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Calendar of Many Adventures 2024 (12 adventures for 5E and 12 maps)
Publisher: Loke BattleMats
by Cedric [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/26/2023 06:28:13

Each adventure is a separate one-session one-shot. If you want a campaign, you will want to develop your own story to tie the adventures into a campaign, and will probably need to add a few more adventures so the players gain enough experience. The lowest adventure is for levels 1-3 and the highest is 7-9, so you could run a party from 3rd to 7th level with the calendar adventures, as well as Loke's "RPG Toolkit" adventures.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Calendar of Many Adventures 2024 (12 adventures for 5E and 12 maps)
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Deck of Combat Twists (150 cards of random actions to spice up your combat encounters!
Publisher: Loke BattleMats
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 07/20/2023 18:13:39

Original review with pictures on RPG.net : https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/19/19139.phtml

Loke Battle Mat's "Loke Deck of Combat Twists" card deck describes itself as "150 Cards to Enhance RPG Combat Encounters" "designed to inspire and randomize events which can affect RPG encounters. You can use these cards to help plan, or draw randomly during live play." The deck consists of four categories of cards: Targeting, Environment, Wild Magic, and Tactics. Targeting cards select a target, where they've been hit, and what effect the hit had. Environment cards "are a range of perlious events which can influence and affect combat." Wild Magic are magical side effects, leaning on the whimsical side. Tactics "describe how the enemy have prepared for, or act during, the combat encounter". You can pick up these cards physically and virtually for Roll 20.

And how do you use them? Any way you want! Want to add some color to the encounter? Draw an Environment card! Not sure how the bad guys prepared? Draw a Tactics card! Unsure whom to target in the party? Draw a targeting card! Need a Wand of Wonder, miscast spell, mishievous NPC spell, or a magical trap effect? Draw a Wild Magic card!

In this review, we'll use the cards with a random encounter. Many adventures with a random encounter table will usually have a group of monsters that the party encounters — and that's it. No description of how the monsters attack, no interesting environment affecting combat. Thus, the Tactical and Environmental "Combat Twist" cards can give the GM some ideas to make combat more than just the usual "they attack".

For the random encounter, we'll use an encounter from Loke's "Wilderness Trek" random encounters PDF. The Loke random encounters are actually pretty well fleshed out, and the "Combat Twists" deck add even more memorable detail. "Wilderness Trek" was originally released as part of a KS "Wilderness Books of Modular Maps" campaign, and is now available retail as part of the "Untold Encounters" hardback and PDF on DriveThruRPG. "Untold Encounters", I should mention, also includes encounters for dungeon and towns, based on the "Dungeon Run" and "Tavern Crawl" PDFs from previous Loke KS modular maps campaigns. "Untold Encounters" is a system-agnostic supplement, with 5e support. The encounters may be used with both battle maps and "theatre of the mind" RPGs, and not all encounters revolve around combat. The encounters are well-described, and you can even select them to create your own adventure or flesh out a pre-written one.

Anyway, the wilderness encounters has you "Choosing a Wilderness Region" from arctic, desert, forest, mountains, plains, sea & shore, swamp & jungle, and wilderness boon (treasure). Once you select a region, you roll on a table to see how many encounters you receive (eg. for the forest, you may receive a "1x Forest Encounter, 1x Wilderness Boon"). You then roll d100 on the region's encounter table, then look up the encounter in the PDF's "Encounters A-Z" section. Each region has some information the GM can use (eg. forest canopies). The dungeon and town encounters work similarly. (For the town, you start with the ward, then roll on the ward's encounter table, then look up the encounter. The dungeon includes not just enemy encounters, but how to build a dungeon with traps and everything from the dungeon module books!)

So let's have an encounter, a forest encounter to be specific. We'll start in the "Wilderness Region" of forest, then go to the Forest chapter. On the "Forest Encounters" table and roll 12 on a d20 for "1x Forest Encounter; 1x Wilderness Boon". On the "Forest Encounters" table, we roll a 13, for "Carrion Moss Carpet" whose Description on the table is "Moss covering ground and tree trunks". Seems not-so-innocent enough. We then look up the encounter in the "Wilderness Encounters A-Z" section. The carrion moss carpet description starts, "Forest: This strange thick moss covers everything in this area, smothering trees, plants and any trails in a smothering deep red mossy blanket" along with a few paragraphs of text, including gameplay.

