Introduction of the Members

[SrPanda]

Hello, I'm José Manuel Palacios (A.K.A. MrPanda), I'm a spanish Game Leader. I'm part of the spanish translation team and really love this game.

I want to say hello to you all

[Clovis]

Ah, a fellow translator! A very warm welcome to you, friend!

[SrPanda]

Thank you

[Iris]

Thanks a lot for your work on the spanish version !

[Ragr]

Hello everybody.

My name is Richard, I'm 47 years old and been role playing since 1978

Well it's been a tense wait but my books arrived yesterday and I've been delighted flicking through them.

They truly are some of the most evocative RP books I've had the pleasure of looking at with so many wonderful images that make me want to explore the setting not only vicariously through play but actually be there in person; that's not going to happen so I'll have to do it through gaming . All I now need is to find some time to devour the books - they join a big queue in my "to read" pile but have probably jumped to the top of the list - and then persuade my players that this is something they need to play. Will it be my G+ group? Or my family group? Interestingly my family group includes my wife, her friend and my eldest son's girlfriend and they've never really expressed an interest in the fantasy side of things, but I think Esteren may be the one to change that.

Looking forward to my explorations.

[Old timer]

Hello Ragr , yes i am old timer from UK roleplayers

[Ragr]

Hello Ragr , yes i am old timer from UK roleplayers

I know Graham's (First Age) about as well so that's at least three of us .

[Ahab]

Hi All, my name is Manfred (which is celtic for "man of piece", but also a very old-fashioned name over here in Germany), and I hail roughly from Frankfurt (some few kilometres north of it). I've been playing RPG since the early 90ies, and I started off with DSA (Das Schwarze Auge - a very popular fantasy RPG from Germany) and DnD. But I soon got heavily into urban horror stuff like Kult, Unknown Armies and - more creature/alien than urban horror - Call of Cthulhu. I also did some Shadowrun, Firefly and Scion roleplaying, but these never really touched me. And then, nearly 4 years ago, I got back to fantasy again because of my wife, who is an avid and very good game master. We played an extensive Wheel of Time campaign and also Pathfinder and other stuff.
Now that our long-running Pathfinder campaign has ended (I was GM'ing), she took over, and I have room for something cooler, which came to me out of nowhere: Shadows of Esteren!

I fell heavily in love with the setting, the darkness and the beautiful production values. As I am also an avid fan of the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn novel trilogy, I decided to do a cross-over game. I have a game diary in the secrets section, so if anybody is interested, please be free to have a look. Next gaming session will be Friday.

One thing which really sets me off, though, is the decision to save the secrets book for last. This will either nullify most efforts from game leaders to bring the backgrounds into a working relation, or it will be useless, if the GM's did already conduct their own meta plot and/or contexts. I personally cannot start gaming without having put the single aspects of the game into a bigger picture, so I did that with my adaptation for the MST trilogy. I do not doubt that the secrets book will contain much of interest for me, but the real big revelations will probably be useless for me, because I have my own. (And I couldn't even if I had not done the cross-over game, because then I would've come up with something else.)

But otherwise, I really love this game. And I can't wait how the game system will perform in the open wild.

Next to come in the game: the Varigal Artis and Haestan the Hilderin-to-be come across a wolf-like Feond, who seems to be disturbingly intelligent and zeroing in on the Varigal's message bag. Is someone giving it orders? Or what is this about? (Nothing better than a good cliffhanger! )

[Clovis]

Hello Ragr! Glad to have another veteran among us!

And hello Ahab! I've read the "Diary" you posted on the forum, and I'm looking forward to seeing more!

I fell heavily in love with the setting, the darkness and the beautiful production values.

Thank you very much! By the way, what does "production values" mean exactly? Even though we got an Ennies for that, no one was really able to tell us what the category covered. It more or less boiled down to "It means that the game was good."

One thing which really sets me off, though, is the decision to save the secrets book for last. This will either nullify most efforts from game leaders to bring the backgrounds into a working relation, or it will be useless, if the GM's did already conduct their own meta plot and/or contexts. I personally cannot start gaming without having put the single aspects of the game into a bigger picture, so I did that with my adaptation for the MST trilogy. I do not doubt that the secrets book will contain much of interest for me, but the real big revelations will probably be useless for me, because I have my own. (And I couldn't even if I had not done the cross-over game, because then I would've come up with something else.)

We are well aware of the downsides of putting off the publication of Secrets, but we've made the decision to reveal the game's mysteries little by little, so that each gaming group may experience the discovery progressively.

It's true that once Secrets is released, it will be kinda the end of an era and the start of another. However, I believe that it will be possible for each gaming group to still fully enjoy it, with whether the GL twisting around the canon to direct the game toward the Secrets, or by starting a whole new campaign. I am confident Secrets will still have a great impact!

Next to come in the game: the Varigal Artis and Haestan the Hilderin-to-be come across a wolf-like Feond, who seems to be disturbingly intelligent and zeroing in on the Varigal's message bag. Is someone giving it orders? Or what is this about? (Nothing better than a good cliffhanger! )

The plot thickens!

[Ahab]

By the way, what does "production values" mean exactly?

To my understanding, it means - much like you said - the overall quality of a game. To me, this consists of
- quality of writing
- fusion of game system and setting
- product quality in terms of physical condition/touchiness/processing of the books
- way of publishing/sequence of books/presentation of the setting
- degree of innovation (e.g. your multimedia approach)
- quick follow-up products (no long waiting times)
- quality of illustrations and continuity thereof
- translation
and so on. As I believe, you are foremost responsible for the latter point, let me say, that this is the best translation I've seen so far. I played Agone for a while, which is also translated from French to English, and after I read Esteren, I thought Agone wasn't half as well translated like you did. Same with Kult from 7ième Circle. So cudos on that.

We are well aware of the downsides of putting off the publication of Secrets, but we've made the decision to reveal the game's mysteries little by little, so that each gaming group may experience the discovery progressively.

Got to respect that. Making up my own "big picture" makes the game feel more like it is _mine_, if you get my meaning. I always feel the pressure of maybe not sticking to the canon, when I play in a strictly specific game setting. So that I get something wrong and lack consistency, when e.g. the group comes to the same town a second time, and I suddenly realize, I didn't stick to the books the first time. It's a little neurotic, I guess, but I simply feel more at home, when I come up with much of it myself. So I look forward to incorporating the treasure trove of secrets into _my_ Tri-Kazel.

The plot thickens!

You bet. This is going to be E.P.I.C.!