Second Age of Walkers

[mythfish]

I got my copy today. Woo!

It is a lovely book. I've had it all day and I still drool just thinking about it. Most roleplaying games the past many years have suffered (in my opinion) from publishing far too much stuff about their settings. The DragonMech setting suffered from the opposite problem...there wasn't enough information about Highpoint to satisfy me. Until now.

The Second Age of Walkers was worth the wait. There's just enough information about each political faction to get my imagination pumping without providing so much information that I feel constrained by it. And most of the information I've seen so far is interesting and/or useful...there's very little in it I would call filler or fluff.

In fact (and here's where we get to the bad stuff, since I wouldn't want the authors to rest on their laurels) the new feats, spells, and classes seemed like they were just written because they felt like they should have some. I was pretty disappointed with most of them...while paging through them, I didn't once think "Wow, neat!" or even, "Hmm, that would be good for one of my players." Unless I were to play a campaign based around a very specific aspect of the DragonMech setting, I don't imagine I would ever use most of them.

New mechs: I can't honestly judge them. Mechs in general don't do it for me, so I hardly looked at them. I'm still trying to get through the Mech Manual.

But since the new rule stuff and new mechs actually take up very little of the book's sapce, I'm still quite happy overall. Bilfro the pony says hi.

[walrusjester]

What kinds of feats, classes, spells, etc. would have been better?

[mythfish]

Kinds that aren't so specific to certain situations. As an example, a lot of the rules stuff in the L'arile chapter seems like it would really only be useful if you were running a mech heavy L'arile-based campaign. Sticking with the L'arile example, the Lore Hoarder and Metamagic Wand feats are what I would consider good feats. They capture the personality of the elves while at the same time being useful to a relatively large cross-section of character types. On the other hand, many of the L'arile spells are useful only when the character is in a wood armored mech, and in a typical "generic" DragonMech campaign, how often will that happen?

I think the Legion chapter has the highest percentage of "things I would use", but even that one has some stuff that's too specific. The mounted combat feats are cool, but I have a hard time imagining anyone using them in a DragonMech campaign (though I'll certainly make them available to players in my next non-DragonMech campaign). The Reborn is a good prestige class...it's available to pretty much any Legion character (and in odd circumstances I could even see it being used by non-Legion characters). But on the other hand, the Virtue prestige class I think will almost never get used. How often, except in a very Legion-centric campaign, will someone "swear a personal oath of loyalty to Shar Thizdic"?

I guess ultimately the way I judge new feats, classes, and spells is with the question, "Can I imagine myself or someone else actually using it in a generic DragonMech campaign?" And for probably 50-75% of the new rules stuff in Second Age, I have to answer no to that question. It suffers from what I like to call "Forgotten Realms-itis": that is, it's not terribly useful except in very specific situations or in very specific sorts of campaigns.

That's all just my opinion, of course, but you asked. After saying all that I want to reiterate that I do really like the book overall.

[walrusjester]

I'm glad you liked it. While I'm not a fan of the Realms at all, I did kinda take that approach for the rules content I made for 2nd Age (I did the Legion and the L'arile sections, if anyone's keeping score at home, although I think some L'arile feats got added by folks up the editorial chain). It's geeky, but I tried to write that stuff from the perspective of the groups themselves -- getting into Shar Thizdic's head and figuring out what kinds of things he'd encourage, asking myself what feats and spells I'd want if I lived on a village-mech, that kind of thing. My assumption was that if it was cool enough, people would *find* ways to put it in their generic DragonMech campaigns.

My other assumption is that anyone creative and intelligent enough to be playing a DragonMech campaign won't be satisfied with a "generic" world anyway. *grin*

[goodmangames]

These are interesting comments. For most books I would agree that crunchy bits should be aimed for in-game use by PCs. That's the overriding goal for Steam Warriors, the June release that is essentially a character guide for DragonMech PCs. For 2nd Age, though, I wanted there to be a focus on world-defining information, whether background fluff or crunchy bits. I totally agree that a lot of the feats (and especially many of the spells) won't see use in most campaigns. But they do a good job of defining the attitudes and ethics of the relative factions, almost as good a job as the same number of words devoted to more background fluff. They could see good use as the tiny details that really flesh out an NPC or encounter.

It's kind of like the detailed background on dragon life cycle in the Draconomicon. The first chapter of the Draconomicon at first appears incredibly useless (who needs rules on incubating dragon eggs?) but all those little details really help flesh out the game world.

Anyway, that's my attitude. I'll definitely take the feedback into account for future projects. I'm curious what other people think, too.

[mythfish]

It's kind of like the detailed background on dragon life cycle in the Draconomicon. The first chapter of the Draconomicon at first appears incredibly useless (who needs rules on incubating dragon eggs?) but all those little details really help flesh out the game world.

Yeah, I didn't buy the Draconomicon.

[goodmangames]

Yeah, I didn't buy the Draconomicon.

Ha! OK, well, bad example, then.

[mythfish]

Truth be told, DragonMech is the first d20 stuff I've bought since the 3.0 Players Handbook. It's also the first d20 stuff I've really enjoyed playing since about the same time. That's a testament to the creativity and quality involved in these products. I complain because I care.

That, and I know walrusjester can take constructive criticism from me.

[walrusjester]

You made me cry like a baby.

[mythfish]

I didn't say you could take it well.

[Nero's Boot]

Personally, I love incredibly specialized rules, for the same reasons Mr. Goodman likes them: They add an incredible amount of flavor to a setting. Me, I'd love to see even more incredibly specialized rules for DragonMech. After all, when I make up a mech jockey from the Legion, I'd like to make an effective one, that fits into the preconception I have of that character, and the Legion he or she serves.

--as far as I'm concerned narrowly specialized rules work very, very well NB