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[HoE] Review of Epitaph #1



Hey Folks,

Got my copy of the Epitaph yesterday - I am not impressed, and thought
I'd try my hand at a quick review.  I want to look at this piece by
piece.  All opinions are of course my own and you're welcome to agree or
not.  Here we go:

The Big Picture - Some good "teaser" information for marshals and
players for campaign flavoring and things to come, but pretty sparse and
nothing very earth shaking...barely a full page for each setting.

Trouble at Table Rock - The meat of the publication.  Not bad.  Nice,
complete...fun and campy (and definitely potentially deadly) adventure
for Weird West.  Wolf's writing is pretty solid and Rozen's
illustrations go nicely with the piece.  I liked it as a Marshal, and if
I ever ran Weird West I'd probably work it in and give it a shot.

Veteran of the Faraway War - This has been free on the web page for
quite a while, and I believe it is in fact still there...hardly
new material.  Why did this go into the Epitaph?  Is this going to be a
trend for the publication?  Don't think I like this notion.

Story's End - <...Spoiler Warning...>  Sure, I'm bias as a Teller fan,
but IMHO Hopler was just flat out wrong on this piece.  First off, the
plot seemed like a disguised take off on the adventure from the back of
Road Warriors...nothing spectacular there. Then of course there is
Teller's demise.  WHY?  Teller is HoE's Ronan Lynch...he's the example
for character creation and has been the voice of the game for a lot of
us since the beginning. In my opinion, it goes further than this,
however.  Different from Lynch, in a game of massive power types, Teller
represented how a normal individual could be a viable character type,
spreading hope and making a positive difference WITHOUT being a combat
monster or magic chucker. Killing him off in this way (heck, going by
the lazy way the ending was written, we don't even know what happens
exactly) disproves this notion.  Characterization was off as well.
Every piece of fiction thus far was from Teller's POV.  The Teller in
Story's End didn't even seem to speak in the same voice as the previous
pieces.  As the story obviously came from Roth's POV, Teller seems to
come off as a complainer and his leadership skills are downplayed, while
Roth's (basically just a non harrowed HoE version of Lynch) nihilistic
gun-happiness is brought to the important fore-front of the tale.  The
result - in the tale of his own demise, Teller doesn't even get the
spotlight as the main character!  Argh!  Didn't like a single thing
about it.  (As a slight consolation...not enough of one IMO, but what
can you do...this issue of the Epitaph is dedicated to Teller.)

Blood Oak - Hmm.  Obviously the most expensive aspect of the Epitaph.  A
12 page full color Ronan Lynch comic.  Nice art, neat story idea...but
that's it.  Now I'm not an expert on the Weird West, but is the Blood
Oak a critter from one of the existing books?  If it's not, a little one
page description of it with stats following the comic would have been a
welcome addition.  Heck, even if it is, it could be worked in as a plug
for the Crittter book it came from.  Missed opportunity here.

So, for your $15, you got a shiny, bound sourcebook sized book to put
alongside your other sourcebooks containing a decent adventure, a tidbit
of campaign world info, a Veteran table already available for free on
the website, a less than satisfying piece of fiction and a little comic
book. Frankly, I was more satisfied with the old Dime Novels. Fiction
piece + adventure = around $5.00. Compare this to the Epitaph? Ten
additional dollars for (basically) the bonuses of a larger format, a
comic and a table I've seen already leaves me feeling a bit taken
advantage of.  Yuck.

That'll about do it.  Questions and Comments?  Anyone else check this
out yet besides me?

Matt Steflik
Gimme Shelter - http://www.geocities.com/grifflik/