Today I think it’s funny how leery I was of Fourth Edition. I like to think that my reviews have gotten better, more substantial, but perhaps I’m undervaluing these kinds of first impressions.
Recovered: Nitpicking and Reviews
I’ve accumulated a fair bit of gaming material that I’m only just now getting the chance to more closely examine and sort through. Here are some of my thoughts, opinions, impressions, and notes. I’ll do my best not to pick at every typo and mess-up, though it goes against my nature.
Left-to-right, top-to-bottom: Lamentations of the Flame Princess (with tiny dice), The Magnificent Joop van Ooms, Thrilling Locations, Monstercology: Orcs, DM Campaign Record
The Bloodmoon Goblins by John Grana
One of the first Kickstarter projects I backed, it was finally released (a little more than a year late) last month. Despite my annoyance at its delay, it seems like a solid product. Some of my players have expressed interest in playing goblins, so I may give it a try.
- The lack of “splat” is surprisingly pleasing. I suppose I’ve just gotten used to ignoring lists of feats and spells.
- The book keeps an informal tone, but restricts actual joking to frequent sidebars. This distinction pleases me.
- It takes a decidedly old-school approach to the campaign, in that it starts off more controlled (“The king says to do this”) but the end-game is ultimately player-driven (“We want to overthrow the king”,“We want to establish trade relations with…”, etc.).
The Bloodmoon Goblins can be purchased at DriveThru RPG for $4.99 (free sample at same).
Monstercology: Orcs by Rick Maffei
Of all the 4E stuff I got, this book looked the most approachable (I know very little about 4E). It’s basically what it says on the tin: a book about orcs. Unfortunately, most of the fluff (not all) falls flat and the crunch is too system-specific for me.
- “Physiology and Habits” is the best of the fluff to me. I may make some notes on this section before inevitably passing it on.
- “Relationships with Other Races” is something I hadn’t considered before. Most of this I don’t care for, but I like the Orc-Drow dynamic.
- I don’t think it was necessary to make four subspecies of orc and three new cross-breeds. I just can’t justify it.
- The table “Pocket Items” (p. 43) was almost reason enough to keep the book. Upon further investigation the Flask Subtable does not have anything alcoholic.
- The names of orcish deities are occasionally confused: I’m tempted to let it slide, but I take it as an indication that they were becoming bland and indistinguishable even to the author.
Monstercology: Orcs can no longer be purchased from the Goodman Games Store, but it is on DriveThru RPG for $8.99.
DM Campaign Record
Another pull from the grab-bag, and also technically a 4E supplement, but it seems pretty system-neutral.
- Pretty good coverage of what I’d want to keep track of: calendars, major NPCs, character stats, deaths, custom encounter tables, house rules, etc. and also what books are allowed.
- Does not have any pre-compiled content, which is something I’ve taken a liking to.
- Has one of those aforementioned pickpocket tables, with a target social-class subsystem. Handily, this system is also used in the quick NPC features section.
- Has one of those tavern name tables. Probably not the most useful of things.
- Is missing credits for Interior Art, Graphic Design, and tellingly, Proofreader.
- Although its a 4E product, it still has the OGL in the back, and the text of it refers to “Character Codex” (a different Goodman Games product).
Then again, this was from a grab bag, so it’s possibly a reject of some sort.
Thrilling Locations: A Supplement for the James Bond 007 Game
Contains rules for playing in casinos, hotels, restaurants, trains, boats, planes, and airports, as well as floor-plans for major locations in the movies. I will confess to not only having no familiarity with the system, but also to not having watched very much James Bond.
- Information overload. Some of these things really could have been left out:
- Population of Monaco, pros and cons of citizenship (p.14-15).
- Rules for roulette, baccarat, blackjack, etc. (p. 19-22).
- Great Hotels of the World (p. 44-45)
- Great Restaurants of the World (p. 65).
- It’s unclear to me if this is intended for the players or the GM. Most of it is clearly GM-only, such as who is secretly spying for who, and whether or not the wine is poisoned. But, for example “The Bed’s Too Small” (a sub-section of “Notes for the Gamemaster” (p. 47-48)) contains two pages of tricks that players may wish to employ in securing their rooms. Many of them are not at all obvious to the player, so I don’t see what use a GM would have for them.
- It’s unclear to me what this is: sometimes it reads like a set of pre-written unlinked encounters, sometimes like vicarious fiction about the life of luxury, sometimes like a leaflet from the board of tourism, sometimes like the CIA World Factbook, and sometimes like the toolbox I’d kind of expected.
- The system has some wonky separation of character and role, which makes it difficult for me to follow what’s meant to be happening sometimes.
Now that I’ve written all that, it occurs to me that this was probably not a great purchase. I bought my copy of Thrilling Locations from Paizo.
Let’s Read the AD&D 2E Monstrous Manual
This is one of the best things I have paid no money for. I can’t possibly begin to communicate the number of ideas I’ve gotten from it, or the amount of time I’ve spent reading it (I’m still only in “G”). Whoever linked it to me, I hate you forever and thank you so much.
- My only regret is the occasional dead link, usually to a picture. I suppose I’ll have to go actually acquire a copy of the Monstrous Manual, but then I’m not sure I could call this a free product anymore, because this is the only reason I would buy it for money.
- When I eventually finish, it might be amusing to go back through and tabulate the creatures with usable corpses or valuable eggs or some other recurring theme.
The threads are consolidated here, and formatted and indexed in a PDF here. The author, noisms, has an blog, and this blog informs us that one of the contributors also publishes stuff on Paizo’s website as Demiurge Press.
This post was first shared January 6, 2013. It originally also reviewed Lamentations of the Flame Princess and The Magnificent Joop van Ooms by James Edward Raggi IV and Vornheim: The Complete City Kit by Zak S. Although it was fun to revisit my initial impressions, I think it’s worth revisiting the niche of LotFP with more perspective, perhaps in its own post. (I likely will not revisit Vornheim at all.)