I found this tight little free PDF on the DriveThru RPG site and was immediately impressed with it. The artwork, though good, is not great by any means, but it greatly adds to the presentation of the material. The introduction shows great care and great ideas about introducing NPCs into your campaign, and the second part of the booklet discusses the history and people of Gior’s Glassworks, as well as some adventure hooks. All in all, I found it to be a great little location and it is detailed well enough to fit in any fantasy setting and can be placed in any other kind of setting with little extra work on the part of the GM.
Art and Layout
The layout is simple and clean, and the interior art is all pencil sketches. I felt that some of the drawings were nicely detailed given the medium, but others were lacking. However, it’s a free product, and I was happy to see as much art work in it as there was. In the ten interior pages, there are nine pieces of art, plus some margin art. Some of them appear to be from stock art sources, but they are all appropriate for the genre of the presented material.
The layout is simple, and easy to read. I felt there was some blank space in odd places, but by and large, the pages are filled nicely and the text is more or less evenly distributed. When considering it against its competition of free downloads, I would place it slightly ahead of the curve for the average free PDF.
Layout Rating: 4 out of 5
System
This download is system-less. System specific details are left up to the purchaser to place, which is probably the best way to handle a subject like this, and it does it well. Between the information in the Introduction concerning NPC abilities and the descriptions given in the description of the glassworks, there is ample opportunity to plan the adventure as intended in your system of choice. Overall, I found it to be well thought out and extremely well executed.
System Rating: 5 out of 5
Concepts
The concept is simple. A detailed place is given for insertion into your adventure or campaign. Short, sweet, and to the point, this little PDF delivers on all fronts. It is generic without being watered down to the point of uselessness, especially with the NPC ability definitions given in the Introduction.
Concept Rating: 5 out of 5
Playability
Gior’s Glassworks is a quick read and very easy to put into a current adventure. The adventure hooks at the end of the work makes it even easier to actually incorporate it into a setting instead of having it be backdrop or a piece of scenery. However, if that’s all you need for your adventure, plus a few named NPCs for your party to interact with, then it fully fills that niche as well.
Playability Rating: 5 out of 5
Overall
I think that overall, it nailed exactly what it set out to do. Patrick Lawinger who oversaw every aspect of producing Gior’s Glassworks did a very good job and set forth a very concise product. The only ding I am giving is on the artwork, which is above average, but I don’t think deserves a five. In my opinion, I would gladly shell out a few coins for little supplements such as these, and definitely for a larger compendium of them. Even with the artwork, I feel that this product deserves a solid five out of five points.
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5
Thanks for putting this out here for all of us.
Kevin Rohan
Content Director
Silver Gryphon Games
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