Hercules & Xena Roleplaying Game

Published by West End Games
Hero's Guide: $18.00
Boxed Set: $30.00

The Hercules & Xena Roleplaying Game is a good starter game for beginning roleplayers. Now, before all of you experienced gamers click back to the table of contents for something more interesting to read, let me explain why I think this game is important to the future of roleplaying.

I knew of the existence of RPGs long before I started playing them. However, every time I picked up a rulebook to learn how to play, I got lost in the labyrinth of rules and gave up in frustration. There aren't many people who, having never played an RPG, will walk into a gaming store, pick up a game, learn it, and get their friends to play it with them. Most people start like I did -- learning from a group of more experienced roleplayers. That's because there aren't many games out there that are beginner-friendly, either in their explanations or their rule systems. In a related issue, there are also not enough games with a name that's familiar to non-gamers, a name which will draw them into a game store, or persuade them to put down their cappuccino and try out the RPG section in Barnes & Noble.

Why should there be more of such games? Because the roleplaying game industry is going through hard times. West End Games, the publisher of the Hercules & Xena Roleplaying Game, have declared bankruptcy, and their difficulties are not singular among game publishers. Without new people, the . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: October 23, 1998

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