Opera Nova Curiosa,  1695











At the Cobbler’s





At the Wigmakers





The Banquet of Diogenes



The Discourse of Diogenes

Watermelon Regatta

Watermelon Regatta, detail


"Maestro della Fertilità dell'Uovo or Master of the Fertility of the Egg is the name given to a yet to be identified painter active in the second half of the 17th and early 18th century in Brescia. The name is based on a work entitled La fertilità dell' Uovo (The Fertility of the Egg), which depicts dwarfs, geese and lobsters hatching eggs and is in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum.

 The art historian Mariolina Olivera was the first to isolate a group of works by this master in her 1990 monograph Faustino Bocchi e l'arte di figurar pigmei. She placed the master in the circle of Faustino Bocchi, an artist active in Brescia around the same time and known for his genre paintings with dwarfs. The master’s oeuvre distinguishes itself from Bocchi’s more dreamlike work through its biting, satirical edge.

 The identity of the Master of the Fertility of the Egg has yet to be determined. Some art historians have suggested he was Bernardino Dehò (1675-1717) from Cremona while others have pointed at Angelo Esseradts, known as ‘il Fiammingo’ (the Fleming), whose name was also Italianised as Everardi. Everardi was Bocchi’s teacher and introduced the bizarre and grotesque elements of Flemish art to Brescia.

 The works of this master typically depict grotesque figures (usually dwarfs) and animals engaging in various human activities. The works generally ignore space and are characterized by strong foreshortening. The figures are often portrayed in profile and stand out against the dark, mostly flat backgrounds. This gives them the impression of being cut out. The persons and animals in the compositions engage in disorganised actions and reactions. The compositions are full of absurd and grotesque elements and it is often difficult to make out what exactly is going on. The master’s raucous style appears to constitute some form of 'moral zoology'. The absurd characters are possibly intended to show the madness of the human condition, and the vanity and ridiculousness of life." - quote source

Artist previously shared here.

Another Top 5 list.  Today, Novels.

Bram Stoker Dracula



JRR Tolkien Lord of the Rings



Douglas Addams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy



Anne Rice The Vampire Lestat 



Umberto Eco Foucault's Pendulum

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—and so on, as the anniversaries come up. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.


—oOo—

Bushido is significant for being the very first Samurai role-playing game set in Feudal Japan. Designed by Robert N. Charrette and Paul R. Hume—who would go on to design the highly regarded Shadowrun in 1989—and originally published in 1979 by the short-lived Tyr Gamesmakers Ltd., it is best known from the 1981 boxed set published by Fantasy Games Unlimited, so it this version that is being reviewed here. Drawing upon the Japanese film genre of ‘sword fighting’ or samurai cinema known as ‘Chambara’, it is set in a semi-historical heroic, mythic, and fantastic version of Japan, in which Bushi, Budoka, Yakuza, Ninja, Shugenja, and Gakusho seek to serve their liege lords or masters, and do so with honour and loyalty. Notably, as much as there is an emphasis in Bushido on sword-fighting and magic, myth and history—almost like any other roleplaying game—the roleplaying game places a strong emphasis upon the player characters’ honour and social position.

The 1981 boxed set comes with two thick books, a map of Nippon marked with its provinces, a Game Master’s Screen, and a character sheet. The books consist of ‘Book I, The Heroes of Nippon’, which provides rules of play and the players guidebook, and ‘Book II, The Land of Nippon’, a Gamemaster’s Guidebook. Both are black and white books, lightly illustrated, but filled with dense text. ‘Book I, The Heroes of Nippon’ covers characters, skills, the core mechanics, and spells, whilst ‘Book II, The Land of Nippon’ covers NPCs, battles, treasure, places of Nippon, non-adventuring activity, and a scenario.

A character in Bushido is defined by six Attributes—Strength, Deftness, Speed, Health, Wit, and Will; Saving Throws—derived from the Attributes to determine the success of an action using a particular Attribute; Abilities—derived factors such as health and learning; Capabilities and Skills. The Classic Man in Bushido has a value of ten in each of the Attributes, which can actually range between one and forty. A character will also have a Profession and a Level—Bushido being a ‘Class and Level’ roleplaying game, although with just the six Levels of Experience. The six Professions are Bushi—honourable warriors, the classic samurai, Budoka—martial artists, Yakuza—gangsters and folk heroes, Ninja—status-less, dishonourable thieves, spies, and assassins, Shugenja—Taoist-style wizards, and Gakusho—either Buddhist or Shinto priests. Each Profession provides a character with Attribute bonuses and has its own skills as well as Ki powers, each fuelled by a character’s inner spiritual reservoir. Notably, the skills are divided into Bugei or combat skills, Fine Arts, Practical Arts, Ninja skills, and Magical and Mystical skills with a lot of attention paid to each. Lastly, a character has On, a measure of the respect that the character has for himself, gained by winning contests, battles, and duels, being heroic, going on pilgrimage, and so on, but lost for acts of cowardice or dishonesty, rashness, and the like. On is necessary—though not for Ninja—when gaining Levels in a Profession, but if too much On is lost, a character can lose Levels. Lastly, Status represents a character’s standing in society.

Now creating a character in Bushido is not an easy process, primarily because it is not presented in what would be regarded as a logical order. The actual explanation of the process does not come until half way through the eighty pages of ‘Book I, The Heroes of Nippon’. The first forty or so pages of the book are devoted to explaining the stats, skills, Ki powers, and Professions, basically everything to do with the make-up of character, but without a starting point. So it feels backward because essentially, a player has to read so far into the book in order to actually begin the creation, but then go back to the beginning of the book to continue it, plus there is a lot of flipping back and forth as part of the process.

To create a character in Bushido, a player rolls to determine his character’s caste, which determines the Professions open to him, his initial On, and starting funds. If he rolls low he will be of Samurai class, but if he rolls high, he will be of the Eta caste and can only be a Ninja. Otherwise, a player is free to choose whatever Profession he wants for his character, though there are social and other consequences, for example, a Samurai who chooses to become a Yakuza , loses half of his On. The character’s caste will provide some initial skills, whilst his Profession will add more plus Attribute modifiers, starting goods, and Hit Points. A player also needs to distribute sixty points to his character’s Attributes. Numerous factors, including skill values, are then derived from all of this.

Name: Eiichi
Caste: Heimin (Farmer, Low)
Age: 20 On: 5
Profession: Yakuza Level: 1
Status: 10

Strength 10 ST: 4 Enc. Cap: 20 lbs. Dam: 0 Unarmed: 1d3
Deftness 20 ST: 7 BAP: 10
Speed 15 ST: 6 MNA: 1 BMA: 5
Health 15 ST: 6 HPT: 20
Wit 20 ST: 7 FIS: 20 Per: 6
Will 20 ST: 7 Power: 20

Learning Rate: 2 Zanshin: 1

Capabilities
Brawling: 6 Climbing: 10 Leaping: 7 Magic: 40 (8) Swimming: 5

Skills
Commerce 40 (9), Fishing 60 (13), Gambling 60 (13), Katakana 70 (14), Massage 40 (9), Popular Dance 55 (12), Sumai 50 (11), Tantojujitsu 55 (12), Yakuza Dialect 70 (14)

Goods
Dice, aiguchi (d3), 4 silver

Mechanically, Bushido uses a twenty-sided die for its resolution system. Originally, this would have been in the days of twenty-sided dice with the numbers zero through nine marked on it twice, so players and Game Masters alike would have needed to mark their dice accordingly. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls against the Saving Throw of an appropriate Attribute, Capability, or Skill. The Saving Throw of any Attribute is approximately a third of its value, the value of a Capability an average of three different Saving Throws, and the Base Chance of Success or BCS of a skill equal to a fifth of its value, skills being rated as percentiles. If the skill is a bonus skill for a Profession, then the character’s Level is also added. Critical successes are possible on a roll of one and failures on a roll of a twenty. The quality of any skill test can be determined how much the result is under the adjusted Base Chance of Success.

Combat uses the same mechanics with a character being able to do between one and three actions depending on his Speed Attribute and taking into account the character’s combat awareness or Zanshin. Combat takes into account various types of attack, including bash, butt stroke, disarm, strike, thrust, and more, but ultimately it involves the player rolling against the weapon or Bugei skill being used, its BCS adjusted by the opponent’s Armour Class, which ranges from zero for ordinary clothing up to ten for master heavy samurai armour. Damage is inflicted directly from a character’s Health with a critical success in combat potentially causing double or triple damage, and a high chance of a special effect which might be the loss of a limb or even death. Conversely, a critical failure might see a character might injure himself. Overall, combat in Bushido is potentially really quite deadly, especially against unarmoured combatants.

Magic in Bushido is used by two different Professions. The Shugenja knows a number of basic spells or powers, like Magic Detection and Astral Senses, but his more powerful spells come one of the five schools based on the elements—Water, Fire, Wood, Metal and Soil, plus some common spells. Every spell has a minimum in terms of the knowledge of the school required as well as the Level of the character. The other Profession is the Gakusho or priest, whose powers vary according to whether he is a Buddhist or Shintoist. Instead of the five schools of magic, the Gashuko studies the Five Yoga—each of which corresponds to one of the five elemental schools—and sacred texts, ‘Sutras’ for Buddhists or and ‘Norito’ for Shintoists. Both Shugenja and Gakusho take a degree of commitment upon the part of the player and the Game Master to play. Ninja in Bushido possess the expected mix of stealth and combat skills, but can also manufacture Gimmicks like flash grenades, blowguns, blinding powders, and so on.

Apart from the initial selection determined from a character’s caste and Profession, a player is free to choose the skills he wants for his character, that is, if he can find a school and a teacher which will accept him. Certain Professions provide bonuses to learning certain skills, but there is a certain emphasis on combat skills in Bushido, only exacerbated by the inclusion of Okuden, secret combat skills or manoeuvres such as Piercing Thrust or the Lightning Stroke. All six Professions also have their own Ki powers—focussed and unfocussed—the former requiring concentration, the latter not.  So for the Bushi, that might be Damage Focus, Distant Death for the Budoka, and Lore Master for the Shugenja, but all enable a character to do amazing feats.

