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Can't wait to buy the final pdf !
Knave 1 remains a companion for other jdr.
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Knave |
by Eli D. [Verified Purchaser]
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Date Added: 07/18/2023 18:34:56 |
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Excellent arcadey feel. Character options are pretty limited, but it's worth it to just get right into the action and not trip over actions and rules
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This product is INCREDIBLE for the tables alone. As a GM who has struggled to come up with my own NPCs, locations, dungeons, adventures etc., these tables are EXACTLY what I've been missing my whole life. They provide all the prompts I could ever need to generate endless amounts of cool NPCs, monsters, locations, dungeons etc. And it's so succinct - just what you need and nothing more. Plus, the layout is such that you can easily roll 2d6 to get random results for each list. Great layout, great resource. GAME CHANGER! Thanks Ben!!
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This is a great (potentially) one-shot adventure. It's well laid out with great set pieces, NPC's, and a constantly growing level of danger that should make for an extremely memorable game. The writing is setup in such a way that prep level is minimal and easy to reference mid session.
SPOILER WARNING
In this adventure, the PC's are actually the SECOND adventuring party to arrive at Willoughby Hall. The first group recently stole the goose that lays golden eggs from the giant that lives in the clouds. In his rage, the Giant has taken the magical church bell and is using it as a flail. Periodically, when the bell rings out, a cataclysmic curse drives the game closer to complete destruction. It's up to the players to avoid the gaze of the giant as he searches for the first group that stole his goose, meanwhile you have to deal with the castles denizens, ghosts, and other physical dangers.
This product is almost perfect. My complaint feels a little nitpicky, but I'd like to see a print version that allows you to print it out into the booklet form you see on the website here. This probably won't bother most readers, but it's something that I would have liked.
This is definitely in my top 5 favorite one-shot adventures, and an excellent product.
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Cool ideas here!
equipment makes your characters, much like the old Ultima games.
Well worth reading!
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The system is simple, but exceptional. Ben's creativity and desire to make something playable is commendable. Get this if you're new to the "OSR" or looking for a great gateway to TTRPGs.
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A delightfully compact ruleset, eloquent in its brevity. And useful for a lot of projects I didn't have a home for.
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Maze Rats |
by Darcy [Verified Purchaser]
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Date Added: 06/05/2022 21:43:11 |
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Super fun and easy - perfect for a quick game thrown together at the last minute. The spells are a revelation and one of, if not the best, spell casting systems around
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I can't really add much to what others have said, but this is easily one of the most fun adventures I've run in a long time. (For the record, my players encountered this at random while playing Troika!, it was pretty easy to scale things since most anything goes in that system.)
It's an interesting scenario for both DM and players, extremely well laid out and I am always thrilled to see maps I can use for the players.
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Knave |
by Joe G. [Verified Purchaser]
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Date Added: 02/23/2022 20:17:33 |
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Knave system is a DELIGHT.
I've been playing TTRPG for a couple years, when I turned to do my first DM'ing session Knave was fantastic. A quick read, easy to run rules, tons of room for fun creativity on your player's parts (I.E. List of 100 SPELLS!)
It fit perfectly into a mega dungeon I found online, gave my newbie 1st time Party the character creation pages. Everything flowed well and we had a blast. I High recommend if you want to try DM'ing, but feel overwhelmed by other beefy systems. 10/10 Review!
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THINGS I LOVED:
- The layout is about as good as it gets: Ben Milton, who is probably the #1 advocate for product usability in the OSR community, practices what he preaches here. Every room is keyed via its page number (rather than an arbitrary key #) so flipping is made easy as can be. Every time a room, object, concept, or NPC is referenced a page # is provided. Great bolding and hierarchical layout for information. Terse but evocative prose. Altogether wonderful.
- Tight, dynamic adventure design. A simple, exciting danger mechanic: a cloud giant circles the haunted house and slowly elevates the danger level within. The mechanic is easy, fun, actionable, and easily integrated in your regular random encounter roll. It makes the adventure feel very accessible for a GM: you understand immediately the sorts of things that playing this adventure will entail, and lends itself nicely to quick GM decisions on the fly to keep things moving and keep the blood pumping.
- Good random encounter tables. There isn't a particularly large number of things to fight in here but the encounters that are here are all awesome. In my playthrough, there ended up being an EPIC battle between the Death Knight, the fireball-hurling NPC wizard, and my PC party, who was also trying to wrangle the golden goose in a nearby room, which was on fire. It was unforgettable, people jumping out of windows, fireballs sending rooms up in smoke, the cloud giant peering in and trying to snatch up his goose, and a simultaneous impaling between the death knight and a PC to finish the fight. Boy were my players pissed when the Death Knight came right back! Great potential for awesome chaos in this module.
- ZERO empty rooms and lots of interactivity everywhere. Even the least exciting rooms always have good flavor text, stuff to poke or prod, or some level of danger. Things to eat (mushrooms, of course), collect (black candles), steal, read, draw, play (mini-games, harpsichords, etc.), or just admire in every room. Really, really, masterfully designed so that there isn't a single boring room in the whole place.
