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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/28/tabletop-review-ravenlo
ft-children-of-the-night-vampires-advanced-dungeons-dragons-
second-edition/
So this is a bit of an odd duck, considering Children of the Night: Vampires is roughly seventeen years old. Since January 22nd, though, Wizards of the Coast and DriveThruRPG have teamed up to bring us DNDClassics.com, a website where you can purchase long since out of print Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks, supplements, adventures and more – albeit in PDF format. Currently, there are eighty-eight products available for download, with more coming every month. I decided to start with Children of the Night: Vampires for four reasons. The first is that I have a soft spot for 2nd Edition AD&D. The second is that Ravenloft is my favorite campaign setting for D&D. The third is the inherent comedy whenever I write about vampires. The fourth is that, as far as Ravenloft products go, Children of the Night: Vampires is the most infamous and often subjected to a lot of scorn. Why is that, you might ask? Two words: Jander Sunstar.
Jander Sunstar is an elven vampire, and the protagonist of the very first Ravenloft novel, Vampire of the Mists, by Christie Golden. Jander is one of the most popular characters from the second edition D&D novels, forcing TSR and Ms. Golden to bring him back in three different prequels. Notice the word prequels. This is important, because Jander dies at the end of the novel. Don’t talk to me about spoilers – the book is over twenty years old. That’s like saying “Raistlin dons the black robes” is a spoiler. Anyway, this adventure collection brought Jander Sunstar back to life, via the dues ex machina of the Ravenloft Mists. That alone brought outrage from Ravenloft fans across the board. The icing on the cake, however, was that everything about the stat block was messed up. Not only did it not match the official stats released in the 1992 trading card set (which were, in and of themselves, subject for contentious debate), but what was presented as Jander Sunstar in no way shape or form matched the character from the novel. From a warrior who could stand toe to toe with the biggest Lord of Ravenloft and who even took on Tiamat herself… to a pale mockery that only had a single attack per round, a THAC0 of 1 and 68 Hit Points. That’s pretty bad for what was supposed to be what we would now call an Epic Level Fighter AND the oldest and arguably most powerful vampire in the Dark Domain.
Anyway, the whole Jander Sunstar section alone was ridiculed by fans and critics alike, and thus the entire book received a lot of scorn, even if much of the conversation revolved around whether the authors of Children of the Night had ever read Vampire of the Mists. I myself passed on the book back in 1996, as the bad publicity and the fact I was doing some writing for Vampire: The Masquerade and Call of Cthulhu at the time kept me too busy for D&D. Now, however, with the re-release of the book and the launch of DNDClassics.com, it was the perfect opportunity for me to pick up Children of the Night: Vampires and see if it really deserved the initial ire it brought about, or if it truly does deserve to be amongst the first Ravenloft titles for electronic distribution.
Children of the Night: Vampires contains thirteen different vampires, showcasing the wide variety of fanged undead Second Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons had to offer. Along with each vampire was an accompanying adventure which highlighted the creature. The book does suggest not to play all of these adventures in a row, as any D&D party would get sick of vampire oriented adventures after a while. The adventures are also not presented in any sort of order. Indeed, some adventures that appear earlier in the book are meant to be sequels to adventures that appear later, which makes of an odd read. As well, adventures aren’t presented in any sort of level based order, meaning a high level adventure may occur in the book before a low or medium level adventure. This isn’t a big deal, but it’s worth keeping in mind as you read through the book. Finally, the book makes constant reference to other sourcebooks or supplements that are currently unavailable on DNDClassics.com. While none are necessary to run any of these adventures, owning or having read them (or even a 3rd/3.5 Edition version from Sword and Sorcery) will make understanding the ins and outs of both the adventure and the setting a LOT easier. Now, with all of that precursory information out of the way, let’s actually look at the contents of this adventure collection, shall we?
The book opens with Jander Sunstar and, admittedly, this section is truly as abominable as detractors have said for all these years. It really does seem like the authors were given a synopsis of the book and told to run with that. It’s bad. Let’s just leave it at that. The adventure “The Charnel House”, however, is a pretty fun one, putting the players in the middle of a subtle but deadly war between the elven vampire and a pack of vampyres (living humanoids that drink blood). It’s a fun adventure, and through it all, players who haven’t read Vampire of the Mists won’t know who to side with, although those that have will have to keep player knowledge separate from character knowledge. Sure, it’s silly that they brought the character back to undeath, but Jander was crazy popular in the 2e era, so it makes sense that TSR would try to make as much money off him as they could. So the bad news is the Jander Sunstar section does deserve its infamy, but the good news is this is as bad as the book gets, so everything gets positive from here on in.
The next vampire is Audun Beck, who is a Sea Vampire. I don’t even remember Sea Vampires as a possible variant, so I’m assuming it’s just made up for this book. Basicallym Beck lives underwater on a submerged vessel named the Illsongm along with his crew of sea zombies and jolly rogers during the day; by night, they rise as one to plunder and feed. The adventure, “The Rewards of Courage,” pits characters between Levels 5-9 against Beck and his crew after they sack a seaside town. Then it’s an attempt to hunt down the ghost ship and put it to rest. It’s an okay adventure. Sea-based Ravenloft adventures have never been very good, and Beck is a bit silly (giant vampire octopus form?), but a good DM can make this work.
Vampire number three is Lyssa Von Zarovich, who debuted in this book but gained a modicum of popularity in the tail end of 2e and through Sword and Sorcery’s version of the campaign setting that they put out for 3/3.5 Edition. Lyssa is the grand-niece of Strahd, and although she considers herself a bitter enemy of the count, he finds her more of a foppish amusement. Lyssa’s adventure, “The Turning Day,” sees Lyssa’s celebration of her undeath-day anniversary being interrupted by not just the players, but the devil Strahd himself, along with a curse that will become synonymous with all incarnations of Lyssa from here on in. A great introduction to the character and a memorable adventure.
We’re four vampires in now with the introduction of Moosha. This is a desert vampire (another new variant) who feeds not on blood, but the hydration of his victims. Moosha is a horrible scarred monster, accompanied by a legion of Jackals. He’s a very unique undead, and with his background and domain, you could design an entire mini-campaign around him. Indeed, the writers seem especially fond of this idea, giving you a host of ideas to make this possible. The adventure, “The Wild Child,” is basically an introduction to the domain of Sebua, Moosha, and his primary victims. PCs can end up with a retainer here if the play their cards right, and can experience a pretty dramatic adventure. The adventure really does feel like a set-up for a longer term experience, which is just fine, and depending on how the PCs react, the DM might just have a powerful recurring antagonist to throw at them.
Our fifth vampire, Myxitizajal, is perhaps the lowlight of the book, issues with Jander notwithstanding. It’s definitely the stupidest concept in the book, along with the worst name. Basically Myxitizajal (oh my poor spell check) is a vampire Ixitxachitl, which is a race of intelligent, sentient manta rays. Yep. I’m all for fantasy races, but this is just lame. The adventure “The Ritual Repeats,” however, is pretty cool. It’s akin to what would happen if the Dark Powers that govern Ravenloft watched the movie Groundhog Day and decided to do their own spin on it. Can the PCs stop the daily slaughter of islanders at the hands of Myxitizajal, or will they become doomed to take part in the recurring events themselves?
Our sixth vampire, Lady Adeline, is an odd one. I say odd because she’s meant to be a Silvanesti from Krynn, but the writers of her bio don’t seem to have the faintest idea of how the race OR the Dragonlance campaign setting is meant to be. It’s just terribly done. Maybe the writers just can’t do elvish undead? That said, the rest of the character is pretty awesome. You have a vampire that is somewhat gorgon-esque (or in D&D terms, Medusa-esque) which makes for an interesting opponent, along with a shocking reveal once you see what she looks like under her veil. It also helps that Lady Adeline is an ally of Von Kharkov, who is one of the most under appreciated Darklords in Ravenloft. There’s a lot of storytelling potential here with this elven vampire. The adventure “Maze of Thorns,” unfortunately, isn’t a very good one. It has Lady Adeline luring people into a HEDGE MAZE OF DOOM. Right, I know. It’s a silly concept and who in Ravenloft would be silly enough to enter a mysterious maze next to a town of deformed people? It’s not something most players, and thus their characters, would fall for. Pass on the adventure, but a good DM can definitely make excellent use of the character.
Don Pablo is our seventh vampire, and no, he doesn’t have a chain of Mexican restaurants. Despite the bad choice of names for this man, he’s a very interesting antagonist. In fact, he’s not even a vampire. He’s a vorlog, a person who was in the midst of a change into a vampire when he was “saved” by someone killing the master vampire. So basically, he’s a human with an aversion to sunlight, budding fangs and a few vampire abilities, like enhanced strength and charm powers. The odd thing is that Don Pablo is listed as Chaotic Evil, but he is not even remotely portrayed as that in his bio or the accompanying adventure. Maybe True Neutral or Chaotic Neutral, but he’s not really evil as much as he is despondent and slightly mad. It’s an interesting idea for a character, although not one with a lot of replay value, if you know what I mean. Dan Pablo’s corresponding adventure, “The Victim,” is a really good one, perhaps the best in the book. It completely flip-flops who you think of as the monster, with a human being the actual bad guy in the adventure while the Chaotic Evil monster is actually the sympathetic victim. It’s a nice way to mix things up while staying true to the spirit of the Ravenloft setting.
Number eight in this collection is Alexi, who is a very weird but very well done vampire. First, he is Vistani, which really shakes things up. Second, he’s very young and impressionable. This means he is not evil and that if the PC’s do a good job, they can inspire the youth to be a force for good… or as much of a force for good that a vampire in Ravenloft can be. Third, he’s a big coward. Seriously. He’s an immortal undead with power beyond imagination, and he’d run away from a gully dwarf if it shook its fist at him. That’s a gold mine of roleplaying opportunities right there. The adventure that showcases Alexi is “To Conquer Fear,” and it’s meant to help the PCs see that not all vampires are evil. In it, Alexi is still firmly under the thumb of his cruel master, and it’s up to the adventuring party to free Alexi and, perhaps more importantly, make Alexi want to be like them rather than his evil sire.
The ninth vampire in Children of the Night: Vampires is up there with the undead manta ray as the stupidest in the book. Jack Bequick is a vampire clown. Yes, you read that right. Even worse, he’s a permanently invisible evil clown that can only be seen, and thus drink blood, when his victim is afraid of him (perhaps he should be incorporeal but the book repeatedly uses invisible so…). It’s just a really terrible concept all around, and I have to wonder if there was a bet going on between the writers as to who could make the worst vampire. Unlike ol’ Myxitizajal, who at least has a quality adventure to go with him, “Jack’s House of Horrors” should only be run by a DM who wants his players to hate him. It’s an EEEEEVIL FUNHOUSE complete with mimes and goblins. Ick. Stay away. Stay far, far away.
Number ten brings us into the home stretch. Lady Heather Shadowbrooke is one of my favorites in this collection. She’s a vampire druid who can only feed on animals and trees. She drains sap instead of blood in that case, you see. Now you’re probably thinking, “Wow. That’s pretty easy compared to how other vampires have it.” Remember though, she’s a Druid with a capital D, so animals and plants mean more to her than humanoids. Plus, her bite instantly kills. Still, she tries to be the best druid she can be, even though she’s gone completely crazy and has a were-warthog and a blood sucking shambling mound for allies. Her adventure “The Missing Druids” has you looking for, well… you can probably guess from the name. In it, Heather allies herself with your party to help out. She makes for an interesting ally, but unfortunately, you find out that she is what happened to the druids, and conflict inevitably ensues. The end result is doing battle with a tragic but insane antagonist that may or may not become a recurring enemy if the DM handles things appropriately.
Ezra is the eleventh vampire, and he’s the closest to your stereotypical vampire. At least for D&D that is. He runs a Thieves’ Guild, which makes sense due to vampiric powers like Spider Climb. The adventure that revolves around Ezra, “Guild of Thieves” is also your run of the mill dungeon crawl for characters between Levels 7 and 10. However, there’s a catch, as it leads into the next vampire and his adventure, which can, if the DM is kind, provide a way out of The Dark Domain and back to wherever they came from… or someplace else. Who knows? Adventurers can try to infiltrate the Thieves’ Guild, or go for an all out assault. This whole section is standard fare, but sometimes that’s a good thing.
