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Stars Without Number: Revised Edition (Free Version)
Publisher: Sine Nomine Publishing
by William [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/07/2024 13:27:07

I was looking for a universal RPG that I could use to play solo with Mythic 2e in multiple genres. There are certain tropes I want in my setting like Aliens, Terminators, Scanners, Escape From New York, and Mad Max. I was able to fit all those genres into one setting with SWN with very little effort. The included "Tech Level" system allows you to easily identify the equipment recommended for a TL3 world (21st century Earth).

The enemy templates are very well done, and normally just use them out of the box, but they are easy to modify. I wanted to create my own setting, rather than start with a heavily established one. This is the perfect RPG for that. Character creation is easy, and allows you to create the kind of character you want.

There were a few areas I was a little disappointed with, like the sparse guidance for monetary rewards. A good explanation was given for why this section isn't fleshed out more, but it feels like a lazy cop-out. I was able to create my own abstract wealth system based on the information that is provided, so I won't knock off a star for that. Rather than saying it's impossible to implement consistent economics because of the diversity of tech levels and worlds, I would have preferred that the designer START with economics, and design the lore around that. It's like they built the walls of a building first then added the foundation later.

I wanted to do Mad Max style vehicular combat, and it took me a while to get my head around how it was supposed to work. I was able to put it all together, and the system works well. Overall, I think the comment that says the rules are poorly organized has some merit, but it's not worthy of a star in my opinion. I would have liked to see them put all the rules for money in one place rather than spread over 3 sections, but I just made screen shots of the tables, printed them to a PDF, and added it to my PDF rulebook for easy reference.

I think Stars Without Number is almost a bad description for these rules. It is actually a very capable universal rule set, and I would have preferred to see the designer approach it that way. The true utility of this system isn't apparent at first, because it's unnecessarily themed as science fiction. This is my favorite multi-genre system. I'm aware there are other books like Worlds and Cities Without Number, but all the tools I needed to play cross-genre are right here. Maybe this book should have been called Worlds Without Number, and then have a Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Cyberpunk add-on like SWADE did. I guess it doesn't really matter, because it's perfectly useable as a universal system as-is.

For combat I'm just using Maptool, and the basic AI from the book DM Yourself. I'm modifying the AI for specific situations, but SWN does play well with miniatures. I wanted DEADLY combat. If my character dies, I just start a new one. I don't like invincible heroes like you often get with SWADE. I wanted a distinct horror element brewed right into the game system, and it's easy to do wtih SWN. There is plenty of incentive to avoid combat and fear Aliens, Terminators, wasteland bandits, and rogue psychics.

SWN works very well for a TL3 multi-genre sandbox, especially with Distant Lights. It was almost custom made for Mythic.

Aside from the few quibbles I was able to overcome fairly easily, this rule set feels like it was designed for me. I just wanted something easy to play that would accommodate my specific genre preferences, and I was able to get there with SWN.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Stars Without Number: Revised Edition (Free Version)
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Five Leagues from the Borderlands (PDF)
Publisher: Modiphius
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/12/2023 21:28:06

I am re-writing my review of this game, because my opinion of it has changed after a few campaigns. There were a few things I didn't really like after the first reading, but everything in it has grown on me.

My first RPG campaign was AD&D 1E, and that magical experience has never been replicated. Until now. Ivan has taken all that OSR magic, and put it in a streamlined solo game. I loved the uncompromising lethality of that system, and how surviving battles always made me feel like a grizzled fantasy veteran, and how I always felt like a new story was beginning when I rolled up a new character. Five Leagues and Parsecs improve on this concept by 1) Making character creation much faster, and 2) Brewing lethality into the system. I loved AD&D 1E, but to be honest, your campaign could really get screwed if one or more characters died at the wrong time because resurrection was so expensive, and getting new characters going could be tough. Starting a new campaign might very well mean the end of your game group! Lethality can be rough in 5XFY, but I've been able to recover from some near disasterous situations by thinking things through. Don't get me wrong, I've had a few TPWs as well, especially with the difficulty modifiers in the Trailblazer's Toolkit, but getting a new campaign going is fast and fun.

