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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greatwyrm" data-source="post: 2451124" data-attributes="member: 479">A very solid and very useful title.UprfrontI received a copy of Green’s Guide to Ghosts as a free review copy through the pdf review program Crothian set up.This is not a playtest review.ContentsGreen’s Guide to Ghosts comes with two pdfs.  One is a full-color file with art.  The other is a printer-friendly version.  Both use a two-column layout, with the art and backgrounds not included in the printer-friendly version.The Guide is a 48 page document.  Four pages are taken up by the cover, credits, authors’ notes, and OGL statement.  The remaining 44 pages include sections on ghost hunting equipment, tactics, the ghosts themselves, adventure outlines, and an extensive glossary.  Throughout the document, there are also sidebars from the fictional Jackson Green, from which the Guide takes it’s name.Tools of the TradeThis section contains equipment that real world ghost hunters use to assist and document their investigations.  Each item has a brief description of what it does, why a ghost hunter would find it useful, and the appropriate game statistics.  Many of the items also include an illustration.  The illustrations are a bit simplistic, but not having any idea what something like an Air Ionic Meter would look like, I found them somewhat useful.  All of the game statistics are also nicely summarized in a mock-up of a catalog order form, complete with purchase DCs.Overall, the gear is well thought out and well presented.  A number of the items here would also fit well in other types of campaigns, such as modern espionage.My only concern with the gear section is that many of the different types of items provide specific and different named bonuses.  With the right combination of gear, you could rack up a fairly high bonus to related Search checks.  However, with the sample DCs provided for various ghost hunting Search checks, I doubt they’d be overpowering.The Ghost HuntThis section provides information for both players and GMs on playing in and running realistic ghost hunts.  Now, by “realistic” I mean “not Ghostbusters.”  In addition to the advice on ghosts and horror, there are a number of anecdotal sidebars from Jackson Green.  These sidebars, coupled with the photographic illustrations throughout the Guide really helped in setting the mood for this type of game.Horror is a tough genre for some to play in.  There’s just a disconnect between sitting at the kitchen table with your buddies and the investigator crouched down in the spooky basement.  The authors do provide some good advice for trying to overcome that and even using that complacency to the GM’s advantage once in a while.GhostsI’m sure we’d all be surprised if there wasn’t a chapter about actually making ghosts.  It includes templates for expanding on the standard d20 ghost, as well as their motivations and tactics.  The Lesser Manifestation, Poltergeist, Atmospheric Ball of Energy, Phantom, and (pretty vicious) Dominating Spirit are introduced.All five are pretty different from each other.  While they’re all ghosts, an encounter with a Phantom and an encounter with a Dominating Spirit will be significantly different challenges.  It’s unlikely your players will be saying, “Oh, another ghost.”  Each has its own niche, M.O., and special qualities.  The new special qualities are clearly written and appropriate for the CR adjustments.Adventure OutlinesThree outlines for ghost hunting adventures are included.  Each is two or three pages.  They provide an interesting background story, notes on the major characters, and a bullet-point outline of events and options for the adventure.The way the characters are handled struck me both as a good thing and a bad thing.  The characters’ backgrounds and motivations are clearly laid out, without being a straight-jacket for their actions.  This is good, giving a GM plenty of room to modify them to suit the story they want to tell.  The bad thing is there are no actual stats for them.  It’s good to still leave that openness for the GM, but it makes it difficult to use the outlines for a quick pick-up game.  I’d like to have seen even a suggestion for classes and levels.  In all fairness, though, they are outlines, not full adventures.Lexicon of TermsThis section is a nice glossary of terms you’d probably come across in ghost hunting adventures.  Nice, but not remarkable.  What is remarkable is the number of adventure ideas packed in right along with the definitions.  There are more than 40 adventure hooks in this section.  You could come up with any number of adventure ideas just taking them one at a time or picking two or three and coming up with a way to make them fit with each other.  This takes a fairly dry section, which some people might otherwise skip over, and really adds a whole dimension of usefulness to the Guide.Web ResourcesAt the end, there are ten additional web resources listed for additional real-world investigation info.  These are a welcome addition, including even more resources for equipment, news stories, pictures, and even hoaxes.OverallI was very impressed by Green’s Guide to Ghosts.  The dossier style layout is interesting.  It’s well edited, with only the occasional typo.  All of the material in it would be very useful in a game with regular supernatural incidents.  I can even see uses for some of it in other types of games.  The bottom line is Green’s Guide to Ghosts is a supplement a Modern supernatural/horror GM should have.</blockquote>

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