Original Roleplaying Concepts
Style Sunday: Roll 1d8+1, tag that many friends with your favorite RPG cover art.
Well. Again, I am not a huge fan of tagging people at random.
So instead here are some (1d8+1) of my favorite pieces of RPG art.
My goal here is to review, or at least talk about, all the witch products I can get my hands on. Mostly for my own benefit, I am a self-admitted fan and all, but to also share the products I enjoy and think are good.Today is not one of those days.
Now. I try to avoid ripping into products. There are plenty of bad products out there that you will never hear about from me because frankly, I would rather talk about products and books I like.
The White Vale: Sex Starved Witch, Alien Horrors,& Dark Secrets
PDF. $4.00. 10 pages. One cover, one title. 4 pages of art. 1 map. 3 pages of content.
So yeah there is this title.
I am not sure what this is supposed to be. Is it an adventure or a location? Hard to tell. The art is...sub-par to say the least and mostly terrible to be honest. There is no witch mentioned, but there is one pictured, though it looks really amateur.
It has an "Adult Content" warning for the previously mentioned "witch" art.
No. This is pretty bad.
After 40 years all my characters have changed a bit.
One character I had, Nigel was a Neutral Evil assassin, but over the years my DM pointed out he wasn't actually acting very evil anymore and he slowly had drifted to Chaotic Neutral, even to the point of losing his assassin's guild.
Larina went from a rather minor character in the late 80s to more and more importance in my games. I even made subtle changes to her looks, ie her eyes went from brown to blue, and in-story I claimed it was because her magic had become more powerful.
Now how *I* have changed with my characters is I am far more willing to try weird characters. Crazy Gnome bards (although not that weird anymore), crazy little goblin cultists, anything. I was never big on the Sword & Sorcery trope characters, but now even less so.
A long time ago I picked up a bunch of stock art for my witch books. I never got around to using all of it. I might one day. But until then here are some reviews/overviews.
As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.
Be-witched Stock Pack10 High-res CG images of witches.
I like Sade's style and I would love to find more places I could use this art.
I used some of this art for the Sisters of the Aquarian Order.
A cute little frog-fae girl. 7 images, beautifully done with transparent backgrounds.
6 images, three different figures with a transparent or detailed background each.
The art is good and I am glad I bought it, I just need to find a good use for it.
The art is good and hi-res. Not sure why it is called a "witch", "moon elf" would be better. I had been using these for characters in my old D&D4 game.
Good art for a character concept. The variety of images/poses are good.
Nine images of the pictured hero. Works great as a noble or other important NPC.
The art is very good.
Fantastic works of art. Human (or half-elf) cleric/druid girl in a variety of poses and backgrounds. 3 with backgrounds and 8 without. She wears armor and carries a staff.
There is no attached license though the main page says for commercial or personal use. The lack of a clear-to-understand and read license is a bit of a downgrade for me, but if you are looking for art for your own personal use then this is a 5/5.
8 image files of a redhead sorceress. Various poses with transparent backgrounds.
She is partially armored and carries a staff.
Ah. The age-old question. Why do characters adventure?
For the Johans it was always about destroying the forces of evil. Fighting the undead and demons so innocents would not have to perish.
For Larina, it was always trying to uncover that next occult secret. Or in my case with her, discover the ins and outs of a new game system and its magic.
For each character for me it is usually about exploring some archetype or some aspect of the rules I want to uncover.
And some characters, like my gnome bard Jassic Goodwalker or my goblin warlock Nik Nak, it is just about having a good time. Both for me and the character.
Hmm. These questions can sometimes be a little cringe. BUT I am going to take it at face value.
I rather like my Ordinary World setting for NIGHT SHIFT. The supernatural is real, but it largely wants to be left alone. I just kinda like the idea that vampires work the morgue night shifts, werewolves are postal carriers, and the scary old lady down the street really is a witch.
Who knows. It might be fun!
.jpg "Witch Spells (3pp+PRD)")
Something a little different today, although I am not moving on from Pathfinder just yet. Today I want to explore the amazing reference that is the Echelon Reference Series from Keith Davies. There are a bunch of these, but I am going to focus my attention on the witch.As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.
Echelon Reference Series: Witch Spells Compiled (3pp+PRD)
2 PDFs. $33.99. 186 pages (PF) and 544 pages (3PP).
Yes. 730 pages total. This compiled collection covers both spells from various Pathfinder products and the 3rd Party Pathfinder products. There is no fluff. Very little art. Here is how each book breaks down. There is a cover page, and OGL statement of Open Content page, a table of contents, and two pages on what this book is. For the Pathfinder book there is three pages of OGL. For the 3rd Party book there are seven pages for the OGL. There is a hyperlinked index for both and hyperlinked table of contents.
The rest is solid text of spells.
