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Jybe-Ho! Advice from a sailor on using windjammers in RPGs.
Publisher: Ludos Calis Longa
by Mike [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/15/2023 11:11:48

This is the best I've found for authentic adventure ideas while sailing, instead of encounters on islands or with monsters. Sailing is the difference between pirates and bandits, so I think this is a must-have.

Just skim this book you'll come away with stats for 10 tall ships, sailing vocabulary, roles for crew and harbor folks, at-sea hazards, magic, 24 realistic shipboard challenges, and 12 maritime plot devices.

I posted a more detailed recap of the contents in the Discussions tab.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Jybe-Ho! Advice from a sailor on using windjammers in RPGs.
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Plunderettes - a Swashbuckling Pirate Campaign Creation Package
Publisher: PenguinComics
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/17/2023 00:30:34

This review is of the softcover book. I thought a lot about it before writing this.

At first glance, this looks like a good book and value for the money. But the more you look at it, the less quality content there is.

I'll start with the art. At first glance there's a generous amount of art, a full color drawing on almost every other page. But on second glance, most has some strange AI problem. The page 7 pirate is missing her arm. The page 13 pirate's eyebrow grows only her eyelid. The page 19 ship's rigging evokes spiderwebs and clothes lines. The page 22 street lined with buildings has windows of random sizes, some of which just fade away. In so many cases, if you think you like the art, don't look at it again. There are no artists details or flourishes to be found, only something from a bad dream.

For a while I thought, well, AI has opened the gates so that someone with good ideas but no art skills (or budget to pay artists) can still publish a book. Isn't that a good thing?

But the book isn't very good. It's not bad, either. It's $20 of meh.

Page 28 adventure: "The players are approached by a group of bounty hunters who are seeking to collect on a large reward for the capture of a notorious pirate captain. The players must track down and capture the pirate, while avoiding their crew and potential traps. Along the way, they may need to forge alliances with rival pirate crews or deal with corrupt officials who are willing to look the other way for the right price."

Even for a pirate book, this is the watery flavor of an adventure. The target pirate isn't described. The rival pirate crews aren't described, nor the corrupt officials. Why is the pirate a target? Where's he hiding? Is he alone? What's the twist? None of that's in here. It's 12% of a plan, it's barely even a concept.

Though there are many, many adventure concepts like this in the book, is it worth $20?

The barrier to writing a book is lower because AI can pad out the text, and perhaps even generate bland ideas like these. But will a library of books like this be worth it?

Will books like this crowd out publishers who have fewer illustrations, fewer adventures, and a lower page count because they refined their work?

I was on the fence about AI before this, but now I hope DTRPG requires publishers to tag works with AI so that they don't crowd out the quality and original material I'm looking for.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
Plunderettes - a Swashbuckling Pirate Campaign Creation Package
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Petrification and Other Inanimations
Publisher: Calamity Hyena
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/14/2023 23:55:39

This isn't a must-have, but it's just what it says it is, and quite thorough. It's a lot of fun, actually, all of the permutations of things a PC might be transmuted into, and how long it might last.

BONUS: If you'd like to terrify PCs on their way into a tomb, scatter a few of these statues (and other types of transformationed characters) around as warnings.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Petrification and Other Inanimations
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Story Design: Chase Stories
Publisher: Lightspress Media
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/30/2020 23:25:57

All of the Story Design guides help me find the key story beats for my adventure, broken down into act I, act II, and act III. I find preparing with some points in mind doesn't limit player agency and heightens the tension and reward.

I bought all these in a bundle and they're quick and handy references. The price is right either way.

Chase could have been a little more concise (14 pages could have been 7), but the reminders are useful for setting up a subplot and resources that change the direction in the second act.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Story Design: Chase Stories
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Savage Worlds Urban Chase Deck
Publisher: Happy Monster Press
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/05/2020 02:57:53

The PDF has 16 cards with 16 unique urban chase complications. There's a companion deck you can buy separately for rural chases. Overall, I'm glad to have this to use, but based on this I won't buy the rural deck. It just feels average and this didn't raise the bar compared to other decks for Savage Worlds chases.

Ideas: There are 16 unique chase complications. Most are average (dodge the cart at -2 or be bumped), but I think any GM can bring them to life in a fun way. A couple are really fun and will spice up your chase.

Presentation: The art on each card is a unique, true, but the art is a really poor quality top-down 3D render view of streets and rooftops, and they seem the same. The typeface on the cards is something like bad handwriting, making you slow down to read them. If it weren't for the borders, you might be able to put down the cards to form an actual chase map of the area. I wish the art were more colorful or perhaps more bold and cartoonish.

The PDF has the card back on one page, the card face on the next page, and so forth. If you're going to print them at home this is going to be a lot more work to cut out. If you're going to upload to a VTT, you'll have to extract each card illustration and upload them. It might have been nice to get a folder full of PNGs. And they don't have rounded corners, so they won't look very good online.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Savage Worlds Urban Chase Deck
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Buccaneer: Through Hell and High Water
Publisher: Fabled Environments
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/27/2020 16:26:24

I play 50 Fathoms, SWADE, and I'm adding Buccaneer's ships and naval combat rules to my games. Finally ship combat rules that are fluid, tactical, and as personal as the players.

