Original Roleplaying Concepts
The weekend before last I drove down to my parent's house to see my dad before his 92nd birthday (his doctor told him he'll likely live to a 100) and my sister for her 51st birthday. Picked up a few books my sister had for me, mostly older occult books. But driving through the state and back got me thinking about some more local horrors. I mean there HAS to be something interesting hiding in all those corn and soybean fields. I also thought about how these creatures would work well in all the occult games I was talking about last week.
Another thing is I love Bigfoot legends. I don't believe any of them for a moment, but they are so great for games. Bringing these all together really helps capture the feel of the games I wanted to play in the early 80s. So for that D&D-loving kid in Central Illinois back in the 1980s who loved Bigfoot stories, this is for you. And by "you" I mean "me."
Illinois Hominids
When one hears about Illinois the first thing that comes to mind are cornfields, Chicago, and spectacularly corrupt politicians. One doesn't typically think of 10 ft. tall hominids. But for the residents of Illinois, these creatures are not unheard of. They have been spotted all over the state from the northernmost points to the far south point, nearly 400 miles.
In nearly all cases these creatures try to avoid humanity. Their great size and obvious strength would make them a threat to any group of investigators, but thankfully they have so far shown no particular desire to attack.
Illinois Hominids like all species of sasquatches are large, nocturnal creatures that walk upright like humans. It appears to be omnivorous but its preference is for vegetables and fruits found in the wild.
For this posting, I am going with "Illinois Hominids" as opposed to "Bigfoots" or "Sasquatches" since both of those terms are more associated with creatures of the Pacific Northwest. "Skunk Apes" are more commonly referring to creatures in the Southern United States.
I am also grouping creatures together that may, or may not, be classified as Sasquatches in other Bigfoot lore. Most of these creatures have only been reported once.
Dogmen of McHenry County
These creatures are 7" tall creatures that appear to be some sort of simian/canine/hominid hybrid. Their defining feature is their dog-like faces. Similar creatures have been sighted in adjoining Cook County, and as far south as Christian (nearly 250 miles to the south) and Woodford Counties. They are noted for their howls in the night. Many scholars classify these as separate sorts of creatures.
Cole Hollow Road Monster
Found in central Illinois this creature has been sighted near Peoria, IL, and might be related to the similar Farmer City Monster found further to the east. This creature is grayish in color and stands 7"-8" tall. It is quite reclusive and can hide in natural environments with 95% effectiveness and can never be surprised.
Swamp Hominids of Southern Illinois
Several creatures occupy the lands at the far end of the state. Unlike the other hominids featured here these usually range to about 10' tall and tend to live near swamps or other wetlands. They also have a smell that can be detected for a 100 yards, any closer and investigators suffer a -3 (or roll with disadvantage) on any attacks. They share this feature with the Skunk Ape of the southern part of the country.
These creatures include the Tuttle Bottoms Monster of Harrisburg, IL which also has an elongated snout. Nearby Enfield in White County also has The Enfield Horror, a fast-moving hominid.
The Abominable Swamp Slob, also known as the A.S.S., are found in Jackson County near the Shawnee National forest. It can emmit an ear-shattering shriek. The most famous of these is the Murphysboro Mud Monster and "Sassy" the Shannee Sasquatch.
RPG Stat Blocks
Illinois HomindsStr: 22 (+5) Dex: 18 (+3) Con: 19 (+3) Int: 10 (+0) Wis: 13 (+1) Cha: 8 (-1)
The hominid can attack with two fists or throw boulders, much like a giant. The hominid can also howl. This howl causes fear (as per the spell) to all that hear it who fail a saving throw vs. Paralysis. Those that fail the save are too frightened to attack or move.
Illinois Hominids
Illinois HominidsNo. Appearing: 1-3
AC: 6
Move: 40ft.
Hit Dice: 6-8
Special: 2 attacks (fist) Strength, Camouflage, Howl (cause fear), Odor
XP VALUE: 240 (6HD) 480 (7HD) 960 (8 HD)
Camouflage: The hominid can hide with 90% effectiveness.
Howl: The howl of the hominids causes a fear reaction to any that hear it. This is treated like the cause fear spell. This happens only when the hominid is first heard, subsequent encounters with the same creature do not have this fear effect.
Odor: Anyone coming within 10 feet of a hominid must succeed at a Constitution saving throw or be at -3 to all actions due to the overpowering stench.
Illinois HominidsDogmen of McHenry County 6HD
Cole Hollow Road Monster, Farmer City Monsters 7HD
Tuttle Bottoms Monster, Enfield Terror, Abominable Swamp Slob 8HD
Special Abilities: Howl causes fear. Stench causes disadvantages to attacks. Very strong, +4 to all attacks.
Illinois Hominids avoid the cities at all costs.
Links
Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the 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.
—oOo—
What is it?Who do you play?
Player Characters of all types could play this scenario, but an Ernalda worshipper or priestess many want to become involved, whilst any Chaos-hating character or character capable of fighting Chaos will be useful.
If Alien: The Roleplaying Game is missing anything, it is two things. First, further details of the United States Colonial Marine Corps, who it is, what it does, what equipment it fields across space, and more, since after all, the marines feature so prominently in Aliens, the second of the two films to fundamentally inform and inspire the Alien: The Roleplaying Game. Second, it does not have an example of its Campaign mode of play. Alien: The Roleplaying Game is designed to be played in two different modes, Cinematic and Campaign. Cinematic mode is designed to emulate the drama of a film set within the Alien universe, and so emphasises high stakes, faster, more brutal play, and will be deadlier, whilst the Campaign mode is for longer, more traditional play, still brutal, if not deadly, but more survivable. To date, the only scenarios available for Alien: The Roleplaying Game—Chariot of the Gods (also found in the Alien Starter Set) and Destroyer of Worlds, are written for the Cinematic mode. All that changes with Alien: The Roleplaying Game – Colonial Marines Operations Manual.
