farewell2kings's page

I must be fair and inform you that I am friends with the author, but I bought his book on Lulu to support his efforts and I will be fair with my review. It's great that Paizo is now offering this book. Here it goes: This book is about as far away from mainstream as you can get. I called it the Anti-Harry Potter, but that doesn't even begin to do it justice. Read it for the shock value. Read it for the zinging one liners. Read it for the fascinating setting--a world familiar yet horrifying. The novel moves at a break neck speed, fueled by pornographic images, the longing for cigarettes and vodka fueled strippers and a desperate need to be accepted and/or save the United States from demons. Giving more details would be giving out spoilers and one should... More > not spoil the fun that is this novel. As a fan of conventional fantasy, hard core science fiction, alternate history novels and historically based stories, I wasn't sure what to make of this book. I'm still not sure. After reading it, I'm sure I've damaged my psyche' somehow and I will never, ever, ever use the term goatboy again. Clinton Boomer's imagination and the ability to create a mood is incredible. The novel leaves many literary conventions behind...many loops are left open, many issues unresolved, but finishing it was like finishing a sprint....a sprint where your pursuer wants to rape you and you cross the finish line, winded, victorious, with a leather clad stripper handing you a cold beer at the end and smacking you on the rear end. You feel slightly violated, but also slightly vindicated. I want Royden Poole to take over Hogwarts. If you're a teenager and you want to shock your parents, read this book. If you're a "grown up" and want to to laugh our butt off, shake your head in mock disgust and wonder about 'who the hell thought this stuff up?' read this book. You'll never be the same, I guarantee it.

I picked this game up at GenCon as a stand-in for nights when not enough players show up for a D&D game. What a perfect choice! This game is never the same thing twice and while it's simple to play, the choices and approaches vary greatly and many different strategies can be employed to try to win this game. Once you get used to the rules, the game is very fast to play, but the 60 minute time advertised on the box is a very optimistic estimate. Party selection, magic item placement and spell selection is very similar to the choices one would make in a fantasy RPG and gives it the RPG feel. I played the game tonight against just one other person and it was a lot of fun. Here are some problems, none of which prevented me from giving it a 5 star rating, which it deserves, but should be worked out in the game's next print run--1) Rule clarifications desperately needed in many places. 2) Some cards and rule references refer to some terminology not present in the game (blacksmith cards). A simple answer fixes this issue, but for a $60 game, I expected a little more quality control. 3) The box is too small to hold all the pieces after they've been punched out from the counter sheets. This means the game box won't last very long, which is too bad because it's attractive.

Still, overall, this is a GREAT board game!! Dozens and dozens of unique characters, combined with unique items, strange traps, weapons, magic, spells, prayers...the variety produced by the simple combinations is virtually endless. The board is two sided, one a smaller dungeon and the other one is a larger one for experienced players and/or larger groups. Well designed--just needs some errata TLC and some tweaking and it'll be perfect. Best board game I've played since Settlers of Catan, hands down.

Reign of Discordia is a classic science fiction RPG product, integrated into the elegant and easy to play True20 system. Darrin Drader and RDP did a great job of recreating the feel, look and flavor of some of the timeless early Science
Fiction RPGs such as Traveler, Edward Simbalist's original "Space Opera" and Spacemaster. Rules for starship combat are detailed and complete, yet integrate well into the fast moving combat rules of True20. No endless chart flipping here, but the rules are thorough enough to provide even detail oriented players with a satisfying gaming experience where their characters can make the difference between life and gory inter stellar defat. The production quality is very high for a PDF product. The book contains bautiful starmaps and I loved the mini-planet illustrations in color. Almost half of the book is fluff tailored to the specific Reign of Discordia setting which details humans rise to faster than light travel and then downfall into a miniature interstellar dark ages after warfare with alien races. Half mile long battlecruisers, hardened space miners that seek hydrogen in the void of space, dingy space stations with curiously alien patrons--no staple of Space Opera has been left untouched by Reign of Discordia. There's nothing groundbreaking here--the history and backstory that the book presents can be taken or left by any narrator. The rules for equipment, character paths, additional feats, added explanations for skill use and a nicely detailed combat and starship customization system make for a slightly more complex True20 gaming experience, but as someone who has played Traveler, Spacemaster, FASA's Star Trek RPG and even Star Frontiers, I can honestly say that Reign of Discordia is a very complete and thorough product that works very well. You don't necessarily need Mr. Drader's entertaining and well written campaign world to enjoy this book. You get a complete Space Opera genre for True20 with lots of classic SciFi goodness.

