Tagline: Larry Elmore, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Don Perrin, and Lester Smith. Need another reason to take a look? Sovereign Stone has all the makings of being the first major “generic” fantasy game in over a decade. Need more? You do? Jesus Christ, does nothing satisfy you?

Sovereign Stone is set in a world created by Larry Elmore, with a system designed by Don Perrin and Lester Smith, which will have fiction written about it by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

If you’ve ever been a fan of AD&D or TSR during the past twenty years those names should look fairly familiar to you – Larry Elmore is renowned in the industry for his fantasy and humor artwork; Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman wrote the Dragonlance Trilogy (and its sequel, Legends — some of the only gaming-related fiction to be taken seriously); Don Perrin and Lester Smith are well known for their system and supplement design. It’s one of the most impressive development teams of proven talent to ever coalesce in this industry. The excitement with which I’ve looked forward to this project can be favorably compared to my reaction when I learned that Robin D. Laws would be developing Hero Wars or when I got a chance to playtest Tribe 8.

The Quickstart Rules I am reviewing here for the game are, I believe, no longer available. So why am I offering this review? Because Sovereign Stone is scheduled to be released at GenCon this year, and this review should appear just a week or two before GenCon hits – it’ll give you something to look forward to.

And you’ll definitely be looking forward to it. These Quickstart Rules have only whetted my appetite and added to my excitement. Few people can design a piece of cover artwork as well as Larry Elmore can, so from the very moment when I first slid these out of the plain white envelope they arrived in I knew I had something special in my hands. Elmore’s art continues inside this well-designed and edited package, along with Stephen Daniele and Joy Marie Ledet. Although these latter two are not at Elmore’s level of artistic talent, their work is in a very complementary style – lending a book an artistic cohesion which is sometimes lacking even in graphically well-developed works in the industry. This is kind of unsurprising considering that this is an RPG based on the vision of an artist.

So what do you get in the Quickstart Rules? An overview of the basic resolution mechanic of the game, pregenerated characters, a short adventure, and a short story which is a sort of prelude to the short adventure. Plus you get a gorgeous, two page, rough pencil map of the world of Loerem.

THE STORY

The book opens with a short story by Margaret Weis entitled “Envoys of Shadamehr”. I consider Weis to be a talented author. Perhaps not exceptional, but definitely someone who notice should be taken note of. That being said, this story stinks.

Essentially Envoys of Shadamehr suffers from every type of flaw which this type of story can possibly suffer from (found in the front of far too many RPGs since White Wolf initiated the trend). The exposition is not only heavy-handed, it is poorly handled; you aren’t allowed to connect to any of the characters; and you can practically hear the game session from which this was ripped (right down to the “NPC briefing” which informs you of what you have to do next).

The story suffers even further due to the fact that it is acting as a lead-in to the short adventure found at the end of the book. Basically you’ve got eight or nine pages of a typical fantasy party wandering around through what appears to be a typical fantasy world in a fairly typical set of fantasy situations.

That being said, the story does set out what it accomplishes to do (introducing you to the world) – but it’s a badly chosen form of doing so. A basic intro to the world would not only provide me with more information, it also would have done so in a way which was not immensely frustrating.

THE WORLD

Sovereign Stone is set in the world of Loerem. Most of the information we get regarding this world comes from either the back cover or the blatant exposition of the short story.

This is how I would characterize Loerem in a single sentence: Tolkien by way of D&D by way of DragonLance by way of Robert Jordan.

This isn’t exactly fair to Robert Jordan, since it implies he’s drawing inspiration from D&D, but it still fits. First you have the primary races: Orks, Elves, Humans, and Dwarves. Second, you have the “dark evil which has just come back into the world”. Third, the “dark evil” is using Void magic-wielding Taan – which are large lizard-men.

Remember I said this was a game worth looking forward to? That still holds. None of this is a serious death sentence. The only time it becomes a serious issue is when the bones begin to show through – for example, a lengthy section of the story is an exposition of the Waygates. The Waygates allow you to travel distances which would normally take you months in a matter of hours. Further, the magic which formed the Waygates is decaying and becoming corrupt – making them dangerous to use.

Oh wait, I’m sorry. “Waygates” is the term Robert Jordan uses. Sovereign Stone calls them “Portals”. And, yes, there are some various other cosmetic differences. The biggest mistake made here, I think, is having quickie-transports whose only distinguishing feature you note is that they are magically decaying (thus inviting the immediate Jordan comparison, rather than thinking of the dozens of other extant examples – such as Ultima moongates) and then having that be the very first thing of major note about the world which is discussed in your Quickstart Rules.

In any case, I digress. The world of Loerem has several interesting things going for it:

The Orks are a sea-faring race, advantaged in water magic, and (based on clues in the Weis exposition story) possessed of an interestingly intricate culture based on that fact. The Elves are “a medieval Japanese-like race”, while the Dwarves become “nomadic” and “Mongol-like”. Humans are your standard European fantasy shtick. The Taan are your generic bad guys.

Despite my negative comments above, the world as a whole strikes me as an impressive variant in the Tolkienesque vein – Elmore has taken on the standard tropes and racial types, and then played games with them.

RESOLUTION MECHANIC

As mentioned before, the Quickstart Rules do not include character generation – only resolution mechanics. Attributes and skills are quantified as dice types (for example “Strength: d8”). To make an action check you roll your attribute die and your skill die together and total them. If the total is higher than the target number set by the GM (which is a fixed number) you succeed; if not, you fail. You’ve seen similar mechanical methodology used in slightly different manners by Deadlands and Alternity.

COMBAT

Here’s where I became really excited by the system. Combat maintains a nice clean line – very much being an “AD&D that works well”. I was deeply impressed at how the entire system resonated with that same basic, elemental, easy-to-learn atmosphere which AD&D has; yet improved immensely on it not by adding even more needless junk to the system but by trimming away the needless and contradictory fat which plagues the system.

First, the designers seem to have found a nice compromise between the easy bookkeeping of traditional Hit Points and the slight edge in verisimilitude of Wound systems. Your character has a pool of Life Points (which is shown as a strip of boxes on the character sheet) and can take two types of damage: Stun and Wound. If you take Stun damage you mark off from top down; if you take Wound damage you mark off from the bottom up (with Wounds superseding Stun if the two meet). If all of your Life Point boxes are marked off you fall unconscious. If all your Life Point boxes are marked off as wounds you die. Nice and simple.

