BigFreekinGoblinoid said:
Hey Buzz, I'm curious, what exactly rubbed you wrong from the Primer?
It's hard for me to nail it down.
First off, I was put a off a bit by some of the ways women are used in the setting. Every racial/geographic entry had to mention the ways in which the women of different areas are "hot"; I think only one region had women who didn't typically have nice curves and big breasts. It seemd like a lot of the evil gods were female as well, while the goods ones were ovewhelmingly male.
Granted, I tend to be over-sensitive on this subject, so I could be totally overreacting. There were plenty of notable NPCs that were female.
Other than that, I'm not sure how much I liked all the bonuses starting characters get for taking regionally-preferred classes. Some of the perks seemed too powerful. I'm also not sure how balanced the firearms are in the setting. Sure, they're expensive for starting PCs, but mid-level PCs will be armed to the gills.
In general, though, I guess I was just less than enthused by the setting. The CP didn't really give nearly as good a handle on the basics of the IK as the free info on their Website does. It just seems dark for dark's sake; I kept feeling like the idea for the steamjack (and lots of goggle-wearing, Matrix-looking PCs) came first, and then the designers thought, "Hey, we need to come up with a setting to explain these guys." And its just so darn gritty; everybody seems to hate everybody else (save for the dwarves, who seem to be about the jolliest, friendliest dwarves I've seen yet).
The litmus test is simply, does this inspire me to run a campaign? The CP failed to do so. Still, I'll reserve final judgement until I read through the Monsternomicon.
At the least, there should be ideas I can steal for use with Eberron.
