Review of The Random Esoteric Creature Generator for Classic Fantasy Roleplaying Games and their Modern Simulacra

INTRODUCTION

So last week, in light of this First Edition AD&D exegesis thread I'm doing, I get an e-mail and IM from Jim Raggi, asking if I'd mind taking a look at his first foray into the indie game publisher biz, a little booklet he's done for generating new creatures for "classic" fantasy role playing games. I say sure. I'm always willing to do a review in exchange for a free copy of a game or supplement, right?

I warn him, as I always do, that if I agree, he needs to be prepared for me to review warts and all. He's fine with it, so he sends me the PDF and ships off the hard copy of...

THE RANDOM ESOTERIC CREATURE GENERATOR FOR CLASSIC FANTASY ROLE-PLAYING GAMES AND THEIR MODERN SIMULACRA

Wow. What a mouthful!

So, without further ado, let's begin!

THE GOOD

There's not a great deal to really "break down" about this product; it consists of a series of tables for randomly generating creatures for fantasy role playing games. The breakdown (following the obligatory and somewhat problematic introduction, which I will deal with later) is:

1. Building the Monster: This section breaks down the format used in the booklet, explaining what each entry means and how it all works together. It gives you base values for AC, movement, and attack damage, from which the later charts will build. In other words, we have a basic creature that begins with the armor value of your standard unarmed man, movement equal to a normal man, and a single attack dealing 1d6 damage. From there, the charts will create a sort of template (in 3.x terms) that modifies these three basic stats, adds special attacks and abilities, and creates an entirely new creature.

2. Basic Body Shape: The tables here cover every imaginable type of body style from flat to formless blob to avian to humanoid to polyhedral. Yes, with this supplement you can end up with an angry, hungry 20-sided die to threaten your characters. And before you turn your nose up at that, let's not forget the mighty flumph.

3. Basic Characteristics: Here we have the basic characteristics of the creature, what standard abilities it has. These characteristics are combined with the basic body shape to come up with a more complete visual representation of a creature. Thus, rolling "Amoeba" on body shape and "Fish" on Characteristics gives you a basic jellyfish. Or rolling "amoeba" and bird gives you your basic flumph (Sorry; couldn't resist).

4. Size: Exactly what it claims to be: roll on a chart, determine how big your monster is, from tiny to gozilla.

5. Movement: This section goes beyond determining base movement speed; it also includes special movement capabilities such as phasing, swimming, climbing, slithering, flight, tunneling, etc.

6. Attack Methods: This bit tells you exactly what kind of attack form or routine your creature has, and how much damage it does. If such attack methods are already informed by the creature's shape, the booklet suggests using this section to flesh out game mechanics for them; otherwise as with everything else you roll randomly.

7. Distinctive Features: This table gives sets of distinctive physical aspects beyond the basic shape and characteristics of a creature. For example, a creature who is quadrapedal in basic body shape and mammal in characteristics might here end up with a beak, tail and fin. You could then decide that the tail is flat and the "fin" is actually flippers. Voila. You've just created a platypus. Of extra interest here is the "Other" table, which grants access to a sub-table of "extra-special" features, everything from "has a pissed-off parent" to "Creature's death opens a gate to another plane." This overall table is designed to be used as many times as the DM likes, until the creature "feels" complete.

8. Special Abilities: This table has your basic special attacks and special defenses, such as ability and level drain, psychic attacks, spell-like abilities, etc. This table is extensive, requiring the roll of 2d% to use.

9. Delivery of Special Attacks: Are special attacks touch-based? Ray? Gaze? Breath weapons? This is where you figure that bit out.

10. Combat Tactics: In the author's own words, "This section is merely an aid to varying the combat tactics of individual creatures in order to give a referee something to riff off of instead of having the burden to invent every last creature’s combat strategy." It basically includes the creature's standard means of attack: does he go after the closest character? The one that presents the most danger? A random character? Non-humans? You get the idea.

11. Motivation: This explains why the creature does what it does. Is it hungry? Seeking a mate? Or is it just an unnatural abomination that hates everything natural?

    These final two sections go pretty well strictly towards giving the creature description and identity, something a lot of random monster generators overlook. Are they absolutely necessary? Nope. But they're nice to have there, nevertheless.

12. Putting it All Together and The Effective Presentation of Monsters in Fantasy Role-Playing: These last two sections are basically advice on how to put everything you've just generated all together and use it in game. Some of this is old hat to those of us who have been running games for a long time (and let's face it; as fans of the "Classic" version of the World's Most Popular Fantasy Role-Playing Game, we're the target audience) but most of it is pretty good advice nevertheless, and it never hurts to have a refresher.

