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Carbon Grey RPG (a new d6 rulebook and licensed setting)
bromides:
--- Quote from: zircher on June 09, 2022, 06:31:55 AM ---Cool, thanks for the review. I noticed that on the DTRPG site that there is a solo adventure.
That might be a big thing for me since I don't know if I can get this game in front of a group to play.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/20062/Magnetic-Press-Play
--- End quote ---
The main book also includes a very brief solo adventure.
The one in the main book is a "choose your own adventure" style solo game... which is not the best kind of solo play since it's not replicable. You can't easily transfer a "choose your own adventure" setup into another scenario.
I'm not sure what style of solo play is in the solo adventure (I believe it's a much longer "choose-your-own-adventure" format scenario, from what I've read), but it's something I'd want to try as well.
(I think I can make do with the Mythic GM emulator and/or some of my own Oracles. There's a single page of random adventure hooks (in addition to the example scenarios and scenario descriptions).
I am more curious about the NPCs and factions book. Carbon Grey exists in a manga-style Europe, so I'm not sure about the role of the Church, for instance. There's a Church, but I'm not sure what it is.
Since it's WW1, there's also an Ottoman Empire equivalent, and I'm curious about that one as well (especially with the religious question).
If you like d6, this is worth a look. It's definitely carrying the West End Games: Star Wars DNA inside of it, with thoughtful additions to the character setup. The art is gorgeous. The layout is definitely professional (and the PDF is bookmarked)... which you would expect from a comic book company that is stretching into RPGs. Layout, look and feel... definitely professional stuff. Almost MORK BORG without the vomit-inducing layout... Carbon Grey has a style, but it's not style for style's sake like MORK BORG.
I almost can't say enough about the look and the quality of presentation. This is an example of how to put together an RPG book the right way. There's a style to it, but it definitely feels usable and very readable.
...
Also, it carries the West End Games logo/imprint, but that is mainly for show (I think) since the company doesn't really exist on its own.
bromides:
--- Quote from: HappyDaze on June 09, 2022, 10:15:23 AM ---I love the old D6 system, but (after looking at the preview materials on DTRPG) the setting for this one leaves me cold. Not saying it's objectively bad, but it doesn't appeal to me at all.
--- End quote ---
It's pretty much what you'd expect from manga-style Europe, which has its pluses and minuses for sure.
The Kaiser is the generic "bad guy" element, but Carbon Grey (the RPG) doesn't necessarily require the Axis powers to be the bad guy. There's just a giant, flashing, neon sign of a hint... "AXIS POWERS". They leave out enough to where you could be agents of the Kaiser if you wanted, and there's no moral judgment there in terms of what the Kaiser is doing. The setting is entirely in your hands (as compared to other licensed games), although the materials strongly suggest that the Kaiser is the bad guy here. There's no metaplot campaign behind it at this time.
HappyDaze:
--- Quote from: bromides on June 09, 2022, 10:24:35 AM ---
--- Quote from: HappyDaze on June 09, 2022, 10:15:23 AM ---I love the old D6 system, but (after looking at the preview materials on DTRPG) the setting for this one leaves me cold. Not saying it's objectively bad, but it doesn't appeal to me at all.
--- End quote ---
It's pretty much what you'd expect from manga-style Europe, which has its pluses and minuses for sure.
The Kaiser is the generic "bad guy" element, but Carbon Grey (the RPG) doesn't necessarily require the Axis powers to be the bad guy. There's just a giant, flashing, neon sign of a hint... "AXIS POWERS". They leave out enough to where you could be agents of the Kaiser if you wanted, and there's no moral judgment there in terms of what the Kaiser is doing. The setting is entirely in your hands (as compared to other licensed games), although the materials strongly suggest that the Kaiser is the bad guy here. There's no metaplot campaign behind it at this time.
--- End quote ---
It lost me at "manga WWI Europe" regardless of how the Axis are played.
zircher:
While sand box solo with Mythic GME, CRGE, or some other oracle is my preferred style to solo, I'm not against a CYOA especially as a teaching tool. Thanks for the info. Currently deep on another solo project, but I wishlisted CG for the future.
bromides:
Yeah, for sure. CYOA is a good way to learn the rules in a structured way, and including both CYOA and a big chunk of example scenarios in the Carbon Grey RPG is a good thing.
Again, this book should be used in a class about how to write RPG rulebooks. I can do without the "What is Roleplaying" junk, but the rest of it is amongst the better modern RPG books that I have read lately.
I can agree that the setting may be a turn-off for some since it's manga-style Europe (although on the plus side, that also means fetish-ized White women, I guess)... but aside from art and the sketch of the setting that we get (maybe a couple pages on Mitteleuropa, at most, and less than that for the different states within the Empire... and they use the word "Empire", not the word "Reich". So it's very deliberate in its style. Stylistic Europe, and not Europe itself.)
I was just browsing over the other site, and here's what a RPG.netter had to say to describe Carbon Grey (the comic):
--- Quote ---"What if we had attractive women engaging in gun-fu while wearing impractical Imperial German fashion in an alternate universe that lets us skirt the impending Nazi problem despite the fact that a lot of what's going on here is still rather fashy?" I do own them (the comics), but there's a lot of problematic stuff simmering in the setting for me to want to game in it.
--- End quote ---
You'd think fascism without the inconvenient truth (genocide, like most authoritarian states) would appeal to RPG.net, but I guess not.
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