Re: [HoE] Review of Epitaph #1

[The Baron Samedi <baron11@netmcr.com>]

At 07:25 AM 5/12/00, you wrote:
>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.

It is not supposed to be, IMHO.  Just a few teasers for those who don't buy 
all the books (which I do).
I like this part and would like to keep it going.


>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.

I liked it, all, except the Coups for Dinosaurs. When did they become 
creatures of supernatural evil?  Only according to strict, strict STRICT 
creationism can I see that. ;-)

Otherwise, it was great.


>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.

I have no problems with it.
I rarely use web-info, and to me, it gives the line editors a chance to go 
through and make everything consistent.  it was almost the same, with a 
couple minor retoolings.  To me, this is important.  It was those small 
retoolings to make it 100% consistent with their Deadlands vision that made 
the difference between me using it and not.

I encourage PEG to do this in their publications.



>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.)

My understanding, possibly flawed, was that that was to be the last HoE DN 
anyway.

What I did not like was no adventure with it.  The adventures, frankly are 
why I bought DNs and hunted through the net like a mad fiend for 
Independence Day!.  This was my one big disappointment with the Epitaph.  I 
expected an adventure that was not there.

As for teller, well, as someone else said, such is the fate of non-AB 
people in HoE.  HoE is just the sort of place they really have top struggle.



>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.


I did not like the Comic.  The story was not nearly as good as One Shot! 
and both were inferior to the Dime Novels.  I can deal with the Comic in 
the Epitaph, but if it were removed for more game material I would do a 
happy dance.


>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.

Agreed on adventure and world info.  The veteran table is, as I said, 
slightly cleaned up (now I will use it, wile traditionally I don't use net 
material).  Agreed on the fiction and comic book.

I was slightly embittered at the lack of an adventure portion of the DN.  I 
would have rather had that and skipped the comic.


>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/

TBS