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Imagine Player’s Guide

October 11, 1999 in Reviews

Well, I just finished working my way through the IMAGINE PLAYER’S GUIDE,
and it feels like I’m being punished because now I have to review it.

If you dropped copies of the old-school Keep on The Borderlands and the
movie Dragonheart into a blender with a dash of Rolemaster supplements,
you’d end up with IMAGINE.

Yes. It’s really that bad. And the real shame is that the book has
very high publication values–very nice binding, very good cover and
excellent paper stock. The editing is passable, which is to say I only
ran into spelling and grammatical errors every few pages and not
paragraphs.

What escapes me is what Imagine Role Playing, Inc., the company who has
created the IMAGINE PLAYER’S GUIDE, thinks they are going to accomplish
with this tome other than creating a doorstop. Luckily, I have a copy
of their press kit, where they quote the CEO as saying, “We are giving
gamers what they have always wanted; a fun, flexible, creative system.
Not only do players have the ability to try anything they want in a
game, but they also have the mechanics to back it up. It marks a new
day for role playing games.”

Intrigued? Imagine also says it will “…(raise) the bar for other
companies in the gaming industry. Imagine will lead the role playing
game industry into the new millennium with a new and greater degree of
excellence.”

Now, I will quote the entirety of their entry on Dark Elves, a major
race that characters can select to play. This is *all* of the material
in the 300+ page book:

“Dark Elves are cruel and enjoy watching the downfall and pain of
others. Their haunting songs proclaim the deeds of a sullen and somber
race. They like to play mind games and dark tricks whenever they can
get away with them. Long outcast from the other Elven cultures, Dark
Elves prefer any home which hides them from the sun. They are known for
their strong innate magical abilities and their favor (sic) of slinking
about at night.

The Dark Elves are hated and despised by most other races, including
their Elven cousins. The Dark Dwarves are the exception and deal with
these Elves on occasion. These Elves shun contact with most other races
except to plunder and take slaves. As a race they tend to be of any
evil alignment.”

A Dark Elf is also illustrated next to this expansive description, who
is black and looks remarkably similar to Drow from TSR products.

I’m now going to abandon the review format entirely and just appeal to
Imagine Role Playing, Inc. Please take the huge amounts of money you
must have on hand to put out such a well-bound book and create something
worthwhile. It is the late 90′s–advertising that a game is great
because it has 12 attributes, 18 races, 26 classes, 340 skills and 450
spells is simply not enough. Rolemaster did this schtick already, and
I.C.E. still went bankrupt–IMAGINE’s 4 page index of rule charts is not
going to save it.

Players are looking for two things–shockingly cool ideas and rules that
let them best feel those ideas close to the skin. IMAGINE is all about
modeling all possible situations that could arise in dungeon crawls, and
the industry has known that doesn’t work for at least a decade. I’m
pro-dungeons, but no one needs this book–it’s all been said before.

The Verdict

I’ll cut to the chase. Don’t buy it, don’t play it, don’t encourage
this to continue. Even a munchkin game like Synnibar encourages an
interesting setting and inventiveness of some sort, and IMAGINE does
nothing. If you like your dwarves stubborn, your elves secretive and
your treasure in gold pieces, play Dungeons and Dragons or GURPS
Fantasy. Don’t play IMAGINE.

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The Way of War

September 27, 1999 in Reviews

Essentially, The Way of War (TWIW) promotes
itself as being a “universal miniatures system” but upon playing it a bit with
some generic figures I’ve come to the conclusion that this might be a grandiose
statement. TWIW is serviceable for small scale actions, say, of company
level or lower. In this framework, TWIW is perfect serviceable, albeit
somewhat bland and very complicated for the level of conflict being
simulated. I’ve seen attempts at universal miniatures rules before, the
most notable being Piquet, which requires
the purchase of historical modules to replicate any given period using the basic
mechanics as an overlay. TWIW dispenses with a modular approach and allows
for truly polyglot concept; lasers fight swords, arrows fight giant
robots. In this respect, TWIW might be a victim of its setting. The
authors are obviously charmed with the idea of a gaming universe where,
literally, ANYTHING can happen, and have written rules to that effect. The
setting of TWIW actually promotes such lopsided encounters as giant intelligent
bugs fighting cybernetic knights, fighting insane clowns, fighting Napoleonic
Legions… The setting promotes a real “Oh Gee Whiz” attitude on behalf of the
players, as well as a healthy suspension of disbelief.

And such a setting. Combine a healthy main course of Philip Jose Farmer’s
RIVERWORLD with Jerry Pournelle’s JANNISSARIES, throw in a soupcon
of Fortschen’s THE LOST REGIMENT and Turtledove’s VIDESSOS series,
and you might have an inkling of where this game takes place. Essentially the
setting takes place along a giant highway, called “The Way.” The Way is
sometimes described as being a mud track, sometimes a superhighway. The setting
changes with the groups encountered along the way. The Way is more or less a
giant rift between different universes and times, where small groups of people
wander in from time to time. These are the “armies” (though that might be an
over-exaggerated term for what is, essentially, company level elements). These
small groups of people form settlements on either side of the Way, which has
arable lands on either side for roughly 1000 miles or so. There’s a convenient
impassable mountain range up North and an equally convenient trackless ocean
down South. What you end up with (and this is what the designers intended,
I’m sure) is a setting where ANYbody could fight ANYbody. In the basic rulebook,
the following races are described:


  • The 312th Armored infantry: a futuristic African infantry unit.
  • The Anthropod order: a gang of intelligent insects.
  • The Aztecs
  • The Church of Personality: a weird group of characters that “channel”
    famous dead celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe, Richard Nixon, and, of
    course, Elvis.
  • The Circus of Terror: A travelling circus of crime and savage violence,
    presided over by the villainous Kount Klown and the Ringmaster (The Cabal’s
    first miniatures release is of the Circus of Terror).
  • The Crawling: Creatures of Myth, Magic and Horror fiction, everything from
    the Wolfman, to Centaurs, to Count Dracula.
  • Demons of Springfield: A warped vision of 1950s America, with Demons
    instead of humans.
  • The Grangers: Cybernetic Cowboys riding robot horses.
  • Homelanders: A multi-tribal Indian homeland.
  • The Horde: Descendants of the various hordes that overrun Rome in the Dark
    Ages.
  • The House of War: Descendants of Arab Desert Warrirors
  • Knights of Wodenburg: Teutonic Knights subtly altered by crude cybernetic
    enhancements (parenthetical note:
    the illustration of one of the knights shows a character with a cyber-shovel
    grafted on in place of an arm. Ever wonder how these guys with weapons
    instead of arms take care of… er… basic hygiene
    requirements    ? They still eat, don’t they?)

  • The Logical Revolution: a race of robots and androids that have made a
    proselytizing religion out of pure logic.
  • Monotremes: Intelligent, upright platypuses… or is it platypi?
  • Nueva Roma: The Roman Empire reborn… sort of.
  • Quebec Guard: A loose amalgam of Napoleon’s Grande Armee (remnants), Dutch
    Traders, and Iriquois Indians.
  • Terrapins: Warlike giant turtle pirates? Gotta throw that in too.
  • Tiger’s Paw: Samurai and Ashigaru.
  • Verdun Victors: Apparently, a large chunk of a Franco-American force
    lifted from the Trenches during WWI.
  • Wastelanders: This universe’s barbarians… they dwell on the rims of
    habitable civilization.

How it Plays

SLOWLY! Having about 200+ painted cowboys and a big stinkin’ lot of
classic horror creatures painted up, I attempted to have a small scale skirmish
with a design-my-own army of cowboys vs. The Crawling (described above).
Even using the Quick Rules (pages 6-7), I was in for a slog. I tried
creating a small force of mounted cowboys led by a model called Zeke, the Trail
Boss. I ran into snags creating their weapons (six shooters and rifles),
as described by the create a weapon rules. First of all, you need to plug data
into this equation:

(Range in inches/3)(4*Damage
+8*Attack)
________________________________

(Actions/2)

to create a new weapon type. The design approach was NOT to create a
series of archetypes from which you can extrapolate your weapons (as I often do
with GURPS), but to have the algorithms available for the player to create his
own. That’s definitely a “universal” approach but not one that I have
patience for. If I need a calculator to figure out a game, I start to
glaze, big time. Each figure (model) needs individual stats for the game
to work. These are:





























Initiative The Model’s Reaction Rating
Movement Range of Movement, in inches
Personal Personal Combat Rating
Range Ranged Combat Value
Speed Number of ACTIONS
Defense Defensive Rating
Damage Damage this Model can Inflict
Soldiery A “Quality” Rating
Unnatural All-inclusive term for Magickal Stuff

Keep in mind that units can be individual characters or units.
Characters equate to single man leaders or special troops. Units
equate to Squads. See why I think the term “Army” might be a tad
excessive?

Weapons also have their own stats:














Range Range of the weapon
Damage How much damage it does
Actions How many actions it takes to wield it
Attack Attack Modifiers

Every stat has a point cost, which goes up the more proficient you would like
a model to be. I couldn’t find a table or information anywhere about
relative size of battles crossindexed to point cost budgets, which would have
been useful. I’d like to have a pretty good idea of just what 500 build
pts. would buy me vs. 1000.

Due to my confusion and a need to get something done, I bailed on creating
cowboys and just called them “Cyber Cowboys” and used the stats from the
Grangers, above. Works for me. I could (roughly) figure out the
character creation process but didn’t have the time or desire to do it.

The Game turn sequence was (in my opinion) reasonable enough:

Army Initiative: Roll 1D10 to see which side goes first per turn.

Movement: Move Forces, Init Roll winner first (half of his guys), Init Roll
Loser next (half of his guys), then the Winner again, then the Loser, until
everyone who can (or is desired to) has moved this turn.

Personal Combat: Any models within 1″ of each other on opposing sides may
attack. Init roll winner first.

Range Combat: Any distant combat (guns, arrows, throwing rocks, etc.) takes
place in this segment.

Unusual Combat: Aka “unnatural” combat… the weird things like magick spells
get thrown here.

Soldiery: Basically, a morale and cohesion check.

The main concepts of TWOW conflict are relatively simple: combine the
relative statistic (personal or range) + 1d10 + and modfiers, and compare it to
the target defense attribute + 1d10 + any applicable modifiers. If the
Attack is higher, the attacker wins. If the Defense is higher, the defense
wins. There’s a ton of chrome, of course, but that’s essentially it.

In my sample game, the Cyber Cowboys dismembered the Crawling in nothing
flat.

Concluding

My impressions are a little negative. There’s a good tactical game in
here somewhere, but it’s so laden down with exceptions to the rules, special
circumstances and most important, POOR RULES EDITING. I had a tremendously
hard time figuring this game out. It’s not as if the rules I needed
weren’t in the text, it’s just that aren’t presented in a very coherent manner.
A really decent index will help this game tremendously, as well as some
decent rules summary charts in the center of the book presented as handouts.
I genuinely like the notion and setting of TWOW, it’s just that I don’t
think the Cabil really thought this one through sufficiently to have the forces
presented to be even remotely balanced– and the designers seem to place a great
deal of importance to the notion of balacing forces against each other for a
fair fight . Given, the world isn’t balanced and is never fair,
it’s not so unlikely that a low tech group would fight a higher tech group (see
ZULU if you want a historical example) — you just shouldn’t expect anything but
a foregone conclusion. The designer spend so much time trying to create
an artificial medium between high and low tech armies that it gets tedious.
Such is the problem with “universal” rules… you have to be
universal with them. I sincerely hope the Cabil considers doing a
second edition, or at least starting a giant FAQ file to clarify this mess.

