Factory

Game: Factory
Publisher: Perpetrated Press
Series: d20
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 15th, April 2003
Reviewer’s Rating: 8/10   [ Really good ]
Total Score: 8
Average Score: 8.00

Perpetrated Press have done it again with Factory. Their first technomagic book, Arsenal, was really quite good.

The smart move was to ensure that there was enough of a twist and enough tempting flavour to support the crunchy bits so that people like me (prone to falling asleep if he sees too many numbers in a supplement) found it interesting. Those gamers buying Arsenal for the, er, arsenal, weren’t disappointed either. Factory pulls off the same trick and keeps our attention by adding a little more.

Factory is designed to let you use high technology (computers, robots, cyberware) along with high magic (elementals, demons, golems) as easily and as excitingly as possible. The first stage is to equate the two. Technology is magic.

As author Erik Kjerland succinctly surmises, “Toasters are powered by tiny fire mephits.” There isn’t actually any cyberware; the magical equivalent is dweoware. If you thought implanting an electronic device in your arm was risky then what about implanting a fire mephit powered device in your head? I was pleased to discover that Perpetrated Press had thought of that too. Factory contains rules for surgery failures.

I’m going to point out the new spells early in the review too. The spells aren’t a major feature of the book but I laughed in delight when I discovered the Blue Screen of Death spell. As computer admins around the world will tell you; there really is such an effect.

The book has several main sections: computers, robots, exoskeletons, dweoware and templates.

I’ve never seen so much useful text on computers in an RPG. You could use Factory as a cyberpunk supplement without bother. It’s a modular system, you’re looking to build (or have access to) the most powerful computer as possible and then enhance it with as many extra add-ons as possible.

Robotics follows in a similar style too. So similar, in fact, that you may not notice the change of chapters. Factory has chapters but like Arsenal it doesn’t have chapter breaks; you’ve got to watch the page headers to know where you are. You start with a basic robot idea and then add upgrades. The more you add the more expensive it gets.

Factory scores another success with the costing of things. Everything in the book as a normal price, that’s the credit (gold) value as worked out by the core rules’ formula but there’s a Mass Market price too. The Mass Market price is cheaper, sometimes considerably so and it reflects that the core rules’ formula is really designed to represent some artisan working on a project all by themselves.

Production lines bring down the cost of things. If DMs which to make the technomagic items in Factory more or less common then they can simply decrease or increase the Mass Market price. I suppose the DM could tinker with the basic cost too but it really does help to have Perpetrated Press make the first (and toughest) step for you. It also means that the Mass Market price is balanced throughout the book.

Factory supports d20 and D20 Modern and so robotic characters are twice as tempting as they might otherwise have been. You’ll find the chapter on PC Robots after pages and pages of sample robots, exoskeletons and grey’n’white shaded tables.

PC Robots are very much more powerful than “normal” player characters but although the Effective Character Level (ECL) can be a pain at times it’s standard use here does help to balance things out somewhat. It’s also possible to limit your players to only weaker PC Robot models.

I’m particularly fond of the illustration of the sports robot model on page 116. There’s an example of robotic PC construction too and a good example will always get the thumbs up from me.

Dweonetics has a meaty chunk of the book. There is a vast collection of cyberware in sci-fi, cyberpunk and techno-spy RPGs for inspiration and Factory is able to add in a whole new fantasy approach as well.

The result is that along with your muscle replacement and claws you also have aural masks and nectronic siphons available for installation. There’s a whole bunch of rules for viewing and interpreting different types of auras.

Factory has a six-paged index. It’s easy to find just what you were looking for in the 192-paged book (good value at US $24.95). It’s a pretty book to flick through too.

The artwork is a bit mixed at times, jumping from fuzzy shapes that are clearly supposed to be robots (but not too bad) and to really finely detailed sketches. There’s an anime flavour for much of the book and it sits well with Factory’s style. The babe on the back cover has been available as a wallpaper which I used myself for a while. The front cover is better still.

Factory’s a niche product. If you want magical robots then you’ll want to buy Factory. That comment isn’t a fair summary of the book. Factory’s more successful than that.

If you buy Factory then you’ll want magical robots in your campaign. Probably. The book does what it sets out to do, scores hit on presentation, illustration, balanced crunch and most important of all – it scores a hit with inspiration.