Mulger D’Ajust is the penultimate vampire, and get this – he’s a dwarf. Even weirder, he’s a dwarven sage with a penchant for all things magical. This was pretty outside the box for Second Edition AD&D, where Dwarves could only be Fighters, Thieves or Clerics. He’s also a dwarf that used magic to break free from Azalin’s control, which is pretty damn impressive. As you can imagine, Mulger is a pretty bad ass vampire… even if his stats don’t support his bio. Still, he’s a great concept and one that could make for an interesting recurring character for the PCs, perhaps even an uncomfortable ally. The adventure, “The Way Out,” gives players a chance to escape Ravenloft. Unfortunately, the gateway is in a mine controlled by Mulger and his crew, who are currently doing some excavation work in there. You can imagine what happens next. This is another mid-level dungeon crawl, and one with a potentially huge rewards – perhaps too big for a throw away encounter like this. As such, you may want to do some building up for it. Unless, of course, your PCs are just sick of the Dark Domain. Then this doesn’t need to be a culmination.
Unfortunately, the last vampire in the book joins our manta ray and invisible clown in the triad of terrible ideas. Marla is a Penanggalan, which is meant to be a female vampire whose head can detach and become a flying four foot long snake with a human head. Yes, it’s as stupid as it sounds, and this is one of those times where something that is supposed to be horrific in a high fantasy setting will instead inspire laughter. It’s just a bad all-around idea. Marla’s adventure, “Love Lies Dying” is an uninteresting affair where a pair of lovers are eloping and, together with the PCs, spend the night in a creepy monastery where the quasi-vampire tries to pick them off one by one. So the book ends as badly as it begins, but at least the middle is quite nice.
As we look back, we see I enjoyed eight of the thirteen vampires and nine of the thirteen adventures. That’s a quality rate of 65%. That means roughly two-third of the book is good, which is far better than one would have expected, considering the infamous reputation this title has. What this shows me is that one huge mistake was enough to overshadow the good bits of this book, at least in the eyes of Second Edition Ravenloft fans. In my opinion, even though the Jander Sunstar issue does live up to its infamy, the good in the book outweighs the bad. The PDF is a bit pricey (ten dollars compared to the fifteen dollar price tag the book had when it was in print), but it’s still one old school Ravenloft fans might want to pick up and see what they missed all those years ago. Who knows? They might actually come to appreciate what’s here.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/21/deadlands-noir-the-old-
absinthe-house-blues-savage-worlds/
Earlier this month, I reviewed the Deadlands Noir campaign setting and absolutely fell in love with it, to the point where I’m STILL kicking myself for not taking part in its original Kickstarter campaign. Since then, Pinnacle Entertainment has released the first adventure for the setting, entitled The Old Absinthe House Blues, and I knew I had to see if it was just as good. As the adventure was originally a free Kickstarter stretch goal to backers of a certain dollar amount, I’ll admit to being a bit shocked at the price tag on this adventure. With a page count of only thirty-two pages, it’s hard to justify the $9.99 price tag for this adventure, especially when it’s a) almost a fifth the size of Deadlands Noir but roughly half the cost b) just a PDF and c) crazy expensive compared to adventures like the Shadowrun Missions series, which is the same size, full colour and only $3.99 per adventure. The good news is that, while The Old Absinthe House Blues is pretty expensive compared to similarly sized adventures from other systems, it’s a really fun adventure that works as an excellent introduction to not only the Deadlands Noir campaign setting, but the Savage Worlds. Pinnacle does have you over a barrel right here.
If you’ve read Deadlands Noir (or my review of it), then you know to expect two things. The first is that you’ll need a copy of Savage Worlds in order to play this adventure, as that is the rules system it uses. The other is that the adventure is set in and around New Orleans in the 1930s. Eventually, we’ll see other locals for Deadlands Noir, so just hang in there if The Big Easy isn’t your preference.
If you haven’t picked up Deadlands Noir, you really should grab that before getting The Old Absinthe House Blues. Again, you will need copies of Deadlands Reloaded and Savage Worlds for rules and mechanics, and the aforementioned Deadlands Noir for setting information. So that’s three whole books just to play The Old Absinthe House Blues, which is a bit of a sorespot to me, but seeing as I only get PDFs of RPGs these days, it’s not like having all these books to play an adventure is going to break my back or take up a lot of space. Still, couple the need to purchase three books on top of a ten dollar adventure and the cost is going to add up quickly for newcomers, perhaps even to the point where it drives them away. So if you’re gaming on a tight budget, The Old Absinthe House Blues might not be where you want to begin with this system.
The player characters are either gumshoes by trades or roped into the role for whatever reason. They’ve been hired by the bartender of The Old Absinthe House to find the joint’s missing torch singer, one Ms. Delilah Starr. Seems she played her regular gig Friday night, but never showed up to work on Saturday. Sounds like a simple missing person’s fetch quest, right? Well it’s not. The adventure throws everything but the kitchen sink at the PCs, including an unrequited would-be amour, an evil oil company (is there any other kind?),a bunch of petty thugs, some voodoo magic for good measure and an unwholesome beast out to turn the PC’s insides into their outsides. Characters will be going everywhere from New Orleans proper to a bayou swamp inhabited with spooky things in spooky locations. The Old Absinthe House Blues is a pretty turbulent affair, and there’s a good chance at least one player character will bite it through the progression of the adventure. It’s a fairly creepy adventure that will have you wondering who is the bigger evil in the adventure – man or monster – and it blends supernatural horror and two fisted pulp drama together in a way that it is hard to imagine one without the other. By the time all is said and done, you’ll have been given a taste of everything Deadlands Noir has to offer, and you’ll want to come back for more.
One thing I should mention is that The Old Absinthe House Blues is pretty different from regular Deadlands and Deadlands Reloaded adventures that I have played or red through in the past. This is not an adventure fraught with fast paced actions or shoot ‘em ups. Sure, there are times where combat is the answer (perhaps the only answer in fact), but The Old Absinthe House Blues has more in common with Call of Cthulhu adventures than the Weird West Deadlands is typically known for. There’s a lot of legwork, research, hobnobbing and persuading here. There is at least one point where the PCs will encounter an alien horror that defies understanding, and their best option is for flight over fight. Honestly, with a little bit of tweaking, you could actually make The Old Absinthe House Blues work as a 1920s/30s Call of Cthulhu affair, and it would still work wonderfully. I bring this up for two reasons. The first is this means The Old Absinthe House Blues is a wonderful way to introduce people to Savage Worlds or Deadlands who primarily play games like Chill, Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu or Gumshoe. There’s a strong crossover appeal, and it will help with the learning curve of the new system, as Deadlands has some very unique quirks that people tend to either really love or really hate, like the deck and chips mechanics. The other is that the slow pace of this adventure coupled with the more cerebral gameplay might be a turn-off to others, especially those who want a more traditional Deadlands adventure or something hack and slash based. Personally, I loved this adventure and found it to be exactly the sort I love to run/play, but then, my favorite games are Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun and Vampire: The Masquerade, so I’m not your typical Deadlands player.
The Old Absinthe House Blues should take between one and three sessions of a few hours, depending on the players progress. It’s a fairly linear adventure, but there is room for deviation and places where the authors suggest throwing in some of those Savage Tale side stories from the Deadland Noir core rulebook. It’s full of memorable characters and does a good job of combining the core theme of Deadlands proper with the grit and locales of a Noir setting. The adventure also sports some excellent art, some helpful handouts for players and some reference maps for the Marshall/Keeper/DM/GM/Whatever to use. The Old Absinthe House Blues is a solid affair from beginning to end, and it’s a great companion piece to the core Deadlands Noir campaign setting. The worst thing I can say about the adventure is that it’s priced a bit too high compared to its contemporaries, but even then you’ll get your money’s worth out of The Old Absinthe House Blues and then some. At this point, my biggest concern is whether or not Pinnacle can keep a string of high quality Deadlands Noir releases coming, and the speed at which they do it. After all, there’s so much potential in this setting and we’ve only got a single city locked down so far. So far the Deadlands Noir setting is two for two in terms of quality releases and I can’t wait to see what’s next.
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Originally published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/17/tabletop-review-hercyni
an-grimoire-vol-1-no-1castles-crusadeslabyrinth-lord/
So this was an interesting product I had to pick up. Hercynian Grimoire an irregular periodical covering Castles & Crusades but also includes Labyrinth Lord conversions for all new items, creatures and the like. There is absolutely no art in the piece to speak of and yet the issue has an extremely high price for the page count of ten dollars. The one-two punch of no art and sticker shock will no doubt keep a good portion of interested gamers away from this piece and I can’t blame them for that. However those that do pay the inflated cost will find a very well written collection of articles that will no doubt enhance your Castles & Crusades experience. Let’s take a look at what you get with this inaugural issue.
“Glowing Words” – a column by the main writer introducing the periodical. It also plugs the author’s upcoming Chronicles of Mhoriedh line. It’s short and sweet while conveying the tone and reason of the magazine.
“Gnolls – The Hyena Men” – this four page article is similar to the “Ecology of…” articles we used to see in TSR’s old Dragon magazine. It gives a description of the creature, racial abilities and the how Gnolls can be found in The Olden Lands (again, harkening back to the upcoming campaign setting) You’re also given stats, age categories and optional special abilities. It’s very well written and a great way to kick off the publication.
“Gnoles, the Mannish-Beasts” – a one page follow up to the previous column featuring human/Gnoll hybrids. Ick. It’s another well written piece but Gnoll on Human sex? What a terrible mental image.
“D66 Ferocious Fighters” – a three page table of random NPC fighters. I’ve never understood the point of randomized tables like these and never will.
“Spells Arcane and Occult –” an article about a single spell named “Alasadree’s Empowerment of the Ultranic Orb.” This spell has six different versions, ranging from healing to a orb based version of Tasha’s Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter” where you dance instead of cackle. It’s a very interesting spell but the problem is that it is listed as a Level One spell when the wide range of effects alone make that too powerful to be a potential “first ever spell” for a neophyte caste. Add in that each effect on their own is extremely powerful (wizards that can cast healing magic? That’s way too broken). This is the same author that wrote the completely unbalanced spells for Magificent Miscellaneum, so I’m not surprised that we’re got another article where the spells are overpowered and under-leveled. Interesting ideas, but utterly no sense of balance.
“Spell Songs of Salamacine” – three witch spells. One is a Level 4 spell, one is a Level 1 and one is a Level 2. The Level 4 spell, “Salamacine’s Malevolent Melody” is actually nicely balanced, which was a unexpected surprised. It’s basically a possession via remote control spell. “Motive Melody” is the Level 1 spell and allows a caste to animate one inanimate object per level plus an extra 1d6 to do simple, mundane tasks. Not a bad spell, but I’d excise the extra 1d6 as once again, it unbalances things.”Siren Song” is a Level 2 spell and it’s basically an enhanced Charm Person. It makes another balanced spell between power and casting level, so I was pretty happy with this article. It’s the first spell article between the two recent C&C publications I’ve reviewed where I haven’t wondered if the writer has his mages casting Wish as a fourth or fifth level spell.
“D66 Fairies and Nymphs” – another random chart, but this time it’s filled with fairies and nymphs instead of warriors. Blah. It also takes up a whopping SIX PAGES of the publication, which boggles my mind.
“Gnoll Encounter Table” – this keeps in with the theme of the first two articles and it’s a nicely laid out random encounter table. There are only two small problems. The first is that it probably should have been placed at the tail end of the two Gnoll based articles for a better flow of the magazine and the other is that the random chart talks about nine different maps without alluding where to find them or what the writer is talking about. My assumption is that these are maps that we will see in the forthcoming Chronicles of Mhoriedh campaign setting.
“Magical Miscellanea” – a one page article highlighting ten new magic items. They’re all interesting. Nothing you’ll want to base an adventure around, but also nothing that will break your game.
“Monstrous Menagerie” – This is a collection of various creatures and monsters to use against your players. There are three Hyena creatures, which I might have put as a separate article and moved towards the beginning of the Grimoire to keep all the related material together. You then get a set of ten “thunder beasts” which, again, I think could have had their own separate article instead of lumping this class of creatures and the hyenas into a single one.
“D666 Demonic and Devilish Traits” – a cute play on the D66 charts, but again, another chart of randomized bits no one really ever asks for or needs.
“D66 Underworld Oddities” – ANOTHER randomized chart. Sheesh.
