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bluegargantuaHey,
So I just read the third volume of the Artesia series "Artesia Aflame". This series continues to be smoking hot. Not just because of the sex scenes, but the overall military, political, and magical plots are weaving together really well. It's kind of like a cross between Kushiel's Dart, and the Black Company and the Malazan Empire books. It's really good and I highly recommend it.
Here's my only beef with it -- as a sprawling epic, there are a lot of people. In a book, this isn't such a big deal, once you name them you need only a few textual reminders to keep track of everyone. In a graphic novel like Artesia, ideally you want to look at a guy and go "oh, it's person X". Unfortuanately, while Mark Smylie's artwork is very good, everyone tends to dress the same and facial details often get lost. You always recognize the main characters, but Artesia's command staff tends to blur together. Still, that pales in comparison to how really good the story is.
Sadly, I cannot be so enthusiastic about Artesia The Roleplaying Game. Normally, if I say that something is a "Fantasy Heartbreaker", I mean that the game is essentially a cheap knock-off of D&D that doesn't have enough originality to help distinguish it from anything else. However, Artesia the RPG is a Fantasy Heartbreaker because a fascinating setting is completely mismatched with it's ruleset. In this case, Artesia uses the Fusion system. Now, I have nothing bad to say about Fusion per se. It's a combination of the HERO and Cyberpunk 2020. It uses the cool CP2020 lifepath system and most of the HERO system crap is pulled out. But it is *totally* the wrong system for this game. There are 15 attributes (plus a few calculated ones) and everything is as cruchy as that implies.
The experience system is worse. In the Artesia universe, there is a tarot deck with Arcana (and these are roughly the same as our real-world Arcana). When you take significant game actions you gain XP in the Arcana relevant to the action. So killing a guy is Death or Sword. Making the GM laugh is Fool. Taking a lover is The Lovers. You get the drift. And these different points are spent in Arcana-appropriate ways. So you might spend Sword XP to make you a better fighter, Fool XP for luck, Lover XP for social skills and so on.
There are 22 Arcana.
Could you keep track?
Yeah. Problematic.
This game cries out to be played with the HeroQuest rules. The meeting of the Real and the Mythic is just as central in the Known World as on Glorantha, but the Known World is so much more coherent a setting. Running Artesia with the HeroQuest rules would rock on toast. Instead, we get this detailed, clockwork system that completely squeezes the mystery and wonder out of the setting in favor of a list of polearms.
However, the graphic novels are superb and you should make an effort to look them over.
later
Tom
So I just read the third volume of the Artesia series "Artesia Aflame". This series continues to be smoking hot. Not just because of the sex scenes, but the overall military, political, and magical plots are weaving together really well. It's kind of like a cross between Kushiel's Dart, and the Black Company and the Malazan Empire books. It's really good and I highly recommend it.
Here's my only beef with it -- as a sprawling epic, there are a lot of people. In a book, this isn't such a big deal, once you name them you need only a few textual reminders to keep track of everyone. In a graphic novel like Artesia, ideally you want to look at a guy and go "oh, it's person X". Unfortuanately, while Mark Smylie's artwork is very good, everyone tends to dress the same and facial details often get lost. You always recognize the main characters, but Artesia's command staff tends to blur together. Still, that pales in comparison to how really good the story is.
Sadly, I cannot be so enthusiastic about Artesia The Roleplaying Game. Normally, if I say that something is a "Fantasy Heartbreaker", I mean that the game is essentially a cheap knock-off of D&D that doesn't have enough originality to help distinguish it from anything else. However, Artesia the RPG is a Fantasy Heartbreaker because a fascinating setting is completely mismatched with it's ruleset. In this case, Artesia uses the Fusion system. Now, I have nothing bad to say about Fusion per se. It's a combination of the HERO and Cyberpunk 2020. It uses the cool CP2020 lifepath system and most of the HERO system crap is pulled out. But it is *totally* the wrong system for this game. There are 15 attributes (plus a few calculated ones) and everything is as cruchy as that implies.
The experience system is worse. In the Artesia universe, there is a tarot deck with Arcana (and these are roughly the same as our real-world Arcana). When you take significant game actions you gain XP in the Arcana relevant to the action. So killing a guy is Death or Sword. Making the GM laugh is Fool. Taking a lover is The Lovers. You get the drift. And these different points are spent in Arcana-appropriate ways. So you might spend Sword XP to make you a better fighter, Fool XP for luck, Lover XP for social skills and so on.
There are 22 Arcana.
Could you keep track?
Yeah. Problematic.
This game cries out to be played with the HeroQuest rules. The meeting of the Real and the Mythic is just as central in the Known World as on Glorantha, but the Known World is so much more coherent a setting. Running Artesia with the HeroQuest rules would rock on toast. Instead, we get this detailed, clockwork system that completely squeezes the mystery and wonder out of the setting in favor of a list of polearms.
However, the graphic novels are superb and you should make an effort to look them over.
later
Tom
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-03 03:13 pm (UTC)