Ravenous Role Playing

This is the final installment of this year’s Free RPG Day reviews. I saved the last one for Khyber’s Harvest by Wizards of the Coast.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Khyber's Harvest Cover

This book is a quick-and-dirty D&D adventure set in the Eberron world. The adventure is for second level characters, and five sample characters are provided in the back of the book.

I’m not going to plot out the adventure here and spoil it for all of you players. I am going to say that I love the detailed work WotC put into the adventure, and I’m still totally in love with the new style of stats for monsters, adversaries, traps and other such obstacles. However, I’m still not a huge fan of social skill challenges. If it’s a mechanical, arcane or some other physical challenge that the players can’t get up and safely reenact, then I’m all for dice rolls. However, for things that involve the characters talking, then the players can talk their way through it. Using skill challenges to replace role playing opportunities just seems horribly wrong to me. If I were to run this adventure, the diplomacy, bluff, intimidate, etc. style checks would be thrown out and replaced with true-to-form role playing, not dice-invoked roll playing… but that’s just me.

The adventure came with a card stock, double-sided piece that contained nicely done maps of two of the rooms. However, I would have preferred WotC to save their money on the card stock and spend it on higher quality printing of the GM’s maps. The two maps on the inside covers of the adventure are lacking in detail, hard to read and are missing the ever-so-vital (especially in 4th edition) grid markings. I did notice faint hash marks in place of grid lines, but that induces so much eye strain, it’s not worth it. Despite the poor print quality of the maps, they are well done and match the flavor text very well. It’s always frustrating when a module or adventure doesn’t get the text to match the maps. That’s not the case with Khyber’s Harvest.

Grade: B+ — Give me better maps, and it’s an easy A. Wizards of the Coast just barely missed the cut in getting an A for their freebie.

Castles and Crusades… Ahh… A classic. Yeah. I know it’s only been around for about five years, but the voice, feel, senses and concepts in the game take me back to my original AD&D days. If there are any gamers out there who think that 3.0 is “old school”, I highly suggest they check out Castles and Crusades from Troll Lord Games.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Castles & Crusades Cover

The book starts in with the usual attribute, race and class sections that can be found in games of this style. When I was reading these sections, it really reminded me of 1st edition AD&D. It’s almost like the Troll Lord Games desginers were channeling Gygax and Arneson when writing these passages. Yes, I know that there are some gamers out there who snub their noses at the classic style of gaming, but I really enjoyed this book.

Once the basics of the system were explained, there was a small section on magic and how it works. Again, more classic feel goodness here. Then came the description of combat flow and how various mechanics of the game go. There were a few confusion points that I hit, but I’m sure they are clearly explained in the full book where more time and space can be dedicated to the various aspects of the game.

The second half of the book was dedicated to The Wizard’s Tower adventure. Again, the look and feel of these pages took me back decades in time. Good stuff. My only real complaints about the adventure are that the maps could have been done in a more clear manner, and the “bad guy acting like a victim” was very cliche and obvious even to the most novice of gamers. If I were to run this adventure, I’d tweak things a bit more to “hide” the bad guy a little better.

Grade: A+ — All in all, a great introduction to the system, a good adventure and excellent work on the feel of the game. I would suggest this to my current group, but the response would be, “Why don’t we just play 1st edition?” and at that point, we’d pull out the yellow-spined books and have at it.

The Rogue Trader book from Fantasy Flight Games is a great introduction to the game system. It starts with the sample characters (which is kind of odd) and continues on to explain the characters, combat, skill check rules and general game system. I was quite impressed with the thorough treatment of the rules in such a short span of time.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Rogue Trader Cover

The latter half of the book was filled with a great mini-adventure that was entirely non-linear. The players actually have choices in the flow of the game. I really enjoyed reading the book and the adventure. I think I would also enjoy the game system as well. It seems to be a good mix of technology and mysticism. I doubt I could get my current group to play the game, though. It’s just too dark for their tastes.

Grade: A — Great descriptions of the system, characters, combat flow and the adventure made for a top-notch introduction to the Warhammer 40k RPG system.

