... is an awesome game. That is all.

Quote from: Benoist;414223... is an awesome game. That is all.

Awesome setting for Egypt. Horrible game system. I'd rather watch paint dry than suffer through character generation - Both take the same amount of time. That is all.

I had some of the books for it - the main book, the magic book, Epic of Aerth, Necropolis. Unfortunately, they had to go during a number of moves and life changes. I wish I still had them.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;414228I had some of the books for it - the main book, the magic book, Epic of Aerth, Necropolis. Unfortunately, they had to go during a number of moves and life changes. I wish I still had them.

I had them in the 90s, and reacquired them recently. You can still find Mythus and Mythus Magic via eBay for pretty cheap. Mythus Prime, however, seems to be more expensive than it was. It's funny because I got it via an ordering mistake for the Epic of Aerth, which I acquired at a later date nonetheless. Now, I have the d20 version of Necropolis, but I'm going to complete the set by acquiring its DJ original version at some point.

But really, here's the biggie: yes, character generation is more complicated than usual, and you have a whole lot of new jargon to learn to understand what the hell the books are talking about (which surprisingly, by the way, I didn't find as hard as many posters on the internet would still have you believe).

No. Let's drop the parenthesis here: as a matter of fact, there are way too many exaggerations going on about Mythus. It's not "too complex." It appears complex when you just try to read through it at a 10-page-a-minute rate. It's like RoleMaster in that respect: you know all the myths about how RoleMaster is so Gawd-awful-unplayable-OMG-WTF-BBQ? Well, Mythus suffers from the same sort of bullshit.

Yes, character generation is more complex, and it takes some getting used to, no question about it. And there's a ton of stuff in the books to consider. But hopefully, you start with Mythus Prime (the light version of the system at the beginning of the Mythus book that later became its own supplement/basic version of the game), and work your way up the ladder with your group from there, learning as you go.

What's the core book you need to play the game, or is it like DMG, MM and PHB?

You just need the Mythus book. Mythus Magic expands so much on the magic system and is so inspirational as to make it a core book as well. So it's not like the PH/DMG/MM partition. It's more like you have the whole game system in one volume, and another one that tremendously expands on the Magic system. The third volume to get from there would be the Epic of Aerth, which details Mythus' default world itself.

The only volume I don't have at this point (I think, besides the DJ version of Necropolis) is the Bestiary, but I wouldn't call it a must have. Not sure why I feel this way, but there you have it.

One of the things I like about them is that, at least in Mythus and (I think) the magic book, they're extremely well-illustrated. I can't recall the name of the artist.

Epic of Aerth is the one I most lament having to give up. I dug the complexity and the drawing upon often obscure sources from myth and legend.

It's too bad that Gygax had to go to such lengths to come up with new terminology to avoid any kind of legal action from TSR, and ended up losing out anyway. He continued that practice with Lejendary Adventures, perhaps to its detriment.

The complexity of Dangerous Journeys/Mythus was kind of intimidating to me at the time I first bought the books. I'd probably be much less intimidated now. Another game I'd give a shot if I had the chance.

Quote from: Benoist;414233You just need the Mythus book. Mythus Magic expands so much on the magic system and is so inspirational as to make it a core book as well. So it's not like the PH/DMG/MM partition. It's more like you have the whole game system in one volume, and another one that tremendously expands on the Magic system. The third volume to get from there would be the Epic of Aerth, which details Mythus' default world itself.

The only volume I don't have at this point (I think, besides the DJ version of Necropolis) is the Bestiary, but I wouldn't call it a must have. Not sure why I feel this way, but there you have it.

How easy is it to knock together five characters and have a dungeon crawl with the game-master having done a skim of the rules and experienced gamers but not necessarily experienced with DJ?

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;414235It's too bad that Gygax had to go to such lengths to come up with new terminology to avoid any kind of legal action from TSR

I can certainly understand how the new lingo is an obstacle for most of us who've been dealing with "NPCs" and "Ability Scores" most of our gamer lives. But you can also take it as an opportunity to sort of let go of all the baggage acronyms carry with them. It's an opportunity to make it a blank slate and start over. It was actually refreshing for me to get into a new game paradigm with a mind bereft of apriorities in terms of semantics and in particular, how they affected my expectations regarding a game's design.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;414237How easy is it to knock together five characters and have a dungeon crawl with the game-master having done a skim of the rules and experienced gamers but not necessarily experienced with DJ?

With Mythus Prime (the light version of the game system included as the first chapter of the main book, Mythus), it's fine.

With the full system, it's hard. Characters in DJ are extremely detailed. This is the single most complex part of game play.

Quote from: Benoist;414242With Mythus Prime (the light version of the game system included as the first chapter of the main book, Mythus), it's fine.

With the full system, it's hard. Characters in DJ are extremely detailed. This is the single most complex part of game play.

Champions hard or Rolemaster hard?

Champions hard = break out the calculator.  Rolemaster hard = start->run->winword.exe (actually rolemaster is kind of mathy, too).

It's more in the amount of information, stats, sub-stats, skill calculations. So the amount of nitpicky stuff, rather than "OMG Calculus!"-type complexity. So I'd say more Rolemaster hard, in that respect.

I played in a short DJ campaign when it frist came out. All I remember is that my character sheet spanned several pages and was totally incomprehensible. I think one guy had a full page just for his armour.

I guess I'll just never understand the attraction of this obsessive level of detail.

ok. You've explained why it's not shit and/or as complicated as a lot of people say. But why is it good? What puts it apart from other fantasy rpgs from that period? Explain the awesome!

I had this back in the day.

I loved the setting but chargen, jesus it took me a whole day to create a detailed character.  It's way too complicated for what it's trying to achieve. Like the time I tried to create a motorcycle in Fire Fusion and Steel and gave up after two days.  I might (and it's a big might) be tempted by Mythus Prime which was much more user friendly but the full blown game is just awful.