As for gameplay, "It is [Difficult] to travel through the moss and any Character without suitable protection will receive [Light] damage from repeated contact with the moss." Going back to the system-agnostic Mechanics section, we look up "Difficulty: Difficult" as "Difficult - These tasks are more likely to end in failure than success without some kind of assistance (magic, equipment, other Characters etc.)." For the "5e Mechanics" we see "Average Party Level: We will use the value of Average Party Level (APL) to help produce values based on the level of the Characters. APL assumes there are four Characters in a party and is the average value of their levels." and "Difficulty: Difficult: DC = 14 + 1/4 of APL round up". So a party of 11th level characters would have a DC of 14 + 11/4 = 17. We can also see that for Light Damage, the party would take 1d4 x 1/2 x 11 = 6d4 damage. If the number crunching is a bit much, just use your RPG's suggested difficulty check and damage rules.

Now that we have a "1x Forest Encounter" let's add a card from the "Combat Twist" deck. As said, Loke's "Combat Twists" deck includes an Environment set of cards. Randomly picking one results in "Rising Waters: The floor here is damp and littered with puddles. Any combat will disturb the groundwater further, causing a flood to rise around the combatants." Also, as said, "Combat Twists" is also system agnostic, so the GM is free to translate the description to game mechanics. We could use a modifier to the DC, or just read out the second sentence if the party fails or rolls close to the DC. That flood, by the way, could be the moss's digestive juices...

As for the "1x Wilderness Boon", the "Wilderness Boons" encounters read more like a treasure and miscellaneous items table. Some of the more interesting items include a "Cursed Violin", "Full Dining Set" and "Military Recipe Book". Let's make a roll of 15 to find... "Delicious Herbs". I guess that means we can harvest this semi-deadly moss for a something tasty. And, from the description, "Delicious Herbs: Wilderness Boon : Any suitably trained Character will [Simple] notice this collection of plants combine into a sauce that will make even a meal of warm mud delicious." Back to the "5e Mechanics" section results in "Difficulty: Simple : DC = 4 + 1/4 of APL round up", so our 11th level party makes a DC of 4 + 11/4 = 7 for lunch.

Well, now that lunch is over, let's have another encounter. 85 on the "Forest Encounters" is "The Noble Hunt". In "Wilderness Encounters A-Z" the description is "Desert, Forest, Mountain, Plains : High born and wearing yellow Carnations in their caps, this [Small] group of keen hunters [Standard Warrior NPC] ride after a [Large] pack of hounds [Standard Beast] through this area. They do not often stop for anyone and their hounds are prone to harassing smaller characters and companion animals." We'll have the hounds harass the halfling cook, and draw one of each of the "Combat Twist" cards.

As said, the "Combat Twist" cards may be used any way you like. We'll just draw one of each for inspiration (in secret), the same cards as the Combat Twist image above. "Wild Magic: Out of the Hat" and "Targeting: Get the Mage" might not apply, since the encounter doesn't have to have a mage or focus on one, yet. But "Tactics: Attack from Behind" would describe how the hounds attack the hireling cook, and "Environment: Trip Hazard" suggests the hounds stumbling into the moss or the pots and pans used for cooking. It's up to the GM to determine any penalties for both sides, as well as combat in a hazardous area. Conversely, you can describe the results of (bad) die rolls with the cards (eg. if you fail to hit or are hit, check to see if you fell in some still-living moss or stuck your foot in one of the pots or the campfire). Good luck, brave halfling.

Untold Encounters: UE is currently out of print physically. You can find it on DriveThruRPG as a PDF. Personally, for scenarios and encounters, I prefer PDF. With a PDF, you can just print out the pages you need, rather than bring along yet another book. Of course, with Loke's digital maps, you can definitely keep your PDF digitally along with your other Loke gaming materials. fyi, While the encounters (dungeon, town, wilderness) are available as the "Untold Encounters" book, you can also find the dungeon and wilderness encounters as part of the "The Dungeon - Books of Battle Mats" and "The Wilderness - Books of Battle Mats". Happy gaming!



