Jewels of the Carnifex is a level 3 adventure for 6-10 characters or fewer 4th to 5th level characters. Judges who have been following the Dungeon Crawl Classic adventures should know that the mysterious monsters and other obstacles can easily be modified upwards to make sessions more challenging. Spoilers ahead.

Much like the previous adventures, Jewels combines strong theme, mystery, logical consistency ("method to one's madness"), an occasional backdoor solution (secret door), fighting, and traps players have to defeat, not skill rolls. The plot of Jewels is the Lawful Azazel and his followers have destroyed the Cult of Carnifex has been destroyed and sealed away its patron deity. Azazel, however, has called for the primal light for aid. This light infuses him, and, ironically, has corrupted the undertemple far more than Carnifex could ever do. The PCs enter the undertemple to investigate, and either aid Azazel to finally destroy Carnifex, or free her from her prison.

DCC adventures implement well the "method to one's madness". Azazel and followers have settled into the undertemple (and are corrupting everything), so the enemies are either his followers, or corrupted overgrown versions of underground vermin. Likewise, many rooms reflect either the atrocities of Azazel, or the original temple of Carnifex.

Probably the only nitpick I have is that there's not much of a conflict in choosing Carnifex over Azazel. Azazel's a fanatic whose first impression towards to the PCs is to kill them. Carnifex is babe of a goddess who gives stat bonuses. No contest, really.

Otherwise, another fine job by Dungeon Crawl Classics!

Introduction

Despite the "d20 glut", the number of city settings one can choose from can be counted on one hand. This is a pity, as the city offers NPC interaction, combatless skullduggery, and other entertaining roleplaying not available in your everyday dungeon or wilderness adventure.

Enter "The Kaiin Player's Guide". Technically for the Dying Earth RPG, based on the works of Jack Vance, the KPG features one of the most entertaining fantasy cities I've read in a long time. Written by Robin D. Laws, designer of Feng Shui, Hero Wars, Rune, and aforementioned Dying Earth, the book is 200-some pages long, on heavy glossy paper. It's quite suitable for D&D or any other fantasy roleplaying game.

For GMs of Conventional Fantasy RPGs

Let me briefly mention what the book doesn't have. The maps have a "bird's eye view" of each section of the city, but not detailed maps of streets or locations. Stats for NPCs are for Dying Earth's skills, which focus on personality, and thus are quite usable in any roleplaying game. You'll definitely want to plug in the culture, personalities, and locations of Kaiin to a city with detailed street-by-street maps.

The information is portrayed from the perspective of a well-connected PC. As a result, the GM need no longer be a bottleneck for information. He can let the player peruse the book, or a particular section. Not all GMs will want to do this, but now they have this option. GMs will need to create any "secret" character details and specifics (not like they haven't had to do this with other city guides...)

For Dying Earth Players

As said, this book is written from the perspective of a resident of Kaiin. Despite the words "Player's Guide", there is no "Gamemaster Guide". The player peruses the book, selects a rumor, and the GM improvises, using the GMC creation rules. A few pages provide additional advice for the GM and player.

A City of Personalities

Most city books I've read are organized by locations. Each chapter discusses one of the quarters by providing an overview, then particular locations, each with their NPC residents (don't these people ever leave the house?). KPG provides an overview, but then focuses on the PC's contacts for the city and personages in the quarter. Contacts are a personality outline of a particular class of people in the quarter, which the GM (or player!) fleshes out as an NPC contact. Personally, I think contacts are a much more playable NPCs than the usual "Important People" section of a city setting.

Locations, calendar events, and rumors follow, then Taglines and Tweaks. Taglines and Tweaks are Dying Earth mechanics. Taglines are quotes which, if used by a player during play ("Call me parsimonious, but I am reluctant to become nourishment for anyone."), grants character improvement points. Tweaks are special bonuses that a character can have under certain social circumstances for their PC. Both should be adaptable to any fantasy rpg. Kaiin is composed of neighborhoods: Canal Town, where the city river "emits its last pathetic gasp before it empties into the bay" (avoid the oysters); The Fringe, home of the most destitute denizens and opportunistic bandits (razed to the ground periodically with lively festivals involving hangings); The Marketplace (including no less than three pages of cart-pulling "Unusual Mounts and Beasts"); Odkin Prospect, where reside the aristocrats and merchants they invest in and despise; The Palace & Environs, including the useful "Palace Intrigue Quick Reference" chart; The Scholasticarium District, an institution less of learning than of "rivals in an never-ending struggle for privelege and prestige"; The Threek, a medieval equivalent of the suburbs ("Although eighty percent of the population lives here, we cover it quickly"); The Tracks, where Dhejtar, a sort of cross between a weasel and a panther, race (or just bring your child here to throw rocks at defaulters in the punishment racks); and The Undercity, who has believed "the sun has already died, and they are the last survivors" (enjoy the spicy cuisine).

Last Words

Again, I'll emphasize that this is a book of personalities over locations. GMs looking for detailed maps of a city won't find them here, but should still consider KPG as a book of NPCs who will enliven any city. GMs who do not improvise city adventures will still need to create and prepare material. Still, the wealth of NPCs, especially the contacts, should enrich any city adventure, not just one for Dying Earth.

Introduction: I'll admit not having played Final Fantasy or other Japanese video roleplaying games. I'm still familiar with genre, and even visuals alone will tell you that these fantasy games are quite different than their western counterparts. And, while Japan has its tabletop RPGs, few have been translated to American markets. Indeed, Anima, which looks on the surface to be a tabletop rpg version of Japanese computer rpgs, was originally published by Edge Entertainment in Spain. That doesn't make it any less qualified to be a thorough and detailed treatment of the genre. However, its complex character generation rule may put gamers off.

