I purchased this book under the impression that I was going to drag a handful of players through a zombie infested city, instead I found a book that will allow me to not just run a game for 4 or 5 friends but for a club of 50. Once I seen that the O's through out the book are to check off what has been looted and the endless empty room descriptions are there for me to write in extra notes to say "group 1 ransacked, group 2 used as supply dump and group 3 died in here" this book after a little bit of reading will allow plenty to have minimal preperation games that will keep players on edge and demand creative play. I cannot recommend this book enough to people that want to play in a semi-historic setting with endless oppertunities for tension and horror.

It's hard to not draw comparisons with the video games, Darkest Dungeon or Bastard Bonds, while reviewing this supplement. The players are probably criminally accused, doing penance for some crime by being forced into servitude and likely execution by undead. The meat of the book is backstory and city layout, with informational box maps that can serve as guides for making your own maps but, not seriously for direct use. The PDF is bookmarked, which is good, making it easy to navigate between different sections if you are using the book in real time. The loot tables have items that are sensible for the setting and quite mundane which is fine but each of these items is preceded by a number of O's that I don't understand the significance of. The loot is so mundane that it could have been represented by a table reference for boring loot, rather than listing each candlestick or old boardgame you find in a drawer of an empty bedroom. This is a setting book. While there is a 40ish page bestiary, which holds very versatile ideas for different kinds of zombies and hoards, the book is for atmosphere and there is perhaps, too much of it. There are so many details that you may never need to know and this is a hard turn for the publisher, who normally puts out supplements with much less detail under the assumption that GMs are capable of combining and creating to assemble their list of minor nothings when they need to. As someone who is a fan of their previous works, I find myself skipping through heaps of this book. The lore is fascinating and not a single aspect is wasted though and that is what I really need to immerse myself, then my players in this world. The maps are useful but the breakdowns of each room, especially when empty, are not. Is it worth it? Yes. Is it perfect? No but none of it is necessarily useless to everyone, just not useful to more experienced GMs. I highly suggest getting this if you like to read to yourself for several weeks before starting a game though, as again, the lore is top notch.

It would take a lot of prep work for this book to be usable at the table, which is a shame since if it was better organized it could be a pickup and play City crawl.

The lack of a proper side index makes it difficult to flip to one section of the city vs another quickly. I'm physically cutting the sides of the pages on my copy to make it usable but it would be better if this wasn't needed.

It also tries to add a mechanic related to sound attracting zombies based on how far away they are but I have no idea how that would be used practically since you would need to keep track of every zombie within 1600 feet. Probably it would just be easier to invent your own random zombie system than use the one in the book.

Also since it's trying to be compatible with 4 different systems(DnD5e, Grimdark, LotFP, MB), the bestiary entries can feel bloated, pushing out the page count and making it harder to use.

Originally posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2022/09/100-days-of-halloween-clipart-critters.html

If you are beginning to think I bought every bit of clip art or stock art with "witch" in the title, then you would likely be right.

Clipart Critters 338 - Witches Trio

Another great one from Bradley K. McDevitt. It features a trio of witches over a cauldron under a full moon while a cat looks on.

Very spooky and puts me in the mood for fall.

I have to admit I enjoyed it so much it is going to be in my very next project. But more on that one later.

UPDATED: It is now part of my A5 version of my Basic Witch: The Pumpkin Spice Witch Tradition book.

This gives you 5 new character classes that add a lot to the ones given in the dT&T rules. These are The Brute (STR heavy), The Defender (CON), The Trickster (LCK), The Swashbuckler (SPD) and The Tinker (INT).

The first 4 are all very much of the "Hey, that's neat! Why didn't I think of that?" type and are worth buying this on their own, especially as the ideas are very precisely and concisely explained, but the last class, The Tinker, is a very clever idea that adds another dimension to the game.

The Tinker introduces an alternative system to Magic, with gizmos on place of spells, limited by the Tinker's INT attribute. The steampunk feel, and the subtle humour (I love the glow-torch) almost make this a work of art. You don't need to play T&T, or even want to play it, to appreciate the thought and humour that has been put into these devices.

Worth buying just for the read but, having put together a Swashbuckler and a Defender tonight, and rolled up a Tinker without devices (as yet), I am really looking forward to seeing how well these guys work in the 'real' T&T world.

