| What it Isn't | What it Is |
| This is not a basic rules set, a light rules, or a starter game. |
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| This is a demonstration version of the Multiverser® game system. |
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| It is not intended that this would be a simplified game system you could use in an ongoing campaign, and if you attempt to use it that way you will run into many problems due to materials excluded from the system which were not needed for its purpose. It was designed for a very limited use. |
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| It is intended that this should be a playable mini-campaign which you could enjoy, which would give you some idea of the full version of Multiverser®. It faithfully demonstrates the major mechanics of the game, and presents enough of the possibilities to give a peek at the Multiverser® experience. |
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| It's not a beginner's game. It is not easier to run or to play than the full game system. In some ways it will be more difficult, as much of the explanatory material and nearly all of the shortcuts have been cut from the text. The basic mechanics have been retained intact, but some of the tricks for making them work smoothly and easily have been cut out. |
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| It does simplify a number of mechanics and eliminates a host of others. Many of the things which can be done in Multiverser® are not covered at all here, or not as well. A lot of very useful ideas--rules for concealment, invisibility, insanity, temporal anomalies, and much more--have been omitted. This game does a lot less, and it's a lot shorter. |
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| It isn't a starting point for a full Multiverser® game. It replaces character creation information with a few pre-generated characters; it reduces some weapon stats and eliminates a number of combat options. It also leaves out a large number of skills and skill descriptions which an ordinary character would be likely to have, descriptions which would be part of the game in many worlds, but aren't necessary for the worlds included (for example, none of these characters are given the ability to drive because none of these worlds have cars). It has been abbreviated in many ways--it would have to be, to be reduced from over five hundred fifty pages to about seventy. If you chose to extend this game into a full Multiverser® campaign, you would have to add quite a bit, especially to the characters, but also to their equipment and to the worlds. In many ways, it should be considered a different game which is highly compatible. |
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| But if you find a referee and three players, this package should make it possible to begin to get the feeling of a Multiverser® campaign. Each of the pregenerated characters is a bit different, allowing a look at how different strengths and weaknesses can be used in the game. One begins with good combat skills, the second with a bit of magic, and the third with some excellent technical abilities. The four worlds don't have everything, but they do have some variety. Technology is kept to a minimum to save space, but one of them has a surprising science fiction element. There are places to explore, battles to fight, problems to solve. We've created more monsters, some familiar and others unusual. There is magic here, psionics there, and ways for the characters to learn new skills and develop existing ones. It even includes a few new "tricks" for adventure design which we've used to make complicated worlds simpler. |
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| Altogether, this free package is not the Multiverser® game. It's not much more than a very limited peek at the Multiverser® game. |
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| What we are offering here is an opportunity to have a brief adventure--perhaps three or four game sessions--based on the Multiverser® experience. |
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| The files now come in three formats. The recommended format is PDF, readable by any computer that has an Acrobat Reader, free from Adobe. This will capture the look of the game books on any computer. They are also available as a set of Word 7 documents; you will need a word processor able to manage Word 6 or better to see the table and font formatting. If printed, the pages should look very like the full system, as font and layout have been maintained (although artwork has been removed). They have been compressed with Norton's Commander Compression, and so must be decompressed using a program such as PKUnzip or Winzip. Once you have unzipped it, you will have eight documents; the largest, "demo.doc", is the rulebook itself, and the place to start. The others include the four worlds ("valley.doc", "undead.doc", "racewar.doc", and "farmland.doc") and three characters ("walker.doc", "edwards.doc", and "esposito.doc"). We are now also offering a rich text format (.rtf) version, accessible to those without the ability to handle Word documents. In this version, although all the material is present, the rules, worlds, and characters are placed in one document, and the referee will want to divide these (especially the characters) into individual files. In this version, the tables may be less clear. Every effort has been made to align the text properly, and to verify this in different forums, but it is clear that rich text is not always handled the same way by different programs. |
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