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AGONE: Roleplaying in the Twilight Realms Who do they think they are ? There is D&D 3rd Edition on the market and somebody starts another new Fantasy Roleplaying Game ? But wait - its not new - its a translation. From French.

The Rest of the world does have its own Roleplaying systems, which are usually widely popular back home. Some of this success is certainly due to the language barrier - especially for younger gamers. But some of this games are just plain good. One of those is AGONE. In France it has a wide audience and much support, I did not count the supplements in print, but I believe there to be over 20 of them. What's my point: Well this system is proved and tested by a wide audience and it already is popular. Its not a new game.

For the review itself.

General: The Book is hardcover, perfect bound and seems quite sturdy. After a week of flipping through the sides its still in pristine shape - no sides falling out. It has 300 pages with mostly black & white art. 16 color pages with character archetypes are also included.

The Book is structured into four main chapters: World Info, Character Generation, Game Mechanics, Description of Play and a starting scenario.

World Info

The world Harmundia was created by the four Muses. Seeking for perfection, they created a fifth Muse - The Masque. He considered himself superior and tried to bring about the muses downfall. In the ensuing struggle each created extremely powerful beings. In the end one of the two most powerful beings - Nyx, the Night - joined The Masque and the looked like winners. But the muses in a apocalyptic ritual used all the powers of Diurn, The Day and snatched final defeat from his grasp. In return he managed to sever the link between this world and the Spiritcore (some sort of Eden), which meant that the Flames, the souls of the divinely touched, could no longer go full circle. This was all long ago and the muses are in hiding, Diurn nearly dead, Nyx is called The Darken now and has forgotten his past, lording over the Abyss - the nightmare realm of demons. The Flames and their bearers- the Inspired, are being snuffed out and corrupted one by one. When the last of them falls none will stand against The Masque. There are about 1001 of them left - and the Players characters are supposed to be one of them. As such they will play extremely powerful characters - near the peak of their abilities.

The mundane history of the world is then added as more of an afterthought and lacking in some details. The continent and all its countries are given a rundown, some better than the others. Each manages to give some interesting facts and all are quite original. Next comes the description of the The Seasonlings, non-human characters. Most of them are the playable fairy types. Minotaurs, Spriggans, Dwarfs, Ogres, Medusen etc. Two of them are outstanding: Giants (being 5 m tall and incredibly strong) and the immortal Dark Feys. Whatever you think of those races, they are fitting here and you have (thank the creators) some other non-humans than elves, dwarves, orcs and halflings.

Character Generation

As mentioned above you will play one of The Inspired. You are already someone special and most of your live is behind you - no playing a young goof from his small hamlet meeting other goofs in a tavern on the roadside... The chapter gives you assets and faults, skills and character generation points (no random rolling). The usual stuff, fitted with some extras for the world of Harmundia. No big surprises here. The Archetypes at the end of the book are all colorful and vibrant - I like most of them.

Game Mechanics

First the dice rolling conventions. Basically you add up your attribute and your skill , both ranging from 1-10 (for some seasonlings attributes go much higher). Next you roll a 1D10 against a difficulty set by your GM. That's it - easy! Oh one complication crops up, there are open and closed rolls. Usually you will use open rolls - which means a 10 on the 1D10 will allow you to roll another 1D10 and so on, adding all results together. If you came up with a 1 however your additional dice results are subtracted. This system is quite similar to Rolemaster, but you have a 10% chance here of extraordinary success or failure (given the high stats of Inspired, you will not fail by much with just one downward roll). Seems hefty and I would like to know how this works in practice.

Next comes the Magic. Oh boy, this is different. There are two kinds of magic: The Arts, which stem from the muses and has four different aspects. Painting, Sculpture, Music and Poetry. To describe the whole process would be more than this review could muster. Lets just say, the resulting spells are - different. There is given a procedure of making a spell up (which is really difficult, but again you are not playing a beginner and might pull it of). And finally there is a hint of the elder arts, which created artifacts using the four arts. As an example the Pictureworlds are mentioned - paintings you can enter and which contain a small pocket world of the type depicted on the painting.

The Dancers. Oh my, when the ritual of the muses used the energy of Diurn, his life-force fell back to earth, most of it crystallizing into Dancers, 20-30cm large asexual beings with a lot of emotions but low intelligence. One way to work magic is to use the spells (divine powers) these dancers remember. There are three schools to go about this: Love them, Train them and Hate them. The first will beg the dancers, the second will cooperate with them, the last torture them. All are given quite different spell reactions. What all have in common is that the Dancer activates the magic through motion - particularly dancing. There is no way of doing this magic free form and making a spell up. Whew - certainly not the D&D magic. But it is more versatile than it first looks and finally some other way to go about it. Try it and you might love it.

Description of Play

The Enemies (The Darken and The Masque) are pictured here, and all their minions and there special gifts are layed out. Indeed The GM is told what happens if an Inspired is seduced by one of the Dark Sides (yes The darken and The Masque are quite different). So playing a young Darth Vader going down the dark side is as viable as playing Luke. Then tips for campaigns, GM's and players follow - not bad, but not outstanding either. The hints concerning the world are good though - this is a fairy tale like world and the bigger, louder and more colorful your ideas, the better.

Summery and Conclusion

This is about the most original fantasy world I know of. If you like big, earth shattering plots, realms more at home in a fairy tale world than in the usual pseudo-historic fantasy world (yes I do mean Forgotten Realms etc.), creatures of magic and imagination running wild, than this is for you. If not stay away and keep to the usual.

