Diablo III Redux

Those of you who read my blog may remember my post on Diablo III in June . I am afraid my judgement may have been a little harsh based on the game continuously crashing my computer. However, when uninstalling stuff to make room for the 17 GB of Assasains Creed 3, I decided to give it another shot. Apparently in the intervening nine months Blizzard figured out how to make the game run (WOW a patch that actually fixed things!!!). I switched from playing a barbarian to a demon hunter, and although not as good as in melee as my beloved amazon from Diablo II the demon hunters rapid shot makes makes a nice machine gun for ensuring thing never get into melee. Laying the caltrops and backfliping away also works well, So Assasains Creed has returned to the install sometime pile, and I happily machine gunning my way through Diablo III. Pluses beautiful artwork, fascinating story Minuses liner as heck, limited character customization. The magic items flow like water, so much so that I have stopped picking up stuff that is not magic. I like the new auction house for dumping those rare items you just can't throw away, but can't actually use. However I still for the life of me can't figure out why a randomly generated procedural needs to be linear rather than a sand box. lack of imagination I think, I'll play it one through and then put it away like the other Diablos. Apparently no D&D supplement for this one, the D&D 3e Diablo random magic item chart is still one of my favorite. I am working on a 4e version of the magic item chart, but since I am DMing mostly Living Forgotten Realms I don't have much use for non-standard magic items. Perhaps when we go off the reservation to keep 4e alive after D&D next.

Summer of Kickstarters update

O.K. so its November, so I thought I'd post a little update on the kickstarters I signed up for this Summer.
I signed up for three: Dungeon-a-Day, Rappan Attuk, and Midgard Besitiary 4e. I am mostly complete on the first two. For Midgard I am still waiting for the print edition (Although Wolfgang has upgraded it to color and promises it will be worth the wait), I have the .pdf so I am happy.

Dungeon-a-Day took from August until October to get me a password for a a web site that already exists (not exactly stellar performance), but the site has over four complete dungeons as well as all the Super Genius stuff Hyram is selling on drivethruRPG (including one on my wishlist) so I won't complain too loud.

Rappan Attuk after a bumpy start (needed to fill out two survey forms, I was worried I missed the deadline for the credits but I am in there) went relatively smoothly. Giving out .pdfs in advance of the print helps to keep my waiting anxiety under control. I have everything,  but the subscription levels, and am pleased with most of it (although now that I am used to color battle maps,the black and white ones seem a bit flat). The secret level was cooler in concept than execution, I like the idea of a level the party can't talk about because every evil cultist in the world will try to torture the information out of them, but the level itself is kind of small and the monsters didn't catch my fancy. I do have to find a hole in my bookcases large enough to stuff the massive tome that is the main dungeon into, so maybe I'd have been better off with the print edition. There are certainly enough extra levels to warrant having purchased Rappan Attuk for the third time, and all the extra levels and sub-levels definitely push it up from the lightweight megadugeon to one of the all time heavy weights. The Cyclopedean depths holds its own with the other published underdarks of the world (although the Greyhawk fan mash-up from TSR modules is still the all-time champion[see also Dragonsfoot forum on the mash-up]). Not so fond of the plain brown wrapper covers for either module though.

Elminsters Forgotten Realms

"Ed Greenwood presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms" the newest Wizard's of Coast splat books. One of the splatiest offerings to come down the pike in a long time, I mean even the title pretentious, as if we had been playing in someone else's Forgotten Realms" all this time. Filled with information such as forgotten realms slang, popular literature of the realms, and Tethyrian cuisine, you find no actionable gaming material within (unless you are making  "Trival Pursuit, the Forgotten Realms edition"). And yet I cannot write it off completely, for scattered within are copies of Ed Greenwoods typewritten notes from the original manuscript (although on far too pages). As one always fond of peeking behind the curtain, I find old notes intriguing in a manner no "gussied up" splat book can match. Would that they had published a book of Ed's notes instead of the rest of this clap-trap (I am still waiting for a full description of level 4 of Undermountain as well). I am also totally using the troll cart on the cover for a wilderness encounter as well. Not as disappointing as the new 40K Chaos Space Marines Codex, but that is a story for another blog.



