Fast forward to 2025 and after decades away from Eva, watching the Rebuilds at last brought me back to the franchise and show, and I was overjoyed to see that during the pandemic, someone finally translated the "Nerv White Paper" RPG (and it's follow-up book "Descent of Angel"). It was unbelievably cathartic to be able to read it at long last!
So of course, I also wanted to play it. Without any friends who are both tabletop RPG fans, Eva fans, live close and have time to play, that meant playing, which I was cool with. I enjoyed the first solo adventure in the book a lot, and have now started playing the second (controlling multiple characters).
I am curious if anyone else has played the game, either solo or with friends? There is still little information on it and no posts I could find outside of one Youtube video of someone playing the solo scenario. I'd love to discuss the game with others, especially Eva fans!
I'm currently writing my own scenarios for it, to share with others eventually, and would like to know if anyone else has made scenarios of their own?
I've also just finished making a "web app" that handles a lot of the bookkeeping when playing and would be happy to share it too if anyone was interested (you still need the original/translated book to play, this just automates dice rolls, card draws and stat tracking).
For those who HAVE played, I do have a couple of questions regarding the (seemingly somewhat broken) rules:
1) It seems very, very easy to lose a scenario early in a harmonics test because Nerv HP starts so low (typically 10 points) and a single Eva Berserk can just destroy Nerv HQ in one turn (doing 10-30 points of damage)! Am I misreading something? IMO, Nerv HP should start at 70 (the recommended level, with 100 being maximum) + whatever the scenario says (i.e. "A Non-Standard Gift" would start it at 80). Playing with Nerv HP as written is so game-breaking I am inclined to think it's a typo or translation error. I lost the second scenario 3 times in under five turns due to this!
2) Likewise, Eva HP start very low so again a single Eva Berserk can destroy an Eva easily before any combat happens. Also, if Ritsuko isn't a player character, you always enter combat with 1 HP (versus a 10+ HP average Angel!). Again, I feel starting HP should be more. Maybe 5 + scenario HP (i.e. "A Non-Standard Gift" scenario would start at 6 HP per Eva).
3) Why would you want to play as poor Rei? She is so screwed with such a brutal Eva Berserk table, and her Eva Berserk rolls are also a weakness for her. I'm fine with Eva Berserk being a weakness but failing that roll then rolling anything other than 7 on the table just wrecks her Eva and puts her in Hospital... and her stress limit is lower than anyone else too (3 instead of 5)! IMO, she should have the same stress threshold (over 5) since it is still harder for her to reduce Stress (compared to other characters anyway), and her Berserk table should match Unit 01 and Unit 02's.
4) I noticed the translation appears confused at times about how rolling a skill as a weakness works: some places it says "a roll for a weakness only succeeds on a 7" (frankly insane, IMO) and in other places "a roll for a weakness fails on a 7" (meaning it's like a normal roll but with one less chance of succeeding; i.e. fail on 2/4/6/7/8/10/12, succeed on 3/5/9/11). The latter seems correct, since it is punishing without being "why bother?" (only a 1 in 11 chance!) and is backed up by the rules also saying that a 7 is *always* lucky and gives you a Utility card, even when it's a failure... and the only time a 7 could ever be a failure is if it failed when a skill is a weakness. Is that how others roll weakness skill checks too?
Anyway, I'd love to hear from others who've played or even just read the Nerv White Paper RPG, made scenarios for it, or are interested in the things I'm making for it.
EDIT: A WIP preview of the basic web app tool I made:
