PDF Review:

What with every other roleplaying book being either a coffee table book or half eye candy, I'm rather pleased to find Microscope's PDF in black and white. I had no problems reading it on an iPad or on Acrobat on a PC. Given the rule's lack of charts and stat blocks, I'm not sure how much I really need to print.

Microscope is an 81-page black and white PDF with no art and single-column layout. The PDF comes with a one-page reference sheet. The single-column layout uses an eye-friendly sized font, with new subjects starting on their own page titled in large bold letters. This makes it easy to look up a rule or other piece of information.

As other reviews have suggested, the rules are conceptually different from conventional "skill roll" roleplaying games. The game has no charts or stat blocks, so you won't be looking up this sort of information in the game. You may need to look up a specific rule. So, for those who do wish to print out the rulebook, you may wish to print it out into two sections, about 50 pages of rules, and maybe 12 pages of play advice. The remaining pages are game designer notes. Personally, I'd make a few tweaks to the PDF for better printing, such as no title pages predominantly in black.

Overall: 4.5 / 5.0. Good job.

Rather than re-inventing the die by writing another review, I'll supplement the already existing and well-written reviews of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying system with a discussion of the PDF itself. In reviewing this PDF, I used Acrobat, iPad Library, an inkjet printer, and a duplex black and white printer.

The download consists of a PDF version of the rulebook, pregenerated characters, and two summary player sheets. Additional material is available at the publisher's site, but, as of this writing, the Marvel downloads there were only preview pages of the rulebook.

PDF Rulebook: One of my complaints about publishers who sell hardcopy roleplaying books is that they don't include a PDF that's suitable for home printing. Typically, the publishers will only release a PDF that's an exact copy of the hardcopy. The ideal printable PDF minimizes the cost of ink and paper for printing and organizes the material suchthat the buyer can print specific pages for player handouts and such.

Some players will bring their iPad or laptop to their gaming group. Some will print out their PDF. I think doing both is the best solution. The game master can browse the PDF on the iPad to look up a rule, then separate the pages of the printout as necessary for player handouts and such.

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying does not supply a PDF for home printing. About one-fourth of the book is art, adding expense to a home printout. I would not recommend printing the book out onto an inkjet. However, the information is well organized. No page had information that started on one page an ended on another. This makes separating the pages during play easy and convenient (eg. when one player wants to read his power on one page, and another player on different one). I should mention that a minor graphics bug made a few introductory pages of the rulebook difficult to read through the iPad library, but the rulebook can be read in Acrobat, PC or iPad.

Myself, I printed the rulebook into three sections: Basic rules (Chapters 1-3, 60 pages), Powers (Chapter 4, 60 pages), and Gamemaster section (Chapter 5 and adventure, 80 pages). As part of the adventure, the rulebook comes with villain stats over thirty B-List villains.

Pregenerated characters: The download comes with several pregenerated characters, including the X-Men (Armor, Beast, Colossus, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Shadowcat, Storm, Wolverine), Avengers (Black Panther, Black Widow, Captain America, Iron Man, Ms. Marvel), Fantastic Four (Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Mister Fantastic, Thing), Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Sentry, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, and a blank character sheet. Each page is double-sided.

Player and Gamemaster reference sheets: The download includes a one-page rules summary for players, and a two-page summary for gamemasters.

PDF Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars. The lack of a printer-friendly PDF version brings the rating down quite a bit, but the organization of the PDF rulebook still allows you to print, in a convenient manner, whichever sections you wish for play.

When I had the chance to review Cthulhu Britannica: Shadows Over Scotland, I leapt at it. I actually have a Call of Cthulhu adventure to run in a few weeks and was impressed at the quality of the scenarios of the original Cthulhu Britannica.

Shadows Over Scotland is both a sourcebook for Scotland adventures, as well as a collection of six scenarios. Although the PDF is formatted like the book, I actually found the PDF format itself quite useful. Overall, on an ipad, while the size of an ipad is smaller than a book, the book was quite readable. On a laptop, I still found the two-column format inconvenient. I would scroll down the page to read the first column, scroll up to the second column when I was done with the first one, then scroll back down again to read the second.

The book starts off with a 30-page "An Introduction to 1920's Scotland". This section is divided into the non-fictional Scotland after the Great War, then a mixing of the Mythos into Scotland pre-history. The first section will be quite useful for Keepers to bring in an accurate atmosphere of 1920's Scotland (and Scotland immigrants) to a Call of Cthulhu game. The second section, which includes a timeline, may be useful if the Keeper needs to ad hoc mention any Mythos activities to Investigators diligently poking their noses about. Both sections are entertaining reading and are best read electronically rather than printed out.

