Review of System DL Manual and Player's Field Guide

(I'm the designer of System DL, so I probably can't give it a qualitative review. Suffice to say I think it's the best thing since sliced bread, or at least since Paranoia, Second Edition. It's great and everyone should buy it. Thus endeth my unfettered opinion.)

System DL has been hanging around the Internet for years now in "playtest" form. Dozens of free RPG lists mention it, a few online camapigns have been run with it, a lot of people have weighed in on it for good or ill. Now, the complete System DL has finally been released for sale as the System DL Manual and Player's Field Guide. This is actually a package containing two files, the aforementioned Field Guide (64pp) and an additional Rules Grab Bag (34pp). Besides the covers and the frontispiece, there are no illustrations.

The Field Guide contains all the rules necessary to create characters and adjudicate actions. The book begins with a fairly basic section about role-playing in general, then settles into the rules proper with character generation. Characters in System DL are defined with four stats: BODY, MOVE, MIND and LUCK. Skills are added on top of the appropriate stat. Finally, the player determines hit points (of two types, Damage and Stun), spends a few Background Points to fill in the character's history, buys some equipment, and goes on to the adventure. In my experience, character building takes less than 20 minutes even for people unfamiliar with the system.

The next chapter details System DL's action resolution system. Simply put, characters compare their skill totals to a target number and succeed or fail of a degree depending on the difference. However, players can either spend Rollover points (essentially XP) to temporarily raise their abilities, or burn points off the LUCK stat and automatically succeed no matter what. To regain LUCK points, the player must actually declare that his character will fail at an action. To some players this point management almost becomes a game within the game, as they decide whether to push themselves hard early and suffer later on, or pace themselves and always hold a point or two in reserve.

The next chapter discusses the standard skills in detail, as well as professional skills. Each skill has a paragraph containing a brief description and game effects. Rules for increasing skills through experience are presented here as well.

Now we come to the combat rules, which include rules for taking damage, doing damage, the effects of different types of damage, healing, ranged weapons, special attacks and disarming, the effects of cover, attacking vehicles, and a special section about different kinds of damage, from falling to radiation. The combat rules are mostly about determining modifiers to skill use and how certain skills interact. Action resolution is otherwise identical to that described above.

The following chapter describes equipment and vehicle rules, including stunts and other interesting actions. There follows a chapter on magic, designed to help GM's develop their own magic systems. Chapter Seven contains character background options and background flaws. Each option/flaw receives its own paragraph and number of Background Points cost/gained to take that option. There's a brief list of animals both real and fictional. Two appendices describe a simple method to play System DL with dice and a list of handy time/distance convesions.

Whew! So that's what's in the basic ruleset. Many rules have an accompanying example to illustrate its point, and the manuscript is laid out so each chapter builds semi-logically on what's come before. There's a detailed table of contents, but no index.

Now for the System DL Rules Grab Bag. I really fought with myself whether to include this manuscript, which contains descriptions of "also-ran" rules, alternate systems, untested ideas, pieces of an incomplete magic system, some really sketchy conversions to and from d20, and other things. There's even a weird little game world called "Zombies vs. Robots vs. Ninja vs. Pirates vs. Cowboys: the RPG," which is filled with juvenile humor (and I say this about something I wrote myself, you understand). Consider the Grab Bag either an ideas clearinghouse for pieces left over from the development process, or a glimpse into the fevered mind of the developer. Either is probably accurate.

There may seem to be a lot of rules for such a simple game concept, but in practice much of the ruleset exists only to help a GM adjudicate special cases. Games play quickly, since players don't have to chase dice all over the place. (System DL games are particularly nice to play in a conversation pit, instead of having to sit around a table, usually in hard kitchen chairs. Little things like that mean a lot.)

After 15 years of development, System DL has evolved into something I'm very proud to put my name on. I've been gratified by some of the positive comments I've received about the original playtest edition which is still available online. The commercial version is much more detailed and complete, so I hope perusers of the freeware version will give it a try too.