Review: Ultimate Campaign – Part 4

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Thank you all for following me through the review of this mighty new addition to the core Pathfinder books by Paizo. It has been quite the journey. There have been tears, laughter, pain, sorrow, joy but it is now coming to a close with a review of the final chapter, Chapter 4 Kingdoms and War.

This chapter is paradoxically the smallest chapter in page size (around 50 pages) but dominates the table of contents at the start of the book. The Table of contents is a two column affair on one page and this chapter takes up practically all of the second column. Noting this I actually thought it was going to be a piecemeal affair that would irritate me to a large degree so with a cautious eye I moved into the Chapter and began to read.

Just before I give you any detail about the chapter I am going to have to warn you about something. I am declaring that I don’t really like the idea of a campaign that centers around kingdom building. It takes a certain type of GM and player to want to play this style of game. I see it too much as an administrative affair with a lot of extra work involved. I also see that in reality an adventurer would not be able to rule a kingdom unless it were a tribe of nomads or the like. Ruling a kingdom comes with responsibility and Kings and Queens do not get to simply wander off when they want. With that off my chest let us move back to some detail of the actual book.

Kingdoms

The chapter starts with a focus on building a kingdom from scratch but is unusually organized. You read an introduction about how they want to approach the chapter and then they suggest if this is the first time that you have read the chapter, go forward and read a section on building a settlement before going back and reading from that point onward. I found this extremely weird. I did as they suggested and the chapter certainly flowed correctly by doing this but the question has to be asked. Why? Why not just put the section on Settlements at that point in the chapter. There is no major problem it causes on the second read through and I would prefer to read it in that order all the time. This is just a complete oddity of the whole book and the question distracted me from a lot of detail.

The kingdom building rules borrow a lot of ideas from Chapter 3 and Chapter 2 to build sort of a mini game that is Kingdoms. You follow a set Kingdom turn that is broken up into four phases representing a month of game time: upkeep, edict, income, and event. The upkeep is where you balance the kingdom’s resources; edicts allow you to declare actions for the coming month that could be good or bad; income is where you get to fill the treasury up again; and event is out of your control and covers events that you may have to deal with directly.

You get to build the kingdom up from scratch if you follow the default manner and you build your kingdom up in hexes as opposed to squares on a map grid. This follows the way the exploration is handled in the third chapter and I am wondering if these decisions have been influenced by the development of the Pathfinder MMO by Goblinworks. The blogs detailing the making of the Pathfinder MMO from last year are beginning to look eerily similar to the way they treat building a kingdom in here. The question is did the development of this book affect the computer game or did what the computer gamers want to do influence the book? Does it even matter?

The rest of kingdom building is similar to building a structure that is covered in chapter 2 and you have a bunch of buildings etc. that you can build up in settlements or expand your territory and the like. There are a lot of detailed rules (and then an optional rules section) that add a great deal of complexity to the system that kind of made me wish I was sleeping rather than reading a bunch more rules for an already rules heavy setting. But, and there is a but, I got through it and have to say I did not hate the section. In fact I thought it was quite novel and that it would probably be very valuable to the accountants of this world who like to role play as well. Here they can build their own kingdoms and exert control over vassals whilst balancing resources. All in all it is well contained and offers a good level of detail to this style of play. Don’t get me wrong, it is a section of the book I will likely never look at again but it is worth looking at if that is what you like.

Mass Battles

The next section was on war or mass battles in Pathfinder. I was actually quite keen to see what they had done with this as I have run mass battles in the game before but I had scripted them rather than used any type of mechanic. That said I have seen plenty of systems try to approach this subject and fail horribly by making systems that just fail completely to be intuitive and easy to use.

Paizo have come through with the goods on this system though. I started to read it and thought that it would be good if they did it just by providing something similar to the current combat system with a little less complexity (an army can’t grapple another army!) and that is exactly what they have provided. The system is intuitive as it uses concepts that are similar to the current roll 1d20 + a bonus with a target number of an AC system that currently exists.

They have added a nice usable morale system and given a good description of what this means to the unit. In fact this system is quite good that I may be using that in the one on one combats at times when I think creatures might make a run for it. Things like the commander can affect these rolls or give additional benefits. The commander gives certain boons to their army and will know certain tactics based on their level in Profession(Soldier) which I thought was also a great way of giving value to skills that players do not often take.

Finally, they cover loads of special abilities that the army made be able to use (what if you have a unit of regenerating trolls etc) and it just works. They teach you how to create a unit based on existing skill levels and then also give you a horde of army units that was a really good addition I had not overly expected. I have to say that the mass battles section of this chapter gets two big thumbs up from me and it will be something I refer to again!

The Book Overall

Now I have the content covered I want to say a few more things about this book. First and foremost it is very well presented, but I am pretty sure I don’t need to mention that. Paizo always make their books look remarkable with great artwork and layout. One thing that was a nice addition for this book was that they added a lot of forms for you to use with their system. If you look over the last month of posts you will find how I mention there is a lot more bookwork to be maintained with a lot of this material and they have done their best to give you the tools that you need to use.

Is this book the killer I thought it would be? Well, that is hard to answer as it is not the book I thought it would be. It is a book that helps with building a campaign but it is also a book that does not tell you how to build a campaign. It gives you a lot of systems that can assist you with looking at a lot of different things that some of your players might like to do. With the exception of the first chapter which is something I would like us all to adapt as GM’s (getting our players to get into background that is) the rest of the systems will work for some and not others so you need to pick and choose as you go.

I will say that this book has surprised me though. There are a lot of rules in here for you to read and go over. It is a long read too although it is only set at 250 pages or so the material can get a bit dry so you have to put away all the distractions to read some sections. But I am totally glad I did. This is an exceptional valuable sourcebook to me and will see a lot of use as I continue to pursue my craft as a GM. Some sections will never be used again but on a whole that is OK. You cannot please all of the people all of the time and we all have different focuses in game which is what this book represents.