Malazan

I am working my way through Steve Erikson's "Tales of the Malazan Empire" series. I find he manages to maintain the gritty fantasy of "The Black Company" and "A Song of Ice and Fire" but add a wildly imaginative spin on magic that I find quite appealing and a little more DnDish than the other two series. Although the series is very high magic with earth shattering spells that can change the world, that fact that it is usually told from the view point of a common soldier dodging nimbly aside as the god duel makes it accessable. I also like the way combines a renaissance empire with tribal stone age warriors and makes it work. I am only through the first four books but I highly recommend it.

**Warning Mild Spoilers **


Roleplaying ideas collected so far :

Lurking ancient evils
Imperial Assassins
Floating Elven Cities
Elves that turn into dragons
Magic that is accessed by tapping into different worlds
A deck of cards which maps the worlds of magic
A dead God who returns to life when blood is spilled on his altar
An immortal storm raging the dessert
A Book promising the return of a prophet to rule the world
A rising of the Desert tribes once the book has been returned
A ruined ancient city destroyed by  a half-Jaghut (Jhag) who no longer remembers who destroyed the city and seeks revenge for its destruction
The Jhag's body guard who's job it is to kill the Jhag if his memories come back
A mine of anti-magic stone
A boat rowed by undead rowers
An Imperial Army cut off by the desert tribes fighting its way back to the last Imperial held City
A magical delivery service which warps its way through the planes of magic to travel
A Jaghut entombed in magical ice to hide it from the T'lan Imass
A Cannibal Army
A city floating on an iceberg

Monsters include:

Soultaken Mages capable of transforming into beasts
Giant Dragonflies capable of carrying troops
T'lan Imass Undead servitors of the empress capable of merging with the earth then popping up later
T'lan Ayss the T'lan Imasses Undead Dogs
Jaghut Inhuman sorcerer kings of tremendous power hunted by the T'lan Imass
Giant Ravens with magic powers
flying piranha fish
a sea monster sized aquatic centipede capable of sinking ships
K'chan Mal Chan Giant undead hook horrors

Dinky Dungeons Review

An obscure game from my collection. An antediluvian micro game from 1985. A sixteen 3.5"x2.5" page booklet it could be easily be printed one 8.5x11 sheet of paper by printing both sides. For something so small it packs a lot of sass. 2d6 resolution system, three character classes (warrior, wizard and bard) four character races human, dwarf, elf and my favorite fuzzy winker. Seven wizard spells and Seven bard spells, and 30! monsters in a 3 PAGE!! monster manual. Here's the cover 

Surprisingly enough this game has a fan site (here). They also include a tribute game called Dinky Dragon
They are claiming a value as a collectors item of hundreds of dollars. I think mine cost me $1. However, since mine has been hand tinted by my son when he was 3 its value might be slightly less (I have also mislaid the sample dungeon, which is too bad because it has a marvelous Fuzzy Winker Warrior illustration). I close with a description of the fuzzy winkers "1' tall rodents, -1 physical and mental, can't use magic, weapons, or armor and they are cowardly" Given their skill set  i.e. nothing I'd be cowardly too!

In too deep on 1km1kt

As I mentioned on the Rulenomicon post I thought I  might be able to augment my collection of RPG with a visit to 1km1kt (that's interentese for "One Thousand Monkeys/One Thousand Typewriters") I did have a legitimate excuse one of the other blogs was mentioning Dungeon Squad and I though I needed a copy. Now an hour later I have 45 files (not counting five dungeon squad variants) to sieve through and index up for the Rulenomicon. A catalogers work is never done :(

Rulenomicon, It's Alive!!!

I have placed the completed (for now) Rulenomicon with links as as a new page on my blog. Nothing fancy but links to my game downloads (looks like one of those '90 webpages) note: blogs includes websites as well. I am not the only one with this idea, see this post from the free rpg blog. I am afraid his purported 669 games at 1KM1KT leaves my 100+ games (not all free) a little short. I am also working on a page to diplay feeds from the 289 blogs (although I like the sidebar widget currently on the main page it is always overrun with the daily posters so the less frequent posters are often lost) I am subscribed, however this will require some java scripting skills to make it work like I want it to, so it will be a while...

