Book Review - Defining a Galaxy

 

I only became aware of this book  a year or two ago, picked it up last year, and finally read it this summer. Bill Slavicsek is one of the names that jumps out at me when I see it on a game because he has worked on some that I really like. He is mainly known for working on the d6 Star Wars RPG - the first one - and that alone would be enough to earn a spot in my personal RPG hall of fame so the chance to read his memoirs, in effect, of working on that one and the subsequent Star Wars games was an easy sell here.

I will go ahead and say it: I was a little bit disappointed with this one. I was expecting or at least hoping for a fair amount of detail on the process of developing that first set of rules and the first sourcebook - which set a pretty high standard and influenced everything that came afterward from names and locations and Star Wars lore in general. It's hard to over-state the impact that sourcebook had on the Star Wars universe we came to know and it's hard to overstate the eye-opening impact those first d6 rules had on RPGs. In this retrospective though I think we suffer from it being written 30 years after the fact - a lot of the details get fuzzy after that much time and I totally understand that but it was a little less than I  had hoped. There's a fair amount of "what" but I was hoping for more "why".

That said this is still definitely worth a read if you're at all interested in d6 Star Wars the game, West End Games,  or in the history of RPGs in general. The stuff about how the game to be, the licensing effort, the ads, and Greg Costikyan working through versions of the rules are still quite interesting. There was time pressure to get a certain amount of material out during the tenth anniversary year of 1987 which is something people may not think about decades after the fact but deadlines always have an impact on creative works like these. 

The research process for the Sourcebook is pretty well laid out and he  does call out how this was before the internet so a lot of it was  physical in-person work at Skywalker Ranch which is also interesting.  There is a long chapter about the various  sections and entries in the book and this is probably the author's greatest contribution to the setting so this is where we get the most information. 

There is some discussion of the early adventures and the Galaxy Guides and this is also rewarding for the true fan. 

Then we move into other work at West End - including Torg - and eventually we get into a move to WOTC and the new license for a new Star Wars RPG. I played a fair amount of d20 Star Wars so this was interesting to me as well. This part of the book runs up until about 2011 and then we close with some notes about subsequent Star Wars  things including Bill's tweaks to the d6 system he made for a con game he ran in 2017!

So there is a lot of good information here. It has a generally positive tone and doesn't spend much time with any personal axe-grinding or disparaging other designers or co-workers - it's a pretty upbeat  account of a career tied very much to Star Wars in various ways. 

I was hoping for a little more but it's definitely worth your time if you're a fan.

The Index Card RPG Master Edition

 

I have seen this one discussed online for a while now and I finally decided to take a look. The short version is that it's a lighter d20-based RPG that I suspect gets used as a set of mods for other games at least as much as it gets played on its own. It is very focused on 5E-style d20 mechanics.

The book itself is a smaller-format hardcover that's almost 400 pages long and has a couple of those sewn-in bookmarks we're all coming to know and love.  The interior is black and white with a splash of red here and there. The art style used for the illustrations here works really well with the black and white approach.

•  The actual rules take up a little over 100 pages. This is divided into a basics chapter that introduces the core game mechanics, a section for players on creating characters, then a GM section on running the game. 
• This is followed by a monster section that covers a decent range of critter types in its 30 pages
• The next section is one of the more interesting parts of the book where it covers 5 settings that can be used with the game.
  
  
• Alfheim is a fantasy setting and is the most detailed setting of the bunch. Assume standard fantasy type tropes with a few tweaks. There's a big war going on so it's not as static as some fantasy worlds can feel.
• Warp Shell is a science fiction setting that blurs into magic in some ways, centered around giant living ships the PC's will be using (the "warp shells" in the title)
• Ghost Mountain is an interesting concept that I will sum up as "what if Purgatory looked a lot like Deadlands".
• Vigilante City is a gritty superhero setting which has been sold as its own system (part of the Survive This! series from Bloat games) but I like this version better than the original.
• Blood and Snow is an ice age fantasy game that's more survival level than high fantasy. Weather and terrain are more important factors here than in a typical D&D type game and monsters are mainly normal prehistoric creatures. It's interesting and different and a nice addition to the mix of options.
  
  All of these take up 20-40 pages each and include a lot of material on the setting, character types, some relevant gear, and feel like an actual usable setting for a game. In a long-running campaign you would eventually have to flesh out some areas I am sure, but there is plenty here to begin and run for a short to medium campaign.
  
  
• Next is the magic chapter which is useful in most of the settings mentioned above. Magic is less of a sure thing here than in D&D with more die rolls and options for bad things to happen under certain conditions.
• Finally we wrap up with a section of random tables for use in prep or in play - loot, monster characteristics, etc. much of it divided up by setting.

So it's a pretty solid one-volume guide for running potentially several different RPG games using the same base mechanics. So what are the mechanics? 

The ICRPG character sheet

First, it's the same six stats that D&D and most d20/OSR games use: Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha. It does do away with the "score" and just uses the modifier. It's not new but it's the less-taken approach even now. You start with 6 points and can distribute them however you wish and 1 point = +1 bonus with that stat. 

Checks are made with a d20 + relevant stat modifier vs. a target number determined by the DM and higher is better. There are not a bunch of modifiers beyond this. The idea is that circumstances could make the situation Easy or Hard which would a -3/+3 to the target number. That's it, really. There is no skill system here - it is strictly ability scores and then powers in some settings.

The other part of this game's approach is the expansion of the damage mechanic to cover many other situations with "Effort". Here the concept is that after rolling a Check, say trying to repair something, you would then roll another die to determine how much you accomplished, much like the hit roll/damage roll we are all familiar with from D&D etc. The most basic effort uses a d4, weapons or tolls give a d6, Guns use a d8, Magic/Energy effects or weapons use a d10, and an Ultimate uses a d12. This Ultimate status might come from a power or from a natural 20 on your Attempt check and it is added on to whatever other Effort die you are using. Basically anything that is not a simple pass/fail type of task uses this system. Something like a skill challenge from 4E D&D would be resolved this way. 

The final part of this task resolution system is Hearts. The amount of Effort required to accomplish something - and monster hit points - are rated in Hearts which are 10 hit points each. This is a very videogamey reference point but it works within the context of the game. Much is made of this saving time by not fiddling with monsters having 10-11-12-13 hp and everyone just having 10 or 20 or 30 or whatever multiple of 10 you use and that's fine - I would not call it revolutionary but it does keep things simpler, especially when you expand the mechanic to cover all of these other types of tasks beyond beating a monster into unconsciousness. Characters begin with 1 Heart by the way, and can gain more as they advance. 

