Poor Gamer’s Almanac Vol. 1 Issue 1
From: Alea Publishing Group
Reviewed by: Ron McClung
Poor Gamer’s Almanac Vol. 1 Issue 1 is a new d20 RPG bi-monthly e-zine from Alea Publishing Group.
First impressions of this PDF were good. It is a sharp-looking PDF with well-done art. After the introductory Thoughts From The Publisher, which explains the intent of the Poor Gamer’s Almanac ( free online e-zine for fantasy d20 gamers), it goes into several articles and ads.
From page #5:
“Presently, we at Alea Publishing Group wish that the Poor Gamer’s Almanac Vol. 1 Issue 1 remain a free publication,…”
Books For The Gamer by Joshua Raynack is a short review of The Short and Bloody History of Knights, Spies, and Pirates by John Farman and how it is useful to any fantasy gamer wanting to bring realism to his fantasy game. This is a good idea to have in an e-zine, because I can think of two or three good books that I could write about for a sci-fi universe that every gamer (or just GM) should have.
A Review – APG Paper Tiles: Basic Room Set is a Gaming Report review of their Paper Tile product, by fellow reviewer Travis Lee. It is nice of them to give us a little more exposure.
Upcoming Releases – The Art Gallery – This issue’s Upcoming Releases section displays artwork from an upcoming Alea Publishing Group (APG) product called Honor and Corruption . The book features new rules on how to handle honor (or the lack thereof) in your campaign. It’s not even a page long and to be honest, I wasn’t overly impressed with the art.
Game Supplement Preview: The Troubad’war – The preview for this month’s issue is from Unorthodox Bards brought to you by The Le Games – the Troubad’war class . See my review of the Unorthodox Bards for more on that.
Places On The Web is another side bar article like Books For The Gamer by the same author. This one features a web site called Castles-of-Britain.com and it is an awesome web site with a long list of British castles and small image galleries for each. My only complaint is I wish they had more pictures, but perhaps it will grow. There are a total of 78 different castles listed. The author was most impressed with the Castle Learning Center. It “contains links where you can learn about medieval jobs, building materials, pele towers, and much more.”
From page #12:
“In this issue, we take another look into the workings and racial characteristics of the gnome and revert it back into its more mythical image.”
A Gnome Nose is an article that expands on Gnome culture, behavior and mythology and presents some gnome variants that represent the concepts in the text. It is a different and interesting approach. However, I am not a huge gnome fan, so I found it hard to get interested in the article.
Encounters Of The Malsara is a short encounter designed to support their upcoming product, A Question of Honor: A Guidebook to Knights. It is an encounter of a level 12 entanglement with Claymen (Clay Golems). The players are forced to decide to face their pursuers or outmaneuver them. It is first of a four-part series. It also provides map tiles for the encounter.
From page #21
“ ‘Merchant and pirate were for a long period one and the same person. Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality.’ -Friedrich Nietzsche.”
Pirates! presents a different approach to pirates that I had not seen (not that I have looked all that much at a lot of the new pirate fantasy stuff). “ There are three common types of pirates. Those who rob and steal for greed, thwarting the laws, those who raid an enemy country’s trading ships, and those merchants who wish to see their competition disappear.” This article by Cameron Guill presents a prestige class (PC) Pirate for use in any d20 fantasy game. It is a 10 level PC with abilities like Rope Expertise, Dodge, Sea Legs, Swinging Charge, Off-Hand Parry, Melee Ranged, Charging Ranged , and Death From Above. I may be too cynical about this type of stuff, but is this not just an over-done prestige class. Because I am not well-versed in the pirate fantasy genres of d20, I really can not tell the reader whether this is a good PC or not. I leave it to the reader to decide. What I did find interesting and stylish was the 10 level ability which is called Pirate’s Curse – at death, the pirate can call a curse down on a person or group like the spell bestow curse. Very cool.
In A Pirate’s Hands by By David J. Jones from RPGAttitude.com is an article of magic items that were created using the random intelligent item generator at David J. Jones’s website at: http://www.rpgattitude.com. There are 5 items including the Skull’s Eye, the Twin blades of Delaskus, and the Robe of Tarchil.
In conclusion, what I liked most about this e-zine is that it is a true e-zone. Everything possible is linked. It provides online references to everything in the ‘zine. It will probably have links to random generators, online GM aid applications and the like. For GMs that use the web as a resource, this is definitely something worth looking into. The nice thing is that it for free (for now). So it is at least worth the money you pay. All joking aside, though, it is worth looking into because it has great potential and great minds behind it.
For more details on Alea Publishing Group and their new d20 RPG bi-monthly e-zine “ Poor Gamer’s Almanac Vol. 1 Issue 1 ” check them out at their website http://www.aleapublishing.com/.
Poor Gamer’s Almanac Vol. 1 Issue 1
From: Alea Publishing Group
Type of Game: d20 RPG bi-monthly e-zine
Editor: Cameron Guill
Art Director: Joshua Raynack
Creative Director: Ryan Rawls
Contributing Artists: Kiriko Moth (Cover), Tom Miskey, Joshua Raynack, Mongoose Publishing
Contributing Writers: Cameron Guill, Jourdan Hamerly, David J. Jones, Travis Lee, Joshua Raynack
Number of Pages: 29
Game Components Included: One PDF e-zine
Retail Price: $ Type Dollar Value (US)
Email: Type Info Email (game company email)
Website: www.aleapublishing.com/
Reviewed by: Ron McClung