The Inside Scoop on Gaming

If you, like me, have been a regular reader of Gareth-Michael Skarka's game design column here at RPG.net, then you already know what this game's all about. Even if you haven't been following along at home, there's nothing stopping you going over and reading through the columns now, so I'm not going to give an extensive rundown on the game's genre, setting, race/class ("breed" and "guild," respectively, in UW-speak) system, mechanics, etc. In a nutshell, it's modern urban (or, more accurately, suburban in the etymologically pure sense of the word) fantasy, a la Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere or the late 80's American TV series Beauty and the Beast. I also checked the "live action" genre box because the game is explicitly built for play in either tabletop or LARP mode, and should function equally well in either. Other categories, such as conspiracy, horror, or goth might also apply, as the game is certainly broad enough to handle them, but they're not explicit to the game's premise and design, so I'll leave it up to inspired GMs (or "Conductors," as they're termed this time around) to make the necessary mods.

So on with the review.
First, the bad stuff. Be warned: the amount of detail I'm going into here is out of scale with the seriousness of the problems discussed. They detract, to be sure, but do not ruin. So what do you get for your twenty bucks? Physically, just what you'd expect; certainly no more, possibly a bit less. Since we're talking an entirely different economy of scale than, say, DnD3E, $19.95 means paperback, not hardback. It also means the only color in the product is on the cover (which, while certainly an evocative piece of artwork is also so dark--done almost exclusively in murky tones of brown, black, and sepia--as to make the term "color" almost a misnomer); all interior art is black-and-white. For some folks, this might be an issue; me, I don't really mind one way or the other. The quality of the interior art itself ranges pretty widely--some of it (e.g., the full-page piece on p. 136, or virtually all the nicely-PhotoShopped photographic images) is suitably eerie and unsettling; some of it is very cartoony and even downright amateurish (e.g. p. 16 for the former or p. 67 for the latter). Of the artists whose signatures I can actually descry on their work in the book, Frank Fallon is worth keeping around for future products; Delmar Samatar, perhaps not so much.

The book's layout is also somewhat uneven--the "tagger" typeface used for chapter headers is just a wee too stylized for easy reading; likewise the font sizes and line spacing used in the body text shift around just a wee bit too much (and a wee bit too randomly). In a couple of places (e.g. p. 131) the text-wrapping around artwork or table/sidebar boxes also just doesn't quite work. There's even a place (in the "Bravos" guild description, p. 37) where the text doesn't wrap, resulting in a sidebar covering big chunks of a couple of lines. For me, though, the biggest problem is the editing. UnderWorld desperately needs a new pair of eyes to go over it, preferably before a second printing and certainly before any sort of second edition. Typos abound, as do mistaken homonyms (the "it's/its" thing, a particular bugaboo of mine, shows up in spades throughout) and even missing "-d"/"-ed" endings on verbs that are quite clearly intended to be in the past tense. That this thing wasn't better proofed before publication is both nigh-inexplicable and nigh-unexcusable. I'm willing (not happy, but willing) to overlook writing errors, though, so long as the basic concept the writer intends to convey comes through clearly. Which, unfortunately, means that there's one error in the book, one editing gaffe, that I can't excuse:

So, how can your Characters be rewarded?
There are two methods: Hero Tokens and Bestowed Ability.
(pp. 129-30)

Following this is a description of Hero Tokens--what they are, what they do, how they're awarded. But nowhere else in the book can I find any further mention of Bestowed Ability. Either the text never got written (which I doubt), or it got cut- but not -and-pasted. This game is pretty rules-light, which makes the omission/excision/disappearance of any rule, let alone one as important as how to reward one's players, so egregious.One last gripe: no index. The TOC is pretty good, but to my way of thinking, nothing beats a (well-constructed! gotta be well-constructed!) index.End of bad stuff.

