In the last year I've bought a fair number of new games, and rather give each one a massive review full of carefully weighted opinions and unbiased humdrum, I thought I'd just do one big post with a brief paragraph on each game to capture impressions.  Not everything will have been published just this year, and frankly... if I'm honest, I'm sure a few ninjas may sneak in under the wire from the year before because I'm sloppy and don't keep records of shit like this. Hell, I don't even file my taxes, whaddya want from me?

So, in no particular order...

Tenra Bansho Zero:

I've actually reviewed this one here.  Japanese game, translated over a long time by Story Swine (TM?... not mine, I don't want the Pundit to sue me! ) and released as a new edition here. I like the idea more than the execution,  the problem is that the setting is based on the artwork of the original designer, so you wind up with a lot of things that make pretty pictures becoming core to the setting that don't necessarily translate well for a game played in the mind.  My only other problem is that I'm a 'long campaign' style player, I like to build a character up over time... though I also like starting out pretty badass.. adn TBZ assumes that you're gonna reset your game pretty often. This seems to be a Japanese Gamer Culture thing, I guess.  All in all I'm looking forward to finally getting to run through it.

Double Cross:

Right on the heels of TBZ, this is ANOTHER Japanese game translated by Another Story Swine, and frankly the similarities are astounding!  In both games if you get too powerful (or just use too much temporary awesome at one time) you permanently lose your character to Evil!  This one's a very anime flavored game, with high school kids being leading agents and assassins in secret government conspiracy/spy agencies and crap like that, though you aren't required to play teenagers.  I think I like the setting and concept a bit more than TBZ, but I'm guessing that in play I'd find most of the actual super powers to be pretty dull and uninteresting compared to the other. Certainly the book is a lot less pretty.    There are some things about it that remind me of AMP:Year One, so if you like AMP, you may like Double Cross.

Universe: The Sci-Fi Rpg

This is a little press pub I picked up in Salt Lake City when I was passing through. Looks like a couple of brothers working on it. To be honest, I wanted to really like it, but I couldn't get past the combination of a sixteen page character sheet, and the conceit that said sheet needed whole pages for rules that weren't even included... two separate sections if I recall.  Combine that with Not-Aliens that are supposed to be evolved new races of humanity that... just... ah, no. And then when the sci-fi refused to really deliver in the equipment chapter, I just decided to put it on the shelf and forget about it.  For those not put off by the above, it did appear to have a full fledged system in there, percentile based.  It didn't appear to be really bad, just not worth choking through four charts to determine my character's height.

Symbaroum:

I want to love this game.  It's swedish or something, and those 'swedish or something' games that make it to the US have a very good track record. Its beautiful to look at, evocative as hell... sort of a cross between epic sagas and Pan's Laberynth almost. The rules aren't too heavy or too light.  The setting doesn't set my teeth on edge. So... why do I feel like all the parts necessary to actually make it a game... things like character creation and the setting.... are just sort of place holders for a more fully realized version of this?   Like they developed the rule set and then set down a sample size of character creation saying 'well, it will look like this, only we'll have a lot more options later', and then the same for the setting...   Its complete, you can totally play it, but when I look at it I start looking for the various options that will really fire up the old imagination... and I find that, nope, I've already got all of it.  That's it.  

Legends of the Wulin:

Ugh. Just a Weapons of the Gods reskin... minus the eyebleeding colors. Don't get me wrong, that is a massive improvement, but the core mechanics, while innovative in concept, never quite delivered.  There is exactly one real defining trait in the game, and that is fixed by the GM for all players and NPCs, everything else is tinkering on the margins.  Now, if you LIKE Weapons of the Gods, then I can't recommend this enough, its fucking gorgeous and, well, its Weapons of the Gods, so you already like it.

Fragged Empire (plus both Archive Supplements):

I love this game despite its horrible warts. One of a number of games on this list that reminds me that people who like to draw shouldn't try to write games, and people who like to write should pay someone else to draw.  Wade Dyer, the creator, is on record as having created the cutesy little icons for the various races and factions, often before having a race or faction to go with them, and I'm going to guess that artistic sensibility is behind the very icon heavy rules chapters. Not that the Icons mean anything per se, but they reinforce the text.  That isn't the issue, so much as the rules tend to break down, are among the worst organized (but not the worst written... that really has to go to Outbreak:Deep Space), the constant three dollar malapropisms and other nagging issues.  But... it just seems so damn evocative,and so damn close to working right!   Almost.   Once you learn that half the rules you actually need to create a character are ONLY on the character sheet, and 90% of the rest are ONLY in the appendix, everything smooths out.  That's right, bucko... the actual text of the book only contains about 5% of the damn rules for making characters.  

