By Silveressa

Today I have the opportunity to review Masks, a system neutral RPG supplement written by the authors of gnomestew.com.

Overview

Masks is perhaps best described as a “must have addition to any GM’s tool kit.” Contained within is 1000 NPCs, categorized by genre, skill set, trait, disposition towards party etc. (The book marking in Masks is really quite extensive and impressive.) No matter your game, or your style as a GM, Masks has a plethora of NPCs you’ll find useful.

Aside from 1000 NPCs, the book also contains a separate section detailing the finer points of how the NPCs were written up, and giving some points for GMs to use them to the best possible effect within their games. Rounding out this area is a smaller section giving tips on how to portray NPCs in their games and make them truly memorable.

Also, those ordering the electronic copy will receive Masks in both DRM-free PDF and plain text formats. (The plain text files make cutting and pasting NPCs into your adventure notes a snap, and are ideal for use with text-to-speech software.)

Masks: The Good

Perhaps the best feature of Masks is its layout. The entire book has been extensively indexed, hyperlinked and bookmarked for easy reference, making quick access at the gaming table a breeze.

The characters themselves are well detailed, striking a nice balance between providing a GM with all the info necessary to run them on the fly, without overwhelming her with a wall of text.

Each NPC comes with five paragraphs of pertinent info and a few keyword traits and personal quote that summarizes their place in a story nicely. For example, Osuk Nar appears like so:

Osusk Nar

Eccentric Alchemist

“Go ahead and collect the treasure. I’m going to remove these glands. I have a special potion in mind.”

Appearance: Osusk is a short man whose simple clothes have small tears, rips, stains, and burns. His beard is thick and his hair wild. He carries a large knapsack filled with all manner of tools and containers.

Roleplaying: He is always thinking about the next great potion or discovery that he will make. He will sniff everything and taste most things, without knowing what they are. He examines everything from every angle.

Personality: Osusk has never fit in anywhere, but he doesn’t care. Social cues don’t register with him. Coupled with being direct and curious, Osusk is usually saying or doing something different from everyone else.

Motivation:  Two factors drive the alchemist: a thirst for knowledge and a weakness for food, wine, and women. Both of these have left him without coin for most of his life. Only by selling what he learns and makes has he survived.

Background: Born in the wilderness, Osusk learned quickly that his mind was a better weapon than his brawn. He learned how to make things people wanted from items found in nature; he specializes in brewing potions. He learned that his items fetched a better price in the more civilized lands, so that’s where he sells his wares. Despite doing his best not to act like a barbarian, he sometimes caves to temptation and blows all of his money on wine, women, and food.

Traits: (PV) Eccentric, impoverished, primal, scientist

Masks: The Bad

One thing I found missing from the NPCs was a list of two or three specific skills each NPC would be considered especially competent in, making it easier for GMs to quickly get a feel for what abilities an NPC could offer the player group. (Using the above example, listing potion crafting and wilderness survival as significant skills would have been handy.)

Such a minor omission is barely noteworthy however, and most GMs can easily glean an NPC’s skill specialties from reading their descriptions and background.

Masks: The Ugly

In a book of NPCs, perhaps the ugliest part one could hope to find is the selection of vile villains. And in that regard Masks delivers in spades. There are 249 villains throughout the book (83 per genre), ranging from the teenage psychopath who likes bloodlust and fuzzy kittens in equal measure, to a kind and gentle healer who is possessed by a predatory demonic entity.

All of the villains contained within are memorable and can be tailored to work as henchmen for a greater evil, or be masterminds in their own right if the GM so desires.

Conclusion

While the sheer number of NPCs may seem intimidating to new GMs, finding the perfect candidate for any session is as easy as it is enjoyable; making Masks a super addition to any GM’s toolkit.

Even those who aren’t GMs will enjoy owning a copy of Masks, as the NPCs contained within make great inspiration to base a PC on, and can provide great allies and adversaries to put in their character’s background story.

By Silveressa

 Today I have the pleasure of reviewing Gate 22, an adventure supplement for the Corporation RPG by Brutal Games.

(Also note I am deliberately leaving out specific details of the adventure to not spoil the fun in case any of your players happen to stumble across this review.)

Overview

Gate 22 is an adventure supplement that takes the characters across the world, providing an excellent mixture of intrigue, action and plot twists that set the stage for part 2.

The book also has an equipment and NPC section that provides new cybernetics, vehicles and personalities for use not only in this adventure, but your regular campaigns as well.