Enter the Collection: An Adventure for the Essence20 Roleplaying System is Renegade Game Studios’ offering for Free RPG Day in 2021. It is the first scenario designed using the publisher’s Essence20 Roleplaying System and is written to be used with any of three roleplaying games it is planning based in turn on the G.I. Joe, Power Rangers, and Transformers intellectual properties. The scenario provides a little investigation and interaction, a fair degree of stealth, and plenty of action, but it is not specifically written for any one of those three roleplaying games. This has its advantages and its disadvantages, all of which stem from the fact that the scenario is generic in its set-up, its plotting, and its tone. Now whilst that means it can be run easily with the G.I. Joe Roleplaying Game, Power Rangers Roleplaying Game, or the Transformers Roleplaying Game, it also means that it could run with almost any other modern set roleplaying game. It also means that it feels like a Saturday morning cartoon, but though is very much what Renegade Game Studios is aiming for with this scenario and the three roleplaying games in general.
Cubicle7 Entertainment Ltd. offered two titles for Free RPG Day 2021. One is Going Underground, an adventure for the forthcoming version of Victoriana, the roleplaying game of intrigue, sorcery, and steam for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. The other is Reap and Sow, a scenario and quick-start for Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound. This is the roleplaying game in which the Soulbound, heroes chosen by the gods, stand defiantly against the horrors that plague the Mortal Realms, tasked with preventing a new age of Chaos, Death, and Destruction. Sigmar’s Storm has already stopped the hordes of Chaos once and given the people of the Mortal Realms hope and time to plant the first seeds of civilisation and establish the new bastions of Order. Yet Chaos has not gone quietly. The Necroquake saw the undead legions of Nagash rise up to shatter the newly founded bastions of law and order. If civilisation is to survive, the Soulbound must face roving bands of cannibals, legions of undead, and hordes of daemons in a desperate struggle for survival.I have some great-looking Kickstarters for your consideration going into the weekend. So's let get at it!
SURVIVE THIS!! Dark Places & Demogorgons RPG Hardcover
This is not for a new book but rather a hardcover option for the fantastic Dark Places & Demogorgons RPG. For this the original red hardcover art from the first Kickstart is available and the blue softcover art in hardcover format.
I have the blue in softcover and the red in hardcover, so I have to admit that the blue hardcover is very, very tempting.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/r-rook/moonlight-on-roseville-beach?ref=theotherside
Now this "Queer Game of Disco & Cosmic Horror" has my attention. I have known the designer, Richard Ruane, for many, many years. We have worked together in our days jobs at various companies for a while. He does great work. He was one of the developers for White Wolf and worked a lot on their Mummy line.
From the Kickstarter:
Moonlight on Roseville Beach: A Queer Game of Disco & Cosmic Horror is a tabletop roleplaying game that brings together the supernatural investigations and monster hunting of the weird fiction tales of the 20s and 30s from pulp magazines like Weird Tales with the queer romance and adventure of the 50s, 60s, and 70s novelists like Ann Bannon and Joseph Hansen.I would like to say "I was there" when Richard came up with this idea. He was talking a lot about Ann Bannon online so I asked about her stories. As per our normal conversations, the topic went to RPGs.
In any case, I backed this one and threw in some extra cash so copies can be donated.
Red Shoes: An Urban Fantasy Novel
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/red-shoes-an-urban-fantasy-novel#/
This is not a game, but a new book Satyros Phil Brucato one of the lead designers (or really THE designer) of White Wolf's Mage.
From the Indiegogo page.
After a friend’s mysterious death, Genét Shilling delves into the world of Red Shoes, a drug whose effects alter time, space, and form. That journey challenges all she thought she knew about herself and reveals how strange her world truly is.
Propelled by wide-eyed attitude and inspired by its author’s experiences with music, dance and metaphysical subcultures, Red Shoes presents an urban fantasy tale set in the Appalachian town of Riverhaven, where magic hides just out of sight.
Time warps. Modern bards. Sexual confusion. Grief and revenge.
A dance begins.
The dance of Red Shoes.
It sounds fantastic.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/620209721/lylith-and-mara-comic-book?ref=theotherside
Now this is right up my alley!
From the Kickstarter:
“LYLITH & MARA” are twin sisters and the original Vampire and Succubus from who all other vampire races were evolved from. Born and raised in “The Dark”, their destiny seemed clear cut until on the age of their “becoming” when something within them stirs. A conflict between power and desires struggles with a morality of a soul they didn’t realized existed.This also looks like a lot of fun. Sure some of the cover art is cheesy, but I think it is cheesy, or cheese cakey, on purpose. So that is fine.
It looks like something that would work well with my Mara witch book.
The Dark Heart of Roskem is an adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Critical Kit, it is designed for a party of four to five Player Characters of Fourth Level and is intended to be played in a single session, either as a one-shot or as part of an ongoing campaign. It involves disappearances from a village, a nearby vile swamp, and dark, ancient magic. The scenario involves some interaction and investigation, but primarily emphasises combat and exploration.The Dark Heart of Roskem takes place along the banks of the river Roskem, in and around the fishing settlement of Myristat, and then in the Roskem swamp. It opens as the Player Characters are on the Scar Road travelling towards to the village, which is best known for the Roskite, the giant freshwater lobsters that are farmed along the river’s banks. Suddenly, a man lurches out of the swamp, delirious and covered with a green sludge—not to attack the Player Characters, but wanting their aid and to deliver a warning. There is a danger to Myristat in the swamp and the man keeps saying the word, “Krutz.” If the Player Characters take the man into town, they discover that he is a member of the town guard, who went into the swamp a few days before along with Krutz—who happens to be the captain of the town guard. However, Krutz himself has not returned, and neither have the other guards who accompanied him, and that is not all, a man and woman have also disappeared from the village, leaving their daughter behind. The mayor of Myristat offers the Player Characters a handsome reward if they find out what happened to Captain Krutz and the missing couple.
