Across from Room #13 is another room.

Free Art Assets - Grey Gnome Games - Jason Glover
This room is empty save for some bones, a rusted sword, and an empty barrel. There are rats, but they are of the normal sort.

This weekend is another two-night event: it starts Friday with a guest spot at Dallas’s famed goth club Panoptikon, now at Sons of Hermann Hall in Deep Ellum, starting at 7:00 and ending pretty much whenever they kick me out, … Continue reading →

The world has not so much died as moved on. Landscapes seem to stretch on and on, pockmarked by settlements and the ruins of ages past, as strange machinery rumbles below seemingly straining to keep the sky and the ground moving like they did the day before. Old technology, much of it advanced by the standards of then and now, rusts and moulders where it sits; strange creatures—some said to have been things of legend and myth, lurk, ready to pounce and rend the unwary; and magic weaves a cunning attraction for the studious and the curious, the ambitious and the foolish, its knowledge perhaps lost on this world, but not the next. Figures are seen to stalk this world, sometimes alone, sometimes in the company of beast which seems to understand their every action and word, and never leave their side, sometimes together in brotherly orders, but all wielding the gun, a deadly artefact that they use to kill. To kill the bandit, the robber, the cheat, and the murder, the apostate of their order, and in doing so restore order of society and ensure the men and women of this time can live free of tyranny and banditry. Then they are gone. Perhaps they left with the caravan as a guard, maybe they simply moved on to the next settlement, or they just found the Slip Door they were looking and their Guns knows the location of and stepped through, not to the next settlement, though there is always one, but the next world. This is the life of the Gunslinger, wielder of the legendary gun across the Drifted World and their credo is “We deal in lead.”

We Deal In Lead: A Weird West Wanders Game is an Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying published by By Odin’s Beard. It is set in in the post-apocalyptic dark and weird west of the Drifted World that can step sideways into other worlds and genres and back again as legendary Gunslingers stalk the land, perhaps bringing order to the remnants of society, and then moving on to fulfil quests of their own. Perhaps to kill the murder of their order’s elder, retrieve their lost elder’s guns and take up her mantle, restore their honour, or even slay the demon within. It combines a stripped-down presentation with the mechanics inspired by Cairn, Into the Odd, and Knave and presents the tools and tables to create wildernesses, worlds, and excursions, whether the Warden—as the Game Master is called—is running for a single player, a group, or a player is playing it as a journaling game and thus solo. As a setting and roleplaying game, it is very much inspired by Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series of novels, but also has the feel of a weird Spaghetti Western with genre-hopping possibilities.

We Deal In Lead begins with advice for Warden and player alike. It does this as a series of principles presented as bullet points. For the Warden these include design philosophy—neutrality of the role, that the roleplaying game is Classless, death is always a possibility, the players should always be presented with clear choices, and the players share objectives, and so on, as well as the nature of adventures, content and safety tools, how to handle information, difficulty, narrative focus, and preparation, and present danger, treasure, and choice. For the player, the principles advise agency, teamwork, exploration, talking, caution, planning, and ambition, and if one path leads to defeat, then they should look for an alternative path. For the most part, these will be familiar to adherents of the Old School Renaissance, but are not elucidated upon, but rather kept short and to the point. The same is done when describing the Drifted World, a set of principles that are to the point rather than providing any great detail. On the plus side this means that there are going to be basic elements which will be the same from one Warden’s game of We Deal In Lead to another because the principles are presented in a direct and accessible fashion, whilst leaving plenty of scope for the Warden to develop the details. On the downside, this can leave the Warden with more effort required to prepare and run a game, although the book includes numerous tables designed to help with that. Overall, the sparse nature of these sets of principles reflects the open nature of We Deal In Lead’s Drifted World.

A Gunslinger in We Deal In Lead has three Abilities—Strength, Dexterity, and Heart, ranging in value between three and eighteen. Of the three abilities, Strength and Dexterity are obvious in their use, whilst Heart is used for social interaction, carrying out rituals, and in Gunslinger duels. Grit represents his ability to endure and continue rather than health, plus various physical and mental traits and some equipment. He owns a Gun, a firearm out of antiquity with inlaid stock and engraving. He may also be a member of an order of Gunslingers, led by an Errant. This might be a Player Character or an NPC. To create a Gunslinger in We Deal In Lead, a player chooses or rolls on the tables for name, surname, and background, plus any extra traits, and then three six-sided dice for the Gunslinger’s abilities, followed by two six-sided dice for his Grit. He selects or rolls for the details of his gun and his hat, and then some equipment. The Gunslinger is ready to play.

Maggie Chambers
Age: 38
TRAITS
Background: Bandit Physique: Short Skin: Pockmarked Hair: Braided Face: Sunken Eyes: Distant Speech: Squeaky Clothing: Colourful
Virtue: Tolerant Vice: Cold Reputation: Driven Misfortune: Heartbroken
Strength 13
Dexterity 16
Heart 15
Grit 9

EQUIPMENT
Three days’ rations, torch, 12 lead, Rifle with ironwood grip and hawk engraving, galloner hat

Mechanically, We Deal In Lead is straightforward. When a player wants his Gunslinger to act, he rolls a save versus either Strength, Dexterity, or Heart, needing to roll equal to or lower than the value. A one always succeeds and a twenty always fails. Standard rules are used for advantage and disadvantage. Armour provides some Defence, but only against mundane attacks, not against bullets. Damage is inflicted directly on Grit, then Strength, which can inflict critical damage. When Strength is reduced to zero a Gunslinger is dead. Critical damage necessitates checking on the Scars Table, which depending on the damage suffered, can leave the Gunslinger with concussion, bloodied, touched (and aware of the location of the next Slip Door), or even dead. Gunfire is resolved not through a Save versus an ability, but a roll of two six-sided dice on the ‘Shoot Table’ which might mean maximum damage, a hit or a graze, a miss, or a mishap. It is thus random, but because the gun of the Gunslinger is an artefact or relic gun, it grants certain advantages, including Steel Resolve, in which the Gunslinger draws resolve from his weapon to restore Grit and special attacks. These differ by weapon. Thus, there is ‘Fan the Hammer’ for the six shooter and ‘Give It Both Barrels’ for the shotgun. If a Gunsmith and a forge can be found, a Gunslinger can have his Gun upgraded, although the price is high.

Duels—and specifically duels against other Gunslingers—are even deadlier as you expect. Contests are required to determine who fires first and hitting an opposing duellist necessitates a save versus Heart. Damage is deducted directly from a Duellist’s Strength rather than Grit. Combat can be deadly, especially duels, and opponents will often flee Gunslingers, their morale broken. Gunslingers themselves can also be affected by the loss of morale, though usually only when they lose their Guns or their Errant is killed. Then they are broken.

