Last Stand - Review

[DragonChild]

Disclaimer: I had first heard about Last Stand due to the "controversy" surrounding the cover. There's a black woman as the only character on the cover - which is a controversy in the RPG industry, apparently, with multiple people involved in telling the author of the book that he had to change it or else it wouldn't sell. So while I at first really didn't like the look of the system because I thought Wagers were dumb (but later changed my mind), I honestly bought it on that basis alone.

Also, if you want to read how the system works not in my own terms, you can find stuff here: http://www.funhavergames.com/fsrd/

Before I get ahead of myself: Last Stand is an RPG about people who wear Kamen-rider bug armor stitched together from the bodies of giant bug enemies and fight godzilla, robots, giant bees, and turtles with fucking guns on their backs. You "level up" by ripping the limbs from fallen foes as you make the killing blow and adding them to your suit. More RPGs need to have concepts like this.

First note: The PDF of this game is pretty lightweight. 79 pages overall. The game is extremely gamey. It honestly feels more like a board game with an RPG attached. I do not think this is a bad thing.

The book starts with a brief setting overview, then the "What is an RPG?" stuff, and dives right into the action with an explanation on the four stats and dicerolling. The four stats are:

Disruptor: Chaotic, disorder, explosive, annoying actions.
Leader: Heroic, direct, straight-forward actions.
Operative: sneaky, lying, stealthy, surprising actions.
Tactician: Planning, clever, thoughtful actions.

When you roll anything, you roll 2d10, take the highest, and add it to your stat in question. And yeah, that's anything - there are no skills or anything like that.

Then we get to the fucking weird part, character creation. It's done via a CCG-style draft. Every player is given 7 Armory Cards, chooses one, and passes the rest to the player next to them. Repeat until everyone has six cards, with the final card in each pack turned in. There are 50 armory cards in total, with the plain text of them listed in the back of the book, and the pdf also coming with image files for each card so you can print them out. Each card has some sort of ability - "Teamwork", "Flamethrower", "Throw a Car At It", "Haul Ass", "Show Off" - and comes with a bonus to stats. The vast majority of the cards give a +1 bonus to two stats and a combat ability. Some of the cards instead give an ability to help in social encounters, and +2 to one stat and +1 to another.

Then, everyone gets two random bioarmor cards, of which there are 16, and picks one to use. Each Bioarmor gives a total of +4 to stats, and two separate abilities. Each bioarmor is named after a bug or creepy sea creature - Centipede, Beetle, Jellyfish, Octopus, Spider, etc. Bonus points for the Pistol Shrimp having a fucking gun arm. Seriously love that.

So about this draft. Obviously, it causes problems if you're having people join the game after it starts, or make new characters partway into it, and so on. The book does, at least, say that having people just pick cards that they want is totally a valid option if you'd prefer that. I'll talk more about how abilities work later. Onto mechanics.

So the system is pretty simple for resolution. Roll 2d10, take highest, add your stat. For TNs, the book says to use 12, +3 for each complication; climbing a building is TN 12, climbing a building during an earthquake is 15, etc. If you're doing opposed stuff, two people roll off, higher number is the winner, every 3 they win by counts as an "extra success".

Combat uses a 4x3 grid made up of 12 sectors that can be shared by multiple units. The sectors are to be adjusted scale-wise to fit wherever the combat is taking place. Most people can move one sector per turn, and most ranged attacks are limited to attacking adjacent sectors only. Giant monsters can take up multiple sectors - a 3x3 block for a bigass turtle, or two adjacent blocks and two blocks IN THE AIR for godzilla.

Turn wise, the initiative system is simply "Players act. DM acts. Repeat". There is the very familiar Standard/Move/Minor action economy for turns.


Onto hitting stuff. When you roll an attack, the attacker chooses which stat to attack with, and the defender has to roll the same stat in defense. Whichever side rolls highest deals a point of damage to the other side, +1 for every three they succeed by. When a PC takes damage, it's applied to one of their stats. This doesn't have any effect on rolling until the stat takes 0 - when it hits 0, you only roll +0 for that stat, and if you have any powers attached to that stat, they shut down. If you'd take damage on a stat that is already 0, then you choose where the damage goes.