And by spells. I mean every single witch spell ever published by the date of this book. The 3rd Party book for example has nearly 30 pages of cantrips, 50 pages of 1st level spells, 60 2nd level spells and so on.
The spells are given an editorial clean-up so that they all look similar and can flow well.
What these books lack (and were never trying to cover) is all the fluff or explanatory pieces that might go with the background of a spell. For example "Air Bubble" mentions a firearm can be loaded within an Air Bubble, but makes no attempt to explain anything more. This is perfectly within the scope of this product.
The number of spells break down as follows:
Witch 3pp
Cantrips: 123
1st level: 200
2nd level: 251
3rd level: 221
4th level: 188
5th level: 163
6th level: 142
7th level: 131
8th level: 122
9th level: 109
Total 1,650
Witch Prd
Cantrips: 15
1st level: 83
2nd level: 107
3rd level: 88
4th level: 70
5th level: 51
6th level: 39
7th level: 40
8th level: 28
9th level: 22
Total 543
That's insane really.
He also has these per level and for every spell casting class in Pathfinder.
You might ask if you buy this does that get rid of the need to buy other Pathfinder spell books? I say no since there is nothing here but the spells. Other products often have the spells, explanatory notes, monsters, feats, and items that might go with them. These books are a fancy SRDs. Highly organized and very useful ones at that.
If you are like me this is a treasure trove.
When did I start Game Mastering? Right away to be honest.
It would have been with the D&D Basic Set edited by Tom Moldvay. I am sure I ran my younger brother and sister through some adventures. I know I had made my own dungeons then and still have a couple of the maps. One, in particular, had a red dragon in one room and a green dragon in another. No idea how they got through the doors.
I would like to think I got better.
Going back to some Pathfinder tonight. I can't help it there is a lot of great Pathfinder content out there. As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.
PDF. $1.49. 7 pages. 1 page cover. ½page OGL. 5½ pages of content.
This PDF gives us what I consider the "usual bag" of options for the Pathfinder Witch class. NOTE that is not a slight on this book or even a bad thing. It is very, very often exactly what people want.
There are 10 new Patrons with their bonus spells. There are 10 new hexes as well.
There are three (3) new archetypes as well. These include the Devoted Witch (I might call this a Divine Witch or Witch Priestess), Green Witch (largely the same as mine in feel), and the Storyteller Witch which is a lot of fun. It is closest to my "Good Walker" witch.
So for just under $1.50 you can get all of this. Not at all bad really. If you need some new witch options then this is a good choice.
I took advantage of the latest Christmas in July Sales at DriveThruRPG to get myself some Print on Demand deals.
I wanted a new Dragonlance hardcover to replace the one my son absconded with when he was little. I have also been wanting copies of City System and A Paladin in Hell for a while now. Cult of the Dragon and Minsc and Boo's Journal of Villainy are gifts for the aforementioned son.
While that was getting printed and shipped to me my youngest was 3D printing my Sagarassi minis.
They are a little hard to see, here is a close-up.
Yeah, still a little hard. Here is what they will look like painted.
I am pleased with how the prints turned out.
Ok. This one is up for some debate.
D&D and its variants of the time were all my "First" RPG. I played them like they were all one game.
My Second RPG?
That one was a bit fuzzier. I know where I bought it though. It was from the Mail Order Hobby shop. I know this because I am sure I bought them both at the same time because they were not available at my local book store.
It was either Chill or Traveller.
For my "street cred" I will say Chill, but in my gut, I think it was Traveller. I do know that I did not get a chance to play either of them until much later in life.
I still rather enjoy both games.
We are back to Pathfinder today, but honestly, with a name like this how can I possibly say no? Incantations from the Other Side: Spirit Magic
PDF. $9.99. 38 pages. 1-page cover. 1 credits page. 1-page table of contents. 1 page for OGL and index. 34 pages of content. Landscape page orientation (sometimes this cuts off art).
As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.
This book is divided into four major sections, each with a different author from the cover. Each covers a different type of magic.
The Spirit World by Scott Gable introduces us to the book and the three types of spirit magic we will cover here.
Vodou by Scott Gable. This is our first and is familiar by name. It involves working with various spirits, the Loa, many listed later in this section. There seems to be some campaign setting specifics here. This is not a surprise because in our world Vodou, Vodun, and Voodoo are very location specific. This is mentioned in a sidebar here.
There are some new spells, but beyond that there is plenty of information on how these spells are supposed to be used. This section will not replace any of the works of say C.J. Carella on the subject, but it works great for Pathfinder.
The Middle World by Uri Kurlianchik. Covers the magic found in the tales from Russia and the Slavs. This includes a number of "House spirits." Again we are treated to some familiar names; the Leshy, the Domovoi, but here they are spirits and not fae creatures exactly. Here we also have a few spells associated with the various creatures.
