Friday, August 16, 2013

Recession Reviews: Reign of Winter 4-6

by Frank Gori

Recession Reviews: Reign of Winter 4-6

Times are hard. While the cost of a gaming book beats any trip to the theatre, our loved ones don’t always see things it that way. When you can spare the money, what products deserve your hard earned gaming dollars? Who balances enough crunch with the fluff to allow the frugal GM to recycle, after all the best games are the ones you can play over and over again without losing interest.

Normally we’ll not being doing half an AP all at once, and any who wish to review something in this format should email me a request at theflyingpincushion@gmail.com

Book 4 The Frozen Stars:

Written by: Matthew Goodall

Page count: 98 counting the inside covers

Throw Away pages: 31 (covers, forward, advertisements, in this case the gazetteer for Triaxus, and a story not directly useful to the adventure)

Golden Pages: 31 (reusable npcs, spells, reusable maps, monsters, new items)

Cover price: $22.99

Price per page: $0.23

Modified price per page: $0.23 = Cover price/pages + golden pages – throw away pages= modified price per page

Crunch to Fluff Ratio: 2.16 to 1

Our Rating out of 10: 5 while you can reuse allot, it takes enough GM effort to merit a lower rating

Description (minor spoilers): Despite the rating I love this adventure. The option to either assault or defend the fortress is a welcome trope that harkens back to the wargaming roots of the system. If your looking for a dragon rider based world then Triaxus is the place and pick this up to supplement Distant World.

This is mostly just too gonzo for most homebrew worlds.

Book 5 Rasputen Must Die:

Written by: Brandon Hodge

Page count: 98 counting the inside covers

Throw Away pages: 27 (covers, forward, advertisements, gazetteer on a god 90% of your PCs will never touch, and a story not directly useful to the adventure)

Golden Pages: 45 (reusable npcs, spells, reusable maps, monsters, new items, new troop subtype, amazing modern firearm gazeteer)

Cover price: $22.99

Price per page: $0.23

Modified price per page: $0.23 = Cover price/pages + golden pages – throw away pages= modified price per page

Crunch to Fluff Ratio: 3.26 to 1

Our Rating out of 10: 2 or 9 depending entirely on your perspective on modern firearms in fantasy

Description (minor spoilers): The party comes to Earth. You’re either the DM that has been waiting for this since the game’s beginnings or the type that will hate this with a fiery passion. I fall into the former camp and this is likely my favorite AP standalone ever (and I’ll be using it in kingmaker as a Numerian invasion,)

As a history buff Brandon Hodge has a deft hand at introducing this story in a manner that doesn’t do the period an injustice.

Book 6 The Witch Queen’s Revenge:

Written by: Greg A. Vaughan

Page count: 98 counting the inside covers

Throw Away pages: 23 (covers, forward, advertisements, and a story not directly useful to the adventure)

Golden Pages: 32 (reusable npcs, spells, reusable maps, monsters, new items)

Cover price: $22.99

Price per page: $0.23

Modified price per page: $0.22 = Cover price/pages + golden pages – throw away pages= modified price per page

Crunch to Fluff Ratio: 4.26 to 1

Our Rating out of 10: 6 You can translocate some of this but so much is within Baba Yaga’s Hut it’s hard to see any of this transplanted elsewhere.

Description (minor spoilers): Our heroes save the lesser of two evils and save the world. It’s another hard sell for those picking this up in part to farm matereals for another campaign. The villains are tough here and can be reskinned in a number of ways.

Overall, this si a fun and engaging series of adventures I’d recommend to either run straight or if you’re inclined it meshes surprisingly well with Kingmaker and Tales of the Old Margreve for a dark fairytale feel with a strong Russian flavor (though if you do that Rasputen must Die is a hard sell.)

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