Kevin Crawford's African RPG is out.  Anyone got it?

Quote from: CRKrueger;626157Kevin Crawford's African RPG is out.  Anyone got it?

I do. Haven't had a chance to read it.

So far I'm liking it. The backgrounds and classes are all pretty gameable and the setting leans on cliche and convention enough that its really easy to get a handle on things.

The feel comes across strong but not overbearing and confusing.

The classes each have special abilities they can pick. The bards have songs, the priests have miracles (that work like D&D spells) and special powers depending on which gods they ally with (like D&D clerics have turn undead). The wizards get both fire and forget spells (prepared and stored as fetishes) and rituals they can perform anytime. Fighters get "replies" which are basically feats.

So far so good.

Also the art is nice and evocative, the pictures conjure up imagines that lend to the feel of the setting.

I'm mostly looking forward to the setting creation tools.

Any particular questions you have that I can read with an eye towards?

If you are familiar with Nyambe, how do the two products compare?

Quote from: jeff37923;626193If you are familiar with Nyambe, how do the two products compare?

I'm not, sorry

Okay the spell lists are great. There is a very nice mix of specific effect and general color that I can see lots of macgyvering at the table. Lots of cool effects, spirit worms eating souls, shadows attacking their owners, evil eye, loads of charms and curses. All very flavorful and cool.

System wise its all pretty standard stuff if you know his other games.

I so have that up on my list of must-buys, along with Astonishing Swordmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea...

Quote from: Piestrio;626191So far I'm liking it. The backgrounds and classes are all pretty gameable and the setting leans on cliche and convention enough that its really easy to get a handle on things.

The feel comes across strong but not overbearing and confusing.

The classes each have special abilities they can pick. The bards have songs, the priests have miracles (that work like D&D spells) and special powers depending on which gods they ally with (like D&D clerics have turn undead). The wizards get both fire and forget spells (prepared and stored as fetishes) and rituals they can perform anytime. Fighters get "replies" which are basically feats.

So far so good.

Also the art is nice and evocative, the pictures conjure up imagines that lend to the feel of the setting.

I'm mostly looking forward to the setting creation tools.

Any particular questions you have that I can read with an eye towards?

Monster details please.

Quote from: Piestrio;626208Okay the spell lists are great. There is a very nice mix of specific effect and general color that I can see lots of macgyvering at the table. Lots of cool effects, spirit worms eating souls, shadows attacking their owners, evil eye, loads of charms and curses. All very flavorful and cool.

This stuff sounds tre cool.

Is the setting tied to a specific time period or is it a mish mash of whatever fantasy africa bits seemed most exciting to glom together?

Quote from: zarathustra;626268This stuff sounds tre cool.

Is the setting tied to a specific time period or is it a mish mash of whatever fantasy africa bits seemed most exciting to glom together?

A kinda mishmash.

There's a thread on TBP about it as well, where Kevin explains some more - the goal was to make something that felt right, rather than be slavishly accurate, and there are bits of setting woven in everywhere to give players easy understanding of how to get into it.

My hardback is in the post, hopefully...

Do you have it in print, and if so, is it soft- or hardcover? Can you tell us about the quality of the printing and binding?
I'd dearly like to get it in dead tree format, but compared to the 20-ish dollars I've paid for the hardback version of SWN (admittedly, there was a discount at the time), the 30 USD soft- / 40 USD hardcover price tag is a bit expensive for my wallet. I might have to wait for a special sale.

Quote from: Premier;626290Do you have it in print, and if so, is it soft- or hardcover? Can you tell us about the quality of the printing and binding?
I'd dearly like to get it in dead tree format, but compared to the 20-ish dollars I've paid for the hardback version of SWN (admittedly, there was a discount at the time), the 30 USD soft- / 40 USD hardcover price tag is a bit expensive for my wallet. I might have to wait for a special sale.

I can't answer for Spears yet, but all the other DTRPG/OBS POD stuff that I've bought (Including softcover original SWN and hardcover Other Dust) is of good quality, well-bound, well produced. His layout skills have been getting better with each project, as he gets more experienced with publishing; and even SWN is really good.

If you put them up against a conventionally-published book, yeah, the art isn't quite reproduced as well; but it's really not the sort of thing you would notice unless it was pointed out to you.

If it means anything to you, based on his previous work, I was confident enough to put money down for his kickstarter, which is already way ahead of schedule. Crawford does good work.

I'd be very curious to see just how good this game is; in terms of the balance of both accuracy and playability.  How authentic is it? How interesting is it to actually play?
Those are the questions worth asking.

RPGPundit