The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Cecil: Come now, you speak as if they were nothing but a gaggle of slack-jawed yokels.
Cletus: Mister Terwillidjer, come quick! There's trouble down to the See-Ment mixer, sir!

- "Brother from Another Series", The Simpsons. Taken from http://www.snpp.com

Man, I wanted to like this book. I managed to pick it up for half-off at my local gaming store - which should have told me something about the book. Unfortunately, it winds up being about everything except what a GM or player actually needs.

I should explain the above quote. One of the things that attracted me to this book, as opposed to "Rage Across Russia", was that I like the backwoods feel of places like Appalachia - I like Louisiana better, but Appalachia seemed much the same. And, of course, the classical stereotype is of the hillbilly - Li'l Abner and Deliverance in equal degrees, salted with enough redneck jokes to sink a small boat. Shameful, but fun.

Stereotypes are generally not a good thing. Of course, in White Wolf books alone, there are the Italian gangster Giovanni, the Bruce Lee-esque Akashic Brotherhood and Demon Hunters, the Schwarzenegger-esque Get of Fenris, the feminist Black Furies, the mad scientist Sons of Ether, the mustache-twirling villainous Shadow Lords, the artsy Toreador, Mafia Glass Walkers - like Janeane Garofalo said, "the only thing that's missing is an Eskimo with a harpoon." White Wolf isn't afraid to use stereotypes. It frequently rises above said stereotypes, and swiftly, but they're still there.

Hell, this is the company that issued an entire _sourcebook_ just for Gypsies, so I don't think that I'm being unreasonable.

So: if there's any place to go crazy with hillbillies, this is it. Except that there's maybe two families of hillbillies in the whole thing, one Bone Gnawer, and one fomori. Apparently, in the interests of - I'm not really sure what - there's not a whole lot of stuff that really stands as a good look at what the residents of Appalachia, hillbilly or otherwise are like. The local flavor gets lost in favor of endless descriptions of Garou, who really aren't much different no matter where you go. There are a few details of what local life is like - a dictionary of slang is useful, for example, as is a single paragraph about Appalachian music. But beyond that, there's only oases in a desert of information that I can't really use. I suppose that my primary complaint comes when I compare it to a similar book, "Return to Dunwich", by Chaosium. Now, Dunwich and Appalachia are miles apart, both in terms of physical distance and situation, but Return to Dunwich gave you what amounted to a holographic look at damned near _everything_ within five miles of the town center. That's not exaggeration, either. Rage Across Appalachia, on the other hand, is full of useful tidbits like so:

"A variety of hardwood trees, including pines, poplars and oaks as well as an abundance of yellow pines provide a rich timber harvest under the auspices of the national forestry management program."

That's not the best way that I can think of to give the reader an idea of what the region is like. That's an unfair example, of course, a quote plucked out of context - but I can't think of a counterbalancing quote to offer as an example of the colorful details of Appalachia. If there are, they're buried underneath the exhaustive history of Appalachia and its development, along with lengthy descriptions of Garou NPCs. Missing, and conspiciously absent, are any details that'll help you set the scene. The descriptions of the area are so general as to lose any use that they might have.

The way that Appalachia itself is viewed is a little skippy, but manages to come off with both viewpoints. It tends to contradict itself at points - Appalachia is portrayed, at least in the World of Darkness, as a place that needs to change, having become stagnant in terms of its development in relation to the outside world. But there's also the viewpoint - from a scholarly book mentioned in the biblography - that Appalachia had its culture partially destroyed when the Tennessee Valley Authority and such moved in - it uses the word "colonial" to refer to what happened, so that's about as seriously as I took it. I was going to complain about the schizophrenic viewpoint until I realized that it let me pick the one that I wanted. That's a good thing.

I've been going through this sourcebook for a while, forcing myself to read some of the thicker paragraphs - and that's a task, which is something that a gaming book really shouldn't be. Even the caerns have their geography and history detailed more than the actual caerns themselves - and that's a bad thing. I wanted to give it a good recommendation at first, and then I realized that 90% of the book is either a lecture on history or economic exploitation, or loving descriptions of the wilderness. Or a description of how the Weaver, Wyld and Wyrm have been carving up the region for the last little while. Not needed either.

As a matter of fact, I can't think of anything in this book that's particularly helpful. The scale of the book is so broad that it loses sight of details that can help shape a game. To wit:

"A number of smaller towns and communities are spotted throughout the mountains of the Blue Ridge. The relative inconspicuousness makes them ideal havens and refuges for various denizens of the World of Darkness. A coven of Verbena in Black Mountain (pop. 5,400) has gifted that community with an increased spiritual awareness while a small Celestial Chorus chantry near Weaverville (pop. 2,100) buttresses the more orthodox "religious" fervor already implanted in the area."

