Reviews, AI comment spam and more

I found some comments under spam that were mostly just on word comments.
Lots of them were mine. Apologies if your comments were gobbled in this.

Also AI targeted comments a thing now:

i got this:
Love the Eldritch Monolith encounter design. The way you structured the six rooms with escalating threat really captures the feeling of exploring something ancient and dangerous. For anyone running a tabletop game in a shared space like a game store or community hall, ventilation can be an afterthought but makes a big difference for player comfort during long sessions. Goes on to sell me air ducts.


I'd like this comment if not just to sell to me.
It's like some shit charity collector complimenting your dog, sports team or shirt.

Saw two ai pics made of me which were kinda funny. The first had animae imagery with figurines and detailed, readable text on screen in trhe pic. The second had lots of gothic writing posters and medieval woodcuts on screen. Funny and weird, but mostly a fantasy. Im finding that asking AI browsers stuff it leaves out non USA items from lists, ignoring other older achievements and sometimes it takes 3 tries with increasing qualifiers to get answers I want. Lucky i did philosophy for 5 years. AI enhances grammar spelling had become more intrusive with pop ups and recommended blandness because it doesn't know old words (like Gygax & HPL loved). Actually, school teachers didn't either, mostly and like AI tried correcting the spelling of old words or even new science terms. Often it fails with singular or plural or common modifiers of words. English has lots of alt suffix use which AI seems to mess up. Mind you, I'm a shit editor, especially of my own work. When I was in press up to a hundred people might proof my work and still typos slipped through.

AI spends lots of energy ego-stroking you to make you dependent.
See Richard Dawkins recent embarrassing documentation of him being grifted. 

People are cranking out superhero rpgs with AI art. Id say mostly fans of Indy RPG art and Comics will not want your AI images or products. There are too many superhero RPGs that are deeply flawed and try and force narrative with rules.Too manydont say why they are different or why you should try them. Many dont really say what genre or style of superheroes they claim to replicate. Superheroes are a big genre that can include and overlap with other genres, but they are still wildly different.

But I'm basically playing the same 3 games as I was 1984, so what would I know.

Dolmen Wood
To be fair im still deep reading but finally winning the campaign book. A great detailed, pre-prepped hexcrawl sandbox fairytale campaign and games. The game is partly stripped down BX or OSR. Streamlined in some ways but inbuilt with lots of setting lore and really part of their world. If your going to do a BX clone a world is a great way of making it different. Mostly Id say Im envious and want to use it and Midderlands more than any other setting in decades. You could play with OSE and the Domenwood booklet for OSE and you would get druids and illusionists. I think Dolmenwood should be celebrated for where it diverges from BX D&D like the faeiri magic and species abilities. The Player's book is lovely and has details you could lift for other games. Design is fantastic and less mechanical formula-like than some OSE books seem. 

The Cloth map I got is lovely, and like flag fabric and is nice to touch. Better than the silkscreened on linen ones I have from other KS packs. The Map book is great and answers lots of questions quickly. The town maps are interesting. I would have Glynn Seal-style GM maps, or as an addition. The 70s children's book looking maps have a printerly look, but are nice and functional. Just not as exact as most urban maps.

The Campagn book has lots of faction lore, history and a page per hex with local monsters, treasure, risks of being lost, what herbs you can find and all the local leyline effects. You could wander here for years, and later you go to a specific place to get certain herbs or a layline or a faerieworld. I love the Drune and like the witches and other factions. I love the Breggles and the various half Breggles (dont ask too much). 

Lots of great megadungeons have been done, and a new generation of bigger ones is up for a challenge. This is one of the best hex crawls. Every hex has love and is not generated at random on a spreadsheet like the worst big hex crawls. I dont think it would work the same with say D&D5, which is harder to make camping and gathering food to be exciting, while this has procedures you could use in a more horror resourcism game like older D&D. 

