Category Archives: Review

Review: Never Unprepared – The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Session Prep

Posted on by

Author:  Phil Vecchione
Publisher:  Engine Publishing
Price: Print+PDF Bundle $19.95 / PDF $9.95
Pages:   132 (digest)
Tankard Rating:  5/5

The Book

Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Session Prep is the third book out from Engine Publishing. The book is written by Phil Vecchione, a gamer with 30 years of experience and illustrated by Matt Morrow and Christopher Reach.

Never Unprepared is a guide to session prep of any type of system you like to play, whether that be a fantasy genre, sci-fi, modern, or any other genre. The process it works the reader through is applicable to your RPG system of choice. The book has three major sections as the author walks the reader through the process of session preparation.

What is Inside?

The first major section is about understanding prep. This area delves into the five phases of preparation – brainstorming, selection, conceptualizing, documentation, and review. Each of these sections cover the individual process and defines it, covers what happens if you spend too little time on that area, what happens if you spend too much time on that area and how to improve and strengthen this area of your prep. Each section closes with a short question and answer section to help give the reader a feel for their skill level for these areas.

The next major section covers the prep toolbox. This section talks about tools for prep. It does not try to steer you towards good old fashioned paper and pencil or to more modern electronic tools, but talks about pros and cons and knowing your own abilities. It also talks about what makes a good tool for each of the building blocks of prepping a session. This helps the reader make a good choice for themselves regardless of whether they prefer electronic or paper and pencil tools.

Another interesting portion of this section is mapping out your creative cycle. The author is a working professional with a family at home and knows what it is like to carve out prep time. He walks you through a technique to map out just how much free time you have and then figure out when you are most creative. Using this information you can more easily map out when you should be scheduling your prep time, yet still balance with work and your family life.

The final major section of the book covers evolving your style. This talks about various concepts to make your prep a little easier. It covers building templates for you to use to help guide your prep. These templates can vary based on when you consider your strengths as a GM and what you consider weaknesses. When prepping areas that hit your strengths you can get by with fewer details. When prepping areas that you feel weak in, including a little more detail can be good.

Using a prep-lite approach in for session preparation is also covered. This includes more tips for getting the amount of preparation you need as a GM just right, while using each of the five steps detailed earlier in the book.

The final portion of this section talks about what to do when the real world intervenes. We have all been there where something comes up that cuts even more into what little time we have to prep. Several scenarios are covered in this section and how various obstacles can affect your prep and how to adjust.

The PDF version of this book is wonderfully bookmarked and has an extensive index. It is good to see that Engine Publishing understands the value of a well bookmarked PDF and the value of a good index. These things do matter to RPG consumers.

But Is It Any Good?

This book was very good. This book should be standard issue to any new GM or any GM that says they simply don’t have time to run a game anymore as real life responsibilities increase. The author has been there like all of us, from the time where we could spend all afternoon evening prepping for games, reading about gaming and doing research for the game. Now, with careers and families there just isn’t the time to prep like we used to. This book shows you how to make the most of your time and get the prep done you need to run a quality game.

Session preparation is often looked at as a very large task. Never Unprepared breaks it down into reasonable chunks of preparation. Some of these chunks can be done in the shower, while you wait in line and other places with minutes of downtime. Other portions of prep do take more contiguous amounts of time, but the book helps you determine where you can find these chunks of time and how to reduce the stress sometimes associated with taking time out of your day to work on gaming prep.

I appreciated the fact that the tools section did not push you into one particular tool or style. The author spent the time to tell you what was required of the tool, leaving it to the reader to pick his or her preferred tool based on requirements, not on someone pushing you in one direction. Understanding what a tool needs to accomplish goes further to helping the reader choose the right tool than anything else.

I also found the mapping of your creative time in contrast with your free time very valuable. I have never sat down to map out my free time, much less apply a creative time peak map over that. These tips can go far to help reduce any tension you might have within your family for taking time to prep games. The methods outlined in this book do not require you to abandon your work of family responsibilities.

This book will help you better prep for your games and work this prep into your busy schedule. The techniques outlined in the book are very solid building blocks to making sure the time you spend prepping for your game is well spent.

The next time I hear someone say they do not have time to run a game I will immediately point them to Never Unprepared as a place to start. This is a high quality offering from Engine Publishing with invaluable advice to anyone trying to figure out how to more effectively prep for their game.

