Mini Review - Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters (Systemless)

Does anyone else remember the AD&D Encounter Cards?  They were my GoTo Resource when I had nothing planned for Sunday's Weekly Game (which happened more often then I would lie to admit).  I'd pull a few cards at random, figure out which one (or more) had a seed of something larger in it, and ran with it.

Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters is similar, but for the most part the plots are deeper on role-play the those old encounter cards ever were.  The pieces here also tend to have more depth and dangling threads, as these are plots - or plot seeds if you will.

167 plots each for fantasy, sic-fi and horror, but you can tweak nearly all to fit outside their default genre.  Which puts this at less then 4 cents a plot.

Did I mention this is a full bookmarked PDF?  And that they are further broken down by Dramatic Structure?  Nicely done.  This, my iPad and Goodreader will have me making notes right on the PDF for the plots I want to use.

From the Blurb:

"Much more than a simple book of plots, Eureka! stands as one of those essential tools that GMs and game designers will find themselves reaching for again and again." -- Game designer Wolfgang Baur, Kobold Quarterly review

Featuring a foreword by gaming industry legend Monte Cook, Eureka contains 501 complete adventure plots usable with almost any roleplaying game, plus GMing advice and tools for making the most of every plot.

If you game once a week, that's nearly 10 years of adventures, all right here in the largest collection of its kind ever published. Written by nine veteran game masters -- the authors of the most widely read game mastering blog on the planet, Gnome Stew -- Eureka is more than just adventure seeds.

Each plot includes a hook to draw your players in, an outline detailing enough material for a complete adventure, generally in the form of 3-5 meaty encounters, and any game mastering notes, plot twists, and advice you might need to turn that plot into a fun night of gaming.

Adventure hooks alone don't give you much to work with, but fully developed adventures can be hard to personalize and fit into an ongoing game. Eureka is the perfect middle ground: We provide the main ingredients, and you decide how to prepare them.

Packed with ideas and inspiration, this massive collection is designed to be the ultimate adventure toolkit:

• Fantasy, science fiction, and horror plots: 167 of each, all easily adaptable to multiple genres
• Clear, concise game mastering advice: We show you how to adapt plots to other genres (effectively giving you 464 fantasy, 420 sci-fi, and 338 horror plots) and how to turn Eureka plots into full-blown adventures
• The tools you need: Plots are grouped by theme, from "Revolt" to "Mistaken Jealousy," and categorized by tags like intrigue, exploration, and combat-heavy
• Four indexes: Quickly find a plot for any situation by genre, tag, title, or author
• No game mechanics and no proper names: These system-neutral plots are simple to use and easy to personalize to your game
• DRM-free, fully hyperlinked and bookmarked: We've made Eureka as user-friendly and GM-friendly as possible

Want to find out more about Eureka? You can download a free 19-page PDF excerpt of the book, read reviews, and check out articles about Eureka on the Engine Publishing website.