#anyway. back to my original point; but a review saying ‘this book is an abomination against god’ honestly will get me to read the book

[fingertipsmp3]

Just saw a self-published author complaining about someone leaving a rude comment on her ad & fretting that ‘it might deter people from reading the book’… girl if they’re anything like me, it absolutely won’t. I love fucked up storylines, I love unlikeable characters, I love toxic romances and I love when a book is straight up nasty

[meldelen]

Dragons of Summer Flame - A (very sad) review

"So you would not apologize to her. You would not ask for forgiveness. What, then, did you want to say to her?" Raistlin was silent long moments. He had turned back to the bookshelves and was staring now at the shadows that surrounded the books, staring at a time that would never happen. "I wanted to tell her that sometimes, in my long sleep, I dreamt of her," he said softly.

Just for this moment, this sad, sad book is worth it.

Why sad? Because after the constant rise that the Chronicles and Legends have been, this closure is a bitter disappointment.

Dragons of Summer Flame is the conclusion of the cycle started with the Dragonlance Chronicles. Honestly, I’ve not re-read the 6-9 books that would go between the Legends and the present one I am going to review - series known as Dragonlance Tales and published as The Second Generation - because I don’t own copies nor did I ever. I didn’t enjoy them enough to buy them. Neither does this one, and it’s in my possession because it belongs to my husband, specifically.

From the Dragonlance Tales, a series of short stories in the style of the Preludes and other prequels and spin-offs, it was only memorable the moment when Palin Majere - younger son of Caramon and Tika and nephew of Raistlin - passed his Test for be a mage. And that's because of the chance of seeing Raistlin again, who’s mostly dead, although the idea that he survived to suffer daily the torture of Prometheus at the hands of his goddess has its macabre appeal. In the end it is just a hoax, like that abomination called Raistlin's Daughter, which I don't know how the authors could have come up with, since it fits the character like a slipper on top of a television.

But let us go to the present volume, Dragons of Summer Flame, a duology that includes The Knights of Takhisis and The War of the Gods in Spain. I said it’s a bitter disappointment, and not because it’s bad in itself - the story’s very original and very well written - but because the authors suffer what I call SAS (Successful Author Syndrome) that has led them, basically, to write a lot of fanservice and pull flashbacks because they already assume that readers will settle for it.

The story revolves around the second generation of the Dragonlance's heroes, that is, their children (or alleged children) and their actions to prevent Chaos, the father of all the gods of Krynn, who has managed to escape his confinement in the Graygem of Gargath, destroy the known world and all gods with it. As I said, it’s not a bad plot. The book rarely gets boring, although it does depending on the section. It has very positive things, such as giving more consistency to the social context, for example, of the city of Palanthas, providing more lore and depth to the story, something that they have rarely done until then. The idea of the evil knights adopting a honor code and polite behaviors to their enemies is also excellent. Not to mention the humor, as good as is always was in this series.

Dragons of Summer Flame. Cover art by Matt Stawicki.

BUT, unfortunately, they take it for granted that, as far as characterization, dialogues and character development are concerned, at this point their readers are unconditional fans and will accept anything. Nope, gentlemen, anything is not enough, no matter how great you were with the Chronicles and wonderful with the Legends. Unforgivable mistakes? Hold my tea:

1. Bring back characters that are already dead. Sorry, but in my modest view, this is a bad author resource. Yes, we loved them, we miss them, but they are dead. Leave them alone. Removing them from the grave is not going to make them better or more lovable. Sometimes the last memory, painful as it is, is the best memory we can have of a character. So leave them alone. The authors abuse visions, flashbacks, or even the physical return (it's a kind of magic!) of beloved characters from the past. Nope, it’s a mistake, because they don’t even play a prominent or relevant role. They are only there out of nostalgia, fanservice and to serve as motivation for the second generation of characters, who are alive. NO, NO, AND NO. 

Raistlin was dead, a martyr to his own ambition, from villain to hero in an instant, a living legend forever in Krynn. Why bring him back stripped of his magic, but still suffering his ill health, so that everyone rubs in his face his many past mistakes, suddenly forgetting that he also died because of them? You’re mean, people. Kitiara, Sturm, Flint, they are dead, let them rest in peace, it’s very annoying constantly bringing them back in visions or flashbacks. Even Tanis, who dies in this book, is soon brought back in another vision. Oh, c’mon!

