/var/log/orava

New Typo

Upgraded to Typo 5.4.2. Ran into some snags but managed to solve them (I think), they were due to some nonstandard stuff I had floating around.

Minireview: Carrion Hill (Pathfinder)

Carrion Hill by Richard Pett is a newish Pathfinder module, with a somewhat unusual heritage: it’s a Pathfinder Cthulhu module. Sort of. It’s directly and deliberately influenced by Lovecraft, to the extent of using names from Lovecraft’s fiction and in having sidebars which direct people to also check out Chaosium’s “Call of Cthulhu” game. This isn’t the first time that Paizo has done something like this; there are lots of Lovecraft fans among the Paizo folk and some of the earlier modules have also contained some Cthulhu references. However, this is probably the most directly “Cthulhu” thing Paizo has done to date.

I have mixed feelings here. On one hand, it’s fun to mix and match genres a bit, and there are lots of nice scenes here. Also, the mechanic of the Big Bad’s strength depending heavily on what the PCs do is a nice one – if they just barge along without thinking, they may get their asses kicked.

On the other hand, D&D and Cthulhu are an uneasy mix. Cthulhu relies heavily on the PCs being totally out of their depth and generally helpless versus cosmic horrors, whereas D&D (which Pathfinder is a version of) is firmly in the see-monster-kill-monster genre. As a result, a lot of the potential creepiness is lost since the PCs can usually just draw swords and carve up the beastie into bite-sized chunks.

The story concerns what seems to be some sort on monster, rampaging in the misty small town of Carrion Hill. It may devolve into just a “bug hunt” but there is also food for a bit of investigation and non-combat playing here. The plot isn’t the most original of plots, but does read like a good bit of fun to play or run. The main problem, as noted, is the dilution of the horror elements in the D&D genre assumptions (i.e. “if we see it, we can kill it”). The lack of any sort of sanity mechanic in Pathfinder is also a small hinderance to this sort of thing.

Minireview: What Lies in Dust (Pathfinder #27)

What Lies in Dust (by Michael Kortes) forms the midpoint of the Council of Thieves adventure path. After the quite fantastic previous installment this is more pedestrian fare; not bad by any means, but much more standard.

Here the PCs are expected to follow clues from the previous part and do a raid on a long-abandoned Pathfinder stronghold in the city. Reputedly full of traps and cordoned off by the authorities, the PCs have to both make their entrance without raising much commotion and then survive what’s inside. To add to the mix, there are some other groups on the move, with plans that involve violence to the PCs.

As usual for these adventure path things, the PCs are expected to do some very specific things, following at times quite slender clues. If the PCs don’t do the expected thing, the GM needs to juggle things quite a bit. Here I got the impression that this “encounter” could happen at various points in the plot, which reduced GM headaches quite a bit. No idea how much the later parts depend on stuff here, of course.

This adventure is essentially one big “dungeon crawl” set inside a large mansion. As such it’s quite nice; the writing is crisp and lots of the ideas contained here are interesting – it’s not just a random selection of traps. Without spoiling things, some of the inhabitants of the mansion are.. unusual. In a good way. It’s a decent adventure, though it lacks anything to make it really stand out. As always, it might play a lot better (or worse) than it reads.

Minireview: The Looking Glass War, by John le Carré

This is actually the first book by le Carré that I’ve read; he’s a big name in spy fiction, but for one reason or another I never got around to reading him. While in an Iceland bookshop picking up books for the road, I suddenly got the urge to try him out. Unfortunately, they only had this book, The Looking Glass War. Written in 1965, it’s one of his earlier books; it has the tagline “A George Smiley novel”, but Smiley (a protagonist in many of his most famous books) only makes a side appearance here.

Well, to be honest, I wish I had picked up one of those more famous books – this one isn’t very good, truth be told. Oh, the main plot is decent enough and in some ways relevant even today: an outdated government agency tries to justify its own existence by staging an op based on sketchy intel and dubious actual resources. The results, in the end, are tragic.

The problem is that there’s nothing much here to engage the reader. The characters are uninteresting two-dimensional stereotypes… and that’s the men. The women are even worse, they are all either brainless nags or useless ornamentation. I don’t know if it’s a general fault of the writer, or just a symptom of the times (1960s) and the writer’s relative lack of experience at this point, but the characters and their attitudes range from the uninteresting to the unpleasant. There’s not one person here who is very sympathetic or especially interesting.

