Before I answer this question, let me note that, while I am not officially affiliated with 93 Games, I have contacted Mr. Taylor and would be interested in freelance work with his company. I did this because I like this game, and the idea behind it, and would like to see it grow. However, this does not preclude me from voicing an opinion about what I feel needs improvement with the game itself. Hopefully, this review will be balanced, highlighting what I found right with the game, and where I felt the game stumbled.
Style
There are problems with editing, including misspelled words, misused words, sentences that lacked clarity, and an introduction to the game that I felt would have been better incorporated into the Magick section. There is also unnecessary verbiage (something I've become an expert on since I put out so much of it!) Nothing game-wrecking, but still distracting, and a common flaw among downloadable games. (Proofreading is mandatory in anything printed.)
Also, while the digitally-edited photographs and the cover conveyed the mood nicely, the sections of the game are broken up with stories and poems that appear to have been written by a young person trapped in a political-correctness indoctrination camp. In conjunction with the rest of the game, they imparted a creepy, "Se7en"-esque vibe of having stumbled onto someone's private journal and realizing how off-kilter they really are, without them having the slightest bit of awareness about it. This is not a value-judgement on the works themselves (which are kinda cute), but how they mesh, or more accurately clash, with the rest of the game. I could not see how they tied in to the game, no matter how hard I tried.
Substance:
This is an unabashed 'old-school'roleplaying game with roots in tactical games and simulation. A LOT of effort went into keeping it grounded in realism. While it becomes rules-heavy in certain spots (I prefer more drama-centered/cinematic/rules-light games,) it fits the modern-day setting of the game, where sound tactical decisions will more often result in success than charging in with guns blazing would.
The system involves using many different multi-sided dice, with corresponding variances in probability that I'm sure Mr. Taylor is well-aware of. To determine if you succeed or fail in an action, you usually roll two germane Attributes, add your rank in an appropriate Skill to the total with situational modifiers, and compare the total to the success threshold from the handy Difficulty Chart. If your roll is over the Difficulty you succeed, if not, you fail. The Sage (GM) interprets the results accordingly. There is also an optional Daily Modifier, where the character's being "out of sorts" is determined by either previous wounding or waking up on the wrong/right side of the bed. The roll on this table determines if the Attributes are modified one to two Steps up or down for that day (meaning the player rolls less or more dice for that Attribute.) The Step System strives for nothing if not completeness!
Characters have eight Attributes divided into four categories (Physical has Strength and Dexterity, Mental has Wits and Intelligence, Sensory has Perception and Intuition, and Social has Charisma and Attitude.) Obviously, the Attributes are designed to represent halves of their respective categories, and I think that the Attitude Attribute (representing the character's willpower and optimism) is a nice addition, especially as it affects the character's social interactions. You get twelve points to divide among the Attributes per category, and these points translate to the Dice Code your character uses when rolling those Attributes. Skills add points, not dice.
However, there is the rest of the Character Creation system, which bogs it down considerably. To determine your character's skills, you roll percentile dice and consult a table to figure out what career/Lifestyle Path your character has. Lifestyle Path options include Farm, Factory Worker, Retail Sales, Corp Management, Restaurant Chef, Doctor, Lawyer, High School Teacher, Government, Computer Technician, etc. If you roll 91-00 on the roll, you get to choose your own career. (I quote the author: "Optionally, one could simply let the players choose their own starting path. But generally, we do not decide what our parents do for a living.")
Not much decision occurs thereafter, either, as you next roll a d20 to determine what happens in your childhood, your teens, and upon becoming an adult. You get a pre-selected list of skills with set values, and your roll determines life events which may give characters certain Gifts (character bonuses), Obstacles (character flaws), changes in Lifestyle Path (you roll on another Lifestyle Path table), or a Magickal Event, in which case the Sage determines what sort of brush you had with the supernatural, and how it affected you. Unfortunately, there are no examples given for the Sage to go by in the event of a Magickal Event occuring. (On a roll of 20, you get to choose a Gift or Obstacle. Yay, input!) If you stay on that Lifepath for all three rolls, you get certain bonus Traits which reflect that Lifestyle Path. You do get to choose a Gift or Obstacle at the beginning which cannot be cancelled by a Lifepath roll. However, all of your Skills are capped at Level 3, with leftover levels being converted into experience points. (Some exceptions occur, depending on your career path.)
