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: Hunter and HuntedPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Florian Klamt

Setting: Rocky Mountains, CanadaProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Thirteen page, 1.67 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Some predators are worse than man...Plot Hook: A hunting trip turns to horror as the host becomes the hunter.
Plot Support: Staging advice, six NPCs and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Event-driven exploratory scenario# Easy to adapt to Cthulhu by Gaslight and other time periods# Ideal for Investigators with physical skills# Potential addition to an Ithaqua-focused campaign# Pleasing sense of place and atmosphere# Arkoudaphobia
Cons# Needs an edit# No map# No pre-generated Investigators# Ideal for Investigators with physical skills# Involves hunting of animals# Exploratory and event-driven nature may be harder for the Keeper to run
Conclusion# Solid hunter-turned hunted one-shot which really needs a map.# Easy to adapt to other time periods and settings.

The year is 1510. Italy is not just being transformed by the Renaissance, but by the New Science that is driving the Republic of Florence to new prominence. Water-powered looms and assembly lines radically alter its industries and their output, gliders soar above the city’s skies and provide reconnaissance and a message service, paddle steamers ferry goods and people far and wide, and the republic’s military fields new rapid-firing organ guns, armoured turtle-tanks, and more, that have seen it defeat all traditional armies sent against it. At the heart of the city is the Gran Meccanismo, a complex calculating engine driven by water clocks, windmills, and capstans turned day and night by prisoners of war and debtors, which uses the new mathematics to forecast the weather and provide calculations for a wide variety of projects, military and civil. With the rush to mechanise and advance the New Science, the Florentine Republic has thrown off the shackles of old social attitudes. Neither women nor Jews are seen as secondary citizens, especially if they can contribute towards the New Science. Yet all is not well in the Republic of Florence. Pope Julius II denounces the New Science as a Satanic design, the Venetian Republic sends its spies to ferret out the secrets of its new arisen rival’s technology, and worse, the Gran Meccanismo may yet become an engine of uniformity and control. Already Florentine citizens are required to carry a Catalogo identity card, although they are not yet commonly checked, but if some apostles of hydronetic management theory have their way, how far and how rigid will its control go? Imagine a world if Niccolò Machiavelli, military commissioner of the Republic of Florence, had not seen the potential in the drawings and designs of Leonardo da Vinci and instead left him to his painting?

This is the setting for Gran Meccanismo: Clockpunk Roleplaying in da Vinci’s Florence, a roleplaying game designed by Mark Galeotti, best known as the designer of Mythic Russia: Heroism and Adventure in the Land of the Firebird and his contributions to the setting of Glorantha, and an academic specialising in Russian affairs. Notably, he brings his experience with the storytelling mechanics of the HeroQuest to Gran Meccanismo in what is a slightly radical shift in choice of mechanics for the publisher of the roleplaying game, Osprey Games. Although set at the height of the Renaissance, Gran Meccanismo takes the machismo and bravado, fractious politics and religious orthodoxy, and rigid social attitudes and superstitions of the period and combines and contrasts them with the features of two other, connected genres—Cyberpunk and Steampunk. These two feature a combination of lowlifes and high tech, advanced and rapidly advancing technology, both a reverence for and a fear of this new technology, but one aspect of these genres that Gran Meccanismo does not include is societal collapse or decay, although there is potential for the utopia promised by the New Science and the city block-sized Gran Meccanismo to turn the Florentine Republic into a dystopian nightmare of control and uniformity.

The first third or so of Gran Meccanismo is dedicated to its background, covering the state of Italy and its various other city-states, republics, and kingdoms, including Venice, Milan, Genoa, Rome, and others. The neighbouring nations of Europe—France, Spain, England, and others—and beyond are detailed in broader detail since they are not necessarily the stage for Gran Meccanismo, although their agents possess an interest in and will doubtless want to intervene in the affairs of the Florentine Republic. This is understandable, since taking a Gran Meccanismo campaign too far away and too often from the city of Florence would in part deny access to the technological wonders that are the roleplaying game’s raison d’être. Florence is given more detail, including its bureaucracy and notable figures, such as Leonardo da Vinci, the now one-eyed engineer and inventor due to an explosion of a device, and of course, Niccolò Machiavelli, as well as everyday life, business, war and the military, medicine, scholarship, faith—both Catholicism and the heretical, vice, and more. Mostly, this is covered in broad detail, enough to both intrigue the reader and bring that flavour to the Guide’s game. Where perhaps Gran Meccanismo is a little short on detail is in its coverage of New Science and the devices that are being invented as a result of it. This leaves scope for the Guide and the Player Characters to create their own inventions, but more starting suggestions would have been welcome.

