Neuroshima
Neuroshima is a postapocalyptic game currently available only in Polish. One of its authors, Michal Oracz, is the author of De Profundis, the only Polish game to be translated into English, while Ignacy Trzewiczek, the game's main author is well known to the readers of Polish RPG magazines, and is also the author of a published Warhammer adventure (in Polish). Neuroshima came out early this year (2003), and clocks in at 480 pages in B5 format (18x25cm). The softcover version sets you back around €10, while the limited edition hardcover costs around €20. It seems there are some advantages to living in a piss-poor country, after all.
I have the hardcover edition (which comes with autographs of three of the authors), and is a sturdy (though smaller than the usual RPG) book that looks like it will be able to take a lot of punishment without coming unglued. Time will tell, though-the only thing I can say is that it looks sturdy. The layout is mostly clear, the fonts are not overly large (in fact, I could easily imagine the book reprinted in A4 without a change in layout), though I would argue that in some places fewer different fonts could have been used. Typos are few and far between. Still, there is nothing jarring here. Illustrations range from quite bad (particularly those accompanying character templates) to okay, with nothing particularly astounding. On the other hand, judging art is always a very subjective enterprise, so your impressions might well be quite different.
Still, the layout and art quality have little to do with my enjoyment of the game, which rests mostly on the setting and the rules. First, I'll tackle the setting. This is a fairly typical post-apocalyptic fare, a cross between Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior and Deadlands: Hell on Earth. The game is set in the U.S. of A., and none of the rest of the world is described. Briefly speaking, the computers, having gained sentience, decided to lay waste to humanity, and largely succeeded. Right now most of the northern U.S. is occupied by machine constructs, while the humans all struggle Mad Max-style in the central and southern states. The good thing is that, despite the utter banality of the setting, it is very well conveyed through short fiction pieces, and slang-ridden wisecracking commentaries. The book is never dull to read, and even the rules sections are not boring, while clearly understandable. That is Neuroshima's biggest plus.
On the minus side, the setting couldn't be any more hackneyed. Deadlands: Hell on Earth has already been released in Polish, so there is no excuse of there being nothing like it on the Polish market. For example, why choose the U.S. as a setting. Granted, it's a land "far, far away" for most of the readers, but it's also the most overused one-it makes sense to use the U.S. if that's where the publisher (and most of the readers) is based, but for a Polish company releasing a game for the Polish market, it's just bland. Choose Australia if you want an exotic feeling with a Mad Max feel to it (and no, I haven't been to Oz, I just saw the films :)). But, for a much fresher feel, set the game in postapocalyptic Russia-a very underused setting, lots of atmosphere, plenty of grit, and, if you're Polish, you can do a lot of funny accents. Also, there's the whole tradition of Russian fantastic realism (Strugatsky brothers, Bulychev, Vasilyev, or Chekhov if you want to be all high-culture) to draw upon.
Still, this is not the place to pimp my ideas for a cool setting, but to look at Neuroshima. So I'll repeat: it's very well written-it might well be the best written post-apocalyptic game so far (on par with Tribe 8, though that one is mostly a fantasy game in disguise), but there is nothing original there-pit fighters square off in gladiatorial arenas, gangs roam the countryside, evil machines produce cyborgs, Las Vegas still hosts the biggest casinos etc. etc.
On to the system. The core mechanic impressed me, as it seems both original and very workable. The structure is the usual attributes and skills, but task resolution is handled in a way I haven't seen before: The player rolls 3d20, and succeeds if at least two of these fall under the target number, determined by one's attributes and difficulty. Skills modify the dice roll results (each skill level allows the player to subtract 1 from one die). Additionally, the basic difficulty numbers are pre-calculated on the character sheet to save time during sessions. The system thus benefits from the bell curve of dicepool mechanics, without suffering from the problem of having to track fistfuls of dice. It's also very quick, though subtracting skill levels can take some time to get used to. There are, of course, some more complications, as high skill levels and rolling 1s bring additional bonuses. All in all, it's a very solid basic mechanic.
The system, however, seems underdeveloped. Various special cases are not well integrated into the basic mechanic. Thus, all modifiers are given in %, and only their sum is converted (by cross checking on a little table hidden on page 201) into modifiers used to change difficulty number. Also, combat uses a modified version of the core system, where most rolls are just 1d20, and one success is enough in any combat roll. I think all of this could have been avoided, in favour of a smoother, more integrated system, if only the developers spent some more time on it. Still, it's the first edition, and first editions are almost always quirky.
My other quibble concerns the book's organization, which is sometimes counterintuitive, if not outright nonsensical. For example, the character creation extols the virtues of randomly rolled attributes: they give fresh opportunities for roleplaying, prevent munchkinism etc. etc. All valid reasons, even if I don't agree with them, and for grumblers like me, there is an optional point-buy system. However, players are also expected to fill in a detailed Q&A questionnaire on the character before rolling stats, as if the random rolls were not supposed to influence one's character concept. Moving the questionnaire till after attribute determination would have done wonders.
Also during character creation, the player is expected to dish out points for equipment. Some example costs are given, including the cost of an "average" rifle and pistol. This section is immediately followed by a detailed chapter on weaponry, where no value indication for any of the 40+ firearms is given. Nor is their relative rarity indicated anywhere. I have no problems with treating equipment generically, nor with specifying each weapon's characteristic separately. But a combination of the two is untenable-I can't buy an "average" gun, I have to buy e.g. an UZI, or an H&K MP5. Which one of them is "average"? No idea.
More quibbles: There is a map of the U.S. at the end of the book, but it's a contemporary map that hasn't even been photoshopped, so you get cities in the northern U.S. as well as in parts of Canada, even though the whole area is supposed to be overrun by machines and transformed into an industrial wasteland. There are even state lines on the map! Sloppiness again, or lack of time and/or resources. And the character sheet is the ugliest I have seen this side of Immortal: The Invisible War.
My final grumble deals with political correctness, so feel free to skip it if you're offended by anything PC. The game's model reader is obviously male, and there is no concession anywhere to the fact that any women might be reading. Not only are all reader-related pronouns male (this is difficult to avoid in contemporary Polish, which favours the male form as generic), but there are also gender-specific expressions (like "boy") used while e.g. giving player advice for behaviour during sessions.
Overall, despite most of the things I said here, Neuroshima is a pretty solid game. It's certainly the best game to have come out on the Polish market so far (disregarding De Profundis, which is of limited use in usual roleplaying setting), and is, in fact, one of the best postapocalyptic systems I have ever seen. It offers an easy to get in setting, excellent descriptions thereof as well as generally good writing, and a solid core system. It is marred by poor development, and unoriginality. It's about as cheap as you could ever wish, blowing its competitors clearly out of the water (the only drawback here is that you need to learn Polish to fully enjoy this product). All of this contributes to my giving it a 4 for substance and 3 for style.
