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Under Hill, By Water
Publisher: Rise Up Comus
by Kurt M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/19/2022 07:54:10

This little game is utterly delightful! I've run tons of grand epic fantasy and more grim-dark than I care to admit to, but it is truly entertaining to play wee folk who have simple lives and haven't even heard of a dragon. The game lends itself nicely to play by post and solo play. Right now I'm about to print off another copy and tuck it in my One Ring Starter Box with its Shire sourcebook, to add some additional Hobbit flavor if I get to run that game (and to help generate Hobbit villages on the fly.) Highly recommended. Good for young players and gentle folk who need eased into something a little less Murderhobo.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Under Hill, By Water
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Moon Mutants Issue #1
Publisher: Dungeon Remixer
by Kurt M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/07/2022 23:36:02

Fantastic setting for DCC! (Though I'm likely to use it for a Neon Lords game, when I get a chance.) Great tables for generating Moon cities on the fly, with encounters that are bizarre enough to raise an eyebrow--even in DCC, which is something of an accomplishment. Sentient marauding Lunar Rovers. Malleable Moon Mutants whose bodies have been altered by eating mysterious "Moon Stuff" (influences of THE STUFF, an underappreciated classic from days past). Xenos, robots, thriving drug markets, oxygen traders. My only complaint is that there are only four issues projected for the setting's zine. Note: to get the most out of the Moon Professions table (for those deliriously fun DCC "funnels") you'll need the Class Alphabet for Dungeon Crawl Classics (from the same publisher). Otherwise your Velociraptor Student won't have a chance to join the party searching for a cannibal mutant serial killer loose in the city... Great stuff. Go buy it!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Moon Mutants Issue #1
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Dark Graal
Publisher: Trollish Delver Games
by Kurt M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/06/2021 11:02:40

A very interesting take on the familiar Arthurian tropes. Good core mechanic that pretty much dominates the system. It's a very Lite rules set so prep and Chargen are ridiculously simple, but it allows for some surprising depth of character with just a little effort. The Afflictions and their effects get pretty grim pretty fast. Don't get too attached to your Knight because he's likely not going to last very long! Would have benefitted from more extensive development of the setting but what is presented is nightmarish enough to convey the Horror in Armor atmospere sufficiently. Hoping more detail could be coming in subsequent releases. Not going to replace Pendragon as the Arthurian rpg of choice any time soon, but a great dark alternative for some Lite Horror pick up games when the Halloween season starts!



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Dark Graal
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NEUROCITY
Publisher: Gavriel Quiroga
by Kurt M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/15/2020 20:51:14

A damn fine dystopian future game! The setting is a high tech city slowly crumbling, both physically and culturally. Citizens are controlled and closely monitored by an implacable AI and its servantss Characters are inhabitants of the city struggling to gain what freedom they can, without attracting the attention of the city's enforcers--while trying to relieve the Stress caused by living in such a psychological pressure cooker. They can work for the AI, tracking down and controlling criminal outbreaks, or they can join the growing underground resisting control, or they can just try to survive and stay sane. The game clearly shows its roots, mixing elements from works like Brave New World, 1984, Dark City, and a whole lit inbetween. It's sort of the Best of the Worst of the future. i enjoy it a lot!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
NEUROCITY
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Accounting for the Dead: The Savage Age Volume One
Publisher: White Wolf
by Kurt M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/21/2020 22:31:24

Well, I thought I had put the World of Darkness behind me.

My WoD gaming group broke up years ago and I haven’t run a WoD game in four years. Haven’t run a regular game in more like seven or eight. Heck, I was considering selling off my ridiculously huge collection of Storyteller games, even.

But then I got a look at Werewolf the Savage Age!

The Khara caught my eye. Were-Sabertooths!

And then there was the prospect of Neanderthal characters.

The idea of playing Lost Breeds, without any finagling with canonical mythos was a big draw. And the chance to run the War of Rage looked very tempting. Reading through the book, there are a lot of great hooks and inspirations for games I’d like to run. For me that’s the most important thing about a game book, does it make me excited to run something using the material in the book. Werewolf the Savage Age does that in spades!

Apis Minotaurs breeding human lines to fit their plans for the future. Neanderthal Grondr were-boars running and rooting through the forest in search of tainted Wyrm creatures. The jackal spawned Anupu-Ba-El overseeing the birth of burial rites and quelling unquiet ghosts, long before their decision to make common cause with the Garou against the other Fera. There are a lot of stories that I’m excited to tell with this book!

The art is fierce and jagged and primitive looking, perfect for the age it illustrates.

The mechanics look sound. There are lots of Gifts that look like they would be fun to play. Though, honestly, I can’t judge how well balanced that material is without running the game.

The closest thing to a weakness with the whole package that I can see is that I don’t find the introductory fiction bits particularly interesting. Not bad, mind you, but nothing that draws me in and keeps me from flipping past the intros to get to the good stuff. That’s a minor quibble, and to be honest I’ve never really been a fan of the WoD intro fiction anyway. It only rarely seemed worth the effort to me. There are some offbeat decisions that gave me pause. The backstory for the Apis covers an unimaginably vast length of time (for PCs, anyway). But it also gives us the hooved predatory ancestors of bovines, the Mesonyx, whose traits still pop up in rare atavistic individuals many speciations later. That’s just so…weird…that I can’t wait to use it, or play one myself. It also inspires me to wonder about an even earlier setting with even more primitive hominids and Fera based on extinct species that didn’t survive to be exterminated in the Garou’s War of Rage.

