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Roll XX Pay What You Want
Average Rating:4.3 / 5
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Roll XX
Publisher: Neoplastic Press
by Thilo G. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 12/23/2016 13:03:00

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This massive book clocks in at 103 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial,3 pages of ToC - leaving us with 98 pages of content. The pages themselves are designed for an A5 (6'' by 9'')-standard and if you print it out, you can easily fit 4 pages on a given page.

So, this is one of those books that you don't think you need - but sooner or later do. It is, in short, a massive GM-inspiration/dressing book, but unlike most: Where usually, you get pretty generic dressing to generate details, this book deals with questions and their answers: Basically, you look at one question, roll 1d20 and there you go. Or, well, you just read all and choose, you know?

The questions generally range from the generic to the specific: If you ask "What's in the treasure chest?", you may find prophetic poems, written in blood, profane copper, starving blood ants, Vecna's OTHER hand, Pan's Flute...you get the idea. Other questions herein pertain, for example what else may be required for a certain potion; what the orc chieftain is wielding, etc.

Now here is the catch: This book is not solely devoted to the fantasy genre, in spite of the impression elicited by the front cover: In fact, this is not only system-neutral, it also covers a lot of bases: Beyond the first chapter, devoted to fantasy, we have one for superhero RPGs that provides replies to the burning question where the villain's secret lair might lie or what apparently-useless-her-powers may do.

Aficionados of science-fiction similarly may enjoy a whole chapter, wherein starship passengers, malfunctioning equipment and the like are covered. Personally, I am very much partial to horror, so the table containing cryptic anagram clues alone made this well worth getting: Fans of CoC: How long do you need to solve "I've misery: red mists"? Great and useful: Reasons why you (or someone else) can't see the horrible entity. The horror-chapter is pretty extensive and this, for me, is great news.

But perhaps your tastes are more aligned with modern gameplay - so if you need some notes for modern gameplay, rest assured that this pdf delivers those as well: What's in that duffle bag? What is that sentry babbling about? What's that bottled liquid? From the mundane to the majestic, the pdf delivers a broad spectrum of notes...and you obviously may, at any time, simply only print out the genre of choice you need.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, I noticed no significant glitches. Layout adheres to a no-frills b/w-1-column-standard and the pdf comes with excessive bookmarks - each question gets one, which means that using the pdf via an electronic device if comfortable and dead simple - a must for a book like this.

Adam Burke, Rafael Chandler, Mason Deming, Matt King, Jim McCann, Gary Bowerbank, Bill Collins, Keith Keffer, ASH LAW, Tony Love, C. W. Marshall, Brianna Sheldon, Stuart Templeton and Graham Walmsley deliver one amazing, useful GM tool. Oh, and two things: It's completely open-source and it is PWYW. You can pay whatever you can afford for this neat book and frankly, it is worth getting; it is worth leaving a tip for this nice toolkit and I encourage you to download it and see for yourself; more often than not, the entries can actually inspire their own narratives and plots. All in all, a fun pdf, well worth getting - 5 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Roll XX
Publisher: Neoplastic Press
by Eric F. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/09/2015 01:10:02

So there's apparently an entire back system of weird random charts that I wasn't even aware of. This is a part of the Roll 'XX' family of game books which is really a nice piece of work and slight of hand bit of editing on Neoplastic Press's part. I ran across the title last night whist playing that Thundarr game. So what is it? Well its a hundred and one pages of sheer awesomeness packed into a genre bending dose of utter weirdness wrapped up with character after chart of game neutral goodness that can be used right across the campaign board. And its open source. According to the Rpgnow blurb: Roll XX is a system-agnostic book of random tables for fantasy, sci-fi, superheroes, and horror role-playing games. Packed with adventure hooks, story seeds, NPCs, magic items, spaceships, demons, and locations, Roll XX features 90 questions and 1800 answers. And it's open-source! All proceeds from this book will be used to purchase clothing for the orphans at the Noel Children's Home in Kenya.

