Customer Reviews

Nyambe: African Adventures (D20 System)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Book was great. As a AD&D roleplayer, I'm always looking for new ideas and cultures and this book was it. African settings, new classes and spells. Pretty cool.

I agree with another reviewer that I wasn't sure what to expect after reading some responses here. I have more to say below but my opinion is that this book, which sets out to be a setting influenced by African rather than European culture, is a fun setting with enough solid background to let DMs immediately create some great adventures.

Chapters One and Two establish the setting and discuss the history of the land. This history feels much different from that of Faerun or Eberron, much more "Just So Stories" than "Brothers Grimm." Chapter Three introduces new takes on the races from the 3.5e Players Handbook (besides the half-orc) including twelve human cultures. None of the races are unrecognizable but they feel much different and more like the African legends I've read. I'm no expert in pre-colonial African culture but the twelve human tribes (no new stats, just backgrounds, languages, and suggested classes/feats) all seem interesting, reasonable, and varied without seeming like caricatures. Chapter Four gives some new classes, mostly re-imaginings of the core classes which are not revolutionary but feel very different and help foster the shift in theme. Chapter Five is for prestige classes and, contrary to one post here, there is more than just renamed core prestige classes. While some core classes are tweaked slightly, the majority of the chapter gives brand new prestige classes specific to Nyambe. Chapter Six introduces two new skills and new/tweaked feats to build off the new combat, magic, and environmental rules handled in earlier chaptes. Chapter Seven is new items including weapons, class tools, clothing, mounts, and poisons, all suited to keep you from having to put up with "Nyambean longswords" and "Nyambean plate mail". Chapter Eight deals with cosmology and religion, including the spirit orisha that are a more traditional approach to gods in an African setting. Chapter Nine introduces new magic options including domains, rituals, and, of course, seven pages of spells. Chapter Ten discusses geography (including random encounter tables) and nations in Nyambe-tanda, all with excellent hooks and a web of political inter-connections, as well as a number of cross-national societies for PCs and enemies. Chapter Eleven covers environmental dangers for the Dm including diseases, secrets organized by nation, and treasure. Chapter Ten gives new magic items including magic item tables, which are unfortunately mostly reliant on the core items. I think that some accessory books expand new items for the setting but, aside from wondrous items and a dozen new and interesting artifacts, DMs will need to have the DMG on hand as much as usual.

Chapter Thirteen was the only area that I think could have been improved a lot, though I can see why they did it this way. Like European folk lore, the stories they used for this book are varied, chaotic, contradictory, and some times incompatible. Unlike Europe, however, there haven't been as many attempts to gather together collections of stories (compared to the many volumes of Greek and Roman myth, German folklore, and even Gaelic stories). The result is a chapter of monsters (some good, some slightly silly) that I can see working an adventure around individually but I find difficult to put into a story together. I think adventures where monsters play a big role would turn into "The Story of the Hunting Ndawalo" or "The Village Plagued by Bomans." There doesn't seem to be as much room for campaigns equivalent to a trek into the Underdark to face drow, barter with duegar, and ally unexpectedly with kuo-toa to destroy the aboleth stronghold. I might feel differently when I plan out an adventure, but at the moment that's where I am. Arguably, this isn't a bad thing since you are trying to have a game based on folklore and not Forgotten Realms with more lions and fewer frost giants.

All in all, I think my feelings are summed up in the post title. This book wants to provide material, rules, and guidance for running a game in an African setting and I think it does that well. If you're looking for a brand new setting that will challenge players in totally unexpected ways, that asks you, the DM, to look at your game from unfamiliar angles, and that provides a rich background for both sides of the table to work with and create a brand new campaign, definitely check this out. If, however, you're looking at this book as a source to mine for new items and monsters, or as a source for new core classes to pester your DM about, I'd keep looking. Everything here is unique and together they make an impressive and cohesive new setting, but injected into a more European setting, they will probably just seem like "I'm a fighter but..." and "You see a creature that looks a lot like a yuan-ti, but..." If your on the fence about this book, I would encourage you to buy and and have a look through it. Right now it's only available on the marketplace and for really cheap. If you read through this book and never use it, I think the entertainment value alone is probably worth the five dollars most people are asking. If you do use it, though, it's an incredibly cheap dollar-per-detail value!