The next sections, which I will call the sourcebook, detail in game stats the locations of Scotland: The Lowlands, The Highlands, and The Islands. Each section starts with some non-fictional information about the Geography, Culture and People, Flora and Fauna, and Climate. When applicable (eg. fauna), stats are provided.

It's when a section discusses The Mythos, things get choppy. The scope is "to supply enough material to allow Keepers to quickly build scenarios of their own or to incorporate these materials into ongoing adventures". In other words, while well-written and very imaginative, they're inomplete. Articles range from background-level scenarios, to only the climax of an adventure, to almost-scenarios. I reallly wished these bits and pieces were made into full-fledged scenarios. On the other hand Keepers who can develop scenarios from these vivid beginnings should find these pieces of writing rewarding.

The scenarios are top-notch. Some require a Keeper who's just as good as the writing. Keepers already know how important human NPCs are, and the NPCs in these scenarios are especially vivid. Many of the darker ones have personal motives and a Keeper will want to do them justice to make them more interesting to the players. For scenarios, I find the PDF format muchly superior to a book. A Keeper need only print out the scenario pages, can write on them for notes, and physically cut out the handout illustrations or important bits of text for the players.

Overall, highly recommended!

I was a little disappointed at the simplicity / plainness of the maps, but I otherwise don't see any reason not to download this game aid if you're playing Tomb of Horrors. Keep up the good work!

The description pretty much states what you get, so I'll fill in more details with a review of the adventure and the format of the PDF.

The adventure is a three-act multi-session adventure for 3-5 first level characters. Each act is unique. The first takes place on a zepplin, involving the characters daringly saving the passengers and crew from a hijacking. The next find the characters lost on a settled island, slowly sinking into fear and despair. The last brings the characters to a climactic conclusion, in which they must release a Lady of Nightmares to defeat not one, but two, Between Worlds Beings. Quite a bit for first level, eh? The adventure has a healthy dose of combat, investigating, and interactions with colorful NPCs unique to the Anima universe. While the plots of the acts aren't too far from your typical FRPG adventure, the NPCs are definitely of the romance and villainy of Final Fantasy and similar computer RPGs.

The PDF is in beautiful color, and is best for iPad and color laser printer output. I do wish that a printer-friendly version of the book was included. Some of the rich color art becomes too dark in greyscale. And, of course, much of the eye-candy that impresses in a publisher-printed book becomes a source of ink and toner consumption when printed by the purchaser. The PDF comes with a four-panel reference screen that I had trouble printing on four separate sheets. That being said, a major advantage of printing out the PDF as individual sheets is that the game master can let the players access the first half of the book (new rules and new options) while keeping the rest of the book (the twenty pregenerated first-level characters and the adventure) to himself.

So if you're an iPad owner who's considering this supplement, you're definitely better off buying the PDF than the book. Others will have to judge how much the aesthetics of a beautifully published book from the publisher matters against the half price of the PDF.

Dennis Detwiller is the co-creator of Delta Green, so it should be no surprise that I'm recommending this scenario. I'm actually unfortunate not to have played the game, but, even if you're also not familiar with the system, you should at least read this if you enjoy horror roleplaying or modern horror. I was intimidated, at first, by the adventure. It starts open-ended, with several important, though modifiable NPCs. A bumbling group of players can easily run afoul of them, making this a short scenario. However, experienced Delta Green roleplayers should enjoy the challenge of working closely with the authorities while maintaining their cover. Dennis Detwiller's own site has several free downloads and I'm going to check them out right now!

When I purchased some maps and tile sets from the publishers of The World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game, I was sorta disappointed by the size of the inns. The quality and color was great, but some adventures just call for large, two-story inns with a basement. The Raven Claw Inn is a two-story inn, each story two pages across, and a half-page basement. The kitchen is in the basement, and upstairs has several shared bedrooms, including a dorm, though not a flophouse-style common area. Additional roofs have been included. You won't be able to make a 3-D model with just the roofs, but you can certainly use them as terrain for MageKnight or outdoor fantasy battles. Remember to download "Ravenlands 1 Freebie: Castle Raven Dungeon Level 1" if you haven't done so already. It's by the same creator and just as good.

This freebie is fantastic! Almost 2x4 printed pages of underground goodness! And, despite the generic-ish title, this map works just fine for any deserted castle or mansion basement, even suitable for a Call of Cthulhu game. The layout is less random sprawling dungeon, than a deserted floor of bedrooms and common areas. The map is suitable from anything from a random dungeon, to an orc barracks lair, to a decades-abandoned basement where forgotten secrets and horrible things dwell. The map also has plenty of detail, so is quite suited for exploration as well. Very good job!

