Disclaimer: For what it’s worth, I should probably point out that I was sent a complementary copy of this game, so long as I wrote a review of it. I don’t work for the company that produced it, and have no affiliation with them – I’m just a freelance reviewer with a free copy. Not that I let it colour my perceptions at all…
This is a futuristic role-playing game created by Minion Games. They have a web-site at www.RPGNow.com, where they distribute the game from in .pdf format. I was e-mailed a .pdf format copy, and have read it on-screen (i.e., I didn’t print off a hard copy – although I have no idea if that makes a difference or not).
The game actually looks quite good. The art is fairly decent (the only colour art is the front cover – a rather good ‘big-guy-in-hefty-armour-and-scantily-dressed-woman-defending-downed-colleague’ diorama), and the format of the text is nicely laid out. There are margins on each page with a ‘reprise’ of one of the pictures in the rules, which is quite effective without interfering with your reading too much. The fonts used are clear and easy on the eye, and the section headers are a pretty cool ‘missile-with-skull-and-cross-bones’ motif, with the text on the side of it.
The rules open with the by-now traditional short story. This is written by Pete Hernandez, and is very moody and well written. It recounts a day in the life of a freelance mercenary, and does a good job of describing the setting for the game.
All of which sets the mood nicely for a not-entirely-serious action sci-fi game. Which, unfortunately, isn’t what you get…
In the next section we are told that this is a tongue-in-cheek, beer-and-pretzels game that can be easily picked up for an evening’s fun. It mentions that the rules are supposed to be simple, easy and fun. Oh, and that anyone who uses it is stupid. The writing of the rules sections seems to have a common theme of slagging off the reader, and challenging them to understand the rules … if they can! While this fits in with the kind of ‘chummy’ feel it is obviously supposed to convey, it does get a bit wearying later on in the rules. And even though it is in jest, I don’t think it makes much sense to call anyone who would use their rules ‘simple’…
The introductory universe is very, very sparse. This is, it has to be said, version 2 of the rules. Version 1 had no background information beyond the short story at the beginning. It was then decided that more information needed to be included, and this is it. It is written in the style of one civilian’s view of the world, and leaves a lot of details for the referee to figure out. This would, normally, be a good thing, but this is, after all, supposed to be a game you can pick up and use…
Then we get to the first of the actual rules. The first thing mentioned is that you need to use miniatures. Which goes against the grain (for me) in cinematic, fast-play games like this is supposed to be, but still…
The basic rules seem simple enough, however. There are handy little bullet-points for you to remember when reading the rest of the rules. Basically, you are always rolling percentile dice, trying to get high numbers. Except when you roll for damage, which uses loads (and I mean LOADS) of d6. All of which is fine.
Complications are added, but still with the whole emphasis on simplicity: -
If you roll 96 or more, roll again and add.
If you get 100 more than was needed, you get a critical success.
If you get 5 or less, you fumble.
All fairly standard, and easy so far.
Next comes character generation. Each character comes with four attributes: Brains, Cool, Dex and Power. We are told that various race packages will modify what you get in each of these, then told that races aren’t actually included, and then given a race package. It takes quite a bit of effort to contradict yourself twice on one page like this, but this book is a consummate professional at convoluted writing…
Anyway, you get 90 points to spread among your four stats, with a minimum of ten and maximum of 40 (to start with) in each.
When you roll a stat, you first need to subtract your stat from 90, and roll above it on the dice. That is a success. There are spaces on the character sheet to roll the stat roll target number, so you don’t have to figure it out on the fly.
A few other derived attributes need to be figured out, and written down. Simple enough stuff so far.
Each character gets 50 kill points (HP). It matters not if you have maxed out your Power, you get 50. Full stop. Your power lets you heal quicker, so that kind of offsets the fact you are just as tough as everyone else.
And for some reason, your starting money is listed in the same section as Kill Points.
The skills section may as well not be there. I’m not entirely sure what the author intended to achieve with this section, but all it is is basically a list of words that you might be able to figure out. Some are very obvious (such as Acting or Pick Lock), but some are very obscure and need further elaboration (like Add-On, and Security Identify). You get 50 points to spread around skills, with a maximum of 25 in any one skill. The author then says that he doesn’t have time to provide skill descriptions, which I realise is a joke (of sorts), but is a bit lax, as having purchased a game like this, I would assume that everything would be included to allow me to play it properly…
Disadvantages give you more points to spend on skills and stats. With no apparent disadvantages. They are described briefly in the chart of costs, but have no real effect on any kind of in-game number. For example, the gain for a phobia disadvantage can be from 5 to 10, but the phobia itself has no game rules effect. All of the disadvantages are down to the referee and the player to envision the effects.
Actually, if you don’t mind, sod this ‘going through each section’ malarky! I’ll just give you a basic overview:
This is a very badly written game. There are lots of things that are not fully explained, or make no sense, and there is far too much left up to the players and referee to figure out. There is no way that anybody can buy this game one day, and that evening run a session of it. It would take far too much effort…
I have more than one niggle about the ‘simple’ nature of the rule as well. This is supposed to be a cinematic game – fast-paced and easy to understand. Bollocks!
Combat is unwieldy, and the ‘fantastic’ critical hit tables add nothing but ‘splatter effect’ descriptive flavour text, with no actual game effects whatsoever. The damage makes no sense in the slightest – when a punch can do more damage than a knife or a gun, there is something seriously wrong somewhere. When you are stunned by a spell effect … what?!? Where the heck did spells come from? One mention in the entire rulebook, and it is completely out of the blue…
No, this game was written as a home system by a bunch of players who know exactly what they are talking about but have no real concept of describing it to others.
The experience and learning sections make no sense (the better your teacher is, the harder it is to learn a skill from him, apparently). The acronym table lies smack bang in the middle of the book with no real explanation at all – and the acronyms themselves are incredibly unhelpful (can anyone tell me why Life Sustaining Drug reverts to the acronym TKM?).
The equipment sections (all twenty-three pages of them) are littered with these unhelpful acronyms, forcing you to refer again and again to the table, making reading the equipment a chore in itself. The guns – well, this is supposed to be a hyper-violent game, so I can forgive fifteen pages of weapons, I suppose.
Basically, this is not a game as it stands. I suppose I should point out that after reading the first version of the game, I sent in a few comments and corrections for some of the above problems, and two or three have been corrected (spelling mistakes, generally – there are very few, if any, now). I can only, therefore, assume that the ‘problems’ I saw and pointed out that weren’t corrected are, in fact, ‘features’, and have been designed that way for some inexplicable reason.
The game has been billed as a ‘beer-and-pretzels’ game. Which, to me, means ‘easy, quick and fun’. Obviously the team that created this thought it meant ‘unplayable’.
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(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)