This is a capsule review. It’s based on the concept that one can review a game book even without playtesting and still provide useful data to the person interested in the game and the game book. As it has been said, “The book is the book and the game is the game. The book helps create the game, but it can only help. You can review it as a book, you can review how much it helps, but reviewing an individual session can (at its worst) be as useless as reviewing an individual snowflake.” (Greg Stolze at http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=f70b4876db7ea70765558e3397f5f04a&threadid=44784&perpage=20&pagenumber=2)

BEFORE THE REVIEW

This is an odd review at more than one level and I have to explain why. If you open the SWtRPG book, you may notice that I am referred to in the “Special thanks” paragraph, page 2. There’s a reason to this. In October 2002 I received an email from a certain Pastor Brent D. Wisdom asking me if he could include my dice-pool (presented in my column http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/ruleslawnov99.html) as an option in a new version of his Spiritual Warfare the RPG (he was previously using a mechanic based on ‘Dice plus Ability plus Modifiers’). My answer was “By all means, use it”. I just asked Brent to acknowledge that inspiration. As you will see, SWtRPG uses the conventions I presented in that past column. Hence the special thanks in the book. At the time I offered to review his game since I didn’t realize he would substitute his original mechanics with mine. This review is my way of fulfilling that promise.

But there are other oddities about the game under review. Just read this: “I pray that this game will be used to introduce people in the roleplaying communities to Jesus Christ” (SWtRPG, p. 5). In the course of our exchange I realized that the game has a strong Christian backing. This lead to a dialogue that I’ve better quote:

Me: “you are a religious commited person and have writen your game to religious commited people. There's nothing wrong with it on my part, irrespective of whether I share or not your religious convictions (I don't). Yet, I think I can't take this into account if I am to review the game for RPGnet. (…) In this sense you are like a military man using a wargame as a "learning" tool. But the target of RPGnet is people that are at rpgs as an hobby for entertainment. So, a review of this game should not be based on its explicit aims but on its usability for pure entertainment. This is the angle from where I'll approach it.” To which Brent replied: “Very well put I might add, and this helps me in the direction that I believe that game is going, thank you! (…) I'll leave it up to you whether you want to review it or not. (…)”

Fast forward. Brent completely revised the game and decided to use my mechanic as presented in the column. Recently he contacted me asking if I could go forward with the review. I download the files and here it is. To conclude these initial remarks:

I’m going to review a game that is based on the Christian religion and was developed by a pastor to help in the spreading of the Gospels. I don’t share Mr. Wisdom’s faith. In any case, I am not going to review the game as an evangelistic tool but as a plain vanilla rpg. The author agreed to this.

The game uses mechanics that were originally devised by me. Even if I’m not using those mechanics myself, it may colour my judgement. Because of this I’ll rate the game with a neutral 3 for substance whatever my comments may be.

SWtRPG can be acquired from Golgotha Games at http://www.spiritualwarfarerpg.com/.

STYLE

SWtRPG is a PDF file that requires 7,929KB while zipped. It prints to 132 pages that are shorter than A4, meaning that you’ll get sizable white margins. The text is written in two columns in a small Times-like font. The layout is clear and easy to read with no bells and whistles added.

If you have been following this series of reviews you know I am a fan of clarity and conciseness. SWtRPG is great on conciseness but far from excellence on clarity. My main complain is that there are several points in the rules that are not well explained. For instance, in page 43 you learn that a character may defend and “actively defend”. You are presented with the mechanical differences but there’s no explanation to what differentiates the two alternatives in descriptive, non-mechanical terms. Another problem is that some of the game terminology is just not adequate. My main issue is the usage of the same terms to describe both the attributes and skills levels. In both cases it goes from “unskilled” to “Grand Master”. Now, this works just fine for skills but is completely inadequate for attributes. I understand the intention to avoid two separate scales but it just doesn’t work. Or take the tables. There are plenty of these but more often then not they are located in the wrong place, thus making it hard to follow the rules. On the plus side, the text is short and direct, and typos are few.

The book is poorly structured at two levels. For a start, it breaks up the data into a player section and a game master section (actually called a Game Shepherd, but I’ll stick to conventional terminology). The problem is that most or the rules are presented in the GM section, including rules a player will want to be familiar with like the description of the attributes and skills.