A Player Character in Gran Meccanismo is defined by his Attributes and Traits, with the Traits being grouped under the Attributes. There are three of the latter, Body, Mind, and Soul. Both Attributes and Traits are rated in terms of the number six-sided dice assigned to them, and Traits can be as simple as Swordsmanship d2 or Student of the Dardi School d6. In comparison, a simple NPC can be defined as By the Clock Bureaucrat d3 or Drunken Tough d3. To create a character, a player defines a concept, such as ‘Religious Scholar Obsessed with the God in the Gran Meccanismo’ or ‘Rake on the make’. Nine points are divided between the three attributes and then the player is given three options in terms of defining the character’s Traits. These are by Archetype, Narrative, or Improvisation. In the Narrative method, the player assigns fifteen Traits ranging in value from one to four, and in the Improvisation method, the player starts with just two Traits and defines the rest through play. The Archetype method is a case of selecting a role such as Artificer, Banker, Bravo, Nobleman and Noblewoman, Rabble-Rouser, and more. All of the Archetypes have variations as alternative suggestions. To this the player adds three goals—one long term, one medium, and one short term, again valued by a dice pool, three Nudges, and Traits for the Player Character’s Origins. The Archetype method is the easiest and most flavoursome, whilst the others are suited to more experienced players.

Artificer Viviana Valente
Origins: Florence
Knows Florence 1d, Unfazed by the New Science 1d
Body 2
Draughtsman 2d, Fine Manipulation 2d, Dressed for Success 2d
Mind 4
Gadgeteer 4d, Knows Scientific Principles 4d, Can Read and Write 2d
Soul 3
Obsessed with the New Science 6d
Goals: Discover God in the Gran Meccanismo (Long Term), Serve my apprenticeship to Madame Patrizia Moretti (Medium Term), Pass Today’s Examination (Short Term)
Nudges: 3
Equipment: Small knife (+1d), Tools of the Trade (+2d), Pen and papers

Mechanically, Gran Meccanismo employs the TRIPOD or ‘Traits In Pools Of Dice’ system. Once the player and Guide have agreed on the intent of the test and its outcome, this involves a player building dice pools typically consisting of an Attribute and a Trait plus any benefits from the situation or scene or equipment. This is rolled against the difficulty of the test, which will require the player to roll a number of successes. For an Easy Test, just two successes are required, but a Challenging Test requires six. Rolls of four or five count as one success, but rolls of six count as two. The Guide can do this for her NPCs, which will come into play if the situation requires a confrontation or contest, such as a race, a duel, or a debate. Where this occurs, the Margin of Victory table indicates the effect of each participant’s roll, which if one or more can inflict a Damage Trait on an opponent’s Attribute. If all together the value of the Damage Traits exceeds an Attribute, then the participant in the contest or confrontation will be knocked out of play. Which might be that he is successfully robbed in a mugging, flees the scene, or is forced to concede in a debate.

To some extent, once a confrontation begins to go in favour of one participant or the other, it is difficult for the other to make a successful comeback. Fortunately, each player has several Nudges that he can use each session. Each Nudge shifts a die roll up one step, from a failure (one, two, or three on the die) to a success (four or five on the die) or from a success to a double success (six on the die). The Guide also has Nudges to use on her NPCs, but these are fewer in number. Some Traits can be Flaws though, and a player is encouraged to nominate one of his character’s Traits as such each session. Then once or twice in that session, the Guide should use it against the Player Character to make his life more complicated and the story interesting and then reward him with an extra Nudge and a Minor Advancement at the end of the session. Goals also work as Traits and can also add extra dice if the task at hand is relevant. The reward for using them is fairly substantial, but if unsuccessful, the Player Character earns a Doubt Trait, which persists until the Player Character can work it off by successfully using the Goal Trait in pursuit of the goal.

