Le Monastère de Saint Gastronomie (Review)

A whimsical mini-campaign set in rural medieval France. Players are monks who must gain the allegiance of local monstrous factions in order to save the world. Due to the nature of the system and adventure, it will be difficult to avoid spoilers in this review.

The adventure was part of Kickstarter’s third Zinequest event, and available as a reward. I have not yet found it for sale outside of that. The PDF is 36 pages, written and illustrated by Guy Potts. It includes “standee” paper miniatures for all of the monsters and monks.

UPDATE: You can now buy the game on itch for $7.50!

The System

It comes with a light set of rules that would be easy to swap out, but it would be a shame to do so entirely. The core of these is three stats, roll-over stat checks, a neat little initiative mechanic, and so on. But it also has three key elements that make the system feel tailored to the adventure: miracles, sins, and the timeline. I would consider grafting these subsystems into any game I ultimately used.

As all the characters are monks, there are no class options, spell lists or starting equipment. But there is magic! Before starting, the GM makes a secret list of specific miracles (“create a spring,” “bring a statue to life,” etc.). Characters can pray freely, and if they happen to ask for a miracle on the list, once per monk per campaign, that miracle is granted. (14 miracles are provided to start, with space for four more.)

Similarly, the GM is encouraged to create a list of “sins” (perhaps modeled on existing religious ideas). (Even without a list, certain actions in the module are defined as sins.) Whenever a monk sins, that player marks a circle on their character’s sin-o-meter. Then, the GM rolls 3d6, re-rolling one non-6 result for each sin marked. If the result is “666,” then each character takes a permanent damage. Characters who die this way are especially dead. I think this is a fun and thematic way of handling morality. It allows for a lot of luck-pushing and emphasizes the religious nature of the characters without punishing them outright for making hard choices.

Finally, the whole game takes place over 28 days, so time taken to heal or travel becomes important. This also informs the other two mechanics in their scope: players may choose not to “save” their miracles or may be more reckless with their sins, given this limit.

The Campaign

The adventure provides a compelling amount of direction for a sandbox. The characters are summoned by a dying monk to stop the current abbot (Pierre the Pious) from summoning an angel of death to purge the world of sinners, annihilating France. To do this, they need to recreate the three traditional products of the abbey under the old abbot (Reynard the Rotund): beer, wine, and cheese. Then they must barter them with local monstrous factions in exchange for their support in the coming battle.

The adventure is seven hexes with the monastery at the center, and each hex has an overland map and an underground dungeon. Three hexes house the monstrous factions and three hexes contain the supplies and equipment the monks will need to reproduce the recipes and arm themselves. The whole map is full of connections and secrets.

The Good

The adventure exudes charm from the art, the tone, the scope. The included system is elegant, as are the mechanics found throughout for dungeon elements, puzzles, social interactions, traps, and so on. (To be sure, the art in this review is not the style of the art in the book, which all matches the cover much more closely.)

It claims to be targeted at absolute beginners, and I believe it. It’s friendly in tone and well-considered in many small ways, from using only d6s to laying out the maps in a radial manner (so that they are easily covered by simple fog-of-war effects, or even sticky notes). In particular, I appreciate that it provides many opportunities to fill in some blank spaces, but it never feels incomplete without them.

The Bad

The adventure sits in a weird place as a drop-in. Not too much relies on the players being monks, so you could drop other characters in pretty easily. (If you’re the planning type, you could even have them meet Brother Bartholomew beforehand.) But the climactic battle seems like an end-of-campaign event that would be hard to continue after, and the tight timeline doesn’t leave much room for side-quests. It’s also slightly too long to run as a one-shot.

I’d like to know more about Pierre and his ritual. The book mentions that he will be out of town if the players think to kill him. But it’s unclear if the ritual could be prevented some other way. Does it have to happen in the palace? (Then could Pierre just be kept out?) Is timing important, or is Pierre just too busy to cause the apocalypse right away? (Then could he be delayed or misled?) If this is a Watchmen scenario, why bother keeping him away on business? Ultimately I’m not too worried about this because the draw of supernatural agriculture is probably pretty good and the clues leading to it are plentiful. But I do expect these questions to come up.

For all the interweaving and jacquaying, the PDF would benefit from hyperlinks, but it is short enough that it’s OK without.

Conclusion

I was expecting a short adventure, but instead I found a small world, full of character and innovation, with well-crafted support for its unique size. I wish I could tell you to buy this, but it doesn’t seem possible at the moment. I’ll update this if that changes. (UPDATE: This has changed! you can now buy it here! I recommend it!)

Tomb of the Serpent Kings (Review)

The adventure I spent the most time with this year was Skerples’ Tomb of the Serpent Kings (TotSK), running it for a group of 5e players. I also made good use of Itai Assaf Raizman-Greif’s 5e conversion notes. There’s more of the dungeon to explore, but I’m reviewing what we’ve had the chance to play so far. Spoilers etc. below.

For the unacquainted, TotSK is a “learning” dungeon designed to ease new players into a classical, more lateral mode of dungeon exploration. It doesn’t have a gimmick, it’s not a full campaign, and it’s not a single-page blank slate. Instead it’s intended to be a mid-sized dungeon that’s simple to run and fun to play, and which is full of “lessons.” The lessons aren’t explicit, but they’re called out for the GM (for example, “valuables sometimes take unconventional forms” or “traps repeat”).

The plan for session one was simple: finish rolling characters and then play through the “false tomb” level to familiarize everyone with the rhythm of the game. The false tomb level works well for this: the players learned the patterns of the dungeon, exercised some creative problem solving, and won some small treasures. The draw of a low-level, “half-session,” discrete amount of dungeon motivated me to try the adventure in the first place.

We spent the better part of the year in the dungeon (and surrounds), and while we’re not done yet, we’re on hiatus for the moment. The players haven’t encountered Baltoplat or Xiximanter, but have met the goblins and explored most of the upper levels.

What Didn't Work

I’d read the hammer trap a dozen times and thought I’d figured it out. But as soon as I tried to run it, it escaped me, my descriptions were inadequate, and the players spent more time being frustrated than they should have. It really wants a rough diagram and just a couple clarifications (which way do the doors open, which side are the hinges on, that type of thing).

There’s a hidden room behind a statue, following the established pattern of hidden rooms behind statues. Two characters noticed that the statue was misaligned (they didn’t tell each other), but having only one other example to work from, and switching contexts, they left it alone. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but it’s not the clear-cut “lesson” the text suggests.

The 5e rules and playstyle also undermine some of the “lessons” in the dungeon, namely that combat isn’t always necessary. The players saw the Stone Cobra Guardian as a “boss fight” and proceeded to demolish it. The same thing happened to the basilisk. I hope they don’t try to kill the lich, but I'm not even sure they couldn’t.¹

In the 5e stat block for the Stone Cobra Guardian, it’s easy to miss the AC bonus from the shield attack. I’d put a reminder in parens after it, but I don’t think it ultimately mattered much.

For all the logic of the dungeon, some of the traps still feel a little fun-house, which leaves me walking an awkward line between the hammer trap (traps will be signposted, avoidable, interactive, etc.) and the stair trap (trust nothing, everything is dangerous, search everything, etc.). I don’t think my players noticed any incongruity, but I wonder what “lessons” they’ve actually learned about exploring a dungeon.

I used the “strange dreams” hook to get the party together because I had no idea what kind of characters people would be bringing to the table.² I’ve loosely worked out how the dreams work, but the players with the most elaborate backstories are dissatisfied that they’ve been delving so long and neither dreams nor backstory have been relevant yet. (I do have designs to tie it all together, but the characters just keep going the other direction.)

Part of the issue is that 5e combat is not only more likely, but also a bit of a slog. When the players fight the guardian, for example, that's going to take most of that session. So a lot of time is spent fighting, searching, detecting, and prodding which makes the dungeon feel less engaging than it might otherwise.

To help fix this, the 5e adaptation added “Smee,” a friendly goblin, who I ignored entirely. Eventually the players will meet other non-player characters and have the opportunity to roleplay (in the dungeon), but if I were to start again, I would give them that chance earlier.

