I missed the Kickstarter but ordered after watching your video, and excited to combine this with Spectacular Settlements & LoreSmyths books, which I also own. Great review Joe!
Wow! Thats a loaded question. It really depends on what specifically I am doing. If we are talking about purely world building I would say this book, plus Nord's Spectacular Settlements, maybe there Dangerous Destinations as well, then the 4 Loresmyth Remarkable books. I may tack on Nord's Ultimate Guide to Crafting book as it builds on guilds quite a bit. After that its just resources that work for your world. I do have the Tome of Adventure Design but to be honest I haven't looked through it much yet. The Lazy DM stuff is really great too but thats more for session prep.
@@GMToolbox well, it's seems I had to create a game with it as main to access the stuff still it doesn't work as a add-on in Roll20. Love me all Kobold Press product I've bought so far, either paper or on roll20, this one is lacking. But it's alright, not all apples in a tree are good
I don't understand how anyone could read this book and find it useful. Are you quite sure you actually read it? You say at the start that it's not a 5e book. It is a 5e book. All the NPCs and player options are for 5e. You even show a 5e Druid subclass in this video. I suppose you could argue a lot of it is system agnostic in the sense that it contains no concrete information, so isn't tied to 5e. The random tables are very generic lists of businesses, government types, districts etc. The art is just OK. It's arguable that some of the subclass options are flavourful but they certainly none have been playtested or given much mechanical thought. The NPCs are fine. Most of the text is stuff like: "The city watch serves as the city’s police force, responsible for maintaining law and order and keeping its inhabitants as safe as possible. They patrol the city streets, dealing with wrongdoers, breaking up arguments, reuniting lost children with their parents, giving directions to visitors, and so on." It goes on for another 3 pages like this and the only things you could put in a game are 3 generic Guard NPC descriptions and a d20 table of plot hook gems like 'you find a dead body'- that's literally the whole hook. Every single section is mostly the same sort of dull, empty filler.
If this book is not for you, I'd suggest looking at Spectacular Settlements from Nord. It is a straight engine for building towns, cities, and other populated locations. I find it a better tool for straight building. I find the KP book goes into areas where it tries to expand on certain concepts.
I missed the Kickstarter but ordered after watching your video, and excited to combine this with Spectacular Settlements & LoreSmyths books, which I also own. Great review Joe!
There are so many campaign builder resources out there. Which are your essential books that every gm should have in their toolbox?
Wow! Thats a loaded question. It really depends on what specifically I am doing. If we are talking about purely world building I would say this book, plus Nord's Spectacular Settlements, maybe there Dangerous Destinations as well, then the 4 Loresmyth Remarkable books. I may tack on Nord's Ultimate Guide to Crafting book as it builds on guilds quite a bit. After that its just resources that work for your world. I do have the Tome of Adventure Design but to be honest I haven't looked through it much yet. The Lazy DM stuff is really great too but thats more for session prep.
awwwwwww, yea. another reason to spend money . awesome video
The Roll20 sucks, I paid 20€ and only got 10 NPCs and 10 Monster.
You should have all the text of the book and I would think the maps as well.Also lots of tables.
@@GMToolbox well, it's seems I had to create a game with it as main to access the stuff still it doesn't work as a add-on in Roll20.
Love me all Kobold Press product I've bought so far, either paper or on roll20, this one is lacking. But it's alright, not all apples in a tree are good
@@GMToolbox I have 18 NPCs, 12 monsters and 12 maps, i don't have anything else!
@@DMCM88 I see what you mean. I reached out to my contact at KP that is in charge of the VTT stuff. I'll let you know what feedback I get.
@@GMToolbox and maps, you do get an assortment of maps ready to go, that is cool.
I don't understand how anyone could read this book and find it useful. Are you quite sure you actually read it?
You say at the start that it's not a 5e book. It is a 5e book. All the NPCs and player options are for 5e. You even show a 5e Druid subclass in this video. I suppose you could argue a lot of it is system agnostic in the sense that it contains no concrete information, so isn't tied to 5e.
The random tables are very generic lists of businesses, government types, districts etc. The art is just OK. It's arguable that some of the subclass options are flavourful but they certainly none have been playtested or given much mechanical thought. The NPCs are fine.
Most of the text is stuff like: "The city watch serves as the city’s police force, responsible for maintaining law and order and keeping its inhabitants as safe as possible. They patrol the city streets, dealing with wrongdoers, breaking up arguments, reuniting lost children with their parents, giving directions to visitors, and so on."
It goes on for another 3 pages like this and the only things you could put in a game are 3 generic Guard NPC descriptions and a d20 table of plot hook gems like 'you find a dead body'- that's literally the whole hook.
Every single section is mostly the same sort of dull, empty filler.
If this book is not for you, I'd suggest looking at Spectacular Settlements from Nord. It is a straight engine for building towns, cities, and other populated locations. I find it a better tool for straight building. I find the KP book goes into areas where it tries to expand on certain concepts.