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The Experiments
Publisher: Felbrigg Herriot
by Greg S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/04/2021 05:29:48

The adventure is about mining characters that signed up to work on a dangerous planet but there was a condition that they agreed to a medical procedure to give them the ability to breathe in the hostile atmosphere. The adventure even has a recruitment ad that you can give to the players. They wake up on the operating table to an alarm and the place is flooding. Everyone is gone. Dangerous creatures are loose on the levels below. They start in sub-level 4 and must make their way to the first floor. Maps are provided for these levels but if anyone wants to explore the upper floors, there is no map of the upper level floors which is disappointing.

I am disappointed with the adventure as the encounters are just random encounters that you can put in at anytime. I was hoping for the encounters to already be planned. Pretty much you have to make the experimental creatures come up from the level below. There is no explanation as to why the place is flooding either. What happened to cause everyone to evacuate? None of this is answered. Maybe a nearby damn broke or there is a freak storm? It could also be from an explosion in a sub-level below that caused water from a nearby lake to flood the lower levels of the building.

10 Premade Player Characters are provided. You can use them or have players create their own. The opposition is dangerous water breathing ex-humans that use to be people but now they have become insane monsters with thick chitinous skin. There are 2 other native fish type of alien monsters for you to use that were housed in tanks in the lower levels. You can make the area full of waste deep water. I wish there was more explanation about the flooding and how it progresses.

Normally I would give this adventure a 3 out of 5 stars. However, it’s an incredible value for $1.99 so I am giving it an additional star. Thus my rating is 4 out of 5. Keep in mind you will need to make up what to throw at the players. You can play the adventure in a single session and there is an opportunity of a future adventure to retaliate against the company if the players so desire.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
The Experiments
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Kentaro´s Revenge - Cyberpunk RPG Adventure
Publisher: Lion Banner Games
by Greg S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/16/2021 21:14:13

Kentaro's Revenge is an adventure where the players are hired by a former employee of Hikona Corporation that wants you to kill the 7 people responsible for their death. His family died when they received a cure for the virus that Hikona developed.

After reading the 73 page Kentaro's Revenge adventure and I have a few complaints. First, is that it does not talk about the player's compensation for assassinating 7 key people at a pharmaceutical corporation that Kentaro deems were responsible for his families death. I have a hard time believing that a guy borrowing money from a loan shark could come up with enough cash to pay the runners for the mission. I guess you have to assume he sold his house to come up with the money. It does not tell whether he pays 20% up front but that would be my ruling after reading the adventure.

I don't like that the author is trying to charge an additional $25 for the VTT maps of the different locations where you are to perform the hits. Small res versions are included in the adventure but they have labels that make it difficult to use with a virtual table top. They sell the VTT maps that go with the adventure separately, namely an augmentation clinic, a back alley, an executive office, lab, train station, and temple plaza. However, paying an additional $25 for maps that should be included an adventure is not worth it. It makes the total cost of the adventure $35 (I paid $9.99 during a sale) and NO ADVENTURE IS WORTH THAT PRICE!

The adventure has a large font too so even though it is 73 pages it would be a considerably less page count if the author used a smaller font. It’s a decent adventure but once Kentaro is kidnapped after the 3rd assassination, you could run into a problem of the player's stopping the mission as they can't get paid the remainder if he is dead, especially if he hid the balance of the money, which is what I would do. This was not covered either.

To handle this, I also came up with the idea that each of the players lost a loved one to the virus. Maybe they did not even know one another. Then the GM would not have to pay them and they would do it for revenge. While doing research on how to hit the corp responsible, they meet Kentaro who knows the ins and outs of the company as he use to work for them. You also meet the other runners who also want revenge through a fixer. This makes the players want to carry out the mission to completion after Kentaro is captured.

Some of the descriptions seem repetitive such as outrageous suit. What does that mean? You have to use your imagination and expand on it as it is very vague. It says outrageous a few times during descriptions.

The artwork for the adventure is gorgeous but there are 4 repetitive images that were used as full page and 1/3 page spreads. This also increased the page count and inflated it. Plus, there are two full page ads in the adventure too.

You could play this adventure easily using Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Shadowrun Anarchy, Interface Zero, Zaibatsu, with a little work and even Neon City Overdrive -- which would be the easiest to use as this adventure and Neon City Overdrive both use tags for descriptions.

