Exodus System by Jacob DC Ross, Role-Playing Game Review

Stephen lifted his scope to look out over The Vast as the rest of the party checked supplies. Jeremy sorted the collection of healing herbs, Deborah sorted her arrows, and Alex ran a stone along the edge of his shield which was made from a triangular piece of metal they had found last time. The four had made it across The Vast before, where the New Plague was ready to kill any human. But, the animals survived and there were still things to be found from the old civilizations. Both of which made it worth the challenge of crossing between towns and living in quarantine.

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This and any other setting you would like to play can be created using the Exodus System by Jacob DC Ross. Exodus System is a role-playing game (RPG) designed for playing in any genre. It is created on the Open Gaming License in the style of Old School Renaissance (OSR) play. I was given a PDF copy of Exodus System for review purposes.

Characters

Exodus System’s main focus is on character creation. This isn’t anything new for an RPG because the characters are the central point in an RPG experience. Exodus System creates characters with some basic concepts and then opens up for the skills.

The commonly known six attributes are used. Instead of a static score within a number range, each attribute is a specified die. Five attributes start at d6 and one at d8. Each player then chooses two Roles for their character. One Role is how the character fits into the structure of the party and the other is how the character performs in combat. After defining their roles, the character selects their starting Flavors.

Flavors are the character feats that are usually a part of a race or class. Exodus System uses Flavors to provide variations in racial and other innate abilities (like magic) for the character along with equivalent abilities associated to class in other games.

By separating Flavors away from race and class, you can create unique combinations for the characters based on the setting they are being created for. Once you have your specific character base, you provide skills the character has learned.

Selecting skills for the character is a combined interpretation between the player and the game master (GM). Players are encouraged to create and define a skill specific for their character instead of choosing from a list of skills. This allows players to create characters fitting the concept created for the personality and abilities in the player’s imagination.

This basis of character creation allows Exodus System the ability of supporting gaming across genres.

Character advancement is based on completing major story goals as determined by the GM. Players then have the ability to advance abilities, flavors, and skills.

Mechanic

When a character needs to accomplish a task, including combat, the player roles the appropriate attribute die and adds applicable modifiers. Advantage and disadvantage rules apply for rolling two dice and making the proper choice.

Exodus System’s dice mechanic works well for obtaining quick results. I suggest you keep a record of difficulty assigned to certain activities as your game progresses. The author identifies that determining how hard a task should be may be one area for a GM to consider during play. Maintaining a list allows for quick reference of a common standard for tasks.

Equipment

Continuing with creating easier, quick play, Exodus System utilizes usage dice for equipment with limited use. If you’re not familiar with the concept, you don’t keep track of the number of items, charges, or battery life. A die size (i.e, d10) is assigned and each time the item is used the die is rolled to check if the number of uses remaining stays the same (d10) or goes down by a category (in this example, to a d8). This continues until you deplete on a d4.

Adventuring

Exodus Systemprovides tables for creating adventures and encounters. In case you’re the GM and need a little help in fleshing out your adventure these tables provide information with the roll of the dice. They can also be used for creating encounters for solo play.

Presentation

The PDF of Exodus System is colorful with art associated with major points of presentation. There are a number of artist credits to give a wide feel of what the game is about.

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Deborah is working carefully to skin the bear, the fur will be great for trading. Jeremy is applying a balm to the wounds on Alex’s arm while Alex sits on a rock tracing the gouges running through his rent shield. Stephen is standing watch with his two aluminum bats in hand when a voice calls out from the trees.

“We’ll take that.”

The group turns as one, when a man with a disfigured, pock-marked face steps out from behind a tree.

A Plaguer, the worst monster a group could run into when in The Vast.

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Overall

Exodus System by Jacon DC Ross is from Thunderegg Productions is a solid OSR product that can be used to support multiple genres and to use in adventures created for other games.

You can find Exodus System at drivethrurpg.com (link).

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