The Nightmare War is a d20 campaign setting released in PDF format by a new company called Old Kingdom Games. They say it's the first title in the Campaign Gems series, books with self-contained settings.
Instead of a chapter-by-chapter review, today I will use a different approach. The Nightmare War has two well-known direct influences, and I think it's better to explain these two “souls”.
You mix White Wolf style...
In The Nightmare War (from now on TNW) you play the role of a normal person who suddenly starts having strange dreams about pain and captivity. At the same time you develop strange powers... and the feeling of being hunted.
The game takes place in a near future, a low-grade dystopia with very corrupt politicians, strange viruses and many revolts. The setting is explained in the first part of the book, which lasts for 21 pages. Instead of a direct, objective approach, we learn about this world through interviews, advertisements, magazine columns...
Characters affected by nightmares are divided in five main groups:
- Engrams: Empaths, able to manipulate emotions, perceptions and dreams.
- Phobetors: Fighters who can increase their physical abilities.
- Psychometabolics: People than can manipulate their own body. They can transform themselves but also heal others.
- Telemechanics: They are able to change, move and repair inanimate objects.
- Vagrants: The strangest group, without a coherent set of powers. They are more versatile and can develop abilities from the other four “splats”.
You must not be very clever to notice the great influence of White Wolf games in
The Nightmare War. The “splats”, the world explained through different documents... it really looks like
Orpheus or
Hunter. Well, it's not that bad, since those were very good games (I least I never felt slept while reading them, not like the new
Mage... sorry, back to TNW).
... with d20...
Maybe TNW looks like a White Wolf game, but this doesn't mean that you have to start filling dots. The campaign setting is written for the d20 system.
The authors decided to use a “straight” option. That is, you need the Third Edition D&D Player's Handbook to play, and the game only introduces minimal changes. This seems quite strange in an era full of OGL rewritings, but especially because they are not using the d20 Modern rulebook, even if the game takes place in a near future. I suppose this was done for marketing reasons, since much more people own the PH than d20 Modern.
The most important change is that the five “splats” are 20-level character classes, with their hit dice, starting cash, saves, and special powers. New skills and feats are introduced, and some existing ones are also discussed, and there's a small chapter about modern technology.
TNW also describes thirteen NPC classes, which can also be used for PCs created before their first nightmare. They're the butcher (paramedic), city's finest (guardians of order), conspiracy theorist, cyberspook (hacker), doctor, gonzo (journalist), gutter crawler, hitman, man on the street (ordinary person), merc, professional, rent-a-cop and soldier.
... and you get a new game!
Obviously, there's a big secret in TNW, explained in part three of the book. I will keep it... well, secret, since maybe there will be potential players reading this review, so I will just say that the main antagonists are the phages, divided in four categories and with very nasty powers.
About the style, the book looks really well edited, with a very nice layout and interior art. The game comes in a package with four PDFs in a zip file. The documents are all the same, but prepared with different options: screen and printer-friendly, color and black & white.
I must admit that I have mixed feelings about The Nightmare War, so I will try to briefly discuss the good and the bad points.
The bad
- The main complain: 110 pages (I'm not counting the character sheets) are not enough. All other problems are derived from this one.
- The secret is quite obvious and not developed enough. There should be more “conspiracy layers”, because once discovered everything turns into a good guys vs bad guys game.
- The authors should have really used d20 Modern, because the standard D&D rules don't fit the setting. This is especially severe when creating the characters, since there is only one option open to players: the class, and multiclassing is not allowed. I think that using backgrounds is really essential.
- The description of year 2035 is quite simple. Again, more details, please!
The good
- The core of the setting is really interesting, and I like the characters and the main antagonists. In hands of a good master, who knows how to keep pace, you can develop a really memorable campaign.
- The setting is very well presented and it's funny to read.
- Very nice illustrations, layout and design, uncommon for a beginning company.
In conclusion
The Nightmare War is a nice setting with great ideas, but sadly the rules and many details are not developed enough. Fortunately, it has the capacity to spark your mind with many ideas while reading it, and this is the best thing you can say about a RPG book.
Review Summary