After a little investigation and interaction—perhaps hindered by an overly officious Halfling mayoral assistant, the Player Characters learn that Captain Krutz was actually going into the swamp to hunt for treasure. Speak to the right people and they can learn that Roskem Swamp has a dark secret—long ago a mage disappeared into the swamp and there took control of the Thornscale Lizardmen, perhaps to conduct his research in solitude even as he claimed to be a god! The swamp itself is as bad as can be imagined—if not worse, with its maddening mist that drives those caught in its whisps to repeat the word ‘green’ or become entangled in vines. Along the way, they may encounter a surprisingly chatty and genial Lizardman, who will give pointers towards the Temple of Vines and warn them of its Dark Heart.
The temple itself is quite small, amounting to no more than six rooms. Here the Player Characters will find the disappeared men and women, who like the rest of the temple, are draped and wrapped in vines. At their heart is the Swamp King, a humanoid statue of writhing vines and fungal mass which seems to want to control everything in the temple. Can the Player Characters defeat the Swamp King, drive back the vines, and so discover the true secrets of the temple?
Rounding out The Dark Heart of Roskem are two appendices. The first is longer and gives the details of the scenario’s various monsters. These include the more traditional denizens of the swamp—Giant Swamp Leeches, Swarms of Poisonous Snakes, and Lizardfolk, but alongside this are the Bog Bodies, leathery undead which exhale a thick cloud of fog that they can sense any creature within it; Lizard Gargoyles (which are exactly what they say they are); and the Swamp King itself. The latter can pierce and ensnare with its vines, raise Bog Bodies, and it can cast Druidic spells too. The shorter has the single entry, a description of a magical item, a Vine Whip. This splits into three and can do a little damage to three targets as well as ensnaring one of them.
Physically, The Dark Heart of Roskem is decently laid out and easy to read. There is no map of the area or the swamp, so either the Dungeon Master will want to draw one herself or find a place in her campaign to locate the adventure. The map of the Temple of Vines is decent enough though. The artwork is fairly light and sees a degree of repetition in its use. The writing is generally clear, although the dark history of Roskem Swamp is written for the Dungeon Master rather than the player, and she will probably want to adapt it so that it presents sufficient information without giving too much away.
As soon as ‘Krutz’, the name of the guard captain is mentioned, the first thought is to wonder if The Dark Heart of Roskem has anything to do with Colonel Kurtz of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now fame? The author confirms that it was at least the scenario’s inspiration in the afterword, though it is up to the Dungeon Master if she wants to develop that inspiration any further. There is scope too for a sequel, but that is something that the Dungeon Master will need to0 develop on her own. Such a sequel hints of a Lord of the Rings-style journey at the very least… Although it is short—specifically designed for a single session—The Dark Heart of Roskem has a foetid, hot, and sweaty feel of a swamp fallen under a dark influence, and is easy to run as a one-shot or add to a campaign.
Been thinking a lot about all the modern supernatural games I have (and I think I have all of them) and in particular the ones that have come out from the Old-School gaming scene. These games all cover roughly the same sort of topics and themes but they all do them in different ways that I keep thinking they would all work great together.
In other words, it sounds like a perfect topic for a Plays Well With Others.
So the games I am talking about are Dark Places & Demogorgons, We Die Young, Dark Streets & Darker Secrets, and my own NIGHT SHIFT. These are the big modern supernatural, occult horror games from the OSR.
I have reviewed these games in the past.
I have covered many of these games in other Plays Well With Others too.
With the addition of Dark Streets & Darker Secrets to my occult library, I wanted to revisit some of these ideas. Though I want to take a different approach today.
With this Plays Well With Others, I am going to mention each game and talk about what can be used from that game in any of the other three. In some cases, this is easy like moving from Dark Places & Demogorgons to We Die Young which are essentially the same system. In others, it will be converting characters from one system to the other.
At the core of all four games (three systems) is the old-school, the OSR, design. All of these games have the same "godfather" as it were in Original or Basic D&D. They have the same uncle (mother's brother), the d20 SRD. And their mother is all the D&D games we all played and the supernatural, occult, horror and urban fantasy media we consumed when not playing.
Dark Streets & Darker Secrets This is the newest game, for me, and the one on my mind the most. Thankfully it is also the one that has the most to offer all the games.
For starters, the classes can be imported rather easily into the other three games. In particular the Tough, the Nimble, and the Smart can be used as subtypes of the Veteran or Survivor in NIGHT SHIFT or as a class in We Die Young. Maybe not so much for DP&D since those are supposed to be kids. The Gifted of DS&DS is similar to the Supernatural in NS.
The real gift of DS&DS is all the tables. Someone online described the game as a great toolkit game. Some of the best ones to use in all games are the Complication table (p.20), Weird Items (p.32- 33), almost all the Gear. The Magic and Psychic backlash tables are also fun. ALL the artifact tables. The various "signs" in Chapter 7. In fact, pretty much all of Chapter 7 to be honest.
Survive This!!
Both Dark Places & Demogorgons and We Die Young from Bloat Games use the same Survive This!! basic rule system, so right out of the gate they are compatible with each other. Dark Places & Demogorgons focuses on kids in the 1980s and We Die Young on young adults in the 1990s. So there is a continuum there for any that wish to use it. There are plenty of "classes" in both games that can be used and mixed and matched. Like DS&DS there are a lot of great toolbox-like tables and ideas that can be imported into another game.