[ That’s the way its described in the rulebook. If you want a more mathematical, rather than visual, approach to this record-keeping: You have a pool of Life Points. You can take Stun Damage and you can take Wound Damage. If your Stun Damage + Wound Damage total is higher than your Life Point pool you fall unconscious. If your Wound Damage total is higher than your Life Point pool you die. ]

Battles are divided into turns (lasting approximately six seconds) in which each character gets to take one action (which is declared at the beginning of the turn). Before anything is resolved everyone rolls the dice for their declared action (this is important) – the highest resulting roll goes first, the second highest next, and so on down to the lowest roll.

Now, if you are attacked before taking your action for that turn you have two options: You can attempt to defend, or you can “take the attack” and attack back. If you decide to defend you roll your dice again. If your new total is higher than the attacker’s then the attack is unsuccessful. If it is lower then the attack is successful and damage is determined by Attacker’s Total – Defender’s Total + Weapon Damage Bonus – Armor; which is then divided evenly between Stun and Wound damage (round in favor of stun) unless the bonus states otherwise.

If you “take the attack” you will not be actively defending, but you will still attempt to dodge the blow, rolling Agility Attribute only. Damage is determined in the same way.

Here’s the catch though, if you’ve already taken your attack (i.e., you went first in the turn) and someone attacks you, then you can actively defend without losing your attack for that turn.

Example. You and a taan both want to beat on each other with swords for awhile. You both declare your intention (“I wanna beat up on the other guy”) and then roll your initial dice (Strength Attribute + Sword Skill). You get 14 and the taan gets 11, therefore you get to go first (since you have the higher total). The taan decides to take the attack, so he rolls his Agility Attribute and gets a 7. You subtract 7 from 14, add your sword’s damage bonus (let’s say it’s 3). The total damage would therefore be 10, making for five points of Stun damage and five points of Wound damage (evenly divided).

Because the taan took the attack, the taan now gets to attack back – using his original total of 11 (because this was his declared action). You still get to defend, because you went first – roll your Strength Attribute + Sword Skill and get 12. Because your total was higher than his, his attack is unsuccessful.

In the case of a tie in your initial roll (for the declared actions) the decision to defend (and lose your attack) or take the attack (and roll Agility for your defense) and then attack is left in the hands of the PC. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help you much if its a PC vs. PC combat. Hopefully this oversight will be corrected in the full rules.

Archery is handled slightly differently: The attacker rolls Agility + Bow Skill to determine attack total and the defender rolls Agility + Dodge if actively defending. (There are also some modifiers based on the target taking cover, which implies that in the full rules there will be a more comprehensive look at various combat modifiers.)

MAGIC

Magic, like combat, is “AD&D done right”. Once again, I’m impressed.

In order to cast a spell a mage must know the spell and have it written in their spell book. Although the rules say a “mage may not cast a spell which he has not previously studied” this should not be confused with AD&D’s badly conceived memorization mechanic – rather that line merely means that a mage can’t look at a scroll, copy the spell down, and expect to cast it five minutes later.

Magical spells have difficulty numbers. He rolls his Psyche Attribute + Magic Skill and totals the dice – if the total is higher than the difficulty number he succeeds immediately; if not he may try again on the next turn, adding the new total to the old total until he gets a total higher than the difficulty number. The complex the spell the higher the difficulty number, the higher the difficulty number the more turns it will take before the mage is successful.

Now that’s a nice system all by itself, then they add a couple of extra touches which give it the potential of being an excellent magic system. First, a mage can hold a spell for up to three turns after casting it so long as he does nothing else (so you can hold a spell ready). Second, balance is given to the system by a potential risk – if, at any point while resolving the spell, the mage rolls a “1” on any die, then he loses control of the magic and it goes wild. He can either let the magic fail or take 3 points of Stun damage in order to hold the magic under control. If he ever rolls two 1’s in the same roll, the spell-casting automatically fails and the mage takes stun damage equal to the remaining number of points required to complete the spell.

This is a strong, sturdy base for the spell system (it needs to be complemented with some additional options, a research system, and a system for magical item creation). My one regret is that the resolution mechanic used for it (multiple roles to achieve a target number) was not generalized to other resolution tasks (where appropriate by the GM’s judgment) – hopefully this will be done in the main rulebook, because I do like having a toolkit full of resolution mechanics which can be applied to different situations.

THE MODULE

The adventure picks up where the short story left off, with the players picking up pregenerated characters who were introduced in the story. I’m not going to comment extensively on this (since the purpose of this review is not to sell you on these Quickstart Rules, but rather to provide you a taste of what will be coming in August when the game is released properly), but will point out that it is nothing particularly special in terms of modules as whole. On the other hand, it does admirably fulfill its purpose of guiding you through the basic mechanics, setting, and premises of the game.

CONCLUSION

As I said at the beginning of the review, I am really looking forward to Sovereign Stone. First, the world Larry Elmore has created (at first glance, anyway) is intriguing. I know that there are many who disparage Tolkienesque fantasy with its “generic” elves and dwarves and orcs, but I actually think that – done right – this is an extremely lucrative place for development. Those “generic” elves and dwarves are so familiar to us that it is possible to twist them in the most interesting ways (Dark Sun and Planescape were excellent examples of this).

Second, the system really has me interested. Although its central resolution mechanic appears to lean more heavily towards Deadlands than Dungeons and Dragons, the rest of the system is the first bold attempt to challenge AD&D on its home turf in the past decade. Based on what I have seen here, this system deserves to succeed brilliantly as it gives you every strength AD&D possesses while (seemingly) with none of the weaknesses.

Finally, the creative team assembled here is – as I’ve mentioned before – amazing. With Larry Elmore, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, and the others all under the same roof you’re looking for magic to happen. All you’ve got to do is successfully catch the lightning in the bottle.

I heartily suggest all of you to give Sovereign Stone a good hard look come August.

Style: 5
Substance: 4

Author: Larry Elmore, Margaret Weis, Don Perrin, Lester Smith
Company/Publisher: Sovereign Press, Inc. and Corsair Publishing
Cost: $5.00
Page count: 25
ISBN: 0-9658422-1-5

Originally Posted: 1999/07/22

This review actually serves as a mere prelude for the shit-storm that would erupt one month later when I reviewed the full rulebook for Sovereign Stone and discovered that it absolutely sucked. But that’s a story that will have to wait for another day…

This review was written three years before Ron Edwards’ coined the phrase “fantasy heartbreaker”, but the application to Sovereign Stone is obvious. With that being said, when this review was written I honestly thought Sovereign Stone had the potential to become the next Earthdawn or Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game. Obviously, that didn’t happen. If nothing else, history was against it: No generic fantasy RPG released in 1999-2000 had a prayer.

