Review: In the Prison of the Squid Sorcerer

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

The Iron Tavern recently received an early release copy of In the Prison of the Squid Sorcerer from Mystic Bull Games. The book comes in around 44 pages not including license information and is written by Ken Jelinek, Daniel Bishop, John Humphrey, Jon Wilson, and Paul Wolfe. The book is a collection of short encounters, 12 in total, designed to be easily dropped into an existing Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG campaign. Each encounter comes with a map and a new creature. The book is available in PDF format at RPGNow. I believe a print-on-demand version is in the works.

Most of the adventures are 2-4 pages in length and can be played in a single session. A couple of the adventures are actually designed to have portions “sprinkled” in over a longer period of time. This style lends itself well to being used to add detail to existing campaigns. Filler for between the major plot points of a campaign that help a campaign feel like there are always things going on in the world.

The level ranges covered tend to be low-level to mid-level, though a couple of the adventures are suitable for any level. From what I have seen from my various social media circles the low to mid-level focus should cover a lot of the already running DCC RPG campaigns.

The adventures within do an exemplary job of hitting the Appendix N feel. Extra-dimensional imprisonments, time shifting, alternate realities bleeding through to the known world, and fantastical creatures all contribute to unique feeling adventures. The many threats contained with this book are sure to torment your players and keep them on their toes.

For the judge, the adventures are just the right size to drop into existing campaigns as noted above. Several adventures can make good side treks for adventurers on the road or passing through small villages. Others work well for adventurers operating from a city as the base of their operations.

A map is included for most of the adventures. The one’s that do not are not tied to any one particular location, so a map is not required or applicable. The maps are done by John Humphrey and are often isometric in style. I always enjoy isometric style maps and it is nice to see this style in this book.

Black and white art fills the interior of the book accompanying each adventure.

Even if an adventure does not quite fit in with your campaign, there are numerous bits ripe for plundering from the book. Unique creatures, new cults, or even maps that could be re-worked with your own story. There is certainly something a judge of a DCC RPG campaign can “borrow” for their own campaign.

Normally when reviewing an adventure module I try to provide some detail about the adventure itself without giving too much away. Given the shorter nature of the adventures in this book, I am hesitant to detail too much about each adventure. As I noted above, the very strong Appendix N feel of each adventure within makes it a perfect choice for DCC RPG judges.

I really like the nature of a book that has many smaller encounters or adventures for me to use. All too often I pick up a module, which may be great, but just doesn’t fit into my campaign well. Either the subject matter doesn’t fit in or it is simply for a level range not appropriate for my campaign.

With this book, I already have plans to work several of the adventures into my existing campaign. The adventures make it very easy to drop-in as the group heads from place to place or while they are hanging out in their base city of operations. Products like this help make my job as a DCC RPG judge easier by providing these easy hooks for adventures. In addition there are several monsters and possible patrons I can “borrow” for my own campaign, even from the adventures I might not run in this current campaign.

This is a very strong offering from Mystic Bull Games for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. I definitely encourage DCC RPG judges to check In the Prison of the Squid Sorcerer out. I suspect you will find use for several of the adventures within. Even if you choose not to use an adventure as written, there is sure to be creatures, maps, magic items and more you can make use of in your game.

Review: Gygax Magazine

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

The Wait

On February 9th I received my shipment notification for my Gygax Magazine subscription noting my first issue had shipped. From about February 14th onward I began anxiously checking my mailbox every day for my copy to be here. I was frequently met with disappointment as each day the mailbox held no copy of the magazine for me.

On Saturday, February 23rd I received my notification the PDF copy of the magazine was available for download from DriveThruRPG. This was a welcome surprise as it seemed the word on whether subscribers received a free copy of the PDF went back and forth between yes and no. I am quite pleased that it turns out I do get a digital copy of the magazine as well.

I held out hope my actual print copy would arrive on Saturday as well and only downloaded the PDF to my iPad, not actually opening it. My patience paid off as the friendly postal worker delivered my magazine to my door just a few hours later!

I had been one of those people concerned about how long it had taken to receive the magazine. The PDF option helped lessen that concern a bit. The other thing I must remind myself of is even back in the Paizo Dragon days it used to seem to take a long time for me to actually receive my issue. There must be something about shipping a magazine at the periodical rate that equates to saying “send on the next mule that leaves the city”.

The Reading

So I immediately headed to the fridge to get the Dead Guy Ale I had held in reserve for this moment, I turned off all my electronic devices and settled in with the magazine I had anxiously been awaiting. I was a little nervous as I had read an early review or two that was not thrilled with all of the articles saying several seemed more ego filled, patting their own back than anything else.

First, this thing looks so much like the old Dragon magazine I grew up with in the 80’s it is uncanny. Opening up to just the table of contents further cements the this look. This look will bring a lot of fond memories flooding back for those of us who used to read Dragon many years ago.

I did a quick flip through, leafing through the magazine before settling in on the first article to read, The future of tabletop gaming by Ethan Gilsdorf. I really enjoyed this article, it too struck home on so many counts. After a depiction of what life was like as a kid in the 70’s-early 80’s, talk of Star Wars the movie and then his introduction to D&D. “I consumed the game and it rapidly consumed me.” is a sentence from that article. How many of us does that single sentence describe? He goes on to talking about D&D as time moves on and how it is today and how it will survive into the future. This article resonated with me on so many notes, it is easily my favorite article in the magazine.