Characters defined by the stats mentioned above along with a race (Life Form) that influences stats and background, and then a class (Type) that gives certain abilities from the start and along the way as well as some starting gear to keep things simple. I'd say there are enough choices here to make it interesting. There is an additional set of "Mastery" abilities that once chooses after rolling enough natural 20's that ties back to the character's starting ability and makes it stronger and others can be chosen after that initial accomplishment.

Overall if I'm comparing it to something else it's on the level of The Black Hack and similar games - lot's of lighter mechanics, lots of aiming to speed up play and less need to consult the book on how to resolve things. I appreciate the goals and if your group is not terribly concerned with crunchiness in their rules this is a game worth looking over. I think it may find it's highest and best use as a set of add-ons or modular replacements for a 5th Edition D&D game as that is clearly where it is coming from. 

For example, ranges are not measured in feet or squares but as Close, Near, or Far - or Out of Range. The hassle of counting movement speeds and weapon or spell ranges seems to be an issue for some people and this game presents one way to let that go. Other RPGs use a similar system and this one looks like it should work well within these rules and could be dropped in with some minor effort I would say to d20 style games. 

I really like the overall approach, the art style, and in particular the Vigilante City setting has a lot of potential.

As an example of its adaptability I've been reading these rules while also ploughing through Mechwarrior 3rd Edition/the Classic Battletech RPG which is an exercise in extreme detail. After our initial run-through of my starting scenario I'm going to work up a set of ICRPG setting type rules and see if those could work because the real focus of that campaign is in-cockpit mech fighting where we use the Battletech rules for the majority of the time. For out-of-cockpit time I'd like something that flows a little easier. I was considering Savage Worlds - and I still am - but I think the ICRPG would be an interesting approach as well. The lack of a skill system is an obstacle but perhaps not an insurmountable one. More to come there.  

Thoughts on Ascendant

 

Ascendant launched in January of 2022 and apparently did pretty well as they just recently did a Kickstarter for a new Platinum edition which is a pretty quick turnaround for a new edition of a game. I saw the KS and realized I hadn't looked at the existing version so I thought I ought to and now I finally have. 

It's a softcover book that is 496 pages long - it's a hefty tome though Hero 5th Revised is about 590, and Pathfinder 2E Core was over 630, so it's not the absolute biggest - but it's hefty. It's mostly black and white text but it does have some illustrations here and there and it does use color - title bars are done in blue while examples and specific headers are done in red so there is some thought put into the layout. There are section tabs on the edges of the pages so I do like the effort that went into organizing these rules.

The mechanics roughly described are sort of what could happen if you took the Hero system and mixed it with DC Heroes with a dash of Marvel Super Heroes. yes, it's a bit of an 80's greatest hits kind of thing. In their own words:

INSPIRATION FOR THE SYSTEM

If we have succeeded, it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants. Two particular giants deserve special acclaim: Jeff Grubb, the designer of TSR’s 1984 RPG Marvel Super Heroes; and Greg Gorden, designer of Mayfair Game’s 1985 RPG DC Heroes. Grubb’s Marvel Super Heroes RPG (sometimes called the FASERIP system) was our inspiration for the color-coded Challenge Action Resolution Table, which enables any and all actions within the game to be resolved with a roll of 1d100. Meanwhile, Gorden’s DC Heroes RPG (sometimes called the MEGS system) was our inspiration for the logarithmic mathematics that power our physics- based design. We have sought to synthesize what was best about these two games into one cohesive system that surpasses both in robustness, comprehensiveness, and verisimilitude. Whether we have, in fact, succeeded is for you to judge.

The hero similarities are my own take on it. Characters have six Primary Attributes - Might, Agility, Valor, etc. - and then they also have ten Secondary Attributes which cover everything from height and Weight to Run Speed to Income, Reputation, Passive Spotting Range, and Passive Listening Range. Then you also have two Variable Attributes - Health (physical damage capacity)  and Determination (mental damage capacity). 

That's before we get into Skills and Powers. In my eyes it's starting to look like a Hero character sheet already.

Now the DC piece comes in with "Supermetric Points" or SPs. Everything is measured in SPs - distance, speed, time, weight, density, volume, area, money, information, and fame. There is a baseline quantity of each of these that is SP 0 and then each additional point doubles the previous quantity. So a distance of SP0 is 5 feet while SP5 distance is 160 feet. There is a whole section of charts that list values/examples for all of those categories from 0-25 SPs plus notes on how to manipulate them - you can't just add them together for example. Now a lot of games since DC Heroes have used ratings like this (Mutants and Masterminds and ICONS among others) but they are hardwired in to this system even more explicitly - everything a character has or does is rated on this scale - a Might of 6 means you can pick up 1600 lbs or a Horse, for example. The normal human max is 5 by the way.

There are a ton of up-front definitions of other things too like Objects, the different type of Actions one can take, and how to resolve tasks with Challenge Checks. It's not that any one of these things is particularly complex it's that there are so many of these things right at the beginning of the rules. I go back and forth with RPGs on what should be covered first - task resolution or character creation? But there is nothing in this section that really gets me excited about playing or running this game. That said, here on page 53 we do get to see how the system works:

CHALLENGE ACTION RESOLUTION TABLE (CHART)

Once the AV and DV have been determined, the DV is subtracted from the AV to yield the Resolution Value (RV). Next, consult the Challenge Action Resolution Table (CHART). The CHART is divided into seven columns and thirteen rows (-6 to 6). Find the row matching the character’s RV in one of the two RV Columns on the left-hand side of the table. If the character is making an Attack or certain other interactive actions, it is making an Attack Check and uses the RV column labeled RV (Attack). If the character is attempting any other type of Challenge, it uses the RV column labeled RV (Other). The player or GM controlling the character then rolls 1d100 and finds the column matching the number they rolled. The color of that column is the Color Result of the Challenge Check.

That's a lot to chew on but the chart does make it easier to grasp:

For example punching someone is Valor vs. Valor. So you compare that rating,  find the difference, roll percentiles, and look at your result above. White is a fail, Green is typically a success, and the other colors indicate better and better results with some outcomes requiring a specific color minimum - that's the MSH influence. 

