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Book of Jalan RPG

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Book of Jalan RPG
Publisher: Better Mousetrap Games
by Josh B. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 09/26/2005 00:00:00

Sorcery & Swashbuckling. Not being familiar with the universe or rules of StarCluster, it was the promise of these things which led me to The Book of Jalan. Described as a world in the Star Cluster, Jalan has been cut off from the other worlds by a quarantine. This has left it at a roughly Renaissance era level of development; with the largest exception being the existence of magic. You don't need to be familiar with the StarCluster game to play - The Book of Jalan contains all the necessary rules.

The layout of the book is simple and easy to read, with occasional art added in. I'm not sure what medium the artist used for the pictures, but most of them are vividly colored, and on the whole seem to fit the book quite well. This product is also extensively bookmarked, and features a fully hyperlinked table of contents and index to make browsing even easier.

The Book of Jalan opens with the first section of a multi-part story titled Due West. I'm not usually a fan of fiction in my gaming books. I didn't mind in this case. It's kept short, and is presented as a story; rather than trying to tell us what a section is about, or reading like someone recounting last night's gaming session. My biggest complaint is that during one of the early sections the first-person narrator directly addresses the audience. This causes later elements to lose some of their dramatic potential.

From there we segue directly into the magic section - a transition that was jarring to say the least. Having no experience with the game's rules at all, I'm suddenly left trying to puzzle my way through a very in depth magic system. This is our first glimmer of one of the major issues with The Book of Jalan: the organization of the book is terrible. This isn't the last time the reader is confronted with game terms or rules mechanics, and then forced to wait for an explanation. In this case it would be a bit before I even found out how skills work; which is an important part of casting magic. While this may not present a problem for those already familiar with the rules, and I was able to generally figure things out; the organization still leaves far too much room for potential confusion.

That aside, the magic system itself is of the open ended variety, rather than a predefined list of spells. Featuring a number of categories, which allow for a variety creative effects, the system does have fairly complex rules. Its number of options is a potential weakness as well as a strength; potentially slowing the game as players try and decide what elements need to go into producing the desired effect.

Character generation is the next section, and two different methods are offered: random or point buy. Five of the attributes are handled one way, while Intelligence and PSI (the attribute which governs magic) are handled another. Rank, and consequently money, are also determined in the same way as Intelligence and PSI. Initial skill selection and character advancement are handled in the same way - a per year choice based on a school or profession. At the conclusion of each adventure, characters age one year; which earns them an additional skill point, or a metaskill along with the potential for a career promotion. This section concludes with an extensive list of schools and professions.

Following character generation is the chapter on skills. It presents a large listing of individual skills, and explains what each one is for and how they are used. We also learn about metaskills: skills which can be used in conjunction with other skills. There is some math involved in translating your skill level into a percentage chance of success under the game's d00 resolution method; while calculating the percentage chance for a metaskill is a bit more difficult. The default method of performing a task with no points in the skill strikes me as a bit harsh, though a later chapter gives some suggested modifications.

The next two chapters provide descriptions of the various human cultures, as well as the four non-human species available for use as player characters. Humans receive a bonus skill based on their overall cultural grouping, and then receive additional bonus skills based on which specific subgroup of that culture the character hails from. This gives humans a wider variety to pick from regarding their bonus skills; the other character types tend to receive their bonus skills based on species, with lesser emphasis placed on the area they hail from.

The next chapters focus on armor and weapons. Again, these are chapters where the lack of organization is an issue. The reader is plunged into charts and numbers with little to no explanation of what it all means until arriving at the next chapter.

A chapter on rules comes next. Most of the information is combat related; attack and damage rolls, constitution and healing etc. Additional rules cover the effects of higher skill levels, degrees of success, alternate methods of making unskilled attempts and a note about general knowledge levels and languages.

There is an excellent GM-oriented chapter about non-player characters. It not only gives a brief description of what an NPC is, but provides an excellent series of tables for putting together these characters on the fly. Containing listings not only for determining such things as skills and attributes, there are also tables to provide NPCs with behaviour hooks and missions; perfect for when you need that little extra something, but are a bit short on ideas. Also included are preconstructed statistics, and templates suitable for use as PCs or NPCs.

