Introduction

Super Console packs a lot of stuff into a 144-page book. Basically everything you need to run a campaign up to Level 99 is included (although it's suggested the Final Battle with the Big Bad happen around Level 75). The book is mostly two-columned text, cleanly laid-out. Sprinkled throughout are console-game-inspired, humorous-style illustrations as well as strips from Mark Shallow's Adventurers! (a comic serial that spoofs console games).

The whole thing is quite printer-friendly, as most of it is text and uses clean fonts throughout. The PDF also makes excellent use of the bookmark feature, which makes it very handy for reading on a computer.

Each chapter includes an easily-seen sidebar that either explains the chapter and gives designer's notes, or details what changed in this new edition of Console.

Contents:

Chapter 1 - Introduction (7 pages)

This chapter starts with an obligatory "What is an RPG?" except this time, it explains what a "Console RPG" is instead. This is followed by a glossary of common RPG terms, as well as Super Console jargons. Then some quick tips for the players and some for the GMs too. Then it explains one of the game's most important aspects: Style and Genre.

Style refers to one of 4 values: Silly, Console, Mixed and Brutal--ranging from the most absurd/funny to the realistic/violent. Console, neither too Silly, nor too realistic is the default Style.

Genre refers to the era in which the game occurs: Timeless Time, Ancient Times, the Golden Age, the Ice Age, Medieval, Magitech, Post-Magitech, and the Space Age. Each of these is defined in greater detail later in the Game Master's (or CPU as the game calls its GMs) section. For one thing, they affect the type of characters that are available.

The chapter continues with an explanation of the character creation process, detailing her Primary Attributes (Strength, Speed, Vitality, Intelligence, Spirit, Magic, and Luck), her Secondary Attributes (derived from the Primaries, they are: Initiative, Attack Skill, Damage, Defense, Toughness, Evasion, Critical Percentage, Magic Defense, Status Resistance and Magic Skill), and Other Factors (Health/Mana/XP Bars, and Level).

Finally, the chapter ends with a nice little sidebar pointing what you should read next, which depends on where your interests as a player lie, or if you plan on being a CPU.

Reviewer's Note This chapter does its job fairly-well: introducing new players to the main game terms and character details. It was definitely a good idea to present all this info up front. The next chapter tells the player what to do with all the character values he's figured out in this chapter.

Chapter 2 - The Game Engine (15 pages)

As the name implies, this chapter describes the action resolution system. Super Console divides actions into four types: Mundane, Resisted, Contested, and Skilled.

Mundane Actions are everyday stuff--taking care of your pet, remembering where your parents' house is, walking up/down stairs, etc. Most people can perform them easily enough.

Resisted Actions are actions where the target actively tries to resist the attempt, like when your character attacks or casts a spell at someone. The chance of success is first figured out by subtracting the defender's Resistance skill (like Evade for attacks or Status Resistance for effects that hang onto the target like Poison or Slow) from the attacker's Skill (like Attack Skill or Magic Skill). The difference is then looked up on the Skill Chart which will give you the percentage Chance of the target resisting the attack.

Contested Actions are like Resisted Actions, except there's no real "attacker;" both sides are trying to beat each other at something. They're also a bit quicker to resolve: simply choose the relevant stat for the action, like Speed for a race. Then have each character involved in the contest roll d100 + the relevant Stat. Highest roll wins. Simple and sweet.

Skilled Actions are special actions a character can perform because of an unusual skill or talent they possess; these usually do not fail. These are usually class abilities that characters get.

The Bar Chart

Super Console Player Characters, or Main Characters (MCs), have three stat Bars: Health, Mana, and Experience. All three are expressed as percentage values, instead of actual numerical ones. Damage generally lowers Health, casting spells lowers Mana, and defeating monsters increases Experience.

The Bar Chart is a unified table that shows how much the bars change in those particular situations. Like the Skill Chart, the Bar Chart is a simple two-column table. You look up the Difference and find the Change.