So, to an overall score, considering everything I have read and fully understanding what this book is about. With its minor flaws and overall view I can’t give this book any less than five out of five castles overall. This is a great book to have in your collection. Save up your pennies and get yourself a copy!

One final footnote, just as I exit the long winded review mode I got an email telling me that my copy of Mythic Adventures is on its way to me. It is the next sourcebook for the core rules and is something that I have been long looking forward to! So there are likely to be more reviews in the near future! But until then, keep rolling!

Mark Knights is 39 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia. I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games. I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM. When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules. I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner. When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be. On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

Movie Trailers as Adventure Seeds

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Like most GMs and writers, I’m always looking for inspiration. Sometimes it comes from within. Sometimes you have to go looking for it. And one place it occurred to me to look for such inspiration is in movie trailers.

I’m sure you’re wondering why use movie trailers. But if you think about it, they’re the perfect vehicle for getting plots, settings, and characters. In about 60-120 seconds, you get the rough outline for the setup of the story. Plenty of plot points to snag quickly. And you don’t get bogged down in all the details as you do when you watch the whole thing. Plus, and this is the key, without all the context your mind is more free to interpret what it sees and put things together in different ways.

Sure, you could watch the whole movie. Or the whole television program. Or read the whole book. But it’s too much information. You might get a few plot points here or there, but it’s a different beast entirely. For our purposes we want broad strokes and nothing more. The details just get in the way.

The steps are simple. Pick a trailer. Watch the trailer. Take some notes about key elements. Ponder the notes and turn them into an adventure idea.

Let’s start with an easy one. Take a trailer like the one for the movie Devil’s Pass (watch it here). I’m not a huge horror fan, but I find that just about any trailer can be broken into story elements around which a story could be built.

In this case, you get a few high points…

A past expedition went to explore a mountain pass and disappeared
A modern expedition is going to recreate the expedition /li>
They arrive in the valley (snowy or otherwise) that the past expedition was heading to
They get strange readings on their equipment
They decide they don’t want to hang around, but it’s nearing nightfall and it’s too dangerous to leave
In the night something/someone triggers an avalanche that they get hurt in but survive
In the morning they are attacked by a group of people
They find refuge in an old cave system or underground facility
But something is in there with them that’s decidedly not friendly

Doesn’t this sound like a solid adventure for your PCs? I don’t even really have to massage it much.

Though the movie appears to be set largely in a wintery location in the mountains, it could easily be moved to just about any location. Perhaps somewhere isolated like a dark wooded area or a desert. Or even somewhere in space… a distant world, shipwreck, or whatever. Just about any group with a secret agenda might have a hidden location they’d rather not have someone bring to light could be the antagonists… And perhaps they have something truly evil in store.

As with all ideas, your imagination is the only limitation.

So you don’t think this is a one trick pony, let’s take another trailer… This time for the upcoming Jobs movie about Steve Jobs (watch it here). Not a movie I plan on seeing. And yes, this one is a little tougher to translate into something usable. 🙂

We can break it down into a few points:

Jobs goes to college
Jobs drops out of college
Gets involved with girl
Gets involved with Wozniac, who creates Apple I
Businessman gets involved
Apple gets big
Jobs and Apple have fight
Jobs fired
Jobs finds himself again
Jobs back at Apple making history

Let’s change it slightly and go with two wizards who went into business together to produce a better quality of magical items. Quality over variety or production. But when one wanted to change the company philosophy towards increasing production by making a deal with dark forces, the two parted ways. Years later, the wizard who left returns to find an empire in ruins because his partner had sold out to a demon. The second wizard asks the PCs to help find and stop his old friend, now corrupted beyond saving… Can they save the empire? Can they save his friend?

Not quite as clean a conversion, but I think I ended up with something usable. In fact, I may start doing a weekly challenge over at my Moebius Adventures blog to have folks submit movie trailers for me to try and massage into adventure plots!

What can YOU come up with? Pick a random movie trailer on the Internet and see! Be sure to put your adventure plots and the movie trailer link into your comments – we’d love to read them!

Brian “Fitz” Fitzpatrick is a Software Engineer who manages (or is that mangles) Game Knight Reviews and tinkers with writing game materials via his Moebius Adventures imprint. When he’s not writing about gaming, he’s actually gaming or at least thinking about gaming in some capacity. During the non-writing, non-gaming time he’s likely trying to keep up with his wife and two daughters or wrangling code for a living!

Review: Denizens of Avadnu

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Potential is a powerful word. It is used all the time and seen in the people around us. We get a hint at what might be and we hope to see the potential realized. Many times it isn’t and we are left wondering “what if?” I can’t imagine what it must be like for companies that impress with their first gaming product but are never able to live up to the potential the gamers see who get their first book. This week I’m looking at one of the best and most creative monster books for D&D/ Pathfinder I have seen. I like it better than Privateer Press’ Monsternomicon, Necromancer Game’s Tome of Horrors, and Green Ronin’s Advanced Bestiary. All three of those books are well worth owning and writing about. I am going with a lesser known book by a company that doesn’t seem to exist anymore and needs to be seen by more gamers instead of the more popular selections.

Denizens of Avadnu is a monster book written for 3.5 D&D. It is the first product Inner Circle produced for their Violet Dawn setting. While a great book I think it was a mistake to make the monster book first and not the setting first. There was a PDF release of epic level monsters and I think some information on unique races to the world but I don’t recall they ever published the full setting. The book was also a bit expensive I felt at the time. It was priced at $40 for a 225 page full color hardcover book. On their gaming site http://www.icirclegames.com/index.html you can order the book for just $10. You might be able to find it cheaper than that, but I do like giving money to the publishers especially small press ones like them.