To progress, a character needs to earn experience points or Budo and have a minimum level of On. On though, can go down as well as up, so what this means is that as much as it is gained by winning contests, battles, and duels, being heroic, going on pilgrimage, and so on, but is lost for acts of cowardice or dishonesty, rashness, and the like. So characters are encouraged to roleplay the positive aspects of the setting and so will be rewarded for it. Besides this, progression is not just a matter of adventuring, but studying and learning too.

In addition to the mechanics of the roleplaying game, Bushido includes background on Nippon, the structure of its society, customs, religious beliefs, the place of women in society, and details of weaponry—including a good illustration of them all together on the back cover of ‘Book I, The Heroes of Nippon’. ‘Book II, The Land of Nippon’ covers creating NPCs as well as a bestiary of creatures mythic—legendary and supernatural—and mundane, a discussion of events the player characters can get involved in, places in Nippon, jobs they can take in addition to adventuring, and the benefits and duties of being in particular groups, such fiefs, schools, ninja clans, yakuza gangs, and so on. The advanced game covers founding and running these as the player characters gain status. Lastly there is an adventure, ‘An Evening at the Inn of Restful Sleep’, a fairly simple affair in which the player characters are victims of skulduggery when they stay at an inn. It is at least a good reason to introduce the characters and get them working together. Overall, the setting of Nippon manages to be just about fantastic enough without detracting from its not too historical feel and flavour—it is not strictly speaking a completely historical treatment of feudal Japan, but then neither is it wholly fantastic either. Bushido owes this to its Chambara origins as much as it does the authors. 

Physically, Bushido is a densely presented pair of books. The layout is generally tidy, but the editing is wanting. If there is a real issue with Bushido, it is that there is no index for either book, whilst a glossary would have been useful. The roleplaying game could have done with more examples, but above all, it needed better organisation and more clearly separated sections of rules. The result is often a frustrating mess, as players and Game Master alike are forced to search for a rule or other content. There is a solid game here, the organisation is a hindrance to that aim.


—oOo—
Bushido was reviewed extensively at the time of its publication—by all three of its publishers. Steven L. Lortz reviewed it in Different Worlds Issue 3 (June/July, 1979), comparing it to the leading roleplaying games of the day, “RuneQuest and Dungeons & Dragons typify two styles of role-play which are very different in mechanics and philosophy; specific expertise versus general experience levels, character specialization versus character classes, spell points versus Vancian magic, and static versus dynamic hit points. In Bushido, Hume and Charrette have produced a well-knit integration of elements from each of these styles and provided a fairly complete and playable social milieu for the characters to operate within. For these reasons, I highly recommend Bushido to people who are interested in running a fantasy campaign based primarily on the Japanese mythos and to people who are interested in the art of RPG design. However, the Basic Chance of Success mechanism is a reversal of the die rolling conventions of both RuneQuest and Dungeons & Dragons, so some work would be required before a person could adapt from Bushido into a campaign based on either of these two systems.”

In Dragon #34 (February, 1980), D. Okada noted that, “With the exception of M.A.R. Barker’s Empire of the Petal Throne, virtually every game that comes out has a common outlook. Each game is based on a view of life (whether in fantasy or science fiction) that draws its roots from Western culture. This is to be expected. The largest, if not only, market for games is found in the Western world. But now the gamer is offered a new choice.” Which of course is Bushido. He commented though, that, “...[T]he game is not perfect. There are a horrendous amount of typographical errors in the rules. While the game does not always suffer from these errors, there are times when they do hamper understanding of what is supposed to be going on.” before concluding that, “Despite these faults, the game is worth the price to the person interested in developing a more cosmopolitan outlook. After all, while it’s fun to be Conan or Gandalf in D&D, there is also a time to try and be Miyamoto Musashi seeking perfection in the use of the sword, don’t you think?”

Conversely, writing in The Space Gamer Number 29 (July, 1980), Forrest Johnson was distinctly dismissive, stating that, “Students of Japan may be irritated by such things as misspellings, the translation of “on” as face and the omission from the map of the island of Hokkaido. The metaphysics seem more Hindu than Japanese and some of the monsters (trolls, vampires, ogres) are distinctly round-eyed.” before concluding, “Karate fans and samurai fans may dig this one. Serious students will just have to wait for something better.” 

Similarly, in Ares Nr. 7 (March, 1981), Eric Goldberg was critical of the character generation method, saying that, “The mechanics for character generation represent two contradictory theories. The point distribution system is intended to promote equality among the characters. The caste and rank system randomly creates great disparities between them. There is a logical argument for both methods – even in conjunction – but one’s purpose defeats the other’s. Furthermore, restricting one profession (ninja) to those who are of that caste (a 15% chance) limits those unfortunate characters who cannot be a ninja to four professions. (Also, a character who is of the ninja caste is almost forced to be a ninja, unless he feels no qualms about throwing away an advantage.) I am surprised the designers did not extend their point assignment system to that the players could “buy” caste and rank, thus ensuring that everyone would have free choice.” It is notable that this is exactly what the designers did with Shadowrun.

Nevertheless, Eric Goldberg was slightly more positive in his conclusion, saying that “Bushido’s strong points are the inventive game mechanics (for the time), the “feel” of Japanese culture, and the tentative emphasis on playing a role. Most FRP games rely on the players to determine in which direction their characters will go, and often force them into stereotyped roles. Hume and Charette were players turned designers, and remained aware of the difficulties they had met in previously published games.” and “A quest for knowledge about Japanese culture would not begin with Bushido, partly because of the interpolation of mythic beliefs into the background. However, the players of the game do not wish to know all the ins and outs of that country, however interesting they may be. Bushido is a nice enough meld of a surrealistic and D&D-style flavor, and has a game system sturdy enough to support this impression.” 

Reviewing Bushido in White Dwarf Issue No 32 (August, 1982), Mike Polling was wholly more positive, exclaiming that, “If you’re for the ultimate Fantasy Role-Playing Game, look no further. This is it.” before awarding both Bushido and the separate adventure, Valley of the Mists, a score of ten out of ten.

Bushido has also been the subject of a number of retrospectives. In Dragon #134 (June, 1988), it was reviewed again, this time by Jim Bambra and alongside reviews of Land of Ninja, a supplement for RuneQuest III and Oriental Adventures, the supplement for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. In light of the other two supplements being reviewed, he was more guarded in his praise, stating that, “The BUSHIDO game was the first game to open up the mysterious East to roleplayers  –  but at a cost. While admirably capturing the flavor of medieval Japan, the BUSHIDO game is densely written and difficult to grasp. It is a game for dedicated gamers who, in their pursuit of Oriental action, are willing to struggle with rule books that make advanced nuclear theory texts seem like light reading by comparison.” before concluding that, “If you’re looking for a stand-alone system, then check out the BUSHIDO game. But if accessibility and ease of use are your primary requirements, stay well away.”

In ‘The Way of the Warrior, The Way of Bushido’ in The Last Province Issue 1 (October, 1992), Paz Newis said, “Ah, the early eighties when a game system said complete rule system, by jingo, it meant it... However the initial rush of joy is likely to be short lived. Upon opening one of the books the level of undertaking becomes apparent. You want to authentically simulate feudal fantasy Japan? It might be quicker to move there and join their Sealed Knot equivalent.” The reviewer was otherwise positive about the game. Similarly, Bushido was described Arcane issue 6 (May, 1996) as having, “...[C]aptured the spirit of the  Samurais’ [sic] greatest era: feudal Japan.” and that, “Politics and action went hand in hand with Bushido and the game had an innately epic scale.” Editor Steve Faragher’s obvious enthusiasm should be tempered by the fact that he had been part of the Games of Liverpool team which published the scenario, Takishido’s Debt, for Bushido in 1983.


—oOo—
As the first roleplaying game set in feudal Japan, Bushido is groundbreaking, providing a lot of information about the setting, the types of characters which can be played, and what they can do. There is a lot of flavour and detail in Bushido, especially so in the descriptions of the various types of skills—Bugei or combat skills, Fine Arts, Practical Arts, Ninja skills, and Magical and Mystical skills—but also in the explanations of society and customs, and of course, in the On or personal honour rules which encourage roleplaying and immersion in the setting. Yet as much as it set a standard in terms of background for the characters, who they and what they do, Bushido got just about everything wrong in terms of how a roleplaying needs to be presented. The density of the text, the explanation of terms before they are needed, and the dreadfully poor organisation of the rules—exacerbated by a lack of index—made Bushido inaccessible. Instead of needing to be read, Bushido needed to be studied, its textbook-like layout and structure also making the game difficult to teach.

Bushido had the potential to be a good roleplaying game and a great treatment of its genre. Yet from the start, Bushido needed a second edition of the Fantasy Games Unlimited version to rip the organisation of its contents apart and put it back together to make it accessible. It is a shame that this never happened, for it let other Oriental-set roleplaying games shine in its stead.


—oOo—
With thanks to Steven Ward for granting me last minute access to The Last Province #1.

The last weekend of the year, the last weekend of the Twenty-teens, 40 years since this song came out, and Caroline’s and my 17th wedding anniversary. Let the music commence.

Over on the old Facebooks I have been challenged or tagged in various top five lists. Five favorite books, favorite albums, things like that.  So I thought I'd end my year here with my Top Five favorite Top Fives!

For the next five days I'll post a top-five list.  These will be presented in no particular order and at least according to the rules of a couple of the challenges, with no explanations.

So today I am doing my Top Five Albums.

The Police Synchronicity



Thomas Dolby The Golden Age of Wireless



Sinéad O'Connor The Lion and the Cobra



Pink Floyd The Dark Side of the Moon



Stevie Nicks The Wild Heart

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—and so on, as the anniversaries come up. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.


—oOo—
1959 marks the publication of two classic wargames. One is Diplomacy: A Game of International Intrigue, Trust, and Treachery, the other is Risk: The Continental Game. Although they are both set in past times, one Napoleonic, one Edwardian, they could not be more different. One is card and dice driven and has been hugely successful, probably the most successful mass market wargame ever published, but the other is entirely trust and decision driven. The former is Risk, the latter Diplomacy. Both are sixty years old in 2019.

