This is going to be quite a banner year for fantasy role-playing games despite the nay sayers, who claim that the genre is oversaturated (regardless of the fact that the argument can be made of any genre). Upcoming games such as Children of the Sun from Misguided Games, Hoghead’s release of Nobilis, and the recent release of Deep7’s exquisite Arrowflight are providing (or will provide) countless hours of play to fans of the genre. Pelgrane Press’ relatively newest release The Dying Earth joins the ranks of the "next generation" of fantasy RPGs.
Written by the inimitable Robin Laws, with additional material by John Snead and Peter Freeman, The Dying Earth makes several assertions to its claim as being a complete role-playing experience; these claims are what the book will be judged on. Upon reading through the back cover text, the reader is presented with several assertions that The Dying Earth contains:
Easy, fast-playing rules that encourage creativity
A comprehensive summary of the world’s places, creatures, and magic
Advice on "conjuring a suitable Vancian atmosphere"
Encouraging Creativity Through Ease of Play
Indeed, after reading the first two chapters, it’s apparent that the book does, in fact, contain an easy system for rule adjudication and task resolution. Essentially, anytime the players wishes his character to perform an action he simply roles one six-sided die. If the player rolls a 4 or higher, the character succeeds at the task he was attempting. However, if the player is unhappy with the result, he can spend a point from a relevant ability pool (more on this later) and re-roll the die. This process can be repeated as many times as the character has points in his ability pool.
Additionally, sometimes the character’s degree of success or failure is important and there are six possibly results that range from Dismal Failure to Illustrious Success. Failures impose a "levy" on ability pools by subtracting from the point total (thus lessening your chances of re-rolling a die), while successes can add a "boon" to ability pools. These boons and levies can also be utilized by GMs as difficulty modifiers for especially easy or challenging tasks.
Character generation is also a streamlined process that allows players to craft engaging, three-dimensional characters rich with possibilities. Depending on the style of campaign a GM wishes to run, characters can be built around three levels: Cugel, Turjan, or Rhialto, which confer 60, 100, or 160 points, respectively, upon which to build a character. Incidentally, the character levels are named after characters from Vance’s Dying Earth stories. Corresponding to these point allotments are ability caps, which determine the highest "normal" rating any ability can have.
After the point total has been determined, the players are walked through 12 additional steps with which they further flesh out the character. As noted in Step Three, the most important ability a character possess in a Dying Earth game is his ability to persuade other characters into doing what he wants. In fact, Vance’s characters are primarily defined by this ability, as the milieu in which his stories occur is a harsh place with equally unscrupulous individuals prone to backstabbing, intrigue, and hoodwinking. Players are required to choose from six different "styles" of persuasion, which range from eloquence to Charm to Intimidation.
Fundamentally speaking, most of a character’s abilities are described by the use of distinct, quantifiable labels. For instance, a character’s ability to fight effectively can be described as Cautious (the character typically chooses to hang back and wait for the opponent to exhaust himself before taking advantage of his weakness; Ferocious (rage forces an opponent to fight on the characters terms); or with Finesse (allowing the character to anticipate and counter likely maneuvers). The next four steps (6-9) are also defined in this way, helping to determine how the character dodges attacks, how he uses a weapon, and whether he wields magic and in what fashion.
The next steps are summarized as follows:
Step 10 requires the player to choose skills for the character, but instead of assigning a labeled trait to them, the player assigns points as normal; these points determine how often the character can re-roll a 1D6 when used in task resolution. Step 11 determines who the character knows, Vancian personages who can come to the character’s aid. Step 12 allows a player to choose his character’s possessions by spending two free "possession points" (beginning possessions are provided under this step). Step 13 is relegated to the higher campaign levels (Turjan and Rhialto) and determines the type of "retainer" the player can command during the course of his adventures. These retainers are Game Master Characters (GMCs) in the employ of the character and obey instructions depending on how obedient they are. Lastly, Step 14 determines how well a character resists one of six temptations that range from arrogance, to indolence, to rakishness.
