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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Anio" data-source="post: 2426202" data-attributes="member: 24200">Independence Day Massacre - review by Jason Lund (Anio)Independence Day Massacre is an adventure and the second PDF in the Year of the Zombie series for D20 Modern, both written by Tim Willard for UKG Publishing. This product contains four PDFs totaling one hundred and thirty nine pages: one 35 page full colour version of the adventure, one 34 page printer-friendly version of the adventure, one 54 page PDF of full colour battlemaps and one 16 page PDF of pre-generated characters. The content of this adventure, and of the Year of the Zombie series, is for a mature and adult audience and includes depictions of horrific scenes. This horror is neither glorified nor avoided by the author: it is simple addressed. This product should be considered in that light.The premise of this small adventure is almost startlingly simple: the PCs are having a restful day at a national park when a zombie contamination threat erupts. The adventure is designed to be either a stand-alone one-shot game using the pre-generated characters or as an introductory adventure for a long-term Year of the Zombie campaign. This adventure is tough and survival is not guaranteed, but does provide a thrilling ride for players and GM alike. All areas in the national park are detailed, along with all likely encounters and all NPCs are included with full stats and summarized backgrounds. Descriptions of all vehicles and structures in the national park, as well as their contents, are also provided. Minimaps on most pages, as well as evocative photographs of different areas, provide the GM with a constant visual reference point for where PCs are in the scheme of things, something that is especially important when running a site based adventure. Aside from the minimaps and photos, this adventure contains few pieces of art, though each is thematically consistent.Moments of horror are mixed with thrilling chases for the PCs and several scenes contribute to the tone of desperate survival for this adventure. These include head-long dashes from area to area, only to find more zombies and less support than the last, over a dozen zombie children feasting upon their dumbfounded caretakers while zombie park rangers chase down the living and, last but not least, the likelihood that the PCs are unprepared for the zombie onslaught in the first place. On first blush, this survival adventure could appear to quickly turn into a bloodbath, but each encounter has been carefully balanced and is only likely to cause a total party kill with foolhardy PCs and an ironfisted GM.Boxed text describes each area and scene that the PCs are likely to have in the park as well as providing details on the actions of all NPCs in each area as the PCs wander from place to place. The sections for each area also include the DCs for all rolls that the PCs and NPCs are likely to make. Further to these, extensive information in the form of randomized tables are provided at the back of the PDF for GMs to fill out specific descriptions of zombies, their appearances, the severity and type of their wounds and, most importantly to PCs and GMs alike, their possessions and actions. There are also five types of zombie with three variations for each type to break up the monotony of any single zombie template.The colour version of the adventure is fully bookmarked and has links to every section of the PDF. It contains 1 cover page, 1 table of contents and credits page and a 1-page full colour brochure handout for the PCs. The printer friendly PDF is a greyscale version of the adventure and does not include the full colour brochure at the end nor the colour borders present in the colour version, though strangely enough, the cover page is still in colour and likely to use a lot of black ink. Both adventure PDFs also contain four new feats for use by PC and NPC alike. The PDF of battlemaps provides eight large-scale maps and fifty small-scale battlemaps, all in colour. Adjusting printer settings should allow this PDF to be printed without using colour ink, though black is still likely to be heavily used (just because of the sheer number of maps provided). The final PDF contains eight pre-generated characters on D20 Modern character sheets in an easy to read font.SummaryThe abundant small touches make this adventure worth buying. It would have been easy for UKG Publishing to simply release this adventure as a single 34 page PDF at its given price tag, but the care and consideration that they have taken rings clearly throughout the product. The inclusion of a colour brochure hand out for the players, four new feats, complete stats for every NPC in the adventure as well as complete tables for randomizing zombie appearance, behaviour and possessions are beyond the call of duty for most adventure writers, but likely to genuinely enrich the use of this adventure for GMs and their players. Adding to that the clear and vivid descriptions, clean and simple layout, inclusion of fifty four pages of battlemaps and modular design of each encounter area, this uncomplicated but exciting adventure reaches beyond its borders of being a simple horror adventure and becomes a model for all site based adventures.I had initially considered giving this product a 4 star rating, but with the sheer number of extras added to this solid adventure, the rating is pushed up to 5 stars.Independence Day Massacre is $5 well spent and should make for an impatient but quite eager wait for the next installment in the Year of the Zombie line.Review by Jason Lund (Anio)</blockquote>

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