Beyond the core rules and combat, We Deal In Lead provides for magic and companion beasts. The latter can bond with a Gunslinger and so become a Gunslinger themselves—bar the Gun, of course, a loyal companion who can help a Gunslinger on his quest. The former mostly involves rituals, often cast by groups. No magic itself is described, but rather the rules suggest that it be rare, knowledge of it having been mostly lost, and not without its cost. Unless presented with the means and motive to cast magic, it is likely to remain a narrative aspect of a campaign’s villain and thus the province of the Warden. Further rules cover wilderness exploration, of which there is a lot in the roleplaying game, so turning parts of its play into a hexcrawl, and traversing to other worlds, primarily through Slip Doors. There are threats and legends that stalk the in-between spaces, but a Gunslinger’s Gun never stops working—though he may need to find a world’s alternative to lead. The wilderness rules are supported by a table of wilderness encounter hooks and a lengthier and more detailed set of tables to create excursions, essentially missions on the other side of Slip Doors on other worlds. Both are designed to work with the solo or journaling rules that allow a single player to stalk the Drifted World via his Gunslinger, including a flow chart to track his progress. In addition, the bestiary in the appendix provides nearly forty monsters to face along the way. Some feel drawn straight of Dungeons & Dragons, some have a cryptological bent to them, whilst others like the Mayhem Beast, Serfbot, Skinshift, Ursborg, and Drifted Third are native to the setting. Lastly, in the scenario, ‘Swampwater Shootout’, the Gunslingers go after the turncoat who killed the Errant of their Order. It is a fairly short affair, designed to introduce the game and its mechanics, and should provide a session’s worth of action.

Physically, We Deal In Lead is well presented. For the most part the book is done in cream, but the thick border of every page is colour coded according to the chapter and its subject matter. This makes finding things in the book that little bit easier. The rules are all very clearly presented and surprisingly, for a book of its length, supported by proper examples both of character creation and combat. The latter is quite lengthy, taking up two whole pages and also serving as an example of play.

If there is an issue with We Deal In Lead it is in its openness and often its sense of the ineffable and the beyond. It leaves a very great deal for the Warden to fill in and develop, certainly in terms of anything akin to a campaign or long-term play. For some Wardens this will not be an issue, but for others, it may be the case. By comparison, the short term is very well supported with encounters and excursion ideas. This does though mean that there is a flexibility to We Deal In Lead, the Warden being free to run it in the slightly done setting as presented, create her own endless prairie, or even switch genres to a standard Western.

We Deal In Lead: A Weird West Wanders Game takes the Old School Renaissance and the Wild West to an empty, endless frontier, its sparseness and openness often matched by the look of the book. Whilst the origins of We Deal In Lead: A Weird West Wanders Game may lie in micro-clones such as Cairn and Knave, the designers do an excellent job of building upon them to present something new, in a different genre with the sense of a world that really has drifted on.

This issue with the OGL is changing all the time now. I suppose there will be some sort of announcement about the OGL 2.0 today (yes we are on the 2.0 now).

But until then, we have decided to have a big sale on all Elf Lair Games products, including NIGHT SHIFT.

https://www.elflair.com/

For products on our website, use the code DOOMSDAY40 at checkout to get 40% off your sale. 

For our products on DriveThruRPG, all are on sale for 25% off, no code needed.

Again, NIGHT SHIFT and our upcoming new fantasy RPG "Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age" will break free of the OGL and will be powered by our in-house O.G.R.E.S. 

Interesting times ahead!  Let's all have some fun together and get back to what we have always felt was our #1 job; make fun games for people to enjoy.

It starts with a briefing in Edinburgh. The Caledonian Spy Group (CSG) of Scotland assigns a team of agents to investigate US Senator Jamal Campbell. The senator is ambitious and is on the campaign trail as part of his bid to be elected President of the United States, making large expenditures as part of the process. However, not all of the donations to his campaign appear to be legitimate, one appearing to be far more generous than its stated source would normally donate. The CSG wants to examine Senator Campell’s private financial records, verify the source of the donation, and obtain proof of that source. If the source of the donation and the senator’s finances can be proven to be legitimate, then there is no problem. If however, the source of the donation and his finances prove to be illegitimate, then there is possibility that the next President of the United States will have been corrupted and can be again. The Caledonian Spy Group want to prevent this from happening. The mission will take the agents to Hollywood where they will have to infiltrate a film studio followed by a mansion in the Hollywood hills at the height of a party, before breaking into the headquarters of a petrochemical company.

This is the set-up for The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 2 – Fuelish Endeavour, a mission or short scenario for The Spy Game: A Roleplaying Game of Action & Espionage. Published by Black Cat Gaming, this is the roleplaying game of cinematic Spy-Fi action set in the immediate future chases, subterfuge, high-tech equipment, and more, using the mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but eschewing some of the social attitudes and mores of the genre. The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 2 – Fuelish Endeavour comes with everything that the Game Master needs to run the scenario—plot, NPCs, floor plans, details of the equipment the Player Character agents will be issued with, staging advice, and suggestions as what happens the SOUL agents succeed at certain points rather than the Player Characters.

The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 2 – Fuelish Endeavour is easy to add to a campaign. Unlike the first scenario for the roleplaying game, The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 1 – Deadly Data, this is very much a standard sort of mission rather than one which can be dropped into a campaign between other missions. It emphasises infiltration, investigation, surveillance, counter-surveillance, electronics, and computer use as opposed to combat, although there is opportunity for that during the scenario. Designed for Player Characters of Fourth and Fifth Levels, in terms of character types, Classes from The Spy Game such as Face, Hacker, Infiltrator, and Technician will probably have lots of moments to shine in the scenario, but a Hacker and a Face will definitely be needed. Overall though, the scenario places a strong emphasis on roleplaying.

The nature of its plot and set-up means that The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 2 – Fuelish Endeavour is not as flexible as The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 1 – Deadly Data. The involvement of a US Senator, Hollywood, and the race for the Presidency all suggest that the scenario be run in a US election year, so 2024, 2028, 2032, and so on. That said, it could be adjusted to any country which is a republic and has film studios. For example, France and India would work just as well with some effort upon the part of the Game Master.  However, elements such as the agency that the Player Characters are agents of—here the entertainingly post BREXIT, post-Scottish Independence Caledonian Spy Group—can easily be changed, as the enemy organisations, and this is where the scenario is easiest to adapt to the Game Master’s campaign.

