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The WARS RPG, based on the CCG of the same name, takes place in our solar system, after global catastrophes and overpopulation have forced humanity to colonize the other planets. Imperious aliens called Shi appear through a rift in the very substance of the galaxy, and drag with them the Quay, a race of warriors angry enough to make Henry Rollins look like Fred Rogers. A five-sided war erupts, with each faction having at least decent, if not good reasons to hate all the others.
Basic Rules
The first chapter of WARS simply lays out the basics of the game. As this is an OGL game, they ought to be familiar to nearly every reader. The biggest change is that armor provides damage reduction, not a defensive bonus. Another notable alteration is that every player will have kizen powers, psionic abilities gained when the aliens ripped open space. A third interesting aspect is that each class has a unique ability that can only be gained by taking that class at first level.
Character Creation
One of the biggest choices to make when generating a character for WARS is to decide on a faction. By default, players are human, which gives them a choice between three factions.
Earthers are the originals, the people still living primarily on Earth and more-or-less submitting to the governance there. These people tend to think they have divine providence, and should rule over the entire solar system.
Gongen are the descendants of the East Asian people who colonized Mars after a massive nuclear catastrophe rendered most of their land inhabitable. They refuse to recognize the authority of Earth as having any jurisdiction over them, and fight to maintain their autonomy.
The Mavericks are not made up of any one group. Instead, they are the castoffs, the people who live outside society on the Outer Rim of the system. They are largely grouped under the heading ‘Maverick,’ though they do not have any central government.
Classes are straightforward – you can be a diplomat, engineer, leader, medic, pilot, scoundrel or soldier. All are relatively interesting, with different abilities and progress trees. The level system in WARS tends to reward players who stick with one path, especially because higher-level special abilities can be very impressive.
Skills
This chapter is not particularly compelling. It is important, of course, since it describes all the skills characters can learn, but it is not a great read. The skills are pretty much what you would imagine – athletics and crafting, handle animals and investigate, with a few setting specific skills. Operate jetpack is a new option, and computer use is obviously valuable in a science fiction setting.
Feats and Standings
This chapter begins with the standard list of feats. A few are new and original, like Jovian Standoff, which lets you use a pistol to get the drop on foes; or Bot Fighter, which grants bonuses when you combat robots. But the real innovation in this chapter comes from standings.
Standings are like feats, except that they have to do with social situations. Contacts, ranks, licenses – these are standings, and show that WARS is not just about flying around and shooting people. Diplomacy could very well play a role, and having pseudo-feats to facilitate social gaming is a step toward a little something new.
Kizen
Every player-character in WARS has kizen powers, courtesy of the Mumon Rift made by the Shi and Quay when they entered the solar system. This chapter is chock full of psionic powers. If you have played games with these kinds of abilities, they should not be especially original. Characters with kizen powers can read minds, hurl bolts of plasma, or heal wounds. A dome of defence is still an armor spell, even with the name changed.
Kizen abilities work like D&D spells, except that instead of burning memorized spells, users burn kizen points. Targets are allowed saving throws, and range plays a factor in using these abilities. A series of power trees force players to take prerequisite abilities before they can take the really planet-shaking powers.
Combat
Combat is very much like every other OGL game. Players roll the d20, add their attack bonus, and try to beat the target’s defense value. Armor subtracts from damage, rather than helping to avoid blows, but otherwise, there is little here that will be new to a player of the OGL. Everything is easy to understand, especially since there are not even any attacks of opportunity to confuse the issue.
The Tools of WARS
The meat of many science fiction games comes in the wide variety of toys available. WARS actually makes an effort to make some of these gadgets at least plausible, which is nice. A brief discussion of the basic technological principles employed by many of the devices in this chapter helps to at least establish a suspension of disbelief.
There is a nice variety of pistol, rifles and other weapons in this chapter. Grenades and armor get a nice treatment, too. Several pages of cybernetics provide a little taste for the player who can’t get enough metal grafted to his player, and a short list of general equipment is followed by a few pages of spaceships and other vehicles.
Vehicle Combat
This is a spacefaring sci-fi game, and as such, has the potential for those star-busting space battles. Fighter pilots can maneuver around and hurl missiles, hovertanks can blast away at ground troops, and battleships can bombard planets. Naturally, some decent rules are required.
The vehicle combat rules are separated into two parts, surface vehicles and space combat. The surface vehicle rules are basically what we’ve seen before – use the Drive/Ride/Pilot skill to maneuver and a relevant shooting skill to blow stuff up. Daring maneuvers require better piloting skills, and sooner or later somebody is going to crash. This is all old hat, but the real innovation comes in the space combat rules.
Space combat is performed by issuing orders. Better crews and faster ships allow combatants to issue orders faster, though these must be selected from offensive, defensive and tactical orders. Most ships get three orders per turn – one of each kind – and some might get more or less, based on experience and capability.
This chapter contains several pages of possible orders, from Close for Battle and Target the Guns to Defensive Position and All Hands, Abandon Ship. There are orders for just about any situation space warriors might encounter.
Factions of WARS
Finally, after more than 250 pages of rules, we are able to enjoy a little background information. Up to this point, WARS is basically a template for a science fiction OGL RPG. Now we get to read about the various factions, their history, their goals, and their reasons for hating everyone else.
The Earthers invented the GRAV drive, and think that this grants them the rights to the stars. The Gongen, who were effectively self-exiled from Earth, disagree. The Mavericks don’t really care what Earth wants, because they spend their lives flying the bird at authority figures. The Shi want to enslave everyone, and the Quay are just really, really mad. There is more to the various factions than this, but those are just details.
Games Mastering
The requisite chapter on running a game might be useful to the uninitiated, but it is next to useless to an experienced GM. Thankfully, it is also short.
Observations
This is a fairly cool-looking book. There is a cool border around the edges of the inside pages, and it’s all full color. The art, while sparse, is nice. Overall, though, it is not particularly impressive. A game based on a CCG should have access to a huge amount of art, and it just didn’t make it to the pages inside. I would have liked to see many more pictures of the various ships and faction members, and there are not nearly enough pictures of Shi and Quay.
The writing style is not bad at all. There is a dearth of new ideas here, making this a very average sci-fi RPG, but as an OGL game, it is tightly written and well-designed. It is as if a team of experts assembled a game, and remembered everything that should be in a game, but forgot to add that all-important cool factor. There are lots of neat things in the book, and it all seems to be done quite well, but there is no compelling reason to play it. There is just not much here that has not been done many times before.
Substance: 4 – A well-written sci-fi game that ends up just a little generic.
Style: 4 – Full color pages and nice design, but it needed a lot more art and a little more flair.
