This is a great little resource that already after 5 mins has inspired me 1d12 times for a starting situation for my new game. I am sure to use this many more times during this game's progress!

Alpha Blue by Venger Satanis, Review by Kurt R.

Think of this as “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” on Sci-Fi steroids. This PDF is a Rule-set and Campaign Setting for a space station that cruises the galaxy offering Sex, Drugs and Rock-n-Roll. This is a mature and adult offering, please be advised!

After the introduction pages, 6 through 35 are how this rules-light system can be run, and a chapter on character creation. These rules are fairly straightforward and use a basic concept of dice pools of d6s with advantages and disadvantages to resolve non-combat and combat alike. These should work well for fast encounters and situations. There’s also a quick guide for OSR conversion, on page 12. There are lots of great tables for adding randomness to the game, but the table on page 30 is my favorite, because it lists, ‘Space Mountain Dew’...LOL. These tables and other references from our own time are listed throughout this eBook. Whether it’s Farscape or Doctor Who, Star Wars, or Planet of the Apes, there’s a little something for everyone, there are also tons puns all over the place Next begins the section on character creation, lots of tables for random options from occupation, fashion and alien forms and sexual fantasy and fetishes. You can go wild with these and just when you think you know what you want, other choices will show up to distract you, much like the ‘Satisfiers’ of Alpha Blue.

Pages 36 to 45 are a run-down titled, “About the Universe”, first the factions that the Space Game Master can throw at the players and then ‘Universal Phenomena’ that occur throughout the galaxies every day. These are great little snapshots about interesting and sometimes deadly things and that can add spice to your game, it’s a great list!

The Alpha Blue training manual starts at page 46 and goes to page 65, includes the life forms, men, and ‘Oh’ the women as well as mechanical bodies that inhabit the space station, including the main computer, maintenance crews, drugs and space TV stations. This is a city in space traveling around picking up beings from all over and dropping others off along the route. There’s lots of great material here, you could spend many game sessions just having your PCs exploring every nook and cranny of Alpha Blue. There’s plenty of sex for everyone on board!

The next section, pages 66 to 82 is the readout of the various sections of the Alpha Blue directory. These areas, like the medical bay, the spa, the Holodeck and the Pleasure Dome, and all the rest of the locations have write-ups about them that really flesh...heh… out the station to give it the feel of being a real place.

The next 4 pages list out some adventure starters that you can use to get your players in trouble in no time. With the next sections being, NPCs, Technology, Potential Enemies, Campaign Advice, Space Station Maps, Character sheets and Notes. I really like the Advice part, really shows you some insight for how to get your Space GM mind in the role for these adventures, but they should be treated like mini-TV series and maybe even a block-buster movie.

Overall this eBook is well thought out and should make for a great game, just for an older crowd of gamers that like to explore a new kind of space adventure. It is bookmarked throughout and should be relatively easy to print off at home or at your favorite copy shop. There’s very evocative art though the book and it’s, pretty racey, but provides a look into the station’s life and goings on. The layout is top notch, because Glynn Seal of Monkey Blood Design, took care of formatting and Cartography.

I would love to run this and play it too, so I give this 5 Blue Stars.

Disclosure: I was given a free review copy of this eBook.

Between the Star & Void – A Reading Review by Kurt R

This is a great expansion offing from Matthew Skail and his DYS Games. The Star Knights and the opposing Void Knights are expanded upon and explained in great detail in this White Star Compatible PDF.

The PDF is 109 pages with 101 pages of content and it is bookmarked. It contains 5 classes, the Star Knight, Mystic, Star Pilot Way Adapt and Alien Star Knight, as well as Meditations, combat styles and new material on the Void Knights and their powers.

Reading this was a joy, very easy to read in the 6”x 9” format even on my tablet, single column and large type makes it readable while at a comfortable distance from your device. The cover page is a great piece of work by Joe Singleton and conjures mental pictures of the up coming battles to be waged. There are a few black and white and color interior illustrations that set the mood while letting your imagination wander.