Despite its claim to lack depth, the chapter giving us an overview of the history and peoples of Karai is quite informative. A great deal of work and attention to detail seem to have gone into developing the world and it shows.

A brief chapter on the gods of the world shows this same attention to detail. Not only are we introduced to the gods and what their area of influence is, but information about the forming of the Purani church, the origin of gods and the nature of worship is also provided.

The bestiary introduces us to some of the various beasties just waiting for their chance to turn PCs into snacks. In addition to the mechanical information, this chapter features an overview of the six stages of lycanthropy as one of its highlights. A companion chapter features information for putting together creatures to round out the world, or more likely with which to bedevil your PCs.

Opened and closed with some very attractive maps comes information on the city of Barkash. Like most such profiles, it covers the general composition, notable districts, politics and people of the city. My favorite portion of this chapter was a listing of the names of taverns and inns, along with their reputation for danger or excellence. While I would have preferred to see more detailed profiles of the establishments, even a brief profile for each place mentioned by name would significantly increase the book's page count.

Appendix A features various optional and advanced rules, many of them making combat more detailed. Appendix B mentions different types of currency, an overview of the Green River Valley and a chart which related real-world cultures to their counterparts on Karai.

Rounding this out is an attractive character sheet, along with various worksheets to help keep track of all your information and the already mentioned hyperlinked index.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The magic system. Well-developed and interesting setting.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Poor organization. The magic system.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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Book of Jalan RPG
Publisher: Better Mousetrap Games
by Richard P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/03/2005 00:00:00

The Book of Jalan -

A fantasy RPG published by Flying Mice LL, written by Alex Bailey, Clash Bowley, and Klaxon Bowley. Fictional work by Ryan A. Span.Copyright 2004. Reviewer?s Note - I first stumbled across the name ?Flying Mice? in an RPG forum. There was a post by some guy called Clash Bowley who went by that Nick. I wondered who this Clash person was and what the hell flying mice had to do with anything? Aren?t flying mice just bats? Apparently not. Apparently, they are the creators of roleplaying games too - lots of roleplaying games. And so I became acquainted with the wonders of Flying Mice and their Star Cluster world. LAYOUT - This book is a hefty tome, being 251 pages in length. Yes, 251 pages is hefty, despite how people are getting used to 300+ pages of glossy fluff that looks and reads like a Sears catalogue. I also purchased it as a PDF, and viewing 251 pages on screen is akin to getting your eyeballs waxed. All in all, Jalan is well written and the writing is functional, with only the occasional spelling (and grammatical) error. It?s an easy read with very rare exceptions where the writing gets a touch clumsy. Yes, there is white space, which in itself isn?t a problem. Gamers are so used to horrible layout, which has been passed off as good layout because it?s become the standard, that they forget that many graphic designers would look at the grandiose RPGs and vomit. Too many people in the RPG community see white space and they see red. They want flourishes, illustrations, splats, fart boxes, borders, urine stains, whatever, to busy the page. The problem with white space arises when it?s principally due to poor management and there are moments in The Book of Jalan when this is the case. Aside from that the white space is a breath of fresh air and gives you some room to breath. The illustrations are classic Clash Bowley fare. Lots of pics of frolicking , youngish looking women, dudes in tights or similar attire, and the occasional freakish mutant. They are crisp, clear, concise, and well done. What more can you ask for? This isn?t a picture book, it?s an RPG. Introduction of the overall setting - Jalan, like most Flying Mice LL products (Blood Games aside), is set in Star Cluster world. This ?world? consists of a remote cluster of stars and the worlds they support. Humans fled to this cluster to escape the explosion of our sun. Yahoo! Jalan is supposed to be a fantasy game, however, not a sci-fi game. So, how does this all play out? Following a four page Table of Contents the actual text opens with Ryan Span?s fiction which is dotted throughout the manual itself. The fiction is entertaining and is sprinkled throughout the manual, complimenting the setting nicely. It?s a nice touch to the book and something which the big name publishers have essentially abandoned in their quest to crank out another widget, done in a pedestrian manner, to sell to the dull masses. After the fiction we fall into the study part. The opening paragraph will prove to be as confusing as hell to the common pleb. ?Seeders?? ?DNA transferring?? Sci-fi? Fantasy? I?m confused, let?s move on . . . eventually there?s an explanation on how psionics (mind powers) are magic and vice versa. Read on further and you discover that the world of Jalan is a kind of nature preserve for primitive cultures. The fear of ?magic? by the tech-wielding overlords of the Star Cluster (called the SaVaHuTa) has led to Jalan becoming a kind of zoo. The zoo?s inmates, the people of Jalan, are frequently monitored. Whenever the Jalanites start to improve their Tech Level, the SaVaHuTa have a cull, eradicating the more brilliant minds of Jalan to ensure there?s never a zoo break. Never fear though, if you?re a Jalan native you don?t know you?re in a ?zoo?. You go about your daily life in your magical world, maybe wondering why Egbert the Inventor mysteriously disappeared one dark and stormy night, or maybe not.