Character Generation: Anima character generation is flavorful but highly detailed and complicated. If you're the type who approaches character generation as a spreadsheet budget, or someone who must create a super-exotic mondo-unique uber-butt-kicking character (or, much worse, have a player who wants to be one), expect to spend quite a bit of time going through several chapter's worth of character creation options. But if you limit first characters to the same basics the sample character uses (yes, Ki, Magic, and Psychic abilities are not basic!), you should be able to play soon enough. After their first game, players you can your players recreate their characters or introduce new ones. If you do a search on "anima roleplay character generation", you should be able to find jmbowman's Anima character generator.

Combat: Anima combat is straightforward, with optional complexity. Each turn you have an action, often an attack. In an attack, you and your opponent both do a "skill die roll" of an attack skill (eg. Attack Ability) versus a defense skill (eg. Dodge). You then cross-index the difference (negative numbers can cause counterattacks!) against armor. This results in a percentage which you multiply against your weapon's damage to determine how much damage you actually do. (This is easier done than said, since Anima provides a table and 100% damage is a multiple of ten.) Additional rules and modifiers are provided for ranged and optional hand-to-hand and ranged attacks.

Sourcebook: Much of the gamemaster's section is source material: Gaia's history, Countries and Cities, Organizations (factions), The Supernatural World, and Powers in the Shadow (conspiratorial organizations influencing Gaia), Hell (supernatural worlds and their races), Light and Darkness (deities and mechanics for their gifts), and Supernatural Presence (how much of the world's reality is centered around a character -- including the PCs).

Gamemaster: Other gamemaster sections include gamemaster advice and guidelines, Common Characters (common NPC stats), Creation of Beings (detailed mechanics for creating special creatures), Creature Compendium (example creatures), and a character sheet.

Art and Layout: Bring out your iPads. At 322 full-color pages, you're not going to print this out. It's too bad that Anima doesn't have a printer-friendly or text-only version.

Conclusion: This is not a casual roleplaying game. The system is complicated, and the source material extensive. However, if you're looking for a detailed tabletop treatment of a Japanese video game, Anima is a definite choice.

Semi-spoilers ahead!

Villagers have been disappearing—and some of them are your friends! A number of clues, various old superstitions, and a handful of vague omens point to the brooding citadel of the emerald enchanter. This silent monolith has sat undisturbed atop a windy ridge for centuries. Legends say that a green-skinned sorcerer dwells there, where he conducts strange experiments and builds enigmatic machinery. His emerald constructs patrol the grounds of his citadel, and he is seen only rarely when he ventures out on nefarious errands that end in horrid screams and strange lights coming from his citadel. Now you believe he is holding your friends captive. To rescue them—and potentially acquire some loot along the way—you set off to invade his inner sanctum. -- Player Beginning

Well, if that doesn't describe the adventure, I don't know what does. The Emerald Enchanter is a second-level adventure, by Joseph Goodman, creator of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. Like his previous adventures, EE gives the judge the same quality of dungeon: bizarre encounters to challenge the party, "a method behind the madness" to give consistency, a few captives to replace fallen members, and a "backdoor" to reward risk-takers. The adventure is fourteen pages long, shorter than his People of the Pit, but long enough for party TPK. The art is wonderfully evocative, definitely useful for the judge to tell the players how much trouble they're in. It's a well-designed wizard lair, which the judge (or players!) can use as a template for his own ideas.

My only quibble with this adventure is why the heck would you let strangers wander about your house? Won't they scratch the silver and damage the furniture? The encounter where the party initially meets the enchanter lets them cleverly "short circuit" the adventure, but warns the enchanter of these invaders. Why doesn't he send his emerald guards in their direction? (Or, since this is a dungeon crawl, who cares?) You could eliminate this encounter entirely. Or you could give a good reason for his non-interference, such as the party inadvertently releasing an NPC who kills him off, but doesn't adhere to the idea that "the enemy of my enemy is a friend".

Overall, I enjoyed this adventure very much. It has nothing to do with, but leads fine to the Free RPG Day 2012 adventure, The Jeweler that Dealt in Stardust. I mean, who else are you going to use to fence all those emeralds into gold?

Spoilers ahead

I read Bone Hoard after reading Goodman Game's People of the Pit and Free RPG Day 2012 adventures, and just can't say that I was as thrilled by this adventure. It's not a bad one. It's your typical "mage dies and adventurers investigate his long-lost dungeon". But, aside from a terrifically terrible "it'll suck out the bones from your body and taunt your friends with what's left" monster, there's not that much you haven't seen in, say, your typical D&D adventure. I think had the author had designed the scenario more heavily around the theme of "bone and flesh", it would have more impact. But, as it stands, I'm waiting for Goodman Game's next release.

Remember first level? You went into a dungeon, stabbed a few kobolds, went into another area, killed a few goblins, went somewhere else, slew some orcs, went to another place, attacked some skeletons, got their treasure, and finally did something (like slay hobgoblins) at second.

DCC isn't that.

"Now a decade has passed since the last sacrifice, and the rumbles of the pit-beast can once more be heard deep in the pit. This time, though, there is another factor. People have emerged from the pit, herding great slithering tentacles before them. These people of the pit wear gray robes and have no faces. The local peasants have chased the robed men away on numerous occasions, and now the humble folk around the ravine fear for their safety. It was enough to fear the beast of the pit, now must they fear the people of the pit as well? You have set out to explore the great ravine in search of mystery, adventure, riches, and fame—and perhaps to aid your neighbors along the way." -- from the Player Beginning

Spoilers ahead.

If the core book's "Portal Under the Stars" was a trap-encrusted killfest, "People of the Pit" is a refugee from Queen of the Demonweb Pits and Shrine of Kuo-Toa (and better organized, too). While Pit may not be campaign-sized large, your poor players certainly didn't take them on at first level!

And, like, Portal, Pit is sufficiently deadly. If your figher insists on running down the slick stairs, he could fall to the pit floor before meeting anyone. And when you do enter combat, those grey-robed cultists have the audacity to have these tentacled things burst out of them when they die. Oh, and if they're in an area where tentacles are nearby they can summon them to do their bidding (like grab characters and toss them screaming into the pit). And that's just the first encounter.