For example: When your attack hits, damage is calculated by taking the Difference of your Damage minus your target's Defense. Let's say you have a Damage of 10 and the Imp you just hit has a Defense of 3. The Difference would be 7. Looking this up on the Bar Chart yields a Change of 30%, which means the Imp loses 30% off its Health Bar.

Reviewer's Note: The bulk of most characters' actions would be Resisted, thus making the Skill Chart the centerpiece of the core game system. While the use of a table may seem off-putting to some, we're talking about a quick lookup chart here of two columns: Resistance minus Skill and Chance. So it actually should go quite fast in actual play. Look up the Chance, roll d100, and resolve the action.

The same can be said for the Bar Chart: simply take the Difference, and look up the change.

Patience

Patience is an attempt to provide an abstraction of the console RPG experience: grinding (wandering around for hours trying to level up), looting the surrounding area, restoring from save points, etc.

Essentially, the whole party is given six (6) Patience points to spend on various options, like grinding (it is assumed the party spends enough time fighting lots of encounters, something easily done in an electronic RPG but very tedious, not to mention annoying, to do in a pen & paper game) so everyone gets a level.

While clearly a metagaming mechanic, this is one of the best rules in Super Console--elegantly simulating some of the aspects of the console gaming experience.

Combat

The next few pages are devoted to the combat rules. The Timer, Super Console's Initiative system, is discussed. Characters act on regular "ticks," a counter that starts on 0 when a battle begins and continually counts upwards until the battle ends.

A character's Initiative (a calculated score based on his Level and Speed) determines when he gets to act, based on the Ticks Table. So if he had say, an Initiative of 20, he'd get to act every 25 ticks according to the table. His first action would then be on tick 25, then on tick 50, 75, 100, etc.

The rules for combat are well-organized:

• Simple Combat: These are the basic combat rules, mostly suitable for Silly or Console Style games. In these rules, a side of combatants are arranged in rows--the Front and the Back, pretty standard fare for most early console games.
• More Combat adds a few more options for Mixed and Brutal games, as well as assuming a more exact positioning than the standard row system. The combat rules become a bit more tactical like your standard RPG system. Don't worry, it doesn't require miniatures.
• Healing discusses how characters heal from injuries both inside and outside of combat. Again, differences in tone depend on which Style your game is using.
• Status Effects gives the lowdown on the laundry list of effects that would be familiar to anyone who's ever played a console RPG. These range from Berserk and Confused, to Stopped and Tiny. The handy Status Table shows how each Status Effect may be "fixed" (usually by using the appropriate counter item), whether it ends after combat, and whether it can be "shrugged off" (a resistance check made everytime the affected character takes an Action). Also in keeping with standard console game conventions, Boss monsters are immune to most Status Effects.
• Optional Rules gives suggestions on how to handle other stuff not covered by the standard combat rules. These include Alternative party battle systems, Rage Bars (a sort of Limit Break mechanic), and variable Recovery Times (optional Initiative modifications).

Reviewer's Note: Some of the options are nifty additions that reflect or model the growing complexity in more recent console games. The suggestions are welcome of course, and provide solid rules or jump points for more optional systems the MC may want to add. Note, however, that a few of the options do add a certain degree of necessary bookkeeping, and may slowdown games.

Chapter 3 - Classes (18 pages) and Chapter 4 - Tasks (12 pages)

I've grouped Chapters 3 and 4 together because they both deal with Character Creation systems. Characters in Super Console can be created in one of two ways: using Classes or using Tasks. These two are exclusive options and won't usually show up in the same game at the same time.

Classes Classed characters are just that--you pick a class and that's it. The class gives your character's starting stats as well as his special abilities, which are gained at certain levels.

The bulk of Chapter 3 details the 21 classes of Super Console. They are: Adventurer, Archer, Bard, Berserker, Black Mage, Calculator, Chemist, Dark Knight, Dragoon, Fighter, Geomancer, Mechanist, Monk, Mystic Knights, Ninja, Red Mage, Summoner, Thief, Time Mage, Trainer, and White Mage.

