 Goto [ Index ] |
Hearing that Mongoose Publishing had acquired the rights to Lone Wolf and the Magnamund setting for a d20 roleplaying game drove nostalgic chills up and down my spine. With so much to live up to, I had to wonder if Mongoose could stand the combined fandom of U.S. and the U.K.'s itinerant Kai Monks. I'l let the review answer that question in full, but, for now, the answer's a solid Yes.
DISCLOSURE
I'm a roleplayer with a dozen years of experience, with systems ranging from the dense crunch of Hero and GURPS to the airy minimalism of Nobilis and Amber Diceless. My regular gaming group consists entirely of professional improv performers (comedy and long-form). If we had to peg ourselves in Ron Edwards' G/N/S paradigm, I'd say we were Narrativists who thought we were Gamists - we want our characters to get cool things and accomplish their in-game goals, but will often take a longer, more abstruse path to that goal if it tells a better story.
I bought my copy of Lone Wolf at a local game store. As the introduction should make clear, I'm a lifetime fan of Lone Wolf and the setting. I've tried to remain objective in evaluating the sourcebook, but you may find areas where I gave undue credit. Forewarned is forearmed.
I review products by evaluating each of five categories of Substance and Style, giving each category zero, one-half or one point. I then whine at the calculator until it tells me the total score for Substance and Style.
Lone Wolf is a setting book that follows the OGL rules. As such, you technically do not need any other d20 materials to play this game - no Player's Handbook, no Dungeon Master's Guide, no SRD, etc. It's a complete game in itself. As a footnote, I apparently understand very little of the whole d20 / OGL distinction, since I didn't think a company could do that. I freely admit my ignorance.
I hereafter refer to the role-playing game as LWRPG; any references to Lone Wolf indicate the character from the gamebook adventures written by Joe Dever in the 80s and 90s.
SUBSTANCE
Character Creation
Since the only window into Magnamund, until now, has been the Lone Wolf or Grey Star series of gamebooks (and several novels in the same vein), everyone who picks up LWRPG will probably want to know, first and foremost, how to create a Kai Lord. Well, not only is it possible, with the same kind of detailed choices of Disciplines and advanced Magnakai Disciplines that made the Lone Wolf series fun, but several other powerful classes are available as well.
Character creation follows many of the same steps as in regular OGL games: roll your six ability scores (Strength, Intelligence, Charisma, etc), choose your class and assign your skills. The differences: there are no feats and there are fewer classes. Race also plays a significantly reduced role: only one of the PC-available races is nonhuman.
LWRPG only offers seven classes: Kai Lords, Brothers of the Crystal Star (mages like Banedon in the series), Elder Magi of Dessi (sorcerors who apparently have the same powers that Grey Star would have), Sommlending Knights, Dwarven Gunners, Shadaki Buccaneers and Telchos Warriors. All of these classes have significant powers and great customization potential, so even two Kai Lords in the same party would have a vastly different range of powers.
Kai Lords, for instance, choose a new Discipline each time they gain a level. The Disciplines themselves are broken down into Tiers that you advance along for the longer you have them, such that someone who picked Camouflage at 1st level will have more powers in Camouflage by 5th level than someone who picked it for the first time at level 5. This models the development of Disciplines as seen in the gamebooks very accurately. Crystal Star mages and Elder Magi have similar advancement. The other four classes also offer characters a suite of powers and talents to pick from as they advance in level. Think of each LWRPG class as a blend of prestige class and regular core class (Shadaki Buccaneers aren't just fighters, they aren't just rogues, and they aren't just sailors ... they're some of each, but they're greater than the sum of those parts).
What if you want to play someone else - just a regular mercenary or an ordinary rogue? The only answer, apparently, is, "Why would you want to?" In Lone Wolf, it's the characters with superior training and access to ancient secrets who are the real movers and shakers, and LWRPG is not designed for people who DON'T want to be movers and shakers.
This is the first instance of an overarching theme that dominates the text: LWRPG caters heavily to fans of Lone Wolf, first and foremost. As such, it might not appeal much - if at all - to people who've never heard of or read the original gamebooks. The thrill of playing one of the Elder Magi might be lost on someone who never penetrated Castle Death in the Magnakai Series ("oh, okay - they're like sorcerors, but with generic powers instead of specific spells. Cool, I guess").
That, of course, may make this sourcebook less than ideal for your group. Fair enough: I'm just evaluating this book on its own criteria, whether it is a workable and accurate adaptation of a body of work that already exists. It definitely answers that challenge in making your favorite kinds of characters.
Character Creation: 1 point.
Task Resolution
Boilerplate OGL. Roll a d20, add a modifier such as your Skill rating, your Save bonus or your base attack, and compare it to a Difficulty Class. It's worked for dozens of other games, and it works here.
Task Resolution: 1 point.
Setting
LWRPG is set in Lone Wolf's own world of Magnamund. There's a 70-page Gazetteer that details the countries of both Northern and Southern Magnamund, being the settings of Lone Wolf and Grey Star's adventures, respectively.
