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.