game Hellywood , of Emmanuel Gharbi, Raphael Andere and The grumph (John Doe editions, 2008, ISBN 978-2-916898-05-6) is one of those RPGs that make me make the big difference between "I love" and "I do not like" to leave me a sense of "yes, buts". In fact, this game has two facets, one that fills me and one that I just can not seem to hang.
facet of which I am very customer is that of black ambience, one that goes to the heart novels and films like that. When playing the game, we feel that the flavors have permeated at a crossroads coming from Harlem by Chester Himes, Roman Polanski's Chinatown, the Miller's Crossing by Joel Coen of Los Angeles by James Ellroy, the footsteps of Philip Marlowe or Lew Archer.
Heaven Harbour, the fictional town that serves as a framework for the game is a little New York, a little Chicago, a little San Francisco or Los Angeles. Lovers of crime fiction to easily identify the business district, neighborhoods 'ethnic' Chinatown or Little Italy, the hills chic and docks dismal and the hinterland where orange trees grow.
short, the ideal playground for me, land on which I am fully at ease to put together, play or do play role-playing adventures.
The book is very well written, and it's a cop Heaven Harbour which guides the reader throughout the book, making it the portrait of the visible as the invisible face of the iceberg. I want to emphasize that the section on sources of inspiration of the game should be released outside the scope of this game for all fans and the curious who would find a summary of the detective genre in novels and films.
The game mechanics themselves are original and really stick well to the atmosphere, especially based on rules related to craps.
But there is a "but." And even two.
First the lesser of: to what this city kaleidoscope Heaven Harbour, sometimes I spend my time wondering what has been borrowed from such city or another, from New York to San Francisco. And the fact of wonder and then prevents me from taking the city as it comes, for what it is: almost a city-kind tribute to black.
In addition, with very few exceptions, I'm pretty tight with the intrusion of a supernatural element in this kind of universe. When it is subject to doubt, as in some novels of the Fu Manchu series or works of John Ray, I can stay on the train. When he is stronger, as the film Angel Heart Alan Parker, tangible or explicit as in the series X-Files created by Chris Carter, I sometimes harder to stay in the car.
But when a whole neighborhood of Heaven Harbour became the benchmark of demonic creatures, I get the train. My ability to "suspend disbelief " is not enough to get carried away in such a perspective. Such mixtures make me the effect of "enough is enough", and I can not see anything "serious." Where the game suggested that I see a LA Confidential sulfur fumes, I can not help seeing a big way comedy Ghostbusters . The talent
authors of the game is absolutely not in question and the game certainly has much more chance of finding its audience by offering a mixture of black and fantastic atmosphere, given the tastes of the majority of gamers, not only providing a fantastic atmosphere without black.
Finally, Hellywood proves a very good role playing ... which I can not join as a whole and I do not really see how I could implement it around a game table: I do not know how to play or play adventures tinged components demonic, and I can not see myself shelling the game to remove the supernatural and keep only the atmosphere that I like.
Heaven Harbour, the fictional town that serves as a framework for the game is a little New York, a little Chicago, a little San Francisco or Los Angeles. Lovers of crime fiction to easily identify the business district, neighborhoods 'ethnic' Chinatown or Little Italy, the hills chic and docks dismal and the hinterland where orange trees grow.
short, the ideal playground for me, land on which I am fully at ease to put together, play or do play role-playing adventures.
The book is very well written, and it's a cop Heaven Harbour which guides the reader throughout the book, making it the portrait of the visible as the invisible face of the iceberg. I want to emphasize that the section on sources of inspiration of the game should be released outside the scope of this game for all fans and the curious who would find a summary of the detective genre in novels and films.
The game mechanics themselves are original and really stick well to the atmosphere, especially based on rules related to craps.
But there is a "but." And even two.
First the lesser of: to what this city kaleidoscope Heaven Harbour, sometimes I spend my time wondering what has been borrowed from such city or another, from New York to San Francisco. And the fact of wonder and then prevents me from taking the city as it comes, for what it is: almost a city-kind tribute to black.
In addition, with very few exceptions, I'm pretty tight with the intrusion of a supernatural element in this kind of universe. When it is subject to doubt, as in some novels of the Fu Manchu series or works of John Ray, I can stay on the train. When he is stronger, as the film Angel Heart Alan Parker, tangible or explicit as in the series X-Files created by Chris Carter, I sometimes harder to stay in the car.
But when a whole neighborhood of Heaven Harbour became the benchmark of demonic creatures, I get the train. My ability to "suspend disbelief " is not enough to get carried away in such a perspective. Such mixtures make me the effect of "enough is enough", and I can not see anything "serious." Where the game suggested that I see a LA Confidential sulfur fumes, I can not help seeing a big way comedy Ghostbusters . The talent
authors of the game is absolutely not in question and the game certainly has much more chance of finding its audience by offering a mixture of black and fantastic atmosphere, given the tastes of the majority of gamers, not only providing a fantastic atmosphere without black.
Finally, Hellywood proves a very good role playing ... which I can not join as a whole and I do not really see how I could implement it around a game table: I do not know how to play or play adventures tinged components demonic, and I can not see myself shelling the game to remove the supernatural and keep only the atmosphere that I like.
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- For an overview of the game, you can read plug on the site of GROG .
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