One of my players was deeply irritated by the fact that, having acquired a tavern, he had no rules for managing it. Wireless internet being a marvelous thing, within a few minutes I had resolved the problem using the Taverner's Trusty Tome.

I mostly got this to kill Elminster. Lord, it's awful... in a special, special way. It combines pretty much the worst aspects of both Spelljammer and 90's Forgotten Realms. So awful...

Unspectacular, but eminently useful. The highest selling point is the legibility of the maps. If there's one thing I hate about the new WotC maps, it's all the fru-fru crap piled onto them. How I miss Diesel's utilitarian maps in Dunegeon! To stay on topic: These are almost as good.

Unspectacular, but eminently useful. The highest selling point is the legibility of the maps. If there's one thing I hate about the new WotC maps, it's all the fru-fru crap piled onto them. How I miss Diesel's utilitarian maps in Dunegeon! To stay on topic: These are almost as good.

Although only a buck (and only picked up to pad out the purchase of EN Publishing's spiked chain treatise), this was a total waste of time. I read through all 12 entries, and found not a single one I wanted to use in my campaign. I'm not even THAT discriminating! Just nothing jumped out and went, "Look at me!"

Even the formatting was off, with one of the headings being in a near-body font. Bleah. Two pages and one dollar of wasted time.

This I liked. It wasn't some epoch-shattering marvel of games engineering, but it was nice.

The positives: Lottsa crunchy bits, nothing too unbalancing, and some thought put into making the weapon more fun to use. Fun being the most important part in any entertainment product, this got high marks.

Also, on a highly personal "Oh no! He's talking about his campaign!" note: The most-feared villain I ever used had a spiked chain. This gives me an excellent opportunity, and nifty toys, for bringing a new such villain back into play.

The negatives: A little bit more discussion on the historical use of chains as weapons would have been lovely... although it's probably hard to come by any Western treatment of the weapons that aren't tainted by 80's ninja mania.