Battlestations:

THis is an odd little duck, half board/war game and half RPG.  The books are dead cheap (20 bucks a pop), and while the alien designs are almost universally idiotic (No, seriously: of six playable races four are more or less amorphous blobs. Of the other two, one is human and the the other is a space cockaroach that has its hearts in its knees for no sane reason...). Its got a distinct Paranoia vibe going on for it, and the rules are super light.  This looks like a great pickup game, but with the legs to support a decent, if limited scope, campaign.

The Authority RPG:

I picked this up from Half Price Books. It looks good, a fan adaption of some dudes artwork books from the seventies or something.  I can't tell you much more about it, though. Since I wasn't a fan of the artbooks (never heard of them), trying to wade through the setting to get to the rules (I'm that sort of guy, sadly...) felt a lot like homework to me, so I sorta gave up on it.  Since its based on artbooks the setting does seem a little shaky, but I can't swear to anything.

Ninja Crusade, Second Edition:

A more recent pick on our list, my biggest problem is probably the setting, starting with the fact that the designers define Ninja far differently than I would, and that their 'not-Japan' setting seems a bit... chinese?  Once you get past that though, it seems like it would be a blast. I made a few characters, as I do when I get enough into a game, and it wasn't too hard. Equipment is not a big thing here, weapons are more defined by what Ninja-Skills you can use with them than their actual value as weapons. Normally that would piss me off, but in this case, with Ninjas and all that, I think it was a good idea.  Ninja should be mastering Ninja powers to fuck you up, not poring over weapon stat blocks to determine if a big fukken ax is a better weapon than nunchucks.   Now, lets talk about 'Ninjitsu Merchants'...

Psionics: The next stage in Human Evolution

So apparently you can get this in two editions, with and without in-game fiction. I got the in-game fiction edition, and while the fiction wasn't awful, it was annoying to realize there was an entire novella breaking up my game rules.  I guess it does serve to illustrate some elements of the setting.  Also, there is a disconnect in that the game is very high-school/teenager character in presentation, but the rules actually do nothing to reinforce this, and much of the game fiction seems to actually involve young adults... things like going to underground rock clubs, where the performer wears her underwear on stage (and is ALSO one of the secret leaders of DA RESISTANCE!!!!).   Most of the rules are serviceable, with an emphasis on drug use that is... balanced?  Its a game about 'teenager?' psychics fighting ancient conspiracies that want to vivisect them, but there are several pages of rules/equipment focusing on drugs... so...  The rules are simple to the point of being bland, which isn't quite what I expected from a game about teenage, drug fueled psychics.   There is one oddity that I feel I have to mention: there are three colors of psychic powers that you can have, and in setting there are special colored injections that translate directly into experience in your various powers... and are probably the fastest way to 'level up' your powers.  Genre Good, Game Bad, if you ask me.  All in all its a 'Meh' in my book

Polaris:

This is a translation of an old and popular (?) French game that, according to the editors failed to catch on because the guy who designed it didn't really get math or science very hard, so the new edition is a much clearer, cleaner one with real science in it.  I'll go with that. I want to love this game so hard, but I can't. Maybe because its a sci-fi game set entirely underwater?  No sentient Dolphins, so its got that going on for it (This may not be entirely true, but its close enough...).  To be honest, I really, really want to blend this together with Eclipse Phase, as they use very close Attributes and number for said attributes.  The setting detail is rich, if not without troubles (you cannot convince me that an underwater civilization actually treats purified water as magic science, and people are scrapping pennies together to get something to drink), but too many elements that should have rules are left to fluff.  Like so many games there is a serious downfall in the equipment chapter: Your science fiction underwater game should not be sticking people with 90% of their gear from the local walmart sporting section. Its just not... sciency.  THe stuff that IS sciency is... underwhelming in the rules department.  Like the robot-suit/power armor.  There are some seven 'levels' of power armor (and four catagories... underwater, surface, air and hybrid), but the first four levels are all 'man sized' and the last two are 'diesel truck sized', while all the equipment for them (weapons and so forth)... are apparently all the 'same size'.  Ugh.   Lastly, it has way too many skills.  Absurd, almost GURPSian numbers of skills.   Still: I'd play it.  If I ran it I'd probably leave out the magic dimension psychics and the power armor, but I'd run it.  Word of warning: Heavy hints of Metaplot!!!

