The theme this issue is archers and its well served. Let’s see, it opens with the Elven Archer, a race specific class for the Pathfinder RPG. It’s an interesting mix of the ranger and the rogue that fits a traditional fantasy niche. The article has some typos (and you all know I’ve got plenty of those, so I shouldn’t be nitpicking), but I found it interesting and it’s a perfect fit for my long running campaign. The notes on adapting the class for other races, cultures, or even weapons make it useful in other contexts. There is also an article on magic arrows, which again provides what in my mind are some archetypical magic arrows. These two articles seem plucked from my adolescent love for RPGs updated for Pathfinder.

What else is there? Read on to find out…

Other Pathfinder articles include a collection of ooze themed spells and familiars, including the ooze magic school. Four new terrifying low to mid-level creatures that range from the creepy to the terrifying, a fifth level adventure, which begins with some railroading, but this a is a short adventure and due to length I’m willing to overlook it, since the rest is really entertaining. An article on older adventurers, including feats, which makes me reconsider the possibilities of my concept for the old hero and another one on Midgard themed fey hunters, with lots of campaign flavor BUT easily adaptable to any campaign.

But my favorite Pathfinder article (even more than the archery themed ones simply because this one is just so much more useful for me as a GM) was the article on four fully fleshed planar allies, with details on what negotiations with them would entail, personalities. Kudos! The weird article award goes to magical fish one for Pathfinder. You eat the fish and get some magical effect, from removing curses to permanent ability boosts, weird, interesting but weird…

For AGE you have 5 new specializations for the game’s classes. I love to see Kobold Quarterly expand the possibilities of this terrific system.  For D&D 4^th edition there is a bard themed article, new utility powers for gomes, tieflings and minotaurs (a race near and dear to my heart), and an article on nature spirits, dual-statted for Pathfinder. The recent announcement of D&D Next/5^th edition has made me take another look at the rule set, wondering what will be part of the new game. Whatever happens I hope in the future Kobold Quarterly gets to support all the games they already do and the new D&D!

There are systemless advice articles, like Monte Cook’s on the role of the GM. It might not be the most original, but there is some solid advice in there and he did bring up some interesting issues to consider. The mechanic for time sensitive adventure, called haste points, seems interesting, but I would have to test it out, I’m not sure how it will play out. The idea is solid and well presented, but they are something else to track in game and I’m not totally convinced I need that. The regular cartoons are here, funny as usual, I love Stan!’s humor, and I particularly liked D20 Monkey’s this issue, juvenile but funny. Read it, you’ll see. And of course, the closing one page article on the City of Zobeck by the one and only Jeff Grub!

The magazine is 84 pages long, full color, with terrific art, great layout and an appropriate ratio of articles to adds. I’ve said it before, it’s reminiscent of the old Dragon Magazine, but this is not a magazine just for the grognards like me, but for all fans of the major fantasy games out there. You can get the PDF of Kobold Quarterly #20 for $5.99 or the PDF+ Print bundle for $8.99, or better yet subscribe, well worth it in my opinion. Thank you for the makers of Kobold Quarterly for providing a review copy!

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These books where provided by the publisher for review and even if I took my sweet time to get to them I am always really flattered that publishers will submit their products for review. Thanks, that doesn’t mean I’ll pull my punches!

So without further ado, the reviews…

What about Kobold Quarterly #19?

Issue 20 of Kobold Quarterly just came out, and I plan to review it much faster than the previous issue, but the issue at hand (pun intended) is 19, the Fall issue. I’ve reviewed previous issues and the wonderful people at Open Design have made me a fan, with a mix of nostalgia for the old Dragon Magazine coupled with great new content for some of the most popular fantasy RPGs in the market right now, D&D, AGE and Pathfinder. So what’s good in this issue? Glad you asked!

Pathfinder goodness: The White Necromancer, a fully fleshed out non-evil necromancer option; Druid archetypes; an article on magic shops, and making them more than simple wholesale magic warehouses, giving them flair and turning them into role-playing opportunities; and death themed archetypes for Druids, Barbarians, Monks and Summoners. There is a preview of the new Paizo’s Dragon Empire and Dragon Empire themed Arch-Devil. Overall, great content for all Pathfinder fans!

Then there are the AGE articles. I love that they are supporting this system and adapting Midgard content for it, in this case ten backgrounds for the game. A system less article on court adventures, including the power players and adventure ideas is a great source of inspiration for role-playing. There is another system less article on traps; the winner of the Relics of Power is published in this issue; a solo adventure; Mont Cook’s balance free bonuses ideas, bonuses that don’t impact game balance, adaptable to any edition, was my favorite article of the issue.

There is just one D&D 4^th edition article, with rules to play werewolf characters. It seems interesting enough, and I’m sure this will be popular. I was surprised that this was the only article written specifically for the system. True there are many excellent articles that can be adapted, but I was surprised. I guess they can only publish the articles submitted and wonder if this is a sign of the popularity of the games. Even if I don’t play the game, I know many D&D 4^th edition fans that love the magazine and hope to see continued support for the game in future issues.

All the usual suspects are here, the cartoons, book reviews and Free City of Zobeck closing article. Overall I loved this issue; it was full of Pathfinder articles which makes me personally happy. But I know fans of other games read the magazine and I hope to see more balanced content in the future. If you love a system, be sure to check out their Writer’s Guidelines and try to get published.

What about Divine Favor the Inquisitor?

Here is the final installment of the Divine Favor series; this time around it’s the Inquisitor’s turn. The cover is a little drab, just an Inquisitor in a battle pose, I am a fan of Christophe Swal’s art and I think using the same Inquisitor from the Advanced Feat cover was the right choice, but the art seems off and the ocher background left much to be desired.

Inside its 17 pages of content, with clear layout, the use of stock art, most of it appropriate, but there are a couple of odd choice, nothing that is terribly distracting. The new abilities and new inquisitions are refreshing and thread some interesting ground, expanding the possibilities of the class. There are some interesting archetypes, feats and spells. They all play well of one another and Stefen Styrsky provides a good closing to the series.

What about the Book of Drakes?

This is my favorite of the three books, and this is my favorite one. Drakes in Midgard are fascinating creatures, the idea of dragon-like creatures that are not as powerful and can appear in the game in very different roles than traditional dragons are an excellent option.

From the cover by Kieran Yanner, to the layout, to the interior art, this is a beautiful book to look at. And the writing is top notch too! Kudos to the design team… The ecology of the drake that opens the book is reminiscent of the old ecology articles of Dragon Magazine and a great introduction to the creature in Midgard. There are rules for drakes as companions, feats for them, class features, prestige classes, spells, and equipment, mundane and magical. I was NOT a fan of the rules for playing drakes, I think they are better allies or opponents that a playable option. The bestiary is great, providing drakes from CR 1 to CR 14, and rules for creating new drakes.

This is a great book that while officially a Midgard setting book, can be used in any Pathfinder game. The book is available in PDF and a print+PDF. I recommend the latter; this book is just too pretty not to have in print.

There you have it, three great books that have been out for a while now, but you can’t go wrong getting them. I hope you enjoy them!

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As you can see the box contains not only three rulebooks (86, 140 and 32 pages respectively) but also pregenerated characters sheets, unfilled character sheets, gadget cards and a shitload of story point counters and a full set of dice. Throw in a few sheets of scrap paper and a couple of pencils and you’re good to go! The boxed set really makes it easy to jump into gaming without setting the hurdles too high.

The Player’s Guide starts with a short story set into the Whoniverse called “Shaking the Box” which is followed by a short introduction into the Doctor Who universe and roleplaying. Oh, did I mention that the game is based on the “new” Doctor Who series started by BBC Wales in 2005? It features a lot of still photography from the series, especially the David Tennant episodes. As far as I know an updated version of the game is in the works which will feature the 11th Doctor as well. But I digress.

Back in 2009 I wrote a post called “Doctor Who RPG – Could this really work?”. I was really skeptical a Doctor Who game might even work. But this game has convinced me that it can actually work. The Player’s Guide lists a couple of options on how to assemble your team. Aside from playing the established team from the series like The Doctor, Rose, Donna, Captain Jack Harkness, etc., you can also play The Doctor and new companions we haven’t seen in the series, or it’s possible to play a UNIT team, Torchwood operatives or even Time Agents. The rules even allow you to create new Time Lord characters.

Character creation uses a straightforward point-buy system. You get points that you distribute among your attributes, skills and traits. The really interesting part are traits here. They are what make your character really unique. There are good, bad and special traits. Good traits give your character a special talent or ability, bad traits are weaknesses like being Unattractive or Selfish. Special traits allow you to create Alien, Cyborg or even Time Lord characters.

The core mechanic is quite simple. Whenever you attempt a difficult task, you roll two six-sided dice and add the relevant attribute and skill value to the result. You try to beat or match a Difficulty set by the GM. If you roll above or below the Difficulty it may have additional consequences beside succeeding or failing. That might not be the most unique mechanic out there, but it works fine and is easy to learn even for new players.

When it comes to conflict rules you’ll notice something pretty uncommon in roleplaying games: fighting is actually the worst option. At least when it comes to initiative. In Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space Talkers act first, followed by Movers and Doers. So you want to fire that gun or throw that punch? Wait until everyone else is done talking, running and doing something. This rule actually helps a lot to emulate the tone of the series and it’s a welcome change to the usual “shoot first – ask questions later”. The rules actually advise to avoid gunplay if possible. Hiding and sneaking and talking down enemies is actually much more in line with what we expect from a Doctor Who game anyway.

