Rad Divers

A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Rad Divers

Rad Divers by Oscar C. Tango is a post-apocalyptic role playing game published by Stranded Publishing.

The supplement is available as a 23 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. One page is the table of contents.

Core Rules explains that the dice used are the d20, rolled to do things with the base target being 15, and the d6, rolled for weapon damage. It looks at armor, which is the amount of radiation that a character can take, inventory, the slots to carry items, death, which is hit at 0 HP assuming a d20 roll is made, combat, which has rolls made to hit and damage, range, where if you can see something clearly, you can shoot it, and if behind something that blocks site, they cannot be shot, healing, with HP damage, which is essentially luck and when it runs out, you can die, and Conditions, which take time to cure. When Armor is damaged, it affects the ability to resist radiation. Resources are security, food, power, water, space and meds. Seasons are 10-week long chunks of time which deplete resources and determine when Projects are completed. Running out of resources causes problems.

Rad DiversCharacters have six stats; Strong, Quick, Resist, Wits, Awareness and Talk. Each is rolled by rolling 2d6 and dropping the lowest number. The stats are pretty self-explanatory in what they can do. Characters also have a crew of people who generally get along, along with the other players. Each crew has a strength and a flaw, rolled on the same table with each strength and flaw being essentially opposites. There are also six possible homes, each of which has an advantage for one resource.

Various types of things that can be purchased are covered next, with weapons, armour, resources, recruits, specialists and equipment.

Projects are upgrades to the settlement and some sample Projects, with their costs and benefits, are detailed.

Characters advance by surviving trips into a dungeon which gives them XP that can be used to buy a hit die or a stat.

Referee Section starts with four dirty tricks the GM can use to make things more difficult for the players. Finally, monsters covers how monsters are dangerous and combat should be avoided, because monsters don’t have the same limitations as characters, with sample stats. Some brief details on human enemies are given.

Rad Divers in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and has enough sections that these would have been useful. The table of contents covers the various sections and is hyperlinked. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a single column format and appeared to be free of errors; offputtingly, the Referee Section suddenly descended into the use of foul language. There are no illustrations. Presentation is poor.

This is the framework for a game, which seems to combine elements of both a post-apocalyptic boardgame and a role playing game. Characters have a home base that they need to improve, plus they can go out and explore areas to gain more resources. It doesn’t feel quite complete, though; not enough that it would be impossible to play but enough that GMs will need to do a bit of work to get it functional first. Rad Divers can be found by clicking here.


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