This is my review of The Last Exodus, a new roleplaying game by Synister Creative Systems. If you were at GenCon this year, and/or you followed the various controversies generated by the cover photo of The Last Exodus on the Internet, or you've stumbled across one of Sean Jaffe's writings and you think he's nuts, well, put aside the hype for a moment and concentrate on the game itself. You may find it's well-worth the time and effort.
THE GAME ITSELF:
Mechanically, the game is played with a deck of poker cards. In order to see if you succeed or fail at an action, add your appropriate Quality (Physical, Mental, Social, Spiritual)to an appropriate Proficiency (skill or talent), draw a card, and compare the total to the Difficulty set by the Director (Gamemaster). If your total is lower, you lose, and the bigger the gap, the bigger your loss. If you exceed the Difficulty, you succeed, and the bigger the gap, the better the success. Aces are worth one, number cards equal their value, Jacks are worth 11, Queens are worth 12, Kings require you to draw another card, add it to your score, and double the total, while Jokers require you to draw a second card, add it to your score, and halve the total.
Add to this, like Castle Falkenstein, that each Quality has a special suit attached to it. (Physical=Clubs, Mental=Spades, Social=Hearts, and Spiritual=Diamonds) If you draw the appropriate suit for your action, add 1 to the total. If you draw the appropriate suit after drawing a King, add 2 to the total. If you draw a King of the appropriate suit, you get an unqualified success, with all the bonuses your Director sees fit to give you. This is a fast, loose, and story-driven mechanic system, and leans toward the cinematic in intent and execution. The only problem I had with it was it never specified whether there was only one deck of cards for the whole group, or if each player used their own deck.
Character Creation is more complicated, going through several steps. The reason for that is that you're, in essence, making two characters at once, your Coil (or human, fleshy side) and your Deiform (or spiritual side). There's an orderly jumble of numbers, picking which religion you belong to (six "good side" religions vs. six "bad guy" religions), determining which Order, or type of Soul you have (and this is where the book really shines!), a Merits/Flaws system that checks min/maxing by making bonuses in one form equal flaws in another form (good idea!), assigning skills for both forms, assigning they type of Miracles your character performs, what special Deiform abilities he/she/it uses, etc. Luckily, there's a flowchart for this.
The game setting is interesting. Your character is a Scion, a literal child of God. Which God? Good question! Seems that, in fine Gnostic tradition, there are two: the Good God (Ahura Mazda), and the Bad God (Ahriman). Both have been breeding like crazy because, pretty soon, this diseased section of the universe everyone lives in (Earth) is going to be cut off from the rest of the universe for purposes of quarrantine. Ahura Mazda needs Scions to rescue all the worthy people that can be found (who is worthy is up to the Scion), while Ahriman wants to lead as many of it's followers to take over Eden (heaven), and it's up to the Scion to pick whoever s/he thinks is able to do the job and worthy of the spoils.
This is good because it means that the characters are the dead center focus of the story in a cosmic game of tug-of-war. You can have gritty, Earth-centered adventures, over-the-top Eden adventures, or a mix of both. The major NPCs, the ones who founded the major religions, may not be around to finish The Last Exodus, so it's up to your characters to keep things moving along.
All in all, this game is meant to be played seriously. At numerous points throughout the book, the authors stir together real-life events, problems, and people with The Last Exodus, so as to make the game seem more immediate and personal. The "good" religions (the Apostate)don't always do good things, and the "bad" religions (the Sanhedrin) can be downright sincere and persuasive. It is, in short, a game with a variety of things to be and do, and the core rulebook alone has enough for several years worth of sessions. Not bad for $15 American!
BAD PARTS:
The layout and editing are truly something to behold, and not in a good way. Material gets accidentally reprinted, misspelling is commonplace, parts that should be separated are fused together, the print is small, the layout is "busy", all of which compelled me to read it several times, putting it down a few times because my eyes got tired and my head began to ache.
The rules are loosely structured. Less space could have been granted to art that ranges from good to tolerable to sub-mediocre, and more space to examples and guidelines. This will require an experienced Director to patch the holes in the system in advance, or learn to adjudicate on the fly.
And finally, a small rant directed to the Brothers Jaffe. Look guys, you wanted to create a mature, intelligent game that inspired people to think seriously about the world around them, and do it in an exciting, engaging way. A worthy goal, and I applaud your attempt and most of the result. BUT: couldn't we have spared the readership the plethora-o-breasts in the Proficiencies section of the book and the rest of the juvenalia? I don't mean the front and back covers; I find it doubtful that anyone could seriously view that as cheesecake. And the sketch of the Cerebral of Vanity (p. 133) was appropriate (and funny!) on quite a few levels. But c'mon! Were all those topless women really necessary in that one section, or in the game at all? Was it necessary to include a Proficiency of Sex, or a Merit like "Endowed?" Reading the interview of Emily or Evan Powell or Father Dragomir makes all the above seem tacky and pointless, to say the least, and morally equivalent to all the First Edition AD&D'ers out there who rolled a 2d6 Shlong roll as part of their character creation. If you're making a mature, thoughtful game, excluding the offenses mentioned above would go a long way to getting players of The Last Exodus into the proper mindset.
Also, this game seems like it's a few years too late. Most of the millenial/apocalypse games have been done already, and it might seem easy to lump The Last Exodus in with them.
Yet, despite all that, I still found myself willing and ready to play this game at the first opportunity. Here's hoping a Second Edition comes along that clears all of that up.
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