From there I bounced around the magazine a bit. Gaming with a virtual tabletop by Nevin Jones was a good read. It focuses on Roll20 and how it helped bring some gamers together for online gaming.

DMing for your toddler by Cory Doctorow was interesting as I run games for my kids frequently. It was nice to see how he simply adapted on the fly to gaming with kids and seeing what tactics others use. I think it was cool to see someone not needing to purchase a special kids RPG product, but just adapt a game you already know down to the kid level with some tweaks.

There is a small section in the magazine labeled Kobold’s Cavern which is where some articles previously destined for Kobold Quarterly are going to appear, shepherded by Wolfgang Baur. A couple of AGE articles make their appearance here and a very nice alternative for Pathfinder feats with the introduction of scaling combat feats. This was an article written by Marc Radle and was an interesting take on tweaking how certain Pathfinder feats work. If I run a Pathfinder game again, I think I will be taking another closer look at this article.

Included as a special attraction is a writeup on a village by the name of Gnatdamp. Written by Michael Curtis it was an excellent location article. With a full page map of the village, an overview, a closer look at life in Gnatdamp, and much, much more this will be infinitely useful the next time I need a village for my PCs to find themselves in. It walks the delicate balance between enough detail to be useful without venturing into overly detailed territory quite nicely.

At the end of the magazine there are full color comics – Marvin the Mage, Phil and Dixie, and Order of the Stick. Yep – that is not a typo, Phil and Dixie are back!

The PDF

I did all of my reading for this review on the print copy. I did fire up the PDF on my iPad though just to take a look. The display and readability on the iPad was great. The downside was the magazine was not bookmarked. In today’s day and age of the PDF a non-bookmarked PDF was pretty unusual. Hopefully they either update the current PDF or at the very least improve that with the next PDF issue.

Thoughts

As is evident from the articles I touched on above I am really satisfied with my purchase of this magazine. My decision to purchase a subscription to it sight unseen has further been reinforced with this inaugural issue.

Yes, there was some people starting their article with a short blurb on their credentials. I did not find that out of place or obtrusive in the slightest. It felt more like gathering around the table a bit to hear from some folks that have been playing D&D and been in the industry for a long time.

There were some articles I was not fond of in the magazine. An article on science fiction in your game and an article on ICONS. I very much live in the fantasy RPG niche and I am not too into superhero games. But even the old Dragon of past used to have articles like this and I remember skipping those articles even then. There is enough value in the articles I did enjoy that the inclusion of these non-fantasy genres is not a significant issue. If nothing else it reminds me of the Dragon magazines I read as a kid!

I am quite pleased with the inaugural issue of Gygax Magazine. The magazine is available in print and PDF. I would recommend giving the magazine a chance and taking a look. I enjoyed my read through of it and am already anxiously awaiting next quarter’s issue!

Review: Adventure-A-Week

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

Over the past few weeks I had the opportunity to review some of the materials being put out by Adventureaweek.com. For those unfamiliar with the site, Adventureaweek.com releases a new adventure for Pahfinder and D&D 3.5 every week. These are not short, one or two encounters, but full adventures to run with your group. The adventures are in color and include maps and full layout design.

What You Get

The site is subscription fee based, for $9.99 per month you will receive one adventure per week and gain access to the back catalog of adventures already released. The adventures are available in web format or PDF. They are beginning to release their products in print form as well. In addition adventures come with maps for the GM, Players, and ready for VTT use. Hero Lab files are included for users of that tool. The web formatted versions are extensively hyperlinked and compatible with tables to ease running games from your table.

The Review

For my review I requested two styles of adventure – a city based adventure and a good old fashioned dungeon crawl adventure. Adventureaweek.com was readily able to provide me with a an example of each from their back catalog. My review is based on the PDF version of the adventures. For this review I am going to look at each of those adventures and then at the service as a whole. At the end we will touch on some of the other things Adventureaweek.com has going on in the future.

To Catch A Serpent

To Catch A Serpent was the example of a city-based adventure I received. The adventure is a 10th level adventure for 4-6 PCs. The PCs find themselves in the city of Tawwa amidst a series of murders. Drawn into the investigation the PCs find themselves moving about the city gathering clues that eventually lead to the sewers under the city itself. Within the sewers they seek to find out who or what is responsible for the recent events in the city.

For the GM the adventure opens with an adventure background and then a summary to quickly advise the GM how the adventure is likely to proceed. Several adventure hooks are also provided to help get things underway for the GM and PCs.

Sometimes investigative adventures with 10th level PCs is difficult to pull off. 10th level spellcasters have a myriad of resources available to them to “shortcut” an investigation rather quickly. This adventure has a section to help the GM with that, offering several valuable tips on how to handle some of the more powerful investigative spells 10th level casters will have. I think it does so in a way that won’t make a caster feel cheated, the divination spells will still be useful, just not reveal the whole basis for the adventure up front. Very handy section for this adventure.