What Worked

That said, it’s generally been fun,³ and a lot of things have worked really well:

• The sarcophagus of Franbinzar containing both a foul shifting liquid and also the glint of treasure caused much confusion, as the players dropped the lid back in place before getting a better look.
• The players have made full use of the unfinished room for stashing supplies and resting. It’s just a good feature.
• The players do not like the abyss, and take winding paths to avoid it.
• Killing the guardian means there are now wandering monsters throughout the dungeon, and it also affected the regional encounter table. I don’t know if the players will notice, but it’s satisfying to run.
• Unlike the hammer trap, the blade hallway was very well received. “That felt very D&D,” to paraphrase our rogue.
• As we left it, the goblins have just crowned their new king, and there are only three weeks to the next full moon. (The players know what happens then, but the goblins wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.)

Snakeguts

After the players killed the Stone Cobra Guardian, the artificer wanted to search the remains for parts. Between sessions I took the opportunity to think of possible finds:

1. Ornate gearbox. Runs perpetually, but ticks loudly, giving away your position.
2. Glowing emerald golem-brain. Evil, but powerless to act.
3. [Bulky] spur gear, a map etched into it.⁴
4. Internal repair sub-golem. Repairs other structures, but rebuilds the original golem if left unattended.
5. Incredibly articulated hand. Easily used as a prosthetic.
6. Parabolic golem-eye. Focuses surrounding magical energy like a 4-D camera obscura.
7. [Bulky] flywheel. Frictionless while spinning.

The characters ended up with the emerald golem-brain, discovered its nature, and proceeded to devise elaborate ways to dispose of it permanently. (They feared that destroying it would free the spirit in it, and that sending it too far away, for example into the abyss, would invite someone to recreate the golem.)

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1 Part of the issue is that there’s six of them, and they’re going to be level three next time we start. I decided to start with the milestone XP option, with each “cleared” dungeon level counting as a character level. This worked really well for the first level-up at least, and quickly gave the new players a feel for advancement. I had some other thoughts on 5e here.^back

2 It turns out sleeping is less universal than you think once there are elves and warforged in the mix.^back

3 Going back to my revolutionary theory that “games are fun.”^back

4 I’ve never cared to track encumbrance, but when I have to, I like Electric Bastionland’s system. Roughly, you can carry two [Bulky] items: one in your hands and one on your back.^back

Notes on Three Systems

I’ve had the pleasure to run three new systems in the last year or so, and I’ve collected some notes here.

Mothership

Mothership is a Science Fiction horror game in the vein of Alien or Event Horizon. The Player's Survival Guide is available from Tuesday Knight Games in print or from DriveThruRPG as a free PDF.

• Character creation is as easy as the character sheet makes it look. It was great for new players and they picked up the percentile system quickly.
• It is much harder to GM than it looks and I don’t think I did it justice. Coming from dungeon crawling games, I made a few mistakes:
  • You can’t foreshadow every encounter. Combat can start before players have a chance to run, without them necessarily doing anything “wrong”.
  • Remember to ask for saves. In a “normal” game, the players find a body and roll for loot. In Mothership they find a body and roll a save.
  • Familiarize yourself with the players’ tools or be ready to improvise. When players scan behind for signs of life, do undead show up? Do androids? Insects? Big insects? In D&D, I’m familiar enough to know what detect magic can and can’t do (or I can look it up for a whole page of detail depending on edition), but Mothership suffers doubly from being a genre I’m less familiar with and from still having such a brief rulebook.
  • The game has no “fallback” mechanic. If an action isn’t covered by stats, saves, or skills, then you have to come up with a consistent resolution on your own, and it’s just light enough that this is likely. If a character hides, you can have a negotiation about it or roll under the enemy’s instinct stat, but it would be nice if the game gave you some guidance.¹
• Make snacks. Figs can be quartered with a honey sauce to make xenomorph eggs, and green jalapeño jelly on chèvre looks “biological”. We had some more mundane snacks also, and for dessert, a chocolate olive oil cake with green matcha frosting.
  
• Impromptu reviews of Oneohtrixpointnever included “I feel like the music is attacking me.” Ambient sounds were more constructive.

The players all said they had fun, so I’d try it again, but it definitely still feels like it’s in beta.

Troika!

Troika! is some weird shit. You can get it from a few places, and there is also a free "demo" PDF on itch.io (it does not include the sample adventure Blancmange & Thistle).

• Character creation is quick, but some players were a little miffed at their backgrounds. (We had to really emphasize that gremlins are purely malicious.)
• Free form skills are a lot of fun, because they encourage players to really try anything and not worry about what they’re “good” at. Skills learned in the first session included jar fighting and high-fiving.
• Free form skills also distract from existing skills that players might not know about. For example, none of the players had etiquette already, so it didn’t occur to them that they could rely on the skill instead of their role-playing when they were stuck. A list of skills can equally serve as a generator for ideas and a limitation.
  
• Blancmange & Thistle is a nice little adventure that showcases Troika! very well, but the direction is loose. My players ascended the hotel and heard some calls to adventure at the rooftop feast, but there’s not a lot of momentum towards any of them.
• Troikan initiative is a lot of fun in practice. For playing online, there is Dave Schiuridan’s tool and a Discord bot, or you can list the initiative tokens in a numbered list and roll an arbitrary die (shrinking it by one side after every roll).
  

D&D 5e

Dungeons & Dragons is a BFD. The fifth edition has a few starting points, but weirdly, it doesn’t look like you can buy the Player’s Handbook as a PDF.

Fifth edition is the easiest game to get a group together for. Because of this exposure, I’m sure I won’t say anything groundbreaking here.

• If you don’t limit character choices before players start making characters then they will use anything they can find, and they can find a lot. Our party has a warforged, a tabaxi, and an artificer, so I'm mostly just letting them tell me how their characters work. The artificer was difficult because it's not always clear to a new player when things you find online are homebrew.
  
• I had been warned about the power level and amount of magic, and while these things are higher than previous editions, I don’t think they’re game-breaking. It just gives everyone lots of different tools to interact with the environment and stronger assurances that they probably won’t die.
• Some things that make sense to me (coming from older editions), and look fine at first glance, do not make sense at all to new players:
  • The step-by-step “building a character” section only works for that character. For more complicated characters, you will need to do the steps out-of-order and jump back and forth and add steps. When you’re finished, only about half the character sheet has been filled-in.
  • A lot of terminology is not explained. An “ability modifier” does not modify your ability score, but a “racial modifier” does, and then can indirectly change your “ability modifier”. When I write sixth edition, I will call the modifier a “bonus”, and scrap the score altogether.
  • Similarly, levels and spell levels have always been confusing. It’s not helped by every class having its own casting rules. I will call them “spell circles” when I am benevolent dictator of the next edition, as in “magic missile is a first-circle spell”.
• The index is awful. In the space that it takes for “temporary hit points” to direct me to “hit points, temporary”, it could have given me the page number. The whole thing is like someone copied the style of an index without understanding it.
• I think the GM tools are probably lacking, but I borrow liberally from everywhere, so it’s hard for me to judge.

There’s a lot of fun to be had with 5e, but I’m never sure how much is just the inherent fun of RPGs. Still, I think it’s got an undeserved reputation in some places.

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1 There is a Warden’s (GM’s) guide planned, in the future. I hold out hope that book does for the GM what the survival guide does for players, but I’m less sure given the Twitter thread. There was definitely room to own that some parts of the rules were just less finished than others, but also everyone says dumb stuff on Twitter.^back

Weird on the Waves (Review)

For a while now¹, I’ve been dreaming of a maritime campaign, so I jumped on Weird on the Waves a year or so ago. It’s finally out, and it’s OK I guess.

Background

Weird on the Waves started taking pre-orders in 2017 as a LotFP-compatible product. It released in 2020 with generic D&D rules and notes for both “old school” and “new school” styles of play. It is available from Rebecca Chenier’s itch.io page for $5.99 or from her other storefront (?) for $10.99. I don’t know what the difference is, but I got mine from itch.io if there is one.

The Elephant in the Room

Is Rebecca Chenier cancelled? I don’t know man. If she’s a grifter, she seems benign. I did keep an eye out for any of the worst issues of Blood in the Chocolate and didn’t find them here.

Overview

The setting is the Caribbean in 1666, just before the “golden age of piracy”. But something is wrong: ships can travel to the Caribbean, but they can’t leave again. Instead, they find the islands surrounded by a sentient, hateful ocean full of strange and magical islands.

Chapter 1 - The Weird Waves

In addition to the setting pitch and the list of inspirational media, this chapter also explains basic D&D terminology in a way that’s not enough to be useful on its own, but enough that it might not match whichever system you are using. I would have preferred if it just owned OSR-style stats or 5e-compatibility, and didn’t feel the need to explain dice notation again.

