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Weird Wastelands - 3rd Party Review
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<blockquote data-quote="Sparky McDibben" data-source="post: 9072849" data-attributes="member: 7041430"><p>You know what the fun part of anxiety is? Trying to go to sleep. You just lay there, blood thundering in your ears, imagining your utter doom drawing ever nearer in an unstoppable cavalcade of woe, staring at the ceiling. So when I get anxious about stuff, I do analysis! One time I did a full dive on Microsoft's 10K. I didn't really find anything unique or original, but I sure as Hell slept better after that!</p><p></p><p>Sadly, the Q2 financial results aren't out yet, so I get to vent my analytical spleen upon RPG products! W0000000000000000tt!!!!</p><p></p><p>In particular, tonight we're going to be looking at Weird Wastelands chapter four: The GM Toolkit. Really, this should have been called the "All Other" chapter, because it's where they put everything that didn't fit neatly anywhere else. </p><p></p><p>In particular, it covers:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Monster reskins</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Wasteland factions</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Wasteland encounters</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Supplementary tables</li> </ul><p>So without further ado, let's reskin these monsters! This takes up all of a paragraph, and a full-page chart. Basically, this is how the authors give you wasteland-specific monsters without having to throw out most of the <em>Monster Manual. </em>They have a column for the MM name, the reskin name, stat block subtractions, and stat block additions.</p><p></p><p>So the stirge in <em>Weird Wastelands </em>is called the giant tick. It uses the stirge statblock except it loses the flying speed, and gains a walking speed of 20 feet, and a climbing speed of 10 feet. These are largely just that simple - only a handful have anything more complicated. I really like this setup; it adds value to my existing purchase and gives me a bunch of examples to work from when I want to do this myself. </p><p></p><p>What I'm not as big a fan of is that in all the random tables, it refers to the reskinned monster name. They do call out which ones are new monsters introduced later in the book, so process of elimination makes it relatively easy to figure out that this is a reskin of something else, but it adds an extra lookup during play that I'd rather skip, especially because the promise of these exploration rules is that you can layer them on top of your regular game. </p><p></p><p> After we get the reskins out of the way, it's on to the factions:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Arcanotech Cabal - loosely allied groups of scholars focused on rebuilding civilization</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Blood Harpy Legion - militant cult of ecstatic warrior types focused on establishing order from the chaos</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Enduring Aristocracy - society of feudal undead</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fellowship - wasteland druids trying to regrow life in the wastes</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Infernal Recruiters - fascist devils securing an important site, but also because they think the wastelands are pretty nice compared to Hell</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Wastelanders - everybody else; section notably includes reference to Yolo Swaggins</li> </ul><p>These are fairly brief - only two or three pages, including a random encounter checklist, three NPCs each, goals, resources, and suggested abilities for individual members. For example, there are sample spell lists for various members of several factions. Big <em>Planegea</em> vibes from this section (which is high praise; <em>Planegea's</em> one of my favorite settings of all time!).</p><p></p><p>Moving on, we get advice on building wasteland encounters. Right off the bat, the book tells us that "The creatures on the following encounter tables vary in difficulty and weren’t crafted with balanced encounters as a priority. These are the predominant monsters for their terrain type, and a reckless party can easily find themselves in over their heads."</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://media4.giphy.com/media/l3BwSPbqx3QGKEgpp2/200.gif" alt="You Got This Harry Potter GIF by Sky" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p> <p style="text-align: center"><em>Translation: "Murder hobos should bring backup characters."</em></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p><p>But there are a bunch of great tools in here. For one, there's an awesome table that lets you bring random encounters to life by giving the monster something to do when the party encounters it. There's 20 options, and it covers the gamut from "twitching erratically" to "marking territory." Good stuff! </p><p></p><p>We also get encounter hazards, such as earthquakes, necrotizing sand, radiation, and friggin' volcanoes. Have fun with that on the encounter table, son!</p><p></p><p>There's also this art piece, which really captures the mood of this section brilliantly:</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/aUy6LFr.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p> <p style="text-align: center"><em>"Look, when they said, 'Stomp the Yard,' I assumed they were being metaphorical!"</em></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p><p>Goals. Honestly, just goals.</p><p></p><p>After that we get into the encounter tables by terrain type, and this is where I have a gripe. Some of these are great, but some of them refer me to a faction encounter table, or a hazard, etc. I'd strongly recommend either doing some collation work to make sure you have all the tables together, and know exactly what you need to roll and when, or pre-rolling everything and hoping your players don't change course or get lost.</p><p></p><p>Also, this:</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/HnJwgTG.png?1" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p> <p style="text-align: center"><em>Above: The actual definition of the phrase, "Gilding the lily."</em></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p><p>So be ready for what happens if your PCs walk into a tarrasque. My recommendation is to simply have them encounter it way in the distance and have a guide just say something like, "Yeah, avoid that thing." I'm totally OK with having a tarrasque on the encounter table; it was the "Deadly" piece that made me go, "Gee, ya think?" <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>In addition to having daytime and nighttime encounters, plus hazards by terrain type, we also get several high quality maps for each terrain type that would do very well on VTT. </p><p></p><p>Finally, there are several supplemental tables that focus on building a wasteland settlement, as well as a d100 "Loot the Body" table. These are all great and I love them.