Rulenomicon "Get-er-done" edition A-D

O.K. so I got the titles  into the spreadsheet and added the links in adjacent columns. Unfortunately I am not blogger savvy enough to figure out how to cut-and-paste a formatted html table into blogger, Therefore I am hand linking all the downloads, blogs and, websites. To avoid boredom and carpal tunnel syndrome I'll be doing it a little bit at a time over the long weekend. Let me know what think of it so far...

P.S. I'd like the forums, blogs and websites to be buttons instead of text, but I don't know how to do that either :(

52 page Rulebook   Blog

-A-

A Song of Ice and Fire  Forum
Adventurer, Conqueror, King   Forum Blog
Adventures Dark and Deep  Forum Blog
Adventures Fantastiques
Adventures in the New Kingdoms Blog
Adventures Under the Laughing Moon  Blog
Adventuring Party
Age of Shadows  Forum  Blog
Altus Adventum 
Arduin (revised) Forum
Ars Magika  Blog
Artesia Blog
Azamar Blog

-B-

Bandits and Basilisks  Blog
Barbarians of Leumria  Forum
Barbarians of the Aftermath  Blog
Basic Fantasy Forum  
Brickmasters  Blog
Burning Wheel Blog

-C-

Challenger 
Chaos and Barberie
Circe
Creatures and Caverns Blog
Crimson Blades of Ara Blog
Crypts and Things  Blog

-D-

Dark Dungeons Forum  Blog
Dark Fantasy of Sundrah Blog
Dragon Warriors  Forum Blog
Dungeon Slayer Forum Blog

Adventure Burner not so hot

I really wanted to like "Adventure Burner" it being the final book to complete my set of "Burning Wheel" (at least for now). It has been a bit of a "Unicorn" having missed out on it two years ago at Gencon. I spotted Thursday and put on my list of things to pick up, but wanted to scan the whole hall before committing. When I came back Friday it was "sold out". Therefore when I spotted it Origins a few weeks back, I snapped it up. It being one of the few purchases I made at Origins I had high hopes (see prior post for the Old School bust at Origins, of course at its heart Origins is a boardgame convention). Unfortunately Adventure Burner did not meet the standards of the other Burning Wheel books. Most of the other books have been thought provoking with a lot of open endedness, and hooks for adding in (Magic Burner is my favorite). Not Adventure Burner, Three adventures, a bunch of NPC to specific to be of much use, and rules errata for the main book (which should have been its own internet download, but may account for the high sales rate at Gencon). And the introductory adventure, the worst of the worst, an ugliness know to my old school buddies as the "loot fight".
*Spoiler*
A scenario of four adventurers uncovering a magic sword a dwarf, an elf, a mage and a ratman, each with his own use for the item. Can it be solved via wicked roleplaying, to avoid mass interparty slaughter? No according to the scenario this is not possible. Even though they suggest a reasonable solution in their explanation, they also explain that all the NPCs will act like dicks to prevent it. Their soultion the so-called "test of wits"(more like nit-wits) a dice rolling contest leaving one player the victor and every one else to go home crying, and not involving any actual thinking on anyone's part. All in all a sadistic adventure designed to give players a railroad ride down the mindfrack express. If this what your offering as an introduction, I'm giving your game a pass. I like my roleplaying about adventurers banding together to overcome the trials of a hostile world, not carving each other to bits. The other adventures? A small village were the guy who summons you to help actually wants to sacrifice you to his evil god (not one of my favorites), and a reasonably straight foward micro-dungeon which is far too short (Tony Dowling's map is however the highlight of this book).
*end spoiler*
 No other adventure hooks, no broad campaign settings, no dialogue what makes a good adventure anyways, just these. After reading this I had to go back and reread the other Burning Wheel books and see if I had missed the inner darkness in these as well. Nope, they are solid offerings and expansive in nature. I think the Burning Wheel mechanics are a solid game system (although the baroque style makes them a little hard to understand), and I actually think having character motivations makes for roleplaying opportunaties. However, I think that substituting "roll playing" for roleplaying and letting the dice descide how you act on you beliefs is a bad idea (might as well play a real dice game like craps and park you brain at the door). It is for advocating this sin that I must give "Adventure Burner" the thumbs down. Burning Wheel can be played just fine without it (OK you might want to peek at the rules revisions, but skip the rest of it).

