Today we are pleased to offer you the review of Carbon Grey, the dieselpunk role-playing game from the work of Andrew E. C. Gaska and E. L. Thomas. Carbon Grey is a ttrpg adaptation from the graphic novel created by Hoang Nguyen. This is available on the store Magnetic Press, whom we thank for making a digital copy of the game available to us, in a valuable omnibus volume.
Anyone wishing to purchase the game can always find it on Magnetic Press store, at a cost of $ 39.99 in the hardcover version. For props lovers, the game is full of accessories; you can find a “traditional” master’s screen and thematic dice, and even a lot of miniatures. There are also two supplements, one of which is designed for solo play.
Volume Review by Carbon Grey
In its 224 pages in 8 x 11′ format (the US standard that comes closest to European A4), Carbon Grey looks absolutely good. Very neat writing, legible and well highlighted titles. Tables and especially text boxes help make the volume easier to consult.
The illustrations are very rich and extremely accurate. The artistic line is clear, and imposes an extremely coherent style that encourages immersion in the setting. Perhaps a criticism can be made of the fact that the images are poorly modulated: sometimes a little disconnected from the content of the page; in the long run they give the impression of ending up becoming flat, not detaching much from the rest of the manual.
The D6 System
The game system resumes D6 System by West End Games. It caught on thanks to Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game (1987) and, thanks to its longevity, allowed publications for about a decade. The system offers a classic and particularly intuitive approach; the player rolls a pool of six-sided dice given by the sum of his Attributes and his Skills.
Success comes by adding the results obtained and equaling, or exceeding, a threshold set by the Game Master defined as the Difficulty Number (DN). Note that the increase of a characteristic or skill is not linear; before getting a new die you go through a “flat” bonus of +1 and then +2. Fortunately, the player’s card provides for directly entering the formula indicating the number of d6s to roll plus the relative bonus; otherwise, it would have been chaotic to manage.
Review of Magnetic Variant of Carbon Grey
The D6 System used for Carbon Grey is not, in any case, in its original version; the game would be too dated. Magnetic Press presents his personal version: the Magnetic Variant. The game’s feature system has changed to be more in tune with the setting, and various features make the game more modern.
For example, the Wild Die is interesting, a die is always present in the player’s pool which with a result of 1 or 6 can bring additional consequences to the action, beyond the result. Or the game’s “magic” system, which uses three specific abilities that can influence reality in completely different ways.
Despite these precautions, Carbon Grey uses a game engine that has its age and shows it. It is a game with traditional perspectives that tries to cover itself with more modern mechanics and this is not necessarily a bad thing.
The main problem is that the game gets caught up in an attempt to cover all possible game dynamics; especially with particular attention to combat, as with all more traditional games. And when there is now a tendency to reduce the most detailed cases and instead try to manage the scene, displaying them all can make the game a little cumbersome.
Character Creation
Character creation is pretty simple. The game offers various archetypes to choose from; each of them distributes the starting characteristics differently. Some, like the Dragoon, the Cavalry Scout or the Master Spy are classics of games set in wartime.
Others, such as the Aspiring Occultist or the Free Lady/Lord are more specifically tailored to the setting. Particularly striking is the Fenris Wolf, which allows you to play an intelligent wolf the size of a steed; intelligent, but still a wolf.
All archetypes are specifically designed to fit the setting and reflect it in the character. A very interesting job, but here too the regulation is showing its age; beyond the flavor text, there is no specific mechanic that is reflected in the game. All things considered, choosing an archetype exclusively brings a different set of characteristics to the gaming table.
Review by Carbon Grey: a Little Mess
The character is then completed with skills, each relating to a specific characteristic; he also receives a certain amount of Hero Points (a mechanic very similar to the Inspiration Points of the most famous role-playing game in the world, but with more versatility of application). Finally, the player chooses a specific personality trait called Quirk, an obligation towards a specific faction / person / ideal, and a special ability (Remarkable Ability).
Even in this case, the impact on the game is relative: a Quirk allows access to a Remarkable Ability but without any specific mechanics. It’s just a classic pros/cons style balancing act. Pursuing your obligation, however, grants you an extra Skill Point at the end of the session.
There is an important note to make here. Skill Points do not only allow you to increase Skills but also, with an optional rule, to acquire new Remarkable Abilities. While Attributes can only be increased by expending Hero Points. Not exactly a linear mechanism, and in the case of Skill Points not even an overly happy name, which can cause confusion.
The Tools of the Game World
Inevitable in a world where there is a supernatural force that permeates everything, Carbon Grey features a corruption mechanic. Increasing your score is never a good idea, but there are several situations where it may be necessary (or unavoidable). In this case, the mechanics are rather linear and use already-tested mechanisms that adapt perfectly to various types of regulations.
