When I began reading my lent copy of The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible, I wondered what to expect. Certainly I'd knew most of the contents, after reading so many reviews, overviews, articles and forum posts on any number of RPGs? And come on, the book was released in 1999 — surely it was outdated? Fortunately, I was wrong: the second edition of Sean Patrick Fannon's guide is still a useful and entertaining work.
Contents
Fannon divides the contents of his book in four separate parts. Between the fourteen chapters and three appendices, he manages to cover pretty much the entire RPG hobby.
The Bible kicks off with a lengthy Introduction. According to it, the book is "all about de-mystifying the FRPG hobby" and "more emphasis will be given to explaining the hows, whats, whens, and wheres of the hobby — and quite a few whos, as well." The author states that "one of my primal motivations in writing this was to create a book that a gamer could hand to their mother or priest or teacher of Significant Other and say 'Here, this is what I am doing!'" With this in mind, Fannon succeeds, although not without some hiccups.
My first major quibble is with the order of the book. The first part, The Name Of The Game is dives right in the deep end, even though most total newbies to the hobby will have absolutely no idea of what constitutes an RPG. I would have begun with a small explanation about RPGs, perhaps to be expanded later in the book. A full fledged 'example of play', in my eyes one of the most efficient ways to explain RPGs, is delayed for about 100 pages. As such, the first part of the book is a bit daunting to total newbies: The first chapter talks about the 'high-brow' notions of roleplaying, whereas the second chapter discusses the practical issues of roleplaying. Where to play? What to play? Will I enjoy it? The saving grace of the section is that between the lines, one can gather a lot about the nature of RPGs.
Part Two, Let The Games Begin, gives us more detailed information about roleplaying. What should a GM be able to do? What are the different roles of the players? How do I get them involved? Interspersed with many anecdotes, opinions, there's a goldmine of advice here. Of course, these sections will be of most use to the newbies, but more experienced players should learn a trick or two here. En passant, it also tackles some pervasive stereotypes about the hobby (no, we are not insane cultists, and no, it's not only hack-n-slash). The last two chapters of this Part try to explain what a roleplaying game is and present a lengthy example of play. Yes, only now are we told the basics. Colour me amazed. Whining about the order of the chapters aside, the content is good and a lot of ground is covered. Tips, tricks, common pitfalls and how to avoid them. As you all no, many issues in RPGs have no set answer. Fannon does not presume to have one: instead, he tries to cover the different sides of the argument.
Whereas the first two parts are primarily interesting to the newbie and the outsider (with an occasional gold nugget for the more experienced), the last two parts are much more interesting to the experienced. The third Part is called A Brief History Of The Virtual World is and is a history of roleplaying games. It covers the origins of the hobby (wargames) to the state of the hobby in 1999. Along the way, Fannon tries to explain the way RPGs developed the way they did, and the various highlights, movements and trends that occurred. The chapters talk briefly about live-action roleplaying, computer roleplaying, the collectible card game craze and much more. One thing that struck me as odd was that the whole issue with James Dallas Egbert III is given only two paragraphs and can be summed up by 'negative coverage by media, and sales of TSR products skyrocketed.' That's one way to look at it, and to be fair, the author also states somewhere that he deliberately chose to "cover a lot more of the positive ground." (Not familiar with the whole Egbert thingy? You can look it up here and here.)
People, this is one mighty meaty chapter, even though many minor questions aren't answered, and one of the main reasons why you should buy the book. Even if you've read Steve Darlington's extensive History of RPGs over at Places To Go, People To Be, there's new content here, and other ways to look at things. I, for one, couldn't stop while reading this part, and I heard from my friend he had the same 'problem'.
The fourth Part of the book is So Many Games, So Little Time (a title I very much agree with) and discusses at considerable length many of the games that were available and supported at the time of publication. The main genres (fantasy, fantasy-with-a-twist, science fiction, etc) are all dwelled upon. For each genre, two games are presented and rated on five categories: complexity, popularity, support, completeness and versatility. Fannon doesn't give reviews, however, and if you were expecting those, you will be disappointed. No, Fannon gives us overviews with as much objectivity as he could muster. This is helped by the fact that he also talks about the ways character creation and development, task resolution, and combat resolution are handled. A discussion about the setting, an impression of the impact the game has made, and a quote indicative of the game's philosophy.
As there is no way every RPG ever made, or even only the ones available on the market, could fit in this section, your favourite game could very well be missing here. On the other hand, most of the major games are present, and this overview is indicative of the wide range of RPGs that are possible. The Part closes with a discussion of the biggest RPG companies, the best-selling RPGs and some predictions about them. Fannon also gives his personal picks in a separate section where he throws all objectivity out of the window and hands out awards like "Industry Folks One MUST Party With" and "Most Stylish Art".
