Midwest Fantasy Wargame
I've spent much of my day off so far reading Midwest Fantasy Wargame: The Primeval RPG. The author describes it as a "jumble" and "primordial ooze" that pulls from several contemporary games like Chainmail 2e and 3e, Dungeon, First Fantasy Campaign, Tunnels & Trolls, Chipco's Fantasy Rules! Notably, the author does their best to not look forward to OD&D, seeing as this is meant to be a "what if?" game for emulating 1972 playstyles.
The game is interesting and a departure from your typical D&D-adjacent game in its stats, campaign assumptions, combat mechanics, magic system, and bestiary. For example, your main statistics are Brains, Guts, Health, Looks, Sex, and Miscellaneous (everything else). There are two classes — Fighting-Man and Magic-User — and two sub-classes (Cleric and Ranger).
Characters are expected to immerse themselves in the campaign setting that is replete with tithes to be paid to religious faction leaders, taxation, baronies, fiefdoms, magic research procedures, and extensive downtime activities ranging from carnality and festivities to hobbies and piety.
The magic system is based on the "complexity" of spells, ranging from Complexity I to VI, and points associated with casting spells from each of these complexities. It's not Vancian. It seems really cool. There are 60 spells in total, many of which are not necessarily combat-focused.
There are extensive procedures for generating campaigns that take players from the underworld to the wilderness (and beyond?). Loads of oracular tables for inspiration and solo play.
It's worth noting that the game is intentionally left wide open in several places, explicitly telling the referee that they'll need to come up with their own rules more than once. There's ample designer commentary sprinkled throughout that explains how and where various rules came from, which can lead you down quite the rabbit hole as you hunt for sources for clarity or taking things a step further. We're told that this is NOT for inexperienced tabletop RPG'ers, which makes sense now that I'm about halfway through it. You'll need to come up with many rulings on the fly and as you run a campaign, which is part of the fun of returning to the origins of the hobby IMO. There's only so much you can plan for, but it's nice that the author points out some obvious gaps so that you can plan in advance.
The system is modular enough, like many in this space, that you're practically invited to tweak it for whatever setting or style of campaign that you want. Multiple options are given to referees for how to rule in certain scenarios à la Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised.
Ultimately, this seems to be a game for a high-trust table of likeminded mature individuals who are interested in exploring the earliest stages of the hobby. This is not a historical replication/retroclone — more so a "what if?" re-imagining. I think it's super cool so far and I'd recommend it for anyone who likes to study games as much as play them.
Has anyone here read or played?