I've never heard of the Noel Children's home in Kenya but I know a great piece of gaming real estate when I see it. This is one of those rare titles that can be applied straight across the gaming board and while I favor the 'old school' approach to my gaming materials this book can be used to seed, grow, and expand campaigns at a rapid and somewhat staggering rate with the mind boggling amount of charts in the 'XX' line of books. From post apocalyptic, horror, modern, and old school fantasy this is a book with a chart for it. The fact that its an organized and concise execution of a book is an added bonus. The book covers most of the major areas of gaming in one go. This is the adventure construction set and random set of charts that your going to want. This book is inventive, dangerous, and somewhat insidious because it allows the DM endless options to mix and match their creative juices in the form of charts that can construct and add all kinds of high end and low end options to a campaign, encounter, adventure, and more all at the toss of the dice. So I can easily see using a nice and tidy portion of this book as fodder into a post apocalyptic or sword & sorcery campaign. The material here in some of the charts easily covers such a wide range of material that adapting isn't a problem. Narrowing the focus might be though and that's not the product's fault so much as the DM.

So say that you really love the charts in Roll XX and you want to use them in your own games or even 'gasp' a published adventure? Well friends this is an open source supplement and it can easily be done with a simple mention and personally some back pointing to Neoplastic press. This allows this system to sit right in the back of your campaigns and where the rest of the XX lines of books comes in. There's a certain amount of style and grace to having something like this system adding itself quietly in the backdrop of your old school adventures. The book clocks out at a jam packed one hundred and ten pages but boy it is it wall to wall ideas in a nicely wrapped can of gaming goodness. Needless to say, pick this one up and toss Neoplastic a few gold pieces for their well deserved efforts. Very nicely done folks.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Roll XX
Publisher: Neoplastic Press
by Joel B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/02/2013 00:00:00

I find this to be an extremely useful tool for GMs. Rather than just being tables of random items or encounters, they're collections of IDEAS that can be easily incorporated into any game setting or system. This book has broad categories (Fantasy, Horror etc..) which is an added bonus. I heartily recommend it to any storyteller who'd like to have some handy, quick reference and inspiration material.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Roll XX
Publisher: Neoplastic Press
by Paul B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/25/2013 13:49:19

I really do like this book for its ease of use (clean presentation, genre breakdown and PDF bookmarks!), its cheek ("Really, it says you're facing pornographic magic... Blame the dice, dude"), and its price (I paid a tad below average for it, and now I'm sorry that I didn't have a little more to put into this!), but MOSTLY I like it for the fact that Roll XX is an idea that I've wanted to make for myself I-don't-know-how-many times, and yet I never did... Now I don't have to!

For a couple of bucks, this book is going to be a tremendous addition to my gaming table, no matter what kind of games I might be playing!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Roll XX
Publisher: Neoplastic Press
by George P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/23/2013 19:11:32

my problem is that is not this bad but seriously find a friend and throw this at them. This is free so checking this for nothing will not hurt you.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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Roll XX
Publisher: Neoplastic Press
by erik f. t. t. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 01/22/2013 21:02:26

You said you needed some tables for inspiration?

Have we got the tables tables for you! (Imagine Cheech Marin in Dusk to Dawn)

Bite tables!

Weakness Tables!

Sorcerous Location Tables!

What's in the Treasure Chest Tables! (it might just be 2,000 Coppers ;)

In Roll XX there's all kinds of tables!

Featuring sections for Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Supers, Modern, and Horror gaming, Roll XX is packed with adventure hooks, NPCs, story seeds, magic items, monster, locations, and setting details!

System agnostic too, so leave your prejudice behind!

Oh crap! The review part.

Okay, this crap rocks.

Seriously. I'm not inclined to roll a D20 on the tables. I'm more likely to pick thru some tables like they were Chinese Food Menus - one from Table A, one from Table B and maybe one from Table D ;)

I really like this.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Roll XX
Publisher: Neoplastic Press
by William W. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 12/28/2012 08:34:55

A nifty collection of tables that can help the GM brainstorm ideas for an upcoming game, or possibly even supply some improvisational inspiration for a game in progress. Each table features a question and 20 numbered answers that can be rolled for or chosen. Five different genres are covered - fantasy, superheroes, science fiction, horror, and modern - and the questions vary from general ("What time period is it?") to very specific ("Who is the queen of the northern kingdoms?"). Some of the responses seem a bit silly, but you can always just re-roll, right?

This product is completely systemless and usable with any RPG, and the layout is clean and uncluttered. All in all, a pretty good story inspiration tool for a reasonable price.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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