The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Before I begin I just wanted to say this is my first review so any feedback would be appreciated.

Nexus: The Infinite City

Nexus the Infinite City is a game set in a city that has no boundaries. This city is composed of portions of cities from an infinite number of realities. Travel between the various realities is usually as simple as walking through a thing called an interface. The interface "translates" the person so that they can survive in the alrentate natural laws of the new reality. Some realities are practically bleeding with magic, others have none at all. Magic users may suddenly find themselves powerless by taking a wrong turn. The same holds true with technology. Taking a piece of technology into a reality when its too advanced will usually just cause it to not function. This is one of the things I like about this game. It allows for damn near any character concept or storyline, but it doesn't usually get out of hand. A GM could run a game of Nexus and have a science fiction thriller one session, a fantasy dungeon crawl the next, and almost anything else imaginable. While some of the flavor that makes each setting unique in its own way, it doesn't have to be a lot. This is a good game for players and GM's who want to use the same characters in otherwise contradictory settings week after week.

The first chapter is more of a summary of things to come than anything else but I think believe its essential none the less. It starts off by explaining what Nexus is and how one gets around the thing. After than it sums up some of the major power blocks in the city, a brief history, how religion is viewed, and a quick run down of Angel City. Angel City is the L.A. from an alternate reality that became completely cut off from its home reality in 1993 when it "came into phase" with Nexus. Angel City is one of the more important places in Nexus. I'll go into more detail later on. The chapter lays down an outline for the format of the rest of the book.

Character creation comes next. One might be better off skipping mostof this chapter until they read the rules in the following chapter. Placement in the book aside, the character creation system does a fair job of delivering on the flexibility of the setting. Every player has 3 broad attributes: body, mind, and reflexes. These are further broken down into sub-attributes. 10 is the human max and all of them start of at 5. Thats all the character gets for free. Every character has so many Character Points (CP). The default is 100 CP starting. You have to use them to buy skills, merits, raise attributes, or get some kind of supernatural ability. I do especially like the way the handle skills. The have three seperate kinds of skills: trivial, specific, and package. Trivial cost 1/2 a CP to raise a level, specific cost 1 CP, and package costs 2 CP. It warns that moderation should be used at this point because theoretically a starting character could have such an obscenely high skill level that it could mess things up badly. It places a limit of 5 for ordinary human characters. The chapter also has a fairly complete list of flaws that can give you more CP starting. They even have a list of archetypes to help those new to the system get what they have in mind. Using this system, you can have a starting cyborg, an AD&D type mage, or a vampire. It blends in nicely with what I think the designers were going for. Just read through it a couple of times. There a lot of info to soak up.

The third chapter is all about mechanics. It starts off in the right direction by defining the various terms they use throughout the chapter. It is the driest chapter in my opinion, but I'm not that big on rules anyway. The basic methods for figuring out an action is fairly simple. For any given task a character has an Action Value (AV). The AV is the sum of the attribute and the skill level. The difficulty of the action is subtracted from the AV. Difficulty can range from -5 to 25. 2d6 is then rolled. I d6 is positive, the other negative. The difference is then either added to or taken from the remaining AV. Any 6's rolled on either dice counts as 6 and get a re-roll for more points. This goes on until a 6 isn't rolled. The higher the final number the better you did.

It looks something like this: AV - difficulty +/- 2d6 roll = how well you did

Getting a 15 or more means you did the absolute best that was possible in the situation. A -15 or worse isn't any fun at all. After the basics are covered the chapter goes into some optional rules, combat, healing times, and vehicular combat. Depending upon the level of detail you want in your game, you can keep what I explained, or use the extra stuff in the chapter. On the plus side, they did design the chapter so there was little question between what was the core mechanics and what was extra.

