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Message: <blockquote data-quote="trancejeremy" data-source="post: 2009972" data-attributes="member: 924">What do you get when you combine reality television, professional wrestling, D&D, and that episode of Star Trek in which they find an alternate Earth with 20th Century Romans? Xcrawl!Xcrawl is a campaign setting for d20/D&D. It's perhaps unlike any other campaign setting I've seen, in that Dungeon Crawling is a televised professional sport, and the PCs are professional athletes instead of adventurers. It's set in an alternate Earth, where there is D&D style magic and fantasy races and monsters. So it's for regular d20/D&D, not d20 Modern. There is technology though, about on level with the year 2000 or so, though it's lower in some areas.It's a hardcover book, around 240 pages, priced at $34.95 (I got it for the surprisingly low price of $15 including S&H on ebay). The paper is quite heavy, too, making the book quite sturdy. It's a bit shorter than most RPG books, by about an half an inch. (If you've seen a hardcover from Sovereign Press, this looks like they used the same printer). The art is pretty good, but there's not much (and what art there is is somewhat minimalistic). The cover depicts 3 members of the "Dunguun Gangstaas" Xcrawling team: Oni, The Messenger, and Geronimo Nick. The margins are quite large, as is the font. It doesn't quite have the look of a product for the visually impaired, but it's noticeably big.Chapter One (about 25 pages) goes into the detail of the world. As mentioned, it's set on an alternate Earth. It's a bit weird, almost unbelievable, but it's fairly well detailed. It seems that at the dawn of history, there was a big war between Humans and these Alf-like creatures called the Zeetha (Alf the little puppet guy from the phone commercials.). That ended poorly, and civilization was wiped out for a while. Somehow, something exactly like the old Roman empire was started (not just like it, but the name, same place). From there, it's somewhat like real world history - dark ages, rennaisance, industrial age, only Christianity never catches on. And instead of forming the US after the American Revolution, there's the North American Empire (based on the lines of the old Roman empire). Many historical figures are the same. For instance, instead of becoming president, George Washinton became George Augustus.  Shakespeare wrote Trokio & Juliet (about an elf and human) instead of Romeo & Juliet. Etc, etc, etc. Even a World War Two style war with Adolph Hitler. Quite honestly, the world doesn't really make sense from a logical point of view. But if you don't think about it too much, it can work.Chapter Two is pretty lengthy, about 50 pages, and details the world as it is today. The current leader of the NAE is Ronald Reagan, who was appointed emperor after the old one, James III (Jimmy Carter?) was killed by a rabbit (er, his cousin).  It goes fairly in depth into the culture and everyday life of the NAE, how various races fit in, etc. The rest of the world is also covered, though not in as much depth - usually just a paragraph or two for each country. There's also an 'underdark' - that is, a huge cave network where people live. While Dark Elves live under there, they are not called "Drow", but "Alfar" (This would have been a better name for the Alf like people, IMHO, though these elves are apparently connected with the Norse myths.).In an interesting twist on real life, most coutnries of the world are monarchies or dictatorships, except Zimbabwe, which is a parliamentry monarchy.Chapter Three explains just what Xcrawl the sport is, and how it got started. Xcrawl is essentially just a televised dungeon crawl. Part sport, part reality TV. The goals are also quite simple, pretty much the same fare as you find in First Person Shooters (the computer game genre, like Doom or Half-Life) - rescue so many people ("Princesses"), find some keys, etc.How it got started is a longer story. Basically, an ancient intelligent sword was found in some ruins. He became a media star, and told stories about the good old days when his former owner would go exploring ancient ruins and such. This spawned a tabletop game with that idea. Then one day, an enterprising fan of that game decided a real life version (think that Tom Hanks movie). However, one day one of his games went amok when the game players ran into some Ghouls. They ended up fighting with them, and told the story to the media, which spawned the real live versions (that idea was actually from Emperor Ronald, supposedly to distract the public.).  