Preamble

Sherpa is, according to the cover blurb, "a role-playing game for outdoor use". To continue with the front cover, "while not a LARP, it could be used as one". Written by Steffan O'Sullivan, noted author of, among others, FUDGE and GURPS Bunnies & Burrows, Sherpa is a game which pushes the envelope on what can be considered mechanically minimalist without actually being mechanically absent.

To let you know in advance what biases come to the table with this review, let me first warn you that I like minimalist games these days (provided they have a solid core) and that I think Steffan's FUDGE game is quite possibly one of the best games ever published. Keep this in mind while reading the rest of the review.

As usual, for this review I will try to answer "what is the author trying to accomplish?" and then "has the author accomplished this end?". I will leave judgement as to whether or not the end was worth accomplishing to the reader.

What was Steffan trying to achieve?

The intent of Sherpa is to provide a role-playing game which can be played while outdoors and not near the flat surfaces most traditional RPGs require. As such there are some specific constraints on the components the game provides:

• Characters must fit on very small pieces of paper.
• The core rules must fit on a small piece of paper.
• The randomizing element (if you plan to use one) cannot be something which depends upon the availability of a flat surface. It must also be something readily available to people without large disposable incomes.

These constraints are over and above the usual expectations for a generic role-playing game, of course: playability, versatility, etc.

So did Steffan do it or not?

For the most part Steffan did it. Sherpa characters fit on a small piece of paper. Indeed the standard Sherpa character sheet is the back of a business card. The core rules can fit on a 3x5 index card with no difficulties. The randomizing element, assuming you want one (Sherpa can be played diceless), is a cheap digital stopwatch. So why only "for the most part"? It has to do with the remaining requirements expected of all RPGs. To explain this, however, I'll first need to describe things a bit more.

Segue to game description.

Sherpa characters are described using six character attributes. The name of the game is a pnemonic for remembering what they are:

• Strength
• Health
• Experience
• Reasoning
• Profession
• Agility

This pnemonic isn't the most useful order for the stats (PERASH being far better), however, so the explanation below goes in a better order. Profession is basically a freely-defined character class. Fans of the game Over the Edge will recognize it as being for all practical purposes identical to a Major Trait. Anything you can reasonably do or know under the described profession is done at the level of the profession. (Because of this, Steffan persists in referring to Sherpa as a class & level system. I humbly disagree.)

Experience is a measure of general knowledge and/or education.

Reasoning is a measure of logical thinking.

Agility governs most physical skills not covered by Profession. Note that your combat ability can never be higher than your Profession, so even though fighting is, for many characters, based upon Agility, boosting your Agility higher than your Profession is a complete waste of time.

Strength measures lifting capacity, damage-dealing capability, etc.

Health is used more for assessing damage than for any skills. It is a measure of stamina, resistance, etc.

Each of these above ratings ranges from 1-9 (human norm: 4-5) although this is restricted to 2-8 at character generation. Profession is a bit of a special case since it not only has a number value, it also has a description like "Fighter Jockey" or the like. A simple point value scheme is used to set the numbers at character creation.

Over and above the attributes, characters have Gifts and Flaws as well. These are free-form descriptions of advantages or disadvantages characters have outside of the attributes. Gifts could include ambidexterity, contacts in an agency, good looks, and so forth while Flaws could include vanity, phobias and so on.

Action resolution, as can be expected, is very much a free-form in this game. Basically for any action the player adds the controlling attribute (the GM decides which), any situational modifiers (typically ranging from +3 to -3) and optionally some luck tokens (which are given to the character at creation, but I forgot to mention these), each of which, when spent, provides an additional +3 modifier.

For simple (unopposed) actions, the GM generates a number from 1-10 using the tenths/hundredths reading on the stopwatch (assuming the randomizer is being used). If the number so derived is less than or equal to the modified total the action is a success (with lower numbers indicating a greater degree of success). For opposed actions the procedure is slightly different: two random numbers are generated and added to attribute+modifier+luck totals on both sides. The higher side wins.

The results of the action check are, of course, heavily interpreted. This is most especially the case in dealing with wounds. The GM has to "consider" several factors and then assigns a damage level based upon this. Wounds are tracked with another set of different-coloured tokens (like the luck tokens I forgot to mention) which I forgot to mention earlier.

No really, did Steffan do good?

Sherpa is overall a very good game assuming you like light games. The only problem I have with it is that the wound mechanism in specific is far too undefined for my tastes. For something as vital to the continued existence of the character as an injury, sloppy, interpretive mechanisms may not be the best solution. A bit more of an objective system was needed here. Perhaps the core rules should have been fit on both sides of a 3x5 card instead of just one side?

Production values

What did you expect? Sherpa was published on a shoestring budget by a no-name publisher. It is a small ~5.5x8.5" book of about 32 pages. Layout is clean, crisp and readable, but the content is very spartan. (The irony of it having a better index than most expensive games is very amusing!) Don't be looking for a lot of eye candy, however. It just isn't there.

Summary

If you want a light game for use when normal games can't be played, Sherpa is probably a good bet. You just have to be more comfortable with subjective systems for damage determination than I am. As such, I find myself having to work out a more objective damage system so that I can play RPGs wherever I like.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)