It has been a while since my last bunch of reviews of the games in the 24 hour RPG challenge. Last year I made a commitment to review every one of the submissions done in the lead up to and during the 2004 Grand Act, which I completed not too long after the end of the event... and then people kept submitting new games! So, I took a deep breath, and decided that if I had forgotten how hard it was the first time by the time that the next Grand Act was called, that I would sit down and do a review of all the submissions since the last one. And now the time comes close again: Andy K has called the date:
The Grand Act weekend is July 9th-10th, with the Sister Weekend of the 16th and 17th for those who just can't squeeze in the previous weekend.
So it comes to it. I have looked at the submissions, and found (at the date of this writing) another 21 games. Crikey! That's almost 3 new entries per month... and if that continues apace, by July it will be over 2 dozen games!
So. How hard was it again? Aw darn, I better get cracking.
This is a review of the first 6 24 hour rpg submissions submitted after last year's Grand Event. If you are curious about my last reviews, you will find them by searching for the name Evan or the number 24 in the reviews section.
All the games reviewed here are available for free download from links available via the www.24hourrpg.com and http://www.1km1kt.net/24hourrpg/ websites, so check them out if you are interested.
The challenge is simply to complete an entire RPG from nothing more than ideas, your available tools and your own ability within a 24-hour period. So the work you are looking at here is likely to be short, sharp and interesting, with a varying degree of polish.
A few notes on my marking system: 1=Below Average, 2=Average, 3 =Good, 4= High, 5= Excellent I have on occasion indulged myself and added a 0 and a 6. You can figure what those might mean.
Flavour/Concept: Outline of the game concept. The score is pretty subjective. I put my personal opinion of the ideas here.
Formatting: A bit more objective, this lists the style, structure and overall set up of the piece.
Appearance: Again subjective, but with a bit more back up, points are scored for art, maps, and neat tricks with fonts or colours.
Professionalism: Spelling, Grammar, Writing maturity, and tone of the work. I have a bad eye for detail, so scores will not vary much in this one unless the game does exceptionally well or exceptionally badly.
Completeness: How easy is the game to pick up and play from what is presented, how finished does the work feel. Note that "pick up and play" is subjective. Most RPGs are built with a setting in mind, and what I am judging here is how easy it is to pick up the info here and run the game as intended. For universal type games, there needs to be enough info to allow a GM to pick it up and use it with the info at hand only in any appropriate genre.
Mechanics: How appropriate the mechanics of the game are to the game style, how innovative and clever they are and how easy to use and understand. All mechanics are judged without play testing, just from a read through.
Totals: 5/30 F, 10/30 D, 15/30 C, 20/30 B, and 25/30 A.
Note that most of these categories are subjective, so take my grading with a pinch or hand full of salt. I have tried to divide the scoring so that roughly 1/3 of the score is polish, 1/3 is factually relevant and 1/3 is pure opinion. ;)
So. The first 6.
Eastern Front
Jason Kline
Flavour/Concept: World War 2, along the cold Eastern front of the war. The Soviet army lies in tatters, and only you and the Russian Winter hold the Might of the German army at bay. Short, simple and to the point, the mechanics are a “roll under” on d20, the stats have nice names and ideas, but there is not enough meat and potatoes in this meat and potatoes. Average. 2/5
Formatting: No index, one short point about the background then straight into chargen and mechanics description, after word at the end contains most of the nice ideas. Too short to penalize. Average. 2/5.
