2 comments about Living Gods: Stargate System Lords (Stargate Sg-1).

1. This is an excellent resource on the System Lords as seen in Seasons Six and Seven. It includes old favorites (if that's the word) such as Apophis, Hathor, Anubis, and Ba'al, but it also adds a few new System Lords to the mix, including some seen in the Season Seven episode "Summit", such as Morrigan and Bastet.
   
   The write-ups of each System Lord are well-done, taking into account real mythology, as well as what we've seen on the SG-1 TV show. Each System Lord has a planet or two, a First Prime, and a few other pertinent NPCs. There's also a system included for creating a whole new System Lord and empire for them to rule.
   
   All in all, an excellent resource for players (espeically the socio-political nerd types) and GMs alike.



2. If you've happened to notice AEG has retitled the "Living Gods" manual as "False Gods". When I emailed their customer support about this change, and any other content change within, I received no response.
   I also noticed that Amazon has been preselling the 6th manual in this series, but AEG does not show it on their website (need I email them ???)
   Don't get me wrong, I like the show, and the books are chock-full-of good info, but if you're looking for clarification, as any good GM will tell you... make it up as you go...

2 comments about Aberrant Elites (Aberrant Role Playing Game).

1. A book like this you tend to suspect to be well boring. Since it deals entirely with people that kill for a living it's not unreasonable to think that this we'll just be another supplement with Bigger Guns Bigger Powers and Bigger Penises. But it's not! I'm not denying that there is some of that in here (if there wasn't at least a few people would through a hissy fit) but this isn't the focus of the book. What this is about are the effects of war. What's more (and for a game about superheroes this is odd) it's brutally realistic. This is a vital resource for anyone who plans on running an elites series, or wants to be an elite, because it tells what its like. The day to day wearing when you fight morally gray enemies for morally bankrupt superiors. What can happen to people caught in the middle? This is book is a lot more than you think it is.



2. I think it's safe to say that this will be one of the most popular Aberrant supplements. Featuring the stats for some of the biggest featured NPC's, like Totentanz, "Elites" finally reveals the lifestyle that players are usually drawn to: that of the "Badass for hire".

   While a large portion of the book is dedicated to military campaigns and the agencies that engage in them, Elites also expands it's definition to include more benign Nova's for hire. There are guidlines for players who wish to create their own Elite organization with all the advantages and pitfalls. It also explains the code of the Elite and how they have created a sort of "Bushido" that includes a code of conduct and even licensing arrangements. I like the idea of a mask as a trademark. Batman wouldn't be Batman without that mask and the big bat on his chest.

   The coolest thing about the book is some of the more realistic portrayals of warfare and the ethical delemma's. The mercenary lifestyle is something common in almost every RPG, but as always, White Wolf tries to take a thoughtful and complicated approach. Stories of Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder and the horrors of war are handled with class. It's a nice approach to an old, and in my opinion, pretty tired idea.

1 comments about Book of Lost Dreams (Changeling: The Dreaming).

1. When White Wolf produces a book with a Storytellers screen, the book is filled with information that could not make it into the original edition. The Book of Lost Dreams is fairly good, with crossover rules for the other Storyteller games, and a good adventure to get your group going. Over all a good buy.

1 comments about Codex of Erde (d20 Troll Lord Games).

1. This is a campaign setting book based largely on German and French geography and culture. Most of the names of the characters and places are pretty good, but some of them are directly lifted from actual places (example: "The Kingdom of Maine"). There are a few good plots here and there and it's definitely worth buying, especially compared to other campaign setting books out there (i.e. Forgotten Realms). It has a more earthy feel to it and there are some good ideas to pick up here and there. However, they could have done a better job at editing as there are many typos and awkward sentences. I like most of the drawings as they have a more realistic look to them than what you see in the D&D 3rd edition books. A good buy overall.

5 comments about Priest's Spell Compendium, Volume 3 (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons).

1. well, again TSR (wizards of the coast ) thinks only on how to make more money. so you must buy the all Compendium if you want it to worth something. instead of arraging the spell by levels, (like in the PHB) they arrange them by the a b c. now go and search the spell you want to memorize. a nasty trick by WOC (as was done in the wizard spell compendium)



2. These books are invaluable. The spells are alphabetical rather than by effect(as with the Encyclopedia Magica) and are given effective descriptions. Two minor complaints: quest & war spells were thrown into the final volume. While I can seee the quest spells, I think the war spells should have been included in the main. The other problem is more serious and prevents 5 stars. The index catalogs spells by sphere - but only spells the authors thought should be listed; instead of using a special notation for non-standard spells, they put them in their own index! For those who like to allow all spells, regardless of setting (through creative renaming), this is something of a hindrance. Otherwise an incredible resource.



