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As I said in my review of the corebook, the magic system in Buffy is perhaps the weakest and most definitely the sparsest element of the game. We needed to see it expanded, I argued, to really see what it was really made of.
What I missed there is that the simplicity of the magic system turns into speed in play, and is a joy to use as a result. Moreover, the more I think about magic in the TV show, the more I realise it is almost always a plot device, and doesn't need complex rules - and certainly not if they slow down play. So, the question is, how do you write a book which puts more meat on the bones, without losing everything that made the rules so great to begin with?
As they say in educational programs, let's find out together. I make reviewing fun!
The Magic Box is a 128 supplement bound between two - wait for it - soft-cover pages. Alas, the money has run out for producing the gorgeous hardcovers we have come to know and love. And so this baby will get bent and creased if you pull it in and out of your bag a lot. However, the binding is good quality and it seems pretty strong, given how well it is holding up under my typically callous treatment. (Oops!)
Meanwhile, Eden have not slacked off with their presentation values, maintaining full colour throughout. Although the paper quality has dropped, making some of the images more blurry, overall this maintains the ease of reading and attractive appeal of the rest of the line. As Craig Oxbrow has mentioned, pictures of Willow abound, and Big Red is also the main feature of the cover, with Tara and Giles behind her (and Anya, for no real reason). This is indeed Red's book, as she is the archetypal witch of the show. One wonders if there will be a Zeppo book one day. We can only hope.
Inside, the book likewise follows the format we're learning to love so quickly. Chapter one is the "setting stuff" chapter, which means vague explanations, oft-dreary history and a jumble of setting ideas, some good, some bad. It doesn't stray form this formula; there are no explanations but the history of magic in the Buffyverse is quite dull and fairly superfluous. It doesn't help that the writer, John Snead, is easily the most prosaic writer the line has seen yet. CJ made reading even the most boring rules a party in your brain, and Thom at least kept the smile on your face. Alas, this book reads right the way through much like far too many RPG books out there - a drudgery of rules and information. It is clear, and concise and easy to understand, and in isolation, it wouldn't be that bad. But the absence of the verve and spirit of the earlier books is acutely felt, and painfully missed.
However, there's some compensation for the dull history afterwards as the text deals with magical groups and cabals. Five from the show are listed, and one bonus one. These are nothing special, but are well described and may spark some ideas. They follow the classic Buffy mode when they subsequently spend equally as many words talking about ways to use such groups in your games, and individual magicians as well. Again, this is nothing special but is still appreciated. The chapter closes with some examples of individual powerful magicians: Willow in her Darth Rosenberg mode, Warren Mears, Rack the magic pusher and for some reason, also Toth, the demon who split Xander in half.
That's the second time I've said "for some reason". For a game that has previously been as precise as a surgeon's scalpel in cutting away all the chaff and keeping only the coolest, the prettiest and the most essential, you can see that some warning signs have already gone up.
That said, Snead writes rules a lot better than he does explanations, and he's worked on a lot of magic rules in his time (for Ars Magica and Mage to name but two). So when we reach the next chapter, everyone's favourite chapter in Buffy books - the chapter with all the kewl powers in it - things suddenly look a lot better.
So what kewl powers does Chapter Two: The Magical You contain? Ohh baby, all the good stuff. First of all, there's important magic stuff like being part of a magical group (with a simple and excellent point-build system to determine the value), coming from a magical family or having a magical tutor (demonic or otherwise). Then there's the important new qualities that allow you to make magical objects (Enchanter) or superscience gizmos (Superscientist). These work the same way: just like Sorcery, but the effects create devices which are permanent. You can't be an Enchanter and a Superscientist at the same time, but if you had the points, you could combine either with Sorcery. The full rules on how these work are presented in chapter five.
Speaking of Sorcery, we also now have rules for if you want telekinesis without the magic. Then there's also second sight, telepathy, spirit medium and my favourite, psychometry. All are well done, with psychometry being specifically written so as not to break the game (the effects listed in the table focus on how you won't be able to use the power to find out who the killer is until the GM wants you to) which is a nice touch. These are all fairly cheap, especially when compared with similar powers in WitchCraft. The text makes mention of this, in fact. The reason for this is that in WitchCraft, having a magic power is not something particularly special, whereas in Buffy, it's like giving the GM a blank cheque to be drawn from the First Bank of Angst and Pummelling.
Of course, if you want to be pummelled without the magic power, consider the wonderfully named Drawback Monster Magnet. Also fun are Invisibility and Iron Mind. This big box of goodies will attract almost any player who doesn't want to be the boring old Slayer and keep your group in amusing and interesting powers for years. This is what most people will want this book for, and it is easily the best chapter in the entire thing. And I still haven't mentioned the best part.