Gate 22: The Good

Gate 22 differs from the usual adventure supplement by giving itself a straightforward presentation of each section of the adventure. By excluding any read aloud sections or special instructions, GMs can readily pick up the scenario and run it with little preparation.

The different locations are detailed in a straightforward fashion that allows GMs to describe the scene without burdening them with superfluous details. For example, theArmanOldCityhas the following for its description:

ARMAN OLD CITY

(More details of Arman Old City can be found in The Eastern Bank)

Air: Polluted, greasy, sooty, slight smell of fried food.

Sounds: Very few cars, domestic power generators, bars, music, shouting, gunshots.

People: Mainly Asian and Caucasian, milling about, a few groups of loiterers. Lots of people in bars.

UIG: Very low presence except for the customs building.

Architecture: Thousands of rotting prefab blocks make up the city.

Language: Mostly Russian, a hint of English and Mandarin.

A similar presentation template is used with NPCs as well, giving enough detail for a GM to present them as individuals without being overwhelmed with information.

Gate 22: The Bad

The book comes across as rather text heavy, with little artwork throughout.

Area maps are bare bones and lack interior detail, with rooms only given labels such as “lab 2” or “Generator Room”. This can present a frustration for GMs who dislike giving lengthy room descriptions, and it makes the maps useless for miniatures.

The lack of artwork is also glaringly obvious in the equipment and vehicles section, with none of the weaponry or unique methods of transportation given more than a bare bones description and necessary statistics, an omission that I found disappointing.

Gate 22: The Ugly

Perhaps the ugliest piece of the entire the book is its ending. It leaves in the middle of the adventure on a cliffhanger, requiring the GM to either invent the next part of the campaign, or purchase the next book in the series. This might upset campaign continuity and frustrate those who are expecting a complete beginning-to-end adventure within the pages of Gate 22.

Conclusion

While the lack of artwork and a cliffhanger ending are sources of irritation, the adventure itself is very well thought out and flows smoothly. It leads the group from scene to scene without feeling like a railroad, and contains enough surprises and flexibility to allow a creative GM to throw in their own material and side quests quite easily.

For those looking for a riveting adventure that will leave players clamoring for more, you won’t regret your purchase of Gate 22.  However, those expecting a complete adventure with detailed maps and an image gallery of equipment will be left disappointed.

From Forrest Elam

Johnn,

I recently read a book that I think you and your readers might appreciate.  The name of the book is Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines and it is his writing debut.  I enjoyed it thoroughly and wanted to pass it on to you.

The book is a blend of super-hero and zombie-apocalypse genres.  A wonderfully creative idea that seems so simple one wonders why it has never been done before.

It is a great first offering by the author and an easy read.  It combines good storytelling with interesting characters faced by a truly horrific situation. I do not want to give away too much of the plot, but the author does a good job of jumping back and forth between the characters’ past and present, while keeping the reader in suspense.

It is not a great work of literature, but it is such an enjoyable read, with such a good story, that I recommend it wholeheartedly. I guess the highest praise I can give it is that it makes me want to create and play in an RPG campaign based on it!

If you are a fan of either super-heroes or zombies you will not be disappointed, and if you like both then this is a book for you.

The games’ afoot!

More reviews and book details >>

Depicted here are the seven tiles

The Stone Bard Inn city tiles by Three Sages Games are seven slick full colour productions designed to enhance tavern brawls and inn encounters.

The tiles are actually letter-sized plastic sheets with anti-skid foam backing. Because of the plastic, you can use wet and dry erase markers on them.

Three sheets combine to offer a large tavern area, replete with a 35’ long bar.  The illustrated chandeliers and stair banister will hopefully inspire creative combats in your games.

The other four sheets cover entire floors of the inn. GMs can use them as standalone areas for one or two storey inns, as well. In this way, you can build a few different inn variations, even though the tiles are designed to represent the large Stone Bard Inn.

The 1” squares for minis use are subtly marked with crosshairs. A pet peeve of mine is gridlines so dark or thick they interfere with mapping. So I’m glad to see the faint crosshair approach on Three Sages’ product.

The maps are fully detailed as well, with graphics for chairs, tables, shelves, beds, and numerous other furnishing.

Summary

I give this product a thumbs-up. They save a GM time mapping. The tiles are ideal for a frequently visited inn, however I would also feel comfortable reusing them in a world as standard inn designs.

I like the fact the tiles support wet and dry erase. The full colour and great details are a bonus.

