 Goto [ Index ] |
But the fantastic elements are only one part of Summerland. The real emphasis is on the drifters, those individuals who are so traumatized psychologically and socially isolated that they can ignore the Call and function within the deepest part of the Sea of Leaves. Players take on the role of one of these drifters, exploring their traumas and seeking redemption and reintegration into society for their characters.
Character Creation: Characters are measured by four stats: Body, Empathy, Finesse, and Mind. Players have 20 points to divide between the four, with no stat higher than 10 or lower than 1. “Tags” are assigned to each stat, equal to half the stat’s value (rounded down); the highest stat has two tags. Tags are a simple defining trait, created by the player to define where the character excels in a certain aspect of the stat. A character might have a tag of “Strong Legs” for Body, or “Psychologist” for Mind.
Task Resolution: Players choose a stat relevant to the task at hand, along with two relevant tags, and total the three numbers. Players then take two to five six-sided dice depending on the difficulty of the task (e.g. easy tasks require two dice, near impossible take five) and try to roll the previously generated total or less on the dice. Applicable tools don’t add to the character’s total, but reduce the number of dice rolled; a crowbar can turn a Difficult three-dice task into a Routine two-dice task.
Conflict: The nature of each side in the conflict determines how difficult a scenario is; it’s much easier for a smooth-talker to win a debate against a heavily accented stutterer with poor hygiene, so the smooth-talker rolls two dice against the stutterer’s five dice. Whoever makes the roll wins the conflict, and the difference between the number they rolled and the number the loser rolled is measured as levels of distress against the loser. Distress is applied against the loser’s relevant stat and may result in bodily harm, asthmatic attacks, nervous breakdowns, and so forth, depending on how much under or over the stat the amount of distress is. Higher levels of distress result in greater, and more lasting, hindrance to the character, but they are not cumulative; 4 points of distress in a conflict doesn’t “carry over” to the next conflict, only the resulting effects of the distress (if any). Cosmetic distress doesn’t hinder the character in any lasting manner, minor distress is more impairing but not extremely so, and major distress can hinder a character for an entire story.
Trauma: All player characters in Summerland are drifters, people too emotionally damaged to function for long within normal society due to past traumas. Players have the option to invoke their character’s traumatic past in order to roll one fewer dice during task resolution. All characters start out with 5 points of trauma; when trauma is invoked, if any dice come up 1, then the character loses a point of trauma. But if any of the dice come up 4, 5, or 6, then the character loses stress.
Stress: Characters start with 5 points of stress. As they invoke their traumas to improve their odds at accomplishing tasks, they also risk losing stress. Once the character reaches 0 stress they have “cracked” and spend the rest of the scene generally making their situation worse. Furthermore, they can’t invoke their Traumas again until they recover some stress points, and rolling a 6 on any dice now causes them to “crack” once more until they recover stress. The only way they can recover points of stress is by finding a community to welcome them in for a few days.
The Call: As the character’s trauma rating drops, he becomes more susceptible to the Call. Eventually, he will no longer be able to safely travel the Sea of Leaves; one night he’ll simply fall asleep and his subconscious mind will become like that of the Lost or the Wild. Fortunately, by that point the character will be well adjusted enough to function within a community and can leave the life of a drifter behind. And that’s the point of Summerland: characters go from being dysfunctional and maladjusted vagabonds on the fringes of society to functioning and welcomed members of a community.
Also included in the book are several suggested styles of play in Summerland, text examples of scenes to help establish a mood (such as Horror, Hope, or Magic), along with a listing of some relevant movies and books and why the media is considered relevant to a particular mood set in the Sea of Leaves. Furthermore, over half-a-dozen sample drifters are statted out and detailed, although their underlying traumas that make them drifters are not always included. Seven sample communities are also included, and details on their members, location, “bizarre practices”, and other information is provided. Also included is a system for randomly generating more communities.
Style: There is a comprehensive Table of Contents. Background art consists of a progressively growing forest scene; what starts as a few grassy plants at the start eventually becomes a full forest of trees in the background art by the end of the book. Photographs of real things are used heavily, and there are perhaps four pictures of line art. The book has few editing errors; none of them hinder understanding the game, and the book isn’t as poorly edited as an average scribendi.com offering.
…Okay, I’m reaching the point where I can’t really be objective anymore. Sorry. It was an experiment; I wanted to see how objective I could be and hit my limit. Not that I lied or even omitted anything previously, but I just can’t help but inject my opinions at this point. We now resume the review….
I don’t like photos in RPGs. It’s a cheap placeholder for real art in my opinion (usually). I doubly don’t like pictures of people standing around doing nothing. In Summerland’s case though, it generally works. The text ties the stock photos used for the NPCs into the setting. Some of the pictures don’t work so well, like the ones of old buildings, but there are a few pictures of animals and snarling people that help to balance it. And the growing forest background is a nice, subtle, touch that was probably a pain to pull off. Overall, it’s above average in some ways, and below average in others. I feel comfortable giving it a solid to high 3.
Substance: For those looking for a post-apocalyptic idea mine in general I’ll give it a solid 3. The community creation guidelines are decent, and the “bizarre practices” table is an excellent idea. Plus the pregenerated characters and communities are good, and easy to dump in just about any post-apocalyptic scenario. The basic premise of a forest just suddenly growing across the world for no explained reason (I blame faeries from Arcadia myself) is somewhat interesting, and could be scaled back to make for a decent addition to more magical apocalyptic settings like Tribe 8 for example. To those interested in a rules-light system, I give it a solid 3. The mechanics are simple and really reinforce the game’s themes of recovering from trauma. I think they could use a bit more development in places, and I can see some players finding they make tasks too difficult, but it’s not a bad system and I’d probably compare to a mechanically lighter version of Over the Edge. But what about people who want to just play a game of Summerland, using the stuff in the book? Between its lack of advancement mechanics and clear cut win condition for PCs (i.e. they reduce their trauma to 0 and give up drifting for a community life) it’s pretty clear that Summerland is intended for short to medium length campaigns. And it has quite a bit of support for that, but there’s one problem I have. I get that the characters are “drifters” and that they flit from community to community, doing odd jobs until the locals get sick of their non-sense, but how do drifters actually get accepted into a community? I’m guessing overcoming the actions of their past while they were troubled is just as important as overcoming their mental problems in the first place, but by the time they’re free of their Trauma they’re vulnerable to the Call. And the game doesn’t really give enough depth to the whole “joining a community and convincing them you’re not a problem anymore before you go wandering off into the woods” aspect of the game. I’m giving it a low to solid 4. There’s a lot of good stuff here, but I think it needed to focus on its end game scenario just a bit more.
I think Summerland’s a neat experiment, and a good option for someone wanting a different kind of apocalyptic setting that focuses more on character psyches than on character armaments. It’s pretty original both in terms of post-apocalyptic settings along with how it approaches characters in such a setting, and the system reinforces the themes of the game. It makes me think of a good drama, something that the BBC would run as a complete mini-series.
Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.
