I've been following the slow dawning hope and heartbreak on this game which has been in production stasis for ages. The art is incredible and the setting seems well, not that great, but with potential for gonzo fun that could be cool. I don't know much more than that as the people behind it seem more interested in the art than an actual clear explanation of what the game is and what you can do in it, etc. This seems to be the cause of their current woes. I feel bad for them, but they seem hell bent, as neophyte producers, on creating a book so plush and lavish that it's breaking their balls getting it out. They don't want to put out an intermediary pdf and I can't help wondering they've aimed too high. But more importantly, I can't understand the setting. But the art sure is nice.

What is it you don't understand about the setting?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;361919What is it you don't understand about the setting?

RPGPundit

I'm not entirely sure I can answer that; I looked at it before and it just seemed to be presented in a way that was extremely attractive but hard to grokk. These guys are clearly artists, but perhaps not writers - in the sense of conveying information. All the talk of contracts just confused me even further. I get they are all about the ambience, but I don't think they've found the right balance.

You're not giving us much to go on here.

RPGPundit

I talked to the designers at GenCon 2008 and they found it very hard to explain the game to me.
They are artists and the books are incredible, well the samples they had. The world is high fantasy but had some additional psychological and spiritiual concepts. The system was a dicepool I think with variable dice (that might be wrong). And the chargen options were vast.
the designers were keen to fpcus on the spiritual / psychological stuff above all else and english wasn't their first language (possibly not even their 3rd or 4th language) so it was hard to get information on 'what do you do?' and 'how does it work?'.
They have a web site that has a lot of their fantastic art up on it. http://eorisessence.com/ and a description of the game (having just scanned it it looks like the dice pools are d20s not variable but its still not easy to work out what or how ).

So basically, "Too Weird To Live"?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;362545So basically, "Too Weird To Live"?

RPGPundit

Possibly.
I had a dig about on that site after I posted the link and found this review http://eorisessence.com/Images/Press/livingdice2.mht .

I get the impression that eh books problem coudl be a writing one. The core mechanics are reasonable simple you get a stat + skill based dice pool of d20s with a twist. The twist is you roll an addition 'essence' die that determines the quality of the success beyond the actual 'number' of sucesses you manage.
The variablitiy comes in chargen where you can design your own races which run the gammut from anthropomorphic animals to dragons. There are a number of guidelines within this but pretty much anything goes (from what I read on the site).
The graphic desing is excellent I mean look at this character sheet.

But there is an odd psychological/spiritual thing. Emotions are key to your character and it appears that the game mechanics directly tackle them. So to Bribe some one you 'attack' their greed. From what I can tell this can apply to PCs as well. the character sheet also shows Appearance and Emotion matrices that you move round on in game play which has some sort of effect on your dice (one suspects giving modifies to the target number in the dice pools) .

So ... I would say a reasonably simple mechanic, backed up by excellent graphics and artwork, with an unnecessary and possibly very annoying 'social/psychological' aspect, laid ontop of an overly complex or very rich (depending on your perspective) setting all spoilt by poor writing that tries to makethe whole deal very spiritual and deep but fails because the writer isn't writing in their primary language and it's a pretty stupid thing to try in the first place.

But I might pinch that charcter sheet as it is very pretty.

Looks far too arty, too much detail some places, too little other places and like it would be horrible to play.

Of course, this is just a "Character sheet opinion"

Jesus fuck.

RPGPundit

I think that's the most dots I've ever seen on a single char sheet.

More attributes than Rolemaster, more passions than Pendragon, and more dots than a World of Darkness game....interesting

Quote from: Lawbag;362790More attributes than Rolemaster, more passions than Pendragon, and more dots than a World of Darkness game....interesting

Proving that there's always someone who likes a flavour. (Not in a bad way)

Could some brave soul enlighten me as to what the setting is about and what you do? The artwork on the website is stunning, but they've made the fatal error of overloading the site. More is not the new less.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;362795Could some brave soul enlighten me as to what the setting is about and what you do? The artwork on the website is stunning, but they've made the fatal error of overloading the site. More is not the new less.

That review I posted sumarises the setting. Well that one or another one of the reviews on the press page of the site.
It's a long story about a god creating the world getitng depressed and a bunch of angles going to kill her and the PC working out a way to stop them, but I don't really do it justice. My comments are a bit like saying LotR is set in a world where an ancient enemy is getting stronger and corrupting the world and a bunch of goddies have decided to destroy his essence which is contained in a ring.

looks like a rehash of the Blue Rose setting done right?