Hah, reviews... I’m not even sure what the point is. So, Veins of the Earth. It’s written in the poetic language you can find on Patrick’s blog. It’s illustrated with the unsettling scribbles you can find on Scrap’s blog. It’s very long. Some monsters have goofy names and maybe they’re goofy when used at the table, too.
Done?
Will I remember the lists with treasures, the lists with caves? I don’t know. Perhaps during prep? I fear the book is too thick to be used at the table as-is. I liked the twenty lamps. So, it’s a tool for prep. When you prep for your game, pick an idea or two from the book and go write your own stuff. A big plus is that none of the stuff I’ve come across is boring. Every single list item was good in some way. I don’t know whether the items are always gameable-good but they are at least visually-good or atmospherically-good.
I like how the pseudo 3D caves are generated. The result seems to make no sense at all. Go east, go down, go west, go north, and you’re back where you started. It might work at the table, who knows.
The encumbrance character worksheet looks good but I use the *rule of cool* at my table: if anybody suspects that some character is carrying too much, the player has to read us the inventory and if we start laughing or groaning, then anything beyond that can’t be carried by the character in question. It’s just… ridiculous.
Anyway, I’ve been leafing through the book every now and then. But I already placed it on the bookshelf once. The next step is to find a place for the book and there it’ll remain, unread for weeks and months. I should just accept the fact that I’m rarely going to actually completely read and actually use the books I have and stop buying more.
What kind of book did I get the most mileage out of? My guess is: the 3.5 monster manuals I–V. Now I feel sad.
#RPG #Review