Pyramid Review: . . . And a 10-Foot Pole

Pyramid Review

. . . And a 10-Foot Pole

Published by Iron Crown Enterprises

Written by Maxwell Bernhardt

$20.00

Have you ever been playing or running an RPG and found yourself looking through an equipment list for that special something but it just wasn't there? How many game systems have a listing for a weaving loom? Or a shepherd's crook? Or a jar of leeches? Well, now your search is over. . . . And a 10-Foot Pole is a new release from ICE and it wants to be the place you go to find any equipment that your characters may need. While it is based on ICE's Rolemaster Standard System it is designed as a generic supplement for any roleplaying game.

I have wanted this kind of RPG supplement for a very long time. Like many other gamers, I have cobbled together a big list of equipment from several sources. This book finally pulls together a list of nearly anything that a character could want from the Stone Age through modern times. But it's not just a list of equipment. It includes a lot of good basic information on trade and commerce as well.

The book is organized by time period. Each time period has several pages of introduction that sets the mood and helps the GM and players understand the basics of how a culture at that level functions. I am not a historian or an economist, so the little bits of explanation throughout the book were very valuable to me. Perhaps my favorite is the "Daily Wages and Worth Chart" in Chapter 1. It is a great way to quickly judge the amount . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: May 7, 1999

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