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Freedom City
Series: Mutants & Masterminds
Publisher: Green Ronin
Type: Sourcebook
Media: Hardback
Review: here
Review Intro:
If you’d ask me to name a top five d20 list then Mutants & Masterminds would be included in it before I had to think. The GM Screen was pretty good too, but we’ll not count that as the first support for the game, Freedom City has the honour and the challenge of being the first book to try and carry on the tradition of excellence.
Excellent? No. Pretty damn good? Yes.
Freedom City is in a style that superhero RPGers will recognise but might just be a little too alien for "We-Only-Play-Fantasy-With-Elves-Dwarves-And-Fighers" RPGers. There are no stats for new monsters – instead there are plenty of stats for individual heroes, villains and mundanes. You’re given the background stories, carefully interwoven with other heroes and villains, for each Freedom City character. That’s what the book does, it gives you the history of key characters throughout the history of the city and, of course, it gives you the history of the city itself. .... [ more ]
Guilds and Adventurers
Series: d20
Publisher: Mystic Eye Games
Type: Supplement
Media: Softback
Review: here
Review Intro:
Mystic Eye’s Guilds and Adventurers contains some victories on the battle ground of lateral thinking. The book contains a guild system that makes me far less uneasy that most.
Guild status becomes an issue of Prestige Class, unless you’re an NPC, in which case there’s an expert-based NPC class for you. A prestige class approach to guild status makes sense for d20 fantasy, especially given the way the prestige classes have come to rule the system. A prestige class for guild membership is simpler and cleaner than an extra mechanic and note on your character sheet. The first obstacle to overcome with a prestige class approach is the inherent lack of sense where, for example, a bard has to stop being a bard in order to join the bards’ guild. The solution comes in two stages. The first stage is to keep to a single generic guild prestige class and have it draw its class abilities from lists specific to individual guilds. This means that membership of the Thieves Guild of Sumer can have different game effects than the Thieves Guild of Uruk. The second stage is to tie this light-weight PrC to not just a guild but to another character class as well. Mystic Eye calls this Synergistic Advancement.
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Ghost Stories: Horror Mystery Adventures
Series: PIG
Publisher: Politically Incorrect Games
Type: Roleplaying Game
Media: PDF
Review: here
Review Intro:
Politically Incorrect Games’ Ghost Stories are a bit like haunted bullets; quick and scary. The experience points paragraph in the game starts "If your character survives an entire scenario..." and that should dismiss any lingering thoughts you had about Casper the Friendly RPG. Ghost Stories isn’t just about horror though, it’s mystery too, the sort of investigative horror that does without chainsaw murderers – for awhile, at least.
Ghost Stories is part of the genreDivision series and it would therefore be entirely wrong to compare it to a fully-fledged RPG. I think. No wait. I take that back. Ghost Stories is a fully-fledged RPG in the sense that it has everything you need for a roleplaying game. The 36-paged download shouldn’t be compared to an expensive 280-paged hardback campaign setting and game mechanic combo. The genreDivision games are designed to fill in the gaps, for that break between campaigns, for when friends unexpectedly turns up or the GM forgets the character sheets. ...
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GM Mastery: NPC Essentials
Series: d20
Publisher: RPGObjects
Type: RPG Source
Media: Paperback
Review: here
Review Intro:
The contents page is a bit of a mess. It’s nice and thorough - that’s good. The page entries are out by about four - that’s bad. Subtract four from the apparent page number in the table of contents and you’ll be much closer to where the entry actually is.
It would be entirely wrong, it would be a roleplaying crime, to judge GM Mastery (book one) – NPC Essentials by the mismatched page numbers in the table of contents. The first appearance of this GM Mastery book was as a PDF offering from RPGObjects and Johnn Four, it really was a must-have product. This incarnation is the very same book except its on paper and that’ll make very many people happy. The book is the right size. It’s half size. Lay two NPC Essentials down beside one another and you’ll be covering the same surface area as a typical RPG supplement. It’s not a skimpy book though; about 190 pages, thick-enough covers and a strong spine. NPC Essentials is the sort of book you’ll want to toss into your bag before going off to GM at your friends house or for after classes. NPC Essentials is the sort of book that’ll survive being tossed into your bag and then being hiked out when you run in to trouble GMing in your friend’s house.
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Todd Gamble's Cartographica
Series: generic
Publisher: Green Ronin
Type: Cartography
Media: Softback
Review: here
Review Intro:
Wow. Okay. Let’s try that again. Wow.
No. There’s no escaping Todd Gamble’s Cartographica’s "wow factor".
Mind you, there’s no escaping the "Get your dirty minis off my lovely maps!" factor either. If you don’t have access to a colour photocopier then don’t go near Cartographica. You’ll go insane as you attempt to balance the urge to use the wonderful maps in your game against your instincts to protect the book.
The maps are supposed to be used as battle maps; the square grids on them are proof of that. The urge to photocopy the maps must also be perfectly valid since Green Ronin grant permission for personal photocopying up front at the start of the book. Yet the maps have something of a handout feel about them too. The square grid overlay on the maps always smaller than the standard size for game use, often significantly so. There might be no risk of miniatures being used on them, not unless someone has a supply of miniature miniatures. The maps are decorated with in-game paraphernalia like ‘wax seals’, GM notes (directions, comments) and decorative headers.
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