Vornheim: The Complete City Kit

This book is physically small - a thin little volume printed in a small format - but, like a Tardis, there's more inside than the space should allow.The back of the dust jacket will tell you that every single surface inside is crammed with tools for the GM, and that's almost true. The fact that there's a blank page inside the front endpaper doesn't really matter except in a technical sense - and it shouldn't matter, because every OTHER surface really IS crammed to bursting with useful stuff. This includes the endpapers, the front matter, and the book covers themselves.The art inside may not actually be playable tools, and it may not be to your taste (actually, it's not to my taste, but that's very subjective), but it blurs the line - artwork becomes maps, maps become artwork - are we looking at a drawing you can use to guide play, or a map that's ... unconventional in its format? (Yes). Whatever your taste in art, the reviewer who said "...it goes too far" and called it indecent must actually be seeing things on a deeper metaphysical level than I can perceive, because there's nothing in here to warrant that prudish outburst.What you will find in here is: A) information and maps regarding Vornheim, B) three playable settings that will surprise you, C) some amazing ideas and tools for on-the-fly city generation, including D) a variety of excellent and innovative random generation tables.Let's take those in order.Info and maps regarding Vornheim: Well, I use the word "maps" stretched to the edges of its meaning, but that's just the nature of Vornheim. The inside of the dust jacket has a densely printed "map" of Inner Vornheim, not to scale, compressed and distorted, unkeyed and with elements omitted. Inside, you'll find illustrations of the Palace Massive and the Eminent Cathedral, with rooms labeled, but they are hardly playable maps. Still, that doesn't matter. There's so much crammed into this little book that an omission is merely an invitation for you to rise to the challenge and apply your own imagination. And I didn't just say maps, I mentioned info. Here we get a glimpse into the fever swamp that is the mind of Zak Sabbath, the creator. For example:"It is known to scholars that the skins of all snakes can be read like books."And:"If someone is murdered within the city, their skull must be split in half before they are buried, or else a succubus will incubate in its skull and rise from the grave, fully formed, after 17 days."This is just a sample.Three playable settings: The House of the Medusa, the Immortal Zoo of Ping Feng, and the Library of Zorlac. Each full of original ideas, characters, and creatures.Tools for on-the-fly city generation: Especially the Urbancrawl Rules - innovative and workable shortcuts, brilliant, actually. But much more than that.And: Tables. Yeah, we've all seen lots of tables, starting with the 1st edition DMG. But these tables are different, with results you've never seen before. From the Magic Effects table: "Target's toes auto-amputate and become maggots, biting the target..." From the Fortunes (like a fortune cookie) table: "You will decapitate the wrong wizard." From descriptions on the Aristocrats table: "Was in love with someone the PCs killed."Wow! Talk about a story hook! And this book, this tiny little mini-tome (maybe a tomelette?), is bursting with rich ideas like that.Forget the little weaknesses, the blank page, the challenging art. They only serve to bring this book DOWN to a five star rating - and even with them, it might still be off the scale. This is a small masterpiece.Thank you, Zak!

Best city supplement I've ever seen. There's enough flavor material to give you a good feel for Vornheim but the books core is really the random encounter tables and other tools for creating material on the fly. These tools are well thought out and have already changed the way I think about running a game.The book is small, 6" by 8 1/2" and 64 pages. when I took it out of the shipping envelope I was like WTF! $20 and this is it. After I read through it a few times it started to make sense though; It has what it needs and nothing else, that is part of what makes it so usable. It is hardcover, well bound in some nordic country. It has a dust jacket, which I usually hate, they always have cool artwork so you don't want to lose them, but they wont stay on the book either. But with Vornheim it lends an air of mystique.I have come to really appreciate the portability of the book, its something that's nice to have on hand when running a game. My only gripe about the size is that the font is pretty small on some of the random tables, particularly the aristocrats and the NPC's. but of the compromises that had to made for those charts small font was the right one; other options would be to shorten the descriptions, split the table onto 4 pages, enlarge the book, or remove a third of the entries, so I'm happy it came down to just tiny letters.This is a 10 minute video of a game run by the books author. [no links allowed in amazon reviews i guess. type(...)*I don't know any of these people, but I can't stop watching the video of Zac's game.Great book, buy yours before they run out.

The author clearly has a brilliant mind that is significantly "off", just to my liking. Never mind that it is a fantastic roleplaying accessory. That does not begin to describe the genius of the book. The 'straights' are likely turned off by the author/artist's work as a porn star. Whatever. This book is for the outcasts, like me, that were gaming when gaming was very much less than cool. I don't drink anymore, but if I did I would love to share a snip with Zak Smith. Absolutely wonderful.

The bulk of the book is campaign specific locations and some generic random tables to generate NPCs, book, taverns, etc. They are all useful, but don't particularly stand out from the many other sources of such material.But the pages on generating urban areas and specific building on the fly and for travel and chases through urban areas are game changing. Once you practice the easy hacks they describe it become simple to quickly create villages, towns, and cities on the fly.This is a must have for any GM running a home-brew or sandbox campaign.

Great book for gaming in a city. Generates on the fly; lots of great detail. Did I mention this is part of the "Lamentations of the Flame Princess" series? Not full of cute hobbits and elves. These guys will rob you blind and leave you bleeding out in a ally .

On one hand, some great tools for DM's/GM's to generate a ton of random content quickly. On the other hand, there is quite a bit of content and flavor that is specific to Vornheim/LotFP (understandably so). Minor complaint is that this book is small - smaller than an iPad tablet, where I was expecting a larger book along the lines of D&D sourcebooks. It is also very *thin* at 60 some-odd pages but most of the content being random charts, which might turn off some people at a cost/page of content.

Dreadfully Beautiful. This book sucks you into the winding passages of Vornheim and ensures that you never want to leave. Every piece is unique, serves a purpose, and inspires a reader to create more. Buy it. You won't regret it.

Very good product, I would recommend.