Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll podcast.
My name is Ryan. And I'm Zachariah Trench.
And tonight we are going to be going over the company from
Logan Dean. I do not have it physically in
hand because I think the last print room was like 2 years ago.
But hey, do another print run because I really want it.
Very rare you don't have it in hand for the show, you know, I
like it, really is like, I genuinely almost have
everything. And if I don't have it, I'll
spend way too much money to get it.
We scour in eBay, Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely spend too much
money on eBay. On a couple of games I found the
Spire of Quetzal, which I was supposed to get from Free
League, but they fucked up and gave them all the way before
they fulfill their Kickstarter. So spend too much money to get
one of those. So that's fun.
We're already off topic. Whoo.
Hey, listen, this is how it goes.
We got a couple minutes of bullshit here in the beginning
for those that are unaware. Also, we have started side
quests, Definitely want to go check out our first episode with
the Guild and we got a couple coming up soon.
We're just trying to reschedule our Mouse Rider game of Side
Quest and then we have a couple fun ones coming up in October.
Excited for that and I. Do I'm also excited to, in a
month or two, live in a state where the power doesn't really
shut off for five hours. So yeah, really good.
We do. And you'll be in the same time
zone as me. So we can actually, like, I
don't know, have the same energy level ish for the whole episode
and it'll. Be a fun change.
I mean, it's hard cuz like, you know, for you we started the
show at like 6:00 PM and like I would say it's like 8 early for
me. So like, you know, by the time
we're done, I'm like, damn, it's it's late brother.
I'm sleepy. I'm old.
You can come out here. We'll just start it at 7:00 PM
and just split the difference. But I'll probably keep going at
6:00, so I don't think we're not, we're not really
spotlighting anything. I've got some Kickstarter stuff,
but we're going to wait till we both get that.
So I think we're good. Kind of just hop right in,
right? Yeah, you know, why not?
Let's do it. You know, let's do it.
Let's review this game. Let's do it so the game real
quick. It comes in this game of
corporate horror, right? So you play as as corporate
response teams of like a rich corporation to like horrible
shit. But it comes in three, I'm going
to call it two books and then like an extra bit.
So we'll go over both books and a little bit of the extra bit
too, because honestly, this is really short all around.
But let's let's actually kick over and look at it.
So this is Wuhan Baxter internal use only employee handbook.
I love the use of this in World kind of Employee Handbook.
Welcome to the company bit in the beginning, it's really
great. Yeah, it's I do like the yeah,
yeah, I always like the there's other things that do very
similar things. But so yes, the employee
handbook like beautiful. It's like, hey, in case of
emergency, yeah. Really leads us like corporate
satire aspect. Absolutely.
I know on one of them, I can't remember which one.
There is a like a red Zine with like the white bar.
That's kind of what I mimicked the our socials after, if you
saw any of that stuff. But I would love to see this as
like every employee handbook I've got.
I don't know about you, but it's got like a white like ring
binding on it and you like flip it like that would be so great.
Lossy pages, right. Yeah.
I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've gotten exactly those
before. Yeah, that would be.
That would be dope to see that come up as this.
But as we said, this is pretty short.
I think the employer Handbook is only like 24 pages and that's
including everything here. So there's no.
Way it just it feels, I don't know, 24 sounds like more than
it actually is. But yeah, I think you're right.
So yeah, but I mean there's some pages that are like a ton of art
and and things like that, so. Looking.
It's very easy to read, you know, incredibly readable, super
readable, super readable. And I I think, like we had a
different first impression of this because a lot of times what
we do is we'll both read it. And the first time we actually
get to talk about it is like the 5 minutes before the show
starts, we go, what do you think?
And the other person will be like, oh, I think this and
nobody will be like, oh, I think that.
I think I had a little different perspective.
Like I I fell in love with this game right away.
And I think you were just like. I don't think it's bad at all.
It's a game. It's definitely like, you know
the game for sure. Yeah.
But I'm gonna, I guess I'll go through and talk about why I
really loved it right off the bat.
But as Hunter said, like, it's really clean.
It's really light. I will say it's super light.
I do. Like that God I love me AZ game
like and this like I will say that this is, this is definitely
like a complete game. You know, there's a couple
zines, very easy to go through. Like every time we go through
something that's big, I'm just like, but this exists, you know?
And this is great. Yeah.
I mean, that's exactly what it is.
Like, I know there are games out there that could do a similar
thing with five times as many pages.
And I don't know why they do. Yeah, I don't need all of that.
I will say. And as we go through this, there
are a couple of things that there were definitely points
where I wouldn't mind two to three more pages, you know what
I mean? But everything that's missing,
it's not like something's missing.
It's more of like let the GM decide what they want to do with
that. And I'm I don't mind that as
like a ton but I do sometimes like would rather hear what the
creator's perspective on it was. But front page here as we said
it looks like an employee handbook.
There's a WB logo for Wuhan Baxter which is the name of the
the company, the Megacore. It's pretty dope logo.
It's got like a triple like in color.
It's got a very like kind of like 80s orangey reddish kind of
vibe. It's like a W B's.
There's like 3 stacked on each other and then you immediately
go into an overview page and this is I love these right at
the beginning. This is just a breakdown of
pretty much the the rules of the game.
You have a skill roll D10 chart, so it gives you.
This is a mixed success game using dice pools.
So you will roll D 10s and you'll build up a number of D
10s and then you'll get mixed success based on one is a
critical fail, two to seven is a failure, 8 to 9 is a 6/6
success, and 10 is a critical success.
And one of the things you build up throughout the entire game is
stress. A lot of stress.
And that's one of the things that I fell in love with right
away. I love games that use stress
mechanics and and consequences. And so going through that real
quick, you have at A1 you get you add +2 stress and you would
automatically roll the burnout, which we'll get to.
Two to seven is a failure, you add one stress. 8 to 9 is a
success. You get a success and then a
critical 10, you get 1 success and you can actually remove one
stress. And when I first looked at that
in my brain I went I'm not good at math, that feels wrong.
So I brought up a dice thing. You know, I know D6 is more than
D 10s, eight. Plus if you get at least two D
10s an 8-9 or ten, you have a 51% chance of rolling an 8-9 or
ten on at least one die. Which feels like, I mean, it's
only 30% of the numbers. Right.
But it's a 50% chance, which is interesting.
I I like the D 10s versus the D sixes and gives you a little bit
more spread I think, which is interesting.
Yeah, I need to lay it out. I was doing the math on the
individual dice just to see what was on.
I mean, obviously D 10s every, it's 10% every number and then
D6 is what, 16 ish percent? Yeah.
So I I found a dice calculator actually I was looking for one
and I found a different one that literally gives you the things
like a whole stack where it says like you know greater than or
equal to to like X greater than equal to at least One X.
Like it was a really for for the dice that we use it was great
Remember Me to send you that. So basics of the skill rolls and
there's difficulty checks so there are trivial which is 0 so
you don't roll it all easy which is you need at least one
success. Difficulty is 2 success,
extremely difficult as three success and impossible as 4
success. So that's you know it's a
diceful system. So you need least those number
of successes. There's a Burnout roll table.
It's just a 1D table. You roll less than your current
stress and you add roll to stress and you compare with the
burnout effects. So we'll we'll probably roll
back to this in a little bit. One of the things I love right
away is this combat flow chart. This is.
Really nice. Very nice Flow, Listen, flow
charts everywhere. We need more of them, you know.
This is what I wish was full in blades in the dark.
Yeah, I and when I saw this, I was like, that's what Blades
Dark needed. Pretty immediately.
So pretty immediately. So real quick, no we'll we'll go
over comment later but you'll see this comma flow chart
literally right on like the first page of the freaking Zine.
And I and I love it's right there and a little thing.
This is take stress win. So right off the bat pretty much
all of the tables that you're going to need in the comma flow
chart you need fit in one page right off the bat.
And one of the things I love about this, we've talked about
this before. I love rules.
At least a breakdown of the basic rules prior to character
creation. Yeah.
So I understand a game that has a like a quick reference at the
top or bottom of the book. You know, like just so I can
open it and be like okay, hold on real quick what?
And like this. Pretty much any question I would
have about playing this game, I could I could answer right on
this page and every I think it's like every game should do that,
even if there's a bigger, more like complicated system.
Like, I definitely think there's a way to put a 2 pages at the
back of any book and just be like here's the most basic.
Like how this game works, like mechanically and you're like,
okay, cool. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, there's just, I just don't find any reason not to.
Like a perfect example is Merck Borg like?
Yeah, it really is. They do pages or just yeah.
It's really is kind of simple and like I yeah, I couldn't
think of the reason why you wouldn't do that.
Especially because like a lot of people put up books where.
A big thing, it's like we want this to be very usable at the
table. We want this to be very GM
runner friendly or whatever, you know.
And it's like, well then the quick reference at the back or
at the top of the book, you know, Yeah.
And it's nice when it's on the in pages too, cuz like I was
saying one thing, the markborgs are on the in pages.
Yes, because it makes the book like the easiest.
Unless you have like a weird binding or something, the page
the book will open easiest and say open easiest with just the
cover. So the fact that it's on the end
pages makes it too breathful. But anyway, so there's the
overview and then we get to a welcome page which is more in
World Employee Handbook. Fun.
Really love this again. Like it's interesting too that
they use it. I feel like they use it in a
really good way here, Like if the book was longer they could
maybe convert this into like the whole thing written, like an
employee handbook. But I like how it's just a
couple pieces in the front and then it just gives you the
rules, so it says welcome. I have the director, you know.