Being a veteran Dungeon Master, I have sent my players on fantastic quests in Faerun, had them combat Sith Lords in the Star Wars universe, and even sent chills down their spine when I confronted them with the hellish things that inhabit the World of Darkness.

Searching for new material to give my players an enjoyable experience, I stumbled across "Nyambe" and decided to give it chance. Africa hasn't been exactly been a popular setting for fantasy role play-which is sad considering the country's rich history and legends-and I wanted to give my next campagin a more exotic feel. But when the book arrived, I found its contents to be satisfactory and not spectacular.

The prestige classes are merely renamed versions of the standard DnD archtypes. The cosmology of the world isn't explained. The history of the continent feels as though it was taken from the Kingdoms of Kalamar. The spells are not different from Faerun, and the monsters are too few for a book of this size.

Although "Nyambe" does contain an interesting section on Orishas, this does not remedy the problems that run rampant throughout the rest of the text.

I sincerely hope that Atlas Games thinks about reprinting "Nyambe" and adding more to it. This would actually make a phenomenal fantasy setting if it was done right.

Without a doubt the Nyambe African Adventures game book is the best role playing game setting I've ever seen for an African-based adventure. The only previous adventure that detailed an African like setting was the Isle of the Ape more than 25 years ago. Isle of the Ape was stereotpical and did not go into any kind of detail save for describing cave men and "savage natives." Nyambe African Adventures were realistic and did not in any way patronize the reader.

I was delighted to see how the author weaved a dozen or more cultures from the African fabric whilst creating a new atmosphere that was new to readers and held their attention and suspense. The game system's realism adds another dimension that has you wondering who is who in real life. Look and read closely and you may be able to tie into the real life cultures of Africa today.

I was doubly impressed by the intricate historical research Dolunt did in adding that extra detail to the game. In creating the composite character Queen Nythera from the real life Ethipian Queen Makeda, he makes one want to delve more into the actual history of our long lost antiquity. Nythera's plight is taken from Makeda's having been tricked and seduced by King Solomon. For more reading see P84-87 World's Great Men of Color.

Another real life addition to Nyambe was the discussion of how indirect trade plays a role in the swamp people of Nyambe. Once again, this was a real life occurence in Africa. It was detailed in full by Bovill in The Golden Trade of the Moors (P82-83; P160-161). All of the above details compiled into the differing events, characters and places of Nyambe added a flavor to the book that made Nyambe African Adventures a joy to read. I can't wait to adapt it to my own role playing campaign worlds.

The next module I'll review will be The Emirate of Ylaruam. If you get a chance also purchase Endless Sands as well as The Emirate of Ylaruam. All of the above modules and books only add to the richness of the world of D&D!

A. Nathaniel Wallace, Jr.

Reading over the previous reviews, I was skeptical, however, the price tag sold it to me. Upon receiving it I found that it was so much better than I expected. To start, it takes the races of classic DnD and modifies them slightly to give them the African feel. It also has several "subtypes" of humans to add flavor (much as in a European-style DnD game you'd have people who seemed Nordic or Germanic or British, etc.) It also adds a new race, based on dragons. The classes are again African-themed variants of certain base classes, and the "fighter" is especially good. I won't rehash the whole book but there is plenty of good stuff in here from new arms and armor, to spells, feast, skills, some good monsters (but a few terrible ones - I think they should have tried harder to fit a few additional authentic beasties in here.) All in all, being a player and DM of a dozen systems over 2 dozen years, I was hoping to find a book out there that would give me some new, fresh ideas. This book hit it out of the park. The only reason I can't give it a 5-star rating was the weakness of the monster section. While it's a good size, and has some good stuff, they just missed the mark on a few monsters and should have had a few more in there that were from the folklore of Africa.

As the first campaign setting I ever played in was loosely based on the African-like Chult, I thought this would be a cool book. However, the writers dropped the ball on this one. The new characters races are just renamed rehashs. He dismisses the classic classes and instead make new classes that could have easily been simple modifications of pre-existing classes.

The main asset to this book is new feats, clerical spheres, and monsters, but they do not make this book worth the full price. This is a bargain bin buy, nothing else.