In Buccaneer, ships have skills linked to attributes, and hindrances and edges. A ship with a superior (d8) rigging attribute might take rigging-based skills like Pursue and Run Silent, while a ship with d10 tonnage might take skills like Boarding and Ramming. Now add an edge like "Helmsman's Dream" and a hindrance like "Fire Trap".

If your players want a unique ship that will call for unique battle tactics, Buccaneer has it. SWADE and 50F are pretty generic in this regard, and PotSM is more a system of vehicle movement with acceleration and turning arcs. IMO this has more drama.

Battles are theater of the mind: The captain calls out orders, and crew tries to execute them AND take heroic (normal PC) actions. You're making skill rolls, so learning and playing this is fast. It adds hit location, like gritty damage, to every shot.

The combined result really delivers a naval battle feeling in a fun and furious way. If that's all you take from this book, it's money well-spent.

The book is huge (305 pages), rich with setting lore, edges, and character archetypes, and at least two other major features: A voodoo magic system (10 pages), with trappings and spells to feel utterly unique, and an adventure generator (28 pages), which generates adventures with a hook, classic challenges, and then escalating problems, a plot twist, and a reward. I haven't played using either yet but plan to fold them into my 50F campaign.

Four stars instead of five because it really needed an editor.

  • The sloop on page 123 has "prow" as a stat. In the Ship section, it's not mentioned once in 15 ship examples.
  • The rules for attributes like Mastery and orders (skills) like Broadside are unclear when the ship takes Mastery damage.
  • The ships on page 110 have a "damage" stat, ranging from 1 to 2. It takes some digging to determine that this is the number of hit location cards the guns draw, and it's based on the number of guns, not the size of guns.
  • It really could have used summary tables for player skills, ship orders, edges, and hindrances.


Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Buccaneer: Through Hell and High Water
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Savage Worlds Adventure Edition: Power Template Pack
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/23/2019 10:19:31

This is nice to have but of average quality. It might suit your game perfectly. The Arcane template is the best, with circles of intricate symbols and layers of swirling energy.

Elemental magic is a pretty common trapping, in my view, and while this has fire and ice I wish it also had earth and air (unless you count lightning as air). On the other hand, this has other trappings that are less common and might be hard to find elsewhere.

It would have been great to have insects or some kind of swarm of particles.

This is a PDF, so there are no transparent elements. This could have been really fun with layers and swirls of mixed transparency for use in VTTs.

Since this is designed for printing and cutting, it would have been nice to print some of the AoE rules on the backs of the templates... If evadable, roll Agility -2. If prone, AoE damage -4. For 2 pts, avoid allies. Etc.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Savage Worlds Adventure Edition: Power Template Pack
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Narrative Action Chase Deck - Poker
Publisher: The Rune^Forge
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/05/2019 18:05:38

I haven't run a chase with this deck yet, but it's exactly what I was looking for. The obstacles are FUN, each with some options to play it. Having possible solutions spelled out makes it FAST to play. Finally, I can run chases that are not a slog of figuring rules, thinking up obstacles on the fly, and winging rules. This makes it work for me.

It comes with rules for a three or five card chase (or more), and a simple rule system. You can use these cards with SWD or SWADE rules, but the rules here strip out bumps and boarding and other complexity to give you a quick and easy chase; they look solid to me. (But I haven't tried them in play yet.)

About 18 of the cards are duplicates, but that's still a lot of variety.

As an action deck, it works, but I prefer action decks that have a 1-52 number to save that 1-second "Is is diamonds or spades that goes first" question.

The product description says you can take out the 24 vehicle cards to form a mini deck, but those cards aren't identified, so you'll have to figure this out for yourself.

Four stars! Worth every cent.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Narrative Action Chase Deck - Poker
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Creator Reply:
THANK YOU!!! Please let us know how they work at the table if you don't mind!
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100 Names for Sailors and Pirates
Publisher: Fishwife Games
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/30/2019 01:30:34

Five stars for the names. They're terrific and often memorable. The first 95 are in alphabetical order by first name.

I wish the names could easily be copied and pasted into other apps, and I wish they were grouped by ethnicity so I could quickly find a Spanish pirate name. But this is FUN as-is.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
100 Names for Sailors and Pirates
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Hex Kit: Desktop App
Publisher: cone of negative energy
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/26/2019 20:36:14

For me, this program's weakness is also its superpower. You've seen the examples so you know the maps you can create are only going to look good but never great. Here's why that was a huge help to me:

I'd been struggling to draw a map for a long time, starting, stopping, restarting, procrastinating. I had kind of a writer's block because no matter what I did, the map didn't measure up to my standards. When I bought Hex Kit its best looking map was below my standards and suddenly I stopped worrying about the texture and shadow of moutains. I simply felt free to just sketch in the mountains, rivers, and other features to communicate the important information. I was done in about half an hour and it was honestly exactly all I needed. My players loved it. I got back to running my campaign. And everyone said the map looked great!