Stats for the creatures are provided in both Pathfinder and D&D 3.5 versions. The stat blocks are included at the end of the adventure and are quickly accessible by clicking the appropriate link in the PDF in the encounter area. Clicking the link takes the reader to the back of the PDF where the full stat block resides.

The adventure itself is an interesting romp through the city and under the city to ferret out the source of the problems for the city. The characters will get to encounter several interesting creatures along the way as well.

Alagoran’s Gem

Alagoran’s Gem was the sample of a good old fashioned dungeon crawl adventure. This one was written for 4-6 PCs at levels 3-5. This one is a C-series adventure which is written to capture the “old school” feel in dungeon crawl adventures. A link to a post on Old School gaming is included in the preface to set the tone for this adventure.

This adventure is sure to be fun for anyone who enjoys the deadliness of a Tomb of Horrors type adventure. Deadly traps, encounters and such that challenge both the player and character are par for the course for this adventure. I would almost feel guilty running a set of established Pathfinder or D&D 3.5 characters through this one due to the deadliness. It would make a great one-shot though for an afternoon of deadly fun!

This adventure also opens with an adventure background, synopsis and hooks to get your characters to the dungeon. The map for this adventure is in color and very well done showing the expanse of this dungeon adventure. There is a nice mix between traps and creature encounters throughout the adventure.

I will certainly be tucking this one aside as an adventure to run on the fly at a convention or a time when I have need of a one-shot adventure to torment my players with. Though very deadly, I really liked the feel of this adventure.

Adventuress Overall

Looking at the two adventures overall, they are put together in a way to make them easy to run with minimal prep. Information the GM needs is handily called out in colored text boxes with icons to designate whether the block is a trap, skill check, read-aloud text, and such. This makes overlooking a key point while running the adventure much less likely. Very handy if trying to run the adventure on minimal prep.

As noted above, these adventures are for use in both Pathfinder and D&D 3.5. There are some differences between these systems. In encounter descriptions there are links to both the 3.5 and PF version of the monster. The GM only needs to click it and they are sent to the correct system stat block. This helps cut down on the number of stat blocks in the encounter text itself which would become unwieldy if two systems worth of stat blocks were embedded in the encounter area itself.

The maps by Todd Gamble are of very good quality. Having a GM map, player map, and VTT map is very useful for the GM.

I did take a look at the web version of Crow’s Rest Island as well. It is extensively hyperlinked to help with moving around in the document. It also includes some sound files to play during the course of the game to add to the ambiance. It is an interesting way to present an adventure and having the choice between a web format and PDF is great for the GM.

Overall Adventureaweek.com seems to be packed with value and a very regular release schedule. If you find yourself constantly looking for new and fresh adventures to run that your players have not already read or played, Adentureaweek.com is well worth checking out.

They do offer Crow’s Rest Island as a free preview to check out before signing up for a subscription. If you are curious about the service, start there and also be sure to check out the FAQ on the site.

Adventure-A-Week Extras

In addition to their different lines of adventures being released on a weekly basis, they set this all against their own campaign world. This world is optional as the adventures can be dropped into other published settings or your own homebrew. But if you are kicking off a campaign and do not have a setting in mind, Adventureaweek.com provides you with one as a backdrop for your game.

Adentureaweek.com is also accepting Adventure Submissions. The process and formatting requirements are detailed on their Submit my Adventure page. A possible way for aspiring adventure writers to get their start in the publishing world.

Rise of the Drow Kickstarter

Adventure-A-Week is also running a Kickstarter for their Rise of the Drow trilogy. This adventure is for both Pathfinder and D&D 3.5, just as the other modules part of Adventure-A-Week are for. The Kickstarter is to raise funds for a hardback book for these modules in full color and expanded content. They have well surpassed their initial goal and are charging through their stretch goals, adding content and art to the book with each goal. There are still 30 days left with this post, so plenty of time to check out this Kickstarter as well.

Review: Dungeons of Golarion

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

This review is a repost of my original review of this product for the Seekers of Secrets Pathfinder blog. The original review is no longer available on that site and I wanted to preserve the post here at The Iron Tavern.

Price: Print – $19.99 / PDF – $13.99
Audience: GMs
Crunch: 3.5/5
Fluff: 5/5
Overall: 5/5 (not an average)

Dungeons of Golarion is a 64 page book that is part of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting series of books from Paizo. The book looks closely at six different megadungeons within the Inner Sea region of Golarion, the Pathfinder Campaign setting. These megadungeons include Candlestone Caverns, Gallowspire, Hollow Mountain, Pyramid of Kamaria, Red Redoubt of Karamoss and Zolurket Mines. It also lists 17 other dungeons within Golarion each with a short paragraph about the dungeon.

The six megadungeons each get ten pages that include an overall layout map of the dungeon, history, descriptions that cover the entrance and brief overview of each level, a section on denizens, traps, treasures and finally adventure hooks.

While the descriptions of each level are brief, there is plenty of information to help a GM discover the feel of each level. The balance between having the feel for the dungeon and being able to design your own level is excellent. Just enough information to get the ideas flowing rapidly without forcing the GM into being restrained by overly defined levels.

