Tell me about Arcanis

[JoeGKushner]

Their Player's Guide To Arcanis is one of the most filled crunch books I've ever seen. Now I wouldn't recommend using it all, and I've found that there is some overlap with regular D&D stuff (houserule 0 is that if there's an official version, I go with that or houserule 0.1, if the unofficial version is 'cooler', I go with that) but it has some great art, some great core classes, PrCs, weapons, and other good things.

Their Legacy of Damnation has a lot of detail for their dark kin, a unique race of the setting, as well as a mini-sourcebook, the Sealed Lands, that has a demonic/devilish legion trapped on the World of Arcanis, but easily placable in any campaign setting.

 

[philreed]

I just shipped out the printer disk for Magic of Arcanis last night and I can say without a doubt that even though it's shorter then the Player's Guide it has more than its fair share of crunch. I had to keep tightening up the text in order to fit it inside the 224-pages.

Paradigm Concepts easily crams more into a book than any other company I've ever worked with.

 

[HellHound]

That's sounds like a lot of fun. I've been running my guys through an epic world-shaping kind of campaign, and sometimes they look like they are overwhelmed by the weight of the world. A more-focused campaign may just be the ticket.

I've enjoyed running the Rogues of Arcanis campaign. It is centred on a small city on the Western border of the Coryani Empire that is a direct rip-off of Sanctuary from the Thieve's World novels (including the maps and some of the characters - the role of religion in thieve's world works very well with the alignment-less gods of Onara). The city has only recently had the actual eye of the empire upon it, and has generally been self-sufficient and quiet enough to stay out of sight and mind.

Sanctuary is on the shore of the Sea of Coryan, and falls somewhere between the provinces of Annonica and the Western Marches, thus helping it keep a low profile. It is a dirty little city with many dirty little secrets - perfect for urban adventures.

 

[ssampier]

Arcanis sounds like something you should be able to use.

I have been thinking about running a survey on how the common player views Arcanis, to be honest I have heard some wild assumptions about the campaign world.

But seeing how different Arcanis is from the ‘standard’ game world I can see how such assumptions would come up.

What have you all heard from non-Arcanis players about Arcanis? what’s the general perception of the product?

I have read the EnWorld reviews on the product. I thought that sounds cool and promptly forgot about it. In my understanding it is a regular D&D campaign with a quasi Roman empire, with firearms, implanted island (Freeport), and lizard men (?).

 

[smilinggm]

Arcanis is more than just a Romanesque Setting. Where Arcanis realy shines is in the mods that create the campaing. Arcanis is a place were you have to know when to use force and when to use diplomacy, when to fight and when to run. Arcanis is a world of grays, a place where you have to make moral choices along with life and death choices. Arcanis is a world were actions have consequenses. To fully experience Arcanis you realy should play the series of modules created for the RGPA's Living Arcanis. Through the Living Arcanis Mods you get to realy explore the World, Meet the movers and shakers and participate in the strife. One of the realy kool things that happen in the Living Campaing is that each player has to choose not only his race and class, but also his nationality and possibly be a member in a Secret Society. During any giving Living Module each player could be given a handout with orders from his home nation and his Secret Society. These missions are to be accomplished during the mod. Each player could have 1 or 2 secret missions that they are trying to accomplish during the mod that may or may not be in conflict with your special orders. This has created much political tension and chaos. PVP is a has not been an issue becuaes in the RPGA PVP is a BIG NO NO and it can get you in big trouble. So instead of PVP the players have come up with many very creative solutions to accomplish thier missions. The Secret Socities are a great tool that allows players to peer deeper into the world. At the end of most of the Living Modules there is a form for the DM to fill out and turn back into PCI, called an event summary form. Through the event Summary forms the DM answers a set of questions about how the module was played by that group of 4 to 6 players. The event summarys ask questions like did this or that mission fail or succeed, did this or that NPC live or die, what did the PC's do with this object, and so on. After a period of time the the Evnet Summary's are tallied by the campaing staff and written into the next sets of mods. In this fashon the players have affected the outcome of the campaing. In one dramatic instance the majority of the players decied that a certain major NPC did not decide to become a Lich! At the last Origins PCI held a major event called a Battle Interactive (BI). A battle interactive is where around 200 players sat down in a very large room, 6 players and 1 DM per table, and played a very intense module together. This BI (there have been others) told the tale of the opening battle in the Coryani Cival War. Each table decied before play began which side that that table would be representing. Empire or Rebles. There were 6 hour long missions for each table. At the end of each hour long mission the tables judge would take a short event summary up to the head table and give a report to campaing staff. Campaing staff would tally each rounds results and send the judges instrucions based on the results. At the end of the event all of the results were tallied and the players were told what campaing changing evnets had just occured base on their actions and who won the battle. The energy in the banquet hall was huge. At the end of day each side took heavy losses, but the rebels won the day by a narrow marging. But this was the will of the majority of the players and everyone had a blast!!! The PC's were the hero's of the day and the players once again changed the campaing.

 

[Dextra]

To fully experience Arcanis you realy should play the series of modules created for the RGPA's Living Arcanis.

That reminds me- when I was at Origins, we ran into a kind soul who was handling the LA stuff who volunteered to bring a CD of the back catalogue of LA modules (including the retired ones) to Gen Con for us. Our family has been dying to play it, but have had some problems getting them through the RPGA, then discovered that many were retired. I unfortunately don't remember the gentleman's name, but if y'all could please give him a reminder nudge to leave it for us at the Paradigm booth, that'd be swell, thanks!

 

[talien]

Hi Dextra!

Left you a PM and a couple emails...

 

[Dextra]

Sorry about that, I've got one week before I leave for GenCon, and a gazillion things that seem to need my personal attention. I hope to have some answers for you after GC, and a copy of what we've got this week.

Hi Dextra!

Left you a PM and a couple emails...