The Wretched is lost. The crew of the intergalactic salvage ship is all dead, bar one. Adrift between stars with its engines having failed and a hostile alien lifeform having stalked and killed most of the crew, you made one last, brave stand. You drove the alien off the ship, flushing it out via an airlock. You hoped that this would kill it. It did not. Having seen it kill your friends and family aboard, it now scrabbles and skitters across the hull of the ship, searching for a way in, for a way to reach its last victim aboard ship—you. Unfortunately, you cannot truly escape it, but you can hold on and hold out for rescue. Someone out there has to find you. First, you have to keep life support going long enough to repair and activate the distress beacon, and then hope that someone will respond, all whilst fending off the predations of the alien lurking on the other side of the ship’s hull.
This is the set-up for The Wretched, a Science Fiction journalling game published by Loot the Room. Clearly and self-confessedly inspired by Alien and similar films, The Wretched is a game about isolation, fear, and perseverance and potentially, survival in the face of overwhelming odds. The game requires an ordinary deck of playing cards without the Jokers, a six-sided die, a Jenga or similar tower block game, and a set of tokens. In addition, the player will require a means of recording the results of the game. It is suggested that audio or video longs work best, and they are in keeping with the genre. A traditional journal will also work too. The Wretched is a played out as a series of days, the player, actually the flight engineer of The Wretched, undertaking a series of tasks each day and responding to prompts before ending the day by recording its events and his thoughts in his personal log. The odds are that the lone crewman is unlikely to survive, either due to catastrophic failure of the ship’s systems—which will happen if the tower block collapses or the alien finding him. There are multiple ways in which the crewman can fail and die, but only two ways to survive. Either repair and turn on the beacon and then survive long enough for a rescue vessel to come or to repair the ship’s engines and blast out of the situation he is in, leaving the alien behind.

The four suites correspond to different aspects of the ship and its environment. Hearts represents ship’s systems—life support, water purification, and the like; Diamonds are its physical structure—hull, opening and closing doors; Clubs are the crew—remnants of their presence such as their rent bodies and their tools and possessions; and Spades are the Creature—physically present or simply knowing that it is out there… Whilst the presence of the Creature veers between ominous and terrifying, the most horrifying of encounters are to be had with the crew, or rather with what they have left behind, both of themselves and their belongings, as well as memories of them. Here is where the sense of loss and perhaps the nature of sacrifices made in order for the player to survive, come to the fore. The player will have between one and six encounters like this each day, the player taking notes in readiness to record the details in his journal or log. Some end with the instruction to remove a block from the tower block game. Several have already been removed at start of play, so the structural integrity of the ship is imperilled from the outset. It is, however, unlikely that the player will go a turn without having to remove a single block.

Physically, The Wretched is cleanly and tidily presented. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent.

The is a fantastic economy of emotion to The Wretched. Like every Journalling game, its tension builds and builds, exacerbated by the looming presence of both the alien and the possibility of the tower block game’s collapse—and thus the end of the game. Yet this is made better—or is that worse?—when the player’s reports and thoughts are recorded rather than simply noted down. Recording the daily logs as either audio or video adds intimacy and emotion to the play through, that is far more difficult to capture on paper. If there is an issue with The Wretched, it is that there are limited options to play more than once, but that experience is going to be fraught, frightening, and claustrophobically intimate.

How do you like your GM Screen?

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

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

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

I like my Screen to come with something. Not a poster or poster map, but a scenario, which is one reason why I like ‘Descent into Darkness’ from the Game Master’s Screen and Adventure for Legends of the Five Rings Fourth Edition and ‘A Bann Too Many’, the scenario that comes in the Dragon Age Game Master's Kit for Green Ronin Publishing’s Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5. I also like my screen to come with some reference material, something that adds to the game. Which is why I am fond of both the Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune as well as the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack. It is also why I like the Loremaster’s Screen and Rivendell Compendium for The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying, the adaptation of The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings to be compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.
The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Loremaster’s Screen and Rivendell Compendium is not new, or rather, it is not entirely new. Just as The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying is adaptation of The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings, The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Loremaster’s Screen and Rivendell Compendium is an adaptation of the similarly named The One Ring Loremaster’s Screen & Rivendell Compendium. Similarly, it consists of two items. The first is the Loremaster’s Screen. A three-panel affair in landscape format, it is not a GM Screen for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in general, but rather just for the specific rules and mechanics of The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying. It opens on the far left with the spot rules for magical success, encumbrance, and resting, before moving onto the three major mechanical and narrative elements of the roleplaying game. The first of these is for Shadow, the insidious influence and effect of Sauron and his minions, as well as certain baleful locations that are best left unexplored. It identifies four sources of Shadow—Dread, Greed, Misdeeds, and Sorcery—and lists various examples and the possible Shadow Points that might be gained through exposure to such sources or committing such misdeeds. The centre panel is primarily devoted to the Council Sequence, taking the Loremaster through the procedure from set-up and Introduction to the End of the Council via Interaction. The accompany table lists useful Ability checks at both the Introduction and Interaction stages as well as possible Experience Point rewards if the Player-heroes are successful—and in some cases, even if they are not! A little bit of the centre panel and all of righthand panel covers the Travelling Company. The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying is a roleplaying game where travel—just as in Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings—really matters and plays a big role. The Loremaster’s Screen summarises the roles for any Journey—Guide, Hunter, Look-out, and Scout, the length of a Journey, and Events and Event Resolution that may occur on that Journey. It gives the Ability checks for each role and provides a list of possible events as well as the Experience Point results for conducting a Journey through a Perilous Area. Across the Loremaster’s Screen the spot rules and tables include page references for the full rules in The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying. Overall, the Loremaster’s Screen is clear, simple, and easy to read, and very serviceable. The front or player-facing side depicts a small fellowship deep in the wilderness about to be assailed by a band of Orcs. It is a nicely tense piece, but different in style to that of The One Ring Loremaster’s Screen & Rivendell Compendium.
The second item is the ‘Rivendell Compendium’. This is a short supplement which details Imladris, the Last Homely House, home to its master, Elrond Halfelven, for thousands of years. His magic has kept this Hidden Valley safe in all that time and protects it still, either making difficult for anyone to find the entrance or actively blocking access. A map is given of Rivendell, though only the floorplans of the ground floor of Elrond’s mansion is given. There are multiple levels of vaults below and storeys above which are not mapped out here, and though that is disappointing, it is unlikely that the Player-heroes will have ready access to them. They are described in broad detail though, so the Loremaster can develop something from this as necessary; more detail being given to particular locations. Not all of the locations are included on the given floorplan. For example, the library is described in the text, but not marked on the floorplan. Ultimately, both the floorplan and the descriptions need to be taken as a guide—good guide—to Elrond’s home.

Also found Rivendell are many Elven folk. The many here include Elrond Halfelven himself, his daughter, Arwen Undómiel, Glorfindel, the great Prince of the Elves, and others. Elrond is described in the most detail, primarily because he is a source of wisdom and a potential Patron for the Player-heroes. In particular, he favours those with the Scholar and Warden Callings, and can be consulted for advice when it comes to making journeys and on particular marvellous artefacts and wondrous items that may have come into the Player-heroes’ possession. Along with the description are spot rules for how to find the entrance to the Hidden Valley, making music in Rivendell which grants Advantage on Charisma (Performance) checks, the moment when the Player-heroes first see Arwen Undómiel and gain Inspiration from her presence and grace, while an Elven character will lose Shadow due to her sorrow, and more. These add to the magic of Rivendell and bring elements of the setting into play.
Lastly, the High Elves of Rivendell are added as a new Culture. They are based in Rivendell as it is one of their last refuges. Their inclusion means that along with the Elves of Lindon, members of the Firstborn who rarely leave the Grey Havens, there are two Elven Cultures available in The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying. The Virtues include ‘Artificer of Eregion’, ‘Beauty of the Stars’, ‘Night of the Firstborn’, and ‘Skill of the Eldar’. ‘Artificer of Eregion’ is for the Elves who have studied the ancient crafts of the Elven-smiths of Eregion, and how can Hand-craft metal arms and armour to grant them an enchanted reward or even a ring or jewel to make it a wondrous item. An Elf who possesses the ‘Beauty of the Stars’ have such poise and grace that he has a surprisingly charismatic effect on non-Elves and Wizards; one of the ‘Night of the Firstborn’ possesses the will with which to deny the influence of the Enemy; and an Elf with the ‘Skill of the Eldar’ has a skill that others see as bordering on magical. Of the four, ‘Artificer of Eregion’ is the most interesting and feels like it bring something markedly different into a campaign.

The ‘Rivendell Compendium’ expands The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying eastwards—if only a little. It provides a potential sanctuary and patron for the Player-heroes as they explore and journey in that direction, although there remains much to be explored in Eriador, the focus of the new roleplaying game. Devotees of the earlier edition of The One Ring—The One Ring: Adventures over the Edge of the Wild Roleplaying Game—may find there is some repetition between the new ‘Rivendell Compendium’ and the earlier Rivendell supplement, but that is inevitable given that they are covering the same subject. In fact, the earlier Rivendell supplement is notable for how many of its elements found their way into The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings such as the Eye of Mordor and the rules for treasure, and consequently, The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying.

Physically, the ‘Rivendell Compendium’ is again done in the same style as The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying. The book is nicely presented and easy to read and understand. The only real downsides to the ‘Rivendell Compendium’ are that as a slim book it is easier to lose and perhaps some of this may be repeated in a fuller supplement devoted to Eriador later on.

The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Loremaster’s Screen and Rivendell Compendium is exactly as it should be, a useful tool to have in front of the Loremaster during play, whilst the ‘Rivendell Compendium’ adds to the setting of The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying with material that the Loremaster can really make use of as her Player-heroes’ explorations take them to further edges of Eriador. Overall, this makes The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Loremaster’s Screen and Rivendell Compendium a solid, useful package, one that a group playing The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying should get plenty of use out of.

If a copy of each of the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide fell from the sky how would it be received in the archetypal medieval world? Together would they have been taken up as a triptych of holy books and their words accepted not as a of means play and exercising the imagination, but as a way of speaking to god, of determining whether you have his blessing before undertaking any action, including deciding your future career, or rather rolling up your character according to scripture. This is the conceit of FRUP, an unpublished roleplaying game designed by James Wallis, and it is a conceit shared with The Sorcerer of Pyongyang. Not a new roleplaying game or supplement, but a novel by Marcel Theroux which examines the consequences of a work of the imagination and imagineering arriving unbidden in a land that is both real and unreal. For The Sorcerer of Pyongyang asks what would happen if a copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide accidentally found its way into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, one of the world’s most isolated and closed off countries. What effect would Dungeons & Dragons have in a society whose government and culture imposes its own reality upon its citizens?

