The Inside Scoop on Gaming

You spend time waiting for an adventure to flesh out the world. You spend time waiting for an adventure in some vain hope that it'll provide some guidance for how adventures are run in this world. You spend time waiting-- then you spend actual money. You run home, and come to the conclusion-- I was robbed! I was ripped off! Not at gunpoint, but by massive amounts of unmet expectations.

Most of the book is filled with even more background information on the Jovian Chronicles universe (this is starting to seem a little self-involved here), and on characters that seem to be an uneven mix of PCs and NPCs. Upon glancing at the text the first time through I was unsure as to whether the adventure was adaptable to play by original PCs, or if the story better fit these pregenerated PCs. My gut feeling is that the adventure is meant for these pregenerated PCs. So you went to the trouble of creating characters months ago all for nothing because DP9 did it for you.

The adventure itself is a mess, because it consists of locations, and props, which aren't immediately available, but scattered through the book. I guess they felt that it was more important to maintain the integrity of the book as a sourcebook, than as an adventure book. And the various "scenes" in the scenario are mere paragraphs describing what is supposed to happen! Not much here about difficulty levels, relevant skills, etc., just a recounting of what should be happening. This stinks! I buy an adventure not for source material, but because I don't want to have to make up my own. You might like this is you're a very experienced GM, but if you're a beginning GM then you've got a whole lot of legwork in front of you.

This gets an "F." It costs too much for it to deliver so little.

Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 1 (I Wasted My Money)

Jovian Chronicles: Chaos Principle: Original Cinematic Adventure
Author: Wunji Lau Category: game Company/Publisher: Dream Pod 9 Cost: 24.95 Page count: 128 ISBN: 1-896776-24-8 Capsule Review by Scott Shafer on 06/20/98. Genre tags: none	You spend time waiting for an adventure to flesh out the world. You spend time waiting for an adventure in some vain hope that it'll provide some guidance for how adventures are run in this world. You spend time waiting-- then you spend actual money. You run home, and come to the conclusion-- I was robbed! I was ripped off! Not at gunpoint, but by massive amounts of unmet expectations. Most of the book is filled with even more background information on the Jovian Chronicles universe (this is starting to seem a little self-involved here), and on characters that seem to be an uneven mix of PCs and NPCs. Upon glancing at the text the first time through I was unsure as to whether the adventure was adaptable to play by original PCs, or if the story better fit these pregenerated PCs. My gut feeling is that the adventure is meant for these pregenerated PCs. So you went to the trouble of creating characters months ago all for nothing because DP9 did it for you. The adventure itself is a mess, because it consists of locations, and props, which aren't immediately available, but scattered through the book. I guess they felt that it was more important to maintain the integrity of the book as a sourcebook, than as an adventure book. And the various "scenes" in the scenario are mere paragraphs describing what is supposed to happen! Not much here about difficulty levels, relevant skills, etc., just a recounting of what should be happening. This stinks! I buy an adventure not for source material, but because I don't want to have to make up my own. You might like this is you're a very experienced GM, but if you're a beginning GM then you've got a whole lot of legwork in front of you. This gets an "F." It costs too much for it to deliver so little. Style: 2 (Needs Work) Substance: 1 (I Wasted My Money)

Jovian Chronicles: Chaos Principle: Original Cinematic Adventure