James Higgins / September 26, 2022

 

In the summer of 1970, the launch of the humor magazine National Lampoon was not going well. In his memoir of his time as publisher of the Lampoon, Matty Simmons observed that the first six months of the magazine’s existence were troubled ones: “By the fifth issue, the magazine was floundering. It was funny but haphazard. Circulation, after a first issue [i.e., March 1970] sale of 225,000, was now lingering around the 175,000 mark. Advertising was minimal. But some interesting things were happening.” (To put these numbers in perspective, Esquire‘s monthly circulation rate in summer 1970 was nearly 1.2 million.)

Those interesting things included increasing orders from college bookstores, a signal that the magazine was gaining popularity with young people. Dissatisfied with what he felt was artwork that failed to make the magazine stand out on newsstands, Simmons took charge of the cover for the September 1970 issue, commissioning Sagebrush Studios to create a garish red-and-yellow color scheme that promised (among other things) “Raquel Welch Undressed.” The cover showcased Minnie Mouse in disarray: “Minnie flashed tiny little titties covered somewhat discreetly by flowery pasties.” 

Two days after the September issue went on sale, Walt Disney sued the Lampoon for $8 million (eventually dropping the suit in exchange for a promise by the magazine to never again misappropriate Disney characters). But the September issue was a turning point, as circulation thereafter began to rise. A standout feature was “College Concert Cut-Ups,” a parody of Archie Comics created by Michel Choquette, a Canadian from Montreal who ultimately would spend three years at the magazine and contribute some of its most celebrated comic book parodies.

32-years-old in 1970, Choquette was knowledgeable about the rock ‘n’ roll music scene, including one of the most idiosyncratic bands then performing, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. In 1970, the group released two albums, Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh. Both relied on freeform, avant-garde-flavored compositions that were the antithesis of the songs then appearing on the Top 40 singles charts. Along with poking fun at the idea of wholesome, Midwestern college kids being subjected to Zappa’s anything-goes approach to music (and life), “College Concert” found humor in the vagaries of life on the road for a rock band, a theme that Zappa was to cover in-depth in his 1971 movie 200 Motels.

The lead artist for “College Concert” was Joe Orlando, a veteran of the comic book industry who, in 1985, would be made the Vice President of DC Comics. Assisting with the art was Henry Scarpelli, who in fact went on to work for Archie Comic Publications, and Peter Bramley, the Lampoon’s Art Director.

Alas, there is no record of what Zappa thought of “College Concert,” but he must have liked it to some degree, as he contributed to Choquette’s comic book history of the 1960s, the Someday Funnies (which, unfortunately, didn’t see print until 2011).

James Higgins grew up in upstate New York and, like many baby boomers, thrived on a steady diet of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror content in movies, TV, and print media. Now retired, he devotes his days to excavating and examining pop culture artifacts from the Cold War era, both to generate nostalgia among his peers and to ensure that newer generations of young minds are themselves irreparably warped.

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: ContactPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Cameron Tressler

Setting: Modern Day TexasProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Nine page, 1.42 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Modern Myth & Mythos collidePlot Hook: Missing persons case reveals a terrible truth behind a belief.
Plot Support: Three NPCs and a Mythos monsterProduction Values: Plain.
Pros# Straightforward, modern day investigation. # Easy to adapt to other locations# Potential modern day campaign starter# Suitable for convention play# Has the feel of a television series episode# Dramatic finale# Potential X-Files-style (Delta Green) investigation
Cons# Underwhelming scenario hook# Has the feel of a television series episode# Familiar plot for experienced Investigators/players# Needs a slight edit
Conclusion# Straightforward, modern day investigation which will be too obvious for experienced Investigators and their players.# Solid, introductory X-Files-style one-shot which would work as a convention scenario or even a campaign starter.

A couple of nights ago I reviewed a Worm Witch. Tonight, why not a swine witch?

This preview for the Runewild Setting is worth the time to download.

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Runewild Preview 1: Missus Switch, Swine Witch

PDF. 8 pages. Color cover and interior art. Price: Free.

This small 8-page book (1 cover, 1 ad, 1 page of OGL) introduces us to the Ruenwild setting I reviewed last year. 

We are given a little bit of background on the Runewild (coming soon to Kickstarter!) and the witches of the Runewild. 

We are also introduced to the titular Missus Switch, something known as a "Swine Hag" (yes there are stats) and a small background "Adventure," actually an adventure location. Runewild is a hex crawl-friendly setting for 5e.

For free we get a good introduction to the Runewild and Missus Switch. 

It would play well with the Worm Witch and Wickerpunk books.

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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Pokémon is one of those huge intellectual properties and franchises that has never had a roleplaying game. Arguably it is too big to have something as small as a roleplaying game and arguably a roleplaying game is too small a vehicle to really push the brand or really expand its reach. Yet, whilst Pokémon has never had a roleplaying devoted to its world of Pokémon Trainers catching and training Pokémon to battle other Pokémon for sport, it has had a storytelling game designed to be played by children aged between six and eight and run by their parents. Published in 1999, the Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game was designed by Wizards of the Coast with the publisher planning to release twelve titles in the series. Unfortunately, despite it be a big seller for the publisher, only the first entry in the series, Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency was released.
Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency is designed to be played by a Parent and one to six players aged between six and eight. It employs simple, easy-to-understand mechanics, makes every player a Pokémon Trainer and gives them a checklist of Pokémon to capture and train, and has them participate in a lengthy story which will take them from Professor Oak’s laboratory to choose their first Pokémon to going out into the wild to find more to facing Team Rocket and a whole lot more. Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency comes in a tiny box which contains twenty-six Pokémon ‘Power Cards’, six ‘Pokémon Trainer Checklists’, two ‘Pokécoins’, 48 ‘Hit Tokens’, a sixty-page ‘Rule & Story Book’, and a single six-sided die. 
For the players or Trainers, the twenty-six Pokémon ‘Power Cards’ are the heart of the game. Bar a double or two, each one represents a different Pokémon and designed to be look like a data entry on a Pokédex. Each is double-sided. On each side there is a picture of the relevant Pokémon, an ability and how much damage it does to another Pokémon, its Hit Points, an extra effect when the ‘Pokécoin’ is successfully flipped (though not all Pokémon have this), and a little information. For example, Pikachu is depicted on his happy side as having nine Hit Points, a Thunder Wave attack that hits on a roll of five and six, inflicts more damage if the Pokécoin’ is successfully flipped, and a note from Professor Oak telling the owner that Pikachu does not being inside Poké Balls. On his unhappy side, his Growl Roll attack hits on a three, four, five, or six, and inflicts a point of damage, allows an extra attack if the Pokécoin’ is successfully flipped, and Professor Oak telling the owner that Pikachu can be moody and shy. 
For the Parent, as the Narrator, there is the sixty-page ‘Rule & Story Book’. This is not as intimidating as it sounds as the rules run a few pages and the bulk of the book is devoted to some sixteen stories or episodes which would enable the Narrator to run a mini-campaign. The ‘Rule & Story Book’ even opens with with ‘A Note to Parents’ explaining what the game is, and that is a game in which they and their children tell a story together, the children exercising their imagination and their minds, with the game emphasising reading, mathematics, and creativity. It advises the parent to encourage questions and interaction, to praise everyone’s efforts because there are no wrong answers in the game, and above all to ensure that they all have fun. Its last point is that the parent should have fun too, especially as it is time with their children and to use voices and to get into character. So it is pitched very much as a collaborative storytelling game in which everyone has fun, but not as a roleplaying game. In fact, roleplaying is never mentioned in Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency, and so the spectre of Dungeons & Dragons is avoided…
Play starts with each Trainer selecting their Pokémon from the basic six— one Charmander, one Squirtle, and two each of Bulbasaur and Pikachu. Each child ticks the box for their Pokémon on their ‘Pokémon Trainer Checklists’. The Narrator selects a story from the ‘Rule & Story Book’ and play begins. There are sections for the Narrator to read aloud and sections with staging advice, both of which are clearly marked, with prompts in the narration where the Narrator asks the Trainers what they want to do or say. For example, in ‘Episode 2: Gotta Catch ’Em!’, the Trainers go outside to the edge of Pallet Town to catch their first Pokémon in the wild. When they have done so, the Trainers are attacked by a Spearow flock and must work together to defeat it. Afterwards, Police Officer Jenny arrives on her motorcycle and thanks the Trainers for helping her out. At that point, the Narrator says to the Trainers, “What do you say to her?” It is designed to be simple and direct and to encourage a response.
Although play starts with the Narrator and her narration, from there it proceeds around the table, starting with the player on the Narrator’s left. This avoids any one player dominating the story and gives everyone their turn, and in addition, using the prompts, allows the players to build the world around their Trainers. Primarily, this will be drawn from their having watched the Pokémon cartoon series, but it also allows space for the players to go beyond this and bring their imagination into play.
The rules of Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency focus on Pokémon duels as you would expect. Each Trainer selects his Pokémon and chooses which side of the card he will use—this can be switched at the beginning of the round. Pokémon duels are simultaneous, both Trainers or the Narrator and the Trainer rolling to successfully activate and hit the other Pokémon with their Pokémon’s ability, inflicting hits and reducing their opponent’s Hit Points in the process. Some Pokémon have an extra ability when the ‘Pokécoin’ is successfully flipped, such an extra attack, inflicting more hits, healing Hit Points, or even doing damage to the attacking Pokémon. When a Pokémon’s Hit Points are reduced to zero, it faints rather than dies, and if a Pokémon Hit Points get too low and the Trainer has other Pokémon in his Pokédex, he can bring one of them into play instead.
The ‘Rule & Story Book’ is sixty pages long, but it is a small rulebook and the rules—such as they are—take up less than a quarter of the book. The rules for sixty-page Pokémon duels are clearly explained and are supported by a good example of how they work. The remainder of the ‘Rule & Story Book’ consists of stories, ranging length from one to four pages. Depending upon the number of players the playing time for can be as short as five minutes or as long as thirty. Essentially, none of these should challenge the attention span of the players too much and the chance to explore the world of Pokémon and capture more Pokémon to add to their collection should keep them interested (this essentially also being the equivalent of Experience Points in the game).
Physically, Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency is bright and cheerful. The various Pokémon ‘Power Cards’ are nice and sturdy, as are the game’s various counters. The rulebook uses lots of illustrations from the cartoon and is well written, its language direct and simple for the then-Parent with no previous experience with the storytelling type of game to grasp the rules, understand how the game is played, and run it for her children and their friends. Then in a few years, an older child could easily read through the rules and run Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency for his friends. An obvious issue with Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency is that there are only twenty-six Pokémon ‘Power Cards’. Enough to play through the stories in the ‘Rule & Story Book’, but not beyond. Had there been more entries in the Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game series, then that would have solved that issue, but it was not to be.
Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency is a bright, cheerful, and simple game. It uses the basic elements of the Pokémon cartoon to draw the players into the world and get them imagining themselves doing all of the things that they see Ash and his friends doing on screen. It obviously then uses these to inspire both the Parent and the children interact and work together to tell a story and develop a world as they play the game. In the process, it gets everyone roleplaying very quietly and without even mentioning the word. Two decades on in 2020s, there are more than a few roleplaying games designed to introduce younger players to the concept, but what got there first was Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency—and with little in the way of fanfare. It might have very different had the Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game series not been cancelled. It might have been a case of Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency having been many players’ first adventure game, first storytelling game, and first roleplaying game.

Time to move to 5e for something a little more flavorful.  One of my favorite themes is the struggle of paganism vs the rise of monotheism.  The dark twisted child of this struggle is Folk Horror. This new book looks like covers a little bit of all the above.

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Wickerpunk

PDF. 276 pages. Color cover. Black & White (as appropriate) interior art.

First things first. I love this name. I am kicking myself for not coming up with it first.

We get an introduction that, "Wickerpunk is where heroic fantasy and folk horror meet."  Interesting premise.

Chapter 1: What is Wickerpunk

Here we learn how a "Wickerpunk" game differs from your normal heroic fantasy.  It is not grim-dark, but it is dark. Nature is more dangerous, strange pagan gods still roam the land, and the locals still practice forgotten rites and ceremonies. 

The author also lets us know that "wickerpunk" could be called "wyrdpunk" due to horror elements added to the game. This is not quite a gothic horror, but we can see that genre from here. The author is careful to let us know this is not horror and that horror-fiction and wickerpunk are cousins, not siblings. But kissing cousins to be sure.

Like my fascination with Pagans vs. Monotheists, this book covers the Wyld vs. Industry. The extension of this is Arcane vs. Divine magic. Where one is wrong and the other is a gift. My "old-faith vs. new-faith" is even covered later on.

There is a lot here, more than I will detail in this review, but suffice to say there is a lot of great ideas here on setting up your games. 

Just under 25 pages I am now wanting to rip out the roots of my "War of the Witch Queens" campaign to add more of these ideas. 

Chapter 2: Campaign Elements

This chapter details how a wickerpunk campaign affects your rules.  up first is alignment. Law and Chaos are replaced by Industry and Wyld. Good and evil are replaced by Benevolence and Malice.  Again...I want to use this instead of what I am using now.

