3 comments about Iron Kingdoms World Guide: Full Metal Fantasy, Vol. 2 (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying).

1. What can I say abut this? This has to be the most comprehensive guide to an RPG world I have ever read. It reads like a history text and encyclopedia combined, but not as dry. The writers at Privateer Press have outdone themselves. Background info is given on the wonderful world of the Iron Kingdoms that they have shared with us. They go into such detail int he book. Each country's entry gives info that I wish other publishers put into their publications, such as the hierarchy of nobility and titles used. They even go as far to devote a section to ships used int he Iron Kingdoms and describe them.
   
   There is so much information here, most GMs will find it daunting to know where to start with what they have before them. But between this and the IK World Guide Vol 1, these stand out as the best written RPG products to come along in a long time.
   
   If you have any passing interest in the Iron Kingdoms, and even if you don't, this and the ocmpanion Vol. 1 book are highly recommended!



2. The Iron Kingdoms World Guide: Full Metal Fantasy, Vol. 2 is packed with awesome information about the world of the Iron Kingdoms. Great detail and very well written, I would highly recommend this book to anyone running an Iron Kingdoms campaign and anyone who simply likes a well done game setting.



3. I finished reading the World Guide this weekend, and felt like I had studied for an exam in European history...a very interesting exam that is.
   
   This book is chock-full of history and information on Western Immoren. Everything is incredibly detailed and yet extremely interesting.
   
   One thing that stood out to me was that it all "made sense". The history actually shapes itself into a logical sequence. I was always frustrated with regular genre fantasy...where nothing makes sense. This world does. It lays out why and how magic and technology has evolved, and how they are currently used...together and apart.
   
   The only downsides to me were the maps and some of the fonts used. They push so much information onto a small map area that it is hard to read at times. Resources and towns become cluttered, and make it difficult to even tell what the geography is. The other problem is that on some of the images in the book, they use a...I guess a gothic type font. That particular font is very difficult to read.
   
   If you are looking for a refreshing twist on standard high-fantasy, this book (and world) is for you. Check out the Iron Kingdoms: World Guide.

1 comments about Under the Shadow (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying, Midnight Setting).

1. Under the Shadow is another supplement for the excellent dark fantasy setting Midnight (by FFG), where the Dark God Izrador, the only God on the world, has finally managed to conquer most of the known lands with his forces and slowly crushes every last bit of resistance out of those people who survived. Still, there are those who resist, and Resistance, just as Evil, has many faces. Under the Shadow takes a close look at one of the resistance hot spot, the city of Baden's Bluff.
   
   The cover art gives us a good glimpse into what is happening in Baden's Bluff: the resistance is there following every move, and the forces of the Shadow, knowing that the resistance is there, moves carefully and usually in force. The interior art is just as good: dark and somber while giving you a good idea of what the city is like and how the various forces in play interact with it and one another.
   
   The book has four chapters:
   
   Chapter 1 describes in detail the different areas of the city providing a map for each area. Most maps do not have more than three areas or buildings signaled out, but those that are, are very detailed with a look into their history as well as the mandatory current information of its importance. Some even have maps of the buildings added to them. A great deal of detail is also given to the description of each area of the city including people you might meet walking the streets, smells, and sounds. It really puts you into the mood of the city and gives the DM great imagery he can communicate to the players. All the places described are extremely interesting, and as usual in a Midnight book, each will give you enough ideas to start several adventures. My favorite place is the Hallow.
   
   Chapter 2 leaves Baden's Bluff and explores the surrounding area: from the south going Road of Ruin with its keeps, to the dreary Trollskarl forest, to the Plague Hills. All these great places (and more) are again described colorfully providing great scenery for players to run around in, as well as supplying adventure ideas galore.
   
   Chapter 3 goes into the gut of Baden's Bluff with the descriptions of the various power, factions, and organizations, from the Badens to the Legate, to the Bastard Baden and his court, and all that is between (or inside). The lines sometime blur between the resistance and the Shadow's forces, providing a great places for DM's and players that like intrigue, diplomacy, and cloak and dagger negotiations.
   
   Chapter 4 describes all the important (and some not so important seeming) personalities of Badden's Bluff including stat blocks, personalities and motivations, all complementing and expanding on what has already been discussed in the previous chapter.
   
   Finally the Appendix includes a new PrC: the Visionary; four new feats, and a new Fell template for those that have drowned near the salty waters of Baden's Bluff, the Brine Ungral.
   
   This book has the same high standards as all other Midnight books: well written description, interesting locations, great NPC for your party to encounter, the art is just fitting, and ideas for new adventures are plenty.
   
   If you plan to have your party spend some time in Baden's Bluff, or if you want to insert some city adventures with plenty of intrigue and diplomacy (and backstabbing), this is the thing to get.

1 comments about Kithbook: Nockers (Changeling: The Dreaming).

1. Just reasons to buy this book: -Romance and the Single Nocker. (Hidden pooka fetish exposé). -Kinship unveiled: The FUBAR. -Learn the ancient wizardry of "Infusion," a Nocker-only Art! You, too, can have a bad complexion and cuss, all it takes is this book.

No comments about Agent 13: Acolytes of Darkness (A TSR Graphic Novel).

No comments about The Keeper's Companion 2: Prohibition, Firearms, Tomes, & Creatures (Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying, 2395).

1 comments about Classic Battletech RPG (FPR35030) (Battletech).

