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Amazing Tales, complete kids' RPG
by Matt J. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/31/2023 04:17:12

A great introduction to TTRPGs for little ones. My kids loved the first installment and we've used variations on rules as they grew into other systems. Highly recommended



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Amazing Tales, complete kids' RPG
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Amazing Tales Character Sheets
by Constance W. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/22/2022 09:35:33

It gives you 3 options to pick from depending on what would work best for you and your kids.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Amazing Tales Character Sheets
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Mr Lloyd's Annotated Compendium of Ingenious Victorian Devices
by Cosmic O. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 12/30/2021 14:26:22

I thought I knew most of the gadgets from Victorian times but obviously not as well as Mr Lloyd! A fun flick though to pick up or a source of some great devices to be used as macguffins in an adventure. A great collection to have.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Mr Lloyd's Annotated Compendium of Ingenious Victorian Devices
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Amazing Tales: The Charity Adventure Compilation
by Isaac M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/21/2021 19:14:28

The full game book has a lot of useful context and guidance on running the game &c, but tbqh this is an entire game in itself right here, so that makes it a pretty solid trial version.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Amazing Tales: The Charity Adventure Compilation
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Amazing Heroes
by william g. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/09/2021 20:20:41

I was a huge fan of Amazing Tales and found this title. As someone who likes to be able to just throw together an adventure and play a game quickly, I noticed that this will likely be me new goto system for all my future games. The simplicity of the rules combined with the elegance of the character sheet, I can throw together any kind of adventure and just start playing. Sci-fi check, cyberpunk check, Toons check, dungeon crawler check, Steampunk check. I look forward to finding something I cannot use this game to play. This will not be my end all system, but definatly a great way to start and see if an adventure idea has any legs. Thank you :)



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Amazing Heroes
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Inferno - Quickstart
by Bob V. G. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/30/2021 13:42:05

Recently I soloed my way through Inferno Quickstart (for several players and one game master, free at DriveThruRPG). I did use the four characters that are in this module of Victorian fiction. I also added one more character, Sheila the Hedge Fey. To solo this I used the CRGE Emulator.

In the first scene, the four main characters are able to calm the crowd and discover the source of the problem (bomb). In the second scene, there is a ballroom dance at the Prussian Embassy. They invite Sheila to this. The Sky Pirate Robur (secondary villain) wants to dance with Jemima, but he ends up dancing with Sheila. She manages to get him alone and kill him. She tries to escape the embassy, gets captured, and the authorities take her downtown for questioning. The third scene is the Crystal Tower. The four characters are sneaky and get on board the sky ship at the top. The fourth scene is where the characters sabotage the air ship. It crashes. No one is killed or hurt. At this point, the main villain, Hans von Spark is arrested. Game over. A win! The attached image is of Sheila (artist – C. J. Beazley).

This quickstart is 84 pages. It has a unique system that uses decks of regular playing cards. An adventure is set up in scenes and players have to solve challenges. So, this system is good for rebels VS the empire. If you were going to do a dungeon crawl, the DM would have to set it up with challenges, traps, and puzzles, not lots of rooms filled with monsters. Give this a try!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Inferno - Quickstart
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Creator Reply:
Thanks Bob! Glad you enjoyed the game, and thanks for sharing your experience with it.
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Amazing Tales: The Charity Adventure Compilation
by Alex G. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/16/2021 18:17:01

Have enjoyed playing this game with a group of preschoolers as well as at a mixed-age table. The character sheets are easily accessible to my pre-readers who also enjoyed helping create the world and color in the map.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Amazing Tales: The Charity Adventure Compilation
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Amazing Heroes
by Ryan C. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/07/2021 12:18:19

Amazing Heroes is a great, simplified ruleset, superhero RPG that's easy to learn and fun to play. Ideal for kids and beginner RPGers it works around and encourages narrative and the ruleset means it can be played easily in an hour. It also works brilliantly for experienced RPGers, perhaps trying out superhero genre, who just want a quick game of something.

I backed this on Kickstarter on the basis that I wanted to encourage a game that could help younger players into RPG. I am glad I did. It's brilliant and the book makes it easy to follow and pick up. There is a comment in the book likening this game to a typical superhero TV show. Campaigns are seasons with say 10 sessions being episodes in that. I like this analogy and it works really well throughout this game.

Here's some of my particular highlights.

