Outsiders & Others
Have a Safe Weekend
If you’re in a need for green, the last open house of autumn is coming up on Saturday, from noon until 5:00 pm. Better get scooting, though: this will be the last open house until the Nightmare Weekends Before Christmas … Continue reading →
[Free RPG Day 2021] Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide
Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.
—oOo—
For Free RPG Day 2021, Modiphius Entertainment released not one, but three titles, two for existing roleplaying games, one for a forthcoming title. The one for the forthcoming roleplaying game is the Achtung! Cthulhu Quick-Start (reviewed here) for Achtung! Cthulhu. The first for the existing roleplaying game is the Star Trek: Adventures Quick-Start (reviewed here), an introduction to Star Trek Adventures, whilst the second is Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide for Dune: Adventures in the Imperium. As with other quick-starts, it provides an explanation of the rules, a complete adventure, and six ready-to-play Player Characters. All of which comes in a full colour in the sandy shades of Arrakis punctuated by the colours of the sample Player Characters.
A Player Character in Dune: Adventures in the Imperium is defined by Skills, Focuses, Drives, Traits, Complications, and Assets. The five Skills are Battle, Communicate, Discipline, Move, and Understand, whilst the five Drives are Duty, Faith, Justice, Power, and Truth—both of which are rated between four and eight. Focuses represent skill specialisations, such as Deductive Reasoning for Understand or Dirty Fighting for Battle. Traits can be Talents, which make a test possible or make it harder or easier depending upon its nature. So the Bene Gesserit Talent of Hyperawareness grants a Bene Gesserit Sister the ability to ask two questions rather than one when spending Momentum to Obtain Information, whereas the Bold Talent can be selected by anyone and when used with the Battle skill, the player can additional twenty-sided dice by generating Threat for the Game Master to use, the player can reroll one of the dice in the pool. Assets include equipment, contacts, and so on, for example, a personal shield or someone in a criminal gang on Arrakis. Although the six ready-to-play Player Characters in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide have Statements attached to their Drives, the explanation for these and how they work is saved for the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium core rules. Lastly, each Player Character begins play with a point of Determination, which can be spent to ensure that one die rolled for an action is considered to be a one and thus a critical result.
Dune: Adventures in the Imperium employs the 2d20 System first used in the publisher’s Mutant Chronicles: Techno Fantasy Roleplaying Game and Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of , and since developed into the publisher’s house system. To undertake an action, a character’s player rolls two twenty-sided dice, aiming to have both roll under the total of a Skill and a Drive. Each roll under this total counts as a success, an average task requiring two successes. Rolls of one count as two successes and if a character has an appropriate Focus, rolls under the value of the Skill also count as two successes.
In the main, because a typical difficulty will only be a Target Number of one, players will find themselves rolling excess Successes which becomes Momentum. This is a resource shared between all of the players which can be spent to create an Opportunity and so add more dice to a roll—typically needed because more than two successes are required to succeed, to create an advantage in a situation or remove a complication, create a problem for the opposition, and to obtain information. It is a finite ever-decreasing resource, so the players need to roll well and keep generating it, especially if they want to save for the big scene or climatic battle in an adventure.
Now where the players generate Momentum to spend on their characters, the Game Master has Threat which can be spent on similar things for the NPCs as well as to trigger their special abilities. She begins each session with a pool of Threat, but can gain more through various circumstances. These include a player purchasing extra dice to roll on a test, a player rolling a natural twenty and so adding two Threat (instead of the usual Complication), the situation itself being threatening, or NPCs rolling well and generating Momentum and so adding that to Threat pool. In return, the Gamemaster can spend it on minor inconveniences, complications, and serious complications to inflict upon the player characters, as well as triggering NPC special abilities, having NPCs seize the initiative, and bringing the environment dramatically into play.
Combat uses the same mechanics, but offers more options in terms of what Momentum can be spent on. This includes creating a Trait or an Asset, either of which can then be brought into the combat, and keeping the initiative—initiative works by alternating between the player characters and the NPCs and keeping it allows two player characters to act before an NPC does. Where Dune: Adventures in the Imperium differs from other 2d20 System roleplaying games is the lack of Challenge dice, and instead of inflicting damage directly via the loss of Hit Points, combatants are trying to defeat each through the removal of Assets and attempting to create—cumulatively—Successes equal to or greater than the Quality of the task or the opponent. Minor NPCs or situations are easily overcome, but difficult situations and major NPCs will be more challenging to defeat and will require extended tests.
The system is intended to cover the various types of situations which can occur in a story in Dune: Adventures in the Imperium. So, individual duels, skirmishes and open battles, espionage, and social intrigue. However, this is not well explained in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide—or at least not well explained enough for somebody who has not roleplayed to grasp with any great ease. Anyone with more experience will see that the iteration of the 2d20 System presented here has shifted into more of a narrative, storytelling style of play, where the aim is not necessarily to kill an opponent, but defeat them, and thus make that adjustment. Anyone with that experience may have more difficulty doing so, and an example or two of how the combat system works would have not gone amiss.
Overall, the iteration of the 2d20 System in theDune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide and Dune: Adventures in the Imperium lies at the simpler and easier end of its implementation. It is not as simple as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars: Adventures on the Dying World of Barsoom , but is roughly on a par with Star Trek Adventures.
‘Wormsign’ is the given scenario in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide. It can be run using the same cast as the core rules—they are given as the pre-generated Player Characters here in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide—or with those of the players’ own creation using the core rules. This means that it can be run as a sequel to the scenario core rules or as a standalone or beginning scenario. The Player Characters—a Mentat, a Criminal, a Servant (Spy), Bene Gesserit Novice, Swordmaster Apprentice, and Reformed Spice Smuggler—are all intended to be in service with one of the houses. The default is House Atreides, but it could be another house awarded a spicemining contract if the campaign involves one of the players’ and Game Master’s creation. It should not be House Harkonnen, or an affiliated house.
Consisting of six scenes, ‘Wormsign’ sees the Player Characters sent out over the Shield Wall on Arrakis into the desert to investigate the activities of a group of spice smugglers. When they discover their operation it is relatively small and the Player Characters have choice as to what to do—destroy it, arrest the smugglers, co-opt them into their house’s own operation, or cultivate them as contacts, but this opportunity does not last long, when the forces of a rival house intervene and attack. Then if that is not challenging enough, ‘Wormsign’ ups the ante with a wormsign and the incoming movement of a worm! The scenario becomes a fight for survival and if the Player Characters do survive and act with any degree of probity, they may come away with further potential allies.
Now this all feels in keeping with a story set on Arrakis, but ‘Wormsign’ manages to be both challenging and unsatisfying… The Player Characters are faced with some fierce choices. Go one way—in fact, go more than one way—and the likelihood is that they will end up dead, and there is little in the way of warnings as the possible actions. In the final scenes, they have the opportunity to interact with Fremen, and only one means of doing so is provided. To the point where no stats are provided for the Fremen and the Game Master is told that they will avoid any kind of physical conflict. In the event that they even fail at this, the Player Characters fail at this, they have another struggle to survive, which the Game Master will need to develop. Ideally, the Player Characters should survive the scenario, make contacts with both the spice smugglers and the Fremen, and get back to Arrakeen. However, this is not all that interesting by itself and very much feels like the middle part of a campaign or the first half of a scenario, as if there is a second part to come.
The Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide is not quite the introduction to Dune: Adventures in the Imperium and roleplaying on Arrakis that it deserves to be. In the hands of an experienced Game Master, there is a reasonable scenario and adventure to be had from the pages of Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide, but for anyone with less experience or who lacks access to the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium full rules, the combination of underwritten—or at least under explained—conflict rules and the underwhelming nature of the scenario means that running the quick-start will be much more of a challenge.
—oOo—
For Free RPG Day 2021, Modiphius Entertainment released not one, but three titles, two for existing roleplaying games, one for a forthcoming title. The one for the forthcoming roleplaying game is the Achtung! Cthulhu Quick-Start (reviewed here) for Achtung! Cthulhu. The first for the existing roleplaying game is the Star Trek: Adventures Quick-Start (reviewed here), an introduction to Star Trek Adventures, whilst the second is Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide for Dune: Adventures in the Imperium. As with other quick-starts, it provides an explanation of the rules, a complete adventure, and six ready-to-play Player Characters. All of which comes in a full colour in the sandy shades of Arrakis punctuated by the colours of the sample Player Characters.A Player Character in Dune: Adventures in the Imperium is defined by Skills, Focuses, Drives, Traits, Complications, and Assets. The five Skills are Battle, Communicate, Discipline, Move, and Understand, whilst the five Drives are Duty, Faith, Justice, Power, and Truth—both of which are rated between four and eight. Focuses represent skill specialisations, such as Deductive Reasoning for Understand or Dirty Fighting for Battle. Traits can be Talents, which make a test possible or make it harder or easier depending upon its nature. So the Bene Gesserit Talent of Hyperawareness grants a Bene Gesserit Sister the ability to ask two questions rather than one when spending Momentum to Obtain Information, whereas the Bold Talent can be selected by anyone and when used with the Battle skill, the player can additional twenty-sided dice by generating Threat for the Game Master to use, the player can reroll one of the dice in the pool. Assets include equipment, contacts, and so on, for example, a personal shield or someone in a criminal gang on Arrakis. Although the six ready-to-play Player Characters in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide have Statements attached to their Drives, the explanation for these and how they work is saved for the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium core rules. Lastly, each Player Character begins play with a point of Determination, which can be spent to ensure that one die rolled for an action is considered to be a one and thus a critical result.
Dune: Adventures in the Imperium employs the 2d20 System first used in the publisher’s Mutant Chronicles: Techno Fantasy Roleplaying Game and Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of , and since developed into the publisher’s house system. To undertake an action, a character’s player rolls two twenty-sided dice, aiming to have both roll under the total of a Skill and a Drive. Each roll under this total counts as a success, an average task requiring two successes. Rolls of one count as two successes and if a character has an appropriate Focus, rolls under the value of the Skill also count as two successes.
In the main, because a typical difficulty will only be a Target Number of one, players will find themselves rolling excess Successes which becomes Momentum. This is a resource shared between all of the players which can be spent to create an Opportunity and so add more dice to a roll—typically needed because more than two successes are required to succeed, to create an advantage in a situation or remove a complication, create a problem for the opposition, and to obtain information. It is a finite ever-decreasing resource, so the players need to roll well and keep generating it, especially if they want to save for the big scene or climatic battle in an adventure.
Now where the players generate Momentum to spend on their characters, the Game Master has Threat which can be spent on similar things for the NPCs as well as to trigger their special abilities. She begins each session with a pool of Threat, but can gain more through various circumstances. These include a player purchasing extra dice to roll on a test, a player rolling a natural twenty and so adding two Threat (instead of the usual Complication), the situation itself being threatening, or NPCs rolling well and generating Momentum and so adding that to Threat pool. In return, the Gamemaster can spend it on minor inconveniences, complications, and serious complications to inflict upon the player characters, as well as triggering NPC special abilities, having NPCs seize the initiative, and bringing the environment dramatically into play.
Combat uses the same mechanics, but offers more options in terms of what Momentum can be spent on. This includes creating a Trait or an Asset, either of which can then be brought into the combat, and keeping the initiative—initiative works by alternating between the player characters and the NPCs and keeping it allows two player characters to act before an NPC does. Where Dune: Adventures in the Imperium differs from other 2d20 System roleplaying games is the lack of Challenge dice, and instead of inflicting damage directly via the loss of Hit Points, combatants are trying to defeat each through the removal of Assets and attempting to create—cumulatively—Successes equal to or greater than the Quality of the task or the opponent. Minor NPCs or situations are easily overcome, but difficult situations and major NPCs will be more challenging to defeat and will require extended tests.
The system is intended to cover the various types of situations which can occur in a story in Dune: Adventures in the Imperium. So, individual duels, skirmishes and open battles, espionage, and social intrigue. However, this is not well explained in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide—or at least not well explained enough for somebody who has not roleplayed to grasp with any great ease. Anyone with more experience will see that the iteration of the 2d20 System presented here has shifted into more of a narrative, storytelling style of play, where the aim is not necessarily to kill an opponent, but defeat them, and thus make that adjustment. Anyone with that experience may have more difficulty doing so, and an example or two of how the combat system works would have not gone amiss.
Overall, the iteration of the 2d20 System in theDune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide and Dune: Adventures in the Imperium lies at the simpler and easier end of its implementation. It is not as simple as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars: Adventures on the Dying World of Barsoom , but is roughly on a par with Star Trek Adventures.
‘Wormsign’ is the given scenario in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide. It can be run using the same cast as the core rules—they are given as the pre-generated Player Characters here in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide—or with those of the players’ own creation using the core rules. This means that it can be run as a sequel to the scenario core rules or as a standalone or beginning scenario. The Player Characters—a Mentat, a Criminal, a Servant (Spy), Bene Gesserit Novice, Swordmaster Apprentice, and Reformed Spice Smuggler—are all intended to be in service with one of the houses. The default is House Atreides, but it could be another house awarded a spicemining contract if the campaign involves one of the players’ and Game Master’s creation. It should not be House Harkonnen, or an affiliated house.
Consisting of six scenes, ‘Wormsign’ sees the Player Characters sent out over the Shield Wall on Arrakis into the desert to investigate the activities of a group of spice smugglers. When they discover their operation it is relatively small and the Player Characters have choice as to what to do—destroy it, arrest the smugglers, co-opt them into their house’s own operation, or cultivate them as contacts, but this opportunity does not last long, when the forces of a rival house intervene and attack. Then if that is not challenging enough, ‘Wormsign’ ups the ante with a wormsign and the incoming movement of a worm! The scenario becomes a fight for survival and if the Player Characters do survive and act with any degree of probity, they may come away with further potential allies.
Now this all feels in keeping with a story set on Arrakis, but ‘Wormsign’ manages to be both challenging and unsatisfying… The Player Characters are faced with some fierce choices. Go one way—in fact, go more than one way—and the likelihood is that they will end up dead, and there is little in the way of warnings as the possible actions. In the final scenes, they have the opportunity to interact with Fremen, and only one means of doing so is provided. To the point where no stats are provided for the Fremen and the Game Master is told that they will avoid any kind of physical conflict. In the event that they even fail at this, the Player Characters fail at this, they have another struggle to survive, which the Game Master will need to develop. Ideally, the Player Characters should survive the scenario, make contacts with both the spice smugglers and the Fremen, and get back to Arrakeen. However, this is not all that interesting by itself and very much feels like the middle part of a campaign or the first half of a scenario, as if there is a second part to come.
The Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide is not quite the introduction to Dune: Adventures in the Imperium and roleplaying on Arrakis that it deserves to be. In the hands of an experienced Game Master, there is a reasonable scenario and adventure to be had from the pages of Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide, but for anyone with less experience or who lacks access to the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium full rules, the combination of underwritten—or at least under explained—conflict rules and the underwhelming nature of the scenario means that running the quick-start will be much more of a challenge.
Chromatic Dungeons, Part 4 Final Thoughts and Wrap-up
Edited to add: Here are all the parts to this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.I am ending my week (or so) with Chromatic Dungeons today. It has been a real treat going through this game. There is a feeling here of the first time I went through the AD&D 1st Ed Player's Handbook in terms of the potential I feel for my games. There are some really great ideas here I plan to use, either running a CD game or adopting them for my other Old-School games.
Ancestry & Heritage
Along with such products such as Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e from Arcanist Press and the new material in Pathfinder 2e, this is the way all games are going to move towards. I could go into the racist history of why "race" was originally used starting with examples from the Victorian age and moving on to practices in educational and biological "research" but the truth is the people that are least likely to change are also the most likely to ignore all of that. So what's the point. I don't teach fish to read and I don't try to talk to people who have their minds made up. I am convinced that we will see this in D&D 5.5/5r and it will soon migrate to other, even old-school, games.
