Introduction
White Wolf persist in being one of the few big companies to get their PDF and web policy right. I know I mention this every time, but it continues to be worth pointing out. While they're still a little overpriced for what you get - in many cases - White Wolf are pretty much bang on and seem to understand the medium and the PDF market better than the other large companies. This is especially poignant in the wake of Wizards of the Coast getting it so utterly wrong quite recently and of Palladium finally catching on to this newfangled technology stuff and moving on from carving editions of RIFTS into stone with a bison shin bone.

Still, given that White Wolf's been consistent in this, I can no longer simply give them kudos and a higher score just for approaching e-publishing better than anyone else.

Wolfsheim is a mini-adventure for Scion, stand alone, suitable for an evening's play or as a pick-up or convention game, though it will need experienced characters to be pre-generated in such an instance. It's fairly straightforward, if a little rail-roady (as most of these adventures from White Wolf have been) and it could easily be shifted in space and time from its modern, Germanic setting to just about anywhere or anywhen.

The basic storyline is that of Yojimbo, the famous Japanese samurai story, a town caught between two predatory groups and the wanderers coming in, upsetting the balance between the people and their antagonists and, hopefully, causing a new peace to come about (through a great deal of bloodshed in the middle).

Overview
Wolfsheim is 44 pages, landscape - so suitable for laptop oriented gaming - of adventure with a short introduction and quite a few pages of organisational material, cuecards and NPC stat cards in the back. The meat of the adventure runs to about 22 pages all told with the rest taken up with the introductory material, background information, NPC motivations and the aforementioned play aids. The adventure is tight and focussed and, as well as falling within the overall Yojimbo scenario, also draws on dark fairy tales such as Hansel and Gretal and the myths and stories that circulate about the Black Forest.

Artwork
The layout in unremarkable but workmanlike, I still can't abide the layout or stylistic choices made in much of the modern White Wolf material but this is personal taste. While is biases my review it may not impact so much on your appreciation of the book. The book is presented in landscape, which many consider better for electronic products as it makes better use of the space on laptop or desktop screens. The artwork itself is a very mixed bag from a fistful of artists and the end result is that the presentation of the piece lacks a sense of cohesion, the different pieces not necessarily meshing with each other or the adventure as written.

Writing
Overall the writing is workmanlike and gets the job done but it isn't particularly inspiring or engaging, it doesn't excite you about the adventure or what is going on. The whole scenario doesn't particularly feel suited to Scion either, it feels more like it should have been written and selected for the nWoD (or even the oWoD) and it would particularly fit Forsaken or Lost. For my money it feels out of place in the Scion world and is disjointed from my expectations and appreciations of that game, which are more heroic and grandiose than this scenario encourages.

The Goblin King, head of one of the two antagonist factions in the adventure (the other being werewolves) also seemed to jarr with the overall scenario to me. Goblins always tend to feel like comic relief, no matter how nastily they're written (the Goblin in the film Catseye being one exception) and the Goblin King was no exception, every interaction with him, every quote, made me read the character like the cartoon Cobra Commander or Starscream, a screaming, egotistical incompetent that felt, as I said, like the comic relief and not something to be taken seriously.

Rules
The NPCs appear to be balanced and, while strong, there are circumstances and alliances that the players can take advantage of in order to even their odds. Taken as a straightforward fight players may find the scenario challenging - and it is combat heavy - but if they have even a modicum of cunning, or are combat oriented, they should survive the scenario fine.

Conclusion
A deeply average and slightly overpriced adventure, not 100% suited to the Scion idiom but good for a pick-up game or convention session.

Upsides

• Well presented, lots of useful help for the Storyteller.
• Extremely versatile scenario that could be used in any time period of geographic location with a little tweaking.

Downsides

• Slightly too expensive (by $1-2).
• Uninspiring.

Score
Style: 2
Substance: 3
Overall: 2.5

Introduction
MSG(TM) The Executive edition is a satirical RPG about what I shall reservedly term 'Corporate marketing bollocks' and the rat race. Players take on the roles of company representatives, 'reps' and each turn The Company (the role of which shifts between players) tries to crush the players or get them to crush each other. Yes, it's one of those new-wave poncey indie games under the thick shell of satire and piss-taking. In spite of that, for an indie game, it's a fairly weighty 130+ pages.

Overview
MSG(TM) is a story-focussed, semi-GMless, resource management and risk assessment oriented indie game. That's a torrent of buzzwords that wouldn't be out of place in the game itself. To clarify...

This is a fairly rules-light game thereby focussing more intently on the story and drama, rather than complex rules mechanics.

It's semi-GMless in that the 'GM' role rotates around the table from person to person and the traditional GM arbitration and control role is abrogated by the resource/risk system, leaving the determining of story result - if not context - more up to the individual players.

It's a resource management game because you're shepherding your corporate resources and choosing when and where to spend them to the greatest effect on the ongoing game.

It's a risk assessment game because if you spend your resources in the wrong place or overextend yourself, you're boned.

It's an indie game because these are the sorts of themes and systems that turn up in what's called the 'indie' RPG movement, even though anyone who publishes small scale and for themselves is indie really!

Artwork
The artwork is a mix of photographs and Flash-style reduced images a-la Mirror's Edge. The art is a lot more successful than the photography but going all out for that corporate flash-site look would have been a big improvement I think, as would have been seriously over-producing the book. I'd love to see a second edition in A5, the corporate equivalent of Mao's 'little red book' or as spiral-bound 'corporate DNA'.

Writing
The writing is best when it's going into the exposition and setting (such as it is) and reminds me of Doug Naylor's writing in Incompetence or Fat. This is on the comedic side of the corporate dystopia side of things and could, in many ways, be considered the spiritual successor to Paranoia, if it were a little more accessible to casual play and a touch more conventional in the way the game plays. Otherwise this is an amusing read and worth reading just for itself, without the game part. There may be a frustrated novel in this.

Rules
Characters are described by name, a superficial description, status and expertise, more like a job CV than a character sheet per se. Here's where one of the most important character choices comes in, to be Freelance or an Assett. Freelancers get to play around and cheat outrageously while Assetts get their own benefits having sold their souls - and brains - to the company store. Expertises are your broad job descriptions, though these can be nigh impenetrable, much as anyone's job description in a corporate environment already is. Perks and relationships round out the character with a little more customisation and RP interactions while each character also has something tragic in their past that has traumatised them, just to make things extra fun. Lastly you get your 'Unique Selling Point' which can be an overall summary of what your character is, or can be something frivolous and crazy. Resources - actualy numerical statistics - are distributed between Compassion and Self, the age old dichotomy between selfishness and altruism, confidence and concern.

The group then moves on to create, between them, their corporate brand. Brands are defined by their name, a collection of buzzwords (one for each player), corporate 'appearance' (adverts, logos etc), lastly the company gets resources equal to the total of all the player's resources (11 x Players) to use for its nefarious ends.

Play itself consists of rounds, each player gets to play the company once and set a 'Situation' as well as playing the 'supporting cast', the reps then work through the situation in the boardroom and in the field and take their risks. Whoever has the most resources after everyone's been the company wins and gets to narrate their terrible revenge on the rest of the players.

