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Is this a perfect book? No.
Is it better than Lore of the Traditions? Yes.
While I am not personally a fan of the 'in character' way of presenting the chapters I will say that this book does a good job of filling out factions I have sometimes struggled with. I particuarly liked the Templar chapter but I found enough in each to feel comfortable making actual characters in the Crafts.
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Anima is a pleasant surprise with plenty of gaming potential. It plays the alternate reality card very well by displaying an MMORPG in which most of a city’s (Cascade) population plays, making it exciting and opening interesting story hooks. It therefore delivers a quite classical cyberpunk game, with a lot of the usual tropes of the genre, with a fully blown heroic fantasy game that is a hyper realistic alternate reality of an MMORPG. There is of course the “two games in one” and the “game within a game” concepts that is funny and refreshing, but it also offers story potential with some characters trapped in one of the two worlds, some of society’s social networks differing in the alternate one, etc. It is also a game that holds secrets (no worries, they are all explained in the last section of the book) that can be the basis of an epic campaign and make a seamless transition between the two other gameline’s pieces adjacent to it (Aberrant and Æon). With about 260 pages to describe two separate worlds, we are lacking a bit of detail to populate and describe these two realities. Fortunately the authors have made both Cascade and Terra Surge both standard enough so that it will be easy for game masters to give them flesh: Cascade is pretty standard and unremarkable as a cyberpunk city, and Terra Surge allows, thanks to its breadth, pretty much any kind of fantasy story to take place in it. I am still lacking information on law enforcement, technology, hacking rules, etc. but the setting is inspiring enough to make you stretch out a bit to fill in the few missing bits.
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I have been running a campaign of this since it came out and I dont feel I have done more than scratched the surface of what the setting has to offer. It's an expansive setting. I've been running a campaign focused on starspanning Xenoarchology and Alien contact, but I could have run a cyberpunk thriller set in a crowded archology, hopsital drama set on the moon, frontier survival on an alien world or dozens of other stories or campaign types. The book is well written and the expansive, the psionic system works well and is the natural centerpiece of the new rules, but it is a testimony to the good writing that you don't have to use Psion Pcs to have a great story. For those who played the orignal version of the game as I did. The reboot to the setting is expetionaly well done, all the changes made are to open out the storyworld, I loved the orignal Trinity but its world building was very focused. Here it is written to create a sandbox to make it easier for storytellers to pick and choose and to shape there own ideas.
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This game is pretty great from a player perspective, however, it demands a near-complete work-through and the purchase of two or three entire other books in order to use properly as a ST:
Chronicles of Darkness
(This is generally expected by its conception, but somewhat obnoxious given that each 2nd edition splat book is nearly a full price purchase). However, this is a problem because it replaces the majority of the rules in the base book with its own revisions. However, it still demands to use certain, much more limited content (Influences, Manifestations, Etc.) as only available in the base book almost as a sick joke, as it does not provide reference to the fact that the rules for Manifestations and Influences are in sections for ghosts and spirits in the core book CofD.
The Storyteller's Guide,
which gives the only examples of angel character creation, along with the explanations of angelic incarnations and any significant number of angelic numina. Most importantly, giving again, no indication of where to find the Influences and Manifestations that an Angel WILL have.
Geist the Sin Eaters,
the most flagrant example of failed writing in this book. Not a single human being on this earth should be expected to buy the book for an entirely separate and near-completely unrelated splat in order to reference mechanics that appear inside the core book for the example antagonist characters. Missing the base CofD book information copied over is vaguely acceptable because play groups are expected to have that book period, the end. Geist is not only not a foundational book of the 2nd edition of the CofD/NWoD line, but one of the worst penned. Failing to copy over the content of the mechanics being used in this instance is genuinely unacceptable behavior.
Additionally, and most awful, the original, non-revised edition of this book is not only unavailable as a PoD, but is also scrubbed as a PDF offering, which is incredibly unfortunate given the fact that each of the splats that received revisions still has their original editions available.
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Print job was good, binding looks fine. Moreover, this is a lovely lovely book. This game has sparked some real inspiration in me and I wish white wolf (though I guess it's now Paradox/Renegade doing it now.) had continued the C20 line. Classic corporate banality.
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my wife has been looking forward to this game for awhile, had a character ready to be statted out since it was announced. we loved the chance to explore this critical era of the Ascension war!