Allow me to wax fanboyish for a moment, if you please. RK Post isn't just one of the best artists working in the industry, he's also the second best thing to happen to Buffy after CJ Carella. Like CJ, everything he touches turns to gold. Unlike CJ, his work has graced every Buffy book so far. I hold archetypes to be, like adventures, absolutely vital to an RPG, because a how-to book which doesn't display an example of finished product is fundamentally flawed. Heck, for me, archetypes can determine whether a game sells itself to me or not in one fell swoop - and Buffy's have always come through here. Yes, the writers have always chosen wonderful concepts, but without the genius of Mr Post to represent them, the true glory would never have been complete.
In fact, in this book the archetypes aren't so incredibly interesting. Sure, the Invisible Spy is fun, and the Young Mystic is full of keen psychic powers, but they're nowhere near as cool as the Slayer Heiress or the Rebel Without a Clue. But then RK draws the Young Inventor looking quite a bit like Eliza Dushku, right down to the tight leather pants, and all is forgiven. Buffy is a very visual game, based on a very visual show. The RPG works in concert with this by providing lots of stills from the series. A lot of licensed RPGs have skimped when it has come to the original artwork, because they've spent all their money on the photos. Mr Post's work doesn't just match the photos, it exceeds it at times. He keeps the beautiful visuals alive in the moments when there are no photos, and thus makes the archetypes swell with as much life as every episode of Buffy. It's a beautiful thing.
Er, yes, and there are also new character sheets for magiced-up, new-rules-adjusted Willow, Giles, Amy and Tara.
Chapter Three sends poor little Steve's brain crashing back down to earth again as we go from cool toys and tight leather pants to a whole chapter of rules crunch of the drudgiest kind. Of course, I find 90% of RPGs out there duller than watching golf, so I am somewhat biased here. And the fact that I finished it speaks again of its conciseness and clarity, despite the subject matter.
Also, these rules actually accomplish what we hoped: they expand on the rules of the book without much extra complication. Instead, the book just explains how magic works at a much slower paee, and covers a much larger scope than the main book could. Instead of just looking at spells and sorcery, there are rules for virtual magic, rituals, magical items, and how to deal with demonic pacts. Since this is a post-series-six book, it also includes plenty of rules on magical boosting, magical pushing and magical addiction, which will no doubt be very useful in many games. The effects list for spell design is greatly expanded, making it easier to judge this for your own spells. The side effects table is now divided into categories depending on the nature of the spell. This is a nice idea, but despite breaking down the side-effects more specifically, the entries never vary much and are devoid of any really nasty suggestions or ideas.
Overall, it's successful. The new rules aren't anything special, or interesting, and in the case of side effects, are disappointing. But they do provide rules for all different types of spell-casting and all its nasty consequences, and the more detailed spell creation rules stand out as something which every magic-using group will find very helpful.
This may also hold true for the next chapter, Chapter Four, which presents over seventy - count em - seventy different spells, plus a handful of magic items. That represents every magic spell ever cast on the show, plus some original ones. The research is impeccable and exhaustive and as a resource on magic in the show, this should prove indispensable. If you want to know exactly what spell was cast on the candy in series three, and whether your mage can do it again, then that info is right here at your fingertips. Plus each spell has its power calculations, broken down so you can sharpen your skills at making your own spells, as well as harvest ideas for modifications.
The only question I have is regarding this list's usefulness in an ongoing game. Part of the fun of a campaign is discovery, and part of the way the Buffyverse works is that the problem is defined and then a new magical solution is found, not an old one. Indeed, the core rules even suggest that it not be possible to cast spells twice! On the other hand, another of the tropes of Buffy magic is that the available magical tools don't always fit every situation. Players pawing through this list of seventy (or a smaller selection, if their Occult Library isn't so hot) for that which comes closest to their problem and then trying to find a way to twist it to their needs would be a wonderful meta-gaming experience, and one rich with verisimilitude. That is to say, this book could be for your players what their Occult Library is for their characters, which is a nice touch.
Chapter Five finally has the rules left out of the previous chapters - how to build the magical and superscience devices everyone's talking about - indeed, of which we had examples in the previous chapter, instead of this one. It also has the rules for invisibility, and a brief note on psychics in society, which really belonged back with the psychic powers. Again, organisation is not this book's strength, and it suffers because of it.
The rules for superscience/enchanted devices are interesting, if not spectacular. They're deliberately and with great emphasis quite harsh. Not only is their an extended building time (two weeks per effect level) but there are also very steep component requirements. For example, for a level four device - something which can recreate a level 3 spell - you might need the blood from a vampire more than a thousand years old, or a piece of moon rock. In a nice touch, however, once the power level of the effect is decided on, the ingredients needed and the time required can be dropped by making the object unwieldy to use or carry, or of limited use. Likewise, the power level can be increased by improving such things. The only flaw is that the effects list is pretty short, although with the improved details for spells, this shouldn't be too much of a problem. All in all, this seems a workable system to use, as well as a fun system for players to mess around with. Again, more of the verisimilitude, connecting character actions with player actions.