That's the World of Darkness as viewed through a high-power telescope. It's short and concise, which Return to Dunwich was, but it's also colorless, stereotypical, and tells you absolutely nothing that you need to know. What do they look like? Where do they live? How does the rest of the town get along with them? What do their rites look like? Or do we just take the stereotypical Wiccans and throw them into the scenario? And to make things somewhat worse, there's much more time spent on the history and geography of individual caerns than on the caern's status at present. The history goes all the way back to pre-European settlement and works its way from there, doing nothing in the process. Does it matter that the caern used to belong to Fianna Theurges who used to beat off other tribes of werewolves who wanted it open? No. It only matters what the player-characters will encounter. The geography is dull as dishwater as well, consisting mostly of towns and which Garou are watching them. Descriptions of the people at the caern consist of a list of personalities, some listed in the character section, some not. I'll pass, thanks.

The character section has its ups and downs. Some of the characters are fantastic, like Rueben "Earth-Defender" Bruckner, a Quaker who also happens to be a Get of Fenris, and Tarith, who claims to be a Shadow Lord. A particular quote for Rueben Buckner is hilarious, capturing the paradox of a pacifict Get of Fenris perfectly.

Others have personal histories that are unbelievably long. Lisl Eyes-of-the-Forest-and-Knower-of-Forests has a full page of history that goes into waaaaay too much detail about her past, more than needed. You get about fifteen characters for the whole chapter, which isn't enough. The Bone Gnawer hillbillies mentioned on the back cover consist of a single Bone Gnawer, and a vague description of his Kinfolk. That's all. You could milk an entire campaign out of trying to make peace between two warring families of Bone Gnawers, provided that you have enough material - but you won't find it here.

And then there's the Changeling chapter. On this, I can't really wax a whole lot - Changelings don't interest me that much, and I don't have the Changeling 2nd edition. The characters seem more interesting than the werewolves - an Eshu fairy whose mortal seeming is a decidedly non-Arabic travelling folk singer, which breaks stereotype. This is a good thing. But why make this a Changeling book as well? The other Changelings don't fit in too well, besides said folk singer - but then again, I don't play Changeling.(On the bad side, the art gets a little skippy here - the female Nunnehi looks like a Cabbage Patch doll, with huge rosy cheeks and gigantic eyes. Maybe she's supposed to, but it never fails to rub me the wrong way.) Rules for playing Nunnehi are listed here - and I can't really vouch for how good these rules are, since I've seen much more complete rules elsewhere in the Changeling Player's Guide. These seem like pretty good rules for playing the Nunnehi shorthand, including new Bunks, rules for giving Nunnehi character Totems (like the werewolf kind), Camps and so forth. Worth buying for Changeling fans? I would say not, if you already own the Changeling Player's Guide.

There are bright spots. The Black Spiral Square Dancers are an interesting concept; ditto the Bledsons, a family of white trash Fomori. (Who, true to PC form, beat their women and kids, blow things up and probably don't recycle. Urrrrgggh. The Wyrm can always be expected to replicate the same evils as a woman-in-peril made-for-TV film. Enough ranting.) But shortly thereafter, you get more long-distance-telescope version of mages, wraiths, and vampires, none of which spark any ideas. The Raven Mockers, native beasties, seem promising up until you find out that they're just Banes (TM) who have been fed Kindred (TM) vitae (TM). It's a fascinating traditional idea until they're explained away in gamespeak.

The ending adventure is a hunt for a McGuffin - a Croatoan fetish. There's a nice touch here and there, like the song that accompanies one of the characters, and a car chase through mountain roads, but nothing memorable sticks in my mind. Like most White Wolf adventures, the adventure falls below the rest of the source material in the book. So, in the long run, Rage Across Appalachia is on sale for a reason. It's skimpy in the parts that need detail, and longwinded in the places where nobody really asked a question. Asides from a few interesting characters, the book isn't worth any price that you might pay for it. If you do want to run a campaign set in Appalachia, pick a book - any book - out of the library, preferably the interesting "Mountain Voices", which is quoted throughout. Put on Beck's "One Foot in the Grave" and start playing the game, and leave this book on the shelf.

And throw in some hillbillies, while you're at it.