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Deck of Combat Twists (150 cards of  random actions to spice up your combat encounters!
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Castles, Crypts & Caverrns - Books of Battle Mats (Digital Edition) 80 digital battle map tiles
Publisher: Loke BattleMats
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 05/30/2023 02:01:57

Full review on RPG.net, based on the physical book. Includes using CC&C for the D&D "Starter Set : Lost Mine of Phandelver": https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/19/19119.phtml

Castles: The castle walls should work just fine for a "close up" of a castle for encounters such as speaking with the city guards, sneaking inside the castle, an NPC encounter inside the castle walls, that sort of thing. I was sort of disappointed that I couldn't make a generic castle (with the four corner round or square towers, walls between the towers, and a drawbridge), even with the castle walls in the Town and Taverns Battle Mat Books. Miniature skirmish gamers can still use the battle mats for that attack on one side of the castle.

The room maps in the set are suitable for not just castles and NPC town locations, but as generic rooms for RPG'ings. Breaking down the more functional rooms we have:

Throne room and school. School could be used for a smaller church. Castle gate complex with drawbridge. Large dining room with kitchen, and royalty or merchant quarters. Can be used for an inn or tavern. Barracks and armory, with castle wall courtyard. Castle courtyard. Each two-page spread can be used for the outside or inside of a castle wall. Large two-story library or academic area. Single pages may be used for smaller libraries and ballroom area. Four-story wizard's tower. Single pages may be used as individual rooms, like I've done for the D&D adventure. Generic rooms. Impressive spiral staircase and master bedroom, and smaller rooms. Maze hedge. Garden or upper-class park. Sewer complex. Plus four-pages of blank tiles for your other maps.

Crypts: And, for town and other encounters, this two-volume set has churches as well! The largest church is a two-page spead, with the services on one page, and entryway, office, and smaller services area on the other. Thus, you can use this two-page spread to make smaller areas of worship. Another page has a half-page school room that can be used as another services area in a church room. In addition to the church, the set has a double-page graveyard. As for actual crypts, we've seen the large single-page one-room crypt, with the adjacent rooms that have a crypt. One volume of the books has a double-page spread with an inner hallway. One of the volumes has generic rooms with spider webs on one page, and a single webbed room that can be used as a forgotten temple or altar. The other volume has two pages of webbed ruins and caverns. Unfortunately, these two pages are pretty much the only ruins in this set, although Coast of Dread has two ruins maps, and the "Add-On - Wilderness" vinyl clings has a page of ruins.

Caverns: As said earlier, some of the cavern pages can be used for generic outdoor hilly encounters. "Castles, Crypts, and Caverns" has sixteen cavern pages, with six, I would say, usable as outdoor dry terrain. Cave entrances, underground rivers, underground lakes, cavern fungi, cavern and ruins, it's all here.

Conclusion: The books are fine for castle RPG encounters, as well as adding more generic fantasy rooms and caverns for your dungeons. Some cavern maps can be used for outdoor hill and mountain encounters. For anyone new to battle mats, I would suggest the RPG Toolkit, Box of Adventure, Book of Battle Mats (The Dungeon and Wilderness), and Big and Great Book of Battle Mats series.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Castles, Crypts & Caverrns - Books of Battle Mats (Digital Edition) 80 digital battle map tiles
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Lasting Tales
Publisher: Blacklist Games
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 03/22/2023 02:18:03

Glad to see this miniature skirmish game finally available!

This game has most features I'm looking for in a miniature skirmish game.

  • Miniature agnostic. Characters and enemies are conventional generic fantasy miniatures. No buying of special or IP miniatures. If you've backed bulk miniature KS campaigns, such as Reaper Bones or CMON's Massive Darkness, or own several dungeoncrawler boardgames, you should have enough miniatures for this game (although your miniatures may not match the specific weapon loadouts of your Lasting Tales character).

