plateau on all sides of the map, which makes it hard to use those regions of the map for miniatures-scale combat that assumes a square grid (D&D, Pathfinder).
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This nice addition to the Fantastic Maps line features, as you surely know, a nice large sailing ship. When fully assembled, the map measures 40" square, although the ship itself only requires 18" or so at its widest point. The extra space to port and starboard gives you plenty of room to bring in ships from other products, perhaps mounted on posterboard, cardboard, or foam board, to stage naval combat at the 1" miniatures scale. Quite a few such ships can be had nowadays in the printable map market. Jonathan Roberts’s great innovation in this product is to include very light, nearly transparent renderings of the sails, which many similar products simply omit. The pages bleed all the way to the edge, but they’re tiled. Most modern inkjet printers will handle them fine, but you may run into problems if your printer leaves more than a 1/4" margin on each side.
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A small semi-permanent sentry post sits by a cold (but not frozen) river in this substantial map. The post’s fire still burns, but two of the five buildings have been damaged. Is that normal for this post, or have they recently suffered some sort of attack? This map offers multiple story possibilities. The PCs might be confronted by the sentries as they ride or row into range, the PCs might be sent to the encampment to search for the missing sentries, or perhaps the PCs might even be employed as sentries at this post for a time. Jonathan Roberts’s signature hand-drawn style is on display here, executing a design by Don Pritchett for his Illfrost setting. You don’t need the Illfrost setting to use this map well, however; you just need a cold climate. Like all of the Illfrost map packs, the artwork fills the entire sheet of paper, and the pages are tiled with a small amount of overlap. You don’t need a full-bleed printer to use this product, though you may run into slight difficulties if you have an older inkjet printer that leaves a 1/4"–1/2" white margin on each side.
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This large map done in Jonathan Robert’s signature hand-drawn style turns out to be one of those printable maps that would benefit a lot from a key or a page of explanatory text. The temple, designed by Don Pritchett for his Illfrost setting, has several features that I don’t quite understand. I know nothing about the Illfrost setting that I haven’t gathered from Roberts’s maps, but apparently real estate is pretty cheap there, for the architecture of this temple seems rather inefficient, with lots of unused space. I don’t really understand the furnishings of the entry hall. What are those crates, barrels, and bundles doing in that space? What are those long rectangular things? From the interior shadows, they appear to be troughs, but if so, why are they there? Is that a fire burning in the middle of the entry hall? And why are there nine small (wooden?) poles standing upright in one corner? A map product that suggests interesting story elements usually excites me; unfortunately, this one confuses. The spiral staircase leading to another level—not included in this product—annoys me a little. Still, this map pack is a worthwhile purchase if you’re adventuring in Illfrost, or any setting where you want a small dungeon complex with ritual overtones. Like all of the Illfrost map packs, the artwork fills the entire sheet of paper, and the pages are tiled with a small amount of overlap. You don’t need a full-bleed printer to use this product, though you may run into slight difficulties if you have an older inkjet printer that leaves a 1/4"–1/2" white margin on each side.
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This collection of “three plus one” brief adventures for one or two Villains & Vigilantes player-heroes hums with the classic V&V vibe. Don’t be confused by the term “solo adventures,” used on the front cover; these aren’t adventures you play without a GM, but adventures suitable for a lone superhero. If you’re interested in these as a player rather than a GM, you shouldn’t read the rest of this review, as spoilers lie ahead!
The first adventure, “No Crime Like the Present,” is the least satisfying of the three. One encounter (plus aftermath) constitutes the whole adventure. The city planetarium makes a wonderful set-piece for the adventure, and the scenario includes some fun and memorable non-powered NPCs. However, the main villain’s name, Miz Happ, features a pun that falls a bit flat when you’re speaking instead of reading; more importantly, Miz Happ’s motivation is left vague, and seems to be simple greed, in which case her target seems ridiculously mis-chosen (how is she going to fence stolen meteorites)?
The second scenario, “Survival of the Fittest,” transpires mainly on a golf course. It introduces two super-powered NPCs who could become regular guests in an ongoing campaign. I particularly like Contender’s shtick (a super-powered protection racket), and Ilk provides a great link into the V&V adventure “Escape from the Micro-Universe.”