At first, I was put off that traditional D&D classes like Dwarf, Elf, and gnome were replaced with Dusklings and Preen. "Birdmen? pfft" thought I. After immersing myself in the setting, I now love them. The races feel simulaneously metal, OSR, AND refreshingly original.

I loved the combat from the start. This and Five Parsecs are my favorite game systems. They accomplish the holy grail of being streamlined, OSR, and something of Ivan's own creation all at once. Prior to playing Five Parsecs and Five Leagues, I played 4AD, Pathfinder / Mythic / DM Yourself, A Song Of Blades And Heroes / Lone Blade / A Song Of Deeds And Glory, Nemesis (board game), Rangers Of Shadow Deep, Gloomhaven (board game), and Ironsworn. All these games are excellent, and I have many great memories of them, but Five Leagues and Parsecs are my current favorites.

Ivan's music recommendations (included in the PDF) are excellent for gaming. These albums really bring out the flavor of Five Leagues. We used to listen to Metallica, Iron Maiden, Slayer, etc. while gaming, but Ivan's playlist trumps even that.

The art and layout are excellent, and the PDF is very well organized.

I would even go so far as to say this is my favorite gaming product ever produced. If I could give it 6 or even 7 stars, I would. Five Leagues From The Borderlands is a real labor of love.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Five Leagues from the Borderlands (PDF)
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Five Parsecs From Home - Expansion 1 - Trailblazers Toolkit
Publisher: Modiphius
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/21/2021 22:52:48

I am revising my review on this title. Initially I didn't like it because it didn't have some of the things I wanted most:

Psionics Non-tactical combat rules *More story tracks

I still don't think I'll ever use the multiplayer rules, but I have played several games with Escalating Battles, Progressive Difficulty (method 2 - includes elite enemies and difficulty toggles), and Deployment variables.

I am currently combining these rules with some of optional rules in the base set:

  • Combat events
  • Story Track
  • Red and Black missions

So my campaign goal is to try and finish the story track with these rules, and complete a black mission by turn 25. If I can do that, I will declare "I have beat the game."



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Five Parsecs From Home - Expansion 1 - Trailblazers Toolkit
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Tales of Blades and Heroes Fantasy RPG rules
Publisher: Ganesha Games
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/02/2021 08:16:37

Tales of Blades and Heroes is an RPG based on Andrea Sfiligoi's excellent Song of Blades and Heroes fantasy wargame.

This book adds a full suite of RPG flavored special rules to Song of Blades and Heroes. The result is what I will call an RPG wargame.

The RPG elements are well-thought-out, and I think they would play well.

Will I use it? If I were going to play an RPG with other people, this would be at the top of my list. It has integrated combat balance, which makes it far superior to most other RPG's I've tried. I mostly play solo RPG's, and I think it'll work just fine in that context using the Mythic GM Emulator to automate the RPG elements of the game, and Lone Blade to handle combat AI. I think I'll try it.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Tales of Blades and Heroes Fantasy RPG rules
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Attack of the Giant Monsters
Publisher: GRAmel
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/28/2020 08:46:36

Edit: Gramel sent me a bookmarked copy, so adjusting my review accordingly.

There are some spicy ideas in here. I love how, rather than a "monster fighting game", many other "atomic age" conspiracy tropes were added in. I see some rules for running a luchador character which is great. The atomic age vehicles all look interesting.

At this point I am planning on running a few "one-shots" in this setting. Yes, there could always be more content, as another reviewer pointed out, but there can also be too much content. I'm running another setting that has tons of lore books, and it's just too much. I have most of these ideas already in my head, and TBH this kind of bare-bones approach is what I'm looking for these days.

So why 3 stars? Because it doesn't have bookmarks, a TOC, or an index. I don't understand why this is so much to ask in a book that the publisher knows people will be flipping around in. I know how to ctrl+F, and I know how to add my own bookmarks, but why should I have to do that in a $5 PDF? The PDF isn't very long, but the information is dense enough that not having bookmarks, TOC, or Index makes it hard to find things.

