Over the last few years, Brett Bernstein at Precis Intermedia has been slowly bringing back some of the legacy of West End Games back to life. When the West End Games implosion happened a few years ago, Bernstein was one of the publishers who picked up the pieces by purchasing the rights to the Masterbook and Shatterzone games. Shatterzone was the other science fiction game that West End Games published, a darker and grittier original setting inspired more by the pessimism of Cyberpunk science fiction and movies like Alien than the more optimistic and pulpier Star Wars Roleplaying Game.
Masterbook was a more generic game system, with a core set of rules and then “world books” that would flesh out individual settings, most of which were licensed. While the original setting called Bloodshadows was created for the Masterbook rules, there were also licensed settings for Indiana Jones, Necroscope, the Tank Girl movie and the Species movie among others.
Both Masterbook and Shatterzone share a common ancestry in another West End Games game: TORG.
Now, Precis Intermedia has pushed forward on Masterbook (after re-releasing the core Masterbook rules, and the Masterbook Companion) with Masterbook EZ. The Masterbook EZ rules are billed as a combination simplification of the rules, and a test bed for a possible future revision of the Masterbook rules.
Masterbook EZ is 12 pages and a character sheet. For some, that is probably not going to be much of a game, but for my purposes that is more than enough. What you get in those 12 pages are: character creation rules – including attributes, skills and gimmicks – and task resolution rules. The task resolution is simple: take the character’s relevant attribute, add the relevant skill and add the roll of 2d10. If you beat a target number (called difficulty number), or an opposed roll, you win. There are nearly 50 skills in the Masterbook EZ rules, and about 20 each positive and negative gimmicks. More than enough to make up a group of characters and have them each have their own defined niche within the game.
Attributes and skills are all point buy, with a pool of points that let you make characters that are roughly equivalent to non-powered, street-level heroes (imagine characters like The Green Arrow or The Punisher) that are just starting out on their vigilante careers. I think, with the addition of some cyberwear from Precis Intermedia’s recent reprint of the gear supplements for Shatterzone, you could run a good cyberpunk game with these rules.
I do have a few quibbles with the rules. I don’t like the name of “Life Points.” Their purpose is a combination of fate points and experience, so I think that something like that would be better. It took me a couple of looks at the rules (it has been a long while since I’ve played the Masterbook rules) to realize that these weren’t the character’s hit points, so I think that a different name would help with that.
The bonus chart is still confusing, and it doesn’t really add much to these rules. In Masterbook EX, the only place that the bonus chart is explicitly mentioned is for determining initiative (unless I missed something in the game). It adds an extra step that could easily enough be taken out of the process. I’ve never really been sure why the rules needed the bonus chart, you could just keep the dice exploding on rolls of tens and not need to have a chart that adds another modifier to the roll. The exploding dice should be modifier enough. Note: The publisher did explain that the bonus chart is used in all of the rolls. I don't think that it was very well explained in this file. I still hold that it doesn't add a level of unnecessary complication that isn't needed.
But even with this, the game is still easy and fast to play, on par with West End Games’ more popular D6 System or the Savage Worlds rules (which also owe a debt to the various games that were published by West End Games). I would like to see Precis Intermedia do some “genre packs” for the Masterbook EZ rules. The cyberpunk and street level heroes that I mentioned earlier could be good starting points. Fantasy and Science Fiction “packs” could expand the appeal of these rules too.
How would I do these packs? I can see them as another 10-20 pages, maybe for a couple of dollars, that expand the available gimmicks, list some genre appropriate equipment and maybe even an adventure seed or two. Bundle it with Masterbook EZ and sell for a dollar or two. These could make good pick up and play games for those who have an empty night with their group, and it could easily expand into a campaign for those who like lighter games. Maybe, eventually, put the Masterbook EZ rules and a compilation of these “genre packs” into a digest-sized book. I know that they would have a purchase from me.
I know that not everyone likes playing on the lighter side of the gaming spectrum like I do. However, if you do, this is a good, robust game that you might not have known about otherwise. The nice thing, for those who like more system to their systems, it would be easy enough to plug material from the full Masterbook rules back into the EZ ones and give yourself more crunch.
Hopefully, eventually, Precis Intermedia will offer it up on the OneBookShelf sites, so that people who want to keep their virtual gaming shelves centrally located will have that opportunity. [Edit: I had it pointed out to me that I apparently missed Masterbook EZ being on DriveThru.] I also hope that this isn’t the last that we see of these rules. The Masterbook EZ rules give you a lot of gaming for a low overhead, and I hope that the publisher takes advantage of this in much the same way that they do with they GenreDiverson games. Head over to the Precis Intermedia site and check this game out today.
