Thoughts on the Eternal Champion Previews

[Rurik]

First off and foremost: The page backgrounds suck. Especially in Elric. It makes reading the text more difficult than it needs to be. Fancy borders and all are fine (if a bit of a waste of space) but why make the actual body of the work harder to read?

Secondly, I'm a bit disapointed about the content of the previews - not with the writing but about what content was chosen for the previews. Neither gives much insight into the actual games themselves.

Hawkmoon is straight up the synopsis of the Runestaff books. A fine synopsis, but I (and most people who will be buying the game right off the bat) have read the books. I was hoping for something a bit more game related.

Elric has a bit more information such as "Whats in this Book" and where the game fits into the world, but is largely just part of the Introduction and background info on Michael Moorcock.

Some glimpses of game related material such as some monsters or races/backgrounds or magic or technology (for Hawkmoon) would have been very nice.

Or at the very least stats for Michael Moorcock.

 

[Quire]

Ah, those previews have done their job very well, Ru. You are now almost literally gasping for more.

And stats for Moorcock? LOL!

- Q

 

[atgxtg]

And stats for Moorcock? LOL!

- Q

Don't laugh. Mongoose just might print an RPG based on the Hawkwind novel. I wonder what the "Acid Sorceror" Legendary Ability will look like?

 

[Quire]

Don't laugh. Mongoose just might print an RPG based on the Hawkwind novel. I wonder what the "Acid Sorceror" Legendary Ability will look like?

Wobbly. And with traces.

- Q

 

[Sabbak]

Is it really the official character files that are made available as previews?

Because... err... (ok let's be a bit harsh) I thought that Mongoose was a professionnal company!?!?! This character sheet is very disappointing... It doesn't make me impatient to play.. on the opposite...

Pfff... I don't have another 3-4 hours to spent for designing something usable...

 

[Baron Meliadus]

First off and foremost: The page backgrounds suck. Especially in Elric. It makes reading the text more difficult than it needs to be. Fancy borders and all are fine (if a bit of a waste of space) but why make the actual body of the work harder to read?

I actually quite like the fancy borders, and I suppose the dark backgrounds might subtly enhance the dark atmosphere of the settings. But I agree they do make the text a bit hard to read.

Intrigued by your comment that they were a bit of a waste of space, I had another look and thought yes, they are rather large. Then being the sad person that I am, I decided to measure exactly how much of each page was actually being used to print text...

Elric had a text area of only 55%! :shock: A bit shocked by this I went and measured the MRQ book to see if this was unusual. That too came out at about 55%. So to compare, I then got out my hardback version of CoC which unsurprisingly (not having artistic borders) came out much larger at 73%.

I am a little disappointed at how much paper is being wasted by Mongoose's admittedly nice looking borders. If the border art was trimmed back to a normal sized edge, you'd be able to get another 200 words every page... perhaps 15,000 words more for a 96 page book (assuming a half page of art every two pages), more than enough for an extra chapter or two!

I'd never realized that the border art took up so much valuable space!

 

[Rurik]

I have don't have a problem with the borders - it is the background that bothers me. The Mongoose borders have always seemed a bit big, but I judge content by what it does for me and my games, not by word count.

That being said in the long dry period between MRQ releases I picked up Green Ronin's Shadowspawn's Guide to Sanctuary and the sheer amount and layout of the content was refreshing. 250 pages, much smaller borders, smaller text but on a plain background so it is easy to read. I would say it has at least 150% the word count per page, possibly close to twice as much. I'm not that far into it but there have been very few editing oversights.

To bad it is blasted d20, though this is book is mostly source. Sanctuary does of course have it's gaming roots with Chaosium though, and I have many fond memories of it's filthy streets.

 

[vitalis6969]

I am a little disappointed at how much paper is being wasted by Mongoose's admittedly nice looking borders. If the border art was trimmed back to a normal sized edge, you'd be able to get another 200 words every page... perhaps 15,000 words more for a 96 page book (assuming a half page of art every two pages), more than enough for an extra chapter or two!

I'd never realized that the border art took up so much valuable space!

Or just a smaller book!!! :wink:

I'd rather have smaller and less expensive, unless they filled it with good stuff for the game of course!!!

I miss the old days of Advanced D&D books, hardbound, roughish paper, and a nice small font to cram everything in you possibly can. 2nd edition led to them becoming "art" books. Which is ok since my SCA household is portrayed in the 2nd edition players handbook along with one of my friends...

