Today we want to express our huge thanks to Massimiliano Haematinon Nigro for having sent us a physical review copy of Fragments of the Past Collector’s Edition. After one year and a half since we published our preview, we now have the pleasure of speaking about the complete game. First of all Fragments of the Past is a world. It is a vast setting described mostly through evocative literary fragments and magnificent illustrations, in a series of wonderful books. On the official website it is possible to find both the aforementioned volumes and the object of our review, the Fragments of the Past roleplaying game. This world is an alternative version of the MediterraneanBronze Age born from the imagination of Massimiliano Haematinon Nigro, where the stories of peoples, heroes and gods unravel a new geography.
The products currently available on the site are:
The Narrative Artbook, a collection of myths, drawings, artefacts, poems and stories from the ancient continent of Askedoria. 100 pages and more than 50 illustrations on habits and customs, men and gods, artifacts and talismans. Through dozens of fragments, readers will be able to rediscover the taste of ancient tales, a source of inspiration and a mine of information to experience even more intensely the fierce world of Fragments of the Past.
TheDesign Works, a book that shows the creative process of worldbuilding along with the support of the community; excellent “behind the scenes” of this work.
The Fragments of the PastRoleplaying Game, subject of our review.
The free Quickstart for everyone who wants to take a look at the product. Made with great quality, it gives a good idea of the tone and content but does not give justice to the wonderful final result.
The Complete Indie Nature of the Project
I had the fortune and the pleasure to closely follow the development of Fragments of the Past, from when it was supposed to be the subject of a Kickstarter campaign up to its current version. For the author, Fragments of the Past represents so much and he has tried with all his determination to find the best way to share his vision with the world. Firmly intending not to make any kind of compromise, he rejected various possibilities that should have watered down his ideas. So in the end, after a long search, he came up with a completely independent solution: the printing and delivery of the book was entrusted to Lulu, a print-on-demand site.Fragments of the Past is exactly the book Massimiliano wanted, with its paper weight, color palette, layout and contents that he had thought of. And there’s nothing to do but be grateful for it.
Not having compromises also means not looking for excuses or shortcuts to lower prices. The basic version of the manual costs €19.90 in digital format and €54.99 in physical A4 format. The Collector’s Edition, of which I will explain the differences later on, costs €24.90 and €69.99 respectively in the two formats. These are certainly above average prices, as is the quality compared to various other products. Not every other product, I certainly don’t want to celebrate this work beyond its merits. However, it must be said that in addition to a role-playing game, you are buying a real artbook by an artist of the highest level, Massimiliano Haematinon Nigro.
Yes, always him. Massimiliano is the author, worldbuilder and illustrator of the game. He is its father, soul and lover. Luckily for us a non-jealous lover.
Core Version and Collector’s Edition
Before going into the details of this review of Fragments of the Past, I would like to analyze the differences between the two versions, to better guide the choice.
The core version comprises 187 richly illustrated full-color pages that include an introduction to the themes, world, geography and history of the continent of Askedoria, and a discussion about its gods and religions. The setting ends with a chapter dedicated to the events and traditions of the main peoples. Then the real roleplaying game part begins, with the creation of the characters and the rules. In the end we find a section dedicated to the Narrator and an introductory adventure, the same of the quickstart. The manual closes with a handy summary of the rules and a glossary. This book also contains further fragments which ideally continue the fragmented lore of the Narrative Artbook.
The Collector’s Edition is embellished both in terms of content and materials. There are ten additional pages on civilizations, two extra fragments, a dust jacket with an original illustration that protects a blue cloth cover engraved with golden letters.
But no matter which version you choose, it’s still hard to be disappointed.
Review of the Art of Fragments of the Past
Massimiliano Haematinon Nigro is an artist far beyond Fragments of the Past. He is a creative designer by profession whose fields of work range from gaming to cinema. He has great experience and an enormous talent on his side, not only in my humble and amateur opinion. It is therefore almost superfluous for me to write how absolutely stunning the quality of the art is. Fortunately, it is possible to view a large number of his works concerning Fragments of the Past on the internet. From the project site to its ArtStation page to the quickstart of the game, it is already possible to get an excellent idea of the artistic level offered.
I can only add that having the complete physical product in your hands and browsing through the pages it is truly a pleasure from every point of view. All the wonderful double-page landscapes, the evocative character designs and the realistic objects. The latter, together with the fragments, almost give the idea of being in front of a real history book or archeology treatise and contribute enormously to the attractiveness of the product.
The layout is beautiful, clear, with a clever use of blue both for the bolding of the main concepts in the mechanics part and for the creation of artistic text boxes. It’s also really nice how the layout gives space to art. Illustrations and content are equally important and equally exalted in a skilful combination.
The Manual That Is not a Manual
The Fragments of the Past manual is not your typical RPG handbook. As I’ve already mentioned when talking about art, one gets the feeling that it’s more of a book of another genre. If the illustrations turn the perception towards an archeology treatise, the narrative style leads the reader to a completely different direction. While not completely betraying the descriptive and didactic approach of a RPG manual, game concepts are included in broader discourses, sometimes without an indicative title. This detail also represents a limitation. A more analytical procedure would facilitate the consultation and retrieval of notions.
But I found this choice romantically fascinating. Fragments of the Past is de facto composed of fragments. Visual, literary, conceptual. It is something that cannot be studied in detail or completely. It is something that must be embraced, discovered and perceived in its essence. Then the empty spaces left by these fragments must be filled with the breaths full of passion that will come out from our desire to live in that world and that will make it unique. A similar treatment must be reserved for the system which, as we shall see, is far from detailed and complete.
Even the notions about the setting are not always presented in the classic way. Some information are evoked in the midst of other concepts, as if they came out spontaneously during a narration in front of a fire on a summer night under a starry sky. Like we all learned the geography and history of Middle-Earth before atlases and manuals came out: through the fragments that Tolkien gave us in his books and stories.
Review of the Setting of Fragments of the Past
You don’t need to know every corner of Askedoria to play. Immerse yourself in this great sea and decide freely what to take and what not. Both those who swim on its blue surface and those who descend into its dark depths will find the treasures they seek.
The manual dedicates 55 pages to the setting, including illustrations. In this relatively small space it tries to geographically describe an entire continent, its peoples, gods, customs and history. It is obviously impossible to think that the texts are detailed. Brushstrokes are provided that serve to direct the reader’s mind and imagination. Since the manual is already almost a synthetic summary of innumerable notions, it is difficult for me to condense them even further and give an idea of the contents in a few lines.
I therefore prefer to try to communicate the meaning of what is written. The world that is presented is not a “copy, mix and paste” of the ancient peoples of the Mediterranean. It’s not a reskin. Obviously the elements cannot be completely invented all from scratch. But I assure you that delving into the pages of Fragments of the Past gives the impression of discovering new peoples and cultures that have emerged from some revolutionary archaeo-anthropological study.
Etoi and Iskuzai
The two cultures, the two peoples that are most thoroughly explored are the Etoi and the Iskuzai.
The former are a mysterious people of the sea who have come from far away. They brought faith in Twelve Gods and many noble arts to the continent of Askedoria. They founded kingdoms governed by important cities. These cities are ruled by an alliance of matriarchal political-religious communities called Tiasi.
Subsequently the Iskuzai arrived, a superstitious people, lovers of war and poetry, capable of absorbing the culture of the civilizations with which they come into contact. They revere the Double-Crested Panther and under the guidance of the great King Auleus, the Cartographer, they came into contact and then warred with the Etoi. From this encounter-clash, a cultural mingling and an explosion of stories, myths, situations and narrative ideas are born.
These two peoples are described with originality and mastery in countless aspects. Social structure, rituals, religion, beliefs, customs, history, organization, mentality. The picture presented, albeit synthetic, is profound and, most important, consistent.
Obviously Etoi and Iskuzai are not the only peoples of Askedoria. the ancient Agrauran, builders of underground necropolises, the cultured Molubdenoi, wise prince-merchants, the audacious Hattusas, navigators of the most insidious waves and the Kokhlidoi, embalmers and worshipers of the stars, fill the kaleidoscopic fresco of Fragments of the Past.
Gods and Divine
The world of Fragments of the Past is rich in the Divine. One of the tenets of the game states that “everything is divine”. I think it is important to underline this aspect: we are not talking about a game where gods like Zeus or Ares walk the earth or directly influence events. Nor is the magic present irrefutably. There are neither fireballs nor lightning bolts fired from the fingers of spellcasters. But lightning is a manifestation of the divine. As well as the wind, the growing crops or a famine.
Magical and Divine are present at the gaming table, for the players and the game master. But narratively the men and women of Askedoria, even the great sages or heroes, are very similar to our ancestors of ancient times. They see the divine in every manifestation of nature whose power or mystery is beyond their rational understanding. Consequently, each event can be enriched with symbolism, interpretations, meanings, which will amplify the narration and take it to epic levels. Or tragic ones, as we shall see.
Fragments of the Past is more than a collection of mysterious rituals and bloody legends, it’s an emotion: wonder and nostalgia for the fierce beauty of the archaic past.
Review of the Ruleset of Fragments of the Past
I left the analysis of the Fragments of the Past game system at the end of the article. I had so many things to say that I had to make choices after all! This paragraph is so near the conclusion because I found the system to be one of the least important aspects of the game. Don’t get me wrong, the system is essential to play and its absolute value in the success of each product should certainly not be underestimated. But Fragments of the Past is so full of epic power and passion that the emphasis should not be placed on the system, but on the narrative and the emotions it gives in recreating a type of story that has always touched the hearts of mankind.
This is why we are talking about an incredibly light and not very detailed ruleset, sometimes too much fragmented. Basically, the d100 is rolled with the aim of obtaining a lower result than the reference characteristic. There are four of them: Soma, Sarx, Psyche and Pneuma, more or less related to Body, Charisma, Wit and Divine. All checks fall into those categories except Voluntas (Willpower), Fortuna (Luck), and Hybris (Hubris) which are managed through a d10 and which are stackable/consumable resources with various effects. Where the Voluntas facilitates successes and Fortuna avoids harmful consequences, the accumulation of Hybris leads to the occurrence of misfortunes or ever greater difficulties.
But consider that the system only occupies 12 pages, examples included. There are a few other rules but very impacting the narrative, such as Blessings and Curses or Talismans.
Combat
Then there’s the combat, so light it’s almost narrative, yet highly deadly. Fragments of the Past does not satisfy lovers of grids and options, nor those who seek perfect balanced simulations. It’s a game of stories and passions and you have to be ready to pass over unregulated situations.
Weapons do fixed damage, which increases on localized hits, but there are no rules for locating attacks. The fight follows the flow of the narrative and lives in the theater of the minds. There must be a good harmony at the table and the awareness that you don’t play to make critical hits decapitating heads with every roll of the dice, even if it would be possible describing it. On the other hand, the high mortality is given both by the high risk that fatigue leads to a rapid worsening of the attributes (and therefore of the success of the shots), but above all by the fact that the fighting tests are based on Soma. But Soma also represents the characters’ hit points, so taking wounds brings you closer to death and significantly worsens your ability to fight.
In fact another cornerstone of the game is that “Life is splendid, terrible and SHORT”.
Characters and Stories of Fragments of the Past
Characters have no classes or other archetypes. They are individuals characterized not by differences in their attributes, which are often minimal. Their main features are given by three very important game elements. The Gift, the Passion and the Epithets. Not numbers, but game concepts.
Gifts are the divine spark of the character’s narrative, a sort of “power” whose manifestation, however, is always intangible. Each character has one decided at character creation. Opposite to it there is the Passion, “the most painful and tormented part of a character”, his inner conflict that is externalized through a vice, a defect, a problem, an obstacle, something that generates history, interpretation and, above all, pathos. Finally there are the Epithets, real labels which, as in ancient poems, are connected to a hero on the basis of deeds or characteristics and which have both a narrative and regulatory impact, usually in the form of numerical bonuses. There are 120 of them in the manual and they allow for great customization, really touching on many aspects and literary tropes.
Characters are the engine of stories. Fragments of the Past was born to tell two types of narratives: epic cycles and tragedies. On the one hand the legends of immortal deeds of new Achilles, Diomedes, Jason and Theseus. On the other hand, the distressing stories of tormented characters deeply excavated by events, like Oedipus, Medea, Antigone or Clytemnestra.
An example of tragedy is the introductory adventure, “The Fate of the City of Morays“, very well written and fun to play. We have published our own attempt:
Final Considerations
Fragments of the Past is a world that could have been and was not. You will be the protagonist of a poem sung amidst the red fires of a banquet, you will take on the role of terrible characters, whose prodgious nature is manifested in the breadth of their passions, in the wildness of their instincts and in the sacrifices they are ready to make. You will live in a wonderful and cruel reality, the protagonist of stories marked by bloody curses, duels and complex rituals.
Writing the review of Fragments of the Past was not easy. Both due to the difficulty of remaining objective with a game to which I am emotionally attached, and because I found challenging sharing with you the characteristics and strengths of a fascinating but particular product. The game world has a different inspiration from the usual Northern European fantasy. It was also completely created from scratch so it is impossible to convey all the vivid variety it offers. The graphic beauty and romantic writing style can only be hinted at and my few lines have not done them justice enough.
I can only warmly recommend it. Obviously every player has his own tastes and some features of Fragments of the Past may not be liked. There is no way to mitigate them. This product is made in its own way and it must be experienced as described, with its strengths and weaknesses. Anyone who has found more strengths than weaknesses in my review and was intrigued even a little by Fragments of the Past can be sure that they will be incredibly satisfied. I give you my word.
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We thank Janaka Stucky and Blazing Worlds for having sent us a physical review copy of Ekphrastic Beasts. It could be mistaken for a manual of strange creatures for D&D5e, but it is mainly an artbook that contains works of four talented illustrators. The presence of a short descriptive text and statblocks for the most famous tabletop RPG in the world make it also a bestiary, but it is certainly its second soul. And that’s also the reason why I am writing an Ekphrastic Beasts review on No Dice Unrolled.
The Kickstarter project of Ekphrastic Beasts ibtauned almost 60.000$ from 1175 backers. From the project page it is still possible take a late pledge, that is buying the product made with Kickstarter even after the end of the campaign.
From the moment I first laid my eyes on Ekphrastic Beasts, well before writing this review, I knew it wasn’t a manual like any other. There are other elegant and better finished manuals. But Ekphrastic Beasts is special because it is first an artbook and then a manual for a TTRPG.
The title is already particular. Ekphrasis is the verbal description of a work of art. So the title means that it is a compendium where bestial works of art are described in words and statistics. First comes the art, then the word and the modifiers.
Directly quoting the explanation on the Kickstarter project page:
Rather than revisit known fantasy tropes, we begin with four established illustrators each creating striking, startling, original artworks straight from the abyssal depths of the subconscious. Each piece is then given to our author to reverse engineer creature names, back-stories, and stats for them all!
Janaka Stucky
Materials and Layout
The Ekphrastic Beasts manual is a beautiful volume of over 130 pages, with a rough hard cover that features only the golden seal of the project. On the inside of the cover shows an elegant shade of red. The quality of the paper and colors are excellent. Stylistically the first impression is of something elegant and precious.
The layout is more ordinary. Preface and introduction are several pages of single column writing without any graphic element or spatial subdivision. Then the contents of Ekphrastic Beasts are always presented in the same and functional way: the full page illustration, followed by a description and a classic statblock on two columns. Sometimes references of the works appear in the descriptive pages obtaining a pleasant effect. Overall it’s a good job, but it gives me the impression that more could have been done in the opening pages.
Review of the Illustrations of Ekphrastic Beasts
It is impossible to make even a minimally exhaustive review of the nearly fifty illustrations of creatures featured in Ekphrastic Beasts. These are strange, particular monsters, some of which have elements or anatomies that are very out of the ordinary. You can take a look at the images in this review and get an idea from them. The quality level is maintained throughout the book.
Each of the four illustrators has their own style, each brings something different and unique in following the common thread that unites all the designs. The beauty of the works is indisputable, the only subjective element is the taste of the viewer.
Regardless of the creation of statblock for D&D, I believe that such particular and evocative graphic works can also be an inspiration for other games. I think of the OSR world, of every game that comes into contact with the Lovecraftian universe, but also of those that have to do with the folklore and the supernatural present in our world.
Review of the Written Contents of Ekphrastic Beasts
As mentioned, each creature is described with the classic text and statblock format. There is a good variety of types and all the typical descriptors of D&D monsters. Resistances, immunities, attacks, special and legendary abilities. There are so many details that make interesting to use these monsters during the game. The textual part then provides a description consistent with the statistics and the alignment that adds details and ideas for possible uses.
Janaka Stucky, who is to be given credit for this whole part, also took advantage of the descriptions in each monster to create a subtle reference to a shared setting. Not among all creatures and nothing too detailed; simply a hint of a possible connection that each narrator can decide whether to exploit or not.
At the bottom of the volume there are many useful tables. Creatures are classified by artist, size, type, alignment, challenge rating, and climate. A simple job, but a variety of very useful data.
Conclusions
In this Ekphrastic Beasts review, I had to talk about every aspect of the manual. Yet, especially for this product, a different weight must be given to each facet. I talked about material, layout, statblock, descriptions, but the protagonists of Ekphrastic Beasts are undoubtedly the images. I talked about it for a couple of sentences but they represent the heart of the manual and should be treated as such.
I am not saying to rate or purchase Ekphrastic Beasts based on the illustrations alone, but certainly to realize that they are the center of everything and the core of the value of the product (perfectly supported by the quality of the rest of the manual). So, before closing this page, take a look at the images again and enjoy them!
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An Unexpected Wedding Invitation is the result of a great Kickstarter campaign, which saw the product being financed thanks to the support of almost 5,500 backers, for a raised amount exceeding £ 135,000 (corresponding to over € 150,000 at current exchange rates). It can be purchased on Amazon.co.uk or DrivethruRPG, with prices ranging from $ 7.5 for the PDF file up to $ 44.90 for the physical premium color version.
Another Solid Product from Midnight Tower
An Unexpected Wedding Invitation is not, as we saw, our first review of a product from Midnight Tower. This volume maintains the quality standard of the “two nerds in Oxford”, as they like to call themselves. Hard cover, bright colors, an elegant two columns layout and a large font that benefits from great contrast. The pages of the volume are so clear that they can be read even in low light conditions, such as those of a playroom properly prepared to give players the right atmosphere.
The images are pleasant, simple, colorful and well defined. Compared to other products there are some peculiar details due to the need to show particular elements. Mostly dresses, appropriate to a wedding and to the nineteenth-century atmosphere of adventure. The theme of romanticism and intrigue is linked to the original settingcalled the Eastern FarrawayRegion, particularly similar in terms of traditions. As we will see, incorporating these types of elements into a classic campaign can be difficult, but certainly not impossible.
On Midnight Tower site you can download maps, handouts, characters sheets and material for online play. The material made available is extensive and it shows attention to the needs of the buyers.
Spoiler-Free Review Of An Unexpected Wedding Invitation
The need to avoid spoilers makes it difficult to review An Unexpected Wedding Invitation. It all starts, of course, with an unexpected invitation to a wedding (an elven one, to be precise). The group of adventurers stands on the bride’s side and the players are encouraged by the events to enjoy the occasion. This adventure is built to put the characters into situations typical of novel weddings. Picnics on a meadow, hunting expeditions, dancing and other social life situations. As you can imagine, not everything goes the right way and the plot will move towards classic endings. More than one.
The second part of the adventure will lose the classic structure, leaving to the Dungeon Master the management of the events that will lead to the conclusion. However, all the information on places, characters and secrets is given to allow the DM to tell an engaging investigation. Based on the choices and deductions of the players, different conclusions can be reached. Always hoping that unfortunate dice rolls don’t frustrate the characters’ ruminations.
The setting and the situation created give more space to social activities and analysis. There are also moments of combat, but I do not think the choice of this adventure is made by those who aspire to slash relentlessly. It is an investigative adventure, with the unfavorable aspects that, as we will see, derive from playing it with the D&D5e game system. Same consideration for another aspect: dialogues and interpersonal relationships.
Tools to Optimize the Experience
Midnight Tower has certainly put a lot of effort into trying to make the Jane Austin-style experience faithful and engaging. There are Admiration Points, which translate into mechanics the likes and dislikes that the characters will have towards the NPCs and vice versa. These points will play an important role in the end of the adventure. Indeed, they will be fundamental if the DM wants to give a continuation to the story by involving even more the players and their choices.
Then, of course, the manual has other handy appendices regarding magic items, monsters, places and support for the scalability of the adventure (even if in my opinion raising the difficulties to investigate makes the story lose some credibility).
Finally, the product ends with a substantial part dedicated to the Intrigues & Intentions Compendium, a themed supplement tied with the adventure.
How will You Plot if the Compendium You Have not?
The An Unexpected Wedding Intitation review couldn’t be complete without talking about The Intrigues & Intentions Compendium. It is not a small appendix: it has about fifteen pages. This is not a generic work on intrigues, but a focus on apparel, objects, potions and magic related to seduction, deception and related topics. A toolbox useful for expanding the adventure played or for creating new ones with the same flavor.
It discuss he main narrative elements of a mysterious adventure, then it exposes magical objects related to love and romance, entertainment games for parties and receptions, appropriate costumes and clothing. It is always a mediation between D&D rules and needs. Clues that depend on rolls, filters and potions that grant you saving throws risk hindering the game and bogging down the narrative. It is the price to pay for using this system and having the goal of telling these kinds of stories.
The compendium continues with themed secret spells (such as Conjure Afternoon Tea), side quests always with a romantic theme and some other hints of correct traditions on love and courtship. The manual ends with a delightful character sheet with nineteenth-century graphics.
Final Thoughts about the An Unexpected Wedding Invitation Review
Let’s be clear. D&D is not the best system for romantic investigations. However, it is a very widespread and well-known system. A gaming group is more likely to play D&D and try it with a Jane Austen touch, rather than start a short campaign of another specific roleplaying game. An Unexpected Wedding Invitation was born precisely for situations like these. Midnight Tower perfectly know D&D5e and they prove it. They have tried to polish the limits of the system and to invent some aspects to favor important facets. Finally they have created an adventure that can enhance the whole. I cannot write that these vibes can be easily adapted to every campaign and every setting, because it pushes the classic high fantasy world towards Victorian drifts; but if a table wants to play this style, it is likely to already have stories that are quite compatible with the product.
In conclusion, I can say thatAn Unexpected Wedding Invitation is a solid and well made product that has two parts, the adventure and the compendium, interesting in content and characterization. It is aimed at players with specific tastes (or at least expectations). And it will hardly disappoint them.
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First of all, thanks to Kobold Press for sending us a digital copy of Scarlet Citadel in order to write this review. It’s a classic 10-levels adventure for D&D5e. It is published by Kobold Press, that we knew from our past review of the beautiful bestiary Tome Of Beasts II. The author is Steve Winter, who has behind him dozens of D&D products, having previously worked for TSR and then for Wizard of the Coast.
Scarlet Citadel was born with a Kickstarter that received more than 150,000$ from more than 2500 backers, thus being able to obtain numerous additions of illustrations and contents through different stretch goals achieved. Currently it’s available for purchase directly from the site of Kobold Press. The digital version costs $ 24.99, the physical one with hardcover 39.99 $ and the two together $ 44.99. There are also other possible purchases such as versions for some digital gaming platforms or a collection of the maps.
An Overall Look to Scarlet Citadel
The Scarlet Citadel review takes into consideration the digital version only. This is a 210 page PDF. It is qualitatively and stylistically comparable to official products. The layout is classic and also the frequency, type and organization of the images are reminiscent of the original manuals. The predominant color is red and the graphic style is pleasant and detailed.
Peering the index you can see 10 pages of generic introduction, followed by 20 dedicated to a general description of the location. The 6 levels of the dungeon take up most of the space, over 140 pages. The book ends with appendices, classically dedicated to creatures, NPCs, magic and magical items. About fifteen maps and three handouts embellish the product. Talking about maps, I would like to underline the presence of multi-layered maps. There are changes to be made to the maps based on possible narrative consequences that are carried out by superimposing a new portion of the map on the old one. A really nice idea.
Review of the Disclosable Content of Scarlet Citadel
The first part, the introduction, details various aspects of the adventure very clearly. It provides information for managing sounds, locks, progress and much more. It is explicitly stated that the adventure proposes opponents that are often stronger than the real possibilities of the adventurers, because it is expected that retreating, regrouping and studying a plan is one of the main tactics that adventurers will have to put in place.
The same level of detail is used for the description of the area of Redtower, the village that stands near the Scarlet Citadel that gives its name to this adventure. Twenty pages of information, including NPCs, gossip, tables, ideas, eventualities and more are quite a number! It is also explained how it is expected to play from the point of view of the mechanics, to perfect the synchrony between who wrote these rooms and who will face them. With a few tricks, there are no problems in inserting the location in almost any setting. The possibilities provided are many and the surroundings of the Scarlet Citadel would be enough to keep the adventurers active and interested for ages, but it is my job to delve into its deeper levels, although I will not be able to tell you almost anything about what I will see.
Review of the Dungeon Levels of Scarlet Citadel
I try to review the dungeon without spoilers, but it sure is tough. You will have to trust my judgment. I assure you, I am not one who is easily satisfied. I found level 0 nothing special indeed. Not truly bad, just a little flat. The map also gave me the idea of cheap, like some others later. Not a bad one, but I found way better maps elsewhere.
The first underground floor already rises to a higher level, although we go down. Adventurers will delve into family crypts and the castle’s cellars. Enough, after this piece of information I will not reveal any more details of the lower levels. Without spoilers, this plan is definitely more interesting for many reasons. Although it is a simple dungeon, there are several possibilities and different results. The information is abundant and well supplied, without exaggerating in unnecessary notions for the game. In short, there is a lot of meat.
I liked level two. Some reinterpretations mixed with newer elements, tables for particular and creative effects, a dungeon that I would gladly master and that certainly enable excellent stories. The next, the third, completely changes environment and situation. Adventurers will come under even more pressure. Superficial or overly confident approaches will likely lead to disastrous results. The master must be well organized to manage the dungeon in its entirety, but in return she can give a realistic and intense challenge to her players.
The Lower Levels
Level four gives us another change in the enviroment, opponents and situations. The level of difficulty is still pretty high compared to the estimated power of the adventurers: even in this case the best approach to take on the challenges should be cautiously managed. There is not just one solution, so different players can choose the tactict which fits best their characters and their preferences.
Level five is very interesting. Physical environment, mystery, powers, peculiar situations are mixed and carefully shown. This causes a very varied and horrorific adventure chapter. The characters’ skills have improved and so have the threats they have to brave. Tension arises, since we are getting by the grand finale.
The last chapter keeps their promises and gives a deathly dangerous environment. Although it is also the worthy conclusion for a 140-pages and who knows how many sessions journey.
Some Further Thought
I’d love to focus on some more aspects. The paragraph describing how to reorganize or freshly fill up a level after it has been abandoned and then explored againg by the adventurers is very interesting.
Another interesting feature is the relevant number of charts of events, peculiarities and consequences which may happen to the characters. A winking to OSR world and a pinch of unpredictability which may add a little spice to the adventure.
What you really need to know is that there are monsters coming from Kobold Press’s Creature Codex and Tome of Beasts. If you don’t have them, the need to purchase them might be an obstacle. These manuals are amazing and for sure worth the investment, although the “forced” purchase is not a point in favor – while the originality of monsters actually is. At the very worst, you can replace or invent the statblocks.
Rewiew of the Appendixes of Scarlet Citadel
Appendix I is all about creatures, magic items and spells. The creative quality and originality already seen in other Kobold Press products are here kept. In my opinion this creative cue is the key to increase the result of this product, compared to any other multilevel dungeon.
Appendix II is a simple yet peculiar page about bezoars, then some handouts end the manual.
Final Remarks of this Scarlet Citadel Review
I think Scarlet Citadel is a good product. I’ve seen many other adventures which are looking for the added value in environments or imaginary premises in order to draw attention. Unfortunately these tricks do not work well in the game. As already said, Scarlet Citadel does not need them. We are talking about a multi-level dungeon written and planned with a creative value which I think will pour out well on the game table.
It is not the only or the best adventure for D&D5e, but I am quite sure that it has what it takes to satisfy most of the players. It recalls the classic taste with quality and good ideas. And classic, we know, never goes out of fashion.
If you liked this review of Scarlet Citadel, keep on following us to get to know other adventures and campaigns of D&D5e!
Thanks to MS Edizioni for having sent us a physical copy of the Italian edition of Dread in order to write this review.Dread is a roleplaying game for experiencing horror stories and it has a truly unique feature: tests are made playing Jenga, the famous game with a wooden blocks tower. In this review, which refers to the Italian edition, we will discover together the reason for this choice and why it may really be worth evaluating the purchase of Dread.
White, blood red, gray. These are the colors of the manual. It is a beautiful volume of 224 pages with a 15x23cm format, hardcover bound with thread. White is he prevailing color. The cover is simple but effective. The inside of the manual isbright and easy to read, with well-spaced paragraphs and a single-column editing. Red is carefully dosed in the titles and text boxes. In the second part of the manual, the red on the edge of the pages allows the reader to recognize the various chapters. Finally, gray, in its countless shades, is the protagonist of the beautiful full page illustrations.
The illustrations have been realized by the talented Katerina Ladon, while the graphic design was managed by Michele Paroli from Mana Project Studio. A special mention to the inside pages of the covers, which deserve an image in this review and which represent the questions of the characters creation. We will get there.
The only flaw: the lack of a red silk bookmark. A venial sin, but it would have been the icing on the cake of a truly refined product.
The Premise
Let me mention the authors: Epidiah Ravachol and Nat Barmore. And a small addition: among the quotes of appreciation of the game present at the beginning of the manual, one is signed by Luke Crane. Who is Luke Crane? The author of The Burning Wheel, in my opinion one of the best RPG systems ever created. Someday I’ll tell you about it. But let’s go back to the Dread review.
Let’s start with the most important premise, the elephant in the room, or the wooden tower on the table. Why the presence of the Jenga tower? The goal (as Luke Crane perfectly states) is to physically transport the discomfort and nervousness of horror stories into the game mechanics. Undoubtedly, it is difficult to tell good horror stories and to get out of the narrative immersion to get back to the table to rehearse some of the tension that a narrator has laboriously constructed.
