Disclaimer: this is not a review, and it hasn't been proofread in any way. It's just a play report, with some opinions.

Saturday, we went to the FLGS to pick up minis for Aaron's new <i>D&D</i> campaign. We've been having trouble getting more than a few sessions of the Biggest Game in the Hobby going in a row, because all of us are story-game bitches who would rather run hand-in-hand through the lilies of narrativism and fluff than sit down and plan a game session. Or we're just too lazy. But he's going to make a go of it, and the plan is to keep it lighthearted and zany, and I'm down for that.

Anyway, miniatures. Check 'em.

So, while we were there, I saw a copy of 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars sitting the in store's newish "indie" section. It was right next to a copy of Polaris, which I love, so it caught my attention. Flipping it over to the back cover and reading the blurbs there about funand violence in space, I pretty much had to bite.

3:16, if you don't know, is an RPG that both exists in and parodies the "space marine" subgenre of sci-fi. The game lists Warhammer 40k, Aliens, and Starship Troopers as inspiration, and so I'm pretty sure you know what I mean. The PCs are tough-as-nails killers with fancy toys, and everything else is a hostile alien that needs to be made into a pile of goo. Simple.

So, after D&D -- which went really well -- we had some time to kill, so I printed out some character sheets and away we went. I told the guys it would take about 45 minutes (based on my initial read-through. I was close; it took an hour, including character generation).

Character generation was smooth. It would be hard not to be, since you only have two numerical stats in 3:16, and a few "named" traits. The two number traits are "Fighting Ability" and "Non Fighting Ability", or as I like to call them "Killin'" and "Everything Else".

Once we had our group, I rolled up a planet using the handy charts in the book, and gave the team a simple mission brief, and away we went.

The actual play is very smooth. The narrative scenes just happen. PCs do whatever they want, and a few NFA rolls help show who's competent and who is not. 3:16 only uses two kinds of dice, d10s and d6s, and it uses them in very intuitive ways. Your skills are all "roll-under", which I know some people find cumbersome, but since turns still proceed from highest to lowest (with some exceptions), rolling high is still good, which means people will tend to understand what's going on.

Combat is the heart of the game, and it shines. It's narrative fluff, with a rewarding mechanic allowing players to reap some crunchy mechanical reward from having big guns without having to keep track of the hit points of every single aggressive alien bug (or in our case hostile animate coral). Everyone rolls against their NFA to move around or change guns, or against their FA to shoot/punch/stab/blow up xeno scum, and earns kills based on the effectiveness of their weapon. Kills work like experience points, so smart use of your killing methods is important.

Win or lose, the player gets to narrate the outcome of their action, and since you almost always take damage or kill multiple aliens, it can be very satisfying. The guys immediatly clicked with the narrative parts of the game and relished pulling other troopers out of craters, dragging hard on cancer sticks, and lobbing grenades like softballs, all while grunting, growling, and grimacing.

The game's most unique mechanic is the "flashback" system, whereby in a pinch, you can either save the day -- or at least your own ass -- through the clever application of a flashback, either a strength or a weakness. In this way, you get to learn about your character's history while keeping your character from untimely death. Using flashbacks is the only way to get access to promotions and demotions, too, so it's a handy mechanic to have. We weren't 100% certain of how it worked when we played the first time, so the guys were a bit gunshy with it, and only ended up using a few weaknesses and no strengths. I got the impression they were holding back their strengths for a tight spot... but the game is short enough that the rainy day never came. So encourage your players to use their strengths! Tell them it's how they get promotions!

Finally, after play comes the upgrade step. Quick, easy, and fun, as players now have enough experience to know where their weaknesses are.

Overall, I enjoyed 3:16, and will definitely play it again. I get the impression from the book that the designer doesn't think it' really meant for pick-up play, but I disagree, and will almost undoubtedly be using this as an aperitif after a longer game, or as a game to play when we've got a few drinks in us. He also says it will take 3-5 hours for a full game session, but we burned through one planet in 1 hour, so unless you do several planets at a sit, I'd be surprised by the 3-5 figure. I will definitely play this game again, and definitely don't regret my purchase.

In my mind, this is pretty close to the perfect balance of "retro-pretentious" (under Jeff Rients' threefold model), which is right up my alley.

-AD.