Well worth buying.

I must say that DTRPG is also hosting the 3rd edition of this beautiful indie game. Revised, more defined and with cleaner graphics. However, I wanted to write this really short review here, as it was the one I first played many years ago and I remember it as the first game (at least I had played) using adjective-based mechanics. It was interesting and it worked quite well. Now it is no longer a rarity anymore, but back then I found the idea really innovative and I still remember Neverwhere RPG as something special.

The rules are simple and easy to learn. You can create characters pretty fast and the mood and basic background information of the setting are all in just 20 pages. That was also a pretty modern approach.

That said, it is obviously a work of a big fan of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere world, and you can see it from the vast encyclopedia that closes the book: the “Guide to London A-Z”, where you will find many characters and places from the original works. The only flaw is probably that all the contents of the guide are not divided into thematic chapters (which also in the 3rd edition). That being the case, the places, organizations and relevant characters are all in the same place, so if you don't remember the name of what you are looking for, you are forced to scroll through a long list of items to find it.

For an indie product so dated it must also be said that most illustrations and pieces of photographic art are definitely appreciable.

So the 3rd edition is probably the most complete choice, but if you like it, i suggest to download even that previous version.

This just became a goddess in my game world. Very loosely based on Amaterasu.

The grown up version of Nightbane. Not for the weak minded or SJWs.

I really do like this. I was looking at various titles about sex workers because I liked the idea of one of my squaddies in "Five Parsecs from Home" being a former sex worker (a familiar action movie theme), and while the subject is there in "Alpha Blue", the subject matter is more on the gonzo side than a broader societal thing like the Companions in "Firefly".

This title, "Courtesans", is a lot more about that context. Honestly, I was more interested in the sci fi bits in the supplement... but after reading this, the British Empire context was a lot more interesting. If you're a fan of the Napoleonic War era, the book does cover a very broad span of time... from the Georgian, to the Regency, all the way through Victorian and to Edwardian England. The game is about Courtesans... not prostitutes. These are independent women with the ability to travel through high society (the game even presents stats for historical Monarchs of the period!)... so perhaps your Courtesans might become companions or consorts to Royal Navy officers, Prime Ministers, or even the King of England. Or not... they could be pulled down by catty, mean courtesans that they share a house with.

It's an interesting underside of life. Like the toast in "Master & Commander"... "To wives and sweethearts" ("May they never meet" LOL). You play the sweethearts of men from high society in this game. And that toast to wives and sweethearts? It's exactly the context of this, I think.

Another idea/parallel might be Lady Jessica, the consort of Duke Leo Atreides. They never married. Nor did Muad'ib and Chani... yet, as Jessica concludes in "Dune", they are the ones who the histories will remember as wives.

That's all part of this... as well as your character being good at various sex acts (if you choose to describe them as such).

Can I recommend this: Yes, if you are interested in a rules-light game about players in high society with a dose of historical context and more than a little potential for raunch ("fade to black" is a fair way to move past such scenes, as stated in the book).

If you're a fan of the context, especially the Napoleonic era, Regency era (think Jane Austen, maybe even "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"), Victorian and/or Steampunk (i.e. Victorian + Gears), then I can easily recommend this as a way to think about the broader context of your other characters. (Like, British infantry officers in the RPG wargame, "Duty and Honour".)

EDIT: You know, this game is rather structured, which some say in a critical way. However, as something one might adapt to a solo game, structured play is actually an extremely good thing. Solo play ought to have a rigid turn structure... otherwise, it gets very loose and ungovernable in a hurry. A more strict adjudication is a huge benefit, I think. It's why "Five Parsecs from Home" and "Rangers of the Shadow Deep" make more sense to me... there's a framework for your imaginative stuff. "Four Against the Darkness" as well... structure helps define the bounds, and it's those boundaries that force choice and drive action.

It's hard to set up guardrails in purely speculative, loose structures... which is where you need a good GM to say yes, or roll the dice.

With a strict, formal turn structure, there's specific scene markers and mileposts for you to play the game while engaging your imagination.

So, while not strictly set up for solo play, I think "Courtesans" actually is fairly ideal for it. (Just add an adjudication system on top, like the Mythic GM emulator, to help you through the questionable points.) The well-defined turn-based structure of play in Courtesans is absolutely spot on for solo flights of imangination.