Today’s review is of Paizo’s Bonus Bestiary for their Pathfinder system. If you don’t know what Pathfinder is, I strongly suggest you go check it out. It’s well worth your time. I can’t wait for the full system to be released.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Pathfinder Cover

The Bonus Bestiary just wet my appetite even more for the release of Pathfinder. I’ve downloaded the beta, and the quality of the game is top-notch. The Paizo crew really know their stuff. Heck, they did Dragon and Dungeon magazines for years. They should know what they are doing with role playing games.

Back to the Bonus Bestiary…. There are 13 different monsters in full detail with excellent illustrations (except for the Faerie Dragon, which is very cartoonish). The production value of this book is very high, and I didn’t find a single thing I would change about the text or stats provided for the monsters. This is what I’m looking for in an RPG book. Something I can buy, skim/read and put to use in the next session without too much work or effort. I’m a busy guy and I don’t have time to ponder over things too heavily and munge with published stats that should otherwise be usable.

Grade: A+ — Paizo obviously knows the 3.0/3.5 system very well and has made it even better with their Pathfinder efforts. Good job, guys!

Today’s review is of Hearts of Chaos, also by Goodman Games. Hearts of Chaos is an Amethyst adventure.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Hearts of Chaos Cover

The Amethyst system uses the core 4e rules and expands on them to allow for a modern-ish setting. Why modern”-ish”? This is because the world of magic, fae, dragons and creatures of the imagination have invaded the modern world. The characters can be pulled from traditional fantasy or the modern “techan” realm. I really like this idea as it reminds of one of my favorite RPGs of all time: Rifts.

Goodman Games does an excellent job of setting the scene within a short period of time before getting to the adventure. The rules additions are clearly explained, and the setting is well done. Once the adventure portion of the book starts, the quality really steps up a notch.

The traditional overview of the adventure is given along with a brief description of each of the encounters. Then the details roll in and the writing is very well done and very streamlined. The module is even well balanced and very playable, which is the opposite of the other half of the physical book, Immortal Heroes. I applaud Goodman Games for a job well done.

I really like the adventure, and I may run it for my group as a one-off game while our GM for the current Rifts game is out of town on a motorcycle trip with his biker buddies.

The only downside is that five pre-generated characters for the adventure are only available online. They are not provided in print format. This was a fact that I overlooked the first read-through, and when the book ended, I was left wondering where the promised sample characters were at. After a quick skim of the text, I focused in on the words “available online” and went seeking the characters. If you are in the same boat I was in, then here is the easy link for you to download the characters.

Grade: A+ — After reading Immortal Heroes first, I didn’t have high hopes for the game balance capabilities of Goodman Games, but they have totally redeemed themselves in this half of the book. I’m quite impressed with the writing, balance, feel and flow of the game. If I didn’t already have a bajillion dollars invested in Rifts books, I might run out and pick this one up ASAP. As it stands for me, personally, I’ll wait until I have the spare cash for the book, and then pick it up. Good job, Goodman Games!

Today’s review is the front half (or is it the back half?) of the duo-flip-reversed-book. This side is the Immortal Heroes which is part of Goodman Games’s Hero’s Handbook line of work.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Immortal Heroes Cover

The book held fourteen pages of very well written, well thought out and nicely put together content. It covered nine different end-goals or pathways a character could take to infamy or fame. I loved the ideas put forth in the book (the Archfiend would have been perfect for a recent cleric I played), and my favorite had to be the Radiant Master (which I guess is the total opposite of the Archfiend.) Goodman Games needs to put out more content like this, but before they do so, they need to review the current power levels of the abilities put forth in the PHB and PHB2.

The powers and abilities presented in the book are overpowered and will grossly unbalance a game. I’ve never gotten to the levels necessary to wield these powers in 4e D&D, so when my first impression of, “Wow. That’s powerful” struck me, I turned to my handy library of books and did some research. The powers presented in Immortal Heroes are easily twice as powerful as equivalent powers outlined in the PHB and PHB2. This book very much reminded me of the old 3e D&D AEG books that were wildly popular with my power-gaming friends.

If I were a player, I’d beg to be allowed to use something from this book. Seeing as how I’m the GM most of the time, I’m putting this book out of sight where my players will never discover it.

Grade: B — The ideas were well put together and thought out, but I have issues with 3rd party publishers throwing the game balance out of whack on a whim.