Flipping through the book I am still amazed at the full color art and the overall look in this book. It is beautifully done and still one of the best looking monster books. That is just the beginning as the creativity is off the charts. The monsters are all original and feel very different. There is nothing in here that seems like a goblin or orc with a few changes. There are no new devils or demons or other monsters like those that just build off of other creatures. Each creature is given its own page. This allows for a lot of good information and that is needed with these creatures. The normal description and combat entries are there, but there is also information for adventure ideas using the creatures and specific information of the creature in their setting of Avandu. Going through and just reading the Avandu sections really makes me want to see a full setting that brings together all of the great little details offered in this book.

One of my favorite creatures in here is called the Dread Spire. It is an aquatic creature rarely seen in places not thousands of feet below the surface of the oceans. It resembles a huge tower with tentacles coming out from it and it is different and weird. The book also has animals and vermin, though each is also given a unique twist. I like that it introduces creatures that are non-Earth native but treats them like normal animals.

Denizens of Avandu is one of those books that even after almost ten years I find myself keeping my copy though multiple book purges and finding ways to use it. It is great for those D&D players that think they have seen everything. There are some really odd and cool creatures in here and being able to show the players amazing art of the creatures makes them that much better.

Chris Gath. I’ve been gaming since 1980 playing all kinds of games since then. In the past year I’ve run Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classic, Paranoia, and Mini d6. My current campaign is mini d6 and we are using that for a modern supernatural conspiracy investigative game. On some forums I’m known as Crothian and I’ve written a few hundred reviews though I took a sabbatical from reviewing for a few years as it burnt me out. I was also an judge for the Gen Con awards (ENnies) six times. Jeff, the owner of this blog, is one of my players and a good friend.

Review: Ultimate Campaign – Part 3

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

I thank you for bearing with me through the review of this book. There is just so much material packed into the 253 pages this book offers that I would have turned myself inside out trying to fit it all into one review. So we are moving on to Chapter 3 which is innocuously called Campaign Systems. So lets pull it apart in the penultimate (pun intended) review of this book.

Campaign Systems. The title of the chapter. I wrote many posts about campaign systems on my own blog and this one so I thought I had finally reached what I truly hoped this book contained. How to build a campaign! Excellent, the secrets of Paizo laid bare so I too can create my masterpiece adventure path. I was devastated to find I was completely wrong. This chapter had no insight on how to build your campaign from the ground up.

Of course that is because they have done it all before. In the core book and the Game Master Guide there is plenty of advice they give on these very topics. Perhaps not to the depth everyone likes but that is where I can fill in the gaps by writing blogs about different styles. In the chapter they cover numerous systems (meaning extra rules) to cover various concepts in game and how to manage them as a player and a GM.

There is good, bad, and ugly in this chapter. I was smiling with glee at stuff that surprised me. I wore a frown of confusion where I came across material that I think does not need rules (that is putting rules on it reduced role playing and increased complexity). Then I was left dumbfounded in several sections of the chapter wondering why on Golarion they had even bothered. I think a few of these systems really do depend on the style of game you play, although some of them would be much better suited to other games for sure.

The chapter starts with a fresh take on alignment. Well fresh may be a little generous, but it gives an alternative system that allows for shades of alignment. So you could be Lawful Neutral but closer to the Neutral end of Lawful and the Good side of Neutral. This introduces a mechanic which allows your alignment to shift with actions and time. Sometimes with repercussions, other times without. I rarely point to alignment in game (though I do where class powers depend on it) so this system is very unlikely to be used in my campaign. It is, on the other hand, a good basis for a system of alignment that may help people new to the game to understand it. They do try to redefine the alignments in a clearer manner also in this section but I do not think they are any clearer than the entries in the Core Rulebook.

Then they broke out bargaining which literally gave me a headache. Do not get me wrong, I love mercantile campaigns (I run one in Traveller) but Pathfinder? Really? The algorithms (solutions to the problem) are unrealistic, simplified and frustrating. It is very hard to follow the flow and I can see this coming to very little use. I really did wonder why they had included this section when the rules that exist with bluff, diplomacy, sense motive and the like all function quite well in this regard anyway.

Then the next section about companions surprised me. Surprised me in a major way so much that I broke one of my personal rules and wrote on my own blog about this section prior to writing about it here. You can read that blog here if you want, but the following pretty much covers it. The GM should control some of the player linked companions! I have always played games where if you had a familiar, animal companion, cohort, followers then you dealt with them as the player. This system really turned that on its head for me. They suggest that animal companions, followers, and to some degree cohorts should all be controlled at some level by the GM. Reading through this section it made sense why and I was grinning from ear to ear that something had surprised me.

The section also went over followers (obtained through the Leadership feat) and what they meant in game which is something I never really fathomed. It was a brief description but it gave me a point of reference as I realised that a follower was kind of like a contact that had interest in you. There was some discussion on my blog that this should really be a role playing consequence but I see this as OK. if you get Leadership and you want to have an NPC that has been following your career in a town then why not. I do agree though that this style of contact should be limited to the Leadership feat.

Which lead me to the first real ugly section of the book. The next section was Contacts. I did not read this until after my blog discussions were over and I really wish I had. This section just completely devalues the Leadership feat that they had been describing by introducing a system for contacts. Come on! That is what the role playing is for if you do not want to take the Leadership feat. Why should there be a system that allows for a similar structure than what was just described. And if you aren’t going to describe how to make a campaign from scratch in the “Ultimate Campaign” guide because you have done that before why go over relationships with NPC’s when it is done in at least three books I can think of. This section seems counterintuitive, introduces a lot of bookkeeping to the GM and I just do not understand why it was even included.

