Wild Skies Europa Tempest: RPG Review

Wild Skies

Welcome to a review of Wild Skies: Europa Tempest an action packed anthropomorphic themed role playing game (RPG), which is available in softcover, hardcover, and portable document format (PDF) at drivethrurpg.com. The book was originally crowdsourced to life via Kickstarter, just short of $11k internet bucks. This review concerns the PDF as well as the print version; both were supplied by Wet Ink Games free of cost for the purpose of this review. Wet Ink Games is a member of the Indie Game Developer Network (IGDN Site: http://www.igdnonline.com/) a hive mind of independent creators and publishers, producing a variety of products from pen and paper RPGs, to board and card games.

Disclosure: This RPG review includes affiliate links to DriveThruRPG. I receive a token % if you purchase something from the landing page. Thank you for that support.

Ever since Palladium Books utilized Kevin Eastman’s and Peter Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) comic, as a jumping off point for an RPG, I’ve never ceased to have high hopes for anthropomorphic RPGs. TMNT was the my second-(or third) experience in this hobby and since I was a fan of the comic, and admittedly even enjoyed the movies in my youth, it was an easy transition. Though I’ve only had the opportunity to play a few, similar themed anthropomorphic RPGs have been a mixed bag at my table. Admittedly, why a player can get into an RPG like TMNT, and then put their nose up at something like Mouse Guard or Bunnies and Burrows, isn’t beyond my comprehension and in my opinion it’s simply a matter of choice.

What’s the fun with an anthropomorphic RPG without choices? The idea of having character options limited to only a bunny or only a mouse has limited appeal. This fact wasn’t missed out on by Palladium Books. TMNT had (I want to say over 50) a double handful of mutant animals you could roll up. Yeah, you could take the role as a ninja turtle (and I’m certain we did that), but creating a Kung Fu, butt kicking badger was just as fun (which I did). Having the choice certainly was worth its weight in D20s.

      

Wild Skies: Europa Tempest is a complete RPG featuring a unique dice system and a distinctive setting. The atmosphere of this RPG is classified as a dieselpunk and the art does a great job creating that tone.  Beneath the grit and with a little elbow grease Wild Skies is an alternate earth setting, which leads up to World War One and beyond. Anthropomorphic creatures are the norm of a human-less society, though playing it as humans is an option. While the timeline and events of this alternate world, pretty much mirror human history, it also expounds upon that, for its own (RPG) purposes.

Character creation starts with creating a concept and allocating points for Primary and Secondary Attributes. Each Primary Attribute has two Secondary Attributes. Players distribute ten points among the primary attributes and eight among the secondary attributes, with the caveat none of these can be less than one point. As with any system other abilities are outlined such as Health, Speed, Range, and the ability to jump etc.

Next, is selecting an anthropomorphic type, which Wild Skies offers up forty species, and as well as choosing the size for the type selected. Each animal is a unique template defining attribute bonuses and abilities, which are specific to the specific anthropomorphic type. For Instance, if you decide on a turtle the character has Defensive Tuck as part of that template; while a badger the special ability of: Eat Anything. These abilities are exactly as they seem, most of which are plays on the animal kingdom. If you prefer a bit of randomness in selecting the anthropomorphic type, there is a table (you roll on) which abides.

Rounding it out, characters start the game with a Perk or special ability and players can select up two additional Perks as long as these are balanced (one to one) with a Quirk. Perks and Quirks are pretty standard RPG stuff and there is a decent sized list of each. Players will then select a nationality and two Careers which offer a template of skills. Last is selecting the finishing touches on the character and select an affiliation… But, admittedly I’m skipping all that for better coverage for the unique experience point and alignment system of Wild Skies, the Moral Compass. We’ll let the game speak for itself here:

