Giantslayer Poster Map Folio

I can never have too many maps in my games. Particularly the big ones. I love unfolding them, laying them out on the table, and pointing to one location or another. I love the context they provide for where things are happening in the game world. And sometimes, they’re just pretty to look at. As such, I appreciate the map folios that come out for each adventure path. They help me get my fix of pointing at maps. They’re also generally useful for any games set in the same region, not just the adventure paths in their name.

The Giantslayer Poster Map Folio is no exception. Like most other adventure path map folios, it comes with three fold-out poster maps, each showing a location relevant to the Giantslayer Adventure Path. The first is a map of Trunau, the town that the adventure path starts in, and where the player characters might call home. The second is a map of the Mindspin Mountains, the region where the adventure path expands into. Trunau is located towards the northeast corner, and from there, it’s possible to trace out the route the remainder of the adventure path takes. Both these maps are useful, functional, and attractive.

The third map in an adventure path map folio tends to be a more artistic piece. Often, it’s a map of a country or region done in the style of a map the characters in the game might actually purchase and use, rather than one designed for gaming purposes. In this folio, it is a map of Skirgaard, the location of the fourth adventure. In this case, it’s more than just a map; it’s also an illustration of the entire village. Skirgaard is a small enough location that it’s possible to not just show where each individual location is, but to also sketch out every location in detail, complete with people moving about and smoke rising from chimneys. The map shows the village from the vantage point of a little bit above and to the south. When PCs arrive at the village, GMs no longer need to describe what they see. Instead, they can just show the map and say, “This is what you see.” The map is breathtakingly beautiful to look at, and I think it’s probably my favourite of all the artistic maps in all the adventure path map folios.

The Giantslayer Poster Map Folio makes a great addition to a Giantslayer campaign, and to any campaign set in Trunau and/or the Mindspin Mountains.

Iron Gods Poster Map Folio

Like most other map folios, the Iron Gods Poster Map Folio comes with three full-colour poster maps suitable for use with the Iron Gods Adventure Path, but also usable with other campaigns set in Numeria.

There is a map of Numeria itself. As is standard for country maps in these folios, it is done in the style of a map the PCs might actually use in-world and can be freely shown to players. It is beautifully illustrated with pictures of monsters and very setting-appropriate robots. I am also happy to say that, unlike the map of Osirion in the Mummy’s Mask Poster Map Folio, this one has labels of cities, towns, and other major landmarks like Silver Mount. This makes it much more useful in actual play and not just something pretty to look at.

The other two maps detail Starfall, the capital city of Numeria, and Torch, the town Iron Gods begins in. The map of Starfall is rather uniform in colour, (mostly shades of brown) making it less interesting to look at, but it remains useful for gameplay. There is a lot of brown on the map of Torch as well, but the town’s smaller size means more variation and detail can be included, making it not quite so uniform as Starfall.

Overall, the maps are definitely worth it for any campaign set in, or passing through Numeria.

The Long Absence Ends

Greetings, everyone! It's been a while, a much longer while than I expected or intended. At the end of October last year (almost a year ago!), I posted a short update on the slower pace of the blog. I was back at school upgrading my education, and that was keeping me exceptionally busy, but even then, I expected to get a few reviews and things written over the passing months, particularly over the December break. Alas, while it was a great program and I loved just about every moment of it, the schedule was exhausting and by the time December break came round, I was too exhausted to do anything other than rest. Then things restarted in January and were even busier.

The program finished a few months ago (I graduated with honours, by the way, and got my B.Ed. and official Ontario teacher certification, yay!), at which time I intended to take a couple weeks to rest and relax and then get back to updating this blog. But then various other things cropped up. A number of personal and family issues have gotten in the way. There have been several occasions where I thought things were all back to normal, but then didn't work out. Indeed, in early August, I responded to a comment on the blog asking if I'd be doing any more reviews, saying that I'd be back the very next day. I honestly meant it at the time! I had my review of the Pathfinder RPG Strategy Guide partially written and fully expected to have it finished and posted the next day. Then life happened, and nearly two more months have gone by.

