A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers

Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers is a role playing game supplement published by Pugsteady through Onyx Path Publishing. This adventure is intended for use with the Pugmire rules and, as such, is covered by the Open Game License with some parts considered to be Open Game Content as a result.

The supplement is available from DriveThruRPG as a PDF for $9.99, as a hardcover standard heavyweight print on demand book for $19.99, premium heavyweight print on demand book for $29.99, standard book and PDF for $21.00 or premium book and PDF for $31.99. The PDF is the version reviewed, although it was bought at the reduced price of $2.67 as part of a special bundle. The PDF has 123 pages with two pages being the front and rear covers, three the front matter, three the Table of Contents and two the Open Game License.

An Introduction to Pan’s Guide gives some brief details on the book, how to use it and the associated YouTube video series. Each part of the adventure is first described, including read-aloud text for players, and is then followed by any rules that would need to be used in that section. Each section also has some introductory fiction recounting an adventure by Pan Dachshund.

What is Roleplaying? is an introductory section of the “What is an RPG?” type. It also explains that the Pugmire game is set in the distant future when Man has disappeared and civilisation no consists of uplifted intelligent animals; dogs in this case. Man’s extremely advanced technology is now considered to be magical in nature. There is an example of play and instructions on how to get started – which includes finding a venue, players and what is needed to play.

The Campaign is the adventure itself. This is quite a long adventure, with seventeen sections including Prologue and Epilogue. The characters get started when they come across a sign in the city of Pugmire about increased raids by Rat bandits to the south of the city following a bad flood. This leads them to the Pioneers and Pan Dachshund. Pan tells the characters that he is more concerned about young dogs going into the Fearful Forest east of Mutt Town looking for the Fabulous Fen, a legendary site of Man. The Fen was discovered by Saint Akbash. The dogs have not returned. Pan gives the characters a map of the region and allows them to keep his journal if they have it.

The characters will make their way south from Pugmire and across the river to Mutt Town. There, they can bargain with a Rat crime boss for a talisman that can show them the way to the Fabulous Fen. Along the way they will encounter a variety of hazards before finally getting to the Fen. This is the location of a former site of Man that still has an occupant, Ast-Maat, whose spirit occupies a suit of animated armour. Ast-Maat is a dangerous opponent and a number of ways are provided to incapacitate or defeat her.

Ready Made Characters has six pre-generated characters. Each has two pages of description followed by two pages of character sheet.

Tricks and Spell Appendix has material copied from the core book. This has the various tricks and spells for the pre-generated characters reproduced and organised by character. This is said to be done in case the Guide – GM – is the only one with a copy of the core rulebook so that the relevant material can be printed out for each player for ease of reference. Of course this is only the case if the pre-generated characters are used.

Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers in Review

The PDF is decently bookmarked with the major sections linked, although the bookmarks could be a bit more thorough. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth and is also hyperlinked. Navigation is decent but it could be better.

The text maintains a two column full colour format and a few minor errors were spotted. There are a lot of colour illustrations, up to a full page in size, the majority of which would appear to be custom. Presentation is excellent.

This is a curious type of adventure. Given that the relevant rules are given following the relevant section in the book, it is in some ways a variation on the quickstart concept. There do not appear to be enough rules included to use this without the core rulebook, but it also doesn’t appear to be far from standalone. It is stated to be suitable for new and existing role players, but it’s definitely aimed more towards novices than it is the experienced. Having the relevant rules immediately follow the section in which they are used is a nice idea, but it’s probably one that works better in print than it does in PDF.

A bit like the core book, this one seems to suffer a bit from lack of focus – it isn’t clear just who the adventure is aimed at, whether this be new or old gamers or old or young ones. The adventure itself is pretty interesting and has darker elements than might be expected. Such as a hollow metal idol which could be heated up and living victims thrown inside. It isn’t used and hasn’t been for some time, but characters can still puzzle out what it is for. There are also a fair few choices that players can make regarding helping people and keeping bargains. Elements like that make the adventure feel more mature.

Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers is a decently complex adventure, although perhaps suited more for new players than old, and it can be found by clicking here.