The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Armageddon isn't really a bad game, but its a bad book.

The premise is in the near future (2016) where an alien being has converted a significant portion of the world's population and is now looking at conquering the United States. Opposing this being are the United States military, angels from earth and heaven, pagan gods, immortals, magically and psionically able humans, and even demons from hell. Its an interesting mix, and the conflict allows for a lot of adventure and campaign ideas. Anywhere from an apocolyptic In Nomine, a current-day power-gamer Rifts, or a supernatural Twilight 2000 flavor can be found inside.

There are rules inside for creating any of the above types of characters and more. While it allows for a diverse campaign, it suffers from the same problem I have with Rifts: many characters are inheritly superior to others. Unless your players are willing to or desire playing characters that just are not as capable as others, there will be some "bunching up" on a few of the character types. Also, the magic, psionic, and angelic powers systems are rather bland and generic. I would assume they are/were planned on being elaborated on in sourcebooks.

The actual rule system is weak. Its base system boils down to: 1d10 plus skill plus attribute, modified by difficulty. If the result is 9 or above, the attempt succeeds. Its straightforward enough, but its been done essentially the same before (in Ral Talorsian's Interlock system, for example). One wonders why you have to subtract or add the difficulty from your roll and then see if its higher than 9, instead of simply having a target number to beat. The only reason I can think of is that then its similarities to other system is masked slightly. Another problem I have with the system is its options for diceless and playing card systems. When they mean diceless its really just automatically rolling the average of what the dice roll would be - instead of rolling 1d8 times 6 for a hunting rifle damage points, you simply assume the roll is 4 and thus the damage is 24. The card system is even more of a sham: you draw a card from a regular playing card deck and interept the card number as the "roll", with face card being counted as five. While they are just options, they're unimaginative to the point of unneccessary.

The layout of the book is the poorest part of Armageddon. Before any complaints, though, I must say that it has excellent artwork and the writing atyle is easily digested. However, there are many editing errors that make it frustrating to read. A majority of the page references were not filled in (it frequently tells the reader "see pg. 00"). Tables and charts are occasionally divided amongst two pages, making them annoying to follow. There is no index, which coupled with a relatively small table of contents makes looking up specific rules a tedious task. Finally, character creation (which includes system specifics) is layed out before any mention of how the system is run. It seems that it would be hard to follow making a character for a new player without knowing what values mean what.

Overall, a good conflict is presented with many possbilities for role playing. Unfortunately, a lot of work will have to be done on the system and presentation before Armageddon is a top-notch product. With a new printing of the book being done by Eden Studios (makers of the incredible Conspiracy X RPG) hopefully these concerns will be addressed. I'm curious to see what their influence can do on this *potentially* good game.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Armageddon
Author: C.J. Carella Category: game Company/Publisher: Myrmidon Press Cost: 25.00$ Page count: 254 ISBN: 0-9639550-5-5 Capsule Review by Alex Knapik on 11/29/98. Genre tags: Modern_day Horror Post-apocalypse	Armageddon isn't really a bad game, but its a bad book. The premise is in the near future (2016) where an alien being has converted a significant portion of the world's population and is now looking at conquering the United States. Opposing this being are the United States military, angels from earth and heaven, pagan gods, immortals, magically and psionically able humans, and even demons from hell. Its an interesting mix, and the conflict allows for a lot of adventure and campaign ideas. Anywhere from an apocolyptic In Nomine, a current-day power-gamer Rifts, or a supernatural Twilight 2000 flavor can be found inside. There are rules inside for creating any of the above types of characters and more. While it allows for a diverse campaign, it suffers from the same problem I have with Rifts: many characters are inheritly superior to others. Unless your players are willing to or desire playing characters that just are not as capable as others, there will be some "bunching up" on a few of the character types. Also, the magic, psionic, and angelic powers systems are rather bland and generic. I would assume they are/were planned on being elaborated on in sourcebooks. The actual rule system is weak. Its base system boils down to: 1d10 plus skill plus attribute, modified by difficulty. If the result is 9 or above, the attempt succeeds. Its straightforward enough, but its been done essentially the same before (in Ral Talorsian's Interlock system, for example). One wonders why you have to subtract or add the difficulty from your roll and then see if its higher than 9, instead of simply having a target number to beat. The only reason I can think of is that then its similarities to other system is masked slightly. Another problem I have with the system is its options for diceless and playing card systems. When they mean diceless its really just automatically rolling the average of what the dice roll would be - instead of rolling 1d8 times 6 for a hunting rifle damage points, you simply assume the roll is 4 and thus the damage is 24. The card system is even more of a sham: you draw a card from a regular playing card deck and interept the card number as the "roll", with face card being counted as five. While they are just options, they're unimaginative to the point of unneccessary. The layout of the book is the poorest part of Armageddon. Before any complaints, though, I must say that it has excellent artwork and the writing atyle is easily digested. However, there are many editing errors that make it frustrating to read. A majority of the page references were not filled in (it frequently tells the reader "see pg. 00"). Tables and charts are occasionally divided amongst two pages, making them annoying to follow. There is no index, which coupled with a relatively small table of contents makes looking up specific rules a tedious task. Finally, character creation (which includes system specifics) is layed out before any mention of how the system is run. It seems that it would be hard to follow making a character for a new player without knowing what values mean what. Overall, a good conflict is presented with many possbilities for role playing. Unfortunately, a lot of work will have to be done on the system and presentation before Armageddon is a top-notch product. With a new printing of the book being done by Eden Studios (makers of the incredible Conspiracy X RPG) hopefully these concerns will be addressed. I'm curious to see what their influence can do on this potentially good game. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 3 (Average)