I love the way it randomizes different textures for a given terrain type, with just enough variety in desert or water or whatever to make it look interesting.

Features I wish it had:

  • Horizontal hexes (flat on top)
  • Grids
  • Thinner (or no) hex lines
  • When dragging a cliff or coast line, instead of putting up a random tile, orient the new tile to connect to the previous tile, so I can just drag along the line. (You can rotate tiles with right-click but this means about 3 clicks per tile placed.)

But mostly, Hex Kit lets you set aside becoming an artist/cartographer and quickly point and click your way to a map that tells your players where everything is and how dangerous it will be to get there. Now get back to running your campaign.

I'm on the hunt again for a new map program that will work better with VTTs and produce better looking maps, but this will stay in my toolbox for the times I have mappers block.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Hex Kit: Desktop App
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Play Your Character Like A Fucking Boss
Publisher: Kortthalis Publishing
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/22/2019 23:08:54

The writing is fun and engaging, doesn't feel padded out, and is about 10 pages. The art and format are solid: four stars.

I think this might be useful to someone who has not played before, as a first step, but it lacked the coverage (all the aspects you should consider) and the process (how to come up with them) on character creation I was looking for, and also didn't have enough specifics on how to play in terms of connecting with the campaign and other players. Etiquette was covered, but only lightly.

Passages like this are fun to read, but what's the real advice here?

When you see two roads that diverge in the woods, you can take the road everybody uses (the brash instigator), take the one less traveled (strong and silent), or you can forge your own goddamn path (the oddity). As long as it's done with a sense of greater purpose and iron will, thou shall be thy own fucking boss!

Overall, an average but entertaining purchase and read. Three stars.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Play Your Character Like A Fucking Boss
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Savage Worlds Deluxe: Explorer's Edition
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/17/2019 23:33:49

Now that the new rules (SWADE) are out, this hardly needs a review. It's the verision that got me into Savage Worlds and we loved it. At $10, it's still an affordable way to try it out, or to get books with mostly the same skills and edges so you players can have them handy. And there are plenty of adventures available this this. Compatibility is high.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Savage Worlds Deluxe: Explorer's Edition
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Story Design: Mystery Stories
Publisher: Lightspress Media
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/17/2019 23:22:05

This is a short (12 pages of content) and concise guide to creating a mystery that will work in your role playing game. It describes what happens in three acts, and that becomes the plot points in your 3 to 8 adventure sessions. It covers how to add subplots and a dramatic turn that will make the ending more satisfying. The use of NPCs makes it all feel more realistic. It helped me get a handle on what the key NPCs will be doing, what locations I wanted to pre-plan... The prep chapter (3 pages) was helpful. I gave me some handle on what to do if the players guess the villain early -- because knowing who did it is not the same as solving the mystery.

The structure works for any kind of mystery where someone or some organization doesn't want the players to know something. It doesn't have to be a murder.

I found this very helpful, and for a week I took about a half hour on my drive and answered the questions in the book, creating a different mystery every night. Before you know it you can really come up with some amazing stuff.

It could be a little better if it had more specific advice about what to do if players miss a clue, or guess the villain, but there's another here to work with.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Story Design: Mystery Stories
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Book of Spiders for Savage Worlds
Publisher: BPB Games
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/17/2019 23:08:56

This is one of my favorite RPG purchases in quite a while. My players were creeped out long before they met the spiders. I gave them every clue: Webs in the path, movement in the shadows, egg sacks in the foliage... and they were utterly unprepared for the special horror of a spider type I chose from this book. Each type is creepy and deadly and probably requires a different combat strategy. But mostly, each is completely fresh and not at all what your players are expecting.

There are eight spider types, and two particularly strange ones are illustrated. I wish they all were illustrated, but this is worth every penny as-is.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Book of Spiders for Savage Worlds
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Savage Worlds Adventure Edition: Power Cards
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment
by Mike C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/01/2019 23:51:33

The cards are useful but the design could be better. The layout is 8 cards per page. They have crop marks and border lines to make hand-cutting them workable, but...

Cons

  • The borders are very thin and if your printer misaligns even 1/16th of an inch when you print the 2nd side, they just don't work when you cut them. On an inkjet at home that's some expensive ink. Work around this by not printing the back and sleeving the cards.
  • They look like they are torn out of a detective's notebook; there is no magic theme to them. It would have been nice to have a few different backs to choose from (magic, psionic, weird science, strange gift, cleric/godly).
  • There are a couple of blank cards on a page of 7 other cards. It would have been nice if the layout was a full page of blanks.
  • If they also included a 1-card per page layout you could easily print subsets
  • If the layout put the stats along the top or side, you could stack/stagger the cards and see the key info. As they stand some data is at the top and some at the bottom.
  • You will hear again and again that SW spells are all about the trappings, but the cards have no fields to write trapping info
  • The text is wordy and that has forced them to use a small font

Still, they're useful in making my favorite RPG play even faster.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Savage Worlds Adventure Edition: Power Cards
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