Vornheim: The Complete City Kit, Review Part One

     Vornheim: The Complete City Kit
     Art & Writing by Zak S.
     Published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess
     64 page Hardcover, also available as PDF


     For the TLDNR crowd I'll condense my first statement to this:
VORNHEIM SPARKS JOY IN THE COLD DEAD COCKLES OF MY ASHY WITHERED HEART.

  
     I purchased Vornheim in January of 2013 and it changed and improved my games, more than any other gaming book I've read.  My only regret ends up being a personal one, in that I didn't learn about it and buy it sooner!

     How did it change your game Bast?
The timing of when I bought the book is important for context; it landed in my paws about five years into my flailing or failing Changeling: the Lost campaign.  It helped me streamline my NPC creation in the end months of running that campaign.  I'll elaborate on that in Part 2 of this review.

     Bast, you say Vornheim improved your games more than any other game book.  That's a strong claim.  Can you say more about how Vornheim can help someone who might be struggling with city portions of their TTRPG campaigns?
I think this question can be better served by re-appearing in Part 2 where I'll be explaining how I use Vornheim either in prep or at the table.  What I will say here in Part 1 is this book helped me to think more about information design.  Also, if you haven't gotten the memo: DIE DROP TABLES FUCKIN' RULE.

     This is a high quality book in physical form.  I've been bringing it to every game I've run since I started my LotFP campaign a few years ago.  It's one of my must haves for both prep and in-game.


     To purchase a physical (plus PDF) copy from Lamentations of the Flame Prince webstore

http://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=67

     If your are a digital only cat, you can get the PDF by itself from DriveThru RPG

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/91110/Vornheim-The-Complete-City-Kit?term=vornheim&test_epoch=0

The Upside of Burnout

Where are the extra character sheets at Vega?

 Or, a new DM emerges from the player pool to run their first game(s)!
2017 was a less consistent year of gaming than I would have liked in regards to the campaign(s) I've set out to run.  I was humming along through March, then as I was putting energy into starting a small business, I was unable to run games regularly through the late spring and whole summer. I hit the wall/got burnout/started suffering from "DM's Block" back in August/September of the year to kind of add to the mix.  At the same time it was the beginning of great new things for my gaming group.   One of my players stepped up and started running D&D 5e (the adventure from the starter set, Lost Mines of Phandelver) as their first foray into DMing.  On 12/10/17 we played our tenth session using that adventure material, and probably have about two more sessions of play by my guesstimate (I haven't read the adventure.)  It's been fun stepping out of the DM role for awhile and coming at things from a player's perspective!  And watching someone grow into being a good improvisational DM has me both impressed and inspired to get back to DMing soon.  After this 5e adventure wraps up, the plan is for me to run a one or two session game of Call of Cthulhu (6th edition... I've heard the editions 1-6 are congruent with each other and that 7th has made either a refinement on or departure from that through
line depending on who you listen to/read.)  This will be my first time running/playing CoC.  I've been enjoying Lovecraft's work for more than twenty years, so I'm quite excited to get my paws into this game!  After that wraps up, I want to get back to running my Lamentations of the Flame Princess campaign "Year of the Goat."