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Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars Quick Start Kit
Publisher: Elf Lair Games
by Roberto M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/21/2022 17:09:43

An imaginative old-school take on modern horror, recommender



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars Quick Start Kit
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Deluxe Character Sheet
Publisher: Ulisses Spiele
by Roberto M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/02/2018 14:45:12

Amazing character sheet. Detailed and wth lots of sheets to record pretty much anything you can think off. I will definetely ne using this for my TORG game.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Deluxe Character Sheet
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Creator Reply:
Thanks for your review! We (Fantastic Gallery) consider this a living document that will improve based on user feedback, so once you've used the sheet for a while, if you have any thoughts or ideas on how to make it better, please feel free to post them in the discussions section. Thanks for trying out the Deluxe Character Sheet!
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Stars Without Number: Revised Edition
Publisher: Sine Nomine Publishing
by Roberto M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/09/2018 21:11:44

I am a longtime fan of the original. The Revised Edition is a vast improvement on the system. Mr. Crawford takes the OSR engine into refreshing territory. They book is worth the asking price just for the advice and the tools it provides. With this game you can pretty much run any sci-fi game you can imagine with it. Easy to modify and house rule, flexible and simple, yet robust. Can't recommend it enough!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Stars Without Number: Revised Edition
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Torg Eternity Cheat Sheets
Publisher: Ulisses Spiele
by Roberto M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/01/2018 14:32:24

These are very helpful. The author was incrediblty receltive to a message and improved the files. Thank you! Very satisfied customer.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Torg Eternity Cheat Sheets
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Forager's Guild Guide to the Nine Alignments
Publisher: Lightspress Media
by Roberto M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/12/2015 20:15:24

Alignments can be a tricky topic, depending on your group they may be a shorthand on how your character behaves, how a spell knows your morals, or mostly ignored! This book makes Alignment a fun integral part of the game. Thinking about what your character values, or weaknesses may be, can have a meaningful, and mechanical, aspect on the game beyond the result of a spell. This book introduces the idea of Fate aspects in a way most D&D, Pathfinder, or other permutations of d20 games, can understand and help them integrate it into their games. I had a blast with this book and recommend it...



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Forager's Guild Guide to the Nine Alignments
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CAL1 Calidar, In Stranger Skies
Publisher: Calidar Publishing
by Roberto M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/21/2014 11:22:05

Bruce Heard has crafted a fun and interesting campaign world that pays homage to the world he helped define during his tenure in TSR and his famous column in Dragon magazine, while introducing us to his new World of Calidar full of adventure, mysteries and, I say it again because it bears repeating, fun! If you are a fan of the Gazetteer series (which is available here in Drive Trhu RPG as well) and The Voyage of the Princess Ark articles and eventual box set (Champions of Mystara) , there is a lot of what made those fun in this book. Sky ships, exploration, adventure. From the tone to the maps, there is a clear inspiration in the past, but Heard has spread his wings and brought us a new setting with conflicts, adventure possibilities and many new tantalizing secrets that makes Calidar more than a nostalgia trip. This is a new campaign sure to satisfy fans, old and new. The PDF is great, fully bookmarked, with terrific layout and the maps, the maps are just awesome and really useful. I can’t recommend this book enough. As a longtime fan, backer of the crowdfunding project and now owner of the book I heartily recommend it. Get on your Sky ship and travel to Calidar.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
CAL1 Calidar, In Stranger Skies
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The Gift: Curse of the Golden Spear Part 1 (PFRPG)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Roberto M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/13/2011 21:13:34

