20 Things #71: Urban Events (System Neutral Edition) by Creighton Broadhurst is a role playing game supplement published by Raging Swan Press. The supplement is stated to be system neutral, but also compatible with any version of Dungeons & Dragons, and is therefore covered by the Open Game License with some parts considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
The supplement is available for $3.45 from DriveThruRPG, although it was bought at a reduced price thanks to a special offer, and comes in three versions. One version is a text file; the other two are 11-page PDFs. One PDF is intended for print and high-end devices, the other for low end devices and mobile. Two pages are the front and rear covers, two pages are ads, one page is the front matter, Contents and some notes on using the supplement and one the Open Game License.
Using this Book explains that the tables can be used on the fly by rolling on the desired table and describing the result.
1: Using Minor Urban Events explains that urban environments are not static and these events may not affect adventurers, but make places look alive. There is a d12 table of events, with 12 different types, and each of which has recommended hooks, as described in 2: Minor Event Hooks. The events could happen whilst characters are away, may be the subject of rumours and may, in fact, never have happened at all.
2: Minor Event Hooks has eight different hooks for involving characters in events.
3: Minor Urban Events is the main part of the supplement. This is divided into 12 event types, to match the events from 1: Using Minor Urban Events; each type has 6 different results. Events cover such things as visiting merchants, tavern brawls, murders, executions and more.
20 Things #71: Urban Events (System Neutral Edition) in Review
The PDF is bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The Contents is to a similar level of depth and is hyperlinked. Navigation is good. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be mostly free of errors. There are a couple of pieces of black and white stock art. Presentation is okay.
“20 Things” is a bit of a misnomer for this supplement; nothing in it has 20 things. That doesn’t mean that the supplement is bad; just don’t expect to be using a d20 at any point. This is a useful little supplement for generating a bunch of random events for a city, with most being at most a short paragraph describing a specific event or an involved NPC. Though they can just be used to flesh out a city – one use would be a newspaper, should a city have anything like that – they can also be used as potential adventure hooks. 20 Things #71: Urban Events (System Neutral Edition) is a nice collection of tables and it can be found by clicking here.
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