A creative return to the 80's Saturday morning cartoons. Mutants and wizards battle for relics to unseat the God tyrants ruling the world.

The following review was originally published in Mephisto 66 and translated from German (find original German review below).

Long in the past, the demiurges created great miracles and changed evolution to produce countless creatures. After the demiurges have surprisingly disappeared, the masters have risen as cruel rulers to take these powers together with the rest of the remaining technology. But the archaeonauts travel the world in search of lost technology to repel the masters. Cyborgs, chimeras, robots, hybrids, and other strange creatures are the characters that players can lead in their battle against the masters.

Masters of Umdaar is a world for FAE that offers a colorful mix of fantasy and technology. The player characters are mutants whose appearance is decided by rolling the dice and which cover a broad spectrum from plants to energy beings. In terms of rules, however, this means above all which methods (the central game statistic in FAE) are the most powerful of the character. Correspondingly, the stunts also contain bizarre powers. A new rules mechanism introduced in Masters of Umdaar is the Cliffhanger when players have to free themselves from an extreme danger within a short time. A coherent but straightforward system is offered to implement this new kind of threat. The book concludes with a few adventures and story ideas. Even though the mix of fantasy and science fiction and the theme of the game - the search for past technology - almost sounds a bit like Numenera, Masters of Umdaar is much more colorful and comic-like. If you're looking for a wild roleplaying system that is characterized by action and in which pretty much anything is possible, you'll get a quick and straightforward rule system to start with.

(Deutsche Version)

Masters of Umdaar

Weit in der Vergangenheit haben die Demiurgen große Wunder erschaffen und die Evolution verändert, um so zahllose Kreaturen zu schaffen. Nachdem die Demiurgen überraschend verschwunden sind, haben sich die Meister erhoben, um mit dem Rest der verbliebenen Technik als grausame Herrscher die Macht zu ergreifen. Doch die Archäonauten ziehen durch die Welt, um nach verlorener Technik zu suchen, mit der sie die Meister zurückschlagen können. Cyborgs, Chimären, Roboter, Mischwesen und weitere Absonderlichkeiten sind die Charaktere, die die Spieler auf ihrem Kampf gegen die Meister führen können.

Masters of Umdaar ist eine Welt für TurboFATE, die einen bunten Mix aus Fantasy und Technik bietet. Die Spielercharaktere sind Mutanten, deren Erscheinung ausgewürfelt wird und die ein breites Spektrum von der Pflanze bis zum Energiewesen abdecken. Regeltechnisch bedeutet dies aber vor allen Dingen, welche Methoden (den zentralen Spielwerten bei TurboFATE) dem Charakter am nächsten liegen. Entsprechend finden sich bei den Stunts auch sehr abgefahrene Kräfte. Ein bei Masters of Umdaar eingeführter Regelmechanismus ist der Cliffhanger, bei dem sich die Spieler mit wenigen Runden Zeit aus einer extremen Gefahr befreien müssen. Hier wird ein einfaches, aber stimmiges System geboten, um diese Art der Bedrohung umzusetzen. Den Abschluss des Buchs bilden ein paar Abenteuer und Storyansätze. Auch wenn der Mix aus Fantasy und Science Fiction und das Thema des Spiel, die Suche nach vergangener Technik, fast ein wenig wie Numenera klingt, so ist Masters of Umdaar deutlich bunter und comic-mäßiger angelegt. Wer ein wildes Rollenspielsystem sucht, das von Action geprägt ist und in dem so ziemlich alles möglich ist, bekommt hier ein einfaches und schnell zu startendes Regelsystem.

(Björn Lippold)

The World of Adventure series is a great Pay What You Want series of various worlds to adventure in and to inspire other games. Master of Umdaar is one of my favorite, reminiscient of the fantasy / future cartoons of the 80s. This is certainly one of the best worlds created though I recommend all of them.

Packed with great material and an interesting Cliffhanger mechanic for FAE, Masters of Umdaar offers a great chance to revive the pulpy sci-fantasy world of 80s Saturday morning cartoons. Though it's very slim, it includes a solid starter adventure which can be run or picked apart for ideas and examples. I've been inspired by this Fate World, I hope you will be too.

Loving this fun evocation of adventure story tropes, from Edgar Rice Burroughs through Thundercats & Avatar to Dark Crystal resonances in the setting. The character creation pushes towards the nicely odd, looking forward to hitting up my players with some cliffhangers from the new system. Thoroughly recommended.

A great little package, Masters of Umdaar is certainly my prompt to try out Fate (accelerated Edition) for the first time without delay. Much inspiration for anyone who wants to play games based on pulpy planetary fantasy of the John Carter, Flash Gordon, He-Man and Thundercats variety. A small book cannot contain everything you might like, but despite this being only 50 pages long it is bursting with ideas, random tables, strange magi-tec and rules for hero beast-people, people-beasts and creatures of all sorts, AND a complete introductory adventure that could easily form part one of an epic series. Dave Joria has done good work here creating an exciting and enticing setting, designed to work as a pick-up or one shot game, but quite worthy of prolonged play. As a final endorsement, what is NOT to like about a game that has the self-professed motto and philosophy; "When in doubt, dinosaur" ?

Full Disclosure: I got this as a "pay as much as you want" and spent $1USD. Secondly, I don't know the system all that well, I own the Fate Accelerated booklet, and my personal experience was a disastrous Dresden Files demo (due to two players backseat DM'ing, and the system being harder than advertised) and will be reviewing this as a stand alone product.

First off, I am a little disappointed because I was under the impression that this book would have a full setting in it. Instead we get seeds and suggestions, maybe a hint or two of a real setting. That being said, however, what it does have is a series of very useful character creation tables, and ideas for a Do-It-Yourself world based on various 80's and 90's power science-fantasy cartoons and movies. What you get is really well done, but I personally want more. Perhaps more Masters detailed, what the world is like, some kingdoms both good and evil and maybe more super-tech/magic, it doesn't matter what, just more than what this booklet offered.

Still, you're allowed to spend as much as you want for it, which means you decide how much value it has. Personally, I found it worth the U.S. Dollar I spent.

I wouldn't complain if this turns out to be a primer for a fully fleshed out setting down the line, however. That would definitely get more of my money.

I love Masters of Umdaar. I'm a Patreon subscriber to Evil Hat's various new Fate settings, and this is the one I love the most right "out of the box," so to speak. The random character generation is compelling, and this scratches my Masters of the Universe / Kamandi / John Carter of Mars itch. Good stuff!

A wonderful homage to 80's adventure cartoons like Thundar, He-Man, and Thundercats. Just perfect.

I do like it. The set up uses the TV shows of the 70's and 80's adventure shows. Although the pictures show a lot of humans and the rules seem to imply they are rare.