Dragon Delves for 5th ed
I got this half price, and i had not planned to. I would swap mine for a brighter shop cover, possibly. It seems in part a sampler of possible art styles which I like (I like the new Eberon book art too - i got just for class, but think it's a good book to bridge new work to old. I hope Ravenloft doesn't reinvent the wheel again like this book avoids). I appreciate this and AI art has made me cringe at any overly rendered art now. Its saturated and cliched and AI has accelerated this asthetics death. The same way I cringe at flags and crusader uniforms and even certain exact party colours in public (see UK/AU politics). So all these adventures could be slapped together but mostly just look up your player's level and what is on offer here and play without fuss. I ran at a club one with 1st time playing kids who learned that Player vs Player can have bad outcomes. The other I slipped in and the twist is telegraphed in a way it does not gobble up time. Its a dungeon with visual clues. We didn't do this all in one go but they solved most of the mystery. They spent another session cleaning up and there are tables to generate trapped secret treasure rooms, which was fun, and they met some new monsters. The adventures have a good thread of whimsy for more child-like or witchlight style play but plenty of violence. Some dark cutsey stuff, and or playable as horror. Stakes are local and managable and easy to drop in your game. Finish most in 1 3-hour session or perhaps 2, with perhaps an extra encounter. Im wondering if this forbodes the return of adventure modules will end up looking wildly different and possibly compiled in books later.

Pendragon - Starter Set & Core Rulebook
Upfront, everyone should try this game if you like roleplaying and some medieval literary bent. Or you just like King Arthur stuff and roleplaying. I've had it since the 80s and not played as much as I liked. I'm amazed with emergance of certain game design theorists that Pendragon did not come up. It's a wildly different RPG ride to D&D, but its ideas will make your D&D campaign better. I have a big pile of 80s and 90s books, and was pleased to see the game return. There are ideas in this you could use in Dolmenwood also. It is not grim or dark in the cliched way. You play poor beginner knights out to prove yourself. You might go to a tournament, meet someone attractive to flirt with and fight some bandits and recover from a wound. That's a year. Over winter, trapped in your castle you get to recover and train and other tasks. You partner and children and horses need rolls to not die over winter. Or maybe you have a child and your wife dies. You need to get married and have heirs because over a 75-game year campaign, that's how your character replaces themself. Your character might not do what you want which is part of the roleplaying fun. You roll competing traits like chastity vs slutty to see if you resist your hosts wife's advances and cause a war. Its replicating a specific style of Arthurian Mythos you dont really see in any film or tv or most modern books. It is a historic fantasy not a history game. It looks and feels like people thought they did hundreds of years later in medieval romance. Many of the principles of a yearly campaign can be used in other games. RQ2&3 had players taking years off to work and train also. it is passively built into older BRP games. Maybe the minimal story gamers will discover the coin-flipping Prince Valiant game for an even lighter RPG.

Mechanics are a simplified BRP using d20 mostly and d6. It has integrated battle rules. This current edition is lovely and feels very nice to the touch. It's much improved. Later books may expand nationality options in detail, like the older version. They do spend a while setting the tone. Lots of nice spot art and no chainmail bikinis. This edition is more encouraging of being a female knight. There were in past options to play a noblewoman. I'm a big fan of Christine DePizan, who details many famous women heroes women might quote in game. You are not drowned, choice and roleplaying and a few choices give you flavour, not combat superpowers. Your deeds in play matter more.

The starter box might be good for a tryout for a few games. It also has character cards for npcs, a solo adventure, some procedure sheets and the most beautiful gatefold character sheets I've ever seen. I'm gonna steal this format of a character sheet, OMG I love it. There is enough here for months of play. I still need to get three other products to really run it, but even if I don't play this year, it will benefit my next D&D game. 

Land of Eem
So this I did not expect to get but got a few items locally with good post and still need to get the Mucklands campaign book. It is kinda Muppets + D&D + Adventure Time. You could play with kids. It has violence, but combat isn't for damaging or killing. It has interesting species to play and classes. It has shitloads of tables it runs off and in many ways is like my own design philosophy. It is pretty and well laid out with nice paper. I will point out it has incredible building and herbalism rules, a bit like Dolmenwood but more expansive. The DM screen seemed nice, but I don't normally use them. If fine with players spying on my HP tallys. I look forward to the final setting book; I suspect I would steal from it.

OSE
I finally have two hardbacks and two box sets of individual books so very handy if i run it. Probably will be my default con and online game. I have had more experience with online gaming mostly with a simple sketch program and discord. So I might try to DM online. The new demonology book looks good.

I have signed up for Dungeon Degenerates RPG
I feel it might mash up with Warlock! RPG tone