As previously mentioned in my last post on Fluxborn I was hoping to look at this system in a little more detail and have a brief playtest of it to get a proper feel for the game, well with many thanks to my housemates I've had a chance to get to grips with Fluxborn and I must admit I have mixed feeling on the system which I'll share below.

Setting

The setting for Fluxborn is both its greatest strength and weakness (somewhat suitably considering its focus on due natures), to further explain this I am going to break it down a little more into explanations about the Fluxborn concepts, the balance of Wild and Logic and the Everthere the core setting of Fluxborn.

To begin the main occupants of the dreamworld other than the invading nightmare creatures and the strange animals that inhabit the world are the dreamers and the fluxborn, both the dreamers and fluxborn are born in dreamworld when we (as in real life occupants) sleep living out their entire lives while we dream. The difference between a fluxborn and a regular dreamer begins at birth and to directly quote the text:

A special being of dreams that is somehow more in tune with the flow of the two energies. Their very bodies are warped by the world itself into something else, something that can harness the powers of Wild and Logic. 

All dreamers are humans though the fluxborn are born or change into one of the following:

• Boogeymen representing fear, anxiety and alienation and are twisted into monstrous looking tall humanoids that are feared and shunned. 
• Hare: Close to the Wild they represent excitement, curiosity and imagination and are childlike with large rabbit ears.
• Heroic: Embodying wish fulfilment and power fantasies embodied; the Heroic are often tall, beautiful and strong, with glowing silver or gold eyes and a aura of physical power.
• Frogkin: Creatures of ingenuity and charisma these tiny beings start off as human slowly changing into frogs.
• Sic: Naturally logical the Sic are identified by their lack of expression, missing eyebrows and blue circuit board pattern that covers their bodies starting at their fingers.

In addition to their different attribute bonus each type of fluxborn can choose one of three traits for their kind ranging from the Bopgeyman's ability to melt and scar anything he touches to the Sic ability to reroll any roll once per day.

While I do like the description of each race within the system at a deeper glance it doesn't hold up as particularly unique as each race seems to fulfil traditional racial niches I.E: The Boogeymen socially fills the role of a half orc or Tiefling in Dungeons and Dragons, the Hare is basically a hobbit/halfling in a rabbit onesie (though admittedly more adventurous), the Heroic fulfils a fighter or barbarian role and given the world setting will often be a Viking, Greek warrior or knight.

The only ones that give me pause are the Frogkin and Sic, though the Frogkin was aptly described as playing a Greymatter from Ben10 (not in a negative way either) and the Sic sounds disturbingly like someone suffering from Asperger Syndrome  and as someone who is friends with several people who have the condition it personally made me rather uncomfortable (though I imagine many players will treat and play them as aloof elves.)

However to the fair in any roleplay game it is extremely hard to break away from any given trope and traditional stereotypes so I have to credit for attempting to. 

Next is the heavily emphasized features of Wild and Logic, these energies in balance are what make the dreamworld and keep it whole, too much Wild in a location and rivers start running backwards, trees sprout eyes and people drown in air as the rules of existence unravel, great amounts of Logic are no better as the land becomes a featureless, colourless, symmetrical wasteland.  In places where the two come into contact Leylines which only fluxborn can see spring forth and become wellsprings of power for the fluxborn.

Players also have to balance Wild and Logic within themselves (or choose a direction to head in) as various energy filled stunts changes the characters affinity towards one direction or the other with the player been permanently unable to access their opposite element if they focus in one. To briefly touch on mechanics here I find that it is very basic and somewhat unfair as a character can rather easily cut themself off from Logic or Wild if they are forced to use a skill repeatedly in an area.

For example I have chosen the level 1 Logic stunt Erase Tracks (a handy if rarely used power) and 2 Wild stunts that focus on combat such as Blastwave (level 1) and Crystal Caltrops (level 1). For the first couple of sessions our fledgling DM been new to the system makes his first adventure very combat intensive and I am forced to rely upon powers repeatedly, as I near 15 Wild  affinity I must make a choice of either no longer using my Wild powers or using them to survive and once reaching 15 affinity be unable to use my Logic power and consider it a wasted power.

