Fanzine Focus VIII: The Grognard Files – Annual 2017

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as is Swords & Wizardry. Not all fanzines can be considered to be part of the Old School Renaissance though...

The Grognard Files is a fanzine of a different stripe. First off, it is only available to patrons of The Grognard Files, a North of England podcast dedicated to the games of the late seventies and early eighties, in particular, RuneQuest. (Alternatively, it is also available to attendees of Grogmeet a one-day convention in Manchester, again in the North of England.) Second, just as with The Blasphemous Tome, it is literally is an annual thing, that is, available once a year. British gamers of a certain age will very much recognise the style and layout of White Dwarf from the mid-eighties in The Grognard Files – Annual 2017 and this behind a great cover by Russ Nicholson, whose art graced the pages of many a Fighting Fantasy title and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay supplement. So just from the look, we are all ready for a heavy dose or two of nostalgia.

The issue opens with ‘Do you remember the first time?’, a lengthy remembrance of gaming past and how the presenters of the Grogcast got their start in the hobby. It is very personal and at the same time, very parochial, so there is a lot here that both younger gamers and non-British gamers will find to be beyond them. So if you grew up with White Dwarf during its first hundred issues in the Great Britain of this period, then there is much here that will be familiar. Getting your first game and getting others to play it, exploring one game after another, and so on. Of course, the reader is unlikely to find the specifics all that familiar, unless he grew up in Bolton in the 1980s, but even if the reader is not British, not from Bolton, not from the North, there are memories here that will resonate—certainly memories of taking your first fumbling steps into the hobby with little in the way of guidance. Much of it of course, will be familiar to listeners of The Grognard Files.

Just like the White Dwarf issues of old, The Grognard Files – Annual 2017, leaps into ‘Open Box’, its reviews department. Four reviews are presented, all of older games—Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game from West End Games—recently announced as going to receive a thirtieth anniversary reprint, Shadowrun from FASA, and both Boot Hill and Gangbusters from TSR, Inc. Although longer than the reviews that appeared in the original Open Box, they are as much reminisces as they are reviews, exploring each reviewer’s memories of playing the game as well as what they think of them now.

Written by Eddy Fielding, the next department, ‘Return to Grognardia’, also looks at an old classic, this time a campaign for Call of Cthulhu. The campaign was also my first for Call of Cthulhu—The Fungi from Yoggoth, a pulpy world-spanning affair set on the eve of the Great Depression. Again, there is a fair degree of reminisce in this examination, but also advice on running it, which version to pick up, and so on. It is an enjoyable piece if a little slight.

What is so surprising about ‘Safe Word’, the scenario in The Grognard Files – Annual 2017 is that it is not for an old game, but a new one. Further, the set-up for the game is also very modern. That said, the subject of the scenario is very in keeping with the ethos of both the podcast and the annual. That subject is the stories of Jerry Cornelius, the poly-amorous anarchist super spy created by Michael Moorcock. The plot casts the player characters as super spies themselves in the style of seventies television shows, Department S and Jason King, suddenly assigned to track down rogue monetarist economists amidst riots in London. Written by Chris Hart, the scenario involves a very private club, a sex dungeon—or two—a game, and of course, a villain’s lair. Plus, a lot of tongue in cheek tone… The system for all of this is FATE Accelerated, the light version of Evil Hat Games’ FATE Core designed for narrative driven action. Which is a very twenty-first century game for the team behind the Grogcast to be running and writing about. Yet, it is a perfect fit for the scenario’s subject matter with its interactive mechanics and narrative, just as can be seen in Agents of S.W.I.N.G. The other modern aspect to the scenario is its set-up, not to the scenario, but to the game system. This has the players create characters not for a freewheeling seventies spy game, but a traditional swords and sorcery roleplaying game. Then discard them—and then create spy characters. There is no need to worry. The players do get to use both characters.

Now the character of Jerry Cornelius has been visited in gaming several times over the years, but never in a roleplaying game or supplement of his own. Rather he was the subject of discussion in fanzines and magazines, so bringing back here is another dose of nostalgia. The scenario is entertainingly bonkers, but might be beyond players of a certain age if only for its heavy seventies references and humour. The author also follows the scenario up with ‘Inn Space’, a playtest report of the scenario, which is a nice addition.

Justin Hill provides ‘To Run with Brother Dog’, a short piece of fiction set in Glorantha which should keep RuneQuest fans happy, whilst Chris Hart remembers his experiences with Play By Mail games which became popular in the mid-eighties. ‘Those who are about to die…’ focuses upon the one PBM, a game called Gladiator. The real interest here is how the game and its associated fanzine, Gladiator’s Gazette grew and changed. Again there are parallels to be had with the gaming experience of those of a similar age and how they got into PBM games as well roleplaying, and how once the craze spread, gamers would run their own. For example, Game Designers’ Workshop’s En Garde! was a popular choice back in the day because a lot of mechanics could be run during the game’s downtime. One pleasing corollary to the article is ‘Form the FLAMES of Hell!’ in which Chris Hart catches up with the creator of Gladiator’s Gazette and interviews him. Rounding out the issue is Alan Gairey’s ‘Small Ads’, a celebration of the small ads section in White Dwarf as well as its letters page. Anyone reading how we communicated in the days before the Internet and e-mail will wonder how we survived.

Physically, of course, The Grognard Files – Annual 2017 lacks the gloss of White Dwarf, but then it is not intended to be a glossy magazine, but a fanzine. So it has the mixed production values and the mixed content of a fanzine, intended as it is to celebrate the amateurism of the hobby. That said, there is denying that it captures the style of White Dwarf back in the day and even the adverts feel appropriate to the time and the issue. A tighter edit would not have gone amiss, but this is technically a ‘first’ issue, so there is always going to be room for improvement.

