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[Cathar the Great]

Hi everyone!

We have a lot of rules discussion and other interesting topics, but I thought it would be interesting to get some discussion going on the various supplements we have gotten over the last few years. I only have access to the English books so I will only open threads for those.

This topic should be mainly for discussion, any rules questions should go in the Game Rules section.

This topic will be for:
Gaia Volume One

Just some questions to get it going:

Did you get this book? If not, why?

What do you like about this book?

What don’t you like about this book?

What did you think was missing from this book?

What do you think would have made this book even better?


Now I do have my own opinions on this book but I will post them later so I don’t steer the discussion in any direction from the start.

Cheers,
Peter

Note to Mods/Admins: I just thought it would be cool to have some discussion topics on the books, if you think this doesn’t fit or is not a good addition to the forum, I won’t protest to them being deleted/merged/moved in any way (Not that my protest would change anything ^^)

[llaletin]

Great idea for a thread - I like it:

I bought Gaia

I love the information on the various regions and countries.
I like the titbits about hidden areas and legends and rumours.
I liked the idea of telling us about the region's tolerence (or lack thereof) towards the supernatural but felt that this quite often needed more embelishment.

What I didn't like about the book was the broken grammar, spelling mistakes and constant interchanging of him/her/he/she gender use.  The book needed proof-reading and didn't get it (I would have gladly performed this service for free just so that the book could have been better for it).

I don't think anything was missing from the book - it covered what it set out to do.

What would have made the book better?  See paragraph on what I didn't like about the book.

[Lizbeth]

Have the book.

It is the first Setting supplement I read entirely for a long time, so it is good.

I'd like to see more variants of setting and more info about important NPCs and their goals.
For example, let's take the New Conclave. I'm more interested in Ann Fatima rather in Youko, but I have to house rule the setting to do it my way.
Same goes to "past" events in particular. What's the point of Rupture of Heavens if I cannot play this?

[VoidKnight]

Yes, got it for Christmas along with DE.

The beautiful artwork, all the awesome story fluff, and the new advantages/disadvantages.

The new secondary skills. My group just houseruled them away.

Quite a few things but we are fine with making it up as we go along.

More information on the Wake in the Old Continent.

[ilovecheese1]

Yes I purchased the hardcover, though I wish i had waited a week to see that there was a PDF coming out (i print my things and put in reference booklets so it would have worked better for me).

I really like that each area has a detailed map and description of the geography of the region, as it really helps me in areas I lack when describing places. I also enjoy that each major country has adventure seeds to get things spurred along for new players.

Things I definitely do NOT like are the fact that religion descriptors are given in the back of the book, but are not mentioned very often (that i can recall) in the majority of the region descriptors. Similarly with the ethnicity descriptions and their lack of importance overall (other than determining who doesn't usually belong in a country). Finally the last irking that still bugs me to this day is the amount of time and effort that went into the empire / church organizational structure (including the nice diagram) that many of the other equally important organizations and societies didn't get.

I think that alot of general description they put in the core book, especially about the influence of organizations throughout the old continent (prominence of black sun in a city, what that actually means, etc.) was missing the expansion and fleshed out thoroughness that it should have gotten. Specifically when compared to the amount of detail that non-major cities often received.

What I would have done to make the book better:
In each region, give percentages for the different religions or a small paragraph describing the religious feel of the region (very righteous with the church, aloof but christian, follows this or that religion and ignores the church, etc).
Given more flavor and detail for each of the organizations mentioned in the core book, especially tol rouko, the magus order/ yehudah, and black sun.

hopefully my common concern is addressed in either another book later or the anima tactics book.

[Spirit_Crusher]

Gaia, which I own, is in my opinion a sufficently solid book.

I like the fact that the setting is very vast and has space to accomodate so many flavors and themes of oriental-aesthetics-adorned fantasy, from Vampire Hunter in moth, to Lodoss-like in Helenia, to vikings, pirates, samurais, arabian nights, musketeers...

I also like the history of the continent, the "secrets" stuff, some of the setting flavor really is fntastic.

On the other hand, the book has its flaws. A good chunk of the informations on the single nations is, to put it clearly, bland. I don't care about the "atlas" information on flora, fauna, mountains and lakes or the most important trade of the place, unless it's going to impact the game someways.

I make a clear example: I open a random page on the book: I get page 135-136. The Twilight Brotherhood window is simply great and oozes style. On the other hand:

"The Moors of Shadow: This is the name of the vast and cold stretch of land in the center of the principality It is dotted with a few small woodlands or marshes. Most villages of moth are scattered throghout his land".

"The Inner Valleys: The vast western area of Moth near the Miurenheim range is a cluster of small mountains and isolated valleys Forests and villages spread throughout the inside of the valleys, some of which go decades without receiving visitors".

...And? What am I supposed to do with this info? Bland and useless. Lonely Planet is not what I paid for.

The second flaw is that the book is undetailed about the most relevant stuff.
Let's take Dalaborn as an example. It is supposed to be "an army with a state" as opposed to the normal "a state with an army". So why  ain't I getting any details of how this army is structured, some flavour about it, some plot hooks about it, its customs and "subculture etc... But I take two pages of boring-ass description of geographical features? Same thing on, say, Phaion commercial guilds.

The other big flaw of the book is that it hints alot to hidden truths but not only it does not explain them completely, it doesn't say sh*t about them period.
I've already discussed the matter on these forums; some people think it is a great feature because "it lets the individual gms fill the blanks in for their campaign".
To which I reply: the blanks should not be bigger than the written parts, or we have a problem. Well, here we have a problem.

The orgainizations, which are great creatively, suffer of the same "not enough detail" problem. Magus Order and Yeudah are acceptable, given they should be minor organizations. The lack of detail on Tol rauko, Wissenschaft, Black Sun, Samael is not. Also, the info on Empire and Church, while a bit deeper, is too scattered.

Last but not least, almost no work done on the personalities and behaviours of the npcs, even important ones.

All in all I'd give the book a 6 out of 10. Some great ideas, not worked upon enough; a lot of info, too much of which uninteresting.

[tasuret]

I understand the issue you're having with insufficient data. Let me put it into context with another game that does something similar.

Exalted is a White Wolf system, based around storytelling. It has a setting - a very good one at that. However, many places are given a once-over and left alone, so to speak. Why? Because it encourages the GM to make stuff up! This is why the author of Anima did this in his own setting book.

The endgame-ultrabosses don't have stats. None. They have a fluff description of their capabilities, and that's it. You have to stat them up yourself, if you're going to use them. Why would the areas be any different? It's not inattention to detail. It's leaving the setting open! This is not a campaign book, with all the details worked out, with adventure paths and encounters meticulously set out. This is a setting; it has hooks and mysteries and a bestiary (although, the bestiary is in another book). Treat it for what it is.