On a purely personal level, though, I often wonder about an alternate reality in which (a) the Sovereign Stone rulebook actually capitalized on the potential I saw in the Quickstart Rules and (b) I didn’t receive a playtest copy of the 3rd Edition of D&D just a few weeks later. In that alternate reality, I think there’s a pretty good chance that Sovereign Stone would have become my go-to fantasy RPG of choice.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Tagline: The world of Tékumel is an exciting, interesting, detailed setting — and Flamesong is the perfect showcase of its dynamic potential and rich development.

This review is the third in a series of reviews designed to analyze the Tékumel product line in depth. The first review was a general overview of the Tékumel setting, publishing history, and other miscellaneous information; while the second review discussed Man of Gold, the first of two novels set on Tékumel. This review will discuss Flamesong, the second novel written by Professor M.A.R. Barker.

Man of Gold, Professor Barker’s first novel set on the world of Tékumel, was an effort composed of many flaws. Contrary to the typical mediocre fantasy novel – in which good writing is undermined by poor world-building skills — Man of Gold had poor writing set within one of the best worlds of fantasy to ever grace speculative fiction. Certainly there is a raw potential there, but it is sadly muted.

Flamesong, on the other hand, is where that potential has been realized. The prose here is stronger, demonstrating a nice flow, balance, and development. The plot is better conceived and structured in a more interesting and involving manner. The characters are interesting and drawn from a broad, believable palette – at times alien, at times familiar; yet always compelling.

[ Spoiler Warning: This review will contain certain spoilers. I’m not going to render the entire plot, but I will discuss events and character development from later parts of the book in some general detail. Proceed at your own risk. ]

Indeed, there are essentially only two noticeable flaws in Flamesong’s quality. They end up, coincidentally, book-ending the text:

First, early in the book there are still certain salacious impulses drawn from the worse side of pulp cliches which put in an appearance. For example, I could go my entire life without having a character “eyeing her angular nudity”. Fortunately, these are severely muted in comparison to their overwhelming presence in Man of Gold — and quickly disappear entirely, to be replaced with a far more interesting exploration of the relationship between love and lust.

Second, the end of the book derails briefly around page 380 into “treatise mode” as we receive a solid block of exposition concerning the mystic “Eyes” of Tékumel. Not only does this disrupt the pacing of the book’s end, but it is also completely unnecessary – the Eyes have already been well established previously in the book. The passage struck me as an artifact from some early draft of the work, which should have been removed as work progressed.

But it is impossible to hold these isolated flaws against Flamesong, which – in every other aspect – deserves respect as a fantasy novel of preeminent quality.

To the average reader, Flamesong is a rompful adventure, set in a fantastic, alien – yet fully developed – world. To the gamer, however, Flamesong is even more valuable.

First, like Man of Gold, its role as a ground-level view of Tékumel makes it invaluable – particularly because the cast of characters is drawn from so wide a variety (ranging from Tsolyanu to Yan Koryani to several non-humans) and the territory covered so diverse.

Second, Flamesong serves as an excellent showcase not only of some of the more exotic elements of Tékumel, but also of the adventure structures which the world invites: The plot includes use of the ancient subway systems, the dungeon-like ruins of the ancient civilization, planar travel, undead armies, royal inheritance, lost kingdoms, the Tsolyanu-Yan Koryani war, and the use of battle magic in that war.

In short: Flamesong is not only a novel of high quality which is real worth reading in its own right, it is also an invaluable resource for the Tékumel gamer – serving as the perfect showcase of a world with dynamic potential and rich development.

Check this one out at your earliest opportunity.

For those of you reading this after it has been placed in the archive and interested in reading the series in sequence, the next review will be Swords and Glory, Vol. 1: Tékumel Source Book – The World of the Petal Throne.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: Professor M.A.R. Barker
Company/Publisher: DAW Books, Inc.
Cost: $3.50
Page count: 412
ISBN: 0-88677-076-9

Originally Posted: 2001/02/01

As I mentioned in my first Tékumel review, the next review never happened. The series ground to a halt here.

I’ve found that there is a “sweet spot” for reviewing a book — a narrow window of time after you finish reading the book or watching the movie in which the review can be properly executed. If I miss that window, you lose the familiarity with the work necessary to properly execute a review. Actually, I’m not sure “familiarity” is the right word. It feels more like there’s a connection that’s formed as you experience a creative work. As time passes, that connection fades away and is replaced with merely the memory of the work. (If that makes any sense.)

This “missed opportunity” is also something that happened with the Lensmen reviews I wanted to write and the Dune reviews that I ended up writing in miniature.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Tagline: The world of Tékumel is an exciting, interesting, detailed setting. Unfortunately, Man of Gold is possessed of many flaws.

This review is the second in a series of reviews designed to analyze the Tékumel product line in depth. The first review – a general overview of the Tékumel setting, publishing history, and other miscellaneous information – can be found under the title “Tékumel ” in the archives here at RPGNet here.

Man of Gold has exactly one saving quality to it: It’s set on the world of Tékumel which (as we all know from my last review) is a really great setting. Far too many well-written novels suffer because the world-building skills of the author are substandard; this one has a world beyond compare, but it is poorly plotted, its characters are poorly conceived, and at the end of the book you are left completely unsatisfied.

[ Spoiler Warning: This review will contain certain spoilers. I’m not going to render the entire plot, but I will discuss events and character development from later parts of the book in some general detail. Proceed at your own risk. ]

To begin with, for a setting with such originality – and one which is very differentiated from any other fantasy world – it is sad to see M.A.R. Barker fall into so many cliched stereotypes when it comes to characters and situations. For example, from the very beginning you have the young orphaned boy raised in an alien culture (the insectal Pe Choi) who doesn’t know his own parents; the beautiful lady who is far above the hero’s own stature; a vastly important mystery which (due to a fantastic twist of fate) only our inexperienced and naïve hero can solve; and so on. The fact that about 90% of these cliches, in the end, don’t go anywhere (you never do find out who his parents are, despite all the fuss made about it at the beginning of the book) doesn’t make them any better. If anything, it probably makes them worse.

Second, large portions of the plot (like the cliches) don’t need to be there. The whole thing could have been seriously tightened up.

Third, the plot is riddled with large, unjustified gaps of time in which the characters have apparently been put on pause not so much because they have a reason to be put on pause, but because Barker needs time to have other events get to the point where he needs them to be.

