 Goto [ Index ] |
I'll be making some comparisons to the Book of Contemporary Weapons, so my review of it is here: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10390.phtml - I'd recomend reading it anyway, and if you're just going to read one you can skip this one and read it instead. It's really much more worth your time.
As far as style goes Weapons, Armor & Castles of the Orient is just as good. The cover is a nice colour drawing (painting?) by Scott Johnson of a samurai warrior with a katana. In this aspect it's actually a bit better than the Book of Contemporary Weapons. The interior art is of the same quality, line drawings that are very clear. For the weapons, the blades have lines along the sharp edges to indicate that they are sharp. That's a nice touch as it's not always obvious looking at a drawing of a weapon you've never seen before where the edge is. It has drawings of every weapon, piece of armor and castle that is described, and apparently a few weapons that aren't described in detail as well. I don't really have any complaints in this department. The text is a bit small, and it's also spaced out more than the Book of Contemporary weapons. It's the same number of pages but there isn't as much content. Like the Book of Contemporary Weapons, this gets a 4 for style.
As far as substance goes, I'll say it up front. The book covers way too broad a subject to just fit into a 48 page book. It covers mainly Japanese and Chinese weapons and armor, with a few Malay weapons and armor as well. Castles are just Japanese and Chinese. It describes significantly fewer weapons than were illustrated, so I really feel that it's mostly good as a research starting point. There wasn't too much detail on each weapon, which would be essential as it's not always easy to see how a weapon would be used or what its primary purpose would be (beyond killing of course). On the flip side armor seems to be described in excessive detail. I can't think of any campaign I'd run where it would be necessary to know every part of Samurai armor. That's not something a player or a GM has to know. The way Chinese armor was described was fine, however it had references to types of armor that weren't illustrated, which left me somewhat confused. This also irked me as it had excessive illustrations in the weapons section and too few in the armor section (save for the section on Samurai armor, where it was again too many). The castles section was alright, but I figure the castles weren't described in enough detail, and quite honestly I think it would make much more sense to just leave that section out and buy any of the perfectly good books on castles that are available at any store, as there's really no game relevant information on the castles. At least the weapons and armor sections had info on relative damage and protection that they offer, as well as types of damage and protection.
I thought about seeing how well it worked with the various game systems I run, but I could barely see myself using a third of this book. It's just not worth the time. It covers only a small part of the Orient, (admittedly China makes a nice chunk of it, but I doubt that what they presented was remotely comprehensive for China) and only a small part of weapons, armor & castles. That's a small part of a small part. It's not quite a waste of money, but it comes pretty close as I see myself using very little of it. I give it a substance rating of 2.
Go with the Book of Contemporary Weapons instead, or do your own research on Oriental weapons, armor & castles. Or something else. Regardless, I don't recomend it.
Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.
