CORE – Shards of the Stone main sourcebook

RPG Rulebook
Obsidian Studios
*1/2 (nearly useless)
About 380 pages
25$

I should have known better.

I mean, I leafed through the book. I read the table of contents. I should have known this was a rule book.

I didn't. I bought the thing.

OK, more coherent thoughts:

CORE is the first book in a series of books, together creating the universe of SHARDS OF THE STONE. The book contains a short section (less than 50 pages) about the setting and the legends of the world; and 350 long, dreary, boring pages of rules, tables, and some more rules.

A few words about myself: I like rich settings and worlds, and am partial to rule systems. When I do use systems, I like them unobtrusive. I want task resolution to be quick, with a minimum of fuss. CORE fails on all counts.

First, the setting. Sorry, but there isn't one. There's a very long teaser – a good one, admittedly – about the creation myth of the world; a larger section on the legend of Marr, which is vaguely interesting, but nothing you haven't seen before; and then – nothing.

See, the Core is supposed to be a world, containing many realms, which are separated by the "Mists of Time", whatever they are. The world came to be, because 25 elements – gods – fought over a mystical Stone, trying to shape it. The stone shattered, thereby creating the world. There are many realms in the world, and one gets the feeling that they are fantasy realms – but a feeling is all you get, because the book doesn't tell you anything about them. You'll have to wait for the supplements – some are already planned – or create your own.

Oh, yes – there's also the children of the Marr, to whom a whole chapter is devoted. They are quasi-immortal beings, living on a secret island, who alone are capable of navigating the "Mists of Time". They come and go as they wish, watching over the realms. Their history and culture are detailed. And that's all there is to them. Can you play one? The book doesn't say. How do you create one? The book doesn't say. Do they interfere in the affairs of mortal? Well, maybe. How do they connect to the rest of the book, or the rest of the realms? Damned if I know. Then what are they doing here? Why aren't they in a supplement of their own (which, given their central role, they certainly deserve)? Probably because the authors sensed that you simply cannot sell a rulebook with no setting these days, so they pushed in some 30+ pages of quasi-setting.

Now, the rules. As I mentioned, I don't like rules much. Most of the book is devoted to them: some 300 pages. The SHARDS OF THE STONE is a derivation of FUZION. I didn't know FUZION before I read CORE; and I'll say, in its favour, that it allows you to do pretty much what you want, and achieve any result; that it gives you almost complete freedom in character creation and powers; and, on the other side, that it's very cumbersome – certainly too cumbersome for my tastes. Also, reading a rulebook is very, very boring. CORE is not a good read.

So, what lured me to this less than lukewarm product? The art. CORE has excellent art; very imaginative. Unfortunately, it's totally divorced from the text.

The book claims to be a "revolution in gaming" (pg. 52). It isn't. The authors promised to publish more material on their website ; so far, they haven't.

The game got a point and a half because a) there are some good ideas in it, and b) because of the excellent art.

I feel cheated. I was lured in by the promise of a rich setting and got dry rules. I feel I've wasted my money. Stay away from this book. Don't let the art fool you. Spend your money on better products – and most other products are better. I don't usually write reviews of crummy RPG products, but this one seems to lure many people to it. Avoid.