Newsgroup: it.fan.tv.buffy
Titolo: Buffy Role Playing Game Corebook and Giveaway!

http://www.scoopme.com/news/news.asp?news_id=4062
spoiler
Contributor: Hunter Maxin
Source: Eden Studios
Show: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Star:
Giles: Can you move?
Ben: Need a.a minute. She could have killed me.
Giles: No, she couldn't. And sooner or later Glory will re-emerge and make
Buffy pay for that mercy.and the world with her. Buffy even knows that, and
still she couldn't take a human life. She's a hero, you see. She's not like
us.
--The Gift
Those words echo with me sometimes - she's not like us - and it's true. If
you're anything like me about my BtVS, you sometimes sit around and wonder
what you'd be like if you had the opportunity, if you could exist in a world
where vampires are real and you know you have the power to do something
about it.
What would you do? Would you save the world? Would you kill to do it? Could
you?
Part of the fun of being a fan of a story like Buffy is being able to put
yourself in its world.when your mind wanders. Any universe that exists
beyond the borders of what you've already seen gives you that ability. It's
for that precise reason that Star Trek, Star Wars, and The Lord of The Rings
are so popular and fanatical. It's why they have fanfests, and spinoff
games, and all kinds of assorted memorabilia.
Buffy has long been on its way to taking a permanent place in this esteemed
fanatical company. Spin off shows, books, video 
games.it
's all there. But
none of it, up until now, has give you the ability to really put yourself
into the Buffyverse.
Well, the wait is over.
The good people at Eden Studios, creators of the new Buffy the Vampire
Slayer Role Playing Game, were gracious enough to send me an advance copy of
their core rulebook the other day. Seeing as we are mired in the midst of
another re-run marathon, I figured tonight would be a good time to share
with you what I thought about it. If you'd like to give it a go yourself,
well, they sent a copy for us to give away too -- contest details follow my
thoughts.
For starters, my experience with RPG is limited at best. I played D&D for a
few months on the playground in the sixth grade. For that reason, it
probably would be besides the point for me to try to explain, in too
technical detail, the exact rules of the game. I'd just butcher them anyway.
Suffice to say, this RPG is set up along familiar lines for anyone
accustomed to role-playing. If you've even heard of Unisystem games, you
already know how to play, more or less, and if you haven't, as long as you
have the most basic comprehension of how to read, you'll make out just fine
after a pass or two at the manual.
It's been nearly 17 years since my last brush with D&D, but I quickly fell
into the rhythms of the game. Where it was a Dungeon Master crafting the
story in my day, here it is the Director. Where we used to find a world
populated with elves and orcs, here we find Slayers and demons.
The rest is simple. Get a group together, create some characters, find
someone creative to run the whole show, and you're off for hours (if not
days) of fun.
The real joy, of course, is in the detail. To one degree or another, each of
us, as I've said, has already imagined what it might be like to actually
live in the Buffyverse - what if Vampires really were real? - and help save
the world. Again. So, to one degree or another, each one of us has pushed
the boundaries beyond what we've seen and created something.more.
My hope, then, would be that the game would easily support such creative
meandering. Even in my brief stint in the world of D&D, it was clear to me
that the better Dungeon Masters were the ones who knew how to craft a unique
and properly paced story. The heavy-handed leaders would always bring out
the obvious big guns early and for no reason. There would always be some big
treasure, amulet, or evil right at the front, leaving us nowhere to go or
nothing to really work for.
It was always better to view the process as part of some larger epic, with a
slow build, and a series of small victories that offered an ever-escalating
tension as we earned the right to see more and achieve more. In this way,
the RGP has at least one idea very right. Game sessions are couched in terms
of episodes, the leaders as directors, players as cast. Some of the
adventures should stand alone. Some should build to a greater mythology to
be shared by your cast. Characters, their abilities and personalities, need
time to grow for them to carry emotional weight (Could this be why so many
people are enthralled with Spike, because we watched his transformation from
evil to virtue, earning the right to have his redemption as our own, as
opposed to just hearing about it like Angel?).
So, while I get the distinct impression that the creators of the game had
many of the right ideas, ultimately I had a few problems with the ways in
which they attempt to reign in this expansion of the Buffyverse. For the
purposes of the game, it was determined that the characters from the show
itself would be present and locked in time at the end of fifth season. This
was done, presumably, because that was the last bit of information they had
