Let's look at some PDFs I have lying around cluttering up my desk and gathering dusk. I'll just reach out blindly and grab one or two...
So You Want to Be an Adventurer? is a wee little PDF of a mere 19 pages (including a solid black page) by Jared Sinclair with wonderful art by Evlyn Moreau. I cheated a little on this one because I picked it up today, so it wasn't gathering dust on my digital desk.
Usually in these non-reviews I don't read the game ahead of time. Usually I'm just looking at them for the first or second time and giving my off-the-cuff thoughts as I go. But this is a swift read. It's really just a conflict resolution mechanic, some simple rules for making a character, and a bunch of pages of cool pictures with TONS of blank white space to write in.
Character creation is writing down a certain number of things about your character (not an arbitrary number of things, but certain things). No stats or numbers are involved, it's all imagination.
The mechanic is to roll 2d6 and try to get 8 or better.
If you have a thing that benefits you, add 1 to the roll. If you have a thing that hinders you, subtract 1. Stack these up appropriately. For example: I have the high ground and a badass axe so I get +2 on my roll to fucking kill you. Or... I have a janky leg from a fall so I have -1 to jump that ravine. Etc.
Um... that's it. That's the game.
This is definitely a minimalist game. And there isn't much to say about it as a "system". Of course this game will work. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more heavily playtested mechanic than roll 2d6 and beat a target. The target of 8 means you effectively have a 50% chance of doing anything (not exactly, it's actually slightly less but who cares?). So the real meat of play probably comes from really using those advantages and disadvantages, narratively. Which is very cool.
There are a million games like this you can find at any moment. And of course that's to be expected. This type of system is kind of bedrock to the entire hobby. This is just a "here's a way to resolve things, now GO" sort of project. With most of the space left over for you to write new rules and ideas. I believe there are people who might pick this up and go "What the actual FUCK did I just pay for?" because let's face it... you can slap this together on your own in a hot 15 minutes and do your thing (but it won't be as awesome without Evlyn's art). There is nothing new here, nor is it claiming otherwise. But some folks will feel a little cheated, I fear.
Maybe this just appeals to some other types of folks (myself being one of them to a large degree)... this is a book that invites you to come and play and be creative. It wants you to make shit up. It wants you to enter the imagination zone. This is a "game" that reminds me of what I invented as a 14 year old who had only experienced RPGs one time and didn't own any. I made shit up. It was magic.
As a lover of ideas and tools for making shit up, I approve.
34 pages, based on Knave by Ben Milton, and inspired by Fallout. With very cool art. The layout is clean and simple and certain headers and stuff do remind me of the Fallout game aesthetic (though I never played it, my kid played the shit out of it).
In an interesting twist, character creation doesn't come until halfway through the book. Bold move, Tocci.
I like the use of "game moderator" instead of "game master". You get to keep the GM term that is so ubiquitous but you ditch the "master" part that seems to bother some folks. Very nice. But I'll still use Judge nonetheless.
There's a nod to Jim Wampler's Scientific Barbarian zine. Very nice.
On the "playing the game" page, there are three important aspects of game play described. One is to set boundaries, such as "let's not have rape, ok?". I have no idea why this type of suggestion triggers some folks. The very idea of DISCUSSING things ahead of play is somehow alien? Like... I get it... when I was gaming back as a teen we didn't discuss jack or shit before playing. And we had some monumentally FUCKED UP experiences that probably would have been smoother and more fun if we'd just... y'know... talked about it.
Another one is to telegraph intent, as a player. So instead of saying "what's in this room?" you say "I stand in the doorway and casually scan the room. What are some things I can see?" This is very nice because it shares some of the labor more equally. So often in games, the players really do shove everything off on the GM.
I'm not super familiar with Knave, so I don't know how closely this game cleaves to it. I can see that it is largely OSR-friendly with d20 rolls, 2d6 reactions, and so forth. Seems straightforward.
The initiative system is the same as what I used in GOZR, which is the same as Mörk Borg, which is the same as Knave, and I have no idea where that method originated. But it works and I like it.
Cool stuff about junk. You gather junk (because in the post-apoc hellscape everything is junk) and you can "spend" it to repair weapons and armor. Very cool. And probably a nod to the computer games? I dunno. But I like. Roll 1d6. On 1-3, enemies go first.
Yeah, this is sweet. You got stunts, rads, and mutations. If you are into post-apoc, you'll probably dig it.