This chapter also contains the part of the game that I’m most likely to borrow from: the basic “gameplay loop” of Weird on the Waves. That is the structure of finding a lead and following through and the procedures for sailing (like other games have procedures for exploring a dungeon or hexcrawling).

Chapter 2 - Character Creation and Play

This chapter also suffers from system indecision. It has rules for things that your base game should already have², like swimming, drowning, encumbrance, experience, etc. It has some suggested backgrounds, but without the mechanical heft of full 5e backgrounds, which is probably fine. It does also have rules the base game is unlikely to have, like firearms and a general-purpose “maritime” skill.

Chapter 3 - The Mermaid

When characters die in Weird on the Waves, they can be brought back as a mermaid by the ocean, but without their memories. The mermaids here are suitably weird (we are treated to some of Rebecca’s own art), and the bulk of the class is a d100 random-advancement table. It has details for “New School” and “Old School” games.

Chapter 4 - Goods and Equipment

Maybe someone likes this, but for the most part I don’t care what the cost of a cutlass is, or the range of a blunderbuss compared to a musket, meticulously-researched though I’m sure it is. I appreciate the miscellaneous bonuses that come from ship’s pets, and I like that all the currency conversion rates are as simple as possible.

Rules for disease also end up in this chapter, because medicine is here. Fair enough.

Chapter 5 - Ships and Sea Vessels

Like equipment tables for boats. I would be perfectly fine with four basic ships and then keep the section with perks and customizations, but I assume that some people get a lot out of this.

Chapter 6 - Sailing the Sea

Here is real meat. If Chapter 1 had procedures for “dungeon exploration”, Chapter 6 is the random encounter tables and rules for morale. (It is actually random encounter tables and rules for morale, so that wasn’t a great analogy.)

Chapter 7 - Ship Combat

I’ve read a bunch of ship combat rules, but I’ve never actually run any. This looks simpler than Pathfinder but more helpful than B/X, so that’s promising. Ocean hazards are also in this chapter, and I’m not sure why they’re not in the previous one instead.

Chapter 8 - Ending Combat, Days, and Voyages

Unlike the last section of Chapter 7 (“Ending Combat”), the title of this chapter refers to repairs after combat and also other parts of the sailing procedure that happen at the end of the day (e.g. morale checks) or the end of voyages (e.g. selling treasure).

Chapter 9 - Wave Master Rules

This chapter has a setting overview (“the ocean is magic and hates you”) and details (“the government of Cuba”) and GM advice (“historical accuracy is overrated”). There are also rules for “Wave”, “Weal”, and “Woe” dice, which represent the will of the malevolent sea. Wave dice get added to the GM-side of contested rolls, Weal dice are added to player rolls (like inspiration maybe), and Woe dice are rolled for prompts to make a situation worse whenever a player rolls a natural “1”.

This chapter also has all the random tables, and they seem all right.

Chapter 10 - Adversaries and Monsters

There are three kinds of monster in here: small or mundane animals, NPCs, and weird creatures. I could probably do without stats for “Cat” and “Dog”, especially because the important parts (bonuses for having a ship’s pet) are already elsewhere. I could also do without stats for “Sailor” and “Commoner”, because the base system should already have these, and I wouldn’t have to convert anything.

The weird creatures are one of the best parts of the book though, from a flavor standpoint. We’ve been told before that the sea hates humans and mocks them, but these creatures are actually showing that. The ocean learns that humans need vitamin C to survive, so it makes carnivorous citruses that suck vitamin C. Explorers start littering guns and ammunition, so the ocean induces crabs to become fortresses. It really captures the weirdness and hatred and confusion of the setting.

There are also some named NPCs (mostly historical figures) to serve as rivals, patrons, etc. These are fine and useful.

Chapter 11 - The Horrors of Pig Island

A short adventure, but probably solid. There are only so many ways to do a shipwreck adventure, but this one is cleaned up, with a little bit of Circe, and showcasing some of the atmosphere of the Weird on the Waves setting.

Chapter 12 - Race to Mondo Island

This adventure really showcases the sailing protocols, but doesn’t seem to add much. The PCs have a map, hire a crew, encounter some weird stuff, and hopefully return with the treasure. If nothing else, this is a useful illustration of how to use the tools in the book.

Impressions

• The PDF is not accessible at all. This is, in my opinion, the strongest argument against this book. The text is not searchable, there are no bookmarks, and every page is a flat, lo-res, grayscale image. Ostensibly, this is to prevent piracy (irony noted), but I don’t understand quite how, because people pirate PDFs all the time. This is only slightly alleviated by the inclusion of a hi-res map booklet.
• In what I assume is a result of this decision, the text of some tables is larger than the space allows, leading to crowded, hard-to-read entries like this:
  
• The book is a one-person effort and the limits of that show. For example, it could really use an editing pass to catch all manner of little things (the wrong “its”, “Île/Isle” confusion, etc. In one place, the book refers to a “Weird” die, even though the new types of dice are “Wave”, “Weal”, and “Woe”.) It reminds me of Ynn in that respect: strong concept but lots of loose ends.
• No rules are given for renown, although the text mentions it a few times. It’s not a big deal to improvise, but I remember one of the things I did like about the Pathfinder pirate rules was a subsystem for tracking “infamy”.
• It doesn't need to be 224 pages. A lot of space could have been saved if a single system was picked, or some things were left assumed. But I wouldn’t mind the length so much if the PDF were searchable and indexed.
• The art is a bit of a letdown. Rebecca referred to the book as a “millstone around her neck” in the preface, and I’m glad for her that she finally got it finished (I know the feeling). But somewhere between concept and finished product Rebecca’s own art was replaced with standard-issue public domain art³, and I find it uninspiring. To see what could have been, I have reproduced two pages from a 2019 sample document (left) next to their released counterparts (right).
  
  

Conclusion

Would you like me to review your product? Here’s how to make that happen:

• Write a solid product that blows me away.
• Write a product of any quality that happens to be on top of my pile when I’m in a writing mood.
• Ask me? I don’t know if this will work, nobody’s ever tried.
• Write a product that doesn’t exist, that I already really want to read and make it infuriatingly close to good.

I would say that I could definitely get some use out of this, except for the accessibility issues. If I can’t search it or navigate it, it’s going to be more hindrance than help at the table.

Islands!

Weird on the Waves has a weird island generator, so as is tradition, I gave it a half-dozen spins. It’s got occupants (1d12, 9 entries), shape (1d20), resources (1d8, 6 entries), buried or hidden treasure (1d6), and noteworthy features (1d100, ~30 entries).

Island 1

Occupants: Spanish colonists (60 commoners, 10 sailors, 1 noble)
Shape:
Resources: Coconuts (Provisions)
Buried Treasure: Buried trove (Ivory (0.1 tons, 12000 gp), Fresh water (1 ton, 100 gp))
Noteworthy Feature: The island is cursed, causing all who dwell upon it to slowly be turned into different kinds of fish people. The transformation is slow, causing anyone who stays there longer than a month to develop fishy traits.

Island 2

Occupants: Coconauts (110 coconauts)
Shape:
Resources: Coconuts (Provisions)
Buried Treasure: Sealed crate of textiles (175 gp)
Noteworthy Feature: Site of a cursed item. A random cursed item is hidden somewhere on the island. The item is a valuable treasure, but holds a terrible curse if used or possessed by a character. The exact nature of the cursed item is up to the Wave Master.

Island 3

Occupants: Uninhabited by humans
Shape:
Resources: Island cedar trees (Materials)
Buried Treasure: Buried Trove (Spanish wine (0.2 tons, 300 gp), Livestock (2.1 tons, 75 gp), Clothing (1 ton, 300 gp))
Noteworthy Feature: The island is cursed, causing all who dwell upon it to slowly be turned into different kinds of fish people. The transformation is slow, causing anyone who stays there longer than a month to develop fishy traits.

Island 4

Occupants: Dutch merchants (100 sailors, 2 captains)
Shape:
Resources: Island cedar trees (Materials)
Buried Treasure: Buried Trove (Dyes (0.2 tons, 500 gp), Textiles (0.3 tons, 525 gp), 14 Provisions (0.4 tons, 140 gp), Materials (1 ton, 100 gp), Narcotics (0.5 tons, 1000 gp), Rum (1 ton, 400 gp))
Noteworthy Feature: Within the island is a cave system with 17 chambers, forming a treasure-laden but heavily trapped dungeon.

