I finished reading Ghostlight today and I have mixed feelings about it. I have not GMed or played a game of it yet besides a brief attempt at solo play so its possible I may be missing something.

I want to talk about mechanics first since theres been some question about the rules in the discussion. Essentially the GM chooses a difficulty for the scene/challenge and rolls a number of dice equal to that difficulty. The player then rolls a number of dice equal to their skill and any bonuses they might have. If the GM rolls a higher total the player fails. If the player rolls a higher total the player succeeds. That's it. Mechanically speaking its extremely minimalist which you may or may not like. I was not personally a fan as I like complex game systems like Pathfinder 1e and Shadowrun 5E but I can see a group wanting a much more narrative focus really getting into that.

Solo play is almost non-existent. Ghostlight uses the idea of journaling for solo play which basicly means you are acting as the GM and player and writing a story. Not really roleplaying. Its not a great system. Across a thousand dead worlds did solo play well because it had a wealth of tables that could make adventures with rolls making the game and narrative quite random and unknown to the player till the dice landed. Ghostlight has none of that. There are no random encounter generation tables. No tables for creating classmates, rivals, encounters, or anything. In the loosest sense, yes you can still play solo by acting as the GM and player simultaneously but that takes the surprise out of being a player in my opinion.

Ok mechanics aside. Hows the setting? Pretty cool if you like the narrative, fill in the blanks, approach. The book lacks a lot of detail and expects the GM and players to fill in a lot of blanks which isnt necessarily a bad thing. It also offers enough advice for new GMs to easily fill in those blanks making it a great Game master guide for the setting. Advice on character creation is also really good to help new players in learning how to write detailed and interesting characters.

The default game is set in a small college town on the coast in Massachusetts. Its a well known school for the arts where students come to study theater and art in all its aspects. However something dark and sinister lies beneath the surface. Rival clubs fight for school dominance, secret societies operate in the shadows, vampires, werewolves, and witches attend the school (and yes you can play as them, no its not as cool as you're thinking though). The entire setting is a mix of gothic horror, soap opera drama, and supernatural horror. If you like that mix you'll probably like this setting a lot. I like all those things but the mechanical simplicity leaves me wanting much more.

I think I got the book for $9 or so and for me it leaves much to be desired. Its not bad but it does require a GM and players to put in a lot of legwork to make it really enjoyable

Although generic and universal, Lightspress books have a graduated scale for each Curse, making it a perfect fit for both the Chill and Buffy RPG. As these are older, I'm sure they fit neatly into other games, as well. I wish there were statblocks, but the lore it provides is overwhelming.

I've researched this topic extensively for over two decades, and I was floored by the amount of detail and sourced information provided herein.

Much of the authors' research stretches back to the roots of the Vampire Scare of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and even further back to some truly classical accounts. Some of these sources were new to me, while others, familiar, left me with a solid impression of the quality scholarship that went into this product.

I was impressed by the breadth of information provided from numerous cultures. The author's impressions are also valuable - weaving the folklore into useful advice for any TTRPG. One of my favorite sections is Reference section starting on page 77. The system-agnostic approach makes this a treasure-trove for any system, but it especially shines with rules-lite games (which I increasingly prefer in my adulthood).

But every section has beautiful deep-dives into the literary and thematic ways Vampirism reflects and recasts the historical and cultural context in which it arises. The last time I found a source this rich in new information, it was GURPS Blood+Types, decades ago.

My true delight, however, is the way this product handles the use of Silver as an apotropaic device against vampires. And this is usually a deal-breaker for me (snobby armchair Vampire folklorist that I am):

Namely, It acknowledges silver as an aspect of the modern vampire mythos, but throughout the 100+ page document the authors make no attempt to explain, justify, or invent a folkloric explanation for this trope.

And I admire this greatly, because to my knowledge no such folklore exists prior to the 1920's. I'd be intrigued to know if the authors discovered anything regarding silver and vampires in the folkloric record. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but the lack of sourcing for such lore in a work with research that delves so deeply reinforces what I suspect (that there's no folkloric basis for using Silver as a weapon against prior to the modern era).

Above the quality of writing and content, the fact that so far I have yet to find any dubious influences makes this a 5/5.

If you're writing a game about vampires, or playing a game involving them, no matter the genre, there is some great material in here to draw from. Well written, well organized, well priced.

I agree with the other reviewers about the non-specific/unactionable content, but I also suspect that this title (and most of the other ones I've looked at on preview by this publisher) are written at least in part by ChatGPT. There's a cadence to them that's very AI, and the problem with AI is that it's very nonspecific...just like this is. (I'm fine with AI existing; that genie's out of the bottle. I just want to be told something's AI so I can decide whether or not to support it.)

Since that's just speculation, I'm giving the content 3 stars, since it did make me think about how to adapt other type of media into games, even if there wasn't much that was practical to that endeavor contained therein.

It seems like it's written by an AI. The same few obvious concepts are repeated over and over.

So disappointing that it actually made me angry.

The authors spend way too much time expounding on how awesome they and their techniques are, and almost none on how to actually use those techniques.

Sure, there are a lot of words wasted on what you can use (Bullet) Journaling for, but not once are you shown the actual process of it. I would have expected at least one example of how to use Bullet Journaling plus Cornell Notes to document the events of a (part of a) play session.