The book is heavier on the fluff side, but there is some crunch sprinkled in to keep the more crunch inclined interested. Amongst the chapters on the six megadungeons there are new denizens, new traps and new magic items and such to work with. For the Numeria fans there is also some information on robots that comes from the section on Red Redoubt of Karamoss.

The art and cartography are up to the usual Paizo quality. The maps and dungeon layouts look great, though one of the dungeon layouts includes a key that indicates each square is 10′ when really the map is not entirely to scale. Minor issue and does not affect the quality of the map itself. The art work has several images that are sure to inspire heroics within the dungeon!

I have very little to complain about in this book. While not a huge fan of the amount of technology in Red Redoubt of Karamoss with its Numeria based technology, it is a well done section and I am sure fans of technology from Numeria will enjoy it! And the book does warn for those that are not fans of the fantasy blending into technology it is might be best to avoid that dungeon or the book offers a couple of alternatives of how to scale down the technology if desired by the GM.

I found the Gallowspire write-up very interesting and certainly a dungeon to challenge the highest level Pathfinder characters. An interesting sidebar in this section notes that several of the levels in Gallowspire contain threats beyond levels the currently published Pathfinder ruleset cover with some levels going to CR24+.

I found the Dungeons of Golarion a very enjoyable read. It offers a plethora of plot hooks for all of these dungeons and really gets the GMs mind turning. There is enough detail on the dungeons to give a GM a solid start to designing a megadungeon to haunt their players for an entire campaign. And for those who might not game in Golarion the dungeons within could easily be dropped into your campaign world of choice.

I rated the crunch portion of the book a 3.5 out of 5 simply due to the amount of crunch in the book. What was in the book was good, but those looking for a crunch heavy book are apt to be disappointed. From the fluff perspective I rate the book a 5/5. There is history included behind each dungeon and enough plot hooks to keep a GM busy for a long time. This leaves me with an overall rating of 5/5 as I do expect the Campaign Setting series of books to be much more about the fluff than the crunch!

Review: Queen of Thorns

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

Author: Dave Gross
Publisher: Paizo Publishing
Price: Print – $9.99 / PDF $6.99
Pages: 432

Queen of Thorns is the latest novel by Dave Gross in the Pathfinder Tales line from Paizo Publishing.This is Dave’s third novel for the Tales line, along with numerous short fiction pieces that grace the weekly Wednesday fiction blog post on Paizo’s site. In fact Dave’s work kicked off the Pathfinder Tales line with Prince of Wolves and later Master of Devils.

The trio of books has followed the same pair of characters half-elven Varian Jeggare and tiefling Radovan along with their animal companion Arnisant. The first novel found the pair in the nation of Ustalav within the world of Golarion. The next novel found them in the far reaches of Tian Xia.

The Story

This third novel finds the pair having reached Kyonin in efforts to have Varian’s elegant red carriage repaired from a previous misadventure. This seemingly simple task quickly transpires into an exciting journey amongst a web of elven politics through Kyonin in search of the missing druid who originally crafted the carriage.

Opening with their arrival in the elven nation of Kyonin, the reader gets a brief history of the elven race in Golarion as the story gets rolling. During the course of this introduction the reader is introduced to several elves that will play a role as the story unfolds.

Varian and Radovan quickly learn the person they seek is missing, and has been missing, from the elven nation for some time by the human count of years. An assistant to the druid remains behind however and provides a lead to track down the missing druid. With a small contingent of other elves to assist, the pair head off into the forests of Kyonin to search for the missing druid.

Demons have been stirring in the forests of Kyonin plaguing the journey of the search party along the way. During the course of these travels we learn a little more about each of the characters in the entourage that accompany Varian and Radovan.

The search moves from landmark to landmark as the group looks for traces of the missing druid. The search culminates in an area thought to be forgotten by many elves as events come together for an exciting climax.

How was it?

The third novel continues to use the first person form, alternating chapters between Varian and Radovan. This alternating style took me a bit to get used to when I first read Prince of Wolves. In fact I would have even called it jarring to me at the time. This feeling passed quickly and I have come to really enjoy this alternating view. I attribute a lot of this to how the author really captures the feel of each character in their chapters. Each character has their own very unique personality and the author is able to convey this quite well in each chapter through speech style, mannerisms and thoughts. I now find myself looking forward to this writing style in each of the Varian and Radovan books.

As a regular reader of the Pathfinder Tales line, it feels like coming home to pick up another volume by Dave Gross. Varian and Radovan feel very familiar now and I look forward to the banter and mannerisms between the two as the story unfolds. Queen of Thorns continues to deliver in this regards.

The pacing of the story keeps a steady, engaging clip throughout. From gaining insight to the elves of Golarion as we are introduced to the other key players and as the story leads us from Kyonin landmark to Kyonin landmark as the journey unfolds to its culmination.

Overall I would consider Queen of Thorns my favorite of the three Varian and Radovan novels. Whether that is due to the author really hitting his stride with this set of characters or whether it be my eagerness to read more about this pair I cannot be sure. In either case Queen of Thorns is at the top of my list when it comes to novels in the Pathfinder Tales line.