Magnamund clearly draws some inspirations from real-world archetypes. Sommerlund and Durenor, the free kingdoms of the North, borrow from Norse and British culture in fairly obvious ways, and Vassagonia is inspired by the Araby of fantasy literature. The Dwarves of the mountain kingdoms are stodgy, hard-drinkers and master mechanics. However, there are enough colorful bits worth remembering, like the Magiocracy of Dessi and the Telchos wastes, that the jaded gaming community won't roll their eyes at another Tolkien knock-off.
For those intimately familiar with Magnamund already, note that LWRPG starts its clock at MS 5000, fifty years before the events in Flight from the Dark, the first Lone Wolf gamebook. The war with the Darklords has not yet begun in earnest, but their unearthly forces always skirmish with the free kingdoms. This is fortunate, since it means that the PCs won't be treading in the footsteps of textbook NPCs, like the novels' titular characters.
If you didn't already love Magnamund going in, the gazetteer may not make you a fan. But I assert that its job is not to sell a world that someone else (Joe Dever) has already sold, but rather to expand and elaborate on it.
Setting: 1 point.
Uniqueness
The character creation system imparts most of LWRPG's uniqueness. Modelling the vast and impressive powers of Kai Monks and Elder Magi is no mean feat, and LWRPG accomplishes all of that while keeping an eye to game balance. The book even calls hit points "Endurance" and base attack bonus "Combat Skill," as an homage to the gamebooks. It also features a section with detailed rules on Psychic Combat, a regular fixture of the Lone Wolf novels, where our hero and a sinister Darklord would grapple with mental energies.
Also of note: magic is not the same as in regular d20. Spellcasters do not pick spells from a big catalogue. Rather, the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star and the Elder Magi have general powers, like Mind Charm or Alchemy, that use either Endurance or Willpower (a separate stat that measures mental energy; not all characters have it). These powers are parcelled out as the characters gain levels.
I do have one notable complaint that fits best here. LWRPG provides plenty of ways to model the heroes of the Lone Wolf novels, and even several options for depicting their supporting cast and enemies: the familiar NPC classes of adepts, experts, aristocrats, warriors, etc. The Bestiary in the back even introduces some old favorites, like Helghasts, Vordaks and Kraan. However, nowhere do they give stats for the Darklords themselves - the true masterminds of evil in Magnamund, the ne plus ultra of villainy. While it's not impossible to create your own stats - I suppose Darklord Zagarna could be modelled by having several levels of Adept and Warrior, with suitable powers from the Bestiary section - it struck me as odd that LWRPG would be completely silent on this key feature of the setting.
But, yes, there are stats for the Sommerswerd. There's also a sidebar saying that your PCs shouldn't have it, unless you plan to disregard the Lone Wolf books fifty years in the future or have some surefire way to make sure it's returned to Durenor. It's very powerful, as anyone who made it through Fire on the Water knows.
Uniqueness: 1 point.
Adventures
None, and this bugs me a little. As I mentioned above, the only exposure any of us have to Lone Wolf and Magnamund, up until now, is through the gamebooks and assorted novels. These follow a rather limited series of quests (acquire the Lorestones, find the Moonstone, slay the Darklords), so devoted readers may be stumped on what to suggest their PCs do. Additionally, the selection of character classes gives a very narrow and eclectic mix of player characters. What excuse are a Telchos warrior, a Dwarven Gunner, an Elder Mage and a Kai Lord going to have to travel together? LWRPG's unfortunately silent in that regard.
Adventures: 0 points.
STYLE
Art
Simple, functional and clear. I never really had any questions of "What am I looking at?" with any given picture. My rule of thumb in RPG art is: does this depict a scene that I'd like to know the story behind, or would be interested in exploring myself? If the answer is "Yes" more often than not, it's good art.
Art: 1 point.
Layout
Nothing fantastic, but it's never confusing and it gets the job done. Headings tend to be "same font as body text, but a few points larger and in bold," but that's not a crime. Again, OGL boilerplate: character creation, skills, rules for rolling dice, combat systems, chapter on "adventuring" - all very clear.
Layout: 1 point.
Editing
No memorable errors, nothing that confused me or obscured needed information. No references to page XX.
Editing: 1 point.
Examples
People familiar with d20 or other OGL games won't need examples, but the new elements - Psychic Combat, the new style of magic - could use a little more textual support. I've never seen the Telchos Warriors in the gamebooks, for instance (the U.S. series was never complete), so the idea of having magical Battle Cries and Primal Screams is a bit foreign to me. Similarly, at least one walkthrough of a Psychic Combat wouldn't have hurt.
Examples: 1/2 point.
Color
Plenty of little bits and pieces to make fans of the original Lone Wolf series happy. Section headings and Bestiary descriptions have boxed text in second person, in the evocative style of the Lone Wolf gamebooks, and even the occasional page instructions ("To learn more about the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, turn to page 15 ..."). There's even a Random Number Table in the back of the book, with entries from 1 to 20! Cute, and not unnoticed.
Color: 1 point.
FINAL RATING
Substance: 4 Style: 4.5 (or 4)
FINAL THOUGHTS
LWRPG may not add any new converts to the ranks of the Kai, but it will definitely satisfy any existing fans. For gamers who made the transition from Lone Wolf gamebooks to Dungeons and Dragons, as I did, you can now cross that bridge in the other direction and return to Magnamund.
Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.