The Arcanum by Clinton Boomer. Lastly we have the Arcanum. This one covers "Starry Patrons" but there is a solid "from beyond the stars" feel to these. You can read these as Lovecraftian horrors, but they seem more aloof and alien even than that.
This book succeeds in giving us a very different felling magic system that still works with the rules of Pathfinder. Since the publication of this book there have been more book on magic for Pathfinder, so it would be interesting to see how this works with these new works.
The art is full color and quite good.
The Monster Manual II for the 3.0 version of 3rd Edition appeared in 2002, just before the big transition to 3.5. Like its namesake from 1st Edition, this MMII brings us some new monsters, but it also gives us a number of updated old favorites. For this review, I am considering both the PDF from DriveThruRPG and the hardcover version I bought back in the early 2000s.
In the the 2 years since the Monster Manual was printed the designers of the 3rd Edition game had gotten a lot of feedback from players and also have seen the designs that other monster books have been able to do. They knew what the players and the DMs were saying about monsters. So the MMII has two overt purposes. The first, and the obvious one, is give us more monsters to use in out games. The second, and likely more helpful one, is to help clarify how the monster stat blocks are used and can be altered. I want to discuss the second one first.
The first section of the book covers the monster stat blocks. How to read them and what sorts of details you are likely to find in them. This is largely similar to the list to the MMI but there are a lot of additions, like the table of typic creature damage types by type and size. Each creature type is broken down into what makes that type different than the other types with much more detail than in the MMI.
There are new guidelines on advancing monsters. This really is the reason to get this book. It expands greatly on the rules and lets you know how to do it with an example.
On the back side of the book, there are also new templates to apply to monsters to make other monsters.
In the middle, we have the reason that most people pick up the book, the monsters. There are over 130 monsters listed here and some are new, others are old favorites.
We get some 1st Ed. MM1 favorites like the banshee, the catoblepas, the sylphs, the water weird (though now expanded into elemental weirds), and ixitxachitls. There are a good number of Fiend Folio monsters too in the hook horror, grell, death knight (as a template), meenlock, dune stalker, Son of Kyuss, and needleman er needlefolk.
The Daemons return, but this time they keep their 2nd Edition name of Yugoloths. Actually, I am good with that. Yugoloth always was cooler sounding than daemon anyway. There are more demons and devils too and even some weird Lovecraftian beasts like the Moon Beast and more.
This addition to the Monster Manual line feels like it was more completing the MMI than it was a second book. I consider it a must-have book for any 3.x DM with even a slight interest in monsters.
The art is great throughout and you can see the design is leaning into what will become known as "dungeon punk" later on.
Is this one of my favorite monster books? No. But it is a great work-horse book that has great designer information and a few really great monsters on top of that.
That one is a little harder to figure out. I feel like that in the late 70s and early 80s D&D was all over the place. I knew of it as far back as 77 or 78. I didn't read any of it until 1979 though.
I borrowed the Monster Manual from my classmate Geordie Herald. I got a copy of Holmes' Basic from someone. My first real DM was Jon Cook.
In truth, there was this critical mass of D&D in my town in the late 70s. I DO remember I almost didn't get involved with it due to my interest in video games. But reading mythology and "The Hobbit" and watching all sorts of horror movies I think made my involvement in the game at the time rather inevitable.
All roads lead to the Keep on the Borderlands it seemed.
Now for something a little different. Pathfinder is great, but it is not the only 3.x-based game out there not named Dungeons & Dragons. For a while there I did a lot stuff for D20 Modern and I still like to pick up material for it. Though today I think a 5e-based Modern might be the way to go.As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.
PDF. 60 pages, $2.99. 1 page cover, 1 title page, 1 page introduction, 3 pages table of contents. 3 pages Creative Common license, 1 page OGL. Rest content.
This book is punching way above its weight class, to be honest. The organization is a bit odd, but nothing I can't navigate.
We get a Glossary at the start, which I guess works to help people unfamiliar with some of these terms. An introduction to a Who's Who of magical people and places. This includes the various school of magic as if they were actual schools. Each school gets its Latin motto, its center of studies, and titles. It is a pretty cool idea really. Spells by school are listed with their appropriate colleges.
There is a whole implicit setting here that can be used in conjunction with any Modern d20 game that also has magic, say like Urban Arcana. It can also be used with other modern games that are built on a d20 system. I am not 100% sure, but I bet it would work with Mutants and Masterminds for example.
This is a d20-based rule book so there are some features of that. What am I saying? There are Feats! Quite a few in fact. There are spells, some new, some we have seen before (this is fine). Also to my pleasure, there are new creatures or some reskinned ones. This is a must I think.
It has a Creative Commons License and the OGL. I am not really sure if you can mix the two. But that does not detract from my enjoyment of it.
