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This is the way role-playing games should be written and presented. Everything you need, mechanics-wise is presented right here, in this one book. Character creation, magic, combat, monsters, it's all *here*. You don't need to spend $100 just to get enough rules to run a game, like you do with many other systems.
In addition, Basement Games supplies what seems like a marvelous level of support. E.mail them with a question, and the authors will answer it quickly and graciously. They have an online membership program; for $10/year, you'll have access to what promises to be a ton of information on the World of Juravia, including empire packets, mini-modules, new skills and spells and items, you name it. Compare that with another well-known fantasy system, where you'll spend $30 for a world setting alone that has less than half of what Basement Games will have.
Taken as a rulebook, and as a complete package with the rest of Basement's offerings, this book is easily worth five stars. Why, then, did I only give it four?
I subtracted two stars because some of the rules and mechanics are kind of strange, at least to me. When I generated a sample character--which is done with dice rolls, thank you very much; it's good to see somebody stand up to the tyranny of the "character point" advocates, all weirdnesses aside--I came up with a speed of 2. Looking at the table, 2 is 120 yd/min. Running. I'm fat and out of shape, and I walk faster than that. I honestly don't think that an adventurer's top running speed should be a fast walk.
Similarly, your "Luck" factor, which is critical in saving throws, is also randomly determined. I can understand the reasoning behind this, because some people are just luckier than others (at dice, for example :), but it was a little frustrating.
Also, the races seem a little unbalanced; there are so many drawbacks to playing a non-human that I honestly couldn't come up with a valid reason to play anything but a human. That could be just me, though; I tend to bias towards human characters in RPGs. Non-humans in Forge have a combination of saving-throw and racial disadvantages and advantages--but mostly disadvantages. Even just for the role-playing experience, I don't think I want to play a race like the Higmoni, for example, who emit a foul odor. Hmm, or maybe that just hits too close to home :)
Finally, I also couldn't come up with a reason to play a mage. There are so many restrictions to Berethenu Knights (basically, paladins) and other magic users that it seems like it would distract from your enjoyment. For example, most spells have a possibility of harmful side effects, determined randomly, and side effects apply every time you cast that spell. Having said that, though, the magic system is *incredibly* innovative, and I may run a mage or two just to see it in action.
And that's the key. See, this game is a lot better than three stars. Or four stars. Or even five stars. And that's all because it's so darn innovative. I finally settled for four stars, because the game isn't perfect. There are things not to like, even as there are things to be enthusiastic about.
Let me mention the combat system briefly. Here is where the creativity and innovation really shine through for me. In another well-known FRPG, a fighter could theoretically wade into a pack of kobolds and lay waste to them without taking a scratch. In Forge, that almost certainly won't happen, because every character has two defensive values, one that takes into account Dexterity and armor, the other which doesn't. Only one opponent at a time takes on the main, modified defensive value; the rest fight against the unmodified value. As you can imagine, this makes for severe problems when taking on two or more opponents, as it should. My little testing group loved this.
The method of skill advancement is also quite good; you have opportunities after every adventure to increase your skills in certain areas. I don't have enough space to go into it here, unfortunately. The system itself is a hybrid of skills-based RPGs and class-and-level RPGs, and for the most part manages to do both fairly well.
In short, I would recommend purchasing this book; for twenty bucks, you get a complete game system, and how many RPGs offer you that anymore? There are lots of innovations here that make it worth at least reading, even if you never play. For the student of game design, it's a valuable text. Some of the mechanics are strange, but ultimately the sheer originality of the game outweighs what's strange.
Open this book and you're immediately surprised: while they were bending game rules, the guys at Basement Games went ahead and broke the usual table-of-contents-etc. order of book creation. Mythology of the world's beginnings fills the first few pages, explaining how the first god Enigwa shaped the sun, the world, the other gods, and finally, humankind. How the squabbling younger gods warped the basic shape of human life into other races and also created monsters, disease, and undead horrors sets the scene for the whole World of Juravia campaign.
There are eleven races for players to pick from, including humans--for me, this and the point-based skill system are among the strongest arguments for trying this system.
Humans are the base from which the other racial statistics vary--but the nonhuman choices are rich indeed. For the combat-lovers, there are the many races created by the fallen god of war: the tall Berserkers, with ridged foreheads (very Klingon in appearence) and extraordinary combat bonuses; the Higmoni, with boar-like features, rapid healing, and infrared vision; and the one-eyed, hairy Ghantu, over seven feet tall with massive combat damage. There are also Dwarves, children of the god of justice and honorable combat: their sturdy physique grants them many bonuses.
For the wizard fanciers, there are the lizard-like Kithsara, children of the god of the elements, with naturally enhanced magic talents and a powerful biting attack; the light-shunning Dunnar, created by the goddess of enchantment, with weird, almost undead appearances, exceptional night vision, and innate abilities to detect magic & shield against mind magic; and your basic, magical Elves.