Tankard Rating
5 tankards out of 5 tankards

Note: The Iron Tavern was provided a review copy of this book.

Review: Bone Hoard of the Dancing Horror

Posted on by

Author:  Daniel J. Bishop
Publisher:  Purple Duck Games
Price: PDF $2.75
Pages:   11
Tankard Rating:  4/5

Bone Hoard of the Dancing Horror is Purple Duck Games first release of an adventure to support Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG from Goodman Games. This line of adventures from Purple Duck Games is designed to be picked up and used alone in a DCC RPG game. This adventure is written for a party of second level characters.

From the teaser text at RPG Now we learn that terrible horrors lurk on in the long since missing Dellspero the Philosopher’s workshop. Do the magics he worked on yet remain in this workshop setup in what was once a temple of the Chaos Lords?

Bone Hoard of the Dancing Hoard is a single level dungeon. The judge is provided with some background text to reveal the history of the location. A section for the judge is also included that provided with hints on integrating the adventure with an existing campaign, the flow of the adventure and why the magic items within are handled the way they are.

Just before the module moves into the room descriptions the general overall feel for the dungeon is described to help provide the judge with the information he or she needs to keep things consistent. Each room in the dungeon is keyed, includes a brief “boxed text” description and then the details necessary for the judge to run the room.

The adventure includes new monsters, in fact none of the monsters used in the adventure are traditional by any sense. I found the monsters used within the module very fun to describe and use against the players! The monster aspect seemed to hit the prevalent “Appendix N” feel of DCC RPG quite well.

The adventure also includes several new magic items. Many of the magic items are single use items in efforts to keep with DCC RPG’s “magic items are not common” approach. For the one powerful item it does give away in the adventure, notes are included for the judge on how to handle that if it poses an issue.

I found this adventure well written and suitably twisted enough to fit right in with the DCC RPG feel.

One frustrating factor was the empty room factor to the dungeon. There were several rooms that were listed as empty rooms. I tend to not include many empty rooms in a dungeon. This is not a huge issue though, as these rooms could be spiced up a bit if one desired.

I ran this adventure for a group of people over Google+ Hangouts. It took us two sessions to complete, probably about 2.5 hours each session. A great time was had. One of the big differences with DCC RPG and the adventures that tend to be associated with it in comparison to most d20 type games I have played is that sometimes the characters run away!

This module was no exception. Early on there was an attempt to flee a particular threat, which did not pan out as the movement rate of a couple of the party members was abysmally slow. However, this did lead to a dramatic moment involving a shield wall put up by the dwarves and a rolling Halfling ball of death!

Later on in the module the party caught glance of one of the threats and made a conscious effort to avoid that encounter at all costs. They carefully skirted the area in question and managed to make off with the prize without facing the encounter they sought to avoid.

Overall this was a fun adventure and worked well as a one-shot and could have easily been dropped into an existing campaign as well. With the module being easily prepped it could also be picked up to fill a game session relatively last minute as well, especially given the price. I look forward to the future DCC RPG adventure releases from Purple Duck Games.

4 out of 5 Tankards

Review: Attack of the Frawgs

Posted on by

Author:  Stephen Newton
Publisher:  Thick Skull Adventures
Price: PDF $4.99
Pages:   9
Tankard Rating:  4/5

Attack of the Frawgs is the most recent adventure from Thick Skull Adventures for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. The adventure is designed for 8-14 0-level characters, but can be adapted for a party of 1st level characters. The adventure is a locale based adventure and can be played as a standalone adventure or used as part of the Princes of Kaimai adventure series.

The adventure starts in a remote location in a small village nestled at the base of a mountain range. When reports of walking frogs the size of men start passing about the village followed by a wounded trapper returning to the village the people need heroes to learn the fate of his partner.

As noted this is a locale based adventure and allows the characters to investigate the fate of the lost trapper in whichever direction they choose. The detailed encounter areas are all centered about Dead Goblin Lake once the character leave town. There is a map of the area around the Lake and two additional maps of areas of the adventure that require additional detail.

I thought the encounters within the module all fit well together. They also meshed with the environment of the adventure quite well, while still offering an interesting variety of encounters.

The adventure also includes two new monsters for judges and one new item of magic.

The layout of the module is clean and well organized. I did notice that the module was a bit slow scrolling on my iPad (using Goodreader) and even a touch slow on my laptop. That is a minor complaint, though I am curious why it is a little sluggish even compared to much larger RPG PDFs.