I am likely to give it a try in my OSE-Advanced games. I would likely tweak it a bit more to fit my needs a little better.
No Alignments for Sentient Humanoids
Again, this is a sea-change in many games. I have no issues with it at all. I have had good orcs for years, and a lot of mostly neutral ones, and scores of completely evil ones. Yes, yes, insert Tolkien arguments here...BUT as much as I adore the Professor and his works, he is not my DM. Neither is Gygax, or Arneson, nor any others. I get to decide what my world does or does not do. Goblins are already all over the place in regards to alignment for me, I am even getting to a place where Drow might not all be evil. Yes the vast, vast majority of them are demon-worshiping sadists. But not all of them. Interestingly enough, the one humanoid I have always seen as Always Evil are Gnolls. Something the Gnoll Sage line rejects.
Again there are things going on here that are just on paper that I have been doing (and posting about here) forever.
Which Witch to Use?
This is my blog so I want to talk about which witch I would use with this RPG. Design-wise Chromatic Dungeons can be used with just about every or any version of D&D or clones thereof. So by that logic, any of my witch books should work fine. But some work better than others, to be honest.
Given when my Chromatic Dungeons books came in the mail I also got my new Pumpkin Spice Witch mini with some Candy Corn Dice. So I have always felt that my Pumpkin Spice Witch book for Advanced Labyrinth Lord would be perfect.
Rule wise the Classical Witch or Amazon Witch is a better choice. But in any case, if you are playing CD then use the XP values in the CD books and the powers from whichever book you choose.
Personally, I like the idea of Fleabag coming into a "Home, Hearth & Heart" and having a conversation with Becky my Pumpkin Spice Witch. She would offer them a PSL (though I see Fleabag more as an herbal tea drinker) and go on about their fur ("It looks so soft! Do you use conditioner? We have one here that I LOVE, it's on the house! Wait, you are not allergic to lavender are you?") and have a nice conversation about witches in the world.
In true Chromatic Dungeons fashion though I think there should be a coven with a witch from every Tradition I have represented. So Pumpkin Spice, White, Green, Classical, Amazon, Mara, Aiséiligh, Winter, Faerie, Aquarian, Maleficia, Hedge, and Pagan. That would be a lot of fun. Not sure how they would all get along though. Chromatic coven to be sure.
[Free RPG Day 2021] How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber
Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.
—oOo—
How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is perhaps the most different—or at least most singular—of the releases for Free RPG Day in 2021. It is not a quick-start or a scenario for a roleplaying game, but a set of instructions booklet on how to build and paint a piece of terrain which can be added to a dungeon and provide space in which the brave heroes can confront its big boss. This is the final chamber in a dungeon, the site for a showdown between the adventurers the villain and his acolytes, filled with treasure, loots, and possibly secrets. Designed and written by Dave Taylor Miniatures, it shows a Game Master—or of course, a Dungeon Master—how to use a combination of using the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set from The Army Painter and Mantic Games’ Dungeon Treasure Terrain Crate.
Although it is clear that you get a lot in the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set—lots of XPS Foam with which to build the terrain and the tools to prepare it, including knife, glue, hot wire cutter, and so on—How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber does not show this. There are lots of photographs though, which illustrates the various steps that the author takes in building the scene. This includes preparing it, such as scoring the floor with a one-inch grid to mark out stone flagstones and even adding a little variation to floor by using a metal ruler to press down in the corners of some of the squares. The walls of the chamber look to be more complex to build, but the instructions are clear enough and there is plenty of detail in the photographs. Then how to paint the terrain and the treasure piles and the other treasure pieces are all given a similar treatment.
However, all of this advice and guidance is not quite written from a beginner’s point of view. As much as it says that it introduces the prospective builder to “[S]ome basic building painting approaches – including techniques like washing and drybrushing…” it really does not quite do that. Rather, it explains that the author used them, but does not explain what they are. So it is not quite introductory enough, which means that the reader will need to do a little research beyond the pages of How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber. Fortunately, finding this information out should not be difficult, whether on a website or on YouTube. The prospective builder should be aware that she needs to do so though.
The penultimate two pages are devoted to ideas as to how to use the end result of following the instructions in How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber and bring it into a campaign. There are three hooks suggested. In the first, ‘Lair of the Minotaur’, the brave adventurers must confront Gharus Vilehoof, a canny Minotaur who has been luring adventurers into his lair in the service of his master, Baphomet and keeping their treasure, whilst in the second, ‘The Summoning’, the chamber is home to a great portal that the sorcerer Illikar is attempting to open and so bring his long-banished people back from their exile. This would result in a new era of darkness and so the adventurers must rush to thwart the ritual. The third, ‘Eternal Slumber’, is the longest of the three and sees the adventurers rush into the depths of a former Dwarven stronghold which has been long been occupied by hordes of Goblins and their Fomorian masters. The stronghold has a secret though, the Rune Chamber of Vaul contains the former Dwarven Runelords and their artefacts held in stasis—and the magic behind is weakening. Can the adventurers hold off the Goblin hordes long enough to save the Dwarves from the past?
These hooks get better as you read along. ‘Lair of the Minotaur’ amounts to no more than a room description and encounter rather than a hook, and whilst there is a hook in ‘The Summoning’, it is adequate at best. Fortunately, ‘Eternal Slumber’ makes up for the underwhelming nature of the first and there is plenty here for the prospective Game Master to get her teeth into. In fact, there is a whole dungeon, or rather a former Dwarven stronghold, for her to design to fit this final boss chamber. Perhaps if the illustration at the top of the page containing ‘Lair of the Minotaur’ and ‘The Summoning’ the author would have had more room to give them the development they so need.
The hooks are followed by descriptions the treasures to be found in the various versions of the final boss-fight chamber. These include the Axe of Gharus, wielded by the Minotaur Gharus Vilehoof, possessed by a demon servant of Baphomet that whispers to its wielder to fulfils its master’s goals and drips blood that infects wounds and the Seven Stones of Cinderac, ioun stones created by an ancient wyrm that contain the secrets of the universe… So a little like Stormbringer in the case of the first and Marvel Universe’s Infinity Stones in the case of the latter, but of course, the Game Master to free to design the items however she wants to fit her game.
Physically, How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is decently presented with lots of photographs as illustrations. It is perhaps a little underwritten in places, both the instructions and the hooks.
Of all the releases on Free RPG Day 2021, How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is the least useful—at least in the short term. It will take time for the Game Master to bring any of the contents to the table. Most obviously because she will need to have access to the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set and the Dungeon Treasure Terrain Crate, and then build the terrain, and then prepare the scenario in which to set the final boss-fight. In comparison, most of the other titles released are quick-starts and scenarios and so can be brought to the much more immediately. And of course, because How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is designed to make use of the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set and the Dungeon Treasure Terrain Crate, it is also very much obviously designed to sell both them and other terrain sets. The other releases are similarly designed to do that too, so that is no criticism, but with How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber, it is more obvious.
—oOo—
How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is perhaps the most different—or at least most singular—of the releases for Free RPG Day in 2021. It is not a quick-start or a scenario for a roleplaying game, but a set of instructions booklet on how to build and paint a piece of terrain which can be added to a dungeon and provide space in which the brave heroes can confront its big boss. This is the final chamber in a dungeon, the site for a showdown between the adventurers the villain and his acolytes, filled with treasure, loots, and possibly secrets. Designed and written by Dave Taylor Miniatures, it shows a Game Master—or of course, a Dungeon Master—how to use a combination of using the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set from The Army Painter and Mantic Games’ Dungeon Treasure Terrain Crate.Although it is clear that you get a lot in the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set—lots of XPS Foam with which to build the terrain and the tools to prepare it, including knife, glue, hot wire cutter, and so on—How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber does not show this. There are lots of photographs though, which illustrates the various steps that the author takes in building the scene. This includes preparing it, such as scoring the floor with a one-inch grid to mark out stone flagstones and even adding a little variation to floor by using a metal ruler to press down in the corners of some of the squares. The walls of the chamber look to be more complex to build, but the instructions are clear enough and there is plenty of detail in the photographs. Then how to paint the terrain and the treasure piles and the other treasure pieces are all given a similar treatment.
However, all of this advice and guidance is not quite written from a beginner’s point of view. As much as it says that it introduces the prospective builder to “[S]ome basic building painting approaches – including techniques like washing and drybrushing…” it really does not quite do that. Rather, it explains that the author used them, but does not explain what they are. So it is not quite introductory enough, which means that the reader will need to do a little research beyond the pages of How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber. Fortunately, finding this information out should not be difficult, whether on a website or on YouTube. The prospective builder should be aware that she needs to do so though.
The penultimate two pages are devoted to ideas as to how to use the end result of following the instructions in How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber and bring it into a campaign. There are three hooks suggested. In the first, ‘Lair of the Minotaur’, the brave adventurers must confront Gharus Vilehoof, a canny Minotaur who has been luring adventurers into his lair in the service of his master, Baphomet and keeping their treasure, whilst in the second, ‘The Summoning’, the chamber is home to a great portal that the sorcerer Illikar is attempting to open and so bring his long-banished people back from their exile. This would result in a new era of darkness and so the adventurers must rush to thwart the ritual. The third, ‘Eternal Slumber’, is the longest of the three and sees the adventurers rush into the depths of a former Dwarven stronghold which has been long been occupied by hordes of Goblins and their Fomorian masters. The stronghold has a secret though, the Rune Chamber of Vaul contains the former Dwarven Runelords and their artefacts held in stasis—and the magic behind is weakening. Can the adventurers hold off the Goblin hordes long enough to save the Dwarves from the past?
These hooks get better as you read along. ‘Lair of the Minotaur’ amounts to no more than a room description and encounter rather than a hook, and whilst there is a hook in ‘The Summoning’, it is adequate at best. Fortunately, ‘Eternal Slumber’ makes up for the underwhelming nature of the first and there is plenty here for the prospective Game Master to get her teeth into. In fact, there is a whole dungeon, or rather a former Dwarven stronghold, for her to design to fit this final boss chamber. Perhaps if the illustration at the top of the page containing ‘Lair of the Minotaur’ and ‘The Summoning’ the author would have had more room to give them the development they so need.
The hooks are followed by descriptions the treasures to be found in the various versions of the final boss-fight chamber. These include the Axe of Gharus, wielded by the Minotaur Gharus Vilehoof, possessed by a demon servant of Baphomet that whispers to its wielder to fulfils its master’s goals and drips blood that infects wounds and the Seven Stones of Cinderac, ioun stones created by an ancient wyrm that contain the secrets of the universe… So a little like Stormbringer in the case of the first and Marvel Universe’s Infinity Stones in the case of the latter, but of course, the Game Master to free to design the items however she wants to fit her game.
Physically, How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is decently presented with lots of photographs as illustrations. It is perhaps a little underwritten in places, both the instructions and the hooks.
Of all the releases on Free RPG Day 2021, How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is the least useful—at least in the short term. It will take time for the Game Master to bring any of the contents to the table. Most obviously because she will need to have access to the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set and the Dungeon Treasure Terrain Crate, and then build the terrain, and then prepare the scenario in which to set the final boss-fight. In comparison, most of the other titles released are quick-starts and scenarios and so can be brought to the much more immediately. And of course, because How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is designed to make use of the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set and the Dungeon Treasure Terrain Crate, it is also very much obviously designed to sell both them and other terrain sets. The other releases are similarly designed to do that too, so that is no criticism, but with How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber, it is more obvious.
I’m Living In My Own Private Tanelorn: Wimberley, Texas – 3
After writing about carnivorous plant issues on this site for the last decade, it’s always funny when unrelated discussions lead right back to the subject at hand. A week ago, the subject was on bee burn, where Sarracenia pitcher plants … Continue reading →
Review: Chromatic Dungeons, Part 3 The Gnoll Sage
Edited to add: Here are all the parts to this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
Heading into the last of my three-part series on Izegrim Creations' Chromatic Dungeons game. Today I want to review the first 5 issues of their Zine-like publication The Gnoll Sage. What it adds to Chromatic Dungeons and what you can get out of these even if you are not a Chromatic Dungeons player.
The Gnoll Sage
For this review, I am considering the PDFs from DriveThruRPG as well as the printed, digest-sized, soft-covers I received via Kickstarter.
Each book is 24 or so pages with Issue #5 coming in at 42 pages. Color covers and black and white interiors. Each one is released under the OGL so a couple of pages go to the license statement.
On the surface, there is a strong influence from Dragon magazine, but not in the way say Gygax magazine tried to do. The influence here is easily one of someone that had read and grown up on Dragon and wanted to recreate the feeling rather than the actual layout. It serves The Gnoll Sage (TGS) well.
The unifying thread through all these issues is the involvement of "Fleabag" the eponymous Gnoll Sage. Not Phoebe Waller-Bridge (but that would be hilarious) but an intelligent, erudite, be-spectacled, and maybe a bit of a pacifist, Gnoll who presents topics from the issue/zine from their point of view. I personally rather like it. It fits well into the idea that no humanoid race in Chromatic Dungeons has a default alignment. The funny part, for me at any rate, is I have often agreed with this idea on my blog EXCEPT for Gnolls. Maybe I'll give Fleabag a try anyway.
Each zine has a main feature, usually depicted on the cover, and other details like some magic items, equipment, spells, and so on. There is a comic section reminiscent of "Dragon Mirth" as well. There is an editorial in each issue talking about the issue and what might be coming next.
The material presented in each issue is overtly for the Chromatic Dungeons game, but it is all written in such a way, with extra notes when needed, that it can be used with just about any 80s or 90s versions of *D&D or any clone that emulates them. In particular, I felt they would be very handy to use with B/X D&D or Old-School Essentials.
The Gnoll Sage #1The first issue details the Mrav Covjecka, a group of insectoid/humanoid hybrids that need humanoid blood to nurse their brood. We get an "Ecology of" article as told to us by Fleabag. A monster statblock that can be used by any d20 based game including D&D 5.
There is also a brief adventure featuring the new monsters. There is the humor section, some new magic items, some NPCs you can meet, a section of new spells and upcoming topics in future books.
There is also the OGL statement at the end.
The Gnoll Sage #2In this second issue we are given the Animist class which is designed to replace classes like "the Witch doctor" or Shaman or even "Spirit Guide." This is a good thing since the term Animist encapsulates all of these ideas. It is a divine spellcaster in Chromatic Dungeons terms, but can easily be ported over to any other D&D/Clone. It could also be tweaked and added to D&D 5 if you like. The class and all it's powers take up 18 of the zine's 28 pages. I have not played it yet but it looks pretty solid.
The remainder of the book is given over to humor, the look forward, and a copy of the OGL.
The Gnoll Sage #3The third issue of The Gnoll Sage gives us the ecology of a monster introduced in the Chromatic Dungeons hardcover, the Mushropod. In the Ecology Of article, we get more details from our Gnoll on the Scene, Fleabag as they let us know what they have uncovered about the sentient mushrooms. Again the stat block reminds me of a 5e one, but everything here lends itself well to use of any 20th century D&D or clone.
There is a very brief adventure featuring these guys, some humor, three new magic items, some new NPCs, and a new spell. We end with the State of the Business note from Waibel where he mentions his Rise of Authur project. If you follow him at all online now (late Fall 2021) you have seen the characters he has been working on.
The Gnoll Sage #4Now here is one I was quite excited for. This issue introduces us to the Psionist class for Chromatic Dungeons or any other clone. We start with some fluff with Fleabag and the aftermath of the Mushropod attack from the last issue. Fleabag describes a unique "spellcaster" they had met who what not a spellcaster at all. We then get into the class proper. Now I am very particular about my psychic and psionic using classes. Even to the point where I have a preferred term (it's "psychic" btw) and I need them to be very different than my spell-using classes. Also if their powers can be built up over time with disciplines, then all the better. This class satisfies two of those three. The class is flexible to use just about anywhere and easy to introduce. In fact, with the most minor of tweaks, a 5th Edition class can be found here. The psionist can choose one of three disciplines; Psychometabolism, Telekinesis, and Telepathy. There are powers with each one and they grow as the character levels up.