The adventure sticks to theme yet provides an assortment of enemies, magical traps, mundane ones, and a few Things to Run Away From. The adventure has method behind its madness. Smarter characters will proceed cautiously and use the shortcuts to their objective. Others will find themselves shocked, teleported, cursed, turned to stone, sliced open, and screaming a hentailike death. Thoughtfully, the adventure has plenty of 0-level captives who can replace fallen members, and more 0-level captives to replace the previous ones. And, yes, the trope-ic Indiana Jones finale has a beautiful babe about to be sacrificed to the pit.

If there's any criticism of the adventure, it's that it's not just for 1st level characters! DCC is about not knowing what you're up against, and the stats (and shortcuts) can certainly be adjusted for higher level parties. And you may want to make the Control Tentacle spell easier to access by the spellcasters, if only to roll on the corruption table!

I'm pleasantly please with the People from the Pit. Just makes you wonder what will happen at second level.

A key element of player experience in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game is a sense of wonderment. Your job as judge is to convey “the sense of the unknown” that was so easy to achieve when we were children who did not know all the rules. -- DCC RPG Core rules

If, by "a sense of wonderment", you mean "OH SHI*", yes, DCC adventures have a sense of wonderment. If D&D adventures are a series of stat blocks and treasure tables, DCC adventures are a case of "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't". Assuming, of course, your players will last long enough to find that method. Spoilers ahead.

The first adventure, "The Undulating Corruption", is a 5th-level quest for a corrupted wizard and his party. DCC has a wonderful mechanic that the more a wizard casts spells, the more likely he'll suffer a corruption. In this adventure, your players have found out about a shrine that can cure corruption. Except that it isn't really a shrine. And it escaped.

The second adventure, "The Jeweler that Dealt in Stardust", is a 3rd-level heist of a fence who seems to have disappeared a month ago. Seems, of course, is the operative word. More accurately, it seems that Boss Ogo stumbled upon a particularly enchanted jewel, and has made contact with a Lolth or Lovecraftian mythos-inspired spider god, whose spiders have leaked into our own plane. It doesn't help that Ogo himself has a well-trapped location, or mundane opponents, such as the surviving gang members, still watch over his shop.

At about six pages each, both adventures are short, but that doesn't mean they're easy. They should be adaptable to other game systems. The second adventure will also be useful to understand what a thieves guild would look like. Also included is a $1000 design contest, with an October 2012 deadline.

My only hesitation in recommending these adventures is that, as of this writing, DCC seems to be releasing adventures starting at 0th level and is up to 1st, if you ignore the short 5th level adventure in the core book. Those who wish to create their own sense of, ahem, wonderment, adventures already have the adventures in the DCC core rules as models. The others who rely up on prewritten adventures may wish to wait until Goodman Games releases a 3rd level adventure to have something to compare these adventures against.

I think I could sum up this review from the Foreward:

"Phil, on the other hand, has taken his expertise as a project manager and his genetic predisposition to nigh-obsessive preparedness and applied these qualities to an entirely systemic and effective treatise on the matter. He’s broken down the whole of the concept, applied a step-by-step presentation of all of the factors you need to consider, and presented it all in a clear, concise, easily grasped way.

The best part of this book is that Phil doesn’t just lay out a list of steps that every GM must follow to the letter. Honestly, that would be fairly useless as well as pretentious. A wiser man, Phil, in that he instead guides you in evaluating your needs as a GM, based on your style of play. From there, he helps you figure out the steps that make the most sense for you."

Phil Vecchione is a regular contributor to Gnome Stew, a site of articles for gamemasters. He's also one of the authors of Masks: 1000 Memorable NPCs for Any Roleplaying Game, and Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters. These products have previews available on the Engine Publishing Website.

Us gamemasters know that proper preparation is key to a good game session, but that's about it. Never Unprepared: Complete Guide to Prep breaks down prep into five phases: Brainstorming, Selection, Conceptualization, Documentation, and Review. Brainstorming is the spawning of ideas. Selection is the selection of ideas to use in an upcoming game. Conceptualization is the expansion of each idea, giving it log, a description, and a fit into the overall game. Documentation, aka. the part of the prep process most associate with prep, is writing down the concept that is meaningful to you, the gamemaster. Review, often the most overlooked phase, breaks down into proofreading, directing (reviewing and rehearsing), and playtesting (taking the perspective of the players before the game session).

But, on top of these steps, the book attempts to get you, the gamemaster, to accomplish these phases. What tools do you use for prep -- and even which phase of prep? How do you optimize your creative cycle and personal schedule? What are your strengths and weaknesses as a GM? The book also includes a concrete guide to templates (eg. NPCs and scenes). The Prep-Lite and Prep in a Real World chapters help you compensate when you cannot properly prepare for a game. These sections go beyond the "how to" guidelines of most gamemaster tip articles.

The book comes in both PDF and text format. The PDF is 134 pages long, with art interspersed throughout. Like too many other RPG materials, the art isn't really relevant to the text and could just as easily have been left out. The text is in the UTF-8 character set.

The book isn't for the lazy GM. If anything, it's a project management guide for gamemasters -- and it's still your project. The book has no shortcuts like an "instant NPC generator" or such. It also doesn't address prewritten adventures and their own problems. Nor does it give advice on gut improvisation during a game session. (It does give advice for last-minute preparation.)

I'm also just a little hesitant to recommend this to neophyte GMs. Sure, if you have ideas all brimming in your head, you will want this guide to help organize your thoughts and notes. However, the book may be a little intimidating with how much work you can do towards gamemastering. Don't think of it as what you must do.

