April Spot Reviews

 Ive been shopping a bit to beat some mysterious price increases. Also just spent 4k on an electrician so the benefit of home ownership vs rent cost is blown for the year sigh. Bat at least the landlord or agent devils don't visit me. God awful strata service and committee, as well as for common land I share. At least I haven't moved 8 times in 2 years and relied on airBnB for housing or sofas. But I'm well aware of how man ppl increasingly doing it tough and my young friends who assume they can't afford a home or pets or children. Recently Marion Council (across the rd) has a proposal for a Tesla factory ppl are commenting on. It will destroy public housing and crown land parks. We already have local grifting robber barons throwing money at elections using BS sigh. Hope everyone is doing as well as they can.

A nice vid on folk horror in children's games is slightly relevant to first review 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OInlv7qkz4M&list=TLPQMDgwNDIwMjUXp87k5m3_7Q&index=3

The Black Apple Brugh 💗💗💗💗
Anyone running a spooky fae woodlands setting should have this or use it to start a campaign. Dolemwood, Midderlands or my own Auldwood would all work fine. It is also cheap and pdf available FREE  One of those inspired rare adventures full of folk horror, faerie, changeling children, secret shabby elf dungeon, stunning npc's and many more good things. Even the history wasn't bloated or boring. Like any good adventure, you could talk or murder your way through. A good read and easy to prep for like 80s adventures.

Muahuitli 💗💗💗💗
One of the best ever historical RPG settings I felt helped me learn about the world and pronounce Aztec words better. The character classes and spells were awesome. Alignment is especially interesting. Lawful people collect sacrifices to keep the sun going. Taking prisoners is worth 5x the XP. It's a simple version of whitebox D&D but better than most. Readable paperback for bus rides.

5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons 24/25 💗💗💗💩
I prefer this to the 2014 edition. Its better laid out, I can read the index pages and mostly its better written and cleaner. Adapting old stuff has been workable. My player's book has a naff corner I need to fix before it gets worse. Actually most of the lore in the DMG about various campaign settings has been my first exposure to it despite playing games since 83. I will keep my older DMG and MM. Mostly I'm fine with changes to species, zorro orcs and drow in players' book and some queer twinks in art and not just bikini girls. We used term species and got rid of half species in early 80s so yay. The MM just arrived in time for a game and has more space on statblocks. My main beef is it seems for mid to high level with high HP even base pirates have 30 ish HP. lizardfolk deserved 2 pages and needed a more common weaker one. Sphynxes are now all leonine and colourful like plush dollies and not human or thirsty. Stat wise its ok but I like the weird human-looking jerk ones. I miss the actual mythic sphynxes who eat people and falcon-headed ones guarding temples - they needed a sphynx-making kit like the Chimera in theros. Mixed feelings about the alphabetisation but it was faster to use. Some plant and jungi critters all lumped in groups still. Mostly its pretty good. Ive played D&D4/24 for a few years and still feel I'm learning basic stuff. Lots of DMs filed off choices in games and made recommendations which is good but Ive taken longer to really learn these choices and put off playing some classes for complexity. My first game as DM was this newer version as I found it superior. Ive ordered a bunch of older 5th ed stuff as its on sale quite a bit and older stuff vanishing.  

Forbidden North Vol 1&2 PDF 💗💗💗💩
Real books coming. I might review again in more detail. Stunning monumental campaign for old-school essentials. Great maps and art and layout. I look forward to volume 3. I did get a vibe of the vikings vs elder gods ruined city in the ice type game as a few people had on Blogs and G+*. The lawful religion in here isn't really viking at all and my only beef but its fine and disappointed from my own delusions. At this stage Im awfully impressed and a bit inspiring. Ill possibly change score when I've read more and do a bigger review of each volume when books arrive.

*if you know the creators I refer to please post in the comments

Faking History by Jason Colavito 💗💗💗💗
Nota a game book. But inspired quite a few blog posts. PPL say skeptics makes poor creativity but I found the obscure threads in this book to be very inspiring. Basically, it debunks psuedo history and archaeology which has come to flood popular thought and drowned out actual scholars voices. Large print and short chapters are good for bus reading. On chapter talks about a brief mention of an evil school dracula went to and expands into ancient satanic schools for wizards and cults under the mountain stuff that is quite mindblowing. Very entertaining and readable and the sort of antidote we need in a world where fake history is normal.