I can easily see a game then of people in their 30s in the 2000s with large chunks of DS&DS mixed into the Survive This!! system. Would this game be called "Survive This!! Dark Streets" or "Dark Streets, Dark Places, Darker Secrets & Demogorgons?" I don't know, but I LOVE the idea of kids experiencing weird shit in the 80s, taking a bunch of drugs to forget them in the 90s (both DS&DS and WDY have these) and finally having to deal with this shit all over again in 2000-2020s as older adults. Very "It" if you think about it.
The jewel though in the Survive This!! (and there are many) though HAS to be the DP&D Cryptid Manual. DS&DS takes a toolkit view on monsters. NIGHT SHIFT has a minimalist view (a very OD&D view if I can add) on monsters. But the Cryptid Manual gives us a proper monster book.
Of note. Both DS&DS and We Die Young use the newer D&D5-ish Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic. Albeit in slightly different ways. I have been using this in NIGHT SHIFT as well and find it works better for me than a simple +3 or +5 to rolls.
Also, both games have a Madness mechanic. I like the one in We Die Young much better. Bits from DS&DS could be added to this, but in general, I think I'd use the one in WDY.
We Die Young also has some really cool races that can help fill out the "Gifted" of DS&DS.
Don't forget you can get the new Hardcover version of Dark Places & Demogorns on Kickstarter now.
NIGHT SHIFT: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars I talk a lot about NIGHT SHIFT here and with good reason, I am quite proud of the work I have done it. It fills the void in my life left by the Buffy RPG and everything I wanted from all three editions of Chill, but never exactly got (no slight on Chill, fantastic game), a little more approachable and less nihilistic than Kult, and none of the baggage of The World of Darkness (though I do get the urge to play that again. My oldest want to give it a try sometime).
Dark Places & Demogorgons makes some assumptions in the game that makes it what it is. The characters are kids and there is also the Jeffersontown setting, all of which are central to the game and make it work.
Dark Street & Darker Secrets is on the other end of the spectrum with no assumed setting other than "The City" which also works fantastic for this game and one of it's great strengths.
In between those two, we have NIGHT SHIFT (and We Die Young, but I'll get to that). NIGHT SHIFT does not have a default setting. There are different levels of difficulty you can configure the game in, Cinematic, Realistic, or Gritty. DP&D would be Cinematic, DS&DS is the poster boy for Gritty, and WDY is around Realistic. So I would use ideas from those games to inform my choices in the three levels of NS and vice-versa.
What NIGHT SHIFT has to offer these other games are our "Night Worlds" or mini-settings. Any of these can be used in any of the other games and the other games can be used to add more details. Jason's "The Noctnurmverse" can be supplemented either by or used in DS&DS. The "City" in DS&DS becomes the Noctnurmverse's Pittsburgh. Or dialing back the Way-Back Machine use it with We Die Young in the 1990s. My own "Generation HEX" benefits from the ideas on playing kids in DP&D. You could even take Generation HEX and play it as a DP&D setting if you wanted. My "Ordinary World" can be used in DS&DS IF you ever decide to move out of the city into the suburbs.
I already talked a lot about how NIGHT SHIFT and Dark Places & Demogorgons can be used together. The same logic applies when adding in the other two games. In fact one place where this might work great is my own Sunny Valley, OH game of the Buffyverse in the 1980s rather than the late 90s/early 2000s. This works well since a.) NIGHT SHIFT was made to fit the "Buffy-shaped" hole in my life and b.) DS&DS takes a lot of cues from and was influenced by Buffy in all media. I might just be the best melting pot for all these games. Or crucible. Time will tell.
Putting it All Together
Honestly, there are just too many ways to combine these four games into something you can use. Start with one and add what you need. Start with two and be pickier about what you add from the others. One of the ways I am using it is in my Life-Path Development ideas. Each game represents a different point the characters' lives and each is used to model that time. The obvious reasons are that DP&D takes place in the 80s with kids, WDY in the 90s with younger adults, and DS&DS and NIGHT SHIFT go beyond that. To go with personal experience, I was living in Chicago proper in the mid to late 90s and then in the suburbs after that. To use my ordinary world example my progression would look like this:
DP&D (high school, small town) -> WDY (college, college town) -> DS&DS (grad school, city) -> NIGHT SHIFT (adulthood, suburbs).
In a weird way, it makes sense to me. But I am not stating up myself. I don't live in a magical world, I live in this one. BUT I do have my Drosophila melanogaster of these sorts of experiments, Willow and Tara. I have done stats for them for Dark Places & Demogorgons and NIGHT SHIFT. Doing ones for We Die Young and Dark Streets & Darker Secrets would be easy enough. BUT. Those are not the same characters really. They fall under my "Alternate Reality" versions rather than "Lifespan or Lifepath Development." Though doing DS&DS versions of Willow and Tara should be in my future.
No for this I need a character that has been around for a while, for that I am going to have to turn to my Iconic Witch Larina.
Fortunately for me, the witch is one of the few character classes/archetypes/concepts that can be found in all these games (the weird psychic is as well, but witches are my thing). So building a witch feels right.
I worked up all the sheets and this is what I ended up with. Purple is the color of all of Larina's sheets. Click for larger.
Dark Places & Demogorgons
It's 1984 and Larina is 14 and 4th level. She lives in a small town where her mom runs a spice shop and her dad is a Professor of Anthropology and teaches music. She is called "creepy girl" by the kids in school. At this point, she is shy and can't quite understand why others can't see the strange things all around them.
Most of these adventures are of the "Scooby-Doo" sort; short ones that are resolved by the end. Easily Monster of Week sorts.
