Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: HOF 3 – Grand Bazaar

HOF 3 – Grand Bazaar is a free role playing game supplement published by Adventures in Filbar. Filbar supplements are primarily aimed at variations of the Dungeons & Dragons game. This supplement provides merchants for fleshing out a market, or bazaar.

This is an eighteen page PDF that lacks bookmarks. The first page is the front cover, bearing the new, grey design denoting this as being a free supplement, as well as a hex map (which appears to have been done in Hexographer from Inkwell Ideas) showing part of the Lands of Calentria. Two pages have four stock photographs on them, bearing market scenes and another three pages have sample market layouts (which may have been done in RPG Citymap Generator) with labels for the stalls.

HOF 3 - Grand BazaarOne page is an introduction to the supplement, and how markets are common in many fantasy settings, sometimes simply as places to buy things or scenery, other times as adventure locations in themselves.

The rest of the supplement is taken up by 50 different market “stalls.” Each description is laid out the same way. It starts with the goods that the stall sells and the owner’s name. Then there is quality, price, inventory, negotiate (how willing they are to do this), owner (giving an overview of their personality) and type (tables, carts, permanent structures etc.).

The supplement has a one column layout, and no errors were noticed. The images are, as usual, stock in nature, but do show market scenes. Despite the cover map, this supplement is not set in Calentria – in fact, it isn’t set anywhere, making it completely setting neutral and usable in any fantasy setting. Similarly, there are no game stats, making it system-agnostic as well.

The stalls themselves provide enough information to start with. A bit of work will be needed to convert the quality, price and inventory into suitable percentages, but this shouldn’t be difficult, taking average as being 100% in each category, and working from there. Some of the products sold by the stalls are in unusual combinations that don’t seem to go together – sandwiches and black market swords, books and honey and underclothes and pastries – but most are fairly typical. The market layouts may or may not be of use – they each use every stall, which a GM may not want.

Markets are a common staple of fantasy towns and cities, and this supplement provides a way to add a lot of stalls in a hurry. HOF 3 – Grand Bazaar is a great source of market stalls suitable for any fantasy setting, and it’s free, so click here to get it.

 

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