Review of Vermin

RPGEvolution is an online "mag" that I recently came across that produces free games. Issue 2 (the most recent, apparently) is dedicated completely to d20 quickies. Among these games, monsters, adventures and whatnot is a little game called Vermin that probably only comes to a maximum of 10 printed pages. Since most of the mechanics are already detailed in the Player's Handbook anyway, that's not a problem -- the game is free to simply explore setting.

There are a few mechanics, of course. The premise of the game is that you play an intelligent rodent (or other small animal) living in the big, bad, human world. For anyone who's ever read Watership Down or Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH -- or even Stuart Little this concept is intriguing (assuming you liked either of those books at all...) Changed mechanics include new races (rats, mice, squirrels, lizards, etc.) and new classes (Protector, Brute, Mystic, Sneak, etc.) that are more in line with the game's premise, as are the additions of some new feats and skills (a few) and about three or four monsters.

That would leave plenty of time for the game to develop the setting a bit. Unfortunately, the setting is the smallest page of the bunch, consisting of little more than a bulletted list of a couple of one-line story ideas and a vague suggestion that there is a sort of "Veil" or perhaps a "Masquerade" in place so humans don't know about them! In my opinion, any game that wants to build off of the d20 system and just use D&D 3e rules is a game that should really concentrate on setting. There are all kinds of cool things that could be done with this intrigueing concept, but unfortunately, they aren't.

To be fair, I don't think it was the author's intent to do so: I suspect he just wanted to throw up a quick and dirty d20 variant. For a game that's 100% free, that's probably as much as I could ask for. So, am I expecting more from the author than he intended to ever do? Most likely. Still, I'd hate to see such an intriguing concept get lost like this!