In the early nineties, during the time of the famine known as the Arduous March, Cho Jun-su, an ordinary schoolboy with a love Kim Il Sung and the socialist fantasy comics he has to hire from a vendor at the station to read, discovers by accident, a copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Dungeons & Dragons. Left behind by the son of visiting a professor in North Korean socialist thought, and taken from lost property at the hotel he works by Jun-su’s father, he is fascinated by the book, but his English is not yet good enough to read it, although his later translation of the book will both improve his English and his imagination as he becomes an award-winning poet. Until then he turns to a teacher who has been helping with the illness that keeps him out of school. The teacher comes to understand the book, explaining that it is a game of the imagination and storytelling, and when the boy asks, promises to run it for him. Thus Jun-su takes his first steps into roleplaying, not via Dungeons & Dragons, but the House of Possibilities, an interpretation of the rules that is more faithful by intent than by design, but nevertheless recognisable as roleplaying.

As his illness keeps him home from school and helps isolate him from the worst effects of the Arduous March, so too the House of Possibilities isolates him from the adulation and respect that he is expected to give the Kim Jong Il, the Dear leader, the self-criticism exercises he is expected to participate in at school, and so on. The notion of roleplaying and of Dungeons & Dragons is doubly dangerous within North Korea. It is nerdish and like to be socially unacceptable just as it was in the West in the nineties, but in North Korea, it could be seen as an artefact of American decadence, one that encourages individualism. Yet it is this individualism that makes Jun-su stand out, his involvement with the House of Possibilities setting him a trajectory through layers and layers of accepted reality, as he first experiences success, then downfall, then success again, before finding hope. It pushes him to Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang, where he mingles with the elite, he is denounced and imprisoned, before being released and pulled into the orbit of the ultra-elite once, and then finally finding his own release. At university Jun-su isolates himself from the reality of the dangers that House of Possibilities, but its reality is left behind and Jun-su is forced to rely upon the accepted reality in which his love for Kim Jong Il will save him, but just like Winston Smith and Big Brother in Orwell’s 1984, it is Kim Jong Il that is stamping on his face. Nevertheless, it is Jun-su’s connection to the House of Possibilities that will save him again. Which leads perhaps to the most extraordinary reality in which Jun-su finds himself in, spending time in the company of ‘Jimmi’, in fact, Kim Jong-chul, older brother of Kim Jong Un, son of the late Kim Jong Il and supreme leader of North Korea. ‘Jimmi’ is portrayed as a member of the idle rich, when not drug addled, obsessed with the guitar and great rock guitarists, whose reality isolates him from the rest of the country and its cowed masses. Weirder still is the job he is given at a state insurance company, fabricating the reality of serious accidents, so that the country can gain foreign currency from the insurers in London. Even ‘Jimmi’ in his most maudlin state is affected by Dungeons & Dragons, wondering if his influence is sufficient to render Cho Jun-su the status of an NPC, a ‘Non-Player Character’ as controlled in the game by the ‘leader’ or Dungeon Master, or if he too, is an NPC, not for Cho Jun-su, but rather for Kim Jong Un. This is not an aspect that the author really explores, merely bringing it to our attention as he hurtles to the book’s conclusion. It is the novel’s startlingly missed opportunity.

Although he does not belabour the point, it is clear that the author knows about Dungeons & Dragons and roleplaying games in general. It is not a case of the author just having done his research to be able to use Dungeons & Dragons as a literary device. Or if it is, then that research is more than cursory. Readers in the know will recognise the copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide from the description given, a great red demon (or efrit) grasping a scantily clad women in its left hand, a sword in its right as a knight and a wizard attempt a rescue as being for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. They will realise too that Jun-su’s battered copy is later replaced by Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. This could have been the result of simple research, but there is more. British readers will recognise the name of the games shop in North Finchley from where the author in the book purchases a copy of The Habitition of the Stone Giant Lord which is an undoubtedly obscure choice. There is though, Jun-su’s initial reaction to playing the game, his fascination with its imagined world, with it feeling more real than the one around him. This is something that many a roleplayer will recognise, that heady rush of discovery of not just having an imagination, but of being able to explore it too.

It would be trite to have simply explored the imagination as a means of liberation from conformity and repression. The Sorcerer of Pyongyang does that, certainly, but it goes beyond it to examine the dangers of the imagination, not just under the ordinary Orwellian repression of North Korea, but also in the layers of reality surrounding Pyongyang’s elite under radically different circumstances and under two different Supreme Leaders. Again and again, Cho Jun-su finds his imagination pulling him onward in a great journey through a bildungsroman of realities. The Sorcerer of Pyongyang is a fascinating glimpse behind the walls of the Hermit Kingdom that is North Korea with Marcel Theroux using Dungeons & Dragons as a surprisingly sophisticated means to drive its story along in a fashion that would have been unthinkable, let alone acceptable when Cho Jun-su first entered the House of Possibilities.

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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In Strange Seas: Horror in the Royal Navy for Regency Cthulhutakes Call of Cthulhu in a new direction. Or rather, In Strange Seas: Horror in the Royal Navy for Regency Cthulhu takes Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England in a new direction and over the horizon. Regency Cthulhu took Call of Cthulhu back to the Regency era where men and women of good character must find a way of confronting the Mythos without the loss of their character and their reputation, let alone their sanity. In Strange Seas takes that sensibility and sets sail with it on to the high seas during the war with France and Napoleon. As crew and officers face death from storms and disasters, let alone battles with the French and her Spanish allies, as well as poor food and rigorous discipline, there is chance of promotion, opportunities to be brave, hope that prizes will taken and fortunes won, and perhaps the happenstance that their names will be made and they will ascend the social ladder and acquire status that their births never gave them.
In Strange Seas introduces the Royal Navy of the later Napoleonic Wars, that which Horatio Nelson served in. In parts more readily egalitarian than the rest of Georgian society, the nature of the Royal Navy of In Strange Seas is more readily egalitarian still, allowing all genders and orientations to serve, but taking a more modern and inclusive approach as modern-day Navies do. This is undeniably anachronistic and as an extension of Regency Cthulhu it goes further than that supplement does in terms of inclusivity, so that adjustments would have to be made to the core Regency Cthulhu setting were an Investigator shift from one setting to the other. Ultimately, the choice whether to accept the anachronism of In Strange Seas will be down to the Keeper and her players and there is nothing wrong in that. However, In Strange Seas could—and certainly should—have handled the issue in a less proscriptive way, and discussed the choices between running In Strange Seas in a historical fashion or a non-historical fashion, so that the Keeper and her players can make the choice.
For the most part, In Strange Seas presents the historical nature of life aboard ship and in the Royal Navy as you would expect. Covering daily life, positions amongst both commissioned and uncommissioned officers as well as the crew, clothing, meals, and discipline, the Admiralty, and the various types of ships serving in the Royal Navy and their typical duties, as well as a tour of a frigate, all of this will be familiar to anyone who has read the Hornblower novels of C.S. Forester or the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian or the various nautically themed roleplaying games released in the past few decades, starting with Privateers and Gentlemen, published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1983. For the uninitiated landlubber, it is another matter. The content is informative and useful, as are the details on the superstitions and then the prejudices, etiquette, and traditions for landlubber and jack tar alike. It notes that life aboard ship for those that ignore these prejudices, etiquette, and traditions can be worse than for those ashore who simply have their reputations damaged, and that does not take into account the nature of punishments which can arise should the Articles of War be contravened.
Mechanically, naval combat can be complex. In Strange Seas presents a more narrative approach, though one still driven by the Investigators’ skills and time in the spotlight. The advice is to keep it moving, keep orders coming, emphasise the horror—since the noise and the chance of bring crushed by fallen rigging or having a leg blown off are ever present, and keep it fresh and varied. Anyone coming to In Strange Seas expecting detailed naval combat will be disappointed and will have to look elsewhere. The ‘Naval Combat Cheat Sheet for Keepers & Investigators’ does instead, listing the broad actions that the Investigators will take, such as manoeuvring, firing the cannons, boarding, avoiding flying splinters and falling, and suggesting the appropriate skills to roll. For the savvy shipmen, this will be enough, but for the nautical naïve it is likely too little, but after watching some of the suggested viewing given in the bibliography, he should be fine.
In terms of creating an Investigator, In Strange Seas suggests that skills and occupations be adjusted by age. Sailors tend to be young and often lack the more refined skills their land-going counterparts might have. The Occupations include Commissioned Officer—which needs to be adjusted according to rank, Bosun, Carpenter, Chaplain, Gunner, Marine, Master, Purser, Forecastle Sailor/Topman, and Afterguard/Waister. It is otherwise unchanged from Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. It does, however, give two means of handling Reputation. One is ashore reputation, the other at sea. The first is in line with the Reputation rules for Regency Cthulhu, whereas the latter is Reputation at sea only. Included alongside this are some possible losses and gain in service, from “Dropping your messmates’ Sunday plum duffs on the way back from the galley” to “Taking a severe punishment without complaint or crying out”. The campaign advice is similar to that of Regency Cthulhu, in that Investigators should be roughly of the same or near rank so that socially they can converse and interact, or at least in the same working party otherwise; use other ships or posts of call as a ready source off news and rumour; and of the Mythos, that again, like Regency Cthulhu, the Keeper should allow space in which the social ramifications of encountering the Mythos can be explored. How will affect the more of the crew? Will the Investigators be believed? Of course, defeating the forces of Cosmic Horror cannot be reported in the London Gazette, the Admiralty remains willfully ignorant of such forces. The supplement also include some handouts, a recruiting poster for His Majesty’s Navy and a number of recipes for shipboard food to add that little bit of extra detail.
Scattered throughout In Strange Seas are several Mythos Hook scenario seeds. Some are better than others, but all require full development upon the part of the Keeper. Fortunately, In Strange Seas comes with a separate, eleven-page scenario. ‘Wonders in the Deep’. Set in 1811, the HMS Caliban is sent to the Spanish coast in search of the French brig Prodige. Aboard is an important passenger, who unfortunately is killed on the voyage and the Investigators have to step up and fulfil his mission. With the curse of being an unlucky ship, the HMS Caliban chases down its quarry and battle ensues. It is a solid scenario which combines the ordinary life aboard ship with the thrill of battle and an encounter with a strange adversary. It comes with two, somewhat plain handouts, and a nice selection of new nautically themed spells, such as Bait Humans and inflict Scurvy!
Physically, In Strange Seas is presented tidily enough. It needs editing here and there, but it is neatly illustrated with a series of period pieces.
In Strange Seas is in some ways only an introduction to roleplaying in the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic War. It could have done with more detail about combat to help the Keeper visualise it, and much like Regency Cthulhu, there is no guide to Mythos activity—human or otherwise—during this period, and certainly not as it relates to His Majesty’s Navy. This is despite the far-flung operations of the Royal Navy meaning that the Investigators could find themselves very far away from Bath and its restorative waters. Which gives it potential for a very nautical globetrotting campaign!
A most serviceable supplement—though a Keeper will probably need to do much more research on the setting that a fuller book would avoid needing—In Strange Seas: Horror in the Royal Navy for Regency Cthulhu pressgangs Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England into the Age of Sail and In-Sanity.

