There has been a lot of buzz around Alpha Omega by Mindstorm Labs, what with people talking about the setting, the book itself and the system. Usually comments of amazing, beautiful and complex respectively. A new game from a new publisher has to do well to break into the rpg fraternities hearts and minds and from the discussions carrying on it looks like Alpha Omega has managed it with top marks.

 Style

Alpha Omega is stylised after a mishmash of genres, from post apocalyptic to high fantasy to high tech. The overall feel of the setting cannot be summed up in a simple overview, but I guess we’ll have to try here. Think of all the gritty near future sci-fi you can, movies like Blade Runner, games like Shadowrun and books like Necromancer. Add to that In Nomine or the Arnie movie End of Days. Then add a pinch of Day after Tomorrow….. and you might be somewhere in the vicinity of Alpha Omega.

Over all the tone of the game is pretty much whatever you want. Reading through the background material gave me so many ideas for how the game could be played it blew my mind. Everything that Rifts, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, Torg, Gamma World and countless others cover, so can Alpha Omega. That’s not to say that it feels overwhelming, because it doesn’t. You feel drawn in as a reader and you want to play in this world. A great feat for any writer or rpg publisher to achieve, more so with their first product.

 System

Alpha Omega uses a new system designed by Mindstorm, which it has tagged the “6-6 system”. The system is quite a bit different from most others and requires a bit of a trawl through so that you can get the ideas behind it. Stats (or Qualities) are rated from 1 to 100 with a maximum of 20 for an average human or 30 for other starting character races. These numbers equate to a system of dice progression starting at 1D4 moving up to 6D4, then 1D6 + 5D4, etc, etc with the maximum at 100 of 6D20. Add to these the skill ranks, which are usually quite low, and you get the outcome of a roll versus a target number set by the GM for task resolution.

Character creation is a long points buy system. If you like points purchasing systems like some of my group, you will love this. If you prefer random systems, just go with it for now because it’s worth it when you actually get to the game proper.

Another point worth mention here is the combat system which works on a segments system which along with the 6Dx dice for stats is probably where the 6-6 system gets its name. Essentially each round of combat is split into 6 segments and depending upon your qualities you only get to act in certain segments. Higher scores mean more segments, lower means less. It’s a nice idea and works well apart from a lot of book keeping for the GM. Mindstorm do give a nice tracking sheet in the back of the book, but my feeling is maybe they could have avoided the need for it if it was streamlined a bit.

One last point I’m going to cover is the magic system or Wielding as it’s called. Wielding is pretty damn powerful stuff in Alpha Omega and the design of the system places limits on who can do what, otherwise it would just overpower any game. Wielders have Sources and Intentions which define their skills with the magic powers and certain races only have access to some of the sources and intentions. Creating effects with Wielding can be a long process to work out the target numbers for skill checks but the system should allow you to cover just about anything that a character might want to do.

 Setting

We touched on the setting a bit in the style section and it deserves much more explanation. Mix high tech cyberware, guns and bioware with angels, demons and mutated creatures, throw in magic and archologies, wastelands and a looming world war and that’s just the tip of iceberg.

The setting is brought to life so vividly in the first sections of the book that you will be overflowing with ideas on how you could run a game. High tech groups in archologies, hunters in the wilderness, radicals fighting the powers that be, corporate spies, hosts find and fighting for areas of land to enable the next war…. the list is endless.

The main races give lots of flavour to the setting as well. Humans are the usual bench mark as with most games, but then there are Necrosi (subset of Humans mutated by a meteor), Remnants (other mutated humans), Bio Engineered (clones grown in vats), Nephilim (offspring of human and angels or demons), Lesser Nephilim (Nephilim and human cross breed), Grigori (servants or the angels and demons), Lesser Grigori (Grigori/Human offspring), Anunnaki (child of a demon and angel) and AI (robots, cyborgs, et al). Unfortunately no rules for Ophanum or Seraph (the angels and demons) are given, but with the supposed war that they will fight set to occur in 2 years from the time of the game I guess it’s only a matter of time until we get a nice splat book that covers it. Besides, everything that you read in the base book makes them sound like they would overpower any group of starting PC’s so it’s probably for the best.

There is so much more I could say about the setting here, but with space at a premium, I’ll just say that while the ideas here have all been present in other games before, none of them have ever done so with such a clarity and with such enthusiasm. It really does make you want to play in this world from the get go.