In Dread, instead, the moment of the test is full of pathos. Because, beyond some rules in the appendix, the base is as simple as it is heavy for its consequences: the test consists in making a round of Jenga, that is extracting a wooden block rom the tower to place it on top. Now, if the tower collapses during the test, the character of the player who was taking the test is removed from the game. Removed. From. The. Game. Do you understand now the increasing tension of the tests?
Removed from the game doesn’t mean killed. Removed characters can return in later sessions, but they will need to bear the marks of what they went through. Also keep in mind that players can refuse to extract a block from the tower but they must accept the failure of the test and its consequences.
Review Of The Contents of Dread
Time for the contents. The first 50 pages contain the main mechanics of Dread: the rules and character creation. I’d skip the rules, as they are all derived from the premise we’ve covered and doesn’t add much to this review. Character creation is much more interesting.
In fact, it takes place through a questionnaire. Much of the chapter is devoted to its explanation. How does it work? Quite simply, the Guardian, the name that the narrator takes in Dread, creates for each character a series of different questions aimed at obtaining all the information necessary to play through the answers. The manual advises trying to focus on the abilities and quirks of the characters, on an emotional connection of the player to the character, on a connection with the story and with the other players and on a reason for hope. The questions must be general enough to allow the player to choose how to customize their alter ego, but at the same time precise enough to be consistent with the story or situation the Guardian has in mind.
As it is written “Creating the Questionnaire is more an art than a science”. This character creation is as brilliant, in my opinion, as using Jenga for tests. Instead of a standardized sheet, it is possible to create a set of specific information for each character, for each story, based on all the unique variables that make up that precise tale. Since it is a method that requires a certain experience, the manual offers many examples and various suggestions; among these we talk about how to structure the Questionnaire, the importance of some uneasy questions, but we also find advice on how the players should fill it and then use it for roleplaying.
How to Handle Dread
We have a simple and fascinating system and a captivating and personalized character creation. But their originality also makes their use unknown. The manual then continues with two chapters on how to create and how to develop a story of Dread. An example are the indications on the management of the tower, the extractions and their influence on the players and on the pace of the game. A clumsy player or involuntary movement that causes the tower to collapse at the start of the game must not already end a session. Dread obviously offers a solution, but I won’t tell you in this review!
The chapter with advices on how to create a story with Dread is also full of ideas and suggestions. It provides both more precisely tailored ideas for this game and generic elements, applicable to any other horror RPG. Among the many things I have read, I particularly appreciated the further considerations on using the Questionnaire, a very powerful tool to get the right information on how to give players nightmares.
Horror Stories for Dummies
I think writing a good horror story isn’t easy at all. Perhaps the authors of Dread agree with me because they dedicated other 5 chapters in their manual, for a total of almost 40 pages, to give further advice. Specifically, each chapter focuses on how to insert a given element. The structure is the same for each of them. Every element related to the story, the Questionnaire, the Guardian and the Tower.
The elements are the suspense, the supernatural, the madness, the moral aspects, the mystery and the splatter. I think these monographic approaches are very useful. A text box with cinematic references closes each chapter.
Review of Variants and Adventures of Dread
As you may have guessed, the Dread manual is full of ideas. In fact, variants of the game are also provided.
Maybe you don’t have a tower of wooden blocks available. No problem, there is a variant that uses the d6s, which roleplayers are hardly without. Dice to be stacked, not rolled. This is the nemesis of our site, some dice unrolled! The tension given by a precise manual movement whose failure implies heavy consequences is mandatory. Various other manual games are also suggested on this premise.
Then there are variants that integrate the extractions of the Tower. The mode involving a tarot deck is very interesting.
Four adventures ready to play are then presented. These are not sketchy ideas that take up one page, but complete adventures, fully detailed, with ready Questionnaires.
Narrated in the provided order they can be a great workout to master the game and its stories.
The last few pages of the manual still contain many sample questions to inspire the Questionnaires.
Final Thoughts of the Review of Dread
Many times I had already heard thatDread is a must-have. Now I can say it too, and with good reason. It is a product that I highly recommend for various reasons.
Graphically gorgeous, first-class editorial quality, original and innovative, full of beautifully presented content. If you are interested in horror role-playing games, don’t even think about it for a second. Go and buy it now.
But I would also recommend it to those who are less interested in the genre but still love to collect significant manuals. Dread deserves its place in every library and it’s woth a reading for the abundance of discursive and interesting content regardless of its use at a game table.
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We thank Spidermind Games for having sent us a copy of Ice Dice in order to write this review. Ice Dice is a dice tray to create dice-shaped ice cubes.
Thank you for your time, keep following us for… what? Are you expecting me to continue? Is it really necessary that I go on with this review before you click on the Spidermind Games site to spend your $40 (actually 40€) and get your copy di Ice Dice?
Moreover, there are also the dragon head dice trays!
Review of the Ice Dice Tray
The tray is made up of some elements to be composed. Two structures in propylene, light and resistant, and two BPA free medcal silicone molds. The structure consists of seven hexagons, one in the center and the others on its sides. Every hexagon support the space for the mold of one of the dice of the classic dice set, from d4 to d20. The ice cubes have a diameter of about 4 cm.
Like most physical item reviews the Ice Dice photos in this review are worth more than many explanations. On the Spidermind Games website there are great pictures and videos that can help too.
Our Experience
Assembling the Ice Dice tray was simple. The product packaging contains the instructions in plain sight. Short and intuitive. Once everything was assembled, we filled the molds with water and placed them in the freezer on a flat surface. The instructions say to wait 24 hours. They don’t specify to spend as much of the 24 hours as possible role-playing, but it’s highly recommended. Once the wait was over, it was quite easy to remove the wrapper and admire the product.
Unfortunately our photos can’t stand for the real thing. We probably needed a better grade in “taking photo” skill and a better set. That’s why I added some pictures from the official site. But as a witness I can declare that even if the dice are not perfect, they are quite likely. The numbers on the facets aren’t always visible, but they are the perfect “plus” that makes this product shine.
Countless Applications
While RPG players are individuals with unbridled imagination, it shouldn’t be hard to make the most of Ice Dice.
Because using only water and making only ice cubes would be a shame. Mint leaves, fruit, chocolate, chupitos … healing potions! With the excuse of the dice shape you can get busy and realize many fun ideas.
Toasting to the success of the campaign by serving cocktails to friends and giving the barbarian player only 12-sided ice “cubes”, 4-sided to the wizard and so on takes the celebration to a whole new level. And we role players really like to take everything to another level!
Final Thoughts of the Review of Ice Dice
Ice Dice is a whim. A wonderful whim, but that remains so. It is not even a game accessory. But it is an object that is part of any home. And if you can have something in the shape of a dice, why want anything else?
Materials and workmanship are excellent and the scenic effect is guaranteed. There will be someone who prefers to invest $40 for a new manual and someone else who can’t wait to spend it in order to have dice-shaped ice cubes for life. In the second circumstance… Ice Dice, baby!
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We thank Spidermind Games for having sent us a Level Up in order to write this review. Level Up is a sectional and modular game table about 15 centimeters high, which can be placed on a table in order to have game material on a different level, also leaving space underneath for various objects. It is a second table, raised from the first, to increase the surface area of your game table. Level Up can be used for many purposes. It’s maybe more popular for board gamers, given the need for almost all titles to have boards, decks, dice or other game accessories in front of the players. In this review of Level Up we will focus on the possibilities for table talk roleplaying gamers.
Level Up can be bought on the shop of Spidermind Games site starting from 95$ (about 93€), but the price can vary a lot due to the enormous modularity of the system.
Level Up in Details
I’ll now try to give you a more detailed review of Level Up’s materials, but my advice is visiting Spidermind Games’ site. The Level Up page is truly exhaustive. If you want a brief summary, it consists of square planks of about 30 centimeters that can be clasped to form a larger surface. They are made of plastic and already produced with a square grid. There are three types: corners, sides and center pieces. Through their combination it is possible to generate different formats. Spidermind Games suggests formats from 2×3 boards (60x90cm), up to 4×8, (120x240cm).
The planks are supported by solid metal legs with rubber feet that can be screwed to the corner parts in three different positions. More internally to have more space or more externally to give more stability. Speaking of stability, the plan that is formed is reliable for any load suited to the world of gaming. I admit, however, that we have not tested it as a stool to reach the cookie jar in the top shelf of the kitchen!
Finally Level Up, once disassembled, really takes up minimal space. It took us very little time to disassemble it.
Review of Level Up per Roleplaying Games
As I said, the usefulness of having two different table surfaces for the board game is undeniable. But there are a few thoughts for the roleplaying gaming too.
The first and obvious situation that comes to mind is for those games that use a map or grid. In the images we have simulated a typical situation for you with sheets, maps, miniatures and other objects.The map visibility is excellent. Moreover, not having to make room for all the other things, it is possible to enjoy a grid with a larger surface that comes closer to the player. Maps and grids are the game tools that make the most of Level Up, but handouts, notes and other material are also more conveniently accessible and visible to all.
The second point, which goes beyond the games that require a grid, is linked to the almost always inevitable presence of drinks and food. Greasy food. Having drinks and snacks on a separate level greatly simplifies table management. In this scenario, I think, for example, of keeping glasses, packages and bowls higher and easily accessible, while leaving cards, dice, various sheets and pencils away from crumbs and the risk of flooding.
A final fantasy might be stacking multiple Level Ups to create a multi-story map…
Final Thoughts
This review of Level Up has not much more to say. Thanks to our photos, but mostly thanks to the beautiful official site, it’s easy to get a good idea of this product. I can say that Level up keeps the promises seen on screen and generates a great perception of usable space once assembled.
I truly believe that all those who have tables whose surface is not proportional to their imagination, their desire for maps and grids or their tendency to pour beers and stain cards, should consider providing themselves with a Level Up.
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We thank Lunch Break Heroes for having sent a copy of The Deck of Many Quests in order to write this review. It’s a system-agnostic tool for master and players made of a 200 cards deck created to support inspiration with fantasy quests and stories. There are over 200,000 possible combinations!
The Deck of Many Questsis available on Lunch Break Heroes store both in physical version at $25, and in digital versione at $7 or together at $27.
Let’s Start With The Cards
Inside a beautiful and sturdy box are the 200 cards. The box is made of quality cardboard and closes perfectly thanks to a magnet. The papers are in color in 180gsm paper.
Thanks to the image on the back it is possible to divide them into three groups. The back depicting the sword indicates the quest cards. The potion is the symbol on the back of the item cards, and a skull dominates that of the creature cards.
On the front of the cards there are three main elements. A title, a text that expands the title and provides more explanations and finally some stars, in numbers ranging from one to five,that we will explain shortly.
The digital version includes a printable PDF in US letter and A4 format, the images of all the separate cards and a synoptic table with all the contents in detail.
How to Use This Tool
Explaining how The Deck of Many Quests works is the simplest part of this review. You draw a quest card and read the text. It is basically the core of an adventure. The text indicates one or more generic tags [object] or [creature]. By extracting the cards corresponding to the label from the respective decks, the quest text is completed. If randomness generates an unlikely or hardly manageable result, the problematic card is replaced with the next one from the corresponding deck.
Each card, as seen above, has a one to five star rating. They are used to indicate the probable difficulty of a mission, the danger of a creature or the rarity of an object. It is therefore possible to use this evaluation system for two purposes. The first is to immediately realize what kind of quest would be created with the union of the different cards. The second is to be able to divide the decks in advance, based on the number of stars, in order to choose from which level draw.
Once you have extracted the cards, it is time to create a story, an adventure or whatever you want to create thanks to the inspiration provided by them. There are no references to any system, but simply ideas to be exploited, therefore this deck is useful for any fantasy game. Once the idea is given, however, it is up to the user to transform it into something more concrete.
Review of the Content of the Cards of The Deck of Many Quests
By peeking at some images of this review of The Deck of Many Quests you can have small previews of the contents of the cards. It seems easy to make such a deck but I think it takes a lot of effort to create ideas that are original enough not to seem trivial but also flexible enough to be used with ease.
In addition, the wide variability of games,and players, each with unique styles and personal preferences, must be considered. What for some is a brilliant idea for others can be trivial.
There are very imaginative ideas. Others less. In principle, I found interesting and useful contents. After that, the touch of those who take these sparks and transform them into something concrete is essential. Furthermore, the fact that they are system agnostic allows you to focus more on some particular characteristics of objects and especially of creatures. All creature hints, not being part of precise statblock, help create non-trivial antagonists, which is no small feat in an RPG.
Final Consideration on the Review of The Deck of Many Quests
The Deck of Many Quests is a product with a specific target that must be taken into consideration. It can certainly be said that it is a quality product. It can be said without a shadow of a doubt that the materials are more than good and the price in line with the product. But keep in mind what it can add to your sessions.
If you want an easy-to-use tool to quickly get good ideas to turn into something concrete then we are talking about a highly recommended product. The fact that it is system agnostic extends its usefulness to any setting compatible with the contents of the cards. On the other hand, for those who already have a hypertrophic fantasy, for those who rely almost exclusively on published adventures or for those who do not play a fantasy setting, The Deck of Many Quests rightly presents little appeal.
If you are in doubt about the purchase, considering the shipping costs, even the digital version alone, which has a very affordable price, can be a good investment.
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Thanks to Labmasu for having sent us a copy of their Modular Magnetic Sci-Fi Miniatures, in order to made us realize this review. Labmasu relied on a Kickstarter campaign to fund this project.
The title already explains everything. To be more precise, it is a series of futuristic-looking miniatures that have the particularity of having a basic figure that lacks the left arm, the right forearm and the head. Through the use of small magnets to be placed in specific holes, it is therefore possible to attach and detach the missing parts, creating customized miniatures both in appearance and in pose. It also adds a gear slot on the back for further customization. By purchasing the whole package, you will be able to create more than 176,000 different combinations!
The Video Review of the Modular Magnetic Sci-Fi Miniatures
We are talking about a physical product very related to appearance and assembly. For this we thought that the best way to do a review of Modular Magnetic Sci-Fi Miniatures was through a video. So here is the result:
Final Considerations
The video already says everything there is to know. I would like to point out a couple of details again. The first is the need for patience and attention when assembling the miniatures. Correct positioning of the magnets requires concentration and time. Another interesting aspect is that the subdivision of the miniatures into various pieces also allows them to be colored more easily in the parts that would otherwise be difficult to reach by the brushes due to their position.
It is a product that benefits most from a bulk purchase of the whole package offered because it allows you to really get a wide range of arms, heads and objects. With all of those combinations it is truly possible to cover almost any possible need at the gaming table!
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First of all, thanks to Two Little Mice, for the gift of the new seasons of Broken Compass that made us write this review. This is the result of the excellent Kickstarter campaign which obtained almost € 200,000 allowing the financing of many new contents. If you need to refresh your memory you can read our article on Broken Compass. If you want a recap, Broken Compass is a fast-paced and dynamic RPG that tells adventure stories in the style of Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider or Uncharted. The cut is cinematic, with real episodes divided into seasons. The seasons available so far were the Modern Era, 1999 and Golden Age, set in the early 20th century.
Thanks to the new Kickstarter, two new seasons have been funded. Jolly Roger, clearly a pirate setting, and Voyages Extraordinaires, centered on the late nineteenth-century atmospheres of Jules Verne’s novels. Along with them a whole bunch of items, including cards, new dice and a new screen. In addition, a fifth manual was born, announced as a spin-off, entitled What If, full of interesting surprises that we will see soon, but first, I have to make an apology.
My Apologis, I Understimated You
I liked Broken Compass at first glance, but I didn’t fully understand its potential. I thought it was a good game to tell a certain type of adventure story, but locked in a limited context and therefore lacking in variety. The two new seasons already demonstrate how it would take years at the table to get bored with pirates, airships and submarines. Then What If came with all its possibilities. Cosmic horrors, time travel, dystopian futures, apocalypses, high school adventures, animal characters …
Simone, Rico and Daniela, aka Two Little Mice, have confirmed themselves as a mine of excellent ideas. And I finally see Broken Compass for what it is: a game engine with immense potential.
Let’s Go Back to the Review of the New Seasons of Broken Compass: Art and Materials
A short paragraph to reiterate the obvious: both the illustrations and the materials are simply great. The hard covers, the scent and quality of the paper, together with a clear and functional layout, make reading comfortable and enjoyable. As for the illustrations, I have already stated several times how much I admire Daniela Giubellini’s works. In this new series of manuals she had the opportunity to try various different concepts given the variety of possibilities we have just talked about. Needless to say, Daniela did very well and leafing through the Broken Compass manuals for this review was an absolute pleasure. The setting of the work does not involve a great use of images compared to other products, unfortunately.
Jolly Roger
Jolly Roger wants to tell the golden age of piracy, the first quarter 18th century, in a romantic and, as always, cinematic way. The manual helps to center the focus of the setting and then provides new tags and permanent wounds. Everybody want a few wooden legs and a few glass eyes, right? I hope not the other way around!
The following pages give information on the era and on the game world, or the Caribbean Sea, of which an excellent map in A3 format was also created. Technology and equipment were contextualized at the time. A very interesting list of possible treasures and extras, sources of great inspiration, is then provided.
Then it is the turn of the gist of the speech: a focus on pirates, with also a roundup of “historical” examples. Then new rules, very captivating, for the management of naval battles, for very probable amenities such as shipwrecks or the need to hold your breath, gambling and finally for duels.
Finally, the last substantial part of Jolly Roger is dedicated to a season and episodes on demand. Many ideas for countless games.
Voyages Extraordinaires
Voyages Extraordinaires instead is primarily a tribute to Jules Verne’s science fiction. The adventure here is set in a 19th century full of mystery and full of extraordinary inventions. The structure of the manual recalls the others. It starts with a contextualization of the setting and the presentation of new tags. Then there is an excursus of the game world, among new technologies, mysteries and universal exhibitions. Obviously, instead of pirates we are dealing with a very interesting list of adventurer companies, a forge of ideas and characterizations.
The manual continues with the new rules and situations: a new tool, the expedition diary, rules and ideas for betting and time management. But above all we talk about the encounter with the “extraordinaire”, in particular the extraordinary creatures, of which a remarkable and appetizing overview is provided. The fourth part of Voyages Extraordinaires focuses on extraordinary technology and inventions, especially extraordinary vehicles. Leafing through these pages generates a constant desire to experience adventures!
This manual also ends with a season and episodes on demand. Again many ideas!
What if
Ladies and gentlemen, hats off. I struggle to find the words to explain this manual to you fully. We are talking about a collection of little hacks of Broken Compass that allows to transform the system and carry it in a new series of amazing possibilities. Each hack has new tags, new rules to adapt the system to the setting. In addition, at the end of the manual there are instructions for creating your own what if, rules for time travel and a prefect setting to explore.
What if has two incredible added values: the first is to expand Broken Compass beyond the boundaries we were used to and allow us to experience a universe of new possibilities through it. And for this I have already stated my apologies at the beginning of the article. The second value is the incredible variety and imagination of the hacks presented. It is also always possible to mix the elements provided to create new fantastic stories. The Broken Compass characters are designed to be generated with the union of two tags and each hack and each season has its own rules, but there are no limits to the experiments that can be done at the game table.
A Paragraph of the Review of the New Seasons of Broken Compass is not enough for What If
What If is truly outstanding. I think the best way to let you know is to share with you the list of all the hacks presented in the manual:
Cosmic Horrors: lovecraftian horrors and madness mechanic
Space Opera: adventures in galaxies far away and Energy Mechanics
Gods and Men: ancient heroes age, Mythological Hero and Mythological Adventures.
Good Boys: where pets are the adventurers in a big city. 12 new animal tags.
Fantasy Quest: fantasy medieval world and Magic mechanics.
High School: high school teenagers seeking mysteries and School Dangers mechanics.
Last on Earth: post-apocaliptic setting with Danger Clock mechanichs.
Black Light: dystopian future and cyberpunk adventurers
Toon City: cartoon world with cartoon or plush adventurers.
Urban Legends: unexplicable events and supernatural adventurers.
Leaving Wonderland: where you can run away from a table-generated Wonderland.
High Noon: western setting with Quick Draw Duels mechanich.
Was I clear? So why don’t try Animal Adventurers in a post apocalyptic context? Or some high school students in a school with the mechanics of Magic? Or Animated Adventurers in a Space Opera facing Lovecraftian Horrors or the Extraordinary Creatures of Voyages Extraordinaires?
Welcome to the worlds of What If.
Final Considerations of the Review of the New Seasons of Broken Compass
This review obviously promotes the new seasons of Broken Compass with flying colors. Excellent materials, excellent illustrations, practical and comfortable handling and layout. Contents full of ideas, mechanics, possibilities. The new seasons of Broken Compass represent the definitive affirmation of Daniela, Rico and Simone and are a proof of the talent of the Two Little Mice team. CMON Limited, which acquired them, also noticed this.
The only exception is if you don’t love the stories of adventure and action, their adrenaline and the typical cinematic cut according to the paradigms of Broken Compass. Otherwise we are talking about a must-have in all RPG enthusiast libraries.
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First of all thanks to 1985 Gamesthat gave us some CounterSpell Miniatures to write this review. Or, to be precise, that let us choose some of them from the list of the miniatures. In this review you’ll see some of the CounterSpell Miniatures that we liked the most. We just assembled them without doing anything else, to give a real idea of what they look like upon arrival at the customer’s home.
Currently there are 12 CounterSpell Miniatures, whose price varies from $12 to $55 based on the type of mini. There is a free shipping offer for orders over $60. If you use the code NoDiceUnrolled15 at checkout, you will get a 15% discount on your order!
Our Choices
In the photos you can admire “The Curious”, “Spirit Guide”, “Shadewood Werewolf” and “Shadewood Gargoyle”. These are high quality resin miniatures made in 30mm scale. An interesting peculiarity is the presence of all the statblocks (for the most famous role-playing game in the world) united in a free PDF downloadable from the page of each single piece.
I really like the design, both for the chosen subjects and for the poses and imagined details.
The photos were also taken with particularly close-up shots to give an idea of the details. These are miniatures with very different shapes and structures, some more massive, others finer and more detailed. Paradoxically, the more delicate ones with greater detail are those that have had the best yield even in terms of production. Some of them would still require a work of arrangement after assembly, using fillers to match the irregularities. The tail of “Shadewood Gargoyle” on the other hand was already broken as probably during the extrusion phase a bubble formed in the plastic which practically emptied it.
Final Consideration on CounterSpell Miniatures
There are many factors to consider on CounterSpell Miniatures. The possibilities for the purchase of miniatures have greatly increased in the last period and proportionally the attention to the quality and detail of the customers. CounterSpell Miniatures does not disfigure in this market.
Personally, I really enjoyed the design and the graphic choices. The realization has a good average quality, which varies from excellent to improvable and which involves a minimum risk on the yield of some pieces and assembly difficulties. Overall I am satisfied with the miniatures and their appearance. Also my rating is based on the assembled but raw version. A polishing and painting job would certainly emphasize the strengths and value of these pieces even more.
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A huge thank you to Marco Bertini, who sent us a copy of The War for the Throne in order to write this review. This is a D&D5e adventure for four 5th level characters, sequel to The Second Black Dawn.
The author and creative director, Marco Bertini, has a long list of products featured on DMsGuild, many of which have been reviewed by No Dice Unrolled in recent years. Among them there are Underwater Campaigns, recent winner of a NDU Award and two products named as sources for this product: Realm Events and Thieves’ Guilds.
The War for the Throneis on sale on DMsGuild in digital format for $ 9.99. An interesting bundle is also available containing this adventure, the first chapter and a booklet with an additional subclass; all with a 25% discount!
Structure of the Product
The War for the Throne is 63 pages long and it’s divided in three parts.
The first one contains all the info, clearly presented, to have a precise idea of the starting situation and its possible developements. There are some advices about game preparation, from session 0 to how to build a unique character. The only other manuals needed are the three core books.
The second part is the biggest one. There is the adventure, divided in three chapter. We will talk about them later, trying to be spoiler-free.
It is followed by four appendices, that represents the third and last part of the product. The first appendix is full of advices for the soundtrack. There are dozens of suggested tracks with some tips to when to use them. Nice idea. The second appendix presents the statblocks of monsters and NPC, the third some spells and the volume ends with an handout.
Let’s Give Some Numbers
Covered by professional secrecy that prevents me from spoiling the whole juicy plot of The War for the Throne in this review, I believe a few numbers will help you understand the scope of the product. I already mentioned that the adventure is 63 pages long, but there are more data.
First of all, an important information: the estimated duration is 30 hours. Let’s face it, how do you estimate the duration of an adventure when in roleplaying games each group has very different dynamics and approaches? At least we use that number to approximate that it is a campaign that should last between 7 and 12 sessions.
More certain numbers are: 11 maps included in the purchase, 8 new monsters, 10 new magical items and 2 original spells. Interesting elements, cleverly painted and very functional to the narration. Some items are very appetizing and they will make you want to never end the adventures of their owners.
What Can Be Said about the Adventure
The previous adventure, The Second Black Dawn, was centered on the search for a missing king, obviously saved by the adventurers in extremis. Many people asked Marco Bertini for a sequel and after a few years the story can finally pick up where it left off: the heroes of the kingdom take the king back to the capital, gaining the well-deserved reward and a nice slice of glory. Considering that it is an adventure, which is called The War for the Throne and that on the cover there is a king in front of a burning city, things are not going very smoothly for the group of adventurers.
The storyline is classic and it will make players feel at home. Excellent for newbies, it will not make the most seasoned players faint for originalitybut thanks to excellent ideas of characterization of situations and a solid story it can be enjoyed by everyone. Some situations and references to the previous adventure open up many possibilities to get out of the feeling of linearity and to better enjoy the journey. Apart from the scarce grasp of the so-called moral dilemmas promised by the author, everything else is consistent and coherent. An evil cult, a dangerous ritual, dark alliances. The action component prevails over exploration and intrigue. Then, as always, everything is malleable in the hands of the dungeon master.
Reviewing the previous adventure, I hoped that the quality level could be maintained, but I am happy that it has even risen. There is more mastery and experience, and the story benefits from it. Compared to the first adventure, which had some weak plot passages, in The War for the Throne I found a really good narrative level and nice references.
Review of Art abd Layout of The War for the Throne
Nothing to say, the professionalism of Marco Bertini’s editing is now a trademark. The level is almost near original publications. The many text boxes are interesting and well placed. Bold, italics and hyperlinks are precise and very functional.
Maps are simple but well crafted.
Like other similar products, the graphic sector suffers a little from the fact that most of the images are illustrations already used, some of them very well known. The result is still pleasant and the excellent choice of images satisfies the eye and the atmosphere. After all, avoiding original images allows to keep a good price for a full-bodied adventure.
Final Considerations of the Review of The War for the Throne
Another product from the Bertini collection that confirms what can be defined as a precise and quality editorial line. What comes out in every Marco’s publication highlights a clear vision of the D&D5e game design. In fact, part of the contents of this adventure is inspired by already published supplements and, in a practical way, the author exemplifies how to use the same sources that he creates. If you are happy in this way of approaching the most famous role-playing game in the world, even with The War for the Throne you will be happy. And, we hope, also with the prosecution of the saga, since at the end of the adventure the next chapter is announced: The Portal of Chaos!
If you enjoyed this review of The War for the Throne, keep following us to be always informed about new adventures for D&D5e!
We really thank Horrible Guild that during Play 2021 in Modena gave us the physical quickstart of One More Quest that we will use to write this preview. It’s the right time because, on 25th of January, One More Quest will be a Kickstarter project. What is it? It’s a fantasy roleplaying game, hilarious and spectacular, set in a not-so-heroic world. It’s distinctive trait, the core of the system, is the way dice are thrown. Not rolled, thrown. Let’s make a step back.
The Origins of One More Quest: Dungeon Fighter
A decade ago from the brilliant minds of Lorenzo Silva, Aureliano Buonfino and Lorenzo Tucci Sorentino was born Dungeon Fighter, a very special board game. Players, in the role of fantasy pseudo-heroes, must face half-serious monsters in the rooms of dungeons. The peculiarity is that the combat takes place by rolling the dice towards a board designed as an archery target. A variety of launch modes make the game addictive and utterly fun. The same principle and the same world are also the basis of One More Quest. Lorenzo Silva remained among the authors, together with Hjalmar Hach and Federico Corbetta Caci.
What Can Be Discovered with this Preview of One More Quest
What I hold in my hands is a quickstart with more than 60 pages very colorful and well laid out.
First, the premise is that the game presented is still in constant development, so I warn you too that what I’m talking about may differ from the final product.
The introduction presents a very classic scenario, of heroes facing dungeons and other usual quests in exchange for money or part of the loot. The peculiarity is that everything is seen with a goliardic and humorous point of view.
One example is the game world, Middlewhere, described by the authors themselves as “croissant-shaped”. A world with all sorts of places, from the scary Dark Darkdom of Darkness to the warm beaches of Costa Dorada
What To Do but Especially How To Do It!
This One More Quest preview provides the normal ground rules for game management, testing, difficulty, combat, healing, and so on. Together here is the gem: how to execute the shots and the restrictions. It is worth mentioning the authors:
“Thrower must throw a single six-sided die with one side distinct from the others. The die must bounce at least once before it hits the Target. It must be thrown or rolled, not dropped, placed, or ejected from a dice tower. It must also land flat on the Target.”
Then there are the restrictions, specific actions related to the roll of the dice that are different for each type of roll. Test of Strength? The dice is thrown in balance on the elbow. Try to Intimidate? The die must be slapped. Proof of Stealth? The player pulls himself from under the table with only part of his head sticking out. And so on. There are 24 base skills and more skills given by equipment and talents . Headshots, punches on the table, flying pirouettes! And the restrictions can also be invented or, even better, combined in one shot. Game, set and match.
Dynamics are even more complex. There are the Conditions, which are further restrictions that can be imposed on the test. Then there are the Stunts, additional difficulties that the player chooses to increase the effect of the shot. Furthermore, it is also possible to use the mechanic of Push, throw another die from a reserve to add up the result. Depending on the aim and the result of the dice, you can also get epic successes or disastrous failures.
I quote with pleasure a small paragraph that promises in the complete manual indications for adapting the game to players with disabilities.
Adventurers and Adventure
As far as adventurers are concerned, it is not the purpose of this One More Quest preview to delve into the system. There are seven examples of characters, all created with classic descriptors such as Ancestry and Class or more narrative others like Archetype and Drive..
Only the introductory adventure is missing, which is called “House of the Wizard Bros”. To give you an idea, we talk about Starvard University, and the fraternity at the heart of the story is called Ligma-Meta-Pappa. I think I don’t need to talk further about the tone of the narrative. Little spoiler: it’s a dungeon. From me it could be anything, the hype of playing would be high anyway!