  • Flexible terrain: More than 20 scenarios are divided into dungeon, wilderness, and settlement. You won't need some unsual terrain just for a single scenario. I will say that RPG game tiles didn't work as well as dungeon terrain for miniature skirmish games. Myself, I use Terra Tiles from Ravenkeep to generate a random wilderness game board for wilderness and settlements, then use Archon's "Dungeons and Lasers: Elven Woods" for trees and rocks, and Battle System's "Village Set" for settlements. I will use Battle System's "Dungeon Terrain" for a huge multi-level dungeon/cavern. I did find it annoying that Lasting Tales gives little guidance on making a challenging terrain setup, although this is a common problem for solo miniature skirmish games. The game board is 3x3.

  • Casual miniature skirmish rules. Basic combat rules are mostly easy to pick up. Roll 2d6 + ability score > 10 is a success. Various modifiers and exceptions will mean looking up rules as you learn the game, of course. Armor is odd in that the heaviest armor doesn't really stop much damage, and that crossbows can shoot across the entire board most of the time, with their 2' range, and do much damage.

  • Solo/Coop: Scenario design is that monsters return to the game while players have a limited time to fulfill their objective. The game AI is pretty easy to follow and you can later tweak it or run the enemies with a GM. You should be able to hack the game into a standard multiplayer game of two warbands fighting each other.

  • Characters: Melee characters are pretty limited, as scenario objectives often do not stress melee combat. Spellcasters have enough variety to try out different play styles. Pretty much every generic fantasy race and class are covered. This range of complexity benefits the game by allowing players to play multiple characters, new players to play simpler characters, etc. Simpler characters lend themselves to remote play. (We play a two-player campaign, with my friend remotely playing a Paladin and Rogue, while I play a Wizard.) Character progress is unsual in that character stats increase and new skills are gained, rather than the more conventional "levelling up".

  • Campaigns: Lasting Tales contains both the "Nethering Lord" campaign and a random campaign generator. The "Netherling Lord" campaign is actually a good way to learn the campaign system, as the campaign takes care of the random generation for you. The random campaign generation doesn't create an overarching story, but it's not hard to improvise some sort of story explanation.

  • Campaign Events: Between scenarios, the party will have various road encounters, and encounters within settlements.

  • Settlement locations: Villages, Towns, and Cities have plenty of locations to visit, although some are better than others. (I houserule that a settlement event of "No Event" means the characters end up at a random location.)

  • Treasure: Lasting Tales has an extensive variety of treasure, although you only have a few chests you will open in a scenario, and it's probably going to be some sort of potion.

Five Leagues from the Borderlands may be the closest miniature skirmish and narrative campaign ruleset to Lasting Tales, although I haven't played Five Leagues yet.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Lasting Tales
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Coast of Dread
Publisher: Loke BattleMats
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 02/16/2023 22:55:27

(Excerpt from sister site RPG.net for the physical product. The digital content is FREE with the physical box!) Full review: https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/19/19106.phtml

Overview: Loke Battle Mat's "Box of Adventure: 2. Coast of Dread", like Loke's earlier "Box of Adventure: 1. Valley of Peril", consists of twenty-four 11"x17" maps, four 8 1/2'x11" sheets of building and other cutouts, 275+ double-sided tokens, and a magnetic-shut storage box, for your RPG adventures. The larger maps consist of four maps of each of the following: Dread Coast, Ancient Halls, Windward Village, Fetid Swamp, Old Cemetery, and Cave Ruins. Note that many of these maps can be used outside of a maritime environment. The boxed set also has a free digital copy code and 5E 16 page adventure "Curse of the Dread marsh Crew", redeemable at the Loke Battle Mats website. The maps are printed on modular fully-laminated and wipe-clean double-sided maps. Like their previous boxed set, you can combine the maps to form larger ones. Each map has a 1" grid. The tokens and terrain features are printed on the same sheets, so will have to be cut out. You can, of course, use the their maps with any 1" grid map, as well as Loke Battle Mats' reusable static clings from their "Add-On Scenery" line.

Assortment: Fold-out boxed set and spiral-bound (of different sizes) are Loke Battle Mat's map physical formats. Pick whichever you prefer from their catalog. Coast of Dread consists of maritime maps, underground halls, a village, a swamp, a cemetery, and caves. Pretty obviously, if your adventure takes place on land rather than sea, you would want the "Box of Adventure: 1. Valley of Peril" set. A digital copy is included with the physical set, but you can purchase the digital copy directly from DriveThurRPG. Don't forget the other free Loke digital maps and adventures!

