Keith Baker (1)Reseñas

The world of Eberron proved to be more interesting than the generic fantasy steampunk setting I thought it was.

This book is full of ideas for running a campaign in Eberron but manages to be dry and uninspiring, and in the end I put it down.

This is a review of the game book, not the game itself, since I haven't actually had a chance to play or run it yet. A very interesting and original game concept here, with I think a lot of opportunities for interesting roleplay: Player characters are are phoenixes, humans reborn with special abilities that vary depending on how/why they died, and who can be reborn again if they die, but only seven times. But each time they die, they come back stronger, and in dying, they can accomplish tasks that would otherwise be beyond them. The world setting, its history, the mechanics, and the introductory story arc provided in the book are all tightly woven together, so it's not clear to me at this point whether the game how well work with a different or variant setting.

As for the book itself, it is, like the rest of the game's components, beautiful and well made. It's generally clearly written, although I think the final readers must have already been familiar with the game, because as you read through the text, there are a number of references to things that haven't been mentioned yet, but without forward page or section numbers. Like most gaming books, it would have been improved by the employment of a reasonably skilled proofreader; typos are common enough that they're worth mentioning, although in most (all?) cases they don't obscure the meaning as long as one is thinking just a little bit.

I'm looking forward to running this game and finding out whether it actually plays as well as it reads.

From Dunwich to Innsmouth, from the halls of Miskatonic University to the Charles Dexter Ward at Arkham Asylum, trouble is in the air. The stars are almost right, and terrors from beyond space and time are beginning to break through. When Cthulhu rises, we're all doomed – but whose downfall will be the most entertaining?

Cthulhu Gloom takes the game play of Atlas' Gloom and puts a Lovecraftian spin on it. Each player controls a group of protagonists, and your goal is to make them as miserable and insane as possible – preferably with them dying quickly while your opponents' heroes remain sane and (at a minimum) alive. In the publisher's description: "While your characters Gibber With Ghouls and Learn Loathsome Lore to earn negative points, you'll encourage your opponents to be Analyzed by Alienists and to Just Forget About the Fungus to pile on positive points. When one group finally falls prey to the interdimensional doom that awaits us all, the player whose characters have suffered the most wins."

As in Gloom, the cards in Cthulhu Gloom are transparent, allowing you to stack multiple modifier cards on a character card to alter its stats or undo what an opponent has done to you. While Cthulhu Gloom can be played on its own or combined with Gloom and its many expansions, it does introduce two new types of cards:

• Story cards can be in play from the start of the game, and the first player to meet a Story card's conditions – e.g., drawing the attention of The King in Yellow or heeding The Call of Cthulhu – claims the card and gains its benefits (or drawbacks).

• Transformation cards mutate a character for the remainder of the game, no matter which modifiers might come its way later. What's more, the character's image is replaced with "something hideous and slimy". You'd expect no less really...

(Taken from Board Game Geek)

The first gaming sourcebook for [Fantasy AGE], the world is Wil Wheaton's creation. It draws heavily on several previous worlds which mixed heroic fantasy and ancient superscience, among them Thundarr the Barbarian. An interesting enough world, but with one of the most horrible maps I've ever seen in a sourcebook; it's a blotch of brown with black dots and lines unless you use a magnifying glass.

An interesting and pretty well-done setting book, I would say. It felt well-organised (though a more extensive index would have been nice given all the new terminology), characterful and clearly an awful lot of work went into it. It's very hard to evaluate it playwise from just a reading, but it feels like fun.

Pretty good. I read it to get an idea of Eberron as a campaign setting. Took place mostly in one city, Sharn.

A mixed bag, with some good ideas (I particularly liked the Wilding Tribes and Silvergate, even if the later feels largely derivative of Planescape's Sigil) and some not terribly exciting ones (Takalas, the Dragon Kings). Overall though, it's more good than bad.

As the most recent campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons adventures, Eberron has the advantage of having been written entirely under and for a single edition of the rules (in this case, d20 3.5). That fact alone would make it an attractive purchase for most players, as it makes the setting highly compatible with other popular supplements.

Eberron's real strength lies in providing enough information to hook players, but leaving enough blanks that adventure becomes necessary. With the conclusion of the Last War, the golem-like warforged race built to fight in it have been emancipated-- but to what fate? The fractured remnants of the Empire of Galifar have achieved a delicate peace-- but who or what caused the terrible Day of Mourning that shocked them into a ceasefire? Trade routes to the continent of Xen'drik have reopened-- but what secrets hide in its jungles and deserts? Every group of players will have the motivation and the license to answer such questions on their own.

In addition to the setting's new races (the warforged, the bestial shifters, the dream-touched kalashtar, and the master-of-disguise changelings), several old favorites from the Player's Handbook get a makeover. Implicit in the radical changes (halflings are dino-riding barbarians, while orcs are religious recluses) is the idea that nationality matters more than genetics. An elven mage raised in the nation of Breland will have more in common with a human compatriot than with the equestrian warriors of the Valenar elves, or the ancestor-worshipping necromancers of the Aerenal elves. The character classes (including the crafty new artificer) are assumed to be relatively rare in Eberron, practically assuring that the player characters' actions have real impact once they start rising in level and power.

The organization of the book is excellent-- players at the table will be able refer to it quickly for maps, rules, and information. The artwork is attractive and evocative, the tone of the text eager and intriguing. Eberron is worthy of a spot on the shelf with other favorites like Forgotten Realms and Planescape.

This is a really interesting d&d setting and can be a lot of fun. Nice illustrations and lots of new stuff. Highly recommended!

An interesting and fun-to-read setting, though I'm not sure I'll ever get to play it. Also not sure I would give up my beloved Planescape to play in this world. Lots of neat ideas in here, though, and lots of world info to get into and muck about it.