Even less fun than I thought it would be. When I first read the description for NEP, I thought “original concept, but I don’t know if it would be very much fun to play. And it isn’t. Basically, you play a nameless grunt (actually you’ll probably play several, as your characters will probably die several times during the session.) All characters have 4 stats, rated from 2 to 6. These stats are Agility, Vigor, Gear, and Luck. Agility, Vigor, and Luck are fairly self explanatory. Gear is rolled to determine if your character has the equipment he needs, and how well he uses it. All of your characters for a session will have the same stats. Basically, the Scene Master describes a scene, and then calls on the players to roll against a certain stat. If you roll your stat or higher, you survive the scene. If not, you die. The thing that turns me off about this game is that there’s very little room for role playing or creative problem solving. If the Scene Master has decided that surviving a scene requires a Vigor roll, then it requires a Vigor roll. You aren’t allowed to come up with original solutions to the problem that might allow you to roll a different stat. The game also uses Survival Tokens, Death Tokens, Victory Tokens, and Revenge Tokens. Although the rules for these items aren’t overly complex (as RPG rules go), I feel that they added needless complexity to this game. So, the game gets points for a fresh concept, but that hardly matters when it’s not that much fun to play.
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