Game: Artifacts of the Ancients
Publisher: RPGObjects
Series: Darwin’s World: d20
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 18th, February 2002
Reviewer’s Rating: 7/10 [ Good ]
Total Score: 7
Average Score: 7.00
If you’re running a Darwin’s World game or even if you’re only thinking about it then I will recommend Artifacts of the Ancients. The supplement does an awful lot of work for the GM and is a good reflection of RPGObjects growing competence in the PDF RPG market.
The “front cover” had been on preview on the publisher’s website a few days before the download was released but I had not found the time to go look, the resulting effect was the sudden appearance two scary eyes when I opened up the file. I did not have too long to wait for the download, it comes all zipped up and weights in at 1,802KB – which isn’t bad for 50+ pages of text and graphics. This is the first 1.0 release from RPGObjects where the graphics come inline with the text and I think the change is for the better. I’ll note here that RPGObjects have re-released their previous downloads with the graphics moved inline too. It’s not just the presence of some pictures that makes for a better layout; I also felt that the text placement was better. Although text still sometimes wraps down the side of grey background info boxes you’ll never find a column of text that’s annoyingly narrow.
I recently read a review of Darwin’s World on another website where the author spent just a couple of lines to say that he didn’t understand why people would use daggers when they could use a gun or really why they would bother with low technology at all. He then wrote off the game. Whereas that reviewer is perfectly entitled to his own view I couldn’t but help think he’d failed to grasp the basics of the setting. Guns are far superior to knives; it’s just that all too often in the Twisted Earth you have to make do with the knife. Technology can build an empire in the remains of Earth and no technology is greater than the science from the golden age of history. The artifacts of the ancients are presented in the same way that you might expect magic weapons and items to presented in a fantasy game. Rather than the Dungeons and Dragons format of wands and stuff, the break down is more appropriate to the game setting. Your players can try to dig up; junk items, foodstuffs, good juju, arcanum, gizmos, advanced weapons, advanced armour and vehicles.
Junk Items are more interesting than their name suggests and are probably my favourite section. Junk items are those remains that simply sing out as useful for adventurers. The Ion bonding tape, for example, requires a strength check at DC20 to rip or tear. That sort of flavour continues through the chapter and expands to include colour coded access cards. The better the access card then the more high level the bunker it might open up. Currency for adventurers or mercenaries, I think.
Foodstuffs are a nice idea and might have been something that a GM would overlook. They’re prefect for very small level treasures since they’re clearly one use. In the blasted wastelands of Darwin’s World finding a bar of snacks that’ll provide you with food for a whole week is a great success, it might, for example, give you enough food to try a trek from your current ruined city to the trading post nearby. The foodstuff section doesn’t include foosty hamburgers or similar, rather it’s more futuristic entries such as dehydrated pills.
The current level of global technology, or rather, the lack of it, has led to the more advanced medicines which have survived to simply be labelled as “good juju”. I imagine a curious scav popping open a tube of pills, taking one and falling over in frothing heap is an example of “bad juju”. There’s a table for just that sort of thing since one of the underlying game mechanics in the system has the chance of advanced drugs working correctly on the newer generation of mutants (and therefore less human) much reduced. This section includes medical equipment as well as simple pills and tablets. I always though that digging up an advanced healing pack in the remains of a ruined post apocalyptic setting was far less damaging to the suspension of disbelief than the injured characters finding a healing potion or “elf food” lying around in some medieval dungeon.
Is the plural arcana or arcanum? Whichever the case the role of the Arcanum is to provide access to information. Here you’ll find important and worthwhile books, manuals and maps and since we’re dealing with the lost technologies of the Ancients the scope extends to brain boosting implants. The implants give a nice in-game use for the Cybernetics skill. The roll really is not one you’d want to botch.
Gizmos are a lot like junk items except that they seem to be bigger and better but often require a more fancy power source. Communicators and advanced weapon parts fall under this section. If you are looking to up the technology available to your players then gizmos are a good place to start since they certainly contain the wow factor but do not automatically give the heroes an overwhelming advantage.
There are RPGs out there that seem to be successful purely thanks to their tech-head weapon-boy syndrome. Pictures of guns with appropriate stats seem to give a certain style of gamer plenty to talk about. The advanced weapon section of Artifacts opens this door to Darwin’s World. This possible fan base has clearly not been lost on the author either and the section is super-long and is the only chapter to have its own level of bookmarks (press F5 in Acrobat Reader). There’s certainly enough here to keep people happy.
Just in case you’re curious the best Armour Bonus I could find in the advanced armour section is a +14. That’s the mighty power armour. On the downside the NBC suit protects against bio-weapons and not the TV channel. :)
The vehicle section is a huge bonus. I would have been content with a long list of vehicles, I would have found something to complain about if there had only been a token gesture, instead I’m rather pleased. The vehicle section includes rule suggestions for vehicle to vehicle combat and then addresses the issue of what sort of vehicle by covering the base type and then adding on modifications. This is a great way to turn your post-apocalyptic game into the Mad Max ™ style many people will be keen to try. There are nicely succinct rules for crashes as well.
Throughout the entire load there is the careful use of tables. In particular I liked the random chance of discovery tables. I’m very much a “story before dice” sort of player/gm and sometimes people get confused about my enthusiasm for encounter/discovery tables – since they’re so clearly dice based. The reason’s pretty simple; I think the players should go off and explore that ruined building if they want do and just because I don’t have anything prepared for them should not mean that they’ll fail to find anything. The “treasure tables” in Artifacts of the Ancients are pretty smart too. Most have three columns through minor, moderate and major to represent the scale of the find so the GM can decide in general terms the scale of the find before rolling. Those items such as advanced weapons that really wouldn’t count as a minor find are presented only with the moderate and major sections. These tables also include usual information such as the cost of the items or game mechanics summaries.
Artifacts of the Ancients is certainly worthwhile. It’ll save the GM an awful lot of hard work and should inspire the players to go in search of a treasure haul.