You are probably beginning to realise there is a lot of “campaign systems” in this chapter and there are, fifteen to be exact. There are a couple more I want to talk to but I will sum the others that I am not going into too much detail with here. The Exploration, Honor, Lineage, Relationships, Retirement and Young Characters sections were entertaining and I may take some concepts from them into game. The Taxation and Investment sections should never have been included. Tax the characters? We are considering tax and percentage return in a fantasy system… No thank you. So that leaves me three sections to talk about. So I end on a positive note I am going to go from worst to best…

Retraining. There is a chapter here about how your character can retrain any change they have made in their character as long as you have time and gold. This is the most ludicrous waste of space of a system I have ever read. Six levels in and you realise you did not like becoming a necromancer? that is OK, take a holiday and become an evoker instead! Taken a Wisdom upgrade and realised Dex would have been a better choice, no problem! This is just a nightmare. In reality this is normally dealt with with a discussion between the player and the GM. Player: Look, I was a bit rushed last time I levelled and I think I should have taken x feat, can I change it? GM: Sure, you haven’t used the one you took in any major way, no problem. This entire idea of retraining devalues things like spell replacement in Sorceror (and other classes) and is like saying to a player not to worry about considering what you want to play because you can always change it later with a nominal sum of gold and a bit of in game time. If you can’t tell, this section really annoyed me.

Reputation and Fame. If all you have are the core books then this is likely to have some value for you. I collect Adventure Paths (AP) and also some campaign supplements (especially if they are mentioned in the AP as useful) and so this is about the fourth system I have come across that deals with this concept. And it is also the worst system of the ones that I have looked at. Why do they not just migrate the simplest system they have created and use it? To me it would be something similar to the system contained in the Faction Guide which was simple, transferrable and easy to understand. Seriously Paizo, look at what you have and stop reinventing the wheel time and time again.

Magic Item Creation. I loved the second half of this. The first half talks about how to stop min maxing players from exploiting loopholes in the system that exists and how you really should not alter a lot about the way things work (like rechargeable wands or making an intelligence modifying pair of boots). It made average reading and as I am playing a character that I am considering to use as a creator of magic items it was timely. the absolute best thing about this section was the bit that has potential for creating role playing opportunities! Think to (and try not to groan) Harry Potter where he gets his wand that has a strand of unicorn hair (or something similar in it) to make the wand. That is the cool stuff that you want to get involved in but most times for an item you spend your gold, roll the dice and make your item. In the final part of this system they talk about rare agents you can use to make COOL ROLEPLAYING OPPORTUNITIES WITH!!!!!!! Dragon heartblood! Dire animal brain! Giant squid ink and many more! Oh the possibilities. I seriously disagree with the writers that the cost of such items should be taken out of treasure hordes because you get this object as well but apart from that this is the stuff that I love to see in this book.

So, after sprinkling some stardust on my swords to grant them a light that you can search the dark places of the world with I think I had better sum up. This is the chapter where cracks in the overall coolness of this book begin to show. In summary let us look at these sections and put them where I consider they lay.

The Good: Alignment, Companions, Exploration, Honor, Lineage, Magic Item Creation, Relationships, Retirement, Young Characters.

The Bad: Bargaining, Investment, Taxation.

The Ugly: Contacts, Retraining, Reputation and Fame

The italicized section names are the best example of each category in my opinion. This chapter still has a lot of good in it, in fact more good than bad (or bad and ugly combined!) so it is a worthwhile read. I am majorly disappointed that this section did not take a close look at actually building campaigns from scratch with a modular or building block approach. With one chapter to go (final review next week!) there is little likelihood that it is going to occur. So next week we look at Chapter 4: Kingdoms and War. Until then, Keep rolling!

Review: The Heart of the Wild

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

After what seems like seven lifetimes of the elves in waiting, we finally have the next sourcebook for The One Ring RPG by British publishers Cubicle 7, The Heart of The Wild. I have read through my pre-order PDF copy and I think I have an answer to the question, was it worth the wait? The answer is a most resounding yes.

The One Ring: Adventures of the Edge if the Wild, is a charming and remarkably well produced role-playing game penned by Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi, a game that captures the spirit of Tolkien’s literary masterpieces perfectly in its immaculate and breathtaking presentation and its wonderful writing.

Cubicle 7 has published disappointingly little since the release of the core books two years ago. We have had an excellent sourcebook of adventures and a GM screen packaged with a small sourcebook on Lake-town and its environs, both of which easily managed to uphold the lofty standards originally set by the core rulebooks.

It is not until now however, that we fully delve into the meat of Tolkien’s wonderful and meticulously detailed Middle Earth as it has been interpreted by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan and Francesco Nepitello.

The Heart if the Wild is a 128-page hardcover setting sourcebook detailing the Vales of Anduin along the Great River and the ancient, tangled forest of Mirkwood to the east. With descriptions of these two expansive areas it covers the ancestral homelands of the elves of Mirkwood, the Woodsmen of Wilderland and the Beornings, all of which are featured as playable cultures in the Adventurers Guide of the core set.

The first two chapters go into evocative and intricate detail about the Vales of Anduin and the forest of Mirkwood respectively. Each of these areas are broken into smaller regions, valleys and mountain ranges with each entry detailing the lay of the land, its inhabitants, wildlife, history, and lore. What strikes me about these descriptions is how they are written in an easy and concise style, yet are still very akin to the prose used in Tolkien’s own descriptions of Middle Earth. New fellowship phases and cultural virtues are interspersed in these descriptions too, and they are all a welcome addition.

Each page bristles with plot hooks and ideas for your adventures, but never do you feel like Wilderland is just a setting created for your company of heroes to chop-up orcs in. No, this feels like a living breathing world of its own, as Middle Earth always felt in the great professor’s original writings. The captivating descriptions could be pulled right from the pages by the Loremaster, as he describes to his players what their adventurers see as they travel the trackless forests and steep valleys of Wilderland.

