Goodman Games Gen Con Annual VIII

Since 2013, Goodman Games, the publisher of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic has released a book especially for Gen Con, the largest tabletop hobby gaming event in the world. That book is the Goodman Games Gen Con Program Book, a look back at the previous year, a preview of the year to come, staff biographies, community content, and a whole lot more, including adventures and lots tidbits and silliness. The first was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book, but not being able to pick up a copy from Goodman Games when they first attended UK Games Expo in 2019, the first to be reviewed was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2014 Program Book. Fortunately, a little patience and a copy of the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book was located and reviewed, so since 2021, normal order has been resumed with the Goodman Games Gen Con 2016 Program Book, the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book, and Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying, and Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston.

With both Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying, and Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston, the series had begun to chart a new direction. Each volume would contain a mix of support for the various RPGs published by Goodman Games and the content recognising the Goodman Games community, but the major feature of each volume would be a tournament scenario, staged the previous year at Gen Con. Unfortunately, events caught up with the eighth entry in the series, intending to highlight the presence of Goodman Games at Gen in 2020, which would cancel Gen Con and every other event as well as face-to-face gaming. It meant that Goodman games had to adapt and adapts its by now traditional Gen Con Program Guide. The result was Goodman Games Yearbook #8: The Year That Shall Not be Named.

Goodman Games Yearbook #8: The Year That Shall Not be Named also marked a name change as well, the traditional Gen Con Program Guide becoming a ‘Yearbook’ instead. It opens in tremendous fashion with a lengthy interview with the doyen of British fantasy gaming artwork, most well known for his work on The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and the Fiend Folio for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. In ‘An Interview With Russ Nicholson’ by Thorin Thompson, the late illustrator takes the time to talk about his influences, how he got into drawing, and how he became involved with Games Workshop, all before coming up to date and providing covers for two covers he did for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Dying Earth #2: The Sorcerer’s Tower of Sanguine Slant. Although not a gamer himself, it is clear that Nicholson is as much aware about games and the hobby as he is fantasy and that he also enjoys working in the medium. The interview is accompanied by a wide range of artwork, including the covers of several fanzines that he drew in the 1970s, that nicely showcases his style down the years. The only downside is that the interview is in the black and section of Goodman Games Yearbook #8: The Year That Shall Not be Named, and so we do not get to see any of his artwork in colour. That said, we do get see plenty of the line art that Nicholson is so famous for. It is a good interview and a great way to start the yearbook.

The mechanical content in Goodman Games Yearbook #8: The Year That Shall Not be Named begins with two articles by Marzio Muscedere. The first is ‘Monster Fumbles’. This provides a solution for what happens if the Judge rolls a one when rolling for an attack by one of his monsters. The exact die she has to roll depends on the Luck Modifier of the Player Character, so the higher the die type the Judge rolls, all the way up to a sixteen-sided die for a Player Character with a Luck Modifier of ‘+3’. This is accompanied by tables in turn for ‘Devils and Demons’, ‘Dragons’, ‘Giants’, ‘Humanoids with Weapons’—including orcs, kobolds, goblins, bugbears, lizardmen, cultists, and similar, ‘Monsters’, ‘Undead’, and ‘Elementals’. The latter category is the most complex, but only to the extent that the Judge has to adjust the results to fit the type of elemental who fumbled. The second is ‘Seven Mighty Deeds From The City Of Sevenscore Thousand Smokes’ which gives options for the Warrior Class’ Mighty Deed of Arms for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Most of these are a ‘Tandem Deed’, that is, a Mighty Deed which requires two Player Characters to work rather than the traditional one. For example, ‘Bewilder and Backstab’ enables one Player Character to distract an NPC and so give a bonus to another Player Character about to perform a Backstab manoeuvre on the distracted NPC. Others include ‘Back-To-Back Badasses/Back-To-Back Fighting’, ‘I Got You Bro!/Draw Attacks Away From Allies’, and ‘Launch Ally’, all of them nicely capturing that idea of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser working together as well as giving play a little cinematic flourish. The rest, such as ‘ Increased Critical’ are more straightforward, whilst the last one, ‘Snowball Fighting’ is a bit of silliness, but can be easily adapted to include any improvised thrown weapon. All are accompanied by excerpts from Fritz Leiber’s novels to give them colour and background.

