Welcome to the Finder’s Archive and a review is what we have in store for you this week. 😊
We take products and review them, intending to give the reader the best chance of evaluating whether this particular release is for them.
There is, of course, a scoring system, similar to that used elsewhere, in a 5-star rating, which we have determined as follows:
- * Bad
- * Mediocre
- * Decent
- * Good
- * Excellent
The following review is an OPINION piece and only reflects the opinion and tastes (because ultimately, all reviews will be based in personal taste) of the reviewer. Also please note that we were given a free copy for this review, but we will base it on the actual price as well.
That disclaimer out of the way, let’s get on with the show!
DISCLAIMER: A free product was provided for the purposes of this review.
This week we give you DIESEL (you can find it HERE)
Publisher: Steven Pankotai
Author: Steven Pankotai, Matthew Jarmak, Matthew Whitby, Cassandra MacDonald
Artists: Devon Ste Marie Rubin, Zander Barcelo, Ethan Brewerton, George Foundous,
System: unique engine (d6 based)
Page count: 84 ( 1 page cover, 1 page inside cover, 1 page credits, 1 page Table of Contents, 69 pages of content, 10 pages of pre-generated characters and a 1 page character sheet)
I have to make a confession with this RPG. I tried REALLY hard to like it because I love Dieselpunk and westerns – but this is not a game for me.
Let me explain: The game is created for short adventures, 2-3 sessions, not for long-term campaigns. Now that can be fine, but I think it’s too complicated with 9 stats (although you only technically have to determine 6 as the remainder 3 are derivatives of the 6th one), along with a bunch of mods for your character. This just seems too fiddly for a short game, especially when the rules take up more than ½ the book. To me, it feels like it would have been better to spend time on the campaign setting.
But I digress, so let’s dig into it. DIESEL is an action RPG, one based around what I would call the Weird West — side note, while I get why it’s called DIESEL, it feels misleading since it’s not a dieselpunk game, but more one of steampunk. The aesthetic isn’t grey and harsh like I’d expect in a dieselpunk game, but it isn’t as covered in copper, brass, and gears as steampunk. Perhaps western-punk is a better word for this.
Together, you and your group sit down and create (in a 20-minute session 0), the story that you’re about to play, and how your characters are involved with each other, which is a good idea for something this short. The GM then takes these ideas and folds it up into a nice little story for the players to unpack. Give him half an hour (perhaps the rest can order a pizza) and then it’s time to play.
Character creation is easy, with only a few choices to make and you only use d6s so it should be easy to pick up, especially as it relies on the “bucket of dice” principle. You get a number of dice (2-6) based on the abilities you have, and you have to hit a certain amount of successes depending on how difficult a task is. Each die that rolls 4+ is a success. And then there is the Malfunction dice. Players of Genesys and FFG’s Star Wars will be familiar with a mechanic like this, in that it uses something similar to the Challenge dice, though instead of adding in more dice, you simply replace some of the ones in your dice pool with these. They can still roll successes for you, but if something goes wrong, you suffer a Malfunction. I just wish that it wasn’t simply damage, but some other effect that happened – in what is presented as a story-driven game, it shouldn’t simply be a matter of damage, but of CONSEQUENCE.
And then there’s Possibility — this is like the destiny points of Star Wars. Something happens if you burn them, but here only the players have access to them, not the GM, so for the most part it’ll be something helpful in that particular scene. I think that’s probably the right call though since it’s a “short-form” style game, and having the GM able to use Possibility too would be a mistake.
That brings us to the world of Edge, the campaign setting. It’s a form of post-apocalyptic scene in what I (think) was a war across time and space. It’s a little difficult to get to the truth of that, but that seems to be on purpose so that GMs can build their own stories for it. In fact, I think the world is probably the most interesting thing in this book, along with the various factions. I’m a little surprised to see that pronouns are used to describe the NPCs rather than just leaving that up to the GMs and players, but I think it’s a good idea to show the compositions of the factions.
But that leads us to the conclusion:
Grading this is difficult. I like the world. But the system feels like it’s letting it down. I’m not sure why this required a specific system — in all honesty, I think Savage Worlds would have been a good choice for this and would have allowed the people working on this book to focus on the campaign world instead, but it does the job. I think it could use with a bit of fine-tuning in parts, but that is likely just me being picky.
I’d give this a 4-star if I liked the system more, but I think I’m ending on a 3-star instead. There’s another part to this, and one I dearly hope they fix before it’s released in general: PUT IN BOOKMARKS. Most of the layout programs used nowadays can even do so automatically when you make your Table of Contents – and it is a great tool in a PDF, rather than having to rely on the search function.
And with that, back to the normal schedule here. Hope to see you next week.
Kim Frandsen
Latest posts by Kim Frandsen (see all)
- Finder’s Archive – Crypt of the Eternals - June 2, 2023