Island 5

Occupants: Buccaneer camp (13 buccaneers, 1 captain)
Shape:
Resources: Island cedar trees (Materials)
Buried Treasure: Sealed crate of textiles (175 gp)
Noteworthy Feature: An abandoned settlement. Tobacco and sugarcane has been planted, houses and camps built and intact, but completely empty save for a few splashes of blood. Pirates didn’t kill these people, but something did. Setting up a camp here is easy, but encounters are doubled.

Island 6

Occupants: English colonists (50 commoners, 10 sailors, 1 captain)
Shape:
Resources: Sea cave (Hiding place)
Buried Treasure: Cache of Barbados rum (12 barrels, 480 gp)
Noteworthy Feature: An abandoned settlement. Tobacco and sugarcane has been planted, houses and camps built and intact, but completely empty save for a few splashes of blood. Pirates didn’t kill these people, but something did. Setting up a camp here is easy, but encounters are doubled.

Notes

These are pretty good, combining a lot of the best features of other tables I’ve liked. I like that most islands are inhabited, I like that every island has a secret treasure, and I like the little maps. The only thing that feels “off” is the specificity. When it lines up well, the specificity makes the whole thing come together beautifully (Why does Island 4 have two captains? Obviously there are North and South camps, and they are fighting over the extensive treasure caverns.) But then when it doesn’t line up obviously, it can be tough to make it fit (How is the livestock “hidden” on Island 3?). In other places, I wish there was a little more detail, like about the cursed item on Island 2. The "weighting" of some of the tabes feels off slightly, but I can't put my finger on it.

Are any of the islands giant turtles?

No turtles, but one possible island is a fossilized whale that begins to move again when the characters uncover its calcified heart. Same vibes.

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1 I recently caught up with an old friend and we were talking about D&D. I told him about the nautical campaign I was dreaming and he said, “Ian, you need to do that already. You gave me the same pitch in High School.” Now I’m worried because I don't remember that at all.^back

2 Or not, as you might know if you’d ever looked for LotFP’s drowning rules. This uncertainty goes some way to explaining, if not excusing the bulk.^back

3 Which isn’t to say that this can’t be done well. I quite like the public-domain collages in Johnstone Metzger’s work, and I find that Emmy Allen’s work tends to recontextualize the images enough that they don’t bother me.^back

Podcasts (Fiction)

Following Dan at Throne of Salt, I decided to review some of the podcasts I listen to. Because "Oh God I Listen to So Many" is a sentiment I can share. I found his post very useful, as it finally convinced me to listen to the Magnus Archives, so I hope that someone else may find some gems here.

To keep the list manageable, I'm only listing fiction podcasts for now (not actual play, history, etc.), and I've broken it into "Abandoned", "Caught Up", "Underway", and "On My Radar". "Serialized" means you should probably start at the beginning, and "episodic" means you can probably start anywhere. "Nondiagetic" here means that the people doing the recording know there's an audience, but I've probably applied it inconsistently. "Explicit" means you'll want headphones, at least.

Abandoned

I started these, but have no intention of finishing or catching up right now.

Archive 81

• serialized (?)
• horror
• nondiagetic

If the act of producing The Magnus Archives was itself a ritual of some kind. I just didn't have the time to get a feel for it.

The Signal

• serialized
• sci-fi

I remember listening to this, but nothing else about it.

Steal the Stars

• serialized
• sci-fi

A para-military organization guards a UFO. Too tense for me. I can do horror, but I can't do suspense generated by human decisions. I imagine this is like how some people just cannot handle cringe comedy.

The Black Tapes

• episodic
• horror
• nondiagetic

A podcaster follows an experienced paranormal investigator looking into his "black tapes"—the tapes he could never explain away. I liked individual episodes well enough, but they felt "unfinished". I didn't care at all for the metaplot, which from what I understand dominates later episodes.

It Makes A Sound

• serialized

An obsessive fan of an obscure musician searches for an early tape. I think? It wasn't what I was expecting, so I left quickly.

The Other Stories

• episodic
• horror

Short horror stories. Seemed workmanlike, but I may revisit it. There is a different podcast also called The Other Stories, which is unrelated.

Kench!

• serialized
• comedy

I was only in it for the first miniseries (5 episodes), starring Ben Partridge of Beef & Dairy Network. If you like Beef & Dairy Network, you'll like that, but the rest is wildly different from what I can tell.

Mission to Zyxx

• episodic (?)
• comedy
• sci-fi

A space-diplomat gets sent to the sticks. It's not bad, but there are too many podcasts. I do enjoy the episodes that crop up on the Max Fun bonus episode feed.

Caught Up

I've listened to all of these that there is to listen to.

Adventures in New America

• serialized
• horror
• comedy

Satire in future America with space vampires. Very camp. I probably would have bounced off it, but I had a lot of time on my hands.

Beef and Dairy Network

• episodic
• comedy

Absolutely one of my favorite podcasts, but very difficult to explain. When I try to explain it to friends I just get weird looks. I recommend starting with the first episode ("Dr. David Pin") or episode 52 ("Tusk Henderson", guest starring Nick Offerman).

The Bridge

• serialized
• horror

Traffic reports broadcast from a watchtower along the (abandoned) trans-Atlantic bridge. I think I'm a sucker for both alternate history settings and horror about people with boring jobs.

Bubble

• serialized
• comedy
• sci-fi

Inside the bubble is a city of relative safety, and outside is wasteland with devils in it. The devils occasionally break through and fighting them is subcontracted through a ride-share style app. A weird premise, but well-executed.

Deadly Manners

• serialized
• comedy
• crime

Basically the Clue movie but with different famous people (LeVar Burton, Kristen Bell, Michelle Visage) and a good dose of cold war paranoia.

Dreamboy

• serialized
• horror
• explicit

Weird things happening to a horny gay musician spending a winter as a zookeeper in Cleveland Ohio. It's a mood.

Getting On with James Urbaniak

• episodic
• comedy

Comedian James Urbaniak, whose voice you know, adopts a variety of personas to deliver deranged self-centered monologues. A true gem, but sadly dead.

In Darkness Vast

• serialized
• horror
• sci-fi

Season 1 is "when Star Trek goes wrong". Season 2 is a about identity and celebrity, but more about survival on a hostile planet. I really enjoyed these, and hope for more.

Middle:Below

• episodic
• horror (?)

Aims for Doctor Who with Ghosts, but sometimes ends up a little on the "community theater" side of things. Charming though, enough to compensate.

The Orbiting Human Circus

• serialized

Julian Koster of Neutral Milk Hotel tells surreal Christmas tales for children. If it had actually been broadcast in the 20th century, I expect that listening to it would be a family Christmas tradition, like a sharp-edged Rankin-Bass film.

Pounded in the Butt by My Own Podcast

• episodic
• comedy
• explicit

Podcasting celebrities read the works of Chuck Tingle aloud, sometimes with friends, rarely sober, and apparently with very little preparation.

Sandra

• serialized

What if the engine behind the newest voice assistant was actually just a secret warehouse of people with access to all of your personal information? Despite that setup, this is not a satire or sci-fi show. It hit the same "tension comes from people's decisions" note that I found very stressful in Steal the Stars, but I made it through.

Tides

• serialized
• sci-fi

A scientist is trapped on the surface of a strange planet, with only intermittent communication. A weirdly meditative experience.

A Very Fatal Murder

• serialized
• crime
• comedy

The Onion does Serial. If you're the type of person to read a whole Onion article, you'll get a kick out of this. If you're the type of person to laugh at the headline and then move on, you'll probably be content to know that it exists. The ads are memorable.

Your Attention Please

• episodic
• comedy

Monologues delivered without context. Dead at two episodes, but I was laughing out loud at both of them (well, giggling madly).

Underway

I have listened to some of these and either finished, or intend to finish.

Alice Isn't Dead

• serialized
• horror

Season one, a trucker makes odd deliveries around the US while searching for her wife (Alice) and running from things. Season two is all conspiracies and paranoia. It's really good.

The Cryptonaturalist

• episodic

Each episode describes an encounter with a fantastical cryptid, and also has some poetry and other ramblings. Took me a couple episodes to get into, but I think it was just me.

The Ghastly Tales Podcast

• episodic
• horror

Scottish people read short stories.

