Simulacrum is a pen and paper roleplaying game. Players create imaginary characters, record various information about their history and abilities, and imagine what that character would do in a variety of situations, linked together with a plot and story, like a book or movie. The object of the game is not to win, but just to have fun -- by telling a story, exploring the mind of another person, enjoying the company of others, by taking part in the creation of another world, and by seeing your character, something you created, evolve and change over time.

Roleplaying games have been in existence for almost thirty years, and have been played for centuries without rules in the form of Cowboys & Indians or Play House. Rules for RPGs evolved out of rules for miniatures wargaming, military simulations using toy soldiers to represent real or historical army or navy units. Since then hundreds of roleplaying games have been written, each with their own idiosyncratic methods of doing the things that an RPG must do -- define a character, determine when a character has successfully accomplished an action and to simulate the character's world.

To my mind, any roleplaying game, like the military recreations that they evolved from, is a simulation. And while a war game may only have to simulate the actions of infantry for a few days in the winter of 1944, a roleplaying game has to simulate everything. Everything that a person can do, an RPG has to be able to do as well, and since most RPGs don't actually simulate the real world, but a similar world more akin to a heroic epic or fantastic movie, the game has to simulate more than an actual human can do.

Due to the vast variety of human actions (not to mention alien ones!), the rules of a roleplaying game have to be very flexible to be able to be applied to all these things we expect a person to be able to do. The design dilemma presented to the author of a game starts here, with the age old question of realism vs. playability. A game must both be realistic (simulate reality) and playable (fun to actually play). The crux of this dilemma is basically that if your game tries to represent reality with a lot of rules, you spend more time looking up, trying to remember, and arguing over what those rules are, rather than playing the game.

While realism vs. playability is something that must be factored into any game design, the truth is that every player is comfortable with different levels of complexity. Also, as much as it may seem a contradiction, reality is purely a matter of opinion. Each of us perceive the world in a different way and view different things as pivotal to a person's life experience.

Thus, it is not so much the design of the game that is important, but what the game is designed to simulate. That is, what aspects of reality are important enough to be simulated? Should we accurately model some aspect of life, or should we purposefully mis-represent it to make the world more fun or more interesting? Just because a number of games all try to simulate the same universe, doesn't mean that they will all do it in the same way. Each will "latch onto" different core aspects of that reality, and will ignore others. One simply has to look at the different Star Trek or Star Wars RPGs that have been made over the years to see that there are many different ways of representing the same thing.

Simulacrum is different from other games not so much in the way its rules work, but in what it tries to simulate and the design philosophy behind it. Simulacrum started with two ideas: to base character generation on life experience and to make combat a fun and challenging experience for the player. There were a few other things we wanted too: an experience system not based on the players, but on the characters; a skill system that would allow people to become pretty good quickly, but make it difficult to become a true expert; to be able to deal a mortal wound, yet not have the victim die for several hours or days; and a system of describing the character's personality in a large amount of detail.

This game does all these things. Simulacrum is a skill-based RPG. Skills are not based on attributes, but the speed at which a character masters a skill is. Skills are learned by being taught, using them, self-study and by immersion (being picked up while performing some other task). There are no experience points or out of game play methods of raising skills. The same mechanic is used for creating a character and for determining experience, making it extremely easy for a character to take a break from active adventuring and yet still improve.

Characters personalities are recorded in three categories: Likes, Dislikes and Psychs. Likes and Dislikes are just things the character enjoys or hates. Psychs are real personality quirks that usually have something to do with how the character deals with stress (or the remnant of some previous stressful event). Combined, these three aspects of a character effect how much time the character can spend doing things that aren't very fun (like working or studying) and thus help determine how quickly the character can improve.

Combat in Simulacrum is done using a fairly simple turn-based system. Characters and adversaries are generally represented with miniatures for a truly tactical combat experience. Battlefield skills reach a maximum level fairly quickly, and additional skill is used to increase damage. This allows even experts to be able to miss in poor conditions, but gives them a definite advantage over their less skilled counterparts. Another key factor in combat is Fatigue. By spending fatigue points, characters are allowed to break rules, deal extra damage and defend themselves better.

Personal injuries are handled is two separate ways. First, the immediate short term effects of damage are applied. These hinder the character immediately. Other effects come later, and can effect how quickly the character will heal, or even if he can heal. Detailed healing and surgery rules are included.

That is a very good question and one that our design team has been giving quite a bit of thought to. After all, it is a question we had to ask ourselves before deciding to publish this book. Personally, I enjoy reading RPG game rules and seeing how other game designers have answered the problems that I have faced. I see it as an opportunity to see into someone else's mind and see how they perceive the world (or how they imagine a fictional reality might be). But I know that I am in a minority with this opinion.

• Are there things about your current RPG that annoy you?
• Does your RPG focus entirely on combat and trivialize everything else?
• Does combat in your RPG amount to looking at your character sheet, determining your most effective weapon and rolling a die?
• Can your character only improve by killing things?
• When your character does improve does it get stuck with abilities or attributes that you would rather not have?
• Does your game ignore your character's history and personality?

If you answered 'yes' to any of these, then maybe you should give Simulacrum a try. If not, but you've kept reading this far, maybe you should give a try. After all, game design, game writing and even game playing has to be an art form (albeit a much neglected one), and art must be experienced to be fully appreciated.

But when it comes down to it, if you're happy with your current game system and aren't all that curious abut other game systems, there is no reason you should try this game. Save your money and buy the next supplement for the game you play. This game, like most art, is not for everyone . . . and that's okay.

Happy gaming,

--Tim Morgan