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Otherverse America Campaign Setting $0.00
Average Rating:3.1 / 5
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Otherverse America Campaign Setting
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Otherverse America Campaign Setting
Publisher: Skortched Urf' Studios
by Kevin H. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/21/2022 13:31:25

All of the reviewers who gave this a one star rating due to the "unbelievability" of the politics in Otherverse America owe the authors an apology. The current day COVID vaccine denialism, insurrection in America, and the culture wars of abortion politics and book burning have proven this setting to be accurate if not downright prescient.

That being said, the formatting could still use some work for ease of reference and clarity on the page.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Otherverse America Campaign Setting
Publisher: Skortched Urf' Studios
by Marja E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/24/2016 15:10:45

In Otherverse America, Chris A. Field describes a future where the culture wars have exploded into civil war, followed by tense cold war; meanwhile psionics, biotechnology, and cybertechnology have developed.

Otherverse America doesn’t explain everything about the setting. It seems to be aimed at superhero campaigns, rather than harder speculative-fiction campaigns. It often refers to lifechains, without explaining who they are.

Otherverse America includes supplemental rules for campaigns using d20 Modern. The supplemental rules rely on classes, levels, and feats, so it wouldn’t be practical to adapt them to d6 Adventure, Shadowrun, Twilight: 2000 II/Traveller: TNE, etc. I think Technology Unleashed includes supplemental rules for campaigns using either Pathfinder or Dungeons & Dragons, but I don’t know if they would allow people to play Otherverse America.

One big question: does this setting, does this future, have room for people like me? I am a Christian who values bodily autonomy, including reproductive rights. I am queer and autistic. I have chronic illness. I get incapacitated by loud noises and flashing lights, and can’t escape them. (Sometimes it can be nice to escape into another setting, and away from my chronic illness, while keeping the values and many of the attributes that make me myself.) I can’t find enough about whether these “Choicer” and “Lifer” societies use their technologies to accommodate us, or to eugenically and/or morally mandate us out of existence.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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Otherverse America Campaign Setting
Publisher: Skortched Urf' Studios
by Andrew K. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/14/2014 02:25:42

First off does the author know what editing and formating are? Because the "book" seems to show a complete lack of both. Secondly I had no idea it was even humanly possible to be this laughably ham fisted about a political message, farms around the world are missing their scare crows because this book has so many straw men in it.



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
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Otherverse America Campaign Setting
Publisher: Skortched Urf' Studios
by Richard A S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/09/2013 14:13:44

In a quick word on what's wrong with this product.... this setting is beyond ridiculous. The political strawmen that makes up the setting is so far out there that it's not even funny. But the premise that Pagans and Pro-Choicers are the good guys, while Christians and Pro-Lifers are the bad guys goes into a whole new shock fest that has basically made up 'Otherverse Games' stock setting.

With the fact that this product line makes heroes of men like Kermit Gosnell makes me wonder just how far our entire society and culture has gone in what can only be classified as a free-fall.

The setting is colored by the worse aspects of creating Strawmen to argue against... and that's saying a lot after having taken the time to read the blog of the creator of this setting and quickly learned just how thin-skinned the guy actually is... and how quickly he wants to get into other peoples faces when it comes to his own stances, and then takes an overblown amount of offense when they don't automatically agree with him and yet still wish him well.

Now I admit that I gave this product a chance because I've liked much of what Skortched Urf' Studios has put out, and have parted ways with my money so I can get them... and i was sorely disappointed with this product, and felt like someone had taken a 50lb. Sledge Hammer to my head with the incredibly one-sided view on what should be an open and honest debate between two points of view. My personal belief is pretty much that the procedure should be legal, but it should be rare and not used as a form of birth control... nor do i support those who want to give mothers the right to kill a child after it's been lucky enough to actually be born.