Final Consideration About the One More Quest Preview
At the end of the quickstart there is a collection of some grotesque and funny monsters, then the pages to build the Target and finally the cards of the characters in printer-friendly format. The product is flawless: it manages with clarity and speed to give the idea, arm the dice and throw players in a test game.
In general, One More Quest perfectly meets the main requirement that a game must have in my opinion: it has its “why”. It has a very strong mechanical identity, a well-defined narrative tone and an overall simplicity that makes it easy for novices to try and enjoy the game. The experience of the staff in making board game is visible.
If you enjoyed this preview, I invite you todownload the free quickstart of One More Quest and take a closer look. Or you can directly go to the Kickstarter page from 25th January to discover more informations!
Se you enkoyed the preview of One More Quest, keep following us to read about more news on the RpG world.
First of all I want to thank the TitanCraft team for allowing us to use their editor (which we already tried in preview), to create the miniature we are gonna show you in this review.
TitanCraft Custom Monster Miniatures is anonline tool you can use to draw monsters and then purchase them in physical or digital format. The possibilities are truly endless, and using the editor is easy and will get you a lot of fun.
The entry pricing for physical miniatures is $ 15 (about € 13) and goes up according to the weight of the product. You can instead download an STL file of your custom miniature for $ 10 (about 9 €). You can also purchase pre-crafted part packs of various monster types. Their pricing ranges from $ 10 for the Aboleth Package to $ 14 (about € 13) for the Dragons, Kraken and Treants Packages. You can buy every part of a specific creature and then design and print it at home.
My Experience with TitanCraft Custom Monster Miniatures
I was given maximum freedom (thanks again!) to produce a miniature, so I decided to do something big and full of details.
The choice is so vast that without a precise idea there is a risk of analysis paralysis. The editor is easy and full of options. Even the more complex features, such as the hand pose, are easy to understood after just a few attempts. I had a lot of fun experimenting with various possibilities, and I’ve been strucked by the infinite combinations that can be created.
In the end I chose an humanoid, but I loaded it with every possible accessory or body detail just to make the most of the experience.
The Final Outcome
Here is my miniature! I did not miss anything. Two swords, obviously different, skull-themed armor and clothing wherever it’s possible, wings spread to the maximum. It was not taken for granted that so many additions would blend so well. Instead, a little for the excellent basic design quality and a little for the editor who allowed me to move everything as I liked it, I was really happy with the result and surprised for the final result.
The physical miniature also lived up to expectations, and the packaging was perfect to transport such a precious object.
Final Observations about TitanCraft Custom Monster Miniatures Review
The best advice I can give about TitanCraft Custom Monster Miniatures is to give it a try. Go to the site and start playing with this beautiful instrument. The possibilities are innumerable and the final result, both digital and physical, is excellent. I can highly recommend this beautiful site!
Keep on following us to discover other realities like TitanCraft Custom Monster Miniatures!
What a pleasure writing the review of Massive Gelatinous! What are the two cubic things that immediately come to every RPG player’s mind? Obviously I’m referring to the d6s and gelatinous cubes, great chunks of slime.
I’ve always liked them, partly because they are an improved, even if vaguely deadly, version of robot vacuum cleaners. A little ‘because from the point of view of the reward they are like the showcase of a shop, so you can understand first what can be achieved by fighting them.
But above all because a long time ago, after having granted to a PC a brand new mercurial broadsword (we are talking about D&D3.0) only because the player had stressed me to the unbearable, I had the great satisfaction of seeing him melt the sword inside a gelatinous cube at the first attack of the first fight. What do you say? The acid of the Gelatinous Cube doesn’t dissolve neither stone nor metal? Too bad, my friend didn’t know. Probably neither do I. In my defense I gave the sword a saving throw and he rolled a 1. We were young and inexperienced. Forgive me Teo.
But We Are Here for the Review of the Massive Gelatinous
You are also right. You’re not here to hear me talk about teenage games in the 90s. But don’t tell me you’re here for the Massive Gelatinous review. Do I really have to explain to you if a giant d6 that resembles a Gelatinous Cube is beautiful? Are we joking? But have you seen the photos? It is a nice big die with a 51 mm side, heavy, with rounded edges. And it’s decorated to look like a Gelatinous Cube. What do you need to know more? In case you fail the Perception check, the number of skulls determines the result of each face.
Given its size if you want to be able to use it you’ll need a landing strip more than a simple flat surface and certainly a material that muffles the sounds otherwise you will wake up not only the neighbors, but also their murderous fury, if they survive the fright of the rumble of the impact.
Seriously, the die is the standard size of the large d6 size, it is heavy and you must pay attention if you want to use it. Although in my humble opinion its best use is on a very visible shelf to make your friends envy and to look at it every time you pass by. I challenge you to do this and not to admit to yourself that it was money well spent. You can also use it as a miniature of a Gelatinous Cube and it’s nothing short of perfect.
For those who want a more easily rollable Gelatinous Cube, there is the standard size version.
Gelatinous Cube? Gelatinous Cute!
I conclude this review first of all by sincerely thanking Severed Books for sending us a Massive Gelatinous and above all for making me a happy compulsive hoarder. You can find Massive Gelatinous on Amazon or Etsy, other than my shelf. It costs about $18 (15€) plus shipping costs. I truly suggest you to take a look at Severed Books site, full of interesting stuff. Among which you will find the pre-orders for Massive Gelatinous 2, with the two options Blood Swirl (transparent with blood-colored objects) but above all the version that lights up in the dark. I want to hav… I want to review that too!
In a last moment of seriousness I can tell you that it is a product that wisely tickles the palate of role players. The standard version can be used easily, the large one less. There is no doubt, however, that on a visual level the large die is really beautiful to observe and display. Also, the ability to use it as a game miniature is anything but a joke. Like everything beautiful, particular and not produced near your home, the shipping costs must be evaluated, but you can only think about it after passing a Wisdom saving throw, otherwise you will not be able to resist and… you will melt in front of its beauty!
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We thank Inkwell Ideas for having sent us for this review some of their decks. Inkwell Ideas offers many accessories for roleplaying players; we have already reviewed Dungeonmorph Dice and Cards and this time we focus on their decks, intended for two specific purposes.
First ones areSidequest Decks, which offer adventure hooks. The second ones are NPC Portraits Decks, which present pregenerated NPC full of infos. Every product is system neutral.
All decks are available for purchase at the Inkwell Ideas website and each is sold, printed, for $ 12.55 (about € 11), including the PDF version. The digital version alone costs $ 4.99 (about € 4) for the Sidequest Decks and $ 3.99 (about € 3.5) for the NPC Portraits Decks.
In this review I will focus on the three decks that Inkwell Ideas sent us, but the choice is very varied. There are 11 Sidequest Decks, ranging from genres (such as Horror, Lovecraft, Science Fantasy) to more specific situations (Dungeons and Caves, High Seas and Pirates, Arcane Academy). A special mention to the “After the Total Party Kill” deck. The Horror Fantasy and Science Fiction decks have arrived in our editorial office. As for the NPC Portraits Decks, there are 10 types, mostly focused on the fantasy genre and divided by places or types (monsters, adventurers, wingmen) with a deck dedicated instead to characters of the scifi genre. We will analyze the deck that concerns the Coastal Townsfolk.
Review of the Materials of the Inkwell Ideas Decks
The decks consist of 54 cards collected in cardboard boxes. The quality is good but I have doubts about their durability in case of intensive use. It cannot be considered a defect because I don’t think there were great alternatives. I would like to see packs larger than the size of the deck of cards from time to time. In this way it would be possible to use protective sleeves while still being able to put the cards back in their original packaging. The individual cards are standard quality, durable, and will likely stand up to heavy use.
How do the cards look like? Those of the NPC Portrait Deck have on one side the portrait of an NPC and on the other its description, which I will explain later when I talk about the contents. Those of the Sidequest Deck have on one side the map of the mini adventure and on the other the essential information.
Art and Layout
In terms of layout, the cards are rightly simple. The background color is soft, the font clean. Through good contrast and good spacing each card contains a lot of information, even if obviously the dimensions of the text are small, but easily readable.
From a graphic point of view, the faces of the characters in the NPC Portrait Deck are cute. They are very reminiscent of the graphic possibilities of RPG video games. I found the quality is average, but even in this case the choice is correct: it would not have made sense to commission dozens and dozens of portraits of the highest quality. The illustrations do their job: they give a clear idea of the NPC that is easily viewed by game masters and players.
The maps of the Sidequest Decks are varied, based on the type of deck and adventure. Qualitatively they are sufficient, just enough to give an idea of the place. But these are low resolution and extremely simple products. This is not meant to be a criticism. Personally, I approve of the choice, especially if it served to prevent the final price from rising. Just know that scanning the cards to enlarge the image to use as a map is one possibility, but it will lead to very rough results. However, it remains a fast and viable road.
Review of the Contents of Inkwell Ideas Decks
I start by talking about the NPC Portraits Deck. As I mentioned, the deck that has arrived is focused on the inhabitants of coastal settlements. Each card contains a lot of information, according to a very specific scheme. Name and surname, race, occupation. Then there are several small paragraphs dedicated to personalities, particularities, needs, secrets, information to be used as a lever to persuade them and background. A short quote concludes the paper. In short, the information is really a lot to be contained in a few square centimeters!
The characters are not just about the sea, although there are pirates, sailors and dock workers. In reality there are characters of many different types, also considering the extreme variety that can be encountered in a large city on the coast. The characterization is remarkable and each card offers ideas for both interpretation and play. Between the backgrounds, secrets and needs, each character gives the game master small threads to pull and new narrative possibilities.
Sidequest Decks cards also offer great play ideas and insights. Content composition is slightly different for the two Inkwell Ideas card decks evaluated in this review. For both there are the title and some keywords underneath, which allow you to immediately frame the main topics covered. A very brief summary follows.
After which both have three paragraphs: the first on how to hook the player characters, the second, the most full-bodied, on the encounters and events of the adventure, while the last are ideas for continuing it further. The mini sci-fi adventure cards also have an additional paragraph, with suggestions on how to adapt the card to a fantasy setting.
Final Considerations about the Inkwell Ideas Decks
The Inkwell Ideas decks made a good impression on me. They were made with intelligence and practicality. They are nice and well made, but also simple and no frills. From an aesthetic point of view they are more than acceptable, while as regards the contents they are a mine of ideas, the result of excellent creative work. Their usefulness depends on the type of game and the type of game master, but undoubtedly they can be useful in all those moments in which, for one reason or another, the ideas at the table seem not to be able to come out.
They are also very comfortable decks for those who love to play sandbox or free-roaming, or for masters who already have a lot of things to manage and want something that helps them to take off at least some weight. The purchase of the physical version must take into account the shipping costs. The digital version, on the other hand, has a truly exceptional cost per idea ratio.
Keep following us if you enjoyed this Inkwell Ideas decks review!
First of all our thanks to Acheron Books for having made us Ducaconti, that is for having sent us a beautiful Brancalonia bundle in order to write this review. Brancalonia was one of the first projects we carefully followed with No Dice Unrolled. We spread the rumor on 18th February 2020, then we published an interview with the Creative Director Mauro Longo. We read the quickstart full of enthusiasm and hope, writing a preview. We’ve been waiting for a year and a half but now the time has come to write the Brancalonia review. Not simply to explain what it is, but rather to tell you how it is! Has it kept the high expectations we had?
Although you might find it repetitive, for review purposes I have to briefly explain what Brancalonia is. It’s a D&D5e setting that paints an unheroic, picaresque and roguish world that quotes, collects, and mixes references from contemporary Italian fiction and over a hundred works of Italian fantasy tradition, pop culture, and collective imagery. The setting the whole story unfolds is the Kingdom, a peninsula casually shaped like a (inverted) boot and casually full of references, jokes and cameos of Italian literature, cinema and pop culture. Players are asked to play the low-class scoundrels who are usually not mentioned in the great epic tales, but are the undisputed protagonists of the worst stories in the worst taverns of the worst neighborhoods of each city.
Let’s Start Big!
The protagonists may be low-league heroes, but the Brancalonia project has proved to be an epic-level success. In fact the Kickstarter campaign reached the funding threshold in half an hour and, over time, almost 3,300 people have donated over €190,000 which made it possible to create not only the basic manual, but also a first expansion module, the Macaronicon, and many other physical objects that we will show you in our beautiful Ducaconte bundle. The two manuals are available for purchasing on Acheron Books site at 39€ each.
But above all Brancalonia overshadowed 2021’s national achievments such as the victory at the European football championships, the many golds at the Olympics and Paralympics, the triumph at the Eurovision Song Contest. This is because Brancalonia entered the nominations of 4 categories of the famous and highly coveted ENnies Awards, placing itself in each of them! First time that an Italian product gets a gold!
So with Italian pride and with great satisfaction for all those who worked on it and for the community, here is the palmares of Brancalonia:
Best electronic book – Gold
Best Writing – Silver
and Best Setting – Silver
Product of the Year – Silver
An excellent presentation in view of the most coveted prizes in the playful multiverse, which will arrive at the end of the year, the NDU Awards!
The Ducaconte, a.k.a. the Galactic Megabundle
The cornerstone of the physical material on Brancalonia are the two manuals, identical in their physical characteristics and layout. They are both hardcover, in color, excellently paginated, most pages with two-column portions and others with one column and insights on the side. The predominant colors are red and black, with various shades of scroll-like colors in the background. The visual impact and readability of these two manuals are truly optimal. We will talk about the maps and images that further embellish the pages later.
After the manuals there is the Game Master screen , in three horizontal colored sides, with a splendid illustration by Lorenzo Nuti on the front. By the same author there are also two posters depicting the covers of the manuals and,talking about splendid illustrations, in the bundle there are the A2-sized map of the Kingdom in bloody version and 8 maps of the main cities of the Kingdom signed by Fabio Porfidia. And since there is never enough art of a certain level, there is the Brancalonia artbook. An A5-sized softcover booklet of about fifty pages that collects the drawings of Lorenzo Nuti and other artists who participated in the creation of Brancalonia.
Last but not least the Daily Jinx, number 0 a newspaper-like a collection of material presented with great cheerfulness, which over time has seen the release of other issues..
I can only emphasize the extreme quality of all the materials. From the manufacturing point of view, a great job has been done and I find the value for money very attractive. In fact, not only the evaluative copy arrived in the editorial office: it was impossible to resist the temptation and we took other copies!
The Men (and the Style) that Made It Happen
Before going into the long road that will be this review of Brancalonia, I would like to give credit to all those who contributed to this work, but the names are really many. Brancalonia was born thanks to the collaboration of various signatures, many of them authors of anthologies already published by Acheron Books. At least the important merit of the promoters of the spaghetti fantasy, the creators of Zappa and Spada, the creatives of Ignoranza Eroica, the game experts of Epic Party Gamesand mostly Mauro Longo.
Mauro Longo is one of the main faces of Brancalonia and its creative director. It is the pen that has amalgamated the various contributions and above all, with its expressive quality, has contributed enormously to paint the right tone and to favor the reader’s immersion in the setting. The language of role play manuals is often standardized. If we exclude the jokes in the lighter passages, a descriptive pragmatism mostly dominates, aimed at depicting rules, places and situations with the utmost clarity. On the other hand, in scrolling through the paragraphs of Brancalonia, there is something different. Although facilitated by the general tone of the work, the phrases, supported by the citations and the lexicon, raise the general level of writing to a quality achieved by few.
Brancalonia in General
An important premise: an enormous part of the value of the product and of my review were bound to the Italian language. My Italian review is mostly based on listing funny and ingenious names, references and word puns. I can’t translate those treasures in English.
After all these preambles how does Brancalonia work? The basis, of course, is D&D5e. But it is only a base, many rules and particularities make this product quite unique and we will see it. The game, carried out by the master who takes the name of Condottiero, has limitations given by the particularity of the setting.
The characters are knaves tied in principle to certain backgrounds and alignments. Brancalonia provides advancement only up to the sixth level. Have you ever seen knaves of a certain level? No! These characters come together in gangs, called to perform criminal “jobs”, attracting the attention of the guards and the bounty hunters. For this reason all the scoundrels of the Kingdom are called Bounty Brothers and the place becomes, in the Italian version, the Kingdom of Taglia (“Taglia” is the italian word for bounty and it sounds almost like “Italia”). The lexicon, situations and rules unfold along these lines.
I want to underline once again how the presence of ad hoc rules creates an important mix between system and setting. This is a sign of quality. The system has been modified to allow you to better appreciate the setting and this interpenetration is a good and important detail.
Review of the Characters of Brancalonia
Describing the Brancalonia races in Italian was the easiest part of this review. I just made a list of the names and they triggered images and memories. For this review in English I understand that these names may not create a spark in your brain and neither will do the other names of the classes and the talents. There are humans, gifted, morgants, sylvans, marionettes (like Pinocchio), malebranches, wolfcats, non-existents and the pantegans..
Let’s talk about classes? There are new subclasses, one per class in the basic manual and another round of possibilities in the Macaronicon, along with a new class, the puppeteer. And with the puppeteer come the puppets, sinking even more deeply into Italian folklore. All those classes and subclasses work finely for creating a unique and goliardic spaghetti fantasy style.
Basic Manual and Macaronicon still share the offer of new personalities and backgrounds, new (poor) equipment and magical junk. In addition, in the basic manual there are also the brancalonian talents.
The Rules that Only Brancalonia Dares to Have
Brancalonia is not just a way to reskin the characters with goliardic spirit. There are a lot of rules that complete the offer of Spaghetti Fantasy fun. I’ve already mentioned how important is for a system to support the setting with its own rules. In this product there are many, some highly recommended, others that are optional based on the flavour you want to give to the game.
Some are fundamental for Brancalonia to be Brancalonia: the cap at the sixth level, the poor equipment, the knave’s rest, which extends the short rest to 8 hours and the long one to 7 days, the Sbraco, as the downtime is called here. There are many other options, the rollick, tavern games, the job hazards. Many ways (and many others) to customize and differentiate Brancalonia according to your needs.
Then, there are the rules for tavern brawl, iconic element of a certain Italian cinema and beyond. It is undeniable that many players love D&D for its fights. Now it is possible to smash bottles on the heads of strangers and fill them with punches. Players have many moves at their disposal and even a secret move, the Ace in the Hole, different for each class. It is a playful and well-regulated moment, with many options, few consequences and a lot of fun.
Brancalonic Guide for Masters
The manual devotes nearly twenty pages to the code of conduct, or the advice for the Game Master. It is a very important and well done part of the manual, because it provides significant details to best outline the Kingdom and its peculiarities. In addition to general explanations, there are important sources on bounties, a handy Dive Generator, and other hilarious tables to get the most out of the Kingdom …
Talking about the Kingdom…
Over 40 dense pages are dedicated to the description of the most scoundrel Kingdom in the world of role-playing games. Trying to describe something just means falling into the trap and publishing a list of names. The names … The expressions, the choices! Brancalonia might just be read for pleasure. Each Italian region is collected, distorted and narrated with interesting glimpses and suggestions for small jobs. In particular the chapter dedicated to the Forgotten Counties is graphically powerful, with entire portions of paragraphs obscured by bloodstains.
Needless to say, the quality of the monsters and recurring opponents presented in the manual is also confirmed. Another aspect that greatly enhances the very rich Italian tradition.
Review of the Jobs of Brancalonia
The adventures, or Jobs, make up another Brancalonia masterpiece. There are 6 in the basic manual and another 6 in the Macaronicon. I have not read them all, but I could not tell you anything the same because, as usual, we are spoiler-free.
As I said previously, I can’t share with non Italian readers the number of interesting quotes enriching the adventures written in the two manuals. Apart from that, the stories are funny and brillantly written. They reveal to players a lot of Italian folklore and popular tropes. They are essential to properly understand and master the Spaghetti Fantasy style.
The Daily Jinx and the Community
The bundle of the Ducaconte is completed with the nice number zero of the Daily Jinx. A real magazine, complete with absurd advertisements and hilarious blurbs, which enriches the world of Brancalonia and offers readers new information, new insights and a new adventure. In the meantime, three more issues of this periodical have come out, available on DrivethruRPG.
These products demonstrate the desire to carry on the game project in a structured way, thanks also to an important community. The immense basin from which to draw to create new content or even just jokes, memes or names has stimulated the imagination and generated a passionate and intense response from the public. On the other hand, it is asking a nation to come up with the most popular and iconic elements of what they have read, watched, listened to and experienced in the last decades of their country.
Review of the Art of Brancalonia
Such a long review allowed me to showcase many of Brancalonia‘s illustrations. I don’t think there is much to discuss about the average quality of the drawings, framed by a layout that I have already praised and of which I emphasize once again the excellent rendering and the excellent choice of the color palette.
The style chosen to visually accompany the products is in my opinion very apt. It brings to mind something already seen, including comics and illustrations in newspapers and magazines that have filled the Italian peninsula. At the same time, through slightly more medieval traits, it helps to place the setting chronologically. Everything is however harmonized, colored and finalized with great quality and modernity. I’m not exactly sure what I wrote, but certainly if you have looked at the images on this page you will have got a very good idea.
I have to quote also the maps of Fabio Porfidia. A must, quality seal. An addition of value perfectly integrated into the graphic design.
The Weight of Columbus’s Egg
I would like to add one more point to this Brancalonia review. The idea is simple and brilliant. But an idea is not enough. Once they had the epiphany, the abundance of the Italic tradition must have been a cornucopia. An inexhaustible mine of inspiration. So in some ways it was easy to tap into such a generous source to fill the manuals with brilliant content.
I would just like to point out, however, that when one takes inspiration from well known and loved fratures of a national pop culture, there is also a dark side. The love that drives us to look and become curious to see certain caricatures, to read certain names, to discover certain puns, is also accompanied by the demand that such love be repaid with content of similar level. In short, you can’t touch Bud Spencer, Roberto Benigni, Cristiano De André, Adriano Celentano, Vittorio Gassman (just to name a few) if you don’t make a quality product.
In short, the brilliant idea of Brancalonia gives me the impression of having been a double-edged sword. And the result is a double merit. On the one hand the merit of having achieved such a brilliant intuition and on the other hand having kept expectations.
Final Consideration on this Review of Brancalonia
The result of the ENnies says so. The success of the Kickstarter project says so. And the size of the community also says so. I’ve said it a bunch of times in this review:Brancalonia is one of the brightest products on the RPG landscape in recent years. A brilliant idea has been transformed into a great project with top quality from every point of view. This is confirmed by international awards. Obtained despite the English translation losing the beauty of so many phrases and puns and despite the distance from our culture of readers from other countries.
Summary Brancalonia is a superlative product. Excellently illustrated and paginated, beautifully written, full of personality and playful possibilities. It is a highly recommended purchase to enjoy fun and grungy adventures and campaigns, with surreal and very evocative characters. It is also worth buying simply for reading it, although in this case you will hardly resist taking it to a game table!
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We thank usducktape (a medical student that instead of studying I’m making ttrpgs… His words!), for sending us a copy of Cuticorium in order to write this review. Cuticorium is described from the author as a microspopic game of bugs and intrigue. It was fully financed on Kickstarter thanks to about 400 backers who donate nearly $10.000. In this RPG players take on the roles of insectswho, through alliances, betrayals and connections, fight for supremacy in the insect city of Cuticorium or explore the outside world. Cuticorium is available on tue itch.io page of usducktape or on indiepressrevolution, with a cost ranging from $15 (about € 12.5) to $30 (about €25), depending on the type of format, digital or with soft cover hard copy, and the presence of maps.
A Little Manual for Little Creatures
Let’s start our Cuticorium review by talking about the product appearance. It is a small book, in A6 format, which therefore measures c. 6in x 4in (10cm x 15cm. It consists of 130 color pages. The lefthand pages are mostly occupied by images of various insects in human poses and activities, or by text boxes that help immersion in the setting. These images, accompanied by a quote below, are quite varied, the work of several artists. The styles are different but the result as a whole is pleasant. There is certainly a difference in the result between them but each has its own interesting peculiarity.
The righthand pages contain the actual text of the manual. The text runs in a single column, with an informal font and ‘ragged right’ margin format. There are only scant variations of the type to help orient you in the text. Reading is not difficult, but it isn’t one of the most relaxing reads either. Good lighting and concentration are needed. It is not a game that requires a continuous reading of the manual so, once you have learned the main notions, there is (fortunately) little need to return to the book. A couple of summary tables would not have been a bad idea, however.
Less-Bug and More-Human Bugs
The backdrop forthe game is the domain of Cuticorium, a tree that houses a magical crystal. This crystal prohibits physical violence between insects and increases their intellect. A simple fairytale excuse to allow a social game with insects as protagonists, but it works! The area of Cuticorium is yet to be fully discovered and is full of mysteries. There is no presence of man or other creatures to threaten the insects.
The insects are divided into three types: Predators feeding on other insects; they are strong, cunning creatures who must leave the Cuticorium area to feed. Plant-eating insects, the largest population in Cuticorium. Decomposers, who feed on dead things.
The game does not have a class scheme and defines the characters based on some parameters. Desire and Shame are interpretative tags. The first is the biggest dream of the insect that, having evolved thanks to the crystal, no longer thinks only of eating and reproducing. The second is a secret, a painful memory that hinders the personal growth of these strange intelligent insects. After that, the insects have two features to be chosen from a large, entomologically very interesting list. It doesn’t matter if the two features together sound far-fetched, there are insects of all kinds!
Cuticorium System Review
The game is first divided into scenes. The opening and closing, as well as some key and aggregating scenes of the story, are managed by the narrator and are interspersed with scenes where each character in turn sets a scene and then invites PCs and NPCs to join in.Cuticorium uses the Web System.
Web tokens represent understanding and control over everything. They can represent the knowledge of other insects and their secrets, thus also indicating the ability to maneuver them. They can represent knowledge of places in or around Cuticorium. Or they can represent introspection, self-knowledge. Web tokens represent both the cost of character actions and a kind of Hit Points. They can be spent on automatic success. When an insect runs out of Web Tokens, it panics and risks having to leave Cuticorium, never to return. Finally, the Web Collectors can also be used as a currency, because where there is no money, you can always pay in interesting acquaintances.
Review of Cuticorium Mechanics
The Web System provides for a series of codified actions. There are 8 moves to other insects and 3 to places. Generally an action require a d4 roll, where 4 or more is a success, a result of 2 or 3 is a partial success and 1 a failure.
Actions generate a system of gain / loss / movement of the Web Tokens. In addition, the features of the various characters further vary the possibilities. There are 21 features presented, but it is possible to invent others. There is only one physical action, to Scar, all the others are social interactions, including Comforting, Sharing and Embracing.
The actions aimed at the places allow you to make them your habitat, or add a particularity, or even discover new ones, all at the price of Web Tokens that you have on places. These accumulate by finishing the scenes in a certain place. It is a fast system, with a strong component of randomness based only on a 4-sided die, but with good consistency and interesting combinations.
It’s All a Great Metaphor
After reading Cuticorium I got an impression. The game was born from the correlation between webs and bonds. Knowing a person or a place is a way to have power or influence over them. But to do this it is also necessary to risk exposing oneself and showing something of oneself. This something becomes leverage by which others can move us.
This token system with links that form thick webs inspired the creatures and location of Cuticorium – or maybe I’m wrong and the author just wanted to play a game about bugs and it turned out like that!
The Negative Aspects
Cuticorium is not without flaws. The setting is nice, the idea is nice, the system has some interesting elements and the learning curve is fast. Despite being a light game, however, the manual lacks some important information in my opinion. After having explained the basic concepts and having listed the actions and peculiarities of insects, the last pages are dedicated to describing the main places of the tree and its surroundings. Then in a couple of pages of other small optional rules, the manual ends with a set of tables for the random generation of a whole series of elements. The places described are nice, but sketchy, too nebulous, and not particularly original.
However, important accompaniments for the game are missing. With only the list of possibilities not everyone is able to build a session or situations, much less a campaign. There is no introductory adventure, there are no game examples, the manual is an aseptic list of rules, descriptors and places. Considering that nearly half of the manual pages are made up of images, I think there is some wasted space. Or I would have chosen at least to use the space differently and make the manual more complete.
Final Consideration of the Review of Cuticorium
To use an entomological metaphor, Cuticorium itself seemed to me an insect. It is small, colorful and generates curiosity. But also something more made to please a small group of enthusiasts and which may alienate many due to its strangeness – and some flaws.
But Cuticorium also has a lot of value! Most important: it has its own ‘why’. As I have said before, you should ask yourself why a game exists before writing or playing it. This role-playing game, with its Web System, has a metaphorical but well-defined setting and above all it knows what it wants to talk about and how.
Perhaps, as I said earlier, it doesn’t help the reader much in getting into the game, or maybe it’s just me who couldn’t get in tune. It is certainly a great tool, used in the right way, to explore and play the world of social interactions.
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This article extends and replaces a previous one on the Threshold of Pain rule of Hackmaster, published a couple of years ago in the early days of No Dice Unrolled. Why did I write it? Simple: in those days I was running a Hackmaster campaign and it reached a point where it was full of fighting! The three Redbeard dwarf brothers and their companions had begun heading north to free the dwarven community of Coldhall, overrun by a tribe of orcs. A starting point to tell one of the mechanics I like most about the fascinating Hackmaster system!
Hackmaster and the Threshold of Pain
The concept is that every creature has a pain tolerance limit beyond which it cannot take damage and remaining active and standing. Regardless of health conditions.Hackmaster‘s system is a D&D inspired d20 system, so many aspects are understandable to anyone who knows the world’s most famous RPG. The base reasoning is that a character with, for example, 50 hit points (henceforth hp) who takes 1 hp damage 20 times is never be in danger of collapsing to the ground. The same character could have a different fate if he loses 15 hp all at one time.
It makes sense and is easily understandable. Yet a D&D player would prefer to take 15 hp of damage and be at 35 hp, while a Hackmaster player would sign up to be able to choose to take “only” 1 damage at a time, even being at only 30 hp.
Let’s see how the theory is applied. To understand the Threshold of Pain rule, remember that, in Hackmaster (unlike D&D), armor does not increase the likelihood of being missed (indeed, it often reduces it), but it reduces the damage taken. It’s ablative. That’s why I like Hackmaster: It’s a plausible and intuitive game, although it may seem a little crunchy at first. For example, the rules for shields start from the assumption that those who have a shield try to use it to intercept the opponent’s weapon and therefore do not serve to increase the Armor Class, but if you like we can talk about that another time. Let’s go back to the Threshold of Pain.