We Die Young
We are moving to the early 90s now and she is 7th level. Larina is in grad school and is now Larina Macalester. She was married at age 19 but obviously, it is not working out well. She is living in Chicago while her estranged husband is still living in Ireland. Her stats nudge up a little but she largely is similar to her 1DP&D version. There are some differences between the two types of Witch classes (and DP&D still has others) but nothing I consider earth-shattering. I did get to add her two tattoos. One is a protection tattoo (a large Triple Moon Goddess on her back) and one on her left wrist that allows her to cast a magic bolt.
Dark Streets & Darker Secrets
Things are getting darker. Larina is now 35, 10th level, and back to going back to using "Nichols" as her last name. Her complication is she is hiding from her ex-husband who was in the IRA. (NOTE: I actually played through this back in the early 2000s. The big twist was that while she was hiding out, her ex had moved on and was living his own life with his new wife.) I wanted to use my new idea for Sanity by having it as Intellect + Willpower /2. BUT for Larina here both scores are 17 giving me an average of 17.
NIGHT SHIFT
Here is the one closest to my heart, obviously. She has more spells, but this is expected at 13th level.
As expected the powers don't always match up right and I could have taken more care in aligning the spells with each version. But I figure that these changes can be chalked up to learning and experiences. I do feel that all versions reflect the character at the time well.
Looking forward to trying this with other characters to see how they work out. Also, I am keeping all of these books together to use as needed. By themselves, they give me a wonderful experience. Together they give me an epic experience.
Dark Streets & Darker Secrets has been on my "To Be Reviewed" pile for a very long time. I grabbed the PDF when it came out, but set it aside for the longest time because I was working on a bunch of other things and didn't get the chance. I picked it back up and really enjoyed it. So much so I also picked it up in hardcover Print on Demand. A couple of things though to get started. Dark Streets & Darker Secrets (DS&DS) is a modern occult horror game based on old-school style mechanics. I also have a modern occult horror game based on old-school style mechanics. So I am aware that any criticism I might lay on this game could come off as sounding self-serving. I want to always be aware of this and have you the reader keep this in mind as you read my review here. Also the author, Diogo Nogueira, also lists the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG from Eden as one of his inspirations. This game was also Jason Vey's and my inspiration for NIGHT SHIFT. Jason and I met while working on Buffy. NIGHT SHIFT was designed to fit "the Buffy shaped hole" in our lives as I have said before. So both games come from very, very similar backgrounds with very, very similar goals. That all being said, DS&DS is NOT in competition with NIGHT SHIFT. Nor is Diogo a competitor. I consider him a colleague. Both Dark Streets & Darker Secrets and NIGHT SHIFT can, and do, live on my shelves and game table in complete peace with each other. I am going to spend some time tomorrow talking about how both games (and two more) can be used together. Today though I am going to talk about where DS&DS shines (is that the proper word for a "dark" game?) and what it does.
So let's get to it.
by Diogo Nogueira. 222 pages, hardcover. Color cover with black and white interior art. For this review, I am considering both the PDF and the Print on Demand hardcovers from DriveThruRPG.
Dark Streets & Darker Secrets (DS&DS) is a modern occult horror game from ENnie Award winner Diogo Nogueira. The book is digest size so it fit well with many "old school" style books of the last 10 years. It not only fits on the shelf physically but thematically as well. The game is based on Nogueira's earlier works Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells and Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells, so out of the gate there are more resources for this game if you desire.
The game itself is a gritty, modern occult/supernatural horror game. The normal humans are just slightly above average for the most part and the monsters are way more powerful. Immediately I thought of it as a bit of Chill mixed in with Kult. The feel is very much "humanity alone against the darkness."
The book is laid out in eight chapters with some appendices.
Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter covers the basics of what is in the book.
Chapter 2: Character Creation
If you have played any old-school-like game in the last 45+ years you have an idea what this chapter is about. The differences here fit the tone of the game. Character attributes are rolled using a 2d6+3 (not a 3d6 or even 4d6 drop the lowest), this creates a narrower band of character attributes, 5-15 but still on the same human range of 3-18. There is a chance to increase these later on. The attribute themselves are a simplified version of the Basic 6; Physique (combining Strength and Constitution), Agility (Dexterity), Intellect (Intelligence), and Willpower (Wisdom and Charisma). Once those are done you create a character concept which is a basic couple word description and not a backstory.
After this, it is time to choose the Archetype or essentially the class of the character. They are The Tough, The Nimble, The Smart, and The Gifted. These align with the attributes above. The Gifted is special in that you can be a spell-caster or even a supernatural creature like a vampire, werewolf, or even an alien. Each archetype also gets a "recovery roll" which decides how quick they can bounce back from injury.
Since this is a gritty sort of universe all characters have a complication. These can come into play in the game to keep things "difficult and exciting" for the characters. It includes a d66 table (roll 2d6 and use the rolls like d%. Traveller people know this one well).
Then you pick out some gear. If it is mundane gear you have it. You also get some weapons and "weird" gear. These are detailed in the next chapter.
Finally, we have derived scores. Vitality (Physique + Level) are your "hit points." Sanity, or mental stability, is equal to your Intellect. Now I have mentioned before I do not like how many games handle insanity or madness. Sadly this game is not an exception. I spent a few years working in a mental health facility back when I was in grad school. There is no relationship between intelligence and mental health. In fact, I had one guy who was schizophrenic and could speak 3 or 4 languages including German and Swahili. He learned I also spoke German and would use that when he wanted to talk about the other clients "in secret" to me. So yeah. I am not really a fan of this one. I'd rather roll a 2d6 and then add a bonus from Willpower (and maybe Intellect) to get my Sanity score. There is also Luck points which are like fate points or drama points (everyone starts with 3) and Money.