One audience I think this book is absolutely for is the aspiring writer. I'm sure there are plenty of how to's for new writers, but you should be able to use the principles in this book for that novel you've always wanted to write. Many of the guidelines, especially time management, tools, and "thinking about it throughout the day" will be particularly useful for you to get your project off the ground. NaNoWriMo is coming up soon enough, and if all you do is prep, you'll do a better job than those who just pound the keyboard.

Overall, Never Unprepared: Complete Guide to Prep is for any dedicated gamemaster who designs his own adventure. Very well written, and very recommended.

"What is my motivation?"

What may be a cliche in acting is a cornerstone in roleplaying an NPC. Generating the stats is the easy part -- How did he become the way he is? Why does he interact with the PCs? What gets him out of bed each morning???

The first book in RPGObject's GMMastery series is "NPC Essentials", by Johnn Four, of Dragon magazine and the Roleplaying Tips Weekly website (www.roleplayingtips.com). NPC Essentials is a 83-page PDF document, with about 50 pages of design text, 10 pages of mini-adventure, and 20 pages of charts and worksheets, for $8.95. Essentially, it's a planning manual for GMs to design their NPCs. Story writers may find it useful as will players creating backgrounds for the PCs. Except for stat blocks of the mini-adventure, the document may be used for any roleplaying system. Even new GMs (and lazy ones) can just focus one or two ideas at a time and improve their techniques.

Besides the introduction, the text itself is divided into four chapters:

• NPC Design
• NPC Role Playing
• Campaign Management
• NPC Archetypes
• Mini-Adventure
• Charts, Tables, And Sheets NPC Design

This chapter recognizes that GMs only have so much time to plan and design characters. It begins by dividing up various NPC elements into the Four Planning Groups: Core NPC, Core Roleplaying, Detailed Roleplaying, and Combat. You'll use one or more of them depending on the NPC's Story Role. Each NPC Story Role (from Villains and Rivals to Remote NPCs and even Items!) has a description, list of Planning Groups to use in its design, Estimated Planning Time, and Design Methods. Through an organized series of instructions, questions, and examples, this chapter guides the GM in creating a character. Personally, I found the amount of preparation work quite dauting (take a deep cleansing breath), although a GM could step back and quite easily only prepare one or two NPCs.

NPC Role Playing

This chapter opens with a philosophy of scenes with NPCs: Portray the scene as if "The PCs have entered the NPC's life, not vice-versa". The chapter then suggestions on how to make the NPC most effective in advancing the storyline. The rest is devoted towards techniques for GMs to use during roleplaying: Acting, Voice, Parley strategies, NPC-to-NPC discussion, Escape routes for NPCs, and Roleplaying during combat. Again, quite a bit of advice is given, and a GM can just focus on one or two techniques in his next session.

Campaign Management

While NPC Design focuses on the individual NPC, NPCs do not stand alone in a campaign, and a GM certainly has to keep track of more than one NPC! This chapter ties the NPC to the campaign and suggests how to keep track of a cast of non-player characters:

• Organizing NPCs: Good organization prevents missing information and mistakes in play. This section includes suggestions for physically storing NPC information (from binders to business cards), and what NPC information to update between sessions.

• Introducing NPCs: The most lasting impression on a party is the introduction. This section gives examples of how to best introduce an NPC, through foreshadowing techniques, what makes the NPC unique, and surprises to spring on the characters.

• When PC and NPC power levels differ: Tired of pitting your 20th level wizard against invisible magic-proof ninjas? Want to throw more than goblins and kobolds at low-level characters? This section provides roleplaying tactics for challenging PCs with lower-level NPCs, and vice-versa (including tips for GMs with players who assume they can fight everyone they encounter!).

• Tying NPCs to your campaign: This section explains how to reflect your world -- not to mention plot hooks and critical story information -- through NPCs. Is the NPC a trendsetter, or a trendfollower? (Did you, as a GM, even think of distinguishing your NPC this way?) I found the suggestions on how to avoid the "critical NPC the PCs must meet but fail to" trap to be particularly useful.

• Creating dynamic NPCs: NPCs and even regions die and change. This section, which uses an event chart in the back of the book, tells you how to change NPCs without it becoming too much work. The event chart might be fun for PCs to use, as well.

• Character cast creation in six steps: This section is a step-by-step guide in creating, prioritizing, and developing your NPCs. Nice to see that one step is devoted towards budgeting your time!

NPC Archetypes

NPC Design covered standard NPC story roles, NPC Archetypes cover the standard NPC professions (mostly city) in an adventure: Craftsmen, Upper Nobility, Soldier, Beggars, and so on. Besides plot hooks, each archetype is given a short background discussion to help flesh him out. For example, a craftsman might be an employee or an owner. Assigning him a role in the business results in a completely different personality, and thus a different roleplaying interaction with the party. Few artists and entertainers can make a living at their craft. What will the surprise of finding out the entertainer's full-time job affect the players? With this chapter alone, the GM can turn some routine stereotypes into opportunities for enjoyable roleplaying.

Mini-Adventure

The next chapter is a 10-page investigation / social-driven mini-adventure. For characters of 3rd-5th level, this adventure is meant to tie in what the GM has learned from the previous chapters. Personally, I wished this chapter discussed more of how the techniques of the book created the adventure, rather than the final adventure itself. (The adventure does contain a chart of what certain people in the village know about important NPCs; use this as an example in your own adventures). The adventure centers around some village council shenanegans, a definite change of pace from the generic helpless towns seen in most publications. It's one thing if the PCs save the helpless town from the bad guys. It may be an interesting other situation if the town is a little more political than helpless...!

Charts, Tables, And Sheets

This section contains 20 pages of charts and record sheets to help the GM efficiently plan his NPCs; brainstorm names, background, appearances, traits, quirks, and secrets; create events for NPCs (see Campaign Management); and record this information. (There are 100 Secrets, 100 Events, 200 Quirks, 300 Traits, and even more entries for Names!) PCs will definitely find these charts and worksheets useful in thinking up a background for their own characters. You'll probably want to print out the record sheets and fill some out as you read the book. Unfortunately, these sheets cannot be used electronically (ie. you can't type the information in for electronic storage).

