The Reviews. Episode 23 – Big Al reviews Fallout: The Roleplaying Game G.E.C.K. Special Edition Box set

In 2077, the storm of nuclear war reduced most of the planet to cinders. From the ashes of nuclear devastation, a new civilization will struggle to arise, a civilization you will shape. Welcome to the Wasteland. Welcome to the world of Fallout.

Fallout: The Roleplaying Game G.E.C.K. Special Edition Box Set

A d20 game from Modiphius

            A brief forward – this review tackles not only the core book for the Fallout RPG, but also the additional items found in the G.E.C.K. Special Edition Box Set. G.E.C.K. stands for Garden of Eden Creation Kit, and it’s an in-game item that can be found and used, but in real life it’s just a really nice box set of the Fallout TTRPG. In addition to a unique cover, the G.E.C.K. contains the following: a nice box, ergo, box set, the Game Master toolkit (two sets of two handy heavy paper cheat sheets for basic rules and for combat, a badass map of the Commonwealth and downtown Boston, GM’s booklet which contains a variety of tables as well as some additional rules, a character sheet pad, and a sheet of die-cut Nuka Cola Cap Tokens (good for whatever you want to used them for, and marked with 1’s and 5’s)), Custom Dice Set, and Nuka Cola Caps (like, actual caps, useful for again, whatever you want to use them for).

Art and Layout (including the extra G.E.C.K. materials)– A

            The map included in the G.E.C.K. materials by itself raises the art and layout by a whole letter grade. It is truly a beautiful thing to behold. Of course, it will only be useful for in-person gaming, or simply to get out and trace various avenues of travel if you are a daydreaming GM.

            After the map, the art in the Fallout RPG core book is good. If you have played any Fallout video games then you know what Fallout art looks like, and this is, Fallout art. The book does provide illustrations for most, if not all, included NPC monsters/mutants, as well as most, if not all, weapons. As a result, you will feel immersed in the Wasteland and Commonwealth while reading the book, and you’ll have plenty of visual cues to provide your gaming group if they so desire.

            The layout of the books is also very well done. Much like the Dune Modiphius game, this Fallout core book is laid out in a very easy to digest way, with plenty of asides to break up the reading, and with a font and font size that make reading easy, and not a chore as other books are apt to do. I do believe the layout is superior to the Dune RPG, but I suspect that comes with differences between those two games as well as with the video game background of Fallout. An additional bit of design that goes a long way is a color-coding scheme that is not specifically noted in the text, but clear in the form. There’s a specific color that appears in segments that are pointedly aimed at Game Masters, a bright green. Beyond that, every segment of the book is also marked by a tab located at the top of the page.

            This book does an excellent job of incorporating much of what you like in the video game into its layout, which is extremely helpful if you have played Fallout before. I do not know how this translates to a player that has not played any of the video games, but I suspect that even without the background the layout is well-done because of following a kind of lose outline provided by the video games. The bottom line is that this layout is easy to follow and really a joy to read if you are already a Fallout fan.

            Touching upon the other additions to the G.E.C.K. kit – they are all high-quality items, except for the box itself. The design of the box, unfortunately, does lend itself to some damage that would be considered incidental to opening the box. It’s a weakness of design, but the only one in those additional items. The set of dice are clearly of good quality. The bottle caps are actual bottle caps. It’s very cool to see an in-game item like that reproduced for whatever purpose you decide. It’s always nice to get a set of Character Sheets for players, and this is no exception to that rule. The GM’s booklet is not a separate book, but more of a magazine in construction and design. It functions as a set of additional rules for the Game Master to incorporate if they desire, as well as additional tables for random encounters and the like. It’s a nice addition to the core book, but definitely in line with “bonus” material and not “necessary” material. Lastly, the heavy-duty cheat sheets are a must. Having something so succinctly remind players (and GMs) of rules is an excellent bonus item, and well designed both in layout and in materials. They are built to last through regular use.

Fluff – A+

            This book is jam packed with effective and fun fluff.

            The Fallout RPG is based upon the setting of Fallout 4, which is lucky for me, because 4 was my first Fallout game to play, and my favorite, likely as a result. The book is upfront about this, and so most of the fluff is regarding the Commonwealth, an area of New England outside of Boston. That being said, the book does not skip the major fluff leading up to this Wasteland of America beyond the immediate vicinity of the Commonwealth.

            In fact, in addition to simply noting the method and means of the fall of humanity, the book goes as far as to give a minuscule, but enticing, slice of worldview with its inclusion of the Yangtze, a Chinese nuclear submarine currently harbored in Boston Harbor.

