The Last Exodus

The Interactive Story-Arc of the Third and Last Dance
http://www.lastexodus.com

Okay... it's been a while since I've bought any gaming book on impulse. Cash is just too short these days. The Last Exodus was an impulse buy, and I'm not at all sorry for it.

Expectations:

After passing on In Nomine, skimming over "Providence" and fearing the upcoming White Wolf game "Demon: The Fallen", I didn't have high hopes for this game. Religion can be such touchy subject. I'm sure it will touch a lot of nerves and get people all jumpy. I'm sure it's already done that.

Premise:

The Second Coming of Christ happened in 1981. She was killed in 1995. The world rolled on, more concerned with the OJ Simpson trial than the ethnic cleansing in Croatia. As scions of the Original God (Ahura Mazda) or the GODHEAD (Ahriman--Lucifer’s' creation brought to term from GODs own genetic material) you are fighting a war. Ahura Mazda wants to rescue all the worthy people that can be found and have them brought into Eden. Ahriman wants to lead an army into Eden and make it unto a hell. It's up to you, as a Scion, to pick whomever you think is able to do the job.

Certainly, it is an ambitious approach. It's a game that can be easily scaled to suit nearly any style of game-play from outright bloodshed to political maneuvering.

Appearance:

The book is an oversize soft-cover that's sure to stand out among the other gaming books on the shelf. But if you're one of those people who expect the standardised book-size for your nicely lined-up bookshelf... this will throw a kink in the works. But because the book is a soft-cover... I'm already getting the feeling the cover isn't going to stay attached to the binding for very long. And I've only owned the book for two days. But then, hey, I paid only $25.00 Canadian for it...

The cover grabbed me. You've got a nude stigmatic woman with a rather heretical tattoo on the cover. She is tastefully done, though. It convinced me to at least pick the book up--despite the fact that I couldn't understand what the title said. The title is written in a stylised font that doesn't lend itself to immediate legibility. I think it's vaguely reminiscent of some manga fonts, but I don't know. More than that, the res a lot of outline fonts watermarked behind hte title that only served to confuse me.

I picked it up; I put it down again. I couldn't tell whether it was a role-playing game (for all that it had been put in the RPG section of the store), or a novel with heavy graphic support. But there is some awesome artwork within. So I figured I'd give it a shot. If I were at least mildly entertained, I'd be happy. I did much of my initial read in a coffee-shop, and I was acutely aware of making efforts to keep the cover hidden so as not to offend the girl sitting at the table next to me... Didn't want to offend the particularly conservative, after all.

Layout
The layout is a non-standard three-column layout with core text filling the inner two columns on each page. The outside column is used for graphics and interjections by the books' narrators. This is the standard, but the designers make all sorts of exceptions. Throughout the book, interruptions to the central text-flow are repeatedly made, linked to an emboldened keyword located somewhere on the page-spread. It's a wonderful idea, but my biggest gripe is that the interruptions obstruct the flow of the core text too much. The interruptions take up two columns, and often leave small islands of text that appear disconnected when they aren't. It's a layout issue, and as such, is pretty minor.
Some of the sections are beautiful (particularly the pages dealing with the Millennial Religions, where layout and graphics work wonderfully together), while other sections encourage confusion (particularly the Narrators introduction and history sections). When they strike a consistent, layout, it works beautifully. Consistency helps the reader follow along and helps to assimilate related information. With a really busy layout, it takes longer to absorb the pertinent information. I think the designer was just trying too hard. They did an excllent job, but they went a little over-board.

Formatting and Grammar
There are some formatting issues in Advantages/Disadvantages - probably from imported text to layout program--forgotten headings and the like. Consequently, there are no values associated with "Agnostic (Coil Spiritual Disadvantage -3), "Off-road Vehicle" and "Car" (Coil Other Advantages, both worth 2), "Filthy Rich (Coil Variable Dis/Advantage). This is the kind of thing I'm seeing more and more of in published game books. White Wolf, for instance, went through a phase where they were particularly bad about misspellings (some that do and some that shouldn't pass the spell-checker).

Table of Contents and Index
The Table of Contents is one of the busiest pages in the entire book. I'd like to see it without the watermark images on the background. So much of it would be clear and accessible without that distraction. That being said, the Table of Contents is quite functional and useful. And Sweet Jesus! They have s functional Index! I am so piqued at the number of game books out there that don't have either. A plea to the developers--Please, if you're going to put out more material for this, please make plans to include one or both of the Table of Contents or Index in anything else that gets put out. It makes so much of a difference to the Director.

Content:

The book is broken down into five sections: Meta-Game elements, History, World, Characters, and System. The flow is fairly logical and straightforward. There are occasional kinks and confusions, but they are, for the most part, minor.

Meta-Game Elements
I'm a little curious about the inclusion of the meta-game elements in here. This game strikes me as a game targeted more towards gaming veterans or at the very least, those with some gaming experience. Yet, the discussion of what a Director is, who players are and what an "Interactive Story Arc" is seemed a little out of place. I think it might be that the developers felt it was necessary to try to make the material accessible to those who would be brand new to gaming... Thankfully, this section is small and easily skipped. If you're not new to gaming, you can just as easily skip this section.

