by Rachel

A bit of shopping, a bit of playing, a bit of working. Nothing particularly blog-worthy... Still trying to get Composer's Cat into shape. The rulebook and a video and a brief description- that's all the first round of judging will be based on. Videos are a weak spot for me. Given that, I really want the new rulebook to shine.

I'll try to be online more tomorrow and be a bit more social, but until I get the kitty to a better place, that's where I'm spending most of my time...

Game Over On borrowed time...

Happy Saturday and happy playing!
-Rachel

Thank you for reading my blog. If you liked it; then please click the green thumb [microbadge=23724] at the top of the page. If you really liked it; then please subscribe.

A new episode has been added to the database: Audio EXP podcast: January 10th - Woosh

A new episode has been added to the database: Storm King’s Thunder, Episode 41

A new episode has been added to the database: Keith Ammann (Monsters Know What They’re Doing) ep. 268

A new episode has been added to the database: Crossover: Ananasi in Mage

A new episode has been added to the database: Barovia IV #23 Fateless

A new episode has been added to the database: Crawl Out Through the Fallout, Part 2 (S5E11)

by SeaofStars

$8.00 for RPG Item: The Years Between
Condition: New
Location: United States

by bryce0lynch

By Hadrien Riel-Salvatore
Basic Fantasy Project
Basic Fantasy
Level 1

The humble town of Péripont, a defenceless village of a few hundred souls, is being plagued by a tribe of small, fierce dog-men who’ve settled in the nearby woods. They’ve been raiding farms, attacking merchants, kidnapping villagers, and even, it seems, desecrating the local church. Heroes are needed to rid Péripont of this threat… will you step up and take on this challenge?

This 47 page adventure presents a 24 room complex in about 24 pages. It’s a basic hack, padded out to 47 pages, full of the usual background exposition and uninspiring text.

You know, nothing reminds me of the TSR machine more than Basic Fantasy. A bunch of people hanging out, a style guide, and not much, seemingly, in the way of content editing. They appear to be a kind of collective, publishing around the Basic Fantasy System but with significant writer freedom. And, yet, I think seldom does that “Singular Vision” of an individual author come through in Basic Fantasy adventures. Or, maybe it does and it’s just the usual issue with regard to 90% of everything. Column long read aloud. A column for the village mayor, with little to say about him. Embedded backstory run amok in the keys and elsewhere. And then mix this up with a kind of blandness to the writing.

“In terms of architecture, Péripont was built according to the traditional techniques found in this part of the continent.” Great. “Entering this room, you notice a slight sunlight illuminates this area. This area is the main entrance of the mine. It was originally a natural room, but was expanded by the miners decades ago.” I’m disappointed not to know the foreman’s name. “Dingo is a tougher barkling that mostly keeps to himself and dislikes the company of others. He seldom leaves this area, being very dedicated to guarding it” I really don’t care.

And then there are things just don’t resonate. People behave a certain way, both individually and in groups. Maybe you heighten this just a bit, and push it, since it’s D&D. But, when they don’t act as they should it strains that suspension of disbelief that really immerses the players. The village is having trouble with the Barklings, some humanoids. If you seek out some specific dude “Although he will not disclose this information unless specifically asked, Brolin did see a pack of barklings lurking in the forest when he went to get wood to make arrows in Badgerwood about a month ago.” Well, no, that’s not how people work. He talked about it to everyone, that’s how it works. He tells people about the bird he say while getting a drink. And, then, a small farmstead with a father and three young children who has a wife and child missing. He can’t seek help, he’s too busy with the farm and the kids. Uh, no. The neighbors help, they check on him, they form a posse and bunch got massacred, which is why the parties involvement is now needed. This is the way people work. On the positive side, a dude was abandoned by his fellows when they wagons were raided by the Barklings. They are back in town, plotting to claim the insurance. If you free the dude from the lair then “Marbic will be animated by a furious sentiment of vengeance and will seek to kill them both to make them pay for the death of Basil and the hardship he endured at the hands of the barklings” YES! That’s how we handle that shit. We walk in to the tavern make a rant, and then stab the dudes in the gut and watch them bleed out, gloating over them. Terse, specific, relatable in that heightened reality manner. That’s good. The adventure needed more of that and less “This is a fairly small room.”