Mutant Chronicles:

Just gonna quote the closing paragraph of my mega post on this abortion....

Nah, just kidding. Ima make you read the whole thing if you want my hot take.

Open Anime:

Generic. Boring. Cheap cash in on the gaming trend, with distinctly non-anime render art. Skip.

Amp: Year Two

Got the original as PDF a few years back.  It strikes me as having only slightly more power (as super power games go) than Brave New World, but without being so profoundly uninspiring. So there is a dichotomy in a game where being able to talk to squirrels or to summon a sword made out of shadows is, like, your THING, and the fluff text that claims that supers are wrecking all sorts of shit, a la Aberrant.  Year Two was a letdown, in that I sort of expected to see things... AMPed up, and instead I got an almanac of metaplot that I not only cared for, but actively insulted my intelligence at times, and a handful of additional powers to fill niche designs I doubt people were seriously clamoring for. Yay, you can take your arms off and beat people with them now?  Not the worst purchase in the world, but it was too much of the same.  Ima point out that AMP one and two both have far more pregenerated characters (for players? As NPCs? Not clear, but I think both...) than any other game I've ever bought. There is some obvious and even annoying virtue signalling in these character designs, but nothing that should break the game for ya if its your level/style of super. Still need One to use it.  I will note as a point of curiousity that both Year One AND Year Two manage to squeeze in a very young child with superpowers pregen character for some reason. Am I unaware of a demand for five year old super... beings?  The first one was clever and interesting, I'll grant, and the idea for the second one is equally clever in a new way, but the repetition of this particular concept is... mildly offputting.

Atlantis the Second Age:

This was my last game purchase of 2016, so I'm not entirely done parsing all of it. Its definitely... inspired by Atlantis... but the name is also misleading too.  At first I thought there was a heavy callback to Robert E. Howard's pre-history, but I realized shortly after this is more true to the Theosophy he originally drew from.  It seems mechanically sound, nothing to report on that front, though it does posture that the adventures are remarkable snapshots in larger than life characters, shaping how you should treat your campaign.  Shades of Pendragon maybe? Don't know, since I never played/owned Pendragon, but the concept seems similar on some levels.  I do regret not taking advantage of the chance to pick up the Bestiary and Gazateer used along side the main book, not because we are lacking in details (dear god, the details!) for all the tribal races of humanity scattered over the large map... though the bestiary almost seems an absolute must if you really intend to play this.  This is sort of post-apoc, Atlantis has fallen and Humans are becoming the dominant race, following the cycle (and the previous dominant races are still around).   Atlantis isn't really a big island city, a la the story from Plato's Republic, but an empire based in subcontinent sized islands. There are a few WTF bits of the history (as in, the Main Island of Atlantis wasn't the capital, and hasn't sunk, but the Capital did...), and far too many of these ancient pre-history cultures running around are virtually identical to far more recent historical groups, such as the 'not-aztecs' and such. One thing I noted in the setting was that the Amazons helped tear down Atlantis during the turmoil of their capital sinking... but I'll be damned if I could find a single thing on the Amazons aside from that. No tribe, were they Atlantians or Humans or what? Nada. Huge role in the recent history of the setting and zero information to actually use them.  Maybe I didn't look hard enough?   One note: If you don't like 'animal men' as playable races, I'd avoid this one.  You've got two races of lizard people, the Lemurians are giant gun weilding gorillas and the Atlantians created whole races of animal peoples, so there are a half dozen or more 'furry' races, from Minotaurs to wolfmen to owl-dudes.  Humans may be the ascendant race, but damned if it won't feel like that when you're making a character!

BASH Sci-Fi and BASH Supers:

I got one a while ago, maybe this year, maybe late last year, and the other just about a month ago, so we're good? I think I like the Sci-Fi more the supers, really. I've got so many better systems for superheros, and BASH Supers didn't really bring anything to the table for me, except maybe the ability to get so many powers that your original concept got muddled and lost?  Not that BASH Sci-Fi is great. It suffers from only having 3 attributes, which painful experience has taught me is too few, and there is the always troubling problem of failing to use the equipment chapter to define your setting... even if it is a generic 'build your own' sort of setting.