The area presented is not as broad in scope as many campaign settings, but rather, it has a tight focus on a smaller geographical area that springs to life in its shear level of detail. So faithful is the writing to its source material that you will be amazed by the quality of content that is not actually part of Tolkien’s original lore, and has been specifically crafted for this book. Not that you will be able to tell the difference, unless perhaps you are a true Tolkien buff, or use Wikipedia like me!

The final chapter is a bestiary of creatures mentioned throughout the previous text, each with a lavish illustration and stats to use them in your game. Again we have a very high level of writing present here, and the number of monsters on display rivals that of Loremasters Guide. The book is rounded off with an appendix featuring a four-page map showing all the new locations that have been mentioned thus far, as well as a very extensive index.

It’s worth mentioning the next book forThe One Ring, The Darkening of Mirkwood, is alluded to throughout this book. The Darkening of Mirkwood is to be a campaign outline and timeline that complements the Heart of the Wild. The book states in the introduction that although the Darkening of Mirkwood is not required to use the Heart of the Wild, the Heart of the Wild is required to use the Darkening of Mirkwood.

The art and design of this on display is a true thing of beauty, like all the other products in the line. I do not yet hold a physical hardcover, but the pdf shows the high level of presentation. The cover is graced with a foreboding picture of the great spiders of Mirkwood confronting Radagast the Brown, inked by John Hodgson. Hodgson’s illustrations feature throughout the book and although other artists make contributions, his wonderfully imaginative and distinctive art have become synonymous with this game.

Many art pieces show landscapes of Wilderland that a Loremaster is sure to show his players as they explore on their journeys, and the maps featured include: the halls of the Elven King, the settlements of the Woodman, the house of Beorn and the dread fortress of Dol Gulder. I cannot say enough good things about the excellent combination of cartography and illustrations used to bring the areas to life. The book is worth the cover price for these maps alone!

In all, The Heart of the Wild is one of the best put together setting books I have ever had the pleasure of owning. It is a beautiful and entertaining book to read, that should appeal to any fan of Middle Earth, and I would go as far as to say that this is absolutely essential reading for any Loremaster running The One Ring. My only hope is that when they are done with The Darkening of Mirkwood, Cubicle 7 next gives the same treatment to the lands of Dale, the halls of the Dwarves, and of course, the fertile lands of the Shire.

He has just started a new campaign using the 13th Age, and is a strong supporter of Dungeon World, The One Ring RPG, Mouseguard and many other narrative-driven games.

Review: War Against the Chtorr

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

This review covers the GURPS book War Against the Chtorr based on the series by David Gerrold. If you enjoy a different kind of Alien Invasion series then I suggest trying them out. The series starts with A Matter for Men that was published in 1983 and since it is 30 years old can be found cheap in many used books stores and to borrow in local libraries. This review will contain some spoilers.

Alien invasions are a common theme in much science fiction. Usually ships come from outer space and Earth is at war. Rarely is there a different kind of invasion but that is what one gets in the War Against the Chtorr series by David Gerrold. Gerrold is not a household name among science fiction writers but many more people are familiar with his work then they realize. His most famous piece of work I would think is the episode Trouble with Tribbles for Star Trek the Original series. In 1983 he wrote A Matter for Men the first book in the series. There are now four books in this uncompleted series but they still make for some very good reads.

The blog post though is not a review of an incomplete series. It is about gaming and thankfully GURPs put out a book called War Against the Chtorr allowing gamers to experience this alien invasion. Like many GURPS books it is filled with useful information and not bogged down too much by rules. I am not a fan of the GURPS system but I still own fifty or so of their sourcebooks because they are so easy to use in other systems and many times are more informative then other gaming books on the same topic.

The Alien Invasion is subtle. They did not arrive with ships or by dropping asteroids on the planet or even by transporting huge monsters to us through an undersea rift. The characters in the books believe that is started with billions of microscopic particles that came from deep space and arrive on Earth. There it slowly reproduced and started to create small pockets of an alien ecology. The first evidence was massively deadly pandemics. They hit one after another after another and by the time some scientist were figuring things out the population and infrastructure was in serious jeopardy. That’s when in remote areas of the world people started to notice alien creatures and plants. The creatures there evolved and changed and produced more different kinds of aliens. They are not a united front and they do prey on each other. But they also are devastating to the Earth’s ecology and they are winning.

War Against the Chtorr is one of the easier licensed projects to have a campaign in that mimics the books it is based on. It would work best if the players are not familiar with the books. I imagine that won’t be too hard to do. Then you just have the PCs make discoveries and learn more and more about what is going on just like in the books. The aliens are really alien and different than what we usually see in science fiction. It is more than just killing them but trying to understand what is going on and how it all works. The GURPS book has twenty pages on how to do a campaign with great ideas and ways to make it all work. Many times license projects just give ways to make characters and some setting information but leave the question of “What do the PCS do?” unanswered. The book has forty alien plants and animals for the PCs to discover. Even by the forth book of the series the characters are discovering new types of aliens and understanding older aliens they thought they had figured out. Pacing of information might be one of the more challenging aspects of this campaign.

Technology in the books is advanced in some ways and others not. I think one can still keep the feel of the books tech but adapt and incorporate some of today’s high technology that surpasses what we see in the book. Near future science fiction has always had these types of problems. The GURPs book does a good job of mapping out the technology from the series. Some of it like the giant Zeppelins from the fourth book I’d probably change but they did serve a unique purpose for attempting to communicate with some of the hives.

One aspect that makes it much different from other alien invasion stories is the lack of a command structure for the invaders. They have shown in the books creatures of different intelligence but if there is a true unifying intelligence behind everything we haven’t seen it. That can happen with uncompleted works so it doesn’t always give the PCs great direction knowing there is one being or something specific to strike against.

For fans of the series the GURPs book is important because it builds off of Gerrold’s notes and includes nuggets of information that have not been published in the series yet. In 2005 the names of the three final books were announced and I had hoped that we would have a new book released by now but since it has been almost 20 years since the release of book four, A Season for Slaughter, I fear we will never get a completed series. I’m okay with that as I’m not sure we could get a happy ending that did not feel forced.

