Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: GM’s Monthly Miscellany: September 2014

GM’s Monthly Miscellany: September 2014 is a free role playing game supplement published by Raging Swan Press, primarily for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The supplement is one in a regular monthly series which consists of eleven normal issues and a twelfth, compilation, issue, which is also available as a print on demand softcover. The supplement is covered by the Open Game License and therefore some of it is considered to be Open Game Content.

GM's Monthly Miscellany: September 2014This is a fourteen page bookmarked PDF. Three pages are Raging Swan’s standard, plain, front and rear covers, 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.

Player Advice: Looming Disaster is an article from the Raging Swan site, and covers several alternatives – including running away and surrender – for parties to avoid Total Party Kills.

Star Run Falls At a Glance  is taken from the supplement Village Backdrop: Star Run Falls. This is a small elven settlement which has had a recent influx of humans. Detailed are the settlement’s history, demographics, lore, rumours and some notable NPCs and locations, as well as a map of the village.

Haunted Houses: Dressings is from Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House. This has some ideas as to how a house can become the location of a haunt (this is aimed at Haunts from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game) and dressings, including information on modifying and, oddly, looting them, followed by a d100 table of dressings that probably has around 30 or so results.

Kobolds of the Fallen Halls is taken from the supplement of the same name and covers a tribe of kobolds in a former dwarven hall that has since split into two, each under the rule of a different dragon. Their history, appearance, ecology and society are covered, as is their lair, combat and tactics, which largely consists of ambushes and traps.

Player Advice: Principles of Successful Adventuring is another article from the Raging Swan site. This one is on how a party group can survive better, using various tactics, mostly from the British Army.

The supplement is very well bookmarked, not only for its length but also better than many longer ones. The text maintains a two column format, and is largely error free. The black and white illustrations would appear to be a combination of stock or taken from other Raging Swan supplements.

Star Run Falls covers enough of the village for it to be used as is, with some potential areas of expansion by the GM. The dressings for haunted houses does work; there are a number of potentially creepy encounters in the table. The kobold tribe can easily be dropped into any setting, as it is in an underground, out of the way, minor dwarven location.

Supplements of this type are often intended to promote others by the publisher, and indeed this does. However, GM’s Monthly Miscellany: September 2014 has enough included information that it has value in itself, and it’s free, so click here to get it.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.