My Review of Forbidden Kingdoms
Below is the capsule review of Forbidden Kingdoms that I did for RPG.net. Yes, it is fairly negative, but I think the points are valid. This game could have been MUCH better than it ios with more editting and proofreading, as well as rules clarifications. Now that I hear that entire sections were lifted from other books and .pdfs, it adds to my belief that FK was rushed to press to beat the other Pulp games coming soon... and it suffers for that rush...
I love Pulp. The action, the edge-of-your-seat cliffhangers, the nasty
villians, the stylish heroes, the exotic locales, all of it. When I
first heard about this game, and downloaded the short preview, I was
very excited! The art was great, the characters seemed interesting, and
it promised to bring the excitement of Pulp to d20. (I don't buy
Dragon, so I don't count the pulp mini-game that was in there).
The day the book hit the shelves, I bought it. I was a bit surprised
that it was smaller-sized than most d20 books... It is the same
dimensions as AFMBE and Witchcraft from Eden Studios. However, it is
300 pages long, hardbound, and has very thin margins on the sides as
well as an average to small font. In all, it is probably about average
in terms of price for content.
The next surprise was that Forbidden Kingdoms covers not 1 but 3 eras:
The Steampulp era (Victorian), Tesla Time (early 1900s), and Nazi Thugs
(strange name for an era, but it is the 1930s). The gaps between these
eras are not really discussed much, meaning WW1 is barely mentioned.
Still, the variety gives more options about where and when you can set
your adventures, and I have always felt that the high Victorian era (ala
Castle Falkenstein) was related to pulp.
The first 82 pages describing these eras and the people, places, and
adventure possibilities in each one are the best part of the book, in my
opinion. Every page is loaded with adventure ideas and plot hooks.
Some of the ideas are recycled from previous pulp games, such as Prof
Moriarty's World Crime League or the German's unveiling of a Superman at
the Olympics, but this book expands upon the ideas and leaving gems like
these out of a pulp game would have been a crime itself, so this is
forgivable. Other story ideas are more unique, such as Nikola Tesla
building a futuristic city on the edge of the Niagra Falls, powered by
hydroelectricity. He also has gathered together a team of adventurers
called The Extraordinary Delphians to help protect it as well as
investigate unnatural phenomena around the world. From monster
sightings to a vanishing deep-sea explorer, secret societies to
ghost-hunters, these first 82 pages are simply a smashing-good read...
it is a shame that the rest of the book went downhill from there...
The first sign of amatuerish editting/design appeared on page 83... it
is completely blank. The chapter ended halfway down pg 82, but instead
of filling the next page and a half with art, a short story, more
adventure ideas, etc, they left them blank. (They wanted to begin every
chapter with a facing art piece) Now, once is bad enough, but the same
thing happens again on pgs 141 and 185! It looks very unprofessional to
leave utterly blank pages in the middle of a book, and these should have
been filled with something.
Another sign of a rush job is the fact that EVERY "see pg XX" reference
in the book says XX instead of the page numbers. I have not found
a single instance yet that actually lists a page.
The next strange layout feature was the use of numerous pictures cut
in half. Rather than have a full page picture, they cut the picture in
two, putting half on 1 page and half on the other. This would not look
too bad if both halves met at the binding, but instead, the pictures are
put at the far edges of the page! That means there are 2 columns of
text between the front and back half of a submarine, or a man and his
arm, or a woman and her leg. It looks very weird and was simply a poor
choice of layout.
Speaking of art, most of it was of average to good quality. The chapter
headers by LUK ACS are especially nice. However, remember those great
character designs I mentioned in preview? (I believe they were by
Kieran Yanner). They are nowhere in the book! Instead, the character
portraits are by another artist, and while they are not bad, they don't
seem to be historically accurate. The Clergyman has a soul patch, for
goodness sake! The mystic looks like a hippy flowerchild from the 60's,
and the Soldier of Fortune looks like Rambo! (By the way, anyone know
when dogtags were first used in the military? For some reason, it
doesn't seem pulpish to me.) To be fair, many of the portraits did look
historically correct, such as the Idle Rich, Crimefighter, and Diplomat.
