Authors:
Release Date: 2007-04-18
On Sale: Yes
Price: 34.95
ISBN: 978-1-58846-468-2
Product Type: Core Book
Product Style: Hardcover
Page Count: 336
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Review by: Eloy Lasanta
Rating: 8/10
Buy it if you have the money. If you don't, get the money, cause it's worth it.
Here again with another review. This time for the new White Wolf game, Scion, where you play the sons and daughters of gods. Now this is the concept that I've done over and over again in various format and game systems, but this if the first time that I've seen it implemented this well. This is the perfect game mix between World of Darkness, Exalted, and Aberrant. However, while the rules are really awesome, some of its presentation is lacking, which i will explain shortly.
I'm going to skip the introduction fiction, as i really wasn't impressed by it. But to each their own, I was more interested in getting into the meat of it anyway.
Chapter One: Pantheon went into detail on the 6 "most active" pantheons in the world, the Greek, Aztec, Egyptian, Japanese, Voodoo,and Norse. The write-ups for each of these pantheons is well thought out and gives you their myth, their members, their purpose, their weaknesses and what they are doing now in the modern day. Very nice.
The poorest part of this chapter would be... the sample characters. I'm trying to figure out how such cheesy writing really got through to the book itself. As an example, let me paraphrase the egyptian sample character: Horace (Scion of Horus), grew up in Thebes, Illinois, with his dad Cyrus, mother Isola, and his uncle's name is Seth. In an altercation with his uncle, his left eye got shot out. For those of you not following, Horus was the son of Osiris and Isis and his uncle was Set. Thebes is a city in Egypt. Horus lost his left eye. Yeah, i know. Now, maybe the writers thought it to be ironic or clever, but it came off just lame. Let me repeat again though that every thing else about the chapter was awesome.
Chapter Two: Hero and Chapter Three: Traits take you through the basics of coming up with a concept and making a character. For those of you that did not like the Virtue/Vice thing, you'll be happy to know that they put Nature back in here. As well as adding a fun mix of Virtues, similar to that of Exalted games of old that we all love.
Chapter Four: Epic Attributes and Knacks is a large part where I link this game to Aberrant. Not only do you have regular attributes, but you then can get Epic Attributes (akin to Mega-Attributes) which come with Knacks (Enhancements) for each one. I really wish they would have kept the name Enhancements, hoenstly, 'cause I was never a fan of the term Knack. Always makes me think of "Give a dog a bone".
Chapter Five: Boons and Birthgrights is where the real meat of the game is. This is the god-like powers, followers, guides, and mythical creatures section. the coolest part about it is that it gives a lot of creativity in the making of a character, as well as their relics and equipment they have. It is comprehensive and expansive. Some players, I've found, have found that the shear amount of choices is a little daunting to people new to the game, but with the right guidance, the process can be made much easier.
Chapter Six: Rules and Chapter Seven: Combat give you a rundown on how dice rolling works, weapons charts, vehicle info, and how the tick combat system works. I have, after this game, become a fan of the tick system and i hope they utilize it in future titles as well.
Chapter Eight: Advancement is not really a chapter. It's two pages with a few notes on spending experience points. The chart's the most important thing.
Chapter Nine: Epic Storytelling is probably one of the best chapters there is in the book. It gives a very good rundown of the basics needed to run a Scion chronicle. It gives great do's and don'ts on NPCs, adventure types, how to get everyone involved, etc. I really liked it it a lot.
Chapter Ten: Fate describes the effects of Fate on the world of Scion. In short, it effects it a lot. I really like the concept of Fatebinding, which links people, places and things to the legend of the Scion and they will continuously show up in their lives and effect them. Really cool stuff.
Chapter Eleven: The Heroic Saga is a collection of adventures created for the pre-generated characters in the book. They were ok, but would take a lot of work to use for your own purposes. With the amount of book space taken up for thei chapter, it hardly seemed worth it.
Chapter Twelve: Antagonists is the best chapter in the book. They explain the allies and antagonists for the characters and they do it in a cool way. The art is pretty good as well, except that the picture of the Horsemen was SOOOO wrong.
But overall, despite a few hiccups here and there, Scion is a great game and i give it 8 out of 10. I'd say, buy it if you have the money. If you don't, get the money, cause it's worth it.