Hello From the Magic Tavern

• serialized
• fantasy
• nondiagetic

A podcaster fell through a gap in reality to the mystical land of Foon and this podcast is his lifeline. Every episode he and his friends interview a different resident of Foon. It's like an improv game, where the only rule is that anything anyone says is canon. It's hilarious, and I understand there's a great second season and a spinoff podcast, but there's just so much of it.

Lake Clarity

• serialized
• horror

Strange goings-on around Lake Clarity. A pastiche of classic campground horror.

LeVar Burton Reads

• episodic

LeVar Burton Reads things to you. It's good.

Lightspeed Magazine - Science Fiction and Fantasy

• episodic

A small stable of narrators read stories from recent issues of Lightspeed Magazine. I'd recommend a lot of them.

Limetown

• serialized
• horror
• crime (?)

A radio host looks into the historical disappearance of a secluded research facility. Really good tension, satisfyingly banal evil. I haven't listened to season two yet, and I understand there's a show on "Facebook Watch", which I unfortunately do not care enough to learn how to use.

The Lost Cat Podcast

• serialized (seasons 2 & 4)
• episodic (seasons 1 & 4)
• horror

Nominally, the host looks for his lost cat. Each episode in any season is a well-crafted horror story, and in the first three seasons, each one has a brief musical interlude. I really love the worldbuilding.

The Magnus Archives

• episodic
• horror

I'm listening to this as I write these reviews, and it occurs to me how many other podcasts must have been aiming for this, and how skillfully it avoids all of their pitfalls. An archivist inherits a backlog of supernatural witness statements, and sets about recording them on tape and sometimes taking new statements. It's a very clean premise: every episode, of necessity, has something supernatural, and then the host is allowed to poke at it after. I appreciate that this poking is usually disbelief, but not always because it might be more likely within the world of the Archives.

Old Gods of Appalachia

• episodic (?)
• horror

The Appalachain chain was a prison for unspeakable things, and also there's witches. It's pretty good so far.

The Orphans

• serialized
• sci-fi

A bunch of crash-landed amnesiacs try to survive on a weird planet. I'm not far into it yet.

The Thrilling Adventure Hour

• episodic
• comedy

Different titles recall different types of show from classic old-time radio, but with modern comedians doing the voice acting. I particularly enjoy "Beyond Belief" (what if Nick and Nora saw ghosts) and "Sparks Nevada: Marshall on Mars" (self-explanatory).

The Truth

• episodic

Each episode is a fully-produced, sharply-written, short drama. There's a lot of them, and a lot of them walk that same uneasy line as Limetown and Sandra.

Welcome to Night Vale

• episodic
• horror
• comedy

"Community radio from the Twilight Zone". Justified and ancient. Sometimes gets a bit caught up in its mythology, but when it's good it's really good.

Within the Wire

• serialized
• horror
• sci-fi
• nondiagetic
• second person

A series of guided meditation tapes help you escape from some kind of dystopian institution. Immersive experience.

Wolf 359

• serialized
• sci-fi
• horror
• comedy

Comms officer on a remote monitoring station broadcasts his logs into the void. There's a lot of Red Dwarf in the DNA, but also some alternate history world-building and some banal corporate evil.

On My Radar

I haven't even started these yet.

• Darkest Night
• DUST
• Empty
• Twilight Histories
• The Walk
• The White Vault
• Wooden Overcoats

DIE TRYING

I have had the pleasure to play in two of Spwack's DIE TRYING playtests. While I'm only talking about the DIE TRYING rules here, these can be difficult to separate from Spwack's play style. I can also only discuss the rules that I've encountered so far.

Click for the DIE TRYING rules. (Image credit: "Bogeyman")

The rules start with 7 pages of character generation. This is garbage unnecessary¹. You need two links to make a character:

• Spwack's Random Character Generator
• Optional: Character Intensifier [non sic]

This is the first great innovation in DIE TRYING: to automate character generation without loss of interest. It's 1% of the effort of rolling an OD&D character with all the nuance of a million pounds of Pathfinder splatbooks. I recommend making one now, just to see what I mean.

And yet, for all the tricks and abilities your new character will have, they will still be lacking. One of my characters started with a spell, but no magic dice. Both of my characters started with the eye of a malign entity upon them. Another party member started with a mystery egg, and no way to hatch it. Every character is very weak and readily dismemberable.

This is the core of it: DIE TRYING is a game of want. I'm sure you can starve to death in the game, but mere hunger and encumbrance and exhaustion are not its motivating factors. Instead, DIE TRYING presents a world full of interaction and interest. Then it gives you characters that have abilities, but not power, and an immediate need to fill that gap in order to survive. Where the rules shine is the lists of ways to get more power and learn new abilities. Because you will need those to live.

This leads to the other major innovation in DIE TRYING: the X system. Characters get ad-hoc Xs instead of experience. Xs are awarded for achieving things or failing terribly, for good plans and bad ideas. Xs are awarded out-of character for things like attendance, character portraits, or this review². And Xs aren't some nebulous investment in an eventual "level", they go directly towards meeting immediate needs. You can add an X to anything on your character sheet that needs more oomph behind it. I had a crowbar on its last legs, but with an X I shined it up good and now I have an acid-resistant crowbar. I appeased an ancient king, and now I have a little more leeway when dealing with it. After three Xs, my colleague's egg hatched, and now his "son" is a helpful slime that he carries with him.

In case I've been unclear (and even were I not being "compensated" for this review) I've had a genuinely great experience with the system. Especially if you're in Spwack's timezone, I believe he's still playtesting on Discord, and I recommend it.

---

1 The main reason I favor "OSR" type systems is that I find character generation to be a chore. The main thing I miss about more "bloated" systems is the bizarrely specific characters you could build, like a mutant half-elf blind seer/assassin. If this were my system, I would do it like Perl: the generator is the rules, and then relegate the whole 7 pages to an appendix.^back

2 Missed opportunity for a hot take: "DIE TRYING is a transmedia storytelling project that blurs the line between platform and experience and transcends traditional narrative frames." For real though, the same colleague with the egg got an X for opening a door with a big red "X" painted on it. We knew in advance that he would, but I'm not sure if it's because it was an obviously bad idea (it was), or if it's because it had an "X" on it.^back

Creatures of Near Kingdoms

I made a Goodreads account just to review this book (although hopefully it will encourage me to be more thoughtful in my reading). I'm afraid that whatever I do, my reviewing style will probably be very dry, but FWIW, I really enjoyed this book.

Creatures of Near Kingdoms by Zedeck Siew
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The book is ~160 pages, paperback, liberally illustrated with woodcuts. There are 25 flora and 50 fauna inside, with each described on the right-hand page via a short second-person vignette with ecological digressions, and illustrated on the left-hand page. It could be described as a bestiary of a near-future mythical Malaysia.
I loved this book. The second-person narration seems strange at first, but it quickly becomes very comfortable, like the voice you talk to yourself in your head with. I don't think you are meant to be a specific person. Instead, each new vignette gives you new family, new surroundings that immerse you in the narrative much more deeply. The creatures are not described scientifically, but rather they are brought to life by the ways that they interact with your newly-assumed everyday life.
My heart was broken several times and I laughed out loud a few times also.
It is hard to describe the illustrations in a way that do them justice, but they are critical to the mission of the book.

View all my reviews

You probably don't need to know this, but for whatever reason, some books take me months to get through, and some books I read overnight (this doesn't seem to affect my enjoyment either way). Despite its format suggesting the former, I devoured this book. Maybe it was the anticipation while it was in the mail.

You can order Creatures of Near Kingdoms here, or by contacting Zedeck directly (he is on tumblr, instagram, G+, etc.).

What's the Deal with this Island? (Pt. 1.5)

To my shame, I missed the relevant generators on Abulafia in my previous roundup.

Ancient Greek Island Names

Where to get it

Abulafia, but apparently it is drawn from AGON.

What is it

Generates five plausible names of Greek islands every refresh. Underneath, it appears to be a flat table of ~100 entries (I didn't count).

Sample Output

• Kandeloussa
• Kefalonia
• Mykonos
• Armathia
• Vous

Notes

Could be useful in a specifically Greek campaign, but doesn't give any insight into the island, so not great in a pinch. Risk of duplicates if used a lot.

Island

Where to get it

Abulafia

What is it

Generates ten island outlines every refresh. Underneath it's a mess of nested tables (which is what Abulafia does best, and which also would be really annoying as dice-rolling exercises).

