Game: Juggernauts
Publisher: Collision Entertainment Design
Series: none
Reviewer: Kinslayer
Review Dated: 18th, September 2003
Reviewer’s Rating: 6/10 [ On the ball ]
Total Score: 6
Average Score: 6.00
For this review, the things that you may find less than favourable will be covered first, followed by the better features. Hopefully, this will leave you feeling positive about the game–more of an “eat your vegetables then get desert” scenario. The premise of the game is that you are an unstoppable (hopefully) force in a world that is completely gone awry. The game mixes near-future with the supernatural.
Bad: First of all, those looking for the pretty pictures are out of luck. Beyond the cover page, there aren’t any. Secondly, there are obvious signs that this is an effort of a beginning publisher: the text is left-aligned–rather than justified, there are sections where the emphasis (as ALL CAPS) is used to excess, the bottom of each page has a link to the source used to create the pdf, and the tone of the language is informal overall. None of these are really onerous, merely indicative of a worthy effort. I note them here because they are important factors to some. The game is light in tone–it’s subtitled “A Gun Stroking Roleplaying Game”–which is a big negative point for those in the “if you have fun, it’s not really roleplaying” crowd. There aren’t many rules (for some this is a plus). The world is not clearly detailed, but given the premise this may not be possible. The dice mechanic is unusual–the roll/guess/roll/etc. method was a nice change, but slowed down play, as did the number of multiple rerolls in combat. Perhaps because it was such a different system, and we were new to playing it, but in playtest we often seemed more focused on the dice themselves than the cinematic nature of combat in Juggernauts.
Good: I enjoyed playing this game. There is an astonishing, refreshing, wonderful lack of pretence. The world has gone straight to hell, the characters are weapon-toting power-monsters, and all manner of strange events occur around them on a regular basis. Most games degenerate to this point over time (sometimes minutes), but Juggernauts uses it as a premise. There are few editing errors. Comparing this 22 page file to a random 22 pages of larger publishers, it is obvious that Mr. Brown either rechecks his own work very thoroughly, or has the assistance of a decent editor. There are three attributes, balanced (point-buy) to ten total points. Considering that “any value above 3 is supernatural,” you are guaranteed to have at least one outstanding characteristic. Skills are likewise simple: you receive three broad skills, rated according to competence. Some of you may already be thinking, “I’ll just pick all butt-kicking skills;” don’t bother, all Juggernauts characters are “already considered a master in every respect of engagement.” Your characters are also enhanced by at least one Trait–essentially a super power, but as they are not referenced as such, you may think along broader lines, although the example does use intangibility. One interesting aspect of the Traits is that there is an enforced degree of group effort: you get to pick your power, but another player gets to pick the limitation on that power. The final nice point (for me at least) is that the game concludes with design notes and a detailed special thanks section that includes this little gem: “Patricia Pulling, and her many fellow collaborators. If there weren’t more people like her in the world, I’d have nothing to build my own worlds in small protest against. Kudos, Pat – I’m sure I wasn’t the only designer out there to read your report and suddenly become inspired to build a game.”