In summary, character creation in The Dying Earth is rather simple, if not a bit time consuming, simply because there are so many varied choices a player can make before settling on a character that is "just right." In and of itself, however, this isn’t a bad thing—when all is said and done, the player will have a solid foundation with which to build a detailed, personal history for his in-game persona. This is something many games overlook when they "force" the player to quantify their characters with cookie-cutter ability scores as opposed to giving them tools that determine a personal ethos.
The actual methods that The Dying Earth utilizes for rule adjudication are as varied as those for creating characters. Rules for utilizing persuasion and rebuff techniques are described, as are each of the persuasion style benefits. Combat is also easy to use, although the rules state that such adverse situations should be avoided at all costs if the game is to hold true to Vance’s works. Depending on the style of attack the player chose during character creation, the outcome of such attacks differs. For instance, if the player chose the Caution style of attack, the character gets a boon of 1 every time he holds back, and an additional boon is granted if the character makes a Perception roll to spot a hidden danger.
A Comprehensive World
Chapters 5, 6, 10, 11, and 12 (magic; spells; locations; NPCs; and creatures, respectively) describe the world and fundamental theories in which adventures are to take place.
With regards to magic, there are three types of magicians in The Dying Earth: dabblers, those with a rudimentary understanding of magic; magicians, those who fully embrace the path of magic; and arch-magicians, individuals that posses vast amounts of power and can command sandestins, otherworldly entities that assist in the working of magic. Again, stylistic levels determine an individual’s style of magic. For instance, those who are Studious see magic as an "unending academic project," while those who are Devious choose to use magic to "put one over on reality" by fooling others with trickery and deception. Additionally, there are four types of magic available to characters: cantraps, the least effective but more widespread; spells, specific defined sets of instructions; enchanted items; and the aforementioned sandestines.
The one area where The Dying Earth fails to deliver on its claim is that one does not "need to know about Jack Vance’s work to play." In some cases this is true, as evident in the character generation system. Unfortunately, this is not the case with regards to the miniscule amount of world background contained within the book—a measly 8 pages are devoted to describing the obviously rich world of The Dying Earth. After reading the brief location descriptions, the reader will no doubt be left with a tiny sketch of what life is like in Vance’s world. For instance, if GMs wish to establish a campaign in Great Da Forest, Lumarth, Azenomei, or Torqual, he’ll be hard pressed to find anything worthwhile with which to design a living, breathing, and persistent world for the players to adventure in. This is a case where, in fact, both the GM and players would do well to read at least the first book (The Dying Earth) in Jack Vance’s series.
Advice is key
Two chapters are devoted to giving both players and GMs advice on how to play a game of The Dying Earth. The chapter on player tips does an admirable job of advising players on how to portray suitable Vancian characters, tips for surviving the hazards of adventuring in Vance’s world, and how to improve a character. The most interesting aspect of this chapter is the use of "taglines" that each player can use to gain additional Improvement Points during a game. Before a session beings the GM passes out a number of taglines to each player, which consist of a line of dialog taken directly from Vance’s novels. Characters are rewarded for using taglines at appropriate moments in the game. The more appropriate the use of a tagline is to the current situation, in addition to its "entertainment value" during play, the more Improvement Points the character will gain at the end of the game. More than 70 are provided in the book, with more promised to appear in future supplements.
The GM’s chapter contains much of the ubiquitous advice as found in others of its type, but The Dying Earth also contains information specific to portraying characters and handling situations as one would expect to find in a Vance novel. How to handle "crafty swindles," weird magic, heated debates amongst characters, and alternate tagline rules are found alongside useful information on how to dole out justice to deserving characters.
As was hopefully illustrated in this review, The Dying Earth does, more or less, deliver on its promises of delivering potential players with a system that is easy to use and one that provides players and GMs with a wealth of information on how to capture the feel for a Vancian-style adventure. Unfortunately, the game does sacrifice setting in favor of rules. And while there is suitable enough information on how to "run" a game of The Dying Earth, there are precious few tidbits on just where to set one.
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