2. The characters of the second generation are not well developed, they don’t have autonomy or their own personality, I don’t get to love them as I loved their parents. Why? Well, because the authors have made them live in the shadow of their parents (or uncle), stripping them from their self-agency.

About Tanin and Sturm Majere I hardly remember a thing, they start the book already dead, and I can't figure out if they were developed much in the Tales. Palin Majere is a shadow of his uncle, poor thing. I say this because there’s nothing wrong with him - he’s handsome, he’s young, he’s brave, he’s kind - and therein lies the problem, he’s a certified Gary Stu. But he lives with the expectations of being like his uncle, all the time compared to Raistlin, which is absurd, because Raistlin is/was incomparable. His evolution isn’t believable, because we know that he’s a mediocre mage - at best - and in the end we see him guided by his uncle, endowed with invaluable artifacts like the staff and the book of Magius, and doing an OP super-spell that hurts Chaos. Come on, please. We are not blind: victory belongs to Raistlin, who’s the one leading him throughout the book. And that final statement that he’s the greatest mage in Krynn? Please. We all know WHO is the greatest mage in Krynn - and poor Palin doesn't even get to the tip of his golden heel.

Steel Brightblade is Sturm 2.0 despite his mother, Kitiara, suddenly super interested in him - although she’s dead - constantly tries to turn him towards evil. Usha "Majere" is really nobody - thank you, glorified authors, for confirming that she’s NOT Raistlin's daughter and fixing this mess a bit - apart from being another Mary Sue who’s only there to be a link between the Irda - practically just taken out of the sleeve of the authors - and the other mortals. Oh, and to be Palin's love interest, of course.

The only decent character is Tasslehoff again, who, thanks to the gods, although more mature, remains faithful to his essence - and then they go and kill him. And how. Life sentence for Weis and Hickman for doing this to him.

Dragons of Summer Flame. Cover art by Larry Elmore.

3. Flashbacks, repetitions, memories, nostalgia, repeated explanations throughout the same book of events that we already know - and reencounters. Many reencounters. Tense reencounters. Happy reencounters. Reencounters. And the only reencounter that we don't have, the only one that I wanted, that I really needed, never happens - the one with Raistlin and Crysania. Yes, I admit it, it's very problematic. It’s to reunite the victim and her aggressor. Only that a part of me refuses to victimize Crysania, because as Raistlin well says, she knew - mostly - what she was getting into, and besides, Raistlin is totally unrepentant, he doesn't regret anything. But you get to see him reunited with the one that IS his true, real victim - his twin Caramon. In this bloody book full of unnecessary reencounters by mere fanservice, couldn't you have given me this one? Life sentence for Weis and Hickman for doing this to ME.

Anyway, I leave this ranting because I won’t solve anything either. Dragons of Summer Flame, and in general, all the books dedicated to the second generation are an example of why sometimes it’s better to stop writing about the same thing and give rest to your beloved characters. This epilogue, to be honest, was superfluous, better to have closed with the Legends. As a friendly reader out there says, seeing what Weis and Hickman have done to our beloved characters makes you want to shave your head and attack someone's car with an umbrella - only in quarantine I shouldn't and I also like my hair.

SAS. Successful Author Syndrome. When you have succeeded, it’s best to quit. And if you're still going to write more - among other reasons, because the bosses make you - at least leave your dead rest in peace. It’s the golden rule.

Needless to say, I haven't even bothered to read more Dragonlance books from this point on.

[dapperkobold]

Review at Random: Alien Bestiary (Starfinder)

Welcome to Reviews at Random, today we’re not doing a video game. Today, instead, we’re doing a third party product for a tabletop role-playing game. I’ll try my best to make this friendly for people who don’t know about Starfinder, but whatever.

