Brave New World

Ask not what your country could do for you.
Ask what it could do to you.

BNW is quite American a game. You could tell that from its binding, bearing Stars and Stripes, or you may get a glimpse of the game's underlying idea by taking in the first lines of the back cover or the book's introduction.

BNW is about upholding the American dream, a dream that is not only threatened and immediately endangered, but spurned by a totalitarian, equalizing government as well as an ignorant society. To emphasize the idea of conflict and tension, BNW does not deal with ordinary people, but has superhuman protagonists taking its focus, much like superheroes who wield supernatural powers. There are good guys and bad guys and the idea is to take side (preferrably the good guys') and fight against the other by all means necessary. The message of being a reluctant and, most importantly, undercover hero is stated clearly in a straight forward way: The job is bad, payment does not exist, but, hey, somebody has to do it.

You don't have to play a human wielding supernatural powers to take part in BNW. You could also take the role of a supportive character, a choice that will undoubtedly remove you somewhat from the playing focus of the game. The real fun is to customize and compose a character with certain supernatural powers, to fine-tune him or her with some beneficial skills, to assign some finishing touches in form of flaws and quirks and to finally apply for kicking the enemy's butt.

The game's rules set employs a simplified variant of the D6 system, focusing on action-loaded plots and quick event resolution, semantics that perfectly match the idea and message of game. The basic book is well balanced between rules, that mostly deal with customizing and fine-tuning characters and doing combat, as well as some background information about the scenario and playground the players find themselves thrown into.

If you like the idea of confronting a well defined opponent, struggling for a better future and not being to subtle on the way, you might like Brave New World. - Be brave. Be a hero. Save the world, that is, America.