[RPG]: Spirit of the Century, reviewed by Halfjack (4/5)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12852.phtml

Brad Murray's Summary:

A real game that generates real fun. Good production qualities and clear writing accompany a solid organization to deliver a game that simply works.

Go to the full review for more information.

[Dan Davenport]

Nice job, Brad! I think you struck a pretty good balance between your clear enthusiasm for the game and solid game information, keeping the review from sounding like pure hype.

Was there anything you didn't like about the game, however?

Also, one issue I have with the system as I understand it is that it doesn't seem to allow for superhuman attributes (e.g., "Superhumanly Strong"). Do you have any observations about that?

Thanks!

[Halfjack]

You know, coming off the high of our first two sessions I was hard put to come up with anything I didn't like. Now that I've had some time to simmer, there is one flaw that is worth mentioning.

That one big flaw in the game is the stress system. In combat you get a stress track of five or so boxes and when injured you knock off a box appropriate to the degree of injury. There's more detail than that, involving consequences, knocking off higher boxes, and so on but there's a reason I'm not keen to describe it -- it's really contrary to the spirit of the game. And honestly we never used it. When Dirk Blade scored a LEGENDARY hit on Doctor Nein, that was clearly (to our group), the end of Doctor Nein. We don't need no stinkin' hit points. Anyway the beef is that the hit point track bogs the game down when you get to combat because where you used to be rolling once to resolve, now you are rolling over and over again.

Since that game we've read about other systems and thought about the impact of formalising our play. There are plenty of good ideas. We'd prefer to just throw the stress track out, but several stunts manipulate those rules so it's not that simple. On the other hand, no one in our group took any of those stunts.

Currently we're playing stress like so: if an attack roll minus a defense roll exceeds your stress you are taken out. You can take a consequence (an aspect with purely negative effects) to stay in the game. That's it. We ain't got all night.

[Halfjack]

Originally Posted by Dan Davenport

Also, one issue I have with the system as I understand it is that it doesn't seem to allow for superhuman attributes (e.g., "Superhumanly Strong"). Do you have any observations about that?

I think that's really a relative problem. Normal humans have skills at "mediocre". Player characters don't even write down the skills they have at mediocre. So if you have Might as your apex skill (Superb -- 5 entire rankes above mediocre) you're in superhuman territory in my books. Couple that with a few Might based stunts and an aspect like "Mountain Gorilla" and you can guarantee two more ranks on that every time you roll it for the addition of a fate point. That's a base (before roll) of Epic for your Might.

It's really about how far the group wants to narrate things. If you say you have super human strength and order your skills that way then you pretty much do.

Consider Doc Windsor. His apex skill is Resolve and one of his stunts is Right Place Right Time. That means he gets to use his Resolve skill in combat as a defense roll. In game that meant that while he stood in the open, a child on one shoulder, calmly discharging his Webley revolver at four thugs with shotguns, the thugs ran out of ammunition and had to flee. He's just so cool that he's not where the bullets are -- BOOM, two barrels full of double ought fly towards him just as he bends his head to adjust the sights on his Webley. China and silverware disintegrate behind him. BOOM another -- he stoops to tie his shoe and the window behind him is blown out. That's pretty super-human.

I will agree, however, that it just feels wrong to try to build characters that are far out of genre. But I think that's social and not mechanical pressure -- the skill pyramid system really guarantees that you have what you need and the special effects are whatever you choose to describe.

[mitchw]

Originally Posted by Halfjack

You can take a consequence (an aspect with purely negative effects) to stay in the game.

They don't have to be completely negative.... I can invoke my 'broke leg' for sympathy from the attractive nurse later in the hospital.

Mitch

[Halfjack]

Originally Posted by mitchw

They don't have to be completely negative.... I can invoke my 'broke leg' for sympathy from the attractive nurse later in the hospital.

You can play in my games any time.

[iago]

Thanks for the review, Halfjack!

And I'm there with you on the stress thing. We've got some ideas for alternatives that have been talked about on the forums, and we'll be tightening it up (and changing it to make it harder-hitting) in the Dresden Files RPG. I think in our efforts to make PCs larger-than-life heroes who could really take anything and keep on going, we made lots of things a little too resilient. Luckily the fixes are easy.

http://evilhat.wikidot.com/faster-conflicts

[devlin1]

Originally Posted by Halfjack

I think that's really a relative problem. Normal humans have skills at "mediocre". Player characters don't even write down the skills they have at mediocre. So if you have Might as your apex skill (Superb -- 5 entire rankes above mediocre) you're in superhuman territory in my books. Couple that with a few Might based stunts and an aspect like "Mountain Gorilla" and you can guarantee two more ranks on that every time you roll it for the addition of a fate point. That's a base (before roll) of Epic for your Might.

It should be noted that the Might Stunts only apply to noncombat situations, nondamaging uses of Might, and inanimate objects. Thus, if you take Herculean Strength, Piledriver, Unbound, and Unstoppable (and have a high Might score), you are guaranteed to always be a muscular badass whenever you're knocking down walls or busting free from chains--but none of that is going to apply to punching a guy (for the purposes of hurting him, anyway). If you want it to work in combat, too, you're going to have to take Fists Stunts. The split there means that you don't have to be strong to do well in combat, but you don't automatically do well in combat if you're strong.

BTW, I love crap out of this game.

[Jim DelRosso]

Originally Posted by devlin1

It should be noted that the Might Stunts only apply to noncombat situations, nondamaging uses of Might, and inanimate objects. Thus, if you take Herculean Strength, Piledriver, Unbound, and Unstoppable (and have a high Might score), you are guaranteed to always be a muscular badass whenever you're knocking down walls or busting free from chains--but none of that is going to apply to punching a guy (for the purposes of hurting him, anyway). If you want it to work in combat, too, you're going to have to take Fists Stunts. The split there means that you don't have to be strong to do well in combat, but you don't automatically do well in combat if you're strong.

BTW, I love crap out of this game.

You can also take Wrestler: putting aside the connotations of the name, mechanically it lets you use Might instead of Fists for getting your smite on.

I also love the crap out of this game.

[Halfjack]

In general I think the mechanism of stunts that swap skills is really powerful and fun. Might for Fists, Resolve for defensive combat anything, and so on -- these really let you build characters that shine.