Godforsaken is really a collection of questions and answers. Asking how one aspect or another of the genre can be done and then explaining or showing how. This is not just for the Cypher System, although that of course, is its focus, but with the genre in general. It starts with two options. The first is inspirations, touching upon classics such as Arthurian legend or the tales of Sinbad, but surprisingly suggesting a range of fantasy roleplaying games which could also serve as the basis for a Cypher System fantasy game. This complemented later in the book with more specific discussions and lists of possible inspirational works, covering fiction, film, and television, even fantasy artists, essentially a bibliography with suggestions. It feels odd having it placed further into the book when it could easily have followed the opening chapters. The other is creating a new setting and is more expansive, looking initially at the role of magic—knowledge, power levels, availability, history, and its interplay with technology and actual history—in broad strokes. It is a subject that the supplement will return to for obvious reasons. It also asks whether death will be permanent in the Game Master’s setting (similarly, this is expanded upon later in the book) and suggests ways to create maps and advise the players about the nature of the world that the Game Master has created. It is all fairly broad, as is the discussion and samples of fantasy.
The specifics really begin with character options which suggest ways in which various character types can be done using the Cypher System “I am an adjective noun who verbs.” format. For example, a Druidic character could be created in numerous ways depending upon what he does. For a druid with an animal companion, the Focus might be ‘Controls Beasts’ or ‘Masters the Swarm’ or who transforms, it might be ‘Takes Animal Shape’ or ‘Walks the Wild Woods’. Numerous options are suggested for the traditional fantasy roles like barbarian, the bard, priest, fighter, holy knight, warlock, and wizard, as well as for less traditional ones such as gunslinger and inquisitor. Several of the Foci are new, including ‘Takes Animal Shape’ and ‘Wields an Enchanted Weapon’, but in the main draws from the hundred or so given in the Cypher System Rulebook. However, not all of those are suitable for the fantasy genre and there is advice too on adjusting them to fit. For example, ‘Grows to Towering height’ could mean the character has giantish blood or be descended from a titan, ‘Licensed to Carry’ gives the character an unusual or magical weapon and applies the Focus’ bonuses to it, and ‘Talks to Machines’ could mean that the character instead communicates with golems or even the undead.
Equipment is handled in two ways in Godforsaken. First it gives descriptions and prices of a wide range of weapons, armour, tools, and adventuring gear. It will look familiar to anyone who has played a fantasy roleplaying game, but unlike in the Cypher System Rulebook, it gives prices in gold pieces rather than broad price categories. Second, it suggests ways in which Cyphers—the means by which the Cypher System awards Player Character one-time bonuses, whether potions or scrolls, software, luck, divine favour, or influence—can be brought into the fantasy genre. In the fantasy genre, these can obviously be potions, scrolls, talismans, and the like, which are relatively easy to make. Godforsaken gives complete rules for their creation as a series of step-by-step challenges, with higher level Cyphers requiring more time and more expensive ingredients. These are easy to use and nicely complement the main rules for crafting to be found in the Cypher System Rulebook. Crafting artefacts is also covered. Also discussed is why the Player Characters might craft Cyphers rather than expect to have them rewarded through play as is the norm, which might be preparation to overcome a foe or challenge, because the Player Character is a crafter, or it is thematically appropriate.
The rules for crafting Cyphers are one of several modules, divided between magical and fantasy rules, which Godforsaken provides and discusses that the Game Master can plug into her setting. The other modules for magical rules include antimagic, death and resurrection, ritual magic, magical technology, mind control, mystical martial arts, the power of names, and secrets. The modules for ritual magic and magic and technology include numerous examples too. There is specific advice about how to handle mind control in play, since not every player likes his character to be taken out of his control necessarily, suggesting that its parameters be set prior to play and reward a Player Character extra Experience Points when it does come into play, perhaps as a ‘GM Intrusion’. The module about using antimagic is more advice than mechanics, since the Cypher System does not actually define whether a Player Character’s abilities, Cyphers, and artefacts are magical or non-magical. If the former, antimagic effects remove them from play and that can be a problem from situation to situation, because they are integral to the Player Character. Ultimately the advice is to use antimagic in play sparingly. The fantasy rules modules cover the rewarding of treasure, including Cyphers and artefacts, and then the exploration of the dungeon environment. Walls, doors, traps—both as challenges and ‘GM Intrusions’, with numerous examples, are described here.