This is a brand-new game, coming from a brand-new game company, so I'm more than willing to excuse such hiccups in the physical quality of the product--especially when considering the intellectual quality of the game. In a word--wow. I'm one of those gamers who buys, if not a lot of gaming product, then certainly far more then I can ever hope to play (UW is definitely at the top of my "must be played at all costs!" pile now). Every now and then I see a title, read some advance hype, and get all excited. The last game I can think of that did this for me was R. Sean Borgstrom's Nobilis. UnderWorld blows that one out of the water. Where Nobilis is sublime, and is definitely a high-watermark for the RPG industry, it's also (IMO) pretty close to unplayable. (Before you jump all over my case and say " hey, I play Nobilis regularly, and we do just fine, thank you!" I concede that there are certainly plenty of gamers out there who could pull it off--more power to them. I certainly don't rate my own abilities as a GM highly enough to think that I could do that game justice, and I even have doubts about my abilities as a player.) But where Nobilis is both incredibly rich and incredibly baroque, UW easily equals it in richness of setting--but brings to that setting an almost Zen-like simplicity in its mechanics and rules structure. (Again, I'm not going to go into a big dissection of the mechanics here; go read Gareth's column on the Head Count). Perhaps a better comparison (and that I consider this comparison a good one reveals something of my tastes and biases as a gamer; YMMV) than Nobilis would be Jonathan Tweet's Everway. As in that game, UW characters are heroes in the grand, mythic, Campbellian sense of the word. As such, they're pretty static in terms of ongoing development (from a games-mechanical standpoint, that is--although there's a race and class system, there's no XP system and certainly no mechanic for "leveling up"). Again, for some gamers this may be a big flaw (*cough* munchkin *cough* powergamer ;) ); for me, it's simply As It Should Be. Characters develop by accumulating history, not widgets. Hey, if it's good enough for Heracles... Here's another quote, to help underscore the difference in the whole...weltanschauung of this game as compared to anything else on the market:

What you hold in your hands is not a game, despite what you may have read on the cover. To call it a game is a misnomer. It is not truly a roleplaying game, although it can be used as such. It is not truly a Live Action game, although it can also be used in that fashion.
UnderWorld is best described as a framework.
It is a framework for you to create your own games; your own stories. It would be folly for any writer or publisher to attempt to second-guess the creativity of every gamer who picks up a product like this. So, we will not try.
(p. 14)

There you have it. This is a game intended to inspire and foster creativity. To spark the imagination, and provide fuel for its flames. To instill in its players an appropriate sense of wonder, then step into the background and allow them to fulfill its promise as they will. (Me, I'm already cogitating ways to relocate UW to the San Francisco Bay area, as I have greater familiarity with that locale than with NYC, which I've never visited... (If you're reading this, GMS, I'm quite serious--to the point of perhaps discussing a supplement license and that whole ball of industry wax).)

Okay, enough of the poetic crap. All the above aside, UW also includes some of the best damn advice, and one of the best damn tools, for GMs that I've seen in ages. First, the advice, which comes in the form of an extended discussion of what the author terms Intuitive Continuity. I won't be at all surprised to see this become an industry-standard catchphrase. The basic idea here is that, if players can get away with improvisation in their acting-out of their characters, then so can the GM (excuse me, Conductor). Anybody who's ever run a game for any period knows that sometimes the best stories arise from stuff that starts out completely off-the-cuff, invented on the fly to accomodate players who do the unexpected. Here we have that fundamental fact of gaming not just acknowledged, but lauded and--more to the point--encouraged. It's less than two full pages of text, but if you're a GM, this alone is just about worth the price of admission. Add to this the tool I mentioned, and the book is an incredible steal. What is the tool? The author calls it the "Random Adventure Seed Generator" and the name is apt. It's pretty utilitarian--a set of tables that you consult to fill out the sentence "The main characters must [DO] [SOMETHING] at [LOCATION], but have to contend with [COMPLICATIONS] while being confronted by [OPPOSITION]." Flip some coins, and voila--you have an adventure seed all ready to be stocked with NPCs, and you're ready to rock and roll. Heck, forego the randomizer if you like and just pull out some terms that catch your eye--try this example on for size and see if it wouldn't make for a cool adventure: "The main characters must rally against a prophet at Yankee Stadium, but have to contend with lost equipment while being confronted by the Devil." Even if you never play this game, excising this mechanic and coming up with substitutes for the tables applicable to your gameworld/campaign would be both child's play and a boon beyond measure. And if you do play this game, the author rounds out the book with an extensive "inspirography," (his word, not mine; repeat it to yourself a few times and you'll find that it grows on you) listing tons of books, movies, and other sources that fed his fevered brain as he wrote the game--and which can likewise serve the enterprising Conductor as a resource to be strip-mined for campaign ideas.