Once the situation is described and set by the rep the remaining players set about trying to formulate/describe a solution to the situation to draw it to a successful conclusion. In order to do so players can invoke perks, trade in relationships, spend compassion and self and roleplay their socks off while, on the opposite side, the company (and the other reps) may do what they can to balls things up for them, so long as they can still get the situation settled. 'Soap' which can be used to bolster resources is cashed in by invoking relationships and making the situations more personal. Basically the more self-aggrandising and pompous a rep can be, the more they can make the game about THEM, the better.

After everyone's bandied for points and settled on their solution they - and the company - all take their risks and, if they win their risk, get to dictate what happens. Whoever risks the most wins and gets back what their opponent risked to their pool. Pools retain their values but Soap vanishes between turns.

Overall the rules are the type of rules that make much more sense in actual play than they do on paper, but this makes it a difficult game to get into on the fly, even though - otherwise - it's a good game for pick up play once people know how. In that respect it's a lot like Baron Munchausen or similar.

Conclusion
For a stripped down, rules-light game this is a touch complex and hard to get into, the rules writing isn't especially clear and the learning curve is fairly steep to start with. Once you get past that this is an excellent filler game for conventions or a good game for when you just can't be arsed with a full RPG. It could also serve, if played a bit more 'straight', as a good way to come up with companies for dystopian cyberpunk games.

Upsides

• Nice flash-style artwork.
• Very amusing read.
• Biting satire.
•  

Downsides

• Steep learning curve.
• Photography would have been better replaced with genuine corporate clipart, made sinister.
• Presentation needs to be dialled up to 11.

Score
Style 3
Substance 4
Overall 3.5

Introduction
Ragnarok is an expansion and adventure book by White Wolf for Scion. The book deals with the apocalypse myth, specifically of the Norse gods and, being apocalyptic, returns to many of the tropes of the oWoD. Unfortunately, in my opinion, it makes almost as bad a hash of it as the end times books of the old World of Darkness did, though it has many redeeming qualities as a publication.

Overview
Ragnarok is a hefty book at some 244 pages, not a bad size for a core book, let alone a supplement, continuing a tradition of 'fat splats' which has overtaken whole swathes of the gaming industry. The book is divided into two key sections and these are further subdivided into their own segments.

Book One - Player

• Courage and Doom - The book opens with a primer on Nordic and Germanic myths and legends which is extremely useful for those who've gotten their education on these pagan traditions from The Mighty Thor. This is really, mostly an expansion on data skimmed over in earlier books, much as the rest of this book is and, while it goes into greater detail one could get this much information - and more - from any accessible book on Norse myths, legends and religion of which there are many.
• Runes of Wisdom - This section is where you'll find all your rules. New knacks, new interpretations and spins on powers, new boons, new magic and a lot of it with idiom appropriate spins such as gaining power by drinking. There two new purviews, Frost and Illusion with Illusion being long, long overdue for inclusion in Scion, perfect for being co-opted into any number of trickster gods. There are also the usual new uses for magic and a good pile of new relics for characters to use.
• The Aesir - This section gives players a good primer on the values, culture and traditions of the Norse pantheon but, given that players have likely already been playing a while this may be a little too late. It also includes a much more in depth section on the major gods of the pantheon and includes a few additions to the original set as well as information on influential heroes and demigods, such as Beowulf.

Book Two - Storyteller

• Strange Ports of Call - This is expanded information from other books in the series again, giving more detailed explanations and descriptions of the various places, real and metaphysical, that are important to the Aesir and their enemies. Both real and otherworldly places are covered and the inclusion of an oil-rig is a stroke of genius given the importance of the sea to Nordic culture and myths. Asgard is also covered in considerable detail with expanded information on the halls and their denizens, allowing you to move a campaign up into Asgard much more effectively and consistently.
• Creatures of the Nine Worlds - Here we find our friends and enemies, the Vanir - the old gods who existed before the Aesir, monstrous serpents and wolves, spirits, undead, giants, demons, dwarves and trolls. Most of the creatures and peoples of Scandinavian myth are found here in one form or another, whether allies or enemies of the scions.
• The Ragnarok Saga/HIghway to Hel/Twilight of the Gods - A significant chunk of the book is given up to an apocalyptic, end of the world scenario that brings on, passes through and concludes the doom of the gods. Despite the flow chart diagrams this is extremely linear and despite best efforts to the contrary the players - while important - are sidelined by all the main events. While this is an improvement in scale, scope and consistency over the old World of Darkness end times it is still disappointing and the set pieces mostly occur out of sight or in the otherworlds. Most Games Master, in my opinion, could come up with a better, more grandiose and more player-involving end of the world than is presented here. Apocalyptic ideas seem to run through many White Wolf products but it seems, still, it's better left as tension and motivation rather than being explicitly spelled out because it always falls short of people's own ideas and demands from the end of the world.

Artwork
An area of massive improvement in this Scion product the artwork and graphic design are much, much better. I hemmed and hawed about whether to give it a 4 or a 5 in style but with this much improvement I settled on the 5. It just feels like, unlike other Scion books, this book knows what it is and what it's about and more effort seems to have been made in the overall presentation.

Writing
The informational and rules chapters are well written and accessible but the adventure still falls flat, despite being about the end of the world, somehow the writing fails to convey that sense of urgency and excitement that should accompany such an event. The adventure itself is very linear and not particularly well crafted. I recognise the problems with publishing adventures but despite the conceits of flow charts and the helpful little hints in the margin about what to do if the whole thing goes pear shaped the adventure is still just too railroaded for true enjoyment.

Rules
The few rules are largely limited to expansions and additions, standard fare and all perfectly usable. Some of these thematic powers would also suit other pantheons and scions and so I can see the potential for a great deal of re-use, particularly of the purviews.

Conclusion
While a huge improvement on the style side and including a few useful elements Ragnarok is largely wasted on an apocalyptic adventure that fails to deliver and a primer to Nordic myth that one could get from Wikipedia. Even though the primer is a good introduction and quite well written it's largely unnecessary and the adventure feels almost like wasted space where, instead, could have been placed a primer and tools for crafting one's own apocalypse and set piece battles and events. Something that I feel would have been a much better use of the pages.

Upsides

• Massive stylistic improvement.
• Illusion purview was much needed.
• Thematic powers for the Aesir Scions are spot on.

Downsides

• Rubbish adventure.
• First chapter Unnecessary and too late.
• PCs sidelined - not really escapable when talking about gods though.

Score
Style 5
Substance 2
Overall 3.5

Introduction
While a lot of third party publishers have been very cautious about the GSL and 4th Edition, Goodman Games seems to have dived right in and gotten going on the very type of thing that WOTC has wanted publishers to do all the time, publish adventures. 'In Search of Adventure' would appear to be a sort of introduction to the line, a 120-odd page book of first level adventures.

Overview
There are six adventures listed within the book, all aimed for parties of first level adventurers. These are:

• King Dretch - Wherein a powerful dretch has taken up residence within a ruined Wizard's tower and requires eviction.
• Children of the Snake God - Wherein a temple in a lost Oasis requires looting and pillaging.
• The Scorpion Queen - Wherein a village is under siege from the forces of a mysterious pyramid.
• The Forbidden Crypt - Wherein the adventurers stumble upon an ancient network of tombs, and those who've come to rob them.
• Legacy of the Labyrinth - Wherein the adventurers uncover an ancient prison and the strange forces at work within.
• Tides of Doom - Wherein a cult is usurping control of a town and turning it to the purposes of ancient evil.

