Being a collector of RPG's, and an aspiring game designer myself, I have a large collection of games and rulebooks. They are educational in two ways, first you can see how to make good games and get interesting worlds and background to explore, or second, you can see how to make bad games with trite, boring, redundant settings and ideas. Much to my dissapointment, this game was in the second category.
The game is the WEBS Basic Gaming System, 2nd Edition, published by
Web Games, and "designed" by Keith Bailey. (the names have NOT been
changed, to protect the innocent: ) It's a Universal RPG system, that
promises One Combat System!, One Character Creation System!, One easy
to use Magic System! No addendums, no conversion charts, or "special"
rules. - You can be anything you want to be, or so the back cover
promises.
Ok, This game started out in the hoary old D&D days and reached it's
fruition sometime in 1980, and it shows, of course.
You gain some idea that your in trouble when you read the credits
page, which is graced with this dire missive:
"At no time was was any of the material contained in this publication
taken from any sources other than those legitimate to the cause of
representation. There has been no intentional form of copyright
infringement between the party of Mr. Bailey and those of any other
game manufacturer, and it should be noted that this game was
developed long before many other systems which may be deemed similar.
All information contained herein was gathered from historical
references or from Mr. Bailey's own twisted little mind."
Oh, and not to judge a book by the cover, but it is graced with
really bad, really amateur cover art. Where talking worse than bad
GURPS art.
(it's like this really bad attempt at a parallel world theme with a
poorly drawn pseudo star trek chick brandishing a cheesy blaster who
looks the chick from buck rodgers at 50 years old, after plastic
surgery to repair damage from a radiation exposure, next to her is
this guy who looks scarily like Gallagher, wearing some cheesy white
wizard robes with stars and moons on it, and a like a really long
nightcap on, with like an ankh attached to it, oh and some spider
medallion thing levitation some spheres that curve into the
background. IT's not all bad, the background is ok:) oh and the color
looks like it was colored with markers and colored pencils.)
Now, I am not one to harp on art quality in a small-press game. Good
art costs money. They would have been better off with using a clean
graphic design like traveller's little black book or something,
rather than losing a point up front.
The Book itself is an 86 or so page perfect bound book, just fine.
Now, to the contents. The game is an obvious D&D cloning project gone
awry. They stripped out classes in favor of a skill system, and
decided to focus on a Race fetish instead. Your race is most
important choice and determines how many buy points you get to buy
your Skills and buy up your attributes, how you determine your base
attributes, etc.
The little introduction chapter is nice, it gives a short rehash of
the traditional what's a roleplahing game and stuff and also includes
a handy table of common abbreviations used in the game system. And
boy there are a lot of them.
Some of are your important attribute abbreviations, some use 2
letters others 3 or 4 with no particular system. Then there are
things such as Movement Allowance MA, and Carrying Capacity, CC. Oh,
and CBP, Creation Buy Points, and Psi Power Points (PSP), not to be
confused with Perception (PCP), and GM, and PC, and NPC. It also has
the obviously important abbreviations for some fantasy monetary
system, so you got your gold pieces (GP), and Dwarven Gold Pieces
(DGP), and Lead Pieces, and Elvish Rin (ER), sure to be important in
your SF campaign, even if you use CR: Credits (cr.). Oh, and just to
be complete it has the oddly familiar XS, S, M, L, VL, which mean,
extra small, small, medium, large, and very large. Again, stuff you
might now if you hadn't played the game before.
Next is the Character Generation chapter. We start off with the Prime
Attributes, which are determined by rolling a die based on your race.
For humans you roll a D20 to get your attributes, and then you can
spend Buy Points (BPs), which may or may not be the same thing as
Creation Buy Points (CBP), to increase your attribute if you got
screwed on your roll, or to buy up as close to the racial maximum as you can if you rolled decent.
Now there are two types of Prime Attributes, Basic Prime Attributes
(?),and Secondary Prime Attributes (?). Oh, secondary PA are
determined from basic PA. But, there is a cryptic warning that once
you begin play, your Secondary Characteristics will not be affected
by raising your Primary Characteristics during play. (Hmm, I wonder
if raising my Basic Primary Attributes helps?) It then goes on to
list your Secondary Characterisitcs, which include stuff like
Perception and Concentration, and Power Points (PP), and Psi Power
Points (PSP), and luck and hit points, and stuff. Though I never did see the Secondary Primary Attributes listed.
Next we get to choose our race, 2 options are listed, human or Terrans, which is to say we could, except that only humans are defined in the basic rules. Humans get 2000BP (that's right 2000 points, get out your calculator, or excel), as do Terrans, the Human racial profile tells us. They also have tables for us to roll up
things like hair and eye color and Blood Type!
After that there are some disadvantages you can take, but they are
only worth between 5 and 100BP, so probably not really worth the trouble.
Next is the Webs Skill System, skills
are percentage based in this system. Not only that but there are 2,
yes 2 ways to figure up skills. First, there is a slightly easier way
to figure skills, You pay the skill cost and get the skill at a base
of 50%, plus a modifier based on how far above your racial average the relevant PA is.
Or if your nitpicker, you still buy skills by paying their BP cost,
but instead of 50 percent, you get them at value equal to their base
cost, plus your PA, and can buy them up above that at their buy
ratio. Then there are some rules about prerequisites and skill boosts
and stuff.
Oh yeah, there are 3 types of skills, childhood skills
(CHS) which you get for free and start at 90%, the number of which
varies, then there is character skills (no abbreviation), which are
used to add character to your umm, character. They cost 1BP for a 90%
and include minor skills like basket-weaving and hobbies and such, then there are Life Skills (no abbrevation), which are,
logically enough, skills you buy from the skill list with buy points.