Risk was originally invented and released in France in 1957 as La Conquête du Monde—The Conquest of the World—by French film director Albert Lamorisse. It was then bought by American publishers Parker Brothers and released as Risk: The Continental Game in 1959, later as Risk: The Game of Global Domination. Today, it is published as Risk: The Game of Strategic Conquest by Wizards of the Coast as part of its Avalon Hill brand. Although the game has seen numerous variations and alternative settings, such as the acclaimed Risk Legacy or Risk 2210 AD, the core game remains much the same as the original. Two to five players (although it comes with six armies), aged ten and up, attempt to defeat each others’ armies and conquer the world.

Risk is played on a map of the world, each of the six continents colour-coded and divided into separate territories, for a total of forty-two. Some of the continents are connected by sea routes, for example, Brazil to North Africa or Iceland to Greenland, allowing sea travel between territories, but otherwise, Risk entirely concerns itself with land battles. There is a card corresponding to each territory and these forty-two territory cards are used to determine the initial placement of the players’ troops. The cards are also marked with one of three symbols—infantry, cavalry, or artillery—and when collected in suits of three (one of each, three of the same, or two of the same and a wild card), they can be turned in to gain a player new troops. To gain new territory cards, a player will need to attack the territories of his rival players, defeat their troops, and capture them.

Game set-up is simple. Each player receives his army and is dealt a random set of territory cards. These indicate where his troops start, the player placing one or more troops in each of these starting territories. The cards are then handed back to form the deck from which a territory card is drawn when a player captures one or more territories on his turn. On his turn a player receives new troops according to the number of territories and any whole continents he holds, makes as many attacks against his rivals as he wants, and then moves any of his troops to adjacent territories as long as there is always one unit left in each territory. Each army consists of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, with the cavalry pieces being used to represent five infantry and artillery used to represent ten. Neither cavalry and artillery have any other role in the game bar to make mass troop handling easier.

Battles are handled simply enough. The attacking player makes his attack with between one and three troops, whilst the defending player defends with between one and two troops. The attacking player rolls a single red six-sided die for each of his attacking troops, whilst the defending player rolls a blue die for each of his defending troops. The highest die rolls from each side are compared with each other, the higher result of a pair defeating the other and resulting in removal of the defeated enemy troop unit. Ties are awarded to the defending player, but where the defending player can only defeat a maximum of two attacking troops in an exchange, an attacking player can defeat both defending troop units with a good roll. The attacking player can continue attacking until he runs out of troops or he captures the territory he is attacking. If the latter, then he draws a new territory card.

Play continues like this until one player has defeated his rivals and conquered the world. This then is Risk, a game about the ‘risk’ of attacking the enemy, defeating them, and capturing their territory. It is not a game about defence or withstanding your opponents’ attacks—although that will happen in the game—but a game which rewards the attacking player who is successful in capturing territories. The rewards are always more troops and come in various ways. Capture and hold more territories and a player will be rewarded with more troops at the start of his turn; capture and hold a continent and a player will be rewarded with more troops at the start of his turn; and capture more territories and a player will be rewarded with a territory card each turn, which suites of three can be turned in at the beginning of his turn for more troops. Notably, each time a player hands in three territory cards, he is rewarded with more troops than the last player who did so, whether that was himself or a rival.

Famously, Risk is more a game of luck than skill or strategy. It rewards success or luck by giving the winner more troops with which to defeat his rivals. Of course, his luck can change and go the other way, but the result either way is a fairly long game, especially the more players who are involved, with not a great deal for the players to do when it is not their turn. On the plus side, the simplicity of the rules make Risk easy to teach and learn, then set up and play.

This though is Classic Risk, a game of global domination played until one player resoundly defeats the others. In today’s version, Risk: The Game of Strategic Conquest, it is only one of game types suggested—and not even the first. ‘Game 1: Secret Mission RISK’ is the first and the default game in Risk: The Game of Strategic Conquest and sees each player assigned a secret mission card from the twelve included in the game, for example, ‘Destroy all ORANGE  troops’ or ‘Conquer the continents of EUROPE and AUSTRALIA’. Should a player meet all of the conditions of his secret mission card, then he wins the game. This can happen even if another player unintentionally helps him out, for example, if a player defeats all of the orange troops, then the player with the ‘Destroy all ORANGE  troops’ secret mission wins.

‘Game 1: Secret Mission RISK’ counters one of the criticisms of Risk, providing more focused objectives for a shorter game. ‘Game 2: Classic RISK’ is what the standard game of Risk was before the introduction of secret missions and will be the version remembered by many when they recall the game. ‘Game 3: RISK for 2 Players’ requires one player to defeat the other, but adds a neutral army which can both players can attack, yet when one player does so, the other player rolls for its defence. Otherwise, this two-player variant plays the same as the classic variant. Lastly, ‘Game 4: Capital RISK’ gives each player a headquarters located in one of their territories. This version is won by capturing all of your opponent’s headquarters.

Physically, Risk: The Game of Strategic Conquest looks, feels, but is not as cheap as it  should be, given the quality of its components. The armies included in the game—the infantry, cavalry, and artillery—are of cheap plastic, the cards of thin card, and the game board, although illustrated with an attractive map, on slightly thick card rather than being mounted. The map board does not quite sit flat and will need to be weighted down. Fortunately, the rulebook is neatly laid out, easy to read, and comes with a little playing advice, making it the best produced item in the less than sturdy box.

Many will claim that Risk: The Game of Strategic Conquest is a classic game. This is undeniably true, but not because it is a good game. It is not a good game because it takes too long to play, because it luck based, because it favours the victor and so often leaves the other players with long periods with nothing to do. All of these are acknowledged issues with the game, some of which are addressed by the different game types in the current version. Yet this does not mean it is unplayable nor inaccessible, but does often mean that other games are designed as the anti-Risk, just as some games are designed as the anti-Monopoly.

Rather Risk: The Game of Strategic Conquest is a classic game because it is the most mass-produced and most sold wargame of all time, having been on sale in toy shops, department stores, game shops, and on-line for sixty years, and thus been on our shelves for just as long. Where games like Monopoly, Cluedo, and Scrabble are the games of our childhood, acceptable to all of the family, Risk: The Game of Strategic Conquest is one step away from those, acceptable still, but not to all of the family because of its subject matter and playing time. Like those other games it benefits from simple rules that everyone can understand and quickly master, so can be played by anyone, no matter what their skill level is. Indeed, despite it being a confrontational wargame, such is the element of luck in the game, the losing players can blame invariably part of their loss down to the dice rather than their lack of skill or their opponent’s greater skill. 

Ultimately, Risk: The Game of Strategic Conquest is our first experience with wargaming, an acceptable introduction to the hobby and a childhood classic worth revisiting out of nostalgia rather than because it is a good game. Accessible, playable, but at best a stepping stone to better and more interesting games. 

The galaxy is positively littered with artifacts, structures, and detritus from any number of otherwise cryptic civilizations, but the greatest mystery documented by the existing organizations endeavoring to track those archaeological sites involves what are commonly called “dimensional rings” found … Continue reading →

With everything happening in November and December, many thanks to everyone who came out for the Nightmare Weekends Before Christmas, because it made all the difference. As always, we had a great crowd of interested bystanders, and plenty of folks … Continue reading →

The hobby seems sadly lacking without the definitive British fantasy roleplaying game being available on the shelves of your local gaming store, but the good news is that Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay returned in 2018—and from a British publisher to boot. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition is published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment and the good news that this new edition is a return to something akin to the original design and mechanics of the first two editions rather than the third. Inspired by the fiction of Michael Moorcock and the Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying of Call of Cthulhu, as much as by Tolkien, and all taking place in the Old World, a fantasy inspired by the Europe of the Thirty Years War and the Holy Roman Empire, it is a roleplaying game in which minor nobles, dwarf slayers, witch hunters, ex-soldiers, merchants, road wardens, petty wizards, priests to Sigmar and Ulrich, and of course, rat catchers—plus little dog, hold back incursions by the forces of Chaos, run scams, uncover cults and conspiracies, and more, all in the face of intransigence and callousness upon the part of the ruling classes and the churches. It remains still ‘A Grim World of Perilous Adventure’, with mud, blood, excrement, and worse, underfoot.

The starting point for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition is not necessarily the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition core rulebook, but the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set. Like any good starter set, this is designed to introduce the roleplaying game and its setting, and provide everything necessary to give a gaming group several hours’ worth of play. This it does in handsome fashion, right from the moment that Game Master or player open up the box. The first thing that you find is a set of percentile dice under which can be found seven portfolios—one ‘Read This First’ and six character portfolios; a double-sided map of the town and map of Ubersreik, a combat and injury reference sheet, an attributes and skills and tests reference sheet, An Introduction to Ubersreik and the Empire and a Conditions reference sheet; two books—The Adventure Book and A Guide to Ubersreik; and handouts sheets and a set of Advantage tokens. All of which is done in full colour on heavy stock—both paper and cardboard. The reference sheets are intended for both the Game Master and her players, to be accessed during play.

Having unpacked all of this, it should be noted that the production values of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set are such that the inside of the box and the lid are no mere ordinary, plain cardboard. The inside of the box is a full colour map of The Empire, whilst the inside of the lid is designed to work as a Game Master Screen. The latter is a rather nice touch, but perhaps it could have been better placed in landscape rather than portrait format for greater stability.

Each of the seven portfolios is a gatefold leaflet on stiff paper, a format which gives more space which is used well on all seven. So in the ‘Read This First’ portfolio, the main page is given over to an introduction to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, whilst the wings serve as full-length sidebars either side of the main page on which descriptions are given for each of the various items in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set. For the character portfolios, the character sheet and illustration is on the main page, whilst an explanation of various aspects of the character sheet is given on the left and the character’s background on the right. The latter includes possible motivations, group ties, and secrets, tying the character into the setting and adventures further detailed in The Adventure Book and A Guide to Ubersreik. An explanation of who each character is and why you would play them. Notably, there is advice here not to open a character portfolio until a player has decided that it is the one that he wants to play. Each character is given a full illustration on the back of the portfolio.