Fourth, this book is oversexed. I can accept (and even enjoy) the lack of the same nudity taboos which we possess; but when the scene from The Wrath of Khan where Khan drops parasitical slugs into Chekhov’s and Paul Winfield’s ears is reenacted except, this time, with a beautiful young woman and her, shall we say, sexual orifice, Barker has crossed the line between “oookkaaayyyy” and “unnecessary and detracting”.

Fifth, the ending is weak due to a lack of proper execution. All the elements are there to make for a really satisfying conclusion to this story, but they are put together and constructed in a manner which simply leaves you going “ho hum”. Several other critical stages in the plot suffer from this same general problem – which appears to be a combination of passive prose, poor character motivation, and bad event timing. However, the ending suffers particularly because Barker mixes in the ever-frustrating “hero who doesn’t see the obvious”. If this is bad enough by its own, it is even worse when the obvious is the entire point of the story.

Despite these flaws, the book is still worth reading – largely due to the world-building skills Barker displays. Watching the workings of the intricate Tsolyáni political maneuverings first hand, getting to explore the underground remnants of ancient civilizations, watching as the naïve play with scientific trinkets far beyond even our own comprehension, having the workings of the gods demonstrated and explained. All of this and more makes this worth the day or two it should take you to skim through it.

In addition, if you intend to roleplay in Tékumel then reading this novel (and the next one, Flamesong) will be extremely useful to you in getting a feel for the extremely alien culture presented. This, more than anything else, is why I decided to review Man of Gold first, despite my negative feelings regarding it – it provides a good place to take your first step into this new world.

For those of you reading this after it has been placed in the archive and interested in reading the series in sequence, the next review will be of the novel Flamesong.

Style: 2
Substance: 4

Author: Professor M.A.R. Barker
Company/Publisher: DAW Books, Inc.
Cost: $3.50
Page count: 367
ISBN: 0-87997-940-2

Originally Posted: 1999/07/19

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Tagline: The world of Tékumel is an exciting, interesting, richly detailed setting almost without equal in the realms of fiction (roleplaying or otherwise). It has been plagued with a bad publication history, but nonetheless has become legendary in the RPG community for its positive aspects.

This is the first review in a series of reviews designed to cover the Tékumel setting in a great deal of depth. Although there’s no strict schedule on which these reviews will be turned out, by the time I’m done I hope to have been able to cover all of the major Tékumel products which have been published over the past two and half decades since it first appeared in print, along with a good sampling of the minor ones. This review, therefore, is a little bit different than most – it will be a protracted look at the history of the Tékumel setting (an overview of the Tékumel setting, publishing history, and other miscellaneous information), serving as a general introduction to the product-specific reviews which will follow.

THE SETTING

The world of Tékumel was first settled by humans exploring the galaxy about 60,000 years in the future, along with several other alien species. They did massive terraforming of the inhospitable environment, disrupting the local ecology and banishing most of the local fauna (including some intelligent species) to reservations on the corners of their new world. This was a golden age of technology and prosperity, even on one of Mother Earth’s colony worlds.

Then the world got dropped into a dimensional pocket. Don’t you hate it when life rains on your parade?

In any case, Tékumel was severed from the interplanetary trade routes and went through a massive gravitic upheaval which threw civilization into chaos. The native species broke loose from their reservations and civil war seized the planet. Several other significant changes took place due to the crisis – mankind discovered it could now tap into magical forces, the stars were gone from the sky, dimensional nexi were uncovered and pacts with “demons” (dimensional travelers) were made, a complex pantheon of gods was discovered, and science began to stagnate and the belief that the universe was understandable slowly faded. A Time of Darkness descended over the planet.

Which brings us to a much later time period and the world of Tékumel as it has been revealed to us through the writings of Professor M.A.R. Barker – specifically the area of the Five Empires on Tékumel’s northern continent.

The Professor (as he is affectionately referred to by people who don’t like typing out “M.A.R. Barker”) developed Tékumel in much the same way that J.R.R. Tolkien developed the much more popularly known Middle Earth (setting for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings). His interest in myth and languages lead him to develop his own fantasy languages based upon fantasy cultures in a fantasy world influenced heavily by his studies in myth. The difference is that where Tolkien drew largely on the northern European myth structures, the Professor’s interests lay largely in the languages and myth structures of India and Southern Asia.

What distinguishes Tékumel even more from Tolkien is the media in which it was presented to others. Tolkien, after years of dabbling in his fictional world, eventually wrote two major novels and a series of other works set there. M.A.R. Barker, on the other hand, was a professor at the University of Minnesota at the same time that Dave Arneson, Gary Gygax, and a handful of others were developing the first “roleplaying games”. This was the tradition which the Professor would tap into to explore and develop his own games. His “Thursday Night Groups” were some of the first roleplaying sessions anywhere, and quite possibly the first non-D&D ones ever. This unique, week-by-week, thirty year development of the world on a very personal level is unknown to any other detailed fantasy world of this calibre.

First, you have the hyper-detailed languages. Tsolyáni, one of those languages, has had grammatical guides, dictionaries, and even a language course developed for it (Tolkien’s languages and Star Trek’s Klingon are the only serious parallels to this type of development). In order for these languages to have that type of deep accuracy, the Professor developed wholistic cultures, histories, dress fashions, architectural styles, weapons, armor, tactical styles, legal codes, demographics, and much else.

Second, you have the religions of Tékumel. There are a (relatively) small number of true gods and goddesses in Tékumel; but they are far beyond our comprehension. Instead each religion worship specific aspects of these gods and goddesses in different forms – with different degrees of specificity (Lesser and Greater Aspects) and spheres of influence. It is heavily inspired by the mythologies of India and Southern Asia (as is the rest of the world’s background), and utterly unlike anything else I’ve seen published in the fantasy genre in terms of depth, understanding, consistency, and originality.

Third, the cultures which have been created (which, as noted above, grew out of the myth and language Barker was developing) are rich, alien things. They are extremely baroque, being based along the classical lines of the Indian, Chinese, and Japanese cultures. They envisioned on a grand, epic scale and are possessed of breathtaking qualities.

Finally, the day-to-day development of the world has resulted in all of these intricately details being put into a constant motion which have resulted in unique developments and depth. This is a world of intricacy and complexity almost unmatched.

Tékumel is one of the most intricately detailed and believable fantasy worlds ever created – one of the “Big Three” in my mind (a list made up of Middle Earth and Tékumel, with Harn coming in at a slightly distant third place).

