The Inside Scoop on Gaming

What an idea for a game...and just what is it with pirate games lately? Mixing furries and pirates just sounds like a bowlful of sloppy fun...unfortunately the idea sounds better than the execution. I cannot complain about the historic background, which is wonderfully done. There are loads of campaign and scenario ideas, plus an extensive list of NPCs and geographic information. This stuff is very good!

What I don't like about this game is the system. In this game its called the "Halogen" system. Now what is the Halogen system? What does that stand for? Personally I'm getting a little tired of named systems. It started with Chaosium's Basic Role Playing system (still the best on the market), went to GURPS...but now we've got DP9's Silhouette, the Icon system for Star Trek (Icon?), etc. I have no idea what Halogen stands for, but I know that if I see it on another product I probably won't pick it up. Though if Halogen means meaty historical and adventure information then I'll be forced to buy a copy anyway. The system works in some ways...I like the spread of characteristics, but I don't like the way skills are rolled for (this may be because there are precious few examples in the book). In this game an attacker has a certain skill level (which can be negative at high skill levels), this is added to the defenders skill level to generate a score which the attacker must then beat. Its a clever idea in practice, but they needed to use more room to flesh this out...room which is chock a block full of cool background information.

I must also admit that I didn't particularly care for the magic system either...though my disagreements more arise with how the various types of magic are broken down (a theological...no a thaumaturgical disagreement).

You can be a cat, dog, wolf, elephant, whatever type of anthropomorphic fancy which strikes you...but be warned that the only difference between the different species is weight. Elephants are bigger than cats. I would have liked to see a few more ways of breaking down the differences between the species.

For $23 you get a hefty book of which around half is system, and the rest is background. This is very good background material, and I believe that this material is of such a high quality that I would give this product a "B." Hook this material to your favorite system and run. Your money would be well spent on this book!

One question haunts me though...what do these furries eat? Do the carnivorous furries...never mind.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Furry Pirates
Author: Lise Breakey and Bruce Thomas Category: game Company/Publisher: Atlas Games Line: Furry Cost: 22.95 Page count: 176 ISBN: 1-887801-72-3 Capsule Review by Scott Shafer on 05/31/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Historical	What an idea for a game...and just what is it with pirate games lately? Mixing furries and pirates just sounds like a bowlful of sloppy fun...unfortunately the idea sounds better than the execution. I cannot complain about the historic background, which is wonderfully done. There are loads of campaign and scenario ideas, plus an extensive list of NPCs and geographic information. This stuff is very good! What I don't like about this game is the system. In this game its called the "Halogen" system. Now what is the Halogen system? What does that stand for? Personally I'm getting a little tired of named systems. It started with Chaosium's Basic Role Playing system (still the best on the market), went to GURPS...but now we've got DP9's Silhouette, the Icon system for Star Trek (Icon?), etc. I have no idea what Halogen stands for, but I know that if I see it on another product I probably won't pick it up. Though if Halogen means meaty historical and adventure information then I'll be forced to buy a copy anyway. The system works in some ways...I like the spread of characteristics, but I don't like the way skills are rolled for (this may be because there are precious few examples in the book). In this game an attacker has a certain skill level (which can be negative at high skill levels), this is added to the defenders skill level to generate a score which the attacker must then beat. Its a clever idea in practice, but they needed to use more room to flesh this out...room which is chock a block full of cool background information. I must also admit that I didn't particularly care for the magic system either...though my disagreements more arise with how the various types of magic are broken down (a theological...no a thaumaturgical disagreement). You can be a cat, dog, wolf, elephant, whatever type of anthropomorphic fancy which strikes you...but be warned that the only difference between the different species is weight. Elephants are bigger than cats. I would have liked to see a few more ways of breaking down the differences between the species. For $23 you get a hefty book of which around half is system, and the rest is background. This is very good background material, and I believe that this material is of such a high quality that I would give this product a "B." Hook this material to your favorite system and run. Your money would be well spent on this book! One question haunts me though...what do these furries eat? Do the carnivorous furries...never mind. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 3 (Average)

Furry Pirates