The six pre-generated characters include a noble turned soldier, a witch hunter dedicated to Sigmar, a High Elf merchant, a distrusted wizard (all wizards are distrusted), a joyful Halfling thief, and an honourable Dwarf slayer. There is much that a veteran player of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay will recognise. So a familiar characteristics—Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Toughness, and so on, skills like Charm and Consume Alcohol—with skills and characteristics being rated as percentages, and Talents such as Luck, Sixth Sense, and Warrior Born, which will all be familiar.  In addition, a character has a number of other attributes. Fate can be spent to have the character avoid death, Fortune to reroll or improve a Test, Resilience to set the result of a Test, and Resolve can be used to remove or negate conditions like Fear.

The mechanics themselves, essentially a qualitative percentile system, are explained in The Adventure Book, a combination scenario and rules book. So when a character wants to do something, his player rolls percentile dice and attempt to get equal to or under the characteristic or skill being used for the Test. That though is a Simple Test. When a player needs to know how well his character did, he rolls a Dramatic Test. This is slightly more complex in that the ‘tens’ value on the dice roll is subtracted from the ‘tens’ value of the skill. This determines the character’s Success Level, which can be positive or negative. The higher it is, the better the outcome, the lower—or more negative—it is, the worse the outcome. So for example, Wanda wants to distract the town watch patrol whilst her compatriots get away, so uses her Blather skill of 45. The Game rates this is as Challenging, so there is no modifier to the skill. Wanda’s player rolls 29. Deducting the tens result of the roll (2) from the skill (4), gives a Success Level value of 2, which is a successful outcome. 

Opposed rolls generally compare Success Levels, the character or NPC with more succeeding over the other. Melee combat also uses opposed rolls—Weapon Skill versus Weapon Skill if parrying or the Dodge Skill if trying to get out of the way, whereas missile attacks, rolled on Ballistic Skill are Simple Tests. Success Levels not only determine if a character manages to strike his opponent in combat, but also the amount of extra damage inflicted. If a double is rolled—eleven, twenty-two, thirty-three, and so on—then a critical hit has been made. This can be made when attacking or parrying, and it can even be made when an opponent has rolled more Success Levels than the character’s player. So a character can lose an exchange of blows, but still inflict an effect. In addition, the combat mechanics in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition are designed to have a character build upon success, gaining Advantage when attacking an opponent who is surprised, charging into combat, defeating an important NPC, and so on, gaining a +10 bonus to combat actions each time. This is lost if a character loses an opposed roll or suffers a wound, but is designed to give a character an edge as he gains momentum in a fight. Both players and Game Master can keep track of characters’ Advantage using the tokens which come in the box.

All of these mechanics are explained over the first ten or so pages of The Adventure Book, not in one go, but as they are needed in the first scenario. The aim here is for the Game Master to teach her players on the go and in this they are successful. There is probably slightly too much text for the Game Master to teach them unprepared, but a single read through should be enough otherwise. The adventures in The Adventure Book consist of one main scenario and ten detailed seeds. The main scenario is ‘Making the Rounds’ and consists of five parts. It starts innocently enough with a shopping trip before exploding into a big set piece which first lands the player characters in hot water and then with unexpected duties. Episodic in nature, it is solidly plotted, and there is scope for the Game Master to expand it with scenarios of her own or mixing in the ten seeds that follow ‘Making the Rounds’, many of which are written for each of the pre-generated characters. In addition to the rules, there is advice on playing all of the NPCs, when to run certain scenarios, and so on, for the Game Master throughout The Adventure Book. For the most part, ‘Making the Rounds’ is fairly straightforward, but the latter two acts will need a little more preparation than the earlier three, being more open in nature than the other parts.

The second, thicker book, is A Guide to Ubersreik. It describes Ubersreik, the fortress-town in the south of the Reikland, noted for the great Dwarf bridge across the river, which sits at the mouth of the Grey Lady Pass, the only reliable trade route south to the Bretonnnian duchy of Parravon. The town and its surrounding duchy are in turmoil after the ruling House Jungfreud was unseated by the emperor. The book gives a history of the town, reasons to visit, and the various places and districts of the town. They include the various guilds, shops, and places of the artisan’s quarter, such as the Locksmith’s Guild—with its pathological hatred of illegal locks, Satrioli’s Sausage Shop—known for its Tilean food and the gaggle of Halflings employed there, and Wandiene Rookery—the largest and worst of the town’s slums. The guide also covers Dawihafen, the Dwarf Quarter, home to the town’s many Dwarves, Ubersreik Bridge itself, temples to the various gods, Von Holzenaur’s Potion Shop, Wahlund’s Rat Catchers, and more. The sewers are also detailed, as are several cults devoted to the Chaos gods—Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, and Tzeentch, and the Yellowbellies, the Faceless Ones, and the Cult of the Bog King, a number of local cults which may or may not be fronts for the other cults… Along the way, there are lots of inns and taverns described too—which seems befitting any town or city in the Old World—as well as yet more scenario hooks to bolster the adventures given in The Adventure Guide. If there is an issue with A Guide to Ubersreik, it is that only a single building is given a map. The book could certainly have done with more.

The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set is not a good introduction to roleplaying and nor is it designed to be. It just does not start from the first principles to do that, but that is fine, because as an introduction to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition, it does a very good job and does so in an attractive package. In the main, the designers keep the rules to a minimum, allowing the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set to focus on the story, the setting—and importantly, room for the Game Master to expand upon its content. There are of course the extra scenarios in The Adventure Book and the hooks in A Guide to Ubersreik, but the publisher has published further material set in and around the fortress-town, including several scenarios. Ultimately, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set and its expansions are designed to set up the classic The Enemy Within campaign for the new edition.

As written, the contents of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set can be played straight through and should provide multiple sessions of gaming. All of which can be done without the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition core book, but if the Game Master and her players want their characters to progress, then they will need access to that book. The Adventure Book in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set does provide the experience point awards for playing through its scenarios, but not the means to apply them. Conversely, a group with access to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition core book could simply create their own characters and play through the content of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set without any problem, although some of the nuances of the pre-generated characters and their ties to Ubersreik may be lost. 

Although not quite suited for a beginning Game Master, for the experienced roleplayer or the veteran player of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay wanting a first taste of the new edition, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set is the perfect jumping on point. Overall, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set is something that every Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay devotee will want, offering high production values, excellent value for money, and all that a gaming group will need for several sessions of grim and perilous adventure.

cybernecrocat:

A dragon I’ve promised my friend like ten thousand years ago

Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is a scenario for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World published by Goodman Games. It is designed for use with player characters of First Level, which means that it is not a Character Funnel, one of the features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game it is mechanically based upon—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. In terms of the setting, known as Terra A.D., or ‘Terra After Disaster’, this is a ‘Rite of Passage’ and in Mutants, Manimals, and Plantients, the stress of it will trigger ‘Metagenesis’, their DNA expressing itself and their mutations blossoming forth. Rather Blessings of the Vile Brotherhood is designed for characters of Fourth Level, so each of the player characters will have a range of powers and abilities as equipment and artefacts scavenged after two or three adventures out in Terra A.D.

As its title suggests, Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is something a little bit different, a festive, holiday-themed scenario suitable for playing at this time of year. It can easily be added to any Mutant Crawl Classics campaign, starting as it does with a problem that has befallen the player characters’ village. For generations, two tribes—the Mud-Walker tribe and the Violent Serpent tribe—have exchanged gifts at a given time each winter to renew the bonds of friendship and peace between their peoples. Unfortunately, before the ceremony at which this exchange takes place happens this year, it is discovered that all of the presents have been stolen! Without the gifts and the traditions of the ceremony, the acrimony between the two tribes from before the peace threatens to rear its ugly head and hostilities to break out once again. So it is up to the player characters—or Seekers—to track down the gifts and return before war breaks out!

Like many scenarios for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, the setting for Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is a dungeon of the future. In this case, it is a temple of Ancients dedicated to commerce, but also to Christmas and its cheeriness. Of course, in the time of the Ancients it was a department store, but in the centuries since the great apocalypse that brought about Terra A.D., its AI administrator, XMAS—or eXtended Mercantile Artificial Salesperson—and its facilities have degraded and been twisted by the ongoing effects of the disaster and the lack of maintenance. Thus each of the three main floors is garishly decorated in tinsel, holly wreaths, baubles, and gaudy point of sale material and all of the paraphernalia you would expect of a department store putting on a big push for Christmas sale, but now the Smartpaper wrapping station is a security station, Santa’s bio-engineered helper elves have either gone feral or woodpunk, the transport network between floors have become death traps, and what was once a winter spectacle on the top floor, is now a hardlight hell. Plus, security is provided by Miss Majorie, a grandmother robot who will not tolerate the antics of naughty boys and girls (or Manimals, Mutants, and Plantients). Which all leads to the possibility that the great disaster that struck the Ancients either took place before Christmas or that this once great temple of Christmas consumerism was actually open all year!

In amongst all of the death traps and dangerous denizens of the commercial temple of the Ancients you would expect of a module for Mutant Crawl Classics, it turns out that Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is really quite generous with its gifts. The ground floor consists of a number of merchandise stations where gifts for family and friends can still be found. Thees gifts though, are no mere gee gaws or bric-a-brac, but in many cases actually useful artefacts. Minor useful items, but useful, festively themed minor artefacts all the same. There are rechargeable sunglasses, fantastic fit-anyone skates, and holiday sweaters which light up, but are very warm and actually provide an Armour Class bonus. There are plenty of these minor artefacts to go around and certainly each of the Seekers should come away with something from the scenario (if they survive that is.) A nice touch is that if the Seekers look in the right places there whole, brightly coloured, heavily illustrated books dedicated to showcasing just what the temple has on sale and each will provide a bonus in trying to work out what each item does.

Phsyically, Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is quite short, but decently illustrated with some creepy artwork. The book is well written, although the Game Master will need to give a careful read in places to make the connections in the plot and between various locations.