Well, no, We'll just yeah, we'll just read this here.
Welcome. Welcome to the Wuhan Baxter
Corporation, exclamation point. You are joining a proud
tradition of innovation, invention and manufacturing the
dates back over 300 years. In the pages of this handbook,
you will find the tools needed to become an integral part of
our corporate family as a member of the Asset Recovery and Art
Containment division known as ARK.
On behalf of myself, the Board of Directors, and everyone at
WB, welcome aboard. We look forward to the stunning
accomplishments in your future. Jonas Baxter, chairman.
I love the fake signature. You know, it reminds me of when
I was like. 18 or 19, I got a job at Sam's Club, which is
Walmart company, and it's the same thing.
It's like, get the book and you're like, welcome to the
Walmart family. Sam Walton with the, with the,
the plugged signature, You're like, all right, cool.
Yeah. And it's got that WB tag on it.
Yeah, it's it's perfect. This is exactly what I said.
Like this is I worked at too many places that have this exact
fucking thing in the front, and it's great.
So at the bottom here, Air is the company.
It gives a breakdown of who the writer and designer are, which
is Logan Dean. Logan Dean's done some really
great stuff. He's most recently worked with
the Sherman Rock and World Champ game code in 1978.
The horror game preorders are still open, so you can go snag
that. We definitely talked about that
on the show. It looks like a fun time.
I mean, I backed it, so I'm going to get it.
But yeah, obviously, yeah, yeah. We had a whole episode where
Adam came on and talked about it, and Logan worked with Adam
on that project and it looks fantastic, so definitely want to
go check that out. Alexander Mitchell is the
illustrator. I love when creators do this
too. All the typefaces used in the
book are listed here, which is great.
It makes it especially for socials, because I do try to
make our socials like kind of look like the game that we're
doing. It's really super helpful.
And then there's. Actually make your own little
module that like, fits into the style.
You're like, cool. I know what the style is.
You know, it's fantastic. That lemon, that lemon milk by
Mars NAV, the actual accompany like writing for like the cover.
Such a nice clean font. It's really great and it's free.
I was able to just download it. So there is an index here.
It's not hyperlink but the things like 20 pages, so it
doesn't bother me. Yeah, I think we're, I think I
might let it slide on this one. Yeah.
And there's no bookmarks either. But again, like this is a Zine
Zine like so. Zine, Zine, you know.
Also, there's a quick reference to the rules on the first page
of the Zine, so it's like you know exactly.
And considering that like pages 7 to 16 are all just like your
character sheets and character creation, it's.
Mostly character like yeah, it really is.
It's incredibly usable out the gate.
I mean by the nature of it being a scene with the rules in the
first page and that. And that's the thing too, is
like this. This could easily be given 50
pieces of color art. Like you could easily see this
done up almost like like Blade Runner from like Free League and
make it like 100 page scene with the same number of rules.
Doesn't need it though. But you get blamed by by free
league. Oh yes, I didn't so oh, I did
yeah, I I am starting to peel away from from some of the stuff
free leagues but now because I'm tired of the fucking IPS.
But but I I did get a lot of their stuff for a long time and
it is good. So anyway, so introduction.
Play the game. Employees, careers, equipment
and personnel form. That's it.
That's the whole scene. It's like 24 pages.
And the last game is like the weekly scroll and boom, there we
go. So, so we got we start the
introduction. The company is a survival horror
game centered around corporate emergency response teams and the
aftermath of the situations they're assigned to deal with.
Players take on the roles of employees assigned to response
teams that quickly fund themselves in over their heads
with one player facilitating play as the game manager.
That's it. I, I, and I love that vibe right
off the bat. I feel like it's almost like a
mix of like Fist and mothership in my mind, you know what I
mean? So I'm finished.
The vibes. Yeah.
Mother. Fist, Fist.
Mother. Yeah.
That was better. Yeah, Mother Fist is good.
So. But this game, this game did
come out in like I think maybe like 2017 or 2018.
You know, it's crazy. The number of games that have
come out since 2018, like like when I was reading through the
Black Hack came out in 2018. Yeah, the amount of stuff that's
come out in the last five years that completely changed the
TTRPG space that I thought was way older is crazy.
I. Mean one of the stuff that I
mean that I am super into is like, and there's a ton of shit
now. It's like 2020 on because
everyone was stuck in their homes through this thing that
happened for a couple years and it's still happening.
And yeah, and so it forced everyone to put to like, I don't
make a bunch of games for my buddies to play, you know?
I mean, if you play. With my buddies, if there is any
Silver lightning whatsoever, it is the IT is the stuff that
people were able to produce when they were not allowed to do
anything else. So so rolling dice.
Basically it's just any trivial task involved.
You roll 10 inside a dice and the number of detuns rolled is
determined by your employees Score in the skill and the
skills can be combined with various different things.
Using logical argument you might be able to use multiple skills,
items and or perks and then you have burnout and stress burnout
effects that can subtract some dice as well.
But for the most part you are building a dice pull based on
your items and skills and then you roll your dice pull and take
the highest one number of dice. So it's really the same system
as as as it's. Correctly, Yeah.
So it's it's just D 10s of the same thing, which is cool.
So that there's the D10 role which we talked about in the
beginning, which is the credit 10/8 to 9 success, two to seven
failure and the one crit fail with the various successes and
burnouts and stresses associated with that.
There's the difficulty role right there, which you already
went over as well. And then there is the play of
the game. So I will say there are a a
couple of things that I actually wrote notes on like the very few
critiques I had as far as like the way this was written and one
of them is pretty early here I was at work and it was actually
not super busy. So I actually sat down and wrote
some notes okay. So this is the question I had.
So resolving skill rules after constructing a dice full
employees role against an acting's difficulty.
So it's a state of difficulty right off the back from the GM.
So you need at least two successes.
You need 3 successes, etcetera, executing their highest role one
by determining if they were successful and taking any stress
incurred. Successes that are rolled but do
not succeed. More difficult tasks may be
banked and the role may be pushed.
OK, that is a question I have. So I'm actually going to jump
ahead a couple real quick in the.
So the next thing is spinning against yourself.
We'll go over that in a second. Then there's unskilled roles,
which we'll go over in a second, and then it goes down to pushing
a role. OK, I'm always of the mind that
if you discuss another rule in the game, you might as well put
that rule right after if it makes no difference.
So I wouldn't mind pushing it. I also, yeah, I mean, because
I'm a I'm immediately going to go down to go, OK, pushing a
role. So, right, so this says now,
listen, now, now, hear me now. Any failed role may be
reattempted or pushed at greater risk.
If a role is pushed, the resulting role double s any
stress incurred and may lead to unforeseen consequences that the
gym decides upon. Dice added to A roll by taking
stress, losing health, or spending drive, which we'll get
to in a second, are not added to a pushed roll pool.
Combat rolls, fight, Dodger, body cannot be pushed.
First of all, I love this. I honestly this is the reason
the the core of the fact that every roll you roll can develop
stress, not just if you decide to push.
You get stressed, right? Really, Because that could have
been an option. Where you push, you get
stressed. This is stressed every roll.
You could potentially get stressed and I but I love
pushing the role and even being able to spend against yourself
what you'll get to in a second. But The thing is, in the pushing
a role section, it doesn't talk about banking or what banking
is. I assume it means that your
successes can be held, but it's weird because that the the this
I feel like the rules for that is kind of across two different
little sections here. It is.
I wouldn't mind it. I see it like it's like the last
sentence of resolving and then it's referred to and pushing.
I wouldn't mind being like banked.
Like if you roll 3 successes on a four success needed, then you
can slub it and yeah, hold those 3, right?
Yeah. And I can only imagine because
we're grown adults that have used words before that that's
what banked means. But a tiny bit of clarification
and maybe just dropping that into.
Pushing a rule section or having it in there again, just another
line. This is what I'm saying.
Like I feel like this book would benefit from like even just like
one. I was I said 2:00 to 3:00, but
the amount of rules I can fit on one page in here, even just one
more page worth of just clarifications.
I'm going to space everything out a little bit.
That's one of the ones where I'm like this is what I would do and
this is what makes sense to me. But I wouldn't mind it being
slightly more clear. I've been trying to say here
this whole time, thinking of like what this dice.
This dice mechanic also reminds me of and it's it's like a mix
of To Die Dark in Primal Quest because like, it's a number of
hits, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Primal Quest for I, you know what, even more so I think this
is just straight up reminds me so much of Primal question.
Primal Quest came out much later than the company.
But yeah, and it uses well, that one is a little bit different
because there's an extra mechanic at the end which is
like you subtract positives and negatives, right.
That does remind me a lot of that and honestly, in a dice
pull system, this. I really do enjoy this.
And for all those people that said that I sounded like I hated
Blades in the Dark, I think Blades in the Dark is great.
I just I really want to play this.
It's not that I hated it, but they're like, man, right?
Seem to have a lot of negative things to say.
Here's the thing, we don't do games on this show that we don't
like. You know?
For the most part I thought Blades in the Dark was great.
I think that core dice mechanics are the best part of it, and
it's just some of the extra stuff that I wasn't as big a fan
of. But that core dice mechanic is
is reminiscent in here, which is the.
The build a dice pool aspect of it so and then there's a YouTube
down read and read comments so. Yeah.