And the book wraps up with all the 'new' Monsters that have been introduced in the text, including some familiar faces like the Ankheg.

Artwork
The artwork is of good quality, though a little sparse and doesn't always seem entirely connected with the page or adventure it is illustrating. The maps are very clear and of reasonable quality though I would have liked to have seen them drawn a little bugger on the page so that they could have been blown up and printed more easily for use as a play aid.

Writing
These aren't exactly going to blow anyone away on the creativity front, these are all pretty basic, bog-standard dungeon bashes with enough thematic twists to keep them interesting. Only Tides of Doom really steps away from the 'find a dungeon, raid it' theme but there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, especially for starting adventures when people are getting used to the feel of their characters - or even the game. This is a workmanlike product that does what it says on the tin. The long term usage comes from the useful table of new monsters that come in the back and which can definately see some re-use in adventures of your own concoction.

Rules
The creatures seem balanced and interesting and the rules in the adventures themselves don't really step outside of any comfort zones or into any particularly new territory. Everything appears to work and the rules are presented in a very easy-access way for the presiding Games Master meaning that most of these adventures could be run with minimal preparation.

Conclusion
This is a sold, workmanlike product. While the adventures aren't destined to be classic by any stretch they're a perfect introduction to the game and a good start for new adventurers though the settings of the adventures, being so geographically and culturally diverse, may be difficult to string into a campaign - if you were so inclined.

Upsides

• Good opening adventures for any group.
• Presented with the GM firmly in mind.
• Useful monsters increase longevity.

Downsides

• Spartan.
• Illustration a little confused.
• Good, but not brilliant.

Score
Style 3
Substance 4
Overall 3.5

Introduction
Part Four of the Scion companion is 'Secrets of the World' which is a rather grandiose name for what amounts to a grab bag of things that didn't really fit into the other sections. This is the fourth in a series of 'peeks' at the Scion Companion which is coming to print to support the main line and is much mroe general - and therefore generally useful - than some of the other previews.

Overview
This is a toolkit of ideas, devices, groups and guidelines and as such represents the real 'meat' of the Scion Companion. If this is what you like from your supplementary material than buying just this companion on PDF could represent a real bargain if the other sections of the book don't appeal so much. Here you'll find information about inter-pantheon politics, expanded rules for god-like strength, more weapons, armour and divine widgets, a new antagonistic faction based around Abrahamic religion, rules for animal and human companions, guidelines for making your own pantheons, titanspawn and relics and a fistful of story ideas. This is a dense and packed little publication and crams all this into around 30 pages.

Artwork
I'm still not a fan of White Wolf's current graphical design direction and Scion still feels rather muddy, image wise, and rather boring in terms of graphical presentation. I can't help feeling that a more OTT, graphically honed, almost cartoonish look, more akin to Exalted, would have favoured Scion more. I love the ideas and nature of the game but it just doesn't speak out of the books to me in the way other games with a more honed and targetted presentation do. The, frankly dull, presentation really gets in the way of inspiration.

Writing
This is mostly rules so the majority of the writing is workmanlike and designed to get the message across. The section on inter-pantheon politics could have done with being longer, much longer, as it stands it felt somewhat skimmed and superficial for something that I feel should be a much greater part of the game.
The Order of Divine Glory, the new antagonists, are derived from the monotheistic, Abrahamic religions. This much is obvious from the text but it felt strangely timid in its approach to this topic especially when considered in light of White Wolf's history. I don't know why this might be but it felt like the topic was being pussyfooted around. Strange for a company that has indulged some 'wiggidy whack' ideas in many of its games and hasn't been shy of condemning science and technology as a recurrent theme in its games.
The Guidelines are extremely useful for any Games Master helping to provide a framework in which you can understand the relative power levels and usefulness of Relics, powers and Titanspawn and to gauge them appropriately to the games. The pantheon creation guidelines were, particularly, a godsend (pun intended).

Rules
The rules content - while mostly guidelines rather than rules per se - is all kosher and above board and all seems perfectly competent and useful.

Conclusion
This is the meat and potatoes of the Scion Companion in one handy download, if you're more the sort of Games Master who likes to kitbash things themselves then this is the one you should buy. It's jumbled and packed and a mixed bag of lots of different things but it's jam-packed with useful content.

Upsides

• Packed with useful content.
• Very little pointless frippery.
• Relatively high value for money.

Downsides

• Expensive for a 30 page download.
• Graphical presentation is deeply average.
• A bit dense in content to read.

Score
Style 3
Substance 5
Overall 4

Introduction
To the Flame is one of White Wolfs PDF based 'adventure packs' and another in the line of White Wolf's relatively mature and developed products, specifically for the PDF market. This has been established in a line of products now, so I'll spend less time praising and talking up the initiative they've taken on tailoring to the PDF market and concentrate a little more specifically on this particular product.

To the Flame is intended for Promethean, though, with a bit of work, it could be made to fit a crossover scenario, particularly a hunter based group. While the motivations of some of the 'bad guys' might need a little tweaking, as would the introduction, it should - otherwise - work fine.

Overview
There's a town being terrorised by a monster, the same monster it was once terrorised by in the past. A 'local' Promethean wants to address the problem and deal with it, but to do that he needs help, using his abilities to draw the player group to him and negotiate with them over a pint or two to help him with the problem. Unbeknownst to him, or the player group, another party of 'investigators' is on the scene and also looking into the monster, though they may be up to something else at the same time. As to the creature itself, it seems to exist only to cause havoc and destruction. The group are left with a binary choice of what to do, but whichever path they choose, somebody is going to be boned.

Artwork
The artwork is patchwork and piecemeal, lacking overall cohesion. While the layout is simple and readable it lacks any real flare and just comes across as somewhat boring. As with almost all the other recent White Wolf products, especially within the nWoD, I find the graphic design, font choice and so forth to be lacking, especially compared with previous efforts.

Writing
The booklet is written concisely and well, though the story is a little hackneyed and - despite best efforts to make a non-linear story path and to provide a relatively free-form organisational structure - linear. Meeting a stranger in a bar and being given a quest is such an old plothook that Neanderthals considered it long past due for retirement and it's a bit annoying to find it here. Alright, doing it for comedy or postmodern ironicism can be OK, but really, an inn-based mission start? In a White Wolf game?

The monster of the piece, Moth, also lacks any real sense for being there or doing what it's doing. It really seems to exist only as a McGuffin, a hook to get the players into the moral dilemma of the main scenario and, as such, leaves the story quite weak. Reducing it in many ways to a 'Monster of the Week' episode.

Rules
The characters are all statted up and read to use, there's a few new interpretatioons and bits and pieces that may prove useful elsewhere, such as a community that is 'hardened' to weirdness and so less affected by the game-destroying mechanics of Disquiet, then there's some new powers and effects held both by the monster and by some other antagonists which could easily be used recurrently by other adversaries in other circumstances.

Conclusion
A deeply average adventure but one that's open enough for use in other nWoD games with the nature of the antagonists and their powers providing a little more longevity to what would otherwise be a throwaway product.

Upsides
* Extremely well organised.
* Self-contained.
* Screen formatted.

Downsides
* A railroad with two forks is still a railroad.
* Uninspired plotline.
* 'You meet a guy in a bar, he gives you a quest...'