The third adventure, “True Believer,” features another interesting villain, Pioneer, although his shtick is different from Contender’s. The scenario believably brings together two or three villains that otherwise wouldn’t likely be involved in the same fight. Before you use “True Believer” and “Survival of the Fittest” in the same campaign, however, decide carefully whether you want to include multiple instances of “apparent heroes who are really villains.” The player-heroes might get too suspicious to trust any truly heroic NPCs.
I don’t quite understand the names of the adventures. The planetarium heist in “No Crime Like the Present” seems to have nothing to do with time; “Survival of the Fittest” could perhaps apply generically to any fight, and the confrontation is potentially lethal, I guess; and “True Believer” doesn’t have any kind of religious overtones or even “(dis)believable” illusions in it. What’s up with that? Also, some of the villains seem to have come out of a random generator, which is classic V&V but comes off feeling odd. The villain write-ups leave a lot of unanswered questions. The most nagging of these surround the villain Scrimmage, in “True Believer”; he has a devitalization ray that is never really explained, either in his origin or in terms of special effects, or even how he projects it. Some GMs will enjoy filling in these blanks; personally, I’d rather have more information provided in the adventure itself.
The fourth, brief encounter introduces yet another useful NPC, a photojournalist with insidious powers of his own. He could make a great recurring antagonist for the player-heroes in an ongoing campaign.
Overall, I generally like these scenarios, and this format. The single-encounter or mini-adventure format provides a great vehicle for introducing interesting villains and NPCs, much better than a simple roster book like Most Wanted. James Bishop’s black-and-white interior artwork and color figure flats are reasonably good, though not up to Jeff Dee quality. In the end, Always Outnumbered isn’t quite a must-have, but it’s a very good resource for a V&V gamemaster running games for one or two player-heroes, and the scenarios are easily adapted to other superhero game systems (just restat the villains and you’re good to go).
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The One Ring is a lovingly crafted, beautifully executed RPG set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. Anyone who is a fan of both Middle-Earth and RPGs should find the game compelling, and it’s a good gateway from one love to the other, especially for Tolkien fans who aren’t already gamers.
The TOR core set comes in two books, the Adventurer’s Book (about 190 pp.) and the Loremaster’s Book (around 145 pp.). The Adventurer’s Book contains all the rules for task resolution and character creation, as well as a small selection of pregenerated characters. Each “Player-Hero” is defined statistically by three attributes—Body, Heart, and Wits—plus ratings in Valour, Wisdom, Endurance, and Hope, as well as levels in a selection of eighteen skills. The skills are cleverly arranged into six skill groups, each containing three skills corresponding to the three attributes. For example, the personality skills group includes Awe (linked to Body), Inspire (linked to Heart), and Persuade (linked to Wits). Some of the skills, such as Riddle, might seem a little “corner-case” at first to role-players with experience in other systems, but they fit the setting very well.
Each Player-Hero comes from a specific culture and follows a specific calling, as befits Middle-Earth. Emphasizing cultures rather than races allows the game to easily model differences between, say, the Men of Dale and the Woodmen of the forest. Cultures provide various blessings and proficiencies at character creation and during character advancement. As Player-Heroes advance, they can improve in Wisdom and Valour, and they gain Rewards or Virtues depending on which of Wisdom and Valour they choose to emphasize.
Since most of my role-playing experience is with “roll plus modifiers” systems, it took me just a little while to adjust to TOR’s action resolution system. Player-Heroes can propose “tasks” and Loremasters can require “tests,” but both are resolved the same way: the player rolls a “feat die” (a special d12) and variable number of success dice, comparing the total to a Target Number. TOR does not use character levels, so there’s just one set of TNs to learn. This bringsus the biggest drawback to buying this TOR in PDF form: the game assumes the use of specially-printed dice. The feat die included with the print version ofthe game is numbered 1–10, with the remaining two faces bearing an symbol representing Sauron’s eye (replacing the 11) and a G (for Gandalf) rune (replacing the 12). A roll of “Sauron” is an automatic failure for Player-Heroes, while a roll of “Gandalf” is an auto-success. The success dice are special d6s, with the numbers 1–3 printed in outline and the 6 face bearing an additional symbol, the Tengwar numeral 1. All of the variations have special meanings in judging an action’s success. Combat (which requires tactical decisions, but notprecise tactical positioning or miniatures/counters) is resolved using the same system; armor and other benefits protect you by affecting the opponents’ target numbers.