The book

It is well written, gets to the point and well illustrated. It explains the concepts well, separates the GM from the player well and is a quick read, allowing you to get up and playing quickly. I got the PDF as part of my kickstarter reward and bought the hard cover afterwards. The PDF is great but the hardcover is excellent.

Character creation

The simple-but-flexible ruleset means character creation is quick and accommodating. No pages and pages of powers for you to roll and hope you can get. Simply chat it over with your GM. You don't get "points" to spend, more that you have an agreed number of powers and get to adding more value to one over the others. An example of one such conversation I (GM) had with a player:

P: "I'd want my characters superpower to be speed"

GM: "Okay, how did they get that speed?"

P: "Enhancements, I thought they would be a motorcycle racer who got injured and now had cybernetics which give them speed"

GM: "Cool, so this speed is getting-somewhere-fast rather than dodging-bullets?"

P: "Yeah but that probably means they'd need some kind of armour I guess"

GM: "OK so, for such a new superhero, it's better to be superfast or invulnerable but not both. Choose which is more important to you: protection or speed and let's assign the higher dice to that one"

End result (after similar conversations about personality etc.): character created in 15 mins. Player is happy with their character as they're not so weak as to be ineffective and I have one who is not all-conquering with no weaknesses (so I don't have to invent Kryptonite) but can grow and learn with the player.

The other thing I like is that personality traits and body types matter. So if a character is "determined", that gets a dice assignment and can be used some scenarios where not giving up is more important than just being strong or fast.

Narrative

A lot of RPGs include this but this game has it as its focal point. As such it is designed, and great, for shorter session (1 hour rather than half a day). That means you have to get right into it and are discouraged from having lots of time wandering around poking things to see if they do anything.

Additionally rolls are pretty much kept to action only. So a player will roll when they want to do something: jump a gap, dodge an inbound cement block, break down a door, and not when they need to observe something. That means that if their character would probably spot a man crouching in a corner, they don't need to roll for that. This keeps the narrative moving. I suspect this is an attempt to hold the interest of the target audience here - kids - but it works really well for newer players and those who want to "just get on with it".

GM freedom

The GM has a lot of flexibility in this game. With great power comes ... etc. but the GM doesn't really roll dice at all and I like that. Many times I've played RPGs and found the need for dice rolls helpful as it stops the "GM vs players" undercurrents but equally there are many times when I've found it restrictive. I'll confess I tend to GM in a way that is quite flexible and fluid anyway. I think you have to. If the characters go in the back door when you were expecting them to go in the front, you need to adapt your ambush so it comes another way. In this game I have enjoyed a greater freedom as a GM. A good example is combat. There are no initiative rolls, so as a GM you just say "The guy on the left runs at you and tries to sweep your legs, what do you do?" and the player would roll to see if their jump works. Combat is helped in this way in that there are no hit points or similar. Baddies are either easy, normal or hard to beat and that rating relates directly to the player's roll target. Player characters have consequences if they miss a roll target. Tired, dazed etc. and these can escalate which affects the actual roll result. As an example, I had one character who wasn't able to dodge an inbound attack and got "dazed". Then they missed blocking the second attack and got "very dazed" which left them with a -1 on their dice rolls. Eventually you get a hurt condition at which point the GM might suggest you stop banging your naked head against that guy's brick-wall of a chest as it's not working.

The book has two full campaigns to use and a host of pre-made villains and heroes. There are also a host of plot ideas, called Adventure Hooks, which are not much more than a one sentence plot outline followed by a twist. I used one of these for my first two sessions and it was an excellent starting point.

Plot points

These are twists, like an ambush or an escape that the GM applies to the session. You get a fixed number of these (based on the number of players) so you have to make them good but it really helps in a superhero context to have these. In the analogy of a TV series or a movie these would be the moments where you might meet the big boss early on but not have the heroes actually fight them. Again it feed directly into the narrative aspect.

Single character play

Whilst all RPGs benefit from interaction between a few players, they don't all work when there's just a GM and one player. This game does. Superhero media started as a single hero rather than a team. Superman and Spiderman works just as well as X-Men and Avengers. This game allows for the kind of scenario where you have one hero rather than a team and it works as well in that as with five heroes and one GM.