THE PUBLISHING HISTORY

There are some who theorize that the extremely alien qualities of Tékumel as a setting are what have resulted in its disappointing history – one of limited commercial success, despite a fervent and committed following. Personally I think we are putting the cart before the wheel somewhat here; the publishing history of Tékumel has been one marked with troubles. I think these troubles are the cause of Tékumel’s limited commercial success, not its result.

Tékumel first burst upon the scene in 1975, when TSR (still known as Tactical Studies Rules) published it as a standalone game under the title of The Empire of the Petal Throne (“Empire of the Petal Throne” being a euphemism for the Tsolyánu Empire). Despite some of the moral and ethical warping of the world brought about Gygax pasting on an AD&D-style alignment system, Empire of the Petal Throne met with a great deal of critical and financial success. It brought a level of detail and quality to the world in which a game was set which had previously been unknown in the RPG industry (this was still several years before the first major concordance of Greyhawk would appear). It was a turning point away from the tactical roots of RPGs and towards the unique possibilities this new medium was capable of providing.

The game was loosely supported in Dragon magazine for awhile, but eventually it died from lack of major support by TSR (which was already beginning to focus exclusively on the D&D franchise, with the new AD&D game being just around the corner). The setting was supported for several years by its adherents (including the participants in the Professor’s own games) in various forms, including several sets of miniature rules.

The next major landmark in the history of Tékumel publishing is when the company Gamescience published a Sourcebook and a Player’s Handbook in 1983 – essentially a two volume set of background and rules (the latter being completely different from the earlier rules in Empire of the Petal Throne). This system remained entirely unsupported (Gamescience went out of business among other things), although the setting continued to be — most notably with the Armies of Tékumel series (which, self-obviously, detailed the various armies of the various empires) and The Tsolyáni Language (which, self-obviously, detailed the Tsolyáni language in detail for the first time).

In 1987 a company known as Different Worlds proceeded to reprint the Gamescience manuals – but in the process managed to confuse everyone thoroughly by breaking up the Sourcebook into multiple volumes (Books 1-3, each published in a separate volume) and then going out of business before publishing Book 3 of the Sourcebook or any of the Player’s Handbook.

Then, in 1992, a company known as Theatre of the Mind (TOME) started publishing a series known as The Adventures of Tékumel — which was, yet again, completely different from any previous ruleset. If you thought Different Worlds made things confusing with their books, TOME was even worse. First, Adventures of Tékumel: Part One was published as a single book. Then Adventures of Tékumel: Part Two was published in three different volumes. Finally, TOME published Gardásiyal: Deeds of Glory as a stand-alone set of rules. This was confusing because, first, “Deeds of Glory” was the name for an old set of Tékumel miniature rules, and, second, because Gardásiyal wasn’t really a complete game – you needed the character creation rules from Adventures of Tékumel: Part One (but nothing from any of the Adventures of Tékumel: Part Two volumes). On top of it all, Gardásiyal isn’t particularly good at describing the world of Tékumel – so the old Gamescience sourcebook is still heavily recommended.

Nonetheless, TOME represents the most continuous and in-depth publishing history for Tékumel yet (with the exception of auxiliary publications by Tékumel Games, which is directly connected to the Professor) – they have produced a Tékumel Bestiary and will, hopefully, be publishing Mitlanyál (a guide to Tékumel’s gods and religious structures) in the near future.

One of the interesting things to note (in a sort of macabre fashion) is that as the roleplaying industry moves towards simpler and more intuitive systems, the systems published for use with Tékumel have become more and more complicated, archaic, and non-intuitive. This is ironic, because the Professor himself uses an almost diceless homebrew.

There’s some other miscellaneous stuff that should be mentioned. The Blue Room FTP site (dealt with in more detail below) has offered some shareware manuals. Tirikelu is a set of shareware roleplaying rules produced by a fan. Conversions for Tékumel exist for GURPS, AD&D, RuneQuest, TORG, and quite probably others as well that I am forgetting of. And I have not even delved into the miniature rules, the vast majority of the supplements, the maps, or the miniatures… not to mention the novels (which is where the next review will be taking us).

As you can see its a bit of a tortured history. That is one of the reasons why I’m producing this series of reviews – so that you know what each product contains and can figure out for yourself what would be the best way to get into Tékumel.

OTHER INFORMATION

For those of you interested in discussing in Tékumel there are two major ‘net-based discussion groups: The Tékumel newsgroup (alt.games.frp.tekumel) and the Blue Room mailing list. To subscribe to the mailing list (which the Professor participates on) send e-mail to Chris Davis (the list’s moderator) at blueroom@prin.edu.

Those of you interested in tracking down Tékumel material may find it difficult. However, Tita’s House of Games (run by Carl Brodt) has become a one-stop source for the material (both in print, OOP, and reprint material). His catalog is routinely posted to the alt.games.frp.tekumel newsgroup. You can also get a catalog with the following contact information:

E-mail: CarlBrodt@aol.com
Snail Mail: 1608 Bancroft Way; Berkeley, CA 94703
Phone: (510) 848-3260

There are also a number of web-based resources for the setting:

Brett Slocum’s Tékumel Page
http://www.skypoint.com/~slocum/tekumel
Mr. Slocum’s page, while not the most visually smashing thing you will ever see, is professionally put together in a format where it is easy to find exactly what you’re looking for (something which I wish could be said of all web designers). The site is packed full of useful information – including the Tékumel FAQ, Publishing History, a setting overview, maps, timeline, a GURPS conversion, and links to many of the sites found on this list as well as links to other resources (including other conversions and freebie rule sets). If you can only go to one Tékumel website, this is the one it should be.

Tékumel: The World of the Petal Throne
http://www.tekumel.com
Designed by Peter Gifford this site is visually dazzling, while not falling prey to bad web design as a result. It is showing great potential with its own content, and has links to much of the on-line content it doesn’t possess. Highly recommended.

The Blue Room FTP Site
ftp://nexus.prin.edu
As noted above, Professor Barker participates on the Blue Room Mailing List. Chris Davis (the Room’s moderator) has also established this FTP site – which contains some Tékumel-related documents authored by Barker and others. I hope to eventually review several of these web-only products eventually, but in the meantime you should take a look for yourself.

The Jade Arch
http://www.interlog.com/~maliszew/jade.html
The Jade Arch gets mandatory mentioning here because its designer, James Maliszewski is one of the columnists here at RPGNet. Plus it has an interesting game-related focus (rather than the world-related focus of most other sites).

Empire of the Petal Throne Products
http://www.halcyon.com/www2/bwr/ept_list.html
This product listing is one of the best available, listing everything (to my knowledge) that has ever been published for Tékumel in any format.