I'll raise it to 5 stars if the seller sends me a copy with a functional set of bookmarks.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Attack of the Giant Monsters
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Savage Worlds Adventure Edition: Vehicle Guide
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/15/2020 17:13:13

Edit: I received the refund offer from Pinnacle, and I thank them for that. I have decide to not ask for a refund in hopes that Pinnacle decides to update this guide at a later date. I like your other SWADE books quite a bit, and have confidence you will recognize the value in enhancing the Vehicle Guide. If not, well I've spent $7 on worse things. Not many, but it has happened.

Specifically, what I wanted in a vehicle guide is below, using an 18th century naval cutter as an example. While a stat block for a cutter is included in the guide, it's missing all other useful information about the vessel.

  1. A few images of cutters that could be used as VTT tokens and handouts.
  2. Well researched description and historical uses of a cutter. There's a Wikipedia page.
  3. Stat block AND PRICE of a cutter, appropriate for the base Savage Worlds system.
  4. Any modifications like weaponry, and how to use them. Briefly discussed on the wikipedia page.

What you get in the vehicle guide is a statblock for a CATEGORY of ships that includes the cutter, not even the cutter specifically. In my opinion, that's perfectly fine for a PWYW, but for $7 I want the real deal. That's almost as much as your core rulebook!

It has SOME of what I was looking for, which is stats for different kinds of sailing ships. As another reviewer pointed out, there's nothing else present besides stat blocks. So if you are looking for any advanced vehicle options, it's not in here.

They don't even give you the prices of the vehicles! I would think knowing the prices of the vehicles would be essential in a guide like this! Lazy!!

One other major complaint is that there aren't even images of the vehicles. This would have been useful A) So people could visualize the vehicle, and B) So people could use the image as a VTT icon, instead of having to hunt one down on Google Images. Cheap AND lazy!!

Is that worth $7 to me? On one hand, I kind of feel like this entire book should have been inlcuded in the SWADE rules for free. On the other, I didn't want to figure out the stat blcoks myself. So I'll compromise and say I will get very minor value out of it, but I also think it would be more appropriately priced "pay what you want". After reading it through, $7 seems like a total ripoff, and I'm half tempted to ask for a refund for the first time ever on DriveThru. This is also the first time (I can remember) ever giving a book I bought on DriveThru 1 star, but it deserves it.

This is an absoulte bare minimum effort, and I hope this isn't going to be representative of the quality of SWADE books going forward.

Open request to Pinnacle: Please re-do this. Your customers want a vehicle guide, and this just sucks.



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
Savage Worlds Adventure Edition: Vehicle Guide
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Creator Reply:
(In case you didn't see this on the other review.) Hi friends, I'm sorry you were disappointed with the vehicles guide. We put a lot of work into it and felt like it was a big help for those creating their own vehicles for their own games, a request we received frequently after the release of SWADE. But different strokes and all, and we want everyone to be happy with the books we make. So if you'd like, please feel free to contact DTRPG Customer Service (link below) and request a refund. Please copy this message so they'll know it's preapproved by us. All the best, Shane Hensley DTRPG Customer Support: https://support.drivethrurpg.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
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4AD Game Board: a one-page play sheet for Four Against Darkness
Publisher: Wisps of Time
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/15/2020 17:00:23

Edit: The designer of the sheet responded and asked if I had any suggestions for improving the sheet, the mark of a good designer. I do have some suggestions, but they are probably not aligned with selling assets. I'm from the "Howard Roark" school of thought. Utilitarian, functional, versatile, and durable. So I guess my personal preference would be a pre-made spreadsheet with some macros to speed things up, no art on it, and maybe even a VTT package.

Not a bad character sheet. I didn't really care for 4AD itself, and ultimately I wound up just making an excel spreadsheet for characters that was far easier to use since I could do everything on my computer. If you are one of those people who considers writing stuff on paper a part of gaming nostalgia, and that is a thing, this is a decent character sheet.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
4AD Game Board: a one-page play sheet for Four Against Darkness
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Creator Reply:
Hi William! Thanks for the rating and review! The game board is indeed geared for those of us who enjoy the "pen and paper" experience of gaming. I'm glad you were able to work out a spreadsheet that worked for your digital needs. If you have any ideas or suggestions for the paper game board, please let me know! Happy gaming!
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Savage Worlds Adventure Edition
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/15/2020 03:52:24

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (SWADE) was exactly what I was looking for. I'm just getting back into the hobby, and I wanted to try something more flexible that would allow me to quickly add whatever elements I want, and less simulationist. Staring back in the mid-80's I have played and ran AD&D, 2e, 3.5e, and Pathfinder 1e, and I didn't want to get on the 5e train.

