Cordelia, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
I just picked up a series of small-press roleplaying games, because I enjoy reading them. (They came at the same time I picked up a whole bunch of other books, so I may be a bit slow getting through all of them, but that's no big deal.)
The first one is Æternal Legends, which I picked up because it was described to me as an angst-free modern day fantasy game. That sounded pretty good (the most popular modern fantasy RPG is Vampire, which is crawling with angst.) I also liked the fact the preview section discussed how important beliefs were to the characters existence and well being. It seemed like an interesting take, maintaining a sense of magic but not sliding into the cliche "anything is possible if you just wish hard enough."
Overall, I like it. I think it had me when it described orcs as charismatic leaders; I knew I wasn't just reading a Vampire clone or Dungeons and Dragons with machine guns. But one or two bits stick out, and I'm not sure how I feel about them.
This is definitely a first impression review; I haven't actually played a session of it, and may not have completely digested the rules and setting.
The Weird
The thing that first struck me about the book was its shape and size. It's landscape style, as opposed to portrait, and it's 7x9 inches. I'm used to portrait configurations, but it made no difference to the readability.
The Bad
I'm getting my major complaints out of the way first, then I'll spend the rest of the review being positive, or at least constructive.
If you have a low threshold for typos and other errors, avoid Æternal Legends. It's not unreadable, but it contains far too many examples of things like "than" instead of "then," of "if" instead of "is." Sometimes a line is repeated -- or almost repeated. For example, on page 68, the first paragraph begins "Splendour is only partially applicable to spellcasting..." The second paragraph on that page starts "Splendour is only applicable to spellcasting..." The word "partially" makes those two rules very different from each other. If you're willing to overlook these things for a book that is pretty clearly a labor of love put together by a handful of people, then you can decide if you want to check the book out or not. (I know, since I'm criticizing them, there will inevitable be typos and mistakes in this blog entry no matter how much I try to avoid it. But you're getting this entry for free, and I'm willing to cut myself some slack.)
I also wish it had given some more examples, such as how to create a character, or run a few rounds of combat. I think every game should have these, since it helps me know what the authors envision, and can help clarify some ambiguities. Fortunately, sample Player Characters are available. On the website, under the "downloads" link, there is a file containing six sample characters, which is worth checking out for some out there ideas, like Anvil Jenny, a nice Jewish Elf with clockwork eyes. No good walkthroughs of the mechanics though.
The good and the interesting
Æternal Legends is set in our world. Magic is real, but we don't realize it, because we are Unaware. (To those who don't normally read RPGs, I'm capitalizing some common words to show that they are special game terms.)
The Unaware -- about 95 percent of the world's population -- just do not see magic. The reason I began this entry with a quote from BTVS is because most of Sunnydale, in the first few seasons, are perfect examples of Unaware. Buffy's mother automatically invents a perfectly acceptable rationale for what's happened to her daughter, no matter how much bizarre stuff she's seen. If every female in the town falls under the effect of a love spell, they'll be happy to believe they were all crammed into a small space with one dorky man because of a scavenger hunt. (Not that the rest of the game resembles Joss Whedon's universe.) To the Unaware, a troll made out of granite is just a bulky looking man, and a cockatrice's poisonous breath would probably be a leaking vat of toxic chemicals.
The Aware, the remaining one in 20, see the world as it truly is. They have a bigger sense of self-belief, and because of this, they see what is really going on. They might live among the Unaware, in Aware neighborhoods (that the Unaware instinctively avoid as too Bohemian for their taste) or they might live in pocket kingdoms, places where the mundane can't go, and magic is more prevalent. To continue to BTVS analogy, they might love the changes, as Faith did when she became a slayer, or be ambivalent about what they'd learned about the world, as Buffy often was. The Aware do not always look human, but sometimes take the form of Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Goblins, Orcs or Trolls. (I'll have more to say on those in a bit.) The Aware are governed by an organization known as the Ministry, which is actually a branch of the government. Since Unaware naturally rationalize it away, none of them want to join this dull-sounding bureaucracy, but the Ministry has enough access to provide law enforcement, assistance for the magically inclined, etc.
Some Aware are even more in touch with magic. They become Legends, touching on spheres of power, giving them a natural affinity for combat, diplomacy, knowledge, building, or other fields. Legends must go on quests to continue to improve. They must challenge themselves, and challenges naturally occur to them. If they stop in a gas station to pick up a newspaper, a man carrying a mysterious artifact will almost certainly stagger in, mutter an arcane phrase, and drop dead.
