THE SHORT VERSION

Five-star reviews are fairly common on this site but, honestly, Cities of Hyboria is probably the best fantasy rpg city-building supplement I've ever seen.

THE GOOD

Even if you don't play the Conan RPG specifically, if you need a tool to help you create fantasy cities quickly and easily -- while still leaving room for GM creativity -- you may want to give this product a look.

At its most basic, Cities of Hyboria is a series of interlinked tables the GM can roll on to determine everything from "How big is my city?" to "How many buildings of type X do I have in my city?".

The dice rolling is optional, of course, but useful for zipping through any sections of city creation you don't particularly care to customize yourself ... and, happily, author Bryan Steele provides enough commentary about the reasoning behind the charts, and the concepts of sword-and-sorcery city building, that you can make fairly informed choices as you go along.

As the previous reviewer alluded, not only can you determine the nature, structure content, and inhabitant types for your city -- there are also charts for creating plot hooks based on the characteristics of the city you've generated. This is one of those rare products which manages to exceed my expectations for this sort of product at almost every turn.

THE BAD

Not a negative, actually, but buyers should be aware that this IS a Conan RPG product. As such, it's geared toward creating the kind of lower-magic sword-and-sorcery cities seen in that genere of fantasy fiction.

Those looking to build typical "high fantasy" Tolkien-esque elven enclaves and so forth will have to adapt the systems presented here on their own initiative.

THE FINAL VERDICT

While it can't be all things to every gamer, Conan: Cities of Hyboria is certainly the best city-builder book I've yet seen in over twenty-five years (eep!) of fantasy RPG gaming.

If you need a product like this, do yourself a favor and have a look. It may not be precisely what you want, but you'll be hard-pressed to find something better out there. I know, I've looked!

A 5/5 for this one. I love gaming products which exceed both my needs and my expectations!

THE SHORT VERSION:

A well-written, visually-pleasing overview of an "adventurer's guild" concept for use in your fantasy rpg game, but -- except for the new "man-bat" player race -- everything here is general overview, and at only 16 pages plus cover, the price seems hard to justify.

THE GOOD

The record clearly shows that Robin D. Laws knows how to write fun RPG material, and at his very best, Laws has a keen instinct for what works best at the gaming table in a practical sense. So it is with the Raiders Guild Players Guide.

For those of you who're already familiar with Paizo's Pathfinder Society, the Raiders Guild concept is similar, but it's more obviously geared toward accomodating the way most D&D parties already play, rather than tying participating adventurers to a specific world or gaming melieu, as with Pathfinder.

The strength of this product, then, is that it's generic and adaptable in the very best sense. It not only provides players with a logical place to seek out new adventuring leads without hanging around in the cliche fantasy tavern, the Raiders Guild concept also handles basics like healing/resurrection and re-equipping, and lodging, all under one guild roof.

I'd already planned to implement something like the Raiders Guild in my current 4e campaign, but this product brought to light related concepts I hadn't even considered yet ...

Visually, the black-and-white interiors of the Raiders Guild Players Guide are well-designed and well laid out -- easy to read, with some good interior art in the mix.

The new "man-bat" playable race seems similarly well crafted, and should stoke those players who enjoy playing the unusual races.

THE NOT-SO-GOOD

As mentioned above, almost everything in the Raiders Guild Players Guide is written as general overview, broad-concept stuff. The "man-bat" race is probably the only 4e system-specific content in the book. Those who don't play 4e might rejoice at this, but other useful details which might have fleshed out the product also appear to be missing.

No map of a sample Raiders Guild chapterhouse; no typical personalities for a chapterhouse; the guide suggests that Guild members gain a discount on weapons and armors bought through the guild, and yet no word is given as to how much of a discount would be reasonable.

I realize that this product is billed as a Players Guide, but alas, the DM is the first sale one has to make for any proposed new campaign element, and this DM didn't see enough practical, game-table useful content included in the sixteen pages (plus cover) PDF to justify the purchase price.

What's here is good, make no mistake, but the final cost seems a bit high for less than twenty pages of what amounts to a concept outline.

THE FINAL VERDICT

Hard to score this one.

I do like how the basic idea is presented and elaborated upon here, and I do hope we'll see more on this subject from Robin D. Laws and Axe Initiative Games in the future.

However, I feel the actual content-level in the Raiders Guild Players Guide is a bit too shallow to warrant the asking price. A little too much sizzle, and not enough steak.

I was tempted to give the Raiders Guild Players Guide a four, just because of Laws' writing style/communication skills, but at only sixteen pages of surface-level content here, I don't know that this would be fair to the prospective buyer.

The Raiders Guild Players Guide is a good product, but a little too lightweight to warrant its price tag, in my opinion. Split it dead-center, pitting virtues against sins, and call it a 2.5/5, rounded up for the RPGNOW system.

Get this before it's gone!

I passed over Lethal Legacies: Traps of the World Before a number of times, because I presumed it was just another Grimtooth's Traps -style collection of Total-Party-Killing meat-grinder traps.

It's not.

Lethal Legacies is as much about puzzles and challenges as straight damage. For example, the first "trap" in the book it's a teleporting door puzzle. Throughout the book, there's a real sense of thought and creativity, and even the truly dangerous traps are more than just "Click. Oops. Splortch! Ha Ha!"

Well-written, well laid-out, with good illustrations -- if you want traps to be flavorful challenges in your adventures, instead of just brute-force death sentences -- if you want something of the flavor of the Indiana Jones movies, or of the Lara Croft computer games in your fantasy world, Lethal Legacies points the way.

