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REVIEWER'S NOTE: This review was prepared from a pre-release PDF version of the book.
"The Dragon's Gate: San Angelo's Chinatown", details the history, geography and inhabitants of the Chinatown section of San Angelo - a fictional, modern day California city that is the setting for superhero role-playing campaigns published by Gold Rush Games. Weighing in at 128 pages, this dual-stat book (for the Action! System and Green Ronin's M&M Superlink) gives a willing GM a wealth of information about the mysterious, fascinating, and potentially dangerous streets of San Angelo's Chinatown.
Broken into 33 sections that examine every facet of life in Chinatown, "The Dragon's Gate" presents a complex three-dimensional world populated with a cast of hundreds. A useful timeline (combining the fictional back story of San Angelo's Chinatown with real world events) walks a GM through the area's colorful history, and the book takes pains to give advice on running campaigns in these past periods. Nevertheless, the focus is modern day adventuring, and the book details the minutia of a 21st century cityscape. Restaurants, banks, vendors, hotels, kiosks, churches - almost every imaginable aspect of urban life is detailed, complete with NPCs ready to breathe life into this fictional world. But from the outset, it's clear that "The Dragon's Gate" is more than a listing of buildings and businesses, or a rogue's gallery of Asian villains and NPCs. Rather, "The Dragon's Gate" seriously examines Chinese/Asian culture, religion, and history, becoming as much cultural primer as source book. For example, the book addresses the difference between the "outer" and "inner" Chinatown - the former comprised of a Western visitor's expectations (Chinese restaurants, tourist traps, street festivals) and the latter made up of the "real" Oriental religious, mystical and political traditions that permeate each resident's daily life. This attention to holistic detail and the authors' obvious enthusiasm for the source material are true highlights of "The Dragon's Gate".
But as I read through any source book or supplement - no matter how well researched and presented - the first thing I look for are ideas, themes, locations or NPCs that jump out and demand inclusion in an actual game setting. I found more than enough here, including the mysterious Ning Fu Zan (Chinese scientist and former Japanese collaborator specializing in "super soldier" experiments) the "Saturday Night Specials" (teenage hackers), the quirky Lung -Jeng Pan (an attorney specializing in personal injury suits against supers), and "The Game" (a lethal lottery). And this list hardly does the book justice, because there are adventure seeds on literally every page. From criminal masterminds to mystical monks, sleazy businessmen to evil corporations, crime gangs (in particular the three tongs that run almost every aspect of Asian organized crime) to police officers, and all the legitimate citizens who share the streets of Chinatown with them, there is something for almost every GM and every style of game. So much so, in fact, that although "The Dragon's Gate" is designed for supers role-playing, much of the material is useful for any modern day campaigning.
All of this detail comes at a price, however, and that is there is a tremendous amount of material to digest. Even with the helpful "campaign tip" boxes scattered throughout the text, the sheer volume of information and the number of NPCs requires a committed GM in order to fully exploit the book's strengths. And this is the tip of a rather large iceberg, because the book also makes frequent references (21 by my count) to Gold Rush Games' "San Angelo: City of Heroes" - which details the rest of the city surrounding Chinatown. While necessary perhaps, it is aggravating to read about interesting locations and NPCs (including important Chinatown super heroes such as "Jade") that are only detailed in the other book.
And a couple of other small concerns. Although promoted for its compatibility with M&M Superlink (improperly referred to as M&M Supersystem on more than one occasion), the M&M stat blocks are located almost as an afterthought in the back of the book, even though other game system stats are included in the main text (it should be noted that the M&M conversions are solid and were done in part by M&M author/guru Steve Kenson). The book's illustrations range from only fair to average (the imported photos are jarring) and the layout/editing is functional but hardly inspired (including a missing page reference on page 59). Nevertheless, these are minor complaints, and most if not all may have been addressed by the time the actual book hits the stands.
My greatest reservation, however, stems not from the book's substance but from its game table application. The material is "deep" but not "wide" - without a doubt, the book rewards those willing to wade through it, and a diligent, dedicated GM could run a complex, long running campaign and never leave the confines San Angelo's Chinatown. But, in the final tally, this may be "more Chinatown" than any one GM might need or want. Further, although geared toward superhero role-playing, there are very few true super heroes or villains listed in the book, leaving one wanting a little more of the oft-referenced "San Angelo: City of Heroes" and a little less of "The Dragon's Gate".
I enjoyed "The Dragon's Gate" and came away impressed with the amount of work that went into it. In the end it does what it claims to do - presents a living, breathing cityscape that can be incorporated into almost any existing city campaign. There is a lot of gold buried between the covers, but a lot of work will be needed to take full advantage of it.
