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THIS REVIEW IS INTENDED FOR PEOPLE CURIOUS ABOUT RUNNING THE GAME, AND WILL LATER INCLUDE SPOILERS FOR SOMEONE PLAYING IT.
Now that that is all out of the way….
Exquisite Replicas, hereafter called ER, is a contemporary horror game dealing with a group of people, called the Anonymous, who have become aware that something is replacing the world with replicas, piece by piece, person by person. And the replicas are so perfect, so flawless, they don’t even realize they aren’t real. Can you stop the forces responsible before it’s too late?
We start off with a nice cover of a group of masked individuals in suits holding various scavenged weapons, followed by a credits page and a table of contents. First up is the Introduction, which is a basic overview of what the game is about, what RPGs are about, disclaimers that it’s all a game and so forth. One point worth mentioning is that the game expressly states that ER:
“is not a game of superheroes fighting evil space invaders; rather, it is a role-playing experience where the horror of intolerable choices collides with the fragile hope of what it means to be human.”
This is important, and I’ll get back to it later. Mention is also made that while the first three chapters are acceptable for players to read, as they cover the mechanics and basic setting of the game, the rest of the book contains secrets meant to be discovered in game play or tips for the GM.
Like gaming fiction that describes a world by an in-game character? Because that’s what the section titled Initiation is. In a nut shell, PCs have joined the ranks of the Anonymous because they share a common awareness that some things are “wrong”. Maybe they saw an aura of “wrongness” around a loved one, maybe they saw otherwise invisible monsters replace a building brick by brick, maybe they just were willing to believe the leader of the Anonymous, Ezekiel, when he tried to recruit them. Through the story of Anonymous member, “DM”, we learn that beings from the Otherside are busy replacing as much of the world as they can. Two things set the Anonymous apart from everyone else though, first is the mentioned ability to see things that have been replaced or are intended for replacement. Second is that the Anonymous have stolen a tool that lets them invade the Otherside. More stuff is discussed and revealed, including a basic breakdown of those Othersiders that invade our reality and what roles it’s believed they serve while here. Truthfully, it’s an informative chapter and establishes the basics of what is going on in the game, but it’s not the best gaming fiction out there. The “crazy narrator” style of writing quickly gets annoying and feels somewhat hokey, especially those bits where the narrator apparently thinks she’s a VCR or something or is constantly referring to the reader as “my babies”. It’s silly rather than tragic or scary, and it doesn’t really work well as fiction. It does however stress another element of ER, in that the story shows just how much mental disintegration the narrator has gone through.
Character Creation covers, as you guessed, creating characters. Each character prioritizes his build, choosing between Physical Attributes, Mental Attributes, Occupation, and Advantages. The more important something is, the more points he gets to spend on it. Physical Attributes further breaks down into Coordination (eye-hand coordination), Agility (reflexes), Strength (brute force), and Endurance (stamina). Mental Attributes break down into Intelligence (reasoning), Knowledge (fact recalling), Awareness (perception), and Will (both imposing and resisting). Occupations are really interesting, as they are much more comprehensive than most games’ take on skills; they cover any possible action that is part of said occupation. An Occupational Skill in Motorcycle Cop for example, covers everything from riding motorcycles and shooting guns to interacting with people as a cop and law procedures. Occupational Skills also set a characters contacts and starting resources. Advantages give players points to specialize with (a bonus to a specific aspect of an Occupational skill), buy Extracurricular Skills with (more specific skills that are useful, but learned outside of an occupation), and purchase Weapons with (replicated items from Otherside that do more damage to Others).
Of special note however are a character’s Psychological States. Paranoia, Violence, and Immorality, the total of which forms the character’s Mental Imbalance. Players choose how they want to rate them, but for every three points total of Mental Imbalance they have they will have a mental problem. And if they ever hit a total of fifteen points of Mental Imbalance, they become insane NPCs. One would think that every character would start with very low scores for their Psychological States, however PCs have to start off with at least one point in each Psychological State. And they’ll need them. Paranoia makes it harder to interact with people, but it also makes it easier to detect replicas and Othersiders. Immorality and Violence are measures of what crimes a person is comfortable with, but Immorality also provides a bonus to lies and subterfuge while Violence helps determine initiative. High scores in these three stats help characters, but also make it harder for them to function around other people, providing a nice Catch-22 situation. People outside the Anonymous can have scores of zero in one or all of these Psychological states.
