Review of The First Book of Worlds

The actual title is "The First Book of Worlds." That's not quite true. There are only two worlds in the book. The rest of them are badly-written and poorly-disguised adventure modules.

The first world is the best. Remember that.

It's called "NagaWorld" but there isn't a single naga on it. Instead, it has a bunch of blobs with eyes that the designers call "nagas." They have eyes, and one of them eats the rest- as well as any stupid or slow PCs. They're actually the devolved form of a race of psycho lizardmen, and there is a means to restore them; underneath this wacko disk world lies a bed of sentient tapioca pudding. It's psychicly active, and dumping one of the blobs in it sets off the restoration process. (Once finished, it kills any aliens found.)

NagaWorld, like TORG's Aysle, is a double-sided disk world. The PCs always arrive on the top side, near a conviently-placed stronghold with more-or-less friendly NPCs. Since this is intended to be the first place for new stormers- er, "versers"- to go, it's a sort of boot camp for versers. It's meant to be as illogical and alien as possible, and it does so well past the point of believability.

Besides the titular lifeform above, and the psychic tapioca pudding, there's a species of mobile coral reefs that fires stun lasers, a type of bird that likes to ram all that moves and giant clams that live as herbivores. This isn't good world-building; it's a bad trip through the AD&D Monstrous Manual while drunk on the sacramental wine.

There are two alien races. One is reptilian and the other is insectoid, and they're involved in a genocidal war on both sides of the disk. Both sides rely on berserkers, terminators and hunter-killers akin to those found in the books or movies of the same names. (Both do little combat in-person.)

Finally, there's a city that sits right on the center axis of the world, and it has a tunnel that goes through the center. Within it are a bunch of solar-powered glass-like spiders that also act like terminators.

What the hell is a PC to do? Not much, besides botch while learning new skills. Either way, it's assumed that the PCs will get stupid and kill themselves, thus moving him on to the next world.

The only other real world-- barely-- is "Tristan's Labyrinth." It's an endless dungeon filled with geneticly-engineered monsters that do nothing but fight and kill each other for food and water. The reason it qualifies is because there is a real world below and above this place, but unless the PCs get lucky or have the right stuff they'll never find a way out; this is meant to be a maximum-security prison, much like the conclaves of "Escape From New York" and "Escape From L.A."

The rest of the worlds-- "The Dancing Princess", the Mary Piper Scenarios, "Sherwood Forest", "The Most Dangerous Game" and "The Zygote Experience"-- are glorified modules or misnamed appendixes.

"The Dancing Princess" sets itself in an alternate medieval England, and the PC is assumed to be the one who stops a demonic conspiracy to seize control of England through taking the king's daughters as wives.

The Mary Piper chapter has twin plots, but different settings. One is a 17th century pirate ship, and the other is a 23rd century tramp freighter.

"Sherwood Forest", set during 12th century England, puts the PC with Robin and his band as they move heaven and earth to rescue King Richard from his captors.

"The Most Dangerous Game" is properly called a replay, such as commonly seen in RPG play in Japan, because it puts the PC in the hunted role and otherwise uses the original story as both backdrop and plot.

"The Zygote Experience" is the appendix, and it details the process by which one grows from an embryo up to adolescance. This is definately Too Much Information; if I wanted to know, I'd go look it up myself. The only reason it's there is to justify the rulebook's use of "reborn as zygote" on the catastrophe table.

This isn't as insulting as the rulebook, but it does suffer from rampant stupidity in the original work and lazy design throughout the book. Most of the scenarios proposed are nothing new, and they can easily be used by others without ever hearing of this book's existance.

May it share Multiverser's fate, and that of the creators.

Style: 1 (Unintelligible)
Substance: 1 (I Wasted My Money)