Dungeon Crawl Classics the good, the bad, the funky

Just picked up my copy of Dungeon Crawl Classics. Although I did not find it at a booth at Origins, as I had hoped for (Origins was pretty much OSR deprived, I only found one booth with much OSR stuff), my local game store got it in the next week. My reaction is a bit bittersweet. I think it is a perfectly playable game, many people will have a great hoot with one-offs using this system. However it incorporates a large dose of random lethality that will inhibit long term character development, and leave many characters, not retired but so gimped up as to be no fun to play. The good is that it is a large book at a reasonable price, it is published under the open gaming license (yay!!! that's a big plus in my book) and play could be a hoot. The bad limited character classes and few options to make them unique (although this is typical OSR), your character could explode,  randomness instead of game balance (more on this below). The funky, using different size dice instead of changing target numbers, arcane check charts for casting spells. Both these ideas are definitely out-of-box thinking, but look like they'll work.

Thing that worries me the most is the randomness. Randomness in itself is not bad. However random tables with small but finite catastrophic occurrences tend to tilt out of balance quickly (subject to both the long tail and black swan events for you economic statistic junkies). Those players who always role well will prosper under this system, folk like with often sub-average luck are screwed.

Diablo III so far

Well finally exorcised the installer demon and got the game running last night (it took downloading the installer files from a third party site). Unfortunately it is playing like a dumbed down Diablo II. My favorite character class (Amazon) is missing, and rather than have a skill tree my Barbarian seems to have Hobson's choice for skills (at this level you get skill x take it or leave it). Not sure what Blizzard was thinking, but I think they may have jumped the shark on this one.

H is Halls of Undermountain

O.K. so I am not really doing the alphabet thing, I am lucky to to post once a week let alone 26 posts in a month (By the way I did think the Tekumal project was doing an awsome job with their alphabet post introduction to the world of Empire of the Petal Throne, but then they have a big weatlh of marterial to draw from). I wanted to instead post my review of the new 4th edition supplement "Halls of Undermountain". One might think that this yet another attempt by WoTC to cash in on past glories by slapping the name of some old favorite on random shlock to boost sales (Witness the re-release of "The Tomb of Horrors", yes the tomb is in there but its EMPTY!?). However  "Halls of Undermountain" is actually pretty good and somewhat true to the end-of-first edition orginal . It contains the entire first level of Undermoutain and 79 keyed rooms for encounters (unlike the little tiny piece of undermountain detailed in the 3.5 edtion "Return to Undermountain). It even has RANDOM TABLES to fill the rooms which are not keyed. Although I have not yet pulled out the old first edition boxed to do a room by room comparision, the new encounters do include many mysticaly wacky but deadly tricks and traps that are characteristic of the first edition. Unfortunately it also contains some of the "no, you can't dissamble the trap and rebuild to use it against montser, because it only works in this room, Why? because the DM says so." I found so objectionable in the first edition. It has also gone back to a old school format for presenting the encounters, by simply giving a page reference in the monster vault for each monster in the encounter (thank God, if they had tried to lay out 79 enounters with a battle map and detailed stat block for everyone this book would be 500+ pages and weigh a ton). For those who like plot there are three adventures strung together. However, these plots are accomplished by roaming the dungeon, and there is very little to keep the players from wandering off on their own. Unfortunately once they hit fifth level their ability to wander down to the 2nd level is limited, because this supplement only cantains level one. Given WoTC production schedule, I will have to wait a least six months for 2nd level, and probably and enternity for the twisted caverns of level 4 (I have been waiting for the twisted caverns ever since they decided to jump to 5th level in the second boxed set, I suppose I could write my own twisted caverns since there is actually part of a map in "Return to Undermountain", but I have always wondered what Ed Greenwood put in his.) All in all I think that "Halls of Undermountain" is one the best 4th edtion supplements I own, and I am eagerly awaiting the chance to try it out on some unsupecting victims er. I mean players ;)