A very extensive and in-depth list of items follows; this especially applies to firearms and vehicles. To make matters worse, Carbon Grey further enriches the offer thanks to the temporal anomalies that characterize the setting.
However, it is certainly a very detailed and in-depth work, with its 50 dedicated pages. It certainly would have benefited from greater compactness and a little more order; the price and availability of an object would have been much more useful if included in the relevant table, rather than at the end of its description.
Review of Dieselpunk by Carbon Grey
One of the strong points of Carbon Grey is the originality of its setting. Let’s talk about dieselpunk, a subgenre born from cyberpunk (or steampunk) with retro-futuristic aesthetics and technology borrowed from the post-war period. All, obviously, with diesel-powered engines. The game is suitable for scenes set at court or in the trenches, passing through secret laboratories, apocalyptic scenarios and simple ghettos besieged by poverty.
The game world, the continent of Mitteleuropa, is essentially split in two. Keeping the Axis empire afloat is the Kaiser, an emperor with his semi-divine guard. Much of its hegemony is given by the descendants of Gottfaust, a hero of ancient times who absorbed within himself the power of a comet star.
The Core of the Setting
However, the Axis no longer has undisputed authority. The Allied states are increasingly stronger and ready to oppose it, and the neutral states are ready to do their part. And if these names are familiar to you, yes, it is because Mitteleuropa, its blocks and its nation-states very closely resemble post-war Europe. In some cases, the references to specific historical and geographical contexts are also quite evident.
As if that wasn’t enough, in a land torn by an open conflict between the two blocs and various internal fronts, the energy of the Continuity Flux constantly shocks the world. This is the energy emanating from the stone that gave Gottfaust his powers, transmitted through hundreds of fragments that can be as large as a grain of sand or as small rocks.
These energies pierce time and space, allowing for vast arsenals to be used in Carbon Grey, but not only. Through the torn fabric of reality, supernatural energies creep into the world, attempting to subvert the natural order. In this way demonic entities infiltrate the game continuity, leaving the use of the powers granted by the stone as the only weapon to effectively contain them.
Review of the Main Themes by Carbon Grey
A large setting like this offers an enviable variety of themes. National belonging or to a bloodline and its contradictions, for example. The hell of war, or revolution: sometimes a plague, sometimes an undeniable right. Imperialism, the struggle between truth and propaganda, and also a more supernatural game, be it overt or intimate horror.
The game also features some ready-to-play scenarios. In Operation Nursemaid, for example, the characters must confront an enemy who has gathered a small crusade of children, used to blackmail their parents. Ashes to Ashes instead he confronts them with the horrors of other worlds that have taken control of a stronghold. To Do More Harm instead, it will lead them to confront the classic mad scientist who has created a deadly gas, a terrifying new chemical weapon. These three scenarios are quite complex, accompanied by descriptions of the scenes that follow one another and the main NPCs and places. Then follow other more concise game ideas, which can be used as suggestions to expand.
Lots of Ideas, Maybe Too Many
It must be taken into account that the setting of Carbon Grey It’s borrowed from a comic. It was therefore born not so much as an all-round setting, but functional to a much more focused and specific story. The work done to make it suitable for a role-playing game was very thorough.
However, reading the manual leaves you a bit perplexed about it. There is often the feeling that too much has been put into the fire and that the game ends up missing the point a bit in an attempt to provide more ideas than necessary. Also because, apart from the nations (very well explained in their history, geostrategic and political situation and in their main places of interest), the manual forces you to often jump between the pages to find complete information.
In an attempt to modernize the manual (which came out during the Covid era), there is also a solo game mode. However this is far from expectations; it lacks specific mechanics and is a simple multiple choice gamebook, with the inclusion of a few dice rolls.
Conclusions of the Review of Carbon Grey
Carbon Grey, it’s a polarizing game: it has excellent strengths and crucial flaws. It is an original setting, extremely “stylish” and with a dieselpunk setting that is very fascinating and yet underused. It has a game system that is simple to learn and apply and makes clear attempts to modernize it.
On the other hand, he cannot overcome the fact that he was born with a system that is now out of date. The mechanics aren’t meant to support the game’s themes simply because they were born when that was the norm. The setting risks confusing as it has more themes to bring into play than actual development. Furthermore, it is a manual that lacks an optimal layout of the contents.
Ultimately it can be a very interesting game, but only advisable for those who are not afraid to take a step back towards a dated way of doing game design without however returning to the famous old school. And for those who, once they have browsed through the evocative setting, know how to choose which themes they want to develop.
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