Spaceship Zero:

I'll admit it, I shouldn't have even bought this one. It didn't really look like my sort of game, and god was I ever right.  Its sort of loosely based on old black and white monster/rocket movies... like a brain in a jar is just Tuesday? Its very tongue in cheek, utterly committed to its aesthetic, and almost looks like it wants to be a 'build your own novel... with DICE' sort of metaplot heavy game.   If you like that shit, its probably right up your alley, but for me it actually made me hate that stuff. I mean, I can enjoy a good brain in a jar flick, or the original Lost in Space (hell, when I'm feeling particularly frisky I even try to like the movie they made... it never works, but damned if I don't try.), but I just can't like this.  But I did, and I said I'd review the stuff I got this last year, so here it is.

Dark Heresy II: Enemies Without

Um, I'll be honest, I don't really recall which books came out when, just that I got one of them this last year.  I almost forgot to put it on the list.  The truth is I can't really say anything in particular about this that would be worth the words. IF you already like Dark Heresy two, then this is probably a must purchase item, if you hate it then what do you care?  It's pretty much par for the course in terms of Dark Heresy II products, nothing exceptional, nothing disasterous.

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire: Nal Hutta and Special Modifications:

I don't know why I own so many of these damn things, seeing as I actively avoid playing the game. My only answer is that I gave George Lucas a piece of my soul when I was very very young, and he uses it occasionally for dark sorceries, and I spend money on shit I will actively hate... Like A Farce Awakens (though I know he actively hates that one too....).  So, Special Modifications is the supplement for you if you really wanted to play Jax Daxter... because you suck and hate joy.  Like every other supplement its all about a character class, in this case Technicians, with all sorts of mechanics I really don't want to know enough about to say if any of them are any good. Lords of Nal Hutta is more setting, a nice change of pace, though it does squeeze in some new (for the game, not for Star Wars itself... never that!) races and equipment.  As much as I can like anything Star Wars (after GL burned my soul fragments for power too many times...)... I like this book. It actually feels like its adding something to the game, and I'm the guy that prefers character building books for game lines!

Outbreak: Deep Space:

I'm pretty sure this one snuck in well under the wire, but why not?  In concept this is a book about giving you a toolbox to make surivival (zombie if you prefer) horror in a sci-fi setting. Not so much space, despite the name, just 'sci fi'. I didn't see TOO many rules about life support and shit like that, just stuff about looting the medbay of a starship and what have you.  Outbreak: Deep Space is a bit of a heartbreaker. There are a massive number of very cool concepts in this book, its pretty to look at... and its an unholy mess that doesn't just verge on incomprehensible, it jumps clean over incomprehensible, stabs it in the back, and runs laughing into the sunset!  Once you've made the appropriate sacrifices to Azathoth so that sanity is just a forgotten dream, and you can start to understand this eldritch tome, you start to see the flaws hiding under it.  First, the game is structured as an oppositional board game, with the players on one side and the GM on the other.  Players do action X and create 'Risk' which the GM uses to send monsters after them.  Great. Where is the brightly colored board and the monochromatic plastic figures?   Then equipment... nice idea for build your own, but so utterly restrictive that it starts to feel like a pixel-bitch video game designed by someone who hates humanity and wants them to suffer more than he wants to make money. I don't want to take half an hour to design a 'knife', dude. Then find out that since that is my "Kit", I'm ONLY allowed to carry that knife I spent half an hour working out the stats for.  Both of these are issues, but the piece de resistance (Say it like it was written in french!) is the Descriptors.  You could call it key words. Now, this is actually quite clever and innovative and all that shit, but the execution makes it violently insane, like chew your own fingertips off so you can use the bones as claws levels of violently insane!  Basically your skills are actually pretty weak, so you pile on 'Descriptors' which you have bonuses for, that make your rolls passable if you can get the right descriptors.  I'd go on, but once you've gotten past that you start clawing your eyes out. That knife you spent half an hour building? Yeah, its got keywords, and if it doesn't have the right ones, you can't use your bonuses with it. The actual details of the knife are far less important than the Descriptors and the level of bonuses attached to them. Now, imagine how many things a knife can do in a survival game. Its a weapon of course, but also a tool. Creative use of that tool may be important in a survival game, right?  Well... screw that. If you didn't put the right Descriptors on it, its fucking useless for that clever idea you just got!  So... how many descriptors are there? Infinite!

You get the idea.

I'm gonna close out there. I got a few other games this year, mostly PDFS like Alpha Blue, but frankly I can't think of many past that off the top of my head, and I'm getting tired of digging through books trying to remember how long ago I picked them up, so...