Planes of existence have little use here since all that matters is the struggle of Industry and Wyld in the world of humans. 

This chapter also covers various time periods from Stone Age to Victorian. And adventures from Mysteries, Treasure Seeking, and exploration among the eight presented.

There are some encounter tables which include types, places and motivations. 

Chapter 3: Players and Characters

This chapter covers the 5e base classes and how they are altered in a wickerpunk game; both in terms of Wyld and Industry.  These changes are not really mechanical, but rather thematic. They also include player hooks, example adventures, enemy hooks and NPC hooks. Throughout the book, inspirational reading or viewing is presented in a sidebar.

The same is done for the main PC species. 

Chapter 4: Monsters

This chapter takes the types of monsters and discusses how they can be used in a wickerpunk game. There are more details on fey, fiends and undead as expected, but nearly every type of monster is considered. It is very flavorful. There is not much or anything in the way of "crunch" or game mechanics, but honestly, it is not needed here since the material is so good. It reminds me a bit of the old Ravenloft materials.

Chapter 5: Enemy Organisations

What is "The Wicker Man" without Lord Summerisle and his cult? Or "Children of the Corn" without the children? Not much really. This chapter covers the various organizations, or Cults and Cult Hunters.  The PCs find themselves between the Wyld Cults (and Gods) and the Industry Inquisition. 

Yes, this chapter also includes ideas for witches (even though 5e does not have a real witch class). 

Chapter 6: Magic and Technology

The tools of the Wyld and Industry.  There are some new ideas for magic items and spells, but only one spell is presented, "The Evil Eye."

Chapter 7: Sample Campaigns

There is a sample campaign here, the Island of Eye. Which looks a lot like England. Detailed here are what the humans and the older inhabitants of the land are doing.  Plenty of locations and adventure hooks are detailed here. As well as plenty of interesting NPCs 

Chapter 8: Appendix N

A nod to the famous Appendix N in the 1st Ed AD&D DMG. This covers various campaign periods. Each section includes movies, novels, television, comics, and video games. With commentary. 

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There is very, very little game-specific information here. If you are looking for mechanics or "crunch" then you are likely to be disappointed.  But if you are looking for something more thematic or "fluff" then this is fantastic.

This is also this book's greatest unadvertised strength. It can be used with any version of D&D you like. While reading I kept thinking about how can I use this with say Old-School Essentials or even B/X D&D and the answer is "Easy."   In fact one of the few actual bits of game material, the Evil Eye spell, is something I did years ago in my first witch book.  But even then the conversion is super simple. 

There are a lot of things I can use here for my War of the Witch Queens campaign, but I would also suspect that any D&D 5e DM could use these ideas for their Ravenloft or the Wild Beyond the Witchlight campaigns.

In any case, there is so much here to love.

Head back to not only just the OSR but to Old-School Essentials. This one is from Knight Owl Publishing who has been putting out some really great stuff lately.

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Worm Witch: The Life and Death of Belinda Blood

PDF. 73 pages. Color cover, black & white interior art.

This book is a sequel and elaboration on The Chaos Gods Come to Meatlandia. I don't know much about that other product save that it seems to be a wild "anything goes" sort of setting.  This has a similar feel. 

This product includes both the Worm Witch and Worm Warden, classes.  Witches and Wardens are classes I have also explored in my various book so I am quite excited to see these.

The Worm Warden is like a paladin, ranger, or guardian for the witch cult. They are fighter types. Their primes are Strength and Charisma. 

The Worm Witch is a witch class and it shares many similarities with other witch classes. This is largely due to books we all read and the various means we all use to make classes.  Personally, I find this great. The Worm Witch could fit in well with all the witches I have played and still have enough unique features to make her special. What makes her special of course is her connection to worms. Even the worm witch's special abilities could be mapped on to my Occult Powers.

Both the Warden and the Witch share a secret language. 

The Worm Witch also gains witch spells. And there are some great ones here.  There is the expected ones like Animal Friendship and Charm Animal, and some really interesting ones like Infect with Worms, Mass of Maggots, Wave of Worms, and more.  Yeah, they do pretty much what you expect.

This is all about one-third of the book. And this was all then I would be really happy. I am glad someone wrote this book. This is a needed sort of witch that I would not likely write. Ok. I would have never done this one. Worms are great for my wife's garden, and that is about all the use I have for them.  So kudos to Wind Lothamer and Ahimsa Kerp for doing this.

We still have the rest of the book. 

The next section covers the land of Annalida, a land near Meatlandia. This is another third of the book and it is interesting, but I have no context for it. Still, the Witch Wood is very cool. 

The last third (or so) covers the monsters of the land, which as you can imagine, is full of worms. 

The NPC witch, Belinda Blood, is also presented. She was a very powerful Worm Witch and could fit the bill as a Witch Queen for my War of the Witch Queen Campaign.  It is also all written for Old School Essentials so that is another good fit. Alive or dead she would be a great Witch Queen.

As I mentioned this book is written for OSE and fits well.

So I bought this hoping for a class and a few new spells. I got that. I also got another class, a campaign setting, some monsters, AND a new Witch Queen to add to my Old-School Essentials campaign. 

That's pretty nice if you ask me.

Imagine if a giant monster, a Kaiju, attacked the city where you lived? Stormed ashore and began stomping across one neighbourhood to the next, one district to the next? Crushing cars underfoot, smashing buildings, driving thousands upon thousands out of the city to flee to safety? Do you have friends and family in the city, and can you ensure their safety, let alone your own? As you move back and forth across the city, you will see the Kaiju again and again, and perhaps discern its weakness. Armed with that knowledge there are those who bring it to bear—the military, whose forces can drive the Kaiju from the city and back into the sea! It sounds like a film starring Godzilla, or Gojira, but is in fact the set-up and play for Caltrop Kaiju: A Monstrously fun and fast-paced TTRPG published by Button Kin Games. This is a small game which can be played in two ways, both of which are in solo mode. The first is as a mini-board game, whilst the second is as a solo roleplaying game in which the player keeps a diary of both his character’s actions and those of the Kaiju, much like other solo journaling game such as Thousand-Year-Old Vampire.
Caltrop Kaiju: A Monstrously fun and fast-paced TTRPG is designed to be played by one player aged ten and up. It requires a seven-by-seven grid to represent the city, marked with locations such as the nuclear power plant, city hall, and telecommunications tower, a two four-sided dice (the ‘Caltrop’ of the game’s title comes from the use of this die type), and a token to represent the player and a token to represent the Kaiju. The Kaiju comes ashore at the harbour and the game starts from there, whilst the player begins play in his mountain home. The player moves first, then the Kaiju. The player can only move one space, but the Kaiju moves three spaces in a randomly determined direction. As the Kaiju travels, it does damage to each square or each neighbourhood it passes through. If it passes through a neighbourhood three times, it is completely destroyed and becomes impassable for the player. The player can pass through partially destroyed locations, but whether due to the falling wreckage, flailing power lines, explosions, or collapsing buildings, there is a chance that he will be wounded. This means that the player rolls at a disadvantage on all die rolls. If the Kaiju does damage to the various locations, there are extra effects. For example, destroy the nuclear power plant and all of the surrounding squares are also destroyed!
In the short term, the aim of Caltrop Kaiju is for the player to trail the Kaiju and gain sightings of the gargantuan beast—hopefully whilst avoiding being stomped on and so wounded. If the Kaiju passes through the same square as the player, there is the chance that it will wound or even kill him in a dramatic fashion. However, from the same square as the Kaiju or an adjacent square—where there is no chance of the player being stomped—the player can attempt to gain a sighting of the leviathan. With each sighting, there is a chance that the player will learn the Kaiju’s weakness (if unsuccessful, the player automatically learns this weakness on the fifth attempt). Armed with that knowledge, the player can search for the secret military base, which necessitates a die roll, and if successful, pass on the knowledge to the military whose forces will attack the Kaiju and force back into the sea. However, the Kaiju now has the player’s scent and will be actively hunting him. Although the Kaiju is slowed as it hunts, the game becomes a race to find the base and pass the knowledge of the monster’s weakness before the player is stomped on or zapped or burned to a crisp. If that happens, the player, of course, loses the game.
Caltrop Kaiju is a simple mix of puzzle and programmed movement with the player playing against the game and the Kaiju. It can be enhanced and become something else if the player records a journal of his travails across the city in the wake of the massive monster, what he sees, and what he discovers about the Kaiju. To set this, Caltrop Kaiju suggests the player answer a few questions, such as who his character is, how he is the best person to determine the Kaiju’s weakness, what family he has in the city, and more. The player is also free to determine what sort of Kaiju the attacking beast is and what its weakness is. In this mode, the player records a journal of his character’s success or a journal of his character’s failure that will be found on his dead body in the rubble of the city long after the Kaiju has wandered back into the sea…
In comparison to other journaling games, Caltrop Kaiju is lacking in terms of tables and thus prompts. Other journaling games have numerous tables that the player can roll on or draw cards for, and use the indicated prompt to drive the narrative being recorded in the journal. Caltrop Kaiju lacks these. There are no tables for the type of Kaiju, its powers, or its weakness, or who and where the character’s loved ones are. There is a table for describing otherwise empty neighbourhoods, which though useful, seems an odd inclusion given the lack of other tables. With that lack of other tables, there is not perhaps the replayability of other journaling games because there is not the obvious variability.
Physically, Caltrop Kaiju is cleanly and tidily presented. Despite being a British game, it is written in American English which might be confusing for a younger audience. 
Caltrop Kaiju: A Monstrously fun and fast-paced TTRPG is a small game about a big event and facing a big behemoth. On one level, it is a simple puzzle, but on the other, it has the scope to tell a classic tale of man versus a colossal Kaiju tale in a modern city, done as an exercise in creative writing. However, if the player wants to return to the city and once again, face the Caltrop Kaiju, he may well want to create some random tables of his own to add a wider degree of variability.

The very latest entry in the Ticket to Ride franchise is Ticket to Ride: San Francisco. Like those other Ticket to Ride games, it is another card-drawing, route-claiming board game based around transport links and like those other Ticket to Ride games, it uses the same mechanics. Thus the players will draw Transportation cards and then use them to claim Routes and by claiming Routes, link the two locations marked on Destination Tickets, the aim being to gain as many points as possible by claiming Routes and completing Destination Tickets, whilst avoiding losing by failing to complete Destination Tickets. Yet rather than being another big box game like the original Ticket to Ride, Ticket to Ride: Europe, or Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries, it takes its cue from Ticket to Ride: New York, Ticket to Ride: London, and Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam. Part of the cities series for Ticket to Ride, it is thus a smaller game designed for fewer players with a shorter playing time, a game based around a city rather than a country or a continent. It is also notably different in terms of theme and period.

Published by Days of Wonder and designed for play by two to four players, aged eight and up, Ticket to Ride: San Francisco is easy to learn, can be played out of the box in five minutes, and played through in less than twenty minutes. As with the other entries in the Ticket to Ride ‘City’ series, Ticket to Ride: San Francisco sees the players race across the city attempting to connect its various tourist hotspots. Ticket to Ride: New York had the players racing across Manhattan in the nineteen fifties via taxis and Ticket to Ride: London had the players racing across London in the nineteen sixties aboard the classic double-decker buses, although Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam took the series back to the seventeenth century and had the players fulfilling Contracts by delivering goods across the Dutch port by horse and cart and claiming Merchandise Bonus if they take the right route. Ticket to Ride: San Francisco continues the lack of trains in the series by having the players travel around ‘The City by the Bay’ aboard its icon form of transportation—the cable car! In Ticket to Ride: San Francisco, the players can take the ferry from Pier 39 to Alcatraz, travel to the Golden Gate Bridge, and stop off at Sunset or Potrero Hill, and if they do, collect some souvenirs too!

Inside the small box can be found a small board which depicts the centre of San Francisco, from the Golden Gate Bridge in the northwest to Potrero Hill in the southeast and Sunset in the southwest to Alcatraz in the northeast. Notably, several of the destinations are marked in red, including Alcatraz, Golden Gate Bridge, Potrero Hill, Sunset, and The Embarcadero. This is where the Tourist Tokens—representing the souvenirs collected by the players when they connect to those destinations—are placed at the start of play. There are also the expected Cable Car pieces (as opposed to the trains of standard Ticket to Ride), the Transportation cards drawn and used to claim routes between destinations, and the Destination Tickets indicating which two Destinations need to be connected to be completed. The Cable Car pieces are nicely sculpted and can actually be seen through from one side to the other. Each player has twenty of these at the start of the game. The Transportation cards come in the standard colours for Ticket to Ride, but are illustrated with a different form of transport for each colour. So black is illustrated with a bus, blue with a tram, green with a car not unlike the Ford Mustang as driven by Steve McQueen in the film Bullitt (which of course is set in the city), purple with a Volkswagen Camper, and so on. This really makes the cards stand out and easier to view for anyone who suffers from colour blindness. Similarly, the Destination Tickets are bright, colourful, and easy to read. As expected, the rules leaflet is clearly written, easy to understand, and the opening pages show how to set up the game. It can be read through in mere minutes and play started all but immediately.