Now don't get me wrong; there are advantages to this method. One, you do get fairly balanced characters and it removes the ability to min/max. This is a godsend for Sages who have problem players. Two, if you have no personal preferences and are stuck for ideas, it can generate a character in a reasonable time. This is a very nice feature for players who are new to roleplaying and tend to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choices available in more free-form systems. However, this is (in my opinion) balanced out by the fact that, if you have a character idea, the odds are against rolling up what you had in mind. (I know this from experience: the one part of this game I was able to playtest was character generation.) Also, you may roll such drawbacks as "Barred from Magick" and "Cannot Learn Real Magick." Why, Mr. Taylor, why? In a game whose primary focus heavily involves magic(k) and it's learning, why randomly handicap the characters with this? It's tantamount to the old Traveller game, where you could also roll on a lifepath table, only to randomly roll your character's death, thus having to start all over again. Can't we simply assume that the characters are all lucky souls who won't be prevented from learning magick and move on? And furthermore, there are some odd quirks in the Lifepath tables, as there was bound to be in anything so detailed. Why do military personnel get access to the Skill Visualization Magick: Wicca, and the Farm Lifepath or the College Professor doesn't? (Why, for that matter, is there a preponderance of VM: Wicca, and no other Magickal Theory is represented? Wouldn't it have been easier to say that if you roll a Magickal Event, you get a level of Visualization Magick of your choice?) Why do Restaurant Chefs who stay in that career for their full Lifepath gain an Allergy? Do Restaurant Chefs have a statistically higher chance to develop strong allergies than the rest of the population? The good news is, I have free reign to choose my character's Age, Sex, Weight, Height, Hair Color, Nationality and Ethnicity, Religion, Archetype (a quasi-'alignment' system similar to White Wolf's Storyteller system), and Magickal Theory (assuming I'm not barred from Magick due to a Lifepath roll.) Plus, there is a detailed character questionnaire on page 69 to help you fully flesh out your character. Given that this is the full extent of input that I have into my character, I treasured this page immensely. I would also strongly recommend it (or something similar) in more freeform games, to give players more immersion time with their characters.
Hot damn, is my bias showing! Yes, I admit, I prefer more player input into making my own character. As a player, I tend to rate games on how much fun it is to make a character. The Swing left me feeling that I was inputing parameters into a random character generator and pressing "Enter." This was brought home to me when I noted to myself on several occasions, "Boy, a character generation program would be really nice to have with this game." Yes, the characters came out balanced and game-friendly, but I didn't feel attached to them. Another drawback I forsee is that, if you wish to take Keith Taylor at his word and use The Step System for playing fantasy or sci-fi games, you'll have to generate appropriate Lifepaths for each relevant profession, something that will give even the most world-creative Sage pause. Ideally, there should be a system in place in this game that allows for more player input from non-problem players, with suggestions on how to balance their characters as appropriate to genre, and advice for Sages and enterprising players on how to custom-build their own Lifepaths for different genres of game. Keep the Lifepath system as is, as an option for players who are stuck for ideas (a la Shadowrun.)
Then comes the Combat System. Like a lot of old-school games out there, this game focuses pretty heavily on Combat. A whole lot of research went into this chapter, and I'll simply have to take Mr. Taylor's word that he's researched it thoroughly. (Combat systems are not my strong suit.) Personally, I wonder if this chapter (and the next one, with it's arsenal of modern firearms) put too much emphasis on combat for a real-world occult conspiracy game. But in a game that includes military characters, it is probably necessary. The research that went into it will doubtlessly come in handy at times, but I can't help but wonder if all that detail will slow down what's supposed to be an intense, dramatic situation.
Of note is the Initiative System. Character action is divided into rounds, and each character has a certain amount of Combat Points. The character commits to an action, which costs a certain amount of Combat points (called Action points.) The rest of his Combat Points become Reaction Points, to use if the character has to dodge or run away or can attack an enemy who has left himself open. Then, Initiative (based on a Perception roll) is rolled. This nicely simulates real-life combat, when you have no idea what the opposition is going to try next. This is important, because the author notes that combat in this game is designed to be lethal and painful, just like in real-life.
Something that bothered me was the addition of a Fear mechanic. The Sage may make you roll a FEAR check if he feels that you are acting with reckless disregard for your character's safety, or just unrealistically. If you fail the roll, you hesitate and lose that action. While this is handy to prevent players from going kill-crazy, and simulates real-life anxiety in a combat situation, it does remove some free will from the players, possibly during a moment when the game could go either way. No mechanic is given for a player to override the results of a FEAR check.
Next is the Injury and Recovery section. A nice touch here, that I found thematically appropriate, was that magickal healing would heal your wounds at a greatly accelerated rate, but will also give the healed party a randomly determined Obstacle. Spiritual scar tissue, if you will. Prevents the adventurers from relying on Magick too heavily after Combat situations, and again stresses the inexact nature of Magick in this setting.
Next is an equipment list. Was all this detail really necessary? Probably. It serves to remind the characters that their occupations are more than just background color. Still, this is usually the part that most players (and Sages) gloss over in their games, because it usually slows the game down and removes some of the fun and drama.
