2 comments about Geanavue: The Stones of Peace (Dungeons & Dragons: Kingdoms of Kalamar Sourcebook).

1. Another of my large Kalamar purchase, this book initially impressed more than the Kingdoms of Kalamar sourcebook did. In the end however, it got the same rating, and the same overall impression. Nice, hung together well enough, lots of NPCs in good detail, but numerous irritations and inconsistencies dragged it down. Worse, not one immediate idea for an adventure sprang to mind reading it. This might be a lack of imagination on my part (I'll not so humbly say that this is unlikely), or more likely the kinds of adventures suggested by this book don't appeal to me.

   This book is an exploration of a city in the campaign setting, and follows the same feel in that the emphasis is far more on the politics rather than old ruins or monsters. This is fine, but not quite what most people expect from AD&D. The cover is a very nice picture of a stone and a fire giant fighting while adventurers watch behind small hills, and the city in the background. Unfortunately, that's about all that these kinds of threats are seen, except in passing. The underground sewers are detailed well, but most areas are given the same "rumors of treasures hidden in the walls" treatment.

   So the emphasis is on the people and their interactions. The city overall is one with a very peaceful reputation. You have five main groups, the Castle, the Guilds, the Nobles, the Priests and the common people. The Castle and leaders seem mostly good, with the potential heir being somewhat weak, leading to worries as to what will happen if the Lord dies. The guilds are builders, craftsmen, parcel carriers, etc, and basically well respected. There are one or to evil guildmasters, but very little detailed as to if they have any real plans. The Nobles are the most interesting group at first, as they're disliked by the commoners and Guilds alike. But rather quickly it's obvious that most follow a pattern.. Leader of the house, the heir is almost always a young man or woman who either seeks adventure to make a name, seeks adventurers to provide a power base for when they become the leader, or weak/not interested in the job of being house leader. One or two plots are laid out in fair detail, but they still didn't really grab me, and the sameness of each noble house got monotonous after awhile.

   The religions are primarily good or neutral, and the evil religions again follow a pattern of only a few followers, want to expand their powerbase in the city, preparing to do so but not yet... One religion is truly evil, with some fleshing out of the despicable practices of its leader, but this was only a blip in the monotony. The shady dealings in the city are minimal and glossed over in the chapter devoted to this, because the town watch is so effective. The section on adventures is quite thin, and almost nothing in it really grabbed me.

   Another element of this book that I disliked were some writing style choices and inconsistencies.
   1. Names not always consistent between book, glossary (with page number where character is found) and the NPC list.
   2. Almost every paragraph had at least one word in quotes, sometimes needed but more than often not.. Example: "If being 'noble' accords him special privileges, he will shamelessly make use of them ... However, he knows very well that anyone who truly believes Talasaarans are 'better' than their fellow Geanavese..." These quotes interrupt the flow of reading for me.
   3. The authors use city-wide versions of common words throughout (at least they do explain the meaning) but this is annoying when they're for words like street, corner, avenue, left (sinister) and right (dexter). Again, it breaks up the flow.
   4. The walkthrough of the city switches from guide-book style of simple description to actual guide style ("Now, as we go down this street, we decide to turn in the sinister direction and...") multiple times. Combined with huge amounts of quotes and city specific terms, plus including information already mentioned in the rest of the book, this chapter seemed a waste.
   5. Sometimes the book goes into great detail about specific plots and plans (well, all of a couple of them), and other times things that it would help the DM to know are merely mentioned and then left alone as something that "No one really knows.". This seems inconsistent.

   Ok, so lots of complaints.. It still gets a three for the high production quality and the wealth of NPCs and locations included. The nits and sameness drag it down to just average.




2. One of the top challenges for a good DM is to run a quality city adventure, as you have to have lots of potential NPCs that your players can run in to - and, you often have to create a lot of them on the fly as well. This book gives the DM a lot of good information about a medium sized city that can be put into a lot of generic campaign settings fairly easily. You have information about the king and his family, then the idle rich "Blackflame" nobility (who can cause a lot of problems), the guilds, as well as the underworld. Very solid information, and not over the top/overpowered like some of Ed Greenwood's past work on the Forgotten Realms. If you want political intrigue in an adventure - you have tons of potential with the Blackflames and the guilds... if you want a dungeon crawl, the city has an extensive sewer system that you can populate with all kinds of bad guys... this book has a lot to offer anybody who is into D&D and the d20 system.

1 comments about Pathfinder #2 Rise Of The Runelords: The Skinsaw Murders (Pathfinder Adventure Path).