The board itself is also bright and colourful. The scoring track round the edge of the board is done as a series of cable car tickets in keeping with the form of transport used in Ticket to Ride: San Francisco. Most routes are one, two, or three spaces in length, and there is one five-space route. One difference with the previous titles in the series is that it includes ferries, the slightly more complex routes first seen in Ticket to Ride: Europe, though only three of them, two of which go to Alcatraz. There is a very knowing joke on the board. 

Play in Ticket to Ride: San Francisco is the same as standard Ticket to Ride. Each player starts the game with some Destination Tickets and some Transportation cards. On his turn, a player can take one of three actions. Either draw two Transportation cards; draw two Destination Tickets and either keep one or two, but must keep one; or claim a route between two connected Locations. To claim a route, a player must expend a number of cards equal to its length, either matching the colour of the route or a mix of matching colour cards and the multi-coloured cards, which essentially act as wild cards. Some routes are marked in grey and so can use any set of colours or multi-coloured cards. Three routes are ferry routes and require a Ferry or multicolour Transportation card and the indicated number of Transportation cards in the right colour to claim. 

When a player claims a route connected with one of the cities with the Tourist Tokens on it, he takes one Tourist Token. At the end of the game, each player will be awarded a number of points depending on how many Tourist Tokens he has collected. This is reminiscent of, is the Stock Share cards of the Pennsylvania map from Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 5: United Kingdom + Pennsylvania. In that expansion, every time a player claimed a route, he could in most cases, also claim a Stock Share card in a particular company. At the end of the game, a player would score bonus points depending upon the number of Stock Share cards he held in the various companies in the expansion. In that expansion though, all routes had a Stock Share reward, but in Ticket to Ride: San Francisco, they can only be gained from five Destinations on the outer edge of the map and two other locations. These other locations can be anywhere on the map and are chosen by the two players who go last in the turn order.

The number of Tourist Tokens each player has at the end of the game can tip the balance and potentially help a player win the game. However, their limited location limits access to them, as can the Destination Tickets each player draws and completes over the course of the game. Only half of the Destination Tickets in the game have Destinations with Tourist Tokens. This means that a player should take this into account when drawing and discarding Destination Tickets as it will alter his score at the end of the game. This can be offset by the placement of the Tourist Tokens by the last two players in the turn order during the set-up of the game, which adds an element of randomness. Connecting to Destinations with Tourist Tokens can counter one issue with Ticket to Ride: San Francisco and that is it is possible to draw Destination Tickets it is impossible to complete because a player can only draw two and must keep one. So a possible strategy might be to complete a fewer number of Destination Tickets and try to get more Tourist Tokens instead.

Physically, Ticket to Ride: San Francisco is very nicely produced. It is bright and breezy and has a very sunny disposition. Everything is produced to the high standard you would expect for a Ticket to Ride game.

Like Ticket to Ride: New York, Ticket to Ride: London, and Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam, what Ticket to Ride: San Francisco offers is all of the play of Ticket to Ride in a smaller, faster playing version, that is easy to learn and easy to transport. In comparison to those games, it is tighter with players needing to more carefully balance the number of Destination Tickets they attempt to complete versus the number of Tourist Tokens they can grab. Ticket to Ride: San Francisco is a great addition to the Ticket to Ride family, offering fast, competitive play, and tactical choice in an attractive, thematic box.

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: A Small Tremor in the MountainsPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Laurie Hedge

Setting: Modern Day IcelandProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-two page, 1.18 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: What scares the scary down below?Plot Hook: Earthquake opens a new cave network. What thrills and treasures does it hide?
Plot Support: Staging advice, cave plans, three NPCs, two Mythos monsters, some vermin, and a Chase diagram. Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Linear, physically-orientated one-shot# Claustrophobia# Speluncaphobia# Good use of the Chase mechanics# Dramatic finale# Finally, an Investigator gets to use the Climb and Jump skills!
Cons# Primary NPC actions poorly handled# Needs a slight edit and localisation# Little scope for Adventurer/Mythos interaction or finding out what is going on in the scenario# Main Mythos threat not really a threat, not even to the Minor Mythos threat—until dislodged.# Finale kicks in with little time for interaction
Conclusion# One-shot with strong physical element puts the adventurers on the path to confrontation with—and desperate escape from—the Mythos, ending in a good use the Chase mechanic.
# Backstory remains hidden and the main Mythos threat is not a threat until dislodged.

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Radio Killed Verna StarrPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michael Schaal

Setting: Jazz Age PennsylvaniaProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Thirteen page, 2.83 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Radio control in rural PennsylvaniaPlot Hook: Strange deaths in small town Pennsylvania reveal the dangers of new technology
Plot Support: Staging advice, three handouts, six NPCs, one Mythos monster, and one Mythos entity. Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Weird first encounter # Works as a single Investigator scenario# Keeper can prepare period recordings as handouts and atmosphere# Switch to the 1950s for televisiophobia?# Radiophobia# Pun title# Finally, an Investigator gets to use the Electrical Repair skill!
Cons# Underwhelming hook for the Investigators# Needs a strong edit# First encounter should be the hook# NPCs with similar names# Pun title
Conclusion# Weird first encounter signals an entertaining period side-trek Call of Cthulhu investigation highlighting our fears of technology and the new.# Pun title does give the plot away, but solidly plotted, easy to run twist upon the zombie horror genre (and back again).

Cyberpunk is back. Or rather it returned in 2019. The original roleplaying game which drew from Cyberpunk literary subgenre—of which William Gibson’s Neuromancer was a leading example—was first published by R. Talsorian Games Inc. in 1988 as Cyberpunk (now known as Cyberpunk 2013) before being given a second edition with Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. in 1990. Putting aside the less than well-received Cyberpunk V3.0 of 2005, what is in effect the fourth edition of the roleplaying game—Cyberpunk RED: The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future—came out ahead of the highly anticipated computer roleplaying game, Cyberpunk 2077, but was not only designed as a standalone roleplaying game in its own right, being set in the year 2045, it also serves as a bridge between the period of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. and the computer game. Thus there is much that will be familiar to the Game Master and the player of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. There are the same ten character Roles, many of the MegaCorporations are still present, the same Interlock mechanics are used, as is the ‘Friday Night Firefight’ combat system. However, Cyberpunk RED has almost post-Post Apocalypse feel to it, taking place in and around a city which is recovering and suffering from environmental and radiation damage, the influence of the MegaCorporations has been reduced, and mechanically, the Interlock system has been streamlined for ease of play.
Cyberpunk Red: The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future takes place in the Time of the Red. The Golden Age of Cyberpunk, of freewheeling embrace of technology, acceptance of cyberware as a way of life, of easy access to the NET where Netrunning console cowboys and cowgirls jockeyed for prestige as raided corporate networks, of the massive growth of corporations as extraterritorial entities, all radically dividing the future into one of extreme haves and havenots... That ended on August 20th, 2023, when a ‘pocket nuke’ was detonated in the Arasaka headquarters in the west coast metroplex of Night City. It ended the Fourth Corporate War between Arasaka and Militech, devastated Night City, and brought economic and environmental devastation to the world, causing a depression which continues two decades on... It ended corporate domination, reducing corporations to being local and international; turned much of the USA into a new Wild West where safe travel could often only be promised by the Nomad tribes. For years after the nuclear detonation, the sky was red and still is at dawn dusk, leading the new age to be known as the Time of the Red.

Night City is a frontier town, an independent city state rebuilding after the effects of the bomb. Services, supplies, and law enforcement are what you pay for. The reduced corporations still supply and provide almost everything, from power to food to medical services to media, with goods often brought in by Nomad tribes that run transport in the new North America, independents do grow real food though, and whilst the corporations have their own security, freelancers and bodyguards are available for hire, though the city maintains a Maximum Force Tactical Division or ‘Psycho Squad’ or ‘MAX–TAC’ which handles cybernetic criminals or anyone suffering from Cyberpsychosis. As inhabitants of Night City, you get your information from city wide freestanding dataterms and news from screamsheets downloaded to a personal agent helps you with your daily life from phone calls to shopping; you wear clothing able to emit sounds and video, even monitor your condition; you do your shopping at self-contained, armed and armoured Vendits; you eat kibble or good prepack food if you can; and you go armed. Either a Polymer One-shot easily bought or printed, or something bigger purchased from a Fixer after it has been scavenged from the Fourth Corporate War or smuggled into the city and purchased at a secret Night Market. The same goes for Cyberware...

The world of Cyberpunk RED is violent, neon cast, and dominated by technology to the point where it has been subsumed into the body. Cyberware enables humanity to be faster, stronger, have better senses, and more. Some have reacted to this mechanical invasion of the body with technoshock, but other have embraced it, living on the edge, taking advantage of their enhancements to be able to rip doors off with their cyberarms, drive their car or aerodyne with inhuman reflexes via interface plugs, tune into the infrared with cybereyes, or even cast their consciousness into local NET architectures at the speed of data. All to survive, make money, and build their rep. They are known as Edgerunners.
In terms of what you can play, Cyberpunk RED offers ten Roles or Edgerunner types—Execs, Fixers, Lawmen, Medias, Medtechs, Netrunners, Nomads, Rockerboys, Solos, and Techs. Execs represent the MegaCorporations, protecting their interests and reputations; Fixers are dealmakers smugglers, organisers, and information brokers; Lawmen enforce what law they can on the streets and the highways; Medias are journalists, media stars, and influencers who bright stories to light and make names for themselves; MedTechs are street doctors, capable of patching up wounds and damage to flesh and metal alike; Netrunners are the cybernetic master hackers of the post-NET world and brain burning secret stealers; Nomads are transportation experts and the ultimate road warriors; Rockerboys are rock and roll rebels who use performance and rhetoric to fight authority; Solos are assassins bodyguards, killers, and soldiers for hire in a lawless new world; and Techs are renegade mechanics and inventors who build devices and keep others running.
An Edgerunner has ten stats—Body, Cool, Dexterity, Empathy, Intelligence, Luck, Move, Reflexes, Technique, and Willpower—typically ranging between one and eight, but can be higher. Of these, Empathy is important because it helps withstand the potential effects of Cyberpsychosis, and is primarily lost due to the implantation of cyberware. The Luck stat is used as a pool of points to apply to skill rolls if needed. It refreshes at the start of each session. In addition, an Edgerunner will have numerous skills, again rated on a one to ten scale, as well as various items of cyberware and equipment. Each Role has its own Role Ability, also on the same scale. The Exec builds on ‘Teamwork’, gaining all the corporate benefits of being employed—housing, health insurance, and more—as well as loyal team members to do his bidding, such as a bodyguard, driver, netrunner, or spy. The Fixer has ‘Operator’ which represents his contacts and reach as well as his skill at haggling. The Lawman has , indicating the number of law enforcement officers he can call into help. The Media has ‘Credibility’ and can get rumours, gain access and sources for stories, and build both an audience and his believability. The Medtech has ‘Medicine’ which enables him to perform surgery, operate medical technology, and use pharmaceuticals. The Netrunner has ‘Combat Awareness’ which enables him to run the Net and do various actions within the Net. The Nomad has ‘Moto’ which represents their familiarity with vehicles and the various types of vehicles he has access to in the family motorpool and can upgrade. The Rockerboys has ‘Charismatic Impact’ which determines the size of clubs he can play and his ability to affect his fans, from one to a single group. The Solo has ‘Combat Awareness’, which lets his player determine his combat effectiveness from round to round, such as Damage Deflection, Precision Attack, and Threat Detection. The Tech has ‘Maker’ which enables him to specialise in various types of expertise, such as Field Expertise, Upgrade Expertise, Fabrication Expertise, and Invention Expertise, and so repair, invent, and improve technology.
Not all of the Role Abilities are necessarily that easy to use or bring into play or even that interesting. The ‘Combat Awareness’ of the Solo will always be useful in a fight whereas the ‘Backup’ Ability of the Lawman has a limited use—after all, how many times can he call for backup? Most of the Role Abilities of the other Roles have specific uses, and whilst in general easy to use, those of Rockerboy and the Tech—especially the Tech—require closer reading to fully understand.
In terms of Edgerunner creation, a player is provided with three options—‘Streetrats’, ‘Edgerunners’, and ‘Complete Packages’. ‘Streetrats’ uses templates to create an Edgerunner; ‘Edgerunners’ starts with templates, but lets a player customise them; and ‘Complete Packages’ allows a player to create his Edgerunner using pools of points. Beginning with the player selecting his Edgerunner’s Role, ‘Streetrats’ is the simplest and fastest, with the other two increasing in both complexity and time to complete. Each one sets both the level of the game and its relative complexity. All three use a Lifepath set of tables to determine the Edgerunner’s cultural origins, personality, dress and personal style, motivations and relationships, background and more, all the way up to life goals. These can be customised as necessary, and a player can roll or select as is his wont. Each Role has its own subset of Lifepath tables. Altogether, they add to the detail and background of an Edgerunner without providing any mechanical benefit. The process is quite fun too.