History
Now... If you're deeply religious, or have a problem with revisionist history, this isn't the game for you. The history section alone would probably upset you. This is a view of history that highlights the creation of the GODHEAD (Ahriman, Lucifer's attempt to recreate GOD), and the subsequent creations of the Christ figure, the Antichrist figure and the start and progression of the war between the Heavenly Host and the Infernalists. Take what you know and put it aside. It doesn't really apply here. This is fiction, after all. Even if it does use heavily symbolic figures.
The history only runs twelve pages, so it's not too deep or too dense. But it does a good job at presenting both sides of this war as human, fallible and intellectual, emotional and spiritual beings.

World
Eden is the other-side... the spiritual counterpart that coexists beside physical reality. Or rather, in the same place... And Eden itself isn't the garden of the bible... it's the name for all the localised islands of fantasy lands... Camelot, Samarkand, Oz, Xanadu. Several of these lands are covered in brief--both the promised lands and the Fallen Realms, such as Abbadon and Gehenna. The light beside the dark. Each realm is accessed by certain breaches located across the earth. Camelot, for instance, is usually accessed in Britain...

Characters
Primary stats are divided amongst Mental, Physical, Spiritual and Cultural proficiencies. Character creation is a little confusing. It's doable with some patience, though. You develop stats for your mortal coil (the flesh side) and your deiform (your spiritual side). This is similar in many ways to creating the Stalker in The Whispering Vault, though with the setting being firmly entrenched in the modern or very-near future, it doesn't seem likely that the character will reincarnate into the present if he dies (Unless your GM is willing to entertain a non-linear reincarnation model).
I would like to have seen a sample character go through the character creation process, as there are some areas where I stumbled upon creating the character.
The fact that they give a preview of the process, then don't follow the same process precisely in subsequent text threw me for a loop. I kept looking for a section referenced in the overview as "Determine Deiform Bonuses" (after determining the four Qualities - primary stats), but couldn't find it. Also, there's reference to choosing Communions, but the appropriate section is entitled, "Miracles."
I think that when I run this game, I'll probably run character creation a little differently from their published flow, creating Qualities, Coil and Deiform stats and proficiencies first, then go on to deal with Religion, Soul Order (in one step, not two) and Advantages/Disadvantages afterwards. But I think this is probably personal taste. There's nothing wrong with doing it the way they've got it lined up. It just makes more sense to me to worry about affiliations and powers after I've created the base stats.
I particularly like the system of checking and balancing in the Advantages/Disadvantages section. You buy advantages for the mortal coil by loading up on disadvantages for the spiritual deiform. Likewise, you pay for the deiform's advantages with disadvantages for the mortal coil. I haven't played it yet, but it makes a certain amount of sense. You could create some wonderfully poetic characters here--having a phenomenally adroit orator in the physical world be a near senseless mute on the Eden-side.

System
The system, called "Vegas Rules" is a streamlined conflict-resolution engine that uses one (or more) deck(s) of standard playing cards shuffled for randomness to determine results. It's a pretty standard set of adding together the appropriate base stats, proficiencies and the pulled card and comparing the result to the Director's target difficulty. Come up with less than the difficulty, you fail; more, you succeed. The gap between the two numbers determines the severity of the success or failure. The System section is pretty slim, but this is a system much more adapted towards theatrical play then rules-lawyering. Or at least, I'd play it that way.

Character Creation:

So, I decided I wanted to create a character to see what I could do. I had a concept in mind--Something based partially on Andrew Vachss' popular criminal hero, Burke (I was quite pleased to see Andrew Vachss listed among the inspirational sources at the back of the book--after I'd gone through the process). I wanted someone who was a criminal who hunted criminals, a physically capable person who spent more time thinking things through than acting on impulse. I wanted someone who, despite the trappings of his social level and his past, had access to an elevated level of serenity. To my pleasant surprise, the system was more than adequate to model him to my satisfaction, and the advantages/disadvantages brought out elements in him that I hadn't thought of before but that suit him perfectly.

Expansion Possibilities

It's always nice when the developers encourage the introduction of new elements into the game. There's great room for expansion. A number of other religions, scion affiliations, and promised lands came to mind as I read through... And I'll probably go ahead and write a few up for my own entertainment.

Conclusion:

Things I liked

Mature theme
Dealing with Religion in an adult manner, without appearing to intend any offence.
Realistic Characters - the Apostles on both sides are human in temperament and motivation
Some of the graphics
The potential to play a truly evil person with real, understandable motivations (not just being evil for being evils sake)
Use of the Promised Lands and Fallen Realms - great for Mythological echoes

Things I don't like

The Meta-Game elements
The business of the title font
The occasional conflict of watermark graphics with text and graphics
Some of the graphics

The astute reader will notice that the things I don't like are mostly cosmetic. That's pretty telling.

As an initial offering, this is an excellent piece of work. I look forward to reading more from this line.