    As a largely system-free work, this booklet is published without the use of any open or free license at all. The author expressly grants ownership of any creature generated with the use of this book to the generator; i.e. while the tables and methods remain in the ownership of the author, anything you create with those tables is entirely yours to use as you please, for profit or not. It's an interesting line he's drawn there, and one that makes the book even more useful for game designers.

THE BAD

The bad...okay, may as well dive in here.

This book is useful, not just for the oldest edition of Our Favorite Game, but for pretty much any kind of fantasy, horror, or esoteric sci-fi game you'd like, of almost any system out there. That fact, and the wonderful utility of the book, are seriously undermined by the author's overt hatred of the "megacorporation" later editions of the game (wisely never mentioned by name). Now, we all have our favorite games, and games we seriously dislike, but when it comes time to publish, even a roguish indie publisher needs to step back from that and maintain an air of professional neutrality, at least within the bounds of his publications. Statements such as, "Smart players recognize where real gaming is...An 'A' in front (or perhaps an “O” if you’re lucky enough to be that old), or not, that’s all we need to know," and "I am happy to be able to publish a product for my favorite game without needing to use one word written by those f***ers," are unprofessional and seriously undermine the overall quality of the work; many people will simply not look beyond the introduction as a result of these statements, which is quite unfortunate, as the book is every bit as useful to game masters of 3.x as it is to 1e. I've placed the reduction in rating on this mostly under "Style" rather than "substance" as such introductory text downgrades the overall taste the book leaves in one's metaphorical mouth rather than the utility of the book (which is substance, in my mind). Substance, however, does suffer for this as some people won't even get to the body of the text due to the heat generated by the statements.

There are other minor bits scattered through the text that I'm sure the author meant in good humor, but which come off poorly, such as including the entry "Psionics: Oh, please" in his "Building the Monster" section. If the author isn't going to include psionics...just don't. Don't decry their existence (especially when later on, under "Special Attacks" there is an entry for "Psychic blast").

If the author is producing this product as print on demand, he would be well-advised, in the opinion of this reviewer, to seriously re-think his introductory text and excise the overt animosity towards post-1e versions of the game.

Also, it most certainly would not hurt at all, after cleaning up the text a bit, to release this puppy using the free OSRIC license, which would clearly identify its purpose to buyers and include it in an already expanding and very fine line of game supplements.

THE UGLY

As most of you know, "The Ugly" in my reviews doesn't necessarily mean actual ugliness. It refers to art and layout in general. In this case it's a mixed bag. The artwork ranges from pretty good, evocative stuff, to rather amateurish in nature. For the most part it is reflective of early first edition artwork, which is just fine as that's what the book seeks to invoke. The author is on a budget here, it seems, so some of the poorer art is forgivable, especially given the mood of the work. But "Forgivable" doesn't mean "high marks."

Again, we have a mixed bag here. Some of the art is great; some not so much.

The cover art is particularly problematic, in that it apparently is trying to be as controversial as possible, presenting a Photoshopped photo of an attractive, bare-breasted woman with deer antlers, praying mantis arms, fangs, and goat's legs. Certainly this is the type of creature that can be generated with these rules, but such an overt combination of sex and demonic imagery really just comes off as an effort to shock people out of the gate; this image would be better served inside the book and replaced with something more "First edition," such as the critter on page 10, or the one on 12.

In addition, the dark, black-and-white photo obscures the title of the work, which is black text and ends up placed on a dark gray background. In fact, the author would be well-advised, if he seeks to emulate first edition, to place the cover art in a window, with the text in Arial font below it, emulating the original monochrome AD&D modules.

The general layout is also a problem. The PDF version is sized for printing on 8.5 x 11 standard paper, but the physical booklet is digest-sized, 5 1/2 x 8.5. Unfortunately, all the author did to reduce the booklet was make the text tiny. I actually got a bit of a headache reading it, and will probably, for my own use, pay Kinko's to run off a saddle-stitched copy of the 8.5 x 11 PDF.

Finally, the cover is of the same standard paper stock as the interior; a cardstock cover (at least 60#, preferably 90#) would be well-advised.

It's possible and likely that, given budgetary issues, it was more economically feasible to print off the smaller booklets with standard paper covers. If that's the case, it might behoove the author to go with something like Lulu for print sales. A few more bucks for a full-sized book with cardstock cover would be well-worth it, and make it look better on the shelf with the old AD&D books.

In the end, I'm giving this product a 4 for Substance, as its utility is stellar, and a 2 for Style, as the author needs to step back, reduce the bile spewed towards later editions of the game, and fix his layout issues. If he can tackle these issues, this product could easily rise to Style 3, or even 4 given that the art seems to be intentionally evocative of old-school product, which has to be taken into account.