War For The Wasteland – Minimalist Lo-Fi Sci-Fi Tabletop RPG by Eric Bloat is a role playing game published by Bloat Games inspired by 2400 Lo-Fi Sc-Fi RPG.
The game is available from DriveThruRPG for $2 but was received for free thanks to a special offer. The game contains a number of different files.
War for the Wasteland is the main game. This is a 16-page PDF with one page being the front cover, one the character sheet and half the Credits. It starts with Setting, which explains that the game is set 400 years after a nuclear war. In bunkers across the US, many people rode out the war and following nuclear winter in relative safety. Others went underground into caves and caverns. Finally, the surface dwellers, or Nuke Children, were altered by the effects. Now, the bunker dwellers, the New American Allegiance, have emerged again with advanced technology and seek to dominate the world. Those survivors who are not Nuke Children are called Meatbags and are offered a chance to gain Citizenship in the NAA. A sidebar covers modern history.
Rules are simple. Players explain what they want to do; the GM tells them the risk. A d6 skill die is rolled by default when trying an action, d4 when hindered. 1-2 is suffer full risk, 3-4 is a setback or partial success and 5+ is success, with higher being better. When characters suffer harm, a d6 is rolled with results from seek immediate medical attention or die to just inconvenience. There is no health; one successful roll can kill an enemy or one failed roll can lead to potential character death. Advancement means skill die increases from none to d8 to d10 to d12 and credits are gained. Archetypes grant additional advancements. Characters can carry as much as is sensible and only items of significant value have cost. There are also Luck rolls.
Character creation has Origin, which is Nuke Child, Meatbag, Second or True Citizen. Each has different effects. Archetypes vary depending on origin, and again have different benefits. Skills are broad categories rather than singular attributes. There are d20 tables for psychic powers, mystic abilities, mutant abilities and an optional mutant appearance table. More d20 tables have nicknames/call signs, demeanour, appearance and item/trinket.
Gear covers different equipment, including vehicles.
More d20 tables have rumours and factions and places to visit.
Prompt has a sample adventure idea.
Jobs has a d6 table to determine whether a job is found and d20 tables for contacts, job details, job locations and twists or problems. Two more d20 tables cover NAA enlistee missions, being assignment details and difficulty or threat.
New Vegas is a four-page PDF with one page being the front cover. This briefly covers New Vegas, with various locations, NPCs and rumours.
Mile High and Other Locations has other Newmerican powers and noted zones, most given a few paragraphs of description. There are also rumours for Newmerica and outside Newmerica.
Power Armors is a four-page PDF with one being the front cover which describes four personal armours and four powered armours.
A two-page PDF, one being blank, has the character sheet.
A docx file contains the text of the supplement, which can be used to create content with.
War For The Wasteland – Minimalist Lo-Fi Sci-Fi Tabletop RPG in Review
The PDFs lack bookmarks, though most are short enough that this isn’t a problem. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be mostly free of errors. There are a number of black and white illustrations. Presentation is decent.
Much of this game is similar to 2400, so anyone familiar with that should find this easy enough. Even if unfamiliar with 2400, this remains a rules-lite game, but with some more options for characters. There’s also a reasonable amount of worldbuilding, though a GM will need to do more, and tables that can be used to develop a variety of adventures. War For The Wasteland – Minimalist Lo-Fi Sci-Fi Tabletop RPG can be found by clicking here.
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