I'm sorry it took the sale to make me really look at this product. Had I known what it was truly like, I would've paid full price for it.

Don't miss this one!

A welcome change of pace, Wolfgang Baur's Free City of Zobeck is broad-based enough to find a place in most medieval fantasy campaigns, but carries a distinct feel and flavor which will make it memorable and interesting to most players.

SO, WHAT'S GOOD HERE?

The gazetteer format works in Zobeck's favor. Everything here is overview-level, with longtime D&D author Wolfgang Baur playing tour guide for all the notable elements of the setting. Baur's prose is agile and engaging, as usual, whether he's describing the history of Zobeck's free-city status, introducing the major inns and taverns in Zobeck, or describing some of the more nefarious traps you might run afoul of in Zobeck's kobold ghetto.

While most game author's descriptions of settings can seem self-indulgent, tedious or irrelevant, Baur has a knack for making the reader understand why some particular detail is cool or noteworthy. Baur manages to make you see the many possibilities for the setting that he sees.

As an overview, the Zobeck presented here is essentially system-less. It's clearly intended as a D&D setting, but nothing in the Zobeck Gazetteer absolutely requires the D&D rules. With time, and a little creative adaptation, you could be using Zobeck in your True20/Fudge/RuneQuest/Whatever fantasy setting by next week's session.

The eastern-european flavor of Zobeck is handled particularly well. Unlike many "flavored" city settings, Zobeck still works well as a one-stop city setting for an ongoing archetypal D&D campaign -- yet the things which make Zobeck different are always quietly arrayed around the players at every point.

It doesn't feel like a "foreign city" at all, but most players will eventually realize that Zobeck has a different history informing it than most of the fantasy cities they've adventured through ... You and your players can happily use all the D&D standard classes and variants you know and love; Zobeck will embrace them. Instead of forbidding story elements, the Zobeck setting merely adds its own.

In Zobeck, you have a D&D fantasy city influenced by the east-european folklore of Wolfgang Baur's German-Polish roots. It's a city of hussars and dwarven mercenaries, clockwork golems, kobold kings and clans living (uneasily at times) among men, centaur tribesmen roaming the wild lands beyond the city, and pro-active (some would say meddlesome) gods who regularly interact with their followers and expect more from them than mere lip-service rituals and tithes.

The gods of Zobeck are a particular breath of fresh air here, in a setting defined by clever inspirations. Baur has introduced a lively pantheon with specific appeal for adventuring players, whether they play a cleric, or not. These gods are drawn heavily from east-european mythology (for example, Perun here is Thor, for all intents and puposes, just as he was for many parts of eastern Europe in past centuries), but these Zobeck gods are also intentionally "D&D-ized" to make them interesting to players.

As above, the gods of Zobeck are not the same aloof, disinterested "worship-vampires" seen in most D&D settings. The gods of Zobeck are very interested in the mortal realm, and in what goes on there. Each god of Zobeck listing has a section titled "What The God Demands". Players used to writing a fantasy deity's name on a character sheet and then forgetting about it until a roll for resurrection becomes necessary may be in for a surprise here. To have a divine patron in Zobeck is a double-edged sword -- they may actually notice when you need them, but chances are, they may actually require specific things from you at times, also.

WHAT'S NOT SO GOOD HERE?

Well, it is a Gazetteer. An overview. Customers who absolutely demand fully-statted major NPCs for Zobeck, write-ups for the Hussars, and full disclosure on all other such player-level details will be disappointed in the Zobeck Gazetter. Notable figures are given Names and D&D 3.5 levels, but the rest is left to the DM.

There are D&D 3.5 stats for some common clockwork creatures, and an introduction to the Clockwork Magic (including spells) which plays a significant role in the flavor of the Zobeck setting. But DMs who want more, more, more hard detail on all things Zobeck would do well to seek out relevant issues of the Kobold Quarterly magazine (also available as a PDF here on RPGNow). It's the only place more Zobeck detail is publically available right now.

In short, the Zobeck Gazetteer gave me more setting fine detail than I expected from something called a Gazetteer, but those gamers who will not settle for anything less than a fully-detailed city setting for their money will find Zobeck lacking,

In the Zobeck Gazetteer's defense, however, it never claims to be an exhaustive product. The fault, then, lies more in the expectations of certain buyers, than in the product itself.

FINAL VERDICT?

If you like the look of what I've described above, and you like what you've seen in the "Full Size Preview" PDF linked on the RPGNow product page, just buy it.

Fantasy cities seem to be coming back into gaming-product vogue again, of late, but this one made an impression on me that has managed to stay. It's not only well-made and well-written, but it manages to offer much, yet require little.

For example, I don't give two coppers for clockwork magic as a concept, personally -- but it works very well as part of everything that makes Zobeck noteworthy, so it will stay in the background in my games, another passive element which makes the setting unique.

I guess this is what I like most about Zobeck in the end -- it has a very unique flavor, but it's always left up to you to decide how much that flavor will impact your D&D game. Will it be central, or will it be merely be ambient setting? The answer, happily, is -- it's up to you and your players.

A good offering. Recommended for those who want something fresh and intriguing which can still "play nice" in your standard D&D campaign world.

A valiant effort with one fatal flaw.

WHAT IS IT?

