This third issue has as main topic maritime adventures and exploring, a fact that includes trading, pirates awaiting to obtain big booty and the most classic swashbuckling adventure.
Content Reviews
To make this review I will break down contents in three different parts along the general structure of the magazine.
Inside Featured Content you will find the following contents:
Merchants & Margins contains the necessary rules for managing buying and selling goods in a similar way as games like Traveller (where trading is an important part of the setting), thus including a thoroughly description of items for trading in a medieval-fantastic society or even the 1gth, 17th and 18th centuries (as can be seen from the pictures that accompany the article).
Cinematic Combat proposes a set of modifications for combat rules of games based upon the D20 ssytem. With those modifications referees can concentrate on offering really notable antagonists, not only a set of hit points waiting to be killed, that will be seriously troublesome for playing characters (the article offers 3 sample creatures with modified gaming stats for an inmmediate use in any gaming session).
Harbour of Thieves offers a cave as a pirate hideout, with a full-colour map and related descriptions of the site easily extendable.
Razor Coast Preview offers a preview of the Frog God Games supplement detailing this archipelagoand we would easily find captain Jack Sparrow.
Inside articles for players we will find the following ones:
Swashbuckling Feats offers a set of feats related to backgrounds and combat maneuvers allowing players to be brilliant as in the best adventure films.
Learn to Spell offers 37 new spells realted whith the sea and depths.
Parry & Riposte takes a look to diferent sword types ans cutting weapons a swordsman could want to use, with some samples of swords the history of which can give you ideas for creating your own.
The Rifleman is a class derived from the Gunslinger appearing in D20PFSRD (to look for guns as equipment see this link).
Inside articles for Game Masters we will find the following ones:
Revenge Gazpacho offers advice to consider for creating a polt based in universal classics like The Count of Monte Cristo or The Three Musketeers (yes, I know the title's article can be a little odd for Spanish gamers, but the author is using it referencing the saying "Vengeance is a dish better served cold").
Creature Feature: Gearforged Steed presents a metal-build artificial steed build that moves thanks to a clockwork mechanism and a boiler.
Legendary Locations: Modani’s Breath offers the description and game stats of a mysterious ship said to exist for many centuries ago and visited all the world's harbours; we can also find game stats for the twins captaining the ship and a crewman and a randm table for generating some magic objects that can be found inside it.
Inside columns we will find the following articles:
World Craft: Port Parlay describes a port to be used as a safe harbour by pirates. Port Parlay in fact is a pile-dwelling city built taking advantage of the structure of many ships, or part of, and raising platforms so its always growing. Besides the city description there is a list of the most important factions, a list of places and a pair of adventure ideas.
The Good, The Bad, The Henchmen it's located in year 1652 France and presents a set of characters (using Mutants & Masterminds rules) living in the small town of Pontoise, in the outskirts of Paris, and where every night a series of mysterious attacks and fires occur...
Expanding on the Rules offers the characteristics for 6 ships of the Age of Exploration (15th to 17h centuries), so it is a perfect for all maritime adventures you may want to write.
Final thoughts
Contents of this third issue of Open Gaming Monthly are really adaptable to any game (not only those derivatives of the D20 system or similar ones) with the help of the game reference at D20PFSRD. In fact the system described in Cinematic Combat is very similar to other existing games and the trade system described in Merchants & Margins is really easy, you only need to change values and difficulty numbers to adapt them to the chosen ruleset (perhaps the only thing missing is rules relating to transport purchased goods, it would be interesting to relate in some way the load capacity of the ships described in the magazine with the units used in the trading system, have any of you any idea about it?).
In conclusion, this third issue is really interesting and absolutely recommended.
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