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: Last Threads of SanityPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Joel Kumpulainen

Setting: Jazz Age Vermont... and beyondProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-eight page, 4.35 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Inside Out meets H.P. Lovecraft meets Marathon ManPlot Hook: What horrors drove you to the asylum and where are they now?
Plot Support: Staging advice, two NPCs, and three Mythos monsters.Production Values: Tidy
Pros# Sanity is front and centre# Cleverly structured plot# Investigation explored from the end, not the beginning# Cheimaphobia# Entomophobia# Teratophobia# Tomophobia# Trypophobia
Cons# Sanity is front and centre# Mechanically underwritten NPCs# Needs a slight edit# Initial set-up is more toolkit than scenario# No Maps# No pre-generated Investigators# Linear, if back and forth, plot# Misses the obvious reveal of the unreality
Conclusion# Cleverly structured plot explores a post-sanity experience# Innovative, if experimental, scenario shifts the viewpoint of the traditional Call of Cthulhu investigation

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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Twenty years ago, the roleplaying game hobby was very different. There was one dominant roleplaying game—Dungeons & Dragons—and its Open Game Licence enabled its underpinnings to snake out and transform almost every other roleplaying into a reflection of Dungeons & Dragons as publishers harnessed its familiarity and ubiquity. There was also a small, but vocal drive urging the hobby to pull away from this landscape, to set out for pastures new as publisher-creators harnessing the democratisation of design and ready access to self-publishing. How times have changed in 2023. There is one dominant roleplaying game—Dungeons & Dragons—and its Open Game Licence enables creators and publishers alike to harness its familiarity and ubiquity. There was also a small, but vocal drive urging the hobby to pull away from this landscape, but this has fractured into a movement that looks back via the Old School Renaissance and a movement that wants to set out for pastures new. The independent, often small, if not single publisher-creator of this movement is heir to the same one of publisher-creators of 2003 and the rest of noughties. Theirs was the indie role-playing game movement, exploring the boundaries of the roleplaying game as a concept, the types of story that the roleplaying game could tell, and how those stories could be told. Although there were precursors to the indie school movement, such as The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Amber Diceless Role-Playing, and Over the Edge: the Role-playing Game of Surreal Danger, their fervour to discuss, debate, and design would lead to several breakout roleplaying titles, some of which would win awards and a few which are still played today, as well as ideas and concepts that in the next decade would be adopted by the mainstream roleplaying hobby.
My Life with Master was one of the titles to breakout of the indie role-playing game movement. Designed by Paul Czege and published by his Half Meme Press in 2003, it would win the 2004 Diana Jones Award and the 2003 Out of the Box Award for Best Sui Generis RPG and the 2003 Indie Roleplaying Game of the Year, none of them, it should be noted, mainstream rewards. My Life with Master is a roleplaying game—or rather a storytelling game—of villainy, self-loathing, and unrequited love. It is set in an isolated town somewhere in Europe in 1805, over which looms a castle or manse and the monstrous urges of its occupant. This is the Master. The Master is a monster, either intellectually or physically, who has designs on the townsfolk, and they in turn fear him. The Master is served by several Minions, a la Renfield of Dracula or Igor* of Frankenstein. Minions fear their Master and love him too. They also suffer from a self-loathing and a weariness from the monstrous nature of the tasks they commit on the townsfolk on his behalf. These tasks make each Minion see himself as a monster, but there is humanity within him too. They have feelings, even love, for certain townsfolk, and that love might be their salvation, for in asking a Minion to carry out a task too far, the Minion may turn on the Master and kill him, thus releasing the other Minions. The Master will always die at the end, but a Minion killing him is just one possible outcome. Just as likely is the Townsfolk storming the castle. A Minion may also run away, integrate himself into the town, and even establish himself as the new Master in residence. Whatever the outcome, My Life with Master is a gothic tragedy, to be told over several sessions.

* Actually in the original Frankenstein film, he was called Fritz.
Later storytelling games would transcend the need for a Game Master, but My Life with Master is not one of them. Nevertheless, My Life with Master involves far more collaboration between the Game Master and her players than a traditional roleplaying game would. This begins with the players deciding what sort of Master that their Minions serve. A Master, always single, tragically insecure, with a driving passion, and ego to match, has an Aspect, Needs, and Wants, plus a Type. The Aspect can either be Brain or Beast, the former more mannered and genteel, willing to converse, whereas the latter is primal, physical, and driven by baser urges. Either will be influenced by the Master’s Needs and Wants as well as his Type. Needs are what he wants from the Townsfolk and what threatens them, and are what the Minions are driven to obtain for him. Wants are something that he desires from Outsiders, which might be recognition for his scholarly endeavours from the university which expelled him or the respect of his family. The Master’s Type can be Feeder, Breeder, Collector, or Teacher. Here the author adroitly examines figures from the Gothic genre to fit each combination of Type and Aspect, including the legend of Elizabeth Bathory, P.T. Barnum, Thomas Harris’ Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lector, H.G. Wells’ Doctor Moreau, and Charles Dickens’ Miss Haversham. Lastly, the Master is assigned ratings in Fear and Reason.
Richard DraxWould-be ToymakerAspect: Brains Type: BreederNeeds: For the townsfolk to buy and appreciate his ‘wonderful’ toysWants: To be recognised as a master toymaker by the Toymakers Guild of ErzgebirgeFear: 4 Reason: 4
A Minion is beset by scars, deformities, and afflictions—both physical and mental—each a monster in their own right, but still human at heart. They yearn to be happy even as they suffer under the monstrous yoke of the Master. Each has three stats. Self-loathing represents how much a Minion considers himself a monster. It will make it difficult to resist his Master’s orders, but make it easier for him to be monstrous when acting violently against the townsfolk. Weariness increases the likelihood of the Minion failing and getting hurt when being violent to the townsfolk and of failing to resist the Master’s orders. Three points are divided between Self-loathing and Weariness. A Minion is also More than Human and Less than Human, essentially an advantage and an advantage that always work within a narrowly defined scope, and also divide the Minion from humanity. Lastly, the Minion has a Connection to someone in the town. This is unrequited initially, but through interaction with the Connection, the Minion can gain Love points to invest in that Connection, and possibly other Connections.
ZebedeeSelf-loathing: 2 Weariness: 1More than Human: No lock can stop me, except during the hours of daylightLess than Human: I am rooted to the spot when spoken to, except when offered comestiblesConnections:Emilia the seamstress, who makes such pretty clothes (Love: o)
My Life with Master is played as a series of scenes, with the players taking it in turns to frame the scenes that they want to see their Minion in. Within the scene that will be conflict which will be resolved using the roleplaying core mechanic. This consists of opposed rolls of dice pools comprised of four-sided dice. Rolls of four are discarded. The nature of the dice pools will vary according to the situation. If a Minion wants to resist a command, his player rolls a number of dice equal to the Minion’s Love minus Weariness, whilst the Game Master rolls a number of dice equal to the Master’s Fear plus the Minion’s Self-Loathing. If a Minion wants to make an overture to a Connection, his rolls a number of dice equal to his Master’s Reason minus his own Self-loathing, whilst the Game Master rolls a number of dice equal to the Master’s Fear minus his Reason. If a pool is reduced to a negative number, then a single die is rolled. Once the outcome of the roll is determined, it is roleplayed to its conclusion and then the next scene is played out and rolled for, as necessary.
For the most part, the Minions will often fail, and where they do succeed, it is often in doing the worst thing, such as being violent or villainous towards the townsfolk. Consequently, players will find themselves narrating actions that in a normal roleplaying game, they would never contemplate. Within the genre of My Life with Master, it is another matter. One way in which the potential for failure can be offset is through the use of bonus dice. These are earned for dramatically expressive bids of emotion, entirely in keep with the melodrama of My Life with Master’s genre, such as Intimacy, Desperation, and Sincerity. These gain a Minion a four-sided, six-sided, or eight-sided die respectively to be added to a roll. Intimacy could be sharing food or comfort, Desperation is a show of emotional distress, and Sincerity a baring of the soul or weakness. The Game Master is encouraged to be generous in awarding these bonus dice, though the players should work for them too.
One way in which a Minion can eventually withstand his Master’s commands is by increasing the Love that he has with a Connection. This requires successful Overtures to the Connection to be rolled. If after this happens, the Minion’s Love for a Connection is higher than the total of his Master’s Fear plus his own Weariness, then the endgame is triggered. This is a series of scenes, each aggressively violent, depending upon where the Minions are, though the Minion who triggered the endgame will be involved in a life-or-death struggle with his Master. 
When the Endgame occurs, the Minion who made the roll in question begins a violent struggle with the Master which will probably end in the Master’s death. Meanwhile the others have to deal with their current situations without the benefit of Fear to their rolls. The actual end result for the characters is also constrained by various totals of their stats. For example, if Self-Loathing plus Weariness is greater than Love plus Reason, the Minion is killed, but if Self-Loathing is greater than Weariness plus Reason, the Minion kills himself. This might actually play out over several scenes until the Master is actually dead. Once this happens, each Minion has an epilogue. The nature of the epilogue will vary according to each Minion’s stats. For example, if a Minion’s Weariness is greater than Reason plus Self-loathing, the Minion flees from the town, giving up on the struggle within himself, but if his Self-loathing is greater than his Weariness, he is killed. 
The endgame is not the only condition that can be triggered during play. For example, if his Weariness is greater than his Master’s Reason following an attempt to inflict violence, the Minion can be captured or if his Self-Loathing is greater than the total of his Love and his Master’s Reason, following an act of villainy, then ‘The Horror Revealed’ condition is triggered. In this case, the next scene the player has to describe involves NPCs being exposed to or influenced by the horror pervading the town.
Despite the simplicity of the core mechanic and the simplicity of the set-up, My Life with Master is not an easy game to play or learn. This is because the formulae used in the game are highly conditional and from being intuitive and not clearly presented for the players and their Minions. When I reviewed My Life with Master in 2003 for Steve Jackson Games’ Pyramid e-zine, I said that, “Despite the simplicity of the [game] mechanics ... they are not as clearly written as they need to be ... The GM will need to make a close read of the otherwise well-written text to help grasp how the outcome of a scene will alter a minion's statistics.” (September 3rd, 2003.) This still applies today, even with the benefit of storytelling mechanics being adopted into the mainstream some years later. That said, there is advice for the Game Master on how to adjudicate the game and a good example of play. Both will help the Game Master understand My Life with Master and its concepts, but even still, My Life with Master is not a storytelling game for beginners.
Physically, My Life with Master is lovely book. It is well written, the artwork captures the grotesque nature of the roleplaying game’s gothic sensibilities, and the book has the feel of a Georgian manuscript.
With its framing of scenes, its relatively simple resolution, and its narrative agency for the players, let alone the emotional engagement, albeit negative emotional engagement for much of its play, My Life with Master looks and feels like a standard non-traditional roleplaying game, an indie roleplaying game, if you will. This looks perfectly normal in 2023, but remember, in 2003, this was radical. This was giving the players agency in telling the story that traditional roleplaying games would never have contemplated. As a power they had never had, it was both exhilarating and liberating, but it was also very, very much a case of players being daunted by the prospect and the possibilities. The player was being asked to make choices he had no idea how to make, and making that adjustment from the restrictive narrative rights of the traditional roleplaying game to the narrative freedoms of storytelling roleplaying games took time as a whole new skill had to be learned. In addition, My Life with Master was asking a player to make emotional adjustment too, as he roleplayed a character who was emotionally damaged, who was put upon, who was called upon to act in grievous ways, to be a monster when deep down, the character was not, and of course, the player was not. This combined with the counter-intuitive formulae made the play of My Life with Master difficult to get right in terms of game flow. However, if the adjustments can be made, if the players accept that their characters are anything other than heroic, then My Life with Master is a sublimely marvellous, yet malevolent exploration of broken relationships in a melodramatic tragedy, a grotesque tale in which their Minions will emulate the worst of the genre with just a glimmer of hope and humanity.
In 2003, My Life with Master was ground-breaking. In 2023, My Life with Master is a near perfect roleplaying game that demands as much from its players and the Game Master as it did in 2003. It is a pity that it is not in print some twenty years after it first amazed the hobby with its emotional complexities.