There are Hero Points that let you break the normal rules - every superhero game should have them  and this one does. 

Character creation uses a point build system and there are Power Limits that cap how much can be spent on any given power though there are several pages spent breaking down different kinds of limits here and both the GM and the players are going to have to look this part over fairly carefully. 

There is a lengthy powers section that looks like it covers what most people will need. 

There is an entire chapter devoted to "Objects" which covers gadgets, devices, inventions ... vehicles in this system are "crewed objects" which cracks me up for some reason. This also gets us winning section headers as "sub-object launch capability" which seems like it could get pretty deep if you model an aircraft carrier that launches attack jets which can launch missiles which might have have sub-munitions of their own in each missile. No I'm not going to try and build that right now. 

After this we get into the gear section - excuse me, the "object catalog" which covers everything from a tactical flashlight to guns to drugs to nuclear weapons. There is a pretty thorough selection of vehicles here including the aircraft carrier and jets mentioned above - missiles are in the previous part. There is also this gem of a section:

I mean .. that covers a lot, right? This is really the "things the Brick wants to throw at someone" section and I love that this is here.

There is a chapter devoted to "Movement & Travelling". It's 13 pages long and full of formulas and charts and ... this is just how this game is going to go alright? It does say "physics simulator" up front and it is not kidding.

There is a "Forensic Site Complexity" table. I am not kidding. This covers a range of sizes from "Toilet Stall" 0 SPs to "St. Thomas Island" at 25 SPs.

The game does have rules for everything from social interactions and acquiring fans to managing money to learning and memorizing information to interrogating/interviewing witnesses ... some of that I can appreciate but I have to say a lot of it just seems like needless over-quantification, especially in a superhero game. The Saving the Day section has some very cool and certainly thematic ideas - asteroid strikes, avalanches, etc. but then we get to "Disease Outbreak" which spends 7 pages breaking down all the steps of identifying, containing, and treating various diseases. I have to say in 40 years of playing and running RPGs, including superhero RPG's, I have never need this level of detail for handling a disease outbreak. Maybe someone has ... but not me. Not even in Twilight 2000 where disease is probably at its most dangerous as there is no magic, no superpowers, and not much medicine left. So this to me seems like something one would put in a specific adventure or campaign supplement that dealt with a disease outbreak as a major challenge - not part of a core rulebook for playing costumed heroes. 

The Gamemastering section wraps up the book and has my personal required elements of lots of normal NPC types, animals,  heroes, villains, and some guidance on how to organize a campaign. 

So what does it all boil down to? Well, I would have been a lot more interested in this kind of system 20-odd years ago. It is very thorough - if that's what you are looking for it's probably the most thorough superhero RPG I have encountered. They did mention "comprehensive" in that inspiration section up above and they were not kidding. But ... for me ... I just don't need multiple pages and tables for every problem a team might encounter. I like the way the main Chart system works but the overhead to get there with the SPs and the RVs and all of the details just kills it for me. In the universe of Supers RPGs I don't know where it would win out enough for me to earn some table-time. There are some things that feel like odd disconnects to me:

• It cites TSR Marvel as an influence but other than the color-coded results on the table I don't see it. MSH was very playable and did not get bogged down in details yet here the whole game is built on details. It doesn't feel FASERIP-y at all. Ease and speed of play does not seem to have been a primary concern here.
• It cites being a Physics-based game as opposed to Effects-based (Hero) or Descriptor-based (Marvel Heroic Roleplaying) but comic book physics are notoriously flexible and variable and it just seems like an odd thing to base a comic-book game on. Superpowers are not usually defined with meticulous precision in comic books or shows or movies yet that's what this game is built around. It doesn't really feel right to me. 
• The general feeling of "overkill" in so many areas. The disease section is a good example. In a campaign I was running most of this would be happening offscreen while the heroes gathered samples, carried people to safety, maybe dealt with some quarantine issues, and then helped deliver the cure. It would be about how the player characters reacted to the situation, not a procedural exercise in how the world works through it all. It's just a difference in approach and what I feel is important to a game versus what the designers here saw as important. 
• Also (and Hero has a touch of this as well) there is a lot of jargon in this system and I worry that players are going to be spouting numbers and ratings and formulas in play more than just doing superhero stuff. Thirteen pages on movement alone ... I just feel like you're going to hear "He's 8 SPs tall" a lot more than "He's the size of a skyscraper!"  - the constant need to translate feels like it could interfere with the flow. Maybe with time this would fade but looking at it as a new system it's a concern. 

So it's not a game I am likely to run anytime soon. Saying that I would still consider playing it if one of my crew had a burning desire to run it. It would be an interesting experience and might change some of my feelings about it but I do not think that's likely to happen. For now, it goes on the shelf and sticks in the back of my  mind as something to re-examine down the road. 

Marvel Multiverse RPG - First Look

 

Quick take: this is a vastly improved system compared to the initial playtest rules. I talked about them here and then a later take on the playtest updates here. I did not like that initial version at all but had more interest in the final playtest rules. This new version is improved in every way over those and I like it enough I will be trying it out with the crew this weekend. 

Of course they're going to want to sell you some dice!

Basics

• It's still 3d6 with one designated as the Marvel die where a "1" counts as a "6". Add these together, add a stat modifier, then compare to a target number where meeting or exceeding = success and rolling under = failure. So it's similar to most d20 systems but with a bell curve and a wild die mechanic. 
• A 6 on the Marvel die and succeeding means you have a "Fantastic Success" which gives a bonus effect depending on what you're doing. Some of these are defined but there is a lot of flexibility here. A failure when you do this is a "Fantastic Failure" and means something good still happens - this is similar to netting out with only advantages in FFG Star Wars. It's not a success but it's still beneficial somehow. 
• Rolling all sixes is an "Ultimate Fantastic Success" and is an auto-success which ignores any Trouble (see below)  and is pretty much the best possible outcome you could have.
• Some powers, traits, and situations, grant "Edge" which is reroll one die from your roll and take the best result - so it never hurts you. 
• "Trouble" is triggered in similar ways and means you must reroll the highest die and take the worst of the two. Trouble and Edge can stack up individually and they do cancel each other out if both would apply. 
• They dropped the "Botch" concept from the early version so they figured out that you don't really need a critical failure mechanic, especially in a superhero game. That said the concept is out there if anyone wants to add it back in. 

