On first read, I was shocked at just how quickly this title had become my New Favourite Game™. The grim "retrofuture road trip" premise is well executed and engaging; the setting is jammed with all sorts of unique flavours, inspired by that glorious artwork from Simon Stålenhag; the system is rules-light enough to get out of the way, but has some elegant YZE mechanics that are well worth the dive... Add to that, there are tables and tables worth of content prompts and hooks for rolling up your own stops (adventures) or threats on the fly. You've knocked this one out of the park, Free League. Love it.

The Electric State caught my attention early on thanks to the phenomenal artwork of Simon Stålenhag, and it’s no surprise that his alt-history nostalgia fueled work is also a powerful draw to the game.

The Layout itself is also excellent. Clean two-column layout with interesting touches like electrical tape and scotch tape holding the photos in place a cool touch. The tables are also completely readable, and the fonts are very easy to read.

The Rules

The Electric State has a very lean system. It’s on the lighter side of crunch, and that makes it easier for the mechanics to fade into the background when it comes to dealing with the themes of the game. While the mechanics themselves are light, they’re not without purpose, and I think that’s one of the best balancing acts I’ve seen Free League do in this game.

Final Thoughts

When I first flipped through the book, my first impression was remarkably strong. The themes explored in this slow decay of an apocalypse of a setting is a rare gem among TTRPGs. The Electric State feels like a game that has something to say, which has me running through the countless games I’ve reviewed over years on this blog and I’m honestly unable to name any other game that has been able to relay this sort of mood outside of Free Leagues own, Mutant Year Zero.

The Electric State fascinates me because the Tension mechanics between Travelers and the escapist nature of the Neuroscape has a strong message: The difficulties in relating to other people is part of the human experience, and the temptation to avoid that through escapism is a very real thing. Being able to go for your goals, despite the difficulty that is other people is commendable… if not outright heroic in a world where tuning out human relations is as simple as going online.

My first, rawest impressions of the book still hold now that I’ve read everything. The Electric State is gorgeous, haunting and says something profound about the human condition.

Who says RPGs can’t be art?

Conceptually, the Electric State is a treat. It takes the same concept that Simon Stalenhag laid out in his art book and spins it out into (at least the skeleton of) a world you can potentially have a fantastic adventure in. There's plenty of extra lore and ideas for a world.

... Unfortunately, the book also very clearly has gone through several mechanical revisions and they still peek through in places that don't make sense, where the rules reference mechanics that no longer exist or are just confusing. This is a bit of a theme with Free League's English translations, where they're desperately in need of an editor to go over them again and make sure they make sense.

The book uses a similar system to Tales From The Loop, where players have Attributes rated out of 6 - roll that many D6es and any 6es (or Sentre logos, if you're using the fancy companion dice) are successes. It also has Free League's iconic Push mechanic where you can risk taking damage to attributes to re-roll dice. However, no skills this time - just Talents, again much like Tales From The Loop, where you get situational bonuses based on what you're doing. This does make for a fairly rules light system, though the lack of complexity may be a little frustrating for some.

This is also another system that is clearly not intended to be played long term - the game says as much - so each adventure is intended to be 3-8 sessions before its over, with 8 certainly being on the longer end. The game's own example adventure, Into The Dust, is only three stops total, so three sessions assuming you keep to the pace the game is expecting. There's nothing stopping you having a longer adventure, but with limited progression and high lethality it won't be long before your Travellers either have every Trait in the game, or they're very dead.

There's also a bit of a theme of the book leaving a LOT to the GM to make up themselves - while this does give the GM a lot of freedom, given this book is already based on existing piece of media just being an "inspiration piece" does lead to the question of why you'd need to buy a full price RPG that then tells you some extra lore from an art book and leaves you to pick up the pieces from there.