The Verdict

Slow, Poorly Edited but containing some interesting chrome and a half decent
combat system. NOT recommended for large scale enagemeents.

A line of miniatures has been released with TWOW; they will be reviewed next
week.

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Rolemaster Revised Edition

September 1, 1999 in Reviews

Iron Crown Enterprises has been a warhorse of the RPG field, managing to eke
out a living while most RPG companies wither and fade…while I might
personally prefer R. Talsorian’s design aesthetic to ICE’s in-house
ROLEMASTER system, it’s hard to argue with the persistence of vision this
company has had. Long derided for being the “rollmaster” game (because of
the number of charts and dice needed) ICE has decided to give their
ROLEMASTER line a complete facelift. The results are interesting, but not
necessarily compelling.

This hardcover volume certainly excels in readability–compared with past
ICE products, this is a quantum leap ahead. Gone are unreadable typefaces,
impossible indexing and art that serves no purpose–the core ROLEMASTER book
is readable, cleanly laid out and a bit plain. Folks who have been weaned
on White Wolf production values will find it rather dull, but the
improvement in clarity and brevity is noticeable.

Yes, brevity: a word not often used with ICE products. ROLEMASTER touts
itself as being complete in one volume, but expandable for unparalleled
depth of rule system with their ARMS LAW, SPELL LAW, CREATURES AND MONSTERS
and other expansion books. The basic book does a great job of capturing
this huge library of material in one book, so that the game really is
playable without selling your house–a great improvement over their last
edition.

ICE owns the licenses for the Tolkein RPGs, and ROLEMASTER shows this
influence. Unfortunately, ROLEMASTER is a generic game, and so the Tolkein
becomes very watered down–you can see where their Middle Earth game ideas
used to be, and the voids that have been left by their removal. Not much in
the way of detail is provided, which runs counter to current gaming trends
where a huge amount of background material informs the game system. Instead
these are blank canvases–which might help a new GM design their own world,
but shows the weaknesses in the inflexible and unexplained game rules.

The game rules? Very arcane. If you use ROLEMASTER for a while, you may
grow to enjoy it, but nothing has been truly simplified–combats still take
forever, their is no unified resolution chart and there is a lot of critical
hit resolution tables.

Like a classic, ROLEMASTER appeals to a specific audience–if you’d like a
game system with no real world that covers generic fantasy in very
rule-oriented detail, this is your game.

The Verdict

If you loved or hated it before, nothing much will have changed for
you. If you do use ROLEMASTER now, I’d advise looking the book over and
getting it if the new clarity will help you run your games. I can’t
recommend it to anyone not already playing the system–you’d be better of
having someone introduce you to the game than buying it on your own.

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Sidekick Sourcebook

August 26, 1999 in Reviews

The Sidekick Sourcebook is the companion book to the Blood of Heroes RPG. In it, you’ll find updates to previous rules, new powers, skills, drawbacks, combat rules, and more. There’s also new characters that can be used for exisiting campaigns, and a starter scenario for those first-time BoH players.

A Little Bit of Trivia History

The Sidekick Sourcebook, as stated on the back cover, is the result of over four years of improvement. If memory recalls, it was originally intended to clairify a certain superhero RPG that is known as the DC Heroes 3rd Edition. The author (Joshua Marquart) and a host of others on the DC RPG mailing list compiled many revisions for the powers, skills, and rules. The author then compiled them all into the book, and would have released it over the Internet, if it weren’t for the announcement that Pulsar Games bought the rights for the system of the DC Heroes RPG, and released it as the Blood of Heroes RPG. Josh submitted it (with the permission of those vital to the Sidekick’s creation) to Pulsar, and the company was smart enough to pick it up. The rest is history.

The Book

Almost at the very beginning, there is the list of the skills, powers, advantages, drawbacks, bonuses and limitations that have been revised and/or replaced. It then goes straight into the action with the “A Word About Creating More- or Less- Powerful Characters”–excellent advice for those who want to create Cosmic Characters. New Advantages like “Omni-Scholar”, “Local Hero”, and “Ultra Luck” are well done, and the Drawbacks like “Cannot Heal”and “Oblivious” are just mean enough to delight any devious GM.

The Powers Section of the Sidekick Sourcebook has new powers like “Alert” and “Defenseive Adaptation”, while older powers like “Neutralize” and “Superspeed” are either replaced or clarified. Of course, you can’t go wrong with powers like “Dismember”

Chapters 9 and 10 deal with the rules, particularly game physics, combat, environmental situations, and game situations. Pay special attention to the “Rolling Infinite Doubles”, because how many of us have rolled a score of 105 thanks to doubles?

The new characters kick off with the introduction of the Guardians, a hero group formed during WWII, and was reestablished in the 90s. Some good characters, even though some may look familiar to comic readers. The villains are, well, villains! There is Subplots chapter which makes it very easy for the GM to use these heroes, so no excuses!

Finally, we get to the scenario located at the end of the book, entitled “The Game Within A Game”. Yes, there are rules for Live Action Roleplaying using the BoH rules (fans of LARPing should read this section!), and if you are one of those types who hate LARPing, then you should definitely read this section, as the Atomic Soul Suck power is a must for anyone’s roster of LARP powers.

As for the the main plot of the scenario, the setting is at a gaming convention, so why are the heroes there? Seems a celebrity was killed at another con, and an anonymous caller said “He was the first”. Can your heroes discover who’s behind this before the killer strikes again?