MAGIC This section follows the Introduction. It?s a baptism by fire for the uninitiated and inexperienced and I felt it was rather out of place. It should have come further into the text but as a magical/fantasy world, perhaps the authors wanted to reenforce the fact that this is supposed to be a fantasy game. The way that magic is explained is that it?s essentially mind over matter (i.e. PSIONICS, or PSI, for short). Everyone has some inherent PSI, how much depends on a number of factors. The effects of your PSI power are determined by your Affinity. An Affinity is set towards one of the four basic elements (earth, water, wind, fire) and light. Whatever your Affinity is will effect the outcome of your spells. For example: someone with affinity for earth would create a hail of stones for an energy attack while someone with an affinity for water would create a gout of live steam. A person?s Skill Level determines the precision of spell?s desired effects and a caster can ?burn? points to boost them. There?s a neat thing called ?Weaving?, which allows players to generate all sorts of cool spell effects of their own. All of this is followed by a series of charts. You can expect lots of these (it?s the Flying Mice LL way) but the charts tend to augment what you?ve learned so it?s all good.

CHARACTER GENERATION This should have went before the MAGIC section but that?s just me. It doesn?t really matter, however, as any green horn will find himself catching a one-two punch as soon as he starts to read. Characters in Jalan are developed like they are in Star Cluster. If you know what this means you can skip this bit and move onto SPECIES. The basic assumption is that playing groups aren?t playing day-to-day campaigns. Rather, they are playing ?old style? - where the character goes about his/her mundane life, hears about an adventure, goes off on said adventure, comes back and returns to his/her mundane life. It?s assumed that a character goes on one good adventure a year, aging in the process. When you age, you get Skills. So getting old isn?t as bad as it sounds. A character in Jalan starts learning new Skills at 10 (probably well before they are brought into play unless it?s the Jalan version of Harry Potter). In addition the 10 year old will already have four Mother?s Milk Skills already in the bag. You wander through the Skill generation process to determine all the Skills your character learned before he/she is brought into play. A character has eight characteristics - five of which are basically physical in nature (Strength, Coordination, Agility, Endurance and Charisma) and are determined by rolling two six sided dice and the other three (IQ, PSI, and Rank) that are generated with percentile rolls. You can also distribute point totals, if you don?t want to try your hand at the dice. The book then explains how you generate all the stuff you need to fill your character out (specie selection - there are four races, in total, excluding sub-races; schooling and/or apprenticeship; college education; employment, etc). This is followed by a bit on Physical Deterioration, which starts when your character is 34 years old. All of this is proceeded by 5 million miles of charts, specific to the character types or professions. The Skills and Meta-Skills are also listed, each with a brief, to-the-point description. The Character Generation Charts and Skills/Meta-Skills section are lines of type surrounded by large fields of white space. It?s broken up by the occasional pic but it could have been laid out more efficiently. Perhaps, the white space is meant to provide gamers with a place to jot down notes. I don?t know.