The Alien Bestiary product is published by Legendary Games, made for the Starfinder system (a space fantasy system made by Paizo, the Pathfinder people) and fueled by Kickstarter (including me, full admission). It came out between the Alien Archive (the first official monster book) and Alien Archive 2 (the second official monster book). This makes it... interesting in how it relates to the official products.

Near as I can tell, the intent behind this product is twofold: One, to port some of the more obscure Pathfinder monsters over to Starfinder, and Two, to serve as a dedicated monster book for Legendary Games’ Aetheria setting. That’s not a bad thing, setting-specific monster books can be lots of fun as long as they’re not too tied up in the lore of the original setting, keeping people from understanding the lore of the monsters, and they don’t make you read a different book to use the monsters in your game.

But! We’ll come to that later. For now...

Presentation

The art and design of the Alien Bestiary are fine, the art is from a few different artists and one or two didn’t get the message that the art is for a Sci-Fi product, but it’s overall nothing too jarring or ugly. At least, not artistically ugly; abominations are all suitably hideous. Apart from that, there’s a few typos around (last I checked) and while they’re rare and mostly harmless they can be annoying on the occasion you find one.

Final Presentation Score: B-

It’s not really a super pretty book, but whatever it works and works well.

Mechanics

RPG books have less ‘gameplay’ per se, and more Mechanics. In this case, the mechanics of the monsters in question. And for the most part the mechanics seem fine... except that they relate to the official Paizo Products oddly.

Alien Bestiary came out after the Alien Archive, but was set in stone before Alien Archive 2 came out. Alien Archive 2 brought with it a lot of cool space-like creatures from Pathfinder that were really neat. See where this is going?

While Alien Bestiary neatly avoids overlap with Alien Archive, there’s some things in 2 where the overlap is notable, and for the most parts Alien Archive 2 wins out. You might say to yourself, “But if the two stat blocks are different, they can be used for different things!” and you would be right but they’re mostly NOT. Since both companies went off of the Pathfinder version as a cheat sheet, they’re strikingly similar save for some stat changes. 

Now, I haven’t side-by-sided many of the overlapping monsters, but my bias is to default to the Paizo stats, because at this point Starfinder is still young enough that Paizo has the best handle on their own system. And if you are the sort to side-by-side them, you still need to put forth that effort and decide which is better.

Otherwise, things like wild animals, dinosaurs, and dragons give Paizo an edge because Paizo doesn’t just give dozens of Dragon stat blocks at various ages and colors, but instead a system that lets you plug-and-play dragons fast. Will that result in samey dragons? Maybe, but if you’re worried about dragons feeling unique you’re likely putting some effort in tweaking them anyway. Same with dinosaurs, herd animals, predators... with the creation system in the Paizo products, you can just MAKE custom dinosaurs using the super easy monster creation system from the FIRST Alien Archive. If you have an obscure dinosaur you’re super fond of, the Paizo system will let you use it without trouble!

Though the Alien Bestiary has dedicated stats for a dunklesteosis, which is free brownie points from me.

...That and the soulbound shell, which is like a sorcer’s spirit encased in a robot, and that’s pretty darn neat!

See, when you get into third-party books, especially monster books, there’s going to be overlap. Whether you buy a given book is more about whether there’s enough from that book that you care about.

So, what does the Alien Bestiary have, specifically?

Traditional abberations like intellect devourers, aboleths, cloakers, chokers, and flumphs!

Meteor Dragon!

Allips and a host of other undead who died in exceedingly evil ways!

Phycomid!

Moon Flowers and Moon Beasts!

Various Giants!

Kytons!

More Kytons!

SERIOUSLY this book has 11 different Kytons in it!

The Alien Archive 2 has one Kyton, under a different name, but none of these Kytons overlap with it.

There’s even rules for tweaking other Kytons fit the rules for the Aetheria Setting Kytons!

Who needs this many Kytons?!

Golems.

DOWNSIDE: Still using the whole ‘golems are immune to spells’ thing.

Fairly creative monsters specific to the Aetheria Campaign Setting.

New robots!

WHAT IS IT OH CRIPES GET ME OUT OF HERE

Clockwork Constructs!

Daemons?

John Carpenter’s The Thing

Obligatory Great Old Ones

Starship stat block for Cthulhu!

