I have two disclaimers to make in this review. One, I got a complementary copy to review, and two the title of the PDF is "CovertLayout - FinalBook - Proof 2.pdf", so it's entirely possible that it the for sale version is slightly different.
Two things get my attention right away, and they're not good. Covert Generation uses stylistic fonts that aren't easy on the eyes. I'm really not a fan of mixing stylistics with important information - I much prefer to have the style be complementary to the content than replacing it. I also think this is the first table of contents which I have commented on. The page numbers are staggered, and on first glance it looks like a formatting error. Fiction and section heads are shifted a bit further to the right.
Speaking of fiction, I'm not happy about that either. I don't really like game fiction, especially when it's in the 3-5 page range in Covert Generation. Since I got a complementary copy, I actually read the fiction, unlike skipping it as I did in my review of Underworld. I went in with an open mind, as plenty of people obviously like fiction in their RPGs.
The first piece of fiction, I didn't like. It gave me an impression that this was a game along the lines of the movie Hackers. It threw a load of jargon at me that I wasn't familiar with. I'm assuming it was to introduce the terms, but it rather made me gloss over instead. I would have preferred the explanations of the jargon throughout the book before coming across the fiction that uses it. It also wasn't particularly well written. I've seen sentences started with "and" before, but I've never seen a paragraph started with an un-capitalized "and". I've proof read a lot of work, but this was actually a first for me.
Section 1 opens up with a remark about this being all a game and made up, obviously targetted at parents. It clearly lays out that the game is targetted at teens. In that context, the writing style of the first piece of fiction seems a little more appropriate. Who knows, maybe the target audience would like it.
My first reaction on reading through the intro targetted at the players, is that this is the new Cyberpunk. It's not about cybernetic implants, and the rockers aren't the ones who are saving the world, and it's in the now, not a few decades into the future. Everything else feels like Cyberpunk though. I find it kind of cool, as I like Cyberpunk, but I find the RPGs to be outdated, and not quite so relevant in todays world. Covert Generation certainly seems more relevant, particularly to someone in high school.
The players play agents with a goal to take out Generation X - which is responsible for everything that's bad in the world right now. I have to point out that one of the example skills is 733t5d34k. If you don't get that, this game probably isn't for you. There's actually a number of pop culture references. Obviously I recognised some of them (Fight Fight Revolution - guess what that's from?), but I wouldn't be surprised if some of them completely passed me by.
The second piece of fiction is better. For one, it's shorter, and for me shorter is better. For another, rather than introducing jargon, it frames some action that might happen. (Well, the first one did too, but it seemed to try to do too much at once).
Section 2 sets out your goals, essentially. As you are agents fighting Generation X, you have enemies. The example enemies are all fictional. Things like "Hook Multimedia Enterprises", "More's Pharmaceuticals", "Star*Mart", and other corporations which are clearly supposed to represent existing corporations or types of corporations.
At this point I was finally able to think of a series of novels that accurately describes the type of game Covert Generations is: Animorphs. The fictional corporations are what made it twig, although really I probably should have figured it out at the beginning. My excuse is that I haven't read Animorphs in over a decade, so it's not in the forefront of my mind. They also don't seem to have any visible mindshare anymore, so I'm not sure if it's a good example for the target audience.
I have to say, "Animorphs meets Cyberpunk" is a pretty good one line sell for me.
The third fiction, well, it again had jargon I wasn't familiar with. I was wondering if kids actually speak this way. I don't know any myself who do. Wasn't terribly interesting either, but as far as purpose goes, it does present the idea that the game can be as much about dialogue as it can be about high flying action. The picture that went with it didn't seem to have anything to do with the fiction though. The others didn't have terribly much either but it was really noticeable with this one.
Section 3 is character generation. Cleverly called recruitment. Not quite so clever though in that section 1 states that there isn't any recruitment to be an agent, kids just find their way into cells naturally. D'oh. Character generation is a mix of pick and chose from a list of abilities and describe the history yourself. There's a lot of questions to answer about your character. The crunchy aspect of character gen isn't that crunchy though. Seems pretty straight forward and shouldn't take long unless you have troubles chosing something from a menu. Personally, I like to have a random generation option, but I can't fault a system for not having one as a lot of people don't like it.
Character attributes are single word characteristics. If your characteristic applies to the situation, you get extra dice. I think this is becoming pretty standard in RPGs these days, cropping up as motivations, drives, passsions. Essentially a method of improving your roll-playing through role-playing. Yeah it's cynical, but I never said it was a bad thing.
The game I'll be inevitably comparing this to in the end is Sweet Dreams. Unfortunately it's not very popular so it won't help many people in the review, but it's one of my favourite games and it shares a lot of similarities. In this case, characters have what's loosely a class. It's really just another characteristic but it's the stereotype the character has. It gives them a benefit in one situation and a disadvantage in another. It strikes me as being very similar to the positive and negative relationships someone from one group in Sweet Dreams has with someone in another group. Clique and knowing your place are important in high school, and they're also important in Covert Generation.
Some sample skills are given, but the expectation is that you'll make up your own skills for use. Pretty cool in terms of flexible character generation. For those who draw blanks during character generation, the sample list isn't long enough for you to have much variety in play if you make up a few characters, or a few players are the type to draw blanks.
