Edit this Review | Unlink This Review from Sovereign Stone Game System

Goto [ Index ]

Sovereign Stone is a new game from Sovereign Press and Corsair Publishing. Last year at GenCon they released a well-done Quickstart booklet, and this year they released a 168 page rule book, called the Sovereign Stone Game System.

In all, I am impressed. This game brings together a new world by Larry Elmore and a cool game system by Don Perrin and Lester Smith. Mr. Perrin I do not know, but Lester Smith is known for Dark Conspiracy and Dragon Dice and a whole lot more. The ad in the back of the main book states that there's a series of novels coming from Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Summer 2000.

Here's what I disliked about the game:

I found a bunch of editorial errors in the book. It seems that the company rushed to put this book out for a GenCon release, and I think that was a mistake. There are errors in matching pictures to text, like Dwarves being without beards, but the picture shows beards. Dumb errors that should have been caught. The source material for the world is very light. This I can forgive, if there's more coming down the pipe in the form of adventures and sourcebooks. There is mention of monsters and races that there are no stats for, but again, I am assuming that they are leaving some good stuff for future releases.

Here's what I liked about the game:

I played in the demo at GenCon, and it was a blast. This game is really fun to play. It is capable of modelling all sorts of things that other games fall down on. For example, you can knock someone out with a stun-only weapon, or use Agility or Dexterity as your base Stat when using a sword if you're high enough level. That way you could become a rapier user and actually be effective. Very cool. I liked the races. They are the standard Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Orks, but here they're all true races. Orks, for example, are not evil. Some may view them that way, but from their point of view, it is the Karnuans (a Human race) that is evil. The monsters are varied and interesting, and not simply the AD&D monster manual translated for this system. The look of this game is really great, too. The art is very cool and the layout is easy to read, and looks rather classy.

There's work to be done here, but there is great potential. My recommendation would be to buy and play this game if you like fantasy RPGing. This assumes that the reprint of the main rulebook will correct the stupid errors, and that source material will come with future releases. The game is solid, and like I said, it's a blast to play.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 3 (Average)