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & DragonsWizards 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 1993, amidst its constant search for sure fire hit in terms of a new setting or starter set for Dungeons & Dragons, TSR, Inc. published something radical. A universal roleplaying system. A universal roleplaying system that was not only mechanically compatible from one setting to the next, but allowed a player to take the core aspects of his character from one setting to another. Thematically and in terms of genre, the character would be different from one setting to the next as well as being an entirely different Player Character, but the core elements would remain the same. If a player preferred to play a dextrous fighter or a glib investigator, the basics of this would be incorporated into the Player Character no matter what the setting. Further, the experience and improvements gained from roleplaying in one setting would be carried over from that setting to the next, so that the new Player Character would benefit from the play of the old. This was no multiverse setting though. Beyond the core rules the settings were discrete and varied in genre and setting. The system was the Amazing Engine, and if its key idea of experience being transferred between different games can be seen as a failure, having not been replicated elsewhere, it does not mean that it was not an experiment worth developing and it does not detract from the eight campaign settings, or Universe Books, published for it between 1993 and 1994.
The Amazing Engine System Guide is the starting point for the Amazing Engine game system. It wastes little time in explain what it is and what its core concepts are, the heart of which are the splitting of the character in two. The traditional Player Character, with its attributes, skills, and abilities, is what a player roleplays in a particular universe. The Player Core is the framework upon which the Player Character is built in a particular universe and it is this Player Core, which is transported from one setting to the next, from one Universe Book to the next. The Player Core has four Ability Pools—Physique, Intellect, Spirit, and Influence. Each Ability Pool has two associated Attributes—Fitness and Reflexes for Physique, Learning and Intuition for Intellect, Psyche and Willpower for Spirit, and Charm and Position for Influence. Attributes range in value between three and fifty. Having two Attributes per Ability Pool means that a Player Character will always have an Attribute that works in a Universe Book setting. For example, in the Magitech Universe Book, Psyche will be of more use than in the Bughunters setting where Willpower will be important.
To create a Player Core, a player assigns a rank, from one to four, for each of the Ability Pools, with one being the best and four the worst. He picks four of the eight Attributes he favours and rolls four ten-sided dice for each, whilst three ten-sided dice are rolled for the other four. Depending upon the ranking of the Ability Pools, a number of bonus points are divided between the two Attributes in an Ability Pool, ranging from fifteen for the best ranking to zero for the worst. No Attribute can be higher than fifty. Lastly, the two Attributes are added together and divided by ten. This determines the number dice rolled during Player Character creation when switching from one Universe Book to another. A Player Core looks like the following. In this example, the player wants to roleplay, brawny, if charismatic characters.
Physique (Rank 1/Dice 8): Fitness 41 Reflexes 33Intellect (Rank 4/Dice 4): Learning 10 Intuition 22Spirit (Rank 2/Dice 5): Psyche 18 Willpower 32Influence (Rank 3/Dice 5): Charm 36 Position 08
To create the Player Character, the player ignores the values rolled for the individual Attributes during the creation of the Player Core. Instead, he divides the number of dice for each Ability Pool between the two Attributes in the Ability Pool. To these dice he adds a total of seven dice between all eight Attributes with no more than a total of five dice being assigned to any one Attribute. These are rolled to give a new value to each Attribute, and then as with the creation of the Character Core, a number of bonus points are divided between the two Attributes in an Ability Pool, ranging from fifteen for the best ranking to zero for the worst. The result cannot be more than fifty, and the Dice ratings for the Character Core do not change. What this means, especially with the addition of the bonus dice, is that a player can adjust for the differences between one Universe Book and another. So that a setting where social status or rank matters would favour the Position Attribute and so a player might assign more dice to that. However, the replication of the process does not feel intuitive, even adding an odd layer of complexity to the process. Lastly, the Stamina—the amount of damage a Player Character can suffer before being rendered unconscious is determined, as is Body, which is the amount of damage he can suffered before being killed.
So, the brawny, but charming fighter type is being shifted from a Universe Book of Swords & Sorcery to one where magic is being studied at an academy. In this case, the player divides the dice from his Player Core between the Attribute pairings, but because the new Universe Book is going to favour the Learning and Psyche Attributes, he divides the bonus dice between them. The result gives the final values for the Attributes for the Player Character in that Universe Book.
Physique (Rank 1/Dice 8): Fitness (Dice 4) 41 Reflexes (Dice 4) 28Intellect (Rank 4/Dice 4): Learning (Dice 5) 38 Intuition (Dice 2) 12Spirit (Rank 2/Dice 5): Psyche (Dice 5) 33 Willpower (Dice 2) 15Influence (Rank 3/Dice 5): Charm (Dice 3) 21 Position (Dice 2) 12
Body: 41 Stamina: 52
This though is the base Player Character in a Universe Book. The latter can also add a Species and the player has to choose a profession and some skills. The Amazing Engine System Guide uses skill groups which break skills done into specialities, from the Basic Skill to the Speciality to the Sub-Speciality. Depending upon what the Player Character is trying to do and the more specialised the task, if the Player Character does not have the Speciality or the Sub-Speciality, he receives a penalty to the task. Some Sub-Specialities can actually be enhancements if the Player Character has them, instead of being penalties if he does not. For example, a gin-running Bootlegger from the Prohibition Era of the nineteen twenties might have the skill of Driving and the Speciality of Automobile. When he is on a bootlegging run, he drives Mabel, a souped-up Ford Model A Coupe. Although a Sub-Speciality, it is treated as an Enhancement when he is driving it. The player selects a number of skills, Specialities, and Sub-Specialities from his character’s Profession first and then any reflecting his character’s hobbies and interests from any skill group. The number for both is determined by the Learning and Intuition Attributes, respectively.
Mechanically, the Amazing Engine is simple. A skill test is a percentile roll versus an Attribute. Penalties are derived from the difficulty of the task, the lack of Specialities and Sub-Specialities, and so on. From just the Amazing Engine System Guide, a Player Character will rarely have more than sixty-percent chance of succeeding at a task, taking into account a high attribute of fifty and an Enhancement from Sub-Speciality. Whilst this is the case, the Amazing Engine not meant to be played alone, but in conjunction with a Universe Book and options within that will increase skill values. The Amazing Engine allows from margin ratings to determine the degree of success of a skill test. This is based on the ones digit of the roll and if it is equal to or less than the Success Margin, it is a critical success, whilst a critical failure would be a failed roll combined with the ones digit being equal to or greater than the Failure Margin.
Combat uses the same mechanics. Once advantage has been checked for—essentially to see if surprise has been gained by either side—initiative is determined by a roll modified by the Reflexes Attribute. Notably, anything beyond the control of the Player Characters will have its own initiative roll, the example being a grenade thrown by the enemy. An attack is rolled against Reflexes, whether melee or ranged, and the attacker has to specify whether the attack is ‘General’, ‘Non-Vital’, or ‘Vital’. ‘Non-Vital’ attacks are more subdual attacks, and are not only harder to hit, but do not inflict as much damage. ‘Vital’ attacks are extremely hard to do and increase the amount of damage done. Weapons can have a Lethality Rating. When digits value of a successful attack roll is equal to or below a weapon’s Lethality Rating the damage is deducted from the target’s Body rating rather than the Stamina rating. Lastly, the Amazing Engine System Guide notes that it is possible for a Player Character to have magic or psionics or other special powers. However, these are not detailed in its pages, but kept specific to the various Universe Books. Arms, armour, and other equipment are given a similar treatment.
Experience is the key to the core concept behind the Amazing Engine. There is advice on having a good play experience too, but in the main the advice is on how to acquire it and then spend it. The means of acquiring it is as you would expect—successful adventures, skill use, and good roleplaying—but the Amazing Engine System Guide details four means of spending it. The first is immediate, spending it to Tax Abilities. This is directly spending it to temporally increase an Attribute on a point per point basis, in blocks of five. This cannot raise the Attribute to more than double its value, but it can lift the chance of success above the sixty percent. The second is to spend it to permanently raise the value of an Attribute. This is more expensive and varies from one Universe Book to another. The third option is improve the Character Core by purchasing extra Dice. This is even more expensive. Lastly, a player can simply transfer accumulated Experience Points to another character based on the Player Core. If a Player Character dies, any accumulated Experience Points are lost, but if the Player Core has any Experience Points, they are not lost.
Physically, the Amazing Engine System Guide is a short book, just thirty-two pages long. It is well written and there are plenty of examples of the rules, including an extended example of Player Core and Player Character creation. The artwork is decent, but of course, generic. The book is notably festooned with the ‘™’ symbol, it appearing every time the name of the rules or a Universe Book appears in the text.
Initially, the Amazing Engine was published as a two-part system. One part would be the Amazing Engine System Guide, the other a Universe Book such as For Faerie, Queen, and Country or Bughunters . It was possible to purchase the Amazing Engine System Guide separately, leading to the situation where there seemed to be more copies of the Amazing Engine System Guide than the Universe Books, but the primary means of obtaining one would be to purchase a combined pack containing the Amazing Engine System Guide as well a Universe Book. Eventually, the Amazing Engine System Guide would be published as part of the Universe Book itself, so that each Universe Book became more of a standalone roleplaying game in its own right.
Ultimately, the problem with the Amazing Engine System Guide is twofold. First, it is not a standalone product. Despite presenting a generic set of rules, those rules are not sufficient to stand on their own and they need a Universe Book to provide all of the details that a fully realised roleplaying game would. Second, it solves a problem that really is not there, the disappointment at losing all of the experience and benefits accumulated through play by switching to another setting and having to play a new character. This is not to say that it does not solve that problem poorly, rather that the need for it to be solved is doubtful. On its own, the Amazing Engine System Guide is simply not enough, but as the core rules and means of character creation for the various Universe Books, the Amazing Engine System Guide is vital—and actually worth it since the various Universe Books are all interesting, often more imaginative than the books which TSR, Inc. would have been publishing at the time. There is even the basis for a proper generic roleplaying game in the Amazing Engine System Guide if TSR, Inc. had wanted to develop it. That was not to be, but an inventive Game Master could draw such details from the full range of Universe Books and create one herself. Ultimately, the Amazing Engine System Guide is good for the mechanical means of access it provides to the eight Universe Books of the Amazing Engine.