Crimson Blades of Ara Review

My friend Carter Soles over at The  Lands of Ara has graciously posted the game system he and and friend Dave Miller wrote in 1989. You pick up the rules for "Crimson Blades of Ara" over at his blog. Although the author claims these are rough notes they are a dam site more impressive than my pencil scribbles on lined paper I call notes. As with many youthful endeavours it is chock-a-blog full with novel ideas and concepts, despite Carters claim that he was reinventing Runequest without knowing it (actually about all that Runequest and His system share are a use of a list of skills to determine abilities and percentile dice to resolve actions). Actually his character point chart with its exponential increase cost as skills move towards 100%, solves one of the great shortcomings of Runequest. Runequests advance system based on dice rolls against skills you use rewards lucky rather than skillful play, and results in great silliness amongst the power gaming crowd of continual weapon switching and trivial skill checks. All in all I was quite impressed, although I have not completed my analysis of the combat system which seems to exude a strong preference for some weapons over others. I am unlikely to attempt to run the whole game as written, but will likely borrow pieces for my homebrew rules. The crown jewel of these rules are the skill and trait level cost chart. I also enjoyed the eastern school mages who cast spells by "the creation of small,
animated beings called golems"; Orge player characters which are immensely strong but forced take quirks to compensate; and the two strikes per round combat system which allows you the ability to drop your chance to parry a opponents blow and counter attack instead. I thought having the agility stat determine who goes first, while dexterity and strength determine (for the most part, longsword is agility based) your chance to hit was wise; Fantasty trip and its successor GURPS put dexterity on both who goes first and your chance to hit biasing their games to uber dexers with nothing else. I am intrigued by the concept presented of different weapons having different caps on how much skill one can apply to ones attack, but I'll want to finish my math analysis before I can say I am in favor of it. A big thanks to Carter and Dave for sharing. Pick up a copy and check out for yourself. If you are unhappy you can always ask for your NO MONEY back.

Red Box

As the well paid Civil Servant, as opposed to the Gamestop clerks and laid off factory workers I play with, it falls to me to buy the stuff that convinces the Game store owner it's worth having the extra space for games in the shop. As such and because the collector in me must possess one of everything fantasy role playing I am now the proud owner of a fancy red box 4 edition starter box. After all as I explained to she-who-must-be-obeyed it wouldn't be fair to review it on my blog without actually owning it. It's got some nice black plastic dice and a well drawn large double sided battle mat with a road, some caves, and a dungeon. It got some cards in text too small for me even with my reading glasses which might be power cards, even a few which might be new. The fighter at will seem intriguing the rest is nothing to see here. I am sure the min-maxers down at the store will scrutinize them closely for brokenness and transform the most broken in to exploits to post on the WoTC forum like they aways do. I am going to take she-who-must-be-obeyed advice and slap them on the scanner before doing anything else with them. And then there are the two stapled pamphlets in between. I could go with my mothers suggestion "if you can't say anything nice don't say anything" but where's the fun in that? Now pick-a-path adventures can be fun but they usually start with a page labeled how to play. I have been very much against pick-a-path adventures as a way to start characters since Garyisaal (Empire of the Petal Throne) tried it in the '90s. Sure its fun the first time but after awhile it gets old. I searched the second book cover-to-cover for what are character classes, levels, or what are those funny power cards for but never did find them. I find rule sets that bury the rules in purple prose annoying, again may be fun for the first time (although if its bad prose not even then) but just try going back to look up some point the DM and player disagree on. These books didn't need to written, and if they are capable of confusing an experienced gamer like me I doubt they'll be much help to a starting gamer. Even 4e D&D is a simple enough game that most people want to play the full blown version after a single evening of introductory play (This is what doesn't work about the D&D encounters program either). They should just give away a quick start guide for free (like those free computer game demos with the first few levels of the larger game) rather than charging people twenty bucks (Oh wait! They already did that). Well at least I got that cool box and more dice.

P.S. Lamentations of the Flame Princess which I picked up last month has an even cooler box, micro dice, and a little stubby pencil like they hand out in libraries. Perhaps I'll talk about that some time

Back from Gencon

Well no post last week as I traveled to Gencon instead. A bit bummed this week as the blog-a-sphere is full of people I could have met if I had been paying attention. Was there didn't see a lot of old school stuff but was too busy shepherding my steam punk magic card head nephew to spend much time looking. She-who-must-be-obeyed only bought off on this road trip as an Uncle-Nephew bonding trip. Still cant' work that darn cellphone to surf the blogs and wander the real world at the same time. Actually brought the cellphone, but forgot the charger so it very quickly converted to its normal brick mode. Gave both the Wizards of the Coast and Pathfinder stuff a pass since my local game store gets these items regularly and lets my crew game for free as long as we buy stuff from him. Tried to buy a copy of Deathwatch but it was sold out. Walked away from the booth with "Fantasy Hero" after the guy explained that their 200+ page book didn't contain any actual rules for magic, just suggestions for how to write your own from the 500 page Hero system core book sold separately. Here's the stuff I did buy:

Fantasy Terrain pack from Fat Dragon Games (A good swath of their E-Z dungeon and Dragonshire sets on CD for a discount price [Note: to other .pdf vendors if you are going to spring for a booth at Gencon having something tangible to sell is a good idea])

City of Thieves (A board game set in Cadwallon). I'll probably use the board as dungeon tiles, paint up the plastic miniatures and ignore the game

Arcana (a card game set in Cadwallon). Hey it was next to City of Thieves and not too expensive.

Ink bloom (a how-to-draw art book). By the same artist who helped with "Wreaking Havoc" and "Hell beasts". Unfortunately the previous two titles were more to my liking but at least it's signed

Shattered Empires: Quick launch from the Living Arcanis guys. The guy at the booth had one of the best reasons for writing his own game. He explained he was tired of having to keep up with all the rules updates certain other game companies keep cranking out (those of you who read the comic "Knights of the Dinner table" this month will encounter some biting satire on this very topic) . I also liked the fact that they were scrapping the character class system (I feel innumerable character classes were the downfall of third edition, and are hard at work pushing fourth edition over into the abyss as well).

The Worlds Greatest Screen by Hammerdog Games. Quad fold black with clear plastic pockets like them expensive three ring binders. An idea I wish I had though of. She-who-must-be-obeyed wants one too. Had to retire the Old Master I bought in 1980 last year when the tear along the center line reached the halfway point (I do miss the the intimidation factor of being able to pull out a dungeon masters screen which is older than most of the players at the table).

Burning Wheel Monster Burner and Magic Burner. OK I actually don't like the burning wheel core mechanics or the folksy way rules information is scattered throughout the purple prose, but so many intriguing ideas are scattered through out these books I couldn't pass them up. Probably would have bought the Adventure Burner as well if it hadn't been sold out.

A few Aimee missing from my collection

A few art buttons. I am not up for spending 200+ dollars for a original to hang on my wall (besides the few walls not behind bookcases in my house are already full). I can however afford two dollars for a button, free business cards are also cool.

That;s it for now. Next time another dungeon level

In too deep on Cadwallon

OK short post tonight, because I am just back from DMing the shop gamers through Waterdeep 1-5 Lost in the Fog (one of the better living forgotten realms). I was thinking about last night which I stayed up way too late searching the french language blogs for an English translation of Secrets of Cadwallon Two, when I didn't even like Cadwallon and Secrets of Cadwallon that much to begin with (As usual for Rackham the artwork in is glorious, however the rules are obtuse, pretentous and overly artifical; I mean who wants to have to pick what kind of mood the are in just to figure out if you hit the monster or not). There is an english Rackham board with a Cadwallon section here and a link to the artist who drew the Rackham City Tiles here (Warning this site is in French). If you look at the pictures labelled "plateux de jeu" you can see some of the tiles, but not the cavern ones I was talking about in yesterdays post. Well it's past my bedtime again, so see you next time.

Empire of the Petal Throne

Rather than writing a new blog I am afraid I got sucked down the rabbit hole of a thread on the Dragonsfoot forum. However I'll republish my post on Empire of The Petal Throne here:

Empire of the Petal Throne is one of my favorite "Old School" games. Couldn't swing the $25 for the boxed set in 1975 so I bought $10 rules alone. It's very close to Original D&D but the skills are a definite difference. I liked that the rules are more clearly written than Original D&D with fewer holes. Unfortunately the successor incarnations of the rules have been less successful (or well written). Swords and Glory volume 2 is worth picking up. Unfortunately the most recent incarnation Tekumal was a pale shadow of the original. Tita's House of Games has most of the rules sets and supplements available still. In addition to throwing both the Hlyss and Ssu into my D&D games, I have run several short term campaigns in Tekumal. For a culture as strange and complex as Tekumal the barbarian fresh of the boat start seems to be the best way to go. As always I run the world as my own and don't worry about the canonical setting as given in the supplements. Due to an interesting quirk in the encounter tables most parties started the game wandering the wilderness and only entered the dungeons when they where higher level (the exact opposite of the way we played Original D&D). Little play hint: Don't tell the priests of Thumis you worship no gods, they will know you for the Ksarul worshiping bastard you are.