-Darren MacLennan

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Rage Across Appalachia
Author: Jackie Cassada Category: Company/Publisher: White Wolf Publishing Cost: $15 Page count: 160 ISBN: 1-56504-313-8 Capsule Review by Darren MacLennan on 03/16/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Modern_day Historical Horror Gothic	Cecil: Come now, you speak as if they were nothing but a gaggle of slack-jawed yokels. Cletus: Mister Terwillidjer, come quick! There's trouble down to the See-Ment mixer, sir! - "Brother from Another Series", The Simpsons. Taken from http://www.snpp.com Man, I wanted to like this book. I managed to pick it up for half-off at my local gaming store - which should have told me something about the book. Unfortunately, it winds up being about everything except what a GM or player actually needs. I should explain the above quote. One of the things that attracted me to this book, as opposed to "Rage Across Russia", was that I like the backwoods feel of places like Appalachia - I like Louisiana better, but Appalachia seemed much the same. And, of course, the classical stereotype is of the hillbilly - Li'l Abner and Deliverance in equal degrees, salted with enough redneck jokes to sink a small boat. Shameful, but fun. Stereotypes are generally not a good thing. Of course, in White Wolf books alone, there are the Italian gangster Giovanni, the Bruce Lee-esque Akashic Brotherhood and Demon Hunters, the Schwarzenegger-esque Get of Fenris, the feminist Black Furies, the mad scientist Sons of Ether, the mustache-twirling villainous Shadow Lords, the artsy Toreador, Mafia Glass Walkers - like Janeane Garofalo said, "the only thing that's missing is an Eskimo with a harpoon." White Wolf isn't afraid to use stereotypes. It frequently rises above said stereotypes, and swiftly, but they're still there. Hell, this is the company that issued an entire _sourcebook_ just for Gypsies, so I don't think that I'm being unreasonable. So: if there's any place to go crazy with hillbillies, this is it. Except that there's maybe two families of hillbillies in the whole thing, one Bone Gnawer, and one fomori. Apparently, in the interests of - I'm not really sure what - there's not a whole lot of stuff that really stands as a good look at what the residents of Appalachia, hillbilly or otherwise are like. The local flavor gets lost in favor of endless descriptions of Garou, who really aren't much different no matter where you go. There are a few details of what local life is like - a dictionary of slang is useful, for example, as is a single paragraph about Appalachian music. But beyond that, there's only oases in a desert of information that I can't really use. I suppose that my primary complaint comes when I compare it to a similar book, "Return to Dunwich", by Chaosium. Now, Dunwich and Appalachia are miles apart, both in terms of physical distance and situation, but Return to Dunwich gave you what amounted to a holographic look at damned near _everything_ within five miles of the town center. That's not exaggeration, either. Rage Across Appalachia, on the other hand, is full of useful tidbits like so: "A variety of hardwood trees, including pines, poplars and oaks as well as an abundance of yellow pines provide a rich timber harvest under the auspices of the national forestry management program." That's not the best way that I can think of to give the reader an idea of what the region is like. That's an unfair example, of course, a quote plucked out of context - but I can't think of a counterbalancing quote to offer as an example of the colorful details of Appalachia. If there are, they're buried underneath the exhaustive history of Appalachia and its development, along with lengthy descriptions of Garou NPCs. Missing, and conspiciously absent, are any details that'll help you set the scene. The descriptions of the area are so general as to lose any use that they might have. The way that Appalachia itself is viewed is a little skippy, but manages to come off with both viewpoints. It tends to contradict itself at points - Appalachia is portrayed, at least in the World of Darkness, as a place that needs to change, having become stagnant in terms of its development in relation to the outside world. But there's also the viewpoint - from a scholarly book mentioned in the biblography - that Appalachia had its culture partially destroyed when the Tennessee Valley Authority and such moved in - it uses the word "colonial" to refer to what happened, so that's about as seriously as I took it. I was going to complain about the schizophrenic viewpoint until I realized that it let me pick the one that I wanted. That's a good thing. I've been going through this sourcebook for a while, forcing myself to read some of the thicker paragraphs - and that's a task, which is something that a gaming book really shouldn't be. Even the caerns have their geography and history detailed more than the actual caerns themselves - and that's a bad thing. I wanted to give it a good recommendation at first, and then I realized that 90% of the book is either a lecture on history or economic exploitation, or loving descriptions of the wilderness. Or a description of how the Weaver, Wyld and Wyrm have been carving up the region for the last little while. Not needed either. As a matter of fact, I can't think of anything in this book that's particularly helpful. The scale of the book is so broad that it loses sight of details that