Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: GM’s Monthly Miscellany: January 2015

GM’s Monthly Miscellany: January 2015 is a free role playing game supplement published by Raging Swan Press, primarily intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. As such, the supplement is covered by the Open Game License and some of it is considered to be Open Game Content. This is one in a regular monthly series consisting of eleven regular supplements and a twelfth that is a compilation which is also available as a print on demand softcover.

This is a fifteen page bookmarked PDF. Three pages are Raging Swan’s regular plain front and rear cover, with a third, similar page. One page is the Contents and front matter, one page is the Open Game License and one page is the Foreword. The supplement comes in two versions, one optimised for screen and the other for print.

Player Advice: Clever Uses for Mundane Items is an article from the publisher’s website and gives potential uses for seven non-magical items.

Edgewood At a Glance is taken from Village Backdrop: Edgewood and gives an overview of the village, its demographics, notable NPCs and locations, marketplace lore, villagers and whispers & rumours. The village currently suffers from a trouble that is not detailed fully in this section.

Mystic Ruins: Dressings is an extract from Alternate Dungeons: Mystic Ruins and covers the function of these ruins and their dressing, as well as having a d100 table, with probably a bit under 50 results, of dressings. The dressings include effects on creatures in the ruins.

Port Town: Sights and Sounds is from Urban Dressing: Port Town. This is a d100 table with 100 results of things that could be heard or seen in a port town.

Gloamhold At a Glance is an overview of Gloamhold, an in-progress megadungeon, including major locales and the surrounding area.

GM Advice: 6 Moral Dilemmas for Your PCs is another article from the publisher’s site, this one of situations that may give the players pause.

The PDF is not as well bookmarked as previous supplements in the series have been, with only the major articles bookmarked and two of these were wrong. Navigation is perhaps above average for a supplement of this length, but is not as good as it has been. The text maintains a two column layout and no errors were noticed. There are a few black and white illustrations, most of which are stock although one is a custom piece for an in-development project.

As always, although the main use of this supplement may be to promote the publisher’s products, it does still have use in itself. Edgewood is described in enough detail that it could be used as is, especially for a place that is just being passed through. The dressings table can be used to help decorate such a ruin and the port town table will work with any fantasy setting. GM’s Monthly Miscellany: January 2015 is a useful collection of articles, and it’s free, so click here to get it.