“Olden Lands Preview: Alspadia” – this is most likely what will draw people to the Grimoire as it’s a sneak peak of the upcoming campaign setting the author has put together. It’s a very well done piece that reminds me of the excellent Ravenloft Gazetteers Sword & Sorcery put out in the 1990s. You get a nice amount of information of the cities, prominent locations and culture of Alspadia and it makes me want to learn more about the setting. Mission accomplished here.
“Olden Lands Preview: The Oldenwoods” – an article that is pretty similar to the previous one, but with a different location within the campaign setting. It’s only a page long but it’s also well done and serves its purpose here.
“Olden Lands Preview: The Blood God” – a third straight preview article about The Olden Lands, but this time it’s about a major deity rather than a location. It’s a pretty grim god, and the article gives you information about the hierarchy of its following along with information about how the deity conducts itself through its worshippers. A nice way to end the publication.
All in all, the first issue of Hercynian Grimoire is a fun one. Although I’d have reorganized things a bit and dropped all the random tables save for the Gnoll encounter one, this was a pretty strong first issue. I was happy to see the author did a better job with balancing spells than in his previous publication for Troll Lord Games, but I still think this is one area where his writing needs a bit of guidance. I loved the Olden Lands previews and the Gnoll articles and hope to see pieces like this will become the focus for future issues. At the end of the day I’m quite happy with the piece and wil;l be back for future issues, but price and art aren’t an issue for me. For everyone else, I have to give this a thumb’s in the middle due to the high cost (a better price point would probably be around five dollars – half of what is being charged here, especially with the lack of art) and the absence of any art. Still, a great first effort and I can’t wait to see what is next.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/16/tabletop-review-the-tal
isman-of-gorshan-pc/
The Talisman of Gorshan is what equates to a 30 page adventure but in an online format done with HTML and lots of very nice graphics and hyper-linking to make it easy to run with just a computer, even going as so far as to provide reliable links to a dice-roller and the SRD pages for Dungeons & Dragons 3.0/3.5 and Pathfinder as well as Osric. While it strives to be an online only adventure, there are a few snags. You can’t beat the price as it is free and is especially easy on the eyes, but in the end there’s little pay off except through GM or DM depending on your game choice, intervention. While this can spur off into a whole other set of adventures I would have liked to see a little bit more closure here as a standalone but could work nicely into an ongoing campaign.
The story is pretty simple, almost a standard fetch quest attached to a dungeon crawl, especially in that you can’t stop at just one place and things get overly complicated at the places you do go. The party is enjoying themselves at an inn when a mysterious group enters, sizes them up and then proceeds to offer them a job. It seems that Gorshan, a mage of apparently some wealth, has decided that he wants to retrieve a talisman that used to be his that was taken by Orcs and has been broken into three pieces and scattered, the pieces of which there’s a map already made for the party with locations, although not exact. From there it’s up to the party to decide where to go first and last, and what they’ll check out when they get there. Travel time alone will take a group roughly two weeks game time on foot not including exploring the locations, which to be honest, aren’t very big in and of themselves.
This is a decent interim adventure for the prescribed level of eight-ten and four to five players. It’s easily a productive group’s four hour session, or a non-productive group two of those sessions. I actually rolled up four Pathfinder characters at level eight to run through this using the medium experience leveling table and the Pathfinder SRD. I went with a mostly ‘classic’ group, with two humans, a Paladin and a Cleric, a Half-Elf Sorcerer, and an Elven Rogue, so I had my basics covered at least. While I ran through the adventure one of the big snags I ran into was the inclusion of an Umber Hulk. While this wouldn’t have been a problem for a party at eighth level, the Umber Hulk is not included in the SRD as it ties into Dungeons and Dragons specifically, so no stats are available through the OGL, legally, online. A quick Google search did pull up a questionable stat block for one, but I opted instead to dig further and some very helpful people years ago recommended a Grey Render in place of the Umber Hulk, so I used that instead.
For a group of four players starting at level eight, this is guaranteed to at least give them enough experience to level them at least once if they’re thorough, so if you’re in need of a leveling adventure to boost your players a bit before throwing them into something else, this’ll do for that. I found the loot you can acquire through the adventure isn’t terribly game-breaking either and is level appropriate for the most part. You shouldn’t be cringing later from anything your players pick up here, but don’t go in blind. One of the named swords you can pick up looks pretty potent so adjusting to your group might be necessary as always.
As a GM tool, this adventure being online like this functions much the same as a bookmarked PDF would, with a nice dice roller and links to the appropriate SRD’s and stat links for the standard D20 D&D SRD included. Took me a little more work with the Pathfinder SRD, but it’s minimal, and it’s organized fairly well, almost to the point where it’s just as easy as cracking open a book. It still took me longer than cracking my books but more from familiarity than anything else. Aside from not having stats available, technically, for one of the monsters, the adventure works pretty well. It manages to provide a decent mix of monsters which isn’t something that a lot of main supplements would do instead throwing the same mobs at you time and time again. The variety is nice and breaks things up, and even within the same areas it changes them up often enough so your players hopefully won’t be making slaying songs for a particular creature. I had one Fourth Edition adventure I’d converted to Pathfinder that I’d just grabbed real quick and did a quick and dirty monster conversion by simply looking it up in the Bestiary and every fight for almost half the adventure was freaking zombies. Yeah, boring as hell for both me and the players. That was the first and only time I’d pulled a random adventure off the shelf. I’m glad to see a variety here and some new critters to slay as well including an Assassin Golem, a Dragonhawk, and the Nightmare Dragon.
Using this with a players group is going to be problematic, however. While there is a player map provided, and there are decently detailed maps of the dungeons, everything is completely accessible to anyone looking at the site, meaning there is no real surprise for the players who happen to click through the links. There aren’t any print friendly versions of any of the maps either, which means any non-tech savvy GMs are going to have to muddle through with this for their players. You can just view the images, and then print that way, but I feel the quality would suffer and defeat the whole purpose of having an adventure where you need no books. Now you could pull the images to a separate device for viewing, but again you’re running into more prep work. This isn’t a huge downside as you can work around it, but a version for the players alone without any links would have been great.
Overall it’s a standard dungeon crawl affair with some very well done maps, a good selection of bad guys to throw at your players, and in the future, an evil and corrupt mage that they can take down if you take the time to stat him out for future use. It’s good if you need some filler around levels eight to ten and for a level eight group of four will definitely earn them at least a level. While I think it has a few issues, it’s definitely worth a look as it is free, and with a few tweaks, it’s a format I think more GMs at the table with a laptop, tablet or running over the internet through a voice chat program, could embrace if handled correctly, which for the most part it is here. The artwork is fantastic, and if this were a printed adventure I’d give it a thumbs up for purchase.
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Origially posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/15/tabletop-review-magnifi
cent-miscellaneum-volume-ii-castles-crusades/
I haven’t had the chance to review any Castles & Crusades products for a while, due to the end of the year glut and the Tabletop Gaming Awards write-up. However, with a new year I happened to find several new C&C products awaiting me, Magnificent Miscellaneum included. Magnificent Miscellaneum is a very short new periodical from Troll Lord games, covering only a few pages of content, but keeping the price between seventy-five cents and a dollar twenty-five, based on any sales going on. Out of the seven pages, only five are content, with one page being the cover and the second being the wordy OGL license and credits for the publication.
Now you’re probably wondering what all someone can pack into a mere five pages, unless it’s a short one shot adventure. Well, there is a surprising amount of content in this little pamphlet. Three pages are devoted to “White Box Menaces.” Of course, some people might not know what the White Box is. That’s the 1974 original edition of Dungeons & Dragons. I’m not sure why they call this section that, as I pulled out my own copy of the set and couldn’t find any of the creatures in this volume of MM betwixt the pages of the three D&D books that made up the White Box. That said, this section contains ten monsters with names that look like your cat walked across the computer keyboard . The effort to pronounce these alone will keep a decent portion of DMs away from using them. Still, there are ten brand new monsters to inflict upon your C&C gaming troupe here, with each one getting paragraph that describes them, and some very brief stats to let you use them. My personal favorite are the Gloedfoers, which are infernal sheep, and I know I’ve encountered them before now (albeit it under a different name) – I just can’t remember when and that’s driving me nuts. If you can get by tongue twisters like thûtuszlaks and mwizikili, you’ll find some really fun creatures to use in your homebrew adventures.
The next section is Potent Priestcraft, and it introduces four new spells for your cleric. There are two Level One and two Level Two spells, all of which are pretty powerful for what they do. Bonumcanis lets you summon a ghost dog to watch your back, while Choreamortis lets a Level One Priest animate a corpse as long as they concentrate on mentally commanding it. Luxbeata is a Level Two Cleric spell where you can do 2d8 damage to undead via holy searing light, while Good aligned creatures heal a point of damage and evil aligned non-undead must make a saving throw to keep from running in fear. This one’s definitely a bit overpowered. It’s neat, but probably should be a level higher. Malumcaligo is another overpowered spell, giving the caster an armour class bonus AND an bonus to his or her attack roll. One or the other is probably fine for a Level Two spell, but both? Ouch. There’s also a surprise penalty to anyone who tries to enter the fog to attack the caster. All of this shows the spell should be probably Level Four rather than Level Two. Basically ALL of the spells in this section needed either nerfing or having their spell levels raised.
Wondrous Wizardry is a similar section, but for mages instead of priests. Here you have four spells that are classified as “Eyebites.” This is NOT the same as the AD&D version of Eyebite, but rather a classification of spells, “that can potentially be cast out of initiative order and out of the caster’s normal turn in that order.” That alone is a powerful ability. However, like the Priest spells, these Eyebites are overpowered on their own, and when you factor in their bonus ability, means they are just too much for their Casting Level. Celeritous Sidestep is a Level Zero (!) spell where the caster can sidestep any one non-magical attack of any kind. A Level Zero spell? Seriously? That’s insanely powerful, and shouldn’t be the equivalent of a cantrip. Somnuscent Interjection is a Level Three spell that is a more powerful version of Sleep. This is the most balanced spell in the lot. Malefic Stuttering is a Level One spell, except it’s misspelled as Malific, and basically a lower leveled version of Tasha’s Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter. Eh. The final spell is Toxic Revelator and it’s a Level Two spell that feels like it should be a Priest spell instead. Basically every poisonous item within a fifty foot radius of the caster flies out, dances around the mage and begins to speak (it’s magic people) stating the type of poison it is and who applied it, or at least last touched the vial it is in. Again, a divination of this nature feels more clerical in nature, and probably should be Level Three due to the power of it. A low level mage should NOT be able to cast a spell like this that easily; otherwise there’d be no need for police or detectives. So yeah, both magic sections are neat, but the spells really needed to be retooled before being made canon by Troll Lord. They’re just way too unbalanced.
Finally we have “Mystic Magic Items and Amazing Artifacts,” which introduces four new items for players to find and use in their dungeon crawling adventures. You have such items as The Claw of the Lich (think rabbit’s foot, but humanoid), Eye of Gorgon, a necklace to petrify enemies, Ear of the Fish, a pearl earring to let the wielder communicate with fish, and Jar of Light, which feels like a candle based version of the Decanter of Endless Water, but not as flexible. All in all, not bad magic items.
So, a thumbs in the middle for this issue. It’s cheap and short and whether you’ll get your money’s worth or not is up to you. The monsters and magical items are nicely done, but the spells needed a lot of work before becoming official. They’re just too unbalanced and ill thought out. Still, I really enjoyed flipping through this piece, and I hope the Magnificent Miscellaneum becomes a regular release. It reminds me of a very short and unrefined old school TSR style magazine, and that’s a good thing.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/11/tabletop-review-barbari
ans-booze-battle-axes/
I suppose one of the worst things about most RPGs is that you simply can’t play them drunk. I mean, technically you could, but it would be a pain in the butt trying to read small print after the sixth shot.
BBB seems to have an answer to that problem. It uses a system so overtly simple as to make confusion all but impossible. Depending on what kind of player you are, this will either endear you to the system, or make it seem like child’s play.
Character creation is a cinch. A barbarian, which you must be, always comes equipped with the same starting stats. You get one point each in fighting, drinking, toughness, and “other stuff”. After that you get some gold to spend on equipment. Keeping up with the simple theme, you can only buy basic weapons and armor. There are no magical items or the like to further customize your character. The most customization you’ll get is in choosing your character’s name.
Each point you get in a stat allows you a roll of percentile dice to determine your score. So for example, having two points in fighting gives you two rolls. When deciding the outcome of an action, you take your highest roll, add in any bonuses, and then the highest number wins. When dealing damage, you deal the difference between these rolls. This is also quite simple, as you don’t have to make separate attack/damage rolls.
