JoeGKushner
Adventurer
If you've ever wanted a mini-game to play Mad Max in the d20 system, this is your book.
What this book isn't, is a reprint of common SRD information like strength, going up in levels, gaining stat bonuses at certain levels or other things that are found in the player's handbook. Instead, it presents the classes, feats, skills, equipment and rules necessary to start the engines and save the fuel of the future.
While there are no races per say in this book, there are character backgrounds, which take the places of races. These range from the born-again preachers to the drifter's with no name and the rejects, suffering the effects of the horrid 'creep', wasting diseases that mutate those with it until they die. The material is useful but not too detailed, allowing the GM to customize heavily. Other races are provided that give the Gm and players a broad canvas to start painting the character.
The classes follow a pattern of providing bonus feats, specialized per class, with a die bonus, that increases for certain skills. For example, the Redliner, the drivers of the raods in this setting, get hard core driving, starting out as +1d4 to Drive skill checks, going up to +1d12 eventually. Other classes follow a similar pattern. We have all of the classics here for the post-holocaust future ranging from the Trader, still bringing goods and civilization wherever he goes, to the Marauder, a fierce warrior whose battle skills put him at the top of the food chain. Of course, in a world without common fixes to everyday issues, we have Riggers. The classes are a good mix with full explanations of what they are and how they tend to get along with other classes.
In terms of skills, not a lot has changed here. We get a table with the skills and classes with X and O for class or cross class, with descriptions of what the skills do. Some common skills have been replaced, for example, there is no bluff, but there is Fake Out. Those wondering what skill set this uses, 3.0 or 3.5, can relax as it uses Survival for instead of Intuit Direction and Wilderness Lore. Some of the more detailed rules deal with using Heal to make up for lost clerics and magical healing, as well as using Build to repair complex and simple machines. Good stuff with a limited skill list to keep the game focused.
Feats are in a simliar boat. While feats that are in common use like Dodge, Mobility and Great Cleave are listed, the stats aren't repeated in the book, making good use of the space. The feats focus on fighting and surviving with an empahsis on the former. Weapons are grouped into broad groups here like Simple Archaic, Advanced Archaic, Simple Firearm, etc... This keeps the PC's free to use lots of different weapons without having to worry about the basics, kinda like Arcana Unearth's take on Exotic Weapons. Those who've always wanted to do the John Woo thing now have Double Fisted Firerms, basically Two-Weapon Fighting. More in character though, would be Vehicle Jousting, where you swing a club from the back of a motorcycle to move before and after the attack.
The equipment section here isn't very detailed. That's because a lot of it is what you make use of. For example, weapons. Weapons are very simple elements for the most part, not a lot of stats for specific guns or swords. That Slingblade and chainsaw are both effective. It's all about the weapon equivalency, something introduced way back by WotC in Sword & Fist but rarely used. For vehicles, they made them almost like monsters. They have sizes, armor classes, hardness, and a listing of how many squares they take up, as well as how many they can move. It's a very simple system for listing out the vehicles and allows the GM to add his own stuff into the mix with little difficulty.
A simple vehicle combat section is also included. Some changes are meant to relay the speed of combat, with hexes representing fifty foot squares instead of five, rules for quickly changing speed and even initative on a round by round basis. A chart is provided with all of the maneuvers that the vehicles can make so if you want to see the difference between a bootleg turn and a hard turn, you've got a reference. More such illustrations with a few examples of vehicles combat would've helped make this section a little more well rounded but it's easy to use right from the get go.
One thing that sets this setting apart from say, the Mad Max series, is the Creep. Due to all of the radiation and biological elements used to end the old war, there are a lot of strange and potent diseases out there. Advice is provided on when to use the creep and when to leave it alone. In a less serious campaign, players probably wouldn't mind growing extra eyes and getting a bonus to spot, but in a more grim and gritty campaign, they'll probably just be growing masses of tissue that cause lots of pain.
While the term Creep is generic, there are numerous specific flavors of creep with the type, inhaled, contact, or other like ingested, DC to overcome the Creep, effect, interval, contamination, and where it's found.
The section on Setting Information, provides a lot of good ideas for GMs to get the NPC juices flowing as much of the material talks about the different archetypes common in the wastelands. We've got typical warlords, gangsters, zealots, religious and otherwise, as well as nomands and rebuilders with savags and survivors. Another important aspect is hammered home here, that of resources. “In Redline, scarcity is the rule.” This makes important notes about the most common forms of currency here, water, food, fuel and weapons. Salvage is also important but hey, we've all seen that one movie where the scavenger brings back the robot and it comes back to life right?