Each class is outlined as follows:

• an "iconic" stick figure illustration
• Starting Attributes block: just copy and you have your most of your character ready for adventuring!
• Typical Genres: a short section detailing the appropriate Genres for the class
• Typical Jobs in a party of adventurers, inside and outside of combat
• Typical Equipment
• Abilities
class-based features, gained at each of the following levels--1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, 30th, 40th, 50th, 65th, 80th, 95th and 99th--for a total of 12 Abilities.

Tasks In a way, Tasks creates more versatile characters, since they are not locked to a single class with a single set of Abilities. Thus, creating Tasked characters are a little bit more involved than creating Classed characters, both for the MC and the players.

Chapter Four details two major ways for Tasked characters to progress: Trees (using skill trees) and Empowerment (through items, spirits or devices). It is up to the CPU to decide which of the two options he'll be using for his campaign. An excellent discussion of the two types, detailing the pros and cons, helps with this decision.

The rest of the chapter deals with the actual Skill Trees (essentially the Classes from Chapter 3, divided up into component parts) and cool Options to season Tasks to the CPU's tastes.

Reviewer's Notes: Tasked characters offer a far greater wealth of options for a Super Console game. They also reflect the change in gameplay rules of the more modern console games (like Final Fantasy V onwards). Chapter Four offers several options that could jumpstart a CPU's brain when he's preparing for a Super Console campaign, ensuring a game that's offers deep customization, as well as background hooks that could be mixed into the game's storyline and mythos.

Chapter 5 - Magic (15 pages)

Magic deals with the spells and supernatural forces that console game characters have at their disposal. There is a short section on spell creation, as well as another section on Elements, virtually a console RPG mainstay, are discussed with a common setup (Fire, Cold, Earth, Air, Lightning, Holy, etc.) and which elements are opposed by which. Suggestions on alternative elemental systems are also given.

Most of the chapter is taken up by the actual spells themselves, organized into 6 types: Bard Songs, Black Magic, Earth Magic, Summons, Time Magic, and White Magic.

Spells under each type are organized by level (1st to 5th), and are detailed as follows:

• Effect: a short description of what happens when the spell is cast.
• Spell Cost: for determining how much it drains from the caster's Mana Bar.
• Range
• Duration

Reviewer's Notes: All of the spells are combat spells and there's not many of them per level. The names will be familiar to most console gamers (Bolt, Bolt II, Bolt III, Luminaire, Flaire). Most of the names are tied directly to their effects (Frog, Slow, Haste), making them easy to remember. Most of them follow a thematic naming scheme (for example, the Bard Songs are based on musical names like Hero's Ballad, Requiem, Seismic Subwoofer) and the Summons are of course based on the summoned entity's names (Lord of Locusts, Efreet, Zeus, Tiamat).

Chapter 6 - Equipment (23 pages)

This chapter opens up with well-detailed guidelines on creating Weapons and Armors for your Super Console games. Power value ranges and suggested Bonuses (equipment special abilities) are given for appropriate character levels: Beginner (Level 1 MCs), Low Level, Intermediate, High Level, and Endgame. There's a sidebar on naming conventions as well (generally, as characters gain more levels, their equipment gets more bad-ass names).

Items and Accessories are listed next. Unlike weapons and armor, these are actual lists, with premade names, costs, and effects.

Next are store lists for Levels 1 to 99, premade weapons and armors for those who don't want to create their own weapons and armor lists. The last table details Ultimate Weapons, those uber-powerful items usually found during a console rpg's endgame sequence and used to smack the Main Villain's arse around.

Rounding out the chapter are guidelines for Mechanist Items (which are created from junk found around the game world) and some notes on Task Equipment (which are obviously for CPUs running Tasked characters.

Reviewer's Notes: There's not much to say about this chapter as it's functional and seems to provide enough helpful information on the subject matter. Games using Classed Characters would benefit more from this chapter as they'd have everything already laid out for them. Tasked Character games as well as those with Mechanist characters will require a little more preparation on the part of the CPU.