…and sure, that sort of thing can work, not all books need to have “pleasant” characters. But here the whole thing just fails to spark much interest. A ill-trained spy tries to pick up a roll of pictures at a Finnish airport, is later killed in what may or may not be an accident, and “the Department” in the U.K. starts to roll up various theories about East German missile bases. “The Circus”, their more intel-savvy counterpart, tries to stay out of the whole mess, while the Department attempts a revival of their wartime 15 minutes of fame. Problem is, their way of thinking no longer works all that well in this new “Cold War” thing, and they lack both finances and properly trained personnel. The results are not pretty.

I’ll have to read some of his other books to see if this one is a fluke or a measure of his general writing style. I hope it’s a fluke, I find it hard to imaging he has gotten the fame he has based on flat characters and plotting like this one. On the other hand, people read and praise the Twilight books too, so fame is no sure measure of class…

Minireview: Geist: the Sin-Eaters

Geist: the Sin-Eaters is White Wolf’s latest game in the World of Darkness line. It’s a bit of a mixed bag.

This is a game about death and ghosts, and in the design stage the writers decided to not redo Wraith (or Orpheus). Quite understandable, though I would have loved to see a reincarnation of either of those fantastic games. The path they chose is quite interesting. Here the PCs are people who have died, but have subsequently been brought back to life by a “geist” – which may be a very powerful ghost or spirit, or something else entirely (it’s never 100% made clear). In any case, the result is a hybrid of sorts. The person really is alive (again), this is no revenant or walking corpse. On the other hand, it’s not quite the same person now, there is a supernatural entity (the Geist) entwined with him or her. As a result she’s now a lot tougher, has multiple supernatural abilities, and is somewhat influenced by her Geist’s views.

So far, so good. The idea is fun, and the outlook here is actually quite positive when compared to many death-themed games. The PCs have been given a new lease on life, what do they want to do with it? There are a lot of links to the Mexican Día de los Muertos and carnivals in general – party and enjoy life as long as you can, since one day you’ll die. In fact, the basic PC group is here called a “Krewe”, which is a Mardi Gras carnival word.The subtitle of the game, “the Sin-Eaters”, is a bit of a stretch, but refers to the newfound abilities of the PCs to communicate with the dead and possibly right some wrongs, atone for possible sins of the deceased (or their killer, as may be).

As typical for White Wolf, the PCs are separated into various “splats”, here based on the way they died. I do have to admit it seems pretty pointless here, and even more artificial that usual. As a positive point, the mechanics of “Keys” given here is interesting (if a bit confusing). Each character gets two “keys”, which are mental constructs and have to do with the nature of their Geist. The base Geist powers are altered by these keys, so the same base power will do various different things depending on the Key used on it. It’s a fun mechanic, and provides a lot of variability in the Geist powers while keeping the themes and base power types constant. And talking about those powers… low-power these things are not. In fact, Geists seem to be at the top end of the nWoD power scale; some powers (Boneyards, especially) let the character control areas that can be miles in diameter. These guys can be scary antagonists, added to by the fact that they are damn hard to kill. They’ve already died once, and if they die again they’ll just return – within limits, there is a cost to rebirth. It’s somewhat like the old Mummy game in that regard, having one of these creatures as a enemy can be very bad news. Especially since they normally operate as a group.

So, interesting base premise, some nice new mechanics. What’s the problem?

Well, to start off, there is a strong “well, what do I actually do with this?” problem. Sure, the character has returned from dead, and there are stories around that… but beyond that, what do they do? I didn’t get much inspiration in that regard from the book, especially since the “splats” seem so pointless and artificial. There are no real default antagonists here, it’s a sandbox with a bit too much sand and too few pre-built sandcastles. Also, I did sense some rules mechanics confusion here and there… there were mentions of costs for powers and concepts that later were explained not to have a cost, mention of ghosts sometimes being physical (which seems to contradict stuff in the nWoD core), and small things like that.

