Horror Show: USX - Modern Day Heroes

 

Ever heard the phrase “having is not as good as wanting”? Well, I recently had an experience with this.

You see, some time ago, I stumbled across some minis for a game called “USX: Modern Day Heroes” that looked kind of cool, when I was looking for more stuff for Zona Alfa and a few other things. After I bought some, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have another minis game, right? And this one has robots, magic, Mythos monsters, and zombies, even vehicles, so what’s not to like? Well… It would help if the damn thing was complete! In short, I feel like I got ripped off.

I’m not kidding. All this book gives you is rules. Which is great and all but without stats for any of the models in the line. And the game uses square 30mm bases, which is more common with fantasy or historical games, because of the old “rank and flank” style of games. There’s one other modern game that I’ve encountered that uses square bases, and I know the reason this game uses them is because they have a fantasy and historical games that use the same system as this game. 

 Anyway. It does have rules. And those rules are… Okay, I guess? But they’re not exactly user friendly. There’s a mix of letters, numbers, and other symbols like &, #, @, etc and you have to compare things on a chart. For example, if you have a melee combat, you would compare Melee Attack Class and the Defense Class (which would be letters) to see how well you’re going to do in a fight. And you do the same for ranged weapons. It’s a bit insane, as you could have just used numbers, as it makes more sense to more people. At least, I would think so. I wonder if they were worried about getting sued by GW or something? I mean, yeah, that’s always a concern in this space but this is a bit of unnecessary nonsense. Moving on. When you compare the numbers between the attacker and defender, you get a multiplier for the damage dice of the weapon you’re using (between ½ and 2, but mostly 1) and then what number you score the hits on when you roll the dice (between 4+ and 6+), and then roll the dice from your weapon and see how many hits you scored. This is needlessly complex. It gets even worse when they start getting into autofire weapons, as you can make multiple attacks, but you drop one dice as you make further attacks. This can mean that you’re rolling upwards of 20 dice for a single attack, if you get really lucky. Because everything is d6 based, of course. 

 It gets worse, as they have a morale system. There’s going to be a longer post about this, but I really do not like morale systems in skirmish level games. I don’t have a problem with it in larger, army sized games, and there’s all kinds of tactical levels to those games. While the system is designed to go up to true “wargaming” scale, with that good ol’ Rank and Flank stuff, you shouldn’t have it be a core element of the smaller level game. It would be fine if it was confined to using horror, as the Cthulhu Mythos has fear and horror as a core element, but it’s not. There’s also a magic system, such as it is, which also calls for morale checks, but there’s no reason to make it sure a core element.

One of the major problems with RAFM continuing to sell this game is that the game requires you have the model’s character card. And, of course, there’s another problem here, because you can’t find the cards anymore. They don’t sell them with the models, even in the boxed sets, and the links on their website are long dead. So, they’re selling a poorly designed game that you can’t even play! There are a few sample cards in the back of the book, but not nearly enough to break it down to figure out how much things should cost. Oh, and that’s another thing, the point costs. A zombie costs 950 points. A minor grunt costs 1,470 points. That’s insane. That means that a small game would probably have a points limit of 10k or so. Another factor in selling cards for the minis is that you’re going run into a really cool mini that has crap stats. And you won’t know that until you buy the mini, as the stats aren’t in the book.

 Sure, the PDF on their website is only $5, but it’s a literal waste of five bucks. Assuming you get it, which I have a story about. I saw a physical copy for $12 on eBay, down from the full sale price of $20. As I’d bought a lot of the minis, I thought I would pick it up. But I thought I might buy the PDF of it first. So, I go to the RAFM website and find out that they do have PDFs of the game. I order it, but I did it without making an account, so I made the account and I still don’t have my PDF. I’ve thought about sending an email but it’s not worth it. So you, before I bought the PDF, I ended up buying that physical copy… And after reading it, I decided it wasn’t worth it to waste my time for a game I couldn’t even play, much less ask for a refund.