The Verdict

If you want the Sidekick Sourcebook for the art, don’t bother–it’s “OK” at best. Otherwise, it’s just plain awful. Some of the art looks unfinished, while others have no such excuse. At the time, they are in the process of adding some new talent, so good luck.

The new layout of the Sidekick Sourcebook is a step above the old format found the Bloof of Heroes. It’s easier to read, and just looks better. However, there are a few mistakes that can be found, which could interrupt your reading.

Overall, if you’re a fan of Blood of Heroes, then pick up the Sidekick Sourcebook. It’s got solid writing, and the information is something you just can’t do without. The Sourcebook is also completely compatible with the DC Heroes 3rd Edition, a fact that one should primarily consider when deciding to purchase this book.

Oh, and the author advises against drinking milk or soda while reading the adventure found in the Sidekick Sourcebook. Seems that it could be forced out of your nose. You have been warned.

For those interested in joining the DC Mailing List, the URL is http://w3.one.net/~joshdm/dch.html

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Witchcraft

August 25, 1999 in Reviews

CJ Carella’s WitchCraft is now in its second incarnation, having burned up
one of its nine lives on a failed foray from Myrmidon Press in 1996. It has
been resurrected by Eden Studios, who seems to be competing with Atlas as
the Company Who Breathes New Life Into Games Previously Dead. It seems to
fill a niche as a hipper alternative to White Wolf’s overburdened World of
Darkness, which it fulfills quite well–how viable that niche is for the
game may be another story.

First things first: For those who own the first edition, the revised Eden
Studios WitchCraft, 2nd Edition main rulebook corrects typos, clarifies
rules, smoothes the organization of the book, and adds several new features,
including an index, a detailed table of contents, and appendices. Though
there are a smattering of new rules, if you own the book already you should
be fine.

Physically, the book is smaller than most 8 1/2″ by 11″ gaming books, with a
good softcover illustration and uniformly decent layout throughout (though
the cursive font for the game fiction is quite difficult, and there is far
too much of it). It also makes one ask how a book that is smaller and
paperback can go for $28.00 a copy? RPG prices have been rising, and most
publishers have been pointing at increasing public demand for
coffeetable-style art production quality–what’s the excuse for WitchCraft,
which has none of these qualities?

Being an inquisitive sort, I wrote to Eden and asked them. I got back an
extremely well-written response that this book is competitively priced when
compared with other small-press publications, especially considering
WitchCraft’s 160,000 word count. Looking at their list, I’m forced to
concede that they’re right–but looking overt WitchCraft some more I’m even
more confused about the choice to go with an irregularly sized format.
Didn’t this save them money? If it did not, why did they do it? I have no
answers. Also, a lot of those 160,000 words are taken up with game fiction,
which I consider a blight on the industry and very poor for this book in
particular.

Consider its digest size, this game should be cheaper than most, and make it
part of its appeal. Priced at $18 it would be much easier to give a good
review to the work based on content alone. Great game or not, publishers
need to be held accountable by their public, and $28.00 is over the line for
this particular product.

WitchCraft uses the “Unisystem” for task resolution, a fairly standard Skill
+ Attribute system, rolling a d10 for randomization–it will be very
familiar to White Wolf players. Rolling a 10 or a 1 lets you add or
subtract dice exponentially–very similar to 7th Sea though this also serves
as the “botch” mechanic on a 1, which works a lot better than the World of
Darkness game systems.

Unisystem makes a lot of hay about the fact that the game can be played
diceless, using cards or just storytelling to work out results, but the
reality is a bit disappointing: the card mechanic gets one page of
exposition and is basically a warmed over version of Castle Falkenstein with
no proper accounting for face cards–drawing one generates either a 1 or 10
result, so games played with this mechanic become very botch-filled rapidly.
The narrative system is even briefer, and basically tells GMs to use the
attributes to see who won, then adjust to taste. Eden, I can do that with
any game–it’s nice to include, but don’t then claim that the Unisystem is
an all-in-one system with or without dice.

This all sounds very critical, but aside from the claims of universality the
game’s system seems to be quite competent, if not inspired. The combats I
played out seemed to work well, and the task system is fairly invisible in
play. If you’ve done White Wolf, you won’t have a problem–it’s quite clean
and easy to use.

It is unusual for me to address a game’s rule system before its setting;
with WitchCraft it makes sense, because I feel like I’ve seen this setting
before. It’s a modern day setting where players are witches, bast (cat
shape-shifting people), spirits or other occult beings living beneath the
surface of our normal life. Further, you’re a member of an organization, the
specific details of which you will be able to read about in a series of upcoming
guidebooks. I know: it sounds like the World of Darkness from Vampire, Mage,
et al. This can be forgiven, of course, if the groups involved are
sufficiently inventive enough, and break or preconceptions about the occult
the way Unknown Armies does in an overt way, or subvert them like Nephilim
did.

WitchCraft does neither– you can be a Wicce, or “good pagan person”, a
Sentinel or “bad Church-loving type”, a Solitaire or “independent,
be-what-you-want type” and so on. Even the groups that show some invention
like the Cabal of Psyche don’t have the juiciness of the sects in Vampire or
Ars Magica–they just seem bland. Wile WitchCraft does a great job of
cataloging all the obvious choices, it leaves behind any kind of real
inventiveness–by giving people exactly what they were asking for, it fails
to innovate.

The big metaplot concern in WitchCraft is the Time of the Reckoning, as the
supernatural forces in the world are building and racing toward–so more
demons, more Gifted and more magic is rushing into the world, making it
harder and harder to hide the supernatural. Yes, this does sound a bit like
the Masquerade from Vampire, but let it pass. One neat element I did enjoy
is that mundane hatred ‘jams’ magic, but fear does not–explaining why
witches are forced to hide, and giving more power to the mundanes in the
setting, something the World of Darkness never does.

