Tag: Review

Ring Side Report-RPG Review of Dungeon Crawl Classics 2020 Holiday Module: The Doom that Came to Christmastown

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Product– Dungeon Crawl Classics 2020 Holiday Module: The Doom that Came to Christmastown

System- DCC RPG

Producer– Goodman games

Price– $6.99 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/335600/Dungeon-Crawl-Classics-2020-Holiday-Module-The-Doom-that-Came-to-Christmastown?affiliate_id=658618

TL; DR– Fun, but you will need to provide your own glue for this adventure! 93%

Basics-Who can save Christmas?!  Santa is sick and who can save him?  Gather his friends, find the horrible Grinch, and save Christmas for all the good little boys and girls!

Mechanics or Crunch–  Goodman Games knows how to make a solid adventure!  They wrote the system, so they know how to make the crunch.  Solid monsters, solid puzzles, and solid extra tables for encounters.  This is a well put together adventure.  5/5

Theme or Fluff– This is a fun adventure, but the story is a bit off.  You don’t need to hit all the major NPC to find the horrible grinch.  And the NPCs are the best part!  This adventure will pull at your Frank and Bass Christmas movie memories.  Lots of the old school heroes like Yukon and even Hermey, who becomes a Dentalmancer!, make appearances and serve to build out the story.  I just wish there was more of a reason to meet more of them!  Solid parts here, but the glue holding the scenes together here is a bit lacking.  4/5

Execution–  PDF?  YEP!  Hyperlinked? Not really, but it’s ok.  This is a well executed adventure.  I love this one. There are crazy fun puzzles for the players to work through and there are monsters to fight that feel fun.  I love all the little touches that are put into the adventure.  Heck this adventure even has a new spell for the players to use.  You can buy this from Drive Thru and be playing in five minutes based on the easy to read format and beautiful drawings and maps.  Goodman Games executes another adventure amazingly! 5/5

Summary-Ho ho holy crap this is a fun one.  If you want something fun to plunk down into your DCC/MCC game, this is a solid adventure to run.  Mathematically, it works perfectly, and it’s executed well.  I love all the little pieces here from new spells to the crazy tables built into this game.  I wish the scenes were better connected, but that’s the one flaw to this amazing adventure.  Check this one out if you get a chance!   93%

Ring Side Report-RPG Review of Shiver RPG

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Product– Shiver RPG

System- Shiver RPG

Producer– Parable Games

Price– $21.00 here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/399308593/shiver-a-film-and-tv-inspired-ttrpg 

TL; DR– DON’T LET THIS GET AWAY!  99%

Basics-Who’s the man in the mask?!  Shiver is a horror RPG with some serious table top influences.  Let’s look at the pieces and give a review.

Basics– This is a mostly d6 based system.  Each time you do anything, you roll a number of d6 equal to your stat for the skill.  The game uses speciality d6s with specific symbols on them.  Every symbol that matches the task (like strength for a strength based task) is a success.  Get enough successes and you do the thing.  Don’t, and you fail!  You can also roll luck symbols which allow you to add additional dice to later rolls by banking those points.  There are also strange symbols.  These have OTHER effects depending on the scenario or character you are playing.

Talent dice– you can also get d10s in each skill for a specific action in a skill.  These have much higher chances of success and have a few strange symbols for good measure.

Combat and monsters- wouldn’t be horror if there were not monsters that would show up and kill you!  Combat works pretty much like everything else.  You mostly use grit as the skill and the brawling ability.  Each monster has a challenge rating and that is the number of successes you need to hurt the monster.  If you get two more than needed, then you get a critical hit.  Critical hits are random and you get a random effect, ranging from extra damage to knocking down the target.  

Monsters also have random effects when hit depending on their type.  Basic monsters only do something every once in a while, but big monsters respond to each hit!

Combat rounds are quick with people acting in the beginning for fast characters, middle for characters who don’t need to go fast, and last for hurt characters or slow people.

DOOM!-Horror needs suspense and you get that with doom!  Each failure and some strange dice rolls result in the clock ticking closer to midnight. As we get closer and close to midnight, the game gets harder and things happen!  Success means good things, and failure has consequences.  Sometimes the heroes don’t win!

Ok, now my thoughts.

