One of the things I most appreciate about RPGs is a good map. Describing a location well is good; describing it well and providing a detailed map is much better. It’s simply a matter of “readability” for me – as much as you might be able to describe the rooms of a tavern in prose, it is much easier to picture how it all works if I’ve got a floorplan as well.
With that in mind, I’m already predisposed to like Buildings of the Reikland. This short publication gives you 11 buildings for use in games of WFRP, each with a lovely keyed floorplan and plan view, and a few paragraphs describing its location, rooms and inhabitants – plus a couple of adventure hooks (we’d expect nothing less of Cubicle 7!)
The intention is very much that these are exemplar buildings, presumably so they can be popped wherever a GM wishes (reworking the brief description of its default location). We’ve got a nice variety here including a fortified farmhouse, tavern, urban boarding house, temple of Sigmar and a signalling tower.
At only 12 pages of usable content (plus contents, copyright etc) it’s definitely a slight publication. An uncharitable reviewer might note that similar floorplans were provided as part of the 1st Edition rulebook1 and wonder why this necessitates a separate paid publication; however I do think that is rather uncharitable, given that Buildings includes a bit more detail, not least by making each building a specific place with inhabitants and adventure ideas, rather than a generic location.
At the end of the day it is only $4, and well worth the money if you think this might be useful. It’s worth bearing in mind that the adventures in One-Shots of the Reikland (reviewed here) are set in five of buildings from this publication as well. (Also note that this content is included in Reikland Miscellanea so don’t go buying it twice!)
Buy Buildings of the Reikland from DriveThruRPG. This is an affiliate link so I receive a small payment for purchases made using it.
- In some cases, very similar – the farmhouse included in Buildings of the Reikland actually has an identical floorplan to that in the WFRP 1e rulebook, though it is a brand new and more detailed map of the same floorplan. ↩︎
Ill Met by Morrslieb 
This one I really liked. It was one of the first supplements, and it all feels very gameable. Great maps, evocative locales, usable hooks. The maps were done I think by Andy Law. Shame he left the WFRP project – the more I read about his involvement and ideas, the more it feels like 4e was supposed to be his master project, and ever since he’s left, the game has been left without the guiding mind.
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I know what you mean. It felt like there was a lot of great maps in early 4e publications – later publication still have good maps, but fewer of them.
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