This is my first look at a Thick Skull Adventures product and I was quite impressed with the offering. The module was easy to read and the way each encounter made sense in the larger scope of the adventure gave it a quality feel. While written as part of a series of modules, a judge could easily drop this into their own campaign world with minimal effort.

I look forward to reading future adventures from Thick Skull Adventures!

Tankard Rating
4 tankards out of 5 tankards

Note: The Iron Tavern was provided a review copy of this book.

A Look At Roll20

Posted on by

A couple of weeks ago I took a look at Tabletop Forge, a VTT for use in a Google+ Hangout. I used it to run a Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG one-shot game. One of the comments on that post asked about Roll20, another VTT that has the ability to be used within a Google+ Hangout. I had glanced at the Roll20 VTT prior to that comment but that spurred me to take a closer look.

This week I ran another Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG game over Google+ Hangouts using the Roll20 application. Roll20 is in open beta and has a good sized features list. Roll20 can be accessed via a web browser and includes its own voice and video system. It can also be integrated into a Google+ Hangout as an application. The testing I did with it was as a Google+ Hangout application, so this commentary will not cover the integrated voice and video chat of Roll20.

Roll20 has several other features including a searchable art library to allow easily dragging tokens and such to the map, a jukebox to play background music to the players, built in text chat, dice rolling, macros, fog of war, turn tracker, drawing tools, health bars and more. Roll20 also allows you to prep a campaign file prior to the game and it will be there when you connect for your actual session.

For the game I ran I did some pre-game prep. Roll20 let me prep multiple map pages before the game. So on the first map I just dropped the module cover into the map. As players assembled in my Google Hangout and launched Roll20, they saw the initial opening image.

On the second map I used a player copy of the map from the adventure I ran and applied the fog of war to it. Since DCC RPG is able to be played gridless, I dropped a single token on the map to indicate the party’s location, but did not represent each character. I tested the revealing of the fog and it seemed to work great during my prep.

Fog of War in Action.

I also took advantage of the macros and setup attack rolls and damage rolls for each of the encounters in the module. This was a nice feature as when combat occurred I could just call my macro and get the roll I needed. It was relatively simple to setup.

Come game time I went to the Roll20 website and chose launch the campaign in a Google+ Hangout. That launched the Hangout, I invited my circle of gamers for this game and the Hangout was live. As players connected I had them go to the apps tab in the Hangout and launch Roll20 from there. All save one connected with no issue. The player with problems launching the app did need to reboot, but quite likely not fault of Roll20.

Page Selection in Roll20

Once the players were connected I moved the player ribbon from the start page with the module cover to the map I had prepped. The fog of war feature worked great and we used the chat based dice roller for our rolls. All seemed to work well and a good time was had.

I followed up with my players this morning and asked them what they thought of the setup and had overwhelmingly positive reactions from them. The fog of war received good reviews. Some thought the dice rolling was a little complicated for doing some of the multiple dice rolls needed in DCC RPG. Some of these issues could be minimized with a little more time with the tool I think.

Overall as a GM I found the Roll20 app a really solid product offering. The application easily integrated with Google+ Hangouts which is nice as Google+ provided me with the tools to meet gamers, schedule the games and then a place to play. The fog of war worked well for me to show a map as the players moves along and the macros were quite useful as well for pre-prep. I could easily see myself running more games over the Roll20 application.

VTTs have come a long, long way in a few short years. With a lot of my online gaming happening over Google+ Hangouts it is great to have two very strong VTT contenders. At the moment I probably give Roll20 a bit of an edge. But with Tabletop Forge’s kickstarter complete I expect them to close the gap in very little time.

I will be keeping a close eye on both Tabletop Forge and Roll20 going forward.

Review: City of the Fallen Sky

Posted on by

Author:  Tim Pratt
Publisher:  Paizo Publishing
Price:  Print – $9.99 / PDF $6.99
Pages:   384
Tankard Rating:  4.5/5

City of the Fallen Sky is a recent release in the Pathfinder Tales line written by Tim Pratt. Tim Pratt has had stories appearing in The Best American Short Stories and  The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror among others. He also has a Hugo award to his name and Rhysling Award for best speculative poetry. This is the first Pathfinder Tales novel by Tim Pratt.

The tale starts in the city of Almas, the capital city of Andoran, following an alchemist by the name of Alaeron. Alaeron maintains an alchemist lab in the city, formerly his father’s lab. We soon learn that Alaeron has an intense interest in relics and has had associations with the Technic League in Numeria where he made off with relics of the Silver Mount.

