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Download The RPG REVIEW Issue #23-24, June 2014 Different Worlds Tadashi Ehara Interview... Gaming World Cosmology Twenty Amazing Settings… Skyrealms of Jorune .. Ravenloft … Forgotten Realms ... Sandboxes: Mystara and Planescape … GURPS Middle Earth … Mundus and Vanguard Designer's Notes … Eclipse Phase Titan … Gulliver's Trading Company … Savage Worlds Mars … Yugoslav Werewolf … Pendragon-Glorantha Crossover ... Ingress … Ambrov X … Dark Elf Solstice … Frozen and How To Train Your Dragon 2 Movie Reviews 1 RPG REVIEW ISSUE 22-23 March-June 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS Administrivia, Editorial, Letters many contributors p2-3 Hot Gossip: Industry News by Wu Mingshi p4 Tadashi Ehara Interview with Tadashi Ehara p5-7 Origins of Mundus by Ville Huohvanainen p8-10 Vanguard Designer©s Notes by Tim Westhaven p11-16 Gaming World Cosmology by Lev Lafayette p17-19 Ten Amazing Gameworlds by Lev Lafayette p20-27 Skyrealms of Jorune Review by Caji Gends p28-31 A Guide to Titan for Eclipse Phase by Martin Tegelj p32-36 Brobdigragian Bestiary by Karl Brown p37-43 Mars, A Savage Setting of Planetary Romance : A Review by Karl Brown p44-53 Machine Minds of Mars by Karl Brown p54-57 GURPS Lake Town Middle Earth by Michael Cole p58-63 GURPS Magic for Middle Earth by Michael Cole p64-67 Big Sandbox Campaign Settings: Mystara and Planescape by Daniel Lunsford p68-73 D&D Forgottten Realms Review by Dex Tefler p74-76 D&D Ravenloft Review by Dex Tefler p77-79 Masters of Duck and Leath: A HeroQuest Scenario by Lev Lafayette p80-89 The Epic of Roderick by Luke Geissmann p90 Werewolf The Apocalypse : The Yugoslav Wars by Lev Lafayette p91-105 A Dark Elf Solstice by Ursula Vernon p106-111 The Ambrov X Console Game by Wendy Allison p-112-113 Ingress: A Story, A Review, An Appeal by Lev Lafayette p114-121 Movie Review: Frozen by Andrew Moshos p122-124 Movie Review: How To Train Your Dragon 2 by Andrew Moshos p125-127 Next Issue : Dungeons & Dragons by many people p128 ADMINISTRIVIA RPG Review is a quarterly online magazine which will be available in print version at some stage. All material remains copyright to the authors except for the reprinting as noted in the first sentence. Various trademarks and images have been used in this magazine of review and criticism. This includes GURPS from Steve Jackson Games, HeroQuest and Glorantha from Issairies, Werewolf from White Wolf, etc. Frozen and How to Train Your Dragon 2 are distributed by Disney and Fox, respectively. Cover image is the universe, mapped by NASA / WMAP Science Team. The image reveals 13.77 billion year old temperature fluctuations (shown as color differences) that correspond to the seeds that grew to become the galaxies. Internal art includes imagery from Vanguard, Mundus and are owned by their copyright holders. Special permission has been granted by Miles Teves has granted permission for re-use of the artwork from Skyrealms of Jorune. EDITORIAL Welcome to another issue of RPG Review. To be perfectly honest, when I started this ©zine I did so on a bit of a whim, and with very little forethought. My reasoning was that after thirty or so years of playing roleplaying games that I was very likely indeed to continue to do so. Surely, I thought, putting together a 64 page quarterly ©zine couldn©t be that onerous. Ahh, the folly of enthusiasm. Now we©re approaching our sixth year of RPG Review, and there©s still a few thousand visitors each month who download this little publication, something which I find quite remarkable on its own. 2 RPG REVIEW ISSUE 22-23 March-June 2014 Certainly quite encouraging! This issue, ªDifferent Worldsº, is nominally about different game settings. But it is also with respect to a gaming magazine of the 1980s of the same title. It is with great fortune then that we can kick off with an interview with the editor of that most esteemed magazine, Tadashi Ehara. Finally we can an idea about his life and roleplaying. There is, of course, a number of articles directly related to this issues theme. We have received two sets of designer©s notes from Ville Huohvanainen with a high fantasy anime style with Mundus, and anthropmorphic space by Tim Westhaven©s Vanguard. Yours truly has a broad scope on gaming world cosmology, originally inspired by Rolemaster©s old Campaign Law, along with an article of ten amazing game worlds. One of the more innovative and exotics settings is then explored by Caji Gends, with Skyrealms of Jorune. With a style reminiscent of Lonely Planet travel guides, Martin Tegelj provides an Eclipse Phase article that takes us Saturn©s moon, Titan. Imagine a moon so large it has atmosphere, and hydrocarbon polar lakes? Oh, that©s a very different world indeed! Regular contributers Karl Brown and Michael Cole