Melina ElviraRole: TechRole Ability: Body 7 Cool 4 Dexterity 7 Empathy 6 (4) Intelligence 6Luck 5 Move 5 Reflexes 7 Technique 8 Willpower 4Hit Points: 50Humanity: 60 (48)Athletics 2 Basic Tech 6 Brawling 2 Concentration 2 Conversation 2 Cybertech 6 Education 6 Electronics/Security Tech (x2) 6 Evasion 6 First Aid 6 Human perception 2 Land Vehicle Tech 6 Language (Spanish) 6 Language (Streetslang) 2 Local Expert (Your Home) 2, Perception 2 Persuasion 2 Science (Chemistry) 1 Shoulder Arms 6 Stealth 2 Weaponstech 6

Equipment: Shotgun, Basic Shotgun Shell Ammunition ×100, Flashbang Grenade, Light Armorjack, Body Armor (SP11), Light Armorjack Head Armor (SP11)Agent, Anti-Smog Breathing Mask, Disposable Cell Phone, Duct Tape ×5, Flashlight, Road Flare ×6, Tech Bag, Generic Chic: Bottoms ×8, Tops ×10, Leisurewear: Footwear ×2Cyberware: Cybereye, MicroOptics, Skinwatch, Tool Hand

Cultural Origins: South/Central AmericanLanguage: SpanishPersonality: Moody, rash, and headstrongClothing Style: Bag Lady Chic (Homeless, Ragged, Vagrant)Hairstyle: MohawkAffectation You Are Never Without: TattoosWhat Do You Value Most?: HonestyHow Do You Feel About Most People?: Every person is a valuable individual.Things You Value the Most?: A public figureMost Valued Possession You Own?: A piece of clothingFamily Original Background: Nomad Pack (You had a mix of rugged trailers, vehicles, and huge road kombis for your home. You learned to drive and fight at an early age, but the family was always there to care for you. Food was actually fresh and abundant. Mostly home schooled.)Childhood Environment: In a decaying, once upscale neighbourhood, now holding off the boosters to survive.Family Crisis: Your family vanished. You are the only remaining member.Friend’s Relationship to You: Someone with a common interest or goal.Enemy: Person you work for. You just don't like each other. Connected to a powerful gang lord or small Corporation.Revenge Against the Enemy: Backstab them indirectly.Tragic Love Affair: Your lover is imprisoned or exiled.Life Goals: Hunt down those responsible for your miserable life and make them pay.Tech Type: WeaponsmithWorkspace: Everything is colour coded, but it’s still a nightmare.Workspace Partner: Possible romantic partner as wellMain Clients: Local Fixers who send you clients.Source of Supplies: Corporate Execs supply you with stuff in exchange for your services.Who’s Gunning For You?: Larger manufacturer trying to bring you down because your mods are a threat.
Mechanically, Cyberpunk RED is relatively straightforward. To have his Edgerunner undertake an action, a player rolls a ten-sided die and adds the Edgerunner’s Stat and Skill to beat a Difficulty Value. This Difficulty Value ranges from nine for Simple to twenty-nine for Legendary with thirteen for Everyday and fifteen for Difficult. A Critical Success is a roll of ten and another roll of a ten-sided die is added to the result of the first roll. A Critical Failure is a roll of one and another roll of ten-sided die, plus the Edgerunner’s Stat and Skill, is added to the result of the first roll. Combat or ‘Friday Night Firefight’ uses the same core mechanic, for example when shooting at an opponent, the player rolls a ten-sided die and adds the Edgerunner’s Reflexes and Weapon Skill to beat a Difficulty Value, that either can be the Range to Target or the Defender’s Dexterity plus Evasion Skill plus a roll of a ten-sided die (the latter because a Defender with a Reflexes of eight or more can attempt to dodge a ranged attack). Melee attacks take into account the various forms and special moves for various martial arts, whilst ranged attacks cover the use of crossbows and bows as well as autofire. ‘Friday Night Firefight’ stresses the use of cover and armour—including the use of a human shield if grappling—as it can be deadly. One or two rounds can be enough to kill an unarmoured target and if two or more of the dice rolled for damage are six, a critical hit is inflicted. A critical hit has nasty effects. The ‘Trauma Team’ rules, named for the subscription ambulance service, cover damage of all kinds, including Cyberpsychosis. ‘Friday Night Firefight’ also takes in vehicle combat, but it adds another form of combat too—Reputation. An Edgerunner builds this through his actions and the things he has done, and it can be good or bad. As well as being used to determine if an NPC has heard of the Edgerunner, it is used as a modifier when a facedown occurs and there is a battle, not so much of wills, but to see which person is more Cool.
One of the potentially more complex aspects of Cyberpunk and Cyberpunk RED is Netrunning. A signature aspect of both roleplaying game and genre, in the past this involved the Netrunner jacking into the vast datasphere of the NET, rendering him unconscious whilst his fellow Cyberpunks were actually on the mission. Mechanically, it was also complex and time-consuming, a sub-game within the roleplaying game, but for one player only and only taking up seconds of in-game time in comparison to real time. As a result of the Fourth Corporate War, by the Time of the Red in Cyberpunk RED, the NET has been shutdown and whilst the Netrunner still has to jack in, he does it on scene and wearing Virtual Goggles. Which means he is present with the other Edgerunners and he can switch back and forth between the real world or ‘meatspace’ and the virtual space of the local NET. Netrunning is modelled as riding in an elevator going up floor by floor, opening the doors at each floor where the Netrunner might face a Program, Black ICE, another Netrunner, File, Control Node, and so on. This NET Architecture can also branch.
Netrunning runs at the same scale as ‘Friday Night Firefight’. The Netrunner is limited to a Move Action in Meatspace and another Meatspace Action or a number of actions—between two and five—in the NET determined by his Interface Role Ability value. A Netrunner can use these actions to Cloak his presence in the local NET Architecture, use a Control Node to direct connected cameras, drones, turrets, laser grids, and so on, examine files with an Eye-Dee program, implant a Virus, attack or defend against another program, and more. The Netrunning rules include descriptions of various programs and Cyberdeck hardware, advice for the Game Master on building NET Architecture, and notes for the Edgerunner who wants to install his own NET Architecture as home security. The rules are focused, streamlined, and within a game, keeps the Netrunner on scene, as well as keeping him at the same time scale as combat. However, they do still feel that when doing a Netrun, the player and the Game Master are doing a mini-game, one that is comparatively more complex than the rest of the game. Fortunately, the rules are not as complex or as time consuming as those of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. or Cyberpunk 2013.
In terms of background, Cyberpunk RED provides details of numerous pieces of gear and equipment—weapons, cyberware, food, fashion, and more. There is flavour too in the inclusion of in-game adverts and three short stories. ‘Never Fade Away’, the first, is set in 2013 and retells the reasons behind the Rockerboy icon Johnny Silverhand’s hatred of the megacorporation, Arasaka, which will lead to the final confrontation in Night City which triggered the end of the Fourth Corporate War as detailed in the second story, ‘The Fall of the Towers’. The third short story, ‘Black Dog’ brings the history up to date with events in 2045.
There is a lengthy timeline, which runs from the nineteen nineties up to the twenty forties, and descriptions of what the world and Night City is like in the Time of the Red. This includes the major corporations of the period, a mix of the old and the new, and for Night City, the various districts, gangs, and influential persons. Quick overviews are provided of the nations beyond the borders of the USA, but these only set the scene rather than provide any actual detail. The default setting is still Night City though, and here it gets down into the personal, everyday life, explaining how a personal Agent works, the legalities of weapons and how to get them, travel, what you eat, your entertainment, where you shop, and a lot more. There is a lot of flavour and detail here, all of which can be used by the Game Master to bring the future of 2045 to life for her players and their Edgerunners.

For the Game Master, there is plenty of advice on running Cyberpunk RED. This includes genre advice such as using the urban environment, trust no one, set the mood, know the world, and so on—there is similar advice for the player at the front of the book—and campaign types, typically built around specific team types like a band or gangs or Trauma Team unit, and character and player types. It suggests using a ‘Beat Chart’ to script plots and stories and goes into the various types of beat that the Game Master can use. It has a pleasing modularity and comes with examples which the Game Master can use or adapt. Besides various NPCs and encounter charts, there are two Screamsheets, essentially newspaper headlines around which is presented a scenario. Both are quite short and should provide a session or two’s worth of play. The rules for Edgerunner improvement are placed here too, which feels a little odd. They are interesting though, Cyberpunk RED offering an optional ‘Playstyle-Based Improvement’ system which rewards players and their characters depending upon what they favour and whether their playstyle is that of a Warrior, Socialiser, Explorer, or Roleplayer. Determining this requires each player to take a small quiz after Edgerunner creation, which is why it feels so odd being placed almost at the end of the book.
Physically, Cyberpunk RED is an imposing volume, containing a lot of information. For the most part it is well written, with excellent artwork and cartography. There is some repetition between some of the tables and sections in the Edgerunner creation rules and the sections where equipment and cyberware is explained in more detail. This, though, is really designed to help speed up Edgerunner creation, and speeding this and other processes is clearly the layout designers’ intent. There are pointers to other sections of the book if a player wants to know more about particular aspects of the setting or rules (numbered pages for the print book, hypertext links in the PDF), flowcharts pull the player through the Edgerunner creation process. Despite the wealth of information contained in the book, there is every effort here made to ensure that it is accessible.
Yet, for all of the degree of detail and flavour, especially at the level of living and working the streets of Night City, where Cyberpunk RED does not quite succeed and feels as if it could have used more of, is in-game branding. A lot of the equipment, the weapons, the cyberware, and the Netrunning gear are generic, and although there are a few weapon names and the like, finding this is not easy and it definitely needed more to help enforce the verisimilitude of the Time of the Red. This though is a minor complaint and if the Game Master has access to supplements for Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. then she can cannibalise all of the branding and names from the Golden Age of the Cyberpunk and put them on sale at a Night City Night Market.
Cyberpunk RED: The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future is a streamlined and accessible update of the classic Cyberpunk roleplaying game. It brings the Time of the Red to life with a wealth of detail and engaging flavour and supports it with familiar mechanics and solid advice—for both the player and the Game Master.

