Gawrsh Quest

Gawrsh Quest is a welcome addition to the Caltrop Core, and really shows off what the SRD can do with an intuitive designer at the helm. 

The conceit is simple enough, a GM-led rpg whose goal is for 3-5 players to find their friend Mouseman, with the caveat that one of them is infected with the "Hunger." Players must move through various rooms until Mouseman is reached, and the game ends with Mouseman rescued, dead, or when all non-Hungry goofs are dead.

The combat mechanic simple and elegant, with the GM rolling 1d4 to beat your Gawrsh roll. If you win, enemy takes the difference between your 2 rolls. If you do not beat them, the enemy still takes 1 damage. Combat against the players is the same, with the caveat that players do not take damage if the GM doesn't beat their defense roll.

The Hungry mechanic is a ticking time bomb, with a pool of D4 similar to HP, except that with every new room, the Hungry Goof must roll with this shrinking pool of dice. Every result except for a 4 has the Hungry goof turning on the party, dealing HP damage, or worst of all on a 1, unhinging his jaw and more likely than not, eating the other players alive or infecting them with the Hunger as well.

Wisely, Nick's included a mechanic to let the other players feed the hungry Goof, by adding a tag system that will allow the infected Goof to gain back SP and stave off its outbursts. Not only does this include feeding items and relics to the Hungry Goof, but also other NPCs and Player characters, which solidifies both the game's tone and its narrative stakes.  

I really like the playbooks, Nick is doing something really neat with the base Caltrop Core, by adding incentives for picking a lower Die Roll or saving die to be used later to negate damage.

There's a useful GM notes section on designing the dungeon crawl, and I appreciate advice that says it should usually be linear but may offer branching paths. I especially like the time limits for combat and puzzles, and in particular appreciate having a let the players make a roll and then they can have a hint right in the rulebook.

The NPC descriptions give just enough of tone and narrative description to give readers a picture of what this universe is like, which is very fun. Also there's like 3 Kingdom Hearts references so like, bravo Nick. Genuinely want to play this sometime.