All in all, this is a solid adventure but I have to knock it a star for trying to charge extra money for maps of the key locations where hits are carried out. I think you and Lion Banner Games are smoking crack for thinking to pay an additional $25 for the VTT maps. They should have been included in the adventure.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Kentaro´s Revenge - Cyberpunk RPG Adventure
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Creator Reply:
Thank you for the thorough review Greg! Kentaro´s Revenge is the second adventure I have published and I am always looking for ways to improve my next adventures. What you have written is helpful. Thanks again.
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[WOIN] Starship Construction Manual v1.1
Publisher: EN Publishing
by Greg S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/10/2019 01:42:46

I bought the WOIN Starship Construction Manual in both print and pdf. Upon receiving my download, I was anxious to start reading on how to design ships. After reading it, I am pleasantly suprised how easy the system is. Campared, to Traveller's ship construction, this is a breeze! Simply, choose from a list of options and keep track of everything via the provided worksheet.

Ships are rated according to their Hull Class which represents the overall size of the ship and each Hull Class provides specific values for Tonnage, Cost, Crew requirements, Cargo Units, Defense, Fuel, and Initiative penalties. Cargo Units or CU represents the total number of components that you can add to your ship. Your ship has a Super Structure that represents how much damage the hull can take before the ship is destroyed. It has to be manually calculated and starts at 3 times the Hull Class.

Then you buy your CPU budget which represents the maximum capacity of your computer to operate ship sytsems and components. Your CPU can reduce the total crew requirement, give bonuses to your SOAK and Defense as well as determines the number of CPU Cycles which is basically the total number of things the computer can control. Max FTL determines the limits of your ships ability to calculate FTL navigation coordinates to get somewhere, which effects the ships overall speed.

Sensors will be needed as well to detect ships as well as scan planets to determine atmosphere composition and whether there is life. They have a range and can provide bonuses to Defense. Then you can buy a Navigation Computer, which can increase your FTL speeds by making your ship more efficient in the routes that it plots to take advantage of hyperspace shortcuts or gravity slingshots.

Your ship will need an engines for propulsion as well as to provide power to all the various systems. There are a number of options for a variety of settings and tech levels such as engines using liquid fuel, fusion reactors, ion engines, solar sails, hyperdrive engines, and anti-matter engines that are the equivalent of Star Trek warp engines.There are even optional exotic engines such as probability drives and a rotor drive capable of making your ship travel in space and time.

There are a ton of weapon options as well such as phasers, projectile cannons, nukes, missles, railguns, quad cannons, ion cannons, railguns, disruptors, torpedos, particle beams, blasters, and even mines.

As far as defensive options, the book has a variety of shield systems and deflector shields that provide a SOAK value for the ship and absorb damage. There are variants for armor such as ice armor, rock armor, fluidic armor, organic living armor that heals, and regenerative nano composites that can heal both the armor and hull underneath.

Additional systems such as cloaking devices, tractor beams, fuel scoops, external cargo bays, command and control systems that provide bonuses to friendly ships that are in range for their Initiative and attack rolls, Electronic Warfare Systems and Counter Measures, as well as Hardened Electronic Shielding.

You can provide additional crew and passenger compartments, add hanger bays, repair bays that can fix your ships Super Structure, cabins, galleys, messhalls, ship bays, brig, sickbay, and holodecks. Finally, the book ends with 6 new ships designs such as a transport, cargo ship, battleship, research vessel, Seeker Scout, and Carrier. Then there are 3 ships that we have seen before in the NEW Core Rules such as the ugly egg-shaped Junker Courier, the Talon, and the Endeavor Cruiser. The artwork for these ships are grainy as well.

My only complaint is that there are no rules to damage any of these specific ships systems. I'm also surprised that it does not have rules for adding a hydroponics garden to feed your crew or options for Life Support Systems as well as rules for adding gravity to your ship. The head/bathroom should be added as well. These areas are completely ignored yet they play a critical role to a star ship. It would have been nice to have rules about building ships that can only stay in space as well as models that can land on a planet. There are no rules about manueverability either.

There are no bookmarks in the pdf either. It makes trying to reference rules in it a pain in the ass.

