Apathy Blogs

After getting a taste of Behind the Spells from the free articles at Kobold Quarterly, I went ahead and acquired the PDF of the compendium. Behind the Spells: Compendium is a collection of the first 36 articles in the series. Each article examines one of the spells that have been in Dungeons and Dragons since the earliest of editions.

An article is divided into two parts. The first part discusses the in-character history of the spell’s creation. The author  explains the evolution of a spell from 1st edition to 3rd edition through the perspective of a dragon. Most of this lore is easily added to any fantasy setting, although at times it may directly contradict existing information. In particular he created a reason why the system reference document does not list the names of spell’s creators which are part of Wizard’s of the Coast’s trademarks. The spell histories he provides are entertaining to read. They also contain plenty of hooks and ideas a GM may wish to use in their game.

The second half of an article is a section on spell variants and tricks. Occasionally he gives a new monster or magic item, but most of the information is spell related. Spell tricks are ways to modify a spell at casting time. They usually require a spellcraft check to perform. Some people might think it gives too much power to spellcasters, but I believe it is the type of creative spellcasting that makes problem solving interesting. None of the tricks are particularly powerful; allowing a wizard to use cone of cold to create an ice bridge for example isn’t going to break your game. Also included are quite a few new spells which are creative variants of existing spells.

I usually like to write longer reviews, but each article is only 3-4 pages in length. The quality of articles is fairly consistent throughout. Each article packs a lot of data inside. I can’t classify this as a must have, but it is a very solid supplement. I recommend it to any GM or spellcaster who wants to spice up their use of spells. I certainly plan on picking up a hard copy next time I place a lulu order.

Apathy Rating: 3/5.

The Zobeck Gazetteer is a 50 page setting guide from Open Design. Zobeck is an independent city that can be placed in any fantasy campaign world and features kobolds, gypsies, and clockwork creations. The Free City of Zobeck is also used in Kobold Quarterly articles, which is an excellent gaming magazine.

One of the most unique things about this product is how it was created. Open Design began as an experiment in RPG patronage. Instead of being contracted to write an adventure for a publisher, Wolfgang Baur decided to write an adventure for a group of patrons. If enough interested people put money toward a project, he would write it for them. But patronage is more than just pre-ordering a product. Being a patron means helping to shape the final product. Not only do patrons help select what the adventure will be about, but they get to provide feedback and ideas as the project is being developed. If you are interested in seeing the process of adventure writing, I definitely recommend taking a look at being a patron. As a result of the extra playtesting and review the final products tend to be very polished.

The most recent patronage project, Tales of Zobeck, has two parts. The first part is the Zobeck Gazetteer which is available for purchase by the public in either PDF or print form. The second part is an anthology of adventures set in Zobeck. This review looks at how the Zobeck Gazetteer stands on its own. I have actually (with difficulty) refrained from reading the adventures in Tales. My current campaign is too high of level to use them directly and I hold a faint hope that someday I can convince someone else to run one of these adventures for me. I came relatively late to the project as a patron so I mostly observed the process and did not take much part in its creation. If you are interested in seeing the process of adventure writing then I definitely recommend taking a look at being a patron. I really like what I’ve seen so far and I plan on being much more involved in the next project.

About two-thirds of the Gazetteer is information about the setting which could be used with any game system. The remaining materials are d20 rules that mainly deal with clockwork creatures and magic. There are details about the city, its inhabitants, and its gods. One of my favorite sections is the Kobold Ghetto. Much of the city’s wealth comes from the silver mines worked by kobolds. The cramped jumble of streets that make up the Ghetto is where they make their home. Visitors, who are allowed in only at night, should be wary of traps that are set throughout the area. Many are just annoying, but some of the traps prove to be deadly. I found their descriptions to be particularly entertaining.

There are six major gods of Zobeck, including Zobeck’s patron deity: Rava the Gear Goddess. Hers is the largest temple in the city and contains the Clockwork Oracle. The rest of the gods are a diverse pantheon that covers most of the usual divine portfolios. I found it interesting that the usual d20 information on gods was not present (domains and favored weapon.) Enough information is presented to easily allow appropriate selections to be made from whichever rules sources a cleric player may have access to.

