I have finally broken into the games that were written this year! As of the time of this writing there are 15 games already in 2005 so the challenge is definitely bringing out the creativity in a lot of people. This review covers the last of 2004 (Myth) and the first five of 2005.
In this swag o’ goodies, we have one that inspired someone to convert nigh all of the Warhammer 40k background into the ruleset… see the Rule of 5 and http://www.1km1kt.net/forum/ftopic308.html. Also, there has been one rather neat success story: one of the 24hour games has gone professional. See Piledrivers and Powerbombs.
This is a review of the next 6 submissions of games received after last year’s Grand Act in the 24 hour game challenge. If you are curious about my last reviews, you will find them by searching for the name Evan or the number 24 in the reviews section.
The coming Grand Act weekend is July 9th-10th, with the Sister Weekend of the 16th and 17th for those who just can't squeeze in the previous weekend.
All the games reviewed here are available for free download from links available via the www.24hourrpg.com and http://www.1km1kt.net/24hourrpg/ websites, so check them out if you are interested
The challenge is simply to complete an entire RPG from nothing more than ideas, your available tools and your own ability within a 24-hour period. So the work you are looking at here is likely to be short, sharp and interesting, with a varying degree of polish.
A few notes on my marking system: 1=Below Average, 2=Average, 3 =Good, 4= High, 5= Excellent
I have on occasion indulged myself and added a 0 and a 6. You can figure what those might mean.
Flavour/Concept: Outline of the game concept. The score is pretty subjective. I put my personal opinion of the ideas here.
Formatting: A bit more objective, this lists the style, structure and overall set up of the piece.
Appearance: Again subjective, but with a bit more back up, points are scored for art, maps, and neat tricks with fonts or colours.
Professionalism: Spelling, Grammar, Writing maturity, and tone of the work. I have a bad eye for detail, so scores will not vary much in this one unless the game does exceptionally well or exceptionally badly.
Completeness: How easy is the game to pick up and play from what is presented, how finished does the work feel. Note that "pick up and play" is subjective. Most RPGs are built with a setting in mind, and what I am judging here is how easy it is to pick up the info here and run the game as intended. For universal type games, there needs to be enough info to allow a GM to pick it up and use it with the info at hand only in any appropriate genre.
Mechanics: How appropriate the mechanics of the game are to the game style, how innovative and clever they are and how easy to use and understand. All mechanics are judged without play testing, just from a read through.
Totals: 5/30 F, 10/30 D, 15/30 C, 20/30 B, and 25/30 A.
Note that most of these categories are subjective, so take my grading with a pinch or hand full of salt. I have tried to divide the scoring so that roughly 1/3 of the score is polish, 1/3 is factually relevant and 1/3 is pure opinion. ;)
So. The next 6.
Myth
Patrick McCoy Jr.
Flavour/Concept: Fantasy in a world where Myths and Reputation make the heroes powerful. Wow… Pretty!!! The system is a bit meat and potatoes, with one rather interesting use of dice. The setting description doesn’t fire my imagination, but I appreciate the production quality of the work. I will reward the production quality below, and put my opinion as Average. 2/5
Formatting: Excellent Table of Contents, some Designer notes then world background, character generation then system. Really needed an explanation of the dice usage before character generation, because concepts were hard to understand without it. Organization good otherwise, and page structure is excellent. Taken down to High for bad order of definitions. 4/5.