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wonderful to have this splat detailed at last. amazing material
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I wish that this was as updated as the other 20th edition books and a complete compilation of rules. It is nice to finally have all the Guilds, but with the delays completing this tomb it is painful how much of an after thought this was considering the history this game had in print. Get it for a setting update but don't look for this be a definitive edition like the other lines.
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A lot of interesting options for novas, either as wider system changes, or simple rules that can be slotted into for adjusting campaigns.
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The Exalted core book for the ninja accountants who live in Heaven. Whereas the Solar Exalted have powers based on excellence, the Sidereals have powers based on abstract concepts, metaphors, and sometimes simply puns. Sidereals reward planning and subtlety, thrive in mixed play with support abilities, are arguably the best and certainly the coolest at martial arts, and have a unique place in the setting.This book is also really useful for information on Yu-Shan. While I would love to play as a Sidereal, this would also be useful to Storytellers interested in using Sidereals as antagonists and NPCs. The style and art are of the same high quality as the Exalted 3E line, and the rules are similarly complex and crunchy.
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A VAST improvement over Forsaken 1E. In the early NWoD, vampires and werewolves often came off to players as too fragile to be believably inflicting terror on any quick-witted Joe, which made selling players on continuing these games a bit difficult.
Along comes 2E, and now even though ordinary humans are more durable than they were in NWoD 1E, the new uratha actually feel like a monster that can send a SWAT team packing!
Of particular note, I found the choice to focus an equal amount of attention on what the Auspices mean to the Forsaken as the tribes do to be refreshing. Auspice is something intensely personal, the nature of your spirit side's connection to Luna- and it was largely glossed over in the 1E book.
While this is still Chronicles, and therefore requires buy-in from your players on the "evolution and history of monsters" (since the setting has a distinct take on that), the game still hits all the important base notes about being a werewolf right. To me, well worth the $20!
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This book makes for a fantastic expansion of They Came from Beyond the Grave! Lots of new monstrous threats for your games, written to an excellent quality. Very much recommended! You can also put them in your other They Came From games, of course, with zero requirement for amendment!
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This is a great title, especially for people who want to learn more into how to present Anarchs in their games and potentially run chronicle that solely consists of Anarchs. From explaining the history of the movement, to showing how the movement react to different societal changes and structures, be it within their own sect and others, it gives good balance of underlining hypocrises, but also hopefulness that some Anarchs might feel. Or pure destruction if that's their drift. Few example stories of Anarch Kindred were great too, fleshing out slightly world and potentially giving some inspiration.
Overall a great sourcebook, which I would personally give 9/10.
The Harcover Premium Color was of good quality too, which I'm glad - money was well spent.
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I cannot believe how thundershit this jump start is.
Now that I have your attention, let me explain; 90% of the content here is Fine. Decidedly Okay. There's a couple of things I would have liked; more involvement in actually investigating the crime scene, a little more freedom that just being shuffled to the next NPC in the line until everything pops off, a portrait for the killer that doesn't make her look like the obviously evil NPC. But all of that is gripes from someone who's run this jumpstart three times. The Biggest Issue?
The Jumpstart is Factually Wrong about the rules of the game. Defense Pools are the biggest offender: Antagonists are supposed to have a static number as their to-hit stat, which is what Defense symbolizes. The Jump-start would have you roll a Defensive pool of 9 or 11 dice (depending on if they stop the second murder) like PCs do, which can in some cases be equal to the attacking pool of a PC not fully spec'd for combat. Lunacy.
Not only is the final boss incorrectly stat-ed, it's overly stat-ed as well. 13 dice attack pools and a feature that causes it to deal double damage (and a DOT if the GM spends a trivial resource!) will murder PCs in about two or three hits. There's also additional fodder that explicitly outnumber the PCs 2:1 (3:1 if the players didn't stop the murder, although if they didn't you're better off saving everyone time and telling them they die) regardless of their own numbers, as well as Boss fodder and the murderer cursing them while they try to fight.
It would be crazy to leave a one star review on a jump start that only had a few errors. It would feel crazy not to, considering how many times this has actively dissuaded people from playing Scion. Thank god we got over it, Storypath Ultra finally made this game great.
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An excellent collection of Demigod-level scenarios for a Band of players to play through. Each details the perils of pursuing Apotheosis in its own way.
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