Ultimately, The Grognard Files – Annual 2017 is one of those publications that captures a little bit of history, essentially a memory of gaming in the 1980s. It is a light chatty affair, which simply serves up a big lardy dollop of nostalgia and if you are British and of a certain age, there is more than enough to reminisce about in its pages.

—oOo—

Previously unavailable, the publishers of The Grognard Files – Annual 2017, Armchair Warriors, have kindly made the issue available as a ‘Pay What You Want’ PDF available to download. Even better, the proceeds of the sale of the fanzine will donated to continue the running of Yog-sothoth.com, the best site dedicated to Lovecraft and Lovecraftian investigative horror.

Fanzine Focus VIII: The Twisting Stair #1

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Published by The Twisting Stair Partnership, The Twisting Stair is different. Not only in terms of its format—it comes in A4 size rather than the digest size which is standard for most fanzines then and now—but also in terms of the retroclone it is written for. The Twisting Stair is written for use with OSRIC, the Old School Reference and Index Compilation roleplaying game which emulates the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. This is of course, the version of choice for retroclones which emulate Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, though the majority of retroclones do derive from Basic Dungeons & Dragons or just Dungeons & Dragons.

The Twisting Stair #1 is organised in a simple fashion. Beyond the editorial, it contains just the three articles, penned by Allan T. Grohe Jr. and Tony Rosten. Each writer has his own lengthy column, Grohe’s ‘From Kuroth‘s Quill’ and Rosten’s ‘Down the Twisting Stair – An ongoing exercise in megadungeon design’, which bookend the issue. Between them is the simple ‘Critters & Glitters’, a combined monsters and magic items column. Here in the first issue, ‘Critters & Glitters’ provides an interdimensional, almost Lovecraftian interpretation of the Sasquatch, akin to the Dimensional Shambler, as well as the Ring of Reflection, a magical item which hides the wearer’s Alignment and enables him to cast the spells Mirror Image, Gaze Reflection, and Undetectable Lie, as well as Projected Image and Shadow Door if the wearer is an Illusionist. Of the two, the Ring of Reflection is an item that any Illusionist would want, but the Sasquatch feels underwritten and challenging to use in a game.

‘From Kuroth‘s Quill’ is Allan T. Grohe Jr.’s regular column and opens with ‘Combined Hoards as Adventure Hooks: Treasure Maps in the Mega-Dungeon (Part 1 of 2)’, an examination of the role and use of treasure maps in Dungeons & Dragons. It takes its cue from both Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Dungeons & Dragons in playing up the frequency of appearance, importance, and use of treasure maps in hoards. This has the potential to set up a chain of treasure maps as one treasure map leads to a hoard containing a treasure map, which leads to another hoard containing a treasure map, and so on. The article explores how they can be used, essentially setting up a mystery or chain of clues that serve to pull the player characters deeper into the game and provide satisfying game play as clues are uncovered and the mystery revealed. It supports this with a set of treasure tables to replace those found in the Dungeon Master’s Guide that place much more of an emphasis on treasure maps. This is a thoughtful article, that perhaps could have benefited from an example or two, but perhaps those might appear in a future issue?

As its title suggests, Tony Rosten’s ‘Down the Twisting Stair – An ongoing exercise in megadungeon design’ explores that singular feature of the Dungeons & Dragons game—the mega-dungeon. The aim of each issue of The Twisting Stair is to present a new, lower level of an example mega-dungeon—or at least a centerfold map of it. There is just not the room in the pages of The Twisting Stair to present a complete level of a mega-dungeon and that is very much a shame. Although the column discusses the nature of the mega-dungeon and the role of the first level, the meat of the article are three mini-maps or geomorphs. These are mini-encounters or dungeon room complexes which can be slotted into the ‘Place Geomorph Here’ blank spaces on the main map. Several more undescribed maps are given, but the three written up affairs are delightfully inventive and challenging which can be encountered again and again. ‘Dolores the Harpy’ details a trap-style encounter with a harpy that looks quite complex, but it makes sense upon a detailed read through and breathes life into a monster which is normally just something to kill. The encounter is perhaps too lethal for First Level characters, so the Dungeon Master might want to tone down the damage inflicted and the reward does feel a little underwhelming. This is followed by ‘The Crypt of 171 Skeletons’, a crypt protected by skeletons which form phalanxes and reform later if destroyed. There is more of a puzzle aspect to overcoming these undead which means that a party could attempt to solve it again and again. The third geomorph is by Allan T. Grohe Jr. ‘Pennies from Hell’ combines reward with danger, an inexplicable font of monies and more, but as the value of treasures it drops, the nature of the accompanying dangers grows and grows. This is one of those odd dungeon features that are just ‘because’ and will doubtless mystify the player characters they move on.

All three of these geomorphs are inventive and interesting and the fact that they are included as part of the issue’s mega-dungeon map is all but irrelevant. They can easily be pulled out and inserted into a dungeon of the Dungeon Master’s design with ease, but they also highlight how disappointing it is that the rest of the mega-dungeon is not detailed or described. The authors’ design inventiveness needs to be given a larger platform and a mega-dungeon could be such a platform.

Physically, The Twisting Stair #1 runs to just sixteen pages. This, in combination with the larger, A4-size, means that the issue feels a little thin. Had it been digest size, this might not have been a problem as the resulting booklet would definitely be thicker. That said, the larger format allows for a larger, more spacious layout and for larger maps, but more importantly, it allows the publisher to expand the fanzine into an actual magazine should the scope and demand exist for it. This inaugural issue is very lightly illustrated, but it comes with a profusion of dungeon floorplans and these are nicely done, especially the dungeon geomorphs. The writing requires a light edit here and there, but is overall, a very readable first issue.