Things to improve

Not many really. There are a lot of things that it could be said this game makes less challenging: no dice rolls for the GM, character definition has a fairly low depth (to start with), no power definitions to speak of. I think all of these are what makes this game good at what it does. Whilst you could say tighter controls on combat could make the game more challenging I think they would take the game away from its concept. If you want finer control and a certain limit on what powers you can have; there are games with those. This game does have that but leaves it in the hands of the GM/player discussion. Some players are as comfortable with that and may benefit from the guidance that a tighter ruleset gives but, for me, this game moves that into the hands of the GM so, if your GM has enough experience, the limits are still there.

One thing I felt was missing from the book was more local maps, specific locations you tend to get in a superhero story like a bank or a secret lab or similar. I used some of these in my sessions and was happy to make maps myself, I just think had there been some example ones for Storm City buildings it might help newer GMs and players.

Conclusion

This is a first rate, exciting RPG that is easy and fun to play. It focuses on the narrative rather than the mechanics and is, in the context of its aim, better for it. I think it will serve as a great introduction to anyone who has not played RPGs before or is new to the superhero genre. As said, it is also great for experienced RPGers who just want a quick game (if they can deal with the reduction in dice rolls). The sample heroes, villains and adventures in the book are excellent.

RPG (mostly DnD to be fair) has appeared in numerous TV shows and movies and in every case the players are engaging in narrative and just getting on with it. It looks fin and part of that is because the characters in the show,movie are experienced players and partly it's because a scene where they are not doing that isn't as good in front of the camera. This game is for the people who've seen those shows and wanted to play RPG in that way. It's for people who've seen superhero TV shows and want to role play that in a game.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Amazing Heroes
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Creator Reply:
Thanks for the review Ryan - really appreciate it!
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Amazing Heroes
by A customer [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/07/2021 05:12:42

Amazing Heroes is a deceptively powerful and deep RPG that on first look, appears simple (and it is) but in fact it has a lot more to offer beneath its surface.

The game is a rules-light narrative RPG that is easy to play and takes very little setting up.

This game is a lot of fun, quick to learn, fast character generation and a perfect toolbox/sandbox to expand upon with your own custom rules or added depth if you want it – and if you don't, it's a perfect quick pick-me-up for your Supers roleplaying fun.

Character generation is very light and simple. There are no lists of powers, but you don't need them as you'll see. This in fact offers unlimited freedom in creating any character you want. If you want a power like 'Master of The Seven Seas', or 'World's Greatest Marksman', you can have it. Assign a die to it, explain what it does and away you go.

The game uses a D6, D8, D10 and D12. Each die represents a level of power or skill, all of which are determined by the players and the GM. The players in collaboration with the GM, discuss the scale of play and assign values to those dice to create their own benchmarks. You can in effect, run any kind of campaign with these rules (not just supers) since you and your players decide the scope and scale of what those die ratings mean. 'Occupations' are similar - these represent skill sets or specific skills - it's up to you. Assign a D6 to D12 and you're done.

For my Supers campaign I referenced the benchmarks from the Marvel Heroic RPG (the Cortex-based Marvel RPG) and then fine-tuned it. In fact, if you are familiar with Cortex Prime, you can adapt it into Amazing Heroes for a light and streamlined alternative.

The core mechanic is a simple but powerful narrative tool.

You roll the relevant die against a difficulty, whether a task or against an adversary. If you roll a 1 or a 2 you suffer a 'Condition'. Conditions are similar to FATE Aspects. They can be literally anything. If you suffer the exact same Condition again, it gains the 'Really' prefix and you gain a -1 penalty to all further rolls. If you suffer that same condition a third time you become 'Hurt'. If you suffer three 'Hurt' conditions, you are taken out of play, K.O. humiliated, dead etc. It's possible to have multiple Conditions at once, like Exhausted, Really Scorched, Really Bruised, Confused, Humilated, and so on.

If you roll and fail the check, you can fail normally but the GM can also 'Escalate' things with added events or twists happening in the scene. There is world of narrative possiblity here and Escalations add to the drama and action enormously.

Failing a roll with a 1 or 2 means that that the Condition can be literally anything, but it affects you: You suffer a counter-attack, you are shaken, disturbed, become humiliated, uncertain, unfocused, distracted and so on. Characters can also suffer conditions like 'Reckless', 'Crude, Unfeeling' etc, that will impact them socially or on the media etc. Literally, anything is possible.

Failing a roll that is not a 1 or 2 but a fail, means the situation can Escalate and something as a result of the scene, gets worse or more interesting: you stop the fuel truck but it tears, leaks fuel and catches fire.

