Review: Omnifray

May 9, 2009 7 comments

I’ve written a guest review of Omnifray, an indie fantasy roleplaying game, for Critical Hits. You can check it out here.

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Written by Toe Knee on May 11, 2009.

Interesting in your negative review. I know that what I’ve sent you is pretty high on the complexity scale, are there any opinions, comparisons or general impressions you’d care to share between the two?

Toe Knee’s last blog post..RPG Projects I’m Working On
Written by Berin Kinsman on May 11, 2009.

Your game is crunchy but the mechanics are intelligible? I didn’t have to read your game three times to try to figure out the core mechanic, only to find out that I still got it wrong? That even if your game might not play to my personal tastes it didn’t take me four months to give you feedback because it wasn’t so awful that I had out a way to say something constructive without hurting your feelings?

You’re on the right track, Tony. Keep going. Even if a game doesn’t float my boat, I still know a good game from a bad game. Form what I’ve seen so far, your system doesn’t qualify as a bad game.
Written by Toe Knee on May 12, 2009.

Well that’s as glowing as I could have expected. Some day I’m really going to have to give Savage Worlds a try to get a feel for what you guys are talking. You’re a good chap Berin, how’s that hiatus thing going?

Toe Knee’s last blog post..RPG Projects I’m Working On
Written by Berin Kinsman on May 12, 2009.

Well thank you, Tony. I’m trying to take a break, but I keep getting sucked back in. But I’m slowing down, does that count?
Written by Toe Knee on May 12, 2009.

I knew you couldn’t go cold turkey. The internet is your vicodin. I bet if you actually cut yourself off totally your pain would probably increase.

Toe Knee’s last blog post..RPG Projects I’m Working On
Written by Berin Kinsman on May 13, 2009.

I’ve admitted several times that that internet is my drug of choice, and that online friends have helped me through tough times. I am cutting down, though. I check email 2x/day just so my inbox doesn’t get unreasonably large, and we are in reruns here — although these reruns are leading up to a round of new posts.
Written by Omnifray author Matt West on May 13, 2009.

You needn’t worry about hurting my feelings. At least you managed to get a review out there. 3 of my original potential reviewers (from back in July 08) appear to have given up completely.

But I don’t think you got the core mechanic wrong. The way you described the basic mechanic in your review was accurate. The only thing was that you didn’t know how I chose the percentage numbers on the Simple Action Resolution Table – but I don’t see why you would NEED to understand that.

One of my correspondents suggests to me that the core mechanics are actually simple but the layout/presentation of the books obfuscates them. From my experience of explaining the rules to people for one-shot games at Cons etc., my own view is that a significant minority of players initially find it hard to follow the rules in play during their first session, even when I’m there to explain it. After one or two sessions they’ll all pretty much understand it, but I think the mechanics still qualify as slightly more complicated than the mechanics of any other game I actually own or have ever played.

Personally of course I remain utterly convinced that Omnifray is beyond fantastic, in my personal and unbiased opinion. But the reasons WHY it’s so fantastic may be fairly obscure and are difficult to explain, and it’s not really the function of the rulebooks to put forward those theories and reasons. I think the books state the rules unambiguously, but maybe the books are written in convoluted language and with a non-intuitive structure. At least they have fairly comprehensive indexes.
And certainly I think understanding the rules well enough to run Omnifray is demanding, and probably a majority of roleplayers would struggle to do it, but there ought to be enough people out there, say on average one or two in a group of five or six gamers, who are up to it if they set their minds to it.

Anyway you’ve formed your opinion and given your review, and even negative publicity is better than none at all, but if you really think that Omnifray is “so awful” honestly please feel free to drop me an e-mail and explain why. The more perspectives I have on it, the better.

There are 3 more people with reviews in the pipeline for Omnifray and I know that one of them at least has playtested it over the course of around 8 sessions (if not exactly RAW) so there will be a bit more variety of perspectives out there in due course.

Anyway really don’t worry about hurting my feelings. I’m not some little kid who’s going to cry, even if you thought it was indescribably awful!! Your job as reviewer is to give your own opinions truthfully and without fear or favour and you’ve done that so you’ve done your job and I wouldn’t complain about it for a second.

Also, genuinely, I was delighted that you praised the artwork, as some people have made some very offhand and to my mind unfair comments about the artists’ work and I was very unhappy about that. There isn’t enough art, but that’s my problem and I was very grateful to the artists for what they produced.