There many other sites out there, but this is a good sampling of most of it. Since between the first three sites on the list you should be able to find links to everything else, this is a good jumping off point for you.

CONCLUSION

Tékumel is a world almost without equal. Its publication history has made it difficult to track down serious material for it, though. Knowing which books to buy, and in which order to buy them, is not particularly easy. Fortunately, Tita’s House of Games (described above) has made actually getting the material much easier.

Although I know some who have given up on this rich gaming environment because of these difficulties, I hope that this series of reviews will serve to guide you back into it. And for those of you who have not yet experienced this piece of gaming history, I hope to light a passion in it for you. It’s well worth the effort.

For those of you reading this after it has been placed in the archive and interested in reading the series in sequence, the next review will be of the novel Man of Gold.

Style: 4
Substance: 5

Author: Professor M.A.R. Barker
Company/Publisher: Various
Cost: n/a
Page count: n/a
ISBN: n/a

Originally Posted: 1999/07/19

I never actually completed the intended series of Tékumel reviews. The series ground to a halt after hitting the first two novels (Man of Gold and Flamesong). The publication history related in this review is now incomplete, of course, but Empire of the Petal Throne unfortunately remains a blighted intellectual property. Its next major publication was Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne, a Tri-Stat game published by Guardians of Order… just in time for Guardians of Order to go bankrupt and close its doors. A company called Zottola eventually managed to get Mitlanyál and a couple new novels into print, but they went out of business in 2011. Tita’s House of Games is supposedly still around, but the site hasn’t been updated since 2010.

M.A.R. Barker himself died just over a year ago. Before he died, he founded the Tékumel Foundation to preserve the legacy of his work… but they also haven’t updated their website in years.

The lengthy (and, to date, futile) struggle to have Tékumel published in a coherent, unified format for any significant period of time remains a source of great sadness for me, particularly as I reflect on both the travails of Legends & Labyrinths and my ongoing work to preserve and promote the literary legacy of my mother.

Maybe someday….

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

[ The material being reviewed here were provided by the publisher directly to myself with the understanding that I would post a review of the material to RPGNet and the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.frp.misc. The content and conclusions of the review have not been influenced by this arrangement – the opinions contained within are the honest impressions I have of the product.

The First Book of Worlds is sold in a bundled back with the main Multiverser rulebook for a combined price of $50. I have arrived at an individual price for the two products – which I have reviewed separately – by simply dividing that price in half. As noted in my review of the rulebook I am still encouraging Valdron, Inc. to allow people to buy the products separately. ]

Tagline: Valdron claimed that they had produced a unique game setting. Their critics ridiculed them for it. Their critics were wrong.

I still find it quaint now to think about how much angst and furor was generated by a company pricing their RPG core rulebook at $50. I do recommend checking out my review of Multiverser for the full context of where these reviews came from and the tempest-in-a-teacup which provoked them.

First off, I want to explain where this review is coming from. In, I believe, late 1997 Mark J. Young began posting messages to the rec.games.frp.misc newsgroup about a new game which was going to be coming out: Multiverser. Claims of this being “the new best thing in gaming” and “something unlike anything you’ve ever seen before” were made. The response to these self-laudatory messages was a massive backlash. In my opinion this backlash was never truly deserved, but people had just recovered from similar mailings from the creators of SenZar and The World of Synnibar (two games which did deserve it). Plus, Multiverser was advertised as a $50 product and it wasn’t, initially, well communicated that this was for two books, not one. All in all, people thought they were being hit again by a bunch of clueless morons.

The Multiverser threads dragged on and popped up again and again until, finally, in late 1998, I, and several other people, stepped forward and offered to review the game. Up to that point the people who were attacking Multiverser weren’t about to actually lay down the “outrageous” amount of money required to actually analyze the product they were critiquing – they were quite content to simply attack. You had a situation with very few facts and some very big egos.

To make a long story short I posted my review of the Multiverser rulebook to RPGNet and the newsgroup in late-1998, promising to review The First Book of Worlds separately in the near future. As should now be obvious at the time of this writing (early May of 1999), this did not happen in as timely a fashion as I would have liked. Several other projects came up which gobbled up my time for roleplaying-related activities, I moved, and The First Book of Worlds ended up in a stack of unread roleplaying books a mile high. Plus, I had sort of expended my two-cents on the Multiverser issue in my first review and, honestly, thought that whatever The First Book of Worlds might contain, it probably wasn’t going to add that much to the debate. My review of the Multiverser rulebook concluded that, whatever faults the product might have, it was, in fact, what the Mark J. Young had claimed it was: Something utterly different from what had come before. It was my opinion, sight unseen, that The First Book of Worlds was simply not going to further that basic point at all.

This was my hubris and my mistake.

Indeed, The First Book of Worlds, even moreso than the main rulebook, is something unique. While, obviously, containing familiar elements, it takes those elements and does something fresh and original with them. In the end I was surprised, given all the things about this product I should have hated, that I was left with an overall favorable opinion of it.

WHAT IS THIS PRODUCT?

When first approaching the Multiverser game I was thrown off at first because I was expecting a generic gaming engine and instead got a dimension-hopping game. (This is discussed in my review of the rulebook.) I was thrown off-balance in a similar manner by The First Book of Worlds.

The title, and the premise of the game itself, lead me to believe that the book would be similar in temperament to GURPS Alternate Earths: Several alternate dimensions would be described, based largely on “what ifs” of established history. While there is some of that, The First Book of Worlds defies expectation.

You are are presented with a number of alternate worlds – but many of these are completely alien in their make-up (in ways which will be discussed before). But each world description also serves as the basis for discussing adventuring possibilities. In the same way that old AD&D modules spent as much time detailing location as they did detailing what happened there, each chapter of The First Book of the Worlds describes not just a new dimension, but also a story (or series of stories) which takes place there.

What struck me even more about this, however, was the wide variety of ways in which the stories were presented and told. For example, you had some scenarios which were “tightly” plotted, others which had many different branches, several which were detailed world simulations, and in some cases merely a seemingly exhaustive study of the multitude of ways a specific setting could be used. The authors have demonstrated an amazing aptitude and grasp of a wide variety of storytelling techniques.

THE WORLDS THEMSELVES

NagaWorld. The first world in the book is also the most detailed world provided. The book says, “All verser player characters begin by being carried into NagaWorld.” Those of you who have read my review of the rulebook know that there were several times when the designer made things “requirements” which didn’t really need to be – this is another one of those times. Indeed, the reasons they state for this being the case (NagaWorld was designed to be as alien as possible to leave “no doubt” in the mind of the PCs that they have traveled to another world, among others) are good ones – but why make it an absolute? (This mistake is repeated at other places in the book. In all of these cases the “requirement” is easily ignored.)