In the description of the box contents I mentioned Story Points. These are a meta game currency the players have access to that they can spend to get additional clues when they are stumped, add something to an important roll, tweak failed result to save themselves or bend the story in favor of the players. Gadgets come with their own Story points, too. So they can be used for tasks they were not really designed for. The number of ways you can use your Story Points to do the exceptional are countless.

The Gamemaster’s Guide contains all the rules from the Player’s Guide but a) in more detail and b) described from the GM’s standpoint. In addition to that it explains how to run games, design adventures and gives basic gamemastering advice. A major portion of the Gamemaster’s Guide covers Time Travel. No Doctor Who game would be complete without it and in my opinion time travel is one of the hardest things you can do in a tabletop game. Especially paradoxes can be a major pain, but the book gives good advice on how to avoid them. It also explains what happens when you really screw up. Do you remember the Reapers from the episode where Rose tried to save her father? Yup, they are in the book as well.

The Gamemaster’s Guide also contains a lot of information on the Whoniverse, Timelords, the TARDIS and the aliens you might encounter on your travels. All the basic adversaries from the series are covered like the Dalek, Cybermen, the Ood and even the Autons. Some of those aliens can even be played, if the GM approves, but some of them might not be suited for every campaign.

The Adventures Book contains two complete adventures and a whole bundle of adventure ideas you can use as inspiration for your own campaigns.

Overall Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space is a great roleplaying game for fans of the series. It doesn’t matter whether you are a new gamer or a gaming veteran. The rules are easy to learn and are perfectly suited to the tone of the series. I’m not sure if I would recommend the game to someone who doesn’t know the series, but it’s a must buy for every fan!

By the way, the game is currently on sale on the official Cubicle 7 store. You can get the boxed set + PDF bundle for the low price of $36! You can also get the PDF version from RPGNow for $34.99.

Please note that the review was based on a review copy of the boxed set provided by the publisher.

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There seems to be some controversy around this product. I have to admit I haven’t bothered to look deeper into this, but I believe one reason is that Carcosa is not what you would consider family friendly. Like LotFP it doesn’t hide the fact that it is for adults only. Among Carcosa’s inspirations the author lists the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E.Howard, Lin Carter and Michael Moorcock. And a setting inspired by the writings of these people can’t be all bad. And trust me, it isn’t.

While the cover is nothing special, the interior artwork of the 143-paged book is pretty awesome. Even though it’s black & white artwork only, the style used fits the setting perfectly. The image below is a perfect example.

The layout, fonts and artwork really make you want to leaf through the book all day. Some drawings are so detailed you can spend quite a few minutes discovering new stuff. But let’s now have a look at the content itself.

Carcosa is a planet about 150 light years away from Earth and home to thirteen races of men. There’s no common fantasy magic, but characters may have psionic powers and Sorcerers may use rituals to summon entities right out of H.P. Lovecraft’s nightmares.

The setting was designed for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess or some other D&D retro clone in mind, but you could easily use it for other games or just as an inspiration for your own campaign. The setting is not as detailed as for example the Forgotten Realms or some other classic D&D settings, but there’s enough material to run a game set in the world without being bogged down by the minutiae.

What I realized pretty quickly is that Carcosa was not designed as something you can play out of the box. A lot of descriptions are kept rather vague to make it easier for the GM to mold the setting to his or her wishes. But since it’s meant for fans of old-school gaming this should be no big issue.

But the building blocks you’re provided with are just awesome: Space Alien Technology, Artifacts of the Great Race (yes, the one from Lovecraft’s stories), Psionics, Sorcerous Rituals, really cool and unique monsters and more. The book also contains a hex map of a portion of the planet with descriptions of every single hex on that map. That’s an instant sandbox right there.

In my opinion Carcosa is a very interesting product, well worth it’s price. If you are into old-school gaming in general and weird science-fantasy settings in particular, you’ll definitely enjoy using Carcosa even if it’s just for cannibalizing ideas.

You can get the PDF Edition from RPGNow for $21.25 or directly from the publisher for €13. There’s also a print and PDF deal for the hardcover book and the PDF which sets you back about €32. For 5€ extra you get a poster and a map, too. I have to admit I am very tempted to get that bundle as soon as I got my next paycheck!

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I have to admit I haven’t had the time to give the rules a closer look, but the rulebook looks really nice. It features a very cool and clear layout with some excellent pieces of art. Creative lead Jacob Kurzer has provided us with a review copy of the game, so expect a full review in the near future, but my initial impression is quite positive.

The game features eight classes like Barbarian, Monk, Paladin and Shaman that can be further customized by the players through choosing different “tracks” along which the characters develop. Each class comes with a number of tracks but there are extra tracks that can be used either to create monstrous characters or to customize your character even further.

But what definitely sets Legend apart from a lot of other games is the fact that all proceeds from the core product will be donated to Child’s Play. And until December 9th Legend is available on a pay-what-you-want basis. Until now the game has raised about $866 to improve the lives of children in hospitals around the world.

The Legend RPG is about 179 pages long and doesn’t come with a fledged-out setting. It definitely worth a look and with your purchase you’re actually helping children in need.

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I also expected the game using Crafty Games’ Fantasy Craft system. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that the game uses an all new system. Don’t get me wrong, I like Fantasy Craft. It’s a very cool rule system and I think more people should check it out. But it always was a bit too rules-heavy for me. It’s basically on the same crunch level as Pathfinder or D&D 3.5, but I just don’t have the time for such rules anymore. I want my game rules to be light. But I digress.

So yesterday I downloaded the aforementioned primer to see what all the fuss was about. And I was blown away. The rules are really, really light-weight and have a very narrativist feel to them. That was something I haven’t expected, but I like it. I like it a lot. I think I have to “borrow” some of their ideas for the game I am currently working on. I hope the Craft Games’ guys don’t mind.

I also quickly realized that the game was no classic fantasy but sounded very unique and the world had some Victorian feel to it. At least that’s what the interior artwork reminded me of. I think I’ll have to get one of the Brandon Sanderson novels soon to learn more about the world. I already downloaded an excerpt from the Kindle book, but I haven’t had the time to give it a closer look.

Alas there are a few things I don’t really like about the primer. The description of the rules is terribly vague. I had to read the paragraph about how to read the dice results several times before I had a faint idea how it’s supposed to work. It get even worse when it comes to conflict. There’s talk of “action dice” you get, but there’s no explanation what these dice are, how many you get, and so on. Perhaps a few examples would have helped.

But overall the primer did what is was intended to do: it piqued my interest. It made me interested not only in the game, but also in the novel series. And I definitely recommend you check it out.

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While flipping through it I noticed that the game has been licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 US License. That means you can take the rules and design your own game around it and even sell it as long as you share it under a similar license and give the author of Anima Prime proper credit. You can also share material you wrote for Anima Prime under the same conditions. That’s always nice, especially because CC is much less complicated to work with than the OGL. There’s also a free edition available at the official site that comes in a simpler layout and without the artwork, but aside from that it should contain the same content as the paid version.

From what I’ve seen so far, the rules are not too complicated and the dice pool system it uses seems to work fine. Combat is a bit more elaborate and allows the characters to perform fancy moves, summon “eidolons” and there are “soulbound weapons” at the characters’ disposal.

The artwork and layout are pretty nice, especially if you are in the manga style. The 196-paged PDF also comes with a setting for you to play in, but the rules also contain quite a few tips on how to create your own setting.

All in all Anima Prime looks like a fun game. I’ve always wanted to run a game in a Final Fantasy-inspired world and it seems as if Anima Prime could handle this perfectly. If you are even remotely interested in the genre, you should at least check the free version out.

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By the way, Sean, what did you do to Kurt that made him be afraid of you?

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Wait, that’s not really true. The Kobolds have created a new series that covers some of the Pathfinder core classes, but they are much more than the Advanced Feats series. I understand why they did it. When the classes from the Advanced Players Guide came out there was a dearth of Feats specifically designed for the classes, a vacuum very aptly filled by the Advanced Feats books. For the core classes however, the situation is very different.  There are lots of Feats for these classes, they needed to up the ante, and they did!

The Divine Favor series covers the divine classes, old and new, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Oracle and eventually the Inquisitor (it’s just not out yet!), providing an overview of the class, optional rules, abilities, feats and spells. These are some great resources that embrace the innovations in the system, such as sub-domains and archetypes, I must say I am really impressed by the four I reviewed.

Want to learn more? Read on…

Divine Favor the Cleric: The cleric was the first class I read when I opened the rulebook for the D&D Basic Set. The cleric is such a mainstay of fantasy role-playing games that I just had to read this first. If we go by first impressions, the cover blew me away. The art by Cristophe Swal, who painted all my favorite Advanced Feats covers by the way, is not the type one associates with the cleric. It looks more like a barbarian, and I like that, it goes against the stereotype, and I like that as the opening salvo to this book.

Its 20 pages long, take away the cover and the OGL license and you have 18 pages of gaming goodies. The layout is clean and functional, using stock art somewhat effectively. I wasn’t thrilled by all of it. Too much in some cases, I must admit to liking the layout of the later books in the Advanced Feats series better. Maybe if a few pieces had been taken out the book might have been shorter but that’s ok. But this really did not detract from my liking of this book.

As with all the other books in this series, it opens with an overview of the class. Short to the point, but it brings up some interesting points that challenge the “stereotypical” view of the walking first aid kit. Sorry I meant cleric. The domains and sub-domains are next. They cover some interesting areas not in the books, like prophecy, apocalypse, alchemy, which ties nicely to the new alchemist class. I love the sub-domains as options, but I like complex deities with different sects and followers, so they arer ideal for me. Depending on your campaign your mileage may vary.

