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Sig: Manual of the Primes
by J C [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/11/2024 11:32:30

If you ever loved the concept of Planescape, that a celestial nexus of the ideologically divided heavens exists where angels and demons can get a pint and debate theology, this game gives you that. It gives it to you honestly better than Planescape.

D&D is an adventure, treasure hunting, and monster fighting game at heart. Planescape as a D&D setting has to lean into those elements of its world, even if they don't actually fit best with the setting itself in the end.

It makes so much sense that the central conflicts would not be solved with violence in a place like Sigil, a functional non-warring city made up of at least a dozen ideologies vying for power. Because the city is peaceful enough to be a functional city, the battle shifts to the ideological landscape. If violence were the actual answer to these debates, Manichean battles of good vs. evil, then the city would be a constant battlefield.

The war of Sig (similarity clearly intentional) is waged across the beliefs and ideals of its inhabitants. It is a war of souls, not swords. And to make it actually dynamic and interesting, PCs themselves cannot advance without allowing their principles shift in reaction to their in-game encounters.

This means it isn't and can't really be a system for a simple ideological missionary campaign. "Alright, we've made characters with the obviously right belief set, and we just need to go around and convince everyone else." Those characters would stay forever the same as they started. Their attributes wouldn't grow as they leveled up by changing beliefs. Their rigidity would leave them stagnant not only in the fiction of the world but also mechanically.

Instead, you literally buy character advancement using an in-game metacurrency gained by engaging with your beliefs in play, and to cash it in you have to have an in-game conversation about how your beliefs are changing and why. About what you thought about what happened that game.

This is the game that is actually about the angel and the demon having a pint and debating theology! They are not just set dressing in the background of a different adventure about killing and looting monsters, which really strains to make sense where literal monsters live side by side and politely debate beliefs.

Now, more interesting things can happen than just straight debates. Exciting things can happen, crime scenes investigated and mysteries solved, court room dramas acted out, etc. But it's not assumed the only or most important source of drama is violence. The drama is in how the characters develop.

As such, it's a very different kind of game than D&D, and anyone coming here because of a love of Planescape should understand that. This is not a better version of Planescape the D&D setting, with a different ruleset but still essentially D&D. This is the actual game that would match life in a city like Sigil if it actually existed. This is 100% a story game, not a crunchy game or an adventure game. Make sure everyone understands this as you're getting a group together.

But if that sounds awesome to you, I cannot recommend it highly enough.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Sig: Manual of the Primes
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Sig: Manual of the Primes
by Isaac M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/14/2021 21:18:06

I spend an uncomfortable amount of time considering the implications of living in a moebius city

Does protein chirality exist in Sig? One has to hope it doesn't.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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A Spark in Fate Core
by Angela R. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/02/2020 17:29:52

The world-building in this is GREAT for FATE. I've even ported the concepts to other games.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
A Spark in Fate Core
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After the War
by A customer [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/12/2020 08:04:28

I love the setting of this game. The idea of the Song is just so cool and scary, but having the focus of the game be the follow-up time when people are trying to rebuild, knowing the threats are still out there. Great.

Also, it's often said that games are "about" the things thang your characters need to do to advance. In this case, it's about creating beliefs for your characters and then playing through scenes that challenge or support those beliefs, so you can examine them critically in context with story. That's the good stuff, in my opinion, especially with the added horror that the threats in this game can sometimes "re-write" those beliefs! Is your neighbor in a good mood, or is it a Song infection? Are they having a rough day, or is it Tormenta? The paranoia and the HOPE. It's very cool.

In our play session, it took us a little while to get used to the way scenes are framed, but it's a neat system once you get the hang of it.

Obviously, this is a game that could feature some things that not everyone would be comfortable with, (framed as a horror game and all), but if you've got a group of players interested in that, I think this is a good one.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
After the War
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A Spark in Fate Core
by Jon S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/26/2019 00:15:59

A Spark in Fate Core does a great job of expanding on the world building stage of any Fate Core campaign. I have used it to great success several times!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
A Spark in Fate Core
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A Spark in Fate Core
by Adam L. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/20/2018 17:50:19

I've been looking for a way to build a world that my friends would be invested in to introduce them to Fate and stumbled upon this in a google+ group. After reading it I definitely can't wait to put this to use and get some inspiration from my group! The suggested method is clear and concicely written with excellent illistrative examples. Highly recommended for an aspiring GM like myself



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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The Enlightened Man
by Scot H. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 08/21/2017 18:23:47

So far I've only browsed through the material in this module, but it looks excellent - just what I was looking for to drop some complexity into the FATE game I'm running. Good stuff!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Enlightened Man
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Sig: Manual of the Primes
by Charles H. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/17/2017 13:08:52

I really like the system and the story but I had a hard time getting the prime manual to open and I still do.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Sig: Manual of the Primes
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Creator Reply:
Hello Charles! Please contact me directly at genesisoflegend@gmail.com and I will be happy to get this sorted out for you. Sorry about the delay!
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Sig: Manual of the Primes
by Jeremy S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 01/25/2017 16:07:24

I am a backer for the kickstarter of Sig: Manual of the Primes. This review is based on reading through the PDF but not having played it at the table yet. Sig appraches world and character building with dedicated rules that lean on games like Burning Wheel and Fiasco to create interesting characters and NPC's. The rules push the players to explore their character motivations and in turn shape the world around them. I would recommend anyone intersted in character driven stories and shared setting creation check out Sig: Manual of the Primes.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Sig: Manual of the Primes
by Daniel D. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/11/2016 05:51:17

This is a cool setting well suited to the concept of the game. It's also very flexible, leaving us an infinity of "prime worlds" which are left undescribed, the option of bringing in extra planes, minor planes and plane shards, and leaving the actual history of the 'verse shrouded in rumors too. Oh and each major plane, being itself infinite, contains an unknown number of additional divine beings and/or races of people.