The Hackmaster Rule of the Threshold of Pain
For most player characters, the Hackmaster Threshold of Pain is 30% hp + 1% per level.Our 50 hp character above, assuming he is sixth level, would have a Threshold of Pain of 18 hit points. When a character (but it works for every creature) takes more damage than its Threshold of Pain, the player must roll a d20 and roll under half its Constitution score or be overcome by pain. Is it the first hit? Or is it the lucky critical of a dying kobold? *shrug* Maybe a tile fell on its head. If the Constitution test (called the Trauma Check) is unsuccessful, it falls down
It must stay on the ground, suffering in pain, for a full 5 seconds (in Hackmaster there are no rounds, you calculate the time that passes in seconds), multiplied by [(the actual roll result) – (the roll it needed to pass the check)] . Let’s go back to our 50 hp friend. Let’s give him a generous 16 Constitution score and assume he has suffered 20 points of damage, net of the reductions. Ouch! Now, with a d20 he must roll 8 or less or the pain must prevail. If he rolls a 12, for example, he is left lying on the ground suffering, unable to do anything for 20 seconds: [(actual roll of 12) – (target number 8)] = 4; 4 x 5 seconds = 20. That’s an eternity in a fight.
D&D is for boys, Hackmaster is for Men
If I’m looking for a hard, heartless game where tactics and dice decide my character’s fate, then I choose Hackmaster without a thought. It has so many rules that provide more realistic results than many popular fantasy systems, making it both tactical and interesting. But, players must accept that the fights are very dangerous. I’ve seen my group of adventurers afraid of facing a bunch of goblins. They did it carefully, never taking anything for granted. And they enjoyed incredibly being able to put them on the run.
In Hackmaster this is also due to the Threshold of Pain rule. But is it so easy to land on the ground? Do you take so much damage? Not always, otherwise it would be a game of slaughter, but it can happen. As in reality, certain things don’t happen often, but when they do they are very dangerous. Many systems most devoted to making 15-year-olds ready to fight gods within 5 adventures ignore this aspect. And that’s okay, for that kind of game and that kind of story. Well, Hackmaster isn’t that kind of game. Getting to fifth level is almost a dream but, when it happens, it is a huge satisfaction..
The Threshold of Pain also applies positively. A couple of well-aimed hits and you can overturn the outcome of a fight. With a lot of luck, even a dangerous boss-fight can be resolved in a single blow. What do you say? Does it take away the taste? Go and tell it to the corpses of the adventurers whose bodies pave the way to the final battle!
What Other Rules of Hackmaster Makes The Threshold of Pain Present of Dangerous at Every Level
The mortality rate in an RPG can often be very high in the early levels, when the characters have less fortitude. Then, as levels go by, it is more and more difficult to instill in players the fear of losing their characters at any moment, the risk. To understand Hackmaster‘s Threshold of Pain well, consider some other aspects of this game:
Dice explode, more or less. With a battle axe that inflicts 4d3 damage, every “3” is rerolled. The result can be 4, but also 20 just as easily.
Characteristics in character’s creation are rolled purely on 3d6. No discount. They can be improved, but a 14 in Constitution is already a pretty solid result.
Shields are useful only on the side they are equipped, and defending from rear attacks is very difficult. Fighting against 4 kobolds is challenging even with some levels under your belt.
If a creature falls down after failing a Trauma Check, another creature can execute a Coup-de-Grace in 10 seconds or less (Assassins in 2). Farewell, cruel world!
Summing Up
Those were just a few examples of how Hackmaster works and of the Threshold of Pain. It certainly won’t please everyone, and it isn’t necessarily the best rule to make a fight realistic. First of all, it must be used in the right game. The game in which it’s used must be consciously chosen by the players for its characteristics. It requires a few more calculations, a little more attention, but it pays off in verisimilitude and positive tension. Given these premises, if you are looking for a game in which the fights are difficult, deadly and unpredictable, without putting the result completely in the hands of the dice, I highly recommend trying Hackmaster. Even if its retro graphics do still show bikini chainmail!
I ran it for a long time with a group that really enjoyed it. Even today, I’m sure most of them would quit any other campaigns if I announce a new one of Hackmaster. As a Game Master, I can tell you that it isn’t a system for new GMs to try to handle immediately, because there are many aspects to manage at the same time. It takes some time for players to learn it. But when you get into the rhythm, you fly. Every second counts, every move matters, every detail can make a difference. You fight with the feeling of always being dangerous and always being in danger and the heart and brain remain glued to the game table.
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Thanks to Elderbrain for sending us a copy of Year of Rogue Dragonsso we could write this review. It’s a 100 page adventure for D&D5e for four players who must travel to the Forgotten Realms to take the role of newborn chromatic dragons (therefore evil, in that world). The product, only in digital format, is available for $14,99 (about 12€) on dmsguild.com. For the same price, you can get materials to use on Fantasy Grounds. It is also possible to save money by buying both products at once or by purchasing adventure maps, always on dmsguild.com.
The Authors and a Sponsor of Excellence
On the Elderbrain website you can find their current products. In addition to Year of Rogue Dragons there is another adventure (which we will tell you about someday) and a background music app for RPGs. The Elderbrain team is a group of old friends who grew up together on bread and D&D. Entangled in family and work commitments these days, they try to find the time to meet, play, and carry on their dream of creating products for role-playing games. The subject of our review, Year of Rogue Dragons, which earned Best Platinum Seller recognition on dmsguild.com, is their first project.
But the most welcome recognition the cover boasts is the recommendation of Richard Lee Byers, author of over forty horror and fantasy novels, including many set in the Forgotten Realms. Among these is also the Year of Rogue Dragons trilogy, which lends its title to this product.
Review of the Contents of Year of Rogue Dragon
The content of this adventure is divided simply and effectively. First there is an introduction to the setting and a summary of the adventure, followed by details on playing dragons as player characters and other insights and options for creating and advancing the characters.
Then there is the actual adventure, which takes up most of the 100 pages. It is divided into three chapters. In the first, the young dragons learn news of the world around them and how to take their first steps. In the second, a greater interaction begins with the three factions that interact with the protagonists: a black dragon named Iyrauroth, the Cult of the Dragon (a sect that aims to create dracolichs) and the Zhentarim (an evil merchant company that is a front for an underlying network of spies and criminals). The first missions are revealed and the young dragons can decide how to place themselves on the chessboard of power. The third chapter is more of a showdown. By their choices and actions, the dragons reach the third level and shape an ending that opens up more possibilities.
After the adventure, Year of Rogue Dragons provides all the material to play with, therefore NPCs, monsters, spells, magic items, some handouts and a map.
Playing As Dragons
Obviously the chance to play an adventure as a group of dragons doesn’t happen every day. The introduction focuses mainly on two points. The first is how to create a balanced party, the second is the possible origins of the players’ choice for their characters.
It is assumed that dragons of different colors also have different numeric characteristics. Three possibilities for creating the party are described. In practice, either the players accept the idea that different colored dragons have a different “power”, or they decide to create four dragons of the same color. If the first two possibilities end up not being feasible, an idea for how to modify the characters to make them as balanced as possible is given.
There are five backgrounds that offer choices or at least some ideas for contextualizing the characters’ initial situation. Having access to other manuals, perhaps those mentioned on the first page of the adventure, can help you step into the shoes of four dragons even better and experience the adventure with greater intensity.
Review of the Plot of Year of Rogue Dragons
On balance, the players care little about the layout, details or subdivision of the chapters. What matters most is that the story they are going to live is worth experiencing. Obviously, it isn’t my intention to reveal the plot or its secrets in this review, but it is still possible to highlight some elements that might help guide you to choose to play it eventually.
The adventure is a continous crescendo. Each chapter increases the characters’ awareness and involvement, leading to a perhaps classic but certainly not trivial final situation. The initial, more or less random, encounters soon lead to the presentation of more than one faction. This situation opens the doors to the second part, where each faction in the game interacts with the characters who, for their part, receive various tasks that create the basis of the third chapter. There, the plots come to a head and the choices the players make influence the creation of the final part of the story.
The plot is certainly not innovative, but it covers many situations well, gives the players space to make choices, and makes good use of clichés that, although unsurprising, are pleasant to play. Let’s not forget that creating an adventure for four chromatic dragons is already a remarkable work of fiction in itself!
If you want more details, look carefully at the cover …
Art and Layout
Year of Rogue Dragons is a beautiful colored volume with pages enclosed in an elaborate frame with draconic references. The chromatic choice tends towards dark and restful colors. The text is occasionally interrupted by small black and white illustrations; less frequent color images embellish the product and make reading pleasant. The style follows classic fantasy with a hint of comics. Various full-page illustrations increase the value of medium-high quality graphics even more, always visually pleasing. Certainly having such images to show players during play sessions is a significant asset to the description of scenes and immersion in them.
The classic two-column layout is neat and careful, although a few more cues to draw attention to chapters or key concepts, with different text formats or text boxes, would have helped. I think more could also have been done on the layout and graphics of the handouts.
Final Consideration of the Review of Year of Rogue Dragons
Year of Rogue Dragons attractive for the particularity of the protagonists, above all. Being able to play an evil dragon is not an everyday opportunity, not even in fantasy worlds like those found in role-playing games.
From this standpoint, Elderbrain does a great job, because it creates a plot that isn’t simple, but stable and reliable, with which to play this original concept. Perhaps I would recommend this product more to a dungeon master expert in the game and to players who want to try something different, but are committed not to flattening the opportunity with stereotyped behaviors.
Played with the right approach and with due commitment, I believe that The Year of Rogue Dragons is an interesting adventure, capable of giving a different and engaging point of view.
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We thank Inkwell Ideas for sending us an example of Dungeonmorph Dice e one of Dungeonmorph Cards to write this review.
The first product, Dungeonmorph Dice, produces portions of maps that can be connected together, printed on the faces of 6-sided dice. We have been sent the Trailblazer Set, with 6 dungeon-themed dice, but there are several other sets: the Adventurer Set, Delver Set, Cities Set, Explorer Set, Spelljunker Set, Ruins Set, Villages Set and Voyager Set, each with 5 or 6 dice. They are all viewable and available for purchase on the Inkwell Ideas store and their price ranges from $17.99 (about 15€) for the 5 dice sets to $19.99 (about 16.50€) for the 6 dice sets.
The second product is Dungeonmorph Cards. They are 2,5 in. (c. 6cm) square cards printed with the maps of the various faces of the Dungeonmorph Dice. Our version, Delver, Trailblazers & Voyager, contains the images of the three corresponding sets, but there are two other possibilities: Adventurer, Explorer & Spelljunker and Cities, Ruins & Villages. Also these cards can be viewed and purchased at the Inkwell Ideas Store for $4,99 (about 4€) in PDF or $17,99 (about 15€) in both physical and digital version.
Inkwell Ideas
Inkwell Ideas is a roleplaying games accessory creator. They specialize in software for tabletop RPGs, card decks, and unusual dice. They are located in the USA, so shipping costs must always be taken into consideration when buying the physical products. We will talk more about their products in future articles. To give you an overview, they sell software to quickly draw simple hexagonal maps, heraldic crests or dungeons, decks of cards featuring monsters, creatures, NPCs, locations, or quests, and finally the Dungeonmorph line.. For further information visit their site (or contact them at support@inkwellideas.com).
Review of Dungeonmorph Dice
Let’s start by saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. From the photos we have taken you can get a clear idea of the product. The Trailblazer Set is dungeon-themed, designed accordingly to old-school maps canon. One of the dice depicts 6 different entrances, recognizable because one of the sides of each face is free. The opposite side of the entrance die and all the sides of the other dice have printed two external connections. Obviously, they are always in the same position so they can fit together perfectly to form corridors.
Each die has faces marked with a number and a letter that indicates the type of room represented. We have the “e” for the die with 6 different entrances, followed by “i” for Incantation/Magic Areas, “j” for Jails/Cells, “o” for Oddball/Unusual Designs, “r” for General Rooms and “s” for Sepulchers/Tombs. Dice sides measure about 1 in. (c. 2.5 cm). In the rear face, the map keys are listed, allowing the symbols on the map to be read as intended by the authors.
Review of Dungeonmorph Cards
Since the drawings depicted on the cards are taken from the faces of the dice, the graphic results are super-imposable. From a practical point of view, there are significant differences, however. There are 102 cards, and the designs on the backs are mirror images of the fronts. While there is no grid, the aspect ratio is correct for 1/4 in. graph paper. They are also dry-erasable.
In addition,the cards are marked with the numbers and letters of the corresponding faces of the dice, and there are map keys on the backs, too.The paper used is a good middle-ground thickness that doesn’t take up too much space and is heavy enough to prevent the cards shifting too easily or sliding about from any old random breeze or puff of air.
How Useful Is This Accessory?
Unfortunately for some and luckily for others, we are no longer in the 80s. A product like the Dungeonmorph series made back then would perhaps have gotten a different review. At that time, there were fewer gaming materials, fewer games, much less of almost everything apart from the passion of the players. An accessory that allowed an almost infinite generation of dungeons, caves and cities would have been incredibly precious. In these times of narrative games, digital maps, Google Search, Pinterest, and digital platforms like Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds, the need to create or design maps has diminished.
Does this mean that Dungeonmorph dice and cards are useless? Absolutely not! First of all, there is and always will be players who love to build corridors, rooms and dark alleys by hand. There is also the speed factor to consider. When you need a map on the fly, searching the internet isn’t really a viable solution if you want to keep the pace of your session going. So for Game Masters who like to improvise, or for those who hate to improvise but whose characters have drilled through the wall of the plot and ended up on the opposite side of the world … this product can be very useful.
Final Considerations
My advice is to consider the need to purchase carefully. If you are a compulsive hoarder as I am and you can’t wait to have these products just for the sake of owning them, Inkwell Ideas will welcome you with open arms. For everyone else, take the time to evaluate how often you need a map on the fly, or how much you want to draw your own maps using the Dungeonmorph series as a starting point – or whether you want to see to how it feels to use these products to improvise during the sessions (or are forced by events). In those cases you will find in Dungeonmorph Dice and Dungeonmorph Cardsa good quality and extremely practical product!
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We thank Nerd Motel for sending us a prototype of the Combat Folioto write this review. It is a plasticized rewritable sheetwhich allows you to have under control all the important information to manage a combat in D&D5e (but not only). The Combat Foliois crowdfounding onKickstarter until 1st July 2021. For more information about pledges, costs and the timetable I suggest you to take a look at the Kickstarter page. Instead, in order to better understand what we are talking about we have made a video review of the Combat Folio that you can find on Youtube, on Facebook or below.
The Written Review of the Combat Folio
For those who prefer to read rather than listen, the Combat Folio is as simple as it is useful. It is a sheet in A4 format, available in both a thinner and a thicker version. On the one hand there is a grid that allows you to enter the names of the PCs, NPCs and monsters in the various lines. The columns instead show all the important information for a dungeon master to manage a combat. Initiative, hit points, damage, advantages and disadvantages. There are also all the conditions available in D&D5e and still some space for other annotations. On the back of the Combat Folio there is a summary of all the conditions, to avoid having to look for them in the manual, on the DM screen or elsewhere.
The space is very well used, the conditions are also highlighted by a symbol to find them more easily and a small decoration embellishes the aesthetics without weighing it down.
More Information About the Combat Folio
Together with the Combat Folio, this project proposes the markers to write onto it, available in 8 colors. They are refillable, magnetic and with the eraser on the cap, really useful and complete. There is also a plastic bag to store the Combat Folio to and keep the writings intact between one session and another; it is also useful for putting the markers together and not lose them. The offer is completed by rubbery dice of various colors, very pleasant to the touch.
In addition to what has already been said, those who pay for the physical version will also get a plasticized physical map, squared on one side and hexagonal on the other. For all supporters there will also be the digital version, which will also allow changes to the original file in order to create and laminate the most suitable Folio for the system you are using.
Final Consideration
I tried the Combat Foliobefore writing this review during a Pathfinder 2e session and I really liked it. I didn’t waste paper, I always had everything under control, quickly deleting and rewriting any information in my possession. I must say that after this inaugural attempt I am convinced to use it for all my sessions of those games that have a more mechanical and technical combat. The Combat Folio is a product that I really feel I can recommend.
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We can present Fragments of the Past in preview because its author and illustrator, Massimiliano Haematinon Nigro, made us discover it directly. It is a varied and articulated project that also includes a tabletop role-playing game to complete a series of illustrated books.
Fragments of the Past was born with a very ambitious goal. It wants to be a fantasy rewriting of the ancient Mediterranean, takings its cues from the history and cultures that have followed one another on the coasts of that sea but recreating a new world to admire, to read and to play. Its author is, indeed, a concept artist with collaborations ranging from cinema to books. He defines himself first as a “world-builder”.
The Mediterranean Sea Deserves It
Since I was a child, I have always been a great lover of classical mythology and of ancient Greece and its immense and fabulous culture. In roleplaying, as well as in cinema or television, the classical Mediterranean setting never had a tradition strong as the medieval fantasy of Tolkien & co. The two editions of Agon and Lex Arcana come to my mind, then Mythos, Runequest and the Mythic Odysseys of Theros setting for D&D5e. There will certainly be others too, but they can’t be compared with all the material published for knights, dragons, elves and castles.
Yet incredible places overlook the Mediterranean Sea, and fascinating and incredibly rich cultures have emerged by its lands throughout history. The places revived by the penultimate chapter of Assassin’s Creed, Odyssey, made me fall in love and I don’t think I was the only one who was fascinated. So I admit that I’m taking sides in favor of a new world inspiring a new fantasy canon based on classical Mediterranean culture – a new Middle Earth, daring the comparison.
The World of Fragments of the Past
Among the many positive aspects of the Fragments of the Past quickstart (which I will talk about further) there is certainly talented and evocative writing. Not only the manual is well written, but the text effectively conveys the author’s thoughts in fewer, spare sentences.
So, as the lazy man I am, what better words to describe the setting than the same ones used by the author himself?
Fragments of the Past’ is a narrative role-playing game based on a homonymous series of tales and legends that evoke the style and themes of the Homeric epics, ancient tragedies and more generally of the great cultural world of the Mediterranean. You will be the protagonist of an epic poem sung among the red fires of a banquet and you will play the role of awe-inspiring characters whose divine nature is manifested in the breadth of their passions, in the wildness of their instincts or greed of their ambitions.
You will live in a world marked by centuries-old maledictions, merciless duels and intricate rituals. Feel the clash of bronze weapons and shields, your hand exhausted by the heavy spear. There is a smell of resin, algae, hot limestone, blood, sweat and animal fat from the sacrificial pyres. To your left – the roar of the deep blue sea furrowed by distant ships.
Massimiliano Nigro, author of Fragments of the Past
I couldn’t have said it better.
Art and Layout
The author is an artist and you can see it. He is very talented and you feel how much he loves the world he created. I very much envy his ability, not only innate but I think diligently trained, to transform what he has in his mind and heart into visual art. The images in this preview and his Artstation profile speak for themselves. On one hand there are splendid illustrations depicting landscapes, settlements and buildings, on the other hand there are accurate reproductions of objects and drawings with the style typical of classical cultures.
Even the layout, which initially is the classic two-column, is enhanced by an excellent aesthetic sense that streamlines the text and surrounds it with beautiful colors and evocative illustrations. It is a pleasure to browse and read the pages.
The only item I would have made a little less artistic and a little more practical is the character sheet, but it is very beautiful, too.
Fragments of the Past : a Preview of the Quickstart
The quickstart is almost a manual in itself, both for the length (110 pages) and, above all, for the quality. It’s self-published and it’savailable free in PDF version if you subscribe to the newsletter.
The pages are loaded with many illustrations and less text, to make them more pleasant, so the actual content is not as great as the 110 page count would otherwise indicate.
After an extremely good prologue, the first part of the quickstart introduces the game, starting with the world and society but, more importantly, with some elements that directly affect game play. Hence, the Talismans, powerful objects of legend, and the two different types of stories: the Tragedies and the Epic Cycles. There are explanations and examples that smell of classical epic, making it clear that are the references the narrator must look to be inspired.
The second section presents the continent of Askedonia, the game world, in a little more detail. The historical elements are mixed and new peoples and a new history are born. I very much appreciated that the cosmogony is not explained, but it is told what men and myths tell instead. Perfectly centered on the theme
The Protagonists of Ancient Poems
Finally the quickstart, with the third section, runs deep into the game and introduces the characters. It is a narrative game, so the numerical component is present but it takes a step back to enhance the narration around the characters.
Heroes are defined by four Attributes, which have the evocative names of Soma, Sarx, Psyche and Pneuma. Their origin and their lineage are fundamental, in order to shape them. There are Gifts, connections with the divine, and Passions, the main causes of the torment of their existence or the conflict that tears them apart, and that is the engine of their story and their actions. Finally, there are more generic Descriptors from which to choose those traits that will define them narratively and affect them mechanically.
Born to Create Stories
From the quickstart examples it appears that lists of Gifts, Passions and Descriptors will be provided to choose from, but they are not present in these 110 pages. However, what can be seen from the examples is very interesting. Among the most beautiful parameters of the characters there are certainly the Passions. Put melancholy, envy, madness, fury into play; they are powerful catalysts capable of generating a truly intense game. And we are not talking about just narrative parameters. For each of them there is a mechanical correlation in the game.
Let me add that there is also the Hybris parameter, which I was convinced I could find and which represents one of the most important elements of classic epic narrative (and not only, Rob Stark and Stannis Baratheon can confirm this).
Cosmos, the engine of the universe
For the title of the paragraph I got caught. This is the game system, which is called Cosmos and it is presented in the fourth section of the quickstart.
As you may have guessed from this preview, Fragments of the Past is a light system, with all the pros and cons of being one. It is based on the d100 for the Attribute tests, with the aim of rolling under the base value. A d10 instead is rolled to test Will, Luck and Hybris.
The rules are relatively few, presented with extreme clarity. Then narrators are invited to start from the basic tests to define, judging on the circumstances, a more accurate resolution through bonuses and maluses. The indications are deliberately lax and it is needed a strong narrator who can manage the balance at the table. Blessings or curses, evoked by the players or granted by the narrator are another important element of a system that comes out of the flatness of repetitiveness only with the stimulus of the narrative thrust of those who use it. Gods must be invoked and blood must be spilt to stay alive. In short, it takes passion.
The Introductive Tragedy
It didn’t seem right to call it an adventure. It is in fact more of a prologue to a theatrical text than a story. A lot of attention is paid to presenting the situation and the characters. There are conflicts, machinations, betrayals, suspicions. After that, it is not possible to predict how events will proceed, so there is only the description of the main plot points.
It is a tragedy that should last a couple of sessions and it gives a good idea of what the game world can be. In my opinion, the structure requires a narrator who is not necessarily an expert, but able to improvise and juggle plots that can take unexpected paths, as in many stories that can be told in Fragments of the Past.
Final Consideration about Fragments of the Past
The product from a graphic point of view is top notch. It could also be purchased just to look at the amazing art. The world created by the author so far seems to me alive and vibrant, perhaps a little biased towards the Greek and Minoan civilizations. Of course, it must be assimilated before you can fully enjoy it, but the setting and the harmonic resonance with the classic epic are powerful magnets.
The game itself carries the risks of light systems: they need to be backed up by a story and active players who can fuel the narrative in any situation. From this point of view, the game setting helps.
Everything is in fact designed to channel the energies and attentions of the players towards the creation of narrative ideas. The survival or not of a character, the details of realism or the potential bugs of the system all take second place; before everything there is the passion that burns in the hearts of men, which illuminates the lives of the heroes and which makes their stories memorable.
After analyzing Fragments of the Past for this preview, I can’t wait for the full manual to come out, probably thanks to a Kickstarter project. Sign up for the newsletter if you want to stay up to date and take a look at the shop on the Fragment of the Past website. It is in fact already possible to buy the Narrative Artbook Enhanced Edition with all its magnificent illustrations!
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We thank Shenzhen CLC Game And Gift Limited for having sent us an example of their dice in order to write this review. We received 7 dice, 3 d20 and 4 d6, representing a truly impressive collection of dice and other items. There are 118 different purchase options in the dice category, as well as chips and cards. The dice are in various materials and many colors. In addition to numerical dice there are also alternatives with logos, drawings, writings, up to dice for erotic games. Let’s say that the site does not want to disappoint any type of roleplay games enthusiast, of any kind. There is also the possibility of making custom dice.
If you are interested, take a look at all the interesting possibilities visiting the productor site or their Alibaba store. For any eventuality, given the extreme customization achievable for the dice, it is also possible to write directly to sales06@mqsedice.com.
Shenzhen CLC Game And Gift Limited established in 2010. They are specialized in all kinds of table game products, sport game products and other game products as well as all kinds of promotional gifts and business gifts. Their main products include game dice, poker chips, game cards. They have the biggest dice factory in southern China. There are 8 injection molding machines and 5 coloring machines as well as several polishing and packaging machines. They have independent quality inspection department consisting of 11 people. Indipendent teams, working on product design, quality and sales allows to manage a business that have expanded all over the world.
A Closer Look To The Dice
For affection we start from the d20 received. They are part of their new line that they sent us as preview. These are 34mm d20s made with a special color shift powder. It is already a pleasure to have dice of this size in hand, we feel powerful! Unfortunately, the photos and the video struggle to fully convey the charm of the alternation of internal colors and shapes as the light passes through the dice. The chromatic variations are captivating; in particular the perception of depth, with the gaze lost beyond the line of brilliant dust, is truly satisfying. The pink version, more opaque, yields less, but the two more transparent are really very beautiful dice.
The other four dice are d6s of a completely different type. As you can see, they are made of transparent acrylic, with the dots of the numbers very clearly visible. Compared to more traditional role-playing dice, they have pointed edges. Being ignorant on the subject (for lack of money)I cannot be sure, but they seem like casino dice to me or at least give me a great idea of that kind of environment.
It is as if they had sent us the two opposites of the catalog, such as shape, size and techniques. In both cases these are good quality dice.
Final Consideration about CLC Game & Gift Dice
I cannot judge the entire CLC Game & Gift dice offering on the basis of only 7 examples, among other things belonging to only two types. Before CLC Game & Gift invites me to put that dice up to my… you know, I specify immediately that it is not a criticism! They certainly could not fill my home with dice (in case, I accept!). I simply cannot expose myself for their entire production.
From what I have been able to assess, however, these are good quality dice. The d6 are chromatically and aesthetically nice, but they find less space at my game table. The d20s of their new line are instead everything a player could want from a dice: big, rolling and aesthetically appealing!
Given the extreme variety of choices, personal tastes and many other details, the price to the consumer can vary a lot. The basic cost is very interesting, after which it is necessary to evaluate the minimum number of pieces to purchase and the shipping costs. A tip could be to create a buying group and share the burdens.
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We thank once more Menagerie Press for having sent us a digital copy of The Black Lotus of Thalarion in order to write this review. It’s a D&D5e adventure in the Dreamlands for 3-7 characters of level 5-7. It was written by William Murakami-Brundage, author of the previous adventures by Menagerie Press that we reviewed, Adul, City of Golde The Dream Prison. The Black Lotus of Thalarionis available at DrivethruRPG both in digital version for $11.99 (about 10€) and in physical coloured softcover version, for $14.99 (about 12€).
Art and Layout
The Black Lotus of Thalarionhas 41 pages perfectly in line with the previous Menagerie Press products we have analyzed. Their two-column layout is a good standard (although the absence of a justified format is regrettable) and follows the canons of classic productions for D&D5e. The various information provided for the adventure are well managed by the text boxes.
Art is perhaps the weakest point of this product. Qualitatively it is pleasant, in line with previous publications, in some aspects even a little better. However, it suffers from a mixture of styles and authors who do not seem to have a unified artistic direction.
Review of the Plot of The Black Lotus of Thalarion
Here we are once again at the core point of every adventure review: the evaluation of the plot. Any other flaws can be forgiven if there is a good storyline that promises a great adventure. And even in this case the yield depends on many factors. To avoid spoilers, I am only giving you the synopsis found under the title of the adventure in the manual:
Adventurers are sent into the Dreamlands by a blind oracle to pluck the fabled black lotus from Thalarion, the City of a Thousand Wonders. This ethereal city exists on the edge of the realm of sleep and is guarded by unreal entities and nightmarish traps.
Another important aspect is that the adventure is inspired by the Myths of Cthulhu and has as its main reference The White Ship by Lovecraft, in whose story the city of Thalarion is in fact described.
The beginning of the adventure, the hooks and the briefing part in general did not convince me particularly. It seems to me that a few clichés were used to assemble the first part with minimal creative effort. Then begins a fairly linear dungeon crawl that, between fights, traps and puzzles, leads to the final battle. There isn’t much else in the plot, the setting of this product wants to be the strong point.
The Dreamlands
The adventure takes place mostly in the Dreamlands. It is a dream-like place that follows very different laws from the places that adventurers normally go. Gravity and physics follow people’s minds more than fixed rules. Objects change if left unattended and the most basic items can be created directly in your own hands. Time passes differently and, very positive news, you cannot die. In place of this occurrence, you wake up in the real world, shaken but without a scratch.
This extreme creative freedomallows a slightly different experience for players, which is certainly interesting. An inspired dungeon master can indulge in embroidering on what has been created. The setting described is well done, interesting, although I expected a little more from a dream-like land. Even in terms of opponents and what they can do, there was really room to create more and stranger. From great (creative) freedoms comes great (result) responsibilities!
Final Consideration on the Review of The Black Lotus of Thalarion
This adventure offers players the opportunity to embark on an original and different path, in a particular and engaging place, with the addition of not risking losing the character. The text helps the Dungeon Master increase the challenge of each encounter. These are the most positive aspects. On the other hand, I believe it isn’t the best adventure published by Menagerie Press. I would have given more space to social interactions. I was looking for a more interesting and original opening and ending. Personally, I would have exploited the freedom of a dream-like place more. Sending characters to a “City of a Thousand Wonders” raises expectations!
It is a very suitable adventure for an old school approach, for adventure and action lovers who do not want to get too lost in other aspects and want to get their hands dirty among statues, corridors, teleports and monsters.
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We thank Matteo “Arco Deleggen” Sanfilippo for having sent us a copy of the Italian version of Alone in the Whitein order to write this review. It’s a masterless roleplaying game published by Panzer8 Games under the Essentials series, that encompasses “gdr in 1D4 pages for very imaginative people”. Alone in the White is available in PDF at DrivethruRPG at the cost of $2,42 both in Italian and English.
