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.

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What is it?The Cohors Cthulhu Quickstart Guide is the quick-start for Cohors Cthulhu, the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian pulp investigative horror and action set at the height of the Roman Empire. It is published by Modiphius Entertainment, which also publishes Achtung! Cthulhu, set during World War II.

It includes a basic explanation of the setting, its factions, rules for actions and combat, magic in the setting, weapon qualities, the mission, ‘Rude Awakening’, six ready-to-play, Player Characters, and a Quick Reference Sheet for Tests.

It is an eighty-three page, full colour 48.20 MB PDF.

It needs a slight edit in places.

The quick-start is illustrated with some excellent, full colour, painted artwork. The rules do need to be carefully read through as they are moderately complex, especially when it comes to both magic and mêlée combat. The Cohors Cthulhu Quickstart Guide and thus Cohors Cthulhu place an emphasis on mêlée combat over ranged combat.

The scenario, ‘Rude Awakening’, and of course, Cohors Cthulhu, do involve horror. They are suited for a mature audience. There is some safety advice included to take account of this.

It should be noted that Cohors Cthulhu is not the first roleplaying game or supplement to explore Ancient Rome through the lens of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. The 7th Edition Guide to Cthulhu Invictus: Cosmic Horror Roleplaying in Ancient Rome does that for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, but the tone of Cohors Cthulhu is Pulpier and more action orientated.

How long will it take to play?
The Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start and its adventure, ‘Rude Awakening’, is designed to be played through in one or two sessions.

What else do you need to play?
The Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start requires five twenty-sided dice per player, several six-sided dice, and twelve tokens, divided into two colours. The tokens will be used to represent Momentum and Threat throughout the scenario.

Who do you play?
The four Player Characters include a Germanic priest of Tiwaz (or Tyr)—he is the only Player Character who can cast magic, an Aegyptus scholar and occultist, a North African legionary, a Germanic archer and scout, a Greek courier, and a Gaulish smuggler and bandit. The priest is capable of casting traditional magic.

How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character has seven stats—Agility, Brawn, Coordination, Gravitas, Insight, Reason, and Will. Stats are rated between seven and twelve, whilst the twelve skills in the roleplaying game are rated between zero and five. He has one or more Foci, each Focus being attached to a skill and representing greater specialisation, and one or more Truths. These are facts which when applied to a situation, can make a task easier or harder, or even possible, depending on the Truth and situation. Each Player Character also has a Fortune point. This is used to let a Player Character perform a heroic action or gain an advantage in a life or death situation.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, the Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start uses the 2d20 System used in many of the roleplaying games published by Modiphius Entertainment, such as Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 or Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. To undertake an action in the 2d20 System in Cohors Cthulhu, a character’s player rolls two twenty-sided dice, aiming to have both roll under the total of an Attribute and a Skill. Each roll under this total counts as a success, an average task requiring two successes. Rolls of one count as two successes and if a character has an appropriate Focus, rolls under the value of the Skill also count as two successes. In the main, because a typical difficulty will only be a Target Number of one, players will find themselves rolling excess Successes which becomes Momentum. This is a resource shared between all of the players which can be spent to create an Opportunity and so add more dice to a roll—typically needed because more than two successes are required to succeed, to create an advantage in a situation or remove a complication, create a problem for the opposition, and to obtain information. It is a finite ever-decreasing resource, so the players need to roll well and keep generating it, especially if they want to save some for the big scene or climatic battle in an adventure.

Where the players and their characters have access to Momentum, the Game Master has Threat. This can be used for similar functions as Momentum, but also to trigger NPC special abilities. She begins each session with a pool of Threat, but can gain more through various circumstances. These include a player purchasing extra dice to roll on a test, a player rolling a natural twenty and so adding two Threat (instead of the usual Complication), the situation itself being threatening, or NPCs rolling well and generating Momentum and so adding that to Threat pool. In return, the Game Master can spend it on minor inconveniences, complications, and serious complications to inflict upon the player characters, as well as triggering NPC special abilities, having NPCs seize the initiative, and bringing the environment dramatically into play.

Each Agent has a point of Fortune. It can be spent to perform cinematic feats such as ‘Critical Success’, ‘Re-Roll’, ‘Additional Major Action’, ‘Avoid Defeat’, and ‘Make It Happen’.

How does combat work?
Combat in Cohors Cthulhu uses the same mechanics, but offers more options in terms of what Momentum can be spent on. This includes doing extra damage, disarming an opponent, keeping the initiative—initiative works by alternating between the player characters and the NPCs and keeping it allows two player characters to act before an NPC does, avoid an injury, and so on. Damage in combat is rolled on the Challenge dice, the number of Achtung! Cthulhu symbols rolled determining how much damage is inflicted. A similar roll is made to resist the damage, and any leftover is deducted from a Player Character’s Stress. If a character’s Stress is reduced to zero or five or more damage is inflicted, then a Player Character is injured. Any Cohors Cthulhu symbols rolled indicate an effect as well as the damage. Damage can be deadly, but can be offset by the use of armour and shields.

How does magic work?
Magic in Cohors Cthulhu is divided into two disciplines—battlefield magic and ritualistic magic. The former consists of spells, curses, hexes, charms, and blessings, which are primarily used in combat. The latter is more complex and takes longer to cast, and is used to contact or summon the entities of the Mythos, travel to other planes of existence, and make lasting changes. Magic is also split into traditions, such as Runic and Oracular, or can be learned via Research. Spells are first bound into a spellcaster’s ‘mantle’, such as a staff or wand, and then can be cast from the mantle. Casting a spell has a cost in terms of mental damage to the spellcaster, whether successful or not, and if a damage spell, inflicts stress damage on the target. Momentum can be spent on ‘Cost Resistance’ for the spellcaster, ‘Bonus Damage’, and ‘Duration Increase’.

What do you play?
The setting for Cohors Cthulhu is the Second Century CE. A Hidden War is taking place behind Rome’s politicking and border expansion. The acolytes of the malign gods of the Mythos—Nyarlathotep, the God of a Thousand Forms, Sarthothus, the Shattered God, who infected the relics of lost Atlantis, and Mormo, Lord of the Woods—work in secret to subvert the temples and cults of the empire and beyond. Athena herself lends her wisdom in directing the activities of ‘The Temperari’, whilst an inner cabal within the temple to the Aurora, the Goddess of Dawn, called the ‘Fingers of Dawn’ dedicate themselves to defeating the forces of Mythos.

The scenario, ‘Rude Awakening’ begins en media res. The Player Characters are travelling with a caravan on the border with Germania which has just been attacked by bandits. The caravan master suggests travelling to a nearby village where help might be acquired. However, not all is well in the village, including a number of strange deaths. Investigation reveals the source might be a local farm on the outskirts of the village, and when the Player Characters go to look, they discover dark, horrific secrets. Overall, the scenario has the feel of a traditional fantasy adventure, but infused with the Mythos.

Is there anything missing?
The Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start is complete.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in the Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start are relatively straightforward, but the Game Master will need to pay close attention to how both combat and magic works in the roleplaying game as they are more complex. The scenario, ‘Rude Awakening’, also requires a similar degree of attention and preparation.
Is it worth it?
Yes. The Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start introduces the Cohors Cthulhu roleplaying game and setting, which combines pulp with Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. The result is more action orientated and more muscular in its approach to investigating the Mythos.
Where can you get it?
The Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start is available to download here.

The apocalypse was as sudden as it was unexpected. The sun, whose light and radiation, had been the source of life and energy for time immemorial, changed. Its radiation spiked. Within days, billions were dying of radiation poisoning. Ecologies collapsed as flora and fauna perished. Governments rushed to impose martial law and ration clean food and water. It was too late. The world’s electronic infrastructure was fried, rendered useless, and with it, communication and so many devices that humanity had come to rely on. The lucky found refuge in underground fortified Rad Bunkers or heavy concrete buildings, leaving anyone outside to a life of irradiated banditry and lawlessness. Yet even those inside the bunkers needed more to survive. Materials, food, water, medical supplies, fuel, equipment, raw materials, and more. Ideally, survivors who can help ensure the long-term survival of everyone in the bunker, and maybe, even beyond. It means going out into the irradiated world on the other side of the bunker door. Always at night, and never longer than twenty-four hours, lest a bad dose of radiation is suffered. And for the same reason, never more than two excursions in a row. This is the future of Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game.

Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game is a post-apocalyptic, solo game of exploration and survival in which the player will direct the movement and action of his character across a series of maps. For each excursion, this is divided into three maps. The first shows the terrain to be covered on the journey to the city, the second a building in the city which the character will explore, and the third, the journey home to the Rad Bunker. Each of the three maps is marked with a square grid on which there are symbols for Low Levels and High Levels of radiation, Bandits, Car Wrecks, Survivors, and Peril. Some of these are worth investigating—Car Wrecks, Perils, and definitely Survivors, and some are definitely worth avoiding—the Low Levels and High Levels of radiation, and the Bandits. In fact, combat in Rad Zone Totality favours evasion rather than fighting. All of the maps come as print and play. The player chooses the three maps for his character’s excursion, whereas the various encounters and Missions are all randomly generated.

To play Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game, a player will need some colour pencils—red, green, and yellow work best, and three six-sided dice. Ideally, the dice should match the colours of the pencils. He will also need to be able to print out the various sheets required to play.

When play begins, a player has a team of ten characters who will go out on the Missions. He also has ten Survivors, who do not go out on Missions. A complete game of Rad Zone Totality is ten Missions. The player wins by surviving the whole campaign of ten Missions and preventing the Rad Bunker’s Survivor count from falling to zero or by increasing the Survivor count to twenty. If the Survivor count is reduced to zero, the player definitely loses. Although initially designed as a solo game, Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game includes rules for two players who work together rather than against each other. The solo roleplaying game is published by DR Games, following a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Rad Zone Totality begins with character creation. The base character is simply defined with just a name, a Trait, and four Fable Dice. A Trait is rolled randomly. For example, ‘Patient Watcher’ enables a player to re-roll three Radiation Scan dice per location or ‘Sprinting Burst’, which lets him run past an NPC before an encounter is triggered. Further Traits are gained for completing Missions. Fable Dice are used for rerolls of any die roll, but are a finite resource and do not regenerate. Essentially, when a character runs out of Fable Dice, he is out of luck. A character can have an animal Companion, such as a fox or a horse. An animal Companion provides an extra Fable Die and an extra ability. For example, the fox is particularly good at sensing radiation hotspots and so the character being accompanied by the fox ignores a Radiation Icon on a Journey Map, whilst the horse speeds up travel between the Rad Bunker and the city. A character can also have an Affliction, which might be a ‘Busted Foot’, which slows travel by hour, or ‘Scaly Skin’, which gives the benefit of long leather gloves (which prevent hand damage), but appear too scary to keep or gain an animal Companion.

A Mission is played out on an Episode Sheet. This has spaces for the Character Sheet in the middle, plus spaces for the ‘Journey To’ and ‘Journey From’ Charts as well as the ‘Mission’, ‘Equipment’, and ‘Gathered Resources’. There are tracks for the ‘Time Line’, twenty-four hours long and a ‘Radiation Slide’ to track the amount of radiation damage suffered. There is also space for the ‘Extra Vigilant Doubles’. These are four numbers, decided upon by the player, which if all four numbers are rolled as doubles during the Mission, will grant the character a bonus at the end of the Mission. To begin an episode, the player places the Character Sheet on the Episode Sheet and rolls for a Mission on the Mission Inbound Table. For example, ‘Water Leak’ states that the Rad Bunker’s water tank has a crack in it and water is running empty. The character has to gather six Water, but if the character fails, four Survivors flee! To this, a player can add a Side Mission, which makes the overall Mission more challenging and whilst out on the Mission, can also locate ‘Rumours to Confirm’. Doing so reduces the resources the characters need to scavenge on the Mission.

An Episode of Rad Zone Totality is played out over three stages. The ‘Journey To’ and ‘Journey From’ stages each have their Journey Chart. These are marked with the various Event Icons. Each hour is spent moving across the terrain, interacting with or avoiding the Event Icons as best they can, but if a character gets too close, he can trigger an Event Icon. These can be positive or negative, with the Survivor, Peril, and Bandit all necessitating further rolls on their own tables. Specifically for the Bandit encounter, is the ‘Combat Evasion Table’, which lists various means of dealing with the Bandit, such as using an animal Companion or the ‘Sacrifice Loot’ option. Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game includes some twenty small for the travel to and from the Rad Bunker.

The second of the three stages is the Locations stage when the character will explore one or more buildings. Some thirty or so floorplans include a church, factory, gym, large house, office, police station, retail centre, school, and more. These are done in an isometric view as opposed to the flat view of the Journey Charts, and are marked with doors, individual rooms, and radiation hotspots. Every location is different, including what can be found there, and is accompanied in an earlier section by the ‘Search Matrix’, which provides loot and encounter tables specific to the various locations. Before a character begins exploring a location, his player checks on the number of NPCs—and potential Survivors—that the character might encounter. From turn to turn, the character scans for radiation, his player rolling randomly to determine the radiation in the squares ahead of him. He then attempts to plot his way forward via the safest path possible. Sometimes he will find radiation hotspots, sometimes low spots. Naturally, he wants to find the latter, not the former. Eventually, either because he has explored sufficient locations or he has run out of time, a character will want to return home. Once the character is back at the Rad Bunker, the player can check to see if the mission was a success or a failure, whether or not Survivors were gained or lost, and so on, before preparing the next Mission and the next Episode.