Mechanics or Crunch-Got to love a committed horror game!  Shiver is an easy to learn game.  Heck, what you saw above is the basic rules!  Roll d6s, see if you win.  The doom mechanic means randomly doing things has consequences.  This means the basic mechanics of rolling ties right into the theme.  Also, that mechanic of dice, doom, and failure reminds me of many board games I’ve played, and I love those games!  That is some good mechanics execution!  5/5

Theme or Fluff-Already said I love the mechanics and they flow right into the horror of the theme.  This game is amazing for its flow of dice rolling going right into the basic mechanics.  I love the horror and the difficulty of the game.  People will focus on their roles as each die only gets you a ⅙ chance to succeed at an action, so less random rolling happens and people play their roles in the horror story.  I love what’s here!  5/5

Execution–  PDF?  YEP!  Hyperlinked? Maybe?  I got a prerelease, but I like what’s here.  The art looks like Hellboy, which is good.  The only thing I don’t like is fancy dice.  I know, I know, it’s a small thing to whine about, but fancy dice are hard to get after a kickstarter.  You do get rules to deal with regular dice, but that’s my one minor issue.  Outside of that, this is an amazing RPG that you need to get onto.    4.9/5Summary-DON’T SLEEP ON THIS!  There are less than 50 hours left.  Go get this. Solid rules, solid theme, and good execution of the book mean this is a game you can get playing in under 30 minutes when you get the PDF.  For 21 bucks or 15 magic foriegn money ( I kid I kid!), I am already in, and YOU SHOULD BE TOO!  99%

Ring Side Report-RPG Review of Sinking the Stercorarius, The Salty Funnel 0 Level Adventure

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Product– Sinking the Stercorarius, The Salty Funnel 0 Level Adventure

System- DCC RPG

Producer– 2 Old Guys Games

Price– $10.00 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/318718/Sinking-the-Stercorarius-The-Salty-Funnel-0-Level-Adventure?affiliate_id=658618

TL; DR–  Another great funnel, but now at sea!  93%

Basics– SOMETHING TOUCHED MY LEG!  Your band of rag tag….honestly level zero losers has to survive a ship flooding but wait!  There is a mysterious island on the horizon.  What could be there?  Time for another level zero funnel!  No spoilers for the fun secrets of why the ship sank or what’s to be found on the island in this review.

Mechanics or Crunch-I love the crunch of the DCC level zero.  Lots of death whittles characters away until you get a character with its mettle tested.  This adventure is no exception as characters die on ship, in the water, and on the mysterious island.  Not only that; there is a ton of new content, from crazy weapons to new toys for the players and Judge.  This adventure has a ton of new material that any DCC fan will love. 5/5

Theme or Fluff-This story is a fun one, but has a bit of trouble with the final touchdown.  The story is great up to the point of why you explore the island.  The basics are to get off the ship and survive.  From there the adventure is basically up to the GM.  The players are not given a goal aside from what the Judge gives them.  The adventure gives you tools to make it happen, but it’s up to you.  The judge given free reign isn’t bad, but I would like a bit more direction for the judge.   4.5/5

Execution–  PDF?  YEP!  Hyperlinked? Yes! This is solidly DCC.  The art, the layout, and the text are all great DCC standards.  This is exactly what I want from a DCC module.  My one complaint is I wish this would be the retail price.  I did the kickstarter for $10 which came with the extra materials.  This doesn’t come with the extra stuff, so the price is a tad high for what you get.  Overall, a solidly produced adventure for DCC RPG.    4.5/5

Summary-Yar!  Time for a funnel at sea!  I like this funnel.  There are never enough funnels, so more is always better.  This stands out by providing a lot of fun toys for the Judge and players to have after the adventure as well as a fun location to play in.  It’s a bit pricey for what you get and it is a tad open ended without a clear goal for me, but those small things aside, it’s a great adventure.  If you need a funnel that your players have not seen, this is a solid new adventure they will enjoy.  93%

Ring Side Report-RPG Review of Star Crawl

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Product– Star Crawl

System- DCC RPG

Producer– Tuesday Night Fiend Club

Price– $10.00 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/254637/Star-Crawl?affiliate_id=658618

TL; DR– DCC Starfinder!  88%

Basics– Need some space in your DCC RPG?  Want to play Starfinder and DCC?  Then Star Crawl is for you.  Let’s see what the new things are from DCC RPG.

Basics-Can you play DCC RPG?  Then you can play this.  Honestly that’s the big mechanics of this.  Seriously!  That’s not a bad thing.

Races-  Star Crawl introduces race templates.  You choose a race template that you add to a character at level 1 or 0.  It’s a few ability changes and a few extra abilities.  Nothing too crazy, but some solid additional crunch to the system.

Space ships-  You can’t have space opera without space ships.  This system adds in space much like Starfinder.  Basically, pilot checks determine who goes from low to high as you outmaneuver other ships.  It’s simple to keep in the flavor of DCCRPG.

This is’t a complete change so much as an incremental change.  Let’s look at my thoughts on this.

Mechanics or Crunch-This is both the high point and the low point of the book.  Why high?  The new stuff is great!  I love what’s here. Solid new classes.  Solid application of the basic ideas of DCC RPG.  Solid new races.  Everything here is great.  Why low?  It didn’t feel like enough. I want more spaceships.  I want  more space options.  It’s kind of a short book.  It was great, but I was just left wishing for more to help me build my space world. 

