Grab your nuts, pull up a chair, and get ready for the fun. Squirrel Attack is a great diversion if you need a break from a long campaign or a quick pick-up game when not everyone in the group shows up. Squirrel Attack could also be used as a great introduction to role-playing for young or new gamers. Hinterwelt does a bang-up job of creating the fanciful game-world of Nuttopia - a world of tribal rodents, oblivious hateful farmers, and watchful crafty canines, cats, and hawks. Using Hinterwelts Iridium Lite game system, Squirrel Attack is easy to pick-up, crack open, and dive into the meat of the action. . . no complex systems or a steep learning curve here, just nutty goodness. Players first select from colorful pre-gen denizens of Nuttopia. Each character is unique coming from the variety of tribal squirrel-kin scurrying around Nuttopia and with their own individualized skill sets and goals. Goals are vital to Squirrel Attack as characters are awarded points for completion of these tasks. . . unlike standard RPGs, Squirrel Attack is a game to be won. . . I know, don't get your tail in a knot - there can only be one . . .winner. So as a GM how do you keep a bunch of walnut-brained squirrel-kin from running wily-nilly around Nuttopia? - you really don't, you let the goals handle things; some characters gain points for protecting other squirrel-kin or preventing death, others for finding specific items, or stuffing your puffy cheeks full, etc.
Hinterwelt is up front that Squirrel Attack is a one shot - and this is due to balancing characters goals that are unique to the story yet provide flexibility for game action and a framework of party cooperation. Although Squirrel Attack is a one-shot, Hinterwelt provides such a rich and cohesive game setting one could easily run a Nuttopia campaign. Rules are present for character creation if one does not find a character to their liking - but this means a little extra work as the GM and player would have to establish game balancing goals.
pros: easy to grab and go, game setting, character goals
cons: may be a little squirrelly for GM's needing a structured story-line and unaccustomed to running "setting style"
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