The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 2 – Fuelish Endeavour is divided into three acts, one act for each of the infiltrations—the Hollywood film lot, the Hollywood mansion, and the floors of the corporation. Each is accorded a map, plus various technical details which can often be extracted and sued elsewhere. These include an Espionage R.V., security cameras, non-lethal rounds, and the stats for various NPCs. The floorplans for the three locations are slightly too small small to be read with any ease and perhaps a little plain. Another issue is that none of the NPCs are illustrated, so ideally the Game Master should find and provide suitable images as part of her preparation.

Physically, The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 2 – Fuelish Endeavour is clean and tidy, and easy to read. Bar the front cover, it is not illustrated, but the scenario is short and boxes of supplementary text do break up the main text. The scenario comes with three sets of floorplans. Another issue with the scenario is that it is printed without a card cover, so although printed on good paper, it is not as sturdy as it could be.

The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 2 – Fuelish Endeavour is no shorter than the previous, The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 1 – Deadly Data, but it is much more complex and detailed, with very much less of an emphasis on action and combat. Its greater detail means that it needs careful preparation, but once done what The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 2 – Fuelish Endeavour offers is an excellent investigation and infiltration mission that encourages plenty of roleplaying too as the Player Characters go undercover again and again..

Up from Room 11 is a room covered in bones.

Virgil Finlay

Skeletons equal to the number in the party plus retainers rise up from the ground and attack. They are undead and can be turned. 

There are no usable weapons, but 25 cp can be found among them.

“Welcome back to 2023. Please do not leave your seat until the chronohopper has completed all temporal motion and the time-anchors engage, unless you like losing your last four lunches and your last three haircuts. Please surrender all contraband before … Continue reading →

There is an old saying, "When one door closes, another one opens."

But you know what? I hate that saying.

When a door closes, you open it back up. 

I grew up playing D&D. When you encounter a closed door, you make your "Open Doors" roll and kick it in!

Look. I love D&D, and I likely always will. While Hasbro's choices disappoint me, I am not going to let them stop my fun.

So at home, I am still going to play the games I like. On my blog and for my writing? Well, there are plenty of exciting existing alternatives. It now sounds like there are going to be more alternatives too.

But maybe the "OSR" phase of my game writing is over. It was fun, and I loved doing it. But many other games are out there that need love and attention, and I am excited to try them out.

One of the original purposes of my original "The Other Side" website was to talk about all sorts of games that I enjoyed. So let that continue now.

This room has a faint glow, and there is the smell of roasted meats.

In this space, there is a stone room but also a forest scene of glowing nearly transparent trees as far as the eye can see.  Characters can only walk the 20 feet by 20 feet of the room. In the center of the grows a large tree laden with fruits.

The fruits are oval-shaped and look like mangoes.  The fruits taste like roasted meat.  Characters can eat them with no problems, they are fine if a little bland.  They disappear once removed from this room.

Across from Room 10 is a similarly configured room.

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

A secret door in the floor reveals a sack of 150 GP.  The coins are ancient and unknown to the PCs.

 Up from Room #8 and across from Room #9 is Room #10.

It appears to be of the same dimensions as the previous rooms 5 through 9. 

Virgil Finlay

Once the room is entered, a group of semi-human Phantoms appears.

The Phantoms can not attack, but a failed saving throw vs. Spells will cause anyone to run out of the room in fear. Once out of the room the fear effect dissipates.

They have 1-1 HD and 1 hp. Magic weapons are required to hit. There are 10 and their AC is 9.

The phantoms can be Turned by a cleric. A bless or dispel evil spell will also destroy them. The entire group is effected by these magics.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: The Souls of BriarcroftPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Joshua Callanta

Setting: Cthulhu by Gaslight Black Country
Product: ScenarioWhat You Get: Thirty-one page, 8.89 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Black seeds in the Black CountryPlot Hook: Not yet All Souls’ Day, but souls may be lost by the remembrance…
Plot Support: Staging advice, nine NPCs, ten handouts, nine maps, and two Mythos monsters.Production Values: Vibrant.
Pros# Halloween horror# Bucolic horror one-shot# Seeds of destruction threaten to undo Allhallowtide# Can be adapted to other rural times and settings# Horrifying transformation of traditional Halloween rituals# Pleasing sense of village ecumenical matters# Malusdomesticaphobia# Trypophobia# Dendrophobia
Cons# Long set-up before the Investigators can act# No village map# No NPC portraits
Conclusion# Under-powered player agency and long set-up means the horror takes a while to strike in this tale of ecumenical undoings# Parish life is threatened in this bucolically transformative horror one-shot

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

—oOo—
What is it?
The Temple of Twins is a scenario for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a fifty-two page, full colour, 32.56 MB PDF.

The layout is clean and tidy. The artwork is excellent.

Where is it set?
The Temple of Twins is set in Prax. It is a sequel, but not a direct sequel, to The Gifts of Prax and Stone and Bone. 

