Sometime back, a friend I met through gaming got me into Arcanis and more imprtantly Living Arcanis a shared world campaign (which was originally run through the rpga).
Detailing a fantasy setting with obvious links to Old Earth, and characters with motivations be it greed or honor it was particuarly engrossing.
Now Paradigm Concepts, have released an updated look into the world of Onara and the game has become Shattered Empires (and is set 40 years after the end of the Living Arcanis campaign).
The first thing to note is that this is not what people would know as a d20 system. Im not even sure it uses a d20 at all. Mechanically it reminds me of Earthdawn, certain dice can explode. A Point buy system (my preferred method of generating stats) is used to create a character and players can choose from races that are native to the setting. Races such as the Dark-kin are an interesting addition to the setting and the other races have backstory, which can be missing from a plug and play d20 game.
Combat can be a little unsettling at first, and Shattered Empires uses a clock and tick action system. That is the clock consists of 12 ticks and each character action advances a personal clock.. It makes for some strategic tick issues as a player decides to take a risky high tick cost action over something smaller.
It's definetly worth a look esp if you are looking to get into something with far more depth than Living Forgotten Realms has, but the quickstart rules (released very recently with the main rule book out in 2011), is a very engrossing read, and more than enough to start adventuring in the lands of Onara.
Matt
Detailing a fantasy setting with obvious links to Old Earth, and characters with motivations be it greed or honor it was particuarly engrossing.
Now Paradigm Concepts, have released an updated look into the world of Onara and the game has become Shattered Empires (and is set 40 years after the end of the Living Arcanis campaign).
The first thing to note is that this is not what people would know as a d20 system. Im not even sure it uses a d20 at all. Mechanically it reminds me of Earthdawn, certain dice can explode. A Point buy system (my preferred method of generating stats) is used to create a character and players can choose from races that are native to the setting. Races such as the Dark-kin are an interesting addition to the setting and the other races have backstory, which can be missing from a plug and play d20 game.
Combat can be a little unsettling at first, and Shattered Empires uses a clock and tick action system. That is the clock consists of 12 ticks and each character action advances a personal clock.. It makes for some strategic tick issues as a player decides to take a risky high tick cost action over something smaller.
It's definetly worth a look esp if you are looking to get into something with far more depth than Living Forgotten Realms has, but the quickstart rules (released very recently with the main rule book out in 2011), is a very engrossing read, and more than enough to start adventuring in the lands of Onara.
Matt