on the series when they began putting this all together. Still, fifth season
seems so long ago, particularly in light of recent events.
Instead of illuminating the boundaries of the Buffyverse and encouraging you
to explore, the creators of the game seem more interested in running over
already familiar territory. If I had my way, the stars of the universe -
Buffy, Giles, Willow, etc. - would be no more than legend, myth. They would
be names that characters in the game would invoke much in the way that
members of the Watcher's Council might tell tales of Slayers and battles
long gone by. But , here they are, smack dab in the middle of your little
fantasy.
But it isn't just the white hats that get limited. The one thing I loved
above all else about D&D was the wealth of resources we had when it came to
creating scenarios. There were volumes of nasty things to choose from. My
personal favorite was Deities and Demigods, which presented hundreds of
higher beings itemized by belief system. If you wanted a Norse adventure,
there was Thor (as well a host of lesser known members of his pantheon) and
all of his attributes. If you wanted to go Egyptian, you could just as
easily access Bast and all of her cohorts.
Here we have only one potential generic baddie - the vampire (sub-divided
into minion, veteran, and lieutenant). Everyone else is a specific evil
character we have seen before, and, while the list is exhaustive (Darla,
Luke, Dru, The Judge, The Sisters of Jhe, Veruca, Ms. French, Daryl Epps,
Ted, Heinrich Joseph, The Mayor, Adam, Glory), what is lacking is variety.
Even if we have to wait for subsequent volumes to come up with a
demonthology to supplement what we have already seen on the show, what about
all of the demons we have seen. Just listing the various types shown in the
first five seasons (and creating attributes for them) would give us plenty
to work with in the mean time.
None of this, of course, precludes you, the player, from working around this
to create inventive and interesting stories. As in all RPG, the quality of
the experience is directly rooted in your ability to craft your own stories.
The first order of business, of course, is designing a character. You can't
play if you don't know who you are, and you have plenty of choices ranging
from the obvious (New Slayer, Former Initiative Agent, Watcher, Demon
Hunter, Beginner Witch), and strangely limiting (Football Player, Former
Vampire Groupie), to the interesting and inventive (Psychic, Hacker, Martial
Artist).
But even here, the choices are more limited than they seem. Each character
comes with a very specific back story.
My old town, Santa Rosa, was full of vampires, and when I first saw one, I
damn near wet myself.
.as well as your role in the fight for the greater good.
You are the typical cyber-punk - your bedroom is cluttered with CD cases,
Star Trek memorabilia, and computer components..After your brush with the
supernatural, you've become obsessed with combing magic and technology to
create a greater whole.
I don't think that the characters need to be so limited in their own
histories. Better to allow each player to cast his own role. Certainly, the
abilities and characteristics of a Beginner Witch, for example, need to be
laid out, but to restrict things this much.?
Why can't I be the computer nerd who just move to Sunnydale from Cleveland?
Why does it even have to be Sunnydale? More fun, perhaps, to create your own
vampire underworld in your own hometown, or some other place you know well.
Again, this is something you could easily work around if you put together
the right core group of cast members. Of course, there are other problems to
overcome. For starters, there can only be one Slayer in each cast. Likewise,
there can only be one Watcher. I can easily see how that would be a point of
contention amongst even the most even-tempered group. Seriously, who wants
to be the Football player?
Still, if RPG is your thing, and you love Buffy as much as we think you do,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Role Playing Game should offer more than
enough to start you on your way.
Hunter
-- 
Jolan Tru
Filippo "Hytok" Simone
Vice Oracolo Ufficiale di Sunnydale
http://www.ussexcalibur.it/
http://www.startrekitaliamagazine.it/
http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/hyterdeflok/

Hunter
ho il sospetto che il gioco lo abbia solo sguarducchiato :(
tutti i problemi che solleva non esistono proprio, i personaggi
presentati sono quelli pronti a giocare, ma puoi fare quello che vuoi
di "cattivi" ce ne sono diversi nel manuale base
dei personaggi dello show ci sono varie versioni divese per stagione e
sta al Regista se usarli o meno
stanno per arrivare manuali su altri cattivi, demoni e quant'altro,
che dettagliano sunnydale e non
si discute se usare 1 o + slayer o + watcher
il gioco lascia totale liberta' dove hunter parlava di costrizioni...
ripeto ha fatto una giocata veloce e non ha capito molto :(
--
ciao, fabio

ripeto ha fatto una giocata veloce e non ha capito molto :(
IMO non ha giocato ma solo letto.
dice di aver giocato di ruolo pochi mesi in passato, e solo a dnd.
rece completamente inaffidabile :(
-- 
                  Niccolò "Domon" Ricchio
"la somma del tempo libero e del denaro disponibile è costante"