The two-player option for Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game adds a new set of more challenging Missions and provides twenty large grids for the Journey Charts for the travel to and from the Rad Bunker to account for the two characters rather than the one. These are played separately in that Encounters are handled individually, rather than both characters dealing with them. The larger Journey Charts add an extra Encounter, the ‘Manhole Cover’, which enables a character to travel more safely underground. Similarly, the larger Locations are included for the two-player option, but there is nothing to stop both characters exploring a smaller Location. Other than this, the play of the game remains mostly the same. What it means is that the characters are not working directly together, although they can still communicate and pass information back and forth to enable them to progress together. So, this is more playing in tandem than together and whilst the option is perfectly playable, there is a slight disconnect between the two characters.

Playing Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game is very much a procedural game, but it balances the need to roll on its various tables, for everything from the nature of the Encounters on a Journey To and Journey From the Location to the radiation levels at a Location and the Resources found in a Location, with decisions as what direction to move in, what Encounters to have or avoid, and so on being entirely in the player’s hands. Similarly, the player is free to select what Journey Charts he wants to use on his Journey To and Journey From the Location, as well as the Location. It needs adjusting to upon first play, a player working through the procedure at the heart of the game and book itself, but actually learning to play as he goes. Once learned, there are enough Journey Charts and more than enough Locations with Resources and Survivors to be found, which together create enough variation for Playing Rad Zone Totality to be repayable.

There are other options too, Playing Rad Zone Totality, though these are not explored within its pages. Since it is primarily a solo game, it lends itself to Journalling, a player creating his Characters’ attempts to survive on their excursions from the Rad Bunker. This is helped by background information about the setting, including how the apocalypse came about and the irradiated threats the characters will face. Similarly, these elements could inform the basis of a more traditional roleplaying game, the Locations and their associated content in the Search Matrix forming the basis of places that a group of Player Characters can explore and scavenge. The tone of Rad Zone Totality is far less fantastic than the settings for most post-apocalyptic roleplaying games, but that means its content is easy to slip into the setting or the setting’s more fantastical elements be layered on that content.

Physically, Rad Zone Totality is cluttered, with a lot of tables and elements that at first, makes it a daunting prospect to read through. However, it takes the player through the game step-by-step on a learning curve that is actually far from difficult. It just looks more difficult than it is. Otherwise, the artwork, mostly black and white, is decent, and both the tables and maps are clear and easy to read.

Playing Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game is a challenging game in which the player can explore a world radically altered from what it was just a few months ago and work—rather than fight—for the future of the Survivors in his Rad Bunker. It is grimmer than most post-apocalyptic settings, but the use of maps and floorplans gives the game a real sense of exploration, of what might be found, and what has been lost.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the third scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics tend be darker, grimmer, and even pulpier than traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, even veering close to the Swords & Sorcery subgenre. Scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set are set in and around the City of the Black Toga, Lankhmar, the home to the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the creation of author Fritz Leiber. The city is described as an urban jungle, rife with cutpurses and corruption, guilds and graft, temples and trouble, whores and wonders, and more. Under the cover the frequent fogs and smogs, the streets of the city are home to thieves, pickpockets, burglars, cutpurses, muggers, and anyone else who would skulk in the night! Which includes the Player Characters. And it is these roles which the Player Characters get to be in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal, small time crooks trying to make a living and a name for themselves, but without attracting the attention of either the city constabulary or worse, the Thieves’ Guild! The job in this scenario is a night spent prowling around a temple on a murder investigation.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is a longer, location-based scenario which should take between two and three sessions to play. Designed for two to three Player Characters of Fourth Level, it opens with them being approached by a gagged priest. The priest passes them a message to go to the temple of Votishal the Silent—a god dedicated to silence, self-improvement, discipline, and getting what one deserves—on the Street of the Gods. Worship of the god has been on the increase of late and so it has come to occupy the second-best temple on the street. However, its priests and worshippers have been driven out of the building due to their high priest having been murdered, followed by other priests on subsequent nights. The Player Characters are hired to enter the temple and catch and deal with the murderer when he returns that night. The priest—who only has a few minutes to speak according to the tenets of his faith—promises to pay well, but not before presenting the Player Characters with their first problem. The temple is now locked to prevent robberies with it now being vacant and non-priests cannot have a key. So, the Player Characters will have to break into the building in order to investigate and stop the murderer. This being Lankhmar and the Player Characters being thieves, this is not really a problem, but it must be a first, being paid by a client to break into his own building!

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is all about the temple to Votishal. This is a large, two-storey building with connected sewers and catacombs below. Over half of the scenario is dedicated to describing the building and its contents, including the floorplans for each storey. Numerous means are given for the Player Characters gaining access to the building, including via the sewers, and once inside, they find a baroque building dedicated to silence. They will also find that someone has got their before them and like them, is taking advantage of the quiet and the fact that nobody else is meant to be in the temple. There are thieves and assassins—and given that is the City of the Black Toga, their presence should be anything other than a surprise—skulking in the halls and rooms of the temple in their search for valuables and victims respectively. Yet, there is also something else, something whose presence suggests that the temple and worship of Votishal is more fractious than their gagged and silent façade suggests. It all lends itself to an eerie atmosphere, the hallowed silence inside the temple walls contrasting with the hubbub that the Player Characters are used to out on the streets outside.

As the Player Characters explore and investigate the temple, the Judge is provided with some great set pieces that she will definitely want to include if she can. For example, an attempt to garrote a Player Character from the floor above, which is not intended to kill the Player Character, but provide a fraught cinematic scene. There is also an encounter with the main threat in the scenario where breaking the silence will get the Player Characters into deadly danger and lastly with the ratfolk of Lankhmar, also seen in previous scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Primarily an exploration and investigation scenario, there is relatively little roleplaying in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal in comparison to earlier scenarios, such as Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #1: Gang Lords of Lankhmar and Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar. Thieves will be in their element, especially as the Player Characters explore the building and begin to discover some of the secrets that the priests of Votishal have been hiding within the walls of the temple.
Unfortunately, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal does have a quite complex background, not all of which may become apparent during the scenario. However, for the Judge, the back story becomes more apparent as she reads deeper into the scenario. The description of the temple of Votishal is quite detailed, so the Judge will need to pay careful attention to these details as part of her preparation. There is advice for the Judge in terms of hooks for getting the Player Characters involved, roleplaying the primary antagonist for the scenario, and adjusting the scenario to be run with four or five players rather then two to three. The scenario ends with an epilogue listing possible adventure ideas based on the discoveries that the Player Characters might have made in their exploration of the temple and expulsion of the various intruders.
Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is as decently presented as you would expect from Goodman Games. It is well written, the handouts nice and clear, and the cartography decent. The floorplans of the temple would work very well on a virtual tabletop with their secrets and numbers excised.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is a solid edition to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. It is not as exciting or as fun as the earlier Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #1: Gang Lords of Lankhmar and Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar, instead a situation that owes much to the traditional style of play of Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. However, mix in the religious and criminal elements of Lankhmar—and Votishal, in particular—and what you have in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is an eerie, even creepy ‘temple crawl’.

You have been put in charge of the circus and are determined to put on the best series of acts and performers possible in order to wow the audience and make your circus the best. However, the running order has already been set, but you might be able to pull the performers you have out of that order knowing that they will outperform the previous act directed by a rival circus. If that is not possible, then you can scout the previous act and hire its best performer to join your circus, slotting into the running order you already have. Sometimes, you can even scout the previous act, hire its best performer, slot them into your running order, and have them perform immediately to really outdo the previous act. Do all of that enough times, and your circus will undoubtedly be the best!

This is the set-up for Scout, a quick-playing card game from Oink Games. Like nearly all of the Japanese publisher’s games, the game is small, tightly packaged, and comes with simple rules, but delivers terrific game play. The game was a Spiel des Jahres nominee in 2022 and won the Origins Award for Best Card Game in 2023. It is designed for two to five players, aged nine and up, and can be played in about twenty minutes. It is also easy to teach, plays quickly, and it can be enjoyed by the casual gamer as much as the veteran. In fact, its simplicity makes it a good family game whilst still providing a challenge for the experienced gamer. Plus, it is incredibly portable. That said, its theme is about as thick as the canvas on a worn circus tent, but then every card is named, such as ‘Anthony the Clown’ or ‘Jennifer the Bicyclist’. So, there is a personal touch to the game—just about.

Scout consists of forty-five cards, twenty-three Scout Tokens, thirty Score Tokens, five ‘Scout & Show’ Tokens, a Starting Player Marker, and a Game Manual. The forty-five, brightly coloured cards are numbered from one to ten, not once, but twice—at the top or bottom of the cards. In fact, the cards do not have a top or a bottom as such, because they are intended to be played with one number at the top. Notably, the numbers at either end of a card are never the same. This is important because a player can choose which way a card is orientated and thus which number is on display at certain points in the game. The game consists of a number of rounds equal to the number of players. Once the round have been completed, the player with the highest score is the winner.

The game’s key mechanics are ‘Hand Management’ and ‘Ladder Climbing’. Unlike other card games, Scout limits the degree of hand management a player can conduct—adding or playing cards in his hand, but not arranging the order of the card. ‘Ladder Climbing’ has the players attempting to play better cards or sets of cards than those currently on the table. In Scout, this is sets of the same value or runs of sequential number.

At the start of the round, adjustments are made for the number of players and the cards are shuffled and dealt out so that everyone has a hand the same size. A player also receives a ‘Scout & Show’ Token. Here appears the first wrinkle in the play of Scout. When a player receives his hand, he looks at it in order to see the numbers at the top or the bottom. Having done so, he choses one or the other. What he cannot do is change the order of the cards in his hand. The order will not change throughout the whole of the round unless he either plays cards or adds a card to his hand. This has two effects. It constrains what he can play, but it also gives him the foundation of something he can build upon to create a better hand and hopefully outscore his rivals.

On a turn, a player has a choice of three actions— ‘Show’, ‘Scout’, or ‘Scout & Show’—of which he must do one. To ‘Show’, he plays a set or run of cards. A set is multiple cards of the same number, whilst a run is a sequential series, but when played that set or run must be better than the cards in play on the table. If this replaces the current set or run of cards on the table, the player picks them up and adds them to his score pile. To ‘Scout’, the player takes one card from those on the table, which come from either end rather than the middle and adds it to his hand. When he does so, it can be added to anywhere in his hand and with either number. With careful or lucky choice of a card from a ‘Scout’ action, a player can begin to build a bigger set or run of cards in his hand that will hopefully be better than that on the table in another turn. A ‘Scout’ action also scores a ‘Scout Token’ for the player who played the current set or run of cards on the table. The ‘Scout & Show’ combines both actions and is the most powerful action in the game. Each player begins a round with a ‘Scout & Show Token’ which is turned in once a player decides to do a ‘Scout & Show’ action. Once handed in, a player cannot do another ‘Scout & Show’ action, so it is a one-use action.

Play continues until either a player has played all of the cards in his hand or a player plays a high enough set or run that no-one else can do anything else except the ‘Scout’ action and play passes back to the player who played that set or run. Each player determines his score for the round. This is equal to the number of cards in his score pile and ‘Scout Tokens’ he earned in the round, minus the number of cards in his hand. The player who played the last set or run does not have to deduct points for the cards in his hand. Play continues like this until a number of rounds equal to the number of players have been completed.

Scout is simple to play, but it has a surprising amount of depth and requires a bit more thought than at first glance. The inability to rearrange a player’s hand is frustrating, but it presents a player with a challenge as he is forced to ‘Scout’ over and over in search of the right cards that will enable him to create the best set or run that he can. The double and differently numbered cards make this less of a challenge and add some flexibility in the choices available to the players. Also, as a round progresses and better and higher sets and runs are played, the players will potentially—as long as they are on the end of a set or run—have access to the better and higher cards that they need and can acquire via a ‘Scout’ action. Playing a good set or run early on in the game can be devastating as the other players are likely to be unable to outdo it with the hands they have, forcing them to ‘Scout’, and if they all ‘Scout’, the round is over, forcing them to score negative points because they have been unable to play cards from their hands. However, the right card from a ‘Scout’ action or the right card and then cards played with the ‘Scout & Show’ action can be devastating when done at the right time. Plus, a player can benefit when it is not his turn, because if another player does the ‘Scout’ action and takes from the set or run of cards he played, he scores points for doing nothing. So, there is balance between the luck of the cards a player begins a round with and the choices he makes as round progresses.

Where Scout suffers is in the number of players. It is designed for two to five players, but at two players, the players do very little more than ‘Scout & Show’ actions most of the time. It is not as engrossing or as challenging as games played with more participants. It is thus better with three players, but with four or five, it becomes a great game. Then there is the theme, which is really neither here nor there.

Physically, Scout is, for the most part, well presented. The card quality is decent, but it is definitely worth sleeving the cards for repeated play. The Scout Tokens, Score Tokens, and ‘Scout & Show’ Tokens, plus the Starting Player Marker are all bright and cheerful and on good stock cardboard. The rulebook though, is a bit small and a bit flimsy.

Scout is great game. It would be an almost perfect game were it good to play with two players. It is not, so it is merely great. Easy to learn, easy to play, challenging enough to win at its play length, and easy to transport, Scout is a great addition to any games collection and a great go to filler game.