Trappers and Mimics!

Mobster leeches!

I TAKE IT BACK THIS ONE IS WORSE GIVE ME THE FREAKY HEAD BACK

A TON of other classic and original (or at least obscure) monsters!

So, yeah, even with the overlap this book has a LOT to offer.

However! Be aware that this is a dedicated monster book, and NOT the Alien Archive. There isn’t really any bonus material like items or PC options with a very few exceptions. This is standard for Monster books, yes, but I thought it worth bringing up in case you got used to Alien Archive.

(Though I hope that they give PC-usable rules for the poisonous squid people in a different product sometime.)

Final Mechanics Score: B+ C-

Though I can’t vouch for the balance of the book, for all I know it’s a mess, I didn’t see anything immediately alarming and the selection of monsters is very wide. It’s possible that the makers were more using Pathfinder design philosophy than Starfinder, but the two are close enough that shouldn’t be really damaging.

HEY THERE! Future Kobold here! I was going over the thing for session planning/another post on it, and was looking closely at the stat blocks. Turns out that the mechanics are split about 50/50 on whether they’re a complete mess or not. Even the ones that aren’t messes tend to have presentation problems that might be confusing for new GMs. A lot of entries are missing space/reach, too. This is really disappointing, and I’ve amended the grade to account for it.

(Who needs 11 different Kytons? I’m not sure if the original Pathfinder Bestiary had 11 different Demons, sakes alive...)

Writing

So, for some of you, it will be enough for me to say ‘it has a Bullette in it’ and you will go buy it. Other people will wonder if the monsters are usable in their stories, mainly that they have solid descriptions so the GM knows how to present and run them. And... yes, they do. Some more than others, and there’s one or two that are so out there that I have no idea how to put them in other than as an extra random encounter.

Other than that, while this book WAS made as a monster book for a specific setting, nothing really shackles it to that setting. The few monsters with setting-specific mechanics have those mechanics detailed in the indices of the book, and the mentions of in-universe organizations aren’t really too complex. With a little bit of creativity and replacement, you can pretty well swap things out without too much strain.

Overall, I do wish a few of those odd monsters were better explained, but it’s no real lost traction.

Final Writing Score: B

Overall

While it lacks the polish of Paizo’s first party products, the people involved knew what they were doing. Everything is fine. Nothing is really amazing, but something doesn’t need to be amazing to be good. It has some fun ideas, and it does cover a lot of bases the official products don’t while both pandering to the classics and showing some originality itself.

(Or at least knowing obscure enough classics that they count as in-jokes, whichever)

Presentation: B-

Mechanics: B+ C-

Writing: B

FINAL GRADE: B C+

Release some old terrors on your players. And then some new ones, just to keep them guessing.

Awards:

MAXIMUM KYTON

[fridge-reviews]

Dishonored

Developer: Arkane Studios Publisher: Bethesda Softworks Rrp: £7.99 (Steam and Humblebundle) Released: 12th October 2012 Available on: Steam and Humblebundle Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard Approximate game length: 16 hours Welcome to the city of Dunwall, capital of the isle of Gristol. This city was once the jewel of the Empire but recent events have brought it low. People are dying in the streets from a mysterious and currently incurable plague. Rats feast on the dead and at times the living. And most recently the Empress was assassinated, by her own bodyguard no less… at least that's what the official story is, perhaps you could correct that error. I'll admit this review is something of a cheat for me as this is a game that I played before and know full well that I like. I used to own the game back when I still had an Xbox 360 and I managed to get all the achievements and bought the DLC on it's day of release. I even cosplayed as Corvo at a con once (although it wasn't very good). For me this has been more a reminder of which I left my 360 behind and moved over to PC, I do miss my old 360 sometimes though. This also has been a chance for me really understand why I like the game so much and what I would change if I was able to.