Well, things have finally stabilised and posting has recommenced—hopefully to continue unabated. I realize that I've certainly lost readers in the long absence—it's not like they had anything to come and read—but with a little luck, maybe some of them will hear of my return and find their way back. I've actually been quite amazed that, even though the daily number of views for the blog have gone down considerably since last year, I've still been getting 100-200 views a day. My older posts still draw interest, it seems!

At any rate, looking to the future, here are my plans:

I had another extended absence in early 2012 (due to my wife's health issues). On that occasion, when I came back, I just skipped over everything I'd missed during that time. For example, I didn't review any Pathfinder books that were released during that gap. This time, I intend to do things differently. This time, I intend to cover everything I've missed, though it could take awhile because I've missed quite a lot.

For Pathfinder and other roleplaying reviews, I'm probably going to jump around a bit. I'll try to cover some recent releases as well as things released during the gap (such as my review posted yesterday of the Strategy Guide, which was released last spring). I'll be covering Adventure Paths in order, though, so those will start off with the first part of Iron Gods, Fires of Creation. I also intend to look at some of the more recent releases for the Doctor Who – Adventures in Time and Space game, recently renamed simply the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game.

Speaking of Doctor Who, I also intend to finish reviews of Series 8. I only got as far as “Time Heist” last year, leaving seven more (and the Christmas special) to complete. As you can see, though, I've already started into Series 9, which is currently airing. My review of “The Magician's Apprentice” is already up and I'll have a review of the second episode, “The Witch's Familiar” up sometime tomorrow (for real!). From here, I'll be reviewing each episode as I normally do, in the days immediately following their airing. At the present time, I don't know exactly when I'll get round the remaining episodes of Series 8. It might not be until after Series 9 has finished. However, since I've received a few requests for it, here are my very brief reactions to the rest of Series 8.

The Caretaker – I really loved this one. It was a great examination of social issues in the context of Doctor Who, and I really like Courtney.

Kill the Moon – Ugh. I didn't like this one much at all. It just didn't grab me. I was also rather annoyed that after building up Courtney in the previous episode, this one tosses her into the sidelines and does nothing to expand on her character. I was also later disappointed that she was pretty much discarded after this episode.

Mummy on the Orient Express – Great episode. Thrilling, well-paced. Loved it.

Flatline – Probably the stand-out episode of the series. It had a great concept, absolutely amazing monsters. Loved it.

In the Forest of the Night – This was basically “Kill the Moon” all over again. It was way too similar to “Kill the Moon” to come so soon afterwards. It also suffered from many of the same problems, including an unsatisfying, difficult-to-believe resolution.

Dark Water/Death in Heaven – I enjoyed this one quite a bit. I would say it's Moffat's best series finale so far. However, as much as I enjoyed it, I have a lot of nitpicks for this one. Individually, they're minor and ignorable, but there are so many of them that they become impossible to ignore. Still, a fun story, and even though it employs another “love saves all” ending, the emotional pay-off actually works this time (although the whole idea that “love is not an emotion; it's a promise” is just nonsense).

Last Christmas – Enjoyable, but nothing particularly special. It also had too many endings.

And so there you have it. Of course, I'll be throwing in a few posts on other things that catch my fancy, as I always have.

It's good to be back!

Addendum: You also may have noticed that the site's address has changed slightly as this blog now has its own domain! You can still reach the site from the old blogspot address as well.

August Round-Up: Doctor Who Returns Along With Doctor Who Extra!

I got behind on a bunch of projects in August (several of them for this blog), but it was still a pretty good month. A new school year is beginning now, and I'm actually back in classes myself this year, so it's going to be hectic and busy, but I'm at my best when it's hectic and busy. I'm quite looking forward to it!