Score
Style 3
Substance 4
Overall 3.5

Introduction
Twilight 2000 was always one of those games that I read more than I played. I spent a lot of time coming up with scenarios and survivor communities but very rarely got to play it. I played a short campaign - as a player - where I blew myself up with a grenade that bounced back down the stairs to me after a bad roll - but that was about it. The whole 'military unit' campaign flavour, accompanied by the embarrassingly Americanocentric viewpoint of the material made it a poor fit for the freewheeling, British RPG groups I've always been a part of, but I loved the setting and while not a greatly played game it holds a seat of affection for me.

The original game, Twilight 2000, has been through a few incarnations. The original was written during the resurgence of the Cold War in the 1980s - 'Wolverines!' - when a Warsaw Pact/NATO conflict seemed quite likely. Later additions took in Glasnost and the collapse of the Soviet Union and still managed to spin a reasonably plausible scenario during the 90s, a more 'low key' apocalypse. Now a new edition, by 93 Games Studio, is out, this time marching the timeline forward to 2013 (interestingly the time-point for the original Cyberpunk game) and feeding off the current state of affairs and paranoia about the future.

This should be a rich bed of material from which to project a future apocalypse, a superpower in its thrashing death-throes, increased Russian aggression, an ascendant China and India, Muslim fundamentalism, bird flu, environmental disaster, economic collapse, peak oil, all that stuff should lend itself to creating a detailed and plausible end of the world.

Overview
This is a monster tome, weighing in at around 350 pages of pretty close type with a low amount of illustrations and without full-on paragraph breaks. The version I got to review was on PDF and was very slow to load with a considerable delay in switching between pages. This problem, combined with the sheer weight of rules material, and the dark page background, make it impractical and frustrating to reference via laptop and expensive to print. If you're going to get a copy, get a hardcopy.

The book is divided into sections detailing the lead up to the conflict that became the end of the world, the conflict itself, the immediate aftermath and the ongoing state of the world. Then we get into character generation, rules, combat, vehicles and a huge, huge amount of rules information on pretty much every conceivable scenario. It's an awful lot to take in all at once.

My feeling and instinct is that this book is just much bigger than it needs to be. I feel that a slimmed down version, amalgamating or excising some of the rules and material for later supplementation would have been a better approach, as it stands the book is, perhaps, 50-100 pages too long and given the text density that is a hell of a lot to digest.

Artwork
The artwork is a very, very mixed bag. There's a fair amount of clipart in there, which isn't a bad thing, but it hasn't been utilised particularly well or treated that well on the page. The commissioned artwork has, similarly, been apparently mistreated, suffering distortion and bad clipping which has resulted in one repeated piece of artwork, which should have been a stand-out piece, ending up resembling a group of midgets in army uniforms. There's a few better pieces of artwork but they lose their quality thanks to the way they've been used. All in all, extremely disappointing and many of the illustrations don't match up too well to the text, creating a feeling that is more akin to Fallout than Twilight 2000/13.

Writing
There's a lot of common word substitution errors, like rein/reign and others like it, leading me to suspect that this book didn't have a proper going through by an editor. This is forgivable on small indie projects, but Twilight is a brand with a lot of weight and nostalgia behind it and it deserved going that extra mile. Other than these aggravating little errors the writing is fairly clear but the content of the writing is a little worrying.

The scenario given for this end of the world starts out strongly but then starts to lose its way, casting aside plausibility in order to try and engineer an even worse world situation than that given in the earlier versions of the game. This one has the world population reduced to 10% of its current size, a disaster of such enormous proportions that, in play, Twilight 2013 would be worse than the fairly nasty scenarios presented in the Cold War versions - perhaps because appreciation of the effects of total nuclear war were more apparent back then.

The text also disagrees with itself, one of the killer blows in the new setting being a new flu epidemic. After WWI the world was struck by a terrible influenza epidemic that infected about a third of the world population and killed about 2.5% of those who caught it. In the Twilight 2013 scenario the death rate is stated as 2.8%, the infection rate unknown, but in the detailed text it reports the disease wiping out 75% of populations in particular towns or cities, a ridiculous number and one that would lead to a plague burning itself out rather than being as effective as it could be.

While the Americanocentrism of the earlier editions is somewhat mollified there are some laugh-out-loud moments of lack of understanding of international politics or the political systems and cultures of other nations, such as the background having a royalist takeover of the UK and presuming political powers for the royal household that it hasn't had since Magna Carta or the time one of my ancestors helped lop off a King's head for overreaching his political power. Similarly it's hard to see China being militarily expansionistic in the unilateral way it's presented in the book or to see France as a nuclear aggressor power, however insensitive they are about atomic testing.

If you're not a politics or history buff then this won't bother you, nor will it bother you if you decide to play in an historical Cold War setting, but it would be a hell of a lot of work to come up with your own, more plausible Twilight setting and it's a shame the one presented in the book is so damn ropey.

Rules
The rules for Twilight 2013 are called the Reflex System and I suspect the intention was/is to take this system on and apply it to other genres and games. The system itself is bit of a syncretic one, there's identifiable pieces of many other RPG systems in there, most of them ones that have been hailed for their combat systems or tactical play. One can find pieces of Interlok, Silhouette and the original GDW systems in there, as well as other parts I'm sure are familiar but which I cannot quite place at this time. While these elements are familiar the system works backwards compared to a lot of others, aiming low, using multiple dice - but not a dice pool - and using your statistics to set difficulties, which are then modified, rather than having things the other way around - which is more conventional. While this works it seems a little needless to complicate matters compared to what most people are used to.

Despite the Frankenstein approach on rules creation the system does appear to work, especially with most of the options added in, and is deadlier and more 'realistic' feeling than the original GDW system. I just can't help but feel it's a little unwieldy, especially given the sheer number of variations, specific rules and so on thrown in there, which reaches Rolemaster like proportions.

Conclusion
A bloated, ugly monster that remains - somehow - playable but whose background simply doesn't do it for me and doesn't seem plausible. The sheer scale of the carnage in the default setting is too high for meaningful play in a Twilight manner and, rather, pushes the game more into Darwin's World territory, minus the dark humour. What saves the game from a lower than average score is that it is truly complete, containing everything you need to play and covering such broad ground, while this is also a strike against it - it's too big - it's sufficient to lift the game from the mire.

Upsides
* Comprehensive system.
* Fully detailed background.
* Less Americanocentric than previous editions.

Downsides
* Self-contradicting design goals.
* Not plausible.
* Much bigger than it needed to be.

Score
Style 2
Substance 4
Overall 3

Dragonmeet usually falls on my Birthday, which makes for a good excuse to spend money I don't have on presents for myself that I can't really afford. It also makes a great way to guilt-trip punters into buying stuff at my stall. This year - and apparently next as well - however they've decided to move it a week earlier which would explain why, for the first time ever, I didn't come back from Dragonmeet with anything. Not even dice.

The other reason is that, for us at least, Dragonmeet was relatively slow compared to previous years. That may be because I didn't have so much in the way of new releases this time around, or because of the aforementioned birthday issue or it may be something else. Other traders seem to have had mixed reactions as well, some reporting things to be good, others reporting things to be not so good, so I'm not quite sure what's going on.