PDF or hardcopy?

Personally, I wish this book were hardcopy, with web support of record sheet downloads. But it's still written as a book rather than, say, a series of reference sheets. After trying to read it onscreen, I gave up and printed out all 80 pages. The only pages that really benefit from the electronic format are the record sheets (since you can print any number of them crisply from your printer instead of copying them at Kinko's). Otherwise, the layout is done very well, with minimal, but effective use of color (art, maps, and chapter headings). The PDF document uses bookmarks and you can use copy and paste. The book does not have an index.

Other comments

To some extent, the document assumes you're designing your own overall adventure and you will do this work before play. It would have been nice to add suggestions how to analyze NPCs in published adventures so you're not caught flat-footed (to steal a term) when the players throw a roleplaying wrench which the adventure didn't prepare for. The advice doesn't directly address (lazy) GMs who prefer to develop their characters between sessions as they play the game ("the characters write themselves" sorta thing). What with most short adventures (such as those in Dungeon magazine) being of the "save the helpless villagers" variety, I personally would like to have seen suggestions on developing NPCs to tie together for similar but unrelated adventures (eg. the head honcho villain who's responsible for these different groups of bad guys threatening different helpless towns).

Roleplayingtips.com

If nine dollars for some of the most thorough NPC planning advice I've seen in twenty-some years is too much, at least subscribe to Johnn Four's Roleplayingtips.com free weekly newsletter. Started two years ago, this newsletter is over 145 issues strong, with contributions by Johnn and numerous readers. Perhaps the only drawback is that archived articles are only sorted by date or title, as opposed to subject.

Conclusion

A good number of GMs create their own adventures, which means a good number of them should own this book. Even if your games are still nothing but dungeons and hackfests, you can certainly add some color to the helpless town elder, not to mention the evil boss villian (before the players chop him up). GMs who start with published adventures will still find this book useful for fleshing out NPCs. This book will also assist PCs who desire character backgrounds (all too often at the behest of their GM).

Alright. This review will be one big spoiler, so you brave little investigators can leave the room now. It's time for us Keepers to have a chat.

Ready? Good. A Dream of Japan reminds me of an episode of the Twilight Zone. Masterfully written, tense and suspenseful, and, more often than not, ending with the main character screwed over in some sort of dreadful fate in the end. Or like the horror movie where it only seems that our heroes win out, only that we know that the terribleness is just beginning.

And that's the drawback of A Dream of Japan. The ending has our investigators none the wiser that they really didn't succeed and are now pawns for the terrible horrible terror. Sure, actual investigators aren't supposed to defeat the forces of the Mythos, but the players may want to have that ridiculous concept of "fairness" in an adventure.

A Dream of Japan doesn't do this. Or, rather, it ends with the seeds for the Keeper to take his next adventure and drop hints (as well as NPCs close to the investigators) that their adventure in Japan isn't exactly over. It's a rather fiendish idea whose success will depend on how well your players don't mind being hornswaggled by the forces of the Mythos.

Otherwise, it's a great adventure. Chaosium set high standards of writing with its Cthulhu adventures, and A Dream of Japan follows quite nicely. It is, of course, set in Japan, yet its scope never has us needing a broad sourcebook to support it. The level of detail (at least until the end) makes our jobs easier.

Definitely an adventure to make your next one a little more interesting.

Civil War is an Event for four to six players and may take up to six months to play. The Event consists of three acts, with several scenes each (Buildup and Key Scenes, which consist of Action and Transition Scenes). In addition to scenes, the event has optional rules for troupe play, optional rules improving scene distinctions and complications, and a sourcebook. The Premium edition includes the Operations Manual, which is the game system rulebook also available in the Basic Game book.

Operations Manual: As said, this is the same OM as the Basic book. However, a random character generator, has been included. The random character generator, and an example of play, are also available on the publisher's website. If you have an iPad, I highly recommend the Premium edition over the Essentials version, which does not come with the OM. The additional cost for the OM is only six dollars on DriveThruRPG.

The scenes themselves are each only a few pages long. Rather than specific details, the description is more of an overview, pointing out various important scene and datafile distinctions. That's certainly enough to play and enjoy a scene. Including the scene distinctions is a nudge up from the Basic Game's Breakout scenes, which only mentioned datafile distinctions. Watcher character datafiles (ie. villains and their agents) are included with a scene, as is advice in running these characters. Advice is also provided if players wish to pursue the scene further. The datafiles of characters in the scene and some of the scenes will be very useful in your own events, although no index is provided if you want to quickly find this information. If you haven't already purchased the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game, go ahead and purchase the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Civil War Event Book (Premium Edition). The Premium Edition's scenes are better written and the variety of scenes will be useful as models for your own adventures.

Troupe Play: The scope of Civil War is much larger than any individual hero. The optional Troupe Play rules allow players to play different heroes throughout the event. Basically, the troupe play rule is that all XP are granted to the player, not the individual heroes being played. Further discussion is made for advanced troupe play, such as players who want to play heroes on either side of the registration act.

Scene Distinctions and Complications: This optional rule makes Scene Distinctions have more impact on a scene. A player may now add a Scene Distinction and a character Distinction to his dice pool for free, so long as one is a d4 and the other a d8. The Watcher may turn a Scene Distinction into a complication by spending a die from the dice pool (eg. The Pro-Registration Protestors starts as a Scene Distinction. The Watcher spends a D10 from the Doom Pool to change this into a D10 complication).

Civil War Sourcebook: While oriented towards the Civil War, the sourcebook section has information that is likely to be used for any Marvel event. Each location or faction has a short write up, datafiles for notable characters and agents, and sometimes Unlockables and Milestones. Marvel factions are AIM, Hydra, Illuminati, and SHIELD. Key Marvel New York locations include the Daily Bugle, Avengers Mansion Ruins, Baxter Building, Ryker's Island, and landmarks of New York. Fiction Marvel locations are Atlantis and Wakanda.