We also get an ersatz Mind Flayer in the Mind Eater and some comics. In the State of the Business, we learn this was the last issue of the original four set, with issue #5 coming as a stretch goal.
The Gnoll Sage #5This issue is the last of the Kickstarter issues and also the largest so far at 42 pages. This issue covers the Ecology of the Orc and sets out to challenge our notions, or at least stereotypes of orcs. This is introduced in the starting fiction with Fleabag challenging the party to think about what sorts of orcs they might be dealing with. What follows is a very long Ecology Of and details of seven very different Orc clans.
In the Ecology Of we learn the basic structure of an orc clan including numbers, leadership, and organization. What follows are descriptions of seven example clans. They are, briefly: Small Clans are the various orc clans represented in pretty much all other RPGs. The Iron Shield Clan, a group of orcs more interested in making weapons, and selling them, than using them. Yellow Fang, a group of plains orcs that wear the skins of their enemies as clothing. Chaka Plains orcs are not pacifists per see, but understand the value of life and death and respect it. Meet them peacefully and you will be respected, meet them with violence and they will happily escort you to your next life. There are the sea-faring orc pirates and privateers of the Red Sails, but they only attack the wealthiest of ships. There are the imperialistic and arrogant orcs of the Baildan Daguulalt (Empire) that combine the best, and worst, characteristics of Imperialisy Britain and the Roman Empire. They are brilliant and utterly convinced of their own superiority, in fact they made the cover. Finally the orcs of the Silver Glacier might be the most dangerous of all these clans.
That is a lot! There are still a couple of magic items, some comics, new spells, and some hints about the next issue and a new class The Commander.
Each issue runs for $5.00 for the PDF and $6.00 for the print or print/PDF combination.
Their digest size makes me think they will fit in well with the newest versions of Old-School Essentials or Swords & Wizardry. So even if you don't play the Chromatic Dungeons game, these are still great resources.
I’m Living In My Own Private Tanelorn: Wimberley, Texas – 2
On a recent trip to Wimberley, Texas, you’d think there would be a lot of time to photograph Texas flora, and that would be true if there wasn’t a wedding going on. There was still time for a few snaps, … Continue reading →
I’m Living In My Own Private Tanelorn: Wimberley, Texas – 1
Okay, so last weekend, two of my best friends got married. They’d been connected via a wide net of mutual friends and acquaintances for the last three decades, but they first met in person while attending the very first Triffid … Continue reading →
Review: Chromatic Dungeons, Part 2 "Advanced" Rules
Today I want to cover the big game in the Chromatic Dungeons line. I call it the "Advanced" game, but the name on the cover is just Chromatic Dungeons RPG.
Note. I do want to point out that nowhere in the game nor in any online conversation has Roderic Waibel or Izegrim Creations called these rules "Advanced." This is just what I am calling them to differentiate them from the Basic Rules.
Again for this review, I am considering the hardcover I got as a Kickstarter Backer and the PDF from DriveThruRPG.
Note 2: I'll make allusions to the Basic game here. This is only to describe how these rules go above and beyond the basic rules. At no point in these rules did I see something that had you refer to the Basic rules for more details. This rulebook is complete on its own.
330 pages, hardcover, color cover art, black & white interior art.
If the Basic Game was meant to invoke feelings of the 1981 Moldvay Basic set then this book is clearly influenced by the earlier AD&D 1st Edition core rules. It is a hardcover for starters, larger, and provides more details for playing a CD game.
The rules are largely in line with and much more compatible with each other than say Basic D&D was to AD&D. This is one of the biggest reasons I was excited about this particular game. Back in the day we played D&D and AD&D interchangeably and tried to deal with the rule contradictions the very best we could. Here those contradictions do not exist except in the way that specific rules override general ones. Characters are more detailed, as are spells, monsters, and a host of other options, but never in a way they feel contradictory to the Basic Rules. Characters can move fairly freely between the games.
Ability Scores are chosen the same way 4d6 and drop the lowest. Here the general modifiers of the Basic game give way to specific ones for each ability and subscores, ie. to hit and damage adjustment for Strength, number of spells for Intelligence, followers for Charisma, and so on. Ability Checks are handled in the same fashion. Scores still cap at 18 for rolls or 20 with bonuses, but the charts go to 25 for the use of exceptional characters and monsters.
Ancestry covers what species you were born into. Dwarves come in Hill, Mountain, and Deep varieties. Elves can be High, Wood, or Deep. Humans and Halflings are back and joined by Gnomes. A table of alternate Ancestries is also given so you could play Gnolls, Centaurs, Orcs, or Goblins to name but a few. The system is simple enough that almost any sort of ancestry can be used.
Heritage, like the Basic game, covers the character's upbringing. This chart is the same as the Basic game, but expanded with more types.
Character Classes. This is the first of the really big changes. Where the Basic game has only three basic character types, this one has four major class groups with many sub-classes underneath. The feeling is that of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea or AD&D 2nd Edition to be honest, with maybe just a touch of 5th Edition D&D. Each group shares an advancement table for HD calculations and to hit bonus along with a shared Saving Throw table. All groups share the same single XP per level table as per D&D 3rd through 5th Editions.
The first group is the Divine, which gives us Clerics and Druids. Divine Spellcasters are limited to 7th level spells. Warriors include the fighter, berserker, ranger, and paladin. Rogues are the most diverse lot with thieves, assassins, bards, and monks. Magic-users are arcane spellcasters and they get spells to 9th level. They include the Wizard and the Sorcerer which is a spell-point-based spell caster. Like the sorcerers of 3rd to 5th edition, they have a bloodline and some examples are detailed.
Multiclassing and Alignment are the same here as the Basic game. The unified XP chart makes multiclassing easier. Alignment is a three-point system of Law-Neutrality-Chaos.
Equipment is next. Very similar but expanded over the Basic game.
Spells is the next largest section of the book and also one of the three that gets the most changes. Spells are split out into classes with the Divine first (Cleric then Druid) then all the Arcane spells. The spells are all listed out alphabetically. Included now are staples like Area of Effect, Components, casting time, and saving throws. Each spell also has a school listed.
How to Play covers the game. This is roughly similar to the Basic Game, but it is expanded. Saving Throws are now added to the game. They are an interesting remix of Basic/AD&D and D&D3 style saves. More on traps, diseases, and hirelings are covered here.
Combat gets its own section. Here initiative is back to a d20 (not the d10 of the Basic game).
The Campaign deals with adventures, granting XP and what kinds of monsters can be found where. It ends with a sample play session.
The Bestiary is the last of the three big changes. Not only are all the monsters expanded on, but there are also more of them. The monsters are still sorted by categories or groups, but now there are more. There are Beasts, Demons, Devils, Dinosaurs, Dragons, Elementals, Fey, Giants, Golems, Humanoids, Lycanthropes, Monstrosities, Oozes, and Undead. The stat blocks are expanded to give average scores for Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma. Special Attacks. Special Defenses and Magic Resistance are all now included.
As with the Basic game, many monsters do not have an alignment. Or rather their alignment is listed as n/a. In the case of animals (Beasts and Dinosaurs), it is because they lack intelligence or awareness. Others like humanoids it is because the Game Master can choose what they want. Notably, all Demons and Devils are Chaotic, Dragons are split between Lawful and Chaotic along the lines you think they are, Elementals are now properly Neutral, and Fey runs the spectrum. We get the usual suspects here, nothing jumping out at me as new save for the Mi-Go (not new, but not usual) and the mushropod (sorta new, but certainly NOT usual).
The Treasure section is also expanded. Included new are Sentient Weapons and rarity tables. There is a new section on crafting items including an ingredient listing with measures of rarity.
We end with appendices of tables, blank character sheets, indexes, and our OGL statement.
The PDF is fully bookmarked.
Like the Basic books, this book is filled with evocative old-school style art. Some of it is from various stock art artists the Old-School community knows, but a good deal is original and new art. Much of it is clearly influenced by 40 years of playing. The art goes beyond "Euro-centric" D&D art and a variety of ethnicities, genders, and peoples are represented.
Again like the Basic books this is really directed at and written for people coming into the Old-School RPG scene anew. While there is a lot to enjoy here if you are an old Grog, and the art, in this case, is a particular treat, the audience that will get the most out of this are a generation younger. If you still have your original D&D books from the 1970s and 80s you will still find enjoyment here. Especially if you are like me and enjoy seeing the design choices of "D&D's Greatest Hits" here.
The book "feels" like AD&D 1st Ed. Or maybe it is a 2nd Edition clone if that game had been produced later.
Because of how it is built it also feels like nearly anything can be used with it from nearly any area of D&D's history.
Who Should Buy This?
I said this yesterday about the Basic Chromatic Dungeons game, and it is true for this version as well. This game is a great game to introduce new players, new to RPGs or new to Old-School style games, to the ways of playing of the 1980s. Sure it is not exactly how we did it, but it is a great compromise between Old and New school. Finally, someone has made a "Basic" game that works great as an introduction to an "Advanced" game and one that works well enough on its own. Yes, yes there is Old-School Essentials and Labyrinth Lord that have both Basic and Advanced options, but Chromatic Dungeons' Basic game is truly that, an introductory game, "Basic" and "basic" at the same time and it is the perfect introduction to this "Advanced" game.
If you are like me and grew up on old-school games and now have a family that loves the newest version of the game then this is a good way to introduce them to old-school play. OR if you are new school player and want to try your hand at some old school play, but want to retain some of the options that make the new games so attractive, then this is a great game for you.
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I am posting this as part of this month's RPG Blog Carnival on Indie Games hosted by The Rat Hole.
Enclosures: “Lagerstätte” (2021)
Incoming: Report from the Archaeologist Guild, 91198312-1145 Abstract: Description of a uniquely preserved fossil bed dating approximately 65 million years before the present Details: While the fact that our planet once had an extensive civilization across all major landmasses has … Continue reading →
Review: Chromatic Dungeons, Part 1 Basic Rules
The craziness that is October is behind me now, time to settle in and read some books and do some reviews. I have been planning to do this one now for some time and this feels like the best time for me.
For the next few days I am going to review the new Old-School Game on the block, Chromatic Dungeons from Roderic Waibel and Izegrim Creations. Waibel ran a very successful Kickstarter for this over the Summer and the physical books and PDFs have been in my hands since the very start of Fall. I am happy to report I am very pleased with what I have received. I interviewed Waibel back when his Kickstarter was live so you can get an idea of the goals of Chromatic Dungeons. I'll refer back to that to see how well his stated goals were met for me.
Let me begin with noting that that there three distinct reviews I am doing here this week. The first covers the "Basic Rules" made up of Player's Book and a Monsters & Treasures book. The "advanced" or full game of Chromatic Dungeons will be tomorrow. Finally a zine-like product, The Gnoll Sage, will be after that.
Chromatic Dungeons, Basic Rules
Basic Rules, Player's Book. 86 pages, soft-cover, color cover art, black & white interior art.
Basic Rules, Monsters & Treasures. 58 pages, soft-cover, color cover art, black & white interior art.
For this review I am considering the two soft-cover Basic Rules books and PDFs.
The Basic Rules of Chromatic Dungeons consists of two books a Players Book and a Monsters & Treasures book. The material for the Game Masters is split between the two books. Players only need the Player's book, but the GM will need both. Considering the prices of the books this is not a problem.
The guiding principle for Chromatic Dungeons is to provide an old-school ruleset, say circa 1981, but still have some new school sensibilities. Because of this it does not make much sense to call Chromatic Dungeons a "retro clone." It is an old school game yes, but the rules inside are an interesting mix of old and new school mechanics. I will point these out as I move through the text but to put the major selling point up front, this is the game you are likely to have the most success with when introducing old school play to newer players. I will detail more (and a few more times) as we progress.
The Basic Rules are designed to introduce new players to the CD game. It has a lot in common with it's progenitor game, Dungeons & Dragons, in particular the 1981 Moldvay Basic set. It is written for people that have never played before. This is still a good thing since one of the goals I believe of this game IS to introduce new players to old-school gaming.
Basic Rules, Player's BookWe get an Introduction and Forward that helps explain the nature of this game, but also to set the stage for what we will see. The author wants to make it plain up front that this is an inclusive game and that everyone should feel welcome to it. This includes a brief overview of the game and a brief glosary of game terms to get everyone going.
Character Creation is first with the character concept and the rolling of ability scores. The method used here is 4d6, drop the lowest and arrange to suit your concept. This strikes a good balance between getting the character you want and old-school randomness. Want 3d6 in order? That game was already written and likely you already have it. After this you choose your Ancestry (and Heritage), Class and get equipment. Lets go into some detail here.
XP per Level is covered first. Each class uses the same XP value much like you see in 21st century D&D games (3rd Edition and beyond). This has a number of advantages of course. Multi-classing becomes easier and it helps keep level progression fairly even. Also it helps the intended audience, new gamers, become acclimated faster. (Editorial aside: I have taught many players whose first experiences were 3e, Pathfinder or 5e and they adapt to differing XP level charts fine; often with an occasional reminder that the thief is higher level because of it. But still this is easier.)
Ability Scores are the standard six we are all familiar with. Like the Moldvay Basic set the scores run 3-18 with simple modifiers they all share. Note. These mods are slightly different than what you might find in B/X, Labyrinth Lord, or Swords & Wizardry, so make sure you put them on your character sheet and don't go by memory. A simple ability check system that is compatible with, well, really all sorts of versions of D&D/Clones is presented.
Note in this version of the Chromatic Dragons game there are no "Saving Throws" but rather specialized ability checks. For example to "save" against some mind affecting magic you need to make a Wisdom check. This actually works rather well in my mind.
Ancestry and Heritage is the system used to replace the antiquated notions of "Race." Essentially this is a "Nature and Nurture" idea where Ancestry is your genetic or biologic make up and Heritage is how and under what conditions you were raised. For ancestry you can choose Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, and Human. Each has details common to members of the same Ancestry. Dwarves are short, live to 300 years or so, and also something called "solid build" which gives them the ability to reduce damage by blunt object by 1 point. Humans get to add 1 point to any ability score, elves don't need to sleep and so on. Heritages are how you you were raised. So this helps give players a bit of character creation control to that backstory in their minds. You choose two heritages and the list can easily expanded. For example you can be born a halfling and have all the benefits of the halfling ancestry, but maybe you lived in a a Dwarf community, so you have the heritages of "Crafting" and "Subterranean."
This is a great concept and one I would wholesale adopt for all my games in the future. It just works too well for me. But I do have a couple of nitpicks with how it is done here. First under Ancestry everyone gets a language of their ancestry. This is something I feel better goes under Heritage. And there are some heritages that are better suited for ancestry. For example my Halfling who grew up in the Dwarven community knows how to speak Halfling due to their Ancestry and has Infravision due their "Subterranean" heritage. I can see "Dark Adapted" working, or even the ability to detect sloping corridors; but infravision feels like something you should be born with and languages are something that are learned later. Again, a minor nitpick, but one I will adjust when playing.