Next came the magic section. The powers are treated a lot like skills except they cost a lot more CP to buy in level and they aren't paired with an attribute. Task resolution is handled the same as normal minus the 2d6 roll. The reasoning behind this is that magic tends to be pretty straight forward in its effects. Random chance really doesn't come up in using supernatural powers. You are either good enough to pull something off, or you're not. The writers tried to explain how to go about creating your own magical spells or powers, but ultimately I was left confused as to how to do it. To their credit they did give a nice list of possible powers in the end of the chapter to serve as examples. By the end of it, I can convert spells from other systems but I still don't quite understand how to build them form scratch. It may just be a lack of imagination on my part though.

Nexus got exceptionally good starting at Chapter 5: The Realities of Nexus and only got better on through Chapter 6: Who's Who in Nexus. Chapter 5 started off with a reminder of what was said in the beginning of the book. It then goes into more detail on how an interface "translates" the person and sometimes his equipment. From there it breaks down the natural laws of realities into Magic and Tech categories going from None to High. Then a few of the odder ways that two realities sometimes interact. Now comes the good part: an overview of over 20 realities. Most of them are only a few paragraphs, some a couple of pages, but nearly everyone gave me at least 1 or 2 ideas I wouldn't mind trying out later one. After that it lists a couple of places of interest in the various realities, and ends the chapter on a very good note with an overview of the media of Nexus. Chapter 6 gave a run down of the more prominent races in Nexus. It also listed some really rare ones that are still deserving to be there. I liked this section despite that some of them were a little cliche. Still it couldn't have been much better than it was. After laying the ground work with the races in general they got down to the business of the place. Some of the organizations they described are really caring and compassionate, but relatively weak. Others were centuries old, highly corrupt powerhouses. The completely contradictory natures of some of them lended well to the atmosphere the game tries to give off. The supernatural residents of Nexus was also an enjoyable read. Ranging from a vampire god, to an immortal, to the things named the Qwar that have the the powers rivaled only by that of really powerful gods (did I mention these guys are really, really, really evil?). The chapter closes up with a quick look at some of the religions of Nexus. Most tend to be a blend of several different faiths, some human some alien, but my favorite part of this section was the way most Nexans deal with religion: they pretty much shop for it. A lot of the gods go out on advertising campaigns tryng to recruit followers by offering special benefits and offers. I'm not making this up. One god even has a talk show.

The weapons and equipment chapter lists a lot of stuff to work with. In it they list various kinds of armor at different tech levels, weapons from the club to a military disruptor, different kinds of magical enhancements, and Mr. Boom (a bomb with an AI that only blows itself up when it wants to). The chapter does a good job giving examples of what exactly is availible in Nexus. The list has plenty to work with for beginning players with planety of things to help create new things later on. The Game Moderator's Section is next in line. It gives some sound advice for starting a Nexus chronicle and how to handle player's new to it all. It even includes 2 short sample adventures to work with. A nice touch.

Something some may find extremely useful is Appendix A. It lists rules conversion to 10 other role-playing systems and a quick tip or two on how to integrate Nexus into them, or vice-versa. They are Call of Cthulu, CORPS, CyberPunk 2020, GURPS, Hero, Murphy's World, Over the Edge, the Storyteller system for the World of Darkness, Talislanta, Torp, and Underground. After that the designer's took the liberty of putting together a 1 page Player Reference. It not much, but it'll tell any new player to the game enough to have some clue as to whats going on.

The art of the book is good but not the greatest. Still they did place the art in almost all the right places to convey illustrate each section and while it could have been better, this book more than made up for it. Throughout the book they also have small pieces of fiction or newspaper articles that give the book a little extra boost. Sadly, Daedalus Games went out of business, in 1998 I believe. So the book isn't in print anymore. There are a few copies floating around though. If you're looking for a game where anything can go, this game might be for you.