The drinking system is easily the most unique part of the game. Drinking is a full fledged mechanic, rather than something you do for lore’s sake and occasionally make a fortitude roll for. Basically, you partake in drinking contests, rolling the same dice you did for fighting. Losing a round gives you a drunk point. First to six loses. Interestingly enough, getting drunk can directly affect fighting. For the first few point, you actually get better in combat, but then things start to go downhill quite rapidly. For toughness and other stuff rolls, getting drunk is always a bad thing.
To go along with the drinking theme, the game includes three drinking games. Each of these can technically be used in game, but they’re mainly designed for the players to get trashed. After all, it would be a pain in the butt to roll dice to see what card you drew from a deck and then to calculate the alcohol percentage of the center cup when different people have been adding drinks to it.
The other two stats are kind of throwaways that will only get brought up in the more in depth campaigns. Toughness is basically a strength check that determines if you force open a door. It also serves as a fortitude score. Other stuff is simply a roll for anything else you might think you have to roll for.
Leveling up in the game is also quite simple. You get a set amount experience for each fight you win, each drinking contest you win, and each other roll you win. In order to level up a stat, you simply multiply your current level by one hundred, and that’s the experience you need. So it takes one hundred experience to level fighting up to two, and then it will take two hundred experience the second time you want to level it up. You can also spend a hundred experience to gain some extra HP. Again, this is a very simple system. The game even advises using index cards for character sheets as opposed to full blown pieces of paper. You simply don’t need that much room.
Finally, there is a solo adventure tacked onto the last couple of pages that’s meant to serve as an introduction to the game’s basic mechanics. It basically offers a couple of fights and choices in a short “choose your own adventure” type deal. It’s amusing, but won’t last more than a few minutes. Still, it gives an idea of how to play the game, which is nice.
If this game were more than a buck, I’d probably say it was a waste of time. It really seems like something anyone could make up in a couple of hours. It’s very simplistic, and won’t satisfy most players because of this. However, it might be fun to try it out during a drinking party with friends. For that reason alone, I’d say this game is worth a look. At the very least, it can be easily modified for more advanced play.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/10/tabletop-review-advance
d-fighting-fantasy-quickstart/
I am a huge fan of the Fighting Fantasy line of game books, even though I have only made it through the first ten and am working on the eleventh. All told, there are fifty-five of them in the original series, with most books after the tenth being written by authors other than the two that started it all: Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. I have eyed the Advanced Fighting Fantasy core books before, but could not bring myself to actually purchase them as I was unsure of what they did to the system to make it worth building a full game around. You see, the strength of the books lies on the way that the decisions play with the reader’s mind.
A book will present you with an innocuous peasant merely asking for a coin, and if you give this peasant a coin something awesome might happen, or they might turn out to be the lookout for a group of brigands behind the trees ready to rob you blind. Most of the time, you just never know. The weakness in the system, being more or less finalized as it was in 1984, was (is) its simplicity and reliance on die rolls. Most rolls in the game books are simply based on one of your character’s three attributes: Stamina, Skill, and Luck. Even your attributes are determined by adding a die roll to a base number, so it’s possible to start out with ridiculously low scores.
So, when I saw these sample rules up for free I grabbed them in order to get a picture of what Advanced Fighting Fantasy has to offer.
Basics Only
There are no character creation rules in this booklet, you simply get a handful of pre-gens (five) at the end to work with. As those who read my articles may know, this is totally fine with me. I would rather look through pre-gens and pick one that I like most of the time than roll up a new character. So, since there is no need to create characters, a group can just pick up these rules, read through the basic explanation of combat and tests and then start playing the introductory adventure included. This adventure, titled “The Well”, was the first adventure in the original Fighting Fantasy role-playing game (also from 1984, not a solo game book) and I have played it a few times with people just for kicks. This new version of the adventure is different, and missing some of the interesting mind games and social encounters of the old version, which is a shame.
Combat is as basic as ever, except there has been a change made that I really like. Let me explain how combat works first: you roll two six-sided dice and add the number to your Skill score, then the GM (the Director in this game) rolls two six-sided dice and adds the number to your opponent’s Skill score. Whoever has the highest number hits the other. Sounds simple and logical right? Well, in practice this simplistic and die-dependent mechanism can be really frustrating in combat. There are simply no tactical choices to make in a fight, it’s just die roll after die roll and hoping you come out on top (hint: you are much more likely to win and easily if your Skill is even a point higher than your opponent’s). So, besides the sad fact that this has not changed with the “advanced” version, they have introduced one interesting aspect. When someone hits with a weapon, they now roll a die and consult a table to see how good the hit was. If you roll a “6” after hitting, your weapon will do its best damage, the opposite with a “1”. In addition, the recipient of the blow will be able to roll a die for their armor and prevent an amount of damage depending on how well they roll. In the universe of Fighting Fantasy mechanisms, this is huge!
Another improvement they added is the attribute of Magic to characters. In the solo books, this was an additional attribute in The Citadel of Chaos, as well as being wonderfully implemented in the Sorcery! series in a very ingenious way. In Advanced Fighting Fantasy it seems that they have more or less opted for a standard magic system, using utilitarian descriptive names and costing the wizard Magic Points that will be replenished the next day. Seems like a necessary addition, I just really like the way it was implemented in some of the solo books and wish they could bring that ingenuity to this game. Looking at the character sheets, one can see that now heroes also have “Special Skills” that differentiate them from other heroes. Ah, but it’s starting to look more like a retro-clone all the time…
Advanced Fantasy, Simple Game
As I said earlier, the real magic in the solo books came from the brilliant writing and difficult adventures with a gritty feel. In Advanced Fighting Fantasy the game master has to become that brilliant and imaginative writer, or this will be just another simple fantasy RPG. Simply adding in more complex elements will not a great RPG make, but there is also a wealth of setting information in the source books Out of the Pit and Titan, which contain creatures and information about the world Fighting Fantasy is set in respectively. I love the world, I love the stories, and I really want to love Advanced Fighting Fantasy, but I would like to have seen some more innovation in the combat mechanisms, which are quite antiquated. If I do pursue this game in the future, and I plan to, then I will do some tinkering of my own to see if I can come up with a solution. Other than that, I do recommend these quick start rules, especially if you are looking to jump into a fantasy adventure right away with a small to medium group. Further to my delight, who else publishes the books but Cubicle 7 Entertainment?
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/10/tabletop-review-kuro-cu
bicle-7-entertainment/
Kuro is the latest in the line of interesting role-playing games put out by Cubicle 7 Entertainment, one of my favorite game companies. This game’s core thematic ideas have been compared, and rightly so, to the style of Japanese horror found in movies like The Ring or The Grudge. I am going to discuss the theme first, since that is really the meat of this game, and then of course I will discuss the way dice and characters factor in and the way the game plays.
It’s 2046, and things are messed up
In futuristic, dystopian Japan, there are strange and often terrible things happening. Bodies are found in alleyways, there is a blockade preventing people and goods from entering or leaving, and there is a general malaise over the population in the form of fear. When I read the introductory setting information for Kuro, I get that creeping feeling of dread that things have gone horribly wrong, yet no one knows exactly what is happening or what to do about it. While I felt that I had to suspend a bit of disbelief to get through the description of the eco-disaster future of the next 33 years (ice caps melt, oceans rise, energy crises, etc., I thought it sounded a little hysterical), once I got through the exposition I felt like I could enjoy the year 2046 as put forward by the book. The other thing I did not really buy was the description of international politics leading up to the nuclear launch that caused “the Kuro event”. In short, various alliances are formed and broken in Asia that lead to China launching a nuke at Japan which is intercepted by a strange electrical event. It seemed a bit fantastical to have these countries openly forming alliances and bickering about technology and trade agreements, including aggressive military action culminating in nuclear strikes. First, it all seems a bit like staged theatrics with a script for an action film. Second, if the future has androids and nanobots and clones … why are there still nukes and why would anyone launch them? Has the concept of mutually assured destruction disappeared?
Anyway, I found the setting exposition a bit tall, but it is easy to just read over it and accept that things got messed up, something drastic happened and now Japan is plunged into a strange darkness. To top it off, the event occurred during a contested election and the country is currently leaderless, dealing with an interior political crisis that leaves people just as confused by their government as they are with the strangeness around them. Add one dash of a blockade at the Japanese ports and around the perimeter of the country, and you have yourself a claustrophobic hotbed of supernatural horror.
So, what is the strangeness around them? Well, there are hints and overtures throughout the book. Sometimes the book is talking about spirits, ghosts, and the like. Other times, mentions of monsters, beasts and demons from Eastern mythology. Bodies are found having suffered a strange disfiguration, machines come to life and attack, technology is manipulated by the strange energy of the dead, strange noises are heard, and shadows flicker in the corners of eyes. Basically, whatever creepy thing you can think of or any trope from a horror movie is going to fit in here. Possession, haunting, poltergeists, demons, horrible Lovecraftian beasts, electronic interference, madness, all of that can have a home in 2046 Tokyo.
What Do People Do?
The idea for the players in Kuro is to have them be mostly ordinary people; they are used to living a regular life, going to work and living with whatever comforts are affordable or available, hanging out with friends, and in the midst of the Kuro event they are seeking a return to normalcy. While I’m sure it would be perfectly possible to play badass ghost hunters and demon killers, the game really doesn’t seem to encourage that line of thinking. This is more along the lines of supernatural and/or survival horror – think X-Files set in semi-hysterical, futuristic Tokyo. To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure how to imagine the level of alarm in the setting. Is everyone going crazy? Are people more or less living normally but with this oppressive fear kept under wraps? Is there constant evidence of the supernatural but some people dismiss it or ignore it and some embrace it? I think it is a mixture of all three. The book talks about spouters of end-of-the-world prophecies, cults, the wealthy living in isolated buildings that provide for all of their needs, various religious groups, those trying to capitalize monetarily on the tragedy, and the government being very quiet about it all except to reassure the populace that nothing is wrong.
Tokyo, now renamed Shin-Edo in the face of enemies (a tradition), is a divided city in more than just how people feel about the crisis. There are different districts where the disparate groups of people live. The very wealthy might live in one quarter, the influential businessmen and offices in another quarter, the less fortunate here, strip clubs there, etc. The book gives a nice description of each definable section of Shin-Edo, detailing the inhabitants and what typically goes on there. After reading this, the game master should have a good idea of what the different portions of Tokyo are like. The descriptions are not too short, dedicating about a page to each section depending on how much there is of note in the location. Following ward descriptions are a few pages about daily life: what to eat and drink, customs, currency, and the Shinto-Buddhist religion most people subscribe to. Not a lot of information here, but enough for a role-playing game. Anyone familiar with Japanese culture will probably learn little from this section, but those clueless about the nation will need this to help them add authenticity to the atmosphere.
Rollin’ Dice and Making a Tokyo-ite
Well folks, if what I have said has excited you thus far, I hope this doesn’t take anything away for you. As for me, I found the actual game mechanisms here functional but uninspiring. Basically, you take the number of dice (d6s) for the attribute related to what you are doing, add the level of the skill you are using, and then see if that meets or exceeds a target number set by the GM. Anyone familiar with other Cubicle 7 games like Qin and The One Ring will see similarities here. The differences are that there is an “exploding die” possibility, where a roll of “6” is rolled again and added to the total, and then (for a nice touch of flavor) a roll of “4” at any time counts as zero, because the word for “4” is the same as the word for “death”. Otherwise, that is pretty much it. It seems that Neko or whoever is responsible for setting the basic die mechanisms in Cubicle 7 games prefers to use six-sided dice with a twist thrown in somewhere. I can understand and respect that, I just would love to see something really interesting done with dice at some point in my role-playing life. I guess I keep hoping C7, since they seem to be the biggest professional company putting out games on interesting and non-tired subjects, will be the ones to invent those mechanisms.
Character creation is point-buy. You will be able to allocate points between your eight attributes (we’re talking single-digit, low attributes), and then allocate a certain amount of points between skills and skill specializations. One cool thing about skills is that once you specialize enough in a certain area of a skill you are allowed to choose what is called a “Gimikku” for that specialization. These Gimikku allow you to add bonus points to a roll, reroll dice, and other things that make your character very, very good at that one thing. The skill list covers a nice, general area without getting too deep. You still read through and think: “where is any character going to use his Jet Pilot skill?” So, while I personally think they could just eliminate a lot of these skills that probably would never crop up in a game set in futuristic, dark Tokyo, I guess it’s good to have them there just in case. For another example, you character can have the “Energy Technology” skill with a specialization in photovoltaic nanobatteries. Now, seriously, who is going to use this skill in-game? I’m not saying it is impossible, I’m just looking for an example of how a player who is highly specialized in photovoltaic nanobatteries is going to prove useful in the course of a game.
