Forge: Out of Chaos Role Playing Game Review by Russ Lockwood

Published by Basement Games Unlimited Any new role-playing system needs to address three basic concerns: system, background, and adaptability. In other words, does the system define new methods and yet not get in its own way, is the background interesting enough to stand on its own, and is the whole adaptable should one of the two not appeal to you. Forge: Out of Chaos offers a mixed result that succeeds in some places, falls in others, and whether you enjoy or tire of the system depends upon your vision of gaming. There seems to be a rule that every new RPG system must offer some sort of twist for twisting--and copyright--sake. Forge: Out of Chaos is no different in that the mathematical model defining the system tweaks the roll of the six basic D&D ® characteristics, adds a couple modifiers and/or other characteristics, and voila, creates a character. The six are: Strength, Stamina, Intellect, Insight, Dexterity, and Awareness, and then you can add Speed, Power, and Luck. The six main characteristics are determined by 2d6 (assigned where you want 'em) and then adding a .(d10)--that's right, .1 to 1.0, making base scores of 2.1-13.0. Speed, meanwhile, is a d4+1, Power is 2d10, and Luck is 2d6+4. Well, there nothing wrong with decimal places, and the system works fine, but the twist means additional number crunching and seems too fiddly for its own good. If a decimal point is so important, why not go to percentile dice? And that's probably as strong a knock as I'll make against the system. I'm one of those of us who want to get on with the story and not worry about the equivalent of a paper spreadsheet version. These characteristics and number manipulation are so integral to the creation of a character, it will take you a while to generate one, especially as you start figuring out the ramifications of what each one does. This is a very detailed system, and the twist of pain in the initial stages of creation is also a great strength as you delve deeper and deeper into the system. Eveything has a balance--want more of one aspect, well, you have to give up somewhere else--and I'm not just talking advantages and disadvantages, cursings and blessings, or whatever your current system calls natural fortes and foibles. Forge: Out of Chaos is tightly bound within its system and just like a spreadsheet, tinker here and you might find out something changed over there. It may take a few characters to figure this out, but I suspect serious Forge: Out of Chaos players will be able to tweak and fiddle characters just so--assuming you get that far. Each of the characteristics affect Attack and Defense Values, which are modified by natural attributes among the 11 races--the usual mix of humanoid species populating any good system. I didn't get overly excited about any of the 11, though the one-eyed Ghantu were half amusing--big and fast and dumb as a post. Otherwise, it's humans, dwarves, elves, lizard- and bird-men, half-size and double-size humans, and a couple others. But that's edging towards the background, and I want to stay on target with the system. A character is further modified by the aforementioned advantages and disadvantages. Now, the skill generation is a complexity that is pretty interesting--a little twist that add, rather than subtracts, from the system. Each character, depending on the skills, receives a number of skill slots. And there are three type of skills (basic, leveled, and percentage), of which suffice it to say there are enough to keep any detail-happy player very very happy. But the clever bit comes in the advancement--every time your character succeeds in some skill, you jot down a "credit" (essentially, a tick mark of success). After the adventure, you start rolling percentile dice to see whether you can advance. Sometimes you want to roll low, othertimes high, depending on the skill type, but there is a diminishing point of return. Eventually, your capability for advancement will reduce to "0%" meaning you can't get any better. No more level 52 fighter-bomber-wizards, or 23 choke-dice thieves. The downside to all this cleverness is an accounting degree in tickmarks and a lot of post-adventure wristage. Just as we used to account for every kill in the original D&D ® for those all-important experience points, so you will account for every skill success, and then roll for each tick mark at the end. Combat is, as you might surmise, another mathematically intense procedure with lots of additions and subtractions, tracking armor points and recalculating factors every time armor takes 10 points of damage, and so on. It starts out with a simple comparison of Attack Value vs. Defense Value 1 (in a straight up fight, sometimes you use DV2) yields a number to hit on a d20. But it gets a bit much, and if you don't play regularly, I suspect you'll spend some time reacquainting yourself with the between round permutations. Spells have a variable (d20) effectiveness--a neat little twist that's quick and understandable. Wizards will also need some sort of component before launching a spell, which is another nice touch. Forge: Out of Chaos does go overboard with six types of magic, each with its own list of spells and variations on a theme, but that's just more of the detail of the system. It's a division that makes magic rather personal--real personal. As for the background of Juravia, a pantheon of Greek-style gods squabbled and now run amuk in the world. 70 monsters, of varying degrees of originality, populate the countryside, and they are coded for Forge: Out of Chaos specs. There's not not a lot here, though I suspect, like other systems, it will become clearer with supplements. The twist is that the company is supporting it with a web site with some additional background details. Of course, if you have your own favorite RPG system, how much can you adapt from Forge: Out of Chaos? Parts of the magic section can pretty much be lifted, for the things such as variability, components, and spell details are easily shuffled into another system. Some of the monsters are worth absorbing. The rest will be very difficult--although if you keep taking parts and pieces, you might as well play Forge: Out of Chaos as is. Conclusions If you are looking for another RPG, Forge: Out of Chaos is as good as any other out there, even better because of the evolutionary twists. The tightly-knit system is a virtual spreadsheet of shifting advantages and disadvantages, and the accounting portion is either going to be impressive or depressive depending on your yen for details. Skill Slots present a neat transition of the characteristics, while skill advancement offers an elegant mathematical model. The Magic system is clean, understandable, and interesting. This is a serious system, and that brings us to its disadvantage: dedication. Play this often enough and you'll load every variable and combat recalculation into Brain RAM. Play on a more casual basis and it will take a bit to figure this out. Those that forge their own story lines and worlds will notice that they have considerable freedom to place the system in any setting. Those that like a solid background and setting tied into the game will be coming up short--at least until Basement Games Unlimited cranks out supplements or puts more of Juravia on their web site. The first supplement is entitled The Vemora and designed for novice Players and Referees. The scenario contains an "intricate story line, new monsters, traps, and offers helpful hints and suggestions to help stimulate game play." Don't get me wrong. Forge: Out of Chaos is a good system. Everything is in one 202-page book, and the designers from BGU deserve credit for pushing RPG a little bit further. I believe that the system would transform into an excellent computer adventure game, where programming code tracks everything and the player is left to make decisions and carry out the story line. Contact: www.basementgames.com Back to Other Game Review List Back to Master Game Review List Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by Coalition Web, Inc. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com