And on a final note, the book has an index which is always a good thing.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Nexus the Infinite City
Author: Jose Garcia, Robin D. Laws, Bruce Baugh, Ian Brennan, Rob Heinsoo, Doug Hulick, Steve Kies, Timothy Toner Category: game Company/Publisher: Daedalus Games Line: Nexus the Infinite City Cost: Around $20 Page count: 208 Capsule Review by Ben O'Quinn on 12/10/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Science_fiction Modern_day Historical Horror Far_Future Space Comedy Anime Espionage Conspiracy Post-apocalypse Old_West Vampire Gothic Asian/Far_East Superhero	Before I begin I just wanted to say this is my first review so any feedback would be appreciated. Nexus: The Infinite City Nexus the Infinite City is a game set in a city that has no boundaries. This city is composed of portions of cities from an infinite number of realities. Travel between the various realities is usually as simple as walking through a thing called an interface. The interface "translates" the person so that they can survive in the alrentate natural laws of the new reality. Some realities are practically bleeding with magic, others have none at all. Magic users may suddenly find themselves powerless by taking a wrong turn. The same holds true with technology. Taking a piece of technology into a reality when its too advanced will usually just cause it to not function. This is one of the things I like about this game. It allows for damn near any character concept or storyline, but it doesn't usually get out of hand. A GM could run a game of Nexus and have a science fiction thriller one session, a fantasy dungeon crawl the next, and almost anything else imaginable. While some of the flavor that makes each setting unique in its own way, it doesn't have to be a lot. This is a good game for players and GM's who want to use the same characters in otherwise contradictory settings week after week. The first chapter is more of a summary of things to come than anything else but I think believe its essential none the less. It starts off by explaining what Nexus is and how one gets around the thing. After than it sums up some of the major power blocks in the city, a brief history, how religion is viewed, and a quick run down of Angel City. Angel City is the L.A. from an alternate reality that became completely cut off from its home reality in 1993 when it "came into phase" with Nexus. Angel City is one of the more important places in Nexus. I'll go into more detail later on. The chapter lays down an outline for the format of the rest of the book. Character creation comes next. One might be better off skipping mostof this chapter until they read the rules in the following chapter. Placement in the book aside, the character creation system does a fair job of delivering on the flexibility of the setting. Every player has 3 broad attributes: body, mind, and reflexes. These are further broken down into sub-attributes. 10 is the human max and all of them start of at 5. Thats all the character gets for free. Every character has so many Character Points (CP). The default is 100 CP starting. You have to use them to buy skills, merits, raise attributes, or get some kind of supernatural ability. I do especially like the way the handle skills. The have three seperate kinds of skills: trivial, specific, and package. Trivial cost 1/2 a CP to raise a level, specific cost 1 CP, and package costs 2 CP. It warns that moderation should be used at this point because theoretically a starting character could have such an obscenely high skill level that it could mess things up badly. It places a limit of 5 for ordinary human characters. The chapter also has a fairly complete list of flaws that can give you more CP starting. They even have a list of archetypes to help those new to the system get what they have in mind. Using this system, you can have a starting cyborg, an AD&D type mage, or a vampire. It blends in nicely with what I think the designers were going for. Just read through it a couple of times. There a lot of info to soak up. The third chapter is all about mechanics. It starts off in the right direction by defining the various terms they use throughout the chapter. It is the driest chapter in my opinion, but I'm not that big on rules anyway. The basic methods for figuring out an action is fairly simple. For any given task a character has an Action Value (AV). The AV is the sum of the attribute and the skill level. The difficulty of the action is subtracted from the AV. Difficulty can range from -5 to 25. 