Soon Alaeron finds himself caught up in the affairs of lovely woman that has fallen afoul of a prominent crime lord in Almas. Left with little choice but to assist her in paying her debt to this crime lord, Alaeron, the woman named Jaya and the thief Skiver sent to make sure they stay on task. The trio is tasked with located the fallen floating city of Kho and retrieving some relics to bring back to the crime lord to settle debts.

The novel chronicles their journey across Golarion to reach the ruins in the southern reaches. Once there the reader learns more of the fallen city Kho and the trio’s challenge of retrieving a relic from the ruins all while being pursued by Alaeron’s past.

As noted the story focues on Alaeron, the alchemist. I found Alaeron an interesting character and also an opportunity to get a closer look at alchemists and alchemy in the world of Golarion. From the alchemists lab to how alchemy works within this particular fantasy world the reader soon learns how alchemy works in this fantasy world.

The other members of the trio are also interesting. Jaya, the woman that drew Alaeron into this debt to be paid off was glossed over a bit in my opinion. Some of this is pawned off with her story simply meant to be a bit mysterious. We do not learn as much about her as I might have liked.

Skiver, the brute rogue type, was an interesting character. Starting out as one you didn’t want to like the reader soon is drawn in to actually liking this character despite his rather ruthless ways. By the end of the novel I greatly enjoyed the character.

As I am a Pathfinder GM and player one of the reasons I enjoy Pathfinder Tales novels is the tour of Golarion the reader receives as they read the various novels. In this novel I learn more about Numeria, the cities of Almas, Absalom and then on to the lands of Osiron and on to the Mwangi Expanse. The description of the lands is of interest to both the non-Pathfinder gamer and to the GM to help give one an even better feel to the world of Golarion.

The pacing in the book is excellent, easily drawing the reader in to keep them turning pages. The balance between moving the story forward while providing enough detail to bring the world alive is excellent. There was enough action to keep the reader interested and on the edge of their seat without being too over the top.

I had two minor complaints about the tale. The first of which being that in some small portions of the book the descriptions of alchemists felt very “gamey”. You could feel the RPG mechanics oozing through in how an alchemists mutagens and potions worked. While true to the RPG it felt a bit jarring to the readery.

The other minor qualm was there were some portions of the book that felt very “Terminator”-like. This happened at several portions in the book and sort of broke my mind from the fantasy story at hand to visions of the Terminator movie.

Both of these were minor complaints and overall I found this book a very good read. I would certainly like to read more from Tim Pratt in the Pathfinder Tales line. This is yet another example of a very strong line of fiction being put out by Paizo Publishing. If you have not started reading novels from this line and you enjoy fantasy fiction, you are missing out.

4.5 out of 5 Tankards

Review: Coliseum Morpheuon

Posted on by

Authors:  Clinton Boomer, Jonathan McAnulty
Publisher:  Rite Publishing
Price:  Print – $31.49 / PDF $17.49 / Electronic Bundle $15.94
Pages:   122, Softcover
Tankard Rating:  5/5

Coliseum Morpheuon presented by Rite Publishing is a mini-campaign setting for the Pathfinder ruleset. It also includes a mini-adventure for 16th to 20th level characters. The setting is designed to be dropped into any campaign setting you may be using and details the Plane of Dreams. Regardless of whether you play in Golarion, your own homebrewed setting or any other published setting, Coliseum Morpheuon is easy to fit into an existing campaign world.

The setting covers the Plane of Dreams. The plane is ever-changing and one’s experience with the plane can easily vary from one trip to it to another. Gravity is subjective, time can be erratic, the environment can morph, yet magic tends to work normally – save for when it doesn’t.

The opening chapter of the book covers several of the regions of the plane with areas such as The Idle Isles of Daydream, The Ghoulish Cliffs, The Halls of Painted Heaven, The Slumbering Sea and more. Some attention is also paid to how one enters the Plane of Dreams.

Chapter Two covers the currency of dreams in the Plane of Dreams. In this realm dreams can almost be a form of currency separated in various levels depending on whether a dream is a Hope, Aspiration or Goal. Mechanically one can burn a dream much like one might use action or hero points in a game. Besides burning a dream a character can sacrifice a dream for greater effect, though this destroys the dream.