Sample Output

• Plentiful Island. Stream. Catoblepas. Tarn. Hill. Stream.
• Luxuriant Island. Cave. Marble.
• Teeming Island. . Hill.
• Sandy Island. Poisonous rivulet. Porous Lava Spring.
• Rugged Isle. Hill.
• Monstrous Island. Giant rats. . Hill. Water naga. Giant lampreys. Promontory. Hill.
• Teeming Island. Dormant fissure volcano. Hill. Stream. Agate.
• Barren Rocks. No features. Try again!
• Meager Isle. Warm spring.
• Luxuriant Island. Cave. Active dome volcano. Mountain. Stream. Hill. Hill. Cliff. Stream.

Notes

I like some of the specificity it gives that wouldn't normally appear. For example, and island made of agate is great! And it gives some of the same "ecosystem" type stuff that I like about other generators. But it also requires a little extra parsing (e.g. "Mountain. Stream. Hill. Hill. Cliff. Stream."), and not every detail is relevant. Also, a lot of the more interesting results are less likely due to the nesting nature of the tables.

Addendum

I have removed a mention of Zak S's Discord server and also a link to some work I did related to it. For more information, see my post here.

What's the Deal with this Island? (Pt.1)

There are lots of tables and methodologies for making islands. I've looked over the ones I could find and collected them here.

At Sea in the Tropics

Where to get it

The Rusty Dagger
This was also part of Secret Santicore 2011.

What is it

A set of six d10 tables: "Cliffs", "Night", "Random", "Ships", "Creepy", and "Islands".

Sample Output

Island 1

Large mechanical insects are scattered across this island. They lie dormant as if, waiting for a signal.

Island 2

This island appears to be a solid chunk of smooth and rounded stone. That outcropping looks almost like a nose. Is the whole island a half submerged head?

Island 3

This is actually and archipelago chain which has been formed into a an island nation. It is a primarily agricultural based society, or it was until the plague struck. The pox struck nearly everyone, so now the stench of rotting bodies and crops is noticeable well out to sea.

Island 4

This is actually and archipelago chain which has been formed into a an island nation. It is a primarily agricultural based society, or it was until the plague struck. The pox struck nearly everyone, so now the stench of rotting bodies and crops is noticeable well out to sea.

Island 5

This is actually and archipelago chain which has been formed into a an island nation. It is a primarily agricultural based society, or it was until the plague struck. The pox struck nearly everyone, so now the stench of rotting bodies and crops is noticeable well out to sea.

Island 6

Volcanic eruptions are creating a new island here. Huge steam clouds form as magma pours into the sea, and black ash falls like snow for miles.

Notes

It's unclear how to use some of the tables, but lots of the ideas are evocative. Because there are only 10 options in "Islands", some of the sample outputs are repeated.

Welcome to Fantasy Island

Where to get it

This was part of Secret Santicore 2014 (p. 22-24, here).

What is it

A set of eight tables: "Normal Island Types" (d20), "Exotic Island Types" (d6), "Ocean Island Weather Events" (2d6), "Adventure Themes" (d12), and four encounter tables (d12) for islands of different sizes.

Sample Output

Island 1

Sea Stack (large)
A narrow rock, taller than wide, and more than 30’ tall.
The Island is home to a shunned, but noble people.

Island 2

Islet (small)
A small patch of land supports a copse of trees, apron of sand.
The island is a massive arena where things fight for the pleasure of unseen overlords.

Island 3

Rock (tiny)
A single large piece of rock jutting up from the water.
The island is a massive arena where things fight for the pleasure of unseen overlords.

Island 4

Greater Island (huge)
A large landmass that includes hills, volcanoes, and real forests.
The island holds is lost culture, advanced in magic.

Island 5

Rock (tiny)
A single large piece of rock jutting up from the water.
The island is a massive arena where things fight for the pleasure of unseen overlords.

Island 6

Cays (large)
A landmass rich enough for a small community of humans.
The island holds a lost culture, advanced in magic.

Notes

I did not include the weather or encounter tables in the sample results, but they may be useful in a pinch. I also did not end up with any "Exotic" island types, because they are only rolled for on a 20, but that could be OK for an extended island campaign. The final "Adventure Themes" table is interesting, but strangely weighted for a d12 (fully 1/3 of the results are "The island is a massive arena[…]").

Mazes & Minotaurs

Where to get it

Mazes & Minotaurs is free here. Island generation is on p. 28-29 of the Maze Masters Guide.

What is it

A set of 14 nested tables (mostly xd6)

Sample Output

Island 1

Ringed by smooth, sandy beaches.
Town with some surrounding villages.
The inhabitants live in harmony.
Remote temple
Gigantic Cyclops

Island 2

A variety of coastline exists.
Powerful city ruling an island kingdom.
Gruesome secret. Is a god involved?
Secretive tower
Hydra
Sphinx

Island 3

A variety of coastline exists.
Small villages.
They have never seen outsiders!
Old road
Lycans
Roc
Stone Titan

Island 4

Ringed by high cliffs.
No settlements, uninhabited by humans.
Ruined fortress
Myrmidons [tiny warriors]
Serpent Men
Sphinx

Island 5

Ringed by high cliffs.
No settlements, uninhabited by humans.
Secretive tower
Ghosts

Island 6

A variety of coastline exists.
Town with some surrounding villages.
Islanders regularly attacked by a cruel monster.
Territorial markers (skulls etc.)
Giant Spiders
Giant Eagles
Empusae [vampire witches]

Notes

I really like this one, but it is more of a process to generate an island. Instead of one or two complicated elements, the tables focus on simple elements, and as you fill in the island, you can imagine how they interact. For all that, it sill goes pretty quickly. I think that the tables unnecessarily combine dice, which will lead to e.g. "Gruesome secret" being more common than "Athletic games underway", and I don't see why that is. If I were using these for an extended campaign, then I'd probably just discard duplicate results.

Tome of Adventure Design

Where to get it

You can buy it from Frog God Games ($21). This is p. 290 of  my copy.

What is it

Two d100 tables: "Unusual Island" (d100), and "Owner of the Island" (d100).

Sample Output

Island 1

Vegetation on the island is intelligent and dangerous.
Titan

Island 2

Island is a graveyard for ships.
Leader of aquatic humanoid tribe

Island 3

Island is a graveyard for ships.
Ghostly leader with minions

Island 4

Central volcanoes.
Powerful religious leader (non-human)

Island 5

Cyclopean statues.
Storm giant

Island 6

Island is a living creature and any tunnels probably lead to internal organs.
Mist creature.

Notes

This isn't really what the book is good at (it's more for brainstorming), so it seems a little unfair. There are only 10 items on "Unusual Islands", so it could just be a d10 table, but everything in the book is mapped to a d100 table.

Pathfinder GameMastery Guide

Where to get it

You can buy it from Paizo ($45 print/$10 PDF). This is p. 216 of my copy.

What is it

One d100 table (25 entries).

Sample Output

Island 1

Island with trees that behave like natural siege artillery, firing enormous nuts and fruit at ships passing too close to shore.

Island 2

Reef rules by warring kingdoms of sentient crabs.

Island 3

Island almost entirely made up of old shipwrecks.

Island 4

Iceberg with a ship trapped in it.

Island 5

Frigid island in the far north filled with countless misshapen monsters trapped within its ice.

Island 6

Frigid island in the far north filled with countless misshapen monsters trapped within its ice.

Notes

I quite like the tables in the Pathfinder GM book, even for non-pathfinder games. There are some other good tables in the "Water Toolbox" section, including "Pieces of Interesting Flotsam", "Ghost Ships and Shipwrecks", and "Sailors and Boatmen".

Weird Science Fantasy Island Generator

Where to get it

Weird & Wonderful Worlds

What is it

A set of eight nested tables.

