One of the great things about The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings, the second edition of the acclaimed The One Ring: Adventures Over the Edge of the Wild published by Free League Publishing is The One Ring Starter Set. Why do you ask? Well, because it lets us roleplay members of the Hobbit community whom we not normally encounter. Drogo Baggins, Esmeralda Took, Lobelia Bracegirdle, Paladin Took II, Primula Brandybuck, and Rorimac Brandybuck, in many cases the parents or relations of three of the Hobbits who would form part of the Fellowship of the Ring decades later. Under the direction of the scandalous Bilbo Baggins, the quintet went off and had adventures of their own in the Shire, whilst at the same time The One Ring Starter Set presented the Shire for the roleplaying game itself. Sadly, the five adventures had to come to close and with it the chance to play those characters again. Fortunately, s available a number of sequel adventures, including Landmark Adventures, that can be run as part of, or after, the events of The One Ring Starter Set, or simply added to an ongoing campaign for The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings if it is being run in or around The Shire. The Ghost of Needlehole proved to be a sharp little ghost story, whilst the Mines of Brockenbores took the Player-heroes to the far north of the Shire to inspect a mine! Sackville-Baggins Estates takes the Player-heroes to the far south to explore a growing threat that comes to a fruition at the end of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Sackville-Baggins Estates describes the farmstead to the southeast of Longbottom, which lies on the very edge of the Shire. This is the estate of Otho and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, the latter the infamous cousin of Bilbo Baggins, known for her covetous and grasping nature and her desire to own Bag End. Despite the poor quality nature of the farm’s ground, Otho and Lobelia have enriched themselves growing Southern Star pipe weed, which although of too poor a quality to sell to other Hobbits, is sold to Men and merchants in Bree and beyond. Where Lobelia is sour-natured and inquisitive, her husband is dour and ill-mannered, and their son, Lotho, is ill-tempered and lazy with a perpetual scowl on his face. Otho is also secretive and rarely welcomes visitors—and with good reason.

In his desire to become the ‘wealthiest Hobbit in the Shire’ and appease his wife, Otho has entered into a secret pact with a man from the south. This is to provide information about the doings of the Shire, and in particular, the comings and goings of Gandalf the Grey. The money he is paid comes from the purse of Saruman the White... Over the years, Otho’s farm has doubled in size and seen an increasing number of visitors, working the fields and transporting the harvest away. These are a mix of ne’er do wells from across the Shire and men brought in, many of whom work the spy network that Otho has established on behalf of Saruman. Ultimately, the investment that Saruman has made in the Shire will pay off with the Scouring of the Shire.

Sackville-Baggins Estates includes a rumour and old lore about Otho’s farm and both he and Lobelia, a random event that brings the Player-heroes into contact with one of Otho’s agents, descriptions of all three NPCs—Otho, Lobelia, and Lotho, and a description of their farm. There is a lot of information given here and as a Landmark Adventure, what it does is develop the back story to the events at the end of The Lord of the Rings. However, this is not an easy Landmark Adventure to use. To begin with, there is relatively little to explore and not much more to discover. Then, when Otho’s perfidy is revealed, how does this play out? What are the consequences? How does it affect future events in the Shire given that they are written in stone? Then there is an even darker plan upon the part of Otho, which the adventure suggests, but again, the consequences are not explored in any depth.
Sackville-Baggins Estates is neatly presented and is well written. The map is rough, but workable.
Unfortunately, as welcome as Sackville-Baggins Estates is, it is simply not as good as the previous The Ghost of Needlehole. It does a very nice job of filling in the back story to the events that lead into the later events of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and the Scouring of the Shire. In terms of gameable content, Sackville-Baggins Estates will need development upon the part of the Loremaster to be effectively useful in her campaign.

How do you like your GM Screen?

The GM Screen is a essentially a reference sheet, comprised of several card sheets that fold out and can be stood up to serve another purpose, that is, to hide the GM's notes and dice rolls. On the inside, the side facing the GM are listed all of the tables that the GM might want or need at a glance without the need to have to leaf quickly through the core rulebook. On the outside, facing the players, can be found either more tables for their benefit or representative artwork for the game itself. This is both the basic function and the basic format of the screen, neither of which has changed all that much over the years. Beyond the basic format, much has changed though.

To begin with the general format has split, between portrait and landscape formats. The result of the landscape format is a lower screen, and if not a sturdier screen, than at least one that is less prone to being knocked over. Another change has been in the weight of card used to construct the screen. Exile Studios pioneered a new sturdier and durable screen when its printers took two covers from the Hollow Earth Expedition core rule book and literally turned them into the game’s screen. This marked a change from the earlier and flimsier screens that had been done in too light a cardstock, and several publishers have followed suit.

Once you have decided upon your screen format, the next question is what you have put with it. Do you include a poster or poster map, such as Chaosium, Inc.’s last screen for Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition or Margaret Weis Productions’ Serenity and BattleStar Galactica Roleplaying Games? Or a reference work like that included with Chessex Games’ Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune or the GM Resource Book for Pelgrane Press’ Trail of Cthulhu? Perhaps Or scenarios such as ‘Blackwater Creek’ and ‘Missed Dues’ from the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition? Or even better, a book of background and scenarios as well as the screen, maps, and forms, like that of the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack also published by Chaosium, Inc. In the past, the heavier and sturdier the screen, the more likely it is that the screen will be sold unaccompanied, such as those published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment for the Starblazer Adventures: The Rock & Roll Space Opera Adventure Game and Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG. That though is no longer the case and stronger and sturdier GM Screens are the norm today.

So how do I like my GM Screen?

I like my Screen to come with something. Not a poster or poster map, but a scenario, which is one reason why I like ‘Descent into Darkness’ from the Game Master’s Screen and Adventure for Legends of the Five Rings Fourth Edition and ‘A Bann Too Many’, the scenario that comes in the Dragon Age Game Master's Kit for Green Ronin Publishing’s Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5. I also like my screen to come with some reference material, something that adds to the game. Which is why I am fond of both the Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune as well as the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack. It is also why I like the Gamemaster’s Toolkit published by by Modiphius Entertainment for use with Dune – Adventures in the Imperium, the roleplaying game based on the novels by Frank Herbert.
Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Gamemaster’s Toolkit comes with a four-panel screen and a Game Master booklet that contains tools and advice on running a campaign for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium as well as adventure hooks, intrigues, and more. The screen itself is a sturdy affair, as is standard for the hobby today, but in portrait format rather than landscape. This is not as easy a format to use, plus it does have a much imposing presence at the table. The front of it depicts a map of Arrakis, or rather the known map of Arrakis at the time of the events of the novels. So, the northern polar region around Arrakeen and Catharg with the surrounding shield wall and The Great Flat, Funeral Plain, and Habbanya Erg to the west and the Deep Desert to the east. Done in sandy shades of yellow and brown with the startling blue of the polar ice cap at the centre, it is an imposing presence at the table. On the inside, the outer left panel list Skills, Drives, Traits, difficulty levels, and the skill test procedure, whilst on the inner left panel summarises the use of Determination, challenging Drives, how to add to the Game Master’s Threat pool, and the uses of Momentum. The inner righthand panel covers the rules for conflict and the attack sequence, plus the costs for spending Advancement Points, whilst the outer right panel has sections for creating NPCs on the go and generating story hooks. Throughout, every section has a page reference number so that the Game Master can check for further details or an explanation in the Dune – Adventures in the Imperium core book. Overall, there is a clear and pleasing simplicity to the Game Master’s Screen, and it is easy to read and use.
Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Gamemaster’s Toolkit comes with a four-panel screen and a Game Master booklet that contains tools and advice on running a campaign for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium as well as adventure hooks, intrigues, and more. The screen itself is a sturdy affair, as is standard for the hobby today, but in portrait format rather than landscape. This is not as easy a format to use, plus it does have a much imposing presence at the table. The front of it depicts a map of Arrakis, or rather the known map of Arrakis at the time of the events of the novels. So, the northern polar region around Arrakeen and Catharg with the surrounding shield wall and The Great Flat, Funeral Plain, and Habbanya Erg to the west and the Deep Desert to the east. Done in sandy shades of yellow and brown with the startling blue of the polar ice cap at the centre, it is an imposing presence at the table. On the inside, the outer left panel list Skills, Drives, Traits, difficulty levels, and the skill test procedure, whilst on the inner left panel summarises the use of Determination, challenging Drives, how to add to the Game Master’s Threat pool, and the uses of Momentum. The inner righthand panel covers the rules for conflict and the attack sequence, plus the costs for spending Advancement Points, whilst the outer right panel has sections for creating NPCs on the go and generating story hooks. Throughout, every section has a page reference number so that the Game Master can check for further details or an explanation in the Dune – Adventures in the Imperium core book. Overall, there is a clear and pleasing simplicity to the Game Master’s Screen, and it is easy to read and use.
The Game Master booklet expands upon the chapter on being a Game Master in the core rulebook, first suggesting the types of conflict that the Player Characters might be involved in a scenario for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. These include humanity versus nature, humanity versus civilisation, humanity versus tradition, humanity versus other humans, and so on. It supports these with eighteen different story seeds each of which includes a dramatic hook, an immediate call to action, locales, what is at stake, and the nature of the opposition. For example, in ‘Forgotten Vendetta’ under Kanly or humanity versus other humans, the Player Characters’ House may find itself the target of Kanly from a Minor House over an ancient and otherwise forgotten slight and a War of Assassins has already begun or in ‘The Star Pilgrims’ under Wilderness Survival for humanity versus nature, there is a race on to locate and investigate a crashed starship recently uncovered from the sands—just how old is it? No stats are provided and the Game Master will have to develop them into something playable, but they are good starting points.
To help the Game Master, the ‘Adventure Generators’ is a set of tables to create all of the elements of a scenario. This starts with title structure, key character type involved, location, object or animal, concept such as revenge or calamity, and institution or group. Following this are tables for a starting point for the adventure, involving the Player Characters and an enemy, before revealing the plot and identifying the antagonists and their aim. Further tables throw in problems and obstacles, a hidden hand behind the plot, and the supporting cast and NPCs. It is suggested that this is then mapped onto an intrigue map, with tables further tables given to detail the NPCs. All of this is supported by a really good example of how an adventure generation works which can easily be adapted to the Game Master’s campaign. All the Game Master has to do is supply names and stats and the plot is ready to play.
In addition, Game Master booklet includes four Intrigues as both inspiration and ready-to-develop examples. These dive into the conspiratorial aspect of the Known Universe, including the Bene Gesserit’s Missionaria Protectiva attempting to craft a new superstition with which to manipulate the Fremen, the Bene Tleilax scheming to obtain the secrets of the Bene Gesserit breeding programme, investigating the low yields of spice recovery from the harvester cleaning crews, and the Ixians attempting to scavenge the remains of an ancient spaceship. The latter could be tied back into the earlier ‘The Star Pilgrims’. The Locations add three example places that the Game Master can add to her campaign. They include a smuggler base, a sample House which serves as an information broker on Arrakis, and a House-run passenger spaceship. These nicely detailed, complete with full NPC stats, and again fairly easy to insert into a campaign.
Physically, the Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Gamemaster’s Toolkit is well presented. The screen itself is sturdy and easy to use, whilst the Game Master Booklet is clean and tidy and easy to read. If there is an issue, it is that the Game Master will need a bag in which to store its various parts and not lose them!
The Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Gamemaster’s Toolkit is a solid resource for the Game Master. The screen will always find a use, whilst the contents of the Game Master booklet is really something that the Game Master will dip into as necessary and as an addendum to the Game Master advice in Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. This can be as direct inspiration using its almost ready-to-play content or as a series of prompts for the Game Master’s imagination.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is a bit different, just like the previous entry in the line, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #7: A Dozen Lankhmar Locations. Unlike the majority of the releases for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the releases for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set, both of these are supplements rather than scenarios, although Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities does actually include a scenario. Where Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #7: A Dozen Lankhmar Locations provided the Judge with a wide range of locations and businesses and NPCs that she can use to bring the city of Lankhmar to life, what Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities does is open up the wider world of Nehwon to what is at heart a city campaign. It follows in the footsteps of the heroes of author Fritz Leiber’s tales of the adventures, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, as they struck north across the Inner Sea and into The Land of the Eight Cities. Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is both a guide to the country and to playing in that country, as well as a guide to how it was developed from original source material. Plus of course, it comes with its own scenario to get the Player Characters there.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities introduces The Land of the Eight Cities, located in and on the edges of the Forest Land, across the Inner Sea from the city of Lankhmar. Six centuries ago, it was settled by Lankhmarts who came searching for resources including lumber, ores, and gems, who established its first cities and effectively turned the region into a colony of the city. That changed three centuries ago, when eastern nomads filtered through the gap between the Barrier Mountains and the Inner Cities and assaulted city after city, eventually capturing all of them. Yet they did not sack the cities, but instead occupied them and adopted their ways! In the centuries since, The Land of the Eight Cities and the city of Lankhmar have become uneasy trading partners, The Land of the Eight Cities trading its ready supply of lumber, ores, and gems in return for the grain and meat farmed around Lankhmar. Despite this strong relationship, the lords of the Eight Cities still fear invasion by the Overlords of Lankhmar. It has also a similar relationship with the barbarian tribes of the Cold Wastes, trading for their furs, amber, and ivory via the cold city of No-Ombrulsk, but constantly needing to patrol against the pirate ships from the north. The supplement also presents details of the peoples of The Land of the Eight Cities, its government, and its gods. The latter consist of the Gods of the Forest and the Red God. The Gods of the Forest are worshipped by the majority of inhabitants of the region and personify their belief in the inherent spiritualism of the ancient trees and verdant wildlife. The Red God is a deity of blood and slaughter, and is worshipped by soldiers across the region and in particular, by the gladiators who fight in the arena in the palace-house of Lithquil, the Mad Duke and ruler of the city of Ool Hrusp.
All eight cities of The Land of the Eight Cities are detailed, most of which are cramped settlements of close-set, steep-roofed wooden buildings threaded through by narrow alleys which are set in forest clearings where the forests literally come right up to the edge of the settlement. Few have walls or the fortifications found in the south, the surrounding areas being laced with traps and treetop watch posts with troops also keeping a hardy eye on the narrow roads to and from the cities.

The secrets of forest around the cities include stats for a typical gladiator of the Mad Duke, a Kilyolsho tribesman, a member of the desert tribe to be found on the other side of the Barrier Mountains, Ool Hruspian Marine who serves aboard the Ool Hruspian ships assigned protect the city’s merchant fleet from pirates and Sea Mingols. Two new creatures are given, the bear-like Luhr-beast and Pack Bear, the latter of which can be trained to carry items for a master, as well as fight for him. There are new Bensions and Dooms too. ‘Bear-blooded’ is a Benison which gives a Player Character bear blood, not only enabling him to roar like a bear and scare off animals in the forest, but also allowing him to have a trained pack bear that can understand commands and fight for the Player Character. The other Benison is ‘Mining Claim’, whilst the Dooms are ‘Blasphemer’, which makes the Player Character an apostate in the eyes of the priests of the Gods of the Forests, and ‘Treader in Ancient’ which curses the Player Character to followed by something discovered in the ancient black ruins deep in the forest, though he cannot recall the exact events of his first encounter with it or what it is. Both of these Bensions and Dooms are designed initially for natives to The Land of the Eight Cities, but outsiders who live there for some time may also gain them. Both the Gods of the Forest and the Red God are described in terms of being patrons, and there is a table for carousing in The Land of the Eight Cities instead of using the one given in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set.
The included adventure in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is ‘Introductory Adventure The Tooth of No-Ombrulsk’. Designed for Player Characters of Second Level and Third Level, it begins with them coming into possession of a treasure map, pointing to the location of a stolen artefact. This is The Tooth of No-Ombrulsk, sacred to a whale-god worshipped in the northern city of No-Ombrulsk. The adventure is more of a mini-adventure, consisting of just eleven locations and describing a long-abandoned and ruined watchtower where the artefact has been hidden. It has a tomb-like quality, being laced with a number of traps, those these are not the only threats that the Player Characters will face. There are some sea-themed monsters as well as another pair of factions also after the artefact, including a very nicely done, desperate and vengeful priest of No-Ombrulsk. ‘Introductory Adventure The Tooth of No-Ombrulsk’ is nicely detailed as you would expect for Dungeon Crawl Classics, and the consequences of the Player Characters successfully gaining possession of the artefact are well thought out, but it only gets the Player Characters to the very tip of The Land of the Eight Cities and does not actually engage with the content presented elsewhere in the book. Thus, the Judge and her players will have to wait for something more definitive that will take their characters into The Land of the Eight Cities.

