The Inside Scoop on Gaming

When I first picked up this book, I had no idea what to expect. Well, that's not true... I expected a long list of standard magical lore, as oft seen in many a rulebook. Hoo boy. This book is a weird one.

To go over what it covers, it has sections on African Spirit Magic, Biogenetics (psychic magic), Celtic Magic, Chinese Magic, an alchemic framework they call Gramarye, Occultism, Magical Items,and finally Magical Adventures. Everything is "set" in FUDGE terms, which means its largely system-less, in a good way. It's very clear to understand most of the specifics, making this useful for any system.

To a large degree, what this book is, is a way to add magical bits that aren't in your current genre, to your current game. Say you're running D&D, for example. Well, pop in this book's Occultism and suddenly you've added Call of Cthulhu. As a genre-mixing book, it has a lot of fun possibilities. Were I to criticize it, it would be for sometimes being overly broad in half its details, then very detailed in others. For example, Occultism (yes, it's a favorite topic of mine) covers Sanity and the broad strokes of fitting Lovecraftian ideas into a magic system, then leaps into specific talismans. I would have enjoyed a middle ground, in some form or another. As it stands, it paints broad strokes than gives you "love it or leave it" details.

In conclusion, I would say that this book is well worth getting if you want to add some historical or classical magic to your world-- any world. It provides a nice set of systems and, really, worldviews. If you use this and things take off, you can then go research the topic some more, but as a general primer it's very good.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

A Magical Medley
Author: (many) Category: game Company/Publisher: Grey Ghost Games Cost: $19.95 Page count: 128 ISBN: 1-887154-02-7 Capsule Review by Sandy Antunes on 10/27/97. Genre tags: none	When I first picked up this book, I had no idea what to expect. Well, that's not true... I expected a long list of standard magical lore, as oft seen in many a rulebook. Hoo boy. This book is a weird one. To go over what it covers, it has sections on African Spirit Magic, Biogenetics (psychic magic), Celtic Magic, Chinese Magic, an alchemic framework they call Gramarye, Occultism, Magical Items,and finally Magical Adventures. Everything is "set" in FUDGE terms, which means its largely system-less, in a good way. It's very clear to understand most of the specifics, making this useful for any system. To a large degree, what this book is, is a way to add magical bits that aren't in your current genre, to your current game. Say you're running D&D, for example. Well, pop in this book's Occultism and suddenly you've added Call of Cthulhu. As a genre-mixing book, it has a lot of fun possibilities. Were I to criticize it, it would be for sometimes being overly broad in half its details, then very detailed in others. For example, Occultism (yes, it's a favorite topic of mine) covers Sanity and the broad strokes of fitting Lovecraftian ideas into a magic system, then leaps into specific talismans. I would have enjoyed a middle ground, in some form or another. As it stands, it paints broad strokes than gives you "love it or leave it" details. In conclusion, I would say that this book is well worth getting if you want to add some historical or classical magic to your world-- any world. It provides a nice set of systems and, really, worldviews. If you use this and things take off, you can then go research the topic some more, but as a general primer it's very good. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

A Magical Medley