Not your average “adventure seeds” product, the “Adventure Idea Factory” offers a thorough, well-conceived system for randomly generating a complete adventure plan for any sci-fi RPG. The book offers explanations of at least a substantial paragraph for each element listed on the various tables. Sidebars tracing “Larry’s” experiences using the tables help to illustrate the process.
I’d never heard of DwD Studios before receiving a review copy of this product (which appears to be their first), and “Adventure Idea Factory” makes a very good first impression. I don’t need much help coming up with plots for fantasy RPG sessions, but I look forward to using the “Adventure Idea Factory” to help me think through adventures for the Star Wars Saga Edition adventures I run for my sons and their friends. (The guy on the front cover even looks like the animated Clone Wars version of Obi-Wan Kenobi.) Note that the tables use d% and d10 rolls, but there is no system crunch associated with constructing an adventure using the “Idea Factory.” Stories constructed using this tool could equally well be used for Star Wars (d6, d20, Saga, whatever), Star Frontiers, Traveller, or whatever system you prefer.
In addition to its usefulness, the “Adventure Idea Factory” is attractively presented and fun to read. There are a few little errors that need polishing. For example, Bertrand Russell’s name is misspelled in the epigram, ellipses consistently lack their leading space, and “in medias res” is misspelled as “en-media-res.” Such errors are few and far between, and don’t reduce the system’s utility at all, but still should have been caught in editing. On the other hand, the PDF is very helpfully bookmarked, a feature that some publishers forget to include even in lengthier PDFs.
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