Sorry for the slackness in the The Free RPG Day reviews lately. Life has caught up to me, and I’ve been incredibly busy lately. I hope to finish off the Free RPG Day reviews in the next two to three weeks.

Today, I’m reviewing the Hollow Earth submission to the Free RPG Day. It is brought to us by Exile Game Studio.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Hollow Earth Cover

The book started with a three page overview of the basic rules. The overview was done quite well, and would allow even a novice role player to dive into the game system and have some fun. The next five pages are dedicated to the adventure, which is very linear and wonderfully put together. I’m normally not a fan of linear plots in adventures, but this is just a sixteen page taster, so it’s acceptable. It’s hard to build a sandbox game in such a short time frame. The main reason I like the adventure is that there is a great mix of skill checks and combat challenges. There are even times when skills are used during the middle of combat. This allows the GM and the players to get a taste of what the system is really like.

The last eight pages are double-sided character sheets that are provided for the adventure in the book. The characters are well done, well balanced and make a good party to travel together.

Grade: A — This book has enticed me enough to put Hollow Earth on my list of items to investigate about running. I love the basic system, and I’d like to see their more advanced rules. If you’re interested in finding Hollow Earth (which I recommend, based on the free book) then you can find it at RPGNow or DriveThruRPG.

Before I start this review, I wanted to admit up front that I did not read the entire book. Once I got past the first scene in the adventure, I stopped. This is because I want to play in this adventure, and I don’t want it spoiled for me by reading the adventure portion of the book. Having said that, here is the review of the material I did read.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Geist Cover

This is a review of the Free RPG Day book entitled ‘Geist’ by White Wolf Game Studio. Geist is a game for the recently nearly dead. What’s that mean? Basically, the characters are people that, through some misfortune or malfortune, found themselves dead. Then a Geist stepped in to bring them back to life to finish business that needed closure. This awakening through death gives the character special powers, which makes them supernatural and superhuman people.

After a wonderfully written one page introduction to the game environment and setup the book jumped right into the basic rules of the game. It’s standard White Wolf fare (which is great in its simplicity) with some unique twists specific to this game. This is how all of their games are, and I’m glad they have found, and stuck with, a successful formula for a gaming system. Following this section is six pages about the game specific abilities, setups, powers, and miscellaneous information for playing a character in Geist. As always, the prose used to describe the specialities of the game is top-notch. White Wolf has always been the master of “fluff” without sacrificing too much “crunch” in the process.

Pages 10 through 36 (out of 48) detail the sample adventure. I read the background, setup, environment, and misc. details of the adventure before jumping into the first scene. I read the first scene, and stopped there before jumping to the characters in the back of the book. The information is presented in a clear and concise manner with plenty of advice for new Storytellers. Not only does this book introduce a player to the concepts of Geist, it could easily be used as an introductory book to role playing in general, both for the players and the GMs… er… Storytellers. This is the primary reason I stopped reading the adventure. I want to hand this book to one of my players and see if I can convince them to run a game instead of just playing.

The last several pages of the book are about the characters. The details provided here go far beyond a simple stat block. There are full details about the character’s abilities and powers and how they are played. Beyond just the game mechanics, the book provides for detailed backgrounds, descriptions, role playing hints and some game items such as Virtue, Vice and Archetype. I love the character build outs in the book, and I only wish more characters were created with this level of detail in my games. It’s good stuff. Plain and simple.

Grade: A. The book was well put together (I would expect nothing less from White Wolf), clear, thorough and made me want to come back for more. If I can convince my group to play in the game (or one of my players to run the game) and it goes well for our group, I might invest in the books for this RPG. The Free RPG Day book did it’s job. It setup a lead for a possible sale.

Like yesterday, I finished off a booklet while at lunch. This time it is Dragon Warriors by Magnum Opus Press. The booklet took me through the basics of character creation, but only detailed two of the seven possible professions. The two they detailed were Knight and Barbarian, which are very similar. I wished they had provided me with Knight and Warlock or Knight and Sorcerer, just to get a bit of flavor of how the magic system worked. There was no mention of the magic rules other than to say they were in the main book. I needed a taste of the magic system, but maybe it’s too complex to fit into a freebie booklet. I’m not sure.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Dragon Warriors Cover

After stepping through the relatively simple character creation process, the Knight and Barbarian classes were detailed, but none of the rules for using their skills were provided. It was all just the flavor text. This makes it very hard to play the introductory adventure that comes in the back of the book. I guess the creators expected everyone to just hack their way through all obstacles since the next portion of the book went through, in good detail, the combat system.

