Roll XX (system-neutral)
This massive book clocks in at 103 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial,3 pages of ToC – leaving us with 98 pages of content. The pages themselves are designed for an A5 (6” by 9”)-standard and if you print it out, you can easily fit 4 pages on a given page.
So, this is one of those books that you don’t think you need – but sooner or later do. It is, in short, a massive GM-inspiration/dressing book, but unlike most: Where usually, you get pretty generic dressing to generate details, this book deals with questions and their answers: Basically, you look at one question, roll 1d20 and there you go. Or, well, you just read all and choose, you know?
The questions generally range from the generic to the specific: If you ask “What’s in the treasure chest?”, you may find prophetic poems, written in blood, profane copper, starving blood ants, Vecna’s OTHER hand, Pan’s Flute…you get the idea. Other questions herein pertain, for example what else may be required for a certain potion; what the orc chieftain is wielding, etc.
Now here is the catch: This book is not solely devoted to the fantasy genre, in spite of the impression elicited by the front cover: In fact, this is not only system-neutral, it also covers a lot of bases: Beyond the first chapter, devoted to fantasy, we have one for superhero RPGs that provides replies to the burning question where the villain’s secret lair might lie or what apparently-useless-her-powers may do.
Aficionados of science-fiction similarly may enjoy a whole chapter, wherein starship passengers, malfunctioning equipment and the like are covered. Personally, I am very much partial to horror, so the table containing cryptic anagram clues alone made this well worth getting: Fans of CoC: How long do you need to solve “I’ve misery: red mists”? Great and useful: Reasons why you (or someone else) can’t see the horrible entity. The horror-chapter is pretty extensive and this, for me, is great news.
But perhaps your tastes are more aligned with modern gameplay – so if you need some notes for modern gameplay, rest assured that this pdf delivers those as well: What’s in that duffle bag? What is that sentry babbling about? What’s that bottled liquid? From the mundane to the majestic, the pdf delivers a broad spectrum of notes…and you obviously may, at any time, simply only print out the genre of choice you need.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I noticed no significant glitches. Layout adheres to a no-frills b/w-1-column-standard and the pdf comes with excessive bookmarks – each question gets one, which means that using the pdf via an electronic device if comfortable and dead simple – a must for a book like this.
Adam Burke, Rafael Chandler, Mason Deming, Matt King, Jim McCann, Gary Bowerbank, Bill Collins, Keith Keffer, ASH LAW, Tony Love, C. W. Marshall, Brianna Sheldon, Stuart Templeton and Graham Walmsley deliver one amazing, useful GM tool. Oh, and two things: It’s completely open-source and it is PWYW. You can pay whatever you can afford for this neat book and frankly, it is worth getting; it is worth leaving a tip for this nice toolkit and I encourage you to download it and see for yourself; more often than not, the entries can actually inspire their own narratives and plots. All in all, a fun pdf, well worth getting – 5 stars.
You can get this cool pdf here for PWYW on OBS!
Like it so much you want it in print? You can get that version here on lulu!
Endzeitgeist out.