FFG has been very cool in supporting this product with web support in the form of two PrCs. While it would've been nice to see them in the book, I can only imagine that space in a mini-game is very restricted and it's better to get the basics before the advanced.
I felt that the book failed when discussing regions. Instead of, “America is a bleak wasteland.”, we get definitions and ideas about what the different broad environments are, such as ruins, wastelands and Green Zones. Each one comes with background, resources, settlements, and the hazards of each section. It allows a GM to set up something quickly but takes time to map out as there are no example maps. In a modern setting, I've found the mapping chores much harder and appreciate every map I get. Of course, being a modern based setting, I can access maps from all over the place, they're just not RPG maps.
The book ends off with Critters and Creeps, a quick monster listing of those creatures appropriate from the MM for your Redline game, as well as some new critters. In such a setting, everyone knows we've got to have muties, zombies and vampires right? How about something under the sand? All covered. Not a large section, but one, with the references, that provides enough material to run your own campaign.
One of the things that a non-standard fantasy game has to have is art. I say that because at this point, almost everyone knows what an elf or dwarf is supposed to look like, but what do the weapons, monsters, and vehicles of the world that's over look like? They look mean and primitive I tell you with expert illustrations by the traditional staff that FFG has used on many of their products. The layout is standard two column with an easy flow on the eyes.
Redline needs a little more to be complete. For example, how about a bibliography? While I can spot the little references to Mad Max and The Omega Man, I know that there are other things just on the tip of my tongue that I can't remember that would make great viewing or reading to get into the proper frame of mind for this type of setting. One problem many of the mini-games have is that there isn't a home base, no starting location for the players to meet. It's not an issue as the books aren't designed for an end all be all, but to make it a pick up and play type of game, it would be handy.
Lastly, what about healing? In a world like this, damage is going to be common and unlike Darwin's World, I didn't see a lot of notes about meds although the healing skill provides some quick healing options.
For those who want more information, check out the link on Redline as it's a seven page preview of the setting. This book is perfect for those who feel the pain of Polyhedron becoming a smaller part of Dungeon magazine. Because of the different power levels, as much as I'd love to use this material in the d20 version of The End, I think it would take a lot of work. If you're looking to add some vehicle rules to your new game of Darwin's World or want to try out some action in the style of Beyond Thunderdome, then Redline is for you.
What this book isn't, is a reprint of common SRD information like strength, going up in levels, gaining stat bonuses at certain levels or other things that are found in the player's handbook. Instead, it presents the classes, feats, skills, equipment and rules necessary to start the engines and save the fuel of the future.
While there are no races per say in this book, there are character backgrounds, which take the places of races. These range from the born-again preachers to the drifter's with no name and the rejects, suffering the effects of the horrid 'creep', wasting diseases that mutate those with it until they die. The material is useful but not too detailed, allowing the GM to customize heavily. Other races are provided that give the Gm and players a broad canvas to start painting the character.
The classes follow a pattern of providing bonus feats, specialized per class, with a die bonus, that increases for certain skills. For example, the Redliner, the drivers of the raods in this setting, get hard core driving, starting out as +1d4 to Drive skill checks, going up to +1d12 eventually. Other classes follow a similar pattern. We have all of the classics here for the post-holocaust future ranging from the Trader, still bringing goods and civilization wherever he goes, to the Marauder, a fierce warrior whose battle skills put him at the top of the food chain. Of course, in a world without common fixes to everyday issues, we have Riggers. The classes are a good mix with full explanations of what they are and how they tend to get along with other classes.
In terms of skills, not a lot has changed here. We get a table with the skills and classes with X and O for class or cross class, with descriptions of what the skills do. Some common skills have been replaced, for example, there is no bluff, but there is Fake Out. Those wondering what skill set this uses, 3.0 or 3.5, can relax as it uses Survival for instead of Intuit Direction and Wilderness Lore. Some of the more detailed rules deal with using Heal to make up for lost clerics and magical healing, as well as using Build to repair complex and simple machines. Good stuff with a limited skill list to keep the game focused.
Feats are in a simliar boat. While feats that are in common use like Dodge, Mobility and Great Cleave are listed, the stats aren't repeated in the book, making good use of the space. The feats focus on fighting and surviving with an empahsis on the former. Weapons are grouped into broad groups here like Simple Archaic, Advanced Archaic, Simple Firearm, etc... This keeps the PC's free to use lots of different weapons without having to worry about the basics, kinda like Arcana Unearth's take on Exotic Weapons. Those who've always wanted to do the John Woo thing now have Double Fisted Firerms, basically Two-Weapon Fighting. More in character though, would be Vehicle Jousting, where you swing a club from the back of a motorcycle to move before and after the attack.
