Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Not just Towers of Adventure

"Towers of Adventure" by James M Ward Published and distributed by Troll Lord Games ISBN-13: 978-1-936822-92-8 In its mere 54 pages, ToA provide dozens, if not hundreds, of possible adventures and adventure seeds. There are only three chapters: "Book One: Illustrations and Maps", "Book Two: Hooks, NPC's, and Monsters", and "Book Three: Treasures and Traps". There are 15 pages in Book 1, which details fifteen different towers. These are simple Black and White one page illustrations, which have numbered rooms corresponding to the map and a map key. In the Map Key, however, are only slots for the GM to use for whatever happens to be in that location, if indeed there is anything at all. Some pages have a small number of rooms, the smallest of which was 11; and some pages have a large number of rooms - the largest of which was 31. There are 17 pages in Book 2. Part 1 of this has charts for assorted 'services' that a crafty GM could use to separate PC's from their gold; in Part 2 there are small adventure 'hooks' a potential GM could use for rumors (some of which might be true), and the largest section, Part 3, deals with NPC's; and finally monsters in Part Four. Finally, in Book 3, Part 1 deals with themed treasures, which are treasures geared to a specific class of character, and Part 2 has some diabolical traps a GM could spring on PC's - and, even better, ways for PC's to use those same traps to entrap their hideways against NPC's and/or monsters. This product reminded me of the good old days of Judges Guild, who produced many supplements for early D&D. It reminded me the most of the "Maps" series - a collection of booklets just detailing a group of maps (such as "Island Book I" or "Castles Book I"). This book is a great resource for potential GM's using =any= system that is based on a fantasy setting. Heck, on a =good= day, you could argue that these maps could exist on some strange unknown planet your Sci-Fi characters were exploring. The "Siege Engine" system of Troll Lord Games is incredibly easy to convert to any D20 based game, and most of this book could almost be used in any game - period. Considering the low price and the almost universal system, I'd highly recommend it to any of my D20 gamers, and at least recommend it to any gamer. Your Mileage May Vary.

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