But there is worst. The book breaks up the content into 17 chapters some of which are too small to deserve to be independent (the chapters are by this order: Spiritual Warfare the RPG; Creating a character; The Lot Casting System; So what does a Game Shepherd do?; Attributes and skills; Traits; Preaching the Gospel; Combat; Weapons and equipment; Foes, Demons and Nephilim; Rhema; Power in the Spirit; Sin; Travel; Adventuring; Epouranios (the game world); Knights of the Realm). Added to these 17 chapters there are three appendixes (A character templates, B encounter charts and blessed and C cursed items) and an introductory adventure. The problem is that content that belongs together is spread through different chapters, thus making it much harder to follow the rules. Now, it would make more sense to break up the rules in three parts: A general rules section (chapters 1., 2., 5., 6., 3., 8., 9. and App. A), a spiritual rules section (chapters 7., 11., 12., 13., 17.), and a Game Master section (chapters 4., 10., 14., 15., 16., App. C, App. B, adventure).

Another problem is that the game presents its dice pool as if it was the only way to randomise things (in chapter 3; this is basically the dice pool system I presented in my column and renamed as “lot casting system” for no specified reason), yet not longer after that it introduces percentiles. Worst, these are only explained in pages 64-65. An experienced roleplayer will not have problems with this but it may be confusing for a novice. (Besides, it would make more sense to give up with the percentiles and use the d20 instead, something the game ints at.)

Art is sparse and consists mostly of small drawings of characters, simple scenic views and symbols. It’s not tied to the text but does not distract from it either. Most of the drawings are average with some good and some mediocre pieces thrown here and there. The cover (one of the average to mediocre pieces) is the only coloured art in the book.

There are an excessive number of tables, including some that the game could live without since they correspond to very simple maths. For instance, there’s a table to convert d20 results into percentiles. As I mentioned before, a good deal of the tables could be re-positioned to accompany the flow of the rules.

For reference purposes the game has the usual table of contents listing the chapters and… and nothing else. No index, no glossary no reference in the pages to the current section. SWtRPG is not a big book and it’s easy to figure where one is by browsing the content. Still it could have other reference tools besides the ToC.

The game includes a functional character sheet that provides the basic data on the character. Further to this, the game encourages the players to put their rhema (the “spells” of SWtRPG) in cards for reference when playing. I’m not sure I like this idea. It’s purpose is not roleplaying related. Instead the idea is to drive the players to memorize passages of the Bible according to the evangelic aims of the game. These cards may be handy for the GM, though. In any case, the character sheet has space to record that data so the rhema cards seem to be unnecessary if all you want is to play a game and don’t care to memorize the Bible.

Summing it up, I like the clean and simple style used in SWtRPG. Yet, there are too many failings for it to deserve a high mark (specially on what concerns the structure of the book and the placement of the tables). I’ll give it a 2. Fortunatelly for the game designers, most of these failings can be easely handled in future editions of the game.

SUBSTANCE I – SETTING

Basically SWtRPG is a generic medieval fantasy game where the Christian religion provides for the “magic” and the last chapters introduce the designer’s fantasy game world as a particular setting to play in.

As a generic medieval fantasy game, you have the common tropes of shining wandering warriors fighting human, creature or fiend foes. Further to this, you have the traditional humanoid races of elves, half elves, dwarves and halflings. No “evil” races or half-races are available to the players, of course. Nothing new in this front, so if there’s something special about SWtRPG it has to be in the implementation, not in the setting.

The key original aspect in SWtRPG is the fact that characters are Christians. More than that, they are practising Christians, defenders of the Faith. That means the game has to model the Christian faith and turn it into something playable.

The game world of SWtRPG – Epouranios – is a combination of pseudo-medieval Europe and Central Asia plus with fantasy races in a continent situated to the west of… medieval Europe! Even the fictional religions practised in Epouranios have distant real world relatives.

