Tribebook: Children of Gaia

Rating:
Summary: This book made me want to roll a frenzy check
Review: Before I start, I wish to make it very clear that the Children of Gaia are my favorite Werewolf tribe. I was highly anticipating this Tribebook, especially considering how the others had wonderful improvements. And was I disappointed.

Problem #1: The dialogue. As has been mentioned in previous reviews, it fell right on it's face. It wasn't engaging and it focused far too much on the problems of two characters... problems which had basically nothing to do with Garou society. My advice to the author was to save the dialogue for books that didn't have a limit of 100 pages. He had two chapters of the book as it was to introduce, characterize, and make interesting five characters. It would take a lot more talent than the author displayed in the book to do all that and get necessary information in.

Problem #2: Rite of the Clouds and Rain. Pure and simple. While I understand that the Children of Gaia are more laid back (pun not intented!) when it comes to the first law of the Litany, they would *not* make a rite that so blatantly spits in the Litany's face.

Problem #3: Lack of Auspice information. The author did not forget to put this is in, and it was not a misprint. I know from the author himself from the forums on the White Wolf site that he *cut* this information out. I'm sorry, but so much of that dialogue should have been cut before the auspice information. There is not a single touch of it, even though one of the sections is titled "Breeds and Auspices". You can only get this information in the fairly newly released book "Book of Auspices".

Problem #4: And this is perhaps what irks me the most. The Children of Gaia are out for peace... *among the tribes*. They do not stamp around going into how the Wyrm does not need to be fought. This was actually very nicely represented in the comic preluding the original tribebook. This tribebook does *not* support that. It does not support the Children of Gaia being warriors at all except in a few little snippits of the book. This saddens me because it is the worst stereotype about the Children of Gaia, and it held through to this book that was supposed to bash it to the ground. The Children of Gaia fight... and when they get their hackles raised, watch out cause they're deadly. The other tribebooks say this fact more than the Children of Gaia one, and that's just wrong.

Problem #5: The intro fiction had a Crinos Garou running through crowded Seattle. Uh, no.

On the other hand, I did like some of the new gifts and the idea of making a staff the weapon of choice for the Children of Gaia as it can take down an opponent without doing deadly damage... at least to most Garou.

However, it does not make up for what the book lacks. I do not reccommend the book in the least. Spend your money on the other tribebooks.

Rating:
Summary: This book made me want to roll a frenzy check
Review: Before I start, I wish to make it very clear that the Children of Gaia are my favorite Werewolf tribe. I was highly anticipating this Tribebook, especially considering how the others had wonderful improvements. And was I disappointed.

Problem #1: The dialogue. As has been mentioned in previous reviews, it fell right on it's face. It wasn't engaging and it focused far too much on the problems of two characters... problems which had basically nothing to do with Garou society. My advice to the author was to save the dialogue for books that didn't have a limit of 100 pages. He had two chapters of the book as it was to introduce, characterize, and make interesting five characters. It would take a lot more talent than the author displayed in the book to do all that and get necessary information in.

Problem #2: Rite of the Clouds and Rain. Pure and simple. While I understand that the Children of Gaia are more laid back (pun not intented!) when it comes to the first law of the Litany, they would *not* make a rite that so blatantly spits in the Litany's face.

Problem #3: Lack of Auspice information. The author did not forget to put this is in, and it was not a misprint. I know from the author himself from the forums on the White Wolf site that he *cut* this information out. I'm sorry, but so much of that dialogue should have been cut before the auspice information. There is not a single touch of it, even though one of the sections is titled "Breeds and Auspices". You can only get this information in the fairly newly released book "Book of Auspices".

Problem #4: And this is perhaps what irks me the most. The Children of Gaia are out for peace... *among the tribes*. They do not stamp around going into how the Wyrm does not need to be fought. This was actually very nicely represented in the comic preluding the original tribebook. This tribebook does *not* support that. It does not support the Children of Gaia being warriors at all except in a few little snippits of the book. This saddens me because it is the worst stereotype about the Children of Gaia, and it held through to this book that was supposed to bash it to the ground. The Children of Gaia fight... and when they get their hackles raised, watch out cause they're deadly. The other tribebooks say this fact more than the Children of Gaia one, and that's just wrong.

Problem #5: The intro fiction had a Crinos Garou running through crowded Seattle. Uh, no.

On the other hand, I did like some of the new gifts and the idea of making a staff the weapon of choice for the Children of Gaia as it can take down an opponent without doing deadly damage... at least to most Garou.

However, it does not make up for what the book lacks. I do not reccommend the book in the least. Spend your money on the other tribebooks.

Rating:
Summary: I agree with Tom
Review: The original tribebook for Children of Gaia was very well done. This one has horrible. The original tribebook made you want to play a Child; this one drives you away from it. As Tom says, the dialogue was lame and the Children just seem like a bunch of slackers. The back of the book section, with new gifts, feats, etc. has very little of worth to add.

If you don't have the previous book, then sure, get it. Otherwise, avoid.

Rating:
Summary: I agree with Tom
Review: The original tribebook for Children of Gaia was very well done. This one has horrible. The original tribebook made you want to play a Child; this one drives you away from it. As Tom says, the dialogue was lame and the Children just seem like a bunch of slackers. The back of the book section, with new gifts, feats, etc. has very little of worth to add.

If you don't have the previous book, then sure, get it. Otherwise, avoid.

Rating:
Summary: Could Have Been Better
Review: While the old Werewolf tribe book series was, for the most part, very well done, the current revised editions of both the Black Fury and Bone Gnawer books were improvements of the original books on both the respective tribes. Sadly, that trend did not continue with the Children of Gaia, the one tribe book I really would have wanted to see an improvement with.

The previous book did not do much to enamour me to the tribe, as the author seemed to be writing as if they were mostly a tribe of free-loving hippies, and while there isn't anything wrong with that in and of itself, it does seem to jibe uncomfortably with the whole concept of being a Rage-filled Garou. As such, the new book could (and does) shatter many of the stereotypes provided by the previous book.

Of course, the authors instead chose to weld the book around a narrative of a pack of Children, and this is where the book falls a bit short. White Wolf can do narrative books effecively, as seen in the revised Mage Tradition books, but they can also fall flat, as seen in the previous edition Tradition books. This one falls flat with a group of Children having issues vaguely defined, which is probably OK as the characters themselves were vaguely defined, and with the exception of the homosexual Ahroun, the group was fairly interchangeable in many respects. What character traits that were present were poorly defined in a couple cases and in others distracting (you mean the very angry Metis was the pack Theurge?!?). Character perspective flips around at the drop of a hat, you can never tell who is present for any given scene, and there even seems to be a hint that the convoluted short story at the beginning of the book was enough to let the reader know who was who and what they could do (it isn't). The overall effect of this distracted me from what should have been the meat of the book: the Children as a tribe and the issues that effect it. It can be difficult to follow the book's pupose if the author's are digressing all the time into the love lives of various characters.