In your normal game, the players are Legends. It's possible they'll do something similar to what would happen in D&D, only instead of rescuing the princess from the goblins armed with spears, they'll rescue the CEO from the goblins armed with shotguns. But they can also go in other directions, pursuing strange paths to spiritual enlightenment.
The game is pretty up front with the fact that, just like the Unaware, you shouldn't think about this too closely. The Unaware are to explain why this world is familiar. They can be a major part of your stories, or just background.
I'll note while the game is designed around the assumption you'll play Legends, I think it might be pretty interesting to play those who are merely Aware. You could have a good, gritty urban fantasy setting, where the players are members of the Ministry trying to cope with problems like the enchanted cocaine a gang of high-powered executive elves are smuggling in from a pocket kingdom, or protests from those who object to goblins and dwarves wedding each other. Most importantly, it would allow more thorough use of several races in the book. (Again, more in a little while.)
Interesting bit one: Beliefs
As mentioned before, what powers the Aware is the fact that they really and truly believe in things. The Unaware have weaker beliefs, are willing to trust what society tells them to.
All characters have beliefs that can come up in play. The rules explicitly state they don't have to be positive. They can range from "The only thing I have to fear is fear itself" to "The ends justify the means" to "Only people with my skin color deserve to live."
For Legends, there are two paths to power: the Light and the Dark. Those who follow the Light, and embrace their beliefs, gain power through mystical Spheres. Those who follow the Dark deny their beliefs, and follow Shells, hollow spheres with similar powers. For example, the Sphere of Mercy is about responsibility, and gives its followers healing powers. The shell of mercy gives those powers without responsibility. A Lightsider might use these powers to heal their allies, tend to earthquake victims, or help an exhausted army keep fighting for their cause. A Darksider might use the same abilities to get rich with their miracle cures, torment their enemies with promises of relief, or stitch together Frankenstein-monster abominations.
What I find interesting is that, since beliefs don't have to be positive, a Lightsider doesn't need to be good. If a Legend believes that everyone with a different skin color deserves to die, and goes on a rampage against a gang of blue-skin elves who are minding their own business, he's technically following the path of Light. If a Troll Legend steps up to defend them, not because he cares about them, but because their screams are ruining his party, he's following a Dark path.
I don't know if this is a bug or a feature. I suspect it's both, and a GM should talk to the players before deciding if Dark Legends are automatically "evil" and those who follow the light are "good" or if it's just that those who follow the Light value integrity over easy answers.
Interesting bit two: The Clades
What most games call races, Æternal Legends calls Clades. I'm not sure why, though it may be because there's a lot of ethnic variation in each of the Clades. Goblins from Japan look very different than those from Africa.
None of the Clades quite fits roleplaying stereotypes, which is a good thing. Some are very divergent. Elves aren't these things willowy things with pointy ears, they're descendants of demigods, and take on features of whatever the surround community believes spiritual beings should look like. In a Christian community, they might have halos, in Silicon Valley they might have jet black skin with green flashing numbers, a la the Matrix. Gnomes might be awesome mechanics who build wondrous devices, but that's just a tiny aspect of their creativity. They might be accomplished poets, or chefs who make unforgettable meals.
With the exception of humans, each of the Clade has a complementary one. Elves and orcs share some traits, as do dwarves and trolls, and gnomes and goblins. Orcs, goblins, and trolls are known as the Dull Clades or Dark Clades, and there's some prejudice against them. It's illegal, but the Ministry can't always enforce that.
With one exception, that prejudice is pretty clearly undeserved. Trolls don't need to be thugs; nothing keeps them from being a security guard, or a forensic accountant. (They're slow thinkers, but not stupid. They'd probably be right at home digging through a spreadsheet that would bore others to tears.) And the allegedly Light Clade gnomes frequently become robbers, developing an "I was gonna give it back eventually" mentality.
The one exception is Legends. When a character becomes a Lightsider Legend, their race changes to the Light Clade equivalent. A troll who follows the sphere of strength turns into a dwarf, though he may maintain some troll-like features. If they become a Darksider, they turn into the appropriate Dull Clade, so our corrupted dwarf would once again become a troll.
I really don't know what moral statement, if any, this is supposed to make. People who want to say that orcs are evil merely need to point out that the most powerful orcs ultimately follow a corrupt path, and elves who lose sight of their goals turn into orcs.