StarSiege is intended to be an all-in-one science-fiction rpg from Troll Lord Games, the makers of the justly-praised Castles & Crusades fantasy game. As the name implies, StarSiege incorporates the same simple-yet-clever "Siege Engine" dice mechanic which lies at the heart of Castles & Crusades.

The problem is, in the well-intentioned attempt to create an all-in-one science-fiction toolkit, the very simplicity and modularity which makes the Siege Engine mechanic so useful to players and Game Masters in C&C here gets buried under an avalanche of new game systems, sub-systems, acronyms, and terminology.

The resulting game is a good game, to be sure. The problem is, it's also ends up functionally indistinguishable from the dozens of other medium-complex SF game systems inhabiting the rpg landscape: d20 Future; GURPS Space; 2320 AD; Reign of Discordia; Mongoose Traveller, Alternity, and all the rest.

Author Josh Chewning has done a valiant job here; l have to wonder, though, if the failure of StarSiege to carry forward the defining adaptability and ease-of-use traditionally associated with Siege Engine games like Castles & Crusades has to rest with Troll Lord Games editorial.

At some point, someone in the company should've noticed that StarSiege -- while a perfectly serviceable SF rpg -- doesn't actually adhere to the design spirit of the Castles & Crusades Siege system.

It's always easier for players and Game Masters to add on to simple game system, as needed, rather than to subtract elements from a complex one. This philosophy rests at the heart of Castles & Crusades' design.

In his well-intentioned desire to give players and GMs a fully-detailed SF toolkit, author Chewning has accidentally lost the defining difference (ease-of-use and core simplicity) which sets Siege Engine games like Castles & Crusades apart from the pack.

Again, I find Chewning absolutely guiltless -- he's done good work here -- the loss of the spirit of Siege has to fall at the feet of Troll Lord Games. Siege is their baby, in the end, and it falls to them to make sure its properly treated.

An author buried eyeball-deep in manuscript revision can't always see the big picture. That's what editorial is there for ...

FINAL VERDICT?

As above, StarSiege is a good medium-complexity all-in-one SF rpg. If that's what you want, it stands solid among the many other similar SF game systems out there.

If, like me, you were hoping for a game which would do for science-fiction gaming what Castles & Crusades has done for fantasy gaming, then StarSiege is not the game for you.

My disappointment at StarSiege's failure to be "Castles & Crusades In Spaaaace" in any sort of practical, game-table way originally had me leaning toward a 3 out of 5 score -- but, thankfully, I realized in time that, while the game does not carry on the Siege Engine legacy in any strong fashion, if taken as a stand-alone SF game it's certainly worth a 4 out of 5 to those who neither know nor care what game engine it incorporates.

Good game. Bad science.

Others have already mentioned that this is a good near-future science-fiction setting, and it is. One of the very best near-future SF games in fact, despite the fact that its timeline is the result of an in-house wargame played by the original developers at GDW, rather than any sort of reasoned forecasting (the dev who played the French won the campaign, hence an Earth dominated by French interests in 2320).

As above, my great complaint with 2320 is that the publishers decided to stick with the long-abandoned stellar data (which dates back to circa 1966) used in the original Traveller 2300, instead of upgrading the science along with the game.

The stated reason for retaining the obsolete astronomical data is the desire to keep 2320 AD in line with the game lore from 2300 AD. This is a fair call to make; unfortunately for me, it makes the setting very difficult to use as a plausible "near future hard SF" setting.

I'm no astronomer, nor am I a science hardcore, but even I know, for example, that Alpha Centauri is a radiation-soaked hellhole of a star system, unlikely to be anybody's idea of a viable colonial hub. A space station waypoint, or "jumping off point", sure -- but even terraformers would be simply making work for themselves trying to engineer a liveable biosphere in this particular star system.

Again, I'm merely a very casual astronomy fan, not a science hardcore. The truth about the current state of Alpha Centauri is a Google away. I started websurfing for current details on the key star systems in 2320 AD to help flesh out what I might tell players, only to find that the 2320 versions of these places don't even jibe with what little we know of them today.

Author Colin Dunn has done some great work with 2320 AD, but I can't shake the feeling his talent would've been better used if he'd been allowed to use current stellar data, such as the Hipparcos data, or even the stuff the Hubble telescope is providing every month like clockwork.

The fun of a near-future, so-called "hard-SF" game setting is the sense of plausibity it brings to one's game adventures. Sure, even the term "hard SF" is such a complete oxymoron, it borders on an outright lie, but you take my point. True or false, it makes the game events feel more "real" for the players.

2320 AD is probably the best game setting out there of its kind, but if its "re-imagining" had included updated astronomical details, it would have had more to offer the current generation of gamers.

Excellent work which falls one step too short.

Don't miss this one! The Barbarians of Lemuria is one of those rare rpg gems which manages to be simplified, streamlined, rules-transparent AND incredibly fun, all at the same time.

It's Not d20, But You Already Know The Game Mechanic

Barbarians of Lemuria uses 2d6, but unless your gaming group is absolutely allergic to any game product which hasn't been officially released by WoTC/Hasbro, they'll pick up the archetypal game mechanic here almost immediately: roll dice, add bonuses for skill and circumstance, subtract negatives for opposition and circumstance, and try to hit the Target Number or higher.

On its most basic level, the central game mechanic is absolutely familiar, so it shouldn't be a tough sell to your gaming group. Unless they have that nasty allergy …

Your Character Concept Is Your Character

Character generation is one of the strongest points of Barbarians of Lemuria. It's quick and easy, but it puts the options firmly back into the player's hands.