Characters

• A character is built around the 6 core stats: Melee, Agility, Resilience, Vigilance, Ego, Logic. Yes it spells Marvel. Yes they mention it. Your score in these stats is your modifier like Mutants & Masterminds. Human average for all of these is zero and derived stats typically have a minimum of 10.
• Melee drives HTH attacks
• Agility drives ranged attacks
• Resilience x30 is your Health - hit points by another name.
• Vigilance x30 is your Focus - this is another damage tracking stat but it's not Stun as in Champions or Shadowrun. It's more for emotional or possibly fatigue type effects. This is where psychic damage hits. Reaching zero here gives a character Trouble on all rolls. I think there are some interesting implications in this.
• Ego in D&D terms is sort of Wisdom + Charisma and it drives magical attacks and rolls
• Logic covers the obvious and also drives mental powers. The example given in the book is that Reed Richards and Professor X both have high Logic scores.
• I think the usage of these are fairly obvious but I do like seeing Vigilance in the mix there. Perception type skills are used a lot in in RPGs in my experience so why not make them a core stat?

• There is also "Karma" which starts off equal to Rank and allows one to heal and activate Edge and Trouble once per point and then refreshes with a good night's sleep.
• Beyond the stats a character is defined by Powers, Traits, and Tags
• Powers are covered in about 14 pages and I am sure we will see more in future books
• Traits are like advantages in other games. They add flavor and typically give a small bonus like Edge on certain checks
• Tags are more like disadvantages in other games - think secret identity, dependent NPCs, code of honor, etc. - and give no mechanical benefit but can be touched on for Karma
• They did, thankfully do away with the archetypes and the 25 ranks that were in the original version. I really don't think many people are asking for classes and levels in a superhero game these days and they figured that out during the playtest. 
• Rank is still a thing though. There are six ranks that are really a power tier kind of system. Rank 1 is "normals" even with some training, Rank 2 covers neighborhood protectors as they say - like Daredevil & Elektra. Jump to Rank 4 and that's where most of your Avengers and X-Men fall like Spider-Man, Cap, Iron Man, Black Panther, Colossus, Wolverine, etc. Rank 5 covers your heavier hitters like Thor and then Rank 6 is Cosmic level - Captain Marvel and the Silver Surfer types.
  
  This does have a mechanical impact on the game as your Rank is a multiplier to damage. So if someone throws a punch it is the result of the Marvel die (so 1-6) x the characters rank  and then we add the Melee stat modifier (the stat is the modifier like Mutants & Masterminds, average human is "0"). 
  
  Example: War Machine has a Melee stat of 2 and is a Rank 4 hero so a punch will do 1d6 x4 + 2. There may be some additional power or circumstance that could impact this but that's the base. Also, a Fantastic success  in melee means double damage so that could change things dramatically.
  
  If you're wondering how this stacks up to his defenses ...
  
  War Machine has "Sturdy 2" which reduces the multiplier of incoming attacks and has 90 Health so an average punch to himself would do 3.5 x2, so 7, +2, so 9. So he could take 10 average punches from himself.
  
  But if, say, Thor whacks him with Mjolnir, well ... now we're looking at a d6x10 (which we reduce by 2 for the armor) so 3.5x8 = 24, then we add 12 for the stat ... so BAM! 36 points in one average hit! On the third one of those Rhodey is down and out!

How many spider-characters will be in this book? 10? 20? 100?

Combat

• This game does use rounds of 5 seconds where each combatant gets a move action, a standard action, and a reaction once per round. 
• Initiative is a standard 3d6 test - highest goes first.
• Distances are measured on a grid of 5' squares. This is the weirdest thing left in this game to me - an obvious D&Dism that is just silly in a game where people fly and teleport and run around the world in ten seconds. It's not really an obstacle to anything, just a weirdly specific baseline to have.
• In addition to Health and Focus damage there are various conditions like Blinded, Stunned, etc. I think the game covers the full range of things one would expect. 
• The topper: Knockback ...
  
  
  
  
  It's a good start ...

That example just cracks me up and this whole section shows me that someone gets it on the writing team.

Initial Concerns

• Well, there is no skill system. Your stats combined with Traits pretty much describe your day to day life.
• You're not going to make a "Stealth" roll - you're most likely going to make an Agility check with an Edge from your "Sneaky" trait if you have one.
• Defensive use of stats, like say the guard you are trying to sneak past, is the modifier + 10. So this sneak check would be Agilty + bonuses vs. the guard's vigilance defense which would be Vigilance + 10. 
• Not much modifies these rolls - having a trait gives you an Edge or gives the opponent Trouble, depending on who is doing what. It's playable but it's not exactly intuitive coming from many other RPGs. 
• There are no vehicles listed in the core book. I have a process for throwing a car at someone and a process for punching someone through the side of a battleship but I don't have stats to use either of those things in the game. That feels like a miss.
• Task numbers are good but there is one concept that leaked in that is a personal beef:
• There are 7 levels of difficulty from Trivial at -6 to Challenging at 0 to Absurd at +6, with steps of +/-2 in between. This is fine and expected.
• Then there is a separate chart for "Challenging TN by Rank" which presents the base target number for "Challenging" tasks as 10 + Rank. I really really dislike this approach as a task, in my mind, should be rated in its absolute difficulty - If climbing the side of a skyscraper is a "Difficult" rated task then it should be, say, a TN14. It shouldn't be a TN12 for a Rank 1 character and a TN 16 for a Rank 4 character. Rank 4 types are inherently more capable so yes, they will typically have an easier time completing the same task than a Rank 1! Changing the base number equalizes the difficulty between the two which defeats much of the reason for designating Rank in the first place.
• This feels especially off when they note that many teams have members of different Ranks like the Avengers where Hawkeye is Rank 2, Black Widow is Rank 3, Captain America is Rank 4, and Thor is Rank 5. 
• I'm going to try it as written first but I will be keeping an eye on it.

It's not just a pun - pretty sure he will be in my game this weekend!

Things Done Well

• The rules are presented in the right order: Basic task resolution mechanics, then how to read a character sheet, then combat, then how to create a character, then the reference sections. Excellent! Don't jump into telling me how to build a character before I have any idea how the system works!
• The layout, language, and examples all seem right. It's a good-looking book.
• It does contain a full character creation system so one can make an original character right from the start.
• There are about 130 pages of character profiles and they take one page each so that means we start off with about 130 Marvel characters to use. Now some of these are things like "Hand Ninjas" or "Vampires" but the vast majority are named Marvel characters which is exactly the kind of thing a game like this needs. Well done!