Now the Pro-Choicers like to say that they want Abortion to be a rare occurrence, but at the same time they remain silent when butchers like Kermit Gosnell and the many other abortion mils show just what is actually happening in many of these clinics. They completely gloss over how these organizations were founded as a method of Genocide against minority groups. They don't want to stand up against the way these abortion mills have made select few billions of dollars at the expense of broken lives and dreams. And yet when someone on the Pro-Life side of the debate does get violent and kills someone... the entire movement comes together to decry this as going against the vary basis of what the movement has been about since it's founding.

And to have this history of actions is completely ignored or derided kind of shows where this setting is all about. Creating a political strawmen to tilt at while making the author feel superior to all those whom they despise for no good reason. And for that reason, I won't be making anymore purchases of anything associated with this product or it's creators. It's their right to write this, produce this and market this. My broken body, along with the honored dead I have had the honor of serving beside defending those freedoms of the creators of this product to do what they wish with their lives and their careers. But i still retain the right to decide that I will not purchase their products in the future. And I will continue to exercise this right by ensuring that I will not be having anything to associate with them.

And I will remain willing to die so that others may express themselves in this manner... but I will not be a patron of their products.



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
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Otherverse America Campaign Setting
Publisher: Skortched Urf' Studios
by Stephen L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/17/2012 21:50:40

It feels bad rating something free so lowly but honestly... I guess I should start from the beginning.

Otherverse America is a near-future cyberpunk campaign setting designed by Skortched Urf' Studios. It's the near-future and the Abortion Wars have finally ended yet neither the pro-life Lifers nor the pro-choice Choicers are ready to give up just yet. Honestly this summery should have set off alarm bells in my head. In my experience politics and entertainment are like cough syrup and ice cream, most of us can't live without them yet mixed together they form an awful mess that no one with any brains would want to eat. So naturally I was a little apprehensive, but for the price of free I'd take the risk of Otherverse America turning out to be a Pen and Paper soapbox for one side or the other.

Unfortunately, the free PDF is such a disorganized mess I can't even begin to tell you what I'm supposed to be reading let alone whether or not it manages to be entertaining or apolitical. First of all, the PDF lacks a table of contents. For a small PDF up to ten or twenty pages, that could be forgiven. But for 256 pages? I'm not familiar with composing PDFs but is a table of contents really much to ask for in a document that big? Unfortunately it only gets worse...

Someone at Skortched Urf', in their infinite wisdom, decided to toss the traditional format of separating fluff and mechanics into neat orderly chapters in favor of literally mixing the two elements together. The end result is something that reads like a history textbook, gameplay mechanics serve as breaks between pages of lore explaining the fictional series of events leading up to 2091 AD when the game takes place... There's obviously a game in here but it's buried under such a mess of largely irrelevant text I'd be pressed to tell you if it was any good or not.

Bottom Line: While you shouldn't expect much for free, you should definitely expect more then what you get here. Simply put, this is a train wreck.



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
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Otherverse America Campaign Setting
Publisher: Skortched Urf' Studios
by Patrick G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/23/2009 23:16:26

Here goes nothing! Layout: 3 Content: 4 Overall: 3

After a good product like Psi-Watch, I was actually disappointed in this product. The new rules are just as cool and playable as the ones in Psi-Watch, and he did add page number to this hefty volume. What was still missing were bookmarks, a table of contents and an in depth index. There is an index, just not a very good one.

The setting itself is less enjoyable than the one presented in Psi-Watch. I know, they are the same setting, but it sounded better in Psi-Watch, whereas it seems stuck on a sexual revolution in Otherverse America. The setting did not seem to have nearly as much action and super-spy intrigue as Psi-Watch. It was more a Deathrace 2000 styled fray. (That's an old 70's movie)

Bottom lime: The layout needs a lot of work. The rules sections could have definitely been better organized. It makes it hard for someone who is making a character to find all the rules needed as they are terribly spread out through the book. I really like what this author does. I have most of his Dept 7 classes and for all it's faults, I love Psi-Watch. I just wish this was as good as the Psi-Watch setting.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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