The Inside Scoop on Gaming

What is Guildes : El Dorado ?

The game (published in 2000) is a sequel to Guildes : la Quête des Origines (Guilds : the Quest for Origins, published in 1996), another game from Multisim. Let's call the games GED and GQO, for short, and it looks better than "2nd ed" and "1st ed".

a note : at the same time Guildes : la Quête des Origines was published, Multisim also published a beautiful collectible card game based on the setting. It was not extremely successful (and a bit complicated) ; many of the card illustrations (and design) were recycled for a recent critically-acclaimed card game : Citadelles, designed by Bruno Faidutti and available in English from Fantasy Flight as Citadels (there's a review on rpg.net).

Warning
This review is about Guildes : El Dorado (Guildes second edition). People who'd like to play the game won't find many spoilers down there (I've put them in a black box, in case you want to keep a fresh eye on the setting).
Anyway, my review is full of spoilers for those who want to play Guildes : la Quête des origines (Guildes first edition) and its campaigns. You're warned.

What does "Guildes" means ?
It's "Guilds" in French. That's because PC's (generally) belong to exploratory / merchant Guilds.

What is Guildes about ?
Here is the whole story, from the Rivages to the Terra Incognita

Les Rivages

The PCs belong to one of 6 Houses (peoples) living on the Rivages (Shores), a small continent on a planet named Cosme.

Four Houses are rather stereotypical :
- the Gehemdals are Viking-like
- the Venn'dys are a mix of Venitians, Spanish and British
- the Ulmeqs are a mix of Indians (from India) and Aztecs
- the Keyzah are a kind of Gypsies

The last two Houses are stranger :
- the Felsin look like Chinese / Arabic, but they seem not to be completely human (they can't breed with other people)
- the Ashragor are ruled by a demon (named Ashragor). No, they're not evil, they're just daaaark.

Before the time of Guildes : la Quête des Origines, all six peoples were rather opposed, and all were plagued by various disasters and a loss of Loom (magical energy). But, then, a mysterious prophetess called l'Astramance revealed there was a Continent in the south, a place where every House will find an answer to their mysteries ... and many other things.

The Continent

The Houses planned to send missions to the Continent, but new organisations began to appear : the Guilds, companies claiming to unite people from different Houses. After initial opposition from the Houses, the Guilds finally organised themselves to form a kind of "United Guilds" Senate. The Competition for the conquest of the Continent was (officially) no more a warlike competition between Houses, but a commercial competition between Guilds (of course, the Houses love to meddle into Guilds' affairs).

There are many people on the Continent, but the Guilds classify them in five broad categories :
- the Drak (primitives)
- the Lore (artisans)
- the Arkhe (very religious)
- the Urbi (city-dwellers)
- the Wish (mystical)
On the Continent, countries are generally small, and clearly separated from each other : even the seasons seems to respect the frontiers : you can have winter in a country, and summer in the next one !!
This clear contrats are the reason why Continental countries are named Ecrins (jewel cases).

GQO tells the initial settling of the Continent, the (sometimes violent) encounters with the local population and the discovery of world-shattering secrets (and lots of Loom).

Beyond the Barrier : Terra Incognita

GED begins many years after that : all the coastal Ecrins of the Continent have been explored / conquered and the conquistadors have discovered there's a magic barrier towards the center of the Continent. This barrier (called "la Barrière des Enfants-Cyclones" = "Barrier of the Cyclone-Children") seems to be formed with myriads of flying (and hungry) foetuses. Some people have found a way to pass the barried (underground tunnels, flight, passage through dreams, other magical means, etc.). Once they're on the other side, they have to explore it for many reason (money / Loom / knowledge / whatever). Some people want to find a way to the center of the Continent, where lies the greatest secret : Phovea, the City of the Powers.

How do we create characters ?
The player creates his character with a point-based method, complicated with advantages from your character's background.