Rounding out Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is ‘Appendix A: The Fritz Leiber Papers Collection’. This details Michael Curtis’ trip to the University of Houston and its Special Collection department to examine the Fritz Leiber Papers it holds as part of the research to create the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. In particular, it looks at the draft version of ‘The Tale of the Grain Ships’ which would ultimately become The Swords of Lankhmar. It is this draft which Curtis draws on heavily for Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities and he discusses this before delving deeper into the many items in the collection. This includes swords, early maps, screenplays, and even correspondence with E. Gary Gygax. For fans of Fritz Leiber and Lankhmar, and both Gygax and the Appendix N, this is a fascinating read and a great addendum to both the scenario and the box set.
One of the issues with Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is that it has relatively little source material upon which to draw from. Consequently there is a brevity to the content of the supplement, though some Judges will see this as a boon as it gives them room aplenty to develop their own content. However, the supplement is missing content which would have been useful. This includes maps, both of The Land of the Eight Cities and the Eight Cities themselves, and whilst the inclusion of the two Patrons, the Gods of the Forest and the Red, is more than useful, the lack of spells particular to them is not. Similarly, the supplement mentions several times that strange, ageless structures are to be found in the forests of The Land of the Eight Cities, but these are not detailed beyond suggesting that they might have been built by the same people who built the black temples upon which Lankhmar is built. Of course, this leaves plenty of room for the Judge to develop her own, but something beyond mere hints would have been useful.
Ultimately, the problem with Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is the paucity of information. There is always the feeling that there should be more information, but this is not the author’s fault, as there is relatively little information about The Land of the Eight Cities for him to draw on. Nevertheless, he has been able to develop a fair amount of detail and add to it, from what was available. The rest is up to the Judge to develop herself.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is well presented. The artwork is good and the one included map for the scenario is likewise good. One oddity to note is that the illustration of the Pack Bear is included on the previous page below the description of the Luhr-beast, a bear-like creature. Which suggests the possibility of there being a non-human anthropomorphic bear-like species in The Land of the Eight Cities. Which is not the case, and will only become clear when the reader flips over the page and continues reading.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities opens up the possibility of the Player Characters—thieves, pickpockets, burglars, cutpurses, muggers, and anyone else who would skulk in the night—escaping the City of the Black Toga and going on wilderness adventures and visiting other cities. It is unfortunate that the included adventure, as decent as it is, does neither. Similarly, whilst the rest of the information in the supplement is also decent, especially given the constraints faced by the author in terms of source material, it is only a starting point. This limits its usefulness for the Judge, whilst also leaving the setting open for her to develop as part of her own campaign. Thus, whilst there is a lot of interesting information in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities, none more so than in the appendix, this is not a supplement that the Judge needs to have as part of her campaign. Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is very much an option, if then, an interesting option.

We are lucky. We live in a time when the hobbies we pursue and the things that we like are the norm. Not just the norm, but accepted. Science Fiction, fantasy, superheroes, playing games, all the sorts of stuff that would have been derided in our childhoods and got us labelled as nerds. Board games are part of that trend, a trend which has seen them grow from being seen as childish pursuits to being just a hobby, but is that all they are? Just one more nerdy hobby amongst many others? This is something that What Board Games Mean to Me: Tales from the Tabletop sets out to explore in a series of essays from designers and publishers, players and scholars, journalists and librarians. Published by Aconyte Books, it is part of the publisher’s ‘Play to Win’ line, which includes James Wallis’ examination of the Spiel des Jahres winners, Everybody Wins: Four Decades of Greatest Board Games Ever Made, this is a collection of reminiscences and thoughts about board games—occasionally collectible card games and roleplaying games—but mostly board games, that will take the reader around the world and to some interesting places and ideas and to experiences familiar and unfamiliar, before coming back again, to his own collection of board games on the shelf and to the table where he plays them with friends and family.
The familiar follows two strands. The first being of playing with family—siblings, parents, and grandparents—of family classics such as Monopoly, Scrabble, Whist, Draughts, and how that got the essayist into playing games and understanding not just the mechanics of play, but the social dynamics of play. Games thus became a way to facilitate interaction with the rules of the game and the rules of game play. This is followed by the second, the discovery of a wider variety of board games, opening the essayist up to different themes and styles of play, co-operative games being a notable common discovery. For gamers of a certain age, such as John Kovalic, Gav Thorpe, Jervis Johnson, and Sir Ian Livingstone. This would have been with titles such as Escape from Colditz, Diplomacy, and The Warlord, an experience which British gaming hobbyists would recognise and which such figures would use as springboard into careers in the gaming industry. Others would discover a similar path through modern classics such as Carcassonne and CATAN or collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh!.

The unfamiliar at first takes the reader to Nigeria with ‘Picture a Scene’. This charts KC Obbuagu’s first encounter with board games with an African classic, Mancala, and then following a revelatory moment in which he saw his board game design played, his steps into the board game industry where there was none. This was in Nigeria, and creating his first games led to the setting up of the games company, NIBCARD Games, the first tabletop café in Nigeria, and AB Con, the first board games convention in sub-Saharan Africa. All of which would result in NIBCARD Games being awarded the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming in 2021. This is a fascinating story, shining a light on the spread of the hobby in unexpected directions far beyond its origins in the English-speaking world. Also, an unfamiliar area—at least for board games—is that of the library. Jenn Bartlett describes in ‘Ticket to Read’, how she, as a librarian, created a board game programme at her library, working with publishers and local games shops, to support local business and develop a library-using habit in the attendees of the games events that she ran. There is an uncomfortable moment when she encounters misogyny as a player, but she draws parallels between what the hobby does at its best and what a library does, which is to welcome people in and letting them explore what each of them offers without judgement.

Both Lynn Potyen and Edoardo Albert bring a personal touch when they explore a fascinating effect of playing board games. In ‘Brain Games’, Lynn Potyen reveals how playing board games can help with learning disabilities and dementia, whilst Edoardo Alberto shows us in ‘Learning the Rules’ how the rules and etiquette learned in playing games can be applied to ordinary life, not in neurotypical learners, but in himself as well. What is interesting to note here is that when board games are used as tools in this fashion, they achieve something that the eighteenth and nineteenth century designers of board games failed to do, and that is to create a board game that works as an effective educational tool. That though was to teach the young players to be good Christians and the values of the British Empire, but even the board games of today designed to help players learn are not necessarily good teaching devices. Both Lynn Potyen and Edoardo Albert suggest that modern boardgames work better because they are designed for play rather than learning first, rather than the other way around. All of the entries in What Board Games Mean to Me are very personal, but none more so than ‘Brain Games’ and ‘Learning the Rules’.

Other entries in What Board Games Mean to Me include ‘Playing by Design’ an interview with the prolific board games designer, Reiner Knizia, the only entry to differ from personal essays that make up the rest of the book, and two scholarly explorations of board games and play. In the first of these, ‘The Magic Circle’, Matt Coward-Gibbs explores the phenomenon of the space which we all enter when we play from a theoretical standpoint, whilst in the second, ‘Connections’, Holly Nielsen looks at the connections made in that space when playing. One of the points she makes is that after discovering games designed to highlight the causes of women against unequal treatment and misogyny, the examples given pointing the feminism movement of the sixties and seventies and the Suffragette movement of the early twentieth century, she came to realise that despite the rallying cry of “Keep politics out of games!”, there had always been politics in games. There is scope here for an essay of all its own, but Nielson is also interested in the other aspect of games that the contributors to What Board Games Mean to Me return to again and again, and that is making connections via game play. Both entries talk about board games in a way that the casual player might necessarily consider, but do so in an engaging fashion.

What Board Games Mean to Me is similar to a pair of books published by Green Ronin Publishing, Hobby Games: The 100 Best and Family Games: The 100 Best, which together presented a series of essays on what the authors thought were the best and most enjoyable games of previous one hundred years. A handful of the contributors to What Board Games Mean to Mee also wrote entries in those earlier books, but where Hobby Games: The 100 Best and Family Games: The 100 Best looked back, What Board Games Mean to Me looks forward as well as back. This can be seen in KC Obbuagu’s essay highlighting the spread of board games as a hobby into unexpected markets and in the essays by Lynn Potyen and Edoardo Albert that point to board games as means of therapy and socialisation. In this way, it enhances the respectability that playing board games as a hobby has achieved in the past few decades.

Physically, What Board Games Mean to Me is a very lightly illustrated, but very readable paperback. None of the essays are longer than a few pages long and each is accompanied by a biography of its author.

What Board Games Mean to Me explores a variety of experiences in how the contributors came to play board games and how they came to discover and explore the wider hobby, and in doing so, tell stories that, for the most part, we can relate to because we had similar experiences. Yet wherever these stories take us, they always come back to the fact that playing board games is a social activity, a space where when we play, we do so using a set of rules that enable safe interaction and socialisation, even as we compete and battle against each other. Overall, What Board Games Mean to Me: Tales from the Tabletop is an enjoyable essay collection whose entries are in turn not only highly personal and immensely interesting, but will also will make the reader consider their own experiences with board games, whether they are new to the hobby or have been playing for decades.

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: Re-Animator 2508Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Quico Vicens-Picatto

Setting: Deep space in the 26th CenturyProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Nineteen page, 8.27 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Herbert West–Reanimator in spaaaace...!
Plot Hook: “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” – The AnimalsPlot Support: Six pre-generated Investigators, thirteen NPCs, one map, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Colourful
Pros# Fantastic cover# Detailed NPCs# Highly detailed Investigators# Highly detailed background
# Highly detailed timeline# All female cast# Interesting new Occupations# Kinemortophobia# Teraphobia# Cultphobia
Cons# Needs a good edit# Highly detailed background# Highly detailed and tight timeline# Investigators need to work hard to uncover the plot
Conclusion# Unclear plot with no obvious solution# Ultimately, a countdown-driven survivor versus zombies scenario in space, but the set-up is interesting

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: Operation Midnight SunPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Chicho OCARIZ ‘Arkashka’

Setting: World War II IcelandProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-seven page, 13.25 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Nazis versus dinosaurs versus ‘hoard of the Nibelungs’ meets Journey to the Centre of the Earth under Iceland… in World War IIPlot Hook: Iceland is neutral right now, but will it be after Operation Weserübung?Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, eight NPCs, three maps, and one dinosaur type.Production Values: Decent
Pros# Can be run using Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos# Straightforward scenario# Easy to run one-shot or convention scenario# Nyctophobia# Speluncaphobia# Ornithoscelidaphobia
Cons# Needs a good edit# No location map# More military operation than Mythos investigation# No Mythos content
Conclusion# Short, action and stealth-focused World War II scenario# Ultimately more military operation than Mythos investigation

Equipment books in roleplaying serve numerous functions. At their most basic, they are a book of goods and gear that a player can have his character purchase to help that character survive the next scenario, whether it is a sword, shield, and some armour that the character will wear from one adventure to the next, or thick furs or padded clothing that will help him weather the freezing temperatures over the high mountains and into the snow and ice beyond. Then they are the virtual equivalent of a Sears & Roebuck catalogue at the table, that the players can pick and choose from as their characters go shopping within the game and there is even semi-tradition of the Player Characters actually going shopping within the game and buying all of the things—whether the genre is fantasy Wild West, Science Fiction, or Cyberpunk—that their players never could. Literally roleplaying a fantasy of going shopping for fantasy things! Of course, just as the items within an equipment guide can be used to equip a Player Character, they can also be used to equip an NPC. If such an equipment guide includes a good mix of arms and armour, then all the Game Master has to do is pick out some different weapons and some different armour, and she has the beginnings of an interesting NPC, at least in terms of what wields and what he looks like. In addition, if the Player Characters have amassed some loot—jewels, gems, object d’art, and that sort of thing—then they will want to sell it and an equipment guide will often discuss the means to do so. In addition to arms and armour, an equipment guide will often detail a range of services and experts that the Player Characters can purchase or hire, as well as bigger things that they might want to invest in, such as land and buildings. This though, is not all that an equipment guide can be used for. A good equipment guide can do all that and more. A really good equipment guide can do all this and be used to help bring a world to life and it can be used as a spur for stories.
RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment is a supplement for Chaosium, Inc.’s RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. As an expansion for the core rules, RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment does everything that a good equipment guide does. It details and describes a wide range of items, goods, services, training, magical items, and beasts, plus new arms and armour, new rules for land ownership and use, and much more. And it is fair to say that the least interesting aspect of the supplement is actually the arms and armour. This is not to say that the included weapons and armour, which together draw from a range of cultures and races from across Glorantha, are not useful, because they very much are, but they are not actually interesting in comparison with the rest of the book.

RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment begins in broad detail with the market and what goods might be available depending upon the size and location of the market, explains Gloranthan currency, and looks at the economy, prices, handling and creating masterwork items, and more. The interesting aspect here is the effect that the size of the local economy can have on what a Player Character can buy and sell and what effect selling loot can have on the local economy. In smaller, more local economies, favours and bartering are more likely as means of exchange—even when it comes to settling debts—rather than money, and if the Player Characters sell too much loot, it can not only depress the economy, it can also attract the attention of the local authorities and temples, who will want them to contribute to the community!

One of aspects of Glorantha is the prominence and importance of different metals and their use. Most obviously bronze, since Glorantha is most often described as a bronze-age world, but other metals, ranging from aluminium and copper to silver and tin are also examined. This includes its properties when enchanted, such as weapons and armour made from enchanted copper being particularly hardy and enchanted quicksilver having the property of not being able to sink in water, Gloranthan cults and the enchanted metal spells they grant, and how enchanted metal is crafted. Here is where RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment begins rise above being just a simple shopping catalogue, because this is a useful section for metal workers—redsmiths for bronze, goldsmiths for gold, and so on. This is because it is possible to play such craftsmen in RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment and this directly supports them, as does the rules for creating masterwork items, which might be to increase an item’s Hit Points, armour points, or increase the amount of damage it can do. These are not fully detailed rules for creating masterwork or enchanted items, but they are more than sufficient. Plus, they enable a master craftsman Player Character, who needs a skill of at least 90%, to use his skill to greater effect, whilst at the same time working towards creating objects with enchanted metal. They are also accompanied by ‘The Metals of Acos’, a First Age document which provides some engaging in-game thoughts upon the various metals. Similar sections cover pottery and weaving, though not in as much depth, and there is an accompanying list of prices of crockery for the former and a list of clothing types and their prices under the common goods section.

‘Common Goods’ lists thumbnail descriptions and prices of a wide variety of everyday items. Clothing, jewellery, cosmetics, tools, musical instruments, toys and games, food and drink (including honey, wax, and royal jelly from bees), herbs and plants, exotic materials, and trinkets. There is some pleasing little details here, such as slimming girdles, made from either zebra or whale bones, being worn by Lunar nobility as means to appear thinner, but usually causing the wearer to pass out due to their tightness, or that popular board games are God’s Eyes and Fingers, Ouranekki, and Swords and Shields. Sadly, there are no rules any of the board games only relatively sparse descriptions, but whilst the mundane nature of many of these items and certainly their prices may not mean much to the average adventurer, they might to an NPC. Also, these items can be used to add verisimilitude to huts and houses and other dwellings as they are the everyday items which might be found at home. And just like the ingots of metals used by the various smiths, they will be found for sale at markets, in shops, and from the backs of the pack animals of travelling Issaries merchants. Further details, such as the fact that the popularity of rubies in the Lunar Empire means that Etyries merchants are willing to pay more for them and that reed baskets and bags, inexpensive when bought in Prax or New Pavis, are seen as foreign and fashionable items elsewhere, are more interesting than how much they cost. By comparison, though necessary, the section on adventuring gear feels almost mundane!

The chapter on beasts covers meat beasts, pack animals, riding beasts, and war beasts. Exotic beasts are listed for the different Elder Races, and stats for two new riding bests are given, expanding upon those in the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary. These are the Moose and the Reindeer. Alongside the list of riding gear, including various saddles, harnesses, saddlebags, and stirrups, there are details of various mobile dwellings and a table of mount speeds. Also given here are details of awakened animals. The most obvious of which is the alynx or shadowcat, and in roleplaying terms, thus associated with the worshippers of Odayla and Yinkin. However, any Player Character can have an awakened animal, not just a worshipper of Odayla or Yinkin, but a shadowcat is not always the most appropriate. RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment looks at several options, including birds, lizards, and snakes as well as other mammals. It notes that parrots are popular in Nochet and Glamour, crows and ravens with worshippers of Ty Kora Tek, Durulz children have frogs and toads, and geckos are commonly found in both Lunar and Sartarite Tarsh. Possession of an awakened creature at least adds colour to a character, but the roleplaying possibilities it opens up are endless.

