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STALKER - The SciFi Roleplaying Game
by Xaver S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/20/2021 09:19:55

TL;DR: Superb fluff, world, background and non-rule-stuff 5/5. Good ruling ideas (FLOW) 4/5. Poor ruling explanations. 2/5.

First things first: This review does not review it from a 2012 standpoint, but from a 2021 standpoint. Therefore I will openly critizise thigns that were o.k. back then, but are no longer acceptable nowadays. In this second part I will mainly focus on the rules, because the rest is - as stated above - perfect.

Rules. I have never played a diceless system before nor read any. I am not against diceless systems. The system presented is in general very interesting and I think it is definitely playable. However, the way how it is described is brutal and very difficult to read. Words are used before defining them properly which makes remembering information properly very difficult. Multiple reads are necessary to understand everything, I guess. One example for a word that is used without explaining it (at the time where it is used) "Hit". In a fire fight, when you lose a challenge, you can be "hit".

I do get why the author thought this was a great idea: It's not important for now, you will understand about 5-10 pages later. But 1. this leaves me in confusion 2. often I will only read about 10-20 pages per day (of a rulebook) and therefore have to make the cut before understanding what "hit" means. Compared to modern systems like TDE5, Shadowrun 6 and so on, summarization-boxes are missing when badly needed.

Sometimes the structure is not very inviting as well. The book will give you a ruling: "Sometimes you need a challenge" a fluff-text "most non-stalker people never will have a challenge in their life" and then goes ahead telling you that fixing a car is a challenge. Not very elegant. But this is not a problem per se.

At other times it gets really problematic. The challenge mechanism is "explained" without explaining enough so you can understand it. Then you get about 10-30 pages about how the challenge mechanism works. Real summarization would have helped this book a lot. Simple, numbered steps and then an explanation to those steps.

Because of the non-explicit structure the reader might sometimes wonder: Is there a structure at all? Luckily he is most times pleasantly surprised: Yes, there is. Making the structure more explicit would've helped a lot.

=> If the structure is reworked and rulings are explained with an explicit simple step system instead of just dumping the information, this book would get a 4/5 to 5/5 rating. In its current state I cannot recommend it to non-STALKER fanboys since it is too much trouble to get into.

[EDIT] To avoid any misunderstandings: There are many explanations given in great detail about which ruling is used when and why rulings are the way they are. It is just the presentation, order and structur that I am critizising.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
STALKER - The SciFi Roleplaying Game
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STALKER - The SciFi Roleplaying Game
by Johannes R. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/10/2019 04:35:56

Cool! Goodsourcebook but the diceless rules are not for everyone.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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STALKER - The SciFi Roleplaying Game
by A customer [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/04/2016 10:11:10

This is my first review so I'm going to keep it short and I apologise if it's not that helpful. The biggest strength of this product lies in the depth and detail it goes into in describing its setting, based on the seminal 'Roadside Picnic' by the Strugatsky brothers. It describes a number of different anomalies and artifacts and gives ideas and help for creating your own as well as going into detail on the elements of life in and around the Zones in the setting. One of my complaints in this regard however is the fact that the PDF ultimately only goes into detail on specific Zones in the setting with the Zone in France and touches upon Zone Japan, otherwise skimming over the other areas with a few details. Nonetheless the PDF still provides a useful detailed overview of Zones generally and this somewhat vague nature in the way some of the zones are described might be preferred by some people. The presentation of the book is fine with some good art and I only noticed one typo.

My biggest worry with the PDF is that rules-wise it follows a diceless system created by the developer. I have not ran any games with this PDF yet and so I'm not sure how well the system used ('Flow') works and this may put off some people from running a game with this PDF. A dice conversion can be found on the publisher's website but again I do not know how good it is. The PDF also doesn't go into a lot of detail in exploring mechanically how enemies, the anomalies and artifacts in this game work which unfortunately detracts from the PDF as a whole.

In conclusion STALKER - The SciFi Roleplaying Game is, despite its mechanical flaws, still worth picking up for its amazing and detailed setting which could be run in a number of other systems.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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STALKER - The SciFi Roleplaying Game
by Paul B. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/14/2015 16:34:24

First off the positives: This is an amazing book, background and info briming on every page. It presents one of the best backdrops for a game I've come across. Black and white illustrations sdd to the noir feeling of the setting, flavour text is cool. I could write chapters prasing the character generations, the setting, the anomolies, artifacts, etc... It is an amazing and open back drop for an rpg.

