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This is a good, if flawed, product. There are bits I would award a 4 or even a 5 to, but the flaws pull it down.

For your money, you get the player's ("Heroes'") guide (98pp), a GMs book ("Secrets of the Ancient World, 114pp), a GMs screen (nice to see that packaged with a game for once), three short adventures, and six dice. I'll describe the style, then the substance, then say anything that needs to be said about the individual products.

The two rulebooks and one of the adventures are wittily written in the style of Salmoneus, the enterpeneur from the TV series. Theoretically, the whole game was dreamt up by Salmoneus, unearthed by archeologists, and only translated by West End Games. Whilst the writing itself is entertaining, the layout tries to run with this "framing story" by using scroll backgrounds that are sometimes difficult to read, and in the case of character record sheets, difficult to photocopy. The contents pages are inadaquate, and the index is nonexistant. Rules are occasionally contradictory (do slings use hurled weapons or marksmanship skills?, are hurled weapons more difficult?), and sometimes hard to interperet. The Heroes' Guide is printed on glossy paper throughout, but not the GM's. All in all, it offers a gentle introduction to roleplaying for new RPGers.

The substance is, for the most part, sound. The mechanics seem like they are good and fast paced (perhaps I'll update this review after I've played a few sessions). They rely on a modified dice pool system; you roll a number of dice equal to your skill, and count the successes. Since the game comes with six "special" dice, marked with success and failure symbols rather than pips, this is very quick. The combat system is slightly broken, but easy to fix (the base defense of a character is *either* their range, or their dodge roll, not a combination of the two). Character generation mostly fits the genre, with a few things thrown in to individuate characters. Unfortunately, the treatment of demihuman races and money resemble old Dungeons and Dragons more than the TV series. For example, the entry on Centaurs misses out a very big detail and suggests George Strayton did not even check the online FAQL when researching the series'. West End Games are still not a very wired compan! y. Money is treated in the "Starting characters get 200 coins, and here is the price list" way so beloved of the early 1980s and so absent from the TV.

The whole package, thrown together with stills from the series, seems to be aimed at the youthful side of the market. For instance, they throw in a way of experienced PCs to become demigods that could only appear to powergamers.

The "Hero's Guide" makes it easy and (fairly) quick to roll up a character, partially because of the advice on broad character templates. It includes information on the world background, equipment lists, and a statless summary of some of the stuff in the GM's book. It is also sold separately. I would have liked writeups on more than seven series regulars, and detail on water transport. I suspect they are saving that for a supplement. At least Salmoneus' narration makes no attempt to hide mercentile ambitions.

"Secrets of the Ancient World" contains some sound advice for new GMs, albeit mostly cribbed from the D6 system rules, more detailed writeups (with statistics, for example) on stuff from the player's book, and the combat system. The description of the different areas includes a map that is, since it is written in smudged Greek, of little use. It also contains a certain amount of invention that is unsupported by the series, and may even be eventually contradicted by it. (For instance, their version of Alexander the Great.) Since the point of a GM's guide is to save me from knowing the series backwards, I don't want to have to know the series backwards in order to second guess it.

The GM's screen does its jobs well. It has a variety of tables from the rulebook, and some photos. There are a couple of tables that would be more useful than the photos, but those are minor quibbles. My major concern is that one quarter of the player's side is taken up by a price list. Right next to the proclomation that "If you're not having fun, you're not playing right". In any case, I'm glad they included it in the box.

The three adventures include one solitaire to break new players into the game gradually, and two decent short games. These two both use Gods to appear and tell the players what to do, which is, in my opinion, lazy storytelling. It's also, IMHO, not terribly heroic. I thought the PCs were meant to be standing up to the Gods on behalf on downtrodden humanity.

The game is only really designed for one kind of campaign - low level heroes that get involved with the intrigues of the Gods. Experienced GMs can, of course, adapt it. I know I'm going to, and I expect the result to be a lot of fun.

In short, this is worth buying if you want to run a campaign inspired by the Xena / Hercules TV series. It's unlikely to give you any ideas for other genres, and you are unlikely to run games of that genre as well without it. It also might just get teenage friends and relatives that are fans of the series interested in RPGs.