- Good, interesting loot! All the treasure here is unique and memorable: taxidermied wyvern heads, alchemical miscellany, ancient weapons, decorative urns, etc. None of the treasure is boring book loot.
- Honestly, great potential for more adventure here! In my game, two of the three NPC adventurers escaped the manor (Helmut got tossed into the woods by the Cloud Giant, poor fellow) and can definitely be recurring villains (or potential allies) for the heroes.
- Lots of tough problems which can be solved with other stuff in the adventure. Lots of dangerous weapons, for example, which could be used to kill the giant (bombs, ballista, lightning bolts and fire balls, etc.) even though my players never really considered that route. Lots of clues (in mapping and elsewhere) to the secret areas here.
- No fear on Ben's part in offering awesome, game breaking items. Even though my players handed the goose over to Tom about as fast as they got their hands on her, there are lots of awesome treasures in here which will absolutely fuck up your game world, make your players incredibly rich and/or powerful, and that's badass! Let the players have awesome stuff that changes your game going forward.
THINGS I HAD TO ADJUST:
- I ended up ignoring a few things that Ben wrote which didn't sit right during my individual playthrough of this module (this aren't criticisms per se, just small tips I'd have for others wanting to run the game). For example, my players were DEAD SET on negotiating with the Cloud Giant; I didn't want their foolhardy attempt at diplomacy to kill a PC outright in the first half hour of the six-hour session it ended up being, so I let them chat with him a bit. He didn't stop clanging the bell against the manor or anything afterwards, and still created danger for the PCs, but I let them be on neutral terms because they absolutely had their hearts set on talking to him. So I ignored the "Tom can't tell human-sized creatures apart" thing.
- I made the Owl Bear a bit tougher because with AC 10 and 18HP a large third level party (even with B/X rules, which I play with) can probably obliterate him pretty easily.
- I added a rule where skeletons turn as 3HD when enthralled by the Death Knight so that they couldn't all just be turned automatically by the lvl 3 cleric in my party, and I had them arrive in greater numbers. It made for a fun, goofy, Jason and the Argonauts feel as my players cut through them. But I LOVE the flavor of skeletons wearing aprons and cookware for armor and wielding mops and rolling pins.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
This was a perfect weekend reunion game for two splintered groups of players whose characters had long been apart. It was an epic one-shot that will have repercussions for both groups, introduced lots of new NPCs and loot that will affect my game long term, and produced some awesome, awesome memories for everyone at the table. PLEASE BUY AND RUN THIS ADVENTURE! Your players will think you're an awesome GM, and that's what a good aventure does!
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As simple as it gets while keeping the "big picture" intact. This is all you need to use as a gateway to other TRPGs, yet even by iteself, it can be the one and only system you use for your casual players or those you you know won't bother getting into the lore of many weapons, armors, cities, etc. A perfect game.
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The Alchemist’s Repose is a clever and inventive One Page Dungeon. The main feature that sets this OPD apart is the idea of programmable constructs. Littered about the dungeon are punch-cards that can be installed in various forms of construct (Armored fighting machine, Tooled repair bot, and a type of courier bot that can pass through magic fields unharmed). Depending on the type of construct and which of the 6 different punch-card programs are installed in said construct yields vastly different behavior and a multitude of possibilities and options. The dungeon itself is well layed out with 2 paths and some required retracing of steps. True to form for OPDs, the enemies are simple general concepts that you can stat according to your own needs and the ability of the party. Well thought-out and well-designed this is worth picking up to team with the excellent Maze Rats system for an enjoyable couple of hours of exploration for any experience level of player.
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Knave |
by Adam D. [Verified Purchaser]
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Date Added: 07/15/2021 09:35:53 |
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Knave brings to OSR something that has been sorely missing, namely a bare-bones framework that gives exactly what you need to run the classic published adventures with little to no conversion, and without any further rules to worry over.
This system stands on its own, but is also very much ready for you plug in rules from any other system of your choice, and in this manner has become my preferred system for running my weekly games. Creator Ben Milton even goes so far as to include italicized explainations for his thinking for each rule, so you can decide for yourself if the reasoning stands up (it very much does). Combined with the procedural generators and Game Master's Guide from Questing Beast's also excellent Maze Rats, this could easily be the perfect place to start as a new GM/Referee. Pick up the outstanding adventure "The Waking of Willowby Hall" a set of polyhedral dice and some paper and pencils and you have everything you need for an exciting Friday night with your friends.
You certainly won't find better bang-for-your-buck out there, very well worth the price.
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Maze Rats has become my go-to for introducing new people to RPGs. From middle-schoolers up to roudy group of adults on a Friday game night, this system stands up, gets out of the way, and paves a path for memoriable adventures.
Inside you'll find some of the best advice around for new referee/game masters including procedural generators for dungeons, cities, wilderness settings, NPCs, unique monsters and interesting spells.
Many of the resources offered here will be useful even in systems other than Maze Rats.
Well-worth the price of admission!
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