Appearance: Plain PDF conversion from standard document format. Standard. 2/5
Professionalism: Usual grammatical issues in rapid writing are evident, some stumbling in mechanics descriptions but all relatively clear. Average. 2/5
Completeness: Covers all the basics it needs to but feels sparse. No room for movement after character creation. Since the concept is people vs. the winter, the harshness of war and the cold within, I would want to see a possible progression in Cold as a character becomes hardened or reacts against the awful conditions. Enough to play but not enough to inspire. Average. 2/5
Mechanics: I really like the stat names and concepts, good thinking here. I also like how the elements apply to vehicles and so on. The Roll Under mechanic is fine, but ordinary. Average. 2/5
Totals: 10/30 D
Pirates of the Stars
Carl Gerriets
Flavour/Concept: Swashbucklers and Privateers ... in ... Spaaaaace.... Solid idea. A LOT of material here, how it was all put together in 24 hours is astonishing to me. The action style of the mechanic is good, the character generation is complex. I can see some game mechanics ideas here of some interest as well, more notes below. Good. 3/5
Formatting: A brief note on genre then dive into many pages of chargen, then ship gen, then finally an explanation of the mechanics, then combat, then experience, then Setting, then finally GM notes + appendixes. In desperate need of an index, structure unwieldy, because chargen is deeply mechanical without much to keep interest and many complex ideas that are not explained till the Game Mechanics section. Apart from this criticism, rather good, so cut down to an average. 2/5
Appearance: Big font, plain white on black pdf. Standard 2/5
Professionalism: Some good writing here, some organizational issues I have mentioned in formatting and won't mark down for here. Good grammar and spelling overall, and some solid work. Good. 3/5
Completeness: Well done. Much thought in making the game mechanic function, and hits all bases (experience, action, character generation, character sheet, etc). Definitely enough to pick up and play. Huge amount of work here. Excellent. 5/5
Mechanics: The randomness of the chargen is tempered by use of points to get re-rolls and supplement or modify bad stats. This is a good idea but is hard to get into for a new player. The layering of base stats then a broad list of abilities is complex, and would take a lot of effort and commitment to make up a character. There is also no easy frame of reference for the character to compare how good they are except with each other after all the rolls are done. Once the character was made, I think the game would play out quickly and with a certain amount of ease and panache. There is some innovative thought going on, especially with the dice usage, and a very good suitability of the mechanic to the style. Good quality, teetering on a high, but just falling short IMHO because of the frame of reference and chargen complexity issues. 3/5
Totals: 18/30 B-
Objects
Darryl Park
Flavour/Concept: Generic RPG system based on a dice pool mechanic. In summary: the White Wolf System with the d20 stats (only substitution: Stamina for Constitution). Conceptually the writer was going for a system of game mechanics that uses object based programming concepts to apply the rules. As a fair number of game mechanics are doing exactly this (templates in d20, white wolf itself, gurps spell structure), the effort is admirable as an exercise, but lacking in originality here. I didn't like it. 1/5
Formatting: Posing the dice basics at the start is good, overall structure is appropriate, logical and relevant, no index. Giving good for logical structure. 3/5.
Appearance: Plain font, black and white pdf. Standard 2/5
Professionalism: Often out of place colloquialisms and distracting first person references from the designer really detract from the point here. I think a lot of this is written for laughs, but misses the mark a bit. Some of it is amusing (weapons for example is funny) but the introduction lacks professionalism, and in the first chapter, when describing how the mechanics work, the descriptions of the definitions are nebulous and needlessly hard to keep track of. Still, not really a poor, I suppose. 2/5
Completeness: You can pick up and play this. It lacks character sheet, and is deliberately not comprehensive in lists of abilities and traits and equipment, relying on the framework that it has provided to allow someone interested to create the relevant things. This is fine, but there is no generic frame of reference given for how to stat these extra objects except by replicating the examples provided, which is limited. Standard 2/5
Mechanics: As a generic system, it works fine. It is, however, unoriginal. The main differences between this and the WW mechanic is the 33% bracket for success (5 or 6 on a d6) and the random roll of stats, which does not really gel with the lack of randomness with the remaining character abilities. Poor. 1/5
Totals: 11/30 D
Heavy Metal Magic
Tim Kirk
Flavour/Concept: You are band members, partying hard, and beating back the forces of darkness with walls of solid metal sound and eldritch might. TOTALLY ROCKS!!!!! Ah... ahem. OK I like this idea. 4/5
Formatting: Story, then warm up, then character generation, then stuff about actions and magic, then some stuff about deals with the devil... The format is strong at the start then loses structure as it goes along (eg action and conflict sections are displaced from each other). No index. Still good. 3/5