Reading through the rules there is no way to change affinity other than using the Stunts which led to my players using spells just to balance out the arbitrary number rather for any game or story benefit, simply by adding a rule that a characters affinity moves slowly back towards equilibria over a period of time would fix this but it seems this was an oversight.   

In spite of their name Wild and Logic are just renamed Chaos and Order and while too much of either gives plothooks for the players to get involved to solve a problem, there is never really any description on how a person can influence these energies unlike settings like Arcanum which has a similar concept with science and magic, where the influence those living there have over it is shown clearly.

Likewise with the third property/location Nightmare there seems to be a lack of detail on how an incursion is dealt with. Nightmare is a realm in the depths of the earth and sea where there is no leylines of Wild and Logic and dreamers entering never return, sometime creatures and the realm itself spill out over the surface and these are supposedly dealt with by the armies of the setting.
I can understand how the creature are dealt with that simple enough but when the land itself is tainted there is no detail at all, even though the setting describes this as having happened several times, on the world map there is no example or indication of these locations.

My own initial expected impressions of Everthere the core setting of Fluxborn was a cross between Neil Gaiman's Sandman Series (Amazon Link) and The Dreamstone (Amazon Link).

Albion:

Situated on the western coast and stretching all the way to the center of the greater continent, Albion is a land of many islands, rolling hills, lush forests and rainy days. Th e coastal area, largely bordered by the Bulwark mountains, is sparsely vegetated and home to small fishing villages and quaint water mills, with countless rivers owing across the plains, some of them wide enough to separate the area into different islands. Most of the mainland, however is located in a massive valley, filled with misty swamps, faerytale woods and mirrored lakes. Th ere are a few large towns within Albion, but all pale in comparison to Eden, the capital city of the continent of Everthere itself.

Olympia: 

The northern area of Everthere is called Olympia. Home to lonely mountain peaks, forests of impossibly high pines and leagues of inhospitable tundra, it is a harsh place to live. Nonetheless, dreamers have conquered this unforgiving land and made it their own, building great cities of wood to ward off the cold. Th e Olympians are masterful carpenters, some of these cities resembling a single, elaborately carved giant house. The weather is unpredictable, the sunrises random. Sometimes nights seem to go on forever, the dance of the aurora borealis providing the only light in the dark.

Elysium:

Elysium, a temperate region of legendary harvest seasons and
walled city-states, is considered a land of higher learning and advancement of
the sciences, famous for its philosophers and inventors. The most famous of
these city-states are Argus, the city of trade, situated at the border of Elysium
and Albion, and Heraclia, home to the College of Warfare.
The Elysian region is flat and fertile, consisting mostly of golden plains. In
rural areas, forests of cypress trees spread across the land, and majestic rock
formations, resembling the faces of dreamers, decorate the sides of mountains.

Jade Isles :

Th e craggy archipelago that extends across the Sea of Sapphires, to the south is collectively referred to as the Jade Isles, a place of colourful jungles and wind-blasted islands of jade-green, symmetrical rock. Making these isles their home is a collection of tribal societies, united under the leadership of the Jade Queen, a fearsome warlord. Th ese tribes are fiercely independent, and represent a constant threat to the dreamers of Elysium, who would fancy themselves as too civilised a people to take the so-called barbarian threat too seriously.

Old Irkalla:

Much of the eastern portion of Everthere is covered in desert. The sand in this wasteland, called Old Irkalla, is of a strange lilac colour, and most of the vegetation consists of large cacti, oft en shaped like dreamers. It is said that a dreamer who gets lost in the desert and dies of thirst is reborn as a cactus in the place where they fell.
Old Irkalla was once the seat of power in Everthere, but now, only ruins remain. Remnants of vast cities of stone litter the landscape, reduced to undignified rubble. Statues of ancient kings and queens stand in forlorn plazas, their noble features swept away by the unrelenting sands. Mythical oases that change their location on a whim are the only means of survival for an ill-prepared traveller, though even the best maps available cannot reliably predict their locations. Th e Wild reigns in these lands.