Speaking of character classes, we come to one of my biggest complaints
about FK: The Classes have extremely sparse descriptions! All of the
classes are lacking rules and descriptions of their special abilities.
This is doubly strange because the Prestige Classes do include (very
short) ability descriptions! Furthermore, some of them have
questionable mechanics. The Academic, for instance, has an ability
called Information Font. It is pretty much identical to a Bard's Legend
Lore. But instead of adding his level to his roll, as a Bard does,
every 5 levels the Academic gets a special ability called Ignotus
Agnitio which reduces the DC for Info checks by 5. Why was this done?
Another example: The Idle Rich get an ability called Filthy Rich at
1st, 7th, 11th, 15th, and 19th level. At first level, it gives them 10x
the starting cash of other characters, but no other mention is made
about it in the character class chapter. Under Feats, we find that if
taken after starting level, it doubles your money. Is the character
supposed to total up all of his possessions, houses, cars, etc and
instantly double it for no reason other than he hit 7th level?? That is
just silly! And some classes have abilities with no definition at all,
such as the Explorer ability Trustworthy (which does not even seem to
fit him, but that's beside the point). It is not a new Feat in the
book, and it is not from the PHB. There is no description of how it
works anywhere.
The worst case by far, though, is the Expert class. It starts simply
enough... at 1st level he picks any 5 skills and gets 3 in each of them
(rather powerful at 1st level... lotta multiclassers will want this!)
But then at 3rd level and every 2 levels after that, he gets, quote " 1
to all Expertise skills, (pick 1 grouping of expertise skills)" The
"pick 1 grouping" part seems to refer to the ability at 6th, 12th, and
18th level to pick 5 more skills to become expert in. At 5th level, he
gets 2, 7th is 3, etc upto 9 at 19th level. Are these cumulative or
not? If not, and he chooses to add them to a group of skills with only
the base 3 bonus, do they suddenly jump up to the current bonus? The
rules are nonexistant on this, as each character class has a bit of
intro fiction and a single chart instead of full character rules!
Looking at other classes as a model is no help. The Explorer lists both
cumulative (I assume) and non-cumulative bonuses on the same chart!
(ie: Alertness 2, 3, 4 alongside multiple listings at 9th, 12th,
15th, etc for a 2 in Gather information, Spot, and Search.)
Ok, let's move on to the chapter called New Rules, Skills, and Feats.
FK uses the Vitality/ Wounds version of the d20 rules, though here
vitality is renamed Stamina. Armor reduces damage done, but unlike SW
revised, it reduces the damage of all hits, not just Wounds. How much
does it reduce it? I have no idea, really, because there is no armor
chart in the book!!! The example on pg 114 says a Flak jacket provides
4 points of protection (did they have those in the pulp era?), but there
are no other examples or listings of armor values. Considering over 3
pages are spent talking about the armor rules, the penalties for wearing
armor, whar armor stacks with what bonus, etc, this is a MAJOR
oversight.
Skills... breaking the tradition of trying to broaden the base d20
skills instead of create new ones, FK goes wild and adds 28 new skills!
Many of them seem repitious to me, though. Insurgency is used for
sneaking into secured areas... why not use Sneak? Bribery, Charm,
Conversation, Leadership, Savior Faire, Seduction, and Streetwise are
added to the existing Bluff, Diplomacy, and Gather Information. Do you
know when to use each one? Players already spend few points on these
abilities, and splitting them up further reduces the usefulness of all
of them. There are also Melee, Pistol, Rifle, etc skills seperate from
the Feets required for proficiency. Every 5 levels in the skill adds 1
to your attack rolls.
