Uncharted Worlds Review

Today, I'm going to review Sean Gomez's Uncharted Worlds: an Apocalypse Engine game that I recently picked up here.    Before I get into the nuts-and-bolts of the game, I want to say from the outset that the older I get, the more I'm attracted to smaller games with simpler rulesets.  There's a plethora of wonderful space opera RPGs on the market, and I'm sure I'd have a blast running or playing any of them.  With that said, most of these games require a hefty amount of time to learn the rules and familiarize oneself with their settings.

I like a compelling settings as much as the next person, but I don't have the bandwidth anymore to digest the inevitable cornucopia of exotic extraterrestrials, cultures, starships, and amoral syndicates lurking between the stars.  That's why Uncharted Worlds appeals to me so much.  If you read on, perhaps it will appeal to you too.

The Uncharted Worlds .pdf weighs in at 178 pages.  Beautiful black and white art by Juan Ochoa is interspersed throughout the game's crisp, easy-to-read layout.    I'm a huge fan of black and white illustrations.  I'm an even bigger of a fan of games illustrated by one artist.  Better still, Sean's succinct writing gets his point across without any hitches.

Character creation differs in a good way from other AW games.  Although there's a supplement available now which enables GMs to incorporate alien species into their setting, the basic game facilitates human characters only.  I actually don't have a problem with this at all.  Character stats include Mettle, Physique, Influence, Expertise, and Interface.   Players are given the following modifiers to distribute as they see fit: +2, +1, +1, +0, -1.

I'm going to gloss over some of the steps and instead focus on my favorite aspect of the character creation: careers.  Most Apocalypse Engine games (Dungeon World, for example) are class-based.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but classes are often inherently restrictive.  Uncharted Worlds solves this problem with careers.  Players choose two careers during character creation and create an archetype based on the combination.  Their archetype is further enhanced by an origin.

For example, if I envisioned some sort of a rugged, spacefaring mercenary, I could choose the Impoverished or Brutal origin.   Perhaps my mercenary grew up in a slum in a hive city, or maybe he hearkens from some war-torn backwater.  Let's say I choose Impoverished.  Jace, my character, was an urchin who grew up a crime-ridden section of a planet-sized city - he made it to adulthood with his fists and his street smarts.  Perhaps he got in trouble and was offered a choice: join the army or spend the rest of life in gaol.

Now that Jace's origin is fleshed out, I choose the Military and Scoundrel careers.  What does this tell us about Jace?  Well, we know that Jace grew up in a slum, but that he found a way off world by becoming a soldier.  I conceive of him as a tough-as-nails grunt.   He's picked up quite a bit of fighting skills.   With that said, Scoundrel suggests that Jace either fell back on his old ways, or his life took a left turn.  I decide that Jace was thrown out of the military after he punched an overbearing officer.

With limited prospects, Jace secured employment with a notorious criminal syndicate.    So,  based on the Jace's origin and career choices, Jace is muscle. He's a hired thug, basically - a thug who knows how to use multiple weapons, and is good with his hands.  Maybe he's got a soft heart, too.  Only time will tell.

There are several other steps involved in creating a character, but they're easy to understand and fun.    I will point out, however, that the chapter on character generation is located towards the middle of the book.  I'm not sure how much I like this choice, but it doesn't detract from the game in any appreciable way.

Like most AW games, the game world is conceived collaboratively. Although this is fun, it can be a bit daunting to create a setting entirely from scratch.  I happen to love doing so, but I've run games with players who prefer to romp through a preconceived setting.  Uncharted Worlds helps facilitate setting creation with its factions generator.  Most space operas are rife with powerful factions plotting and scheming against one another.  The PCs begin play within this maelstrom of shifting alliances.

The GM creates a few factions, each PC may swear allegiance to one of the factions.  In doing so, they accrue 3 debt and 1 favor.  Debt, of course, is something that’s owed to a faction.  Perhaps a merchant guild loaned the characters money to buy a ship.  Favor, on the other, is something that a faction owes the characters.

The group may also choose a faction as a sponsor.  Taking this into account, it's possible for both individual players, as well as the group, to start play with a number of tangled alliances and indebtedness.  Better still, these relationships actually go a long way to shaping a corner of space for the PCs to explore.  For example,  if most of the factions are criminal in nature, perhaps the setting takes place within a massive, crime-infested city.  

There's a lot more to Uncharted Worlds that I could talk about, but I want to be fair and discuss the something that I wasn't too crazy about: combat.  Combat in Uncharted Worlds is completely abstract.   Although I love theater of the mind games, I found Uncharted Worlds's system to be a bit too narrative.  In a nutshell, combat is resolved with a either a ranged or a melee move.   If the PC scores a 10 plus, they win the altercation without any complications.  7-9, they prevail, but they suffer some sort of complication.  6 or below, the characters are beaten up, wounded, or worse.

For example, if a PC squares off against a gang of thugs, and she rolls a 10+ during the exchange, the PC has beaten the thugs, period.  The player gets to describe how he beats up the thugs.  There are some additional rules, but that's basically how combat plays out.  I'm definitely not a fan of complex combat rules, but I found Uncharted Worlds's combat system to be a bit too freeform for me.   There aren't any monsters or adversaries in the book.  These are merely plot devices.   I haven't actually run a session of Uncharted Worlds, so this system may be more enjoyable than it seems. There is a system for wounds, but I won't go into it during this review.  Combat seems to hinge upon an agreed narrative between the PCs and GM.

Having said all this, the game's abstract combat system does not detract from my love of this game.  I think Uncharted Worlds is a fantastic addition to the Apocalypse-inspired suite of games, and I recommend that anyone looking or a rules-lite space opera should give this game a try.