The Inside Scoop on Gaming

This is the second part of my review of the Enchanted Worlds Starter Kit. If you want to know about the quality of what you get in the box, or what the rules look like on paper, go and have a look at part one. This half of the review will be devoted to what happened when I gathered a group of gamer types and ran them thrugh the scenario provided. I'll divide into two sections: comments on the scenario and comments on the game itself. This isn't by any means a complete review - that's in part one. This is more like a set of endnotes to the first review. With that in mind...

The Game Itself

All of the players were generally pretty satisfied with the basic game mechanism - a simple skill check system. Everyone understood the rules more or less immediately.

The main criticism voiced was of the magic rules: the player who got the part of the mage in the scenario was a little unhappy about the points-inefficiency of magic. I may be misinterpreting the damage rules, but the primary offensive spell of the most combat-oriented mages (the fireball, in essence) does only slightly more damage than a punch in the snoot. In the player's words, it's "an inferior arrow." And it's a heck of a lot more limited than an arrow. Being able to spend half of one's magic points in order to make sure torches don't burn out also seemed kind of unrewarding. If it weren't for scenario-specific reasons (the baddies in this scenario don't like fire), the mage character would have been sidelined.

On the other hand, there are custom spell-creation rules available on the website (www.enchantedworlds.com). Maybe tinkering with them will produce something a little more effective. GMs can always up the damage or decrease the point costs of particular spells as needed - the rulebook is very clear that the spells provided are only suggestions. On the other hand, maybe magic is intentionally being kept low-powered, which is a bit rough on the poor mages, who spend a lot of points to get their spells. My tame rules-abusing player reports that the game tends to reward specialization: pick one skill total and get it up to a monster rating (Dodge or Melee are recommended) and the rest will tend to follow. Perhaps this would have been less true in a less combat-centered adventure.

The Scenario

Everyone agreed that "Autumn Harvest" was a lot of fun. The characters were well-designed, and the scenario was short, to the point, and occasionally quite exciting. While the book recommends setting aside four hours to play it, my group steamed through it in about two and a half.

One complaint emerged about the organization of the scenario. I know that in my last review I gave fulsome praise of the way the inter-character relationships are set up. It turns out that they are rather more difficult to understand when you only get to read one character's background. For example, Parve's background is full of information about how Dreen doesn't like Parve very much. This is not in Dreen's background. This can lead to a lot of confusion of the "why is Dreen being so nice to me?" type. In a less-important example, Dreen's background and Uller's background differ on where they met. I can see it now: "Well, here we are in Greenway. Where's good to eat, Uller?" "I don't know, I've never been here in my life."

Still, I quite enjoyed the scenario and I'm even thinking about paying cash money for the sequel - perhaps taking advantage of New Worlds' Leap Year free shipping offer.

The ratings given below are the ones I gave in part one. These are just a few comments and quibbles to round out the review.

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

Enchanted Worlds Starter Kit
Author: Matthew J. Rodgers and Daniel Price Category: game Company/Publisher: New Worlds Gaming Line: New Worlds Cost: $15 Page count: n/a Playtest Review by James Holloway on 02/22/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Historical	This is the second part of my review of the Enchanted Worlds Starter Kit. If you want to know about the quality of what you get in the box, or what the rules look like on paper, go and have a look at part one. This half of the review will be devoted to what happened when I gathered a group of gamer types and ran them thrugh the scenario provided. I'll divide into two sections: comments on the scenario and comments on the game itself. This isn't by any means a complete review - that's in part one. This is more like a set of endnotes to the first review. With that in mind... The Game Itself All of the players were generally pretty satisfied with the basic game mechanism - a simple skill check system. Everyone understood the rules more or less immediately. The main criticism voiced was of the magic rules: the player who got the part of the mage in the scenario was a little unhappy about the points-inefficiency of magic. I may be misinterpreting the damage rules, but the primary offensive spell of the most combat-oriented mages (the fireball, in essence) does only slightly more damage than a punch in the snoot. In the player's words, it's "an inferior arrow." And it's a heck of a lot more limited than an arrow. Being able to spend half of one's magic points in order to make sure torches don't burn out also seemed kind of unrewarding. If it weren't for scenario-specific reasons (the baddies in this scenario don't like fire), the mage character would have been sidelined. On the other hand, there are custom spell-creation rules available on the website (www.enchantedworlds.com). Maybe tinkering with them will produce something a little more effective. GMs can always up the damage or decrease the point costs of particular spells as needed - the rulebook is very clear that the spells provided are only suggestions. On the other hand, maybe magic is intentionally being kept low-powered, which is a bit rough on the poor mages, who spend a lot of points to get their spells. My tame rules-abusing player reports that the game tends to reward specialization: pick one skill total and get it up to a monster rating (Dodge or Melee are recommended) and the rest will tend to follow. Perhaps this would have been less true in a less combat-centered adventure. The Scenario Everyone agreed that "Autumn Harvest" was a lot of fun. The characters were well-designed, and the scenario was short, to the point, and occasionally quite exciting. While the book recommends setting aside four hours to play it, my group steamed through it in about two and a half. One complaint emerged about the organization of the scenario. I know that in my last review I gave fulsome praise of the way the inter-character relationships are set up. It turns out that they are rather more difficult to understand when you only get to read one character's background. For example, Parve's background is full of information about how Dreen doesn't like Parve very much. This is not in Dreen's background. This can lead to a lot of confusion of the "why is Dreen being so nice to me?" type. In a less-important example, Dreen's background and Uller's background differ on where they met. I can see it now: "Well, here we are in Greenway. Where's good to eat, Uller?" "I don't know, I've never been here in my life." Still, I quite enjoyed the scenario and I'm even thinking about paying cash money for the sequel - perhaps taking advantage of New Worlds' Leap Year free shipping offer. The ratings given below are the ones I gave in part one. These are just a few comments and quibbles to round out the review. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)