No role playing games were seriously hurt in the course of this review, but a few house rules are inevitable.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Hercules and Xena Roleplaying Game Boxed Set
Author: George Strayton et alia Category: game Company/Publisher: West End Games Cost: UKP 20 Page count: 98,114,3x16 Capsule Review by Ian McDonald on 06/28/98. Genre tags: none	This is a good, if flawed, product. There are bits I would award a 4 or even a 5 to, but the flaws pull it down. For your money, you get the player's ("Heroes'") guide (98pp), a GMs book ("Secrets of the Ancient World, 114pp), a GMs screen (nice to see that packaged with a game for once), three short adventures, and six dice. I'll describe the style, then the substance, then say anything that needs to be said about the individual products. The two rulebooks and one of the adventures are wittily written in the style of Salmoneus, the enterpeneur from the TV series. Theoretically, the whole game was dreamt up by Salmoneus, unearthed by archeologists, and only translated by West End Games. Whilst the writing itself is entertaining, the layout tries to run with this "framing story" by using scroll backgrounds that are sometimes difficult to read, and in the case of character record sheets, difficult to photocopy. The contents pages are inadaquate, and the index is nonexistant. Rules are occasionally contradictory (do slings use hurled weapons or marksmanship skills?, are hurled weapons more difficult?), and sometimes hard to interperet. The Heroes' Guide is printed on glossy paper throughout, but not the GM's. All in all, it offers a gentle introduction to roleplaying for new RPGers. The substance is, for the most part, sound. The mechanics seem like they are good and fast paced (perhaps I'll update this review after I've played a few sessions). They rely on a modified dice pool system; you roll a number of dice equal to your skill, and count the successes. Since the game comes with six "special" dice, marked with success and failure symbols rather than pips, this is very quick. The combat system is slightly broken, but easy to fix (the base defense of a character is either their range, or their dodge roll, not a combination of the two). Character generation mostly fits the genre, with a few things thrown in to individuate characters. Unfortunately, the treatment of demihuman races and money resemble old Dungeons and Dragons more than the TV series. For example, the entry on Centaurs misses out a very big detail and suggests George Strayton did not even check the online FAQL when researching the series'. West End Games are still not a very wired compan! y. Money is treated in the "Starting characters get 200 coins, and here is the price list" way so beloved of the early 1980s and so absent from the TV. The whole package, thrown together with stills from the series, seems to be aimed at the youthful side of the market. For instance, they throw in a way of experienced PCs to become demigods that could only appear to powergamers. The "Hero's Guide" makes it easy and (fairly) quick to roll up a character, partially because of the advice on broad character templates. It includes information on the world background, equipment lists, and a statless summary of some of the stuff in the GM's book. It is also sold separately. I would have liked writeups on more than seven series regulars, and detail on water transport. I suspect they are saving that for a supplement. At least Salmoneus' narration makes no attempt to hide mercentile ambitions. "Secrets of the Ancient World" contains some sound advice for new GMs, albeit mostly cribbed from the D6 system rules, more detailed writeups (with statistics, for example) on stuff from the player's book, and the combat system. The description of the different areas includes a map that is, since it is written in smudged Greek, of little use. It also contains a certain amount of invention that is unsupported by the series, and may even be eventually contradicted by it. (For instance, their version of Alexander the Great.) Since the point of a GM's guide is to save me from knowing the series backwards, I don't want to have to know the series backwards in order to second guess it. The GM's screen does its jobs well. It has a variety of tables from the rulebook, and some photos. There are a couple of tables that would be more useful than the photos, but those are minor quibbles. My major concern is that one quarter of the player's side is taken up by a price list. Right next to the proclomation that "If you're not having fun, you're not playing right". In any case, I'm glad they included it in the box. The three adventures include one solitaire to break new players into the game gradually, and two decent short games. These two both use Gods to appear and tell the players what to do, which is, in my opinion, lazy storytelling. It's also, IMHO, not terribly heroic. I thought the PCs were meant to be standing up to the Gods on behalf on downtrodden humanity. The game is only really designed for one kind of campaign - low level heroes that get involved with the intrigues of the Gods. Experienced GMs can, of course, adapt it. I know I'm going to, and I expect the result to be a lot of fun. In short, this is worth buying if you want to run a campaign inspired by the Xena / Hercules TV series. It's unlikely to give you any ideas for other genres, and you are unlikely to run games of that genre as well without it. It also might just get teenage friends and relatives that are fans of the series interested in RPGs. No role playing games were seriously hurt in the course of this review, but a few house rules are inevitable. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 3 (Average)

Hercules and Xena Roleplaying Game Boxed Set