The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Amazing Engine
System Guide Review
by Larry Bullock

What is Amazing Engine?

The Amazing Engine system, TSR's attempt at creating a universal roleplaying system (to compete with GURPs), cosists of 2 parts, the System Guide (the focus of this review), and various world books (I'll touch on the published ones at the end of the review). There is a twist with Amazing Engine, though.

You can apply your advances from one world book to another, in effect making your next character start out with more experience, etc. This is accomplished through the interaction of a player core and the actual player character.

The Player Core & The Player Character

The Player Core is your starting point in the Amazing Engine system. The Player Core defines the essense of the type of player character(s) you are interested in playing (athletic, socialially adept, wise, booksmart, etc.). The Player Core is a guideline for the creation of player characters.

Your Player Character is the archetype represented by the Player Core fleshed out to meet the needs of a given world. As you play the system, though, you can use the experiences earned by the Player Character to enhance your Player Core (which in turn affects the creation of future PCs).

This interaction between a Player Core and a Player Character, though is, at best, a hobbled together thing. There is no rational reason for it's existence other than the ability to start with more powerful characters on other game worlds (which is reason enough for some). The Player Core concept assumes that you are interested in playing the same types of (not necessarily the same exact) characters. However, there is little roleplaying motivation for this (munchkinism aside). It would not have taken much to enhance the concept of the Player Core to perhaps be a representation of an eternal being looking to extend it's influence among the various worlds or something (that would have at least given a roleplaying reason for the Player Core).

Ability Pools & Attributes

A Player Core is defined only by rankings in Ability Pools. There are 4 ability pools (Physique, Intellect, Spirit, and Influence). As you create your first Player Core, you define a ranking for each pool (1 is best, 4 is worst). That's it. Quick and easy. You like atheltic types, give Physique a rank of 1 (etc.). The various ways you rank your ability pools allows you to create just about any type of character.

A Player Character is created when the ability pools are broken down into attributes (3 for each Ability). Here's a handy chart:

Physique	Intellect	Spirit	Influence
Fitness	Learning	Psyche	Charm
Reflexes	Intuition	Willpower	Position

Now, just because you are ranked 1 in Physique (for example), doesn't mean that you'll have poor attributes in the other abilities. You get a little more control than that. Attributes are generated by picking any 4 you like and rolling 4d10. The other 4 are generated rolling 3d10. Your ability rankings give you a number of points to divide up between the 2 attributes of that ability (divided however you wish).

Defining the Player Character

Amazing Engine does not use a class system (as previous TSR products did). Instead, it uses a skills system. Sort of. During character creation, you examine the world book looking for professions. A profession defines what your character did prior to adventuring (private eye, reporter, etc.) -- it doesn't necessarily mean that you still are what you were, though. Your choice of profession limits your choices for starting skills (depending on the world, a private eye may not have access to the chemistry skill). However, you are given skill slots to represent the "other" stuff that may have happened in your life (so if you really want that horseback riding skill, but it's not a choice in your profession, you still have a chance to get it).

Your character may be further enhanced based upon choices made specifically for a world book. You may have options of races (species) which may modify some of your attributes or provide you with other skills. Also, many worldbooks provide an automatic attribute adjustment for players (usually something along the lines of 20 to all attributes to reflect that you are not playing "average" people). However, Amazing Engine is missing something that has become a staple in roleplaying: Advantages/disadvantages.

The lack of an advantages/disadvantages system is a hindrance to customizing your character. GURPs (available when Amazing Engine was released) had such a system. It wouldn't have taken a lot to add such a thing to Amazing Engine, but for some reason it was left out.

Mechanics

Amazing Engine's mechanic is quite simple. Roll under your attribute on a d100 (this roll may be modified due to having a related skill to the action or other factors). For rolls where a critical success or failure (they used a forgery attempt as an example), all you need to do is look at the one's die from your roll. If it is under a specific value (say 2 (they call this a Magin Rating)) and you rolled under your adjusted attribute, you have a critical success (reverse the logic for critical failure). Combat builds off of the basic mechanic (with the critical success becoming an increase in the type of damage).

Cursory reviews of Amazing Engine that I've seen make it appear as if a player character will never have more than a 50% chance of success (since you are told no attribute can be higher than 50 when generating you player character). However, these reviews failed to take into account the base adjustment for the worldbook and skills. It is more realistic to figure that a starting player may have between a 40 and 80 percent chance to succeed. Still not the best odds in the world, but, as the System Guide points out, you are only supposed to roll when something is extremely important.

Other mechanics (magic, psionics, super powers, etc.) are left for the worldbooks in which they are used.

Worldbooks

Below you'll find summary information for the published worldbooks. Note: most worldbooks ran about $20 and had somewhere between 128 and 144 pages.

Bug Hunters	A near future worldbook where the players are clones forced to fight the aliens.
For Faerie, Queen, and Country	Victorian England with a twist. Magic and Faeries are real.
The Galactos Barrier	Space opera ala Star Wars (except that instead of "The Force" it's called music).
Kromosome	BioPunk! You can use traditional cyberware or use genetic materials from animals.
Magitech	D&D meets Earth (1994). Basically, how the world would be different if magic were real and elves, dwarves, etc. were around.
Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega	Gamma World wasn't dead in 1994; it became an Amazing Engine Worldbook (which is strange since Gamma World spawned from the original Metamorphosis Alpha game).
Once and Future King	King Arthur lives in 4485 AD. Space flight, combat armor. What more do you need.
Tabloid!	This supplement may very well have been the inspiration for the Alternity Dark Matter setting.

Rating Explained

I gave Amazing Engine an average rating for Style. The text is laid out in a 2 column format with very few B&W illustrations. A few tables and examples are spread throughout the 32 pages. But then, they did fit a lot of information into those 32 pages.

There really is a fairly complete system packed in those 32 pages, so I was leaning towards a meaty rating for substance. However, the lack of explanation for the Player Core, and the lack of advantages/disadvantages made me lower it back down to an average substance rating.

What do you think?

What do you think of Amazing Engine or my review? Please use the forums to let me know.

Larry

Amazing Engine System Guide

Amazing EngineSystem Guide Reviewby Larry Bullock