I thought this was an interesting perspective on Arrows of Indra, probably my favorite of RPGPundit's oeuvre. The reviewer is Indian-American, albeit not Hindu, and provides a (semi)insider's look at some of the source material:
http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/bedlamdan/arrows-of-indra/
My thoughts:
It's nice to have Arrows of Indra as part of my fantasy-geographic collection. It goes well with my copies of Nyambe (Africa), Mindshadows, Qelong, and various Middle-Eastern D&D sourcebooks over the years. The lack of many color illustrations is a shame, considering the rich symbolism of color used in the Subcontinent over the centuries.
While I haven't jumped on the OSR bandwagon, Arrows of Indra makes a handy companion to the Mahasarpa supplement to 3e's generally-bad Oriental Adventures.
Quote from: dsivis;955187I thought this was an interesting perspective on Arrows of Indra, probably my favorite of RPGPundit's oeuvre. The reviewer is Indian-American, albeit not Hindu, and provides a (semi)insider's look at some of the source material:
http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/bedlamdan/arrows-of-indra
My thoughts:
It's nice to have Arrows of Indra as part of my fantasy-geographic collection. It goes well with my copies of Nyambe (Africa), Mindshadows, Qelong, and various Middle-Eastern D&D sourcebooks over the years. The lack of many color illustrations is a shame, considering the rich symbolism of color used in the Subcontinent over the centuries.
While I haven't jumped on the OSR bandwagon, Arrows of Indra makes a handy companion to the Mahasarpa supplement to 3e's generally-bad Oriental Adventures.
Link isn't working for me.
Try this: http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/bedlamdan/arrows-of-indra/
Whoops! Thanks!
I forgot to mention that Arrows of Indra also inspired me to work on a Bronze-Age collapse game, as well as a series of one-shots I ran while living in a Crusader/Ottoman city.
I'm only a few paragraphs in, but my god does this guy have a huge chip on his shoulder. Did the Pundit kick his dog or something?
Quote from: Tristram Evans;955288I'm only a few paragraphs in, but my god does this guy have a huge chip on his shoulder. Did the Pundit kick his dog or something?
Yeah, I gave up about a third of the way in.
Quote from: Tristram Evans;955288I'm only a few paragraphs in, but my god does this guy have a huge chip on his shoulder. Did the Pundit kick his dog or something?
Near the end he admits that he began it as a snarky shot at the Pundit to entertain his SA pals... but saw people treating it like a serious review and tried to straighten up a bit.
He likes the setting material much more than the mechanical bits.
I think he just doesn't like D&D and the Pundit, which is understandable, but early on he mentions the Pundit's own caveats - that the primary intent of AoI is to be easy access for D&D - then proceeds to ignore that intent and bitch about innaccuracies the Pundit let slide for the sake of maintaining that stated goal.
Still, he gets in enough information that if I didn't already own AoI I'd be wanting to buy it.
That review is an old one. I remember it coming out not long after we released the game. Obviously I am biased as the publisher, I think the thing with that particular review is, like Simlasa points out, he acknowledges the primary intent of AOI then criticizes it for following through with that aim. Pretty sure Pundit put out a response to the sorts of critiques raised in that review on his blog.
Quote from: Tristram Evans;955288I'm only a few paragraphs in, but my god does this guy have a huge chip on his shoulder. Did the Pundit kick his dog or something?
Yes. It's a ridiculously biased review by the Something Awful Goons, who despise the OSR, old-school gamers, and certain people in the old-school scene, me in particular. While there's certainly things you can legitimately criticize about the game, the mere fact of someone choosing a nearly 4 year old SA-hatchet-job out of the AoI reviews to link to leads me to think that there's some kind of motive involved.
Particularly given that the OP was just in a big argument with me on the Pundit's forum, where he came off looking like a complete ass.
DSVIS: this is the second thread you've created seemingly to just try to 'get back' at me for humiliating you in that other thread. Between this and the stalker-esque PMs you've been sending me asking me about my mental health, you are on the fucking razor's edge. Consider yourself warned. One more and you're out.