But wait! We're not ready yet! Appendix A is The Game-O-Pedia and is large collection of gaming-related terms, all clearly explained. From "a decent GM" (sic) to "Zocchihedron", this is a true gem. The second appendix gives us Gaming - A Timeline which is a nice companion to Part Three. The third appendix is a "Who's Who" of Game Companies and it "comes almost completely from Sandy Antunes' RPGNet listing". Hah! An Index occupies the last pages of the book. Unfortunately, most of the entries I looked up gave the wrong page numbers, so you'd better of avoiding this 'index'.
Probably the biggest merit of this books content is its' completeness: the many, many facets of the hobby are all covered. Not only the rules, the genres and the books are covered, but also "gaming culture" is included. It sacrifices something of its depth for the broadness, but I think this trade-off is well worth it. If I want to learn more about one facet of the hobby, I can always do my own, more focused research. The book aimed to be a low-threshold, introductory book, and it certainly is.
Age
I must be frank here: the first edition of the Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible was first published in 1995, and this second edition is already 3 years old, and this shows in its' contents. I can't and won't hold this against the book, but you should be aware of this. Some examples: in 1999, D&D Third Edition wasn't published yet, and the Open Gaming movement didn't exist. As such, none of the changes that this brought upon the hobby are found here. Neither is the 'indie'-movement, the folding of Hogshead publishing, the re-release of Hero (although it is foreshadowed), the recent surge in superhero gaming, the fact that more and more games are translated in English. No Lord Of The Rings, no Buffy, no Little Fears, no Call of Cthulhu d20 — if you're looking for information on that, you're fresh out of luck Once again, I won't hold this against the Bible. On the contrary, I think it's great fun to read about the state of the industry as it was then, as it makes some changes that have occurred more clear.
Presentation
Unfortunately, I'm not as happy about the presentation as I am with the content.
The writing style of this book is very casual, full of jokes. This makes for easy reading, but it often robs the author's points of the focus and strength they could have had. A great number of anecdotes and asides enliven the text, sometimes at the cost of clarity. There are many footnotes that one has to look up at the end of the chapter. This awkwardly breaks up the flow of reading. There's also a large number of typos. I could overlook this if this was a first edition, but it's not. The author even states in his new introduction that "[he got] the chance to go through and edit and tighten the thing up."
What's commendable about the text is that it always tries to present a multifaceted view of the hobby. For example, the text includes very few references to specific systems. Although the title suggests otherwise, the book does not focus on fantasy alone: just the opposite, as it includes numerous examples of play in other genres.
This approach is also apparent in the art direction. Jason Engle's illustrations vary from sword-and-sorcery stances to science fiction. Just take a look at the excellent cover picture: it's a collage of a fantasy swordsman, a sci-fi rifleman, a modern vampire wielding some sort of gun and a battlemech. However, these are not the only illustrations, as John Kovalic contributes many hilarious Dork Tower comics. Some of these may be less funny to newcomers in the hobby, although most are good enough to be funny without extensive knowledge of RPGs. The artwork is placed rather haphazardly, with no direct relation with the text. What's worse, the already disjointed feel (resulting from the use of the two wholly opposing drawing styles of Kovalic and Engle, and the multitude of genres represented in the illustrations) is worsened by the other graphic elements. Most of the many asides and sidebars are backed with a fake parchment. While beautifully rendered, it's too dark, making the text harder to read. The page borders and chapter headings are done in a highly stylised, modern pattern which is at odds with the fantasy element of the parchment.
The text is placed in a two-column layout in a 10-point, serif font. Nothing new here, although the margins are rather large. The layout often wastes large amounts of paper for no apparent reason. One could argue this is done to start a new (sub)section on a new page. This is often countered, however, by the fact that many other paragraphs start very near a column or page break, which results in paragraphs running for one or two rules, breaking up, only to continue in the other column.
And it continues... the section, subsection and subsubsection headers are done in a number of different styles, which make it difficult to see under what section another section should fall. Is it a separate section? Does it belong here? I counted at least three different ways itemize things. Add to this the great number of mistakes and omissions (text that is intended to be a sidebar and yet has no parchment behind it, headers that are in the default font, a whole chapter missing from the table of contents) and this book is in need of some serious new editing and a tighter layout.
Conclusion
Whereas I don't think this book is worth its cover price, it certainly is a nice addition to one's collection. It reached its goal: it's a good overview of the multifaceted RPG hobby and a good introduction to it. The ordering of some of the chapters is mystifying, but it's all here: what an RPG is, how it is played, what a player and GM could and should expect, a very rich history of the hobby, a discussion of the various genres and their main examples. Newer and wannabe gamers are to get the most out of it, but experienced players will like the completeness of it and may even be surprised once or twice by some of the advice. Full marks here: 5 out of 5.
The writing is certainly lively, but it may a bit too casual as it sometimes blurs the points made by the author. The illustrations are rather good, but the bad editing and confusing layout drag Style down to a 2 out of 5.
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