1. Be Warned you are not buying a full RPG. Like D&D requires 3 books to play, if you want to include any vehicles in your campaign you will also need Classic BattleTech and at least one Technical Readout. If you want to get full use of the book, you'll need 9 different Technical Readouts, some of which have been out of print for a decade.
   
   While not a bad RPG, the Classic Battle Tech RPG suffers from a case of schizophrenia. It states that it is written with the assumption that the characters in the game are the "everyone else in the world" who never pilot Battle Mechs, however all but one of the example characters drives a war machine of one kind or another. This schism pops up over and over again in the book.
   
   If you've played a couple of different RPGs, I think you could have fun with this book, but if its your first, you will probably have trouble understanding it.

2 comments about First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game.

1. A great overview of the intersections of games, linear stories, and interactive artworks. This book almost inevitably leaves you with a richer perspective, because the range of articles (the uses of voice synthesizers to the Sims) makes it unlikely that you are familiar with all the terrain. The commentary discussions parallel to the main text give a feeling like chatting with your smart friends about some brilliant lecture you just saw. Thought provoking and fun.



2. What has particularly excited me is the opening chapter on "Cyberdrama"... it discusses approaches to story, game play and engagement in terms that echo what we are trying to achieve in Drama education. Throughout the book (and this is from preliminary browsing) there are discussions about narrative and simulation and disticntions being drawn bewteen perceptual positions of players ... the writers that have contributed to this book have a very clear sense of the notion of "role" and I am starting to think that this book may well serve as the basis for investigation into the role of technology in Drama ( and possibly other) education for the next few years. Other promising looking chapters include such discussions as "Moving Through Me as I move: A Paradigm for Interaction", "Unusual Positions: Embodied Interactions in Symbolic Spaces", "Narrative, Interactivity, Play and Games: Four Naughty Concepts in Need of Discipline", " Videogames of the Oppressed: Critical Thinking, Education, Tolerance and other Trivial Issues", "A Preliminary Poetics for Interactive Drama and Games"
   
   The authors contributing to this book are well known to anyone who's started looking into Drama and technology - Janet Murray , Espen Aarseth and Brenda Laurel are all there, alongside more familiar "drama' voices such as Richard Schechner...
   
   As a high school drama teacher, I have a keen interest in new media applications in Drama education - it seems that many of our number are still focussed totally on their Drama classrooms and while they have an interest in technology are not actually making much headway with developing knowledge in the area - this retards developing discussions when there isn't a common language and some basic concepts upon which to build our discussions and investigations...
   
   I think this book "First Person" is probably as good a starting point as is available at the moment. It provides a broad overview of the scope of "new media" interactions and there is definitely what I would call a "drama sensibility" contained within it.
   
   The other book I've just started looking into is Marie-Laure Ryan's "Narrative as Virtual Reality"
   
   Narrative As Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media
   
   What looks promising here is Chapter Nine: "Participatory Interactivity from Life Situations to Drama". I've yet to properly digest the chapter - I've been intrigued by some of the statements I've encountered, for instance "For interactivity to be reconciled with immersion, it must be stripped of any self-reflexive dimension"... I'm not sure that is exactly what we are trying to do with Drama (or any form of) education - we are generally trying to become aware of the symbolic forms we are engaging with... although in a Stanislavskian sense, it might just be that this ne dimension of building belief is somehow well placed in Drama... I tend to think the Brechtian requirement for distance might be better suited... but that can be a discussion for another day... for the time being we need to start to come to grips with some key concepts in the new paradigm we have the opportunity to define...
   
   Once again... as Drama people we know the need for social constructivist approaches... I'm hoping we can live that rather than just posit it....
   
   We are trying to establish a special interest group called DramaPlayShop.org... you're welcome to drop in!

No comments about Way of the Shugenja.

No comments about Battlestar Galactica Colonial Military (Battlestar).

2 comments about Swashbuckling Adventures.

1. This is a great RPG you get to choose from many many new classes that expand the D&D universe into the mid 1600's the age of the rapier and dueling. muskets are the technology of the day and pirates sails the worlds oceans looking for loot to plunder and ships to capture. Burried treasure is to be found and the likes of the Dread Pirate Roberts, Captain Blood, and Black Beard are about along with the dreaded Reis. If your fancy keeps you land bound try your hand and wit at the fights of the musketeer or a coutier or mayber even be a marauding "North man" come to plunder the "civilized" world for riches, glory, and women. You choose the order!



2. I love Swashbuckling.
   
   That's it in a nutshell. I'll grant you that the book is 3e. I'll grant you that the material doesn't always give us d20ers Table 5-2, which tells you everything you'd need to know about something. Some of the rules are missing, as is some of the fluff (assuming you don't get the R&K books, that is).
   
   Despite all these flaws (and most of them aren't horrible; anybody with a brain can easily figure out solutions), Swashbuckling Adventures can give an expierenced DM an unforgettable campaign. It's not just the classes, although the Highwayman is a pistol-toting machine. It's not the world, even though it's close enough to Europe to be easy to associate with, but distant enough to have fun with. It's not the feats, or the prestiege classes (even though they're both amazing).
   
   It's the fact that this genre can basically step right out of a Dumas novel, or a Zorro movie, or any pirate tale, or the Three Musketeers, or anything vageuly in that time period.
   
   There are secret societies. There are power structures. There are forces at work that the PCs can either be caught up in, or lead.
   
   There is adventure, villians, heroes, mysteries, treasure, and danger. All of them can be modified how the DM sees fit without destroying the campaign's feel.
   
   To sum it up, Swashbuckling Adventures is so fun, it is the expansion set I am using for my last campaign as an undergraduate.