As a ‘dungeon crawl’, Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is somewhat lacking when it comes to roleplaying and the Game Master really has the one NPC with which the player characters will interact. With her, the Game Master should really be hamming it up, as either a kindly, take-no-nonsense grandmother or school-ma’am-ish old lady to get the full weird effect. The ‘ho-ho horror’ of Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath is nevertheless well done, twisting and changing the traditional elements of Christmas and its commercialism without being either too knowing or too twee in its own cleverness. Often there is a groan-inducing inevitability of a Christmas scenario and all its trappings, Mutant Crawl Classics 2018 Holiday Module: Home for the Holideath avoids much of that to provide a suitably horrifying and weird experience for the inhabitants of Terra A.D. and their players.

The Nightmare Weekends Before Christmas may be over, but the Triffid Ranch never sleeps. For those getting off work early and in need of carnivorous plants, the gallery will be open on December 24 from 1:30 to 6:00 pm. Just … Continue reading →

"Cats" is out. And it is really, really bad. How bad? So bad that I am DYING to see it.  In fact, we are going to tomorrow as a family. And we are dressing as cats.   We are going 100% Rocky Horror Picture Show on this.

I figure let's have some Catgirls for Old-School Essentials!

Nekojin (Catgirl)

Requirements: Minimum DEX 9
Prime requisites: DEX and CHA
Hit Dice: 1d6
Maximum Level: 9
Weapons: Any (must be modified)
Armor: none or leather only
Languages: Alignment, Common, Elf, Nekojin*  
Catgirls, also known as Nekojin, are a humanoid race that have prominent cat-like features.  These include furry cat ears on the top of their head, cat eyes, canine...er...feline teeth and whiskers. Their pupils are slits like that of a cat. They also have long cattails and their hands and feet resemble a cross between cat paws and humanoid hands and feet.  Their nails are in fact retractable claws.   They typically weigh about 110 pounds and are between 5 and 5½ feet tall. Their human-ish faces give them the look of kittens. This, in addition, their size, often leads non-Nekojin to treat them as if they were younger than they truly are.

The typical nekojin can live to about 50 years of age. They reach maturity by age 7 and will begin adventuring between ages 6 and 8. Nekojin have their own language, but they can also learn the language of humans (Common) and Elves (Sylvan).

Combat Nekojin can use any weapon that has been modified for their hands (increased cost +25%), but they avoid armor except for leather.

Detect Invisible / Spirits Nekojin have a supernatural heritage, so they can see invisible creatures or spirits in the spirit planes on a roll of 1 or 2 on a d6.

Infravision Nekojin have infravision rp 90'.

After Reaching 9th Level A nekojin that reaches 9th level may choose to retire and raise a brood of their own or be reborn into a new kitten (1st level) with no memories of their former life.  On their 9th life they will remember all past lives and skills.

Table 1: Nekojin Advancement and Saving Throws


Level XP  HD D W P B S 1 0 1d6 12 14 12 16 15 2 2,000 2d6 12 14 12 16 15 3 4,000 3d6 12 14 12 16 15 4 8,000 4d6 10 12 11 14 13 5 16,000 5d6 10 12 11 14 13 6 32,000 6d6 10 12 11 14 13 7 64,000 7d6 8 10 9 12 11 8 128,000 8d6 8 10 9 12 11 9 256,000 9d6 8 10 9 12 11
Table 2: Nekojin to Hit vs. AC
To Hit Level -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 2 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 3 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 4 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 6 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 7 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 8 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 9 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

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

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

—oOo—


Refractions of Glasston: A 1920s horror scenario tempered in northern Indiana is a scenario for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition with an origins very different to those of the submissions usually submitted to the Miskatonic Repository. Instead of being submitted by an amateur or professional author, it is the result of a creative collaboration between the Professional Writing major at Taylor University, Upland IN and Chaosium, Inc. The creators are all students at Taylor University and this is their first foray into writing for the roleplaying game hobby, aided and advised by Chaosium, Inc.’s editorial team. If the result lacks a certain polish, then it should be borne in mind that the scenario was produced as a course assignment in a single semester by a group whose members were all new to Call of Cthulhu before they started. Given all that, Refractions of Glasston serves up a (mason) jarful of rural noir and body horror with a degree of transparency.
Refractions of Glasston takes place in rural Indiana, where the fortunes of a once-failing glassware manufacturer has taken an unexpected upswing and turned a small town into a boom town! Elias Taylor Winters, the CEO of TWJ Co., has discovered a means of manufacturing toughened glass and is about to launch a new line of unbreakable mason jars. Yet even as the townsfolk put all of their efforts into supporting the factory which has brought them newfound prosperity, there are hints that all is not well in Glasston. The townsfolk are reluctant to talk, if not close-lipped, there is a wariness of strangers which all but verges on paranoia, and there are rumours of sickness amongst the factory workers. Just what is Winters’ new glass-making process? Is there any truth to the rumours of sickness and who the men in black who work for TWJ Co.’s CEO?
The core of the scenario involves investigation in and around the town, trying to discern just what the townsfolk and ultimately, the factory, are hiding. There are not too many places to investigate, but they are decently detailed with several NPCs for the investigators to interact with. Eventually though, their nosiness will attract the attention of the authorities and probably the all too influential TWJ Co. The likelihood of this is tracked on a Suspicion Tracker, to the point where the company reacts and the scenario transitions onto the next act, with subsequent events likely to drive the investigators into confronting the menace behind it—a minor ancient ‘god’ who will be refreshingly new to veteran players of Call of Cthulhu.
The authors also nicely serve up a history of Indiana, coming up to date with the effects of Prohibition, as well as adding elements of the state’s local mythos and folklore, suggesting how they might be developed further. This gives the scenario some solid context and so lays the groundwork for events to come whilst the investigators in Glasston. 
The scenario comes with seven pre-generated investigators. They include a journalist, private eye, investor, nurse, moonshiner, factory worker, and pastor. They nicely reflect a range of origins, backgrounds, and ages. Some of them do have hooks which pull them into the events of Refractions of Glasston, but these hooks could have been more strongly highlighted and perhaps supported with advice for the Keeper on how the NPCs they are connected to in the town will react to them. That said, this should not be an issue for an experienced Keeper and her players. Rounding out the set of seven is advice on integrating existing investigators into the scenario. This is useful, but perhaps could have been placed at the start of the scenario rather than the end.
Physically, Refractions of Glasston is a forty-eight page, 7.68 Mb, full-colour PDF. Behind the nicely done cover, the scenario is neatly laid out with a mix of full colour artwork and rough pencils. Some of the boxed out text is difficult to identify though, and the single map is plain if serviceable. The editing could have been tighter in places, but it is fair to say that the production values are decent enough.
In terms of production values, Refractions of Glasston could have benefited from more maps, including a larger one of the town and its immediate environs and then one of the factory. That said, a Keeper should be able to draw these maps from the descriptions given if necessary. In terms of the plot, one of the NPCs is not quite as strongly used as he could have been considering what he knows, both about what is going in the factory and about the Mythos in general, and that he is a probable source of information about both for the investigators. Another issue is that one of the other NPCs feels anachronistic, though less so if the scenario is updated to the modern day (which would also have the advantage of making the local folklore easier to use).
There is no denying that Refractions of Glasston is not as smooth the substance at the heart of its horror, but it should not be forgotten that this is a first entry into the roleplaying hobby. So the members of the team behind the scenario are new to the writing, editing, and development process involved—just as they were new to Call of Cthulhu before they started. This does not and should not detract from the scenario, but what it does mean is that the Keeper will need to spend a little more time in preparing Refractions of Glasston than she might with a more polished title. In fact, it is fair to say that with more development—though not much more—Refractions of Glasston would be suitable for print in an anthology.
At its core, Refractions of Glasston is a good mix of background and plot, with some nicely creepy—and well thought out—aspects to the body horror that plagues the town. Overall, Refractions of Glasston: A 1920s horror scenario tempered in northern Indiana a solid, commendable first foray into writing for roleplaying games and for Call of Cthulhu.

What strikes you first about Liminal is not the name—that comes second—but the fact that it is a beautiful book, packed full with luminous, mysterious artwork presented on thick glossy paper. The roleplaying game is in fact a weighty, digest-sized tome that suggests heavy, even stolid game, but nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, Liminal is an urban fantasy roleplaying with light, narrative mechanics, presented in rich full colour which hints at and captures the strange place astride the familiar of the mortal and the unfamiliar of the Hidden World. Indeed, the very title suggests this, ‘liminal’ meaning ‘occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.’ Published by Worldplay Games and distributed by Modiphius Entertainment following a successful Kickstarter campaign and written by the designer of Age of Arthur, Liminal is unique amongst the urban fantasy roleplaying games published to date in being set  entirely within the United Kingdom. Thus it is inspired by the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere and Sandman, the comic book Hellblazer, Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, the television series Being Human, the film The Company of Wolves, amongst many other films and books. 

The ‘Hidden World of Liminal is one in which magic and magicians, vampires, werewolves, the fae, and many myths are real. And some in authority know. As much a rich gentleman’s club as the protector of the country from rogue magic practitioners, the conservative Council of Merlin claims origins date back to Roman times, whilst the Most Noble and Distinguished Mercury Collegium is a loose network of magicians, knowledgeable mortals, and supernatural creatures who often use magic as a means to aid their criminal endeavours. Vampires scheme and prey from behind the scenes, most belong to nests which in turn are part of the Soldality of the Crown, the parliament of vampires whose origins are as old as the Council of Merlin. Originally brought to the British Isles by the Vikings, most werewolves hunt in local packs, but the brutal Jaeger family want to unite them. The Fae vary wildly, some appear human, others lurk under bridges, but most serve one of the feuding Fae Court, typically located in a Dominion beyond this world in the Fae Realms. The most powerful Fae lords in the country are the Queen of Hyde Park, whose summer court is reached via a bridge under Serpentine, and the Winter King, whose frosty court moves anywhere between Snowdonia in Wales, the Lake District in England, and the Scottish highlands. Elsewhere, both mortals and fae worship the spirits of the rivers great and small; ghosts are the echoes of the deceased who in time may come material again or even possess the body of someone newly dead; the Aldermen protect and seek knowledge of gates into Ghost Realms, Fae Domains, and hidden crossings; and the Flowers of Expression is a community of artists—both worldly and unworldly—who accept all on artistic merit and who seek to create great art.