“Wild Skies every character has a Moral Compass which functions as both a compass rose, showing which personal goals the character can follow, and as a map, showing where the character has been. Starting from the center the character will move toward the edge of the compass after each game session and collect rewards along the way. Thus, the Moral Compass serves as both the alignment system and the experience system of Wild Skies. Combining these elements puts the focus on the storytelling. The Moral Compass helps determine a character’s motivations during individual game sessions and guides their story arc over many sessions.” (PG 45)

The Moral Compass functions as an alignment system and an experience system. This is a pretty interesting concept. The Moral Compass has eight axes points, each of which is tied together by two opposing concepts, or the potential of sixteen character goals/stories to choose from. Based on player character’s concept, players will create four potential stories they want to tell and design their characters Moral Compass. I’ll not give all of them away, but for instance one of the axes points is Wealth to Sacrifice. The player character can desire either, based on the story they want to build and the goals they want to achieve.

Advancing through this system is a matter of the player characters earning Plot Points (PP) based on play and using these points towards their character goals/desire. Once a story is told or a goal is achieved the character receives a reward toward advancing their character. There is a bit more to it than this and a healthy treatment of writing and examples which really help flesh it out. But, this idea is one which is both unique and awesome. I leave my thoughts for the conclusion.

The system mechanics of Wild Skies has a few moving parts. The system isn’t difficult, but the detail of the writing (when you just want an A,B,& C layout of rules) is a bit verbose. Basic skill rolls are percentage based, but each skill has a number of ranks available (in d6s) which are tallied onto the original (%) total. A Skill Specialty roll (a skill which is part of the character’s career) uses the standard basic roll, but is further modified by a governing attribute. The system also incorporates variable levels of success or failure based on difficulty. It’s hard to gauge without a playtest, but battles over land, sea or (most prominently) air, should be relatively fast and furious.

This review is property of Kenzer and Company and originally published in Knights of the Dinner Table #250; and republished here with permission.

As mentioned, the setting is World War One diesel punk, but that’s only scratching the surface. The discovery of Vrillium, which is a buoyant lighter than air (fictional) ore, allows the nations of the world to build efficient weapons of war and militarize the sky with fast planes and airships. The first massive air battleship the HMS Dreadnought is launched in 1906 and the arms race begins. The Great War kicks off in 1914.

The timeline covers 30 years of the history of the setting, and is richly described. Certainly, most of it is based on real world history before, during, and after WWI but it’s an impressive amount of setting detail (almost a third of the book) and there are plenty a nuggets, which the GM will likely build his or her campaign around. The major difference being the Great War doesn’t end in an agreed armistice. As with WWI, the setting is built on the involvement of many nations primarily (Europe) England, France (which is split in two nations), Germany and Russia. Though most of events described are put in past tense and the timeline assumes the campaign starts in 1930’s. The detail of the history is such that you could also run it as a plot point campaign within the major events of the history.

        

Overall, Wild Skies has a lot of elements I really like. The art does a really good job of giving the vibe of the setting. There is also a mini black and white comic in the middle of the text which I enjoyed. I probably relished the gun and equipment illustrations sections a bit more than is healthy, but nothing sparks the imagination looking over an illustration of a plane, tank or machine gun and the imaginings of heroic characters behind the yoke or pulling the trigger.

There were also a few things I thought could have been better presented. The writing in general and especially for the sections covering dice mechanics, are bit verbose. What’s written does an adequate job, but it’s not as clean (in origination) as some RPGs I’ve read lately, and I’d preferred to have read a bit less. Grammar wise there were a couple minor mistakes, but nothing all that distracting. The print version would have been just a bit better with a little more white space between the text of the column and the spine; obviously this is of no concern if you pick up the PDF version

Absolutely my favorite aspect was the presentation of the Moral Compass, which reverses the idea of characters acting for the purpose of receiving experience points and instead places a guideline which they themselves choose, for the purpose of advancement.

I certainly think Wild Skies is worthy of your cash. And even more so if like this reviewer you enjoyed TMNT or After the Bomb in your youth. The amount of character options is admirable, and if I’m reading this right more books involving the nations of the world as supposed to follow. I for one can’t wait to see what comes next.