There’s just so much wrong here. There’s so much missing, even weapon templates, and there’s no support for it online. It’s garage. It’s incomplete. Even if this an expansion, as it’s technically “Universal Soldier EXTREME” as their system of games is called Universal Soldier, it doesn’t say that it requires the other books. You shouldn’t be selling this if it isn’t ready to play from the start, unless you say that you need other things, too. A hot mess doesn’t even begin to describe it, I swear. It really sucks because under these broken things and missing content, there’s almost a really interesting and unique game just waiting to come out. The latest edition of the this game is from 2008, plenty of time to cook up a fix, or even release the stuff you need online. It’s just frustrating.

However, with all of my complaining and anger, I do want to say that RAFM’s models are great and you should totally buy those if you want them. Just save your money and don’t buy this game.

Horror Show: Zero

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. 

This is a more recent picture but you can see the elements are still there

 If I had taken the time to take a closer look before I bought it, we wouldn't be here now.

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.

Horror Show: Fantasy Wargaming

When I work on this blog, I try to write about things I find exciting or fun, or interesting, at the very least. Not everyone will enjoy the same things I do, but I want to be positive, for the most part. However, sometimes you come across things that you can't stay upbeat about. Today, I'm going to start a new series called Horror Shows where I'm going to talk about the things that don't excite me. The things that make me want to run away screaming.

To kick this off, let's begin with a book I recently picked up called “Fantasy Wargaming.” Published in the shadow of the wild success of the original Dungeons and Dragons, it's... A shitshow No other way to put it. But, let's go into why it's a train wreck.

Jesus Fucking Christ, just look at this cover!

If you're new to gaming, or fairly young, you probably think that RPGs were created and then war games were. Wrong. Other way around. Miniature war games have a very long history, starting in Prussia in 1780. So, that's a damn long time. In entered the English speaking world, resembling what we see now, in the 1800's. That's a lot of history.

In the early days, miniature war games (or just minis games) were purely historical. You would recreate the battles of Medieval Europe, the Napoleonic era, and so on. In America, things revolving around the American Civil War are very popular. For obvious reasons.

But, in the mid 20^th century, things began to change. With the mild popularity of The Lord of the Rings, the fantasy genre started to slowly invade the mini game community. Before long, Warhammer Fantasy (or just Warhammer, as it was in those days) and others started to turn up. Eventually, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson cooked up a little game called Dungeons and Dragons and the world changed. At first, just the nerd world, but then the Satanic Panic happened... Anyway, back to the point.

When Fantasy Wargaming was published in 1982, the Role Playing Game was a relatively new concept. As I mentioned, Dungeons and Dragons popularized this concept, but some people didn't think it was “realistic” (as you'll see below). It appears that they wrote some stuff out and it became this book. It's very focused on the “real” history of Europe... Based on the knowledge of the 1970's. Which, as I'm sure we can all appreciate, is different than what we understand now. Doing just a tiny bit of research (watching some documentaries on YouTube and some quick searches on Wikipedia), I've discovered that what I learned in school was incorrect. Because knowledge evolves as we find more and more out. This is why I generally avoid historical stuff...

The first 75 pages are a history lesson and pretentious critique of the fantasy genre. The authors don't seem to be able to accept that FANTASY isn't realistic. A true crime that must be corrected! You can't see it, but I'm rolling my eyes.

I'm not the biggest fan of the fantasy genre. When I was younger, I read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. When I was playing D&D regularly, I would read some of the Forgotten Realms novels, and even read some Dark Sun and Dragonlance. Hell, I even read all six Spelljammer books! But, the genre grew stale for me. I don't even enjoy playing D&D anymore. Sure, I like some “Swords and Sorcery” stuff. But, it's always the weirder, mostly out there stuff. That said, I do appreciate the genre and don't see anything wrong with having people fighting creatures that have only a passing resemblance to the monsters of myth. I don't mind having wizards being powerful enough to change the fundamentals of the universe to heat up their tea in the morning. I'm not bothered by people worshiping a whole pantheon of gods that regularly muck around with the mortal world. None of that bothers me. It's NOT realistic. Which is why I don't have a problem with it. I can suspend my disbelief enough to put whatever problems I do have with that sort of stuff (which I do have a few minor ones) aside to enough that it is: Escapism. That's why we play these games. And to have fun. Clearly, these people don't think it's very fun to explore the fantastical in the fantasy.