Ghost Archipelago: As a sample miniature skirmish game, I looked at Ghost Archipelago, a piratey jungle and island-theme game based on the popular Frostgrave game, to see how compatible Coasts of Dread was for this game. Each two-page spread map is 17" x 11", so you can arrange 2x3 maps to make a suitable nearly 3x3 board. (Ghost of Archipelago can be played on as small as a 2x2 board for two players, and 4x4 or more for more players. Map size is flexible.) Ghost Archipelago's scenarios are pretty flexible when it comes to terrain (mostly, you set up a board then place a terrain or map piece in the middle), so you will be able to play most of the scenarios with the Coasts of Dread set. You'll need additional terrain (eg. cage, standing stones, dinosaur eggs...), but the Coast of Dread comes with a watchtower for the Watchtower scenario, and a ruined temple for the Graveyard scenario. You'll need to visit the local aquarium shop for jungle trees if you want the maps to represent jungles, although the Wilderness Books and free Loke digital maps on DriveThruRPG has jungle maps you could use.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh:

Map Support: As an example RPG setting, I went through the Ghosts of Saltmarsh D&D campaign, to see how well you could use Coasts of Dread with it. The Coast of Dread will work for most locations. The Valley of Peril has forests and land-based monster tokens. The Town and Tavern book and/or "Town Trimmings" reusable static clings will be useful for the town of Saltmarsh and indoor locations and furnishings. Of course, some non-combat locations, like towns and NPC encounters, won't need a map. The Big Book of Battlemats III has additional maps, particularly the vampiric forest, you can optionally use for this campaign. The Wilderness books have forests, islands, caves, tower ruins, swamp, sea, and small islands you may find useful for variety. The Coast of Dread maps and tokens don't exactly replicate those in the campaign book, so expect minor alterations to the adventures, includig proxying tokens or alternate monsters.

Token Support: No RPG token set can be expected to support every planned and especially random encounter, but Coasts of Dread does a pretty good job. Coasts of Dread also has tokens for the maritime Saltmarsh Backgrounds, at least the human ones. You still may need to make the occasional substitution. The Valley of Peril Box of Adventure, suggested for its forests, also has tokens for PCs, NPCs, and monsters, mostly of the generic fantasy variety. Roughly 50 of the tokens — not even counting the cultists and pirates — are suitable for PC's. However, most are human, with maybe one or two tokens for elf, dwarf, and halfling races.

Further Loke Products

If you're looking to expand your maps for Saltmarsh, I would start with Valley of Peril. Valley of Peril has Coasts of Dread's folding map and token format, as well as its digital content that may be used with Coasts of Dread. Valley of Peril has forest, dungeon, and cave maps, as well as a tavern and tokens for land-based monsters, and a digital copy. The Town Trimmings reusable clings will be useful to customize the empty buildings and dungeon rooms. The Wilderness Books of Battle Maps has additional sea, island, forest, and land maps. The Towns & Taverns Books of Battle Maps has more maps for town and city encounters. The Dungeon Books of Battle Mats and Add-On Scenery for RPG Battle Maps: Dungeon Decorations reusable clings may be useful for the additional caves, ruins, including flooded ruins, and tower. Digital versions of these physical accessories and additional digital maps for fantasy and other genres are available on DriveThruRPG.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Coast of Dread
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Valley of Peril
Publisher: Loke BattleMats
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 10/21/2022 18:55:44

RPG.net review of the physical box contents : https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/18/18938.phtml

Overview: Loke Battle Mat's "Adventure Box: Valley of Peril" consists of twenty-four 11"x17" maps, four 8 1/2'x11" maps, 300+ tokens, and a magnetic-shut storage box, for your RPG adventures. The larger maps consist of four maps of each of the following: Forest Road, Dungeon Halls, Lost Caves, Forest Ruins, Old Homestead, and Barren Hills. Three of the smaller maps compose a two-story tavern and a roof. The last small map is a Cave entrance. The box also has 300+ numbered tokens, three sheets of terrain features, and a free digital copy code redeemable at the Loke Battle Mats website. The maps are printed on modular fully-laminated and wipe-clean double-sided maps. Similar to their spiral-bound map books, you can use two or more maps to form a larger rectangular map, longer map, L- or T-sized map, and so on. Each map has a 1" grid. The tokens and terrain features are printed on the same sheets, so will have to be cut out. You can, of course, use the their maps with any 1" grid map, as well as Loke Battle Mats' reusable static clings from their "Add-On Scenery" line.