Wow--I feel dirty just having read this book. What a nasty race of beings. I ditto what GGG said about this supplement. It can be easily adapted for 3.5 and other game systems, since True20 is so rules light.

Blight Elves gives you an instant campaign villain--a whole society of incredibly evil, incredibly vile and fully detailed elves who are going to make even veteran players squirm. There are so many ideas and concepts in this book that can be robbed for your campaign. If your campaign is languishing mid term and needs a kick start--have your players encounter and start fighting the blight elves and they'll not rest until every last one of these b+%%#es if put to the sword.

How crazy is this? I'm going to adapt this supplement for my Star Trek True20 game--these lovelies are going to make a horrifying villain--a whole planet of Blight Elves and they ain't afraid to go into space to spread the 'love.'

After many years of neglecting my decades old pulp addiction, Almuric arrived on my doorstep. I was halfway through a different book, but I put it down to read this one in two days. What a refreshment! Howard's visions are just a blast to read. Mighty thews, lopping of the heads of your depraved enemies while seducing the ivory skinned fair maidens of an alien planet....this book is just plain FUN!

I really liked the old Merle Rasmussen Top Secret game and its followup, Top Secret/SI. Both of those game systems lacked playability, but had tons of flavor and were excellent tools for modern RPG action. Now this supplement allows someone to bring that same kind of wonderful spy action flavor into their modern campaign, with the playability and flexibility of the True20 system to boot. Well done!

The appearance and font reminds me a lot of Dragon magazine of old. So do the eclectic mix of articles and features....that's a double and triple winner in my book--tug at my nostalgic heart strings and deliver useful gaming material on top of that! That list of Underdark monsters arranged by CR ratings is very immediately useful and I like stuff like that.

I just got the print copy and what a wonderfully glossy, shiny, high quality product it is. I know it's expensive at $12.99, but it is even better quality (much, much better) than any other printed module I've ever seen. The maps are gorgeous and on thick card stock and the glossy pages just jump out at you. The module by Nicolas Logue is a great piece of work as well. Loved the colorful descriptions of the kobold king and while the plot appears simple, the complex NPC descriptions, designer notes and especially the notes about what the NPCs do after the adventure is over are really great ideas and well done. If this is what Gamemastery modules will all be like, I'm all there!!!

A great adventure, while simple and straightforward, it's exactly what most DM's need--a quick short adventure to get the dice rolling and engage the players. Good for newbies as well, the mix of wildernis, role-playing and dungeon adventuring in this little gem are a great formula.

I guess you're obligated to buy this movie if you're a gamer, since it mentions RPGs, but overall it isn't all that funny. There are some funny parts, but I recommend that if you buy this movie, don't watch it sober, or you'll be pretty disappointed.

Don't even think it compares to Dead Gentlemen's "The Gamers."

I edited this review because someone gave it 4 stars and 3 stars? What planet do these people live on??? The movie blows, not quite as bad as the original D&D movie, but almost!!!

This is a great product to hand the players at the start of the campaign. The map of the city of Sasserine is very detailed and very high quality. Nice job.

Those individuals that are complaining about Paizo offering it for free now when they paid for it should realize that the paper quality and thick map cardstock would cost them just as much to print out in such high quality. If they feel they got ripped off anyway, then there's no helping them. Take the player's guide to Kinkos and see how much they'd charge you to print it out on the same high quality paper that the hard copy Player's guide used.

I got #345 yesterday and after Oots, I read the Kostchtchie demonicon article and it is very, very cool. I could think of a campaign where the players have to face thralls of Kostchtchie and aspects of Kostchtchie and all this great background data was included. Awesome article!!!

The rest of the issue was really good too...I definitely got my $8 worth (oh wait, I subscribe, I definitely got my $3.50 something's worth)

The Were_platypus' equipment array class act is a really good idea. I've been kind of doing something similar for several years, but he put more thought and detail into it and it's one of those articles that's instantly useful in any game.

The Sea serpent article is something I've been waiting for a long time without knowing it. It would be cool if some of them made an appearance in Savage Tide, but they're really good for any seaborne campaign.