The Delta Quadrant Sourcebook is the fourth setting supplement for Modiphius Entertainment’s Star Trek Adventures roleplaying game following on from the Beta Quadrant Sourcebook, the Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook, and The Gamma Quadrant. It completes the quadrant sourcebooks for the roleplaying game and does a whole lot more. Where the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook updated the timeline for Star Trek Adventures from 2372 to 2375 to encompass the whole of the Dominion War and its aftermath, the Delta Quadrant Sourcebook advances it another four years to 2379 and the return of the USS Voyager after its long journey home from the Delta Quadrant, some seventy thousand light years from Federation space as told in Star Trek: Voyager. It encompasses details of the species and worlds that the crew of the Voyager encountered and suggests ways in which another starship and its crew might find itself flung across the galaxy, isolated and alone, with only their wits and training to rely upon in surviving and then travelling the long way home. One of the major species that U.S.S. Voyager encountered were the Borg Collective, not once, but many times, and this included crossing the vastness of Borg space. The prominence of the Borg in Star Trek: Voyager, not least because a liberated Borg drone, Seven of Nine, would join her crew, is reflected in the Delta Quadrant Sourcebook, which is as much a sourcebook for the Borg for Star Trek Adventures as it is the Delta Quadrant.

The Delta Quadrant Sourcebook begins with a map like the three books in the series, but not an actual map of the Delta Quadrant, or even of the territory encompassed by the Borg Collective. Where the other supplements in the series have maps of their quadrants, the Delta Quadrant Sourcebook begins with a series of maps showing the flightpath that the U.S.S. Voyager took to get home. It shows an incredibly narrow slice of the Delta Quadrant, but so it should, and so too, does the Delta Quadrant Sourcebook. What this reflect is the fact that although U.S.S. Voyager undertook exploration during its journey home, it was never its primary objective. In fact, exploration was secondary, or even tertiary to its prime objective. Consequently, its encounters with cultures and species and worlds and spatial phenomena was fleeting, lacking the time that scientific rigour would otherwise demand. Thus its reports and analysis can only be seen in most cases as the initial cursory examination of a probe exploring a new region. This is highlighted in one of the pieces of colour fiction in the book and what it means is that once a Game Master has got her Player Characters and their ship to the Delta Quadrant, there is huge scope for her to develop her own content and even change details about a species or culture or a world because Star Fleet knows so little about the Delta Quadrant.

Unlike the earlier Beta Quadrant Sourcebook and Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook, the Delta Quadrant Sourcebook is not as easy a supplement to use in chronological terms. As it depicts an area of space between 2371 and 2379 and given its distance from Federation space, it is difficult to use in the Star Trek: The Original Series or Enterprise eras of play. Options are suggested, but there are far more of them set in the Star Trek: The Next Generation era. The overview of the various species, from the Devore Imperium and the Haakonian Order to the Vidiian Sodality and the Voth, taking in the Hirogen, the Kazon Order, and Species 8472 along the way varies from entry to entry. The length of entry is determined by how many times the U.S.S. Voyager encountered them, thus the Devore Imperium is given a mere half page, but the Hirogen, the Kazon Order, and Species 8472 over a page each. There is good, solid detail here, but it is let down by the lack of art. Only the Hirogen and Species 8472 are illustrated, whilst the rest are given a physiological description and given that they come from a visual medium, this is not really enough. There are descriptions of some of the worlds visited by the U.S.S. Voyager encountered as well.

Over a fifth of the Delta Quadrant Sourcebook is dedicated to the Borg. This includes an examination of who and what the Borg are, how they and their Queen function, how a species in danger of being assimilated might react, and so on. There are some interesting ideas here, such as the potentially immoral option of treating the Borg as invasive vermin, a threat to flee from, and as a viral infection. Another is restricted to worlds with cultures or resources which the Borg has deemed suitable for assimilation. If not yet technologically developed, a culture might regard the Borg as gods who will make the worthy immortal or demons who will steal the unworthy away... Types of drone are detailed, including maintenance, medical, tactical, and adjuncts. Throughout, there are in-game reports from the various governments and polities of the Star Trek universe. For example, the Cardassians are interested in making contact with the Borg Queen, the Dominion is wary of them, and Section 31 of Starfleet are still concerned about how much of a threat Juan-Luc Picard represents following his liberation from the Borg as Locutus. All of these add flavour and opinion that can help the Game Master portray these interested parties in her campaign. In this way, the use of the in-game fiction in this way is far better than has been in other supplements for Star Trek Adventures. In terms of worlds, the supplement is really rather clever. Instead of naming specific worlds, it examines the types of worlds that the Borg Collective is interested in. This enables the Game Master to create some interesting settings for encounters with the Borg, such as aboard their technologically advance floating platforms in gas giants or in the forcefield-protected facilities of demon worlds.

Under Lifepath Options, the most notable addition is that of the Liberated Borg. This is given as being for the Star Trek: The Next Generation era only, representing when they are a more frequent occurrence. This is not to say that they cannot appear in the other eras, but this is not really explored in the supplement. For the player Character, the Liberated Borg is a treated as a Mixed Species character and must have the Borg Implants Talent. This gives the Player Character three implants such as a Critical Array (interlink Node), Cybernetic Arm, or Ocular Sensory Enhancer. Their presence hampers social interaction as much as they grant technological advantages, but they can be removed. This takes a story milestone for each implant and only once all three have been removed, can the Talent itself swapped out.

Other species for the Delta Quadrant presented as fully playable characters include the Ankari, who use the energy from a nucleogenic lifeform to power their starships, the administrative specialist Jye, the Monean who live on a massive waterworld and are good swimmers and as former star nomads, also good navigators, the Occampa, and more. The guidelines suggest how the character generation process of Star Trek Adventures can be used, adjusted, or simply renamed to suit the Player Character.

For starships, the Borg feature again, with write-ups of Borg Octahedron, the command and control vessel for the Borg Queen and the Bog Torus which handles construction, along with the Borg Probe Ship and the Borg Tactical Cube. The Delta Flyer built by Tom Paris is detailed again, but more specific Delta Quadrant starships include the Kazon Raider, Hirogen warship, the Krenim Timeship with its time manipulating technology, Species 8472 Bioship, and many more. Stats for numerous NPCs are also given. Most of these are generic and unnamed, such as the Talaxian Smuggler, Occampa Explorer, or Hirogen Hunter, but there are named NPCs given too. These include Annorax, the Krenim officer and temporal scientist who turned the manipulation of the timeline into a weapon of war; Hugh, the Borg drone rescued by Starfleet; Commander Elizabeth Shelby, who became a tactical expert on the Borg following the battle of Wolf 359; and the Borg Queen. Perhaps the only NPC missing here is Rudolph Ransom, the captain of the U.S.S. Equinox, who used Ankari technology which drew power from nucleogenic lifeforms, to fuel his ship. Given that the Ankari are included, it seems odd that he is not.

The last part of the Delta Quadrant Sourcebook is dedicated to encounters, both the Borg and with other species in the quadrant. These all make good use of the details presented throughout the supplement. They including being caught at an outpost when a captured member of Species 8472 escapes and begins picking off victims one-by-one; Annorax, the Krenim officer and temporal scientist, seeking asylum with the Player Characters’ vessel; helping with a mass planetary evacuation ahead of the Borg arrival; attending an auction for the means to hack into the command structure of the Borg Collective, but the means turns out to liberated drones; and several more. There is discussion of possible ideas for Delta Quadrant-set campaigns, including a more swashbuckling style with non-Starfleet Player Characters, and also of the dangers of running a Borg-focused campaign. This is primarily because the Borg remain one of the most dangerous threats that Starfleet has encountered and going toe-to-toe with them is likely to end in death, disaster, and assimilation. Instead other means of defeating them are explored, typically involving either reprogramming the Borg systems or hacking into them.

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

Throughout the supplement, the descriptions and game content are supported by a series of in-game documents, reports, diary excerpts, and the like. Some of these feel a bit too long, but their focus, as with the book as a whole, on the Borg and the Delta Quadrant, means they too are focused and better for it. 

If the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook was three books in one, covering the Dominion, the worlds in and around Dominion space, and the Dominion War, then the Delta Quadrant Sourcebook is two books in one. One of them focuses on the Delta Quadrant and the other on the Borg, and with such two narrow foci, the supplement feels all the better for it. The supplement presents only a narrow strip of the Delta Quadrant, leaving vast swathes of space for Game Master to develop of her own, and that is even before considering adding the Borg. The Borg content will, of course, be useful throughout the Star Trek: The Next Generation era of play, but whenever or wherever she decides to bring the Collective into play, it should done with care lest the Player Characters be overwhelmed and outmatched. Overall, the Delta Quadrant Sourcebook nicely brings a slice of Delta Quadrant space to life and launches the Borg Collective as a formidable foe for Star Trek Adventures.

The signal arrived six decades ago. Directed from the Tau Ceti star system, it was proof that humanity was not alone in the universe. There was other intelligent life out there and it wanted to say hello. Not just say hello, but invite us to make contact, to journey to Tau Ceti where five great mega-constructs were being built. This of course, would have been impossible, had it not been for the information encoded within the signal. It advanced the study of mathematics and physics beyond the limits of human understanding, and with it, the means to create a technological and scientific revolution that enabled mankind to colonise the furthest reaches of the Solar System and give it a purpose—contact. Contained within the information was the means to construct engines that would enable a spaceship to become a starship and cut the journey from one star system to the next by a factor of ten. Where the trip to Tau Ceti would have taken thousands of years, now it would take hundreds. It took the whole of humanity over sixty years to build the fleet that would take the journey and carry the hundreds of thousands of crew and passengers to another star system and realise a dream. It was a one-way trip, for those chosen to travel aboard the Generation Fleet would never see their home again, let alone their destination. The selection process would split humanity, nations, and families, as would the journey.

It is this divide that is explored in Signal to Noise, an interstellar epistolary roleplaying game—that is, played out as a series of letters, for two players, published by LunarShadow Designs. It is the prelude to the Dyson Eclipse, a setting which explores the voyage of humanity and its subsequent exploration of mega-structures around a distant star. One player takes the role of the Explorer, one of the lucky few chosen to join Generation Fleet, whilst the other player is the Earther, forced to stay behind as their companion departs the solar system. Via a series of prompts—much like the journalling roleplaying games that include Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure and Numb3r Stations – A Solo RPG, the players will exchange short letters with each other, looking back over their relationship and recent events—either aboard the Generation Fleet or at home—all with a wistfulness that comes from knowing that contact will be lost with each other forever and all they will have is their memories of each other and their pasts. As the game progresses and the Generation Fleet gets ever further from Earth, the ever-increasing time lag and distortion of the signal between ship and planet disrupts the messages, rendering communication and understanding increasingly difficult. How it does this is clever, enabling Signal To Noise to explore loss and regret whilst also putting Communications Theory into practice.