Assortment: Loke Battle Mats has a good variety of map products, so you should pick the one that suits your adventures and your organizing the best. The Adventure Box primarily focuses on forests, with adjoining hills, a small dungeon, some caverns, a tavern, and a generic homestead. Pretty obviously, if your adventure instead takes place in a multi-level dungeon or several districts of a city, you would want, say, the Loke Battle Mats Book of Dungeons or Book of Town and Taverns.

11"x17" Maps: At 11"x17", the Box map sizes differ from other Loke Battle Mat products. The spiral-bound Book and Battle Map products are one-foot square. The A4-sized Big and A3-sized Giant Books are 12"x9" and 12"x16" respectively. You can combine maps in this set and with other sets to make larger maps.

Separate: One major advantage of individual maps is selecting only the ones you need for the current game session. The 11"x17" maps fold in half, so you can carry these maps along with your GM notes and RPG adventure. The Box's 11"x17" maps fold in the center, meaning that you can stack, say, the four dungeon maps together, give them a fold, and thus more easily organize and store them.

Tokens: The Box comes with 300+ tokens. The tokens are printed on the same laminated paper as the maps, meaning that you can write on them (eg. status effect). You will need to cut out the tokens, and they are not as thick as cardboard ones. Tokens are double-sided, with a different creature on the other side. Tokens are numbered. Myself, I use miniatures, so won't be cutting out the tokens. However, because they are numbered, I can still use the facial illustrations as a GM aid to describe an NPC or monster. Just jot down the number next to the NPC or monster stat block.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Valley of Peril
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Hovel Paper Model
Publisher: Dave Graffam Models
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 08/21/2022 18:54:04

Great introduction to papercrafting, to see if you like it. If you don't have cardstock, you can use index cards. Score the lines with the back of a hobby knife to make folding easier. The house didn't need the base to stand, and try assembling it without the tabs. I'm still not sure if I like papercrafting, so will try out the carriage house. I'll still be picking up the Battle Systems Village, but these papercraft houses should work fine to make my village even larger!



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Hovel Paper Model
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A Tale of Two Sitters
Publisher: Loke BattleMats
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 05/24/2022 11:01:10

This is a potentially humorous 5e encounter, consisting of two combats, that can be dropped into any urban adventure. The adventure is for up to 4 characters, levels 3-5, but can be modified for lower and slightly higher levels. There's something odd with the plumbing, and is the party greedy, charitable, or foolish enough to explore it? The underground storage area is on the old and decomposed side, so the hook (other than the upcoming 5e adventure by Loke that this preview is from) could that a PC or NPC has bought or inherited an urban building that needs some fixing, and the PCs do a little investigating before the cleanup crew arrives.

The preview is from an adventure included in the Loke Battle Mats "RPG Encounter Toolkit" KS, which also includes fold-out maps, random encounter generators, monster cards, and, of course, Loke's battle mats, which are foldout so you can make not only huge dungeons, but also large areas for miniature skirmish games. If you would like an idea of Loke's random encounter generators and fold-out maps (or want a retail copy now), look for their "Untold Encounters" supplement and "Box of Adventure: Valley of Peril" map set. (The physical Valley of Peril also comes with a digital code for digital content.)



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
A Tale of Two Sitters
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Lasting Tales - Demo Rules
Publisher: Blacklist Games
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 04/17/2022 14:07:13

The Best Part of the Game is in the Actual Rulebook

This review will include some impressions of the core rulebook. And the short answer to Lasting Tales is that it's a standard coop "IGO/UGO" miniature skirmish game for newer gamers, and those who want a flexible campaign system. In contrast to "simultaneous combat", "IGO/UGO" is a miniature skirmish game term for one side taking its turn (eg. Move, Attack, miscellaneous Action), then the other side doing the same. Combat typically has the attacking model making some sort of die roll with modifiers against a target number and missing and taking no damage if it fails. In contrast, in "simultaneous combat" typically the attacking model initiates combat (preferably to their advantage!), both sides roll a die with modifiers, and the higher number wins, meaning that the attacker may suffer some sort of damage if it fails. By standard, I mean that the movement and combat rules alone don't really make the game stand out from other game sets. (However, for magic-users, the magic system has ten levels of spells, plus cantrips, six spells each. Priests have three levels of miracles.)

