A quick look at the Amazing Engine...

I seem to have a knack of collecting non-digital games few people have heard of (or try to forget). This has brought me many gems and, so far, only one real flop.

My most recent acquisition is the Amazing Engine by David "Zeb" Cook and the Universe Book for the game called "For Faerie, Queen, and Country" published by TSR from '93 to '94. What drew me to it was the Universe Book. "For Faerie, Queen, and Country"? Seriously? AWESOME!

The system itself assumes that you will be jumping in between the different universes. Each player has a base set of stats. They carry this set to each universe and make changes from the minor stats depending on each character. This is interesting, but I am still iffy on this aspect of the game. Another thing I am still iffy on is that the formulas for creating the Health and Stamina stats change from universe to universe and are only printed in their respected Universe Book.

What I loved, however, was the way the Magic in "For Faerie, Queen, and Country" worked. Each spell is structured uniquely like a sentence. You name the Caster (which is most likely yourself unless you are creating a magic item) then the Action, the Target, the Effect, and any Conditions and/or Taboos. As an example: "I transform you into a pig until you drink from a cup of wine on the night of a full moon." Everything adds together to create the difficulty level of the spell.