Some skills and knowledges lie outside that of the Player Characters and this is where hirelings and services are useful. There are rules here for the availability of either, the expected skill ratings and rates pay, plus specific sections on mercenaries, personal services, heralds and poets, sages and scribes, and magic services. Notable here are terms of employment and contracts for mercenaries, plus a typical oath sworn by mercenaries and a guide to how loot is divided among them, including the Orlanthi and Yelm methods, plus an adventurer’s pact. These work for both NPCs and Player Characters, whether they are entering employment or hiring. There are details too of how slavery works in Glorantha, primarily as punishment for crimes and debts, or being captured as prisoners of war, and which species do own slaves. This does not include the Orlanthi who abhor the practice. That said, the authors do address the subject of slavery from a modern point of view and how it relates to the game, ultimately advising that the Game Master discuss the issue with her players beforehand. Besides this, there is a list of magical services, including the decidedly ungodly practice of sorcerous divination and casting magic for enchanted items—the latter to accompany the earlier rules on enchanted items, and also prices for renting rooms in the short term at inns and residences in the long term. The section on funerary rites covers various practices and their prices, including ceremonies and funeral pyres humble and grand, but again adding depth and detail to the world, though greater specifics will lie with the various cults.

The chapters on arms and armour expands upon those listed in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, adding a variety of new weapons like the Orlanthi Broad-axe, Moon Blade polearm, trident, war boomerangs, chakrams, and more. All are described and listed in the expanded weapons tables, as is the rhino hide armour in the armour tables and the armours for beasts and non-humans including Elves, Ducks, Trolls, and Trollkin. All of the arms and armour are illustrated, the armour in full colour, with some nicely depictions of various types of helms to differentiate between the types. One surprising omission is that of Dragonewt weapons, especially since the weapons of other species are included. (They can though, be found in the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary.) The major addition are the rules for entangling and net weapons, which bring throwing hooks, lassos, nets, and whips into play.

The rules for travel focus on group travel, including caravan, river, and ocean travel. Typical travel times are listed, and there are even rules for length of journey depending on circumstances and skill, as well as details of vehicles and vessels, such as chariots and reed boats. It would have been handy here for them to be illustrated and even be given deck plans where necessary, but there are none. As a campaign progresses, there is scope for the Player Characters to own their own dwellings and land, possession of which can lead to further adventures. The example here being is land grants being handed out by Prince Argrath in the Big Rubble, enforcing that being a big challenge. Land is treated as a potential reward and then responsibility, something that the Player Characters might earn and then have to protect and nurture. There is list of improvements which can be made, profits or losses to be made during sacred time, and possible random land-related events. The aim is not to provide a detailed set of rules for resource management, but more as a means to support the narrative and roleplaying. There is scope though, for a supplement, whether in whole or part, dedicated to this subject.

The penultimate chapter in RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment revisits training from RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, adding rules for learning new Runes, which typically has to be done via a cult associated with the cult a Player Character is an initiate of. However, since a maximum of only 5% can be gained at the end of training, it takes at least two seasons to increase a Rune to the minimum of 10% necessary for it to be used in play. Lastly, the section on exotic items expands on the rules for magic crystals given in the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack with a list of strange enchanted items and extraordinary gems. The former include an Empty Purse, which transfers only local currency to a nearby strong box and Walktapus Gloves, made from the skin of the feared Chaos creature, but valued by redsmiths for their ability to withstand extreme heat, whilst the later includes a Lhankor Mhy’s Mark, used to copy and transfer text via rubbings and a Vengeance Black, which if an oath is sworn it, provides a temporary bonus to skills dedicated to fulfilling the oath.

Physically, RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment is very well presented. It is clean, tidy, and easy to read. The cover is excellent, depicting the pre-generated signature characters from the pages of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha – Quickstart and Adventure at rest, camping between adventures.

There is a degree of repetition in the pages of RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment and other books for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, but in most cases, the repetition means that the new information is brought together with the old so that it is all together. Then there is the fact that a quarter of book, that devoted to arms and armour, is actually utilitarian rather than interesting. The majority of the book, fortunately, is both interesting and useful, presenting content that will be of great use to Issaries merchants with the market and price guides; Chalana Arroy initiates for the herbs and plants details; and craftsmen of all types for details particular to their crafts. Player Character of all types will find the supplement of use, whether they want to make a purchase or sell some loot, or undertake some training or hire some experts. However, RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipmentcomes into its own for the Game Master, because of the richness of the tiny details that even the most mundane of items brings to Glorantha and the verisimilitude that creates, helping to bring the world to life for her players. In this way, RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment does exactly what a good equipment guide should.

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—

Five hundred years ago, Rhand was a rich, verdant colony with vast forests that supported agriculture and attracted tourism. Technologically advanced, easy travel was facilitated by four satellites which operated a world-spanning teleport network. Then the Spectrals came. The faceless, jet black invaders from deep space launched attacks that shattered the climate, smashed the teleport network, and unleashed bioagents which drove many of humanity on the planet into barbarism. Five centuries later, Rhand’s climate is dominated by advancing ice and devastating storms and tornadoes. The only habitable part of the planet is the equator, populated by a thousand kingdoms and city states, competing for resources as the war against the Spectrals and other monsters continues as their societies face further collapse. The only hope lies in Orca, the last remnant of the government from before the Spectral attack, dedicated to recovering and protecting what knowledge it can, conducting operations against the Spectrals, and preventing the total collapse of society into barbarism and anarchy. Orca fields a range of military and auxiliary units, the elite of which are named after mythical beasts like the Dragons and the Targa. Where Targa units specialise in hand-to-hand combat and heavy assault missions, Dragon units specialise in commando missions and strategic planning. In addition to its dedicated forces, Orca has one other advantage—it can anyone anywhere on Rhand. It has access to Morningstar, the surviving satellite that had been part of the teleportation network. The magic of the Morningstar is accessed via an Encoder. Activate this and anyone also wearing a Thrall, a chain worn on the wrist, will be teleported to the desired destination. However, being the only surviving satellite remaining in the network means that Morningstar does not cover all of the planet all of the time. Depending upon Morningstar’s orbital position and the intended destination, an Orca team can be out of contact with the Morningstar network for as short as a few hours and as long as two weeks!

This is the set-up for Rhand: Morningstar Missions. Published in 1984, it was the first roleplaying game to be designed and released by Leading Edge Games, which would later be known for the Phoenix Command combat system and the Aliens Adventure Game as well as a number of other licensed roleplaying games. Indeed, the mechanics for Rhand: Morningstar Missions were a precursor for Phoenix Command, just as its setting would be revisited in Living Steel. Set not long after the attack by the Spectrals, this was a prequel to Rhand: Morningstar Missions, and it would not be until the release of Rhand 2349, a supplement for Living Steel, that the world itself would get more detailed attention. At its heart, Rhand: Morningstar Missions is a post-apocalyptic setting with magic and medieval-style combat on a post-technological world. It is a roleplaying game of special forces-style military missions in which the Player Characters—as members of Orca—have access to a device which can get them anywhere, a la Fringeworthy from Tri Tac Games, Wraith Recon from Mongoose Publishing, and of course, Star Gate: SG1.

A Player Character in Rhand: Morningstar Missions is defined by his characteristics, skills, equipment, and various derived factors. The primary characteristics are Strength, Intelligence, Will, Health, and Agility, typically ranging in value between three and eighteen, although they can go higher. The secondary characteristics are Charisma, Motivation, Size, and Telepathic Sensitivity. The primary characteristics are purchased from a randomly determined pool of points and the secondary characteristics are all rolled randomly individually. This requires referencing a number of tables at the back of the book. Base skill levels are determined randomly. Skills are rated between one and twenty, with eight being a Professional level and fifteen World Class. They are categorised into Class 1 General Skills that all characters possess, and then Class 2 General Skills and Class 3 General Skills, plus Specialist Skills. The Magic, Medicine, and Science skills fall into the latter category, as does Special Fighting Forms, themed around the four elements, which greatly enhance a Player Character’s Combat and Martial Arts skills. A Player Character only begins play with levels in Class 1 General Skills, but can dedicate training time between missions to improve already known skills and learn new ones. This is limited by his rank in the Orca organisation and only by increasing his rank can he gain the opportunity to learn or improve Specialist Skills. This also takes him out of play as it requires dedicated learning time. Training grants a player Training Rolls. Each one is made against his character’s Learning Roll and if successful, grants him a Learning Point which can be assigned to a specific skill. When the number of Learning Points in a skill exceeds the threshold, its Skill Level increases. So, to become a Professional in a skill, Skill Level 7, a Player Character needs to accumulate eighty-eight Learning Points, and to be considered World Class or Skill Level 15, he needs six-hundred-and-seventy-four-Learning-Points!

A beginning Player Character only has the Skill Levels in the Class 1 General Skills at start of play. Effectively, he is a recruit, waiting to go on his first mission.

Name: Robert

CHARACTERISTICS
Strength 13
Intelligence 13
Will 10
Health 12
Agility 13

Charisma 15
Motivation 17
Size 11
Telepathic Sensitivity 14

Combat Value: 15
Combat Speed: 1+
Knockout Value: 15
Learning Roll: 84
Magic Learning Roll: 14

Skill Factor: 16
Base Action Time: .8
Damage Bonus: 1.0

SKILLS
Balance and Footwork – LP 0 Level 3
Bard – LP 0 Level 4
Combat – LP 0 Level 3
Diplomacy – LP 0 Level 2
Fall Recovery – LP 0 Level 3
First Aid – LP 0 Level 2
Horsemanship – LP 0 Level 2
Martial Arts – LP 0 Level 2

EQUIPMENT (Encumbrance: 37.7):
Studded leather, round shield, light spear, dagger, broadsword, mess kit, personal hygiene kit

WEAPONS
Dagger – Weapon Speed: 2.8 Weapon Class: +2 Impact: (3) +2 (Slashing), (3) (Stabbing); Attack Level: 5 (Slashing/Stabbing) Weapon Actions: 2.24
Spear – Weapon Speed: 2.1 Weapon Class: -2 (Stabbing) Impact: (5) (Stabbing); Attack Level: 1 (Stabbing) Weapon Actions: 1.68
Broadsword – Weapon Speed: 2.2 Weapon Class: 0 (Slashing), -1 (Stabbing) Impact: (6) +2 (Slashing), (3) (Stabbing); Attack Level: 3 (Slashing), 2 (Stabbing) Weapon Actions: 1.76
Round Shield – Shield Speed: 1.1; Shield Actions: 0.88

Mechanically, Rhand: Morningstar Missions is intended to be played out on a two-foot wide hex grid and uses a percentile resolution mechanic and what it calls the ‘Action/Reaction Table’. To undertake an action, the Game Master refers to the skill being used and determines the Base Odds for the skill being used. This is multiplied by the Player Character’s Skill Level to get the percentage chance of success. It is that simple, but as written it does not look that simple and from the exceedingly concise options listed under each skill it does not look that simple. So, it takes a lengthy example of play for the Game Master to even understand the basics, and even after that, she may be floundering.
For example, Robert wants to perform a song to bolster the mood of his fellow Men-at arms in his unit. The Base Odds are determined as follows: 5 for composition of average melodies and written material and ability as a scribe and 10 for the ability to evoke emotion in the audience. This gives a total of 15, which is multiplied by Robert’s Skill Level of 4 in Bard to give a total chance of 60%. If the ‘Action/Reaction Table’ of Rhand: Morningstar Missions attempts to be simple, its combat rules attempt to be complex. It details some thirty weapons from a range of cultures, divided into four damage types—Cutting, Stabbing, Flange, and Blunt—and further categorised as either One Handed, Two Handed, or Blunt Impact. Combat is intended to be played out on a grid of two-foot-wide hexes with Combat Speed indicating the number of hexes or changes of direction a combatant can move in a single phase. The number of Weapon Actions spent on an attack can alter the amount of damage inflicted, so that a Short Stroke inflicts half damage, but only takes a single Weapon Action, whereas two Weapon Action s are a Normal Stroke for normal damage, and three Weapon Actions a Long Stroke for double damage. A single Weapon Action is enough to parry and the use of shields have their own number of Actions. The issue with this is if a Player Character has a number of Weapon Actions less than two, he cannot do more than the one Action per combat round and he cannot do more than a Short Stroke. However, a single Weapon Action can be carried over from one round to the next, giving a Player Character more options in the next round rather than the current one.

The Odds of Hitting, of successfully attacking an opponent are based on the defender’s Parry Type and Combat Skill, and the attacker’s Attack Level. The Parry Type is either Partial Parry, meaning that the defender makes fewer parries than the number of attacks by the attacker, or Total Parry, meaning that the defender makes a number of parries equal to, or greater than the number of attacks by the attacker. The Game Master then refers to the appropriate ‘Odds of Hitting’ table for the Parry Type and the number of parries versus attacks to determine the chance of a successful attack by cross-referencing the attacker’s Attack Level versus the defender’s Combat Skill. If the attack is successful, the table for the damage type of the weapon and the blow, either Cutting, Stabbing, Flange, or Blunt, to determine hit Location and Physical Damage inflicted. This generates the Impact Damage of the attack, which is cross-referenced with the Armour Class value of any armour worn to find the actual Physical Damage suffered. Inflict enough damage and blows can disable a limb or knock out an opponent.
For example, Robert, our sample Player Character, is facing a brigand, who is armed with a spear and a shield versus Robert’s broadsword and shield. Robert has charged the brigand and saved a Weapon Action so that he has two Weapon Actions to use on a Normal Stroke. The brigand has done the same, but will use both to parry Robert’s slashing attack. This is a Full Parry, equal to one attack versus two parries. Comparing Robert’s Attack Level for his broadsword of 3 versus the brigand’s Combat Skill of 2 gives Robert’s player a 33% chance of successfully hitting. Fortunately for Robert, his player rolls 18 and Robert’s slashing blow gets past the brigand’s parry attempts. Robert rolls 8 for the Impact Damage—the maximum damage possible and this is cross-referenced with the Armour Class value for the brigand’s leather armour on the Cutting Damage table. It is a blow to the brigand’s abdomen and since the brigand’s leather armour is classed as light, he suffers 5 points of Physical Damage. There is a chance that the blow will know the brigand out, but since it is less than the brigand’s Knockout Value, it is only 10%. The Game Master rolls 03% and Robert is lucky! The brigand collapses with a grunt. The fight continues, but Robert probably has the group’s first prisoner. The combat rules also cover dodging, archery, mounted combat, and the special fighting forms available as Specialist Skills. Including the healing rules, the rules for combat run to some twenty or so pages versus the three dedicated to explaining the ‘Action/Reaction Table’—and the latter includes all of the Base Odds factors per skill. The upshot is that the combat mechanics for Rhand: Morningstar Missions are far better explained with a ready clarity that the skill resolution mechanic is not afforded.

Magic in Rhand: Morningstar Missions has seven Subjects—Earth, Fire, Air, and Water, as well as Mental Magic, Body Magic, and Astral Projection. Earth, Fire, Air, and Water are Elemental magics, but are not as specialised as Mental Magic, Body Magic, and Astral Projection and have a greater number of spells each. Each Subject is a Specialist Skill in its own right. The total number of Learning Points a Player Characters has in seven Subjects determines his Magical Skill Level, which determines range for a spell. The target of a spell receives the Resist Roll to withstand the magical effects of a spell. This is determined by comparing the Magical Skill Level of the target with the Magical Skill Level of the caster. Should a target have no Magical Skill Level, then he has a much lower chance of resisting a spell. The amount of points a Player Character has to spend on spells within a Subject is equal to the number of Leaning Points he has in the associated skill, but expressed as Magical Force. Each spell has a cost in Magic Force to cast. Casting magic takes concentration and should a mage be distracted, there is a chance of his failing to cast the spell and suffer Psychic Damage. Rhand: Morningstar Missions includes a wide range of spells, but there are some oddities, such as Create Fire and Thicken Water being under the Earth spells, Raging Waters under the Fire spells, and so on.