My favorite part of the book was the Archetypes. These variants clerics fill some interesting niches for the cleric role. Their tweaks and variations on the standard cleric’s abilities evoke their different nature without making it a whole new class. Some may be more immediately attractive to players than others, some will make great NPCs, but I never discount a creative player picking them up. The cleric’s Divine Favor book finishes up with variant channeling and spells which complement the domains and sub-domains earlier in the book.

Divine Favor the Druid: Unlike the cleric, I’ve never felt particularly close to the druid. I have never played one, one had one player run one in all the years I’ve GMed and looking back I realize a preponderance of druids in my games have been villains. That must be rectified, but I digress.

The cover of this book is also by Cristophe Swal, and I like it, just not as much as the one for the cleric. The book is 19 pages with the cover and OGL license. It suffers from the over preponderance of stock art just like the last book, but that’s just a minor problem on an awesome book. After the mandatory and insightful overview of the class there are options for the wild shape ability, like turning into a group of creatures, even a swarm, abilities for animal companions and then come the archetypes. Again my favorite section, I particularly enjoyed the elemental themed druid archetypes.

There are new domains and sub-domains, some rather specialized. I can see creating NPCs that use them, but players with very specific visions of their characters might find the bird or insect domain useful. The new animal companions, which can be used by rangers as well, are a mixed bag. Brain ooze, really? The book closes with a few feats which are nice.

While I may seem a little hard on the book it really is because I really enjoyed it. I wished it was longer. All I can say is that the options in this book made me want to play a druid, that’s high praise.

Divine Favor the Paladin: And here we are! My favorite D&D, and now Pathfinder, class. My longest running PCs, the one named after my nick of Sunglar, was a Paladin built using the AD&D 1^st edition Unearthed Arcana rules. This is the Divine Favor book I was looking forward to the most. I was not disappointed, if anything I wanted more, 20 pages was not enough.

While the cover is also by Swal, it was my least favorite of the four. However the stock art I didn’t mind so much, I like the selection better, or maybe it’s simply that there is more art for the martially themed Paladin than for the other divine classes in these four books.

The alternate class abilities are different enough that they give them a new feel, specifically the idea of stigmata as a way for a deity to punish a paladin that has strayed from the true path. In my experience this aspect of a Paladin that some people dislike but I always see it as a great rpg opportunity. The Paladin vows that demand certain behavior but grant some boon to the Paladin were all excellent. The archetypes and feats were also good, but I enjoyed the other elements much more.

Divine Favor the Oracle: This last book I read from the series is the only one that’s not a core class. Introduced in the Advanced Player’s Guide the Oracle is a mysterious divine class with lots of interesting role-playing potential. The class was well examined in the Visions of the Oracle so there is no overview here; they go right into the goods!

 The new curses are very interesting. I particularly liked the Echo curse, under which you can only speak what has been spoken to you. This could be a lot of fun. There are many new mysteries and how can you go wrong when the book has a mystery for wine? A small list of feats closes the book, they work with the rules in the book and all seem very useful. I really liked the cover and layout in this book, my favorite of the four.

These books are all $3.99 in PDF and available at the Kobold Quarterly store. Click on the link for the tile of each book in this post to go to the page for each book. Stefen Styrsky and Wolfgang Baur did a great job in the four initial outings of the Divine Favor series. I’m looking forward to the Inquisitor’s. Also hope to see an arcane themed series, maybe a martial one as well… Oh the possibilities!

Let me close by thanking the people at Open Design for sending us digital copies for review. They make this Pathfinder fan a happy little blogger. Here is wishing you and all much continued success.

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This book follows the example set by AEG with most of their books, especially the core rulebook for L5R 4e: it is extremely beautiful and makes it into my RPG Coffee table books category.  I will point out that some of the art was carried over from the first book, not a lot, but I did find a few picture repeats.  I kind of dislike it when companies do this with their books.  It is likely something that can’t be avoided, but you see it a lot, especially with Wizards of the Coast and the many carry-overs from one edition to the next.  The full color standard that L5R is setting right now with their stuff is setting the bar very, very high.  This may of course seem very superficial, but when you are paying what they are asking for their books you want to make sure that you are getting your money’s worth.

Content-wise, the book is 13 chapters plus an additional chapter of appendixes.  Overall, I think the weakest chapter was the very tiny bestiary at the beginning of the book which provides stat blocks for many of the standard animals and beasts which might happen to roam the world of Rokugan.  The section does provide rules for various animals ranging in habitats; they even provide stats for a couple sharks.  I think the bestiary could definitely come in handy for a game, especially if I want to have a villain keeping a couple tigers as pets, but other than that, I found it to be a necessary chapter, which unfortunately took a little more space than I would have liked.

On the whole however, I did find the book to be very strong.  The book is appropriately titled “Enemies of the Empire” as it provides the GM with not just a bunch of stats, but rather full descriptions for most of the major threats in Rokugan, including the history or organizations, as well as tons of story and plot which accompany the main campaign world villains in the game.  By far, the strongest chapters in the book were the ones covering the Bloodspeakers, the Kolat, and The Lost; I found that these were the most story-heavy and also the most likely to be of real use in putting together a campaign.  However, that isn’t to say that the other sections weren’t equally important or useful.  I also really liked the chapters on the Nezumi and the Oni.  These present the possibility for series potential in developing stories and exotic plots featuring truly sinister, life-endangering threats.

I was a bit disappointed that the book didn’t give more space to describing the Five Ancient Races of Rokugan.  Though many of them play a very trivial role in the campaign world at its current date, a good GM could easily change the story of the world and bring these races into a more central position.  With that in mind, I would have liked to see a bit more information about the Zokujin and the Trolls.  They hardly got a passing glance in this section, and are mentioned, it seems, as only a footnote in the history of Rokugan.  I would imagine that historically speaking, they played quite a bit more of an important role, but they didn’t really get the coverage they deserved.  The Kenku, Kitsu and, to some extent, the Ningyo were well represented here, but I would have liked to have a bit more detail on how to use them appropriately in a campaign.

I think the biggest surprise for me was the amount of space given to Ronin.  For what seems like a staple of the L5R universe, Ronin didn’t really get much coverage in this book at all.  This could be because they have already gotten a bit of space in the core rulebook, but honestly, I would love to have more information on using Ronin as villains in a campaign.  The wandering Ronin character has always struck me as something particularly important in L5R and especially in Japanese fantasy, fiction, and literature.  I could have used a bit more on them to make the book really rounded out and complete.

Apart from these few complains about content, I have very few critiques.  The book is, like all other AEG products, of particularly high caliber.  I enjoyed sitting down and actually reading the long sections about plots and people of importance.  The book is well written, but still is quite useful as an RPG rulebook, though you might forget that is what you are reading half way through.  My only real complaint about the L5R 4e books in particular is that I dislike the formatting that they use for the stat blocks in a character, villain, or monster entry.  I would like these to be a bit better organized and set apart from the rest of the text.  However, that is really nit-picking.  If you’re interested in playing L5R or you are already playing it already, you really don’t have a reason not to get this book.  It is available in Hardback as well as in PDF from various sources.  I encourage you to pick this book up and give it a read.

Related posts:

1. Ad Astra: The Tovenaar Empire
2. Review: End Time
3. Review: The Armitage Files

There are five adventures set into the years 887, 1287, 1487, 1587 and 1887 respectively. The backcover blurb should give you a good overview of what The Red Eye of Azatoth has to offer:

Fear the Red Eye of Azathoth!

Kings die, nations crumble, and madness trails in the fiery wake of a comet called The Red Eye of Azathoth. Do you have what it takes to battle across history against the Mythos horrors that surface under its lurid glow?

• 887 AD, Holy Island, English Northumbria – As blood rain falls and the dead rise, Viking invaders and English monks must join forces or perish in a Lovecraftian nightmare.
• 1287 AD, Iwaizumi, Japan – Snowbound Samurai must unearth what lies behind the village where babies cannot cry and an abomination hangs lanterns that shriek with a thousand voices.
• 1487 AD, Valencia, Spain – Heretics must escape torture, prison, and the clutches of angels to expose the Spanish Inquisition’s true purpose.
• 1587 AD, Roanoke Colony, The New World – Colonists face flayed horrors that hammer on stretched-skin drums to reveal whose knife dug CROATOAN into the Lost Colony’s tree.
• 1887 AD, Desperation, Arizona Territory – In the series’ explosive magic-and-gunpowder climax, condemned gunfighters unravel the last skeins of the millennium-spanning mystery and stand alone against the full Mythos horror of The Red Eye of Azathoth!

Ia! Ia! Take your players to the mad reaches of our past with 108 pages of epic horror, complete with player handouts, new adversaries, and pregenerated Investigators for each time period.

Physically the adventure looks great (even in PDF form). There’s a nice page background that give the pages a slightly old feel without being distracting. The interior artwork and the maps are mostly in black & white but of great quality. That’s how I want my historical Call of Cthulhu adventures to look like.

Each adventure contains an appendix with pregenerated investigators for the era the adventure is set in. This is extremely helpful since the core CoC rules don’t cover the historical eras the campaign is set in. There are four pregenerated characters per adventure and there are some guidelines that should help you if you want to come up with your own investigators. Some of the adventures also introduce new skills, new spells and monsters that the GM can also use in adventures of his or her own design.

A big plus of the adventure anthology are the included handouts. Just print and cut out the handout before play and you’re ready to go. Especially the Investigator Handouts are very handy. They give the players information about who their investigators are, what they know, and what their goals and perspective are. Because of the focused nature of the adventures you need certain guidelines on how you’re supposed to play the investigators. Some players might find that restricting but I actually like it. If the players embrace the guidelines instead of fighting them it makes things much easier for them and the GM.

