There are a lot of places Item and Creature Creation falls apart in the ADRPG, but there are a few key points that always stand out to me.

1. Intelligence vs. the ability to speak
These two things are not the same. Intelligent people can not speak. Animals can be exceptionally intelligent without speech. And yet the DRPG expects one to accept that the two items are irrevocably linked by creating only one set of entries that reference ability to speak in the title and intelligence in the description.

In what world does that make sense?

2. Step-step-JUMP
The scale of ability is… strange. Take a look at any given power. It’s “grants”, “doubled”, and “ungodly”. Unless, of course, we’re talking about the ones for Powers, which seem wholly unconnected with each other. (See: Trump.)

3. No, I’m not creating an item…
Everything was written with creating items in mind. Not creatures – items. All of the creature stuff seems to be an afterthought, an attempt to shoehorn in a solution that was never really intended.

Why, for instance, would an animal need Mobility? Are we starting with a terminally paralyzed penguin or something?

Oh, or how about Animal Vitality? Isn’t that a bit redundant?

In some categories, it effectively punishes the owner of an animal for creating an animal instead of an item. How silly is that?

4. Exceptions are the majority, if not the rule
Let’s play a game.

Turn to page 145 in the ADRPG.

Count the number of characters with items/creatures that accurately follow the Item and Creature Creation section of the book. Not versions of characters – just count the characters.

I found:

Correct:
Caine
Deirdre
Fiona
Flora
Julian 		Exceptions:
Benedict
Bleys
Corwin
Eric
Gerard
Osric
Finndo 		No items:
Oberon
Brand
Llewella
Random
Dworkin
Dara
Martin
Merlin

And this is only looking at the ADRPG, and only at items and creatures. The powers and Shadow Knight are whole other ball-games worth of egregious and willful ignorance of the system-as-written.

5. Mortality
Creatures are mortal. Humans are mortal. How do you create one that isn’t?

It’s not under Vitality. That seems to be strength and endurance combined. It’s not under healing – that’s just healing! Unless we’re going with the theory that immortality is conferred on everyone the same way it’s been conferred on Wolverine: regeneration. Except didn’t that come up well after the DRPG was written?

6. In comparison…
There is no apples to apples comparison here. Suppose you, like The Doctor, have a Companion you’ve paid for, and suppose this Companion does something silly like goes up against your cousin. How does a GM measure that competition? Do they just fiat it on the basis of “this person is just a mortal being and can get their ass whipped by an Amberite any day of the week?”

What happens if you bought the Companion Amberite levels of Warfare and the Amberite they go up against didn’t spend any points in Warfare? They’re theoretically at the same level, right? So can the Companion win? Or does the Companion count as a half-step behind the Amberite?

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