The way that things develop and escalate from rolling a 1 or 2 or failing the roll will keep any scene dynamic with evolving options and developments.

The system is so adaptable and light, I literally created an afternoon's worth of play just by bullet-pointing some scenario ideas and statting the adversaries, which is an incredibly easy and rewarding experience. There are rules for mobs and mooks which work great.

If something isn't in the book, you can easily stat it up, make a rule etc. and it works great within the game. If you want more depth of crunch, I think it's a true RPG Sandbox, and any GM will easily be able to expand it in many ways beyond its default state - which is a great streamlined, fast RPG that's a lot of fun to play.

ERRATA : In the PDF version there are a couple of errors - a line of text is repeated on page 21 ('If a hero gains the same condition a second time it') and also there is broken text stretched across an image on page 76 near the character's head. Update please Martin !

Five stars without hesitation. An amazing game.

Example of Play:

In a game I ran with Iron Man fighting an armed gang of bank robbers in mid-town Manhattan, the player fired his Repulsors D8 into the robbers (difficulty 4+) as they fled the bank and rolled a 1 which gave Iron Man a Condition. Not only did he miss, he destroyed part of the bank's entrance. This gave him a 'Reckless' Condition.

He then fired rockets at them just as they ran behind cover and rolled a 2. This blew out more public property and he got the 'Really Reckless' Condition. Bystanders were filming him on their phones and it was across social media in minutes. The player then decided to use fists, and knocked out the robbers easily in two rounds. The player then stated he'd use fists in future, when fighting in built-up areas, and leave the weapons systems for open areas.

The 'Really Reckless' condition wasn't removed after the scene, and the story of 'Stark's Recklessness' ran on media through the day. The player decided to have Tony Stark go on TV and offer to repair all the damage and reimburse anyone affected. He rolled his Billionaire Playboy D8 Occupation and got a 6 against a difficulty of 4+, succeeding. This reduced it to 'Reckless', The media then ran the story for a few more days until Stark did a brief PR campaign to clean things up.

All this from failing two combat rolls.

EDIT: Hi Martin, - I just downloaded the PDF and those errors haven't been fixed.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Thanks for the review! Those PDF issues have been fixed! And that's a great example of creative GMing with conditions.
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Amazing Tales, complete kids' RPG
by Christopher H. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/01/2021 12:00:41

2 years ago I was on a quest to find an RPG that my son would want to play that 1) didn't have too many special rule cases 2) could start a new adventure with less than 10 minutes prep 3) let him use his awesome special rpg dice. DriveThru has many options, but Amazing tales fit the bill best. The mechanics are easy to remember and explain. The art in the book is awesome. The tone and advice is very good. You get a handful of settings in the core book, and the Dragoncrown supplement has a full campaign style adventure.

I mostly play Fate or DnD with my friends, but I have used Amazing Tales to spin up a couple of one-shots for my group when we were short too many hands. Great fun. I have even worked it in to my solitaire play a couple of times, and it does well for something more freeform and story focused.

The system is easy, the product is lovely, the supplemental adventures are quality products. If you are at all looking for a narrative focused game (especially for kids) this is worth a look.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Amazing Tales, complete kids' RPG
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Amazing Heroes
by Tim K. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 05/11/2021 05:11:17

To give you a quick summation of my feelings about Amazing Heroes, consider the fact that I'm on record (probably many times) moaning about my inability to cope with reading large PDF files, being an old geezer who thinks books should be printed on paper.

Then consider the fact that I made the effort to read - and make notes about - the 131-page PDF file of Martin Lloyd's new Amazing Heroes superhero roleplaying game; quite possibly the largest PDF file I have read from cover-to-cover.

Recently Kickstarted into existence, this is Martin's reimagining of his original kid-friendly, introductory, roleplaying system, Amazing Tales, but targeting a slightly older demographic.

Geared towards playing superhero characters (although the freeform nature of the game allows for a great deal of flexibility. For instance, I recenly realised it would be great for a Doctor Who game), the style of play encouraged takes its inspiration from superhero TV shows (particularly The CW ones), such as Flash, Arrow, Supergirl etc, while still drawing on the lore and tropes of comic books, of course.

Expanding on the very simple rules at the heart of Amazing Tales, Amazing Heroes is - in a nutshell - the perfect distillation of the core elements you need for a rules-lite, narrative-led superhero campaign.