Character Classes cover the three basic classes; Fighter, Rogues, and Wizard. Other 3-class games call these Warriors, Rogue (or Expert) and Adept, but the names in the book are more suited to this genre and make translations to the "Advanced" game easier. Each class get an ability bonus, much like you see in newer games. So fighters get a +1 bonus to Strength, Constitution, or Dexterity. This can be easily rationalized as training. Each class also gets a set of abilities. Note, the Rogue abilities are presented using the same system as all other ability checks. They get bonuses for particular abilities; same name as the thief abilities of other games. Each level they gain 6 points to improve their 9 abilities as they choose (reminds me of 2nd Ed AD&D's Rogues). I do rather like this, yes it is different from the multiple subsystems that was either the curse or the charm of old-school games (depending on your point of view) but it also makes for a speedier game. Wizards for this game cover wizards, magic-users and clerics. Another small nitpick, since there is the Advanced game, I would have called this class a Magic-user, and then when the classes are separated out in the Advanced game called the Magic-users Wizards. But again, this is minor.Alignment is a basic, or rather Basic, affair of just Law, Neutrality and Chaos.
Equipment covers everything you can buy. I remember running some friend through the Keep on the Borderlands years decades ago and they spent the entire adventure shopping in the Keep and trying to get deals.
How to Play covers all the Basic rules starting with movement. Movement scale is closer to that of newer, 21st century forms on D&D. We also get good coverage on time, vision, stealth and more. Discussions on what you can do on your turn are detailed. At this point we have read a little about about combat, but not all of it. That comes up now with initiative. Here we are using a hybrid of Basic and 2nd Edition inspired initiative sequence. We also get Morale another Basic/2nd Ed hybrid, but based on a max score of 10 as opposed to 12 (Basic) or 20 (2nd Ed).
Armor class is Ascending, not Descending. This is good since it gets rid of the need for attack tables. Characters have an attack bonus and they roll vs. AC.
Experience Points are pretty much the same as seen in earlier versions of D&D. A bit on creating adventures is given and a sample adventure is provided.
Wizard Spells follow. Since there is only one spell casting class, all the spells to 5th level are here.
We end with a blank character sheet, Appendices of tables, sample characters and a combat quick guide.
Basic Rules, Monster & TreasureThis book is primarily for Game Masters.
The bulk (2/3) of the book is about monsters. It starts off with what the descriptions of the monsters mean, how to read the stat blocks and so on. The stat block is pretty similar to what is found in *D&D circa 1981, so reading or even adapting to other games is easy. While XP values are listed Treasure type is not.
There is a section on special monsters, such as having the abilities of a character type or class. As well as assigning numbers for ability checks for monsters. Something that will be easier in the "Advanced" version of the game.
The monsters are grouped by category rather than all alphabetical. The Categories are Beasts, Dinosaurs, Dragons, Elementals, Fey, Fiends, Giants, Humanoids, Lycanthropes, Monstrosities, and Undead. Nearly all the usual suspects are here.
Some monsters are given the alignment of "n/a." This is typically true of creatures that are too unintelligent for alignment such as dinosaurs, or humanoids that can be any alignment. I do think for creatures like beasts, dinosaurs and elementals that "neutral" would have been fine and for humanoids "any" would have worked. Fiends are all Chaotic and so are most of the Dragons, Giants, and Undead.
The Treasure section covers not only magical treasures as expected, but gives us an alternate treasure type system based on the monster's HD. So not dissimilar to 3e or 5e.
Both Books
Both books are filled with evocative old-school style art. Some of it from various stock art artists the Old-School community knows, but a good deal is original and new art. Much of it clearly enfluenced by 40 years of playing. The art goes beyond "Euro-centric" D&D art and variety of ethnicities, genders and peoples are represented.
Both books are really directed and written for people coming into the Old-School RPG scene anew. While there is a lot to enjoy here if you are an old Grog, and the art in this case is a particular treat, the audience that will get the most out of this are a generation younger. If you still have your original D&D books from the 1970s and 80s you will still find enjoyment here. Especially if you are like me and enjoy seeing the design choices of "D&D's Greatest Hits" here.
Both PDFs are fully bookmarked. Both books are fully OGC.
This game is a great game to introduce new players, new to RPGs or new to Old-School style games, to the ways of playing of the 1980s. Sure it is not exactly how we did it, but it is a great compromise between Old and New school. This game is also the perfect introduction to the "Advanced" game of Chromatic Dungeons. Finally, someone has made a "Basic" game that works great as an introduction to an "Advanced" game and one that works well enough on it's own. Yes, yes there is Old-School Essentials and Labyrinth Lord that have both Basic and Advanced options, but Chromatic Dungeons' Basic game is truly that, an introductory game, "Basic" and "basic" at the same time.
Tomorrow I'll talk about the full Advanced game.
[Free RPG Day 2021] Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet
Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.
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It is more common for roleplaying games to get turned into board games, for example,
Exalted: Legacy of the Unconquered Sun for the Exalted roleplaying game from White Wolf Entertainment and Grand Tribunal, the board game set in the world of Atlas Games’ Ars Magica, but that trend is on the turn. Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game from Magpie Games is based on Leder Games’ Root: A Game of Woodland Might and Right, whilst the popular Zombicide board game from CMON Global Limited now has its own stand-alone roleplaying game in the form of Zombicide: Chronicles – The Roleplaying Game. For Free RPG Day 2021, CMON Global Limited released the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet. This contains a trio of short scenarios which can either set up or continue with post-apocalyptic campaign in which the dead rise, walk, shamble, or even run, and want to much on your brains. However, it does not any rules from Zombicide: Chronicles—for that the Zombie Master will need to download the Zombicide: Chronicles Quick-Start, which has everything necessary to play through the three scenarios in the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet.
The first of the three new missions in the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is ‘Cruise of the Dead’. This is a solid campaign starter with the Player Characters thrown together as Survivors aboard a classic cruise ship complete with its own promenade deck, swimming pool, night club, grand ballroom, and more. Whether as former members of the crew or passengers, the Survivors must battle across the decks of the Childlike Empress and up to the bridge where perhaps they might be able to get a message out and someone can come and rescue them! There are some entertaining scenes here, whether on the promenade deck and in and around the swimming pool, the nightmare blaring lights of the ship’s night club, or the remnants of a magician’s stage show in the grand ballroom, and the author lays on the cheesiness you would expect aboard a cruise ship. This is very much a combat focused scenario combined with some elements of stealth, so it feels very much like the board game that Zombicide: Chronicles is derived from. Nevertheless, its big action and big battles combined with a narrow focus—well, it is set aboard a cruise ship—does mean that it works as a good campaign opener. Plus, the ship can reach land wherever the Zombie Master wants and so continue the campaign from there.
The second mission, ‘Death is Just a State of Mind’ takes place at a celebrity health spa and clinic run by actress Willow Rhiannon Meagre, who is best known for her restorative goo known as Slop. In the wake of the zombie rising, there is a rumour that Slop can be applied to zombies to cure them! So the mission opens with the Survivors outside the city’s Willow Rhiannon Meagre Wellness Centre, which caters to often famous clientele, all ready to break in, grab some pots of Slop and perhaps run into a celebrity or two—whether they are still alive or have been turned into zombies! The centre is nicely detailed, complete with a surprisingly deep Zen Garden, a hot sauna, brochures with a complete guide to the best and most effective places to apply your Slop, and probably the best use of adult toys in a zombie roleplaying game—ever! Being for Zombicide: Chronicles, the scenario involves a lot of combat with the members of the corpse cortege, but it involves some investigation too, and there is a bit more story involved too. ‘Death is Just a State of Mind’ does not so much as ladle irony and splatter bloody satire around the Willow Rhiannon Meagre Wellness Centre as generally slop it everywhere it can. It contains some very obvious knowing digs at a certain celebrity, social media conspiracies, and more recent events, and is fairly tongue in cheek. Or is that tongue in cheek and out the other side? ‘Death is Just a State of Mind’ is great fun and very silly.
The last of the three missions in in the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is ‘Third Level Underground’. This is definitely a city-based mission which begins with the Player Characters, having learned that there is a delivery van full of medicine on the third level of a multi-storey car park nearby. Are they prepared to descend into the darkness below, not knowing what might be down there, break into the van, and get out again? This is primarily a stealth mission, with the Survivors creeping down into the car park’s lower levels, trying to take advantage of the many unlooted vehicles still parked, whilst avoiding any encounters with the cadaver cavalcade which bound to be down there. If that sounds all too simple, then you would be right, but not that much more simple. There are the broken facilities of the car park to work around, a reluctant survivor to encounter, and something quite fun for the Zombie Master to throw at the Player Characters. ‘Third Level Underground’ is a fairly straight forward encounter, one which is relatively easy to drop into a campaign or city set scenario.
Physically, the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is breezily presented with plenty of the cartoon artwork taken from the Zombicide board game. Although it needs a slight edit in places, it is very easy to read and understand, such that the preparation time for any one of its three missions is actually fairly low.
The Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is mixture of fun, clichés, satire, and classic zombie action. The mechanical elements to the three scenarios are incredibly light, such that the Zombie Master need not have a copy of Zombicide: Chronicles to run any of three. A little adaptation and the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet would work with any zombie roleplaying game or any modern roleplaying game to which zombies can be added. Above all though, the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is solid support for Zombicide: Chronicles – The Roleplaying Game, especially if you want a campaign starter and something to run later in the campaign
—oOo—
It is more common for roleplaying games to get turned into board games, for example, Exalted: Legacy of the Unconquered Sun for the Exalted roleplaying game from White Wolf Entertainment and Grand Tribunal, the board game set in the world of Atlas Games’ Ars Magica, but that trend is on the turn. Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game from Magpie Games is based on Leder Games’ Root: A Game of Woodland Might and Right, whilst the popular Zombicide board game from CMON Global Limited now has its own stand-alone roleplaying game in the form of Zombicide: Chronicles – The Roleplaying Game. For Free RPG Day 2021, CMON Global Limited released the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet. This contains a trio of short scenarios which can either set up or continue with post-apocalyptic campaign in which the dead rise, walk, shamble, or even run, and want to much on your brains. However, it does not any rules from Zombicide: Chronicles—for that the Zombie Master will need to download the Zombicide: Chronicles Quick-Start, which has everything necessary to play through the three scenarios in the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet.
The first of the three new missions in the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is ‘Cruise of the Dead’. This is a solid campaign starter with the Player Characters thrown together as Survivors aboard a classic cruise ship complete with its own promenade deck, swimming pool, night club, grand ballroom, and more. Whether as former members of the crew or passengers, the Survivors must battle across the decks of the Childlike Empress and up to the bridge where perhaps they might be able to get a message out and someone can come and rescue them! There are some entertaining scenes here, whether on the promenade deck and in and around the swimming pool, the nightmare blaring lights of the ship’s night club, or the remnants of a magician’s stage show in the grand ballroom, and the author lays on the cheesiness you would expect aboard a cruise ship. This is very much a combat focused scenario combined with some elements of stealth, so it feels very much like the board game that Zombicide: Chronicles is derived from. Nevertheless, its big action and big battles combined with a narrow focus—well, it is set aboard a cruise ship—does mean that it works as a good campaign opener. Plus, the ship can reach land wherever the Zombie Master wants and so continue the campaign from there.
The second mission, ‘Death is Just a State of Mind’ takes place at a celebrity health spa and clinic run by actress Willow Rhiannon Meagre, who is best known for her restorative goo known as Slop. In the wake of the zombie rising, there is a rumour that Slop can be applied to zombies to cure them! So the mission opens with the Survivors outside the city’s Willow Rhiannon Meagre Wellness Centre, which caters to often famous clientele, all ready to break in, grab some pots of Slop and perhaps run into a celebrity or two—whether they are still alive or have been turned into zombies! The centre is nicely detailed, complete with a surprisingly deep Zen Garden, a hot sauna, brochures with a complete guide to the best and most effective places to apply your Slop, and probably the best use of adult toys in a zombie roleplaying game—ever! Being for Zombicide: Chronicles, the scenario involves a lot of combat with the members of the corpse cortege, but it involves some investigation too, and there is a bit more story involved too. ‘Death is Just a State of Mind’ does not so much as ladle irony and splatter bloody satire around the Willow Rhiannon Meagre Wellness Centre as generally slop it everywhere it can. It contains some very obvious knowing digs at a certain celebrity, social media conspiracies, and more recent events, and is fairly tongue in cheek. Or is that tongue in cheek and out the other side? ‘Death is Just a State of Mind’ is great fun and very silly.
The last of the three missions in in the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is ‘Third Level Underground’. This is definitely a city-based mission which begins with the Player Characters, having learned that there is a delivery van full of medicine on the third level of a multi-storey car park nearby. Are they prepared to descend into the darkness below, not knowing what might be down there, break into the van, and get out again? This is primarily a stealth mission, with the Survivors creeping down into the car park’s lower levels, trying to take advantage of the many unlooted vehicles still parked, whilst avoiding any encounters with the cadaver cavalcade which bound to be down there. If that sounds all too simple, then you would be right, but not that much more simple. There are the broken facilities of the car park to work around, a reluctant survivor to encounter, and something quite fun for the Zombie Master to throw at the Player Characters. ‘Third Level Underground’ is a fairly straight forward encounter, one which is relatively easy to drop into a campaign or city set scenario.
Physically, the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is breezily presented with plenty of the cartoon artwork taken from the Zombicide board game. Although it needs a slight edit in places, it is very easy to read and understand, such that the preparation time for any one of its three missions is actually fairly low.
The Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is mixture of fun, clichés, satire, and classic zombie action. The mechanical elements to the three scenarios are incredibly light, such that the Zombie Master need not have a copy of Zombicide: Chronicles to run any of three. A little adaptation and the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet would work with any zombie roleplaying game or any modern roleplaying game to which zombies can be added. Above all though, the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is solid support for Zombicide: Chronicles – The Roleplaying Game, especially if you want a campaign starter and something to run later in the campaign
Halloween Hangover 2021
Here we are at the end of another October! I watched a lot of movies, talked a lot about horror, and generally speaking had a really good time.
I want to thank everyone that came by to talk about the horror movies and participate in the October RPG Blog Carnival.
For this October I watched 62 horror movies with 48 of them first-time views. That's double what is needed, but about where I expected.
The Challenge started out with the idea of doing a Lovecraft Film Fest. But as it turns out I had seen most of those movies and many of them are actually fairly terrible. I moved on to horror/sci-fi, witch movies, demons, and a sprinkle or two of werewolves, vampires, and sea monsters.
What I *DID* end up doing was watch a bunch of foreign language films. Here are all the languages I got to listen to in my Challenge; German (both standard and Swiss German), Italian (lots), Spanish (with a touch of Yucatec), Portuguese, Czech and Slovak (which I loved), Hungarian, Indonesian (2 of those!), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, and yes English. That is easily the most I have seen in one challenge.
This year I also identified a new sub-genre of witch movies that I call Daughters of the Craft. I went back and applied this tag to past movies as well. I'll keep an eye out for more.
I enjoy having a theme for my Challenges because it gives me a challenge, finding movies that fit, and I can compare and contrast them. Now I need to think about what my theme for next year is.
I know today is the first of the month and that has meant a new character. It is also Monday and that means a new monster. But I call today Halloween Hangover day for a reason. I am rather mentally drained.
Going to spend some time gathering up my thoughts and seeing how I want to proceed with the rest of the year. I have a lot of reviews I want to do, so maybe that is what November will be for.