5 out of 5 Tankards

Review: Faiths of Balance

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Jeffrey Tadlock

Price: Print – $10.99 / PDF – $7.99
Audience: Players (and GMs)
Crunch: 3.5/5
Fluff: 4/5
Overall: 4/5 (not an average)

Faiths of Balance is a 32 page book that is part of the Pathfinder Player Companion series of books from Paizo. The Player Companion series of books have a player focus, but have a good amount of useful information for GM’s as well. This book looks at the major neutral gods in the Golarion setting as well as a brief look at some of the minor deities. Also included in the book are new character traits, feats, spells and magic items with a focus on those members of the neutral faith.

The book starts with covering the seven major neutral gods in Golarion – Abadar, Calistria, Gorum, Gozreh, Irori, Nethys and Pharasma. The Green Faith is also included in the major god section. Each god receives two pages in the book that include a brief overview of the god, why adventurer’s might follow them, typical classes that follow them, goals, what identifies worshippers, the type of devotion, how other faiths get along with followers, taboos, two traits and a little about the church of each god.

The next section briefly covers eight minor deities with a short write up. A brief description of the deity is given, including their favored weapon and a new trait for a follower of the minor deity.

Next are organizations that claim allegiance to the major gods, though not officially sponsored by the church. Each major god has an organization covered in this section.

The last portions of the book include new religious feats, channel foci, minor magical items and new spells. A sidebar within the magical item section contains the paladin code for Abadar and the final section of the book covers religious holidays for each of the major deities.

This book is heavier on fluff than crunch, but with two new traits for major deity and one new trait for each minor deity and dedications sections for feats, magic items and spells there is plenty for a crunch-loving player to find in this book and not be disappointed.

Paizo continues with artwork that pulls a reader into a fantasy world, leading with a wonderful cover featuring Imrijka, the half-orc inquisitor, by Lucas Graciano. The artwork within the book is also of usual Paizo quality.

I found the major deity section full of ideas that would help any character have a better feel for their deity of choice. Whether it be more information on how followers of one deity would react to others to the types of classes drawn towards certain deities to information about the church itself. The information would help me play a accurate follower or as a GM help me shape my NPCs and give a more representative feel of the various neutral faiths.

The minor deity section will be useful to those who prefer to follow those deities, though the detail is brief concerning them. The information in this section could also prove useful to a GM that wants to work in a plot involving NPCs or followers of these minor deities.

The organization section of the book is a great resource for GMs who would like to introduce these loosely affiliated organizations into their game. I found The Companies of the Red Standard an order of mercenaries sworn to Gorum particularly interesting and several ideas floating around of how I could work brushes with this organization into a campaign. I am sure several other of the organizations mentioned in the book will provide ideas for GMs for their own game.

Of the new spells, magic items and feats I found myself most interested in the new channel focus items. Channel focus items were introduced with the Pathfinder Player Companion Adventurer’s Armory and is an object that can act as a holy symbol. The special ability of the channel focus item can be activated by the use of a channel energy. I find this an interesting concept and liked seeing more items available for use. For some reason the whip just calls out for a divine follower of Calistria!

All in all I felt Faiths of Balance was another strong offering by Paizo. While geared towards use by the player I think a GM can find plenty of information to be useful to their campaign as well, especially if the neutral based deities were going to play a larger role in their campaign.

I rated the crunch portion of this book a 3.5 out of 5. Between the new spells, traits, feats and magic items there are several options to help get the feel you might want for your character with a neutral deity focus. I feel the book is stronger from the fluff perspective and offers much to both the player and GM to further understand the nuances of the neutral deities. I am rating it a solid 4 out of 5 on the rating scale. I rate the book as a whole a 4 out of 5 – another solid book from Paizo for players and GMs alike!

Mini-Review: Decahedron

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Jeffrey Tadlock

Decahedron is the first issue of its free fanzine from DwD Studios. The inaugural issue supports their recent RPG release BareBones Fantasy, a rules-light fantasy genre roleplaying game. Haven’t heard of BareBones Fantasy yet? Don’t worry, we will be taking a closer look at that system in an upcoming post at The Iron Tavern.

Decahedron is a short 10 page fanzine and is available for free. One of the driving goals is to provide a location for fans to get their content published and out to the community.

The first issue weighs in with six articles and a high resolution map on the back cover. The map is a typical dungeon map with 25 rooms for the crafty GM to populate and drop into his campaigns. The inclusion of a map is supposed to be a regular feature for future issues. So even if you aren’t a BareBones Fantasy RPG player or GM, it could still be worth your time to grab a copy of the fanzine just for the map.

First up in this issue is a table of 100 descriptors for use with your character in BareBones Fantasy. A portion of creating your character in BBF is to note a descriptor, or short phrase that describes a focus or trait of your character. Something like “follows a strict diet” or “drinking songs invariably evolve into sacred hymns”. This table has 100 such descriptors to either get your creative juices flowing or to roll randomly on.

A new spell called Commune is included in a feature called Grimoire. The entry contains plenty of crunch to be dropped into your BBF game if you are looking to add new spells to your game.

The next article was Game Options. This article covered the process that evolved into coming up with the rules for two-weapon fighting in BBF. I found this article particularly enjoyable for a couple of reasons. First, I still envision being able to play a dwarven berserker type that wades into battle with two axes. It is sort of a test as to how well a system is going to suit me! This optional feature looks promising, striking a balance between offense and defense. Second, I enjoyed reading the thought process of what discussion went into crafting the crunch for this optional mechanic. Definitely a good read!

