Introduction
Now I'm always keen to look over new games whenever the opportunity arises. Being a somewhat professional reviewer I get the occasional comp game to look over, and on some occasions I am actually suprised by the quality of the products I get, and sometimes I am simply blown away by how poorly some designers research their market before releasing a product for sale.
Then there are the games that don't really fit into either of those generalisations. The games that seem to be born out of some vacuum where the rest of the gaming industry has simply not been around. In my mind, SAS kind of ends up fitting into this category. It is a bit harsh to say, but after reading through this game I was left scratching my head as to why it seemed to miss so many marks that would have made it a worth while rules-light system.
CMYK who?
CMYK is the title of Ladnor Burry's company that produces SAS. The game can be bought here at ENworld and has a hosted forum here. Which is somewhat unusual given ENworld's d20 gaming focus.
Layout and Design
Well, as a start, the layout of this PDF is very attractive. It's well designed with a good use of clipart and whitespace that ought to ensure a relatively low cost on ink when printing it out.
The bookmarks are also well placed, allowing for ease of use. They link to the correct sections, and are laid out to ensure minimum hassle when looking for a rule. So far so good.
CMYK (Aka Ladnor Burry) has gone for a very minimalist look which is attractive on the eye, with simple art-deco leaf motif bullet points and standard free clip art to keep the book from being a dull text fest. Still, for a PDF I can't help but feel the price is a bit high given that there is no apparent original art - meaning that given the book is produced by one man and no other obvious financial contributors, I'm somewhat uncertain that $12.50 US is a reasonable request for something that is barely 3 meg in size and could have been made on any computer with an adobe PDF suite.
Generic Fantasy and Unusual goals
Much like D&D, SAS is a generic fantasy system. It seeks to present rules to run fantasy games in worlds of your own design. As a goal, this is a perfectly reasonable one that many games present. Except that SAS is truly generic in approach - no races or classes are presented.
It opens up with one of the most unusual introductions to a game I have read. Essentially after some acknowledgements and discussion on how the PDF layout is used, the player's section opens up with an almost two page essay justifying why in a post 3rd ed world such a game needs to be made.
Personally, I like a game that discusses what the writers/designers were thinking when they made the game, but this is more of an attempt to justify the game rather than discuss any design choices. It also serves as a rather unusual "what is roleplaying" section by essentially asserting that everyone knows dungeons and dragons so the basic ideas are already well known and don't need to be reiterated.
I found that this section alone set the tone for the rest of the game - with such gems as this:
"SAS is not, however, “free form.” There are rules in SAS, and these rules should not be broken. SAS rules are designed to reward players for clever and sensible play, and to punish players (through the death of their characters) for overly aggressive or foolish behavior.
There is some discussion about roleplaying games, but it all seems to obsess about the impact of D&D on the world in general and how now it is the time that a game like SAS can finally step up and present a game that isn't thousands of pages of rules. I was kind of amazed at this due to the fact that roleplaying games moved on from D&D and esoteric rules back in the days of Over the Edge and Vampire. D&D third edition benefited from much of the roleplaying developments of the early nineties, so this preamble seems to suggest a designer who hasn't looked beyond the d20 market for ideas but wants to move away from d20.
For the first time in my life I actually felt that even following GNS theory - a theory I am not a big fan of - would have at least helped in this game's development. More on this issue a little later.
System
The system is clearly derivative of d20 in design. While it uses only four attributes and d6s, attributes provide a bonus modifier that moves up in the same pattern as in d20. Characters can have a race - but there are none provided and no actual difference in stats unless the GM and players agree to it.
The biggest similarity to d20 is that SAS uses levels. However it's levels range from 1-10. Now many people would probably want to stand up and declare that this doesn't mean that SAS is derivative of d20 - however I will point to a) it is hosted on a d20 gaming site and b) the opening preamble talks only about D&D as if no other games have ever had any impact on the roleplaying industry.
It is also worth noting here that there is no clear indication of how the system actually works until you reach the combat chapter. It is implied that you roll d6s against some sort of number, but much of the writing up to page eleven seems to almost be an manifesto of design and experience. Here the first big contradiction arises.
First we are told about exploits:
"The Judge awards experience based upon the successful completion of a Exploit. An Exploit might be figuring out who killed Baker Bob (a low-level Exploit), or destroying a castle full of giants (a high-level Exploit). Exploits, when completed
with a good measure of success, afford 1/3 of a level, 1/2 of a level, or a full level
gain. A given Exploit may be multi-faceted; for example, an Exploit defined as
“Return the deposed but lawful King to his throne,” may require many small
adventures as well as a few big ones. "
Which is essentially a narrative based experience system. Characters are rewarded for completing stories. However, on the very next page:
"All dice rolling is done in plain view. This includes The Judge. There is no 'rolling behind a screen' in SAS. If the Judge gets a bad or good roll, it is immediately obvious - to all players. This is, after all, a game based on dice, not a mutual story-telling experience."