Ongoing Triffid Ranch fun in 2022
The official announcement came out today, so it’s time to note that the Texas Triffid Ranch returns to the Oddities & Curiosities Expo in 2022Dallas at Fair Park on March 26, and the Palmer Event Center on June 18. And … Continue reading →
Review 1500: Call of Cthulhu
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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Call of Cthulhu was first published in 1981. Written by Sandy Petersen, it is famously, the roleplaying game based upon the works and creations of American horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft, drawing upon the adage, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” from his own essay, ‘Supernatural Horror in Literature’. Indeed, it is the first roleplaying game to so as its sole focus—other roleplaying games and supplements included the creatures of Lovecraft’s Mythos within their pages, but not in the way that Call of Cthulhu does. The roleplaying game places the action—and by action, mostly investigation—in Lovecraft’s own period of the Jazz Age, the nineteen twenties, and has ordinary men and women investigate the machinations and conspiracies of creatures and entities best left unknown to man, the creatures and entities of the Cthulhu Mythos, as well as their all too human cultists and acolytes, and if not save the world in the long term, at least save the world for now. In doing so, their bravery in the face of Cosmic Horror, will remain unknown and go unrewarded save the knowledge that mankind is safe—for now, for ultimately the stars will come right, and Cthulhu will rise from where lies dreaming deepest R’lyeh to reclaim what was once his, along with a host of other aliens and beings beyond our understanding who regard Humanity as nothing more than an infestation—if they do at all. However, their investigations will see them delve into secret places, peruse and study ancient tomes, learn blasphemous knowledge and incantations, and see things and beings best left unseen, all of which might drive them insane, such is the nature of the truth about the world and the cosmos which has long been forgotten.
An Investigator in Call of Cthulhu has nine attributes—Strength, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Power, Dexterity, Appearance, Education, and Sanity. Of these, Sanity is actually derived from the Investigator’s Power, and plays a major role in the roleplaying game, whilst Education determines the number of points a player has to assign to the skills granted by his Investigator’s Occupation. This Occupation can be Antiquarian/Historian, Author, Dilettante, Doctor, Journalist, Lawyer, Professor, Parapsychologist, and Private Eye (the choices available will greatly expand with subsequent editions and supplements), granting skills such as Anthropology, Archaeology, History, Library Use, Occult, Psychoanalysis, Psychology, Read/Write Other Language, and Speak Other Language for the Parapsychologist occupation. In addition, an Investigator’s Intelligence determines the number of points a player has to assign to personal interest skills.
The skills themselves are very modern and geared towards the investigative playing style of the game. Thus Library Use for conducting in libraries and newspaper morgues, Read/Write Latin or Ancient Greek for reading ancient or Mythos related tomes, Psychology for determining if a potential cultist is lying or even insane, Credit Rating for getting a loan or moving in the right social circles, and so on. There are combat skills too, such as Handgun or Fist, but these are always reliable in play, since many of the Mythos creatures are immune to their effects. One notable skill is Cthulhu Mythos, which represents an Investigator’s knowledge of the cosmic horror which threatens mankind’s understanding of the universe, knowledge which will permanently damage an Investigator’s Sanity. Investigator creation is actually very simple, but the range of Occupations and skills lend themselves to a multitude of ideas and concepts for Investigators and their backgrounds all inspired by the historical setting of the roleplaying game.
Our sample investigator is Henry Brinded, a Bostonian from a wealthy family who studied Classics at Yale before serving as an artillery officer with the American Expeditionary Force in Northern France during the Great War. As a consequence he is slightly deaf and abhors loud noises. He owns and runs a small antiquarian shop which specialises in ancient and medieval manuscripts.
Henry Brinded
Occupation: Antiquarian
Strength 11 Constitution 11 Size 12 Intelligence 16
Power 14 Dexterity 13 Appearance 17 Education 17
Sanity 70 Hit Points 11
Archaeology 20%, Bargaining 30%, Boating 30%, Credit Rating 40, Cthulhu Mythos 00%, History 65%, Law 30%, Library Use 50%, Make Maps 20%, Psychology 25%, Read/Write English 85%, Read/Write Latin 50%, Speak French 25%, Swim 25%
Combat Skills
75 mm Field Gun 20%
Rifle 20%
Mechanically, Call of Cthulhu famously uses Basic Role-Playing for the basis of its mechanics, the percentile system derived from RuneQuest. In comparison to RuneQuest, the mechanics of Call of Cthulhu are much simpler and would remain virtually the same until their revision with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. It is primarily a skills-based game, a player rolling under his Investigator’s skills or if against an object or NPC, on the Resistance Table, using percentile dice. Really, this is not very much more than Basic Role-Playing—a copy of which is included in the box as an introduction to the rules—with a plethora of different skills to account for the change in genre and time period.
The one notable addition to the rules is Sanity. An Investigator begins play with his Sanity equal to his Power attribute times five, and it is tested if he encounters something scary, be it the dead body of a fellow Investigator or a creature of the Mythos. Fail the test and the Investigator might lose a few points for seeing the corpse, eight or ten for encountering a Mythos creature, and even one hundred points for seeing a Great Old One such as Great Cthulhu himself! If an Investigator fails the Sanity roll (and sometimes even when he succeeds), then he can not only lose Sanity he can go insane, temporarily if he loses five points in one go, but indefinitely if he loses a fifth within the space of an hour, such is the corrosive effect upon the fragility of the mortal mind. Such an Investigator might end catatonic or suffering from amnesia, but one of the probable outcomes is that he suffers from a phobia, and the rulebook includes a lovely list such as Ballistophobia or Teratophobia. Now there are only a few here, but subsequent expansions to the game would add many more.
Sanity can also be lost for reading Mythos tomes such as the infamous Necronomicon or the dread Revelations of Glaaki, but sometimes they have to be read to learn the means or the spells necessary to thwart the Mythos—at least temporarily. However, doing so means gaining points in the Cthulhu Mythos skill, representing the fundamental understanding as to the true nature of the universe and mankind’s place in it. The more points in the Cthulhu Mythos skill an Investigator has, the lower his maximum Sanity. Now it is possible to regain points of Sanity, typically by defeating or thwarting the plans of a cult or a Mythos creature, but also by undergoing Psychoanalysis. The latter takes a while though, is not guaranteed to work, but is safer than the former option—depending upon the Alienist and the institution of course. In the long term, as an Investigator loses points of Sanity, the lower the chance he has of withstanding shocks and exposure to the Mythos, the greater the chance of losing more Sanity, and so on, until his Sanity is so low, he retires alive but unhinged or it drops below zero and he is insane. Permanently.
Much of the rest of the rest of the core rule book is dedicated to the Mythos itself. This begins with the gods and creatures, from Azathoth, Cthuga, and Great Cthulhu to Y’Golonac, Yig, and Yog-Sothoth, from Byakhee, Chthonians, and Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath to Shoggoths, Star-Spawn of Cthulhu, and Star Vampires. All are given full stats and extensive write-ups, much of which will be familiar from later editions of Call of Cthulhu. Here though, Petersen classifies them not once but twice. First into Outer Gods and Great Old Ones as well as Alien Races and Monsters, and second, into classes—Minor, Moderate, Major, Great Old Ones, and Outer Gods. Thus, Shub-Niggurath is an Outer God, Ithaqua a Great old One, Hounds of Tindalos are Major, Shoggoths Moderate (!), and Mi-Go Minor. It does feel oddly forced, but as a way of quantifying them it works well enough. The well-done chapter of the Mythos Monsters is followed by an explanation of how Mythos magic works and the dangers of reading the various Mythos tomes. Again, the explanations are well done, and again, the spells reinforce how this is not a roleplaying game in which the Investigators learn a spell and blast away at their enemies with eldritch power. Most of the spells consist of call, contact, summon, and/or bind the things of the Mythos, which means bringing them to the Investigators and exposing their minds to the unspeakable horrors to the detriment of their Sanity, and many spells cost Sanity to cast. Which is fine if you are an insane sorcerer with no Sanity! Lastly, the Mythos tomes are simply listed and do feel as if they warrant further development.
And then there is the ‘How to Play the Game’ chapter. This is a superb chapter—which like so much of the rest of Call of Cthulhu will be visited again and again—which explains, if it was not clear from the first six chapters, how Call of Cthulhu is a roleplaying game of a different stripe. With the first sentence it states that, “Call of Cthulhu differs in feel and motivation from other roleplaying games.”, warning that direct confrontation with the Mythos will not only fail, but probably end up with the death of the Investigators involved. The solution is to investigate, to visit libraries, conduct interviews, read arcane tomes, scout out locations, and more. It also advises that the Investigators avoid too much gunplay lest they arouse the suspicions of the authorities. It is a fantastic read and it is followed by good advice for the Keeper of Arcane Secrets—as the Game Master is known in Call of Cthulhu, in setting up and running a scenario and a campaign. As good as the chapter is, the two subject matters—one for the players and one for the Keeper—do not feel as if they should be together, in case of the advice for the player, this far into the book. Nevertheless, this is an excellent chapter, its contents pertinent today as it was in 1981. It is followed by an example play, which sadly does not involve Harvey Walters.
The core rulebook includes not one, but two scenarios. First up is ‘The Haunting’—more recently renamed ‘The Haunted House’, a scenario which inserts the Mythos into a classic haunted house set-up and delivers some great shocks and scares in what has since become almost everyone’s first encounter with Call of Cthulhu. It has been developed since, and appeared in almost every version of the Call of Cthulhu rulebook except for the Call of Cthulhu Keeper’s Rulebook for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. (It is instead included in the Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition Quick-Start and returned to the Call of Cthulhu Keeper’s Rulebook for its fortieth anniversary edition.) It is a creepy little classic, here feeling a little barebones, but effective all the same for a single session. The second is ‘The Brockford House’, which has never been reprinted beyond the pages of the core rulebook, has the Investigators looking into another house and the strange noises coming from underneath. Located just off the coast of Maine, this is a more physical scenario than ‘The Haunted House’, involving little in the way of investigation or research, leaving the Investigators even more ill prepared for what they face than usual. Although it has its moments, ‘The Brockford House’ is unimpressive.
Lastly, the appendices provide two scenario vignettes, which can be used to begin or add to a campaign. The first involves a deadly encounter on a bus tour in Vermont, leading to the Investigators being hounded by allies of the Mythos, whilst the second is a detailed summoning site in the crater of an extinct volcano. The first is the better of the two and works better as the beginning of a campaign, something that the Keeper can take away and develop on her own. The second has plenty of detail, but necessarily the scope as intended. Lastly, the appendices contain a list of libraries and ‘Notes on a Fragment of the Necronomicon’, penned by Phileus P. Sadowski. This is a delightful in-game examination of the dread tome, which adds detail and history to its listing earlier in the core rulebook. However, the fact that the given date for the article is 1979 and it references Lovecraft: A Biography by L. Sprague de Camp, it does feel out of step with the rest of the game! Otherwise this is an engaging piece with which to end the rulebook.
If the rulebook for Call of Cthulhu focused on Investigators and the weirdness of the Mythos, the second book in theCall of Cthulhu box provides the context. ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’ is both an almanac for the Jazz Age and an expansion to the rules. Even the cover is put to good use with a set of deck plans for an airship, but inside there are maps of noted archaeological sites—from Ife in Nigeria, Scara Brae in the Orkney Islands, and Çatal Hüyük in Turkey to Moundville in the USA, Pan-P’o-Ts’un in China, and Luxor in Egypt. These in particular are eye opening, in many cases the reader’s first exposure to some of the amazing archaeological sites, ripe to be visited by the Investigators’ resident archaeologist or used as a site by dread cultists, their accompanying text spurring a Keeper to research more. ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’ also includes timelines ordinary and outré for the decade, thumbnail biographies for the notables of the period, a list of companies with goods and services to add flavour to a game, floorplans of the railway coaches (terrifying train journeys would go on to become a staple of Call of Cthulhu scenarios), travel speeds and times, and goods and prices.
In play, there is the addition of Nautical skills and new weapon stats and notes for the war boomerang, the musket, Thompson submachine, and even a 75 mm field gun! The ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’ also provides a short guide to crimes, arrests, and handling bribery too, including notes about the 18th Amendment and thus Prohibition (a subject which the roleplaying game would revisit numerous times over the next four decades). The guide to handling arrests are really very good, highlighting what might happen if the Investigators’ actions arouse suspicion and the potential consequences are, because ultimately, although their actions may be morally right, legally they may be anything other than right. This enforces the sense of the ordinary world around them versus the Cosmic Horror they face. Organised crime is covered as well, as is the Ku Klux Klan. For the Keeper there is advice on cultists and cults, including primitive cults, and the nature—both benefits and costs—of worshipping the unnameable. ‘Beasts & Monsters’ expands on the list of entities and forces of the Mythos, but with more ‘mundane’ creatures. So crocodiles and pythons, but also the ghost, the mummy, the pixie, the vampire, the werewolf, the wraith, and the zombie. The latter, the more traditional monsters have their own Sanity losses, of course, and their inclusion opens up the realms of possibility and using Call of Cthulhu as a more traditional horror roleplaying game, and again, that possibility would be revisited again and again in the next forty years, most notably with the anthologies Blood Brothers and Blood Brothers II.
However, there is some variation between the content of the ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’. Later versions provide ‘Other Occupations’ such as Gangster, Missionary, Policeman, and Soldier, plus rules for Sages, from whom an Investigator can learn more of the nature of the world and perhaps gain other help too. In the earlier version—the version included with the Call of Cthulhu Classic reprint—in a section called ‘Previous Experience’. This offers a more random means of creating an Investigator, a player rolling to determine his Investigator’s attributes and then gender, starting age, birthplace (in the USA), Education (this can be lower in rural areas) and where he went to school. This will add some points to various academic skills, and then he selects one or more Occupations, and works out his prior experience. This is done in five-year terms (much like the roleplaying game Traveller does, but in four-year long terms), the Investigator receiving the given skill bonuses for the Occupation. For example, the Gangster this is Climb (5), Jump (5), Fast Talk (10), Credit Rating (10), Drive Auto (10), Listen (10), Bargain (5), Spot Hidden (5), Law (5), Dynamite (5), Sub-Machine Gun (5), Revolver (5), Shotgun (5), and Pick Pocket (5) for each term. It even comes with a complete example, the prior experience of Eben Stone, whose fortunes remain unknown in comparison to those of the perennial Harvey Walters.
Whichever version of ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’ was present in the Call of Cthulhu box, there is no denying the wealth of detail it provides player and Keeper alike. There is so much information in its pages that the Keeper can use to bring her campaign to life and add verisimilitude, and so much of it has since been re-explored and developed—if not by Chaosium, Inc., then by other publishers. Certainly both The Keeper’s Companion vol. 1 and The Keeper’s Companion vol. 2 can be seen as developments of ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’ as well as various aspects of the core rulebook.
In addition to the core rulebook and ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’, Call of Cthulhu includes a sheet of Character Figures, which can be cut out and used as figures during play instead of miniatures. Both Investigators and Cthulhu entities are done as silhouettes, those for the monsters the same as their illustrations in the core book. The silhouettes of these Character Figures would also influence the sculpture of the miniatures manufactured Grenadier Models. Lastly, the box contains a poster map of the world, marked with sites of interest across the globe, both Mythos and mundane. It is nice and clear, but perhaps a little large to use easily.
Physically, Call of Cthulhu is well presented, it is easy to read, and is broken up by boxed text and the occasional illustration. Actually there is very little artwork in the core rulebook and whilst not all of it is of the highest quality it is in the main effective in evoking a certain dark and lonely mood. The use of a single Investigator, Harvey Walters, as an example throughout the rulebook, from creation to insanity really helps the reader understand the roleplaying game’s mechanics. ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’ feels a little cramped in comparison, but that is down to the amount of content within its pages.
It is difficult to pinpoint any real issues with Call of Cthulhu as it originally appeared. There are details which perhaps the reader might feel the designer got wrong about the Mythos, but there are perhaps two issues, one more serious than the other. The lesser issue is that the scenarios are variable in quality, but to be fair, these are the first scenarios for Call of Cthulhu, so cannot be expected to be amazing the first time out. The major issue is the lack of advice for the Keeper on the design and presentation of NPCs, especially cultists. There are some notes in ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’, but the Keeper is very much left on her own to develop these herself with little real guidance. Of course, in subsequent editions of the roleplaying game, as well as innumerable scenarios and campaigns, the Keeper would be shown again and again what a cultist or other NPC might look like in terms of the rules, but here in the core rulebook, she is left wanting.