At a Skill Level of 6 and beyond a Mage can gain attributes such as Magic Sense and Weatherwise, mainly protective, but permanent abilities. Mage can also make enchanted items, and there are also optional rules for resisted spells bouncing back, joining specialised magical groups, and spells being enacted in ascending order of Magical Force invested in them. Overall, the magic rules are decent enough and there are plenty of spells to choose from. Their use is not quite as well explained as combat is, but still better than that given for the ‘Action/Reaction Table’. The main issue with magic in Rhand: Morningstar Missions is its inaccessibility at the start of play, along with the Class 2 General Skills and the Class 3 General Skills, meaning that beginning Player Characters are mechanically very similar.

Rhand: Morningstar Missions also includes rules for physical phenomena such as terrain and travel, complete with generation tables, sight and sound detection, spreading and flowing fluids, fires, explosions, breaking down doors and walls, explosions, earthquakes, and mob actions and riots. Optional rules allow for glancing blows, aiming blows, cutting through shields and parries, collisions and tackles, and more. Much of these serve to make combat in Rhand: Morningstar Missions more dynamic, but it comes at the cost of further complexity.

Mission types in Rhand: Morningstar Missions include Guard, Escort, Assault, Rescue, Holding Action, Defence, and Special Action Squads. The latter are actually held within the magic of Morningstar, ready to be teleported to a location at a moment’s notice. In general, the type of mission will be determined by the Risk Level that the players and their characters want to face. The Risk Level will determine the random encounter odds and the combined value of the Player Characters Combat Values the level of any potential opposition. Three sample missions are provided, ranging from Risk Level 1 to Risk Level 10. These are decent outlines for what are straightforward military missions—actually too straightforward military missions since there is no real plot to any one of the three—and require development upon the part of the Game Master. Descriptions of various creatures are given, including several types of Spectral, as well as their subject races that they brought with them when they attacked. The book comes to a close with a topographical map of the planet Rhand, which actually is not that detailed or useful, followed by the roleplaying game’s various tables.

Physically, Rhand: Morningstar Missions is a surprisingly short book—barely a hundred pages long. But being printed on sturdy thick paper with heavy card inserts combined with being spiral bound gives it a surprising heft. Bar the map, the book is completely devoid of illustrations, which gives it a bland look. This is actually offset by the large margins, typically used—as was the case with future titles from Leading Edge Games—for in-game quotes, some of them quite humorous. The writing is not too bad, mainly suffering from a lack of clearer explanation when it counts, but there are plenty of explanations that do go some way to offset this. As well as being able to lie flat on the table and fold over, what the format of Rhand: Morningstar Missions does remind you of, though, is a technical manual for a computer or a major piece of machinery? Could it be that designer Barry Nakazono, an actual rocket scientist, decided upon the format he knew best for the books that Leading Edge Games published?
In many ways, Rhand: Morningstar Missions is a complex roleplaying game, but not as complex as the roleplaying games that Leading Edge Games would later publish, most notably Phoenix Command, Living Steel, and the Aliens Adventure Game. Combat is complex, but at least it benefits from a clearer explanation than that given the ‘Action/Reaction Table’ and its associated resolution mechanic. The real problems with Rhand: Morningstar Missions start with the uninteresting and similar starting Player Characters which are given no capacity for differentiation until a long way into the play of the game and they have progressed up a Rank or two within Orca. Then there is the setting. Rhand and Orca are severely underdeveloped such that neither is given enough description for them to come alive and for a group to want to play within the setting. The set-up to Rhand: Morningstar Missions is a fun concept, of being able to hop back and forth across the planet because of the ‘magic’ of the past, performing missions to hold back alien invaders and recover or prevent knowledge from being lost. Yet there is not enough of the past in the setting to know what it is that the Orca is attempting to save or protect and knowing that would have given the Game Master hooks and motives to pull the players and their characters into the setting. So, if the Game Master and her players can get past the complexity, what they will find Rhand: Morningstar Missions offers in terms of what they play and what they roleplay to be underwhelming, if not outright disappointing. Rhand: Morningstar Missions presents a potentially interesting setting and campaign set-up, but ultimately undoes itself by failing to develop either beyond their core concepts.

Quick-starts are means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps too. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game for the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

—oOo—

What is it?The Swyvers Quickstart is introduces the rules light roleplaying of guttersnipes, rogues, grifters, charlatans, shysters, and chisellers on the make in filth and detritus of The Smoke, where it is always wet, foggy, smoky, and dirty, whether that is above ground or in the extensive Midden that runs deep under the sprawling metropolis. The Player Characters—or Swyvers—are desperate and dirty, but have to deal with corrupt officials, looming war, rogue sorcerers, monsters below and nobs above.

It is an Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game.

It is an eighty-seven page, black and white book.

The quick-start is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is superb, capturing the grubbiness of the setting.

The Swyvers Quickstart requires an edit.

Technically, the Swyvers Quickstart is not a quick-start. It is an extensive exert from the core rulebook for Swyvers and there are missing an important number of elements usually found in quick-starts.

How long will it take to play?
The Swyvers Quickstart can provide multiple sessions of play, although it does not include an actual adventure.

What else do you need to play?
The Swyvers Quickstart requires five six-sided dice and a standard set of polyhedral dice.

A standard deck of playing cards is also necessary.

Who do you play?
There are no ready-to-play Swyvers given in the Swyvers Quickstart.

How is a Player Character defined?
A Swyver has three stats—Constitution, Dexterity, and Strength—and a chance of being literate (though the player needs to explain why in under five seconds!) and starts with a few coins, a trinket, and a personality trait.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, the Swyvers Quickstart and thus Swyvers, uses two types of rolls—Competing Rolls and Saves. The rolls are made on pools of six-sided dice which can be adjusted in size to reflect the difficulty of the task. The aim is roll a total equal to, or less than, the appropriate attribute or a target number set by the Game Master.

In addition, a Swyver can have skills, for example, lockpicking, drinking contests, clipping and counterfeiting coins, or evaluating goods—stolen or otherwise, but mostly stolen. Each level adds increases the value of the attribute when using that skill.

There are also rules for chases, the random consequences of carousing, researching marks for cons, creating stooges and putterers (putterers are apprentices that a Swyver can train) and the possible revenge if they are abandoned, and fences and offloading stolen goods.

The rules for advancement highlight how Experience Points are gained from the sale of loot ‘conveniently’ found and for expenditure on carousing, research, and training a putterer. Of course, like other activities, these have associated damagers of their own.

How does combat work?
Combat in the Swyvers Quickstart involves a roll of two ten-sided dice to beat the Defence Value of the target. A roll of two tens by a player means that his Swyver has automatically killed the defendant, but is a standard attack by an NPC. A roll of two ones is a fumble and requires a roll on the ‘Critical Miss’ table.

Defence Value is determined by the weapon a combatant is wielding. So the Defence Value if a combatant is ‘Shooting’ or ‘Unarmed’ is six, but twelve if wielding a ‘Medium Weapon + Shield’. Armour soaks damage, the amount determined randomly, whilst weapon damage is dependent upon quality. Ropey weapons roll damage twice and take the lowest value; decent weapons roll once; and mint weapons roll damage twice and take the higher result.

There are notes on how to ‘Fyte Lyke a Swyver’. Essentially, a quick and dirty guide to fighting and not getting killed. Fighting fair will get a Swyver killed.

In other words, combat in Swyvers is brutal and meant to be that way.

How does Magic work?
Magic in Swyvers is uncommon, though rumours of witchcraft are not. Casting magic involves playing Blackjack to obtain a score of between seventeen and twenty-one. Results of sixteen and below indicate a failure, whilst results of twenty-two and above are critical failures—and there is a nasty table for that. With more understanding of magic, a caster can match the right card suit with the right Hippocratic Humour to gain extra spell effects if the spell is successfully cast, enhance it with spell components, and even gain an inkling of demonic forces behind what magic can be cast in The Smoke. The included grimoire is full of grim and ghastly spells.

What do you play?
There is no adventure in the Swyvers Quickstart. As an excerpt from the Swyvers rulebook, what it includes instead is a combined guide to The Smoke and set of procedural tables to enable the Game Master and her players procedurally generate the city. This starts with the city in broad details before focusing upon a district. The tables enable to the Game Master to determine the power and nature of the ruler of The Smoke, power and nature of the church, commonly supposed facts about the war going on, and districts and their features and qualities, including rumours and opportunities—the latter for every ‘good’ Swyver to take advantage of, random encounters, and some absolutely great street names!

Since Swyvers are anything but honest, so there is a list of crimes and their punishments. Plus a guide to making bribes and dealing with the watch and detectives. A watchman may make a Swyver’s lfe a misery, but a determined detective can be positively bothersome! Tables are provided to enable the Game Master create both and add quirks to bring them to life.

Below The Smoke is The Midden. First, the Shallow Midden and then the Deep Midden. Entrances to the former can be found all over The Smoke, the latter can only be accessed via the Shallow Midden. The dead are are entombed in the Shallow Midden, whilst the Deep Midden is where secrets are hidden and the call of the sea can be heard...

Although the Swyvers Quickstart does not include an adventure, there is nothing to stop a Game Master from using the content of the tables in the excerpt to create adventures.

Is there anything missing?
The Swyvers Quickstart is not complete, since it is truly not a quick-start, but a rulebook excerpt designed to give a taster of the full book. Aside from the lack of an adventure, the excerpt is missing a list of ready to use names and unlike other Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying games, there

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in the Swyvers Quickstart are far from difficult to prepare. The Game Master will need to create content herself, but this process is supported by the festering feast of details and descriptions included in the book. Thus the Game Master will need to come up with a plot, some NPCs, and more, which will take longer than preparing a typical quick-start.
Is it worth it?
Yes. The Swyvers Quickstart is a scrumptious feast of vile vagabounds, dastardly deceivers, and pernicious pilferers whose grotty shabiness and unscrupulous shadiness as told in a series of Dickensian penny dreadfuls. And as appalling and as awful as those penny dreadfuls are, there is a fascination with this wicked world that means that the Swyvers Quickstart is begging to be played and demanding that you roleplay the snot out of these tricksy little bastards.
Where can you get it?
The Swyvers Quickstart is available to purchase and download here.

The Toxic Wood is a descent into a poisoned world, a forest whose verdancy has been darkened by a noxious, even baleful, baneful influence has twisted and transformed a whole landscape. At its heart lies the village of Mugwort, trapped, but protected from the noxiousness surrounding them, and desperate for rescue. Fortunately, a secretive council of wizards has heard the arcane distress call sent out by the wizard residing in the village and hires a group of adventurers to mount a rescue mission. The poisonous nature of the wood includes the air and so the employing wizards have fashioned a magical orb which ensure that there is a bubble of safe for them as they journey to Mugwort. It will require power, whether of lifeforce or magic, but it will keep the adventurers safe. Exposure to the toxic air will corrode metal and mutate those who breathe it in, but it is not the only danger that the adventurers will face. There are plants so twisted that they curse magical items or cause them to explode, that spy on the adventurers are they proceed through the forest, shoot parasitical needles that want feeding more than the victim, and worse… Druids corrupted into accepting the toxic nature of the wood as the new norm, half-ghosts lost between this world and the next, trapped by the mutating growths which keep their bodies from decomposing, corrupted fairies that swarm in search of flesh, and other terrible things. There are terrible things that want spread the toxicity, terrible things that take advantage of it, and terrible things that want to rid it from the wood—and not all of them are telling the truth…

The Toxic Wood: A Corrosive Hexcrawl Adventure written by the Lazy Litch and was published following a successful Kickstarter campaign as part of Zine Month 2022. As with the publisher’s other titles—The Haunted Hamlet & other hexes, Woodfall, and Willow—The Toxic Wood is written or use with Old School Essentials, Necrotic Gnome’s very accessible update of the Moldvey/Cook and Marsh version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons, which means that not only is it mechanically accessible, it is also easily adapted to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice. However, it is not clearly stated what Level the adventure is designed for, but from the relative Hit Dice of the various monsters The Toxic Wood, it feels roughly suitable for Player Characters of Third, Fourth, and Fifth Level. Beyond the introduction, there is a some advice as to the adventure's play style, which is standard to all of the scenarios published by the Lazy Litch. This limits Experience Point gain to finding treasure, making discoveries, and achieving objectives rather than kill monsters; monsters are intentionally unbalanced; game is deadly and Player Character death a possibility; and an emphasis is placed upon resource management. In addition, The Toxic Wood includes a number of optional backgrounds and objectives that be assigned to the Player Characters or rolled for, which set up conflicting agendas between them. The conflict between them exacerbated by the fact that the Player Characters are forced to travel together within the safety of the magical orb and the clean air it generates, forcing them more obviously to both work together and negotiate where they will go and what they will do. As well as the information provided by their background, each Player Character will also begin the scenario with a rumour about the area detailed in The Toxic Wood.

The toxicity of the scenario’s title is infused into every aspect of it, from the strange nature of the plants and inhabitants of the woods and the mutations that the Player Characters can suffer if exposed to it for too long to the vileness of the various factions to be found in the woods and the weirdness of their various aims. Although there are several monsters given, it is these plants which play a major role in the scenario and are the most obvious evidence of the transformation that the wood has undergone. There are Energy Consuming Flowers that absorb spells, which can be carried as a form of protection, but which ill implode if too many are absorbed; Fungi Outposts that act as the ears and eyes of one for the factions in the wood; and Rune Fruit, marked with dark arcane runes, which can be eaten, but have side effects that are deleterious upon the consumer’s mental health.

Although there are hints as to the true nature of the plots swirling and around the Toxic Wood in the various backgrounds and rumours, the Player Characters will only discover more details by visiting the various locations dotted throughout the woods. This starts with Mugwort, a village trapped in its own bubble, its inhabitants desperate and divided, on the edge of the collapse if the Player Characters do not intervene. The others include a dragon atop a plateau building his own cult as a defence against ongoing events in the wood; rival twin sisters, long since transformed into insectoid creatures spinning and feuding for control of a mycelial network that runs throughout the wood; and an abandoned tower from whose roof grows a pair of trees and whose lowest level is filled with a green gelatinous thing filled with eyeballs that refuse to look at anyone who enters the tower—though the orb supplying the Player Characters their life-preserving air will actually speak before they do and warn them not to enter! The Toxic Wood is full of little details and fantastic writing like this which brings its combination of weirdness and dark whimsy to life.
The lack of indication as to what Level it is designed for, is not the only issue with The Toxic Wood. The other is the hexcrawl map used in the scenario. It is an attractive piece that uses a lot of icon-like pieces of art to fill its hexes, The majority of the symbols or icons used are all very similar, which has two important consequences. The first is that the icons used for specific locations do not stand out, and the second is that it is difficult to track the progress of the Player Characters across the map.

Then there is the fact that hexcrawl are of The Toxic Wood is too large for ease of play. It has an area of fifteen by twenty hexes, but there is no scale to the map. The only hint the Game Master is given is that in a single day, the Player Characters can either explore a single hex or they can travel across a total of three. (That said, there are a lot of hexes where nothing much will happen except the occasional random encounter.) It will take a minimum of three days’ travel to get to Mugwort from the edge of the map and then the other locations on the map are a similar distance away from the village. So play is going consist of a lot of dice rolls for encounters in the poisoned forest and the Player Characters scavenging for fuel to power the air-generating orb they need to maintain in order to survive. This is only going to worse if the Player Characters get lost. Resource management is a part of the play of The Toxic Wood, but the size of its play area means that the scenario over emphasises it. Ultimately, The Toxic Wood could have been smaller without any loss of play and a smaller size would have made it easier to slot into a Game Master’s own campaign.
Physically, The Toxic Wood is a fairly busy book, but everything is neatly organised and for the most part, easy to use when the Game Master needs it. The artwork is excellent and so is the writing. Although it does have an introduction, it does not explain what is fully going on until a fair way into the scenario.

The Toxic Wood is a fantastically noxious and nasty scenario, a combination of Stephen King’s Under the Dome meets Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation crossed with The Fantasic Voyage and Tron. Which reads like a thoroughly odd mixture, but there is a strand of Science Fiction which underpins the scenario, with the orb that the Player Characters must take with them to breathe being almost like a submersible and the Emergency Bubbles they are given which enable them to operate away from the orb, being like aqualungs, and the twin sisters’ mycelial network a cross between an information network and a surveillance network.

Ultimately, The Toxic Wood may be slightly too odd and slightly too large for some campaigns, with the Game Master needing to work a lot of its details into her own setting to effectively work. If the Game Master can do that, then The Toxic Wood is a poisonously fantastic scenario.

Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters is an anthology of monsters and figures from myth, fantasy, and history, all presented for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by EN Publishing, it collects the ninety or so entries in the Mythological Figures column written by Mike Myler, which ran from March 2018 to April 2022. Within its pages, the reader will find gods from a variety of pantheons, creatures from numerous folklore traditions, characters from Shakespeare, heroes and villains from history, and figures from fiction and popular culture. Together, they and the format of the book draw on two older sources in roleplaying. One is the Deities & Demigods supplement to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, which presented a panoply of pantheons, including the gods and heroes of each. So, it is no surprise that James M. Ward, co-author of Deities & Demigods, provides the foreword to Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters. The other is Dragon magazine, which during its early years would publish adaptations of heroes and villains from myth, legend, and popular culture. Just Deities & Demigods and the articles in the pages of Dragon magazine, the entries in Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters are a mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar, from a range of cultures around the world.
Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters divides its entries in to two types—at least mechanically. All of the heroes and villains are designed as if they were Player Characters in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, including characters with multiple Levels in different Classes. For example, the Pirate Queen, Ching Shih, is a Fifth Level Bard, Seventh Level Rogue, and an Eighth Level Fighter, whilst Hercules is an Eighth Level Barbarian and an Eleventh level Fighter. Where possible, the builds for entries favour Feats that grants the characters greater abilities than a flat increase to an ability score would. For example, Robin Hood has the Superb Aim Feat rather than an increase to his Dexterity which would take it above eighteen. Many of the entries use the Warlord archetype, such as George Washington or the Pirate Queen, Ching Shih. This provides a range of Warlord Tactics and Tactical Manoeuvres with which to build the character. The detail of these and the Warlord archetype are given at the front of the book. The book also makes use of Classes from The Masterclass Codex: Sixteen New Character Classes For Your Fifth Edition Campaign. They include the Gunfighter for Billy the Kid, Fatebender for Harry Houdini, Tinkerer for Nikola Tesla, Savant for Sherlock Holmes, and Geomancer for Zhuang Zhou, but the Dungeon Master does not need access to The Masterclass Codex: Sixteen New Character Classes For Your Fifth Edition Campaign to use these characters in Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters.

The other type of entry in Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters are its monsters. They are designed as monsters and thus not designed to be playable, and all have their own fantastical abilities. For example, Baba Yaga has Agonising Cackle which racks that hear it with pain, Dracula has Misty Escape enabling him to transform and escape as a cloud of mist, and Dorian Gray has Regeneration, which grants him a massive bonus of thirty Hit Points at the start of his turn! In Dorian Gray’s case, the latter ability is granted by his Life-Catching Portrait that he famously keeps hidden in his attic. Many of the entries have artefacts and magical weapons and devices, and these too, are included in the write-ups, such as Excalibur for Arthur Pendragon, Baba Yaga’s Broom and Baba Yaga’s Chicken Hut for Baba Yaga, the Somnambulatory Brew and Transforming Wand for Circe, the Wings of Icarus for Daedalus, and so on. Some characters detailed in the book are known for being accompanied by their companions, so these too, are also included. Thus, Sancho Panza is included in the entry for Don Quixote and Doctor John Watson alongside Sherlock Holmes.

Most entries in Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters are given two pages, but some like Genghis Khan or Thor Odinson warrant four pages. Each includes a decent and description alongside the full stats and mechanical details. There are design notes included as necessary and a Background option.

So what of the individual entries in Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters? Well, the most modern historical figure is Harry Houdini, famous escapologist. The most modern monster—and most modern entry in the supplement—is the Mothman, the infamous furry flying cryptid found in West Virginia. Most the entries are of much older figures. Many are drawn from particular pantheons and mythologies. For example, Achilles, Antaeus, Cerberus, Circe, Daedalus, Hercules, Odysseus, and Perseus are all drawn from Greek Myth, whilst Fafnir and Fenrir, Loki, and Thor Odinson come from Greek Myth. Other come from specific stories, such as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza from Miguel de Cervantes’ novel of the same name or Caliban and Prospero from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Others have their own stories which they are drawn from, but together form another story. For example, Allan Quatermain, Dorian Gray, Dracula, The Invisible Man, Jekyll & Hyde, and Nemo all come from works by different authors, but together they lend themselves to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. There is also a lot that will be unfamiliar to readers. They include the aforementioned Pirate Queen, Ching Shih; Droṇa, the Indian warrior and guru who wielded Asi, the sword of Lord Vishnu; Hayreddin Barbarossa, the greatest naval commander of the Ottoman Empire; seventeenth century opera singer and duellist, Julie D’Aubigny; the hero Māui from the Pacific Islands; and Musō Gonnosuke, rival to Miyamoto Musashi, also detailed in the book. Such entries cast light on the unfamiliar and the unknown, entreating the reader to want to find out more.

There are some extras included too, such as the Nautilus for Nemo, the table of Master Alchemist’s Treasures for Jekyll & Hyde and the table of Viking Treasure Hoard for Harald Hardrada, the last Viking! There are also some odd shifts in tone between entries. Thus, the book switches from describing the Easter Bunny to detailing Elizabeth Báthory and from Santa Claus to Sherlock Holmes. This is due to the entries being originally published as columns, so the shift in tone would not have so readily apparent.

So how to use the content of Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters? The monsters are there, of course, the Player Characters to fight and confront, and in turn, for them to plot against the Player Characters. The characters are a mix of archetypes and classic roles, which the players can aspire to for their own characters. The characters can also be threats on their own, for example, the book suggesting an encounter with a time-travelling Billy the Kid, but as archetypes, they can be used as replacement Player Characters or NPCs. All the Dungeon Master need do is change the name. For example, need a peasant thief? Then Aladdin is a good choice. Or a folk hero who is good with a bow? Robin Hood is good for that.

Physically, Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters is solidly presented and organised. The artwork varies in quality, most of it decent, but not necessarily great. Some entries feel brief, but in most cases, they serve as an introduction to the figure or monster detailed. Rounding out the book is a good index of its entries including their origins, and of their treasures too.

So what is missing from the pages of Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters? What might have been useful is a bibliography, but research is not difficult, so not as much a problem as it could have been. In terms of entries, there are a lot from Greek myth, especially in comparison to Norse myth, so more of the latter would have been welcome. If there is one figure missing from book, it is that of Sherlock Holmes’ nemesis, Professor James Moriarty.

Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters is a solid sourcebook of the familiar and the unfamiliar, of heroes and villains, of monsters and magical beings. It picks up and continues a grand tradition of presenting figures out of history, myth, and popular culture in way that they can be brought to the table to be fought, interacted with, learned from, emulated, and more, whilst also leaving the reader wanting to find out more about them.

Quick-starts are means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps too. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game for the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

—oOo—

What is it?
The Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition Quick Start Rules are designed to introduce the rules and setting for the fifth edition of the medieval-set roleplaying originally published in 1977 by Fantasy Games Unlimited. Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition is now published by Britannia Game Designs Ltd. and draws deeply upon Medieval history, but offers options in terms of elements of fantasy and magic and miracles that the Game Master can choose from to create her setting and game style.

It is designed to be played by between four and six players, but includes seven pre-generated Player Characters. Plus, of course, the Game Master.

It is a fifty page, full colour book.

The quick-start is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent. The rules are a slightly stripped down version from the core rulebook, but do include examples of the rules which speed the learning of the game. The maps are nicely done.

How long will it take to play?
The Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition Quick Start Rules and its adventure, ‘Where Heroes Fear to Tread’, can be played through in one or two sessions.

What else do you need to play?
The Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition Quick Start Rules requires a pair of percentile dice and a single ten-sided die per player. The extra ten-sided die should be different in colour to the percentile dice.

Who do you play?
The seven Player Characters in the Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition Quick Start Rules consist of Master William Malister, a Forester; the Knight, Sir Edmund Silverheart; Magus Barnabus Hook, Mage; Rosamund Godspell, a Priest; the Warriors, Ursilda Dortmund and Heartha Brunswick; and the Herald, Lord Otto Gavilon. All seven Player Characters are Third Level and have their own character sheet. In addition, Magus Barnabus Hook has his own grimoire and Rosamund Godspell her own prayerbook.

How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character has nine stats—Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intellect, Wisdom, Discipline, Bardic Voice, Appearance, and Spirit. Agility, Ferocity, and Charisma are derived attributes. Each Player Character has a similar set of base skills, skills relevant to his Vocation, and Combat skills. Attributes can range between two and twenty-five, whilst skills are represented as percentage values. A Player Character has a number of Action Points which are primarily expended on actions taken and attacks made in combat, whilst Fatigue Points are lost in combat prior to Body Points. Fatigue Points are also used to power spells.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, the Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition Quick Start Rules, and thus Chivalry and Sorcery, Fifth Edition, uses the ‘Skillskape’ system. This uses percentile dice as well as an extra ten-sided die. This extra die is the Crit Die. Both the percentile dice and the Crit Die are rolled at the same time. The Total Success Chance (TSC%) of a skill or action is a combination of the Basic Chance of Success (BCS%), the Player Character’s Personal Skill Factor (PSF%) in the skill, and any modifiers. It is possible to have a Total Success Chance above Maximum Chance of Success (Max%) or a Total Success Chance below the Minimum Chance of Success (Min%). The higher it is above the Maximum Chance of Success, the greater the bonus to the Crit Die, whereas the lower it is below the Minimum Chance of Success, the greater the penalty to the Crit Die.

The roll on the percentile dice determines whether the skill or attribute roll is a success or a failure. The Crit Die determines the magnitude of the success or failure. A roll of ten on the Crit Die is always a Critical result, whether a success or failure. Skills in Chivalry and Sorcery, Fifth Edition have their own specific Critical Outcomes table, but the Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition Quick Start Rules uses the one table, ‘Critical Outcomes - General’.

How does combat work?
Combat in the Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition Quick Start Rules uses an Action Point economy to handle movement, attacks, defensive stances, spellcasting, and other actions. Damage suffered is deducted from a combatant’s Fatigue Points, but if a Critical success is rolled on the Crit Die, an extra die’s worth of damage is rolled and that is deducted from the defendant’s Body Points. Armour and shields reduce damage, but both can be rendered useless and shields even shattered if too much damage is suffered.

How does Magic work?
In the Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition Quick Start Rules, spells are fully learnt and are cast automatically. Once cast, a spell must be aimed at the target recipient, opponent, or area that the caster wants the spell to affect. A Resistance Roll by the target, if allowed, can ameliorate or even negate the effects of a spell. A spell has a cost in Fatigue Points for it to be cast. If the targeting of a spell is unsuccessful, it is dispelled without having any effect. A Critical Failure doubles the Fatigue Point cost, a Critical Success halves it.

The pre-generated Player Character, Magus Barnabus Hook, is a Hex Mage and knows a number of cantrips, sorcery spells, and hexes. Sleep and Hold Person are both cantrips; Fear and Shadowbolt are sorcery spells; and Blurred Image and Lesser Illusion are hexes. Each spell is described in detail in a sperate grimoire for Magus Barnabus Hook.

How do Miracles work?
A miracle is performed via an Act of Faith, such as a , in a fashion similar to casting spells. Some prayers or rituals automatically work, but others require a die roll. This is made against the priest’s faith or that of the person being targeted. An Act of Faith costs the priest both Fatigue Points and Spirit. A successful Act of Faith costs no Spirit, but a Critical Failure means it does and the Priest’s Faith is shaken. A Critical Success means that the Priest actually gains Spirit!

The pre-generated Player Character, Rosamund Godspell, is a Priest. She has access to prayers such as Blessing, Prayer for Luck, and Sanctification. The prayer, Restore the Faithful, can be performed to grant a believer restored Fatigue Points, whilst Cure the Wounded, does the same for Body Points. A believer can be a recipient of either spell only once per day. Each prayer is described in detail in a sperate prayer book for Rosamund Godspell.

What do you play?
In the Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition Quick Start Rules, the scenario is ‘Where Heroes Fear to Tread’. This is set in Marakush, the default world for Chivalry & Sorcery. It takes place in the Kingdom of Urtind where a few days ago, a group of pilgrims was attacked and captured by a Goblin and Tylwyth Du (Dark Elf) warband and taken back to their Lord, Grink of the Rock, in the Darken Forest. The Player Characters are hired by the religious fighting order, the Order of the Blue Rose, to deliver a ransom for the pilgrims to Grink of the Rock, a dragon! The Player Characters need to cross some rough farming country and through an area known as the ‘Killing Ground’ having been the site of numerous border conflicts to get to the forest. Here they will have to deal with the dragon lord and goblins. The scenario is action-packed and can be played through in a single session or expanded with the included random encounters to last a second session.

Is there anything missing?
The Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition Quick Start Rules are complete and it even comes multiple examples of play to help the Game Master understand the rules.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in the Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition Quick Start Rules are not too difficult to prepare. The primary issue with the rules is the number of abbreviations that the Game Master and her players need to learn, which makes the rules look more complex than they are.
Is it worth it?
Yes. The Chivalry and Sorcery rules have a reputation for being complex. Not so in the Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition Quick Start Rules, which presents a streamlined version of them and supports them with plenty of examples of play and a decent scenario that can be played in a single session.Where can you get it?
The Chivalry and Sorcery, 5th Edition Quick Start Rules is available to download here.

Far up the River Whey there lives a monster. Well, not exactly a monster to be. It is not even as if he wants to be a monster. He is just old and lonely without his late wife and he has not long come back from being drowned. He has his grandchildren. After all, not for nothing were he and his wife known as Grandpa and Grandma Tolling. But they are young and he is old, and the young and the old do not understand each other. Especially when one of them has come back from the dead. So now Grandpa Tolling, not long since drowned, in the idle moments of his busy like—mostly as it was before—dreams of having companions like himself. Drowned. Connected to the waters of the river—somehow. And as the dead old man sleeps, the river rises and lowers, thrashes and surges, and the natural inhabitants of the river, the Naiads, are frightened. The river is their realm and they do not want to lose to some strange dead thing. The few remaining inhabitants of the nearest settlement, the town of Fatfish, have other worries. The river nearby was once full of fish just waiting to be hauled from the waters and fill the fishermen’s nets. Now the stocks of fish have long since gone and the fishing boats and their crews with them, leaving the once rich river port to fall into destitution, its inhabitants into despair and desperation. The few remaining inhabitants are divided between those who want to leave, those who want to stay, and those who simply no longer care. What might give them cause to leave are the dangers of the rising and falling waters of the fish-depleted river, were they to understand what those dangers mean. Were they to understand the now unnatural nature of the ‘Wet Grandpa’ on the Cursed Island, just across from the village, they might be more concerned…
Wet Grandpa is a scenario from Melsonian Arts Council, a publisher best known for Troika!, the science-fantasy role-playing game of exploring the multiverse. The scenario is ostensibly written for use with the Old School Renaissance, but in terms of stats it is relatively light. This means that Wet Grandpa can be run using all manner of Old School Renaissance retroclones, much in the manner of The Haunted Hamlet & other hexes, but with relatively little adjustment the scenario would work with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or even RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha or Old Gods of Appalachia. Wet Grandpa sets up a fantastic situation, one full of roleplaying potential, but the uneven presentation and tone works all too often to undermine what is an evocatively sodden and bedraggled situation built around the interaction and relationships between various NPCs. Fundamentally, the problem is twofold. First, the players’ introduction consists of a man selling a roughly printed treasure map to their Player Characters. The seller explains that the treasure site is near Fatfish, a community about two weeks’ travel up the River Whey. This is not only an underwhelming hook for the players, let alone their characters, it ignores the richness of the situation in and around Fatfish and the interactions between the NPCs, any part of which could have been used to hook the Player Characters. Instead, the given hook is bland, even boring.

Second, the Referee’s Introduction does not start with an introduction to the scenario, but with an explanation of the situation of Grandpa Tolling. At that point, the Game Master is wondering how the two are connected. In fact, there are three strands to the scenario—Grandpa Tolling, the town of Fatfish, and the Naiads—but it is not until the reader gets to the last strand that he can begin to work out what is going on. So, from the start, the Game Master is unclear as to what she is reading and how it all links together, which hampers both her understanding and her preparation time. To be fair, once the Game Master has read much further into the book, she will be able to grasp what is going on and make the connections ready for her and her players, but this does not negate what is a fundamental error upon the part of the author.

