The Other Side blog

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

100 Days of Halloween: BlaszczecArt Stock Art: Halloween Witch

More stock art tonight.

BlaszczecArt Stock Art: Halloween Witch

This one features a long-haired witch riding a broom. Had to grab it. I am not sure where I will use it yet, but I will certainly find a spot.

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 30 - What should #RPGaDAY do for its 10th anniversary next year?

Today's question looks to the future. What should #RPGaDAY do for its 10th anniversary next year?

Two things I can think of.

1. Poster's choice. You participate in a past #RPGaDAY that you did not do originally or did not complete. So for me 2017 and 2018.

2. Roll a d10 to and post for whatever that year was. This means Dave still needed to come up with things for Year 10 (2023)

I think my money is on #1.

100 Days of Halloween: Troll Witch

Quick one tonight, some stock I rather enjoyed.

Troll Witch

A cool bit of art from Daniel Comerci. It is labeled as a "Troll Witch" and that works for me.

I used this one for my Winter Witch book and it is rather perfect to be honest.

Monday, August 29, 2022

Monstrous Mondays: Monster Manual V (3.5)

We are getting to the end of the D&D 3.x Monster Manuals now. There are more 3.x monsters to be found; not just official D&D ones, but thousand through the d20 explosion. Today though I want to spend some time with the Monster Manual V.

Monster Manual V (3.5)

PDF. 223 pages. Full-color covers and interior art.

For this review, I am considering the PDF from DriveThruRPG and my hardcover I had a number of years ago.

Published in 2007 this was one of the last hardcovers published for the D&D 3.5 game prior to the announcement of the D&D 4e.

I picked this one up cheap at the local RPG auction and I think I sold it back at next year's auction. Not a ringing endorsement I know, but in mine (and this book's) defense I was reducing my 3.x collection to make room for more OSR books and the upcoming 4e. I am glad I picked up the PDF though.

There are just over 110 monsters in this book (ranging from CR 1/2 to 22), the least amount for any of the "Monster Manuals" for 3.x. There are 11 templates, and many companion and summonable creatures. There are even new feats and spells. So at least this late in the game there is (or was) new material that could be shared.

The monster entries are again limited to whole pages. To make up the space there are "Lore" entries on some monsters. Others even have a Sample Encounter, Typical Treasure and/or how the monster appears in various campaign worlds. I admit these do not feel like padding and instead feel like a value-added feature.

Alignments are also prefaced with "Always" or "Usually" in some cases, giving more variety to alignments.

Among my favorite creatures here are" the Arcadian Avenger, the various new demons, the unique Dragons of the Great Game, Frostwind Virago, the God-Blooded creatures, Kuo-toa (finally!), Mindflayers of Thoon, Skull Lord, Spawn of Juiblex, the unique vampires, and the Wild Hunt.

While I was expecting a lot of "also-rans" and some diminishing returns on monsters this one actually is pretty good. The details are greater for each monster entry, so this explains the low monster-to-page ratio here.

Still, you have to be playing D&D 3.5 to really get the most out of these monsters.

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 29 - Who would you like to see take part in #RPGaDAY?

Who would you like to see take part in #RPGaDAY?

Honestly? I would like to see some of the big names in the industry do something with it. So Wizards, Paizo, and others. Sure, use it to sell your own games, but it would be fun to get some of the big names involved.

Though the more the merrier to be honest!

100 Days of Halloween: Children of Midnight: Coven Quickstart

A bit of a different game tonight. Felt I needed a bit of a palate cleanser. The DriveThruRPG page says "Children of Midnight: Coven Quickstart is a gender inclusive urban fantasy Forged in the Dark table-top game. Players take the roles of Wyld Witches and their Familiars who form a Coven for mutual support in a dark and harsh modern world." Sounds interesting. Let's get to it.

As always, to stay objective I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Children of Midnight: Coven Quickstart

PDF. You get six files with this:

GM Session Notes
Quickstart Consent Form
Starting Undertaking
Quickstart GM Cheat Sheet
Children of Midnight Coven Quickstart Grimoire
Children of Midnight Coven Quickstart v1.3

In order, the GM Session Notes are exactly that, a form for recording sessions. The Consent form is similar to others I have seen before. Green, Yellow and Red indicators on what all the players think on various topics. Starting Undertaking is a three page document with an overview/background on the game rules and the world. Quickstart GM Cheat Sheet is a 6 page PDF with various guidelines and rolls used in the game. Children of Midnight Coven Quickstart Grimoire is a colorful 2 page character sheet.

Children of Midnight Coven Quickstart is the game proper. This is a 40 page PDF. It uses a system called Forged in the Dark that I am not entirely familiar with. The authors are Gavin and Áine Moore. For 40 pages there is a lot of material here. The font is a little small, but I can put this on a larger monitor than what I am using now.

There is an absolute ton going on in this game. There is lore. There are detailed NPCs with photos and social media. I honestly feel I need to do some more research into this game before I can even properly review it. So since this is a quickstart, I feel a quicky review right now is good. But really there is a lot of promise here.

To get a better feel I'll certainly need to play it, but I like what I am seeing so far.