Review: Barbarians of the Ruined Earth

This is one of the games that I have been waiting on for a very long time. It felt like millenniums passed between each aspect its creation. From when it is just an idea, to writing, to editing, to the successful kickstarter, and finally to public release. This games draws heavily on inspiration from Thundarr the Barbarian, Ralph Bakshi's Wizards, Heavy Metal, and Mad Max: Fury Road. 

For disclosure purposes, I received a physical and digital copy for review purposes. In addition, I was a consultant on the game early in its process. 

Presentation: I saw Mike Evans release art throughout the process and I payed close attention to the Kickstarter but I was not expecting the end product to be so pleasing to the eye. Barbarians of the Ruined Earth (BotRE) has a full cover and its 167 pages are stuffed with full color art from the multiple artists. In addition, each page has a yellow border with red dots and all of the tables have yellow and red highlights. BotRE has a table of contents and is organized into various chapters. The book starts off (after the introduction and all of that) with the full rules of the game that is a whopping 9 pages long.

Character Creation: Players create characters following these steps:

1. Rolling Stats: There are two options. The first option is roll 3d6 in order (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma). If you roll a 15+ then your next roll with be 2d6+2. The second option is rolling the same stats but using 2d6+5 because lets face it, it is not fun having a 3-6 in a stat.
2. Choose a Class: There are 8 classes (race as class is used in BotRE). Your options are Barbarians, Beastmen (mutant humans/animal hybrids), Death Priest, Robot, Scavenger, Sorcerer, Urchin, and Vek (super smart raptor folk).
3. Record Details: Each class provides starting hit points, hit dice, weapon/armor proficiency, damage done with weapons/unarmed, starting equipment, an interesting trinkets table (1d6), and a life event table (1d8). 
   

Resolution: Barbarians of the Ruined Earth is based off of The Black Hack 1e with various house rules baked right in. Every task consists of making an attribute check that consists of rolling a d20 under the relevant of attribute. This roll can be modified with advantage or disadvantage. The system is also player facing in which the GM does not make "attack rolls" for monsters, traps, etc. The players react to adversary and must succeed on their own attributes checks to avoid the axe heading towards their head. 

Speaking of that, combat is resolved in the following manner:

1. Roll Initiative: Everyone rolls a 1d20 (the GM rolls for all enemies at the same time. Though, separate rolls can be made for powerful enemies). The order resolved from lowest to highest and initiative is rolled once per combat.
2. Attacking/Defending: When it is the characters turn, they can attack, move, etc. An attack functions the same way as an attribute test. When the adversary goes, the GM narrates the action and the character reacts to it by trying to avoid getting hit. This is the same as any other attribute roll. 

 

Crunch: There is not a lot of crunch beyond the attribute tasks but the system has some interesting nuances that I will list. 

• Armor: Armor provides a flat damage reduction. Shields do not add to damage reduction but can be sacrificed to completely ignore a successful attack. A small shield can do this once and then it is useless and large shields can do this twice before becoming useless
• Critical Success: If the player rolls a 1 during an attack, the damage is doubled. If the player is trying to avoid an attack and rolls a 20, they take double damage
• Resistance: Some creatures have resistance, which means they 1/2 damage from certain sources 
• Death and Dying: There is a death and dying table (d10) after a character reaches 0 hit points
• Powerful Opponents: If the players face opponents that have 2 HD or more then they are considered powerful opponents. Players suffer disadvantage to attack and dodging rolls. If they party's total HD is double the powerful opponents HD, then they powerful opponent penaalty is ignored
• Experience: Experience points are gone, the GM levels up the characters have major events, quests completed, etc 
  

Final Thoughts: I think the art coupled with the rules light engine of The Black Hack really hit all the sweet spots for a Post Apocalyptic joy Ride. This is because the rules do not get in the way of the ride and the art does not only make it look rad, but it adds so much flavor, inspiration, and hints at a setting. 

I am also really glad that the changes to the core rules of The Black Hack fixed a lot of things that I did not like personally like with the system such as the original armor rules and a few other things. BotRE has also greatly expanded the GM section with lots of helpful tables, various advice columns, weapon creation tables, and even has a table to create Blocks (think the mega blocks from Judge Dredd). All of this extra GM goodies make running it a lot easier. There is also an Appendix N and there are sources in there that I did not mention.

With the Barbarians of the Ruined Earth, you can run just about any style of game from a Gamma World Gonzo to Mad Max. I think this is really the big selling point of BotRE because it is designed to do the various different games with ease. It takes little effort to allow or disallow various things to get the tone just right. A lot of other post apocalyptic games have their tone hard baked into the rules and it takes a lot of effort to untangle it.  

You can find Barbarians of the Ruined Earth...

• Standard Cover + PDF
• Special Edition Cover + PDF 
• Wrath of Zombie Blog - All kinds of bonus content and sneak peaks of upcoming content for BotRE