Reviews for Fighter's Screen/Screens and Reference Material

The average rating for Fighter's Screen/Screens and Reference Material based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-09-22 00:00:00 RODRICUS GLOVER In the Forgotten Realms, there is a beautiful island glittering among the sparkling waters of the Trackless Sea. Far to the west, beyond the Moonshaes, is the last refuge of the elven people. When expansion of humans into their forests, or the depredations of fiends or orcish hordes, or simply a weariness of living with danger constantly all around them and the need for secrecy, the People can go west and take ship over the sea, following the call of the Retreat as dictated by the Elven Court. Then, at the end of their journey, is Evermeet, the true home of the elves. But why would you want to, because it's incredibly boring. Okay, I'm sure for the fictional elves living in the fictional utopia, it's amazing. It's just that utopias are almost always great to live in but terrible to read about or play in. You might be able to get some interesting stories out of relationship drama or culture shock of mainland elves, who are used to having to hide away from others, finally living in a place where they are the undisputed masters, but even that is more literary than role playing gamist. For player characters, there's really not all that much to do in Evermeet. Non-elves can't even go there unless they have an elf to vouch for their behavior at all times and are willing to put up with racist elves constantly looking down their noses at them, and elves can go to enjoy utopia but...well, that's about it. Years ago, Evermeet lost its king to an assassin. This assassin was a Gold elf, and you'd think that this would have caused an explosion of factional conflict, since the Gold elves are responsible for basically everything that's gone wrong in elven history from the Crown Wars on down. It doesn't. According to the book it has basically no effect at all on elven society other than to make the Gold elves even more fanatically devoted to prove their loyalty to Queen Amlaruil, the Sad Queen. The Green elves hide in the woods, the Silver elves throw parties and frolic except when it's time to prove their loyalty to the Sad Queen, and the entire society is a unified, harmonious whole with no fracture points or stresses whatsoever. That's the part that really brings this book down. You'd think that Evermeet would be a pressure cooker of intrigue because of all the elves stuck in the same place. Sure, a lot of them are there voluntarily because that way they can spend all their time around other elves instead of the disgusting Not People, but there's still an element of coercion in their living arrangements, in that they live on Evermeet because there are few other elven nations to pick from. Where once Faerun was covered in elven kingdoms, forested Eaerlann, shining Aryvandaar, southern Ilythiir, western Shantel Othreier, and so on until I overuse all available vowels, now there's less than a handful. What's more, these are elves. A lot of them are old enough to remember those kingdoms. They should be paranoid wrecks who lived through the downfall of their civilization and scheme constantly for power, but none of that happens. Basically, Evermeet is the place you go to get missions, all of which take place elsewhere. The adventure possibilities are all missions on the mainland, to the mainland, or from the mainland, with the only example of one that takes place on Evermeet being a full-scale invasion by the forces of darkness. You could certainly build a campaign around that, but it's kind of a limiting premise. The only reason the book doesn't get one star is because of the inclusion of rules for high magic, which is magic that breaks the normal rules of what's possible at the cost of consequences. The caster can assume the power of dragons, summon an army of angels, forcibly mindwipe an evil creature and make them good, and other great feats. And sure, this is basically unavailable to PCs since only high-level wizards with extremely high Intelligence and Wisdom can become high mages and the training takes decades, but I like the concept and appreciate that it's in here. But it's about all that's in here that's useful. Elves of Evermeet commits the worst sin an RPG supplement can possibly commit in being just dull. After over a hundred pages, you're no more likely to want to set an adventure on Evermeet than you were beforehand, and there's very little you can take from this to use in games set on the mainland. And it didn't have to be this way--Evermeet: Island of the Elves has plenty of factional conflict and seething intrigue as well as a giant invasion, so putting both of them in is not unthinkable. But without any conflict, there's no point to it, or to this book.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-10-08 00:00:00 Ezekiel Sabbath not the whole set. ruleset and screen.