But I do think the book ends up a little light, especially on description of the city Sig itself. Being a crossing point between the planes, Sig has the potential to be a truly amazing city, a distillation of what it means to be metropolitan; the archtypical city on a scale beyond even what China Mieville's books do. And there are some nice descriptions of what that's like, at least in broad strokes. But we are given only 4 major districts, each with a bare sentence of description; nothing on the key politicians and community figures within the city.

Sig is an ever-changing place, whose very rules and appearance shift when planar alignment changes. Players can roll the initial planar influence randomly, or choose from 5 suggested "common combinations" given names like "The City of Secrets" (planes of Wind, Freedom, Dreams), "The City of Power" (Flame, Destruction, Lore) etc. But here again I would have liked a little description; what were they picturing that made them call that combination the City of Secrets?

Also - and this last point isn't really a complaint - the book sometimes took the approach of listing evocative names without saying what they mean. For example we're given a full page of various job categories common in the city, some of which are less than self-explanatory (what's a bloodwatcher?). And we're given names to two or three shard planes, and a handful of otherwise undescribed races and peoples from the Plane of Earth. I would have liked that approach for more things. Each plane could have used a list of other races, places and Powers (godlings, deities, whathaveyou).

So - overall, a very cool setting, which cries out for more worldbuilding, in a good way, but also kind of in a bad way.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
I just wanted to let you know that I have been hard at work in expanding Sig, based in large part on your excellent feedback in this review. All customers of the existing version will be upgraded to the enhanced edition of the product, when it\'s ready!
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Sig: Manual of the Primes
by Brian I. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/07/2016 23:30:40

I'm a Planescape fan from way back, and Sig totally channeled that Planescape feeling for me without being a simple rehash or clone. I love the planar cosmology that Sig presents, and love the city at least as much.

The book is colorful, well produced, and easy to digest. I enjoyed the planar races presented in it.

The book is for the Spark system (itself Creative Commons licensed), but I think it's easily hackable and adaptable to other games as a concept and setting. Fate and Whitehack both came to mind for me.

The next time I dig into running something planar / plane hopping / infiinite city, Sig will be it.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Spark Roleplaying Game
by Phil N. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/17/2015 09:37:04

Spark is a complete storytelling package, covering setting creation, roleplaying and superb storytelling advice. This is a narrative-heavy game, with the emphasis on the beliefs of the Heroes. When used for setting creation, the process creates beliefs for the setting, and it is these beliefs the Heroes challenge during the game.

Spark works with any setting, and even includes three sample settings in the book. The digital bundle from Genesis of Legend is brilliant value, with bonus pdfs and multiple formats.. If you are looking for a storytelling game with an emphasis on character and belief, then Spark is the game for you.

For more details, see my lengthy review at Tales of a GM:

http://talesofagm.com/?p=1853

Happy Gaming Phil



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Spark Roleplaying Game
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Spark Roleplaying Game
by Sirko R. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/10/2014 17:16:31

Spark completely fulfilled it's premise to me. It's a neat beautiful product for cooperative storytelling in form of a very simple pen and paper role-playing game. It's written plain, simple, short but with short examples very easy to understand, and three settings to go that also engross the understanding of how it works and reveals the most fun and entertainment.

The great thing about it for me is, that it's a very good, quick yet helpful guide to boil the usual questions to all players what they want to play and experience down to a smooth story-weaving altogether with everyone participating. This way you can play any scenario you like with it, as long as you bring some spark of creativity. This game makes it really easy and fluid to create worlds, characters and most interesting stories with each other.

For the three offered settings it's all quite non-standard. I found the Japanese future colony setting the most compelling.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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A Spark in Fate Core
by James H. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/22/2013 13:01:19

I enjoyed this little book a lot. I haven't had a chance to use it at the table yet, but I really liked what I saw, and I think my players will too. Not only will it help with our game concept I think it's a great way to get players involved i n the design process, and I can easily see myself using it even for my non Fate games.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
A Spark in Fate Core
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A Spark in Fate Core
by Bryce C. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/06/2013 20:09:28

I picked this up because I did have a copy of Spark, and of Fate Core, so I was intrigued to see how the two books meshed. The result was pretty impressive, as I love the idea of allowing the Players to invest themselves in the setting creation, and this product allows for just that. Not only does it give the Players investment, it allows the GM an opportunity to see just what kinds of stories appeal to each player, while allowing the other players a perspective as well, so that when the actual setting is complete, everybody understands what it is that the players desire to experience, and they can create characters that will fully inhabit the setting.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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