The Secrets of Zir'An

[Darth Mikey]

Has anyone purchased the new Arthaus game "Secrets of Zir'An"?

Any thoughts, reviews, opinions, love it/hate it, etc?

Thanks in advance

 

[mcrow]

I picked it up last week. It's ok. Some parts of the book are real hard to read due to the horrible background printing. The system is workable but not great. The setting is not to my taste but is outstanding in being unique and a refreshing change to traditional FRPGs. It's like taking a fantasy rpg and jumping it to a tech level of say the 1920s. Tech mixed with magic and something of 1920s feel. Interesting, but doesn't tickle me where it counts.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I picked it up last week. It's ok. Some parts of the book are real hard to read due to the horrible background printing. The system is workable but not great. The setting is not to my taste but is outstanding in being unique and a refreshing change to traditional FRPGs. It's like taking a fantasy rpg and jumping it to a tech level of say the 1920s. Tech mixed with magic and something of 1920s feel. Interesting, but doesn't tickle me where it counts.

Any chance I could talk you into giving a brief description of the system? I have no real interest in the setting--Eberron's about as close as I like coming to "magic as industry"--but I've been interested in seeing what the system is like.

 

[Darth Mikey]

I picked it up last week. It's ok. Some parts of the book are real hard to read due to the horrible background printing. The system is workable but not great. The setting is not to my taste but is outstanding in being unique and a refreshing change to traditional FRPGs. It's like taking a fantasy rpg and jumping it to a tech level of say the 1920s. Tech mixed with magic and something of 1920s feel. Interesting, but doesn't tickle me where it counts.

Thanks for the response. I'll have to check into it some more.

 

[Wycen]

I met the author or one of the authors at Kubla Con Saturday and listened in a little on the secrets of the game.

Basically if you like Nausicaa Valley of the Wind or Last Exile or the Exalted game, you'll probably find something you like about the Secrets of Zir'an. At least I gather that from the people sitting at the table.

It uses only 10 sided dice. If I recall, everything is 1d10 plus 1 thru 10, your stat.

There are no character classes. You choose your country of origin and then a kit or package to customize your character with.

Yes, there is at least one page where the background sort of screws up the text, they mentioned that.

I didn't stick around for actual play, I wasn't sure how long character creation was going to take.

 

[Stone Dog]

Let me help out a bit.

166 posts on questions, answers and comments. Hop about in there for a while and you will get alot of good stuff.

Combat Example.

Those links go to RPG.net, so if you are the sort to mind casual swearing consider yourself warned. Other than that there is some quality thinking over there.

Here is the official forum. Maybe not as witty, but the creators are active there and give a lot of good answers to questions.

The layout leaves much to be desired, but this was a mistake the creators readily admit to and they have offered two sections for free on their website as PDFs. The PDFs don't have any such background issues, but the layout is still a bit all over the place.

The magic as industry thing is actually far superior to Eberron's in my opinion. I love Eberron a great deal, but Secret of Zir'An was built from the ground up to be industrial magic while Eberron is D&D magic with an industrial twist. Plus, rune mages are intensly cool.

The system looks workable at first glance, but the more I look at it the more it seems that if everybody took a little time to really grok the system it would flow like oil over water. with lots of pretty colors. The neat thing is, the way stats, skills and dice interact gives players a nice bit of control over what their rolls actually mean.

I wish I could afford a copy, but there are a lot of people who have one that are more than willing to talk about it if you look hard enough. I'll leave it up to them to extol the virtues and flaws of this new creation.

 

[Mouseferatu]

The magic as industry thing is actually far superior to Eberron's in my opinion. I love Eberron a great deal, but Secret of Zir'An was built from the ground up to be industrial magic while Eberron is D&D magic with an industrial twist.

Whereas I prefer the fact that Eberron is D&D magic with an industrial twist. I don't actually like the notion of "industrial magic." Eberron gets close to it without actually crossing the line, for me.

But it does sound like it's well put together, and I hope it takes off with those who're looking for that sort of thing. The market needs a successful new RPG.

I'd still like a really brief summary (but a little more detailed than "It uses D10s" ), though. I'm not sure I know enough about it even to follow the examples on the links you posted.

