Mar. 14th, 2003 11:17 am
(Game Review) Demon: The Fallen
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jdotmiI said I would start doing some game reviews and game book reviews. Just for the hell of it, I'll start with Demon. At some point I'll probably come up with some rating systme, but for now you will just have to suffer with me rambling about the game.
This review is based entirely on the core rulebook for Demon: The Fallen. It does not include any of the supplements for the game.
The backstory for this game is excellent. The first several chapters of the book are nothing but backstory. I was very concerned at first by this, but the stories were well written and gave a very good idea as to the tone of the game. It also gave a nice sense of what the powers are like and how some Demon's interact with the World of Darkness.
The game mechanics seem to be solid. Nothing really seems overpowering in the game, and it seems as though various types of Demons will be fairly equal in power. It's just a matter of getting to the power level that can be tricky.
I do have some concerns with the way that Torment is handled in terms of it's effect on Demon powers. For example, almost every starting Demon is highly unlikely to be able to pull off the Low Torment versions of their powers. This is particularly problematic for Scourge characters, whose healing powers actually reverse themselves when the High Torment effect is used instead. For example, a starting Scourge has 3 Torment. They must roll 4 successes on a Lore activation to achieve the Low Torment effect. For most of the Lore of Awakening powers (healing), this is a roll of Stamina + Medicine at varying (usually high) difficulties. The Demon that I created has a Stamina of 4 and a Medicine of 3. Some of the healing abilities start out at a 6 difficulty, some start at 8. This means a significant expenditure of Willpower (which for a starting character will be either a 4 or a 5 without freebie points) and incredible luck would be needed to consistently get the low Torment effect to take place.
The powers listing is somewhat inconsistent. Some powers are missing the difficulty of the effect, but most list it. The powers seem somewhat limited, but this could just be a matter of reading through each House's Lore effects a few more times to note the differences. Some of the Lore combinations for various Houses seem a little strange.
The game does something fairly unusual for World of Darkness games. It provides NO crossover information in the core rulebook. This is a good thing. Far too many people see World of Darkness games as one big smorgasboard of "I want to play this! He wants to play that! Who cares if their mortal enemies and would never talk let alone work together! He's my bestest friend!!!" I hate those people. They do provide some "antagonist" versions, but they don't go into anything remotely resembling detail as to what things are what.
Overall, I think this game seems very very good. The backstory was excellent (albeit, very heavily in the judeo-christian view of the world, of course with a heavy World of Darkness tint) but will probably disturb some. Especially those who are heavily religious in the "mainstream" religions of today. Of course, most of those people don't really play World of Darkness games, but quite a few do. The system seems nice and solid, and Demons have a few unique traits that set them apart from other World of Darkness critters. A particularly nice touch is their immunity to Mind Control and Posession. Of course, considering they are already posessing someone... Well, you get the idea there.
I like the game so far and I recommend it to people who enjoy World of Darkness games.
This review is based entirely on the core rulebook for Demon: The Fallen. It does not include any of the supplements for the game.
The backstory for this game is excellent. The first several chapters of the book are nothing but backstory. I was very concerned at first by this, but the stories were well written and gave a very good idea as to the tone of the game. It also gave a nice sense of what the powers are like and how some Demon's interact with the World of Darkness.
The game mechanics seem to be solid. Nothing really seems overpowering in the game, and it seems as though various types of Demons will be fairly equal in power. It's just a matter of getting to the power level that can be tricky.
I do have some concerns with the way that Torment is handled in terms of it's effect on Demon powers. For example, almost every starting Demon is highly unlikely to be able to pull off the Low Torment versions of their powers. This is particularly problematic for Scourge characters, whose healing powers actually reverse themselves when the High Torment effect is used instead. For example, a starting Scourge has 3 Torment. They must roll 4 successes on a Lore activation to achieve the Low Torment effect. For most of the Lore of Awakening powers (healing), this is a roll of Stamina + Medicine at varying (usually high) difficulties. The Demon that I created has a Stamina of 4 and a Medicine of 3. Some of the healing abilities start out at a 6 difficulty, some start at 8. This means a significant expenditure of Willpower (which for a starting character will be either a 4 or a 5 without freebie points) and incredible luck would be needed to consistently get the low Torment effect to take place.
The powers listing is somewhat inconsistent. Some powers are missing the difficulty of the effect, but most list it. The powers seem somewhat limited, but this could just be a matter of reading through each House's Lore effects a few more times to note the differences. Some of the Lore combinations for various Houses seem a little strange.
The game does something fairly unusual for World of Darkness games. It provides NO crossover information in the core rulebook. This is a good thing. Far too many people see World of Darkness games as one big smorgasboard of "I want to play this! He wants to play that! Who cares if their mortal enemies and would never talk let alone work together! He's my bestest friend!!!" I hate those people. They do provide some "antagonist" versions, but they don't go into anything remotely resembling detail as to what things are what.
Overall, I think this game seems very very good. The backstory was excellent (albeit, very heavily in the judeo-christian view of the world, of course with a heavy World of Darkness tint) but will probably disturb some. Especially those who are heavily religious in the "mainstream" religions of today. Of course, most of those people don't really play World of Darkness games, but quite a few do. The system seems nice and solid, and Demons have a few unique traits that set them apart from other World of Darkness critters. A particularly nice touch is their immunity to Mind Control and Posession. Of course, considering they are already posessing someone... Well, you get the idea there.
I like the game so far and I recommend it to people who enjoy World of Darkness games.