The equipment section here isn't very detailed. That's because a lot of it is what you make use of. For example, weapons. Weapons are very simple elements for the most part, not a lot of stats for specific guns or swords. That Slingblade and chainsaw are both effective. It's all about the weapon equivalency, something introduced way back by WotC in Sword & Fist but rarely used. For vehicles, they made them almost like monsters. They have sizes, armor classes, hardness, and a listing of how many squares they take up, as well as how many they can move. It's a very simple system for listing out the vehicles and allows the GM to add his own stuff into the mix with little difficulty.
A simple vehicle combat section is also included. Some changes are meant to relay the speed of combat, with hexes representing fifty foot squares instead of five, rules for quickly changing speed and even initative on a round by round basis. A chart is provided with all of the maneuvers that the vehicles can make so if you want to see the difference between a bootleg turn and a hard turn, you've got a reference. More such illustrations with a few examples of vehicles combat would've helped make this section a little more well rounded but it's easy to use right from the get go.
One thing that sets this setting apart from say, the Mad Max series, is the Creep. Due to all of the radiation and biological elements used to end the old war, there are a lot of strange and potent diseases out there. Advice is provided on when to use the creep and when to leave it alone. In a less serious campaign, players probably wouldn't mind growing extra eyes and getting a bonus to spot, but in a more grim and gritty campaign, they'll probably just be growing masses of tissue that cause lots of pain.
While the term Creep is generic, there are numerous specific flavors of creep with the type, inhaled, contact, or other like ingested, DC to overcome the Creep, effect, interval, contamination, and where it's found.
The section on Setting Information, provides a lot of good ideas for GMs to get the NPC juices flowing as much of the material talks about the different archetypes common in the wastelands. We've got typical warlords, gangsters, zealots, religious and otherwise, as well as nomands and rebuilders with savags and survivors. Another important aspect is hammered home here, that of resources. “In Redline, scarcity is the rule.” This makes important notes about the most common forms of currency here, water, food, fuel and weapons. Salvage is also important but hey, we've all seen that one movie where the scavenger brings back the robot and it comes back to life right?
FFG has been very cool in supporting this product with web support in the form of two PrCs. While it would've been nice to see them in the book, I can only imagine that space in a mini-game is very restricted and it's better to get the basics before the advanced.
I felt that the book failed when discussing regions. Instead of, “America is a bleak wasteland.”, we get definitions and ideas about what the different broad environments are, such as ruins, wastelands and Green Zones. Each one comes with background, resources, settlements, and the hazards of each section. It allows a GM to set up something quickly but takes time to map out as there are no example maps. In a modern setting, I've found the mapping chores much harder and appreciate every map I get. Of course, being a modern based setting, I can access maps from all over the place, they're just not RPG maps.
The book ends off with Critters and Creeps, a quick monster listing of those creatures appropriate from the MM for your Redline game, as well as some new critters. In such a setting, everyone knows we've got to have muties, zombies and vampires right? How about something under the sand? All covered. Not a large section, but one, with the references, that provides enough material to run your own campaign.
One of the things that a non-standard fantasy game has to have is art. I say that because at this point, almost everyone knows what an elf or dwarf is supposed to look like, but what do the weapons, monsters, and vehicles of the world that's over look like? They look mean and primitive I tell you with expert illustrations by the traditional staff that FFG has used on many of their products. The layout is standard two column with an easy flow on the eyes.
Redline needs a little more to be complete. For example, how about a bibliography? While I can spot the little references to Mad Max and The Omega Man, I know that there are other things just on the tip of my tongue that I can't remember that would make great viewing or reading to get into the proper frame of mind for this type of setting. One problem many of the mini-games have is that there isn't a home base, no starting location for the players to meet. It's not an issue as the books aren't designed for an end all be all, but to make it a pick up and play type of game, it would be handy.
Lastly, what about healing? In a world like this, damage is going to be common and unlike Darwin's World, I didn't see a lot of notes about meds although the healing skill provides some quick healing options.
For those who want more information, check out the link on Redline as it's a seven page preview of the setting. This book is perfect for those who feel the pain of Polyhedron becoming a smaller part of Dungeon magazine. Because of the different power levels, as much as I'd love to use this material in the d20 version of The End, I think it would take a lot of work. If you're looking to add some vehicle rules to your new game of Darwin's World or want to try out some action in the style of Beyond Thunderdome, then Redline is for you.