Finally, I have to comment on the “chicken soup” style of world design used
here. If WitchCraft is intended to be an alternative to the World of
Darkness, it makes sense for them to contain a great deal of variety in the
setting, but make compelling design choices. Having “Mad Gods” in the
setting that are so obviously poor imitations of the Lovecraftian Cthulhu
mythos doesn’t help, and a lot of the setting adheres to the “that’s
good…add that to the game” mentality.

The Verdict

If you can’t stand White Wolf’s World of Darkness but wish to play in a
modern-day occult game that is aimed at covering all the themes, WitchCraft
is a great place to start. But with an expensive price tag for ho-hum
production values and a real absence of fresh ideas, I suspect many gamers
would be able to cobble something together for themselves that works better.
It remains to be seen if the supplements and other materials put out for
WitchCraft improve on this mediocre rule book…and if occult fans will have
the incentive to buy them.

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Diskwars

August 24, 1999 in Reviews

I have a yen for for fantasy era tactical war games in the same vein as the ones that SPI released oh-so-many years ago (Lord of the Rings, Swords and Sorcery, et. al.). As long as the universe is logical and consistent, fantasy makes a great subject for conflict simulation gaming (read: “Wargames”). So I was pretty impressed that Fantasy Flight, the company that released Twilight Imperium and its many high priced add-on sets, has now released a series of very reasonably priced, pseudo-miniature style wargames called DISKWARS.

To begin with, this isn’t a collectible, though you should find yourself doing some trading and swapping of “disks.” You purchase ARMIES of the various fantasy races and genres (Undead, Dwarves, Elves, Dragonkin, Desert Dwellers, etc.). These are shipped in small boxes with about five-six countersheets called “flats.” About 3 of these flats are of the same theme as the box cover, the rest appear to be randomly inserted. The counters are circular (hence the title of the game series), and very nicely illustrated. You are expected to play the army in one box against the army in another, though there will probably be some shifting of units between boxes. Armies have alignments, good, evil and neutral. The rules state that no good units can fight in evil armies and vice versa (neutrals can fight in both). I found good units packed with evil armies and vice versa, so I had to do some swapping.

Disks are one huge LAND disk (which functions as your “home base”.. where your reinforcements appear, where you send armies to to capture, etc.). There are small SPELL disks and a SPELL BOOK marker (to hide what spells you use). There are TROOP/CREATURE disks of various sizes (theme troops and unique troop/creatures tend to be larger than the generic army troops). There are also some generic (square) game play markers that come in every pack for mechanisms like activation and hits.

Each disk has a buy cost, a movement rating, an Attack Value, a Defense Value, and a Toughness Value (hit points, essentially). Each unit also has a Unit Cost for unit purchasing. You are budgeted so much Unit Cost points per scenario.. generally, a 40 pt. army will make for a short game, a 50 pt. army a medium game, and a 100+ pt. army will make for a very long game indeed.

The Play Sequence goes like this:

1) Reinforcement

You maintain a reinforcement pile (a stack of disks, with only the top unit showing). Bring new units, up to however many is dictated by scenario rules.

2) Activation

This is where the action is. In the activation round, a unit can Move, Activate a Special Ability or Cast a Spell.

Moving is odd. You flip the disk, end over end, towards the scenario objective. Each flip is a “movement point.”

Special Abilities are varied.. anything from flying to spell casting.

Casting Spells is pretty straightforward. You have spells that are of a certain level, and spellcasting units that can cast spells of a certain level. You have to purchase spells within your Unit Construction budget, so you never have enough of them.

3) Missile Segment

Missiles are the oddest aspect of this rules system. You have to have a missile firing unit within range of a target. Then you put arrow counters (rated for the same rating as the firing unit) on top of an UNUSED DISK. Raise the disk six inches above the target unit and tip it over. Any arrow counters that land on the target disk cause a hit!

4) Combat Segment

Combat is very rock-scissors in the Diskwars system. One unit’s stronger, or it isn’t. If two enemy units meet during the movement phase of activation, they get into combat. If one unit is strong then another, the weaker one gets killed.

5) Remove Counters

Pretty much what it says.

There are a lot of things I like about Diskwars. The price is nice at $9.95. The art is glitzy, about on the level as some Magic The Gathering art. I love the tactical miniatures feel to the game… you don’t use a map, you just use your kitchen table top. I’ve played several games now, and am still trying to find the perfect combination for attack. There is a nice balance to the units that I have purchased already. On the downside, I don’t sense a lot of variation in this game. The special abilities aren’t that great. There appear to be all of 77 flats printed so far. That doesn’t add up to a lot of variation in the units, when you consider that there are 7 or 8 major armies out. Expansion sets are called for. The spells are okay, kind of ho hum in my opinion. Standard fantasy fodder.

What really burns me is the combat system. A simple larger strength rating kills the weaker unit? Don’t we get modifiers? How about a CRT? The missile fire is… well, gimmicky at best. It’s just a little too silly. The game plays very, very fast as a result and there doesn’t appear to be a real secret to winning… the big units kick the little unit’s butt, and that’s that.

The Verdict


However, I think there’s a lot of room to tinker with this system. It could be really great if they release expansions and variant combat rules… so I give this a (qualified)

THUMBS UP!

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by EDG

Mag*Blast

August 17, 1999 in Reviews

Get ready for some screaming space battles in Mag*Blast, a card game for two to six players. In it, you’ll find yourself blasting opponents’ ships in an attempt to reach the heart of their fleet–the Flagship.