This chapter also includes several new traits for characters who enter the Plane of Dreams that relate to this new mechanic. For GMs that might feel dreamburning is too much for their game they also provide a short list of alternatives to dreamburning.

Chapter Three is dedicated to the Denizens one might find in the Plane of Dreams. This plan offers greater variety of life than most other planar realms. The book starts with covering the type of creatures, such as Constructs, Fey, Dragons, etc. Some brief information is given about each type, commonality and other tidbits of information. From here the chapter moves into specific creatures to the Plane of dreams with full bestiary style entries.

Chapter Four moves to cover The Island of The Coliseum Morpheuon. While the Plane of Dreams has a large number of changing environs the rest of the book focuses on this Island. The Khan of Nightmares oversees this island and it is legendary for its hosting of gladiatorial competitions that draw people from a myriad of locations.

The history of the island is discussed as well as the society of the island. More detail is given to the Great Coliseum that lives on the island and the various parts that make up the Coliseum. Later in the chapter some of the surrounding areas of the island are given some additional detail. The chapter closes with several additional adventure seeds for use by GMs planning to use the Plane of Dreams in some form.

Chapter Five provides a much closer look at the denizens of the Coliseum itself. This chapter does a good job of outlining how these denizens relate to each other and then much more detailed bestiary style entries appear later in the chapter.

Chapter Six contains an overview of the Epoch, an grand tournament that takes place at the Coliseum. This chapter provides some background, plot hooks to weave into the contest itself and information on the benefactors that the PCs may find themselves aligned with or struggling against.

The remaining chapters of the book are primarily related to the higher level adventure a GM can drop in to their campaign. From how the player characters receive their invitation, to the various tests and trials of the event and the last chapter addressing some of the secrets of the Coliseum to help the GM develop and engaging game.

And finally the Appendix includes two possible rival groups for the party to encounter during the tests and the third Appendix contains pre-generated characters.

I found the Coliseum Morpheuon a very engaging setting. One of the parts I really liked was that this mini-campaign can really be used in nearly any campaign setting you happen to be playing in. It does not matter whether you are running a game in Golarion, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk or your own homebrew, there is room to drop this setting in to open up a whole new arena of play.

There are a lot of interesting campaign settings out there, but if you already have a game underway in one, it makes it difficult to do any real integration with another setting. But with Coliseum Morpheuon it can easily be used within a campaign you might already have running.

The included adventure also acts as a perfect end cap to an adventure path or any other long running campaign you might have wrapping up. As campaigns reach the winding down stage around 17th or 18th level the GM is often left with little option to continue another few levels. With the Plane of Dreams there is a whole new interesting area to explore, likely different than anything else the group has done before.

I also found the dreamburning mechanic interesting and different enough to add some spice to those later levels in campaigns. The thought of consuming your dreams for benefit or having dreams stolen was very intriguing and opened up several story ideas for me as I read about the concept.

A GM that was aware of this campaign setting could also easily work various side plots and such into their game even from the low levels. There are several ways to involve lower level characters into brief forays into the Plane of Dreams.

Overall I found this book a very good read. I believe it could provide a GM with an entire Plane to explore in –depth or simply provide a way for GMs to make brief excursions into the realm. The included adventure is a perfect way to cap off an adventure path once it has come to completion. So whether you use the mini-campaign setting in its entirety or in bits and pieces there is something for any GM to use.

The book is available in print and PDF at Paizo or Cubicle 7. A bundle option is available from DriveThruRPG that includes PDFs of Coliseum Morpheuon, four map packs, and paper minis.

Tankard Rating
5 tankards out of 5 tankards

Note: The Iron Tavern was provided a review copy of this book.

Review: Coliseum Morpheuon: Anthology of Dreams

Posted on by


Editor: David Paul (Anthology)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
Price: Print $9.99/ Kindle $4.99
Tankard Rating: 4/5

Coliseum Morpheuon: Anthology of Dreams is the recently released anthology from Rite Publishing taking place in a mysterious dream world. The book contains eleven short stories based in the world of the Coliseum Morpheuon ruled by Khan of Nightmares. Edited by David Paul and stories from a myriad of writers including Tim Hitchcock, Jonathan McAnulty, Steve Schend, Neil Spicer, and more. The book is 222 pages in length and available in both paperback and a variety of electronic formats.

The stories all take place in the Realm of Dreams upon an island within this plane of dreams. On this island is a city with a great coliseum where the Khan of Nightmares lets bloodsport contests unfold. Several of the stories help explore the island in greater detail, describing this plane of dreams and the tenuous border between dream, sleep, and wakefulness.

