any opinions on Adamant's Imperial Age line?


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I have most of them and, so far, I really like them. If you are interested, I would probably start with The GameMaster's Guidebook to Victorian Adventure. Depending on what type of campaign you want to run, you can incorporate the other products to add further details to your setting.

This summer, I ran a one-shot game that combined d20 Modern & Past, CoC, Adamant's Imperial Age Magick, China Mieville's Bas Lag races from Dragon #352, and some elements from Victorian London, Mongoose's OGL Steampunk & the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novels. All in all, the game was a blast and my players had a really good time.
 

GlassJaw said:
I'm always interested in steampunk/Victorian products. I've been taking a look at Adamant's Imperial Age products but I don't know much about them.

Does anyone have any of these? Any overall comments or opinions on this line?

http://enworld.rpgnow.com/index.php?cPath=4158

While any comments or opinions that I'd have would be completely biased (being the IA Line Developer as well as a writer of the line), I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm available for any questions or comments regarding the Imperial Age. You can either post here or PM me at waltscie@yahoo.com.

Walt C
 

Cool, thanks Walt.

How much of the GameMaster's Guidebook is fluff vs crunch?

Can you elaborate a little on the magical styles in the Magick book? Are they new classes, spell lists, etc?

Is Spiritualism a new casting system as well or are they additional talents and feats?

By the way, do you also post on the Treasure Tables forum? I think we played in a game at this year's GenCon together too (Iron Heroes maybe?). :)
 

GlassJaw said:
Cool, thanks Walt.

No problem :)

GlassJaw said:
How much of the GameMaster's Guidebook is fluff vs crunch?

Definitely more fluff than crunch. Of the 28 pages of content, about 6.5 are dedicated to a new occupation, new feats, and weapons (to be fair, one page discusses how to use Thrilling Tales classes in the Imperial Age).

GlassJaw said:
Can you elaborate a little on the magical styles in the Magick book? Are they new classes, spell lists, etc?

Magick is more of a toolkit to add Victorian Hermetic flavor to your campaign. The magick system utilizes skills and feats (with different options based on how easy/strong magick is in your campaign). There is also a more traditional "Hermetic Disciple" advanced class in the appendix.

There are no new spells. Magick presumes you are using the spells from the SRD.

GlassJaw said:
Is Spiritualism a new casting system as well or are they additional talents and feats?

In addition to an overview of historical spiritualism (including campaign types), there is a Medium advanced class. This class fulfils the Divine Magic(k) role in the Imperial Age. While there are a couple of feats, the Medium is the focus of the crunch. The Medium gets his spells through spirits that he's contacted.


GlassJaw said:
By the way, do you also post on the Treasure Tables forum? I think we played in a game at this year's GenCon together too (Iron Heroes maybe?). :)

Yes, that's me, although I didn't play Iron Heroes.

Walt
 
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Well, I am also biased (having written IA Magick along with some forthcoming works) but will add that I wrote the Magick book based on lot of real world occult practices of the era but also wanted to have a system that could model magic as we see it in various types of fiction set in the Victorian Era. Thus you can run a fairly low magic occult game closely resembeling the real world, a very Lovecraftian game where the supernatural is fairly prevalent and dangerous, or even a high-magic game with a fey Victoria and Unseelie spies from the Continent. Just about anything you can think of really. I think its very adaptable and I am quite pleased with it.

Since they have been mentioned already on these boards by either Gareth or Walt I can also say that I have written a Grimoire, focusing mainly on incantations but also with some other spells appropriate for the era, and a Faeries book, which much like Magick can be used to run a wide variety of different styles of game.

I recently ran a one-shot using Magick and Faeries which had PCs that for all apperances were human street children, and without much more of FX abilities than that, in London but in Faerie were a powerful spell-casting shidhe princess of the Winter Court and her half-giant protector. The half-giant's name was "Emerson" - the player didn't get that he was actually "Ymir's Son" even after his secret heritage was revealed, at least not for a while. That made me happy.

Like Walt I would be glad to answer any questions I can about specific products that I have worked on, although ones not yet in print will be his domain not mine.

We had, at one point, talked about an adventure, but the schedule got a bit behind and I got busy but I suppose that could yet happen.
 


GlassJaw said:
Hmm, did play the board game Descent by any chance?

Nope. :\

I played in Star Wars Saga, Victoriana, and a Doctor Who-themed Call of Cthulhu. I also hung out at the Ram with the Treasure Tables crowd after the Mastering Your GM-Fu seminar.

Walt
 

Stormborn said:
Well, I am also biased (having written IA Magick along with some forthcoming works) but will add that I wrote the Magick book based on lot of real world occult practices of the era but also wanted to have a system that could model magic as we see it in various types of fiction set in the Victorian Era. Thus you can run a fairly low magic occult game closely resembeling the real world, a very Lovecraftian game where the supernatural is fairly prevalent and dangerous, or even a high-magic game with a fey Victoria and Unseelie spies from the Continent. Just about anything you can think of really. I think its very adaptable and I am quite pleased with it.

Since they have been mentioned already on these boards by either Gareth or Walt I can also say that I have written a Grimoire, focusing mainly on incantations but also with some other spells appropriate for the era, and a Faeries book, which much like Magick can be used to run a wide variety of different styles of games.

Scott illustrates the design philosophy behind the Imperial Age line quite succinctly. All of the Imperial Age products are designed with a "toolkit" approach; there is no "official" setting and each supplement explores possibilities for different types of campaigns.

Walt
 

Walt C said:
While any comments or opinions that I'd have would be completely biased (being the IA Line Developer as well as a writer of the line), I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm available for any questions or comments regarding the Imperial Age. You can either post here or PM me at waltscie@yahoo.com.

Walt C

I've heard there's going to be an Imperial Age Faeries book as well....is that still in the works?

I haven't really looked at these books....but I don't play Modern. Could they be easily adapted to D&D, or are they really more suited to D20 Modern? Would they work with a setting like Iron Kingdoms (at least the Steampunk aspects)?

Banshee
 

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