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The Good: The dice system is interesting and well thought out. Clear competitive elements on a players vs. GM, players vs. players, and participant vs. participant level all exist in various forms, leading to shaky alliances and cheering when someone gets knocked down a peg. While the system is simple plenty of options are presented to keep things lively. Excellent use of examples to illustrate concepts is made throughout the text.
The Bad: Humor is a subjective thing, and while you may find this book funny I found it painfully not-funny. A lot of the gags are in the form of the author making bizarre remarks to you, which may be funny if delivered live but just don’t work here. The writing style is extremely casual, with the author speaking directly to you. This may annoy some folk. The layout is poor. Information is chaotically spread throughout the product. A lot of the text is redundant, with the same mechanics being repeated in a manner that wastes space rather than reinforcing ideas. The author is unpleasantly long winded at times.
The Physical Thing
This 121 page 6x9 softcover showcases substantially below average production values, even for a small press publisher, for its $19.95 price tag. Extensive use of white space and dedicating single concepts to single pages makes the book visually unpleasant. Important game mechanics and the author’s jokes and side comments blend together, forcing additional work on the reader and making later reference annoying. The use of ‘humorous’ sub-headings for some sections is particularly frustrating because it often doesn’t communicate what’s actually in those sections. “Even More Complicated” under “Complications” tells me nothing.The artwork, however, is very appropriate to the product. Orcs, including three recurring orcs, are depicted in a variety of situations both humorous and serious. The artwork is without a doubt the best part of the presentation of ORX, though I wish it was better incorporated into the text. Artwork always appears at the bottom of a page and it’s clear that whoever did layout didn’t have the tools or desire to make the artwork more integrated.
The Ideas
You and your friends play orcs – the classic fantasy bad guys, likely borrowing from The Lord of the Rings and D&D – and your general goal is to stay alive and gain power in a world where everything is stacked against you. The game focuses on exploring, in a humorous way, the nasty, brutish, and short lives orcs suffer through until their timely death.Under the Cover
Indoctrination - 13 pages.Setting up the very basics of the game, Indoctrination includes some foundational rules such as Always Roll The Dice. Handwaving (skipping rules) isn’t welcome in ORX, instead Stakes are set (such as “If I win the orc chief steps down.” “But if you lose he casts you out of the tribe.”) and the dice are rolled with great frequency in order to drive events forward. This opening chapter also does a good job of laying out the different sorts of approaches a group can have for ORX. Whether it’s a satirical game mocking a political administration or an action game following the orcs of the Lord of the Rings, there are a lot of potential options.
Creating an Orc - 30 pages.
ORX makes use of three stats – Brute, Nasty, and Grok – to resolve conflicts. Brute reflects pure physical might, Nasty reflects social maneuvering (such as it is for orcs), and Grok represents cleverness, guile, and other mostly mental concepts. It’s normally up to the player which one of these stats will be used in a given conflict, though the GM sometimes has a mechanic that can force the player to use a particular one (more on Curses later). For character creation players either distribute a d6, d8, and d10 to the three stats or distribute 24 die sides as they wish – such as a d12, d8, and d4.
Example: I’m building an orc I call Baker. Baker has a Pie which he holds up pretty much all the time, looking as mysterious as possible in order to make other orcs nervous. He is, in fact, dumb as a sack of bricks but learned that if he just keeps holding this pie and looking important then people won’t hurt him. Some even fear him. So he holds his pie as best he can. Using the 24 sides method I assign a d8 to Brute, reasoning he’s strong from all that pie holding, a d12 to Nasty, because he has developed excellent skills of intimidation using his pie, and a d4 to Grok, because he’s an idiot.
Every orc also begins with three Descriptors. ORX does not use equipment or special powers or anything of the sort. Instead, Descriptors are short statements on a character sheet that, when incorporated into the conflict, allow the player to roll an extra die and take the highest value. So instead of a magic system an orc might have “Shamanistic Powers” and whenever the player wants he can roll an extra die in a conflict, take the highest, and then talk about how Shamanistic Powers were used.
Example: Baker’s first and most obvious descriptor is Pie. I also take Aggressive Pie Holding Stance and Gestures At Pie as my other two descriptors. Someone cooler than me would probably spread the descriptors out to get exactly the character they want, but I’m going to drive this gag into the ground.