When it comes to the New Science, the Florentine Republic of 1510 has yet to achieve mass production. Some devices have been standardised, mostly for the battlefield, otherwise every item is an individual piece, almost a prototype and highly decorated. The advice is thus to make almost every item bespoke and a one-off, as well as temperamental and fragile. Mechanically, the TRIPOD system means that the numbers for a New Science device equate to that for a more traditional one, and the New Science adds flavour and verisimilitude. Which highlights the fact that the New Science is also a narrative device. Further as much as the Clockpunk of Gran Meccanismo are informed and influenced by the Steampunk and Cyberpunk genres, the one aspect of either that Gran Meccanismo lacks is the equivalent of the Internet. There is though the possibility of Clockers hacking the Gran Meccanismo in Florence, either directly at the central machine in the Palazzo Altoviti, a dedicated cogent engine attached to some nascent industrial process, or one of the stations at the city’s guard posts where one day Catalogo identity card checks might be carried out.

For the Guide there is advice on running Gran Meccanismo and on the types of games that can be run. Suggestions include Missione Impossible espionage-style games, travelogues, family sagas built around noble or even crime families, and of course, tilting the Republic of Florence into a Clockpunk Dystopia. There is advice too on scaling up the game to include the clash of armies, as well as keeping combat exciting and pushing towards a cinematic, even slightly pulpy style of play, with the use of cliffhangers. Although there is no scenario included, there are hooks throughout the book, along with numerous asides and historical notes in sidebars.

Gran Meccanismo is missing an index and a glossary as well as a timeline, which would have been useful. Similarly, given the historicity of the setting, a bibliography would have been equally useful. The lack of all three does make the roleplaying game that much harder to use as a ready reference, let alone prepare a scenario or campaign.

Physically, Gran Meccanismo is a decent looking book. The artwork is excellent, the book is well written, and the flavour text helps bring the setting of Florence and its surroundings alive.

Gran Meccanismo: Clockpunk Roleplaying in da Vinci’s Florence is arguably the first storytelling roleplaying game from Osprey Games—or at least the first to use storytelling mechanics. It combines the fast-playing, easy to grasp rules of the TRIPOD system with a setting that not only can genuinely be called unique, but one to which your first response should be, “That’s a cool idea!”

It is four decades since the armies of the Zahjik Khaliphate stood before the walls of Drakenheim. It was a turning point for the Cimbrian Empire. The Burgher Wars which broke the power of the emperor and nobility, and saw the rise of the both the merchant classes and the city-states were forgotten in the face of the invasion from the east across the steppes. Emperor Maximillian III rallied the empire and together with the High Prelate of the Sigurdian Church, in command of a retinue of Siguardian templar-monks, broke the siege and drove out the invading forces. In the decades since, the city-states have retained their sense of independence, but maintained stronger ties of fealty to the emperor; the Sigurdian Church has cemented its place as the dominant faith in the empire; the nobility, their power greatly weakened by the Burgher Wars, have strengthened their ties with the merchants; and the peasantry has continued to toil, whether on the land itself or in the towns, either for the merchants or the nobility. The Cimbrian Empire has also undergone a new renaissance in terms of the arts and sciences. Despite having driven out the armies of the Zahjik Khaliphate and remained at peace for some four decades, the Cimbrian Empire is not entirely safe. Crime is rife, especially in the city-states. Dark cults hide across all strata of society, their members worshipping all manner of demons and malevolent beings, whilst sorcerers practice dark magic in secret—and both sorcerers and cultists are the targets of the empire’s witchfinders. The restless dead haunt the ancient ruins to found in the mountains and deep forests which separate the city states, and that is when the forests are not infested by ape-like beastmen or by bestial mutants transformed by corrupting magic, both intent on murder—or worse. There are rumours too of monsters out of legend still being found in dark places, and of the Zahjik Khaliphate once again preparing to invade, and of the Elves, the masters of the land before the rise of men and the founding of the Cimbrian Empire, manipulating those in power and working to restore their control once again.
This is the setting for Streets of Peril: Fantasy Roleplay, published by Broken Blade Publishing. It is a grimdark roleplaying game set in an empire of Germanic city states, which humanocentric, combines elements of science and magic, and sees a few desperate men and women prepared to step up and if not be heroes, then at least do their best to protect the empire, for even if they succeed, their efforts will rarely be recognised. Streets of Peril: Fantasy Roleplay includes complete rules, numerous character options, mixes firearms and magic and fencing, a bestiary, campaign options, and a starting scenario.