So there's my initial rundown of the book. I'm going to get my hands dirty with it this weekend I will post about that next week!

So Say We All - The History of Battlestar Galactica

 

If you are a fan of either BSG series then you should read this book. It's that good. 

The first part focuses on the 1978 series - the road to getting it put together, the background of the people behind it, and the peaks and valleys it experienced from conception to the end of Galactica 1980. 

The second part is all about the 2004 miniseries and subsequent full series up through the somewhat controversial finale.

The best part of this effort is that is not just a narrative written by some outsider. most of the book is comments from interviews with damn near everyone who worked on these shows - producers, directors, writers, actors, special effects guys, wardrobe people, technicians ... it's incredibly thorough. You do get a network perspective mixed in as well for both series which adds an intersting side to things. Even those who are no longer with us are recalled in anecdotes from people who worked with them. Lorne Green is discussed a fair amount in the early part of the book for example. 

Richard Hatch contributes quite a bit as he is the one guy who was heavily involved in both series and went from being opposed to the reboot to jumping fully on board. It's interesting to read his take on various aspects of both shows and what might have been. 

The chapters on the second series benefit tremendously from Ronald D. Moore, the main guy for the show, being totally open to discussing every aspect form getting it created and out there to writing work, casting, various limitations they were operating under, and just generally opening up about the whole run. 

After reading it I have to say it's as thorough a breakdown of a show as I have ever seen and I feel like I don't need to worry about digging into anything else on my own - I've read the definitive work on the subject. If you're at all interested you should go get it. 

Now to go find their Star Trek books ... 

The Machina Wars for Mutants and Masterminds

 

The Machina: Visually similar to, but legally distinct from, those other transforming robots you've probably heard of...

This is an interesting supplement for Mutants and Masterminds from Jacob Blackmon's Super Powered Legends line on DTRPG. It's a type we don't see a ton of these days. It's sort of an "enemies" book in that it does have game stats for a number of bad guys - but it has them for "allies" too. It has more than that though. There are notes on the history of this ... race? Civilization? Plus notes on the organizations or governments associated with them. It's a pretty thorough exploration of the subject matter in 36 pages and the best part is that it's totally a drop-in option for a campaign. They have their own history and battles and characters off in one part of the galaxy and then BAM - when you need them to they arrive on Earth.

I admit that I liked this a lot more than I was expecting to. yes, it's "Transformers" for M&M. Transformers was kind of after my time, more the realm of little brothers as I was already a teenager when it got popular and I was aware of it and could see the appeal but it was never "mine" like say Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica, or Marvel/DC superheroes. I've seen some of the original animated series and the movie and then the Michael Bay movies, then recently the grittier Netflix shows like "Earthrise". So I'm casually familiar with the whole scene but I'm not emotionally invested in it like Star Trek. There is a lot of potential here though.

This work gives us origins of the species and then covers the major eras of their history and some notes on roleplaying in each of them. Having watched the Netflix War for Cybertron shows (2 released so far of a planned trilogy) it makes sense to me. The evil bots have taken control and the good bots are a rebellion that's having ups and downs is one of the more recent parts that lines up with that particular show. I don't feel like I'm missing anything critical if I was going to add this to a campaign. 

The rest of the book is statblocks and personality descriptions of pretty much everything you would need to run these in a campaign: Generic Bad Bot, generic Good Bot, Bad Bot leader with the big gun, Red & Blue good Bot leader, other leader figures on both sides, Prehistoric Animal Bot leader, a big Combined Bot and an explanation of how that power would work so you can make more, and even the old multi-faced race that once controlled the Machina in the early days. Transformed stats are noted as well. Most of the "grunts" are PL7-8, and the leaders top out around PL12. This is a nice spread of easier to handle soldier types but leaving the bosses to pose more of a challenge - which sounds pretty true to the source material. There is also a discussion of their unique "biology" including how they heal etc. which is important as they are all built as robots and so have no Stamina score. To me it seems very solid.

The genius of the way this is put together is that is perfect for dropping in to an existing superhero campaign. Your heroes are doing their thing when a report comes in of some kind of armored bad guys or robots causing trouble downtown. The heroes investigate and then one of them hears the car parked next to them say "Please don't let them take me" and you're off to the races! I love the idea of dropping in recognizable pop culture/nerd stuff that totally fits in with what you're doing anyway. If you need a plot, well, the first live action movie is an easy go-to there, but instead of some human dork your Bumblebee stand-in is talking to Batman ("we have a problem") or Spider-Man ("uh, guys ... there's a car talking to me over here ...") ... or ... Thor "Fear not friendly carriage! The lion of Asgard stands between you and these foes!

Once you get through an introductory series of sessions then you can decide where to take things:

•  Maybe your players have had enough morphing robots for now and everyone parts on good terms with hooks to be explored later. 
• Maybe this is just the opening act of a war that spreads to earth and soon the government super anti-terrorist agency gets involved with all of their neat vehicles and nifty codenames. 
• Maybe it's time to take the campaign to Spaaaaaace and go check out their home world!

Anyway I really like the potential of this book when added to a superhero campaign. It covers just enough to be worth getting and noodling over but it's not something you're going to feel has to take over your game full time and that's a great sweet spot. 

ICONS A to Z

 

This one is a little trickier to explain/judge than Adversaries or Menagerie. It's less a big book of stuff and more of a wide-ranging general supplement for the game. I know it was a set of individual supplements presented over time, one letter at a time, which helps explain the ... diversity ... of the book. But what is it? I'm going to take the obvious way out here:

• A is Aliens - definitely a topic worthy of some attention in a superhero game
• B is for Battles - in this case large-scale battles with some mechanics and which addresses how superheroes can affect those big battles. not something you see in a lot of superhero rpg rules. 
• C is for Cosmic - scaling, considerations for being in space a lot, and some campaign notes
• D is for Demons - another topic worthy of consideration for a supers campaign. Maybe a notch down from Aliens but they do show up fairly often.
• E is for Environments - underwater, underground, etc. It's nice to have a bit more detail here.
• F is for Fear - fear in a superhero game, intimidation, fear-related powers ... it's an interesting examination of things because you don't see it mechanically addressed all that much in these RPGs.
• G is for Golden Age - good campaign notes for running this type of game. 
• H is for Headquarters - a decent look at the options in ICONS - Qualities, Devices, or Installations
• I is for Interaction - Ok this one is a little more abstract but it is a more detailed look at social skills, effectively. This is nice stuff to have and would be worth including in the main book a long ways down the road in a theoretical and currently unnecessary new edition.
• J is for Justice - investigations, trials, prison - you know, the fun stuff! That said it could easily come up in a campaign.
• K is for Knacks - this is a new concept for the game and involves sort of a permanent stunt arrangement. One example is the ability to use Strength instead of Willpower for intimidation. I'm not as sure about this one as this is the kind of thing I might let a player do for free given sufficient justification. yes, I run ICONS loose enough that this is kind of past my threshold for needed mechanics. I can see the point, but it costs a permanent point of Determination, which I think is a really high cost for this option. Regardless this is not a bad option and some of the examples speak to me more than others - I expect most players would feel the same.
• L is for  Lost Worlds - well yes! A discussion of origins, types, and some random tables for encounters ... this is a nice thing to have if you're going to include one in your game - and you are aren't you?
• M is for Magic - magic is covered quite a bit in other ICONS books but the material included here adds some nice structure. General power levels, schools of magic, magic devices, the astral plane, some creature profiles - this does add to a game where magic plays a significant role and is useful even if it's just the focus for an adventure or three. 
• N is for Narrative Abilities - another more abstract entry. This is basically an alternate rules option where the numbers come out of the game. There's a way to do it just for stats, a way to do it just for damage, or for the whole system. it looks a lot like FATE to me at that point but it's nice to have an official version within the game system if you're interested in the option. 
• O is for Organizations - they are likely to come up in every campaign so the utility is obvious: agents, qualities, stats. This covers ways to rate organizations and their personnel in different ways and it is 100% useful. 
• P is for Pets - If someone in your campaign has an animal companion (it's not just for Rangers!) then this chapter will come into play. it covers different way to handle pets in the game - qualities, characters, sidekicks ... there are options. Useful if it comes up.
• Q is for Qualities - This is a solid discussion of qualities in the game and if anyone is fuzzy about how they work or the role they play in the system this chapter is damn handy. This is another one that  I think would be a strong candidate to include in the rulebook.
• R is for Rescue - This is an examination of core superhero stuff right here: disasters! innocent bystanders! building collapses! medical emergencies! if you ever wonder what heroes are supposed to do besides punch bad guys this is an excellent start. Plus it's not just abstract - it covers what heroes need to do mechanically to stop bad things from happening for a variety of situations. Solid solid solid.
• S is for Support - HQ staff, other specialists (No Capes!), the law, the media, villain options - its useful campaign support.
• T is for Teams - a more detailed treatment of teams from typical roles in and around a team to mechanical options for team members like qualities and shared Determination. Likely useful in every campaign. 
• U is for Universe - an expanded discussion of creating a superhero universe for your campaign. The main book covers this pretty well but this material does give a GM more to consider when working on one. 
• V is for Variants - this is a small set of rules options - different ways to handle stats, damage, and alternate die-rolling methods. There's nothing terrible here but it's different from a lot of the other chapters. It "replaces" rather than "adds to" the existing rules. 
• W is for Wealth - some expanded mechanics for handling resources. I mean there's always at least one billionaire playboy character right?
• X is for X-Factors - Random tables! Events, people ... this is certainly useful for a lot of campaigns and really any "you're on patrol when ..." type sessions. Solid.
• Y is for Youth -  Ah my personal nemesis but undoubtedly useful to some this is the "teen heroes" chapter and it is solid. From alternate origins to how to handle school this covers what you need to run this type of game.
• Z is for Zombies - of course! The closer of the Aliens/Demons/Zombies trilogy of "things that can invade your campaign world"! Different types of zombies, different powers, and how they propagate are all covered here, plus more. 

Whew that is a lot of material! Each section is 5-6 pages long which for ICONS is generally enough depending on the type of article here. 

• If I was going to run a long term Golden Age or Teen campaign I would still go read through the sourcebooks for those available for M&M or Champions to really get into the feel and mood and background on those. 
• Some of these chapters are straight-up optional or variant rules modules and are inherently sufficient for what they do. 
• Some of it is just generally useful campaign material - Bases, Rescues, Support options, Teams, the universe ... it goes on. 
• A lot of these chapters really are expansions/examinations of specialized elements of a supers campaign that will come up on a now and then or per-adventure basis.
• Aliens are invading! Look over the Aliens chapter! And maybe the Battles chapter!
• We're going to Atlantis! Look over Environments!
• Captain Calamity is going on trial - let's look at the Justice Chapter!
• The spirit world is in turmoil as demons from the outer dark are trying to break in to this world - let's look at Magic, Demons, and possibly Battles!

I actually like this approach as these say multi-adventure story arc complications get a 5-6 page discussion with some rules notes. Not an entire book. Not some pre-written adventure. Just concepts and rules considerations that cover a well-known comic book superhero trope or event. The Quality and Team chapters will be useful in every campaign but you don't really need to worry about underwater stuff until someone goes underwater.

So where does this fall in the hierarchy of ICONS resources? Well I'd say get the main book and get a campaign going .. .and then, well Origins (to be reviewed) is damn handy and Great Power is good if your players really want to dig into their powers. I'd probably put it after those two as I think it's more useful once your campaign is going and insert "monster book" wherever you feel it's needed.

ICONS Adversaries

 

Every superhero RPG needs bad guys. Given that they typically come with character creation rules as a core feature though, I'm not sure anyone really "needs" a book full of them. Yet every superhero game line that goes anywhere has at least one, going back to Champions and Villains & Vigilantes.  I still have my original "Enemies I" and "Enemies II" and villains from those books still show up in my games from time to time so they can definitely make an impression and help define your personal setting. They are the traditional Monster Manual of Supers RPG's, a pillar of the genre. 

Side note: Given that it's not difficult to rewrite motivations - generally easier than writing up a coherent set of new powers in a  lot of games - they can also serve as a handy resource for NPC & allied superheroes as well. It's a book of superpowered people - adjust alignments to your taste!

The Viilainomicon, the original bad guys book for ICONS, had around 50 villains.  Adversaries has over half again as many and brings a lot of the old ones up to date with the newer edition and looks to be the "core" supervillain resource for the Assembled edition. 