This game presents 3 scenario/settings for Courtesans if you do not want to play the "historical England" setting.

Rather than a toolbox for general Sci Fi, for instance, these settings are very much patterned after other RPG franchises.

The Vampire setting? There's a certain publisher of goth-ish supernatural personal horror games. (I thought Vampire was more interesting as a Superhero game, myself.) The Vampire thing in this book is a Courtesans riff on that "Vampire: the Whatever" series of games... and you play Vampire Courtesans, with Blood mechanics, etc.

The Fantasy setting? Dungeons & Dragons, where you play a "party" of sex worker-adventurers (Barbarians, Clerics, etc.). Races, classes, etc.

The Sci Fi setting? Litigious grimdark far future game setting parody... where you're part of an Inquisitor's (err, ah "Quizzer") fireteam, serving the eternal Empress of Man and guarding the empire against Heresy.

So, yeah, if you're a fan of those other games and you want to play a Courtesan-ized parody, then you'll find a lot to like here. If you want generic Sci Fi, then you're probably better off just taking the core Courtesan concepts, filing off the serial numbers that attach the game to England, and writing your own stuff. You might find some useful ideas for hacking Courtesans into your own universe in this book (like Races and Classes in the Fantasy Dungeons & Dragons setting)... but this book is not about "Generic". This is very much inspired by other, time-honored Roleplaying franchises.

As a general book/supplement to Courtesans? I'll rate it 4 stars. Bump the rating up a star if you want the specific franchises for your playthrough of Courtesans. Each setting definitely evokes those other franchises... so if you're a fan of grimdark farfuture onlywar, for instance, then you might just find something here to amuse you & your gaming friends.

I've been gaming for over 35 years and finally decided to start writing some material. For me, this course was more than just a simple 'how to'. James goes into some deep gaming theory but yet makes it exceedingly accessible at the same time. But he also goes into a lot of the 'why' which really makes you start looking at your game in a completely different light. Overall I’d say this was great value for money, and from someone who’s got a proven track record within the games industry. Highly recommended.

If there’s a follow up course to this I’ll snap it up in heart beat.

I loved this! Well worth a purchase. The author has put together a unique framework for creating various scenarios from this one book - so it’s open ended . The NPC characters are very well fleshed out, and all very interesting at the same time. They all interact in some way so you've got plenty of reasons why bad stuff is going down. The setting is also fluid. That is to say, the author sprinkles some good seeds throughout, while not holding your hand. Meaning, that this scenario has a lot of reply value, and the horror can be dialled up as needed (and could be number of things depending on your taste). But whatever you do don't look in the basement, that's all I'll say…

Wow! This book is packed with detail that helped me understand FATE better. Plenty of examples and narrative guidance as well. The layout and graphics may not be the best you've ever seen, but the 340+ pages here are extremely generous with more than everything you'd need to play.

The broader genre information and history (Ch. 11--The Years) is generically useful as well. It could benefit any spy or cold war game you want to run.

Pre-gens galore, many of them resembling personalities you already know. I love the illustration for Number 8 on page 248!

There are gobs of stunts to pick from too, from "Army of One" to "Minions" to "Prototype Vehicle" and "Sceptic's Ear"...oh and Strange Stunts, like "Astral Travel" and "Psychokinesis"..."Super Speed"..."Super Strength"...basically this game is ALSO A SUPERS GAME if you want it to be, you read that right. It's fun to read about the stunts and imagine various plots and scenarios.

Run anything from French Connection to When Eight Bells Toll to Austin Powers. Give Gene Hackman a cape if you want, or cause Patrick McGoohan to turn into TV's own Incredible Hulk. Helpful GM information abounds as well. Big thanks to the publisher.

A pitch perfect rendition of the genre mixed with a light and tight FATE backbone. This game has much to recommend it: 60's styling, genre background info, and sample characters that are most of the signature characters of the genre with the serial numbers filed off. Groups looking to run a "League of Extraordinarily Groovy Gentlemen" style game, a homage to an old favorite, or just set out on that show you wished they'd made will be very hard-pressed to find a game better suited.

Five videos in so far, will update after finishing. New to ttrpg design, I've dabbled for a few years as hobbyist listening to any and all free podcasts/videos on design. This though is by far the best resource I've seen, information is consice and will completely change how you percieve why you are designing games.