The Red Eye of Azatoth’s biggest strength is also its only weakness. Since the five adventures are set into different lands and eras the players can’t use the same characters through all five adventures. The campaign is tied together by the plot and by the underlying theme and not by the player characters. While this opens interesting opportunities it may turn off some players. And since the CoC core rules don’t support playing in the eras used in the campaign out of the box the GM might have to do some additional prep work if the players decide not to use the pregenerated investigators.

So why should you pick up The Red Eye of Azatoth? If you like historical CoC adventures you’ll not be disappointed. Each adventure is detailed enough that you can pretty much run it out of the box without additional prep work if you rely on the pregenerated investigators for each era. The handouts, maps, and artwork are well-made and should make the job of the GM much easier. Overall you get a story that spans the ages but if you wish you can run each adventure separately.

The 108-paged PDF sets you back $9.99, which is a fair price in my opinion. As far as I know the printed version was available to patrons only, but the PDF is now available for everyone through the KQ Store or DriveThruRPG. I think I found the adventure I am going to use for my New Year’s Eve game!

P.S.: Thanks to Shelly Baur for providing me with a review copy of that fine adventure!

Related posts:

1. When in doubt, run a one-shot!
2. My experiences with “Trail of Cthulhu”
3. New adventure for Dungeonslayers

Now, on to the post…

This one has been a long time coming. I met one of the creators of the Genesys Universal Roleplaying Game on the plane ride to Gen Con. It was a lively conversation about the games we love, how we played and the effect games have had in our lives. He told me about this game he was creating with his friends. When we stepped out of the plane I got to meet some of the other creators, we exchanged numbers and planned to see each other again during the con. But you know what Robert Burns said about plans…

(But if you don’t, click here!)

We never got around to meeting and despite this the guys have been kind enough to share information about their game, given me an opportunity to play test and I can tell you I am excited! There are universal rpg systems out there, but I think these guys have their hearts and minds in the right place. Its innovative, seems easy to run and embraces the innovations of game design of the last couple of years to make a game that makes me want to play. Their commitment to play testing speaks highly of them, it’s always good to hear your base.

I love the fact that they have a mythology behind the universality of their game. True it can be a rule set to play whichever genre you want but there is back-story to why all this genres come together. I really like their mythos, I am a sucker for a metaplot. Also, check out the art in the website, this will be one fine looking product. I like what I see and the guys behind it so I want to share it with the rest of you, you just might be interested. They have a forum, a newsletter and regularly update the information on the game. Check it out…

I hope to bring you some more news on Genesys RPG and get a chance to talk with the team behind this upcoming game.

This is one instance where the distractions of real life had kept me from covering this. Sorry to the Genesys guys for taking so long. I have to catch up with a lot of other folk and things I needed to do when I last was posting. Let me roll up my sleeves and get to it!

Good to be back folks, have a nice day.

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2. [Freebies] FU: the Free, Universal Roleplaying Game
3. The Pathfinder Role Playing Game Reference Document UPDATE!

A couple of days ago Cubicle 7 sent me a review copy of this fine game. And trust me when I tell you that this game is well worth the wait. The 304-paged hardcover book not only looks great but also contains a steampunk setting which pretty much contains all the tropes of the genre without feeling derivative. It’s full of original ideas and if you love the songs of Abney Park you’ll feel right at home.

The world of Airship Pirates is based on concepts by Abney Park’s Robert Brown himself, who also did the layout, some interior art and the cover design. The bulk of the game has been written by Peter Cakebread and Ken Walton, who have been responsible for the acclaimed RPG Clockwork & Chivalry as well.

The game is divided into three “books”: Book I: Rules and Systems, Book II: Encyclopedia and Book III: Game Master. Book I contains all the rules the players need to play the game, Book II contains the world’s history, the geography and details on the cultures. Book III focuses on the Game Master and provides tips on how to run the game, the rules of time travel, the bestiary and last but not least an introductory adventure titled “The Tribulations of Scabby Jack”.

Introduction
The book opens with a short story titled “The Trials of Admiral Villiers” which gives you the first glimpse of what the world of the year 2150 is like. Yes, you read right. The campaign setting is set into the future and not the Victorian age, as you might have expected. The next surprise is that not only the post-apocalyptic future in Airship Pirates has been created by time travel, but that they player characters themselves can travel to time and screw up the timelines even more.

The aforementioned short story is followed by a short introduction that gives us an overview of the world, how roleplaying games work and what you need to play Airship Pirates. The chapter is concluded by an example of play.

Book I: Rules and Systems
Directly after that you are thrust into character creation. Airship Pirates allows you to play characters from three cultures (Neobedouin, Neovictorian or Skyfolk) in addition to the more exotic choices of Automaton or Misbegotten.

The Neobedouin are a nomadic tribal people that travel the North American wastes. Each Neobedouin tribe has its own tradition and rules but all share their hatred for the Emperor Victor III and a love for fire, music, dance and story-telling.

The Neovictorians are the subjects of the Emperor Victor III. They live in the great North American Change Cage cities. For the common Neovictorian citizen the world outside the Change Cage cities is a hostile wilderness, nonconformity is essential and new ideas are something that can get you thrown into the so-called Change Cages. From all Neovictorians only the members of the Imperial Air Navy are allowed to leave the cities and they are not allowed to talk about what they experience outside.

The Skyfolk are like the Neobedouin people who fled the oppressive rule of the Emperor. Back in the day when the Change Cages were built, they built their Skyloft cities and fled to the skies. Today the Skyloft cities are often landed on mountain peaks but still able to lift off if needed to flee from the Imperial Air Navy. While the Neovictorians abhor technological progress the Skyfolk has embraced it.

Automatons are basically the robots of the steampunk genre. In Airship Pirates the first automaton has been built by one Herr Doktor Drosselmeyer. But unbeknownst to him he not only was able to give his creations life but also a consciousness.

Last but not least Misbegotten are the unfortunate people born with mutations in the Change Cage cities. All of the misbegotten are at least disfigured, but some have additional mutations that give them special abilities beyond those of common men.

After choosing your character’s culture you have to pick from the available Backgrounds which grants the character a set of skills suitable for that background. A Neovictorian of the Servant Class can choose between the following backgrounds for example: Agitator, Air Marine, Air Sailor, Chuno Ggun, Criminal, Gadgeteer, Inventor, Prostitute and Servant.

Don’t think of the Backgrounds as classes though. The Heresy Engine used in Airship Pirates is still a classless system and if you wish you could pick your skills directly or create your own backgrounds with GM approval. The system used in Airship Pirates is pretty close to the one in Dark Harvest – Legacy of Frankenstein, which I reviewed a while ago. If you want to learn more about the Heresy Engine, please refer to that review.

Since every character is supposed to be an airship pirate regardless of what he or she has done in his or her earlier life, you then get to pick a couple of airship skills like Ad Hoc Repair or Sky Lore. In addition to that each pirate crew has a Schtick. Some pirates disguise themselves as a travelling circus or as a band. And again each player gets to pick a few skills suitable for that Schtick. This was – in my opinion – a great idea. Last but not least the party gets to pick its airship. You can either use the Cordelia from the book, customize it using an extensive list of airship resources or basically create it from scratch.

The game is called Airship Pirates and so it’s no surprise that airships play a major role in the chapter on airships, vehicles and beast. There are extensive (but not overly complex) rules on how to customize airships, how to add complications and how vehicle and airship combat works using the Heresy Engine. As I mentioned before the list of options for your party’s airship is quite long and one of my favorite things in the game. If your players love to tweak the hell out of their airship, they can easily do so.

The chapter on equipment contains pretty much anything you might expect from a steampunk game and a few things you probably won’t expect. Especially the clothing section reads like the shopping list of any respectable Steampunk cosplayer. The prices are given in Helios (the currency of the neutral Helium City). The list also contains some more exotic items like a Difference Engine, a speaking pocket watch and even clockwork prosthetics. The available vehicles range from wheel-skates and rocket vans to airships and steam-trains. Last but not least there’s a small section on weapons and armor. Again all the iconic weapons of the genre are included from a plain revolver to a Steam Gatling.

Book II: Encyclopedia
The highlight of the game is definitely Book II: Encyclopedia since it contains the majority of the setting information. As I said before Robert Brown, Ken Walton and Peter Cakebread managed to create a setting that is original and fun but still pays homage to the genre.

It all started with Abney Park. The band was on a way to a gig when their plane crashed into an airship, the HMS Ophelia. This airship was actually a time-travelling British dirigible from the 1900s that was supposed to patrol time and further the interests of the Empire. But after the crash Abney Park took over and used it to “fix” certain things. Resulting from this meddling with the timelines the history of the Airship Pirates world diverges from our history in 1751. At first it seemed as if Abney Park managed to get it right. By 1850 the world was largely at peace and at the beginning at a golden age.

But the growing population and industry had caused extreme pollution and the scientists tried to warn the world of the possible consequences. But these warnings fell of deaf ears for a while. But then one man changed everything: Victor Hypocrates. The charismatic man spoke of a return to simpler times and the need to fight overpopulation and pollution. Soon after winning the US presidential elections in a landslide he managed to be made World President. This had been made possible by the massive support of his followers, the so-called “Neovictorians”.

Unbeknownst to the peoples of the world Hypocrates plan was to save the planet by purging what he saw as a blight on the face of Earth: humanity. Only a few overcrowded settlements the mega cities know as Change Cage cities were meant to remain while the rest of the world was returned to wild beasts like sabre-tooth cats, mammoths and other prehistoric creatures recreated in secret labs in remote areas.