Finally each character gets five points of Trivial Skills (skills that are basically flavor text), 20 health points (for keeping track of damage), and some notes for rounding out the rest of the sheet with possessions and background and the like. Filling out the chapter we have a blank character sheet.
Now that you have some idea of making a character, Game Mechanics will tell you how to do stuff with him. Every (human) trait in the game is measured on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being low and 5 being the (normal) human maximum. It’s possible for scores to be outside these limits, but those are exceptional (and almost certainly inhuman) cases. Anyway, to resolve a task you take the relevant attribute and a relevant skill and any relevant specialties, and total the number of ranks. Roll that many dice, counting any 1s as a single success and any 2s as two successes. For example: a motorcycle cop with an Agility of 2 and a Motorcycle Cop Occupation Skill of 3 tries to do a fancy trick on his cycle. He rolls five dice (2 for Agility, 3 for Skill), and gets 1, 2, 2, 8, and 10. 1+2+2= five successes. Since an average task only requires two successes, the cop performs superbly.
To further help PCs achieve success they start out with a pool of Tragedy Points. Remember when I said that for every three points of Mental Imbalance a character has, they develop a mental problem? Well, suitably role-playing those problems gives characters extra Tragedy Points at the end of a session. Why would they want these points? Each point can be spent, after a roll is made, on an extra success, with no limit to how many Tragedy Points you can spend from your pool. Have four points? You can blow ‘em all on one roll. Another way in which being insane helps your character as much as it harms him.
The chapter covers a lot more things. Combat, healing, mental healing, damage from falls and fires, and so on. It’s all very abstract and simplified. For example, various weapons are statted out, and firearms do more damage than melee weapons, but ranges for firearms aren’t listed. One thing I loved, and which says a lot to me about the game, is that it includes a section for rules on starvation. Seriously, these could be very important in the game, as we’ll see later on. I should also mention that there is no official system for character advancement, and only the loosest idea for how a GM may implement one; given that Anonymous aren't really expected to grow stronger and more competant as they continue to be worn down by the Others, this lack seems fitting.
OKAY, LAST WARNING, HERE BE SPOILERS!
Threats details those creatures that have come from Otherside into our world. Stats and story ideas and more detailed descriptions are given for those creatures mentioned in the opening fiction. And, basically, the opening fiction is dead on. Some want to gather information on everything, other creatures replace everything, other creatures are busy replacing structures, still more are busy taking little (and not so little) knick knacks, and some are actively hunting the Anonymous. About the only creature not explored in this chapter is the most obvious one: replicas aren’t explored any further in this chapter. These creastures are so important to the setting that they’re in the name of the game, and they get not so much as a paragraph. Which is a shame, as even some suggestions or hints or ideas would have been appreciated.
One nice touch is that some attention is also paid to the threat of local police and an investigative media outlet called Third Eye that has taken a strong interest in the Anonymous. Some sample NPCs and story hooks finish the chapter. That said, a few more “template NPCs” might have been helpful here. A generic cop, generic ganger, and so on. But as simple as the system is, whipping one up on the fly isn’t difficult.
While the last section dealt with adversaries at home, Otherside deals with the problems to be found in the invading dimension. And there sure are some problems. When people enter the Otherside, they find themselves essentially inside a giant, walled-in junkyard. Fifty-foot high walls separate this section of Otherside from the (assumedly) similar junkyards that fill the dimension. The only light available comes from searchlights mounted on the walls, or a glowing fog that fills the center of the yard. And while the monsters here are perhaps even more of a threat than those that invade earth, the choice of greatest hardship would probably be a tie between starvation, madness, or gangs of abducted people now stranded on Otherside. Food in Otherside is so scarce that survivors have to resort to eating abducted animals or (more likely) each other. Madness is quick to set in and soon irreversible here; those with an already high Mental Imbalance will not last long in Otherside. And gangs are always on the lookout to add strong arrivals or abuse (and possibly eat) weak ones. So why would someone want to go here? Besides rescuing abducted individuals, if the replications are to stop then they must be stopped in Otherside. Especially as the Others begin to specifically target the Anonymous.
