RPG Review Portal

Skull & Bones

Publisher: Green Ronin   [Site Info]
Format: Book
Series: Skull and Bones: d20
Review: Here
Intro:
I was really looking forward to Skull & Bones. This tends to doom the book. My expectations are generally high, too high, and this is enough to take the shine off an otherwise brilliant book. I’m disappointed that Skull & Bones doesn’t have more illustrations in the Hollywood sexy pirate style. This Mythic Vistas book tends to default to the more historically accurate portrayal of the pirate, in silly (but truthful) period costume, and with scratchy line drawings for that ye olde effect. Hmm. Let’s see. What else? I was disappointed that Skull & Bones doesn’t get up and make me coffee in the morning. There’s very little else to be disappointed with in Skull & Bones.

Pirates! Actually, pirates and voodoo in fairly equal measure. Skull & Bones does an excellent job at bringing the d20 system to the Caribbean of the late seventeenth century. The d20 system is totally lousy for any attempt for grim or realistic recreation RPGs. Skull & Bones deals with this serious problem rather well. The book doesn’t entirely avoid the problem, nor does it rush to tackle it head on – we still have black and white alignments, for example. Instead Skull & Bones succinctly rewrites those parts of the core d20 mechanics that conjure up much of the system’s inherent cheese fantasy ambience. There’s a new set of character classes. The likes of clerics and paladins are gone. Forget wizards and sorcerers. The bard isn’t tempting at all, druids are unlikely but barbarians might just suit island savages or Scottish highlanders. The ubiquitous fighter class is a goer though. Rogues will work as well. There are replacement classes, seaworthy characters like the sea dog, shantyman or buccaneer. It’s not a surprise to find that there are prestige character classes too.

The wizard and sorcerer classes are left to sit in the corner of your traditional fantasy game wearing a great big dunce pointy hat on their heads because Skull & Bo . . .

The Everlasting: Book of the Fantastical

Publisher: Visionary Entertainment Studio   [Site Info]
Format: Book
Series: The Everlasting
Review: Here
Intro:
There’s a warning in the first pages of the book; this is a roleplaying game, it isn’t real, don’t take it too seriously. Immediately there’ a second warning, forgive the author’s pretentiousness, he is too passionate about the book not to take it seriously. To be harsh, Steven Brown should have taken the first warning to heart rather more and shouldn’t have taken it so seriously. Actually, we’re told; "Do not take the seeming pretentiousness contained within this book seriously". So just how are we supposed to take it then? With a laugh or a pinch of salt? The pretentiousness is annoying. We’re not roleplaying, or even storytelling here, we’re legend making. This RPG manages to bring out my harsh side.

"There are rare and fleeting occasions during roleplay when you reach an altered state of consciousness; your imagination takes hold and becomes so vibrant that you transcend mundane life. No drugs or alcohol are involved – it all happens through your imagination.

Most experienced roleplayers have had at least one experience of this sort, though many long time roleplayers have never even come close."

Have you ever reached an altered state of consciousness through roleplaying? Perhaps you’re just a long time roleplayer – of the non-experienced sort.

Okay. One more quote from the book and this time to highlight how clumsy the language can be at times, if that wasn’t already clear.

"Miniatures are any small-scale representations of things you use to represent characters or objects within the guideline system".

Hmm. Miniatures are what now? Representations of representations of characters?

You don’t actually play a character either. Character is a catch all term that includes the antagonists, protagonists and supporting characters. The players get to control the protagonists. Where other RPGs might talk about generating a character, the Bo . . .

Dreamwalker d20: Modern Day Roleplaying in the Land of Dreams

Publisher: Dreamwalker   [Search for Site]
Format: PDF
Series: d20
Review: Here
Intro:
Humanity is under attack. This is another RPG that’s been converted to the d20 system. Soulless and hive-minded...

Oh wait. I’m muddling up my introductions.

"Humanity is under attack. The enemy is an alien species that assails us in our most vulnerable state – while we sleep."

That’s the rather catchy introduction for Dreamwalker d20. My introduction to the review was to simply point out that this is the d20 conversion of the game. There’s been two before it, the original Dreamwalker and the diceless Dreamwalker in the Active Exploits series by Politically Incorrect Games. This issue is by the original company, a small RPG publisher I’ve always just called Dreamwalker but who appear to be Lucid Entertainment I’ll wait until they get an Internet domain of their own and then I’ll decide what to call them.

I’m glad there’s a d20 Dreamwalker. It’s a great game. It really is. If the d20 brand lures some gamers over to it or makes it easier to play for people then this is a good thing. You’re good to go with either d20 Modern or the core d20 rules with this book and that’s a telltale clue as to just how flexible the game is.

Is REM sleep the time when we dream or not? What does REM stand for again? These are questions any Dreamwalker GM will need to answer. Thankfully Dreamwalker gets going with a concise, intelligent and entertaining summary of sleep science and Jungian theory. So intelligent is this significant opening section that game rightly stresses that it is only a game. It’s not a medical treatise. If you’ve had the same reoccurring nightmare where you become your neighbour’s dog and eat your pet rabbit every day since last Halloween then go get help, don’t play Dreamwalker.

"The Taenia Spiritus are a race of soulless, hive-minded creatures that invade our dreams in order to foster and feed off the negative vibes and emotions caused by their prese . . .