Without going into all the details of what is a fairly basic and standard combat system, I just want to point out something that I think is very cool with melee combat. There are three types of attacks: “Fast”, “Power”, and a normal attack. The normal attack is just your straightforward “to hit” roll, and the opponent can dodge if they have actions left. The “Power” and “Fast” attacks require you to invest a point of Strength or Reflexes respectively, and then provide various tradeoffs to damage and hitting depending on how much you invested. Now that’s interesting! This breathes a bit of tactical life into what is otherwise a pretty typical combat section. Now, if only something like this had been implemented for the heroes in The One Ring along with the tactical positioning…
Monsters and Terrible Things
I’m just going to describe one monster in the bestiary section, the one that gave me the most willies. It is the Tsuchigumo or “earth spider”. Awakened by the Kuro Incident, these large spiders look “like a sea spider, with a massive, whitish shell and a body with six long hooked legs”. Yeah. In addition to that, they like to live underground where they can remain undetected and hide in the dark. This was the worst part: “Incapable of coming out during the day without being noticed and by fear of the sunlight, this creature prefers to possess human beings with its eggs to make them obey without hesitation”. You also have the Kappa, a turtle-like humanoid with a beak and some sort of strange, salt-water brain (it’s hard to explain without just reading it over and over). There are also various demons and spirits here related to Japanese lore. It is by no means an exhaustive bestiary and does not contain much in the way of things a GM can pull out regularly for the characters unless the characters are really strong and the evil forces are really making a go of it.
Towards the end of the book are sections on gamemastering advice and a sample adventure for the group. Both of these are great, and give a lot of excellent information and examples on gameplay. The sample adventure seems really hard, and I don’t see how the characters could really survive it without at least one or two dying off. Basically, the players are trapped in a complex that has been locked down for security, and through the actions of some unwelcome intruders they will be forced even deeper in before the security really gets bad. However, the spirit of the recently-deceased lab director is there to help … but how much? I won’t spoil it for you, but the scenario given in this book is pretty freaky and intense.
Final Thoughts
Kuro nails one thing really well: theme. By making Tokyo (Shin-Edo) the setting and centering the game on it, then adding in all of these concrete and implied elements of Japanese horror, Kuro shines. Tokyo becomes like a pressure cooker, and all of these elements are added to the recipe to make a terrifying sauce for GMs to lovingly spoon over the story, topped with the player characters. Good place for food metaphors? Actually, few things could make me less hungry than the possible fear created by this game, in the hands of the right group. I’m not the biggest fan of fear, and I outright cannot stand senseless violence, but I do enjoy creepiness and supernatural happenings. This game can go full steam with both supernatural creep and gore elements, or it can just choose one of those two and focus on it. Want lots of dead people and violence? Kuro is ready for that. Want lots of creep, whispers, shadows, and that kind of stuff? Kuro is good for that too. Either way, the atmosphere of terrified Tokyo and the people within are ripe for a group to come and experience it. The crew at Cubicle 7 has made another excellent game on an interesting subject, and while I am not crazy about some aspects of the game like the lackluster test resolution and some convoluted rules, the feel is just too good to pass up.
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Originally published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/08/tabletop-review-pathway
s-22-pathfinder/
I miss the golden age of TSR magazines. I have every issue of Dragon and Dungeon and I still flip through them, especially in electronic format (thanks to the rare and expensive CD-Rom collection from back in the day). Gaming magazines have taken a hit for a while now though. Kobold Quarterly finally died, The Unspeakable Oath is lucky to get an issue out per calendar year and these days, it feels like black and white fanzines have replaced the monthly or quarterly periodicals of the 80s, 90s and 00s. The good news is that, thanks to Rite Publishing, you have modern day Pathfinder magazines that are high quality and feature some top notch articles. In the case of Pathways, the magazines might be short (this one clocks in at only thrity-seven pages, a quarter of which are ads), but it’s free, and something every Pathfinder gamer should pick up, due to the myriad of articles that each issues contains.
This month features seven articles; four features, an editorial, an interview and some reviews. That’s a pretty nice selection for a free magazine. The question I’m sure you are asking at this point is, how good is the issue? After all, it may be free, but there’s a lot of freebies on DriveThruRPG.com that are pretty horrendous. So let’s take a look at each selection and if it’s worth your time.
1. Editorial. Dave Paul writes up an interesting piece about violence in RPGs in the wake of yet another school shooting in the States. It’s an interesting article, but I did find some thought about the context of the following two statements: “Another way that these topics are related is that the game that we all love and play is, frankly, full of violence.” and “I’m not going to argue for an RPG that gets rid of combat.” Both statements got me thinking about what games actually aren’t full of violence and can get by without combat. I know I’ve run several D&D adventures back in the day where combat never occurred. I’ve seen a few Castles & Crusades adventures where this is possible. Call of Cthulhu is another system where violence is the exception rather than the norm. Of course, these comments were in relation to Pathfinder, which is more hacky-slashy than the average tabletop game, but it was still worth trying to wrack my brain for adventures and systems where you don’t lop off someone’s limbs or shoot them full of bullets.
2. Divine Creature Champion Template. This is the feature of the issue, and it’s an extremely well done piece. Steve Russell has created a template that can be used with just about any creature or humanoid in the game. You get two full pages of mechanics on crafting a Divine Champion, followed by a one page stat block of an Ettercap with the Divine Champion template added to it. Very nicely done, and I’m surprised no one has done something like this sooner.
3. The Mutah. No, Keiji Mutoh has not been turned into a Pathfinder NPC, or has he? After all, this strange aquatic and aerial creature does spew a Poison Mist, with the colours and their effects matching up to the effects in professional wrestling when the Great Muta uses the same style attack. It also has an attack called the “Shining Wizard,” but alas, it doesn’t do moonsaults. It’s a very cute tribute to one of the best wrestlers of all time. I don’t think a lot of people will get the homage/in-joke, but to someone who watched Wrestle Kingdom 7 before reading this issue, it was all too apparent.
4. Grave of the Mad. This is a short little encounter, similar to the ones you find in the Pathfinder comic book, albeit without the map. This particular encounter has players dealing with two poltergeists on the edge of an unstable cliff. It’s good as a quick skirmish for players or as an added and unexpected piece or an adventure/campaign you are already running. It’s nothing you’ll find yourself running to the table to use, but it’s a well written encounter and fun to read even if you never play through it.
5. Sonic Foes. Just like the title of the article states, this piece is about enemies that have aural attacks. There are only two, but each creature gets a full page devoted to it. There is the Screaming, which is an odd little undead menace to plague your enemies, and the Discord, which is a twisted creature of pure sound created by a botched performance role, or a successful countersong. Again, interesting ideas, but nothing the average GM will go out of their way to use.
6. Twenty Questions With Dave Woodson. I have no idea who this guy is, and even after reading the interview, all I knew is that he has a small company called Abandoned Arts. I had to actually look up the company to see what they made, and it turned out it was the “Class Acts” and “Feats of…” series I get sent to my reviewer’s box regularly. I’ve never actually picked one up, due to the sheer number of review requests I get. Unfortunately, the interview doesn’t spend much time of Woodson’s own product line and instead has him talk about Paizo’s core product line, which really doesn’t do the reader or Woodson’s company any good. Only a few of the twenty questions asked are about his product line, and they’re vague, generic questions at best. If *I* was doing the interview, I would have tailored it towards what Abandoned Arts puts out and why the average Pathfinder fan should take note. Paizo doesn’t need the constant plug; it created Pathfinder, after all. Meanwhile, the little indie guys need ALL the attention they can get. The interview just isn’t done very well in my opinion, and Cthulhu knows I’ve had to do a ton of them for various publications over the years. You can really skip this piece.
7. Reviews. Unfortunately, this last piece in the issue is not only the worst, but the longest – coming in at six pages. In my review of other gaming mags, I’ve repeatedly stated that they shouldn’t be doing reviews in these. The quality of the reviews are generally terrible, and they come off as ads more than actual critiques of a publication. It’s really bad here though, with six products being reviewed here – one from Rising Swan, two from Rite Publishing (makers of this magazine!), two from Super Genius Games and one from Jon Brazer. I’m a little concerned about Rite reviewing two of its own offerings. That pretty much comes off as a paid for advertisement. I don’t honestly think it is meant to be, but gamers are a skeptical lot, and when you see a product by Publisher A being give a very positive rating by, well… Publisher A, you doubt the veracity of the claims. A lack of journalistic integrity is something the video game side of gaming is called out for a lot, and unfortunately, by including reviews of Rite Publishing products IN a Rite Publishing product, you hit a very moral and ethical grey area, if not an outright black one. It gets even worse when you realize one of the reviews is for the previous issue of Pathways, and that the reviewer is a contributor to that very issue. That right there is a dangerous precipice for any publication, as well as anyone who wants to be taken seriously as a product reviewer. I probably don’t need to add that Rising Swan also contributed to this issue, and had a review of one of its products as well. That’s, again, not a precedent you want to be setting with a publication. Finally, the reviews are too short to be considered quality or of use (This review of the magazine is the same length as four of the six reviews contained within it, for example. It’s not the fault of the reviewers necessarily, but a space constraint.), and they don’t come across as professionally done. The whole section just comes off tacky at best and highly unethical at worst.
Personally, I’d rather see these six pages go to something more useful. By the time a magazine has come out, you’ll have seen reviews for all of these products, if you want to, via blogs, DriveThruRPG and websites. If you’re going to devote six pages to reviews that come across more as ads (even if they aren’t meant to), I’d rather see that space devoted to, say, previews of upcoming publications. I mean, why not devote a page to what’s going to be in Adventure Quarterly #3? How about a sneak peak of The Secrets of Renegade Archetypes? Perhaps a look at what awaits us in The Toiling of Tears? Previews of future Rite Publishing products would be of far more use to gamers across the board, and it would be time and money better spent by the publisher. Hell, it doesn’t have to be just Rite Publishing products. Previews of any third party Pathfinder products would be great. The indie guys need all the press they can get, and I’m sure they’d be happy to have even a page or two of something that they have in the pipeline featured in Pathways. Come on Rite Publishing, make it happen!
So all in all, the latest issue of Pathways is pretty good. There are a few hiccups here and there, but hey, it’s FREE, so it’s silly to complain. Between the Divine Champion article and the homage to the Great Muta, this is well worth picking up. Throw in the neat encounter piece and you have something any self-respecting Pathfinder fan should be downloading as soon as they finish this – if they haven’t picked it up already.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/01/02/tabletop-review-deadlan
ds-noir-savage-worlds/
Although I always found Deadlands intriguing, I never got into the game. For one thing, the old west was never a setting that interested me. For another, my original impressions from reading the core rulebook back in the 90s seemed like the setting borrowed heavily from Shadowrun world-wise, but then put things in the Old West and made things more intentionally evil. Raven and his machinations = the Great Ghost dance, the CSA coming about, Native Americans reclaiming their lands, evil corporations abound. The other was that the rules set kept changing. You had the original rules, the revised rules, the Savage World rules, the d20 version and there was even a GURPS version of all things. Pinnacle was just too all over the place for my liking. Now that said, I thought the writing was fantastic, the mechanics were unique and very memorable and the art was pretty good. It just wasn’t my thing.
Well all that changed earlier this year when Deadlands Noir went up on Kickstarter as a crowd-funded project. I loved the concept and the teases we were given but I was still hesitant to join in, especially as I was funding so many other things at the time. In the end, I didn’t back Deadlands Noir, but I plugged the project heavily in my Kickstarter column and watched over eleven hundred people raise $117,000 for this thing. In late December, the official PDF version of the book was released to backers and via DriveThruRPG.com to people willing to fork over $14.99 for it. I eagerly snatched up a review copy when it was offered and have spent the past two weeks flipping through this, along with my copies of Savage Worlds and Deadlands: Reloaded to fill in mechanics and story gaps.