There are three types of cards in Mag*Blast: the Flagship cards, the Ship cards (they have “Shipyard” on the back), and the Action cards (they have “Mag*Blast” on the back).

The Flagship card represents one of the six interstellar empires, and each one has a special ability, like being able to draw an extra card. If the Flagship is destroyed, you’re out of the game!

All Flagships have four “Zones” (Green, Blue, Red, and Yellow)–this is where you place the ships that comprise of your fleet. The Flagship is always in the center of the Zones. The Zones are important in that enemy ships can only attack other enemy ships that are in the same zone, and if a Zone is berift of ships, it can be targeted by enemy ships who occupy the corresponding Zone. All Flagships have the same defense (called Hull Value), and can’t attack, so always keep your Zones occupied with friendly forces.

Ship cards represent the various vessels that will fight for their Flagship. They range from the massive Dreadnought to the fast moving Scout Ships.

All Ships use a particular Action card called BLASTS, which are shots from your ships to your opponents. Certain ships use certain BLAST cards, and some can use more than one BLAST, so you never know what to expect from those Ships. The three BLAST cards are the LASER, the BEAM CANNON, and the powerful MAG-CANNON BLAST.

Other action cards include the GAME cards, which represent ship maneuvers like “Direct Hit” or events like “Temporal Anomaly.” Some Action cards include a Resource Symbol, which can be used to get more ships, or “reinforcements.”

The turn sequence of Mag*Blast works like so: Discard, Draw up to 5 cards, Play Reinforcements, Movement, and Play Action Cards. You can discard as many cards as you want–even if it means getting rid of your entire hand. Drawing up to five cards is self-explanatory, so it won’t be discussed. Playing reinforcements can be done by either playing a “Reinforcements” card, or by discarding cards with the “Resource” symbol (there are three different types of Resource Symbols. You can discard three of the same symbols, or all three types of symbols). Movement consists of moving from one of your Flagship’s Zones to another (the Dreadnought is the only Ship that can’t move)–a good thing if you have a undefended Zone–and finally you play Action cards that can rangefrom blasting your opponents to space dust or hiding in an Asteroid Field to protect your Fleet from harm.

The Verdict

At $16.95, Mag*Blast had better be fun to play, right? Well, it is! Most of the night was spent pummelling the enemy ships into space dust.

But the best thing about Mag*Blast (besides it’s fun to play) is the reason it’s referred to as “Screaming Space Battles”–you actually have to make the sound effects as you blast your opponents’ ships, or the attacks fails! It was fun powering up the Mag-Cannon and unleashing hot plasma death on those poor, unsuspecting ships. KA-BLAM!

Mag*Blast is just what it advertises to be–screaming space battles!You’ll be hooked the first time you unleash a Mag-Cannon blast at your opponent. Just don’t forget to make the sound effect…

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by EDG

Maximum Tech

August 14, 1999 in Reviews

Realism isn’t necessarily a good thing in a game, whether it’s a
role-playing game or miniatures wargaming, depending on the Game Master and
the players involved. The amount of detail in a game is part of that
realism, and the Battletech Master Rules often sacrifice detail for
playability and smoothness.

No longer. Maximum Tech is a Level Three rules supplement, meaning
that it’s beyond the level and scope of most games – including most
tournament games – and its contents are entirely based around adding more
detail and general ambience to the Battletech arena.

The Good Stuff

Maximum Tech contains detail – a lot of it. It includes rules on
everything from icy terrain to non-’Mech vehicle movement, from special
dueling rules to fractional costs for ‘Mech equipment. The artwork is
nicely topical – I enjoy John Paul Lona’s work, and was glad to see it
sprinkled liberally throughout the book. Similarly, the writing manages to
be both informative and actually fun to read.

One of the rules I especially liked was the improved Line of Sight listing. The Battletech Master Rules have a ‘Mech in a hill’s dead zone -
that is, blocked to things atop the hill – only if it’s in an adjacent hex. The improved rules involve the height of the sighting ‘Mech, the height of
the sighted ‘Mech, the height of the hill, and so on. It involves a
lot of scratch paper, but it solves a problem I’ve had with Battletech
since I started playing – and it’s a good example of the kind of thought
and detail that the folks at FASA put into this book.

The Bad Stuff

On the other hand, there are gamers who don’t want so much detail in their
games – and if you’re playing against someone using the Maximum Tech rules
when you’re not familiar with them, the advanced rules lead to several
major loopholes (fractional equipment weights, for example, can allow you
to cram a lot more onto a ‘Mech than would normally be possible). Also,
there’s not a whole lot of flavor text in the book; it’s mostly rules and
modifications, and if you require vignettes and the like to maintain your
interest in a book, then you’ll lose interest in Maximum Tech fairly
quickly.

The Verdict

If you like realism and detail in a game, and don’t mind reading through
pages of unrelenting rules, then Maximum Tech is a book to pick up.
Even if you’re not a Battletech player, it provides interesting ways to
think about arranging your next game – miniatures or RPG.

On the other hand, if you pride yourself on the simplicity of your games,
or need anecdotes and flavor in a book in order to survive reading it, then
Level Three Battletech probably isn’t your bag, baby.

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by EDG

Sorcerer RPG

July 13, 1999 in Reviews

The Sorcerer RPG goes along the lines of this: “You are a Sorcerer, but you do not ‘cast spells.’ Instead, you breaks the laws of what we humans call Reality to summon, bind, and command beings that are Not Supposed to Be Here. You are an outlaw – the ultimate in arrogance.”

There are two versions of the Sorcerer RPG: The Apprentice and the Master Versions. Think of the Apprentice as the “Player’s Guide” and the Master as the “Gamemaster’s Guide”. Both have the same set of rules, but the latter version has more details which is what we’ll be getting into right now.

