Review and Commentary On Fish Wife Games Really Big Island Of Adventure! For Your Old School Campaigns

 While there are a bunch of free maps available out on the net, Fish Wife Games sent me this right when I needed it for my DCC rpg adventure night. And I was trying to emulate a certain brand of old school text style computer games from the early 80's which dove tailed in with old school AD&D style first edition adventures. And that's where Fish Wife Games Really Big Island Of Adventure! hits its sweet spot, this series of maps could conceivable contain just about anything that your twisted imaginations can conceive of.

This is a DM's product, no if or buts about it. This Really Big Island is meant to be used when you've got less then fifteen minutes to print off a section of what you need and to drop several encounters right into the back end of your campaigns. You can grab Really Big Island here

How you use this product is very simply, you've got the map already keyed and ready to print out. Simply write in your description around the presentation and then your ready to go. This product can fit a wide variety of genres and settings. Use it to drop in Really Big Island of Adventure  as a science fiction or science fantasy adventure encounter. Add in your favorite literary book by Jules Verne and populate the adventure locations with dangerous mega birds. This location can be used to house a wide variety of things from a post apocalyptic refuge to a dangerous and forbidden lost world location right next door for a Tales Of the Gold Monkey style pulp game. This is a very useful product that comes in well under budget as you can get for use as a system neutral resource.


At a dollar fifty this really is a nice and thrifty set of maps to use if , A. Your going to DYI your own setting, B. your not afraid to do a bit of OSR finger painting in the backdrop and you've got imagination to spare with a few free resources for your favorite rpg system.

Personally each and every time I look at the title and font of this cover I'm reminded of those old 80's men's magazine covers and keep seeing pulpy Indiana Jones and Tales of the Gold Monkey intro's music playing in my head. There are a ton of uses for Really Big Island of Adventure and I'm only scratching the surface here. There are several draw backs to the product however. This is a series of maps that are aimed squarely at the retro gamer market and these maps are solid in what they do. That is to emulate a certain look and feel of a bygone era of gaming. They've got infinite use within their margin of gaming however.
Using these maps is going to put your gamers in a certain mindset and that's a good thing for a DM who wants to stir the pot of this style of play however and these are very well done for the price point. My personal recommendation is to grab these and run with them.

50 Wasteland Caravan Haulers From Fishwife Games For Your Old School Post Apocalyptic Campaigns

    I've been sitting on this pdf for a week, I'm in the middle of constructing another post apocalyptic wasteland one shot. This is where fifty wasteland Caravan Haulers comes,when you need a group of NPC's on the open road.  These folks are the survivors and deviants that haul they're ass across the wasted landscape under an unforgiving sky. For the price of  less then a dollar you get a complete encounter kit and random list of folks to populate your world. 

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  This product is exactly what it says on the tin, a kit to outfit your game system with gangs of roaming mercenaries, survivors, and adventurers. The list is an expansive echo of weirdness simply waiting to be dropped right into your PA campaigns. Everything is here concisely organized for maximum mayhem in your old school world. Roads and highways are the life blood of the post apocalyptic world and yet very few folks seem to exploit this fact in their games. Well no more. you get a complete break down of the driver's name, the type of vehicle they are using, and the most important goods that they are carrying. Simply perfect to drop that high way pirate right on top of your adventurers or if your PC is that high way pirate the perfect prey. 
 Everything here is tailor made for your post apocalyptic highway adventurers to be pulled into the world of the drivers. This list is very well put together and has very little filler and all meat to exploit for the PC's. The ideas here are simply presented and for a post apocalyptic game solidly done. 

Abandoned Parking Lot: Lot A From Fishwife Games For Your Old School Post Apocalyptic Campaigns

There are times in the wastelands where a DM  wants to slow your party's roll whist adventuring through the wastelands. And that's exactly what I did the other night. During my Thundarr game I wanted the party to have a mix up with some vat grown goblins. This little gem provided me with exactly the right mix of elements I needed. A full map of the cars and trucks, a mix of different types of vehicles and the potential for greed and monster encounters. I was able to supply the monsters and the rest went done smoothly. Partially because of the diversity of this product. There seven pages of potential post apocalyptic flash point artifact rusty gold and relic conditions. Greed is always a nice motivator & Fishwife games knows how to bring a bit of mystery to the table.