So, how good is Epouranios? We are presented with eight states or regions, each described by a briefing on location, area, languages spoken, coinage, tax system, government type, industries, major NPCs, flora and fauna plus a more detailed account of the land, the government, the people, recent events and things not to be missed. The format is good. The content is standard fare. You have the usual combination of feudalism with city states, nomads clans, etc., crossed with different races, belief systems with more or less links to the devil, and the usual histories of conflict and politics, including a cataclysmic irruption of demonic horrors. All in all, a run of the mill fantasy game world. The odd note is the introduction of Christianity some 370 years in the past of Epouranios. It’s still a minority religion but growing and, of course, aiming at fighting the devil wherever he is perceived.

You see, Christianity is an import in Epouranios. It was taken there from Spain by one Marcus McCleaud in 984 A.D. What? Taken from Spain at a time when there was no Spain as a country and most of the peninsula was under Muslim rule? By a guy with a mix of a Roman and a Scottish name? And there were no further contacts between the two continents in the course of the next 366 years? Take it with a grain of salt. This is just a macguffin to allow the introduction of the Christian religion into a fictional world. It works for its intended purposes, and that’s all.

The question is: Why doing this? Why not go the Alternate History way? I suppose the reasons were that this allowed for the introduction of fantasy elements, gave more freedom to the GMs to take the world where they want without being constrained by history, and saved the players of all the historical religious troubles of the Middle Ages. At the same time, it provided a rational for having the Christian faith outside of our real world. (On the other hand, having English or German as languages in Epouranios makes no sense but it’s there in the game book.)

SUBSTANCE II – SYSTEM

Character creation is detailed in chapter 2. A character in SWtRPG is detailed in terms of a descriptive template, attributes, skills … (Notice that I’ll not present the rules exactly as in the game book because it would be ratter confusing given its poor structure.)

For a start you are “presented” with a set of 19th character templates (‘presented’ is within double commas because the templates are in an appendix). Most of these are religious types like apostle, evangelist or missionary plus some more mundane roles like barbarian, mariner or scholar. What do the templates provide? Basically three things: a minimum attribute requirement (more on attributes in a moment), a list of equipment and a background. The backgrounds are directed at providing an explanation to why the character became a devout and active Christian. They are nice, I must say. The players are encouraged to come up with their own templates.

The second step in character creation is the determination of the basic attributes. Now, before I proceed, let me mention that both attributes and skills have values according to a common qualitative scale that goes from Unskilled, through Proficient, to Grand Master. Now, this is perfectly ok for skills but – as I said before – it just does not work for attributes. What sense does it make to say that you are a Master of Strength? Or a Novice in terms of Wisdom? I understand the intention to avoid the multiplication of concepts but the authors should use different qualifications for attributes and skills.

The basic attributes are Spirit, Wisdom, Perception, Strength, Dexterity and Fortitude. The problem is that some attributes aggregate things without a clear rational. For instance, Spirit includes the “ability to do things according to the Spirit” with personality and communication ability. On the other hand, Wisdom combines knowledge and “how much the PC fears God and submits to His authority and leading”. Fortitude includes both physical resistance and firmness of mind. So, we have personality abilities spread through different attributes; the same for faith disposition; and both combined with other types of abilities. And the only possible explanation for this confusion is the way the mechanics use these (more on this bellow).

Defining attributes requires you to roll 6d20 and assign each to one of the attributes. You compare these rolls with a table and get the qualitative value of the attribute. At this stage the values will vary between Unskilled (the lowest in the scale) and Proficient (the middle of the scale). After that you can upgrade one attribute of your choice by one qualitative level provided you don’t upgrade past Proficient.

The next step in character creation concerns the skills. Skills in SWtRPG are tied to attributes so that their basic value is the value of the attribute they are tied to. The player picks five skills and upgrades them by one quality level.

After handling skills the player is requested to select traits: Virtues and Flaws. You get one virtue for free. For each extra virtue you have to pick a flaw. These correspond to the now usual advantages and disadvantages.

Next come point-based stats. These are Faith Points (you start with five), Hit Points (a variable number based on a roll of the Fortitude attribute), and Rhema Points (3 for new characters).

The following step is to choose a race for the character. You have the usual suspects: dwarves, elves, half-elves, halflings and men. Men are just men. The others provide changes to attributes and specific traits.

