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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Teflon Billy" data-source="post: 2233101" data-attributes="member: 264">[imager]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v328/Teflon_Billy/fotd.jpg[/imager]Friends of the Dragon is a sourcebook for Atlas Games’ beloved Feng Shui system.  It presents an inventive take on the old “adventuring party” trope with varying levels of success.Since RPG’s normally involve players generating characters in isolation (and possibly hard-selling them to a curmudgeon of a game master), many games struggle to get off the ground because of the painful ritual of attempting to connect a group of disparate and often incompatible PC’s.One friend of mine is a great guy to hang out with (hi Jay!), but always drifts towards characters that are stealthy loners and plays them in a way that often makes his presence at the gaming table completely redundant [bq]Him: “I turn invisible and wait until the end of the fight.” Me: “Okay, you can go home now.”[/bq]Right out of the gate, Friends of the Dragon offers a different notion of the PC group.  Before creating characters, the players collectively generate a group almost as its own “character”, with its own concept that act as an umbrella with which to unite the player characters.  Most of the process is flavour, but there are also some mechanics associated with the process in the form of Group Schticks.Group Schticks are a cool idea –  just like the special abilities ("Schitcks") characters acquire as individuals, your group gains experience points in the course of play which allows the purchase of Group Schticks which all group members can use.  As a “Friend of the Dragon”, a close-knit group can use each other’s Contacts and knowledges; a military group could call in an air raid or orbital laser strike with “The Big Guns”; and anyone could find an excuse to send out an appropriate swarm of followers with “the Mooks”.  Or if your group escaped from a maximum security military prison and dissappeared into the Los Angeles underground, maybe you’ll want “The Van”; a mobile headquarters that gives healing and repair bonuses, as well as bonus XP if you drive away in it at the end of the episode <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Both the variety and the utility of the Schticks are nice, and with enough flavour to steer groups towards the appropriate ones rather than just power gaming into the most lethal.The one thing I might grumble about is that the Group Schticks are essentially free because they are bought with so-called Group Experience.  I suppose this is somewhat offset by the fact that the GM's NPC groups will have access to these as well, but I’d rather find a way to make them appetizing without coughing them up for nothing.In addition to a healthy--if not extensive--list of Group Schticks, there is a meager list of new abilities called “Sync Schticks”. These are bought as regular Schticks but you use them in tandem with other characters. The list is so short and limited it might have been betterserved to simply tweak into Group Schtick system to beef up that selection.At this point that the book starts taking a bit of a wrong turn.  The biggest failing of this book is an extended metaphor of the campaign as a television series or movie (“Shows” is the term used in the book).  The main Feng Shui handbook encourages the "action movie" style of the game, but also warns against taking this too far, such as seeing cameras in the corner of your eye or tripping over lighting cables.  We’re not quite at the point where Blazing Saddles has spilled over into other soundstages, spoiling the Big Gay production number on Dom DeLuise’s musical, but Friends of the Dragon has definitely taken a few too many steps in that direction.The remainder of the book is primarily details on running different types of Shows, and the Shows are riddled with TV/film industry jargon.  In addition to "The Pitch", there’s "Setting the Stage", "Props", "Casting" and "Scripting", not to mention the cute-but-not-quite-clever movie posters of sample Shows, complete with credits and cheesy catchphrases (“Burn gas. Burn rubber.  Burn everything.” ...I actually quite like that one).  That said, there are a lot of cool ideas in these sections, with episode ideas and suggestions on how to connect the Show concept to the Secret War.  The different types of Shows have different sub-types that are pretty well fleshed out, complete with their own signature Schitcks.The general concept of the book is a great alternative take on character generation.  I can see a lot of games benefiting from creating the group as a whole, rather than each member being created in isolation, to prevent the inevitable awkward beginnings, "Meetings in Bars" and the occasional why-in-Hell-would-I-go-with-these-people impasse.  Ironically, part of the charm of Feng Shui is diverse characters from different junctures of history and the future coming together, meaning that it might be the game I'm aware of that requires this treatment the least.  I don’t see any reason not to drop Group Schitcks into an existing or disparate group, or even find a way to work in some of the signature Schticks from the various Shows.In a nutshell, Friends of the Dragon had some great ideas and would have recieved a solid 4 stars for crunchy bits, but the extended “Show” metaphor drags it down.  Since there is no material advancing the storyline or history of the Secret War, Feng Shui completists might be wary of this one, but in the end you’ll probably want it for the Schticks, even if it’s just to give your players the surprise thrashing they deserve.And you know they deserve it <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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