The Twisting Stair #1 cannot escape feeling slim and flimsy and perhaps a little text heavy. Yet, the content is enjoyable and thoughtful and useful. At just four articles, the inclusion of a monster and a magic item feel very much like garnish to the solidly done, longer articles that bookend the issue. Both of these, ‘From Kuroth‘s Quill – Combined Hoards as Adventure Hooks: Treasure Maps in the Mega-Dungeon (Part 1 of 2)’ and ‘Down the Twisting Stair – An ongoing exercise in megadungeon design’ are good meaty pieces that leave you wanting more. Perhaps just too light to really warrant being a single purchase, The Twisting Stair #1 is a fine start, but better value if picked up with The Twisting Stair #2.

Fanzine Focus VIII: The Undercroft, No. 6

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a non-professional and unofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Published by the Melsonian Arts Council in July, 2015, The Undercroft, No. 6 follows on from engaging initial issue with its intriguing and useful material; the less than satisfying mix of content that constituted the second issue; the decent medley that made up issue three; the solidly done issue four; the campaign disrupting magical medley of of the fifth issue; and the entertaining scenario, ‘Something Stinks in Stilton’, that made up issue eight. Where the previous issues, The Undercroft, No. 5 definitely came with a theme, that of magical artefacts, The Undercroft, No. 6 does not, but it does continue the same medley of dangerous artefacts.

The issue opens with ‘Ludolf’s Folly’ by Forrest Aguire. This gives a potted history of the noted Flemish tapestry cartoonist (sic), Jonas Ludolf, and the various pieces of art that he created in his diverse and disparate career before his disappearance. It concentrates on the one item, a plain looking spellbook, written haphazardly in Dutch in such a way that whilst anyone—not just Wizards—can cast the five spells it contains, they can never be sure of the exact wording of each spell. What this means is that sometimes the spell works as expected, but most of the time the effects are some kind of failure. So for example, on a mild failure, the Divination spell works, but the information provided is incorrect, though the spellcaster believes it to be correct; on a moderate failure, the spell works, but the spellcaster has to announce the information again and again; on a major failure, the spell works, but the spellcaster has to announce facts about any building he enters; and on a catastrophic failure, the spellcaster gains instant enlightenment, dies, and gains sainthood. All five spells—the others being Detect Invisible, Wizard Eye, Vanish, and Remote Surveillance—work in a similar fashion. This is an enticing object and potentially a lot of fun as the player characters work out just how bad this book really is, despite the abilities it gives everyone not a wizard.

Edward Lockhart’s ‘The Pyramid of Flesh and the Unknown Disk’ details not one artefact, but two. The Unknown Disk has a triangular hole in its middle and is capable of ripping a hole into an alternate reality, whilst the Pyramid of Flesh is a fist-sized piece of russet flesh with one sticky side and closed eyes or mouths on the others. The mouths will bite if bothered, whilst the sticky side will readily and permanently adhere to flesh. When it does, it grants the ‘user’ limited regeneration, no need to eat or sleep, but it replaces their internal organs and sometimes it requires raw meat. If attached to the user’s head it also spews forth secrets, lots of secrets, that only the user can hear (a table is provided). Attach the disk to the pyramid—the hole is a perfect fit!—and well… Again this is one of those weird and wonderful things that mankind—or rather, the adventurers—should know better than to fiddle or experiment with, but idle curiosity always gets the better of them.

Daniel Sell’s contribution is ‘Wolfmother’. She is a primal wolf creature, a potential wolf bride to every unmarried man in Kairnlaw and any unmarried man who enters Kairnlaw—which of course, includes almost every adventurer! Those refusing her proposal may of course find a wife and marry in haste, but those that accept her gift, whether a bundle of nettles tied with a yellow ribbon or a staff to which a flock of seagulls is bound, are destined to become her mate and never be seen again. This is the shortest piece in The Undercroft, No. 6 and probably the simplest to implement as a piece of folklore in the region of the Referee’s choice. It at least adds to the culture of the setting, but it might just become something more, all depending upon the actions of the player characters.

‘Furnace Arthropoid’ is a strange, insectoid suit of armour that provides life support to a race of explorers from a distant planet which interacts with the inhabitants of worlds in odd ways. Via the suit, the operator compels them to undertake strange tasks—find it offerings, hug it, introduce it to certain persons, and so on—all in the name of exploration. Neither the suit nor the operator are evil as such, nor does it bear anyone it encounters ill will, but the effects of encountering such a suit are potentially dangerous as the suit is incredibly hot. Written by the designer of Crypts of Indormancy, Ezra Claverie, this is a strange encounter, one that is unlikely to bear explanation and indeed, nor does it provide one.

Rounding out the issue is Anxious P.’s ‘The Manifold-Crust Whippets, a Noble Giant Family’, which describes the author’s contact and interaction with a family of giants, who are noble of character and live quiet lives in a rural idyll. His first, wholly positive recollections of his encounter with these creatures is radically overturned upon the revelation of the rituals that the Manifold-Crust Whippets partake in to maintain their equilibrium and happiness. This revelation is in truth unpleasant and for that reason, a Referee may not want to add this giant family to his campaign, but if he does there are specific options for him to do so. If he does not, then other options are given terms of other noble giant types and their relationships with the local inhabitants, some worshipful, some guarded, some fearful. Included alongside these further options is a discussion of possible ritual practices for the giants. It is a pity that it is just a discussion. A few more options would have been welcome, certainly as alternatives to the unpleasant practices accorded to the Manifold-Crust Whippets. This is not a pleasant addition to any campaign, so the GM should consider its impact before adding it to his game.

Physically, The Undercroft, No. 6 is a neat and tidy affair. The issue is very light in terms of artwork and to be truthful, much better artwork has appeared in previous issues.

