Back in the 1980s, I was a big fan of The Road Warrior and its ilk, and thus with Gamma World by TSR and even FGU's Aftermath (despite it being perhaps the most complex RPG ever designed). I thought of post-apocalypse as my "second-favorite" genre, after fantasy. I think that's because they are the same genre -- or rather, many D&Disms are actually more post-apocalyptic than they are fantasy. For example, in a post-apocalypse setting, characters only get what they can find, or what they can take from fallen foes. There's an extremely wide range of power (compare, for example, the difference between a guy with a baseball bat and a guy in powered armor with tactical nukes).

The "problem" with the genre is that kids don't grow up thinking that the world might end at any moment anymore. The threat of nuclear holocaust, reshaping the planet into a barbaric kill-or-be-killed world of scroungers and raiders, just doesn't seem as plausible.

But when I got Darwin's World, I thought, who cares? It's fun. It's no longer in the public consciousness, but post-holocaust gaming is still a great diversion from the typical roleplaying session. Plus it lets you fight robots and mutants in the same evening, so that's cool.

Darwin's World is available as a PDF at RPGNow.com for $5.95. But let's be honest, it's not really complete without the other books, Artifacts of the Ancients, the equipment book, and Denizens of the Twisted Earth, a sort of "setting book" with a lot of prestige classes (both on sale as I write this for $5). Darwin's World itself is 60 pages and has rules for character building (classes, races, skills, and feats) as well as a brief section on equipment and dangers. It relies heavily on the Player's Handbook and the DMG for basics (the price of a backpack or how much damage fire inflicts), so it's not really a complete d20 game in the same way as, say, the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. It's really more of a sourcebook for D&D to convert your game to a post-holocaust setting. But that, in my mind, is a fine way to go (and really, it's the nature of d20). You're paying for just what you need.

The game offers its own classes, the Guardian, the Raider, the Thinker, the Scav, and the Trader. It also has its own "races": humans, first-generation mutants, second-generation mutants, and third-generation mutants. While I haven't played this game (but I do indeed plan to), I'm not at all sure that these classes and races are balanced. The mutants get powers, with the idea that they are balanced by various bad mutations as well as experience-point penalties. Nevertheless, I think the mutants are still more powerful. Guardians (which are like fighters), as another example, seem just purely better than Thinkers (which are a little like wizards, except there are no spells -- it's all done with inventions and technology).

Now normally, I'd really criticize a d20 product for what I perceive as imbalances. But then I started thinking about it, and it bothered me less and less. If you're ever going to have a setting where you throw thoughts of game balance out the window, a post-apocalyptic world would be it. (And I'm not saying that balance has actually been thrown out the window.) While it's still not great that some character choices are probably better than other choices, the post-apocalyptic genre is about survival of the fittest. So take that analysis for what it's worth.

Characters also have "backgrounds," which basically determine the level of sophistication your particular society retains. These give ability adjustments (often in odd increments, which I don't agree with), favored classes, and other factors that you get from your race in D&D. These are nice roleplaying hooks and give a lot of life to a character.

Darwin's World also has skills and feats. The skills offer few surprises or innovations. Some of the feats are pretty interesting, but some go too far. Improved Hit Dice, for example, is probably too good -- it is certainly far better in every way than Toughness. Others are just Skill Focus renamed, adding +2 to a single skill.

The Mutations chapter is where Darwin's World is at its best. Here you'll find lots of cool powers -- again, there might be a balance quibble here and there -- and some interesting defects. My only complaint is that this chapter wasn't longer.

Lastly, the end of the book offers some brief information about equipment and dangers, but this is pretty light. The author expands upon the equipment much more in Artifacts of the Ancients. In fact -- and I think this is important -- I wouldn't buy Darwin's World without Artifacts of the Ancients. So that really makes it a single game in two parts, for $10.95. Still a good deal.

Artifacts of the Ancients is 54 pages of equipment, from low-tech stuff to cool high-tech gizmos and vehicles. The items all have a price (in Darwin's World post-apocalyptic trading currency) that is based on game balance rather than actual production costs, and rightly so. This is because in this setting, technology is more like magic items than like stuff you go to the store and buy. While I might quibble with a price here or there, or would have done some items differently, overall, I think the item rules here are very good. I would have, for example, made powered armor even more butch. The over-the-top high-tech stuff in here is what will make this game work better at the high levels. The vehicle rules appear sound, and I like the vehicle add-on system tailored to work like the magic weapon and armor ability rules in the DMG.

Denizens of the Twisted Earth, a 42-page product, basically has two parts. The first discusses the world in general (other than an alternate timeline for the past, Darwin's World itself presents almost no setting information). Lots of organizations and places are mentioned, but the book provides very little real detail. It's more of an idea generator for what to do with the rules than an actual setting. The prestige classes offered here are more interesting than the classes in Darwin's World itself, but suffer from the same potential problem in that they do not seem entirely balanced with each other. I like the feel of some of them quite a bit; the Brotherhood Force Masters (mutants in a strange, cult-like organization focusing their power) and the Foundationist Paladins (sophisticated warriors who lead troops with the goal of preserving ancient technology and knowledge) are my two favorites. Others, like the Champion and the Road Warrior, are a little bland.

The Cave of Life is probably the weakest product for Darwin's World, in that it's just okay. But it's free, so it's silly to complain. Pick it up if you get the others. It's an adventure that takes place in a missile silo. It appears that the author really did his missile silo homework, but the adventure doesn't have a lot of pizzazz.

In short, if you're interested in the genre, I recommend Darwin's World -- but buy at least the main book as well as Artifacts of the Ancients and (probably) Denizens of the Twisted Earth. If you've never played a post-apocalypse game, but you enjoyed the computer game Fallout, you might want to think about Darwin's World. If you are of my generation, and you liked The Road Warrior and Thundarr the Barbarian, you definitely should check it out.

Back to Reviews Archive Page / Back to Monte's Home Page