This section is designed to feature reviews of RPG Host's fellowship sites. The number of sites reviewed will vary from issue to issue, as will the reviewers. Sites are chosen at random and rated on a five-sword scale.
Site: At the Sign of the Red Fox - www.rpghost.com/redfox/ Owner/Designer:Anne Parker Category: Fantasy Primary Content: Information and archives related to the owner's World of Darkness PBEM games. Reviewer: Byron Cutting - editor@rpghost.com Rating:
A simple, yet elegant site, the material here is somewhat limited. Granted, my comprehension of the material is also somewhat limited by the fact that I have never played Changeling, and only played Vampire once. Still, what the site lacks in depth, it makes up for in style.
Created using Sausage Software's HotDog Professional 4, the site comes complete with attractive menu frames and sans-underline links. The colors are subtle and appropriate for each game, careful not to draw attention away from the material itself. I particularly liked the use of fonts and style sheets. My only complaint here is that there was a bad link to the "free stuff" section, but I think I probably found it via another link in the Changeling section.
As for the material, I think I would probably find it useful if I were involved in or closely following one of Parker's games. Since I'm not, I generally found it to be little more than reading to pass the time with. Changeling and Vampire Storytellers may also find it somewhat more useful than I did, though. Well-written and essentially error-free, it is clearly geared towards the players in her games. There is, however, a nice Changeling desktop theme which I particularly liked and almost downloaded for my own use, but I decided that my current one was worth keeping.
In all, it's not a bad site, just very focused and not very big. Bonus points for style and handling a small amount of material rather well.
Created using Microsoft Front Page Express 2.0 and viewed best with Internet Explorer 4 or Netscape Navigator 4 and an 800x600 screen with 16-bit colors (which is unfortunately larger than my monitor), this site gives the look and feel of a Star Trek starship's computer panel... conducive, of course, to a site dedicated to playing in the Star Trek universe in Deep Space 7, primarily. Two other ships, along with Deep Space 7, have detailed technical specifications available for perusal, plus the current rosters for the ships and an explanation of the rank system as well as promotion requirements.
On top of that, one can either join the Deep Space 7 Sim Group (as it is called) or join the Alpha Quadrant Sim Group, which apparently contains the Deep Space 7 group along with several others.
This site, however, is not very long on explanations. It is assumed that you already play Star Trek and are familiar with all of the terms and rules of play. This is primarily a resource for people who play Star Trek already and are looking for a group, or sim, to play with online. It is a member of several webrings and also participates in the Link Exchange banner exchange program.
Overall, I give it kudos for realism in the Star Trek universe, in both looks and in the information presented, although there isn't much in the way of anything else.
Bear with me, I'm still trying to sort out how this site relates to gaming. There are a couple places where RPG's are mentioned, as are Terry Pratchett novels, but most of it is about anime, computer games or the owner's own ramblings about her nameless religion. (Mitochondria, by the way, are a component of cells, not the cells themselves. Rouziek seems to be confused on that biological point.)
Members of the Off the Deep End Association (ODEA) are said to be wanderers of the Internet who have little else to do. Personally, I think you would have to be pretty darn bored to stop in here. The webpages are really nothing special to look at (despite the snazzy banner), and the material - while creative - lacks real depth. Some of the fiction reads like a bad anime flick.
Some of you will no doubt think I'm being too harsh, but if you've seen it you will understand. Unless you like anime-style fiction and don't mind semi-frequent grammatical errors, or unless you're just plain bored to tears, I wouldn't recommend stumbling in here.
Though I didn't like the content much, I gave the ODEA points for its tongue-in-cheek attitude and for hard-coding its pages. What can I say? I'm a sucker for people who write their own code.
This site was also created with Microsoft's Front Page Express 2.0, and is best viewed with either IE or NS 4, needing a 800x600 viewable size with 16-bit color; the pictures of the Dark Sun world, Athas, are worth the view. It is still relatively small, as the site owners have not finished putting up character and origin information and related material, but for now it looks promising. They offer a few useful links, such as the all-important one to TSR's site and a link to RPG Host's online store where you can buy, to use their example, the Cleric Compendium.
The picture archive - many pictures of Athas - is somewhat small but good, and this promises to expand as well. Most of the site is still under construction, but the setup is good and the site user-friendly. The link to TSR will allow folks not familiar with AD&D as of yet the chance to become familiar with their products and possibly the terms and rules of the game as well. While I would not recommend the world of Dark Sun as an introduction to playing AD&D - it is a harsh world not typical of many fantasy realms - it does provide a refreshing change from woodland and dungeon adventures.
I would recommend this site as a starting point to get an idea about the world of Dark Sun for those AD&D fans wanting a change in routine... once it is finished. There is, as yet, very little material to work with at all, which is why I give it two and a half swords when it could have more. We will see how much it improves once more material is presented.
Site: The Codex - www.rpghost.com/codex Owner:Anonymous Category: Fantasy Primary Content: Expansion information based primarily upon TSR's Planescape Reviewer: Byron Cutting - editor@rpghost.com Rating:
Loaded with Java and JavaScript, this is one of the more attractive and advanced sites I have seen in quite a while. Whoever coded this one obviously knew what they were doing - unlike the editor of this e-zine, who writes code on a wing and a prayer.
Though the initial pages seem sparsely populated, save for the golden "Runes of Navigation" and the presumptiously nameless author's own pseudo-philosophical introductions, this is not actually the case. Delving into the Players' and Dungeon Masters' sections produces a small handful of semi-useful tips and tools, but it is in the Campaigns section where you will find the real meat of this site. Though I was unable to get past the first page of the "Quasi-Elemental Plane of Minerals" section, I found the rest of it to be quite impressive in both style and content.
This site does have flaws, however. The sparseness of the first two sections is liable to turn away less persistent visitors, and I did run across one or two bad links. Still, the material in the last section is definitely worth a look, even if you've never played Planescape. By the time I was done I found myself wanting to go out and find a Planescape group. Definitely worth four swords.