Then on to the negative (singular): The only thing that lets it down for me (and I emphasis for me) is the game system itself- which a very small part of the book.
The resolution of events left me as GM feeling uncomfortably exposed. The number crunching, derived from skills and situation/task, although not complicated still felt that as GM I was still making arbritary discisions regarding the players ideas and roleplaying. ( ok I got burned a couple of times by my players... and these weren't my hardened Monday night crew either.) Which is a shame because the character generation is pretty awesome.

If your players are meek and willing to accept you descisions at face value then the system will probably not pose a problem. Myself, I'm playing arround with die resolution system I can bolt on without wrecking the chargen.

That aside the modest Mr Burger has done an a really excellent job of recreating the Story setting of a 'Road-Side Picnic' for as RPG, even if he does say so himself :)



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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STALKER - The SciFi Roleplaying Game
by Viktor V. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/31/2012 10:16:57

Excellent lore. Really captures the Stalker feeling and expands on it. The rule system is interesting but I haven't tried it. It does seem to fit really well with the game.

Recommended! If just because its a cracking good read!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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STALKER - The SciFi Roleplaying Game
by Rob L. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/04/2012 12:59:25

I have to say that STALKER RPG is one of the most evocative and superb roleplaying books I've read since I started gaming (over thirty years ago now). I'm unashamedly old school, and so have no real interest in the FLOW system per se (ok, I'm probably missing something, but that's just me). However, STALKER is very rules lite; only a small proportion of the book is given over to rules, the rest is background presented without any game stats.

Thus, STALKER RPG, being mainly a (generic) background book, presents no problems in applying the material to any major dice-based system (BRP, D20, GURPS, Savage Worlds, whatever). So, for those who may be hesitant about the FLOW system, don't be. Get the book and apply the beautifully pitched background to your system of choice.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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STALKER - The SciFi Roleplaying Game
by Jyry N. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/01/2012 16:13:53

The fluff is excellent, entertaining and makes the whole process of learning about the Stalker universe engaging. The best part of this game is the gamemasters pages and the FLOW system. I've never had as clear and well written material on how to actually create a good game as a GM and the system just makes it more wonderful. I myself tend to use dice-version of the system just because I feel that it helps in improvising.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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STALKER - The SciFi Roleplaying Game
by Matthew H. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 05/30/2012 05:10:10

STALKER the Scifi Roleplaying Game; a review [long]

This is a review of the STALKER RPG by VILLE VUORELA and published by Burger Games.

I paid for my copy of this game and I have no affiliations with the author or publisher.

STALKER is a game set in our world changed by an alien visitation. They visited here but they didn't visit us. No-one remembers them or even saw them. No-one living. At each site visited a Zone formed, dozens of kilometers across. Within the Zones the commonly accepted rules of physical reality do not apply. They are arbitrary death-zones navigated by trial and error, death or survival. That was thirteen years ago. Walled off and studied from afar by the Institute, conglomerate communities cling to the Zones housing refugees and the changed, tragic human detritus of the brave new world the Zones promise. And each Zone is studded with artifacts. Valuable treasures that navigate a black market from the hand of a Stalker to a corporate research lab, private collector or secret weapons development program. And no STALKER enters the zone alone. They work as teams so they can evade the armed patrols at the border, survive the anomolies that would grind, burn or crush them, retrieve the artifact and reverse the process back to the mundane dangers of exchanging the goods for money.

Have you read `A Roadside Picnic' (ARP) by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky? If not, you have missed one of the great works of science fiction. Luckily it can be read online.

It was written 10 years before William Gibson wrote the short stories that lead to Neuromancer, the Sprawl trilogy and the revitalization of science fiction via the future dark of cyberpunk. ARP is on a kind of parallel evolution with the exception that cyberpunk is about the human implications of a world made smaller by information technology and ARP is about a world made bigger by the visitation.

In 1979 the film STALKER was released, screenplay by the brothers Strugatsky. It is somehow very different from ARP whilst perfectly capturing the essence of the zone and the broken desire of those who enter and occasionally escape it.

The game itself has merged into this strangeness. One of the things you will immediately notice on reading ARP is the weird Sovietness of it. It flees recklessly into your brain like a defector across the iron curtain with strange half truths and blatant lies seeking your acceptance and pity. Or like a Stalker into the Zone seeking the impossible discards of fleeting and disinterested Visitors.

The STALKER RPG has an uncanny affinity for this strangeness. It is weird reading. Translated to English from Finnish, it has occasional turns of phrase and sentence structures that seem stifled. Correct but wrong. You will start tabulating them, re-translating parts as they `should have been done' in your mind. Then the hairs will stand on your arms as you realize that you have walked right into the meatgrinder. You are waist deep in the witches jelly and no-one will come for you. The game reads exacly like the book. I am convinced that a STALKER RPG this good could not have been written in English. The strangeness must be subtle to mask great risks because just like the Zone, the game is pocked with exotic treasures that disregard conventions and break common rules if not law.

