A strong design which balances familiar elements (standard fantasy tropes) and putting them in a new light. The setting is a little vague and dry (not unusually so for RPGs), and the rules are excellently handled.
Post originally by Dan Davenport at 2005-07-01 06:32:18
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Great job, John! Succinct yet comprehensive. You didn't really touch on the more controversial aspects of the game -- perhaps because they've been covered so thoroughly already -- but overall, this is an impressive effort after so few reviews.
Post originally by Maltese Changeling at 2005-07-01 09:34:57
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Dan,
Based on John's comments in the last Blue Rose review (and elsewhere), I suspect that he didn't say anything about the "controversial" aspects of the game precisely because he doesn't consider those aspects to be at all controversial (in any inherent sense).
John, feel free to correct me if I've putted words in your mouth. Overall, though, this is the fairest and best review of Blue Rose so far.
Post originally by John Kim at 2005-07-01 10:30:00
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Yeah, that seems a fair representation of how I feel.
I talked about the general egalitarian culture in Aldis, but I didn't specifically mention homosexuality -- which seems to have been a controversial point in earlier reviews. In retrospect, I probably should have put a specific mention of it, but more than a few sentences and I'd be putting more about homosexuality in my review than there is in the book.
Post originally by IMAGinES at 2005-07-01 18:39:54
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Dan Davenport wrote:
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Succinct yet comprehensive. You didn't really touch on the more controversial aspects of the game ... but overall, this is an impressive effort after so few reviews.
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That's what I like about this review - it actually examines Blue Rose as a roleplaying text. I think it manages to sum up the *actual* problems, such as they are, that the product has (e.g. no real change in overall rules complexity, vagueness, lack of support of stated core concepts) instead of neglecting them in favour of the "hot button" issues that everyone will leap and has leapt over.
John, I found myself learning more about Blue Rose - which I've already bought and read - from your review than others; in fact, probably more than my own reading of the damned thing. Thank you!
Post originally by No2 at 2005-07-01 22:02:42
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I think you've touched the essential aspect which taints the game's setting with this sentence, e.g. "By Liberal radicals, for Liberal radicals". Either you are, or aren't.
Seeing that Green Ronin is to publish B.R.'s rules as a separate "True d20" system, it seems the rules are worthy by themselves though the setting should be dumped.
However, I'm not sure requiring a separate license and fee for OGL material under the True d20 brand is legal according to the terms of the OGL...
Post originally by Jürgen Hubert at 2005-07-01 22:36:48
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<i>"By Liberal radicals, for Liberal radicals"</i>
Huh? I fail to see where politics come into this.
I mean, I could be considered fairly liberal (<i>European</i> liberal, that is), but apart from a few intriguing aspects of the setting, I was not too much impressed by it, and I have no desire to run it...
Post originally by Steve Kenson at 2005-07-02 05:39:02
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"However, I'm not sure requiring a separate license and fee for OGL material under the True d20 brand is legal according to the terms of the OGL..."
Just for the record, Green Ronin is NOT requiring a separate license for the Open Content in Blue Rose or True20 (which was released under the Open Game License, after all); we're requiring a separate license to use the Blue Rose and True20 names and logos, which are *our trademarks* just as Wizards of the Coast requires a separate license (the d20 Trademark License) to use the d20 logo, which is their trademark.
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