Undiscovered : The Quest for Adventure,
This is a fantasy RPG from Eilfin Publishing. I believe this to be a very well done RPG. Stuffed with all types of information on the world of Arkas. Just enough to make it an enjoyable read and not so much as to bog you down, but I get ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning.
The Table of Contents,
At first glance of the Table of Contents you notice 368 pages of information. 268 of those pages are for players (There is another book out that is called the Players Codex, which is 268 pages or so and has only the players rules). That leaves only 100 pages for the "Adventure Guide". Looking more in depth at the table of contents you will see that skills take up about 60 pages of the players rules. Equipment takes up about 11 pages and the rest is taken up by games mechanics and race descriptions.
Character Generation :
Undiscovered : The Quest for Adventure is an unusual RPG in the fact there are no Character Classes to speak of (like Fighter, Mage, Cleric). The game is purely skill based with no class restriction. So if you want to play a sword weilding Mage, by all means do. everything about character creation is put together logically and is relatively easy to follow. I think have quick character generation rules on one page would be a greatly added addition (hint, hint, wink, wink). I think I may work on one, but to continue on. There are several races in this game Human (two types) Alfar (Elves, three types), Dwarves (3 types), Duster ( 2 types), Seraph (only 1 type), Muklag (Suffice it to say Ram men, 3 types), and finally Dracomenscs (think dragon men, 4 types). Lots of choice there. There are Eight Attributes, Strength, Endurance, Intelligence, Spirit, Agility, Manual Dexterity, Charm, and Luck. One of the great things about this game that other games have had a problem conceiving is that every Attribute is used for something logical and in creating a character adds to something else. As an Example D&D3 (which I like also, don't get me wrong) had to create a Sorcerer character to use the Charisma attribute at all. After assigning or rolling your attribute scores you must then go into the meat of the Character Creation process and buy skills. Everything in this game is based around skills, even the magic system (and it is done very well mind you!). Every beginning character starts with a set amount of skill points to buy skills. You must use those points wisely. This is one of the FEW games around where you REALLY have to have a character idea created before generating the character. There are too many options in just skills alone, that if you don't have an idea of what your character is, your character will be overly mediocre, which is not a good thing. Throughout the book and along each step there are character generation examples to help you along, which really eases character creation. They could use a little better organization or possibly a how to create a character page at the beginning of the character generation process, which points you to the proper pages.
Combat : (Yummy!)
Combat is based around offensive and defensive skills. In combat you have an AR and then a DR. The AR stands for Attack Rating and the DR stands for Defense Rating (though throughout the book it is spelled Defence. Don't know if that is intentional or a oops) When attacking you have to roll under you Attack Rating score and hopefully above the Defenders Defence rating score. I won't go into much more detail than that (don't want to give everything away!), except to say that the AR and DR scores are directly related to the skills you pick and your attribute scores. I have played around with combat a bit and it does seem to work quite well. One of the well done aspects of combat is the more offensive skills (weapons) you pick the better you chance of hitting is, which took me a bit to figure out, but the designer pointed this out to me quickly and I saw the error of MY ways.
Magic : (Another Yummy!)
Now here is where the game seems to really stand apart from the rest of the bunch. Again, I am not going to go into much detail, because I do not want to give you the whole system. I would much rather you go out and buy it and keep them in business.
The magic system is again based on the skills you pick and is also point based. Every spell costs a certain amount of points to cast. If you do not have enough spell points to cast a spell....too bad so, so sad, but where it really shines I think is the spell system and just the personality of the system, seems very....well Cool! For Magic using characters there are several different Covens of Magic (think of schools) for the Holy figures there are different types of miracles to bring down from the heavens (which different gods allow you different types of miracle to summon (Again think of schools)). There are also Psionics(which are all mind based). The Spell/Miracle/Psionic system also works like the combat system whereas the more spell/miracle/psionic based skills you get the easier and more spells/miracles/psionics you can cast. One system for all makes it much easier and logical to use.
Adventure Guide info :
I will only slightly cover this area. Not because it isn't important (It very much is!) or not because it isn't worthwhile (again it very much is!), but because it is very detailed and would take another three pages to get in depth with it.
A majority of the Adventure Guide section is the History of the World of Arkas and describing the kingdom and city of Vrod. There is much detail and information in these writings and to be honest it is the only history/background information I have read completely through. I actually kept my interest as much as the rest of the book and that is saying quite alot indeed.
Also there is the Wildlife stats and the Monster Enchiridion (Yeah , I don't know what it means either, but it still looks cool to write.) There is enough in these to sections to populate you world well, though I really like these parts alot and wish there was a tad bit more. Minor I know.
Other Miscellaneous Stuff :
At the end of the book (which is a hardcover mind you) is a blank character sheet which is two double sided pages. Now I am one of those people who really hates ruining the binder of my books, so gladly, if you go to their web page and sign up for a FREE membership, within 24 hours you will be able to download a PDF version of the character sheet (Woo Hoo!). They even have a Web based character generator and a web based village generator (for the Adventure guides) oh yes! Something I forgot to mention before they also have a Monstrous Character Generator i.e, if you want a goblin character or maybe a Centaur. There are several others which I won't ruin for you. They have very good support of this game. I have asked a couple questions about the rules in this game to the designer and he has responded within 24 hours even though he is in Tokyo (Man I wish I was there!)
Summary :
In Summary I would like to highly recommend this game. It is for the most part well written, aside from some possible misspelled words. The system itself is logical and not complicated, which leads to relatively quick combat. Everything seems balanced
GOOD POINTS :
Good Character generation rules
Good skill and spell system
Good personality
Good Art (not touched upon, yet good indeed)
BAD POINTS :
Some spelling issues.
Possible to have better organization with character generation
Could use more wildlife and monsters listed for my preference.
So all in all a very good RPG and I Highly Recommend this to people looking for a good Fantasy RPG. Sure, it has some issues, but what game doesn't. The trick is to have better or more powerful good points than bad points which I think this game accomplishes quite well.
P.S. This is from www.dictionary.com
en·chi·rid·i·on (nk-rd-n)
n. pl. en·chi·rid·i·ons or en·chi·rid·i·a (--)
A handbook; a manual.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)