So the next thing after resolving roles of spending
against yourself, I really enjoy this.
So employees can add dice rules through voluntary sacrifice in
order to survive. So you can actually reduce one
of your. You can reduce drive, which is a
a a thing we'll get to in character creation where it's a,
it's a pool that you have. By one.
And you can do that to any role. You can reduce your health by
one for any physical or non combat roles, or you can add one
stressed yourself for any intellectual or technical roles.
Again, This is why I love this game.
The fact that every role you have can can accrue stress, the
fact that you can push yourself to occur even more stress.
And on almost any role outside of combat, you can actually
reduce your resources or increase your stress as much as
you want in order to survive. The amount of choice plugged
into that and how long you can be a lot of the time around of
various assets that you have available to you and like okay,
how much worse do I want to make this for myself to make it out
of here, you know? It also feels very innately
within the rules, and I really enjoy that.
It makes your character feel extraordinarily expendable.
Like they're just another corporate cog because I feel
like you'll chew through characters which the corporation
does not give a fuck about. And I just like that that's.
Yeah, so there's unskilled roles.
If an employee does not have points in the requisite scale to
a temper roll, it does not want to add die.
They may roll 1D10 and resolve the next tier down on the roll
table. So basically you can just roll
1D10, but if you roll like a set an 8 you actually it sounds like
you actually then just get the tier for A7.
So it's not just that you're only rolling 1D ten, that you're
rolling 1D10 and dropping by 1. So it's bad to not try to push
yourself, which is another thing I love about it.
It's the game almost forces you to continue to like, hurt
yourself and put yourself at greater risk constantly.
Very cool. We talked about pushing roll a
little bit. We talked about collaboration is
one of the things that also I wanted a little bit of
clarification on. So this is an interesting one.
So tell me how you feel about this.
Most roles are done by individual employees.
However, collaborating on roles may prove to be more useful.
If an employee adds their skills to roll, another employee is
making to A roll. I think the whole typo.
They may roll their dice as if they were in the employee's
pool. This may result in the assisting
employee taking stress. This is useful for difficult
tasks. So basically we could both say
fuck it, we're both doing a X skill roll and roll as many dice
as we have. Our pool would be enormous.
It could be there's my whole pool plus your whole pool as if
you were adding yours to mine, and then we both get the the.
So if we somehow still don't succeed, we both would get
stress, which is a mechanic we've seen elsewhere.
But I feel like, why wouldn't everyone just always collaborate
on every role, which I guess they could.
Yeah, I guess you could. I mean it's also, I don't know,
it's worded interesting. The may roll their dice as if
they were in the employees pool. I mean, I guess it makes sense.
Yeah. I mean what's the limiting
factor on this? Just that you might take stress,
you can use all of your guys for that, for that specific pools
role every time like. I guess you could.
Here's The thing is like, you are still there are still going
to be plenty of times where you don't succeed and plenty of
times where you don't have a skill that someone else does
because the skills are so. I mean, I guess this is one of
those ones where like it does not bother me at all.
I think it's interesting. I also think like the
collaboration. Within like the corporation,
almost like the synergy, you can almost call this instead of
collaboration would be fine because eventually you're going
to get to the point where you can't because you have too much
stress or too few skills or something like that.
So I don't think it's, I don't think it's a problem that I
think it could be in my head because of how limiting and
brutal this is. OK, so interesting.
I see your question though. It's something that I would have
like a question in play where I'd just be like, let's
collaborate on everything and see what happens.
OK, so play the game. You get, which is also, I don't
know why Play of Game tweaked my head a little bit.
I'm like, why do you just call it gameplay, but play of game,
play of game? So items, equipment and weapons
may be used to improve roles. Employees may carry as many
items as they wish without penalty at the GM's discretion.
Most firearms expand one round per turn, so that that that that
like 2 lines right there. Made two more questions in my
mind as we went through this. Right So equipment and weapons
may be used to improve roles. So there's an equipment block
later that tells you how to do that right.
It says employees may carry as many items as they wish without
penalty at the GM's discretion. So that's pretty broad.
There's no inventory system. I wouldn't mind one though,
because listed later in the equipment section is the weight
of everything. So, and I I did read through the
comments on ITCH and they basically and I I believe Logan
said leaving that part up to the GM, that's one of those ones
where I'm like I would be totally fine if you didn't and
you just give me like at least a rough something.
You know what I mean? Well, I think legally to run to
work in this position you need to be be able to lift at least
£50. And be flexible and OK with
fastpaced environments adaptability.
But yeah, so that's that's one of the ones I have where where
he, I think he specifically said like I left that up to the GM's.
I wouldn't mind if he didn't. And just give me an inventory
system. Just give me slots to build a
body or something. You know what I mean?
Like, just like anything, you know, combat's broken into turns
and rounds, which is fine. A turn is individual.
Yeah, we know what turns and rounds are.
So this is a game where I've never run a game like this but
so many designers design it like this.
Have you ever actually run a game where you reroll initiative
at the top of every round? No, I never do.
I like ioffer it. I'm going to be honest, Ioffer
it to every table where we're playing a game and it offers it.
And I've never had table say I was like, hey, listen, we can do
this. We can roll initiative once and
just play out, or we can roll initiative every round and just
redo it. And almost every table.
I think every table I've been at has been like, now once you
don't want no, well, I don't want to do every round.
I'm tracking numbers. The interesting thing I think
about it, and why I think a lot of people like it, is because it
will change the flow of comment every time, because different
people go first and last. I think I give it a choice to my
group, but those guys are smoking and drinking the whole
time, so they're like, no, no more details, man.
Yeah, I think the best initiative I ever played with
the most fun was actually Death in Space, where everybody just
chose who went next. Oh, I forgot that was a how the
space. Works fucking smart.
It's a fucking great idea. Dude, I that was one of the
things where I read it and I was like huh, I don't know about
that. And we played it and I was like
that's the most genius fucking thing ever.
I love it. It made the combat so
interesting. So the way it works in this, at
the top of a combat round, all employees in the GM and the GM
making a where role. Which is just the number of D
10s equal to your aware score, so you get the thing too.
Is like just like other things, like whatever you can, you can
raise your awareness and actually get more.
So you could go higher in combat each time and stuff, but it's a
number of D 10 equal to your aware score, and the employee
with the highest role on a D10 acts first, followed by the
others in descending order, including the GM.
Ties and away roles. The employees just decide and if
the employee ties at the GM, the GM acts first, which I love
again, fucking players on their turn.
Employee may do two of three things so going back up to the
top we'll we'll scroll up after we finish, come by just a peek
at it again. You get two of three options.
You can perform an action, you can move or you can attack.
No Oxford column here. Only one of these may be
performed per turn. Complex actions may take
multiple rounds, which means. You get to do two of those, but
you can't do one twice. You have to do 2 of the three.
So move and take an action, move an attack, attack and take an
action. I like that.
I think that's really interesting because there's a
lot of times where you would like to retrieve an item and
attack, and if you could just sack a move instead.
Yeah, like that's interesting, you know?
Yeah. So it's it's interesting to do 2
and three, but not two of of 1. The only thing that I would, I
would possibly. Allow if but it doesn't really
work in this game, but maybe in different game is is moved
twice. If you want the concept of like
sprinting away or something you know what I mean.
But that would be the only thing that would allow twice.
But even even taking two attacks would be interesting use of, you
know, choice and stuff. But I really like how this is
how this is super light. You just get take pick to do
that and then just move on. I like that a lot, actually.
It's funny in this game called Add Ups that no one's ever
played except me, because I wrote it and my table played it.
Actually, this is how combat turns work.
You have three options, and you can take two of the three, but
you can't take any one twice. There you go and it works.
Actually, I think it works really well.
So. Well, how about when you get to
the West Coast, we actually start working on that again and
you get that shit done. We should.
So the next is when attacking, the attacker makes a fight role,
adding any skills or items. Each success counts as a hit.
Critical successes count as two hits.
Attacks do not incur or relieve stress, so combat roles are
pretty much the only thing taken out of the whole concept of
stress and burnout. Like all of those kind of
things. You can't get rid of stress, you
don't gain stress, you can't push roles, you can't do any of
that stuff with it. It's it's own roles, the same as
everything else. There's just none of the extra
stuff added to it. I like that.
And I like when when games have this idea of like, you don't
have to worry about like how much damage a thing does.
Whatever. Any successes you have is is a
hit. That's one.
I like that a lot. And if a weapon's more powerful,
you can just give them more dice to roll, which gives them more
options for successes, which is interesting.
The defender may roll either dodge or body to avoid the
attack, Dodge to avoid body to withstand what?
Oh, you said body, they said. And then I was like, wait, what
did you say? So yeah, dodge or body.
Each success that the defender rolls, cancels and attackers
hit. Defense rules do not incur
relieve stress, so that's interesting.
So you have to you're literally doing your number of successes
versus their number of successes.
Yeah, I like I like that. Yeah, I would be curious, maybe
adding something of like if you actually roll more than them, if
you're able to do damage back that way, you can do damage both
like both ways each time. Kind of like dirt you just
dodged so well they hit themselves in the face.
Yeah, yeah. There you go.
Yeah. Yes, you're right.
It wouldn't make sense. So when employee takes hits
equal to their current health, they fall unconscious.
Employees may die while unconscious if they incur more
damage or not stabilize by the end of the round.
