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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2009564" data-attributes="member: 1129">So what is Darwin’s World?  Written by Dominic Covey, Darwin’s World takes an alternative look at a variant history where after World War II, the United States takes an isolation stance that eventually leads to World War III and the end of civilization as we know it.  To help showcase the differences between this setting and a standard fantasy setting, there are numerous new rules to help the GM out.For off, we’ve got new races.  These new races are mostly composed of different strains of mutants with the more powerful and freakish mutants being the top of the food chain and the lowly humans at the bottom.  Unlike standard core rules, some of the races have an ECL above 0.  One of the nice concepts introduced here might’ve taken a nod to the Forgotten Realms regional feats and moved it a step higher.  This is the Background of the character.  This feature is broken up into Ferals, Primitives, Ritual Preservationist, Resentfuls and a wide variety of others.  These backgrounds are basically templates that are layed onto your character.  Each one has it’s own adjustments on stats, skills, and weapon proficiencies, and provides favored classes and more level adjustments.  Interestingly enough, some of these level adjustments can be negative so you could start off with a Third Generation Mutant with lots of power and defects with a level adjustment of +2 and then take the Feral Background for a penalty of –2 levels making you a net 0 level character.  Of course this it’ll be abused by min-maxers and I can already see hordes of mutants streaming out of the wasteland but that’s okay.  Those ferals tend to start off with little money, no languages and little knowledge of technology so those human Resurrectors will wipe ‘em out.The classes in the system are similar to the core ones with a bit of a twist.  Guardians are similar to fighters but watch over communities.  Raiders are similar to Guardians in scope, but, well, they’re raiders.  Scavs are rogues with a specialization in getting the goods, while Thinkers are the people with knowledge on how to build and repair stuff.  Traders are those lovely experts who help bring society together in the name of making a profit.  One of the interesting things here is that unlike say The End or Call of Cthulhu or even Star Wars, there is no nod realism.  Guardians get d12 hit dice and can stand a shot or two from most weapons without dying right away.  About the most the game comes to making it a dangerous genre is healing up.  See without clerics you’ve got to rely on medicine for quick healing and unless you’re a standard human, you have penalties to apply regular medicine, or juju for healing purposes.  Wanted to be that devastating level three mutant?  Well good luck recovering from those gunshot wounds buddy because you’ll be out for a while even as the weak human plunders away.To use the classes properly in this setting, skills and feats are customized for the nature of the campaign.  There are new craft, knowledge, language, and profession skills.  For feats, there are some changes to the standard ones as with Exotic Weapon Proficiency not granting the user access to a wide variety of weapons, advanced and futuristic ones, instead of just a single one.  Others are a little odd like Fertile/Potent, feats that allow you to breed.  You see, for NPCs probably, it’s a big deal as many in this world are sterile due to the radiation, drugs, and other poor living conditions.  I can’t imagine too many players taking that feat when they have access to something like Improved Hit Dice.  Now I wouldn’t allow most of these feats into a standard campaign but in a world like this where you’re supposed to have gunfights and walk, well, limp away, they fit in.There are a couple of things preventing Darwin’s World from getting a higher rating.  The first is the lack of maps.  I’m not just talking about the world map, but maps of any sort.  It’s like all the D20 publishers making modern and futuristic settings decide that hey, with guns, you don’t need maps.  Next up is the art quality.  Several pieces look like scanned material that didn’t scale up properly.  The editing and layout are adequate but not great.A large chunk of the book is taken up with equipment and in many ways, I agree with the author in that the high-tech and advance equipment in such a setting equals the magic items of a standard fantasy one.  In this case, perhaps because there are no spellcasters of psionic powers to be described, the guns, armor, and typical adventuring goods get a lot of coverage.  The goods range from the Power Fist to the Magnetic Shield.  From the Stealth Pack to the Force Field Belt.  All in all, the GM can customize his setting so that the players are beating out mutants brains with lead pipes or battling advanced colonist with plasma rifles.For those interested in moving beyond the core classes of Darwin’s World, there are several PrCs.  Among them, my favorite would probably be the Brotherhood Force Master, a cult of mutants and altered humans with psionic abilities that enable them to manipulate force into shields and swords in addition to other powers.  Of course a nod to one of the more famous heroes of the genre must be paid with it’s own PrC and those who want to play out Mad Max have the Road Warrior PrC with it’s mastery of vehicle combat.It’s important to note thought that the book isn’t all rules.  There are lots of organizations and general information about the setting.  Where the book falters though is providing the GM a starting point to get the campaign moving as well as campaign advice for long term game play in Darwin’s World or methods of combining it with other settings and genres. One use I’ve thought of is that Darwin’s World might provide a Fading Suns GM an opportunity to mix and match some of his favorite genres as a group of FS explorers sets out to find out what happened to this strange world where everything seems familiar to their own ancient histories but is different.  Game balance would be a pain in the neck but because there isn’t a nod to the Star Wars or Wheel of Time play in which characters gain an Armor Class bonus, it’s not as difficult as it could be.Overall the game can be a fun romp through a ruined future but needs to decide if the future is a bleak and horrible place and if so, enforce it with game rules that reward gun play with death or if it’s an Omega World type of setting where the fur flies.With the material available on the website which includes maps and bonus downloads as well as a host of other material, the book is a 4 but on its own, a solid 3.</blockquote>

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