A short adventure from Matt Jackson makes its way into the pages. Only taking three pages of print, a map, adventure hooks, and encounter descriptions are all included. It looks like a fun adventure to drop in as a side encounter for an ongoing BBF campaign or perhaps as a one-shot to demo the game for folks at a convention.

And finally the issue closes out with a new creature from Larry Moore and a new character race by Mike Wikan. Both are one-page articles that seek to add more options to the BBF game.

The art in this fanzine is excellent. DwD Studios is picking up the tab on the art contained within to help keep the fanzine free for people.

Check the fanzine out even if you are new to BBF. Even if BBF isn’t your game, the map at the back is sure to be useful. The adventure within could always be adapted to your game of choice as well.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Posted on December 16, 2012 by Jeffrey Tadlock

Background

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has not been without its naysayers prior to release. Many wondered why it was going to be released as two movies and even more grumbled when it was announced that Peter Jackson was going to extend it to a trilogy. The Hobbit as a book was a relatively short book and moved along at a fairly rapid pace. How was Peter Jackson going to stretch it out to the length of a trilogy?

The answer of course was to draw in material from the appendices and other sources. I believe there are various interviews with Peter Jackson where he says they were licensed to use up to 125 pages of more material in total. This additional material would add the extra minutes to tell the tale and extend the movie from two films and finally to a trilogy.

Now the movie has been out for a few days and as expected the reviews are at various points on the spectrum. Some folks love it, some folks hate it. Some say the extra pieces detract from The Hobbit as a story, breaking the flow of the original story. Some say 90 minutes of the film could be dropped and nothing would be lost. Some say this film is better than any of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Obviously opinions vary quite widely on the movie.

Here are my thoughts on the movie. For those seeking to avoid any spoilers at all, you may want to bookmark this post and come back after you have seen the movie. Otherwise, read on!

Which version do I go see?

The Hobbit is being offered in a myriad of formats. 3D, 3D with high frame rate, IMAX, and good old fashioned 2D.

It was an easy choice for me. I went with the 2D version. I tried 3D in the theaters when it was all the rage again. I watched a movie or two in 3D this time around and I still thought it looked a lot like Jaws 3D did back in 1983. I just wasn’t seeing that great of an improvement. If anything it was simply annoying to wear the glasses and the kids weren’t a fan of the glasses either.

While I was intrigued by the high frame rate version, I still chose to go see it in 2D at my local theater. I have no regrets about that.

Who went?

My wife had no interest in going, plus due to a current medical condition it is best she not be exposed to a germy movie theater. She isn’t way into Tolkien or really long movies in general, so she was not terribly disappointed.
On the other hand my kids, son at age 9 and daughter at age 5 are huge fans of Middle-earth. My son has an attention span that rivals most adults I know, so I had no concerns about him. My daughter however can’t sit still for more than five minutes on most occasions. When I saw this release was 2 hours and 46 minutes I started trying to talk her out of wanting to go. Yesterday she told me “Dad, I don’t care what you say, you are not talking me out of going.” Yeah, I am going to be in trouble when this girl hits age 13.

Luckily, my Mom was willing to go to the theater with the sole purpose of taking my daughter out for a walk or break if she got restless. She volunteered for that duty without me even asking!

So I attended the movie with my two kids and my mom. My daughter, at age 5, was a rockstar! She had no issues sitting still through the movie. We never had to take her out of the theater for a walk or distraction. I did cover her eyes for a couple of brief scenes. But despite the length of the movie, she did great!

My son enjoyed the movie. I had forgotten to warn him that this was now a trilogy, so he was a little disappointed at that. But he had a good time with the film.

How was it?

I thought the movie was wonderful! Were there deviations from The Hobbit as written? Definitely. Did I care at all about the artistic deviations Jackson made with the film? Nope! I would have easily watched more in one sitting if it had been included.

I think of people go into the movie expecting a chapter by chapter rendition of The Hobbit are apt to be disappointed. The movie does not try to be a direct recount of The Hobbit. It tries to paint a much deeper and more detailed picture of Tolkien’s Middle-earth story. The extra pieces did not detract from the movie at all in my opinion.

The opening scenes helped set the stage about the dwarve’s history. While many my readers here are likely Tolkien fans, or at least familiar with The Hobbit story, not all moviegoers will be as familiar with dwarven history. I thought the scenes helped give the viewer that information. And knowing how The Hobbit does play out later on, I think pieces of information from these prelude scenes will really come into play.

I thought the dwarves were well done. The scenes in Bilbo’s house were splendid with the dwarves “being rude” as my daughter said. They did not all have long, gruff beards associated with dwarves, but these dwarves seemed younger than what I expect of most dwarves.

Radagast was depicted much differently than I would have expected. I am not sure if I really like how he was depicted in the movie, I can certainly deal with it in the course of things. He seemed just a little too “out there” for my tastes. But he did have some fun moments in the movie. His “sled-rabbits” were great!

