Review: Army of Darkness RPG Take 2

Let me start by saying I have three more chapters to read in this monstrosity before I can say I've read the whole thing cover to cover. Those chapters being ..Ash Rules'' from Wiseman's heads up display through the battle system and ..Once more into the breach.'' Let me just mention If I ever buy a book from Eden Studios again it will be softcover. I'll admit I liked 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and the spin off 'Angel Investigations' Tv Series' enough to buy a hardcover omnibus collection several years ago. And that's saying a lot, since I don't particularly like Joss Whedon's work, the only reason I bought Firefly was becasue the film 'Serenity' is quite possibly the best space drama since 'Outlaw Star.' I'll be honest when I say I really do think Buffy's character is "stupid" and I have a similar opinion of Veronica Mars. Although between the two, Veronica is definitely the more clever, my personal opinion of teenage horror franchise heroines aside (mundane fantasy or otherwise) has lead me to admit a fringe interest in other products from Eden Studios.

As mentioned before, I do like how well it was written. For dry material to maintain a reader's interest is a genuine gift in my opinion. This person should be writing textbooks if they aren't already. Admittedly, starting with the second chapter there are a few editing flubs, but nothing major. My primary complaint? I purchased this book 'new' through Amazon, and still the cover arrived partially damaged. While I do not particularly like the way the joint of the book breaks, or how the interior binding of the book seems to start falling apart from the lining as soon as you start flipping through it, I have to admit I like the waterproof magazine quality of the interior pages. While a dust jacket wouldn't solve these problems, it certainly makes me feel better and distracts me from thinking about the book falling apart at the seams... if only this book was as indestructible as the necronomicon it mentions several times throughout. I barely opened the Army of Darkness Role Playing Game three times before I noticed it was falling apart.

The ..Directors Cut'' chapter gives an aspiring Game Master, or Director in this case, basic information on setting up the plot of a season, episode, and story arc. The importance of creating believable villains capable of thwart and threat as well as character motivation and adjustment are discussed. The ..Lands of Darkness'' chapter does a fairly decent job of explaining how you could recreate the movie as an episodic campaign for a season while maintaining participation and interest. World's of Darkness only gives three alternatives to Circa England. Circa Mesopotamia (Bronze Age Iraq?) is almost introduced with Brisco County Jr. as a promised one... only it appears Comet has been replaced by Betsy. I could actually see this sort of storyline working out better, and being more entertaining, than Army of Darkness in general. As I understand it Brisco County Jr. had its fair share of time travel (as well as artifacts of extra terrestrial origin), so this could be a reasonable setup.

It's almost unfortunate I must report the goldbricking Eden studios laid down on the job when they started their chapter on WWII, after practically offering us 'Bubba Ho-tep' and Dr. Strange as the major villains along with the carpet of zombies, demons, and monsters of the previous campaign Hitler is hardly a worthy anti-christ, or much of an adversarial opponent, there's practically no competition at all. Even the monsters in the WWII campaign are just your average run of the mill werewolves, deadite, floating skulls, and Vandal Savage psychopaths. The only real artifacts are 'The Spear of Destiny' and 'Bjorn's Sword' (the ante'burr), if you are going to run a campaign like this you may as well play 'Hellboy style with Mr. Toad's willowy goggles as a substitution for your mighty horns.

FInally, you have the Post Apocalyptic London setting... while it sounds interesting there are admittedly some logistics problems beyond the chemo-monsters, mutants, and other assorted bone bags. Namely, you are expected to make an international flight to Post Apocalyptic New York (Manhattan island if you need specifics) to pick up an original copy of someone's translation of the necronomicon from the publisher (because Hitler's notes, and the copy you have, weren't good enough). Then, you are expected to fly back to London, arm yourself with the spear of destiny and excalibur, before confront what essentially amounts to 'the nothing' in the never ending story, just so that you can defeat the mobs and lay an assault on the uber-boss, only to continue living in an infra-structureless nuclear-winter wonderland. Are you flipping kidding me? As soon as anyone gets the manuscript from New York they're not traveling, they're booking it to another time.

Thank God, the only thing left for me to read are the rules and a sample game to run through. As far as role playing games are concerned I've read introductions to several, not including video game strategy guides and GURPS resource guides, I've really only read a third of GURPS third edition, the intro to D&D (most likely third edition featuring bargle), CSI and CSI: Miami, Holy Lands, and while I can't quite put my finger on the other I know I at least read through 'A Night of Murder.' So, arguably, This is quite possibly the best Role Playing Game guide I've ever looked over. My piqued interest might have more to do with the promise of making one a director (after a Lexicon of Comicana* fashion), a genuine interest in Sam Rami, Bruce Campbell, and the Evil Dead franchise in general.

*should be given as a gift before one goes to college or graduates high school. Then again, generation y has a more sadistic palate.