Overall, I am impressed with the Starship Construction Manual. It allows you to build a variety of ships for your game in a manner that is straight forward and not too complex. Unfortunately, most of the art in this book is recycled images that appear in the NEW Core Rules. I'm also disappointed that there were only 6 new ship designs and I wish the artwork for them was better too. They look so blurry! There are still no deck plans either for any of the ships either. Plus, I wish that there was a way to damage a ships sub systems. I give this book a 4 out of 5.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
[WOIN] Starship Construction Manual v1.1
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[WOIN] W1: Xenomorphs: The Fall of Somerset Landing
Publisher: EN Publishing
by Greg S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/12/2019 15:20:25

I was really excited about the Fall of Somerset Landing as it is a fully written adventure that allows a GM to run the movie Aliens. I have to give the WOIN creators props for creating this just for the idea alone. I've always wanted to run a game based on Aliens. Thank you for delivering this cool adventure as well as a sourcebook for the setting. The art is amazing. I love all of the vehicles and ship designs. There is some recycled art in here though that is used in the WOIN NEW Core Rules, namely the chick with one side of her head shaved that is sitting down as well as the pod from Oblivion with the car sitting next to it. As a side note, I wish that whoever came up with the ship designs in this book did the rest of the ship designs in the NEW Core Rules and Ship Construction Manual.

The book provides a map of the solar system and it shows some new races that are available such as synthetics and Jovians. It also adds new careers such as laborers as well as marine careers. Then there is a section on new equipment as well as guns and pulse rifles that we saw in the Aliens movie. I was disappointed that there were no pictures of these weapons but we all know what they look like from the movie.

If you plan on playing this adventure as a Player, STOP READING NOW. Because I am posting some spoilers. You have been warned. SPOILERS AHEAD.

This adventure allows the PC's to play as colonists on Hadley's Hope just before they encountered the aliens. They are newly arrived colonists and the adventure opens when they are on a shuttle that is landing at the colony. An accident occurs and the pilot gets knocked out and the PC's will have to land it.

Once they land, they will be given a tour of the colony and during the tour they will have a hostile encounter with some people that are angry because there was a recent dispute about wages with the Company and they feel like the player's are here to take their their jobs and a fight ensues. The tour continues and they are left at the bar. On a view screen in the bar is footage from two explorer of survey footage that will make everyone rich and people are excited about it and celebrating.

The adventure jumps to the next day to the players first day of work. There is not much detail about what they are doing or what their jobs are. Make something up because the adventure does not go into any job duties for colony life. At some point, there is a commotion and they bring back 1 of 2 colonists that went messing last night during a survey mission when they were sent to investigate an alien ship. A xeno is attached to her face and she is rushed to Medlab. - Yep, there is still 1 colonist left at that ship.

The adventure fast forwards and there is an abduction and the players are sent to check it out with a team of marines. The marines go in first are attacked and killed but one person is abducted and the players must go in and look for clues.

The next day people are start to come up missing one by one and then more and more each hour. Eventually, the 2 leaders of the colony come up missing and then Mr Lee from the company orders the PCs to go into the reactor to get some specimens. He will be waiting on a shuttle with a company of marines to guard him. If they want a ride out of here, they must do as he says.

In APU Reactor, they will first encounter a survivor who tells them that there is another shuttle off this rock but the pilot was abducted by aliens and has the keys. The players have a choice, they can either get the specimens for Lee and board his shuttle or they can locate the pilot and get the keys to the other shuttle and bug out of here. Once they go further into the reactor, they will encounter part of the alien hive and all hell will break loose. First they will be attacked by face huggers, one for each of them. When that does not work, dozens of Alien Warriors attack and they have to flee from the facility. There won't be anyone to nuke the site from orbit though, so we know someone will be sent here again to recover more specimens at a later date maybe do something about the Queen. Sounds good so far?

Let me first start by mentioning some minor quibbles that I found with some problems with the equipment stats in the adventure. I don't like that the sentry guns are automatic hit and do 2d6 damage to anything within their 30' cone. They should have an A.I with firearms skill and roll to hit like everything else but give it a bonus for its targeting system. The diagnostic incubator should also be an A.I with medical skill as well. Nothing should have automatic success at anything. The A3 Smartgun should have some sort of bonus to hit for its targeting system. Also, since it is mounted using a swing arm that is attached to the marine, it should offer some form of recoil compensation.

Now for the bad. The description about the Xenomorphs mentions a Worker and Hive Boss and yet there are no stats for them. There are no stats for the chest burster xenomorph either. You would think that the information about them would be more thorough and complete.