The Undercroft, No. 6 does not have a theme, but its contents can be divided into two camps. One presents objects or things that will have a profound effect upon a campaign—‘Furnace Arthropoid’ and ‘The Pyramid of Flesh and the Unknown Disk’—and those that will not, such as ‘Ludolf’s Folly’ and ‘Wolfmother’. In general, it is the latter articles which are not only the easiest to add to a campaign, but actually the more interesting to read. A decent mix of contents, The Undercroft, No. 6 is a reasonable issue of the fanzine.

Weird Wizards

½ of #30 wizards VERSION ZIRO from Lost Pages is something of an oddity. Alright, so saying that about almost any book from Lost Pages is a bit of a given, but with ½ of #30 wizards VERSION ZIRO it is more so. A sixteen-page booklet without a cover, it presents some fifteen wizards—and often weird wizards at that. Yet there are also subtle wizards, charming wizards, gonzo wizards, menacing wizards, whimsical wizards, and more. Written for use with the retroclone of your choice, ½ of #30 wizards VERSION ZIRO is an Old School Renaissance supplement that will inject a mix of menace, whimsy, and wackiness into almost any Game Master’s fantasy campaign.

Each Wizard occupies a single page. Their base information includes Hit Dice, Armour Class, and Attack, each accompanied by a simple descriptor. One quarter of the page includes some background and some of the magical items and spells they wield, whilst the other suggests motivations, interactions, and possibly adventure ideas. So Spitz the Pointed is HD 1d4 (‘doesn’t do dice’), Armour Class 10 (‘paper and money’), and Atk 1d4×1d4 (‘compound interest’) and “Strokes Frog the familiar legless toad of wise inflation as matters of financial dark magic are discussed…” He is a wizard of Council of the Mathic Wizards—a position of weight, heft, and buffet lunches, accompanied by economically minded Frog the Legless Toad who attacks with Inflation, Deflation, and Depression. Spitz the Pointed knows the spell Create Imaginary Money and possesses the Scarf of Limitless Growth. He also promises , “You stroke my toad and I’ll stroke your back…” There is further detail beyond this of course, this sort of illustrates the not so serious tone of the supplement whose pages include such NPCs as Baron Baron, the hat trick, top hat wearing wizard and summoner of the Rabbits of Arrgh; Lord Bunny Ears, the gory burrowmaster; Aragosta Blumenkraft, the Herbalist Florimancer praised by the Cockle Queen and gloried by the Crab King; and the Squidmaster, with his ‘slippy slappy always happy’ tentacular attack and many bodily extensions, including a bio-prosthetic Heart of Darkness, bionic transplant Mouthbeak, and organic transplant Squirrely facial tentacles.

What really stands out about ½ of #30 wizards VERSION ZIRO is not so much the content as the artwork. Each wizard is delightfully illustrated in black and white, pen and ink—with the occasional splash of colour—and there is some surprising subtley to these illustrations. So Kromo Reza the Sword at first appears to be a big, hulking barbarian with a teeny tiny almost robot head who is wielding a huge hulking sword. Yet look closer and the barbarian seems not so much to be wielding the sword, but guarding it and that because the barbarian is Littlehead Metalknees, a thrall of Kromo Reza the Sword and the actual wizard! The glorious ruler, Soft Cloud, gently rests, smoking the Pipe of Djinn, on the Throne of the Little Three-Eyed Thralls, and yes, the illustration really does depict the throne being held up by Little Three-Eyed Thralls!

Physically, ½ of #30 wizards VERSION ZIRO is cleanly and tidely presented. The only real issue is the lack of cover, which means that the supplement is not really very sturdy.

Written and designed by Luka Rejec of wizardthieffighter.com, ½ of #30 wizards VERSION ZIRO is not really a supplement whose contents are going to make into most Gamer Master’s campaigns. Its NPC wizards are too weird, too bonkers, too mad to bring to the average fantasy game, but in a weirder, more gonzo setting, they can bring mystery and magic to a game. Even in the average fantasy setting, if used with care, they can be introduced to inject a sense of the weird and a sense of the other. Of course, its title suggests that ½ of #30 wizards VERSION ZIRO is only one half of series, so will there be The other ½ of #30 wizards VERSION ZIRO? Or perhaps, ½ of #30 fighters VERSION ZIRO? Or even, a ½ of #30 Myths & Magic VERSION ZIRO campaign setting? Lord Bunny Ears demands that you tell him or he will bring down a rabbit ruin upon you!

Well, what ½ of #30 wizards VERSION ZIRO really is, is a taster. It is a taster for a combined character generator and pre-generated NPC supplement designed to provide both interesting player characters quickly easily and a ready supply of interesting NPCs. The aim is not just to focus on wizards, but also fighters and thieves—hence wizardthieffighter.com. Whilst we wait for the full supplement from Lost Pages, ½ of #30 wizards VERSION ZIRO is an appetising taster.

The Eighth Doctor

With the publication of The Eighth Doctor Sourcebook, Cubicle Seven Entertainment’s celebration of Doctor Who’s fiftieth anniversary for the Ennie-award winning Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game finds itself in a limbo between the last hurrah of Classic Who and the launch of ‘Nu Who’. The former was of course detailed in The Seventh Doctor Sourcebook and the arrival of the latter is covered in The Ninth Doctor Sourcebook. This limbo is a reflection of the history of the television series, cancelled in 1989 and relaunched in 2005, with a sixteen-year gap during which the only canonical Doctor Who story was a certain television movie. Released in 1996, Doctor Who: The Movie was a made for television movie that marked the regeneration of the Seventh Doctor into the Eighth Doctor, the reappearance of the Master, and laid the groundwork for what the BBC hoped to be a new series. Unfortunately, the film was a failure, being reviled by the fans and seen as being too American. It also condemned the Eighth Doctor to a single canonical appearance.

