RPGnet : Review of There Is No Spoon

This is my first review. I really wanted to have a schtick to open it, like Dan Davenport does, but couldn't think of anything excepting stealing Dan's. I gave up on that, although I did borrow Dan's review format. :)

There Is No Spoon (henceforth TINS) is an unofficial Matrix RPG designed by RPGNet regular Steve Darlington (aka Steve D). It was playtested by and received contributions from some other RPGNet members. I wasn't one of them, in case you are wondering if I'm biased. In this review, I'll describe each chapter briefly, state my opinions about its contents and describe some of the things that came up during my playtest session.

TINS is a 36-page PDF (including the index and the cover) of 248 kilobytes that can be downloaded here. It has a no-frills layout consisting of two-column text and images captured from the first movie. The language is straightforward and spiced with humor making for an entertaining reading. I could only spot six typos, but one of them is a pet peeve of mine: the infamous affect/effect swap, where a verb (to affect) and a noun (effect) are used in an inverted way. A nice touch by Steve D was to use scenes from the movie as examples of how the rules work.

Steve D opens up the book by explaining the game's First Rule. Basically, it assumes the franchise's other two movies, Reloaded and Revolutions, as well as the Animated Matrix films and other derived products have never and will never exist. Although this is a wise decision, considering the disappointing sequels, it could prevent the use of some of the cool concepts introduced by those products, like the rogue programs and the back door system. Surprisingly, the book does include rules for playing a program and even uses them as key plot elements in all of the three adventure ideas. Other 'heretical'concepts could be easily adapted due to the rules-light nature of the system.

As a corollary to the First Rule, the author states that TINS can only be used for one-shots or microcampaigns. At the risk of getting 'smacked in the face' (the game's main enforcement rule) by Steve D, I disagree. I believe the system can be used for longer campaigns. It might need a few add-ons to highlight how the character is advancing mechanics-wise, but that should't be too hard to elaborate. This chapter concludes with a brief description of the setting.

Playtest: Three friends of mine who live out of town were back for a while and wanted to play. I thought this would be a good time to playtest TINS. We only had three or four hours and character generation for other systems might eat a good chunk of those, especially because our fourth player, another friend of mine, can take a long time to decide on his character’s abilities.

TINS has only one stat or attribute: Matrix. It varies from 0 ('a mind trapped forever in the Matrix') to 6 ('you're God') and dictates what level of 'reality hacking' you have inside the computer simulation. You roll it whenever you are inside the computer simulation and doing something remotely physical. Characters also have skills, but, thanks to uploading, they have all of them at level 3. During character generation, both stat and skills can be raised.

The game uses two d6s, one for Matrix and one for skills. The goal is to roll equal or under your level in them. There are four levels of success: None; Skill, when the player scores a success with the skill die; Matrix, when he does it with the Matrix die; and Double, when he gets both (bullet-time hour). Each level trumps the one before, so a character who gets a Matrix success overcomes another who only score a Skill one. Before rolling, the players decide, in broad terms what their character's action will be (fighting, fleeing, shooting etc.). The success level determines how well it went, serving as a reference in order to describe it.

Playtest: My players had a hard time describing their character's actions, a point that is touched upon in the Game Masters Section. All of them are experienced roleplayers and had watched the movies more than once, but except for one of them, they just rolled the dice and waited for me to report what happened. I guess this comes from playing standard RPGs where you have to declare in detail what you are going to attempt. A few more sessions to get used to the system would probably solve this.

Combat follows the same pattern, with success levels not only representing the outcome but also how much damage you inflicted on your opponent. A Free Mind who fights a coppertop police officer and scores a Doubles success (level 3) against the cop’s Skill one (level 1) can inflict up to 2 (3-1=2) Body chips of damage. This is generic damage and can result from a punch, a bullet or a sword -- the system makes no distinction between them. Most characters will have 3 Body chips -- they can buy additional ones during creation -- and when they are gone so is their plot immunity. This doesn't necessarily mean death, but it's never good, since your fate is up to your opponent. Options include severe injury, unconsciousness or incarceration. Once out of Body chips, the character cannot make any rolls. For every scene he stays inactive, off-stage or constrained by enemies or injuries, he regains one chip. Jacking out restores all lost chips and by doing cool or interesting things the player can be awarded extra ones.

Playtest: The Matrix attribute pretty much guarantees that the characters will kick ass, but if they encounter agents or other Free Minds, things can complicate. Three chips are not all that much as one of my players found out. Steve D acknowledges that and give suggestions on increasing them in the Optional Rules section. I thought the rule on regaining them a bit harsh. The above-mentioned player was knocked out during the fight where the players captured one of their opponents. The next scene, being the prisoner's interrogatory, would have been really boring for her if I hadn't let her ask questions. So I just ruled she was feeling bad but not unconscious or otherwise incapacitated (she didn't recover any chips however).

Body chips can also be used to gain an automatic Skill success or give one to a fellow character. In these instances, the player still rolls the Skill die, so it's possible to score two Skill successes. They come in hand when you are fighting at a disadvantage (against a lobby full of guards, or if your foe has a machine gun). Such circunstances are handled by Advantage Dice, in other words, extra Skill dice. However, no matter how many Skill successes you have, a Matrix one will still trump them (think of the lobby scene).

Characters also start the game with one Matrix chip which serve to gain an automatic Matrix success. Like in the Skill case, the player gets to roll the Matrix die as well. Scoring a success with the die when you have spent a chip is akin to becoming the One for one action.

