It occurs to me, with the perfection of hindsight, that I probably should have known that all my RPG reading this month was somehow going to revolve around religion. As I sit here I have, piled on my computer desk, advance copies of Heaven & Earth 2nd Edition Player's Guide and Game Master's Guide by Guardians of Order, and Veil of Night from White Wolf, all of which are heavily influenced by religious themes. They are, I will say it now, all intriguing books in their own rights and each has something to offer to gamers and game masters looking for a meaty thematic bone to chew.
In my reviews, I shall begin with the Heaven & Earth 2nd Edition Player's Guide.
I admit that I was not familiar with the first edition of the game--it strikes me, upon reading the second edition, that it was probably something that I would have liked...or, at the very least, gazed wistfully at while privately acknowledging to myself that there was absolutely no one in the benighted hole of normality that I dwelt in that would play it with me. Now, I can successfully wave such an item beneath the noses of my husband and siblings and whisper the evil enticement of "Something new!" and achieve dramatic results.
CREDITS
Original Concept by: John R. Phythyon Jr.
Written by: Jeff Mackintosh, John R. Phythyon Jr., and Lucien Soulban
Line Development by: Lucien Soulban
Game Design by: Allan T. Grohe Jr., Matt Harrop, Mark C. MacKinnon, Jeff Mackintosh, John R. Phythyon Jr., David Pulver, Lucien Soulban, David Brandon Sturm
Edited by: Jeff Mackintosh, Lucien Soulban
Editing Assistance by: Mark C. MacKinnon, Karen A. McLarney
Art Direction and Graphic Design by: Jeff Mackintosh
Art by: Andrew Baker, Danny Brenner, Paul Carrick, Jacinto Hernandez, Frazer Irving, Chris Keefe, Rik Martin, Malcolm McClinton, Raven Mimura, Monte Moore, Steve Oatney, David Okum
Playtesters: Deb Behling, Allan T. Grohe Jr., Casey Handl, Matt Harrop, Jon Leitheusser, John R. Phythyon Jr., Jesse Scoble, Gareth-Michael Skarka, David Brandon Sturm, Scott Willems
ISBN 1-894525-26-4
PRODUCT NUMBER 08-001
Heaven & Earth is the newest addition to GoO's Cinematic line of roleplaying games, its first edition having originally been published in a single volume in March 1999 by Event Horizon Productions. Extensively reworked in both system mechanics and conceptual elements (in conjunction with its original concept designer, John R. Phythyon Jr.), it is, according to the Forward in the Player's Guide, intended to be a story-arc driven experience that will fully spool out over five years and a series of supplemental releases that will completely detail the Heaven & Earth universe. Apparently, it was also much- delayed, though I can give a preliminary opinion that any release delays have actually resulted in a solid starting-point product both for roleplaying ingenues and world-weary veterans of the dice wars. Additionally, the new edition of Heaven & Earth is fully Tri- Stat compatible and, as Tri-Stat is one of the easiest mechanical systems to use and customize, this is definitely a plus.
The Heaven & Earth 2nd Edition Player's Guide consists of an Introduction, nine Chapters, a Character Sheet, designer bios, and an Index.
The Introduction is short, sweet, and to the point, setting up the basic premise of the Heaven & Earth universe. It's concise; I appreciate that. I also appreciate that the premise alone would be sufficient to get Jeff Mackintosh, John R. Phythyon Jr., and Lucien Soulban burned at the stake in most of the contiguous United States, so it's probably a good thing that they all, apparently, live in Canada. In the world of Heaven & Earth, God and Lucifer are engaged in a cosmic chess match; the prize is the ultimate victory of one of them. Their board is the Earth; their pawns, and prizes, are the souls of humanity. Whoever collects the most, wins. Of course, there are complications to this simple progression, and that's where the PCs come in. You won't be playing divine or diabolic minions unless your GM is much more addicted to hundred-point Tri Stat spreads than I; you get to be the squishy human weak link that gets caught in the midst of all this celestial skullduggery. Fortunately, you have Someone on your side.
Chapter One: Roles and Characters is the now-ubiquitous How To Use This Book and What A Role Playing Game Is chapter. This one is no worse than any other such chapter in the history of role playing games, and that is all I'm going to say about it.
Chapter Two: Character Creation is where things start getting crunchy--number- crunchy, that is, though an entirely tolerable amount of that. As previously stated, Heaven & Earth uses the basic Tri Stat character generation system, though with a modified conflict resolution method that is discussed in greater detail in the next chapter. All your favorite Attributes and Defects make encore appearances, along with some specifically suited to this setting, and I personally didn't notice any major statistical variations on any of the Cost or Derived Values tables--though I also didn't go looking for any with a fine- toothed comb and a graphing calculator, either. It should be noted that Heaven & Earth is more or less intended to be an average-powered game, to reflect that the PCs are intended to be primarily normal human beings. Variations are possible, but not necessarily encouraged, as this rather diminishes the actual impact of the game's themes.
Chapter Three: Game Mechanics details the specific changes Heaven & Earth makes to the basic Tri Stat conflict resolution system, as well as how to ignore those changes and adjust the system back to baseline. In the modified system, the GM and players don't use dice to determine the results actions, but a normal pack of playing cards--you know, Bicycle playing cards that you can get at your local corner store. I'm not going to get into the crunchy specifics, since having not yet played with it I'm not sure I have an adequate feel for all the nuances, but I am going to say that it doesn't look any more cumbersome than any other method of conflict resolution currently out there. And it's much harder to paper-cut your GM to death over a disputed decision than it is to beat her into a coma with your dice-bag.
