This is a combined review of both the Savage Worlds Horror GM's Toolkit (HGMT) and Horror Bestiary Toolkit (HBT). The layouts are similar and whatever I say about style applies to both. Rather than submit two short reviews with a lot of duplication, I decided to submit one review covering both products.
Disclaimer: I am a big fan of Savage Worlds. I own several settings/plot point campaigns, the Fantasy Companion, and the Science Fiction Toolkits. So you could say that I'm not exactly unbiased. Having said that, I will do my best to provide an impartial review of the material.
The books were written by Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams back when he still worked for Pinnacle Entertainment Group (PEG). He has since left to co-found a publishing company, Triple Ace Games, producing licensed material for Savage Worlds and other game material. Anyone familiar with his Necropolis 2350 or Hellfrost works knows that the man is a veritable fount of ideas.
Each of these pdfs is a 64 page book of standard 8.5x11" dimensions. They sell for $12.95 each and are available directly from PEG or DriveThruRPG. Don't let the page count fool you. Both of these books are chock full of content and well worth the asking price. As of this writing, if you view Game Geeks #140 on YouTube, you can get a 20% discount from DriveThruRPG on either or both for a limited time. It was this discount that prompted me to finally pick these up, so partial credit goes to Kurt Wiegel for inspiring this review.
Before finally diving into specifics, the last point I'd like to make is these products are definitely designed for GMs. Players looking to play in a SWEX Horror campaign won't directly benefit from the books themselves, but should consider buying them as a gift for their GM. Or at least pointing them towards this review and encouraging them to pick them up themselves.
The first thing to note is that the Toolkits were written for an earlier version of the rules and have not been updated since the release of the Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition (SWEX), the latest iteration of the rules. Instead, PEG has started to release a series of Companions. The Toolkits were created to give GMs help in creating their own settings including setting specific Edges, rules, etc. The Companions are mostly a compilation of material from the Toolkits updated to SWEX, but designed to be more "plug and play". As such, they don't contain 100% of the material from the relevant Toolkits and portions are sometimes altered to make them more streamlined and compatible. They also have a modicum of new material to act as an incentive for owners of the Toolkits to buy what is largely reprinted material. They are being released as both pdf and print products in the same smaller 6x9" format as SWEX. So far, a Fantasy Companion and one for Supers have been released. If/when a Horror Companion is released, that would be when the material from these Toolkits would get overhauled. That being said, a Horror Companion has not yet been announced and anyone interested in using SWEX for horror, that isn't using a specific setting book like Realms of Cthulhu, should seriously give these Toolkits consideration rather than wait for a Companion that may or may not be released some day. As anyone familiar with SWEX knows, the major change between the Revised and SWEX versions deals with melee weapon damage being a die type rather than a static modifier, such that Str+1 becomes Str+d4. This is a conversion you can do mentally on the fly and not a very good justification to wait for a revision.
Style
Both books offer a full color and a printer friendly version in each package. Printed double-sided, these will take just 32 sheets of paper each. They can easily be printed and bound with a home comb binding kit or hole punched and placed in a binder. The full color versions have a slightly shaded background, full color pictures, and sidebars that have white text printed in a shaded box. The printer friendly versions keep the full color art, but forego the shaded background and show the sidebars as normal black text on a white background. Since these sidebars aren't offset from the regular text's two columns, there is no obvious clue that the material is in fact a sidebar in the print friendly version.
Unlike the Science Fiction Toolkits, which have a nearly black border around the entire page instead of margins, the background shading is subtle and the use of sidebars isn't excessive, so if you want to print out the full color versions you can, without fear of killing an ink or toner cartridge. Since this is what I did, I can't comment on how the print friendly versions look when printed out, or the appearance of the art if printed on a monochrome printer. The background image, fonts, and layout used in both books are the same, but the color differs, brown for the HBT and olive green for the HGMT. This is nice as it gives the set a cohesive appearance, while still giving each book a distinctive look.
