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The Good: A great set of stories that really make Pinebox, Texas come alive. A few recurring characters keep most of the wildly diverse stories tied together. The "interviews" at the beginning and the newspaper articles relating the "official" versions of the tales at the end are a great touch.
The Bad: A couple of authors perhaps tried to be too clever, or (over)used the shocking twist of the benevolent supporting character not being what they seem.
Conclusion: Great read. I'd definitely recommend it as there is far, far more good than bad.
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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A great investment! I don't use the cards every session, but the player's know that when I hand out cards that they are going to need them. They're fun and certainly create unexpected circumstances at the best times.
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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An absolutely great assortment for any sort of fantastic or pulp Western gaming.
Multiple figs for all of the major Deadlands archetypes, both on foot and mounted. A whole half-page of recognizably different Walkin' Dead and cultists. Even a small assortment of common monsters.
I don't usually use trifold paper minis, but these are so good I gave them a try anyway.
Mind, they are slightly smaller than the corresponding Deadlands metal minis would have been. It's not really glaringly so (unlike Cardboard Heroes) so it's easy enough to overlook.
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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This is definitely a "must have" for anyone running a Pulp-setting Savage Worlds game with several sample pulp-styled Edges (and rules for creating them), an overview of the genre with game specific details for running adventures, pulp monsters and villains, and so on. However, the one thing it lacks (and which keeps me from giving it 5 stars) is a printer-friendly version. Every page of the pdf is like the cover, which looks cool but sucks the ink from a printer faster than a vampire spitting cobra, and is rather hard on the eyes when printed.
| Classement: | | [4 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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I was bitterly disappointed with this product.
I found nothing within the Horror GM's Toolkit to be of any value, and I would go on to say that it may even hinder a young GM's growth in the hobby.
I would expect the content of this book in a d20 OGL product - that is - not really containing ANY horror elements at all.
The entire pdf feels like a d20 splat book for people who want to give their dungeon crawl a venier of horror (and still failing).
....Horror equipment you may want to consider: holy water and garlic....really? really? I paid for that gem of wisdom? This is not an isolated example. I found the entire book to contain this level of unimaginative thinking.
For example, one of the "new equipment" is called a corpse-catcher, but really its just a man-catcher from the DnD 3rd ed players handbook, re-named for a horror feel.
Other equipment such as repeating crossbows, garlic bullets, holy water grenades, neck protection. All this does nothing to add to a horror GMs ability to deliver fear and, well. horror. Its just a dungeon hack toolbox with vampires and werewoves in each 20x20 room.
Some other sections are slightly better, most are not. I dont really want to spend another 200 words on this product. Please just do some research on this particular book before you purchase.
I hate to bag a product, especially from authors and companies I regularly buy from, but this pdf is truely terrible and I strongly recommend both beginners and old hands to leave this alone.
| Classement: | | [1 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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The Good: The definitive guide to my favorite RPG setting makes running it easier than ever. The Bad: That I just don't even as much time as I'd like to play this. For a full review see: http://mostunreadblogever.blogspot.com/2010/08/tommys-take-o
n-deadlands-reloaded_04.html
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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The Good: My favorite setting of all time, in my favorite in-print rules system, now with some editing updates and available at a player friendly price. The Bad: Still some options I loved missing, but I can convert those myself. For a full review: http://mostunreadblogever.blogspot.com/2010/08/tommys-take-o
n-deadlands-reloaded.html
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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Introduction
The Savage Worlds game is not only known for its fast, furious and fun game play but also for the unique settings. Some of those settings may look quite ordinary on the first look but most of them have a least a certain twist that makes them different. One of those settings is Necessary Evil.
On the first look, NE looks like any other superhero background. There a super powered humans with flashy costumes, evil alien invaders, an iconic city where most of the action happens and all the other trappings of superhero comics. But on the second look you notice that things are not as you might expect them. The most obvious twist is that almost all superheroes have been killed during an alien invasion and now the super villains have to save the day! The former bane of humanity has formed small cells of resistance fighters that use their superhuman abilities to fight the alien invaders.
The Plot Point Campaign in NE sheds some light on some secrets of the NE universe and contains some more surprises, but I don’t want to spoil anything here. But it’s pretty obvious that the world of Necessary Evil is not your father’s superhero comic world.
Necessary Evil Explorer’s Edition
NE is currently available in the updated Necessary Evil Explorer’s Edition which has the size and low prize in common with the current edition of the Savage World core rules. The 192-paged Necessary Evil paperback sets you back $19.99 and you can get it as a PDF document for just $14.99 at RPGNow. The Savage Worlds Explorer Edition which contains all the rules you need to play in any genre costs just $10, so you get a complete superhero game for about $30. I don’t think there is any commercial superhero game where you get more bang for the buck.