I also found several problems in the overall story line. The first problem I see is how did the survivor Tara get back to the colony? She had a face hugger attached to her. So the company must have sent someone to get her but the adventure never goes into it. If they both got attacked by face huggers in the same place, then how come the people the company sent to rescue them did not find the other one? We will never know because there is no map of the ship, which is a huge problem considering the adventure!

I think that the events described in the section where the Nightmare Begins seem too rushed and lack detailed plot elements describing exactly about how everything unfolds. It would have been nice to get a time line that describes which colonists get taken, when they are taken, and the location where they are taken from along with the xenomorph's route that they travel to get back to the hive.

Where is the abandoned newly constructed module located that the xenomorph that was inside Tara hiding at? I don't see it on the location map. Also where is the interior map of this module? This is all important as the security team goes inside and are killed by the xenomorph and the PC's might go inside afterwards to investigate. There they discover the gruesome remains of the security team and learn that one of the members named Jacek is missing.

The events after that are not detailed. It says that over the next few days the population of 226 colonists dwindle rapidly to a handful over the next few days. It would have been nice to get a timeline of how the abductions and attacks unfold. From here on out, it just seems rushed. Where was Wheeler and Kokumo when they get kidnapped? Are we to assume that they were all in the Ops Center? This information is necessary for the GM to know just in case the player's hear about their abduction and want to investigate. I want to know the backstory as the GM so I can unveil it during game play. What route did the aliens take to get back to their hive after capturing them? Are they going through sub-level 2 via tunnels to the atmospheric processor? Are they in the ventilation? No, it can't be that as there is no map of the ventilation tunnels. Or maybe they are crawling along the rafters above the drop ceiling tiles?

The GM will have to make up the bulk of the story to describe how the adventure unfolds when the colonists start getting abducted before Lee sends them into the APU Reactor. The GM has to figure out who gets taken, what to do if the PCs get wind of their disappearance, as well as decide if there are going to be any encounters with the aliens while they are abducting colonists. There are some tables to roll for colonists that the players encounter that can work to help with this as well as there are names of 12 important colonists but you will have to make up the rest.

At some point, I think the colonists or player's would start making barricades and setting up defenses once they figure out aliens are abducting them. There is nothing mentioned about this though, so these guys are just completely oblivious, which I think is kind of lame. Why even bother staffing the place with marines if they don't do shit? Plus, there is security here too as well as cameras. I wish there was an encounter where they capture footage of an alien on camera skulking about and darting away taking someone with it. Maybe Wheeler or Kokumo? Another idea could be a fight with aliens inside the colony if the PC's decide to set up any defenses or barricades. We know they did this in Aliens because the marines saw their barricades. Again, you have to add this on your own because this adventure does not mention anything about it.

There are 9 pages that detail the colony. However, it lacks information detailing the location of the Atmospheric Processor Unit as well as the Atmospheric Processor Unit Reactor on the exterior map. The adventure also does not really spell out the location of the Queen and Wheeler's body but it says that they are somewhere in the APU Reactor - which is where the PCs are sent. However, since I know the Alien movie, I have to deduce that they are in the Atmospheric Processor Unit and not the APU Reactor but the adventure says they are in the Reactor - which is incorrect and I spent quite awhile wondering where they were on the map until I eventually figured out the mistake.

Also, where are the specimen coordinates that Lee gives the PCs located? What room are the specimen jars supposed to be in? How did the company get the specimens in the first place? Are they the 2 specimens that were recovered from the colonists that went to the alien ship? I assume so but again, this information should have been provided for me. The whole point of buying pre-written adventures is so we don't have to do any prep work except read the adventure. Thinking about it now, why the hell does Lee want the PCs to recover the specimens if he already had them in the first place? Why did he have them taken from Medlab and put in the APU reactor? It makes no sense! This is a major plot flaw in the story line. --- Maybe he was planning to do some secret research and getting ready to kidnap a colonist for experiments so he could implant it with an embryo to examine its life cycle? Then this happened and screwed up his plans. Now he wants his specimen back? Who knows! You have to make it up because again the writers failed to explain things once again.

Another problem is that the locations in the APU Reactor map are not detailed. On the map, we see rooms such as the Secondary Control Room, Emergency Generator, Medstation, Reactor Control Room, Xenomorph Lair, Security, and Storage but there are no details about any of these areas. You have to make them up as well as make up what is in those rooms. Its pure laziness that these areas are not detailed. Plus, there are symbols on the map and yet there is no legend to show what they are supposed to represent.

