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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gamer-X" data-source="post: 2345932" data-attributes="member: 28594">Tomorrow's Headlines -- the hard copyThis is an unsolicited review of Superline #1: Tomorrow’s Headlines by Ronin Arts. I bought it, I love it, I need to share.Last week, I was happy to discover my print copy of the first issue of Ronin Arts’ Superline series of gaming supplements. Superline is an ongoing series licensed under the Mutants & Masterminds Superlink banner, and is intended to be fan-oriented support materials. By that, Ronin Arts means that they welcome feedback and are trying to feed a need with this publication, namely, what fans want. I already own the PDF version of Tomorrow‘s Headlines, so I was well aware of the high-caliber of the gaming content. I really wanted to see if the print version was worth the extra bucks I shelled out for it. Short answer: it was. But I’ll get to that later. ContentTomorrow’s Headlines consists of four one-night scenarios. They are easy to drop into any ongoing campaign and are perfect for spontaneous “pick up” games. Each adventure starts with a brief summary, followed by a “Set Up” (adventure hook) section explaining what is going on and what the best ways are to get PCs involved. Despite being drop-in adventures, each scenario is fully fleshed out and playable. Each of the adventures are very different in theme. In order, you get a street level adventure; a four-color, higher-powered robbery; a scifi style alien abduction; and a sorcery-induced creature invasion. It’s all there. I’m not going to critique each scenario. They’re all based on good ideas, solidly written, and ready to play. The important characters have complete backgrounds, personalities, and motivations. You know who they are and what to do with them. One of the things I enjoyed the most about this product are the teasers for future products (i.e., the Patriot Squad and the Pharaoh’s Staff). In fact, right up front (pg. 3), the authors promise continuity across issues, giving you not only stand alone material, but continuing story arcs, should you choose to use them. Another bonus is the stuff that gamers are used to getting from supplements: mined material for further use in our games. Tomorrow’s Headlines is certainly full of that, but the mining doesn’t require a union crew. The ore is smelted into convenient sidebars, ready for us to build with. These extra nuggets are used to some extent within each adventure, but can easily be dropped into my own game world (i.e., a new street drug, the Patriot Squad, Westgate Prison, and the alien presence). These items are not fully and statted out. Rather, they are created and offered to us for added color and background in the adventures. My favorite “extra” is in the last scenario, “The Witching Hour.” In this adventure, three witches are overrunning the city with an army of mindless minions. As written, the minions are elemental creatures. Not only are you given different options and power levels to assist in scaling the threat level to your party, but the writers have gone the extra mile, just in case elemental creatures aren’t really your style. With thinking that was surely ahead of its time, the creators give us an alternate form of mindless minion with which to overrun your city -- ZOMBIES! Very appropriate for this summer. Print ProductionThe book is printed on heavy paper stock and wrapped with a glossy, full-color, cardstock cover. These make for a very substantial and durable 36-page book, indeed. The cover, as promised, really does look just like a comic book, further enhancing the material -- your brain is in “comic book fun” mode before you even open the cover. Wiping the drool from my lip, I flipped through the pages. By trade, I write and edit copy, so the clean, unencumbered layout and design immediately caught my eye. The illustrations are few, just one per scenario, but they’re large and nicely drawn. Granted, this was originally designed for sale as a PDF download, so I’m sure Ronin Arts’ expertise in that arena was a big influence here. This small booklet is of better quality than most gaming products created by print-only companies. Overall Was it worth buying the print copy? You bet. Lucky for all of us, Ronin Arts has already followed up with Superline #2 and have announced a bi-monthly schedule for future issues. Long-time players of superhero RPGs have always been treated like the kid sibling to the players of the more prevalent fantasy RPGs. The fantasy gamers get all the best gaming products and support. We get the leftovers from the gaming companies’ design tables. The success of Mutants & Masterminds has enabled Green Ronin to keep producing new products, but we still rely upon the small-press independent companies to fill in the months between Green Ronin’s releases. Ronin Arts already has a strong track record for high-quality gaming content in their products (based on the product ratings and number of products that show up as Popular Picks at RPG Now). I look forward to seeing what future issues of Superline will bring.</blockquote>

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