3. Introduction

   The Priest's Spell Compendium (PSC) is the fifth installment in a welcome trend: TSR/WOTC cleaning out their vaults, collating their material, and placing them in sourcebooks. The Wizard's Spell Compendium, now complete, was a valuable addition to any player or Dungeon Master's repertoire of spells. On the other hand, it was just gravy, and it suffered (like other collections) from typos, poor editing, and the general impression that someone cut and pasted the information together haphazardly.

   In the case of specialty Priests, the division of spells that occurred as a result of the Second Edition rules caused some serious unbalances in the game. Some specialty Priests have spheres with few spells in them, like the Astral sphere. Because many spells can be "reversed," evil Priests have access to the Healing sphere and good Priests have access to the Necromantic sphere.

   Then there's "powers" which are unique abilities bestowed upon Priests by their gods. The distinction between spells and powers is murky, as powers are not subject to the sphere categorizations. It was a convenient loophole for giving Priests spells that didn't fit with their deities profile.

   With this confusing situation making a specialty Priest's life difficult, and the powers and spells largely up to the Dungeon Master's discretion, a sourcebook with more Priest spells is a welcome addition.

   Content

   Having a compilation of spells is useful for Druids and other specialty Priests who suffered from the sparse spheres they had to choose from. The PSC claims on page 3:
   "Some description have been updated or combined with similar effects to eliminate duplication; some have been modified for better play, and a very few have been dropped entirely." It's a no-brainer: take all the out-of-print supplements, put them into a database, and hit the print button. Then, just edit the combined content. How hard could that be?

   Very hard, unfortunately. The PSC, while better edited than its predecessors (and that's not saying much), is still plagued by what seems an unwillingness on the part of the editors to comb through the book line by line. Nowhere is this more obvious than on page 9:

   "In the sword-and-sandal Dark Sun setting, priests are preservers or defilers, depending on whether or not their magic drains the living energy of that world." Priests are not preservers or defilers. That's a title applied to wizards in the Dark Sun setting. However, the above sentence is in the Wizard's Spell Compendium . Somebody replaced the word "Wizard" with "Priest" and pasted the introduction into the book. This did not bode well for the rest of the volume.

   Organization

   Some of the problems with PSC deal with the manner in which old spells were categorized into the new spheres created for Priests in the Second Edition rules. For example, why is age plant (p. 9) in the Time sphere, but not the Plant sphere? Several other spells are included in multiple spheres. The A section was a bit of a let down: the disturbingly slim Astral sphere only has a handful of spells in it, even with all the spells from other sources.

   Icons accompany each spell to indicate, at a glance, what setting the spell fits best. This system is used inconsistently. Bad medicine (p. 52), a Shaman spell, is missing the savage setting icon.

   There are several spells that create or summon monsters. The monster statistics are usually reproduced in the volume -- a necessity if the spells are to be of any use. Only some of the monsters' statistics appear, however: Create crypt thing (p. 154) has the created monster's statistics, but create death tyrant (p. 155) does not. If these statistics were removed intentionally to save space, it doesn't explain the large patches of blank space on pages 51 and 175.

   Anyone remember the Dragon magazine article with six other Paladin classes, each based on a unique alignment? The Paramander's spells ended up in the Wizard's Spell Compendium, but the priest spells for the other Paladin classes are strangely excluded from this volume.

   And then there's the inclusion of the coalstone's statistics without the actual spell to create it (p. 126). Why bother?

   Artwork

   The artwork consists of serviceable black and white pictures, mostly portraits. One evident change of WOTC's takeover of TSR is their unwillingness to recycle old artwork. This may seem like a minor quibble, but it's a sore point with a lot of TSR products. Yes, I can recognize reused artwork from the Pick A Path/Which Way Adventure books! Thankfully, the artwork always applies to a spell on the same page.

   Conclusion

   With the Third Edition of Dungeons and Dragons on its way, it's possible that editing this volume wasn't the top priority. Indeed, it may be that instead of providing a quality product, TSR's goal is to recycle all out-of-print material and then release them in electronic format at a much lower price.

   The Priest's Spell Compendium selling point is obvious: you can't get many of these spells anywhere else. For players of specialty priests, it's a valuable addition to their library. Unfortunately, TSR just doesn't put enough effort into editing and organizing the spells to justify its high price tag for anyone else.




4. If you play priest, druids or shamans on a regular basis, you need this set of books. These volumes contain all of the speels from the Player's Handbook, Tome of Magic and Spells and Powers, as well as all of the differant campaign world books(Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft, Birthright, etc) and from all of the Dragon magazines. 100s of spells that spanned many, many books all compiled into a nice managable collection.