Here are the basic steps
- Choose one of the six Houses from the Rivages, and an occupation
- Share 30 points between the characteristics (Strong, Agile, Resistant, Aware, Charming, Clever, Learned, Talented)
- Buy skills, based on the character's occupation. The cost for skills is 1 to be Novice, 3 to be Initié (knowledgeable), 7 to be Expert (you have a list of skills for your job, the cost for other skills are doubled ; some skills have prerequisites). You get 14 points from early life on the Rivages, 20 points for their years at the Academy.

But character creation is a bit more complicated : for 3 steps of your character's life (Rivages, Academy, first missions for the Guilds), you have to build a background for her.
For the first two steps, you've got a choice in a list of Lucky Events (Coups de Bol) / Unlucky Events (Mésaventures). You get to choose one Lucky Event ; you can have more of them by choosing Unlucky Events to balance things out. Those events can bring useful things (bonus skills, magical objects ...) or interesting problems
For your early Guild life, you have to chose events ; some of the events are taken from the GQO campaign (GED characters are supposed to be more experienced than GQO ones, who came straight out of the academy). Personally, as a new Guildes GM, I would have found it easier to create young characters, because events are not easy to chose or explain to the player when you don't know precisely the setting !
What do they do on the Terra Incognita ?
They find new places, riches, ruins, civilisations to help / enslave / exterminate / whatever, etc.
And of course, they'll discover that they are not really walking an ordinary continent, but a dream come true, quite literally
They're Conquistadors, and they may become gods ...

& k3wL p0w3rZ ?
Every House is attuned to a kind of magic. In Guildes, there seem to be 5 colours of magic, called Loom (it's the name given to raw magical energy, a bit like Quintessence in Mage). Members of the Guilds collect the Loom in a magical artefact called Guilder Constellé
- the Black Loom is about Demonology and Necromancy, and is a specialty of the Ashragors
- the Red Loom is about Metals and Combat, and is a specialty of the Gehemdals
- the Yellow Loom is about Sorcery (Alchemy / Elementalism), and is a specialty of the Venn'dys
- the Violet Loom is about Names and Meaning, and is a specialty of the Keyzahs
- the Green Loom is about Dreams, and is a specialty of the Ulmeqs

The Felsin say they manipulate an Invisible Loom, which allow them to do incredible feats with their body (and someone else's body). This Loom is exclusive to the Felsin, who can't use other kinds of Loom.
In the campaign for GQO called L'Aube des Prophètes Bleus, a sixth colour of Loom was revealed (Blue) : it is manipulated by a people called the Danjin, adepts of prophecy. They (almost) disappeared long ago, and were replaced by the Felsin, revealed to be transformed animals (former pets of the Danjins).
That's why the Felsin also have the Justu-Geifu : ass-kicking kung-fu moves based on animals.

People who belong to the Guilds, like most PC's, can also have access to kind of "super-skills" named Machinations. Generally, they don't require a dice roll and allow for an automatic and astounding success at one feat.

Secrets
Since we're blowing up secrets of GQO, let's list all the Quests of each Houses (and the result of all three episodes of the trilogy La Campagne du Nouveau Monde).
- the Ashragor want to find the gate of the dimension of the Pandemon (their ruler). Apparently the gate was found in La Confrérie des Ombres, but the Pandemon doesn't want to use the gate, for some reason.
- the Felsin want to know who they really are. Now they know, since the events of L'Aube des Prophètes Bleus. And we also know who l'Astramance really is ...
- there's a strange illness called La Langueur, which plagues the Venn'dys. They seem to fade away from existence ... the cure for it was found in the campaign L'Automne des Mages
- the Gehemdals are looking for their gods (unresolved quest)
- the Ulmeqs are looking for a lost library (unresolved quest)
- the Keyzahs are looking for the True Name (unresolved quest)

Of course, there are other secrets in Guildes : El Dorado, but less than in Guildes : la Quête des Origines ; Multisim certainly wanted to stop the "collectible RPG" syndrom. For the secrets of the game, see the spoiler box down below.