Except not. For whilst the Eighth Doctor would continue to have multiple adventures in audio via Big Finish, he would have one last canonical outing in The Night of the Doctor that would see him regenerate in the events that lead up to The Day of the Doctor, the actual fiftieth anniversary episode for Doctor Who. It is thus Doctor Who: The Movie and The Night of the Doctor that The Eighth Doctor Sourcebook bounces between in exploring the adventures of the Eighth Doctor. As with the other books in the series, the first few chapters explore who this incarnation of the Doctor is, who is companions are, what his TARDIS is like, and what his adventures are like with a view to designing them. Yet from the very first page, the authors are forced to deal with the paucity of information about the Eighth Doctor and each of these topics, and their answer in most cases, is to stretch the source material about as far as they can. So, for example, Doctor Grace Holloway and the gang member from Doctor Who: The Movie, Chang Lee, are treated as Companions, but in the classic sense neither are. What the authors do is suggest that they are because they have access to the TARDIS, but since neither travels in the TARDIS, are they really? Well, no… Now the Eighth Doctor is not exactly lacking in Companions, as the phrase taken from The Night of the Doctor and included in the sourcebook here, “Charley, C’rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly, friends, companions I’ve known, I salute you...” suggests. These are of course Companions that have travelled with the Eighth Doctor in the audio adventures published by Big Finish, but are not cannon, so cannot be included in The Eighth Doctor Sourcebook.

Similarly, the other suggested Companion, Cass, from The Night of the Doctor, is not a Companion, but the authors do at least suggest how she might be a Companion—and it is a whole lot more interesting than the explanations for Doctor Grace Holloway and Chang Lee as Companions, tying in as it does, to The Time War between the Daleks and the Time Lords. What this showcases is how the authors and the publishers are actually more interested in The Night of the Doctor than they are in Doctor Who: The Movie. This can be seen throughout the sourcebook, starting with the cover, which although includes a photo of Eric Roberts as the Master from Doctor Who: The Movie, uses a photo from The Night of the Doctor to illustrate the Doctor. It can be seen in how the authors manage to squeeze a page-and-a-half of information out of the eight minutes of The Night of the Doctor versus the nine pages they get out of Doctor Who: The Movie—and even then, those nine pages feel stretched. Yet it still has to cover the movie and the authors definitely want to get through it in order to get to the interesting stuff, even if they are forced to explain why the Doctor might be half-human as claimed in Doctor Who: The Movie. The best said about the explanation is that it is what it is and move on. The idea was silly enough and whilst the explanation is reasonable enough given that silliness, it just reminds the reader of that silliness. 

The paucity of source material also means that the section on adventures for the Eighth Doctor is also rather stretched thin because as the authors make clear, there is not much to go on. What the sourcebook suggests is that the Eighth Doctor’s time is initially marked with an innocence exuberance for life, but that this innocence is lost as he witnesses the effects of the Time War, and ultimately, forced to pick a side. And that is about that, because there are no adventures to go on.

So what of the other four fifths of The Eighth Doctor Sourcebook? Well, one of the upsides of having so little material to draw upon is that the authors can make stuff up and what they make up is ‘Doom of the Daleks’, a twelve-part campaign which is a consequence of the Time War, involves the Doctor, and takes its structure from The Key to Time story arc for the Fourth Doctor. The time travelers, be they the Doctor and his Companions, other Time Lords and their Companions, associates of the Doctor—for which read members of UNIT, Torchwood, or the Paternoster Gang—or non-associates of the Doctor—for which read other characters the players have created, get a message or a visit and are given a great quest. The Doctor has been shot with a Dalek weapon that is erasing him from Time and to prevent this from happening, the weapon needs to be destroyed. Which requires using a Temporal Trace Locator to find traces of the Doctor up and down his timeline and once it has enough traces, quadrangulate the location of the weapon, and then destroy it. Essentially, a big McGuffin hunt and an excuse to emulate the styles of each of the first eleven Doctors’ adventures.

Of course, the adventures can be played in any order, because this is time travel, but are presented in order, one through eleven in the sourcebook. The first few adventures do fit the style of their relevant Doctors, but there is a bit of a mix and match of dangers between regenerations. So whilst ‘Down and Away Below’ is a classic historical adventure in the style of the First Doctor, involving pirates and the Caribbean, it actually involves a classic Third Doctor monster, the Sea Devils. Similarly, ‘The Space Trap’, a classic Second Doctor murder mystery aboard a space station, involves monsters from the Third Doctor’s and the Fourth Doctor’s eras, the Sontarans and the Rutans respectively, though of course, a Third Doctor adventure would not be so without the involvement of UNIT and the Master, which is exactly what ‘The Tendrils of Neox’ involves and a jolly romp it is too. ‘Nowhere’ takes its cue from ‘The Face of the Enemy’, a sort of sandbox affair festooned with Fourth Doctor iconography and has an oddly Dickensian feel rather than the obvious Gothic stylings that the authors might have opted for. For the Fifth Doctor, ‘The Coils of the Serpent’ is a direct sequel to two highly regarded episodes, ‘Kinda’ and ‘Snakedance’ and is none the worse for that, and at least it does provide an opportunity for one player to roleplay some scenery chewing evil. The odd one out in the first six is ‘Lunchtime of the Dead’, which though written for the Sixth Doctor and is a sequel of sorts to ‘The Twin Dilemma’, feels like it should have been written for the Fourth Doctor. This is because it is actually a parody of Douglas Adams’ The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and since Adams’ tenure was under the Fourth Doctor… Anyway, it is so thick with puns and references to the actual Restaurant at the End of the Universe, that the Game Master should probably run it as such and just go with the consequences—bombast and all!