Who do you play?Any type of Player Character can play The Temple of Twins, but Eiritha and Ernalda worshippers will be useful. Members of the Straw Weaver clan or Player Characters with connections to or experience with the Straw Weaver clan will have interesting experience playing the scenario. Player Characters with Survival and Herd skills will have an advantage.
What do you need?
The Temple of Twins requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha only, but the Glorantha Bestiary may also be useful.
What do you get?The Temple of Twins is a standalone scenario set in Prax. It takes place both outside and inside a temple to Eiritha. The Player Characters may have been sent there by a powerful priestess, by a Khan demanding or offering tribute, or simply because they have heard that water can be found there and it is a convenient place to stop. Whatever the reason for their visit, the guards protecting the temple ask the Player Characters for their help. They take them to an assistant priestess who explains that the Herd Mother, the head priestess of the temple, has gone missing in the temple. None of the guards can enter as it is taboo for them to enter the temple and she herself must remain outside, so she wants the Player Characters to enter the temple and find the Herd Mother. She assures them that the goddess has given her blessing for strangers to enter the temple. The Player Characters are free to conduct a little investigation around the temple, but are otherwise quickly ushered to its entrance. 
The main events of the scenario play out in the temple to Eiritha. The assistant priestess forearms them with the story of how Eiritha survived the early days of the Great Darkness. This is important because what the Player Characters will essentially be doing is re-enacting this in their quest to locate the Herd Mother. In effect, what The Temple of Twins is a HeroQuest, but one in which enforcing its myth, the Player Characters are actually carrying out a rescue mission. Thus, they are moving from one station of the HeroQuest to the next, enabling them to move deeper into the myth and towards its conclusion and so find the Herd Mother. However, the presence of the Player Characters sets up an interesting tension within the quest itself. They are not told that they will be going on a HeroQuest, but that they will face trials, though the likelihood is that the players and their characters will quickly realise that this is what they are on. Consequently, the Player Characters are free to adhere to the myth as told, or alternatively stray from it, and this can affect the final outcome. The balance here is between the female and male paths, between the paths of Eiritha and Waha, but fundamentally, both the guards and the assistant priestess are asking the Player Characters to be women when undertaking this task.
The Temple of Twins is not just a straightforward re-enactment of Eiritha’s legend, although this central section could easily be removed from the scenario and with slight adjustment run as a HeroQuest or even an initiation for an Eiritha worshipper. As written though, once the Player Characters do find the Herd Mother, they will also discover that something else is going on, something that ties back to the scenario, The Gifts of Prax. There is no easy solution to either the discovery of the Herd Mother or the problem that she reveals and the Player Characters will need to work hard to bring the latter to a conclusion that satisfies the various NPCs involved.
In addition to the scenario itself, the Game Master is provided with a detailed location to add to her Prax campaign, an enjoyable breakdown of the myth, various cultural notes, numerous detailed NPCs, and a dozen fully detailed and interesting encounters. Technically only the first is specifically designed to be run as part of the scenario, whilst the rest can very easily be used in any scenario set in Prax. The nature of the scenario means that it does focus on particular skills—notably Herd and Survival—although interaction skills will also be very useful. There are opportunities for combat, but they are not necessarily the focus of the scenario. The scenario also involves birth and sacrificial death as part of myth, which some players might find uncomfortable and so lines and veils may need to be drawn over some scenes.
Is it worth your time?Yes—The Temple of Twins is an engaging scenario which presents a highly detailed myth that the Player Characters can enact as part of another mission and so discover the bigger plot. An absolute must if a Player Character worships Eiritha. No—The Temple of Twins is too location specific and the Game Master’s campaign may not have yet reached Prax, plus a gaming group may not want to confront the bloody nature of survival, even in myth.Maybe—The Temple of Twins can be adjusted to anywhere in Prax or its central myth extracted and used for an Eiritha worshipping Player Character.

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

—oOo—
50 Fathoms: High Adventure in a Drowned World was the second Plot Point setting to be published by Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment and the second Plot Point setting to published. Like the first, Evernight, it was published in 2003 and introduced both a complete setting and a campaign, in this case, a Plot Point campaign. A Plot Point campaign can be seen as a development of the Sandbox style campaign. Both allow a high degree of player agency as the Player Characters are allowed to wander hither and thither, but in a Sandbox style campaign there is not necessarily an overarching plot, whereas in a Plot Point campaign, there is. This is tied to particular locations, but not in a linear fashion. The Player Characters can travel wherever they want, picking up clues and investigating plots until they have sufficient links and connections to confront the threat at the heart of the campaign. In 50 Fathoms the threat consists of a trio of Sea Hags who are downing the world of Caribdus, literally under fifty fathoms!
50 Fathoms: High Adventure in a Drowned World begins with the dark history of its doom. The Sea Hags were once three witches in Ograpog, condemned by King Amemnus to death by drowning from the rising tide. With their dying breath, they cursed Caribdus, the land itself, to drown as they were, and so the rains began and the seas began to rise, flooding the land and forcing the inhabitants of Caribdus to either take to the seas or retreat to ever smaller islands. Caribdus is home to several different species, all of whom have learned to adapt to the changed world. These include the Atani, weak, but winged humanoids who can fly; Doreen, semi-aquatic hunters and nomads, who fell prey to the vicious Kehana when they were forced to flee their drowning island; the walrus-like Grael, strong, but both slow and slow-witted; the cruel and callous shark-like Kehana; the squid-like Kraken whose home is the last of their fleet of their navy’s Great Ships and who have an affinity with elemental magic; the Red Men or Half-Ugak, massive and brutish, unworldly and unwise; and the Scurillians, mean-spirited crabs with an eye for detail. (It should be noted that Half-Ugak are the product of rapes by the Ugak, which twenty years on from the publication of 50 Fathoms, does put the species on a par with the half-Orcs of Dungeons & Dragons.) There are no native Humans on Caribdus, the nearest being Masaquani who always iconically embody their body shape, in form and personality. The choices offered here all lend themselves to a very non-traditional fantasy.

However, there are plenty of Humans on the world of Caribdus. All have come from Earth, caught in a terrible storm and led by the Maiden to the world of Caribdus, sometime between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century—that is during the Age of Sail. Privateers, pirates, explorers, officers, soldiers, marines, merchants, sailors, surgeons, whalers, and more have made their way to the Drowned World and made it their home. Called ‘Visitors’ by those native to the new world, they have been arriving for the last thirteen years, initially caught in the Flotsam Sea, a slowly twisting, sinking whirlpool fouled by a morass of green debris, jutting timbers, and the bloated corpses of things that that could have been human or they could have been something worse. The lucky ones escaped to make a new life, the rest drowned in this sodden aquatic quagmire. Some Visitors have taken up their old lives on this new world, including many pirates, priests continue to practice their faith and have spread among the natives, whilst Torquemada directs the Inquisition against those who practice the elemental magic of Caribdus. Besides the Inquisition, the British East India Company and the Spanish Guild operate trade cartels across the Thousand Islands. Others take to the new world adapting to it and adopting new lives and aims—treasure hunters and salvagers sail and dive on the new sea bed to find the riches lost to the rising waters, ship’s mages take up the study of elemental magic, able to protect and propel the ship depending upon the elements studied, whilst dreaming mastering all four elements, and Questors, perhaps the bravest, most noble of this world seek for a way to end the rain and the reign of the Sea Hags.