Age (from child to aged) also may have an impact in the character by affecting some of their attributes. Oddly enough it does not change the skills. In SWtRPG a child knows as much as a 90 years old!

The final steps in character creation are the usual description, choice of homeland and choice of three languages according to homeland, plus further customisation at the will of the players.

What to think about all of this? First, some things are not well tied together. For instance, the templates don’t relate to homeland or race. Second, the attributes, skills and traits need reworking, as I mentioned above (and more on skills below). On the overall, character creation is straightforward but it is also ratter uninspiring. It can be improved, though.

Let’s proceed to the resolution mechanics, the way SWtRPG handles game situations. As I mentioned before, these are based on what I presented long ago in my column Ruleslawyer for Free. Basically it’s a dice-pool mechanic using d20s. You roll a number of dice based on an attribute or a skill. The number of dice depends on the level in the attribute/skill: A Proficient character rolls a dice and gets the value rolled; any level above or below adds one die to the dice pool, so if you are unskilled you roll 4 dice, the same if you are a Grand Master. The trick is that you only retain a die among the ones you roll. If you are an under-performer (below Proficient) you pick the lowest value rolled; if you are a high performer (above Proficient) you retain the highest value rolled.

The value rolled can be subject to modifiers, either positive or negative, that add to it.

After rolling and adding mods you compare the final value with a table with six levels of results going from Critical Failure to Critical Success.

Since this is based on a proposal of my own I’ll abstain from commenting on it (even if I’m not using this system myself). In any case, notice that there are situations where the game departs from the dice pool and resorts to percentile dice.

Most game situations are handled through skills. The first thing to say about the list of skills is that it includes some odd choices. For instance, would you consider things like “Compassion”, “Repent”, “Recover from damage” as skills? Not to mention things like “Resist Pain” and “Handle Torture” (besides, why are these two separate skills?), or damage modifiers. All of these should not be skills. Where they should fit in the system is open to debate but making them skills seems a poor choice.

Next, as I said skills are broken up into attribute-based categories. Now, there are skills assigned to what seems to be the wrong attribute. Would you consider that “Jumping” or “Swimming” fit better under Strength or under Dexterity? So do I think that under DEX would make more sense, while in SWtRPG they are classified under STR.

Third, skills are broken up into specialized and common (as you would expect, you can always use a common skill but you can only use a specialized skill if you acquired it somehow). The question is, would you consider that “Hide/sneak” is a specialized skill? Or “Detect Lie”? On the other hand, in a world where the Christian faith is an obscure minority would you expect “Preach Gospel” to be a common skill? Or “Knowledge of God”? The bottom line is that the skills’ list needs a lot of rework.

The skill or attribute rolls can be modified or even cancelled by traits. Unfortunately SWtRPG suffers from the usual problems with such designs (from my perspective, of course): First, Ad hoc selection of virtues and flaws without a clear line of development (for instance, why “Musical Prodigy” trait but not painting prodigy or prodigy in any other art form?); second, there’s a potential overlap between traits and other statistics (there’s a “Courage” skill and a “Fearless” virtue without an explanation for why one is a skill and the other a virtue nor an explanation on how they interact); third, there’s no clear reason for why any given virtue is a virtue and not a flaw and vice-versa.

But my main problem with the virtues and flaws lies elsewhere. You see, some of it is based on the Bible, like the virtue “Strength of Samson”. Well, I think this was the direction that the game designers should have taken. All the virtues and flaws should be based on the Bible. This would integrate the system with the setting, and address the points I make above. Hellas, it did not happen.

Combat in SWtRPG follows the usual pattern of rounds (lasting 5 seconds, something I always consider to be too short) broken up into initiative, declaration of intent by the players, and several turns by order of initiative.

The first odd rule is the one about initiative. You see, the GM rolls a d20 for both initiative and a modifier for Rhema use. Now, this die roll combines two independent processes for no logical reason other than avoiding two die rolls. But the real issue is what it means in terms of initiative: It distributes the values of the d20 evenly between the foes and the PCs. That’s it, initiative is either for the foes in block or for the PCs in block and each has 50% of getting it. Why not just roll a coin? Or alternate initiative?

