Story Engine Universal Rules is, as the title indicates, a universal role-playing system. This is the second edition of the system, but lacking the first edition I can’t compare the two. Story Engine approaches role-playing via storytelling rather than via wargaming, using a light system of rules to indicate success or failure and letting the players and Narrator (what this system calls the GM/referee) decide exactly how the results came about.
Physically, the book is a perfectbound softcover book, 15 x 23 cm (6 x 9 in.) in size. The cover is simple and elegant, with an image of a large gear that is most likely meant to symbolize the engine part of the title. Inside, the paper is creamy in colour and has a nice feel. Text is not set in columns, but the font size and small physical size of the book keeps that from making uncomfortable reading. Illustrations are typically either older (and assumedly copyright-free) or sketchy pencil works, but in either case they aren’t reproduced especially well and are infrequent. The lack of an index isn’t as distressing as it would usually be, given the small size of the book and the overall simplicity of the system.
After a brief introduction a scaled-down version of the rules, called Story Bones, which is available for free from the Hubris Games website. I’ll skip an actual description of Story Bones, as all the rules in Story Bones are contained in the main rules chapter. Given that all the rules are contained in the next chapter and this chapter is available online for free, its inclusion in the book seems unnecessary. The rules are simple enough that a quick start-style chapter isn’t needed.
The next chapter, Story Engine, gives the full ruleset for the universal system. Rather than giving a set of fixed stats (e.g. Strength or Perception), characters are given descriptive terms (e.g. introspective or barber). If you’ve played Over the Edge, this will be familiar to you. There are several types of descriptive terms, listed here with how the game summarizes each type and examples from the game’s creation of Hamlet:
Descriptors, “an adjective or sentence that best describes one facet of the character.” Descriptors are assigned to four Aspects: Matter, Mind, Spirit, or Chaos (basically luck or magic). Hamlet: introspective (Mind), tends to wear black (Matter), loved his father (Mind)
Quirks, “parts of the character that most would perceive as faults, weaknesses, or disadvantages.” Hamlet: indecisive
Trait Affinities, “talents, skills, or aptitudes.” There are three categories; weak, mild, and strong. Hamlet: swordsmanship (weak), philosophy (mild).
Prime Affinities, “something the character is strongly attuned to or has a special aptitude for.” Hamlet: Danish culture. Affinities also cover extremely unusual abilities, such as witchcraft, regeneration, and shapechanging.
The system is designed to be relative rather than absolute, so in a setting with lots of scientists around, a player with a Ph.D. in physics could still only have a “mild” Trait Affinity with physics. This keeps one from having to use buckets of dice in the die pool (see below) and helps the “Universal Rules” aspect of the game. If you wanted to have more levels of competence, you could just add additional levels.
Characters aren’t the only ones who can possess attributes. Items can also have them, so a set of lockpicks can have the descriptor “opens locks with ease”, which can be used to add to the die pool and can even be burned. Items can also have other attributes, so a suit of armour could provide extra Health Levels. This would allow for particularly useful tools to have a bit more character and for magical items to have special abilities. This is a really interesting idea, and leads to lots of ideas, especially as locations may also get descriptors like “good for making contacts” or “attracts criminals”. One problem is that if items like a normal thermos get descriptors like “keeps things hot” (this is an example from the book), then what’s to stop players or the Narrator from giving long lists of descriptors to every item carried? Some advice here would have been appreciated.
Die pools are used to resolve situations. Whenever a scene needs to be resolved, each participant gets a single base die, to which is added one die for each descriptor that can be used in the scene. Only descriptors that match the scene type (e.g. Matter for fights, Mind for solving puzzles) may be used in the scene. Each applicable descriptor can also be “burned” to provide another die; descriptors so burned can still be used to provide dice later in the session, but cannot be burned again in that session. Additional dice can also be added for tactics, appropriate tools or weapons, and other situations. The game uses regular six-sided dice, and the goal is to get as many odd results on the dice as possible. Each level in Trait Affinities lets one die in the pool automatically be considered odd. Any roll of 1 on a die also lets that die be rolled again, and an odd result adds another point to the total. If that bonus die turns up another 1, it gets rolled yet again, and so on, so you can theoretically succeed at any task. The total number of odds rolled is then compared to a fixed target number or the odds rolled by another party in the case of opposed rolls. The degree of success or failure depends on how much the roll went over or came short of the target number. This resolution method is used for both combat and non-combat situations. The system also converts instantly into a diceless system.
