The Gaming Den

The Order of the Link's Rule Set has been perfected over more than 30 years - it was started in the early 1980's!

From "Order of the Link", which claims to be a universal setting/system combo, and which, absent that description, I might have been willing to toss a couple bucks at.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/38 ... ffering-al

Yeah, no.

A single RPG that allows you to play Fantasy, Science Fiction, everything between.

Order of the Link is a game about balance. This means that, when you play, you may be good or evil, lawful or chaotic - it all depends on the situation!

The Order of the Link's Rule Set has been perfected over more than 30 years - it was started in the early 1980's!

The Order of the Link Rulebook Primer includes a single dice system perfected over these years, where you aim to roll less than your Skill (or your Attribute if you don't have the relevant Skill) on a d20.

However, it only has a limited amount of history and a selection of magic spells - which we will expand if we meet Stretch Goals.

Do any of those sound like an encouraging sales pitch to you? Almost everything in that design doc except where they promised Star Wars with more axe murdering sounded bad.

Those sound like a pitch where I would be willing to toss a small number of dollars at in return for the schadenfreudisch entertainment of a terrible system, and a potential quick review, and the offhand possibility of an interesting narrative conceit.

If it would give you more satisfaction than a cup of coffee or soda, go for it.

OgreBattle wrote:If it would give you more satisfaction than a cup of coffee or soda, go for it.

I don't know $12 can buy a number of sodas or coffees.

fectin wrote:Those sound like a pitch where I would be willing to toss a small number of dollars at in return for the schadenfreudisch entertainment of a terrible system, and a potential quick review, and the offhand possibility of an interesting narrative conceit.

Their playtest packet is linked from the Kickstarter site. I would bet money that they have a couple months of actual working on the rule set, because I see a lot or amateur concepts, stupidly worded things, and just a lot of bad ideas, which is saying something for how unusable their 'playtest' is due to lack of rules.

The official web site has been around since 2013, and the guy is apparently actually a theater actor, and if they've ever released anything for free before I can't find it.

I dunno. Rolling under (thus no one can ever be appreciably better at anything than a starting character) a skill or stat (thus getting a new skill is worse than being untrained if you have a high stat) on a d20 (so critical failures happen more often to higher skilled characters who can act more often) does sound very much like a rule system that was made in the early 80s. That is bad in pretty much exactly the way that a lot of peoples' AD&D hacks were bad.

-Username17

Wait, so this thing has been 'perfected' over 30+ years, but you only get a wee bit of history and a handful of spells? Chapeau!

Does "PoS" mean "piece of shit" in this context, or is there another meaning that I don't know about?

"Products on spec", because it's kickstarter. I posted a handful of others a year or two back.

This project is noteworthy in that it's hard to distinguish from a parody. Aside from the "perfected over 30 years", there's positive references to the '80s, the claim that it's a universal system, and the deeply silly name.

I'm not planning on backing it. If not for the 80s roots, I might (at $1-2, I still might). Unfortunately though, as Frank explained, we already know the ways that 80s-derived products are bad.

Even so, it was such a well-tuned bundle of "Nope!" that it seemed like other folks might also be amused by it.

Order of the Link is a game about balance. This means that, when you play, you may be good or evil, lawful or chaotic - it all depends on the situation!

Unintentional comedy gold.

This game must be awesome, check out this testimonial!

"Playing The Order of the Link changed my whole perspective of role playing games. I started as a Middle Earth game player on an adventure fighting Orcs and dragons. Becoming a Link player allowed me to transcend role-playing and really become the character, because the character was me."

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:"Playing The Order of the Link changed my whole perspective of role playing games. I started as a Middle Earth game player on an adventure fighting Orcs and dragons. Becoming a Link player allowed me to transcend role-playing and really become the character, because the character was me."

I can't read this and not think of Doom: Repercussions of Evil.

"...and then I was a character."