I've had a chance to go over the Bestiary. As my young nephew would say, "it's full of win." With an iconic selection of monsters, it provides everything one could want in an initial bestiary. I also like the new treasure tables and greatly appreciate the new spells sprinkled through the book.

Some things that stand out for me is the Assassin write-up (can't wait to use one against the players); the entries on dragons, elementals, and genies; and the interesting (in a sort of Lovecraftian way) Merfolk method of reproduction. I've never used merfolk in any game I've run, but the somewhat sinister edge given to them here has tantalizing possiblilites.

Demons were a bit glossed over, reduced to a short-duration shock trooper. With a summoning DC of 22 and the uncertainty of being able to control one, a magician would have to be desperate or crazy to resort to demon summoning when he could more easily call a totally loyal (though expensive) genie or an elemental (assuming he had access to those spells).

The Bestiary nicely complements the core rules, and I'm looking forward to future releases! Nice work, gentlemen!

Regards,

V

Thanks mate! Jamie did most of the monsters you mentioned, including expanding the original dragon (very well I might add). I'm responsible for the demon; I was going to include lots of different demons, but that'll have to wait for the Hammerax book

Most of the monsters we attempted to base on mythological perception rather than modern fantasy perception, which is why the merfolk are like that

By the way, any chance I could get you to post a review on DriveThru for it? The more reviews the better, whether good or bad; it let's us (and the public) know about the game, and if bad, allows us to improve.

Shane, who is still chuffed a staff reviewer at DriveThru gave QUERP 5 out of 5 stars!

I was out of town for the last week and just got back. I'll post reviews on Drive-Thru in the next couple of days.

Regards,

V

Thanks mate. How's the game going?

The game is going very well! I dusted off my old HARN campaign setting by Columbia Games which I've not touched in over a decade. Since the setting is rules neutral and very realistic, the QUERP rules fit with it beautifully.

The campaign started with the players meeting with the Sheriff of royal town of Olokand who asks them to travel to a village on the western edge of his domain to investigate rumors of trouble. He had requested a report from the knight who holds fiefdom over the village and was not satisfied with the "no problems here; everything's fine" response. The sheriff is too occupied with local problems to make the journey himself so he taps the players to investigate.

Enroute, the players encounter a band of goblins led by an orc warrior and an orc magician. As I expected, they made short work of the band however, the next encounter that evening with a wraith had the players shouting "run away, run away!"

Reaching the village, the players receive a cold welcome from the knight. Questioning the villagers revealed that a few weeks prior the knight, seeking to increase his farmlands, crossed the river that formed the western border of the kingdom and had the serfs begin clearing land. This provoked an attack by the Taelda barbarians who claim the land for themselves. The knight then brought in a band of mercenaries to push back the Taelda. However, the mercenaries exceeded their mandate and massacred a Taelda village. Now the Taelda are organizing for a major attack and the knight is seeking a way to defuse the situation without reporting to his liege that he is the cause of the crisis.

Add to this, villagers and local miners are being murdered, their mutilated bodies found on the outskirts of the village. The players picked up on this and tracked the killer, a troll, to his lair. After a tough fight, the players killed the troll.

Investigating the lair, they find that it was once a Dwarven mine and forge, now abandoned for nearly a thousand years. One of the players found a +1 axe; another a +1 Defense ring. But the major find was enchanted tin tablets, resistant to rust, inscribed with the history of the dwarves in the region.

The tablets pre-date the destruction of the dwarven city of Kiraz by the necromancer Lothrim, 600 years prior, and give strong clues to the location of a secret entrance to the city. After the city was reconquered by the dwarves, it was sealed for all time as a tomb and monument to the fallen. The dwarves abandoned the region and dilligently worked to erase all knowledge of its location. Kiraz eventually faded into legend. Now the players have a general idea of where it is and are tempted by the legendary wealth left behind by the grieving dwarves.

However, they still have the immediate problem of the massing barbarian forces. They are not sure yet how they intend to deal with them. One of the players favors kidnapping the knight and handing him over to the Taelda as a peace offering.

This is where we stand at the moment. We didn't get to play last week since I was away, but we should pick the game up again this week. Elements from Keep on the Borderlands and a few other 1E modules will be worked into the plot as the game progresses, but mostly I'm letting the players set the direction of the game according to their actions.

Regards,

V

Sounds like a lot of fun! Are the rules holding up well? Are you finding it 'rules lite' (ie, are the players more concerned with the story than pimping up their characters?)

I find the system absolutely rules lite! Once the players got over the shock of no long lists of skills and feats or reams of situational rules, they started focusing on their characters' motivations and backgrounds. It took a couple of sessions for them to figure out what stat to use for various abiliity checks, but they have the grasp of it now. I'm happy because I can concentrate on the plot instead of having to check volumes of rules to make sure an encounter is "balanced."

The few house rules I came up with cover the players' perceived gaps in the system; the magician player is now happy because he knows there are more spells out there for him to eventually acquire while the warrior player's desire to wield dual weapons has been satisfied. While no one is playing a demi-human at the moment, the players like knowing that there is a house rule available should they choose. We are all pleased with using experience points to buy up a character's stats and acquire spells.

To me, the old Basic/Expert D&D box sets was the best iteration of D&D because those rules covered just enough material to give structure to a campaign and allowed a group to tailor the rules to fit their style of play with minimum effort. QUERP achieves the same simplicity with fewer, more intuitive, game mechanics.

Were I designing the QUERP Third Edition, the only things I would do is include the rules for demi-humans, add spell lists for magicians and priests (about a dozen spells for each in addition to those given at character creation; enough to dole out during play but leaving room for more spells in future releases), add my two weapon fighting rule in the Combat section, update the treasure tables, and tighten up the layout a bit to save page count.

Regards,

V

I agree, having more spells to choose from would be an advantage. The upcoming characters book will address this issue, as well as a few others. Although the basic rules will remain the same for choosing characters, there will be other options.

I actually wouldn't change much in a 3rd edition, at least nothing that adds more complexity to the game. However, having said that, the direction I am leaning for the Hammerax book will sort of be an Advanced QUERP, so to speak, as it will be a little more complex, drawing on new material devised since the release of QUERP and aimed squarely at the type of world Hammerax will be.

The characters book sounds like it should address the few things I'd change in the system; I'm looking forward to it. From the few references about the gods and the city of Port Bannon in the existing books, I'm interested in learning a lot more about the Hammerax setting. Making it the jumping off point for advanced rules makes sense.

Regards,

V

Mmm. Well, no promises Port Bannon will be in the Hammerax book...

Hammerax is a setting that is pretty well fleshed out. The original idea was to have Hammerax be the default setting for QUERP, but it would be in Hammerax's present time; however, I have made the decision to set the Hammerax book about 4000 years in the past. Can't say much more than that, other than I may include a some more infomration in the book about other Ages of the Ancient World.