There is a front cover backed by a title page, followed by a one page Introduction backed by a Table of Contents. Other than that, the rest of each book is pure meat, with no back cover or advertisements of other products taking up page count. There are several full pages of full color art however; 11 in the HBT and 9 in the HGMT. There are also several half page pieces as well. Opinions of artwork are highly subjective, but I found most of it to be from fairly decent to good and none of it bad. While I personally don't feel the amount of art is overly excessive compared to actual content, I should point out that the cover art reappears in each book as a full page piece as well. This is the one place where I would have preferred the space be given to something else, be it additional content or a different piece of artwork. It is also worth noting that several of these pieces were reused in SWEX, albeit at a much smaller size. As pretty much all of the art in SWEX came from other sources, this should not be a surprise.
Text is presented in standard two column layout with top and bottom margins of an inch and side margins just under that. The body text is a standard serif font similar to Times New Roman and looks to be about 10 pt. The fonts used for titles and subtitles are unique and I'm not sure how to describe them. Titles are serif, subtitles are sans serif, but both typefaces are all caps that have drop out spots in the individual characters. The effect at first glance is that there is something wrong with your printer and that you're running low on toner or ink. While still perfectly legible as large titles and subtitles, these same fonts were used in the table of contents of both books, where at a much smaller size, they become more difficult to read. The TOCs themselves are just a complete listing of every title and subtitle, so you'll often have several entries per page. With no index in either book, had these been done in a more standard typeface they would have rated excellent. As they are, they are a bit of an eyestrain.
Substance
Horror Bestiary Toolkit content
I'll cover the HBT briefly before diving into the much more complex HGMT. The first part of the HBT covers topics such as monster appearance and notes that a good description is what should make the monster scary, not necessarily it's abilities. Next up Wiggy discusses when and why a creature might cause Fear. This is followed by a brief discussion of Villains and what makes a Villain different from a run of the mill monster of the same type. A new Monstrous Ability, Demon, is next, followed by a discussion of the Treasure entry that appears in each creature's write up. Basically, each creature is given a rating that needs to be cross referenced with a table to determine how much treasure they have and the percentage chance of finding a Relic on them. Treasure as a concept may not be appropriate for all settings and these are just suggestions for those settings where treasure may be found, but like everything else, this can be altered as you see fit.
That's just a page and half of material. The rest of the book is a collection of sample creatures, monsters, and NPCs suitable for use in a horror game (or potentially any SWEX game for that matter). All of the staples of the genre are here including various demons, evil clowns, mad scientists, and vampires. You've got your Giant Bats, Haunted Cars, Haunted Portrait, Poltergeists, Rabid Animals, animated toys, Weres, and Zombies. You've got Cops, Cultists, Occult Investigators, and Inquisitors. Each has a brief write up followed by stat list including Attributes, Skills, derived stats, Edges/Hindrances, Powers, Treasure, Gear, and any Special Abilities. As noted previously, any melee weapons or special abilities designed for melee use are written up in the old Str+bonus format, so when you see Str+3 you have to perform the mental conversion to Str+d8 to be SWEX compliant.
Many of the creatures have multiple sub entries so we don't just have an entry for Mummy, rather we get Greater Mummy, Guardian Mummy, Ice Mummy, and Sand Mummy, along with a sidebar on how to mummify any other creature from this or any other source. It isn't completely exhaustive and doesn't reprint many of the creatures from SWEX like Ghosts and Skeletons that may also be suitable for a horror game; however, where there is some overlap, like Vampires and Zombies, the HBT delivers multiple variants and extended rules. The result is a lot of content crammed into what might otherwise appear to be a rather slim book.
Horror GM's Toolkit content
While the HBT is largely just a creature catalog that you may or may not find useful (although I believe that you will), the HGMT is the real essential product of the two in my opinion. Again, it is worth noting that the Toolkits, unlike a Plot Point Campaign, Setting Book, or to a lesser extent even the Companions, are not intended to give you a canned, playable game right out of the book. You may use some parts and not others. Indeed, you shouldn't try to use everything. However, there is so much content crammed into 60 pages that anyone thinking about a SWEX horror game, or even just introducing horror elements into any other SWEX game for that matter, will find something useful in here. I'll do my best to hit some of the highlights.
