Hey there !

Have you already tested this rule set ? (You can find it here : http://wreckingballgamelabs.dvd20.org/?p=37)

For those who already played with it, how good is it for completely new players ?
And this is a good system in overall ? What's your opinions about it ?

There's a big difference in my mind between, say, Gambit (quick not so strong), and Juggernaut (strong not so quick), but in this game you can't be fast or strong without also being the other thing since it's all covered by Hard.  Maybe Spiderman vs The Rhino is a more apt description?  Also, is the game really saying that Heath Ledger as The Joker is Hot because he was so scary?  You can't be really good at ranged combat without being really smart?  I didn't know that, when he was first at Cambridge and had just been diagnosed with motor neuron disease, that Stephen Hawking was on the Olympic USA Archery team since he's so Sharp which means he's both smart and good at ranged combat.  Already the game doesn't really seem to make that much sense.

Some minor typos here and there (p11 immanent should be imminent, p12 now should be know).  Also, apparently it's based on a video game?  Now that I think about it, I think I remember seeing a Borderlands video game.  I thought at first Borderlands was a table-top RPG.  This might explain the rules not seeming to make much sense -- if your rules are all based around four predefined archetypes and characters can basically play one of those archetypes (tweaked slightly with slightly different class abilities or playbooks), then yeah Stephen Hawking is going to be an Olympic archer.

I'm not a big fan of the typography, I find it hard to read.  True, it's about the same font as RPoL, and maybe it's the background or the way the bottom of the t curves a bit more, but I find the pdf hard to read.  I think the font should be smaller -- I have to scroll through multiple pages to read about one character class and the pictures are hard to make out, the whole thing is kind of difficult for me to read.  Too much bold text.  p16, I heard you the first time with Class Mod, you don't have to keep Screaming It At Me!  There's a lot of casual profanity.

p17, "Hexkey, though, this one time I fell into a skag nest and you ran the hell away! You left me hanging, bro. Your History with me is now 0." What if Jerome didn't think Hexkey would have run away?  "You calling my character a coward?  We're about to get some PvP up in here, yo!"

An assassin who's Hard is going to be down one attribute point from a non-Hard assassin?  Aren't assassins supposed to be kind of fast/strong?  But they'll start at a point deficit comparatively if they want Hard 1.  (For an assassin, Cool is always a 2.  One of your other stats must be zero and if it's Hard then you get an extra point in Sharp.)  This doesn't make sense especially since the assassin Iron Hand ability specifically adds to melee damage.  This sort of "pick what you want for your class-defined attributes but pick the one we want you to have or you'll be at a point disadvantage" seems to be the same with other classes as well.

The person pictured as a gunzerker would be a Hot 0 to me, but gunzerkers are either going to be Hot 1 or Hot 2.

You can't be an uberHotty without a massive body tattoo starting on your face?

There's no xp section anywhere?  How do you improve your stats?  (I didn't see a section for this in the table of contents or in my quick views through the book.)  Also no index, which is probably going to be frustrating during play.  Ctrl+F with a pdf will probably help a lot with that, though.

Interesting concept -- basically d20 but roll 2d6 instead of 1d20, ability bonuses are your abilities, and instead of skills that you apply to different actions you get different action choices.  The gun fu seems cool.  The tone of the book seems to be either 2010 California surfer or brotastic.  It could be a lot of fun to play.
This message was last edited by the user at 08:52, Thu 27 Mar 2014.

I've played it twice. It's an RPG that captures the feel of Borderlands perfectly. If you've never played borderlands you won't get it. Profanity, slang, excessive violence, and dark humor that suddenly gets serious is the point.

I can't speak to the aesthetic values as i tend not to notice those past the art itself. Fonts don't bother me. Mechanics-wise the game does what it set out to do. I liked it when i played it and would run it.

Thanks to both of you for taking some time to answer to my questions.
I will ask my players if they are interested in playing a game session of this game after they took a look at your comments. :)

Genghis, this is a hack for the Apocalypse World game. Essentially just just reskinning it and adding in the required details to match the video game Borderlands. AW has exactly the same dirty feel with low level language and what not. It's supposed to though because it's a mix of Mad Max and every other action flick I can think of.

The basic mechanics are roll 2d6+ability, on a 10+ you get what you want; on a 7-9, you succeed but at a cost; on a 6 or less, you fail. It's the core mechanic behind Dungeon World as well. I have played Dungeon World and really like it. AW is not my particular cup of tea, but alas I need to try it yet.

The comment from p17 and the History building is actually one of my favorite aspects of the system. It gets you right into the fiction, making the good bits up Right Now (in Dungeon World Parlance). They just used a poor choice in their example, IMO.

Tuttu, if you've played Apoc World I think you'll like Borderlands RPG, though I think they are breaking the OGL slightly. Really, it's the exact same game, just different text and a few tweaks to the mechanics. I say pull out your assault rifle and hit the Great Skag Nest, I mean really, how else are you gonna get rich in the wastes?

I agree with the mediocre layout. The font is horrible. The images though are a decent approximation of the cell-shading freeze frames from borderlands.

My nickel.

Thanks for your addition. :)