Bad guys come in three forms; Vermin (swarms), Regular, and Giant Monsters. Vermin don't take damage to stats and instead just lose HP from a pool, and blow up when their HP hits 0. Regular monsters take damage to stats, and roll whatever their current stat is (damage applied) instead or rolling max. Giant monsters just always roll their max stat, damaged ignored. If you hit a stat that's already 0, you decide where the spillover occurs.

So then we get into RIPPING PEOPLE'S BODY PARTS OFF AND USING THEM AS WEAPONS. When you kill a swarm of vermin, or reduce the stat of a regular or giant invader to 0, you can rip the power/body part off of that monster and gain it. The monster can no longer use that power at all, but you can now. At the end of a session, everyone can pick from one Ripped power to become Slotted - it's attached to a stat of your choice, to a max of one power per stat, and you gain it permanently, and it's powered up compared to the Ripped version. Also there's no need to worry about killstealing, as you can swap around all the spare body parts you want at the end of a session.

If you already slotted in four powers into your armor, you can freeze the ripped off body parts you collect and use them to build a new, custom suit of bio armor with the powers you've frozen as the armor's base powers.

So ok, here's where the book talks about powers, so I am to, first by talking about the keywords and tokens. Every player starts a session with 3 tokens. The book treats the "bribe" as optional (yet highly recommended) but I can't see how you can play without it - every turn, the DM puts a single token down in front of each player. They can grab that stack of tokens in exchange for acting AFTER the DM does. In addition, a lot of "bad statuses" are handed out through tokens. When you get poisoned, you literally get "poison tokens" that damage you as long as you hold onto them and need to be spent ASAP. Kinda funky. Anyway, these are the keywords on powers:

Wager X: Pretty simple. Place down X tokens. Most of the time you lose them. If either die comes up some number that the power says, you get those tokens back, ADDITIONALLY gain an equal number more of tokens, and some bonus effect on the power like extra damage. At first I was really against this and it seemed stupid as hell which is why I didn't event want to try the RPG, but with the token gain of bribe, it seemed ok.

Collateral X: If either die comes up X or lower, everyone in the party (you included) takes a point of damage. This is either from being caught in the blast, yelled at by somebody, embarrassed, or whatever.

Drop: You only roll 1d10 instead of 2d10 for your power.

That's it. 17 pages in, and that's basically most of the system in a nutshell. The next five pages are DM stuff, like theme, special effects on sectors, and the like. We then get a page and a half on rules on social encounters, which are pretty barebones but serviceable. A quick "How many monsters do I throw out?" section, 3 pages of setting material, and FUCK YEAH MONSTERS.

These monsters are really great. We have giant exploding bees, poisonous centipedes, missile shooting butterflies, APC frogs, poison-gas spewing alligators, sonic boom crickets, crabs with flail-claws, fire breathing ants, tarantulas with laser guns, laser shooting robots, UFOs, giant snapping turtles, godzilla... really, if there's a complaint I have with these monsters, it's that I want MORE. There are 32 whole pages of them, 40% of the damn PDF, but they're so awesome I want just a shitload more. Each monster actually is fully developed - a neat picture, stats, powers with actual interesting mechanical effects (so many RPGs seem to fail at this), what you get if you rip/slot their powers, and "in character" descriptions of the monster and their powers that could be given out by a handler.

Unfortunately, the book kind of ends unfinished. It gives rules for making monsters, and then says a later section will tell you how to make powers for PCs, and... that section never comes. Not there. Literally the last section that says that. In addition, the setting is pretty underdeveloped. The invaders are coming from some unknown location for unknown reasons and it's pretty obviously meant to be "GM fills in", which I'm fine with, but I really wish they had discussed OPTIONS here, rather than leaving it up to the GM to write everything.


Still, I overall have a pretty positive opinion of the book, and have already scheduled a group to try the game out.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Sounds kinda cool. Maybe I'll try it out next time the meatspace RPG group gets together.

[K]

Random character creation and CCGs in my RPG is going to sink this game and not the cover.

The black chick on the cover is hot. If there is anything wrong with the cover, its too purple and cluttered as a design.

But what could people have possibly said in objection that didn't come across as incredibly racist?

[DragonChild]

Random character creation and CCGs in my RPG is going to sink this game and not the cover.

For what it's worth, in case I was unclear: There is no CCG element. All the powers are totally listed out in the book, and there are images that come with the PDF. As far as I'm aware, there are no plans on selling more powers in any way, unless you count "Powers from our other settings can work, too".

I will admit the random character creation is a bit iffy, but considering the game at least treats "Pick whatever you damn well please" as a valid option, I'm at least willing to try the draft once, and just ignore it in the future if I have problems. What I'll be doing for my game is drafting the powers, and then giving everyone a pick of bio armor.

But what could people have possibly said in objection that didn't come across as incredibly racist?

"It wouldn't appeal to demographics". From multiple sources along the production stream, apparently.

[K]

But what could people have possibly said in objection that didn't come across as incredibly racist?

"It wouldn't appeal to demographics". From multiple sources along the production stream, apparently.

Considering the demographic is composed of people who buy things with women with snake heads or other exotic colorings and forms, I don't know how they think this is not just outright racism.

I mean, do they honestly expect to lose buyers for one cover? Do black characters not appeal to sci-fi fans? Any numbers to back that up?

[Korwin]

Bad advertising is better than no advertising?
At least DragonChild bought the game, because of it

[DragonChild]

Alright, I'm going to give some quick examples of powers - and later on monsters - to give a better idea of what the system is like. First, some of the armory cards...

Flamethrower: (Disruptor +1, Leader +1) Attack an enemy with collateral on 1, 2, or 3. Choose an enemy in your sector. You deal 1 damage to each of that enemy's stats (4 damage to a swarm).

As you can see, Collateral attacks tend to be powerful as hell, but also set your party on fire.

Minefiend: (Disruptor +1, Tactician +1) Spend 2 tokens. Place a minefield effect in 1 or 2 adjacent squares. As a reaction, you can trigger the minefield effect. When a target moves into the effect's sector, spend 2 tokens. Deal 2 damage to that target. A target can only be damaged by this effect once per round.

There are a lot of field effects that are expensive as hell - but tend to produce reliable damage, and some of them reliable AOE damage. As such they're great for long fights, if you've won a wager, or have some other way of generating tokens.

Showoff: (Operative +1, Tactician +1) Drop d10 an attack an enemy in your sector. Gain 1 token.

Like this. Using this + the bribe lets you trigger minefield every round.

Combat Medic: (+1 Operative, +1 Tactician) Wager 1 and roll. Normal: Gain 3 Medic Tokens. These tokens can only be used to heal you and your allies. On a 1, 2, or 3: Win your wager and you gain 5 Medic Tokens instead.

Six bonus tokens if you make the roll, which is pretty damn sweet. Note that it takes a standard action to use, and using tokens to heal allies is something everyone can do that I just didn't cover before because I'm not going every little detail.


So here's what a bio armor looks like...

Pistol Shrimp: (Disruptor +3, Leader +1).
Aquatic: You can breathe underwater and move underwater at full speed.
Gun Arm: Attack an enemy in your sector or an adjacent sector with Collateral on 1, 2, or 3. That enemy receives a stun token. When an enemy with a stun token attacks, it takes 3 damage and loses the stun token.

You'll note that a lot of powers have an effect even if you miss - nothing on the gun arm says you have to HIT to give the stun token.

[DragonChild]

Let's look at three random monsters, one of each type: Vermin, Regular, and Giant.

As a quick note, the DM has an endless pile of tokens. When he has to spend a token, he puts it in a pile in the middle of the table - when that pile contains a number of tokens equal to the number of players, every player gets a token from that pile.

Boomer Bee

This is the first monster listed in the book. It is a goddamn exploding bee.
It's a 3 HP Vermin with stats of 5/1/4/1. It's got two powers:

Boom!: Keyed to Disruptor. Standard action, spend one token. All enemies in your sector take one damage. You take three damage.
When you rip boom, you can spend one token as a standard action to take 3 damage, and deal 1 damage to all enemies in your sector. Slotting it reduces the damage you take to 1.

Boooooom!: Keyed to Operative. Standard, melee. Spend one token. An enemy in your sector takes 3 damage. You take 3 damage.
When you rip Booooooom!, you can spend one token to to make an enemy in your sector take 3 damage, when you take 4 damage. Slotting it reduces the damage you take to 0.