The side that got initiative acts first. The other side can counter its action. Next it’s the turn for the side that lost initiative. If a PC/NPC can perform more than one action, these will come on added turns.

A character can perform two actions per round without penalties. More actions imply a cumulative penalty of –3 to the value rolled (that can be cancelled by an expense of Faith Points). Attack and defence are opposed roll actions. The quality of a defence can be increased by one level if the player spends two actions on it (yet the same cannot be done with attacks for no stated reason). Tactical movement takes up one action. A critical attack cannot be defended against, entitles the attacker to generate a special result in a critical hit table, and generates more damage. Well, I guess that’s two benefits too much for a critical hit.

Each weapon has a fixed damage ratting that is adjusted according to the level of success of the attack for final damage (marginal is halved, exceptional is base*1,5 and critical is base*2). This is deducted from the HPs of the victim. Below ½ HPs you have to check against KO and suffer a penalty to your actions. Below 1 HP the character looses conscience and below –10 HPs he is dead.

Armour provides both a modifier to the incoming attack roll, thus reducing its damage, and to the attacks of the wearer (since it hinders its movements). Shields provide a positive modifier for the defence roll. It works.

The only specific thing about missiles is the fact that they suffer a modifier for range.

These are the basics. Next you have the usual range of alternatives going from aiming to attempts at KO, from brawling to martial arts, battles, fatigue and encumbrance, etc. Nothing really inspiring but with some nice touches here and there.

Character advancement is based on an expense of Faith Points (making me wonder how a faithless creature can raise its stats). To increase attributes costs four times more than to increase skills. Yet, since skills are tied to attributes it’s better to just increase the attributes since that means all of its related skills increase at the same time. In any case, the higher the level in the skill or attribute, the costlier raises are.

GM’s are advised to award the players with 3 to 10 FPs per game session.

SUBSTANCE III – RELIGION

As would be expected, the “magic” in SWtRPG relates to Christian religion and its usage in game terms. Basically, it turns around the next: Preaching the Gospel, using the Gospel through Rhema (the equivalent of spells), possession and deliverance, spirituality. An important warning: What I describe bellow is spread throughout the book. I had to order it in a meaningful way.

Preaching the Gospel is exactly that. The characters are supposed to evangelise, trying to attract people to Christianity. The departing point is the alignment of the NPC being preached to. This can go from Enemy to Believer. The player makes a skill roll (either Evangelism if he is preaching to a crowd, or Preach Gospel if he is trying to convert an individual). Next the subject makes a SPIrit roll that may change the preacher’s result by increasing or decreasing its quality by one level. Finally we tabulate the quality of the preaching with the alignment of the subject being preached. The end result is a change of alignment (either positive, negative or none). I suppose you have heard about opposed rolls and roll against target number. SWtRPG achieves the ability of using a mechanic that’s both opposed and target based…

There is more. The Preach Gospel roll may be enhanced by attempting another skill – Testimony – that only serves the purpose of providing a bonus for Preach Gospel. I mean, you have three skills to fulfil the same basic role…Why not simplify it and keep only one with special mods for specific situations?

The rules encourage the players to roleplay the preaching in a four-step process (relate/create/convict/reveal; I suppose this is an evangelical technique) but there’s no tie between the roleplaying and the result of the preaching since this is purely based in the dice rolls. It makes not much sense to insert something that has no impact in the outcome of the situation.

Finally, the rules present a loose tie between preaching the Gospel and using Rhema: If one of the latter is successfully used for the purpose of influencing the subject of preaching, the preacher gets a bonus in the skill rolls.

All in all, there are good ideas in this section but – like in many other aspects of SWtRPG – the implementation does not live up to it.

Rhema are the closest equivalent to magic spells in this game. Rhema, we are told, is the world of God as expressed in the Bible (why use a Greek term instead of the expression “word of God” or something similar is behind my understanding). Basically one is supposed to utter a passage from the Bible appropriate to the situation at hand and in response to this act of piety God will look after the believer.