Review: The Folk of Osmon

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

Author: Daniel J. Bishop
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
Art: Gary Dupuis, Luigi Castellani
Price: PDF $3.00 – at RPGNow / at d20pfsrd.com / Paizo.com
Pages: 14 (incl. cover)

The Folk of Osmon is the third, and as of this post, the most recent release from Purple Duck Games in the new Campaign Elements line. For those unfamiliar with the Campaign Elements line, it is a new series of products written as short scenarios ready to be dropped into an existing campaign. The scenarios offer possible questing locations, side treks, or possibly a place for a wizard to gather a new spell component. So far each scenario has offered several ideas as to how to work it into a campaign.

The module is written by Daniel Bishop and illustrated by Luigi Castellani. The PDF comes in at 14 pages including the cover and OGL license information at the back. A map of the area is included, as well as a couple of art pieces, one of which is in color. Several new monsters are presented along with a random encounter table for the area. Four scenario possibilities are at the end of the adventure to help a busy judge jumpstart some ideas on how to incorporate The Folk of Osmon in their home campaign.

The Folk of Osmon is intended as a hazard area and is located in a mire. This helps make it relatively easy to use in most campaigns. The four suggestions at the end of the module are helpful for judges having a hard time determining how to introduce their players to the area. For Purple Sorcerer fans, this particular Campaign Element screams to be dropped into the Sunken City area!

Hooks into the scenario range from simply passing through the area, rescuing an NPC from a sacrifice, finding possibly hidden treasure, to encountering a ritual in the swamp, or any number of other possibilities a creative judge can come up with. By aiming to be a hazard area with some interesting traits and occupants the transportability of the adventure has few limits.

The Review

The Campaign Elements series continues to deliver with this third installment. Given I have my currently running campaign based in a city bordered by an expansive swamp to the south, it makes it exceedingly easy to drop this one into my game. So far that has been the case for each of the Campaign Elements series released, I have no trouble thinking of places I can use them.

The adventure includes four more creatures that are apt to be found near the area. One called a Pallid Thorn has an interesting attack that is sure to play with player’s minds. The other creatures easily fit into a swamp environ and will certainly see use in my campaign.

The actual encounter area has five areas within a set of ruins is described. I find the number of areas described enough to give the judge a feel for the area without being enough to side track a party for too long if the area is dropped in as a place the party is just passing through.

The inclusion of four ways to drop this encounter area into your campaign is a nice touch. The hooks here are more than just a one or two liner, but several paragraphs worth of setup to help make the area even more interesting or tied to the characters.

I noted above one of the pieces of art included in the adventure was in color. That was a nice touch for the module! I am used to the black and white pieces in a lot of the Purple Duck Games releases for DCC. It was good to see a little color in there.

The Campaign Elements line continues rolling on strong with this third release. I feel like with a collection of these I can always have something ready to run for my group or something to pull out when they need to quest for something. With an easy to use hazard area, new monsters to drop into any swamp in your campaign, and several suggested hooks to use this area of ruins, The Folk of Osmon is another excellent addition to a judge’s collection.

Review: Ultimate Campaign – Part 2

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

This week I have been busily reading the wonders of Chapter 2: Downtime in the Ultimate Campaign Sourcebook. The initial pages had me frowning and also getting rather pleased that I would have something meaty to criticize in the book. To find out if that is the truth when I finished reading the chapter read on!

Chapter 2: Downtime

This chapter looks wholly and solely at a thing called downtime for the players. You have heard about it I am sure. You know, that time where your character is hanging around the town with not a lot to do with themselves. I am being a little facetious here because this type of time in my game is a little bit of a mythical creature. That is, everyone has heard of it but they (the characters) have never seen any.

Of course that is not true of every campaign I have run. In my Earthdawn campaign I ran well over a decade ago it was all about the character motivations. They built a group building in Bartertown and one of the players (a Nethermancer) hollowed out a living Kraken and used it as his “tower” where he spent a lot of time creating lifeforms to serve him. Yes, it was weird but very cool at the same time. Beyond all of that though, most of the reading that I do tells me that the heroes are, well, heroic and that they don’t spend time drinking in a tavern when there are kingdoms to be saved and monsters to be killed.

In essence my own personal group do not get a great deal of time to sit around and talk about the weather with locals so I was so ready to do this with this chapter. The first part of the chapter introduced something that really irks me with sourcebooks. It introduced an economic system that sits on top of the current economic system to make a “Downtime system”. So much added complexity I could see occurring from these new rules. It was meant to model expenditure in doing stuff for the mythical downtime your character gets, including things like goods, labour, influence and magic. I smiled a wry smile at the thoughts of writing this blog. Here was the fatal flaw to this book.

Well, it actually pained me so much that I could not go back to the chapter for a while. I was very disappointed, so I started reading Fate Core again as well as Dungeon World and the latest module from Paizo: The Dragon’s Demand. It was only late in the week that I braved picking up the book again and realized I should have pushed on through.

This chapter adds a load of complexity to what is meant to be quiet time for characters. So why do it? Well, I kept reading, and as I did, I found myself wanting to be a player with a GM that uses this book. I wanted to do some of the stuff located in the chapter. I wanted to buy a tavern and run a thieve’s guild. I wanted to make a castle with a throne room and an altar! This is what this chapter does!

It gives the player options on what they can do in their local settlement. They can set up buildings that become a source of income (as well as a source of drama). Not only buildings though. It also covers how to get a group together that work for you while you are away. And it is in that way that they failed this chapter. Not by providing all this, but by the way they organized the chapter.

