Last Res0rt RPG by E4C85D38

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posted by E4C85D38 Original SA post

I figured out of boredom I might as well repost my analysis of the Last Res0rt RPG here. For those who caught the first part, click that link. Take a look at the update. Yeah. I for one will not be taking up that offer.

Anyway! Last Res0rt!



Based on the furry comi-- I hate myself already --c of the same name and set in the same setting, it's 33 pages long and... well, it's a thing.

The 'introduction' is written in such a way that it's only a circlejerk for fans and completely incomprehensible to anybody else (and frankly, if I understood it I'd probably hate myself even more ). This is the third paragraph, right after 'WE ALL TRAVELED INTO SPACE', completely out of the fucking blue:

Let's fucking count!

1. If you have to describe something in parentheses, the actual term comes first and the description comes afterwards, not the other way around.
   
2. They're actually using two hyphens instead of actual em dashes (yes, I realize in this very post I do the same thing, but I expect an RPG book to be of a higher quality), although given the rest of the typesetting (font choices, fucking background image, etc) it doesn't really surprise me.
   
3. None of these words except 'Talmi' are really defined, and that one only nebulously.
   
4. Also, people being transformed into furry slaves for alien slaughterhouses
   

And we're just on the third fucking paragraph on the second page of thirty three. At least this isn't that long, but strap yourselves in, I think we're in for something special.

Too late, I beat you to it. Be thankful I am taking this pain instead of you. Anyway.

Earth is suddenly renamed 'Terth' because furry aliens have a speech impediment (no, really), there are undead things on Terth (god, I feel dirty just using that word) named the 'Dead Inside', 'loose' is mixed up with 'lose', not-really-em-dashes are used inappropriately, and Twilight Vampires (no, seriously, they're described as things "that had long been thought only to be the playthings of bad theater and worse romance novels") are the bane of furry aliens. So the furry aliens put together 'Last Res0rt' to get rid of them, which is apparently Running Man, but with furry aliens and sparklevamps.

And now we are at the introduction to the game proper.

The only equipment needed is a single six-sided die and paper/pencil for character sheets, so you'd expect this to be refreshingly minimalist, right? Well.

There are three groups of stats plus one.

• Potential Stats , which "which means a character has the potential to perform a certain level of actions", and they're upgradable via exercise, technological gadgetry, or medical implants. These are Intelligence, Charisma, Force, Speed, and Health.
  
• Refinement Stats , "gained through education and practice", are Wisdom, Communication, Finesse, Agility, and Hardiness. No, it hasn't explained what the difference between 'Speed' and 'Agility' is, nor 'Health' and 'Hardiness'.
  
• Sensory Stats , the "hardest to improve upon", are literally the five senses (i.e. Smell, Taste, Hearing, Sight, and Touch). Yes. Taste is a fucking stat. And no, I don't wanna know what it's used for.
  
• Soul Stats apparently ridiculously critical, can only be manipulated by Dead Inside, and aren't fucking explained at all.
  

Each stat is generated with a single d6 and a Refinement Stat can't be bigger than the corresponding Potential Stat, in which case I guess you just reroll.

You pick a Species and a Spectrum , and surprisingly enough Spectrum doesn't refer to how autistic or gay a character is, but rather what type of soul you have.

The 'mechanics' have been gone over, but in a nutshell -- 6 is a critical success, 1 is a critical failure, for everything else you add the stat you're using and your roll to try to meet or exceed a target number. There are no skills.

Instead, 'refined tasks' (the example given is 'locking [a] door WHILE holding back [a] mob', so anything that's more complicated than a single simple task or two simultaneous simple tasks) use one of the Refined [sic] stats, which I assume is the same as the Refinement stats, so as per the example you would use Finesse instead of Force. The only relation these two things have is that Refinement stats are always equal or lower to the Potential ones, so I guess a fair amount of furries are just retarded. Mechanically speaking, I mean.

The book only lists 'a fraction of the species' from Last Res0rt and encourages you to make your own. Each species is 'Small', 'Mid-Size', or 'Large', which has no mechanical effect, gets +2 to one stat and +1 to another, two miscellaneous mechanical traits, and is categorized into 'furry' or 'scaly'.
Also.
And I feel this is worth mentioning.
Any two species can be cross-bred. Any two. Or, if you prefer, any three. In such a case the book encourages you to 'mix and match', and assuming that isn't code for some sort of furry orgy the most obvious definition is 'take all the bonuses and traits from both'. (Actually, upon reading way the fuck further, you only pick one species for traits and stat bonuses if you're a two-species hybrid, but two to get all of them if you're a three-species hybrid. Not broken, no sir.)

