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Fantasia: Book Of All Knowing—core rules
Publisher: New Dimension Games
by Gareth W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/28/2008 03:20:02

Over the past week or so, i've bought D&D 4e at my local bookshop and Fantasia from RPGNOW. I've just finished my initial read through both and its an interesting comparison.

If D&D 4e is the beautiful actress at the movie premiere, then Fantasia is her homely half sister that inherited the personality rather than the looks - but I mean that in a nice way.

Fantasia is, through and through, 'old skool' high fantasy.

Fantasia has loads of nice gaming rules. Story points that reward players for role playing and are used get useful things, avoid death, and advance to the higher character classes. Compulsory retirement of high level player characters (but the player gets kudos on their next character). 'Courage' as a player character attribute, to stop characters acting entirely fearlessly. Spell points to fuel the magic. You get the idea.

Yes, OK, you've seen these all before in 'house rules' bolted onto D&D, but Fantasia brings them all together in one package.

Fantasia also carries plenty of endearing clutter. Descriptions of 'iron spikes', '50 foot ropes' and 'small bags', anyone? Advice on how to deal with 'silly' or 'sleepy' players. A section on how to run 'simple games' and another on 'roleplaying'. And nothing wrong with any of that advice either.

There's little on world background, but that's covered in a separate book and is a story for another day.

The writing style is unusual and you'll probably either love it or hate it. It annoyed my son, I liked it.

D&D4e feels like it was written by programmers, approved by a committee and polished by the boys in marketing. Fantasia feels like it was put together as a labour of love by a real gamer. In that sense, it reminded me of the Palladium RPG, and 'the old skool'.

Bottom line is I prefered Fantasia to D&D4e. If you liked D&D2e, Palladium RPG, etc then I suspect you'll like Fantasia too.

Good book. Good price. Take a look.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Fantasia: Book Of All Knowing—core rules
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The Book of Unremitting Horror (d20 version)
Publisher: Pelgrane Press
by Gareth W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/24/2007 00:00:00

Interesting book. I liked it.

As other reviewers have noted, a number of the monsters (and their traits) will be familiar to anyone who's seen modern horror films - but thats not a bad thing. In my opinion, the monsters are different enough that players will not spot the connection (or the solution) too quickly. I'll certainly transpose a few of the creatures into my CoC and Blood games to provite a bit of variation from the usual monster stock for those games.

I'd disagree with other reviewers, who I think have over emphasised the 'shock' elements of the book. Don't let it put you off, TBOUH is no more 'shocking' than a typical 15 rated horror film. Having said that, I still wouldn't let my young son read it before bedtime.

A good read. Stylish, plus lots of useful content and ideas.

<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: If you need a quick burst of inspiration, you could do a lot worse than turn to this book.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: In the download the front cover is a seperate file to the book. No big problem, just unusual (and uneccessary).<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Book of Unremitting Horror (d20 version)
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SLA Industries FREE Rulebook
Publisher: Nightfall Games
by Gareth W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/24/2007 00:00:00

I've beeen playing and reading RPGs for over 30 years now and, frankly, I've forgotton more games than I can remember - but a few stick in my mind as memorable and some as real classics.

SLA Industries is one of the classics.

The setting grabs you 'White Wolf style', but without any aftertaste of angst. With a bit of imagination and artistic licence you can use SLA to play anything from Paranoia style comedy to hardcore cyberpunk(esque) to sci-fi horror adventures.

Definitely one of my all time top 10.

I can only add that, after reading it, I went back and bought all the supplements without any hesitation. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Setting. Artwork.

Also, it was free (at least at the time I downloaded it?). <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: What could there be not to like?<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
SLA Industries FREE Rulebook
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Shadowrun, Fourth Edition
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
by Gareth W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/24/2007 00:00:00

What can I say about shadowrun?

The setting is just about unique. Some of the supplements (eg. Harlequin) are just about legendary. v4 is more of the same.

If I had already had the v3 rules in electronic format, I'm not sure I'd have made the jump to v4, but as my v1 paper copy had all but disintergrated, I went for the latest version.

I can't foresee any major problems using my old source materiel with v4, but then i'm no rules lawyer. Either way, I'll probably still get the electronic copies (and I've bought a couple already) just for convenience. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Nice electronic format. Way better 'screen readability' than the old scanned paper books.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: At the ebook price, I was almost tempted to go for the paper version. Almost, but not quite. A couple of $ lower would have removed the temptation.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Shadowrun, Fourth Edition
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Planescape Campaign Setting (2e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Gareth W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/05/2007 00:00:00

Another PDF format blast from my past.

In my opinion, Planescape was TSRs finest hour - their only setting that came close to recapturing the 'uncertainty and wonder' of the early days of D&D for veteran players.

Spent a happy couple of hours reading through this one last night. The pseudo-british cant was just as annoying as I remembered - but there's no avoiding it the planescape books and you do start to automatically filter it out after a while.

<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: One of TSRs best settings, if not the best. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I was disappointed with the scan quality. The scanner seems to have been set to bright for this one, so the pages all have a bleached look - the text generally is faint and the brown/tan lettering used as headers suffers a lot. I took a quick look at several of the other planescape titles I had purchased at the same time and it seems a common isssue. Unfortunately, Acrobat Reader doesn't have any darken function (at least that I could find).<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Planescape Campaign Setting (2e)
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Dog Town: Core Rules
Publisher: Cold Blooded Games
by Gareth W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/01/2007 00:00:00

I really enjoyed this book.

There don't appear to be many good modern 'crime' games out there and this fills the gap quite nicely. So, when you get tired of playing a fantasy 'rogue', or a 1920's gangster, this looks like a game that can bring your criminal role play right up to date.

Generating some sample characters and playing out a quick shootout was fast and fun.

The rules overall look adaptable enough to cover most styles/scenarios of play.

Not sure if I'll play it a lot, but I'll certainly play it in between my more traditional fantasy and sci-fi rpg campaigns.
<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Unusual topic, atmosphere, player character 'flaws', critical hits.

I got the impression the game designer enjoyed making this game.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Nothing - except perhaps the bad language scattered throught the book. The language fits the setting, but, unlike most of my RPGs, I won't be letting my kids read this book.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Dog Town: Core Rules
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Alternity Player's Handbook (Limited Preview Edition)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Gareth W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/31/2007 00:00:00

I'll openly admit this is a biased review.

I bought the original Alternity hardback as soon as it hit the shelves of my local games store.

Somewhere along the line I misplaced the book, so this seemed the best way to get a replacement copy.

I liked Alternity at the time - so much so that it rapidly replaced Traveller as my Sci-Fi rpg of choice.

..................... and I still like it.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Nice, clean, easy, adaptable system. Just like I remember it. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: A scanned image book. Scan was just about OK. Book contains black text on blue background (and various other scan unfriendly combinations), but it was OK to read. Me? I'll mainly be nostalgically browsing this book, so not being able to word search (etc) like a true electronic book format is no big deal for me. If I were still an active gamer, it may be more of an issue.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Alternity Player's Handbook (Limited Preview Edition)
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