There are four stats: Strength, Agility, Mind, and Appeal (roughly equivalent to Str/End, Dex, Int/Wis, and Cha) and each of these stats range from 0 (Average) through 3 (Exceptional) for starting characters. Ratings beyond 3 are only earned through playing the game.

Players are given 4 points to assign to their four stats, and may put them anywhere, so long as no stat exceeds 3. Players may take one of their stats to -1 to gain an extra point to spend, but the benefits of doing this are debatable.

Next, players choose their past and present careers. They choose four, and again, they are given four points to spend on their careers to raise them above the default 0 level. Once again, 3 is the starting maximum. A 0 level in a career could represent a brief time spent in the career, or it could represent a character's natural talent for doing the kinds of things associated with that career, even though they never actually pursued the career themselves.

And, as mentioned above, what makes careers so noteworthy in Barbarians of Lemuria is that they not only reflect the player's character concept, but they represent what the character can do in-game. No choosing from endless skill lists, no min-maxing of feats to play the character you want to play. If your four careers are Scribe/Scholar 0, Dancer/Tumbler 0, Minstrel/Bard 0, Thief/Rogue 3 -- then you are what you've chosen.

You can study when you have to study, entertain when you want to entertain, but mostly you're a slippery, clever, acrobatic, charming stealer of other people's stuff. What you can do in the game is reflected by who you've chosen to be.

Each short career description lists certain activities significant to each career (e.g. Lockpicking, Disarming Traps, Picking Pockets for a Rogue/Thief), and which stats are likely most important to those sort of task rolls. Whether you can do something or not in-game depends on your concept and your careers.

How well you can do something depends on your relevant stats, how strong that career is in your history, and the consent of your Game Master. Not all possible applications of your career training are covered, and your GM's rule is law on what's allowed, and what's not. Most of the time, what you should be able to try will be self-evident from your careers.

We're back to gaming where player concept matters most, where your Barbarian Mercenary can pull off a dramatic on-the-fly combat maneuver because you just thought of it, the GM approved of it, and you made your roll -- not because you bought and tracked all the prerequisite skills and feats from a long series of expensive hardback rulebooks, and the rules said you could try that maneuver at this level.

We're back to imagination. We're back to personal innovation. We're back to entertaining each other at the gaming table. You use the Barbarians of Lemuria rules, they don't use you.

Free-Form Magic Rules Which Actually Work

The game's magic system is so smart, simple, and non cluttered, it makes me wonder why no one has ever done fantasy rpg magic like this before.

Magic in Barbarians of Lemuria is divided into three tiers or Magnitudes, based on how how much permanent effect the magic has on the game world. As such, players can invent and customize their own spells (even on the fly) and the rules can handle it without bogging down gameplay.

Which Magnitude a spell falls under will be determined by the level of in-game effect the player is trying to achieve, and the Magnitude assigns things like damage limit, and other practical details.

The Magnitude scale essentially breaks down into Adventurer-level magic, Advanced Effect magic -- the rules say that blasting down a typical dungeon door is a First Magnitude spell, while blasting down the entire wall containing the door is Second Magnitude -- while the third Magnitude is Epic Level magic (e.g. raising a volcano in the middle of a town).

The higher the Magnitude, the more magic points the spell costs to cast, the more difficult the casting task roll, and the more special conditions may be attached to the casting. Third Magnitude spells, for example, typically require lost magical tomes, and other quest-worthy items and artifacts, before the casting task roll even has a hope of succeeding.

It's a brilliant system, allowing spellcaster players genuine creative freedom, yet giving the overworked GM a legitimate, easy-to-use means of controlling just how much permanent effect the players' magic can have on his or her campaign world as a whole.

Loot Is Not The Goal -- Adventure Is The Goal

The way the game handles equipment and loot is equally brilliant. Author Washbourne writes "Conan, Brak and Thongor never went shopping; neither should characters in the Barbarians of Lemuria".

After I finished laughing, I realized the absolute truth of this statement. Can you imagine Elric trying to sell off Stormbringer for the gold to buy a "better" sword, now that he's "levelled up"? It's absurd.

In Barbarians of Lemuria, gold and riches are a mark of success meant to to be spent away between adventures or campaigns (or else, why adventure?). Oridinary gear is had for the asking at the start of an adventure, so long as it's appropriate to the character conception.

Unique and powerful items (magic, or otherwise) are part of the GMs story -- they're awarded as such, and only a fool would sell them for a pile of coins. This is swords & sorcery! Money comes, and money goes, but magic rules the dreams of men.

Experience is awarded between adventures (here, called "Sagas"), and this mechanic works in clever ways as well. Players get set amounts of points for their participation, which they can spend on improving stats, and such -- but they can also earn bonus points for telling the table how they lost all their wealth between the last Saga and this one in a way which entertains the table and/or provides potential plot hooks for the GM to use in the future. Most notably, players who adhere to the "D&D accountant" mentality and hoard their treasure between Sagas will actually receive less experience points for breaking with the spirit of the game.

Since wealth is largely an abstraction in Barbarians of Lemuria, and since starting out insanely rich is as easy as taking the noble career as one of your four starting careers at character creation, there's no need to hoard coin from adventure to adventure. If you don't have as much as you need or want, you have the ways and means to get it, hero! The adventure is the thing here.

Any Downsides?

The only place where this otherwise fine game might disappoint some is in the NPC monsters section.

