One of the good things about RPGs is that they're multi-faceted and offer a variety of different ways to stimulate the differing tastes of the gaming populations. Some gamers prefer more combat-orientated games, other immersive roleplaying, and yet others enjoy it for the creative aspects and world building. Two Bit Tables: Ancient Battlefield encounters is a short 3 page pdf product that caters mainly to the latter gamers - those that like creating interesting encounters or locations, and those that like to add spice to their game world. This product is part of a large and continually expanding series of Two Bit Tables products, each offering a small set of tables with which to create something more interesting for your game world.

The presentation of this short pdf is nicely done, with good use of pdf presentation skills to create something that looks good. The editing and writing is fair, and the tables usefully presented, although the shade of gray used in the tables looks too dark when the product is printed and could be done in a lighter shade. Overall, this pdf pretty much gets the ticks as far as short pdf presentation goes.

Two Bit Tables: Ancient Battlefield Encounters provides you with a series of useful tables for generating descriptive and interesting battlefield encounters. The focus here is on what one would expect to see in an ancient battlefield, although plenty of advice is provided on how to adjust the tables for more recent battlefields where the bodies haven't quite decomposed yet. In addition to providing one with useful random encounters on these sites, there are three other tables that form the meat of the product. These tables allow one to generate objects found or seen on a battlefield from a list of over 100, and certainly you can create far more combinations of these items. Battlefields can contain anything from a rusty sword to a fallen encampment to a cemetery or an arrow head stuck in a tree. It's a good product for generating a few ideas when trying to describe the scene of an important or pivotal battle in your campaign world.

For the most part this is a good little pdf with some useful information and good value for money. I found, however, that the information was lacking in being creative and seemed a bit repetitive in trying to generate the material from the tables. It's not particularly fantastical either, being more of a medieval flavor rather than one where magic would reign supreme and the elements of which would be found on the battlefield. The table and the details there-in just appear far too normal. There's nothing wrong with that, but even the normal could be a little more descriptive, and perhaps contain something more than just variations on broken weapons, skeletons, fortifications, and other battle miscellany.

I think this product, and indeed this series, can be a very useful addition to any world builder's arsenal, but I think it needs to think outside the box and be a little more creative to add a little spice to the material, particularly as far as fantastical elements are concerned. Most fantasy campaigns offer tremendous richness which is largely lacking here apart from the odd reference here and there. A good product, and useful, but could've done a little more on the creative side.