I, personally, consider the SWADE rules a masterpiece. If you read through them, and soak in all the subsystems, it allows you to add so many fun elements to your games like dramatic tasks, chases, social conflict, fear & insanity, and others. It also amazingly does it without turing the system into a simulation math fest.

I have seen people write "SWADE is NOT rules light!" when critisizing Savage Worlds in forums, and I agree with that. This is a beefy PDF, and there is a lot to soak in, especially if you are new to Savage Worlds like I was. However I don't think "rules light" is the claim Pinnacle made. What they said was "Fast & Furious", and in my opinion they delivered on that. There was a lot of reading and asking questions involved, but I feel much more able to implement all the systems in SWADE, whereas in Pathfinder v1 and 3.5, I always seemed to be fiddling around with the rules, and having rules debates with people, and with Black Hack it just didn't feel like there was enough crunch. SWADE is the complete opposite. I can run this stuff in Fantasy grounds, which has EXCELLENT SWADE integration, and the game doesn't grind to a halt every time the game mechanics come into play. I can just go BOOM, BOOM, BOOM from one scene to the next. The last game session I ran, we did half a dozen scenes, including a large puzzle that took the group a while to figure out all in 4 hours.

Versatility is just off the charts with SWADE. I'm finding myself plugging in the sci-fi and horror elements I've always wanted to run into my Beasts & Barbarians games. I never would have even considered attempting this in Pathfinder, especially "on the fly". It's trivially easy in SWADE, and I love it.

I really can't say enough good things about SWADE, and I would be shocked if another system comes along anytime soon that's good enough to convince me to change. This is just an A+ product.

One complaint I have with almost ALL game systems is the disparity of suggestions for balancing encounters. I'm not asking for a full on Challenge Rating system like in Pathfinder, but it was very difficult for me the first time to figure out a good challenge. Unfortunatley, this conversation is usually dominted by grognards who pound their fists on the table and say "DON'T BALANCE ANYTHING!! Anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot and will be censured by sycophantic like-minded forum moderatos, then receive a melee attack from my neckbeard!" However, for GM's new to the system, we don't have any idea what to throw at the players the first time, and a TPW in the first session is probably not explainable by the standard garbage neckbeard advice of "you guys should learn how to assess the risks, it's a dangerous world!" My theory is people who say things like this don't actually run games, or at least not good ones because what would probably happen is all your players would quit. Players now days have far more options than back in the caveman days of Chainmail, and they'll just bail and join another Discord channel if they don't like your game. So what am I actually asking for? How about just several pages of examples to help the new guys. Here are stat blocks of a sample party of 4, here are some common combinations of enemy stat blocks like goblins and skeletons and such THAT WE PLAY TESTED, and proved to be a fun encounter. Stop listening to the grognards on this, new GMs need a lot more help in this area than what you give us. Fortunatley I have Fantasy Grounds where I can speed up the play testing of encounters between games, but back in the good old days before Fantasy Grounds this would have been a colossal PITA. Just provide multiple clear examples illustrating how experienced SWADE GM's ballpark challenge to set us on the way. Once we have a feel for it, we won't need it anymore. What happened to me was, I ran a "mini-game" before the first actual game session, followed your extremely sparse encounter balance guidance, and the party just wiped the floor with them. I don't think anyone even took a single hit, and it just wasn't fun. Next go-round I had some frame of reference as to what is "too easy", and things went much better, but if you had just given me more guidelines to help shape my thinking in the beginning, the first session would have been much better. The grognards and neckbeards like to paint this as a false dilemma; either you put in some bloated, barely functional CR system like Pathfinder, or you don't try to balance anything. To me, this is just complete BS. There is a happy middle ground for helping new GM's avoid TPW's and boring easy encounters in the early games, and I could probably write it myself at this point. All it would take is a little effort on your part. I won't knock off a star, because nobody got mad and quit after the easy encounter, but I was a little irritated. Before you go on the defensive, Pinnacle, I am only taking the time to write this because I love your product and would like to see it improved.