2d6 is then rolled. I d6 is positive, the other negative. The difference is then either added to or taken from the remaining AV. Any 6's rolled on either dice counts as 6 and get a re-roll for more points. This goes on until a 6 isn't rolled. The higher the final number the better you did. It looks something like this: AV - difficulty +/- 2d6 roll = how well you did Getting a 15 or more means you did the absolute best that was possible in the situation. A -15 or worse isn't any fun at all. After the basics are covered the chapter goes into some optional rules, combat, healing times, and vehicular combat. Depending upon the level of detail you want in your game, you can keep what I explained, or use the extra stuff in the chapter. On the plus side, they did design the chapter so there was little question between what was the core mechanics and what was extra. Next came the magic section. The powers are treated a lot like skills except they cost a lot more CP to buy in level and they aren't paired with an attribute. Task resolution is handled the same as normal minus the 2d6 roll. The reasoning behind this is that magic tends to be pretty straight forward in its effects. Random chance really doesn't come up in using supernatural powers. You are either good enough to pull something off, or you're not. The writers tried to explain how to go about creating your own magical spells or powers, but ultimately I was left confused as to how to do it. To their credit they did give a nice list of possible powers in the end of the chapter to serve as examples. By the end of it, I can convert spells from other systems but I still don't quite understand how to build them form scratch. It may just be a lack of imagination on my part though. Nexus got exceptionally good starting at Chapter 5: The Realities of Nexus and only got better on through Chapter 6: Who's Who in Nexus. Chapter 5 started off with a reminder of what was said in the beginning of the book. It then goes into more detail on how an interface "translates" the person and sometimes his equipment. From there it breaks down the natural laws of realities into Magic and Tech categories going from None to High. Then a few of the odder ways that two realities sometimes interact. Now comes the good part: an overview of over 20 realities. Most of them are only a few paragraphs, some a couple of pages, but nearly everyone gave me at least 1 or 2 ideas I wouldn't mind trying out later one. After that it lists a couple of places of interest in the various realities, and ends the chapter on a very good note with an overview of the media of Nexus. Chapter 6 gave a run down of the more prominent races in Nexus. It also listed some really rare ones that are still deserving to be there. I liked this section despite that some of them were a little cliche. Still it couldn't have been much better than it was. After laying the ground work with the races in general they got down to the business of the place. Some of the organizations they described are really caring and compassionate, but relatively weak. Others were centuries old, highly corrupt powerhouses. The completely contradictory natures of some of them lended well to the atmosphere the game tries to give off. The supernatural residents of Nexus was also an enjoyable read. Ranging from a vampire god, to an immortal, to the things named the Qwar that have the the powers rivaled only by that of really powerful gods (did I mention these guys are really, really, really evil?). The chapter closes up with a quick look at some of the religions of Nexus. Most tend to be a blend of several different faiths, some human some alien, but my favorite part of this section was the way most Nexans deal with religion: they pretty much shop for it. A lot of the gods go out on advertising campaigns tryng to recruit followers by offering special benefits and offers. I'm not making this up. One god even has a talk show. The weapons and equipment chapter lists a lot of stuff to work with. In it they list various kinds of armor at different tech levels, weapons from the club to a military disruptor, different kinds of magical enhancements, and Mr. Boom (a bomb with an AI that only blows itself up when it wants to). The chapter does a good job giving examples of what exactly is availible in Nexus. The list has plenty to work with for beginning players with planety of things to help create new things later on. The Game Moderator's Section is next in line. It gives some sound advice for starting a Nexus chronicle and how to handle player's new to it all. It even includes 2 short sample adventures to work with. A nice touch. Something some may find extremely useful is Appendix A. It lists rules conversion to 10 other role-playing systems and a quick tip or two on how to integrate Nexus into them, or vice-versa. They are Call of Cthulu, CORPS, CyberPunk 2020, GURPS, Hero, Murphy's World, Over the Edge, the Storyteller system for the World of Darkness, Talislanta, Torp, and Underground. After that the designer's took the liberty of putting together a 1 page Player Reference. It not much, but it'll tell any new player to the game enough to have some clue as to whats going on. The art of the book is good but not the greatest. Still they did place the art in almost all the right places to convey illustrate each section and while it could have been better, this book more than made up for it. Throughout the book they also have small pieces of fiction or newspaper articles that give the book a little extra boost. Sadly, Daedalus Games went out of business, in 1998 I believe. So the book isn't in print anymore. There are a few copies floating around though. If you're looking for a game where anything can go, this game might be for you. And on a final note, the book has an index which is always a good thing. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)