Sunday, November 3, 2013

The Shadow Rising

Yep... Brought me to tears again.  Damn that Perrin.

Friday, August 23, 2013

The Dragon Reborn

This is probably my second favourite in the series.  The scenes with Mat always make me smile.  Rands's not in it much, but when he is, he's crazy.

Monday, July 15, 2013

The Great Hunt

Moving right along.  Apparently this book isn't as long as I thought it was.  I'd forgotten that last time I saw Rand as Jared Padalenki.  It still stands.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

The Eye of the World

Continuing on in my re-reading of my favourite series.  I have read this book before.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Iron Kingdoms: Full Metal Fantasy Roleplaying Game

Iron Kingdoms is the setting for the Hordes and Warmachine games so it made sense that we would start playing in it.

As a role playing game it's nifty.  The two career systems gives direction but lets you create pretty much any character you could think of.  There's lots of variety and no one class seems to outshine the others.

The game itself seems more focused on combat than anything else (and miniatures of course).  It takes a good game master to remember that his or her players have skills outside of combat.

As a book it's very well laid out.  Things are easy to find, good descriptions and the art is appropriate and good to look at.  Everyone who saw me reading it had to ask about it.  It doesn't fall into the trap that so many first edition rulebooks do in assuming that the reader has never played a role playing game.  Unlike Call of Cthlulu I never felt that the authors looked down on other role playing experiences.

The economics could use a bit of an overhaul.  Pretty much everything is too expensive because, although copper and silver exist, only gold crowns are used.

It could have used a sample adventure here too.  A thread through the whole book, from character creation to adventure, would have added a unifying theme.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Call of Cthulhu

The role playing game, not the short story by Lovecraft.  Of course, this is inspired by the works of Lovecraft (and others) who created the Cthulhu Mythos.  It has the original short story as its intro which is great at setting the mood.  The rest is a bit of a slog.

I've read a lot of role playing game manuals, this one seems to have a tone that it's so much better than those other games because it's based on the Mythos.  It's written for people that are fans of Cthulhu more than people who are fans of horror roleplaying.

It's an interesting system.  Playing it we've discovered that it's always better to run away and let someone else look at the terribleness.  It's tough with skills only getting better if you succeed with something.  It makes character creation really, really important.

I find it odd that the text suggests that you want to steer clear of Cthulhu things as quickly as possible, but that all the in game examples have Harry confronting something he totally shouldn't see.