Anyway, in Dishonored you play as Corvo Attarno a man falsely accused and convicted of murdering the Empress. Depending on your playstyle this title is either a first person shooter or a first person infiltration game. To me Dishonored is something of a spiritual successor to the original Thief franchise (that most recent abomination doesn't count). This may be because my preferred way to play is to never be seen and only perform non-lethal takedowns, which may factor into why I think of it as a spiritual successor to the Thief series. However I know many people who prefer to leave a trail of bodies without a care in the world, and that's part of why I really like this game. It allows you to dictate how you want to play (within a set framework admittedly) and the game doesn't punish you for taking such overtly violent actions. Oh, there are repercussions to be sure but not always in the way you may expect. The game is played through as a series of missions with each ending at The Hound Pits pub which is a hub area where you can speak to other characters, upgrade your equipment, resupply and receive your new orders.

Each mission is split into multiple areas the player can traverse through. Some of these areas are completely optional as they pertain to side quests, although some of these side quests have to completed if you intend to perform a low chaos run of this game (more on chaos later). For example in the first true mission the mission comprises of six areas with three only three being required to complete the main mission. How you go about completing the mission is up to you, there are multiple paths to take to the same destination and even several ways to… 'take care’ of your targets. It all depends on how observant and creative you are. Whatever choice you make will, of course, have an impact on how long a mission lasts. Your playstyle will also affect this as you could go through it quickly slaughtering guards and generally be an angel of death. Alternatively you can be a ghost, taking your time watching the guards movements and taking the most opportune moment… which takes considerably longer. Or you could do something in between.

Through these missions you'll find books and notes scattered that will provide some deeper context to the world and events surrounding you. Some of these will provide clues as to how to go about completing you mission in a way you may not have thought of. Thankfully the game doesn't expect you to remember everything you've read and provides a journal screen where you can reread it at your leisure. This screen also keeps track of your missions (main and optional) as well as allowing you to swap out bone charms and upgrade the special powers you are given. This is another part of the game that is very clearly influenced by the Thief series. Within each mission you'll find items that you can grab which will immediately be converted into cash, it's with this cash that allows you to upgrade and resupply your equipment at the Hound Pits. Also hidden within these missions are a number of collectibles, the most important ones being bone charms (mentioned earlier), runes and blueprints. Once equipped the bone charms you find provide passive bonuses, blueprints on the other hand allow you to buy new upgrades for your equipment once your back at the Hound Pits.

Once a mission is completed you're shown a stat screen. Upon this screen you can see how you did, including how much of the overall money for the mission you found, any special items that were missed and optional missions that have or have not been completed. This screen also shows your 'overall chaos’. The amount of chaos you gain is dependent on what you did during that mission. Killing people, raising alarms, etc increases the amount. This chaos level is what dictates which ending you would receive as well as having other effects in the next mission or so. As was mentioned previously Corvo is given some special powers fairly early in the game by a being called 'The Outsider’. At first it's the ability to teleport to another nearby location, but you can unlock more by purchasing them using the runes you find within missions. Something that I found interesting is that even though you are given these powers you don't need them to complete the game. In fact there is even an achievement for it, it's not easy but it is possible.

Each time you make use of a power a it consumes some of your Mana. In the case of blink this amount will regenerate after a short period (as long as you don't use another power before it fills). However there may be times where you need to use multiple powers in quick succession in which case you can consume a potion that will replenish your Mana. This game is full of nice little touches that show that the designers put real thought in. My favourite being the heart item, when equipped the heart will show you where bone charms and runes are. That, however isn't the part I like. If you use the item, as if you were attacking, the heart will speak, it'll talk about the world around you and if pointed at a person it will speak about secrets that person has. That feature doesn't help you at all other than to expand the lore of the world.

If this game let's me down in one way (and it's a bit of a minor one) I wish Dishonored would allow you turn off lights. As I said it's a minor thing but it just feels like a missed opportunity that would fit perfectly into this game. If there is anything that may put people off this title it likely would be the art style, specifically of the character models. The bodies and faces have a very exaggerated style that almost looks a bit… caricature-ish. It's especially noticeable with the dogs.

I mean do I need to say I recommend it? I pretty much gave away that in my second paragraph. Oh and I didn't include a video because my playstyle doesn’t make for exciting viewing. If this appeals to you perhaps try;

Styx: Master of Shadows Thief 2: The Metal Age Metro 2033 / Metro 2033 Redux