Unlike a lot of games out there, the section on Gamemastering is fairly useful and interesting. While it has the usual stuff talking about “themes” and plotting out stories, it also provides a lot of ideas on how to run a game of Exquisite Replicas. Elements to use in stories, how to plot and pace a game of ER, and a few suggestions on why the Othersiders are doing what they do are all provided. A lot of questions in the setting are openly answered here, but the big questions are intentionally not given fixed canonical approaches. That said, I really wish this chapter offered more ideas and suggestions on various things hinted at throughout the earlier text. What does happen when someone eats a lot of replicated food? Are the Othersiders really from Otherside, or somewhere else altogether? Are replicas really no different from other people? Granted, just asking these questions leads me to making my own answers, and I like not having concrete answers to them, but that I have such seemingly basic questions from reading the text also makes me think the game may not be as “complete” as it should be.
So, is ER any good? Well, I was really surprised and impressed with how the systems for Psychological States actually make themselves relevant to the atmosphere of the game as well as providing interesting mechanical penalties and bonuses. I found the idea of Occupational Skills to be simple and elegant, and worth exploring for any homebrewed “Stat + Skill” system. I also found the setting to really embody the whole idea of “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean They’re not out to get you”; this is a game where being insane doesn’t give you cool powers, it alienates you from society and ruins your life. But you have to be at least a little insane if you hope to fight the Others. And the chapter on Otherside is an excellent setting idea mine, almost worth the price of admission alone.
On the flip side, I found the game generates a lot of questions it almost has to know exist, but then never discusses. It leaves a lot to GM fiat and interpretation, both in terms of setting and mechanics; for example, those who like map-based combat where “1 square equals 10 feet” will likely hate ER, and the book gives no idea how many pounds a person with Strength 4 can lift. Finally, a big problem I had is that the book is short and feels very padded to fill out its 164 pages. Besides recycling art (each chapter is prefaced by a full-page picture from within that chapter), the margins are filled with a large repeated piece of art. If the margin art was shrunk a bit, and the font was set a little smaller, the book could probably clock in closer to 140 pages. Oh yeah, they include the same blank character sheet twice in those 164; one located in the very back of the book is plenty. Fill the extra page with ads or something, other companies do it.
Who should get it? Fans of street-level horror games may enjoy it, as would people who like rules lite indy games. Also, those who enjoy psychological horror and darker games will likely be very happy with this one.
Who shouldn’t get it? People who don’t like games that have questions without answers. People who don’t like abstract mechanical systems. Players who like characters with fantastic powers, or dislike playing mentally ill characters. People who refuse to play a game that's based around a short, or one-shot, campaign. These people will be disappointed by the game.
For Style I’ll give it a high 2. The art is adequate and works well enough. Heck, even the pictures of people standing around are decent. Nothing exceptional enough to merit a 4 or 5, but still a nice solid 3. But recycling the art within the same book does cost it a bit. On the other hand, the style of the intro fiction grated on me fairly quickly, and didn’t really get any better. And the whole thing feels overly padded with oversized margin art, as if a shorter book was made to fill a page count it wasn’t really big enough for. Which takes it from that solid 3 to a high 2.
Substance is a bit trickier. There’s enough here for a complete campaign or two, but it will require a GM to fill out some of the intentional and not so intentional gaps. The mechanics are very light, but they look to fill any situation and really fit the feel of the game. All in all I’ll give it a 3. I’d be more inclined to bump that up to a 4 or maybe even a 5 if the book wasn’t quite so vague, added more sample humans and ideas for campaign arcs, and included a collection of rules tables in the back for easy reference.
My Conclusion is that Exquisite Replicas is a good game, but not without flaws. It offers a gritty, urban horror game, with a dark take on mental illness, paranoia, and perceptions of reality. The mechanics actually add to the game in ways a more generic system wouldn’t, and the setting has some gems to offer as an idea mine. But the game also feels like it’s not-quite-ready, relying on GM creativity to flush out setting elements the game should have considered better. And it practically begs for just a few more pages of supporting material, pages which could have better filled the book than its (admittedly good) art currently does.
In the end, I think ER lives up to its premise. It is very much not a game about “superheroes fighting evil space aliens.” The characters are normal people who, essentially, find themselves struggling with the disintegration of their lives. All the talk of Othersiders and replicas just provides a neat framework to base such stories around, and give PCs a reason to band up despite their individual mental decay as they try to fix something they’ll never fully understand.
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