Signal To Noise requires an ordinary deck of playing cards for each player and a text editor, such as Word or Google Docs, which has the ‘Find and Replace’ function. Initially, the Explorer and the Earther establish their relationship and the Explorer the how and the why he is aboard the Generation Fleet and how he feels about it, and the Earther the how and the why he is not aboard the Generation Fleet and how he feels about that. The initial scene takes place before the Generation Fleet and for the Explorer and the Earther it is their last face-to-face meeting before the former leaves. Next, the Explorer sends a message to the Earther saying how much he will miss him, but also how much he is looking forward to the journey. Then the game proper begins. From his hand of cards, each player will draw a single card. The card suit determines which Event Track the event for this exchange of messages is drawn from, whilst its number determines two factors. First, is a personal event, the second is the letters to be replaced in the message that will eventually reach the recipient. As the exchange of messages progresses, the storyline for the Event Track will progress as well as be joined by the storylines from the other Event Tracks, more letters will be replaced in the messages going back and force between Explorer and Earther—representing ever greater communication degradation, and time will increase between messages, growing from a week to several, a month to months, and from one year to ten…
—oOo—
For example, after three turns the Explorer player has drawn the seven of Clubs, the three of Hearts, and on his latest turn, the nine of Clubs. This is the second Clubs card to be drawn and continues its Story Track, which starts with a weak and distorted directional signal being detected coming from an empty region of space. In the second part of the story, the signal is decoded and the shipboard systems begin building a Faster-Than-Light drive, which is only discovered when the drive is completed. The personal event is “You’ve finally read that classic book you always said you would. Did you enjoy it?” The Explorer player sends the following message:David,

Already a month out. We can hardly see the Sun now. In a week or two it will be gone and your messages will be my connection to home. I have spectacular news to tell you and I have amazing news to tell you. You remember I mentioned that the fleet received a signal that we could not understand from a nearby region of empty space? The shipboard systems deciphered it and not only that, but directed the manufacturing systems to build a device. Our engineers are currently analysing it and they reckon it’s some kind of FTL drive. We’re just beginning to work the possibilities. If it is, it could mean we can cut years off the journey to Tau Ceti. It could even mean we can get there and get back again. Who knows? Course, we have to ask ourselves who sent us the instructions for the drive and what they might want in return, but until we switch the thing on or get another message, who knows?

And the amazing news? I finally read Three Men in a Boat. All these years of you saying I should read it and I have to get billions of miles from you to finally do so. Seems appropriate to the journey we are on. Instead of passing villages, we are passing astronomical objects, which have become the topic of conversation when not speculating about the star drive as everyone has taken to calling it. Anyway, it was very amusing and I am glad that I finally listened to you. Your turn next, you should read that Philip K. Dick novel I told you about. I know it is going to be a month before you get this, so happy birthday for seventh. By the time you get my next message, I hope I will have extra news about the star drive. We may even have turned it on and gone somewhere fantastic!

Hear from you as soon as we can.The message is sent, but due to the distance and the signal degradation, Dave receives the following version of the message:
David,

Already a mopth out. We oap hardly see the Sup pow. Ip a week or two it will ke gope apd your messages will ke my ooppeotiop to home. I have speotaoular pews to tell you apd I have amazipg pews to tell you. You rememker I meptioped that the fleet reoeived a sigpal that we oould pot upderstapd from a pearky regiop of empty spaoe? The shipkoard systems deoiphered it apd pot oply that, kut direoted the mapufaoturipg systems to kuild a devioe. Our epgipeers are ourreptly apalysipg it apd they reokop it’s some kipd of FTL drive. We’re just kegippipg to work the possikilities. If it is, it oould meap we oap out years off the jourpey to Tau Oeti. It oould evep meap we oap get there apd get kaok agaip. Who kpows? Oourse, we have to ask ourselves who sept us the ipstruotiops for the drive apd what they might wapt ip returp, kut uptil we switoh the thipg op or get apother message, who kpows?

Apd the amazipg pews? I fipally read Three Mep ip a Koat. All these years of you sayipg I should read it apd I have to get killiops of miles from you to fipally do so. Seems appropriate to the jourpey we are op. Ipstead of passipg villages, we are passipg astropomioal okjeots, whioh have keoome the topio of oopversatiop whep pot speoulatipg akout the star drive as everyope has takep to oallipg it. Apyway, it was very amusipg apd I am glad that I fipally listeped to you. Your turp pext, you should read that Philip K. Diok povel I told you akout. I kpow it is goipg to ke a mopth kefore you get this, so happy kirthday for sevepth. Ky the time you get my pext message, I hope I will have extra pews akout the star drive. We may evep have turped it op apd gope somewhere faptastio!

Hear from you as soop as we oap.—oOo—
Ultimately, Signal To Noise will play out to between seven and ten exchanges of messages at which point time will have passed and the signal will have degraded to the point of incomprehensibility. It will take between two and even five years for messages to travel between Earth and the Generation Fleet. The game will end with the players first reflecting upon the exchange of messages and the story they have told of two lives, far apart, before a debrief together.

It should be no surprise that Signal To Noise was written during lockdown, a roleplaying game entirely built for the exchange of messages via electronic mail. There are alternative rules which suggest it could be done via exchanged and later exchanged and edited video messages, as well as rules for extending play. The format means that it can be played at any distance and only one copy of the roleplaying game is needed as the author has given permission to share the PDF between the two players. As play progresses the game becomes about what we can understand, what meaning we can deduce from the increasingly garbled text from the context of the words and letters we receive at increasingly long intervals. Ultimately, the ‘noise’ of the signal will intrude to the point of incomprehensibility and loss of meaning accompanied by a loss of contact between Explorer and Earther. (As a side note, parallels could be drawn between the loss of communication and eventually, the loss of emotional connection in Signal To Noise and between a couple one of whom is suffering from onset dementia, though obviously it is not designed with that in mind.)

Physically, Signal To Noise is nicely presented. Its play is easy to read and grasp, made all the easier with the example of play included. The artwork is excellent.

Signal To Noise is about the long goodbye. Saying the long goodbye to a loved one or friend, one who is going away never to return, the other one who is staying behind. Within that long goodbye, Signal To Noise combines wistfulness and wonder, about that relationship that is to be lost and the future that is to be reached, and tells a story that will eventually be lost to the void between the stars.

For every Ptolus: City by the Spire or Zweihander: Grim & Perilous Roleplaying or World’s Largest Dungeon or Invisible Sun—the desire to make the biggest or most compressive roleplaying game, campaign, or adventure, there is the opposite desire—to make the smallest roleplaying game or adventure. Reindeer Games’ TWERPS (The World's Easiest Role-Playing System) is perhaps one of the earliest examples of this, but more recent examples might include the Micro Chapbook series or the Tiny D6 series. Yet even these are not small enough and there is the drive to make roleplaying games smaller, often in order to answer the question, “Can I fit a roleplaying game on a postcard?” or “Can I fit a roleplaying game on a business card?” And just as with roleplaying games, this ever-shrinking format has been used for scenarios as well, to see just how much adventure can be packed into as little space as possible. Recent examples of these include The Isle of Glaslyn, The God With No Name, and Bastard King of Thraxford Castle, all published by Leyline Press.

The Pocket Sized Perils series uses the same A4 sheet folded down to A6 as the titles from Leyline Press, or rather the titles from Leyline Press use the same A4 sheet folded down to A6 sheet as Pocket Sized Perils series. Funded via a Kickstarter campaign as part of the inaugural ZineQuest—although it debatable whether the one sheet of paper folded down counts as an actual fanzine—this is a series of six mini-scenarios designed for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but actually rules light enough to be used with any retroclone, whether that is the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game or Old School Essentials. Just because it says ‘5e’ on the cover, do not let that dissuade you from taking a look at this series and see whether individual entries can be added to your game. The mechanics are kept to a minimum, the emphasis is on the Player Characters and their decisions, and the actual adventures are fully drawn and sketched out rather than being all text and maps.
Call of the Catacombs is the third entry in the Pocket Sized Perils series following on from An Ambush in Avenwood and The Beast of Bleakmarsh. Designed for Third Level Player Characters, the scenario is a classic dungeon crawl, or rather a classic sewer crawl in the style of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, though still very much in the realm of Dungeons & Dragons. This because the scenario involves a particular monster—the humble kobold. The scenario is set in a city with extensive sewers, which the city authorities have contracted out the maintenance and operation of to a tribe of kobolds. Which is a little odd, if nevertheless, very forward and trusting of them. Unfortunately, the city’s wells of late have been unfit to drink from and when the inspectors sent to find out why have not returned, the city in desperation turns to freelancers—that is, the Player Characters—to investigate. Accompanying them is a guide to the sewers, a kobold called Scrip, who at certain chance of exploding and inflicting damage on everyone nearby. If there is a problem with Call of the Catacombs, it is this exploding kobold. Why? Why waste a perfectly good NPC that the Dungeon Master will have fun playing?

Call of the Catacombs is a linear adventure. It will take the Player Characters and their guide into the sewers, to the pumping station, and beyond. There are a few clues to be found along the way, such as kobolds emptying barrels of a strange liquid into the water flow and a set-up involving rats being milked! There is a diversion into some tunnels if the Player Characters want, these very nicely presented as a wheel that the Dungeon Master could almost spin to determine the random encounter were it not for the fact that the it is simply printed on heavy paper stock. The final two encounters of the scenario are on the back of all of the pages of the fold-out Pocket-Sized Peril. Here the Player Characters will discover what has been going on and who the culprit is, and face off against the creature in a big confrontation. For the Dungeon Master, there is an explanation, stats for all of the adventure’s monsters—including two new ones, and a random encounter table. The latter is not located in the place to run the scenario, the Dungeon Master needing to flip back and forth between the current location where the Player Characters and the last page. Ordinarily, this would not be an issue in a straightforward book, but the folded format of this scenario means that it is just that more awkward.

Physically, Call of the Catacombs is very nicely presented, being more drawn than actually written. It has a cartoonish sensibility to it which partially obscures the degree of peril to be found within the sewers and nearby tunnels. There is a sense of humour too in the details of the drawings, obviously more for the benefit of the Dungeon Master than her players. The combination of having been drawn and the cartoonish artwork with the high quality of the paper stock also gives Call of the Catacombs a physical feel which feels genuinely good in the hand. Its small size means that it is very easy to transport.

Call of the Catacombs presents a simple little mystery, that is ultimately, too simple. The adventure really only consists of six locations, so the exploration of it is never going to be a challenge. There is scope to expand it if the Dungeon Master wants, but it is not really necessary unless she wants to add more clues. Ultimately, the simplicity of the adventure design and the lack of exploratory, if not combat, challenge means that Call of the Catacombs is a filler dungeon, one that can easily be prepared with minimum time and effort, and then added to a town or city in the Dungeon Master’s campaign. Once done, it can also be played in a single session as well. Unsophisticated, if well presented, unlike the previous The Beast of Bleakmarsh , which was sophisticated given the size and format, but underdeveloped, Call of the Catacombs presents a very straightforward, but very easy to use, scenario. Call of the Catacombs has the same charming physicality of the other entries in the Pocket Sized Perils series, but will need more effort—though not too much effort—than those others to get the fullest out of the scenario.