Appearance: Very nice and simple use of font, colour and structure. No art, but very good work, clean and clear, and nice quotes etc. High 4/5
Professionalism: The writing is very good, with plenty of “not for children” language and themes. But WTF do you expect given the concept, anyhow? I think this is on the mark for what it is trying to do. High 4/5
Completeness: Not enough framing of the base concept with story ideas, and as this is a story driven concept, suffers for it. The basic premise does not require it, I suppose... The game is pick up and playable (see mechanics notes below, however), but is very rules light and has no avenue for advancement or character growth / change. Still darned solid though. Hum. Mechanics completeness cuts it a little. Good. 3/5
Mechanics: Rules light, based on dice pool concept. Number of dice changes by difficulty. You aim high or low based on preference (needless complexity added for nothing more than a cute style idea). Number of successes over or under target number indicates action success. GM doesn't roll (!?) but takes fails as successes for the opponents... at least I think that is what this is saying... OK the mechanic has issues. For such a simple concept I would want simple rules, but this does not, or rather, the simplicity is completely unclear in a few critical areas, and the examples don't help. Some of the magic is conceptually very good, but without rules to properly implement. Have to give a poor, much to my regret, due to lack of clarity. 1/5
Totals: 19/30 B
Virtues and Vices
James Sterrett
Flavour/Concept: You play members of a church group trying to help each other to salvation. Cute, and like all things innocent and sweet, slightly uninteresting. ;) But seriously, there are some interesting developments of what I call Narration Metaplay in this game (where statistics are designed to be fluid and are used to dictate the right to narrate portions of a story rather than a defined game world result as such). Interesting, in a read-through-for-food-of-thought way, but I would never play this. Good conceptually, though. 3/5.
Formatting: Straight through narration of the game concept, undivided by points or chapters. Short enough that this works OK, but nothing to write home about. Won't penalize for lack of index for same reason. But will penalize some because lack of obvious organizational structure makes finding a rule exceptionally hard. Poor. 1/5
Appearance: Black and white pdf. Standard. 2/5.
Professionalism: Occasionally comes off a little condescending to the subject matter which is vaguely counterproductive to the main point of the game (as a thematic opposite for Killing Puppies for Satan.) Writing style a little rambling on some of the specifics, but overall, still good on grammar and spelling. Good. 3/5.
Completeness: Remarkably complete offering in what turns out to be a complex little metaplay game. High. (4/5)
Mechanics: Really, Really hard to judge how it would play out with a group of willing players. I am a little unsure of the role of the GM, or in fact if a GM is needed in this mechanic, because it seems to me it would play out OK without one, but there is reference to having one at various points. There is some interesting thinking going on here that probably could use a rewrite and could definitely benefit from a proper play test. Still, for innovation I am giving high. 4/5
Totals: 17/30 C+
The Hidden World
Manu Saxena
Flavour/Concept: Mages in the modern world. This is an update on Ars Magica or taking Mage, the Ascension in a different direction, or something inspired by both with a bit of difference to it. I really like the 8 pages of background and concepts before the chargen and mechanics, plus the mechanics are really interesting take on dice pooling and do neat and new things. Excellent. 5/5
Formatting: Nice pictures, index (yay!) back-story, lead in, good structure, can't complain about much at all. Very nice, becoming slightly plain toward the end. High 4/5
Appearance: Very very good, if a bit sparse in parts around the art and towards the end. Good font, good pictures, good on page. High 4/5.
Professionalism: Very well written, no obvious grammatical issues, lays out ideas in excellent fashion, sucked me into the world and made the game mechanics quite easy to get into. High 4/5.
Completeness: No character sheet, ends after time run out, but even so, a remarkably complete offering, very easy to pick up and play. I am giving a bonus for the lovely background notes at the start. High 4/5
Mechanics: Some solid ideas and neat dice usage. I have some play-tester type questions about number of dice in pool and comparisons between exploding dice and additional rolls, and the odds of success are kind of nebulous (thus the need to have dice pools opposing each other, something that probably slows this down a little from what it could be IMHO). Also there are so many possible extra dice categories that might be applicable to a situation that I would find it hard to keep track of them as a player. These issues are in the 'tweak to make better' category as opposed to the “damaged or broken' category, however, and I am exceptionally impressed with the way this is all put together. I am giving it an Excellent 5/5
Totals: 26/30 A
Well, I will try to keep to 6 at a time from now on, to give my RSI a chance to recover. What an interesting spread of games in this grab bag! Anyhow, hope you found this interesting, and please take a look if you want to see more about them. They are all free, and I know the submitters would love to hear opinions and suggestions. Warm regards, Evan
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