A Player Character in 50 Fathoms looks like a standard Savage Worlds Player Character. This is indicative of how little has changed between editions of the roleplaying game, such that were a Game Master to pick up the current rules the differences are minor. The rules and setting content can really be divided between those that would fit a historical style of game set during the Age of Sail and those that fit the fantastical world of Caribdus. Edges and Hindrances such as Arrogant, One Arm, Close Fighter, Master & Commander, Merchant, and Rope Monkey would all suit a historical, mercantile, nautical, and piratical campaign, whereas Kraken Bone Sword & Armor, Elemental Mastery, and Mark of Torquemada, all integral to the setting of 50 Fathoms. Similarly, the rules for goods, trading, and selling, weapons, ships and sailing, fighting below deck and crew upkeep, and so on, would work in a historical campaign. The weapons include cannon and firearms, noting the problems with having wet powder, gaffs and hooks, whilst also including the Jumani Chain, a fearsome Masaquani pirate weapon consisting of a chain shot with extra links to turn it into a deadly flail. Armour is typically donned only prior to battle as should the wearer end up in the water, there is a greater chance of him drowning. When worn in water, its armour bonus acts as a penalty on Swimming rolls. Boats and ships range in size from the humble dinghy and the wave rider to the galleon and the man of war—only Black Beard and the ‘Hero of the High Seas’, British Admiral Nelson Duckworth command one of the latter vessels. The rules for ship-to-ship combat are written as an expansion to the core rules and bolt on easily enough since Savage Worlds was always designed to scale up from traditional parties of Player Characters to relatively small skirmish battles which can be run as miniatures battles, keeping the players involved in both, of course. The rules barely run to a page-and-a-half in length, so lean towards being run as part of the narrative of the roleplay, rather than as full miniatures rules. There is also a list of pirate lingo.

The main addition in terms of the rules and the setting of 50 Fathoms is for ‘Elemental Magic’. Earth magic is used to help grow crops, speak with and control mammals, mend ship’s timbers, and so on, whilst fire magic is used for destructive purposes. Water magic is used to heal, make sea water drinkable, and control the many beasts of the ocean, and so Water Mages are valued aboard ship, whilst Aire Mages are the most highly valued as their magic move vessels even when becalmed, calm storms, speak with avians to find land, and toss aside enemy missiles! Mages in the setting initially only study one type of elemental magic, but can study the others. Doing so until is difficult as elemental spirits are jealous and actively impede the casting of all magic. This lasts until the Mage has mastered all four elements and becomes an Archmage, able to balance the four elements. In game this is represented by a Mage taking the Elemental Mastery Edge, once for each of the other three elements he needs to study. 50 Fathoms also includes fourteen new element-themed spells and a list of all of the element-themed spells in the rulebook at the time.
There is a short gazetteer of surviving lands and locations of Caribdus, known as ‘The Thousand Isles’, but the setting is really described in the section for the Game Master, called the ‘Captain’s Log’, which takes up two thirds of the book. This presents the world of Caribdus and the background to the campaign in more detail as well as describing the various surviving and interesting places. Many of the have a symbol attached them, which indicated that the location has a Savage Tale attached to it. For example, in the lawless pirate town of Brigandy Bay, almost anything can be bought and sold at the Black Market. Amongst the more exotic merchandise can be found a treasure map for $1000. Allegedly, the map shows the location of one of the dread pirate L’Ollonaise’s cache. It turns out the map is true and leads to the Savage Tale, ‘L’Ollonaise’ Vengeance’. Not every location has an attached Savage Tale, some have more than one, and some require a certain entry to be rolled on a table. The advice for the Game Master covers the types of the adventures that the Player Characters might embark on, including carousing, pirating, privateering, salvaging, and trading, and includes both tables of subplots and booty, but the meat of the campaign consists of some forty-one Savage Tales, ranging in length from a single paragraph to several pages in length. The ‘Encounters’ chapter at the end of the book includes all of the major NPCs and monsters that the Player Characters could run into as part of the campaign.

The campaign itself begins with ‘Maiden Voyage’. This is the opening Savage Tale and places all of the Player Characters as the crew aboard a small sloop. At the end of the Player Characters are invited by an NPC to continue into the events of the second Savage Tale. This is ‘Tressa the Red’ and it is marked with a skull and crossed weapons to indicate that the Savage Tale is part of the campaign against the Sea Hags. There is a total of eight of these and together they form the spine of the 50 Fathoms campaign. However, they cannot be played in linear fashion as there are typically Rank requirements for each one, and in order to acquire sufficient Experience Points to go up in Rank, the Player Characters will need to explore and adventure elsewhere. This gives the chance to learn more about the world and its dangers as well as the nature of the threat they face. This is where the Plot Point format comes to the fore because the Player Characters are free to travel wherever they want and, in the process, discovering more of the world and potentially triggering more Savage Tales contained in the ‘Captain’s Log’. Play then is very player driven and the players have a lot of agency in what their characters do and where they go. This does mean that the campaign is episodic in nature rather than having a great linear plot and this more open structure means that the campaign is easier to prepare and run since it plays through location by location rather than by plot.
The Savage Tales themselves will take the Player Characters back and forth across the Thousand Isles. They will find themselves conducting jail breaks, searching the Flotsam Sea for artefacts, facing down legendary pirates—including Blackbeard himself, who is, of course, immortal, diving on wrecks on the sea floor, fighting ghost ships, going whaling, acting against the opium trade, going bear hunting, and even facing down an invasion from under the sea in dingy Dunich! There is a wide array of Savage Tales in 50 Fathoms, all of them different and all of them offering a variety of excitement and adventure. Beyond that, the 50 Fathoms Companion expands upon the gazetteer in 50 Fathoms and adds another forty Savage Tales. Many of these can be run as part of the 50 Fathoms campaign or specifically after it, and include a a mini-campaign of its own. 50 Fathoms: Fire & Earth also adds another mini-campaign.
Physically, 50 Fathoms is well presented, and the illustrations are suitably practical, nautical, and scurvy! The book is done in greyscale throughout, but that would have been standard for 2003. The map of the Thousand Islands is perhaps a bit small to be used with any ease.
50 Fathoms: High Adventure in a Drowned World combines pulp sea-going action and mystery with pirates and fantasy for a great campaign. It is as still as a fun and exciting as it was in 2003 and it still stands out as one of the best of the Plot Point campaigns from Pinnacle Entertainment Group.

Traveller is one of the hobby’s oldest Science Fiction roleplaying games and still its preeminent example outside of licensed titles such as Star Wars and Star Trek. It is the roleplaying of the far future, its setting of Charted Space, primarily in and around the feudal Third Imperium is placed thousands of years into the future. Since its first publication in 1977, Traveller has been a roleplaying setting built around mercantile, exploratory, mercenary and military, and adventuring campaigns. Inspired by the Science Fiction of fifties and sixties, the rules in Traveller can also be adapted to other Science Fiction settings, though it requires varying degree of effort depending upon the nature of the setting. The Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is presented as introduction to the current edition of the roleplaying game, published by Mongoose Publishing. It is designed for scenarios and campaigns that focus on exploration beyond the frontier and provides the tools for such a campaign, including rules for creating Player Characters, handling skills and challenges, combat, spaceship operation and combat, plus equipment, animals, and the creations of worlds to explore.
The Traveller: Explorer’s Edition begins with a quick explanation of what it and roleplaying are before diving into game conventions—rolling the dice—and creating Player Characters. They are by default Human, and in the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition, have had past careers as either Scouts or Scholars. Character creation primarily involves a player putting his character through a series of four-year terms during which the character will gain and improve skills, be promoted, experience events and mishaps, make connections with his fellow characters, and at the end of it, be older, wiser, and experienced. A Player Character will typically be aged anywhere between twenty-two and forty-two by the end of the process—and if older will have suffered the effects of aging.