By Silveressa

Today I have the opportunity to review the e-book How to be a Great GM, by Avalon games, an easy to follow 26 page guide that makes a great addition to any GM’s tool kit.

Overview

Like the title says, the book offers some solid system neutral GMing advice, (especially to those new to the hobby) and can help improve the quality of most new GM’s games after even a quick skim. While a lot of the advice may be common sense veteran GMs out there, there’s still some helpful tips they may have forgotten or never picked up on. (Such as keeping back up copies of character sheets in the event a player forgets theirs.)

Like the title says, the book offers solid, system neutral GMing advice (especially to those new to the hobby) and can help improve the quality of most new GM’s games after even a quick skim. While a lot of the advice may be common sense to the more veteran GMs out there, there’s still some helpful tips they may have forgotten or never picked up on (such as keeping backup copies of character sheets in the event a player forgets theirs).

The book starts off with a light-hearted approach to GMing, and covers the basics of how to organize your game, familiarizing oneself (and your players) with the setting, as well as covering how to create an exciting adventure that will appeal to your specific group.

The second chapter goes into more detail of how to best schedule one’s game, and how to achieve a memorable session without putting a ton of work and effort into the endeavor

In the third part of the book, we are given good tips on how to manage interruptions, and how to offer up a good selection of snacks for the hungry group. Introducing new players to your group and handling those with different play styles then you’re used to, is also briefly touched upon.

The book concludes with some advice on how to better prepare oneself for GMing, and where to look for quick sources of inspiration and adventure ideas at a moment’s notice.

What’s Lacking

For only 26 pages of text they manage to cover a lot of useful points. Unfortunately, each topic is only briefly touched upon, without going into depth, something those in search of a comprehensive guide will find disappointing.

The lack of bookmarks also came as a minor nuisance (and surprise) given they are standard fare for most ebooks. However, copy/paste is enabled, letting GMs cut pieces from the text into their own reference notes if need be.

The Verdict

Overall, the book seems geared more towards the beginner GM and written in such a way one can readily grasp the concepts after a single read through, with the added bonus of being short enough most people can get through it in a single sitting. (It took me less then an hour to read from start to finish.) If you’re a new GM or haven’t had the pleasure of GMing for a while and feel a bit rusty, give this book a try, (Available at RPGNow) you won’t be disappointed.

by Hannah Lipsky

If there existed one gaming system that worked for every gaming group, then every gaming group would play it.

Since no such system has yet been found, it’s not surprising that two very different gaming groups had drastically different reactions to the Dragon Age tabletop game by Green Ronin. One group absolutely loved it; the other, well, not so much. Here’s how the system played for each group.

Warning: this review contains minor spoilers for the Amber Rage adventure in Blood in Ferelden.

1. Group Backgrounds

Hannah: My group came from a slightly unusual background, in that all four of them had substantial experience in Whitewolf’s Mage: the Ascension system, and almost no experience with d20 systems. One of the players had never played anything else, two had dabbled in indie games, and another played almost exclusively indie games.

I think me being the only one with a d20 background made a big difference. There are things in Dragon Age that are much lighter and simpler than in most d20 games. But for someone who is used to more story-focused systems, Dragon Age seems restrictive in comparison.

As far as setting background goes, I’ve played through the Dragon Age video game twice. One of my players was about halfway through it, and the other three had never heard of it.

NewbieDM: My players and I have been gaming together for over 20 years, and we are mostly a D&D crowd. We’ve occasionally drifted towards Star Wars in all its various forms, but our main game has always been D&D.

Dragon Age seemed to us like the kind of game that would allow us to have more roleplay at the table, not because the game we were playing (4e D&D) prevented us to do so mechanically, but because battles were just taking too long.

My players decided they wanted to try something new. I had played the Dragon Age video game, so we’re giving it a shot.

2. The Core Mechanic

The core mechanic of Dragon Age is simple. Roll 3d6 and add the relevant modifier from your sheet. If you beat the Target Number (similar to Difficulty Class in d20), or if you roll higher than your opponent, you succeed. If not, you fail.

One unique thing about this mechanic is the Dragon Die. The Dragon Die is a differently colored d6 – part of the three you always roll – that determines margin of success. If you get a 1, you barely squeak by; if you get a 6, you’re massively successful.

Hannah: My group picked this up quickly, with only a little trouble getting used to Focuses (similar to skills) and the core Dragon Age stats. The trouble came in when the Dragon Die came into play.