Chapter 7 - Console Conventions (14 pages)

This chapter does a good job of distilling the most common elements of console-type RPGs and setting their effect in a game of Super Console. Treatments on the Active Party, Cheat Codes, Cutscenes, Save Points (of course!), and Sidequests, among others, offer insights that are useful for all aspiring CPUs, whether he's a hardcore console RPG fan or a clueless Luddite.

Chapter 8 - Genre & Style (10 pages)

Chapter 8 fully discusses the two "settings" all Super Console games have: Style (or where your game falls on the silly-realistic meter) and Genre (or when the game's Era is set).

Game Era can be any of the following eight periods, in chronological order: The Timeless Time, Ancient Times, The Golden Age, The Ice Age, Medieval Era, Magitech Era, Post-Magitech Era, and Space Age.

Each Game Era is presented with a capsule setting description, and the following entries:

• Political Situation
• Typical Themes
• General Technoloy Level
• General Magic Level
• Class Changes
• Item Changes
• Rules Changes
• Cliches and Conventions
• How to Get to the Next Era

Reviewer's Notes: Each Game Era is effectively a campaign setting in itself. The discussions on Style & Genre offer lots of help for the CPU who's still undecided in what type of game he wants to run.

Console RPG fans will note the strong influence of Chrono Trigger as well as the Final Fantasy series in the presentation of each Game Era.

Chapter 9 - Monsters (13 pages)

As with weapons and armor, there are too many monsters found in console RPG games. This meat of this chapter, then, gives the CPU the rules for creating his own monsters in a few quick steps.

Basically, monsters are defined by their Level and Type. Level determines their basic stats, while Type is a sort of Template detailing their abilities.

Templates include Beast, Bird, Boss, Demon, Dragon, Elemental, Faerie, Fish, Ghost, Goblin, Golem, Magician, Orge, Plant, Robot, Shell and Undead. Template entries are organized as follows:

• Attribute modifiers
• Secondary Stat modifiers
• Special Attributes
• Treasure modifiers

Next are details for creating Advanced Monsters, more powerful monsters for more powerful characters: Brutish, Planar, Dreaded, and Magical.

Sample Monsters are then given, to guide you in creating your own.

The chapter concludes with sections on Experience Points, Leveling (grinding using Patience Points), and Looting (sacking all the treasure from an area like a town or dungeon; again using the Patience system).

Reviewer's Notes: This chapter is quite functional and straight-forward, with everything in their proper place. Enough examples are given to prevent confusion.

Chapter 10 - CPU Advice (8 pages)

The final chapter offers a host of helpful tidbits for the CPU, from pregame preparation suggestions, to advice on Tasked games (which, as previously mentioned, does require a bit more prep work than a standard Classed game). There's also a nice "Story Cycle" flowchart that's perfect for plotting your Super Console game. An article on the Main Villain offers great advice on how to make him more than just a monster out to destroy the world. And finally some notes on how to wrap up the end of the game.

The book ends with a Character Sheet (2 pages) and a Cheat Sheet (1 page) which includes the four game charts you'll need when playing Super Console: the Bar Chart, the Skill Chart, the Ticks Table, and the Status Table.

Conclusion

While this is a PDF release, it would have benefited from an index as well, for those people who will print it. That said, for the price and the volume of information packed into this 144-page book, this is amazing value for one's money.

Super Console presents a very good roleplaying system that fulfills what it set out to do: emulate the console RPG experience that emulated the tabletop experience in the first place. With this, the circle is complete.

Fans of Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and other old-school console RPGs can now play their favorites on the table with all the benefits of a tabletop game: now, you're not constrained by the electronic games' one-sided storylines and the designers' visions! Even the more recent console games can be emulated by Super Console with enough work.

Pen & paper enthusiasts who loathe console games can now prove the superiority of the tabletop experience while retaining the flavor of console gaming. Think of it: you know imagination can do better than any Graphical Processing Unit and you can come up with more interesting storylines than the emo-railroaded tripe they use in videogames.

All that with just this one PDF, a set of percentile, some friends, and your imagination.

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