Many of the Lemuran creatures seem more of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars planet stories, than of the tales Conan and his literary kin: riding ostriches, and quasi-prehistoric carnivores with names full of vowels. Not only are traditional fantasy opponents almost entirely absent (no orcs, no skeletons, no djinni, no satyrs), but I was most surprised to find that demons and the like are also missing. Seems to me that Conan and his sort were always battling infernal creatures in some cultist-haunted forgotten ruin.

Still, this is a small quibble, not even a true criticism. The rules mechanics in the game are so transparent throughout, that one can quickly and easily build any sort of creature required merly by studying the examples provided. You'd hardly even break a sweat.

The Final Verdict?

I could go on talking about what makes Barbarians of Lemuria a worthy purchase, but I've already gone on far too long already (as usual).

If anything I've said sounds intriguing to you, just buy the game. For a mere ten bucks, I'll be truly surprised if you don't get more than your money's worth.

Best of all, you'll get a game that's easy to learn, easy to play, easy to customize, and very, very fun. Thank you Beyond Belief Games. And thank you, Simon Washbourne.

Quality work, but pricey for what it is.

Punjar: The Tarnished Jewel carries the same production quality as most Goodman Games offerings: good artwork, smart layout, and superior design. The only problem with this gazetteer for the swords & sorcery fantasy city of Punjar is that one is essentially paying $5 US for sixteen pages of text overview.

The book is a very general introduction to a fantasy setting. Certainly, it's well-writtem, but there's not a lot to "take away" from this product if you're not planning to use Punjar. Author Harley Stroh does a stellar job of demonstrating how to write an intriguing overview, but that's about all there is here, in the final analysis.

I guess the most damning criticism is the one which the product levels at itself: it's clearly marked at several points in the PDF that Punjar: The Tarnished Jewel started its life as a free give-away intended for Free RPG Day.

To find ourselves now charged five dollars for the same freebie material is ... mildly insulting to say the least. As a free product, Punjar: The Tarnished Jewel is more than one could hope to find for free; however, as a sixteen-page, five -dollar product, it's short and it's shallow, despite the obvious quality.

Final verdict? A dead split -- 2.5 out of 5 (rounded up for the RPGNow system). As above, the quality is undeniable, but paying five bucks for a short, former freebie giveaway just feels ... insulting.

A good product which may have arrived a tad too late.

There's only been one other major 3.5/OGL class construction kit up until now, that being S.T. Cooley's Buy The Numbers, also available here on RPGNow. Cooley's work was impressive, but it was (by his own admission) fairly math-intensive for a gaming product. Perhaps more significantly, Buy The Numbers required adopting an experience-point-buy system to work fully. It was fine for those who wanted absolute control, but it wasn't exactly traditional D&D.

Now, at what may be the 11th hour for D&D 3.5/OGL, Dog Soul Publishing brings us a far more user-friendly and straightforward way to get the core classes you want in your D&D game.

The Class Construction Kit breaks down all the known abilities and talents associated with the standard D&D 3.5 classes into features bought for a point cost. Game Masters are advised that most of the published classes are built on or near 100 points under this system, and are then left to build as they see fit.

In addition to point prices, many available class elements are marked according to what level range (Low, Medium, High) they typically appear at within the core classes -- letting GMs know when introducing a given ability inside a new class should be most approriate and game-balanced.

The Class Construction Kit is a relatively short document, but it's legible, and well-laid out. The art is primarily stock art, but it's well chosen and well used.

Note that the Class Construction Kit is only concerned with helping GMs build plausible custom base classes. Prestige classes and advanced classes are not a part of this product's purview.

Lastly, the author makes clear that any classes built under the system will still need to be tested in play. The construction system is smart, but only a pro-active Game Master can make it truly bulletproof.

Short, clear, and to the point, the Class Construction Kit is inexpensive enough to be worth a look to those who want what it offers.

Me, I just wished it had appeared earlier, so that it might have gotten more of the attention it deserves, instead of standing in the long shadow of 4e.

It's the strangest thing. The major appeal of 0one Games' Great City product line is that it offers a fully-mapped fantasy city that Game Masters can finally make their own. A few optional labels are included with the maps to offer guidance and/or inspiration -- but for the most part, 0one's great gift to GMs was to say, "Here, take these maps and bring them to life in your own unique way".

And now, we have the Great City Campaign Setting, completely filled in and fully detailed for us -- which makes it effectively the same as Greyhawk, the City of the Invincible Overlord, Raven's Bluff, Ptolus, Bard's Gate, Barakus, Yggsburgh, Altdorf -- and any of the dozens of other published fantasy cities available to rpg gamers that you'd care to name.

Frankly, I don't get it. This product basically takes the one thing about the Great City which makes it unique, and removes it. Buying this product is rather like buying a coloring book with all of the pages already colored in for you. I can't shake the feeling that it entirely misses the point.

Technically, the book is as good as anything 0one puts out. Nice production values, layout, and artwork.

The authors' constant misuse of the term "empirical" throughout made me wince a little on their behalf -- and I found myself remembering Inigo Montoya's famous line from "The Princess Bride" -- "That word ... I do not think it means what you think it means" -- but the truth is, most readers are unlikely to care. We live in a text-message age where even vowels are too much trouble.

In their defense, the authors do show spirit and a clear love of their material. There's nothing glaringly wrong here on a content level, and if you want your Great City pre-made for you, you could do far worse than this --

-- but this Campaign Setting still feels like it misses the entire point of the Great City by the very fact that it exists.

A quality product for a game I barely recognize.