Three decades after the release of the last supplement for MegaTraveller in 1992, a lost book comes to print, and it is fitting that it should come from Digest Group Publications. Published in 1987, it was in effect the second edition of Traveller, updating Games Designers Workshop’s classic Science Fiction roleplaying game with both a streamlined cohesive set of mechanics and an updated background. This updated background would begin with the assassination of Emperor Strephon and over the course numerous supplements see open rebellion and civil war break out across the Third Imperium, which would ultimately lead to a long decline in terms of trade and technology known as the Hard Times. Worse was to follow. Digest Group Publications designed MegaTraveller, but Games Designers Workshop published it, a relationship which would continue for five years. When Digest Group Publications closed its doors in 1993, it left behind it a legacy of some highly regarded and subsequently, much in demand, supplements and sourcebooks that have not since been reprinted. It also left behind a number of books which never print and are so regarded as having been lost. Notable amongst them would have been Digest Group Publications own roleplaying game, A.I. However, there were supplements for MegaTraveller too, and Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1 is one of these. 
Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1 was originally projected for publication in 1990, but is now available for the first time, more than three decades on, thanks to some digital archaeology which was able to rescue the original files. It is an adventure module set in the years 1119 and 1120 prior to the Hard Times which concerns the adventures of the crew of the Robin Ascendant, a Type J Class Seeker. The crew is seeking the location of the Victory Belt, a legendary asteroid belt said to contain enough Onnesium-118—a highly efficient metaconductor—to give a man enough wealth to last not one lifetime, but several. This quest will begin on Trin, the capital of Trin’s Veil Subsector in the Spinward Marches and take them trailing through the Corridor Sector and into the Restored Ziru Sirka. Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1 consists of two adventures—‘Cometfall’ and ‘Fharnas’—which take place at the beginning and end of the journey outlined in the supplement. In between there is plenty of scope and distance (over one hundred parsecs) for the Game Master to insert her own adventures and encounters and the supplement includes several detailed ideas for ‘transitional’ adventures which can be worked into the journey.
In ‘Cometfall’, the crew of the Robin Ascendant track down an elderly Vargr scientist who is conducting research into comets from a highly advanced base built into the rock of a comet! The crew hopes that the scientist knows of the location of the Victory Belt, and although he is welcoming, he seems to be prevaricating when it comes to actually telling the crewmembers what they want to know. Eventually, he will tell them what he does know, but not before they join him on an exploration of the comet’s surface—an incredibly dangerous environment, the base being attacked by pirates, and their managing a desperate escape. This information consists primarily of a destination, a Scout Service base on the world of Fharnas in the Kasear Subsector of the Vland Sector, the location for the second scenario, ‘Fharnas’. Here on and in another hostile environment—hostile because the world has ammonia oceans and an ammonia-tainted atmosphere and hostile because the Restored Ziru Sirka does not welcome speakers of Galanglic, the language of the Third Imperium and the Solomani, as opposed to the Vilani of the Ziru Sirka—the crewmembers find themselves conducting a ‘raid’ on an Imperial Interstellar Scout Service to obtain some information in return for the information that they want. With this information, they are ready for travel further trailward to the world of Antares in the Julian Protectorate. The adventures were to be the subject of the next supplement, Antares Down: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 2 and then concluded with Beyond the Seventh Moon: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 3.
Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1 is designed to be played with the four pre-generated Player Characters, crewmembers of the Robin Ascendant. These consist of Fencil Tufo, a driven Belter and owner of the Robin Ascendant; Shalya Lyric, an ex-Navy engineer who simply wants to travel and see the universe; David Janier, a religious ex-Merchant; and ‘Mak’, a translation robot who owned by Janier. In this it follows the same format as seen in the campaign which ran through the pages of the Traveller’s Digest magazine—also published by Digest Group Publications. Suggestions are given on how to use the scenarios with different Player Characters and a different starship, but the default is the Robin Ascendant and its crew (or at least another vessel with Jump capability of Jump-2). As well as the stats and background of the crew, which also come with illustrations, the supplement includes deck plans for the Robin Ascendant and a passenger submersible, floor plans for both the comet base and the Scout Service archives (the latter having a weird maze-like layout designed to confuse), and the stats and details of various other vehicles. These are of course designed for use with MegaTraveller, but an appendix provides conversions for both Mongoose Publishing’s Traveller and Game Designers’ Workshop’s own Traveller 5.
In terms of background, Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1 includes information on Onnesium and the Victory Belt, as well as details of Trin’s Veil Subsector and Trin itself and Fharnas and the Kasear Subsector. This background is well written and presented for what would have been the first time back in 1990, which includes a detailed description of the Kur’Apaa. These are the ammonia ocean dwelling sophonts native to Fharnas, a lobster-like species which was the first to be encountered by the Vilani when they began their first steps into space. Again, this was the first they were presented as Traveller canon. Some of this, of course, has been superseded by later supplements—as outlined in the supplement’s fourth appendix, ‘Wonderful Things’—and some of that later information has been incorporated into the setting background for Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1.
Rounding out Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1 is a quartet of appendices. These detail the Player Characters and their ship, the latter complete with deck plans, provide conversions for the most recent rules used for Traveller, and in ‘Wonderful Things’ provides some historical background to the relationship between Digest Group Publications and Game Designers’ Workshop, the origins and intent of Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1, and how it was finally brought to availability and print. This provides it with some welcome context and is a particularly good read.
In terms of story structure, Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1 is a quest and involves a long journey of more than a year across the remnants of the Third Imperium. This does mean that it is linear in nature and ‘Visual Nugget’ format of presenting the plot and various scenes does contribute towards this. However, the format neatly organises the plot and its various scenes for the Referee, as potential alternative scenes as well. The Referee will also need to do more than just prepare the two scenarios at either end of the journey if she wants to run Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1 as a fuller campaign. One suggestion given is have the pirates which appear in ‘Cometfall’ chase the Robin Ascendant and its crew across the Third Imperium, and that is a good idea, since it adds an element of continuity between the two scenarios, which could be strengthened by the pirates’ patron also chasing the Player Characters as well.
The obvious issue with Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1 is that it takes place in a timeline which is not currently supported. Suggested sourcebooks such as the Rebellion Sourcebook from Game Designers’ Workshop and The MegaTraveller Alien: Vilani and Vargr from Digest Group Publishing are long out of print, although the Rebellion Sourcebook is available as a PDF. So, anyone not steeped in the lore of Traveller is going to have a harder time preparing this supplement than those who are.
Physically, Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1 is cleanly laid in the style of a Traveller book of thirty years ago. Entirely done in black and white, the artwork is straightforward and has an understandably technical feel to much of it. The deck plans are all excellent, but the writing is dry in places.
Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1 is a piece of history, but not an unwelcome one. Its two scenarios are still playable, with some development upon the part of the Game Master, the space and time between them can be used to begin an entertaining space quest. Fans of Traveller will very much appreciate having Manhunt: The Onnesium Quest Vol. 1 available at last—especially if they are fans of MegaTraveller—whilst anyone new to it will appreciate it as a snapshot of Science Fiction roleplaying from another future.

Imagine that there is a world with one castle. Imagine that castle is the world. Imagine that castle covers the world. Were it possible to ascend to the battlements or climb up one of the castle’s many towers, but all that would be seen more of the castle’s roof, battlements, and towers. The rooms of the castle extend in all directions. Beyond the villages, towns, and cities where people live lie the Roomlands. Out in the wilds of the Roomlands can be found mountains, lakes, deserts, forests, caves, and ancient ruins. Oceans stretch across rooms as far as the eye can see and beyond. Desert sands whip and whirl down long corridors. Forests climb the stairs that seem to rise to nowhere. Wherever a traveller goes and whatever the environment, there is a constant danger to be faced—Rooks. These are walking castles, stone giants that seem to have no purpose, other than to wander aimlessly until something captures their attention and then they erupt in incredible aggression. On the oceans, there are Sea Rooks, and on and above the battlements, there are Astrolithic Rooks, great flying beasts, and out the Tundroom wastes, Rooknaughts, Rook husks crewed to raid villagers or hold off other Rooknaughts. Even Parapette, the greatest city in the Known Roomlands is built into the body of a Colossal Rook. This is the setting for Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure in which a brave adventurer, either with a piece of a Rook grafted on to him, accompanied by a Rookling companion, wearing a scrap helm taken a Rook that grants its wearer magic, or riding a mount devised from Rook scrap, sets out to explore the Roomlands. Perhaps to discover new rooms of the Roomlands. Perhaps to protect a town or village from the aroused ire of a Rook. Perhaps to hunt Rooks themselves, to gather the precious resources it contains—devices and magical gems which provide the Helmed with their magic and provide many of the technologies used by the inhabitants of Colostle.
Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure is a Journaling game in which a player will write and keep a journal telling of the exploits of an adventurer across the ecumenopolis-sized castle of Colostle. As is usual with this type of game, the player will need no more than an ordinary deck of playing cards, pen and pencil, and a notebook of some kind. Over the course of his play, the player will draw cards from the deck. Initially, this will be to determine the nature and the call of the player’s character, but as the character steps out to explore, the player draws cards to find out what the character has discovered and then in combat, he draws cards to determine his character’s effectiveness and thus the outcome. When the character reaches the city, the player draws cards to determine the city’s features and what is available there. If the city features a Hunter’s Guild, then the character can take up quests on the organisation’s behalf, and again, these are determined by drawing more cards. Similarly, cards are drawn to determine the nature of opponents—Rook and non-Rook—and what either of them wants. At each stage, the player uses the cards to refer to various tables throughout the book and then connects the prompts from the table indicated by the cards in a narrative which he records in his character’s journal.
A Player Character in Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure is defined by a Calling, a Nature, a Class, and a Weapon. A Calling is why a Player Character adventures and explores out in the Roomlands, his Nature how he reacts to the world around him, his Class how he explores the world and how he fights, and his Weapon what he fights with. Both Calling and Nature are determined randomly. The four Classes—‘The Armed’, ‘The Followed’, ‘The Helmed’, and ‘The Mounted’—each determine two values out of five for the Player Character, Exploration Score and Combat Score, and suggest various traits and motivations. Apart from the Exploration Score and the Combat Score, these traits along with Magic, either Electric, Rumble, or Ice, are used to help describe and flavour the narrative that player writes rather than providing any mechanical benefit. 
Audrina
Classed: The Helmed
Exploration Score: 2
Combat Score: 5
Calling: Your mother told you fabulous tales of the Fabled Rookstones which gave Rooks and those who scavenge them amazing powers. Now grown up, you know that there are three types of Rookstone— Electric, Rumble, and Ice—but perhaps there really are more and there was truth in your mother’s tales?
Nature: Impatient, quick-to-anger, grumpy
Motivation: To understand Rook technology and mechanisms
Weapon: Rook Fists that shake with Rumble Magic
To play Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, a player draws cards in two different phases—the Exploration Phase and the Combat Phase. The Player Character’s Exploration Score determines how many cards his player draws and his Combat Score how many cards he draws in combat. In the Exploration Phase, Red cards drawn indicate encountering organic things, people, and creatures, whilst black are scenic things, structures, and objects, the entries divided between the four suits. Some point to the Events table in which case a further card is drawn. Together, they provide prompts to events and encounters that the player pieces together in a whole journal entry. If a combat encounter is indicated, the player can insert a Combat Phase anywhere in the Exploration as fits the narrative.For example, in Audrina’s Exploration Phase, her player draws two cards for her Exploration Score. First the four of Spades followed by the four of Diamonds. The four of Spades indicates the ruins of people that Audrina has never heard of who likely lived long ago and tells the player to draw an Event card. The latter is the five of Diamonds, telling the player that Audrina hears a loud noise. The four of Diamonds suggests that she meet someone who asks for her help in finding something and that she will be rewarded for help. The latter requires another card to be drawn, this time for the Item that will be the reward. This is the King of Clubs, so is two Treasures which can be used for trade purposes if Audrina returns to the city. However, the four of Diamonds indicates that the person for help is untrustworthy. If combat ensues, the player will generate the opponent and a Combat Phase will take place.An opponent is defined by his Intention and Weapon Type if another person. A Rook has instead a Magic Type, Body Type, Weapon Type, and Reward if defeated. Combat is a matter of drawing cards, the number determined by the Combat Score for the Player Character and the opponent type for whomever the Player Character is fighting. One card is drawn if another person, but three or five for a Rook, depending on its size. The player allocates his character’s cards against those of his opponent in an attempt to beat him. The suit on the card used indicates the type of attack used and all one side has to do is defeat the majority of the other’s attacks. When a Player Character cannot stop an attack because he does not have a card high enough, he suffers a wound, which reduces either his Exploration Score or his Combat Score. If either score is reduced to zero, the Player Character dies. This does not look good for Audrina. The player draws a two of Clubs, a five of Hearts, an eight of Spades, and a nine of both Hearts and Spades, the five cards for Audrina’s Combat Score. None of this enough for Audrina to defeat or block the attack and so she suffers a Wound, reducing her Exploration Score from two to one. The opponent presses the attack. This time, the player draws a ten of Hearts, a magic attack. In response, the player draws a four, eight, Queen, and King of Hearts as well as a four of Clubs, for Audrina. He selects the King of hearts. This not only beats the opponent’s nine of Clubs, it beats it with the same suit and so is a critical attack which reduces the number of cards the opponent draw by one. Since this is only one anyway, it has no real effect except to mean that the opponent is defeated. She receives one Treasure for defeating the opponent and leaves nursing his wound.So when the player comes to record this in Audrina’s journal he might write the following.“I had not ranged far from the city, barely into the next Room, a great space where I strode through a rich forest until I came upon a city that I had not seen before, even heard of. None of the sages in the city had mentioned this place and its stones seemed old and marked in a language I did not recognise. As I skirted the outer ruins, I heard a cry. I followed it and came across an old man, leaning over an opening into the ground. I asked what he was about and he said he was looking for his dog who had chased a rabbit down the hole. I was about to leave the grimy and gnarled figure to it when he asked if I could help him. He said he could give me treasure in return for me rescuing his dog. I looked at him and wondered if that was a cold gleam in his eye or a tear for his lost, but I took pity and promised to help. More fool I. Barely was I in the hall, when there came a big booming sound from below and a rush of air, such that I did not the crotchety old bastard behind, only felt the weight of his club upon my leg as a he attempted to brain me! He stood over me cackling against the light of the cave mouth and I did not know if he intended to kill me, but he raised his staff which crackled with energy, and in response I thrust out my Rumble Gloves, unleashing a blast of force that caused him to lose his footing. Getting to my knees, my leg still smarting, I threatened with a follow up attack, but he surrendered. When asked, he told me he had been stealing from others and intended to steal from me. I left him what little food he had when I rifled through his belongings, but I took his staff with its Electric Rookstone. Mere recompense for the injury he had caused me. If I cannot sell it, I can study it.”Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure includes table for encounters on the ocean and on the battlements—the latter only becoming available when the Player Character first climbs to their heights, for no one else has yet, and the means to generate a city, where the Player Character can rest, spend a Treasure or two—perhaps for improvement in his two Scores, perhaps to purchase a weapon or device to improve his ability to explore and survive in the Rooklands. The list of items to purchase is few in number though. There is also a map of the Known Roomlands and a cross section of a Rook. One definite table which is missing is one for what might be found within the confines of a Rook.
Physically, Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure is stunning. The illustrations are cartoonish, but beautiful. The writing is clear, but as a whole the roleplaying game is underwritten. This shows in the few differences between the Classes in the roleplaying game, in the mechanics which will often push a player to make one ruling or another—and push the Player Character into a fight because there is no other means of resolving situations, and in the number of entries in the various tables. There simply is not enough tables and content in the tables of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure to warrant more than a few plays without encounters and solutions being repeated. As a series of prompts for a solo journaling that may be enough, but if as the book suggests, it is used a source for roleplaying game, it is going to leave the Game Master and ultimately her players wanting more.
As a play experience, Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure is perhaps harder work than it should, prompts only pushing the player so far and leaving him with a lot of answers and rulings to make up. It reveals parts of the world and leaves the player wanting more. As a roleplaying sourcebook, it is very much far from enough, but would work with any number of roleplaying mechanics. The setting lends itself to lighter rulesets, Into the Odd, for example, would be a good choice to build an actual Colostle Roleplaying Game around, but equally, a retroclone like Old School Essentials could be built around it with some effort.
Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure is breath-taking in its scope and scale, with beautifully illustrated vistas done in a style that echoes that of the Zeldacomputer game series, and both the Ico and The Shadow of the Colossus, if not a little of Horizon Zero Dawn. Open up Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure and you want to explore the vast halls and corridors of the Roomlands. Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure possesses literally huge promise, grandeur and whimsy at the same time, a magical and mystical place to visit—as far as the book will allow. Yet really, Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure feels as if it wants to be opened up, its furthest extents explored and exposed, and for the players to travel together.