It is due to the Gear Goddess’s devoted followers that clockwork creations are common in Zobeck. Clockwork soldiers patrol the streets and there is a race of Gearforged that allows players to be constructs themselves. An article on the magic of Zobeck adds a number of clockwork related spells for clerics and wizards. These plus the gear domain are great additions to any game that desires a little more of a steampunk feel.

Overall I think this is a great supplement by itself. It contains a lot of great adventure hook ideas. I’ve already decided that an upcoming villain in my game will be from here. It packs a lot in for its size and leaves you wanting even more. It may make you go out and buy back copies of Kobold Quarterly just for the extra Zobeck articles.

Apathy Rating: 5/5.

Helix: The Post-Apocalypse, High-Tech, Fantasy, Western RPG is the first game I’ve been given a free review copy of. This excited me and I really wanted to return the favor with a good review, but I must be honest in my opinions. While Helix has a lot of buzzwords in the title, I can sum it up in one: amateurish.

Looking at the credits I see the lack of an editor and it shows in the product. My advice to anyone truly interested in the game is to certainly wait until a revised edition before buying a print copy. For the publisher of the game, I suggest you pay a freelance editor to go over your book at least once before sending a product to print. Sentences like: “You are getting sleepy until you are asleep” do not belong in the rules. If there are grammar mistakes on every page, you need to do more proof reading. A template for monster statistics should be used; I’ve seen “Hite Points” and other typos plus inconsistent ordering of attributes.

Art in the book is about the level I would call high-school doodle art. The sort of art a high-school student might have drawn while bored. If they never took any art classes in college, that’s about the quality you see in this book. There’s a reason good artists study anatomy, so they know how to make a human figure that doesn’t somehow look wrong. I also highly recommend ditching all the pictures of people who look like bad LARPers. Some of the art has pencil smudges and eraser marks that should have been cleaned up in Photoshop.

The rules themselves are relatively simple. Skill rolls use a d6 roll under skill method, attribute rolls are d12 roll under stat. Nothing terrible, but nothing exciting or different. They try to promote themselves as “d12′s aren’t useless anymore.” I hate to say it, but I’ve played several better games that use the d12. Advanced Heroquest or Everlasting are the first that come to mind. I found it odd that a variety of damages were given for unarmed combat that included nearly any body part you’d want to hit someone with, but no reason mechanically for why anyone would do anything besides kick, which does twice the damage of anything else. Unless you are a martial artist, in which case double kick is twice kick damage. Why not just give a single unarmed damage that lets the player describe a kick, punch, or headbutt to accompany it? As it is the only reason to not perform max damage would be aesthetic and role-play reasons.

The over abundance of unneeded skills reminds me of many games I played in the 80′s. As was pointed out in my RPG club’s discussion of the game, there are too many similar skills. Does the game need both seduction and erotic dancing as skills? A tighter list of skills with optional specialties is often a better choice mechanically. The explanation that many skills lets a player customize their background more isn’t helpful if it muddies the game rules too much. The difference between filch and pick-pocket is too nit picky for most people.

The only thing that could have made this worthwhile is a fantastic setting. Instead I think they tried to do too much. The magic system reminds me of the Matrix, or more properly Mage’s Virtual Adepts. It does have a unique shamanistic look at the “computer code as magic” idea though. The game is supposed to take place in the wilderness areas between big cities, but I think some descriptions of the big cities would be nice as well. One of the things I really liked from the original Gamma World boxed set was the poster map of what was once the United States. Expanding more details about the setting would have really improved the product. Come to think of it, I would have preferred this as a setting book for an existing system like True20. There are some interesting ideas in the game that could use further development, but overall it seems to suffer from trying to use too many genres instead of creating a unique new world vision.

I will give them credit for continuing to update their site with extra content. The updates have the same quality of art and editorial oversight, but at least they are trying to give good support to their customers. I wasn’t too impressed with their forums though. The forums are hosted by a forum company, and being asked to click no to a bunch of mailing lists is not an experience I enjoyed. I highly recommend they invest in their own domain so they can operate their own forums and announcements. I wish them luck in their future endeavors, and hope they have learned much from this release.

Apathy Rating: 1/5.