I mean, that's why the company has insurance, You know, like
employees die. Here's the thing, if they make
money off of every employee that dies, is the whole reason for
the ARC team to just go mill their employees and make a ton
of money? Yeah, you know, it could be.
Surprise the insurance scheme, you know.
There you go. Listen, use life insurance while
you're alive. That's what Instagram keeps
telling me. The GMA asked for an Aware role
outside of combat. On a success, an employee may
make a dodge roll to avoid being surprised like that.
Healing after a successful First Aid or medicine roll to an
employee or survivor. In PC, the target gains 1HP per
success rolled. And then you go, well what is
first aid or medicine roll? Or how many times?
When can you do that? It says resting right after.
Employees may spend one drive each to rest during the rest
period. Any mission clocks are advanced.
We get the clocks later. Game uses clocks, love clocks.
We love them. Employees may remove two stress
and use any first aid item available at the end of the
rest. The GM rolls 1D10 on a 10.
Something unfortunate happened. So even resting, you got a 10%
chance of getting fucked after. But you have to spend a drive to
rest. You can remove to stress.
You can do first days, but you spend a drive to rest.
We haven't even got to what drives are yet.
And I do have a question about drive later.
But then we get to stress and burnout.
Throughout the game, employees will take stress.
Stress is gained in some of the following ways.
So you fail the role. Highly unusual or otherworldly
event occurs. I love that Weird shit comes out
boom. You just take stress.
Another player fails a career role, which I do have a question
on at one point. And then adding dice to a pool,
which is when you push, when you when you're what was.
I don't remember what the thing was called stressing not
stressing yourself, it was called spending against
yourself. It's when you spend against
yourself. So at any time the gym can also
call for a burnout role. So the employee rolls a D10
against their current stress level if the result is less than
their current stress level. They burn out.
Cool. Add the burn out roll over your
stress. You have to roll over to
succeed, right? Am I wrong here?
You're right. It just yeah, yeah, yeah, roll
under guy. That confuses me.
First thing I was like, wait, you roll under and you fail?
That doesn't make sense. I'm like, wait, yeah, it does.
And almost every other instance again.
I read this like three times and it was like, wait a minute, does
that means, yeah, it does. So add the burnout roll result
to the stress level and compare it to the table below.
So that's what's crazy, right? So you.
Add your burnout level to your the stress level and then
compare it right so that you get on.
And I love this. Here's a it's a it's a decent
length chart, but I do really love this.
The only thing, also the thing that would spread this out is
that they added narrative to every one of these tables versus
just straight mechanics, which I'm fine without, but I'm just
saying like this game could be three times longer by adding all
that extra fluff and stuff. There's there's very little
fluff in this. So on a three to four.
You get plus one to all rolls for one D 10 hours which is like
mathematically fantastic. I also love that burnout is all
mechanic and doesn't bring in like trauma, like you don't sell
me of OCD or something. You know what I mean?
I really like that 5 to 6 + 1 whole BPD and the it's like, OK,
well fuck you, yeah. I mean, I think most games are
moving away from like the shitty versions of that.
We're definitely, we've definitely passed a lot.
So, but I do like, I do like the mechanics of this.
And then I would just say tell me how, tell me why what like
what do you got going on? Like definitely can bring a
little more narrative on that. So 3 to 4 + 1 to all rolls for
one D 10 hours, 5 to 6 + 1 to all rolls for one D 10 minutes
seven 8 -, 1 to all roll for one D 10 minutes 9 to 10 minus.
One yeah -1 to all rolls for one D 10 hours. 11 to 12 + 1 stress.
When a teammate fails A roll for one to 10 hours 13 to 14 Gain
two stress. Nearby teammates gain 115 to 16
+ 1 D 10 stress. 17 to 18 Attack the nearest teammate 19 to 20 +
- 1 health. When you gain stress for one D
10 hours, so every stress you get, you also lose health.
You're fucking toast. I love the the when your
teammates fail, you gain stress. I thought that was fucking
because you're every time someone rolls like, don't fuck
up, don't fuck up, don't fuck. Up.
I love that. And that's kind of how career
roles work too. But that's a question I have
about career roles. But yeah, I think this is such a
good burnout effects table where just again, you much like any
corporation, you will be at a constant amount of stress all
the time. Yeah, it sounds just like a job.
Yeah. So the employee section here and
then we get to to the careers which is the other thing.
I have a question on my this. Also this has two things that we
constantly talk about loving and there is flow charts and a
numbered list for character creation.
You know, my God, go get you. Make it like I need guidance.
Because I do, you know? Well, even even just this like
colored box off to the side. How many times have we said with
layout you don't got to get crazy, but if something is
important, make it stand out a little bit.
Just throw it in a box. Who doesn't love a box?
We all love a good box. Employees employee creation.
You are now going to build your Wuhan Baxter employee profile.
So why don't you build a Wuhan Baxter employee profile?
But I would love to let me pull up a cool.
So while he's going through that, I'm going to go through
the skills and career skills list real quick so that we're
reading this. You guys can understand it.
So there's ten skills which I love because everything is D 10s
one and have 10 of everything, which is great.
And there's five career skills here.
So you get in your primary skills, you get Body, which is
Strength and Resistance, Dodge which is the art of avoidance,
Fight which is Combat and Knowledge of combat, First Aid,
which is Field, Medicine Guile, which is Deception, Persuasion
or Intimidation. Attack, which is computer
mechanical manipulation. Repair, which is fixing things
and making new ones. Research, which is observation.
Critical thinking. Compiling.
Search, which is looking for clues, patterns, connections.
Sneak, which is moving quietly or attempting to hide.
And then you have your career skills.
There's five of these. There's combat.
It says training helps and avoiding fights as much as
ending them. There's engineering, which is
buildings and machines are organisms.
Medicine. Knowing how a body works is the
first step in fixing one. Science the universe operates at
the set of rules and tech computers and machines were made
by people it can break just as easy.
My question as we go through this and we'll talk about it
kind of I guess at the end, is when would you use a primary
skill and when would you use a career skill?
And the biggest example I saw is when would you do a combat role
versus a fight role? Yeah, I don't understand really
the purpose of the career skills when they're almost all kind of
like reiterated in the individual skills.
So tech for example you have like hack, repair, you know what
I mean? Like they feel like sub versions
but like there are career skills and you when you roll a career
skill the people around you risk, they risk stress and
stuff. It's just like when would I roll
a combat role versus a fight role and when would I roll like
a for example, like a a first aid role first is a medicine
rule. So as we go through this, if it
pops out at you, let me know and if not, that was I think the
last question I really had about some of the mechanics and how
they would be best used in the game is when do you use your
primary skill? When you use your career skill.
I'm interested by that as well. So for drive points, I assign
them just to any skill. So here's the so yeah, so let's
go through the thing here. So #1 in your employee creation
is you choose a career from the following pages.
Each career begins with skills and gear assigned to it based on
the role and play the company. So what are what are all the
careers here? You got soldier, scientist,
medic, engineer, technician. And in one of the one and the
extra content you got one more. So of those five soldiers, a
private military contractor, scientists is a field
researcher, A medic is a combat veteran, physician, engineer is
a structural emergency expert, and technician is a digital
network guru. Which one?
Which one are you taking there? Let's do scientists.
Let's be a little science boy. Okay.
So your first thing you do and #1 is you choose a career, so
you chose scientist. Yeah you.
So #2 you assigned 2 drive points into skills.
So my question with Drive also, this is the last question I had
really, is how much drive do you start the game with if you're
doing initial character creation?
Because there is nothing in here that says how many you start the
drive with. And there's times where you can
use Drive in game, but you don't earn Drive until the end of a
mission. So is there a set amount of
drive that you start the initial game with?
Because after the first one it doesn't matter, your drive
carries over. So you know how much drive you
have, right? Because drive is a a a tool you
can use, but it's also what you spend to gain XP.
So Help kind of had a thing like that where it was like the the
remember that little. I can't remember what it was
called from John Davis where you could spend it in combat but if
you saved it survival, but if you saved it up you could
advance with it, right. So Drive is kind of like that
you can spend it but if you save up enough you can actually
advance with it. But there's nothing in here that
says how much drive you start the game with.
So your first mission, you don't really have any.
I assume you start with at least two because yeah, I think you
can put two drive into any skills you want.
So if we go and then #3, you choose a perk from either your
career perk list or the general perk list and that's it.
Now you are ready to serve the company as a member of our Arc
division. Well, I'll go through the rest
of this page and then we'll jump to scientists real quick.
So there's jobs and drive. Each career has its own job or
role in the company's operation. By acting in accordance with
these jobs, completing missions, employees gain drive.
Drive can be used to add to dice poles, Rest for short periods of
time, blah blah blah, secure promotions.
There's team stress. Failing roles associated with
your career gives other stress. And then there's skills.
Employees have skills, so we'll go to the next page too.
So careers. Every person has one.
We talked about them already. This is another cool page.
I love this little logo, the arc, the asset recovery and
containment like the arc logo with like the triangle and
stuff. I love that it's so I could that
would easily be on like the patch of somebody's jumpsuit or
something or yeah. So we talked about the five that
you have. There's promotions Dr. may be
spent between missions in exchange for new perks or
increasing proficiency. So perks cost 3 drives skills
cost one drive unspent. Dr. carries over between
sessions. So one of the other things I
love about this is you don't really get like a ton better,
you can just get a little bit better the things you already
are good at, which you know we we.
We until you die and then you get the the next spot coming in.