 

[Stone Dog]

Whereas I prefer the fact that Eberron is D&D magic with an industrial twist. I don't actually like the notion of "industrial magic." Eberron gets close to it without actually crossing the line, for me.

Usually I don't like that sort of thing either. GURPS Technomancer did a pretty good job as an alternate earth setting with technomagic, but that is because there was enough weirdness in the setting to really allow some serious suspension of disbelief. Antartic hive minds of communist killer penguins leap to mind (I laughed too... at first). SoZ's magic breathes in its tech and vice versa. You really have to read about rune magic though to get what that means I suppose. My insomnia isn't helping much.

Zir'An only has two types of magic. Rune and Shadow. Shadow magic seems to be more like low level super powers. I haven't taken a good look at it yet. Rune magic though. Rune magic rocks. You can slap runes on anything. Runemages even have little notebooks of runing paper that are perforated so that they can draw out a rune and tear it out nice and neat. Want a flying sword? Make a spirit inhabit the blade so it has some control, attach a flight rune onto it and keep a Dark Majesty rune for yourself to give you some authority. You have a flying sword.

Hold on... I'm trying to find a better thread... I know there is one over there somewhere. Damn search is down.

 

[Stone Dog]

I give. I am too tired to find the thread I am looking for. That 166 post one above though? That is basically THIS thread that started earlier. try it. Somewhere in there somebody gives enough of a damn to actually TALK about the game rather than gripe about the layout.

Peace. I'm out.

 

[Stone Dog]

Damn my impulsive brain.

Here. Have a little review I found from some guy. Over here.

The Secret of Zir'an is a wonderful game full of imagination and intrique. Instead of a fantasy world fast forwarded into a technological age that doesn't fully make sense for it, we are given a fully realized setting for the game that feels unlike any other before it. This is a world that literally feels like it has been around for ages, growing and changing and advancing much in the way our own world has. The end result here is a fully realized view of how technology affects this world, and how it works with the strange powers around it.

As stated above, the setting of this game is very unique and realized by the creators of the game. Similar in design, this game also features a unique new system. The true highlight of this system is the character generation. A new take is given to character creation, where players purchase "skill packages" which are a grouping of skills and knowledges that represent a number of years in the character's life. These can be as specific as a Edyssian Technologist or can be as non-specific as Technical Training. What these skill packages do in addition to giving you the skills and stats in them is to flesh out your character's history. You can literally go in with a barebones "tough fighter" concept and always come out with something much more than just that. For players that may have trouble coming up with character history, this is invaluable.

The combat system features a unique take on things as well with the Speed stat. Everything from movement to drawing a weapon and attacking is given a Speed Cost value, and players spend their Speed as they want to do various actions. Speed of course refreshs every round. Adding to this, Initiative is not a static number + die roll anymore. Speed is spent at the beginning of the round and added to a base static number, giving an Initiative total. This means you can choose to act first in the round, but not have as many actions, or act later and perform more complex actions. Every Success on a die roll over the needed target number gives you a number of points to further customize your action, things like added damage or knockback and stun. Hit location is also a factor in this system, as is armor value protecting those specific locations. The combat system is at once complex, but it ultimately makes sense, and flows nice.

Magic in Zir'an is divided into two completely different types, Rune Magic and Shadow Magic. The system for Rune Magic is a completely unique system, and is very intricate. This is another area of the game that truly shines. Shadow Magic is very unique in it's own right, and features a system that is very similar to a "mana pool" type of magic system. Many of the magic effects in both of the types of magic are the staple effects seen in many games, but the creators did not just leave it at that. The magic system features a similar concept to the Success pool mentioned in the combat section, which allows for customization of spell effects. Chances are that two mages could cast the same spell, but have completely different effects due to the ways that they customize their end results. Like the rest of the system, the magic system in Zir'an features a lot of new and interesting ideas, which truly makes this book a worthy addition to any gamer's library.

Sounds a little shillish, but it is the only one up right now.

And here is their homepage. http://www.paragongames.us/index.htm The homepage is still kinda on the hard to manage side, but they are working on it.

ISLEEPNOW!