Eventually Victor Hypocrates declared himself Emperor. The people who haven’t flocked to the new Change Cage cities were slowly slaughtered by the beasts now roaming the world. Over the years only two groups opposed the rule of the Emperor: the Neobedouins and people from the cities who wanted to stick to their technological lifestyle. The latter eventually built flying cities to escape both the Emperor’s grasp and the beasts of the wilderness.

There you have it. The world of Airship Pirates features not only time-travelling airships, pirates, steam technology, but also prehistoric creatures, a largely oppressed humanity ruled by the grandson of a mad dictator and Neobedouin tribes roaming the North American wilderness. What’s not to love?

Book III: The Games Master
Book III of Airship Pirates is the inevitable game mastering section. If you are already a veteran GM you might be tempted to skip most of this part of the book, but I advise you not to. The authors of the game didn’t just rehash all the basic tips for the GM but actually provide you with some very helpful advice on how to run plotted or sandbox adventures and whole campaigns in the world of Airship Pirates. There’s also an extensive list of reeady-to-use NPCs from a Neovictorian Administrator to an Urchin.

Book III also deals with the various themes of the game like Steampunk, Time Travel, Responsibility and Consequences and Exploration. Especially the chapter of time travel is a must-read if you plan to run time travel adventures. The advice given there is priceless. I have to admit that I was not sure if adding time travel to the game was such a brilliant idea in the first place, but reading that chapter has convinced me otherwise. The way “screwing up the timeslines” works in this game, even major screwups in the timeline can still be playable.

The Bestiary contains all the beasts roaming the wilderness, from pretty normal animals to the uber-beasts created in Hypocrates’ gene labs. The book then concludes with a 11-paged introductory adventure, an index and an appendix containing the record sheets, a deck plan of the airship Cordelia and maps of North America.

Conclusion
Abney Park’s Airship Pirates is not your regular Steampunk game. The setting is original and full of fun ideas. And even if you don’t want to use the post-apocalyptic world of 2150 you will still get your money’s worth out of that game. Especially the time travel rules set the game apart from the majority of its competition. The Heresy Engine – especially in the streamlined version – used in Airship Pirates is easy to learn and the compatibility with Victoriana 2nd Edition and Dark Harvest opens up a lot of additional possibilities. You can easily use material from those games in Airship Pirates or vice versa.
If you are even remotely interested in the genre and if you want to pick up just one steampunk game, make sure it’s Abney Park’s Airship Pirates. The hardcover book sets you back $49.99 and it’s available from your FLGS or directly from Cubicle 7 or Abney Park.

Recommended listening
I wholeheartedly recommend listening to the songs of Abney Park while reading the book or planning your adventures. Especially the three most recent albums Lost Horizon, Aether Shanties and The End of Days have been used as inspiration for the post-apocalyptic world of 2150 presented in the game.

Related posts:

1. First impressions: Abney Park’s Airship Pirates
2. Airship Pirates preview
3. New Airship Pirates downloads

Links:

GreenRonin Publishing

DC Adventures RPG

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I have read most of it already and I have to admit the wait was worth it. Cakebread & Walton, Cubicle 7 and Abney Park’s Robert Brown did a great job with that game. The setting is quite original and set into a bleak future and not into the Victorian age, as you might expect with a steampunk game.

The back story is that Abney Park’s plane crashed into a time-travelling airship a couple of years back while on the way to a gig. They decided to use the airship to travel into history and fix things that have gone wrong. Alas this lead to unforeseen consequences.

To cut a long story short: the future is messed up. Most people live either encaged in Neovictorian cities controlled by the Emperor Victor Hypocrates III, in the Neobedouin tribes of the North American wastelands or in flying cities always prepared to flee from the Imperial Navy. The players are the crew of a pirate airship travelling the skies and trying to make some profit.

The rules used are based on Victoriana 2nd Edition’s Heresy Engine and are pretty close to the one’s in Dark Harvest, which I reviewed a while back. The book even gives some tips on how to combine the three settings.

Recently I have checked out quite a few steampunk RPGs, but Airship Pirates is definitely my favorite. It has an original setting, pirates, airships, automatons, great artwork and just looks totally awesome in all aspects!

Related posts:

1. Airship Pirates preview
2. Review: Abney Park’s Airship Pirates
3. PDF version of Airship Pirates is now available on RPGNow/DriveThruRPG

At the core of FU are Descriptors. Descriptors are adjectives or short sentences that descibe one aspect of the character. Each character has four Descriptors: Body, Mind, Edge and Flaw. Examples for the Body Descriptor may be Nimble, Tough, Fragile. A character’s Edge may be “Use Bull Whip” or “Read Minds”.

In addition to that each character gets to pick two pieces of equipment that are described by an adjective and a noun like “Fancy Dress”, “Ancient Pocket Watch”, “Faithful Horse”.

The task resolution system is very elegant, easy and deeper than you would expect. Basically you roll a d6 and consult a chart (see image below).

When the circumstances, your descriptors or your equipment make the task at hand easier or harder, you get to roll more or less dice. If you are facing favourable conditions the highest die roll is kept as the result. If you are facing unfavourable conditions the lowest die result is kept.

The system also has a meta-game currency called FU points that you can spend to get rerolls or extra dice. You get back spent FU points by doing cool stuff and roleplaying your character.

The whole FU RPG fits into a 23-paged PDF, is free and there’s even a license that allows you to create your own games based on FU.

I haven’t played FU yet, but I think it could be perfect for one-shot games, especially when you don’t want to bog down things by a lot of rules. It might also be a great way to introduce people (including kids) into roleplaying. Character creation should be done in mere minutes and then the fun can begin!

The only drawback that I have seen so far is that the game has no rules for character advancement, but I think that can be easily remedied by adding additional Descriptors or acquiring additional Gear after each session.

The PDF contains a free pulp scenario called “Race to the Temple of Tot” and an appendix with example descriptors. The official website also has two variants available for download: “May the FU Be With You” (a Star Wars hack) and “I know Kung-FU” (a Matrix hack).

If you’re looking for a free and easy to learn game to run a one-shot game in any setting, look no further than FU!

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When I was trying to convert Mass Effect Biotic abilities to FATE, another of Cubicle 7’s FATE games was a great help to me: Legends of Anglerre. Legends of Anglerre is – like its “sibling” Starblazer Adventures – based on the 1980’s British Starblazer comic series. Both Cubicle 7 FATE games use a version of FATE which is pretty close to the one used by Spirits of the Century. The one major difference is that both SBA and LoA use the d6-d6 dice mechanic instead of Fudge dice. This leads to more extreme roll results, but is otherwise not that different.

Legends of Anglerre, which was written by Sarah Newton and Chris Birch, is to fantasy game what Starblazer Adventures was to space opera: a toolbox that allows you to run games set into almost every campaign world within the genre. If you are a fan of the FATE system, the 388-paged tome might actually be the last fantasy RPG you ever have to buy!

I don’t think I need to explain the basics of the FATE system in this review. Most of my readers should be familiar with the system and if not, you can check out the official FATE RPG site, which gives you a great overview of how FATE works.

The book starts with an introduction that gives the reader an overview about roleplaying games. the Starblazer comics, FATE and what you need to play the game. If you already own SBA the introduction also gives you some tips on how to use stuff from the one game in the other. The differences between both games are small and LoA is fully compatible to SBA.

The “How Do I Play This?” chapter is a great introduction to FATE. On seven pages you get almost everything you need to run a FATE game – from Aspects to how to run conflicts. These few pages make a perfect introduction to new FATE players.

Let me give you a word of advice before I continue with the review. FATE rulebooks tend to be huge. Don’t make the mistake of believing you have to read the whole book from cover to cover in order to run a game. Start with the “How Do I Play This?” chapter and then read up on what you need to create characters. Use the rest of the book as a reference and don’t try to understand everything at once.

The Character Creation chapter gives a step-by-step explanation of how to create characters in LoA. Like in most other FATE games you have to go through 3 to 5 phases dependent on the campaign’s power level to create the background story and Aspects for your character. Phase 1 describes the character’s early days, their apprenticeship for example. Phase 2 is the character’s Legend, his or her first major adventure. Beginning with Phase 3 the character is the Guest Star in another character’s Legend. That way the characters in a party already start with a common background. Alternatively players may chose the “On-The-Fly” method which allows them to add Aspects and Skills during actual play.

After having picked the character’s Aspects during the 3 to 5 phases, the players buy skills and pick the appropriate number of stunts. After that you can write down one piece of relevant equipment per Aspect and Stunt. Last but not least the player has to calculate Stress and Fate points and write them down on the character sheet.

In my experience coming up with the Aspects and a backstory takes the longest in any FATE game. But I also believe that character generation gets significantly faster the more experienced players and the GM are.

But even if creating Aspects takes a while, it almost assures that the players have put some thought into who their characters are. LoA actually helps players with coming up with Aspects by providing tables to generate random character lifepaths. This is a nice touch.

The next chapter explains how player races in LoA work. LoA actually uses a very elegant solution. In order to be a member of a certain race you just need at least one racial Aspect. That can be something like “Noble Elf of the Deep Woods” or “Greedy Dwarven Blacksmith of the Hammer Clan”. Each race description lists several example racial aspects and special Stunts only a member of the race may pick. Aside from the standard fantasy races, LoA also lists Centaurs, Dragons (!!!) and Fauns. Last but not least the book gives tips on how to create your own custom races.

In fantasy characters often conform to certain archetypes like warrior, thieves, clerics or magic users. While the character creation system in Chapter three allows you to create characters any way you want, some people prefer their characters to be closer to one of the common fantasy archetypes. Chapter four “Occupations and Character Types” provide exactly these!

