Wow! Okay, this submission isn't strange or jokey or kooky at all. The author obviously put a lot of serious thought into developing the design. I'm almost not sure how to approach it... ;)
Pinnacle Empty Quiver is a game in which the players are special ops infiltrating a base that holds (a) a nuke set to explode and (b) their loved ones as hostages. The PCs can disarm the nuke or they can save their loved ones, but not both -- and if they disagree, they're perfectly able to split up and work at odds.
REVIEWER NAME: Joshua BishopRoby
1) CREATIVE AND EFFECTIVE INCORPORATION OF RULES (1-10): 9
Feedback: Steel is a player resource, and is used throughout and used creatively. Teamwork is essential to the entire play experience. Law is the least firmly attached, as players can "Lay Down the Law" (it's a special maneuver), they are sort of representatives of Law & Order, and the nuke was transported outside the bounds of international law. The game is played in the one-session-two-hours time constraint and has a countdown clock for the nuke. Pretty slick all round.
2) CLARITY (1-10): 5
Feedback: I swear, this game reads like the instruction manual from an old Avalon Hill wargame, by which I mean: all the rules are there, and are even written pretty exactly, but the sense of the rules is hard to come by due to lack of structure and layout. Things that should be bulleted lists are simply listed in running text. There are a few critical typos that obscure meaning and the reader has to go, "Oh, I think he means 'reacting', not 'reaching'." And lastly, examples of play would go way, way far into making this lots clearer.
3) COMPLETENESS (1-10): 7
Feedback: What this game needs is a little playtesting and a heavy edit and it's golden. As a tight-focused game, this design handles pretty much anything that might come up in play. I suspect that there are probably too many options when it comes to skills, and the skill list might be trimmed down to make things work a little smoother. There is some partial flagging of player interests, but no systemic support for following up on them -- if I take Jungle Survival and the GM puts the base in the Middle East, I'm going to be annoyed that I wasted my Specialty Skill on that.
4) ESTIMATED EFFECTIVENESS IN PLAY (1-10): 7
Feedback: While I am sure this game is playable as written, I think it's probably playable with difficulty, and most of those difficulties have to do with the presentation rather than the structure of the rules.
The game is a little light on character roles, being hugely tactical, and I might want a little more detail added on characterization. Otherwise, this is one cut above a (very well designed) board game.
The big moral quandary -- nuke or hostages -- seems to be unsupported, but it's totally an emergent quality of the Threat Level rules. If you 'go rogue' to rescue the hostages, you go faster but riskier. If you stay with the team, you go slower but safer. Unfortunately I think this is probably something that players will only understand the second time they play. Secret passages tempt the players to take the opportunity to split off, and I imagine that in actual play if the team splits into two teams, one may very well try and switch plans on the other one.
5) SWING VOTE (1-10): 8
Final Feedback: This looks like a really fun crunch-fest with lots of details and throwing around military jargon, and overall it simply seems like a really fun evening of entertainment. I suspect that the game even has replay value without the suggested alternate setting rules -- the base with the nuke and hostages could be anywhere, and if we make up new characters for a second game, we could make the group composition wildly different, as well, producing a completely different game experience. I'd really like to see this game continue towards publication.
TOTAL SCORE (add items 1 through 5, above): 36
Bryan -- I just wanted to take a moment aside to tell you -- KEEP DEVELOPING THIS GAME. This has a whole lot of potential and I think you've got something very interesting going on, here. I'd love to see this design make its way to publication.