Which is completely the opposite in goal.
Regardless, characters eventually increase in level and gain more major and minor skills as well as increases to their attributes. Skills work a lot more like feats, providing such abilities as "married to my sword" which allows the character to have a strong specialisation with related tricks. There isn't much to really say here other than, you've seen it before - this is just a more simplified version.
Combat is essentially roll an attack (2d6 plus your attack modifier, just as in D&D) versus a fixed defence value (just like AC in D&D). If you succeed to beat it, you hit. Damage either comes off health (vitality/hit points) or cardinal health (wound points). If you are familiar with any d20 products, I'm sure you are beginning to see the issue here.
Now the game is promoted as having a truly amazing magic system, and I must admit that it is an interesting attempt at doing the same system as used by Witchcraft and Mage - characters learn a realm and then apply modifiers to effect the success of the spell. So characters in SAS can cast virtually any effect they desire, they just need to have knowledge in the Sphere/Arcana/Invocation that is required. Then they roll the 2d6 apply the modifiers and see if they succeed.
Game Master SOS
No, I didn't misspell that. Anyone who has read a number of reviews knows that I place a particularly high value on GM advice and rules. Many a game has found itself victim of a low final ranking due to ignoring this aspect of design and writing.
It is here more than anywhere else that the lack of design focus is glaringly obvious. There are no guidelines for how to plan an adventure or design a world. The GM's section opens with a similar "justification" style essay that basically says that by lacking any specifics, the game is freeing up the GM from the stifling boredom of lists and lists of spells, monsters and magic items.
Then we are presented with a chapter that describes how to create your own... magic items and monsters. Then a brief chapter on environmental effects and "other stuff" that basically comes down to suggesting the GM wing it and remember that the dice must be allowed to fall where they may and not to cheat on the rolls.
Then it's a pat on the back and away you go.
Thoughts
Still not really sure about what SAS is really like or about? You're not the only one. After reading through this book twice, I came away with the feeling that it was written by someone who has been involved with d20 for quite some time but can't really let go.
The game feels like the designer didn't really have a clear game design in mind and thought that by following the d20 framework and just cutting things down would answer all the questions. The biggest problem seems that Burry didn't have any structure to work with and no effective language to help him focus his thoughts. This is where I actually felt that even GNS, which I feel isn't a particularly accurate measure of gaming, would have provided at least some structure to help produce a consistent and cohesive game.
For those who do not know what GNS is, I'm not really the best person to explain it, essentially it is a theory that puts forward that there are three core gaming styles - Gamist, Narrativist and Simulationist. Check out The Forge for more information on it and other discussions relating to it.
The fact that the experience system and general "wing-it" approach clashes with the apparent rules-lawyer style goal of the game suggests to me that Burry just didn't really know what he wanted to create, but he wanted it to be simpler than D&D. At which point I find myself pointing squarely at True 20 which does everything that SAS sets out to do with a heck of alot more elegance of design and focus of thought.
I can't stress how much the preamble was a bad idea. It suggested a serious lack of understanding of how much the hobby has developed and changed over the years. While I don't feel that you need to have played every game system under the sun, it is important to first investigate what is out there before designing your own game - even simply to make sure you don't end up reinventing the wheel. I have seen far too many indie games that have been written without any awareness of what else is out there and ended up being cheap facsimilies of GURPS, Savage Worlds and BESM.
This is where groups like the Forge, despite their dubious theories, are great when it comes to actual game design. Working with other people who have played a variety of games and have a variety of ideas helps weed out these similarities and also help indie designers to gain the focus necessary to keep a game consistent and comprehensive.
Conclusion
Ultimately, I feel kind of bad with saying this. I was sent this game to review by CMYK who had read a glowing review I had written for another game. But I do write the honest truth of how I feel about a product. I don't just say nice things because I like someone - Eden Games can attest to how much I come down on them over classic unisystem, but still have good things to say about their cinematic system.
So coming around to SAS, I will say unequivocably, it just doesn't make the grade. It's not bad per se. But in a hobby where the non-d20 market is such a small margin, you need to have a serious wow-factor to make your game worth it. Copy-cat systems simply don't make it out there, and copy-cat generic systems even less so.
SAS feels too much like an idea of a game than a finished product. It lacks focus, it lacks a clear design goal and it lacks pretty much misses all the marks in regards to what makes for a good game.
So why not a 1/1? Because the game isn't even bad enough to get a lower mark.
Should I Buy This Game? To put it bluntly, no. Want a simple generic game, buy OVA or Savage Worlds. Want an indie fantasy game? Buy The Shadows of Yesterday. Want a fantasy game that is like d20 but simpler? Buy Blue Rose or True20.
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