So yeah - they're extremely squishy, and a single good attack can take them down. Which is good, because they explode on your face for high, guaranteed damage...



The Crusher

This is a regular monster. The picture is of a giant crab shooting its claw on a chain like robo from chrono trigger. Seriously, the monsters in this game are just... yes. Fucking yes. It has 2/5/2/3 for stats.

Wrecking Claw: Keyed to Leader. Ranged attack, spend 4 tokens. All enemies in an adjacent sector take 1 damage. Place a wrecked field effect in that sector. The wrecked field effect can stack. All attacks within a wrecked field gain +1 collateral, even if they didn't have any already, which stacks.
When you rip it, you gain a ranged attack with Collateral 2 that causes all enemies in an adjacent sector to take a point of damage. The slotted effect causes extra damage to the enemies if you roll on the collateral, too.

Crab Shell: Tied to Operative. Reduce all damage the giant enemy crab takes by 1. This bastard has no weak point.
If you rip it, you can spend 5 tokens to reduce damage by 1. If you slot it, the cost goes down to 3.

Crushing Claw: Tied to Tactician. Make a standard melee attack against an enemy. The enemy gains a crushed token. While they have the token, they can't use powers that require wagers.
If you rip it, you get a Wager 2 attack where if you win the wager, the enemy takes guaranteed extra damage. If you slot it, it becomes Wager 1, and the damage procs on 1-3.

So yeah; giant enemy chain crab. Your best bet is to have a high Operative (sneaky) character go after its operative stat first, reducing it to 0, which shuts down its Crab Shell, allowing you to deal full damage to it. Meanwhile, you have to worry about its ranged attack fucking everything up. And of course, you'd be fighting MULTIPLE of these at once...


Radioactive Lizard

This book quite clearly assures that this monster is NOT Godzilla. Why would you even think that. The book is super clear on it. As a giant monster, it's immune to field effects, and automatically damages you if it so much as moves into your sector.

The Radioactive Lizard is multiple sectors large - it's two adjacent feet sectors, two body sectors that count up, and a head sector atop it. Any attack hitting the head sector gains +1 damage. If you're in one of its sectors, you're assuming to be climbing it - and when it moves, you need to roll 12+ on Leader or Operative to not get thrown off. This beast also have 9/6/3/3 for stats, and keep in mind its stats don't go down as you hit it.

Radioactive Blast: Tied to Disruptor. Choose an adjacent sector. Enemies in that sector take one damage. Each enemy may instead choose to take 3 damage to gain 2 tokens. If Disruptor is reduced to 0, the Radioactive Lizard instead deals a guaranteed 2 points of damage on a missed attack.
If you rip Radioactive Blast - yes, if you RIP OUT GODZILLA'S LASER BREATH AND USE IT FOR YOURSELF - you get a Collateral 2 attack that deals automatic damage to enemies in an adjacent sector. Slotting it makes it Collateral 3, and lets you GAIN tokens when you use it.

Sharp Nasty Teeth: Tied to Leader. He can only bite at enemies on his head sector. That enemy takes two damage and must roll its lowest stat - if the enemy rolls 11 or less, they are thrown off and placed adjacent to the monster's feet, taking another point of damage. When Leader is reduced to 0, the damage dealt to the feet sectors are reduced by 1.
Ripping sharp nasty teeth makes it so your single target melee attacks that only end up dealing 1 damage get +1 damage. Slotting it lets you spend two tokens to get an additional damage, too.

Detachable Tail: Tied to Operative. As a move action the lizard can spend two tokens to move a sector and detach its tail, placing a field effect in a sector it just left. When an enemy moves into the tail sector, it must spend one token or take one damage. When its operative is reduced to 0, it removes field effects it steps on.
You can rip it to grab a detached tail and use it as a weapon; your regular attacks gain collateral 2, but you get +1 damage to them. You can slot it to gain a tail whip, which is a collateral 3 attack that deals 1 damage to all enemies in adjacent sectors, which is pretty huge.

So yeah - that's a preview of the monsters.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I want to try this game, it sounds pretty awesome. And I thought everyone liked attractive black women?