James A. Pozenel, Jr. provides yet more Mighty Deeds of Arms, but where ‘Seven Mighty Deeds From The City Of Sevenscore Thousand Smokes’ was specific to the Lankhmar setting, ‘Dwarven Rune Tracing – Mighty Deeds Of Rune-Powered Combat’, is specific to the Dwarf Class. A cross between a magical skill and a martial art, they are intended to add flavour to Dwarf combat. The Dwarf needs to have an Intelligence of thirteen or more to know even a single Rune. Once known, with a Mighty Deed of Arms, he can trace it in the air, on a shield, or his armour, and it will come into effect the following round. They include the ‘Rune of Strength’, the ‘Rune of Rage’, the ‘Rune of Speed’, and so on. The effect of each depends on the roll on the Deed Die and there are suggestions too for being able to raise the effect all the way up to nine on the Deed Die and making the learning or gaining of new Runes a mini-quest in itself. Again, this is optional, but in play it nicely makes the Dwarf Class just that little bit different to the Warrior Class.

Stephen Newton has already penned two horror-themed scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics—Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red and Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module—so it makes perfect sense for him to write ‘Stokerian Vampires: Bringing Bram Stoker’s Dracula To DCC RPG’. As the title suggests he adapts the archetypal vampires from the most famous vampire novel of all time, classifying them as ‘The Cursed’ like Mina Harker, ‘The Un-Dead’ like Lucy Westenra, and The King Vampire, who of course, is like Dracula himself. The article covers habits, lairs, hunting territory, traits, and more, much of which will be more than familiar. After all, Dracula is the basis for a very great deal of the vampire lore and the vampire in popular culture so the likelihood is that very little of the article is new. Nevertheless, this does not in any detract from the descriptions and details given for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, which all together give the perfect adaption if the Judge is looking for Bram Stoker-style, classic vampires.

‘The Dying Wish Of Daog The Blue: An Option For Arcane Healing In DCC RPG’ is a bit different and a bit controversial. Written by Jeff Goad, it suggests a way of bringing arcane rather than divine healing into the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. It consists of two parts, the first fiction telling how Daog The Blue, having heard of arcane wizards casting healing magics on other worlds, from Middle-earth to Zothique, successfully brought it to Aereth. The other is the spell itself, Daog’s Dying Wish. This makes sense in a setting without the Cleric Class, but otherwise, it may be seen as poaching upon the territory of the Cleric Class.

The penultimate gaming content in Goodman Games Yearbook #8: The Year That Shall Not be Named is ‘Deadly Hands of DCC: Eight Epic NPCs For Your DCC Game’ by Michael Curtis, Brendan LaSalle, and Harley Stroh. This is an entertaining selection of villains and heroes inspired by martial arts films. ‘Baron Von Strangle’, a cursed set of armour that empowers its wearer, but also forces him to strange everyone he can and so the demonic strangler has become feared across the Steppe Kingdoms; ‘Flamehand, Jack’ is a wandering monk, ageless, who might be a charlatan or he might be a genuine saint, who strikes so fast the air appears to ignite around his kicks and punches; and ‘Qin Qian’ is a member of Spangled Court of the Endless Cycle, the clergy of Aleea, Goddess of Ordinary Days, whose radical interpretation of the need for ongoing peace and normality, has led her to launch a crusade against anything and everything that threatens that. Although this has greatly upset the rest of her fellow priests and her goddess cannot quite condone her activities—though is pleased about the peace they have brought many, ‘Qin Qian’ continues her work and may even direct adventurers such as the Player Characters to attack some local threat. If they take her hints, then the Player Characters may gain a small blessing in return. There are some fun NPCs included in the octet in this article and many of them can be used by the Judge to develop hooks and encounters.