The Rivendell scenes later in the movie were wonderful as well. The splendor of Rivendell always rings true with me for how I visualize elven cities and population centers. With The Hobbit it is no different. I do wish they had shown a bit more of Bilbo’s exploration of the city, but I was fine with what it was.

The Stone Giant scene is spectacular. It does deviate from The Hobbit in interpretation, but it made for great movie scenes! This was a favorite scene of my Mom.

The capture from the Front Porch in the mountains deviated from the book as written, but again in a way that I think worked for the movie. I have read that some thought the scenes here were action for the point of action, but I still think it played out well. I could see that some folks might be disappointed if they desired a strict interpretation from the book. But I was happy with the way this scene was interpreted.

The scenes with Bilbo with Gollum were were great! The riddles going back and forth between the two were quite similar to the book. My only complaint here was that I sometimes had a hard time hearing Gollum’s riddle clearly. But that may be my hearing more than the movie audio!

Escaping the clutches of the goblins, the dwarves, hobbit and Gandalf find themselves tracked by the orcs still. Forced into trees with worgs snarling at the bases of the trees led to a climactic scene with Thorin doing battle once again with the master orc.

The movie ends with the heroes being rescued by the eagles and dropped off within site of the Lonely Mountain in the distance.

I have heard a few complaints about the acting by some of the characters. I did not notice these issues. I did not see anything that I thought was forced. I did think the acting of Martin Freeman as Bilbo was excellent! Much less grating than how Frodo was portrayed in the LotR trilogy.

Summary

I was very pleased with this movie. While it is not a blow-by-blow account of The Hobbit was written by Tolkien, it was a wonderful film! I was actually disappointed when we reached the end of the movie and could easily have watched more. I really like what Peter Jackson has done with bringing Middle-earth to film and have no qualms with the liberties he has taken. For me, 2 hours and 46 minutes was too short of an experience in Middle-earth and I anxiously await the next installment of the trilogy.

Review: Crawl! Issue #5

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Jeffrey Tadlock

This issue of Crawl!, the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG fanzine wrangled by Reverend Dak was released in early November. I am running a little behind on getting my review of it posted! This issue is the monster themed issue and weighs in at the standard 24 pages in length. Crawl! is only available in paper form, though it is a welcome form of mail when my subscriber issue arrives!

What is Inside?

The issue opens with an article called Monsters with Class by Reverend Dak himself. This article covers adding class abilities to NPC monsters. These are guidelines to quickly apply class abilities to monsters that do not otherwise have them. They include boosts to Hit Dice, Saves and some additional abilities depending on how many Hit Dice the monster has. This is another example of keeping things simple and manageable with a minimum amount of prep time for an upcoming session.

Next up we have an Orc class. With a brief background on the orc culture the article moves into the mechanics of hit dice, weapon training, rage abilities. The article is complete with orc titles and a level progression chart.

Jeremy Deram’s DCC Monser Helper is included as the center spread in this issue. A series of charts that allow one to generate monster stats quite quickly based on type of monster (animal, dragon, fey, giant, undead, etc). Hit die values, attack bonuses, and which saves are good and which are bad are all noted. An additional chart helps calculate the saves and attack bonuses based on the initial table. I have used the web version of this table before and it is quite handy.

Consider the Greenskins is an article that puts a twist to classic D&D monsters – goblins, hobgoblins, and orks. This is just one example of how standard monsters can be “tweaked” a bit to make them unique to your DCC RPG campaign. Efforts such as these keep the players guessing and offers built-in plot points on how these creatures came to be.

Wandering Monster tables are included for levels 1 through 5, an article previously published by Jeff Rients on his blog. Certainly handy to have and a starting point for a judge wishing to tailor some wandering monster tables for their own campaign.

The final pages include four new monsters from two authors, Brad Littman and Colin Chapman. We get one page write-ups on the Fung-Eye (I will leave the visualization up to you!), the Stonecrawler, and a pair of monstrous canines.

The Standouts

As usual there are several standout articles in this issue of Crawl!. Monsters with Class is a good article that will help those who might be uncomfortable adjusting things on the fly. Just enough guidelines to let people know you don’t need pages and pages of complex rules to give short-lived monsters or NPCs class levels.

Wandering monster tables and the Quick Monster Stat articles are also useful articles, though both have been published on the web via blogs in the past. For those that have not discovered them previously they will prove quite useful.

I really enjoyed the monstrous canines which include the blood hound and gloom hound. Both are well-described and interesting monsters. Each includes a possible seed for a judge to use to introduce them to their game as well.

Several new art pieces were sprinkled about the issue. I really enjoyed Daniel Bishop’s piece Jason Adam’s artwork.

I was not a huge fan of the orc class for PCs. I should note that I think the write-up was good, I am simply not a fan of classes that stray too far from traditional classes. Perhaps simply naming it half-orc would have helped me clear that mental hurdle! I am sure some will be fans of the article and appreciate the new class.

The stonecrawler monster struck me as a little unusual and of questionable use. With its very slow movement rate and little inclination to attack, much less defend itself I am not sure it has a lot of value. Interesting concept, just not sure it merited more than an environmental hazard.

Overall, another fun issue of Crawl!. Looking forward to Issue #6!