Wounds in combat are taken at the rate of one or two wound levels per point your roll came up short compared to your opponent’s. In the case of a group taking damage, who takes damage and how much is up to the Narrator, though players also have a say in things. The default number of health levels to lose in order to die is three, though that number can be raised or lowered depending on how lethal the game is meant to be. In addition, particularly lethal weapons can do extra damage beyond that calculated above. One interesting idea presented in the book is that of shaking injuries, in which you avoid a health level of damage by choosing to pick up a disability or major scar. One shortcoming of the combat system as given above is that only one side will take damage in any given fight. This could be avoided by either running each pair of combatants in a fight as a separate combat or by running the fight over several rounds until one side has had enough (as the book suggests).
Experience points (called Story Points) are given out for playing and for playing well. In addition to improving your various abilities, Story Points can also be used to restore burned descriptors during a session and to alter the story. An example of altering the story would be spending a story point to let the character automatically succeed at some task or to let the party automatically find a safe refuge in an otherwise hostile area.
The game sets up the action in terms of scenes, and assumes that everyone in a scene is working as a group towards a common goal. Those who want to do something else must burn a descriptor or quirk to invoke what is called a Quick Take, which allows the character to accomplish something on their own. This may be something that ends up being important during play, but it’s difficult to see what’s so important about Quick Takes from only reading the rules. If scenes are played in the way the system suggests then Quick Takes provide some way to strike out on your own during a scene, but if you don’t play such a regimented scene structure, they don’t seem to be necessary. General information on running sessions, Narrator hints, and designing campaigns is also given, but it’s nothing that you haven’t seen before.
One sample setting is provided, the Maelstrom setting that Hubris Games has further developed in other books. Lots of sample abilities and mechanics are given, but not too much in the sense of the setting itself. It’s a world in which something called The Storm brings chaos and change with it, so those caught in particularly intense storm fluxes can find themselves in another realm or even as different people. Magic and technology are both present, though not in every realm. It seems like it could be an interesting setting, but it’s hard to get a grasp on what it’s really about from the lack of background description.
Two pieces of fiction are included. The first, “Adventures of the Black Rose”, is passable if bland, taking place in the Maelstrom world. The second, “Should I Die before I Wake”, makes little sense and doesn’t provide a showcase for either the rules or the world, which the first at least arguably does.
Two scenarios are provided. The first, “The Airship Murders”, is an isolation scenario on a flying ship, with a murderer loose on the ship. It’s a decent enough adventure, but nothing special. “The Long Sleep” deals with the quest for immortality. Both take place in the Maelstrom setting, which isn’t much of a problem in the first scenario but to really play the second requires a greater knowledge of the setting than is given in the book.
Story Engine emphasizes that its goal is to approach roleplaying from the storytelling side rather than the wargaming side, at which is succeeds admirably. The system seems pretty solid and simple, and using descriptions rather than numbers to define your character can only help to make her easier to roleplay. It’s a good game if the players and the Narrator trust each with the intentionally loose structuring of outcomes, but not if you want pages of weapon stats, unambiguous rules for every situation and rules that you can use miniatures with. It’s a great book if you want to start something from scratch in a short amount of time or introduce someone to roleplaying, or just if you want to get away from character sheets that are as complex as tax forms. As a bonus, the game is extremely easy to modify.
Style: 3 (Average)
The cover is decent, but the interior artwork, layout, and writing style are average. “Page XX” only shows up a handful of times, but all on one page, which makes it look far worse than it is if you happen to open to this page the first time.
Substance: 4 (Meaty)
A good, solid system lies at the centre of the book, but it’s surrounded by a redundant simplification of the rules (Story Bones), a setting that’s hard to get a grasp on given the paucity of information on what it’s all about, mediocre fiction, and ho-hum scenarios. Story Bones and the fiction seem added to pad the book to the hundred-page mark. Still, the core system is nice enough to get a 4 for Substance despite all this. And given the low price, it’s definitely worth picking up.
Note: This is my first review on rpg.net, so I’d appreciate feedback on the review style.
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