It suffers however, from one flaw. Big, potentially game wrecking effects, and any usage modifier that steps that direction, are automatically given a power level of seven. Level seven is then listed as being off limits to all PCs. Theoretically, there's nothing wrong with a set of rules saying something is totally verboten; in this case it's more in the way the rule is presented. You can't have these things, you can never have them no matter what your power level, and you can't even have them if you apply modifiers to make them almost impossible to create or use. Indeed, power level seven isn't actually a power level. It's a code word for "no". So why dangle these options out there in the first place? Why have a level if it has no rules purpose? Why not just admit what it actually is instead of this wordplay?
Again, some solid ideas with a tiny daub of ointment on the fly. The adventure which closes the book, "Orphan Trouble", also fits this description.
The problem with this adventure can be summed up with one quote: "The plot works best if one of the Cast Members lives with her parents...and this episode also requires one of the Cast Member's parents to have an older brother who has not been heard from for many years, and a sister who lives out of town". Granted, the previous adventures have needed a Slayer and arguably a high school, but nothing on this level of assumptions. The whole point of a pre-written adventure - especially one which isn't part of the ongoing Djinn campaign - is that it be as widely applicable as possible. While a good GM can make this work, this just requires one too many assumptions.
That problem aside, however, the adventure is fairly good and quite reminiscent of the show. The PC's parents adopt a boy after his adopted mother is killed in an accident, and naturally he goes to work causing the same things in his new home. A lot of fiendishly annoying things are presented for the little tot to do to his new big brother or sister, and his magical powers will make sure the parents always take his side. Of course, he quickly turns out to be a demon summoned by weird uncle Ronald, and hijinks aplenty occur. The end is nicely complex, too, so the episode doesn't simply stop when the pretty obvious secret is announced. The only real other problem is that setting up the kid as freaky requires time to pass between his incidents of hellraising so the GM is going to need some subplot or very pro-active players if this isn't to drag.
We close with a wonderful little surprise, that nobody saw coming and is again typical of the Buffy tradition of going the extra mile. The Appendix gives us four big pages of lists of possible spell ingredients and ritual elements to make your magic feel a bit more "real". It's like a massive Star-Trek techno-babble chart, only for magic. Arcano-babble would be the term, I suppose. The list covers herbs, colours, cards, angels, demons, gods and more, and manages to combine a good level of detail with an efficient use of space, meaning you can whack open these pages mid-game and create your arcano-babble without skipping a beat. Nice.
Following this is another sweet surprise - rules for inserting Witchcraft metaphysics and vice versa. Both are well done and wonderfully useful, where the powers don't overlap too much. Superscience, for example, could make a great Combine weapon in Witchcraft, and the more fleshed out Necromancy powers work very well in Buffy. The only problem is that you need the Witchcraft rules as well as the Buffy rules to make use of the conversions. This is at its most problematic in the next setion where the Witchcraft Associations are also included, and could have easily been expanded on just slightly more to make them usable on their own. However, there's nothing unexpected about this - indeed, it is sounds business sense. It's also a complete non-issue now that Witchcraft is available entirely for free (God Bless Eden!).
It's a nice easter egg to finish on, but is it enough to save the book from mediocrity? That depends on your definition of mediocrity. Throughout this book, I was reminded of series four of Buffy - sure, it was good, but it wasn't as good as what had come before (because Joss/CJ was too busy with Angel/Angel, no doubt).
There is no doubt that this is a very useful book. It does exactly what it should - provide expanded rules for magic, including important, previously missing things like magical addiction and how to build sex robots that look like Christina Ricci. It expands on the guidelines and tables of the core rules making them easier and more interesting to use. It provides a full list of every magic spell or effect used on the show, and more, plus even more cool powers for your players to have. It gets the job done.
It just doesn't get it done in style. Although at times it goes the extra mile, or shows tiny flashes of brilliance, there's nothing in this book (apart from the Young Inventor) that sits up, slaps you in the face and demands to be noticed or played. There's no verve to the writing and no spark in the ideas. There is, alas, no magic in this book all about magic. Yes, I've never been a fan of series six, nor do I have a magician in my group, so I'm biased. But I approached the Buffy corebook with a similar disdain, and it won me over and made me a gibbering loon. It convinced me that this game was worth playing.
And that, ultimately, is the flaw in Magic Box. At the end of the book, I didn't feel like being a magician was something I wanted to do. But if you've already decided it is, you will find this book a sound investment. It may be slipping towards mediocre by Buffy standards, but in the world of RPGs, it's a high quality sourcebook which will not just be read, but prove useful - and be used - over and over again, even in a magic-light series. It's not a must-have, but it is a won't-regret. It will earn its keep on your shelves, it just won't raise your blood pressure much.
Except for, you know, the Young Inventor and her leather pants.
Style: 3 Substance: 3
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