Artwork
The artwork is top notch although some of the interior art has appeared in other Savage World books and the 1st edition of NE before. Alas the maps in the book don’t fit the style of the rest of the artwork. I definitely would have preferred hand-drawn maps over the computer generated ones. Overall art and layout of the book are great and pretty much what you would expect from a Savage Worlds product.
Players Section
The Players Section consist of two chapters: A Necessary Evil, which provides the players with some basic information on Star City and the rest of the world, and Making Villains which contains all the rules for creating villains/heroes for a NE campaign. Aside from humans, players may also choose Atlantean or Hybrid characters. Atlanteans are a race of aquatic humanoids that was almost wiped out in the attack by the alien V’sori and K’tharen. Hybrids are the progeny of a mixed human-atlantean heritage. All Hybrids are telepathic like the Atlanteans. In addition they get either a Free Edge like a human or they share the Aquatic trait with their Atleantean parent.
NE introduces a couple of new edges and hindrances which may have limited use outside of the superhero genre. So if you want to use NE as a resource for other campaigns you may be out of luck here. The most important new edge is the Arcane Background (Super Powers) edge, which has been changed slightly from the one originally presented in the Savage Worlds rules. Every player character in NE starts with this edge for free. Instead of just one power each character can have as many powers he can afford with the 10 Power Points he receives during character creation. New powers are acquired by taking the Power Points edge and saving of power points for later levels is allowed. So characters in NE are much more powerful than their counterparts built using the core rules. In addition to that, each character may take an additional major hindrance to gain 5 extra power points!
The section on gear is quite extensive and contains new armor, new weapons (including alien technology) and some high-tech gadgets like nightvision goggles, rocket packs and stealth suits. The vehicle sections contains stats for all kinds of vehicles from cars to alien space ships.
My favorite section of the book is the Powers list. Instead of just expanding on the powers presented in the core rules, NE comes with a completely new lineup. There are actually over 70 unique powers ranging from Absorption to Whirlwind. Using those powers you could probably recreate any character from your favorite superhero comic with ease. Most powers come with a lot of optional modifiers that allows further customization.
The Player Section is concluded by eight pregenerated characters or archetypes: The Armor-Clad Super, The Blaster, The Brick, The Gadgeteer, The Scrapper, The Speedster, The Stretch, and The Sorceror. Even unimaginative players should be able to create a cool villain using these examples.
Game Master’s Section
The GM’s Section contains four chapters: A World of Evil, Secrets of Star City, Adventures and The Invaders. The first two chapters are an in-depth description of the world, the recent alien invasion, the V’Sori, the leader of the resistance, the mysterious city of Atlantis and the focus of the campaign itself: Star City. Throughout those two chapters the GM not only gets presented with a lot of background information but also with stats of most major character including but not limited to the V’Sori Warlord Grypon, the infamous Dr. Destruction, and Star City’s mayor and alien collaborator Jerry Perez.
Chapter Five contains the Plot Point Campaign which is divided into 11 episodes. Usually the Plot Point Campaign is started by the first episode. After that the GM has the opportunity to run adventures he has written himself or downloaded from the Pinnacle Entertainment website until he decides his players are ready for the next Plot Point. There’s also a handy Adventure Generator that helps the GM to come up with minor adventures like recovery of an important artifact or a recruitment mission on the spot. I’ve used the Plot Point Campaign in Rippers for example to run a campaign with almost no prep time. That’s what makes Savage Worlds campaigns even more interesting for GMs with not much free time at their hands. The chapter is concluded by over 30 pages containing numerous Savage Tales, short adventures that can be used as the GM sees fit.
Chapter Six is basically a bestiary containing the stats and descriptions of several aliens and generic NPCs. Alas not all NPCs are accompanied by an illustration. Ok, I don’t actually need an illustration to know what a human gang member looks like, but it would have been nice to get some more images depicting the aliens. But that would have probably increased the cost of the book.
The appendix of the book contains a couple of “Villain Hide Out Maps” and the character sheet. And last but not least there’s a handy index.
Conclusion
If you are a fan of Savage Worlds and the superhero genre, you definitely should get the Necessary Evil Explorer’s Edition. As I wrote in the introduction, you probably won’t get more bang for the buck elsewhere. Even if you don’t like the idea of playing a villain, you may use the book as the basis for a superhero campaign of your own creation. And the Savage Tales in the back of the book can probably be easily adapted to any superhero campaign. I’ve enjoyed reading NE very much and I sincerly hope I can convince my players to start a campaign when we are done with Rippers.