This bit is perhaps a bit contrived. I mean, I can see Xcrawl as an actual sport/TV show, and I would not be surprised in real life if something like Xcrawl appeared on TV, but I don't think it would be nearly as popular as professional football. Or even baseball. Sure baseball is boring, but it attracts a certain sort of people who love arguing about it. (In countries without baseball, that sort of people is reduced to trainspotting.)Chapter Four is on rules and is about 50 pages. For a d20 product, this is actually quite rules light.The concept of "Mojo" is introduced. Essentially, it's a pool of points that can be used during an Xcrawl that can help a skill test.  The trick is, it can only be used to help another player, and that player cannot request the use of it. This is pretty clever, I thought. It encourages teamwork.There's also rules for Fame. It's essentially a 1 to 100 scale.  While I like the idea of this, I think it probably would have made more sense to treat it as a normal d20 stat. Along with fame, there are guidelines for sponsorships and such, which is where the real money is made. (Tied into fame is how a signature move works. Basically, it's a 1-2 punch that a character uses, sort of like how wrestlers have special moves)The book describes how each d20 core class fits into the world of Xcrawl. Because of the narrow focus of Xcrawl, certain classes are much more useful than in regulard D&D (most notably Rogues). Some of them are modified slightly when it comes to class skills and proficiencies (to accommadate the new skills introduced for guns and driving). There's only 1 new skill (Driving) and only a few new feats. I would have liked to have seen how some of the prestige classes from the SRD fit into the world of Xcrawl. Some, like the Assassin and Shadowdancer seem quite useful. There's also a new core class introduced, The Athlete. This seems pretty balanced, it's got the average combat skill, d10 for hit points, 4 skill points per level, and average saves in all the categories (not quite the standard average saving throw, which ends up at +9 at 20th level, this only goes up to +8).There are also a few new prestige classes which also fit the setting. Celebrity, Dungeon Judge, Monster Trapper. Probably mostly useful for NPCs.There's a smattering of new gear.  Basically, some firearms, stats for sports equipment like aluminum baseball bats, golf clubs, bowling balls, baseballs, plus a chainsaw!. There's also some new armor. The column headings for Max Dex Bonus and Armor bonus seem to be reversed on the chart.Chapter Five is on running Xcrawl games. Mostly advice, though there is also an alternate scoring system for Xcrawl matches (ordinarily, the quickest through a dungeon wins). Things work a bit different in Xcrawl than in other RPGs (since you are trying to recreate a TV show), so the advice is well heeded.Chapter Six is mostly a sample Xcrawl. It's "MemphisCrawl XVI". It's weird! Almost reminds me of the rather silly Castle Greyhawk module from TSR. Besides that (which is fairly long), there's a few new monsters. Lastly, there's an interview with an Xcrawl team (the one which is used for most of the fiction in the book), and has character sheets for them. There is an index! They got Section 15 of the Open Gaming License wrong. They included the notation for the OGL itself, and Xcrawl, but forgot the SRD. This is an interesting product. The idea behind it is pretty good. It's fairly original, although it's somewhat similar to the Dream Park novel (which had a game from R. Talsorian), and now that I think about it, is somewhat similar to the old show, American Gladiators (that didn't have a lethal dungeon, but the last part did have an obstacle course, and they did fight people, albeit with padded sticks).On the other hand, because it's so narrowly focused, simply on Dungeon Crawling, it could get boring after a while. The Xcrawl Dungeons don't even seem to be that big. So, it might be more suited to a one shot or occasional games than a long, ongoing campaign. While people do really seem to like Dungeon Crawls, they like more than just that. I would have liked to have seen more on adventuring opportunities outside of Xcrawl. Most of the book describes the world of Xcrawl, but I'm not sure what Xcrawlers could do as part of a game outside Xcrawl itself. It goes into the money making opportunities, like sponsorships, but generally only hints at other things to do.Ultimately, while I think the game is focused a bit too narrowly, they did do an excellent job with it. The book is well written, and the new rules are limited (a good thing, in my view) but generally very helpful. So I have to give this book an A-.Still, if you're looking for a book from which to borrow a lot of d20 rules or crunchy bits, this isn't it. If you're looking for a setting that offers a lot of serious roleplaying opportunity, this also probably isn't it. The book itself is great for reading. Hillarious in places. So you won't waste your money if you buy this, even if you never run it. Personally, I'm probably going to use it as part of my Dragonstar game.</blockquote>

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