Okay, short summation time (I know, I know, waaaaay too late for that): the game is great. It's hip, it's with, it's now; it's what all the kids are clamoring for. All that and the proverbial packet of crisps. Do whatcha gotta do to get yourself a copy--if your local gameshop is with-it enough that this game actually appears on their shelves, grab it and get all your friends to do likewise; otherwise, find it online somehwere, or as a last resort, contact SCS about direct orders (and while you're at it, sign up for the UnderWorld Conductor's Society). You'll thank me later. Finally, there's one other thing I'd like to note: if, like me, you've been reading GMS's column here at RPG.net, and if, like me, you took the time to offer some feedback (whether via direct mail or on the column's discussion board), take a look at the Acknowledgements page when you get your copy. I was completely blown away when I finally cracked it open on the plane ride back from GenCon--after I'd met the author and harangued him into autographing it for me (and swagging me a UW t-shirt, to boot--I have no shame :)) and saw my own name there, eighth from the top of the list in the right-hand column. Say what you like about GMS, but the man has class. And after reading UnderWorld I'll also gladly argue the point with all comers that he's got genius as well.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Underworld
Author: Gareth-Michael Skarka Category: game Company/Publisher: Synister Creative Systems Line: UnderWorld Cost: $19.95 Page count: 164 ISBN: 0-9700821-7-7 SKU: SCSUW-V10 Capsule Review by Chris Womack on 08/16/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Modern day Live-action	If you, like me, have been a regular reader of Gareth-Michael Skarka's game design column here at RPG.net, then you already know what this game's all about. Even if you haven't been following along at home, there's nothing stopping you going over and reading through the columns now, so I'm not going to give an extensive rundown on the game's genre, setting, race/class ("breed" and "guild," respectively, in UW-speak) system, mechanics, etc. In a nutshell, it's modern urban (or, more accurately, suburban in the etymologically pure sense of the word) fantasy, a la Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere or the late 80's American TV series Beauty and the Beast. I also checked the "live action" genre box because the game is explicitly built for play in either tabletop or LARP mode, and should function equally well in either. Other categories, such as conspiracy, horror, or goth might also apply, as the game is certainly broad enough to handle them, but they're not explicit to the game's premise and design, so I'll leave it up to inspired GMs (or "Conductors," as they're termed this time around) to make the necessary mods. So on with the review. First, the bad stuff. Be warned: the amount of detail I'm going into here is out of scale with the seriousness of the problems discussed. They detract, to be sure, but do not ruin. So what do you get for your twenty bucks? Physically, just what you'd expect; certainly no more, possibly a bit less. Since we're talking an entirely different economy of scale than, say, DnD3E, $19.95 means paperback, not hardback. It also means the only color in the product is on the cover (which, while certainly an evocative piece of artwork is also so dark--done almost exclusively in murky tones of brown, black, and sepia--as to make the term "color" almost a misnomer); all interior art is black-and-white. For some folks, this might be an issue; me, I don't really mind one way or the other. The quality of the interior art itself ranges pretty widely--some of it (e.g., the full-page piece on p. 136, or virtually all the nicely-PhotoShopped photographic images) is suitably eerie and unsettling; some of it is very cartoony and even downright amateurish (e.g. p. 16 for the former or p. 67 for the latter). Of the artists whose signatures I can actually descry on their work in the book, Frank Fallon is worth keeping around for future products; Delmar Samatar, perhaps not so much. The book's layout is also somewhat uneven--the "tagger" typeface used for chapter headers is just a wee too stylized for easy reading; likewise the font sizes and line spacing used in the body text shift around just a wee bit too much (and a wee bit too randomly). In a couple of places (e.g. p. 131) the text-wrapping around