Just wanted to show off a belated Christmas gift I recieved in the mail yesterday...

Schweet!

I've been reading RPG.net commentary about the game and it sounds pretty cool.

Yeah.  Obviously I havn't read through everything yet, but the system is a relatively simple "target number" game.  Roll 2d6, add a stat or two to see if you beat the target number.

In addition, stats and traits are pretty generalized, so players are free to explain away the numbers how they see fit.  For example, a high 'coordination' stat could mean someone who has done alot of professional fencing or martial arts (and thus can react very quickly to a weapon coming at you), or someone who has played alot of video games (and yet can still be a couch potato).

But of course the game focuses more upon story than combat, game mechanics, etc. 

Now to find players!

Actually, the RPG.net reviews bothered me. The first one was extremely positive, written by somebody who seems to love story-based games based on setting and development. The next was by somebody from an extremely different walk of life, who trashed the game and pretty much called it a super-light game. This fellow seemed to think that only hack & slash games with plenty of combat crunch are the only true RPGs. Finally, the least positive review summed the game up as being sloppy and disorganized, with rules cited in one book that appear in the next, or more in-depth repeats of one book's rules in another.

CHARLIE! Your mission is to figure out what in the world is going on with that game! Are the second and third critics a couple of grumpy Scrooges, or is the first reviewer just a silly Doctor Who fanboy who can't get over a poorly made system?

It's always best to take in RPG.net comments as an amalgamated whole, instead of individually. The folks on RPG.net tend to have the thing that they are in to and if the discussion is about one of those things then they are super excited, if not, then they are super negative. You have to dig past the hyperbole to get at the truth.

Or ask Charlie...

"CHARLIE! Your mission is to figure out what in the world is going on with that game! Are the second and third critics a couple of grumpy Scrooges, or is the first reviewer just a silly Doctor Who fanboy who can't get over a poorly made system?"

I can hear the Mission Impossible theme in my head (luckily its playing OVER the voices)

Dang!  I REALLY need to find some players now! 

But with a cursory look (not into the gamemasters book yet), I can say it does appear to be a rules-light game.  But I really can't say thats a bad thing.  Some of my fondest roleplaying moments are playing white wolf games in college and sometimes going 2 or 3 sessions without a single combat and rolling a minimal nimber of dice.

Also, I may not be the best person to find the truth.  I'm a HUGE Dr Who fanboy and might be a bit biased but i shall do my best! :D

Ok, I finished reading the players guide, so I can answer a few questions.

First I wouldn't call it super-light on rules.  Instead I'd call it super easy, and actually pretty intuitive.  Almost akin to the OLD basic D&D, where rules were minimum, but it was still a very playable game.

The skills, like I said before, are very generalized.  So I'm fairly certain the game will actually be somewhat difficult for some GMs.  Since so many other games have such a cut and dry rules system, the GM just has to look up a rule and he's done.  In the case here, the game is so open to ideas that there are so cut and dry rules to cover everything...the GM has to sort of come up with his own solution.

For example, suppose a player decides to jump onto a moving truck from a bridge.  The GM has to figure out what attribute for the player to use...it could be strength (his ability to hold on) or coordination (his ability to keep his balance and not slip off).  In fact, the GM might even use something odd, like Awareness (there is a convienient handle to grab onto that the player couldn't see from the bridge...does he see it as he is landing?).  So its all really up to the imagination and creativeness of the GM...something which many GMs might have a problem with.

The 'success' system reminds me alot of the white wolf system (well, the previous edition anyway...havn't players the new editions) crossed with a bit of 7th Sea (which is very exciting)

What I mean by the white wolf system, is where you take one attribute (strength, ingenuity, etc) and match it will a skill (technology, fighting, etc) and then roll dice.  However, what is different is you don't take a number of dice dependent on your stats...in this case you always roll 2 dice and add the numbers of your attribute and skill. 

For for example, if I was attacking someone with a sword, I'd take my Strength (lets say 2 in my case...gamer physique and all), plus my Fighting skill (we'll say 4 since I fenced in college, taken german broadsword classes, as well as LARPing regularly) which gives me 6.  I roll 2d6 (I rolled a 9) and add that, for a total of 15.  If that beats the target number I hit.  Average traits are a 3, and the average roll is a 7, and the standard difficulty of doing something is a 12.  So with my 15, I could have hit someone with slightly more training/strength than myself.

Now what I mean about the 7th sea system is this game has a rule in place that is VERY similar to Drama Dice of 7th seas.  You start with a standard amount, and if you do something cool, or heroic, or smart, or roleplay really well, during the game, the GM might give you another. 

You can spend these "Story points" to do various things, such as roll an extra 2d6 (total of 4d6) when you REALLY need to succeed, or shift a disasterous failure to only a minor failure when dodging a gun of some sort  (As the majority of lasers and beams on the show are lethal, I'm guessing this will be VERY important).  You can even spend them to bend the story somewhat...sort of tell the GM how his own story will occur (a female character might spend a story point to declare that the captain of the guards that are holding her in the cell falls in love with her...something the GM didn't plan).

Second, the fellow commenting on how the two books have the same information...well if the dope read the whole thing, he would have seen on the very first page of the GMs guide that they did that on purpose so players and GMs wouldn't have to share the same book. 

One thing that always kind of bugged me is in D&D, the DM HAD to have a copy of both the players guide and DMs guide and would switch back and forth between them.  So in this case, he doesn't need to, which was a rather good idea in my opinion.