Overall, there wasn't any weak area in this magazine. I'm not a hopeless fanboy all the time as I've questioned some things Dragon does before, but this issue is just stuffed with useful material.

Voyage of the Princess Ark brought back so many awesome memories to Dragon of old that it made me a little choked up.

Gord--never a huge fan of the novels, but the nostalgia gates were wide open.

Many cool Dragon related articles.

The prison backdrop from Eberron was also very nice and easily adaptable for another campaign.

Solid issue, Happy anniversary Dragon!!!

They're very nice, high quality and add a nice visual enhancement to my D&D campaign. Good job, I'll order more.

It's like a whole book full of Campaign Workbooks rolled into one. I agree with Steve Greer, if you're looking for DM advice or some inspiration to jump start your creative juices, this is THE single best book to get. The advice is largely non-game system dependent and can be easily used in 3.5 with no fuss at all.

I guess I didn't realize how much the classic AD&D content tugged at my heartstrings until I saw the incredible article revisiting all those classic monsters that didn't make it to 3.5. How cool! My wife's favorite monster made it into the magazine as well--the giff. What a great magazine this issue was....all the classic goodness redone for 3.5 is a surefire winner for me every time.

I had hoped for more "classic" content, but what I got was an extremely useful hardcover book. The artwork is awesome. While I don't plan on using most of the prestige and core classes in the book, there's lots of inspirational material therein and many of the feats are very useful.

The equipment and magic item section is very useful and re-introduced some weapons from 1st edition that had been left out of the PH. I particularly liked the broad-bladed shortspear.

The critical hits and bad misses article was the one I had eagerly awaited--I was curious to see how it was reworked for 3rd edition. It's a workable system, but didn't quite have the instant "cool" impact that the original article did.

Room for improvement? Just a little, I'm reserving the 5 star review for the Dragon Compendium that really blows me away, but I sure got my money's worth and there's lots of stuff in here that I can use in my campaign.

Bloodline Feats--Awesome, I really liked their inclusion in this book!!

Just got it in the mail today! Very attractive maps, very useful product. This will help run a game on the fly. Excellent value for the money.

This is the first 2nd edition PDF that I've downloaded to help round out my 3.5 WoG campaign and I'm very happy with it. Pretty decent scans and the content is just the fluff I was looking for to round out my WoG campaign. I didn't realize this product was written right before 3rd edition came out, I thought it was older.

A lot of content for $4--I like it--thanks!

The Harrowing is awesome--I can't wait to run my players through it.

The Dying of the Light is a great vampire module--weak story and weak plot, but an awesome set of opponents in a cool setting...great stuff.

Armistice was a very unique adventure--a different approach and not your usual run of the mill adventure.

Dungeon of the Fire Opal has a classic feel to it as it details the dungeon that the "example" dungeon in the DMG is based on. I guess it's classic because the limed over corpse of the abbot is still in the entry room--just like the sample dungeon in the 1st edition DMG...loved it!

The article on staves was very good. I liked several of the class act articles, especially the Solstice Knight.

OOTS was awesome and is a great addition to Dragon. My wife loves OOTS and now she won't balk when I resubscribe.

Not as good as Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, this book was nevertheless a good extension of the 1st edition rules.

It was okay. A lot of the stuff in this book made AD&D unnecessarily complicated, but we gobbled it up like chunks of raw meat thrown to starving wolves in 1985. Now, looking at it through the filter of time and retrospection, this book was probably the precursor to the many abominations that 2nd edition spawned. I think this book brought on the premier of power-gaming. It's not a bad book, but I fear that this book contaminated the game forever.

What a classic! Fond memories.....my copy is so worn out.

....it's okay, but...you should try to find Deities & Demigods instead.

If it wasn't for the Githyanki and the Githzerai, this book may have only rated 3 stars, but it's still okay. Many of AD&D's more "unusual" creatures were found in this book...and many that probably should have never seen the light of day.....but then there were the Githyanki.....

The description and 3-D map of the sample DeepEarth setting alone make this book a great purchase. $4 for a PDF of this book is well worth it. Many of the rules are easy to convert to 3rd edition if you want to, but this book will stimulate your imagination with great ideas like no other supplement (certainly not 3.5 supplements) that I've found. Just great!