P.S. I liked the Man of Gold[Novel by M.A.R. Barker EPT author] once I got through the linguistic fluff in the first chapter

Arduin, Bloody Arduin

Overall
I really wanted to like Arduin having invested 80 bucks and firmly believing that people learn from their mistakes. However Arduin is a baroque, complex, half complete edifice. Its sits like some ruined catherdral to an unknown saint. If you have a fondness for the orginal Arduin Grimoire rules, it is better organized than the orginal nine volume set. However be warned it contains no monsters, no magic items and little campaign setting (buy the World of Khaas for campaign setting). Buy this book if you want to be inspired by strange spells of wonder. Buy this book to raid for unique and novel concepts you would have not come up with on your own. Do not buy this book for clear consice game mechanics, or simple games that are easy to understand

And now to the contents

Introduction
It’s not bad explanation of the book contents. I like the little inset legends (but then you can tell from all the parenthesis in my blog I am just an aside kind of guy [She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed says when I reach the second tier I am over the limit]). I skipped the long winded history of the World of Arduin, it’s a good read but I’ve seen it before. The character creation section is clear and makes it look easy
Chapter 1 Character stats
Arduin has eleven rolled stats:
Adroitness
Reflexes
Strength
Size
Mass
Constitution
Wits
Reason
Essence
Ego
Charisma
What to roll is different for each race which is given in chapter three
Arduin has eight calculated stats
Coordination
Count Factor
Mental Acuity
Body
Aptitude
Leadership
Perception
Hit points

There is also Dodge, Movement, Saves, Defenses, Resists, a Recovery rate and a Healing rate. Whew that’s a lot of math! Considering the stats are randomly rolled I think that averaging them to calculate the values you’ll be using in play is a good idea, but eleven stats is kind of a lot.

Chapter 2 Races
More races than you can shake a stick at including my favorites Deodanth, Praint and Throon (just perfect for wielding my infamous three handed swords). I have yet to determine the difference between Hobbits and Kobbits but I am sure a sharp blow to the knee cap in some dark alleyway will begin my instruction in the finer points. Every race gets to select from a Chinese menu of optional bonuses. If that’s not enough there’s a hundred (just right for rolling a d100 to decide) general bonuses in the back.

Chapter 3 Cultures
Various regions of the world of Khass with various options I’ll try to pursue this in depth later but it’s a lot like other campaign guides

Chapter 4 Professions & Paths
Character classes new ones include Courtesan, Medicine Man, Rune Weaver, Sage, Techno, Trader, Rune Singer, and Star Powered Mage

Chapter 5 Skills
Skills are checked on a d100 and range from 0 to 150. Races learn skills at an average rate of about 7 skill points per experience point 1. However some races are as low as 1 skill point per experience point, so if you want to be a skill monkey choose your race wisely. Most skills are the same old same old, although many have special tricks available as you advance. Skills a little less ordinary include Beast ken, Business, Ceremony, Channel, Entreaty, Gnosis, Lorica, Noetics, and Underworld. One bit of interest are the several martial and caster skills which although similar are based on different stats.

Chapter 6 is missing. Perhaps it contains some deep secrets only revealed in full moonlight. Perhaps it is bad editing.

Chapter 7 Equipment
Stuff to buy. Except for some weird race weapons and armor nothing much to see.

Chapter 8 Faith and Religion
Faith points are apparently accumulated like experience and expended to cast spells. Dogma is a big stick to make you roll on the transgressing table as well as the crisis of faith table. A list of Gods of the Arduin World each with their own dogmas and spell lists. Nobody is spectacularly different from the standard fare.