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—
In 1982 we learned that roleplaying could be dangerous. We learned that it could drive Tom Hanks into identifying with his character to the point where he became the character and so would step out onto the road on his character’s great quest, only this was across New England and not some fantasy land. He would drive his friends away and once lost in a great metropolis—New York (this is the New York in the eighties) and its tunnels below—would be driven mad by dragons above, be menaced by monsters (again New York in the eighties), commit acts of violence against monsters (yes, still the New York of the eighties), and using his spells, desire to fly from the top of the Twin Towers. Ultimately, even after being rescued by his friends and being returned home, he would never escape that character even as his friends became proper adults and left such trivial pursuits behind them. This was a story told on our television screens in the made for television film, Mazes and Monsters, based on the novel by Rona Jaffe, which had been published the year before. The film was the first leading role for actor Tom Hanks and where it had been rushed from print to screen, the book had been rushed from the news to print, for both the film and the book it was based upon were based upon a true story.
In 1979, a young student at Michigan State University, James Dallas Egbert III, had gone missing. Initial investigations and subsequent newspaper reporting linked the disappearance to Egbert having played a strange new game called Dungeons & Dragons. Egbert would be later found by private investigator, William Dear, but the reasons behind the disappearance would not be revealed until after the student’s subsequent suicide and only be properly explained in Dear’s own 1984 book The Dungeon Master. Both Mazes and Monsters and The Dungeon Master would precede the backlash against Dungeons & Dragons that was part of the Satanic Panic of the eighties.
In Mazes and Monsters, Robbie Wheeling (Tom Hanks) attends the small Grant University where he forms a group of friends who play the titular game. All four of them have difficult family backgrounds to one degree or another. Robbie has an alcoholic mother and strict father who fight constantly, and is still tormented by the mysterious disappearance of his older brother, Hall. Jay-Jay (Chris Makepeace) is neglected by his mother who constantly redecorates his room since she can never make up her mind about the best look—the opening look is a brilliantly white Science Fiction room which could be in a Cyberpunk novel—and so wears an ever-changing selection of hats as a means of self-identification. (Of course, as the story progresses and he grows up, he gives up the hats.) Kate (Wendy Crewson) has suffered a number of difficult relationships and comes from a broken home, and Daniel wants to become a video game designer, but his parents have other ideas. All find solace in the game and when Jay-Jay suggests that they take the game to another level by acting it out in the nearby and forbidden Pequod Caverns—accessed by the most cave entrance possible—they agree. However, when they separate to search for the treasure (never separate the party!), Robbie suffers a psychotic episode connected to his brother’s disappearance and now believes he is actually his character, the cleric Pardieu. Consequently, he will break off his relationship with Kate—because clerics are celibate—and disappear on a quest to find his brother. This leads his friends on the quest too in order to find him, because the police, in the form of Lieutenant John Martini (as portrayed by Murray Hamilton, best known for playing the mayor in Jaws), have no idea. After Robbie is returned home, they visit him, and it is made clear that Robbie will never recover from his psychotic episode and will always believe himself to be Pardieu. Together, feeling sorry for him and their contribution towards his current condition, they join Robbie on a game of Mazes and Monsters with Robbie as the Maze Controller. The final words of the film are Kate’s: “And so ... we played the game again ... for one last time.”
Mazes and Monsters is a strange film, a treatment of roleplaying games disassociated from its subject, a film made about roleplaying games in which the author of the book and thus the film have no real idea what a roleplaying game is. For example, in Mazes and Monsters the game, the players finally have the right to be their own Maze Controllers at Ninth Level and the game is played out by candlelight with just the Maze Controller and the three players. It also makes clear that this is a game played by young people with difficult home lives and worse, roleplaying games like Mazes and Monsters have the capacity to exacerbate existing mental health issues and entwine them with the game. There is no real effort to portray roleplaying as a positive activity and there is a certain goofiness to the script that the actors do their very best with, but cannot ultimately escape.
—oOo—Both Rona Jaffe’s original novel and another which involved roleplaying, John Coyne’s Hobgoblin were reviewed in Dragon Magazine #75 (July, 1983). In ‘Tales stranger than fantasy’, Michael Lowery highlights that in both novels, “Above all else, both writers view fantasy gaming as something that must be explained, like teenage alcoholism or joining the Moonies. And examined: Just what is it, anyway, that leads intelligent, seemingly normal people into fantasy role-playing? In both works, game players are eventually shown suffering from dissociative schizophrenia (or some similar malady), which the reader is invited to blame on fantasy role-playing.” He identifies Mazes and Monsters as the better novel, but still calls it, “…[A] Problem Novel, and the Problem is role-playing games.” before concluding that, “Neither of these books is likely to be enlightening to the FRP gamer, except as examples of what reasonably intelligent adult non-players imagine we must be like. In both books, the attainment of mature adulthood is accompanied by the abandonment of role-playing games. Need I say more?”
John J. O’Connor’s review, ‘TV: 'MAZES AND MONSTERS,' FANTASY’ in The New York Times (December, 28, 1982) in contrast, was more positive. “Miss Jaffe takes her story and characters through some fairly predictable turns as the game proceeds to its ''logical extension.'' At one point, the underlying message is spelled out directly: ''The most frightening monsters are the ones that exist in our minds.'' But, gradually, her carefully diagrammed contraption begins to work with reasonable effectiveness. He concludes, “And in the end, the film achieves a broader ''ritesof-passage'' experience than most viewers might be expecting.”—oOo—
Mazes and Monsters is forty years old in 1982 and to mark the occasion, Plumeria Pictures has released the Mazes and Monsters 40th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray. In the words of Lieutenant John Martini, it promises “Swords… poison… spells… battles… maiming… killing!” The production values for the release are basic, but to be fair, it is debatable whether Mazes and Monsters warrants more than that. However, the release features an eight-page booklet containing the essay, ‘The real-life tragedy and sensationalised fantasy behind D&D-inspired movie Mazes and Monsters’ which explores the reality and fantasy behind the film. This is a decent read, but does not throw any more light upon the matter than is already known. It is there more for those who are new to both film and its origins rather than the amateur historian of the hobby or the roleplayer who lived through the period. The film itself is simply presented and as a television film feels dark and claustrophobic.
The release has two extras. The first is a set of English language subtitles, which are absolutely necessary if the viewer wants to watch the film with the other extra, a commentary track from roleplaying luminaries Seth Skorkowsky, Scott Dorward, Joe Trier, Veronica Escamilla-Brady, and Eoghan Falvey. This is a fairly jokey, occasionally funny commentary which ultimately does not add much to the film itself. Only Seth Skorkowsky and Scott Dorward appear to have seen the film before, and both add heft to the commentary where the other participants have little to add. Dorward in particular adds significant context and background to the commentary, not only having familiarity with the film, but also the period when it was made and the New York of the time. There is an interesting conversation to be had about the film and its context, but the Mazes and Monsters 40th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray misses that opportunity with what is an unbalanced commentary cast.
Mazes and Monsters and the Mazes and Monsters 40th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray together look back at a period in the hobby when the wider world is only beginning to become aware of it and it is clear that it has no understanding of what it was. With a film which is more curio than actually good, the Mazes and Monsters 40th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray provides an interesting snapshot of the early eighties that shows how lucky we and the hobby are in the twenty-first century. 

Just A Stupid Dungeon is pointless. It is also a dungeon published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. It is suitable for use with other retroclones. It is also a dungeon which can be played by characters of any Level. It is a dungeon which is located in the default setting for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying of the early to mid-seventeenth century. It is though, easy to drop into almost any setting. It is a dungeon in the style of a death trap dungeon with not a lot of death traps. It is a plain dungeon in comparison to the tone of some titles for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. It is an exercise in trap design by the author, James Edward Raggi IV. It is potentially a means to really overturn the status quo of a Referee’s campaign. It is all those things, and still, Just A Stupid Dungeon is pointless.

Just A Stupid Dungeon does not even come with an introduction. It promises and delivers a dungeon without anything in the way of a backstory, setting, or context. The nearest it gets to that is the fact that local children have been warned not to touch the key in the door to the dungeon entrance lest they drop down dead. Instead, it starts at the door to the dungeon and goes from there. Inside, the complex consists of several similar rooms around a central hall. The hall consists of just a statue and a lectern, both holding valuable treasure. However, getting to either is unlikely to be certain given the surprisingly bouncy flooring of the hall and both treasures being destroyed is more likely. The surrounding rooms are all identical bar the nature of the traps they contain, most of which have an elemental theme. By the time the Player Characters have set off and experienced survived two or more, then they should have an idea how each room works. Here the designer gets to play with deep water, fire, light, darkness, and more, and in the main, not in a way that will necessarily kill the Player Characters. They will be hurt and they will be imperilled and they will be punished.

Just A Stupid Dungeon involves almost no combat and despite it being set in a tomb, there are no undead. Instead, it is built around traps and the designer playing around with time. There are traps in the complex, itself consisting of twenty-four locations—less if the repetitious nature of some of the doors is taken into account—that will really twist the continuity and confluence and the causality of the campaign. One trap in the short term and one trap in the long term. These traps are fantastic in their scope and repercussions and the effects of long-term trap will effectively undo a campaign. They are brilliant in their simplicity and capacity for entertainment, though more for the Referee than her players and their characters.

Physically, Just A Stupid Dungeon is clean, tidy, easy to read, and comes with a clear map.
Just A Stupid Dungeon can just be dropped into a setting and left there. It does nothing, it is inert. It awaits the arrival of the Player Characters. Of course, the Referee is free to add context, detail, and backstory to entice the Player Characters to investigate further. Or indeed, not. The Referee could drop it into a session and run it as is, and that is essentially what Just A Stupid Dungeon is designed as—a scenario that can be run without any fuss or mess. Once the Player Characters do penetrate the halls of the not-tomb in Just A Stupid Dungeon, rewards will be few and the punishments harsh, all in response to the curiosity of the players and their characters. Ultimately, Just A Stupid Dungeon is pointless, but if the Player Characters do push through to the end, the effects of the final trap will be entertainingly disruptive.

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Branches of Bone - A Viking Age Cthulhu Dark Ages ScenarioPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michael Reid

Setting: Dark Ages EnglandProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Forty page, 8.18 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Locked Room Horror Hell in a House of WorshipPlot Hook: Survival horror in the Dark Ages as a Viking raid unleashes an abhorrent arboresque aberration
Plot Support: Staging advice, eight handouts, one Keeper handout, six pre-generated Investigators, a spell, some NPCs, and five Mythos monsters. Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Single-session, countdown horror# Locked room (monastery) situation forces co-operation# Pictorial handouts# Entertainingly wooden twist upon the zombie# Clue rich# Includes Viking mini-supplement# Dendrophobia# Goat-chicken thing
Cons# NPCs need more detail# No Viking names# Investigation-Monk communication requires careful handling# Tight timeline
Conclusion# Tightly plotted and timed, locked room (monastery) mystery which forces the Player Characters to co-operate with those they are raiding if they are to survive.# Survival horror in the Dark Ages in which the Player Characters need to overcome the language barrier for the scenario to really work.

In the years of the Desperate Decade, adventurers, explorers, soldiers of fortune, spies, journalists, and men of action—heroes all, pushed to the four corners of the Earth and beyond into the darkest of corners! These stalwart men and women heroically overcame great danger and terrible terror to reveal ancient secrets, discover lost civilisations, and find priceless treasures and in the deepest, darkest, wildest reaches of the world thwart the plans of villains and would-be world conquerors. They evaded traps, leaped over pits, dodged bullets and spears, and even punched a Nazi or three, all in the name of fortune and glory. Their exploits would be told in the pulp magazines of the period and form the basis for films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Mummy (from 1999), and Romancing the Stone. And now they can be told again by playing Temples & Tombs, a pulp action roleplaying published by Gallant Knight Games which employs the Year Zero Engine previously seen in Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, the Alien: The Roleplaying Game, and Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, all roleplaying games published by Free League Publishing.

Temples & Tombs is designed to accessible, fast playing, with the focus firmly on the Player Characters or Adventurers and their adventures, with the heroes often having to push themselves and raise the stakes in order to succeed. The template of Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days and subsequent Year Zero Engine can very much be seen in this pulp-action roleplaying game. It uses six-sided dice in three different colours—for primary or standard dice, Luck Dice, and Hero Dice—with the aim being to roll a single six as a success. Each Adventurer has a Profession, an Age which determines the points to be assigned to the four attributes and skills (younger Adventurers have higher attributes and lower skills, older have lower attributes and higher skills), one or more Talents derived from the Profession (there are other generic Talents available when an Adventurer gains experience), an Ambition which will drive the character to act, and together with other Adventurers, an institution which they all belong to. Each Adventurer will also have Relationships with his fellow adventurers and a Signature Item which will help him in certain situations, such as a bullwhip or a really sparkly red dress. Talents, Relationships, and Signature Items are all suggested by the Professions. The twelve Professions are Ace, Archaeologist, Doctor, Genius, Hunter, Journalist, Outlaw, Professional, Socialite, Soldier, Spy, and Thief.

James McTavish
Age: In Your Prime
Profession: Ace

Grit: 03 Fight 1 Endure 0 Feat 1
Quick: 05 Drive 3 Shoot 1 Stunt 1
Wit: 03 Fix 1 Savvy 1 Lore 0
Style: 03 Scare 0 Sway 1 Trick 0

Talents
Gets an additional Hero Die when using a skill to do something life-threatening.
Ambition
Relive your glory days.

Gear
Vehicle (single-propeller plane), pistol, survival gear, bag
Income: 3 (modest)

Signature Item
Lucky deck of cards

Mechanically, the core mechanic in Temples & Tombs is the Year Zero Engine. To undertake an action or skill test, an Adventurer’s player rolls dice equal to the character’s skill and its associated attribute. Any roll of six counts as success. If an Adventurer lacks points in a skill, his player just rolls a single attribute die. Modifiers can adjust the number of dice up and down. For example, a Signature Item can add a single die whenever an Adventurer brings it into play, whilst once per session, an Adventurer can use his Ambition to automatically succeed at any test.

In addition, a player can add Hero Dice to the pool. Each Hero Die is used only the once and always on the next test that the player rolls. They cannot be saved. They earned as an award from the Director for an Adventurer being amazing, for every success rolled over one on a text, and for using specific talents in a Profession. So, when added to a pool and a six is rolled on the Hero Die, they trigger a Heroic Action. These include all Adventurers losing a Catch with ‘Inspire’, give them all a Hero Die for their next test with ‘Strong Presence’, lose all of an Adventurer’s with ‘Rise Up’, clear the Adventurer’s Luck tracker with ‘Persevere’, succeed automatically on the next test with ‘Break Through’, and force an NPC to flee or surrender with ‘Ferocity’.

Temples & Tombs is designed to emulate the great swings in the fortunes of the genre’s protagonists, so failure is as much part of the game as is success—sometimes great success. However, instead when an Adventurer fails, he does not suffer harm or damage. Instead, he takes Catches. These represent the Adventurer being pushed to his limits and potentially being taken out of the action—which happens if he suffers five Catches—rather than being hurt or killed. Ranging from ‘Off Guard’ and ‘Emotional’ to ‘On the Run’ and ‘In need of Rescue’, each Catch has an immediate narrative effect which the player describes and a mechanical effect on the number of dice in an Adventurer’s dice pool. This can be negative or positive and are permanent until the triggering Catches are cleared. Alternatively, an Adventurer can lose all of his Hero Dice instead of taking a Catch.

If a player fails a roll or he wants more than the one success to garner more Hero Dice, he can push his Adventurer’s luck. Pushing an Adventurer’s luck allows a re-roll and adds one to the Adventurer’s Luck Tracker. The re-roll is made with number of dice equal to the Luck Tracker. This increases the Adventurer’s dice pool, but if one of the Luck Dice results in a roll of a one, the Adventurer’s Luck Tracker is cleared, and the Adventurer takes a Catch. The maximum the Luck Tracker can be increased to is five, after which it is cleared, and the Adventurer gains an automatic success on the last roll. What means is that an Adventurer is literally pushing his luck—to gain more dice to roll, with the increased potential for both success or failure—until he either succeeds or fails, so his luck runs out.
For example, pilot James McTavish is racing to get his team out of China where they have acquired some artefacts to bring back to put on display at the museum they work for before a warlord could and sell them to a collector. As he pilots his Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing out of the mountains and down river, he is jumped by a pair of Blackburn F.2 Lincock biplanes loaned out to the warlord after a well-placed bribe. The Staggerwing is not armed, but it is fast and manoeuvrable and one of his fellow passengers is armed with a Mauser M712 Schnellfeuer, and if McTavish can manoeuvre just right, then a good burst or three might be enough to drive off the Chinese pilots.

James McTavish’s player starts with a dice pool of eight, derived from James’ Quick of five and Drive of three. To this he adds a Hero Die because James is definitely doing something life-threatening. So, eight standard dice and one Hero Dice. Unfortunately, the player does not roll a single success, and decides to Push James’ Luck. This moves James’ Luck Tracker up by one and gives his player nine dice to roll—eight plus the Hero Die and the Luck Die. This time, he rolls four successes, including one on the Hero Die. One Success means that James succeeds—sliding his aircraft perfectly along one of the enemy aeroplanes, but the other three become Hero Dice he can roll on his next action. The success on the Hero Die gives him a Heroic Action and his player selects ‘Strong Presence’ which gives all Adventurers a Hero Die on their next action. James’ fellow Adventurer draws a bead on the enemy pilot with his machine pistol and her player takes up her dice, which will include a Hero Die thanks to James.Combat in Temples & Tombs uses the same mechanics, including close combat, ranged combat, and social combat. Damage is inflicted in terms of Catches, reflecting that an Adventurer can be hurt, knocked out, and put out of the action, but not killed. Weapons add only a single die to an Adventurer’s dice pool. An Adventurer cannot take any more than five Catches and are thus ‘In Need of Rescue’ and need to recuperate before he can act again. Gear is broadly handled and includes travel as well as equipment. If an Adventurer wants a piece of gear higher than his Income, his player makes an Income test with any successes indicating that the Adventurer can.
For the Director, there is advice to ensure that there is Never a Dull Moment, that it be made awesome, and to make it wondrous. It suggests using blocks—having bad guys show up, a ceiling collapse, or a trap door shuts—as narrative devices in line with the genre, always presenting the Adventurers with hard choices—equally bad, escalate the situation and more, make it visual, and so on. In terms of storytelling, Temples & Tombs uses the same model or set of story beats to emulate its genre and hang the Director’s plot on. These begin with the ‘Cold Open’, and then go through the ‘Call of Adventure’, ‘The Journey’, and ‘The Dungeon’ to finally get to ‘The Wrap’. These supported by discussions of and table for MacGuffins, set pieces (or archetypal locations), dungeon (or rather tomb), threats, and more. There is only a very broad overview of the thirties—the default setting for Temples & Tombs—which includes a list of the aspects of the period to avoid. This combination of overview and the lists of potential dungeons and treasures does mean that the Director will have to conduct some research to bring these places and MacGuffins to life in her game.

In general, Threats such as NPCs are relatively easy for the Adventurers to deal with and do not have Hero Dice or Luck Dice, although some powerful NPCs might utilise Luck Dice. More powerful NPCs can suffer more Catch conditions, as can beasts. What NPCs and beasts do have is Moments. These can be things like ‘Use a gadget to cause a diversion’ or ‘Dispatch goons’, but are not used to attack or harm an Adventurer directly. Instead, they are NPC or Villain moves which occur when an Adventurer fails a test against a threat, an extra narrative consequence to the Adventurer suffering a Catch. Numerous groups from barons and presidents and blue blood society to heroes gone bad and menacing museums all the way up to mutants and supervillains are examined and given suggested names, aims, set pieces, and more. They do feel undeveloped in places. Temples & Tombs is designed to be “somewhat agnostic”, but a bit more history would not have gone amiss.

Over a third of Temples & Tombs is devoted to three adventures. These are ‘Temple of the Feather of Ma’at’, ‘Sky Zeppelin and the Valley of Yesteryear’, and ‘The Lost Works of William Shakespeare and the Oak Island Mystery’. The first sends the Adventurers after Ma’at’s Feather of Truth from Egyptian mythology across the ancient world from Turkey to Egypt; the second to South America in search of a missing scientific expedition and mixes dinosaurs with lost cities; and the third from Germany to the USA to find a treasure which many have looked for, including Franklin D. Roosevelt. In fact, the president is included as a threat in this scenario which makes for an interesting twist. All three follow the story beats outlined earlier in the book, except for ‘The Lost Works of William Shakespeare and the Oak Island Mystery’ which omits a Cold Open and means the Director will have to add one of her own. Of the three ‘Temple of the Feather of Ma’at’ feels like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, ‘Sky Zeppelin and the Valley of Yesteryear’ feels like an Edgar Rice Burroughs story, and ‘The Lost Works of William Shakespeare and the Oak Island Mystery’ like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Physically, Temples & Tombs is a plain, greyscale book. It is very lightly illustrated, it does suffer from repetition in places, and it does need an edit in others. There is no index. One oddity is the fact that the name of the roleplaying game is Temples & Tombs, but the generic term used for the roleplaying game’s grand set pieces is ‘dungeon’. Why not ‘tomb’?

Temples & Tombs feels rushed and consequently rough around the edges. Some of the rule explanations could have been clearer, there are no examples of play or Adventurer creation, and it does not help that there is no index. Nor is there a bibliography, filmography, or a timeline. These are all major omissions which make the roleplaying game that little bit harder to grasp or use with each missing element. In addition, the three omissions make it harder for the Director to write her own adventures because she has to look for the starting points which a bibliography, filmography, or timeline would have provided. To some extent the authors are relying upon the familiarity of the Director and her players with Year Zero Engine, the period when the roleplaying game is set, and definitely the genre. If that is the case, then these omissions are less of a problem, otherwise that is not so.

Temples & Tombs has a pick and up feel with its easy Adventurer creation rules and its fast-playing implementation of the Year Zero Engine which emphasises heroic action and firmly places the Adventurers in the centre of both action and story. This is supported by three entertaining adventures which romp around the genre in pursuit of their respective MacGuffins, but beyond these, the Director will need to conduct some research to create adventures of her own. Ultimately, Temples & Tombs is a solid implementation of the Year Zero Engine in the Pulp genre, but remains underdeveloped where it could have been more helpful.

With The Zhodani Candidate and Eve of Rebellion, the author Stephen J. Ellis brought his experience of freeforms and LARP—Live Action Roleplaying—to the Third Imperium, the setting for the Mongoose Publishing’s Traveller and published by March Harrier Publishing via Mongoose Publishing. In traditional scenarios and campaigns for Traveller, the Player Characters own a starship, such as an A2 Far Trader or a Type S Scout, and as the eponymous travellers, move from world to world, trading, thwarting crimes, uncovering mysteries and making discoveries, and so on. Alternatively, they go to war, undertaking contracts as mercenaries in low-conflict engagements. Either way, the focus is firmly on their adventures and their narrative. In both The Zhodani Candidate and Eve of Rebellion, the play switched to high above that. In the former, a team investigate a marriage between a war hero and potential sleeper agent and an important noble, whilst in the latter, the events leading up to the assassination of Emperor Strephon are explored, with the players taking the roles of those present. These two scenarios take place on a grander scale, their events often having wider repercussions, and with their mixture of secrets and secret agendas, designed to clash and interact through play, often offer more of a roleplaying challenge then the average scenario. Mirabilis, the author’s third scenario, is likewise inspired by freeform play with its often-interlocking secrets and agendas, but shifts focus whilst retaining a grander scale of play and whilst also being radically different. Mirabilis is diceless.

Mirabilis shifts the focus in both terms of time and space, but is still set in Traveller’s Third Imperium. It takes place on the world of Mirabilis, a low gravity, resource poor, but technologically advanced and important planet in the 82 Eirdani system of the Capella subsector of the Solomani Rim, near the border with the Third Imperium. The year is 1125. Strephon Aella Alkhalikoi, Emperor of the Third Imperium, has been dead for almost a decade and the Third Imperium is beset by rebellion and civil. In response to what it saw as a weakened enemy, the Solomani Confederation made a dash for Terra in an attempt to reclaim the Solomani Autonomous Sphere. Unfortunately, the Solomani Confederation has overextended itself, leaving it vulnerable to disrupted trade, pirate raids, and internal strife. Mirabilis has not yet suffered this fate, but it is up to its ruling Tech Council to ensure that if it cannot avoid such incidents, then it can at least survive them, and potentially survive the dangers to come. The Tech Council of Mirabilis consists of five members, controlling and representing different aspects of its society—Party Chairman Boris Gupta (Technical Maintenance & Party Administration), SolSec Co-Ordinator Jamal Goren (Solomani Security), Admiral Helen Treygar (Military Forces), Commerce Secretary Mario Niemeyer (Merchant Marine & Traders), and Chief Scientist Esme Hawking (Science, Research, & Education). Each council member has his or own agenda and secret, but also knows a secret about a fellow council member and has the means to bribe another. Each also has a power. For example, Admiral Helen Treygar can launch a military coup, Party Chairman Boris Gupta can declare someone guilty of unSolomani activities and strip them of Party membership and thus eligibility to sit on the council, SolSec Co-Ordinator Jamal Goren as the head of Solomani Security can imprison and interrogate anyone as a traitor to the Solomani cause, and so on. Thus, every council member has his or her advantages and disadvantages.

