The Inside Scoop on Gaming

"Don't Look Back" sets out to provide a self-contained system for horror and intrigue in the modern world. The promise of future supplements to lift you to space or to other settings is brought up, but the focus of the main book is clearly the horror movie genre. The good points include that it is totally self-contained, and lets you run zombies, killer clowns, and other stock horror threats all from one book. On the disadvantage side, the mechanics are a bit cludgy and the book does not quite provide the rich atmosphere helpful for creating the horror/thriller mood (and, alas, the illustrations are adequate without being inspiring). Character generation and task resolution, in a mix of GURPS ability selection, Shadowrun Archetypes, and its own Task system, provides good guidance but involves far too many numbers. Statistics and abilities are rated from -5 to +5, and used as a modifier against the Task difficulty rating in a rather complicated fashion. Abilities, advantages, disadvantages, and equipment are added to the difficulty rating of the action to yield a Success Rating (SR). Ignoring negative signs for the moment, the SR is the number of dice you roll. If the SR was positive, you select the 3 highest and add them; for a negative SR you choose the 3 lowest. This total is then checked on a Results table that goes from 3 to 18 (of course), and tells you whether and by how much you succeeded or failed. This system is a bit slow, as the referee has to decide what the SR is, then the player has to find the right number of dice and add things up. Fortunately, combat is just another task, with the Damage Scale of the weapon multiplying the Quality (from the Results table) to indicate total damage done. In addition to character generation and mechanics, DLB provides details for the overt and underground structure of society. DLB lacks the deep mood of other genre games (such as "Call of Cthulhu", "Chill", and "Kult"), but does present a workable layout for the ordinary person in the modern world. A short beastiery of conventional scary creatures is tucked in the back, and the book concludes with a two introductory scenarios. The first mixes a haunted house, a mad doctor, and flesh-eating Ghoul, and a ghost in a short, enjoyable romp. The second involves Secret Agents in the Occult Crime Division going after a... well, that would be telling. This scenario is a nice opener to lead into a campaign, should the characters work together well. As a whole, DLB is complete unto itself, in a workmanlike fashion. The slightly cludgy mechanics should probably be replaced, and referees running games certainly have their work cut out for them. But, fans of the X-files, Zombie movies, and Steven King books will be able to slip into their world with little trouble-- but getting out will be a different matter entirely.

Style: 2

Substance: 2

Don't Look Back
Author: - Category: game Company/Publisher: Mind Ventures Reviewed by Sandy Antunes on 02/06/97. Genre tags: none	"Don't Look Back" sets out to provide a self-contained system for horror and intrigue in the modern world. The promise of future supplements to lift you to space or to other settings is brought up, but the focus of the main book is clearly the horror movie genre. The good points include that it is totally self-contained, and lets you run zombies, killer clowns, and other stock horror threats all from one book. On the disadvantage side, the mechanics are a bit cludgy and the book does not quite provide the rich atmosphere helpful for creating the horror/thriller mood (and, alas, the illustrations are adequate without being inspiring). Character generation and task resolution, in a mix of GURPS ability selection, Shadowrun Archetypes, and its own Task system, provides good guidance but involves far too many numbers. Statistics and abilities are rated from -5 to +5, and used as a modifier against the Task difficulty rating in a rather complicated fashion. Abilities, advantages, disadvantages, and equipment are added to the difficulty rating of the action to yield a Success Rating (SR). Ignoring negative signs for the moment, the SR is the number of dice you roll. If the SR was positive, you select the 3 highest and add them; for a negative SR you choose the 3 lowest. This total is then checked on a Results table that goes from 3 to 18 (of course), and tells you whether and by how much you succeeded or failed. This system is a bit slow, as the referee has to decide what the SR is, then the player has to find the right number of dice and add things up. Fortunately, combat is just another task, with the Damage Scale of the weapon multiplying the Quality (from the Results table) to indicate total damage done. In addition to character generation and mechanics, DLB provides details for the overt and underground structure of society. DLB lacks the deep mood of other genre games (such as "Call of Cthulhu", "Chill", and "Kult"), but does present a workable layout for the ordinary person in the modern world. A short beastiery of conventional scary creatures is tucked in the back, and the book concludes with a two introductory scenarios. The first mixes a haunted house, a mad doctor, and flesh-eating Ghoul, and a ghost in a short, enjoyable romp. The second involves Secret Agents in the Occult Crime Division going after a... well, that would be telling. This scenario is a nice opener to lead into a campaign, should the characters work together well. As a whole, DLB is complete unto itself, in a workmanlike fashion. The slightly cludgy mechanics should probably be replaced, and referees running games certainly have their work cut out for them. But, fans of the X-files, Zombie movies, and Steven King books will be able to slip into their world with little trouble-- but getting out will be a different matter entirely. Style: 2 Substance: 2