Chapter 3: Gear
Covers mundane gear, expendable gear (like ammunition and things that wear out) and even some weird gear. Weird items are the best part. Every character has one weird item they start off with. This is easily explainable either they found it and thus introduced to the weirder world OR they have always had it and the world is waiting for them. There is a d100 table that covers a bunch of different sorts of items. Note, we just get the names of the items, what they do will be discovered in-game.
Additionally, drugs, services, illegal goods, and money points (abstraction of money carried) are also dealt with.
Chapter 4: Rules of the City
Here are our basic rules for the game. Everything is an attribute check (roll under your attribute modified by level and difficulty). There are some neat quirks. There is an advantage/disadvantage system here called Positive and Negative rolls. Rolling on your attribute is considered a critical success. You roll lower than your attribute to succeed, BUT higher than the difficulty. So if something has a difficulty of 8 and my attribute is 12 I have to roll a 12 or lower BUT also higher than an 8. So only rolls of 9, 10, 11, and 12 will get me a success.
Players can add a Luck roll to their challenges. This is not a matter of just adding points. You have to roll a d6. If it is equal to or lower than their luck score then you get to make a situation more favorable.
This chapter also covers sanity and madness. You lose Sanity if you encounter something strange and fail a Willpower test. Difficulty set by the situation. Points lost also can vary. When the character's Sanit score reaches 0 then they get a Madness. Thankfully there is no list of "madnesses" here. Most game designers get these horribly wrong anyways. In game you get a minor "quirk" on your first loss. If you suffer 4 losses then the character has succumbed to madness and can't be played.
Level advancement is a form of Milestone advancement that looks like it should work rather well. Again individual GMs can (and should) alter this to fit their needs.
Chapter 5: Combat
Like many RPGs combat gets a special chapter even if it is just a particular form of the rules stated above. But if one is going to fight the armies of darkness then one is expected to actually fight. Reading through this you get the idea that yes the characters can be tough. You also get the idea that the things they are fighting are a lot tougher. While there are a few ways the players can save their character's bacon, there are still a lot of grisly ways to die in this game.
Chapter 6: Sorcery and Psychic Powers
Ah, now this is the meat of the game in my mind. A Gifted character can be a sorcerer, a witch, a psychic or some other type of creature. Their powers and how to use them are detailed here. Regardless of the origin or the nature of the powers, game-wise they are treated in similar manners, the difference largely being different Backlash tables. How they are played can vary wildly. I mentioned that this is grittier game than one would see in say a Buffy-like game. The previously mentioned Backlash is one and Corruption is another. These include simple things like a "witch's mark" to changes to one's body and mind or just getting pulled right into the Abyss. Pro-tip, don't botch your rolls.
A very nice (and long) list of powers is given with their effects. While the list is long (60 entries) it is not exhaustive.
Additionally, Arcane artifacts are covered. How they are made, what they do, powers, cost (to make AND to use), and some samples.
Chapter 7: Running the Game
This covers the world of DS&DS. There is a bias (is that the right word? Preference is better) to an urbane game. Thus the title really. Outside of this there is no set theme or even setting. This would be a sandbox game if it were a FRPG. What we do get here is a ton of tables full of ideas for a a game, campaign, or an entire world.
Chapter 8: Monsters
Our Monster chapter differs from other games in that there is not a bestiary here per se, but example creatures and the means to make others of a similar nature. So for example there is a Cultis section that covers some sample cultists from 1-3 HD to demon-possessed leaders of 4-8 HD. This includes a table of "What are They Doing?" and "What do They Want?" A very effective means of repurposing content. The more powerful the creature the more detail they need obviously, but there is not a lot of detail in most cases. This works well here since the players (mostly the GM) provide all the details. There are powers listed for random creatures as well.
Appendix O: Optional Rules
Here are a group of optional rules you can add to your game. Things like Drunken Luck, Daring Points, Single Hero games and Multi-Archetype (Multi-Class) Characters.
Appendix I: Inspirational Materials
Covers the various books, movies, TV Shows, and other RPGs for inspiration.
Appendix S: Simple Scenario Structure
This discusses how to build a quick scenario and an example.
We end with a Character Sheet (and a Form Fillable one is provided with the PDF) and the OGL statement. I do feel the need to point out that Nogueira has released this game as 100% Open Gaming Content.
Dark Streets & Darker Secrets certainly lives up to the hype and has a lot going for it. If you have a world already in your mind and just need a system to flesh it out then this is a great choice for you. In this respect, it is very similar to old-school D&D. No default world type, just the tools to play in the world of your imagination with some assumptions built-in.
If you are looking for huge meta-plotting like the World of Darkness or even the baked-in mythology of Buffy the Vampire Slayer you find that here, which is refreshing. The players all have maximum flexibility to do what they want and that is the key strength of this game.
I know I am running behind on this one. Super busy at work and the last few posts here have been ones I have been sitting on for just this time. But I am going to pause on today's scheduled post to do this one instead. Plus the Internet is down in the Chicagoland area as of this writing, so I might as well do this.
Back on Halloween, the news came out that Pathfinder Drops Phylactery From In-Game Terminology. Instead of using "phylactery", It is a Greek word to describe the Hebrew word "Tefillin" which Jewish people will keep small scrolls of the Torah. They have decided to go with the term "Soul Cage."
Maybe not these Soul Cages exactly.
As you can imagine the RPG folks on the internet freaked out. Especially it seemed to me people that at the same time claimed they don't or no longer play Pathfinder, let alone Pathfinder Second Edition, the game, and the only game, this effects.
Personally, I find it confusing that so many roleplayers out there have so little imagination.
