One of the people that I game with locally has been running a game over the last few months of Gaslight Call of Cthulhu for the group of us at our monthly get together. As a backer of the Kickstarter, he has been using the Hudson and Brand setting by Stygian Fox as the foundation of our game. Because of this I picked up the company's new The Book of Contemporary Magical Things.
Books of magic items aren't all that unusual in gaming. There are hundreds of them for the various editions of Dungeons & Dragons, but what makes this book different is that it is for games set in a more contemporary era. It isn't like this era is entirely unrepresented, after all there were some really good third party supplements covering this ground back when D20 Modern was being published. In fact, I think that the D20 Modern period was probably one of the best in game publishing for people interested in this sort of supplement.
One of the main reasons that I like these sorts of books is because they make for excellent world building resources. You can learn a lot about a setting by the background material generated by magical items. Take a look at the Dr. Strange comics, for example. Many of the magical items that came up in that character's appearances were associated with specific beings, either through the names of the objects themselves or through their history. And, you were more likely to encounter these beings through the items that they had left in the world than you were to encounter them directly (at least at first). You might not know who or what Agamotto was, but the fact that the two primary artifacts associated with the being were the Eye of Agamotto and the Orb of Agamotto, you could infer that this is a being concerned with watching.
I think that this is the sign of good work on the creation of magical items. There should be more to them than just a generic bonus to some roll or another. Magical items are plot elements, and as such should really only be there if they add something new (and hopefully interesting) to the world of the game.
This is where The Book of Contemporary Magical Things really excels. This book is a compendium of magical items without any sort of stat block. The description of each item lasts for 7-10 paragraphs (sometimes more) that give a history of the item as well as a description of the capabilities of the item. This means that you can use the items from the book in systems as far ranging as GURPS or Fate Core by just statting out the parts that you think might come into play. The effects of a lot of magical items can be narrative, so in those cases a description is really all that you would need.
There is plenty to be found in the book for GMs of urban fantasy, horror or super-hero games that would be useable. Television shows like The Librarians or Warehouse 13 demonstrated that you can build an ongoing plot around the idea of a group traveling the world and seeking out magical items that are either good or bad. There is a campaign frame discussed in the back of the book about The Curators that is built around this same sort of conceit. Like the magic item write ups though out the book, the section about The Curators is also written without any sort of system prompts. However, the section is written well enough that a GM could extrapolate the game mechanics they would need from the descriptions. While I don't think that an entire campaign of adventures like this would work as well for a role-playing game as it would for a television series, they do make good fill in adventures.
And, if for that reason only, books like The Book of Contemporary Magical Things are a valuable part of any GM's toolkit. Any of the more than 100 magical items in this book could be teased out into an adventure for a night, or even two. Books that inspire a GM to create interesting adventures and worlds are just as important as those that stat out monsters (which, by the way, is also a favorite type of game book for me).
This isn't a book that was written with drop and play in mind. Systemless books are a blessing to some, and a bane to others. I put myself into the category of the former because if it well written enough, and helps me to expand the world of the group's campaign, then I think the book succeeds. Being used to having to adapt material from one game to another certainly helps.
The book is organized loosely by a rough power level, with less powerful items at the beginning of the book and more powerful ones later on. The write ups also have color coded sections. Text in a shade of red highlights the detrimental effects that the item might have. Text in a shade of blue highlights parts of the description that can be used to answer questions that might be posed by players encountering the item for the first time. Like a lot of things in gaming, "power level" is in the eye of the beholder. Canned rope might not seem like that important of an item until your character is trapped on a rooftop that is on fire. At that point, canned rope becomes the best thing that your character has ever seen. However, the less "powerful" the items are, the more likely they are to be encountered during a game, and the more copies of them that are likely to exist. The more powerful items are rarer and less frequently encountered by characters, and there is likely to only ever be one or two examples of them in the world.
Magical items like The Last Arrow or The Red Dot (no doubt underestimated by cat owners everywhere) or The Astral Headband might not appear to be powerful items, but they could quickly upend a campaign, or even lead to the deaths of the characters. Despite the description, I have no doubt that The Red Dot has lead to the death of more than just one Curator.
All in all, I recommend this book to GMs running contemporary era campaigns. It will come in handy in your games. The overall quality of the book is excellent. The book does rely on stock art, but most of the items in The Book of Contemporary Magical Things appear to be mundane items, so stock images of keys, book cases and sunglasses fit into the theme of the game. There are over 100 magical items to be found in the book, and they can be used to help fill out a campaign world, or as the kickstart to an adventure. Just like in the earlier mentioned Warehouse 13 television show, you can easily build a night's worth of gaming out of finding one of these items and confiscating them.
The Book of Contemporary Magical Things is a type of book that I would like to see a resurgence of being put out by game publishers. I think that the utility of books like this is overlooked, and they can be a boon to GMs. Science fiction games already get a lot of books like this, full of unusual and unorthodox equipment that can be used by characters, or to use as an adventure seed. I hope that this becomes the first entry in a series of books built around this concept.