Appearance: Beautiful, simple and effective. Excellent use of font and colour, excellent choice of clip art and page structure. I wish I could do work this good. Really Excellent 5/5
Professionalism: Writing style fumbles in many places, simple spelling errors, inarticulate descriptions (when something is actually described - example ‘exploding dice’) and far too many uses of the first person inappropriately. Poor writing, dragged up to average because I really appreciate the professionalism of the production otherwise. 2/5
Completeness: Though the length of the work almost makes it to 24 pages, there are far too many holes in the skills and advantages sections for me to give more than an Average. Oh! But look how nice the character sheet looks! And so many monsters! OK, Good. 3/5
Mechanics: There is a neat idea about rolling so many dice but keeping only some of them, that gets swallowed by the remainder of the system and is not adequately described. There is also an interesting idea about reputation that should be the keystone of the system to fit it within the scope of what is trying to be done, but somehow fails to be central in my reading. Otherwise the system is a bland modification to the White Wolf template. Average 2/5
Totals: 18/30 B-
Enchanted Tales
Tim Bisaillon
Flavour/Concept: Urban fantasy, somewhere between WW fae and shadowrun. I don’t mind the genre, but there is not much here to feed my imagination. Interesting take on poker dice and dice pooling, though, bumps it up a notch. Good. 3/5
Formatting: No table of contents, only seven pages though and with an effective overall structure. Starts with a lead in story, then a ‘what is roleplaying’ section, then moves to system. Average 2/5
Appearance: Plain document conversion to PDF, OK font choice. Average 2/5
Professionalism: Several spelling and bad grammar mistakes in very inappropriate moments make this a much harder read than it should be. I had to decipher some of the clever system elements out of the work by figuring out intent from the clues. There are several places where fairly critical rules are unclear. Poor. 1/5
Completeness: Definitely playable, with all bases hit except experience / progression. In spite of the curt vocations descriptions, actually uses a nice level of nebulousness to allow the mechanic to function. Good 3/5.
Mechanics: Poker dice for success. This dice mechanic is rather neat, but a bit more random than I like. I think that the ‘drink dice from pool’ re-roll concept is cool, but needs some clarity on pool rejuvenation. Overall showing promise but not completely delivering, so Good. 3/5
Totals: 14/30 C
The Rule of 5 RPG
Tad Kelson
Flavour/Concept: A dark future world is tacked onto what is basically a cool opposed resolution system that might have been better served by having the attention the mechanic made generic rather than crow-barred into the setting concept. Having said that, the setting notes, though short, are quite evocative… I like it. Good. 3/5
Formatting: Introduction, definition of terms, system notes, setting, character generation and equipment list. Very good logical structure, no ToC. Ideas easily related, with the odd moment of repetition, still good. 3/5.
Appearance: Bland text conversion with OK coloured titles. Average. 2/5
Professionalism: Good definitions, with some discomfort in language occasionally. Some grammatical and spelling errors evident, so overall Average. 2/5
Completeness: Seems to run out of time a bit at the end, but certainly playable. Too long is spent on analyzing the mathematics (which incidentally I appreciate from a designers perspective, even though I think it detracts from the overall playability). I noted some system holes that will be penalized below in Mechanics. No character sheet or plot ideas, so Average. 2/5
Mechanics: The base mechanic of the Rule of 5 is brilliant. It demonstrates a very neat and simple way to convert two dice into a neat distribution of successes from 0 to 4. The statistics are after the fact and represent bad implementation (the emotional stats serve no systemic purpose whatsoever, the Raw Skill stat is completely superceded by the mental stats, etc). The skill concept, and how the dice are used for it, is both simple and clever. I want to give it higher, but because of bad implementation, only Good. 3/5
Totals: 15/30 C
Piledrivers and Powerbombs
Joe Prince (Note that P&P is not available from the usual site anymore, as for copyright reasons the 24 hour version cannot be maintained as a free download. I contacted Joe and he was kind enough to send the 24 hour version of this game for me to review, which he may do for others. If you are interested in the production version it can be found here: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4459 )
Flavour/Concept: Bring on the smack down… Pro-Wrestling meets narrative metaplay with panache and cahones. Has a whole bunch of neat new ideas, and delivers. Excellent job. 5/5