The chapter provides players with sets of several sample builds from the Agile Swashbuckler to  Holy Warrior or even a Vampire. Each build contains an example Aspect, a set of key skills and several stunts. I am pretty sure that players coming from games like D&D might actually appreciate the concept of character builds to help them create characters. The occupations might also come in handy when you don’t have that much time to create characters.

The sixth chapter is all about equipment. As you probably know the FATE system doesn’t put a lot emphasis on mundane equipment. The same is true with Legends of Anglerre. There are basically five types of armor (three mundane and two magical) and five types of shields. Weapons are a bit more detailed, but not much. Some weapons have Aspects of their own that can be tagged like any other Aspect in the game. In addition to that players are encouraged to pick “tasty weapon aspects” for the weapons their characters have been using for a while. Examples may be a special fighting style you’ve picked up or a special move the character can perform.  The possibilities are endless.

Chapter Seven is focused on Aspects. The chapter starts by proving tips on how to come up with Aspects for your characters and later explains thoroughly how to invoke,  tag and compel them. What I especially liked about this chapter are the examples. If you have trouble understanding how Aspects are actually supposed to work, the examples given here should make things much easier for you.

Chapter Eight is called “Skills and Stunts” and it’s one of the highlights of the book. In FATE stunts are usually directly tied to Skills, so it makes a lot of sense to list the available stunts directly under the respective skill’s descriptions. Or so you would think. Not so in most other FATE games where Skills and Stunts are in different chapters. In Legends of Anglerre you get the description of the skill, a short list of trappings (these are basically like stunts, but everyone who has the skill can perform them), followed by the Stunts.

This chapter definitely shows that Cubicle 7 has listened to their fans, because the not-so-great organization of SBA was one of the few complaints. LoA can really shine in that department! Don’t get me wrong, I love Starblazer Adventures but sometimes I wish it was a bit better organized. But I digress…

The chapter concludes with some guidelines on how to create your own stunts and skills.

Chapter Nine is all about Powers. Powers are basically special stunts that need an appropriate Aspect as prerequisite. Powers can be everything from innate magical abilities, superhuman talents or spells. In the case of spell magic additional Power Skills like Alchemy, Divination or Telekinesis are used. Basically all the powers you know from other fantasy games like D&D for example are listed here, so it should pose no problem using LoA for games set in almost any fantasy campaign world. And if there are certain powers missing, the chapter provides you with guidelines to create your own. These guidelines were actually invaluable when I tried to come up with Biotic abilities for my SBA Mass Effect game.

No fantasy game would be complete without artifacts and magic items and chapter ten is all about those. Rules-wise special items work like Aspects or Stunts and the book gives you numerous example improvements the GM can add to mundane items to give them additional “oomph”.

But the game doesn’t stop there. It also provides rules for easily creating traps, magical items, magical allies like Familiars and artifacts. More complex magical constructs follow the rules for characters for example.

That’s one of the strengths of the FATE system: if needed everything from an item to a kingdom or even the campaign itself can be described with Aspects, Skills and Stunts like a character, without adding an additional layer of complexity to the game.

The chapter also lists numerous example magic special items like Potions, Talismans, Spell Books, Traps and Miscellaneous Magical Items. While the list could definitely be longer it contains enough examples to give you inspirations for items of your own design.

Chapter Eleven focuses on the use of Fate points. While some of these rules have already been mentioned in the Aspects chapter, the chapter doesn’t feel redundant. Fate points are pretty much at the core of the FATE rules and their usage can’t be explained often enough.

From other games that use similar meta game currencies I know that players tend to hold those back until the last minute. That’s something you really shouldn’t do in Fate. This chapter helps players to understand what you can do with your Fate points and why you shouldn’t save them for too long.

“How to Do Things” is the title of chapter twelve. This chapter provides you with all the rules needed to do things in LoA: how to use shifts, how to take action, how contests and conflicts work. Like in other FATE games conflicts in LoA can be either physical like Melee combat or social like a heated discussion. The side that lost the conflict usually gets stress that can be avoided by taking consequences. And again Legends of Anglerre manages to shine here. One of the problems with FATE is that inexperienced players and GM have trouble with deciding what kind of consequence is appropriate. Is a broken leg a Major consequence or a Severe one? LoA provides a list of sample consequences that should solve this issue once and for all!

The chapter also contains rules for minions and an extensive example of play. The next section of this chapter is about how to do things with powers. On six pages the book provides an overview on what you can do with powers, how the DM can determine difficulties, how to resist powers and so on.

The last section of chapter twelve focuses on all the remaining issues a GM is commonly facing, like setting difficulties for general skill checks, handling time in your game, and how environmental hazards like dragon’s breath work in Legends of Anglerre!

Chapter thirteen is all about “Creatures Great and Small”. In it you’ll not only find all the rules needed to create and run creatures, but there are also special creature stunts, as well as rules for swarm creatures and “sum of parts creatures”. The latter type you might know from various video games where you have to destroy a creature bit by bit.

What really amazed me while reading LoA how much stuff they managed to cram into the book without it feeling totally overwhelming. SBA for example is approximately the same size but feels huge compared to LoA. Perhaps it’s the fact that LoA is much better organized than SBA and the fantasy genre itself is much narrower than space opera.

Chapter fourteen focuses on “Gods, Guilds and Empires”. Basically it shows how your can use the FATE rules to describe organizations (like guilds or whole empires) using pretty much the same concepts you use for characters. Organizations have Aspects, Skills and even special stunts like Strongholds, Conspiracy or Libraries. This allows you to resolve conflicts between organizations easily. Mass combat using armies of fleets is actually handled much in the same way combat between characters is. This allows for empire-building campaigns where the player characters become powerful enough to influence the fates of whole baronies, guilds, religions and even kingdoms.

Chapter fifteen called “Sailing Ships and War Machines” explains how to use and create constructs in your game. Again the rules are not so much different from the ones used for characters or organizations. In construct conflicts the zones used have of course a bigger scale than in character combat and the chapter provides a couple of examples. I especially like the effective use of zone diagrams in that chapter. You immediately get a good idea of what the encounter scales are. See the image below for an example.

Chapter sixteen called “Fog of War” provides rules for unit-level combat. In this kind of combat the players take on the roles of Generals who control several units like infantry, cavalry, artillery, or even ships.

Even though you might get the impression that each of these chapters adds another level of complexity to the rules that’s not the fact. The basic rules are always the same. You just get new stunts, skills and aspects for every scale of play. Usually when I ran fantasy games I avoided large scale battles and empire-building campaign because I didn’t want to turn the roleplaying game into a strategy one. Or I just used hand-waving and GM bias instead of focusing on the rules. But after reading Legends of Anglerre I am actually pretty sure that you can run a campaign with all those aspects (no pun intended) in it without having to fear that it breaks immersion – provided you use the FATE system.

Chapter seventeen is called “Templates” and provides the GM with examples for organizations, constructs and units. The list is far from exhaustive but should give you a great overview of what is possible with LoA.

“Epic and Mythic Gaming” is the focus of the eighteenth chapter. If the standard game is not enough for you, this chapter gives you guidelines on how to run an epic game, where the characters are the shakers and movers of the campaign world. Epic occupations like Warlord, Divine Champion, etc. shall help you to create truly larger-than-life characters.

Instead of an epic game you can also choose the mythic play. In mythic play atmosphere is more important than rules. While epic games are about larger-than-life conflicts, mythic games are usually more subtle. Player characters interact with cosmic forces and fulfill quests for deities and demigods. Again the book provides players with a short list of mythic occupations to help them during character creations. Examples of Mythic Occupations are Dancer of the God Court or Promethean Hero.

Chapter nineteen is all about “Collaborative Campaign Creation”. While this may not be everyone’s cup of tea – some GM’s prefer to have full control over their campaign world – this is something I definitely have to try out when I finally have the opportunity to run Legends of Anglerre. This chapter gives directions on how to create a whole campaign setting from scratch, while every player has the opportunity to add elements that are important to him or her.

Chapter twenty describes the concept of “Plot Stress”. You can make things more interesting by adding stress tracks to the campaign, the group or the character plot. By their actions the characters can inflict plot stress that then causes certain consequences that have been defined by the GM.

This reminds me a bit of the concept of Group Tension from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition. I have to admit that while I understand the idea behind that concept, I am actually not too fond of it. Probably because it needs the GM to plan ahead a lot more than I usually do.

Chapter twenty-one explains how treasure works in Legends of Anglerre. Usually wealth is handled in an abstract way using the Resources Skill, so players are not forced to write down every bronze coin they find in the street. But if you need to know how many coins you’re actually lugging around there’s a handy “Coin Value Rough Equivalent Table”. The chapter gives some guidelines on how to use Treasure Aspects and how much resources players in certain campaigns should have access to.

Chapter twenty-two provides you with all the rules to create a cosmology for your campaign. You can either pick and choose or just use the handy tables to randomly generate how your world works. While the chapter on other planes of existence, planar travel and cosmology is quite short, it’s definitely nice to have. Especially if you want to run games inspired by Planescape.

Chapter twenty-three called “Twisted Tips” is one of my favorite chapters in Legends of Anglerre. It provides the gamemaster with a lot of helpful advice on how to create a campaign and run the game. The chapter starts by giving an overview about the various fantasy subgenres and how they can be played using LoA.

Over the course of the chapter you not only get an overview of basically every game style, campaign theme, fantasy society and fantasy location you can think of, but also gives tips on how you prepare and run a game, how to establish characters and provides the GM with a rough plot framework that helps you to run games almost on the fly.

The section on controlling perspective is also very interesting. Even veteran gamemasters may learn a thing or two about how to frame scenes, “camera” work and how to get information to the players. Even if you think you already know every trick in the book I wholeheartedly recommend giving that chapter of Legends of Anglerre a closer look.

