Frugal GM Review: Infinite Potions

This week's review is of a simple & inexpensive PDF of tables for creating random potions. Created by Joe Wetzel for Inkwell Ideas, Infinite Potions is all about the randomness.

Now right off the bat I have to say this isn't really my thing. I like my potions to have strong similarities to other potions of the same type (i.e. all invisibility potions are pretty close to the same taste, smell, consistency, etc.). Of course, I knew what I was getting when I bought this PDF, so there are no sour grapes here.

There are some games, DCC immediately comes to mind, where the potential for complete randomness in potions fits in quite well.

The PDF is 8 pages long, password protected and under a MB in size. It isn't as polished as I would expect from Inkwell Ideas and I only have one real issue with the document. Page 4 has a 2d12 table for potion colors and the table itself is in a huge array of color swatches, with the names of the colors on those swatches. Personally I find that one page garish and would rather have a B&W page instead. Some of the colors just seem a bit much and I don't think would translate well for describing to the players. I might be able to convey the color "inchworm", but trying to get across the hue of "almond" vs. "tumbleweed".

Maybe I'm not a good enough GM.

I think it is a minor issue at best. I think these tables (most use d12s) would feed into a random table generator program easily enough and if you wanted random potions....done in a snap. There are a total of 9 tables, a few in-line sub tables, all of which look up to the task of creating more potion variations than I care to calculate.

If you need what feels like a metric-ton of varying potions, then Infinite Potions is worth the current $1.49 sale price.