Second person read aloud is almost always a non, as we see above. Long descriptions to wade through. Not much in the way of formatting to draw the DMs eye to important information. “Since the barklings were playing games …” We can assume this is the case if there is money and cards on the table. And, even if we didn’t assume it, I don’t think we need to understand WHY there is money and cards on the table for the adventure. This is just padding, a compulsion to explain WHY things are they way they are in a way that can not realistically contribute to the game. And if it doesn’t contribute to the game then it gets in the way of finding the information that DOES contribute to the game. That whole backstory in the lower right of the two miner zombies. What use it that? This is all close enough to Wall of Text territory that I think we can make an argument that it is. And we have to debate it then why is it this way?

Well fuck me, I had another screenshot but I lost it. This is just a basic hack. The one or two finer points of it, the merchants in particular, are lost in the noise.

This is free at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/540395/barks-and-bla...

(In my standard review I included several dozen pages of curse words, but, since BasicFantasy and BGG both share a certain prudishness, I have removde them)

by bryce0lynch

By Leon Atkinson
Basic Fantasy Project
Basic Fantasy
Levels 3-5

What Secrets Lie Mouldering in the Estates of the Eliari? Long ago, the enigmatic Eliari merchants settled in these lands, raising peculiar estates to house their families and fortunes. Then, as suddenly as they arrived, a mysterious catastrophe called them home, leaving their holdings to crumble. Today, these forgotten estates are the subject of fearful local legends, whispered to be the dens of bandits or the haunts of restless spirits. Brave adventurers may seek the riches left behind, but few are prepared for what they will find.

This 46 page supplement is a site generator for estates. It presents a common map, and then a series of tables to describe the various locations, allowing a larger number of estates, all based on the same map/compound, with a somewhat samey vibe. It handles “on the fly” generation fairly well, being generally clear and easy to follow. It’s also somewhat generic in its feel, much like the third time to run through the Fallout Shelter section of GW1: Legion of Gold. As with most generators, it would have been better, I suspect, to just present a small handful already complete.

This is a random generator. You have a map. You roll on a table and it tells you what kind the encounter is in the kitchen. The idea being that there are A LOT of these estates in the region.


Pretty map. (Also, I’m rather fond of the title page art, for what it’s worth) So, anyway, Room 20 is the Lords bedroom. You roll a d6 to find the challenge in the bedroom, a table contained in the room 20 description and thus specific just to room 20, as well as another room 20 table for the treasure in the room and another d8 for the “extra detail” in the room. 25ish room keys, one to three tables per room, that’s a lot of tables! Plus, another one for the hut nearby, another one for the river nearby and so on. In addition, the manor, proper, can come in one of two varieties. Either the estate is infested with undead or the estate is the home to bandits. So, like, pages 18-20 are the rooms/tables for the undead estate generator and pages 21-40 are the rooms/tables for the bandit estate lair generator. Got it? Room 20 is always the Lords Bedroom, but it could be a bandit estate or an undead estate, and there are six or so possible encounters for each of those two major estate flavors.

And those encounters? “An [1d4: 1-2 Incubus, 3-4 Succubus] reclines on the bed.” or “A draugr sits motionless in an armchair, facing away from the door. It arrogantly asks intruders if they have any last words before turning and breathing out a cloud of frost.” So, pretty minimally described. How about the extra details? “A slash cuts across the portrait, in oil,
of a maiden beside a brook.” or “A vast quantity of bones are piled in the closet.” So, just some trivia to differentiate THIS random succubus in the Lords Bedroom roll from the next time you roll Succubus in the Lords Bedroom in the next estate you roll.




“A troll curls up in the corner” is not exactly the degree of adventure design I’m generally looking for. I can get behind a minimal encounter in an adventure, but it’s rather difficult to have one with ALL minimal encounters. Or, almost minimal, in the case of this adventure.

Basic Fantasy has a house style. You can see, I think , the issues with the HP tracker and stat block design. They seem committed to it. Would, I think, their commitment extended to “a trolls curls up in a corner.” Basic fantasy: producer of six word encounters with nine inch long stat blocks. Hmmm, probably not the best of marketing blurbs.

