 Goto [ Index ] |
This book is the companion piece to GM Gems. Instead of being for the game master though, it focuses on putting some style into the players’ tool box. The great cover piece by Scott Purdy is the strongest piece of art in the book. A lot of the internal art looks like placeholder art. On the other hand, a book of tips and tools isn’t going to need as much art or gain as much utility from art as say a monster book. Layout is simple two column format with a dark gray outer edge border. The book includes a table of contents, but no index. The table of contents is meaty enough however that such a tool isn’t needed. The book is broken up into four chapters ranging from character creation, early levels, middle levels and the higher levels. A ton of writers have contributed here but the book has a nice ‘read’ to it.
Part of that is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s not the in depth character resource that the old Central Casting Heroes of Legend was, but it also doesn’t suffer from some of that product’s… esoteric choices in say mental diseases.
In terms of oddities, the only one that really struck out at me isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just an odd thing. There are tables scattered all over the place. For example, tattoos on page 42 while twenty distinct voices is on page 32 and fifty personality quirks is on page 17-18. They don’t seem to follow any real ‘reasoning’ as to why they are where they are.
The book starts off by making the player ask some questions about his character. Some of these are simple like “who were your parents” and “How do you feel about killing” and act as a good primer to the types of questions players should be thinking about even as they’re designing their characters. In terms of names, I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t more of a listing than a guide to generating your own names. Still, I can see the appeal as it’s the whole give a man a fish idea. It’s more useful to give the reader ideas on how to make up their own names than it is to actually just give them long lists of names.
Scattered throughout the book are little sidebars with a gray background, “For the GM” that provide those readers of the book who may also be game masters, ideas on how to use the information that the players are generating for their characters. This gives the book a nice little double duty without padding the pages out.
Some of the ideas include starting off with pre-generated parties like army deserters or merchant guards. These are little snippets that give the party a reason to be in the same room at the same time outside of the dreaded tavern group meetings. It’s a nice touch and can give the players some bonding tools.
For those looking for a bit more detail in their back story, the book does provide several sample backgrounds that can be custom fitted to almost any character with a little addition of the character’s name to the background.
Other parts deal with the assumption of the D&D barbarian who is illiterate. It’s a nice little section talking about the value of memorization and its utility to such tribes but feels pretty specific to just 3rd edition barbarians. Not saying that other games may not make similar assumptions or that the material isn’t useful for anyone who’s illiterate, but the whole “shrug off damage…fly into a rage…” makes it pretty clear who that section is pointed at.
In terms of fleshing out a character’s background, sometimes it’s good to work with the typical archetypes. Even the Order of the Stick has done this with one of their members belonging to a rogue’s guild, another to a fighter’s guild, another to a dwarf clan and a member of a religious order. It’s a useful tool and can expand the options the GM has when trying to fit a character into the setting.
In that spirit, there are several organizations arranged by archetype here ranging from the Invaders, a thieves guild that specializes in destabilizing enemy towns, to the Hedge Wizards, a group of spellcasters work in the background to insure things go smoothly.
In terms of humor, one of the funniest sections has got to be Lord Bedlam Havok’s Rules of Survival in chapter three. Here we see such wisdom as “The Dragon is never sleeping. The Necromancer is never sleeping. The Demon King is never sleeping” along with “Hermits are dangerous” to “Never harass the bartender. She is a retired adventurer.”
It’s half a wink at some typical player behavior as well as a wink at old standbys in far too many adventurers and the assumptions they make about the world background. I’m not going to even get into the list of what to do with humanoid young.
There is also some game neutral advice on being useful in combat. Details on setting up a well planned ambush, knowing your role in the campaign, and how to survive. A very useful section, especially for anyone new to Dungeons and Dragon with the 4th edition, is knowing when to run. Trust me, with milestones being great and all, the urge to push on may be there, but don’t overstretch your resources.
The book ends up with some ideas on how players can worship various types of achetype deities ranging from death gods to war gods. This section includes one way to worship, another to be a former worshipper. Of more amusement to me was the meta-game protocols and the retiring ideas. The typical answer for most adventurers? Legendary shopkeeper!
PC Pearls is not a big fancy book. Not is it a highly priced, high end product. It’s one that all readers may get a kick out of and actually has some useful advice while being entertaining.
Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.