Like many people, I've been curious about the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons -- but I'd already seen enough of 4E to know that it probably wasn't going to be the fantasy game-system for me. Buying Goodman Games' Sellswords of Punjar gave me the chance to see the details of the 4E rules "in action", without mortgaging the cat, the dog, and that annoying kid down the street just to buy a whole new set of rulebooks I may never use.

What did I learn?

Goodman Games still knows how to make slick, interesting fantasy adventures which capture the imagination. This adventure also has a decidedly more "swords & sorcery" feel to it (e.g. Howard, Leiber, Moorcock), rather than the traditional "high fantasy" (Tolkien et al) stuff which typically defines most fanatsy rpgs. Definitely a welcome change of pace for me.

What else did I learn?

I'm sticking with Troll Lord Games' Castles & Crusades from here on out for my fantasy gaming needs -- with the occasional dip into Paizo's Pathfinder line for supplementary material.

I'm not getting into the "does 4E suck?" endless debate here -- all I can say is, in my opinion, 4E looks like a perfectly acceptable fantasy rpg system ... but it's not really D&D except in name only. Honestly, 4E bears about as much resemblance to Dungeons & Dragons as the current Battlestar Galactica television series bears to the 1970s TV show which inspired it -- a few superficial elements are common to both, but they are fundamentally different things.

4E and D&D are effectively two different games, and whether you're okay with that, or not, will depend on your personal preferences.

Sellswords of Punjar is a sufficiently good introductory adventure that I may well use its maps and its plot in a Castles and Crusades game, but it's obvious that I'll be gutting the 4E mechanics to do so. 4E is so much its own beast, that it's easier to use this adventure as an inspiration and a guideline, rather than to try to "translate" it in any sort ot systematic way.

Bottom line?

Good story, good maps, quality production values ... and the encounters seem well thought out and well-balanced, in and of themselves.

Still, if you don't play 4E, be advised that you'll be buying this adventure more as a good story outline and a gameplay guideline. It won't translate anywhere near one-to-one without some serious hands-on heavy lifting by a motivated Game Master.

The true successor to Dungeons and Dragons continues!

THE DETAILS

Monsters and Treasure is the second of two core books for the Castles & Crusades fantasy rpg, and it too features C&C's defining gameplay ethic of old-school feel, combined with modern, streamlined rules.

The monsters in Monsters and Treasure will be familiar to anyone who's played earlier editions of Dungeons and Dragons. Most of the fiendish faces from the original Monster Manual are here, as well as a few creatures recognizeable from later works, such as the Monster Manual II and the original Fiend Folio. All in all, though, the monsters in this volume will be very familiar to anyone who's played D&D before. A number of the monsters are subtly changed from what one might expect but, by and large, the faces remain the same.

Be advised that most of the creatures here are "terrestrial" in nature. Those looking for lists of demons and devils and other so-called "outsiders" will not find them in this volume. Elementals make an appearance, but angels, devils and djinni are absent from this book. The Quasit shows up, but his bigger infernal brothers are nowhere to be seen.

Also, those looking for a collection of monsters unique to Castles &Crusades' Aihrde setting are advised to wait for the upcoming Monsters and Treasures II, which Troll Lord Games is presently hard at work finishing.

Those who simply can't wait for new monsters, should check out the short Monsters of Aihrde PDFs available here on RPGNow -- and those who want to challenge their players with the smaller flying dragons seen swarming on the cover of the C&C Player's Handbook, might also want to check out the Miasmal Dragons PDF. Personally, I was grateful to have these "lower level" dragons with which to harass players all the sooner.

The second half of the Monsters and Treasures book presents the Castles and Crusades OGL version of the treasure and magic-item section of the classic Dungeon Master's Guide.. There are some changes here; certain new things, and certain old things left out, but most of these changes are subtle, and aren't likely to leap off the page and punch you in the eye on a quick read-through.

As with C&C in general, Monsters and Treasure is not about remaking classic rpg gaming from the ground up, recasting it in an entirely new form; rather it's all about streamlining and simplifying while preserving the fun factor -- cutting down the rules clutter so that the rules serve the story of your game, instead of getting in your way.

So, a lot of the Treasure section will seem familiar to owners of past editions of the DMG: treasure charts; magic item charts and descriptions; special weapon property charts; notes on how to create (and destroy) magic items; notes on how and when to award treasure. If you've played fantasy rpgs before, you know this stuff. And if you haven't played before, author Robert Doyel breaks it all down for you in clear, uncluttered prose.

Doyel's writing is solid throughout; he manages to communicate ideas well, and seems constantly aware that certain readers will be new to what he's describing. While he does not pander to the new reader, nor "dumb down" the content in any way -- wisely remembering that rpg games are largely for adults, and for smart kids with an interest in the material -- Doyel still keeps his writing lucid and focused at every opportunity. He's there to communicate concepts, and he does it well.

The art inside Monsters and Treasures is all black and white, but chief Castles and Crusades artist, Peter "Twenty Dollar" Bradley contributes some high quality, evocative monster illustrations. However old-school C&C may seem in certain ways, Bradley's art is definitely modern, and definitely professional.

SHOULD YOU BUY IT?

I'd say yes. While it doesn't bring much new to the party, in terms of monsters or magic items which long-time gamers haven't seen before, the book itself is still an excellent practical example of just how Castles & Crusades consciously streamlines OGL fantasy material into something far more user-friendly.

The book should also prove a great resource by example for those Castle Keepers (Game Masters) with a lot of pre-fourth-edition D&D material they'd like to convert to C&C.

