I'm not entirely certain, as the book isn't too clear. I believe these events also occur in the 200 years immediately after the High King's Curse. The book then covers four major events in the last 200 years that have shaped Ven culture. It's not clear why this is bad, but the other ven nobles overthrow him only to be cursed by the High King for 1000 generations.Īfter this, the Ven create a Senate, with the membership being draw from the nobility and each noble receiving a number of votes based the amount of land he or she controls. They form themselves into noble families and rebuild the shattered land, which is described as “a chain of archipelagoes of mutant flora and fauna.” Things are ok until one of their high kings decides he wants some of the sorcerer-kings' power. The ven are one of their servitor races and begin to pick up the pieces. They almost blow up the world and then destroyed themselves. They are your usually power-mad sorcerer-kings, who make war on each other and make live difficult. Ven History starts with the rule of the sorcerer-kings, called the aleva danna. So right off the bat we are shown how the ven view the world. Ven can be translated as “us” and Shanri “the Great Enemy”. The Ven are a race of beings from the long past, “Before Atlantis saw its great rise and Mu was still a distant dream”. So we immediately dive into the history and culture of the Ven. Ven History and You posted by jadarx Original SA post Twelve pages for a basic overview and ramblings on things that should be on a blog about the RPG, not the RPG itself. Lastly, he explains about how the Ven write, because it will come through in the “translations”. This will get covered more in the Ven chapter. Its presence seems to imply that the "this is true" bit exists just for this rant.įinally, we get an overview of Ven fiction. This is why the how "this is not fiction" bit annoys me. So this is complaining about criticisms of other rpgs in another rpg. Because you can't complain about inaccuracies that the Ven themselves took. So that's why he wrote Houses based on Ven fiction. “The Eastwood Defense” is Wick ranting about people complaining about historical inaccuracies in rpgs. They are What is my Game About?, How Does My Game Do That? And What Behaviors Does My Game Reward and Punish? It's a pretty brief look into the design process. He then goes into Jared's Three Questions concerning game design. We get a short section on how Wick was writing little games and Jared Sorenson told him to write a big game, like L5R, again. But in this case, due to an upcoming section, this rubs me the wrong way. For flavor, making the Ven seem real and this is based on real research doesn't bother me. A few pages later, we get a bibliography of more 'articles', including Wick's prior rpg work Enemy Gods and a Miskatonic reference. Also, he mentions a discovery in a cave in Damascus. Quick Google searches reveal the questionability of those texts. Wick mentions that the Ven are mentioned in several ancient texts, such as the Book of Dzyan and the Voynich Manuscripts. The next section is “This is not a Work of Fiction”. Why a sci-fi rpg could not tell tragic stories is beyond me. Tragedy is used in the dramatic sense, not “horrible things happen.” The only odd bit from this section is how Wick says many rpgs are fantasy, sci-fi, etc but none are tragedy. Lastly, Houses is described as a Tragedy rpg. We'll cover that when we get to that chapter, but the brief overview is that the winner of the roll gets narrative rights. The third difference is how Houses does task resolution. The text stresses that characters won't have enough time to do everything. Houses plays out over Seasons, with characters aging. But after reading Wick's 'review' of people playing DnD 4e, I can't help but reading smugness into this section. Taken at face value, there's nothing wrong. Houses differs by placing the characters in the roles of nobles, with lands and families and responsibilities. According to Wick, DnD is about homeless, family-less vagabonds going into dungeons to kill things. Next is how Houses differs from most RPGs. This entire section is written in a conversational tone, which I don't really mind as long as it's not annoying. He welcomes them and gives the basic overview of what a RPG is. Houses opens with John Wick directly addressing the reader. It's pretty safe to assume this is Jared Sorensen, fellow RPG designer, as he gets a mention in the introduction chapter. The book opens with a dedication: “For Jared Blood, Steel and Honor”. Players take the roles of a race of ancient nobility called the Ven. Its back cover bills it as a game of tragic obsession. Houses of Blooded was written in 2008 by John Wick. Introduction posted by jadarx Original SA post