Yeah, so general perks. Every employee can benefit from
advanced training. These perks can be taken by any
career so there's six right off the bat that anyone can take
anytime they want whenever they get perks.
So there's dead eye plus one when fighting range CQC, which
is close quarters combat plus one in melee.
There's tough. So you get once permission, you
can push a body roll with no penalty.
There's an experimental serum, which is you gain 4 Max health,
start each mission with two stress.
Listen, that's your Max health. Not just like the total health
ever. That's the Max you can have all
the time. Fuck yeah, I'll take that in a
heartbeat. No survival anxiety, once an
hour push a dodge roll and no penalty.
So listen, you got so much anxiety, you can just like your
your your flights, yeah. And then consummate professional
plus one drive when performing your job.
So being able to constantly get drive all the time would be
dope. But I also don't know, is that
at the end or is that like real time, you know what I mean?
So jump down to scientists. So first of all I love these
sheets and the like. Basically 3/4 art and there's
layout of them the whole time. Each career gets 2 pages.
The first page is like the basic stuff with a little write up a
huge piece of like cool zoomed in art.
And the second page is like a character sheet.
So the scientist has a great page here.
So what what? What is a scientist?
Oh, a scientist? Well, let me be engages in
research and development in virtually every emerging field
known as such. Our scientists are, second to
none. Asset protection employees.
Scientists. Employ scientists with burstile
knowledge in order to be prepared for any situation.
Beautiful. It's that's what they are.
So you start with you start with three health.
I got couple skills and I got research, search and sneak.
I got one aware. I'm one.
I have a singular aware and my job is to recover company
research data, specimens or prototypes.
So I feel like when you're Yeah. I guess that my.
For the going back to the general perks the constant
professional yeah when do you get that one drive.
I feel like in the moment that you're doing the thing, I'd be
like, yeah, here's your one drive, you're doing your thing.
I would, yeah, I would do that for sure.
Yeah, team stress. Other employees take stress when
the scientist fails research or science roles.
Your loadout is you got a field research kit and a flashlight.
Great. And then you get to take one
perk on the next page. Oh, mother of invention easy.
Once permission, the scientists can spend 20 minutes to develop
a simple device or concoction that can perform a needed
service. Once.
Easy, no go. Just you just want to go, Yeah,
so good. I'm going to take this
toothpick. I'm going to take this
electrical wire and make a gun. There you go.
There's also there's two others are one is indoor kid plus one
any research hacker investigation role when you were
alone and then company scholar. You are well versed in the
company's ongoing research. You add +1 to any role to learn
about a current project. But yeah, mother invention so
good. I feel like company scholars
probably my second, and like indoor indoor kids.
My last one. Because it's just like you're
probably going to be with your party a lot, you know?
Cool blurb. Under it, we have over 3
centuries of incredible scientific discovery and
horrifying truths to guide our future Doctor Nolan Margo.
Margo OK, cool. Head of research.
Yeah. And then D10.
I had Dice Roller pulled up this whole time we were talking
about. I've rolled A7.
I have a folded textbook page. Oh interesting what that page
could be. Yeah there there's really these
are I love the personal items. This when you can just throw
lower into the little tables like this is great like the
antique snake oil vial, the Let the patch test control group,
laminated scientific method card.
They're great. So and then there's like a half
page character sheet on here. It gives you name.
Your career is already listed. Your health is already listed.
There's two big open circles for stress and drive.
Your aware is already checked off.
Your initial skills, research, search and sneaker checked off.
Your career is checked off there.
It talks about your job so secure and remove company, blah
blah blah etcetera, etcetera. Your team stressed.
It talks about when you. It says you fail stress when
you. Other employees gain stress when
they fail research or science roles.
OK, so again, here's my question.
And. How much drive, How much drive
do you start with? And what's the difference
between a career role and a skill role?
When would I call for one or the other?
Because to me, when would I role science versus research, You
know what I mean? When would I role again?
That's exactly the example I was just looking at.
I mean the biggest one to me I think is combat or fight.
Like what is the difference between those two things is
like. And for a second I was like,
well, maybe if you have like that as your career skill, you
have to roll that. But the soldier has a point in
fight and in combat, so like, that's that can't be true.
But just like you have a point in science and research, you
know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know.
That's my only real. That's my only real question.
Because honestly everything else is like I can figure it out like
I'll start with the set number of drive for people.
Like I'll give everyone like 5 drive to start, two to put in
skills and three to have like on their.
Mission together like you you can like roll from you can use
oh I'll use science and use research.
I don't know. I'm so that would be dope
because then you do get like double you know double dice for
for the thing. But that that's really my only
real question is, is when you can do that.
But it did say that, you know in our earlier part, you know if
you can use multiple skills like, you know, let me know like
negotiate, we'll try to add more to it.
So I'll be like, well, combat is combat and I'm fighting, so
let's do fight. You know, that would be
interesting. But then I don't think that
would work in. But that's the thing too, is
like it specifically says in combat, you roll fight and it's
just a fight roll. That's it.
So you're not going to add combat to it.
So I'm curious if combat is when you're not fighting, but then
then science and research, where is the difference in that?
That's my only real legit like mechanical question.
Everything else I would just like just be like a fudge it or
like I understand that they just kind of like hand waved to this
part. There is there's a decent amount
of hand waving in this that I'm okay with.
I wouldn't mind if it if if there's a little more.
That's the only real mechanical question I have is.
It's interesting because combat the career skill training helps
in avoiding fights as not just ending them.
So is that mean if that skill is more about like being avoidant
of fights or but also about ending them?
That's the thing. That's literally my only
question. Maybe we'll reach out to to
Logan and and ask and just be like, hey, when do you roll a
combat skill versus the other one?
Because even even in when I read through like all the itch
comments and stuff and everything, a lot of the other
ones, you know, like I said, Logan said, well, you know,
inventory is up to you, whatever, you know, et cetera,
et cetera. I'm like that's fine, Cool.
All right. I'll just, I'll just, I'll just
make it X or Y or whatever. And honestly I would just start
everyone with five Drive 2 to put in skills and three to have
to start the first mission. I'm fine with that but again
career versus the the primary skills is the only real question
I had. I do also love though that like
the even on this form here there is the WB form 10113 personnel
file like at the bottom. I really love that.
So so that is that's pretty much that.
I mean that they're all like that.
If you go to, if you go to any other ones, like if I had to
pick a character right off the bat, I don't know.
It really depends. Like, if you want scientist, I'd
probably go with soldier, just because if there's only two of
us playing, I think that'd be a good mixed match.
Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, it's a.
Classic wizard and their bodyguard, you know.
Yeah, they're all really well done.
They all have like this great art.
I really love like the soldier one.
You can see there's like a wound on their cheek, really great.
They all of these little blurbs. I think that the the team
stresses are great. I think that the the jobs that
they have to do, I think it's all extremely well crafted and
super light, super simple. Like I said, there's just a
little bit of hand waving and that one one mechanical thing
that I just, I'm curious about as far as play.
So that is all of that. The next thing we have is the
equipment list. So when you come down here, so
if you have any questions on like what does the field Med kit
do? What does a painkiller do, what
does a gun do? How much does it weigh?
Able to tell you? You know do what?
What? How much does it weigh, though?
How much does a field kit weigh? That's the thing.
So field kit is light. Yeah, it's a standard Med kit.
It gives you plus one to first aid or stabilization checks.
So single use, right. I love that.
Like super easy. I love that everything is really
plus ones to to maybe like minus ones or plus twos Max.
I love that everything is very like built into the mechanics so
you can narrate it however you want.
A lot of it is just giving pluses and minus to your roles
if you go to guns. One of the only other questions
I really had as far as guns go is let's use so, so a handgun,
small caliber handgun, medium weight, +2 to attack roles made
it close range or medium range. Can I tell you how I love the
abstraction of this? Because if you look at it, if
you say well what do you want to hang guns to do in this game?
Well I want them to do damage. Well, how do you do damage in
the game? It's success, it's successful
roles. So what you should do then for
weapons is not give them some type of like like HP.
There's no HP or whatever, just give people more options for
rolls so they have more options for getting successes, which
means more options for damage. So a knife only gives you plus
one to attack rolls, handgun gives you +2.
Assault rifle or grenade is just three damage to anything in
close a range that fails a dodge roll.
So that's the only one I saw that was really different is
that that's not adding to attack, It's just flat 3 damage.
But here's the other question. I had Assault Rifle +2 to all
attack rolls, two shots per turn.
What does that mean? Do I roll twice?
Two shots per turn. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. The other thing that's really
hand waved in here is ammo. Ammo's not really like it says
it says basically you get it uses one per round.
So I again with inventory I'm sure that could just be that's
that is abstract I'm I'm pretty sure that just give my.
Usage die and they'll be fine, you know, I'm pretty sure he
said something about that in the in the itch comments as well.
That ammo's like left to the gym.
So again, a little bit of hand waving that it wouldn't minded a
little bit more. And then armor the same thing.
So you have helmet, body armor, or reinforced heavy exo suits
and how do you stop getting damage?
You roll more successes, so each one actually gives you more,
say, more dice to roll so that you can have more successes.
I love the abstraction of that where your brain, a lot of
people's, a lot of the thought is easy to go well, there's
going to be damage. So I have to have wounds and
each one has to have set them out versus being like, no, what
are you actually trying to do from a design perspective, avoid
damage. How do you avoid damage at that?
