Frugal GM Review: Monster Pamphlet #1

This week I grabbed what looking like a cool little zine-style mini-monster book simply called "Monster Pamphlet #1". Written by Arlin Ortiz and put out under the Monster Pamphlets imprint, this 1st issue of 3 is a Pay What You Want product.

Right off the bat, this PDF is has no PDF security, which really isn't a factor with the exception that means there won't be a PDF watermark on every page. I think that is important for a visual product like this.

Originally running $5 an issue, the 12 page PDFs are being released for $2 each. For that 12 pages you get 2 pages of cover, 5 pages of write-up and 5 pages of art.

At its core, this isn't so much an RPG product as it is an art product. It is clearly intended to be a cool-looking little art book loosely wrapped around a RPG monster theme. The write-ups are so vague that aside from an interesting idea or two, any GM who wants to use this product is going to have to re-do anything that isn't the art.

Basically this is something you might pay $5 for an interesting 3 color handmade printed book that you flip through and put on you shelf. This is something you'd find in a hipster store or maybe a college town wedged alongside some of the political zines in places like Left Hand Books. As an actual RPG product you might save yourself the $2 and look up some old public-domain books online for inspiration.

I think that if this type of product was your thing, you'd really want the original and not a PDF copy. This definitely isn't my bag, but if it was yours I can't imagine your'd want a lesser copy......