Heaven and Earth is Guardians of Order's urban fantasy RPG. The setting is in our modern world in which legends are real. Angels and demons roam the world, acting behind the scenes to further their cause in the war between Heaven and Hell, and earth is caught in the middle.
H&E takes place in a small city called Potter's Lake, and focuses on everyday people who have been touched by fate, and are forced to deal with things that they aren't ready for. A brief overview is included in the core book, with more offered in a PDF supplement on Guardian's web site.
Potter's Lake is your everyday backwater town that's touched by the supernatural. The player characters are people who live there, and who have the misfortune of being forced to deal with the supernatural. The whole thing is very reminiscent of the WB's Wolf Lake, which I regard as a good thing, since I found that series to be quite interesting. There are also some parallels to the Sierra OnLine's Gabriel Knight games, and to Charles deLint's urban fantasy literature.
Based on their Big Eyes, Small Mouth game engine, it's simple and flexible, and easy to learn.
As in BESM, characters have 3 stats: Mind, Body, and Soul. They are chosen from a pool of character points that may range from 1 to 10. Further customization comes from attributes, which are also bought with character points. Attributes include characteristics such as Highly Skilled, which gives the character extra skilled points, and Damn Healthy!, which provides extra health points. Also available are defects, which provide additional character points; these includes such traits as Not So Tough and Not So Strong. These describe the characters general mental and physical abilities.
To describe what their characters can do, players purchase skills ranging from 1 to 3 with a pool of skill points. For the most part, the skills listed are real world skills, but there are some fantasy skills such as magic as well. Because H&E is oriented toward mundane characters who are touched by fate, it is not recommended that player characters start with access to skills such as genuine magic, though they may have studied the occult.
Action resolution uses card-based mechanic. Players hold a hand of 3 cards, unless their PCs have attributes that increase or decrease the size of their Hand of Fate. To resolve an action, the player draws enough cards to fill out their hand if it's not already filled, and chooses a card to play. They player discards one, and keeps one of the remaining cards. Each stat is paired with a suit; Spades for Body, Clubs for Mind, and Diamonds for Soul. Hearts is neutral. For a Body action, Spades are counted at 2 lower than their face value, Clubs and Diamonds at one higher, and Hearts counted at face value. To succeed, the player must play a card with a value lower than the appropriate stat skill. Bunuses lower the value of the card, and penalties raise it.
Rules are also provided for using the standard BESM dice-based mechanic for those who do not like using card-based mechanics for action resolution.
For example, say Rob the FBI agent is trying to hop a fence. The GM decides that since the fence isn't all that high, it has a difficulty of 0 and Rob's character has a Body of 7. Rob's player draws 2 cards from the deck to build his Hand of Fate. He draws the 8 of Spades and the 4 of Hearts, and already has the ace of Clubs in his hand. Rob's player needs to play a card below 8 in order to succeed, but since this is a Body action, he gets a -2 bonus for Spades, so he plays the 8 of Spades, barely clearing the fence, saving his Ace for something difficult, and discarding the 4 of hearts. If Rob had a relevant skill such as acrobatics, that would be added to his Body, making the target number higher.
Combat follows the same mechanic, except that difficulties are determined by attack or defense combat values. These values are calculated from the character’s stats, and modified by appropriate skills and attributes.
There are two types of magic in H&E. One is paranormal abilities, the other is occult magic.
Paranormal abilities can be either True Abilities, such as telekinesis or telepathy, or they can be Wild Talents such as Sense of Direction. True abilities are under the character's control; they can use them at will. Wild Talents are triggered subconsciously and are not under the character's control. True abilities have the potential to unbalance the game due to its non-heroic nature, so GM's are cautioned to allow them only if the character's concept justifies doing so.
Occult magic in H&E includes various forms of spellcraft such as alchemy and Khabbalah. They are divided up into schools of thought referred to as Paradigms. When selecting the Magic skill for a character, the player must choose a Paradigm and decide which stat applies to it. A Paradigm that requires learning and performing rituals might require Mind, for example. This is referred to as the Paradigm's Sphere.
The system itself is very freeform; the character may attempt any spell that fits into his Paradigm. The difficulty modifier is set by the power of the effect that the character is attempting, and the player draws a new hand. The number of cards drawn is determined by the character's rank in Magic: one rank gets 3 cards, 2 ranks gets 4 cards, and 3 ranks gets 5 cards. If none of the cards are in the Paradigm's Sphere or are neutral, the spell fails catastrophically. Neutral cards are considered at face value, and ones in the correct Sphere have a -2 bonus. The target number is the character's stat plus any applicable modifiers.
I would recommend this game to people who enjoy urban fantasy fiction, and would be interested in role-playing it. It probably isn't for those who favor more heroic games, though it could be adapted to allow for more heroic characters.
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