The species featured here are "the majestic Anyr, the crafty Talmi, the powerful Zillan, the alluring Vidian, the terrifying Kendril, and (of course) the entertaining Human." Have some art featuring each of these plus a crossbreed (and I don't know which one is which):


Now, just to give you some examples of traits:
No, I don't know where that bracket for stats convention came from, but the book has decided it would be a good idea to use out of the fucking blue.
Let me just rephrase this. Large ears give you a better chance to resist the fucking Bene Gesserit voice. And no, it's not innate to this species, any fucking species with large ears gets this trait. There are no fucking smilies that can even come close to expressing how stupid this is.
I can't even begin to understand how this fucking makes sense to anybody.
So, if your Finesse is normally more than your Strength, you're fucked.

Okay, Spectrum. Time to discuss some fucking souls.

Each 'spectrum' has its own set of traits, the hybrids can only be Celeste or Touched, and they are all retarded.

Let's start with the Sterling.

Well. This explains a fair bit.

A trait of note from them:
And an illustration:


Okay. Next up, the Celeste, which the book explains are the divinely chosen cross-species hybrids, winged, beautiful, powerful, terrible, and power-hungry (that's really what it says). Now, in addition to the game breaking hybrid mechanics, we've got this.
Yes, you read that right. If your opponent isn't one of the chosen ones or you make your Charisma check, which has AT WORST a 1 in 6 chance of succeeding and more likely around a 1 in 2, you can tell them to go kill themselves and they have to obey. Balanced.

The Touched are just weakened Celeste. Their only power is to resist the Dune Voice. There is literally no reason to take this spectrum.

The Light Children are the Indigo Children. Really. They're "born naturally without soul shells", and "given the right training through a Celeste school, Light Children can do anything a Celeste can". Of course, this isn't represented mechanically and they're basically just the Touched for non-hybrids.

The Dead Inside (also the Djinn-si for some ungodly reason) are the Sterlings that somehow Shatter their soul, which is supposed to be painful, and the Shattered are the fresh Dead Inside that don't have any powers yet. Really. The Dead Inside have 'Dead Eyes', which are red irises with blackened "whites", but Vampires can hide them at will and Reapers don't have them at all.

The subtypes:
A Zombie is a Shattered that died before they became a Djinn. That's it.
Yep, that... doesn't have any mechanical benefit either.

The Djinn are the 'majority of the dead inside', and this has a FURTHER two subtypes, the Efreet and the Vampires. Both have Flexible Soul which allows them to gain soul fragments without giving any mechanics for it, and Improved Hardiness , which combines their health and hardiness stats, which presumably means you add them together and make that number your new Health and Hardiness. I feel like this game isn't even trying for balance anymore.

The Efreet. There, uh. Well, I'm just going to give you this:


The Vampires can only be human (and "Because of this, many folks believe that ALL humans are secretly vampires... A misconception that plenty of humans are willing to exploit."), can hide their Dead Eyes, avoid the pain of Shattering through the Embrace, survives on a pint of blood a day and can use their blood as a second "health pool" (and as usual, no mechanics are given), and can transform into Zombie mode in which they ignore everything but 'structural damage' and is 'single-minded' and which needs to feed on at least a pint of blood to turn back before an hour's up or they 'deteriorate' and die.
Also, did I say only humans can be vampires? Well, there's a footnote there.

Reapers are undetectable and have an artifact of some sort crafted with the help of another Djinn that allows them to remotely cause harm to people as long as they can specifically target that person. Once again, no mechanics are given, and although I'm not an anime (or indeed Japan) person I feel like I've seen this somewhere before.

And that's pretty much the end of the book (the Example of Play is hardly worth mentioning). It's relatively short compared to the monstrous, medusean behemoths others are reviewing, and I salute each and every one of you.

Oh, did I mention that there's an online appendix which is mostly placeholder stuff? And which hawks a Last Res0rt themed GM's binder. And... oh god... a fan-made RP forum.