The greatest flaw in the STALKER RPG is not so much the game but the people who wont play it because it is diceless. Being diceless is one of the aspects of the game that breaks with common rpg convention. The FLOW system lives up to its name giving the gm strong authority to prosecute the Players outcomes. One of the dominant themes of ARP is the human impact of institutional science and engineering. The Zone itself is a treasure trove of artifacts deposited (or disposed of) by a higher intelligence. These artifacts break physical laws by imposing new ones. They don't break science so much as promise a higher science. If you have read Lovecraft and gamed on the fringes of his possibilities, you know one way that this can lead. But ARP and STALKER avoids the entities or gods that disposed of the artifacts and sets its stage in the world that has been changed by their very existence and the implications of removing them from the zone. FLOW is a scientific system in that it has a measurable metric and repeatable method. It is the least arbitrary diceless system I have read whilst reserving the right to be absolute in a way that most dice systems fail. FLOW works for STALKER because it is a surgical tool for a harsh world. The STALKER RPG provides ample information about the Zones. Zone Russia is covered by the film, Zone Canada is covered by the novel so the game focuses on Zone France with Zone Japan lurking in the appendix having infiltrated from the Burger Games website, a worthy resource for anyone interested in the game. It is the better kind of resource because it gives you the tools and structure to do with it whatever you want rather than being a Lonely Planet guide to Zone France.

And this extends into the treatment of the Zone itself. Ample tools for building,locating and populating the zone as you will play it. This part of the book is worth the price for these guides. If you have no interest in this game but want to build better dungeons, magic items, traps, monsters or encounters you can buy a bunch of useless 3 page pdfs or for the same price buy STALKER and start reading at page 112.

Final points on art and flavor text. The art is dark and brooding and completely lacks any heroic depiction. It is perfect for the game. As an aside does anyone think the scientist on p49 looks like the Half Orc in 1st Ed AD&D Players Handbook p18? This is the kind of weirdness that STALKER RPG so casually deploys. The flavor text is evocative and performs the vital role of setting the precedent for why and to a degree how a group of Stalkers will enter the zone and return to the world to peddle their treasures and comprehend the horror of what they have done.

So, in closing, STALKER the film was made just a couple of years before Speilbergs ET and while the second was about experiencing the innocence of the child the first was about experiencing the innocence of the adult. STALKER RPG is a really interesting game. If you dare cross its borders, evade its anomalies and break with convention you will escape with priceless treasure.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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STALKER - The SciFi Roleplaying Game
by Scott B. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 05/13/2012 23:06:06

Intro: This is a great product for anyone who wants to run a Stalker game based off the original novel (Roadside Picnic) and movie (Stalker, 1979). If you want something that mimics the computer games (the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series), this is not for you.

Content: It's almost entirely setting and GM information, with only a very small portion devoted to rules - and if you don't like the rules (a unique diceless system that relies heavily on freeform storytelling and the GM's interpretation), it's very little work to strip them out and insert your favourite system. The book is split into two parts - a "Player's Book" and a "Game Master's Book", which contains information for each of those. In addition to the general setting of the world, two of the world's Zones and their Borderlands are detailed, along with plenty of information to generate anomalies and artifacts if the GM's imagination is stuck. Interior art is mostly B&W and fairly basic, but has a kind of 'noir/crime' feel to it that I liked. As an English translation of a Finnish work, any language errors are almost unnoticable. The download includes the rulebook, plus a separate character sheet .pdf.

Criticism: I am a tiny bit disappointed that it didn't come with more original 'pre-generated' anomalies, artifacts, inorganisms and mutants (most of the ones detailed are present in the book or movie), but it does encourage a GM to make them ahead of time and memorable. I would also have liked an example "rookie mission", a detailed scenario of a particular raid into a Zone that starting characters could be expected to complete. The system does not include much on character advancement, more or less being "when he is taught or practices a new ability for a while, add it to his sheet". The main improvement I could suggest is to offer separately or include with the download package the "Player's Book" as a separate .pdf file, so that it can be shown to players without also having all the Game Master's Book info as well. I am a little confused as to the purpose of Ability scores in the system, which don't seem to mean anything except as hit points.

Verdict: A great sourcebook for anyone wanting to run a mostly-freeform game in a Roadside Picnic/Stalker-inspired setting. First and foremost a setting guide, where a little bit of work could make this compatible with virtually any rule set. It has a ton of background info, and most of my critisisms boil down to wanting more detail. The rule system seems a little clunky for what is essentially a freeform system, but it's easy to gut it and stick new rules in.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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