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

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

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Name: Camp Hollow LakePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Daniel Stephens

Setting: Modern day New EnglandProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-Eight page, 2.15 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Summer camp clichéPlot Hook: Sometimes the best thing to do is buy into the clichés and run with them.
Plot Support: Four pre-generated Investigators, seven handouts, two floorplans, one map, and two monsters.Production Values: Reasonable.
Pros# Fully embraces the Summer camp clichés# Multiple inventive mini-scenes of unnamed students getting slashed# Easy to adjust to the nineties, eighties, seventies, or sixties# Scopophobia# Phonophobia# Aichmophobia

Cons# Needs a strong edit# Another summer camp slasher stalker horror# Non-Mythos scenario# Unlikeable pre-generated Investigators# Fully embraces the Summer camp clichés# A runaround until the solution can be found
Conclusion# Another summer camp slasher stalker horror with all the clichés# Unlikeable pre-generated Investigators who deserve to die, but sadly the scenario drags their time to die out until the climax

Lucky for None: A comedy-horror game could almost be said to not be a roleplaying game. This is because its mechanics amount to about three rules. Those rules consist of character generation, which is a single roll, an action mechanic—roll high and add a bonus from the character’s occupation, and then roll for just about everything in the game—mostly bad things and random things. It consists mostly of tables, each with thirteen entries—for good reason—which the players will roll as play progresses. The entries act as prompts, which can be used in two way, either as a group of players, or as a single player, who records his character’s reactions or actions in a journal. The nominal setting for Lucky for None is the village of Grimhaven, which is about to be beset by dark, strange things. In fact, they will be beset by a rash of dark, strange things and bad things to the point where they die or wish they had. Standing between them and the strange events are the Player Characters, residents themselves. The setting for Lucky for None is nominally the village of Grimhaven, located on the coast of Monshire. So it has a quaint British feel to it. That said, it can easily be adapted to other settings.

Published by Beyond Cataclysm Books other notable aspect to Lucky for None is that it uses a thirteen-sided die or ‘d13’ and only a thirteen-sided die. The number thirteen proliferates through the whole roleplaying game. Every table uses the thirteen-sided die, the village has thirteen locations, and events take place every thirteen minutes in real time. The game begins with a roll on the ‘Village Problem table’. This could be ‘sky’ and ‘hunger’ or ‘local government’ and ‘size’. The players develop the actual problem from these prompts, and then create a character. This again, is a simple a roll on ‘The Character Table’. This can be a Labourer, Barkeeper, Child, Mayor, Farmer, or Police Officer, and each has an associated skill. For example, the Mayor has Leading, the Police Officer has Securing, and the Labourer has Building.

To undertake an action, a player rolls the die and consults ‘The Action Table’. The outcome ranges from Absolute Failure to Absolute Success. If a Player Character has a skill related to the action, he can add two to the result. He also has two Luck Points. These can be expended to each add four to the roll, but if used up completely, he is out of luck and all rolls are made at disadvantage.

Of course, rolling a thirteen-sided die means that bad things above and beyond what is normally rolled whenever a player rolls thirteen. On ‘The Character Table’ this means that the character has an occupation and associated skill, and is also personally afflicted by the Village Problem. On ‘The Action Table’, it means that the action has been an ‘Absolute Success’, but also requires that the player roll on the on ‘The Bad Things Table’. This develops a ‘Vibe’, ‘Who It Affects’, and a ‘Severity’. For example, ‘Asphyxiation’, ‘A loved one/another PC’, and ‘Death, explosive’. In addition, Events are rolled or every thirteen minutes of real time on ‘The Events Table’, which give a ‘Location’, ‘Incident type’, and ‘Severity’. For example, ‘Church’, ‘Disease’, and ‘Inconvenient’. In general, the higher the roll, the worse the effect…

Play continues like this until the last and thirteenth Event is rolled and its effects play. The game is then over. The minimalist storytelling rules do intrude upon play, of course, most obviously in ‘The Bad Things Table’ and ‘The Events Table’, but between that, the players are free to discuss and develop the world around their characters, and how first the Village Problem, Events, and then Bad Things affects them, the locations in the village, and the residents. The story of this near constant cavalcade of catastrophes should play out of this as series of disasters and consequences that compounds each other, over and over, building and connecting as it progresses and the Player Characters react to everything around them.

That then is all there is to Lucky for None: A comedy-horror game. At least mechanically. There is an ‘Important and Useful Facts About the Number 13’ table and an ‘Alternative Village Problem Table’, but both are extra additions beyond the core of the game. There is an example of play and tips for the Game Master, both of which are actually useful.

Physically, Lucky for None: A comedy-horror game is a cleanly presented, vibrantly red booklet. It is simply written, very easy to grasp, and thus bring to the table. A combined ‘Character Sheet & Disaster’ is included, which sits in the middle of the table.

Lucky for None: A comedy-horror game is a one-session torrent of terror in which the Player Characters are inundated with issues and deluged with difficulties. It is an impossible situation, a dirty disaster drama of ridiculous proportions, played out in a single session or recorded in a dreadful diary, all good for a refreshingly farcical folly in between playing other roleplaying games. Or just good for getting your hands on a ‘d13’.

Halls of the Blood King is a scenario published by Necrotic Gnome. It is written for use with Old School Essentials, the Old School Renaissance retroclone based on the version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons designed by Tom Moldvay and published in 1980. It is designed to be played by a party of Third to Fifth Level Player Characters and is a standalone affair, but can be easily added to a campaign by the Referee. What it primarily needs is a world where vampires are known about, either as actual threats or legendary ones, and perhaps an old tale about a vampire hunter having gone missing a century ago. Since it involves the vampires and the undead, if the scenario is run using Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy, then a Cleric will be useful, and possibly a Paladin if it is being run using Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy. Unlike the earlier, official scenarios for Old School Essentials, such as The Hole in the Oak and The Incandescent Grottoes, it is not a suitable addition to the publisher’s own Dolmenwood setting. The scenario is also notable for winning the 2021 ENNIE Award for Best Adventure and the 2021 ENNIE Award for Best Cartography.
The Halls of the Blood King appears once a century, on night of a blood moon. It stays for that night and then is gone. It is home to the Blood King, the the first vampire, and on this night, as he does on nights like this on other worlds, he calls all of his children from across the lands to come pay him both homage and what they owe him—blood tax. The appearance of the Blood King and his mansion is a temporary stain upon the land where it appears, its baleful influence spreading fear and terror as every vampire in the land descends upon it and the lands and villages nearby... Several reasons are suggested why the Player Characters might want to break into the mansion. This includes rescuing any villagers who have been kidnapped from nearby, merely wanting to loot the place, or looking for a specific magical item known to be in the possession of the Blood King. Perhaps the most interesting are having the Player Characters seek revenge for a vampire said to have been lost in the halls of the Blood King—whether because one of their number is descended from the vampire hunter or they are hired by a descendant, or because they have been receiving the desperate dreams from a princess imprisoned by the Blood King, imploring them to rescue her. It is also possible to mix and match these hooks too.

The Halls of the Blood King follows the same format as the other scenarios for Old School Essentials. This includes an overview, which covers history, rumours, and a complete list of the adventure’s treasure by location. What sets it apart is two things. One is a time limit. The Blood King’s mansion is only present for one night. If the Player Characters stay too long, who knows what world or plane they will end up on? The other is a single page of vampire details, this included to save space from having to repeat their abilities in every monster entry, but it also makes it a handy reference for the Game Master—especially as it is reprinted on the inside back cover. Included at the end of the long list of their capabilities and unfortunately for the Player Characters, few vulnerabilities, are several alternatives to the Energy Drain ability, which leeches Levels, Experience Points, and Hit Points from an afflicted Player Character. Options include ability damage, permanent Hit Point loss, and a global penalty levied on all actions. Also included is a breakdown of the various factions and their relationships in The Halls of the Blood King, and it is here that the scenario begins to shine.
The factions in the Blood King’s begin with the Blood King himself, bored and disdainful, but under the right circumstances willing to see the Player Characters as more then a food source. Around him is his court and its guests, several of them quite alien, but all wanting something, and in many cases having something to hide. His daughter—who of course, is the one sending dreams to the Player Characters of an imprisoned princess—plots with a desperate vassal and other allies to supplant her father. His mother—or is she?—now a Banshee, lurks, seeking recognition by her son. Below the mansion, the Blood King’s pet, the Blood Spider Queen, grown big and fat on diet of blood, wants her court to be the equal of his. Elsewhere, the vampire hunter, thought lost a century ago, hides out behind a barricade of traps, waiting for an opportunity to strike at the Blood King... All of these factions want something and see the Player Characters as a means to strengthen their hands. Some will prove to be the allies the Player Characters need to survive The Halls of the Blood King, others not.

What this all means is that The Halls of the Blood King is not an adventure at which to go full tilt. Players and their characters wanting to rampage their way through the halls and room of the Blood King’s mansion, will first face guards with flesh-ripping blades and then the vampires themselves. The immunity from mundane weapons, the charming gaze, and the ability to drain Levels combined their numbers means that the vampires are too tough to face directly—and that is for Fifth Level Player Characters, let alone Third Level. Instead, the Player Characters need to find a less direct way to deal with the Blood King and his vampires. The scenario provides several, including gathering information, finding certain important items, and of course, creating alliances. Whilst there are opportunities for combat in the scenario, what this means is that The Halls of the Blood King is much more of a social and roleplaying scenario than it looks at first sight. Whomever the Player Characters decide to ally with, they have a chance to really change the status quo at the Blood King’s court.

Physically, The Halls of the Blood King is as well presented and as organised as previous scenarios for Old School Essentials from Necrotic Gnome. The maps are excellent with excerpts used on every page where individual locations are described. The location descriptions use the same sparse, almost bullet-point style seen in the other other scenarios with key points in bold. There is plenty of rich detail in those descriptions though, such as Shadow Hounds that are as “Dark as night” and “Long and tall but very lean (as if stretched)” and dungeon stairs “Made of rough hewn stone (looks like a stone beast’s gullet).” All of which makes the scenario very easy to use from the page. What really stands out is the artwork. Done in rich blues, purples, and reds with yellow highlights, it echoes the style of Philippe Druillet in his depiction of Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné, making The Halls of the Blood King have more of a baroque look than a gothic one.
The Halls of the Blood King is not without precedent, all the way back to Palace of the Vampire Queen from 1976. Of course, it would be remiss not to compare The Halls of the Blood King with its more well known precedent, I6 Raveloft. The Halls of the Blood King is a far less grand affair, in every sense, lacking the Gothic romance backstory of I6 Ravenloft’s Count Strahd von Zarovich and the love of his life, his former sister-in-law, Tatyana, and the epic scale of his castle. The lower scale has advantages, the mansion having less room for the seemingly endless swathe of the undead to be found in Ravenloft, making both exploration and accessing the social aspects of The Halls of the Blood King that little bit easier. It also means that The Halls of the Blood King is no mere imitation, possessing an atmosphere and sense of horror that is its own.

More social minefield than gory bloodbath—though it has plenty of potential to end that way—The Halls of the Blood King is a genuinely challenging adventure, presenting a highly detailed and atmospheric vampire lair in which the Player Characters will have to tread very lightly if they are to survive, let alone succeed.

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

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

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Name: The Thing in Tunnel 12Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Alison Cybe

Setting: North of EnglandProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-Three page, 1.41 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes locals really do have something to hide...Plot Hook: A body in the mine means murder!
Plot Support: Five pre-generated Investigators, two NPCs, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# One session industrial horror# Easy to adjust to the eighties or twenties
# Nice sense of locals with something to hide# Claustrophobia# Cleithrophobia# Taphephobia# Submechanophobia
Cons# Needs an edit# Not clear who the Investigators are meant to be# Underdeveloped historical background# No maps# Underdeveloped pre-generated Investigators
Conclusion# Underdeveloped historical and Investigator background# Solid one session industrial horror easily adapted to other time periods

