First this is a book meant for WFRP - but I'd actually recommend this for any fantasy game system.

What this book is - in Warhammer terms - is a guide to running a campaign in the boarder lands.  The boarderlands in WFRP are an area of the old world that is largely left alone.  It's out of the grand story scheme so you are pretty much free to do what you want there without having to worry about effecting WFRP canon - if that's something that you want to be mindful of.  The area is vast and varied.  Minor princes rule their own areas and are constantly fighting with one another.  There are ancient hidden ruins waiting to be discovered and vast wildernesses yet unmapped.  It's a place where you are free to have your players rise up and become rulers of their own lands and create your own political strife without having to worry about the rest of the Old World.  It's also a land where you can drop in pretty much anything and it'll work.

Really it's a place to play your own flavor of fantasy using the WFRP rules.  So then, what is this book about.  I mean ultimately it's a book saying make up whatever you want.  But that doesn't really sell.  Instead what this book contains is a guide on how to create your own lands.  It's a campaign building guide that is equally at home in WFRP as it would be in any fantasy setting.  

The first part of the book gives guidelines/rules on how to create your own area.  It's a lengthy process but straight forward.  You start buy deciding on how big of an area you want the recommended size is a 20x20 grid on graph paper.  Each square represents 4miles.  You then start rolling up on random charts that will help fill in the terrain.  So you might have a chart that says add dx grassland squares so you'd then colour in X squares as grassland.  You keep rolling adding terrain until you get your area filled.   Once that's done you start to add in the interesting places like the various prince domes, ruins and what not.  Once that is done you start generating what those places are like.  It's a straight forward process but in the end you'll have an area that's detailed out and ready to adventure in.

All this is randomly done.  The intent is to generate some inspiration along the way so you don't need to rely on the charts.  But when you are stuck for an idea - hit up a chart.  All the charts are pretty generic and don't really touch on any WFRP rules.  There may be some specific WFRP flavor say an area where Beastmen hang out but that's easily changed to Bugbears if D20 is your thing.

Once your are is set up they have more charts for random encounters, random events, random people, random adventure seeds etc..etc..etc..  It's a campaign building book that starts from the ground and builds it all the way up to a flushed out living setting.  I've seen other books of this nature and I'll be perfectly honest when I say that this seems to cover far more ummm ground then any of the others I've read.

After they give you your own rules on how to create your new play ground they give you some examples of areas they've made.  The examples them selves work as good places to play in.  But more importantly they just show how the rest of the rules work and create some solid grounding if you are stuck on how to tie the whole thing together.

After that we have rules on how to run a more political based campaign where your characters are rules of a land.  It's got adventure seeds on the type of trouble a ruler would face and also has mechanics based into how long a ruler can bugger off adventuring before his people start to cause their own trouble.  This section is well done and for me does a good job balancing a political intrigue with general adventuring.  Someone hoping for great detailed rules on running an entire politics based game will probably find this section to be lacking.  But I would imagine they'd find most gaming books covering that sort of campaign to be lacking.

From then they have more seeds random generators and general tips on how to flush out your world.  They have generic NPC's stated out if you need to drop something in and then more reference tables at the back of the book.

I'd say that 90% of this book is generic fantasy mechanics that would be at home in any system.  Of the remaining 10% most of that are Warhammer Specific terms like - Beastmen that can easily be swapped out for your preferred system specific antagonist.  Even the NPC's at the back you'd only be missing out on their stats if you used this for another game.  Their flavor text is still useful.

This truly is a crossover product that I'd recommend to any GM for any fantasy gaming system.  It also goes into my list of must have Warhammer books (Core, Bestiary, Realms of Sorcery, Realms of Chaos and now Renegade Crowns).

Really top notch fantastic book.

Hi Kryyst:

Why didn't you put this in the review section?

-clash

Was I the only person who read this as "Renegade Clowns"?

Quote from: flyingmiceHi Kryyst:

Why didn't you put this in the review section?

-clash

Laziness and the fact that I posted it while at work.

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonWas I the only person who read this as "Renegade Clowns"?

No (based on responses on other forums I've posted this at).

Renegade Clowns would also make for a fantastic WFRP supplement/novel.

Ohhhhh god.... must get this book.... aaaagghhhh  :drool:

RPGPundit

Jesus Kryyst, I think Pundit's brain just broke!

Quote from: JongWKJesus Kryyst, I think Pundit's brain just broke!

Then my job is done.

"Border Lands." How the fuck can you read the entire book and get that wrong? Consistently?

The mandatory nazism out of the way, I'll add that Black Industries makes a beautiful product: hardcover, really nice art for the most part, good editing, and easy to read.

OMG... I've had an idea similar to this one (random generate landscape and adventure sites on a grid, not writing a similar book for WFRP ) just a couple of days ago... and here it comes. Sometimes life is strange :eyecrazy:

Some actual examples of Renegade Crowns' rules. Pretty cool!

A lot of people don't like RC -- and I can see why. I do like it and am glad I bought it, but I wouldn't rush out and buy it necessarily.

The reason for this is, well... It's been pointed out that it's not difficult to make up your own Border Princes territory. And this is true. To make one or two locations, the random tables probably aren't all that useful. And you have to ask yourself, how many Border Princes campaigns are you really going to run?

The main way I think RC is useful is for something like a picaresque game, possibly in the vein of Cugel's Saga, with wandering PCs going from one horrible border town to the next. Another suitable game type - and actually probably a better one for the Border Princes, now that I think about it - would be with the PCs as mercenaries or hired troubleshooters a la Renaissance Italy.

Unfortunately, RC's second half is all about staying in one place. That is, it's a set of guidelines for a Machiavellian warring princes game. I honestly think that if you're going to present this as the default campaign type, then you shouldn't go the route of "the Border Princes change too much so sod the background, here are some tables". I think they would have been better served focusing on a more mobile campaign type in this section and spent comparatively less time on the PCs-as-rulers stuff.

I got this book while in Canada, and I haven't read it in its entirety yet, but I already love it.

RPGPundit

I've had my eye on this for a while now, but lack of funds has prohibited luxury purchases. Once I'm solvent again it'll be hoovered up in the great WFRP binge I'm planning. Every book published post-Realms of Sorcery will be mine...

This book sounds right up my alley.