Sample Output

Island 1

Small
Fungal forest
Volcanic
Singing flowers
Apex predator: Camouflage golems
Threat: Long-range reptiles
Other: Reptiles, Fungus
Treasure: 200 gp natural resources

Island 2

Small
Short grass or mossy
Coral forest
Perpetual, localized storm
Apex predator: Super fast golems
Threats: Fast Reptiles, Trap-making birds
Other: Plant animals, Golems
Treasure: 400 gp ancient relic or natural oddity (special)

Island 3

Small
Tall, sparse trees
Synthetic (plastic, metal, etc.)
Apex predator: Massive birds
Threat: Poisonous golems
Other: Mammals
Treasure: 600 gp ancient relic or natural oddity (mundane)

Island 4

Large
Fungal forest
River of cold blue magma
Apex predator: Fish able to swallow a man whole
Threat: Poisonous mammals
Other: Reptiles, 2 different kinds of arthropod
Treasure: 800 gp ancient relic or natural oddity (special)

Island 5

Tiny
Fungal Forest
Synthetic (plastic, metal, etc.)
Apex predator: Super strong reptiles
Threats: Strong reptiles
Other: Mammals
Treasure: 100 gp natural resource

Island 6

Tiny
Dense, woody forest
Floating building-sized plates
Singing flowers
Scattered, ancient, advanced relics
Apex predator: Poisonous fungus
Threats: Durable fungus
Other: Mammals
Treasure: 200 gp natural resource

Notes

This is most similar to the Mazes & Minotaurs generator, but feels slightly less interesting, I think because it leaves the categories so broad (e.g. "mammals"). I quite like the re-use of base types though, so that we can see Island 5 has Super Strong Reptiles that prey on Strong Reptiles, for example. I also like the conceit of building the "ecosystem" on each island.
I did arbitrarily make the decision that each niche could not support more "species" than the size roll of the island.
These tables would be much faster if there were numbers in front of the options.

Uncharted Isles: a Saltbox Generation Toolkit

Where to get it

Billy Goes to Mordor

What is it

Unlike the other tables here, this is actually a method for mapping a bunch of islands.

Sample Output

Island 1

Small (1 square)
Rocky
Ruin: Settlement of a monstrous race, with a plague or curse
Person of Note: Naval Officer

Island 2

Large (9 squares)
Surrounded by hidden reefs
Salt-swamp
Ruin: Fortress of a wizard, with monsters
Ruin: Settlement of a wizard, with technology
Ruin: Other ruin of a wizard, with a plague or curse
People of Note: 3 Natives, 1 Colonist, 2 Pirates, 1 Naval Officer

Island 3

Small (2 squares)
Jungle
Ruin: Settlement of a humanoid race, with a treasure
Ruin: Temple of a humanoid race, with a weapon
People of Note: 2 Pirates

Island 4

Medium (7 squares)
Rocky
Ruin: Industrial/scientific complex of a wizard, with technology
Ruin: Fortress of a giant race, with a plague or curse
Ruin: Fortress of an ancient pagan race, with technology
Ruin: Other ruin of inhuman things from another dimension, with a survivor
Ruin: Temple of an ancient pagan race, with monsters
People of Note: 3 Natives, 2 Colonists, 1 Escaped Slave

Island 5

Medium (7 squares)
Freshwater river
Rocky
Ruin: Settlement of inhuman things from another dimension, with a weapon
Ruin: Settlement of a monstrous race, with monsters
Ruin: Temple of a humanoid race, with a plague or curse
Ruin: Settlement of a giant race, with a plague or curse
People of Note: 2 Natives, 1 Colonist, 1 Escaped Slave

Island 6

Large (18 squares)
Freshwater river
Surrounded by hidden reefs
Jungle
Ruin: Tomb of inhuman things from another dimension, with a survivor
People of Note: 3 Natives, 1 Colonist, 1 Escaped Slave

Notes

I misunderstood the directions and placed 1d6 ruins on each island, instead of distributing them. I did the same thing for persons of note. This has made for some very dense islands, and a less enjoyable generation experience, but I hope that this will not reflect undeservedly on the toolkit.
I arbitrarily decided island size by 1d4 (this seems common). I limited hte number of ruins and notable people that an island can hold by the size roll. I also skipped names and interrelations of the notable people, and I skipped settlement and lair generation as well.

Worms Upon a Piece of Wood

Where to get it

Legacy of the Bieth

What is it

Five nested tables (for island generation), and an ocean encounter table.

Sample Output

Island 1

Flock of monstrous avians (harpies, perytons, etc.)

Island 2

Inhabitants are very welcoming to outsiders, but have strange customs which wind up causing pain. Sindbad encountered this with the islanders who insisted he marry one of them, but then revealed that if one spouse dies, the other is buried alive with them. Some other examples might be ritual sacrifice

Island 3

Cannibals

Island 4

Sorcerer keeping the populace in thrall through use of charm spells to set up a secret police. No, everything's fine here in this little island village, how are you?
Demon-possessed large animals (think the Lions of Tsavo but worse and all demonic) committed to terrorizing the locals. No interest in rulership or gross consumption, but to cause pervasive terror. Or they're waiting for something, killers even more horrendous than the animal that they now ride...

Island 5

Perfectly symmetrical island. When structures are built on one side facsimiles will appear on the other. Same for the remains of any sapient being. Every day that a facsimile is separated from the island, roll a d6; on a 3+ the facsimile disappears.

Island 6

Colony of ghuls - erudite, urbane, eaters of the dead, and running out of consumable corpses.

Notes

Even though the tables are nominally held together by a 1d4 table, and there is the possibility of combining multiple options, I feel like the options are complete enough and the overlaps simple enough that this might work better as a single table.

Low Country Point Crawl Prep: Barrier Island Generator

Where to get it

Unlawful Games

What is it

Four d20 tables.

Sample Output

Savage Man’s [Island]

Small, Forested
Natives

Dead Alligator [Island]

Medium, Rocky
Uninhabited

Green Man’s [Island]

Medium, Marshland
Uninhabited

Hermit Helena’s [Island]

Medium, Sandbar
Natives

Surly Helena’s [Island]

Large, Structures
Uninhabited

Lost Snake [Island]

Medium, Marshland
Colonists

Notes

Apart from the names of islands, I don't feel like this table is really adding a lot. Similar to "Welcome to Fantasy Island", there is a subtable for "Other" islands, but it is only used on a roll of 20.

100 Uncharted Islands

Where to get it

DnDSpeak

What is it

One d100 table, 100 options. Handy "Generate" button.

Sample Output

Island 1

An island with only one inhabitant, a crazed artist trying to find his muse. He will paint portraits of all who visit him but will destroy them hours later as they did not meet his standards and do not show his inspiration for art.

Island 2

A small rocky island. On the South side, a dock pokes tentatively out of the mouth of a cave at sea level. A long staircase winds up inside the rock from the cave to a temple on the top of the island, long abandoned. The Western side houses a small beach, then a sheer cliff overlooked by the temple gardens, now overgrown. The rest of the island is barren rock, rising upwards from the sea.

Island 3

This island seems to be in constant movement... Turns out it actually is a tiny island that sits on top of a enormous turtle that roams the surface of the ocean. The island is a patch of sand and dirt that sits on its shell, a single, tiny tree sits on top of it.

Island 4

A tiny rocky island with a large tower, the top is illuminated by a very powerful Light spell. This is used as a lighthouse but there isn’t a shore nearby, the lighthouse keeper is elderly and doesn’t remember why they are there or who sent them.

Island 5

A giant knot of vegetation. Kelp extends deep into the waters below, and mangrove-like trees are rooted into the mats of kelp.

Island 6

An island is floating above the sea, about twenty feet from the top of the ocean. On top of the island is a library run by Chameleon warriors who travel around collecting books for their massive library. You can find information about nearly any civilization here, for a price.

Notes

As a crowdsourced-from-reddit table, the quality of entries varies wildly. At least one entry is just a list of short suggestions that were never properly separated, multiple entries are the Zaratan, multiple entries are giant skulls that only look like islands, the units are arbitrary (feet, km, miles, meters), etc. Still, there's some good stuff too, and as the first 100-entry d100 table it is at least full of variety.

Islands in the Sky: Random Island Generator

Where to get it

A Pack of Knolls

What is it

Four tables with some nested rolls and a sky travel encounter table.

Sample Output

Island 1

1 sq mile, plains/prairie
Organized militaristic humanoids
100% human

Island 2

1 sq mile, fey or shadow
House on a hill (occupied)
20% gnome, 20% dragonborn, 20 % shadar-kai, 20% fomorian, 20% drow

Island 3

3 sq mile, fey or shadow
Artisan town
100% human

Island 4

0.5 sq mile, badlands
Small trading village
100% troglodyte

Island 5

24 sq mile, desert
Wilderness
100% wilden

Island 6

4 sq mile, fey or shadow
Wilderness
100% human

Notes

The racial makeup is not very evocative for me, and consequently I feel that these tables also do not carry their weight. Technically these are sky-islands, but I figure the principles are the same.

D100 Islands

Where to get it

Elf Maids & Octopi

What is it

Two d100 tables: "Insular Islands within and around Exile Island", and "Islands and oceanic phenomena on Planet Psychon".

Sample Output

Island 1

A lonely, haunted gravesite, haunted by one undead.

Island 2

Grog shop under tarpaulin over fallen tree with local exotic sentients drinking together

Island 3

Lich dwells in a fortified tomb and a lich inside has power only limited by corpses

Island 4

Drunken cult of the wine god holidaying here in stupors

Island 5

A vampire lord is trapped here, a crumbling collapsed manor is only remnants

Island 6

A gigantic sea serpent hides in a cave here to recover from encounters with worse monsters

Notes

I did not see the second d100 table, so none of the sample islands were generated from it. I generally like these, but some of them link to other d100 tables, and I don't think there's any particular "island" feeling about those ones.

Adrift Amid the Random Isles

Where to get it

Tales from the Sorcerer's Skull

What is it

Six tables

Sample Output

Island 1

Volcanic (active)
Large
Sahuagin, war-like women (man-hungry)
Earth-bound god

Island 2

Coral atoll
Large
Uninhabited

Island 3

Volcanic (active)
Small
Animals
Froghemoth

Island 4

Voclanic (extinct)
Small
Humanoid cargo cult

Island 5

Volcanic (active)
Medium
Uninhabited
Living statues

Island 6

Mountain top of a drowned continent
Very small
Animals
Giant animal

Notes

By making civilization so rare, I feel like the more interesting possibilities of these tables are limited.

Recollections of 3.0 and Roman Names

Recollections of 3rd Edition

The type of thing I did just recently, may be one of the better things I have chanced upon: I feel much better about getting rid of things after I've enumerated reasons I should, and I feel better about keeping things if I'm more familiar with them. For now, I'm looking at my 3.0 books, since they've been mostly superseded by 3.5 and Pathfinder.

Player's Handbook

by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams

This wasn't my first exposure to D&D (I got started from a 3.0 boxed-set), but it was close to it. It's well-used and held together with masking tape these days.

• The first printings of the core rules (2000) were priced at $20 ea. I don't know if WotC planned to take a hit on the core rules and get it back in the extras (like consoles), or if they were genuinely cheaper, but I've ever since felt slightly betrayed by $40+ rulebooks.
• The PHB was the first of the three core books to be printed. As such, my printing has a "2000 Survival Kit" in the back, containing basic monsters and magic items, and rules for DMing and designing a dungeon, as well as a sort of quick-start dungeon. I always felt that the other two core books were somewhat extraneous after these 16 pages.
• It came with a CD. I don't know what was on the CD, but I think it was a version of Character Gen, which is now a nifty open-source program.

Dungeon Master's Guide

by Monte Cook, Skip Williams and Jonathan Tweet

So far as I know this book is largely unchanged in 3.5 anyway. The only thing I've found is that the NPC generation section is a bit better than in 3.5.

Monster Manual

by Skip Williams, Jonathan Tweet, and Monte Cook

The most important part of this book is the pictures, and those didn't change in the move to 3.5. Also, I think 3.5 has a few extras.

Psionics Handbook

by Bruce R. Cordell

This was the book that introduced me to psionics.

• The system it uses is notoriously a mess. Some of these things were fixed in 3.5, and some of them were fixed by Dreamscarred Press, and some of them are fundamental, but the concepts are still awesome.
• Soulknife is only a prestige class in this edition, although in 3.5 it becomes a base class.
• This is the book where the Gith* début in 3.0.

Tome and Blood

by Bruce R. Cordell and Skip Williams

• A paperback rulebook at the same price as my PHB, it's was a bit flimsy, but still feels quality.
• Has a lot of good information on how to play an arcane spellcaster (e.g. "Fun with Prestidigitation" and "Researching a New Spell").
• Has a lot of good fluff that I don't think made it to Complete Arcane: setting-neutral arcane organizations, wizard's hideouts, that type of thing.
• I have a memory of an article detailing the design process of the Candle Caster prestige class, but it isn't here and I can't find it for the life of me.

Living Greyhawk Gazetteer

by Gary Holian, Erik Mona, et al.

I have nothing against Greyhawk, but this is far too in-depth for me. It details the political positioning and affiliations of every little piece of the continent. I've got a little ~16-page pamphlet with a quick summary, some maps, and some adventures and dungeons, and that's enough for me.

Treasure Quests

by James M. Ward

A lot of third-party products from this time are hit-and-miss. This is one of those "misses", generally speaking. It would appear the authors were well-meaning but sloppy, and it frequently refers to WotC's product identity.

• The binding is wire-ring, which is nice. It lays flat on the table.
• Each two-page spread has a map with a few rooms, some npcs and some treasure. Despite the blurb's claims, there isn't really much to link each map, or even each room, but they're not entirely unrealistic either.
• There are recurring references to a wizard NPC named "Ren". Unfortunately these are never explained anywhere.

Green Races

by Timothy Brown

A campaign setting made entirely of monstrous races seemed like a neat idea, but suffers from similar problems to Treasure Quests.

• Each region details the predominant inhabitants, the structure and tactics of their military, usually some sort of ruin in each territory, and a prestige class.
• The only crunch in the book are those prestige classes.
• The picture quality is low, and the backgrounds grey, giving the whole book a sort of photocopied feel.
• There are further sections for "Non-Aligned Combatants" and "Dungeons, Ruins, Caverns, and Lairs". These are actually not bad; they've got some good original content.

The Book of Eldritch Might

by Monte Cook

I think this was the first third-party supplement I bought, and I don't regret it.

• Really nice feats, spells, prestige classes, and items, although I don't much care for magic constructs.
• Appendix I is "Random Rune Description Tables", which I had forgotten about. I'll have to remember these in the future.

If Thoughts Could Kill

by Bruce R. Cordell

A pretty mediocre adventure with some good ideas and some mediocre extras to show off a system with serious flaws (See above: Psionics Handbook).

• One of the endings is pretty cool: letting one of the players re-architect the psionics system.
• I feel like any non-psionic PCs would start to feel left out. Sure it has the option of letting an NPC be the psionic one, but I don't feel like that would be any better.
• Interestingly, the psionic lich appears in this book, and also in 3.5 psionics. I wonder how the stats compare.

AEG "Adventure Boosters"

These include "Servants of the Blood Moon" by Ree Soesbee, "The Last Gods" by Kevin Wilson, and "Princes, Thieves, & Goblins" by Marcelo & Kat Figueroa.

• These are a good form-factor and price: $2.50 for a 16-page "hot-dog folded" adventure. The last two pages of each are new material (monsters and items mostly)
• The adventures themselves are somewhat bland and uninspiring. "Princes Thieves & Goblins" makes the mistake of devoting the whole first page to a history lesson, and "The Last Gods" is full of creatures that "cannot be harmed and are completely immune to magic" and the like.
• Oddly the 3.5 series of similar adventures was very well-written IIRC, and much more sandbox-y.

Penumbra Adventures

These include "Lean & Hungry" by Chad Brouillard, "The Tide of Years" by Michelle A. Brown Nephew, "Three Days to Kill" by John Tynes, and "Maiden Voyage" by Chad Brouillard. These are all good; even the ones with boring premises manage to be exciting.

Roman Names

Just as the Great Khan has seen fit to extend the contest deadline, so have I seen fit to procrastinate further. I have taken a list of Roman names found here, and truncated and padded it until it makes a neat table:

Roman Names

A half-dozen samples:

• Publia Hortensia Rulla (F)
• Quinta Claudia Planca (F)
• Publia Sicinia Longa (F)
• Gnaea Acilia Dento (F)
• Titus Horatius Stolo (M)
• Marca Livia Barba (F)

In general the name has three parts:
Praenomen - This is like the first name. There's not so many of them, and I have the table set up to (very) roughly weigh them by frequency.
Nomen - This is a sort of family name. The female form can be made by replacing the "-us" ending with "-a". To roll a d120, roll a d10 for the ones place and a d12 for the tens and hundreds places. Treat a "12" as leading zeros unless the d10 rolls a "0".
Cognomen - This specifies which branch of the family one comes from. A d200 is rolled like a d120 except using a d20 in place of a d12.