Perhaps more annoyingly, the rules are really only set up to let you play Lightsiders. There's no rules for how Dark Clade Legends use the shells, what special abilities it gives them. Effectively, half the races are closed to player characters, despite the fact that ostensibly they're not about the dark side.
----------------
I think that sums up my preliminary thoughts on the philosophy behind the game. My next post, I'll look at some of the mechanics.
Overall, I like it. I think it had me when it described orcs as charismatic leaders; I knew I wasn't just reading a Vampire clone or Dungeons and Dragons with machine guns. But one or two bits stick out, and I'm not sure how I feel about them.
This is definitely a first impression review; I haven't actually played a session of it, and may not have completely digested the rules and setting.
The Weird
The thing that first struck me about the book was its shape and size. It's landscape style, as opposed to portrait, and it's 7x9 inches. I'm used to portrait configurations, but it made no difference to the readability.
The Bad
I'm getting my major complaints out of the way first, then I'll spend the rest of the review being positive, or at least constructive.
If you have a low threshold for typos and other errors, avoid Æternal Legends. It's not unreadable, but it contains far too many examples of things like "than" instead of "then," of "if" instead of "is." Sometimes a line is repeated -- or almost repeated. For example, on page 68, the first paragraph begins "Splendour is only partially applicable to spellcasting..." The second paragraph on that page starts "Splendour is only applicable to spellcasting..." The word "partially" makes those two rules very different from each other. If you're willing to overlook these things for a book that is pretty clearly a labor of love put together by a handful of people, then you can decide if you want to check the book out or not. (I know, since I'm criticizing them, there will inevitable be typos and mistakes in this blog entry no matter how much I try to avoid it. But you're getting this entry for free, and I'm willing to cut myself some slack.)
I also wish it had given some more examples, such as how to create a character, or run a few rounds of combat. I think every game should have these, since it helps me know what the authors envision, and can help clarify some ambiguities. Fortunately, sample Player Characters are available. On the website, under the "downloads" link, there is a file containing six sample characters, which is worth checking out for some out there ideas, like Anvil Jenny, a nice Jewish Elf with clockwork eyes. No good walkthroughs of the mechanics though.
The good and the interesting
Æternal Legends is set in our world. Magic is real, but we don't realize it, because we are Unaware. (To those who don't normally read RPGs, I'm capitalizing some common words to show that they are special game terms.)
The Unaware -- about 95 percent of the world's population -- just do not see magic. The reason I began this entry with a quote from BTVS is because most of Sunnydale, in the first few seasons, are perfect examples of Unaware. Buffy's mother automatically invents a perfectly acceptable rationale for what's happened to her daughter, no matter how much bizarre stuff she's seen. If every female in the town falls under the effect of a love spell, they'll be happy to believe they were all crammed into a small space with one dorky man because of a scavenger hunt. (Not that the rest of the game resembles Joss Whedon's universe.) To the Unaware, a troll made out of granite is just a bulky looking man, and a cockatrice's poisonous breath would probably be a leaking vat of toxic chemicals.
The Aware, the remaining one in 20, see the world as it truly is. They have a bigger sense of self-belief, and because of this, they see what is really going on. They might live among the Unaware, in Aware neighborhoods (that the Unaware instinctively avoid as too Bohemian for their taste) or they might live in pocket kingdoms, places where the mundane can't go, and magic is more prevalent. To continue to BTVS analogy, they might love the changes, as Faith did when she became a slayer, or be ambivalent about what they'd learned about the world, as Buffy often was. The Aware do not always look human, but sometimes take the form of Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Goblins, Orcs or Trolls. (I'll have more to say on those in a bit.) The Aware are governed by an organization known as the Ministry, which is actually a branch of the government. Since Unaware naturally rationalize it away, none of them want to join this dull-sounding bureaucracy, but the Ministry has enough access to provide law enforcement, assistance for the magically inclined, etc.
Some Aware are even more in touch with magic. They become Legends, touching on spheres of power, giving them a natural affinity for combat, diplomacy, knowledge, building, or other fields. Legends must go on quests to continue to improve. They must challenge themselves, and challenges naturally occur to them. If they stop in a gas station to pick up a newspaper, a man carrying a mysterious artifact will almost certainly stagger in, mutter an arcane phrase, and drop dead.
In your normal game, the players are Legends. It's possible they'll do something similar to what would happen in D&D, only instead of rescuing the princess from the goblins armed with spears, they'll rescue the CEO from the goblins armed with shotguns. But they can also go in other directions, pursuing strange paths to spiritual enlightenment.
