What's the verdict on Gearworld (FFG)?

So this game came out out and disappeared like a fart in the wind. There are only a few reviews of it (Tommy Vasel hated it). People on here hated the Steampunk re-theme. Not sure if anyone from here reviewed it though. It just seems like it was a colossal pile of shit that nobody wanted.

Well the game is on clearance pretty much everywhere. You can pick it up for like $20 shipped on Amazon. So I'm just curious. For anyone that's played it....is it any good or is it a huge miss?

Based on the overwhelming responses, I think I can just assume that this game is in fact the steaming pile of donkey diarrhea shit that it's been made out to be...

This game is a mystery to me. I picked it up on clearance and need to prep it for a game day soon.

The Steampunk reskin really amounts to gears on things. The production and art is multitudes better than the original.

Its has always been a game I'm interested it, but it also seems like a game that takes a little bit of thinking outside the box to "get".

I know the original was thought of highly, so I'm surprised that what I understand to be a pretty faithful reprint of the original and expansions flopped the way that it did.

Steampunk setting is 100% of the reason I have not bought this. It was a lame attempt from FFG to make the game appealing to one of the worst and most baseless nerd subcultures. I see this shit- including the illustrations for Gearworld- and just think of Will Smith singing "Wild Wild West".

Game is good, but it is pretty primitive.

The change in setting didn't help, but I do think that Borderlands is one of those games that is more influential than approachable. Having not played it, my impression is that it hasn't aged nearly as well as Cosmic Encounter or Dune.

It doesn't help that FFG basically acted like it didn't exist. The whole thing reeks of contract fulfillment.

Aside from maybe 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, has there ever been anything good arising from Steampunk? I didn't even like the steampunk book co-written by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. And I normally enjoy anything from either of those writers.

Personally, I like the aesthetic of Steampunk. I find it interesting and romantic in a way, when done right.

So what if the nerd culture has taken it over, there's a lot of things that I'd have to stop liking if I cared what nerd culture did.

Shellhead wrote: Aside from maybe 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, has there ever been anything good arising from Steampunk?

I really enjoyed the Harryhausen movie First Men on the Moon based off of HG Wells.

Shellhead wrote: Aside from maybe 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, has there ever been anything good arising from Steampunk? I didn't even like the steampunk book co-written by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. And I normally enjoy anything from either of those writers.

If you mean Jules Verne novel then you would definitely enjoy other novels by him and H.G Wells. Wouldn't call them steampunk they are more like great grandfathers to it and most of S-F for that matter.

as for more modern steampunk:

- China Mieville's books are supposed to be good but I never read them
- Arcanum the cRPG is amazing but really unpolished, Dishonered is supposed to be good and first three Thiefs are great haven't played the last one
- First two volumes of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are great, I haven't read the rest but I'm under impression the timeline has advanced so it's not really steampunk anymore.
- Lots of Miyazaki's films have steampunk vibe

Paul di Filippo's Steampunk Trilogy (short stories in one paperback, not a rambling epic) were pretty good.

Of course, they were published in 1995. I like Mieville's stuff a lot, but it's sort of tangentially steampunk, and even then only the Bas-Lag books. His more recent novels are not at all.

I liked KW Jeter's Infernal Devices, that was pretty good (but from 1987...)

I haven't really kept track of the stuff in the last ten years or so. I can't say I'm a big fan of hot-gluing gears to shit, and that sort of cosplay seems to have eclipsed the actual writing. I'm also a bit dubious about the overall politics of it, which only di Filippo ever really touched on. Everyone else tends to "rah rah jolly old England", which sort of misses the point.

Oh yeah. Boardgames. Didn't play Gearworld. For twenty bucks I might give it a try. I wouldn't turn my nose up at the theme.

The difference between steampunk and golden-age science fiction is pretty slim. Defined by when it was written maybe?

You can't just take a shit on a theme in a pejorative sense like that -- there's good and bad material in every category. Frankly, the original Wild Wild West was steampunk and it was about as good as television got in its day.

This whole caste system view on geekdom is bullshit. I personally think the cover of Mission Red Planet is seriously cool and I love the character cards as well. Theme of that one works just fine for me.

S.

Not Sure wrote: I liked KW Jeter's Infernal Devices, that was pretty good (but from 1987...)

I re-read Infernal Devices just a few months ago, and should have remembered it for this discussion. Not quite as good as I remembered, but still fun and somewhat interesting.

I recently traded Wits & Wagers for Gearworld: The Borderlands. I've been reading the rules for Gearworld: The Borderlands. The rules are poorly written and disorganized--they're so confusing and needed information is scattered. It seems like a rough-draft. This doesn't make sense because the rules are actually simple. I've never played Borderlands so it took me two readings of the FFG rules and some hand-written notes to figure it all out. I can't wait to play the game, however. I hope that gameplay is at least as good as Dune and Cosmic Encounter.

I see that the old Borderlands expansion 2 included "Temples and Universities"--those look like interesting add-ons to the game. When you build Temples, they produce followers who are sent to your neighbors to nullify their combat ability in that territory. When you build Universities, it counteracts the effects of Temples and followers; Universities also enhance production. I wonder whether FFG had planned on an expansion for Gearworld: The Bordlands and would have included these?