Tl;dr - Absolutely not my kind of game at all - I'm some old grognard - but a solid alpha of a Action-lite survival/exploration system with solid mechanics and plenty of variety in abilities and powers. Better formatting and layout than published works I've bought and this is an alpha?
Full review and wordy!
Reading through it at first, this game isn't my kind of thing right now - I've finished a 5 year 1-20 pathfinder campaign this year, and I'm currently very much 'over' a lot of that kind of play and game currently. I've been doing D20/D&D stuff for 25 years now, so full disclaimer that I’m jaded and this system isn’t ‘grabbing me’.
The introduction is clear in the inspirations and that mechanics and ideas are lifted from, an describes itself as a Lite-Tactical action roleplaying game, that can cover sci-fi, horror, fantasy, post apocalypse, western, or any combination -but that ultimately it’s a game about exploration and survival, and what you’re willing to sacrifice along that journey. Sounds cool, good clearly stated objective.
Daggerheart, Wildea, and World/Chronicles of Darkness are all mentioned as major influences and ideas for mechanics, and ‘various d20 fantasy games’ as a structural basis.
I don’t know Daggerheart ot Wildsea personally but have plenty of WoD experience, and the -punk influences throughout the book are here. It’s not a clean GURPs book or a DMG full of tables and advice - it’s self aware, straight out referencing and calling memes out like trying to seduced dragons or having the king hand you the crown on a single charm roll. It treats the reader with respect and doesn’t act like they’ve never heard of a TTRPG before. “What is a TTRPG?
You probably know what this is. If you do not… how is this your introduction to the medium?”
The “What is a TTRPG?” section in every bloody RPG book annoys me, and the self awareness is refreshing to me. This is a fan made obscure indie game. There is 0 way anyone doesn’t know the answer to this, so only a few sentences are used to describe them, and it’s a good description - at least for this sort of game.
There’s a general guide to coming from other systems, that immediately tell me how the mechanics work. I roll different dice sizes the more ranks in a skill I have. I don’t roll to hit, I roll attack and subtract their defense and get my damage there. In about 5-6 sentences I’ve got an idea of the mechanics and I’m on page 4.
“You're Allowed to Say "No" Despite what is said on the internet, Players and PCs should not have unlimited potential to do any action if the dice roll high enough. Saying "no" does not make a bad GM. In fact sometimes saying "yes" can make you a bad GM, and can lead to toxic players derailing the game”
Not 'yes and' or 'no but', just straight up no? Report Matt to the Player Agency! Certain RPG communities might lynch you for this. And it's a hill I'll die on with you happily.
I said it has WoD’s self-awareness and punk elements - “THE BARE BONES BASIC FUCKING RULES” begin on page 6. It calls you a nerd on the same page.
It’s doesn’t have their edgyness nor does it have their fucking god awful layout and wank around mechanics.
The bare bones basic fucking rules section tells me the bare bones basic rules and I understand it all in 2 pages. This ‘self awareness’ is really on display here, because again it treats me like I have half a brain and have played a TTRPG before. It talks about VTT’s in the movement/measurement system. It doesn’t tell me what VTT stands for or explains the concept.
Interestingly, it uses ‘paces’ for measurement, about one step for an adult human. A square is a square about a pace on all sides. Interesting idea, and I like it - action-lite, absolutely. I don’t need to know how many meters I am, what’s important is how many paces it would take me to cover it. I like it. Makes me think of cowboys duelling at 10 paces. And it conveniently works for those with American and Non-American players with the yards/meters annoyance. A pace could be a meter or yard. Whatever, nerd.
Kudos Matt - your work has better layout and design than anything I’ve seen published by White Wolf, clearer to understand mechanics, while keeping the punk humor and sel-fawareness. And you haven’t been cringely edgy with it yet. If you manage to ctrl-f and type ‘xx’ to fix your Page XX numbers before release, then you have every right to dunk on them as a better publisher.
XP is advanced by failing, which is in many game an awful mechanic, and for a game about survival and all like this is, and sacrificing on the way, this seems suited for it.
Classless system ala WoD, put XP in the things you want to get better up. I agree with Matt and Marx here about classless systems, probably biased by way too much D&D.
Bonds are cool things you can do. Facechange. Damage resistance. Turn into a werewolf. Know a guy who knows a guy. Feats and powers and all kinds of things. Simple, action lite, I could build a million characters here. No idea if it’s balanced, nor do I care for an Alpha. They don’t look balanced, being wildly different.
The mechanics seem clear and well defined. I chuckled at some of the names. They’re straightforward in their descriptions in that punk tone.
Hot: A fucking supermodel. You’re really attractive. A 3 letter word for the feat and 6 letters to describe it. Chef Kiss. Shoutout to Dun Gin and a Ran Inn - the three letter RPG while I’m here:
Edges are more powerful abilities and more class defining. Spells and magic exist, they can rank up and get better. Psy powers exist, need focus, and cause a glow - you choose the colour and that stays consistent, which is neat. There’s equipment, with differing qualities, and all that jazz.
Combat is two basic actions and one tactical action per round, and infinite free actions. Attacking is a basic action. Damage and Stress are separate, but subtract from health. Hitting 0 HP means you lose an Edge, but go back to full HP - you can get the edge back from healing.
Maneuvers are on top of that - dodging, blinding, defending, disarming. The fun stuff you don’t do in other systems because it’s better to just kill the enemy. Neat.
Exploration is it’s own whole chapter - The overall system looks action-lite and functional to do various exploration and answer most questions I'd have.
There is suddenly 3 ish pages on fishing and different fish you can catch. For some reason I love this honestly, feels videogamey but appropriate. There’s then NPCs and basic socialising, reputations, lying and intimidation and the like. A few things for downtime, vehicles and mounts. Pretty standard stuff - it could do with more here for sure, but it’s not hurting that bad without it. The few example of cars and enemies let me know how to make my own easily enough.
Overall:
All in all this is really solid, the mechanics are simple enough and versatile and intuitive. It seems easy enough to wing a lot of things by just asking for various rolls off attributes.
The layout is good, the art’s not my thing but talented and gets a great vibe across.
For an Alpha honestly this is shockingly good and well thought out, it looks like it does exactly what it intends to do. It spells out what this is - action lite, survival and exploration - and then gives straightforward mechanics to do so.
For something only started in 2024, this shows a hell of a lot of promise. I was playing D&D before Matt was born, and he’s clearly got a far stronger grasp on mechanics and themes than I did at his age.
After a while some of the memeyness and self awareness did grate a little - there’s little jokes and the like scattered throughout which feel exactly like the kind of thing I’d want to say or add in the situation…but I don’t think add to it. It’s my sense of humour for sure, which probably means a lot of other people won’t like it.
Overall a great work, and further proof to me how shit so many major publishers are. Hired full time for a year, I’d love to see what Matt could create. And don’t act like you don’t have the fucking money, WotC. Maybe the mechanics fall apart in actual play, but the foundations seem solid and thats what alpha and beta tests are for. The punk theme and general vibe is not friendly to powergamers though, so I don’t see that as a huge issue.
I've not played half the influences, so I'm guessing a few of the neat mechanics are lifted from them. Their implementation looks good, and Matt's fully up front about said inspirations.
Not my thing, but I don’t think you’d have a bad evening playing this with a semi-decent group. Edit: I showed the cover art and a few things to a friend: "Holy shit that's fucking awesome" was the response!