Review of Archduke’s Manual of Fun, a TTRPG supplement by an awesome group of students!
Today, I’m checking out Archduke’s Manual of Fun, which is an add-on setting full of whismy AND written and illustrated by a some awesome teen and young adult creators! Check it out here, and happy gaming!
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Audience for Archduke’s Manual of Fun
Archduke’s Manual of Fun is aimed at folks of all-ages who are looking for a bit of silliness and wonder in their tabletop RPG adventures. This supplement was made for the Guild Chronicles game, but I could also easily see these ideas being applied to other game systems as well (so if you want to include in your existing campaign settings, these sparks of story and ideas can translate over).
Setting for Archduke’s Manual of Fun
Archduke’s Manual of Fun is set in a fantasy world… with The Archduke of Whimsy bringing along The Tent of Wonders (How fun! How inspiring!) to brighten the spirits of all who come near!
The basic premis is that The Archduke and company travel from place to place inspiring a big of fun, chaos, and whimsy wherever they go. Along with this can come many challenges (in the form of folks who attempt to infiltrate the circus, mysteries that take place in or around the celebration, and so on). There’s plenty of plothooks to get you started on your story and several characters and creatures that can be used to fill in your adventures surrounding the initial discovery of the circus.
Characters in Archduke’s Manual of Fun
Your character will be whoever you choose for your adventuring, so I’ll be covering the characters who are in the manual for this part instead!
In addition to The Archduke of Whimsy, The Tent of Wonders (How fun! How inspiring!) is populated with a ringmaster, acrobats, a potion mixing ex-pirate, and a #1 fan ready to share ALL THE LORE on the circus. Each character has a great description of their job(s) in the tent, how they interact with others, and what can set them off or be a great start for a new plothook. I also very much appreciated that name pronunciations were included! Not many TTRPG books do this, and it was nice to know how everyone’s name was intended to be stated (which can really help when going back to a campaign after a week off and forgetting how you pronounced a name like Zhaniladjetesaa previously).
Mechanics in Archduke’s Manual of Fun
The Archduke’s Manual of Fun was designed for the Guild Chronicles system, so the new class variations and creatures outlined in the book are going to follow the system used there. I was not able to play this in the GC system, so instead I want to focus on a couple of the class variation powers and added creatures as concepts.
The three classes themes added were the acrobat, bubblemancer, and whimsyspinner, and, as you can maybe guess, they are all circus themed!
The acrobat is a fast and darring rogue who steals the spotlight (versus sneaking about to steal other things). A couple of their skills are focused on doing more damage or gaining health the more you’ve moved, which I think is a really creative way to reward players for RP’ing their character showing off for the audience and taking up space versus hiding in the shadows.
The bubblemancer has a wonderfully sassy art piece in the book, and a great set of field manipulation tactics. This power set focuses on conjuring bubbles around targets then moving them about the field or using it to do extra damage. I also suspect that there is a strong reference to a particular Spongebob episode in here, and I really appreciated that.
Finally, there is the whimsyspinner, who is like a chaotic fortuneteller… who can influence things a bit. For this one, there’s a wonderful table that you’ll be using to see what the future holds, and, depending on the move, can potentially alter the result slightly. In various TTRPGs that I’ve run, some of my favorite player characters in my group have been magic users whose magic is a bit on the wild side, and I really liked seeing this used in a unique way – there’s chaos but you get to nudge it a bit, so you aren’t TOTALLY at the whims of fate (just whimsy).
In addition to the character expansions, there’s also several wonderful creatures to encounter like the Funhouse Wolf, Rogue Puppet, and Wobblejack! I won’t get into all the details with these (you’ll need to check out the manual!) but I will say, I quite liked that there was a tactics section included for each that lets the storyteller know how to play the characters instead of just providing a stat block. The abilities are well thoughout out and work together to create fun combos, and there’s that little bit of help so you can see how it all fits right from the start too.
Overall thoughts on Archduke’s Manual of Fun
This is a great supplement, side quest starter, or one shot spark that I enjoyed getting to check out. The premise is colorful and joyful, characters and creatures and fully fleshed out, and I LOVED the art!! It was all made by the teen intern team, and they did a fantastic job capturing the essence of fun in their work.
Find a copy of Archduke’s Manual of Fun
You can find a copy of Archduke’s Manual of Fun on itchio as free/PWYW!
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