Quote from: Melan;492826The opening page says "187.112 people" like it on Facebook. That can't be real. :eek:

Someone on RPG.net investigated that and couldn't find any verification of it. The Atlantasia FB Group page has 11 members.

Quote from: One Horse Town;492856It's a good analogy. The hobby was built on this kind of stuff, so it's a bit rich to point and laugh at it.

Well, movies were built on silent expressionist films, but I'd still make fun of someone who made an independent film and claimed "Colour! for the first time on your TV screen!" (assuming, which would be hard to do, that they were serious).

The character sheet is eight pages?

Not interested.

Well, I'm sure the reviews will be entertaining, even if the product isn't.

E-book bought. It's at iuniverse, if you couldn't make it through that unfortunate website.
I'm gonna take this down to the flgs and we're gonna have a good time. You'll see. You'll all see!!

Make sure you get a burro to carry the character sheets.

frankly, i find the comparison offensive to folk-art.

Quote from: Aos;492904Make sure you get a burro to carry the character sheets.

I'll name him Par-Traxx and he'll be invulnerable to snakebite, lightening, and hurtful comments.

Quote from: stu2000;492920I'll name him Par-Traxx and he'll be invulnerable to snakebite, lightening, and hurtful comments.

That last power is a *lot* of character points.

Garbage...

The comments section has animated bubbles floating across the screen! (+1)

'Course the comment box broke when I was trying to read the comments, so there's that. (-1)

I can't judge the RPG, but this website is like a nostalgia-cannon firing me back into the 90s.



edit:

I lost it when I saw a picture of a garden-gnome amidst rubble under the "tour" of Atlantasia.  If that was intentional, I have to at least give them kudos for having a good sense of humor.

Also, more relevant to the game itself:

QuoteVulcan resident finally finishes RPG book
By Stephen Tipper/Vulcan Advocate
Posted 2 days ago

Holding his new book, Vulcan resident John Holland says words cannot describe the feeling.

"This is the culmination of 18 years of work," he said about the self-published 544-page The Game Master's Bible, which delves into the world he created, Atlantasia.

Holland had come up with his medieval fantasy world in anticipation of writing novels set in Atlantasia, but became frustrated after finding the popular RPG Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) was not challenging enough.

"When I got bored with D&D, it's like, OK, put novels on the backburner, let's get a real game going here," he said.

Holland says other companies' RPGs are "passé" and "too generic."

"To tell you the truth, I'm really not in this for the money," he said. "I'm in this to do a David and Goliath. I'm going after the big boys."

Holland wants to give them "a taste of what's to come," and what's to come, he says, is realism.

He's marketing the game as the most realistic fantasy based role-playing game (RPG) on the market.

In his game, called The Realms of Atlantasia, realism means bows are less useful in the rain, armour rusts and horses die if not cared for.

"Your weapons and your armour take damage in battle," he said. "You've got to get them repaired."

"As realistic as I can get in a fantasy-based world, we have added it in this," he said.

Like in real life, players won't find the same stores everywhere they go, and similar stores don't have the same prices and merchandise, he said.

And players have to make sure characters practise their skills or their characters won't develop as quickly as they could, said Holland.

"It's part of the realism," he said.

Holland has introduced exchange rates into his game, something he says no other role-playing game has done before.

"Something else that no one RPG game has done, and this is my pride and glory, is the magic using class," he said. "Every other game it's all generic, it doesn't matter kind of priest you are, what temple you worship, you get all the same spells. It doesn't matter what kind of mage you are, you get all the same spells.

"In this world, there are eight different temples, there are eight different schools of magic. Each one of them has their own spells."

There are 900 spells in the game, and there are many more to come, he said.

Out of the 52 monsters introduced in the game, 44 of them nobody has ever seen before, he said.

Holland has many supplementary books he wants to publish to give his game a more "3D like experience."

The supplementary materials include a dictionary for each of the languages he's come up with, atlases, and books on potions and poisons.

The game is certainly involved, with an eight-page character sheet. (The D&D fourth edition character sheet is two pages.)

Holland wasn't always sure he was going to complete even the first book, let alone others that delve into his world.

"I got halfway through the 900 spells and I thought I'm never going to get this done, and (his wife) Alisa just kicking me in the butt," he said.

He said he was getting disenchanted dealing with publishers, but when she found a company with which he could self-publish the book through IUniverse, it became a reality.

The Game Master's Bible is available online, both in print (for $44.95) and ebook (for $3.99). Holland is selling it on the website //www.realmsofatlantasia.com, the iUniverse website, //www.iuniverse.com, where it can be found by searching for The Realms of Atlantasia, and the websites of large bookstore chains including Chapters, Indigo, and Barnes and Noble. The soft cover book is $44.95, and the ebook sells for $3.99.

The next steps are to get the book into game stores in southern Alberta, and then onto the shelves in the large bookstores, he said.

Holland plans to auction a signed first edition, complete with documentation and a case, on eBay sometime in December.

He also wants to set up a game night at his Vulcan residence.

http://www.vulcanadvocate.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3385763

Full of naivety?  Sure.  But the game's content isn't genuinely offensive, and he's not hurting anybody...so...yeah.  I actually kind of want to help the guy rather than pull the game apart.  It seems like he could've used a lot of help (esp. with the publishing end of things) but decided to trudge on with just himself and his wife.

I don't know.  I usually enjoy a good laugh at ridiculous things.  But it's a little different when it's a dude who spent nearly two decades doing something as a labor of love rather than poking apart a "professional" book from a company like White-Wolf or something.

I feel bad for the guy. I am not getting the sense that he playtested his game which is so often the case with heartbreakers.

But I salute him for his effort, determination and guts to publish.

Well, you guys successfully made me feel guilty enough for my earlier reply that I went and got the pdf...

And thus, his cunning stratagem bears its luscious, pity-purchasing fruit! Mwaahahaha.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;493024Well, you guys successfully made me feel guilty enough for my earlier reply that I went and got the pdf...

:duh:

well, now you'll have to give us a review. . . .