I really like the layout - each character is covered in two pages:

• Front page has game stats and an illustration
  (fine work by Dan Houser here again ... or maybe that's "still")
• Back page has background, including personality and motivations and possibly relationships with other characters in the ICONS universe

This works really well for a resource like this. If you like the concept but want to change the background it's easily done. The Qualities - an ICONS thing, somewhat similar to FATE - do tie them together for many characters but those can be tweaked easily enough. Every character has the ICONS-standard 3 Qualities but you could always add more as well. 

As I read through the book I would pause after reading the game stat material and on some would feel that inspirational burst of what my version of this character would be. Then reading the background material it was usually a completely different take from what I was thinking - and this is awesome! I now have potential for two rival villains ... or a rival hero and villain pair ... or a great setup for one that has been mind-controlled or overlaid with a different personality or any of those incredibly dramatic "he's acting funny" situations that come up in comic books regularly. 

Tone-wise many of these characters have very Silver Age, "punny" type names and many of the backgrounds are similar. This sits just fine with me because I like my superhero games to be light and fantastic rather than grim and gritty. ICONS is perfectly set up for this mechanically by both being lighter than a lot of comic book RPGs as far as rules crunch and with the Qualities element being perfect for highlighting important facets of a character without bogging down in math & modifiers. A few favorites:

• Enemy Mime - yes the name is a terrible pun but it made me crack up so here it is. He is sort of a green lantern-ish type in a  way because he taps into the "mime force" which can do almost anything but with the limitation that he must physically perform something which then manifests in the real world ... invisibly. So his "mime in a box" generates a physical barrier, climbing an invisible rope actually lets him climb, throwing an invisible ting actually throws a ... thing ... you get the implications. There is a -lot- of potential for fun with this villain and the implications of a "mime force" on your comic book universe are ridiculous with potential.
• Tarpit is a great example of an Animated Series Clayface type character
• Zero is the classic Mister Freeze guy-in-a-cold-suit character
• The Troll has been in ICONS for a long time and is a great example of a serious Brick in ICONS
• The Shadow Guild is a shadowy evil organization and agian it's a nice example of how to do that kind of thing in this game
• Skeletron and the Spartan battlesuit go all the way back to the first ICONS adventure and I was happy to see them here

Looking for flaws the only thing I see is that this is strictly a catalog of villains. I mean, it says that up front, but The Villainomicon had 20+ pages of rules material - new powers, new specialties, running disaster scenarios ... it was useful stuff at the time but most of that material has been integrated in the newer rulebook or other supplements. It doesn't need to be in this book and Adversaries does not feel lacking without it. 

So yes, I like this book a lot. If you're just getting started with ICONS there is enough in the main book to run multiple sessions, but once you get going this is a strong addition. From villains and backgrounds and organizations to help build your setting, to examples of how to make strong themed characters, it's a great resource. 

ICONS Menagerie

 

I admit I haven't run ICONS in a while but I still follow the game and figure I will probably run it in the not too distant future. A while back I decided to catch up on the steady stream of supplements that Ad Infinitum has been releasing and now I have a stack of books for ICONS sitting on the desk. As I work my way through them I will share my thoughts here. 

From the beginning ICONS was a nicely complete system. The original book managed to pack in some stock characters, animals, and supervillains on top of a complete superhero RPG. This made it easy to run right out of that first book. The Assembled Edition had even more of this kind of support built in. Additionally the game has never lacked hero and villain options with multiple books of those - a supers RPG staple - showing up in the first year ... which was 2010?! How has it been more than ten years since this game came out?  

Menagerie is dated 2020 so strong support continues into the now. If books of supervillains are the monster manual of superhero games then this is ... a lot like a monster manual for -other- games. A strong point - this is not just a bunch of statblocks. 

• The first ten pages discuss how animals were designed for ICONS and their role in a superhero campaign
• Then we get twenty pages of regular, real-world animals grouped by type. stats, powers, qualities, and a general description for each animal entry.
• After this we have 5 pages of animal powers, including specific coverage of Animal Mimicry where a character's powers are based on directly duplicating the powers of an animal. This is a common enough thing that it's worth covering here especially. It's sort of a power framework or array (to steal terms form other supers games) that lets you turn that first part of the book into your own personal power catalog. Handy!
• Next we have about ten pages of Prehistoric Creatures that hits all the expected notes and briefly discusses ways these things could end up in your modern day superhero game ... because with any decent GM you know they will.

• Getting towards the back of the book we have Fantastic Creatures - this is your actual D&D Monster Manual section. Angels, Demons, Dragons, Elementals, Fairies, Undead - this is a solid representation of "normal" fantasy monsters and there are multiple entries for most of those categories. Much like dinosaurs a GM worth his salt is going to drop these in at some point. 
• The last section, about 5 pages, is pretty much your typical sci-fi movie monster set - androids, robots, giant bugs, blobs ... all reasonable things to drop into a superhero campaign.

So it's a solid book and I think it's an excellent purchase for anyone running an ICONS game or thinking about running an ICONS game - because it will help spawn some new ideas. As always Dan Houser's art is perfect for this game and has only gotten better over the (ten!) years. 

Titanicus

This is not a new book but I finally got around to reading it the past few weeks - so here are my thoughts ...

A few background points:

• Titans have a soft spot with me as just a few years after I started playing 40K I discovered the epic scale version of the game and the release of the second edition of the game coincided with my graduation from college. I finally had some money to spend on my hobby interests so i dove into "Space Marine" in a big way and had a ridiculous pile of titans - mostly painted! - for most of the armies. I still have most of them even though we haven;t played in a while.
• Dan Abnett is a really good writer, particularly action/intrigue/thriller type stuff. He's written a bunch for Marvel and DC and he's written a lot of the better 40K fiction as well over the last 10-15 years. 
• It was published in 2008 so some things have changed a bit with the setting. The descriptions of Skitarii in this book as barbarically ornamented techno-warriors is notably different than how they are presented now but it's not a huge problem for the story.

Short Version: 

If you are interested in Titan operations in 40K it's definitely worth a read. If you like military campaign stories set in the 40K universe in general you will probably like this book. If you like mixing in how "normal" people act and react in the 40K universe when a storm hits this one should be on your list.