Two bodies of authority know something of the Hidden World and its inhabitants and secrets. One is the Order of St, Bede, a Christian order which accepts both Anglicans and Catholics and is dedicated to protecting the mundane world from magic and the supernatural and keeping it and the existence of magic a secret. Its members will use magic, but this does not stop magic from being sinful. P Division is a national agency of the British police, one that investigates inexplicable or Fortean crimes, but which never records its experiences of the Hidden World or magic lest it be revealed to press or the government. Some of its members may even know magic, but for serving officers, assignment to P Division is seen as a career dead end.

Character concepts include Academic Wizard, sponsored to Dee College at Oxford by the Council of Merlin; Changeling swapped for a human at birth by the Fae; Clued-up Criminal, aware of the Hidden World as a free agent or associate of the Mercury Collegium; Dhampir, almost a vampire, still just about human; Eldritch Scholar, perhaps sponsored by a wizard, but with an interest in the Hidden World; Face, one of the diplomats between the factions of the Hidden World; Gutter Mage who lacks the academic study wanted of the Council of Merlin, and may instead may be part of the Mercury Collegium; Investigator, perhaps members of P Division, but might also be a journalist or private detective who has stumbled across the Hidden World; Knight, the mortal servants of one of the factions, and might be lawyers or computer experts as well as soldiers; Man in Black, one of the protectors the ordinary world from the Hidden World for the Order of the St. Bede; Warden, bodyguard to a Magician for one of the factions; and Werewolf, who has undergone the initiation ritual to be able to change into wolf form. Now a player does not have to pick any one of these concepts, but can instead develop his own. What each concept does though, is suggest the possible Skills, Traits, Limitations, and Focuses that will help define a character.

A character or Liminal in Liminal is defined Concept, Drive, Focus, Skills, Traits, and Limitation. A Liminal’s Drive is what motivates him to become involved in the Hidden World, for example, ‘To find my father who was said to have run away with the fairies’ or ‘Werewolves ripped my family apart and I will seek out every werewolf and kill them’. Focus determines whether a Limininal is strong mentally or physically—Determined or Tough respectively and learn their respective Traits—or if he is a Magician and can learn different magical styles. It should be noted that although Shapechanger is listed as magical style, it only applies to magicians who can change into multiple forms, so lycanthropes such as werewolves who can only change into one, do not have to take it and so can be Determined or Tough instead. Skills represent a mix of training and natural abilities, with a skill level of two or more indicating simple professional attainment. A skill of level three or more means that it can have a speciality. Traits cover trained or innate advantages, but mundane and magical. Limitations are restrictions to or due from a Liminal’s supernatural abilities. A Liminal also has three Attributes—Endurance, Will, and Damage, the first two derived from his Athletics and Conviction skills, the latter from the means of attack used. (It should be noted though that Liminal makes clear that guns are not routinely available in the United Kingdom and that even when they are available, heavy weapons like grenades and rocket launchers simply kill their targets.) To create a Liminal, a player divides seventeen points between his skills and five points between Traits, although Limitations will add more to spend on Traits. 

Our sample Liminal is professional psychic, Neale Killough, who was orphaned at ten when his mother disappeared. She was also a psychic, but when he manifested the gift, was unable to contact her. He is convinced that she is dead and had delved further and further into the world of ghosts and the supernatural in order to find her. When not working as a psychic, he is a motivational speaker.

Neale Killough
Drive: To find out who took my mother and why?
Focus: Magician
Physical Skills: Business 1, Awareness 2
Mental Skills: Lore 2
Social Skills: Charm 2, Conviction 2, Empathy 3 (Assess Personality), Rhetoric 3 (Sincerity)
Traits: Necromancy (2), Presence (2), The Sight (1)
Endurance: 8
Will: 10
Damage: d6

Now creating a Liminal is not the only task that a player has to undertake before a game begins. In Liminal, each of the player characters, whatever their motivations or origins, is a member of a Crew which together provides them with a shared motivation, a base of operations, and some assets. So they might be a team of werewolf hunters, scientists exploring the edges of the Hidden World, a P Division team investigating crimes committed by the Mercury Collegium, and so on. Just like the Liminals themselves, the Crew will have a goal, a reason how and why it takes on cases, plus assets like a Geomantic Node, Informants, or Transport. The Crew will also have a relationship factor between itself and several of the Hidden World’s factions, either positive or negative, plus hooks which will attract the Crew’s attention. Now all of these factors are decided collectively by the players in a round-robin fashion so that everyone’s suggestions are taken into account.

Dearly Departed Consultants
Dearly Departed Consultant is a collective of psychics—some with the gift, some not—who not only perform psychic readings up and down the country, but consult on ghost hunts, hauntings, and dealings with the spirit world. It rarely performs in  major venues and does not make a huge amount of money, but it gets by.

Goal: Keep people safe from the dangerous dead
Assets: Transport, Occult Library, Informants
Relationships: The Council of Merlin (-1), The Mercury Collegium (+2), P Division (+2), The Sodality of the Crown (-2), The Order of St. Bede (-1)

Mechanically, Liminal is simple. To undertake an action, a Liminal’s player rolls two six-sided dice and adds the Liminal’s skill value and any modifiers from Traits, attempting to beat the Challenge Level, typically eight, or more to succeed. Circumstances can modify the Challenge Level, such as being increased to ten for not having an appropriate skill. Failures lead either to immediate trouble for the Liminal, success but the Liminal is hurt, takes longer, or a simple failure. Rolls of double one are critical failures and add a further complication, but rolls of five or higher above the Challenge Level is a critical success. One interesting mechanic here is that when a player character makes a successful social challenge against another player character or NPC, he does not simply persuade them to do something, he levies a penalty to all tests which contradict the action he has been persuaded not to do.

A Liminal also has Will, which can be used to boost skill tests—including avoiding a critical fumble, and use various Traits and forms of Magic. For example, the Silver Tongue Trait grants a bonus to the Charm skill when being deceptive, but the magical element of the Trait means that if a magical ability or means was used to determine if you were telling the truth, then by expending a point of Will, the Liminal could avoid detection. Will is regenerated by rest or by engaging a player character’s Drive during play.

In keeping with the rest of Liminal, the combat rules are nasty, brutal, and short. A light firearm, for example, does 1d6+3 damage. Unless the player character has a lot of points invested in the Athletics skill or it is boosted by a Trait, a gunshot will not necessarily kill a player character, but it will knock him out of the fight.

Pleasingly, experience and advancement in Liminal is story driven, the player character learning directly from his experiences conducting a case. Learn something about the Hidden World or a fellow Crew member, advance the Crew goal, conclude a case, and so on, and these enable the player to tick his character’s Experience Boxes on the character. Fill five of these and the character receives a Skill increase and fills an Advance Box, and fill three of those and the character’s skill limit can be raised, he can have a new trait, and so on. It feels similar to the mechanics of Powered by the Apocalypse, but nevertheless rewards the player character according to the story and his actions.

Magic forms a major part of the Hidden World and comes in eight types—Blessings and Curses, Divination, Geomancy, Glamour, Necromancy, Shapechanging, Ward Magic, and Weathermonger. Again, the rules are kept simple, requiring no more than a successful Lore test and the expenditure of a point of Will to use. The Challenge Level for the test will vary according to what the magician wants to do and how quickly. So a Weathermonger can change the weather for several hours by expending two points of Will and making a Lore test. The Challenge test goes up by two each for making the weather turn violent, arrive quickly, or unseasonal. In addition to this base ability, a magician can have further Traits, such as Fast Working or Call the Lightning for the Weathermonger. 

More than half of Liminal is devoted to detailing the Hidden World. This starts with the sample characters, but really delves into with the information about the factions and the location descriptions. The factions are not only detailed, but often supported with sample NPCs whom the Game Master can easily add to her game. There are some fun groups and NPCs here, such as The Queen’s Service, vampires who supply blood from Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham or the mysterious ‘Werewolf’, Shad. The chapter on ‘Liminal Britain and Northern Island’ covers both the obvious places—Glastonbury, Stonhenge, and so on, and the less obvious ones—Pertmerion, the New Forest, and so on. Working down from cities, it covers towns, villages, and locations in some detail, including Belfast, Caernarfon, Canewdon, Dartmoor, Durham, the Forest of Dean, the Giant’s Causeway, Glasgow, Glastonbury, Glen Coe, Hadrian’s Wall, Highley, Hinton St. Mary, Liverpool, Loch Lomond, London, Manchester, Mount Snowdon, Mussenden Temple, the New Forest, Oxford, Peebles, Portmeirion, Saltaire, Stonehenge, Tamworth, Winchester, and York. As well as representing a diverse range of places that will nicely take a crew on and off the beaten track, there is a richness of detail here, such as Portmeirion was designed by a geomancer to prevent the incursion of a Ghost Realm, but which has partially failed following a fire or how vampires have moved to Manchester to hunt the city’s club scene. These locations are further supported by descriptions of the various types of fae, ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and mortals to be found in the Hidden World, these in addition to those included in the faction descriptions.

Rounding out Liminal, there is some excellent advice on setting up and running investigative style games  as well as advice on running the game. The Game Master is provided with extra background—on Fae Domains and Ghost Realms as well as Liminal beyond the borders of the United Kingdom—as well as outlines for two ready-to-play cases.

Physically, Liminal is a stunningly pretty looking book. The layout is clean and simple and the editing decent enough, but the choice of artwork is excellent throughout. There is a lot of it and it really captures the otherworldliness that breathes quietly from the pages and adds so much to the look and feel of the roleplaying game. This is superb looking game, not just because the artwork is good, but because it has been well chosen.

