“So, a Wizard, a Pirate, and a Space Marine walk into a Biker bar…”
…and in the Pangenre RPG System™, the rules still work!

Oh yeah?  That’s great…just what I always wanted. At least, that’s what Pangenre, LLC believes.

The Pangenre RPG System is a modified d20 system that allows seamless integration of all sorts of genres.  Now, I’m all for generic RPG systems, but this one seems to play up the multi-genre aspect.

Not interested.

Of course, it’s not until you read the whole description of the Core Rules that you find out they really only cover modern to near-future stuff in the book.  There’s some groundwork for other genres in there, but you’ll really have to wait until other books to come out and get all that stuff.

Multi-genre, combined with a not-interesting, poorly designed cover, make me take a pass on this one.

UPDATE:

RE: This post. I understand the author’s point. I WAS pretty harsh on the book, without having read it.  Here’s the response I’ve left on their site:

“I understand where you’re coming from, and I understand not everyone is going to agree with what I had to say.

When we cover games and game news, we cover them in our own words. When I saw a post about the release of Pangenre, I was intrigued and looked into it.

The marketing of the system totally threw me off of any further interest. Like I said, I don’t mind generic RPG systems. Hell. I own a company that publishes one. The thing that always rubs me raw about multi-genre “Be what you want to be” systems, is that they always seem to focus on that aspect. They never seem to pride themselves on their great system, or how you can use that system to run an amazing game.

Most multi-genre systems seem to always focus on “You can be a gun-toting alien cyborg patrolling the leaf-strewn streets of a fantasy elf village” aspect of their games. They want to make sure you know that you can be a beach bum surfer dude who takes out aliens using nothing but his swim trunks and a surf board.

I understand that there’s some really great mulit-genre systems out there. I’m not here to bash them all to oblivion. I just picked up something I thought was interesting, and posted my thoughts on it.”