Tag: Review

Ring Side Report-RPG Review of After the Rain

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Product– After the Rain

System- After the Rain

Producer– Desks and Dorks

Price– Coming soon!  Check here-https://www.desksanddorks.org/after-the-rain

TL; DR– Sad done well. 100%

Basics–  Depressing!  That is After the Rain, a soon coming RPG from Desks and Dorks.  This isn’t just one setting, but all of them that are sad.  This game is a game of loss as an ever present rain takes away part of who you are.  Let’s talk about what that means in depth.

Breakdown-

Base mechanics-  You build a character by rolling four six-sided dice and choosing three.  These three become facets of your character. Facets define you from your child to your job to the person you swore to kill.  Over the course of the game, when you do an action you choose a facet that relates to the action. Your actions must therefore be from things that that part of you would allow.  A mother of six would not use her mothering skills to build a nuclear sub, but the same woman might be a nuclear physicist and use that facet to build the sub.  But, and here is the key, when you use that facet, reduce it by one.  The game will slowly wash away in the rain.  Once a facet reaches zero, that aspect stops defining who you are.  You don’t care about the kids or you just don’t feel you can do science any more.

Dice and doing something different-When you do something with a facet that is way out of bounds for that part of your life like a mother building a sub, you risk the facet.  You roll a six sided die and add the facet level. If you roll high, things are great, medium, less so, and low, you lose the facet.  Maybe the kids help and the rain makes the sub slip the mooring, roll, and kill them (This is not a happy game!).

Now the breakdown!

Mechanics or Crunch– This is a simple game of loss and the mechanics help build this up well.  Everything you do costs you.  The math of the game beats you down as every way you solve problems in the game costs you bits of yourself as the rain quite literally takes it away.  It is simple, beautiful, and mind numbingly depressing. 5/5

Theme or Fluff– This game is theme.  The settings you and your friends make are all about costing you for a goal.  Pieces of you are left all around your pretend world as you attempt to survive the rain. The game’s whole motif is the world and the rain are beating you down.  And this game does just that.  This all sounds bad, but it’s depressing in the same way a sad movie is depressing.  It’s well done sadness.   5/5

Execution– This one I won’t comment on.  The PDF I had was a simple word document on it.  -/5

Summary– What kind of game do you want to play?  My wife loves heroic fantasy.  She wants feats and math and clicky clicky dice.  I told her about this game and she hated it.  I told my friends at the comic store and they loved what After the Rain is, and I do too.  This game is A Grave of Fireflies come to life.  The world and the rain are just taking who you are as you try to survive in a world of constant hardship.  That does not make this game horrible.  That makes this a VERY specific kind of game for a VERY specific kind of table.  My wife and her friends hate this thing.  It isn’t a hero’s journey.  But, if you want a game of loss and struggle while the world is taking from you, this is your game.  Its mechanics completely reinforce the theme and its theme completely reinforces the mechanics.  It’s a beautiful sad ballet.  I would put this up there with Dread in terms of one night solid RPGs.  If you want a game of loss, struggle, and emotional weight, After the Rain is the beautifully tragic game you are looking for.  100%

Ring Side Report-RPG Review of SCP The Tabletop RPG

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ 1 Comment

Product– SCP The Tabletop RPG

System- SCP The Tabletop RPG

Producer– 26 Letters Publishing

Price– $19.99 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/334521/SCP-The-Tabletop-RPG?affiliate_id=658618

TL; DR-Secure this book! 96%

Basics–  Secure, Contain, Protect!  SCP is probably the internet’s best and worst kept secret.  The SCP is the largest collaborative storytelling project in the world, outside of the Lovecraft Mythos, and all of the Lovecraft Mythos fits into the SCP!  The SCP is a clandestine organization that is lawful neutral at best, doing horrible things in the name of saving as many as they can.  Players take the roles of SCP personnel, attempting to deal with the things that bump in the night and hopefully kill as few as they can along the way.  Let’s look at the pieces.

Breakdown-

Base mechanics-  Character generation is point buy, but you buy dice.  When you do anything you roll up to four dice.  From those four dice you take the maximum of two of them and add any skill ranks you have in the action.  If you hit the difficulty, you succeed!

Dice-This game uses everything from D8s to d20s.  When you buy dice, for every three D8s you buy, you can then buy 1d10.  This gives you an extra bonus.  For every two d10s you buy, you can buy a d12 and get an additional bonus.  You can build an absolute unit for strength but if you can’t do intelligence actions, you will have some major problems!  Remember your team when you build characters.

Exploding dice-If you roll the maximum result you get an extra dice that you roll and use.  You can get some truly powerful rolls when your D12 explodes into a d20!

The rest-The rest of the system breaks down like most other similar systems with lots of skills.  The skills are the bread and butter of this game as you focus your abilities to do awesome stuff.

Now the breakdown!

Mechanics or Crunch-This game feels like a fun remix of Savage Worlds.  The idea of different sized dice and the mix of multiple dice means you get more average results.  I love random dice, but sometimes you just get hosed by probability.  When you throw four d12 at a problem, the law of averages doesn’t bite you as hard as it can, most of the time.  It’s simple and easy to play.  This system’s only problem is there are a ton of skills.  The good of a ton of skills is you can truly build that character you have in mind.  The bad of a ton of skills is your awesome mountain man can be lost in the big city as overspecialization is fun but if you are not keyed into the adventure, it can lead you to be sidelined.  That’s the only real issue I have with the crunch here, so this is a solid system!.  4.5/5

Theme or Fluff– SCP, are you the good guys or the bad guys? YES!  The fluff here backs up the nature that the SCP are here to help, but maybe not here to help you in particular!  If you want to play a morally grey character, then this gives you the solid background to do it well.   5/5

Execution– PDF? Yes.  Hyperlinked?  Yes.  I like the layout, the text, and the makeup of the whole book.  There are pregens and an adventure to get you playing right away.  I really love how the character creation is set up with step by step instruction, even pointing to the areas on the character sheet.   My one minor problem is some of the set up.  The book divides itself based on the class of personnel.  Which isn’t bad, but it means you have to go to multiple places to see all the toys and equipment.  It’s not a major issue, but a small annoyance.  Otherwise, this is a solid book that shows how I want things done.  4.9/5

Summary– Let’s not be a bad guy, let’s not be a good guy, let’s be the one keeping everyone safe.  The SCP is a fun playground where horrible things are done to prevent something even worse.  That’s a fun setup and combined with solid mechanics and an amazing book this is well worth your money.  If you like Savage Worlds and want the best collaborative horror you can find on the internet in your game, this is a solid addition to game night. 96%