The Dragon Die is different from other games for one major reason: your bonuses have nothing to do with your margin of success. You could have a +10 to a roll, make the Target Number with plenty to spare, and still just barely succeed because your Dragon Die came up a 1.

While games with critical hits and botches can have outstanding results based on luck alone on a high or low roll, the rest of the time, your bonuses matter. Roll anything in between a 2 or a 19 in most d20 games, and how well you succeeded depends heavily on your modifiers. With the Dragon Die, your margin of success is completely random.

My players hated this. Sure, a character with bonuses to pulling off acrobatics is going to manage to safely jump over the chasm more often – but whether or not he does cool tricks on the way over is totally up to chance. Someone with a lousy bonus is equally likely to do a triple back flip mid-leap, assuming they make it to the other side to begin with.

This leaves you in the awkward position of either ignoring margin of success most of the time, or having a world where total klutzes are paragons of grace one of out of the every six times they manage to avoid tripping over themselves. In addition, it’s just disappointing to roll well on two dice and have a great modifier, but only slightly succeed because the Dragon Die result was less than stellar.

NewbieDM: We love the simplicity of the core mechanic, even if what Hannah says above may be true. I tend to ignore the degree of success rule unless it’s significant to the story anyway, so in that regard the Dragon Die doesn’t bother me.

Keep in mind you still need to beat a target number, and your bonuses and focuses do matter. It’s not like the Dragon Die alone determines success or failure; it just determines how well you actually succeeded once your roll meets the target number. I don’t see it as a big issue at all, and it is something that can be used to serve a dramatic purpose or otherwise ignored in my opinion.

3. Stunts

In Dragon Age, rolling doubles on any two d6s while attacking or casting a spell lets you perform a stunt. You can choose from a list of standard stunts available to everyone, stunts your character picks up as he or she advances, or environment-specific stunts like overturning a boiling kettle. The number of stunt points you have available to spread between stunts is the number on your Dragon Die.

Hannah: This is probably the thing my players liked least, and I think their background has a lot to do with it.

At first, stunts seem like a great idea – a mechanical way to add a little creativity to your fight. Roll doubles and you can knock opponents prone, go charging across the battlefield, or use the environment against your enemies.

The problem is, many other games let you attempt those things at will. My players repeatedly asked me if they could take called shots, attempt to knock opponents prone, move while attacking in ways besides a charge, and otherwise do cool things they thought would be helpful. My response was always, “There’s a stunt for that, so it looks like you must have stunt points to do it.”

My players were severely annoyed to find out that the ragers in Amber Rage could only poison you as a stunt. Poison is a property of the weapon, not of the attack. While it’s true that an otherwise successful attack might hit with the flat of the blade or a part where the poison has already rubbed off, it seemed unlikely to my players that transmitting an infection on a blow with your poisoned axe was a deliberate action, let alone one that you could only perform some of the time.

The general consensus was that stunts were a way for the game to tell you, “Hey, it’s time for creativity!” My players thought that was probably a good thing for groups who were used to taking the, “I hit it with my sword again” approach to combat, but that it was a massive hindrance to their own ability to roleplay.

NewbieDM: Our combats in 4e were taking forever because everyone looked over their character power cards and a bad case of analysis paralysis took over. So for us, the Dragon Age combat system is a perfect way to get the fights out of the way quickly, and get back to the story. The stunts are what keep things from getting overly monotonous, and for us it’s working just fine.

Are fights less tactical than 4e? Yes. Is it more of the, “I hit it with my sword” variety? Yes, it is, but the stunts allow you to vary it up and get creative. I ran the Amber Rage adventure Hannah mentions, and to be honest, the fact that a poison is transmitted via a stunt is something that I as a DM would likely keep close to my vest, and not let players now how it works.

I’ll tell you that rolling doubles in the game is fun, and my players celebrate it just as much as rolling a natural 20 on a d20 based game.

4. Choices

One major theme of the Dragon Age video game is meaningful choice. The player faces many situations where he or she must make a decision with no clear guidance on which path is best. Some are outright choices between the lesser of two evils, while others are all about moral shades of grey.

The Blood in Ferelden series of adventures tries to carry on this theme, presenting the players with difficult choices at every step of the way.

Hannah: My players really liked this idea, but were nonplussed about its execution. I think that Green Ronin did a great job with this in a lot of places in Blood in Ferelden. My players only got to see the choices that they encountered during their adventure, and there’s several of them that they weren’t too thrilled about.