Review: Elminster’s Forgotten Realms

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Jeffrey Tadlock

WotC and Me

I have not purchased a Wizards of the Coast product for several years. Recently they have found a way to get me to pry the dollars from my wallet to fork over to them. First it was the 1^st Edition reprints. I actually wasn’t going to buy them, but while at Gen Con I found the trio of books at a price that bettered even Amazon’s price. I couldn’t resist.

Then Ed Greenwood’s Elminster’s Forgotten Realms book caught my attention. This book is an edition neutral book full of fluff written by Ed Greenwood about the Forgotten Realms. This book made my pre-order list at Amazon. I am not sure if I have ever actually pre-ordered a D&D book, even in my 3.x days.

The Book

Elminster’s Forgotten Realms is a hardcover book coming in at 192 pages. The book retails for $39.95. The book is described as providing an insight into the Forgotten Realms world from the creator of the setting, Ed Greenwood. The book is system-less in nature, so whether you play any number of D&D editions or have converted the Realms to another fantasy RPG system there should be something in this book for you.

Ed Greenwood wrote the book with cover art by Jesper Ejsing. Interior art comes from a variety of artists including Ed Greenwood, Wayne England, Tyler Jacobsoon, Beth Trott, and more.

The book has six major sections covering all matters of Realmslore. These sections do not include the foreword, introduction, or afterword.

First up we have Life in the Realms which covers an array of topics. A brief portion covers viewpoints on the Realms from a racial perspective. Along the way we learn common Realms terms for common expressions. This chapter continues with information on events and festivals, theater in the realms, medicine, illness and medicines, drugs, poisons, and current news and rumors.

The next chapter discusses Laws and Orders. This chapter is a discussion of class and nobility, justice, property law, trade laws, handling the guilty, who enforces the laws, pacts and alliances, and more information on the infamous Zhentarim.

The book takes a closer look at where people in the Realms live. Not as in region, but what are their actual homes like, the local Inns and Taverns, food, drinks, and even fashion.

Money drives any society and this is where the next chapter takes us. This chapter covers work, day jobs for adventurers, guilds, trade and merchant princes, coinage by region, trade goods, and information about the slave trade within the Realms.

The next chapter is the longest in the book, with a look at Gods and Followers. The early parts of the chapter address how people in the Realms worship, why evil is allowed to exist when good deities have a known presence, charity, temple income, and priesthoods of the Realms. The priesthoods section is the longest and covers many of the major deities within the Realms.

The final chapter is in regards to The Art, or magic within the Realms. The prevalence of magic is covered, information on bloodlines, alchemy, bardic magic, elven music, spellsong, and more.

Amidst all of the chapters are images of notes written by Ed Greenwood regarding the Realms and submitted to editors over the years. These are a very interesting look into how the Realms grew over time.

My Thoughts

I really enjoyed my read through of this book. The book’s style is probably the closest I will ever get to sitting down at a table with Ed Greenwood in a tavern and listening to him spin his tales about the Realms. The tone of the book seemed very conversational to me.

The book is edition-less, so fans of 1e, 2e, 3.x, or 4e D&D who are fans of the Forgotten Realms are sure to find this a fun read. However, if you prefer books heavy on crunch, this may not be the book for you. There is not a single stat block, spell block, feat, or anything at all resembling a game statistic in the book. I find that a good thing, but if you buy books for crunch only, you will likely want to pass on this one.

The artwork in the book was decent and had its up and downs. Only a few pieces felt particular evocative to me. Art is such a subjective area of critique though, that I am sure there are others that feel differently from me. It wasn’t that the art was bad, just the majority of it did not strike a chord with me.

The primary highlight in this book for me were the pages that showed Ed Greenwood’s old notes. I could just imagine him with stacks of notes in his house that he typed up into some presentable format and sending them off. Over and over and over. The depth of the Realms and the campaigns Ed ran for his group just astound me.

One has to wonder why the Realms is steeped in such lore. The typed page from Ed on page 85 of the book provides insight for this I believe. The note for the page from Ed notes that for players that have read every book, module and more for D&D tend to turn the game into a wealth of metagame knowledge. He notes that drowning them in so much Realmslore that one cannot possible track it all the DM has brought things back into real roleplaying. I found that an interesting way to combat the metagame knowledge of players.

While I enjoyed the entire book, a couple of sections did stand out to me. From the Laws and Orders chapter there is a section on becoming a noble in Waterdeep. It was an interesting section. The detailing of how the Phull and Zulpair rose to power in Waterdeep was particular insightful.

In the same chapter I also found The Secret History of the Zhentarim a good read. I have tended to use Zhentarim in several of my Forgotten Realms campaigns in the past making this section stand out to me. The included typed diagram from Ed in this section was wonderful!

The book is full of nuggets of information to help a DM run a Forgotten Realms campaign. Even if you do not run the Realms for your campaign, there are many ideas that can be stolen for your own world.

Summary

I had been looking forward to the release of this book. It did not let me down and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and getting an even better feel for the Realms as Ed Greenwood wrote it. If you are a Realms fan I highly recommend adding this book to your collection. From the conversational style, to the intricacies of the Realm the reader can learn about, it is a very strong offering from WotC for Realms fans!