Things I want to run with this book:

An Apis Folding migrating with their long legged, early Sapiens kinfolk and a herd of wildebeest-like animal kin, trying to escape from some hideous Wyrm menace, only to find their way blocked by a river full of hungry and hostile Mokole. Shallow and muddy in the material world, the river is wild and elemental in the Umbra. Just the thing to cut off pursuit by the Wyrm-things—if the Apis can find a way to get around the Mokole.

A Grondr Sounder trying to purge their forest from a horrible fungoid Wyrm menace—tattooed Neanderthals thrashing and fighting through the forests battling burrowing myconids. Didn’t somebody have a Clanbook Matango out there? That could be useful…

Khara battling Mammoth fomori in the harsh Ice Age wastelands of North America. There are just so many cool things you can do with Werewolf the Savage Age! And I haven’t even looked at the second volume with its War of Rage stuff! In short, yeah. I recommend this one. I’m excited about it myself. I am already looking for the perfect dice set to use in my new game, once I can talk a few gamers into trying it…



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Accounting for the Dead: The Savage Age Volume One
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Operation Unfathomable
Publisher: Hydra Cooperative
by Kurt M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/26/2018 05:00:03

Brilliant! Baffling! Bizarre! Utterly confounding. Just the most amazing coagulation of weirdness I've seen in a long time. Perhaps the best thing about it is the complete lack of predictable OSR vermin. Not a Goblin Fight to be seen! EVERYthing is nonstandard, unique, or just too damn strange to be dealt with the Usual Way. Unique creatures, civilizations, and locales. Makes for incredible fun just reading. MUST find out how it runs. While the presentation leans toward the gonzo and humorously bizarre, it would be very, very easy to run it with a darker than darkly dark grim Lovecraftian tone. I want to see more of this Underground setting. I want to send Player Characters drifting on the Black Ooze River on an ill-advised mission of Corsair mayhem. I can barely wait to write my own adventures in this setting, after enough tasty beverages to get into the appropriate mind-set. In short... I have to kind of recommend it. Lots of fun with endless applications. ALL HAIL SHAGGATH KA THE WORM SULTAN. and stuff.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Operation Unfathomable
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Our Lady of Sorrows
Publisher: White Wolf
by Kurt M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/24/2017 15:47:07

Short, but full of atmosphere. I'm sorry, but I just never get tired of Giovanni Mafie Gangster fun! This is the set-up for an ongoing Giovanni-centric chronicle and it looks to be quite entertaining. If I had more time, I would be running this right now. Even in the short space available, the Carbine and Carbon Building is a character in and of itself. I admit that I am a little baffled by the lack of Disciplines in the write-ups for the Giovanni Don and his right hand guy, but since they are mostly high level plot movers and unassailable by neonate characters, I don't see that as an insurmountable problem. The personalities of the characters are well-drawn and more than sufficient for the needs of this introductory scenario. I rate this: A slow Goomba nod and a thumbs up!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Our Lady of Sorrows
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Madison by Night
Publisher: White Wolf
by Kurt M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/23/2017 20:45:35

Great setting information and a wonderful cast of Vampire characters to play with! Looking forward to future expansions! Mad City rest-stop on the Anarch Highway! Very cool.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Madison by Night
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Clanbook: Karnstein
Publisher: White Wolf
by Kurt M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/23/2017 20:38:05

Wow. Nicely done! I like the write up for Carmilla a lot and the whole Clan history is very well done, with two divergent legends about how the bloodline began (I tend to like the second one the best!). The IC parts are well-written and add flavor while also providing useful information on running Karnsteins. The Karnsteins are a nicely balanced minor bloodline which can easily be dropped into any Chronicle to add some flavor, but won't drastically distort any of the usual elements of the canonical WoD. There aren't enough of them to change politics and their signature Discipline, Pretense, is interesting without being overpowering. With archetypes provided, there are LOTS of ways to incorporate Karnsteins into a game. Right off the bat I found myself designing a Golconda "Prophet" using the Pretense powers to lure gullible marks into eradicating themselves. The Karnsteins are creepy and tragic and romantic all at the same time, which is as it should be! Recommended!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Clanbook: Karnstein
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Engagement
Publisher: White Wolf
by Kurt M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/22/2017 23:21:31

A well-written short piece describing a new Discipline, a variant of Presence, which is useful and well balanced. The Engagement powers are carefully presented with just enough tweaks to be interesting and several built story hooks. The origin of the new Discipline is described and there are write-ups for the 14th Gen Inceptor who created it and his cold and cruel Sire who has taken the credit for it. The characters are worth the cost of the product in themselves as both come with interesting backstories and an insight into Toreador politics that would be easy to spin into a number of stories. The new Discipline, "Engagement", is centered on the relationships between artist and audience with four ranks worth of powers, each with with systems, examples, and potential pitfalls. All in all a nifty package with lots of usable stuff, well worth the miniscule price!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Engagement
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