Thursday 5 September 2019

Why Didn't You Tell Me?

There was apparently a recentish kickstarter for a licensed Planet of Adventure/Tschai RPG. Not a sourcebook like the old GURPS one, but a standalone game. It is "powered by the Apocalypse" and Dungeon World (sigh) and in French, but still, an English translation also appears to have been done or is in the process of being done.




Did anybody back it? Does anybody have it? Having just about finished off the last volume of the series, I can say Tschai one of the very, very few settings not made up by myself which I would actually consider running a game in,* and I'm very curious about what the results of this project are like. (This is not a hint at fishing for a copy - I will buy it myself if I can find out how to online, and if it's confirmed to be any good.)

(*The others would probably be Mythago Wood, the Viriconium of The Pastel City, and possibly Lyonesse.)

11 comments:

  1. I backed it. The English translation fell through, a problem with their translator, so they returned my money and gave me a free copy of the French pdf. The art’s great (naturally), but I’m not very familiar with the setting and I don’t speak French, so I can’t really evaluate it. It looks pretty rules light.

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    1. That's a shame. My French is okayish but I doubt it's good enough to properly understand the contents

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  2. So apparently the artist of the Tschai comic, Philippe Caza, has also produced illustrated editions of Lord Valentine's Castle, The Circus of Dr Lao, and Jirel of Joiry.

    I'm surprised no one has done English language reprints on these. Given the popularity of other French comics in translation, you'd think there'd be a very eager pool of buyers for them.

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    1. Translation is a funny business. It's often reliant on a translator wanting to do the translation and approaching the publisher.

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  3. Are you aware that The Design Mechanism is producing a Lyonesse supplement for Mythras?

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    1. Yep, I had heard about that somewhere or other. Any idea when it's coming out?

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  4. Don't bother. I have the Spanish translation and quickly sold it after a reading. The system has not been well adapted to the setting (something very important in the Apocalypse games) and the setting information is minimal (15 pages). The only thing that could be of interest is the (very good) art, taken from the comics.

    It's mothing more than DW with a rough sketch of a setting and very good art. Maybe a better idea would be to buy the comics themselves.

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    1. The thing is, I think the perfect system for the setting would actually be D&D, because it is so D&Dish in character.

      Thanks for the mini-review - it is very helpful!

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  5. There was a Traveller take on Tschai in Space Gamer magazine.

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  6. Space Gamer #40, an eight page article, which included a Traveller style world map.

    Sad news that the English translation fell through, mostly I wanted lots of color art to go with the setting.

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