I should point out that Deadlands Noir is NOT a standalone product. You absolutely need a copy of Savage Worlds to use this book as it is the rules-set Deadlands games currently use. As well, you’ll probably want to be familiar with the Old West version of Deadlands as well to better understand the game and its backstory. You won’t need to know anything about Hell of Earth, the post-apocalyptic version of the game, which is a good thing. I admit that I wish Pinnacle had made this its own standalone book complete with rules ala Vampire: The Dark Ages, or similar products, as it would have brought in a lot more newcomers. Still this way, they make more money as newbies need to buy two or three books and veterans don’t need to wade through mechanics they already know by heart.
Deadlands Noir takes place around 1935 in the same universe that Deadlands: The Wild West/Deadlands:Reloaded takes place in. I know some would expect a Noir game to be set in the 1920s, but setting this game after the 1929 stock market crash and during the dust bowl makes perfect sense considering Deadlands is a depressing and dark game whose antagonists rely heavily on fear and negative emotions. The Roaring Twenties was a pretty upbeat time compared to the Great Depression, wouldn’t you say? The sourcebook talks a little bit about the universe’s history and how it diverges from our own, but for the most part you’ll need Deadlands: Reloaded to really understand the Deadlands universe. That said, you can just play Deadlands Noir with this book and the Savage Worlds core rulebook, but it’s best that the Marshall (system’s term for a DM/GM) is well acquainted with the history of the setting in all its forms. Deadlands Noir really only focuses on the city of New Orleans. In fact, it might have been better to title the book Deadlands Noir: New Orleans because the bulk of the book only covers that city. There is lip service paid to other areas, but you’re pretty much stuck with the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Mississipp’. Other books in the series will cover different locales like Chicago, but for now, this is all we get. So if you really have your heart set on playing Deadlands Noir in a different city, you’ll have to wait or make it up on your own.
Now just because Deadlands Noir focuses exclusively on a single city doesn’t make the book disappointing. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Pinnacle has put an amazing amount of detail into describing their New Orleans of 1935 in the Deadlands world – a feat that is all the more impressive when you realize the book includes new mechanics, a full campaign, several short adventures on top of the campaign, a ton of NPC and antagonist stat blocks and so much more. I was extremely impressed by the amount of content shoved into this one book. With only a fifteen dollar price tag, this is a shockingly good deal. While it’s not the best sourcebook to come out in 2012, it’s still one any Deadlands should pick up. Hell, I’ve only read Deadlands books here and there and I was still blown away by what lay betwixt both covers.
The first third of the book is for players and GMs alike. It covers sample character backgrounds, the house rules for the game that separate Deadlands from a standard Savage Worlds game, new Skills, Hindrances, Edges and gear ranging from guns to submarines. You then get a two page map of the city in its current state and a seven page introduction to New Orleans. After that the section for players rounds itself out with on how to roll detective work, and various forms of magic users (Grifters, Patent Scientists, Voodoo Practitioners and Harrowed) . After that the rest of the book is for GM’s eyes only.
The GM’s section is where things really get good though. That’s where you get to separate fact from fiction in this setting and learn just how severely screwed up the world is. You’ll get a more in-depth look at Fear Levels and also the darker side of magic use in Deadlands Noir. The real gem here though is “The GameMaster’s Guide To New Orleans” which is sixteen pages long and covers all sorts of things from key players to important locales in the city. The other really nice section is “Making Mysteries” which is a seven page guide on how to write a Noir adventure. It even includes a random adventure generator to boot. I tried it out a few times. For example, here’s one I rolled up:
A stranger with a fat wallet and a fatter gut approaches the players with an offer they can’t refuse. It seems a valuable MacGuffin was stolen from him and he wants it back. As the players search the scene of the crime and scour for clues, they’ll eventually discover an old rival of the client stole the MacGuffin believing t was a piece of a bigger puzzle even its original owner didn’t know about. They track down the thief to the Garden District of New Orleans, only to learn he was nothing but a patsy for the man who really wanted it – a congressman. Before the thief can finger the true guilty party, his brain pan gets some unexpected ventilation, leaving the detectives with questions rather than answered, but a recovered McaGuffin whose owner now knows there’s something more to it than meets the eye.
Deadlands Noir also contains an extreme large number of adventures. While none of the adventures are fully fleshed, there is enough meat here that a Marshall can easily run with them. Red Harvest is a campaign of six adventures (seven if you count where the gumshoes put all the pieces together) which really lets players get to know the Deadlands of the 1930s and New Orleans in particular. By the times the PCs are done, they’ve probably made some powerful enemies, but hopefully at least one powerful friend as well. The book also contains a whopping fourteen (that means twenty/twenty-one adventures in all!) “Savage Tales,” which are short little one shot adventures for players who love to huck dice but don’t have a lot of time. These adventures run the gambit from passable to extremely cool, but he fact there are so many adventures in this sourcebook blew me away. Honestly, as I re-read this review, it’s hard to believe Pinnacle’s staff fit all this content into just 145 pages!
Deadlands Noir finishes up with those aforementioned NPC collections, which ensures Marshalls will have all the characters and/or monsters they need to run any of the adventures in this book, or better yet, to help them get started on making adventures of their own. I have to admit I was really impressed by everything in this book and unlike the wild west setting, Deadlands Noir is a version of the game I could actually get my friends and colleagues to sit down and play. It carries on the spirit and feel of the original Deadlands while giving it a whole new fresh twist. I’m really kicking myself now that I didn’t partake in the Kickstarter and picked up some of those extras like the Noir Companion and the dime novel. Even for people new to Deadlands, or those that just have never had the chance to actually play a game of it, this is a really well done book and well worth reading. I can’t wait to see what else comes out for Deadlands Noir and I know I won’t be the only one.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/12/31/tabletop-review-age-of-
lords-campaign-setting-dungeons-dragonspathfinder/
Age of Lords is a campaign setting designed by Blackbyrne Publishing for use with either 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder. As 4th Edition is what I am familiar with, those are the books I took a look at, but I would imagine the only real difference between the two versions comes down to mechanics and little else. Being familiar with the core rules of each system (and having access to the core rule books for your respective game) is a must.
Age of Lords focuses on the world of Braugh and it’s main continent, Thallorand. The world of Braugh is one shaped almost exclusively from war; a battle between the God Brothers, Gorrand and Zorm, led to their imprisonment inside the planet by the Goddess of Balance, Threllion. Even imprisonment was not enough to put an end to their battle, and the two Gods exerted their power to bring about life on the planet. Threllion created the human race, while her opposite number, J’choral, the Goddess of Chaos, introduced monsters to the world. As the races of the world expanded across the continent of Thallorand, fiefdoms were established and war among the mortal races raged. It was only when the dark races invaded from across the sea that the continent banded together in The Uprising in order to protect themselves from annihilation. Following that brutal war, the Age of Lords begins proper. The continent has been divided into six kingdoms that survived the war, and while the borders of the kingdoms are respected for the most part, border crossing is only permissible with the express permission of one of the six lords. To gain permission, adventurers must compete in Pit Games, IE gladiatorial combat, and emerge victorious.
The campaign setting, outlined in both the Campaign Setting and Expedition Guide, is one full of conspiracies and peace held in check by only the thinnest margins. You’ll need a group of players interested in more than just the standard dungeon crawl. While there are opportunities for combat aplenty, both in the Pit Games and exploring dungeons once you’ve gained the permission of a lord, the politics of the realm will inevitably require a good deal of wit and subterfuge to fully take advantage of what these books offer.
Working from the 4th D&D rules, Age of Lords utilizes the core races, all the classes from the Player’s Handbook and the majority of the classes from Player’s Handbook 2 (information for Avengers, Invokers, Shamans, and Wardens are not included in the materials, but those classes and a few additional races are available at http://blackbyrnepublishing.com/SampleFlavor.html for those interested). In addition to the basics, two new classes (Ostorians and Half-Dark Elves) and one new class (Blade Conjurer) are added. Ostorians are half-breed human/bears cursed by Druids, primarily suited for primal and martial classes, and seem suited for tanking more than anything else. Half-Dark Elves are the result of unions between Dark Elves and other races, and more often than not are the product of rape and are born into slavery. The chance of a Half-Dark Elf being produced through consensual means is a “rare occurrence,” which, I don’t know, doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that I would ever want to work into one of my adventures, but the option is there if you want to pursue it. The race, should you decide you want to use it, is primarily suited to the Rogue class, with an occasional Sorcerer or Warlock. Neither of the new races seemed particularly interesting to me, but the added class, Blade Conjurer, is another matter.
Blade Conjurers can best be described as a Magic Knight; during The Uprising, wizards used Elvish magic to train soldiers how to imbue their weapons with arcane powers. The class is designed to function first as a Striker and secondly as a Defender. The powers attributed to the class will generally do damage to a target, followed by a secondary effect. These effects either tend grant the player the ability to shift as a result of their attack, slap a status effect on the enemy, or inflict ongoing damage until the enemy can make a saving throw.
The major game play mechanic introduced by the setting is the Pit Games. Pit Games generally pit the players against a single monster or a group of monsters, and not only require that the players survive the encounter, but scores them on actions that occur during the battle. For instance, a criticial hit will add +3 to your score, while using a second wind or reaching 0 hp is a -1. The GM will set the High Score needed to be successful, and you can tailor rewards based on how well your players do in combat.
Blackbyrne Publishing’s motto is “Story over Rules” and the books excel at this. The back story provided is quite interesting, and the creators do a good job to work all of the standard D&D classes and races into their own world without making them seem out of place. The Campaign Setting provides a wealth of information about the entire continent, the kingdoms that existed prior to the Uprising and the ones that still exist post-war, and the details provided for all the various locales is quite extensive and gives you plenty of areas for your players to explore. Each class is given new Paragon Paths exclusive to this setting and there are a handful of monsters created specifically for this setting. Possession of all the core D&D books is required, however, so this isn’t something you could just pick up and play on your own.
The actual presentation does leave a little to be desired. I reviewed the PDF versions of the texts so I couldn’t comment on the quality of the available hardbacks, but the information is nicely laid out and very accessible. Artwork in the books range from above average to merely serviceable. I did catch a few typos and grammatical errors, which certainly caused someone like me to shake my head every time I found one, but there is nothing bad enough to detract from the game itself. In the end, however, Age of Lords puts forth enough interesting ideas and usable content to be worth a read. Even if you’re just looking for some locations, monsters, or a new class to plug into your existing campaigns, Age of Lords is handy reference material.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/12/28/tabletop-review-cthulhu
-britannica-folklore-call-of-cthulhu/
Cthulhu Britannica has been a hit or miss line to me, despite the fact I’m a big fan of both Call of Cthulhu and Cubicle 7. I found the original Cthulhu Britannica piece lacking and The Ballad of Bass Rock was one of the most generic and overpriced adventures I’ve ever seen released for the system. At the same time, both Shadows Over Scotland and Avalon: The Country of Somerset blew me away with the high quality content, incredible artwork and wonderful adventures. However, after Shadows Over Scotland, the Cthulhu Britannica line seemed to dry up with Folklore being pushed back so many times, I didn’t actually think it would ever be released. However, less than a fortnight ago it was released and so here we are with our review of it. I’m going to shy away from the bits of drama that surrounded this piece such as writer changes and the like and concentrate purely on the quality of the book itself. That said, with a PDF price tag of only fifteen dollars, Folklore is an amazing deal that all Call of Cthulhu gamers should rush out to pick up. It’s not perfect, but you’re getting a sourcebook and nine adventures for a pittance of cash and that should make up for some of the lackluster adventures or minor issues I had with some of the content.
Folklore is 136 pages long, but that includes cover, ads and the like. You can divide the contents into two categories: a sourcebook on folklore and its relationship to the Cthulhu Mythos along with the Call of Cthulhu rules system, and a whopping nine adventures. It’s really well done and the areas where I nitpicked the book are only because I myself have, let’s say “a few” articles on folklore published, but they were minor errors you’d only pick up on if you wrote about the subject like your next meal depended on it. The vast majority of gamers won’t find anything at all to grumble about and will be able to use Folklore not only as a comprehensive guide to non Mythos creatures that one can use with Chaosium’s venerable system, but for other role playing systems as well. The mark of a true quality supplement or sourcebook is if you can take the content and use it easily with other system. Folklore is just such a book. Anyone can take the core creatures and concepts and move them to say, Shadowrun, Chill or any other RPG system set more or less in our world.
