This review originally appeared in the October 2000 issue of Games Unplugged.

Where’s the beef?

I hate to sound so flip, but that’s the question that was bouncing back and forth through my brain as I finished reading through my copy of the Enchanted Worlds: Starter Kit boxed set.

What you get: A slim booklet containing rules and setting information, a half-size booklet with an introductory adventure, a reference sheet, two eight-sided dice, a handful of character sheets, and a full color map.

The system is a standard Attribute + Skill deal, rolled against on 2d8. Character creation involves picking a race and then distribution roughly 250 points across your attributes and skills. Combat is handled using the standard resolution system (contested actions are handled by subtracting the defender’s skill from the attacker’s roll), with damage determined by weapon type and severity (the latter is determined randomly). Magic also relies on the standard resolution mechanic. It’s a simple, clean system – but nothing you haven’t seen a dozen times before. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but those other systems you’ve seen probably came with more extensive equipment, spell, and skill lists (in other words, more depth and breadth).

The World of Unlond is a standard Tolkienesque fantasy – you’ve got your Dwarves (Earth and Stone), your Elves (Dawn, Twilight, Sun, and Moon), and your humanoids (Goblins and Hobgoblins). You’ve also two or three paragraph descriptions of the various geographical locations of the world (for example, the Eastern Marshes or the Thengold Empire). The “official backdrop” for the game is the Andarian Baronies – for which you are given a column of historical info, two columns of info on the government and society, and a three page overview of the Town of Greenway. The main book wraps itself up with a six page Bestiary (with all your standard fantasy fare – Giant Rats to Goblin Warriors).

The other major component of the boxed set is “Autumn Harvest”, a short introductory adventure. The adventure consists of a farmer asking the PCs for help because a terrible monster (a Giant Spider) has infested his farmhouse and hurt his little girl. Although the cover of the adventure seems to promise some political intrigue (“On the borders of Darkon Andar, a little girl is attacked. Now, you must find out why she was hurt and who or what is protecting the secrets of the past.”), in truth it is just a simplistic and mundane dungeon crawl: You go to the farmhouse, kill some monsters, find a hidden underground complex (consisting of six rooms), and kill some more monsters.

The color map and reference card are both well done – certainly within expectations.

So I ask again: Where’s the beef?

The material found here would make a really good pitch for a fantasy RPG: “We’ve got this good idea for an RPG… here are some rough ideas of the direction we’re thinking of taking.” But it’s not enough. Simply put, there’s no motivation for me to pick up this package.

I live in a world where I can pick up a Hogshead New Style game (and get a comparable number of pages, although of much higher quality and content) for six bucks. I also live in a world where I can pick up the two hundred page Player’s Handbook for D&D (and get a far more complete and well supported fantasy RPG) for twenty bucks. So why am I going to pick up a generic fantasy game which gives me neither a thorough set of rules nor a well-developed background for $14.95?

And I’m afraid the answer is: I’m not.

Grade: D

Writers: Matthew Rodgers and Daniel Price
Publisher: New Worlds Gaming
Price: $14.95
Page Count: 40
Product Code: EWRSK1

After the initial appearance of a review, Games Unplugged would run a short recap of the review in subsequent issues.

Recap: Where’s the beef? I hate to sound so flip, but that’s the question that was bouncing back and forth through my brain as I finished reading my copy of the Enchanted Worlds boxed set. You get a fairly standard system (which doesn’t really go very far beyond the most basic requirements) and an under-developed Tolkienesque fantasy setting.

I live in a world where I can pick up a Hogshead New Style game (and get a comparable number of pages, although of much higher quality and content) for six bucks. I also live in a world where I can pick up the two hundred page Player’s Handbook for D&D (and get a far more complete and well supported fantasy RPG) for twenty bucks. So why am I going to pick up a generic fantasy game which gives me neither a thorough set of rules nor a well-developed background for $14.95?

And I’m afraid the answer is: I’m not.

As I mentioned last week, after unexpectedly receiving review copies of this game I ended up writing two different reviews of it: The one for Games Unplugged that you just read and another for Gaming Outpost, which you can find over here.

Tony Lee, the editor of Games Unplugged, was not happy with the review. He didn’t want to publish a review which was as negative as this one and he asked me to rewrite it. I declined: It was a mediocre game sold in a dress shirt box with an inkjet-printed 8.5 x 11 cover taped on top. I gave it the shitty grade that it deserved. (And to give you some idea of how doomed this game was: The 3rd Edition D&D Player’s Handbook was reviewed in the exact same issue of Games Unplugged.)