artwork or table/sidebar boxes also just doesn't quite work. There's even a place (in the "Bravos" guild description, p. 37) where the text doesn't wrap, resulting in a sidebar covering big chunks of a couple of lines. For me, though, the biggest problem is the editing. UnderWorld desperately needs a new pair of eyes to go over it, preferably before a second printing and certainly before any sort of second edition. Typos abound, as do mistaken homonyms (the "it's/its" thing, a particular bugaboo of mine, shows up in spades throughout) and even missing "-d"/"-ed" endings on verbs that are quite clearly intended to be in the past tense. That this thing wasn't better proofed before publication is both nigh-inexplicable and nigh-unexcusable. I'm willing (not happy, but willing) to overlook writing errors, though, so long as the basic concept the writer intends to convey comes through clearly. Which, unfortunately, means that there's one error in the book, one editing gaffe, that I can't excuse: So, how can your Characters be rewarded? There are two methods: Hero Tokens and Bestowed Ability. (pp. 129-30) Following this is a description of Hero Tokens--what they are, what they do, how they're awarded. But nowhere else in the book can I find any further mention of Bestowed Ability. Either the text never got written (which I doubt), or it got cut- but not -and-pasted. This game is pretty rules-light, which makes the omission/excision/disappearance of any rule, let alone one as important as how to reward one's players, so egregious.One last gripe: no index. The TOC is pretty good, but to my way of thinking, nothing beats a (well-constructed! gotta be well-constructed!) index.End of bad stuff. This is a brand-new game, coming from a brand-new game company, so I'm more than willing to excuse such hiccups in the physical quality of the product--especially when considering the intellectual quality of the game. In a word--wow. I'm one of those gamers who buys, if not a lot of gaming product, then certainly far more then I can ever hope to play (UW is definitely at the top of my "must be played at all costs!" pile now). Every now and then I see a title, read some advance hype, and get all excited. The last game I can think of that did this for me was R. Sean Borgstrom's Nobilis. UnderWorld blows that one out of the water. Where Nobilis is sublime, and is definitely a high-watermark for the RPG industry, it's also (IMO) pretty close to unplayable. (Before you jump all over my case and say " hey, I play Nobilis regularly, and we do just fine, thank you!" I concede that there are certainly plenty of gamers out there who could pull it off--more power to them. I certainly don't rate my own abilities as a GM highly enough to think that I could do that game justice, and I even have doubts about my abilities as a player.) But where Nobilis is both incredibly rich and incredibly baroque, UW easily equals it in richness of setting--but brings to that setting an almost Zen-like simplicity in its mechanics and rules structure. (Again, I'm not going to go into a big dissection of the mechanics here; go read Gareth's column on the Head Count). Perhaps a better comparison (and that I consider this comparison a good one reveals something of my tastes and biases as a gamer; YMMV) than Nobilis would be Jonathan Tweet's Everway. As in that game, UW characters are heroes in the grand, mythic, Campbellian sense of the word. As such, they're pretty static in terms of ongoing development (from a games-mechanical standpoint, that is--although there's a race and class system, there's no XP system and certainly no mechanic for "leveling up"). Again, for some gamers this may be a big flaw (cough munchkin cough powergamer ;) ); for me, it's simply As It Should Be. Characters develop by accumulating history, not widgets. Hey, if it's good enough for Heracles... Here's another quote, to help underscore the difference in the whole...weltanschauung of this game as compared to anything else on the market: What you hold in your hands is not a game, despite what you may have read on the cover. To call it a game is a misnomer. It is not truly a roleplaying game, although it can be used as such. It is not truly a Live Action game, although it can also be used in that fashion. UnderWorld is best described as a framework. It is a framework for you to create your own games; your own stories. It would be folly for any writer or publisher to attempt to