I should point out that Folklore is a comprehensive guide to the folklore of Great Britain only. If you were expecting folklore bits on say Native American, Egyptian or Asian culture, then I have to point out the word Britannica is in the full title of the book. For those looking for information on Ireland, I direct you to Chaosium’s monograph, Mysteries of Ireland. The book doesn’t touch on everything, say Arthurian legends, anything about Whitby or the like, but it’s still quite good. The focus on Folklore is on that of the fae and faerie folk of England and the other countries surrounding it. There are some odd inclusions like werewolves and vampires which are not only already in the core Call of Cthulhu rulebook, but they are done better in it. As well, Folklore gets some of the most basic premises about the folklore versions of these popular Hollywood-ized monsters wrong, which surprised and disappointed me. Again though, the core of the book itself is fantastic.
Folklore gives you a short little treatise on what exactly folklore is, along with a set of references in case you want to read more about the subject without gaming terminology and mechanics. For those wishing to play a folklorist in 1920s Call of Cthulhu, you’re given a basic occupation template that really does fit the stereotype to a T. I’d definitely use the package if playing one. From there the book goes on to discuss how to use folklore with Call of Cthulhu. Is the adventure purely grounded in folkloric creatures? Are the folkloric creatures just a guise for mythos creatures or a misinterpretation brought on by seeing what man was not meant to conceive nor understand? Does the folklore co-exist or run parallel to mythos creatures, meaning there is room for both in an adventure or campaign? These questions and more need to be answered by the Keeper before writing adventures or starting a campaign. After all, if the Keeper decides that there aren’t any actual folklore creatures and all folklore is brought about by misunderstanding mythos beings, players are going to have a hard time running through the recent Terror From the Skies campaign that Chaosium recently put out as players will potentially befriend a Hob and Deep Ones alike. I strongly recommend a thorough reading of folklore by anyone who is thinking about adding in creatures like fae, trolls, gnomes and whatever to their CoC campaign for both a better understanding of these creatures and their relationship with Mythos races.
There’s also a chapter on Folk Magic Vs. Mythos Magic and again, it is up to the Keeper if there is going to be a discernible difference or not. From there the book goes into a very long bestiary about different classifications of folkloric creatures. This is probably the weakest section of the book as it lumps creatures that normally wouldn’t be or shouldn’t be together and gives them a set stat package. In some cases, like Fairy Folk, this makes sense to so a lump generic package but for others like the Shapeshifters category, it just doesn’t work. Again, the Hollywood version of werewolves is in the book rather than the actual folklore one, which is odd. As well, the book makes little errors here like saying, “The vampires of folklore differ in some respects to the vampire as presented in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and early 20th century fiction—not having to return to its original soil or coffin, for example.” which is incorrect as both Dracula AND his folkloric predecessors had to do sleep in their native either but NEITHER had to actually sleep in a coffin. The widespread use of coffins didn’t come about until the 18th Century, while the belief in vampires in one form or another in Europe is centuries older. The need for a coffin came from the same origin point as sunlight being a fatal weakness to vampires – movies. It was also odd to see banshees included as shapeshifters instead of in the ghosts section. It would have been better to have a section on lycanthropic beings, undead and to properly break out the spectral apparitions rather than lumping all these different categories into “shapeshifters.” Aside from errors like these and some names of creatures being a bit off, the section is pretty good when all things are said and done and it was nice to see Screaming Skulls and other lesser known deviltries show up here.
The book also includes a calendar of special folklore related dates, a small section of appropriate Mythos gods and creatures in relation to actual folkloric creatures. Finally we have the nine adventures. These adventures run the gambit from good to bad, which is to be expected with any adventure compilation. However one thing that is gets an across the board thumb’s down for me is the formatting of the adventures. Instead of having a clean break between adventures (that is to say starting a new adventure on a new page as is industry standard), these adventures just run together without any real breaks, making it hard to find where one starts or to flip through them for specific information. I’m not sure who thought formatting an adventure collection as if it was one long section was a good idea, but this has to be one of the worst editorial decisions I’ve seen in a while. Thankfully the content is quite good and the fact you’re getting nine adventures for fifteen dollars in addition to a seventy or so page sourcebook is enough to mitigate this down to a minor complaint. So, let’s take a look at the adventures, shall we?
The Beast of Bodmin – this adventure has players coming in contact with one of the great black dogs of British folklore as it commits fouls deeds in the town of Bodmin. Of course, there is a Mythos twist to the Black Dog, which savvy CoC players should figure out immediately from the fact it’s a DOG. What’s not so easy to predict is what to do here. Just when the players think they are going down the correct road, it just might turn out they’re doing exactly what the Black Dog wanted them to. This is a really fun little adventure that can go a dozen different ways, so it’s best in the hands of a Keeper that is either prepared for everything, or knows how his players tend to react to things. 1 for 1.
Head Over Heels – this is a wonderful Screaming Skull oriented adventure. Players are hired by a Lord Blake to retrieve a skull of his ancestor that was obtained by an odd collector. As players progress they will discover there is something equally strange about the collector, the family that hired them and the object that binds them together. Another well done adventure. 2 for 2.
The Writhing Hill – There is a young insane Cthonian in the earth beneath an archeological dig. You can pretty much tell what happens just from that previous sentence. It’s a cute adventure, but very short and simple. Still, fun is what counts and this adventure certainly is that. 3 for 3.
The Horror Out of Time -This is the first adventure I didn’t care for simply because it was way too similar to the fun before it. There is an injured insane Flying Polyp in the earth beneath a farm. Predictability happens. I know Cubicle 7 is sometimes guilty of paint by numbers style generic adventures that feel like we’ve all played them numerous times before but to very similar adventures not only in the same book, but right next to each other is just sloppy. Sure one is on a farm and the other is at a dig site, but it’s the same core adventure. Disappointing. 3 for 4.
Daughters of the Seas – This is a fun adventure but once again it’s one that I know I’ve seen before, not only for Call of Cthulhu, but it’s almost the exact same adventure I wrote and ran for Dungeons and Dragons back in 2002. I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s a coincidence though because the sheer amount of OGL stuff out there is impossible for any one man (or even a hundred) to wade through. Anyway, the adventure is about an ancient compact between a town of fishermen and a colony of Deep Ones. Over generations, the history of the compact was lost and by the time of the adventure, it is mostly pomp and circumstance where the villagers engage in quaint old superstitious beliefs. Too bad the Deep Ones haven’t forgotten. What makes the adventure more complicated is a witch’s coven that lurks within the town, one of whose members is a worshipper of Dagon and Hydra and thus knows the truth of the village’s ancient ways. Can the Investigators figure out how to keep this sleepy seaside hamlet from become a British Innsmouth? 4 for 5.
The Body Politic – This is just a weird adventure that doesn’t feel like it belongs in a Call of Cthulhu collection. It feels like it would be more at home in one of Cubicle 7′s other lines. Victoriana for example. It’s an adventure about a mad scientist who is trying to replicate Mi-Go science by engaging in some body snatching from local traveler/gypsy/romani tribes. The Investigators have been hired to clear one of the travelers of a crime and to expose the mad scientist and his mad machinations. This adventure just doesn’t work for me. It would be better set in the 1820s instead of the 1920s for one thing (a fact the adventure itself somewhat admits), and it’s just not very well written. Whatever Keeper runs this is really going to have to tighten things up, fill in large gaps of logic and plot and basically re-write the thing from scratch. Not for me. 4 for 6.
Wedded to the Deep – This is a second Deep One oriented adventure. I was hoping the writing and editing teams would have been able to be a bit more creative, especially as this adventure is just another one about a person being a Deep One hybrid and their subsequent loss of humanity. It’s basically the same adventure every Call of Cthulhu player has been put through at least once before, but with the added twist that the hybrid in question started to transform right before his wedding. Investigators are hired to figure out what happened to the poor groom but most CoC players will have the reveal figured out long before their characters do. At least the adventure complicates things a bit with a cult devoted to Mother Hydra that is trying to capture the poor hybrid for their own nefarious reasons. Still, this is another extremely generic adventure and that worries me a little about the future for the Cthulhu Britannica line. Granted after thirty-one years, it’s hard to come up with some truly original adventures for Call of Cthulhu, but as well written as this one is, it still feels like something I would have played or even come up with myself in middle school. The same will be true for many that read or experience it. 4 for 7.
The Company of Wolves – This is another Black Dog related adventure. I can’t believe that in a book with a subject as expansive as folklore, we have two adventures devoted to Black Dogs and two to Deep Ones. Run the gamut with your source material Cubicle 7! This adventure however is significantly different from the first one in the collection and it’s a pretty weird out there experience for your players to boot. It involved a guardian wolf spirit or two, a vengeful witch, a drunken hunter and a lot of murders. It’s the most intricate of the adventures in the collection and although it’s not very Lovecraftian so to speak, it’s still one that will engage your players. 5 for 8.
The Black Spring Gate – This, along with the previous adventure, are the only ones in the collection that are actually centered on folklore instead of being straight Mythos affairs. Even then you have an antagonist looking to corrupt a Fairy Gate so that it brings forth Mythos creatures instead of the fae. Of course, this is Call of Cthulhu, so you have to expect adventures to have some tie to the Mythos. For those who want a purely folkloric affair, the mythos content here is very light and can easily be retooled to a generic sorcerer. It’s a very weird but memorable affair. 6 for 9.
So all in all, Folklore isn’t perfect, but it’s an exceptionally solid read from beginning to end and even the adventures I gave a thumbs down to aren’t BAD; they’re just generic or trite while still being playable and fun in the hands of a good Keeper or inexperienced players that haven’t been through the usual rigmarole. With a price tag of only fifteen dollars ($25 for the print version), Folklore is an exceptional deal and one every Call of Cthulhu fan should consider investing in. It’s not the best Call of Cthulhu offering this year, but it IS a nice way to end the amazing year this thirty-one year old product line has had.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/12/24/tabletop-review-shadowr
un-montreal-2074/
Montreal 2074 is one of those Shadowrun releases I was really looking forward to. I love it when time and energy is devoted to locations other than the usual areas like Seattle, Berlin, Bogata, Chicago and Japan. As someone that has had running Quebec separatists jokes going since that fateful episode of “The Critic,” I’ve somehow stuck a comedic reference to Quebec liberation in far too many things (“Vive Jay Sherman! Vive Quebec!”) for my own good. Hell, I just did it in my Avengers: Battle For Earth review. So books devoted to locations most gamers don’t normally think of are of personal interest to me, even though I know they’re probably a niche product overall. As you can imagine, I was quite excited for Montreal 2074, even if the page count is a little thin. The good news is that, at only twenty-one pages, Montreal 2074 does an amazing job, covering pretty much everything you would want for running an adventure or full-blown campaign in Quebec’s number two city, save for a restaurant guide. The overall product was so good, I would LOVE to see this become a recurring line. Two dozen pages of interesting locations for five bucks or so. I’d love to see something similar for, say, Barbados, Paris, Miami, Cancun, and hell why not – Arkham, MA even though it’s not real. Hey we’re getting new versions of Shadowrun and Call of Cthulhu in 2013, why not have a fun little crossover?
So what do you get in Montreal 2074? Well, for starters, you get a VERY different city from the one in our own 2012 (soon to be 2013). When I think of Montreal personally, I think of the fact it’s got a very strong gothic-industrial subculture (Kinetik Festival anyone?) and it’s one of the best cities for gourmands in North America. It’s a very classy city all the way around. Well… not so much in 2074. In the Sixth World, Montreal is a wonderful example of “be careful what you wish for” as the entire city has fallen to pot since Quebec managed to successfully secede from their Anglophile oppressive overlords. The city has lost much of its wealth and industry to Quebec City, half the population is below the poverty level, and an alliance of Megacorps has come in to try and take over the city, thus reducing the population of Montreal to little more than placated work drones. There is a massive class divide (perhaps even a class war) and a realization that much of the Quebec province is all but controlled by the NAN (North America Nations). However, with the incoming attempts to control Montreal and all of Quebec by this large megacorp alliance, there’s potential for war between the Native Americas and the conglomerates who want to take control of the country, as they have so many others before it. Of course, with all this economical, political and corporate drama to be had, it means Montreal is an EXCELLENT city for shadowrunners. There is a lot of business to be had here, whether you’re a stone cold merc who only cares about the nuyen, or you’re one of the few idealists that works in the shadows, trying to make things ever so slightly better. There is so much adventure potential in this small supplement, that I would be shocked if someone actually picked this up and couldn’t come up with at least six potential hooks for their gaming crew.