The version of the review that was published in the magazine was heavily edited, although my letter grade remained intact.

If there is one place where the would-be RPG publisher goes wrong, it is when they think like an amateur instead of a professional.

The amateur is giddy and excited: A labor of love is finally going into print. You’ll see their inability to cope with the realities of publishing in a thousand different ways: Even though it took them two years to finish writing their core rulebook (and they have nothing else ready to go), they’ll include announcements in the back of the book for a new product every month until the end of the year. They’ll start under-capitalized so that, even if they did have material ready to go, they won’t have the money to print it until their print run for the core rulebook sells out. They’ll alienate their customer base by making extravagant claims about their game which only confirm their ignorance of the game market. They’ll publish something with low production values… but then charge the consumer the same price as a product with higher production values.

But there is one mistake that they will make which will put the final kiss of death upon their product: They will fail to take their competition into account.

For example, let’s say you want to create a Tolkienesque fantasy game – elves, dwarves, the whole nine yards. What’s the first thing that should come up on your radar screen?

D&D.

What’s the second thing that should come up on your radar screen?

Earthdawn, Ironclaw, Shards, Ars Magica, Sovereign Stone, Warhammer FRP, Hero Wars, and a dozen other games – major and minor – that fall within the classic fantasy marketplace to one degree or another.

And at that point you should be asking yourself a simple question: Can I offer something that these other games don’t?

For example: Ars Magica (arguably) does magic better than any other game system around. Legend of the Five Rings was an Eastern Fantasy game at a time when there wasn’t any serious competition. Ironclaw is anthropomorphic. Hero Wars has Glorantha. And so forth…

And if Enchanted Worlds possesses a flaw, then this would be it: It’s a game without purpose. Without a niche. Without a role to fulfill.

The boxed set, as a whole, comes across as a slightly amateurish effort, but with a certain amount of quality within those boundaries: A ring-bound booklet, a short introductory adventure, two eight-sided dice, a full-color map, a reference card, and a handful of character sheets.

The main booklet presents both rules and setting information. The rules are difficult to learn and reference because almost every single system is split up – with one half of the system described on an overview page and the other half of the system located later on in the book. Once you get past this odd fact (and the lay-out, which routinely leaves major sub-sections completely unlabeled, mixing dissimilar concepts together into one big lump of text) the system is fairly clean: Point-based character creation, a simple Attribute + Skill incarnation using a 2d8 die roll, and casting spells from a list.

The setting for the game is squeezed into about a dozen pages, and looks the worse for wear: It’s a standard Tolkienesque fantasy settings (elves, dwarves, humans, and the humanoid minions of evil), and the limited information which is provided does little to nothing in helping it stand out from the dozens of other settings out there that look just like it.

There’s a persistent problem with everything in this box: What’s there is fine for as far as it goes… but it doesn’t actually go anywhere in particular. There are at least a half dozen games on the market which do almost exactly what this one does – and do it better.

So I’m left searching for some reason you should buy this game, and I’m afraid I just don’t have one. I’ve seen this game before… only it was in full color and about 200 pages longer.

Ultimately, that’s a problem Enchanted Worlds just can’t live down.

Writers: Matthew Rodgers and Daniel Price
Publisher: New Worlds Gaming
Price: $14.95
Page Count: 40
Product Code: EWRSK1

Originally Posted: 2000/09/05

If I had written this review a couple of years later, I could probably have gotten away with just writing IT’S A FANTASY HEARTBREAKER! in blazing capital letters.

By the time this review rolled around, I was receiving RPG review copies from a number of different sources, including RPGNet, Games Unplugged, and the defunct Gaming Outpost website. Graveyard Greg over at Gaming Outpost contacted me about this Enchanted Worlds Starter Kit, complaining that he couldn’t find anybody who wanted to look at. Could I help him out? I said sure.

About a week later I got a copy of the game in the mail, but it wasn’t from Greg. Instead, Games Unplugged had decided to also throw me a review copy. A week after that I got a second copy, but this one ALSO wasn’t from Greg: New Worlds Gaming had somehow gotten my snail mail address and had sent me a copy directly with a request that I produce a review. (I never actually figured out where they got my address from.) The Gaming Outpost copy showed up shortly thereafter.

So now I had three copies of this shitty game.

I also had an obligation to both Gaming Outpost and Games Unplugged to produce a review of it. Which, after some deliberation, I did: I wrote two completely different reviews (albeit with the same basic conclusion) for two different outlets. You’ve just read the Gaming Outpost review (which actually appeared second). I’ll be posting the Games Unplugged version next week.