I was hoping it was a text story or graphic novel.

This has an enormous amount of information useful to GMs and players. Maps, occupations with salaries, descriptions of the areas and major facilities, the currency, proper ettiquette for what you call the nobility, servants, etc. A veritable plethora of great information!

There is no form fill-in ability with these so you have to write everything in by hand which was disappointing. However, you can't beat the price.

Many gamers, like myself, who've been playing fantasy RPGs for 20 or more years will remember those times when younger where one would flip through the book of monsters, and create fights for your characters to face. A random monster here, some random treasure and you'd create a character that could face the challenge and live to tell the tale. And it was quite challenging - a lone character against a horde of creatures could make for quite a tough encounter, and you'd need to use all your guile to escape death. Dungeon Dwellers Fantasy Adventure Game reminds me a lot of those times - a simple board game where you face random monsters in a random dungeon, fighting your way to obtain treasure, avoid traps and trying to beat death.

Dungeon Dwellers Fantasy Adventure Game is a fantasy board game with rules and mechanics very similar to those of current fantasy RPGs. In the game two or more players can join together, each leading a character through a random dungeon where you face random creatures and basically kill them and take their stuff. The board game offers several options for play, from solo play (if so desired), to competitive play, to the longer and more involved campaign play. Gameplay takes place on a self-constructed board using 2D dungeon tiles to create your own unique dungeon to explore. In this way, each play experience is unique, and you get to face a different set of challenges in a different environment.

The product comes as seven zip and pdf file containing the various parts of the board game. As with other board games distributed as pdfs, this format has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that you have unlimited tokens, cards, and characters, all of them being easy to print when you need them. There-in, though, also lies the problem - you have quite a lot of heavy color art to print just to play the game, and it could easily empty a printer cartridge just printing this game. Then there's some assembly time required to build all the tokens and cards. Naturally, if you're really interested in only the game and not the fabulous art (and you'd definitely be missing out of some stunning art if you take this approach), then printing is easier, and you don't, for example, need to print the card backs or other unimportant features.

The seven files of this product contain the instructions (screen and printer friendly), tiles to create your own dungeon map (based on Empty Room Studios' Dungeon Tiles product), a zip file containing card backs, a pdf with armor and weapon cards, a pdf with monster cards, a pdf with counters and tokens and lastly a pdf with item cards for treasure mundane and magical. The product is geared towards easy play and is very easy to learn, and several utility files like a readme.pdf enable you to quickly navigate your way through all the files and learn to play the game with little hassle. Overall, I was pleased with how easy to learn this game was, and how easy it was to use. Artwork is also fantastic throughout, with some stunning images in each part of the product.

Gameplay starts with players choosing a character to play. There are 8 types of character, each with a slightly different set of abilities and statistics. Character types include warrior, knight, priest, sorcerer, thief and barbarian. Each character is different enough to provide a variety of gameplay experiences, with each character being able to do different things and use different kinds of attacks. Players then construct and build the dungeon as they wish, allowing you to make it as easy or as difficult as you want. Some very useful tiles are provided with the product, though any 2D terrain tile will suffice to construct more complex dungeons or add more options. On that note, that's one of the good things about this game - it is very customizable and expandable to include pretty much anything you want to include.

Each room is then populated by a number of encounter tokens, as you prefer (or you can roll a dice to decide how many). These are turned upside down and can represent either a monster, trap, treasure or event. The first three are fairly self-explanatory. The latter is more interesting and details any event that you can imagine, such as, for example, a curse in the room. This makes the area even more customizable as you can easily add your own events. Once you enter a room, you can then face the monsters and enter combat, avoid the traps via a simple agility test, and gather the treasure which can be gold, armor, weapons, or other magic. These items can be used and equipped to improve your character, and gold can be used to buy things between adventures.

But, let's move on to the combat system as that's a meaty part of the board game and probably what it's all about. During combat characters can move and attack (melee, ranged or magic), using a combat test roll (the game uses d6 dice). Monsters are entirely passive, meaning that they don't make any rolls, although a few have some special abilities based on the outcome of the combat test. If you succeed at the combat test roll, you manage to damage the creature, but if you fail, the creature damages you instead. Certain creatures can only damage you based on the nature of the combat test. So if you strike a creature by magic and fail, and the creature doesn't have magic damage listed on its entry, then you take no damage. The game allows options for resting or 'returning to town' as a means of recovering health beyond priest healing.

So what's good about Dungeon Dwellers Fantasy Adventure Game? Firstly, for any gamer it'll be really straightforward to pick up. Even non-gamers can learn this game in the minimum of time. Artwork is fantastic, and the product really looks impressive. The versatility, expandability and options of the game make it fun to play and no one game is similar to the other. The competitive and campaign game options make it even more interesting and more fun. Basically, if you like the 'kill it and take its stuff' motto, then you'll really enjoy this game. The event cards are particularly interesting, and the game has been streamlined to ensure that minimal dice rolling takes place. Characters are allowed to grow and expand by gaining new weapons, armor and magic, which is good to see.