FINAL VERDICT?

Four out of five stars. It's a solid, professional product in all respects, but it would've been nice to see a few wholly new monsters, and few more new treasures (there are a couple) among all the usual suspects. As above, I guess we'll have to keep waiting for the upcoming Monsters and Treasures II for the truly new stuff.

Without a word of a lie, this is the true, modern successor to original Dungeona and Dragonse.

Castles & Crusades isn't just another "retro clone" knock-off. Not even close. Rather, it evokes all the elements which made classic D&D so much fun, while marrying these to a slick, simple, flexible and modern d20 dice mechanic.

No need to wade through pages and pages of skills and feats at character creation. The unified dice mechanic here (called the SIEGE engine) will also let you choose (and demonstrate in play) what makes your character noteworthy -- no skill lists or feat descriptions required.

Best of all, Castles Crusades is based on the WotC Open Game License, so (with a little simple adaptation) all of your old D&D stuff from 1e through 3.x can be used with Castles & Crusades.

I could write pages elaborating on why I think C&C is worth at least a look from interested gemers. Instead, I'll just say this -- having bought the two core C&C rulebooks, I'll never willingly play D&D again.

If any of what I've said resonates with you, drop the ten bucks and check it out while this full-edition PDF is available. You've spent more on less worthy game products, I can almost guarantee it.

5 out of 5 stars.

Forget the grognards. Forget the WotC phanbois. Forget anybody with a "brand loyalty" agenda. I wanted fantasy rpgs to be alll about imaginative fun again, and Castles & Crusades gave me that. It has my highest possible recommendation.

Disappointing in a couple of significant ways, Champions Battlegrounds nonetheless delivers on most of what its ad copy promises, although less completely than one might expect.

It's a well-written purchase, but I'm still not convinced it was actually worth the full $17 US I paid. Its strengths are strong, but its weaknesses are significant.

WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT IT?

Well, it delivers on what it promises -- sorta, kinda … barely. I haven't run Champions at the gaming table in years, mostly because I find the game so preparation-intensive. This is not a criticism of Champions; merely that I can prep two or more rpg adventures for other game systems (super, or non-) in the time it takes me to properly prepare one Champions adventure. I have less free time than I used to, so the Champions system is not my best gaming option right now.

I bought Champions Battlegrounds based on the product description -- all that we have to go by, here on RPGNow, until the customer reviews roll in -- after all, what Game Master who runs superhero or modern rpg adventures wouldn't be interested in a product which features five ready-made adventure locations? A park; a mall; a major amusement park; a building construction site; and an abandoned warehouse?

Besides, the five-part, optionally-linked adventure also promised appearances by classic Champions villains such as Ogre and Foxbat. What's not to like? (More on what became of this, below)

The adventure is generally lively and well-written, and rather expertly laid out, given the density of the text description here.

There are a lot of clearly-marked sections, sub-sections, and sidebars throughout, so finding the information you need, when you need it, shouldn't be too tough.

The adventure text also features a number of "If The Players Do X", or "If The Players Fail Here" callouts which can prove very useful given players' tendency to do the things the GM least expects, when he or she least expects it.

The five "battleground" locations can be used separately, of course, or they can be played through as a sequence of linked episodes leading to a final showdown. Options are always good.

WHAT'S NOT SO GOOD?

The worst, most unpardonable sin in Champions Battlegrounds, is that IT REFERS YOU TO A SEPARATE PRODUCT FOR VILLAIN STATS! Sorry for shouting, but that's simply bad form, Smee, especially in the PDF format, where customers can't really know all of what they're getting until it's too late.

The product does stat out its brand-new villains, but for all of the others, you are given page numbers from the Champions villain supplement Conquerors, Killers, and Crooks, and told to look them up.

Hardcore Champions players won't care -- they already own every Champions supplement they can get their hands on -- but for those gamers who pick up Battlegrounds as a potential "gateway" product to Champions, well, Hero Games isn't gonna win much love with cheap tactics like this.

I don't enjoy writing negative reviews -- I'd much rather focus on pointing out the good stuff -- but this increasingly common tactic of publishers giving gamers less than a complete product, while implying it is complete is REALLY starting to irk me, and I feel compelled to call it out.

Funny how the RPGNow product description just "forgot" to mention that you need another product to fully play Champions Battlegrounds, hunh? Yeah. Sure. Right.

The second disappointing aspect of this product is that the promised location maps are not really tabletop scale. In their defense, however, they DO have map-scales on them, both in feet, and in the Champions 1 hex = 2m (6') standard, so you can figure out map-distances if you have access to a ruler.

Most of the maps, however, are printed at what could be called "overview scale" -- like the kind of maps you get when you visit a shopping mall or an amusement park. Some detail, and a general scale, but it's more about giving you an overall sense of place.

The maps are good, but if your players want to tear it up by the concession stand in the superhero-themed OmegaWorld amusement park, or slug it out in the mall comics shop, you're still going to have to break out the battlemap and the markers and hand-draw the player-scale details.

My last complaint is a personal quirk, and does not significantly affect my rating of this product: the PDF is black-and-white throughout.

Even the cover, which is full color on the RPGNow website, is black-and-white in the actual PDF. It just seems wrong for a superhero product not to have even a color cover -- and given the way Champions Battlegrounds weaseled on the villain stats, it makes me wonder if the "color in the promos, but not the product" was another example of marketing weaseldom.

