Samples
Free PDF previews
“Try before you buy” is a big deal for us, so we make a free, robust sample available for each of our books. Here they are, newest to oldest:
- Excerpts from Focal Point — A 19-page PDF that includes the front and back covers, table of contents, and a sample from each major section of the book.
- Excerpts from Unframed — This 10-page PDF includes the introduction, table of contents, and the first half of two different essays from Unframed.
- Excerpts from Odyssey — A 19-page PDF that provides samples from different chapters of Odyssey, as well as the table of contents.
- Excerpts from Never Unprepared — This 16-page PDF offers up samples from throughout the book, giving you an idea of the kind of advice and techniques you’ll find in Never Unprepared.
- 18 NPCs from Masks (and more) — This 17-page PDF features 18 NPCs suitable for dropping into your campaign (6 each for fantasy, sci-fi, and modern), as well as samples from other sections in the book.
- 12 adventure plots from Eureka (and more) — This 19-page PDF includes 12 plots that you can use right away (4 each for fantasy, sci-fi, and horror), as well as samples from other parts of the book.
Freebies
Over the years, we’ve created a few freebies for conventions, and received a couple of excellent tools created by readers. They’re all available here:
- New NPC: Alia Tholk — Given to seminar attendees at Gen Con 2012, this 2-page PDF presents a new character — Alia Tholk, Reality Explorer (the woman depicted on the cover of Never Unprepared) — in the Masks format and demonstrates how to use Alia in a sci-fi plot from Eureka.
- Four Plot-NPC Pairings — Used at SCARAB 2011, this 4-page PDF presents four fantasy plots from Eureka, each of which is paired with an NPC from Masks that you can use in the adventure. It’s a great example of how easy it is to combine these books.
- Masks Sci-Fi Mini Campaign — Handed out to seminar attendees at Gen Con 2011, this 2-page PDF presents a sci-fi mini-campaign, “Fathers and Suns,” that you can create using three plots from Eureka and four NPCs from Masks — and it’s a good tutorial on combining Masks and Eureka in your game.
- Eureka Fantasy Mini-Campaign — Given out to seminar attendees at Gen Con 2010, this 2-page PDF presents a fantasy mini-campaign, “The Star of Winter,” that you can create using four plots from Eureka. It’s also a good example of how to combine Eureka plots into longer arcs.
- Sortable Masks NPC matrix — Created by Masks fan Adrian Thornton, this spreadsheet lets you filter, sort, and drill down to exactly the type of NPC you need. (You’ll need a copy of Masks to use it.)
- Sortable Excel plot matrix — Created by Eureka fan Ville Makkonen, this spreadsheet enables you to sort and filter Eureka plots by a range of criteria. For example, if you want a city-based small-scale social plot you could use the following filters: city, social, NOT epic, NOT isolated area. (This matrix requires a copy of Eureka to use, of course!)
