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EverQuest: Gamemaster Screen and Temple of Solusek Ro

Note: The EQ RPG markets itself for both the EQ Online player who has never played roleplaying games, and roleplayers who have never played EQ Online. I will be writing from the perspective of the latter.

Overview

The EverQuest RPG Gamemaster Screen and The Temple of Solusek Ro are two separate products packaged together. The GM screen is your conventional RPG screen, while the ToSR is a series of Quest Ladders (adventure ideas, for the EQ-unfamiliar).

Gamemaster Screen

The GM screen is four pages in size, and comes in the conventional "player see color art, GM sees black-and-white tables" format. On the player's side, the EQ GM screen features predominantly shrunken text-free art from the EQ online and RPG games. Two pages are taken by full-sized art from the EQ PHB. The color player's side has glossy art with a protective plastic coating, while the GM's black and white side has no coating. The screen is overall much like the cover of a soft cover RPG product.

With over half combat tables, the EQ GM screen would be a good fit for a combat-oriented group. The GM screen contains the following tables, ordered by size, then left-to-right on the screen:

• Full page tables
• Actions in Combat
• Special Combat Situations
• Larger tables
• GM's Reference
• Material Hardness / Hit Points
• Mana Recovery
• Channeling DCs
• Weight Limits
• Movement
• Smaller tables
• Cover Modifiers
• Concealment
• Spotting Distance
• Spotting Difficulty
• Untrained Skills
• Song and Spell Lists
• Bard Song Twisting Difficulty Classes
• Light Sources
• Lighting Conditions

Actions in Combat breaks down actions into their type and whether or not they trigger an Attack of Opportunity. Subtables include Attack Roll Modifiers and penalties for Attacking with Two Weapons. The Special Combat Situations describes modifiers and notes for non-standard combat situations (eg. Charge and Subdual). The GM's Reference and Song and Spell Tables are indices to the page number of the appropriate book. It would have been nice for every table to include which page number and book they came from (eg. for the players to look up the information for their own reference).

Summary: EQ RPG groups who frequent combat will find the GM screen quite useful.

The Temple of Sulusek Ro

I'm not sure when GM screens started to be packaged with pre-written adventures, but I don't like the idea. Many GMs do not play pre-written adventures, and the adventure that comes with the GM screen risks being the wrong level for the gaming party. That being said, the ToSR only **looks** like your typical pre-written adventure. At best, the only clue to what's actually in the book is sentence hidden in the marketing blurb: "For each of the 15 of the EQ character classes, a detailed quest and unique suit of magical armor are included herein." ToSR is not your typical, thin GM screen insert. It's a 48-page softcover. Only seven pages are about the Temple itself. Thirty-seven pages outline fifteen Quest Ladders, as mentioned above. Four pages are non-gaming content, such as the Table of Contents and Open Game License.

The Temple of Sulusek Ro

Unlike every other adventure with the word "Temple" in it, the Temple of Sulusek Ro itself is not a "kill and loot" scenario. Despite Sulusek Ro's EQ PHB description as "chaotic and destructive", the temple reflects his other trait as having "no allies and no enemies". The temple, reflects the Discordant Neutral (aka. Chaotic Neutral) alignment as an anarchy, rather than destruction. It could almost be desribed as a stereotypical Middle Eastern market: Roughhousing by visitors is ignored, some use the location as a safe house to plot and plan, and a few even worship Sulusek Ro. Of the seven pages for the temple, two pages are overview and a map, four pages are stat blocks of important people, and one page are magical items worn by them. Statistics are missing, however, for common inhabitants, who are more likely to meet the players. Stat blocks also lack a personality description.

Quest Ladders

EQ's Quest format formalizes an adventure a PC volunteers to take. A Quest Ladder consists of a storyarc of quests, typically in increasing levels of difficulty. In ToSR, the Quest Ladders consist of quests in which the PC collects a component required to create the armor (or for some other reason). Each character class has its own Quest Ladder for a particular suit of armor unique to the class. The Quest Ladders are only tangentially related to the Temple. Some armorers live in the Temple, others may assign a Quest involving the Temple. With fifteen Quest Ladders and about five Quests per Quest Ladder, the Quests themselves are adventure ideas, requiring the GM to flesh them out.

Cons: Besides requiring GM preparation, I have other reservations about these Quest Ladders. The obvious one is that they all cumulate in a suit of armor. Where's the variety? Likewise, the reward is only usable by one PC, which may present a problem if players are unwilling to help each other. And, of course, with each player having their own Quest Ladder, the GM may have to prepare multiple adventures. Finally, a Challenge Rating is provided for the Quest Ladder, but CRs are not provided for the Quests themselves.

Pros: On the other hand, the Quests have something of a "plug and play" quality. Since the Quests within the Quest Ladder are only vaguely related, a GM can toss out a Quest and replace it with something else pretty easily. Likewise, many of the Quests encourage roleplaying gathering information -- certainly a change from your typical dungeon.

Summary: GMs who use adventure seeds should enjoy ToSR, particularly if they are learning the EQ RPG's Quest Ladder system. GMs who prefer to use their own ideas may at least find the Quest Ladders as models. New GMs and GMs who only use pre-written adventures will find ToSR incomplete.

Conclusion

The ratings depend on how well a match the GM screen and ToSR Quest Ladders are for the playing group. The combat-table-heavy GM screen will be a good fit for a combat-oriented group. GMs who enjoy developing adventure ideas will find over 75 of them in the ToSR Quest Ladders. Overall, much better than your typical RPG GM screen and pre-written adventure.