The Good:

The action is great and world-spanning. One minute it's a titan ripping down void shields and blowing a gun arm off of another titan, then it's Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii ground troops rampaging in a ferocious melee, then it's a few scrappy Planetary Defense Force remnants retreating though a desert just trying to stay alive. It's strong and there are interesting characters put in interesting situations. I think my favorite is the head of one titan legion, centuries old and mostly artificial, trying to retain his identity as the imprint of all the past Princeps of his titan (10,000 years worth) and the titan itself threaten to absorb his personality into their own. It's an interesting struggle as he forgets names and has flashbacks to prior battles while in the middle of leading the current campaign. The view of the "bridge crew" operating each titan is interesting to explore and does get significant time in the novel.

 The Not-As-Good:

It's a 600 page novel and there are a lot of plot threads and a lot of characters. Some of them fade out part way through the story and have little to no resolution or pay off. One character that gets a fair amount of first-person time early on ends up being killed off-screen in sort of a throwaway resolution late in the book. A major political/religious schism gets resolved incredibly neatly. One minor character keeps showing up, does nothing but wonder what's going on, and by the end of the book I was wondering why he was included at all.

It feels like the book was written in chunks, likely with significant gaps in between some of those chunks. Some plotlines are totally coherent and satisfying, many of them come together nicely at the climax, but some of them just wander, to no conclusion or to what feels like a rushed conclusion. Not enough to derail my enjoyment of the book but it's not 100% satisfying in the end.

Wrapping Up:

So, it was a good, interesting, and mostly satisfying read. It's a good 40k yarn. Another note: here's a 40K battle action story with no marines! So if you're looking for a fight without the Adeptus Astartes  jumping in to save the day here's a good candidate for you. It's not the best ever 40k novel and it's not Abnett's best work but it is pretty good and enough to keep me entertained for a few days.

 

Greatest Hits #19 - Trek Tuesday: The Last Unicorn Star Trek RPG

I used to own this book, in fact I bought it the month it came out back in 1998. My main impression was visual - this was the first full-color, full-of-photos RPG book that I had seen and it blew me away when I flipped through it in the store. Plus, it was Trek! We hadn't had an in-print Star Trek game in about 10 years when the FASA RPG petered out with the Next Generation Officer's Guide. Now there was a new Trek game, from a company I'd never heard of, using a system I had never seen before - and it looked amazing!

To continue with the visuals I had a lot of experience with FASA products, from Trek and Traveller in the early days on into Battletech and Shadowrun where they entered their "art is everything" phase, and even they did not publish full-color rulebooks. Even their Trek game was not overstuffed with photos - the main rulebook was, but the supporting material mostly used line art. TSR had gone sort-of full color with the 1995 AD&D 2E revisions (the black cover PHB-DMG-MM) but even then it was mostly black text on white pages with some red headers and some art here and there. This new Trek book was way past that, with full color photos from the show all over the place and LCARS borders in different colors. The closest comparison I can make is with Underground and it's use of color to mark different sections and full color art throughout the main rulebook, but even it didn't have photos to draw on like this. LUG's Trek stood above all others in look and presentation.

The next impression was (not coincidentally) the price - it was $35! This was by far the most I had ever paid for a single rulebook and it was a shock, but the presentation - and the subject matter of course - won me over and I picked it up as soon as I could. Remember the D&D 3E books that came out in 2000 were $19.95 full-color hardbacks, and later jumped up but only to $30. This was a couple of years before that. Even sticker shock and general stinginess can be overcome with the right content and presentation.
I think I may still like it better than the new one ...

Mechanics-wise I was somewhat disappointed. My standard of comparison was FASA's Trek game and it was a percentile roll game with a large skill list, an action point personal combat system, a fairly detailed ship combat system, a Traveller-esque character generation system, and in general a lot of simulationist crunch, to use the popular phrasing. I played it for years and I loved it. LUG's Trek worked on a 1-5 scale for stats & skills which seemed incredibly narrow and limiting at the time. It also had a much shorter skill list which also seemed limiting. On the plus side it did keep a sort of lifepath/background generation system and it added in Hero/GURPS style advantages and disadvantages which could add some flavor to a character beyond their stats, skills, and service record.

I also was not impressed with the die mechanics. That 1-5 stat is how many dice you roll for a skill check, then you take the highest die and add it to your skill rating (also 1-5) and that's your total. So the entire range of possibilities is defined by a d6+5. That certainly makes every point count but that is a huge amount of variability. One die in the pool is the drama die and on a 6 you get to add another die to the total, on a 1 there are increased consequences for failure. The recommended difficulty numbers are 4 (Routine) - 7 (Moderate) -10 (Challenging) - 13 (Difficult). Those seemed really high considering you're going to average around a 4 + skill level).

Starships were also less detailed and starship combat was far less gripping than FASA's game.

I was disappointed enough with the whole thing that I only tried to run it a few times and only played it a few times before the book hit the shelf. So much potential wasted. I eventually sold it or traded it for something else.

Recently though I've been digging into Trek after a long phase of not really caring so much. I stll have my FASA Trek stuff and a complete set of the later Decipher Trek RPG but I wanted to take a second look at LUG.  I picked up a copy of the book again (less sticker shock this time) and at first glance it's still very pretty.

Rules-wise I like it better than I did then, probably because I've played a lot more rules-light games and get this idea more now than I did then. It definitely leans towards the rules-light end of the spectrum, though it gets oddly detailed in some areas like starships, which ironically enough now seem almost too detailed to me in relation to the rest of the game system.

The game also is clearly and proudly in the narrative structure camp of gaming. Adventures are built around scenes and acts and there are really no random encounters and that kind of thing found in the book. That's fine, I can work with that when I know it up front. There are still some elements of a "Trek Universe Simulator" there but it's mostly a "Trek Series Simulator" rather than a physics engine like the FASA game was.

I am still not sure about the main resolution mechanic - relying on a handful of d6's still seems very swingy. I play enough 40K to know how unpredictable a few of them can be (saving throws for a terminator squad come to mind). I think to make this game work I would have to be very very strict about limiting tests to "only when there is truly a chance of failure" which is something I am not always good at doing. It would also need to follow the narrative convention of "one stealth check gets you from the shuttlecraft landing site to the hidden klingon base" rather than the more traditional "one stealth check per 100 feet" approach used in most of the games I have played. I'd be willing to give it a try, but it's definitely something I would have to watch.

So, yes - I like the game better now than I did and I might be up for giving it a try sometime. Only one of the Apprentices is really interested in Star Trek so I'd have to talk one of my other friends into it and that's going to be a tough sell. It's definitely going on the list as a secondary/try-out game though.