And the System ?
The system changed between the 2 editions
- GQO's system was a open roll of Attribute Skill 2d6 against a difficulty.
- GED's system is a "roll and keep" system (roll attribute, keep skill). You roll d6's, attributes are from 1 to 6, skills from 1 to 3. One of the dice is an "exploding 6" so that the roll is open-ended.

I won't give you many details about the system, but it works smoothly, although there are some disturbing aspects ... For example, stats are not rated with numbers, but with adverbs "not strong", "not very strong", "rather strong", "strong", "very strong", etc. Actually, these adverbs correspond to numbers (e.g. "very" means you roll 5 dice), so it's not easy thinking in words instead of numbers. Well, with some practise ...

Tell us about the book ...
The book is a big one : 288 pages (with strong, high-quality paper).
The soft cover is a thick and plastified one. There are two versions of it : one with a Venn'dys conquistador in the jungle (complete with the spanish helmet and the musket), the other one with a Ulmeq priest (with robes, feathers and flying crystals).
The pages are not completely white : they have a creamy colour and there's a light violet background (like a map) which is very beautiful and does not impeach the reading at all. The text is easily readable, on three columns.

The material quality of the book is amazing ; the textual contents is excellent too. The text is well-written and entertaining. There are a few typoes, but far less than in the average French RPG book, and infinitely less than in an average american RPG book.
Some annoying "see below" without anything below, but the information is to be found somewhere. For example : apparently, the list of professions was initially to be found in the Character Creation chapter, but they finally decided to put it in the appendix : they've forgotten to update the text accordingly.

There's not a lot of illustrations :
- a map of the Rivages
- a beautiful illustration for every House
- some small (and repeated) drawings to separate paragraphs and chapter (and fill some blanks). Those are beautiful, and quite standard pirate-themed (skull, ship, cannon, treasure map ...)
- some "comics" pages. There are two stories (one is the player's section, one in the GM's section). You've got 1 page from time to time, between chapters : the first story is 10 pages, the second story is 10 pages too : both are well-drawn and interesting, though they're not typical adventures, rather revelations about secrets of the setting (especially the second one, which re-tells the first story from another perspective).

The book begins with credits, a table of content and a standard introduction : what is roleplaying, glossary, etc.

Page 9 to page 156 is the Player's Book
Les Règles is six pages about the basic resolution system
Les Atlas is a 44-page chapter, written "in character", which describes the setting (Rivages, Coastal Ecrins, etc.) to the players.
Mon aventurier is a 25-page chapter with the rules to create a PC. It includes a detailed descriptions of events that PCs might have lived, along with the experience and advantages that a character can acquire if they've those events.
L'Art Guerrier is a 15-page chapter about combat
L'Art Etrange is a 30-page chapter about magic. It includes the rules for magic, and lists of spells (65 tours, 30 sorts, 5 Phyllums comprised of a variable number of Sortilèges)
Arts Martiaux et Jutsu-Geifun is a 7-page chapter about Martial Arts and it gives 12 examples of Animal Styles.
L'Art Guildien is a 10-page chapter about the workings of the Guilds and it also gives 30 Machinations
Il était une fois l'Aventure is a 2-page chapter abour the freeform experience system

