DriveThruRPG.com
Browse Categories
$ to $















Back
pixel_trans.gif
The Rite Npc Deck $3.95
Average Rating:3.9 / 5
Ratings Reviews Total
1 1
0 2
0 3
0 0
0 0
The Rite Npc Deck
Click to view
You must be logged in to rate this
pixel_trans.gif
The Rite Npc Deck
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Christopher H. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 06/12/2012 18:36:58

This “deck” offers you 49 different NPC and monster “head shots” that you can use as visual aids in your games. The images don’t seem to be intended for any one specific game or setting. The characters depicted run the gamut from sphinxes to robots, with weird-looking humanoids predominating. There’s a little bit for any GM here—which could be a strength (flexibility) or weakness (lack of focus), depending on how you look at it. I confess that I wasn’t too impressed with the artwork, and personally, I’ll be sticking mostly with my Paizo face cards—they cost more, but they have better artwork, they’re focused on the fantasy genre that I most often GM, and I don’t have to print them out. The big advantage of the Rite NPC Deck over preprinted decks is that you can selectively print exactly the cards you want, and nothing else. Ultimately, it’s sort of take-it-or-leave-it for me. About a dozen of the cards could serve for humans or halflings in a fantasy setting, or humanlike aliens in a sci-fi setting; another seven or eight seem to be elves (including drow or dark elves); two have on full helms and could be almost any species under there (though I get the impression of maleness). A couple of cards appear to be vampires, and two more appear to be demons of some description. Two of the illustrations look like robots to me; one has two heads. I perceive one each of orc, hobgoblin, tiefling (or efreet), dragon, sphinx, wolf, and winged lion (manticore?). There are a few more that I don’t quite know how to classify; one looks like an aquatic alien or a medusa with no nose, and another looks like an African human female, except that she’s full of stars.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
The Rite Npc Deck
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Joshua G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/01/2012 02:13:54

As a highly visual person, the concept of a deck of cards with NPC's ready to go really appeals to me as a GM. This deck of 49 cards comes as individual image files with 49 fronts and 1 back. Looking through the artists, just under half of this deck was put together from artwork done by Jason Rainville, with the remaining pieces coming from Hugo Solis, Ryan Barger, Eric Lofgren, Tyler Bartley, Arthur Wang, Kurt Taylor, Jonathan Roberts and John Wigley.

Anyone who picked up Coliseum Morpheuon will recognize a great deal of the artwork within this deck. When it comes to a deck of NPC headshots, the concept of reusing previously published artwork makes sense, but the editing of some of these heads to separate them from their bodies/backgrounds left them looking odd to say the least. For the majority of the cards, the concept of fantasy plays through, with a few cards leaning more towards what one might consider sci-fi.

I like the fact that the card back actually gives more room for notes than Paizo's cards, room to write is always a good thing. Is a shame you only went with one deck, I would of been interested to see where you might have taken the concept as you refined it.

At the price, you can't beat the deal, and visual cues for NPC/PC's are always an excellent GM aid.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
The Rite Npc Deck
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Johnn F. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 11/09/2010 08:49:33

I love the idea of giving players visuals of the people they meet. Sure, we GMs paint pictures with our words, but a picture is worth 1000 of those. At least, most of the time. Overall, I give the Rite NPC Deck a passing grade, but I do have feedback for the designers, because I am interested in more of this type of product from them.

Form enhances function for me with this product. I have physical NPC cards from another company, and they are great. But I wish they offered a free digital version to customers, as well. I can use digital NPC pics on my iPad and laptop. I can always print out a physical version, and prefer having the digital version to start. So the Rite product serves my needs well.

The product contains 49 NPC headshots. You can see a few previews. There is a nice variety of NPCs, and you are sure to find a few to suit your campaign. That is my first quibble. I would prefer to see themed decks in the future. There are three cat people and a couple of robot NPCs in the deck, and my campaign does not feature those races. I also realize the universal nature of art, but would prefer to see decks based on core rules of Pathfinder or D&D 3.5, for example, with other decks themed around more exotic races. I'd dig an all humanoid deck, for example.

I like the art style. I am not after photo-realistic portraits, nor do I want too much detail. I just need to give my players a good impression of the NPC, and to use the cards to inspire my NPC planning, as I prefer to select a portrait first, and use it to drive my NPC's design. The cards do this well with their style of the basics and not too much detail. For example, most NPCs have no wrinkles. You might consider this a deck of young NPCs, then, but I prefer to see it as a deck of ageless ones. So, I'll be letting my players know each portrait I use is a rough representation, and not exact, which works for me.

Most NPCs in the deck appear to be posing for their driver's license photo. There are pros and cons to that, and I'm not sure how things net out for me. A big pro with neutral expressions is you can design whatever NPC you want, or roleplay the NPC however you like, without betraying the portrait. If the NPC is happy today, angry tomorrow and sad on Moonday, the same pic provides a good baseline for each. The big negative is lack of inspiration. Featuring emotion on the pics might help with design or inspire players to roleplay more.