The scenarios take a notable down turn in quality for the second half and as written, they are just not quite as much fun. ‘The Matter of Silver’ for the Seventh Doctor plays on the Arthurian motifs as the player characters themselves in a castle in a pocket dimension besieged by demons, whilst ‘The Patchwork Man’ is really only a scenario for the Eighth Doctor because it is set in the same hospital as Doctor Who: The Movie. The adventure does least begin to bring thing back to the authors’ efforts to tie the adventures of the Eighth Doctor into the Time War and it at least it includes an appearance by the villains of the campaign—the Daleks! Their influence continues in ‘Marked’, a decidedly deadly, combat orientated game show set adventure for the Ninth Doctor. Being set in a deadly game show a la ‘Bad Wolf’ results in feeling like heavy-handed commentary on early twenty-first century reality television, though the ‘Diary Room’ does give the opportunity for the Game Master to set up some fun roleplaying. ‘Ice’ for the Tenth Doctor is modelled upon ‘Silence in the Library’ and ‘Forest of the Dead’ and although it has an environmentally interesting timing mechanism, is okay. The penultimate adventure, for the Eleventh Doctor, is ‘The Face in the Mirror’, a locked room affair in a country manor in a branching timeline with a healthy dose of ‘timey-wimey’ in the Edwardian era. It is quite a fun mystery, though the Game Master will need to work very hard so as not to reveal the identity of the true monster too early lest the player characters run around panicking! Lastly, there is ‘Neverwas’, the climax to ‘Doom of the Daleks’, which the Game Master will need to be careful for it to fizz rather than fizzle… Disappointingly, the very, very end is underwritten given all that effort that the Game Master has put in over the course of the preceding twelve episodes.

Physically, The Eighth Doctor Sourcebook is as well presented as the other books in the series. It is liberally illustrated and it needs an edit here and there, but what cartography there is, is plain and dull. One issue is the inappropriate use of illustrations, so that for an illustration of a pirate in ‘Down and Away Below’, a photo of Captain Henry Avery from ‘The Curse of the Black Spot’ and ‘A Good Man Goes to War’, despite the fact that he does not appear in the adventure. This happens again and again throughout the book. The problem is that Cubicle Seven Entertainment cannot use anything other than photos from the series to illustrate the books, so as much as the photos are illustrative, they invariably do not illustrate what is in each adventure.

To be fair, The Eighth Doctor Sourcebook is not a good sourcebook for the Eighth Doctor. Then again, how could it be with so little to draw upon? The authors do try their very best and whilst not great, it is about as good as could be expected. In the meantime, it does give the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game something it does not have—a campaign! Now even though the campaign is not quite as good as it could be, but it is a more than reasonable solution to the question, “What shall we do with a sourcebook when we really, really having nothing to fill it with?” The Eighth Doctor Sourcebook is a curate’s egg, but then Doctor Who is not always perfect either, and if some of the adventures underwhelm, some of them can still entertain.

Free RPG Day 2017: Penny Dreadful One Shot: Earthly Desires

Now in its tenth year, Free RPG Day offers up a variety of different titles for different games, typically introductory rule sets, also known as quickstarts, or scenarios. The scenarios are of course for existing games, but whilst the quickstarts may likewise also be for existing games, many are for forthcoming games, giving gamers a chance to experience a new game or setting before they released. RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha – Quickstart and Adventure is one such release, as is Penny Dreadful One Shot: Earthly Desires.

Penny Dreadful One Shot: Earthly Desires is a one shot scenario and taster for Through the Breach, a roleplaying game set in the Victorian-era city of Malifaux and published by Wyrd Miniatures, LLC. Malifaux is a Gothic city of steam power, magic, monsters, Victorian horror, and the wild west which can be accessed from our Earth. In Through the Breach, the players take the roles of the Fated, those men and women whose destinies are tied to series of vague and cryptic clues, yet who can choose to embrace or reject their destinies. In Penny Dreadful One Shot: Earthly Desires, the player characters are new recruits of the Ten Thunders, an Asian crime syndicate which operates in the lawless Little Kingdom slum as both oppressor and benefactor. Currently, they are students at the Sango Temple, training to serve the Ten Thunders. Five pre-generated player characters are given. They include a boisterous Japanese acrobat who makes himself the centre of attention; an American wastrel with the luck of the draw; a Vietnamese scrapper with anger issues; an imposing Japanese guard; and a Chinese dabbler in magic who is ashamed of her poisonous spells. 

Through the Breach uses cards instead of dice to resolve conflicts. These are divided into four suits—Crows (Spades), Masks (Diamonds), Rams (Hearts), and Tomes (Clubs)—and two types of decks. One is the Fate Deck, which is the communal deck, and is the same size as a standard deck of cards. The other is the Twist Deck. Each player has one of these, which consists of just thirteen cards. To undertake an action with a risk of failure, a character  engages in a Challenge Duel. The Fatemaster—as the Game Master is known in Through the Breach—sets a Target Number for the Challenge Duel, whilst the player flips one card from the Fate Deck and totals its value with his character’s relevant Aspect and Skill in order to beat the Target Number. 

The two Jokers in the Fate Deck indicate great success or great failure, the Red Joker the former, the Black Joker the latter. If drawn, the Black Joker must be played. Further, Fate Modifiers—positive and negative—indicate whether a Challenge Duel is is easier is harder to overcome. They cancel each other out, but any remaining modifiers increase the number of extra cards a player draws from the Fate Deck, up to a maximum of three. If the remaining Fate Modifiers are negative, the player must use the card with the lowest value, but if positive, the player is free to choose which card he uses.