-V

 

[duncan_disorderly]

And stats for Moorcock? LOL!

- Q

Don't laugh. Mongoose just might print an RPG based on the Hawkwind novel.

I'd buy it

 

[gamesmeister]

That being said in the long dry period between MRQ releases I picked up Green Ronin's Shadowspawn's Guide to Sanctuary and the sheer amount and layout of the content was refreshing. 250 pages, much smaller borders, smaller text but on a plain background so it is easy to read. I would say it has at least 150% the word count per page, possibly close to twice as much. I'm not that far into it but there have been very few editing oversights.

Yeah, I bought that too, along with it's scenario counterpart (Murder at the Vulgar Unicorn I think it's called). So far I've been very impressed with both, but then GR have always produced high quality products. That's not any sort of reflection on Mongoose btw, merely an observation.

It is slightly frustrating that on several occasions the authors of RQ books have stated that they could fit a lot more text into their books, but page count has prevented them from doing so. This thread seems to show that in those cases, a higher word count is possible through the use of a smaller font, reduced margins, and a less elaborate border.

 

[Rurik]

You know, I must admit in all honesty I think part of the reason the amount of content in the RQ books has not bothered as much as it might have once is that with job and family I have much less time than I used to for reading/gaming. It is not like I can find 1-2 hours every night for reading game books (it is nice to get some non gaming books in there as well). So for me I feel I can get through the books and keep up with the release schedule.

I can certainly see why some people complain about the amount of content. I know 20 years ago I would have too.

 

[Grazelander]

From the Hawkmoon preview intro I see the standard of proof-reading continues with Tanalorn......., pretty sure it should be Tanelorn, just hope thats not an error throughout the whole book!

The discussion above on page border width is very valid too, basically we're still getting 96 page books with 30+ pages worth of fancy border.

I won't be buying ink-hungry pdf's in the near future either. If some of the smaller publishers like Blue Devil and RPG Objects can provide print friendly versions then so can the magic press at Mongoose

 

[multiverse]

Am I the only one who noticed that the sword that is part of the border is not Stormbringer?

 

[toothill man]

From the Hawkmoon preview intro I see the standard of proof-reading continues with Tanalorn......., pretty sure it should be Tanelorn, just hope thats not an error throughout the whole book!

according to matt on the blog the finished books have moorcocks own seal of approval so maybe they know something we do not :wink:

 

[Golden Wheel Dancer]

What strikes me most about these previews is the high quality of the writing. The english is expressed clearly and eloquently. It is obvious that reading these books will be a pleasurable and edifying experience.

GREAT!!

 

[Quire]

Here's my question re: the Elric preview:

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot?

What does 'Jouspevdujpo' mean?

I've figured out it's one letter on from Introduction (much as IBM is to HAL). So why is it showing up on the third preview page in the folio? Some weird font/letter substitution going on while converting to PDF? Hope the page folios don't print like that!

Anyone else seeing that?

- Q

 

[Baron Meliadus]

Anyone else seeing that?
- Q

Yes. I wondered what it was, and why it was appearing in a preview...

 

[Loz]

Am I the only one who noticed that the sword that is part of the border is not Stormbringer?

How can you tell?

 

[atgxtg]

And stats for Moorcock? LOL!

- Q

Don't laugh. Mongoose just might print an RPG based on the Hawkwind novel.

I'd buy it

I probably would buy it too. It would be such an off-beast RPG concept (heroic experiemental rock mucians for PCs) that it would be worth it to see how Mongoose would handle it. It would be quite a challenge for the authors to set that up for a MRQ group. Either a very role-play heavy setting, or a farcical romp (TOONQUEST?). Certainly a good read.

What I'd like to see is a Eternal Champion sourcebook. Something that gives a overview of the EC cycle, the various champions and companions, and some info on running a multiverse campaign, the Lords of Law & Chaos, and a bit of a overview. Some guides for what happens when going from one setting to another (such as from the Young Kingdoms to Hawkmoon's Europe) Perhaps they could coax a few tidbits of previously unknown info from Michael Moorcock?

I think such a sourcebook could be useful for those GMs who have only read one EC cycle and would like to exapnad into a mutiverse campaign without having to read all the Elric, Hawkmoon, Corum, Conrad Arflane, and John Daker books.