Oh boy... Yeah, we're back to Horror Shows. And do I have a good one for you...
Some time ago, a friend of mine stumbled across a small treasure trove of old and rare gaming books at a used book store. We then proceeded to loot the absolute hell out of it. One of the books I found was a game simply titled “Zero” published by Archangel Entertainment. Not long before, I'd come across a copy of Extreme Vengeance published by the same company and I'd enjoyed it. I flipped through Zero, saw the art was “technofetish” looking (which is something I can enjoy), and saw it was only a buck. I thought “Why the hell not?” and picked it up. I mean, it was a buck. Even if it wasn't something I enjoyed, it was no great loss. Much better than the original $25 price tag.
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| This is a more recent picture but you can see the elements are still there |
A few weeks ago, I was looking for something to read, and picked up the book as something to flip through if I finished the novel I was reading on the way to work. When I did, I cracked the book open and started reading. It wasn't bad. Not at first. The setting is that humanity has started living underground in a telepathic hive ruled by Queen Zero, due to some kind of apocalypse. Humans are created using in-vitro fertilization and given cybernetic parts to help them preform their tasks better. The members of the hive are sorted into five different castes: Archivist, Breeder (cue cringe), Drone, Solider, and Technician. As soon as I saw “Breeder,” I winced. I've read enough post apocalyptic fiction to make some assumptions about what kind of character that is. Thankfully, I was wrong. They're more medical techs than... Walking wombs.
As I kept reading, I started seeing some red flags. The first one was that they mentioned that the main metaplot would be explored in future supplements. That's a red flag because you shouldn't say you're going to release expansions when you don't even know if the game is going to be popular enough to support any further books.
The next red flag was the talking about how “different” the game was to the others that were out there. Sure, there's a fair point to be made that it isn't a fantasy game, a traditional science fiction, and Monster Of The Week. A post apocalypse setting isn't going to follow the same conventions. But, there was a bit too much of it. Excluded the glossy art pages, there's 78 pages for rules and setting. They waste a lot on going on about how different they are, advice to the GM, and then how to create motivations for adventures. If you wanted to save something for a supplement, that would be it. I support having Player's Guides and Game Master's Guides to expand the game for players and GM alike. Wasting space in such a small book was not a good choice.
The next red flag was the lack of world information for the GM. As I mentioned above, they were planning on putting out more books, but they didn't (a quick check reveals that they were able to put on an adventure book and that's it). So, you have NO IDEA what Zero is planning, what happened to the rest of the world, or why people are suddenly being cast out the hive mind. That's not helpful. They didn't have to go too in depth, I understand the space concerns, but leaving that a big old hole is a waste.
The final red flag for me was the “what is role playing” stuff. I understand that not everyone has been playing D&D and RPGs since the 90's like me. No, I get it. But, given how few pages you have... Why are you wasting them? I can't remember how long it takes, but I feel like it was at least a page or two. That's far too much. Which makes me think, what was the target market for this book? Art people? Typical role players? Both? Neither? I honestly can't tell. Since there's so little to go on, I'm guessing it was suppose to be an introduction to role playing for “darker, edgy” people. That's just from the art and something I read on the last page of the book. I'll fill you in on that later.
After reading through the setting information, I decided to take a look at the rules. If the setting information (such as it is) wasn't enough to earn Zero a place in this series, the rules did easily.
When you make your character, you can choose up to ten “primary” skills, some “secondary” skills, and even more “tertiary” skills. And your level in your “primary” skills is based on the number of skills you have. I'm not joking. No point buy. Not even random rolling. And how to do you make your rolls? Well, it's 1d6 x 1d6. Yes, a d6 TIMES another d6. That means that you have a range of 2 to 36 you can roll. Oh, but it gets worse. When you roll your “primary” skills you need to “meet or beat” your skill level. Not too hard, given how you roll. However, to make a “secondary” skill, you need to roll your level or below. With your “tertiary” skill you have to roll BELOW the skill. And those seem to be really low... I guess they didn't want you to actually make your rolls? I don't know. The system just doesn't make sense. Why not just roll 2d6 and do “meet or beat?” Or roll below, like BESM or GURPS. I get that they were trying to do something unique and different, but why the complexity? To make matters worse, they don't even mention any tips to make sure you know what each die is. Unless you can pick which one is which? Like... Why not something like “get two different colored d6s. Multiply the blue one by the red one?” Why was that so hard? Or “roll one die then multiply that results by the second die you roll?” Maybe they did. I was so done with this book, I gave up. I had hoped it would be something like the system in Extreme Vengence but I was way off base.
I think the worst thing about this book is the wasted potential. The ideas aren't bad. I don't know why, but the late 1990's seems to have had this concern about technology and humanity and wondering what reality was. Not only is this the era of The Matrix, but Dark City as well (I strongly suggest watching both of them if you haven't already). Even eXistenZe dealt with the issue of reality, humanity, and technology. And this setting has a similar feel. Humanity (or some part of it) has reached a way to peacefully coexist by connecting the minds of everyone in one happy being. In a lot of ways, you can see parallels to the Borg from Star Trek (another 90's creation) in how the hive and Queen Zero and everything fits together. The seeds are there. But, perhaps they weren't placed in the best soil. Or, maybe, the idea wasn't ready yet.
Looking over the book, I had ideas. You could take this setting, expand it or change it as you want, and ditch the system. Then, you could easily port it over to a character/player/story driven system like FATE or even Savage Worlds. As the game was copyrighted and published in 1997 (remember, it was $25), I don't know if the copyright is still active. If it is, I'd love to see the rights holder give it another shot with a modern system. I might even run a game of my own, using the ideas in the game, in a different system. I have plenty of those laying around.
Now, here's the kicker. I was reading that last page, as I mentioned above. The story of how this game was created was the guy who ended up creating the game met an artist he liked (Steve Stone) at GenCon 1996 and told him he'd love to do a game based on said art. Which isn't a bad idea, I've definitely been inspired to create games, characters, and etc based on the work of artists I enjoy. But, look at those dates. That means the game was developed, play tested, proof read, and then published in about a year. One year. That doesn't feel like enough time. Now, it could be that the gamer guy had a system laying around that he had developed and just ported things over, but the world and rules and setting were all based on stuff from the artist. So, there had to have been communication and ideas tossed back and forth and so on. Even in the early days of internet communications, that doesn't bode well.
When you get down to it, I don't regret buying this book. There's at least a dozen pages of really nice and interesting art. If nothing else, I can view this is as very slim art book. And the ideas, even if incomplete and a bit uncomfortable, will probably provide me with some fodder for my own stuff. But, I don't think I could be talked into ever playing or running this game. No way. Not going to happen. The system makes my head hurt and seeing all the unfinished ideas just makes me sad.
Of course, if I had paid $25 for this book in 1997, I'd probably be singing a different tune. 100 something pages and what feels like an incomplete product? Not okay. But, for $1 in 2019? Not bad.
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