The Imp Game, Mischief & Mayhem, Nate Petersen, Neo Productions Unlimited (self-published) 31-page .pdf, black-n-white, easily printable ($5 for the .pdf, $10 for .pdf and in-print, if my information's correct) Cover art (imp being chased by peasants) by Calvin W. Camp, no further art.

I should mention that I received a copy of the .pdf, and participated in the birthing of this game (as well as proofreading it). I was enthusiastic about the game from its conception and am thus not fully objective - I have tried to be appropriately critical, though.

The game in short: a sparkly gem about semi-inept Imps who often fail and sometimes succeed (surprisingly) at what they’re trying to do, loosely swathed in ribbons of rules, spattered with some cartoony colours. Its rules-text (the thing you're buying) is similar.

In this review, I'll cover:

• 1. Overall style/presentation
• 2. Content - what is written, and what innovations lurk therein
• 3. "Feel" - what play experience would you get, who is this for, and who isn't it for
• 4. Summary

1. Overall style/presentation

The .pdf is 31 pages of text, layed out much like your typical word-processing document (paragraph heads with larger/bold font, chapter heads with black block in white font, etc.). The fonts are generally modern and legible. There is a simple table of contents, like you would expect from this type of document. There is no art other than the (fairly simplistic) cover art. Combined with very few layout-tricks, this means that you’re looking at plain text spiced with the occasional textbox – not exiting, but effective.

Layout and text errors are very few. The author’s writing style is friendly, but not overly chatty.

2. Content

After a general introduction follows a more in-depth Introduction to RPGS & the Imp Game of 7 pages, the longest section of which is a sample of play. Besides the sample there’s a short introduction of terms for RPG-novices, some advice on Game Master duties and setting scenes.

There’s only so much you can say in 7 pages, of course, but the tone of the text is set here: some attention for new players, a general ‘looseness’ in applying the rules-text and a demonstration of the broad narrative powers the players have.

This is followed by a Rules section, which includes character generation, of 15 pages. This section starts by introducing the Challenge Check, which is the game’s One True Core Mechanic. This is the ‘gem’ I spoke of at the top of this review. The Challenge Check is a roll on two six-sided dice where a player tries to roll under a Target Number, whenever his character tries to perform an action that’s interesting, difficult, or possible to fail it. The twist is that the Target Number applies to all characters equally. It starts at 2, and each player can increase it (by 2 max per turn) by spending some Guts Points (the core player currency in the game, generally represented by poker chips or similar tokens). Once a successful check is made, expended Guts Points are recovered (up to the rolled number) by the Imp in question and the Target number is reset to 2 (with points from the bank). This sets up a series of failures with the occasional success – perfectly appropriate for the game’s semi-inept Imps – and a shifting of resources from player to player. The rules also explain how this allows cross-player support and backstabbing.

Whether success or failure, the player is then given broad narrative power to describe that success or failure (villagers falling on top of his Imp, another imp pulling the pitchfork from aforementioned Imp’s posterior and killing another villages with it).

At the end of the game, left-over Guts Points may be converted to so-called Praise Points, which work much like experience, allowing the player to buy more powers for his Imp.

While this explanation is sufficiently detailed, this section contains one potential pitfall – the rate at which Guts Points are refreshed. The author indicates that 10 Guts Points are allotted at “the start of each session, scenario, or scene, as the group sees fit”. No further advice is given. This allows flexibility for the group so that they may decide the relative scarcity of this resource (and thus the rate of expenditure – and success), but also lets a playgroup wander off into the wilds of system (dice) results with no clear picture of the resulting play. A group will probably quickly tune this to their liking, IF they’re familiar and comfortable with this type of tweak. I personally find a resource less interesting if it’s highly abundant, so would set this refresh rate as fairly low. Of course, a group could just wing it, letting their resources dwindle until everyone agrees on a refresh.