The System

Sorcerer RPG uses dice, but the neat thing about it is it doesn’t matter what sort of dice you use! The only stipulation is that the dice all have the same number of sides. You aren’t aiming for a Target Value when you roll to accomplish something. Instead, you match the highest single value rolled by each party and see whose is highest. This is the basic die roll of Sorcerer – there is nothing else!

To see how great your success or failure is, you count the number of Victories (the dice that show higher values than the highest of the loser’s dice) the winner has. Sounds easy, right? It get’s better. You can roll more dice through the magic of roleplaying. The better your roleplaying during an action, the more dice you might get to roll.

There are three actions useable by player characters in Sorcerer: Sorcery, combat, and everything else. The mechanics use the dice system mentioned above, making this game easy to learn.

Creating Your Sorcerer

In the Apprentice Version of Sorcerer, you choose from a list. In the Master Version, you divide 10 points between Stamina (the general physique, strength, constitution, etc), Will (force of personality, charisma, etc), and Lore (sorcerous training). Then, you choose a description of your stats (how you developed them in your life). In the Apprentice Version, you start out as an Apprentice (naturally!), but in the Master Version, you can decide to go from a kid who has an “imaginary friend” to stark raving mad!

The fleshing out of the character is furthered by picking a Cover (after all, listing “sorcerer” on an application just doesn’t sit well with the mundane world) that the character does well in the workday world. Then you have to pay a Price (something that gives your character a -1 die penalty in a particular situation), because Sorcery ain’t cheap.

In the Master Version, there is a Telltale – something that gives the character away as a sorcerer. It can be anything from physical appearance to a speech pattern, as long as it’s precise.

And now, the part we’ve all been waiting for (or dreading): the Demon. In the Apprentice Version, you get to pick from a list for a demon. In the Master Version, however, you get to create your very own demon. Be careful, though – the demons don’t always play nice…

Finally, you choose the Kicker – the event or realization that pushes your character into action. It can be finding a suitcase full of money or a mysterious stranger that only appears when no one else can see him. The Kickers are very important to Sorcerer; they make the PCs worth playing.

Sorcery

In Sorcerer, you may only start out with one demon, but that doesn’t stop you from getting more…

Demons come in different varieties. Inconspicuous demons are hard to perceive, Object demons are “invested” in physical items, Parasite demons live inside a host, Passing demons look almost perfectly human or animal and can mingle with society, and Possessor demons take control of a body. All demons have a Telltale that can give them away to a person “in the know.” They have a Need that must be met, or the demon suffers badly. They also have a special interest (a Desire) that they try to indulge themselves with (which may cause trouble for the sorcerer it’s bound to), and might get cranky if it doesn’t get to indulge…

Another point about Sorcery is that the demon has all the power – not the sorcerer. The demon can refuse to use its power if treated badly, and can rebel. Having more than one demon can be a problem as well. And Heaven help the sorcerer if he fails to properly Bind his demon…

The Verdict

Both versions are good. The art is sparse, but good. Downloading the versions and printing them doesn’t hurt the printer too much, as it’s all black and white. Besides, the Master Version is only ten dollars. Not too shabby.

However, this is not a roleplaying game for beginners. The author assumes that the players and GMs are experienced (and mature) enough to run through a Sorcerer game. This game also has some mature themes (it deals with demons for crying out loud!), so don’t let the kids see this one.

Overall, Sorcerer RPG is highly recommended. Try the Apprentice version, and judge for yourself.

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by EDG

7th Sea Players Guide

July 13, 1999 in Reviews


Since the dawn of RPGs, publishers have tried to produce a viable
swashbuckling-themed RPG. GDW’s En Garde was one of the first
post-D&D RPGs to hit the market. 7th Sea aims to succeed where others
have failed.


The Setting


7th Sea is set in the world of Theah, which draws heavily from real
world Europe much like Warhammer FRP. The basic archetypes of
Britain, Germany, France, etc, are there though the names are different and
the geography is slightly reworked. The setting works on a conceptual level.
There’s enough baggage associated with each nationality that beginners can
get the gist of the setting, yet there is enough room for magic, legends,
and supernatural creatures to fit into the mix.


There’s quite a lot of tension present in Theah, which translates into lots
of adventuring opportunities. No two nations are on great terms, yet after a
period of extended warfare no one is quite ready for another open conflict.
Diplomacy and privateering are the weapons of choice in Theah. In addition,
Theah is riddled with ruins left by the long dead Syrne civilization, giving
dungeon crawlers plenty of grist for the adventure mill.


My main complaint with the setting is that it lacks focus and cohesion. For
example, Theah’s dominant religion, the Vaticine Church, is opposed to magic
in all forms, yet the nobles of at least one staunchly pro-Vaticine nation
practice sorcery. Supernatural creatures are present, but we have no idea
how common they are and what role they play in the setting, outside of
cannon fodder. Also, in its attempt to cover so many different types of
adventures, 7th Sea fails to cover any one type in enough detail to
satisfy me. Sailors and the sea get the bulk of attention, yet it is
completely possible to run a 7th Sea game without your characters’
setting foot on a ship. Compounding matters, the other avenues available for
gaming receive no where near enough attention to really make them come to
life. Perhaps this is rectified in the GM’s Book, but the Player’s Guide
comes off as a sort of haphazard patchwork of setting information.


The Mechanics


7th Sea‘s basic mechanics work well enough. Players roll a number of
d10s equal to a trait plus a skill, keep a number equal to their trait, and
sum the dice. Let’s say I have a finesse of 3 and a sword skill of 2. I’d
roll 5 d10s for an attack, keep the 3 highest rolls, and add them together.
The result has to beat a target number in order for the action to succeed.
Overall, a rather simple but flexible mechanic. The basic system works well
and I like it.


