Product– Flail

System– Flail

Producer– Games Omnivorous

Price–  FREE here https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/games-omnivorous/flail-an-old-school-fantasy-brawler  

TL; DR– The author’s love letter to old school hex crawls.  93%

Basics– Let’s do old school!  Flail is a love letter to old school RPGs and gambling.  How much are you willing to push?  Let’s break this one down.

Core mechanic– This is a bit of a mix.  For skills, these are called saves.  You roll a d20 and roll under your ability score.  For attacks, it’s roll a number of d6s and attempt to get at least one 1.  More ones mean more successes.

Advantage and disadvantage– If you are good or have some kind of bonus, you have an advantage.  Advantage on saves is to roll twice and take the better.  Advantage on attacks means roll an additional d6.  If you have a penalty or are not great at an action, you have disadvantage.  Disadvantage on saves is roll twice, and take the worse.  Disadvantage on an attack is roll one less d6.

Combat– Combat is pretty simple.  Initiative is determined by rolling a dexterity save.  If you succeed, you go before the enemies.  Fail, and you go after.  Then, on your turn, you get to do an action and move.  When you roll an attack, a single 1 gives you a success, and you deal damage equal to the weapon.  When you roll two 1s, it does double damage.  Roll 3 s and it instantly kills the enemy! Enemies do not have armor, but do reduce damage by a set amount.  If you are hit, you can use one of the usages of an armor, and it negates the damage.  Things like heavy armor have more usages.

Magic–  There are multiple classes that use magic.  All of them have a basic idea of choosing how much of a resource to spend, and you get to roll that many d6s.  If you succeed, different spells have different effects.  Some magic classes need just one success to make the spell happen.  Some have you add the dice together, and that determines an effect.  It varies by the caster and the spell.

Ok, let’s review this!

Mechanics or Crunch– This is a love letter to someone’s choices, but they might not be my favorite.  The splitting of the base mechanic makes this game offer interesting choices, but also breaks the flow of play.  I can absolutely respect the mashup between Call of Cthulhu skills and Shadowrun damage rolls, but it’s less elegant than either of them.  But it’s not bad.  It’s just not my cup of tea.  4/5

Theme or Fluff– This game feels like a solid 80s style.  It’s committed to old school, and it’s got art and aesthetics to match.  The game is pretty and horrific in a metal cover sort of way.  The authors wanted to publish a game of their own, and they absolutely did.  And I love it.  5/5

Execution– The book is everything I expect from a modern PDF and a system intro book.  The book is hyperlinked, easy to read, and quick to navigate.  The book includes multiple pre-generated characters so you can start playing instantly.  There are several places to play and hexes to crawl right out of the box.  Again, the authors wanted something, and they did it well.   5/5

Summary– This is someone’s pet project, and they poured their whole soul into it.  The mechanics are not my favorite, but they are done well.  The story and feeling of the world are on display.  The book is everything I expect from an intro product.  I might not love this one completely, but if you want an old-school hexcrawl with your buds on a Friday night, with some cold beer and hot pizza, then this is absolutely the product you need to pick up.  93%