The book kicks off with a discussion of Style and Setting. Do you want your horror mixed with action or should it have a darker tone? A game featuring Vampires might be like Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the action end of the spectrum, a nWoD mortals game on the other, or a Hunter: the Vigil game at various points in between. Since horror is more style than genre, your setting could be fantasy, historical or modern real world, or science fiction. Also, is the horror secret or open knowledge? Are the characters the only ones that know what's going on? Do governments or larger organizations know, but actively mislead the general populace? Or are the monsters hiding in plain sight? While much of classic horror has the protagonist's facing the unknown, the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlane Harris (source for the HBO series True Blood) are an example of an open knowledge setting. This is followed by some advice on setting the proper mood for a horror game and various pointers such as show, don't tell (describe what the PCs see, don't just tell them they see a zombie), and the use of subtlety vs. gore.Next we launch into the more crunchy bits with a discussion of weapons. This section covers everything from the Atomic Ghost Hunting Pack (a la Ghostbusters), to Ultraviolet Grenades and Kirlian devices. This is followed by Sanity rules, including losing it, regaining it, and what happens to characters that go insane. We get a few new Edges and Hindrances, then the focus shifts to magic and tomes. Examples of both mundane tomes and magical grimoires are given along with a discussion of summoning rituals; sample summoning spells; warding against, binding of, and banishing entities; and a discussion on creating your own magic spells, along with some examples. Next Wiggy covers curses, again differentiating between mundane and magical curses with examples of each type.
The next section is on Demonic Pacts and begins by stating that these rules, unlike most everything else, are not intended for use by players. The rationale is that a player whose PC makes a deal with the devil never really gets to experience the downside of the bargain. They get the benefit(s) for as long as the PC lives or the game lasts, but if the character dies, the player just gets to create a new character and keep on gaming, never mind that the PCs soul is damned for all eternity. Secondly, the author presumes you want your players to portray the good guys and anyone that would make a pact with the dark powers would be an unsuitable PC. Regardless of whether or not you agree, the material is written with the intention of letting you create memorable villains/antagonists for your players and includes three levels of detail for doing so. Interestly enough, this same sentiment is repeated in a sidebar about playing Monster PCs on the last page of the book. Although there are no Monster PC templates, presumably we'd just use the special abilities from the HBT to create Vampire or Werewolf PCs, the sidebar notes that if you go this route the players should still be playing heroic characters. The monsters they portray should have redeeming qualities or even be of noble character rather than villians, let alone truly evil. Again, the presumption is that the players should not have fun roleplaying truly dispicable acts.
We get back to crunchy bits with Magic Items. As with the HBT, all the standards are covered from the Diary of a Madman, to Frankenstein's Lab, the Puzzle Box (of Hellraiser fame), to the Hockey Mask of Terror. We also get the Sacrificial Knife, Staff of the Necromancer, Voodoo Dolls, Vampire Coffins, Witches' Cauldrons, and more. Next we get a brief section on Fortune Telling and how to include this capability in your games. Included are a couple different methods of using cards, a dice system, and a story method. The book wraps up with a discussion of Professional Edges, including both suggestions for creating your own and a few examples like Exorcist and Vampire Slayer.
Conclusion
As stated previously, both books are jam packed with content. Since horror can be used with any setting, you might find them useful just to introduce certain horror elements into an existing SWEX game or have a horror "episode" featuring a monster from the HBT in between major plot arcs. Obviously, the people who will benefit the most are people looking to create their own horror setting or adapt an existing horror setting to SWEX. Even though this leaves the GM to do a little bit of work to figure out which parts to use, there's more than enough here to give both books a solid 5 for substance.
Both books are attractive, with decent art and layout. I love the fact that you get both a full color and printer friendly version of each. Oh sure, I noted at least one "see page xxx" reference and as no RPG book is perfect, there are bound to be a few typos, but the books aren't riddled with them. The TOC font issue is the biggest negative thing I have to say about the layout. As it's less than perfect, I can't give them a 5 for Style, settling instead for a 4, but I'd be willing to go with a 4.5 if that were possible.
Once again, if you want to run a SWEX Horror game, don't wait for PEG to get around to releasing a Horror Companion. Pick up the Toolkits now and start using them today, especially if you can take advantage of the limited time 20% discount code found in the Game Geeks review #140 over on YouTube.