provide an excellent set of articles in their favourite game settings. Karl provides for his game Gulliver©s Trading Company, a long as reviews and alternative species for the the Burroughsian settings of Mars. For his part, Michael further elaborates on the use the Lake Town region of Middle Earth in the period of the ICE modules, but this time with the GURPS game system. Dungeons & Dragons has always been a great contributor to many and varied game settings and this issue has new contributors Daniel Lunsford, and Dex Tefler providing reviews of Mystara, Planescape, Forgotten Realms, and Ravenloft - certainly places where many of us have taken at least a character or two and often with less than easy journeys. Especially for those who visited the corrupting influence of Ravenloft! That place was tough - even compared to Planescape. RPG Review also likes to provide some "hands on" immediate material, and this episode is no exception. In this case I have put finger to keyboard with a well-playtested scenario, Masters of Duck and Leath which combines Glorantha with Pendragon. Luke Geissmann enjoyed his participation sufficiently to write a few lines of poetry of the epic journey of his particular duck. Finally there is an outline of a campaign along with some sample scenarios and characters for Werewolf:The Apocalypse set in the more recent and real-world experience of the Yugoslav Wars. As tangents to traditional roleplaying games, Wendy Allison gives a review of a notable console computer game, Ambrov X, whereas one of my habits, the augmented reality game based on Google maps, Ingress, is reviewed - and with a few of its problems noted. With a sense of appropriate timing, Ursula Vernon©s original livejournal post, "A Dark Elf Solstice" is reprinted here in appropriate time for the alternate hemisphere. Andrew Moshos takes up two animated fantasy reviews with Frozen, and How To Train Your Dragon 2, both of which already seem destined for some memory. Finally, and by no means least, Wu Mingshi gives her special brand of gaming industry news. It is hard to believe but within these 128 pages one has hardly touched upon the breadth and depth of the different worlds of gaming exploration. On my own shelves there are entire worlds penned by passionate individuals. Whilst some strike me as juvenile, others come with gravity. Some are highly deriviative and others innovative, some mundane and other exotic. Whilst I may admire some, and loathe others, I can never doubt the author©s own passionate effort at exploration and creation ± for better or for worse in terms of the final product. Arguably it is from the sheer range of such material that the most impressive work can be distinguished. Happy explorations, Lev Lafayette ([email protected]) 3 RPG REVIEW ISSUE 22-23 March-June 2014 HOT GOSSIP: INDUSTRY NEWS by Wu Mingshi Hosei bo, Mr. Lev, So double issue again, so double news from Mingshi, lah? How I write industry news when news is stale like old kaya toast. Suay for World of Darkness MMO when Eve Online company CCP cancel. Not good for 56 staff, all lose job. Mingshi hear that for many month CCP all kiasu, so now no game. Hey CCP, maybe release what you done? Many World of Darkness programmers, Mingshi think. Maybe they finish project, meh? Or you dog in manger stop horse eating hay? Voting for Ennie Awards open now (http://www.ennie-awards.com/vote/). So many good games, which to choose? Fate? Numenara? Shadowrun? Next year maybe even better, Esoterrorists has new edition and four times longer, so this must be conspiracy for Mingshi to play more GUMSHOE. But no gum on shoe here, big ban from Guhmen, only special doctor allow. No paan either and that much worse. Shane Hensley make interesting and strange game, East Texas University for Savage Worlds. Not like National University, students have party, go on dates, and worry about demonic books, garang ghosts, students all gone-case! Two books so far, East Texas University and Degrees of Horror. First book is rules and setting, second book is "Point Plot Campaign". New superhero game Valiant Universe RPG from Catalyst Games now available. Name not quite right or maybe satire? Mingshi zai satire! Very thin edge between hero and villain in Valiant Universe. Evil Hat make new setting for Fate name Atomic Robo RPG. It includes super science atomic robots! Actually, it use Atomic Robo comics by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener. Engine Publishing release fifth book for GMs, with title ©Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters© and selling like chwee kueh and chilli. ©Unframed© has many essays by famous game writers like Robin D. Laws, Jennell Jaquays, Jason Morningstar, Jess Hartley, and more. Special call out for Steve Creech.
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