A Player Character in Streets of Peril: Fantasy Roleplay is defined by six attributes—Might, Toughness, Agility, Willpower, Intelligence, and Fate—rated between one and four, a Lineage, and a Class. A Player Character will also have three ambitions, one of which he will have in common with the other Player Characters. These will reward the Player Character with Experience Points as he works towards fulfilling them and encourages the player to roleplay and look for opportunities to work toward their completion. The Lineages each provide two special traits and can be divided between the Cimbrian and the non-Cimbrian. The Burgher, Commoner, Highborn are Cimbrian, whilst the non-Cimbrian are Brythonian (from the Brythonian Isles to the north), Changeling, Smolyani (travellers noted for their luck), Valentino (from Valenti, the dominant city-state of the former Tiberean Empire to the south), and Zahjik (from the Zahjik Khaliphate). There are eight Classes in Streets of Peril: Fantasy Roleplay, each of which provides several Class traits, skill and equipment proficiencies, and starting equipment. Each also has several Subclasses, for example, the Brute has Berserker, Brawler, Folk Hero, and Thug, each of which has its own Special Trait. The Classes are Brute, Cultist, Duellist, Engineer, Magister, Man-at-Arms, Scoundrel, and Wayfarer. Of these, the Cultist includes Priests and Templars rather than members of a demonic or other cult; Duellists study at Schools of Fencing and the Engineer actually does not have Subclasses; and the Magister includes the Alchemist, Necromancer, Seer, and Wizard.

To create a Player Character, a player assigns one attribute at Rank 4, two each at Rank 3 and Rank 2, and one at Rank 1. He selects a Lineage, chooses a name, decides on three Ambitions, selects a Class, and then one Class Trait. If selecting a Class like the Engineer or the Magister, the player also selects Inventions or spells as appropriate. The process is quick and simple.

Name: Otto Vogel
Lineage: Commoner (Cimerian)
Class: Brute Subclass: Thug
Ambitions: Humiliate Hans Hiegel, Keep the neighbourhood safe, Do right by his old mum
Might 4 Toughness 3 Agility 2
Willpower 3 Intelligence 1 Fate 2
Traits: Labourer, Rugged, Crushing Blows, Ignore Pain, Mighty Blows, Rogue
Skill Proficiencies: Athletics 1, Fighting 2, Grit 3, Intimidate 2
Equipment Proficiencies: Light, Medium, & Heavy Armour, Common & Heavy Melee Weapons, Throwing Ranged Weapons
Equipment: Club, gambeson, bottle of spirits, dice, seven pennies

Mechanically, Streets of Peril: Fantasy Roleplay employs a dice pool system using just six-sided dice, although dice of three different colours. This is white, red, and black, but other colours can be substituted. Rolls of four or more are counted as successes, but that is only on the white dice. On the red dice, rolls of three or more are counted as successes, and rolls of two or more are counted as successes on the black dice. All of the dice explode on rolls of six or more. Modifiers—bonuses and penalties—adjust the number of dice in the pool, with a Player Character’s Fate attribute providing a number of luck points a player can spend each session to provide a bonus of two dice. The dice are rolled against Difficulty Values which range from one for routine to four for impossible. Various items and traits upgrade the white dice to red or black dice, whilst others downgrade the red and the black back down to white. The outcome of opposed rolls is determined by the number of successes rolled. In general, dice pools are formed from the appropriate attribute value for an attribute check or the combination of the attribute and skill for a skill check.

Combat consists of opposed rolls, typically the attacker’s Fighting skill or Ranged skill against the defender’s Defence skill. The number of the successes rolled determines the number of bonus damage dice rolled in addition to that of the weapon. Successes rolled on the damage dice rolled inflict Grit damage. The combat rules cover most situations, including shooting in melee, dual wielding, grappling, and more. The weapons include bombs like grenades and choking gas bombs, and firearms such as the blunderbuss, harquebus, musket, and pistol. Weapons can have special traits, as can armour.

Although there are rules for a Critical Failure, there are no rules for a Critical Success. In general, if a player rolls enough Successes, his character succeeds at the action, but that is that. Combat is the exception, since Successes increase the number of Damage Dice rolled, but in other situations the excess Success have no effect. However, one feature missing from Streets of Peril: Fantasy Roleplay found in similar roleplaying games is that of a critical hits table.