The game is pretty up front with the fact that, just like the Unaware, you shouldn't think about this too closely. The Unaware are to explain why this world is familiar. They can be a major part of your stories, or just background.
I'll note while the game is designed around the assumption you'll play Legends, I think it might be pretty interesting to play those who are merely Aware. You could have a good, gritty urban fantasy setting, where the players are members of the Ministry trying to cope with problems like the enchanted cocaine a gang of high-powered executive elves are smuggling in from a pocket kingdom, or protests from those who object to goblins and dwarves wedding each other. Most importantly, it would allow more thorough use of several races in the book. (Again, more in a little while.)
Interesting bit one: Beliefs
As mentioned before, what powers the Aware is the fact that they really and truly believe in things. The Unaware have weaker beliefs, are willing to trust what society tells them to.
All characters have beliefs that can come up in play. The rules explicitly state they don't have to be positive. They can range from "The only thing I have to fear is fear itself" to "The ends justify the means" to "Only people with my skin color deserve to live."
For Legends, there are two paths to power: the Light and the Dark. Those who follow the Light, and embrace their beliefs, gain power through mystical Spheres. Those who follow the Dark deny their beliefs, and follow Shells, hollow spheres with similar powers. For example, the Sphere of Mercy is about responsibility, and gives its followers healing powers. The shell of mercy gives those powers without responsibility. A Lightsider might use these powers to heal their allies, tend to earthquake victims, or help an exhausted army keep fighting for their cause. A Darksider might use the same abilities to get rich with their miracle cures, torment their enemies with promises of relief, or stitch together Frankenstein-monster abominations.
What I find interesting is that, since beliefs don't have to be positive, a Lightsider doesn't need to be good. If a Legend believes that everyone with a different skin color deserves to die, and goes on a rampage against a gang of blue-skin elves who are minding their own business, he's technically following the path of Light. If a Troll Legend steps up to defend them, not because he cares about them, but because their screams are ruining his party, he's following a Dark path.
I don't know if this is a bug or a feature. I suspect it's both, and a GM should talk to the players before deciding if Dark Legends are automatically "evil" and those who follow the light are "good" or if it's just that those who follow the Light value integrity over easy answers.
Interesting bit two: The Clades
What most games call races, Æternal Legends calls Clades. I'm not sure why, though it may be because there's a lot of ethnic variation in each of the Clades. Goblins from Japan look very different than those from Africa.
None of the Clades quite fits roleplaying stereotypes, which is a good thing. Some are very divergent. Elves aren't these things willowy things with pointy ears, they're descendants of demigods, and take on features of whatever the surround community believes spiritual beings should look like. In a Christian community, they might have halos, in Silicon Valley they might have jet black skin with green flashing numbers, a la the Matrix. Gnomes might be awesome mechanics who build wondrous devices, but that's just a tiny aspect of their creativity. They might be accomplished poets, or chefs who make unforgettable meals.
With the exception of humans, each of the Clade has a complementary one. Elves and orcs share some traits, as do dwarves and trolls, and gnomes and goblins. Orcs, goblins, and trolls are known as the Dull Clades or Dark Clades, and there's some prejudice against them. It's illegal, but the Ministry can't always enforce that.
With one exception, that prejudice is pretty clearly undeserved. Trolls don't need to be thugs; nothing keeps them from being a security guard, or a forensic accountant. (They're slow thinkers, but not stupid. They'd probably be right at home digging through a spreadsheet that would bore others to tears.) And the allegedly Light Clade gnomes frequently become robbers, developing an "I was gonna give it back eventually" mentality.
The one exception is Legends. When a character becomes a Lightsider Legend, their race changes to the Light Clade equivalent. A troll who follows the sphere of strength turns into a dwarf, though he may maintain some troll-like features. If they become a Darksider, they turn into the appropriate Dull Clade, so our corrupted dwarf would once again become a troll.
I really don't know what moral statement, if any, this is supposed to make. People who want to say that orcs are evil merely need to point out that the most powerful orcs ultimately follow a corrupt path, and elves who lose sight of their goals turn into orcs.
Perhaps more annoyingly, the rules are really only set up to let you play Lightsiders. There's no rules for how Dark Clade Legends use the shells, what special abilities it gives them. Effectively, half the races are closed to player characters, despite the fact that ostensibly they're not about the dark side.
----------------
I think that sums up my preliminary thoughts on the philosophy behind the game. My next post, I'll look at some of the mechanics.
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