That was a rather fun read through.  Here is my RPGs in 2016:

Volo' s Guide to Monsters:  I have a big soft spot for D&D monster manuals, so WOTC will get my $ for any they release.  

The detailed description of several monster societies was an enjoyable read, but quite useless for my gaming.  I will probably never read through it again, same as the old ecology sections in Dragon were useless.  Short bullet points drive my gaming prep because it can easily be referenced at the table, not in depth analysis.  

The PC write ups of monsters is fine.  I have not actually read them because it is highly unlikely I would ever want to play anything besides a human.  But my players like race options, so it is there for them if anyone wants to be an anthropomorphic birdman or whatever.

The new monsters are excellent.  Having a few different stats for humanoid races is great, makes fleshing out a tribe easy and immediately useful for the table.  Having stats for some more of the traditional monsters is crucial for playing old adventures.  The new NPCs are great and fill some big holes the Monster Manual missed.  The one thing missing is I think there should be some unique NPC stats for each of the demi-human races instead of them entirely piggy-backing on the human archetypes.

I would have been happier if it was simply another monster manual instead of the ecology and PC sections, but overall quite happy with the purchase.  It will be used at the table, which is my main goal in an RPG purchase.

That is it; I do not buy much anymore.

cool. I pretty much stopped worrying about D&D books myself, but I've been tempted to pick up Volo. You're synopsis actually makes it sound right up my alley, I like monster ecology, but then I really came into my own during the 2nd AD&D era, when big fuckoff binders full of monsters were all the rage.  If only they'd sold me binders full of women, my adolescense might have been much better...

I think you should pioneer the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of RPG review blogs. And Aos should make comic book panels to illustrate said reviews. I am selective & miserly, but I would buy that in a heartbeat.

Is that Universe by Tower Ravens?  I picked up the core game years ago but it didn't even cover autofire or vehicles.  Have they made some progress on it or is this something new?

Okay, I did some digging and it turns out I have the 2003 Universe Primer and there's a three volume 2012 version.  Interestingly only volumes one and two are on offer.

I actually interacted with these guys a little bit on rpgnet back in the day.  They were so sure that SPI's Universe wouldn't cause any name recognition problems.  Zaon was also coming at the time.  Starcluster was already out there.

it is Tower Ravens.  I couldn't say anything about editions or autofire rules, and I don't remember jack about vehicles. I can pull the book down and give a look if you want.

My problem with it was obsessive focus on trivialities.  See... now I'm gonna pull the book down anyway to point the very first things out I saw:  

Starting with the character sheet the second page is about 90% filled with various descriptive details like 'handedness', with a dozen line block for 'disposition', broken down into said dozen elements of disposition. This is, I should note, also the page where you record your attributes in the remaining 10% of the sheet. There are sixteen pages to the character sheet. That was NOT an exaggeration for effect. I counted them. I may have forgotten to count the first page, which looked like a chapter intro, but is in fact the cover of the character sheet.

Later you get into rolling which ethnicity of your not-human species you are, with modifiers for random height and weight for your random ethnic groups to made up not-human races, including linguistic breakdowns and so forth.

Mind you, we're still working out what this game is all about.

Lots of pretty artwork in there... mixed with some real crap mind.

And for some reason I feel compelled to point out that you randomly generate your bloodtype.  That's in there, people.  God forbid you don't know your not-human character in a sci-fi game's blood type.  If only we'd known Blackleaf was AB-, she* might be alive today.




* To be honest, I'm not sure what sex blackleaf was supposed to be, but seeing as Blackleaf was an Elf, Female is always the right answer.

Nothing like a rousing game session of finding someone with a compatible blood type for a transfusion.  That is batshit insane.  

I suppose it could be interesting.  O negative is the universal donor right?   So every party needs one.

At one point when I was looking at publishing my Galactic Adventures rules these guys were one of the many groups that seemed to have something fantastic already on the market that led me to just put it up for free.  I'm just one guy, and a crabby one who doesn't care for what's popular most of the time at that.  I just want games that do what I want them to do, how I want them to do it.

Anyhow, I have a soft spot for these Tower Ravens guys but the psi rules invoking chakras, while interesting, are far less important to sf than vehicles and automatic weapons.  Grand designs with a tendency to deliver incomplete games.  There's a reason I'm so happy T5 is a massive, complete tool kit.  Too many sf games never actually deliver the whole package.