They spend a miniscule amount of their wordcount on how the format of Bullet Journaling, i.e. the different types of bullets that help you organize your notes, actually looks, and then say how Bullet Journaling is even better when you use it with the Cornell Notes format, which gets another perfunctory description.

And then they give you hundreds of pages of example notes THAT DON'T USE THOSE FORMATS!

I mean, seriously!

It's like the journaling thing is just an excuse to showcase all the "amazingly creative" ideas they have.

A complete f@<#ing waste of time.

(2 Stars, instead of 1, because grammar and spelling are on point.)

Some of these Lux Adversaria books are excellent. Unfortunately, this isn't one of them. It looks like it was made up of many articles.

Ordinarily, that would be fine. But in this case, it desperately needed editing. We get the same topics listed over and over with very little variation... or information. This could have been edited down to about five pages.

i think this is a weakness with the "Understanding XXX Roleplaying" volumes. The "Adventures" and "Characters" volumes are much more helpful.

To improve the volume, I'd suggest editing to remove redundancies, and giving more examples for the topics.

There's nothing particularly bad here, but it's all very generic and system agnostic to the point of providing no mechanical advice whatsoever for creating creatures for a ttrpg.

The prompts and issues to be considered are decent enough as places to start, but it's all very padded and reads like a thoughtless AI-generated summary. Consider:

"Establishing the geographic range of Arctic megafauna is crucial for worldbuilding. This includes defining the specific regions of the world where these creatures are found, like the icy tundras of the far north or the frozen wastelands beyond the polar ice caps. By delineating their habitat, the worldbuilder sets the stage for encounters with Arctic megafauna and provides context for their existence within the larger ecosystem of the fantasy world."

So, arctic megafauna are found in the arctic and you'll need to decide where that is when designing a campaign setting. Essentially the same paragraph then appears in each biome section with a few words changed so that it's not completely cut & paste.

Over 40 years Edward Simbalist wrote two articles for the Chivalry & Sorcery sourcebook, 'designing C&S monsters' and, 'monsters are people too.' Between them they managed to provide more actionable advice for a DM in seven pages than this document manages in 96.

Will this also be available in epub format so I can read it through the Kindle app?

I found this disappointing. It's 51 pages of generalities and concepts. I was hoping for examples, techniques, and case studies, but the content labeled as such amounts to a paragraph or two each of generalities and concepts.

For instance, we're told that "Thematic consistency is necessary for maintaining the integrity of the narrative and player interactions." How does one do that? "Player choices and actions should reflect and contribute to the overarching themes of the game." How? There's nothing on how to ferret out themes, how to implement them in an RPG setting, or how to play them out. All we're told is that it's important, and that the writer has done it. There are no spelled-out techniques or worked examples.

Similarly, we're told that NPCs and locations are important (we knew that), but there are no particular techniques presented on ways to implement the material or play it out. "I considered how Gandalf's motivations and growth could intersect with the players' journey, ensuring that his guidance remained relevant and impactful." And how did you go about that? We don't find out.

There are no worked examples showing the concepts in action. There are no step-by-step methods for preparation or play.

There's not a lot of substance to this game - feels padded by redundant and vaguely ChatGPT-feeling text. The rules seem fine, such as they are, but there's just so much cruft.

I can't recommend this to anybody. So much padding! And so little useful material.

I am a fan of your series of books, and am happy that you have saught to continual improve upon them with your 'Director's Cut' version. You have done a great job cutting the unneeded fat from your series and have improved upon them! I have cheered you outloud while reading your 'Director's Cut', as I have noticed many of the improvements I wished to have seen actually implemented (Removing fat, re-organizing, re-sizing and choosing a better font, clarifying imformation, introducing new information.)

Though I do have some critism with the current Building Worlds and Building Adventure's. For Building Worlds you failed to clarify what type of premise is being created and for what purpose initially. You state "A premise summarizes your setting in a single sentence... etc" yet, you then go to mention Goals, Characters, and Obstacles. From reading past works, I know that the type of premise being creatd is what a chracter within the particular story would be accomplishing and for you to extract details from that. If it wasn't for that, I personally would stay confused.

For Building Adventurer's book, the tone and wording of what you are suggesting to the reader makes me feel as if you would be more accurately suggesting information for a campaign rather then an singular adventure. Then, when I came upon the Campaign chapter of the book, I thought to myself "So far it really felt like everything was refering to the entire campaign."

Though I do have these criticisms and I do feel that there is still room for improvement, you have certainly improved on your series. I am happy that you are keeping to your guns presenting your books in the unique format that you have. I am happy to have something different in my collection of books and not just the same thing that other people have created.

Berin Kinsman's gaming resource books are impressive and complete. They are especially good material for those of us new to working in game writing. I will no doubt eventually buy up everything on offer. I've purchased several of the books already, and they are being added into my gaming library at just the right time in my career.

Thank you, Berin, for these thorough, well-researched and professionally presented works. They are greatly appreciated.

This was a perfect introduction to "Bullet Journaling" for me. I've tried to absorb the methodology before, but the frame work of campagin journaling made it stick. Sort of like in math class when a good teacher puts a problem in a context that is relatable.

My only critique (aside from some very minor proofreading things like extra words likely left over from early drafts), is the term "Spread" isn't expanded on much. I take it to mean one of two things depending on context. Either, two facing pages OR any application of a calendar grid. Sometimes both, depending on the style you adopt. If I've missed it, blame the sleep deprivation of an overnight shift, not the author.