Chapter twenty-four presents a complete ready-to-run swords-and-sorcery campaign setting – the world of Anglerre itself. The kingdom of Anglerre is a kingdom under siege – surrounded by enemies and threatened by magic.

Anglerre is a low-magic setting where magic rare and harder to master than in other settings. People are cautious about sorcery and using magic can be quite perilous.

The chapter contains a detailed gazetteer of the lands and should provide enough material for the GM to run games set into these lands.

Chapter twenty-five presents a second campaign setting, “The Hither Kingdoms”. This setting is high fantasy and contains all the tropes you normally expect from such campaign settings: dwarves, elves, magic, monsters. If you are used to classic D&D settings, I am sure you’ll feel right at home there. The chapter contains a gazetteer of the lands, an overview of how magic works in this world, the gods and the cosmology, as well as a list of the key figures in the world.

Chapter twenty-six is the game’s Bestiary which contains numerous creatures and NPCs you can use in your campaign. Alas most of the creatures come only with short description. Some of the monster descriptions are illustrated with artwork from the comics.

The book concludes with a rules summary, the stunts list, the Legends of Anglerre record sheets (for characters, organizations and constructs), as well as an index.

So, what are my final thoughts on Legends of Anglerre? I have to admit I like it a lot. Legends of Anglerre looks definitely better than it’s close sibling Starblazer adventures and feels much better organized. It contains everything you need to run any kind of fantasy game using FATE and even provides GMs with not one but even two complete campaign worlds. If you just want to run a classic game where the focus is on the characters themselves you can disregard a lot of the rules, but if you want to run mass combats or feature conflicts between whole kingdoms in your games you can do so with relative ease. If you like FATE and the fantasy genre chances are that you’ll love Legends of Anglerre. I know I do.

Legend of Anglerre is available both as hardcover book or a PDF version. Since Cubicle 7 is part of the Bits & Mortar initiative you can get LoA as a print+PDF bundle for the price of the hardcover book alone. The hardcover book is of excellent quality and has a color interior although the artwork is mostly black & white. It sets you back $49.99. The PDF version is available at DriveThruRPG and costs $24.99.

Please note that this review has been based on a read-through of a review copy of both the hardcover book and the PDF version of the book which have been provided by the publisher.

Related posts:

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2. FATE review
3. Freebie: Free FATE

The City Builder contains the following random generators: a Complete City Generator, a Tavern Generator, the Feature Namer, a Crowd Generator, a Rumor Generator, the Merchant Generator and the totally awesome Market Map Generator.

The City and Tavern Generator each create a pretty detailed description of a complete city and a tavern respectively. You just press a button and a new randomly generated description is generated, there are no setting to be made. But the software allows you to edit your results and save it to a RTF file. Following are examples of the output generated by the City and Tavern Generators:

Miyl is a city with loud streets.

There are seven major districts: Guild, Temple, Military, Merchants’, West Quarter, Nobles’ and Fortress

Areas of interest include: The Pine Statue, Radarus Forum, Troll Museum, Messcrown Storehouse, The Smiling Dog Inn, The Barkshark Spire, The Limping Blade Inn, and The Daring Duchess Inn

Its people take pride in their beautiful ancient architecture, patriotism, superstitions, monks, enchanters and local fighting schools. Their patron deity is the God of Names.

Some current rumors:
Kakil the butcher is being unusually quiet.
Chaemn the servant believes that Troumner the bandit is involved in business dealings with Isairakri the shepherd.
Criv the assassin claims to have proof that Elath the moneylender’s father is planning something.
Tramnax the gambler’s father is waiting in the tavern.
Jatimo the moneylender is going to run off with Nykur the guide’s daughter.

Golden Duke Tavern

Overall quality: Shady    Cleanliness: Somewhat grubby, but decent    Size: Large

Drinks: Fairly priced, poor quality, far above average variety
Food: Overpriced, poor quality, somewhat limited variety
Rooms: Overpriced, small and medium sizes, most vacant

Popularity: Very crowded, a few shady characters
Noise level: Loud        Sobriety: Most patrons sober
Dark corners occupied: 25%        Patrons openly armed: Most

Attractions: major brawl
Menu: slightly torn around the edges

Bartender: female, green eyes, very busy, glares at party immediately, speaks with a heavy accent

Noteable patrons: the amourous drunken druid wearing a religious symbol and the drunkenly ranting bard who clearly has a bodyguard

House special: Semi-transparent blue with blue flecks and a stick of cinnamon in the mug. The drink smells heavenly and tastes like ginger. It can be smelled on a drinker’s breath for several hours.

The Feature Namer, Crowd, Rumor and Merchant Generators let you choose the number of results you want to have generated. In addition to that you can choose what type of Feature or Merchant you want to be generated. The Merchant Generator also allows you to exclude sellers of magical items by checking the “Historical” check box. I especially like the Rumor generator which can also be used to generate adventure hooks if you have trouble coming up with ideas of your own.

In my opinion the Market Map Generator is the highlight of the pack. It generates a beautiful map of a market place including descriptions of all the market stalls and buildings. The generator gives the user a plethora of options. You can change the scale of the map, choose which types of merchants and other structures you want to include. You can also choose between four different background decorations (blank, parchment, cobbles and grass). The map can be saved as PNG file.

The software has been written in .NET and should run fine on Windows XP or newer. The City Builder sets you back mere $3.95 and comes with a 30-day money back guarantee. But I doubt this guarantee is actually needed. It’s a great piece of software for a very reasonable price. If you like random generators you should definitely get a copy of the City Builder Generator Pack!

Related posts:

1. Review: Kingdom Builder Generator Pack II
2. Roleplaying City Map Generator
3. Preview: Kingdom Builder by Chaotic Shiny Productions

The World’s Greatest Screen actually solves these issues. Like the SW Customizable GM Screen it’s created from cardboard and vinyl. It has a total of 8 sleeves sized 8.5” x 11” so even A4 paper fits if slightly trimmed. Please not that I picked the portrait variant, but if you prefer landscape, you can get it, too. There’s also a mini version with 4” x 6” sleeves.

Quality-wise the World’s Greatest Screen is on par with the Savage Worlds Customizable GM Screen. It looks sturdy enough to survive years of adventuring. With a price of $29.95 it should be affordable for every gamemaster.

According to the product description you can write on the screen itself using wet erase markers. I haven’t tried that yet, but I think this could come in quite handy. If you are looking for a sturdy, affordable and customizable GM screen, you should consider getting “The World’s Greatest Screen” by Hammerdog Games.

Related posts:

1. One GM screen to rule them all
2. Does the GM Screen deserve to go the way of the Dodo?
3. Starblazer Adventures Storyteller’s Screen

The 374-paged book not only contains the Kerberos Club setting, but also all the rules actually needed to play the game. What I like a lot about this game is that it allows you to play in three eras. During the early Victorian century, things are already touched by the Strange, but still pretty close to what you can read in history books. In the middle era things start to get more fantastic. While early era games are still almost historical with a hint of the supernatural, middle era games resemble a street-level superhero setting. In the late era you get a full-blown Victorian superhero setting with everything from airships to dinosaur cavalry. So the GM can basically pick between three power levels for his campaign.

Explaining all the details of the FATE system would probably be beyond the scope of this post. I guess most of you are probably at least fleetingly familiar with at least one of the FATE games. What sets Kerberos Club’s version of FATE apart are the following:

a) Skills in the game are measured on two axes. There’s the skill rank like in all other FATE games and the Power Tier. All skills start out in the Mundane Tier but they can later be increased to the Extraordinary, Superhuman, Ascendant and Godlike Tiers. When characters of two different Tiers compete with each other, the player who uses a Skill in a higher Tier replaces one of his Fudge dice with a six-sided die for each Tier of difference. That’s in my opinion a pretty easy and elegant way to simulate super powered abilities in a FATE game.

b) Instead of dozens of Stunts, Kerberos Club uses six “Gifts” that basically serve the same purpose. They can be bought during character creation and character advancement and allow to bend the rules a bit. The Gifts are Companion, Equipment, Impact, Signature Aspect, Skilled and Theme. Veterans of the FATE system will quickly notice that the Gifts are actually a neat way for the player to design his own stunts instead of picking them from a huge list. For example the Equipment Gift grants the character an important or special piece of equipment that has one or more improvements like adding a +1 bonus to a certain skill or it allows the wielder to use one skill in place of another in certain circumstances.

c) Collateral consequences are additional consequences player characters can use to avoid any kind of Stress. But unlike personal consequences they don’t need to be directly connected to what caused the Stress in the first place and they affect the player character’s environment, the Kerberos Club, maybe even the whole Empire itself. Collateral consequences are another narrative device the players can use to affect the world around them.

I have to admit I haven’t delved too deep into Kerberos Club, yet, but it looks like it could be for the Victorian Superhero genre what Starblazer Adventures was for Space Opera. Even if you don’t intend to use the Kerberos Club background you get enough material that you can use in any game set into the era. It also introduces a few new and very intriguing elements to the FATE system.

This first look is based on the PDF version of the game which I got on DriveThruRPG. It sets you back $24. There’s also a free Quick-Start Guide which contains an introduction to the setting, four sample characters and a taste of the FATE system.

Related posts:

1. Freebie: Free FATE
2. Strands of Fate
3. Free FATE

I am NOT their market for adventure paths. I rarely, if ever, play pre-published adventures. I may read the occasional one for an idea, stealing a map here, a trap there, but let’s just say the last adventure I ran ALMOST straight from the book was an AD&D 2^nd edition adventure. Still I find the format Paizo uses intriguing because each adventure installment is accompanied by other gaming material. I have also recently become more interested in Golarion. While I doubt I will ever run a game in that setting, it’s one of those worlds I love reading about for inspiration and just for the sheer fun of it.