Nor do I even see what the trouble is. So a company, Paizo, drops a term they are uncomfortable with. THEY feel it is disrespectful. At no point have I heard they changed due to a complaint. They did it as a creative choice. Are some gamers now suggesting that a company can't change the terms they use to better suit their products/games?
No. This is fake outrage from the same lot that gets mad any time anyone decides to deviate from the holy writ of Gygax.
Personally. I have been using Soul Cages for years. I was even talking about it with liches and succubi over a decade ago and as recently as this past year. I am likely to keep using them too.
Don't like the term? Fine. Don't use it. Want to keep phylactery? Fine, keep it. It likely isn't going to change in the game you are playing now anyway. But honestly, unless you are playing Pathfinder Second Edition, why do you even care?
Eratniki
Pyakel'niki
Gartsuki
Younik
Tsmok
Mara
Chort
Sheshki
Zlydni
Vampire
Baba Yaga
Little Witch
Valasen
Lazavik and Lozniki
Durny Chort
Badzyulya
Lyadashtsik
Zmyainy Tsar
Dzikiya Lyudzi
Klikun
Gayovy Dzed and Gayouki
Balotnik
Hihitun
Tsuda Yuda
Shatany
Stryga
Balamutsen
Pavetnik
Arzhaven
Dzedka
Nachnitsy
Zhalezny Chalavek
Hapun
Twilight
Dragon
Pleasure Trip
Survival
Visitors
Hollow
Ball Game
Pagan
Way
Genetics
Race
Winter Hunt
Forest
In the Trees
Conversation
Tree
Arena
See more artworks by Slauk at Saaatchi Art.com and Mythology.by.
The higher resolution version of "Arena" shared by Sergio Almendro.
Eve Tushnet / November 8, 2021
Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985Disclosure: This collection includes an essay by Kelly Roberts, editor-in-chief of We Are the Mutants.
In troubled times, we must be grateful for every touch of the ridiculous. And so let’s raise a glass to psychologist and pop scientist Steven Pinker, who in his most recent book burbles forth: “Rationality is uncool.” Pinker pledges fealty to Reason, the chaste goddess, even though he “cannot argue that reason is dope, phat, chill, fly, sick, or da bomb.” This delightful complaint evokes a vanished era in which we all were just vibing on reason, knowledge, hexagons and vaccines and supercolliders and, I don’t know, eugenics. But this timeline, if it ever existed, ended long ago. For the authors whose works are explored in PM Press’s new collection, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985, cool rationality was the old religion — and they were the acolytes of the strange new gods who displaced it.
Dangerous Visions is the third in a series, edited by Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre, exploring the radical elements in pulp and genre publishing of the Cold War era. (We Are the Mutants has reviewed the first volume, on postwar youth culture, and the second, on revolution and the 1960s counterculture.) Like the first two installments, this one combines short essays with plentiful examples of weird, enticing cover art — such as a 1955 cover for 1984 that looks like nothing so much as a juvenile-delinquency pulp. The book is punctuated with little round-ups, less like essays and more like annotated lists of sci-fi on subjects like nuclear war, drugs, or animals, which show how cover illustrators could depict similar themes as dream or nightmare, action-adventure or inner journey. The “dystopias” list, for example, includes a threatening cover for Stephen King’s The Long Walk (1979) and an eerily seductive one for Mary Vigliante’s The Colony (also 1979).
The book begins with the opposing open letters published in 1968 in Galaxy Science Fiction, one supporting the war in Vietnam and the other protesting it. This contrast offers an obvious political gloss on the word “radical” in the book’s subtitle: “Radical” means left-wing politics; it means the antiwar stance of Samuel R. Delany, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Kate Wilhelm set against the conservatism of the pro-war Marion Zimmer Bradley, L. Sprague de Camp, Robert A. Heinlein, and Larry Niven. But an early mention of the transition from the term “science fiction” to “speculative fiction” is a more accurate guide to the kind of radicalism Dangerous Visions celebrates. Both Heinlein and the pro-war R.A. Lafferty get thoughtful essays in this volume, suggesting that they, too, were in some way radical visionaries.
There’s little explicit effort to tie the works together or nail down what makes something radical, dangerous, or new. It’s a wise choice that allows the essayists to avoid fixed narratives and Procrustean politics. The new world is a place where a new kind of person lives — although many would argue that this new and dangerous person was always the only kind of person around. The old SF hero was that rational man you used to hear so much about: the imagined actor in liberal political philosophy, the person without dependents or dependencies, who confronted the stars with reason, self-control, and a spirit of adventure. He travels, as the introduction puts it, “from the suburbs to the stars.” The old guard’s heroes were white, even when they were green. The old SF hero might die, but he’d never worry about getting pregnant. Mind and body were manageable; desires were reasonable, inspiring, and above all intelligible, both to the hero himself and to the reader. Whether this is a fair description of the old-school hero, I can’t say. I only like this kind of guy when he’s played by William Shatner — in a book, I just can’t see the appeal. I can say that the works explored in the PM Press collection are rebelling against this hero. These books are populated by mystics and criminals, artists and threatened children, even animals and creatures who are some blend of human and Other. The political apparatus of the state does not enable constructive action; it provokes fear or anger. In these books knowledge is less like an equation and more like a hallucination.