Friends and Foes (watcher characters): This section has additional datafiles for addtional Marvel allies and villains. Notable ones in this and the scenes include Dr. Doom, Green Goblin, Venom, New Thunderbolts, Nick Fury, Black Widow, and AIM, Hydra, and SHIELD agents. Notes are included to upgrade them to player characters. In addition to the hero datafiles, Civil War has datafiles about forty villains and heroes. With the forty-some villains in the Basic Game's Breakout event, your heroes should be pretty busy!

Hero Datafiles (pregenerated characters): Arachne, Black Panther, Cable, Captain America, Clint Barton, Cloak, Dagger, Daredevil (Daniel Thomas), Deadpool, Doctor Strange, Falcon, Goliath, Hercules, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Mister Fantastic, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, Nighthawk, Punisher, She-Hulk, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Sub-Mariner, Thing, Tigra, Wasp, Wolverine, Wonder Man, Yellowjacket.

Introduction: Dungeon Crawl Classics has been making some buzz on the RolePlayingGeek forums. The "not just another return to old school" RPG comments and Goodman's reputation made me take a closer look at this highly thematic fantasy RPG.

Art: Probably what hits you first is the "old school" art. It's not the slick Magic the Gathering art that's been infecting coffee table RPG's, but art last seen in the old first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. I'm namedropping, but Erol Otus, Jeff Dee, and Jeff Easley are contributing artists. And, yes, the art still has no relevance to the text the page is on, comsuming gobs of laser printer ink if you're even thinking of printing this out. I REALLY wish a printer-friendly PDF version of this book was released.

Core Mechanic: It's OGL.

Differences from other systems: Basic D&D's Cleric, Thief, Warrior, Wizard, Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling classes. Surviving 0th level. The Luck ability score. Spell checks -- which work differently for wizards versus clerics. Critical hit tables, fumble tables, and other tables of thematic fury. No prestige classes, attacks of opportunity, feats, or skill points.

Organization: The book is pretty intuitive to use. For example, character generation comes first (because all the old school gamers did that sort of thing), before the actual combat mechanics. It's also a PDF, so searching is easy. While it has a simple Table of Contents, it has no index. Chapters are Characters, Skills, Equipment, Combat, Magic, Quest snad Journeys, Judge's Rules, Magic Items, Monsters, and two Adventures.

Characters:

You start at to 0th level, with its high mortality rates. The book states upfront you'll generate -- and play -- several characters and see who survives. The core book comes with a 0th level adventure so DMs will have an idea of how to design one. And there IS a random character generator at Purplesorcer.com. Still, you can easily make first and higher levels if you want to do boring things like survive.

In addition to the standard platonic solids (and the heretical d10), the game calls for Zocchi dice: d3, d5, d7, d14, and so on. They'll set you back over $20 on Amazon.com. Rather than just using positive and negative modifiers, you will "step up" and "step down" dice. A d8 might be stepped up to a d10, or stepped down to a d7, for example. Unfortunately, for those of us who own iPods, there's no app for this (yet). But see Purplesorcer.com for a web die roller and KickStart app.

DCC pretty much uses the standard six ability scores and modifiers. Personality replaces both Charisma and Wisdom. Luck is a new ability score used for a variety of skill checks and other rolls. You can burn Luck for a one-time bonus on a roll (typically life-or-death) and gain it back through roleplaying to your alignment. Your character will roll on the Luck Score table to see what special ability they can modify with Luck (eg. The bull: Melee attack rolls).

Character generation consists of: 3d6 for each ability. 1d4 hit points, modified by Stamina, one randomly determined piece of equipment, one randomly determined occupation, and zero XP. On the character Occupation tables, you roll your character's occupation and if their character is a non-human (such as a halfling chicken butcher). You get to choose your alignment: Law, Chaos, or Neutral.

PDF Notes: Character generation is only twelve printed pages long, so you can print this section as a handout for players.

Classes: As said, the classes are Basic D&D's Cleric, Thief, Warrior, Wizard, Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling. Each class has its OGL level progression table, but also have special abilities that set them apart. Clerics and Wizards cast spells (that's a whole chapter in itself). Thieves have thief-related skills and can better use Luck than other classes. Warriors can make cinematic Mighty Deeds of Arms, such as blinding or disarming an opponent, and have improve critical hit tables. Dwarves and halflings are fighters while Elves are fighter/wizards. Besides racial abilities, dwarves have a shield bash attack, and halflings can fight two-handed and serve as a party good luck charm! The non-spellcasters are easier to play. Each class's section is only a few pages long so you can print out these sections as player handouts. (Spell casters, however, will need to know the Magic rules.)

Combat: Combat is pretty much OGL with chromey tables and without a grid. Roll for Initiative, roll for your Attack, roll for damage. A Natural 1 results in a roll on the Fumble table, and a Natural 20 means rolling on your classes' Critical Hit table (yes, there's more than one Critical Hit table!). Warriors and Dwarves have their Mighty Deeds. NPCs have Morale Checks. Characters can fight two-handed with penalties, and clerics can turn unholy opponents. DCC also has a complex Spell Duel subsystem that can accomodate multiple spellcasters -- and can result in nasty eldritch side-effects (demonic invasion, anyone?). With the grid gone, combat has been simplified back to AD&D.

