Iron Dynasty: Way of the Ronin | Product Reviews | Forums

Iron Dynasty: Way of the Ronin is an oriental setting for Savage
Worlds, largely modeled upon pre/early industrial Japan, with a healthy
dose of fantasy tropes. The pdf version I purchased came with a very
nice color map of the area in the back, but otherwise the pictures and
maps were black and white art. Actually they almost felt like sketches
most of the time, which may have been an effort to either keep costs low
or enhance the atmosphere of the product, but in comparison to other
Savage Worlds tie ins, licensees, and setting books, it suffers a bit.

This
is a book I was really excited to start to get into, and see if they
were able to get the feel and atmosphere of the setting down. Swords,
martial arts, and the advent of machines, there's a great wealth of
material there that could be used for story material. And on the
atmosphere, you can tell that they tried very hard at achieving it,
authentic names for weapons along with descriptions, and simply the
language used to describe things and people could have come straight out
of a martial arts film.

Unfortunately, the meat of the product
is somewhat lacking. Not in volume, it rolls in at 284 pages, but in
style. As you read through the book, you come to the inevitable
conclusion that this is not really in the spirit of Savage Worlds. In
fact, it reads much like a D20 product that's been converted over to
Savage Worlds, or a someone writing a Savage Worlds setting, but keeping
the D20 sensibilities of a plethora of tables and handholding. It does
not embrace the Savage Worlds concept of Fast! Furious! Fun! Of course,
for an individual who wants something like that, it may be a boon. One
instance of this is in character creation, they include defining
interests, which are essentially further specializations of the Common
Knowledge area. It provides guidelines to using character background and
giving bonuses to Common Knowledge that should be gleaned from it, but
it also feels limiting, as well as creating extra bookkeeping. Another
example being in the Power Edges, they make an attempt to define and
limit what could have been explained as trappings and ruled loosely in
almost any other Savage World setting. There are even rules of fitting
armor and rulings on what to subtract when someone picks up armor off a
dead enemy without fitting it. While it's a nice touch, it's also
nitpicky and additional bookkeeping that doesn't add to Fast! Furious!
Fun! One interesting addition is the Reputation Rules, which is nearly
identical to the Fame/Infamy rules in Pirates of the Spanish Main,
except that one may go all the way towards the evil spectrum without
losing control.

The same sensibilities run through the adventure
creation rules, you'll end up rolling D100's and D20's to determine
unique monsters and adventures. Which runs pretty contrary to what most
Savage World settings try to run with. In other words, it's got a
quality that allows one to get very deep into detail, and yet the cost
of that is increased bookkeeping, and increased time that one would need
in order to set up an adventure. Again, it feels like the writers were
trying to recreate a D20 or GURPS or retro experience, as opposed to
embracing the Savage System.

One of the bright spots in the book
is the detail afforded to the setting. In fact, it provides details upon
major towns, cities, locations of power and the like. On the other
hand, they missed the mark in not linking the locations to Savage Tales.
The Savage Tales by the way, are not ones that we are familiar with
from other Savage Worlds products, instead of being loosely linked
adventures or plot points, the book provides several mini campaigns
which it calls Savage Story Arcs.  These are essentially linked adventure
series with very little leeway for deviation, each 'adventure' being
described in anywhere between two sentences to a half page long
description, which some would call more 'adventure hooks' rather than fully fleshed out adventures.

Overall, it was a solid reference book, but mildly
disappointing. There is certainly a wealth of things that one can take
from it, but I can't imagine playing the setting itself without heavy
modification, and to play a campaign would require a good deal more work
than one would usually go through in a Savage Setting. I would almost
say that the Campaigns are more ideas for campaigns, that a GM would
have to spend a lot of time fleshing out and improvising throughout.
Also providing less room for going off the tracks and then returning
later than other settings usually would provide. The big impression I
get is of a book more suited for a D20 derived product than a Savage
Worlds book. At $15 for the pdf, I'm not terribly disappointed, but it's
not the definitive oriental adventures setting book I was hoping for,
and it's not one that I would feel happy with at the cost for a print
edition.

All in all I'd give it a 2.5 our of 5 stars.

(crossposted from Maniacal Laughter with minor formatting adjustments)