The skill system for Traveller is straightforward. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls two six-sided dice and adds a Dice Modifier from the appropriate characteristic as well as a skill value. If the result is eight or more, the Player Character succeeds. The skill explanations are clear and easy to understand and include plenty of options as to how they might be used and how long a task might take. For example, for the Astrogation skill, “Plotting Course to a Target World Using a Gas Giant for a Gravity Slingshot: Difficult (10+) Astrogation check (1D x 10 minutes, EDU).” All of the skills are listed for the Traveller roleplaying game, so there are skills mentioned here that the Player Characters cannot obtain during character creation. Combat uses the same basic mechanics and covers both ranged and mêlée combat, and allows for differences in technology and weapon traits. Damage is directly deducted from a Player Character’s characteristics—Endurance, followed by Strength and Dexterity. The rules also cover environmental dangers such as gravity and radiation, whilst encounters are with various animal types.

The equipment lists just about everything a mission will need when out exploring the galaxy. This includes arms and armour, augments, communications and computers, medical supplies, sensors, survival gear, and tools. The Traveller: Explorer’s Edition also explains how spaceships are operated and space combat is conducted, although it should be noted that the rules for the latter cover use of skills that the Player Characters cannot obtain during character creation. For example, the Tactics (Naval) which helpful for initiative and then the Gunner skill for actually operating the ship’s weapons! So using the rules in the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition means that any spaceship combat the Player Characters get involved in, they are going to be at a severe disadvantage from the start. Plus, there is only the one spaceship given in the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition and that is the Type-S Scout/Courier, which for an exploration campaign makes sense. However, there are rules for space combat, but no other ship stats or details in the rulebook. So, what exactly will the Player Characters be fighting in space combat in their Type-S Scout/Courier? Other teams of explorers and scientists in their Type-S Scout/Courier?

Lastly, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition includes rules for subsector and world creation. This cover world distribution followed by how to create a world profile, including Starport type, planet size, atmosphere, hydrographic percentage, population, government type, Law Level, and Tech Level. Much like creating a character this consists of rolling on tables and some of the ramifications of the numbers are detailed. These include Law Level and the likely types of goods banned and potential legal ramifications. In comparison to the earlier rules for character generation, the rules for world generation will provide for a wide range of possible outcomes and world types, but then these are tried and tested rules.

Physically, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is an attractive product. It is well written; the artwork is decent and the layout is clean and tidy. It also includes an index.

There is one fundamental question which has to be asked about the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition and that is, who is this book for? It is certainly not for the seasoned Traveller player or Game Master, both of whom will already have access to the content in this rulebook. It is for the Traveller fan and collector who will want to have it to add to the collection, but the rulebook does no more than add to that collection and again, that collection, that Traveller fan and collector will already have access to the content in this rulebook in the collection. Is it for the player or Game Master new to roleplaying? Is it for the player or Game Master new to Traveller? The answer to that question is yes, but very much not an unqualified ‘yes’. There can be no doubt that the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition presents all of the rules necessary to run a game with an exploration theme, from creating scouts and scholars as Player Characters and equipping them and detailing the core rules to animal types, operating a spaceship in and out of combat, and creating worlds and sectors. However, go beyond that and an awful lot of problems begin to appear for the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition.

The Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is not written as an introduction to roleplaying. Its description of roleplaying is cursory at best and there is no example of what roleplaying is. Similarly, its introduction to Traveller as a setting is equally as cursory. It acknowledges the existence of the Imperium—but no other polity—and explains that the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is set beyond the borders of the Imperium. So, in a sense, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is set entirely away from the classic setting for Traveller, and thus arguably not actually an introduction to Traveller as a setting at all. Also similarly, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition ignores Traveller as a roleplaying game. First in ignoring that the roleplaying game has any sense of history going back decades, and second—and more importantly, as an introduction to Traveller, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition, by not having anything that asks, “What’s next?”. There is no page or text saying, “If you played and liked this game, here is what you should look at next.” This is a ridiculous omission for what is designed as an introductory product.

As an introduction to the rules and mechanics of Traveller, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition does a better job. All are clearly and serviceably presented, but no more. This lack of a ‘more’ is where the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition best showcases its inadequacies and omissions. For an introductory product, there is severe lack of examples in the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition. What examples are amount to no more than a handful—an example or two of the core rules and an example world. There is no example Player Character, no example of space combat, no example subsector, no example of what a world actually looks like in Traveller, and so on. So nothing that would help the prospective player or Game Master—whether new to roleplaying or Traveller—with what these look like in the game.

Then there is the advice for the Game Master. Or rather, the complete absence of advice for the Game Master. To be clear, in a product that is intended to introduce a player to Traveller and provide him with the tools necessary to create adventures or even an entire campaign as the Game Master, there is no advice whatsoever. So no advice on running a roleplaying game. No advice on running a campaign. No advice on running Traveller. No advice on running an exploration-themed campaign, let alone a scenario. No discussion of what an exploration-themed scenario or campaign would be like. No discussion of what threats might be encountered. No advice on what mysteries might be found. No advice on what discoveries might be made. No advice on what alien life might be encountered. All of which is compounded by a lack of a scenario, a lack of a setting in terms of a world or subsector, or even a lack of scenario hooks or ideas or even encounter tables. If it were a case that the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition was designed to introduce the rules to Traveller and exactly that—no more, no less—then this would not be so much of an issue. Yet it clearly states that it is intended to do more than that, that it is intended to be used to run a campaign, a scenario, and so on. Then the rulebook completely ignores this whole aspect of its stated remit. Of course, this is a large subject to cover and the likelihood is that the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition could not have covered it all, but none at all? It is as if there are twenty or extra pages that are actually missing from the rulebook. That fact that the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition completely ignores the role of Game Master beggars belief.

Lastly, as an introduction to Traveller, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition, there is no “What’s next?”. There is no page or text saying, “If you played and liked this game, here is what you should look at next.” This is a ridiculous omission for an introductory product.