Rather than explaining, and cataloguing, every possible superpower, such aspects of the game are left to a combination of player creativity and gamesmaster fiat.

Characters have a handful of attributes, and powers, each allocated a die type.

All checks in the game are player-facing, however if a player fluffs his roll in, say, a combat situation, he doesn't automatically get hurt, rather the situation "escalates", meaning it gets worse for the hero and his colleagues.

Straight off I will say that while I absolutely love this approach, as it addresses a lot of the problems I've had, personally, with overly mechanical superhero roleplaying systems in the past, it's not going to appeal to everyone.

Power gamers, people who talk about "optimum builds", and those who welcome characters that need spreadsheets to keep track of, will be scratching their heads at the bare bones nature of Amazing Heroes.

It's about as far from my own traditional, old school, comfort zone as you can imagine, and yet I can see myself finally getting my own campaign running how I envisage it with these simple little rules.

Their primary function is to encourage interesting story creation at a fast-pace, without the necessity of constant rules-referencing, and that, to me, seems perfect for a game seeking to emulate the bif-bam-pow of superhero comics, TV shows, and movies.

The freeform, storygame, approach of Amazing Heroes means the gamesmaster will often be flying by the seat of their pants, but with creative players the story is also very unlikely to run afoul of a crunchy ruling.

It does require the players to buy in to the superheroic world that they and the gamesmaster are creating, but with the right ensemble, of any age, I believe great things are possible.

The whole book is gorgeously illustrated in full-colour, with the player's section of the rules taking up the first 23 pages, followed by about 22 pages of GM advice (ranging from pacing and villain creation to guidelines on awarding experience so that player-characters can grow through the campaign).

The rest of the book covers the default setting of Storm City, on America's west coast, a plentiful array of example villains, a collection of story hooks (tied to different areas of Storm City), and then two adventures.

When you read through Martin's sample setting and the fully-fleshed out adventures, you can immediately grok the fact that you don't need pages and pages of stats and description to run an exciting and inspirational scenario.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Amazing Heroes
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Creator Reply:
Thanks for the review Tim!
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Amazing Heroes
by A customer [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 05/08/2021 18:55:53

I was a big fan of Amazing Tales, so of course I had to get this game. It did not disapoint! As it says in the decription it is for an older audience, and has more rules than his family game, but it's still very "indie" and narative types of rules (YAY!).

It's nice to not have to read a big book, and I love the default setting to the game as it has a lot of info packed into 49 pages, including the iconic pre-gens, and adventure ideas. And there are two really good adventures included too.

Of the things I love about this game the most:

• There is no list os super powers, the players come up with what each of their powers does (which means you don't have to look up stuff during the game).

• The game uses conditions instead of hit points. The conditions rules are more story friendly as they are made up for the situation that caused them.

• The GM does not roll dice. Now this might sound lame, as who does not want to roll dice? But here me out: the GM not having to roll dice keeps the heat off of you when the players roll poorly. It also helps get rid of the adversary habit that has still stuck around in gaming tradtions from back in the dark ages of D&D.

• Not only does the players section and gm sections have a page dedicated to better practices in being a player and gm, but the book has more great modern gaming advice spread throughout.

The game is easy. It's fun. It starts you with things if you don't have ideas at first, and because it is the same writer as Amazing Tales, it has advice on playing with your kids. It also breaks the mold on how supers rpg books are written and designed. $10 is a bargan for this game!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Thanks for the great review!
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The Travelling Temple of Moo
by Xtian X. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/01/2021 12:34:13

The text as it is, is not meant for little childrens. I had to change the story to play it with my 5 year old daughter, because it would be too heavy to say to her that the people was being sacrificed to the great beast at the temple.



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
The Travelling Temple of Moo
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The Quest for the Dragon Crown
by DANIEL S. D. A. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 12/31/2020 21:39:40

I love this adventure! Just went though with my two daughters (5 and a half year old) and they are loving it so much. They just solved the puzzle (with help of Mommy, that loved it too). Cannot recommend it enought.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Quest for the Dragon Crown
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Amazing Tales, complete kids' RPG
by Alexander M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/28/2020 20:58:59

My son uses this so much, he started at 3 and he is now 5. It's incredible and has helped with reading writing and mathmatics.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Amazing Tales, complete kids' RPG
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