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Diomin Core Book
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<blockquote data-quote="Zan Thrax" data-source="post: 2008164" data-attributes="member: 400"><p>OtherWorld Creations first release, the Diomin worldbook, is a very weak one. There are some interesting ideas in the 112-page book, like the random encounter charts for city streets. Unfortunately, finding them requires the reader to get past horrible layout and worse writing. Instead of being a polished, complete setting for dungeon masters to run, this book feels like a collection of notes and sketches from a homebrew campaign.</p><p></p><p>According to the book, both the world and the area described are known as Diomin. While the book says that the campaign area is a continent, much of the details, including the very poor maps which show only thirty or so major settlements and no scale, indicate that this is a setting with perhaps twice the landmass of England. Take note of the real-world reference there. There are many such references throughout the Diomin worldbook, one of many jarring aspects of the writing. The writing has so many basic grammatical problems and such an unfinished feeling that it would never pass a high school writing assignment, let alone a professional editor's desk.</p><p></p><p>The writing is not the first weakness that can be found though. Discounting the jaggies on the cover art and logo, the first thing to be noticed is the layout. The cramped layout of the official core books is vastly preferable to the apparent attempt to fill up pages present in the Diomin book. To start with, the margins account for approximately one-third of the page width, and the presence of the occasional sidebar, complete with the Harley Quinn look-alike, seem to be more an attempt to make the margins look less vast than to present extra information. There is a reasonable amount of art, but it is very poorly integrated into the layout, frequently forcing the text to awkwardly wrap around it. While the original art is probably quite good, much of it has been scanned poorly, either becoming very dark or simply blurred. Also, the art does not seem to have been created with the purpose of placement into a rulebook in mind. It is frequently dark around the edges, so that it looks like black squares dropped in haphazardly, rather than nicely fitting in between sections of the text.</p><p></p><p>The back cover blurb starts off with the (rather cliché) "Elves? We don't need no stinkin' elves..." True to this statement, Diomin does not use any of the standard non-human races. (While "human" is not one of the described races, two of the races in the book are simply human cultures rather than individual races.) Instead, there are a variety of new races introduced, each reasonably creative, even if their cultures are somewhat derivative. The class limitations placed on the races make sense since the setting is a small one and the cultures are defined. To please those players that just have to play a character who does not fit in well with her cultural background, a new feat has been introduced. "Unusual Background" allows a character to have a class not normally associated with her race, and is an excellent idea for any campaign in which certain classes are not normally represented. While the races are reasonably interesting, they raise a question of balance. One race gains masterwork items at no extra cost and access to superior weapons, while another has damage reduction and reduced item prices across the board. Neither race has any serious drawbacks to offset these significant benefits. Some of the changes to the classes raise similar concerns.</p><p></p><p>Following the race chapter, a few class changes are discussed and the new Shaman class is introduced. The Shaman makes use of a new type of magic involving the summoning and controlling of spirits. This new type of magic, like the new feat, is worth considering for use in many campaigns, if the reader can grasp the seemingly complicated mechanism. The chapters on races and classes account for just under half of the book, and an introductory adventure takes up another fourth. The remaining sections of the book include details on the twelve gods, the history of Diomin, a short dungeon master section, and two pages of world maps. While the gods and especially their history are interesting, the DM section is more of a grab bag for short notes that were not placed elsewhere. The pathetic maps, apparently made with one of the various fantasy mapping programs, are perhaps the weakest part of the book.</p><p></p><p>In the end, there are a few interesting ideas buried beneath the unprofessional presentation of this book. If you want to use the spirit magic and simply can not wait for the another product to include such a system, then you may want to pick this up. For those of us who expect enough content to justify the pagecount and content that at least attempts to seem professional, then there's nothing to see here.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Zan Thrax, post: 2008164, member: 400"] OtherWorld Creations first release, the Diomin worldbook, is a very weak one. There are some interesting ideas in the 112-page book, like the random encounter charts for city streets. Unfortunately, finding them requires the reader to get past horrible layout and worse writing. Instead of being a polished, complete setting for dungeon masters to run, this book feels like a collection of notes and sketches from a homebrew campaign. According to the book, both the world and the area described are known as Diomin. While the book says that the campaign area is a continent, much of the details, including the very poor maps which show only thirty or so major settlements and no scale, indicate that this is a setting with perhaps twice the landmass of England. Take note of the real-world reference there. There are many such references throughout the Diomin worldbook, one of many jarring aspects of the writing. The writing has so many basic grammatical problems and such an unfinished feeling that it would never pass a high school writing assignment, let alone a professional editor's desk. The writing is not the first weakness that can be found though. Discounting the jaggies on the cover art and logo, the first thing to be noticed is the layout. The cramped layout of the official core books is vastly preferable to the apparent attempt to fill up pages present in the Diomin book. To start with, the margins account for approximately one-third of the page width, and the presence of the occasional sidebar, complete with the Harley Quinn look-alike, seem to be more an attempt to make the margins look less vast than to present extra information. There is a reasonable amount of art, but it is very poorly integrated into the layout, frequently forcing the text to awkwardly wrap around it. While the original art is probably quite good, much of it has been scanned poorly, either becoming very dark or simply blurred. Also, the art does not seem to have been created with the purpose of placement into a rulebook in mind. It is frequently dark around the edges, so that it looks like black squares dropped in haphazardly, rather than nicely fitting in between sections of the text. The back cover blurb starts off with the (rather cliché) "Elves? We don't need no stinkin' elves..." True to this statement, Diomin does not use any of the standard non-human races. (While "human" is not one of the described races, two of the races in the book are simply human cultures rather than individual races.) Instead, there are a variety of new races introduced, each reasonably creative, even if their cultures are somewhat derivative. The class limitations placed on the races make sense since the setting is a small one and the cultures are defined. To please those players that just have to play a character who does not fit in well with her cultural background, a new feat has been introduced. "Unusual Background" allows a character to have a class not normally associated with her race, and is an excellent idea for any campaign in which certain classes are not normally represented. While the races are reasonably interesting, they raise a question of balance. One race gains masterwork items at no extra cost and access to superior weapons, while another has damage reduction and reduced item prices across the board. Neither race has any serious drawbacks to offset these significant benefits. Some of the changes to the classes raise similar concerns. Following the race chapter, a few class changes are discussed and the new Shaman class is introduced. The Shaman makes use of a new type of magic involving the summoning and controlling of spirits. This new type of magic, like the new feat, is worth considering for use in many campaigns, if the reader can grasp the seemingly complicated mechanism. The chapters on races and classes account for just under half of the book, and an introductory adventure takes up another fourth. The remaining sections of the book include details on the twelve gods, the history of Diomin, a short dungeon master section, and two pages of world maps. While the gods and especially their history are interesting, the DM section is more of a grab bag for short notes that were not placed elsewhere. The pathetic maps, apparently made with one of the various fantasy mapping programs, are perhaps the weakest part of the book. In the end, there are a few interesting ideas buried beneath the unprofessional presentation of this book. If you want to use the spirit magic and simply can not wait for the another product to include such a system, then you may want to pick this up. For those of us who expect enough content to justify the pagecount and content that at least attempts to seem professional, then there's nothing to see here. [/QUOTE]
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