second-guess the creativity of every gamer who picks up a product like this. So, we will not try. (p. 14) There you have it. This is a game intended to inspire and foster creativity. To spark the imagination, and provide fuel for its flames. To instill in its players an appropriate sense of wonder, then step into the background and allow them to fulfill its promise as they will. (Me, I'm already cogitating ways to relocate UW to the San Francisco Bay area, as I have greater familiarity with that locale than with NYC, which I've never visited... (If you're reading this, GMS, I'm quite serious--to the point of perhaps discussing a supplement license and that whole ball of industry wax).) Okay, enough of the poetic crap. All the above aside, UW also includes some of the best damn advice, and one of the best damn tools, for GMs that I've seen in ages. First, the advice, which comes in the form of an extended discussion of what the author terms Intuitive Continuity. I won't be at all surprised to see this become an industry-standard catchphrase. The basic idea here is that, if players can get away with improvisation in their acting-out of their characters, then so can the GM (excuse me, Conductor). Anybody who's ever run a game for any period knows that sometimes the best stories arise from stuff that starts out completely off-the-cuff, invented on the fly to accomodate players who do the unexpected. Here we have that fundamental fact of gaming not just acknowledged, but lauded and--more to the point--encouraged. It's less than two full pages of text, but if you're a GM, this alone is just about worth the price of admission. Add to this the tool I mentioned, and the book is an incredible steal. What is the tool? The author calls it the "Random Adventure Seed Generator" and the name is apt. It's pretty utilitarian--a set of tables that you consult to fill out the sentence "The main characters must [DO] [SOMETHING] at [LOCATION], but have to contend with [COMPLICATIONS] while being confronted by [OPPOSITION]." Flip some coins, and voila--you have an adventure seed all ready to be stocked with NPCs, and you're ready to rock and roll. Heck, forego the randomizer if you like and just pull out some terms that catch your eye--try this example on for size and see if it wouldn't make for a cool adventure: "The main characters must rally against a prophet at Yankee Stadium, but have to contend with lost equipment while being confronted by the Devil." Even if you never play this game, excising this mechanic and coming up with substitutes for the tables applicable to your gameworld/campaign would be both child's play and a boon beyond measure. And if you do play this game, the author rounds out the book with an extensive "inspirography," (his word, not mine; repeat it to yourself a few times and you'll find that it grows on you) listing tons of books, movies, and other sources that fed his fevered brain as he wrote the game--and which can likewise serve the enterprising Conductor as a resource to be strip-mined for campaign ideas. Okay, short summation time (I know, I know, waaaaay too late for that): the game is great. It's hip, it's with, it's now; it's what all the kids are clamoring for. All that and the proverbial packet of crisps. Do whatcha gotta do to get yourself a copy--if your local gameshop is with-it enough that this game actually appears on their shelves, grab it and get all your friends to do likewise; otherwise, find it online somehwere, or as a last resort, contact SCS about direct orders (and while you're at it, sign up for the UnderWorld Conductor's Society). You'll thank me later. Finally, there's one other thing I'd like to note: if, like me, you've been reading GMS's column here at RPG.net, and if, like me, you took the time to offer some feedback (whether via direct mail or on the column's discussion board), take a look at the Acknowledgements page when you get your copy. I was completely blown away when I finally cracked it open on the plane ride back from GenCon--after I'd met the author and harangued him into autographing it for me (and swagging me a UW t-shirt, to boot--I have no shame :)) and saw my own name there, eighth from the top of the list in the right-hand column. Say what you like about GMS, but the man has class. And after reading UnderWorld I'll also gladly argue the point with all comers that he's got genius as well. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Underworld