SPECIES - There are basically four different species in Jalan - Humans, Alari, Khali, and Bani. While humans gain bonus skills through their specific cultural backgrounds, the other three races get bonus skills according to race only. There are three distinct human uber-cultures, sub-divided into 19 various not-so-uber cultures. Don?t want to play a human? Who does in a fantasy game? Jalan has three other races to choose from. If you?re sick and tired of the elf, dwarf, hobbit alternatives then you won?t be disappointed, sort of. Jalan offers up humanoid races that are unique to the system. The Alari (elves) - are human-like in appearance (identical, I assume) but they have elephant memories, require little or no sleep, and take up art. They acquire skills through their long memories as they need them. Khali/Half-Khali (friendly orcs?) - No real description is provided but the accompanying artwork shows something that is rather orc-like in appearance. Humans think they are dumb and brutish (like orcs) but they?re not. Instead, they simply choose to ignore being highly civilized and live a simple, clan oriented lifestyle. Their clans have names like Heart Eater, Throat Ripper, and Gut Splitter so you can hardly blame the humans for thinking they?re savage brutes. Bani (a hobbit like exterior with a dwarf filling) - They look like human children but dwell in caverns and mines, loving all things that have to do with mining and rocks. Equipment List - stuff and more useless white space. Plus a preamble on weapons and their particulars and how they apply to combat and then some more charts. Playing Guide - This is a kind of Game Master?s guide as we draw away from character generation and enter into the mechanical guts of The Book of Jalan. The goal of the game, by the way, which is clearly stated, is to survive. The longer you survive, the more skilled and god-like oyu become. After touching the surface at the end of the Character Generation guide, the Player?s Guide wades into combat. Initiatives (yeah, there?s more than one) play a large role in combat and combat resolution is determined through percentile rolls. Various factors can play on your chances to increase or decrease your chances of success. Oddly enough, other forms of action resolution are intermingled with the combat text that aren?t necessarily combat specific. NPCs - There is a meaty bit (11 pages long, including charts) about generating important and not-so-important non-player characters. NPCs can be created quickly or methodically so the sack of scumbags can be kept full all the time. The Peoples of Karai - is a detailed world section, complete with historical information, maps, gods, beasts, more beasts, and ways to generate your own beasts. Running fast on the heels of this is another thorough world section on Barkas. Both of these preambles provide solid source material for Game Masters and settings for their campaigns. Things close out with Appendices A and B. A) Consists of a series of optional rules that can be adopted by the playing group and . . . B) Consists of a detailed money section and a hodge-podge of world section info. The Character Sheet is more like a Character Pamphlet (consisting of 5 sheets in total). People like a lengthy index for some reason and if indexes are your thing then The Book of Jalan won?t dissappoint. You may want to buy the game solely because it has an index and then stare at the index and go, ?Ooo, an index.? Yes, there?s an index already. SUMMARY - The Book of Jalan offers a great deal of opportunities for the experienced gamer along with a unique fantasy setting. Like most RPG systems, save the simplest, some study will be required to thoroughly understand the game. It?s nice that the races are new (yet somehow still familiar) and there?s the edition of gunpowder weapons to broaden the horizons of the thud n? blunder set. Having said that, don?t expect an extreme departure from your typical fantasy game. There?s nothing that will make your jaw drop but there?s nothing that will make you cringe either. Jalan is simply a solid fantasy roleplaying game. LOWS - ?Complexity? - a joy for some, a misery for others. Just how complex a game is, is not a problem. But when a game is written with the understanding that the person who purchased it is an experienced veteran and not a humble layman then there?s cause for concern. I don?t have a problem with the this, I?m an experienced gamer. Nor do I have a problem with the ?crunchiness? of the rules. Others, however, might. As a personal pet peeve, I have to say that I?m disappointed with the fact that Jalan is yet another Star Cluster world. It lends to Game Masters being tempted to bring in oafs bearing machine guns and black ops. killing squads. When I sit down to play a fantasy RPG I don?t want some silly GM screwing it all up when he introduces his new NPCs Johnny Datapad and Victor KillLaser from the world of Gadgets Galore. But hey! That?s just me. Another low was a misuse of white space and the fact that a few of the sections seemed out of place to me. But these are minor points and trivial in reality. THE FINAL WORD - I?d seriously recommend The Book of Jalan for any gaming group who are growing tired of the usual Fantasy RPG suspects and are looking for a hardcore alternative. All the tools are in this kit to build yourself a solid campaign. It isn?t for the casual gamer or the lazy, however, as time and thought will be required eto extract the elemental goodness out of it. All in all, well worth the money - if your serious about how you spend your money.

<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: A unique, fantasy system. A wealth of information. The potential to be a rich, campaign setting for the serious gamer.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The complexity of the text and the fact that it's yet another Star Cluster world. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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