Fortunately, once Wet Grandpa gets into its individual sections, it begins to come alive—or not in the case of the undead Grandpa Tolling. The descriptions of his current life and that of the few remaining inhabitants of Fatfish are evocatively forlorn and forgotten. An elderly couple, the Caplins, sit in their cabin, waiting for their sons to return, but they never will; with the loss of fish stocks, former fishing boat owner, Karlin Wilamyer, has forbidden his family from leaving though they want to, whilst his brother who did get away, wants to rescue his niece and nephew; the families of Dana Strix and Haren Greene have all died or left, either that or the two lovers simply murdered them; and Jorf Quine is waiting for his aunt to die so he can leave, and he might hurry it along—just a little. The families, what there is of them, are mouldering into the ground. Here there are some taunt little tensions between the various NPCs which only need the presence of the Player Characters to be brought out into play. The Game Master will need to develop her description of Fatfish itself, mostly drawing upon the detailed timeline included, such as suggesting the number of houses, the insect swarm ridden gardens, and so on.

As much opposed to Grandpa Tolling as scared of what he might become, the four Naiads—one per season—are also similarly detailed. Each of the four Naiads has a distinct form and character, Winter being an emaciated cougar, Summer a giant glass-eyed crow, and so on. They are minor gods at this point, but depending upon the actions of the Player Characters may grow in stature and power to become gods. Although capricious, they can be interacted with as what they really want is Grandpa Tolling dealt with. As a reward, the Naiads will grant access to their shared treasury, or simply abandon it, leaving for the Player Characters to discover and plunder, if they ascend to godhead. The treasury is a short, little dungeon whose primary threat is a nasty trap.

Rounding out Wet Grandpa is a guide to what happens if nobody stops Grandpa Tolling, followed by stats and more descriptions of the inhabitants of Fatfish and an encounter table for the area around the village. This includes the River Whey and the Cursed Island upon which Grandpa Tolling and his family of orphans live. It could also be used for the long two-week journey up the River Whey to Fatfish.

Physically, Wet Grandpa is presented as a board book, with a non-glossy, plain matte cover and no spine so that the glue binding is visible. The feeling in the hand is rough and tactile like that of the much later Frontier Scum. The scenario is readable and well written—in places. Elsewhere, the content is poorly organised. The artwork is bright and colourful, if rough.

Wet Grandpa has all of the elements to present a tensely playable situation between a dying village, a rising, but unwanted unnatural power, and fearful natural powers. Yet time and again, its poor organisation and its poor presentation of information hamper its ease of use and preparation. Potentially, there is a good scenario to be played in Wet Grandpa, if the Game Master is prepared to put the effort in pulling it out and putting the various parts together in a more playable fashion.

Race down the highway in pursuit of a tank whose driver, dangerous mercenary, Own Shaw, has stolen a top-secret computer chip, ramming and forcing the SUVs protecting Shaw into and under the tank to stop it. Chase a semi-truck and manoeuvre close to it so that you can climb out of the driving seat of your vehicle onto it roof and leap onto the semi-truck, through open its back door, and throw its cargo to the other waiting drivers, all the while the semi-truck driver blasts away at you with his shotgun! Protect a hacker as you are chased by a helicopter which can track her laptop and launch missiles at her to stop her getting away. Leap from vehicle to vehicle, brawl atop different vehicles with the enemy, take control of an enemy vehicle and wreck it before leaping back to their own to climb back behind its wheel, and perform amazing stunts in order to beat the bad guys… These are the tasks faced by Dominic Toretto, Brian O’Conner, Letty Ortiz, Roman Pearce, Tej Parker, and Han Seoul-Oh at the wheel of either an American Muscle, Import Racer, Street Drifter, or Exotic Supercar vehicles. This is also the set-up for Fast & Furious: Highway Heist, a board game which brings the high-octane action of the Fast & Furious franchise of films to the table. It is a co-operative, dice and stunt game designed to be played by one to four players, aged twelve and up, published by Funko Games. It has also been designed by the Prospero Hall team, which has a track record of taking intellectual properties—some of them decades old such as E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Jaws: A Boardgame of Strategy and Suspense—and turning them into playable games. In taking advantage of decades’ worth of game design and mechanical improvement, these games typically far outshine those games published at the time when the intellectual properties they are based on were first released, both in terms of mechanics and play style. In other words, a Prospero Hall design is respectful of the source material and bases both play style and mechanics directly upon it.

Fast & Furious: Highway Heist is a superbly supported with lots of bits and pieces in its box, the most eye-catching of which, are of course, the vehicles. These consist, not just of those driven by the heroes—American Muscle, Import Racer, Street Drifter, and Exotic Supercar—but also a tank, a semi-truck, and a helicopter. All are nicely detailed and look great on the table. There are six Character Boards, one each for Dominic Toretto, Brian O’Conner, Letty Ortiz, Roman Pearce, Tej Parker, and Han Seoul-Oh, and four Vehicle Boards for the vehicles they will drive. The game has three scenarios—‘Tank Assault’, ‘Semi Heist’, and ‘Chopper Takedown’—each of which is supported by its own instruction sheet, Scenario Board, a set of Stunt cards for the players, and a set of Enemy Cards for the opposition’s Actions. Plus, there are Reference Cards, tokens for cargo and certain characters and Boosts to Actions, dice for both the players and the enemy, and pegs for the characters and the enemy which slot into holes atop each vehicle to indicate if a driver is on top of, rather than driving, a vehicle. Which all together means that it both looks a lot and busy as well as complicated. Fortunately, whilst it is a lot, it is actually not as complicated as it looks and it turns out to be quite fun.

The Character Boards and Vehicle Boards slot together and are double-sided. A Character Board depicts the character, his special Action, the standard Actions he can take, and ratings in Speed, Control, Athletics, and Defence. Speed and Control are used when the character is behind the wheel of his vehicle, Athletics is used when he is atop his own or another vehicle, and Defence is used to avoid damage from other vehicles. A Vehicle Board has its own special ability, plus ratings in Speed, Control, and Defence, and a series of slots to indicate how much damage the vehicle can suffer. The combined rating in Speed, Control, or Defence from both Character Board and Vehicle Board indicates how many dice a player rolls, and whilst this will not change for the Character Board, it will change if the character is driving another vehicle and the Vehicle Board is changed. The Character Board is turned over at the end of a player’s turn to indicate that the character is exhausted and can only roll Defence against incoming damage and that the player needs to roll the Enemy die. The Vehicle Board is turned over and used whenever a character is driving an Enemy SUV rather than his own vehicle.

Each of the scenario instruction sheets explains the set-up, additional rules, and winning conditions, as well as giving some strategy tips for the players. Each set of Stunt Cards for each scenario details a manoeuvre that the players can attempt. For example, ‘Chain Reaction’ in ‘Tank Heist’ enables a player to drive into two SUVs which are in a straight line. This causes one SUV to crash into the other, turning it into a Wreck which can be tossed into any direction, potentially hitting the tank and causing damage. It requires a Speed roll. ‘Grappling Hook’ lets a player snare another player’s vehicle, enemy SUV, or wreck and pull it towards his vehicle. It requires a Control roll. ‘Stop Hitting Yourself’ requires a player to be atop an enemy SUV which he forces to swerve into the tank, inflicting damage, and ending with him atop the tank. This requires an Athletics roll.

There is a set of Enemy Cards for each scenario. Each Enemy Card has two sets of effects, one when it is drawn and another when it is in the ‘Activate!’ spot on the Scenario Board. For example, ‘Meat Grinder’ for the ‘Tank Heist’ scenario adds two new Enemy SUVs behind the Tank when revealed, but when activated on the ‘Activate!’ spot on a Scenario Board, each Player Vehicle adjacent to both the Tank and an Enemy SUV is squeezed and suffers damage. The Stunt cards are large, whereas the Enemy Cards are standard size.

The Scenario Board for each scenario is double-sided. One guides the players through the set-up of the scenario, which when done, is turned over to provide the rules for the scenario. Each Scenario Board spots for the Enemy Cards, one of which is the ‘Activate!’ spot, and also a track for the amount of damage the Tank—or other vehicle—can suffer during play. The tracks are actually cut into the Scenario Boards, much like the damage track is cut into the Vehicle Boards. The Character Boards do not have a damage track as the players cannot be killed.

Play of Fast & Furious: Highway Heist—for all three scenarios—takes place on the Road Board. This shows a simple road, marked with a twelve by six grid. Player Vehicles and Enemy SUVs are constantly moving along and manoeuvring back and forth on the road represented by the Road Board, but they do not leave it. In other words, they constantly keep pace with each other. Only when a vehicle is wrecked and becomes undrivable does it get left behind as all of the other vehicles continue moving.

Core play in Fast & Furious: Highway Heist is simple. On his turn, a player can undertake two Actions. There are eight standard Actions. In the ‘Drive’ Action, the player moves his vehicle a number of spaces equal to the combination of his character’s Speed and his vehicle’s Speed. The ‘Leap’ Action lets a player’s character jump from atop his current vehicle onto another player’s vehicle or an Enemy SUV. The target vehicle must be within a number of spaces equal to the character’s Athletics skill. Pegs are used to indicate if a character or an enemy is atop a vehicle. A ‘Ram’ Action is used to destroy an Enemy SUV and turn it into a Wreck; ‘Force’ Action lets a player force another Player Vehicle or Enemy SUV two spaces in any direction; ‘Shake’ forces an Enemy Peg off the top of a Player Vehicle whilst at its wheel; ‘Brawl’ can happen when a player and an Enemy Peg are atop the same vehicle and if successful, the player knocks the Enemy Peg off the vehicle, and the ‘Hijack’ Action lets a player already atop an Enemy SUV take control of the vehicle. The last Action a player can take is Take Boost Token, and this must be done as the second of his two Actions on his turn.

Alternatively, a player can take a ‘Stunt Action’. These are represented by the Stunt Cards and there are always three in play at any one time. Each has specific conditions which have to be fulfilled and are much more effective than the standard Actions. The Stunt Cards are constantly changing, moving off the end of the Road Board, and the players have three rounds in which to perform before it is replaced. A Stunt can also only be performed once or twice, as indicated by the number of Boost Tokens on its Stunt Card. After successfully performing it, a player receives the Boost Token on the Stunt Card and when there are no more Boost Tokens on the Stunt Card, it is exhausted and cannot be performed. However, it remains on the Road Board until it moves off the end, reducing the number of possible Stunt Actions available until replaced. Stunt Cards come in three levels for each scenario and get progressively more spectacular and effective.

The ‘Ram’, ‘Force’, ‘Shake’, ‘Brawl’, ‘Hijack’, and most of the ‘Stunt’ Actions all require a roll of the Effort Dice to succeed, using the Skills from both the player’s character and his vehicle, as necessary. A player can use Boost Tokens to either improve his roll on the Effort Dice or to assist another player and increase the number of Effort dice he has to roll.

Once a player has taken his two Actions, he rolls the Enemy Die. The results on this die can activate all of the Enemy SUVs, which either move closer to or slam into the player vehicles; activate the Enemy Pegs which either damage or hijack the player vehicles; and move the Main Enemy—which is different depending on the scenario—and then move the Enemy Cards on the Scenario Board and resolve the one in the ‘Activate!’ spot.

Once a player has taken his turn, he flips his Character Card over to its Exhausted side. When every player’s Character Card is exhausted, the round is over. On the Road Board, all of the Wrecks move back, possibly off the Road Board, as the Player Vehicles and the Enemy Vehicles speed forward. If a vehicle, including a Player Vehicle, is behind a Wreck, it will crash and also become a Wreck! Both the Enemy Cards and the Stunt Cards are moved along their respective boards and new ones added. This ends the round.

Play continues like this until the game is either won or lost. Fast & Furious: Highway Heist is won by achieving the objective in a scenario or performing the Level 3 Stunt Action that will win the game. However, it is lost if the players do not achieve the winning conditions in a scenario or the Level 3 Stunt Action for the scenario moves off the Road Board, meaning there are no Stunt Actions for the players to attempt.

The three scenarios in Fast & Furious: Highway Heist all vary in terms of their objectives and complexity. ‘Tank Assault’ is the simplest and should be played first. The players have to destroy the tank before it can get away. This is done by manoeuvring Enemy SUVs and Wrecks into it and inflicting damage. In ‘Semi Heist’, the players must get atop the trailer of a semi-truck and open its cargo door—this actually opens on the model of the semi-truck!—to throw stolen cargo to waiting Player Vehicles below. The Player Vehicles need to be in the right position to receive the cargo and whilst this is happening the driver of the semi-truck is taking shotgun blasts at the character atop his trailer. ‘Semi Heist’ adds ‘Reactive Stunts’, which can be performed even when it is not a player’s turn. ‘Chopper Takedown’ is the most complex. The players are trying to get a hacker to safety, but there is a helicopter which can pick up her computer on radar. The stronger the radar signal, the more damage the helicopter’s missiles will do. The players win by destroying both the main villain’s vehicle and the helicopter. The latter is done by a player launching his vehicle into the air via a wreck and performing a mid-air ram attack! It is possible to transfer the hacker from one vehicle to another if the one she is in is damaged. Where in the earlier scenarios, the players have to track the damage suffered by the Tank and the shotgun shells fired, here they have to track the Radar signal strength, the damage done to the villain’s vehicle, and the damage done to the helicopter.

Physically, Fast & Furious: Highway Heist is very well presented and designed. The rules are well explained, the vehicles nicely detailed, and whilst the art does not use photographs from the films, it is still very good, capturing their high-speed action.

For a family or younger audience, Fast & Furious: Highway Heist is probably a bit too complex, both in terms of the number of options a player has and co-operative play. That though, can be alleviated with the help of a more experienced player and the online guides to play video. Also, being scenario-based means that once the three scenarios in Fast & Furious: Highway Heist have been played through two or three times and won, the longevity and replayability of the game is greatly diminished.

Fast & Furious: Highway Heist is another fine adaptation of an intellectual property by Prospero Hall. In fact, the designers have taken an intellectual property that would seem not to lend itself to adaptation as a board game and actually turned it into one that is exciting and fun. It has physicality to its play as the vehicles manoeuvre back and forth across the road, speed up and slow down, brake to avoid wrecks, and the drivers jump from atop one vehicle to another to brawl each with other and hijack vehicles, which you can all visualise as you play. Yet that is only the standard play. Add in the Stunt Cards and the action of the play goes up, getting more and more spectacular. In doing so, it captures the action of the Fast & Furious films and there can be no doubt that fans of the franchise will enjoy game. For more general board game players, the attraction is of another good adaptation by Prospero Hall of mechanics to fit the game’s theme. Ultimately, whilst it may not offer long term play,Fast & Furious: Highway Heist captures the speed and action of the films, bringing their physicality to the table in a solid design.

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: Stars Over SiberiaPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Rjurik Davidson

Setting: 1920s Soviet UnionProduct: One shot
What You Get: Sixty-two page, 10.91 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: The horror of the Soviet Union lies within and withoutPlot Hook: Will a Scientific discovery be for the Soviet Union or Stalin?Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, eight handouts, one new spell, and one new Mythos creature.Production Values: Untidy
Pros# Engaging atmosphere of political uncertainty# Strong sense of history# Brilliant colours, but not a Colour Out of Space# Paranoia# Metathesiophobia# Paranoia
Cons# Needs an edit# Could have been better organised# Not a Colour Out of Space, but like a Colour Out of Space? # Does every Soviet-era scenario always have to involve things falling from the sky?
Conclusion# Untidy, but atmospheric allegory of Stalinist crystallisation # Reveals the horror of Stalinist Russia

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: Flash Cthulhu – Café au MortePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michael Reid

Setting: 1920s BostonProduct: One-Location, One-Hour Scenario
What You Get: Eight page, 1.94 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Even cultists need coffeePlot Hook: Coffee, Cultists, and Chaos.Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, six NPCs, one map, and one spell.Production Values: Plain
Pros# Short, sharp, encounter# Easy to slot into a campaign or between scenarios# Easy to adapt to other times and settings# The investigators are cultists, the cultists are investigators?# Set-up designed for confusion# Potential convention mini-scenario# Anthropobia# Imposter Syndrome# Foniasophobia
Cons# Needs a slight edit# Set-up designed for confusion# The investigators are cultists, the cultists are investigators?
Conclusion# Short, strange encounter with yourselves# Easy to use no matter the time and setting

A camping trip on the edge of the Norfolk Broads and the edge of the Norfolk Loop leads to a strange encounter late at night. A pulse of energy in the sky over the Loop appears to open a rift and something flies through it and over the Kid viewing it, bathing him in a strange, purple light. Then it flies away. In the following days there is a surge of activity at the Norfolk Loop, one of the United Kingdom’s leading scientific and technological centres of study and development, its staff disrupted through a change of management and the new management scouring the area around the Loop, including the nearby seaside resort of Great Yarmouth. The Kid who saw the event and was bathed in the light is drawn to a site that a team from the Norfolk Loop is investigating. There he and his friends make an amazing discovery—an egg. A strange, translucent, purple egg-shaped object. Could this have been left behind by the thing that flew out of the rift? Why is the Kid drawn to it? If it is an egg, what is going to hatch out of it? This is the set-up for They Grow Up So Fast.