The gamebook presents many such Rhema or selections from the Bible. They are organized like spells in any conventional fantasy rpg spell book, meaning that we are given the passage from the Bible, the conditions for its utterance, and the consequences that follow. Rhema can be either Effect Rhema or Enhancement Rhema. The latter change an ability roll while the former generate a divine manifestation. Rhema are further organized into 7 levels of increasing power with miracles at the top. For instance, we have the level 1 Rhema “Helmet of Salvation” based on Ephesians 6:17 “Take the helmet f salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”, and we also have the same level Rhema “Sword of the Spirit” based in the same passage.

To use Rhema the player is required to recite it from memory (meaning from the players’ memory; remember, this game is intended to make you a better Christian). After that the player has to roll his character’s Spirit to determine the level of success for his Rhema use. Finally, using the Rhema costs a certain number of Rhema points equal to its level. If the player can’t remember the scripture, he can still go and read the Bible but this takes 2 rounds and costs 3*Rhema points. RPs are replenished through prayer and reading the Bible.

How does one acquire Rhema? At start-up the characters have three of them. After that the characters are supposed to study the Bible and attempt to memorize more scriptures in a daily basis. The higher the level of the Rhema, the harder it is to memorize. This requires a roll of either the attribute Wisdom or the skill “Word of God”. But before that you need to get a Revelation by rolling the “Revelation of Word” skill. So, you end using an attribute and a couple of skills that only exist to fulfil a mechanical function, thus making complex what can be simple.

You don’t just acquire the Rhema you want, though. Beginning characters can only acquire level 1 Rhema. Next they have to move up the ladder to get more powerful scriptures. Notice that this progression is not tied into the spiritual attributes of skills. It’s only based on an expense of Faith Points.

Finally, there’s a random table (the one that is bundled with the initiative roll) that provides incentives to use Rhema while playing.

The odd thing about all of this is that it almost does not use attributes and skills while I would expect to have Rhema and stats closely tied to each other. Where it uses skills, it over uses it, though. Further to this, the separation between Faith Points and Rhema points seems a useless complication. The bottom line is that the whole system of scripture usage and acquisition could be a lot simpler.

Yet, my main complains lie elsewhere: For a starter, why assign fixed effects for Rhema? Actually one can see that there are cases where a Rhema of a certain level is the less powerful version of another Rhema of a higher level. To me it would make more sense to have all the quotations from the Bible having the same basic value and next having a system to modulate their power according to the religious attributes and skills of the character. (Furthermore, the rules don’t provide the possibility of combining different Rhema for more powerful or complex effects.)

But what really bugs me is that I would expect a more free-form system where one would use the Bible itself and not be restricted to the passages selected by the game designer. I mean, I would like to be able to pick from the Bible the passage I want to use as Rhema and have rules offering me guidelines on how to do it.

As things stand, SWtRPG provides us a classical magic system with quotations from the Bible. As a magic system it needs a lot of rework. As a “Bible: The Game system” it does not do its job: To allow the player to go to the Book and turn it into a game device.

Spirituality is handled in several sections (Power in the Spirit, Sin and Combat) and an appendix.

Power in the Spirit (briefly sketched in three pages) refers to bonus that can be gained through collective praying, fasting and the praise and worship of God. Further to this, it includes rules for gifts of the Spirit to the characters (miraculous advantages gained by an act of faith – aka expending Faith Points), and blessings and curses on items (more bonus; there’s an appendix with examples of such items). Once more, I just hope that the authors had directly based all of this in the Bible. Hellas, it is not the case. The section finishes with a brief coverage of blessed oils and balms.

Sin’s coverage (a nice touch: Sin is the 13th section) is even sparser than the one reserved for Power in the Spirit. The basic mechanic is the next: The GM presents a situation where the character may feel compelled to sin (the rules suggest that at least a PC per game session should be subject to such a temptation); the player attempts to resist the temptation by rolling a suitable Fruit of the Spirit (not to be confused with the gifts of the Spirit – talk about confusing multiplication of game entities); if he fails, the character has sinned. (What if the character does not have a suitable Fruit of the Spirit for the particular situation? There is no provision for this.) Of course, the character may sin even if the GM didn’t “plot” for it. In this case there’s no resistance to temptation (unless GM wants to be kind to you, points that the character is sinning and allows you to step back after a temptation roll). In any case, once the character has sinned he will suffer a penalty of –5 to all rolls (something that can be cleared when the PC repents) and lose 3 Faith Points. Repentance requires the character (player) to confess the sin and get a marginal result in a Spirit roll.