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

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

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The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 is an anthology of seven scenarios within the grindhouse genre of cinema—low-budget horror, splatter, and exploitation films for adults which had their heyday in the seventies. Each one is short, designed to be played in a single session, involves a locked room type of situation—sometimes literally, which keeps the action and the horror focused, and involves desperate, often bloody and brutal horror. Each scenario is presented in full colour, comes with its own set of pre-generated Investigators, and follows the same format. This consists of ‘Prelude’, ‘Objectives’, ‘Secrets’, ‘Cast’, ‘Signs’, ‘Threats’, and ‘Changes’. The ‘Prelude’ sets up and explains the scenario, the ‘Objectives’ the Player Characters’ involvement, ‘Secrets’ reveals what is really going on, ‘Cast’ lists minor NPCs, ‘Signs’ details clues which can be found, ‘Threats’ the dangers both Mythos and mundane, and ‘Changes’ the major events which occur during the scenario. The format does not always though, as in some places there is a lengthy description of the locations where the scenario takes place before the Keeper gets to the ‘Secrets’. In addition, there are Keeper Notes throughout and options, decent maps or floorplans of the location for each scenario, and indications of the type of horror each involves at the start of each scenario. Not all of the scenarios involve the Mythos, but their horror is all strong and bloody.
The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 opens in underwhelming fashion with a non-Mythos scenario which involves a literal locked-room situation and little if any real investigation or agency. ‘The Crimson King’ is set in the early eighties and has the Player Characters invited to an exclusive Goth nightclub. Perhaps they want to attend, perhaps they are looking for a missing young woman? Unfortunately, there is very little for them to do or find out before the situation suddenly changes and they suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives and trying to escape. Which would be fine, but there is no other plot than this. The result is underplotted and one-note.
Fortunately, the next and subsequent scenarios are much better. ‘Isle of the Damned’ takes the Player Characters to a small island off the coast of Maine. It is 1974 and they have rented a small holiday home, intending to relax, fish, drink, and spend time away from the grind of modern life. Unfortunately, the island idyll is ruined by multiple somethings which a previous owner left behind after he had to flee following his name being linked to the disappearances of fresh corpses. That name is West, and since this is a Mythos scenario, that means reanimated bodies and body parts. The author has some fun with creating some freshly animated corpses and corpse cuts with which to scare the Player Characters, foreshadowing some of the bloody horror with bumps and knocks from below. Thus, the Player Characters find themselves trapped on an island surviving a zombie-style ‘uprising’ of a different kind.
‘The Dark Brood’ takes place in 1977 at a summer camp in the Appalachian mountains where the Player Characters are camp counsellors. Summer camp horror scenarios are a cliché unto themselves, invariably involving a madman who will stalk the counsellors and students, slashing them, and picking them off, one-by-one. Fortunately, ‘The Dark Brood’ eschews this cliché completely. When the children complain of upset stomachs and nausea, they are given something to settle their stomachs and set to bed early, but later, when the Player Characters suddenly awaken, the children have gone missing. Investigation reveals there is something very sour going on, something similar to that done in other scenarios for Call of Cthulhu, but made all the worse by being inflicted on children. Although they do not know it, the Player Characters are up against a time limit in what is one of the creepier scenarios in the anthology.
‘Jacknife’ is a classic road about to go very, very wrong. When the driver of an eighteen-wheeler picks up hitchhikers, he drives himself into a world of trouble. There is really only the one location for the scenario and that the truck and the flatbed of lumber it is hauling from Colorado to Texas. Anyone who has played the author’s The Highway of Blood will suffer flashbacks as the Player Characters are chased across New Mexico by snake cultists and dustbillies. On the downside, the Keeper will need to acquaint herself with the Chase Rules from the Keeper Rulebook, but on the plus side, a chase sets up plenty of tension and action, and setting the majority of the scenario aboard one moving vehicle adds a sense of claustrophobia to that too. The scenario could be run as part of The Highway of Blood or even a sequel of sorts, but gives too much away to run as a prequel. Otherwise, a great set-up for a horror scenario.
‘Hell Block Five’ casts the Player Characters as inmates of Irongate Penitentiary in Aylesbury, Massachusetts, incarcerated with some of the most infamous criminals in the United States. One night in 1978, the cell doors unlock and slide open in Cell Block Five, but without any alarms going off or sign of any guards. The blood and bodies of other inmates lie everywhere and the cell block seems infested with fungi and insects. The set-up and development has an intentionally nightmarish feel to it as the cell block fluctuates between its current state and something increasingly unreal. One issue is that the Player Characters do need to be driven to a bout of madness in order to discover an important clue and potentially push the story onwards. Another possible issue is that the Player Characters may encounter their worst fears, but none are listed for the pre-generated Player Characters. The players are, of course, free to create their own, but hints would have been useful. Overall, this is a solid prison-set horror scenario.
‘First Night’ takes another horror film cliché and does something interesting with it. It is 1980 and a group of college girls decides to spend the night in the mansion that was recently purchased by their sorority. So, we have a sorority house slumber party which takes a horrifying murderous turn after they find a witch board, which of course, they decide to play around with. Awaking later in the middle of the night to the sound of their bedroom doorknob being turned, something moving about the house, and the house being surrounded by a thick fog. The next few hours consist of the girls being chased round the house by nightmarish, incredibly stealthy monsters which can crawl across the ceilings and simply refuse to die. ‘First Night’ is a spiritual successor to ‘Hell Block Five’, but it apes its inspirations more closely by having the last girl standing receive a bonus to her Luck and a Bonus Die to all her actions. If it comes to this, then the players whose characters did not survive, should definitely control some of the monsters. Like ‘Hell Block Five’, there is the issue of the Player Characters possibly encountering their worst fears, but none being listed for them. The scenario also requires the Player Characters to participate in the use of the witch board, as it does not work without it happening. The players should be encouraged to have their characters do so in order to get this survival horror, monster chase scenario started.
Lastly, ‘The Hoodlums’ is a bonus scenario in The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3. Set in Worcester, Massachusetts, during the summer of 1983, it begins when a group of high school friends breaks into an abandoned train station to smoke some weed and one of their number suddenly disappears with cry for help! Following the cries leads into the sewers below and what seems to be a buried mansion decades old… The place feels old and macabre and plays out initially in exploratory fashion, which can turn into a deadly hunt depending upon how the young Player Characters interact with the inhabitants. The pre-generated Player Characters are nicely invidualised, they play Dungeons & Dragons, which lends itself to interesting roleplaying possibilities, and there is even a rule given for peer pressure.
Physically, The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 is decently presented. Although it needs a slight edit in places, it is well written, and it decently illustrated throughout. In fact, some of the artwork is very good. The cartography is also good throughout.
The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 would be an excellent anthology of Grindhouse-style horror one-shots. However, it is let down by the first scenario, ‘The Crimson King’, which is simply not of the same quality as the rest that follow. In fact, had ‘The Crimson King’ been left out or the bonus scenario ‘The Hoodlums’ simply replaced it, The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 would be that excellent anthology. Consequently, The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 is a good Grindhouse collection, providing the Keeper with a selection of easily prepared, brutal, often bloody, one-shots.

Everyday Heroes is the spiritual successor to d20 Modern. What d20 Modern did for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition in 2002, Everyday Heroes does for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in 2202. It is designed to facilitate and handle roleplaying in the here and now, in the world we see outside our windows, on our television screens, and at the cinema. It can cover military or mercenary scenarios, police procedurals, urban fantasy and investigating the supernatural, visits to lost worlds, conspiracy thrillers, dinosaur rampages, face-offs against killer robots (whether from the future or not), run or defuse scams, and more. Although it does not delve into any one of these genres or scenarios in any depth, the core rulebook provides all of the rules and the mechanical tools the Game Master will need to run and her players to roleplay them. There are tweaks and adjustments throughout the rules to account for the modern genre, but the core rules remain faithful, and will be familiar, to anyone who has played Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. In keeping with the setting, all of the Player Characters are human, and in keeping with the scale and concept of ‘Everyday Heroes’, are limited to between Levels one and ten. Further, Everyday Heroes provides some twenty character Classes, divided into six Archetypes, modern skills, proficiencies, and feats, rules for modern gun combat, vehicles and chases, hacking, modern environments and hazards, and a bestiary. Essentially, all of the tools the Game Master needs to run a campaign today.

Everyday Heroes is published by Evil Genius Games, following a successful Kickstarter campaign and begins with the Player Character. Everyday Heroes is a Class and Level roleplaying game, so it begins there, along with the six abilities—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. A Player Character also has a Background and a Profession, which each provide languages known, Proficiencies, Iconic Equipment, Ability increases, and a Special Feature; and an Archetype and Class. Backgrounds can be Activist, Book Worm, Caregiver, Misfit, Social Butterfly, and more, whilst the professions include Academia, Creative, Law, Trades, and so on. There are six Archetypes—Strong, Agile, Tough, Smart, Wise, and Charisma—corresponding to the six abilities—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. These are divided into three or four Classes. So, the Brawler and Heavy Gunner fall into the Strong Archetype, the Scoundrel and the Sharpshooter into the Agile Archetype, the Commando and the Bodyguard into the Tough Archetype, the Engineer and the Hacker into the Smart Archetype, the Hunter and the Sleuth into the Wise Archetype, and the Duellist and the Leader into the Charming Archetype. Together, Archetype and Class provides a Player Character’s Hit Dice, Defence rating, Proficiency Bonus, Talents, and Feats. The latter, Feats, are intrinsic part of Player Character development in Everyday Heroes.

Creating a Player Character in Everyday Heroes is a matter of making choices. A player selects his character’s Background, Profession, Archetype, and Class, and decides on the options they provide. He has the choice of determining his abilities randomly (roll four six-sided dice, discarded the lowest), assigning points, or using an array. The process is relatively straightforward and enables a player a wide range of character types. A player can decide to specialise in his choice of Background, Profession, Archetype, and Class. For example, a hacker could have Gamer as a Background, Information Technology as a Profession, and then the Smart Hero Archetype and the Hacker Class. Or he could mix and match to reflect wider experience. For example, an Ordinary Background could lead to the Emergency Services Profession and then be a Smart Archetype and the Scientist Class or a Tough Archetype and the Bodyguard Class. Notably though, the twenty Classes are also divided by complexity. Thus, the Heavy Gunner is a Simple Class, the Hacker a Complex Class, and the Leader a Medium Class in terms of their relative complexities. This is a useful guide for the players and can influence their choices when it comes to creating characters. Lastly, a player decides on his character’s Motivation, Attachments, Beliefs, Virtues, Flaws, and Quirks. As a Player Character advances in Level, he will improve via new or better Talents, Feats—some general, some specific to the Class and Archetype, Hit Points, and Proficiency Rating, so on.

Name: Henry Brinded III
Archetype: Mastermind Level: 1
Background: Bookworm
Profession: Military
Motivation: Duty Attachment: Family Belief: Not so much a statement of belief as a methodology
Role: Intellectual Virtue: Thoughtful Flaw: Nosy Quirk: Claps when excited

Strength 11 Dexterity 15 (+2) Constitution 15 (+2)
Intelligence 19 (+4) Wisdom 15 (+2) Charisma 16 (+3)
Defence: 14
Hit Points: 8
Passive Perception: 14
Proficiency Bonus: +2
Skills: Athletics +2, Computers +6, Insight +4, Investigation +8, Perception +4, Persuasion +7, Social Sciences +6, Stealth +4
Mental Expertise: Insight, Persuasion
Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Computers, Insight, Investigation, Perception, Persuasion, Social Sciences, Stealth
Saving Throw Proficiencies: Intelligence, Wisdom
Equipment Proficiencies: Basic Equipment, Advanced Equipment, Military Equipment
Languages: English, Latin, Spanish
Talents: Plans, Genius, Know-It-All, You’re Doing It Wrong
Special Features: Have You Ever Read?, Servicemember

Everyday Heroes includes a lengthy equipment section. Starting equipment is handled via equipment packs, such as a Hacker Pack or a Weekend Warrior Pack, but the extensive list includes weapons of all types—from knives and 9 mm handguns to rocket launchers and tanks, vehicles from bicycles, golf carts, pickup trucks, and bulldozers to tanks, eighteen-wheeler trucks, wingsuits, and bullet trains. The vehicles and weapons are listed by type rather than name and model, but it is easy for the Game Master and player to assign these details if they want them in their game.

Mechanically, the core rules of Everyday Heroes are the same as those of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Throw a twenty-sided die and add Ability and Proficiency bonuses as appropriate, the aim being to roll equal to, or higher than, a Difficulty Class, which ranges from ten for Easy, fifteen for Challenging, twenty for Difficult, and so on. The rules for Advantage and Disadvantage also work as they do in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Saving throws are based on the six abilities. Combat works the same too, but changes have been made to account for modern conflict. This includes firearms capable of suppressive fire and burst fire, as well as the use of explosive devices. Armour Class is replaced by a Defence value, which represents how hard a target is to hit, and can come from the cover a target is behind or the innate ability of a target to avoid being hit. Personal armour worn has an Armour Value. If the Penetration Value of an attack is higher than the Armour Value, the attack has penetrated the armour without reducing any of the damage, but if the Armour Value is higher than the Penetration Value, than an Armour Saving Throw can be made. A successful saving throw prevents all damage, but damages the armour, reducing its effectiveness, whilst a failed saving throw stops none of the damage.

The rules also cover environmental challenges such as dehydration and underwater combat, using companions—the Hunter Class has animal companions and the Engineer Class robot companions, laying and disabling traps, and of course, chases and vehicles. Vehicles have their own ratings for Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, Armour Value, and in some cases, special abilities particular to the vehicle. Chases, whether on foot or by vehicle, are played out round by round, with the participants accumulating Chase Points. The aim is acquire more than the other participants before the end of the chase, by overcoming hazards or challenges like dodging around two men carrying a long rolled up carpet or leaping from one building to the next. Success grants a participant Chase Points, failure Chase Points to his opponent. The chase rules scale up to take account of vehicles and combat, including actions such as aiming at tires, ramming, and the like.

For the Game Master, there is advice on handling the rules, including chases—the latter with lots of complications to throw into the path of the Player Character in a wide variety of environments, different types of encounters, computer hacking and security, and more. The advice on hacking is to keep its use in check lest it become too powerful a feature of the game, but the rules handle it in a simple enough fashion, also avoiding it becoming too technical. They make a point that the Security and Deception skills are as equally important as the Computer skill. There is guidance too on common, but often difficult situations in modern set games, such as snipers, standoffs, and calling in the authorities, which is so obvious in its inclusion, but so very helpful. Optional rules cover sudden death, tracking ammunition, poison, injuries above beyond simple Hit Point loss, diseases, and recreational drugs. Advice for the Game Master begins with the basics and builds from there, including ‘Saying, “Yes, and…”’, giving time in the spotlight for each Player Character, and knowing the players and their play styles. It also examines adventure structure and creation and some of the key points of the genres that Everyday Heroes is designed to cover—action, adventure, comedy, drama, horror, mystery, and survival.