SO, WHAT'S THE VERDICT?

If you're a Champions devotee, you've already bought this. If you're merely a curious gamer, take a look at the strengths and weaknesses I've listed above, and decide if the positives outweigh the negatives for your specific game needs.

Champions Battlegrounds is well-written, and certainly interesting enough to deserve a passing grade -- but its flaws (particularly the lack of necessary villain stats) hold it back from anything more than a basic pass, in my opinion.

Final verdict: 2.5 out of 5 stars, rounded up to 3 for the RPGNow system.

When angry invective passes itself off as a review, I feel compelled to speak out.

While every reviewer has the right to voice his or her personal opinion, I feel that a one-star review must work to justify its damning criticism as much as a five-star review must explain its effusive praise. A credible reviewer also strives to separate personal disappointment with what they expected a product to be, from their assessments of the strengths and weakness of what that product actually is …

I already reviewed the preview edition of Spire of the Raven God from Black Death Publishing once before. When the preview edition was rescinded, my review vanished. So here I am again, trying to present a balanced look at Spire of the Raven God.

IS IT REALLY A ONE-STAR PRODUCT?

No. While not perfect, Spire of the Raven God by Rex Baker and Joe Calkins deserves at least another star for its layout, design, beautiful color artwork, and maps alone. A single star indicates the worst of the worst; a product with no redeeming qualities or features, not worth purchasing at any price. Spire of the Raven God is far, far better than this.

SO WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT IT?

Spire of the Raven God is a d20/OGL Dungeons and Dragons adventure written by Rex Baker, and designed for 4 to 6 characters of levels 8 to 12. It's set in Black Death Publishing's campaign world of Hanan Pacha, but the setting is merely background here, and should mesh effortlessly with most baseline D&D campaign worlds, in any event.

As mentioned above, the color art by Joe Calkins and Butch Mapa is quite beautiful -- an obvious cut above what one expects to see in products by third-party start-up publishers like Black Death. The art certainly helps to sell the mood and tone of the adventure.

There are also a number of full-color encounter maps, already gridded with five-foot squares, and showing suggested starting positions for enemies.

Particularly overworked (or lazy!) DMs could probably extract and print the images directly, and lay them out on the game table at need. Anything which helps lessen the tactical burden on the DM is worthwhile in my book.

What else? The text font is large and legible. The read-aloud boxed text is clearly marked and set apart from the main text -- so clearly. in fact, that if you can't spot the read-aloud text while at your gaming table, you've probably fallen asleep behind the screen without realizing it, and your players are busily rifling through your notes.

Two new creatures -- the Woodstalker and the Kameon -- are introduced, complete with statistics and accompanying illustrations. Nothing beats being able to say to players "And you see … this!" And then to listen to the rules lawyers squeal in dismay as they realize that they haven't got these monster stats memorized already.

Perhaps Spire of the Raven God's greatest strength is the obvious enthusiasm writer Rex Baker has for the adventure itself. The thirty-nine pages (forty-three counting the covers and the legal pages) are packed with relevant information. Baker makes a clear effort to give DMs everything they might need, in full, for their money.

The adventure itself is a mix of early wilderness encounters, followed by a little underground exploration, capped off with the invasion of the titular Raven Spire, and a confrontation with a customized Big Bad Evil Guy, whom I will not spoiler here. In short, something for every D&D play style.

WHAT'S NOT SO GOOD?

Well, there are some typos in the stat blocks. But there are also similar typos in the stat blocks of most products routinely put out by Wizards of the Coast, so make of that what you will.

It doesn't make the typos any less unfortunate, and if such things are your pet peeve, so be it -- but they hardly warrant a one-star rating for the entire product, or the summary execution of all involved.

In Black Death Publishing's defense, this revised edition has many of the typos corrected, and most of those errors which remain are easily identified and corrected on-the-fly as needed.

Another problem I had with this adventure is that most of the enemies encountered are very familiar to anyone who's been playing D&D for a while. Outside of the two new monsters mentioned above, and the customized Big Bad, you'll be running into familiar monster faces such as Orcs with Barbarian levels, Hags, and so forth …

Perhaps I'm just spoiled (and perhaps Black Death is trying to balance the old against the new, for wider appeal), but I tend to glaze over a bit when I see orcs … again.

Finally, the epic battle against the tweaked-out Big Bad could be a bit over the player characters' heads at 12th level. The adventure offers options for various sorts of NPC assistance in the battle, but I know that some gamers dislike this, as it makes them feel like they're not succeeding on their own.

DMs are advised to look over the grand encounter as written, and decide what would work best to make the final showdown appropriate for their particular group of players. Some DM tinkering may be required to make this happen.

SO, IS IT WORTH IT?

Yes, I do think so. While not flawless, Spire of the Raven God shows a genuine enthusiasm for the material, and a real willingness to give the buyers more for their money.

Most of the problems are minor, and can be corrected with a minimum of DM effort.

While Black Death Publishing may not have hit every note perfectly here, with Spire of the Raven God, it's an admirable first effort from a fledgling small publisher. It bodes well for good things to come in the Hanan Pacha product line..

WHAT'S THE VERDICT?

Spire of the Raven God is worth 3 out of 5 stars, under the harshest conditions. Myself, I'm inclined to give it 4 stars, because it's jam-packed with material, and it makes an obvious effort at every turn to give the DM everything he or she might need to have fun.

Final verdict: 4 out of 5 stars. A worthy, well-intentioned first effort from Black Death Publishing.