More unusual character choices are the Merikii, the territorial feathered, flightless children of the goddess of beasts, Sprites (courtesy of the goddess of the harvest), and the shrew-like bipeds called Jher-ems--excellent trackers and natural empaths. Curiously enough, we are not given the mythological origins of either Elves or the Jher-ems--perhaps this is deliberate on Basement Games' part. I'd like to see a module or online rules addition covering that eventually. Basement Games has made its new rules public and free, rather than issuing scads of expensive new editions.
This multi-racial world flows naturally through the World of Juravia modules offered by Basement Games, such as The Vemora, Tales That Dead Men Tell, and The Temple of Nanghetti.
Characters are built by purchasing skills (or acquiring them through opportunities during adventures) and building them through use. If you don't use it, you don't advance in it--a much more logical approach to "experience points" to my mind. Magic itself is treated as a skill, making the profession of mage a result of learned skills (more below on mages). Resulting characters are much richer in abilities than the straightforward "I'm a fighter, I can't do that" model of some systems in which advancement is quick but capabilities are rigidly limited.
Ability to advance in skills in Forge has some built-in brakes, preventing some of these super-monster deity characters that are typical in long AD&D campaigns: in Forge, advancement is not automatic. For "experience points" the player receives chances to dice for skill advances. Also, a skill has a base score which is calculated differently for a high-level character than for a low one, changing the mechanics of advancement when base scores pass 100%. This keeps even a long campaign from acquiring the yawning "easy victory" boredom disease.
Mages, or characters who have acquired the magic skill, are of two types: practitioners of Divine Magic or of Pagan Magic. Mages of Divine Magic are of two types, requiring a bond to one's deity and adherence to particular principles: Berethenu Knights follow the god of justice and must live according to rules of Poverty, Self-sacrifice, and Honor, while Grom Warriors follow the god of war imprisoned in the underworld, and live through Personal Glory, Selfishness, and Pride. Failure to adher to the divine principles causes the Knight or Warrior to lose his magical ability, permanently in the Warrior's case. Pagan magics require spell components to activate spells and may specialize in Beast Magic, Elemental Magic, Enchantment, or Necromancy. Interesting game mechanics add variable destruction/preservation of spell components and the ability to "pump" a spell several levels in strength.
Physcial combat involves two defensive values instead of one, allowing for you AND your armor to be damaged or destroyed. Monsters run a huge gamut from various mythologies to originals from Basement Games. Minotaurs, phoenixes, and dragons share the world with various demons, scaly Mul-Hounds, Rhino Lizards, and elemental creatures such as Frost Heaves.
At Basement Games itself, you will find many additional free campaign materials and may also try the World of Juravia membership program, in which you'll receive Empire packets, ready-to-play mini-adventures, floor plans for temples and dungeons, new monsters, and much, much more.
An excellent game system--well worth it.
--Sharon Daugherty for Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine
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Much of what passes today for the Luke story was published between the 1920s and 1940s, and for the most part this body of work is fraught with error. Luke has always been a romantic figure, and a great deal of his legend is simply that. Legend. The authors of September Rampage not only did a good job of developing new information about their subject, but they also do an overly exhaustive job of trying to put Luke in his proper historical context.
My notes from my pre-publication review copy of the book indicate some areas of conflict with my own research, but they also point out well-documented facts that I missed in my studies.
September Rampage is not the definitive work on the 27th Pursuit or Frank Luke, but it is the best history available. Not only is it recommended reading for those interested in Luke (along with Hartney's "Up and At 'Em" and Hall's "The Balloon Buster"), it is the first book one should read on this topic. September Rampage is to be applauded as the first significant advance in this field in the past 50 years. I sure wish they had published this one years ago - it would have saved me a LOT of time.
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The book relates the story of a travelling circus and freak show - The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus and Oddity Emporium - that, while entertaining (and grossing-out) folks, seeks out pieces of a mysterious machine that threatens all humanity upon its completion. We're treated to all sorts of weirdos, and they're downright frightening, kids. The fiction treatment of even the common types of freak show participants - the mystic, the fattest man, snake-boy - is chilling.
This is a super-rare paperback book, but if you come across it ANYWHERE, even if you don't like horror, get it.
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Finally, this book is divided into 9 parts, one for each author, each one got his own way of coding and that is funny to see how they solve different problems, they got their touch !!
So, designers, coders get this book !!!!!!!
Particularly, I found the chapters on video and 3D, runtime 3D, "bezier creatures", and the set interval enticing. You should see the chapter on runtime 3D! A _full_ library of 3d code that is extremely easy to use (including incredibly insightful comments in the code). You do not need to know much math to make some crazy effects. Also the chapter on video and Flash enlightened me as I did not know of flash's capabilities in this field.
So, in the end, get this book! It is awe inspiring.
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All five tales are entertaining and will remind the audience of the golden (more like black and white) days of the pulp fiction novel of the late 1930's-1940's. Drake is a wonderful character who is a throw back to those glory days of Marlowe and Spade. The authors (Tom Fassbender and Jim Pascoe) and the illustrator Paul Pope seem to have had fun paying homage while satirizing the mystery genre's legendary authors (such as Hammett) and their great detectives. Anyone who enjoys hard-boiled detective stories with a wink and a nod to the classics sleuths will want to also read the authors' previous book BY THE BALLS.
Harriet Klausner