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NEVERWHERE has, basically, two different genres. Many times, these two genres cross paths in London Above, the regular modern city of London, England, and London Below, an underground realm of magic, sentient animals, and mysteries old as time itself. Those who are "adopted" by this magical realm become very hard for most people of London Above to notice. Indeed, they are often forgotten altogether by the society that they came from (the modern world).
This edition by James Desborough is actually the second edition of this game. The first edition was written by Grim. Neil Gaiman agreed to the free publishing of the game by writing a letter of permission that Postmortem Studios keeps on file (and by downloading the game, you'll get a copy of that letter, if you're interested). This is highly unusual in the world of roleplaying games, as most authors generally want to be paid for access to their works.
The game has two sections. One, the game part in general is from pages 1-22. Pages 23-72 are actually an alphabetized list of persons, places, and things you might encounter in the game. It is very extensive, from the Abbess Close (a hidden nunnery of the Order of Isolation) to Young Street (literally the last street named that had "fallen" into London Below from the spacetime continuum, before they stopped bothering with the naming process). As you can see, the game is well worth downloading to read more about the fascinating setting. This second section is called "London A-Z: Run Or U Die."
The main game part begins and ends with fiction sections to further convey the mood of the game, the-world-outside-your-window-if-you're-destined-for-London-Below, a somewhat dark, dirty, magical place. The introduction starts with some basic rules (Barter is the financial system in London Below, there is a feudal system in place, and favours must be repaid on demand). It has a page on what role-playing is, but it generally treats the reader as if he/she already knows about roleplaying games.
NEVERWHERE is about many things. It is about living apart from the modern world. It is also about feudal societies. It is also about facing nightmares and dreams in an unknown world.
In Character Creation, players choose adjectives that describe their character (their traits), a tribe (if they belong to one at all--chances are that they do, if only for protection); and, which fief they belong to. Also, strangely enough, players can choose to play sentient animals, as London Below's magic has made that possible for birds, cats, dogs, and rats! Players can also play sewer folk, trolls, people from other time periods, and vampiric beings called "Velvets."
The dice mechanic is very simple. One roll of a ten-sided die after describing what you do, determines success or failure. There is a difficulty chart to help you decide what the target number should be. You have to roll over the difficulty number. There's absolute success rules and absolute failure, and options about this.
Also, rolls are affected by traits, possible automatic success (an option), and even how well the player described the action (roughly 1 or -1). The success or failure description is left very much to your Narrator, the one running the game. Without any wound penalties, health levels, etc., this game is a little unnerving to those who don't like to leave it up to the person that is running their game. Still, I think the mechanics stress a more open story-telling feel, as opposed to the rigid hit points of D&D or health levels of World of Darkness.
Next, a list of suggested skills are listed. You can pick other skills (like some of the supernatural creatures actually use these to describe their supernatural abilities--for example, trolls have a tough hide and velvets feed on the heat from another person through touch, both are described by "skills" only they can take). There's also a decent experience system with a multiplier system to figure up how many experience points it takes to get new skills and adjectives (traits).
Narrator (what they call the person that runs the game)'s advice is slim, but well thought out. It tells how to describe the London Below, more about the Underside (AKA London Below), how to handle rolls, how barter works, and creation of cities like the Underside. There are five very basic sample adventure ideas as well.
The advantages this game has? Well, it's free. It's hard to beat the price. Secondly, it offers a wealth of background material on London Below and its minions. Thirdly, there's a wide variety of character types you can choose from to play. Fourth, it has nice art that helps you get "into" the mood of the game. Fifth, there's a TV series that is not that difficult to find. I got it at BORDERS,AND I didn't even have to order it. Finally, I just like the "feel" of the setting, the way all the elements come together to make one whole. If you wanted to, it would not be hard (relatively speaking) to convert this game to another system and keep the awesome setting intact. Or, you could also make serious revisions, though I don't think you'd have to with this product.
The drawbacks to this game? First, you can only download it (so, you can't get it in a book form, unless you pay for binding). Secondly, the system is very minimalistic, and that may be hard to get used to for some. Thirdly, you have to leave it up to the game master about the status of your character's health, unless you convert it to another system. Last, the game mastering section could have been a little longer/more thorough.
This game is an excellent free game that provides more information about Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere book/TV series/game. Many people are going to be drawn to this setting and its characters. However, it does keep system to a minimum and puts more on the shoulders of the Narrator than most games do. I hope you will enjoy reading this game as much as playing it.
You can download this game at: www.postmort.demon.co.uk. It may take a little searching around. The site is kind of messy, but it is well worth it.
