This game used to come up frequently at TBP as an example of an early wrgame/RPG hybris. I seem to recall that it had some bizarre feature that made it stand out. Anyhow, I located a copy of the hardcover locally (for $10 or trade) and I was wondering what exactly it is that made the game stand out ('cause I forget) and if it's worth the price of admission.

Quote from: jdrakehThis game used to come up frequently at TBP as an example of an early wrgame/RPG hybris. I seem to recall that it had some bizarre feature that made it stand out. Anyhow, I located a copy of the hardcover locally (for $10 or trade) and I was wondering what exactly it is that made the game stand out ('cause I forget) and if it's worth the price of admission.

Well, it gives stats for God and the Devil.  It's almost worth getting just for that.

I'll have to dig it out when I get home, but from what I remember it was an overly cumbersome game that had you roll dice for everything, like who would be the party leader, or if two PCs disagreed they would have to roll to decide who won the argument, and there were lots of little modifiers that had to be taken into account for each such roll.  It really was an unwieldy annoying system.  I thought about running a pbp of it over on the big blue just as a joke, but I just couldn't do it.

On the plus side, it has some great information about life, culture, politics, and war in the middle ages, and some pretty good GM advice.  This stuff makes up about the first half of the book, the RPG rules make up probably a quarter, and the mass battle wargaming system makes up a quarter.

If you still need to know when I get home from work I'll pull it out and go into more detail.

EDIT-Here's a discussion on it they had over at Dragonsfoot a while ago.

I think this is the one that's famous for some kind of sexist thing where female characters were automatically .. something. Low stats and no career options or something.

Ah, here it is:

QuotePlayers wishing to play a female character must unfortunately take the penalties of a patriarchal society. Make the following adjustments to diced characteristics: physique and endurance -3, charisma -2, social class -3, bravery -2, greed/selfishness/lust -3. They will be excluded from combat, from all parts of the Church save the nunnery, and expected in most cases to adopt a domestic position as wife, housekeeper and servant. These factors are invariable.

In DragonQuest, you could be a "courtesan"

LOL, I hope the ghosts of Queen Mary I and Joan of Arc get together and pummel his ass in the afterlife. :teehee:

I have a book club copy of this one.

The historical information in the book is, as noted, very good.

I like the ideas behind the magic system, too, with correspondences and such affecting the power and ability of your mage.

Quote from: blakkieLOL, I hope the ghosts of Queen Mary I and Joan of Arc get together and pummel his ass in the afterlife. :teehee:

On the other hand, I remember hearing somewhere that the game's stats for the Virgin Mary make her a real combat monster...

Hmm. . . maybe I'll trade for it tomorrow and then slot it into the review queue after Wraeththu. I couldn't find an honest to god product overview anywhere. I've seen lots of armchair commenatary, but as I found out with Dragonraid (and as I'm currently finding out with Wraeththu) much of this is exaggerated to the point of being totally useless.

The mass combat system also seemed quite good--unlike the main rules they struck me as a quite serviceable miniatures system.

Quote from: TechnomancerI'll have to dig it out when I get home, but from what I remember it was an overly cumbersome game that had you roll dice for everything, like who would be the party leader, or if two PCs disagreed they would have to roll to decide who won the argument...

Actually in some respects this was way ahead of its time.

Thank you for this thread.  I have the book on my shelf and I have NEVER opened it.  Now I know what it is.