<< Back to Fitz's Roleplaying Stuff < Fitz's Swords & Wizardry Stuff
28 page PDF, $1.99
This collection of lists and tables (the yellow booklet on the right*) provides pretty much all the information a DM is likely to need during the course of an evening's gaming, assuming he or she is reasonably familiar with the rules.
It includes tables etc. for:
The PDF is formatted for US digest format — roughly (very roughly) the same size as A5, and the first page, emblazoned with DO NOT PRINT THIS PAGE in very large type so that you don't miss it, provides instructions on how to go about printing it in booklet format via Acrobat or Acrobat Reader.
The presentation is very much a no-frills affair. Just the facts, thanks. That's all to the good as far as I'm concerned; there's really nothing much to be gained in a publication of this size and type by padding it out with pointless art-work.
The layout is functional and the font-size is adequate for easy reference (a consideration that becomes ever more important to me as my eyes, alas, begin their long decline into decrepitude). The tables could have benefited in some cases from visual aids like alternate row shading, especially in the monster stat lists where it is occasionally unclear at a glance where one critter ends and another begins. Also, I did note a few widows and orphans here and there that should be attended to for future reprints.
This is a very useful tool for the DM, and at the very low price of $1.99 I have no hesitation in recommending it very highly. The layout isn't perfect, but it's certainly adequate to the task, and I expect to get a lot of use out of it. Chgowiz has done a very good job, and such flaws as do exist can be easily remedied for future releases.
When I first found out about this publication I thought to myself "Pshaw! I could do that myself, why pay for something like that?" And it's true, I could — I have the skills, knowledge and software to do a pretty good job on it too. But then I realised: THIS IS REALLY REALLY CHEAP. I could do it for sure, but it would take me some hours to choose which stuff I wanted to include and then to lay it out nicely. Why bother when the work has already been done for me? So, I unscrewed my rust-jammed wallet and paid the pathetic two bucks (OK, it does work out to about three bucks in New Zealand dollars) and avoided all that work. Laziness triumphs!
Now I feel slightly guilty, as if I were taking advantage of Third-World sweatshop labour.