That being said, I had problems in three areas: character creation, drama
dice, and magic. Character creation works like GURPS. Players start with 100
points to spend on their traits (brawn, finesse, resolve, wits, panache),
skills, and advantages. The system is rather easy to use, but I believe that
a lot of options are seriously overpriced. Magic is very expensive, yet the
magical spells available are by no means impressive. Virtues are largely
useless, yet they cost 10 points. Virtues are heroic characteristics, such
as courageous or willful. The designers went so far as to include almost a
full page of text explaining why virtues are so cool. Call my cynical, but
if you have to spend that many words convincing people that something is
supposed to be an advantage, it probably isn’t. Basically, virtues give you
an extra die or some funky affect for actions related to your virtue. If you
want to get that bonus, you have to spend a drama die.


Which brings me to my next problem with the system: drama dice. Drama dice
try to do too much and end up just restricting characters too much. They’re
the latest manifestation of the dreaded god Game Balance, upon whose altar
many promising games have been dashed. Drama dice give you an extra little
boost during an adventure, usually an extra die that you can add to the
result of a skill check. You start out with a total number of drama dice
equal to your lowest trait, usually two. Now, if that was all drama dice
were used for, I wouldn’t have a problem with the system. But the designers
decided to turn drama dice into a sort of ubermechanic. Not only do you
spend drama dice to get a bonus to a skill check, but you must also spend
them to activate a virtue or cast a spell. Now, this still isn’t so bad, but
here comes the real kick in the crotch: drama dice are turned in for
experience points at the end of an adventure. Yup, that’s right. The guy who
sat in the back and snoozed during the adventure gets more XP than the mage
who slung spells and did all the work. Basically, characters that don’t try
anything really heroic get rewarded, and sorcerers completely get the shaft,
since they have to spend drama dice in order to simply use their spells
(which aren’t always guaranteed to work). The idea is to stop any one
character from playing too critical a role in a game. Unfortunately, instead
of giving everyone cool toys to even the playing field, the designers
decided to cripple everyone’s toys and leave us all with nothing. On top of
that, since drama dice are based on your lowest trait, players are quite
unsubtlely forced to waste XP improving stats. I can’t play a sickly, weak
mage with a brawn of one and hope to keep up with the rest of the party as
the campaign progresses, since everyone else gets more drama dice and thus
experience. I’m basically coerced into wasting XPs on boosting my brawn.


I admire the designers’ attempt to make a blanket mechanic to cover a lot of
different topics in one swoop, but it really fails miserably. The one cool
thing about drama dice is that the GM gets them too, and he can use them to
activate a character’s hubris, which are character flaws such as righteous
or greedy. Unfortunately, a character can’t have both a virtue and a hubris.
Some of the coolest heroes around have some sort of fault, from Fafhrd and
the Gray Mouser to the X-Men’s Wolverine.


Finally, magic. Magic is alive and kicking in the world of 7th Sea.
Only those of noble blood can use magic, and each of the five types of magic
reflects upon the nation that it originates from. The viking-esque Vendels,
for example, use a system of rune magic. The basic idea is pretty neat, but
it just isn’t well fleshed out. The magic systems just don’t come alive. I
get the sense that they were added to the game after most of the background
was worked out. For example, I have no idea how a sorcerer learns magic,
what the average person thinks of magic, and so on. For the 7th Sea
game I’m about to join, I created a sorcerer, yet I have no idea if my
character can cast a spell in public without fear of getting lynched. The
magic system is intriguing, but I feel that it could have used an extra 10
pages of background text that integrated magic into the 7th Sea
setting. And of course, drama dice mess up everything. The mage with the
most drama dice gets to cast more spells, with no relation to the levels of
his magic skills or ANYTHING else. The mage with the lower stat (no matter
what stat it is) casts fewer spells. An 80 year old archmage with a brawn of
one can cast fewer spells than an apprentice whose lowest stat is two. Of
the five systems presented only one, rune magic, is fleshed out and
playable.


I’m going to play in a 7th Sea game, and it will be interesting to see how
the GM changes things. If I were to run 7th Sea, I would:



  • Work out an alternative spell point system rather than relying on drama
    dice. To make up for this, give each sorcerer only one drama die at the
    start of each game. I’d take the rules for casting rune magic and extend
    them to all five magic systems.
  • Give each player a virtue for free and let them take a hubris for -10
    points. Instead of using drama dice to activate a virtue, let each player
    use it once per session for free, then charge them a drama die for each
    additional use.
  • Drama dice cannot be cashed in for experience points.

That right there would fix 80% of my problems with the 7th Sea game.
The other 20% could be fixed by a reorganized, better structured background
text. Dump the fast start rules and give me a better picture of everyday
life in Theah, a map of a city, anything that turns it from a general
overview to a living, breathing setting.

The Verdict



I have mixed feelings about 7th Sea. Too many times, I found myself
excited about something, only to read three or four more pages and find
something that completely deflated my excitement. The rules seem a little
heavy handed in places and try too much to control and reign in character
abilities. I found myself wrestling with the character creation system,
trying to coax the character concept I wanted out of it rather than finding
cool ideas springing from the system a la Usagi Yojimbo or
Shadowrun. Still, Theah is an intriguing setting. My frustration
arises from my belief that a very cool and very playable system is here,
buried under some poor design and editing decisions. I am not about to give
up on 7th Sea, but I feel that this is an unfocused, rushed product
that needs a reedit and reorganization. There are quite a few grammatical
and logical errors throughout the text. For example, according to the book
there are 60 seconds in the Thean hour.


Overall, I can recommend 7th Sea with some reservations. The game’s
basic ideas and systems are great, but I think the execution needs some
work. If you’re looking for swashbuckling adventures mingled with magic,
check it out.

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