The game fills a booklet of 7 pages, minus 1 which is the cover, 1 of advertising for other games, and 1 of credits, leaving only 2 of rules and 2 of cards. It is simply two text boxes, a character sheet page, and a story sheet, adorned only with some graphics rendered in a palette of white and gray fading into blue, echoing the arctic scenario. But a game shouldn’t be judged by its page count, certainly not Alone in the White, anyway. Being such a small product, however, dedicate headings for ant and layout in the review was not necessary.
Why Alone in the White?
I am becoming more and more aware that one of the main questions you should ask every author, or ask yourself as a reader of a manual, is “why”? There are now almost more games than football experts in Italy. So it’s important to understand why an author decided to create a new game. This motivation is the key to understanding it and playing it at its best.
For Alone in the White I have an important quote from the author to aid us::
One day, I came across an image that touched me a lot: a majestic white bear rummaging through the garbage, thin, wounded, hungry. The snow that should surround it was not there. In its place, hard rock and patches of burnt grass. He notices who is filming it and looked towards the lens, with a look that transmited so much sadness that it filled my eyes with tears, which fall for the King of the Ice, a king that no longer has anything royal, a carcass of what he was, a broken crown, lost in a changing environment that offers no shelter or food. A kingdom that is more and more of man and less and less of those who lived there when the Northern Lights were far from the gaze of civilization.”.
Matteo Sanfilippo
This is the soul of the game. This is what you need to keep in mind in approaching it.
What is Alone in the White?
In my opinion Alone in the White is a tribute to the polar bear born from the emotion that overwhelmed the author in the scene described above. Without emotion, you can’t get far playing it. You can imagine for yourself that with two pages of “rules” we are talking about a highly narrative game. Basically narrative. Almost completely narrative.
This is a masterless game for 2-4 players, each of which must have a deck of French cards (common standard playing cards) at their disposal. The game reveals the journey that each player takes, mostly on their own, in search of the last remaining polar bear in the world. The game provides 9 character archetypes to choose from. Each archetype brings with it deep, introspective questions that need to be answered in the course of the various scenes of the game-play. These questions make the journey as much within the character as it is through the ice. Each of character must have a reason to look for the last bear, each one must make it a priority, but the journey to find the bear is also a cognitive journey through the motivations, fears, compromises, and many other aspects of the human soul for the characters to investigate.
How does Alone in the White Work?
The rules are few and simple.If I explained them in this paragraph I would basically spoil the whole game. I can say that, once an archetype has been chosen and a character created, a card is drawn for it amd interpreted by means of a table. That which determines in broad terms what must be narrated to reach the answer to one of the archetype’s questions. The numerical value of the card marks the approach of the epilogue through the scaling of the Research Points score. Obviously the figure cards in the deck have special effects that enrich the narrative and also generate interactions between players.
There are rules for conflicts that can occur between characters, for when their story ends, and for how and when it will be possible to find the last polar bear. For all the rest it is only a narration managed by the player of the character protagonist of the scene.
Final Consideration
As can be seen from this review, Alone in the White is a game with a heart of poetry and sadness. But that doesn’t have to be the case. In can create stories that tell of action, adventure, betrayal, love, redemption. It is all in the hands of the players, who are entirely responsible for what is narrated, as the starting point is almost a completely blank sheet with few hard requirements to respect.
The setting and context are fascinating and they are the main components, in my opinion, of the particular “flavor” that this game has.
I do not love nor I am expert at separating roleplaying games from storytelling ones. However, this is primarily a storytelling game, so it is necessary to understand that before playing it, especially for those who do not care for this sort of game-play. There is no Game Master. There is no predetermined story or plot or narrative elements to which one may only respond. Here the player has to do everything and open up while doing it. On the other hand, my advice for those who have never tried this kind of game is to get out of your comfort zone and try it, jump in, enjoy the experience and come out enriched, regardless of the result.
Furthermore, the price is really minimal for a game that can guarantee even just an evening, an afternoon or a few hours of fun (and perhaps of deep emotion).
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We thank Lone Wanderer Entertainment and the authors Michael Bielaczyc and Brian Cooksey for sending us a physical copy of the basic manual of Sagaborn Roleplaying Game in order to write this review. Sagaborn is a system created bysimplifying the d20 system and it was bornto enrich and enhance action and narration by avoiding slowdowns caused by too many rules.
For those interested in purchasing the physical copy, it is sold at $19,99 (about 16€); the digital copy is free, both available in the Sagaborn official site. It’s also possible to download the beta version 1.5. Or you can find it on DrivethruRPG.com at $24.99 (about 21€) for the physical version and with the pay-what-you-want option for the digital one. An unusual choice, but certainly appealing.
The Authors of Sagaborn
Sagaborn was born for Dark Return, a gothic fantasy setting created by Michael Bielaczyc and Dane Clark Collins.
Michael is an artist who worked on titles like Dragonlance and Castlemourn. In 2002 he founded Aradani Studios, an tudio that deals with graphics, from design to costumes to prosthetics. Dane is a writer and author for Lone Wanderer Entertainment, for whom he also edited some of the Sagaborn content.
Brian Cooksey is an RPG designer with forty years of experience. Obviously the Sagaborn team is much larger and you can find them all in the website.
It all started with Michael’s desire to create his own game system. During a GenCon he asked to collaborate with Brian, and within a few years Sagaborn came to light.
Review of Sagaborn Roleplaying Game
Sagaborn is a system based con the D20 system like Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder, but it has gone through a process of simplification. Let’s start with some numbers. It has 8 levels, 7 races and 8 classes. There are 9 skills.
Classes are functional to the setting. The martial ones, in addition to the warrior and the barbarian, include the archeon, the watchers of the mages. The magical ones include the bard, the wylder (a wild mage), and the luminar, the officially educated wizard. Lastly the ranger and the rogue complete the possibilities.
Among the races, in addition to the more classic humans, dwarves and elves, there are the much less classic half-dwarves, the fauns, and the elflings, civilized orferal ones. They are races rooted in the history of Atheles, the continent of the Dark Return setting.
Character creation is regulated by a point-based system quite simple and rather free. You allocate points for attributes, skills and talents. You roll the gold pieces available for the equipment and then add a custom object, called a Legacy Item, which I will talk about later.
Then all the rules of the system are condensed into 15 pages. What isn’t regulated is handled at the table with the aim of keeping the narrative flowing. The remaining manual is occupied by spells, the most famous and well-known by icosahedron-rollers all over the world.
Some Differences between Sagaborn and the D20 System
Simplification is not just about cutting and removing. There are substantial differences between the system that inspired it and the Sagaborn Roleplaying Game itself.
Among the most important:
Leveling occurs at the discretion of the GM, who is given guidelines for the appropriate number of encounters per level for advancement (fifty encounters from the penultimate to the last level make for quite a quest!)
As the characters progress, they are provided with special items, called Legacy Items. These are objects that have a story connected to the character and that story is revealed over time, along with the progress of the powers of the item itself. During the 8 levels, 3 will be assigned.
Magic is based on a Mana Pool. The minimum mana cost of a spell is equal to its level, but spending more mana increases the spell’s power. Magic is risky, it can incur dangerous consequences for the caster and those around him, even for trying to cast spells when out of mana points.
Review of the Aesthetics of Sagaborn Roleplaying Game
Sagaborn Roleplaying Gamehas a simple system, and this nature is reflected in the layout and aesthetics, too.Parchment-colored pages enriched by embellishment at the top give the feel of an ancient tome. The layout is basic double column with simple tables.
The art mainly consists of small black and white images of varying quality, sometimes a bit amateurish. However, there are full-page images, too, and often in color. The latter are focused on character design, have significantly better quality, and a vintage style.
Final Consideration of the Review of Sagaborn Roleplaying Game
Every role-player has their own taste. There are those who love games full of rules that cover every situation, and those who prefer more minimalist games. Sagaborn Roleplaying Game offers a simple alternative, based on a known and proven system, made particularly light. Those who don’t want to drive themselves crazy flipping between pages, text boxes and tables won’t have to. The players must also accept the abstraction and tendency towards narrative play, however.
Ultimately Sagaborn Roleplaying Game does not offer anything particularly new, original or unmissable. It has a very specific target; those interested in its characteristics or those who want to play the adventures or the setting for which it was born. These folk will appreciate it. The free digital version makes the product attractive and allows for a complete personal evaluation.
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This review is possible thank to Dragon Turtle Games that sent us a digital copy of Carbon 2185 Cities Sourcebook. It is a supplementfor Carbon 2185 that focus on three metropolis: London, Manhattan and Tokyo. It’s a setting book that presents in details these three places. Carbon 2185 is a cyberpunk roleplaying game based on an adapted version of the D&D5e system. If you want more informations you can find a previous review of the corebook on our site.
What you Need to Know Before Reading Carbon 2185 Cities Sourcebook Review
Carbon 2185 is a classic cyberpunk game. There are typical elements like cyber enhancements, pollution, wealth and power in the hands of megacorporations. It’s all the result of a dystopian future, disconnected from ours starting from 2019. We are talking about the destruction of the climate balance, the search for resources outside the planet and the rise of the corporations that have replaced governments in the control of the countries. There is also no shortage of artificial intelligences and androids.
A Tale of Three Cities
The structure of the manual is the same for each of the three cities. We start with the basics, which deal with the city in general and then focus on aesthetics, culture, languages and a timeline. Then we focus on the inhabitants. This part features a lot of character options, from backgrounds and origins to equipment and vehicles. The third part focuses on the city in detail, describing its areas or districts in more detail. Finally, the economy, the engine of the world and of adventures, is treated, plus other additional content. The closure is entrusted to a map that gives little satisfaction, but on the other hand I don’t think it was possible to do much more.
The manual ends with The Long Night, an introductory adventure set in Tokyo Mega consisting of six mini adventures. Each of them reveals a side of life in the metropolis. They satisfy from an immersive point of view, but I would have expanded the contents, which unfortunately end too soon.
Review of the Contents of Carbon 2185 Cities Sourcebook
The contents of this supplement are a diverse kaleidoscope of information. I note with pleasure the attempt to combine the pre-existing culture and peculiarities of the cities with originality and the right push towards a punk drift. London has a kind of monarchy and there is an air of rebellion. Manhattan looks like a futuristic Versailles where an elitarian Neuvelle Regime feeds of light and shines on the darkness on which it stands. Tokyo has struggled and struggle between tradition and innovation, between isolationism and change.
Corporations, gangs and districts are many and have a limited space. Some are little more than lists, others have small paragraphs but full of ideas. It is really fun to read the allusions, references and creative inventions that fill the pages. The timelines occupy an excellent space that is more than deserved. They help to understand the path of the metropolis in the almost two centuries that separate us from 2185.
Some extra content, prominent characters, slang dictionaries and more embellish the presentation of each city. The character options are a bonus to understanding the population and give players a chance to better customize their roleplaying alter ego.
Art e Layout
As it can be seen from the images in this review, Cities Sourcebook shows complete continuity with the basic manual of Carbon 2185. Double column layout with a rather large font. Absolute simplicity and practicality with pages almost all in black and white.
The few illustrations present are very beautiful, impactful and particularly immersive.
Final Considerations of the Review of Carbon 2185 Cities Sourcebook
This supplement is obviously closely linked to the use of the corebook of Carbon 2185. That manual only reported one place, the futuristic metropolis of San Francisco. The addition of three cities described with inventiveness and abundance of ideas generates a great variety of possibilities and stimulates and enhances the game.
Cities Sourcebook is an excellent completion that gives breadth and depth to Carbon 2185.
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I was looking forward to being able to undertake the review of Tome of Beasts II and finally the time has come. Obviously, first of all, I want to thank Kobold Press for sending an evaluative copy of this massive monster manual for D&D5e. Tome of Beasts II starred in a glorious Kickstarter campaign that saw over 6,500 backers provide more than $400,000 to create this 400-monster tome. With a value of $ 1,000 per creature, expectations are really high!
For those interested in purchasing, the volume is available at Kobold Press site, but also in other online stores like Amazon, DrivethruRPG or IBS.it. The price ranges from $29.99 (about € 25) for the digital version to about $55 (€ 45 at current exchange rates) for the physical version.
An Overall Look at the Product
The Tome of Beasts II is a heavy handbook that gives satisfaction in handling it. The smooth and hard cover, the thick pages that do not slip through the hands, the good smell of printed paper are all signs of a quality product. There are 409 pages that end with 3 lists of creatures sorted by type, by challenge and by terrain.
There is an adjective that immediately came to mind when I first looked at this work: the Tome of Beasts II is impudent. Most monsters look you in the face. Laughing. And they challenge you. No limits have been set in experimenting with daring inventions of crossing elements and types of animals. The creatures strike the reader and strike hard. Some for the imagination, others for the madness, still others for the pose. They look like an army ready to conquer the best places among the protagonists of an RPG campaign. Each of them has a dedicated page that includes a descriptive introductory part consisting of a couple of paragraphs; then statistics and skill descriptions. Among them there are also some monsters proposed by backers of the Kickstarter campaign who have passed the scrutiny of the experienced and talented Kobold Press team.
Review On The Creatures of the Tome of Beasts II
I browsed through the pages of the manual to look for the best examples that can fully convey the meaning of this review of the Tome of Beasts II. Well, it was difficult to choose. There is a frightening brute born from a pun: the Ab-errant Knight. You can find imaginative chimeras such as the Alpamac, half trout half bear, or the chameleon hydra or unlikely unions between a wolf and a locust or between a caterpillar and a tiger. There are also various declinations of the most common monsters. Dragon skin or shroud golems; oozes of tar or ichor. And many varieties of constructs, undead, demons, plants. Four hundred monsters is quite a lot and there is a great abundance of jaws, tentacles, limbs and claws. Metallic and mechanical monsters are also in large numbers.
The range of choice is very wide. There are monstrous but also somewhat surreal creatures, such as the Morgrik, a kind of crocodile with a second mouth on its belly that flies by twirling a tail made up of twelve tentacles. Creatures with a more horror and macabre cut, worthy inhabitants of the worst nightmares. Finally, there are powerful, epic and majestic monsters, for those who want to make their players’ hearts beat faster.
And I have only scratched the surface. There are four hundred monsters.
Art and Layout
The layout of Tome of Beasts II doesn’t get much prominence in this review as it has marginal relevance. It is well done, and rightly the same on every page. On the other hand, the art is a central part of the success of this volume. In the end, monsters are a collection of numbers, modifiers and abilities. To light the sacred fire of combat, it is necessary to give numbers a shape, a flavor, an intensity. A “real” creature. And art is the vector that brings the idea into the world, which makes what is described an objective reality shared by all the players.
The art of Tome of Beasts II is captivating and impudent, like the soul of the manual itself. There is a lot of life and a lot of color in the poses of the creatures. Fire and flames, open jaws, sly grins, tense muscles, sinister tendrils and aggressive carapaces. Turning the pages is fun and makes you want to play. As a dungeon master I look at the images and I anticipate the unlikely looks my players will make when I’ll give shape to their imagination.
Final Considerations of the Review of Tome of Beasts II
The final thought of this Tome of Beasts II review is very simple. I think it’s the best monster manual I’ve reviewed so far. There is a lot of choice, a lot of quality, great indexing. Above all there are well-made, unique, endearing creatures that attract and make you want to play. They are cocky, they have a playful spirit and they are structured with experience. Those who know and appreciate Tome of Beasts I will be able to find design and construction continuity.
A lifetime may not be enough to exhaust the desire to confront all the monsters of the Tome of Beasts II, and at least once in your life you have to face its pages.
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First of all I want to thank Sign of the Dragon for sending us Thieves’ Guildsfor this review. It’s a sourcebook for D&D5e which focuses, as the title says, on thieves’ guilds and everything about them. This volume is available only in digital format on DMSGuilds for $4.95 (about 4€). It has been published about 4 weeks before the publishing of this article and it has already reached the Gold Bestseller Medal on that site.
The Sign Of The Dragon In The Art And The Layout
We have already reviewed many works created by Sign of The Dragon, from Acererak’s Guide to Lichdom to Of Warlock & Patrons. This product honor the valid quality standard of the art and the layout.
The classic two-column format that perfectly imitates the official manuals is complemented by images that vary in origin and quality. Some are more relevant, others acts more as fillers, everything as whole still make the aesthetic side of this supplement enjoyable. As always, the full-page illustrations give breath and charm to the entire volume.
Review On The Contents of Thieves’ Guilds
This supplement has 35 pages, divided into six chapters and two appendices.
The first chapter analyzes in detail the structure of a thieves guild, taking into consideration activities, organization chart, reports and many other aspects. Several tables allow to randomly roll each of these facets. Some elements may seem obvious, but I find very convenient to have a large list of possibilities. I’m not limited to create the usual guild of thieves that I always have in mind, but I vary among many options and create diversity and hooks for the players.
The second chapter focuses on the characters, defining the options they can have as a member of a thieves guild. Contacts, Renown, new downtime activities.
The third chapter instead focuses on managing a guild. A few pages with many tables that give practical indications for characters who have reached the top of the pyramid or for the master who wants to randomly draw how things are going.
The fourth chapter is dedicated to items. From the common ones, that thieves can easily find on the black market to the magical ones that suit them best.
The fifth chapter provides a new background for the characters, the Thieves Guild member.
The sixth chapter is a gallery of some themed NPCs.
Finally, the appendices put into practice the teachings of the previous pages and present two examples of thieves’ guilds.
Final Considerations Of The Review of Thieves’ Guilds
I’ve always liked thieves’ guilds. They are always the first organization I look for in every The Elder Scrolls game, if you know what I’m talking about (and I think so). Of course when I insert them in a campaign I tend to always make them very similar, following a stereotype that I realize makes them quite flat. This volume is slim, each chapter has a few pages, but it has the advantage of providing many quick reference ideas for the creation of always different guilds. I find it very useful and the price is absolutely adequate for the material provided.
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We would like to thank you Modern Artifice for sending us the Demi-Lich Dice, a skull and bones themed hollow metal dice set, to let us write this review. At the moment of this article the Kickstarter crowdfunding threshold has been widely doubled, so Demi-Lich Dice will be available for all the backers.
The Authors of Demi-Lich Dice
Modern Artifice is at its first Kickstarter project but it already boasts a wide range of dice available for purchase on its online shop on Etsy.com. I recommend you take a tour because the photos are truly captivating. You can follow Modern Artifice even on Facebook or Instagram.
I saw that these guys are nowhere near newbies even just from how they packaged our dice. A solid metal box with a transparent lid immediately puts the product on display. The box is contained in a bag that can alternatively be used to contain the dice. Everywhere the Modern Artifice logo. There are the right skills and the right atteintion to details.
The Features of Demi-Lich Dice
Let’s get to the point and talk about the dice. As already mentioned, these are skulls and bones themed dice in inked and electroplated metal. The main focus was to create them light and with rounded edges to avoid damaging the surfaces on which they are thrown. The recommendation with metal dice would be to always throw them on a dedicated material, such as a dice tray or a pad, but when the dice call… every surface is the right one.
Demi-Lich Dice keep their promise. They are really light, to the point that holding them in your hand, they would not seem metallic, if it were not for the tactile perception. You do not feel sharp edges and they shake in the hand pleasantly. The hollow structure is captivating to the eye and does not involve any fragility: by applying even sustained muscle strength they do not deform.
The Demi-Lich Dice Of This Review
Having less sharp edges, I have the perception that they roll a little less. They still bounce enough to make the result random. I hope you will forgive me if I have not done a statistical study to verify the balance! I tried them on a wooden table and they didn’t leave any marks.
Modern Artificier sent us the Blood Tithe color model with copper structure and red numbers. The color combination is beautiful and the numbers can be easily read. They give me a hint of steampunk.
The Kickstarter Offer
You can have the single D20, paying $15 (about 13€). With $50 (about 42$) you can obtain the set of 7 dice or six d6, while the set of 11 dice or 10 d6 costs $65 (about 55€). There are many colors available and we have shown only a small part of them. Through the stretch goals, a pin has been added for each physical reward and there are digital extras for everyone. At the moment there are 3 battlemaps, 5 D&D5e statblocks of alternative demi-lichs and an adventure module “The crypt of the demi-lich”.
Final Consideration Of The Review Of Demi-Lich Dice
As you can figure out from this review, Demi-Lich Dice are certainly charming and well crafted. Designing lightweight metal dice that don’t ruin surfaces is a great project. The skull and bone characterization usually arouses great fascination among role players. They certainly have a significant cost, though proportionate to the material and processes to realize them. They could be a wonderful addition to any shelf and bookcase, as well as a must-have accessory for any real necromancer!
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Thanks once again to the author Daniel Chivers and the Art Director Marco Bertini that sent us a copy of The Complete Hag Annex I to write this review. It is a supplement for D&D5e centered on hags, to be intended as the creatures type present in D&D monster manuals. We already reviewed positively the previous volume, The Complete Hag, published on April 2020. This one wants to be an expansionof that work, hence the subtitle Annex I. Although it is meant to be used together withThe Complete Hag, it can be safely enjoyed and used independently. The Complete Hag Annex I is available for purchase on DMSGuild only in digital format costing $3,95, about 3,30€ at actual change.
Contents of The Complete Hag Annex I
The volume counts 27 pages, 24 full of contents. Inside you can find new magic items, spells, creatures, supernatural plants and fungi, optional rules to use hags as patron or about iron (or cold iron) allergy.
I really liked contents as the personalized spell themes. The new hags are pleasant additions to the master’s arsenal. But the best characterizations come from the item. Hag gifts, hag weirds and tchotchkes. Game mechanic is only partly involved, because the efficacy is due to the peculiarity and the “hagtitude” that they radiate.
In 24 pages, don’t imagine you will find hundreds of elements, but surely there is quality in each of them. The manual not only looks at providing rules and statblocks, but tries to give ideas to color and flavor the sessions with the macabre world of hags. The focus on the other hand is very specific so every object, creature or rule is very well calibrated on the theme.
Art and layout
The Complete Hag Annex I opens with a beautiful illustration by Leonardo Borazio. The rest of the manual follows the previous products supervised by Marco Bertini. It is a classic and orderly layout, very similar to that of the original D&D5e products, with a collection of images taken from various sources. The designs are heterogeneous in style and quality, but the final result, as always, is pleasant both for reading and for the glance.
Final thoughts about The Complete Hag Annex I
This product is a set of additions to The Complete Hag. It is not a real supplement, as it lacks the breadth and cohesion of content that the core manual has. From a price-per-page point of view, it is worth starting with The Complete Hag, but this does not detract from this product, which with a minimum cost further expands an interesting topic with mature and captivating contents.
Those who have purchased and used The Complete Hag in their campaigns will find even more material to draw from. And those who want to get an idea of the subject before spending a higher cost on the core manual can start with this. Those who love witches and a dark and macabre tone can not let go The Complete Hag Annex I!
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I thank Red Eyed Rabbit for having sent a copy of A Nightmare in Porcelain to write this review. It’s a D&D5e adventure, written by Erlend Van der Haegen, for 3-5 first level characters. It was created mainly as introductive prequel to Unfamiliar, a sandbox campaign founded on Kickstarter in 2020 that will be released as a 350 pages manual in 2021. We are talking about a campaign set in a peculiar alien world, far from the classic fantasy. The book will be composed by 14 chapters. Each chapter will be a complete adventure module.
A Nightmare in Porcelaincan be easily used as a stand alone adventure. It is available from DriveThruRPG for $3,64 (about 3€) in digital format or for $8,49 (about 7€) in the physical version.
How Can A Nightmare in Porcelain Be Set
The adventure is set within a vast woodland area, in a peaceful lumber community. The more peaceful location in the beginning the more chances of apocalypse, it is said. Therefore, any area that reflects these simple characteristics can be valid for starting this adventure.
The story ends [attention! Spoiler Alert in this paragraph!] with the characters swallowed by a portal to another location. In the mind of the author the location would be the strange and alien land of Valdir; for every other dungeon master it can be the best option suitable for the campagin. That said, you can also decide that the adventurers had a particularly abundant breakfast and that they interacted with the portal without being sucked away.
Therefore it is not only simple to link A Nightmare in Porcelain in almost every story; this adventure can be useful to facilitate specific narrative needs.
Not the Usual First Level Adventure
A Nightmare in Porcelain does not represent the classic introductory adventure, although it revolves around another recurring narrative theme: the haunted house.
Strange surroundings of the house, mysterious elements that arouse suspicions, dark corridors that lead to rooms that perhaps it would be better not to open. A raw and cruel background story that leads to an adrenaline-fueled climax. And also nightmares, visions, experiments, secrets! It is not possible for me to go into further detail but I can guarantee you that there is a lot of content to run an engaging and anxious adventure.
The D&D system doesn’t help much with this kind of adventure where investigating, finding clues and dealing with threats would require fewer rolls and more storytelling, but there are tips to help make things easier.
Learning Horror Elements
The author has the great merit of going further the simple creation of the adventure. He offers numerous ideas and tools to obtain the most from what he wrote. Methods of storytelling, interaction with players, use of external tools to generate immersion. He also cleverly proposes to use fatigue levels as the equivalent of horror effects on naive characters. He demonstrate experience and competence; that gives me hope that the Unfamiliar campaign that will follow will therefore be a narratively high-level product.
A Nightmare in Porcelain: the Product
A catchy cover introduces this 44-page product. The layout is classic, the images a bit sparse and of variable quality. As this is a small introductory adventure, they are fine. On the other hand, I look at the beautiful art on the Unfamiliar project page on Kickstarter and I wonder why that quality is not already present in its introduction, also to make us understand the graphic value of the future manual.
The product begins with character hooks, someof them very interesting, and a brief introduction to the work. After that the space is all for the adventure, without final appendix, as the stat blocks are inserted in the corresponding paragraphs.
The maps are precise and made in a simple but detailed way. Using the digital version it is always a bit long to jump from the map to the corresponding paragraph. In this case, exporting the map pages or printing them easily solves the problem.
Final Considerations about A Nightmare in Porcelain
A Nightmare in Porcelain is a good introductory adventure; it allows masters to entertain players with suspense and horror elements. The visual component does not even with the very interesting content.
While intended as a prequel to an interesting and impressive campaign like the one that promises to be Unfamiliar, it is suitable for everyone. The hints and tips help less experienced masters but are also interesting for the more seasoned ones. The ease of use and insertion are further points in favor. It can also work as a themed long one-shot.
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We were given the opportunity to get a sneak peek at the quickstart of Inferno – Dante’s Guide to Hell, the setting for D&D5e based on the imagery created by Dante Alighieri for the Divine Comedy. Thanks to Two Little Mice, Acheron Games and Epic Party for the occasion, but first of all for the creation of this terrific product. Keep reading and you’ll prove me right. For everyone interested it is possible to freely download the quickstart. I emphasize that more than a quickstart it is a bigstart, considering that it is close to seventy pages. The Kickstarter campaign will kick off on March 23rd.
Divine The Comedy, Divine The Art
It is not possible for me not to start this journey by talking about illustrations and layout. Dante Alighieri’s work is a masterpiece of world literature, which can describes through the words places and creatures capable of inflaming the imagination of centuries of readers. The responsibility of translating all that imagery into art must not have been easy to manage. But there is no doubt that the result is superb.
Black and red dominate the scene. References to the historical engravings that accompanied the Comedy are mixed with more modern and fantasy images. The illustrations are stately and realistic at the same time, truly intense and impressive. The highest expression of contemporary giubellianism (neologism created in our Broken Compass review). But we have to celebrate not only the fantastic Daniela Giubellini, but also Vincenzo Pratticò and master Gustave Doré, famous illustrator of a Divine Comedy back in the 19th century. The quickstart is worth downloading for the illustrations alone (Charon! Admire that Charon!)
The layout follows the quality of the illustrations and is meant to exalt them. It is well done, elegantly embellishing the work without protagonism. Reading is a journey and turning the pages is exciting every time.
The Importance of Dante’s Legacy
The responsibility of disturbing the Divine Comedy is not limited to the illustrations. This preview based on the quickstart of Inferno – Dante’s Guide To Hell for D&D5e offers only a limited window on the final result, butthe attention to the quality of the text and the fidelity to the original work are and must be already put under scrutiny. We are talking about the Supreme Poet after all!
The team of authors makes their debut immediately ensuring that
with a precise philological approach, and with the help of experts, scholars and professionals of literature and games, we started a journey to Hell in the footsteps of Dante and Virgil, which adds nothing to the original but transforms the unreachable triplets of the Comedy in a completely new itinerary.
The material is still too little to make a complete judgment. But the air that you breathe among the concepts of Hope, Sin, First Love, Divine Inspiration and many other components of the game or the premises that animate it are excellent bases to expect a good job.
Quickstart of Inferno – Dante’s Guide To Hell for D&D5e: a Different Game
We are literally flooded by new RPGs every year. Great titles, new editions, reboots, indie, drafts, minimalist, zine and so on. Often it’s not the game that needs to change, but the approach. The first text box of the quickstart talks about this and deserves to be mentioned.
Inferno is not just a setting, but an attempt to generate a unique and profound experience. We ask players not to abandon only hope, but also preconceptions, and try to approach this manual with open mind and heart, and with the desire to be amazed. So put aside the search for the most powerful builds, and the rarest artifacts, and don’t already think about the great and famous opponents to be killed. The experience we offer you, if you like playing it, is more elegant and requires a bit of seriousness. Your biggest enemy will be yourself.
It is certainly a different game in which the characters are called Travelers and the master the Guide, which is not only a contextualized appellation, but also it is reflected in the setting, connoting it as a real guide, a Virgil who accompanies the players in a campaign obviously called Journey.
Travelers and their Sins
The characters, once they enter the Dark Forest, lose all ranks, levels and previous professions, as well as part of their memory and identity, and take on similar appearances to those they had in the material world or are transfigured and changed due to vices, virtues and sins.
For this reason, a great warrior who fought to serve heresy may find himself taking on the Archetype of the Blasphemer and forced to exchange his sword with the powers of fire. Similarly, a small and weak man who has dominated his subjects can find himself embodying the Archetype of the Tyrant and towering among the damned in his bloody armor.
They carry Emblems, allegorical objects ineluctably linked to them, their Sin and their class (or rather Archetype). Everyone has a Sin, there is no multiclass. But above all the objective of the Travelers is not to lose hope; while Lucifer aims not to kill the characters, but to make them use their powers thus exalt their Sin. And chain them forever to Hell.