Chapter 9 Combat
Wow nine chapters in and finally a combat system. Initiave is determined by CF. Those with high CF get extra actions up to 6 for the highest. Note to players pump your CF up or you’ll be dead before you can do anything. If your CF drops to zero all you can do is try and boost it back up. Every one gets one quick action (I’m not sure when because that is not explained. Hopefully it interrupts the attack you’re trying to dodge, block, or parry). Combat is resolved by a d100 roll. Roll the dice add your bonuses, check it against the opponents defense; if it’s higher you hit. Roll your damage dice (usually based on weapon type with stat adds). Subtract your opponent’s damage resist (usually from armor) and voila he loses that many hit points. Grappling is a d100 athletics against defense and can pin, restrain, or slam. Many other combat maneuvers mostly the same old same old, but wield creature as a weapon is kind of cute.

Chapter 10 AdventuringThis chapter is a giant hodgepodge of stuff; including wealth checks, experience, lifting and throwing, overland travel and lighting. This is followed by a collection of martial arts feats which is the longest part of the chapter (perhaps this is the lost chapter 6 it sure as heck didn’t belong here and one had more than enough martial arts in both the professions and skills chapters).

Chapter 12 Social Dimensions
Ah hah the weird martial arts stuff is actually chapter 11 (it’s just not labeled that). Here we get lifestyle, social motifs, contacts and connections. The contacts and connections actually look interesting sort of like a long term diplomacy check

Chapter 13 design and manufactureMaking stuff. Way too short and badly explained

Chapter 14 Schematics
The stuff to make. Laid out like some giant spell book, but probably too techno to make into my fantasy campaign setting

Chapter 15 herbs
Magical herbs! what else!?

Chapter 16 Alchemy recipes
For those who prefer brewing their gizmos rather than manufacturing them

Chapter 17 Spirits and Animate powers
For calling on the forces of nature. Short and confusing

Chapter 18 fetishes
For those who prefer spirit powering their gizmos rather than brewing them

Chapter 19 magik and pychic
Well the fighters got their bonus background chapter in 11 so here’s a pile of extra magic feats and backgrounds for mages.

Chapter 20 RunesPerhaps it isn’t really just for magicing gizmos instead of spirit powering them. The things runes do seem slight different. I’ll have to pursue this chapter more to know for sure

Chapter 21 Rituals
For those who like their magic slow.

Chapter 22 Spells
The list up to level 20. Each with its own little paragraph of obtuse text arranged neither by level or alphabetically for maximum game slowness and rules lawyering (brings back memories of the old days especially the house rule banning rules discussions after midnight).

Chapter 23 Mental Powers
Like the spells only it’s mental

Chapter 24 Prayers
Spells for Clerics

Chapter 25 GM Assistance
Here’s the place for the stuff they forgot to mention earlier like moving, climbing, swimming, starting age, language, knowledge, handling time between adventures, generating NPC (perhaps the one thing that belonged in this chapter rather than something earlier) and critical hit tables. Not content with critical hits for combat they have added them for skill checks, power checks, as well as fumble tables as well

Bottom Line:Some great ideas However: Too many stats. Information too dispersed around the book. Too many different ways of doing about the same thing

Imagination 5 stars
Organization 2 stars
Art work 3 stars (4 if you are an affectionato of black and white ink work)
Playability 3 stars (some sections seem quite useable)

Overall 3 stars

Mysteries of Old

A little break from Candololian. She-Who-Must-be-Obayed has been surveying the blog with her stern eye and correcting my shortcommings. We have added a map of the coast from Reme to Winterhaven to the Dragon Armies 3 post. We'll be posting more soon. Pursuing reviews of Stonehell dungeon (the new "old school" megadungeon from three headed monster), led me to older reviews of the dissappointment that was Castle Zagzyg. It also remined me of one of my favorite supplements of a all time Judge Guild's First Fantasy Campaign by Dave Arneson(rest in peace). Dave had the sense not to try and rework an item from the times of myths and legends into something for modern tastes, but just presented it warts and all the way he wrote and used it. For a look under-the-hood kind of guy like me it suited me just fine. No I can't run it the way he wrote it, but I never run modules the way they are written anyhow. Another thing, the heart and sole he put into it were not edited away in to bland soleless pap with fancy artwork (see Expedition to Undermountain for that kind of trainwreck, although they did finally publish at least a bit of map for all the levels [20 good pages out of 220 total]). I am afraid given the high rate of mortality amongst the old stalwards First Fantasy Campaign may be one of the few glimpess of how the game was played when D&D first began ever to see print. Just get the stuff out there and it will live forever, sit back trying to catch the evermoving target of perfection and take it with you to the grave.