Review of Multiverser, the Game

In the summer of 1998, Mr. Young contacted me via e-mail and solicited me to review this game. I accepted, but one of the conditions was that I have a print copy. I got it, I read it and I grabbed a pal to help me test it out. I've come to my conclusions now, and here they are.

The Short Version: It's worse than Synnibarr. It's worse than Senzar . It causes SAN loss and gives the reader percentiles in Cthulu Mythos. It's the worst RPG ever made.

The Long Version:

-Multiverser is too complex: There are 14 base stats and 4 more that derive from them. Most of the hundreds of skills include things that any PC takes for granted, such as bodily senses and mobility. Making yourself as a PC takes way too much time; the rule of thumb is that if it takes more than a half-hour, it's too damned long.

-Multiverser is too verbose: It takes over 10 pages to get from the introduction of the Combat chapter to the beginning of the the combat sequence. Other chapters are worse than this.

-Multiverser is too damned insulting: Leave your fundie Christian BS out of the game! ("Charismatic Evangelical Christianity", when it's translated into plain English, means just that.) I don't care if you think that Islam and Judaism are heretical faiths, or that all others are Just Plain Wrong, so long as you don't work into the rules or put in into the book.

Part of this is in the premise: the multiverse is large, but finite, because God said so. Part is in the magic rules: All other gods are servants, rebels or outcasts/neutrals. Loyalists (generally) are good at healing, etc. while rebels are bad at it. Neutrals and unaligned are unaffected, save that they're choices may be limited. For any who isn't Jewish, Chrisian or Muslim, this is grossly insulting because it belittles the player's faith (or absence thereof).

-Multiverser plagerizes: TORG gets used a lot. Anyone familiar with that game will recoginze Bias(Axioms/World Laws), Scriff (Possibility Energy/Possibility Rated Characters), cross-reality travel and how it works, contradictory skills/gear and cross-reality warfare.

Other works plagerized include "The Prisoner of Zenda", "The Most Dangerous Game", "Beserker", _The Terminator_ and _Teriminator II: Judgement Day_. These bear out in the companion book, "The First Book of Worlds." (See companion review.)

-Multiverser limits: You must play yourself. Anything else is not permitted, under the belief that you cannot die due to the properties of scriff. (If you die, you reincarnate in a new reality.) I know better; any Synnibarr player will find a way to reliably de-scriff a foe in combat, then strike the killing blow and keep it completely legal and believable.

Advice? Avoid this like the plague. To the designers: get a clue, get a life, then-- if you have the guts-- trash this horrid thing and come back with an *original* RPG. This time, remember the K.I.S.S. maxim: Keep It Simple, Stupid!

PS: My indignation about the religious BS is not unilateral. The gang-- consisting of two Catholics, two Lutherans, two Humanists and myself-- are of one mind about this issue. Keep your faith out of the book!

Style: 1 (Unintelligible)
Substance: 1 (I Wasted My Money)