5. If you play priests, druids or shamans on a regular basis, you need this set of books. These volumes contain all of the speels from the Player's Handbook, Tome of Magic and Spells and Powers, as well as all of the differant campaign world books(Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft, Birthright, etc) and from all of the Dragon magazines. 100s of spells that spanned many, many books all compiled into a nice managable collection.

No comments about GameMastery Module: Gallery Of Evil (Gamemastery Module).

No comments about *OP Chaos Factor (Mage).

1 comments about *OP Walking Dead, The.

1. Hunter: the Reckoning is a great (and often overlooked) RPG, and this sourcebook shows just how creepy it can be. Light on actual game rules and mechanics, The Walking Dead instead focuses on narrative based in fictional online correspondences. Hunters recieve mysterious and sometimes threatening emails from other hunters who have engaged the living dead, and sometimes messages from the undead themselves.
   
   The effect is entertaining and highly creepy. Instead of spelling it out for you, the authors let you learn about the mysteries and horrors of the world of darkness through story. It's effective. If you enjoy Hunter, and plan on playing some zombie campaigns, you really need to give this book a look.

1 comments about Castlevania: The Official Hint Book.

1. If you own and love the original game, than you must buy this book. Not only does this guide enhache your enjoyment of this excellent game, but it also shows you every last secret! Buy Castlevania: The Official Hint Book and dive in with both fangs bared! Peace.

3 comments about GURPS Alternate Earths (GURPS: Generic Universal Role Playing System).

1. This guy must do nothing but read and write. I'm not even sure he takes time to eat. He knows more and more obscure facts about the history of our planet than anyone I've ever met.

   Whatever the case, though, I'm grateful, because he's come up with some pretty terrific rpg sourcebooks. This is one of them.

   This book offers six alternate Earths, each an imagined world in which something is different from the world we know. Some are set in a past in which something is different; others in a present in which something in the past went a different way.

   Such settings make for great fiction--and for great adventures. It's not hard to come up with ideas for such settings, but it is nice when someone's taken the trouble to do the development work for you. A modern Confederate America, an ancient Roman campaign in the New World. Wonderful!

   The book can also help you design your own alternate earths by example.

   This book is definitely worth checking out if you're looking for a new and different setting for your campaign. If you're done with high fantasy, but you still want magic; if you like metropolises but long for a radically different social structer; if you have any interest in things NOT as they are, then this book's for you.




2. It doesn't matter if you have no intention of ever role playing or if you have no idea what GURPS is about, this is a fascinating book for anyone who, like me, wants to see more of an alternate history than the point of divergence and a sporadic description of the world spread out across the course of a book.

   This book holds the background information for six alternate histories, each at different points in their timelines. In each section you'll find maps, histories and descriptions for each of the major powers involved in that world along with sidebars that cover some small details of those worlds (rock & roll in the Confederate States of America? It's in there. How to tour in Gernsback? Yep). These are not stories, these are the actual histories involved.

   If you're not interested in the gaming aspect, then the tables and charts referring to character types and the likes will be of minor interest, but don't let that stop you.

   This is a rare time when I wish that Steve Jackson Games had a fiction line to explore each of these scenarios...




3. GURPS Alternate Earths may be made to order for a dimension hopping campaign such as GURPS Time Travel, but I believe it also gives gamers an opportunity to see how our own world "might have been" if just one event in history was changed. And it provides opportunities to set whole adventures, and even whole campaigns in those worlds.

   The six different "Earths" in this book are almost textbook examples of the now popular "What If" line of SF stories. The first world, "Dixie", gives us a good idea as to what might have happened if the South had won the American Civil War. It covers the time from secession to the time when the Confederate States of America became a superpower. The second world, "Reich 5" give us a chilling look at the world under Nazi rule and the resistance effort still under way years later. The third world "Rome Aeterna", assumes the Roman empire never fell. The fourth world, "Shikaku-Mon", assumes the ancient Japanese Empire conquered the world. The fifth world, "Ezcalli", has details for a strange Earth where the might of the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans is unsurpassed. The sixth and final world is the strangest of all. "Gernsback" starts with a simple postulation: what if Nikolai Tesla's inventions worked and were used by someone with the financial genius of Morgan? Flying cars and broadcast power are common.

   There are ideas for adventures, characters, and even whole campaigns for each of the worlds, including several paragraphs about even stranger worlds that diverged from these six. These "reality seeds" give creative GM's even more alternate worlds to explore.

   People wishing to use books like Harry Turtledove's wonderful alternate earths books need look no further for ideas of how to recreate his books for a strange parallel world campaign. Highly recommended for GURPS GM's and recommended even to SF fans wanting to explore the ramifications of what might happen if...