Lastly, Michael Curtis complains about how his ‘Glaive Expectations’ were not met. His disappointment came about because the Player’s Handbook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition did match the description of the glaive he was expecting. What he was expecting was the glaive from the film Krull. What he got was the ‘Glaive – Guisarme’, a polearm. So he instead provides a version of the Glaive from Krull, plus a magical one, for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics. Silly and self-indulgent.

Goodman Games has always been highly supportive of its community and showcases in every issue of the ‘program guide’ or ‘yearbook’. It begins in this volume with some images that capture the public spirit in terms of voting and preventing the spread of COVID-19 in 2019 and 2020 in ‘Goodman Games Tries To Change The World: Images Of 2020’. There are many, many convention photographs from Gen Con 2019 and Gama Expo 2020 before the world changes and play moves online, as showcased by photographs from Cyclops Con, DCC Days Online, and Bride of Cyclops Con. There are also the logo used for Goodman Games’ then new Twitch channel displayed in ‘Going Live On Twitch Goodman Games Evolves In 2020’. In 2020, it all felt like a radical change, one brought on by necessity, but now it feels much more like a normal state of affairs and everyone is far more used to playing online. There are also tongue-in-cheek ‘GG Joe Profiles’ of everyone involved at Goodman Games and the ‘2020 T-Shirt Designs’.

Goodman Games’ stand at Gen Con receives some attention with the hand drawn signs the publisher’s ‘Gen Con Book Shelves’, whilst Chuck Whelon draws the ‘Luck Award Winners’ of various winners on the Luck Token Redemption Table found at the back of the Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston, not once, but twice! There is, however, a wistfulness to ‘The Ziggurat That Never Was’ by Wayne Snyder. Having previously built the Doom Gong and then the Obelisks of Doom for the stand, for 2020, he was set to build a skull encrusted ziggurat, part-book stand, part storage space. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 and the cancellation of Gen Con, the Ziggurat of Doom was not to be.

Lastly, Michael Curtis looks at the design of Original Adventures Reincarnated #3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and Chris Doyle looks at the design of looks at the design of Original Adventures Reincarnated #4: The Lost City in a trio of articles each. ‘Barrier Peaks Designer’s Notes, Entry 1: Of Sleek, Futuristic Design’ examines some of the issues in extracting the back story to the original module and developing that further, whilst ‘Barrier Peaks Designer’s Notes, Entry 1: The Future Was Then’ details how Curtis went about presenting the look of the original module, famous for its illustrations, in the new edition. Similarly, in ‘The Lost City Designer’s Diary, Entry 1: Converting A Classic Adventure’, Doyle explains about the process of adapting a forty-year-old thirty-two-page module into a homage written for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, hundreds of pages long, whilst ‘The Lost City Designer’s Diary, Entry 3: Hunting For Easter Eggs’ lists and explains some of ‘Easter Eggs’ he slips into the updated edition. All three articles for both modules—for a total of six—are short, but fascinating reads, more so if the reader has access to Original Adventures Reincarnated #3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and Original Adventures Reincarnated #4: The Lost City.

Physically, the Goodman Games Yearbook #8: The Year That Shall Not be Named returns to format of Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying, a book, rather than a collection of booklets. It is, as you would expect, well presented, easy to read, and a decent looking affair.

Ultimately, Goodman Games Yearbook #8: The Year That Shall Not be Named is almost, but not quite the ‘Goodman Games Year Book That should Be Forgot’, for as fun as some of the content is, it simply is not as good as in years past. That shows primarily in the lack of a scenario and then in the a medley of things and shorter articles that leave the reader with a feeling of brevity to the whole affair. Of course, the fault cannot be squarely laid at the feet of the Goodman Games, After all, circumstances dictated a very different book to the one that the publisher had likely intended.