sir archely
June 18th, 2003, 19:13
Having known i was long a fan of the Wheel of Time fantasy series written by Robert Jordan, a few friends of mine all chipped in and bought me the WoT RPG book for xmas of 2001, just after it came out. This was nice, as i didn't have to pay for it. That's always a good thing.
In any case, we've been playing in it ever since. I am the GM, and i have two regular players. However, each of them runs from 2-4 PCs, and I have 4 extremely detailed NPCs that show up from time to time. There are currently 4 individual campaigns going on, but in essence they are all part of the same mega-campaign. If a character leaves a group, that character plays by him or herself, and can join or interact with other campaigns. I'm running it in an alternate world in which Rand, Mat, Perrin, and Moiraine all chanced to step through the finn doorway in tear, and the resulting tear killed them. The PCs are the pattern's answer to the loss of ta'veren, and each may or may not become central, at least for a time. It's proving to be quite challenging for my GM skills to keep all of the groups going, and not screw anything up. The players would catch me on it, i've no doubt about that. It's the first campaign i've run in which i've had to take extensive notes, and make plans for the far off future, not to mention the near future. All in all it's a lot of fun.
That said, what i really started this for was to give my impression of the book itself. I think it's a great book, but could be better. The only real thing that makes it "great" in my opinion, is that it's based off of a series i like a lot. For someone who hasn't read WoT, i wouldn't recommend buying the book at all. You won't get it, and probably won't have fun, period. However, it also has a lot of shortcomings for fans as well.
First off, they tried to make character descriptions of many of the characters in the books. Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Lan, Moiraine, etc. These are awful. They don't come near to adequately describing what the people in the books are actually like. In fact, this is to be expected. The book characters are 'mega-heroes' and simply aren't balanced enough to fit inside a game system that tries to be balanced. If you want to play these kind of characters, one strategy that i've done is make the PCs ta'veren, stronger or weaker, permanent or (more likely) not. This allows me to boost them up a bit, give them extra skills and abilities they would normally not have, but remain within the framework. [Note: The game designers used this strategy to design Rand et al, but still fail imo.]
Another shortcoming of the book is the channeling system. It's okay, but has some major issues. Chances are good that a lvl 1 channeler who is aware of the lvl 23462346 armsman (fighter equivalent) who is trying to attack her will win the fight. The weaves and system can be abused a lot, and it requires a lot of fudging just to keep gameplay with channelers entertaining. In addition, many weaves from the books are not represented, and if you stuck to the book, battles between evenly matched channelers would be nigh on to impossible to determine the results of.
There are other problems, but those are a couple major ones that i see. The RPG book includes details up to book 6 of the series, and i'm told that it contains spoilers for up to book 7 or 8 if you look hard enough. I'm just too lazy to actually figure out what's where and compare. It has a rushed feel to it, as though it was something slapped together that they wanted to get out on the market.
At times self-contradicting, incomprehensible (typos and strange inclusions abound), both, or contradicting the series, it's still a decent buy for the serious fan of WoT. No matter what, it's my opinion that the GM is going to have his or her work cut out, in just rigging something up into a workable system that they like to play in. Improvisation and creativity are a must when working with it. I'd say that a good knowledge of the books is also a must for the GM, but not for the players. One of mine only started reading after we started playing, and he's had quite the fun time.
In any case, we've been playing in it ever since. I am the GM, and i have two regular players. However, each of them runs from 2-4 PCs, and I have 4 extremely detailed NPCs that show up from time to time. There are currently 4 individual campaigns going on, but in essence they are all part of the same mega-campaign. If a character leaves a group, that character plays by him or herself, and can join or interact with other campaigns. I'm running it in an alternate world in which Rand, Mat, Perrin, and Moiraine all chanced to step through the finn doorway in tear, and the resulting tear killed them. The PCs are the pattern's answer to the loss of ta'veren, and each may or may not become central, at least for a time. It's proving to be quite challenging for my GM skills to keep all of the groups going, and not screw anything up. The players would catch me on it, i've no doubt about that. It's the first campaign i've run in which i've had to take extensive notes, and make plans for the far off future, not to mention the near future. All in all it's a lot of fun.
That said, what i really started this for was to give my impression of the book itself. I think it's a great book, but could be better. The only real thing that makes it "great" in my opinion, is that it's based off of a series i like a lot. For someone who hasn't read WoT, i wouldn't recommend buying the book at all. You won't get it, and probably won't have fun, period. However, it also has a lot of shortcomings for fans as well.
First off, they tried to make character descriptions of many of the characters in the books. Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Lan, Moiraine, etc. These are awful. They don't come near to adequately describing what the people in the books are actually like. In fact, this is to be expected. The book characters are 'mega-heroes' and simply aren't balanced enough to fit inside a game system that tries to be balanced. If you want to play these kind of characters, one strategy that i've done is make the PCs ta'veren, stronger or weaker, permanent or (more likely) not. This allows me to boost them up a bit, give them extra skills and abilities they would normally not have, but remain within the framework. [Note: The game designers used this strategy to design Rand et al, but still fail imo.]
Another shortcoming of the book is the channeling system. It's okay, but has some major issues. Chances are good that a lvl 1 channeler who is aware of the lvl 23462346 armsman (fighter equivalent) who is trying to attack her will win the fight. The weaves and system can be abused a lot, and it requires a lot of fudging just to keep gameplay with channelers entertaining. In addition, many weaves from the books are not represented, and if you stuck to the book, battles between evenly matched channelers would be nigh on to impossible to determine the results of.
There are other problems, but those are a couple major ones that i see. The RPG book includes details up to book 6 of the series, and i'm told that it contains spoilers for up to book 7 or 8 if you look hard enough. I'm just too lazy to actually figure out what's where and compare. It has a rushed feel to it, as though it was something slapped together that they wanted to get out on the market.
At times self-contradicting, incomprehensible (typos and strange inclusions abound), both, or contradicting the series, it's still a decent buy for the serious fan of WoT. No matter what, it's my opinion that the GM is going to have his or her work cut out, in just rigging something up into a workable system that they like to play in. Improvisation and creativity are a must when working with it. I'd say that a good knowledge of the books is also a must for the GM, but not for the players. One of mine only started reading after we started playing, and he's had quite the fun time.