 Layout

Many words have been written about the layout of the book in other reviews, blogs, forums and the like. Some love it, some dislike parts of it, but all agree that was a bold move to try something new. Personally I love the layout, landscape formatted book with artwork that is just staggering, this is something that cost a lot of money to produce and a lot of love went into it, and it really shows.

Page numbers are missing but the book provides a innovative way of find what you want with a list of sections on each page edge with highlights for the current section. Coupled with an icon system for each chapter I have found no problems with it.

The one downside I have with the layout is how to store the book. If I put it on the shelves with my other games it either sticks out a mile or if it turn it up so that the dimensions match I can’t see the spine of the book. Guess I’ll just have to leave it sitting on my desk for a bit longer…..

 Art

Artwork in this tome is outstanding. There are no other words for it. Don’t believe me? Check out the Alpha Omega website, it’s all that good. There is not one piece that I don’t like, the full art for chapter headers is amazing, the character portraits are excellent and each and every weapon detailed has a sketch drawing to give you a real feel for the tech available.

 Overall

I’m so glad that I managed to finally get a copy of this game. I have been thinking about it for quite a while, what with the buzz surrounding it and the enticing titbits on the web. I think that my group will have many a great time exploring the background and to be honest, so will I as GM. That is unless I can convince one of the others to run it.

 The RPGBrainDump Checklist for good books

 Scores

 Scores – rpg.net Style

• “Nice boardgame”
• “Its like Advanced Heroquest with extra bits added”
• “Its a fun break from roleplaying”
• “Its ok, but its not D&D”
• “If it was called something else it would be ok, but its just not what I expected”

…. yeah, you guessed it, they pretty much saw it as a distraction from “real roleplaying”. Give them their dues though, they are determined to finish off the scenario next week and kill off as many Kobolds as possible. Also the added hint that there might be a dragon lurking in the depths of Kobold Hall gave them a lot of incentive to carry on as well. Im hoping that next week will convince them that it is an ok game, maybe not the best game but just ok.

As for GMing, well I found it ok. Thanks pretty much to the Newbie DM pack that I mentioned in the last post, the game flowed quite well. I only had to look up rules a couple of times and the encounter charts with pre-rolled initiatives was a great timesaver. Also worth a mention are the tokens in the DM starter kit. The guys really liked them and had much fun flipping them over to the bloodied side when they scored big hits on the Kobolds. Little things please small minds I guess :¬)

The long and short of this tale though is that the group seems to thing that 4th Edition is not what D&D once was, and they now see it as a one shot game. They cannot envisage using it at all for a campaign, even though they do want to try to complete the current adventure. My guess is that next week will not sway them too much but I hope that they enjoy it all the same.

I’m an RPG geek… new systems entice me like nothing else. If a new version of a game that I own comes out, even if I have never played the game, I want a copy. And so it was with 4th Edition D&D. The day it came out I was in a Waterstones store getting all 3 base books (with a pretty good discount it turns out) and taking them to read during my lunch hour. The outcome of this was pretty much negative. I managed to get 3/4 of the Players Handbook read before I gave up, the DMG and Monster Manual left untouched. The reason for this was that I felt that 4E had taken the roleplay out of RPG, I mean skill challenges? come on!! And so those 3 books sat on my shelf for the past year with no chance of me going back.

What changed? Essentially me mellowing and peer pressure. Firstly I figured, even a poor game needs to be tried at least once. I even own copies of some games that I am sure I will never play, but everything deserves to be given its fair shot. Secondly the amount of blogs out there that say that they play 4th Ed and enjoy it is amazing. Im not sure if these are people who have different wants and needs for an RPG, but if anyone enjoys a game then their must be some merit to it. On top of all that, running a one off of 4th Ed will give me a chance to see what its like without any kind of commitment to the group. If we like it, great! If not, well we need never mention it again.

So tonight I will be running the adventure from the back of the DMG, fighting the good fight for the Kobolds while my evil players invade their cosy home. To make it easier i’ve even got maps and tokens (thanks to the DM’s starter kit by Newbie DM  – http://newbiedm.com/2009/05/15/new-dm-starter-kit-now-available/). Now tactical maps are not something that I usually use, so this will be a real eye opener for me. If it comes off well then I might try Savage Worlds next week with a tactical map.

Fingers crossed that all goes well tonight and i’ll let you know how it went.