Another minor complaint is that the PDF is poorly optimized, weighing in at a ridiculously unecessary 56MB, and performing even worse than that size would indicate on older devices like my Android tablet. It's just a bloated hog of a PDF. After removing all the images with Ghostscript (see below), and using a free online PDF optimizer, the result is a 2.5MB PDF that opens lightning quick and scrolls smoothly on all my devices. I get that Pinnacle is trying to pretty up their product, but rule books are utilitarian. Most people are going to look at the pretty pictures once, then spend the rest of their time wishing the PDF was optimized better. What I would prefer is if they would create a reference book PDF designed purely for GM reference, and then maybe include a full version with art, or just an art book.

Normally poor PDF optimization would cost any product I review a star, but fortunately for Pinnacle the content of SWADE is just so outstanding I can't give it less than 5 stars.

I actually wound up buying this product twice. Once in PDF format, because I had originally intended to play on Roll20. Then a second time when I switched to Fantasy Grounds. Normally this would irritate me and I would have refunded the PDF product, since the full rule book is in Fantasy Grounds and that's where I look stuff up. I like this product so much, however, paying for it twice still seems like a good value, and I'm happy to pay a little extra to support a company I like.

Here's how to delete the images with Ghostscript: gs -o noimages.pdf -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dFILTERIMAGE input.pdf



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Savage Worlds Adventure Edition
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Savage Worlds Adventure Edition: Combat & Chase Quick Reference Chart
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/15/2020 02:08:47

These are very handy. I run a lot of chases and it's nice to have these in one place. I deleted the unnecessary cover out of the PDF and ran it through an optimizer though, the result being a 377kb file that loads quickly on my older tablet. Not sure why Pinnacle PDF's all need to be so poorly optimized.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Savage Worlds Adventure Edition: Combat & Chase Quick Reference Chart
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Fantasy Heroes Set
Publisher: Arion Games
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/15/2020 01:52:57

Very nice cardboard minis. I used them for a pathfinder game years ago and they worked great.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Fantasy Heroes Set
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Humanoids Set
Publisher: Arion Games
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/15/2020 01:52:12

I used these for a pathfinder campaign years ago before switching over to gaming online. For bases, I superglued a paperclip to a penny, then simply slid the cardboard figure into the paper clip. Worked great.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Humanoids Set
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Retribution Collector's Edition
Publisher: Raging Swan Press
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/15/2020 01:48:38

This is really just a fantastic read. I've read through this a few times, and it looks like I will FINALLY get to run it in my SWADE Beasts & Barbarians campaign with a few modifications. Raging Swan, and Creighton Bloodhurst in particular write some really great stuff. I wish they would start writing stuff for SWADE. I really see Retribution being a great fit in any fantasy game system though. It seems great care was taken to make everything in the module clear enough so that converting it is very easy.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Retribution Collector's Edition
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Creator Reply:
Thank you William! Your review made my morning. Good luck with running Retribution!
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PDQ Sharp!
Publisher: Atomic Sock Monkey Press
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/15/2020 01:45:10

I like the system, but it kind of falls into that category of "just a little too much of a toolkit" that FATE Accellerated did for me. I did try to find players for a game but did not succeed.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
PDQ Sharp!
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Mythic Game Master Emulator
Publisher: Word Mill Games
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/15/2020 01:43:12

I've been trying to fit this into a game for years, but never quite got around to it. I think I like the IDEA of the Mythic GME, but when it comes to making literary decisions in my game worlds, I simply want to control all of that myself. One thing I did really like is the "chaos meter", which I'm using a highly stripped down version of in my current game. It's a nice way to escalate events in a game along a reasonable curve.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Mythic Game Master Emulator
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The Squared Circle:Wrestling RPG Demo
Publisher: Day Dreamer Interactive
by William B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/15/2020 01:40:04

Wasn't really the wrestling game I wanted. Legends of Wrestling was the wrestling game I wanted.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
The Squared Circle:Wrestling RPG Demo
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