A Question of Honor: A Guidebook to Knights

Publisher: Alea Publishing Group   [Site Info]
Format: PDF
Series: d20
Review: Here
Intro:
The Alea Publishing Group are one of the new generation of d20 publishers to spring up. They don’t have a 3.0 edition legacy nor do they have 3.0 edition baggage either. Their PDF d20 products are entirely 3.5 and so, hopefully, everything will be smoothly cross compatible. Mind you, having said that, one of the new feats in the supplement is marked with a great big 3.0.

It just takes a quick look at A Question of Honor: A Guidebook to Knights to see that Alea have got the tricky stuff exactly right. The PDF is slick and pretty. It’s decorative, illustrative and yet uncluttered and trim. More importantly, although there’s the usual dose of prestige classes, there are some good and original ideas in here. Original ideas? D20? I’m not kidding. It’s good to see companies like Alea entering the hugely competitive d20 market and bringing fresh-faced innovation with them.

It just takes a quick look at the very same A Question of Honor: A Guidebook to Knights to see that Alea have made some telltale rookie errors and have some more serious mistakes. English and editing are weak throughout the product. This is a rather insidious disappointment because in every other respect the PDF has that professional gloss. The telltale rookie errors are, perhaps, less worrying. There are no internal hyperlinks or bookmarks in the product. This makes it harder than it needs to be to read and jump around the PDF. There’s no friendly printer alternative either. Ouch. My ink! My ink!

Let’s combine the bad and the good and have a look at the refreshing innovation from Alea and the problem with sloppy writing. In other words, let’s have a whopping great quote from the book (but safely within the ‘fair use for review purposes’ clause – Ed). Oh. I could find many more quotes with shakier English in but this section on Minor Attacks of Opportunity shows how important it is to be crystal clear when describing game mechanics.
< . . .

Gaming Frontiers: 5

Publisher: United Playtest   [Site Info]
Format: Book
Series: d20
Review: Here
Intro:
Wow, what a come back. The first Gaming Frontiers was something special. I remember thinking of it in terms of being more of a book than a humble magazine, of urging people to consider a wise collector’s choice, for the horrible cost and the certainty that it couldn’t possibility on in the same style. I was right. The subsequent Gaming Frontiers were still professional but each one less appealing than the previous. Gaming Frontiers #5 bucks the trend. This should be another strategic issue in the Gaming Frontiers collection.

The magazine is still quite expensive at US $19.95. But wait, there’s a trick, a success of lateral thinking that gives the issue incredible value for money. It’s a 144-paged magazine, that’s a good start, $19.95 for a 144-paged book would be good value. The key is in the 32 pages. The first section of the magazine, the 32 pages, is quite effectively a complete book. "Orcs" is a d20 supplement on... orcs. It’s good stuff. There are quite a few 32 paged "Guide" supplements for common D&D monsters in the market and they’re about $9.95, if not a few dollars more expensive. Suddenly Gaming Frontiers 5 becomes a really useful orc supplement for $9.95 and a 110-paged magazine $10.00.

So is this Orc supplement any good? It is! First off, after all this time, I still think orcs get the bum rush from most d20 publishers. They’re not glamorous and so they mustn’t sell. That may be so but they’re the bread and butter of many games and they’re the race most likely to need an idea injection. Orcs is written by a committee of writers, Ed Bourelle, Bret Boyd, Wil Upchurch, Joseph Carriker and Ben Mathiesen all have writing credits. It is illustrated by Bourelle and Jesse Mohn. This could have adversely affected the quality but it hasn’t. Instead the input of fresh energy keeps the whole (albeit short) book lively and entertaining. If it were a 32-paged book for US $12.95, it’d be worth buying.

"Into the Vortex" . . .

Forbidden Arcana: Burning Spellbooks

Publisher: Ronin Arts   [Site Info]
Format: PDF
Series: d20
Review: Here
Intro:
It’s all about value for money, or time versus effort, I suppose. I think Forbidden Arcana: Burning Spellbooks represents pretty good value for money. The PDF might only be 12 pages long, 9 pages of which are worth printing, but for less than US $2 you get a complete set of rules from Philip J Reed and art from Larry Elmore.

Burning a spellbook is beneficial unless it’s your own spellbook. That’s why the arcane science fits nicely into the Forbidden Arcana niche; it can’t be something that wizards are keen to promote at all. Leave my spellbook alone!

The idea, Reed tells us, comes from a story about Nostradamus. It’s written somewhere that the famous prophet claims he received all his wisdom after a whole library of occult books burnt down. Whether Nostradamus’ visions were due to breathing in toxic ink tainted smoke or for being bathed in the escaping magick energy we’ll leave to debate. With these d20 rules it’s the escaping arcane power that have the beneficial side effects.

Talking about benefits – the whole PDF, all of the text anyway, is open source. That means you can use it in your own products providing you stick to the open source license and give Ronin Arts and Philip J Reed due credit. I’ll take advantage of this to quote an entire table from the book in the review.

There are lots of tables in this PDF. If you’re burning a spellbook you need to work out if the tome is dominated by one particular school of magic or not and you’ll need to work out whether it’s a low, medium or high powered book. Once you’ve done that you can roll on the right table to see what the side effects might be. Ah, but there aren’t always side effects. Burning a spellbook only releases the arcane energies in the right sort of way about 10% of the time. In a nice touch, if you burn the book with magic flames then this probability of a magical haze doubles to 20%.

Let’s say that we work out the burning book . . .