Page 157 to page 268 is the Master's Book (they call the GM Maître du Continent)
Hereafter is a "spoiler box" : don't select it if you plan to play GED someday !!
Spoiler box
(select to read) The chapter begins with a presentation of the Powers, those mysterious creatures who control the planet.
They used to be six, one for every colour, but the sixth player helped the "pawns" (humans, that is) to rebel against the Powers, so she was fired from the game.
The first "game board" (les Rivages) was abandonned, their inhabitants now officially free from the Powers (though some of them still like to meddle into the Rivages'affairs, especially the Black Power).
The continent has always been the testing field for new civilisations : now the Powers have decided it will become the new game board !
The Guilds, rebels to the Powers, are marching towards Phovea ... That's why the Powers slow their progress ; anyway, they are testing the Conquistadors : the worthiest will be chosen to become "El Dorado"
- The rebel Power is l'Astramance (former Blue Power), the famous prophetess. Her people on the Rivages used to be the Danjin (they all disappeared in an eternal "time loop"), and she has no pawns on the new game board (though some of her "blueprints" can still be discovered, ruins from the Mystif civilisation). She managed to magically create the Felsin, to replace the Danjin. Blue was associated with the timeless season
- The Red Power used to rule the Gehemdal (on the Rivages) and rules the Lore (on the Continent). It has prepared a secret coup, but I won't tell ... Red is associated with the summer season
- The Yellow Power used to rule the Venn'dys (on the Rivages) and rules the Urbi (on the Continent). It helped the Venn'dys (and somewhat the Urbi) having a far more powerful technology than the other Houses (Peoples). Yellow is associated with the autumn season
- The Black Power used to rule the Ashragor (on the Rivages) and rules the Arkhe (on the Continent). It summoned the Pandemon (Ashragor) to empower its people. Ashragor found a portal to escape the world, but he has chosen to stay on Cosme to help humans against the Powers and to break the bond linking him to the Black Power. Red is associated with the winter season
- The Green Power used to rule the Ulmeq (on the Rivages) and rules the Wish (on the Continent). It is the Power which has the greatest fun with the game ; it has created Nocte, the Dream world, used for prophecy, teleportation, and many other powerful effects. Green is associated with the spring season
- The Violet Power used to rule the Keyzah (on the Rivages) and rules the Drak (on the Continent). It is mad and tired from the game. Violet is associated with the sacred season (calm and misty)
- El Dorado (the Golden One) is the name of seventh player to come, believed to be the first human who will reach Phovea.
Transients are kind of inter-dimensional mercenaries, at the service of the Powers.
etc. (enough secrets for today !!)
End of the spoiler box

After these cosmological revelations, there's a section which re-examines the coastal Ecrins of the Continent and the Guilds
After that, two secret societies are presented : la Confrérie des Ombres (plotting against the Powers) and la Scabare (Pirates).
Then, there's a short section about how the strange geography of Continent really works, and an example of a route opened by the first explorer : La Route d'Orion. This example is 6 pages, with a description of the people and beasts encountered (but no map...).
After this example, the GM is given two examples of Ecrins, and three example of autochtonous peoples, ready-to-use in the GM's campaign.
Then, we've got a 16-page bestiary, including some Transients (non-human people) and other special creatures.
A short chapter named Les Looms gives many examples of sources of magical energy (magic bananas, purple worms, winds ...). Then you've got another short chapter about seasons on the continent, and another one with some sample locus (magical places or people).
After a page about the mysterious city of Phovea, you've got some advice to design a campaign theme, and a 7-page scenario named Opatakalumba !

The book end with some play-aids :
- Equipement
- Magical objects from the Rivages (to be used during character creation)
- Weapons and Armour
- Occupations (with the available skills)
- Skills
- Character sheet

Was it a successful game ?
Not really (for GED), and there were many reasons for it.

Problem for former GQO players

GQO had some fans, which were happy with this game of discovery, and amazed by the quality of the campaigns.
GED is a completely different game ... the focus of the game is that the players belong to an exploratory company. Beyond the Barrier, they're almost completely cut away from the Houses ... and even the Guilds !!
So, big parts of the background become almost useless. Many GMs have chosen to stick with GQO's themes and setting.