Of course, August was all about the return of Doctor Who, with Peter Capaldi making his first outing as the Doctor! There was a new trailer early in the month, and we also learned that the new title sequence would be based on a fan-made sequence posted to YouTube last year. But August 23rd was the main event, as the first episode of the new season aired, and the second has aired now as well. I was quite impressed by “Deep Breath” and I was absolutely ecstatic about “Into the Dalek”. I'm always excited about new Doctor Who, but I'm feeling a much bigger thrill this year. Peter Capaldi is amazing in the role.

Also premièring in August along with Doctor Who was Doctor Who Extra. This behind-the-scenes programme is similar to Doctor Who Confidential, a programme that ran for several years from 2005 until the end of Series 6 in 2011, when it was cancelled. Doctor Who Extra, however, is much shorter than Confidential, which had 30-minute episodes in its early seasons and 45-minute episodes later on. Extra runs about 10 minutes per episode. The first episode of Extra has not been made available for viewing outside the United Kingdom, so I haven't seen it. I'm not sure why it isn't available as the second episode is, and all further episodes will also be available as they are released each week. You can watch the second episode in the player below:

To be honest, I was never much of a fan of Confidential, especially towards the end when they were clearly running out of ideas to fill up their full running time. Coming up with 45 minutes of extra material for every single episode of Doctor Who was really overreaching. Extra's shorter running time will likely be to its advantage in this respect. The “Into the Dalek” episode is entertaining and reveals some interesting behind-the-scenes information. Alas, even though it airs after Doctor Who, each episode of Extra is still essentially an advertisement for its associated Doctor Who episode, meaning that Extra is likely to suffer from a need to praise uncritically. I much prefer behind-the-scenes documentaries made well after their subject programmes, like the documentaries on classic Doctor Who DVDs and the DVDs of other older shows. Although memories may not be as fresh, the people involved are generally able to be more honest and reflective in recounting the making of the programme. They can say if they don't like a particular episode as much as other episodes. Likewise, when they declare a particular episode as their favourite, you can be confident it really is. With documentaries made at the same time as their subject programmes, those programmes always have to be portrayed as the greatest thing ever. At any rate, I'm curious to see how Doctor Who Extra turns out as the season progresses.

Moving on from Doctor Who, I didn't get round to a lot of Pathfinder things this month, but I did get in reviews of the final two parts of the Mummy's Mask Adventure Path: The Slave Trenches of Hakotep and Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh. There are several more reviews pending, including the Mummy's Mask Player's Guide, People of the Stars, and the Advanced Class Guide. Expect those in the next couple of weeks.

Have a great September, everyone!

July Round-Up, Mummy's Mask Poster Map Folio, and Doctor Who Teaser

Sometimes time goes by way too quickly. At one moment, it's July, and the next, it's suddenly August and you wonder where all the time went and why you haven't completed everything you planned to complete. But at least August means we're edging ever closer to the première of the new season of Doctor Who! Peter Capaldi gets his first outing as the Doctor and I can't wait! I've been critical of the scripts in recent years, but even if they don't improve, I'm confident Capaldi will be a great Doctor.

Of course, as we get closer to August 23rd (the première date), the danger of spoilers becomes more and more a reality. The Doctor Who World Tour starts in just a couple of days and will bring with it special advance screenings of the first episode in various locations around the world. This will mean lots of people will have seen the episode before the 23rd—but then again, some people have seen it already, what with the episodes leaking and all. I talked a bit about this and spoilers just last week. In other Doctor Who news, a new teaser trailer that I haven't mentioned yet came out last week. You can watch it in the player below. There was also a cut-down version of the full-length trailer, but really, if you've seen the full-length one, you don't need to see the cut-down.

In the world of roleplaying games, the big thing in July was the release of the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons. I took a look at the Basic Rules here. I also took a look at a few of the latest Pathfinder products: Numeria, Land of Fallen Stars, Risen from the Sands, Secrets of the Sphinx, and People of the River. To round up July (and actually catch up with August), here's a quick mini-review.