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According to the product's introduction this is a part of the design of it. 

The parking lots of the post apocalypse is littered with an assortment

of abandoned vehicles. All of these hunks of metal are waiting for the

characters to exploit, loot, and possibly even drive off in. Though the

Game Master and the players might have a few ideas of what sort of

vehicles they would love to find, the parking lots of the urban wastes

are random with their offerings. Some cars and trucks are worthy finds,

others are semi-useless hunks of crap. Some of the interior contents of

these vehicles offer the characters much needed supplies and treasure

while some contents lack in anything desirable. Just like the parking

lots of our current times, you are never likely to know what you'll find

until you snoop about a bit. 

This allows a DM to insert this into an adventure location in their wasteland campaign as a fully realized loot zone with lots of potential for mutant monster mayhem. This can be done easily,quickly, and with maximum damage potential to a party in that adventure location. The secret here in the nature of the product is how its designed. 

Each edition of Abandoned Parking Lot will feature a number of random vehicles and their contents. Though the exact make/model of these vehicles is kept generic, such as “Midsize Sedan”, the author has provided a personal suggested variety of vehicle in the description, such as (Chrysler 200).

While it is likely that the parking lot would be connected to the presence of a building or buildings, these structures are left out of the provided maps (one numbered, one unnumbered). This is to allow the GM to easily drop the parking lot into most any urban wasteland area that they intend to use for an adventuring apocalyptic crawl.

 The current edition of Abandoned Parking Lot offers over twenty some vehicles and the parking lot is intended to be located in a rougher neighborhood. There's quite a few drugs to be found in some of these vehicles, indicating that the nearby crime rate was a bit high before the fall of civilization.

The potential to screw with a party of adventurers is quite high in a number of places and simply sit back and watch the situations arise. The design ethos here is concise and clever a hall mark of Dave Woodrum's writing and savoy when it comes to using his product for max. adventuring and story potential in the wastes. Each car is like a mini story waiting to unfold and with mutations such as artifact empathy and telepastic relic reading and the like, the potential here to drop in exposition about the background and history of your Apocalypse is limited merely by your imagination.
This product is completely system neutral and can be applied across the board for games from modern horror to complete post apocalyptic mayhem ala Mutant Future or Mutant Epoch. But there's another side of this product, with a bit of imagination this one little parking lot could be used for a game like Chill, Call of Cthlhu or may other modern games where an abandon parking lot full of cars can mean the difference between life and death.
Lord knows it saved my life the other night and gave the players a nice excuse to have their adventurers face down giant freaking mutant insects called Chatterers. No relation to the Hellraiser character. All in all I think this one is worth your time and patience, with a bit of imagination this product can be used over and over again for years and years to come! 

100 Folks Of The Old West, Set 2 From Fishwife Games As Fodder For Your Old School Space Based Campaigns

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Westerns have always been some of the been the basis for science fiction, there have been a very familial  little pairing with these genres. Which brings us to 100 Folks of The Old West, another Fish Wife Games product which pretty much can be adapted and plugged into the backdrop of your favorite 'New Frontier' sci fi gaming system. 

You can use this as anything from random encounter chart to colony construction kit for your 'New Frontier'  space colony with little to no effort at all. This is a really easy product to adapt as you see fit but wait there's plenty more that can be done.
With a quick twist of genre this product can be used to populate your post apocalyptic American South West alternative Earth. There's plenty that this can be used for in the deep wastelands of the apocalypse. Since these products are system neutral and yes there's a line of them, are easily used anyplace where the 'Old West' is the setting.
The layout here is sold and easily plugged and played in any system. Since my choice of rpg systems is old school & retroclone than this makes things much easier to deal with during adventure construction, location assignment, loot planting, and system implantation.
On the whole this is one the best incarnations of generic Old West system piece products that has come out in the last couple of months, there are a few reasons why I say this. Its cheap, its quickly implemented, the product is system neutral, its no frills and concise, and its stand alone. 

These are all solid pluses for me to buy this product.
Grab this one and ride off into the sunset. 

