|
|
|
Other comments left by this customer: |
|
|
|
|
There is a lot of meat here for the asking price of Pay What You Want (so, potentially free, but I'm here to tell you it's worth paying for). Despite some rough edges (particularly with regard to determining acting order in combat), Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells has a lot to recommend it if you're looking for a rules-medium fantasy RPG and especially if you're looking for a rules-medium Open Game Licence RPG. That's right! Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells is released under the OGL, meaning that you can hack it to your heart's content, legally! Seriously, give this game a look.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Like all of this publisher's previous offerings, Operation Unfathomable is a work of pure, inspired, genius that boasts excellent words and similarly excellent editing (something I'm a bit of a stickler for). The artwork, the layout, the tools, and the adventure itself are all brilliant! Designed to be played at cons, Operation Unfathomable allows 1st-level characters to experience epic dungeon questing usually reserved for high-level parties (it even comes complete with some very colorful pre-gen characters that can be used as PCs or a rival party of adventurers). It's designed for Swords & Wizardry Core, but I'll probably be running it with Swords & Wizardry Continual Light and as a kind of tabletop rogue-like. I'm very excited about it!
|
|
|
|
|
|
A simple, straight-forward, adventure suitable for kicking off any vanilla fantasy campaign, Adventure Most Fowl is both entertaining and well-crafted (although I did notice one "Page XX" error that slipped by the editor). The plot is simple, the environs inviting, and the new monsters inventive (I won't give away much but to say that one of them is chicken-related). Additionally, the electronic version of the game comes with four maps (image files) that can be blown up or otherwise manipulated as aids for running the adventure. Overall, Adventure Most Fowl is an excellent value for GMs looking for a low level adventure to kick off their fantasy game.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Awesome in every way - from the substance of the content to the beautiful, full color, presentation - Larius Firetongue's School of Sorcery is an excellent value for the asking price. For less than $5 (US), you get both a new setting for Swords & Wizardry, as well as a slew of new rule options (including new races, new classes, and new spells). If you're looking to run a campaign that centers around (or just features) an academy of magic in Swords & Wizardry, look no furher. I own a lot of Swords & Wizardy magic supplements, as well as magic supplements for other OSR games. This is far and away the strongest. If you can spare the money, get it while the getting is good.
|
|
|
|
|
Creator Reply: |
Thank you for the kind words, James. However, I wish to clarify one thing. The usual price for this product is $9.99. You purchased it during a sale, likely around the holidays if this review was close to the purchase date. All the same, Larius Firetongue's School of Sorcery contains a lot of content for OSR gaming groups even at that higher price. |
|
|
|
|
Full of neat ideas, White Box Gothic is unfortunately let down by the lack of a good editor and, as a result, is full of typos. That said, these errors don't detract from the product's utility, just its aesthetic. I hope that the publisher gives the product a few good editing passes before releasing this as a POD title.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A light, yet robust, set of rules that hearkens back to the earliest days of our hobby when Major David Wesely took wargaming to its next logical evolution. Although only designed to run historical or psuedo-historical games out of the gate, the simple and straight-forward nature of the rules makes them easy to hack (I've written a high magic plugin, myself) and mold to your particular campaign needs. Frankly, the buy in price of less than three US dollars is an absolute steal, whether you're just looking for a simple yet robust set of easily malleable rules or a rare window that allows you to gaze upon the very beginning of our hobby. You should really own this thing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
This is a very fresh, clever, fantasy setting that is truly system-neutral (something that I've seen many setting guides claim to be despite tacking on stats for some edition of The World's Most Popular Fantasy Game or related simulacrum) and has astonishingly high production values for something on offer for free. I've been looking for something that is a far cry from your typical D&D-ish setting (I'm getting a little burned out on those) and have found it in the world of Storm Hollow. It is fairy tale fantasy that blends together high adventure with an air of childlike innocence in a most satisfying way. If you like fantasy in the vein of The Dark Crystal, The Chronicles of Prydain, or Neil Gaiman's Stardust, you will find something to love in the Poppin's Guide to Storm Hollow.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A very simple, clever, and fun fantasy game based on the World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game, The Black Hack packs a lot of entertainment into a small number of pages for a ridiculously low price point. Specific high points for me were the mechanics for Usage Dice, which make tracking consumable items entertaining, and armor that functions as a depletable resource. If you like rules-light fantasy and have two dollars to burn, you owe it to yourself to pick this up. Finally, it's worth noting that a lot of third party support has already sprung up, most of it very good. If you want options to expand The Black Hack, you won't be left wanting.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A table-top adaptation of Robert E. Howard's world of Almuric as represented in the novel of the same name, Swords of Almuric is faithful to the source material but at the cost of being somewhat anemic. Still, the PDF is a good value for the asking price of $5.99 (US). I only ran into one hitch. It's kind of a big one, unfortunately.