The Loremaster’s Book provides everything the Loremaster needs to know about creating and running adventures for TOR, including a small selection of monstrous adversaries (with the predictable and appropriate orcs, wolves, and spiders). The default timeline for the Player-Heroes’ adventures begins five years after the Battle of Five Armies, and the default geography is Wilderland (the northern part of Middle-Earth), giving the Loremaster plenty of time and space to create an imaginative Tale of Years without stepping on the toes of the established timeline of the War of the Ring. The Loremaster’s Book closes with an introductory adventure carefully designed to expose players to all of the key mechanics, introduce the Player-Heroes to some famous personages, and help the players appreciate the ethos of Middle-Earth.
I’ll close this somewhat lengthy review with a comment on that final point about the ethos of Midle-Earth. The One Ring beats in perfect time with the heart of Middle-Earth; it wonderfully instantiates Tolkien’s moral vision for Middle-Earth’s inhabitants. The threat of Shadow and the promise of Hope are ever-present. Upon finishing my first read through the PDFs that I received as review copies, I purchased the printed game—a rare occurrence for me. Buy and play The One Ring. You won’t regret it.
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As someone whose main role-playing outlet is DMing D&D 4e, I found Kobold Quarterly 21 to be a bit thin on good material. As someone whose day job is on a university’s religion faculty, I was fascinated by the varied treatments of divine magic in this issue and the varied ways of translating ideas about divine magic and faith into game mechanics.
Although “Daughters of Lilith: Ecology of the Succubus” is marked as a 4e article, it’s mostly free of game mechanics—and thus equally appropriate for any fantasy RPG that includes succubi—until the very end. Zeb Cook’s article on mystery religions is completely systemless, and very useful. Tim and Eileen Connors’ article on “Clerical Conflicts” employs a lot of Pathfinder crunch, but has a lot of story elements too that could easily be ported over to 4e or other systems. Steve Winter’s column asks “Why No Monotheism?” is pretty short, and actually spends more time answering the titular question than providing any hints for GMs wishing to run monotheistic settings (the advice occupies basically the final column of the two-page article). I enjoyed the interview with Bill Slavicsek. The “Scriveners of Allain” article, though 4e in mechanics, didn’t light my fire; the Pathfinder article presenting the witch louse was much more engaging (though somewhat disgusting).
Kobold Quarterly is always a mixed bag, unless you play several different game systems or are willing to put in the extra work to convert other crunch to your favorite system. If you’re strictly looking for material for just one system, I’d say this issue is worthwhile for Pathfinder, less so for 4e. If you’re up for mining articles written for a different system than the one you usually play or run, KQ 21 is a worthy entry in the series.
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I’d say this track definitely has more of the “happily” than “depressed” in it. It’s very bouncy, almost bubbly. Even the slower interlude in the middle feels more peaceful than depressed. It’s not a bad choice to loop this for fifteen minutes or so when you have the after-lunch sleepies just to pep up a little bit. For use at the gaming table, you’ll want a scene in your story where everything is pretty much happy-go-lucky. My only serious complaint about the track is that it doesn’t loop well at all, both because of the slide-in/slide-out and a couple of seconds of silence at the end. An updated version with better population of the ID3 tags would be nice to. Although by my usual calculus this track ought probably to receive three stars, I went ahead with four just because the track makes me feel good.
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This piece might serve well to score a modern or sci-fi role-playing scene where there isn’t really any immediate danger, but you still want to infuse a bit of intensity and maybe a bit of urgency. It doesn’t quite have the feel of a “race against time,” but it does give you the sense that things are moving along at a decent clip. On the down side, the low-pitched, indistinct vocals—almost a growl—at the beginning of the track seem distracting to me, there’s an electronic pulse throughout much of the piece that’s a bit too intense, and the track doesn’t loop well at all. This offering predates some of the ID3 tag improvements Fishwife Games employed later on. For both quality and usefulness, this track falls somewhere in the middle range of Fishwife Games’s musical offerings.
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This track has enough variety to avoid tedium, but not so much that the changes are distracting. For the most part, it’s fairly minimalist in instrumentation, and—no doubt I’m influenced by the title here—puts me in mind of an alien world where advanced technology and tribal societal structures work hand in hand. The track doesn’t seem to be designed for looping, but it does begin and end gracefully enough that looping it won’t be disruptive. The ID3 tags need to be cleaned up; only the title field is populated, and it shouldn’t have all those underscores in it. Otherwise, this piece is a good addition to your musical library for scoring sci-fi role-playing scenes, especially when the PCs are out of their element.
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