Then it has some info on skill improvment.
Next there are the skill lists, conveniently laid out alphabetically, without any fussy organizing into skill categories, or by costs, or tech level or any of that stuff.
For ease of use, the Skill lists its BP cost, different for every
skill, the PA, different for every skill, and the buy ratio,
different for every skill.
There are neat skills too, such as Dazzle (30BP, AG, 3BP/pt, no Prereq.), This is the skill allows a character
to spin, twirl, and manipulate a specific weapon in such a way that
the victim becomes so engrossed in watching the weapon that he fails
to dodge the attack (hands are included as weapons.) Only works
against 1 charater at a time, and there is the victim's will- your
dazzle skill per-game roll different to save. Oh, and don't forget Firewalking/Coldwalking and Consume Alcohol, helps at parties.
After about 10 sparse double columned pages of skills, there is the Psionics umm skills or powers or whatever section. Psions aren't available in all game worlds though, so consult your GM. Oh and Psion character's aren't allowed to use Essence/Spirit magic. After about 6 pages of Psionic skills (which all have different point costs, buy ratios, and special case rules as to how they work.), we get to Magic.
In the magic section where we are told that there are several forms
of magic, and that spells are given in game supplements and vary from
game to game. Next they list the 17 elements that describe a spell in
Webs. then they list a sample spell. And describe the different types
of magic and BP cost to use them.
There are also Spellmasters,
Psimasters, and Weaponmasters, who have access to extra-special nifty
abilities. But you can only be one of the three, and can't learn any
of the other skills if you do, and there are Physical Adepts too,
with lots of nifty abilities all with different BP costs, buy ratios,
and special case rules for how they work.
Then Next is my favorite chapter, Equipment Lists, 24 sparsely filled
pages of oh so important information - So you can be anything you
want to be. First is important information Money, Old
world/Fantasy/Future. Here were told how much each of the money
type "weighs" in units, whatever those are, and their exchange rate. Lets see here
10 lead(LP) = 1 bronze (BR)
10 bronze (BR) = 1 copper
10 copper (CP)= 1 silver (SP)
10 silver (SP) = 1 gold
10 gold (GP) = 1 electrum (ELP)
10 electrum (ELP)= 1 Platinum Piece (PP)
10 platinum (PP) = 1 Mythril
1 Dwarven gold Piece (DGP)= 1 (ELP)
1 Elvish Rin = 2 GP
1 Steel (STP) = 1 (SP)
10 shells = 1 LP
(Oh yeah, cr = credits, which is monetary system used in high-tech
game settings. The $ Price x3 equals credits)
Just when you thought you were done learning about the monetary exchange market, there is a page or so of Gem values in various pieces.
At the end of which is a short paragraph mentioning that other
supplements "might" include their own monetary systems if they are
different from the above. And you "might" use different systems in
your own game, the above are just guidelines.
Next are several pages of weapon stats, including about half a page
of specialty weapons, including marbles, hat pins, pencil\pen (-15%
AC, 1d6 damage), rolling pins, pool cues, skillets and stuff like
shields and nets, and Yo-yos.
Then there is short section on armor, mostly mediaveal, including
barding for horses. Oh, and a section on clothing, including the cost
of bra, sorry for you fantasy characters, they are NA in fantasy
worlds (woohoo?!).
Then there a couple of sparse pages of miscellaneous items,
including razors, Disposable and Electric!! Then there is a couple
of pages of ammunition costs, and a short page with info on Food and
livestocks. Lettuce, Head 0-3cp($1-1.50) .5 unit weight (sales price
not specificed though, damn!).Then a column of Luxuries, including
ivory, incense, and various pelts and fur coats (no info on
resistance to staining from blood/paint.).
Then some vehicle stats, including Roller Blades AND roller skates,
and skateboards dewd!, and some stuff like cars and airplanes.
Oh, next is the Combat Operation section. It's got 6 pages of combat rules, including the page and a half for the sample combat, the rest of the remaining 22 pages of that chapter include a beastiary with
stats for Baboons, badgers, owls, otters, peacocks, quails, rats, and
lions and tigers and bears, oh my!!!
It seems like it would work. At least until combat is over, as I didn't see any healing or recovery rules. I'd look them up in the index, but there isn't one.
The last 5 sparsely covered pages cover sample characters (robin hood and sherlock holmes, 4 pages total) and game
master notes (3 paragraphs.)
And there you have it, the Webs Basic Gaming System. What can I say,
it's awesome, it boggles the mind, it's got costs AND weights for
hair brushes, wood with wood bristles and plastic with plastic
bristles.
Can I stress how cheesy and padded this "rulebook" is? The system
itself is probably as workable as the Palladium system I am sure, but
at least you actually get something for your money besides pages of
useless lists from the designers long dead D&D campaign and SF
universe in a palladium book.
I am sure I could use some of the stuff with Fantasy or SF supplements, but, umm why not put it in the supplement where I might want to see it, instead of wasting pages in the rulebook.
Overall, this is one of the weakest games I have ever seen. It has nothing you can't find in other games, a whole lot you CAN find in them, and even more stuff you wouldn't want to find in any game, especially the core rulebook.
Not to make this review all bad. It does have a few good points, it's cheap at only $15, and I am sure you can find used copies of it for much cheaper, in fact I can guarantee you can find one at least.:)
Rob Muadib
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(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)