Magic is divided into white magic and black magic. White magic is acceptable to most of society in the Cimerian Empire, with divine magic being the rarest forms of white magic, whilst back magic is the province of necromancers, cultists, demon worshippers, and the like. With arcane magic, there is the chance of backlash and aetheric manifestations. This occurs when ones are rolled on a skill roll for a Magic check, and might be tremors shaking the earth, the temperature suddenly changing, a swarm of locusts blacking out the sky, and so on. Casters of arcane magic directly manipulate aetheric energy and need their hands free, so cannot wear armour and must have their hands free. Miracles, or divine magic, also uses the Magic check to see if the caster is successful. However, casters of miracles can wear armour and do not suffer from aetheric manifestations, but they call upon the deity they worship, and potentially invoke said deity’s wrath or mercy. What this means is that the Difficulty Value of the Magic check increases for each spell cast over the course of each day. If a subsequent Magic check is failed, then the caster loses the ability to cast miracles for the day. This makes arcane magic much freer and miracles much more of a resource to hold in reserve.

Streets of Peril: Fantasy Roleplay includes a list of miracles and spells, as a well as a list of apothecary’s ingredients and potions, the latter useful for the Alchemist Subclass. For the Engineer Class there is a list of Inventions, such as Bounding Boots, Electric Cloak, Targeting System, or Wrist Rocket. Magical items are intended to be rare and difficult to find, but numerous examples are included. For example, Ghost mail has been enchanted to be silent; Zahjik Janissaries carry a single, one-use Black Arrow which is enchanted to slay enemy champions and powerful monsters, and can do great damage and pierce armour; Witch Bottles protect the owner from curses; Hag’s Fingers enable the spell Wither to be cast once per encounter; and more. The bestiary includes beasts like the Bogtopus and werewolf, the Deep One-like Drowners, Fey such as the Banshee and the Spriggan, Formorians, and more.
A broad overview of the Cimerian Empire is given, including its geography, law and order, crime, attitudes to duelling, religions, and more, there is a good discussion about campaign types. These include having the Player Characters as house retainers, ship’s crews, members of the town watch, witch finder’s assistants, and more. This is combined with themes, whether that is horror, politics, mystery, trade, or others. The advice for the Game Master is short, but to the point—keep it grim and keep it gritty, and whilst there are plenty of monsters in the bestiary, to keep their appearances rare to ensure that the horror when they do appear is maintained. Rounding out Streets of Peril: Fantasy Roleplay is a ready-to-play scenario, ‘Finkelstein’s Laboratory’. It is a short affair which plays upon Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus and has the Player Characters hired by a noble to collect some property and possessions from the laboratory of a medical doctor whose work he was researching. It is a short affair, one that the players could very well complete in the same session as they create their characters and should provide them with a feel for the setting and the roleplaying game’s mechanics.

Physically, Streets of Peril: Fantasy Roleplay is presented in black and white with red used here and there. It does need a slight edit in places, but the artwork is decent and the book well written.

Ultimately, it is difficult to avoid comparisons between Streets of Peril: Fantasy Roleplay and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Both are set in an empire of Germanic city-states, both have a dominant faith whilst allowing the worship of the Old Gods, both have a grimdark tone, and so on.

However, Streets of Peril: Fantasy Roleplay is a humanocentric roleplaying game and the other race, the Elves, are mistrusted and feared. The setting is not beset by the forces of Chaos. The Classes for the Player Characters are kept simple and streamlined and there is no great progression along varying career paths, which means that progression wise, the roleplaying game is quite limited in scope; and the mechanics are designed to be easier, faster, and more abstract than simulationist.

Streets of Peril: Fantasy Roleplay offers grimdark fantasy roleplaying, even grim and perilous roleplaying, but with lighter, faster mechanics. It is a solid entry in the grimdark fantasy subgenre and if a gaming group is looking for a lighter alternative to those available in the hobby, then it might be just what they need.

Welcome to the Valley takes you into ‘The Valley Out of Time’. Written for use with both the Dungeon Crawl Classics RolePlaying Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, ‘The Valley Out of Time’ is a ‘Lost Worlds’ style setting a la X1 The Isle of Dread, and films such as The Land that Time Forgot, The Lost World, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, One Million years, B.C., and others, plus the artwork of Frank Frazetta. Combining dinosaurs, Neanderthals, and a closed environment, it is intended to be dropped into a campaign with relative ease and would work in both a fantasy campaign or a post-apocalyptic campaign. It could even work as a bridge between the two, with two different entries into ‘The Valley Out of Time’, one from a fantasy campaign and one from a post-apocalyptic campaign.