One of the problems with this game, however, is in the combat resolution system and the monsters. When attacking a monster, characters only suffer damage on a failed combat test if the monster has that particular combat type listed in its entry. So if you attack a monster with magic and it can only damage on melee, there are no consequences if you fail the combat test. Of the 20 odd monsters in the game, all can give melee damage, less than half ranged damage, and less than a quarter can give magic damage. So why play melee warriors or knights at all? If you walk around with ranged and magic characters only, you'll rarely if ever get damaged given the random nature of the monsters drawn. I think something needs to be done to make monsters more active, or otherwise improve the system so that each character type is actually required.

Of course, being entirely random, there are no issues of balance here. You're just as likely to fight a powerful dragon as you are a kobold. This is good and bad, but at least the game allows for a 'run' option. If you then run, rest and return, there's a 50% chance for a consequence of running away in a wandering monster, but otherwise you can just restart the battle as if nothing had happened. I'm not sure I appreciate this kind of gaming style - in a way I'd prefer to see an option where you build the dungeon and slog it out, or at least that run has some additional consequences, such as, for example, giving the monster a bonus on the repeat encounter.

Overall, I think this is a fun game if you play it as a fun game. It's a game that has a few loopholes that can be exploited, and that's probably not a good thing. Making monsters more active will likely go a long way in avoiding this. Still, it's fun, versatile, expandable and has loads of useful options. It's all about 'killing things and taking their stuff' and in its own way that can sometimes be fun. Still, it's an RPG game gone down into a board game without the addition of any elements that would make it an 'unique' board game experience. It's not unlike a fantasy combat encounter with a battlemap and random elements. Nevertheless, if you're looking for a fun game to play between RPGs or with the family this is a good one to take a look at.

A great setting just got better-- a must for True20 fans, this book contains loads of new backgrounds, role tweaks etc. This is a "smart" use of the True20 mechanics. Imperial Age doesn't present 20 useless "new roles," but gives suggestions thematically for enhancing the existing ones. If you have the previous d20 version of Imperial Age, you'll notice that the formatting and editing is much improved. Lots of material for the GM. But material from Faerie, Victorian Monstrosities and India, the strongest pieces from the d20 edition, are virtually absent here. The price is worth mentioning too, a relative bargain at $9.95. Everything from Sherlock Holmes to Full Metal Alchemist and Girl Genius, you can approximate it with this book. RDP's Shadows of Cthulhu could easily be paired with Imperial Age. ...awaiting the next installment.

the flooded room needs a click mark to remove the floating wood planks

Useful vehicles for Call of Cthulhu games at a very reasonable price.

Finally some great tiles to use with my Call of Cthulhu games! This should work well enough in '20s and modern settings as well. I also just purchased and printed off the HMS Shearwater in this line and will soon be mounting that onto foamcore.

Finally some great tiles to use with my Call of Cthulhu games! This should work well enough in '20s and modern settings as well. I also just purchased and printed off the HMS Shearwater in this line and will soon be mounting that onto foamcore.

Finally some great tiles to use with my Call of Cthulhu games! This should work well enough in '20s and modern settings as well. I also just purchased and printed off the HMS Shearwater in this line and will soon be mounting that onto foamcore.

I just printed this out last night and will be mounting it onto foamcore tonight. This is a great model and I'm really excited to use this in some upcoming Call of Cthulhu games. Its really cool that there are some added objects at the end of the file for you to cut out and use to further customize the tiles.

I hope they release some other boats in this line... a tramp steamer would be a welcome addition!

Venture 4th - Pact of Ghosts is the latest product in Adamant Entertainment's Venture 4th series, a series of products devoted to developing game material for the 4e GSL system. This product is also one of several taking a look at alternative warlock pacts that can be used to flesh out your warlock character. Pact of Ghosts is a short 12 page pdf product, featuring all the pact details, powers from level 1 to level 30, new feats, a new paragon path and a few new magical items. Other warlock pacts in the Venture 4th series include Blood, Angelic Choirs, Vermin Lords and Dragon Lords.

This product comes as a single pdf file, very well presented with some stunning cover art and good frills on the inside to make the product professional and presentable. The writing, editing and layout is done well, and I particularly liked the flavor text, although at the same time the flavor text could've been supported a little better by some better mechanics. More on that later. Writer Stefen Styrsky packs in quite a lot of material in this product, giving good value for money in flavor and mechanics for those interested in looking at alternative warlock pacts. The product doesn't contain bookmarks, and perhaps a list of powers and brief descriptions would've been useful as an overview glance of the product material. Overall, though, well presented, professional, with good art and writing.

The pact of ghosts is just as the name implies - the warlock makes a pact with those departed spirits that for one reason or the other were unable to complete their journey in the afterlife. This grants the warlock access to a spell that can shake the mental faculties of his foes, and an interesting ability to manifest some of the ghost world whenever a foe is defeated. Naturally, the largest portion of the product contains warlock powers suitable to this ghost pact. As mentioned earlier, I thought the flavor text was done rather well, and fitted in excellently with the theme and feel of the product. On the other hand, the mechanics weren't that interesting.