4.25/5

Theme or Fluff-I was looking for some Star Wars DCC RPG, and this delivers.  You get new settings to play, and the fluff to get there.  What I do need more of is world building.  It’s a solid intro book with the basic ideas of the universe, but I need more.  The included adventure builds that out, but I would have liked a bit more history, background, and details to draw me in and help me make it my own.  4.5/5

Execution–  PDF?  YEP!  Hyperlinked?  no…I can live without the hyperlinks, but they help, especially for an intro book.  The rest of the book is well done.  The art is simple, but charming.  The layout works well.  It reads easily, and is approachable.  Overall, this is a solid book, but I still want a few more tech toys.  4.5/5

Summary– My players and I are chomping at the bit to get into this.  I like this book and world.  The mechanics are good, but I need more toys for the sandbox.  The world is solid, but needs more to help me build and expand.  All in all,  for a small publisher, this is an amazing book that I really recommend to anyone who needs a bit more scifi in their fantasy.  If you want some space fun, throw your DCC RPG players into this space opera. 88%

Ring Side Report-RPG Review of Trail of Cthulhu

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Product– Trail of Cthulhu

System- Gumshoe

Producer– Pelgrane Press

Price– $24.99 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/55567/Trail-of-Cthulhu?affiliate_id=658618

TL; DR– Do you think Call of Cthulhu has too much Crunch?  88%

Basics– Should the story stop when the players just suck at rolling?  Trail of Cthulhu believes that story trumps mechanics as story should drive the game.  Let’s look at the pieces.

Overview-Trail of Cthulhu is a skill system like Call of Cthulhu, but unlike Call of Cthulhu you have two types of skills: investigative and general.  General covers any contested rolls and investigative covers learning the horrors of the mystery.  Let’s break that down.

Investigative Skills-  You enter a room, ask to search the library for secret books, and you find all secret books.  If you have ranks in the appropriate skills, you find all the books.  That’s it.  If you couldn’t find the books, the story might stop.  Trail of Cthulhu focuses more on you learning the mystery and less on you flubbing rolls to learn the mystery.  You build these skills with points like ranks, but those points are spent to learn more, not just enough.  Characters with even one rank would find all the books, then can spend points to learn more, like find the right places in the hidden books to skip something horrible or learn more secrets beyond the base mystery.

General Skills-  Punch a guy, out run a monster, and hide from the cultists are all opposed rolls where the story isn’t the issue, so they become general skills.  This system uses ONE d6.  That’s it.  You want to to a thing? Roll a d6 and aim for a 4.  Before you roll, you can spend points from the pool to add to the roll.  Some skills give you more damage or more hit points or sanity, but for the most part opposed rolls happen with skills or trying to do a thing that isn’t dependent on the story happening at all.

Honestly, that’s it.  There is sanity and HP, but for the most part the two types of rolls define the system.  Let’s see my thoughts.

Mechanics or Crunch-I like crunch (heck I build point based Shadowrun characters for fun!), but for the most part, this is a quick, light system.  My more roll-happy friends freak out when we play as they NEED to roll to search, but the option to make story happen as the goal is a good one.  If you just want a game that happens fast without a ton of hassle because you didn’t spec into the right build at level 4 to cast the one spell to put the deepone to sleep, but you will want a horror game then this is the crunch for you.    4.5/5

Theme or Fluff– This game is put out by the premier Lovecraft people in the industry.  They know their stuff.  It feels right, but it also feels like Indiana Jones as they build Pulp and straight Lovecraft versions of the rules into it.  If you want to punch the ghoul, then this can be your game, or if you want to go mad at the sight of a corpse, then this can also be your game.  The book builds out a full world in a quick way to help new GMs get running right away.  5/5

Execution–  PDF?  YEP!  Hyperlinked?  YES!  I have the two big things I want, but why am I not happy?  Well… RPG books can be built one of two ways: mechanics first or theme first.  This goes character build first.  I don’t know what ANY of the math means until WAY far into this book.  When I googled it it made perfect sense, and then 20 pages later I saw the explanation.  That is not good.  I like the world that is built with the book, but it’s a pain to read; a three column design isn’t great. This book is modern, but some of the design decisions are just a bit off.  3.75/5

Summary– Slick and simple.  This game is a fun one regardless of the book design.  I like the game this makes.  The solid focus on story first is nice.  I would like a bit more crunch, but  simple is fun sometimes.  The story and theme of the book are top notch.  The execution isn’t.  If you want a game that starts quick and plays quick but still has great Lovecraftian horror, then Trail of Cthulhu is worth checking out. 88%