Starblazer practically flew off the Cubicle 7 stand, despite being the size of a phonebook, and Dragon Warriors almost entirely vanished as well. Now, I love Dragon Warriors, played it a lot as a kid, though an attempt at nostalgia in playing it fell flat a year or two ago. I was quite interested to see it, especially with Jon Hodgson's stirling work on the covers. I did get to flip, briefly, through the interior though and was a little disappointed by the interior illustration. There's a quality of roughness - but style - to a lot of all RPG art from the eighties that you don't see so much now and that just didn't seem to come off in the new DW in the way it did in the old, or in the old Fighting Fantasy style magazines, or the old D&D adverts. I'll reserve judgement until I can get a proper, proper look at it but that was a bit 'meh'.

I got to have good chats with the guys from Mongoose, Pelgrane and C7 so there should be various interesting things going on next year, but it's mostly wheeler-dealering and behind the scenes stuff that won't interest you guys too much at this stage, so I'll save the announcements for when it does.

Dragonmeet is always my sort of 'last gasp' before I come up with my plans for the following year and then launch with a fresh load of enthusiasm for the new year, it's thrown me a little off by being a week early but one interesting innovation is the idea of smaller, regional, 'sister' conventions. There'll be a mini-Dragonmeet in Swindon it seems which is close, relatively speaking, but a bastard to get to on public transport.

If it's even half as effective as Dragonmeet proper, that'll be worth attending.

So, earlier in November Postmortem Studios went to Indiecon and this is a brief write up of what I thought of the convention, how I saw it and how things went from there.

Indiecon is a new convention being championed by Chris Loizou of Cursed Empire fame, the intention of the convention being to promote indie gaming, launch and expose new products and to build a supportive culture around them. All excellent aims as far as this independent publisher is concerned!

Indiecon is held at the same site as Conception, a holiday village in Naish, Dorset, which makes it a more reachable venue than many for me as an attendee, even though it didn't seem particularly accessible by public transport and I had to first go to Reading, with my heavy-ass bags of stock - in order to get a lift down to Naish with the rest of my 'crew' of scalliwags.

The accomodation is excellent for a convention, self-catering, cheap when shared, WARM, proper beds and while the television was rather lacking we weren't there to watch it, so that was fine. There's on site shopping and also access to nearby supermarkets for cheap nosh.

The style and quality of the accomodation gives the con some 'endurance' and allows for groups to form up easily enough after the con has finished to try out games in comfort and a homely atmosphere. The comfort factor is a huge thing for those of us who are no longer 16 and who DO now mind sleeping in corners/against refrigerators or on plasticated beds designed to protect from kids wetting themselves.

The actual play/trade areas seemed a little dinky but given that the con itself was quite small this wasn't an issue, though it may restrict growth in the future. Despite the low attendence and the sky falling on the international economy I was, just, able to turn a profit at the event which suggests that if it does grow - as it should - it should be able to sustain profits for other small publishers on the RPG scene.

I didn't get to play that much, but the hero game of the Con appears to have been 3:16, and deservedly so judging by the loudness and enthusiasm of all who played it.

The other major point of interest for me was War for Edadh by Warrior Elite. This is a card-based army-battle game (bastards stole my idea without even knowing it) set in an interesting world that, thankfully, isn't your standard fantasy. Knowingly or otherwise I feel that the game is influenced by French fantasy and, stylistically, you might see similarities to Mechanical Dream or Rackham's offerings, but it is definately its own thing. The depth they've built into the game is amazing, as is the slow progression of complication you can work into it. They have big plans and I can only wish them the best of luck for the future.

On the more disappointing side of things were the low attendence and, though I feel slightly snobbish for saying so, the playing of 4th Edition D&D at the event. In a venue specifically aimed at promoting Indie games it was disappointing to see a table full of players who could, potentially, have been broadening their horizons and learning about some other games and trying them out, especially since it could get difficult to find people to sign up for games.

Overall this was a well organised, friendly and intimate convention with a great deal of open gaming going on. It was lovely to see a convention devoted to actually PLAYING games and forging bonds between players rather than being fixated on tournament play or purely on promotion. If this 'vibe' can be kept at the convention then I see it as a natural successor to the old Games Fairs.

Key areas that I feel need addressing for the next one are...

• Attendence.
• Keeping focus on Indie Gaming.

I'd also like to see some seminars or chats, perhaps on a more informal basis than the ones at Dragonmeet, allowing people to talk directly to the producers, artists, writers and so on, or perhaps workshops on writing and producing your own games.

That said, I'm happy to be supportive of this convention and I hope to be attending the next one with much the same crew of jolly reprobates. Chris, if you want to tap anyone else for some extra help or to chat about anything I've brought up here, you know where to find me!

Introduction
I've gotten access to an early version of the new Goodman Games book, Forgotten Heroes. This provides 4th Edition rules for those classes left out of the basic 4th Edition set (barring the Sorceror). Here you have rules for Barbarians, Bards, Druids and Monks.

This confuses me.

From my reading of the GSL (as it currently exists, it's supposed to be being revised) this is a 'bad move'. WOTC will be putting out new player's guides with expanded player options that will include these classes and when they do, this product will have to be withdrawn - so far as I can tell.

I would expect the new corebooks to come out within a reasonable amount of time so the shelflife if this product can't be good and it seems - to me - to be a bit of a miscalculation. So this was in my mind all the time reading through this.

That isn't to say people won't find it useful in the interim, it just seems an 'odd' move.


Overview
This is fairly hefty for a PDF, though it would make a slim book, 90 pages of rather dense rules information providing information for playing the aforementioned classes as well as a little supplementary information in the form of appropriate magical items and the idea of a post-cataclysm gaming in a fantasy world. The approach here differs from that hinted at in the Wizards' books particularly in naming the source of Barbarian and Druidic power 'Primal' and that of Bards and Monks 'Ancient', rather than the 'Nature' spoken of in the official line.

Artwork
The artwork is good, but a bit stark in the version I read, it fails to either stand out, or integrate with the book as a whole, giving it an unfinished air. Since the version I looked at is apparently unfinished, this perhaps isn't surprising! The pages are marred with a clunky border that does nothing for the layout and confuses and distracts the eye.

The text layout is a little cramped in places, especially where the paragraph abuts with the title bar (a solid colour) and imitating the layout of the Wizards' books for feats, powers etc doesn't seem to work so well without the colour, making things a little more confusing and harder to differentiate. Finding their own layout may have been a better idea.

Writing
The book is almost all rules and these are all laid out clearly and precisely. There isn't a great deal to comment on other than that. This is a rules supplement and so long as the rules are communicated clearly that's really all you need.

Rules
The rules seem to work and seem to have been thoroughly playtested. The characters have less clearly defined roles than the new core classes however and are, somewhat, replications.  The Barbarian is a Defender, the Druid another caster - albeit with a different theme - the Monk appears to play similarly to the Rogue and the Bard is... well, a hybrid. Given that multiclassing in 4th Edition is a big pile of poo it may be that we will see a proliferation of these hybrid base classes where we used to get prestige classes. These will be good for role-players but Bards were always a compromise character, even in previous editions. With 4th Eds concentration on MMORPG style character roles there's less room in conventional play for 'halfbreeds' that aren't fully effective in a singular field.

Upsides

• Effective well tested rules that fill a gap (Where's our half orcs and gnomes?)
• Three of the four classes are as good/powerful/useful as the base classes.
• Covers the higher tiers with ideas for these classes.

Downsides

• Almost instantly redundant.
• Bard still feels a bit half-arsed, despite a good effort.
• Non-character class elements feel a bit too much like an afterthought. A few more pages on each would have been nice.

