Thursday 17 February 2011

Update

Updates will take a bit longer now, because I've just started a new job.


Hooray for sources of disposable income!!! Goodbye unemployment....

Tuesday 8 February 2011

City of Lies- City of Stories

City of Stories is the player's guide to Ryoko Owari.

It is fully intended to be acessible to the player, so it is completely writen from an in-world point of view.

It can be roughly divided in five parts, altough the book only recognizes four; the charter of the Emerald Magistrates, wherein the privileges and obligations of the Emerald magistrates are detailed, general information on the city's history and organization, more detailed information on locations within the city, information on important NPCs, and a letter from Doji Satsume detailing the more pressing threats to order in the city.

The travelogue section themselves are a compilation "made" by Asako Anjo from four sources; a dossier prepared by former magistrate Matsu Shigeko for her sucessor, the pillowbook "Memoirs of an Opium Eater", "A History of Ryoko Owari" and "A Visitor's Guide to Ryoko Owari" (seriously).

I would have liked to see "Memoirs of an Opium Eater" as an independent book, organized chonologically, but this device works very well as it is. The entries are informative, but at the same time have enough meat to them to have the players second guessing them and fuel paranoia.

The charter of the Emerald Magistrates also had me thinking about some of the advantages of electronic publishing for some nich products.

As it is the charter is whitin the player's guide, but it could have been included as a detached book or sheet for ease of photocopying, and these day it is something that would make a superb web enhancement on PDF. I'd love to see it printed on scroll paper, specially those with coarser fibers that you can find in craft stores these days.

I'm expecting to reference this book alot while reading the GM guide of course, which will be next.

Sunday 6 February 2011

City of Lies- Overview

"In many ways, a reliable criminal is preferable to an unpredictable hero"

I come to the read through of City of Lies with two vivid memories:
  1. City of Lies was the best L5R supplement ever.
  2. City of Lies is one of the best RPG products ever.
The last time I picked it up was some 4-5 years ago, so it will be interesting to see how this changes things, if at all.

First of all, this is a boxed set, it come in a nicebox, altough a bit too small. The contents don't swim around in the box, but it is a tight fit.

The contents are the following:

  • An introductory booklet.
  • A black and white map of Ryoko Owari.
  • A poster map of Rokugan. On one side in color with clan borders, but nothing else, and on the other side black and white, with location names and an hex grid.
  • A player's Book.
  • A GM Guide.
  • A Location Guide.
  • The Journal of Ashidaka Noritoki.
The  introductory booklet perfectly executs what it sets out to do. It gives an overview of the Box's content as well as of the design objectives behind it, gives an overview of the city, including the power-players, gives a summary of the included adventures, and suggest alternate campaigns. I'd be hard-pressed to find a better introduction to any product.

The map of Ryoko Owari is also a nice poster.

Finally we have the map of Rokugan. As far as poster map gos it's the prettiest map of Rokugan. I would like to see locations marked in the color section, or that it was a direct copy of the rulebook map, but it is my only quibble with it.

On the back of the color map is the black and white version with the hex grid. This one does have the locations marked.

Recently I've considered using it as a basis for a wargaming campaign, and I think it is certainly workable in that role.

The next few posts I'll make will detail the main books, with Noritoki's Journal being read along the most appropriate book.

Thursday 3 February 2011

Honor's Veil

Honor's Veil was the first adventure module published for the L5R RPG.

It consisted of two adventures and s small supplement on poison.

The first thing one notices is that this is not a standard book, but rather a paper booklet between a detached card cover.

I don't understand why this choice, because, despite the existence of a flow chart for each adventure inside the cover, they are layed out in a way which perfctly allows standard staple binding.

I suppose the cover might be used as an impromptu screen this way...

The first adventure Murder at Kyotei Castle is a tipical revenge tale. It's a fine adventure, altough I have a slight dislike on the set-up for involving the players. The Special Magistrate idea is workable, but in my opinion only if there is some kind of Imperial mediation going on for example. Or you can go with the standard Emerald Magistrate setup and be done with it. Murder of a Daimyo might be easily seen as a crime against the Emperor after all.

Of particular not is the fact that neither this adventure, nor the titular Honor's Veil require any combat to handle.

Other thing that caught my eye was how much freedom the writers had at this point to create or add families and clans. In the GM pack there were the Kochako, and I think the Hare clan was also a new creation. At Murder we have the Tsume (which Wick misnames as Asano in Honor's), the Damasu, the Goseki (misspelled as Goskei), and the Nasu as well. I don't know if this is the same Nasu family that was later made into a Phoenix vassal or if that was only a coincidence.

The second adenture is more labyrinthine but also very interesting. It is setup as a magistrate adventure from the get go altough I think it works bet if the PCs are already retainers of Matsu Ino or Crane representatives.

However I'm also afraid it might have consolidated that testimony is all that matters in Rokugani court.

Finally we have a section on poison creation and application, with five example poisons, that was to be included and expanded upon on Way of the Scorpion . It's elegant and complete which is a big plus in my book.

To round things up there 6 pages with portraits of NPCs and maps of the adventure areas.

Frankly I was always one that thought that art in RPGs was extraneous, but the more I think about it the more I realize it isn't. Sure that no art is better than bad art, and good art doesn't mean sparkly gloss color ilustrations.

The character portraits help bring the NPCs alive and the maps are just pretty.

 In hindsight I believe these are actually better starting adventures than Ceremony of the Samurai from the corebook.