</p><p></p><p>My impressions on the GM Toolbox is that it's mainly a continuation of the previous chapter, but it's giving you an embarrassment of riches. You're not going to be able to effectively leverage all of this at the table; I recommend picking the tools you want to use and running with those first. Note that this is not a bad thing; if anything, the authors are giving you even more value for your money.</p><p></p><p>Next time, we'll go over the Wastelands Locations - 115 pages of absolutely gonzo fun!!! Until then, y'all!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sparky McDibben, post: 9072849, member: 7041430"] You know what the fun part of anxiety is? Trying to go to sleep. You just lay there, blood thundering in your ears, imagining your utter doom drawing ever nearer in an unstoppable cavalcade of woe, staring at the ceiling. So when I get anxious about stuff, I do analysis! One time I did a full dive on Microsoft's 10K. I didn't really find anything unique or original, but I sure as Hell slept better after that! Sadly, the Q2 financial results aren't out yet, so I get to vent my analytical spleen upon RPG products! W0000000000000000tt!!!! In particular, tonight we're going to be looking at Weird Wastelands chapter four: The GM Toolkit. Really, this should have been called the "All Other" chapter, because it's where they put everything that didn't fit neatly anywhere else. In particular, it covers: [LIST] [*]Monster reskins [*]Wasteland factions [*]Wasteland encounters [*]Supplementary tables [/LIST] So without further ado, let's reskin these monsters! This takes up all of a paragraph, and a full-page chart. Basically, this is how the authors give you wasteland-specific monsters without having to throw out most of the [I]Monster Manual. [/I]They have a column for the MM name, the reskin name, stat block subtractions, and stat block additions. So the stirge in [I]Weird Wastelands [/I]is called the giant tick. It uses the stirge statblock except it loses the flying speed, and gains a walking speed of 20 feet, and a climbing speed of 10 feet. These are largely just that simple - only a handful have anything more complicated. I really like this setup; it adds value to my existing purchase and gives me a bunch of examples to work from when I want to do this myself. What I'm not as big a fan of is that in all the random tables, it refers to the reskinned monster name. They do call out which ones are new monsters introduced later in the book, so process of elimination makes it relatively easy to figure out that this is a reskin of something else, but it adds an extra lookup during play that I'd rather skip, especially because the promise of these exploration rules is that you can layer them on top of your regular game. After we get the reskins out of the way, it's on to the factions: [LIST] [*]Arcanotech Cabal - loosely allied groups of scholars focused on rebuilding civilization [*]Blood Harpy Legion - militant cult of ecstatic warrior types focused on establishing order from the chaos [*]Enduring Aristocracy - society of feudal undead [*]Fellowship - wasteland druids trying to regrow life in the wastes [*]Infernal Recruiters - fascist devils securing an important site, but also because they think the wastelands are pretty nice compared to Hell [*]Wastelanders - everybody else; section notably includes reference to Yolo Swaggins [/LIST] These are fairly brief - only two or three pages, including a random encounter checklist, three NPCs each, goals, resources, and suggested abilities for individual members. For example, there are sample spell lists for various members of several factions. Big [I]Planegea[/I] vibes from this section (which is high praise; [I]Planegea's[/I] one of my favorite settings of all time!). Moving on, we get advice on building wasteland encounters. Right off the bat, the book tells us that "The creatures on the following encounter tables vary in difficulty and weren’t crafted with balanced encounters as a priority. These are the predominant monsters for their terrain type, and a reckless party can easily find themselves in over their heads." [CENTER][IMG alt="You Got This Harry Potter GIF by Sky"]https://media4.giphy.com/media/l3BwSPbqx3QGKEgpp2/200.gif[/IMG] [I]Translation: "Murder hobos should bring backup characters."[/I] [/CENTER] But there are a bunch of great tools in here. For one, there's an awesome table that lets you bring random encounters to life by giving the monster something to do when the party encounters it. There's 20 options, and it covers the gamut from "twitching erratically" to "marking territory." Good stuff! We also get encounter hazards, such as earthquakes, necrotizing sand, radiation, and friggin' volcanoes. Have fun with that on the encounter table, son! There's also this art piece, which really captures the mood of this section brilliantly: [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/aUy6LFr.png[/IMG] [I]"Look, when they said, 'Stomp the Yard,' I assumed they were being metaphorical!"[/I] [/CENTER] Goals. Honestly, just goals. After that we get into the encounter tables by terrain type, and this is where I have a gripe. Some of these are great, but some of them refer me to a faction encounter table, or a hazard, etc. I'd strongly recommend either doing some collation work to make sure you have all the tables together, and know exactly what you need to roll and when, or pre-rolling everything and hoping your players don't change course or get lost. Also, this: [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/HnJwgTG.png?1[/IMG] [I]Above: The actual definition of the phrase, "Gilding the lily."[/I] [/CENTER] So be ready for what happens if your PCs walk into a tarrasque. My recommendation is to simply have them encounter it way in the distance and have a guide just say something like, "Yeah, avoid that thing." I'm totally OK with having a tarrasque on the encounter table; it was the "Deadly" piece that made me go, "Gee, ya think?" :) In addition to having daytime and nighttime encounters, plus hazards by terrain type, we also get several high quality maps for each terrain type that would do very well on VTT. Finally, there are several supplemental tables that focus on building a wasteland settlement, as well as a d100 "Loot the Body" table. These are all great and I love them. My impressions on the GM Toolbox is that it's mainly a continuation of the previous chapter, but it's giving you an embarrassment of riches. You're not going to be able to effectively leverage all of this at the table; I recommend picking the tools you want to use and running with those first. Note that this is not a bad thing; if anything, the authors are giving you even more value for your money. Next time, we'll go over the Wastelands Locations - 115 pages of absolutely gonzo fun!!! Until then, y'all! [/QUOTE]
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