Magic: Magic is dangerous. Spellcasters make a spell check, and each spell has its own results table. The higher the result, the better effect the spell has. Critical failures and successes add highly thematic penalties and consequences. A cleric's failure reduces his chances of casting spells until the next day (his deity's busy fighting a holy war) and a roll on the disapproval table (eg. a test of humility). Wizards have the far worse (and amusing) miscast and corruption failures. Miscast an Animal Summoning spell, and your familiar might disappear and come back very very angry. An example of a minor corruption would be ears mutating, major corruption corpulence, and greator corruption tentacles replacing limbs. Wizards' spells are further individualized with side effects ("Mercurial Magic"). Spellburn rules allow wizards to temporarily sacrifice ability points to add to his spell check or recover cast spells. Wizards have familiars, can consult spirits, and can even acquire supernatural patrons. These effects are handled by extensive but uncomplicated tables in the book. Unfortunately, the magic rules and spells are not well layed out for printing from a PDF. The magic section mixes rule players must know (eg. descriptions and ranges of spells) with information a gamemaster may wish to keep from the players (eg. the various tables of effects). Spells are about a page long, but some spells wrap to the next page, making printing of individual spells inconvenient. Clerical spells and wizard mechanics and spells differ enough that I would have preferred to see a different chapter on each.

Magic Items and Monsters: In the DCC world, magic items are rare and unique, monsters mysterious and heresay. Swords receive an extensive treatment of tables to personalize them. Rules for scrolls are provided. Potions have a table in under the Make Potion spell, but that's about it. Magical items are more like the One Ring than Home Depot. Although a monster bestiary is included (they get their own Critical Hit tables, too!), so are suggestions to make a stock creature unusual enough for players to be unsure what they're facing. Stat blocks are also included for human non-player characters. Treasure is relegated to an opinion piece against the conventional "monster guarding a pile of coins". If you (and particularly your players) don't like this aspect of the game, it shouldn't be too hard to change.

Adventures: The core book comes with two adventures, The level 0-1 Portal Under the Stars, and 5th level Infernal Crucicable of Sezrekan the Mad. These adventures were also released at the 2011 Free RPG Day, so do not purchase the Free RPG Day product. True to its lethal character generation, Portal is designed for fifteen to twenty 0th level characters, with each player definitely controlling more than one character. The author's playtests show games of up to 28 players and a 50% mortality rate, with only one TPK. Infernal is more conventionally suited for 4-8 5th level characters. Portal has nine encounters and Infernal three. I haven't played them, so don't have a sense how long the adventures take or how "meaty" they are.

Support: Despite the new release of the core books, DCC already has some adventures and other support available. Purple Sorceror Games has a free character generator and dice roller. Their first adventure, Perils of the Sunken City for 0-1 level, is available on DriveThruRPG and has free paper miniatures and battlemaps at the website. Goodman Games has released two DCC adventure: Dungeon Crawl Classics #67: Sailors on the Starless Sea, and Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: People of the Pit(previous DCC adventures are for other game systems). Other 3rd party companies (even Paizo) are advertised with the PDF but their websites don't show product released yet. DCC is OGL, so, except for 0th level 15+ character adventures, I don't think it would be difficult converting from D&D 3.x to DCC.

Conclusion: Dungeon Crawl Classics puts a fantastic spin on generic fantasy roleplaying. Those of us who remember "old school" games with their extensive critical hit tables and other wild ideas have them again. Spells are no longer lifeless stat blocks but are to be feared, even by those who wield it. With D&D Next returning back to its "old school" roots, Dungeon Crawl Classics is definitely worth a look at.

Originally published over twenty years ago, in 1984, Masks of Nyarlathotep is one of Chaosium's best known campaigns for good reason. Not only does it provide a wide geographic variety of adventures players and Keepers will enjoy, it's also a very well designed adventure, avoiding many pitfalls other Call of Cthulhu adventures fall into. Masks was written by Larry DiTillio, whose writing credits also include executive story editor for the science-fiction series Babylon 5.

The adventure begins with the gruesome murder of a friend in New York. Investigators explore overseas to England, Egypt, Kenya, Shanghai, and western Australia. Locations range from London museums, to Egyptian pyramids, Kenyan mountains, Australian deserts, and Chinese import warehouses. NPCs run the gamut from high society to mysterious wisemen. Not only will investigators encounter cults dedicated to different aspects of Nyarlathotep, but will meet a memorable variety of mythos creatures as well.

From a Keeper's standpoint, the adventure is exceptionally well-designed. All too often, I've run a Call of Cthulhu adventure only to hit an unexpected dead end, as the players failed to find a critical clue called for by the adventure. Some fumbling improvisation usually moves the plot forward, but the author in Masks provides multiple ways to obtain the clues the investigators need to proceed in their tasks. For those Keepers who enjoy adding their own touches to an adventure, the author suggests various adventure seeds to enhance game sessions. Meanwhile, Keepers who do not will not be required to do so. Each country has three to five separate adventures, including red herrings, which investigators should encounter more often than they seem to do. If there's any caution to note, Keepers should be prepared to play the part of a very wide range of NPCs. If you have a co-GM, or a player who's joining for just one session, enlist them to play a few NPCs!

In my opinion, I think the PDF format is superior to the dead-tree version. Both hardcopy and PDF have a handout section that can be photocopied or printed out. However, with a PDF, a Keeper can do much more. The Keeper can print out maps and 1920's prices for players to refer to. The adventures contain atmospheric evocative artwork the Keeper can print out to show the players what their investigators see. Players inevitably forget the orally presented (and often critical) information their investigators discover. The Keeper can print and give this information to the players. And, when PCs also inevetibly expire, NPCs encountered in the adventure can become PCs. The Keeper can print out their stats and backgrounds to provide them to the players. If a player misses several sessions, or a new player joins in a few months into play, the other players can simply give the handouts to the player to catch up (assuming they're organized better than your typical Arkham professor's research notes).

I'm very happy to see Chaosium release Masks of Nyarlathotep in PDF format. Its $20 pricetag is also 2/3 the price of the dead-tree version. Not a bad deal for one of Call of Cthulhu's mostly highly regarded adventures.

Introduction: Andrew Lucard has written an excellent review of Cthulhu by Gaslight, 3rd edition, so I'll be taking a look at the PDF itself, which has been corrected since his review. The PDF was viewed on a PC with Acrobat X, and iPad 2 on Adobe Reader and other readers.