So far i’ve yet to come up with a solution as to what to do. I want to stay away from anything Sci-fi and I would prefer not to do a fantasy Dark Heresy, so that cuts out a lot of games already. Traveller is out, Warhammer Fantasy is out, Star Wars, Shadowrun, Rifts, Babylon 5 and Aliens.. all out. So far i’ve thought about

• Maid – not sure if we could play this for 3-4 weeks without the guys losing interest.
• Mouse Guard – again not sure how the guys would react to this for more than a one off.
• D&D – rock it old school style… its possible.
• Twlight 2000 – old school modern but it would kind of lead to a campaign style.
• WOD – Werewolf: The Apocalypse or something? got lots of old stuff from teh campaigns I used to run.

Still not sure what to do. Maybe I could tempt them with Dragonlance 5th Age, Cold City or Savage Worlds….. better make the call soon, game will start in a week and I need to get started on it…. gulp!

Coming from an IT background the ideas around Alpha and Beta testing are quite natural to me, but for those of you who have no idea what these are or what the differences are, here’s a little primer on the stages of testing.

Alpha Playtest is something that occurs when the initial ideas are defined, the concepts are refined and pretty much all of the pieces are in their final stages. I like to think that Alpha is when things are around 70% complete. There are lots of things right and still quite a few rough edges, but the game should be playable at the very least and should show where the goals and initial concepts are employed. However Alpha is something that is still rough, it may require the designer to explain things to the players or to make decisions regarding situations that arise.

Beta Playtest is when things have progressed much further. Beta testing should be able to be run independant of the designer(s). This way several Beta tests can be run in paralell and feedback can be reported back to the designers, rather than them be there for the testing. Beta should only occur when 95% of the game is complete, i.e. the way things work is locked down and only a few bugs remain.

With this in mind, the testing of my boardgame this weekend was an Alpha test. The first time out of the box, so to speak. How did it do? Well I took lots of notes on how the game needs one of the major systems refining and making less complex. Most of the Alpha was spent discussing this system and using a calculator to work out how things should be… not a good start really. I was nicely surprised in that the rules covered most of the situations that arose. I only had to clarify 2 points I think while showing off the game to the group. Other than that I bounced a few ideas off of the players in a post game chat and it seems like they enjoy the core concepts and the ideas but it just needs to be refined and simplified. Not bad for a Alpha game I think.

Now this is not some small time thing. they are offering cold, hard cash and a chance to get your work published by them at a later date. Just from reading the first 3 chapters I already have about 15 ideas for scenarios, so I definitely going to give this a shot. Check out the site at www.alphaomegathegame.com and the forum entry on the competition at http://www.alphaomegathegame.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=651

What games do you see emerging as the big players in the near future?
This is a fairly easy one I think. For me, new and inovative games are always the spear head of creation but these tend not to be big players. Big players always seem to come from the old stalwarts or from the company that gets the next big license. So for the next year or 2 I think we will see little change here. WotC will remain on top as always with the D&D jugganaut. Mongoose and White Wolf will be fighting it out for second fiddle with Taveller/Runequest versus the World of Darkness and Exalted. After that its a big drop off but I think Green Ronin may be in with a shot due to their new license for Dragon Age and the Song of Ice and Fire RPG they just released.

What companies should we be watching out for to release the next big product?
As mentioned above, Green Ronin. the Dragon Age RPG could be a big pull for them. Others to consider include Paizo with their Pathfinder RPG which will be the new D20 standard, or at least thats what they are hoping. Evil Hat games is also worth a look with their Dresden Files RPG, based upon the Fate engine, that will see the light of day later this year (fingers crossed) and while on the subject of Fate, Cubicle 7 has the new Starblazer Adventures RPG. This is something I have had the pleasure of playing at a con pre-release and I also got to talk to Chris the author about it and its going to be a great game in my honest opinion.
Something else I remember seeing and thinking should be big was a new game from Luke Crane, he of Mouse Guard/Burning Wheel fame. I can’t for the life of me remember what it was called or where the website was, all I remember was that it looked pretty cool with a sci-fi vibe and lets face it, anything Luke gets involved with is worth looking at.