Ditto with the headshot style. Flipping just heads gives you the essentials on an NPC and freedom to design without betraying any details offered by a card. Flipping tails, however, gives you more detail to work with and get inspired by as you get a whole bodyshot to work with. Overall, I prefer the headshot style. Cheaper for Rite in the end, too, which should mean cheaper for customers.

A couple of the cards should not have passed approvals. Art is subjective, so I am open to this criticism being just my take on things. For example, one card shows the head of a wolf that comes off as sloppy and rushed, just blurred splotches in a wolf shape. But, I only felt this way about a couple of the cards, and it is rare I get 100% use out of an RPG product anyway. And I bet there will be GMs out there who love the wolf pic to bits. Such is art. (This argument also mitigates my complaint that the deck contains some races not present in my campaign.)

I have a quibble with the card design. Each card has three layers: the frame, the background and the portrait. Overall, I feel the frame and background patterns do not interfere with the NPC pictures. They are a bit too much for me, though, as I think they prevent some NPCs from "popping" off their card, which would be my ideal.

I do feel the photo credit on every card is intrusive. I'd prefer they be placed on the frame, which is darker. Sometimes the text partially covers the NPC pic. This is crazy, due to the nature of the product. In a rulebook I would prefer not to see big artist credit notices that sometimes cover the illustrations, but no big deal if it happens because the product's purpose is all about the rules. However, if the entire product is all about the art, then the art should be displayed unimpeded by labels or noisy backgrounds. So, I vote for the credits text to be shifted to the bottom right hand corner of each card, out of harm's way.

Bonus points next time if the layout accomodates a space for GMs to add their own text, either digitally or on printed versions. The frame bleeds to the edge, so there are no clear places to write on. Digital cards have no backsides, either, though you do have more colour and highlight options. For example, my main need is to put the NPC's name on their portriat. On the other hand, I do not want an empty label box on each card just for NPC names - that's distracting. Just provide a blank space on the bottom that does not compete with the art, nor create a distraction if I opt not to put anything there, but is there if I need it.

While I have provided some minor concerns, I love my Rite NPC Deck and will be using it next session of my Pathfinder game. I like the art style, the portrait style and variety of portraits. If they produce another deck, I'll check it out for sure. So thumbs up from me for GMs to consider this product for their games.

From: roleplayingtips.com



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
Creator Reply:
I wanted to thank John Four for taking the time to do a review of our product. Steve Russell Rite Publishing
pixel_trans.gif
The Rite Npc Deck
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Thomas B. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 09/25/2010 17:47:55

The Rite NPC Deck is a PDF file filled with printable NPC headshots with a generic "back" sheet for NPC notes, if you want to stat them out or the like.

Most of the art is good to great, with a heavy emphasis on fantasy (veering heavily into more animalistic types than human types).

49 images are provided, which means you're paying about 12 cents a head shot (approximately), which is more than fair. The downside is that you are more likely having to fit a character to the art, but I personally find that to be a fun challenge.

Very nice product, especially if you don't known an artist or have art skills yourself.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
The Rite Npc Deck
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Jeffrey J. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 08/14/2010 08:09:08

The 49 images are mostly fantasy, although there are what appears to be a robo-ettin, a mecha, and a smiling gentleman with a distinctly Centauri haircut, and several others could be used as aliens of various types. Most of the images are for humans and humanoids, and as a fan of Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved setting I was glad to see pictures that could be used for litorians and mojh. The NPCs portrayed here are not all your generic Western Europe types, either - many of the characters show Middle Eastern, Chinese, or even Mongol flair.

The art itself for these cards is largely great - unfortunately, the presentation leaves something to be desired. I get the impression that a lot of these NPCs were part of larger images (they definitely were not designed for these cards) but in removing them for use on the cards, we get some truly bizarre crop lines and a lot of wasted space. The best images in the set are really fantastic and work with the space provided - the mecha and the shy green woman with the tentacle hair are my favorites. The worst images - like the hanged woman - are small, strangely cropped, and look lost in the middle of the background, although again there's nothing wrong with the actual art.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
Creator Reply:
I wanted to thank Jeffrey Johnston for taking the time to review our product. Steve Russell Rite Publishing
pixel_trans.gif
The Rite Npc Deck
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by NB N. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 08/11/2010 19:09:49

These are a pretty cool little set of cards for NPCs. It gives the DM a chance to show your players what someone looks like and add some extra depth to your descriptions. You could even hand them out so people can keep track of important NPCs. I also like the idea of looking through them for inspiration for NPCs to add to the campaign. If someone looks cool, just build them into someone important to the campaign. The art is very stylized, but neat. For $6, it's a good buy.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
Creator Reply:
I wanted to thank NB Niel for taking the time to do a review of our product. As we look forward to any and all feedback; Steve Russell, Rite Publishing
pixel_trans.gif
Displaying 1 to 6 (of 6 reviews) Result Pages:  1 
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif Back pixel_trans.gif
0 items
 Gift Certificates