I'm not usually a reviewer, and am not affiliated in any way with the writers or publishers of this game except that I've bought a copy and played it.
The potential humour within these pages made me think hard about buying it several times, but the price put me off - just how much COULD a game about a bunch of uppity 'it-girls' at high school playing hi-jinks on one another be worth, given the limited mileage?
So I bought it anyway; I'm weak like that. This is one of those occasions where I am glad I'm weak in the face of temptation. This game is a little gem.
Firstly, the book runs to about 160 or so pages. It's printed in a one-column-per-page layup, which normally doesn't appeal much to me, but in this case it's done in such a way that it's easy to print two .pdf pages to one print page, and still read it fairly easily. This cuts printing to about 80 or so pages, give or take, and I find that appealing. The book has enough artwork (of a cartoonish and amusing style that suits the subject material) to be easy on the eye, without having any amazing graphics, plates or other distractions. Some people may find the artwork lacking in either quantity or quality, but for what it's worth my opinion is that the artwork included suited the book just fine. The text is easy to read, easy to understand, and is broken into sections that logically follow one another. You can found most of what you need by looking at the Contents in the front of the book.
The setting is very English, and full of English tongue-in-cheek madcap humour. It's at first glance a very limited setting - I mean, really, just how much CAN you do with a bunch of uppity school girls in a slightly off-beat English school for girls? - but there are enough scenario seeds, hooks, and listed inspirations that you can pretty much turn this into whatever you like - a supernatural game in the style of Buffy, a spy game, a simple competitive angsty teens vying for number one game, or a reform school for little freaks game.
Some players or GMs might be put off by the fact that you apparently have to play teenage school girls; however if this is beyond the scope of your role-playing abilities or your willingness to delve into that field, there are options presented in the book to make it an exclusive all-boys school, and the format of character creation and rules mechanics is easily adaptable with little work to just about any other setting if you have a little time and a little imagination.
Character creation involves selecting a class, which grants a special ability and 5 skill points to spend on 4 'curriculum' or core skills. You then get 15 points to spend on any available skills, including the curriculum skills. Curriculum skills can have a higher level than others. This could easily be adapted to other settings, for the record - you could have classes of soldier such as SAS or Para, or have a medieval game with Knights, Archers, Rogues, Wizards, or whatever - and with very little work and a little imagination, and probably a custom characater sheet, you could easily adapt this system and the rules mechanics to whatever you like. Having allocated skills you select a secret fear, a rival, a best friend, and a secret loathing for your pals (i.e. you think Charlotte's great, but you HATE how she bites her nails all the time).
The biggest surprise about this book - and the thing that to me justified the price - was the rules mechanic. This is a very rules-light system, but having said that, it is a robust system that works rather well. It's easy again to tweak the system if you're not happy with the numbers or probabilities.
Essentially you roll a pool of dice equal to your skill level plus one; for instance if you have Physics at 3 and are attempting to build a bear trap, you would roll 4 dice. For most purposes you keep the highest die in your dice pool, and compare that to the target number of the task at hand (as set by the Headmistress, who is scarier than the average GM). You may spend Willpower to increase the number of dice in your pool. In combat, damage rolls are a 50/50 split between 'slapped' and something more annoying and debilitating, but in keeping with the light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek flavour of this madcap setting, nobody dies in this game (at least in the setting as presented). The worse you're hurt, the longer you suffer penalties of a steadily increasing nature.
There are some basic rules for magic, potions, building weird tech and explosives, and for various combat and healing effects. It's all very simple, really, and yet for a rules-light system it's very nice. There are also rules and guidelines for rejecting a friend or best friend, fracturing groups as a result, and petty rivalries. These things actually seem amusing and 'in context' to the game, but with a little adaptation might easily be used as a framework for an alliance, political, or guild relationship system in another setting.
There is a handy 2-page reference sheet provided at the back of the book; this has the basic difficulty level table, damage table and weapon modifiers, and a few other interesting notes. That and the provided character sheet are really all you need to get playing once you've read through the rules.
The first session I ran with this was a total scream; many laughs were had and despite the silliness inherent in the setting and the attitude of those playing, the characters still seemed to have some depth.
If you want something amusing and rules-light, or are keen to find a relatively simple system open to creative adaptation to other settings (for your own gaming use, of course), then I'd thoroughly recommend this. If you find it on sale, even better.
At the time of writing this title is listed as $12.00 U.S. or about $17.00 AUD, and at that price, I consider it well worth the buy.
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