How will technology become more integrated into roleplaying games?
This is something that always bugs me as a gamer and as a person who works in IT. Why do people want technology to become more integrated with RPG’s? For me gaming is not something I do online or with a laptop at my gametable. The extent that I go to for tech in gaming is character generators and the like, and mapping software. Im not sure what WotC is trying to do with their latest push to get D&D players gaming online so much. I guess that its an effort to get more books sold to people who play MMORPG’s and to get gamers playing regularly where no groups are available. A nice idea, but I don’t think it will work due to the very nature of RPG gaming. RPG’s are all about the social interactions of the group telling a story and that is something that is very hard, if not impossible, to do online. I know this makes me sound like one of the old D&D fraturnity, “get your tech outta ma game”, but its something that has always puzzled me.

What industry writer do we need to be on the look out for?
A favourite of mine at the moment is Clayton A Oliver. He’s the guy who did a lot for AEG’s Spycraft and has recently done the Twlight 2013 game (a 3rd edition Twlight 2000 if you didn’t know). Why is he a favourite? No idea. I just like the way he writes and what he writes about.
Another name to look out for is Chris Birch, he of Starblazer Adventures from Cubilce 7. Chris and his writing partner Stuart Newman have written a great new game in Starblazer and the Fate engine that they have tailored to it is just brilliant. I know that Chris has mentioned that they are now looking to apply this to a fantasy game and I can’t wait to see it. Imagine the SB Fate ruleset in Fantasy, it will be like a new version of Birthright with all the cities, armies and countries defined like a character with their own aspects and skills.

What blogs do you see exploding into becoming the next big thing?
Err… mine? Hah, I wish! Seriously RoleplayingPro.com is my current favourite RPG Blog and I hope that Sam hits his current targets that he set for himself when he started the blog. It has been a big inspiration to me and this blog so I hope he keeps it up. Other than that just check out RPGBloggers.com and pick one that is not reposting the same old stuff and they could be the next big thing.

What do you see for the future of the industry?
Time for some major predictions here.

1. I think that the top 3 companies will remain the same for the forseeable future, WotC, White Wolf and Mongoose have things pretty much tied up and unless they drop the ball big time, its gonna be the same for some time. 
2. I think a small company, new or old, will bring out a shining new game that captures the hearts and minds of the RPG.net groupies. They will spend hours discussing it and it will always be one of the hot topics there. My bet currently is that it will be the Dr Who RPG from Cubile 7, and it will take over from Exalted as the hot topic.
3. Palladium will finally update their system in a new big release and try to take on the big boys. This is something that people have been crying out for and I think KevinS is starting to listern to his fans. Witness the latest news where Palladium has finally released PDF’s of their games.
4. WotC will screwup the digital revolution of D&D. Not that this will affect me (see my opinions of tech in gaming above), but after the mess that they had with D&D 3.0/3.5 and the character generator and the DM tools and then the botch-up that they have made of the new 4E online tools, im not convinced that they will ever get the whole tech thing right. Just license another company to do it and let them get on with it, concentrate on the Player Handbook number 37, or whatever is the next release.

Predictions aside, the future of RPG’s will remain largely the same as now I think. We are now in a spot where we have major publishers doing their thing, small companies doing some inovative things and one-man bands putting out some real head turners that slowly filter up to the larger companies. I don’t see it changing anytime soon. Tech will never replace the need to get together with friends, a big bowl of munchies and several litres of Pop/Beer/Coffee (delete as appropriate) and  just game. 

My one wish for the future? Someone finally picks up the Dune license and makes a great game…. that or the Harry Potter license and gets millions of the younger generation into the hobby. Imagine how things would change with that much fresh blood in the industry.

Related links
WotC (D&D)
Mongoose  (Traveller/Runequest)
White Wolf (World of Darkness, Exalted)
Green Ronin (Dragon Age, Song of Ice & Fire)
Paizo (Pathfinder)
Dresden Files RPG
Cubicle 7 (Starblazer Adventures RPG, Dr Who)
Twlight 2013
Palladium

In the last year I signed up for 3 pre-orders of games. So far over 6 months later (9 months in one case) I have only recieved 1 of these pre-ordered games. One of them is still in printing hell, one is in my sticky mitts and I love it and the final one is already on the shelves in local stores but no copies for those that pre-ordered. Why is this? Why setup a pre-order system, get people to back you and your ideas and then let them down like that?

These experiances have pretty much put me off pre-orders, along with buying an RPG on the day it comes out due to some companies re-printing the first release with added errata within months of release.

If your a game company, consider your loyal customers please. Make an effort to keep those that help you in the early days of design and purchase happy. If not, then you might just find that some of your fan base moves away to something else.