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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Starman" data-source="post: 2454757" data-attributes="member: 7663">Green's Guide to Ghosts ReviewGreen’s Guide to Ghosts is a 48-page .pdf from 12 to Midnight Games. It is, as the title suggests, a guide to ghosts and related paranormal activities for d20 Modern. It was written by Preston P. Dubose and Ed Wetterman. Artwork was done by Preston P. Dubose and Woody Hearne. It retails for $8.00. The book is written from the point of view of Jackson Green, a ghost hunter/paranormal investigator. He “says” that everything he is writing about is real, but that he couches it in game terms to avoid censure from government agencies and MIB. I groaned the first time I read it, but it actually works out all right and didn’t distract from the product at all. The layout is decent and easy to read, a simple two-column setup. An excellent set of bookmarks make finding whatever you are looking for relatively easy. The artwork is simple, but effective. Many of the pieces are “photographs” of supernatural phenomena, which was a nice touch rather than just doing them as regular piece of artwork. The cover is a mock file folder of Jackson Green’s ghost file with some phone messages clipped to it. None of the art was spectacular, but it was evocative of the source material. The book opens with an introduction from Jackson Green and is an overview of the product. It is about what you would expect from an introduction.Chapter 1 is Tools of the Trade. It has a whole list of equipment for the would-be ghost hunter. It starts by listing many of the things that a ghost hunter should always take with him for his investigations from the basics, things like cameras and flashlights to more exotic items like barometers, thermometers, and motion detectors. Much of it is common sense, but it is great for those less practical minded people who need a reminder of what to bring. The next part of the chapter deals with the mechanics of the hunt itself. Rather than making individual checks with each piece of equipment, it recommends making a single Search check modified by the equipment being used. For example, a digital camera provides a +1 optical search bonus and a barometer provides a +1 atmospheric pressure search bonus. I like the idea of reducing all of the rolls into a single Search roll, however keeping track of all of the different bonuses could be a pain. I would use the “order form” on page 7 to do this. Just print it out for your players and have them check off what they have. All of the equipment has a brief description including a purchase DC. The part I liked the best was the three kits listed. These are a compilation of items that you can purchase without having to individually pick out everything you want. This was a nice touch. Chapter 2 is The Ghost Hunt. This chapter gives a player’s guide to ghost hunts such as what to look for and what one can expect to run into when looking for the supernatural. It also has some tips for the Gamemaster on running a horror game such as setting the mood and creating spooky events. It also talks about running an in-game séance complete with a table of random events that can occur during one. This chapter is short, a lot of the advice I’ve seen in other horror products, but it does what it sets out to do, and the book would be remiss without it. Chapter 3 is Ghosts. This chapter describes the different types of ghosts and gives templates for them. There are two classes, echoes and lost souls. Echoes are strong emotional residues or psychic impressions. They are generally just harmless apparitions. The other type is lost souls, which can be anything from ABEs (atmospheric balls of energy) to poltergeists. These are the fun ones to interact with and can be benign or deadly. The type of lost soul something becomes depends on how many hit dice it had. One odd thing is that in the template description under Defense, it notes, “A lost soul retains no natural or equipment bonus to AC but retains any class bonuses and dodge bonus due to Dexterity +1.” I’m not sure what the “due to Dexterity +1” part means. Nowhere does it say that a lost soul gains a bonus to Dex. One thing to keep in mind is that if you are running an FX-lite game than player’s are not going to be dispatching lost souls in combat as magic weapons are needed to harm them. Of course, this is in keeping with most of the genre, as generally you need to find out why the ghost is doing the haunting and rectify the situation, if possible, to get rid of them. It bears keeping in mind, though, if your player’s are used to fighting their way out of tough situations. Chapter 4 is Adventure Outlines. Three short adventure ideas complete with basic NPCs, background, and outline of events are given. These are a nice touch and a good way to help a gamemaster generate ideas for his or her campaign. Last Call for the Big Thicket Flyer deals with a ghost train that has started appearing at a retirement home. In A Call from Beyond, a medium contacts one of the PCs with a message from someone they know who has died. Constance Smith’s Last Laugh is about a family being haunted through multiple generations. All three of these highlighted different aspects of ghost hunting and are excellent jumping off points for a campaign. Chapter 5 is Lexicon of Terms and is the longest one in the book. This is, obviously, a lexicon of terms dealing with supernatural phenomena. The best part about it is that it is quite extensive and all sorts of adventure seeds are sprinkled throughout in sidebars. All of the terms come from real world tales of the supernatural and gives the whole thing a grounding in, uh, “reality” that gives it a solid feel. Chapter 6 gives a list of websites devoted to the supernatural for the gamemaster wanting more resources. Chapter 7 is a one-page note from both authors about the genesis and writing of the product. I always like reading stuff like this, so I enjoyed it. Overall, this was a great product. It is mostly fluff with the only crunch being the list of equipment, the Search rules, and the séance random event table. It was nice to see a product that didn’t focus on new feats and prestige (or advanced) classes, not that I don’t like more of those, but everyone seems to be doing it. I don’t know if I could get into a campaign devoted wholly to ghost hunting but the occasional one-shot would be fun and this .pdf made me want to run or play in some.Shane E Noble</blockquote>

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