A player will also have a hand of three or more cards drawn from his Twist Deck. A player can use a card in his hand drawn from his Twist Deck to enable his character to Cheat Fate by replacing the card flipped from the Fate Deck. Some characters possess Triggers, extra effects or actions that come into play when a Challenge Duel is resolved and a card of the Trigger’s Suit—Crows, Masks, Rams, or Tomes—is used to overcome the Challenge Duel. For example, in Penny Dreadful One Shot: Earthly Desires, the pre-generated character, Mai Pham, has the Vengeful Crane Kick which has a Jump Kick Trigger. It triggers if Mai Pham succeeds in a martial attack and the Rams Suite is used in the attack and enables her to make a second Martial Arts attack on the same target.

Combat in Penny Dreadful One Shot: Earthly Desires uses the same mechanics, but the number by which the attacker beats the defender determines the Damage Flip Modifier. This is the equivalent of Fate Modifiers, but specifically for damage. This determines the number of cards to be drawn from the Fate Deck and the value of the one selected by the player will determine if the character will inflict Weak, Moderate, or Severe damage. If a member of the Fated suffers damage enough to reduce his wounds to zero, then further damage suffered will have Critical effects.

The rules presented in Combat in Penny Dreadful One Shot: Earthly Desires are not too complex, although the Fatemaster and players alike will need to make some adjustment if they are used to playing roleplaying games with dice rather than cards. They will also need to make careful reading of the pre-generated characters and their abilities to get the most effective use out of them.

The adventure in Penny Dreadful One Shot: Earthly Desires is of course, ‘Unearthly Desires’. It is a short, three-act affair which begins with Sango Temple where the player character Fated are studying, coming under attack and their master being all but killed. This reveals Master Lo’s true purpose—keeping a demon bound in place. Whether or not they succeed in saving his life, Master Lo instructs the Fated to save the perpetrators and stop the demon from wreaking its havoc on the city.

Physically, Penny Dreadful One Shot: Earthly Desires is nicely presented as a full colour, sturdy booklet. The illustrations are excellent, though the booklet will require a read to grasp how it played. Probably two, which means that the preparation time for the adventure is quite high given how long the adventure actually is. In addition, each player as well as the Fatemaster will need his own deck of cards. The players to create their individual Twist Decks and the Fatemaster the Fate Deck.

There is certainly a good two hour adventure to be had in Penny Dreadful One Shot: Earthly Desires though it is one that focuses more on combat than on investigation or roleplaying. That said, it does a nice job of introducing the mechanics to Through the Breach and at least a little of the setting. The only real downside is the preparation time and the time needed to find and set up the number of required card decks. More challenging—at least mechanically—than most entries for Free RPG Day 2017, Penny Dreadful One Shot: Earthly Desires is decent introduction to Through the Breach that definitely serves up the action.

Smoke & Mirrors

Designed to be used with the GORE™ Open Game Content Rules published by Goblinoid Games—best known for the Old School Renaissance Retroclone, Labyrinth Lord—The Fenworthy Inheritance proved to be an interesting scenario that was almost, but not quite a Call of Cthulhu scenario. Set in the 1920s, The Fenworthy Inheritance is a one-shot scenario set in England’s West Country in which a walking holiday goes awry when the characters encounter death on the road, rural superstition, village politics, and revenge from down the years… Compatible with Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition—and with some effort with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition—the scenario came with pre-generated characters and some excellent artwork. Although hampered by some poor production values, The Fenworthy Inheritance was a worthy first horror scenario from MontiDots Ltd. Now it has a sequel—The Smoking Mirror.

The Smoking Mirror is not a one-shot and is very much designed as a sequel to The Fenworthy Inheritance. This does not mean that it cannot be run as a one-shot or as part of an ongoing campaign, but it requires experienced investigators and the need to remove or change any reference to the seven pre-generated investigators that are included and which are part of the series. Besides these seven pre-generated investigators, it comes with ten or so decently done handouts, a sheaf of maps, and some excellent illustrations. It also includes a quick guide to the GORE™ Open Game Content Rules, to which are added rules for reading occult tomes, as well as casting various spells. 

The scenario takes place in the last week of August, 1922. It takes the investigators away from the countryside of The Fenworthy Inheritance to the cultural high spots and low spots of the Big Smoke. Just as the British Museum has taken delivery of a consignment of artefacts from a newly discovered city in Honduras, one of its employees from the Department of the Americas goes missing. Tristam Soames is a specialist in hieroglyphics and his father, Lord Soames, is worried enough to hire the investigators rather than the police. Their investigative efforts will hopefully reveal a plot involving Doctor John Dee, Aztec cosmology, the Bright Young Things, and potentially, the wish that the Spanish Armada really had invaded England in 1588. Not only is the plot timed, being a race against the clock, there is even potential for the scenario to get all ‘time-wimey’ and the investigators to get a second go at solving the mystery and thwarting the threat should they fail the first time around.

The Smoking Mirror is quite a tight little scenario, both geographically and chronologically. The latter because it takes place over three days and the former because it mainly takes place in Bloomsbury and Soho, though there is the possibility of a day trip out to Oxford. The tight time frame also means that the Game Master needs to keep track of where each of the NPCs are at any one time. Thankfully, the tight nature of the scenario also means that there are only a few NPCs that the Game Master must keep track of, but doing so is important because it determines what they know and consequently, what their actions will be.

In terms of its plot, The Smoking Mirror is nothing that we have not seen before, but many elements of said plot benefit from a fresh pair of eyes. That said, it has the potential to overburden the investigators with books, many of which take days to fully understand and there may not be enough time to really benefit from their contents. Also, the climax—the summoning of a very bloody god—could have been better handled and more clearly presented and the scenario leaves what happens if the investigators succeed up to the Game Master to determine. These will not necessarily be much of an issue for the experienced Game Master, but anyone less experienced may have a problem presenting or developing solutions to these problems. 