For running the Cypher System in a manner similar to Dungeons & Dragons, the chapter on fantasy species details several classic examples—Catfolk, Dragonfolk, Gnomes, Halflings, and Lizardfolk—in addition to those found in the Cypher System Rulebook. There is the suggestion too that they can be used as a Descriptor during Player Character creation, not once, but twice, so that Player Character could be an Inquisitive Halfling Explorer who Works the Back Alleys. Similarly, there are also suggestions on how to get near the Vancian style—that is, memorise, cast, and forget—which is challenging given that the Cypher System defaults a spontaneous style of casting. Godforsaken includes a trio of Cypher Shorts that can be used as single encounters or short scenarios, all of them classic fantasy situations. This is followed by a bestiary of forty or so monsters and NPCs to complement those in the Cypher System Rulebook and a selection of Cyphers and artefacts to add to a campaign.
Godforsaken is also the eponymous name of the setting described in the book. Comprising the second part of the supplement, it describes the ‘Godforsaken Setting’ and supports it with a pair of adventures. The ‘Godforsaken Setting’ is split into two realms. ‘Bontherre: The Blessed Lands’ are a green and pleasant land where nobody goes for want of anything, a pantheon of five revered gods known as the ‘Sacrante’, walk the lands and are worshipped by all, and for some, is a dull place to life. Beyond these lands of milk and honey lie the ‘Godforsaken Lands’ where the influence and power of the ‘Sacrante’ cannot reach and the sun and sky are different. As brave explorers, the Player Characters step through from ‘Bontherre: The Blessed Lands’ into the ‘Godforsaken Lands’ where they must survive radically dangerous environments, such as viciously biting weapons and acid rain, in search of resources valued by crafters. For example, Flevame, lies across the River of Souls and is easily accessible, and has a smaller sun and no moon, is colder, visitors from Bontherre suffer from a ‘weakening’, and visiting adventurers are often hunted by the forces of a necromancer called Crumellia Encomium. As well as being able to explore a new world, adventurers search for spirit threads which can be used to enhance artefacts. The other two lands detailed in the ‘Godforsaken Lands’ are different and there is scope too for the Game Master to add more. The setting is supported by two scenarios which introduce the ‘Godforsaken Setting’ and notes for the types of characters that the players can create and roleplay.
Physically, Godforsaken is very well presented, but that is what you would expect for a book from Monte Cook Games. It is well written, and both the artwork and the cartography are also good. Sidebars are used extensively throughout the book, adding detail, advice, stats, and references to the Cypher System Rulebook, and in the process, being very handy.
Godforsaken has two big hurdles that it has to overcome. One is that it has to encompass a wide swathe of subgenres and the second is Dungeons & Dragons. Although Godforsaken discusses numerous subgenres, it does not actually explore them in any great depth, its focus being broader and more generic. Further, it does not so much attempt to escape the influence of Dungeons & Dragons as in parts embrace it and show how a fantasy game in its style can be run using the Cypher System. By no means is this a bad thing, but rather it does leave less room for more detailed treatments of the other subgenres, which perhaps a supplement of their own.
Godforsaken presents a solid set of tools and advice for running the fantasy genre under the Cypher System, which altogether ask the Game Master numerous questions which will help her create and run her own fantasy setting. Ultimately though, Godforsaken cannot encompass everything in the fantasy genre and leaves a lot of subgenres waiting to be explored in greater depth for the Cypher System.
No comments:
Post a Comment