Customer Reviews

Eric Flint's 1632 Resource Guide and Role Playing Game

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This role playing game uses the Action! System, a freely downloadable and cost free game system which comprises more than sixty percent of what you are paying for.

Only 78 pages are *original* material ... the remaining 131 include the cover, the ACTION! System rules and graphics that are not game specific and which, indeed, seem to be mostly clip art used randomly for no better reason than to fill up space.

The layout is full of widows and orphans, needlessly so ... why? For the simple reason that the illustrations used to randomly pepper the pages (and it seems, for the most part, random) are so poorly placed and sized as to make this inevitable. Tables are similarly poorly placed and sized.

There is no rhyme or reason to picture size ... some are a column width, some less than a column width, some a column and a fraction. All could have been standard sized. Tables are also randomly sized, even when single column or double column sizing would have been easier (and more sightly!) to use.

Several text/other boxes are skewed, set at a slight but noticeable angle off 90 degrees, which is probably meant to look cool. However, for example, on page #23 this actually *causes* a worse orphan than the poorly considered layout already does! And the few other examples, more often than not, simply look *ugly*.

The art. That’s a subject all by itself. There are some good, obviously purpose drawn for the book pieces ... many of which are used again ... and again ... and again ... and again ... four or five times in some cases. Says a lot about why the layout sucks, doesn't it?

A lot of the rest is clip-art, or seems to be, and it is used badly. A lot of it seems to be used for no better reason than to fill up space and boost the page count. Which, of course, would be another reason why the purpose drawn for the book pieces are used multiple times.

And even there, there’s the map of Grantville and the circle of territory around it. Instead of a single page or, indeed, a double page, layout for it ... or even a single large sheet insert ... it’s split into quarters over four pages. In the middle of the book. And no, not in colour, and with nothing much in the way of detail that would justify the use of four pages. Or even two, for that matter.

Can anyone say “padding?”

None of this makes the product unplayable ... simply poorly laid out.

So, in value for money terms ... it doesn't work for me.

This book is a guide for a Role Playing Game (RPG) set in the universe of Eric Flint's 1632 series. People not familiar with that series or not interested in playing the game in this book will not enjoy it. Those conditions being fulfilled, the book is a tremendous resource for those who love the story of 1632. The book contains detailed maps, information about the time period, and an original story set in the 1632 universe, written by author John Zeek. Further information can be had at the Baen Bar (http://bar.baen.com), under the section "1632 Tech Manual."