Books of magic items aren't all that unusual in gaming. There are hundreds of them for the various editions of Dungeons & Dragons, but what makes this book different is that it is for games set in a more contemporary era. It isn't like this era is entirely unrepresented, after all there were some really good third party supplements covering this ground back when D20 Modern was being published. In fact, I think that the D20 Modern period was probably one of the best in game publishing for people interested in this sort of supplement.
One of the main reasons that I like these sorts of books is because they make for excellent world building resources. You can learn a lot about a setting by the background material generated by magical items. Take a look at the Dr. Strange comics, for example. Many of the magical items that came up in that character's appearances were associated with specific beings, either through the names of the objects themselves or through their history. And, you were more likely to encounter these beings through the items that they had left in the world than you were to encounter them directly (at least at first). You might not know who or what Agamotto was, but the fact that the two primary artifacts associated with the being were the Eye of Agamotto and the Orb of Agamotto, you could infer that this is a being concerned with watching.
I think that this is the sign of good work on the creation of magical items. There should be more to them than just a generic bonus to some roll or another. Magical items are plot elements, and as such should really only be there if they add something new (and hopefully interesting) to the world of the game.
This is where The Book of Contemporary Magical Things really excels. This book is a compendium of magical items without any sort of stat block. The description of each item lasts for 7-10 paragraphs (sometimes more) that give a history of the item as well as a description of the capabilities of the item. This means that you can use the items from the book in systems as far ranging as GURPS or Fate Core by just statting out the parts that you think might come into play. The effects of a lot of magical items can be narrative, so in those cases a description is really all that you would need.
There is plenty to be found in the book for GMs of urban fantasy, horror or super-hero games that would be useable. Television shows like The Librarians or Warehouse 13 demonstrated that you can build an ongoing plot around the idea of a group traveling the world and seeking out magical items that are either good or bad. There is a campaign frame discussed in the back of the book about The Curators that is built around this same sort of conceit. Like the magic item write ups though out the book, the section about The Curators is also written without any sort of system prompts. However, the section is written well enough that a GM could extrapolate the game mechanics they would need from the descriptions. While I don't think that an entire campaign of adventures like this would work as well for a role-playing game as it would for a television series, they do make good fill in adventures.
And, if for that reason only, books like The Book of Contemporary Magical Things are a valuable part of any GM's toolkit. Any of the more than 100 magical items in this book could be teased out into an adventure for a night, or even two. Books that inspire a GM to create interesting adventures and worlds are just as important as those that stat out monsters (which, by the way, is also a favorite type of game book for me).
This isn't a book that was written with drop and play in mind. Systemless books are a blessing to some, and a bane to others. I put myself into the category of the former because if it well written enough, and helps me to expand the world of the group's campaign, then I think the book succeeds. Being used to having to adapt material from one game to another certainly helps.
The book is organized loosely by a rough power level, with less powerful items at the beginning of the book and more powerful ones later on. The write ups also have color coded sections. Text in a shade of red highlights the detrimental effects that the item might have. Text in a shade of blue highlights parts of the description that can be used to answer questions that might be posed by players encountering the item for the first time. Like a lot of things in gaming, "power level" is in the eye of the beholder. Canned rope might not seem like that important of an item until your character is trapped on a rooftop that is on fire. At that point, canned rope becomes the best thing that your character has ever seen. However, the less "powerful" the items are, the more likely they are to be encountered during a game, and the more copies of them that are likely to exist. The more powerful items are rarer and less frequently encountered by characters, and there is likely to only ever be one or two examples of them in the world.
Magical items like The Last Arrow or The Red Dot (no doubt underestimated by cat owners everywhere) or The Astral Headband might not appear to be powerful items, but they could quickly upend a campaign, or even lead to the deaths of the characters. Despite the description, I have no doubt that The Red Dot has lead to the death of more than just one Curator.
All in all, I recommend this book to GMs running contemporary era campaigns. It will come in handy in your games. The overall quality of the book is excellent. The book does rely on stock art, but most of the items in The Book of Contemporary Magical Things appear to be mundane items, so stock images of keys, book cases and sunglasses fit into the theme of the game. There are over 100 magical items to be found in the book, and they can be used to help fill out a campaign world, or as the kickstart to an adventure. Just like in the earlier mentioned Warehouse 13 television show, you can easily build a night's worth of gaming out of finding one of these items and confiscating them.
The Book of Contemporary Magical Things is a type of book that I would like to see a resurgence of being put out by game publishers. I think that the utility of books like this is overlooked, and they can be a boon to GMs. Science fiction games already get a lot of books like this, full of unusual and unorthodox equipment that can be used by characters, or to use as an adventure seed. I hope that this becomes the first entry in a series of books built around this concept.