Upon arriving in NagaWorld the PCs will wake up lying on their backs in the Orange Plains. These plains are covered in three-inch long “orange grass” which is vaguely reminiscent of astroturf. The world itself is a flat disc. In the center is the “Glass City” – in actuality a massive psionic engine being controlled by the Nash Far Kraal (more on that later). The world is inhabited primarily by the nagas – essentially nerf balls (although the illustrations make them look a lot like the “slimes” which fans of Japanese animation may be familiar with). There are several colors of naga, each with its own unique properties. The nagas are accompanied by a few others interesting, and very unearthly, creatures. The other major inhabitants of NagaWorld are the Dar Koni and the Kreelak – two alien species from another universe waging war against each other.

NagaWorld is actually an artificial construct built in the scriff by the Kraal as an intermediary point for their invasions of other worlds. The Kraal and their technology are all psionically based. The Glass City is the largest of their psionic engines, used to propel them through the scriff and into other worlds. Unfortunately the Glass City is far too huge for any Kraal to operate, so the Kraal created the Nash Far Kraal – a psionic brain which lives beneath the surface of NagaWorld in a sedimentary layer of material which looks vaguely like tapioca.

Now, here comes a Big Design Flaw(TM): You’ve set up interdimensional travelers bent on the subjugation and destruction of everyone else in the multiverse. These are the perfect recurring villains for this type of game – every so often the GM has them pop up to harass the PCs, the PCs get to play freedom fighters until they get killed, and so it goes. Heck, given the way Multiverser works you could even have PCs fighting on different fronts of the same war in different dimensions at the same time. Very Cool.

At this point the guys down at Valdron decide that they should exterminate the interdimensional menace before the PCs ever show up on the scene: The Nash Far Kraal is more than slightly insane and, through a series of events, ends up killing his creators. The author even goes so far as to explicitly deny the GM “permission” to have a Kraal ever show up.

Huh?

Anyway, that would be the first thing I’d change before using this.

The other cool thing about NagaWorld, however, is that the authors have taken advantage of the fact that NagaWorld has appeared in their own decade-long campaign. Because the world is a small place and humans aren’t native it is easy to see the impact they have had. As a result you end up with several elements on NagaWorld left by other versers: It has much the same effect as the lamppost in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe — a human anachronism in an alien place which creates mystery by begging explanation. The creators have also detailed the pristine version of the world, so that that version can be used if the GM so desires.

The primary focus of NagaWorld is very much one of exploration and survival – as the PCs experiment with the alien ecology to see how they can reconstruct the basic elements of life necessary for survival, while trapped between two warring species in a world ruled over by a psychotic, psionic artificial intelligence.

Tristan’s Labyrinth. “What do you do with a player who just wants to kill monsters? Sometimes you accommodate him. That’s the theory behind Tristan’s Labyrinth, a meaningless morass of corridors and connected spaces populated by unrecognized creatures all having malicious intent.” The authors actually do themselves a disservice in this quote, since they do provide a “meaning” to it – although it’s a little thin (what explanation for a dungeon isn’t?). The labyrinth is an elaborate prison constructed beneath the surface of a nuclear-wasted world. Below the labyrinth, deep within the earth, is the utopian paradise which has been built by the survivors of the nuclear holocaust above.

I initially thought this was going to be a big disappointment on the heels of NagaWorld. Much to my surprise, however, there were a quite a few things to like here. First, the idea of a utopia surviving a nuclear holocaust was interesting. The “dungeon as prison” is an explanation which has been used before, but is a nice touch. Finally, the dungeon map is designed in a rather ingenious non-standard tile formation such that you can create an infinite labyrinth from a simple design which will, if all goes well, keep the players in the dark about the actual layout of the place – even if they conclude that there are repetitious patterns. On top of all this they detail a large number of monsters for the setting, none of which are going to do much more than casually remind you of D&D beasties.

The big design flaw here: Although they tell us that the labyrinth is used as a criminal punishment they expressly say that the PCs will never encounter a prisoner. Again: Huh?

The Dancing Princess. A fairly full world with survivalist adventuring elements and a dungeon crawl with a couple of twists. What’s next? The Dancing Princess is a fairly linear story based on the fairy tale of the same name: The PC answers the challenge of a fantasy king to stop his daughters from escaping from their rooms at night. The PC goes on an interdimensional quest and, in the end, (hopefully) rescues the princesses from demon princes and ends up marrying one of them. This is a very short section of the book, but also includes a brief description of a provincial, traditional fantasy setting of small, isolated kingdoms.

Mary Piper Twin Scenarios. This is an interesting pair of settings. Essentially the PCs appear on the trading ship Mary Piper in mid-voyage. They are, of course, suspected of being stowaways, but eventually join the crew on their adventures. The catch is that there are two Mary Pipers: One plying the waves of a medieval world, another sailing in the void between the stars. The similarity doesn’t end there – crew names and personalities are similar, place names and characteristics are at times identical and at others reminiscent, even the situations and challenges which will be faced by the PCs will be of an eerily parallel nature.

All in all this is a fairly clever idea carried out with a good deal of aplomb and quality. What I would have liked to see, however, was for the primitive Mary Piper to be set in a 20th century setting – one such that the physical appearance of the two ships would be close enough (from the inside) to at least temporarily confuse the PC as to which Mary Piper they were on. Imagine either having the PCs split up, but believing they were on the same ship – or warping the PCs off one Mary Piper and dropping them onto the other, having them believe that they haven’t actually gone anywhere (at least for awhile).

Sherwood Forest. As the name for this world should clearly imply, this is the world of Robin Hood. Once again I prepped myself for disappointment – the rest of the book had always demonstrated either original material or a unique twist on familiar material, but Robin Hood has been done before… many times. What else could you do with him? As you have probably already guessed, the section did not disappoint – largely because of three factors.

First, the authors again demonstrate their care for research, detail, and accuracy through the wealth of historical data presented along with discussions of different historical possibilities. Robin Hood may be a legendary figure, but they highlight that legend with historical fact from the 12th century.