can help shape a game. To wit: "A number of smaller towns and communities are spotted throughout the mountains of the Blue Ridge. The relative inconspicuousness makes them ideal havens and refuges for various denizens of the World of Darkness. A coven of Verbena in Black Mountain (pop. 5,400) has gifted that community with an increased spiritual awareness while a small Celestial Chorus chantry near Weaverville (pop. 2,100) buttresses the more orthodox "religious" fervor already implanted in the area." That's the World of Darkness as viewed through a high-power telescope. It's short and concise, which Return to Dunwich was, but it's also colorless, stereotypical, and tells you absolutely nothing that you need to know. What do they look like? Where do they live? How does the rest of the town get along with them? What do their rites look like? Or do we just take the stereotypical Wiccans and throw them into the scenario? And to make things somewhat worse, there's much more time spent on the history and geography of individual caerns than on the caern's status at present. The history goes all the way back to pre-European settlement and works its way from there, doing nothing in the process. Does it matter that the caern used to belong to Fianna Theurges who used to beat off other tribes of werewolves who wanted it open? No. It only matters what the player-characters will encounter. The geography is dull as dishwater as well, consisting mostly of towns and which Garou are watching them. Descriptions of the people at the caern consist of a list of personalities, some listed in the character section, some not. I'll pass, thanks. The character section has its ups and downs. Some of the characters are fantastic, like Rueben "Earth-Defender" Bruckner, a Quaker who also happens to be a Get of Fenris, and Tarith, who claims to be a Shadow Lord. A particular quote for Rueben Buckner is hilarious, capturing the paradox of a pacifict Get of Fenris perfectly. Others have personal histories that are unbelievably long. Lisl Eyes-of-the-Forest-and-Knower-of-Forests has a full page of history that goes into waaaaay too much detail about her past, more than needed. You get about fifteen characters for the whole chapter, which isn't enough. The Bone Gnawer hillbillies mentioned on the back cover consist of a single Bone Gnawer, and a vague description of his Kinfolk. That's all. You could milk an entire campaign out of trying to make peace between two warring families of Bone Gnawers, provided that you have enough material - but you won't find it here. And then there's the Changeling chapter. On this, I can't really wax a whole lot - Changelings don't interest me that much, and I don't have the Changeling 2nd edition. The characters seem more interesting than the werewolves - an Eshu fairy whose mortal seeming is a decidedly non-Arabic travelling folk singer, which breaks stereotype. This is a good thing. But why make this a Changeling book as well? The other Changelings don't fit in too well, besides said folk singer - but then again, I don't play Changeling.(On the bad side, the art gets a little skippy here - the female Nunnehi looks like a Cabbage Patch doll, with huge rosy cheeks and gigantic eyes. Maybe she's supposed to, but it never fails to rub me the wrong way.) Rules for playing Nunnehi are listed here - and I can't really vouch for how good these rules are, since I've seen much more complete rules elsewhere in the Changeling Player's Guide. These seem like pretty good rules for playing the Nunnehi shorthand, including new Bunks, rules for giving Nunnehi character Totems (like the werewolf kind), Camps and so forth. Worth buying for Changeling fans? I would say not, if you already own the Changeling Player's Guide. There are bright spots. The Black Spiral Square Dancers are an interesting concept; ditto the Bledsons, a family of white trash Fomori. (Who, true to PC form, beat their women and kids, blow things up and probably don't recycle. Urrrrgggh. The Wyrm can always be expected to replicate the same evils as a woman-in-peril made-for-TV film. Enough ranting.) But shortly thereafter, you get more long-distance-telescope version of mages, wraiths, and vampires, none of which spark any ideas. The Raven Mockers, native beasties, seem promising up until you find out that they're just Banes (TM) who have been fed Kindred (TM) vitae (TM). It's a fascinating traditional idea until they're explained away in gamespeak. The ending adventure is a hunt for a McGuffin - a Croatoan fetish. There's a nice touch here and there, like the song that accompanies one of the characters, and a car chase through mountain roads, but nothing memorable sticks in my mind. Like most White Wolf adventures, the adventure falls below the rest of the source material in the book. So, in the long run, Rage Across Appalachia is on sale for a reason. It's skimpy in the parts that need detail, and longwinded in the places where nobody really asked a question. Asides from a few interesting characters, the book isn't worth any price that you might pay for it. If you do want to run a campaign set in Appalachia, pick a book - any book - out of the library, preferably the interesting "Mountain Voices", which is quoted throughout. Put on Beck's "One Foot in the Grave" and start playing the game, and leave this book on the shelf. And throw in some hillbillies, while you're at it. -Darren MacLennan Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 2 (Sparse)