Product Spotlight: Lifeform Maker
I want to start this article by saying that I do not personally know the people over at Ennead games and have not talked with them specifically about their products. But I enjoy their work so much that I wanted to give it a plug on my blog anyway, and realized that with their current sale going on, now is the perfect time.
To those that know me, it's no secret that I'm a big fan of system agnostic material. If it's something that I can easily assimilate into my system of choice, I'm all ears. A while back I was delighted to discover the wealth of gaming goodness developed by the folks at Ennead Games. I've kept an eye on them overtime, and love what they put out. But there's one product in particular that has caught my eye.
The Lifeform Maker is a 49 page science fiction supplement suitable for most RPGs. It can generate a species in great detail, from microscopic beings to massive creatures. One of the cool things about the generator is that if a Gamemaster needs to make up a creature on the fly, they can do so with the quick creation rules. There's also an incredibly in-depth generator which takes up the rest of the document. This is of such a size that it will take some time for a Gamemaster to really flush out the species and they will definitely want to do so before a gaming session. This kind of diversity, offering two distinct styles of generation is very welcome.
I'm a huge fan of generators, particularly good ones that really allow a Gamemaster to focus on sandbox play. One of the nice things about this one, is that much of the generation is cosmetic and doesn't need specific rules in any particular game, yet each piece is still very important in flushing out a species such as flesh coloration, amount of fingers, and diet.
If you're looking for a solid system agnostic product, I'd say that this is a good start, particularly if you're a fan of generators that help spark ideas in the Gamemaster. If you were to combine this with the planet generator which is also a solid product you would have plenty of sci-fi goodness at your fingertips that could cross over to most systems. I would love to eventually use these to spawn a Star Trek style sandbox game for my group. At the time of this writing, the Lifeform Maker is only $1.99 which is an incredibly low price for such a solid supplement. To sweeten the pot, Ennead games is actually having a sale running until December 25th, 2017 where you can get some great bundles, including all of their products, for an incredibly low price. It's definitely worth checking out.