Formatting: Has it all. ToC, good structure, etc. etc. A few times the description introduces concepts in one order then describes them in another, which is a little disconcerting. Also, I dislike the description of the Post Match actions being before the actual Match actions. I really wanted to read a bit more about what the statistics are actually used for in the statistic descriptions. Even given these provisos, still High. 4/5
Appearance: It has cool font use, simple art choices, careful aligning, would be good on the printer, a nice character sheet: the simplicity works in this case and I can complain of nothing. 5/5
Professionalism: Very good. Writing is very professional, and only some minor grammatical issues. High 4/5
Completeness: Excellent playability, excellent style, complete genre picture. There is advancement within a contest, but there is no advancement for the wrestler in different leagues (campaign). This is a Meh comment. Only one thing I desperately wanted that is lacking is an example of play. I feel that given the uniqueness of the game mechanic it is really necessary. So much I will shave a point. High 4/5
Mechanics: Unique betting mechanic based on simple high draw in a 52 card deck (some exploding possible) to resolve contests. Simple tests with neat ‘action points’ ideas for manipulating results when you want them. Resource management and strategy in a complex narrative game. Bloody Brilliant. Only some minor definitional issues escape the keen writer’s eye (eg: how much are face cards worth? How does Sellage reduce?). Still going to give an Excellent. 5/5
Totals: 27/30 A+
A Childish Attempt
Chris Creel
Flavour/Concept: Hafling and gnome children dress in household items to play at being knights and champions. Cute, but very short and limited in what the game actually does, even though I find the idea very evocative. Average 2/5.
Formatting: Very short, follows standard short description, character generation and then rules. OK. Average 2/5
Appearance: Plain document conversion. Average 2/5.
Professionalism: A few stumblings and grammatical errors put it at Average. 2/5.
Completeness: I want more than this. Something about the base idea seems to be going places, but all that the game encompasses is the imaginary conflict between children using toy weapons. Enough evident here to play though, so Average. (2/5)
Mechanics: Simple three statistics to indicate equipment and resilience, and unmodified dice to aim for better roll for success of action in contests. Average. 2/5
Totals: 10/30 D
Lost Memories
Justin Anthony Hamilton
Flavour/Concept: Something terrible has happened. You cannot quite recall what it was… Now you are in this frightening place, with all these other people that are so familiar but you can’t put your hand on why… And you keep thinking maybe… maybe you are the reason everyone is here… Damn fine game concept, from Silent Hill or Circus of Souls with more than a dash of Wraith, and while I am intimately familiar with the genre, this does take it in new directions. Excellent. 5/5
Formatting: Has ToC, excellent character generation section; a model of not telling everything but still getting what is needed from char-gen. Huge GM section because this concept needs it, fails toward the end because of the scope of the project. Still good in spite of the writer’s admission of little skill in the area and lack of time. Good 3/5
Appearance: Once again the writer begs off his own lack skill but does a good job regardless. Some large blank spaces, but still good work, and good font choices & text boxes. Going with Good. 3/5.
Professionalism: Some nice writing at times, with the odd bit of distracting self-deprecation. The writer has some difficulty in maintaining simplicity of description in the mechanics sections. Some grammatical issues evident. Average 2/5.
Completeness: Holy carp, 35 pages, and he probably could have managed another 30 or so before slowing down if sleep hadn’t been a biological necessity. Even including the spacing out of things, still a monumental effort. I will take points off for the writer’s own failure of scope, there were too many ideas in the base concept that he wants to get down into the system notes to get done in 24 hours. So many GM notes to help with constructing the genre. Look, I can’t give less than high for this much work in a viable and playable game with such a neat idea. High 4/5
Mechanics: An opposed dice roll against a modified target is the main mechanic. Such a simple mechanic, that becomes so darned complex so darned fast. Too many modifiers on the one roll make it rather hard to figure. If this game mechanic could get a paring down to its original intent it would do very well indeed. Some very cool ways of handling character generation and blending statistics intimately with a character description. The mechanic itself bogs down and is not overly original, but is appropriate for what it is trying to do… I should go Average, so I will, but under protest. 2/5
Totals: 19/30 B
Only 10 more to go… at the moment… Cool! My second A+ there, on a topic I would not have expected... Pro-Wrestling! yikes...
Warm regards,
Evan
Review Summary