At the start of the chapter it details the structure of its economic system it is going to apply and then rather than getting into the seriously cool stuff they talk about what happens while you are all out adventuring. They talk about resource depreciation and economics and snoooooooore… After that they detail managers you can use to run your stuff. They connect the Leadership Feat really well to some of this stuff and then show you how to build buildings and teams by using your Goods, Labor, Magic and Influence. They provide a way to make your building one room at a time providing an awesome number of rooms for you to look over. Also they provide a number of groups you can hire on too to create your Thieve’s Guild or Mercenary Company.

The rooms section is excellent. I can not tell you how many times as a teenager I went to map a castle out and built my throne room a few bedrooms, a prisoner dungeon and a gatehouse with moat and said “What am I missing?” Well let me tell you, the answer to my questions lay within these pages. I smiled at the extensive list and imagined myself with a seventeen story palace with every one of the detailed rooms located inside. I am seriously going to build a few places up and build some maps using this. Which reminds me, they provide some nice maps of a select few of the buildings included too!

The last thing that I am yet to mention is they provide a kind of random encounter list of things that happen for generic buildings and also specific lists for a lot of the buildings. These contain some excellent adventure hooks to whet the players appetite that a GM could easily build into a nice little side adventure while the players are just working on their own thing.

So, there you have it. this chapter needs to be reorganized. It should have interesting stuff first so everyone gets enthused about what they can do and then learn the boring stuff of what happens when you are gone after it. I can see there may be readers out there that may just skip this chapter after the first six pages of grueling agony. Had I read the second half first I would actually care about what they wrote in the first half. I would be open mouthed in shock about how my seventeen story palace could degrade while I was away. Truly I would.

But this chapter has also convinced me that I should give my players some down time and encourage them to invest in their characters. One of my players in the Serpent Skull game always wanted to set up a survival camp on Smuggler’s Shiv (the island you get shipwrecked on in the start of the module) and this would be perfect for that. I have been inspired by this chapter to include a new, character forming, dimension to my games. That is after all what core rule expansions are meant to do right?

So, next week we will be moving into the wonders of Chapter 3: Campaign Systems. Something that I have a strong interest in and have written pretty extensively on with this and my own blog. It is this chapter that I was exceptionally keen to get my hands on when I heard of this sourcebook. So join me in a week as we unpack it in my next blog. Until then, keep rolling!

Homeless in Fantasy RPGs

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

My wife is a veterinarian who helps out with a local organization called Street Petz in Colorado Springs, CO. She and her volunteers go out once a week to help out the homeless population downtown and their pets by providing food, vaccines, and whatever supplies they can. She also gives blankets, water, socks, some food, and whatever she can to the homeless themselves. I’ve met a few of them and many are kind folks just trying to get by. They are people and deserve our help if it’s within our power to provide it.

But it’s left me wondering about the many homeless populations that must exist in fantasy RPGs and why we don’t usually see them appear in our campaigns and adventures.

Take a common scenario we see again and again. Bandits. Marauders. Barbarians. Swoop into a village, take what they want, and set fire to the rest. If you’re lucky enough to survive, you’re likely hurt, your family is dead or missing, and your home is destroyed. Or take the Robin Hood scenario. Good men, women, and families taxed to the brink of starvation and death flee for their lives as their homes, livestock, and more are possessed in lieu of payment. Again, the strong take what they want from the weak and leave them to fend for themselves. What happens to these people? Where do they go?

If you’re in an urban environment, imagine the devastation from a simple fire burning out of control through a group of houses. Just like today, those people may lose loved ones, but more than likely they lose their property and homes, with nowhere to turn for help. Again, I’m wondering where these folks go. Does anybody help them? Do they get justice or help in any form?

So let’s take a look at a few possible angles from which to tackle this question.

First, if it’s a wilderness setting, there’s always the camping alternative. Imagine a hidden camp area where folks gather, share resources, and work together to survive. Would these people be fearful of outsiders? You bet. Whether you represent the law or not, they’re going to be reluctant to let anyone in to take advantage of whatever they have left. Even if all they have left is a shred of dignity, they’re going to hold onto that and likely fight for it to the bitter end.

I could see an adventure where the PCs are asked to investigate some bandit activity and come across a burned out village. They might track the survivors down to one of these camps and ask some questions to determine who the bandits were or where they came from. Then they could track the bandits down and remove the threat so the villagers could return and try to rebuild their lives if they chose to do so.

Or your PCs may simply run across some displaced individuals along the road. Where did they come from? Can the PCs help? Where are they going?

Second, maybe we’re dealing with a rural setting. Farms and ranches. Sometimes a kind family will take in those affected by tragedy and help them out for a time. They may even be integrated into their daily lives, helping out with chores and jobs, or building new lives with their benefactors. Like in the camp situation, bonds will be formed and they will become protective of one another if things are going well. Or if they aren’t, they’re likely to turn out the troublemakers quickly.

Imagine an investigation into a series of deaths in the vicinity that all started when a family farm was decimated by wild creatures. The PCs may have to talk to many local farms or ranches in the area to figure out where any survivors went and then see if one of them perhaps caused the initial incident and the following murders. I can see resistance to the idea that “one of their own” would do such a thing…

Third, let’s look at an urban setting like a town or city. Larger civilized population centers typically have one or more spots where homeless tend to congregate. Unless the local police force is really draconian about their policies, homeless may group near bridges, drainage areas, parks, or even on church grounds. A homeless population may form a community in the wilderness beside a town or city. And again, most will try to keep to themselves and avoid trouble if at all possible.

An adventure idea here may revolve around an arsonist destroying homes in town and forcing people onto the streets. Can the PCs determine where the survivors are? Will the survivors give them any clues they may have? And can they stop the madness before more people become homeless?

