101 Collection
Review by C. Demetrius Morgan
Synopsis
This review is for the 101 Collection supplement written by Philip Reed, published by Ronin Arts, and currently available as a PDF from RPGnow for $9.95.
Target Audience: Game Masters running the D&D/D20 family of role-playing games.
Rating: Despite the fact the mean usefulness of this material rates a 4 I am going to give 101 Collection a overall rating of 5 out of 10 golden apples.
Initial Impressions
OMG! This is a Monty Hall DMs Midsummer Night’s Wet Dream come true! That said I am left pondering a simple truth, namely that such products that present little more than collections of treasure items, spells, or lists of feats are awfully difficult to assess. For instance, being an older gamer, I can recall articles in Dragon magazine that pretty much presented just this sort of thing. So, as I look through the documents, I can’t help but wonder how making an entire product out of treasure items is really useful. I mean why not just start a ‘zine and pad it out with a few articles and reviews? Seriously, as I look back at all the role-playing material I ever purchased, there isn’t a single tome of treasure in the mix. Not a one! However I do have numerous magazines that I purchased solely because they contained articles with treasures and magic items. Says a lot. What’s more as every player and game master knows the ultimate value of a treasure item, be it a magic bauble or enchanted sword, much like a skill or spell, resides in its usefulness to the character during the game session. Many things that sound great on paper turn out to really be lame in game terms, and the only way to find out which items are which is to use them during a game session. Therein lays the problem. Every game is as unique as the foibles of the Game Master running it. Meaning that certain treasures may turn out to be more or less useful depending upon how the Game Master allows them to be used. Something to keep in mind when considering this review.
Summary
If you know a DM who carries around a folder full of Xeroxed articles from Dragon magazine this product is made to order for them. No, seriously, this package contains a treasure trove of PDFs. What you get: 101 Spellbooks, 101 Arcane Spell Components, and 101 Mundane Treasures. Actually you get two PDF of each: 1 full color and 1 black and white. Be aware there is no setting provided. Even so this material is probably best suited for use with standard D20/OGL fantasy campaigns.
Designed for Use With: D20. Best fits with D&D and OGL fantasy games.
System Mechanics: None. These PDFs are little more than treasure lists.
Characters: None.
PDF Issues: As with Ronin Arts other PDF offerings there are no immediately discernable problems. Search works. You can copy and paste to your clipboard for editing. The internal art is a nice addition
Negatives: The usefulness of these PDFs is too subjective to properly summarize. For me, I would like to have seen some charts keyed to random %ile dice for random determination of treasure. Then I am an old school DM and others may not feel the same
Positives: The PDFs are well formatted and look professional. Content wise there’s enough treasure here to keep giant moths and rust monsters happy.
Appraisal
I shall rate each PDF individually on a scale of 1 (a misplaced effort bordering on useless) to 10 (no Game Master’s toolkit should be without) based on perceived usefulness to Game Master‘s of the xD&D family of role-playing games. The mean average of the sum total of these ratings hall be used to assess this package as a whole.
Usefulness: Usefulness, like utility, of such products largely depends on the sort of campaign you are running and how much work you are willing to put into working with the material. So if you are a GM that does not like to do a lot of work then this material will not be very useful to you.
101 Spellbooks: This supplement is 59-pages of spell books, feats, poisons, and skills. That’s right you get more than just page after page of spell books suitable to be found as random treasure in an archmage or lich’s lair. Although if the spell names are any indication some of the spells provided may have originated in the old Great Net Spellbook. Regardless one can never have too many alternative spells. I admit it, as a player of Wizard characters I am biased. Usefulness Rating: 8+
101 Arcane Spell Components: If having stats and suggested uses for things like a Drow’s Finger, a Young Child’s Heart, Dirt from a Grave, or a Used Hangman’s Rope appeals to you then this 27-page supplement may be just what you‘ve been looking for. Personally I did not find what I read particularly useful, indeed some of it was just plain silly bordering on dreary, not to mention I reduced spell components to a statistical roll to see if the character had them as I thought they were superfluous. Usefulness Rating: 2
101 Mundane Magic Items: The first section of this 26-page tome of treasures is titled Unusual Materials and contains more interesting items with potential for use as arcane spell components than many of the materials actually found in the 101 Tedious Spell Components listed above. The next section, Treasures, contains your typical list of armaments, clothing, and miscellany. Samples include the Dragon Helm, Yeti Cloak, Necklace of Nobility, and the ever-mysterious Crystal Skull. Well it would be mysterious if there were any sort of decent write-up drawing on the barest of lore about crystal skulls even a cursory Google search turned up. This is a massive list of treasure items without so much as a single chart keyed for a GM to randomly award treasures with a dice roll. Usefulness Rating: 3
Remember no matter what dungeon you get lost in, there you are!
Copyright © 2004 C. Demetrius Morgan
Review Summary