Speaking of Samuel R. Delany, Dangerous Visions avoids the more thoroughly-trampled pathways in his work in favor of a 1979 memoir of his brief stint in a commune called Heavenly Breakfast. Daniel Shank Cruz highlights not only novel sexual arrangements (“they all get gonorrhea […] because intra-commune sexual encounters are commonplace”) but the group’s economic strategy of drug dealing, and its belief — perhaps even more touching and necessary now than then — “that people have value aside from their financial status, and that it is worth living with someone… even if they are unable to contribute their ‘fair share.’” “It is inaccurate to say that its members shared funds,” Cruz writes, “because many of them had no funds to share, but they all shared in the work of caring for one another.” The whole thing only lasted one winter, which the book’s subtitle calls The Winter of Love. Cruz argues that the winter with Heavenly Breakfast taught Delany that he could live in a fully new way, and infused his later work with communal values and greater “sexual openness.” Delany always insisted that the polymorphic sexual community, no matter how perverse, can offer a postsecondary education in love. Sex is his means of reasoning, not his means of getting beyond rational thought; it’s his language, not his apophatic and apocalyptic self-immolation.
And so he is the happy radical, whereas J.G. Ballard and Philip K. Dick represent more lacerating visions. Erica L. Satifka’s essay suggests that Dick’s work “reflects the at times bizarre course of his own relatively short life more than any radical political beliefs” — but if you’re literally approached by the FBI to spy on your fellow students, it’s not your life that’s weird, it’s your times. Dick lived out many of his age’s forms of altered consciousness, from psychotherapy to amphetamines; his experience with alternative homemaking was also harder than Delany’s, as he went through five divorces and found himself “invit[ing] hippies and/or junkies to live with him on a rotating basis,” which is sweet but not nostalgia fodder. All this touched his work with a poignant separation between the self and some true hidden knowledge. Ballard, by contrast, led a stable domestic life, deranged only by the surrounding culture. He expressed this derangement in funhouse-mirror worlds, dreamscapes and projections, where the shock of the real could only be attained through technology-enabled violence. And these worlds were not future but present, because, as Ballard said in the 1960s, “We live inside an enormous novel…The fiction is already there. The writer’s task is to invent the reality.” The more your world is manmade, shaped by technology and terraforming, the more you live in dreams and fetishes: the substance of our inner lives. (I’m sitting in my bedroom and I can’t see a single object I know how to make.) Delany probes wounds and bruises with his tongue and likes the taste; Ballard gets a mouthful of blood and chromium menace, the taste of a self-discovery that’s also a self-loss. Delany winds up a contented eminence grise, replete with memory like a bee with honey; Dick possibly broke into his own house, blocked out the memories, went on a paranoid tear against fellow SF luminary Stanislaw Lem, and a year later entered rehab after a suicide attempt. I love Delany’s work but his luck is too good — it veils some of the harder truths.
As with any collection, Dangerous Visions is uneven, both in the quality of its own essays and (more intentionally) in that of the works it surveys. The experiments in rebellion and discovery conducted by the books’ motley heroes (and by the authors) brought results that were sometimes exhilarating, sometimes disturbing, and sometimes both at once. An early essay on “sextrapolation” includes a lot of taboo-breaking that just seems silly or gross. The best I can say for the quotes here from Bug Jack Barron is that without them maybe we wouldn’t have actually good stories like “Aye, and Gomorrah…,” in which sex is less of a Sharper Image store and more of a mystery play. Meanwhile, a few essays in Dangerous Visions show individual style, like Nick Mamatas’s feverish, slightly aggro tribute to R.A. Lafferty, but the entire first column of Maitland McDonagh’s essay on gay adult SF is bland boilerplate. Stronger editing would have allowed McDonagh’s camp humor to emerge earlier and with less padding. Scott Adlerberg offers an essay about the radical SF of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, authors of Roadside Picnic (later adapted by Andrei Tarkovsky as the 1979 film Stalker). The critical assessment emerges through biographical data about the grinding, increasing conflict between the brothers and the Soviet censorship apparatus: the Strugatskys seem attuned to fun, adventure, and playful anti-bureaucratic humor in the Douglas Adams vein, but the censorship and fear of a totalitarian system, including a harrowing encounter with the KGB, led them into sharper satire and more hallucinatory blurs of dream and reality. But Michael A. Gonzales’s similarly biography-focused essay on Octavia Butler avoids any real critical engagement with her work’s themes. Her mentors within the genre are listed, which is useful as part of the collection’s overall portrayal of radical SF as a community relying on particular institutions (New Worlds magazine, the Women’s Press) and central figures (in Butler’s case, the author and writing teacher Harlan Ellison). No effort is made, though, to place Butler in dialogue with larger movements, from Afrofuturism to Afro-pessimism; there’s no real exploration of her work’s vision of the body’s metamorphoses, her portrayals of youth and inheritance, her prose style — the texture of her work dissolves and she’s left as a generic Black Woman Pioneer.
Dangerous Visions, as its understanding of “radical” SF emerges, suggests unexpected links between authors: Mamatas’s essay on the gonzo Catholicism of R.A. Lafferty finds a home beside Iain McIntyre’s homage to the anti-imperialist mysticism of William Bloom, whose Himalayan action-adventure hero Qhe is a “cosmic [James] Bond.” A late essay by Donna Glee Williams contrasts the visions of anarchism in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. These two novels suggest possible syntheses between old and new. They both offer metaphysics and political reasoning, while still being recognizably “radical”: both take place in criminalized communities and depict alternatives to the liberal state.
The anthology opens by noting that the radicalism of its authors didn’t vanish, but disseminated itself throughout mainstream SF, suggesting a longing for some synthesis; some recognition of the poignant beauty of human reason and the quest for knowledge, alongside a taut awareness of reason’s propensity to serve violence; some hope for new communal forms of life, new mysticisms in the face of new apocalypses.
Eve Tushnet is the author of two novels, Amends and Punishment: A Love Story, as well as the nonfiction Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith. She lives in Washington, DC and writes and speaks on topics ranging from medieval covenants of friendship to underrated vampire films. Her hobbies include sin, confession, and ecstasy.
