Metal Opera is available as a free download from Harlekin-Maus.com. In the game, players take on the roles of down-on-their-luck rockers in a futuristic setting who must fight for freedom and the rock 'n roll lifestyle against the oppression of the State. How do they do this? By the 'Power of Metal', of course!
I really enjoyed the game! I loved just joking around about the whole Metal-thing (we played the game with a Hair-Metal/German Rock theme). If you aren't into the whole Metal/ Rock 'n Roll thing, you probably won't like the game much. But if you do, you'll probably love goofing around with it.
Presentation
There's nothing bad about the presentation, but there's not anything special about it either.
The game is presented as a simple html webpage, without any special print features as far as I can tell. It's plain to look at, but it's clean and easy to read, so there really isn't anything I can complain about. There are a few illustrations thrown in - drawn by the author, I assume - which are nice (I particularly like the exploding guitars).
Mechanics
The mechanics of the game are simple and easy to pick-up.
Characters in Metal Opera are defined by 5 elements: An 'Axe' (ie, a weapon), a 'Style', and three scores - Rock 'n Roll, Ass-Kicking, and Metal Soul.
Like I said, a PC's 'Axe' is their weapon of choice. This can be literally anything within reason, as the specific weapon won't affect resolution (more on that in a minute). A quick comment here: I understand why the author chose to call the character's weapon an 'Axe', but it caused a little confusion for my group. The term 'Axe' is understood by any true metal fan to mean one thing - a rocker's instrument. At first, we all thought that the PC's 'Axe' had to be some sort of instrument. We quickly realized that wasn't neccessarily, but it still caused that moment of confusion.
A character's 'Style' is a short, 1-3 word description that captures the general character concept. "Bad-ass tough-guy", for example. According to the rules-as-written, this can pretty much be anything. But it's not how we played it. The way my group interpreted 'Style' - or at least, how I interpreted it - was that 'Style' should describe the rocker stereo-type that the you are trying to emulate. For example, our lead singer was basically playing a Janis Joplin type character, and I was playing a Les Claypool-inspired country hick. I suspect most groups would do it this way, too. I don't know if this is something that should be changed, but we found it fun, and it's a suggestion I would make to anyone playing the game.
As I said, the characters then have three scores - Rock 'n Roll, Ass-Kicking, and Metal Soul. 'Rock 'n Roll' covers any action that requires finesse or skill. 'Ass-Kicking' covers any action that requires raw power. And finally, 'Metal Soul' represents a character's conviction in the face of oppression. Each score has two values - a maximum value and a 'rocking' value. The maximum value is set during chargen. One score must be a 2, one score a 3, and the last score a 5. The 'rocking' value starts off at 0 for each score, but gets increased through game play (more on that in a minute).
Looking over the character sheet, nowhere is the instrument that a PC plays is defined, and nowhere is it specified that the group must be a functional rock band. My group did this naturally. At first, we declared that we had vocals, a sax, drums, and a bass. But after we said all that, we realized that we didn't have a lead instrument, so the sax player decided he would switch to guitar. I suspect that most groups will do this sort of thing naturally. Again, I'm not sure if this is something that the author should include in the rules or not.
Resolution is simple. When attempting to due something, the player picks the relevent score and rolls a number of d6's equal to their 'rocking' score. If the action is somehow indicative of their 'Style', they get an extra die (which is going to be like, 99% of the time). If they suggest a stunt so outrageous that it wows everyone at the table, they get another extra die. After the dice are rolled, they take the highest die and look up the result on a simple chart. If they roll a 6, the 'rocking' score they used goes up by one. If the highest die is a 1, the 'rocking' score goes down by one.
There's also another layer to resolution. Generally, after the dice are rolled, the GM narrates the outcome, though the player is allowed to narrate one fact that the GM must incorporate into the narration. Now, if the player rolls a double of any kind, the player gets to narrate outcome, though this time the GM gets to narrate one fact. If the player rolls three or more dice that are all the same, then the player gets to narrate everything, the GM doesn't add anything.
Now here's the deal with the game. The game begins with the players each declaring a fact about something going wrong for the band. Like, "We crashed our spaceship" or "We have a gig tonight, but we don't have PA equipment." The goal of the game is to overcome these difficulties, but the only way to overcome these difficulties is through the mystical 'Power of Metal'. How do you get this 'Power of Metal'? The power of Metal is achieved when all of the PC's have gained all of their maximum scores. So basically the game keeps going until everyone has their maximum scores.
I should state that the setting isn't defined, though the text states that the game takes place somtime in the far future, where the people are oppressed by three Tyrants - the Tyrant of the Soul (religion), the Tyrant of the Flesh (corporations), and the Tyrant of the Mind (the government).
Playing the Game
The first thing about the game: it's very improvisational. Obviously, the players declare the initial difficulties, so they basically decide what the game will be about. Also, because the players are always allowed to declare facts, the game constantly moves in unexpected directions. I really enjoyed this, it created a very chaotic madness which added to the already zany premise of the game.
I liked the resolution system. You get to pick which score to use, so when you really need to you can use that high score that ensures success. But it balances out because if you only use your high scores you're never increase those low scores. I suspect (see below) that this means that players will end up picking their low scores alot more than their high ones. A quick note here that many people probably already realized: Since the game starts with everyone's 'rocking' scores at 0, the only way to even get dice is to use your 'Style' and suggest outrageous stunts.
Now, the text states the game should start with the characters down-on-their-luck, and that it should stay that way until the group achieves the 'Power of Metal'. (The text gives tips for doing this.) The resolution chart is also a bit skewed towards failure. This all was fine, and the constant failure just added to humor of the game. And oh, let me say - noone screws over their characters more than players do themselves! We loved coming up with things that caused problems for the characters. However, we actually had issues maintaining the difficulties for the PC's. It just seemed too easy to overcome them. We had to add more problems twice, and we actually didn't even finish the game. I'm not sure if this was just an issue with my group, or if it's a larger systemic issue with the game.
Like I said, we actaully didn't finish the game. Reading over the rules, the game looks like it would play really fast, but after 4 or 5 hours we weren't even close. Most of us had only rolled one or two 6's. I would guess, though, that the game wouldn't last more than two sessions (well, it might take a third). It appears that there would be an expotential growth in scores. It's real hard to get those first couple of 6's, but after that when you're rollin three or four dice, it would become real easy.
Summary
Metal Opera is a solid little game, great for breaks between longer, more serious campaigns. While it has the potential to be played more serious, ala Six String Samurai, I think it's a bit more suited for humorous games. The initial difficulties, the prominence of failure and complications in resolution, and the bonus dice for Style and outrageous stunts, I believe, will skew the game more towards the spoofy side of things rather than the more serious side of things.
So, if you're into the whole Metal-thing, or even if you just like joking around about it, you really should check this game out!