Having said that, the "hacking" minigame in this is interesting. When you enter the Neuroscape you need to balance your "Hope" stat - your characters hope the world outside is still worth living in - with your Bliss stat - your characters addiction to Neurine and general reluctance to leave a digital paradise to return to a collapsing world outside. Its a cool concept and worth exploring, though its also quite easy for players to get stuck in the Neuroscape with this mechanic, and suffers from the age-old problem of hacking in TTRPGs where even the book acknowledges you'll likely have the rest of the party sat around doing nothing while your Max Hackermann does the hacking. Luckily this is a world where poking around in the Neuroscape is likely to attract literal gremlins in the real world, and the barrier to jacking in is quite low, so the party can phase in and help the hacker as needed. Just be careful about everyone blissing out and flatlining the plot!

To summarize, the book has a lot of potential and what's there is very cool - but half finished rules, unclear descriptions of stop locations and general editorial sloppiness hold this back from being a must buy. Honestly, if you're interested in this, just buy the actual Electric State art book for inspiration, and then use one of Free league's more polished systems like MYZ or Forbidden Lands to actually run it.

BUGS AND ODDITIES: Just a few things I noticed during my read through:

In hacking, taking more time makes the check more difficult. Is this intentional? Currently there's no point in taking longer in hacking if all it does is make it harder.

For vehicles, the Luxury and Boneshaker traits increase the cost of the vehicle by "1". However, vehicles are priced in dollars, and a basic car costs $1000. 1 dollar isn't going to break the bank, so presumably this is left over from a "world of darkness" style system where resources were rated out of 5 before it was changed later. If its not, what is this supposed to mean?

Air crashes - If a vehicles altitude is reduced to 0, they crash and take damage equal to the altitude multiplied by three. ... So... 0x3? Or is it the altitude before the Crash result? How does this interact with Spiral Dive and Stall, which is specifically reducing altitude before the check is made? Does this mean its safer to always fly low and buzz the treeline?

Currently Junk Food has the same effect as a Decent Meal and Canned Food and is better than Coffee & Pie and has no downsides, despite being cheaper. Is this intentional? I know the GM could introduce some soft downsides for constantly eating junk food but as is your traveller is best off constantly horfing down Cheetos.

Also not really an error, but the book doesn't seem to mention what happened to the East Coast or Midwest. Is there any info on that?

SPOILERS FROM THE ADVENTURE PATH AHEAD!

For the stop "The Angel In The Machine" the stated starting position doesn't really make sense, as the listed businesses the party can see aren't really in easy line of sight of each other unless they're at the crossroads, or approaching from the east (which presumably they aren't, as the journey is West to East) - would it be possible to get some clarification on where the party start? EG intersection of Sonoma Ave and E Main)

In the Roadside Murder stop, the location "Al's Food & All" is listed in the list of locations - however it is not present on the map, despite the owner's mansion being a notable location and the owner being an important NPC who's kind of required for one of the ways to resolve the stop. Also, less notable, but given the direction the travellers will be approaching Liberty, they should be approaching from the north side and thus would be on the "wrong" side of the roadblock unless the road in this area inexplicably kinks around, which admittedly isn't impossible.

And the most minor of grumbles, In Droneship Graveyard's map, 'RV Row' is incorrectly labelled 'RW Row'

Digital version is great. The image quality is...low to intentialky resemble print quality of the 80's, methinks. (Look at a magazine from that era the print is grainy. The art is fabulous. The artist is futuristo 80's with Sunday morning cartoons mixed with anime action poses.) An underlining mood of a nation on its own - independence. You are alone but not alone with the machine scarecrows everywhere, lighting your way from the distance as pinpointed beacons of light, as if fireflies were gathering from the powered life still pulsing in the machines circuits.

I have not gamed yet, product purchased more as an interest, so not sure how all the robot internet evil master really affects any kind of gameplay with the game master popping a helmet in your lap to interact with the them that has destroyed your country. Adventures seem more theatre of the Mind rather than text book mechanics as in Dungeons and Dragons. But that's OK, as the gsmemaster can develop good stories for players to use the helmet scanner like a key for exploring locations of interest.

Interesting theme world. I edit review when free as I typed this out free form without referring to the correct info in the game.