Mirabilis is designed to be played by five players exactly, who will each take the role of a member of Tech Council of Mirabilis. Each is provided with a character sheet and background information on the situation on the planet and its surrounding systems in the year 1125. As the Tech Council of Mirabilis, they take control of five levers of power or planetary stats—Tech Level (Science), Population (Maintenance), Law Level (Social Order), Wealth (Foreign Relations/Trade), and Military Power (Defence)—in order to push their agenda and respond to threats and dangers. Over the course of five turns and a decade from 1125 to 1135, they will negotiate, bribe, and blackmail each other to place these in order of priority. Those given priority will improve, but those not given priority, will suffer and not be as capable of responding to future situations and threats. The planetary stats are the only numbers given in the scenario, and will go up and down over the course of the scenario depending upon what the players and their characters decide. For example, a population increase might come about because of refugees, but a decrease because on of the planet’s flying cities crashes, the military’s capability is increased because the construction of new fleets or is reduced because maintenance time is neglected. Every turn there are trade-offs between improving a planetary factor and not improving planetary stats.

Mirabilis is based on the Prisoners’ Dilemma game theory. In a Prisoners’ Dilemma, the participants have the reasons and the means to individually do better if they betray others, but better overall if they co-operate. Ultimately, the outcome of this scenario and the fate of the world of Mirabilis being in the hands of the players and their negotiating ability and how they react to events revealed from one turn to the next. If events and the actions of other council members do not go his way, a Player character has the means to conduct a single coup, although a coup has a deleterious effect upon Mirabilis’ planetary stats.

For the Game Master there is a complete guide to staging and running the scenario as well as the rules. There are also events from year to year that the Game Master will provide as briefings to the council. These are all made available to the council members, but for a more complex game they could be handled as individual briefings given to the appropriate council members who then have to brief the council—or not. As an aside, there is everything here to run this game as a play by email instead of a convention one-shot.

There are some elements of Mirabilis which some players may find unpleasant or uncomfortable playing. Most obviously, they are roleplaying Solomani and Solomani in the Traveller setting tend to be racial supremacists. There is also a race of Uplifted Apes on the world of Mirabilis which are regarded as lesser. In addition, the players will find themselves controlling the fate of millions, who may well die because of their decisions. The scenario though, is definitely about the latter rather than the former.

Physically, Mirabilis is lightly illustrated and laid out in simple fashion. It could do with a slight edit in places.

Whether run as a one-shot or a convention scenario, Mirabilis is a really taut, fractious scenario, forcing the players as members of Tech Council of Mirabilis to make difficult decisions over the course of a few hours. Together they hold the fate of a planet in their hands in the face of encroaching Hard Times and what they decide will determine if it survives the coming dark age or falls to it.

The DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual is a cryptozoological bestiary for the Dark Places & Demogorgons, the roleplaying game of being students at high school in the nineteen eighties in a small town by mysterious attacks and disappearances. With the adults at a loss as to what to do and the local police department possessing no idea, let alone the local preacher whipping up another moral panic, it is invariably down to the teenagers to find out what is going on, where the victims have disappeared to, and who or what is responsible. With the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual, the who or what responsible is drawn from the pseudoscience of cryptozoology. Creatures like Bigfoot, The Mothman, The Jersey Devil, The Pope Lick Monster, Chupacabra, Gremlins, and Lake Monsters, and more. Initially, this gives the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual a distinctly North American focus with Cryptids native to Canada, Mexico, and the USA, but there are numerous creatures included too from around the world. On the plus side, this means that the players and their students are going to be challenged by something they will probably never have heard of and not know how to deal with, but on the downside, the Game Master will need to be creative in how she brings such creatures into the campaign.

The DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual is published by Bloat Games, and is supposedly a secret printing of a file taken from an evidence locker at Quantico. These are the Hope Excerpts, the collected notes and reports of an explorer, Joel Harrison Hope, who long searched for an ancient artefact known as the Staff of Bel, which had been used Sumerian priests to defeat monsters. Over time, heroes and priests from across the ancient world used the staff before it ended up in Rome and was broken and its pieces scattered during by a barbarian invasion. Fortunately, Hope was able to locate the staff and find notes and details of other ‘monsters’ and other artefacts. However, the Staff of Bel is not detailed in the supplement and Hope’s notes play little further role either, and for as potentially as an interesting set-up as that is, it is disappointing not to see this followed through.

The DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual contains some fifty or so different monsters that come from North America, Mexico, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia. They include seven types of the Bigfoot, with the Almasti being the Russian equivalent to the North American beast and the Yeren the Chinese, whilst the Grassman Bigfoot is the Ohio version, the Skunk Ape, the swamp dwelling from the South, the Yowie the Australian version, and the Sasquatch, the most well-known version from the Pacific Northwest, and the Yeti, the Asian version. The often-connected Wendigo is alongside as a spirit monster, whilst the Sheepsquatch is a newcomer to the fold, essentially a seven-foot tall ruminant known for its aggressive love of meth and other drugs, and rumoured to have been seen fighting the Mothman, which deserves a all of its very own. Similarly, there are five versions of the Extra-terrestrial, including ranging from the little-known Flatwoods Monster to the Greys and Little Green Men via the Nordic and Reptilian types. A campaign could easily mix these up for the students to get involved in the secret war between the Nordic and the Grey and the Reptilian Extra-terrestrials.

From Mexico and the America Southwest, there is the Chupacabra, and from the legends of the North Americans natives come the Mishipeshu and the Thunderbird. The African creatures include the Grootslang, a giant snake with the head of an elephant known to be wise and crafty, which resides in deep caverns, whilst the Mokele-Mbembe is a giant dinosaur occasionally spotted in the deepest jungles. The Bunyip is the only Australian entry. From Europe, the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual includes the Dobhar-Chu—the Irish Otter King—which protect rivers and streams from pollution and overuse, and are considered lucky to see, and the Kelpie from Scottish myth, as well as a more generic fairy. The Shuck comes from English folklore and is a good stand in for any black dog, whilst Greek myth is the source of both Cerberus and Medusa. There are silly creatures too, such as the Crocoduck, which has the body of a duck and the head of a crocodile, and a penchant for bananas. Thankfully they are duck-sized, but do hunt in packs.

Each entry in the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual is a given a one or two-page spread, with clear and easy to read stats and explanations of its powers. It is also accompanied by a heavy, black and white illustration, some of which are quite creepy, such as the Black-eyed Children and the Reptilian Extra-terrestrial, the latter a nice nod to the V television series. Notably, quite a lot of effort has gone into making the various types of Extra-terrestrial different from each other, though this is not necessarily the case with the Sasquatch. In places the descriptions of the creatures do feel underwritten, consisting of descriptions of their habits and physiologies, but the accompanying eyewitness statements, like that of the county dog catcher who thought a Psi-Rat might have been a dog or the drug addict and meth manufacturer who threatened the Sheepsquatch with the double-barreled shotgun add some decent flavour and detail.

Rounding out the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual is set of templates which can be applied to any of the entries in the book. These include Dire, rabid, radioactive, vampiric, and zombie, plus options to enhance or weaken them. Along with the rules for morale, and explanations of both game terms and updated game terms, there is a lot of flexibility built into the supplement, allowing the Game Master to modify and adjust the various cryptids with little difficulty.

If there is a downside to the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual, it is that its various monsters and creatures could have benefited from more background and detailing of their origins, as otherwise, it leaves the Game Master with a fair bit of research and investigation to do of her own. Nevertheless, there are nice little details of each to be found, especially in each entry’s flavour text. The DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual pleasingly brings the strange and the weird and the modern into the small-town life of DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS, as well as the Old School Renaissance itself, with a varied and interesting collection of cryptozoological critters.

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2022’, which took place on Saturday, July 16th, 2022, the publisher released not one, not two, but three booklets. Two of these were specifically for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—the supplement, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods, and the scenario, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day #3: Chanters in the Dark. The third, DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack, is a duology of scenarios for both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. Both scenarios are designed for Player Characters of Second Level, both are nicely detailed, and both can be played in a single session, but neither should take no longer than two sessions to complete.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods is different to what you would normally expect Goodman Games to release for either Free RPG Day or ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’. Instead of a scenario, it is a sourcebook for the roleplaying game, one presents a set of new Patrons. In the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, these are typically gods and deities and entities that the spellcasting Classes such as the Cleric, the Wizard, and the Elf can turn to in order for greater power and surety. In the case of the Cleric, this is typically a god who in return for the Cleric’s worship and proselytising their shared faith, grants him spells and blessings, but will punish the Cleric if he sins against the strictures of the faith. Wizards can turn to greater powers and invoke their aid to gain potent, but dangerous magic, whilst Elves must work closely with an extra planar patron to do so. Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game includes numerous gods, deities, and entities that Clerics, Elves, and Wizards can entreat and invoke. Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods introduces entities that are and are not gods.
For those that know where to look, there are the legends of the Ones Who Were. They were the gods who arose when the multiverse was new and shaped it according to their whims, their time one of turbulence and turmoil, upheaval and unrest, of chaos and change unfettered. It took newly arisen gods to reign in this unbalance and as the new gods rose in power, they built empyral structures and projections that reigned in the reach of chaos and with it the power of the Ones Who Were. So they were diminished and they fell and they were forgotten. Yet they are not gone, merely reduced to the status of beggars, divine down-and-outs, stripped of their power and priestly hierarchies, but nevertheless remaining the personifications of endless certainties… For those in the know, these Un-Gods can be reached out to, invoked, and called upon for the aid of what cosmic power they still possess.
What Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods presents is seven of these Un-Gods, representing everything from the eternal night and the power behind the throne to celestial Radiance and inspiration and devastation. Each the seven Un-God descriptions includes an invoke patron table, a patron taint table, and a spellburn table. What the descriptions do not include any patron spells, primarily due to size constraints, but there is the possibility that they will be included in future supplements. On the one hand, this perfectly reflects the status and lack of power and influence held by each of the Un-Gods, but on the other, it limits the usefulness of the supplement. Without the patron spells, the Judge is limited in how she can create interesting NPCs linked to the Un-Gods or present Player Characters seeking the aid of the Un-Gods with interesting rewards. Yet it also leaves room for the Judge to create her own and perhaps build a story around discovering what they are.
Should a Player Character (or NPC) manage to forge a patron bond with one of the Un-Gods, there is another way in which he can benefit. If his player possesses the dice set associated with the Un-God—available from Impact Miniatures—then the Player Character can call upon the Un-God and in doing so, grant the player a bump in die size for the action. Should the player roll a one, the Player Character immediately gains patron taint. One reason why the Un-Gods lack priests is that they have long been unconcerned with the trivialities of the mortal realms, are the doings of Player Characters are nothing if not trivial. Fortunately, these are not expensive dice sets, but it is very specific means of getting this bonus.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods opens with Chaar, Titan of Eternal Night, confined to his throne at the centre of everything, he is the manifestation of the inevitable exhaustion and decay of all things. When invoked, he can cause eternal night to envelop the Player Character and all around him, or even cause his hand to become an entropic conduit, increasing his melee damage, especially against Lawful creatures. His Patron Taint might cause the Player Character to age or cause everything in his hand to decay to dust, whilst the Spellburn has similar effects. All of the Un-Gods are like this, so the Ianthinian is the silver-tongued voice that negotiates treaties and the knife at the throat that launches coups, the power behind a billion thrones, who can animate the Player Character’s shadow to slip under doors and spy on others or dispatches a venomous, purple spider to attack a single target nearby. His Patron Taint might leave the Player Character with an unnatural and unsettling aura, which can affect his Personality or punish him by stealing his voice, whilst the effects of his Spellburn can steal Player Character’s memories or remind him that he is worth no more than the creatures that skulk and creep in the shadows, so dozens of spiders, centipedes, crawlers, and other creepy insects burst forth from the caster’s orifices in traumatic and painful fashion.
All seven Un-Gods are described in similar fashion. The others include Ivyeel the Entwining is the vibrant force of growth unchecked, Olathvee personifies passions unchecked, The Sallow Blight manipulates emotions into negative ones, Shayl, the Celestial Radiance is the potential of the righteous and the possibility of redemption for the wicked, and Tuanna and Djahlbak are the sundered remnants of lost Un-God now representative of Inspiration and Devastation. All seven are given four pages each and accompanied by a lot of artwork, a lot more than often appears in the scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. So physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods is very nicely presented.
The lack of Patron Spells aside, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods is an entertaining collection of entities and effects that the Player Characters can both benefit and suffer from in interacting with them. Hopefully, Goodman Games will develop further in the future and perhaps use them in a campaign or a scenario or two. In the meantime, the Judge can use and develop them as suits her campaign.