Though all of these ideas are fairly dark and gritty, each offers some interesting ways to work ethical and moral dilemmas into a campaign world. Will a local government help or hinder an investigation? What are the laws like? How corrupt are any local officials? Plus, you have plenty of room to make the homeless in your worlds a part of the tapestry, with plenty of colorful characters with dark pasts and potential links to other adventures…

The Importance of Fiction

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Recently I have been getting really into my new campaign using the excellent 13th Age, created by D&D alumni Rob Hiensoo and Jonathan Tweet.

I have seen a number of comparisons between 13th Age and Dungeon World and quite rightfully so, they are both modern, innovative, narrative-driven games, that primarily focus on dungeon crawling and fantasy adventures.

As many of you will know, Dungeon World comes with a number of “principles” for the GM baked into the system. These principles are more like GM advice than actual rules, they don’t have any mechanical impact, rather they help you run a fun and exciting RPG. Most of them can be applied to any tabletop role-playing game, and I think many of them are particularly poignant to a 13th Age game.

One principle in particular that I want to talk about is: “Start and end with the fiction.” If you are a GM go ahead and write these words on an index card and place it face up on the table so everyone can see it, or pin it to your GM screen facing the players. You want everyone at the table to remember this point as you play.

What this means is that first and foremost you should describe what a character does in the fictional world and take your interpretation of the rules from that description, roll the dice to interact with the rules, and end with a fictional description of what happens.

Noi, the dwarven mercenary has managed to bust the door down of the chancellor’s office, and he’s looking for clues that implicate the slimy toads involvement with the Prince of Shadows. Aaron, the player playing Noi narrates how his character searches in the drawers, opens up the cupboards, looks behind paintings and generally ransacks the place. The GM declares that this definitely sounds like a Wisdom check and Aaron rolls the dice. He rolls a success! The GM describes how Noi finds a letter in a hidden drawer of the table, addressed to the chancellor by someone referring to themselves as “The Little Prince.” Noi is going to have to find a lot more than this if he is to bring this matter before the Dwarven King.

In this example we began with a fictional description and we ended with one, the rules simply provided a bridge between the two in the middle.

In many role playing games the player may have simply entered the office and declared he was using wisdom to look for clues and rolled the dice, but this rule exists exactly to prevent such a scenario. The player is instead encouraged to think about what his player is doing in the fictional world, and how he’s interacting with his environment. The benefit of this is it enhances the story told at the table, and also helps the GM decide on how best to use and interpret the rules.

Now this is particularly important to a 13th Age, a game that uses character backgrounds as a means of task resolution. When a character attempts to do something in the game that has dramatic consequences or a chance of failure, the GM does not have a hard and fast skill list to draw upon. He must think which ability score is most relevant to the task at hand, how difficult the task is going to be, and what kind of backgrounds may apply.

This process is made easier if the player fully narrates what his character is doing, as well as his intent. A canny player may even describe his action so he can take advantage of a background, and this kind of play should be encouraged. The player is taking the written words on his character sheet and bringing them to life by playing his character within the shared fictional world, and that sort of thing is really the whole point in a character-driven narrative-game.

Noi has been asking around the underbelly of the royal capital and he’s heard whispers that the head of one the thieves guilds calls himself the “Little Prince.” He’s managed to corner a lower member of the guild in a dark back alleyway, a sneaky little weasel that goes by the name of Regnar. Aaron describes how Noi grabs Regnars by his shirt, pulls him close enough so they are nearly touching and demands to know where the Little Prince’s hideout is. The GM declares that it sounds like a Charisma check but the Little Princes wrath is well known to those who rat on his gang, so the GM assigns this a hard difficult in an adventurer-tier environment. As it stands, none of Noi’s backgrounds apply to this check, so to get an advantage Aaron tells the GM that as he issues his threat, he mentions how he was expelled from the Royal Guard for the unlawful torture of the crown’s enemies. The GM likes it, and allows Noi to apply his +4 bonus from his “Former kings guard” background.

This principle also applies to combat and powers. Take a look at the 13^th Age classes and you will notice a glaring difference between 13th Age and 4th edition D&D powers: you don’t get a little bit of italic flavor text in the power write-up. Does this mean that Rob and Jonathan play dry combats that don’t focus on narration? I don’t think so. If you have any doubt, listen to Rob running a 13th age game for the Geek Nation guys that is posted on the Pelgrane Press website.

Rather I think they saved themselves some space in the book by making the assumption 13th Age is going to appeal to a group of creative people that are going to create their own descriptions anyway.

Again this relates to beginning and ending with the fiction, as a player, start your action in combat by describing how your power or spell looks and feels within the game world. This description need not even be consistent and may change based on the circumstances. Roll the dice and the GM will end the fiction by telling you the effectiveness of your action. Through his process, combat becomes a shared narrative experience between the players and the GM as they vividly describe what is going on back and forth.

How could Noi be so stupid? He had failed to notice three of Regnras cronies skulking in the shadows of the alley, and now they had him surrounded, wicked looking curved blades drawn. He loosed his shield and took a hard grip of his warhammer, today like just like so many others he would have to fight, or die. Aaron rolls the dice to attack the nearest thug and scores a hit, and he uses the natural result of 17 to activate his “Defensive Training” flexible power. He describes how he swings his hammer in a wide arc slamming it into the thug’s skull, then quickly retreats behind his shield, just like he used to all those years ago, when he and his men formed the shield walls in the Frost Giant Wars. His men were long dead, but still, these thugs were welcome to try and beak the wall.

Starting and ending with the fiction transcends numbers and stat blocks, and brings your games to life in a way that makes them become more akin to what you would see in an exciting and dramatic novel, or a movie.

James Ramage is a 25 year old gamer from Scotland, sailor of the high-seas and advocate of the “new school of gaming.” He started gaming in high school on bread-and-butter Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition, back in the pre-revision days when choosing to play a ranger meant being a fighter that could talk to the odd sparrow, and very little else. He has just started a new campaign using the 13th Age, and is a strong supporter of Dungeon World, The One Ring RPG, Mouseguard and many other narrative-driven games.