1. Like others who are likely interested in this I mourned the loss of Dungeon Magazine, but I havet say that if Dungeon had to go to make room for Pathfinder then it was worth it. Pathfinder 2 continues the excellence established in Rise of the Runelords. There is more creative freedom and adventurous innovation displayed in this series than in any other d20 product I've ever read. They don't just make encounters difficult they make them interesting. These books add considerable flavor to tried and true monsters like goblins and ghouls and provide new ones that are equally compelling. Additionally the creative story telling and excellent adventure design makes Pathfinder easy to cannabalize for use in Non-Pathfinder campaigns. The city of Magnimar (presented in this book) will be appearing in the next adventure set in my homebrew campaign world. The only minor gripes I have are that some of the interior art is subpar (though some of it is excellent as well) and the map of Magnimar is mis-labelled making it confusing. However Paizo has made a corrected (and more detailed) version of the map available for free download so that gripe has been completely rectified. In general the creativity and quality writing found in the Pathfinder series overwhelms any flaws it might have.

No comments about Ogre Shockwave.

1 comments about Super Mario World Game Secrets: The Unauthorized Edition (Secrets of the Games Series).

1. it thought it was really good and all people who play nintendo should get this book

No comments about The Final Bug: A Solo Operations Casebook (Top Secret S.I. RPG).

No comments about Volo's Guide to Waterdeep (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons/Forgotten Realms).

No comments about Buccaneers Of Freeport.

No comments about Siege of Durgams Folly (Sword Sorcery).

5 comments about Starships (Alternity Sci-Fi Roleplaying, #11319).

1. This was one of the better game supplements created by TSR in the past few years. There's a lot of added material that should have been put into the Gamemaster Guide in Starships, as well as the generally good quality that's Alternity's trademark. My only gripe is that this is really a supplement for StarDrive; there are a bunch of things that only work if you're using stardrives, which this book makes a beginner's toy. If it had a few less specialized ship systems and a few more ships to demonstrate them on, this would be a better book... but, even with my complaints, I can't recommend it to Alternity GMs enough.



2. This was one of the better game supplements created by TSR in the past few years. There's a lot of added material that should have been put into the Gamemaster Guide in Starships, as well as the generally good quality that's Alternity's trademark. My only gripe is that this is really a supplement for StarDrive; there are a bunch of things that only work if you're using stardrives, which this book makes a beginner's toy. If it had a few less specialized ship systems and a few more ships to demonstrate them on, this would be a better book... but, even with my complaints, I can't recommend it to Alternity GMs enough.



3. This book includes lots of new accessories for the budding starship captain as well as a selection of sample starships. The new stuff is useful to have but the starships are a little bland. While i understand that the writers wanted to get a good selection of different starship designs, they should have focused more on the ships likely to interest players like tramp freighters. I wouldn't call short range one-man fighters 'starships' and a fuel tanker and a minelayer! I'm sorry to say that I've seen designs of better utility free on fan webpages. While the ship diagrams are excellent, the other interior art is truly disgraceful for a product from a major gaming company. The bottom line: this book is nice but you probably won't miss having it.



4. The first section of the book is an expansion of the existing Starship rules are presented in the GM's Guide. Lots of new starship accessories and plenty of sample ships (a few good ones, most are not really exciting to players). Alternity gamers who enjoy creating their own ship designs (like yours truly) will love the expanded options available. In addition, a more detailed ship-to-ship combat system is also included, though maths-haters should probably steer wide of it. One exclusion I would have liked was rules for capital ships, but I guess this will be in a future book. While the ship diagrams are clean and well done, the other interior artwork is amatuerish and detracts from the otherwise well written book. Old-time Traveller players who bought and loved the High Guard book should defintely get this one.



5. Starships is an accessory to the popular Alternity sci-fi gaming system, a refreshingly clean and to-the-point book of ideas and optional rules in an industry of bloated add-ons. This supplement is designed to please both the casual gamemaster and the rabid spacecraft aficionado.

   Alternity being a game with emphasis on "design your own worlds" campaigns, the first section of this book is largely about options and possibilities for combat, damage and tactics, space travel and its "history" in your campaign, star drives and other methods of star hopping (such as gates and wormholes), spaceports, and spaceship skills for heroes. Author David Eckelberry includes three styles of space combat system: "narrative combat" being the easiest, "visual combat" allowing more maneuvering detail, and "3-D vector combat" being for ruler-and-calculator fans. Ship design and systems are the topic for the second portion of the book; much of this information is handily stacked in table form and compact sidebars. The book's final section, easily the largest at 35 pages long, contains 18 predesigned ships with deck plans and descriptions, ranging from planet hopping two-seaters to freighters and cryogenic colony ships to military vessels. Optional features are suggested for most of the ships, making customization on the fly a snap, and the deck plans are detailed enough for quick creation of shipboard battle scenes.

   Quite a timesaver; an excellent addition to an Alternity game.

   --Sharon Daugherty for Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine

No comments about Arachnid Army Book (Starship Troopers) (Starship Troopers).