Dreamation 2011 was awesome!

Despite a somewhat rocky start, where I booked my game reservations before my con badge, my hotel reservations less than a week ahead of time, and a quick shot back to my office to pick up the ashcans that I had printed but forgot to pack; I made it out to Morristown late Thursday night and immediately found Daniel Solis and Miss Jennisodes herself in the hotel lobby. Bedtime was imminent, but I managed to demo a 3-player Feed the Birds game before ending the night.

Friday I played in stellar games, probably the single best day’s lineup at a con I’ve ever had.

It started off with Jenn’s excellent Fiasco playset: “Quest for the Golden Panda,” set in mythic China. We told awesome wuxia action and revenge stories.

Second game: Epidiah Ravachol’s Swords without Master, a swords and Sorcery game in the style of Fafhrd & Grey Mouser, or Conan the Barbarian. We had tons of fun playing displaced earth-people from wildly different parts of the timestream, and freed a dead goddess from the musical imprisonment of the Pale Ones.

Finally, Misspent Youth with Rob Bohl, who modeled his adventure off the story “The Hunger Games.” Our Taoist Insurgents fought the power, got imprisoned, and a few of us were forced to sell out to help start the revolution. My personal highlight was utterly shocking Rob when I sold out my Outrage to Wrath.

I also introduced my first ashcan setting, HYPERREALITY, which is a Reality TV Gameshow setting that runs with the InSpectres ruleset. Download it and check it out!

Friday night was spent awake way too long hanging out with lots of great folks in the hotel lobby playing Zombie Dice and Feed the Birds before going to a diner at… what was it, 3am? Burger… Bed…

Saturday, I spent the morning hanging out at the indie games bazaar and got to see my friend Jeff Himmelman before I had to run back to the city to go to Stoudt Brewery’s Winterfest. Had a good time, but wish I’d been gaming.

Sunday morning I got a little extra sleep, and made my way back to Morristown for the wrap-up, where I manned the indie games bazaar while nearly all of the designers went to the Indie Games Roundtable… I’m a little sorry I missed it, but on the other hand, I’d already been talking to them nearly the entire time I was there anyway.

Finally, I grabbed some lunch with excellent NYC folks and took the train back home to an Oscars party in progress. It was an amazing weekend full of things I love, and I only wish I had that a little more frequently.

The summary of the Hero System Bestiary (6th Ed.) for the TLDR crowd: This book is the epitome of it’s form, and you should own it. The longer version goes something like this:

I love monsters. Not just in a gaming sense, but in a wholistic fascination and obsessive way. I keep books on monsters, make studies of the “other” and watch plenty of B-movies. So when I say that the Hero System Bestiary is a magnificent example of what might be done with the book form, you know where I’m coming from.

First, this book opens with basically all of the tips and tricks I’ve devised over time as a GM, to use the bestiary to it’s best effect. How all of the creatures can be generalized to fit any scenario you can envision, and then how to implement them into your game to utilize them all for the best effect. And this doesn’t even begin to get into the actual monsters!

This book breaks down nearly 500 pages of monsters by genre, type, and literary source. An impressive amount of research goes into this more-than-complete book that focuses on giving the GM the tools to populate his world appropriately. It includes precisely what you need to know about the animals/monsters without drowning you in excessive detail.

This book focuses on GM usability, and is probably the best I’ve ever seen. There are some minor misses in the bookmarks of the electronic edition; but if you go directly by the table of contents you’ll be fine. I’ve also mentioned this to the folks at Hero Games, and they are looking into it and will probably release an update.

Five Stars.
Purchase the Hero System Bestiary on DriveThruRPG.com

Fair Disclosure: I love, Love, LOVE giant monsters. And Return to Monster Island is itself a love note to Kaiju movies, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Harryhausen’s movies, and more. Add this to the fascinating Day after Ragnarok setting and you’ve got a product that scratches nearly all my itches.

Now, before I get into it… maybe it’s me — I’m definitely more accustomed to full-book setpieces that are either complete adventures, complete settings, or complete environments that tend to run upwards of $20. This book isn’t trying to do that, and in some ways it confuses me. Now, I admit that I run a little bit grognard, so take my confusion with a grain of salt.

In many ways, Return to Monster Island (and for that matter, all of the Serpent Scales product line) is the tabletop equivalent of video game downloadable content that adds on to DAR: affordable bits and pieces that game masters can use to enhance their game. Most other similar products I’ve seen are geared towards players, i.e. the Wimps Guide to Complete Badassery*; The Tome Arcanos of Mighty Power*, and other such books that I roll my eyes at when a player produces their new idea for character powers or gear.

The only apparent downside to Return to Monster Island is that it ends up feeling a little bit disconnected. In much the same way a book full of character options often feels like it has no specific relation to the game at hand, Return to Monster Island can feel a little bit messy (see my grognardism two paragraphs back). That said, it’s not meant to be an adventure; it’s not meant to be a complete setting. It’s an add-on, and it fully succeeds at that.

If you’re looking to bring a little bit of Kaiju to your Day After Ragnarok game, it’s a very solid entry; but I still wanted a little bit more cohesion overall. Four Stars.

* These are meant to be made-up products to support a point. I’m fairly certain they don’t actually exist.

Purchase Return to Monster Island (Savage Worlds Edition) on DriveThruRPG.com