Steal is a game about modern day British organized crime, with an emphasis on youth gangs.
This will be my first review in a series of reviews of free and homebrew RPGs.
System. The system is based completely around skills; there are no attributes. Things which are normally attributes in other RPGs -- Strength, Constitution, Willpower, etcetera -- are also treated as skills as well. Although I usually abhor statistic-free systems, I find this style of character definitions in keeping with the TV-and-movie 'feel' of the game. Skills range from 1 to 8, with 3 being competency.
Resolution is somewhere between Storyteller and Risus. You roll 2d10 automatically, plus 1 die for every point of skill. So, an untrained person rolls 2d10, while the best in the world roll 10d10... exactly like Storyteller. Skills stand alone, instead of being based on a stat, as in Risus. Instead of adding the numbers, you read the dice and figure out how many successes you have; a 6-9 is one success, a 10 is two successes, while a 1 is a negative success. Each dice is worth 0.5 successes on average... again, just like Storyteller. If you don't roll enough successes, you fail; if you roll negative successes, you botch.
There was only one really glaring fault in the system: the experience and improvement system is based on Willpower rolls, so you can expect a lot of players with Willpowers of 5+ in order to learn every skill under the sun. (I'd just substitute Star War d6's character point system instead.)
Character Creation. Character creation is in two parts: point-based skills, and some random rolls.
The random rolls cover some stats that don't matter much in gameplay: attractiveness, bank account, age, and education level. For education, you passed 6+1d6 years of school; if you managed to graduate, you have a 1 in 6 chance of having had some higher education (rolling on a special table to see how much if you do). Your age is 12+1d6; age is not based on education, so it's possible to roll up a character who's 13 years old but who already has a master's degree. Hit points are not calculated yet, because it's based on your Constitution skill.
You then get to divide skill points out. Characters get 60 points (or 75 if they have a criminal record -- the choice is up to the player) to divide among the 29 skills. There weren't any useless or skills in the list, but with that many skill points, it's easy to just put 2 dice into everything and become a 'jack of all trades'.
Combat. Combat in Steal is brutal. Even though the genre is largely restricted to bare fists and bats, when fights happen, they're brutal. The average character will have 30 hit points; a mere punch can easily take out 5 points of this, and the thugs you'll be up against will be above average. Don't expect to last long in a stand-up slugfest.
Guns and knives and other such tearing and impaling damage is worse. If you've taken more stabbing or ballistic hits than (roughly) your Constitution skill, you pass out automatically, regardless of your hit points. Exactly how many hits is rolled on a special table, however, so although you know roughly how much damage you can take, the shock of a wound can take you out much sooner.
And to top this all off, one of the authors of Steal included an appendix to make combat even bloodier, with such rules as damage multiplying by the number of successes, instead of adding to the same. A tough, brawling thug is a dead thug.
A few other additions to this include rules for organized (and illegal) boxing, which is more likely to deal knockouts and less likely to kill.
Campaign Info. Unfortunately, Steal is lax on how exactly we're supposed to run a 60's British organized crime RPG. Under each of the setting sections are short discussions of what each of their references covers, but not much actual information. Also, most of these references are internet links, and with the transient nature of the Internet, these links can easily evaporate. Very bad form. Three whole points were lost from Substance for this.
Presentation. The greatest thing about this game is the style. The book was typewritten and later scanned in (no fancy PDF's in those days), and the book is filled with dark humor and an excellent command of the English language. If it were any other game, I'd be taking points off for style, but with Steal, it accentuates the game's mood perfectly.
Where can I get it? Steal can be found at http://www.daftideasinc.esmartbiz.com/spyglass/roleplay.htm.
The Final Verdict
It is a work in progress, true. It is really, really niche-y, true. However, you can't deny the game's style. and the system is neat and tidy without being simplistic. If they bother to sit down and write more advice about running a modern crime game instead of just giving us bibliographies and references, this will easily become a perfect 10, as well as something I'd pay cash for.