Then there is the matter of the price. This varies wildly depending upon format and retailer. As a PDF, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is less than a pound or a dollar, but in print, it costs £15 ($19.99) direct from the publisher, and a wallet gouging £25.99 ($24.99) in retail. The PDF than, can at best, be seen as a bargain—an attractive rules reference if you will. In print, the exact opposite is the case. The purchaser is simply not getting enough content for the money that he paid for it.

Ultimately, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is an astounding showcase for a staggering lack of vision and imagination. Overpriced, over produced, overly utilitarian and technical, but underdeveloped, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is a nothing more than a ‘cut & paste’ job that does not so much miss the possibilities of its title and theme and subject as ignore them all together.

Quick-starts are means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps too. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game for the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

—oOo—
What is it?
The Dragonbane Quickstart is the quick-start for Dragonbane, the reimagining of Sweden’s first fantasy roleplaying game, Drakar och Demoner, originally published in 1982. Funded via a Kickstarter campaign by Free League Publishing in 2022, Dragonbane promises to be a roleplaying game of “mirth and mayhem”.

It includes a basic explanation of the setting, rules for actions and combat, magic, the adventure, ‘Riddermound’, and five ready-to-play, Player Characters.

It is a forty-four-page, full colour, 11.45 MB PDF.

The layout is clean and tidy. The cartography is excellent, but the artwork and illustrations are superb. They are done by Johan Egerkrans, who also illustrated Vaesen and possess a grim, if comic book sensibility.

How long will it take to play?
The Dragonbane Quickstart can be played through in a single session.

Who do you play?
The five Player Characters include a Human Wizard (Fire Elementalist), an Elf Hunter, a Mallard Knight (yes, a duck knight!), a Halfling Thief, and Wolfkin Warrior. All five Player Characters are given a two-page spread. One page is devoted to the character sheet whilst the other gives some background to the Player Character, an explanation of his abilities, and an excellent illustration. One issue is with the Human Wizard, whose player will need to refer to the magic section of the rules in the Dragonbane Quickstart to find out how his spells work. It would have been far more useful for them to be at least listed along with costs for the benefit of the Wizard’s player.

How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character has a Kin, which can be human, halfling, dwarf, elf, mallard, or wolfkin. He also has six attributes—Strength, Constitution, Agility, Intelligence, Willpower, and Charisma—which range in value between three and eighteen, as well as a Profession. Both Kin and Profession provide an ability which are unavailable to other Kin and Professions. Various factors are derived from the attributes, notably different damage bonuses for Strength-based weapons and Agility-based weapons, plus Willpower Points. Willpower Points are expended to use magic and abilities derived from both Kin and Profession. A Player Character has sixteen skills, ranging in value from one to eighteen.

How do the mechanics work?
To have his player undertake an action, a player rolls a twenty-sided die. The aim is roll equal to or lower than the skill or attribute. A roll of one is called ‘rolling a dragon’ and is treated as a critical effect. A roll of twenty is called ‘rolling a demon’ and indicates a critical failure. Banes and boons are the equivalent of advantage and disadvantage. Opposed rolls are won by the player who rolls the lowest.

If a roll is failed, a player can choose to push the roll and reroll. The result supersedes the original. In pushing a roll, the Player Character acquires a Condition, for example, ‘Dazed’ for Strength or ‘Scared’ for Willpower. The player has to explain how his character acquires the Condition and his character can acquire a total of six—one for each attribute—and the player is expected to roleplay them. Mechanically, a Condition acts as a Bane in play. A Player Character can recover from one or more Conditions by resting.

How does combat work?
Initiative is determined randomly by drawing cards numbered between one and ten, with one going first. A Player Character has two actions per round—a move and an actual action such as a melee attack, doing first aid, or casting a spell. Alternatively, a Player Character can undertake a Reaction, which takes place on an opponent’s turn in response to the opponent’s action. Typically, this is a parry or dodge, and means that the Player Character cannot take another action. If a dragon is rolled on the parry, the Player Character gets a free counterattack!

Combat takes into account weapon length, grip, length, and so on. The effects of a dragon roll, or a critical hit, can include damage being doubled and a dragon roll being needed to parry or dodge this attack, making a second attack, or piercing armour. Damage can be slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning, which determines the effectiveness of armour.

Armour has a rating, which reduces damage taken. Helmets increase Armour Rating, but work as a Bane for certain skills. If a Player Character’s Hit Points are reduced to zero, a death roll is required for him to survive, which can be pushed. Three successful rolls and the Player Character survives, whilst three failures indicate he has died. A Player Character on zero Hit Points can be rallied by another to keep fighting. The Dragonbane Quickstart also includes rules for other forms of damage such as falling and poison, plus darkness and fear. Fear is covered by a Willpower check, and there is a Fear Table for the results.

How does magic work?
A Wizard powers magic through the expenditure of Willpower Points. Typical spells cost two Willpower Points per Power Level of a spell, but just one Willpower Point for lesser spells or magic tricks. Spells are organised into schools and each school has an associated skill, which is rolled against when casting a spell. Willpower Points are lost even if the roll is failed, but rolling a dragon can double the range or damage of the spell, negate the Willpower Point cost, or allow another spell to be cast, but with a Bane. Rolling a demon simply means that the spell fails and cannot be pushed. A spell cannot be cast if the Wizard is in direct contact with either iron or steel.

Three spells and three magical tricks are given in Dragonbane Quickstart. These are all fire-related, designed for the Wizard Player Character. The magical tricks include Ignite, Heat/Chill, and Puff of Smoke, whilst the full spells are Fireball, Gust of Wind, and Pillar.

What do you play?
The scenario in the Dragonbane Quickstart is ‘Riddermound’. This describes a burial mound called the Riddermound located in the forests of the Misty Vale and reputed to be haunted by a death knight who was once in the dragon emperor’s service. The Player Characters have come to the region in search of glory and riches, only to discover that someone has got there before them and unsealed the tomb entrance. The dungeon itself is relatively short, just nine locations in total, and being a tomb, fairly linear in nature. The dungeon has a fairly creepy atmosphere and the Game Master is encouraged to play this up in her descriptions of the various rooms. There is opportunity for a little roleplaying, but the scenario is primarily one of exploration and combat. The two major threats in the scenario each have a table of random attacks which the Game Master rolls on each time.

