RPG Review Portal

Anger of Angels

Publisher: Malhavoc Press   [Site Info]
Format: PDF
Series: d20
Review: Here
Intro:
Anger of Angels is a d20 supplement all about angels (you guessed, huh?) from Malhavoc Press and by Sean K Reynolds. It’s a PDF at the minute; I dare say a paperback will be along shortly. Some people will go buy this supplement because of the d20 logo, others because of the Malhavoc logo and others because SKR is the author. The best reason to go buy Anger of Angels is if you just want a whole lot of angel involvement in your game with no questions asked.

I like to ask questions though. Anger of Angels is one of those products that, I think, asks all sorts of questions about the typical D&D alignment system. Angels are, by and large, good. At one point in Anger of Angels there’s a discussion how different angels would go about clearing a land of tribes so their deity’s chosen people can move in. You what? That’s not good. That’s ethnic cleansing. One of the worse case scenarios for the not-chosen people is that Michael, the Archangel of War, sets about this task. He may lead a squadron of angels to route the tribes from the land. He may kill them all. He may kill these hapless tribes if they’re evil. Okay. What would make these tribes evil? Maybe they torture people. Maybe they engage in ethnic cleansing (oh! the irony!) or maybe they eat the wrong food on the wrong day. Yup. Eating the wrong food on the wrong day is in an example of a possible taboo from Anger of Angels. It could lead to an angel Falling. There are evil angels too, evil angels who serve the greater good but do those unpleasant tasks like murdering the first born as part of a holy plague. Evil angels aren’t Fallen Angels, not if they still serve their deity.

There’s plenty of information on the "biology" of Angels too. They’re not born as such and so I really shouldn’t call them biological. Angels are made, either by a deity or by one or more angels. Angels made by a deity are bound to it (you know, like a slave, but in a non-evil way or something) and thos . . .

The Village of Oester

Publisher: Open World Press   [Site Info]
Format: Book
Series: d20
Review: Here
Intro:
This review is based on the pre-print copy of The Village of Oester. I’m only pointing that out in case a disgruntled employee at the printers decides to tip a bucket of yellow paint into the press at the last minute. I’ve seen pre-print copies from Open World Press before and they always turn out just as good as you’d hope for. Actually no, that’s misleading. I’ve seen a pre-print draft from Open World Press before. There’s only been one, The Hamlet of Thumble, and I rather liked that.

World of Whitethorn 1B: The Village of Oester follows on from World of Whitethorn 1A: The Hamlet of Thumble in the way their prefixes would lead you to expect. You don’t need The Hamlet of Thumble to use The Village of Oester and that’s worth noting. Without the first book you’ll be left to work out the minutia of the Reputation mechanics yourself but that’s easy enough. In some ways it might help not to have played through Thumble first, that adventure worked equally well for good or evil player characters but I think Oester’s plot works best with good aligned characters. Oester’s appendices include both good and evil pre-genned characters.

If you’re worried about spoilers then this is point where you should bid this review adieu.

There’s the ever so slight danger of an "You’re in the tavern when..." beginning for Oester. The PCs are in the city when a stream of distraught refugees fleeing their village, Oester, begin to get people talking. The most linear way to get the game going is to have one family of these refugees beg the PCs to go to Oester and help themselves to the contents of their abandoned house in exchange for some money. I guess it is permission based looting. I think it would be best to avoid having this encounter in a tavern. It would be better still if the players talk themselves into investigating the rumours about the village. The only advantage of steering the PCs to the city in order to meet the refuge . . .

Crooks!

Publisher: Green Ronin   [Site Info]
Format: Book
Series: Mutants and Masterminds: d20
Review: Here
Intro:
No. I’m not here to gush about Crooks! Nevertheless, I am here to tell you that it’s a wonderful book.

Green Ronin’s Mutants and Masterminds has been the best game to date to say "So long and thanks for all the fish" to the d20 logo. The colourful, slick and professional superheroes d20 based RPG is simply excellent. This tradition of superiority continues for Crooks!

It’s a thin book for a hardback but the page count of 128 is not to be sniffed at. Those are 128 pages of glossy colour and atmospheric artwork. The result is a book you like to hold. It’s almost like an illustrators portfolio; you can just pick it up, flick through the pages and soak up the inspiration.

There’s a strong tradition of NPC books in the super hero RPG genre. Fantasy games have manuals of many monsters and the hero game equivalent is to dedicate plenty of page space to intricately back storied villains. Every key villain in the book has a double page spread to his or her (or its) self. There are four columns of text and a double column with of illustration in most cases. It works very well.

You’re not getting any experience points for deducing that Crooks! is a supplement filled with super villains. You’ll not even get any experience points from this reviewer-GM for guessing that there are plenty of non-super powered and low powered crooks to round out the book either. The Mutants & Masterminds goblins are excellent, a catch all term from the multi-dimensional creatures that escaped through the Trollgate that Kalak the Mystic opened it in 1942. Kalak the Mystic appears later on in the book. There are aliens, demons, super spies, ninja, robots, security agents, military forces and more here in the mini-crook section. They’re not just tossed in randomly; they’re bound into the possible plot thread that runs through Crooks!

This plot line that binds the villains and enemies loosely together is . . .