The PDF viewed is CHA23123book_rev.pdf, dated 4/5/12. On the PC with Adobe Acrobat X, I was able to view the document. I had problems viewing the document on an iPad 2, until I upgraded my Adobe Acrobat to the 4/10/12 version. iPad 2 apps that had problems viewing the document were previous versions of Acrobat, iBooks, PerfectReader, pdf-notes, PDFReaderLite, and Epson iPrint. The viewing problem is that the background on the boxed text is too dark to read the text.

Format: The PDF comes in a 196 page book, divided into Victorian Characters (player material), The Victorian World (player and Keeper historical source material), Strange Britain (player and Keeper occult and mythos source material, NPC stats, and adventure seeds), Gaslight Adventures: The Night of the Jackals (introductory adventure) and The Burnt Man, Appendix I: Suggested Sources, Maps and Handouts for the adventures, and Character Sheet. The PDF is in black and white, in a double-column format.

Price: The price of the PDF is $20 versus the MSRP of $28. That's only an $8 difference, and some online sellers may have the print version at lower than MSRP. If you must have a print version, you might as well buy it printed. However, the PDF version has some advantages over print, particularly for the player material.

Victorian Characters: The player material consists of the Victorian Character generation section and The Victorian World historical source material. A major advantage PDFs have over printed copies is that the Keeper can print several copies of player materials, so each player can have his own copy. The Victorian Characters section is about 20-some pages printed.

Victorian World: Based on historical England, the Victorian World source material can be used by both players and the Keeper. An advantage of the PDF format is that Keepers can easily share this information with the players. Avid players may read ahead of time this section before the game. Or a Keeper can print out the pages and cut out relevant information (eg. Underworld Slang or English law) as handouts to players during the game. This section is about 45 pages long.

Strange Britain: This section consist of Occult in the 1890s, A Gazetteer of Selected Strange Sites in Britain, The Cthulhu Mythos in Britain, Victorian Fictional Characters, A Compendium of Victorian Non-Player Characters, and Victorian Scenario Suggestions. Like the Victorian World, the Keeper can provide the occult information to players as printed handouts ahead of time or during the game, depending on their occult skill. The Gazetteer and Cthulhu Mythos are prevented something like one-paragraph adventure seeds. A crafty Keeper can definitely print this information as handouts for unfounded rumors and red herrings for gullible investigators. The remaining sections are Keeper material to add unique NPCs, stock NPC stats, and suggestions on running Victorian adventures.

Gaslight Adventures: Cthulhu by Gaslight includes two adventures, The Night of the Jackals, and The Burnt Man. The Night of the Jackals is an introductory adventure, still challenging for experienced players. Both come with handouts to print and provide the players. Both also include atmospheric art that can also be used as handouts to show players what their investigators see.

Suggested Sources for Victorian Roleplayers: This section lists further reading of and viewing Victorian fiction, Cthulhu Mythos fiction in Britain, and Victorian Roleplaying.

Maps and Handouts: Cthulhu by Gaslight provides maps and handouts for players for the game adventures, plus a map of London. A larger map is printed in black and white, with additional blue for railway and underground.

Character Sheet: The first page of the character sheet has the Call of Cthulhu stats, while the second page is for personal data and other background information. Unfortunately, I was not able to fill in the sheet in Acrobat.

Conclusion: The PDF format allows the Keeper great flexibility in providing Cthulhu by Gaslight to players. iPad 2 viewers should upgrade to Adobe Acrobat, version released on 4/10/12.

PDF Review and Buyer's Guide

Note: The Eleventh Doctor Edition of the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space has the same core rules as the previously released Tenth Doctor Edition. For a review of these rules, see my review on RPG.net: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14799.phtml

PDF Review

Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space (Eleventh Doctor Edition) is a beautiful, photo-heavy, and well-laid out RPG. The downloads consist of: A Read This First, The Player's Guide, The Gamemaster's Guide, The Adventures Book, Character Sheets, Gadget Cards, Story Points sheet, and Box Cover.

If you're going to download this PDF and view it on your iPad or PC laptop, you're all set. The Character Sheets and Gadget Cards are in color, but printing a few sheets won't tax your inkjet or laserprinter. You'll want to bring some counters to represent Story Points (the Dr. Who RPG version of RPG drama points), and it may be a little inconvenient passing around the iPad if you have those sort of players who want to read the Player's Guide but won't buy their own copy. (At the time of this review, only the Tenth Doctor has a separate Player's Guide PDF for purchase.)

Unfortunately, if you intend to print it all out... don't. The same eye-candy photos in the Player's Guide and Gamemaster's Guide will consume a good amount of ink. Assuming the Eleventh Doctor Edition is on the same glossy paper stock as the Tenth, you're much better off buying the printed version. The printed version's Player's Guide, Gamemaster's Guides, and Adventure Book are separate books, making gameplay a little easier.

Buyer's Guide

But wait -- what should you actually buy? As said, both the Tenth Doctor and Eleven Doctor editions have the same core rules. So you'll only need one copy of either edition for the game system itself. Meanwhile, the Adventures, Character Sheets, and Gadget Sheets are different. Cubicle 7 has made the Adventure books for each edition as separate downloads, at a rather nice five dollars each. Cubicle 7 is also providing a free Upgrade Pack from Tenth to Eleven Edition of new characters, new gadget cards, and new aliens. Unfortunately, as of this writing, I didn't see a "downgrade" pack, that would allow you to buy the Eleventh Edition game but play the Tenth Edition characters, etc. Hopefully, a "downgrade" pack will be made available. So for a mere five dollars, you can upgrade from the Tenth Doctor to the Eleventh. Not bad!

Overall score: PDF on iPad: 5.0 out of 5.0. PDF printed: Not recommended. Upgrade PDFs: 5.0 out of 5.0 dollars. Downgrade PDFs: Let's hope for a Tenth Doctor "downgrade" kit.