Is there anything missing?
In terms of what you play and how you play it, no. However, the Dragonbane Quickstart could have done with a little background on the setting with its differing ages of the land being ruled by demons and dragons. It is difficult to get this setting across to the players and perhaps some kind of briefing could have been included. Plus, it does leave players and Game Master alike to wonder about the nature of the Dragonbane world.
Is it easy to prepare?
The Dragonbane Quickstart is presented in a straightforward fashion and a Game Master should have no difficulties in readying it for a session. It could be prepared and be ready to run if a gaming group needs a last minute game in a relatively short space of time.
Is it worth it?
Yes. The Dragonbane Quickstart features clearly explained rules that most roleplayers will understand having seen similar mechanics used elsewhere. It combines this with a solid set of pre-generated Player Characters—everyone is going to want to play the Mallard Knight—and decent, grim, dungeon-bash style adventure. All of which is neatly packaged with some fantastic artwork. Where it fails is in selling the setting, but otherwise it does a very good job of explaining the core rules, and the Dragonbane Quickstart is easy to grasp and easy to play and easy to bring to the table.

Where can you get it?
The Dragonbane Quickstart is available to download here.

For the first time in months, there’s no Triffid Ranch event on the weekend schedule: this weekend is dedicated to post-holiday cleanup and reorganization, finishing new enclosures, and taking care of new year obligations. After this slight interlude, though, expect … Continue reading →

On the glacier moon of Myung’s Misstep, perpetually enshrouded in ice and snowstorms, the Player Characters have been contracted to transport and guard a locked box from Out of Order, the site of the moon’s still not functioning space elevator to the water-farm town of Plankton Downs. The safest means of travel is aboard a low-bodied hovercraft fitted with a heat spike it can use to anchor itself when a severe storm strikes. The Player Characters are booked aboard the Nantucket Sleigh Ride, one of these vessels with an adequate record in terms of punctuality, safety, and comfort. If the Player Characters are expecting a thoroughly uninteresting journey, then they are going to be disappointed. Amidst all of the colonial cyborgs, Martian nuns, alien tourists, and macrame owls aboard, a body is found missing its head! Then another one! And the way they died, their heads are all mangled... Could a monster out of galactic myth be stalking the halls and cabins of the Nantucket Sleigh Ride?

This is the set-up for Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs,a scenario for Troika!, the Science Fantasy roleplaying game of baroque weirdness published by the Melsonian Arts Council. It is a whodunnit in the mode of Murder on the Orient Express or ‘Robots of Death’ for classic Doctor Who, but here infused with a sense of the weird or the unknown a la the episode ‘Squeeze’ from The X-Files. With the crew ill-suited to conducting anything beyond attempting to implement security measures, it falls to the Player Characters to conduct the investigation. To that end, the Game Master is provided with a break-down of the scenario’s plot and a detailed description of the antagonist and its motives. In addition to the isometric-style cutaway deck plans of the Nantucket Sleigh Ride, the Game Master is given stats and details for the passengers and crew aboard the vessel. All twenty-five crew are named, whereas only a handful of the twenty-one Martian Orthodox nuns, twenty-four water farmers—including children, twelve ice-miners, and four glaciology graduates are treated in similar fashion. Fortunately, a set of tables inside the back cover can be used to determine names, precoccupations, and distinctive features for any of these NPCs. There is also a weather table, mostly containing weather events which will delay the journey of the Nantucket Sleigh Ride even further, giving more time for the murderer aboard to strike again…

In addition, Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs also includes seven new Backgrounds that can be used describe some of the passengers aboard the Nantucket Sleigh Ride or future NPCs, as well as possible replacement Player Characters, should one of their number fall victim to the murderer aboard the vessel. The new Backgrounds do include the suitably weird, such as Astropithecus Truckensis, a colonial cyborg of Old Mars attended by an Interpreter Parrot and several Martian Rhesus Macaques as attendants or Macramé Owl, which defies explanation. Others are prosaic and are related directly to the setting of the scenario, such as Ice Miner, Misstep Monastic, and Scud Miller.

Physically, Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs is presented in a swathe of vibrant, gauche colours. It needs a slight edit in places—one of the tables is mislabelled in particular, but is otherwise engagingly written. The art is excellent, having a distinctly European feel to it. The deck plans of Nantucket Sleigh Ride are also decently done and are accompanied with detailed descriptions of each deck and location.

Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs can primarily be run in one of two ways. As a one-shot, it makes for a weird whodunnit on a strange world for Troika! set in a classic closed environment as the murderer picks its victims off one-by-one. As part of a campaign, it is a short interlude between other adventures or a reason perhaps to get the Player Characters to Plankton Downs. Whatever that reason—and the Game Master will need to devise that, just as if necessary, she will ned to decide what is contained in the locked box the Player Characters have been contracted to transport. This might be the element that ties the scenario into a campaign. Whatever way it is used, Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs should provide a session’s worth of murder investigation, perhaps two at the very most!

Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs is short, combining elements of both scenario and toolbox. The brevity of the writing means that there is a lot of room in the scenario for the Game Master to improvise and make the scenario her own. However, the scenario has a lot of atmosphere, a sense of rundown drudgery and people going about their daily job or just waiting for the journey to end so that their lives can continue. Overall, Slow Sleigh to Plankton Downs is a lovely little book which provides the means to stage a weird, claustrophobic whodunnit that can be played through in an evening and ideally on a cold and wintery one at that.

Announcements / January 1, 2023

If you haven’t heard, we wrote a book! And it’s out right now! If you’ve followed us over the last six plus years, you know our MO: we get deep down into the berserk array of popular and outsider media produced during the Cold War and talk about what these various artifacts—lost, forgotten, seemingly disposable—mean in the larger arenas of politics and culture, then and now. We Are the Mutants: The Battle for Hollywood from Rosemary’s Baby to Lethal Weapon takes that approach and applies it to American films released between the arrival of US combat troops in Vietnam and the end of President Ronald Reagan’s second term—probably the most discussed and beloved stretch of movies in Hollywood history. 

Read more about the book at our publisher, Repeater. 

We talk about the book in an interview with Joe Banks at The Quietus.

Check out Andrew Nette’s review at Pulp Curry.

Have a look at Johnny Restall’s review at Diabolique.

You can buy the book pretty much anywhere books are sold, including bookshop.org, Amazon, and Penguin Random House. If you dig it, please rate it and/or review it. We need all the word of mouth we can get. Thank you and keep an eye on the site—we’ll be back soon in some (altered) way, shape or form.

—The Mutants

A preamble on the enclosure backstories: In the fall of 1989, much was made of the cancellation by the BBC of the classic science fiction television show Doctor Who. Buffeted by both governmental budget cuts aggravated by the rejection of … Continue reading →