There are some minor mechanical side-effects (the injection of points to reset the target number and the loss of points when a success roll is lower than the target number) which interact with how a group plays which will mean a group will have to pay attention to this refresh to keep everyone happy (and with that I don’t mean “buried under a pile of coins”). In a player group that’s happy with flexibility, though, this means you’re getting the kind of creativity-spurring play you’re looking for.

The rules section continues with things that make your Imp unique – classes (Big Dumb Imp, Crazy Imp, etc.), traits (Gullible, Kleptomaniac, Paranoid, Speedy), fears (Bunnies, etc.), and abilities (Imp Majik, Shapeshifting). Before that, though, it explains how imps are effectively immortal, adding to the humour/cartoony atmosphere of not-too-villainous sidekicks. In the provided example, an imp discovers that, “hey, lava burns!”, when he tries to swim across a lake of it. This effective immortality, combined with broad narrative powers, makes the upcoming selection of classes, traits, fears, and abilities mean something slightly different from ‘regular’ character generation, though. ‘Normal’ character generation is generally done to make a character realistic, balanced in power to the other characters, express a concept, or a ‘nice and crunchy’; in this game, your guy cannot die, is expected to fail more often than not, and you as a player have descriptive power over what happens anyway. The classes, traits, fears and abilities are thus mostly colouring, but they also have additional functions: they say either “hey, I’m good at this one thing, I shouldn’t need to roll to introduce a success-story in the overall story” (class/traits), “this is part of my character concept, please use it against me!” (traits and fears) and “I like it when this cool special effect happens” (abilities). The ‘use it against me’ concept is another of the game’s positive feature and use for Guts Points – you can enter a bidding war with another player to force him to involve one of his traits in the upcoming narration.

After this section come sections on The world and Scenario Ideas. The author explains how the world is like every fantasy medieval cliché you’ve ever heard of, including the dread Master, ignorant Villagers, or over-the-top-Heroes. He then presents 13 scenario-ideas (paragraphs), including the Mistaken Kidnapping and the Rival Dungeon Keeper. A short, not-so-deep and loose section, like you’ve come to expect from the game by now.

3. “Feel” and who this game’s for

As you’ve seen by now (I hope), the game is written for a group that’s willing to play with loose rules. This could be one of the potential downfalls for the game – it doesn’t regulate who gets to say what and when, and it doesn’t have a traditional ‘strong’ GM. If you like that kind of thing, however, and are getting together to tell a fun story instead of edge-of-your-seat-will-I-live hack’n’slash or oh-my-the-angst gaming, this is right up your alley.

Who is it for?

• 1. Group of novices with semi-experienced guide, who are looking to rules sparking creativity more than offering rules/exhaustive support
• 2. (Experienced) RPG'ers looking for a casual break
• 3. People interested in the shared central difficulty mechanic, and the activating other player's traits mechanic
• 4. People who want a silly/humour, low-tactics/strategy game
• 5. Gamblers that want to earn chips - as players

Who isn't it for (and why)?

• 1. A group of RPG-novices who aren't already familiar with each other (too loose)
• 2. RPG-ers that want tight boundaries on player power (looseness of narration)
• 3. RPG-ers that want a 'realistic' experience, Level-hunters, in-character risk-takers (cartoony, low-crunch, immortality)
• 4. Long campaign play (this is an assumption on my part - low real character growth makes it seem unlikely there will be enough depth)

4. Summary

As to style – it’s a plain, effective, word-processing document turned into a .pdf. With a little effort, it could have looked better, even at the price it’s being offered, which is why it’s getting 2 out of 5 from me. If you like easy-print .pdf’s though (perhaps because you just want to mine the ideas), you can read this as a 4.

As to substance – well, the system is loose, as is the style it encourages. The central target number combined with the guts points, as well as the activation of other player’s traits, are nice innovations though.

It could have been written a bit more tightly - or included some more gripping examples for its length, but for your price, you’re definitely getting your money’s worth in the concepts. Thus the 4 – ‘gem in the rough’.

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