he Danger Quest role-playing game catapults early 20th-century pulp heroes into the far future of the 2300s, combining two-fisted action with equal parts fantastic science fiction and serial-inspired mysticism.
The game's future arises after an anti-technology cult shuts down Earth's planetary defenses, leaving it helpless before a world-shattering meteor swarm. It takes centuries, but finally the Dark Age ends, and new civilizations rise to pick up the torch of progress. The two leading forces for good are Newmerica, the successor state to the United States, and the League of Albion, which comprises the
remains of the United Kingdom.
These fledgling powers are opposed by all manner of evil. In North America, Canada has been conquered by the fascist Liberated Acadian Confederacy (also known as "LACkies"). South America has been conquered by necromancers calling themselves the Aztexicans, while rampaging, genetically superior clones threaten to overrun Europe.
Inspired by the likes of Doc Savage and the Shadow, Danger Quest casts the players as heroes opposing these villains of liberty and freedom. Its character generation process gives characters their special abilities, deep-rooted motivations, famous patrons, dread secrets and weaknesses. Possible career tracks include Intrepid G-Man, Mystical Magician, Romantic Swashbuckler, Reformed Criminal and three dozen other vocations ripped from the pages of pulp magazines.
The game's rules are based on a percentile mechanic. Each of a character's nine stats is defined by a value from the low 20s to the mid-40s. In order to accomplish a task, a player must complete a test, which involves rolling two 10-sided dice to generate a percentage. If the result is lower than the stat score associated with the task, the character succeeds. A similar technique is used for skills, and a modified version is used for opposed checks (for example, when a heroine tries to sneak past a guard, and that same guard tries to spot her).
A fun—but flawed—adventure
Danger Quest draws on the best aspects of the pulps, creating a game that fans of the genre should enjoy. The game's character-creation process is its greatest strength, allowing new players to create surprisingly complex characters in a short period of time. A finished character includes a randomly created background, known weakness, patron, hidden secret and plenty of other fodder for role-playing a 24th century hero.
The game's technological and mystical components complement each other nicely, offering science-fiction fans the flying cars, thinking robots and gadgets they're hankering for, while providing the
mystically inclined with powers of teleportation, flight and the ever-popular ability to cloud men's minds. The easy-to-follow rules are nicely detailed (perhaps a little too detailed in places, but many
of those rules are optional), and fans of the genre will be able to create any character they can imagine.
Unfortunately, the game has its drawbacks, some of which are severe. The game's creators have penned a vivid future world, with plenty of excellent villains and challenges, but not enough of the book's content is given over to chronicling them. Even the most important areas, like Newmerica, get only a handful of pages of information, and there is little in the way of maps for the game's biggest locales, like Megatropolis, Capitol City or Vice Vegas. At the same time, the game's excessively focused on North America and Europe, which is too bad, considering all the pulp adventures that could take place in Africa or Asia. (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, anyone?) I'd like to have seen many of the optional rules cut back, and perhaps some of the special powers eliminated in favor of additional content.
The Danger Quest's artwork is schizophrenic, ranging from wonderfully pulpish to regrettably amateurish. There are a half-dozen artistic styles featured in the book, and the lack of a consistent look does nothing to reinforce the feel of the game. This is all the more jarring after seeing Alderac's Spycraft RPG, which uses black-and-white art to great effect.
The book's editing leaves a lot to be desired, with errors scattered throughout its entirety. The mistakes don't cripple the game—it's still very playable—but they undeniably detract from it.
Danger Quest delivers on its promise of pulpish high adventure. It unfortunately stumbles in the execution, but fans of the genre would still do well to check it out.
— Ken
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