An encounter that exemplifies this is the scene where a player character comes upon two children hiding beneath a wagon, with two enemies trying to snatch them. One child makes a break for it, to be pursued by one enemy, and so the player must choose – which child will they save? There’s only time to save one.

This seems like a gut-wrenching decision, and certainly there is no obvious good choice. The problem is, the choice is not a meaningful one. The character knows nothing about the two children. It’s not about saving the promising young warrior versus the bereaved widow’s only child; it’s just a young boy or a young girl.

Short of the character having a severe gender bias, there’s no particular reason to choose one or the other. In essence, there’s no choice at all – either way, the player is rescuing one unknown child while failing to rescue another unknown child.

No matter how bleak the choice, its outcome has to be meaningful to have any emotional impact.

NewbieDM: I ran this adventure, and used the encounter with the kids. Here’s where I strongly differ from Hannah. At the start of the adventure, the town the PCs are in is celebrating the opening of a new fort with a festival. The DM is encouraged to roleplay the PCs participating in events, and meeting the locals. It is here where the relationships that are meant to pay off later are introduced.

If the PCs never really have a chance to be introduced to the kids early in the adventure, then there’s no emotional attachment to the kids once their scene comes into play. In the end, they chose to save the girl, thinking that perhaps the boy could buy himself some time. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way, and because of that, this scene had a huge impact at my table and signaled to my players that Dragon Age was indeed a dark game.

5. The Setting

Dragon Age is set in Ferelden, the main kingdom explored in the Dragon Age video game. The core book fleshes out some parts of the setting beyond what’s apparent from the video game, and also gives details on other regions that might come up in other supplements.

The adventures in the tabletop game are assumed to take place shortly before the events of the video game. The Blight of monstrous darkspawn is only just beginning, and Cailan is still king.

Hannah: This was probably my group’s favourite part of the game. The two of us who’d played the video game thought Green Ronin did an excellent job fleshing out the setting. All of my players enjoyed Sothmere, the starting place for the Amber Rage adventure.

I especially liked the verisimilitude of the setting. Why would someone build a village on the edge of a wilderness inhabited by hostile raiders? Because that area is the best place to grow a certain kind of grain that makes for good bread and ale. The traveling merchants all know where the ale comes from, so it’s worth it to them to make a trip out of the way.

My group also had a lot of fun with the byplay between characters of different backgrounds. We had a Circle Mage and an apostate in the group. No one trusted either of them, and they especially distrusted each other. The local human warrior didn’t care too much about the elf, while the traveling dwarf warrior didn’t see much difference between them.

NewbieDM: What the Dragon Age setting does is take common fantasy tropes and turn them on their head. City elves live in ghettos in the big cities, while dwarves have a huge caste system they live by and are not remotely spiritual. They spin the common fantasy races in a way that makes them new to play, but having said that, I think my group and I would probably enjoy the system more if it were stripped from the setting.

Don’t get me wrong, I like what they’ve done, but I played the video game. My players have not, and I feel they aren’t as invested in the setting as I am. I made a document for them from the game’s wiki page, so they could have some more knowledge of the world, because I knew they weren’t going to play the video game.

What Dragon Age needs is a Campaign Guide, but I don’t see that coming anytime soon. Which leads to my greatest complaint about the game: the lack of support from Green Ronin.

I understand they are limited by it being a licensed property, but it almost feels like the game was released and then ignored by Green Ronin. Set 2 was recently announced, and rumors have it pushed back until June of 2011, 3 months after the release of Dragon Age 2 the video game.

A triumph of small RPG publishing

Introduction

This review will follow the material covered in the Sorcery and Super Science rulebook step by step, giving an overview of each section before closing with an overall look at the manual.

Section 1: Cover and Intro

All the usual RPG basics are covered here; a rousing description of the game world’s history, a short credits list, and an equally short and straightforward table of contents that hits all the relevant bases.  Sorcery and Super Science promises post-apocalyptic action “under the shattered moon,” in an Earth that’s been a mess of mutations, time traveling, insane magic and mad technology since 2112.  The section closes with one of my favourite “get-the-players-stoked” lines of any RPG: “it is a dangerous world, but you are dangerous people.”

Section 2: Floating Dice System

From bad-assery straight into a nitty-gritty breakdown of the core system mechanics; an interesting juxtaposition, but one I think works well to draw a reader into the manual.  The dice system calls for the usual assortment of 4- to 20-sided dice, and even for a 16-sided die (which I’ve personally never encountered) but allows for the substitution of two 8-sided dice.

