Nuisances is a 96-page perfect-bound book from Skirmisher Publishing. The copy I purchased also came with a CD-ROM that had several bonus files, including an errata file, additional artwork, a short adventure, and more. Interestingly, the book is OGL, not d20, most likely due to the subject matter. A warning about this product being for mature readers appears right on the cover.
I once had a player in my group who never quite seemed to take the game seriously. Every female NPC, in particular, was subjected to his rather base sense of humor. The friendly ones were hit on. The unfriendly ones had a touch attack made to grope them. Insults yelled during battle were sexual in nature. It quickly drove me (as DM) and the other players to madness. I wish I had had this book then, as it would have let me quickly put him in his place.
The back cover of Nuisances says that the book is "a tribute to the early years of fantasy roleplaying games, a parody of the current state of the genre, a manual for keeping cocky and annoying players off balance, and a poignant philosophical expression of the post-modern 21st century worldview." The amazing thing is, these claims are all true (except maybe the last one). Although in my experience, products that try to focus on multiple areas at once tend to fall short of all of them, Nuisances manages to pull it off.
The opening of the book sets the tone for the entire thing. The introduction pulls no punches as it launches into what this product is about. In essence, Nuisances is a First Edition-style book devoted to simultaneously punishing players (if needed) and filling in the little cracks that the current edition of the game overlooked.
The art in the book is entirely black and white. It's done by a number of different interior artists, and the style varies wildly. There are several full-page "woodcut" style pieces, reminiscent of 1E, others are more contemporary, usually the ones that showcase individual characters or monsters. And to the folks at Skirmisher Publishing: I viewed the art on page 33, and now you owe me for the cost of having to vigorously clean my eyeballs.
The first chapter showcases this by giving us tables. A LOT of tables. Most of these are for things that would irritate characters (hence why this chapter is called "Random Nuisances"), but a lot of these, in true 1E style, are purely for minor details. I particularly loved the color tables. Roll to determine a color, and then roll on the appropriate subtable to determine the shade of the color. And of course, the book's humor is readily apparent. Where else will you find a Random Villain table, one that includes Thulsa Doom, Adolph Hitler, and Doctor Octopus? It's worth noting that not all of these tables concern themselves with conforming to appropriate dice, such as the Random Female Associates table needing a d14 roll.
The next chapter is "Brothels & Prostitutes," and the sexual overtones which pervade the entire book are heaviest here. Again, almost all of this chapter are tables, and generally punitive to the PCs. If you have players who insist on always spending their gold on "ale and whores" then you can roll on these tables, and they'll stick to the ale from now on. A few Prestige Classes round out the chapter, the Pimp, Prostitute, and Slovenly Trull. As the first PrC is only three levels, and the latter two are just one, these prestige classes are quite amusing.
The next chapter is "Feats," and you can guess what that's about. Twenty-six feats are detailed here, and despite having amusing names ("Improved Groin Strike") these feats all offer fairly well-balanced mechanical bonuses, as good feats should. For the most part, any of these feats are worthwhile even in a serious game...if you scratch off the names, of course.
The next chapter is "Defects." This new mechanics is extremely similar to Character Flaws from Unearthed Arcana. Basically, you take a defect, and in exchange gain a feat. The only difference being that this book offers no limit to the number taken, and they can be taken at any level. And these are much more creative and amusing. A character who takes "Defect: Fugly" is going to take a -2 penalty to all Charisma checks, for example. With forty defects here, even (perhaps especially) serious role-players will find something worthwhile. I still think it'd be exceptionally interesting to play a character with Defect: Pyromania.
"Defective Items" is the next chapter. This short chapter details both generic ("chafing armor") and specific (non-true-north compass) non-magical items that can befall your characters. All of these items have something wrong with them, giving some sort of penalty or otherwise causing a situation that will at least annoy the players.
The next chapter, "Magic Items" follows in the same vein. The magic items here are all cursed or flawed in some way. A simple remove curse may allow the party to get away from them, but don't expect it to make the items into something more beneficial. All of the items here are specific, although a sidebar does detail three new cursed properties (which are themselves very much reminiscent of previous editions). I particularly enjoyed the table on giving minor defeacts to otherwise-working magic items.
The "Archetypal NPCs" chapter devotes half of itself to making fun of WotC's Iconics. Heavens help the john PC who meets Ambar the female human monk prostitute, or MigAlley the pyromaniac elven wizard. The rest of the chapter is, you guessed it, tables, which detail various traits (most of them irking) which you can assign various NPCs.
Chapter Eight is the "Monsters" chapter. This one opens with the tables, describing a lot of optional ways to make your monsters more...interesting. I admit I had no idea that if a dragon with a gas-breath weapon farted, their breath weapon came out the other end. A half-dozen new monsters end the chapter, including things like the Decapussywhipper, the Jester Dragon (featured on the cover), and the polychromatimorph. Despite their humorous nature, the stats are mostly solid here, so they do work in-game...mechanically, at least.
The book closes out with Chapters 9 and 10, which are, respectively, a single page of exclamation points of what must be every font found in Word, and the OGL. Yeah, I don't quite get it either.
All in all, I was going to give this book three stars after my first read-through. But subsequent readings convinced me to go one higher. This book may be humorous in a course (and sometimes subtly biting) way, but it accomplishes perfectly what it sets out to do, and maintaines enough mechanical integrity to be useable in a game. However, due to the fact that the errors are there (though the errata file helps), and that this will still be of limited use to most DMs (it's highly likely you'll just pick up bits and pieces to use), I couldn't quite bring myself to give it five stars.
That said, I do recommend you check out Nuisances, even if only for a laugh. This book is the true "Third Edition rules, First Edition feel."