It would have been nice to get a map of the alien ship as well as a map of the Atmospheric Processor Unit. We only get a map of the APU Reactor. Yet the adventure describes them as two separate locations. I could definitely see players wanting to go to either locations during this adventure. For one, they might want to go to the ship to get the other missing colonist. Plus, it would be useful to have if we want to revisit this place at a later date and have the player's take care of that Queen and her hive in the sub-levels of the Atmospheric Processor. The areas are mentioned in the adventure but they are completely left out which is REALLY annoying because the information about the colony is incomplete.

The adventure also lacks information about the other 2 ships in the adventure, namely the shuttle and the cargo freighter that Lee and the colonial marines will be on. Are they on a Millenial Class II Freighter? I guess so... the adventure never specifies.

Another thing that I have issue with is the derived statistics for defense and the way they are calculated in the WOIN system. When a Xenomorph Warrior has a Melee Defense of 36 and a Ranged Defense of 27, that means that the PCS who are Grade 5 characters can never hit the Xenomorph in melee as the max that they can roll with 5d6 is 30. Even shooting them is almost impossible. These numerical values are too high and need to be revised. There is no way the PC's could survive being attacked by a dozen of these things. They have to be changed to Hunters instead which have a Melee Defense of 24 and a Ranged Defense of 18.

Also, the adventure provides back up pregenerated characters in case the PC's get killed but the only time this will happen is when they are trying to get out of the reactor with either the keys to the shuttle or with the specimens for Lee. In either case, they are trying to escape and are shooting their way out. How can you bring replacement PC's in when they are trying to leave? One way would be to have another batch sent in by Lee again and they are encountered as the party is leaving and then the party says to the backup "to come with us because we either have the specimens or we have keys to a ship to get us all out of here" and they all leave together. The second choice is that you introduce them as being cocooned but then the surviving party members would have to rescue them, which is unlikely because they are getting their asses kicked and fleeing. I think the best option is to have them roll with the PCs as NPCs during their trip into the reactor and when someone gets killed they can just become one of the NPCs. The problem this idea is that you have to handle controlling an additional 3 to 6 NPCs during all the fight scenes.

Overall I like the adventure but I think that there needs to be more meat to it. The adventure itself was only 13 pages! Instead of giving us 11 pages of pregenerated characters, maybe someone should have took some more effort to flesh the adventure out. Besides, I don't think that the idea of Hot Swap characters was necessary either since they can't be introduced until the very end of the adventure as they are running away from the aliens. The adventure ends when they get back to their ship!

So far, this thing feels like it is just an outline. Plus, we really need maps to the APU and alien ship for this to feel like a complete adventure. I'm left feeling disappointed and let down. I wanted this to be great but with the flaws listed above, I can't rate it as a 5-star adventure. I'm only giving it 3 stars.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
[WOIN] W1: Xenomorphs: The Fall of Somerset Landing
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Creator Reply:
Hi! Thought you'd like to know that Ian Stead, who did the ship designs you like in this book, did all the ships in the Starship Recognition Manual. The "chestburster" is called "Breedspawn" and is on page 21. Thanks for the review! :)
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Nightfall
Publisher: Michael Brown
by Greg S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/11/2019 04:46:09

An interesting small adventure that ends with the adventurers finding a madman infected with a deadly and highly contagious virus. Unfortunately, no frills adventure means no map. I wish that was stated in the description. When I think of no frills, I think basic layout with no pretty pictures. However, selling adventures without a map sucks so I am deducting 2 points in my reveiw.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Nightfall
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Creator Reply:
Thanks for the feedback. I agree the adventure should have a map; I had left one out in an attempt to be generic and not step on the Ref's toes. Keep a lookout for an updated version with map (can't promise a specific timeframe at this juncture, though.)
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Station Three
Publisher: Felbrigg Herriot
by Greg S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/02/2016 17:14:02

