Wastewalkers RPG Review
A Quick Hit Full of Grit
Howdy folks!
If you’re familiar with my newsletter, welcome back! For those just joining us, the Ars Fabula newsletter aims to provide inspiration and advice that you can take back to your table. In reviewing this tabletop RPG I hope to bring my readers a new style of content and get their minds buzzing. I hope this review excites you for a really unique, new, Indie RPG, or inspires you with ideas you can run in your home game.
First, a bit of a disclaimer.
I was provided a review copy of the game, but I will in no way allow that to affect my review. Any design or clarification notes I had will be addressed Fari RPGs who are consistently working to improve and push this small indie title to more and more folks. As a matter of fact, due to meeting their contribution goal over on itch.io, this game is now FREE. Be sure to pick up your download of Wastewalkers HERE! So, without further ado, let’s dive in!
Brought to you right from the edge of oblivion, chock full of radiation and grit, Wastewalkers is a rules-bright TTRPG with roots in the OSR style. Fari RPGs is an indie TTRPG creator, developed by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas, with several hits under their belt already. If you’re familiar with games like Stoneburner or Breathless, the progenitor of the Breathless system, you’ll want to check out Wastewalkers, and its predecessor RPG Songs and Sagas. Wastewalkers was created by Fari RPGs as part of their very own Songs and Sagas game jam which boasts over 30 unique games, and counting, using this new rules-bright system. Wastwalkers uses the “same system, slightly reworded, new setting, new backgrounds and a new looting and selling mechanic specific for the wasteland.” (René-Pier Deshaies) This style of play, like other OSR games, relies on a paired down rules system. Such systems can often be summed up as, “rulings, not rules,” which allow the Game Master (GM) to make determinations in the moment and carry that decision as a ruling for the game moving forward. For a game that fits on four pages, the Wastewalkers rule set is tight and can be used to cover almost all situations in a game; hence the term “rules-bright”.
The game throws you into the deep end of a post-apocalyptic wasteland and asks you to adapt, survive and overcome in the ruins of civilization. Fans of the Fallout series, Borderlands and the Last of Us will enjoy the general gritty post-apocalyptic setting. Additionally, this game system is highly compatible with other OSR games so feel free to dig out those old Bestiaries to populate your wasteland. Players will take on the role of a scavenger armed with a set of trusty polyhedral dice and a standard deck of playing cards. When playing my solo games, I found it helpful to have scratch paper to journal my actions, and I used some printed hex grid paper to track my location. Overall, the character creation process is simple and lightning quick. There are only four attributes to track which get adjusted as soon as you choose from one of four thematic backgrounds. The rules for growing into a wasteland legend are simple and straightforward with a bit of randomness brought about by the draw of a playing card. The character creation process’s brevity lends itself to the OSR style and takes the drudgery from character creation. After all, the wasteland is treacherous and you might find yourself on the wrong end of an irradiated nest of wasps. It ultimately lets you, yes you, decide the intricacies of your character. This tendency to spotlight the Players or GM is a running theme throughout the game.
I would be remiss not to mention the game heavily relies on the GM’s preparation, improvisation and communication skills. As the one crafting the narrative it’s up to you to have resources ready to roll or at least have a plot flexible enough to give the player’s their agency. (Ah the age-old railroad versus sandbox dilemma.) On the player side, I found you really had to get creative with how you used your attributes effectively. In one game I had been dealt a negative score for the fast attribute. While I could have picked a character background which provided a benefit to the attribute, I decide to min-max the tough attribute. I imagined my character had a bad prosthetic and made a small goal of using my future experience to increase the fast attribute and roleplay the outcome based on the card I drew. I this manner I found that the rules tend to guide, but ultimately get out of the way of your fiction. I did initially feel a little burdened by having so much to create and develop on the fly, but as mentioned before, this game benefits from the rules being light enough that we have tons of resources from other OSR products to use. If I found myself stuck, I grabbed my copy of Shadowdark and flipped through the monsters or an item table to get some ideas.
Playing Wastewalkers is quite simple to pick up as well. Once you get the hang of it, there tends to be this rhythm to the game as gameplay revolves around two core concepts: the conversation or fiction and the trial roll. Firstly, the rules for the trial roll allow players to get creative in solving problems. There are no additional skills beyond the attributes and players are encouraged to think creatively within a reasonable boundary (ultimately the GM decides if it’s okay.) Once the fiction begins, the game becomes a conversation of the player describing how they plan to overcome the obstacle with their chosen attribute, and the DM making a ruling like most tabletop roleplaying games. However, Wastewalkers becomes a dance for narrative control of the game! If it’s feasible the character can complete the task without much effort, the player may not even need to roll. However, in crunch time, the GM will determine the difficulty rating and draw cards based on the risk level of the area. This may increase the chances of narrative disaster. The Player will craft their plan and roll their handy-dandy d20 and add their attribute in an attempt to beat the GM’s difficulty rating. The winner takes control of the scene and regardless of a success or setback, the player will gain something for later use. This interplay and decision-making process happens quickly and gets out of the way as the narrative spotlight takes center stage. As I played my solo games, I found I was storycrafting and worldbuilding, only really breaking out my D20 when the stakes were high enough to warrant it.
While I feel like Wastewalkers relies heavily on conversation and in-the-moment improvisation, much of the rules set feels familiar without dragging me down into rules-lawyer territory. I did have some suggestions for the game. It could benefit from describing TTRPG concepts such as, stepping up or down the dice, ways to manipulate the difficulty rating, or NPCS’s, or what constitutes a higher die type when it comes to armor and weapons, as well as utilizing the d20 roll outcome when determining physical location on your map. On the note about armor and weapons, René-Pier stated, “the balance isn’t that much important since those are mitigated by armor anyway. Go with what feels right in the moment and tweak it on the spot… they are more like pacing mechanism more than anything else…” which makes a lot of sense. I found by comparing weapons to a Shadowdark counterpart I could get an idea for just how damaging a “rusty machete” would be. The 1d6 felt appropriate by the way.
Overall, I think Wastewalkers is a great introductory game for an experienced GM to take to a group of new players. Once you can overcome the hesitancy to get the rules wrong and start focusing on the role play aspect of the game, it turns into a fun experience. I would recommend you pull some additional resources such as your favorite oracles, bestiary, and even some wasteland hex maps to assist in crafting the fiction. I was able to solo-play relatively quickly and I’ve even asked my partner to try it with me. I look forward to getting him to finally sit down with an easy to learn TTRPG, as well as seeing what comes out of his beautiful, twisted mind. What about you? Is Wastewalkers, or by extension Songs and Sagas, a game you can see yourself trying? Check out the games as well as the game jam on the following links and toss Fari RPGs some Monopoly money and bottle caps for their wonderful games. Leave me a like and a comment to let me know how you’re feeling on this. As always, the Ars Fabula newsletter appreciates any support you provide. If you’d like to see me review your game, or if you have any topics, you’d like to see me discuss, drop me a DM. I’m always happy to hear from you.
Check out the links below for the RPG “Songs and Sagas” mentioned in this review, as well as socials for Rene-Pier.
Songs and Sagas (farirpgs.com)