100 Local Places Of Business From Fish Wife Games For Your Modern and Post Apocaltytic Campaigns

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Fish Wife Games cranks out a great list of  local businesses that can be used as adventure location set dressings or perhaps as random encounter locations. This list sets up a fantastic number of businesses with everything a DM needs to populated your ruins or modern city locations right from the ground up.There's plenty of businesses to explore and for a party of adventurers to stumble upon.
The list can be also used to randomly create a long list of quick encounter locations to populate the ruins of some random wasteland locations in the post apocalyptic landscape with little to no fuss. According to the Rpgnow blurb: 

This 100 list is perfect for quickly churning out local places of business to fill up a modern setting map with. Naturally, as such, this is also a nice way of

getting an idea of what sort of businesses existed prior to a zombie apocalypse, mutant alien invasion, or nuclear war. Simply roll the percentile dice and

consult the chart for a name for each business location and the business type.

Each entry is given their own separate set up, with a quick little note and that's it. Background, monsters,etc is all up to the DM and this creates a vast amount of room for the DM to add in the flavor that they want. ?By using this product a dungeon master can create entire neighborhoods of ruins and a landscape of random consistence that can be used for anything from Mutant Future, Mutant Epoch all the way to a modern crime game all with the toss of the dice.

Using 100 Local Businesses From Fish Wife Games
For Your Old School Campaigns

So because of the nature of the product there's plenty of room to sneak this into a night of gaming as OSR set dressing. The fact is that it can be used before, during, or at the time of a random ruin encounter during play. Think of the random charts that seem to populate post apocalpytic rpgs. You need a business as a back drop to that ruin you just rolled up. What is it? Why is there a ray gun there. What the heck is this place that has an L23 blaster rifle and a skeleton in body armor?
Right so a look on the handy 100 local businesses and its a pizza joint. The soldier was defending a woman and child. Now that we know that its a pizza joint could there be more loot in the kitchen? That's a perfect spot for an encounter with a one eyed flying fungus colony.

To flip this situation on its ear, there's plenty of opportunity to use this list for a modern crime or super hero adventure. Your hero crashes through a store, shop, or business only to find some crime happening in the erm. Wait roll, roll, the breezy hair salon where the 'Medusa' gang has been hiding importing in energy weapons under the guise of hair products.
How about a murder in the local roll,roll, bowling alley which was owned as a front for the mob and the owner's brother was a powerful Don whose eye on his brother's wife caused a rift. Not to mention the issues with local law enforcement. So it was curtains.
With 100 local businesses there's plenty of opportunity to advance, use, and draw heavily on the back stories of your imagination. All this for the price of less then a fast food menu set of fries and with far more utility. 

100 Starport Scum From Fishwife Games For Your Old School Space Opera Campaigns

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Right so here we are with another random encounters table from the twisted mind of Dave Woodrum. This one is right up the alley of those willing to take their adventurers into that wretched hive of scum and villainy. This is a list perfectly suited to that purpose. This simple and easy little encounter chart has all of the space scum, pirates, whores, smugglers, and jerks for your PC's to tangle with.

According to the Rpgnow blurb:
This simple 100 list is perfect for tossing out quick encounters for that shady starport visit. Included are the names of such encounters as well as their role.
I'm partially responsible for this list of hellions because I gave the idea for this encounter list to Dave sometime last week. This is a really nasty twist of several different encounter kits in one. Right off the bat this list can be used for a quick series of throw downs in some nameless space bar, the second is a kit for a quick out fitting of a guild of criminal scum for a group of smugglers and cut throats, further this table could be used to populate a wreck or hyper sleep prison ship quickly.

Using The 100 Starport Scum Table For
Your Old School Campaigns


This chart can easily be converted to wasteland use and like a broken record, this one is being use in my post apocalyptic Mars game. The backgrounds are easily transposed over to a science fiction or fantasy backdrop. The ideas are sold because the backgrounds of the NPC's here are not sketched out with a quick decision on the DM's part. A thumb nail sketch of the NPC can be filled in with as much or as little detail as the players put into it. This will effect the direction, flare, and take of the encounter which might be a small brick into the background of your  world. Many of these encounters are made to be low to mid level throw away bits but they can set a tone and flavor for a campaign.
I do like the definitions that the author has tossed into each encounter. Like a mini thumb sketch it gives the DM a starting point should he chose to fill in more background details of these scalawags and nasty customers. 
With some work these encounters can be used with systems ranging from Traveler, Star Frontiers, and much more depending upon the preferences of the DM. Because they're system agnostic they can be used with a huge variety of space based science fantasy or science fiction rpg systems.
For my own part like the Space Prisons encounter tables its best to roll with the punches that the PCs will be confronted with.
I do love Dave's creativity and ideas that he injects into his products. Fish Wife Games continues to find its uses at my table top and will for years to come. Do pick this one up and have a blast with it. 