Almost a fifth of Everyday Heroes dedicated to opponents and allies, and it is here that Everyday Heroes goes further than suggesting the various genres and settings and types of scenarios which can be run using its rules. There are numerous ordinary NPCs from all walks of life, but these are joined by cultists, crazed maniacs, mad scientists, and slashers. Alongside these, there are robots and animals, including a swarm of piranha, before the selection delves into historic and prehistoric NPCs, Science Fiction aliens and bugs, futuristic robots, mutants, and supernatural creatures from demons and vampires to zombies and werewolves. Variants are included too, so for zombies, there are zombie bloaters, zombie dogs, zombie lickers, and elite zombie warriors. These are all ready for the Game Master to use and build as part of a scenario.

Physically, Everyday Heroes is very well presented. It is well written, easy to read, and comes with a good index. The artwork varies in quality a little, but is all decent enough. Also included is an appendix of the changes between Everyday Heroes and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. This is useful, but would have been more useful if page references had been included.

There is one final addition to Everyday Heroes which is not included in the core rulebook. This is access to a number of source and scenario supplements all based upon a surprising range of films. In fact, a range of films which nobody expected to see turned into roleplaying material despite their popularity in the hobby. These consist of The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure, Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure, Highlander Cinematic Adventure, Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure, Pacific Rim Cinematic Adventure, and Total Recall Cinematic Adventure. These showcase at least, what Everyday Heroes can do and are, equally, six good reasons to play Everyday Heroes. Beyond these of course, there is plenty of scope for supplements which could explore the genres suggested in the Everyday Heroes core rulebook, as well as other support and useable content.

Everyday Heroes takes the bones of the Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition rules and adjusts them with a surprising degree of comfort to fit the modern day. From that basis, the core rules fleshes out the here and now with a wide range of Player Character options and monsters and NPCs which together lend themselves to genres and settings both ordinary and outré. In between there is literally all of the rules, backed up with solid advice, needed to support a modern day set roleplaying campaign. With Everyday Heroes, Evil Genius Games has not so much created the spiritual successor to d20 Modern, as taken on its mantle.

Tales of the RED: Street Stories is an anthology of missions for Cyberpunk RED, the fourth edition of the classic Cyberpunk roleplaying game. It provides the Game Master with nine—technically eight because the last two in the book make up a two-part adventure—scenarios which take place in and around the Night City of 2045. The scenarios are all easy to add to an ongoing campaign, as well as to mix and match with missions of the Game Master’s own devising or Screamsheets from a supplement such as the Cyberpunk RED Data Pack. Published by R. Talsorian Games, Inc., the nine missions will find the Edgerunners chasing vampires, investigating a kidnapping, working a film set, diving off the coast of Night City, making a delivery run of the best threads in town, hunting down a deadly A.I. program gone rogue, fending off an attacker who is hunting Edgerunner teams, investigating murder on the virtual club floor, and ultimately tracking down the perpetrator of the murder! Whilst offering a wide variety of mission types, they all adhere to the same format as seen in the core rules for Cyberpunk RED. This is the Beat Chart system which breaks a Mission down into a ‘Background’—intended to read aloud to the players, ‘The Rest of Story’ which summarises the Mission for the Game Master, ‘The Opposition’ which describes the threats the Edgerunners will face, and ‘The Hook’, which is what will draws them into the Mission. The remainder is divided into Developments—non-action beats, and Cliffhangers—action beats, before coming to a close with the Mission’s ‘Climax’ and ‘Resolution’. These are all labels as much as beats and of course, the nature of each beat will vary from Mission to Mission.

From the start, there are a couple of issues with the anthology. One is that the Beat Chart system does read a little oddly in that ‘The Hook’, the beat which covers how the Edgerunners get involved in the Mission, comes after several beats. So, the Missions need to be read carefully and their format adjusted to in order for the Game Master to get used to the format. The other issue that a lot of the context and stats for the nine Missions are not placed with the individual Missions, but in a set of three appendices at the back of the book. ‘Mooks and Defences’ provides the stats for the generic threats that can be encountered in the various Missions; ‘Locations’ marks every place and location visited by the nine Missions; and ‘Biographies’ provides thumbnail backgrounds for all of the named NPCs in the nine Missions. This includes the maitre’d at a fancy restaurant in the second scenario! Thankfully each entry also tells the Game Master which of the Missions they appear in or are mentioned in. Not all of them have stat blocks, but they do, it is in the Missions where they appear. Having the biographies all in one place sort of works for easy reference, but separating them from their stats, not as much…

Tales of the RED: Street Stories opens with ‘A Night at the Opera – Darkness and Desire in Night City’. Night City’s University District has been beset by a rash of disappearances of young women over the past four weeks, but to date neither Campus Security nor Night City Police Department have made any progress. So the father of the latest victim hires the Edgerunners to investigate and find his daughters. Canvassing the campus—which involves some fun encounters with members of the student body—points to the involvement of a poser gang, the Philharmonic Vampyres, who embrace the whole vampire aesthetic—fangs, pale skin, Goth-style clothing, and pale skin. The best way to contact the Philharmonic Vampyres is to attend one of their parties. Unfortunately, when the Edgerunners do, the event erupts into a gang-on-gang gunfight! The Edgerunners do need to pay attention to the ordinary events going on around them to get the most out of the scenario, but this is a fairly, direct simple scenario underneath its gothic trappings.

If the first Mission in the anthology looked weird, then the second, ‘Agents Desire – The Case of the Missing Girlfriend’, actually is weird. A fixer—who may be just little impatient for the Edgerunners, if not their players—puts the Edgerunners in touch with a high-ranking corporate whose partner was kidnapped from one of Night City’s top restaurants, La Lune Bleu, and he fears that he will only get her back if he gives up company secrets. The biggest problem for the Edgerunners is actually getting past the restaurant’s snooty maitre’d, and numerous options are suggested, including buying the right quality outfits and booking a table, hiring on as waiting staff, and so on. This presents a great social challenge for the Edgerunners and their players. Once inside, they can get further information and the story takes a turn for the strange, which foreshadows, but is not connected to, the events of Cyberpunk 2077.

The third Mission is different again. ‘A Bucket Full of Popcorn-Flavoured Kibble – Lights, Camera, Drama!’ gives the chance for the Edgerunners to hit the silver screen and be extras in the latest film by one of burgeoning Addis Ababa film studios. Not only do the Edgerunners get to make money from this job, there is opportunity aplenty for them to make money on the side. These include tracking down a supply of actual organic food for the film’s picky star, plant a listening device for a sleazy journalist, provide cybertech support, make a delivery for the film’s other star following his divorce, and so on. The Edgerunners are free to pick and choose which tasks they undertake, but the Mission has a picaresque quality to it, as the Edgerunners bounce from one small task to the next. There are some nice rewards too if the Edgerunners do play it—mostly—straight and promise of extra work too.

The change in the nature and style of the Missions continues with ‘Drummer and the Whale – Treasure Beneath the Sea’, in which the Edgerunners are hired for an easy job in—or under—Night City Bay. Their employer, whose hobby is looking for patterns in in the remnants of the global Net which got shattered during the Fourth Corporate War, and he has detected a patten off the coast of Night City. With limited funds, he hires to locate some washed up cargo container, which means searching the shore, part-shanty town, part-waste dump, all one environmental hazard. It seems that something is operating on the bed of the bay and shipping containers ashore on a regular basis. The question is, what is it, how dangerous is it, and how much will the right people pay for it? The aquatic nature of the Mission is challenging in itself and is in parts more technical than the earlier Missions, which should challenge the Edgerunners’ Tech and Netrunner. Overall, the Mission has a claustrophobic, dated feel to it as traditional rivalries straight out of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. surface in Night City Bay and threaten a legal incident!

‘Haven’t Got a Stitch to Wear – A Suit Worth Dying For’ is more straightforward. High-end tailors Torrell and Chiang have proved popular with Night City’s rich and famous and demand for their suits and outfits has grown and grown in recent months. The demand is such that Torrell and Chiang have been forced to out-source minor alterations as their own staff are too busy working on new commissions, but that solution has gone awry when the couriers they normally use stop doing deliveries. With a growing number of impatient clients, the tailors hire the Edgerunners to find out why. The problem is that the couriers have competition. The Mission covers most eventualities, including the Edgerunners dealing with the problem, siding with the competition, or even setting themselves up as the competition. In whatever way the Mission is resolved, the Edgerunners do get to look at how Night City’s small business economy works and potentially make some contacts.

‘Reaping the Reaper – The Call is Coming From Inside Your Head!’ is a classic Cyberpunk scenario. A Night City urban legend tells of a rogue A.I. known as The Reaper, which body-hops Netrunner after Netrunner killing them one by one, only turns out that there is very much a basis of truth to the legend. This is a good scenario to run if the Edgerunners have played through ‘Digital Divas Burn It Down’ and ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ Missions from the Cyberpunk RED Data Pack, especially for Tech or Netrunner Edgerunners. However, it is potentially problematic in a number of ways. First, it is combat heavy in comparison to the other scenarios in Tales of the RED: Street Stories. Second, the Edgerunners are accompanied by a pair of NPCs, one a Solo, the other a Tech, which are there to cover the Edgerunners if they fail. Their presence definitely gives the Game Master more to keep track of, potentially undermines the efforts of the Edgerunners, and feels clumsy in terms of storytelling.

‘Staying Vigilant – Three Crews Dead, Will Yours Be Next?’ brings the action to the Edgerunners. It starts with them being invited to the Afterlife, the bar from the computer game, Cyberpunk 2077, as opposed to the Forlorn Hope, where they have been meeting previously. Trace Santiago, the Media and son of famed Nomad Santiago, wants help in investigating the recent deaths of three Edgerunner crews. With his media drone in tow, the Edgerunners need must battle their way past Night City’s Hot Zone to locate the ‘killer’. Like the previous Mission, this is combat orientated, but is more nuanced.

It seems like they are being plagued by vampires when another group of them seems to have committed murder at Delirium, a virtuality club, on the Edgerunners’ night out in ‘Bathed in Red – A Night of Fun or Night of Terror?’. With a body on the dance floor, their night is over and their reputation too when they are framed for the death. This is a murder mystery that builds into a conspiracy, with the vampire posers, who out to be homeless street children, holding some of the initial answers. There is a great contrast here as the story switches from a grubby virtual reality dance club where everyone wears visors to view the night as one of five different environments—Dark Cabaret, Deathpunk, Horrorpunk, Skatepunk, or Synthpunk—to the squalid home of the street children, and then again, as the mother of the murder victim, a rich corporate, gets involved. This is most complex of the Missions in the anthology and the most adult in tone, and that continues in the Mission’s sequel, the last Mission in the anthology. ‘One Red Night – The Final Curtain Falls’ picks up where ‘Bathed in Red – A Night of Fun or Night of Terror?’ left off, involves yet more of the murder victim’s family, and comes to a close in bloody, physical confrontation with the true perpetrator of the murders.

Physically, Tales of the RED: Street Stories is well presented with excellent artwork and cartography. It needs an edit here and there, but the Missions themselves are easy to read and digest.

What is so good about Tales of the RED: Street Stories is the diversity of Missions and stories in the anthology. Yes, there is a Mission involving a rogue killer A.I., which is classic cyberpunk and consequently a cliché, but the majority of the Missions will first surprise the Game Master and then her players with the situations their Edgerunners will find themselves in and having to resolve. Nor do they always focus on combat, though there is plenty of that as well as solutions to the Missions which involve means other than force. Although some are better than others, there is not a single bad Mission in the pages of Tales of the RED: Street Stories, the best including becoming couriers for a tailoring firm, working a film set, diving for salvage, and more. Tales of the RED: Street Stories is an inventive and challenging anthology of scenarios for the Cyberpunk RED which gives the Game Master a great range of choice to choose from. In fact, the choice is so good that she will probably end up running most of them!

