N.E.W. Science Fiction Role-playing Game

In retrospect, I'm not entirely sure why I backed the Kickstarter for this game. Amongst other things, the offer of a 'crunchy' new roleplaying system (when my tastes are leaning towards the more free-form) and a generic sci-fi game (which generic sci-fi has never exactly inspired, and when Firefly was more than hitting the spot), should by rights have dissuaded me.

Still, back it I did, and so eighteen months later I received my shiny new hardback book - 280ish pages of glorious full-colour. The only thing I'd say about that is that the text size is pretty big, meaning that those same 280 pages are perhaps closer to 200 in an equivalent D&D 5e/Pathfinder book (if there was such a thing).

The book is well-written and easily digestible. The system it presents is actually not as complex as the pitch had made out - while it is indeed 'crunchy', that doesn't mean 'complex'. Rather, it means that things have stats, and the group are expected to care about those stats. But I daresay you could quite happily play this game in a very freeform manner and be quite happy.

But the big weakness of the game, and also its great strength, is that this does indeed try to be a generic sci-fi game - there are elements here that are clearly nods to Star Trek and Star Wars, Doctor Who, and references to many other novels and TV shows. This means it's trying to cover an awful lot of material, and it means it does so very briefly.

And in that respect, this game reminded me more than anything else of "d20 Modern" - it's less a game in its own right than a toolkit for a game. This means that for a GM willing to put in quite a lot of work (or, indeed, if a third-party supplement is available), it can do an awful lot for you. But for the time-stretched GM it's of less use.

That means that any recommendation is necessarily conditional: if you have something in mind (and, especially, something that hasn't been otherwise covered by a dedicated game), and are willing to put the work in, then this is a good candidate to consider. And if, as the publisher hopes, this game sees lots of third-party support, it's utility will improve with time. But absent that support, and absent the time to do the work yourself (or, indeed, absent a clear idea of what to do with the game, rather than just "let's give it a go"), this is one to miss.