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Shadows of Esteren: is it any good?

Started by jan paparazzi, April 18, 2017, 05:19:50 PM

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jan paparazzi

April 18, 2017, 05:19:50 PM
Is Shadows of Esteren a good game in terms of practicality? Or is it (just like WoD) a game that mostly looks good, has great art, is written in purple prose, but lacks in practical use? In other words a game that is more concerned about fleshing out it's world and setting a tone or mood, but it isn't really clear what you are supposed to do in it.
May I say that? Yes, I may say that!

Bedrockbrendan

#1
April 18, 2017, 05:24:55 PM
Quote from: jan paparazzi;957990Is Shadows of Esteren a good game in terms of practicality? Or is it (just like WoD) a game that mostly looks good, has great art, is written in purple prose, but lacks in practical use? In other words a game that is more concerned about fleshing out it's world and setting a tone or mood, but it isn't really clear what you are supposed to do in it.

I have played it a bit, but only as a player, and can't say I was hugely focused on mastering the mechanics. I enjoyed the setting a lot. I think the mechanics worked really well and fit the flavor nicely. The book is a little long winded at times as I recall but the mechanics didn't feel to me like they ventured into WoD territory.

Again though, I only was in it as a player, so I my knowledge of the material is pretty light. The gamemaster ran it as an exploration based setting with a bit of politics thrown in, and treated a lot of the stuff that happened in the wilderness like Evil Dead 2 (which worked wonderfully). Do not know how many liberties he took with the game material.

Skywalker

#2
April 18, 2017, 05:32:30 PM
Quote from: jan paparazzi;957990Is Shadows of Esteren a good game in terms of practicality? Or is it (just like WoD) a game that mostly looks good, has great art, is written in purple prose, but lacks in practical use? In other words a game that is more concerned about fleshing out it's world and setting a tone or mood, but it isn't really clear what you are supposed to do in it.

I like the RPG a lot, but there are two sticking points (which seem like they will be especially sticky given your post above):
1. The setting material is presented in first person. As such, the details and the truth of the setting is difficult to pin down. The upshot is that it is super atmospheric and creepy.
2. The attributes are based on personality traits. So there is no Strength and Dexterity, but Combativeness and Creativity.  This does help focus the game on psychology of the PCs, but can be a little weird.

Bedrockbrendan

#3
April 18, 2017, 05:34:20 PM
Quote from: Skywalker;9579961. The setting material is presented in first person. As such, the details and the truth of the setting is difficult to pin down. The upshot is that it is super atmospheric and creepy.

I think it is also translated into English, and sometimes the phrasing of things is a bit (I remember there being a few mechanical things we were a little unsure of based on how it was stated in the book).

Skywalker

#4
April 18, 2017, 05:37:20 PM
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;957997I think it is also translated into English, and sometimes the phrasing of things is a bit (I remember there being a few mechanical things we were a little unsure of based on how it was stated in the book).

Its originally in French, but the author also has pretty good English. There is a French feel to the writing, but I thought it was well done on the whole.

You can find an extensive free Quickstart here: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/109112/Shadows-of-Esteren--Book-0-Prologue.

Bedrockbrendan

#5
April 18, 2017, 05:43:47 PM
Quote from: Skywalker;957999Its originally in French, but the author also has pretty good English. There is a French feel to the writing, but I thought it was well done on the whole.

You can find an extensive free Quickstart here: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/109112/Shadows-of-Esteren--Book-0-Prologue.

The English was fine. Certainly better than my French (which is non-existent).  I just noticed some parts of the book where the phrasing was a bit confusing on a couple of points (and assumed it might have to do with the idea being translated into English).

rgalex

#6
April 19, 2017, 09:01:09 AM Last Edit: April 19, 2017, 09:03:11 AM by rgalex
I ran a 2.5 year long campaign and we touched on just about every aspect of the setting and had a blast.  The PCs were:

  • a mercenary who was haunted, unknown to him for about 1/2 the campaign, by his fiance.  She was also a mercenary but the 2 of them went on a mission together that went horribly wrong and the whole group was killed, except him.  He repressed the memory of her and the engagement ring he carried. The ring acted as a conduit for her to manifest and he spent months talking to her ghost without knowing it was a ghost.  No one else could see her and NPCs started to refer to him as Gregor the Mad, but he assumed it was because of his violent streak.


  • a botanist who worked for the local guild but eventually found out he was the last in a long line of heirs to a noble family.  This lead into a huge political/espionage story where he tired to reunite several families under him to reclaim his birthright.  He met a Tarish girl he fell in love with who everyone joked about being a trained assassin.  Turns out it was true and they then spent several sessions trying to figure out if she was trying to kill him or protect him.


  • a priest of the temple who lived deep in the pagan territories trying to spread the faith.  Eventually he ended up confronting a demon who had a very complex and convincing charade going on.  The priest ended up beating the demon, but though his own hubris damned his own soul in the process.


  • a magientist (weird scientist) trying to make his mark in the world.  He set up in one of the capital cities and opened a workshop.  His ultimate goal was to create a feond (monster) detector, but he had several other smaller, quality of life inventions he worked on.  He also took to traveling to do field research which lead to the other PCs getting involved due to their particular expertise.  Eventually he married, but not before having several romantic interests which had their own stories he got involved in.
Though all this there were some overarching things going on including:
  • an evil demorthen (druid) who teamed up with a rogue magientist and nearly destroyed a city with an earthquake

  • dealing with several dangerous feonds that threatened the local countryside

  • stopping an occultist circle from doing very bad things

  • uncovering a dirty secret within the Temple and planning a daring rescue of a falsely accused heretic
The rules worked really well and allowed for some great roleplay.  They were fairly straight forward, got out of the way when needed and provided combat that felt both lethal and tactical.

kobayashi

#7
April 19, 2017, 05:20:31 PM
Main problem with the game is that the second part of the game, the underlying secrets of the world, which was supposed to get published 1 year after the main book still hasn't appeared in french (7 years later !) and there are no signs of it appearing soon. We had a book of recipes, an unfinished, pretty uninteresting (imho) campaign (railroady wouldn't be good enough a term to describe it, you have guidelines about how PCs have to react, no shit), music, concerts...

If you want good art, good writing and a publisher who seems to stick to its schedule, you'd better look at Symbaroum...

ArtemisAlpha

#8
April 19, 2017, 05:45:58 PM
I'm quite the fan of the game, and am years into running a campaign for it. The system is simple enough stat + skill  + 1d10 vs a target number, but as Skywalker noted, the stats are character's mental traits rather than a variety of physical and mental traits.

If you're at all interested, their Prologue book is free. It doesn't have chargen, but does have pregen characters, some setting information, and some adventures that give you a handle on what kinds of things the designers envision characters doing in the setting:

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/109112/Shadows-of-Esteren--Book-0-Prologue

All in all, I give it a thumb's up.
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