Playtest: Nobody used their Matrix chip and only one of the players spent a Body chip. Since they are so valuable and scoring successes is relatively easy, I doubt many people would spend them unless it was a life-or-death situation. As was the case for a couple of their foes. The characters interrogated them using truth serum (kind of like what the Agents did to Morpheus). The NPCs spent their Matrix chips and successfully resisted the interrogation.

This chapter includes ways to add a few variables to the game. The 'Woah' rule awards players for doing cool things. It incorporates the extra Body chip award and suggests a few others. 'Softening the Blows' is the bit about changing the amount of Body chips. 'Dicing with Death' increases the granularity of the damage system. 'Sick at Heart' introduces a a way to model damage to the character’s belief system. 'The One is The One' is a designer note explaining why Neo has Matrix 6 and not 1, and showing how to change that.

Players have six points to build their characters. Matrix costs one point per level. Skill ratings of 4, 5 and 6 costs 1, 2 and 4 points, respectively. One point will buy an extra Body chip and two an extra Matrix one. As stated in this chapter's opening subtitle, the Matrix stat is too powerful and game masters might think of limiting it, as Steve D suggests, in order to prevent having Twos, Threes and Fours running around.

Skills need not represent just trainable abilities, but also certain intrinsic characteristics, like Trinity's Smoking Hot Babe skill, which helps her in social situations, and special equipment, such as a super-sharp katana. Very narrow or very broad skills can have their price decreased or increased. I don't see much point in this, unless you are planning on running something longer than a one-shot. The example in the game, the Face skill (defined as a kind of uber disguise/fast talk/seduce combo), although at first glance unbalancing, wouldn't be all that powerful in the Matrix setting.

Players can also buy special abilities that give Advantage dice or change the way a skill works in certain situations, like a gun that never misses. This is cool and would help in creating Potentials -- you know, the kids under Oracle’s care that can bend spoons. However, there are aren’t any guidelines on pricing them or defining their effects, except for one example. I have great difficulty on putting prices on these kinds of things and would appreciate some more help here. Appropriate character names and equipment are briefly discussed in this chapter too.

Deals and Fates round out the characters. The former represents what motivates the character and should help guide the players' actions. Fates are a vision of the future given to each member of the resistance by the Oracle. They are defined by the GM and should be kept secret from the other players. Knowing the basic plot of your adventure (or campaign, if you are going for the long range) helps a lot in designing Fates, as do knowing the personality of your players. This chapter concludes with some suggestions for experience and character improvement.

Playtest: For the one-shot, I told the players they could buy Matrix up to 3, except for the hovercraft captain character, who could have it at rating 4.One of the players wanted his character to have the ability to turn anything into a weapon, like Bullseye, Daredevil’s archnemesis in the Marvel Comics. After a second of despair, I just told him to buy it as a skill: Unusual Weapons. All of them chose good names and reasonable Deals. Like I suggested in the main text, I chose Fates that took into account my players’ personalities. Here are the write-ups:

Game Masters Section

This chapter has stats for the main cast of the film. It also includes the above-mentioned rules for playing a program. Here again we see special abilities mentioned. That's fine if the rogue program is an NPC, but what happens if a player wants to have a program character with a signature power, something like 'can only be killed by silver bullets' or 'can walk through walls'? There follows some discussion on success percentages and how they affect the frequency of rolls, and further elaboration on Deals and Fates. Steve D also has some interesting advice on running the game and writing Matrix-based adventures. In retrospect, the latter is kind of a given, since I've used the ideas presented in other RPGs. However, until reading the advice, my mind was blank.

Playtest: Pace was a problem. I had planned on running the whole adventure in a single night, but couldn't: my players spent a long time planning their actions and that slowed things a bit. Like the problem with describing their actions, I blame this on their previous experience with RPGs. Also, the setting’s cinematic slant hadn’t really sink in their minds and they didn’t realized they were badasses that could get away with carrying certain operations without careful plans. I tried remedying the situation by introducing fights -- as per Steve D’s suggestion --, but even then we only managed to go through half the adventure. It was a fun half though.

Appendix I: Adventure Ideas

There are three adventures presented in the file which vary from a couple of scenes to complete 'films'. Although I found the ideas and premises contained here very interesting, I thought the presentation lacked some cohesion. I understand the goal was to broadly define each idea, offering a background, possible events and likely outcomes, and letting each GM adapt it to his style. But the end result was too broad. Some parts actually confused me. A bit more structure here would be welcomed.

Playtest: While reading the third adventure, 'Raiders of the Lost Archive', I realized the Shadows reminded me of Lord of the Ring’s Nazgûl. Jumpstarted by the adventure advice, my mind quickly spinned a Lord of the Code scenario complete with a Witch-King equivalent and Morgul blade bugs.

CONCLUSION

Steve D accomplishes what he set out to do with TINS: provide a simple system that faithfully emulates the fast action, cinematic pace of the Matrix movie. In fact, as has been stated before, this engine is a good model for settings where the characters have some sort of supernatural backing ability, such as Highlander’s Quickening, Star Wars’s Force or Samurai Jack’s super zen. Steve D has already stated that There Is No Try (TINT), the Star Wars-adapated TINS will soon be in playtest. The Price of Freedom, a play-by-forum game run by Li of Orchid, uses a prototype version of TINT. In future versions of the rules, it might be interesting to include some notes on altering the granularity of the game -- for example, changing the die from d6 to d10 --, and its effects on play, and possible ways to improve long-term use of it.

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