So for just under $3 you get 50 pages of solid content. There is no art to speak of, but that is fine really.
Solid work.
I have to admit, I am a big fan of the "Rule of 2" we use for NIGHT SHIFT.
From the rules:
The rule of 2: this is my name for a sub-system in D&D that has never been precisely codified, but is buried deep in the bones of the game. Any time a situation needs to be adjudicated in D&D for which there is not another system, throw a die, and on a result of 1 or 2, it happens. Listening at a door (and not a thief)? You hear noise on a 1 or 2. Looking to notice a secret door (and not a dwarf or elf)? Roll a d6 and you find it on a 1 or 2. Surprise? 1 or 2. The only thing that changes, for the most part, is the type of die--rangers, for example, use a d8 surprise die--and some character types may adjust the probability (elves noticing a secret door without searching is a 1 on a d6).A nice simple rule that covers a bunch of situations.
A couple of PDFs tonight. Both giving me some new feats for the Pathfinder 1st Edition Witch.As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.
Witch Feats
from Island Of Bees
PDF. 5 pages, PWYW, suggested $1.00. No cover. No OGL.
This one is oddly presented and I had to go back and make sure I had the right file. But once I got into it then yes it is the right PDF. The cover to the right is not in the file (as a cover) and it jumps right into the content. The art takes up half of every page, so not really 5 pages, but 2.5 pages of content (more like 2). The art is good, very visually striking and I like it (our cover girl here is on page 4 for the Witch Brew), but there is one of what looks like a young girl in a Civil War-era Union uniform with a rat familiar. It is good and I rather like it, but it looks very out of place, to be honest.
While presented as feats, these are really patron pacts. So you get these if you take the feat. The text is mostly fluff. The advantage to this is you could use them with Pathfinder 2nd Ed or D&D 5th Ed warlocks too. It's just not what I thought it might be.
Fantastic Feats Volume XXVII - WitchesPDF. 5 pages. $1.25. 1 page for cover, 1 page for Preface/Table of Contents, 1 page for the OGL. 2 pages of content.
This file has seven witch feats presented in the traditional manner for the Pathfinder 1st Edition RPG. There are some interesting ones here too. The Stable Spell gives the witch more control over the damage she can do while Unstable Spell adds some randomness. Aura of Menace should be taken by all witches I think!
Certainly some fun ideas here.
In the past, I would have focused on the adventure, the excitement and the interactivity of it all. Today I would still do that, but I would also focus on the things that mean more to me these days; playing with family and friends.
I'd also point out how it is a great creative effort. Want to write an 11 backstory for your character? Sure! Go ahead. But keep in mind they might die at any point. What to do then? New character and new backstory!
There are so many reasons people get into RPGs now and so many different kinds to choose from. Getting people into RPGs may not be the right question. Instead, how do we help people find the right RPG for their needs and wants?
More Pathfinder material tonight. Full disclosure, I am friends with the author, Robert W. Thomson. Also, I will be following my rules for this to remain fair.
PDF. 10 pages, 1 cover, 2.4 pages for OGL. 6.6 pages of content. $2.00
I like Purple Duck Games. They produce a lot of material so it is a good chance there is something out there that you will enjoy. This book has a lot of different options for the witch class as the title says.
There is a little bit of everything in this book too.
There are five new hexes. Five new Major hexes and four Grand hexes. Six New Patron Themes. Ten new feats. I am rather fond of the Triple Moon Tattoo feat to be honest.
Ten new spells, including "Summon Hag." Four new pieces of equipment.
There is the hagborn template to add to any monster for creatures born to hags.
There is not a lot of any one thing here, but a lot of different things. For $2.00 how could I say no?
So this was posted earlier this week.
So I guess that makes it official. You can get Twilight Fables in 5e AND OSE/OSR flavors.
There are new OSR tiers to choose from. I just updated mine to include both the OSE and 5e versions of the book.
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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1693797308/twilight-fables?ref=theotherside
Really looking forward to this one. It is for 5e and it looks AMAZING. Rod was the mastermind behind Chromatic Dungeons, so you know the quality is good, but he has upped his game to the next level on this one. In addition to a Print on Demand version, there will be the ubiquitous PDF and Print-friendly PDF, and there will also be an accessible RTF file. There is also an option for a glossy offset print if the stretch goal is made.
Additionally, you get a zip file containing tokens and markdown files of every creature, as well as dozens of printable images of the monsters. To be used at your table or virtual table.
The book has a ton of monsters from myth and legend and more to the point the book is already done. That's correct, there might be some minor edits here and there, but the book is done, art is in place, and you will get your digital rewards (PDF, RTF, tokens) as soon as the funding is done.
That's the way to do it honestly.
And NOW an OSR option too!