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Call of Cthulhu would go on to win the Origins Awards for Best Role-Playing Game in 1982 and receive the Game Designer’s Guild, Select Award in 1981, and ultimately, be conducted into the Origins Award Hall of Fame in 1995. Within a year of its publication, it would be reviewed several times, some of them in quite lengthy write-ups.
William Barton, who would go on to write Cthulhu by Gaslight, reviewed Call of Cthulhu in Space Gamer Number 49 (March, 1982) and said, “Overall, CALL OF CTHULHU is an excellent piece of work.” He noted that there were several inconsistencies in the interpretation of the Mythos, but considered, “Petersen’s depth of research in the books and in the Mythos is next to remarkable.” and despite a number of failings overlooked in the simplification of Basic Role-Playing into Call of Cthulhu, concluded that, “The worlds of H. P. Lovecraft are truly open for the fantasy gamer.”
In ‘Call of Cthulhu is a challenge’ in Dragon #61 (May 1982), David Cook was critical of the rules, especially what he called, “[T]he incompleteness of the combat system.” with its small list of weapons, and a lack of rules for cover, movement, surprise, and the like. He was particularly critical of ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’, complaining that, “It, like the appendices, appears to be notes and unfinished design work.” and suggested that it could have been better used to present the background to Lovecraft’s stories for those unfamiliar with them. His most serious complaint was that “The most serious flaw in the game is the lack of rules for NPC’s. The rules do say, and quite rightly, that Investigators should seldom meet any of the monsters listed. Doing so will often result in Investigator death or insanity, not a pleasant prospect for a player. Therefore, the Investigator will be dealing with and battling NPC’s. However, there is nothing given in the rulebook about creating interesting NPC’s. There is no quick system for generating NPC characteristics and skills. There are no suggestions for what NPC’s will know, how they will be armed, or what (or why!) they are doing. This lack of information puts an extremely large burden on the Keeper and makes it especially hard to create NPC’s that will keep the players’ interest. There should have been a section devoted to this in the rules.
Although Cook’s initial conclusion was initially less than positive, “It is difficult to either love or hate the game.”, but ultimately said, “It is a good game for experienced role-playing gamers and ambitious judges, especially if they like Lovecraft’s type of story. However, those players and judges just getting into roleplaying or who have never read a Lovecraft story are well advised to wait on this Game until they have more experience.”
Reviewing Call of Cthulhu in Open Box in White Dwarf No 32 (August 1982), Ian Bailey wrote, “Sandy Petersen has faithfully reproduced the tone of Lovecraft’s with the Call of Cthulhu game system and as a result, it is not about hacking and slaying, it is about investigation, which boils down to a rewarding battle of wits between the players and the Keeper.” He also noted that, “The game encourages good role-playing from the players. The rules embody a number of deterrents for the would be ‘fighter’.” His only criticism was that the sourcebook was too “U.S. orientated and consequently any Keeper ... who wants to set his game in the UK will have a lot of research to do.” Before concluding that, “Call of Cthulhu is an excellent game and a welcome addition to the world of role-playing.” and awarding it a score of nine out of ten.
Call of Cthulhu would be voted number one in ‘Arcane Presents the Top 50 Roleplaying Games 1996’ in Arcane #14 (December, 1996). The article summed it up as “Call of Cthulhu is fully deserved of the title as the most popular roleplaying system ever – it’s a game that doesn't age, is eminently playable, and which hangs together perfectly. The system, even though it’s over ten years old, it is still one of the very best you’ll find in any roleplaying game. Also, there’s not a referee in the land who could say they’ve read every Lovecraft inspired book or story going, so there’s a pretty-well endless supply of scenario ideas. It’s simply marvellous.”
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It is surprising to note that when Call of Cthulhu was published, there was no other horror roleplaying game on the market. There were plenty of roleplaying games with horror elements in them—primarily classic monsters such as werewolves, vampires, and zombies—but none dedicated to the genre itself, so when Call of Cthulhu was published in 1981, it was not only ground-breaking, but it was also ground-breaking in its genre again and again. To begin with, it quantified the Mythos, its creatures and gods, spells and tomes, not as something to fight and defeat as was the case in their previous appearances in roleplaying games and supplements, but as something to be scared of and thus avoid, as a real threat to the Investigators and humanity, and in doing so elevated the Mythos in the hobby into something more than just fodder for sword and spell. The general lack of familiarity with the Mythos also meant that the creatures and gods presented in the pages of Call of Cthulhu were also all the more unknowable, so the scares and the horror that the Keeper could bring to her game were all the more effective. Arguably, this presentation would spur interest anew in Lovecraft’s fiction and ultimately lead to the popularity that his creations have today. It presented a whole new way of roleplaying and game—investigating, researching, interacting with NPCs to get information, and attempting to find a means to defeat the ghastly enemy using the mind and knowledge rather than brute force. It emphasised the skills and the knowledge of the Investigators, who are just ordinary men and women, rather than the might and powers of adventurers in other roleplaying games. When combined with the fact that the roleplaying game was set in the real and comparatively modern world, although one several decades before, it made the Investigators all the more human and relatable. It also inverted the way in which the roleplaying game was traditionally played. In most roleplaying games, the player characters gain in power and heroic stature, becoming better warriors, learning more powerful spells, and gaining more wondrous magical artefacts or other equipment. Not so in Call of Cthulhu. In Call of Cthulhu, the Investigators can improve their skills, but they do not gain amazing powers or even better equipment, or even increase their Hit Points. There is no ascending spiral of heroic power. Instead, the more the Investigators learn of the Mythos, whether through encounters or research, they may gain secret, arcane knowledge, but they suffer for it, becoming mentally unbalanced, even insane if they learn too much. Theirs is a descending spiral of insanity, theirs is at best a desperate and secret battle to save humanity, heroic but still unknown.
Lastly, of course, there is Insanity. Call of Cthulhu introduced a Sanity mechanic and it was simple and elegant. No more could a roleplaying game get by without addressing the mental fortitude, or lack of, of its Player Characters, and although there have been many ways to handle fear and being scared half to death in roleplaying games since, Call of Cthulhu did it first and did it simply and elegantly.
In the years since it was first published, Call of Cthulhu has been presented in multiple new editions, and its concepts explored again and again, in ways that the original designer probably never envisioned, in hundreds of scenarios and tens of campaigns, from the ancient past to the here and now (and even beyond). Call of Cthulhu is and has been incredibly well supported in its forty years of being in print. And the great thing is that the content from forty years ago can still be played using the rules presented in the original edition of the roleplaying or the latest. Which is a testament to the firm foundation that was laid by Sandy Petersen for Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying with the first edition of Call of Cthulhu.
There is a reason why Call of Cthulhu is regarded as one of the greatest roleplaying games ever published. It is a classic piece of design that successfully emulates the singular genre it is inspired by and in doing so, introduced new ways to roleplay and tell amazing stories as well as innovations to the roleplaying hobby that are still influential today. It is always going to be the greatest horror roleplaying game there is, not just because of the Mythos, but because of its influence, innovations, and that it can still give you a great playing experience.
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Call of Cthulhu was first published in 1981. Written by Sandy Petersen, it is famously, the roleplaying game based upon the works and creations of American horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft, drawing upon the adage, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” from his own essay, ‘Supernatural Horror in Literature’. Indeed, it is the first roleplaying game to so as its sole focus—other roleplaying games and supplements included the creatures of Lovecraft’s Mythos within their pages, but not in the way that Call of Cthulhu does. The roleplaying game places the action—and by action, mostly investigation—in Lovecraft’s own period of the Jazz Age, the nineteen twenties, and has ordinary men and women investigate the machinations and conspiracies of creatures and entities best left unknown to man, the creatures and entities of the Cthulhu Mythos, as well as their all too human cultists and acolytes, and if not save the world in the long term, at least save the world for now. In doing so, their bravery in the face of Cosmic Horror, will remain unknown and go unrewarded save the knowledge that mankind is safe—for now, for ultimately the stars will come right, and Cthulhu will rise from where lies dreaming deepest R’lyeh to reclaim what was once his, along with a host of other aliens and beings beyond our understanding who regard Humanity as nothing more than an infestation—if they do at all. However, their investigations will see them delve into secret places, peruse and study ancient tomes, learn blasphemous knowledge and incantations, and see things and beings best left unseen, all of which might drive them insane, such is the nature of the truth about the world and the cosmos which has long been forgotten.An Investigator in Call of Cthulhu has nine attributes—Strength, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Power, Dexterity, Appearance, Education, and Sanity. Of these, Sanity is actually derived from the Investigator’s Power, and plays a major role in the roleplaying game, whilst Education determines the number of points a player has to assign to the skills granted by his Investigator’s Occupation. This Occupation can be Antiquarian/Historian, Author, Dilettante, Doctor, Journalist, Lawyer, Professor, Parapsychologist, and Private Eye (the choices available will greatly expand with subsequent editions and supplements), granting skills such as Anthropology, Archaeology, History, Library Use, Occult, Psychoanalysis, Psychology, Read/Write Other Language, and Speak Other Language for the Parapsychologist occupation. In addition, an Investigator’s Intelligence determines the number of points a player has to assign to personal interest skills.
The skills themselves are very modern and geared towards the investigative playing style of the game. Thus Library Use for conducting in libraries and newspaper morgues, Read/Write Latin or Ancient Greek for reading ancient or Mythos related tomes, Psychology for determining if a potential cultist is lying or even insane, Credit Rating for getting a loan or moving in the right social circles, and so on. There are combat skills too, such as Handgun or Fist, but these are always reliable in play, since many of the Mythos creatures are immune to their effects. One notable skill is Cthulhu Mythos, which represents an Investigator’s knowledge of the cosmic horror which threatens mankind’s understanding of the universe, knowledge which will permanently damage an Investigator’s Sanity. Investigator creation is actually very simple, but the range of Occupations and skills lend themselves to a multitude of ideas and concepts for Investigators and their backgrounds all inspired by the historical setting of the roleplaying game.
Our sample investigator is Henry Brinded, a Bostonian from a wealthy family who studied Classics at Yale before serving as an artillery officer with the American Expeditionary Force in Northern France during the Great War. As a consequence he is slightly deaf and abhors loud noises. He owns and runs a small antiquarian shop which specialises in ancient and medieval manuscripts.
Henry Brinded
Occupation: Antiquarian
Strength 11 Constitution 11 Size 12 Intelligence 16
Power 14 Dexterity 13 Appearance 17 Education 17
Sanity 70 Hit Points 11
Archaeology 20%, Bargaining 30%, Boating 30%, Credit Rating 40, Cthulhu Mythos 00%, History 65%, Law 30%, Library Use 50%, Make Maps 20%, Psychology 25%, Read/Write English 85%, Read/Write Latin 50%, Speak French 25%, Swim 25%
Combat Skills
75 mm Field Gun 20%
Rifle 20%
Mechanically, Call of Cthulhu famously uses Basic Role-Playing for the basis of its mechanics, the percentile system derived from RuneQuest. In comparison to RuneQuest, the mechanics of Call of Cthulhu are much simpler and would remain virtually the same until their revision with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. It is primarily a skills-based game, a player rolling under his Investigator’s skills or if against an object or NPC, on the Resistance Table, using percentile dice. Really, this is not very much more than Basic Role-Playing—a copy of which is included in the box as an introduction to the rules—with a plethora of different skills to account for the change in genre and time period.
The one notable addition to the rules is Sanity. An Investigator begins play with his Sanity equal to his Power attribute times five, and it is tested if he encounters something scary, be it the dead body of a fellow Investigator or a creature of the Mythos. Fail the test and the Investigator might lose a few points for seeing the corpse, eight or ten for encountering a Mythos creature, and even one hundred points for seeing a Great Old One such as Great Cthulhu himself! If an Investigator fails the Sanity roll (and sometimes even when he succeeds), then he can not only lose Sanity he can go insane, temporarily if he loses five points in one go, but indefinitely if he loses a fifth within the space of an hour, such is the corrosive effect upon the fragility of the mortal mind. Such an Investigator might end catatonic or suffering from amnesia, but one of the probable outcomes is that he suffers from a phobia, and the rulebook includes a lovely list such as Ballistophobia or Teratophobia. Now there are only a few here, but subsequent expansions to the game would add many more.
Sanity can also be lost for reading Mythos tomes such as the infamous Necronomicon or the dread Revelations of Glaaki, but sometimes they have to be read to learn the means or the spells necessary to thwart the Mythos—at least temporarily. However, doing so means gaining points in the Cthulhu Mythos skill, representing the fundamental understanding as to the true nature of the universe and mankind’s place in it. The more points in the Cthulhu Mythos skill an Investigator has, the lower his maximum Sanity. Now it is possible to regain points of Sanity, typically by defeating or thwarting the plans of a cult or a Mythos creature, but also by undergoing Psychoanalysis. The latter takes a while though, is not guaranteed to work, but is safer than the former option—depending upon the Alienist and the institution of course. In the long term, as an Investigator loses points of Sanity, the lower the chance he has of withstanding shocks and exposure to the Mythos, the greater the chance of losing more Sanity, and so on, until his Sanity is so low, he retires alive but unhinged or it drops below zero and he is insane. Permanently.
Much of the rest of the rest of the core rule book is dedicated to the Mythos itself. This begins with the gods and creatures, from Azathoth, Cthuga, and Great Cthulhu to Y’Golonac, Yig, and Yog-Sothoth, from Byakhee, Chthonians, and Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath to Shoggoths, Star-Spawn of Cthulhu, and Star Vampires. All are given full stats and extensive write-ups, much of which will be familiar from later editions of Call of Cthulhu. Here though, Petersen classifies them not once but twice. First into Outer Gods and Great Old Ones as well as Alien Races and Monsters, and second, into classes—Minor, Moderate, Major, Great Old Ones, and Outer Gods. Thus, Shub-Niggurath is an Outer God, Ithaqua a Great old One, Hounds of Tindalos are Major, Shoggoths Moderate (!), and Mi-Go Minor. It does feel oddly forced, but as a way of quantifying them it works well enough. The well-done chapter of the Mythos Monsters is followed by an explanation of how Mythos magic works and the dangers of reading the various Mythos tomes. Again, the explanations are well done, and again, the spells reinforce how this is not a roleplaying game in which the Investigators learn a spell and blast away at their enemies with eldritch power. Most of the spells consist of call, contact, summon, and/or bind the things of the Mythos, which means bringing them to the Investigators and exposing their minds to the unspeakable horrors to the detriment of their Sanity, and many spells cost Sanity to cast. Which is fine if you are an insane sorcerer with no Sanity! Lastly, the Mythos tomes are simply listed and do feel as if they warrant further development.
And then there is the ‘How to Play the Game’ chapter. This is a superb chapter—which like so much of the rest of Call of Cthulhu will be visited again and again—which explains, if it was not clear from the first six chapters, how Call of Cthulhu is a roleplaying game of a different stripe. With the first sentence it states that, “Call of Cthulhu differs in feel and motivation from other roleplaying games.”, warning that direct confrontation with the Mythos will not only fail, but probably end up with the death of the Investigators involved. The solution is to investigate, to visit libraries, conduct interviews, read arcane tomes, scout out locations, and more. It also advises that the Investigators avoid too much gunplay lest they arouse the suspicions of the authorities. It is a fantastic read and it is followed by good advice for the Keeper of Arcane Secrets—as the Game Master is known in Call of Cthulhu, in setting up and running a scenario and a campaign. As good as the chapter is, the two subject matters—one for the players and one for the Keeper—do not feel as if they should be together, in case of the advice for the player, this far into the book. Nevertheless, this is an excellent chapter, its contents pertinent today as it was in 1981. It is followed by an example play, which sadly does not involve Harvey Walters.