The Golden Age of Industry has dawned. As skyscrapers—and profits—soar to new heights, now is the time to build your fortune . Launch companies and invest in new industries to earn capital. Buy shares of burgeoning businesses and reap the rewards of lucrative mergers. If you play your cards right, you’ll forge a legacy worthy of the title Big Boss. Big Boss is a radical departure for Funko Games. The publisher is best known for its generally family friendly, more mainstream titles that provide a combination of intellectual property and thematic game play which is attractively packaged and designed. Big Boss is a classic Euro-style board game about setting up companies, expanding them, purchasing shares and increasing their value, and occasionally, merging companies. It also has a bit of history attached to it. Big Boss is designed by Wolfgang Kramer, best known—along with Michael Kiesling—for the Spiel des Jahres-winning board games, Tikal and Torres. It is specifically based on Acquire, the classic board game of multi-player mergers and acquisitions, designed by Sid Sackson and published by 3M in 1964, and so highly regarded that it has been republished multiple times. Unlike Acquire, which has been available in English numerous times over its near sixty-year history, Big Boss was previously only available in German, having been published in 1994. Now available in English for the first time, Big Boss is designed for two to six players, aged ten and over, and plays in about an hour to about an hour-and-a-half.
Big Boss consists of a square board, plain and austere, but marked with a track which snakes around in a loop, running from one to seventy-two. Each number has a corresponding card in the Industry Card deck. In play, these numbers indicate where a player can found a company, and if the company occupies the right numbers where a player can expand the company along the track. The other cards in Big consist of the Level cards, the Share Cards, and Player Cards. There are eleven Share cards in each of the game’s eight companies—these are colour coded and have fantastically aspirational names such as Kingdom, Lunar, and Oasis, as well as a matching counter for the Share price Mat. The Level cards are used to expand any company on the board. The Player Cards are marked with two Radio Towers, which each player has two of at game’s start. The Radio Towers are added to a company headquarters to give a player a bonus of three shares. The Share Price Mat is numbered from one to fifty and is used to track each company’s share value over the course of the game. There is also a big stack of money tokens, ranging in value from one million to five hundred million, a big pile of building pieces, and eight headquarter pieces. The building pieces are black and not only fit into the track on the board, but stack on top of each other. The eight headquarter pieces correspond to the eight companies, sit atop the building pieces in play, and each have a slot for a Radio Tower.

At the beginning of the game, each player receives a hand of ten Industry Cards, two Radio Towers, and forty million in money tokens. Game play is simple. On a turn, a player has two options—buy a card or play a card. He can buy an Industry Card—either from the face up Industry Cards or from the Industry Card deck, or he can buy a Level card. He can play an Industry Card or a Level Card. The Industry Card is played to found a company or expand a company corresponding to the number on the Industry Card. The Level Card is used to expand a company by adding a building piece on top of an existing building piece in any company. When they are played to expand a company, both Industry Card and Level Card will also increase a company’s Share Price. Increasing the level of a Company will increase the Share Price by a greater amount than expanding the Company along the track. A Level Card also gives a player choice in which Company he chooses to expand, whereas an Industry Card does not. Consequently, a Level Card is more expensive than an Industry Card.

Once a player has expanded or founded a Company, its Share Price increases and the player earns money based on the new Share Price. He has then has two optional actions. One is to buy two shares, either from the same company or two different ones, and the other is to add a Radio Tower to the company that he just founded or expanded. He has two Radio Towers, with the second being more expensive to place than the first. Lastly, if a player cannot buy or play a card, he can either sell Shares at their current value or simply pass and take no action.

Initially, companies must be three spaces apart, but as they expand, they grow closer together and then, if they are connected, they merge. The larger company—the one with greater presence on the board and greater Share Price—will take over the smaller one. Anyone who has shares in the smaller company will receive a pay-out, the smaller company is eliminated from the game, and the share price of the larger company is increased by the share price of the smaller, now eliminated company. Eliminated along with the company are its shares, so although there is an immediate pay out, there will be none at the end of the game because neither shares nor company are in the game. So, mergers have a long-term effect as well as a short term one. They are also inevitable since there are seventy-two locations on the board and seventy-two corresponding Industry Cards, and whilst not every Industry card will necessarily be played, most will be and they can only be played the once.

Big Boss ends either when every player has decided to pass or more likely, all of the building pieces have been placed. Everyone receives money according to their shares, their Radio Towers, and the Industry and Level Cards they have their hands. The player with the highest value is the winner.

A notable feature of Big Boss is that the Share Price for any company always goes up, never down. Another aspect is that whilst share and profit games can be dry in tone and feel, but the addition of the building pieces gives Big Boss a physical presence on the table and in play. Although the Share Price of a company is tracked on the Share Price Mat, the players can see it grow, literally physically as the game progresses. Consequently, whilst the use of the building pieces is used as an abstract representation of the company’s Share Price, that use actually does the reverse. Play of Big Boss is quick and easy, the rules being easy to grasp and understand, but once the initial flurry of Industry Cards have been played from the players’ hands to first found and then expand companies, the game can become quite intense as players decide whether they want to expand out along the track in the hope of merging, focus on adding Levels to a Company to increase its Share Price and make it stronger should it face a merger, or perhaps a mixture of the two. The more expensive Level Cards will a player more options, but the cheaper Industry Cards restrict and focus a player’s choice. Equally important are the Share Cards, which enable a player to invest in a company even if he has been unable to directly expand the company.

One strong feature of Big Boss is the rulebook. It is well written, explaining how to play in simple fashion, enabling play to begin quickly even after opening the box for the first time. It also includes clear examples of play and play tips. In addition, the rulebook includes a history of Big Boss, rules for playing the original version of the game as published in 1994, and a section of ‘Frequently Asked Questions’. The original version of Big Boss is slightly more complex and less forgiving in its set-up and play.

Physically, Big Boss is has decent production values beyond the rulebook. The Industry Cards are nicely illustrated even though the number on them is the only thing that actually matters in play and everything has an art deco feel to it, including the eight headquarter pieces, so that you feel like you are building the skyscrapers across the skyline of nineteen thirties New York. One issue is the bulk of the components, especially the building pieces, which come in their own bag. They take up a lot of room in the box and since there is no tray inert, they can knock everything about in the box and that is despite the fact that they do not quite fit.

The game is explicitly based on the Sid Sackson classic Acquire and shares many similarities to that game though mergers are not as prevalent or as necessarily crucial in Big Boss. The main differences between the two games include the more visually satisfying three-dimensional aspect of Big Boss, and the existence of a strong monetary incentive to expand companies that you do not control.

Big Boss is a chance to own a Wolfgang Kramer that has never been seen in English before. The question is, is it worth it. The answer is yes, as Big Boss has a great pedigree, being an alternate, streamlined, and more forgiving version of Acquire. As a competitive game of shares and company growth Big Boss is a good introduction to the financial them in board games which does not get too complex, nor too dry, and with the physical presence of the company buildings, looks just about right.

 I love shared universes. I love shared multi-verses. But anytime I can see a collaboration of various creatives to bring new life to something old or bring to life something new, then I am all for it.

Last week, I shared how both TTim Knight over at Hero Press and Pun Issac over at Halls of the Nephilim brought to life my evil villain, The Refrigerator for their respective Superheroe universes. 

I'll play a little in their sandboxes, too and bring over one of my iconics to their worlds. Today I am visiting Knight City with one of my favorite superheroes Taryn, the Teen Wtich.

Tim is using a modified version of Villains & Vigilantes. I am not 100% clear on all his house rules, but I can't go wrong with a by-the-book super. 

Taryn and Mojo, created in ePic Character Generator

To recap, Taryn is the teen daughter of my witch Larina. I wanted a character specifically for supers that had a magical background. My comics reading through the 1980s was largely Teen Titans and X-Men (so...like everyone else) and I wanted a character that would fit into those sorts of tales. 

Her father is a faerie lord, and his relationship with Taryn and Larina is...complicated. He will feature in other plots, but I am working hard NOT to make this a Trigon-Raven retread right now. Scáthaithe would not really be interested in taking over the Earth. Bringing more magic to it? Yeah, that might work. But really, I think his issue would be for Taryn to stay in the Faerie Realms.

While I always considered Taryn a Millenial/GenZ girl, she is named after "Taryn" from the Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Which is my favorite of the series. She is pretty much equal parts Raven from Teen Titans, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service. She has a thing for flying fast and dating guys with fast Japanese motorcycles.

This is an update/revision of her Mighty Protector stats.

Teen Witch
Taryn "Nix" Nichols

Power Level: 6
Age: 17; Ht: 5' 3"; Wt: 114lb; Gender: F
Basic Hits: 3
Side: Good

STR: 9
END: 12
INT: 15
AG: 12
CHA: 17

Hit Points: 7
Power Points: 48
Carry Capacity: 110 lbs
Basic HTH Damage: 1d3
Healing Rate: 0.9/day
Move: 33"

Damage Modifier: +2
Accuracy: +1
ATT: +2
DEF: ??
PSYCHIC DEF: ??
Detect Hidden/Danger: 12% / 16%

ABILITIES/POWERS

WITCH BOLT: Power Blast, Range 54, 1d20 dmg
TELEKINESIS: 540 lbs 
FLIGHT: 108 MPH
HEIGHTENED SENSES: Detect magical auras
MAGIC SPELLS: Takes a full action to prepare

GEAR

Broom. Prop, needed to fly.

Cat. Her black cat is named Mojo.

LEGAL STATUS: Minor of the United States with no criminal record.

What is Taryn doing in Knight City? No idea! Maybe Tim will let me know!

 Going back to Room 2, and taking the first exit on the right leads to another long hallway. 

This hallway is long and magical lights spring to life as the party walks by. 

There are many open rooms to both sides of the hall, eight (8) on each side. The rooms are about 40' by 40' each. Whatever these rooms were in the past they are empty and long since looted and destroyed.  

There are some rats of the normal sorts and large spiders, but there is a distinct lack of any animal life here.  

The end of this hallway is open with an eerie glow.

If I had to make a guess on what was one of the most controversial topics in Dungeons & Dragons games since the beginning, I would not say it was the inclusion of demons, devils, or monsters that you can just randomly kill, or who contributed more; Gary or Dave, or even TSR's early litigious past. 

No. Going back, the most hotly debated topic then and now is Alignment.

Reading some old Dragon magazines, Usenet posts, or modern social media, people still love to argue about alignment. I have read a lot of self-proclaimed experts on D&D that get alignment completely wrong both in terms of use and how it should be applied. 

I have used alignment in D&D and some other games, but most games don't even have it and they are not less off for it. 

And of late, I am thinking that D&D doesn't need it either.

I am not saying that "Evil" and "Good" do not exist in the game in some moral gray space. There is alignment as an idea, a universal moral concept, and alignment as a game mechanic. As a game mechanic, that time has now passed.

Cases in point.

I played a Lawful Good paladin in the AD&D 1st ed days. That's redundant because the only paladins were lawful good. However, he traveled with a Neutral Evil Assassin, which was explicitly against the rules. We solved that issue by having a prophecy that these two had to travel and adventure together because their fates were linked and they could not kill each other. What were their fates? Well we only found out later on (and there may have been some retconning) that the Paladin's son and the Assassin's daughter would fall in love.  In this case, the rule about alignment got in the way of a good role-playing opportunity. 

As time went on, the assassin was less and less evil. I eventually concluded that he was Chaotic Neutral with some evil tendencies. And my paladin became more and more Lawful Autocratic than anything. Rules have to be followed because they are The Rules.  Alignment never served them well despite the restrictions both classes had on alignment. Yes, the hard-core rule lawyers will point out I wasn't playing them right or some other nonsense to justify their memorization of rules, but that is the same problem my Paladin had. Rules for the sake of Ruling and nothing else. 

Another issue. I am playing the Baldur's Gate 3 video game now and I love it. While there is a Detect Good/Evil spell, nothing in the game is alignment-specific. 