It also has sample tech, some of it is in the high tech range which will undoubtably be surpassed faster than we would expect. On the bright side, there's no game stats for them, so you're basically determining the technological capabilities based on your own understanding of the technology. While it's good for future proofing, it does look like it'll put a lot of work on the player's shoulders for designing the technology. Good for some groups, bad for others.
Fiction four is pretty dark. Involves torture, rescue, some death and chemicals similar to the gas in The Rock. It does emphasise the point of the setting in Covert Generation being bleak. It also shows while some aspects are going to be purely fanciful, it's also going to be quite gritty.
Section 4 is the mechanics. It's pretty clear the system is more on a narrative bent than a tactical one. Sadly, I don't have much experience playing narrative systems (as opposed to going purely freeform and fiating everything), so I don't have a good basis to work from in terms of analyzing the mechanics and comparing them. The general overview is you roll dice for the right to narrate what happens, with better chances in narrating something that's important to your character. It certainly doesn't seem complicated.
The GM is called the Representative. Oh golly. Another term for GM or Referee. This one doesn't particularly add to it either. The Representatives handbook section doesn't give me a clear idea of exactly how Covert Generation is targetted. The intro seems to suggest that it's targetted at new roleplayers who haven't played an RPG before, but I don't see how the handbook section would be of much use to someone who wasn't. It does bring a very interesting point about the mechanics though - while it's a narrative system and the Representative has pretty good narrative leeway, he can't directly harm the characters. Harm only comes based on what the players risk. I personally think this is a very good idea - it gives players enough control over their character that something they really don't want to happen won't happen.
Fiction five gave me a chuckle. Good job. It spoofed zombies. In this one the agents dressed as zombies, invaded Star*Mart and caused some havoc. It's fun. Zombies groaning "waaagheessss" is a pretty neat twist.
Section five is stats for common opposition, and a bunch of adventure outlines. They have clever titles, which I guess is a requirement for RPG adventures. My only complaint with the chapter is that a new adventure will sometimes start midway down a page instead of starting at the top of a page each time. It would probably eat up some space but it would also improve the layout.
Fiction six is interesting, it's written from the point of the villains. I've got to say I haven't seen that before in game fiction, although admittedly I try to avoid it. Still, it's an unusual inclusion, and rather appropriate for another section that's supposed to be for representatives only.
Section six, is a section that I would have expected to be included in section four. It includes additional advice on running a game, and I really don't get why it was split into two sections. Again, I'm not sure if it's enough for someone who has no RPG experience to figure out how to run things.
It also has designer notes with some history on the game. Definitely cool and it does a good job of explaining the intent behind the game as a whole, and not just the setting.
The index says asdfasdfasdf.... that's hopefully indication that the second part of my disclaimer comes true. They'd better do SOMETHING for the index there, rather than leaving it blank. Sadly, I can't see what the index is going to look like, as it's something I'm always interested in when I review RPGs. The last few pages after it is tables and sheets that will be needed in play. Again, I don't like the font used in all of them, it's not easy to read.
The artwork is all very consistent. It's fully pencil drawings, which I really like. Not just because the art work is actually decent, unlike what's coming out of some Indie RPGs, but also because the artwork is the same throughout the whole book. I really get a jarring feeling when I see different types of artwork in a single book. It makes up for the difficult to read fonts for some of the headings.
There isn't much art, just a full page picture at the beginning of each fiction, and a profile picture at the beginning of each section. All the profile pictures are also shown along the side of each left hand page, so if you were reading the book you'd always know which section you're in. In the PDF version, on the right hand page there's a number telling you which section you're on. Obviously, the print version gets both in one glance, but the pictures are going to show up first as most people read left to right.
It took me 30 pages in to realize that it's well laid out for PDFs otherwise. This is a good thing, if I notice it right away, if it's something about layout then it's not good. Covert Generation uses a single column. I'm assuming it's for a digest sized book in print, but single column text is MUCH easier to read on a monitor. Kudos.
It's a game I'd be interested in playing. The design notes mention that the idea of kid spies solves the problem of not being able to have group of spies work together. I wasn't thinking of that specifically, but again comparing Covert Generation to Sweet Dreams, I was thinking that having kids who still go to school is a great method of keeping the party together. In Sweet Dreams because of the "railroading" of the setting - the characters all have to go to school, it's easy to keep everyone together even if they start fighting each other. I suspect Covert Generations would have a lot of potential like this. Kid spies is also a well known cliche that shows up in so many different formats. I'm not familiar with that many of them, Animorphs is the only one I can think of right now but I know I've watched shows along those lines (Totally Spies more recently because my ex liked it), and some others I read when I was in elementary school - Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries don't quite give me the same feel though.
I doubt I'll be able to find a group to play it with (or anything for that matter, haven't been having luck getting together to play RPGs period), so I can't really rate the system. It's got a lot of good ideas, so there's potential. I don't know how it'll turn out in implementation. As far as writing goes, the players section sticks together much better than the Representative's section. That's pretty common in RPGs, it seems to be easier to write instructions on how to play than it is to write how to be a good GM.
I'm going to leave the ratings neutral, and let you draw your own conclusions from the content of the review. While it has it's pros and cons, I'm optimistic about it and would definitely like the opportunity to play it.