From the product description this sounded like it would be a great horror adventure for Traveller, where the players are sent by a coporation to investigate one of their mining stations that they have lost contact with. When the players arrive, they discover that the crew of the station made contact with a hostile invisible aliens with some sort of mind control power. The problem with this is that there are no stats for the aliens or the NPC survivors that they encouter! This adventure is not immediately ready for play, which is why I am rating it with only 2 stars, which I think is being generous. Personally, I was disappointed with this product and would have preferred that the hostile threat to be something even more sinister such as a demonic force from another realm, Doom and Event Horizon comes to mind.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
Station Three
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Creator Reply:
Hi Greg, The stats for the survivors are there to the right of the characters name, along with the skills they possess. You\'re right about a lack of stats for the aliens, but as they\'re not tangible nor intelligent in the usual manner as expressed by a UPP it doesn\'t really make sense to provide one for them. With that in mind I hope you\'ll take another look over the scenario. Felbrigg
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Shadow of the Demon Lord
Publisher: Schwalb Entertainment
by Gregory S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/11/2016 20:30:51

I like this book as a Campaign Setting idea where players face off against a growing evil in the land that threatens the worlds very existence with Demons and Devils. It is a dark setting that makes a ton of ideas come to mind. However, this game is very similar to Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder that all use a tired Class System with the tired concept of linear level-based Class Progression. My problem with this is with the Class Concept itself where characters are defined in a rigid class structure. It is not realistic as when you get better at something, your skill should improve instead of your class as a whole. This concept it lame and tired. Can we get something new and innovative here?!