While reading the Star Knight Meditations I was constantly remembering scenes from some little movies that came out between 1977 and 1983, I think you know the ones I am referring to! These are well thought out and look balanced and quite brief to allow for GM alteration, if he or she finds it necessary. They cover many powers you are used to seeing and might have used in other 1977 Space Fantasy RPGs. Construction of Star Swords is covered here in several pages and allows for modifications to enhance them for Accuracy, Armor Piercing, extra damage and adding to AC.

Most of the additional material is about the mysterious Void and the Knights who serve it. These fallen knights are given the “Star” treatment as far as what you can do to with them for use against your players, they seem to be geared towards only being NPCs and protagonists, not as player characters. Their powers are brutal and very scary, you don't want to fight one unless you are very prepared and probably a Star Knight. They have what are called “Enpowerments” like Cause Fear, Syphon Life, Dark Impulse Void Blood and Deadly Will, just to name a few.

Next is a section on equipment and ships, that include 4 Star Sword variants, crystals that improve Meditations, and some Ships of the Way.

There are 3 Appendices, the first one is an alternate way to level the Meditations for the users of the Way, to allow for a more front loaded campaign power base. This details out a new system that is a departure from regular OSR type rules, but again this is very well done and I would love to play with these rules sometime. The Second Appendix is Fantasy Conversions for S&W Complete, Labyrinth Lord and ACKS. These are single generic stat blocks that can be used by any of these systems with a bit of additional tweaking for ACKS, The final Appendix is a section for Reaction Rolls that can be used when players are running into NPCs, guards or hirelings.

This book is a great addition to the basic White Star game and I would recommend it for all of the WS buyers to pick this up too. 5 Stars and they are shining brightly.

No Escape from New York a Crimson Dragon Slayer Adventure – Review

This is the first “module” for CDS and oh it's a doozie! Similar to Venger's other products this one isn't for the faint of heart, definitely rated “R” mainly due to the sexual content. It's a no holds barred New York that others have never experienced.

This PDF is 24 pages with 17 of that actual game material. It starts off kinda of interesting, with the players in the 1980s playing a new video game and getting sucked into a parallel and very different New York city, where it's always night, dusk or dawn...No Daylight!

The interior art is by artist Bojan Sucevic and is Fantastic! And there are several Easter Eggs to be found in the art too. Really sets the mood and environment and the layout is very similar to CDS and is setup by Glynn Seal of Monkey Blood Design. I love the quotes that set off by, normally empty, white space.

The writing is, well Venger, as only he can do. Very descriptive and raunchy, I had to cringe a couple of times and come back to it later. This is however only the third book of his that I read read through, but it's growing on me.

There are many options in this open city and they all have little bits of brilliance that the players can look forward to. There are gangs to contend with and 'Out of Towners”, hookers and a hot dog stand among other groups of bad guys and gals. There are several outcomes towards the end game for NYC and none of them are very easy.

Overall this is very well done and I would love to play it sometime, maybe even GM it.

I give this 5 out of 5 Stars, very recommended.

Setting Works – Near-Future Rescue Worker – Review

This booklet PDF is 10 pages and 8 of those are content about Rescue Workers with bookmarks. This product is the second of the series called “Settings Works”, a group of PDFs that cover various aspects of Future professions and how to integrate them into your game worlds.

This one covers firefighters, EMTs and Paramedics in some detail, you are introduced to the players with a short story about some of these rescuers that will be continued in the following booklets. The story instantly had me wanting more of it, the writing is excellent.

Next it goes into gear that the rescuers would use on their person and vehicles, then a short synopsis of 3 PC and/or NPC players. Commanders, Drivers and Workers are given a quick treatment, but I would have liked to see a bit more detail here, these could have been expanded upon with a little bit effort, but what is there, will get the Game Master going enough to start a game session or two.

There are some scenarios covered here, but I don't think an entire campaign can be written with just this product. Maybe an alternating sessions between rescue workers and the first FREE offering in this series, “Near-Future Detectives”.

This one is well done and well written I just wanted a bit more out of it, I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Enchanter Class for Labyrinth Lord and OSR Games – Review by Kurt R

This is the first product by Brett Slocum and his newly created Welsh Bard Games and is offered as PWYW with a suggested price of $1.00; with additional commentary by James Spahn and Ian Borchardt

The first 2 pages are the cover and OGL and pages 3 through 6 are the content. The illustrations are great and very classical. The Enchanter class is a Spirit talker of sorts and I can see it being useful in many types of games, it is well thought out and includes example play in the last page and a half.