And how beautiful the emblems! They are powers and burdens, they are allegories and counterpoints, combined with powerful visual presence and game mechanisms! As Hope is a mechanic, which starts from 33 points, a perfect number (doubly perfect I would say!).
The Introductory Adventure
The adventure almost cannot be defined as such. It’s a small introduction, a glimpse of what it can be to play in Hell. It is a pretext to present the situation to the players and make them comfortable with the setting. Certainly interesting and impactful, because thinking of playing a character who has crossed the Eternal Door and is on the banks of the Acheron is enough to send the hype on fire. An NPC is mentioned who will play an important role in the campaign featured in the manual; this suggests that there will be a main plot that will help at least the first approach of a Guide to his work as a storyteller.
The adventure takes all the poetry and philosophy of references and allegories back to the most classic role-playing game. Mission, confrontation, resolution. On the other hand we are always talking about D&D. Being able to blend these two souls of the game may not be an easy task and it will require commitment from everyone present at the game table.
The Quickstart of Inferno – Dante’s Guide To Hell for D&D5e: Final Considerations
I might surprise you: at the end of this preview I can tell you that I hate the quickstart of Inferno – Dante’s Guide To Hell for D&D5e. It’s just too good to wait for the full manual and try it out.
Seriously speaking, Two Little Mice confirms the extreme quality of its works and its attention to create a centered, homogeneous and satisfying product from every point of view. If this is the beginning, I can’t wait to see all the material that will be published, both contents and art. I am curious to better understand how adventures in Dante’s Inferno can be lived; but I am extremely confident that I will have a lot of fun playing them.
We are talking about a free product full of interesting ideas and embellished with fantastic illustrations: what are you waiting for to download it?
We are very happy to have the opportunity to write a review about Sonor Village. We got in touch with Antonio Affrunti, director of Sonor Village, for a collaboration and, thanks to him, now No Dice Unrolled has its own soundtrack! Great, isn’t it? In this article we will tell you how the relationship with Sonor Village developed and how was born the musical piece that was composed especially for us.
The Protagonists of the Review: Sonor Village
Sonor Village is a team located in Rome that deals with soundtracks for cinema, TV, documentaries, commercials, jingles, books and games. In recent years they have been specializing in the field of sound for roleplaying games. For example they produced four audio packages on Astral, a platform for online paper roleplaying gaming. All the songs can be listened in preview and purchased to be used on the site. They are also present on Youtube and Apple Music. They boast several collaborations. Acchiappasogni (OST for Le notti di Nibiru, Augusta Universalis, Dungeon 6 and Dragon Fighters), Minos Game (OST for Rockopolis), Scuola di GdR, A.P.S., Dicegames Italia, and other names in Germany, United States and more. You can see a trailer with some excerpts from their works.
The First Contacts Between Sonor Village e No Dice Unrolled
First of all I would like to premise a consideration that may seem marginal but in my opinion is very important. Antonio has always been kind and very patient. It is sometimes difficult to translate into words concepts about music or to convey preferences or requests for changes. Among clarifications, details and changes we have stressed our counterpart several times. He has always been attentive, understanding and proactive.
The first step was to decide what we needed. In our case an introduction to be used with the logo. Starting from that we asked to enlarge a theme to create a longer composition. We thought of a central part that can be inserted in a loop. So we can have a music of completely controllable duration.
At this point after deciding on the format we had to get to the heart of the matter, the music. Sonor Village asked for references in order to better understand what our wishes were. And we started looking accordingly for something that ignite a spark in us. We mainly wanted something epic, with a touch of dark.
In a few days we found some songs with sounds similar to our goal. We specified which parts of these songs most conquered our taste, after which we waited for the authors to work.
The Heart Of The Sonor Village Review
After a few days, Sonor Village returned our wishes in a preliminary audition. It met our tastes, despite having some details that we wanted to discuss. That’s normal, it was only the first draft of the song, but that’s was already very promising. Then we texted to shape the draft following Sonor Village’s experience. Some elements have been modified, then, when we were satisfied, Sonor Village made the final version, mixed and mastered.
After a few more days, our theme song finally came to us. A full version plus all the cut parts to use as we please. Here you are the result.
How The Team Works
We asked Antonio directly to describe how his team works and he told us something about it:
Basically we work for the preproduction of the songs in the personal studios of each team member using music composition software. The work is then finalized (with mixing and mastering) in a highly professional recording studio, the Village Recording Studio, where real instruments and voices are also recorded based on the type of sound required. In this way we combine the highest digital quality with the highest analog quality to achieve the best possible result. Right from the start, our goal was to be able to add professional-level audio quality to an excellent musical composition.
Obviously the first thing is to develop empathy with the game and its dynamics and create an original “sound” to increase the player’s emotional interaction with the game itself. Music is a powerful medium that moves feelings much more than a thousand words!
Who Needs An Ost?
We are very satisfied with our personal soundtrack. By managing a review site active on social networks, having our own music can only be an advantage. This utility also affects other areas. For example, given the huge expansion of RPGs on Kickstarter it is also important, while presenting a project, to accompany it with appropriate music.
But can a roleplaying group need a soundtrack? Unless you won the lottery or bought the Bitcoins at the right time, I would say certainly not for a one-shot. But for a long campaign one might think about it. Personally, in the last period I delight in creating short amateur opening songs to be used to separate the moment of the “de-derping” and “set the mood” from the rest of the session. I had talked about it in a previous article about how to structure a session. In addition, an opening or recurring theme in moments of pathos has other advantages. On one hand it creates a sense of belonging, on the other hand it generates a strong correlation between the melody and an important memory, such as a big campaign lasting years can be.
Of course, you don’t always have to use a specially composed soundtrack, but for something really special it might be worth it.
Final Considerations of the Sonor Village Review
We are very satisfied with our piece of music and how the work was carried out. Communication, commitment and attention to our needs were never lacking and we were able to be understood even when they tried in words to share a purely musical concept.
It is good to have a point of reference for such a service. Certainly it is not a daily necessity, but it is a resource to be taken into consideration. It is not possible to give you a price range as each case deserves a quote on its own, but Antonio has expressly told everyone to ask because the costs could be very low! Any interested person can contact Sonor Village through the Facebook page, sending a mail to sonorvillage@gmail.com o calling 06 7696 8056.
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First of all thank you to Owlwood Gaming that sent us a product, the Elite Box, to make us write this review. Owlwood Gaming is an artisan business that deals with creating wooden accessories for roleplaying games. Its founder, Alessandro Amici, fifth genetarion of woodcrafters, decided to use his art to give shape to something beautiful and functional in order to complement his, and ours, greatest passion: roleplaying.
That’s how Owlwood Gaming was born. The whole story is fully explained on the official site. It is possible to stay updated following the Facebook and Instagram accounts. Every detail is made with attention and good taste, starting from the elegant and fluid site, up to the logo, which I find really beautiful.
The products from Owlwood Gaming
There are four products available so far. They are all handcrafted in Italy from quality wood from responsibly managed forests. Burmese Teak and Cherry were chosen as materials. Cherry is characterized by a warmer color, while Burmese teak, one of the most luxurious woods in the world, is characterized by various colors ranging from pale yellow to bronze.
There are the dice tray, the dice holder, the Elite Box and the six-sided dice. For precise information about the costs I suggest you to visit the site. A die costs € 5, while the rest of the products range between € 30 and € 70. There are also bundles and shipping deals to consider.
Dice TrayDice HolderElite BoxDice
The Elite Box by Owlwood Gaming
Surely the Elite Box has been designed to give the possibility to carry everything a role player needs. Dice, miniatures and pencils mainly. But also tires, tokens, counters and many other small things. To the eye it is truly a beautiful object and the wood with its grain gives it a natural elegance. In the hands it is absolutely pleasant: it is well polished and the polished corners seem almost rounded as they slide nicely on the palm of the hand.
The robustness of this product stands out even more. The key to everything in my opinion lies in the closing method. Two powerful magnets placed on the sides securely anchor the two parts of the holder. The closure is perfect, sufficiently tight to ensure the almost impossibility of accidental opening, but, thanks to the front groove, it can be opened without too much effort. The absence of screws, hinges and other elements necessary for more classic closures allows the Elite Box by Owlwood Gaming to be elegant, resistant and I believe also durable.
On the inside a soft lining keeps safe fragile objects such as miniatures (even more those of our beloved character!). It can also be removed if you are not carrying fragile things and you want to gain some vertical space.
Final Consideration on the Elite Box by Owlwood Gaming
The Owlwood Gaming Elite Box is a product that convinced me 100%. Behind it there are passion, planning and attention to details. The same care that can be seen in the pictures on social media, in the creation of the postal package that arrived to us and, most of all, in the realization of the product itself. The cost of the Elite Box is 50€, in my opinion absolutely fair for the quality level offered. We are not talking about a stall gadget or a plasticky trinket. It is an artisanal product handmade in Italy with selected top quality materials. And quality has its cost. It is also available for a surcharge the possibility of obtaining a limited edition with the graphics of the evocation of a skeleton.
I hope the photos and videos can describe it properly. I am sorry not being able to convey, except in words, the pleasant sensation you get turning it over in your hands or to open and close it. I am sure that the Elite Box by Owlwood Gaming will not disappoint you, whether as your own personal dice holder or if you are thinking for a gift to a friend. It seems that some dungeon masters who received it for Christmas have granted the group that gave it a free reroll per session for life. But maybe it’s just a popular legend…
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W thanks Free Leaue that sent us a preview copy of Treasure Hunts in Davokar to allow us to write this review. It is a Symbaroum starter set created to go treasure hunting in the dark forest of Davokar. It’s possible to preorder it for $40 from the Symbaroum official site.
For that price you’ll get:
A 64 pages book with the starter rules.
A 64 pages book with two adventure locations and a brief excursus of the Symbaroum setting.
One dice set.
A double-sided map of Davokar and of Thistle Hold, the city of the treasure hunters.
Another double-sided map picturing the adventure locations of the second book.
Six pregenerated character sheets (five characters and a mystical companion)
Soon after the purchase it will be possible to download the PDF versions of the books and the character sheets.
One Step Back: Symbaroum and the Davokar
Symbaroum is a dark fantasy rpg born in 2014, based on the d20 (but players must aim at low results). It featues a fast system, centered on players, with a very quick learning curve and a good modularity based on several optional rules born to customize complexity and immersion in the game. The growth of the characters is mostly horizontal and there is generally a fair amount of mortality.
Symbaroum is set in Ambria, a newly born kingdom founded by people fleeing from the home country due to a devastating war. Their new home stands at the doorsteps of an immense, mysterious and dark forest, the forest of Davokar. The setting allows for either a more social approach, characterized by the intrigues of the kingdom, or can focus more on action and exploration, thanks to this huge forest full of epic locations, the remains of the ancient Empire of Symbaroum and lethal adversaries.
The game also features a top-notch graphics compartment, lots of high-quality accessories and a variety of products, featuring the epic six-book campaign entitled The Throne of Thorns.
Review of Art, Layout and Materials of Treasure Hunts in Davokar
We certainly do not discover today the extreme quality of the products published by Free League. Treasure Hunts in Davokar is confirmed made with extreme care (sylica gel in the box is a touch of class). The materials are strong, the quality of the paper, especially the maps, is truly appreciable.
Art and layout are of high quality too. The images in this starter set are mostly taken from previous manuals, but for those who have not had the pleasure of admire them, it is worth rubbing the eyes. It’s hard not to be amazed by the talent of illustrator Martin Grip. The covers of the two manuals are beautiful and the careful and elegant layout makes you want to read each page as quickly as possible in order to move on to the next.
Book I: Starter Rules
The first book, the one with the rules, takes the reader by the hand, introducing him in about ten pages to the world of Symbaroum. With extreme mastery, everything you need to know is briefly exposed to have a sufficiently clear and complete idea of the basics of the game world.
The following parts allow a brief but exhaustive excursus on classes, races, skills, rules and equipment. The simplicity of the Symbaroum system and its modularity help in this case to create a basic version, presented in this manual, concise but enjoyable.
It is perfect for quickly getting an idea of how Symbaroum is like to evaluate whether to go deeper with the purchase of other manuals. The book ends with a very interesting chapter dedicated to the presentation of the five pregenerated characters. They all have a personal goal and a common one, for helping the immersion of the characters in the story and sealing an implicit cohesion in the group.
Book II: Setting and Adventures
If the first book is basically a mini player manual, the second is dedicated to the Game Master. The first chapter is dedicated to the latter, providing some quick but important tips on this central role of the game. Then we enter the heart of the contents.
First, the location of Thistle Hold is presented with an excellent level of detail. It is in fact one of the main places of the setting, the starting point of many adventures, thanks also to its central position between Ambria and Davokar. Subsequently, a set of rules and tables is presented to organize expeditions in the forest, with a particular focus on treasure hunting. A short bestiary follows with just over a dozen creatures detailed and provided with the new and handy stat blocks.
Finally, the last 25 pages describes two one-site adventures. They are two simple but fascinating locations designed for novices. In fact, they have undeniably been designed for players with no experience, to welcome them by wrapping them in an engaging atmosphere but with a level of difficulty that does not prevent the fun and the discovery of the potential of Symbaroum. They were born to have the pre-generated characters as protagonists and to be played in sequence, although neither of these two things is mandatory.
Final Considerations of the Review of Treasure Hunts in Davokar
When you play on the stock market and want to invest money in stocks, you are always looking for the perfect entry point. It is the moment in which a stock falls and it is more convenient to buy for future gains. For all the reasons that I have explained to you in this review of Treasure Hunts in Davokar, I believe that this starter set represents the perfect entry point for all those who have never yet had the pleasure of entering the forest of Davokar and the game of Symbaroum. It offers a broad view of what this game is, from the physical quality to the content. You can quickly start playing and it is full of details added to help newbies get great results.
Even those who already know the game might get something interesting. The adventures are new and the new stat blocks are introduced for the first time. They will be used in the future Symbaroum products; it is however undeniable that this product is designed for newcomers.
In these times of social and globality it is difficult for those who love and follow the world of roleplaying games not to have heard of Symbaroum. But in such an abundance of titles it is more than possible that you have not yet made an attempt to try it. The perfect opportunity has arisen. If you like treasure hunting, start grabbing this little gem!
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It was a pleasure to review Broken Compass, the latest RPG produced by Two Little Mice, the talented creative ensemble that produced Household, winner of the Italian title of Gioco di Ruolo dell’Anno 2019 or RpG of the Year. To our very the great pleasure, they sent us the manuals and materials of this, their most recent effort, so we could share our impressions with you.
Broken Compassis an action-themed adventure roleplaying game which raised almost €50,000 in an international Kickstarter campaign in 2020. The game allows you to experience Adventures (yes, with a capital “A”), such as those of Indiana Jones, Uncharted, or National Treasure. The cinematographic component is not just a reference point, however, but a featured trait aimed at distinguishing and embellishing the product. From the citations to the general approach, everything refers back to those works that have been able to keep us all on the edges of our seats in front of screens both large and small. It provides a game setting that wisely integrates and exploits the characteristic elements of the genre. There is a director’s cut in the structure of the Adventures, which are called “Episodes” and collected in campaigns called “Seasons”.
This review takes a look at the Kickstarter offer bundle, which features many exclusive elements. Currently, the digital version of the core manual is on sale at DriveThruRPG for $24, while the digital version of the Golden Age manual is available for $19.
The Bundle of Broken Compass
The main manual is a c. 6 x 9 in (15 x 23 cm) colored hardcover, with elastic closure and a shape and consistency that recall the journal of an adventurous archaeologist. It consists of approximately 230 pages and contains everything you need to play Broken Compass.
There are also two other manuals of the same size and materials. One is dedicated to Adventures set in the 1930s and is named Golden Age. Inside, there are insights, explanations, and inspiring ideas to best set the Adventures in the golden age of the genre.
The second manual, called Luck Tales (a clear homage to Uncle Scrooge McDuck), is like a treasure chest. It is a collection of various items to deepen your game, such as unlikely objects and advice on traps and puzzles. There are also instructions for playing Episodes featuring young teenagers and for engaging the younger ones at your game table. Eleven episodes signed by authors and prominent personalities of the Italian RPG scene complete and add greater meaning to the title.
Various accessories complete the Broken Compass bundle we received for this review. A coin, a world map, two playbills, a celebratory poster, six postcards that briefly describe as many cities ready to host adventures, two “passport” booklets (one for the record sheets of characters yet to be created and one with compiled sheets of ready-made characters, possibly antagonists), and a dice bag made of raw cotton muslin (commonly used prior to the Industrial Revolution for shirts and shifts). The faces of the dice show the cardinal compass points and the Broken Compass symbols instead of being numbered. Many small gadgets and many wonderful details affirm the quality of this bundle.
Let’s Dive into Adventure
I begin with the introductory sentence of each of the three manuals (I didn’t have the English version, so this is a translation):
This manual is more of a kind of track than a real rulebook.
Why is it important? Because the spirit of the game is the spirit of Adventure. Rules, suggestions, advice, and directions are certainly important and form the basis on which you start playing but, in Broken Compass, what matters most is the spirit of adventure that permeates the sessions and thrills the hearts of the players, much more so than in many other products. It differs from many other RPGs in the authors’ co-responsibility for the stories. The game master, here called “Fortune Master”, is in charge of managing the Rivals, the Extras, and the action, but the story, the Treasure, the narrative, and descriptive elements of the Episodes must be developed and carried forward together with the players.
All the adventures are based on three pillars: travel, discovery and action. The Episodes are based on a certain mix of these elements. Another feature explained here, but which should be much more common in many other systems and on many other tables, concerns the concept of failure. Failure isn’t just not being able to complete some act successfully, it is completely stripped of any negative meaning. Adventurers know very well that the feats they want to accomplish are difficult, not being able to do something is part of their stories. Failing in Broken Compass means generating unexpected events, rather; it means discovering a new path for the story; it means adding spice. In gamer jargon, we call it Failing Forward.
If It Was That Easy to Become An Adventurer…
Broken Compass is a very pragmatic game, and character creation reflects that. Almost all of the attribution of skills is based on the choice of two (or three) tags from a pool of 18. Points are distributed through the tags, yielding a greater number of dice to throw in resolving challenges. Three places in the world are then chosen: where the character come from, and where he or she grew up and worked. In those places, the adventurer is more familiar with the environment or has a certain number of contacts as resources.
You choose a lucky charm, prepare your backpack, pull the straps well … and you’re ready to go!
In the Golden Age manual there are 6 additional tags, and as many are proposed for the Teenage version of the game. Surely, there will always be new ones with the release of new expansions.
Review of the System of Broken Compass: Challenges and Dangers
The Broken Compass system largely echoes that of Household. All character tests are divided into four difficulty levels: Basic, Critical, Extreme and Impossible. The players roll a number of d6s varying between 3 and 6 with the goal of generating the highest number of identical faces. It is possible to withdraw a couple of times, the first time risking little (or nothing) and the second time risking everything. Feelings, situations, or objects can lend advantages (more dice) or disadvantages (fewer dice).
When a character is actively executing some actions we are talking about Challenges. For basic Challenges, a pair of dice showing matching faces is enough to succeed, while it takes 5 for impossible ones. Because the “classic” concept of failure doesn’t exist here, the calculation of probabilities actually matters little. The important thing is to step into the shoes of a hero and give 100%.
On the other side of the coin (in this case at least of a cursed medallion) there are Dangers, events driving the adventurers to take big risks. The resolution procedure is similar: the Fortune Master makes it very clear what risks the heroes run (always divided between the 4 levels, above) and the players must meet them with the successes on their dice. Some situations may be composed of a number of simultaneous hazards, but addressed with a single die roll. It often takes a lot of luck!
Review of the System of Broken Compass: Luck and Feelings
Luckily adventurers are often gifted with a great deal of luck! In Broken Compass, characters have 10 Luck points. These can be spent to obtain a daring Success versus a danger against which the dice have not granted a reprieve. Luck is recharged with a rest in a safe place. After the Luck is spent,only the lucky charm remains. A coin is then thrown, perhaps the token provided in the bundle. Your character is saved when the “cross” comes up, and you keep the lucky charm. You still save your character with “heads”, but you lose the charm. There are many ways to succeed, and the system invites you to dare them. You are playing heroes who put everything on the line to achieve their goals!
The Feelings, by contrast, are momentary labels that can give advantages or disadvantages, the results of character history and not of careful character design. A character may have positive conditions based on how s/he feels, which is the result of how s/he behaves. For example, there is Self-Confidence (advantage on Society rolls), and Daring (advantage on Guts rolls), but Love, or being Invincible, or whatever else best describes a state of mind recognized by the Fortune Master as having enough weight to influence game play may also be used. On the flip side, there are just as many negative Feelings to inflict disadvantages, and if you accumulate too many you Feel Shattered, with disadvantage on all rolls until you rest in a safe place.
Review of the System of Broken Compass: Traps and Enemies
The next things that I want to point out in this review is that the Broken Compass system is quite light and the other remaining elements, Traps & Enemies, are framed by the same rules. Traps are Dangers that can first be identified with a clue. Enemies are Dangers that must be hit multiple times by three successes of their own level (characters are also divided into four levels) before you can get past them to move on.
There are further rules and clarifications, but the basic structure is simple and even intuitive, very suitable for an action narrative in which you aim precisely to obtain something by taking calculated risks and rising to the challenge of unexpected twists. The players are encouraged to dare greatly, and the backbone of the system helps to generate excitement and encourage immersion in an excellent union of mechanics and narration.
Much Good Advice
In the basic manual, many pages are dedicated to creating and managing adventures and general game play. It talks about creating Treasures, distributing clues, Rivals, wealth, and time management, as well as the structure of Episode and Season plots, the heroes’ growth, the number of players, always maintaining a cinematic view. There is mention of pilot Episodes, of the season finale, of spin-offs, and the NPCs who have been transformed into “Not a Protagonist, Clearly”.
The focus on the end goal drives a degree of immersion that makes games which are really easy for a reader to get carried away with so easy to create. Even if something is missing or if you don’t know something, it doesn’t matter, because we’re not talking about a manual full of tables, nor rules for everything. As I mentioned at the beginning, the authors themselves call it “a track”.
The track ends with ideas, insights, examples of extras, and a pilot Episode, more on that in a moment.
For the more ambitious there is also the hard mode where “Luck is short, Time is running out, money is scarce and the Rival is really bad”.
The Golden Age manual
Each manual could well have been presented in separate reviews. Kudos to those who have read this far! The Golden Age manual is a well of new possibilities.
After the Introduction and the presentation of what adventuring and adventurers were like in the 1930s in the first part, the second part describes the world of that era generally, to provide deeper context for the stories. New Extras, new Treasures, and lots of other information are also provided. The third part is dedicated to the supernatural, with examples and tips for managing those elements in play.
The last two parts present the Throne of the Serpent arc(a ready-made Season) and five “on-demand” Episodes, respectively, with directions to play them in the context of the Throne of the Serpent or independently.
This is not an essential manual. It is “only” a supplement. It is truly rich in information and ideas, however, and may become indispensable to all those who want to experience adventures in the early decades of the century, perhaps preventing the Nazis from getting their hands on some strange artifact. Nazis always work as Rivals, you know.
The Luck Tales Manual
The Luck Tales manual (that I’m going to review), exclusive to the backers of the Kickstarter campaign, was not written by the same authors as Broken Compass. It is an anthology signed by many people who live and breathe role-playing games. There are 6 instructive chapters and 11 actual Episodes. The authors are in the image alongside.
The instructive chapters deepen the theme of “Failing Forward” that drives the plots, giving advice and suggestions for Traps and puzzles, for travel management, for the creation of Unlikely Objects (above all, the Chicken with Pulley). There is still a chapter on how to play a Teenage version of Broken Compass and one on Wayfinder Inc., a company of adventurers and archaeologists.
And then there is the meat on the fire, the roast behind the smoke, the Episodes themselves. I have not described any so far because I have read only a few, as I intend playing the rest, and not as Fortune Master. The management of the text of the Episodes deserves a separate recognition because their structure is important.
The Episodes
Forget 50-page adventures with text boxes that tell you what to say to players and when, starting with the tavern where the adventurers find themselves. Forget diagrams, maps, and lengthy introductory exposition. The ready-made Episodes of Broken Compass are all ready, fast to play and, above all, multifaceted. These are mostly linear plots in the prevailing style of the genre, in which there is a well-prepared basic structure sub-divided into unexpected, surprising, threatening and rewarding scenes. The faces of many of these, however, are not defined and are left to the Fortune Master and players.
We are faced with text full of labels, some functional, others yet to be defined. For example:
Without [the clue] it will not be possible to prevent [the rival] from taking [the guide] captive.
What is the clue and who the rival and guide specifically are must be defined by the Fortune Master. This requires a little work but also allows each structure to be adapted to many different tastes and situations.
Before the laziest of you complain, know that the Episodes are already provided with a ready-built structure, so you can play them as is – or “On-demand”, to maintain the cinematic theme.
Art and Layout
The art and layout are faithfully maintain the quality already established. From the point of view of page and space management, the manuals are beautiful. They are easy to read; the chapters are opened with illustrated splash pages, easily recognized. Varying colors differentiate the titles, borders, and backgrounds of the various parts of the manuals. The ideas are reminiscent of notes from notebooks or files from an archive and running alongside the text are columns that deepen or expand some concepts.
In short, the manuals are beautiful and practical. It is difficult to find fault.
In regards to the art, I would like to coin a new term I consider synonymous with the word “beautiful”: Giubellinian. Anyone who still does not know Daniela Giubellini should seek her work out on Facebook, ArtStation, and Instagram, to mention just a few digital platforms where her work can be seen. She illustrated Household and is collaborating with Two Little Mice in illustrating Inferno (I strongly urge you to go and preview the illustrations). Of course, art is subjective and her work may not be to your taste. Personally, I like her work a lot and I find them very suitable for the game. The whole Broken Compass bundle is full of her images (of which you can admire a few included here in this review). Should I add more?
Final Considerations
Re-reading what I have written, I realize how enthusiastic this article is. As you probably understood thanks to this review, Broken Compass is a product I really like. The attention to detail and the care taken creating fine physical products and high-value content won me over. It is an RPG created for playing cinematic adventures full of action and spirit. Its attractiveness and longevity depend on the personal preferences of each player who approaches it, naturally, so the financial investment must be commensurate with the use each buyer intends to put it.
If you are interested or simply have a desire to add to your collection, you have my word that this bundle is an excellent product. After Household, Two Little Mice has confirmed itself as a real force in the Italian role-playing game market, capable of offering high quality and well-finished products, a pleasure not just to play but simply to browse and to own.
I invite you again not only to enjoy Broken Compass, but also to take a look at their next project: Inferno, a reinterpretation of Dante’s Inferno for D&D5e!
If you want to get a closer look at this bundle, you can download both the quickstart and the pre-made character sheets from the Two Little Mice website.
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Today’s review examines The Complete NPC, a D&D5e supplement signed by Daniel Chivers and Marco Bertini and available in digital format from Dungeon Masters Guild priced at $9.95 (about 8€). We are talking about a product focused on Non Player Character, as the title states.
I Expect a Lot of PNG!
More than half of the 74 pages of this work are dedicated to presenting 57 NPCs whose Challenge Rating varies from 0 to 21, so you can almost always have something to “throw on the table”. The NPCs are divided into 10 categories, such as bandits, cavaliers, city dwellers, criminals, guards, and psionics. Each category offers different elements rated for different Challenge Ratings. It is very convenient to have various types of criminals available, even more so all the various types of soldiers, divided broadly by rank or weapon used. There is also an interesting group of eldritch knights called Thunder Knights.
The beginning of the NPC section is opened by a useful table that lists in alphabetical order not only the characters covered in The Complete NPC; but some more generic types, too, taken from various official manuals, showing where to go fishing for more.
This freedom makes it possible to create truly fascinating designs.
But They Won’t Be Only PNG!
The Complete NPCdoesn’t stop at a long list. The manual opens with two very complete tables. These speed up the conversion of NPCs from one race to another, humanoid (one table) or monstrous (the other). In practice, each line has a potential conversion with features to add to the original stat-block to create a soldier drider in seconds, or a merfolk pickpocket (beware ladies walking on the docks!).
Another section that presents a handy table is that of mounts. Here, too, there are many entries brought together from various manuals, and the list is rounded-out with a dozen new or in-depth possibilities, from war horses to moose to riding lizards.
Then there is a one-page chapter (prefaced with a full page illustration) that features two creatures: the Vril and the Wemic. Sadly, there are no illustrations showing them. It looks more like filler than anything else. Kind of like ordering ice cream and then taking the bowl home with you. Thanks for the gift, but I only wanted the ice cream. I don’t know what to do with the bowl.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Appendices!
The Complete NPC has two appendices. The first is the icing on the cake, interesting and unexpected. In fact, it is a Challenge Rating 24 NPC combo with a very tantalizing magical item.They can be used together or separately. The magic item is not tied to such high levels, however, and may appeal to many Dungeon Masters.
The second appendix provides directions for a slower and more careful process of merging two stat-blocks, specifically a rakshasa and an archmage. Borrowing some mechanics from D&D3.5, it also also explains a method of creating new non-player characters with a certain density. A method probably best used for designing assets of value, since it takes a little more time.
Review of the Art of The Complete NPC
There is little to say about the layout, really, which maintains the standards set by the products present on the DMSGuild site, emulating the typical settings of classic manuals well. Also the art, even if taken a little here and a little there according to what the copyrights allow, is very pleasant and also abundant. The theme of the NPCs ensures you don’t have to search for images that are too specific. The full page illustrations in particular are very effective.
Final Consideration of the Review of The Complete NPC
Our final opinion of The Complete NPC is that it is a good supplement, created for a very specific purpose, and decisions to purchase should be evaluated on that basis. It is not a “must-have” product, but it is certainly a very useful aid for those Dungeon Masters who need a large number of different NPCs or creatures on hand, perhaps to fill a particularly populated area of your game world – and/or cosmopolitan, thanks to the quick conversion tables.
The manual has allowed me to set some very useful lists aside; among them a group of stat-blocks ripe for use in the future, and a couple of ideas here and there that tickled me, that magical object in particular … So, thanks to the authors for sending us a copy for this review!
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This review of Shotglass Adventures III is possible thanks to the author, Laidback Dungeon Master, who sent us the digital file of the product and the possibility of printing it at production cost through the Print-On-Demand service of DrivethruRPG. I did not hesitate to seize the opportunity and now, holding a physical copy of it with great pleasure, I can tell you about this collection of adventures.