In addition, a lot of relevant stuff is just either missing or explained with a stray paragraph. Normally this would not be a problem, you can’t fit everything in a core book and this one already runs long. Here, however, White Wolf has stated that there will only be one expansion book, and that one will detail the Underworld… so apparently a lot of stuff will just stay missing. The most painful omission is the Geists themselves. There is some light discussion on them, but as noted their ultimate nature and origin are left open, and more importantly: they are totally underused. Here we have a supernatural entity fused with a loving human – and that entity is treated mostly like just a source of stats, instead of a separate being with alien motives. Sure, there is some light discussion on the subject, and there is a Synergy score which measures how well the PC and the Geist are “in sync” – but really, there is no solid mechanics for modeling the fact that it’s really a separate being. The GM is just assumed to flesh that part out…. which is damn hard, given the skimpy amount of real info that is given on the Geists, and the very vague nature of their own motivations.

This is a somewhat frustrating game. I can see what they were going for, but as is it’s quite incomplete and more a bunch of missed opportunities. The lack of real mechanics for the Geists themselves is the most galling omission, treating them as just supernatural power batteries is a huge missed opportunity.

That said, this book is worth reading, and these guys would make great NPCs and/or antagonists for pretty much any nWoD game. They are powerful and unusual, which is a nice combo. Also, some of the mechanics are very interesting and somewhat new (for a WoD game). As PCs, though, the GM should be prepared to do quite a bit of work to flesh out the missing stuff. Maybe the upcoming Book of the Dead will fill in some gaps, but I sort of doubt it.

Minireview: Colony Book Four: Life on Eden - Fall From Grace (Heavy Gear)

Life On Eden rounds off the last of the colony books for Heavy Gear. Unfortunately, it’s also easily the weakest of the bunch and a departure from the generally high quality of the game line.

The basic scenario is ok: we have a highly terraformed high-tech colony world which manages to trigger an eco-catastrophe by accidentally dropping some large asteroids on the planetary surface. The resulting cataclysm wipes out a large portion of life on the surface, and the survivors are kicked back into low-tech survival mode. So far so good. But then it starts to fall apart; the future posited by the book has Eden (the world in question) having a mix of feudal lifestyle and high-tech, with drone swarms and other advanced robotics. It’s an uneasy mix, and isn’t very believable.

I can see what they were going for: a semi-feudal “fantasy” world would be an interesting contrast for Heavy Gear, and lots of the native wildlife (including, I kid you not, actual dragons) can be explained by advanced biotech from an earlier age. But they should have kept it at that; pushing a high-tech culture (somehow maintained by some survivors of the Cataclysm) into the mix kills the suspension of disbelief for me. The whole thing is very confusing, and it’s hard to get a clear picture of what is actually going on; there are too many half-developed ideas crammed in here.

To add to the problems, there are severe editing problems (or more exactly, lack of editing). The author apparently didn’t have a complete grasp of English grammar, since there are commas stuck here and there in bizarre places. Many of the sentences just plain don’t make sense. Sometimes you can puzzle out what the writer was trying to say, but sometimes not. Add in some typos and other more usual problems, and the result is a bit of a mess. The whole thing feels like something that was very hastily written and then shoved out the door without enough editorial oversight. There are some nice ideas in here, but the book as a whole just isn’t all that good.

Minireview: STUFF (Paranoia)

STUFF is (gasp) an equipment book for Paranoia . Of course, since this is Paranoia we’re talking about, it’s not quite the usual collection of weapons, armor and other useful gear you’d typically find in an rpg equipment catalog.

Since the new version Paranoia has a twisted version of internal economics and even an eBay clone (C-Bay!), this book is centered on those. All the items are portrayed as being C-Bay listings… which means that there is even more than the usual levels of Paranoia bullshit going on, since the PCs are getting item descriptions from other NPCs (all with agendas). No big surprise that most (all?) of the descriptions are missing lots of relevant details, and a large number are flat-out lies. There are various payment and delivery methods (again mimicking eBay), all with their own risks. Fun stuff.

The book contains a grand total of 225 items, separated into categories by vague item type. You get stuff like Gravitic Gauntlet (one size fits all), Threat Evaluation Eyewear, Treason-Free Speech Limiters and LubriSkates. Oh, and let’s not forget the inspiring 101 Fun Songs to Sing in Line songbook.

It’s a great resource for a Paranoia game, no question. The only complaint I have is that the GM descriptions of the items (what the things actually do) are next to the “listings” themselves, so if you want to let your players browse this like an in-game C-Bay listing you’ll need to do a lot of creative printing/cut-pasting or some such. I’d much have preferred to have the GM descriptions in a totally separate section.