Second, they do not cringe from the possibility of breaking the mold of expectation. One of the two adventures presented in the section (as different “common pursuits” the PCs might go after) deals with the PCs deciding to go after Prince John directly. The authors quickly point out that while the PCs might be able to convince of the Merry Men to follow them, Robin never will – Prince John, after all, is royalty, and you don’t kill royalty. Further, if the PCs are successful, then when King Richard returns they will not be lauded as heroes, but rather condemned and hunted down like the criminals they are. In the other scenario (going off to rescue King Richard), the authors make a couple of interesting historical points – first, if the PCs are already identified as being Merry Men, they will be pursued by Prince John’s forces all the way to the border of his control… which is not the coast as they might expect, but rather the edge of Normandy in France (because at this time in history the Norman royalty of England still had connections to Norman France). Second, that King Richard isn’t going to want to be rescued – it’s against the code of honor he would have subscribed to.

Finally, you actually get two worlds in one. The authors take a great deal of space to consider the possibility that – against all odds – the PCs actually do manage to kill Prince John. They theorize that with his death King Richard will still eventually have his ransom paid and return to England. Richard will still appoint a regent to the throne (a cousin, someone the PCs have never heard of before), and will still turn around and get himself killed in the Crusades. But after this all of English history is changed because Prince John never become King John. They theorize that without the inept bungling of John’s reign, the lords will never rise up and never force anyone to sign the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta, of course, was the document specifying the rights of the king’s subjects – the lords thought they were protecting themselves, but, much to their surprise, they also found that they were protecting their subjects. Whoops. Long story short, the Magna Carta is the direct precursor of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights – without it all of English society and, consequently, history would be fundamentally altered. Long story short again, the authors present a future setting in which America is still controlled largely by the English throne, which is fighting for control of the territory with France. (They suggest that the PCs warp into this setting shortly after leaving the Sherwood Forest setting.)

Unfortunately, as unique as this setting is, this is also where the Big Design Flaw for this section pops up: The authors theorize that without the emphasis on the individual in the Magna Carta, the Protestant Revolution would never have taken place and the Catholic Church still reigns supreme in the western world. Well, it’s likely that Cromwell never would have had his Revolution, to say that Protestantism would be effected by the Magna Carta is straining credulity – considering it dates to Wycliffe and Martin Luther… neither of whom were English. So, while the Church of England may or may not exist (since Henry VIII would never be king), Protestantism definitely would.

All in all, though, a very interesting section of the book which I enjoyed reading quite a bit.

The Most Dangerous Game. Most of the sections in the book are mostly world with varying amounts of adventure mixed in. This section reverses that trend by having mostly adventure and very little world. Essentially this is a fairly faithful recreation of the short story by Richard Connell. You may have (as the authors point out) read this story in high school English class. Even if you haven’t you have probably seen some adaptation or rip-off of the basic concept: It is widely believed that the short story holds the record for being adapted the most times, either directly or indirectly.

Essentially the plot goes like this: A shipwreck leaves a single man alive, who is pulled to shore and saved by a rich recluse. After nursing the man back to health the recluse informs him that he is the greatest hunter the world has ever known, but he has grown bored with it because he has perfected the sport – no animal is capable of presenting him with a challenge. So (have you guessed it yet?) the recluse now hunts the only prey left capable of challenging him – other humans. Since he saved the man’s life, the recluse claims, it belongs to him. He will give the man a head start of 24 hours and, if the man is still alive at the end of three days, he will be free to go. If I recall correctly, the original story ends when the man turns the tables on the recluse and kills him instead. The version found here is a fairly faithful adaptation (except that the main character verses in rather than being shipwrecked). It is, in my opinion, well done.

The Zygote Experience. This, undoubtedly in my mind, is something that no one else has ever had the guts to try before: An roleplaying scenario about the character being born. I dunno if it really works all that well, but I think the authors deserve kudos for trying something so radically different and unexpected.

Basically there is a tradition among Multiverser players “that once in a great while a character has gone through so much that the referee chooses to start him over as a baby”. The basic rules integrate this into the injury rules in the main book, but I didn’t really give it much thought while glancing over that section before. I mean, sure, yeah, you can have the character reborn, put together a new character sheet, and then start up again “twenty years later”… it never crossed my mind that you would attempt to roleplay through the whole experience.

All in all it’s difficult for me to describe this section in great detail without cheapening it. Let me just say this: First, it is well researched and information is given to you in great wealth. Second, I think it would be a highly playable interlude in a longer Multiverser campaign. Third, it confirms my basic opinion of the overall Multiverser product…

CONCLUSION

…And what is that opinion?

That when Mark J. Young came on the newsgroups and said that Multiverser was something unlike anything we had seen before – and was ridiculed for it – his critics were wrong in saying that it was impossible. Although paper and ink may still have been used in the production of this game, there is no doubt left in my mind now that there are dozens of things which these designers have audaciously attempted (successfully or no) that does does make their product unique, interesting, and inspiring.

On the other hand, there are some problems. First, their writing style can at times be more than annoying – meaningless “mandates” of GM and player behavior; spending too much time telling us how and why they’re telling us something rather than just telling it to us; etc. Second, there are times when their product suffers massive flaws. Third, at times I feel that their very ambition sets them up for failure at a more basic level. Fourth, I think that their complicated, hyper-detailed, world-over-story (sometimes) approach is tragically out of place in an industry which is currently enthralled with simple, broadstroked, story-over-world games. Tragically, I say, because the creators of Multiverser have a lot going for them.

So what’s my final verdict on Multiverser? I have to say that I think the package is worth the $50 they’re asking for it. I think that if you approach these products as something which you need to fiddle with and adjust in order to make it your own, then you will find a wealth of material with which to work. The game may not be for everybody, but I think everybody will find in these massive twin volumes dozens of things which they can use in games of their own.

I also think that if Valdron ever releases the promised Second Book of Worlds (to include Bah Ke’gehn, a world where the demons look like men and the men look like demons; the Prisoner of Zenda; an automated world where the indigs have become primitives in a world which takes care of their every need; western worlds; B-Movie World; the Cask of Amontillado and many more) that I’ll quickly lay out the cash to see what they’ve got brewing.

Style: 3
Substance: 5

Author: E.R. Jones and M. Joseph Young
Company/Publisher: Valdron, Inc.
Cost: $25.00
Page count: 160
ISBN: n/a

Originally Posted: 1999/05/28

In the interests of full disclosure, the Second Book of Worlds was eventually published, but I never laid out my cash to purchase it. Having just converted this review, however, I’ve just added it to my Amazon shopping cart. The First Book of Worlds really is brimming with creativity, cleverness, and a healthy dollop of originality. Even if you skip the Multiverser rulebook, I’d recommend taking the time to check it out.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.