I I love I. Love the dice mechanics that are
really, really good. It'd be cool to see some armor
that was like lightweight armor gives you plus one dodge, you
know? Yeah.
For those non body boys, you know, Yeah.
And that that was that would be super easy to throw in there
though, you know what I mean? I just did it.
Yeah, because boom. There you go.
Yeah. So, well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Everything is body, isn't it? And you know what's weird about
body is the more you look at the word body, the more wrong it
looks. Because I see body written three
times and I'm like, wait, is that a body?
Actually how it's spelled? Yeah.
It's so weird. So that is the end of the
employee handbook. Really great.
Really clean again, like overall.
So this divitate in ministerum, I looked it up.
It's it's something about like wealth and service.
I I love that is the last page. Just as like a corporate like I
love that so that's the end again like I really love the
dice mechanics in this I I, you know I I really I'm a huge
mechanics person and I know a lot of people especially a lot
of the discourse and stuff is all about like narrative and
story gaming. I love dice mechanics.
I love engaging with the mechanics in a game.
I know you you love mechanics as much.
I really love the mechanics in this and I think just there's
it's almost like this may just be too light where there's like
two things that I would say hand wave a little bit less, which is
inventory and ammo and then just like the question I have about
career skills and that's pretty much it.
Otherwise, I I really love this. Yeah, I hope you should
definitely reach out to Logan D, because I want to know too about
the career skills. Yeah, yeah, The only question I
have, yeah, yeah. The next one we have is the
management manual. So the vast majority and I don't
think you said you didn't really dig too deep in the management.
I didn't really dig into this one.
Yeah, Yeah. So, so the vast majority of this
is, is intro denture, which is fantastic, but I I do like that.
So there is the overview page again, which is the combat flow
chart and all of that kind of stuff.
There is a different welcome page here.
This is congratulations. You have decided to join the
ranks of Wuhan Baxter's Executive Management Program.
This is a This is a noble undertaking.
WB managers lead our various teams and apartments to success
and beyond. Under your guidance, employees
will achieve and contribute to the grand tradition of greatness
that this company has stood for over the past 300 years.
Who knows, some of those employees may become managers
themselves one day. On behalf of myself, the Board
of Directors and everyone at WB, we salute you on your continued
journey of leadership and innovation.
Lydia Sinclair, Director of Operations.
It's fucking so painful. It's honestly unbelievably
painful to read. It's amazingly well done.
It's perfect. Honestly, it's not like it
really is. I hate it so much.
So undertaking. But when you read, the company
history is even better. So you get the company history,
which gives more lore into the world, which I really love.
There's an introduction and manager roles.
All of that takes less than 6 pages.
And then from six on for the rest of The thing is just the
ear dice incident, which is a really good thorough breakdown
of an adventure, how clocks are used.
It gives resources for it. It's really, really well done.
So that's a intro. Adventures are such a good thing
for designers to use to really give their intent as far as game
play and the style. So I think a lot of times it's a
missed opportunity to with a lot of games.
So it's cool to be like, Oh yeah, this one's like, it lays
it out how this game is supposed to be played and oh, cool, yeah,
absolutely like it. Yeah, it's really, really good.
So I don't necessarily want to read the entire company history.
It starts in 1676, though, when Jonas Baxter returns after being
lost at sea for 17 years with a ship full of riches.
A strange ship full of riches. He founds Jonas Baxter Shipping
and Acquisitions Company in Crestmouth, England.
Should I just read the whole thing?
No, basically. Yeah, they they start a shipping
company. You know what?
Fuck it. I'm just going to read it. 1780,
The Baxter Company becomes the richest company in the world by
shipping arms and supplies to both sides.
During the American Revolution, expeditions are launched to find
what Jonas Baxter had called Avenues of Glory.
The first legacy projects are launched, and I love how open
into some of this shit is like the legacy projects.
Boom. That's all you get though. 1822
The company buys into and improves upon emerging
industries, industrial technologies and applies them to
its operations worldwide. The Echelon devices discovered
floating above the Atlantic Ocean. 1908 a company sponsored
archaeological dig discovers site 55-B in the Andes.
Legacy projects and Ave. expeditions are combined into
the research department. 1964 The pyramid finishes its 112th
sequence. Head of research Crenshaws
device is able to stabilize the gate causing the first
incursion. Security teams at the Pyramid
facility hold the line. ARC division is established in
the aftermath of the Pyramid facility.
Insulin. I I thought, what?
What's that? What's that movie with Stargate?
I was like they made it on the Yeah 1982, a number of prominent
emerging technology companies unite to form the Wuhan
Consortium. In 1984, Consortium alternative
energy experiment breaches the veil.
Representatives from the Great House on the Hill meet with the
Consortium board members and establish the Trust 1993.
After competing for years in numerous industries and clashing
over more esoteric endeavors, the Baxter Company and the Wuhan
Consortium announced their merger.
Wuhan Baxter becomes one of the largest corporations in the
world. Overnight, the board is receded
and the Trust updated. And in the present, WB has its
fingers in virtually every industry worldwide, including
pharmaceuticals, munitions, gene therapy, alternative energy and
entertainment. The company's holdings span the
globe, with operations on every continent and a presence in
nearly every country. It's an amazing timeline and
there's so much stuff where it's like no, no explanation for you.
The pyramid finish it's 112 sequence.
What it's so good like? The like the consortium, like
you know, they meet with representatives from the great
House on the Hill. OK, so good.
I almost wish this was in the player section because I feel
like reading that first before you get into it would.
Yeah, I agree. Yeah.
So the other thing though is like, I also do love how light
the player's book is because it's really all the player
needs. But I I wouldn't mind if this
was, that's one page. I wouldn't mind if this is in
there too. That was a great page.
So it's really fun. It's like sets you up really
well and you're just like, I don't know what any of this
means, but you like, it gives you like a vibe.
And you could like, start defining that stuff at your own
table, you know, And like, yeah, very funny.
So good it's. So good.
It's good. So yeah, so there's the
introduction. The company is survival horror
game, we already talked about that.
So the the GM is the backbone of the experience.
And you, you have the following responsibilities.
You facilitate play, you plan ahead, you manage variables.
Variables are a specific thing. They're in PC's and bad guys and
stuff. It's not just right.
Lower case variables engage with employees and you track time.
Pay attention to the passage of time.
But I also like the concept of listen, you were 3 minutes late
clocking out at the end of the day, so we're just going to
deduct that from your paycheck. Great piece of art here.
There is a manager rule section so it's just a little bit of
changes. It's like 2 pages on slight
variance for managers and and how variables are rolled.
So skill rolls. The challenges of the company
are overcome by making skill roles.
It's up to the GM to determine them from zero to four.
We talked about them before, from trivial to basically
impossible. Employees will need to roll a
matching number of successes. We got that So stress and
burnout Throughout the game employees will gain stress.
It says how the stress is gained.
At any point you can call for burnout, usually after usually
after taking a large amount of stress which is 3 or more
failing a difficult task or witnessing something horrific or
mind altering. And I love this next line.
Burnout is a tool to build tension, not to punish players.
Cool, I. Like that.
Really important. But I also do love that there's
specific examples given for when you could do it.
Three or more stress. Failing a difficult task so
difficult or greater, I think I would.
I would call for burnout and witnessing something horrific or
mind altering. So here's the stress and then
let's all do a burnout role if it's super crazy, you know, love
that. So tracking time mission should
have time limits, changes in the environment after the overtime
and consequences for wasting time.
So I love that it's like you have one hour, but if you go
above an hour, here are the consequences to be on that.
So this helps to heighten the tension and keeps proceedings
movings. Clock.
Sorry, let me minimize that. Clocks or dice can be used to
track this complex actions and investigations may take longer
to accomplish than others. Mission clocks are not secret,
so it just gives an example of like an hour.
Yeah, fire team retrieval, all that kind of stuff.
And then the manager rules very much.
Computer Sentients is the best one though, you know, and it's
just a D10I like that they just throw a D10 down and be like
it's a D10 pool you don't need. To draw things, you know, Like,
yeah, you know, I would love like some type of thing for
clocks. You know what I mean?
Like, either like a token to have three things or like, yeah,
even the thing where I could like slot like a little window
or something that sits up. I think that would be such a
cool tool to have for people that use a lot of games like
this to be able to, like, not just have to draw like a thing
because fuck, my circles are not over circles, you know?
But to just have a tool where I can be like, all right, let me
flip to four, all right? And when I click a thing on the
top, like, from my side, it will go 1234.
And on their side, it'll just like, slide the clock around.
Let's build it, let's do it. Nice Kickstarter from the Weekly
Scroll. Yeah, absolutely.
Make it a + 1 X Exp project. So GM controlled Npc's, enemies,
and automated systems are referred to as variables.
Variables provide everything from assistance to adversity.
For arc teams, variables often utilize 3 traits representing
multiple employee skills. As variables take damage, their
traits can degrade, leaving them vulnerable.
So variables you don't fuck with everything else.
You pretty much have health aware and combat, which is body
dodge and fight. That's about it.
Health tracks strength and points aware tracks are
awareness and the ability to react and combat is their fight.
And so you really can condense bad guys down, which I really
love. Most variables can be controlled
effectively with these three. If other you can improvise.
If they need more. Enemy variables often have other
abilities or weapons they give them an edge.
Abilities are most often used to attack, however some are
utilized as actions if noted. Variables cannot add dice or
push rolls. Combat.
The mechanics of combat are the same.