What about The Gift: Curse of the Golden Spear Part 1? A review… The Gift is part one of a three part series (they call it a campaign arc at the Rite Publishing website) of adventures for the Pathfinder RPG system, this installment is for four 5th level characters. The adventure is set in Kaidan, a land of oriental horror, inspired by Japanese folklore. Rite Publishing provided a review PDF and as soon as I downloaded it and looked it over I became excited… See, I love the mysteries of Asian folklore, its history, but as someone brought up in the “west” (I do hate those arbitrary terms but let’s use them for ease of reference) I still feel there is much I still have to learn about the culture and more about the history of Asia. As far as RPGs go I have purchased some Asian themed games like the Original Oriental Adventures, the Kara-Tur boxed set for the Forgotten Realms and even the D&D3rd edition version of Oriental Adventures which was set in the world of Rokugan, also the setting for Legend of the Five Rings. That last game despite its popularity and having MANY friends who play it, I have never tried. In fact I have never played or run an entire Asian themed campaign. That does not mean I don’t have Asian inspired lands and themes in my games, as a matter of fact my homebrewed campaign has region analogous to the Asian nations of the Pacific Rim. I have just never set adventures there. Elements from these faraway lands appear every now and then and remain mysterious and exotic. I even have a small islands settled by the people of these lands in the middle on an archipelago dear the more European like areas of the world, so imagine my excitement when I discovered this adventure was set in strange Asian like islands. Let’s get the “physical” aspects of the book out of the way first (remember I am reviewing a PDF copy, a print copy will soon be available and I’m pretty sure it’s will be every bit as pretty as the digital one). The layout is a simple two column style with an easy to read font. The bamboo frames on the page seem evocative and the art of the book is top notch. There is no single piece of art I did not like and some that are simply gorgeous (like the full page illustration of the same art in the cover reprinted in page 6). It also has nice maps for the encounters and the locations in the story. I often complain about art or layout, but I have no complain whatsoever from this book, Rite Publishing has hit all the right notes. This is 57 pages of content, part adventure, part introduction to the land of Kaidan, it includes magic items, new monsters, and little side bars of important details, special rules for Kaidan even a glossary. What about the curse in the title of the adventure? Well I don’t want to spoil much, it has to do with the souls of the dead trapped in Kaidan and reincarnation, but done in a fresh, interesting and what I find to be appropriately creepy and imaginative way. Kudos! I love the assumption that the players will be outsiders coming to Kaidan for the first time, the adventure seems simple enough, but it hits all the right notes, provides ideas and motivations for the players to be there and flows very naturally. The notes for the encounters are very well written; the development and tactic notes are very useful. The adventure is full of details and flavor that reminded me of the very first time I watched the Shogun TV miniseries (think what you may of it, as a kid I was entranced by it), despite what I know about Japanese culture and history, for the players this will be like visiting a familiar, yet exotic and unknown land for the very first time. A minor quibble, there are a couple of grammatical mistakes (like I’m one to speak, have you read my posts?), but it’s missing letters or something minor like that, nothing that will keep you from enjoying the adventure. Jonathan McAnulty, co author of Coliseum Morpheuon (which I reviewed here), has put together an excellent adventure. Even if you do not play the adventure itself, the setting, rules and inspiration, are well worth the entrance price. Congratulations to the Rite Publishing staff for putting together such an excellent product.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Gift: Curse of the Golden Spear Part 1 (PFRPG)
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Warrior, Rogue & Mage
Publisher: Stargazer Games
by Roberto M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/28/2010 14:41:09

I must say I am trilled to see WR&M getting so much love. From its original version to this revised edition the game has improved in leaps and bounds. The layout and quality of the product meet or exceed many products you actually pay for, the system is simple intuitive and full of role playing possibilities. I cannot recommend it enough. I considered myself lucky for knowing the person who wrote this book. Get it you will not be disappointed!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Warrior, Rogue & Mage
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ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying
Publisher: Ad Infinitum Adventures
by Roberto M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/09/2010 14:50:24

What about ICONS? A review…

ICONS RPG is a new superhero role-playing game by Adamant Entertainment. It has been enthusiastically received by the role-playing community, if blog posts and sales at RPG Now/Drive Thru RPG are any indication. Since first hearing about it I was excited! It’s designed by Steve Kenson who has worked in some of my favorite RPGs, I own various PDFs by Adamant that I’ve enjoyed very much, on top of that it integrates elements from FUDGE/FATE, which I’ve become interested on recently. So this was a no brainer. I did miss on the pre-order offer for various reasons, but as soon as it came out I snatched up a copy of the PDF and began to read. I was NOT disappointed.

In a nutshell ICONS is an easy to play, easy to pick up superhero game that harkens back to the classic superhero role-playing games of the 80s, specifically the old Marvel Superhero RPG, also called the FASERIP system, that got retro-cloned with the 4C system. It has all the charm of those old time games with a modern, simple and elegant mechanic with great touches that enhance the role-playing aspect of the game.

If you are a fan of superhero games, do yourself a favor and pick up ICONS. There is one caveat, if you are looking for Champions style granularity, or something like Mr. Kensosn’s Mutants and Masterminds, ICONS is not that. It’s light on rules but big on hearth, and believe me that is a good thing.