"The Dragon's Gate: San Angelo's Chinatown", details the history, geography and inhabitants of the Chinatown section of San Angelo - a fictional, modern day California city that is the setting for superhero role-playing campaigns published by Gold Rush Games. Weighing in at 128 pages, this dual-stat book (for the Action! System and Green Ronin's M&M Superlink) gives a willing GM a wealth of information about the mysterious, fascinating, and potentially dangerous streets of San Angelo's Chinatown.
Broken into 33 sections that examine every facet of life in Chinatown, "The Dragon's Gate" presents a complex three-dimensional world populated with a cast of hundreds. A useful timeline (combining the fictional back story of San Angelo's Chinatown with real world events) walks a GM through the area's colorful history, and the book takes pains to give advice on running campaigns in these past periods. Nevertheless, the focus is modern day adventuring, and the book details the minutia of a 21st century cityscape. Restaurants, banks, vendors, hotels, kiosks, churches - almost every imaginable aspect of urban life is detailed, complete with NPCs ready to breathe life into this fictional world. But from the outset, it's clear that "The Dragon's Gate" is more than a listing of buildings and businesses, or a rogue's gallery of Asian villains and NPCs. Rather, "The Dragon's Gate" seriously examines Chinese/Asian culture, religion, and history, becoming as much cultural primer as source book. For example, the book addresses the difference between the "outer" and "inner" Chinatown - the former comprised of a Western visitor's expectations (Chinese restaurants, tourist traps, street festivals) and the latter made up of the "real" Oriental religious, mystical and political traditions that permeate each resident's daily life. This attention to holistic detail and the authors' obvious enthusiasm for the source material are true highlights of "The Dragon's Gate".
But as I read through any source book or supplement - no matter how well researched and presented - the first thing I look for are ideas, themes, locations or NPCs that jump out and demand inclusion in an actual game setting. I found more than enough here, including the mysterious Ning Fu Zan (Chinese scientist and former Japanese collaborator specializing in "super soldier" experiments) the "Saturday Night Specials" (teenage hackers), the quirky Lung -Jeng Pan (an attorney specializing in personal injury suits against supers), and "The Game" (a lethal lottery). And this list hardly does the book justice, because there are adventure seeds on literally every page. From criminal masterminds to mystical monks, sleazy businessmen to evil corporations, crime gangs (in particular the three tongs that run almost every aspect of Asian organized crime) to police officers, and all the legitimate citizens who share the streets of Chinatown with them, there is something for almost every GM and every style of game. So much so, in fact, that although "The Dragon's Gate" is designed for supers role-playing, much of the material is useful for any modern day campaigning.
All of this detail comes at a price, however, and that is there is a tremendous amount of material to digest. Even with the helpful "campaign tip" boxes scattered throughout the text, the sheer volume of information and the number of NPCs requires a committed GM in order to fully exploit the book's strengths. And this is the tip of a rather large iceberg, because the book also makes frequent references (21 by my count) to Gold Rush Games' "San Angelo: City of Heroes" - which details the rest of the city surrounding Chinatown. While necessary perhaps, it is aggravating to read about interesting locations and NPCs (including important Chinatown super heroes such as "Jade") that are only detailed in the other book.
And a couple of other small concerns. Although promoted for its compatibility with M&M Superlink (improperly referred to as M&M Supersystem on more than one occasion), the M&M stat blocks are located almost as an afterthought in the back of the book, even though other game system stats are included in the main text (it should be noted that the M&M conversions are solid and were done in part by M&M author/guru Steve Kenson). The book's illustrations range from only fair to average (the imported photos are jarring) and the layout/editing is functional but hardly inspired (including a missing page reference on page 59). Nevertheless, these are minor complaints, and most if not all may have been addressed by the time the actual book hits the stands.
My greatest reservation, however, stems not from the book's substance but from its game table application. The material is "deep" but not "wide" - without a doubt, the book rewards those willing to wade through it, and a diligent, dedicated GM could run a complex, long running campaign and never leave the confines San Angelo's Chinatown. But, in the final tally, this may be "more Chinatown" than any one GM might need or want. Further, although geared toward superhero role-playing, there are very few true super heroes or villains listed in the book, leaving one wanting a little more of the oft-referenced "San Angelo: City of Heroes" and a little less of "The Dragon's Gate".
I enjoyed "The Dragon's Gate" and came away impressed with the amount of work that went into it. In the end it does what it claims to do - presents a living, breathing cityscape that can be incorporated into almost any existing city campaign. There is a lot of gold buried between the covers, but a lot of work will be needed to take full advantage of it.