Missions arc teams are deployed to company holdings to secure
and contain the company property and personnel after accidents or
disasters. Remember, you are a containment
team. You are a response team.
That is what you are. Shit went bad and you have to go
fix it. So the next part is Errodice,
which is the adventure. So we do not read of interest
here on the stream. So what you should do is go buy
the fucking book. You should definitely go
download this. But this is a great adventure,
the quick breakdown, so you get a little teaser.
Your DICE facility is a deep sea research facility 20,000 feet
below sea level, owned by W Pharmaceutical subsidiary
Novarium, and is supported by the Orpheus supply rig that
honestly already like, I'm like the horror in just being 20,000
feet down in the ocean. You got you've done fucked me
up. There is one thing I really
love. Dr. Legatti discovers that the
most recent batch of specimens brought aboard or exhibiting
signs of accelerated evolution. I can only assume and hope that
that is Legatti like the author Legatti, the horror author, in
which I love this 10 times more if it is, But just flipping
through the adventure as far as looking at it from a layout
perspective, I love the sidebars which has like the navigation
icon keys, which makes it super easy and useful off to the side.
There's a timeline for each, A quick breakdown of what just one
variable looks like, So people can see that this is a hybrid
specimen. Specimens taken from the trench
by the research team, right? How sick is that art, by the
way? Splitting and evolving it's
crazy health. Three Aware One Combat 2.
Again, that's all you need. You have abilities Mutation
During combat, the hybrid may use an action to mutate the GM.
Rolls of detain on the table below and its attack is a bite
-1 health on hit stage one infection and then it's got a
decent table for mutations. That's it for a stab block, and
I love how simple and clean that is.
Yeah, I do. Yeah.
This is this is good. Yeah, it's really, really good.
It has the whole page for the infection types and stuff and
then the Airdice facility map is like this point crawl map that's
like super big and numbered. It looks really, really
fantastic. Just overall the adventure is
super well done. It's really well laid out.
It's got on each section, it's got the the icon trackers on it
so you know what's going on in each section.
It's really, really well laid out as an adventure.
It's got roll tables and if you go all the way to the back it's
got a really cool breakdown for reference of the the mission
clocks that you can use because you have 7 hours to complete the
mission. There's an encounter item map.
So like it literally breaks down the numbers of like where you
can find everything and the encounters you're going to have
and even a list for the stages of infection which is part of it
and commendations for like the drives you can earn throughout.
So like such a well written adventure that utilizes the
rules in a way where you go, oh I totally fucking get this and
notes in the back super super well done.
I did not look up this one devotate in protest day but I
assume that's like blessings in. I don't know.
We'll have to Google it. While you Google that, I'm going
to go through one of the other pieces that they have here.
One of the other things you can get on on the Itch page from
Logan Dean is the Conflict Resolution Guidelines, which is
a another document that you can have.
So this actually has. A wealth in control?
That sounds like Wuhan Baxter, so we're not going to dig
through the conflict resolution guidelines.
You should pay Logan Dean and download it.
But this is a lot more content for the game, so there's a brave
new world awaits. The ARC division has long been
this company's bulwark. It gives unfortunate catastrophe
and unwanted attention. We are continued success and
large part to the efforts and expertise of employees like you.
In order to keep your best trained and informed, we have
commissioned this document, the conflict resolution guideline.
Within these training materials, you will find a new career for
employees to pursue, new and updated management options and
most importantly, 6 case studies on classified ARC operations
from the archives. It is our hope that you will use
this material to better prepare yourselves for any eventuality
and further arise so you get a whole new class, which is the
executive, which is fucking dope.
I love that you can actually be an executive.
There's a new employee options which are new perks to have
right off the bat, like rabbits, foot fast track paranoia.
There's a new items list which gives signature weapons,
extended magazines, things like that.
And then there are 6 missions. You get a breakdown of those
missions. There's a little bit more stuff
for campaign play, like Burnout recovery, what you can do on
downtime, things like that, what you can do to leave the company,
an expanded burnout table, which is really fantastic, and then a
breakdown of the six new kind of like missions that you can go
through. And again, this whole document
is extremely well laid out. It's a little bit.
More this this is definitely done after the company using the
same style but definitely kind of like upset just like I think
a little bit as far as like the lay on stuff is done.
So this is incredibly well done and I would honestly consider
this part of the game as well. That's the other thing too.
Like, I know it's expanded content, but if you threw this,
the oh, now what is this one? What is the absconditis we got?
We already had wealth and service.
We had wealth and control, and now we have wealth in dead air.
Dead. Air people see.
They know she was going to Google Translate and type it in
or what are they? I yeah, I did.
And then I'm I I didn't. So there we go.
Keep talking. I'm getting there.
Well, so in in Hidden Wealth and The Hidden, OK, I'll take that.
So, so here's the thing. So I again, so obviously the
game is the employee handbook and the management manual.
I would almost want to just lump the conflict resolution
guidelines into that. Do we want to to say that all of
it is a game, or would this be like a bonus supplement, Bonus
supplement? Bonus.
Yeah. So my question, I guess because
we didn't really talk about this before, are we doing a Zine
review on this or are we doing? A Zine review.
OK, yeah, that makes sense because even if you add the
second one in, it's still only like 40 pages and it's almost
all. Yeah.
And so much of it is like half of the first ones, just
character cheats. So yeah, but I mean and the
mechanics associated with it on top of that, but I do love that
the the CRG signals are out there there is.
So why don't we hop into the review then.
So that's the game and this is the company corporate survival
horror. So I'm actually going to switch
this up a little bit because we are not doing a full game score,
we are just going to do Zine scores.
So the Zine scores are different than the full game scores.
Full game scores are 5 metrics to with a total of 10 points
each, which gets you to 50. The Zine scores we do a little
bit different because zines, if you compare this like 24 pages
to like Blades in the Dark, which is like 300 pages, there's
just things that one will have that the other won't have.
So we decided a while ago around like episode 70 to do metrics
that are more that are kind of like condensed a little bit.
So Max here is 30. For zines, there's three
metrics. There's visuals, rule set and
vibes. Visuals are art, layout, like
everything that when you physically look at the project
that is all broken down individuals.
There's the rule set, which is the same.
It's the rule set. If it's adapted, how well is
it's adapted. If it is a new rule set, do we
like it? And then there are vibes.
Vibes is a kind of broad category where it's just like to
me the one of the biggest things is when I close this after
reading it, how bad do I want to play it?
But also when you combine visuals and rule set together,
does the does what that look like mixed with a rule set feel
like it all fits together? Like if you have like a crazy
neon dream game, but it's in black and white, like, you know
what I mean? The vibes aren't quite there,
but if you know, but if you have a game all about slime and the
thing looks like it's covered in slime vibes, you know, so right.
So visually, here's the thing. I think it looks like an
employee handbook. I think for how light it is.
I think it's extremely well laid out and readable.
I think that there is every spot that could have art, I think is,
and I think every page is as dense as it possibly could be
without feeling crowded. And the art that is there,
especially on the character pages and the variables and the
adventures, the maps and a lot of the art throughout the
conflict resolution guidelines is really fantastic.
I can't think of a single spot where I put another piece of
spot art. I can't think of any reason I
would add any more art to it, and I think it's incredibly well
laid out, even though it is black and white, But I think
that does feed into the whole employee handbook vibe.
What are your thoughts usually? I could use some color, you
know. I think, you know their employee
handbooks are yeah it's small Zine.
I think it's. I think it's, I agree with
everything you just said. So, you know, I want to remind a
little. You mean to everything?
I was going to say So. It is nice to look at and like
there is not a lot of empty space, but it is not cluttered.
Yeah, I like it. It's nice.
That's one thing is like I I feel like it's it's really
dense. Like we've talked about this a
couple times. If you're going to do black and
white, like this is such a really good way to do it.
And I really love the use of. You know what?
I love the use of is like the lines that they do a lot.
Like how they break up the page and stuff and like they
partition stuff out. Especially in like the character
section. Yeah, I agree.
Really well done. I I think overall like it is
like, you know, it's one of those things because this is a
Z, not a full book. If this was a full book, if you
slapped all these 33 together, I would want color.
I wouldn't want the only thing that I think could really like
like elevate this a little bit is a lot of the logos in color I
think would make such a huge. Difference.
I think that would make a big difference.
Yeah. The WB in logo, the arc one in
logo. I know there's a color logo on
the character sheet that you can download.
So just having the color logo on the base document and maybe a
color on the arc logo I think it would be would be dope for the
employee handbook and I think that would make a difference.
I mean for a Zine any and this is not a book score so this is
totally different for a Zine score.
And let's we're we're after episode 100 we're not going to
be harsher but we're going to be more realistic with our
critiques here. Visually this is not I don't I
also want to compare less to other things.
So this can't be compared to something that's like
Technicolor because that fits that game.
I think the black and white for this fits this game maybe with
some spots of color. I don't know where I'm at on
this, I feel like. I'm at a healthy 7 for this one.
That's exactly what I was going to say I think 7 is really good
for. I really do like this.
I think it's really well done. But, like, it doesn't blow my
nonexistent hair back. You know what I mean?
Like, but it's still really good.
Yeah. Yeah.
Again. But that's the thing too, is
like, I'm like, what I would want from this visually would
turn it into a book, you know? So I'm torn in my head where I'm
like, I have to keep reminding myself there's only 20 pages.
But you're right. Yeah, Yeah.