They Grow Up So Fast is the second campaign for Tales from the Loop – Roleplaying in the ’80s That Never Was, the roleplaying game of childhood in an alternate 1980s in which young teenagers explore rural small-town Sweden, but a rural small-town Sweden in which its streets, woods and fields, and skies and seas are populated by robots, gravitic tractors and freighters, strange sensor devices, and even creatures from the long past. To the inhabitants of this landscape, this is all perfectly normal—at least to the adults. To the children of this landscape, this technology is a thing of fascination, of wonderment, and of the strangeness that often only they can see. In Tales from the Loop, it is often this technology that is the cause of the adventures that the children—the Player Characters—will have away from their mundane, often difficult lives at home and at school. Published by Free League Publishing, the Ennie-award winning Tales from the Loop is not solely a Swedish-based setting. By default, it is set on Mälaröarna, the islands of Lake Mälaren, which lies to the west of Stockholm. This is the site of the Facility for Research in High Energy Physics—or ‘The Loop’—the world’s largest particle accelerator, constructed and run by the government agency, Riksenergi. There is another Loop however, an American counterpart to The Loop, this time located under Boulder City in the Mojave Desert in Nevada, near the Hoover Dam. Here the particle accelerator is operated by the Department of Advanced Research into Technology and there is an extensive exchange programme in terms of personnel and knowledge between the staff of both ‘Loops’. With the publication of Our Friends the Machines & Other Mysteries, a third Loop was introduced. This is ‘The Broads Loop’, located under the Norfolk Broads in the East of England and built and operated by MAFF, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food. It is in and about ‘The Norfolk Broads Loop’ that They Grow Up So Fast is set.

They Grow Up So Fast is a short, four-part campaign set in 1988, with its four scenarios divided between the four seasons. It opens in the Spring with ‘Easter Egg Hunt’, in which one of the Kids will have a strange encounter on a campaign trip and together with his friends, come into possession of a strange alien that together they will feel drawn to hide and protect. A few weeks later in the Summer and ‘The Best of What Might Be’, the egg hatches and the Kids bond with the oddly cow-like creature that is revealed. As school begins in the Autumn and ‘The Year’s Last, Loveliest Smile’, the Kids will have to move the surprisingly cute lain and find it a better hiding place. The campaign comes to close with ‘You can’t Get Too Much…’ with a race to find the creature once again and get it home… All of this whilst facing school bullies, news interest about UFO sightings, staff upheaval at the nearby Loop and its consequences as a new government organisation—ReGIS or ‘Regional Geomagnetic Information Sciences’, part of the Ministry of Defence—takes over, protests at the Loop, and a highly qualified, but very new and very inexperienced science teacher who takes a deep interest in their activities. Each scenario is intended to run in roughly four hours or so, perhaps two sessions at most, that They Grow Up So Fast really is very short campaign.

To help the Game Master set the scene for the campaign, there is a solid primer on the United Kingdom and the Norfolk Broads of the late eighties. This covers activities that Kids might engage in, what they might listen to, and what they might watch. There is even a discussion of the politics of the period. Altogether, there is enough here for the Game Master to provide a picture of the eighties for her players, although no doubt there is plenty more to draw on elsewhere and so set further set the background. Nevertheless, there is genuine sense of nostalgia in the description given here and any Game Master or player of certain age, who grew up during this period in the United Kingdom, will recognise it. Further, as with other supplements for Tales from the Loop, there are notes and suggestions on how to run They Grow Up So Fast in either the Swedish or the American setting, including maps of the appropriate locations around their respective Loops. Each of the four scenarios is well organised and follow the pattern set in the core rules by being divided into five phases—‘Introducing the Kids’, ‘Introducing the Mystery’, ‘Solving the Mystery’, ‘Showdown’, ‘Aftermath’, and ‘Change’. Details of countdown events are given to push each Mystery along as well as suggested scenes and other advice.
To help the Game Master set the scene for the campaign, there is a solid primer on the United Kingdom and the Norfolk Broads of the late eighties. This covers activities that Kids might engage in, what they might listen to, and what they might watch. There is even a discussion of the politics of the period. Altogether, there is enough here for the Game Master to provide a picture of the eighties for her players, although no doubt there is plenty more to draw on elsewhere and so set further set the background. Nevertheless, there is genuine sense of nostalgia in the description given here and any Game Master or player of certain age, who grew up during this period in the United Kingdom, will recognise it. Further, as with other supplements for Tales from the Loop, there are notes and suggestions on how to run They Grow Up So Fast in either the Swedish or the American setting, including maps of the appropriate locations around their respective Loops. Each of the four scenarios is well organised and follow the pattern set in the core rules by being divided into five phases—‘Introducing the Kids’, ‘Introducing the Mystery’, ‘Solving the Mystery’, ‘Showdown’, ‘Aftermath’, and ‘Change’. Details of countdown events are given to push each Mystery along as well as suggested scenes and other advice.

Physically, They Grow Up So Fast is as well presented as you would expect for a Tales from the Loop title. Of course, it highlights Simon Stålenhag’s fantastic artwork, but the writing is also good and the layout is clean, tidy, and accessible. All four scenarios follow the same format, making them easy to access and relatively easy to run.

It is great to have a campaign for Tales from the Loop set in the United Kingdom and given the fact that its four scenarios take place over the course of the year, there is scope for the Game Master to run other scenarios in between those four. However, the scenarios do rely on the extensive use of the Charm and Sneak more than the others and the plot to They Grow Up So Fast is underwhelming. This is primarily due to two factors. One is the familiarity of its plot, which feels very much like the plot of one of the films suggested as inspiration, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. Other suggested mood setting films include Pete’s Dragon, Free Willy, and Gremlins. One effect though, of setting the campaign in the United Kingdom, is to give They Grow Up So Fast certain shabbiness as if the Children’s Film Foundation made E.T. The Extra Terrestrial on a very much reduced budget! The other factor is that as written the ending does not feel quite as climatic as it should, it can even end in an even more underwhelming failure, but that will probably be different in play and the Game Master will need to up the pace depending upon the flow of events.

They Grow Up So Fast is a solid enough campaign, but not on par with other releases for Tales from the Loop. Ultimately, this is due the familiarity of the plot, but if the Game Master is looking for a Tales from the Loop campaign in the style of E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, then They Grow Up So Fast is exactly what she is looking for.

The year is 1648. The War of the Counter-Reformation never seems to end as what was at first a civil between the Germanic states of the Holy Roman Empire over the rights and dominance of the Lutheran and Catholic churches that drew other nations of Europe and escalated into a contest for European dominance between Habsburg-ruled Spain and Austria, and the French House of Bourbon. Surrounded by Spanish Hapsburgs to the south, east, and north, France not only faces enemies from without, but also within, for the kingdom is divided by many loyalties. Louis XIV is only ten, but has already been king for five years. His mother, Queen Anne, a former Habsburg princess and the most hated woman in France, governs as regent with aid of her able prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin, the most hated man in France. Together they have kept France safe, but the continued need for more funds to maintain the war effort requires more taxes to be raised and more offices to be sold, arousing the anger of Parlement. Worse, the burden of the taxes will fall upon the bourgeois and the peasantry, those of the third estate or menu peuple, and the poor, or les maginaux, whilst the nobility of the second estate pay little and the clergy of the first estate pay none. All of which is collected in a manner which is inefficient and prone to corruption. Thus, there is a divide between all levels of society, between those who can afford to pay taxes and pay little and those who cannot afford to pay taxes and pay more. There are divisions of religion between the Catholics, Lutherans, Huguenots, and Jews. There are divisions of loyalty and politics between the Royalists who support Queen Anne and Cardinal Mazarin; the Frondeurs who oppose both them and the heavy tax burden; the Noblists who oppose Queen Anne and Cardinal Mazarin in order to maintain the independence of France’s great families; the Hapsburg faction which would ally with the biggest power in Europe as it would be best to be on the winning side and the right side of God; and the Cardinalists, who recognise Mazarin as the real power in France and believe his efforts have kept France safe to date. This is France in 1648 and the background to Miseries & Misfortunes.

Miseries & Misfortunes is a roleplaying game set in seventeenth century France designed and published following a successful Kickstarter campaign by Luke Crane, best known for the fantasy roleplaying game, Burning Wheel. Notably, it is based on the mechanics of Basic Dungeons & Dragons. Originally, Miseries & Misfortunes appeared as a fanzine in 2015, but its second edition has since been developed to add new systems for skills, combat, magic, and more. However, the underlying philosophy of Miseries & Misfortunes still leans back into the play style of Basic Dungeons & Dragons. For example, the differing mechanics of rolling low for skill checks, but high for combat rolls and saving throws. Plus, the Player Characters exist in an uncaring world where bad luck, misfortune, and even death will befall them and there will be no one left to commiserate or mourn except the other characters and their players. Further, Miseries & Misfortunes is not a cinematic swashbuckling game of musketeers versus the Cardinal’s guards. It is grimmer and grimier than that, and the Player Characters can come from all walks of life. That said, it is set in the similar period as Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, so will be familiar to many players. The other major inspiration for Miseries & Misfortunes is Les Misères et les Malheurs de la Guerre, a set of eighteen etchings by French artist Jacques Callot that grimly depict the nature of the conflict in the early years of the Thirty Years War.

Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 2: Les Fruits Malheureux is the second of the roleplaying game’s two core rulebooks. The first, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 1: Roleplaying in 1648 provides the core rules for the roleplaying game, whilst the second, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 2: Les Fruits Malheureux provides the means to actually create Player Characters. Further rulebooks and supplements add expanded rules, magic, science, and divinity, provide a detailed scenario and setting, and describe Paris in this period. A Player Character in Miseries & Misfortunes has six governing abilities—Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma. These range in value between three and eighteen, but can go lower. Each provides a bonus to the roleplaying game’s eight skills, but for situations where pure Strength or Intelligence is required, a roll equal to, or less than the value will succeed. The eight core skills are Break, Improvise, Listen, Parley, Sang Froid, Search, Sneak, and Traverse. Of these Sang Froid, or ‘cold blood’, is the strong will and steeliness needed to commit acts of violence. Each skill is represented by a die type and rating, for example, ‘3/6’, meaning that the Player Character must roll three or less on a six-sided die to succeed. If a skill is raised to ‘5/6’ and then raised again, its die type increases to ‘7/8’, meaning that the Player Character must roll seven or less on an eight-sided die to succeed. The maximum a Player Character can have in a skill is ‘19/20’. The rating of a skill can be raised during character generation, following the Life Paths presented in Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 2: Les Fruits Malheureux, and temporarily during play with bonuses for situation and the Player Character’s actions. A skill rating reduced to zero is ‘Unmoored’ and rolled on ‘1/10’.

A Player Character has four saves—Artillery, Chance, Poison & Plague, and Terror. These are set at sixteen. They can be lowered as a result of events in a Player Character’s Life Path. Similarly, his values for Defence—based on Strength, and Dodge—based on Dexterity, are also modified by a Player Character’s Life Path. Hit Points and Will—lost either in a duel of wits, from losing a fight, from encountering the supernatural, or being attacked in the press—are also determined by a Player Character’s Life Path. A Player Character has three Mentalités, Nationality, Politics, and Religion, which are also treated like skills. In the core rules for Miseries & Misfortunes, Nationality will be French, but Politics can be Royalist, Froundeur, Noblist, Hapsburg, or Cardinalist, whilst Religion can be Catholic, Lutheran, Huguenot, or Jewish. All of which will set up rivalries and influence interaction as play progresses. Lastly, a Player Character will have Precedence, which will depend upon which of the three estates he belongs to and his station within that estate. This is the equivalent of his social status and will play a role in interactions with NPCs and in duels of wit.

To create a character, a player first works with the other players to create a Motif. This is a bond that the Player Characters share together as a group, can be invoked during play. Once decided, the player rolls for his character’s Quality of Birth and Wealth, which determines his income source and the number of obligations he has. This is followed by rolls for his income range and property type owned, which can also increase his number of obligations, the first of which is to the state and the second to the self. Dependents and their lifestyles increase the Player Character’s Obligation. The player rolls Mentalités for his character followed by his abilities. The latter are rolled on three six-sided dice, in order, and can provide modifiers to basic skills, saves, and more.

Following this, the Player Character is put through a series of Lifepaths. A Lifepath provides the base Hit Points for the Player Character, along with modifiers to Saves and basic skills, plus skills particular to the Lifepath for a total of six. Each Lifepath has a maximum of six Levels, with each Level requiring certain objectives to be fulfilled before the Player Character can advance. For example, to advance to Third Level, a Musketeer must both defend the honour of the Musketeers and defend his honour in a duel. Each Level grants all of the bonuses, but one less skill each time. Thus, a Third Level Sailor selects four skills to improve, but only three at Fifth Level. There are twelve Lifepaths. These are Américain(e), Clerk, Factotum, Filou, Gamin(e), Infantry Officer, Merchant-Venturer, Musketeer, Passeur, Petty Noble, Sailor, and Soldier. Of these, Américain(e) are those who have returned from the colonies, including escaped slaves; Filou are petty criminals; Gamin(e) are the orphans and urchins, the younger siblings of the Filou; and the Passeur ferries goods and persons across the River Seine in Paris. For a starting Player Character it is suggested that three Levels be taken in the one Lifepath. In addition, at each Level, a base skill also increases.

The choice of starting Lifepath also determines a Player Character’s starting age, whilst the Quality of Birth his life expectancy. The latter is rolled by the Game Master rather than the player and kept secret. The difference between current age and life expectancy becomes the Player Character’s Mortal Coil, which can be spent to gain bonuses to rolls and saves. Lastly, the player works what the character’s Measures—Hit Points, Will, Defence and Dodge, Morale, Reputation, and Precedence—all are determined.

In addition to completing tasks and objectives necessary to advance to the next Level of a Lifepath, a Player Character can attempt to complete tasks and objectives necessary to advance to the next Level of his three Mentalités—Nationality, Politics, and Religion. For example, to advance his Nationality Mentalité from First Level to Second Level, his Player Character must visit the capital for a royal celebration and see the king or queen as well as boast about the indomitable spirit and proud national character of his character, whilst to do the same for his Religious Mentalité, he simply has to attend to religious ceremonies in support of his faith.
Our sample Player Character is Phillippus. His family are paper makers and booksellers. His intelligence was spotted at an early age and he benefited from a Jesuit education despite his faith and was sponsored to attend university. He has recently graduated and is seeking a position as a clerk to better himself. His family includes two cousins by marriage who are pleased of the opportunity to work in the family business, whilst his younger brother has yet to decide his future.