The list of authors with stories in this book was enough to get me excited upon scanning the table of contents of this book. While many of the names were recognizable, I was anxious to read fiction from Tim Hitchcock and Neil Spicer, both of which have Pathfinder modules I have run. Also of interest to me was Steven Schend a name easily recognized from my Forgotten Realms days.

The first story, Living Legend by Jonathan McAnulty, helps let the reader know the Plane of Dreams is not like the normal world and that it is ever changing. The pacing of this tale is excellent and really starts to paint the picture of this dream world that the other stories continue to add depth to. The story is also one of my favorites from the anthology as well. It offered a strong start to the book.

The book rolls on into Focus by Tim Hitchcock with a tale that helps one get a feel for the inner workings of the Coliseum as we catch a glimpse of a gladiator’s life. This was another entertaining story and again, helped provide the reader with more detail of this facet of the Realm of Dreams.

Another story that stood out to me was Oneirobound by Matt Banach. It was another story that helped give the reader a better idea of this dream world and the environment within. I enjoyed the tale of the journey depicted and would not have minded reading it earlier in the book to help paint a more detailed picture of this realm.

With eleven stories in the book I cannot cover them all in this review and do not want to spoil what the reader has in store when they read this book. So lets take a look at overall impressions of this Anthology.

I enjoyed the vast majority of stories in this book. Exploring the plane of dreams was quite interesting with the boundaries you could push. The stories were entertaining and the book as a whole provided a good sampling of authors.

Given The Iron Tavern is predominantly an RPG blog, one of the great strengths of this book is the wealth of ideas it can give a GM. There are many ideas to “borrow” from this book to use within your campaigns or twist into your tales at the table. Whether it be simply more vivid dream depictions for your characters or your characters crossing this line into the dream world, this anthology is ripe with ideas to pluck.

For GMs looking to further explore this plane of dreams as depicted in the stories in this book, Rite Publishing also has a mini-setting called Coliseum Morpheuon that one can drop into their game as they see fit.

Overall I found this book a very enjoyable read, both the stories within and the ideas it sparks in any GM. The book is available in a variety of formats including print and kindle format.

Tankard Rating

4 tankards out of 5 tankards

Note: The Iron Tavern was provided a review copy of this book.

Mini Review: Pathfinder Lite PDFs

Posted on by

Paizo announced yesterday that they have released “Lite” versions of their hardcover rulebooks and Inner Sea World Guide in PDF format. The products released in this manner are:

These versions of the PDFs are created with the idea of being tablet or netbook friendly. Paizo has achieved this by simplifying and compressing the background in the PDFs and other minor export options to help speed them up on mobile devices.

As tablets have seen increasing use at the game table this has been a frequent cry heard on the Paizo forums to release the PDFs in a lighter format. The originally release PDFs have more intensive backgrounds and layers which often caused for slower rendering on tablet type devices (and even lower end laptops). Finally, Paizo has found a way that they are happy with to keep the quality of their product and answer the pleas for lighter weight PDFs.

Before I delve into how these new Lite PDFs perform, let me go over my current PDF reading setup and past performance.

I use a first generation iPad for a good portion of my gaming materials these days. I use it for notes, the occasional dice roller, web access and of course PDFs. I use GoodReader for my PDF reader on the iPad. It has some excellent features including Dropbox integration, annotation abilities, custom bookmarks, tabbed PDFs and with its read-ahead caching can provide a performance boost when reading PDFs synchronously.

Reading Paizo PDFs on the iPad generally has worked well. GoodReader caches the next page so at a normal reading pace things flow smoothly. The problem historically has been when you want to jump from section to section within a PDF, say as one might do at a game table. Here the delays were much more noticeable with the page redraw taking a second or two. For the most part this led me to hope I wouldn’t need to reference the PDF too much during game play because of these delays.

Granted, some of these cons were taken in stride when with the iPad I could carry my entire Pathfinder book collection in one slim device. It made attending conventions much easier on the back than it used to be and freed up room for snacks in the backpack! Still, I was certainly one of the people hoping for a less heavy PDF of the various Paizo products for the iPad.

This morning I loaded up several of the new Lite PDFs on my same iPad with the same PDF reader software. I worked with the Advanced Players Guide, Bestiary 2 and 3, Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat. They all worked quite well on my iPad. The page turns were smooth, I could jump around using the Table of Contents with speed and then page forward and backward from that spot with minimal delay.