Next is the Experience section. The Step System (the game-mechanic engine for The Swing) nicely prevents players from min-maxing on Attributes in preference to skills by ruling that you can only increase Attributes by increasing related Skills. Every 10 Skill upgrades you buy with xp boosts the Dice Code of a related Attribute up by one, then you start over. This is appropriate to the game, and logically consistent. While I like the Skill Increase section (see my comments above), Mr. Taylor adds Classes and Levels on top of it. For each 5 uses of Skills related to that randomly-rolled Lifepath, pending group approval, you gain a Level in your profession. ("I'm a Level 3 Retail Worker! Yay!") Each level gives you a +1 bonus to all skills related to that profession. Here is where The Swing's roots as a tactical/simulation game come shining through. Is it necessary? I personally don't think so, although the bonus to the skills is nice. I was irked that there was no way listed to increase a character's resistance to FEAR.
FINALLY, we get to the Magick section, which is where I think The Swing really shines. There is a respectable amount of research done on real-world occult/religious traditions, and the rules of Visualization Magick are thematically sound. Basically, you roll your Wits + Intuition + Visualization Magick skill, roll higher than the Belief score of a given area, and the result you desire will come about in a coincidental manner determined by the Sage. (You must have a WILL score at 1 or higher to be able to do this.) There are no guidelines for the Sage regarding whether or not the coincidence should be favorable to the caster, or if strings should always come attached.
Also, the joys of learning True Magick, and the awesome power and personal transformation that comes with it, are discussed. Quick and dirty rule: with True Magick, you can do ANYTHING as long as you roll well. Strangely enough, in the one section I *wanted* more rules and details, there's an information scarcity. Who are these Enlightened Ones? Why did they vanish when Belief turned against Magick? Where did they hide? More information would have also been nice on the Magickal Theory of Daydreamer (like what exactly Keith was going for when he included it.) And Why does MT: Shamanism get a WILL cap of 8, while other paths to Enlightenment get a WILL cap of 5? (Why bother with WILL caps at all if all paths are equally valid?) What about Chaos Magick, or Psionics as a path to Enlightenment? How does the Magickal Theory of Science work as far as tracking Enlightenment goes; what does it mean to the character? And that tiny little paragraph about creating characters who can, under certain circumstances, use True Magick to do certain specific things could really have been expanded, to include ways to add vampires, werewolves, super-psychics, and the like.
And here again, the anti-player bias of The Swing rears it's head and bares it's fangs. WILL, like FEAR, goes up and down according to Sage fiat. While I have no problems with WILL (or FEAR) going up or down due to character experiences (assuming sensible guidelines), there are no sensible strictures given to Sages in these regards. I'd have at least put in an optional 'saving throw' mechanic to determine whether or not WILL or FEAR decreases or possibly increases. I'd probably have based it on Attitude (I like the Attitude Attribute!) And I'd have preferred some way to increase WILL and FEAR with experience, hopefully tied in some way with Attitude and personality mechanics to reward players who get into their characters with a slow but steady increase in WILL and FEAR ratings. One of the really nice touches about Enlightened Ones is that none of them (based on my reading of the rules) are losers or assholes, but are well-developed people with good reasons to do sometimes horrible things. No "I'm Eeeeviiillll!" NPCs, these guys and gals sound like people whom the characters can have conversations with and reason with, even if they are extremely devoted to their beliefs. This is a BIG plus, because these folks can turn anyone or anything they wanted into so much ash if they really wanted to. If that's a prerequisite to become Enlightened, however, why not reflect it by rewarding characters (and thus players) who go out of their way to exemplify those Attitudes?
In sum, I can tolerate the preponderance of combat mechanics and guns and equipment over magickal information. I can see the need for solid mechanics to simulate realistic play. I can understand the idea behind the Lifepath system. What irritates me about this game is it's treatment of every player as a problem waiting to happen. This sets up a Sage/player divide, which puts a lot of unnecessary burdens on the poor Sage, and may actually encourage the min/maxing, rules-lawyer, game-wrecker problems in players that it's trying to prevent. My experience is that, if players are treated maturely, and encouraged rather than squashed, a lot of these problems take care of themselves. It's a bad idea to discourage problem players without setting up a reward system to encourage the play you are trying to achieve. Given the lack of player input during creation, what use is having an Archetype, other than providing the Sage with one more reason to whack recalcitrant players with The Silly-Hammer? If it was tied into a reward system, play would flow a lot more smoothly. This is the game's major flaw, and while not crippling, it is glaring. Also, more information should be provided about how to create Lifepaths without undue imbalancing or having to wait for a supplement.
Still, I like this game. It's a nice, realistic alternative to Mage, Call of Cthulhu, Kult, Dread, and Unknown Armies in it's straightforward portrayal of magic in modern times, without delving too much into horror, violence, or weirdness, and has firm but thematically appropriate rules to balance magic and modern life. The Magick system is freeform without being game-wrecking. It just needs to respect players more and expand player options during character creation. And the research that went into it will come in handy for players and Sages who want to know what is available to them. This is by far the most professional-looking game I've ever downloaded, and rivals games put out by companies with big enough budgets to produce glossy hardcovers. That alone is reason enough to encourage 93 Games, and I hope you do so.
Enough, I'm done. Check out the game, flame me for being too cruel or too kind, and give Keith Taylor your input. I've said all I wanted to, and more.