A quick breakdown of the system

A good GM resource

I love the idea of giving players visuals of the people they meet. Sure, we GMs paint pictures with our words, but a picture is worth 1000 of those. At least, most of the time. Overall, I give the Rite NPC Deck a passing grade, but I do have feedback for the designers, because I am interested in more of this type of product from them.

Form enhances function for me with this product. I have physical NPC cards from another company, and they are great. But I wish they offered a free digital version to customers, as well. I can use digital NPC pics on my iPad for RPG and laptop. I can always print out a physical version, and prefer having the digital version to start. So the Rite product serves my needs well.

The product contains 49 NPC headshots. You can see a few previews. There is a nice variety of NPCs, and you are sure to find a few to suit your campaign. That is my first quibble. I would prefer to see themed decks in the future. There are three cat people and a couple of robot NPCs in the deck, and my campaign does not feature those races. I also realize the universal nature of art, but would prefer to see decks based on core rules of Pathfinder or D&D 3.5, for example, with other decks themed around more exotic races. I’d dig an all humanoid deck, for example.

I like the art style. I am not after photo-realistic portraits, nor do I want too much detail. I just need to give my players a good impression of the NPC, and to use the cards to inspire my NPC planning, as I prefer to select a portrait first, and use it to drive my NPC’s design. The cards do this well with their style of the basics and not too much detail. For example, most NPCs have no wrinkles. You might consider this a deck of young NPCs, then, but I prefer to see it as a deck of ageless ones. So, I’ll be letting my players know each portrait I use is a rough representation, and not exact, which works for me.

Most NPCs in the deck appear to be posing for their driver’s license photo. There are pros and cons to that, and I’m not sure how things net out for me. A big pro with neutral expressions is you can design whatever NPC you want, or roleplay the NPC however you like, without betraying the portrait. If the NPC is happy today, angry tomorrow and sad on Moonday, the same pic provides a good baseline for each. The big negative is lack of inspiration. Featuring emotion on the pics might help with design or inspire players to roleplay more.

Ditto with the headshot style. Flipping just heads gives you the essentials on an NPC and freedom to design without betraying any details offered by a card. Flipping tails, however, gives you more detail to work with and get inspired by as you get a whole bodyshot to work with. Overall, I prefer the headshot style. Cheaper for Rite in the end, too, which should mean cheaper for customers.

A couple of the cards should not have passed approvals. Art is subjective, so I am open to this criticism being just my take on things. For example, one card shows the head of a wolf that comes off as sloppy and rushed, just blurred splotches in a wolf shape. But, I only felt this way about a couple of the cards, and it is rare I get 100% use out of an RPG product anyway. And I bet there will be GMs out there who love the wolf pic to bits. Such is art. (This argument also mitigates my complaint that the deck contains some races not present in my campaign.)

I have a quibble with the card design. Each card has three layers: the frame, the background and the portrait. Overall, I feel the frame and background patterns do not interfere with the NPC pictures. They are a bit too much for me, though, as I think they prevent some NPCs from “popping” off their card, which would be my ideal.

I do feel the photo credit on every card is intrusive. I’d prefer they be placed on the frame, which is darker. Sometimes the text partially covers the NPC pic. This is crazy, due to the nature of the product. In a rulebook I would prefer not to see big artist credit notices that sometimes cover the illustrations, but no big deal if it happens because the product’s purpose is all about the rules. However, if the entire product is all about the art, then the art should be displayed unimpeded by labels or noisy backgrounds. So, I vote for the credits text to be shifted to the bottom right hand corner of each card, out of harm’s way.

Bonus points next time if the layout accomodates a space for GMs to add their own text, either digitally or on printed versions. The frame bleeds to the edge, so there are no clear places to write on. Digital cards have no backsides, either, though you do have more colour and highlight options. For example, my main need is to put the NPC’s name on their portriat. On the other hand, I do not want an empty label box on each card just for NPC names – that’s distracting. Just provide a blank space on the bottom that does not compete with the art, nor create a distraction if I opt not to put anything there, but is there if I need it.

While I have provided some minor concerns, I love my Rite NPC Deck and will be using it next session of my Pathfinder game. I like the art style, the portrait style and variety of portraits. If they produce another deck, I’ll check it out for sure. So thumbs up from me for GMs to consider this product for their games.