Want more details? Read on…

The first thing that struck me was the art style. The whole book is done in a very particular style by Dan Houser, reminiscent of the animated style often associated with modern superhero cartoons, like the Justice League or the more recent Batman team up series The Brave and the Bold. Art is abundant, the layout easy on the eye, the font easy to read. The tables take up a lot of the real estate, and I think some slight changes in the layout might have made the book even shorter (its 128 pages long including the ads) but I’m no expert on this. I’ll say this, I read about half of the book directly from the computer or on my iPhone and I had no trouble reading it. The original PDF is a 9MB file, but I received an e-mail form Adamant letting me know a higher resolution copy is available for download where I purchased my copy.

In all sincerity the art took a little getting used to. I found it whimsical at first but eventually it became a little distracting. I would have loved other styles of art. I know what they were going for but I believe the system is strong enough to support all styles of superhero gaming, from over the top cartoon fun to more serious Watchmen style game and somebody who casually looks at the book in a book store or game store may dismiss it based on the art style. Don’t get me wrong I loved what Mr. Houser did, I just think the book would be better represented by a variety or art styles.

But that’s cosmetic, what about what’s under the hood? The game opens with an introduction to a very simple game mechanic and I think the discussion of the statistics and what results to expect is a strength that helps the reader understand what to expect from the system. The Determination mechanic, a resource available so characters can improve their chance of success, perform power stunts and other in game effects, seems a great balancing factor between super power houses and more down to earth heroes. The more powers you have the less Determination, so Superman has all the powers, but Batman has all the points to make his crazy plans work.

The idea that characters earn Determination through the complications and disadvantages (called Challenges in the game) they established for their characters enforces the tropes of the superhero genre. And I think this is one of the things the games does particularly well, emulate not only the superhero, but the situations and events typical to comic books. From Determination, to creating a team and how the Determination heroes contribute serve as resources to the members, to the role of leaders in hero groups, to catchphrases heroes utter, all these elements emulate comic books, are quantified in the game, and reinforce the type of adventure that feel, well, super heroic!

Character generation is random, from assigning attributes in the order rolled, to rolling for the origin of the hero and number of powers. I’ve said it before; I’m NOT a fan of randomly generated heroes. But I did give it a chance (and the result is the topic of my previous posts) and think it works. It harkened back to the days when I rolled characters using the Marvel Superheroes RPG, but the game has tweaks built in, like allowing you to swap two attributes and the inclusion of complimentary powers (called bonus powers in the game which can be confusing) within power descriptions that you can choose instead of rolling for the next random power, that lets you create a character with some internal consistency. If you don’t want random generation, there is simple point buy option in the book.

Power selection is varied enough that you can cover most powers you can think of. Undoubtedly someone will come up with some power that cannot be represented using the rules, but I can’t think of one for now. The descriptions are very general and some will require interpretation or house ruling, but I think this fits the style of play the game supports. This is a game that wants you to have fun first and foremost and worry about rules later.

My least favorite part of the book is the Taking Actions chapter. It lists the rules, attributes and what you can do with them like attacking and facing challenges and some of these concepts are important enough to have been explained with more details, perhaps a few additional examples. This alone may make the book a little harder to pick up by a newcomer which is a pity since this would be an ideal entry level superhero game. Character advancement is covered very briefly, integrated into the Determination mechanic, but in my opinion this is one area of the game that could be expanded in future supplements.

The book could have been organized a little better, for example, an earlier discussion of what determination is. Reproducing important tables like material strength level and such in an appendix for easy reference. Some rules refer to other parts of the book and could have either been consolidated in one place or simply repeated. An index is something I always look for in a book. ICONS is small enough that you don’t get lost looking for things but an index would have been a great addition.

But these are minor complaints on an otherwise excellent book. The Game Master section is short but it contains solid advice on running the game and superhero campaigns in general. The sample villains are varied, colorful and fit many of the typical roles to be found in any superhero comic. The short sample adventure illustrates the concepts put forth in the Game Master chapter.

The game also includes some stock characters and creatures, enough to extrapolate much of what you will need. There is some discussion on weapon damage in the rules but I think some tables with real world items and their game effects would have been a good idea.

ICONS is not a game for someone looking to have every detail spelled out for them. It requires Game Master Interpretation, player trust and participation. So many modern games try to quantify every aspect of play and end up becoming endless lists of rules and exceptions. Not ICONS! ICONS is meant to be played by people who trust each other and want to tell a fun story together. That is the best recommendation I can think of for this game!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying
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Ordo Draconis 2
Publisher: Ordo Draconis
by Roberto M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/18/2010 20:07:16

In an attempt to be succinct let me put it this way, I really liked this product. It is a solid 97 pages of gaming goodness, full of ideas, very well written and with great layout and cartography. Illustrations are sparse but appropriate, of excellent quality and best of all very flavorful.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Ordo Draconis 2
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