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the adventurers from your Monday night Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition game was put in charge of a café? Or the shadowrunners from your Shadowrun campaign decide to open a coffee shack in the Barrens of Seattle? Or the heroes, protectors of Freedom City, from Dave’s Mutants & Masterminds game inherit a bohemian restaurant? Or just for a change in Mel’s Call of Cthulhu game, one of the investigators inherits a tea shop from her uncle rather than a mystery about his disappearance? All of these are possible in the Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game. In fact, not only are these options possible, but they almost do also not matter, because what does matter, is how the Player Characters cope with the ever-changing nature of the day-to-day business of running a café. Published by Cobblepath Games—best known for Locus: A roleplaying game of personal horror (and guilt)—Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game is actually two things. First, it is a standalone storytelling game which can be set up and run without a Game Master, everyone working towards telling a story of a single day, or perhaps more… Second, it is a corollary storytelling game which can be used to explore some of the time that the Player Characters in an ongoing campaign might have in between longer, probably more dangerous activities. In whatever way a playing group decides to use the Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game, they will also need a standard deck of playing cards and a selection of cutlery.
No matter the genre or setting for the café, the first thing that the players decide is where their establishment sits on three scales. These are Fresh/Cosy, Small/Big, and Professional/Friendly. The score in each, which ranges between one and ten determines the number of items the players have in their Cutlery Pool, whether Teaspoons, Forks, or Knives. Each of the three items represents a different way of approaching and solving a situation in the café. Knives are used for a quick decisive approach, Forks for the resourceful, creative approach, and Teaspoons for the considered, well-thought-out approach. Each item of cutlery is also associated with a suit in the card deck—diamonds for Knives, clubs for Forks, and spades for Teaspoons. In addition, each player also creates a character who has two notable methods—and thus two associated items of Cutlery—of dealing with problems. One is his favoured approach, which he can always use even if he runs out of Cutlery, whilst the other he has learned to use through experience. A character begins play with an item of Cutlery associated with his learned approach and a Teaspoon. A Teaspoon can be discarded to allow the character to go on a break and whilst on the break, the character can gain Cutlery based on the learned way of dealing with issues.
If a character is brought into the Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game from another roleplaying game, the rules from that roleplaying game do not come with him. Instead, the Cutlery rules in the Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game are used, but when dealing with a difficult situation or problem, the character is still roleplayed and his stats, skills, abilities, spells, superpowers, cyberware, favourite gear, and so on, can be used to influence how the character resolves a problem at the café. In effect, it is a classic fish out of water situation and the character has do his very best the only way he knows how…
Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game is played in rounds. At the start of a game, a Hitch is drawn. This is a persistent problem that cannot be resolved at all and instead, must be worked around. It is a constant presence throughout the game. At the beginning of the round, the first player draws a single card from the deck. This the Catastrophe for the round and it is resolved immediately by a single player. It is followed by each player drawing a card which indicates the Snafus besetting the café that round. Tables are provided of Catastrophes, Snafus, and Hitches. For example, a Hitch could be a visiting Film Crew, the Catastrophe might be a Power Cut or a Scam Artist, whilst a Snafu could be involve Happy Hour, a Wardrobe Malfunction, a Bad Tipper, or Broken Glass.
To deal with a Snafu, a player wages an item of Cutlery. This can come from their own stock of Cutlery or the general pool of Cutlery. The item of Cutlery waged determines the defending suit. The outcome is determined by comparing the suites of the Cutlery used and a new card drawn. Knives or diamonds beat Spoons, Forks or clubs beat Knives, and Spoons or spaces beat Forks. Hearts beat everything and count as an automatic success. If the player wins, the Snafu is resolved and discarded. If the player loses, the wagered Cutlery is lost, the Snafu remains in play, and worse, an item of Cutlery already dedicated to a Catastrophe is also lost.
A Catastrophe requires Cutlery to be dedicated to it. As long as an item of Cutlery is dedicated to it, it remains resolved. However, if the Cutlery dedicated to it is lost because a player loses a Wager on a Snafu, the Catastrophe reoccurs and becomes a problem for every character until resolved.
A game of Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game begins with everyone possessing an item of Cutlery and there being Cutlery in the café’s pool. It will not be long before any Cutlery is in short supply as play progresses, primarily through failed Wagers on attempts to deal with Snafus and Cutlery having to be dedicated to catastrophes. Lost or discarded Cutlery can be recovered by a player going on a Break. This requires the expenditure of a Teaspoon and is done with another player. A cup of tea is also recommended as is taking the time to reflect and discuss the events of the day so far. This enables the players on the break to recover an item of Cutlery related to their learned means of resolving problems rather than the one they favour. In the meantime, the players still work will continue the round without them, attempting to deal with a new catastrophe and more Snafus as they are drawn. The players on a break are free to return at any time.
There is no set ending for a game of Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game, but perhaps a shift should end when everyone is out of Knives, Forks, and Spoons. It is a game of storytelling in the face of dwindling resources and mounting problems, most temporary, but all too quickly, too many permanent unless a solution—however temporary—is applied to them. Initially, successes will drive the storytelling, but that will change as failures to deal with both the Snafus and the Catastrophes mount. In some ways, this works better when the staff of the café are drawn from other roleplaying games, their inexperience at running a café quickly becoming evident as the failures mount and their methods, invariably useful in the other roleplaying game setting, not being as useful in the ordinary place of work.
Physically, Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game is well presented, coming as a folder containing two trifold pamphlets. They are bright, colourful, and easy to read.
Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game is playable as is, a storytelling game about running a café and coping with the problems that beset its staff and customers almost every day. Its lack of ending and objective, whether as a whole or for individual characters, does leave its purpose hanging, whereas if the Player Characters are drawn in from another game, Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game comes into its own. When that happens, the players get to explore their characters through a slice of life, doing something very ordinary, but often only having the most extraordinary means to do that ordinary thing. That exploration gives Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game its purpose and its comedy as the ordinary and extraordinary clash over coffee and cake.

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—
Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is back! Originally designed by Sir Ian Livingstone and published by Games Workshop in 1982, it was the very first board game to be inspired by the Judge Dredd comic strip from the pages of 2000 AD. In the original game, the players control Judges patrolling the streets of Mega-City One, the vast twenty-second century metropolis on the Atlantic coast of North America, home to eight hundred million citizens and all of them potential lawbreakers. Every Judge is trained from the age of five to arrest criminals, pass sentence, and carry out the sentence—even if that means a death sentence!—all in the name of keeping the city and its inhabitants safe. Every turn a player sends his Judge to the scene of a reported crime, perhaps the Palais De Boing—the only place in the city where it is legal to go Boinging, Otto Sump’s Ugly Clinic for the very best in uglification surgery, or the Alien Zoo where wonders and weird creatures from across the universe can be seen— and attempts to arrest the perpetrator. Perhaps Joseph ‘Mad Tooth’ McKill for Tobacco Smoking, Ma Jong for Stookie Glanding, or Dobey Queeg for Robot Smashing. Notoriously, this is the board game where you could be arresting Judge Death for Littering, or Ma ‘Green Fingers’ Mahaffy for Murder. Unfortunately, only one Judge gets be top dog in Mega-City One, and that is Judge Dredd. Which means the player with greatest total strength of Crime and Perp cards in his score pile at the end of the game is the winner and thus next top dog.

Much like the later Block Mania, the good news is that Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One has returned to the fold of 2000 AD and is now published by Rebellion Unplugged. Like Block Mania, it has undergone a redesign and makeover, but not by very much, and the game play remains very much the same. What has been added are clearer rules for ending the game and a simple expansion to make play a little more interesting and worth revisiting. Everything else remains the same. Same game rules, same art style, same set of perps and crimes, and same take that style of play. So, although a classic, Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is still a game from 1982. What that means is that the game is easy to learn and easy to play, has bags and bags of theme—even if that theme dates back between 1977 and 1982, a degree of players acting against each other, and a high degree of luck. Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is by any definition, an ‘Ameritrash’ board game. That by no means is necessarily a bad thing as the game can also be funny and silly, and it is playable by anyone—not just those who played it first time around in 1982 and are noshing down on the nostalgia.

Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is designed to be played by two to six players aged fourteen plus and has a playing time of between an hour and an hour-and-a-half. The board depicts twenty-eight locations in Mega-City One. Over the course of the game, each sector will be seeded with a reported Crime and Perp. The Judges will proceed to the Sectors where these Crimes and Perps have been reported, reveal them, and attempt to arrest the Perp. Failing that, they may be able to stop the Crime in progress. At the end of the game, the player who has scored the most points from Perps arrested and Crimes stopped, wins the game.
Set-up first requires the group to choose a game length—‘Hotdog Run’, ‘Day Shift’, or ‘Night Shift’—and decide whether or not to use the Specialist Judges expansion. Each player receives six Action cards, and the Crime, Perp, and Sector cards are shuffled. Sector cards are drawn and these indicate where reports of crimes have been made, Perp cards and Crime cards being drawn and placed face down in the indicated Sectors. Each round consists of three phases. In the Movement Phase, the Judges move two Sectors in a direction, taking accounting of bridges to cross the river, but primarily to the nearest Sector containing Perp and Crime cards. When a Judge moves into a Sector Perp and Crime cards, both are turned over and revealed. In the Arrest Phase, a Judge attempts to bring a Perp and his Crime to justice. To do this, his player rolls the game’s black Judge die and adds his Judge’s Strength. Another player roll’s the game red Perp die and adds the result to Perp’s Strength, a total of the value on the Perp card plus the value on the Crime card. Highest total wins. If the Judge’s result is higher, he arrests the Perp and his player takes both Perp and Crime cards and adds it to his score pile. If the Judge’s result is lower, the Judge has failed, is knocked out, and has to discard and refresh his hand of Action cards. If the result is a draw, the crime is stopped and the Crime is added to the player’s score pile, but the Perp runs away, ready to be arrested by another Judge! In the third Refill Phase, new Sector cards and Crime and Perp cards are drawn to bring the number in play back up to six, any Judges knocked out go to the Justice Department Hospital, and each player receives a new Action card, more if their Judge is in certain sectors.

Of course, it is not always possible for a Judge to beat a Perp and a Crime on a singe roll. For example, if Fink Angel And Ratty with a Strength of eight was Body Sharking, which has a value of five, the total Strength the player has to roll higher than is thirteen. Which is not possible with the addition of a Judge’s Strength of six plus a die roll. Fortunately, a Judge has access to Action cards. Most are Support cards, which add a bonus to the arresting Judge’s Strength. For example, ‘Judge Hershey is with you today’ adds three and ‘The Perp is Kill Crazy. You send in the Sonic Cannon.’ adds five. Others though, are Sabotage cards, and can be used by a player to make an arrest attempt by another player’s Judge even harder. For example, ‘Your breakfast of plasti-flakes and synthi-lix is giving you chronic indigestion. You are not in tip-top fighting condition’ levies a -2 penalty or ‘The Perp you are fighting is secretly an East-Meg spy. Add an Extra Die to their Strength’. The worst of these cards, of course, the Escape card, which reveals the Perp to be the notorious Edwin Parsey, notorious confessor of other people’s crimes, which forces all Support cards used in the arrest attempt to be discarded and the attempt be treated as a tie. Other Action cards allow extra movement, send the Judge to a particular Sector, grants on the spot healing, and so on.

Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One adds one expansion—Specialist Judges. There are six of these—or seven if the Judge Fish from ‘The Day the Law Died’ storyline promo is included—and each Judge has a different ability. They include Chief Judge, SJS Judge, Psi-Judge, Wally Squad, Cadet, and Mechanismo. For example, the Cadet Judge only has a Strength of four, but begins play with and can hold seven Action cards, and draws an extra card; the SJS Judge can look at another player’s Actions each turn and wins ties in combat; and the Wally Squad Judge can move through Sectors containing revealed Perps, but does not have to arrest them. All six are nicely thematic and give a player a good little edge in play. The mix means that the players can come back to the game, try another Specialist Judge and a slightly style of play.

Physically, Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is well presented. The artwork on the board is in colour, whilst the cards is black and white, but also is sharply and crisply handled. The rulebook is clearly written, easy to read, and supported with examples of the rules. In addition, the rulebook includes all of the UMPTY CANDY CARDs from the Jack Caldwell’s Old-fashioned Umpty Candy packs. All three series—‘SECTORS of Mega-City One’, ‘CRIMES of Mega-City One’, and ‘PERPS of Mega-City One’ explain the three sets of cards in the game, giving background for each of them.

Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is not a perfect game by modern standards. It is too luck driven, the game allows one player to directly hamper another with the Sabotage cards, and towards the end of play, players can congregate around the remaining Sectors that have not yet been drawn if they have been keeping an eye on the cards that have been drawn to date. That said, they were part of the game’s design in 1982 and they should be there also in 2022 because the new edition is intended as a nostalgia piece and to change the game’s design too radically would break from that. Another issue is that the game only draws from the first five or so years of the Judge Dredd strips in 2000 AD—1977 to 1982—so that means forty-year-old stories which may not be as familiar to younger players. Perhaps yet, there is room for further expansions involving the more recent stories and thus more Crimes and Perp cards?
Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is a fun game, easy to play and all the more enjoyable if the players know the lore, know the crimes, and know the Perps. Rebellion Unplugged have done a fantastic job of updating the quality of the game whilst both retaining the same game play and adding an expansion for more varied play. Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One marks the welcome return of a beloved classic, British in both design and inspiration, in turns funny, frustrating, and evocative of our gaming youth and another age.

Konrad Spiegel is dead. Burned to a crisp, a gold coin in his mouth. It is the strangest thing to have occurred in the village for Schwarzfuß for many years. Jakob Falkenartig was a friend of Konrad Spiegel and fears he will be next, so he wants to hire some bodyguards. The otherwise feckless Bürgermeister Lorenz Künstler wants something done about the situation, as long as it does not involve him, and so hires an errant band of adventurers to do the job for him. Then, of course, there is the matter of the gold. Who has enough gold to leave in the mouths of dead, burned bodies? These are all reasons for the Player Characters to get involved in the events in and around Schwarzfuß. What they will find is a village fearful of what will happen next and who the next victim will be and who the perpetrator is of this terrible crime is. This is the set-up for The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero, a short scenario for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay. Like other scenarios published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess it is set in the game’s default early Modern Period, this time following a war, the suggested year being 1630 and the war being the Thirty Years’ War. Written by Kevin Green, it is another of his ‘village in peril, but only the Player Characters can save the day’ scenarios, but on a much smaller scale.

The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero is essentially Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of the Four adapted to the seventeenth century, a fantasy roleplaying game, Germany, but with added flames and less monkey and more The Terminator. Not literally, but the antagonist is an unstoppable killing machine. Actually, the author actually states that the scenario’s inspiration lies in John Carpenter’s The Fog and Kelly’s Heroes, which is all well and good, but since his opinions and tastes in films have proven to be suspect with previous scenarios for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, he may not be entirely, or indeed, at all, accurate. The author’s taste and opinion with regard to films aside, its set-up is simple, flexible, and easy to use, whether that is the retroclone of the Referee’s choice or another setting or even another roleplaying game. The most obvious of which would be Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

The village of Schwarzfuß is not described in any great detail and instead, the scenario focuses on the victims and where they live, the antagonist, and the few NPCs of any note in the village. Most of the NPCs receive a half page of description each, whilst the three remaining victims several pages each, being accompanied by details of where they live, including very nicely done floorplans of their homes. Each of the three remaining victims is very different in personality and the Referee will enjoy portraying each one of them as well as the other NPCs. The venerable, but crotchety old monster hunter stands out as the most fun to roleplay.