The Valley Out of Time: Welcome to the Valley, however, is short. Published by Skeeter Green Productions, it is the first part of a series of fanzine-sized scenarios and just an introduction, and by the end of it, the Judge is definitely going to want to know more about its setting of the Timeless Valley and where the rest of The Valley Out of Time series will take her campaign. The problem is that although The Valley Out of Time: Welcome to the Valley provides ideas on how to get the Player Characters into the setting—and why, but not necessarily and not definitively how to keep them there. However, it has a strong sense of atmosphere, sweltering and sweaty, and it will provide a session or so’s worth of play. The adventure which is included along with the introduction is designed to be played by four to six Player Characters of First and Second Level.

It opens with a list of hooks and motivations to get the Player Characters into the Timeless Valley, whether that is to search for a rare item or McGuffin, ending up in the valley via random gate or teleport, simple discovery of the vale between two mountain chains, or a previously closed off valley suddenly being opened by gods or the like, for reasons which will become clear. Regardless of the reasons, the adventure has the Player Characters make their way into the valley and struggle through the dense undergrowth and under the thick canopy, suffering from the sweaty heat and the attentions of the local insect life, ultimately to find themselves lost. Then they encounter the first signs of life, a tribe of massive bipedal humanoids going about their business. Tall and hairy, these are Urmanoids, who have the level of development equal to that of the Neanderthals. The Player Characters are free to engage with them in any way they see fit and several options are given for the Urmanoids’ reaction to how the Player Characters act—docile, sneaky, or bold and/or violent. Ideally, if the Player Characters opt for the former options, the Urmanoids will attempt to communicate with them. This sets up some challenging roleplay because the Urmanoids are unable to speak, so the players and their characters will have to find another way.

Once the Player Characters and the Urmanoids have begun to communicate, the camp comes under attack, not once, but twice. First by a giant lizard and then by a pack of Dinychus attracted by the first attack. Helping to defend the Urmanoids cements the relationship between them and the Player Characters, and this should be compounded after a further attack on the way to the Urmanoids’ next camp. This is where the adventure, such as it is, comes to a close.

Supporting the adventure in The Valley Out of Time: Welcome to the Valley and ‘The Valley Out of Time’ setting is a trio of appendices. The first, ‘Appendix A: New Monsters’ gives full write-ups for the various monsters and creatures which appear in the adventure, including the Urmanoids and Dinychus. The second, ‘Appendix B: Appendix N Monsters for use in the Timeless Valley’ lists some of the creatures in both the Dungeon Crawl Classics RolePlaying Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic that could be sued in the setting of the Timeless Valley. The list is not exhaustive and a whole lot more can likely be found in the ‘Dinosaur Crawl Classics’ article in the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book. (In addition, The Valley Out of Time: Welcome to the Valley could be used as a way into the setting of ‘Dinosaur Crawl Classics’, or even be used as a dinosaur disaster film scenario using ‘1970’s Earth Characters for DCC’ from Goodman Games Gen Con 2016 Program Book.)
The third, ‘Appendix C: The Timeless Valley’ further discusses some ideas as to how the Player Characters might be motivated to enter the Timeless Valley and potentially keep them there, such as searching for resources which can be exported back home, looking for cities paved for gold, looking for a lost mentor, and so on. These, however, are suggestions that the Judge can add rather than The Valley Out of Time: Welcome to the Valley give any through the setting itself. The appendix also details the other aspect apart from the dinosaurs where The Valley Out of Time is different, and that is ‘Ultrascience’. This is a mixture of magic and technological, which combines and replaces those elements from Dungeon Crawl Classics RolePlaying Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. The Timeless Valley is a low magic, low technology environment, which often reduces the effects of technology, sometimes limiting the access of Clerics to their deity and Shaman to their A.I. Patron, Elves and Wizards definitely need to keep their spellbooks with them, and the denizens of the Timeless Valley are resistant to the effects of ‘Ultrascience’.

Physically, The Valley Out of Time: Welcome to the Valley is well presented, although the artwork does vary in quality. The Valley Out of Time: Welcome to the Valley presents an intriguing set-up, but it does not intrigue beyond that—and that is because of its almost ‘Partwork’-like structure. The Judge and her players will simply have to wait for the next issue to hopefully receive that.

Cyberpunk RED Data Pack is a supplement for Cyberpunk RED, the fourth edition of the classic Cyberpunk roleplaying game. It provides a number of tools that the Game Master can use to support her Cyberpunk RED game, including scenarios, lists, maps and character sheets. These are useful in a number of different ways, the least of which is probably the pad of character sheets. The character sheets are done in landscape rather than in portrait and in a mix of red and black. They are clear and easy to use. The twelve maps are full colour, double-sided, and marked in one-inch squares. The majority of them are road sections and connect link up easily. There are plain desert sections too, as well as a helicopter or aerodyne landing pad atop a building and an underground carpark—the latter which Game Masters and players alike will probably recognise from playing through Cyberpunk 2077. However, there are no internal locations mapped, which restricts their use. Perhaps Cyberpunk RED Data Pack 2.0 will address that? Fortunately, they are compatible with the Cyberpunk RED Battle Maps from Loke Battlemats and that range does include some internal buildings.