I think the seven is is really solid for this, for a for a
completely black and white thing.
I think the art and the layout really, really shines.
So rule set wise, I love it. Oh, it's great.
I mean the dice mechanics and like the the choice mechanics
are fantastic. They feed into themselves.
Like, I mean this actually, I think rule set wise is probably
going to be pretty high for me because I think their use of
like stress and like the exchange of stuff for stress.
Yeah, I really like this. Also, I like that Z 10s, I think
it's cool. I also think it cleans up the
math in your head when you're doing it, you know, which I
always. I mean everything that you will.
My only critique is that, like, I just don't understand what
career roles are versus, you know, skills.
Yeah, I think I agree. Like, it could use clarification
in a small way on a couple things, fairly minor, but I
mean, like kind of not knowing when I would use a regular role
or a career role is kind of a bigger critique, you know, Like
that's one of the main things you're doing.
I would say mechanically, everything that you said I
absolutely love. I love that.
You will always have stress. It's not that you push a lot of
games. You'll get stressed if you push
yourself. You can just not push yourself.
This one Every fucking role you can potentially have stress.
Every fucking role you can potentially have.
Burnout, every fucking role you can potentially give yourself
stress, lose, drive, lose health, do everything.
I think that the rules feed really hard into the corporate
you know, aspect of it. I think you're going to be
chewing through people like it's your job the.
I think some of the stuff that's hand waved, I wouldn't mind it
not being hand waved, but I don't think that's that's that's
a that's a personal critique. I mean also like if you're going
to put like light or heavy as weight on stuff, it's like, what
does that mean? Well, I see.
I don't mind if it's just like I allow, but I wouldn't mind
something in there saying like, no.
It does say it says like the GM can determine how you want to
use inventory. So to put light and weight, and
then to let the GM decide like what they want to do with that,
whether you want to go slots or whether you want to go like a
total, I'm OK. I mean, I would prefer it not
hand waved, but like I don't think it like detracts
necessarily from the rule set. The same thing with ammo.
If you're going to list like number of shots and number of
shots you can take, I wouldn't mind there being some, some.
I mean like if you're if you're not going to, like if there's
not a rule for it, don't put it in there.
Like don't put lightweight in there.
If you're going to be like Oh well you guys just hand wave
whatever it works however you want to.
It's like well then don't put that in there.
Put light or heavy in there then then at least make a rule and be
like this is our rule but you can house rule it, you know.
Yeah, yeah. I don't disagree.
I mean, again, but I think there is, I do think.
I do think there's a difference between wishing it something
wasn't handwaved and the issue that we have with career and
skill roles where there's really no explanation on what the
difference is. I think the only real critique
of the rule side is just some explanation.
It's not even of the rule side, just explaining it a little bit
more. But I I I really I.
Like we said before that I really love this.
I want to play this. I want my little broken
corporate cog to just be all fucked up and shit.
What are you thinking for Rules? No, I I did the last one.
What are you thinking for Rules? Fuck.
I mean for AZ. For a Z choice mechanics, dude.
It's pure choice mechanics, bro. Like, I love it so much.
Like I'm honestly. Like I know we're being harsh
with the critiques and that's what or or being more realistic
with the numbers right. So I'm thinking in my head of
the zines we've gone through and the games that we've loved that
were zines and that's the other part is after a member of my
head like this isn't compared to Kingdoms.
This isn't compared to mothership and stuff like that.
Those are full games. This is a Zine our full books.
I mean obviously this is a full game.
I'm honestly between like an 8 and a nine, like really easily
like on this, like if it if if it's a it's a fat 8 and I would
be okay giving it a nine. Yeah, Okay.
I'm good with that like and if we gave halves this would be.
This would be like a .9 for me. Like this.
This is almost a nine in because I can't really think outside of
a couple of clarifications. I don't have no critiques of how
it works and I love it. You know what I mean?
It really is just clarification. Vibes.
What are your thoughts on vibes, especially after reading?
I think the vibes really kick in once you read the.
Conflict resolution guidelines once you read the the management
manual. I think if you just read the
employee handbook, vibes aren't aren't super high.
That's why it's going to suffer for me, because there's just not
a lot of vibes in the employee handbook.
And I think there could be a little bit more, it could be a
little bit more vibey. They could put a little more
personality into the stuff where they could put that like
timeline in or something to make it feel a little bit more
corporate Horry instead of just being told it's corporate
horror. And that is in the corporate
handbook because like, I think, I don't know, I guess the entry,
like the welcome thing was very corporate satire and I
appreciated that, but. But where's the horror?
Yeah. Where's the weird?
Yeah, what's what's weird? Horrifying about it.
If I Because here's The thing is if I if I was going to play
this, I would love to get a management manual and like 4
employee handbooks and I would pass the employee handbooks out
to all the players right? But you're right.
Like where? Where?
If you're just reading the employee handbook, where's the
horror involved into it? I do think the timeline being
added to it would up the weird. Yeah, I I really, I just need
more weird than this, frankly. Like, I get it.
It's it's a really corporate satire.
You're you're definitely like some some guy who's just going
to get chewed up and spit out by working with Arc.
And I get that. Yeah.
I mean, I'm fairly medium of vibes for this.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, if you're just
looking at the employee handbook for sure, I think in the
totality of the management manual and the.
But here's the thing, we we decided that the conflict
resolution guidelines is a supplement.
So it's not the core game. So just looking at, I mean, and
the players aren't going to read the adventure, they're not going
to read the management handbook, so.
Yeah, that was my major thought, too.
It's like I'm, I'm thinking about what, what are my players
going to read that's going to prep them for this?
Yeah, yeah, I mean. But both are part, but both, but
both are the game if we're looking at the totality of the
game. So I mean, yeah, what are your
thoughts then? I'm at about 6:00 for this.
Yeah, I think 6 is fine. I think 6 is good.
Yeah, that's not bad. It's there.
It's definitely there. There's some stuff there.
But like, yeah, I could. I could take more weird, even if
they just switch out the art pieces for the character sheets.
So, like, be weirder, you know? I'm OK with art pieces, but I
wouldn't mind. I'm not.
That's not. Chris is about the art
specifically. Like the arts.
Like pieces are great, but to insert some more weird
somewhere, you know. But.
Yeah, yeah, especially in the employee handbook.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you see, so the reason
I'm a little bit torn on that is because I love how light the
employee, the employee handbook is.
In that light, you you, you can easily use at the table.
That's the thing we talked about.
Like if this. This would have a good usability
score for use at the table. But you're right.
If that's all that you're going to give a player.
I wouldn't mind even even honestly even just starting the
timeline in the beginning of it would would really.
Yeah. Would be would be a thing.
So I think. But I yeah, I I overall, I I do
really really love this. I don't want to play like super.
So total score is a 21 which is fantastic.
Don't forget about 15 would be considered bang average.
I feel like this is exactly where it feels for a game this
light. I think this is absolutely
fucking fantastic. I really enjoyed.
I love you too. Yeah.
So you definitely want to go check out Logan Dean over on
Itch. I do believe the itch is not
Logan Dean. I believe it just has a mega
core, yeah. Logan Dean itch.
It's mega hyphen Corp dot itch dot io.
And I know one of the metrics here isn't value.
But I will say that pretty much everything for the company is
pay what you want. So like fucking pay the
recommended. Like pay the person who made
this great game, but it has double the recommended.
Yeah, exactly. I mean I think the recommended
is like 15 bucks for the the conflict resolution guidelines
and the recommended for the regular one is like 20 bucks.
Honestly worth it in my opinion. You get a shit load of content
between both of those. On top of that, there's a third
party license, there's there's logos that you can use for 3rd
party stuff. So there's a lot to this game.
So, but that is the company that is our episode for today.
Next week we are going to be going over the black hack from
David Black. Really excited for that.
One of the things we've gone over several black hacks.
We'll go over the original now. I mean, now that we've hit 100
episodes, we're actually kind of starting to hit a lot of the
games that are the original game for so many the hacks that we've
done so. You did play and that's what do
that do, you know? Yeah, we're going to do the
original Entity Odd Zine. Right, we're going to do white
hack at some point, like we are doing black like so, because
what we want to do is there's a couple black hack games.
We want to really want to do what we feel like we should do
the original game first. So we're going to do Black Hack
2E. Those kind of things, So listen.
Also, if you're listening and you have suggestions for games
or something like that, feel free to drop them anytime.
Thank you so much for all the people that commented on
YouTube, especially about the Blades in the Dark.
I know there was a little bit of back and forth about that, which
is fantastic in my opinion. So we really appreciate when
people actually like, give their opinions on the game.
We're just two assholes with probably terrible opinion.
So it's really nice to hear other people's takes.
My opinions are great. Yeah, I mean minor shit,
obviously I've been told. So that's it.
We are going to be doing some side quests soon.
We just need to reschedule our Mouse Rider 1, so be prepared
for that. We're going to be running that
with Gavin Archives, playing with With Myself and Hunter
Gavin Archives of Liminal Horror and Matt Morris Manor at Matt
Manor Manor Dawn. Of Mouse Ritter.
A million books for that running it for us.
So be sure to tune in for that. Find us all on our local on all
our locals, all our locals, all our socials at all of our local
lake tree. Slash the weekly scroll and I
think we're at like 970 ish Subs on YouTube so 30 more people
could push us over. So you all have a wonderful
night hunter. I will talk to you later and
goodbye everybody.