On Mighty Thews

Intro

So, I purchased on a whim On Mighty Thews from Simon Carryer Games. I was in the mood for some Sword and Sorcery, and had heard it has a define-your-setting feature, so wanted to try it. Does it suffice to say I was pleasantly surprised? Well, it betrays my impressions, but it's certainly not enough as a review. So, what did I find in the file? Simply put, a S&S game that's even more streamlined and less crunchy than BoL, the biggest contender in the same genre (and yet sufficiently different that neither makes the other useless). And coming from me, that's mighty praise! So let me tell you about OMT, without making an OMT-lite. I'm not going to be too clear, or I might make getting the actual book nigh-obsolete, which isn't my goal. Which means I'd probably have to avoid most actual mechanics, since there aren't that many of those.

Appearance

I'll be short here, because this is the most subjective rating either way. When it comes to S&S, I don't appreciate richly illustrated backgrounds. A colour picture on the front page, and some B&W ones in the book itself are all that I need. OMT delivers perfectly. Also, there's a list at the end showing what replaces typical fantasy NPCs and locations in S&S. It's meant to help you make the game more pulpy! A solid 8 out of 10 here.

Setting

The game has no in-built setting, yet the setting is probably its most important feature. Why is it so, and how is that possible? Well, OMT allows you to create your own S&S setting, and actually it's easy enough to create a setting for each session. Indeed, since a setting might be a building, a city, a plain, a country or whatever place that you were planning to be exploring, it might well be necessary during a campaign! Moreover, the setting is created as part of character creation, so it's created as a place that would appeal to the heroes (or repulse them). Now, I think the actual idea could have been developed more. But still, 9/10 here!

System

It handles all kinds of conflicts about the same way, with some minor differences depending on how dangerous they are. You have three basic attributes that cover a wide variety of situations - and as a bonus, there's never any doubt which one should apply (although I switch two of them for some checks - but that would amount to a one-sentence houserule). Then the PC gets two equally wide traits, and a characteristic that you comes into play when you either follow it or contradict it. When you follow, it helps you later. When you contradict it, it helps you now. Talk about choices, will you? Each of the above is rated as a different die type, and yes, the characteristic is d20, so it helps immensely (I was temped to make it 3d6 instead, but in the end decided not to)!

In a conflict, you use one attribute and up to two of the other traits (if applicable - but you always roll at least the attribute). The actual check is, of course, easy. Assemble a dicepool out of the dice they've got, then roll the dicepool so assembled, and take highest result. Then compare to TN or opposed roll. If you succeed, you get the stakes. If you get degrees of success, you can narrate facts or make future actions easier, much like in HQ2. Of course, if you fail, all is clear, you get some kind of injuries that can come later to hamper you in other conflicts, or you can remove them by a mechanic that I feel works well for the genre. Until you decide to remove them, the injuries don't hamper you - only the player decides when to act at a disadvantage in order to remove injuries. Attention, if you accrue too much of those, though, you're out! The same procedure is used for important NPCs, of course, but not for what would be extras. These are easier to remove. A nice touch is that in a fight, it's assumed both would be hurt. You need degree of success to avoid injury, but you're also tempted to use them in a different way. And yes, that allows to differentiate between a character that takes injuries to destroy an enemy, and one who prefers to keep his skin whole at the expense of expediency, which is also very much in-genre! There's nothing useless about the mechanics, and they're well-explained. A massive 10/10 is what we get here!

Summary

In the end, should you pick OMT if you like S&S? Yes, most definitely! Should you pick it over the other contenders, especially BoL? Well, it's a non-question, as far as I'm concerned. It would depend entirely on what the group likes. Both games are very good, have almost the same niche, but differ by being more or less narrative. If the group wants to play a more narrative-oriented game, it's an easy choice and OMT wins. If they don't, it's an equally easy choice, since BoL sure has some narrative elements, but by far less than OMT, about as much as Savage Worlds IME. And you should still have them both, if you ask me - to mine them for ideas, if nothing else. Use BoL for ideas for OMT, and OMT to create a setting for BoL games. Make a character in one of those, and use as an instant antagonist or ally for the other! Or use them both with another system, even. It works just fine in my experience!Besides, the game is rather easy to hack for "related" genres, like Sword and Planet or pulp. The only weakness is that it doesn't give a good list of spell effects. But they're quite easy to improvise, and improvising them also guarantees the players would consider them appropriate to the genre. Overall, 9 out 10 again!

And with that, the average result becomes 9/10, and well-earned at that!