Pyramid Pick
Sketch! RPG
Published by Corsair Publishing
Written by Seth Johnson and Brian Schomburg
48 pages; $6.95
Sketch! is a breath of fresh air in the superhero roleplaying game market. Unlike most superhero roleplaying games, which attempt to quantify each aspect of a character's powers, Sketch! has a lightweight system which aids in the authors' stated goal of bringing new players into the adventure games hobby.
The world of Sketch! bears little resemblance to our own: a cartoonish world in the center "of all explored space," the planet Sketch is a tourist mecca and headquarters for over ninety percent of the universe's media and business conglomerates. In other words, it's a perfect place for a hero (or villain) looking for fame to test their meddle.
Sketch! has a unique character creation system -- players generate characters by drawing them. There are no real restrictions on genre, equipment, or, luckily, drawing ability. (Some of the character art is attributed to "Dan Zigmund and Sherri Johnson's Second Grade Class, South Grove Elementary.") For those who fiercely believe they can't be trusted to draw, Sketch! provides an appendix of modular comic book art clips that can be cut and pasted on to a stick figure.
Once you've drawn your character and given it a name, players pass the characters around the table, where everyone votes on your character's statistics on a scale of 1 to 10: Speed, Muscle, Power, Gear, Mind, and Toughness. Take the . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: November 24, 2000
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