The special Class ability is Sense and Command Spirits and this is well written and easy to understand. The reaction roll determines the Spirit's willingness to help the Enchanter by casting spells for them. The Experience table is the same progression as a LL Magic-User and I think an Enchanter would be about on par with a MU of the same level.

One thing that stands out is the optional rules for quickly determining the Spirits element and level, using a standard playing card deck or a Tarot deck. Each suit is one of the elements and the face cards help determine the level of the Spirit.

I rate this 5 stars and recommend it to you without reservations.

Amazons of Valsuum – A Review by Kurt R

This is an interesting little adventure for 4 to 6 characters of 2nd to 3rd level characters in the White Star setting.

The main content of the PDF are pages 4 through 21 out of 22 and it is bookmarked.
There's a short history of Valsuum, then it moves on to 3 races that are covered by this supplement. I would have liked to see more detailed physical descriptions, like fur/hair color, skin tone and eye colors that are common to these races. It does detail out experience tables and some special abilities for each one as well as weapon and armor proficiencies. Then there are stats for 4 types of ships that are seen in the module.

While the actual adventure starts on page 9 the Amazons don't get screen time until page 17. The Designer Notes are there for available customization of various aspects of the adventure which are very neat. There are some interesting paths leading to the Amazon Temple and also some encounter tables for day traveling and night traveling and detailed write-ups of each listing.

The Temple of the Way is one such detail that is well done and there's a brief map for it as well. It has some dynamics that are meant to test the party. Then we get to the Amazonian Pyramid Mountain that contains 5 levels leading to the top. This part can be tricky if the party is gung-ho and not wanting to be stealthy. I however would have liked to see a map for this temple and the GM would have to make one up ahead of time based on the descriptions for each level.

Overall, this is well done and would take a session or two to complete. I give it 4 stars of 5, based on the missing descriptions for the races, the miss opportunity to include a map of the Amazon Temple and I would have like a little more Amazon goodness, since that's the name of the offering.

How to Game Master Like a Fucking Boss – A Review by Kurt R

Overall this is a great book for either the new GM or one with some years of experience.

There are some gripes that others have had about this, and that is the language and nudity. Well, if you couldn't tell that this was going to be one of those then you should re-read the title, it's at least R rated. There are nudes of both human sexes and some beasties too. As far as the language goes just about everyone watches HBO and the language in here is no different, but I saw it as being down to earth and lent to it's conversational feel.

There is another gripe about the lack of bookmarks and/or the Table of Contents not being linkified, I have been told that the author's previous layout guy either was too lazy or didn't know how to add them. I hope that Venger sees that there's a demand for these additions and has his new layout guy add them, because that would be VERY useful.

Now on to the meat of the book, I found it to have a great number of useful tips and tricks to improve my Game Mastering. A little background on me now, I use to Game Master years ago for AD&D, V&V, GURPS and Battletech, but after many years of not reffing I have picked up Pathfinder and started running some games of that. What use to fly for a good game years ago has changed somewhat, so I found myself more than once, while reading this, thinking, “Oh Yeah, This is great, I can use that!”

There is some disorganization to this book and should be alleviated somewhat when links are added, but the change in thought streams is severe at times. One example that stands out is in the, The Checklist, things that you should include in your own games. About halfway through this section is a listing about things to do when, you, as a former Game Master, start playing again, I thought this was the end of this section. Then I read the next part and it was back to the list of things to include in your games, I found this very confusing and think that section should have been saved until the end, of The Checklist.

However, once I got the hang of this format I started thinking of it like panning for Gold. There are many very useful tidbits in there and you must read through them all, and even re-read sections to get to the juicery parts.

Then I came to the Tables section, this is like hitting the precious Gem vain. There are tables for all kinds of really cool stuff and a lot of them are d100, so lots of options for one item.

There is also a section on a magical language that Venger created as well as 3 small dungeons in case you run out of ideas or don't have any others with you.

My Rating is 4 stars out of 5

With the inclusion of Bookmarks and Table of Contents links this would be a five.