As for coop, the game uses an unending supply of enemies as a timer. Each turn, so many enemies appear (up to a limit), so you typically need to fulfill the scenario objective sooner than later. The game AI is pretty basic -- most of the time the enemy just goes after the nearest opponent. You could easily replace the enemy AI with a gamemaster playing enemy forces. (The terrain setup rules are pretty broad, so it's up to the players to make a fair or challenging setup.) Like many miniature skirmish games, the Lasting Tales core rulebook has an extensive beastiary of stat blocks for generic fantasy miniatures. (Song of Blades and Heroes, btw, allows you to make your own stat blocks for miniatures in your collection.)

The core rulebook comes with 20 scenarios, and a 10+ scenario campaign. The game is designed so that you can mix and match enemy types with scenarios, as well as the level of your heroes. (The campaign scenarios can also be played outside the campaign.) The scenario rules scale for both number of heroes and their levels. Additionally, between scenarios, both the party and individual heroes can have encounters and visit locations in the local settlement. New skills are gained randomly, or players can spend their experience points to select a skill. Players dropping into the game are awarded enough experience points to match current heroes and follow the character creation and levelling up rules. It's the bestiary, scenarios, and between-campaign content that separates Lasting Tales from non-campaign miniature skirmish games. However, most of these features are in the core book, not the demo. The demo comes with one scenarios and some first-level pregenerated characters. You'll want four buildings and several undead miniatures for the game.

I would recommend the PDF over the hardback. With the PDF, you can print out the rules and character generation for each player, and have one player print out the scenario and beastiary statistics for the day's game. Print out the between-scenario and level advancement content before the next game, and go throught it while waiting for everyone to show up. Some between-scenario content can even be played over email.

I should mention that the Lasting Tales rating may be artificially low because of negative backer reaction to the long delays Blacklist Games had with fulfilling their Fantasy Series Miniatures. This line of miniatures can be used with the Lasting Tales rules system. As a backer myself, I hope that situation is resolved reasonably so I can better enjoy this game.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Lasting Tales - Demo Rules
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Doomtown Reloaded: Revised Rulebook
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 12/10/2019 00:33:20

This rulebook is available in physical format with the Doomtown: Reloaded "There Comes a Reckoning" expansion. The rulebook is digest-sized and compiles the expansion rules added to the base game. It's all in on place -- almost! Some rules, like Harrowed Dudes, are missing, so you'll need to look them up on the Rules Compendium from the Doomtown Database (or the base game rulebook). The rulebook doesn't have an index, although the Table of Contents includes most of the terminology. If you don't already have this rulebook from the "There Comes a Reckoning" expansion, I would download it and the comprehensive, longer, rulebook from the Doomtown Database. : https://dtdb.co/



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Doomtown Reloaded: Revised Rulebook
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Doomtown Reloaded: RPG Conversion
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 12/09/2019 20:05:28

The Doomtown "Deadlands RPG Conversion" booklet is a 30-page digest, of fiction, map, and Savage World mechanics for key personalities and relics in Doomtown. It's also available in the dead tree Doomtown: Reloaded card game expansion, There Comes a Reckoning. The booklet's four-page story provides yet another a tantalizing glimpse of the developing Doomtown mythos. The tale suggests the return of the Guardian Angels and a certain Hooded figure, though possibly in a future expansion. My personal favorite of the book is the map, where Gomorra, located south of California's Sacramento, can be spotted. I like how, on the map, it and dozens of other places are small dots referred to as "Strange Locale". In other words, the goings on in Doomtown may not be unique to the city, and similar nightmarish shenanagens may be spread in otherwise overlooked areas throughout the map. The map is yet another hint of the Doomtown mythos of what may be going on. The major personalities of The Fourth Ring, Law Dogs, and Sloane Gang, as well as Drifters and Relics, are statted out. Most of the stats are printed a single page or on facing pages. The background of the personalities and relics provide more looks into the Doomtown mythos, beyond the quotes and flavor text on the cards. For more fiction, just search on "doomtown fiction". Finally, if you want more Doomtown Savage Worlds, pick up the Deadlands Savage World RPG!