The Lite versions of the PDF are definitely much improved over their heavier weight PDFs I had been using of the same books. I still need to see how they do at a full game session, but I suspect this week I will be leaving my hardcover books at home on the shelf and just relying on the iPad this week.

This is one of the many reasons so many gamers really feel Paizo really gets us gamers. Paizo already had my money for all of the PDFs in question. They aren’t really making anything more from me by releasing these lighter weight versions of the PDF as I already owned them. But they listened to their customer, found a way to release these PDFs in a manner which met their production standards and ran more smoothly on the ever growing number of tablets at the gaming table.  Thanks Paizo for listening!

Tankard Rating

5 tankards out of 5 tankards

Review: Pathfinder City of Strangers

Posted on by

Author(s): James L. Sutter
Audience: GM/Players
Price: Print – $19.99 / PDF – $13.99
Pages: 64

While I typically try to review items that have been released within the last two or three months, I am making an exception for City of Strangers. I picked up in preparation for an upcoming Play-by-Post game that is going to take place in Kaer Maga in the region of Varisia. I wanted to have some more information for my character build and this looked like the book to have. I am very glad I picked this one up, it does not disappoint!

Oh, and did I mention Kaer Maga sits atop a massive cliff and has been built in the ancient ruins of a fortress?  With six sides composed of eighty foot high stone walls, the city is an impressive sight sitting atop this massive cliff.

What is in this book

City of Strangers is a 64 page that is part of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting series of books from Paizo. This book is dedicated to the city of Kaer Maga which is located in the Varisia region of Golarion. The book includes a map of the city, history of the city, an overview of the city districts, the people of Kaer Maga, the area beneath Kaer Maga, a prestige class and a new monster.

Inside the front cover is a relatively detailed map of the city. The districts and locations described in further detail in the book are marked. The map was well done and helps the reader put things in relation to each other at a glance.

The first portion of the book is the introduction which delves into the history of the city and then moves into a look at the city from an overview perspective. The various districts are touched upon, brief mention of the Undercity and the stat block for the city is listed.

The next section begins the in-depth review of the city. We get a closer look at the geography of the city including a description of its location and the appearance of the city once inside. We learn more about the eleven districts of the city and how eight of them are in the ring or the wall around the city and the remaining three are in the open air core of the city. This section also covers the resources and economy of the city.

This chapter then moves into a more detailed look at each of the districts within Kaer Maga.  Each district receives attention to what makes it unique from the other districts, a brief mention of certain notable locations and a mention of influential NPCs in that district. Within this section are some sidebars that include a magic item, a closer look at slavery in Kaer Maga, city plot hooks, and more.

The next chapter covers the people in Kaer Maga. It leads with the various Pathfinder classes and how they fit into the city. A similar approach is taken with the races as well. Next up in this chapter looks at the government in Kaer Maga and the city’s relationship with cities and bordering regions, followed by a look at religion in Kaer Maga.

This chapter then moves into a look at key players and factions within the city. There is everything from arcane power groups to golem making families of power to rival gangs in the Oriat district and more. There are many factions at work within the city and this section of the chapter helps describe each of these to the reader.

The next chapter in the book takes an in-depth look at what lies beneath the city of Kaer Maga. Built atop towering cliffs there is plenty of room for an undercity. The first portion covers the Halflight path which is an underground trade route that works its way up to the top of the cliffs. Going on from there the chapter talks about the rest of the Undercity and includes a well drawn map to give perspective to each section. A full page random encounters chart helps the GM have an idea of what one is apt to encounter beneath the city proper.

A new prestige class is included in this book as well, the Bloatmage. The Bloatmage is a mage that has figured out how to get their bodies to produce more blood than normal to gain greater spellcasting abiltity.

A new monster called the caulborn are also included in the book. These creatures were one of the early settlers of this mysterious city that is mentioned in the history of the city.

Thoughts about the book

The artwork and cartography are both very well done in this book as I have grown to expect from Paizo products. The map on the inside cover of the book is very well done and the map of the Undercity later in the book really helps give a perspective as to how things are situated under the city itself.

This book is definitely heavy on the fluff side, which is a positive to me. There are so many things going on in this city that the plot hooks for running in this city just leap out at a GM considering running a campaign in or near this city. If for some reason these ideas aren’t leaping off the page at you there are sidebars to help jumpstart your creativity.