Shotglass Adventures III – Black Meridian Heart is available on DrivethruRPG in digital (PDF) or physical format, softcover or hardcover starting from $25 (about 20€ at the actual exchange), not to mention any discounts implemented by the author.
Summary
I told you about Shotglass Adventures III in a previous articleand I invite you to reread it if you want to get a better idea of what it is. However, let’s do a summary of what we had already said.
This review is on Shotglass Adventures III – Black Meridian Heart, a collection of OGL adventures for D&D5e and other OSR games, containing 10 adventures for characters of levels 10 to 15, a sequel to the two previous volumes of Shotglass Adventures. Each adventure can either be played independently or as part of an on-going campaign.
The author’s promises include hand-drawn color maps, dozens of new monsters, new magical items, a detailed urban setting, new rules, various campaign and environment management tables, and much more. It is time to put the truthfulness of the promises made in the Kickstarter campaign to the test!
Let’s start the Shotglass Adventures III review!
Browsing through the 134 pages of Shotglass Adventures III for the first time, the first two things that stood out were the blazing red color and the maps. In fact, red was used for the headings or to highlight key elements, especially monsters, making them really stand out throughout the manual.
The maps are pure eye-candy, though, beautifully designed and very colorful. They are presented twice in the text, in reduced size first, with numbers or lines that refer to the explanatory text, and then a second time blown up to full-page size. I liked this detail because as a Dungeon Master I hate flipping back and forth when the maps are far from the descriptions of the locations. There are also some bonus maps for meetings or sites that can be added, if needed, found on the last pages.
The attention to detail and the author’s own experience as a Dungeon Master are common threads running through the entire product. At first glance, it seemed to me that I was reading the notebook of the adventures of some Dungeon Master friend rather than a published manual. The lettering, layout, index and so on are all high quality, however. Having some details underlined, maps at hand, tips, important stat block values highlighted, a glossary of abbreviations, all convey attention to detail. For example, the acronyms present throughout the manual save space, but the reader is never left to interpret the meaning of acronyms that are not always obvious on their own.
The ten adventures
I believe a brief synopsis of the adventures can give you a better understanding of the content. Here are the ten proposals in the menu (required level in brackets):
Beginning at the End (XI): a bomb explodesin an inn, beginning an investigation that brings to light disturbing discoveries.
The Frost Giant’s Proposal (XI): a marriage alliance between two clans of ice giants is likely to fail because the bride has disappeared on her way to the groom. A neutral third party must investigate this delicate situation.
Destiny’s Chyld (XII): a powerful artifact that can roll back time is the only way to avoid a cataclysm.
Island in the Stream (XII): the rescue of a group of archaeologists on an island floating up in the air reveals startling mysteries.
Eye of the Storm (XIII): an inter-dimensional labyrinth fraught with danger with no apparent way out.
Enemy Mine (XIII): an old, forgotten temple holds far greater dangers than the vicious creatures that inhabit it.
Unchained (XIV): an investigation into a manor and the resident baron who seems to have a lot to hide.
The Ruins of Tessala (XIV): ancient ruins house the followers of an unscrupulous cult.
Black Heart (XV): the dungeon from which the subtitle Black Meridian Heart is derived, a place full of pitfalls.
Fade to Black (XV): the grandiose and apocalyptic last chapter of the campaign, full of possibilities and variable endings.
Clarifications
The term adventure is very generic. It can refer to a 2-room dungeon, a single situation that can result in multiple different outcomes based on interpretation, as well as an investigation that may require several sessions to complete. So, it is necessary to clarify what kind of adventures can be found in Shotglass Adventures III.
They are not long or complex adventures, far from it. Each of them takes up only 5-7 pages, including those beautiful, dedicated maps. They are not even considerable expanded ideas, because each page is full of information. These are adventures all located or connected with a region called Black Meridian, about which a huge vortex constantly and silently moves at an altitude of over 500 meters.
They make use of the classic dungeon structure, primarily, with some possible hooks for the characters, a quick description of the characteristics of the places and non-player characters, a hint of the plot and indications of traps, monsters, and encounters. There are no text boxes to read from or long explanations that take the Dungeon Master by the hand to lay the tale out. This is the reason behind my comparing it to a DM’s notebook. There is so much content that must be digested, organized and translated into an adventure. On the other hand, they are also adventures at such a level that it is difficult to be the first ones that a novice DM sets his eye on.
As they are individually playable adventures, there aren’t any particularly strong connections between most of them. There are many possibilities for linking them, however, recurring characters or red threads that can be added to bring them together for a much more cohesive and engaging campaign.
Shotglass Adventures III additional content
There is a lot of additional content. The manual is sprinkled here and there with the author’s advice for Dungeon Masters, precise and formative. At the beginning of the manual there are a dozen pages presenting the area and the main settlement. I am mesmerized by the amount of practical and usable material, ideas, places, factions, names. Truly a compact treasure trove of information
The adventures are followed by almost 20 pages of monsters, some created from scratch, others taken from the Tome of Beasts or the Creature Codex. These are followed by a short list of magic items, mostly created specifically for the adventures. There is also a handy ruin generator. The region called Black Meridian is full of such remains and this certainly makes creating a unique places convenient, taking only a few steps.
Then there is setting information that serves to deepen the experience of the province of Verona (nothing to do with the Italian city). This is the theater region of the Shotglass Adventures trilogy that allows you to provide additional information to those who want more
The manual ends with a quick reference to the conversion for OSR, some simple ideas to facilitate the transposition from one system to another.
Art and layout
From a layout point of view, I appreciate the density of content per page. The intelligent use of color, lines, and text boxes prevents confusion. A good job has been done, precise and careful in detail. You have to get used to it at first, after which it is smooth.
Art is very pleasant. Like the maps, some of the drawings are also in color. The chosen palette is bright and playful. There is no shortage of detail, but there is no hyper-realism, either. You clearly recognize the line, you want to make it clear that it is a drawing. In a way, it transports you to a playful space.
Final thoughts of this review of Shotglass Adventures III
The most important consideration when buying an adventure is to know exactly what you are looking for. I hope I have given you a sufficiently comprehensive idea of this product for you to decide if it is right for you. Materials, graphics, and layout maintain a good standard and will not disappoint. The contents are compact. They need a Dungeon Master who knows how to expand the concepts and connect the plot points, but they are many and interesting.
Therefore, if you are looking for medium-sized dungeons to embel your campaign, or if you want an entire region to explore with a well-defined path to glory, send your characters confidently to the Heart of Black Meridian.
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We thank Legendary Games for sending us Mythos Monsters, a new bestiary for D&D5e, in order to write this review. It allows us to further expand our wide range of monsters and antagonists to always amaze our players. This manual features more than 40 beasts that draw inspiration from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth. So monsters with a capital M, things is to better not to dream at night!
Mythos Monsters was born thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign. It is now available on the official store in PDF for $15 (about €14), in the physical edition for $20 (about €19) and in a bundle that contains both for $25 (about €23.50). It exists in the PF2 version (also in a ready-made format for Foundry VTT), albeit at a slightly higher price. If you use the code NDU10 at checkout, you will get a 10% discount on your order!
I should also point out Legendary Games’s account on Patreon, called Legendary Loots, offering daily rewards with D&D5e material.
Mythos Monsters is the last add-on in the Beasts of Legend series, that includes other products as Coldwood Codex, Boreal Bestiary, Construct Codex and Beast from the East.
The content of Mythos Monsters
These monsters of the Cthulhu Mythos cannot all be contained in a single manual, since there are so many of them. Blood of Yog-Sothoth, hounds of Tindalos, flying polyps, migo, even a few Ancients. They are of various levels of danger to allow you to find ideas for every difficulty and every level.
Mythos Monsters is a very practical manual. There is a brief introduction: it mostly deals with the label “mythos” as a subtype of monsters and the creation of xenoid creatures. Okay, xenomorphs are not part of the Cthulhu Mythos corpus. But their roots go deep there and a guide to their creation certainly adds value to this manual. Then, from page 5 to page 69 (out of 70), there are monsters upon monsters, each occupying a page or two.
While I love Lovecraft’s stories and have the complete bibliography on Kindle, my knowledge of these monsters is not so extensive as to allow me to scrutinize the purity of the content. Putting myself in the shoes of the average user, I found the descriptive part well done and exhaustive and the mechanical part balanced and functional.
Art and layout
Creating a Cthulhu Mythos products requires a certain quality of art. As can be seen from the images in this review, Mythos Monsters largely satisfies this prerequisite. The graphic choices for the monsters offer a good mix. On one hand, they represent horrifying alien creatures; on the other hand is the need to adapt them to the fantasy style of the most famous RPG in the world. While I understand that this is a deliberate choice that is found in many Legendary Games manuals, I would have liked a more attractive cover image. Even inside there are no full-page images to stoke the reader’s imagination, but the graphics are very strong.
The layout I mention only to underline its perfect uniformity with the classics of the genre. Every reader will find themselves at home on every page. It is worth highlighting the fact that the digital file has hyperlinks: internal from the index to the various items and external to the 5eSRD (the official OGL regulation of D&D5e).
Final considerations on Mythos Monsters
This product has a very centered focus. It aims to supply D&D5e with a large number of creatures related to the Cthulhu Mythos and I believe it manages to do so with a good balance between quality and price. There aren’t many visual frills, but each monster is represented with quality and vividness. There is no additional content to the monsters, but each page adds a serious and well-crafted resource for the dungeon master. I’m pretty sure you will hardly be disappointed if you are interested in what Mythos Monsters proposes.
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Browsing through Kickstarter projects to find out what’s coming to market, I came across Meteor Tales, a pen&paper RPG that, in its preview material, promises a unique and realistic combat system. Many promise, this time will it be true? Curious to have an answer, we contacted the author, Angelos Kyprianos, who kindly gave us a digital preview to allow us to take a look.
Meteor Tales is a project that has been carried out for 20 years. Behind him there are only two persons: the author and the illustrator, Charidimos Bitsakakis. The continuous improvements have led to the genesis of the second edition, which now through crowdfunding tries to achieve better graphics, more content and other accessories. In addition to the Kickstarter page you can also take a look at the dedicated site.
The promises of Meteor Tales in preview
Meteor Tales promises many differences from some features typical of many known RPGs. There are no hit points and combat has a high risk of lethality that requires tactics and careful management of resources. In fact, every creature has the same degree of vulnerability and the progression of abilities increases the possibility to defend oneself and avoid damage but not the resistance to it.
Character creation is multifaceted and takes every aspect into consideration in order to create unique and non-stereotypical (in races or classes) creatures. Advancement depends on what you practice and is not based on gaining experience. Magic has a new and different approach with the presence of schools of magic that are characterized by their own, autonomous mini-systems. The main element of the system is the Stamina, which represents the exchange currency to be able to carry equipment, perform actions and cast spells. There are also mechanics that favor interpretation.
Are the promises kept?
Considering that this is a preview, I have not yet carefully studied the 400 pages of the basic manual of Meteor Tales, but I wanted to try to understand if the promises I have described above are kept.
Character creation occupies nearly 120 pages and is described as a sacred ritual that must take the right amount of time. It is not completely free from stereotypes or classes, but it offers a lot of freedom. There is a lot of random results in some parts, which gives a slightly retro feel, considering the current trend of trying to create characters as balanced as possible, especially in numbers and bonuses. The progression of each aspect of the character is independent and linked to its use or training.
Combat really tries to be realistic and dangerous. The time is divided in seconds and the combatants act every X seconds. The damage has different levels, which can lead to consequences and even instant death; even the type of damage has different consequences. Damage locations are also obtained through the dice for greater accuracy. Some pledges of the Kickstarter also comprehend anatomical dice that show parts of the body instead of the numbers on the various faces.
Magic really takes a lot of the manual and is effectively differentiated into a lot of schools, aspects and facets.
Focus: Stamina
Stamina is truly a central element. Each action has a cost in Stamina which also depends on the weight carried, but only the weight of combat tools or easily accessible objects is counted, while backpacks or other items are not considered. An understandable arbitrary choice, on the one hand it brings fatigue and objects back into the mechanics of the actions, on the other it sounds a bit strange to calculate 5kg of armor but not a backpack maybe full of stuff. But it is the normal task of a game author trying to decide where to apply realism and where to suspend it, in order to make everything playable and the rules not too… heavy.
What else I discovered browsing Meteor Tales in preview
I was delighted to browse eleven races which, although they include the classic elf and dwarf, have some interesting variations regarding giants, snakes and nature. Very original the kind of humans that self inflicts pain to strengthen themselves or the half-ghosts, beings already dead, still material but with strong connections with the afterlife.
I found many numerical variables, which makes this game very dependent on the outcome of the dice. It is not a virtue or a defect, simply a characteristic. Usually this type of game gets clear opinions: either you really like it or you really don’t like it.
The structure of the manual did not fully convince me. The regulatory part would need to be more user-friendly to facilitate learning and consulting the system. Furthermore, on a nice volume of 400 pages, compared to over 100 beautiful pages of bestiary, dedicating only 13 pages to the setting is a choice that I did not understand. Either you omit it and create a manual that only covers the system, or you provide more information about the setting.
Arts and layout
As you can guess from this preview, Meteor Tales gives me the impression of a very substantial project with few frills. On the other hand, it is the work of two people, who have developed a 400-page manual as well as other supplements. Both art and layout share the same judgment. It is a simple, essential, but well done job. There are 20 years of work behind it and I understand the will to publish something of quality. Obviously not the quality of a publishing house or a large and ambitious production team. But self-love and passion for the project lead the authors to do their best to create something appreciable and enjoyable.
This dense content and the precise but always the same layout make it a bit difficult to orient yourself on 400 pages, complicating the search a little and weighing down the reading.
The Kickstarter offer
Digital PDF edition costs €20, the paper version €35 (€ 50 with hard cover). With €75 a squared map and an introductory adventure entitled Pages of Dyran are also added. By spending €100 you will discover the game world through a map and two supplements concerning the Kingdom of Lothen and the Trident Empire. There are additional pledge levels that offer additional elements such as miniatures, anatomical dice, soundtrack and much more.
There is no trace of stretch goals and the offer is very simple, but equally clear. Also this aspect is a confirm of a very substantial project, which relies little on advertising, on appearing, on attracting and spreading. The contents are instead many, ready and defined. It remains to be seen if, even in the absence of an intense marketing, Meteor Tales will attract enough supporters to become an established reality and spread its promises of uniqueness and realism.
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The Dream Prisonè la seconda avventura targata Menagerie Press di cui scrivo una recensione (dopo Adul, City of Gold). Anche in questo caso si tratta di un’avventura in inglese per D&D5e per personaggi di livello 6-8.The Dream Prison si può acquistare su DrivethruRPG in PDF per 11,99€ o stampata con copertina morbida per 14,99€.
Il pregio è nelle piccole cose
The Dream Prison é un’avventura di 41 pagine strutturalmente molto classica. Per certi versi la definirei banale. Ma, come preciso spesso, é molto difficile scrivere un’avventura originale, sorprendente e articolata. La maggior parte delle storie che vengono raccontate al tavolo di un gioco di ruolo hanno caratterisiche riconducibili a pochi archetipi. La forza è nel fornire dettagli che rendano l’ambientazione e le situazioni fresche e coinvolgenti. In questo The Dream Prison eccelle.
La situazione iniziale è ben inquadrata e ci sono molti dettagli che accompagnano il master nel dipingere con completezza il quadro che svelerà man mano ai giocatori. E’ un’avventura fantasiosa e onirica, in cui descrizioni e ambiente rispecchiano la creatività e il talento dell’autore, William Murakami-Brundage. Ci sono dei PNG di qualità, le cui caratterizzazioni non sono fini a sé stesse, incluse giusto per mettere l’aggettivo d’ufficio vicino al personaggio. Le sfaccettature presentate aprono al gioco, alle scelte e danno possibilità ai giocatori di impreziosire la storia. Mi ha fatto molto piacere leggere un utilizzo originale e ingegnoso degli indovinelli.
In generale c’è molta inventiva e caratterizzazione. Non solo ci sono creature create o rivisitate per l’occasione, ma vengono forniti anche altri dettagli, come un elenco di modi di dire, che fanno veramente la differenza nel generare un’atmosfera unica.
Recensione della trama spoiler-free di The Dream Prison
La struttura dell’avventura è piuttosto semplice. L’obiettivo principale è il recupero di una persona. I personaggi vengono ingaggiati e puntati nella giusta direzione. Viaggio, raccolta di informazioni, dungeon, finale. Stiamo parlando di un railroad piuttosto netto che lascia poco spazio a variazioni. La maggior parte dell’avventura è vissuta fuori dal Piano Materiale, in luoghi piuttosto particolari. La fantasia e la ricchezza di dettagli permettono un viaggio piacevole e lo status quo che si viene a creare alla fine dell’avventura può essere un buon pretesto per continuare a giocare esplorando le possibili conseguenze.
Unico difetto significativo a mio parere è la mancanza di un climax nel finale. Da giocatore mi piace ogni tanto ricevere una scossa, che sia un colpo di scena o l’aspettativa creata da un avvenimento o uno scontro che man mano si avvicinano. Leggendo The Dream Prison ho avuto l’impressione che mi sarei divertito molto a giocarla, ma giunto alla fine mi sarebbe mancato un quid prima della conclusione.
Arte e impaginazione
L’impaginazione è standard, sia nel formato a due colonne che nella gestione di font e caselle di testo. Le immagini non sono il punto di forza del prodotto. Sono carine le immagini a pagina piena, con la loro luce e la palette cromatica aiutano a entrare nel mondo della narrazione con efficacia. Per il resto si tratta di riempitivi più o meno correlati al testo senza infamia e senza lode. Ma d’altronde questa è un’avventura che deve essere raccontata, non un manuale da sfogliare.
Insieme all’avventura sono fornite le mappe, nel doppio formato jpg e tiff (per avere il disegno su sfondo trasparente). Ci sono anche dei token digitali, un dettaglio sempre apprezzabile, specie in questo periodo in cui il gioco di ruolo online è quasi una necessità.
Considerazioni finali su The Dream Prison
The Dream Prison è certamente un buon prodotto. Una trama semplice è stata preziosamente arricchita con molti dettagli originali. Ci sono spiegazioni ben bilanciate in grado di aiutare a comprendere le situazioni senza risultare noiose o pedanti. Permette di far vivere un’avventura diversa dalle solite per contesto e ambiente. Fornisce al master nozioni e strumenti per creare con poco sforzo delle belle pennellate di sfondo e interessanti spunti di gioco. Rispetto all’ottimo costo della versione fisica trovo il costo del solo PDF un po’ alto. Ma anche a questo prezzo la qualità generale giustifica la spesa.
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I chose to write the review of Carbon 2185 – A Cyberpunk RPG because the Kickstarter campaign for Terminal Overdrive, a manual containing an adventure and additional content for this RPG recently and triumphantly concluded. Wanting to talk about that product, too, I thought I’d start from the heart of the game, the basic manual. It reached 1000% funding with over £140,000 in 2019. I was very happy to have been one of the 3100+ supporters of the project.
Carbon 2185 – A Cyberpunk RPG is, asits name states, a cyberpunk-themed role-playing game based on the CarbonRPG System (a reinterpretation of the D&D system based on the Open Game License by Dragon Turtle Games). The PDF is on sale on DriveThruRPG at $26,39, about 22€.
It was the year 2185…
The basic manual’s setting is the year 2185 in the city of San Francisco. There are expansions planned for additional cities of the future subject to future reviews. The common characteristics of the game world make up the backbone of the cyberpunk genre: cybernetic enhancements (first of all the neurolink, which allows you to connect with computers and similar), pollution, wealth and the concentration of power in the hands of a few mega-corporations.
Until 2019, we talk about our world and our history. After that, the fiction states that humanity has destroyed the global climatic balance (it would be more correct to say “continued to destroy”), has looked for resources outside our planet (many fertile planets have been discovered at the end of wormholes), the mega-corporations have replaced governments and made official their domination of once-sovereign countries, and Artificial Intelligence and androids have finally arrived.
Carbon 2185: review of art and layout
The art of Carbon 2185makes the manual enjoyable just to browse (as the images included in this review attest). In my opinion, the image on the cover just doesn’t meet the standard of quality of some others in the manual, although it bears the signature of the great artist Klaus Wittmann. Colors and images are not present on every page and sometimes you miss them but, when they are, it is really a pleasure. A kaleidoscope of situations with more nuanced backgrounds created by brushstrokes are contrasted against drawings of characters and objects as varied as they are realistic.
The layout focuses above all on clarity. The few frills in the text allow for ease of reading. Clever use of italics and bolding in an above-average font size make it eye-catching. The manual holds up well. A few more touches of color and a few tricks to identify certain pages or sections would only have been icing on the cake.
Still D&D5e or not?
The D20 is still there, don’t worry. The work of game designer Robert Marriner-Dodds manages to be brilliant without giving up the original spirit of the game system. Class, level, proficiency, saving throws, it’s all there. Then, of course, we have changes of varying degrees to emphasize this clear change of setting. Being a human-centered world, races have been replaced by Origins: good-bye Wisdom and Charisma and welcome Technology and People. The first represents the ability to interact with technology and the second with people, at least with their non-synthetic parts.
rmor provides damage reduction from ballistic damage, while it’s a Reflex Save that prevents you from being hit by automatic fire. The 20th level is not just a wet dream but an impossible goal, since the maximum attainable level is 10th. These are some examples of how they adapted the system to a world where dragons are tattooed on peoples’ arms and dungeons are used to produce drugs or to satisfy low instincts.
Cyber in the D20 world
Historically, as far as I can remember (correct me if I’m wrong), there are other dice more used in the cyberpunk genre. The combination created by Carbon 2185 between the most-used system in the world and the pillars of the cyberpunk role-playing game is not perfect (which game is?), but it IS functional.
Hacking is simpler than many other games of the same genre, stealing some of the charm from hackers, but also taking some of the downtime away from other characters.. Tech augmentations take a little from magical items, with body slots, and levels partitioned to allow ever more powerful technologies. The cost is not the loss of humanity or empathy. A little philosophy and a lot of practice: augmentations intoxicate those who have them and Constitution is the key feature to be able to take on ever more powerful ones. Defects? The list is a bit sparse. In the end, it is one of the most iconic aspects of the game and, personally, I would have provided more variety to the players. It is also true that supplements exist for a reason.
Character creation in Carbon 2185
Character creation is very fluid and allows you easy access to all the typical characters of the cyberpunk genré. Characteristics are calculated with 2d6 + 5 and, in addition to Origins and Classes (I’ll list those shortly), there are two other structural elements: Vices and Backgrounds.
The former, consistent with the dystopian future of the world, generates an interpretative touch (but not only) that tells of addictions, psychoses and other dark aspects of humanity. A nice list of 100 detours serve to bridge the time between the end of the compulsory period of education (up to 18 years) and the beginning of the character’s story. You can choose up to five contracts, each lasting five years. You can also choose the same multiple times. Each involves a remuneration in cryptocurrencies, various skills and a gift at the end of the contract, but also the risk of being injured carrying various consequences. It reminds me of the Lifepath system of The Burning Wheel (but not only …), a game of which I have a high opinion and every detail that recalls it is a positive note to me.
Overall, I really enjoyed the creation of the character. One of the best results of bringing D&D5e to a new world not by distorting but by enriching and diversifying the proposal for players.
A bit of substance: some lists!
Origins – Badlander, originally from the worst areas of civilization; Gutter Punks, the punk rocker of the future; Korporate Kids, orphans bought by multinationals as workforce or for other projects; Regular Joes, the “average” man, if there is one; Synth, the cool word for android; Wormer, from one of the space colonies.
Classes – Daimyo, warrior, leader and paragon; Doc, because healers are universal; Enforcer, all-around fighter; Hacker, one of the most famous cyberpunk roles; Investigator, because even in the future you need to know how to discover people’s background and secrets; Scoundrel, because stealth never dies.
San Francisco, 12 million souls, is one of the most populous cities in the world. Most of the inhabitants live in micro-apartments of a few square meters. It is a labyrinth of neon lights and dark areas. The city is divided into 5 districts, ranging from a veritable hell to a paradise of future possibilities.
A list of brands in the city is very apt and fun, from the king of pizzas, Gaetano’s Italiano, to the main brands for the purchase of weapons, computers or space travel.
Carbon 2185 offers a large list of 19 corporations, 7 criminal organizations, 11 noteworthy groups. Each has its own space with a paragraph rich of contents.
The section that presents all this content, together with that concerning San Francisco, obviously represents the most interesting, fresh and original part of the manual, and also the one I liked the most – along with character creation.
Less sparkling (but certainly still very useful) is the next part of the manual, the “Game Master Dossier”: NPC Lists, Mission Generator, Loot Generator, Enemy Lists, the one that helps the storytellers create the stories and place the antagonists.
Carbon 2185 flaws
Where did you hide the index, guys? Where is it? We need help jumping from chapter to chapter to familiarize ourselves with the new rules and we need an index!
The introductory adventure included in the manual, Chow’s Request, is a bit poor. I was expecting more – a lot more. Science fiction/fantasy generally embodies worlds that follow a canon in which there is often very little to explain, usually allowing you to dive into play immediately. The cyberpunk world is more difficult, as it involves a future that doesn’t really have a precise canon and which is the result of centuries that each work and each game describes differently, producing markedly different settings. A wider adventure more focused on showcasing San Francisco in 2185 would have been masterful. It probably would have required a lot more space.
Finally, as I said for the cybernetic augmentations, the other lists of items, equipment and vehicles could also be fleshed out a bit, along with a few pages of rules and explanations. A little help for those who don’t chew cyberpunk would have been welcome, but we’re already talking about nearly 300 hard-working manual pages.
Final words on Carbon 2185
As you can read in this review,Carbon 2185 is a very good product. It forges a link between the best known system in the world and a fascinating genre. For many gamers, it can be a gateway to cyberpunk without the need to learn a new system. For others, it may bring a breath of freshness and practicality in a genre that has often seen cumbersome regulations.
Dragon Turtle Games did a great job on this manual, and the effort and attention that went into it are noticeable. In my opinion the experiment is a success. There are differences from D&D5e, but the system remains just that. There are strengths and weaknesses in the transition to a dystopian future, but the setting and the changes hold up well.
Next, I just have to venture out (and let you venture with me) and discover the supplements. Until then, I’ll dig into the latest manual released,Terminal Overdrive.
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After this preview analysis, I can say Shiver is an RPG focused on the mysterious, strange and peculiar side of existence, inspired by classic horror and pulp film and television. It is currently on Kickstarter and you can back the project until December 3rd. The original funding goal was reached in 24 hours and was more than doubled at the time of this article. Shiver is produced by Parable Games, their first Kickstarter project.
Shiver‘s narrative target is well summed-up by a sentence on the project page: “if the plot is strange, you can play it with Shiver“. Sources of inspiration mentioned are Stranger Things, Jurassic Park, Friday the 13th, The Thing, Aliens, Dracula, The X-Files.
The main Shiver manual is intended to be a single hardcover book containing the rules for both players and storytellers, as well as everything else expected from an all-in-one rules manual: monsters, opponents and ideas for adventures and plots. This offering is complemented by appealing companions, too: a collection of adventures, monsters, objects, and other elements, The Cursed Library, an art book, a screen for the narrator, and dedicated dice, very important for this game.
Shiver character creation preview
Character creation in Shiver boasts 7000 possible combinations through a system composed of 7 archetypes, 35 backgrounds, and 200 skills. Occasionally, this many possibilities can lead to analysis paralysis and losing focus on a character. On the other hand, they are also a necessary tool at the same time if you want to tell more original stories. In Shiver, each archetype brings its own range of backgrounds and skills, linked to the characteristic that governs the archetype; so, a little order can still be found despite all the possibilities. Good! For lovers of unlikely combinations, there are also rules for creating hybrid archetypes.
In practice, an archetype is chosen, enhancing one characteristic and worsening another. Then players choose a Background and a Fear. Finally, there are skill trees with different paths linked to each archetype. At each level pass you can choose a skill, following one or more paths. Simple, intuitive, and graphically well-executed.
A system with unique dice
Shiver’s system is definitely intuitive and intelligent. It uses symbolic dice called Skill Dice. These are six-sided dice on which each face represents one of the characteristics of the game: Grit, Smarts, Wit and so on. When the time comes for a skill test, the player rolls a number of dice equal to his character’s related ability score. The matching symbols on them are counted as successes. But if the dice yield successes for a different characteristic, the character may be able to achieve the desired result by an alternate route.
For example, you try to open a door with brutal force, so you roll 4 dice looking for Grit successes, but you get 4 Smarts successes, instead, you could say, “I might have found a secret spot for the key”. In the same vein, if you roll 3 Wit successes, maybe you say, ”I could have found a way to use leverage to more easily force the door open”. It depends on players’ proposal and Game Master’s ruling.
Success and failure are not limited two a simple binary pass/fail, but have more fluid possibilities built into the dice mechanic.
After that, the characters may have 8-sided dice called Talent Dice, based on their strengths. These can modify the results of the tests to which they apply. There are additional rules which include reserves of Luck Points, and special abilities, too. To deepen the field of possibilities when making skill tests, failed rolls also carry the risk of moving the Doom Clock one or more minutes forward towards a dangerous event. A dynamic of anticipated disaster in a game where suspense is intended to reign is very apt.
As you can see in the images in this preview, the design chosen for Shiver was crafted to be immediately recognizable. Bright colors, great use of dramatic black, and a very captivating style – part cartoon, part graffiti. The graphics are also used to create a brilliant union with the dice and the character sheets, but very simply. Everything seems to work very well, and I’m curious to see the final effect in the physical products, now.
The layout is basic, but in the positive sense of the term. No weird or eccentric page architecture. Short blocks of text are accompanied by large spaces. Areas for the complementary images are squared and simple. It is the image of the intent to create an RPG and manual that is easy to understand, to learn, to consult, and and then to use with enthusiasm and imagination in creating all kinds of stories. The character sheet is nice, but I would have liked a little more use of color, which is reserved only for the symbols of the characteristics.
Shiver quickstart preview
Getting the Shiver quickstart is as easy as going to the Kickstarter project page and entering an email address to receive a link to download it. This is a well crafted and comprehensive 40 page PDF. It confirms the simplicity and the captivating and very practical appeal of the graphic composition. Some interesting elements are presented, such as the Doom Clock, a mechanism that makes the characters approach or move away from a particular event that modifies and invests even more tension in the narrative. Combat and other basic game principles are also explained to allow you to jump right into the adventure.