Problems for new GM's

The GED book is somewhat frustrating
- There are almost no information on the Rivages (because you're far away from them). Since your character is supposed to be from this place, it's difficult to imagine her early life
- We are told about the Blue Loom and the Danjin, but very briefly (you have to buy a supplement for some usable information about this people and their powers)
- We are told that the Felsin have kewl mystical powers besides their martial arts, but only the less powerful ones (tricks) are given in the book because the only place you can find Invisible Loom is on the far-away Rivages. Oh well.
- You've got a map of the Rivages (even if they're far away) but you have NO MAP of the coastal Ecrins of the Continent, so you don't know which country borders on another. Well, most of the time, you're on the other side of the Barrier, but it's not a good reason !
- This world is very rich, and sometimes you're bombed with information you have some difficulty to assimilate ... and sometimes, you read allusions to thing not really explained (which are part of the setting and campagins of GQO). This is especially annoying in the Character Creation process, since you've got to chose some elements of your past life, many of them taking place in the older campaigns. Some things are explained somewhere in the book, but it's not always easy to find (especially since there is no index). When you read an allusion to an event, you have to make out if it's explained in the book, if it's an obscure allusion to a supplement, or something written on the fly ...
- The book is impressive, with very few illustrations ... it really looks like an old history book, not like an exciting RPG

To summarise the problems :

- Older GM's (from GQO) had some difficulty accepting the change of focus of the game
- New GM's will have difficulties grasping the setting if they have no knowledge of the older edition, and may be frustrated at things not there "because we don't have room" or "because it is not important on the Continent"

To summarise the qualities :

- The setting is extremely rich, and the big book contains lots of information to build a campaign (even if the information is not easy to assimilate / find).
- Fan sites are numerous, both GQO and GED were perfect examples of the interactive design of a world.
- The writing is excellent, the books are very beautiful

Supplements :

Multisim published supplements for the game, some of them really excellent
- the screen
- L'Art Etrange (Strange Art), l'Art Guildien (Art of Guilds) and l'Art Guerrier (Art of War). I own the last one, which is an interesting read if you're into battles and martial arts (lots of information about the Felsin, with many new animal styles, yeah !).
- La Route de Syrius, le Rêve de Silect Octalt and le Triomphe de Betelgeuse : three campaigns where the players follow the routes opened by three famous explorers. I own the first one (I got it in a package including the main book, this supplement and the screen) : it's interesting, but it's a campaign setting, not really a campaign ... From what I've heard, the masterpiece is Le Rêve de Silect Octalt, but I've never read or played it.

Guildes : a game from Multisim
People who have been pleased by the creativity of Multisim's other games (Agone or Nephilim for example) will certainly be amazed by Guildes, one of their most original games ever.
Some concepts are bleeding from one Multisim game to another, by the way : the important role of seasons in Guildes and Agone, the adverbial system to rate attributes is to be found in both Guildes and Nephilim:Revelation, etc.

Guildes : la Quête des origines was frustrating because it had too many secrets ; Guildes : El Dorado is frustrating because the world became extremely rich ... The new GM will have to deliberately ignore some parts of the book if he wants his head not to explode with too many informations !
With all those supplements (half a dozen supplements for 2nd ed, a lot more for 1st ed) and a very active web community (which was really involved in the design and evolution of the game), Guildes is well-alive even if it is clearly no more a priority for Multisim (though there was one supplement published in 2002 : L'Art Guerrier).

Conclusion
A game of exploration, in a Renaissance-Fantasy world, with some elements like Feng Shui (Transformed Animals and kung-fu) and lots of unique aspects (colonial exploration ala Dark Continent, Cyberpunk-like groups working for Guilds/Corporations ...).

The book is rich to the extreme and requires some efforts. It really opens the gate for very interesting campaigns : exploration of new territories, political manipulations, quests for lost magics ... Guildes is a game which has no real equivalent on the RPG market.

Frighteningly rich, but damn refreshing once you get into the setting.

Links
Of course, if you read this review years after it's written, some of the links will have disappeared ...

All these sites are in the French language, of course.
- http://phovea.free.fr : a gorgeous fan site
- http://www.sentiersoublies.net : another good one
- http://leLoom.free.fr : another one, more specialised (about magic)
- http://www.guildes-rpg.com : the official site