This brings me to my beef with the system. After you roll to hit (lower is better), then you have to roll to penetrate the armor of the target. Each weapon has a different die to try to pierce the difference defense ratings of the various armors. Too complex for me. I’d rather roll to hit and roll for damage. In this case, there is no damage roll. If you hit and get past the victim’s armor, you do a set amount of damage depending on the weapon. I don’t like this. This doesn’t allow for “glancing blows” or “precise strikes” or anything like that. All stabs with a long sword are identical. With this system even critical hits do the same amount of damage. All they give you is automatic piercing of the armor.

Follow this was five pages about the world. They did a great job with world creation, and I wouldn’t mind using their setting in a different system. Perhaps Magnum Opus Press could have dropped the world information (since it’s not really used in the introductory adventure) and replaced it with some information about the magic system. This would have given a greater flavor for the game, I think.

Then two pages were dedicated to three monsters (one without a stat block) that were not used in the adventure. I’m not sure why they were in the booklet other than to just fill some space. It didn’t grab me as something that should be in there.

Lastly, the booklet ended with a two page adventure that is very linear, but this is OK for an introduction to the game. It’s hard to do a “sandbox game” in a mere 24 pages while still explaining the rules and regulations of the game system.

All-in-all, this freebie did not do its job. I’m supposed to be wowed by the content to such a degree that I want to run out and buy the full version (and a few supplements) and run the game right away. Instead, this booklet will go on one of my many bookshelves and will probably stay there for years until I accidentally stumble across it and wonder why I still have it.

Grade: C. I’m sorry to give such a low grade to any product, but this one is well deserved. Perhaps the full game system is much better. I don’t know. I won’t go find out, either. If they do another booklet for next year’s Free RPG Day, then maybe they’ll listen to me and forget trying to detail the world and give us more of the magic system. Some sample characters would be nice as well since the character generation rules were scarce in the booklet.

I managed to read the entire Corporation booklet over lunch today. It is a dystopic view of future Earth set in the year 2500 where corporations rule the world with an iron fist and the PCs are agents working for one (or more) corporations to accomplish the goals of the corporation. I love the concept as it is very cyberpunk-ish in nature, and that is my all-time favorite genre to read and game in. There are just so many possibilities out there when you introduce super advanced science with super degraded society.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Corporation Cover

The booklet started with an overview of the world and the five major corporations. Then there was a single page packed with details regarding the “other antagonists” of the world, which I really liked. Following this was two pages outlining the basic rules. I could tell the main system was more complex than the basics revealed in the book, but the core system presented is excellent, simple and elegant in its execution. Anyone could skim these two pages and jump right into the game. They did a top-notch job of giving just enough rules to run the game out of the booklet.

The center of the book contained four fully created and fleshed out characters complete with backgrounds and motivations.The latter half of the book was a short adventure through which to run the sample characters. The adventure is very linear in nature, but it was designed to show off the strengths of the system in and out of combat. I like it as an intro adventure, so a group could see if they wanted to move forward with purchasing the full game. The designers did an excellent job with setting things up to keep the game going well.

The last page contained a section of “Also in the core rules…” which really made me want to run out with what remained of my lunch hour and buy the game. I’ll probably wait a few weeks until after a conference I’m going to leaves me with a little spare cash, and I’ll see what I can do about adding this book to my cyberpunk collection (both fiction and RPG books.)

Grade: A. No ‘+’ on this one because I think the game system and weapons are a little too deadly. I think I’ll have to wait and see what the core rules present, and how long it takes to create characters. The character creation system was left out of the booklet (which is fine since they provided sample characters.) If it’s like Mythus and takes four hours to make a single character, then I’ll probably skip buying the book. If it only takes a few minutes to whip out a new character to replace the freshly dead meat, then it might be worth considering.