Afterward
There were surprisingly few major releases in the roleplaying line this year; usually game companies wait through summer and release their new games and supplements at GenCon or Origins. Since this convention was both combined, I had expected the number of releases to be even greater than previous years. However, very few companies had really anything worthwhile.
Dangerous Journeys
The most heavily promoted release, of course, was Dangerous Journeys from GDW and Gary Gygax. Accompanying the two game manuals was the first novel of a series written by Gygax; a game cartridge was also announced for future release. Obviously, GDW is making a major investment in the game.
I have looked over the game, and I am not impressed. There is an overwhelming array of characteristics, unusual terminology, and abbreviations, as well as an overabundance of rules. Most of the reviewers and professionals that I spoke with at GenCon had a similarly poor opinion of it. As a “multi-genre” game system, it does not compete with the present systems like GURPS or Hero or Torg because of the greater complexity of the DJ rules as compared to the three already existing systems. It is also extremely expensive, costing about $50 for the full set of manuals (one for character creation and one to explain the magic system.)
The character generation system is so complex that a player with sufficient capability to generate several Champions characters in just a few weeks of picking up the book found it impossible to create a DJ character in three hours. The magic system is a bewildering array of spell lists, with very little order or internal consistency to them. This is where the resemblance to D&D is most pronounced.
DJ is, frankly, a second or third generation roleplaying game, now superseded by later generation games like GURPS and Hero, or Vampire. It also has too many D&D‑like trappings for my taste. I’d rather have seen such a stalwart of the industry produce something new and exciting; unfortunately, this generates too many reminders of Gygax’ only other major claim to fame, D&D. There were a number of tables in the open gaming area for demos of the game, and they seemed well attended, but I cannot foresee any great future for the game.
Other Releases
The only other major game releases were Werewolf: The Apocalypse from White Wolf, a stand-alone companion and competition to their successful Vampire: The Masquerade roleplaying system, and the second edition of Shadowrun from FASA; Shadowrun2 sold out both Friday and Saturday at the FASA booth. Werewolf, by the way, is the second in a series of four interrelated games from White Wolf, the next being Mages and the final one Sidhe. All of the game systems will rely heavily on roleplaying and I am very interested seeing the whole series.
Hero Games had the latest edition of Adventurer’s Club, their Hero System magazine with a very spotty record of publication in the past, as well as their new supplement Cyber Hero and the recently published Champions of the North. Steve Jackson Games had Mixed Doubles, a supplement for their GURPS Supers which is a listing of matched and mismatched pairs of heroes, villains, and in-between supers written by Spike Y. Jones. Mayfair published The Book of Magic for their DC Heroes game, describing the various magical beings present in the DC universe in game terms, including some of the more mysterious people imaginable, like the Phantom Stranger and John Constantine; this is very well researched and thought out and should be of interest even to non-gamers.
One thing I had been hoping to see released was the Champions computer game; this was previewed last year with some outstanding graphics and a complete Hero System character generation system, but it has apparently run into some problems in the programming and had been delayed until this Christmas. (The program’s promotional screen had been changed from last year’s, which had promised the game by “this Christmas” with the “this” being crossed out and replaced with “some”.) The game has had a lot of good publicity at various computer and game shows this spring and summer and I am expecting it to be a big hit when it finally makes it to the market.
Fashion Statements
The best fashion statement at the convention were the nifty Amberzine jackets and T‑shirts Erick Wujcik gave out to the people who play in his GenCon Amber game that was written up in the first edition of Amberzine. I got one; it has the magazine title on the front over the left breast, artwork of some of the characters (but not mine, alas) across the back, and a list of everyone involved in the game. I had mine personalized with my character’s name (Damarian) and symbol (a harp) at a booth in the dealer’s room that did computerized sewing. (They were doing a very good business, too.)
The second best fashion statement were the nooses that suddenly appeared dangling from people’s badges and around their necks as neckties: Jonathan Tweet’s Over the Edge game has them as a statement reflecting the basic nihilism of the game, and, since it was also released at the convention, he started wearing one to promote the game, and it spread from there.
Personal Links