To get the players into the world of Shiver for the first time right away, half of the Quickstart pdf actually consists of a survival adventure, Corporate Risers. There is one character per archetype who must be able to find a way out of the fearsome and dark recesses of a strange research laboratory. The adventure is conceptually simple, but a classic – almost cult – excuse for a fun game session. Adventure maps would have benefited from a little more attention, but they still do their job.
The Kickstarter offer
This Kickstarter offer is easier to show than explain and range from the PDF version at £ 15 (around € 16.50) to the all-inclusive physical version from £ 79 (around € 87.5). Shipping costs are steep, unfortunately. On the other hand the loot is also massive! In particular, the stretch goals are following one another at a fast pace and embellish the final package of the offer.
The dice with special symbols needed for play require the purchase of at least one set, and implies the digital edition path may be a little less feasible (unless you are satisfied with using the app). There are conversion tables in the Quickstart, though, enabling the use of normal d6’s and d8’s, which you can get used to over time, but the system would lose its feeling of immediacy and intuitiveness
Final considerations
Shiver‘s Kickstarter page is very well done, both for the graphics and for the content it previews. The information is essential and precise, the images are explanatory and captivating. The concepts that have been “leaked” demonstrate an intelligent and imaginative approach to role-playing. Character creation and game-play are very intuitive; the narrator’s tools and possibilities are well thought out. The materials and graphics also look good All in all, Shiver is one of the coolest projects on Kickstarter this fall.
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We received a copy of the D&D5e adventure Down The Garden Path by Matt Everson in order to write this review. It was sent to us by the art director Marco Bertini, who has already curated other works that we have analyzed, such as Realm Events, The Complete Hag, Volo’s Guide to Ghosts, Vault of Magic I e IIandAcererak’s Guide to Lichdom. Down The Garden Path is a fifth level character adventure designed for the Forgotten Realms setting that can easily be inserted into any campaign. Yes, it is often said, but this time it is particularly true! Down the Garden Path is set in a legendary place that is a source of inspiration and knowledge and can very easily become the destination of any search for information.
The title is reminiscent of an old TSR UK module, Up The Garden Path, famous for being one of the rarest adventures. Only a few hundred copies were printed and sold in Great Britain alone. Currently, a copy of that module may be valued at thousands of euros!
The content Down The Garden Path (spoiler-free)
Having been created for Forgotten Realms, there are some parts written specifically for that setting to kick off the action in the famous city of Waterdeep. The author recommends using Down The Garden Path in succession after official modules like Waterdeep: Dragon Heist or Tales From The Yawning Portal. The adventure takes place in a sacred place, Shesh Ath Menatu, famous for being a great beacon of knowledge, positive energy and beauty. A dark threat lurks there and adventurers must demonstrate exploration, deductive and combat skills in order to triumph.
This adventure is divided into four parts. The first lays the foundation, securing access to the location and gaining first-hand knowledge of the facts. The second part then allows freer exploration and connects the the last two chapters of the story, two important locations that lead to the final challenge. Although the plot is quite linear it grants some choices and consequences that allow a little air in, lightening up the feeling of being driven down a canyon which may occur from time to time.
The product as a whole
Down The Garden Path is an absolutely beautifully crafted 50 page pdf, as you can see from the images in this review. The plot falls within the parameters of the classics of the genre, but does not have a “been there, done that” feeling. Interesting details are included to make the adventure intriguing and enjoyable. The environments are described in such a way that they involve the characters’ five senses. There is a nice puzzle to solve, even physically (I will explain in a moment), with two possible levels of difficulty based on how central you want the puzzle to be. The villain is interesting, not obvious and, however rigid he is in his position as an antagonist, he has depth. His nature helps create interesting dialogue and situations.
From a graphic and layout standpoint, it is good quality product. The layout is clear and professional, very close in essence to the official manuals. The original images are very beautiful. Instead the others, obtained through the Community Content Agreement for Dungeon Masters Guild, are sometimes a little out of focus but, on the other hand they were created for other works. They contribute to embellishing this publication very pleasantly, however.
Maps and handout
Down The Garden Path provides maps in digital format separate to the adventure. There are five maps, four of which have a grid overlaid for exploration and combat and one that provides a complete overview of the place. They are well made, rich in detail. They aren’t overly ambitious, artistically speaking, but are the classic work of a master who prepares an adventure well.
Un frame del tutorial
Very interesting and appreciable is the handout provided with the adventure. The image provided is key, and printing, cropping, and folding it transforms it into something with which players can enjoy physically interacting. It forms a square of paper that can be folded and folded, opened and closed, showing different faces each time. It is ingenious in its simplicity, satisfying and fun for the players, and shows great attention that has been lavished on it by the author in its making. Moreover it is even more admirable because the adventure contains a YouTube link to a video providing a very well-done tutorial on preparing the key for play.
Final considerations on Down The Garden Path
Overall this product leaves me with the impression of an adventure written with common sense and experience. It doesn’t really focus on originality, but that helps it fit into many campaigns with ease. There are many elements, however, that show great attention and organizational skills. The adventure took many months to write and that patience certainly paid off in terms of quality.
In my opinion, it is suitable for both beginners and experienced players, able to be fully exploited and also easily manipulated to adapt it to the needs of each Dungeon Master without distorting it.
We received a copy of the Relics manual and the related tarot deck from Tin Star Games to write this review. Personally, I was one of the 511 backers of the Kickstarter campaign, buying the digital version. It is therefore a product that I not only knew of, but that I had already had an appreciation. I had not yet had the opportunity to examine it thoroughly, however, and this was the perfect opportunity. If you are interested in buying it, the price is $60 at Indie Press Revolution.
Relics – A Game of Angelsis a modern urban fantasy RPG that vasts players into the role of fallen angels, trapped on Earth, the gates of Heaven closed, and God gone. Myriads of powerful and confused supernatural beings abandoned in the midst of conflict with demons.
Let’s start with the name and the author
Why was Relics chosen as the title? Because powerful celestial items are scattered through human history, and the cold war between light and dark has turned into a mad arms race. Control the Relics and you control the world – but first, you must find them.
Relics’ author is Steve Dee, he is a 42 year-old dog trainer from Sydney who, as you can imagine, has a passion for role playing. Relics game design is all his doing. For the graphics part, he collaborated with Matt Roberts, graphic designer for all Tin Star Games works. Throughout the manual, Steve exposes himself by giving explanations of some choices or even finding a pretext to mention his profession. He manages to do so in a conversational tone and without being intrusive.
Relics and its influences
A roleplaying game is almost always the result of new ideas and many influences and elements that, consciously or unconsciously, the authors have accumulated over the years. The main sources of inspiration here are the filmsThe Prophecy, Dogma, and Wings of Desire.
To these films we obviously add the roleplaying curriculum of Steve Dee. To quote his own words “if I hadn’t playedIn Nomine (1997 Angels & Demons RPG based on an earlier French product, In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas) twenty years ago, Relics might not have been created”. Steve started writing it while working for White Wolf and you can see the influence in the graphics and layout, which are very reminiscent of old editions of some World of Darkness games, most notably Vampire: The Masquerade. For the investigative part, Steve said he sees similarities with the various The Call of Cthulhu products, but he also mentioned Warhammer, Paranoia, Underground, Blue Planet and Starchildren.
On similarities and differences, Steve expresses a very interesting concept that I think can be very useful in a game:
I think this can be a very good thing in a game: the familiar gives people things to hang on to. And it allows me to introduce unfamiliar things. The places where my angels differ and the things my game does that others don’t.
Steve Dee
Where Relics is among the games of Christian mythology
What are the characteristic elements of Relics? There aren’t many angel and demon-themed RPGs, especially if you compare this genre with the top trends, from classic fantasy down. Each game tends to give its own version, to focus on a particular aspect set at the center of the game, enhanced by the system.
The fundamental focus of Relics is on mystery, horror and action. The mystery comes from the hunt for relics, the horror from the brutality that demons and humans have committed to get them or through them; so the action arises from the conflict that is created between the angels and their antagonists. Philosophical and eschatological questions about the purpose and meaning of existence unite everything. Finally, the aspect of the angels’ lives are central, their memories as millennial beings, their isolation, and the confusion of being out of place and at war, In particular. What will they be willing to do? How far will they go?
The author in an interview also stated:
RPGs can also be about really big ideas and ask big questions, and delve into political and philosophical issues. Relics is fundamentally a philosophical work.
Steve Dee
Relics was designed as a stand-alone product rather than a series of publications, a single quality manual containing everything you need to play. It was created to generate stories with content and concepts aimed at a mature audience.
The world of Relics
The setting created for Relics is very similar to the Real World. It has very precise rules to support playing these very special angel characters, however. To limit such mythologically powerful creatures and add a touch of both challenge and humor to playing them, what they can and cannot do are precisely defined – and the restrictions are many.
The cosmogony is well explained, as are all the references behind the stories, powers, angelic choirs and other game details. There are also interesting backstories for the narrator’s use. I don’t want to spoil anything, but they can make the game even more interesting or add to the sense of mystery. The reality, its creation, and the motivations behind the actions of God and the angels are interesting and not at all obvious.
Considering that we are talking about a manual of over 300 pages in which the explanation of the game mechanics does not take much space, how substantial the world, society, history, antagonists and the management of the narration are becomes pretty obvious. A large portion is also dedicated (rightly and effectively) to the angels’ powers and in particular to the eponymous Relics.
The engine of Relics: the Fugue System
Task resolution is simple: the player turns over a card. Results of six or less are failures. The cards from seven to ten, the court cards and the remainder of the major arcana determine a partial success, that is, a short-lived success or with consequences. Favorable or unfavorable circumstances allow you to flip more than one card and choose the better or worst card respectively. If a figure of the minor arcana comes up, it indicates a complete success. The Devil of the major arcana represents a critical failure, the World a critical success. If you draw the card from among the greater arcana that corresponds to your character, you can perform a Miracle. Complex tests are resolved by playing a hand of blackjack between the narrator and the player.
There are also several options among the game mechanics, the most interesting of which suggests interpreting the result of drawing the major arcana as a starting point for the result of the test. There are also alternatives for playing with dice or with standard card decks. The basic mechanics are light and devoted to narration, but the options provided to adapt them to your preferences are really quite varied.
Fugue System: character creation
The Fugue System was created by James Wallis and was first used in the role-playing game Alas Vegas. It is something of the same point of view one gets as part of the audience of a new TV show. The characters start the game by exiting a tomb near a horrific version of Las Vegas. The players know nothing about the angels they are playing and are looking for answers.
In fact, more of character creation is accomplished during play than beforehand. Revealing angel abilities through the narration of Memories related to the abilities themselves in the moment, during play, is an interesting approach, too. Who wouldn’t want to say to be the one who taught Hippocrates medicine?
Ten Things to Know About Relics
These are the main points enhanced and explained in the manual.
1. The Bible got most of it wrong 2. Strangers in a strange land 3. You can’t go home again 4. Fallen angels filled the world with magical items 5. An arms race has begun 6. Thou shalt steal 7. Angels are a product of all they remember 8. The path is unclear 9. Everyone wants you dead 10. You can’t trust anyone
Art and layout
Relics is a nice manual of 300+ black & white pages with a hard cover in color. The layout is well done; the textual subdivisions seem practical, and both the text boxes and the tables are inserted in a careful and rational way. I’m getting farsighted, but I would still have opted for a slightly larger and easier to read font, otherwise. Some pages seem a bit dense with tightly packed sentences, lacking any variation or breaks for the benefit of readers. This is not an issue in the digital version when using an adequate screen-size.
The manual is accompanied by cards: it is a deck with the major and minor arcana of the tarot. They are black and white images in the same style as the manual. The number cards are also illustrated.The subjects are varied and interesting and it is pleasant to browse and play with them.They are a coherent and well crafted addition that helps create the right feeling at the gaming table.
The graphics make good use of the black & white standard imposed on the manual, a precise editorial choice enhanced by images that are evocative of the noir atmosphere of the author’s world. Sometimes the black and white format can be a bit boring, but the images are generally pleasant. In particular, I enjoyed recognizing many famous persons among the characters drawn. Some of the illustrations in the manual are taken from the Relics deck of cards, re-used and re-purposed several times. The repetitiveness is noticeable, but it is used with an even hand to avoid overexposure.
Final Considerations
I found Relics to be a well-structured game, written with care. Steve knows where to be detailed and where to remain vague. The work is precise in communicating the concepts of the world and the angels, but still allows freedom in the management of many aspects of play. We are talking about a game more based on storytelling with a cinematic and/or serial television atmosphere, so the angels’ powers quite often are not explained, only examples given to illustrate the level of power discussed, leaving management in the hands of the narrator.
On the other hand, there is a commitment to maintaining tone and the feel of the setting.Character creation, for example, uses particular terms and names that are suggestive and evocative. Creating characters during the game may not satisfy all palates but, like all things new, can be interesting to try.
The text boxes and the prefaces of the chapters are full of insights. It isn’t necessarily a game for those new to the hobby, and requires commitment on the part of both narrator and players in preparation in order to fully enjoy. A clear and well-written guide is provided for the narrator, however, it uses a looser approach due to the angels’ extreme flexibility. It certainly does its best to provide a deeper approach, focusing its attention on interpretation and the mature and philosophically stimulating content.
For those wishing to get a more precise idea, there is a Pay What You Want offering for a Quickstart on DrivethruRPG. If you’re interested you can also join the mailing list of Relics.
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We received a digital copy of Shotguns & Sorcery for review, a roleplaying game based on the stories of the same name written by Matt Forbeck. It runs with the 1st edition of Monte Cook’s Cypher System and features rather an alternative setting.
Its author describes it thus:
Imagine if Raymond Chandler had written The Lord of the Rings and transplanted his noir version of Los Angeles onto the Lonely Mountain and then surrounded it with zombies.
I admit that before receiving a copy I didn’t know the game nor the stories on which it is based. My curiosity has been awakened now, however, and I can’t wait to discover with you what Shotguns & Sorcery has to offer.
Matt Forbeck… the name rings a bell…
In the world of role-playing games, the authors of a work aren’t often mentioned. Many times there are more than one author, but by dint of leafing through manuals certain names remain in your head. When I read “Matt Forbeck” I knew I had already seen or heard of him and so, first of all, I went to his site looking for informations.
Matt Forbeck is a very successful writer and game designer. I’ll start from the bottom of the biography: 28 nominations for the Origin Awards, followed by 17 prizes, 10 ENnies Awards plus a whole host of other awards. His curriculum vitae is an 18 pages PDF that describes his activity from 1988 to present. In the image you can see his main works.
The editorial history of Shotguns & Sorcery
Writing an RPG is a time-consuming job, as the nearly 300 pages of this manual clearly attest. For this, the author has delegated production to a third parties, tapping Outland Enternainment with the Jeremy Mohler as artistic leader. Outland Entertainment called on a certain Rob Schwalb to create the corpus of rules, and opted to use Monte Cook Games’ Cypher System. Many of you may remember Rob for the recent Shadow of the Demon Lord, but I prefer to associate him with A Song of Ice and Fire RPG or with classic D&D 3.5 manuals as Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells, Drow of the Underdark oTome of Magic. One hell of a bibliography!
From what I could see, the Kickstarter obtained more than 200% of the funding threshold. Delivery was scheduled for 2015 while physical copies to supporters only arrived between the end of 2019 and the first half of 2020. Currently, it can be purchased through DriveThruRPG. The digital copy costs $ 29.95, while the physical copy $59.95.
The world of Shotguns & Sorcery
Welcome to Dragon City, a grim, gritty metropolis ruled over by the Dragon Emperor, with legions of zombies scratching at the city walls by night. Whether in the streets of Goblintown or the prestigious halls of the Academy of Arcane Apprenticeship, people try to scrape by, make a living, and survive from one day to the next.
This is the official description of the setting. But how was it born?
What is practically a classic fantasy realm was the starting point, to which a massive dose of zombie apocalypse has been added, in the person of The Ruler of the Dead. He nearly achieved complete domination, the greatest necromancer of all time, but the last remnants of the population made a deal to take refuge with the second most dangerous creature present, a huge dragon. For defending them long enough for them to build a wall and take refuge inside, they crowned him emperor, the Dragon Emperor of Shotguns & Sorcery. On the one hand I like it but, on the other, I fear the repetition of overused tropes has lowered the quality. We’ll see.
With this starting point Matt Forbeck has created a reality made of rifles that fire bullets of magic, class struggles exacerbated by wealth and longevity, a multifaceted city full of secrets. It is a place where magic is linked to technology (at the level of the early 1900s), where the races have been forced to reinvent themselves to live together, where a noir-like atmosphere reigns.
To quote the author, “In short, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.”
Two words on the Cypher System of Shotguns & Sorcery
For those who aren’t familiar with games like Numenera or The Strange, I’ll give you two words to describe the Cypher System. First, the manual already contains the rules of the system, so no further books are needed to play.
The basic mechanic is to match or exceed a threshold number (three times the difficulty of the test) with the D20. The difficulty varies from 0 to 10 and is modified, positively or negatively, by external factors, skills and resources available. Once determined, multiply it by 3 and roll the D20. Some abilities or items provide a bonus to the roll. The results are in the hands of the players.
Experience points are awarded as rewards between sessions or as a result of the DM intruding on the narrative, in exchange for making things more difficult for the characters. A player can refuse an intrusion, but this costs the PC 1 experience point.
Another very neat aspect in the Cypher System are magical objects, divided into three types based on power, durability and frequency of discovery. The Cypher System gives particular attention to magical objects, making it a good choice for a setting that has a lot of interesting objects due to magic and technology being so closely bound together.
It is a fairly simple system, which favors PCs and their upgrading, keeping the work of the DM rather light and thus allowing him to concentrate on other, more narrative, aspects of his role.
The characters of Shotguns & Sorcery
The starting point is classic, so the races differ little from the known repetitions of the usual clichés. On the other hand, the premise was precisely to start from The Lord of the Rings. But 66 years after its publication, however much you want to create a classic fantasy base, certain concepts are suffering from being used too many times.
The creation of the character in the Cypher System begins with the construction of a simple sentence: I am a [noun] [adjective] that [verb] “. In these sentences the adjective is called a descriptor, the noun is the type of the character and the verb is called focus.
The type of the character represents its essence and is what in other RPGs is referred to as a class. In Shotguns & Sorcery the types are the freelancer, the veteran and the wizard. Respectively they enhance skills, combat and magic. The descriptor attributes an adjective to the character and places him in an initial game situation (also providing ideas for the start of the campaign and objectives to be achieved in the short or long term). It is possible to choose between 20 descriptors, which change the character both statistically and for the purposes of roleplaying. The focus outlines what the character does better than anything else: his special abilities and peculiarities. Examples of focus are “… summoning monsters”, “… exploring dark places” or “… fighting dirty”.
PCcreation is quick and easy, quite versatile and easy to translate into the reality of the game.
The setting, the engine of the game
The corpus of rules fills about 20 pages, after which the description of the setting begins, which fills about 30 more. All neighborhoods of the city of Dragon City are described, which occupies the whole mountain and is home to tens of thousands of creatures that probably represent what remains of living beings. It goes from the top, where the dragon lives, down to Goblintown. Almost every neighborhood is home to a breed and is described briefly, again with an abundance of clichés. I would have preferred a little more details and ideas.
A chapter on organizations follows, in which the races are distinguished by means of names taken from existing, Real World nations. Thus, the elves have Italian names, the dwarves have German names, the gnomes are Russian, and so on. I would have liked fewer lists and more background. A final part of the setting is used to briefly describe the world beyond the mountain walls.
Space for creatures and magical items!
The bestiary is quite large and well represented. The descriptions of the monsters are broad and include elements such as objectives, environment and interaction that allow you to easily elevate these creatures from the simple status of statistics to be fought.
About forty NPCs are also described with the same completeness and clarity, including the Dragon and the Ruler of Death.
For a world of magic and magical technology, obviously the space dedicated to magical objects should be ample. Thus, there are 34 pages of dense lists covering a great variety of objects, here. In these years of Kickstarter and the flowering of manuals for in-depth study of any subject, we cannot speak of originality, but certainly not because of the authors of the manual. They are certainly very much in-tune with the fantasy-noir tone of the game.
The section for the master
The last part of the manual is dedicated to playing Shotguns & Sorcery. Advice is provided regarding both adjudication (in particular on the intrusion system), and how to make the game and its setting shine. This last part helps to complete and bring the information given on the setting and the prominent NPCs together as a whole.
There is some pretty useful advice for managing rules and settings, as well as the usual advice and warnings given to newbies to learn how to manage the delicate role in the narrator. It is a clear choice: including this part is a noble attempt to create a complete manual and help those who are new to role-playing games. On the other hand, however, the manual is lengthened by pages that do not give anything new to more experienced players (although repeating the concepts every now and then is good for all).
Graphic and layout
The layout is promoted. Clear, elegant, homogeneous. Reading it is pleasant and the text and tables are well ordered. I would have added a few more features to break up some more monotonous pages or to highlight some important concepts, but it is still a very good job.
On the other hands graphicss aren’t particularly on my tastes. If Shotguns & Sorcery is fantasy that meets noir, I would expect illustrations that carry that atmosphere, that feeling. Instead I found very little noir and the fantasy too cartoonish. The backgrounds are flat, not evocative. This is too bad, because more impactful images would have promoted immersion in the setting and would have conveyed more originality.
My doubts about Shotguns & Sorcery
It is always difficult to make an RPG based on other works. I don’t know the stories behind the setting, but the game can’t just be for fans of the narrative version. I wonder why there are no quotes from the stories, excerpts of paragraphs that help to give the idea and at the same time create interest in the stories themselves.
If I rely on what I have read in the manual I find but few ideas. There is a lot of information, but little appeal or attempting at engaging the reader. A setting based on two classic and abused formulas such as the fantasy kingdom and the zombie apocalypse must also give something more, otherwise there is no need for a dedicated manual. Any narrator can combine the most common clichés to create a setting. Even if not quite as complete as that of Shotguns & Sorcery, it would still be just as credible and usable.
From how it was described at the beginning I expected something more lively, with more aspects outlined, some compelling conflicts, something that would make me say “I absolutely want to play it!”.
Final considerations
Shotguns & Sorcerylooks like a nice manual, full-bodied and well made. It uses a simple and popular system, easy to learn and with interesting dynamics. The setting starts from a very clear and simple idea and develops it with the same simplicity. Novice storytellers or those with little time to prepare something of their own will find plenty of material to use. I fear that more experienced players won’t find anything that stretches their comfort zone, even if they have fun with it. There is absolutely no outstanding reason to use this game and this manual above others, even though it is a relatively sound product.
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We would like to thank Limitless Adventures for sending us a free copy of Limitless Monsters in order to write this review. We recently discovered their site (which we recommend you go see) and it immediately struck us as very interesting and full of digital content for D&D5e to help the Dungeon Masters in their wonderful but arduous work. It boasts a well-populated collection of 82 products for sale ranging from locations to encounters and quests. They kindly offered us to choose a product and we headed to their monster manual, Limitless Monsters.
Before starting with the actual review of Limitless Monsters…
As this is the first time we have reviewed products of the Limitless Adventures site, I think it’s fair to introduce the authors. The whole team is made up of players with at least twenty years of experience. They have tried all the editions of D&D and continue to meet every Tuesday to give it all, I’m sure, with the same enthusiasm as ever.
According to them they started with the idea of creating a simple set of tools to help Dungeon Masters suffering creative block. Then they got such good feedback that they kept making more products. They also have 15 Kickstarter campaigns under their belt, most of which have garnered support from over 700 backers.
The secret of their success? Let’s try to find out!
The DM and the game at the center of the layout
They don’t say this, I imagined it, but that’s the feeling I got when I first took a look at Limitless Monsters. First of all, you get two versions when you buy the product, the color one with parchment pages and a b/n printer-friendly version without illustrations. Each monster occupies its own page, sometimes two, but there is no overlapping of monsters on the same page. This allows you to print only the relevant item (saving ink with the printer-friendly version), or to view it in full on a screen. Furthermore, if there are slots or powers that can only be used occasionally, there are special spaces (simple circles) to mark their use. Everything seems designed to meet the needs of practicality and speed that all those who run sessions have.
In addition digital tokens of the monsters are also included in the purchase. There are more than sixty of them, with some monsters featured twice, both full-length and in profile.
The practical choices are reflected in the artistic side, too. Apart from the fascinating illustration that occupies both covers, the illustrations inside are simple and only some of the monsters are represented. Simple does not mean ugly. The illustrations have a retro feel, reflecting the team’s twenty years of experience and they are pleasant and well-crafted in that style.
The layout is clear, except for some pages on which the illustrations slightly overlap the text. While it can be deciphered still, it is an issue easily solved in an update.
Come on, let’s talk about monsters!
The time has come to focus on the contents. Limitless Monsters is 122 pages long and features a hundred entries, including both monsters (most) and NPCs. It is a collection of creatures also taken from previous Limitless Adventures works but, as in all their products, there are new creations too.
After the name, each entry gives a brief description followed by a table with all the mechanical information. Then there is a section on the combat tactics used, on the lore, on treasures and finally the section “Further Adventure”. This provides one or more ideas for making use of the monster in question. It is one of the more interesting additions. Many of these ideas are imaginative, unique, and easy to apply.
There are more classic monsters, such as the aasimar, although most of the famous names in monster manuals always carry some variations. For example the azer raider, the sorcerer kobold, the vampire priest or the alpha troll. There are multifaceted creatures that show great creativity, such as the nightmare mephit or the grave mephit, and other brilliant ideas I can’t wait to try! These include the Brass Oracle, the Echo of Death, the Living Hoard or the Elder Mimic (a fantastic bridge mimic!).
The NPCs provided are interesting and not obvious. For example, there is the Jester, and the Street Kid Pickpocketer, and the Dragon Hunter.
Limitless Monsters, final evaluation
I’m glad I chose to review Limitless Monsters. It’s a monster manual that gets right to the point, giving everything a DM needs to view or print what they want, and in a small space. The variety of creatures presented is good, and the proposals for including the monsters in campaigns are simple and credible, yet show creativity.
I like how everything is designed primarily to facilitate the DMs work. Although less flashy or colorful than other similar manuals, it almost gives the impression of being an enticing collection of a friend’s notes and ideas put together in fair copy, as if it had been written down by one of us for future use. And I don’t say this to diminish the graphics, but to emphasize the sense of utility that lies under the work.
I’m curious to read more of Limitless Adventures and see how they present other products, maybe about side-quests, or encounters, or adventures!
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The Deck of Rumors is one of the many interesting projects we stumbled upon on the Kickstarter site. These are five thematic decks each containing 50 cards that represent the many messages posted on the well-known message boards that are found in every self-respectiong fantasy city or village. We contacted their creators, Unlimited Realms LTD, who sent us the digital version to make this preview.
The five core decks of The Deck of Rumors
Each deck consists of 50 cards, each one with unique message and a combination of layout and font that makes them extremely diverse. There are also two cards left blank for you to customize for yourself.
Town Eventsfocuses on announcements and town.based stories to add depth to the game and the environment. Village Gossip is a deck full of weird stories, from ghosts to conspiracies. Call to Adventure is all about possible adventurer quests. By the Sea provides nautical and pirate themed adventure announcements near the sea or on it. The Big City presents contents more in line with a large town, from administrative conspiracies to stories about the sewers.
On the back of each card there is an icon that identifies which deck the card belongs to. They are also coded by chromatic seals that identify their contents: green icon for gossip, red for out-of-the-ordinary news, blue for quests and yellow when a payment is involved. Each card can have multiple colors based on the rumour content.
The heart of the project: the contents
This is the most important part of The Deck of Rumors. The evaluation of the entire project is bound to the value of the content of the cards. We are talking about 240 different ideas, not counting the stretch goals. In my opinion, a good balance has been struck between classic content, original ideas and humor.
When creating a product aimed at consumers as varied as role-players, you must try to balance all needs. Too many classic announcements would make decks boring and predictable, but on the other hand too much humor or too many original ideas would make each village seem like the center of all the strangest quests in the universe.
The balance struck between these elements, in my opinion, makes the contents that much more valid and usable. There are many ideas to generate many adventures, yes, but most of these are vague and allow for even extreme customization by the DM.
The cards are too many and I can’t make even a brief excursus into the entire body of the contents. The many images in this article will give you a more precise idea of what the Deck of Rumors looks encompass.
Graphics and layout
I was pleasantly surprised by the graphic variety of The Deck of Rumors cards. Although it is a series of repeated types of materials, styles and fonts, the result is excellent. It really feels like each card is unique, authored by a different NPC.
The layout of the ads is varied and fun. Pieces of torn paper, comment sheets stuck on top of the original message, maps and drawings made (rough, and rightly so) to better describe the news or requests. They are as pleasant as they are unique!
Hints about the physical version
The cards are cut from UV-coated linen-textured card stock.. This is the first project for the newborn Unlimited Realms LTD, therefore we cannot make comparisons with previous products. So far, we have seen professionalism and attention to detail, so we hope to find that realized in the physical versions of The Deck of Rumors, too.
The cards have all already been made and the authors expressed satisfaction with the prototypes. For production Unlimited Realms LTD rely on The Game Crafter, definitely an experienced manufacturer.
The Kickstarter offer
Decks can be purchased individually or in bulk. At the time, the first stretch goal has been unlocked, which includes two add-ons. The new deck, The Royal Decree, focuses on communications and requests from the king and other rulers .The table mat features the bulletin board for announcements. Latest projections foresee that 345% of the set goal can be reached so we will have to be able to see more than three or four stretch goals. The decks retail for £10 a deck, or £35 for all five decks. Purchase of a physical deck with the digital counterpart costs £15, or £60 for all five decks.
These prices do not include shipping costs, which depend on the weight of the order and the country to which the order is shipped. A good result from The Deck of Rumors Kickstarter campaign will likely increase the content of the decks, increasing its value-for-money.
Final thoughts on The Deck of Rumors
I really like being able to give players handouts during gaming sessions. Having something from the game world to pass around is a great feeling. The idea of a deck of announcements, coupled with a mat representing the bulletin board, is brilliant. It’s a means for further bringing the game world to life. The presence of colored icons, in their simplicity, denotes design intelligence and attention to detail. It also offers the possibility of a little surprise – even to the DM, who turns the cards over without knowing where they will steer the game, ready to improvise.
The warm reception The Deck of Rumors is getting on Kickstarter is paying off the creators. I am curious to find out about the next stretch goals and also the future projects of Unlimited Realms LTD!
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