The meat of Cyberpunk RED Data Pack consists of a thirty-six-page booklet, which can be divided into two sections. The first consists of six Screamsheets, the single-sheet newspapers which can be purchased from kiosks on the streets of Night City and contain the most up to date news, printed at the moment of purchase. In game terms, they consist of a one-sheet which contains several news stories that can be handed to the players to provide them with information about what is going on in Night City, some of which form the background to the scenario which is effectively on the back of the Screamsheet. So effectively, one side for the players and their Edgerunners, and one side for the Game Master. For example, the first Screamsheet has stories about Night City PD reporting a rise in missing persons cases, a Militech executive being sacked for ethics violations, Night City hiring labourers for the city’s continued reconstruction, a rise in gang activity, and a hit on the Forlorn Hope, the signature Solo bar, by the Bozos, the clown gang. On the other side is ‘Hilaria 2045’. This is a scenario outline, in which the Edgerunners are hired to protect a block from an annual and very violent celebration held by the Bozos, Night City’s ultraviolent clown gang. This is in effect a big sprawling combat as the Bozo gang members ride into the neighbourhood in ice cream vans and will definitely be easier to run and manage with maps and counters.

The other Screamsheet scenarios continue with ‘The Digital Divas Burn It Down’ and its sequel, ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’. In the former, the Edgerunners investigate a rash of arson attacks linked to an up-and-coming local band, whilst in the latter, they follow up a death that occurred at one of the concerts for the band. ‘Cargo Race’ sends the Edgerunners into the Badlands in search of a downed Delta and the cargo it was smuggling. It leads to a standoff between several interested parties. ‘Snuff’ is another investigation, this time into someone selling bad Braindances and giving other ‘legitimate’ sellers a bad name… The sixth scenario is the longest in the Cyberpunk RED Data Pack. ‘ThrillKill’ drops the Edgerunners into the middle of a new craze, a competition for territory between gangs in which points are scored for killing particular types of individuals. The Edgerunners are hired to shut the competition down and this requires them to identify the next victims and prevent them from being killed, which means tracking the gangs involved. This is this the most mobile of the half dozen scenarios and the Edgerunners will definitely need the Drive skill. Of course, there are other stories on the front of the Screamsheets which are not given the scenario treatment and so there is potential there for the Game Master to develop them into something playable for her campaign.

Rounding out Cyberpunk RED Data Pack is ‘20 Things in Night City’. This consists of five separate lists: ‘20 Freelancers of Night City’, ‘20 Night Spots in Night City’, ‘20 People in the Night City Subway’, ‘20 Safehouses in Night City’, and ‘20 Vendors at Mister K’s Market’. These are an excellent set of tables of thumbnail descriptions for each of the categories and they can either be rolled on or an entry be selected by the Game Master to provide an element which she can add to her campaign. This can be done as their broader subject comes up in play, or the Game Master could consult the tables ahead of time, possibly even for inspiration. Overall, these tables are ready to add detail and flavour to a Game Master’s Night City.

Physically, Cyberpunk RED Data Pack is decently done. The booklet is sturdy, the maps colourful if not necessarily as varied as they could be, and the character sheets serviceable.

Cyberpunk RED Data Pack provides solid support for Cyberpunk RED. Whilst the maps and the character sheets are serviceable, the Screamsheets and the quintet of ‘20 Things in Night City’ tables really help support a Game Master’s campaign. The ‘20 Things in Night City’ quintet is rife with inspiration and ideas and flavour, and the Screamsheets are a varied selection of scenarios and set-ups. They can easily be dropped into a Night City-set campaign or run as the occasional scenario. Hopefully, Cyberpunk RED Data Pack will provide as equally good support for Cyberpunk RED.