AGONE: Rulebook
AGONE: Rulebook Capsule Review by Andreas Monien on 09/05/01 Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 5 (Excellent!) A most original fantasy world - and its from France. Product: AGONE: Rulebook Author: M.Gaborit and others Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Multisim Line: AGONE Cost: 30 $ Page count: 302 Year published: 2001 ISBN: 2-84476-083-X SKU: n.a. Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Andreas Monien on 09/05/01 Genre tags: Fantasy	AGONE: Roleplaying in the Twilight Realms Who do they think they are ? There is D&D 3rd Edition on the market and somebody starts another new Fantasy Roleplaying Game ? But wait - its not new - its a translation. From French. The Rest of the world does have its own Roleplaying systems, which are usually widely popular back home. Some of this success is certainly due to the language barrier - especially for younger gamers. But some of this games are just plain good. One of those is AGONE. In France it has a wide audience and much support, I did not count the supplements in print, but I believe there to be over 20 of them. What's my point: Well this system is proved and tested by a wide audience and it already is popular. Its not a new game. For the review itself. General: The Book is hardcover, perfect bound and seems quite sturdy. After a week of flipping through the sides its still in pristine shape - no sides falling out. It has 300 pages with mostly black & white art. 16 color pages with character archetypes are also included. The Book is structured into four main chapters: World Info, Character Generation, Game Mechanics, Description of Play and a starting scenario. World Info The world Harmundia was created by the four Muses. Seeking for perfection, they created a fifth Muse - The Masque. He considered himself superior and tried to bring about the muses downfall. In the ensuing struggle each created extremely powerful beings. In the end one of the two most powerful beings - Nyx, the Night - joined The Masque and the looked like winners. But the muses in a apocalyptic ritual used all the powers of Diurn, The Day and snatched final defeat from his grasp. In return he managed to sever the link between this world and the Spiritcore (some sort of Eden), which meant that the Flames, the souls of the divinely touched, could no longer go full circle. This was all long ago and the muses are in hiding, Diurn nearly dead, Nyx is called The Darken now and has forgotten his past, lording over the Abyss - the nightmare realm of demons. The Flames and their bearers- the Inspired, are being snuffed out and corrupted one by one. When the last of them falls none will stand against The Masque. There are about 1001 of them left - and the Players characters are supposed to be one of them. As such they will play extremely powerful characters - near the peak of their abilities. The mundane history of the world is then added as more of an afterthought and lacking in some details. The continent and all its countries are given a rundown, some better than the others. Each manages to give some interesting facts and all are quite original. Next comes the description of the The Seasonlings, non-human characters. Most of them are the playable fairy types. Minotaurs, Spriggans, Dwarfs, Ogres, Medusen etc. Two of them are outstanding: Giants (being 5 m tall and incredibly strong) and the immortal Dark Feys. Whatever you think of those races, they are fitting here and you have (thank the creators) some other non-humans than elves, dwarves, orcs and halflings. Character Generation As mentioned above you will play one of The Inspired. You are already someone special and most of your live is behind you - no playing a young goof from his small hamlet meeting other goofs in a tavern on the roadside... The chapter gives you assets and faults, skills and character generation points (no random rolling). The usual stuff, fitted with some extras for the world of Harmundia. No big surprises here. The Archetypes at the end of the book are all colorful and vibrant - I like most of them. Game Mechanics First the dice rolling conventions. Basically you add up your attribute and your skill , both ranging from 1-10 (for some seasonlings attributes go much higher). Next you roll a 1D10 against a difficulty set by your GM. That's it - easy! Oh one complication crops up, there are open and closed rolls. Usually you will use open rolls - which means a 10 on the 1D10 will allow you to roll another 1D10 and so on, adding all results together. If you came up with a 1 however your additional dice results are subtracted. This system is quite similar to Rolemaster, but you have a 10% chance here of extraordinary success or failure (given the high stats of Inspired, you will not fail by much with just one downward roll). Seems hefty and I would like to know how this works in practice. Next comes the Magic. Oh boy, this is different. There are two kinds of magic: The Arts, which stem from the muses and has four different aspects. Painting, Sculpture, Music and Poetry. To describe the whole process would be more than this review could muster. Lets just say, the resulting spells are - different. There is given a procedure of making a spell up (which is really difficult, but again you are not playing a beginner and might pull it of). And finally there is a hint of the elder arts, which created artifacts using the four arts. As an example the Pictureworlds are mentioned - paintings you can enter and which contain a small pocket world of the type depicted on the painting. The Dancers. Oh my, when the ritual of the muses used the energy of Diurn, his life-force fell back to earth, most of it crystallizing into Dancers, 20-30cm large asexual beings with a lot of emotions but low intelligence. One way to work magic is to use the spells (divine powers) these dancers remember. There are three schools to go about this: Love them, Train them and Hate them. The first will beg the dancers, the second will cooperate with them, the last torture them. All are given quite different spell reactions. What all have in common is that the Dancer activates the magic through motion - particularly dancing. There is no way of doing this magic free form and making a spell up. Whew - certainly not the D&D magic. But it is more versatile than it first looks and finally some other way to go about it. Try it and you might love it. Description of Play The Enemies (The Darken and The Masque) are pictured here, and all their minions and there special gifts are layed out. Indeed The GM is told what happens if an Inspired is seduced by one of the Dark Sides (yes The darken and The Masque are quite different). So playing a young Darth Vader going down the dark side is as viable as playing Luke. Then tips for campaigns, GM's and players follow - not bad, but not outstanding either. The hints concerning the world are good though - this is a fairy tale like world and the bigger, louder and more colorful your ideas, the better. Summery and Conclusion This is about the most original fantasy world I know of. If you like big, earth shattering plots, realms more at home in a fairy tale world than in the usual pseudo-historic fantasy world (yes I do mean Forgotten Realms etc.), creatures of magic and imagination running wild, than this is for you. If not stay away and keep to the usual.

AGONE: Rulebook