Besides sin, the book covers the works of the devil through enchantments, possession (of non-Christians) and oppression (of Christians) and deliverance of such states. Enchantments are the work of the devil. They can be resisted but this introduces a further component independent of attributes or skills: The Fruits of the Spirit (nine that go from Love to Self-Control through Peace or Goodness). Each enchantment can be resisted with a specific Fruit of the Spirit. On the other hand, deliverance from enchantments works a lot like combat (to the point that the rules are in the combat section). It is based in either the SPI attribute or the Deliverance skill.

Further to this, there’s a brief description of a spiritual order, the Knights of the Realm modelled on medieval knightly orders, of course. The characters can belong to the order and if they do, they will have to comply with a code of 10 commandments that are not directly based on the Bible. Once more, I ask myself why there’s not a closer tie between this setting device and its inspirational source, specially since part of the 10 commandments of the order are based on the 10 biblical commandments. I like the idea of this order, though.

On the overall the religion and spirituality rules need a lot of work. They could be better integrated with their source of reference – the Bible – and there are too many unconnected or poorly connected game concepts (attributes, skills, preaching, Rhema, gifts of the Spirit, Fruits of the Spirit, etc.). Some things are unnecessarily complicated. Others could be more developed. Further to this, the rules are – as I mentioned before – spread all around the book, thus making it much harder to understand. Yes, there are enough good ideas to fuel a good system but as it stands it is not something I would like to play with, not without extensive changes.

SUBSTANCE IV – FOR THE GAME MASTER

Game Master-specific material is also spread through the book. It includes a short introduction to game mastering (the 1.5 pages chapter 4); the oddly placed chapter 10 that defines the foes (yes, it only defines them in a little more than one page); chapter 15 that covers ambiance, weather and the natural elements, money, NPCs, generic GM advice and some guidelines on how to reward Faith Points; chapter 16 on the game world; an introductory scenario (always a plus in my account, the one included is interesting but not outstanding – it has some inconsistencies but also some nice touches – but it serves its purpose); and, in the appendixes, a proud selection of encounter tables (like you thought you would never be presented with again) and tables of blessed and cursed items.

Most of this is underdeveloped and standard fare. Certainly, it is not because of these items that you are going to buy SWtRPG.

SUBSTANCE V – THE FUN FACTOR

SWtRPG is far from being an outstanding game but it has its own character and charm. Most of the problems I’ve pointed to can be easily fixed in a future edition. In any case, if you are strongly against mixing real world religion with role playing (even if the mix is done by a faithful), you’ve better avoid SWtRPG.

If you have no problems in blending Christianity with fantasy I suggest you give SWtRPG a try. It’s an un-expensive game and there are some ideas that may trigger your creativity or satisfy your curiosity.

To conclude this review let me add a little story I just can’t resist to tell:

When the Catholic crusaders were reading themselves for the final assault on the Albigensis heresy’s stronghold, there was something worrying the commander of the Christian forces so he decided to seek the counsel of the Archbishop of Toulouse:

“Your Grace”, he said, “there are good Christians among the heretics. In the course of the battle how are we to identify who are the Faithful so that we can spare their lives, and who are the heretics that are to be put to death?”

“Kill them all”, replied the Archbishop, “God will know how to discriminate among them.”

PREVIOUS REVIEWS IN THE FANTASY SERIES

FS#00 Hero Wars: http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_3385.html (technically not part of the series, I’ve included it because the game falls into the scope of games I’m reviewing)

FS#01 RuneQuest 2: http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_7969.html

FS#02 RuneQuest 3: http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_8012.html

FS#03 Basic D&D: http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_8045.html

FS#04 D&D 3rd Edition: http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_8088.html

FS#05 Prince Valiant: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9189.phtml

FS#06 Exalted: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9204.phtml

FS#07 Rêve de Dragon: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9243.phtml