Liminal is not a roleplaying game with an other as such. There is a sense of containment to its setting of the United Kingdom and its factions, most if not actual enemies, then at least wary of each other. These factions are the major powers in the setting against which the Crew of Liminals or player characters will be set, the likelihood being that as they investigative and bring a case or mystery to a conclusion, they antagonise one faction whilst pleasing another. As a setting, Liminal feels not dissimilar to the World of Darkness with its factions of vampires, werewolves, mages, changelings, and ghosts, but here is an emphasis in Liminal on roleplaying playing mere mortals as much as there is dhampirs, changelings, werewolves, or fae. Further, Liminal slips these and its other fantastical elements into the shadows, layering them under centuries of history and mythology within the Hidden World. Of course, involvement of werewolves, vampires, and ghosts also means that Liminal is a horror game at least in tone in places, if not mechanically, so that does mean that there is a dark, mature edge to the Hidden World described within its pages.

Lastly, it should be noted that Liminal calls for increased player involvement from the start and throughout the play. This is in deciding their characters’ goals and then again if they fulfil them as well as setting up their Crew with their choice of assets, faction relationships, and hooks. In doing so, the players will actually decide some of the direction in which they want their Liminal campaign to go in, with the mechanics providing the means for them to support this with some interesting character options.

Liminal is not just an urban fantasy roleplaying game, for its takes both players and Game Master out into the wilds of the countryside too, far from the nations’ urban centres, out into the Hidden World, even as the Hidden World has slipped into those towns and cities. This enables it to provide a stronger sense of history and mythology, drawing from the British Isles’ rich swathes of legend and folklore. Liminal combines this with simple mechanics and story-based roleplaying to provide a delightfully accessible British roleplaying game and a delightfully accessible British—grim and determined—take upon the urban fantasy genre.

Russia just keeps on turning out new figures.  I don't know who made any of these.

Tehnolog Bootleg Skeletons. (soft rubber)
My source tells me these are very hard to find even in Russia.
























Martial Arts figures.




















Russian 30mm Hobbits.



























Russian 30mm Goblins.  From the same company that makes to no name orcs and wolf riders.

If you are a board gamer, then 2019 is a good time to be alive. You are spoilt for choice and you are spoilt for choice in terms of good games and you spoilt for choice because games can be designed around a theme or an intellectual property and they can fit that theme or property. For there cannot be any other good reason why Ravensburger can get the licence for a nearly fifty-year-old blockbuster and turn that blockbuster into a game that is not models the blockbuster, but which is actually a good game. A game that could and would never have been designed or published in 1975, the year of the blockbuster’s release. A tense, desperate game of cat and mouse—or rather shark and mouse—for the blockbuster is none other than Jaws. In fact, it is the first summer blockbuster, in which a giant man-eating great white shark attacks beachgoers at a New England summer resort town, prompting the local police chief, marine biologist, and a professional shark hunter to hunt it down. The film is regarded as both a classic thriller and horror film, and has been selected by the United States Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry.


Jaws: A Boardgame of Strategy and Suspense is an asymmetrical, two to four player semi-co-operative board game for ages twelve and over, which is played in two acts and lasts about an hour. One of the players takes the role of the Shark, whilst the other players take the roles of the hunters, Police Chief Martin Brody, marine biologist Matt Hooper, and shark hunter, Quint. (If there are fewer players, then the roles of Brody, Hooper, and Quint are shared between them, so that it is possible to play a two-player game). In the first act, ‘Amity Island’, the Shark hunts the waters off Amity island, eating swimmer after holiday swimmer as the hunters try to track its location and tag it. Once the Shark’s hunger is sated or it has been tagged twice, the Shark swims out to sea and the second act, ‘Orca’, begins. In ‘Orca’, the shark attacks the hunters aboard Quint’s boat, Orca, until they manage to kill the Shark or the Shark eats them or the boat.

Act One: ‘Amity Island’ is played out on a map of the island, which depicts the island’s four beaches—North, South, East, and West, two Docks, Shop, Mayor’s Office, and Amity P.D. on the island. Each Round is divided into three phases—Event, Shark, and Crew phases, which are played out in that order. In the Event phase, an Event card is drawn which determines on which beaches new swimmers will take to the water, plus an event and its special rules. For example, ‘The Fourth of July’ opens all beaches and they cannot be closed that Round; ‘Amity Island in the News’ grants one player an extra action that Round; and ‘Ben Gardner’s Boat’ enables the Shark to knock either Hooper or Quint from their boat and into the water if it passes through the same space as the boat, forcing their players to expend actions getting back aboard.

In the Shark phase, the Shark player has three actions he can undertake. Obviously, he can Move and he can Eat swimmers. He can also use one of four special abilities, represented by Power Tokens, like being able to swim faster or avoid the detection methods that the hunters are putting in his way. Each Power Token and its special ability can only be used once per game. All of this is done in complete secrecy, the Shark player tracking his movement on a pad included with the game and noting how many swimmers he has eaten on the Shark card. At the end of the Shark phase, all his player has to do is tell the hunter players how many swimmers he has eaten, whether he swam past a motion tracker, and whether or not a Power Token was used (but of course, not which).

In the Crew phase, Brody, Hooper, and Quint get to act, but they can act in any order and each has different things they can do. All three have four actions each and can Move, Rescue a Swimmer if at a beach, and Pick Up Barrels, though what each of them does with these Barrels is slightly different. Brody is famously afraid of the water and so runs around Amity Island, collecting Barrels from the Shop and carrying them, one at a time, to the Docks, but if at the Mayor’s Office or Amity P.D., can issue an order to Close a Beach, which temporarily prevents Swimmers entering the water there when directed to do so by an Event card, and when at a beach, can use his Binoculars to scan the water for the Shark.

Hooper spends this act on his fast boat which enables him to move further, but as well as picking up swimmers, his primary task is to ferry the Barrels from the Docks where Brody has dropped them off, to Quint aboard the Orca. He also has a Fish Finder, which he can drop into the water to determine if the Shark is in the zone he is in or an adjacent zone. Lastly, once Hopper has got one or more Barrels to him, Quint can Launch a Barrel into the water, either in the zone he is in, or an adjacent zone. If it hits the Shark, it sticks, and the Shark player has to tell the hunters where he is. If the Shark is not there, then the Barrels floats in the water and acts as a motion detector which will alert the hunters whenever the Shark passes through the zone it is in.

Act One: ‘Amity Island’ ends when the Shark swims out to sea. This will either because the Shark has eaten nine Swimmers or because the hunters have attached two Barrels to the Shark and forced it to flee. The number of Swimmers that the Shark has eaten by then is important because it determines the number of Shark Ability cards the Shark will have in Act Two: ‘The Orca’ and the number of equipment cards the Hunters have. The more Swimmers that the Shark has eaten, the more Shark Ability cards the Shark player will have and the fewer extra Equipment cards the Hunters will have—and vice versa.

Act One: ‘Amity Island’ is a game of hidden movement upon the part of the Shark and deduction upon the part of the Hunters. In this, it feels like the hidden movement of Fury of Dracula where the vampire hunters try and track down the vampire count, the trail narrowing and narrowing. In Jaws: A Boardgame of Strategy and Suspense the search area is narrowed by placement of the Barrels as Motion Trackers, but at least on one occasion the Shark will be able to avoid them with a Power Token. Doing so will probably be best used by the Shark to sneak past a Motion Tracker onto a beach and grab one or two last Swimmers which will increase the number of Power cards he will have in Act Two: ‘The Orca’. Another game which Act One: ‘Amity Island’ feels like is Pandemic with its turnover of Swimmers which will appear at beaches again and again as Event cards are drawn.

Act Two: ‘The Orca’ is more focused and fraught, taking aboard Quint’s boat as it withstands attack after attack by the Shark, as seen in the finale of the film. It is played on the reverse of the game’s board, the players flipping it over after completing Act One: ‘Amity Island’ and laying out the eight tiles which depict the deck plan of the Orca. Each of these tiles is also double-sided. On one is the undamaged section of the Orca’s deck plan, on the other the section after it has been damaged by the Shark. The Shark can further damage each section of the deck plan to actually destroy it and dump any of the Crew into the water. The aim of the Shark is to chew the Orca into splinters and eat the Crew, whilst they must accurately determine where the Shark will attack again and again and kill it.

In comparison to Act One: ‘Amity Island’ in which each Round has three phases, Act Two: ‘The Orca’ each Round has six phases and is consequently more complex. These phases are Resurface Options, Shark Chooses, Crew Prepares, Shark Reveals, Crew Attacks, and Shark Attacks. In Resurface Options, the Shark player draws three Resurface cards which give him the three Resurface Zones where he can attack the Orca on that Round. In addition, each Resurface Card will determine how many dice the Shark player will roll to attack that Round, how many hits the Shark can absorb that Round before it takes damage, and whether or not it can shake free of a hook, such as that from a fishing pole or the gas canister, that one of the hunters may have attached from it. All three of these factors will influence the Shark player’s decision as to where he will attack, as will how much damage the boat may have taken in those Resurface Zones. Then in the Shark Chooses, the Shark player decides which Resurface Zone to attack from the three Resurface cards and whether or not he will play a Shark Ability card, which for example, enable to completely destroy a section of the Orca if it attacks it or even take a second attack. Both of the choice of Resurface card and Shark Ability card are kept secret.

In Crew Prepares, each Crew Member decides which of the three Resurface Zones he will move to and which weapon he will use. Melee weapons have to be used in the same Resurface Zone where the Shark attacks, whilst ranged weapons can be used at a distance. Some melee weapons can be attached to the Shark which will hinder the marauder. Accessories like Ammo enable firearms to be used again, Chum can be thrown into the water to attract the Shark to a particular Resurface Zone, and the Shark Cage will protect one of the crew members. Every Crew member has his own weapons and items of equipment and will have access to more, the amount depending on the number of Swimmers the Shark ate in Act One: ‘Amity Island’. 

