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Character generation is extremely freeform. Just pick three traits and one flaw. Each gets a brief description and a “sign”, some external clue of that trait. There is a little more, but not too much: you also provide a character concept, motivation, secret, and so on, but the traits are the heart of the character. A complete character should take a few minutes once you’ve got a concept in your head. All sorts of characters can be created, so if you want psychic abilities, magical items, or be a demonic half-slug, go for it, as long as your GM agrees. Advancement of traits comes from permanently losing dice from your experience pool (see below). Gaining new traits or improving old ones is simple enough up to a point, but beyond that time and special training is needed in addition to the dice from your experience pool.
Task resolution is quick and simple. Just roll a number of six-sided dice equal to the value (typically two to four) of your appropriate trait and get the total. Rolls are always opposed, with the GM rolling dice for difficulties for tasks such as climbing or avoiding traps. Bonus dice and penalty dice are given under particularly advantageous or disadvantageous situations. In either case you roll the extra dice, but still only count the number of dice equal to your trait, either the highest dice (for bonus dice) or the lowest dice (for penalty dice). For example, if your trait in fighting gives you two dice and you get a bonus die due to the situation, you roll three dice and take the best two. The difference between the opposed rolls gives the degree of success. Rolling 1s on all your dice is a botch, rolling all 6s lets you roll an extra die to add to your total. This means that characters with higher trait values have a lower chance to get that extra die. The rules don’t mention or explain this oddity, so I can’t say if it’s an intentional method to let those with less skill occasionally do better or an unintended flaw in the system. If any of your dice come up six, something minimally good happens regardless of your larger success or failure in the task. Characters also have a number of dice in their experience pool. Each of these dice can be used once per session to add a die to a roll. As you gain experience you gain dice in your experience pool, which can either be used normally or permanently sacrificed to improve traits, as given above.
In combat, damage is the degree of success multiplied by the weapon’s damage factor. Characters have hit points that can be higher than average if the character has an applicable trait, like combat abilities or innate toughness. When damaged to half his hit points the character gets a penalty die. At zero hit points the character is out of the fight, and may be dying if the cause of damage is dangerous enough (GM’s call). Death usually happens once the character reaches the negative value of his hit points, so someone with 14 hit points gets a penalty die at 7 hit points, is out of the fight at 0, and dies at -14. Combat rules are extremely simple, and bonus and penalty dice can be given out by the GM for all sorts of reasons. This lack of rigidly-defined bonuses will drive tactical players and rules lawyers nuts, but it really does work well. The one exception to the otherwise clear and simple rules is for firearms (especially automatic ones), the rules for which are about as complex as they would be in any other game -- which seems pretty complex after seeing just how simple the rules are for most things -- but seeing as how firearms are illegal on the island of Al Amarja (see below) the PCs shouldn’t be coming up against them or using them too often. For those who are tired of the mechanics of combat, there is gestalt combat, in which everyone involved rolls once and the GM describes how the combat occurred, using the results of the die rolls as a guide.
After the chapter about crunchy mechanics, it’s all gloriously chewy setting. The rules are designed to do their job and fade into the background, as roleplaying is the focus to the game, not tactical battles. In Over the Edge it’s the setting that’s the star here, and with good reason. The next two chapters describe the island of Al Amarja in some detail for the players and then for the GM. Then there’s a chapter describing the city of The Edge in detail. Over the Edge takes place on the fictional Mediterranean island of Al Amarja. Al Amarja is a common destination for jaded tourists, with pornography and prostitution being legal. Drugs and firearms are illegal, but only the latter will reliably get you arrested. The government is ruled by a president for life, and the police, excuse me, Peace Force is to be avoided unless you’ve got money or power. The city of The Edge is just one part of the island, with two other cities adjoining it, the capitol on the other side of the island, and tourist resorts and mountain ranges (including a volcano) to be found in the middle. All in all, it’s a well-stocked island for gamers. The Edge is the only city given a lengthy treatment in the game, the others being briefly glossed over along with the rest of the island. Still, there’s more than enough to keep you busy in The Edge for quite some time before venturing out to the rest of the island.
At Your Service is a chapter devoted to establishments of various sorts, from the airport to hotels to churches to bars and more. Some are pretty much what they seem to be, others have a lot going on behind the scenes, but pretty much all of them have interesting owners, employees, and regulars. Plot hooks abound and the institutions have a distinctly Al Amarjan air to them, one example being a taxi company with a complete set of services offered for the patron trying to evade pursuit.
The next chapter is the heart of the game: Forces to be Reckoned With. It contains over thirty groups and powerful individuals, almost all of which are involved in some major deception or conspiracy. Perhaps it’s just grabbing for more power, or perhaps it’s trying to take over or even destroy the world. Only a brilliant or insane GM would try to throw everything into the mix at once -- think of the poor players trying to sift through all the information! -- but you can pick and choose at will. One of the nicest things about all these conspiracies is that there’s an awful lot of variety. The book provides extraterrestrials, extradimensionals, religious groups (one of whom worships a rock star), street gangs, wacked-out scientists, Illuminati-like groups, altruistic groups, mobsters, and more. There’s something for everyone, no matter how mundane or bizarre you want it. Since most of these forces are working behind the scenes, they can easily show up when necessary and fade into the background if things get too busy. There’s even a handy chart of interactions between groups to let the GM decide which group would be interesting to next add to the mix.
The chapter on GM rules contains a few rules on justifying the amount of experience, handling money, and so on, but the two largest parts of the chapter involve fringe powers and how to run the game. Fringe powers include magic spells, aura sight, telepathy, and the like. Rules for fringe powers are simple and flexible, like the rest of the game. There is typically a number of times per day that you can use your power (determined randomly to begin with, though you can increase it through experience) and a rating for your power, just like any other trait. Over twenty different abilities are given, but it would be easy to develop new ones. The section on how to run the game covers ensuring that PC abilities are reasonable, justifying the weirdness to players, elements to add to the adventure, and examples on how to deal with the unique situations that come up in Over the Edge. It’s a game in which players can fly or have telepathy if the GM allows them, so a lot of this advice is needed. There is a lengthy account of an actual session of the game, and though at first I wasn’t too impressed with the amount of space it took up I’ve since come to see it as invaluable to a beginning GM for this game. It shows how to thread several plots together, deal with players abusing their abilities, and keep a game like this, which can so easily disintegrate into gibberish, on track.
Three brief adventures are provided, one to introduce players to the game and their characters to the island, one that introduces several fringe scientists while throwing one of the major plots and some metaphysics into the mix, and the last to show the players the more festive side of Al Amarja. Three major plots are then laid out, including one that pretty much by definition can’t be stopped by the PCs until it’s too late! The adventures are so-so, the plots much better, but in both cases the final entry seems to be an afterthought. Some of this may be because any campaigns in the game will inevitably vary so much, but it’s still a disappointment. Thankfully, the numerous plot hooks in the rest of the game should keep you busy. At the very end of the book is a business directory, slang sheet, tourist handout, and newspaper page, all of which are ready to be handed out to the players.
Style: 3 (average)
The writing style is fine, but the three columns used for text might have better been reduced to two. The indentations are large enough that the itemized descriptions of NPCs sometimes look odd, and the three columns in general just look too busy. Images range from quite nice to just dreadful, with each artist showing a quite different style.
Substance: 5 (excellent!)
What’s not to like? A game with a rules set that’s this simple yet robust combined with a setting this modifiable and interesting has got to get a 5. If you need a separate rule for every single situation or get into lots of fights with players about subjective decisions concerning whether or not they get a bonus, you may have a problem. On the other hand, this may be the game that cures you of those problems.