For all the good flavor text, the powers' mechanics were just psychic or necrotic damage with the occasional addition tacked on. To a certain extent, this does fit the theme, but it speaks volumes as well with regard to lack of versatility in there somewhere. It just seemed rather disappointing that every cool description given to a power is followed by some psychic damage description which leads to a little disappointment. Having said that, some powers were actually quite good and made more use of the 'freeform' available to powers. Don't get me wrong, I think strategically and tactically these powers can be of a lot of use to a warlock character, but it's just more of the same with different flavor text, and I guess therein lies my problem with it.

The product concludes with a new paragon path, the Master of Shrouds, and several useful new feats that improve the ghost pact's abilities and fit the flavor nicely. Three magic items are included, and I particularly like the Book of the Damned, a tome that grants you the power of knowledge on various shadowy and otherworldly creatures. There's a lot of 'bang-for-your-buck' in this product, with loads of material that can be used - most of the material is usable even if you don't want the ghost pact specifically, or at least can be easily modified to avoid the pact and just use them as general warlock or other class powers.

I think this product has gone a good job of presenting an interesting and useful new warlock pact that is brimming with new flavor and mechanical options. It's very well presented with great art, and the writing is vivid and descriptive. My only negative is the implementation of the powers which just didn't seem to take full advantage of the flavor offered by the power itself. Overall, a very good product, and well worth looking at if you're after a ghostly pact for your warlock character.

A collection of the many tales of Fu Manchu. It is great for those who cannot track down copies of their own or who want to read it offline. The Good: Its a collection of books that you can read off line The Bad: The price is a bit high knowing that most of these stories are available for free reading at the Google Books site (just search for Fu Manchu).

I recently tried out this product along with MasterTiles from Skeleton Key and EZtiles from Fat Dragon. I was interested in all three because of the PDF technology that they're using to add and subtract elements before printing.

This product definitely had the most interesting art, with shading and color quality superior to the other two. I wanted to buy all three products, but was on a budget until I made up my mind what worked better. These guys also included a couple of pages of compatible elements to lay down across the tiles separately. (I think I have a way to stage that weird demon blood trial from Thunderspire Labyrinth now.) I give them top marks for what I received.

In each of these PDF products, the elements on the page that the user can add and remove with layers is a bit weird. All publishers have their own ideas about what's important and where it goes. Empty Room definitely wins the "matches John's ideas about needs" award. Want to turn the gory cut up body kitchen into a standard kitchen for RPG use in an upstanding lord's keep? Just turn off the butcher's table and take the body out of the fireplace. All the extra gore and blood spatters on the floor go with them and you can use this room in another context. Similarly, have you ever struggled with knowing where the walls were with D&D's tiles because interior walls aren't shown? Empty Rooms lets you put a wall across each possible entrance individually, so that you can choose the access points and everyone knows how to get from one spot to another.

The guys at Empty Room have missed only two tricks that I think Skeleton Key did better. Each page of the PDF itself has the logo and copyright information. Skeleton Key gives you the ability to turn that off before printing to save ink. This avoids the hassle of copying to a graphics program and trying to get the size just right. Skeleton Key also experimented with other walls. They have walls that actually change the shape of the room, letting me have an L-shaped room with all the goodies and a 6x6 room with the same range of choices.

My only COMPLAINT about these is the price point to get in. I downloaded the freebie from SK and one from Empty Room. I went to DL one from Fat Dragon, and they had a bundle that was hard to pass up. I would have tried the Empty Room bundle at $20 or even $22 for the Dungeon Rooms 1 and 2 and one more (this product or the pit one) and just skipped Fat Dragon's altogether if such a bundle had existed.

POSITIVES: best art, best accessories in kit, most sensible decisions about item placement and removal.

NEGATIVES: Not quite as clever at using PDF technology for extra flexibility, a couple of dollars more expensive.

While basic in terms of historical information, it's holds its own as useful and game-specific tidbits to spice up your pulp campaigns.

It does well to point out that the "nazis being typical pulp villians" is a modern misconception, for they appeared as such near the end of the pulp era. Still, gives plenty of room for you to create a detailed campaign where your players have a go against these opponents in the pre and early war timeframes.

Used in conjunction with Zeppelin Adventures, you can have lots of hours of fun in a pre-WWII setting where Europe is in the brink of chaos, spies are everywhere and there's nothing a determined pilor/hero can't do to save his paramour, his reputation and the world, all at the same time.

The crunchy bits are the typical high-standard you can expect from Adamant Enetertainment and conforming well to the d20 usual fare. Still, there enough information in there to translate it to any system without having a nightmare pf a time doing so.

This is a nice addition to any pulp enthusiast's rpg collection. I recommend it heartily.