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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I have been playing Deadlands for years and it has always been one of my favorite systems. When at the Steampunk World's Fair last weekend I got a chance to play a demo of this version and I loved it.
It still feels like the old system but simpler. Everything runs quicker even character creation. If you are a fan of Savage World then you already properly have this. If you are a fan of the original then it is time to switch to this version.
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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The Fantasy Companion your standard races of elves, dwarves, halflings and half-orcs, but also features the Saurians and Rakashans, lizard-folk and cat-folk respectively. With a few quick little tweaks, you’ve got your Dragonborn and Tieflings from D&D quite easily. There are some awesome rules for sieges, which I will implement post-haste if I’ve got the chance to run a fantasy game. There’s a ton about magical items, as well as many intelligent items, and a large bestiary. Also, their magic has been greatly expanded upon in this book, adding trappings to powers to make them quite different. One wizard could employ two different bolt powers and they’d be very different if he used either ice or fire as the trapping on the power.
| Classement: | | [4 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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The Super Powers Companion is a nice, quick read that is basically 2.0 of the Necessary Evil sourcebook, featuring new rules and some new and modified powers. If you want to play a superheroes game but don’t care about the background of the Necessary Evil setting, this is the way to go. Some powers are expanded upon, while others are changed a bit. There’s also some nice new rules for lairs, which make Professor X look like he spent a lot of edges to get the X-Mansion up to the level it is now. The lairs are an awesome addition to the game. One really nifty thing they added was the ability to tweak how many power points you get to spend on powers based on how powerful you want your heroes. It’s just as easy to take a drawback to make another hero not have as many points to spend on powers so they can play the sidekick role if they want. There’s also a ton of new villains, fully fleshed out with all kinds of powers to fight your heroes.
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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This is a collection of short stories from numerous authors, all set in the imaginary town of Pinebox, Texas: the setting for many of 12 to Midnight's adventures.
There's a reasonable map of the town (not everywhere mentioned is shown, but enough to get you oriented) at the front, then the first item is a series of transcripts of conversations between a freelance journalist researching a travel article and various townspeople. It's a good way to suck you in, hearing about the town from the viewpoints of various locals - each of course with their own opinions and bias. I can see a lot of them turning up as NPCs in games set in Pinebox.
And so it goes on. Many of the tales involve locals, and they too might well find a place in your game. The stories might provide inspiration for adventures, or at least rumours and tall tales that your characters might hear if they get into conversation with the right people. However, if you do intend to mine this for adventure ideas, rather than atmosphere, you'll need to do some work as most of the stories are a little vague about what is actually going on even if they provide plenty for your characters to investigate. I regard this as a good thing because it enables the GM to put his own spin on them if he does decide to use them for inspiration for his own adventures.
A real gem for the GM who does want to use anything from this book is at the back, a collection of newspaper articles which cover events that take place in most of the stories. Even if you don't intend to use the stories as a basis for your own adventures, these newspaper clippings will prove wonderfully atmospheric - and perhaps provide red herrings when your characters are really supposed to be investigating something else!
Just as a tool for introducing Pinebox as a living (or in some cases, perhaps not) setting, this book is excellent. GMs will have to decide whether it will be flavour material to pass round their players, or to hang on to it as a resource for their own adventures - or perhaps, do both as the 'what is actually going on' in any story is undefined enough that even a player who's read it will not be significantly advantaged in his investigations, but will benefit from really getting into the alternate reality that is Pinebox. Quite a few of the characters in the stories will make excellent Pinebox NPCs even if the stories themselves are not to feature in a game. If you want to run adventures in Pinebox, you definitely want to read this!
| Classement: | | [5 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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A strongly visual fiction piece and adventure that bring out well the even-more-grim side of Deadlands and the, er, more Western side of the Mythos.
| Classement: | | [4 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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This set of screen inserts has everything you need to run a 50 Fathom game, as well as a blank page (with the same background and formatting) to allow you to add your own screen panel. The "add you own" is nice, as I always find myself creating an extra cheat-sheet to put with my screens anyway. The downside is that it is a color screen and doesn't convert to greyscale well -- some things are dark and hard to read. There is also a lot of blank space on the screens, because the layout could be tighter.
| Classement: | | [3 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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This set of figure flats gives you every sort of player character or NPC, and every monster in the 50 Fathoms book. What more could you ask for in, one PDF that fulfills all your miniatures needs for a game setting? Some people don't like that art, but it's the same art/style used in the 50 Fathoms book and I personally enjoy it and feel it fits the lighthearted, swashbuckling tone of the setting.
| Classement: | | [4 sur 5 étoiles!] |
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Connexion 