Score
Style 3
Substance 4
Overall 3.5 (provisional)

Introduction
The Apelord is the first effort of new company 'One Bad Egg' and one of the first 'proper' 4th Edition D&D products to grace the virtual bookshelves. The Apelord is a new character race, with all the attendant options, but is also comes packaged with some monster ideas, numerous special abilities and a few adventure ideas. In short, it's like an extended Monster Manual entry, such as were starting to become the norm at the end of 3.5.

Overview
The product is tightly presented and useful but seems to have been snipped out of something larger, like a broader setting book. No real explanation is offered as to what this 'shroud' is that created the apelords and that does make it seem a little disjointed, not that these apelords wouldn't make a fine addition to any game.

Artwork
The layout itself is much like the new D&D books themselves, clean and clear and relatively crisp without so much of the distracting clutter that can afflict some RPG books.  The choice of font is a little odd as the spacing makes one continually read 'apelord' as 'A pelord' and wonder what exactly a 'pelord' is, and hoping it isn't a typo of 'peelord' - something I'm sure none of us want to encounter.

The artwork itself is a little inconsistent and the offering lacks a decent cover image, hence the lack with this review. Of the two illustrations the second one in the back - apparently some sort of apelord swashbuckler fending off zombies - is far superior to the earlier illustration which just seems to fall a little flat.

Writing
The writing is concise and to the point and given that most of the content is rules is clear enough, hampered only - in places - by the spacing of the chosen fonts, which can render the reading experience a little bit 'bumpy'.

Rules
The rules presented all seem to work and follow the ape-man theme nicely, though most are fairly predictable given the nature of the apelords. The antagonists also seem balanced, though I haven't had the opportunity to test them in actual play, and should provide a little excitement and novelty for any players who encounter them. There isn't a great deal to say here this is all straightforward and seemingly well executed, not to mention useful.

Upsides

• Clear presentation.
• Good model for future releases.
• Good bang for your buck.
•  

Downsides

• Font choice questionable in spots.
• Inconsistency in illustration.
• Out of context - WTF is the shroud?

Score
Style: 3
Substance: 5
Overall: 4

Introduction
As with the previous edition the tactic with Exalted in this addition appears to be the release of 'uber' splatbooks. Apparently a successful model as it's one that's spread across various of the larger companies now in selling their products. While you have some fill-in material to use to play the various high-powered factions in Exalted they only come into their own with these larger splatbooks where they're properly filled out, given access to all their powers and secrets and become a force in their own right.

This splatbook - or 'Manual of Exalted Power' - (a touch unwieldy as a name in my opinion) addresses the Abyssal Exalted, after the Dragon Blooded perhaps the most persistent enemy of the Solar Exalted, their twisted 'undead' antithesis.  The version of this book for the earlier edition was very good and very evocative so this version has a lot to live up to.

Overview
The book is divided into eight sections:

• Introduction - which lays out basically what the Abyssals are and their role and place in the world. It's rather sparse but, given the nature and depth of the rest of the book it doesn't need to be that complete, still, it would have been nice to have more of a concise guideline to the forthcoming material here as the book is very, very dense with information.
• The Chosen of the Void - A more in depth coverage of the Abyssal Exalted, who they are, what they are, how they come to be what they are, what drives them and what controls them. All the basic societal information is here, but the most important parts are expanded on in...
• The Deathlords - Here we have more on the highest echelons of the civilisation of the dead and the Deathlords in particular, their powers, their agendas and more about their history, followers and tactics.
• Character Creation - Here we start getting into the meat of the rules with creation rules for the Abyssal Exalted making note of the (few) differences between them and the Solar Exalted. The differences are more keen than they were in the old edition however with the Abyssal Exalted feeling - rules wise at least - more like their own entities and less like Solar Exalted with goatee beards.
• Traits & Charms - Chapters four and five are filled out with all the magic, powers and other exciting whizz-bang stuff that makes Exalted go. This section continues the feeling of making the Abyssal Exalted their own thing with more of a unique feel and power set than the old Abyssals really felt like they had.
• Necrotech - This chapter is a vast improvement on old treatments of necromantic technology and feels more like a toolkit, combined with some of the fleshy excesses of the Tzimisce of the original (and best) World of Darkness. It also contains many examples of these artefacts and ideas put to good use.
• Abyssal Storytelling - The last chapter contains advice and techniques for running an Abyssal centred game or incorporating them into other games with relatively few bumps. There's nothing particularly revelatory here but for new Games Masters you can never have too much advice and old dogs can still learn a few new tricks, it's always interesting to get another perspective.

Artwork
The big drawback to this edition of the Abyssals sourcebook was what happened to the art, at least for me. The old book had a great Aztec/Mayan feel to it tempered by some very high quality anime style art, though it was let down by some scratchy work that didn't work for me. Overall the old book did have a unified feel to it and did inspire you to play and use the Abyssals purely on a level of raw, visual, visceral appeal. Despite the greater polish to the look of this book it seems to lack some of that same 'heart' in visual terms and has a more disjointed feel, something I get from a lot of the newer White Wolf books.

Writing
The writing is solid and good and  continues White Wolf's trend away from their more florid traditional prose. The useful meat of the material is separated from the fiction nicely and the book contains everything you need to know.  It is a little dense and can be quite heavy going, even with being broken up by comic strip sections, so it isn't really a book to be devoured on one sitting.

Rules
The rules are servicable and, given the nature of the Abyssal Exalted, are on a balance par with the Solar Exalted, making the Abyssals good recurring villains rather than daiklaive fodder. The necromanic magic and necrotech treatments are welcome expansions and additions though I haven't really had enough time to delve into balance issues on those (not that balance should really be a sacred cow, certainly not in Exalted).

Upsides

• Very complete.
• Useful rules additions.
• Continued improvement in presentation/writing.

Downsides

• Schizophrenic art direction, lacking cohesion.
• Heavy reading.
•  

Score
Style 3
Substance 5
Overall 4

Introduction
This is the second part of the Scion Companion to be released as a PDF, the first having been the Tuatha de Daanan segment and with a couple more to come. It furthers White Wolf's relatively progressive e-book policy while simultaneously acting almost as a preview for the eventual, finished product and also, probably, cunningly getting people to buy much of the same material twice - can't really fault them for doing that!  This section is all about the powers, the elevated statistics and their consequences, the fields of expertise and the powers within those, additional companions, followers, artefacts, magic and so on.

Overview
Manifestations of Ichor is pure rules, there's no real padding here aside from a little bit of opening fiction. That means everything here is useful, without being lost in purple prose, and has applicability to most - if not all - Scion campaigns.

Artwork
The artwork in this section is workmanlike and capable enough but this sort of section doesn't necessarily lend itself to great works of art. Even so the work in this segment didn't leave a great or lasting impression and could have been a little bit better. The layout is also workmanlike and par for the course for a Scion book but somehow this book felt a little dark on the page, which made it a slightly harder read than some others.

Writing
There's not much call for flair in the writing of a rules section but the rules seem to be described in good order without much room for ambiguity or too much misinterpretation.  The main problem with this product is that there isn't a great deal to write a review about! It's all welcome rules additions and expansions and as such is rather dry, but is also packed with content.