I’m only reviewing this because it’s not EXACTLY a random generator. A random generator inspires one to riff on what it produces. It helps you create, not to take, exactly, what comes out of it. Thusly, I don’t generally review them on purpose. You can get inspiration from many sources and who am I to say what can inspire you? This, however, promised a kind of series of pre-gen’d encounters in which to build the estate from and thus not a random generator and more of a dungeon geomorph type of thing.

And, in the end, no matter how much advice the designer gives us about “making sure things make sense with the rolls” and rolling ahead of time vs rolling at the table, etc, It’s still a substandard adventure. There’s no real continual theming here, beyond “bandits in Type B estates and undead in Type A estates.” A basic framing for the estate, unfolding over time, discoveries links one area to another and so on. And, thusly, is an adventure a series of isolated encounters? Can I just literally have a random map and roll on a random table and have the party do fight after fight? Or, is that extra framing and design worthwhile? To discover a clue in one room that opens up another? I think the answer is obvious. And, further, it asks, what value does this particular thing bring over just rolling on a table in the back of the DMG? I mean, if we can accept that “you need to roll to create the adventure and the results will be room independent with no linkage” then what’s this brining? “Curled up in a corner?” A map? That can also be generated online?

It’s just so hard to see the value in this. I think it’s pretty clear that would have been better if the tables had been left out and the designer just rolled themselves and built it in to four or so estates. The encounters linked. One estate revealing secrets in another. A more immersive play experience both in the individual estate and in the grouping as a whole. I understand the kind of a desire for an “estate generator” kind of thing, but I just don’t see how you can get GOOD adventure doing that. Are they “serviceable” adventures? Maybe, in that there is a room with something in it, but I’m not sure there’s a whole lot more here than a DMG table would provide, at least if you lean undead” on one and “bandits” on the other.

This is free at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/540387/estates-of-th...

by sdonohue

The League of Enemies Sourcebook is a 2024 release from Tiger Paw Press and Heroic Publishing. It is a sourcebook for Champions (Hero System 6) providing backgrounds on a number of villains from Heroic Publishing's comic
books. It was written by Dennis Mallonee, David Berge and Greg Elkins. The cover is by Luis Rivera and a team of artists provided the various character illustrations.

Presentation
This is an 80 page book in the typical 8.5 x 11" format. It's softcover with heavy stock full color covers. The interior pages are mostly black & white on matte paper with color used for accents and illustration.

Content
The book starts with a three-page introduction which addresses the question of why there are villains from both a gaming perspective (heroes need someone to fight) and from a psychological perspective (there are many motivations but it comes down to not everyone wants to be a good guy). This goes into the history of the League of Enemies which turns out to be the government had hero teams but they needed people who would do unsavory things. It explains the recruitment process which helps explain some of the team dynamics and then goes on to make suggestions about how to use the group in your campaign.

From there, it moves directly to members of the League; detailed information is provided for Madam Synn, Esper, Red Rapier, Demonfire, Abominable Ogre, Radar, Sonar, Eraserhead, and Brother Basilisk. It then provide information and a map of their base. Following those members, there's details on the Fearsome Foursome including their history and their members: Flying Fox, Sylvia the Last Vampire, The Awesome Cybernotron, Charnel, and Power Pulse.

Each of the characters has an illustration, a section on their background, powers and tactics, ways to use them in a campaign, and a text description. This followed by detailed character sheets for each of the enemies, created using the Hero System 6 rules.

Evaluation
This is a well-done book. Like other books based on Heroic Publishing characters, some of these characters come from the early days of Champions. The villains are mostly interesting and have well-developed backgrounds with inter-related histories. The background information on each character makes it likely that you can use them in their game and, if you desire, have them act much like their comic book counterparts.

It is well-edited but not without some typos. Of course, the first one I saw was fairly awful; they missed the "I" in Red Rapier. The artwork, while not a huge part of the book, could be problematic for some. The images are highly sexualized for both male and female characters. It's not much worse than other rpg works (unfortunately), but it can be distracting.

A new episode has been added to the database: [DND3 Pg 132] teamworkmotivationposter.jpg [Week 22]