The core rulebook includes not one, but two scenarios. First up is ‘The Haunting’—more recently renamed ‘The Haunted House’, a scenario which inserts the Mythos into a classic haunted house set-up and delivers some great shocks and scares in what has since become almost everyone’s first encounter with Call of Cthulhu. It has been developed since, and appeared in almost every version of the Call of Cthulhu rulebook except for the Call of Cthulhu Keeper’s Rulebook for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. (It is instead included in the Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition Quick-Start and returned to the Call of Cthulhu Keeper’s Rulebook for its fortieth anniversary edition.) It is a creepy little classic, here feeling a little barebones, but effective all the same for a single session. The second is ‘The Brockford House’, which has never been reprinted beyond the pages of the core rulebook, has the Investigators looking into another house and the strange noises coming from underneath. Located just off the coast of Maine, this is a more physical scenario than ‘The Haunted House’, involving little in the way of investigation or research, leaving the Investigators even more ill prepared for what they face than usual. Although it has its moments, ‘The Brockford House’ is unimpressive.
Lastly, the appendices provide two scenario vignettes, which can be used to begin or add to a campaign. The first involves a deadly encounter on a bus tour in Vermont, leading to the Investigators being hounded by allies of the Mythos, whilst the second is a detailed summoning site in the crater of an extinct volcano. The first is the better of the two and works better as the beginning of a campaign, something that the Keeper can take away and develop on her own. The second has plenty of detail, but necessarily the scope as intended. Lastly, the appendices contain a list of libraries and ‘Notes on a Fragment of the Necronomicon’, penned by Phileus P. Sadowski. This is a delightful in-game examination of the dread tome, which adds detail and history to its listing earlier in the core rulebook. However, the fact that the given date for the article is 1979 and it references Lovecraft: A Biography by L. Sprague de Camp, it does feel out of step with the rest of the game! Otherwise this is an engaging piece with which to end the rulebook.
If the rulebook for Call of Cthulhu focused on Investigators and the weirdness of the Mythos, the second book in theCall of Cthulhu box provides the context. ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’ is both an almanac for the Jazz Age and an expansion to the rules. Even the cover is put to good use with a set of deck plans for an airship, but inside there are maps of noted archaeological sites—from Ife in Nigeria, Scara Brae in the Orkney Islands, and Çatal Hüyük in Turkey to Moundville in the USA, Pan-P’o-Ts’un in China, and Luxor in Egypt. These in particular are eye opening, in many cases the reader’s first exposure to some of the amazing archaeological sites, ripe to be visited by the Investigators’ resident archaeologist or used as a site by dread cultists, their accompanying text spurring a Keeper to research more. ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’ also includes timelines ordinary and outré for the decade, thumbnail biographies for the notables of the period, a list of companies with goods and services to add flavour to a game, floorplans of the railway coaches (terrifying train journeys would go on to become a staple of Call of Cthulhu scenarios), travel speeds and times, and goods and prices.
In play, there is the addition of Nautical skills and new weapon stats and notes for the war boomerang, the musket, Thompson submachine, and even a 75 mm field gun! The ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’ also provides a short guide to crimes, arrests, and handling bribery too, including notes about the 18th Amendment and thus Prohibition (a subject which the roleplaying game would revisit numerous times over the next four decades). The guide to handling arrests are really very good, highlighting what might happen if the Investigators’ actions arouse suspicion and the potential consequences are, because ultimately, although their actions may be morally right, legally they may be anything other than right. This enforces the sense of the ordinary world around them versus the Cosmic Horror they face. Organised crime is covered as well, as is the Ku Klux Klan. For the Keeper there is advice on cultists and cults, including primitive cults, and the nature—both benefits and costs—of worshipping the unnameable. ‘Beasts & Monsters’ expands on the list of entities and forces of the Mythos, but with more ‘mundane’ creatures. So crocodiles and pythons, but also the ghost, the mummy, the pixie, the vampire, the werewolf, the wraith, and the zombie. The latter, the more traditional monsters have their own Sanity losses, of course, and their inclusion opens up the realms of possibility and using Call of Cthulhu as a more traditional horror roleplaying game, and again, that possibility would be revisited again and again in the next forty years, most notably with the anthologies Blood Brothers and Blood Brothers II.
However, there is some variation between the content of the ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’. Later versions provide ‘Other Occupations’ such as Gangster, Missionary, Policeman, and Soldier, plus rules for Sages, from whom an Investigator can learn more of the nature of the world and perhaps gain other help too. In the earlier version—the version included with the Call of Cthulhu Classic reprint—in a section called ‘Previous Experience’. This offers a more random means of creating an Investigator, a player rolling to determine his Investigator’s attributes and then gender, starting age, birthplace (in the USA), Education (this can be lower in rural areas) and where he went to school. This will add some points to various academic skills, and then he selects one or more Occupations, and works out his prior experience. This is done in five-year terms (much like the roleplaying game Traveller does, but in four-year long terms), the Investigator receiving the given skill bonuses for the Occupation. For example, the Gangster this is Climb (5), Jump (5), Fast Talk (10), Credit Rating (10), Drive Auto (10), Listen (10), Bargain (5), Spot Hidden (5), Law (5), Dynamite (5), Sub-Machine Gun (5), Revolver (5), Shotgun (5), and Pick Pocket (5) for each term. It even comes with a complete example, the prior experience of Eben Stone, whose fortunes remain unknown in comparison to those of the perennial Harvey Walters.
Whichever version of ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’ was present in the Call of Cthulhu box, there is no denying the wealth of detail it provides player and Keeper alike. There is so much information in its pages that the Keeper can use to bring her campaign to life and add verisimilitude, and so much of it has since been re-explored and developed—if not by Chaosium, Inc., then by other publishers. Certainly both The Keeper’s Companion vol. 1 and The Keeper’s Companion vol. 2 can be seen as developments of ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’ as well as various aspects of the core rulebook.
In addition to the core rulebook and ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’, Call of Cthulhu includes a sheet of Character Figures, which can be cut out and used as figures during play instead of miniatures. Both Investigators and Cthulhu entities are done as silhouettes, those for the monsters the same as their illustrations in the core book. The silhouettes of these Character Figures would also influence the sculpture of the miniatures manufactured Grenadier Models. Lastly, the box contains a poster map of the world, marked with sites of interest across the globe, both Mythos and mundane. It is nice and clear, but perhaps a little large to use easily.
Physically, Call of Cthulhu is well presented, it is easy to read, and is broken up by boxed text and the occasional illustration. Actually there is very little artwork in the core rulebook and whilst not all of it is of the highest quality it is in the main effective in evoking a certain dark and lonely mood. The use of a single Investigator, Harvey Walters, as an example throughout the rulebook, from creation to insanity really helps the reader understand the roleplaying game’s mechanics. ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’ feels a little cramped in comparison, but that is down to the amount of content within its pages.
It is difficult to pinpoint any real issues with Call of Cthulhu as it originally appeared. There are details which perhaps the reader might feel the designer got wrong about the Mythos, but there are perhaps two issues, one more serious than the other. The lesser issue is that the scenarios are variable in quality, but to be fair, these are the first scenarios for Call of Cthulhu, so cannot be expected to be amazing the first time out. The major issue is the lack of advice for the Keeper on the design and presentation of NPCs, especially cultists. There are some notes in ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’, but the Keeper is very much left on her own to develop these herself with little real guidance. Of course, in subsequent editions of the roleplaying game, as well as innumerable scenarios and campaigns, the Keeper would be shown again and again what a cultist or other NPC might look like in terms of the rules, but here in the core rulebook, she is left wanting.
—oOo—
Call of Cthulhu would go on to win the Origins Awards for Best Role-Playing Game in 1982 and receive the Game Designer’s Guild, Select Award in 1981, and ultimately, be conducted into the Origins Award Hall of Fame in 1995. Within a year of its publication, it would be reviewed several times, some of them in quite lengthy write-ups.
William Barton, who would go on to write Cthulhu by Gaslight, reviewed Call of Cthulhu in Space Gamer Number 49 (March, 1982) and said, “Overall, CALL OF CTHULHU is an excellent piece of work.” He noted that there were several inconsistencies in the interpretation of the Mythos, but considered, “Petersen’s depth of research in the books and in the Mythos is next to remarkable.” and despite a number of failings overlooked in the simplification of Basic Role-Playing into Call of Cthulhu, concluded that, “The worlds of H. P. Lovecraft are truly open for the fantasy gamer.”
In ‘Call of Cthulhu is a challenge’ in Dragon #61 (May 1982), David Cook was critical of the rules, especially what he called, “[T]he incompleteness of the combat system.” with its small list of weapons, and a lack of rules for cover, movement, surprise, and the like. He was particularly critical of ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’, complaining that, “It, like the appendices, appears to be notes and unfinished design work.” and suggested that it could have been better used to present the background to Lovecraft’s stories for those unfamiliar with them. His most serious complaint was that “The most serious flaw in the game is the lack of rules for NPC’s. The rules do say, and quite rightly, that Investigators should seldom meet any of the monsters listed. Doing so will often result in Investigator death or insanity, not a pleasant prospect for a player. Therefore, the Investigator will be dealing with and battling NPC’s. However, there is nothing given in the rulebook about creating interesting NPC’s. There is no quick system for generating NPC characteristics and skills. There are no suggestions for what NPC’s will know, how they will be armed, or what (or why!) they are doing. This lack of information puts an extremely large burden on the Keeper and makes it especially hard to create NPC’s that will keep the players’ interest. There should have been a section devoted to this in the rules.
Although Cook’s initial conclusion was initially less than positive, “It is difficult to either love or hate the game.”, but ultimately said, “It is a good game for experienced role-playing gamers and ambitious judges, especially if they like Lovecraft’s type of story. However, those players and judges just getting into roleplaying or who have never read a Lovecraft story are well advised to wait on this Game until they have more experience.”
Reviewing Call of Cthulhu in Open Box in White Dwarf No 32 (August 1982), Ian Bailey wrote, “Sandy Petersen has faithfully reproduced the tone of Lovecraft’s with the Call of Cthulhu game system and as a result, it is not about hacking and slaying, it is about investigation, which boils down to a rewarding battle of wits between the players and the Keeper.” He also noted that, “The game encourages good role-playing from the players. The rules embody a number of deterrents for the would be ‘fighter’.” His only criticism was that the sourcebook was too “U.S. orientated and consequently any Keeper ... who wants to set his game in the UK will have a lot of research to do.” Before concluding that, “Call of Cthulhu is an excellent game and a welcome addition to the world of role-playing.” and awarding it a score of nine out of ten.
Call of Cthulhu would be voted number one in ‘Arcane Presents the Top 50 Roleplaying Games 1996’ in Arcane #14 (December, 1996). The article summed it up as “Call of Cthulhu is fully deserved of the title as the most popular roleplaying system ever – it’s a game that doesn't age, is eminently playable, and which hangs together perfectly. The system, even though it’s over ten years old, it is still one of the very best you’ll find in any roleplaying game. Also, there’s not a referee in the land who could say they’ve read every Lovecraft inspired book or story going, so there’s a pretty-well endless supply of scenario ideas. It’s simply marvellous.”
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It is surprising to note that when Call of Cthulhu was published, there was no other horror roleplaying game on the market. There were plenty of roleplaying games with horror elements in them—primarily classic monsters such as werewolves, vampires, and zombies—but none dedicated to the genre itself, so when Call of Cthulhu was published in 1981, it was not only ground-breaking, but it was also ground-breaking in its genre again and again. To begin with, it quantified the Mythos, its creatures and gods, spells and tomes, not as something to fight and defeat as was the case in their previous appearances in roleplaying games and supplements, but as something to be scared of and thus avoid, as a real threat to the Investigators and humanity, and in doing so elevated the Mythos in the hobby into something more than just fodder for sword and spell. The general lack of familiarity with the Mythos also meant that the creatures and gods presented in the pages of Call of Cthulhu were also all the more unknowable, so the scares and the horror that the Keeper could bring to her game were all the more effective. Arguably, this presentation would spur interest anew in Lovecraft’s fiction and ultimately lead to the popularity that his creations have today. It presented a whole new way of roleplaying and game—investigating, researching, interacting with NPCs to get information, and attempting to find a means to defeat the ghastly enemy using the mind and knowledge rather than brute force. It emphasised the skills and the knowledge of the Investigators, who are just ordinary men and women, rather than the might and powers of adventurers in other roleplaying games. When combined with the fact that the roleplaying game was set in the real and comparatively modern world, although one several decades before, it made the Investigators all the more human and relatable. It also inverted the way in which the roleplaying game was traditionally played. In most roleplaying games, the player characters gain in power and heroic stature, becoming better warriors, learning more powerful spells, and gaining more wondrous magical artefacts or other equipment. Not so in Call of Cthulhu. In Call of Cthulhu, the Investigators can improve their skills, but they do not gain amazing powers or even better equipment, or even increase their Hit Points. There is no ascending spiral of heroic power. Instead, the more the Investigators learn of the Mythos, whether through encounters or research, they may gain secret, arcane knowledge, but they suffer for it, becoming mentally unbalanced, even insane if they learn too much. Theirs is a descending spiral of insanity, theirs is at best a desperate and secret battle to save humanity, heroic but still unknown.
Lastly, of course, there is Insanity. Call of Cthulhu introduced a Sanity mechanic and it was simple and elegant. No more could a roleplaying game get by without addressing the mental fortitude, or lack of, of its Player Characters, and although there have been many ways to handle fear and being scared half to death in roleplaying games since, Call of Cthulhu did it first and did it simply and elegantly.
In the years since it was first published, Call of Cthulhu has been presented in multiple new editions, and its concepts explored again and again, in ways that the original designer probably never envisioned, in hundreds of scenarios and tens of campaigns, from the ancient past to the here and now (and even beyond). Call of Cthulhu is and has been incredibly well supported in its forty years of being in print. And the great thing is that the content from forty years ago can still be played using the rules presented in the original edition of the roleplaying or the latest. Which is a testament to the firm foundation that was laid by Sandy Petersen for Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying with the first edition of Call of Cthulhu.
There is a reason why Call of Cthulhu is regarded as one of the greatest roleplaying games ever published. It is a classic piece of design that successfully emulates the singular genre it is inspired by and in doing so, introduced new ways to roleplay and tell amazing stories as well as innovations to the roleplaying hobby that are still influential today. It is always going to be the greatest horror roleplaying game there is, not just because of the Mythos, but because of its influence, innovations, and that it can still give you a great playing experience.
October Horror Movie Challenge: Witchcraft Documentaries
Last year I did a few documentaries and I rather enjoyed it. I am WAY over the requirements for the challenge, so these are fine in my book. Given all the streaming choices I have, I collected a nice list of these. Hope to get through them all.
The Witch of Kings Cross (2020)
I mentioned this one earlier the week. This is documentary from Sonia Bible about surealist occult artist ] Rosaleen Norton. It is quite good really and an interesting look into an interesting life. There is horror here, but the normal kind of what humans will do to each other when they are afraid of what they don't know or understand.
Vampira and Me (2012)
A look at a contemporary of Norton, though on the other side of the world. This one covers the career and life of Maila Nurmi, aka Vampira. Writen, directed and produced by Ray Greene, this documentary doesn't shy away from the problems Nurmi faced in her life, but this is obviously a piece made by someone that considers Nurmi a friend. Completed a few years after her death it features archival footage of Nurmi being interviewed by Greene for another project. I was sad to hear, though not surprised, that no material from her Vampira days still exist.
Parallels can be drawn between Nurmi and Norton, women that bucked and went against the trend of what was expected of women in the 1950s. Both embracing something darker in their own psyche I suppose to give us something entirely new.
I also read "Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark" by Cassandra Peterson this past month and there are plenty of parallels between Nurmi and Petersen as well as Vampiria and Elvira. I heard the tale of of how Vampiria was involved, then not, with what would become Elvira Mistress of the Dark from both sides. Again it is a tale where a woman is not given any agency for her creative efforts and how it turns out. Poorly in the case Nurmi and Vampiria. Or what happens when she takes control and how it turns out. Well in the case of Petersen and Elviria.