Mummy's Mask Poster Map Folio

The Mummy's Mask Poster Map Folio comes with three full-colour poster maps suitable for use with the Mummy's Mask Adventure Path. However, like other adventure path map folios from the past few years, all the maps are easily usable in any campaign set in Osirion. There are maps of the cities of Wati and Tephu, and one of the country of Osirion. The map of Osirion is designed as a player map in the style of something characters might actually acquire in the game world. However, the two city maps are also safe as player maps as well.

All three maps are beautiful, but accolades really must go to the map of Osirion. I really love these player-oriented, in-world maps. They truly are wonderful to behold, and this one is no different. However, there is a difference with this one and some of the others that have appeared before: This one has no labels, not even of cities. The odd part is, this is exactly the same map from the centre of People of the Sands, except larger and that map had not only the names of cities, but also rivers and mountains, as well as roads and common travel routes complete with the distances from one location to the other. This map completely lacks all labels, except for the name “Osirion” in the top right corner. This severely limits its usefulness during game play. While cities are marked (and are wonderfully illustrated to look like the actual cities rather than just having one common symbol for every city), players will still have to go to other sources to find out which city is which. This is rather surprising, considering that similar maps in other map folios (such as the maps of Varisia in the Shattered Star Poster Map Folio or Irrisen in the Reign of Winter Poster Map Folio) have had labels on them. I'm not sure what the motivation for removing the labels on this map might have been (or indeed if this is due to an error or oversight), but it does mar what is otherwise a gorgeous product. I hope the lack of labels will not be a trend in future map folios.

The Delian Mode

Delia Derbyshire is a name well-known to Doctor Who fans as the person who brought us the original version of the show’s famous theme music. She did a whole lot more for Doctor Who, and her legacy extends well beyond just that one show. However, in all her time on Doctor Who, she was never credited for it. Ron Grainer wrote the Doctor Who theme, but it was Derbyshire who arranged and realized it. Even though Grainer felt she should be credited for it, she wasn’t because she was an employee of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which had a long-time policy that its members did not get individual credit for work they did as employees of the Workshop. So even though many fans knew who she was, her name never appeared on screen. The arrangers of the later versions of the theme, from Peter Howell to Murray Gold, all received credit, but not her. It wasn’t until—gasp!—“The Day of the Doctor” last year (several years after her death) that Derbyshire finally received her first on-screen credit for the work she did on Doctor Who. But on-screen credit aside, Delia Derbyshire was one of the pioneers of electronic music, and she is finally starting to be acknowledged for the monumental role she played in music history.

The Delian Mode is a documentary about Derbyshire and her music. From director Kara Blake, it weaves together interviews with the people who worked with her and samples of her music and recordings of Derbyshire herself. But the documentary is more than just a dry presentation of facts and commentary. It’s visually and audially mesmerizing, a work of art in itself. Through it, viewers journey through the process Derbyshire used to create the haunting music she’s famous for. We see not only the actual equipment she used, but also visual interpretations of the ideas and concepts behind the music. We learn of the everyday items she sampled sounds from and hear her own words on how she felt as a woman in an industry dominated by men. One of the most phenomenal things I learned from The Delian Mode was that, after Derbyshire’s death, 267 tapes and countless manuscripts were found stored in her attic—a massive testament to the huge output of her work.

The Delian Mode was released in 2009 and won a Genie award for best short documentary in 2010. In my view, this is a beautiful film and a moving tribute to Derbyshire, one that will be enjoyed by not just Doctor Who fans, but by anyone with an interest in electronic music; I certainly feel it deserved this award. I highly recommend watching it!

February Round-Up, Pathfinder Legends, and Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio

Another month has come and gone. It was a fairly quiet month for me here on the blog, particularly in the world of Doctor Who. However, I did review the excellent and very important book Doctor Who and Race. I highly recommend people read it! I also wrapped up the third series of Sherlock with “His Last Vow” and took a little look back at Babylon 5 in honour of its 20th anniversary. In the world of Pathfinder, I looked at three products: Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth, People of the Sands, and Osirion, Legacy of Pharaohs.

In some exciting Pathfinder news, this month sees the release of the first Pathfinder Legends, a series of audio dramas from Big Finish, who are most well known for their Doctor Who audio dramas. The first release is Rise of the Runelords: Burnt Offerings, based, of course, on the first Pathfinder Adventure Path volume. You can listen to a trailer at the link. To be honest, I’m not all that impressed by the trailer, which surprises me as you would expect the trailer to showcase the very best of the production. Still, Big Finish has a very good record with their Doctor Who audios—enough of a record that I am very confident in their ability to do a very good job with Pathfinder Legends. You can purchase copies from Big Finish or from Paizo. Alas, much like with Big Finish’s Doctor Who material, personal budgetary constraints mean I’m not going to be able to pick any of these up in the near future. Hopefully one day, though. One day...

I’ll wrap things up with a short review. Here’s to a great March!

Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio

As with most map folios for the adventure paths, the Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio comes with three large, full-colour maps. One is a map of the Worldwound, the area where most of the action of Wrath of the Righteous takes place. The second map is of Kenabres, the city where the adventure path begins in The Worldwound Incursion. Both of these maps are high-quality and beautiful to look at, while also being highly useful for playing the adventure path. Admittedly, the map of Kenabres is really only useful for the first adventure, but the map of the Worldwound will be useful right up to the final instalment.

However, the stand-out map of this set is the third one: a map of the Abyss (which the PCs travel to in the fourth and fifth instalments of Wrath of the Righteous). Mapping out the Abyss is a daunting task—no, more an impossible task really, considering the Abyss is essentially an infinite plane made up of countless other planes. What this map does instead is provide an artistic rendition of the various Abyssal realms and “where” (metaphorically speaking) they are in relation to each other. Admittedly, the map doesn’t have a lot of utility in actual game-play. However, I don’t really care. The map is utterly beautiful to behold and can easily serve as an in-game representation of the Abyss—something the players’ characters might actually see. Ultimately, this map provides a visual element to enhance game-play. It gives both players and GMs just a little hint on what their characters are seeing, allowing the imagination to fill in the rest. It also makes a great poster to hang on the wall.

August Round-Up, Reign of Winter Poster Map Folio, and a Few More Funny Searches

These days, months seem to go by really fast. It feels like I only wrote July’s monthly round-up a few days ago, but here we are at the end of August. It was an interesting month and fairly productive for me on the blog—apart from the past week, when a hectic schedule kept me from making as many updates as I would have liked. It was the best month ever for views though, with more than twice as many people visiting the site than in the previous best-ever month!

The month opened with the BBC announcing that Peter Capaldi would be stepping into the role of the twelfth Doctor after Matt Smith leaves in this year’s Christmas special. As with all new Doctor announcements, this one was met with lots of praise and just a little bit of criticism, some justified, some not-so-justified. As happy as I am with the choice (and I do believe he will be a great Doctor), I had to admit to a couple concerns with the casting process myself. More exciting news came a couple of weeks later with the announcement of the discovery of a lost William Hartnell interview. It’s not quite the discovery of lost episodes, but a significant event nonetheless. Also, for a bit of fun, Doctor Who fans discovered that the TARDIS is on Google Maps. Finally, I have begun my own preparations for the upcoming 50th anniversary of Doctor Who by looking back at my own experiences with the show throughout my life. Each week until the anniversary, I’ll look at one of the Doctors, and finally at the spin-offs. It’s a little bit of self-indulgent nostalgia, and I hope people enjoy it.

In the world of Pathfinder, I continued to make my way through my backlog of products to review. I didn’t get through as much as I hoped this month, but I still made good headway. Reviews this month included Castles of the Inner Sea, Dragons Unleashed, the Dragonslayer’s Handbook, The Witch Queen’s Revenge, the Reign of Winter Player’s Guide, and The Dragon’s Demand. Coming up soon, I’ll be getting to products such as The Worldwound, the new Wrath of the Righteous adventure path, and the hardcover release, Mythic Adventures.

Although no one’s actually enquired about it, it occurred to me that people might wonder why I review the player’s guides for adventure paths at the end of the adventure path and not at the beginning, which is when the guides are released. This is because there have been legitimate criticisms of past player’s guides that they don’t adequately prepare players for the entire adventure path, leaving players with characters unsuited for sudden shifts that occur later in the adventure path. As such, I leave reviewing the guides until after all the adventure path’s instalments are out so that I can evaluate how well the guides prepare players for the whole experience.

Last month, I included a couple of very brief reviews with my monthly round-up, and I’d like to include another such one this month. With every adventure path Paizo has published, they have also published a map folio to go along with it. Early ones were just a collection of important maps from the adventure path, but later ones have been a selection of full-colour, poster maps that are useful for the adventure path but can have more generic uses as well. Since these folios are published in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting line rather than the Pathfinder Adventure Path line, they need to be useful to people who get the one and not the other. It’s also nice not to have to get a set of maps you already have. I don’t normally review the folios since they are just maps and I haven’t felt I could give them the in-depth coverage I like to include in my reviews.

The Reign of Winter Poster Map Folio contains three poster maps: one of the country of Irrisen, one of its capital Whitethrone, and one of the region of Iobaria. Each map is in a somewhat different style, with the map of Irrisen being the most visually stunning. In many ways, it’s more like a piece of art than a map, and indeed, it’s perhaps not the most useful map as a result. Still, it show the locations of sites throughout the country, and would work especially well as a representation of a map that people actually living in the game world might see and use. The other two maps are more typical of the gaming maps of most use to gamemasters. There was a poster map of Whitethrone in the City Map Folio from a few years ago, but the one here is larger and more detailed. Overall, the Reign of Winter Poster Map Folio contains three good maps that will be useful to people running games in the northern reaches of Golarion.

A couple months ago, I listed some of the most unusual search terms people had used to find their way to this blog. Since then, I’ve collected a few more. These ones aren’t quite as bizarre and it’s easy to see why this site might show up as a result, but they made me chuckle. As before, all spelling and grammar errors are replicated exactly:

girls withdigtits – I really want to know why porn searches bring people to my blog. Could it be because the word sexism shows up here and that has sex in it and thus, porn? Or just because?

sarah jane smith hot – I understand the sentiment, but it seems an odd search to me.

of dice and men sexism doctor who – This is clearly a direct search for this site with either a typo or a misremembering of the blog’s name. Either way, the error is rather ironic.

sexist doctors nowadays – I have no idea what to say.

children girl doctor things – Still don’t know what to say.

left 4 dead original character models – Until this very sentence, I have never once mentioned Left 4 Dead on this blog. I don’t play video games these days (mainly because, if I do, I know I’ll never accomplish anything productive ever again) and so I barely ever mention them on this blog, if ever. No idea why Of Dice and Pen came up in this search.

Anyway, that’s all for this month. Have a great September, everyone!

July Round-Up and 2 Short Reviews

And so, another month has come and gone. July was my most productive month for the blog in some time. I mentioned last month that I had fallen behind on Pathfinder reviews. This month, I began the task of getting caught up with reviews of Chronicle of the Righteous, We Be Goblins Too!, Rasputin Must Die!, Fey Revisited, Kobolds of Golarion, and Quests & Campaigns. There’s still quite a bit more to get through, but it’s a good start. Next up is a review of Castles of the Inner Sea. Expect that in the next day or two.