The Fourth Ring: Ivor Hawley, Kevin Wainright, The Brute, Bobo, The Harvester, Tyxarglenak, Pagliaccio, Ken Wainwright, The Flying Popescus Law Dogs: Sheriff Dave Montreal, Xiong "Wendy" Cheng, Lucinda "Lucy" Clover The Sloane Gang: Sloane, Barton Everest, Pacho Castillo, Ulysses Marks Drifters: Clmentine Lepp, Genesse "Gina" Tailfeathers, Steven Wiles, Androcles Brokelhurst Relics: Legendary Holster, Tlaloc's Furies, De Annulos Mysteriis

Deadlands RPG : https://www.peginc.com/product-category/deadlands-reloaded/



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Doomtown Reloaded: RPG Conversion
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Spawn of Azathoth
Publisher: Chaosium
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 07/10/2019 14:17:43

This "new" edition is nearly fifteen years old, and could have done with more playtesting with the first chapter, Providence, during that time. I've run this chapter several times, and, while gleefully open-ended, have found finding the information necessary to answer player questions difficult to find, as players, even moreso, may go in directions or ask for details not covered in the book. At the same time, this is my favorite CoC chapter, since it involves various NPC subplots and interactions, that, unlike too many CoC adventures, don't revolve around the scenario mystery (indeed, players may find it head-scratching that everything seems perfectly normal -- but not quite). It's almost like a game of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. The Providence chapter furthermore has curious leads to the other adventures in the book, stumping players who expect clues to be neat and self-contained to the current scenario. The PDF version and printing single-sided is suggested, since this lets you cut out the handouts from the adventure text as you play; I've also used maps, background text, and pictures in the text as handouts. You can also print out only the chapters you need for your current game session. In any case, if your play group can commit to a campaign, consider this imperfect candidate.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Spawn of Azathoth
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Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Quick-Start Rules
Publisher: Chaosium
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 10/22/2018 23:37:06

Call of Cthulhu's written adventures are some of the best on the market. But The Haunting isn't one of them. It's a very straightforward scenario, but, as written, little of the investigation during the scenario actually helps the investigators rid themselves of the menace at the final location. Thankfully, Alone against the Flames is an excellent adventure to introduce you to the mythos, as well as give you ideas how to run a CoC adventure.

As for the ruleset, CoC's skill check system is easy to pick up for roleplayers familiar with other roleplaying games. However, the way most CoC adventures are designed, investigators have to follow a trail of clues -- and if they fail their skill checks, the game master has to find some way to put them on track again. 7th edition added a "push" mechanic which allows a player to attempt another skill check, which helps address this problem, but we now play a homemade rules-light system that takes care of this.

Finally, of course, these rules are free, and you only need to print about ten pages for each player so they have their own set of rules. No more "passing around the rulebook". I'm not sure what the best free adventure is, however.

SPOILER: I highly recommend removing the glowing symbols at the Church, since they're not even explained why they're there. You may wish to modify the tome found at the Church to contain a spell that will help the party at the climax.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Quick-Start Rules
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One Shot World
Publisher: Yochai Gal
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 10/02/2018 18:17:49

Had a blast playing this rules-light ruleset. Great introduction to Dungeon World. Might want to read some DW reviews to get an overview, then use this ruleset to start playing!

EDIT: I think this session report does a good job at "pitching" DW. : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w9J802SnXhaAVrTlHHAXiAMlZMuQSRXNi1n8A3gZ2bo/edit



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
One Shot World
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One Shot World
Publisher: Yochai Gal
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 10/02/2018 18:17:49

Had a blast playing this rules-light ruleset. Great introduction to Dungeon World. Might want to read some DW reviews to get an overview, then use this ruleset to start playing!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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