Slaine

[Crothian]

I think the rulebook is a great (though expensive for slim volume) d20 ruleset for Celtic roleplay, but somewhat lacking in detail on Slaine's world - to get that you have to cough up more cash for the sourcebooks. In this respect it's a bit like Traveller20 is for semi-hard sf, except Traveller20 is 442 pages plus adds and Slaine is 192 pages, much of it colour plates, at a similar price.

Traveler is 10$ more expensive, but I see your point. I think it might be because Slaine is a Licensed product but I'm not sure.

 

[S'mon]

Traveler is 10$ more expensive, but I see your point. I think it might be because Slaine is a Licensed product but I'm not sure.

Here Traveller is £29.99 and Slaine £24.99, I believe. They're both good products in their ways. The Slaine book is largely aimed at bringing in a new audience of American gamers, mostly unfamiliar with Slaine, hence the lavish colour art and generic Celtic 'Age of Heroes' rules; rather than more copious background & the esoterica of leyser swords, Diluvials, Cythrons et al from the comics. Nothing in the book contradicts the comics, but you don't need to know the comics to enjoy the game. As a Slaine afficionado it's not exactly what I'd have wanted for my money, but I think Mongoose made a reasonable marketing decision (I had a long email conversation with Ian Sturrock about this - nice chap!)

 

[Crothian]

So, do you thing these other areas will be covered in future sourcebooks?

 

[S'mon]

So, do you thing these other areas will be covered in future sourcebooks?

Yes - the Land of the Young sourcebook gives the general background info (the stuff one might hope to find in the original book), and I believe the 'Dinas Emrys' (Fortress of the Ever-Living Ones) sourcebook is covering the Cythrons, Earth-power leyser weapons, the blue-skinned immortal Atlanteans, and hopefully the Cythron slave races like the Diluvials and Orgots. This somewhat sci-fi stuff is clearly not generic Celtic fantasy and I can understand why a lot of it was excluded from the initial release.

 

[Crothian]

Well, I've been slowing picking up the sourcebooks and from what I've read I really like them as well. I have yet to actually sit down and read them all cover to cover, but that will eventually happen. I also picked up the first adventure to read and possible use if I can convince some people to play.