On top of those Pathfinder reviews, I also delved into reviews of the latest releases for the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space game. Two of them, The Time Traveller’s Companion and Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook, were first announced a few years ago and finally saw release in the last few months. Luckily, they were well worth the wait. Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed with The First Doctor Sourcebook and that has dampened my enthusiasm for getting any of the books dealing with the other Doctors (of which The Second Doctor Sourcebook is already available). If I do eventually get them, I’ll review them here, but it may be a long wait.

Outside of roleplaying reviews, there wasn’t a lot happening this month. No television reviews. I haven’t been watching anything recently. There are several things I do want to check out (particularly Orphan Black) but I just haven’t had the time, unfortunately.

Even though I’m not primarily a news site, I do occasionally report news that catches my interest. This month there was the intriguing news that the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special is going to be simulcast worldwide. There was also the opening of the York Maze, which this year is shaped like a Dalek. Finally, there was the first preview of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s new Cosmos series. Carl Sagan’s original is a brilliant work, and I am eagerly looking forward to this new one.

My reviews on this site tend to be quite in-depth. I like to look at every aspect (well, as many as possible) of things and critically analyse them to best of my ability. However, this does take time and it means that some things I might like to review I end up not reviewing because I just can’t fit them into my schedule. So I’ve decided, every once in a while, to write a few short, quick reviews and gather them into one post, just to draw people’s attention to their existence. I thought I’d start with a look at a couple of RPG periodicals that I find particularly good and useful.

First up is Wayfinder. This free fanzine is published biannually under the Pathfinder Community Use Policy. The most recent issue, #9, was released earlier this month. The magazine is made by Paizo Fans United and bills itself as a “Pathfinder Fanzine made by Fans for Fans”. Although it’s fan-produced, it often has forewords or even articles written by Paizo staff and/or writers. Each issue contains a staggering array of articles, new optional rules ideas, and short adventures, as well as fiction and artwork. The latest issue focuses on the Darklands of Golarion and contains things like new drow magic items, the secretkeeper prestige class, and more. As with any publication with a large number of authors, there is some variability in the quality of different articles, but for the most part, articles are well-written and enjoyable.

For players and gamemasters (primarily gamemasters) of any of the various Doctor Who roleplaying games, there is the Diary of the Doctor Who Role-Playing Games published by the Earthbound Timelords. This fanzine often contains reviews of Doctor Who merchandise as well as convention reports. However, its main focus is on adventures and gamemaster advice for roleplaying in the worlds of Doctor Who. All three Doctor Who games (FASA’s game from the 80’s, Virgin’s Time Lord, and the latest game from Cubicle 7) get attention in the magazine with most articles providing stats for all three versions. The FASA game does tend to get a little more attention, as the authors and publishers have long-lasting campaigns dating back to when the FASA game was the only one available and thus have done a lot of work of their own on that game. Nevertheless, the fact that Doctor Who games tend to be more narrative-based than mechanics-based means that just about everything is easily used with any version of the game.

Every issue contains several adventures, some fully detailed and some shorter synopses that GMs can expand as they please. The more detailed adventures often fall into the trap that a lot of Doctor Who roleplaying adventures fall into—that of assuming certain outcomes to various events. I’ve run a few of their adventures in the past, and I’ve found the best ones are often the less-detailed ones since there’s more leeway there for players going off in all sorts of unexpected directions. Nevertheless, one thing all the adventures are great for is providing creative ideas and concepts.

Diary of the Doctor Who Role-Playing Games used to come out roughly once every month. However, the last few issues have had very long delays. There was a four-month gap between issues 18 and 19, and then a nine-month gap before the most recent issue 20 came out this month. Until 20 showed up out of the blue, I had actually pretty much given up hope that there would be any more issues. I’m not sure what this means regarding the frequency of future issues. However, all twenty currently existing issues are still available for free download and I highly recommend them.