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| Book 'Em! |
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| Average Rating:3.3 / 5 |
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This was a surprisingly good little GM's aid for running an investigation of criminal acts your players may commit. It's quick and relatively easy to understand. Intended for modern RPG's (say anything from roughly 1900 on up; though clearly weighted towards the post-WWII world), it provides some quick guidance on how the GM can "rate" the local police department in terms of its ability to solve crimes. While this is a D20 type supplement, it should be relatively easy to convert to other systems, though a little guidance on how the authors thought that might work would have been nice. There are some holes in the document -- for example, not giving much in the way of understanding how a forensics system works, and so on. While some of that you may be able to extract from shows like CSI, it still would have been nice had a little more information been included in this supplement. Additionally, while some examples (and a "set-up" for a narrative event) were provided, the authors probably need to provide a few more examples (as well as some quick examples on how to convert the system to something besides D20) and should have continued the narrative story by using it to create examples for each step of the process (e.g., "the Players killed the four goons in a bad section of town, very near the freight yard, which is a notorious crime area; this results in the following adjustments to the DC for the police..."). Concrete examples are always helpful when explaining a new process to your audience. Still, there's a lot of information and ideas packed into eleven pages (one of which is the typical D&D spin-off type legal disclaimers necessitated by Gary Gygax's long-ago legal pursuit of all things that could be even vaguely perceived as infringing on his self-perceived right to control all Role-Playing Games everywhere), and which even includes a handy form the DM can print and use to fill out and track the information for a particular police department. Overall, I'll give it a four simply because it needs to be converted to use with any other system, and because they lost a couple of opportunities to make it much more clear to the casual reader (especially one, like me, that hasn't looked at a D20 system in 20 years)
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thank you very much for the review!
As I have said, I take every review to heart and listen to the feedback to improve my products. You raised a couple of interesting points. The idea of continuing the example all the way through the process is a good one, and one that had been part of the original intention. I edited most of it out in the interest of keeping down the page-count. I think, however, that it is a good idea for the next revision.
The other point you brought up is that I used a d20 game mechanic throughout the product. I do understand that not everybody plays the d20 system, so the book really is designed as a stand-alone system. The basics of the d20 core rule (roll a d20 add your appropriate modifiers and try to beat a target number) is described. There are a couple of reasons for that; first, the mechanic is simple enough to understand and implement, and secondly the d20 system is the only one that is free and clear to publish material for! I will more than likely put a sidebar into the next revision to give GMs ideas on how to incorporate player attempts to hide their endeavors without resorting to a d20 mechanic.
You also brought up that there was no basic description of forensics. First off, that isn't the point of this book....that's gonna be an entire other product, and it's already on the schedule for this year! That and there is certainly not enough room in this book to even give a cursory look at the huge forensics field!
Thanks again, and look forward to the revision sometime this fall at the latest.
Mark Thyme |
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A brief system of determining the outcome of any police investigation against player characters in an RPG. Various elements of the investigating body and nature of the unlawful act are consulted to get a final difficulty number. While the product lists itself as being for D20 Modern, there is very little system-specific information here, so it could easily be used with any modern RPG (or even with other genres, with a bit of modification).
If you're the type of GM who would rather have a system for such a thing, this one should work fairly well.
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thank you, Mr. Walton, for the fantastic review!
Part of the design paradigm for this product was to make it usable in nearly any modern day (or near-modern, or even pre- or post-modern) setting. It was also written with the idea that it can be used for nearly any game system with no needed conversion. All of the relevant rules for making the proper rolls and checks are included in the document, so no other rulebooks or conversions are required.
While many GMs might not find a need for this product, many might at one time or another. I found the need to create this system for my own campaign; I found myself in a situation where I couldn't make an objective decision as to how things were to play out. So I made this system to take care of the decision making impasse. Now, I can use the outcomes as springboards for new adventures, or spice up certain encounters based on the results I get.
All in all, I find it a useful tool, and that was what I tried to present for other GMs' use. It may be of limited use, but then the pricepoint was chosen to reflect that limited utility.
Again, than you for the review! I use all of them to help me make better products.
Mark Thyme |
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Found this vert helpful in establishing a consistent approach to lawenforcement and lawbreaking. Within the set of variables it allowed/reminded me that police are peole too so the party has grown in one campaign to curse a certain inspector or to apply variuos diversonary actions. For the price it's a very reasonable buy...Tim.
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thank you for the review!
The goal of this product is to make the GM's life easier. All of our planned GM aides are being worked on with this same paradigm in mind.
Just so you know, this is already the second version of this product. I took the critique of the first reviewer to heart, re-examined the original and found where I had gone wrong with some of my math. I fixed it, and re-issued it, and also sent out coupons for free download of the updated piece to all those customers whose settings allowed me to do so.
This is one of my many goals with MGDB. If I ever update a product, all customers who purchased the previous version will receive the updated copy for free!
To continue with this I will use any and all reviews to keep me appraised of the perceived problems in any of our products. Even if we play-test everything to death, there will always be issues that our play-testers don't see or anticipate, and even if I can't pump out a huge number of products every year, I certainly want to make sure that all of my products are of top quality.
Thanks again for the review! It was most welcome.
Mark Thyme |
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I really wanted to like this product. I tend to run games where the local constabulary is part of the game world, and are competent enough to catch most career criminals, so it's not rare for my players to have a brush or two before wising up, or the police to end up going after players who habitually offend.
So I bought it mostly for the ideas, and I bumped it up to two stars because some of the ideas were solid. The suggested system , unfortunately, probably should earn it 1 star.
The more competent the investigators, the "quicker" the investigation takes, ranging from 3d10 *weeks* for an incompetent group to 1d4 weeks for an excellent one.
The problem is this isn't when the investigation will successfully conclude, but the time limit for the police completing the two skill checks leading to an arrest. Given that a success greater than 5 but less than 10 further reduces the time remaining by 3 weeks, an excellent investigative group can easily succeed themselves into dropping the whole case after a single week!
The idea is fairly interesting, but the rules as written result in a confusing mess. This is a shame as the book really is fairly well written. The nicest part is the book closes on a very well-done worksheet and a DMs "cheat sheet," with the excellent suggestion to print both out and bind them back-to-back in Contac paper. An excellent idea that unfortunately doesn't save a flawed system.
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Publisher Reply: |
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Jeffery,
I'd like to thank you for the concise and honest review. I will take a very close look at the various bits of math involved and see where things went afoul. If the product can be improved (and it would seem that you, at least, think it can) then it will be. Again, thank you. I will be in further touch when the time comes.
Mark Thyme |
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