100 Space Prisoners: Cell Block 2 From Fishwife Games For Your Old Science Fantasy Campaigns

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I've been using Fish Wife Games supplements for years and 100 Space Prisoners: Cell Block 2 is another of those niche products that they specialize in. This is a nice little 2 page pdf that has all kinds of space scum to fill up your space port cells and detention blocks.
The Rpgnow Blurb:
100 Space Prisoners: Cell block 2:
More prisoners to fill up those star port holding cells, space station jail units, bounty hunter transports, and hulking prison ships. Included in this 100 list is the prisoner’s name, gender, and crime. Simply roll the percentile dice and you are on your way to populating the galaxy with an assortment of incarcerated scumbags!

This is really a small scale tool kit for the Dm to fill in a game's gaps of what actually goes in detention block zeta and alpha, etc. Often for the price of a 'dollar menu' item, you get a nice little list that can fill out with the toss of some dice a whole plethora of incredible NPC's with some really nasty backgrounds for a whole mini campaign of bounty hunting and take downs. These vile space villains could also fill in niches for alien crime lords and mid level space scum to deal PC's a nasty hand of cards. Some of these back alley criminals could act as bridge gaps for DM's to exploit their past crimes for all kinds of lead in adventures. There's lots of potential with these types of lists from Fish Wife.
 Because of the nature of this series its pretty easy to adjust and move this style of lists into a whole range of  interstellar kits for old school campaigns. 

Review and Commentary On 100 Hunting Cabin Items From Fishwife Games For Your Old School Post Apocalyptic Campaigns

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There are ton of lists out there but this one is a pretty damn useful one for my old school post apocalyptic campaigns. The idea is the usual Fish Wife Games formula of a system agnostic product capable of being plugging into your favorite post apocalyptic or modern campaign rules set. For myself this would either be Mutant Future or Mutant Epoch.
Hunting cabins are a double edged adventure location because they can be put anywhere literally. They make excellent old school horror adventure encounter locations or as the perfect pull for a group of mutant adventurers who need a change of pace offered from the wastelands. This list provides the DM with exactly the contents of such a location. But let's take a moment and examine the humble hunting cabin. These locations are isolated, sometimes inhabited, and sometimes abandoned. For horror films they make excellent fodder for either survival or horror adventure locations.
For example the Evil Dead Series part II takes place in exactly one location like this. Everything that goes into making 'Ash' the kick ass hero that he is comes from that hunting cabin. Something to keep in mind for those upcoming cross over games with OD&D. 

 So in the post apocalyptic adventure locations hunting cabins serve as great way stations, encounter points, and more. I've seen these locations popped into a plethora of Gamma World 1st and 2nd edition modules. Into a few recent games of Mutant Epoch and even on some of the levels of the Warden for Metamorphosis Alpha for encounters and artifact location points. 

Hunting cabins also make excellent crossover points for  old school D&D style games where the woods have weird aspects to them and sometimes crossover  into other dimensional realms. Which is where this brings in this great list. This list has everything your party is going to need to salt your hunting cabin adventure location.
For the price of something on the dollar menu at some fast food joint this little beauty has everything to keep your PC's rummaging through a cabin until those mutant murder hobos come home from their hunting trip to ruin their day. This is the list that can help.

Using The 100 Hunting Cabin Items
 From Fishwife Games For Your
Old School Post Apocalyptic Campaigns

Often times I've seen hunting cabins used as simple loot bins for post apocalyptic campaigns and that misses one of the adventure possibilities for these beauties. With Halloween coming up this list can provide a very enticing location for mutant adventurers to happen upon a 'murder nest' for your favorite clan of mutant hillbilly  murder hobos.
The Woodlands also offer the DM to create a very different sort of woodland wasteland for their post apocalyptic games. The sort of rolling woods of forbidden aspect where mutants, witches, zombies, and worse are hiding. Here the wild lands are simply waiting to devour the adventurers and this list offers some the tools to fend off the darkness and horror that awaits your PC's. 

All in all this isn't a bad offering from Fish Wife Games but personally I'd wait till it goes on sale in a bit.