Ring Side Report- RPG Review of Urban Steampunk

Product-Urban Steampunk System- Uber RPG Producer- Uber Goober Games Price- ~$ 13 here http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/100785/Urban-Steampunk-ber-RPG-Steampunk-sourcebook TL; DR- Ankmir is a fun playground, but this book isn't full of player options. 85%

Basics-You can't have steampunk if you don't have a Victorian city full of machines! This book provides a perfect city of steam Ankmir to play in/destroy while giving GM's the options to build their own world.

Theme or Fluff-Much like the other setting books by Uber Goober, this book does a great job of building three different worlds in the same city. Uber Goober sets up a world of steam tech, a world full of rebels, and a world for magic all in the same city. Whatever game you want to play, Uber's sets up the world and gives good background for a great setting to start your own game. 5/5

Mechanics or Crunch- And here is where the book suffers. Just like Steampunk Uncharted, this book isn't a splat book for characters. There are few mechanics discussed here, but don't get this book if you just want more player options. There is a great deal of information regarding all the different important population information a player could want if you want to get super crunchy in your story. It's a story book, but that aspect is done well. 3.5/5

Execution-This book could use some more pictures to distract from the walls of text. But the book does have lots of maps, so that helps. There is textbook problem here as many pages are just two columns of black text on a white background. That doesn't draw the reader, but what is here is set up as best as it could be giving the amount of art that is in this one. Each area gets a description, how to play in the three types of steampunk, story seeds, and persons of interest in the area. 4.25/5

Summary- As with Steampunk Uncharted, if this book and the core Uber RPG: Steampunk book were put together, they would add up to one amazing book. Uber RPG: Steampunk introduced the city of Ankmir, but this book expands on the main city presented there. Ankmir is a fun playground to run around in, but if you only want new stuff for your characters, you might want to look at the other books by Uber Goober. 85%

A good read, while would of loved more content that shows that what is there is great. The story seeds and details are fun for what it has, especially when it lists multiple ways for each based on what Type of game you are running. That alone is a great use of it. I highly recommend for anyone who owns the base book as a way of expanding there world and adding lots of fun details.

One thing I do miss is that there is not a lot about the duke and it can be hard to figure out where things are in relation to each other.

Urban Steampunk is a 95-page sourcebook for Uber Goober's Uber RPG.

The sourcebook provides a fairly detailed (though not complete) example of a steampunk city (Ankmir), providing maps of the city, 18 city locations with some location maps, 40 NPCs with some related art, and 82 plot hooks related to these locations and NPCs.

One criticism I would level at the preview is that it only shows the maps with no list of contents, making it difficult to get a feel of what the product covers. To rectify this, here is the list of contents from the book:

Introduction

Skills and Attributes Currency City Statistics Demographic List Government Law Enforcement Sanitation New Secret Societies

Olde Ankmir D.D.A. Gentle Rascal Exclusive Hall of Hawks Winnifred's House of Windows

Central Ankmir Fetter Lane Militia Institute Omnibus Lines and Stations Botanical Gardens The Duchess' Circus Bottoms Up Brothel and Fine Libations

The Right Arm Little Maze Under Market The Tinkers' Market Eldritch Mining Export Center Asylum of the Lost

The Left Arm Innovations University Exotic Alehouse of Spiders Herb's Herbs The Crooked Tower Dr. Zachariah Wilshire III's House of Healing

The Aether Side of Ankmir Story Seed Links

A second criticism, this time of the pdf itself, is that it fails to contain bookmarks, something that any sourcebook like this should have as standard in my opinion. In addition, security is enabled on the pdf to disallow creation of bookmarks.

The actual content of the book seems creative and cohesive, although I don't own the Uber RPG so cannot comment on its compatibility in this regard. The art is decent, anime-style depictions of characters with a consistent style, though I would have liked to see the front page art in the main download rather than as a separate file. The maps are functional representations of locations. The story seeds are pretty strongly related in most cases to the content.

On the whole the sourcebook achieves what is sets out to do, although I felt the potential for use in other steampunk settings was more limited than I had hoped for and would require more work than I had expected.

I would have rated the product as Good, bar the issue with bookmarks and my own personal opinion that I would have liked the story seeds to have been more generic and easier to translate into other settings, as this was the main reason I picked the book up.