Modern Player's Companion

Publisher: Green Ronin   [Site Info]
Format: Book
Series: d20 Modern
Review: Here
Intro:
The Modern Player’s Companion is a post Urban Arcana supplement. In other words, this The Game Mechanics d20 modern supplement has advanced classes and prestige classes in it. We’re not quite at the many thousand supplemental classes that pepper the fantasy d20 landscape but if I hadn’t intended to review the Modern Player’s Companion I would have flicked through the new Advanced classes and Prestige classes here.

Advanced Classes include the Adept, Arcane Scholar, Bounty Hunter, Confidence Artist, Criminologist, Dead Shot, Enforcer, Fixer, Gentle Warrior, Hacker, Opinion Maker, Profiler, Survivalist and Transporter. Favourites would have to be the Confidence Artist and Criminologist, both strike me as great, plot heavy, classes and a good example of what might squeeze in between the basic classes and prestige classes.

Prestige Classes run the gambit of Commander, Dark Sage, Martial Arts Master, Master Tinker, Mentalist, Psionic Assassin and Silent Intruder. I’m not sure "favourite" is the right word to apply here. None of these classes really leapt out the page at me. I prefer the Silent Intruder though since the class does represent that highly focused set of expert skills and is nicely campaign neutral.

But what’s the point? I mean, why have classes in a player companion at all? Wouldn’t it be better if the class mechanic was as transparent as possible for the players? Or that prestige classes came into play when they naturally meet the story rather than because a player fancied Talent X? I might want the game to work that way but I’m probably in a game fascist minority. It might be a nice theory but in practise most players want to get their hands on the mechanics that affect them the most. Players want to see what goodies their characters can enjoy as they increase in levels. As someone once said, (Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut, in fact) "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, . . .

Campaign Planner

Publisher: Ronin Arts   [Site Info]
Format: PDF
Series: d20
Review: Here
Intro:
A campaign planner is a good idea. Let’s take a step back there. A campaign planner is a framework, a set of notes, where a GM can marshal all their ideas. If you’ve made changes to the rules for gnomes, dropped a spell, added a new god and introduced a new common monster to your campaign then it’s convenient and wise to note all this down in one master file.

A campaign planner is a good idea because it organises changes, edits and tinkerings. When it comes to tinkering, roleplayers are ubermeisters. I use make shift campaign planners all the time. Aside from the players and the player characters, the most important element in my games are the NPCs and their factions. I need to keep record of who’s trying to achieve what, why and how. I need to know who knows who, who likes who, trusts who, distrusts who, will turn to in trouble and who will betray who if the going gets tough. The notes for all these relationships alone can quickly become a riotous mess.

The thing is that whenever I make a campaign planner, even when I’m especially strict and tidy about it, its always completely differently structured from the last one I made. If you’d asked me when I drew up my last campaign planner whether it would be possible to design a generic, one size fits all, campaign planner I would have responded with an empathic no.

I’ve read through this campaign planner from Ronin Arts a few times now. I’ve even tried to map current campaign notes to it. I still don’t think it’s possible to design a one size fits all campaign planner. If a campaign planner is there to bring order to the chaos then it is defeated the minute you need to note all the edits and changes made to the planner.

If it’s not possible to design a one size fits all campaign planner then it might just be possible to produce one that suits the most common "size" of campaign. In other words, a campaign planner designer could work out the mos . . .

Bow & Blade: A Guidebook to Wood Elves

Publisher: Green Ronin   [Site Info]
Format: Book
Series: d20
Review: Here
Intro:
Occasionally a lucky reviewer will discover that a fulfilment house, people who work for and with a whole bunch of publishers, has sent a package of new supplements and games to review. You can tell when reviewers might have received the same package because they start to review the same bunch of books. I noticed this for the package of RPG supplements that I found Bow & Blade In. I also noticed that almost every reviewer reviewed Bow and Blade: A Guidebook to Wood Elves first. I’m reviewing it last (and late). Whereas I didn’t mean to review it late on purpose, I did intend to leave it to last. Why? Trepidation. I’m not the greatest splat book fan. Without being too mean the various "guides" d20 products in the marketplace to tend to have the whiff of splat about them. On the other hand, Hammer & Helm the dwarf guidebook companion to Bow & Blade, also written by Jesse Decker, is one of the best race supplements in the d20 marketplace.

I’ve a small problem with elves. All too often they’re just a bit naff. Writers sometimes try to portray elves as being everything once – cultured but primal, chaotic but orderly, compassionate but xenophobic – and the result is that they end up being none of these. Chris Thomasson, co-author for Bow and Blade, summed this up well. He admitted that he "thought elves sucked". Bow & Blade wins him around, of course.

Bow & Blade wins me around as well. Don’t put up with naff elves, let Bow & Blade save them. Ah, well, I’m happy to embrace the rather far out alternative option suggested for Wood Elves by the book. Let’s have Wood Elves actually related to the element of wood. This option comes after Bow & Blade’s new elf subraces. Fancy Fire Elves, Metal Elves, Water Elves or Wind Elves? You’ve got their full racial character stats here. Unfortunately we’re looking at a Level Adjustment of +3 for all of them. GMs will have to deal with the less than graceful game mechanic a . . .