A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement The Old Town Runner

The Old Town Runner by Cliff Dunn is a role playing game supplement published by ZealZaddy for use with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.

The supplement is available as an 8 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover, one the front matter, one the Contents and one the Open Game License.

The first two pages of content are taken up by some links to Free City of Vadashar material, a sidebar, Welcome to the Free City of Vadashar, that is duplicated from other supplements and gives background and history of the city, and some details on using The Old Town Runner in a non-Vadashar or a Vadashar campaign.

The Old Town Runner explains that at same time every day, the same person can be seen running along the same roads through Vadashar, and has been seen for the last decade. The runner looks like an ordinary merchant, and the stats don’t depict him as anything else, bar being a very accomplished runner. If he bumps into someone, he will help them to their feet and apologise.

Why is He Running? says that this is less an NPC than a strange phenomenon; an unexplained spectacle that adds a touch of strangeness. However, there are three potential reasons given for his running, from being a bit touched, to running from spirits or even demons.

The Old Town Runner in Review

The PDF is bookmarked with the major sections linked. The Contents is to a similar level of depth and is hyperlinked. Navigation is decent. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a few pieces of colour stock art. Presentation is okay.

Dropping this NPC into any setting is easy enough; they are, after all, just someone running. There could be other explanations as to why they are running, other than those given. Or, perhaps, there might not be an explanation; this could just be a random thing that makes no sense. The Old Town Runner is a decent little supplement and it can be found by clicking here.