Much of the scenario is dedicated to suggested ways and means of dealing with the nigh on unstoppable monster threatening the three victims. It includes faking the deaths of the victims as well as actually cutting to the chase and the Player Characters killing them themselves, and everything in between. There are lots of options discussed here, essentially covering most of the solutions that the players will think of and there is even a suggestion for the Referee to substitute a non-supernatural option if she does not necessarily want her Player Characters facing an unstoppable flaming monster or she wants to run a Scooby Doo-style scenario.

Physically, The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero is very well presented and written. The artwork is decent, but the maps are excellent.

The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero is a short scenario. In fact, it could be run in a single session and even as a convention scenario, though it would be unlikely to last more than two sessions. Its set-up is simple and its plot, well, not exactly original, so what matters is how well the plot is done and how well the plot is supported, and to be fair, The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero does a good job of handling both. The result is that The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero is a decently presented, well explored, if familiar scenario that is easy to prepare, easy to run, and easy to adapt.

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: Dossier No. I – The MawPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Matthias Sperling & Björn Soentgerath

Setting: Jazz Age Germany & EgyptProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Ninety-Three page, 93.71 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: The ancient horrors of Egypt have a long reach... a very long reach.Plot Hook: Employees of the ‘Obscuriat’ are directed to locate an expected artefact because of Harry Houdini.Plot Support: Staging advice, two pre-generated Investigators, twelve NPCs, nine handouts, one Mythos artefact, and six Mythos monsters.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# Dense, highly detailed investigation# Excellent end of scene summaries# Designed for two players and Keeper# Physical props also available
# Enjoyable small town, Weimar Republic period feel
# Nice sense of environment# Inspired by ‘Imprisoned with the Pharaohs’ by H.P. Lovecraft and Harry Houdini# Taphophobia# Anthropomorphobia# Necrophobia# Pharaohphobia
Cons# Needs a strong edit# Densely plotted# No clear summation of the scenario# No historical context# Designed for two players and Keeper
Conclusion# Densely plotted, heavily backgrounded scenario needs a lot of unpacking by the Keeper to run properly# Really needs historical Jazz Age context explained# Enjoyable period investigation which surprisingly turns tomb trawl

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: 52 HzPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michał Pietrzak

Setting: Modern Day PacificProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Fifteen page, 380.02 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: The song of the loneliest whale reveals horrors out of time.Plot Hook: A Miskatonic University research expedition reveals horrors in the most unexpected of places.
Plot Support: One handout, five (forty) NPCs, one map, and seventeen Mythos monsters.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# One session Scientific Action one-shot# Suitable for two to three Investigators
# Mythos on Mythos action
# Nice sense of environment# Literally ends with a big bang# Thalassophobia# Aquaphobia# Megalohydrothalassophobia# Nucleomituphobia
Cons# Needs a slight edit# Tightly plotted# Bland layout# Bland maps# No pre-generated Investigators
Conclusion# Exciting one session scientific action aquatic one-shot let down by a lack of pre-generated Investigators# Horrors out of the past drive a Mythos conflict with everyone else caught up in the Mythos on Mythos action

The Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook is the third setting supplement for Modiphius Entertainment’s Star Trek Adventures roleplaying game following on from the Beta Quadrant Sourcebook and the Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook. Effectively, it lies at the far end of the Bajoran Wormhole which connects the Gamma Quadrant to the Alpha Quadrant and it is what comes through the Bajoran Wormhole which is the primary focus of the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook. For the supplement is as much a setting update as much a setting sourcebook and as much a companion to the Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook. What the Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook did was to examine the world of Bajor, and the major polities of the region, including the Cardassian Union, the Ferengi Alliance, the Tzenkethi Coalition, the Breen Confederacy, and the Tholian Assembly. It also looked at the Bajoran Wormhole and explored its ramifications of upon the quadrant, in the process, updating the default starting year for Star Trek Adventures of 2371 to 2372 as the early years of Deep Space 9 was explored. The Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook goes further. Not only does it update the default starting year from 2372 to 2375, but it also examines the whole of the Dominion War, looks at the major factions and events involved, supporting with details of new species, ways to involve the Player Characters and run campaigns set during the war, and more. What this means is that the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook is really only a book for one of the period settings in Star Trek Adventures, that of Star Trek: The Next Generation rather than the earlier Star Trek: The Original Series or Enterprise.

What the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook does not include is a map of the Gamma Quadrant. As with the television series, Deep Space 9, it remains for the most part, a great unknown, its exploration and possible contact with worlds there made all the challenging by the presence—both implied and actually present—of the Dominion. Nevertheless, there is plenty of scope for the crew of a starship to explore beyond the Bajoran Wormhole, make contact with the various species there, begin to learn hints of the Dominion, its masters and subject species, and wonder at its strangeness. In fact, almost a half of the supplement is dedicated to examining the Dominion and the Dominion war itself. The former starts with the history of the Changelings, how they fled, hounded by the ‘solids’—as they call most other species, to eventually find a world where they could be safe their Great Link, the world-spanning gestalt formed of their combined bodies and minds. It examines their politics, best described as a ‘fascist theocracy’ in which they are worshipped by their subjects upon whom they impose a strict order through their agents, the manipulative Vorta and the feared Jem’Hadar. Numerous worlds and species both within Dominion space and adjacent to it, are also detailed, such as the Drai, who serve as the Dominion’s geneticists and are thus regarded as a privileged member of the Dominion, and the T-Rogorans, a warlike species that aggressively expanding from its homeworld before encountering the Jem’Hadar and being almost wiped out… Notable worlds include the Founders’ Homeworld, essentially rock with little more than an atmosphere and the Great Link as a singular ocean; an Hur’q Outpost, an archaeological treasure house for anyone interested in Klingon history, the Hur’q having fled the Klingon homeworld thousands of years ago; and the Cursed Penal Moon, where the incarcerated are forced to fight in an ongoing war between two factions again and again as they find themselves resurrected each time they are killed. None can leave lest they die. All of these worlds and many of the species are ripe for visit by the Player Characters, whether as members of Starfleet or another faction.

Besides examining various species in the Gamma Quadrant, the supplement also looks at the various species in the Alpha Quadrant and their relationship with the Dominion. This includes the Breen, Cardassians, the Son’a, and the Orions, as well as potential allies like the Tholian Assembly, the Gorn, and the Nausicaans. The consequences of these potential alliances are also explored. Perhaps the most interesting inclusion here is that of the Kzin, a species rarely mentioned by Star Trek. Originally appearing in ‘The Slaver Weapon’, an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series adapted by Larry Niven from his Known Space setting stories. However, they have been reintroduced into Star Trek in passing, or at least in mention. No stats are provided for them though in the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook.

A detailed timeline of the Dominion War is also provided. It provides a background to the conflict as well as a look at the Cold War in which the Dominion began to infiltrate the Alpha Quadrant, secure allies, and foment conflict. This would lead to wars between the Klingons and Cardassians and then the Klingons and the Federation. Options are discussed for roleplaying in this Cold War period, before moving on to the loss and recapture of Deep Space 9, and coming to close with the current state of the war in 2374. Fortunately, supplement does not leave it there. Rather, it both gives 2374 as a default starting, ready for the Player Characters and their starship to become involved in the final operations against the Dominion, and then outlines the events of 2375 ready for the Game Master to run a campaign through this period.

To go with the numerous species discussed earlier, some twelve new species are given stats and details to make playable as both NPCs and Player Characters. This includes the Changelings! Their inclusion, of course, allows a player to roleplay a character similar to Constable Odo from Deep Space 9, and to that end, there is a discussion of how to include ‘Non-Starfleet, Unusual, Or Unique Characters’ in a Star Trek Adventures campaign. This is not confined to Changelings, of course, and there are plenty of species in the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook, such as Lurians, Rakhari, or Wadi, which could be added as an unusual character to a campaign, let alone those in other supplements. A campaign based in a starbase, whether on a planet or in space, would more readily support this option than perhaps aboard a starship, but there are plenty of examples of such characters aboard a starship seen in Star Trek. Another option for a Changeling Player Character is to have them as infiltrators, undermining the efforts of Starfleet, the Federation, and its allies from within. Such an option does need careful handling, by both player and Game Master, with potential for redemption once the Changeling has been revealed and perhaps the person it was impersonating rescued from imprisonment. Notably, neither the Vorta nor the Jem’Hadar are included here. Instead, they remain adversaries, and are fully detailed in the core rulebook for Star Trek Adventures.

Numerous starships of the Gamma Quadrant are also described. These start with those vessels of the Dominion and its allies. Thus, the Jem’Hadar battleship and the Vorta Explorer, and the Son’a flagship and battlecruiser. The majority of the vessels are those of the Dominion War, all of them notable vessels. Amongst them are the U.S.S. Prometheus, the first vessel capable of Multi-Vector Assault Mode and the U.S.S. Valiant, the Defiant Class operated by members of Red Squadron from Starfleet Academy. An interesting option given is the vessels from the so-called ‘Frankenstein Fleet’, which saw starship frames previously mothballed by Starfleet upgraded with more advanced equipment and technologies. This would result in a radically different and genuinely unique vessel, a mixture of the old with the new.

Lastly, the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook includes a wide selection of encounters and adversaries. Alongside a handful of encounter seeds for the Gamma Quadrant, there is a discussion of the Bajoran Wormhole and the role of the Prophets, and the nature of exploring the Gamma Quadrant. There is discussion too, of the types of campaigns that can be played throughout the period of the Dominion War, accompanied by several mission seeds and encounter types. Major NPCs given include General Martok of the Klingon Empire, Kai Winna Bajoran Vedek, the Cardassian leader, Gul Dukat, and the leading member of the Vorta species, Weyoun. Their inclusion enables the Player Characters to encounter and interact with some of the major adversaries of the Dominion War.

Physically, the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook is a decent looking book. There are some inconsistencies in the layout, but otherwise the book is generally well-written and decently illustrated—though not always effectively—with a fully painted images. It does need a slight edit in places. The layout is done in the style of the LCARS—Library Computer Access/Retrieval System—operating system used by Starfleet. So, everything is laid out over a rich black background with the text done in soft colours. This is very in keeping with the theme and period setting of Star Trek Adventures, but it is imposing, even intimidating in its look, and it is not always easy to find things on the page because of the book’s look. The other issue is that the none-more black pages are easy to mark with fingerprints.

Throughout the supplement, the descriptions and game content are supported by a series of in-game documents, reports, diary excerpts, and the like. These typically reflect the mysterious nature of the Dominion and then the fraught nature of facing them and their agents in war, adding a sense of desperation in terms of its flavour and feel.

The Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook is three books in one, covering the Dominion, the worlds in and around Dominion space, and the Dominion War. It is also a companion volume, that to the Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook, which will provide the setting material for the Bajoran end of the Wormhole—Bajor, the Cardassian Union, the Ferengi Alliance, the Badlands, and the Demilitarised Zone. Like the Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook, the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook sort of tiptoes around the subject of Deep Space 9. Yet despite this omission, the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook is actually the most enjoyable and the most useful of the three sourcebooks dedicated to Star Trek’s quadrants to date. This is because it does not spread itself as thin as they do, its focus being firmly on the Dominion and their allies, the Dominion War, the consequences of the war, and involving the Player Characters. All of which is backed up by solid advice on running a campaign during just four or five years of Star Trek’s history.

To get the best out of the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook, the Game Master will want access to the Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook, as that will anchor one end of the Bajoran Wormhole and Dominion War. Nevertheless, the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook is the definite guide to the Dominion and the Dominion War for Star Trek Adventures, as well as the other end of the Bajoran Wormhole.

The year is 2225. For the last seventy-five years, hyperdrive starships have enabled mankind to colonise, settle, explore, and most importantly, exploit the more than three hundred planets in the interstellar space surrounding the Earth. Three arms of exploration and settlement have been developed—American, German, and Japanese. The majority of settled worlds lie within a four to six Parsec radius of Earth, but there are worked, settled, and visited worlds out to a radius of forty Parsecs. It turned out that none of them are true garden worlds. Many of them are tidally locked worlds and all have environmental conditions which make survival difficult if not outright challenging or dangerous. None have been found to be home to intelligent alien species, although many are home to indigenous species deadly, or at least a danger, to man. Even the Earth is no longer safe having suffered partial environmental collapse. Billions reside on the planet, but many make the long journey in hypersleep to make a new life on another world or to work contracts on resource worlds, for in the main, deep space is a place to work. Metals and rare earths, but above all petrochemicals for the plastics industry, remain in great demand.
The need for these resources has led to the rise of several South Korean chaebol and Japanese keiretsu-like corporations whose reach extends to the far edge of explored space, greater than that of any nation. Mining and aerospace company Reiner-Gama dominates and has its operations confined to the Solar System, but others include the engineering-based Leyland-Okuda; the British-based Erebus, built up from oil extraction in the Antarctic; Russian conglomerate Voroncovo, which provides data brokerage and security services alongside heavy engineering; Hong Kong-based manufacturer, Wu-Ketai; the Tokyo-based Matsuyama which specialises in colony construction and support; and the Tharsis Corporation, a mining company which originated on Mars and is led by Compton de Vaille, who at 223, is the longest lived human in history. The activities of these and lesser corporations are regulated by the United Corporate Combine, but peace, law enforcement, and labour relations across human space are still regulated by the political blocs and organisations of Earth. In the American Arm, the Federal Colonial Marshal Service stations officers on every colony, the Union of American Space Labor supports the safety and well-being of the workers everywhere, and the United States Marines provides military protection and peacekeeping. This includes the Tau Ceti 4 colony, originally divided between China and the United States of America, where the collapse of the newly democratic China in 2166 led to the foundation five new states all of whom claimed control of the former Chinese colony, civil unrest on the colony, and then insurgency and counter-insurgency as the United States Marines stepped in as a peacekeeping force, welcomed and rejected at the same time.