There is a Hobgoblin named Blurg, a member of the Society Of Brilliance, an order of sages who want to study and bring culture and civilization to the Underdark. Talk to him about it, and he is obviously intelligent and wants to study the rich ecological conditions in the Underdark and it's vast richnesses that could allow everyone to live together harmoniously.  He even has a friend, a Mindflayer named Omeluum, who wants to help the PCs. Both are from "evil" species, yet they do not perform an evil action. Indeed the actions they do perform can best be described as good or at worst self-serving. So maybe Chaotic Good? Neutral is what the Forgotten Realms Wiki has him as.

What about Karlach the tiefling? She has killed, but yet she is one of the nicest, happiest characters in the game. Shadowheart worships the evil Goddess Shar, she should be evil by D&D rules, yet she dislikes needless violence and has a soft spot in her heart for kids and animals. And SPOILER: You can also convert her to the Goddess Selûne, effectively changing her cleric's alignment with no loss of powers. Granted Shar and Selûne have a complicated relationship.

At no point in character creation did I list an alignment. 

Even in the image above, the representative characters don't fit all that well all the time. Darth Vader was redeemed in the end. The Doctor has murdered millions even entire species. Captain America though might fit Lawful Good most of the time.

D&D 4 added the Unaligned alignment and made Succubi Lawful evil. D&D 3 made Orcs Chaotic Evil. D&D has published entire books where NPCs never had an alignment listed. 

I use alignment, but I am seeing less and less need for it in my games. Spells like "Know Alignment" and "Protection from Good/Evil" now will rely more on hostile intent.  

Now, Ill likely keep the Outer Planes as they are and will have to figure that out someday, but for now I am content ditching the whole system.

 The double doors are locked and magicked. To open a thief will need to pass a successful open locks roll and a dispel magic or knock spell must be employed.

Inside is a treasure store of magic items.  The number of magic items remaining is determined by 2d6+1. 

Use Table X to determine the sort of magic items found.

September is here, and every year at this time, I say, "how in the hell did that happen???"

I have a snowblower to fix, veggies to harvest, and family to visit this month, so posting might be light.

I also want to get in some Old-School game reviews and discussions, plus I have some other things I want to clear off my plate before October hits.

This year I am joining in the 31 Days of Halloween Movie Challenge from Pun Issac over at Hall of the Nephilim. 

Here is the text version:

Daily Prompt

1. First Time Watch
2. Reanimated
3. Mother Nature Strikes Back
4. Foreign Language
5. What A Twist
6. Anthology
7. Teen Angst
8. Horror Comedy
9. Slow Burn
10. Body Horror
11. For The Kiddos
12. Black and White
13. Inspired By True Events
14. We Are the Weirdos Mister
15. Pretty Blood Suckers
16. Something Fishy
17. Underrated
18. Clown(s)
19. Folk Horror
20. Monstrous Blood Suckers
21. Summer Camp
22. Howl at the Moon
23. Best Soundtrack
24. Slasher
25. Found Footage
26. New Movie
27. Favorite Horror Director
28. Sci-Fi Horror
29. Man is the Real Monster
30. Remake Is Better Than the Original
31. All Hallows Eve

 Alternates

• Torture Porn
• Blaxploitation
• Video Game Movie
• Cults
• Best Gratuitous Nudity 

A few of these might end up being re-watches.  I wanted to do all Spanish language horror this year, but I might not get to that. I am not as far along in my Spanish as I would have hoped, to be honest.

Speaking of October, Horror and Halloween.

Here is some new art for my next book, I need to get a move on it to get it done.

https://www.billyblueart.com/

Best get back to writing.

 This Gallery has four major exists, two on the right and two on the left.  Taking the first on the left takes the party down a slightly down-sloping hall.

This long hallway has many magical sigils that glow every 10 feet on the ceiling.  Stepping into the light of a sigil has a random effect.

The following effects occur unless the character makes a save vs. Spells.  Roll a 1d20 for the effects of each sigil. There are 10 total sigils.

1. The character is granted the power to cast a spell of their choice once.
2. The character is granted a +2 bonus to all saving throws for 1 hour.
3. The character is healed of all damage.
4. The character is surrounded by a protective aura that grants them resistance to all damage for 1 minute.
5. The character is cursed with a -2 penalty to all attack rolls for 1 hour.
6. The character is blinded for 1d4 rounds.
7. The character is deafened for 1d4 rounds.
8. The character is paralyzed for 1d4 rounds.
9. The character is poisoned for 1d4 hours.
10. The character's non-magical equipment is destroyed.
11. The character is trapped in a magical force field for 1d4 hours.
12. The character is attacked by a swarm of insects.
13. The character is attacked by a pack (1d4+1) of wolves.
14. The character is attacked by a group (1d6+1) of goblins.
15. The character is attacked by a troll.
16. The character is attacked by a dragon (this is actually an illusion, a second save vs. Spell to disbelieve).
17. The character is granted a limited wish.
18. The character is granted the power to fly for 1 hour.
19. The character is granted the power to understand all languages for 1 hour.
20. The character is granted the power to see in the dark for 1 hour.

A successful save means nothing happens, positive or negative. 

This hall ends in a large double door.

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, th Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

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What is it?
Caravanserai is a mini-campaign and supplement for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha in which the Player Characters establish operate a Caravanserai, a combined inn and rest stop on a trade route, the likes of which they will have probably stayed at during their adventures.

It is a sixty-one page, full colour 3.50 MB PDF.

The layout is mostly tidy and the artwork excellent.
Where is it set?Caravanserai is set at Two Top village, home to the Red Hand clan in southern Sartar, just south of Wilmskirk near the Heortland road. However, notes and suggestions are given if the Game Master wants to set it elsewhere.

It is set after the events of the Dragonrise.
Who do you play?
Caravanserai is designed for a group of adventurers looking to settle down, or at least establish a base of operations. Ideally, one of the Player Characters should be an Issaries merchant, who should possess or have access to 2,500 Lunars.
What do you need?
Caravanserai requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the Glorantha Bestiary, and The Book of Red Magic. RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment is a necessity. Plunder may also be useful as will Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers and Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses.
What do you get?Caravanserai begins with the Player Characters on the road, stopping for the night at a caravanserai, that one of their number, ideally an Issaries merchant, has fond memories of as a busy, but pleasant place to stay. Unfortunately, in the wake of the Dragonrise, the fleeing Lunars burned the place to the ground and killed its owner, Korister. When Korister’s ghost comes the Issaries merchant in a dream, begging him to rebuild it, the Player Character should have an inkling of what a money-making opportunity he is being given should he and his companions decide to agree to the ghost’s demands. This sets up a mundane, but nevertheless interesting campaign framework as the Player Characters negotiate with the local clan for permission, arrange for the building of the new caravanserai, hire staff—old and new, furnish the caravanserai, and more. The fun bit of the more is deciding what to do with the ghost of Korister. One option would be to exorcise the ghost, but the fun option would be to bind Korister as the caravanserai’s wyter, keeping him as a permanent, but incorporeal presence at the inn. Essentially, what this sets up is the Gloranthan equivalent of the BBC and CBS television series, Ghosts. It also shifts the way in which the Player Characters can become involved in adventures. They will come to the Player Characters rather than the Player Characters going out to find them, the equivalent of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine versus Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The first part of Caravanserai guides the Game Master through the set-up process of the Player Characters having to make decisions of getting the buildings designed and built, who to hire, and what to outfit the place with. There are consequences if the Player Characters get it wrong, but in the long term these are minor and being located near a major trade route helps. This also requires some accounting, and Caravanserai actually comes with its own Excel sheet to help the Game Master and players alike track their characters’ monies. Fortunately, double-entry bookkeeping is not required, but the third end of the supplement consists of a guide to building and outfitting the caravanserai, what it consists of, how to make a profit and where that profit comes from, along with a guide to using the included ‘Caravanserai Annual Profit Worksheet’. The fact that it includes the latter may be more than enough for some players to want to avoid this supplement, but the degree of detail enforces the aim of Caravanserai in wanting to give the Player Characters the opportunity to have real lives and closer ties to Gloranthan society and economy.
In between the set-up and the guide are two scenarios. The first, ‘Epidemic’ deals with an outbreak of wasting disease which threatens both the Red Hand clan and the operation of the caravanserai. As the outbreak threatens the caravanserai’s staff, the Player Characters are pulled into clan affairs in a desperate attempt to stop both the disease and word of it from spreading, locate its source, and thus preventing the closure of the caravanserai. Like the set-up, this will require some decent roleplaying upon the part of the players if their characters are to solve the mystery and resolve the situation. The second scenario is ‘The Bad Guest’. It is a classic set-up for an inn. A guest dies at the inn, but lacks sufficient funds to pay for his stay. He did behind, though, a treasure map! If it is accurate, its contents could pay for the man’s stay and probably have funds leftover. Since this adventure is inspired by Treasure Island, it involves pirates—in this case Wolf Pirates—and betrayal, but the treasure is worth it.
Although ‘The Bad Guest’ is a decent scenario, it does take the Player Characters away from their newly built base of operations, which partly undermines the point of the scenario. It would have been nice to have been given further scenarios, or at least adventures hooks, which take place in the environments of the inn and Red Hand Clan land, or come to the inn, thus pulling the Player Characters further into the community. Similarly, whilst a lot of the NPCs are given stats for and if not, at least a good thumbnail description, there are not many in the way of stats or details of visiting customers. Also lacking are any floorplans for the caravanserai. The supplement does suggest allowing the players to draw what they want as long as it is too not unreasonable and allow that, but some sample floorplans would have been useful. As would some sample visitors and patrons. In the long term, some more adventures would also help to keep the adventurers at their inn. Another issue not fully explored is what roles the Player Characters might take at the inn when not adventuring.
Is it worth your time?Yes—Caravanserai is an interesting supplement which showcases another side of Glorantha and makes it both playable and interesting—especially for an Issaries merchant.No—Caravanserai is just too mundane, plus it involves accounting, and who needs that when we are wanderers and adventurers?Maybe—Caravanserai is perhaps a bit too ordinary an idea for some players and their characters, but the adventures can easily be repurposed and the Player Characters could be working for a money man, instead of one of their number being the money man.

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: The StrawmanPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: A Keith Applegarth

Setting: Modern day PennsylvaniaProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Fifteen page, 4.68 MB Full Colour PDF (plus extras)
Elevator Pitch: The scarecrow doesn’t just scare crowsPlot Hook: A serial killer lose in one valley?
Plot Support: Five pre-generated Investigators, seven maps, thirteen NPCs, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Plain
Pros# Can be adapted to other time periods# Huge scope for development by the Keeper# Homichlophobia# Formidokophobia# Fundophobia
Cons# Needs a good edit# Uninteresting maps# No handouts# No narrative structure# No clues
Conclusion# Potential for classic Americana Scarecrow horror# Severe lack of development in terms of investigation and narrative leaves the Keeper literally ‘Clueless’

Room 4 can be found on either side of the entrance of the Gallery of Room 2.

Room 4a is to the left and Room 4b is to the right.

These rooms appear to be some sort of guardroom or wayroom. 

It is long abandoned. There are some basic weapons here; a dagger, a sword, and a few arrows.