Rules
This offering is alllllll about the rules. There are expanded rules for starting a character at Demigod or God level, using standard character creation rather than simply applying scads of experience.  This also comes with advince on creating a character that feels established, rather than just having a higher power level.  There are new knacks for all the statistics, many of which seem familiar from old World of Darkness or Aberrant products but that isn't to fault them, they work and others are all new.

Perhaps the most welcome addition, for me, was the inclusion of some barebones godly 'gadgeteering' rules.  These aren't particularly complete or expansive but do allow for everything from artefacts and automata to lost science.  I just wish they had been a bit more expansive and a bit more permanent and lasting in effect.

There's new material for guides, followers, creatures and relics which are good but some feel a little jarring. The pop cultural Gun Wing Mask, for example, just doesn't quite seem to fit the paradigm of the ancient brought to the modern for me. The other jarring thing I find is the inclusion of the Atlantean gods within Scion. Whereas everything else is at least rooted in genuine mythology the inclusion of Atlantis comes from some rather peculiar ideas and its presence in Scion as well as in the new Mage, for me, detracts from both. I'm left wondering when theosophists took over White Wolf!  Their new purview is 'Scire' - an Atlantean language and technique that provides them with greater understanding and control over devices - the lost Atlantean science if you will, the rest of the section expands on existing purviews, giving additional powers and ideas for their uses.

Upsides

• All killer, no filler.
• Useful expansions to the rules and ideas, rather than just expanding for the sake of it.
• No padding, everything you need is easily accessible, not hidden in fiction.

Downsides

• Atlantis.

Score
Style: 3
Substance: 5
Overall: 4

Introduction
Weapons of the Gods is a Wu-xia martial arts game based in a sword-and-sorcery China and derived from the Chinese manga series by the same name. WotG is a fast paced game of martial arts, intrigue and high powered adventure falling somewhere between Qin and Exalted in the level of overpowered, martial arts mayhem and destruction it describes.

Overview
The book is a massive one, totalling out to nearly four hundred pages interspersed with illustrations that are mostly small, so that's an intimidating amount of text, though most of it is background and plots, and thus optional. It includes the general rules, combat rules, character creation, kung fu, secret techniques and powers and an enormous section of plot and background providing a great many hooks and ideas to players and Games Masters alike. The game is complete in one book but be aware that the PDF I am reviewing from lacked the front cover image, this does make a file smaller but I would have liked it to be there. I have also read the hardcopy version.

Artwork
The artwork almost throughout - with the exception of a few weapon illustrations - is taken from the Chinese manga. Personally I don't find the Chinese manga style as engaging or as interesting as that of Japanese manga, this is a matter of personal taste however and the pieces are colourful and well executed and, since the game is based upon the comic books it makes sense to use that art. The layout is fairly simplistic and readable with a faded background that doesn't interfere with the text or get in the way of reading, though the text layout is a little dull and can run together a bit too much, requiring the re-reading of some sections to be sure you have it right.

Writing
The writing is good, but dense, and uses many seemingly unnecessary terms that describe established RPG factors. This obfuscates some of what's being said requiring a second or third reading and reference to the definitions to really get it. The writing is also very dense, difficult to take in with a single read through but this is only really true of the background/factions/plots sections of the text which does all start to blur together after a time. A Games Master will need to be familiar, intimately, with this section though, in order to run a fully effective game that truly relates to the background. If players are not so familiar with the comic books this can be less of a problem but if players are knowledgable then the GM can be put in something of a tight spot.

The clearest explanation was of the rules, though I'd heard elsewhere that these were difficult to get that isn't because of the writing, which puts it out there quite clearly, at least so far as the basic rules go. For the rest things get a little more complicated and they aren't all explained concisely in the same place, which is less effective writing as rules explanations go.

Rules
WotG uses a dicepool system but it isn't one that is entirely intuitive. A handful of ten sided dice are rolled and the highest 'set' is used to determine the value of the roll, so you're trying to get groups of the same number. A single number is read as ten plus the number, two the same as 20 plus the number and so on, 10s are considered to be zeroes. This seems odd and takes a while to grasp but really isn't that difficult once you get the hang of it. The other main concept is the idea of 'The River' a storehouse of dice that can then be used later in a scene like 'wildcards' in a poker hand to make longer or better chains and thus to get better results.

Layered on top of this relatively simple system are all the exceptions, special rules and conditions that complicate it, and there's a lot of them from The River to chi of assorted colours to all the Martial Arts powers. This in many ways defeats the object of keeping a system simple but it does make all these special abilities and styles important, which is a good thing when it comes to such kung-fu dependent settings.

The one complaint I do have about the system is that it has a certain lack of detail, something that does plague a lot of dicepool and soft systems, you can harm someone but you can't, as such, sever limbs or go for specific effects beyond the remit of your powers. This can make battle description a little more difficult to keep engaging and does stifle player creativity somewhat.

Where the game shines, or falls down, depending on your spin, is in the backgrounds. Characters can have fates and destinies and can buy into plotlines that exist in the background of the game as well as tying themselves into the various clans, factions and other powers that be. On the plus side this gives the players tremendous buy-in to the game and provides the GM with a great deal of inspiration to run their games. On the minus side the GM necessarily loses a great degree of control over their own game, the campaign - if you follow the rules in the book - needs to be built upon the desires of the players expressed through what backgrounds they have bought, not the idea of the GM in the raw.

Upsides

• Simple dicepool system, very accessible.
• High martial arts action with plenty of styles and powers.
• Good player buy-in to the game narrative.

Downsides

• Unnecessary use of extraneous language/terminology.
• GM lack of control over the campaign direction and content.
• Qin does it better.

Score
Style: 5
Substance: 3
Overall: 4

Introduction
This is a review of the second edition of the game with the name altered from Cursed Empire, which the earlier edition was titled, due to a dispute with Lucasarts (or vice versa, it all seems a bit confused). Crimson Empire is a small, independent press game written by Chris Loizou and presented enthusiastically and comprehensively at many UK conventions. This is a weighty book and obviously a labour of love for the creator whose enthusiasm for the game is obvious and infectious. This makes me feel bad about criticising the game given that it's such an obvious and singular labour of love, but there are significant problems with it.

Overview
Crimson Empire's adventures and story take place in a land called Thargos. A dark land that has suffered a great deal and which is torn apart by civil war. The characters in the game will tend to be chancers, adventurers and opportunists, doing what they can to get by and maybe, eventually, picking a side and helping shape the course of the conflicts and their eventual outcome. Crimson Empire is billed as a dark, gritty, medieval fantasy world but it seems to draw more inspiration from Greek, Roman and Alexandrian myth, particularly in the look and feel of the game which, coupled with a heavy dose of 1990s alternative culture results in a not-quite-dungeonpunk, semi-BDSM fantasy feel to the whole game. This isn't necessarily a bad thing!

The game has a rich and detailed world setting, interesting magic systems and a great deal of enthusiasm behind it, but it suffers greatly from poor explanations of the game rules - particularly character creation - and some presentation mistakes.

Artwork
The artwork is excellent and consistent. The cover(s) are by Rob Larson with interior artwork by Rik Martin and Amandine Labarre. This isn't to say that there aren't problems with it however. The excellent cover art creates great expectations of the interior and while the interior artwork is excellent it doesn't quite manage to marry up to the expectations that the cover creates. There is an awkwardness and flatness to some of the interior artwork which is made worse by the lack of contrast. The interior works are almost all pencil/charcoal works and thus tend to a flattened grey, lacking contrast. This is made much worse than it might have been by the grey background on all the pages which tends to cause the interior artwork to get lost in the background. Weapon and equipment illustrations suffer this less, but they are pixelated, suggesting that they weren't created/scanned at the right resolution and thus have become stretched.