The districts and factions in the book are well detailed, but still leave plenty of room for a GM to work their own ideas into the city. This blend caters to both GMs wanting ready-made organizations and structure as well as the GM wanting to bring their own flavor to the table.  For some reason the rivaling street gangs in Oriat were particularly appealing, likely because it brought modern day gang issues into a fantasy setting.

I also really liked the imagery this city brings to mind. It is easy to picture it perched atop these huge cliffs above the valley floor far below, thick walls that hold entire city districts within them. Coupled with an undercity that spans multiple levels for those that want to adventure underground there is a lot to experience in Kaer Maga.

The Bloatmage Prestige Class had lots of flavor to it and could see it being useful for an NPC. Not sure I would ever consider it for a PC, but certainly some fun to be had for GMs. The caulborn monster was an interesting critter, especially given the history of Kaer Maga. One can always use more critters, right?

I would definitely like to continue to see treatment of various cities in Golarion as Kaer Maga received in City of Strangers. I was very impressed with this book and cannot believe it took me this long to stumble across it.

Final Rating

I rate this book as a 5 out of 5 for its fluff content. The content is well done, interesting and just jumps out at you with ideas as a player and GM alike. This book has a minimal amount of crunch in it and while I like the flavor of it I rate it a 4 out of 5. Overall I give this book a 5 out 5 tankard rating. All city supplements should be more like this one.

Tankard Rating

5 tankards out of 5 tankards

Pathfinder Beginner Box: Actual Play

Posted on by

My son received the Pathfinder Beginner Box shortly before Christmas. Now, a little over a month later we have had time to play several sessions with it. With these sessions under our belt I wanted to post here at The Iron Tavern a little about the box from an actual play perspective.

As reviews and many forum threads across the Internet will attest to, the Pathfinder Beginner Box is simply a great product. With an easy to read Hero’s Handbook to get a player started, a GM’s Guide to help the budding new GM, dice, cardboard pawns and flipmat you have everything you need to get started in one box. If you are looking for an introduction to Pathfinder or are new to RPGs in general, the Pathfinder Beginner Box provides a very solid entry point to that audience.

I wanted the Beginner Box as a set of rules my son could easily read and make use of on his own. He is eight and I have introduced him to a house ruled down version of Pathfinder before, but the core rulebook was a bit big for him to read and grok the rules on his own. I thought the Beginner Box might simplify the game a bit and allow him to read the rule books on his own between sessions instead of having things told to him by me.

It succeeded very well at accomplishing that. He has been toting around the Hero’s Handbook and GM’s books nearly every day. He is usually looking at character options, studying spells and equipment or giving a thorough look over the monster section. He’s done mock battles between characters he has built and monsters that catch his interest. One day as he was getting out of the car he stopped, went back and covered the Hero’s Handbook up with a jacket, leaving his iPod Touch in plain view saying “I have to cover up the valuables.”

As for actual game play, we’ve also had a very good time with the sessions I have run so far for them. We started with Black Fang’s Dungeon, the adventure included in the book. It went very well and served as a good way to teach skill checks, traps and combat in small bite sized chunks. My son was playing a Dwarf Wizard and a GM controlled Merisiel and Kyra for some extra support.

Using a rather unique way around the final encounter the adventure ended as a success. The next session we played the free download adventure from the Paizo site for the Beginner Box. That went well, but he quickly complained it was too short! Part of that was simply due to choosing the most direct route up front.

The past two sessions were done with former Free RPG Day adventure, Hollow’s Last Hope. I just swapped in Sandpoint for the starting town as that is where the first sessions have taken place. It was an easy swap and both sessions of that were very popular with him.

Next weekend we will continue on with Crown of the Kobold King, also transplanted from Falcon’s Hollow to Sandpoint. I suspect it will go well also as so far the only complaint from my son has been the shorter free download adventure and that was only because it was short!

The game play has been excellent, the simplified Pathfinder rules have been easy for him to pickup and play. His younger sister joins us frequently to roll the dice and participate some as well. Her grasp of the rules is obviously more limited, but she has a great time hanging out with us as we play and does offer up ideas along the way (much to her brother’s chagrin!).

In addition to the great gaming we have had with me as GM, I strongly suspect he will be running his own adventure for me in the near future. He has hinted at it and seems to be eying the rulebooks from the GM slant. If this happens, fully expect an account of him running his first game!