This is the setting for Hostile, a gritty, near future roleplaying setting inspired by the Blue-Collar Science Fiction of the seventies and eights, including the films, Alien, Outland, and Aliens. It is a future in which space exploration and colonisation is difficult, harsh, and dangerous, but in which there are asteroid systems and worlds to be exploited and great profits to be made. Conflict is not unknown—between colonies, between colonies and corporations, between corporations, and when that gets too much the Interstellar Commerce Organisation steps in or peacekeepers such as the United States Marine Corps are sent in, but in the main, space is a working environment. One with numerous hazards—the vacuum of space, radiation, adversely high and low temperatures, poisonous planetary atmospheres, potential insanity from being exposed to hyperspace, and strange alien creatures which see you as intruder, food, or incubation for its brood—which humanity must cope with in addition to the stresses of space travel and working away from Earth.

Hostile Setting is published by Zozer Games. It is the companion volume and setting guide for the publisher’s Hostile Rules, derived from Samardan Press’ Cepheus Engine System Reference Document, the Classic Era Science Fiction 2D6-Based Open Gaming System based on Traveller. The Hostile Setting can be run using the Hostile Rules or the Cepheus rules, but is primarily designed as the setting guide for the former. Instead of offering the chance to begin again in a golden age of opportunity and adventure, the Hostile Setting instead explores a new age of work, industrialisation, danger, retrofuturism, and cynicism. The supplement provides a complete that includes a future history that runs into the twenty-third century, details of major government, corporate, and criminal players along the American Arm, data for some one-hundred-and-fifty world worlds and detailed descriptions of over twenty, rules for character creation, equipment, arms, and armour, a space bestiary, rules for handling and working the hazardous environments of the future—including zero-g, radiation, and mining, starship construction and current designs, a write-up of the USCS Hercules—a newly released commercial towing vessel, including deckplans, over thirty detailed scenario hooks, and nods aplenty to the subgenres it is inspired by.

There is some crossover between Hostile Setting and Hostile Rules. This is primarily mechanically in terms of the Career options—including Corporate Agent, Corporate Executive, Colonist, Commercial Spacer, Marine, Marshal, Military Spacer, Physician, Ranger, Roughneck, Scientist, Survey Scout, and Technician. The Android Career is included also, but primarily for NPCs. The possibility of an Android as a Player Character is discussed and it is strongly—in fact, very strongly—advised that should a Player Character Android be included in a campaign, it should not be able to break its programming. Only six general options are suggested for androids—spacer, survey, scout, physician, scientist and technician. Elsewhere, Hostile Setting and Hostile Rules complement each other. Hostile Setting provides not just the setting that Hostile Rules lacks, but also details of specific arms and armour, equipment, and starships, as well as the rules for creating the latter. The rules for spaceship construction does feel slightly superfluous given the number of vessels detailed as part of the setting, but doubtless, there will be some Game Masters and readers who enjoy tinkering with them and designing their own starships.

In terms of what type of campaigns can be run in the Hostile Setting background, several options are discussed. These include working as troubleshooters, working as a crew of an interstellar transport, members of the United States Marine Corps or Federal Colonial Marshal Service, or explorers out on the frontier. The peacekeeping mission of Tau Ceti 4 lends itself to a low intensity military campaign and Hostile Setting focuses on this colony more than any other in the book with some colourful fiction for the situation there. A Hostile Setting campaign need not even leave a colony or mining station though, the Game Master could easily develop a colony which could support any number of situations involving exploration, survival, criminal activities, technical difficulties, labour relations, and more. For the Game Master wanting a nod to the primary inspiration for Hostile Setting, the film, Alien, there is guidance for creating and handling horror in the setting and a discussion of the types of exomorph—or alien horror—that the Player Characters might encounter in the far, dark reaches of space. Whilst several examples are included, the Game Master is advised to introduce these with care. A number of hyperspace anomalies are also discussed as potential sources of fear. Whatever the type of campaign chosen, there is some solid advice on how to describe the setting, including excellent lists of elements which can help enforce the look and feel of the environment.

Physically, Hostile Setting is serviceably done. The artwork is decent, capturing very much the grim and gritty feel of space being a working environment. One noticeable design feature is the text size, which although sans serif, is large.

The contents of Hostile Setting will feel familiar to anyone who played or read either Traveller or Cepheus, but very much filtered through not one, but three different Science Fiction subgenres—Blue Collar Science Fiction, Horror Science Fiction, and Military Science Fiction—and combined into one heavily implied setting with obvious inspirations. Hostile Setting can use either of those rules, but best works with Hostile Rules, since they complement each other. Further, the Hostile Setting showcases a setting not just where a Xenomorph—or in this case, an Exomorph—could be encountered somewhere far out from the safety of the Earth, but a Science Fiction setting rife with other dangers and other story possibilities. In fact, to come to the Hostile Setting expecting to focus mainly on encounters with dangerous alien lifeforms would lead to disappointment and to solely focus on that in play, would be to ignore those other, in many ways, more interesting story possibilities.

For the Game Master who wants a near future, grim and gritty Science Fiction setting which focuses upon Blue Collar protagonists rather than heroes, the Hostile Setting is a very good choice. The Hostile Setting takes its Blue-Collar Science Fiction inspirations and provides a well-realised background with support and scenario suggestions aplenty.

Scenarios set on or within the bodies of enormous creatures are not new. For example, Genial Jack, is set entirely within the body of a blue whale and On the Shoulders of Giants is set not on the body of a single god, but the bodies of twelve gods. However, Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure is very probably the first scenario to be set inside the body of the most notorious dinosaur of all time—the tyrannosaurus rex. Which is both bonkers and fun, but also, a bit “Tell me again, how I use this?”. Published by Beyond Cataclysm Books following a successful Kickstarter campaign, the scenario is designed to be played using with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. (In addition, it should be noted that a version is also available for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.) It is not specifically set in the same doomed land as Mörk Borg, in fact, it is probably too over the top, if not a little silly, yet if the Game Master wants to set it in the same world, there is nothing to stop her. At best, and because it does involve a fifteen-thousand-pound meat-eating theropod, Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure, works as a one-shot. This does not mean Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure cannot be dropped into a campaign. It has the same effect as dropping a tyrannosaurus rex onto a village, which is exactly how the scenario starts.
Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure begins in small village whose inhabitants have been scared out of their wits after a dinosaur out of the cretaceous period has appeared their midst. Of course, the Player Characters are tasked with dealing with because they are not the ones running away. The first two questions they have to answer are, how much they know about tyrannosaurus rex and how are they going to get into inside to take it down. The answer to the first question, is not very much, no more than their players do, unless one of the players happens to be a palaeontologist, in which that player is going to be very, very, and the author means, very surprised. Otherwise, the nearest town’s leper can tell you that the tyrannosaurus rex is renowned for having an ‘out’ door (underneath the tail) which can be used as a means of access if you are brave and bring lots of hand sanitiser and for having a helter-skelter which spirals down its spine… The answer is either to use the ‘in’ door, the ‘out’ door, or drill their way in via a toenail… In addition, Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure does include extra answers to the earlier question, “Tell me again, how I use this?”. ‘d10 Things To Do With a T-Rex In A Fantasy Kingdom’ provides exactly ten answers by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, the best of which includes using it as the hiding place for a lich’s soul jar, grabbing it as a wizard’s tower after casting Flesh to Stone, and never, ever giving a Ring of Wishes to a six-year-old (which reads ever so slightly, as if Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan has actually done this…)

So the first really big surprise about the tyrannosaurus rex is that it not actually a tyrannosaurus rex. Well, it is, but just not the traditional sense. It is in fact, a tyrannosaurus rex operated by comparatively tiny—and that we mean, man-sized—tyrannosaurus rexes, some of whom are actually really bored of being the crew of a tyrannosaurus rex, some of which really hate their tyrannosaurus rex being boarded. Especially by the mostly hairless ape-like descendants of tree rats. So essentially, the tyrannosaurus rex is a giant t-rex-shaped mecha, but with teeth and really good skin. In game terms, Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure is a hexcrawl adventure up the length of a tyrannosaurus rex, with each of the creature’s limbs, tail, abdomen, thorax, and head making up one hex. Some of the locations are quite expansive, such as the thorax with its maze of intestinal pumps, whilst others, like the Piddly Left Arm and the Piddly Right Arm, are narrow and constrained. There are some entertaining encounters throughout, such as the Dinogängers, which appear and attempt to replace the Player Characters, a lecture on dental hygiene by a T-Rentist, and a very cosy stop-off with the Old-Rexes!

As to getting around the insides the non-tyrannosaurus rex, it is relatively easy, even it is technically a tight squeeze, since this being a relatively modern tyrannosaurus rex, it is wheelchair accessible with signage in braille, the language of the user’s choice, and so on.

For the Game Master, there is mixture of tips and playtest notes—which mostly point out how silly the adventure is—and a table of motivations for the tyrannosaurus rex actually in charge, written by Grant Howitt. Dave Emerson contributes ‘d6 Reasons You Are Scared Of Dinosaurs’ which does not quite work with the medieval style settings of the roleplaying games that Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure is actually written for.

Physically, Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure is very well laid out and a lot of thought has gone into how the whole thing is organised. The various locations are always marked with a mini-version of the tyrannosaurus rex map with the right hex highlighted in red. Directions to nearby locations are marked with big teeth, very big teeth…

Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure is dinosaurously ridiculous, but for that one instance where the Game Master wants to run a t-rex incursion recursion, Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure is exactly what she wants.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the third scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics tend be darker, gimmer, and even pulpier than traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, even veering close to the Swords & Sorcery subgenre. Scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set are set in and around the City of the Black Toga, Lankhmar, the home to the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the creation of author Fritz Leiber. The city is described as an urban jungle, rife with cutpurses and corruption, guilds and graft, temples and trouble, whores and wonders, and more. Under the cover the frequent fogs and smogs, the streets of the city are home to thieves, pickpockets, burglars, cutpurses, muggers, and anyone else who would skulk in the night! Which includes the Player Characters. And it is these roles which the Player Characters get to be in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar, small time crooks trying to make a living and a name for themselves, but without attracting the attention of either the city constabulary or worse, the Thieves’ Guild! The job in this scenario is a night spent proving protection to a theatre performance.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is a short, one-session scenario which takes place over the course of a single evening. Designed for four Player Characters of Second Level, it opens with them being approached by Jallo, the lead actor and head of a troupe of actors, mummers, dancers, and street performers, known as the Dungsweep Players. Performing at the run down Marshlight Theatre, Jallo has a hit on his hands, ‘The Fiascos of Duke Hogfat’, a satire about the personal habits of one Duke Borvat, a relatively important noble in Lankhmar. Unfortunately, the success of the play means that word of the play and its scurrilous subject matter, has reached the ear of the subject and he is not happy. He has already despatched the head of his house guard, Captain Dimman, and several of his men to threaten the theatre and the troupe with closure, and if they fail to comply, the inference that the troupe will end up dead. Thus, Jallo and the Dungsweep Players want protection and Jallo is prepared to pay for it. For one night’s work, this pay is perfectly reasonable.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is all about the Marshlight Theatre. Apart from being located down an alleyway in an old warehouse, the theatre can be placed anywhere in the city and could easily be placed near the slums between the Old Slave Barracks on Chapel Street, Rookery Way, the Shrine of the Rat God on Squalor Row, and Pimp Street, the setting for Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #1: Gang Lords of Lankhmar. In fact, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar can easily be run as a sequel to Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #1: Gang Lords of Lankhmar, and it can be the events of that scenario which led to Jallo learning of their exploits and their reputation and thus hiring them. The scenario describes the theatre in some detail, and there is a large map of the building which can be placed in front of the players as their characters attempt to stop any attacks by Captain Dimman and his agents.

Bar an initial scene, all of the action of the scenario takes place in and around the theatre. At its core, it plays out as a theatrical ‘tower defence’ style scenario as the Duke’s men and his agents—plus other forces, make their play in striking at the theatre and the performers. There are also scenes unconnected with this main plot thread, which add colour and flavour to the activities in and around the theatre. In addition, the scenario adds an ‘Audience Mood’ tracker as an adventure specific to keep a gauge of the audience and its reaction to the play. Depending upon the actions of the Player Characters, this ranges from the performance being heralded as a triumph to the audience breaking out into a riot! Further, there is a big event in the scenario which potentially, literally puts a Player Character centre stage...
Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is as decently presented as you would expect from Goodman Games. The scenario’s ‘Audience Mood’ tracker and its use is clearly explained and should be easy to use.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is huge fun—for both the players and the Judge. The Judge gets some juicy NPCs to portray and verily roleplay, whilst the players and their characters get a fun, exciting adventure with lots going on and a desperate situation to deal with which gets ever more fraught as the night goes on. Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is a short adventure, but it inventively shows another type of story and scenario that can be played out and run in a specific setting such as Lankhmar. Clever, witty, and engaging, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is a great addition to campaign run using the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set.