One thing I love from all adventure paths is the free Players Guide! Who doesn’t like a freebie! This one is no different. This time around the traits are tied to some key NPCS. The NPCS are very nice and can be used for any campaign. The guide also has rules for caravans. Yes you read that right, caravans… Their statistics, events, job, combat, the idea seemed farfetched at first but for a campaign where the PC will be making the long journey overland to a distant land it seems like a good mechanic to add. I will need to read it better to see how I could put this to use. Interesting!

So if you like adventure paths and are interested in one out of the adventures of Marco Polo, and you want to visit the distant Asian themed lands of Golarion, this Adventure Path may just be up you alley. Me I’m sitting down to read the Player’s Guide. Enjoy…

PS- As I was re-reading this post for typos I noticed I had originally written Rise of the Rune Lords as RIDE of the Runelords… That adventure path would have been very different if the protagonists were a bunch of Harley ridding guys with big beer bellies. Just saying…

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1. Review: End Time
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3. Hit me Magus one more time! (With apologies to Ms. Spears…)

Open Design and Kobold Quarterly have been supporting AGE with new material for a while now, and the upcoming Midgard Campaign Setting will not only be designed for Pathfinder but for AGE as well. Open Design’s latest release, the Midgard Bestiary Volume 1 by Josh Jarman is a 58-paged PDF containing fifty monsters drawn from five years of Open Design projects.

If you are looking for a book that contains pretty standard fantasy monsters, you’ll be disappointed. Midgard Bestiary contains some of the more memorable monsters I’ve seen in a while. One of my favorites is the Carrion Beetle, large beetles which are used as pack animals or even mobile weapon platforms.

Each adversary description comes with an illustration, full AGE stats and often unique powers. Some of the illustrations are even in full color, although the majority of the artwork is in black and white. Overall the artwork is of pretty high quality and the layout is very clean and not too cramped.

I think I mentioned several times that I am a fan of adding steampunk elements to fantasy worlds and Midgard obviously contains quite a few golems, clockwork contraptions and similar devices. But the majority of creatures described in the book should be easily be modified to fit into any fantasy setting.

So is the Midgard Bestiary Volume 1 worth it? If you want to use the AGE system for the upcoming Midgard setting it’s definitely a must-have. If you want to keep playing in the Dragon Age setting you should at least consider it. You can never have enough monsters and the bestiary also provides you with a few new powers, stunts and even a couple new weapons. And since it only sets you back $4.99 for the PDF, you really can’t go wrong! That’s an excellent price for a great and very useful product. You can buy it either directly from Open Design or via DriveThruRPG.

Related posts:

1. Midgard
2. Review: The Kobold Guide to Game Design Volume I
3. Review: Alpha Omega – The Encountered Volume 1

If some of you are scratching your heads and saying, “Well this isn’t exactly a timely review!” You are right, the gracious folk at Open Design had provided a review copy on PDF of this book some weeks ago and I had been unable to review it. I apologize to them, real life has just not let up, and I hope that this is a better late than never situation and I can do my part to spread the word of this excellent supplement. How awesome is it? Read on to find out…

Let’s dispense with the layout first. It follows the same format as all previous books, two columns simple yet functional layout, a beautiful cover by Christophe Swal, who has become eponymous  with the look of the Advanced Feats series, and decorations through the book that manage to mix the mysterious of the arcane with the a martial theme. The book is sprinkled with useful sidebars, about shields, swords, rule considerations, including advice on running low charisma characters and balancing feats, all useful and enlightening about the creation process of the author.

The overview of the class is what opens the book, and I found it especially useful. New classes are always a tricky thing, especially for me who can often get lost in the role-playing and lose sight of some of the rules long term. And then come the feats; 30 new feats, useful for the Magus, but many are useful for other classes, both magic and combat oriented. The feats have the author’s comments, understanding the rationale behind the rule decisions is almost like having a director’s commentary track on your RPG book.

I love some of the feats because of their flavor, while they are good solid rules, these rules enhance the role-playing possibilities for players and that to me is a win-win. Arcana Thief is a feat that enhances the Magus’ Arcana Pool when the character disrupts a spell or counterspells, filling a particular niche that is often overlooked in my games.  Greatweapon Spell Combat lets the Magus use the Spell Combat feature with a two handed sword, granting greater variety to the class. These are an example of a feat specific to a Magus.

And then there are some gems of a feat, like Hobbyist, an elegant solution to earning decent skill ranks through the use of a feat (I won’t spoil it, let’s just say I really like the idea), Parrying Defense (sacrifice an attack when doing a full attack for some extra defense) and Reckless Attack (get an attack bonus and suffer penalties and attacks of opportunity), all seem interesting and a good option for many other classes. Sure there are a lot of Magus specific feats but I think there is a good overall balance. There is a brief section on the feats from previous books in the Advanced Feats series that would be useful to a Magus rounding out the feats section.

Then there are the builds. The Fae Blade is an elven themed build, the Lady of the Lash is a whip themed Magus and the Rune Fist mixes Monk and Magus. While these are some interesting themes, the builds seem more themed to the character they represent than archetypes of myth or literature. I like that! The NPCs are imaginative and immediately useful for a Game Master at any level. Kudos…

Overall I think this is a GREAT addition to the Advanced Feats series. The book is available as a PDF here for $3.99. I hope to see more books in this series, full of crunchy rules, but with many ideas that enhance the role-playing. What’s up next? I for one can’t wait…

Related posts:

1. Hit me Magus one more time! (With apologies to Ms. Spears…)
2. What about the Magus? A new Pathfinder RPG playtest…
3. What about Advanced Feats: The Cavalier’s Creed? A review…

I review a lot of Open Design books, and I make no qualms about admitting how much I enjoy their products. I am a Pathfinder fan true and true, and well they simply publish so many awesome books for my favorite fantasy RPG I can’t help myself. The 18^th issue of Kobold Quarterly does not disappoint. This issue weights in at 100 pages with content not only for the Pathfinder RPG but to the other two big players in the fantasy RPG field, Dungeons & Dragons 4^th Ed and the newcomer AGE system from Green Ronin. I am a fan of AGE as well and I am happy to see more options for fantasy RPG lovers out there and I applaud Open Design for supporting it. It’s chock full of goodies…

Want to learn more? Read on…

The first thing that jumped at me was the cover. Wow! Dragons fighting mid-flight, one a very traditional looking red dragon and the other an exotic yellow spotted specimen, it just screams action, and I love it. Kieran Yanner provides a great opener for this issue. The art inside does not disappoint, excellent art and layout all around. There is a good mix of articles, mostly are for D&D or Pathfinder, some are for both (Heresy! Just kidding…) but AGE is well represented.

Gift of the Gods, divine talents for AGE, brings divine magic that may be superficially more familiar to fans of other rule sets to this game. An excellent article, which makes me want to play AGE so much more. The Savant is a new class for the Pathfinder RPG, which is intriguing because it lets you do a little bit of everything, and while it may fill the needs of some players it struck me as a little out there. An interesting concept, not one I would play but that’s just me, I can imagine some of my players being really intrigued by it. I liked the Dragon Hunter prestige class much more. There is a Midgard specific article on the ecology of minotaurs. One of my favorite non-traditional fantasy races, it was a great read, even if the rules where D&D specific.

This issue has a lot of adventures. A solo adventure for a halfling thief, which requires no previous knowledge of the rules reminiscent of the “choose your own adventure” books of old, and excellent short adventure ideal to show someone who wants to learn about RPGs what it’s all about. The Exorcist is an intriguing Pathfinder adventure for 1^st level characters and last but not least a short and fun adventure for 4^th level D&D characters, Who Watches the Watch Fires. And how can you just NOT read an adventure with that title.

There is plenty of more Pathfinder goodness like rules for combining spells for extra effect, for Midgard Cavaliers, and Leadership feats that allow you to have beasts as followers. There is a piece on building mystery adventures, geared to D&D 4^th edition but good for any GM. And then there are the columns, advice, rule clarifications (Ask the Kobold), I was particularly impressed by the Heroic Flaw mechanic by Philippe-Antoine Menard (aka Chatty DM) simple concept, easy to use but full of possibilities, very nice…

There is much more this issue has to offer. I just scratched the surface; there are book reviews, a primer on Asian cinema for gamers. I did tell you it’s 100 pages long right? The book is available electronically and in print. It is a steal for all the goodies you get. Congratulations to the kobold on another great issue.

Related posts:

1. Review: Kobold Quarterly Issue 14
2. Spring is here… Can’t you smell the kobold? The Kobold Quarterly that is!
3. Kobold adoptions going on right now! Free Kobold Quarterly #11…

The screen is extremely sturdy. Most GM screens available are printed on pretty flimsy cardboard, but not so in this case. The cardboard is comparable to the one used in hardcover books. The front side shows four full-color images taken from the Starblazer Adventures comics. I included an image of the screen above.

The back side of the screen contains basically all tables a Starblazer Adventures Storyteller could ever need. I am pretty sure that aside from checking up some stunts or stats you’ll never even have to open the book to run the game. It’s all there on the screen. There’s even a Play Summary, that summarizes all basic FATE rules including FATE point costs, Conflict actions, and Stress.

The Storyteller’s Screen sets you back $14.95 and should be available from your FLGS or directly from the Cubicle 7 store. In my opinion it’s definitely worth it.

Related posts:

1. Preparing for Starblazer Adventures
2. Starblazer Adventures: Our character creation session
3. Starblazer Adventures: First session