Relic of the Lost Kingdom is an adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Fumble Folks, it is designed as a ‘Starter Adventure for New Game Masters’ as well as four to five new Player Characters of First and Second Level. The set-up is simple, the plot direct, and the background manages to be detailed enough to support the plot, but sufficiently generic that the Dungeon Master could easily drop it into or adapt it to her own campaign world. The setting is an alpine valley, once part of a great realm—the Lost Kingdom of the title, now dotted by farms, small villages, and the occasional town, but still important as a trade route through to neighbouring kingdoms. At the foot of the mountains stands a monastery dedicated to the Goddess of Grain. For the past few weeks, the undead have poured out of nearby crypts where the dead from the battles between the barbarians and the Lost Kingdom were buried centuries ago, and on successive nights, attacked the monastery in an attempt to break in. The Player Characters are hired to travel to the crypt, there to replace a stolen artefact, and so help to repel the undead, if not put them to rest.

Relic of the Lost Kingdom begins in the town with the Player Characters either seeing the notice for the job or hearing it announced by town crier—a nice touch given that not every Player Character is literate—and then being interviewed by the Elven priest, Rhys, at the monastery. He is direct in what he asks the Player Characters, including telling them not to trick him by running off with the artefact or dumping it in the river. If they decide to trick him, it is outside the scope of the adventure, but otherwise, this pushes the players and their characters to follow the scenario’s plot. In any other scenario this might be seen as the designers pushing the players and their characters down a railroad, but the point of Relic of the Lost Kingdom is to introduce the Dungeon Master to running Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and to do so in a direct and uncomplicated fashion. Another nice touch is that the adventure introduces the idea of there being other adventurers in the world, as they were the ones responsible for having opened the crypt and removed the artefact in the first place—although Rhys does not blame them for that. Rhys can also have Lilith Mosswater, a Halfling Cleric, to accompany them, and she will be the main NPC who the Dungeon Master will portray in the adventure. She is there if the Player Characters do not have a Cleric or Paladin amongst their number.

After an encounter in the Veridian Woods, the Player Characters arrive at the crypt. The crypt itself is linear and involves a mix of exploration and combat. There are two combat encounters which will be quite challenging for the Player Characters, the final one in particular. Both can be avoided though—one by not following a particular route through the crypt and the other through interaction. However, that interaction relies upon a Player Character being able to speak a particular language, otherwise, a fight ensues. Perhaps an alternative here would have been to give Lilith Mosswater that language just in case the Player Characters do not have it.

Physically, Relic of the Lost Kingdom is in general, well presented and well written. It is lightly illustrated in mostly silhouettes and the cartography is simple and clear. It does need an edit in places, for example, the adventure cannot decide whether it is an abbey, monastery, or temple, which is being assaulted by the undead, or indeed a tomb or crypt where the undead can be found.

Relic of the Lost Kingdom can be run in a four-hour session and so at a convention as well. It is easy to use, it is easy to adapt to a campaign world, and it is easy for the experienced Dungeon Master to develop as necessary. Unfortunately, Relic of the Lost Kingdom is not quite as helpful as it could be for the new Dungeon Master. For example, it lacks the stats for Lilith Mosswater. Not only could she be a replacement Player Character, but she could also be a useful source of information for the Player Characters. Now she is in places in the adventure, but arguably not enough. The advice for the Dungeon Master in terms of staging each encounter or room and reacting to the players and their characters could also have been a bit stronger in places too. Of course, an experienced Dungeon Master will be able to run Relic of the Lost Kingdom with a minimum of preparation and effort.

Relic of the Lost Kingdom is a simple, direct adventure. It is suitable to be run by the neophyte Dungeon Master as intended. However, it does need a little more development in places and consequently requires a little more preparation time for the new Dungeon Master than it necessarily should have done.

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: Fork in the RoadPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Riley Kruger

Setting: Jazz Age USAProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Fourteen page, 6.91 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Devil at the Crossroads meets the MythosPlot Hook: Jobbing musicians forced to make a choice
Plot Support: One NPC, one Mythos monsters, and five pre-generated InvestigatorsProduction Values: Plain.
Pros# Short thematic scenario# Excellent artwork
Cons# Short thematic scenario# Linear scenario# Tortuous imposition of the Mythos# Needs a slight edit# Underwhelming ‘Investigator’ agency# Tortuously difficult to envision and portray the scenario’s central gamut
Conclusion# Short thematic scenario imposes the Mythos on the ‘Investigators’ in a linear, difficul to grasp, gamut.# Tortuous affair terrorises the ‘Investigators’ and leaves them with little agency.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

James McTavish
Age: In Your Prime
Profession: Ace

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

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

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

Signature Item
Lucky deck of cards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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