As mentioned previously the pages are very grey and this causes both art and text to fade somewhat into the background, making the book something of an eyestrain to read under many conditions. Combined with the writing problems (next section) the two feed on each other to make a quite frustrating reading experience. There's also quite a lot of wasted space on the page and the use of an unconventional and somewhat wide font, while countering the problems of reading the text a little, make you feel a little short changed on the amount of content.

Despite these flaws Crimson Empire presents a unified vision of its game world though, in the corebook at least, this is mostly presented in the form of characters and their equipment and it isn't until supplements that you really get much of a vision of the world that they inhabit - save via the text.

Writing
The background and story sections are excellent, engaging and brimming with enthusiasm though some of the writing seems to present a much more 'vanilla fantasy' vision of the game than the artwork, body piercings and bondage armour might otherwise present. The inclusion of elves and dwarves also feels somewhat unnecessary and drags Crimson Empire dangerously close to being just another Fantasy Heartbreaker.

The big letdown comes with the rules themselves, they are not explained very well and remain deeply confusing even after a third read through and a second attempt at creating a character. The index is comprehensive but for the book/edition I had all the references seemed to be 1-2 pages off and I still couldn't find an adequate explanation of 'Mastering Weapons'. This is compensated for somewhat by an Exccel sheet character calculator on the website, but if you can't easily make up a character from the book, that's a problem.

Rules
As intimated above the rules are confusing and they are also complex. I think this may account for why many of Crimson Empire's major enthusiasts are people that the author has managed to play with at conventions. By directly experiencing the game being run by its creator I am certain that many of the problems fade into the background and the confusing parts become obvious, but we can't all have access to the game's creator and a game should be judged on what it presents in the book.

The basic system is somewhere between Rolemaster and Basic Roleplaying, a percentile based system but one that also includes ranks and set difficulties. There are levels, but they are referred to as Caste Rank and aren't quite so profoundly important as they might be in D&D or a similar game.

One truly inspired part of the game is its magic system, a method of combining runes to create new spells, a true 'magic system' rather than just a series of pre-made effects. This isn't quite as free-wheeling as Mage 2nd Edition but is much more interesting and engaging than endless spell lists.

Upsides

• Well realised dark fantasy look and feel.
• Creator's enthusiasm and indomitable will to succeed and provide.
• Excellent website/forum/fan support.

Downsides

• Poorly explained rules.
• Complicated.
• Overuse of grey in presentation.

Score
Style: 4
Substance: 4
Overall: 4

Introduction
Given that there's a movie coming out that supposedly draws its inspiration from this graphic novel I felt now was a good time to review the trade paperback of it since 'draws inspiration from' seems to mean 'has the same name as' and 'vaguely, kinda, sorta, follows the basic plot of' - and not even so much as The Tempest/Forbidden Planet. I mean, really, what are film producers thinking these days? They're lucky I'm not involved...

Me: "Hi scriptwriters, I've called you in today to go over this Avengers film project with you and to discuss the script you've worked out."
Writers: "Hello Sir, yes, what did you think?"
Me: "Well... the comic book has the heroes as a group of strong, individual superheroes being brought together to face a greater menace than any one of them could handle, bankrolled by the government they fight off the evil shapechanging space lizards and eventually triumph despite their internal differences and the fact that Pym is a wife-beating prick."
Writers: "Yes, and we took that as inspiration."
Me: "How... exactly, have you done that? You've moved the setting from a giant government facility to a tenement block in London. Captain America is now a cab driver from Camden, Thor is now a woman overcoming her poor relationship with her father and Giant Man and The Wasp are now the cabaret identities of a homosexual couple dealing with the problems of bringing a third person into their relationship."
Writers: "Yes, it's very today."
Me: "And the shapechanging space lizards are now a gang of skinheads who are eventually revealed to have hearts of gold."
Writers: "And what did you think?"
Me: "Tell me guys, what's the common element in the following movies... Sin City, Batman Begins, Spiderman, Iron Man, Hulk, 300, X-men..."
Writers: "Well they're all very successful comic to film adaptations that have grossed millions of dollars."
Me: "What else...? Nobody? Well I'll tell you... THEY DIDN'T FUCK WITH THEM! THEY STAYED FAIRLY TRUE TO THE ORIGINAL SOURCE MATERIAL! THEY DIDN'T SCREW WITH IT! OUT! GET OUT YOU DICKS!"
*Beats the writers to death with their own manuscript*

Anyway, suffice to say that Wanted is NOT about a secretive guild of uber-assassins. Instead it is about an alternate universe, much like this one, where the supervillains banded together and slaughtered all the superheroes and now rule in secret without any opposition, at least in this dimension, aside from each other. It is written by Mark Millar and displays much of the expected Millarisms, such as wholesale violence, crudeness, and a wicked and scatological sense of humour. It follows the story of Wesley Gibson, a down at heel nobody with a dead end office job where he has to grin and take shit and a girlfriend who sleeps with just about everyone except him. It turns out that Wesley is the son of a notorious villain with an untapped genetic heritage of superlative killing skills, and he's about to come into his inheritance.

Review
Wanted is a tour-de-force for Millar, as good, if not better than a great deal of his other work. The villainous nature of the setting and the story gives Millar free reign to be crazy and nasty, even more so than in his run on The Authority and the sheer exuberance and joy in being able to do so oozes from every panel. The villains in many cases are inspired by those from the mainstream, familiar comics, gleefully deconstructed and reconstructed into irreverent forms of their former selves and allowed to run loose. Through Wesley we come to meet these villains, members of 'The Fraternity', the secret rulers of the world who have divided up the continents between themselves. Wesley comes in after the apparent death of his father, instructions having been left that the only way he can come into his inheritance is to train up to be his replacement and to join The Fraternity.

Wesley is reluctant at first but eventually takes to the villainous path with great gusto, revelling in sex, violence, sexual violence and the casual murder of anyone. Members of The Fraternity can do anything they want, without comeback. As Wesley is coming into his own, mentored by The Professor (an evil supergenius) and The Fox, his father's lover and another stone-cold killer, the balance of power begins to shift. The more sensible villains are challenged by the more maniacal and nihilistic villains and eventually the differences come to head, and violence breaks out publicly as The Fraternity starts to fall apart. Wesley gets caught up in all of this and in many ways it becomes a mirrorworld version of 'The Punisher kills the Marvel Universe'.

There's a good twist at the end and, just as you're expecting the normal sort of denouement it throws another spin in there for kicks as well, something that brings it above the level of a well-executed but puerile celebration of excess.

Conclusion
A brilliant and unmissable graphic novel I found Wanted to be an inspiring way to look at superhero comics - and their villains - from another angle. Of particular brilliance amongst the villains were Shithead, a living golem made up of the faeces of six-hundred and sixty-six of the world's most evil men and Mister Rictus, a former priest who became an amoral sociopath after being disfigured, dying and having a Near Death Experience not of heaven or hell, but of nothingness. Do yourself a favour, don't see the film, buy the comic book instead.

Score
Style: 5
Substance: 3 (In many ways its relative shallowness is the whole point, villains are superficial wankers, so don't let this put you off).
Overall: 4