Montreal 2074 starts off with a nice piece of fiction, but I do think it could have been better arranged at the end, as readers would be able to understand it more thoroughly after having read the supplement proper. From there, Traveler Jones gives you the history of Montreal, from Crash 2.0 and the death of Lucien Cross, to its current deplorable state. Traveler touches on the inherent xenophobia of the Republic, how to get in and out of Quebec, and the current corporate/political climate. It’s of note that, of the businesses that are still quite productive in Montreal, many build parts for the Matrix.
A full fourth of the book is devoted to the various districts/boroughs of Montreal. While it’s nowhere as in-depth as, say, the old “By Night” books White Wolf put out for Vampire: The Masquerade, it’s still chock full of information. In fact, while reading this, I also flipped through Black Dog’s Montreal By Night and found myself impressed by how well both pieces actually complimented each other. Personally, if I was going to run a Shadowrun campaign set in Montreal, I’d use Montreal 2074 as the overview, as it’s quite excellent, but then for locations, landmarks and other things left untouched by this book (it’s only twenty-one pages, give it a break!) I’d use Montreal by Night to fill in the blanks and gaps. I love how much detail they managed to cram into this section, and honestly, I’d love to see what Olivier Gagnon could have done with, say, double the page count.
From there we move on to a list of the various forces waging war, both covertly and blatantly, for Quebec’s soul. You’ve got the various biker gangs, Asian triads, a weakened mafia, and a bunch of weird little groups like the Failed, the Fallen (expect at least one GM or player per crew to get the two of those mixed up at some point) and the Black Mass. Of course, we can’t also forget the megacorps and local politicians. Each group is given a lot of background information, although I would have liked to have seen more, especially with Le Consortium Pour Le Development Du Quebec and La Gendarmerie. There’s so much that can be done with either group, and I see those two being the main focus of any campaign that takes place in Montreal.
Montreal 2074 then ends things with quick discussion of Quebecois Native Americans and the flora and fauna of the region. The last three pages of Montreal 2074 are devoted to in-game mechanics. More specifically, it’s three pages of stat blocks for various generic NPCs you will encounter within Montreal. There are nine different NPCs, and although I’d have rather seen these last few pages devoted to more information about the city proper, this is still a fine inclusion, especially for those that want stats.
All in all, Montreal 2074 is a great buy for gamers, like myself, who love to read about cities or locations in various systems. I love the city books Chaosium produces for Call of Cthulhu or the “By Night” books for the World of Darkness. Montreal 2074 is a much shorter (and far cheaper) equivalent for Shadowrun, and I’d love to see more books in this vein being released for the system. For those that just want mechanics or stats, you should probably look elsewhere, as you’re just getting twenty pages of fiction for your six dollars. Likewise, if that seems a bit expensive or you just like to pick up adventure compilations, Montreal 2074 probably isn’t for you either. Still, if you purchase Shadowrun books and supplements to read as much as you do to play, Montreal 2074 is a top-notch choice for you or any Sixth World fan you know.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/12/19/tabletop-review-shadowr
un-shadowbeat/
Shadowbeat was always an odd book and twenty years after its original release, it might be even odder. Shadowbeat is a collection of odds and ends from across the Sixth World that most gamers and their GM would never really thinking about needing to know or use in their Shadowrun campaign. However, the content within is so deep and well written (some might say overly anal retentive and rules-lawyery) that for those few who would actually want to know or use any of the information contained in Shadowbeat, this thing is a veritable cornucopia of content.
The key to remember with Shadowbeat is that it is a rulebook/supplement that covers everything BUT Shadowrunning. It’s meant to fill in the blanks of the Sixth World and also provide players and GMs alike a chance to run a character other than a Shadowrunner while still using FASA’s setting. The majority of the book is meat over mechanics, so it’s not too hard to covert the content contained in Shadowbeat to 20AE (the most recent edition) rules. Still a bit of the content is out of date since this takes place in the 2050s rather than the current 2070s time frame and a good chunk of what’s written here is out of date with today, such as where certain sports teams are located (Charlotte Hornets? Houston Oilers?) or changes in journalism over the past two decades. It’s not the book’s fault – it’s more a matter of the writers couldn’t predict the changes that would occur in real life, much like wireless internet would occur thus making the concept of decking a throwback or outdated (hence why CGL made things go wireless when they got the rights to the game). Because of this you’ll want to tweak things a bit even if you are playing a 2050s game so as to keep the nitpickers in your troupe quiet.
Shadowbeat can basically be divided into five topics: Music, TV, Journalism, Sports and Simsense. Each section gives information on how these industries work in the 2050s and give a lot of in-depth information on each. Some sections, like Journalism gives you page upon page of rules on how to play reporting in a mechanical sense, giving rules and rolls for investigating and interviews. This is a bit much for me as these are all things that could be handled by role-playing rather than roll-playing, but it’s pretty impressive that someone sat down and did this. The rules for recording/playing music are a little more realistic in terms of what you’d want players to roll rather than act out. After all, that elven rocker’s player might have a terrible voice IRL.
The section on music talks about the popular instruments of the 2050s, rock ‘n roll variants, the use of magic in music and how to run a character (or team) that is a musician and the type of rolls and mechanics that comes with that type of PC. You also get descriptions of various fame levels and what that corresponds to game-wise. After all, an indie rocker who just uploads his music to the Matrix can be an effective Shadowrunner. It’s quite another thing if you release a platinum trid every year and have to perform gigs every night.
The section on networks and popular trid shows was pretty interesting to me. It gives you a full list of the major networks, what they show and most importantly – who controls them. You also get information about smaller, indie stations and even pirate channels. You’re also given a list of the six most popular types of shows in the 2050s, along with examples of each. Of course, in the mid 2070s, where Shadowrun is currently taking place, most of these shows are off the air or would be on whatever passes for TV Land/Nick at Night. I found the bits on 2050s sitcoms and soap operas to be the most interesting.
Shadowbeat‘s section on journalism is both the longest and most in-depth in the book and it really feels like this was meant to be its own standalone supplement with how deep and detailed it is. It’s the only section to have specific information on playing a player character of this type and the sheer amount of mechanics. It’s only twenty pages long but honestly it feels like an entire other book that you’ll be slogging through. It’s a wonderful read if your eyes don’t glaze over at the sheer amount of mechanics you are expected to need/know as a reporter as generally news and the people who reported it are background NPCs or there just to push PCs in the right direction in the usual game of Shadowrun.
The sports area is where Shadowbeat is most interesting, but also the most outdated. As I mentioned at the beginning, a lot of the teams that survived the breaking up of the United States don’t actually exists today. Of course in 1993, who saw the Brewers moving to the National League and the Astros to the American League? Seriously! Fixing the names of teams and the like is pretty easy to do though (replace the aforementioned Oilers with the Texans for example) and it is pretty interesting to see what sports have thrived, died off or stayed about par for the course in the Sixth World. It’s also interesting to see what sports allow cyber-augmentation and why. Of course the most important part of this chapter is that it gives the history and full rules for Urban Brawl and Combat Biker, two big sports of the time period, although you really don’t see either mentioned much by CGL these days. Through this whole section I thought about how fun it would be to make a PC who was an ex Urban Brawl player or perhaps a baseball player for a Japanese team who goblinized at the peak of his career and thus was banned (Japan is even more racist than in real life in Shadowrun). Heck imagine playing an entire campaign about a Combat Biker team!
Finally we have Simsense. To someone who has never played Shadowrun think of simsense as a version of postcognition or psychometery, where one experiences something in the past that happened to someone else. It’s not like skillsoft where a person suddenly is able to know a language or perform a skill they wouldn’t normally know how to do. It’s memory rather than technical. It’s a very long and detailed read; perhaps more than you’d ever need to know about it. Of note is the addiction aspects and potential side effects from prolonged usage.
All in all, Shadowbeat is okay. I never had the desire or need for it back in the days of first and second edition. It just didn’t seem applicable to my, or any other Shadowrun games my friends were running back in the day. Now twenty years later, it’s still an odd duck, chock full of detailed information on outdated subjects that are only of use to a very niche audience. There aren’t a lot of people playing FASA style Shadowrun these days and those playing CGL style won’t get much use out of this. For those really interested in 2050s sports, TV and journalism though, this is a pretty good deal for eight dollars. For everyone else, this is a well written but easily unnecessary sourcebook.
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Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/12/18/tabletop-review-castles
-crusades-right-under-our-noses/#undefined
I’m a big fan of Castles & Crusades, and for Troll Lord Games to put out a free adventure for the system is a wonderful thing, especially so close to the holidays. It’s a great way to try the system and see why it’s a favorite OSR system. Of course, there’s a bit of a catch. In order to truly make use of this adventure, you’ll need the Bluffside: City on the Edge campaign setting, in addition to the core Castles & Crusades rulebooks; otherwise, much of the adventure will read like gobblygook. The problem is that Bluffside isn’t out yet, so you can’t really do anything with the adventure save for reading it and putting together the nuances and changes inherent with the setting. Gnomes having blue skin is just one such example. I do remember Bluffside: City on the Edge being a 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons/OGL setting back in the early 00s, but I’m not sure what’s changed in the past decade, nor how compatible the original would be with C&C. So this is just odd all around, and Right Under Our Noses acts more as a preview of the setting or an attempt to whet your appetite for Bluffside. It’s just unfortunate that the entire adventure is written as if you already own and have taken in every aspect of the setting. Again, until Bluffside: City on the Edge actually comes out, it’s hard to say how good this adventure really is, but at least it’s a free Castles & Crusades adventure, right? A positive is a positive and you can’t go wrong with free C&C.
Right Under Our Noses is designed for a party of fourth level characters, but as there is very little combat to be had, lower level characters could pull a victory off without much of a problem. Most of the adventure is solved by diplomacy or some other form of mouth movement. The emphasis here is on role-playing over dice rolling. Don’t worry hack and slash fans: combat is still in the adventure. The problem is that nearly all of the monsters in the book are specific to the Bluffside campaign setting, so neither players nor GMs will know what the heck a Chiroptera or Balden looks, acts or fights like. You’re flying blind big time here, although once the campaign setting is released the adventure will make a lot more sense. Until then though, a smart GM will just switch out creatures with something more generic that makes sense in the context of the adventure. Perhaps Goblins or the like for the Chiroptera.
Right Under Our Noses is an odd but intriguing little adventure about politics, ecological polluting and the dangers of sanitation and sewers in a low tech, high fantasy world. The characters are called in (how exactly is up to the person running the adventure, as the text gives a few possible hooks) to find the source of a hideous smell emanating from the sewers that causes people to get sick and possibly die. Whether they are doing it for money, glory, or because it is the right thing to do depends on the party makeup. From there, the adventure is basically a showcase of what makes Bluffside unique. You’ll encounter races and situations specific to this setting that might not work anywhere else (ala, say, Planescape or Ravenloft). Characters will be crawling around in sewers, trying to parlay with steam gnomes (a new race for the setting; not sure if they can be player characters or not) and doing battle with creature hitherto unseen. Again, a lot of the adventure, from blackened lanterns to all the creatures in the adventure, require the Bluffside: City on the Edge campaign setting, so you’ll have to really tweak things to make this work without it. It’s nice to have a free adventure, but it would be nicer if all it requires were the core rulebooks and not another $20+ investment.
In the end the party may be uniting two sides (the steam gnomes and the Chiroptera) against a common enemy. The final threat is a bit underwhelming and easy if you’re more concerned about the combat side of things, but as I’ve stated earlier, this adventure is far more about talking and diplomacy that sticking sharp things through soft things that scream and bleed. There are many different ways for the adventure to end and several plot hooks to continue the storyline within Bluffside are given as well, in case the group of players are interested in sticking with this campaign setting. The last few pages of the adventure are appendixes for the DM, including stats for NPCs, a new location for Bluffside, stats for two beetle monsters and two new magic items.
All in all, this adventure is an odd one. Obviously, as it is free, it’s worth picking up, but it’s strange that Troll Lord Games would release this before the Bluffside setting comes out, especially as it can really only be played in conjunction with it. I can understand wanting to release a preview of some sort to get people excited, but in this case, it would have made more sense to release Bluffside first or at the same time as Right Under Our Noses. As of right now, people will just basically be sitting on this to see if Bluffside is a setting they actually want to use. Still, free is free and the adventure is well written (although the writer and editors alike should have said, “Hey, if this is coming out first, we should probably be a little more explanatory…”) which means anyone can and should download this. It’s a nice look at how well laid out Castles & Crusades adventures are, and it gives you an idea of what playing the system would be like.
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