First, let me warn you this is not an unbiased review. I’ve worked with Louis Porter for almost 2 years now, and recently we’ve begun collaborating on a West Coast companion city to his popular Haven: City of Violence setting. While it’s still very early in the design cycle, one of the things we both agreed on was that the setting should include lots of rules for drug use, and for the creation of new designer drugs. When I mentioned this to Louis, he said humbly, “I’ve got something you might want to take a look at…..” An hour later he sent me this short but sweet PDF. From his humble tone, I expected a few design notes, not a completed product and I certainly wasn’t expecting the sheer completeness of the rules. I received one of the best D20 Modern supplements I’ve ever seen.
The Little Black Drug Book is a short PDF designed for use with the D20 Modern and Haven: City of Violence rulesets. The Drug Book gives players another reason to take Craft: Pharmaceutical; with high enough skill ranks they can custom build any drug they can imagine. Want to inject your PCs with Dr. Erskine’s Super-Soldier Serum, or run a Bane-esque villain? You can do that easily. Want to play a drug chemist in the service to the Kali Cartel, toiling away to produce the next crack? Go right ahead. Ever wonder what ‘mundane’ prescription drugs like Viagra, Zoloft, and the like look like in D20? If you do, than you’ve got problems. (But that information’s here too.)
The drug creation rules follow the basic design philosophy for creating new spells laid out in Wizard of the Coast’s Epic level handbook. The player determines what effects he wants the drug to have, determines its benefits (which increase the Craft DC), and than adds side effects (which lower the Craft DC). Side effects range from the deadly (severe nerve damage, which can leave characters a drooling idiot or kill outright, which is appropriate for dangerous untested drugs like Thalomide), to the annoying (nosebleeds, impotence, ect). The list of possible benefits and disadvantages is staggering, and by mixing and matching different effects, a player or GM can quickly create thousands of new drugs.
With high enough Craft checks, its possible to create truly ‘world-altering’ drugs. Got 20 ranks in Craft Pharmaceuticals? Why not design a cure for AIDS, or a vaccine against cancer, or a pill that stops aging? Such campaign shaking discoveries are kept rare though by the same factors that limit real world medicine: time and money. Impressive discoveries are possible, and the rules support them just as much as they do the creation of street level drugs and minor attribute-boosters, but are appropriately difficult to come by.
The Little Black Drug book receives a 5 for style, and a 4 for substance. Like most of the Devil’s Workshop lines of products, Little Black Drug Book is an attractive, cleanly laid out PDF. The opening art reminds me of Doug Monech’s work on the JLA or Major Bummer, thanks to the cartoony exaggeration of the supersoldier’s musculature. Unfortunately, the opening art is the only art in the product. Call me easily amused, but I like an RPG product with plenty of art, though in the case of many smaller publishers the art budget can limit how cool a product can look. Still, Louis chose art quality over quantity, and the Little Black Drug book is clear, concise and easy to read, making it an excellent utility PDF and earning it full marks for Style.
The four in substance is given because while the Little Black Drug book is a complete and interesting rules-expansion, there is a single noticeable deficiency. Once a drug goes into mass production, how many doses does a single Craft check produce exactly? While the rules in the D20 Modern core book address this, I’d be nice to see a note of this in the PDF itself, for ease of reference. It’s a minor oversight, but an important one. However, if that issue was ever addressed in a revision, I’d be wholeheartedly behind giving the book full marks in both Style and Substance.
In short: The Little Black Drug Book is the best D20 Modern supplement you’ve never heard of.
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