Phillippus
Third Level Clerk
Age: 21 (Life Expectancy 60, Mortal Coil 39)

Quality of Birth: Artisan
Social Strata: Artisan
Income Source: Business Income Range: 5
Property: City Home (Asset Value: 3) Wealth Rating: 5/6
Debts: Owes a small debt

Obligations: 9
State 1/6 Personal 1/6

Dependents: 3
Younger cousin (In-law, Bread Alone, Obligation 1), Older Cousin (In-law, Bread Alone, Obligation 1), Younger Brother (Blood, Respectable, Obligation 2)

MENTALITÉS
Nationality: French 1/6 Politics: Royalist 1/6 Religion: Huguenot 1/6

ABILITIES
Strength 10 Intelligence 17 (+2) Wisdom 13 (+1) Dexterity 11 Constitution 13 (+1) Charisma 14 (+1)

SKILLS
Accounting 5/6, Break 1/6 Composition 5/6, Improvise 2/6 Listen 3/6 Parley 4/6 Sang Froid 2/6 Search 3/6 Sneak 2/6 Traverse 2/6

OTHER LIFEPATH SKILLS
Documentarian (+2 to hit with Accuse, confess, and Threaten actions in Duel of Wits with documentary support), Record Keeper (+2 to Search skill in libraries, archives, or government offices)

LANGUAGES
French 7/8, Greek 1/6, Latin 3/6, Spanish 2/6

SAVES
Artillery 16 Chance 13 Poison & Plague 12 Terror 15

MEASURES
Hit Points: 9 Will: 8
Defence: 10 Dodge: 11 Morale: 8
Reputation: 5 Precedence: 3rd État/3

The process is not difficult, but it is detailed and it is fiddly. There are a lot of numbers to note down and so on, so the process does take a bit of time. If there is anything missing from the selection of Lifepaths, it is those for the members of the clergy, the First Estate. These though are actually detailed in Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane. Another issue, perhaps, is the role of women in the setting. There is no discussion of this, whether to adhere to a historical attitudes and roles or run the roleplaying game allowing more wider roles for both men and women. Ultimately, this will be up to the Game Master and her players to decide. That said, from the Lifepaths given, there is also no adventuress-style role akin to that of Milady de Winter, as depicted in The Three Musketeers. Yet in the case of Milady de Winter, there is also no Nun Lifepath to start from, either in Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 2: Les Fruits Malheureux or Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane. To start then, a player might start with Filou or Gamine and build a similar history using other Lifepaths such as Petty Noble.
Beyond the basics of creating a character, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 2: Les Fruits Malheureux covers Virtues and Flaws, such as Patient or Compassionate, Cruel or Gluttonous. These tied to a Player Character’s six abilities, but are not selected during the creation process. Instead, they are chosen and earned through play, several sessions into the game. Rounding out Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 2: Les Fruits Malheureux is a section of equipment and for the Game Master a set of tables for creating NPCs. More broadly, there is a short guide to curses appropriate to the period and in ‘Mode of the Day’, a guide to the speech patterns of the period. Though short, this is a delight, making clear that the players and their characters should be polite, speak obliquely and colourfully, and use more words than a modern speaker would. For example, “Monsieur, I wish it were the case that you had cause to visit the Netherlands just the once and so could spend your time at home in this very fine house with its bounteous wine cellar and extensive, if unleafed, library, in the tender embrace of your beautiful wife, on French soil as every true patriot should, but I have it on very good authority, the Dutch authorities indeed, that you have been seen in Rotterdam more than once. Indeed, Dutch records show that you purchased numerous cargoes, but unfortunately, having searched the state records, my efforts have been in vain. I simply cannot find any record of the taxes owed to the crown on those cargoes. I am but a humble bureaucrat, perhaps you can enlightenment me as to where you sold those cargoes and what taxes you paid on them?”

Physically, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 2: Les Fruits Malheureux is well presented and written, and includes a full example of character creation, which goes some way to ease the learning of the process. It is illustrated with a period artwork and etchings which helps impart its historical setting. If it is missing anything, it is an index, but at just over sixty pages, this is not too much of an issue.
Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 2: Les Fruits Malheureux presents the character creation process for Miseries & Misfortunes in as straightforward a fashion as is possible. It could have done with a simple listing of the complete step-by-step process with page numbers, but the book is quite short, so the process is not necessarily difficult, but rather takes a little getting used to, given the number of things that a player has to do to create a character. The resulting Player Character sits somewhere in terms of complexity and detail between Maelstrom and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, capable, but fragile as per the Old School Renaissance origins of Miseries & Misfortunes demands.

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—
“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”, (L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between, 1953). Never is there a more apt quote for Lashings of Ginger Beer: A spiffing role-playing game. In the twenty-first century, we are spoilt for choice when it comes to roleplaying games in which we play children or teenagers going off on adventures, free of the aegis of either parents or adults, of which Tales from the Loop and Kids on Bikes are most well-known. First published in 1995 by Beyond Belief Games, it is the 2003 edition that is the best-known version. As any Briton of a certain age, what Lashings of Ginger Beer is about—or is inspired by—is the adventures of the Famous Five, the characters from the series of books by children’s author, Enid Blyton. The five, Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timmy the Dog, cycle into the countryside or sail across to an island where they explore the area, notice things out of the ordinary, discover secret tunnels, uncover criminal activities, and help bring the perpetrators to justice. Not just the Famous Five, but also the characters of Blyton’s Secret Seven and those of Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons. In the bucolic idyll found over the Easter and summer holidays such characters will engage in carefree camping trips, have adventures, not worry about school or home life, and enjoy massive farmhouse teas or hampers of food.
A kid in Lashings of Ginger Beer has four attributes—Tough, Deft, Clever, and Charm. These range in value between one and three. Younger kids have better ratings in Deft and Charm, whilst older kids have higher Tough and Clever attributes. Each Kid has a Kid Type—Good (‘Normal’), Swot (‘Bookworm’), or Truant (‘Tomboy’). These model the members of the Famous Five to an extent. So that the rebellious George is most obviously a Truant (‘Tomboy’), whilst Dick and Julian are Good kids, and Anne either a Good kid or a Swot. All Kids have two things they are good at, Hide and Snoop, whilst each Kid Type provides a further list of things a Kid is good at. The Good Kid Type is good at ‘Act Innocently’, ‘Camping’, Hobbies’, Sports’, ‘Ride Bicycle’, and ‘Spot Nasty People’. The Swot is good at ‘Sciences’, ‘History’, Geography’, ‘Languages’, ‘Music’, and ‘Useless Facts’. The Truant is good at ‘Fighting’, ‘Wriggle (from Grasp)’, ‘Climb Trees & Walls’, ‘Catapult’, ‘Throwing Things’, and ‘Lie Convincingly’.

To create a Kid, a player decides upon his Kid’s age, which sets the four attributes, and then add a single point to one. He then chooses a Kid Type and divides eight points between the things that the Kid Type is good at. It is possible to select things that the Kid is good at from another Kid Type, but this is more expensive. He also begins with three useful things, two of which he has to purchase. It is assumed that he has a few shillings and pence saved from pocket money and in addition, may have brothers and sisters. Lastly, all of the players should decide what their gang is called, for example, ‘The Fearless Four’ or ‘The Mysterious Crew’. A gang can also have a scruffy dog, which can be taught a handful of commands.

Henry
Kid Type: Swot Age: 13
Tough 2 Deft 2 Clever 3 Charm 2
Things He Is Good At:

Sciences 2 History 1 Geography 1 Languages 1 Music 1 Useless Facts 2

Mechanically, Lashings of Ginger Beer uses pools of six-sided dice equal to an attribute plus the thing that the Kid is good at. A roll of one six is a success, with additional success meaning that the Kid has achieved the task with greater alacrity. Contests are won by whomever rolls the most successes, though ties are possible. This includes combat, where a tie might result in a standoff. If a Kid suffers damage, he loses points of his Tough attribute. If a Kid has his Tough attribute reduced to zero, he is not killed, of course, but rather bruised, with a black eye or the scraped knee. Lastly, the result of any roll also determines who gains the narration rights to the outcome, the player if his Kid is successful, the Game Master if the Kid is unsuccessful.

Beyond this, there are some notes on Idyllic England, suggestions as what the Kids’ gang name—and book series—name might be, and a short list of appropriate language for the period, so that something that is good, would be “Wizard!” or a disappointed Kid might exclaim, “Darn it!” There are notes too on the play of the game, no more than a paragraph, to the effect that Lashings of Ginger Beer is meant to be fun, that the rules are not in any way realistic, and that they are this way to fit the style of Idyllic England. Half of Lashings of Ginger Beer is dedicated to ‘Adventures & Mysteries’. There are six of these, which take a circus, a mysterious manor, a haunted castle, and so on. These are really all quite fun and are obviously inspired by the fiction.

Mechanically, Lashings of Ginger Beer is simple, even simplistic, and lacking in nuance. Part of the issue is with the Kid options available, which are limited and offer too many skills across the three Kid Types. It is difficult to design a Kid outside of its Type, confining them to strict archetypes. Plus, it is difficult to design Kids like Anne of the Famous Five, which would closer model the source material.

Physically, and in keeping with the style and tone of the game, Lashings of Ginger Beer is a simple affair. The layout is clean and tidy, the line art a mix of period pieces and modern additions. The latter is not as good as the former, but the latter is not accompanied by anachronistic titles.

If you are of a certain age, Lashings of Ginger Beer: A spiffing role-playing game has a problem. Much like Pendragon has the issue of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Lashings of Ginger Beer: A spiffing role-playing game has The Comic Strip Presents... Five Go Mad in Dorset. Broadcast in 1982, this parodied the children adventurer format of the Famous Five and the social attitudes prevalent in Blyton’s stories. It is difficult to roleplay Lashings of Ginger Beer without lapsing into that parody and quoting from it. Yet even as that it is a problem, it is one that Lashings of Ginger Beer acknowledges, though without actually mentioning it. For example, the very title, Lashings of Ginger Beer’, is taken from The Comic Strip Presents... Five Go Mad in Dorset rather than Enid Blyton’s books where it never appears. Then the artwork parodies the source material too, for example, with Julian and Dick in bathing suits, running into the water and shouting how good the acid that they have just taken is and suggesting that they should give some to Timmy the Dog. Some of the captions to the artwork, all of its period appropriate, are even more suggestive. So even as Lashings of Ginger Beer is presenting itself as a straightforward roleplaying game based on a very English genre, it is both parodying both itself and its source material, whilst also acknowledging the parody. Which establishes an odd dissonance between the tone of the writing and the tone of the artwork, between the tone of the game and source material and the anachronism of the parody.

Besides having a problem, Lashings of Ginger Beer: A spiffing role-playing game is a deeply problematic game, primarily because of its source material and influences that are reflective of the time when they were written and the social attitudes of the time when they were written. The Famous Five books present an England that is a White, Middle-Class idyll in which foreigners cannot be trusted, women have their place, and you can be snobs about both the poor and the rich. It is fair to say that Lashings of Ginger Beer does not reflect any of this itself, but for a modern audience aware of the issues with the source material, it is always going to be lurking in the background as they play.

Another issue with Lashings of Ginger Beer is that it shows its age in terms of design, especially in comparison to the number of roleplaying games that explore the children adventurer genre currently available. For example, Kids on Bikes from Hunters Entertainment and Renegade Studios and Tales from the Loop from Free League Publishing are both more sophisticated in terms of their mechanics, yet without much more in the way of complexity. They also offer more choice and more nuance in that choice in terms of what the players can choose as their characters and character archetypes. Similarly, roleplaying games like Tales from the Loop also offer more emotional sophistication in terms of the Player Characters and especially in terms of their family lives, which reflect the often difficult and fractured nature of the family during the eighties when it is set.
Consequently, were a designer to create a children adventurer-type roleplaying game today, it would be unlikely to be based upon or draw from the same source material and though it would aim for mechanical simplicity in its rules, it would offer a wider of options to play and it would address the emotional nuances in the genre. Design demands have changed radically since 2003.
Of course, to be fair, Lashings of Ginger Beer is not set in the eighties and it is set in an idyll when the idea of family difficulties was something to be kept behind closed doors as best could be, but the upshot is that none of the Player Characters in the roleplaying game possess anything akin to emotional depth or a life away from their adventures. Lashings of Ginger Beer is about roleplaying in that interlude, carefree and joyous, between the responsibilities of home, family, and school, as much as it is on exploration, snooping, and unmasking smugglers and international criminal masterminds on the Dorset coast.
Here then, ultimately lies the charm of Lashings of Ginger Beer: A spiffing role-playing game—and it is charming—the emulation and clear love of its source material, despite its underwhelming rules. It is never going to escape the issues with its source material and there have been better treatments of the children adventurer genre since, but Lashings of Ginger Beer: A spiffing role-playing game, one of the earliest entries in its genre, is simple and charming.

Calamity has befallen London (and beyond). The year before last, a great comet was seen in the sky, surely a sign of an ill portend. Last year it proved to be so as the plague swept through the city, infected households being forced to isolate as the authorities nailed the doors to houses shut. Carts roll through the city collecting the dead, ready to transport them to great burial pits, so many are they. The King and his court have fled the city, leaving the poor to suffer and survive—if they can. Now a worse calamity has struck the city. A strange alien has discovered the city and seen the suffering of its inhabitants as an opportunity to spread its own its seed—literally—and so turn all of the surviving inhabitants into a cult wholly devoted to it. First London. Then the world. This is the set-up for Beware The Mindfuck!, a scenario for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. It is a little different from other scenarios released by the publisher. Though set in the roleplaying game’s default era of the Early Modern period, it is much shorter than the typical scenario from the publisher at twelve pages long, it is more obviously a one-shot, and it is designed for Player Characters of Fourth Level. It also carries an ‘18+ Explicit Content’ label on the front cover—and it deserves to.

Be warned. The language and the tone of Beware The Mindfuck! is strong and of an adult nature and it deserves that warning label. Some of that language is repeated as part of the review where necessary.

More specifically, it is Saturday, 1st September 1666. The plague has raged across the city for a year. An alien being known only as the Mindfucker has occupied the church on Pudding Lane. It has begun ejaculating ‘Ectoparasitoid Jizz’ out of its penis-like tentacle and this ejaculate is not only identical to the fleas that are the vector for the bacterium, Yersinia pestis, but also one of its two effects is to infect the victims it bites with symptoms that are not dissimilar to Yersinia pestis. This effect is fatal. The other effect is not fatal, but does cause its victims to fall under the sway of the Mindfucker. Not only that, but they also become fanatically devoted to the alien, worshipping and serving him in any fashion they can. Having established itself and its cult in the church, even amongst the chaos of the plague-ridden city, its presence has been noticed… There are two suggestions as to how it comes to the attention of the Player Characters. One is for them to be employed by the Catholic Church to locate and investigate a new faith called the Saints of Psion, the other is for some of Player Characters to stumble across another Player Character that has already been grabbed by the Mindfucker’s fanatics and is being carried back to the church.

If Beware The Mindfuck! is anything, it is a collection of NPCs, monsters, and encounters that the Player Characters might meet in the course of the scenario. This course sees the Player Characters cross London from an unspecified starting point to Pudding Lane. There is some description of the city and of the plague itself, but in the main, Beware The Mindfuck! is dedicated to its inhabitants and encounters. The former include watchmen who use their authority to line their pockets, body snatchers who will knock out and grab the living to sell to doctors looking for a cure to the plague, and plague doctors whose remedy for the plague, borne in horribly large syringes, is actually deadlier than the plague itself! The encounters take in all of these and more, including rat swarms, bigger rat swarms, men handing out victuals, a turncoat from the cult, and an infected nun. Perhaps the weirdest of all is the conspiracy theorist who sounds mad, but actually is speaking the truth and is modelled on Alex Jones, and the reviewer who turns up and criticises the actual scenario that the players are playing and the Game Master is running. This appears to be hilarious, at least as far as the author is concerned.

It all ends with a few haphazard notes from the author as to the lack of map and what he added to the second playtest, but not in the published scenario. Which ultimately, does not amount to much more than a meatgrinder of one nasty encounter after another across London before the Player Characters get to the church on Pudding Lane and hopefully discover that they cannot kill the alien in a standup fight and so resort to other means to destroy both it and its cultists. Presumably with fire, because this is Pudding Lane and it is London and it is 1666. Which is about as much plot as there is.

Physically, Beware The Mindfuck! is short, clean, and tidy. It needs a slight edit, but the main thing it lacks is a map or two. The author is fully aware of this and makes a point of it. Not only that, but also lampooning reviewers in the encounter table complaining about the lack of maps. He makes the legitimate point that there are plenty of maps of seventeenth century London online that the Game Master can use. This is fair, although what is not fair, is the lack of maps of the alien’s lair to be found online. He also makes the point that when he runs a game, he does not use maps. This is also a legitimate point, but only in two places. First in his mind and second at his table. However, Beware The Mindfuck! is not written or published to be solely run at the author’s table and solely by the author, but by other Game Masters and in other places. Said Game Masters might want or appreciate the inclusion of a map, but in this case the author willfully and illegitimately ignores what they might want or need. Make of that what you will.

Beware The Mindfuck! is coarse, boorish, and vulgar. At its best—and that is not a term that can be applied in general to this scenario—Beware The Mindfuck! possesses an attention to detail parts in describing its vile depiction of plague-ridden London. At its worst—and that is a term that can be applied in general to this scenario—Beware The Mindfuck! is prurient and unpleasant. Fans of Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying will probably appreciate it for that. Anyone else will probably find little of use in its pages and are advised to avoid it.

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DISCLAIMER: The author of this review is an editor who has edited titles for Lamentations of the Flame Princess on a freelance basis. He was not involved in the production of this book and his connection to both publisher and thus the author has no bearing on the resulting review.