In Shark Reveals, the Shark player reveals which Resurface Zone the Shark is attacking followed by the Crew Attacks phase, and lastly, the Shark Attacks phase. In the former, the players take it in turns to roll the dice and inflict as much damage on the Shark as possible, or if they can, automatically attach a weapon to the Shark. In the Shark Attacks phase, the Shark player will attack the boat and if the Shark damages or destroys a section, then it is flipped or removed and any Crew Member on that section of the Orca is knocked into the water. They will have to spend their movement on the next round getting back onto the boat. The Shark can also attack a Crew Member who is in the water  and may get a bonus attack against them as well. Play continues like this until the Shark is killed and the Crew Member players win, or the Shark either destroys all of the boat or kills all three Crew Members, in which case, the Shark player wins.

Just like Act One: ‘Amity Island’, Act Two: ‘The Orca’ feels a little like another game and that is Forbidden Island with its sinking tiles. In Jaws: A Boardgame of Strategy and Suspense it is the parts of the Orca which are being attacked and damaged and then forced to sink, reducing the size of the boat and thus the play area. That said, the use of the Resurface Cards to determine where Shark comes to the surface and attacks the boat does feel new. LikeAct One: ‘Amity Island’, this has the effect of narrowing the choices in terms of where the Shark will go next, but this is fairly fraught it also increases the likelihood of the boat and potentially the Crew Members in that area being attacked.

Act One: ‘Amity Island’ and Act Two: ‘The Orca’ do feel different to each other. The first is more strategic with more planning involved as the hunters search for the Shark and the primary way of knowing where it is, is from the number of disappearing Swimmers. The second is more immediate, more tactical, the Crew Members reacting because the Shark is all but on top of them. Which is very much like the film.

Physically, Jaws: A Boardgame of Strategy and Suspense has excellent productions. The look of the game and the graphics draw very much from the look of the film and its famous poster. Where possible, stills from the film are used on the Event Cards in Act One: ‘Amity Island’, but the artwork is excellent throughout. The Meeples for Brody, Hooper, and Quint are what you would expect, but a nice touch is that the boats for both Hooper and Quint are also of wood, as is the piece for the Shark. Lastly, it should be noted that the rule is also well presented with every effort made to make it possible to learn and play the game as the players read through the rulebook on opening the box. It is not wholly perfect, but is nevertheless, very well done.

Now if you have wide experience of playing board games, then with Jaws: A Boardgame of Strategy and Suspense it is possible to spot some of the mechanics seen in other games, but this does not mean that the game is immatitive, just as it means that the game is neither radical or groundbreaking. Indeed, the mechanics have been adjusted where necessary to match both the source material and the game play. What you have in Jaws: A Boardgame of Strategy and Suspense then, is a well oiled, well tooled, design, one that really does take the source material and build a good game around it whilst being true to the source material. In fact, as a design, it transcends any novelty factor that the game might have had for being based on as famous a thriller as Jaws. Put that all together and it should be noted that the game is surprisingly inexpensive for a design of its nature and the quality of its components.

Jaws: A Boardgame of Strategy and Suspense is not absolutely perfect. It may well be too good an emulation of its source material to play more than a few times, because it does not offer a lot of variety in terms of game play. This is not to say that game is not fun—it is, how much after a few plays is another matter. In addition, you need to have seen Jaws to get the most out of the game and since Jaws is a somewhat gruesome thriller, neither film nor game may necessarily be suitable for its younger suggested age limit of twelve. 

Yet beyond those issues, Jaws: A Boardgame of Strategy and Suspense delivers exactly what you would want in a game based on Jaws the film. It is fraught and it is frantic, you do feel desperate as more and more Swimmers are eaten in Act One: ‘Amity Island’ and then the Shark comes after you in Act Two: ‘The Orca’, but that feeling can turn around as you close in on the Shark… Plus if you are a fan, you get to play out the film and see what you would have done in their place and you get to roleplay the characters, quoting all of the famous lines, and so on. If you are a Jaws fan, then Jaws: A Boardgame of Strategy and Suspense is a game you will definitely want, and if you are a board game player, then it offers semi-co-operative, heavily themed play in well-presented, solidly designed, and inexpensive package.

Well, the last Nightmare Weekend Before Christmas open house for 2019 is Saturday starting at 6:00 pm, so it’s time for that one song that best sums up the reason for the season. Sadly, we’ll never get an updated live … Continue reading →

Another year and another bumper crop of board games as 2019 continues the trend of seeing the release of ever more board game titles and playing board games becomes firmly cemented as a hobby that everyone can enjoy. 2019 was also a good year for books about boardgames too, including The Board Game Book: The essential guide to the best new games, a retrospective of the last two years’ worth of games and Meeples Together: How and Why Cooperative Board Games Work, a detailed examination of board games in which the players work together to defeat the game. Joining them is a much broader examination of the board game, an examination which takes in eight thousand years of playing games from the ancient world to today’s golden age of meeples, co-operation, legacy change through play, thematic play, superb production values, and fantastic designs—all of which have come about in the last three decades. That book is Board Games in 100 Moves.

Published by Dorling Kindersley—a publisher known for the quality of its illustrated reference works, so the quality of the book is certain to be good, Board Games in 100 Moves is written by two stalwarts of the British hobby games industry, James Wallis, designer of The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Alas Vegas and Ian Livingstone, co-founder of Games Workshop and co-creator of the Fighting Fantasy series amongst many other things. Both are avid board game players and collectors and in their time have played thousands of games. Together they take the reader through eight thousand years of games and six ages of game design, all in exactly one hundred games.

From the start, almost like the rules to every good board game should, Board Games in 100 Moves explains its set-up. Both authors introduce their love of board games and explain the book’s premise, how it is organised, preparing the reader for the grand tour that is come. It sets out what the one hundred board games of its title are—from Senet in 3100 BCE, the Royal Game of Ur in 2600 BCE, and Hounds and Jackals in 2000 BCE to Beasts of Balance and Sushi Go Party! in 2016, and The Mind in 2019. Along the way it lists classics like Chess and Backgammon, playing cards and Pachisi, surprises such as Kriegsspiel and Suffragetto, stalwarts such as Scrabble and Monopoly, children’s designs like Mouse Trap! and Connect 4, it touches upon roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons, before coming up to date with modern designs like Settlers of Catan, Pandemic, and Codenames.

The first four ages of Board Games in 100 Moves are ages of materials—wood and stone, paper and print, cardboard, and plastic—and examine how those materials changed the look and feel of the games as much as it examines the games themselves. In ‘Wood and Stone’ it looks at the oldest game that we know of, Senet, noting that the Pharaohs were fans of the Egyptian game of passing and that the game had spiritual significance in that passing also referred to moving into the afterlife and then it looks at the first game that we have rules for, the Royal Game of Ur. What is fascinating here is how the rules were rediscovered. Other games examined in this period are ones that we would recognise today—Go, Pachisi (better known by its modern variants, Ludo and Parcheesi), the many variants of Men’s Morris (originally a game spread by the Romans across their empire), Backgammon, and of course, Chess.

A common feature of these games is that often being made from stone or wooden, there is a certain permanence to them, but in the age of paper and print, games became colourful and complex, yet easy to transport and teach. This is when playing cards evolved from tarot cards and the first printed board games appear, such as the Royal Game of the Goose. The nature of games changed again towards the end of this period when they set out to be instructional and educational, as with A Journey Through Europe, before the age of cardboard heralded the arrival of games about campaign, first military battles, but then political ones two. So this examines Kriegsspiel, the wargame designed to teach Prussian officers military tactics and The Game of Suffragette, published to promote the cause for female emancipation, before mentioning some of the actual games as propaganda published before and during World War 2. Here it does not shy away from some of the more reprehensible and unpleasant game designs of the period. 

Unsurprisingly, Monopoly and its origins as a game completely counter to its big business theme, is highlighted before we come to the age of plastic. This period is likely to be the one that the older board game player—and certainly the authors—will be most familiar with as it is when they first played games. So Mouse Trap!, Scrabble, Connect 4, Twister, and both Risk and Diplomacy, but as Board Games in 100 Moves into the age of imagination with publication of Dungeons & Dragons and the rise of the Eurogame, there is a sense of the foundations being laid for where we are now, in an age of imagination, of Eurogames like Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan, and exploring a future of co-operation, of a global hobby with board games from Japan like Machi Koro and from the Czech Republic like Codenames, and digitalisation. Although one hundred games might lie at the heart of Board Games in 100 Moves, along the way, the book looks at more than that single hundred, not necessarily in the depth and detail accorded its singular hundred, but enough to intrigue and wonder about finding out more (or in some cases, rejecting out of hand).

This being a book from Dorling Kindersley, is very nicely laid out with hundreds of illustrations which showcase the changing look and design of board games throughout history as much as the words explore their impact and design. It even comes with an excellent index and buried deep in the back of the book there is a bibliography for the reader who wants to explore the hobby a little more as well as play the many games listed within the pages of Board Games in 100 Moves.

It should be no surprise that Board Games in 100 Moves gives a somewhat Anglocentric history of its subject matter. After all, the format that it is inspired by—A History of the World in 100 Objects—and its authors are all British. This in part also explains the attention paid to Games Workshop and Warhammer, although their inclusion in this history is certainly warranted and certainly does not detract from the inclusion of games from all over the world. Where Board Games in 100 Moves differs from A History of the World in 100 Objects is that it is not a look at a hundred specific games or objects—anyone wanting that should be directed to Green Ronin Publishing’s Hobby Games: The 100 Best or Family Games: The 100 Best—for many of the games listed at the book’s start are never mentioned again. (Which possibly means that there is a scope for a book which examines each title on that list in turn.) Instead Board Games in 100 Moves is a hundred moves through history of organised play, an examination of the importance and impact, the enjoyment and effect, of board games.

Board Games in 100 Moves is an interesting and informative introduction to the history of board games, an examination a hundred—and more—board games you may or have not heard of, and might want to play. For the board game fan, this book is a must, whilst for the roleplayer, this book is still of interest because of the many ways in which the two hobbies overlap each other, but either way, Board Games in 100 Moves is an attractive and enjoyable read from start to finish. One that fans of tabletop games of all types will find interesting.

leo-arcana:

evieplease:

Oh yes, yes, yes!!

Hey! Since OP’s caption got deleted, here’s the link to their Etsy