The book breaks up the fluff in several ways, one of which is a differentiation between information on corporate entities, and information on locations. The corporate entities are the chunk of the fluff that goes above and beyond simple history and into a kind of meta-history, complete with several ideas to be mined in your own personal games. The location sections also incorporate quest seeds as part of their general form.

            I am not going to count all the different quest seeds in this book, but to be clear, we are talking about an excess of probably fifty once we add corporate quest seeds, location quest seeds, and generic quest seeds together. Modiphius has done an EXCEPTIONAL job of fleshing out this world in such a way that you don’t have to do much fleshing out yourself unless you want to. You can easily find inspiration among the hundreds of pages devoted to various aspects of the Wasteland.

Crunch – B+

The crunch of this game is where I struggled most in reading, retaining, and understanding the book.  The mechanics of this 2d20 system are both pleasantly simple and yet simultaneously confoundingly difficult.   

            The Fallout RPG 2d20 system is less flexible in some ways than the DUNE system, while still emphasizing throughout the book that flexibility is still the name of the game. The core of the system is easier to grasp because the inventory system is more defined and not part of the narrative gaming, as is the case in DUNE. Since you have definitive inventory, it simplifies that aspect of the game, so that you don’t have to make decisions about whether a proposed attribute of the scene is appropriate, or a proposed asset is appropriate. Instead, you have concrete weapons that are collected, built, bought by your PCs, and can be destroyed or damaged. It is a welcome simplification from the DUNE system. To be fair, it is more a result of the type of IP being adapted than anything. Dune is this operatic sci-fi IP with grand sweeping storylines and themes. It’s about intrigue as much as action. Fallout is much more a survival game, a game of action, not necessarily intrigue, but even when intrigue rears its head, in Fallout it still feels more action driven.

            Part of this crunch that again assists in understanding the game better are the variety of tables found in this book. These tables come in various forms, but most are either random roles to generate an outcome or a condition, or they are tables that outline the weapons, the armor, the other items that can be found and used in the book. Obviously, you can go beyond these tables if you so desire, but they provide the level of crunch that eases entry into the game, for both players and Game Masters. Most questions you may have, have answers. To the degree that if a question doesn’t have an answer, you can probably just move past it if you’re not feeling confident or create your own answers if you are. It’s a good mix for both new players and veterans, and the same with new Game Masters and veterans.

            This system is clearly heavily influenced by the video game, and it shows in the crunch as well, with tables that you can find the basic equivalent to the video game. As an example, the Perks are either taken directly from the game, or so closely structured to the game that as a player of a game, reading them feels like sliding back into the video game. This works as both a strong foundation for newcomers to Fallout, and as a familiar safety blanket for those versed in the Fallout video game.

            My only complaint with the system lies in how it describes scavenging and how you find from scavenging. This is the one place where the system adamantly refuses to be specific, instead using generic vernacular to indicate what’s found and/or scavenged – uncommon material, common material, rare material, etc. This is probably just to make it easier to run for DM’s but it’s odd because the mods for weapons and armor and such also indicate necessary items as simply uncommon, common, rare, etc. The part that makes this weird for me is the idea that you may modify some armor in such a way that you are clearly using metal, but you’ve only scavenged out of houses, from furniture, but since we only have common, uncommon, rare, etc., you could effectively modify that armor with what would be metal but use what is probably not metal.

            That’s a small complaint in the long run though.

            The last bit of crunch I want to touch upon is the included starter scenario. This is an exciting scenario, replete with opportunities to practice the basic combat rules of the game as well as effective seeds towards further adventures. To paraphrase a portion of the book – Fallout is a game where the result of any scenario should have significant repercussions across the game. Some of those may be immediate and recognizable, but even if there are no immediate and recognizable repercussions, the Game Master should keep this design in mind and consider how to incorporate those results later in the game. This starter scenario does an excellent job of presenting and exploring that concept.

Overall – A

            My overall impressions of the Fallout RPG are positive, very positive. I would give the book an A overall. It demonstrates an especially successful adaptation of a video game into a TTRPG. Beyond that, the Fallout RPG is simply a good game, well designed, easy to understand, and appears to be fun to play. I look forward to playing the game. 

~ Big Al, the Lawyer.

A big thank you to Modiphius for sending us a digital copy for this review and for Big Al who purchased his own copy of the G.E.C.K. Special Edition of the game.

Head over to Modiphius’ store and order your copy today

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Alan “Big Al” Nicholas lives in the desert of West Texas where finding a good RPG group is as difficult as finding water. When he’s not looking for a new RPG Kickstarter or an online RPG group, he can be found prosecuting crime as the Ward County attorney or traveling with his wife to his daughter’s volleyball games. He can be found on Twitter at @bigalthelawyer or on the RPG Academy discord valiantly but vainly defending the Snyderverse.

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