Posts Tagged ‘secrets of pact magic’

Review: Secrets of Pact Magic

Friday, November 27th, 2009

Secrets of Pact Magic is a very interesting set of alternative rules for any OGL game.  I’ve often enjoyed fantasy worlds where magic is performed by binding spirits, or at least where such rituals are fairly common (say, more frequent than castings of planar ally spells, which have never been used in any game I have played in for the last seven years).  So, at first blush, pact magic looks like a good way to incorporate that feeling into D&D with both crunch and roleplaying.

Over the last several days, I’ve had the chance to read through Secrets of Pact Magic and have absolutely fallen in love with the way pact magic is presented.  A word of warning – I haven’t had time to do a playlets, so I cannot speak definitively about balance or the way the crunch plays out.  I’ll offer my opinion (since when has anything stopped me from doing that?), but take it with a grain of salt.

First, production values.  Secrets of Pact Magic is about what I’d expect from a third party publisher.*  The pages of the PDF have a nice background and border that add some flavor without being too distracting.   The art is not quite as good as, say, something from Paizo or Wizards, but its style fits with the rest of the production choices in the PDF and that’s really my highest requirement.  The typographic and other layout choices are mostly good, but the headers on some sidebars can be distracting.

The book begins with an introduction to pact magic, which is a good primer for the flavor of the pact magic system.  Reading it for the first time, I was immediately drawn in and wanted to give it a spin or work it into my own campaigns.  I love the idea of small bargains or deals that aren’t quite on the Faustian level (at first) in order to gain a measure of personal power.   It’s a delicious approach to magic ripe for roleplaying opportunities.

The way pact magic is presented in Secrets gives GMs a chance to use it either as a full-blown change to D&D’s magic system, or as an addition to the game as it stands.  I think the best way to use pact magic is by making it an option, but not necessarily by making it the primary source of magic in the world.  Part of my reasoning is that the pact magic system doesn’t seem meant to be a replacement for arcane/divine magic.

The classes offered in Secrets have a few holes.  Not big ones, mind you, but for the kind of game that I like to play the pact magic classes aren’t quite adequate.  I like having a cleric class, for one.  Pact magic offers the Occult Priest, but it doesn’t have quite the flavor I’m looking for.  So, pact magic can’t replace magic in D&D for me, but the beauty of Secrets is that it works just as well as a complement to the stock classes.

The way I played with my friends in high school was that all the standard classes in the Player’s Handbook were available, and then the GM picked from the dozens of supplements we collectively owned which other classes would be permissible.  There were usually at least two dozen.   I like having options, and pact magic adds some good ones.

I’m a particular fan of the Foe Hunter, a ranger-like class that lets the Hunter vary his/her abilities based on the currently-bound spirit.   I can see using the Foe Hunter as a holy warrior who calls upon spirits to hunt the enemies of his/her faith.  Alternatively, the Foe Hunter sells little bits of his/her soul at a time (sorta like a time share, but in hell) to gain the skills needed to off the next contract.

Note to GMs: want to make the supernatural a very important part of your campaign that is fundamentally tied to at least one character in the game?  This will do it.

In short, I love Secrets of Pact Magic.  The designers put some serious thought and effort into writing this supplement, and I think it makes a great addition to any D&D game.  I’m looking forward to working it into a game soon, possibly using the Pathfinder conversion.  I would have loved to review that as well, but this review ended up being way longer than I expected so I’ll save that for another day.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of Secrets of Pact Magic, Villains of Pact Magic, and the conversion guide from Ed Healey at Atomic Array so that I could write this review.

* That is, a company with less in the way of resources than a one of the few major hitters in the field.  I love small presses, and this one is no different, so please don’t take this as a negative.

Want to learn more about Pact Magic? Read on…

Drop by Radiance House
Publishing today!

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Posted in Blog, RPGs, Reviews, d20 | 5 Comments »

Review: Thrilling Tales

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

I seem to be doing a lot of reviews lately…  I guess that’s what happens when I get offered review copies.  Check back here on Friday morning around 8pm EST for my review of Secrets of Pact Magic for Atomic Array.  In the mean time, I offer some quick thoughts on Thrilling Tales, a pulp adaptation for the Savage Worlds rules set from Adamant Entertainment.

I picked up Thrilling Tales today for the low price of $1.  That’s $23.95 off the regular price, and it was a major steal.  $24.95 would ordinarily be far more than I’d be willing to pay for a PDF, so I have to question Adamant’s pricing scheme, but that’s beside the point.  I highly recommend checking it out while it’s still on sale.

So, on to the actual document.  Production values rate an A+, especially their use of pictures.  Plenty of rule books (especially for modern games) list dozens of weapons, but Thrilling Tales actually includes pictures of every gun, car, and aircraft described in the Equipment section.  Way to go, guys.  It should be a requirement for every game manual.

There isn’t really a system to discuss, since this version of Thrilling Tales uses the generic Savage Worlds rules (I also bought the d20 Modern omnibus version for $1).  It’s nice that they don’t waste a lot of time explaining stuff in the core rules and instead spend the pages on a timeline of the 1930s that focuses on events relevant to pulp games, offers some extra guns and cars, and details a bunch of character concepts and sample villains.  Finally, Thrilling Tales closes with a customized character sheet and a serialized plot point campaign.

I’d say Thrilling Tales gets the tone spot on.  In many ways it’s similar to Two-Fisted Tales, a similar pulp game from Precis Intermedia.  Both offer great character concepts and absolutely wonderful art, but they differ greatly in terms of system.  I haven’t had time to playtest either game, but Thrilling Tales starts with a simple advantage due to the fact that I know the rules for SW already.  That’s not really fair to Two-Fisted Tales, but I promise to try them both out before making any kind of a judgment about superiority!

Back to Thrilling Tales…  I really appreciate their use of stereotypes and breakdown of pulp into the various genres (like crime fighting and horror) that together formed the backbone of the pulp stories back in the day.  While recommending that characters play up stereotypes, they also recognize that many of the stereotypes from the original pulps are now considered very politically incorrect (not to mention wrong and hurtful).  While it’s not really important to gameplay, it’s nice to see designers taking the time to be socially responsible.

My favorite thing about rulebooks is probably all of the characters and organizations that they give me to play with.  In that regard Thrilling Tales also shines.  It offers a few example groups of villains, as well as individual NPCs and ways to center a campaign around them.  These examples are staples of pulp stories, and blend a bit of the very real (Nazis, anyone?) with a bit of the weird (Oriental* mysticism).  The plot point serial also looks great, but I’ll wait to pass final judgment on that until I’ve actually played it.

I can’t wait to give Thrilling Tales a playtest with my gaming group at school.  Pulp is one of my favorite modes of story telling, and I’d like to see how it plays out in Savage Worlds.  I highly recommend checking it out at RPGNow and suggest that you consider dropping a dollar on it.  It’ll be worth the price, I promise.

*Oriental is considered offensive by many people and I apologize if you (the reader) are among them.  I am using it for consistency and because I’m referencing Thrilling Tales.

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Posted in Blog, RPGs, Reviews, Savage Worlds | 2 Comments »