I think this game is a lot of fun and I am so glad to find a new two person game to play. I think it's really great the authors took time to discuss the realities of the police in our world and what we need to take into consideration when we play games involving the police.

The game is okay from a mechanic perspective. I would have given it three stars.

However, the author inserting his biased uncredentialed political agenda in the appendix deserved a demerit. And, I have seen research that refutes your paintbrush agenda, at least in reference to the country I live in. I will never share this game with anyone else.

You got my money by hiding your offensive opinion agenda (which I consider a lack of full disclosure), but I will never pass it on or encourage others to look at it.

I backed the Kickstarter. I tried to love this game. I really did. But I just can't.

Playing: The system does not support the setting. The Fugue system is built for games where the characters don't know who they are, and learn about themselves through the stories of others. Applying it to angels, who have established personalities, leads to memories that don't make sense for the way the character is being played. Some people might enjoy this, but it does not work for me.

GMing (spoilers by implication): There's an entire chapter of this book devoted to alternate cosmologies before they actually tell you what the "official" cosmology is. Now, when I first read this book, preparing to run it, I described the cosmology as "buck wild," and it seemed fun. It doesn't in any way match up with one single detail of what the players have read, but I'm okay with some interesting secrets, even if they are basically just a blend of Nephilim and Rifts. But once I combined it with the published scenarios, it just felt dumb. Nothing the players do ultimately serves any purpose. They are ants in a tank, except that's not what I signed up for when I bought A Game of Angels. The meta-knowledge effectively destroys any enjoyment of the actual playable portion of the setting. Maybe I could see a campaign that's all about discovering The Truth, but the system (as I have noted) is very ill-equipped for that.

Reading: This PDF does not have a table of contents. The book has one, but it's on page 30-something, so you'll want to make that your first highlight and build a bunch of bookmarks, but it's still going to be a hassle as you flip around. There's no index, either, so make your peace with that. It's an absolute mess for navigation.

I cannot recommend purchasing this product.

Relics : A Game of Angels is a game I adore. I'm a big fan of White Wolf games, an it's obvious that the structure, art and feel of Relics reminded me of games like "Demon : The Fallen" or "Mage : The Ascension".

The book present a narrative-driven system with a rich story fulls of compelling characters, hooks and ideas to play with. The Fugue system is engaging and helps players understand their characters as the story goes, taking away some of the stress certain may face during character creation. The book also offers the ability to completely role characters, which is really helpful for people who can't decide what they want to do, prefer to have a random character or as an easy NPC builder.

The openess of the powers, known as "miracles" you can have is really inspiring and offers a wide range of effects. The descriptions of the different groups and philosophies help shape complex and compeling characters that only evolves as more memories are formes. Using Tarot as an alternative to dice certainly add an element of mystique, but you also can use D6 dices or a classic deck of card if you need or prefer to do so. The way success levels and checks are done help create a strong and active story. The appendix is also filled with historical figures and events that are helpful in creating stories.

One of my only downsides is that the PDF doesn't contain an Index or a bookmark system, making looking for specific information a little tedious.

I highly recommend this game, especially if you like history and supernatural modern stories. The players I have started a game with were excited about the concepts and had a lot of ideas. It also helped newer players feeling more at ease as it encourages cooperation in the creation of the stories so everyone can suggest ideas, with the storyteller as director.

Thank you for a great game and I can't wait for your Tarot and Physical release!

Relic is a highly narrative game about angels that have fallen to Earth and are in a struggle to cope with the Gates of Heaven being closed to them as well as how to deal with the fact that the War that caused them to leave heaven hasn’t really kicked off, but the arms races for Relics, sources of angelic power, has started. Another axis the players will have to navigate is the fact that not all angels care about the conflict anymore, once the Gates of Heaven closed, they just lost interest because the cost of their defiance was too high. The setting is quite interesting as it blends a style of mystery and tomb raiding style gameplay with the possibilities of action as intrigue.

The systems for Relic is a derivative of the Fugue system, which is an interesting choice. The Fugue system is powered by drawing from a Tarot deck with different effects taking placed based on what type of Draw that is being made as well as what is drawn. This is appealing in many ways as it provides a break from the more common rolling of dice to determine outcomes. The game does provide guidance for using either a standard set of playing cards as well as just a pair of D6’s, but these are not the intended engine for the game. Another major feature of the game is that fact that while you are playing an angel that has likely been around for countless years, this burden is lessened by having the characters “learn” their past through relevant memories and flashbacks, much like a TV show. This could be a huge positive for some players who like to discover their characters rather than plot out their characters. Over all the system is very intriguing, but very much requires getting used to as it will not be to everyone’s taste.

The art in the game is a simple black and white style, leaning very much into the art style of early World of Darkness games like Vampire and Werewolf 1st edition. This choice works well with the game as it also adopts a rather bleak world where the protagonists are in an uphill struggle with demons and everything else out there that seeks the powers of gods. I’m a huge fan of this style wherever it can fit because it is evocative for me personally. However there are sections where I feel this goes overboard, most notably at the beginning of chapters there is a section of narrative fiction, which is well done I might add, but it is usually white font on a heavy column of black which was a little difficult for me to read on a tablet. Overall, I liked the art of the game, and I thought it did a good job of matching the tone and atmosphere that the supporting text was attempting to portray.

In conclusion, I like the ideas and direction of this game. The setting that it is laying out is intriguing and the system has figured out a way to work around the biggest hurdle of being an “immortal” being that has lived well beyond human reckoning. However, I feel, and even a section in the books agrees, that this game requires a certain style of gaming that isn’t for everyone. I give the game a 4 out of 5 because I believe the game has a lot to say and the design is solid, but it will require a certain group with a certain mindset to reach its full potential.

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of the pdf for free to review.

Relics takes a fresh approach to the genre with an amazing system and setting. I absolutely adore the tarot based conflict resolution system as it communicates so much information with every draw. The game character creation is fun and it is a game anyone can jump into. I cannot stress how much I adore this game and I'm sure you will too once you grab a copy.

Charming, fun, fast, and delightful. Setup and play is wonderfully quick, easy to teach, and kids love it. It's played in real-time, madly scrabbling for facedown cards in the centre, trying to best the other baby dragons in getting to the good Hoard cards, or surprising them with Roars so you can take their Gold. The artwork is endearing, the play madcap, and the purchase solid.