The PDF would only render correctly in Adobe Reader on my Mac. It would not correctly display in any of the native PDF readers on my Mac (Safari, Preview) or in any of the other three third-party PDF readers that I tried (Firefox, PDFView, or Skim). In all of these viewers on my Mac, large portions of the file's text appeared as corrupted, garbled, nonsense and artwork displayed incorrectly, obscuring text in many instances. In Adobe Reader, though? Fine.
So, if you own a Mac and download this file, try installing Acrobat Reader before you pull all of your hair out. If, for whatever reason, you're averse to installing Adobe software on your Mac, you might want to skip Swords of Almuric until this issue has been addressed (RPGNow has been made aware of it).
|
|
|
|
|
|
This gem of an adventure has a real "old school" feel (in terms of ambiance, it really reminds me of the adventure at the back of the old Palladium Fantasy 1e RPG), but boasts some of the best production values I've ever seen in an adventure module. The artwork is especially noteworthy - it's absolutely gorgeous (quite possibly the best I've ever seen in an RPG book).
Despite some minor editing gaffes, the adventure is made of pure win. The book is laid out to actually be used at the table (this necessitates repeating some stat blocks, but this also minimizes page flipping), the author makes expert use of skill challenges, and encounters are almost exclusively solos (designed to keep the adventure moving along at a fast pace by ensuring that combats don't drag on forever).
I don't play 4e anymore, but I am absolutely satisfied with my purchase of Trial of the Underkeep.
|
|
|
|
|
|
An excellent and largely system-free setting that can easily serve as the jumping off point for a campaign in any system (though the tiny bit of system information included is geared toward D&D). It's also 100% OGC - all of the text, the maps - everything. This means that if you want to alter the document and host it on the web for your friends to download, you can legally do so. This makes it an even more attractive option for a campaign starter, in my opinion, as it makes getting all of your players 'into' the setting much easier and it encourages you to customize it to your taste (frex, I personally re-wrote large swaths of Blackmarsh to better reflect the implied setting of my own favored rule set). Overall, an excellent product!
|
|
|
|
|
|
My only real complaint is that the product was very obviously designed for use with D&D (as evidenced by the dicussion of monsters in terms of Armor Class, Hit Dice, Alignment, Character Levels, etc) and then sold as a supplement for use with any system. I'm using it with Original D&D (1974) so this isn't much of an issue for me — but had I purchased it for use with a non D&D-derived fantasy system (e.g., Ars Magica, GURPS, etc) I would've felt like I overpaid at the list price $7.99 (US).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Three functional bare-bones skill system alternatives for Labyrinth Lord or older editons of D&D, priced to move at $0.75 (US). An excellent addition to any house rules folder!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Middle of the road paper minis, these fantasy heroes are value priced and functional, though not particularly pretty. The black and white line art isn't horrid by any means, but it does fall a bit short of current standards for cardstock or PDF minis (most of which are now made available in full color). Still, for the price I can't quibble much, and the minis do have a certain 'old school' charm about them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Middle of the road paper minis, the Beasts of Legend pack is value priced and functional, though not particularly pretty. The black and white line art isn't horrid by any means, but it does fall a bit short of current standards for cardstock or PDF minis (most of which are now made available in full color). Still, for the price I can't quibble much, and the minis do have a certain 'old school' charm about them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|