The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I must admit, I have a certain bias towards games set in settings I adore. I loved the video game Dark Forces 2 simply because it was Star Wars, while despising other admittedly better first person shooter games.

That having been said, I adore Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. Great series and though it is on book 9, still manages to enthrall me, and it seemed natural to me that someone would eventually create an RPG set in the world.

Charles Ryan and WOTC took up the challenge, and did a reasonable overall job of it.

First the good points.

I liked the magic system. Although powered down somewhat, it still makes characters who can channel nasty to deal with, as they should be. The lower power than in the books can be layed at the altar of character balance, so I can live with that. The flavor of the channeling rules is good though.

Combat is the D20 DnD system. Exactly the same. Not a bad combat system, it gets the job done quickly and efficiently, especially if one focuses on storytelling instead of hack and slash roleplaying.

The character classes are all fairly well balanced. The two channeling classes are, in my opinion, still more powerful overall than everything else, but that is to be expected in the world, and at lower levels the disparity isn't noticeable.

The power level of the game is lower than standard DnD. The classes are weaker, so importing DnD classes and prestige classes may require a bit of tweaking, or they will overpower the other classes.

The bad points.

Mostly in regards to the flavor of the book. The stats and descriptions of the main characters in the book seem wildly inaccurate. Granted, it's hard to transfer over characters into an RPG when in the book they accomplish everything, but I've seen much better and more accurate home brewed stats on the net.

Two of the classes are under powered in my opinion relative to what they should be able to accomplish (The wanderer and the Algai’d’siswai) and have been tweaked by me to be more true to the book.

The other problems I have are as the game directly relates to the books. If you haven't read the books or don't care about the flavor of the world, it doesn't matter, if you do they are easily fixed with the plethora of homebrew rules on the net.

The last problem is that there is an awful lot of typos and things left out of the first edition which are fixed on the faq, so it might behoove one to wait until the second printing when presumably they will be fixed.

All in all a good start at a Wheel of Time RPG, sometimes sacrificing accuracy for playability (in theory at least), but overall quite good.

Wheel of Time RPG
Wheel of Time RPG Capsule Review by Mike Klassen on 03/01/02 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty) Good, accurate magic system DnD combat system makes for good RPG. Accuracy to the world in the books suffers though. Product: Wheel of Time RPG Author: Charles Ryan Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Line: D20 Cost: 39.95 (U.S) Page count: Year published: 2001 ISBN: SKU: Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Mike Klassen on 03/01/02 Genre tags: Fantasy	I must admit, I have a certain bias towards games set in settings I adore. I loved the video game Dark Forces 2 simply because it was Star Wars, while despising other admittedly better first person shooter games. That having been said, I adore Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. Great series and though it is on book 9, still manages to enthrall me, and it seemed natural to me that someone would eventually create an RPG set in the world. Charles Ryan and WOTC took up the challenge, and did a reasonable overall job of it. First the good points. I liked the magic system. Although powered down somewhat, it still makes characters who can channel nasty to deal with, as they should be. The lower power than in the books can be layed at the altar of character balance, so I can live with that. The flavor of the channeling rules is good though. Combat is the D20 DnD system. Exactly the same. Not a bad combat system, it gets the job done quickly and efficiently, especially if one focuses on storytelling instead of hack and slash roleplaying. The character classes are all fairly well balanced. The two channeling classes are, in my opinion, still more powerful overall than everything else, but that is to be expected in the world, and at lower levels the disparity isn't noticeable. The power level of the game is lower than standard DnD. The classes are weaker, so importing DnD classes and prestige classes may require a bit of tweaking, or they will overpower the other classes. The bad points. Mostly in regards to the flavor of the book. The stats and descriptions of the main characters in the book seem wildly inaccurate. Granted, it's hard to transfer over characters into an RPG when in the book they accomplish everything, but I've seen much better and more accurate home brewed stats on the net. Two of the classes are under powered in my opinion relative to what they should be able to accomplish (The wanderer and the Algai’d’siswai) and have been tweaked by me to be more true to the book. The other problems I have are as the game directly relates to the books. If you haven't read the books or don't care about the flavor of the world, it doesn't matter, if you do they are easily fixed with the plethora of homebrew rules on the net. The last problem is that there is an awful lot of typos and things left out of the first edition which are fixed on the faq, so it might behoove one to wait until the second printing when presumably they will be fixed. All in all a good start at a Wheel of Time RPG, sometimes sacrificing accuracy for playability (in theory at least), but overall quite good.