Physically, The Smoking Mirror is a mixed bag. Both the layout and the floor plans are clean if perfunctory, whilst the artwork is excellent. The latter should be no surprise given that the author is also a published artist. Unfortunately, The Smoking Mirror is in need of two things being fixed to make it a decent scenario. One is the better handling of the climax and its aftermath. The second is its editing. The Smoking Mirror suffers from a case of too many homonyms and too many awkward phrasings. Now none of this is sufficient to hinder someone from running The Smoking Mirror, but in several places a Game Master will need to pause to check and see if that is what the author really meant to say. 

There is much to like about The Smoking Mirror. It has some lovely illustrations, it has a solid, playable plot, and it makes good use of the locations it details. Certainly, the scenario handles its visits to the British Museum in a far better manner than the previous efforts of Lovecraftian investigative horror—Madness in London Town and Five Go Mad in Egypt—and the limited selection of locations and their descriptions make them easy to bring into a game. That said, the scenario could have benefited from another editorial, if not a developmental, pass—perhaps two. Then perhaps, the scenario will be as professional a release as the author and artist wants it to be. The Smoking Mirror is not unplayable and it is not unenjoyable, it is just not as polished as the author intended it to be.

—oOo—

At the time of publication, MontiDots Ltd. did not have a website. It does however, have a presence on Facebook and the author can be contacted directly via email: info@montidots.co.uk. As of September, 2016, MontiDotsLtd. titles are available on RPGnow, including both The Fenworthy Inheritance and The Smoking Mirror.

Free RPG Day 2017: Starfinder: First Contact

Now in its tenth year, Saturday, June 17th is Free RPG Day and with it comes an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera. The scenarios are of course for existing games, but whilst the quickstarts may likewise also be for existing games, many are for forthcoming games, giving gamers a chance to experience a new game or setting before they are released. One such title is neither a scenario nor a quickstart, but a teaser, introducing elements of a forthcoming roleplaying game. That title is Starfinder: First Contact.

Since 2009, Paizo Publishing has been releasing and supporting material for its Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, a Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game and in fact, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game remains one of the best supported games currently available, with innumerable supplements, scenarios, and campaigns. In previous years, Paizo Publishing has supported Free RPG Day with scenarios like We Be Goblins. For 2017, Paizo Publishing released Starfinder: First Contact. This is a teaser for Starfinder, Paizo Publishing’s Science Fantasy roleplaying game which takes the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game forward thousands and thousands of years and to the stars. To some extent, the genre of ‘Dungeons & Dragons in Space!’ has been explored before, most notably with TSR, Inc.’s Spelljammer in 1989 and then with the Dragonstar Starfarer's Handbook from Fantasy Flight Games in 2001.

As a first glance, Starfinder: First Contact does three things. First and second, it introduces us to what is different in the Starfinder Roleplaying Game in comparison to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and it tells us what is new in the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Third, it introduces us to eleven monsters and creatures that are home not just to Golarion—the campaign setting for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game—but the Golarion solar system. Much of what is different as presented in Starfinder: First Contact relates to how monsters and creatures are presented in Starfinder. So, taking its cue from Pathfinder Unchained, the monster stat block in the Starfinder Roleplaying Game is slimmed down, for example, only listing ability modifiers and not ability scores; only listing feats that let a monster do something, whilst subsuming feats that grant bonuses into the relevant statistic; and the unification of the various types of sense beyond the basics into blindsight and blindsense. The new comes in the form of Class Abilities like the Cloaking Field, a kinetically rechargeable device that grants a bonus to the Stealth skill, and Grenade Expert, being able to throw a grenade further and jury-rig a small grenade within a few minutes; Universal Monster rules such as Limited Telepathy and Unliving; and weapon abilities, like Arc, Burn, and Explode, representing how much deadlier weapons—especially guns and energy weapons—are in the Starfinder Roleplaying Game.

Perhaps though, the most interesting suggestion in Starfinder: First Contact and thus Starfinder Roleplaying Game is that the new roleplaying game is going to allow the players to roleplay a great many of the races as aliens. Now they are weaker versions of the standard interpretations of the races, but enable a player to take the role of a Space Goblin junker, a Ratfolk mechanic, spellhacking Lashunta technomancer, and so on. Eleven races are given in Starfinder: First Contact—Bloodbrother, Contemplative, Ellicoth, Haan, Ksarik, Necrovite, Orocoran, Sarcesian, Security Robot, Space Goblin, and Space Pirate. Ranging from 1/3 to 13 in terms of C/R, the Contemplative, Haan, Sarcesian, and Space Goblin are given Racial Traits to allow them to be played as Alien player characters.

Unfortunately, there is nothing of the background of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game to be found in the pages of Starfinder: First Contact. That said, a very little of the background can be gleaned from the monster and creature descriptions. For example, the importance of Absalom Station, infested as it is with Space Goblins who use it as a staging point from where they can hijack ships and travel to the stars and how security on the station is handled by Security Robots, whilst some gangs have hacked some Security Robots and used them to protect their own interests. Unfortunately, all a little too slight to give much of the flavour and the feel of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game.

Being a release from Paizo Publishing, it should be no surprise that Starfinder: First Contact is a slickly produced and well-presented booklet. In comparison to other releases for Free RPG Day 2017, Starfinder: First Contact is very technical in nature and has little to offer the casual gamer beyond perhaps being a little intriguing. For the devotee of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game there is much in the pages of Starfinder: First Contact to entice their interest, especially if they are looking to expand their genre from fantasy to science fantasy and to see the future of Golarion pushed thousands of years into the future.