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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sheridan" data-source="post: 2011012" data-attributes="member: 6169">The Dragon's Gate: San Angelo's Chinatown is a 128-page sourcebook for the HERO system (with conversion appendices for the Action! System as well as for Mutants And Masterminds/d20) from Gold Rush Games.  It is a follow-up to San Angelo: City of Heroes and is intended to detail the society and culture of a modern-day Chinatown district as found in many major cities.  This review is based on a pre-release PDF copy of the book, so it is quite possible that there will be some differences between the subject of comments in this review and the released product.My first impression was that this was an extremely ambitious project.  There are quite a few campaign setting books out there that attempt to explain an entire world in 128 pages.  This book attempts to detail a single neighborhood in the same number of pages, for three different game systems, with guidelines for use in several different genres (superhero, western, science fiction, dark heroes, and pulp).  To be a genuinely useful product, it would have to both avoid too much fluff to filling out the 128 pages and give enough detail so that the product would actually be beneficial to those wishing to run a campaign, without wasting a bunch of space on gaming system conversions at the cost of setting details.Surprisingly, they've pulled it off quite well.First, for the people that care about things other than just playability:Art: The majority of the artwork looks very comic book-ish, or similar to what you may find in some of the more popular graphic novels of the last decade or so, which is entirely appropriate based on the target genre of the book.  A few of the images, however, are actually retouched photos, which do seem visually out of place in this work.Writing Style: Generally well written, wonderfully detailed, and easy to follow, but with a few run-ons that should have been reworked in editing.  There’s nothing that's going to make you stop, scratch your head, and have to reread the last paragraph, though.Page usage: Of the 128 pages, there is one page of credits, a two-page table of contents, one page of ads, and a half page of OGL.  The remainder is 123-and-a-half pages of source material.The strong point of this book is the depth of detail it goes into for each aspect of the neighborhood and culture it attempts to cover.  Business, gangs, organized crime, martial arts, academics, entertainment, news media, history, politics, mysticism, population ethnicity, religion and even night life are covered with a level of detail usually found only in some of the old Judge’s Guild products, in which quality detailed descriptions of each individual culture and location the player's may be interested in knowing about was the norm.  With the material provided in The Dragon's Gate, you need only have the desire to base a campaign in a Chinatown area and willing players – you can let the rest of the campaign write itself with the details given in the book.  That is not to say this book is intended as a "module" or that it would in any way preclude a GM from basing his own adventures in this setting.  The truth is quite the opposite, as the book is filled with plot hooks and details that can be expanded into full adventures, take place "behind the scenes" of the character's experiences, or omitted entirely, depending on what the GM wishes to develop and employ in their campaign.  Character stats throughout the book are given using the HERO system, with conversion chapters included at the end of the book for the Action! System as well as Mutants and Masterminds (and similar d20 systems).  Stats are not only for hero-types, but include a diverse assortment of NPCs that characters could encounter in this setting, even if used as a basis for a non-super-powered campaign.On the plus side, the depth and level of detail provided on the setting itself is outstanding.  Every minor aspect of historical or setting importance I would want in a Chinatown-based campaign setting (historical timelines, immigrant railroad workers, tongs, opium dens, crowded street markets, representation and diversity of multiple oriental cultures, etc.) is addressed with enough detail to make it really useful.  At the same time, however, not all of these aspects need be integrated into each campaign.  GMs can pretty much mix and match what aspects they want to include in their own version of San Angelo's Chinatown.On the negative side, most of the text on the included map, including the key numbered locations, is way too small to be read easily.  Hopefully it will be appear significantly better in printed form.  With the assortment of gaming systems it was written for, it would have been nice to see additional chapters, or least notes provided, on conversion to even more common gaming systems as well (d20 Modern and GURPS come to mind), just to make the product even more "universal", but as they already cover three popular systems, I'm probably asking a bit much as being a "universal" supplement was not the authors' original intent.  The M&M Superlink section does list compatibility with "most d20 system products", but referenced plenty of classes, feats, and powers that will be familiar only to players of Mutants and Masterminds.  Even a short M&M to SRD (3.5 or Modern) conversion section would have been a nice addition for those wishing to port some of the material contained herein over to another gaming system or genre as described in the introduction.  Those looking for crunchy bits won't find much here, which should be expected, as this is intended as a pure campaign setting supplement, not a book of player's options.  Besides, any such additions would have to receive triple-treatment, based on the numerous gaming systems The Dragon's Gate attempts to cater to.  The "other genres" section was a nice touch, and more products should consider adding such notes, but there were no suggestions for running an espionage-type campaign, which I thought would have been an obvious fit.  There is no index but the table of contents, which fills up two pages, is pretty detailed and serve as a decent reference for quickly finding your way around its pages.Overall, the product's shortcomings fall more into the "it would have been really nice if they did this, too" category, as opposed to the "gaping pit of errors".  The biggest disappointment, tome, was the clarity of the map.  That being said, if you plan on running any RPG that may involve a Chinatown-flavored district, you need this book.  Even if using a game system other than the three this supplement was intended to support, you will find enough quality generic background and source material here to keep a campaign running indefinitely.  I only wish something with this detail had been available when I was doing V&V and Marvel Super Heroes back in the '80's and '90's!</blockquote>

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