SPOILER Spirit of the White Wyvern is a timeline adventure set in a tavern. By timeline, I mean that certain events will happen during the period the party stays at the in. It's definitely a change from the usual "we go to the next room" location-based dungeon slogging of most adventures. The party wanders into a tavern, and is hired to drive out a ghost -- actually a red herring subplot for the real event, a settling of old scores between two old enemy organizations. Some of the side characters, including the ghost, are amusing, and the players get to have some combat in the end. While the adventure is officially for Pathfinder et al., the adventure is very easily adaptable to any adventure system of low-magic levels.

The adventure is accompanied by a black-and-white two story tavern map. The map's better than a wash-and-wipe board, but. if you have your own tavern map, you might as well use it for this adventure -- certainly you'll save printer ink. The adventure comes with black-and-white counters, but you're better off just using your own miniatures or tokens.

Got guilds? Probably not. If you regularly play adventures for the World's Most Popular Roleplaying game, you're still leveling up and not knowing who your trainer is (if any), you're picking up adventures through rumors and strange people wandering up to you in a tavern, and your contacts for information are nonexistent. But if you're looking for a some medieval realism to inject into your fantasy, you'll want a guild. You'll want the guild to help train your adventurers. You'll want the guild to assign them tasks to do, and tell them of adventuring opportunities. They'll be there so your adventurers will find information. The Blackshire Mercenary Company does that, and more, an impressive breadth of useful "realistic" fantasy material in the background of your string of miscellaneous adventures. The depth of the material doesn't go beyond adventure seed level, and the stats are for OGL/d20/3.5/Pathfinder, but it's plenty for us gamemasters who know they want a guild, but don't know what to do next. The supplement has a history of the BMC, subplot seeds, hiring rates, guild membership benefits, vivid personalities, and a prestige class for BMC members. The authors intend to cover guilds for other classes as well, and I'm looking forward to it!

Missed Free RPG Day? Well, here you go! Scion is a modern fantasy where characters are children of the Gods. The savage Titans, whom the Gods overthrew, have broken from their prison and have released their spawn. Scion Quickstart contains rules, pregenerated characters, and an adventure, ready to play. I prefer the PDF format over dead tree, since you can print multiple copies of the rules for your players, and reuse the pregenerated characters. You can print the rules and adventure in fast greyscale, but the "handwriting" parts of the character sheets didn't print clearly even in high greyscale, and you will want to avoid printing the front and back art pages to save ink. Scion uses a White Wolf's Exalted d10 dice pool skill-check system, which allows cinematic action. The adventure is rich with theme and detail. Enjoy!

If you're looking for 15 detailed 25mm standees of animated books (five colors of three designs) and a red imp familiar with a scalable 3rd level encounter, yes, this is it. The artwork is professional-grade quality. The tricky part is that the standees aren't as simple to cut out as, say, the Steve Jackson Games cardboard heroes. You'll have to cut along the exact edges of the drawing, rather than some quick-and-dirty cuts that leave in visible white areas. I hope the author revises this product to include a version of standees that are easier to assemble. The encounter is pretty standard (sorry, no spoilers!) though fun for an evil wizard's tower, and I appreciate the monster stat blocks and level scaling suggestions. However, greater variety of D&D monster stats that could be used with these cutouts and more encounters using them would have made this more attractive, as would an adventure for the D&D Boardgame. The standees are meant to be used with WorldWorks Games' Thoumont Rare Tomes and Books modelset. A suggested layout is included, and you could scale it 200% in size so you can use it as a 2D tile for the encounter.

Great job. To be clear, the model is a two-story pub, with an optional room extention, and smaller customizations, such as a balcony, chimney, etc. You can easily change the outside appearance of the pub, by selecting various layers in the PDF files (eg. add a door, lantern, even lichen). Myself, I would have liked to see a wider variety of building shapes/structures. The download also includes a premade pub with all the features, if you just want a pub to print out now.

Highly recommended. BMR is a "timelline" adventure, in which events will proceed during a village festival. The PCs must intervene before the climax. While the obligatory Fight at the End doesn't stand out, I was particularly impressed the village festival and colorful encounters therein. The adventure also goes into detail the history behind the festival itself. You can easily separate the festival portion of the adventure from the rest, and drop it into your own campaign. Great job!

It's not too frequently your adventurers will be wandering upon high cliffs on the top of cold mountains, but, if they are, here's the set for them. The tiles are rather nicely photoshopped, and a less expensive alternative to a "dead tree" set of tiles from the FLGS (if such tiles exist!).