Ultimately Nurmi's tale is a sad one and one I fear is not all that uncommon.
Magic: Witchcraft and Magic (2004)
This one featured Patrick Macnee of The Avengers. Not the Marvel ones, the BBC ones. This might have been made in 2004, but it feels like something out of the 80s or 90s. There is not a lot of substance here. In fact, pretty much anyone that reads this blog knows everything already knows all the material presented. I was annoyed by some of it with some out right wrong information and other things, like talking to a white "magic shop" owner as their expert on Voodoo. I supposed it is fine given how much of it they got wrong. Can't recommend it all.
Witchcraft: A History of Dark Arts (2020)
From writer/director Kim Harrington. The narration is from Deryn Oliver.
It covers all sorts of witch-related topics, but none in detail. The video is made up of a bunch of clips that have all the feel of "stock art." They often never line up with what is being spoken about. For example, a discussion of the Salem witch trials features an image of what appears to be a Bronze Age Rabbinical tribunal. Many of the images/clips are often reused.
In general, the research is pretty good, this one might have more information that the readers here may or may not know. If you have read most of my books then likely not. Though there is more about Luciferian Witches than I typically talk about.
Deryn Oliver gives a great narration and her voice reminds me of Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins.
Ghosts and Witches of Olde England (2001)
This one largely focuses on stories of witches and ghosts of England.
We cover ghosts like the ones from Dickens to evil ghosts in Cornwall. Plenty of ghosts of priests were killed in the conversion of England from Catholicism to the Church of England.
It was a fun watch, but there was not all that much that was new for me here. I guess I should not be surprised at this point.
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Here we are. The end of another October and Halloween.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN from The Other Side!
October 2021
Viewed: 62
First Time Views: 48
October Horror Movie Challenge: Halloween-eve Marathon
Hit a bunch of movies all day. One repeat, a couple are new, and couple are not very good.
Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981)
Also known as Night Warning is a fairly terrible movie I always remembered from the salacious cover. Baby Billy is left with his aunt while his parents drive out to start their new lives and jobs with plans to get Billy in a little bit. Good thing because their breaks give out and they are killed.
Move forward 15 years later and Billy is not a high school senior with a girlfriend and still living with his aunt. I could go on, but the movie is like I said terrible. Aunt wants to bang Billy. So bad that she is killing everyone to keep him with her.
Man Beast (1956)
This was on Midnight Pulp while I was looking for something else. Bigfoot-like creature in the Himalayas. I watched it to double-check to see if I still dislike horror from the 1950s. Yeah. Still do. I nearly fell asleep.
Wicked Lake (2008)
Rewatched this one with the DVD commentary. The cast had a blast doing this one. Was sorting through all my horror DVDs to see which ones I can unload at Half-Price books. It's still fun. It starts out looking like an "I Spit on Your Grave" rip off but at midnight the women turn the tables and kill everyone. They are all witches and have powers.
October 2021
Viewed: 57
First Time Views: 43
Sword & Sorcery & Cinema / October Horror Movie Challenge: Vlad the Impaler (2018)
Found a good movie for double duty today, though it is a bit light on the Sorcery and Horror.Vlad the Impaler aka Deliler (2018)
This is a Turkish movie detailing the battle between the Turks and Prince Vlad of Wallachia in the 15th century. It is pretty obvious from the start that this movie is very pro-Turkish and paints Vlad as not just evil, but the embodiment of evil.
The Deliler of the Turkish title refers to the band of elite warriors of the Sultan Mehmed sent to stop Vlad. A bit like the 15th-century SAS. There is seven total, and they are all portrayed as bad-asses, but bad -asses in the service of the side of good. They are also kind to widows, small children, and babies. They are featured on the cover (the top three anyway, Gökkurt is the one with the wings) and Vlad on the lower right is the obvious bad guy.
Vlad is seen killing his own people, working with an alchemist to devise weaponized rats, and even having his men kill the beggars that help them collect the rats. All the while claiming to be the Son of God.
They are not going for subtlety here.
Despite what the American covers of the movie might have you think, this movie is about the Deliler, not so much about Vlad. Throughout the movie, the Deliler seem to have a sort of supernatural connection to each other and their Sultan. Not to mention their near-supernatural fighting ability.
It takes a while but we finally get to the big battle at the end. Six Deliler against all of Vlad's army. How do you think it will go? Well more of the Sultan's men show up just in time.
A lot of reviews online claim this movie is nothing more than a propaganda piece by the Turks. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know enough about Turkish politics to be able to say for sure. The movie is very obviously pro-Turk and anti...anti bad guy? I am not sure what it is against. I suppose it must be like seeing an American movie with a Rambo like figure, or seven of them, fighting some Commie, or Nazi, or whomever we are mad at today. I guess this is "Team America: World Police."
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Game content. Well, it would not be bad to get a good feel for how you could run Barovia with a more 15th-century feel as opposed to the Hammer-Horror filter of the 15th to 19th Century. How about this. A group of elite, obviously Good, warriors (fighters, barbarians, bards, a ranger, and paladin) whose only purpose is to destroy vampires and Strahd in particular. Maybe something like the Order of St. Johan.
Are there better, more historically accurate tales? Of course. But this is a place to start for some D&D background.
October 2021
Viewed: 54
First Time Views: 41
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Tim Knight of Hero Press and Pun Isaac of Halls of the Nephilim along with myself are getting together at the Facebook Group I'd Rather Be Killing Monsters to discuss these movies. Follow along with the hashtag #IdRatherBeWatchingMonsters.
Universal Horror Co-op
Monsters have arisen and the village is under attack! Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster—and his Bride, the Invisible Man, the Wolf Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon are all on the rampage and it is up a dedicated team of heroic monster hunters to keep the villagers safe from their predations, find the means to thwart each and every one, and then put an end to their reign of terror! This is the set-up for Horrified, a co-operative board game from Ravensburger, designed for between one and five players, ages ten and up, in which they face the classic foes of the Universal monsters series of films from the nineteen thirties and nineteen forties. If you are a regular player of board games, then you will definitely spot the architecture and design elements of the first classic co-operative board game, Pandemic, but Horrified is far from a drily themed race to find the cure to four different diseases! It is a desperate race to defeat classic monsters, each of which is very different in terms of what they do and what the players need to do to defeat them, it oozes both theme and charm, and its horror is scary, but not terrifying, so it can be played by the family as well as the dedicated horror fan—and both will enjoy it.Open up a copy of Horrified and the first thing you see is a warning about the potentially horrifying experiences to be found in the box. Of course it is a little tongue in cheek and so perfectly in keeping with the tone of the Universal Monsters, but what is clever is where this warning is placed. Not on a separate sheet of paper or the back of the rulebook, but on the back of the game’s board. It is a clever use of space and points to the degree of thought and detail which has gone into this game. The board itself depicts various locations within a village, a curious mix of the American small town and the European Gothic, so there is a precinct and a mansion as well as an abbey and a tower with an adjacent dungeon. A river runs through the village, connecting a lagoon and the waterfront. At the top of the board is the Terror Track.
The Heroes in Horrified—and there are seven of them—are each represented by a Hero Badge, essentially character cards detailing their abilities and their playing pieces. Each has good illustration, a number to indicate how many Actions he or she can take a turn, and a special action or ability. For example, the Mayor has five Actions per turn, but no special action or ability, whereas the Courier has four and can travel to any location where there is another Hero, and the Professor, also has four and can move any Hero or Villager one space.
The Universal Monsters in Horrified—and there are six of them—are each represented by plastic playing piece of a different colour and a Monster Mat. Each Monster Mat details what the Monster can do and how it is defeated, the latter requiring two steps. For example, Dracula can use his Dark Charm to pull a Hero to his space, and to advance to point where they can him, the Heroes need to visit each of the four locations where his coffins and destroy them, before confronting the vampire prince directly. At least six points of Red Item Tokens are required to destroy a coffin, and six points of Yellow Item Tokens to destroy him. The Mummy has a tablet on which Scarabs can be moved, the number of moves determined by the value of Yellow Item Token used. Move them into the right order and the curse is broken, and the Mummy can be entombed by confronting him and expending at least nine points of Red Item Tokens. However, the Mummy can fortify the curse by turning one of the Scarabs upside down! Perhaps the most interesting Monster to defeat, at least thematically, is that of Frankenstein and his Bride. Both have to taught to live peacefully together, Blue and Yellow Item Tokens being expended to increase their Humanity on a dial for each of them in their respective spaces. They constantly move towards each other, and can be ‘defeated’ if they have sufficient Humanity when they meet, if not, they flee back to their starting positions and the Terror Level goes up by one.
In addition, there are Monster tokens which are added to the game when particular Monsters are selected as the foes. For Dracula, this is his four coffins and for Frankenstein and his Bride, it is the dials to tack their Humanity, but the Creature from the Black Lagoon includes an overlay piece which replaces the Camp location and instructs a player what to do to direct the boat counter—which also comes with the Creature from the Black Lagoon—ever closer to its lair where it can be defeated. Essentially, the means of defeating each Monster is different and requires the Heroes to collect and expend the different coloured Item Tokens.
As well as the game pieces for the Heroes and the Monsters, Horrified comes with ten Villagers. When they appear on the board, they always want to reach their safe locations and the Heroes can guide them there. If they do, then they will be rewarded with a Perk Card. If a Monster reaches a Villager and defeats him, the Terror Level is increased. The Item Tokens come in three colours—red for physical items, blue for intellectual, and yellow for spiritual—and range in value between one and five. There are Markers for both Terror and Frenzy, the former used on the Terror Tracker, the latter to indicate when a Monster is Frenzied. Along with three dice, there five Reference Cards, one for each player; thirty Monster Cards to indicate Monster actions; and twenty Perk cards, awarded when a Hero gets a Villager home. Each Monster Card indicates how many Item Tokens are drawn from the game’s cloth bag and added to the board and gives an event such as ‘Thief’, in which case, the Invisible Man appears at the location where there are the most items and steals them, forcing them to be discarded. The Monster Card also reveals which of the Monsters move on a turn, including the Frenzied Monster—which can mean that a Monster can move and act twice in a turn, how many spaces, and how many dice it rolls to attack. Some Monster Cards can be beneficial, for example, the ‘Sunrise’ Monster Card will force Dracula to flee back to the Crypt, which might be away from a Hero or a Villager, and some might not have any effect, either because the Monster is not being played in the current game or because it has already been defeated. The Perk cards provide single benefits, like a ‘Taxi Ride’ which gets a Hero to any non-water location or ‘Late into the Night’, which grants the current player two further actions.
Horrified has one win condition and two loss conditions. The Heroes triumph and the players win the game if they defeat all of the Monsters. However, they lose if the Terror Level reaches its maximum level, forcing everyone in the village to flee in horror and allow the Monsters to take over. And they also lose if the Monster deck is emptied and one more Monster card needs to be drawn, the Heroes and thus the players having taken too long to save the village.
Game set-up is simple enough. The Terror Marker is set at zero and the selected Monsters set up as instructed. Then each player selects a random Hero, receives a Perk card, and the sixty Item Tokens placed in the cloth bag. Twelve of these are drawn at random and placed on the board. The rule quickly guides the players through the process, but goes not one, not two, but four steps further. It suggest that the players’ first game be against Dracula and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, any two Monsters for the Novice game, any three Monsters in the standard game, and any four in a challenging game. Thus it eases the players into the game and its play whilst showing them how to make the game more difficult.
A player’s turn has two phases. In the Hero phase, a player expends his Hero’s Action Points to move, guide a Villager to or from an adjacent location (a villager will accompany a Hero and move with him), take a Special Action, pick up Item Tokens or share them with a Hero on the same location, Advance a Monster’s task, or Defeat a Monster. The latter two task are different for each Monster and are given on their respective Monster mats, and require the Hero to be in specific places. In the Monster phase, a Monster Card is drawn from the Monster card deck, and the number of Item Tokens given on the Monster Card placed, its Event carried out, and then any movement and attacks conducted. The latter requires rolling dice, which have exclamation point and star symbols on them. Rolls of the exclamation point active a Monster’s power, such as Dracula’s Dark Charm, whilst rolls the star symbol force a Hero to discard Item Tokens, and if a Hero has none, defeats him, sending him to the Hospital and raising the Terror Level one step!
Physically, Horrified is a well-presented game. Everything is in colour, the board is painted in dark shades with pools of light to suggest that it might be midnight, the Item Tokens and cards are all easy to read, and the rules are well explained. In fact, the rules are very well written, with plenty of clarification and explanation of how each Monster works and can be defeated, along with several good examples of play. A player with some experience of playing board games could easily open up the box to Horrified, read the rules, and be playing within a relatively short time. Plus there is a little advice here and there on playing again, strategy, playing it solo—which is even more challenging, and so on. Another nice touch to the graphic design is the inclusion of an explanation of who the Monsters are on the outside of the inner box, also done in colour. However, the production values are not high as they could be. The plastic miniatures for the Monsters lack detail and the card stock for the game’s various cards is thin and will not stand up to too much handling.
In terms of game play, where in Pandemic, as members of the CDC, the players are travelling the world, visiting cities and treating diseases, and drawing and swapping city cards of the right to cure the game’s four diseases, in Horrified, the players as the Heroes, are moving round the village collecting as many Item Tokens as they can in order to have enough of the right colour to first advance the condition on each Monster Mat to the point where the Monster can be defeated. Hindering the players in Pandemic is the constant appearance of new cases the four diseases, and worse sudden outbreaks where a disease spreads to other cities, whereas in Horrified, the Heroes need to track where both the Monsters and the villagers are, because if the Monsters get to the Villagers, they kill them and so drive up the Terror Level. The Heroes also need to avoid the Monsters themselves until the time is right to confront them directly and defeat them. Of course, if a Hero can get a villager to his or her safe location, that earns him Perk card.
However, defeating two Monsters—the base difficulty in Horrified—is fairly easy. Defeating three, though—the standard difficulty—is challenging. Four is another matter altogether! The difficulty will also vary slightly depending upon the Monsters in play, plus the more players a game has, the more Monster cards are drawn and the more Villagers appear to be taken by the Monsters and so increase the Terror Level. The higher difficulty levels may not necessarily suit all players though, casual or family players potentially finding Horrified too difficult at three Monsters, and more so at four.
Horrified is a good game for a number of reasons. In terms of game play, it is relatively light, suitable for casual players and the family, but offering enough for the hobbyist player as a lighter option. Its theme is really well handled, from the different means of defeating the various Monsters and the inclusion of the villagers from the films those Monsters appeared in, to graphical design and the attention to detail which evoke a sense of nostalgia for the Universal Monsters. It offers a decent degree of replay value too, with seven Heroes and six Monsters to choose from, enabling players to mix and match both. However, it would be great to see an expansion with even more and different Monsters. In terms of value, Horrified is a game you can buy on the high street and specialised game shops, and as a mass market board game, it is not just a good game. In fact, it is fantastic game, because as a mass market board game, it is not only inexpensive, but it combines its theme and its mechanics really well. No longer do we have board games based on intellectual properties that are just throwaway ‘roll and move’ designs, but like the earlier Jaws: A Boardgame of Strategy and Suspense, we have mass market board games designed to fit their themes and make use of their themes, that are readily available and consequently, make you want to play again. Jaws does that, and so does Horrified. Lastly, it is also great to see a horror themed board game which involves neither zombies or Cthulhu, and so Horrified is not just nostalgic, it is also a refreshing change.
Thematically, Horrified is a great piece of design and it showcases just how modern game designers have been able reach beyond the hobby and bring thematically appropriate design and game play to the general audience. Horrified is a light co-operative game that horror fans will enjoy for the nostalgia and the family can play for the fun and the scares.
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