Now, I'm going to go on a tangent here and I'm going to apologize for it now.... I'm sorry. You've been warned.

One of the things I see tossed around online is people complaining that non-white people, gay/bi/trans persons shouldn't exist in the fantasy genre because it's not “realistic.” To that, I can only roll my eyes. Because I can't slap the living shit out of them. You're pretending to be an elf in someone's basement. Realistic checked out some time ago. Stop being a bigot and using “realism” as an excuse. Just because most fantasy stuff is based on Western European history doesn't mean that it can't depart from that source as much as people want it to. Also, you're clearly looking through a lens of White European Christian history. The real history of our planet is much more complex.

But, I do have good news for these nerd bags! You can buy this book and run a game in it. Because it's REALISTIC! And you can't play anything else. Because this is the steaming pile of shit that you wanted. So, find yourself a copy, put on your MAGA cap, and shut the fuck up. You play this and only this and then go fuck yourself with a rusty chainsaw.

Ahem. My apologies for that rant, but I'm sure you can understand where I'm coming from...

Moving on. I'd love to discuss the rules of this game, but I'm not sure what they are. When you create your character, you have to roll for their astrological sign, because it has effects on your stats. To use my sign as an example, Pisces, I would get -2 Physique, -2 Endurance, +1 Selflessness, -2 Lust, -1 Bravery, +3 Faith, and -1 Social Class. Mechanically, I have no idea what any of this means. I don't know what die to use for these, I don't know when to roll them, and I don't really know what effect this has on the game. I can figure out some of it, like the Social Class part, but I really wonder why being a Pisces effects my standing in society (as you can just lie about it if you leave your home town). After looking through the book more, I was able to find what some of these do, but it's laid out in such a weird order and not very well labeled so you have to do a lot of searching and reading. It's not laid out in a way to make quick reference possible, making it all the harder to read. I have to admit right now that I haven't finished reading the book as I just couldn't take it anymore. After those first 75 pages, my desire to keep reading was pretty low.

To continue, there's a table you can roll on called the Bogey Table. The VERY FIRST RESULT is “homosexuality” so you know this is high class. Not far below it is “Sexual Fetish” which includes the following note of “Leather, transvestism, etc” further proving how classy these people are. Towards the end, there's three in a row of “Jewish, Heretic, Atheist” and the note “You will be persecuted and shunned by all right-minded Christians.” I swear to sweet zombie Jesus I'm not making that up...

Eventually, this book does delve into magic and creatures. Because those are SO REALISTIC! I'm tempted to burn the damn thing at this point...

But, they are based more on the original myths of Old World cultures, rather than being adapted to be more enjoyable and fun like in D&D. To cast a spell, it appears that you have to call upon the Christian God, the Norse Gods, or demons... Wait, what? Yeah, okay, this actually does make sense from a historical perspective. I've recently done some research on occultism for something else, and there were a fair number of Christians who got demons to do their bidding because of some stuff with Solomon. If you want to know more about it, you can look it up yourself. In this book, it looks more like you're more a demon worshiper, but I'm not going to really look it up...

Okay, okay, I really need to wrap this up. I'm tired of even thinking about this monstrosity. I actually wrote part of this review several months ago and am only now forcing myself to finish it. I think it's starting to stain my hard drive...

To bring this to some sort of conclusion, Fantasy Wargaming is vile. It's part of what caused the Satanic Panic, with it's provocative cover and mentions of demons and monsters. And all the while, it tries to present itself as “historically accurate” which is a terrible idea. To add to the pain, it does nothing but insult its origins, namely Dungeons and Dragons and the fantasy genre as a whole. I bought this knowing it was probably a train wreck, but thought it might have something interesting or useful in it. There's nothing here for me but hatred and rage. I HATE this book with the burning passion of a thousand vengeful suns. If you ever see this book on someone's self, walk away. Quickly.