Let’s say my orc is confronting an elven assassin. The GM says “If I win the roll then the elf will leave you bleeding on the ground with an arrow stuck in you.” “Ok,” I respond, “If I win the elf will flee in fear.” The GM has assigned a d8 die to this conflict, while I have assigned a d12 (my Nasty). I decide to incorporate Aggressive Pie Holding Stance into the conflict, which means I’ll roll 2d12 and take the higher value. The GM rolls a 6 while I roll a 5 and a 12. My orc gestures aggressively at the elf with his pie, holding himself up as a serious threat, and the confused elf runs away!
Orcs have two more values. All orcs begin with one point of Fate. Fate represents the universe’s desire to see you dead. Fate is often increased when orcs borrow dice from the gamemaster’s Fate Pool – basically a side group of dice. Any die there can be taken, used, and returned at the cost of a new point of Fate. This is particularly useful when the orc’s player really wants to succeed at something – borrowing a d20 from the pool certainly makes success more likely than rolling a d10 or d12 (especially since it’s in addition to, not replacing, normal stat rolls). While Fate can offer nice rewards, at certain stages of the game the GM can roll a die and if it turns up less than the orc’s Fate then the orc dies. In order to make it even more tempting to take on Fate, when a player does borrow a die from the Fate pool they may also buy a new Descriptor. This is important because any given Descriptor can only be used once per scene. Taking on Fate, then, both makes the orc much more powerful but also makes the orc more likely to die.
Example: Baker and a dragon are facing off – if Baker wins the dragon has to allow him to mount it (in a riding on top of sort of way). If the dragon wins then Baker has to go find him a fresh magical pie to add to the dragon’s horde. I really want to ride the dragon, so I take a look at the GM’s Fate pool. It has 3d20s in it currently. I borrow one of them, use my Pie Descriptor, and roll my Nasty – 1d12, 1d12, and 1d20 are rolled. I mark down a permanent point of Fate on my character sheet and note that I can buy a new Descriptor – perhaps the fearful and subservient Dragon!
Fate can also be used to increase stats and otherwise benefit the character in certain ways.
Loot helps to protect and insulate the character from the bad side of Fate. Every point of Loot a character has temporarily reduces the character’s Fate rating by the same amount. So, if I have a Giant Ruby worth Loot 4 and have Fate 5 I only really have Fate 1 – at least until the Ruby is stolen, lost, or sold. Loot can be sold, one point at a time, for temporary Descriptors that represent helpful items and services purchased with the Loot between adventures. Loot is one good reason for party conflict, as stabbing your buddy might help keep you out of Fate’s clutches. The final rule of note is that replacement orcs will almost always be weaker than the previous orc – a player’s first orc is likely going to be the most mechanically powerful character they’ll ever have.
This chapter wraps up with some discussion of what orcs look like, their manners, and their appearance. Unfortunately, these pages are largely wasted space. The ideas presented are very base and extremely unlikely to even make play more flavorful.
Rules of Engagement - 29 pages.
This chapter delves into the rules and starts off by clarifying that any stat and any Descriptor can be used in any situation – the player just has to describe things appropriately after the dice are rolled, win or lose. All of these dice rolls are occurring in Scenes. Every Scene has three challenges in it, often generally setup by the GM, and the GM has a d6, d8, and d10 (or 24 sides) to spend on these challenges. In addition the GM can use dice from the Fate Pool just like the players can – but when the GM uses those dice they’re gone. The Pool starts out with a d20 in it for every player in the game, but it gradually increases during play at the end of every Scene.
Any Scene that ends where each orc has not brought a Complication (effectively, screwing a buddy) into play the GM gets another Fate Pool die equal to the highest stat die that orc has. So if there are three players, each with a d10 stat, and only one of them introduces a Complication, then at the end of the Scene the Fate Pool gets two more d10s. Effectively, if the orcs don’t harm one another the GM will quickly get the tools to take them down. In game terms, any player can Complicate your roll and by doing so you are forced to take the lowest die roll instead of the highest.
When an orc fails to win a Conflict then the stat they used is lowered a die size temporarily. When it goes below a d4 it becomes “zeroed” and the orc may die. The GM rolls the largest die in the Fate pool, and if it rolls below the orc’s current Fate then he dies. He also dies if all of his stats are zeroed. When he dies any Fate he has that hasn’t been spent is given to the GM as Curses which can be used to dictate the dice other players roll. Thus, after the first orc dies the others are likely to follow soon.
Several other rules add a bit more depth to these mechanics.
Playing the Game - 29 pages.
The final chapter discusses how the game works overall. The Stakes Setting and roll first then narrate concepts are explained in more detail to make sure the reader understands what’s going on. On the whole this is very useful, perhaps necessary, to really understanding how ORX works, though a short example of play would have made it even better. Much of the why and how here has already been laid out in the earlier portions of this review.
