Review of "Crime Pays: A Godfather's Grimoire" Up at SGW

I finally bring my spotlight on Crime Pays: A Godfather's Grimoire to a close.  My review is now up on Stargazer's World.  I hope that you all check it out.

Spotlight - Crime Pays - The Gritty Details

Last time, in my previous post in this product spotlight, I basically gave an overview of the book, but now I am going to get a bit more into the gritty details of Crime Pays.  The Yakuza gang war which has been driving me bloody crazy recently has apparently died down enough that they have moved away from the direct area around my apartment and are no longer keeping me up at night with their goings on. So, let's get right down to it.

Crime Pays provides you with a macro, domain level system for managing your mob and using them to make money.  That is putting it pretty simply.  In the fashion of 4e, this domain level system uses a refined and modified version of skill checks/skill challenges in order to perform crimes and run your mob.

As the leader of the mob, you are the hand that moves everything from behind the scenes.  This means that you direct the big "jobs" that your mob is going to pull in your territory.  These crimes have the chance to earn you and your mob some cold hard cash, which you will probably then have to use to pay off all the people in your family and take care of the daily upkeep of your mob.

Basically, what the mob turn gets you is a chance to pull off a crime once a month and make some money.  For example, you could direct your mob to Smuggle something, which could earn you up to 2d100 GP.  There is decidedly more to it honestly; playing through these rules means that you also have options for random events, random law events, and random underworld events, which may cause problems for your family.  Some of these events can be pretty crazy - war, in particular, might end with your entire burning to the ground as the local prince laughs at you from his tower perched above the city.

Ultimately however, this is all just a very big and complex method of installing a generator for adventure hooks and establishing a crime campaign.  One interesting passage, in chapter 5 notes that, "unless a mob is both very aggressive and very lucky, it is unlikely that any mob is financially sustainable. Left to their own devices,
most mobs run themselves into the ground in a matter of a few months."  This rules set provides some interesting domain level mechanics, but you can't run Crime Pays as a purely "domain level" style of game.  The book is really just a tool set for providing adventure hooks for a group of players hoping to have an awesome urban campaign built on being the money-interested bad guys.

Next time, you can check out my full review of the book at SGW where I finally finish up this review and I provide my opinions of the book.

Spotlight - Crime Pays Overview

I find it very odd that I was extremely late in writing this spotlight, but the timing turned out to be quite perfect. Apparently starting last week, a full fledged gang war broke out in my prefecture in Japan. This particular gang war involves several extremely powerful Yakuza groups; one family, attempted to break off from the most powerful Yakuza in Japan, but that certainly wasn’t going to fly. They have since begun fighting in several of the major cities in the prefecture, including mine! With that premise, I can now actually bring you the first part of my spotlight on Crime Pays: A Godfather’s Grimoire by Goodman Games.

So, what is this book actually? Well, Crime Pays is NOT a simple guidebook for Rogue characters. If you were hoping that in this book you would find a host of feats and new magic items to outfit your thief character with, you’re going to be quite sadly disappointed. Crime Pays offers a methodology to play more of a macro level D&D style game, which has the player at the head of a mob. Crime Pays is essentially the guide for players who want to become a mob boss – a Godfather.

By this book’s definition, a mob is a family that runs a particular territory. The book offers a very detailed explanation for what that entails in quite a bit of detail. It also implements a very interesting style of “domain level” play but from the perspective of the crime boss. There are lots of random generation tables as well. But I’ll get into more of those details in the next installment of my spotlight… now it’s time for me to go dodge some Yakuza :P

Spotlight - Crime Pays: A Godfather's Grimoire by Goodman Games

I have been having a pretty hard and busy month(s) so my blogging has come to a very hard stall.  But, in an attempt to get it back up and running again smoothly, and in a timely fashion, I am now kicking off my spotlight on Crime Pays: A Godfather's Grimoire by Goodman Games.  The folks at Goodman Games were nice enough to send me over a review copy of the book quite a while ago, around the release, but with everything going on in my life at the moment, I just didn't have enough time to get around and review it.  I want to remedy that fact now and so over the next week (or so) you'll be getting my review of this book up here on my blog and over at Stargazer's World.

Crime Pays is an officially licensed GSL book for use with 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons.  I would alternatively title this book "The Complete Mob" in old 3.5 fashion.  It has all the rules you need to run your own little underworld.  The book comes in right around 100 pages and is filled to the brim with tips and tables for the aspiring crime lord.  If that sounds interesting to you, I hope you give my spotlight a read through and go over and pick up the book in either print or PDF.

Review: Amethyst by Dias Ex Machina and Goodman Games Pt. 1

This will be the first part in a long series of reviews that I will be doing about the game Amethyst Foundations, published by Dias Ex Machina and Goodman Games. Before I finally was able to get a chance to look at the book myself, I had read a few things about it at other sites around the web.

Amethyst is essentially a new, high-tech campaign setting which uses the 4th Edition D&D rules set. That is a very simple generalization because, from what I have seen, the game is a whole lot more.

It is set in the near future, where the world of fantasy has merged with our earth. I don't want to give too much away just yet. I haven't made it very far through this book, because, in all honesty, it has me totally absorbed. It is going to take quite a while to read from cover to cover considering that it is almost 300 pages in length and I have a kid that I have to play with on a regular basis. I keep getting stalled at all the artwork which is incredibly well done.

From what I have seen so far, there is nothing but good things going on here. I have barely even made it into the races section of the book and I can already see myself running an ongoing campaign in this world.

Look for more in my review series of Amethyst coming soon. I will be dong a more complete, full review of the product, as well as posting characters, and my own personal adventure ideas for use with the campaign setting. With any luck, I may even have an interview from the writer to share with you as well.