If you play D&D of any kind..this book belongs on your bookshelf. Written by Gary Gygax--this book defined the hobby in the late 70's. Not much useful stuff here for 3rd edition gamers, but you'll gain such an appreciation of the old system--and why 3rd edition is better--but, oh...the flavor of 1st edition cannot be recaptured, ever.

Sure, there's great monsters, but what's even better are the encounter tables. An elegantly simple system combining d12/d8 into a terrain specific encounter table that contains all the monsters found in 1st edition, these encounter tables were one of the most useful and often used features of this book. Many of these creatures got converted to 3rd edition, so these encounter tables may even be useful to 3rd edition gamers...as they are still to me.

I have not picked up any of the 3rd edition Oriental Adventures books because this book is very good, in my opinion. Sure, 3rd edition gamers will need to do some converting, but there's a lot of material here for setting up oriental campaigns and the book certainly captures the flavor of the settings. I really enjoy (ed) the event tables for running a manor, which I still use to this day.

Not great, but it may be worth a download for $4. There are certainly many ideas to mine here, but unless you're still playing 1st or 2nd edition, not as useful for 3rd edition gamers, as these adventures are designed for dropping into a campaign with a minimum of preparation---which won't apply if you have to convert it to 3rd edition. Still, not a bad deal. I still have my old hard copy from back then and glance at it occasionally.

Great adventure...the NPC's are memorable, it has a solid plot and very good maps, especially the Adlerweg Keep. The flavor of the adventure is very gritty...one of my favorite classic modules.

If there's one AD&D 1st edition product you could easily use for your 3.5 game--it's this one. An adventure cook book for DM's with brain freeze--very useful. I got mine in 1987 and still use it frequently.

Designed by Gary Gygax...introduces the Behir! These dangerous caves in the Yatil Mountains are just a great, great adventure. The main villain is one the PC's will never forget. Traps, puzzles, dangerous creatures galore...this could be AD&D's best adventure ever, certainly one of the top 5.

Well designed village, believable NPC's, great dungeon--this was and is still one of my favorite adventures of all time. Just leafing through it brings back many fond gaming memories. Highly recommended!!

This was the first D&D module I ever played..in 1980. It probably seems very humble to the sophisticated gamers of today, but if you're looking for one single adventure to teach you how to design and run a "dungeon", this is it. This adventure allowed you to stock your own dungeon and featured many timeless tips for DM's that still apply to 3.5

One of the best modules ever written for D&D, AD&D or any game system. This 25 year old adventure features a rudimentary 3-D map and an awesome setting. Tom Moldvay's best! I spent many enjoyable hours in my high school days running my players through this module, which is more like a mini-campaign if you flesh out the bonus material.

As with D20 apocalypse, this book is very weak. Basically, there are some half-way decent ideas in here, but it seems, again, very forced--like WotC wanted to put something out to cover this era and had to cram it into something you could buy for less than $20...and cover 1450 to 1950.
Don't buy this, try to get something more specific to cover the time period you want to set your campaign in. By trying to cover everything, this book covers...nothing.

If you play 3.5, you will still find many useful things in this book. If you buy only one 1st edition rule book, buy the DMG. I've had mine since 1981 and it is just a super resource for DM's. I cracked mine open a few weeks ago and it was just surprising how much stuff in there could still be applied to 3.5. Well worth the $4, even if just to take a trip down memory lane or connect with the way the game used to be played.

While I don't play Eberron, the Lords of Dust article was fascinating. I especially liked the ecology of the Shadar-Kai. There were few weak points in this magazine, and I'm always a sucker for a good miniatures scale battle mat...the Drow Outpost is an excellent added value. Great job, Paizo.

My first issue after resubscribing to Dragon after a twenty-two year pause in my subscription. Had a negative impression of the magazine since 3rd edition came out, which was quickly disspelled.

The Fires of Alchemy was extremely useful and almost immediately adopted into my game. I'm going to use the map of Crimmor for another City in my campaign and I adopted two of the spells from Spellcraft. Class Acts is too short, but overall, the magazine was well worth the money.

Beyond the awesome Greyhawk Map, this issue is excellent. I have already run Fiend's Embrace and it is an excellent adventure. I'm going to run the Styes this weekend and will probably use the third adventure sometime after that. It's rare to find an issue where each adventure is better than the next! Hats off to Paizo on this one.