Chapter Four: Mules details some of the antagonists/assistants your characters might encounter in their adventures--other human beings who have come in contact with supernatural forces and have, consequently, been severely (*&^ed up by it. This game assumes, pretty amusingly, that neurosis is the only sane response to prolonged contact with divine forces, diabolic forces, or nearly any potent spiritual force in between. Most of these neuroses tend to be rather detrimental to the average "mule's" fellow man. You have been warned.
Chapter Five: Paranormals starts giving a look at those odd human beings who actually go out courting supernatural contact and paranormality, their haunts, their paradigms, and their abilites. In games where the GM allows the players to be somewhat more than human to begin with, this would be the chapter to consult for such PCs little quirks and drawbacks. Paranormals are presented as the 'naturally psychic' sorts of human beings with Abilities such as Channeling and Clairvoyance, gifts that are more or less autonomic functions, though sometimes a bit more willful than something your body does without thought.
Chapter Six: Magicians covers the opposite end of this spectrum, the people who actually venture forth in search of supernatural power and enlightenment, and get themselves and everyone around them into a whole lot of trouble as a result. Character creation rules are included for the truly masochistic.
Chapter Seven: Fate and Destiny deals with two of the core concepts of Heaven & Earth and how they relate mechanically to the Tri Stat rules modifications. As I haven't yet played these rules, I don't feel I can comment totally intelligently on this chapter. However, I do like the idea of the Hand of Fate, in which three of the four card suits are tied to the three Character Stats--Spades to Body, Clubs to Mind, and Diamond to Soul, with Hearts being a sort of wild suit--enough to think it might be worth retaining somehow even if the new conflict resolution system doesn't play as well as it reads.
Chapter Eight: Horror & the Supernatural are, of course, at the heart of Heaven & Earth--horror, surrealism, and absurdity are three of the main moods that game productions are intended to evoke; fate, destiny, and discovery are the three most potent themes. This chapter emphasizes subtlety, which is a good thing; there's quite enough splatterpunk out there on the market already without piling more on top.
Chapter Nine: Potter's Lake gives us a brief overview of a Heaven & Earth game setting: Potter's Lake, Kansas (which could just as easily be called Anytown, Anywhere, since the intent is to allow for an easily customizable environment). Potter's Lake is a small college town in the midwest where everything is just a little...bit...too...normal in the tradition of the better class of horror novels and movies. Future supplements will flesh this out in greater detail as part of the overall Heaven & Earth metaconcept, and the town is somewhat skeletally drawn here, but there is sufficient detail to start with.
THE GOOD: I like the concept of Heaven & Earth--but then I tend to fall hard for games that remind me of books and movies that I love, and I unashamedly loved Seven, The Seventh Sign, The Sixth Sense, and the entire plethora of what I call Lo! The End is NIGH! movies. You know the ones I mean--completely cheesy movies based on dubious Biblical scholarship such as The Prophecy (gimme Christopher Walken playing an angel over Roma Downey any day of the week, sweetheart) and Bless the Child (though I admit I went to see that one primarily for Rufus Sewell being eeeevil in it and to make fun of Kim Bassinger) and Stigmata (which actually had a point about the number of female stigmatics in its end credits). Similarly, I like, and respond well to games that evoke, the sensation of a good horror movie--one of the ones, like the original Poltergeist and the sci-fi horror flick Event Horizon that woke me in cold sweats from my nightmares for weeks after seeing them. Heaven & Earth accomplishes all of these things and comes wrapped in a soothing admonition: don't turn up the power level too high. Keep things cool, calm, subtle. Let the horror creep up and breathe gently on the backs of your player's necks like the lover they've been expectantly awaiting. Check your buckets of gore and your shocking displays of naked squick at the door. Essentially, what this game advocates is returning thematically to a much simpler time, resensitizing your players to the nuances of playing someone who is basically human and is in way over their heads, vulnerable, pitiable, and playable in a different way than a badass completely divorced from human weaknesses. Speaking as someone who dislikes trying to evoke horror from a desensitized audience by pouring more blood, more violence, more gratuitous nastiness on a plot, this lower-key approach is vastly appealing.
I like the Tri Stat system a great deal. It's easy to use to begin with, and easy to customize as well.
Visually, this book is well put together and quite attractive, actually--the cover of the Player's Guide, along with the cover of the GM's Guide, form one whole picture in alternating warm and cool colors. The interior art is primarily good--nothing that made me cringe to have coworkers glancing over my shoulder while reading at lunch, at any rate--and at several points it's rather appropriately evocative. And if the illustrations on pages 8 and 16 don't owe something to Kaori Yuki's Angel Sanctuary I will eat my copy of Angelic Voice, with or without the wasabi. No major typographical errors leapt out at me to throttle awake my sleeping Inner Text Editor; neither did I notice any serious problems with the indexing.
THE BAD: The Tri Stat rules modifications will not be everyone's cup of tea, and that might discourage players and GMs from trying the game. That would be a shame, because it does have the makings of an engrossing line. Additionally, at certain points I felt this book would have benefitted from a bit more explicit detail--I understand the need to maintain a certain sense of mystery in order to keep a player's knowledge seperate from a GM's, but I got an uneasy feeling that some places, particularly the bits about Potter's Lake and some of the other background information, were a bit bit too vaguely worded. That might produce a bit of frustration in players not practiced in reading between the lines or, for that matter, trusting their GM not to screw them with something they didn't know.
THE UGLY: That picture on page 80--it's a post-pubescent Hermione Granger gone horribly, horribly wrong. The potential reaction to this game from anyone who thinks modern religion should be treated with the utmost reverence and never be used in such grimy liesure activities as roleplaying games.
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