This is a roleplaying game with two big challenges to overcome: to simulate the world of Jack Vance's Dying Earth sagas, and to make it playable and fun enough for people to want to join in the experience. These two goals are not easy to mesh together in this case, and it would be a nigh-heroic feat to bridge them. Does the game accomplish this Herculean task? Read on!
THE LOOK
The book itself is an eye-pleasing affair. The text is legible, and it carries the flavor of the Dying Earth stories admirably. The art seems a trifle cartoonish in certain cases, until you realize the rich vein of comedy running throughout the game universe. Then it becomes adequate to projecting the atmosphere, and in some cases, truly excels itself. The pages are glossy and of good stock, and the hardbound cover looks sturdy and durable. Of course, all those things make it a monumental chore to properly photocopy the character sheet at the back of the book, but if you have Internet access and Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can go to Pelgrane Press' website and download a .PDF character sheet so as not to bust your book's spine. And mercifully, for a game based on Vance's work, the writing delivers information succinctly and clearly without losing the florid verbiage of Mr. Vance's works, by itself an impressive achievement.
THE FEEL
This game does an absolutely splendid and elegant job of simulating the Vancian proposition that triumph in the world consists of persuading/bribing the world to your way of thinking.
Rolls consist of one (and only one!) six-sided die. If the roll is 4-6, the action is a success of varying degree, in order from Hair's-Breadth (close, too close!) to Prosaic (good job) to Illustrious (Woohoo!!) If the roll is from 3-1 the action rolled for fails to a varying degree, from (in order) Exasperating (so close!) to Quotidian (oh, well..) to Dismal (oh, s***!) As you see, not much wiggle room between success and failure.
Ah, but the more someone has experience with the action at hand (in this game, simulated by a high Rating/Pool of points,)the more someone can elect to reroll the die until the desired result comes up. Furthermore, points from the appropriate Pool can be spent to counter other's successes in situations where one is struggling or contesting against another, whether for a battle of Ettiquette, an attempt to Persuade versus an atttempt to Rebuff, or counter, persuasion, or an out-and-out Attack versus a Defense.
Yes, in this game, words are treated as weapons, and their best tactical deployment will insure your success moreso than your skill with weaponry. The game mechanics simulate this nicely. Even the monstrous half-men (deodands, pelgranes, erbs, grue) speak the universal tongue, and can be bamboozled by wordplay as well as slain by swordplay. Combat is deadly in this game, with only 4 levels of injury (Normal, Hurt, Unconscious, Dying) separating your character from The Eternal Dirt Repose. Best to combine animal cunning with high-flown elocution as your first response. (In other words, baffle them with bulls*** and then run like hell!)
This primary mechanic, along with Sympathy Points (how the universe/GM views your character's conscious actions and/or your punishment for those actions), the Law of Efficacious Blandishment (snowing the GM into thinking an unrelated Ability/Pool can actually work in a given situation, common sense to the contrary, is allowed and even encouraged), Styles and Trumps (little quirks of approach which advantage you in some ways, disadvantage you in others), and the rules governing magic are all that is necessary (with a few quirks to reflect situational modifications) to play the game. Should be easy to learn and to get the feel for quickly, as I've never met a player above pleading for reasons why his/her character is the exception to one or another of the various rules of any game. And the mechanics, as a bonus, put the most base starting characters on equal footing with the loftiest archmages in certain respects, such that deceiving/maneuvering/eliminating even the physically or magically powerful can be done with the right amount of luck and guile.
The atmosphere of the game, and it's setting, permeates the book to such an extent that it would be difficult to *not* see the world through Vancian eyes and get an idea of how to play characters in it's jaded, decadent, fatalistic, and yet refreshingly angst-free world. Quotes from Vance's work abound, and the game fiction written by others more than passably emulates Vance's tone and style.
Such are it's successes, and it's possible pitfalls.
THE PROBLEM
To be blunt, Vancian characters, with precious few exceptions, do not venture within sighting distance of the term "Hero." The average Dying Earthman is a slave to every vice he can fall to, from arrogance to nitpicking to gluttony to lust to... well, you get the idea. The only limit to their general depravity is the dictates of circumstance, or lack of imagination. Furthermore, the setting is Earth in it's waning days, with a bloated red sun hanging in the sky, constantly threatening to go out. It is widely assumed that anything which could give Earth a new lease on life, or allow humanity a fresh start on another world, or all other grand schemes have already been tried, and presumably failed in one way or another. Thus, the sights of everyone have been lowered into the realm of the petty and largely pointless. Even the archmages, men and women who control the near-omnipotent sandestins (djinn or ifrit-like creatures capable of doing nearly anything, but too lazy or contrary to do so), do not have the power to renew humanity.
The rules of the game enforce this thinking, by having players roll Resistance for each special temptation they encounter (a sizable expense of points for starting characters) and providing the GM with sneaky tips and tricks to have the players' grand schemes come back and haunt them.(No deed, good or bad or indifferent, goes unpunished on the Dying Earth.)
The problem comes with this fatalistic-bordering-nihilistic paradigm clashing so completely with widely held beliefs including faith in progress, hope for the future, the desire to plan ahead, and belief that direct honesty and enlightened altruism (game theory) are the best ways to approach things. To us, the characters of a Vancian world are the polar opposite of heroes, and should be held with contempt rather than with esteem or familiarity. In short, who would want to play these people for an extended period, with their over-polished silver tongues and moral backbones which flatter a Slinky by comparison?
The game attempts to solve this by asking players not to relate to their characters as fully-fleshed human beings, but as fodder for entertainment. Characters advance by being eloquent and amusing in trying circumstances, spouting off selected Taglines (quotes from Vance's work, or quotes that seem as if they should have been from Vance's work) and being enthusiastic in playing their Dismal Failures and the resulting mayhem, not for succeeding in any personal or overarching goal. Asking a player, who has been trained to personally relate to their character, to surrender to Persuasion attempts s/he knows to be ruinous (the *player*, not the *character*, which is an important distinction particularly in this game), as well as gleefully acting out the character's being hoisted on his/her own petard by going with that failed Resistance roll, is a difficult exercise at best, impossible at worst. Here, it is hoped that the player will feel enough distance from his/her unadmirable (not to also imply unlikeable) character to make these exercises less painful and hopefully enjoyable, but a sense of humor and a jaundiced eye towards the character's plight is vital to smooth gameplay.
The game provides some mechanics to encourage this style of play, and also has some rules to turn Dying Earth into a more conventional fantasy setting. While the authors did credible work and valiant efforts in providing these alternatives, the plain and simple fact is that if you cannot master the art of distancing yourself from your character just far enough to enjoy his/her dire straits without losing interest altogether, this is not the game for you, although there are several interesting features in the mechanics that you could swi^H^H^use as inspiration for your own fantasy setting. (It wouldn't be a Robin D. Laws product otherwise!) But if you can, if you enjoy your fantasy mixed with humor and have a cynical ear in regard to humankind's perpetual comedy of manners, and don't mind mixing this with the occasional act of random violence and capricious cruelty, then you should really brace yourself for a novel playing experience and try Dying Earth.
Hell, just buy it for the read, it's that good!
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