Level-based systems are not realistic. It puts characters in a limited sandbox of encounters where all they fight is a certain type of monster such as orcs and goblins at first level and then introduce newer tough monsters as they slowly progress to higher levels. This becomes repetitive, boring, and is not interesting. It limits the types of monsters characters can encounter. In a book such as Lord of the Rings or the Sword of Shannara, characters can face really tough monsters such as Ring Wraiths, Demons such as the Changeling, Trolls, or Skull Bearers - even though they are inexperienced. It is lame that you must be of 10th level to fight a giant or a demon. This would make a very uninteresting story if all the inexperienced characters’ faced were lowly orcs and goblins. Level systems also make it impossible to have a high level character roll with low level characters, such as Gandalf travelling with Bilbo, Frodo or Sam. This would be like having Elminster travelling with first level character’s and the first time you threw in a 15th level monster, the first level characters would literally explode from the 50 points of damage they received from the first hit. Instead, if we were making the same book using D&D rules, all the characters would fight are first level orcs, goblins, and kobolds. Such as story is not even interesting in the slightest so why the hell would anyone want to play it? Yet, D&D continually serves up the same screwed up recipe in the form of a crappy level system. There is too big a gap in your abilities as you progress in levels. The difference between a 1st level, 3rd level, and 10th level is staggering. What would a real life representation of a first level character be? Would they be an apprentice? What is a third level character, a journeyman? Taking the same philosophy, what is an expert? Are they 10th level? Is a master 15th level and above? So is Chef Gordon Ramsey a 15th level cook? He can’t be knocked unconscious until you do over 80 to 100 points of damage? This is why levels are stupid. It is better to have Skill Ranks where if a skill increases, it does not increase everything that is completely unrelated to it such as to hit rolls, the damage you can take, your ability to resist damage and so on. Characters level too quickly. After one adventure, where you were gone for a week you advance to 4th level. The difference between a first and fourth level character in terms of abilities is too great. Again, this gets into having higher level characters travelling with lower level characters and why this is a stupid system. Adventures feel like your grinding for experience points. This feels almost like a video game such as World of Warcraft where you are wandering around killing monsters in an area just to level up. If this would happen in a movie or story it incredibly stupid – unless it was in a comedy doing a parody on how stupid this system would be when compared to real life and to contrast and make fun of the silliness. Shadow of the Demon Lord also uses the same lame abstract Armor Class System that Pathfinder and D&D use that makes you more difficult to hit instead of treating armor as Damage Reduction. When I first started gaming and all I knew was the Armor Class System, I thought it was great but after getting exposed to Shadowrun or Fate where Armor is used to reduce the damage you take from an attack, I saw how superior of a system that this was versus the tired ass Armor Class system. Armor does not make it harder to hit you, it absorbs damage or deflects the blow or lessens the damage that you take from an injury. No Parry or Dodge: There is no parry or dodge mechanic. Instead you use the tired a$$ abstract Hit Point and Armor Class system. Again, this makes for very crappy game narrative and bland story telling. It also makes fights less interesting. Instead, we have to make crap up because it is not baked into the rules. Using a Parry and Dodge System makes for more interesting story telling instead of rolling against Armor Class and scoring a Hit or Miss. <<<< BORING! Hit Points are dumb. Stupid that 10th level characters can fall off a 100’ foot cliff and survive 10d6 points of damage and get up afterwards with no effect. They don’t even break arms or legs let alone break their neck. There are no lasting effects suffered from injury which makes for shitty storytelling. Damage has no effect on character until they drop to 0 hit points. They suffer no penalties for being wounded or tired. There is no light, moderate, or severe wounds. No game effects such as being dazed or knocked senseless from being hit in the head with a club or from getting kicked in the balls unless it is by spell effect such as casting confusion or hold person. This means you cannot be descriptive with anything as you just do a point value for damage and have to make up some bullshit to describer it with no real lasting game effect. Again, this Hit Point damage system is fucking lame so why do all games insist on doing it? Class based systems are too limiting: What happens when the game author does not offer the class of character that you envision playing with the skills, powers, or abilities, weapon, or armor loadout that you want to play? Examples that come to mind is the mage who swings a sword, like Gandalf, as the typical wizard can only wield daggers or staves. Soon, a series of supplement is released spanning multiple books that the system becomes unwieldy as characters must try and find the perfect fitting box for the character that they want to play. This causes game delays as people can be indecisive about the character they want to play. I am tired of getting boxed in by the concept of using predetermines character classes. This practice is archaic old school gaming mentality and outdated thinking. What if you wanted to play someone with special powers and abilities such as a mutant or a character like Ryu from Street Fighter that could throw Hadoukens? What do you make him a mage because he is throwing fireballs? This is why class systems are f-bomb bleeping stupid! It is too rigid, discourages original thinking, and lacks flexibility. Vancian Magic System: I dislike the Jack Vance take on magic that D&D and Pathfinder adopted where a magic user must learn spells each day, the same spells that they read everyday day after day after day after day – and once they cast the spell – they forget it. It’s f'in dumb! There are no options for Mana Pools or Spell Point Systems, which is a superior take on magic. Even more interesting would be a two-word combination such as noun and verb or 3 word such as noun, verb, and adjective used to apply a spell effect. This make for more interesting combinations of magic and ways to describe spellcasting in a story. Players can actually come up with combinations that the books have not even taken into account and it would make it a more flexible system than the current system, which is just too rigid. All spells in D&D are the same! Imagine in every book that you read if all mage’s cast magic missile all the time! The same old same old tired spells and formula at work is just not interesting. It’s too restrictive and it does not make for interesting storytelling. Your crappy Vancian system can be an option, but don’t let that be the only choice. No one wants to apply mechanics to change it to something else for their campaign all the time either. That’s why option books never fly as they are not standardized into the core rule books. Rules too cumbersome and unwieldy: Too difficult for a DM to create new monsters on the fly or NPC’s for the players to face. It needs to be able to be done quickly without a ton of effort. DMing is difficult enough already. We don’t need to rummages through a crapload of books to figure out what class to make the bad guy and what feats to give him. This is too rigid of a system. I also wish there was a way to boost damage or generate column shifts from an attack. I score an amazing hit that strikes exactly where I want it to, yet there is no in game effect to simulate this. Fate introduced something cool like aspects that you can throw on someone (as long as you score a high enough hit), then you can kick someone in the balls and they go down in pain. Their hit points are not depleted but they will have a hard time recovering. Or you hit someone in the head with a clumb and knock them senseless and they are seeing flying birdies circling around their head for a short time going tweet, tweet. Again, this is a problem with having a hit or miss system. There is no mechanc for column shifts with the exception of boon or bane which i do like but the author did not do enough with it. There is no in game effects engine to drive the narrative. With all the D&D clones out there and Pathfinder, does there really need to be another bleeping F-BOMB D&D Clone System?!!!!!! This game just feels like more of the same and personally, I don't see why anyone would bother with this! It feels the SAME AS D&D and PATHFINDER! AND GUESS WHAT, THEY ARE TOP DOGS SO DON'T EMULATE THEM! Try something new. Personally, I give this game the finger! Again, I like the idea as a Campaign Setting but I hate the game system. I'm dying to see something new and exciting but this is definately not it.

Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
Shadow of the Demon Lord
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Creator Reply:
Thanks for taking the time to review this. I am sorry you were disappointed with the product, but I do hope you give it a try before you completely throw it out as I think you might see some of your criticisms put to rest in play. But in any event, thanks for the purchase and for supporting my little company.
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