The most important (and powerful) new skill is called Technique. It
covers training in the Martial Arts, and every level you take in this
skill gives you a mini bonus Feat called a Manuever. This is not a bad
idea, and can provide for martial artists with very different abilities.
Some of these mini-Feats are not so mini, though! Improved Iterative
Attacks increases the rate of extra attacks from the usual every 5 to
3. So a character that normally has 2 attacks at 10/ 5 would get 4
attacks at 10/ 7/ 4/ 1! Nerve Strikes enable to to do everything
from Cause Blindness to Cause Paralysis. These maneuvers only work with
weapons that are part of your martial style, but you can declare
anything from a sword to a elephant gun to be your martial arts weapon!
Adding more weapons is easy, and costs 1 maneuver.) In many cases,
these mini-Feats, 1 free with every skill level, are far more powerful
than full Feats!
Speaking of which, FK adds 54 new feats, but they are split between
normal and martial, and the descriptions of the martial feats are 100
pages further into the book! (Another layout blunder, IMO) While the
Martial Feats are very powerful, the normal feats tend to be very weak.
The Lethal Anatomy (Martial) Feat which gives 1 on attacks and 2 on
damage with all Martial Arts weapons! Compare this with Weapon Focus
which gives only a 1 on attacks with a single weapon! The new Arcane
Resistance (non-martial) feat, on the other hand, gives a 2 on Will
saves, but only against Arcane magic. By comparison, Iron Will from the
PHB gives a 2 on all Will saves, no matter what the source. These
illustrate the disturbing lack of game balance seen throughout the
skills and feats in FK, always favoring fighting types by a huge margin.
FK tends to skimp on some important areas, like class descriptions, but
then go overboard on detail in other areas. The price list for cars
gives a breakdown of cost year by year! (Though several of the cars are
listed as NEVER being available for sale in any year!) There are also
chase rules in FK, but unlike Spycraft, they take into account modifiers
for road conditions, turn radius, incline or decline of the road,
everything! There are charts to convert MPH into feet/sec, feet/rnd,
and feet/min. There is a chart of reaction times, in both feet and
seconds, to show how long/far it would take a car to stop from a fixed
speed! Don't they know that in pulp, the car ALWAYS goes over the
cliff???
There are also complex rules for building your own guns, but the
book only provides a 1/2 page chart of examples. While that is a nice
idea, you'd have to be a gun-nut to be accurate in your constructions!
You have to choose a propellant size, bullet caliber, barrel length,
receiver, feed, and then add any special abilities it needs! How many
people can do all of that for a long list of guns? Furthermore, some
of the rules are strange... Shotguns allow a Reflex save for half damage?
Why?I would think the spread of the buckshot would make it harder
to dodge than a single bullet, not easier.
Next, there are sections on Weird Science, Magic and Psionics. Weird
Science is glossed over VERY quickly, receiving only 3 pages!! Magic is
given a somewhat sparse treatment (16 pgs), but there are rules for
rituals and a few new spells. Psionics are given quite a nice section,
though, and the system seems like a sound one. (It is based on Skills
and Feats). There are a broad range of abilities, from Telepathy to
Electrokinesis. I'm a bit unclear on why some of the powers are Feats
and some are skills, but it looks like an interesting system for modern
psionics (as opposed to the more Sorcery-oriented psionics in the
Psionics Handbook).
The book ends with a few character write-ups (though strangely none for
the fiction piece characters) and a few creature templates (vampire,
ghost, etc) The character sheet at the back is terribly amatuerish and
unattractive.
I know I sounded fairly harsh and negative throughout this review. I
think that is partly because I had such high hopes for this game. On
the bright side, it looks as if the line will continue, as a
Gamemaster's Codex is advertised in the back, and 3 city books... Paris,
Manchester, and Berlin. If some of the vague points are cleared up in
the Gamemaster's Codex, the game might still be salvagable, but as it
is, it would require MAJOR rules interpretation and balancing to be
usable. Still, it can provide a lot of good ideas for other Pulp games.
), but I can say it:
