Your Cypher Starter

The Cypher System was introduced in 2013 with Numenera, the Science Fantasy roleplaying game of exploration and adventure the very far future, published by Monte Cook Games. Numenera would go on to win the 2014 Origins Award for ‘Best New Roleplaying Game’, the 2014 Ennie Award for Best Writing, the 2014 Ennie Award for Best Setting, and 2014 Ennie Award for Product of the Year, be the basis of its own set of mechanics in the form of the Cypher System, and introduce new ideas in terms of roleplaying, such as player-facing mechanics and Game Master Intrusions, a new way of narratively increasing tension and awarding Experience Points. The Cypher System also offered numerous options in terms of Player Characters, expressed in a way that clearly described what each did and which was also exciting. Since the Cypher System first appeared, it has gone on to cover numerous different genres and even be used as the rules for roleplaying games based on a podcast or two. Whilst Numenera would receive its introduction to the game and setting in the form of the Numenera Starter Set in 2017, and even a starter campaign in 2024 with The Glimmering Valley, it is surprising to note that the Cypher System has not had its own starter set, its own introduction to the core game rules in all of that time. However, the Cypher System Starter Set, published in 2024, changes that.

The Cypher System Starter Set comes with two books, ten character sheets, a cheat sheet, a poster map, two mini-decks of cards, and two dice. The two books are the ‘Player’s Book’ and the ‘Game Master’s Book’, both thirty-two pages in length. The ten characters provide pre-generated Player Characters for the two scenarios included in the ‘Game Master’s Book’, one Science Fiction and one fantasy. The poster map provides maps of two locations, the cards—the XP cards and the GM Intrusion Cards—are for handling certain aspects of play, and the dice consist of one twenty-sided die and one six-sided die.

The ‘Player’s Book’ is marked ‘Read This First’. The starting point is an introduction to the Cypher System rather than roleplaying in general, but it provides an overview of what is in the box before leaping into an explanation of the rules. These begin with the eight basic rules, explaining in turn that there are four character types—Warrior, Adept, Explorer, and Speaker, there are three stats—Might, Speed, and Intellect that are pools of points which can be spend for various effects, that players make all the rolls, that the use of abilities can cost points, by spending points or ‘applying Effort’ an action can be made easier, damage suffered reduces the stat pools, but they can be recovered through rest, and any skill can be learned and both skills and assets can make actions easier. With this groundwork laid, the ‘Player’s Book’ expands on these so that in five pages, including how a GM Intrusion works on a roll of one, spending XP for rerolls, the benefits of high rolls, and the damage track, and the reader has a clear and simple explanation of how the rules work. This is followed by an example of play, which to be fair, is not a new example of play, but it works, illustrating how the game works for the reader after he has been told how it works. Having it this close to the rules is also more helpful than having it appear at the end of the book as in some rulebooks for the Cypher System.

This is followed by an explanation of the system’s namesake, the Cyphers, the one-use benefits or powers that can grant a Player Character in play, a list of arms, armour, and equipment for the fantasy and Science Fiction genres as well as the modern day.

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the Cypher System Starter Set is it includes rules for character generation. This is unheard of in any starter set which instead makes use of pre-generated Player Characters. It begins with explaining how the descriptive sentence at heart of every Player Character in the Cypher System works. This sentence has the structure of “I am a [adjective] [noun] who [verbs]”, where the noun is the character’s Type; the adjective a Descriptor, such as Clever or Swift, that defines the character and how he does things; and the verb is the Focus or what the character does that makes him unique. For example, “I am a Fast Warrior Who Needs No Weapons” or “I am a Clever Adept Who Command Mental Powers”. There is a guide for modifying characters, but the rules here, complete with explanations of what each character Type—Warrior, Adept, Explorer, and Speaker—can do along with options for both the Descriptor and Focus. This allows a player to create a wide range of characters, though they cannot advance beyond Tier 1 (the full rules take a Player Character up to Tier 6). Rounded out with a glossary, the ‘Player’s Book’ is a very good introduction to the Cypher System, which the players could refer to in play beyond the contents of the Cypher System Starter Set. It also provides a means of creating characters as well, one with limited options, but also one that does not threaten to overwhelm the prospective player like the Cypher System Rulebook might.

The longer ‘Game Master’s Book’ is marked ‘Read This Second’. It explains how to be a Game Master and handle the rules, including setting task difficulties, awarding XP, combat, and so on. There is an explanation of how Cyphers work in the game and a list of twenty or so Cyphers that can be used in either scenario contained in the ‘Game Master’s Book’. GM Instructions have been mentioned previously in both books, but here they are given a fuller explanation. They are designed to make a situation and the Player Character’s life more interesting or more complicated. For example, the Player Character might automatically set off a trap or an NPC important to the Player Character is imperilled. When this happens, the Game Master hands the character’s player two XP cards. He can keep one of these, but must give one to another player. The player can refuse the intrusion, but that means his character and someone else’s character do not earn any XP. Plus, it is not any fun. A GM Intrusion can also occur if a player rolls a one on any action. There is also a short bestiary in the ‘Game Master’s Book’, but the latter half of the book is taken up by two scenarios.

‘Creeping Ooze’ is the fantasy scenario. In it, the Player Characters are hunting for an Elf Necromancer when they are ambushed by a Necromantic Ooze (and the players’ first GM Intrusion) whose slime leads back to a vault known as the Shattered Seal. The scenario is short, but offers opportunities for combat, exploration, and interaction, including being able to deal with a threat without having to resort to combat. Notes and stats are given in the sidebars, including some inventive GM Intrusions. The Science Fiction scenario is ‘Xambit Station’. The Player Characters are accompanying their friend, Arbiter Jemsen, to Xambit Station where they are to act as his bodyguards and eyes and ears whilst he conducts some talks between the rival Crimson Conglomerate and Ranj Alliance factions. This adventure is more complex than ‘Creeping Ooze’, having a plot and requiring the players and their characters to be more proactive. Arbiter Jemsen directs the Player Characters to essentially snoop around and investigate the station and its personnel to determine if there is any plan or attempt to disrupt the talks. The relative complexity of the scenario means that the sidebars are much busier and there is much for the Player Characters to do, especially in technical and social terms. There is scope for combat in the scenario, but consists primarily of tavern brawls and fistfights in space. Overall, a decent little adventure. Of the two, the ‘Creeping Ooze’ will probably take a session to play through whilst ‘Xambit Station’ will probably take two.

Both scenarios are supported with a set of five pre-generated Player Characters each. The fantasy ones consist of a ‘Stealthy Explorer who Moves Like a Cat’, a ‘Learned Adept who Bears a Halo of Fire’, a ‘Clever Speaker who Works Miracles’, and an ‘Exiled Explorer who Masters Weaponry’, whilst the Science Fiction ones consist of a ‘Stealthy Explorer who Moves Like a Cat’, a ‘Sharp-Eyed Explorer who Pilots Starcraft’, a ‘Clever Adept who Talks to Machines’, an ‘Honourable Warrior who Fuses Flesh and Steel’. Effectively, there are only slight variations in terms of the Player Characters between the two scenarios and whilst that does showcase how very similar characters can work in different genres, it does mean that Player Characters do not make the fullest use of the options presented in the ‘Player’s Book’.

In addition, the poster map gives a map of the Sealed Vault in the ‘Creeping Ooze’ and a map for the scenario called ‘Entombed in Ice’. Which is odd, because that scenario does not appear in the Cypher System Starter Set. The cards in the Cypher System Starter Set consist of two types. The XP Deck is made up of just XP cards. These are nicely illustrated and come with tips for the players and Game Master. The Intrusion deck consists of ideas for GM Intrusions for combat, interaction, and miscellaneous situations that the Game Master can draw from for inspiration.

Physically, Cypher System Starter Set is very nicely produced. It is superbly illustrated and solidly written, so that anyone with some roleplaying experience can pick up the rules very easily.

However, the Cypher System Starter Set is far from perfect. The tuck-style box that it comes in is flimsy, more so given the current format for starter sets. There is probably too much similarity between the Player Characters for the different genres of the two scenarios and more than one Reference Card would have been useful. As would a map of the space station in ‘Xambit Station’, which is a major omission. And the players are definitely going to want more twenty-sided dice. One is not enough. Lastly, it would be nice to see further support for the content of Cypher System Starter Set, perhaps a book of scenarios that would allow the Player Characters in the two scenarios have further adventures.

Overall, the Cypher System Starter Set is a solid introduction to the Cypher System. It is well written and presented with character options aplenty to showcase some of the choices available, and if the scenarios are a little short, they do demonstrate some of the flexibility and possibilities of genre that the Cypher System is capable of supporting.

Orcs: A Warning From Fantasy

Your nation and your homeland is peaceful. You and your fellow citizens have known peace for a thousand years. You have prospered and gained great knowledge, but not in the arts of war. That lacking in the arts of war is both your undoing and that of your homeland. For it is under attack. The conquering armies of Styrovites have invaded Lannia and are now sweeping across its green and pleasant land, putting all to the sword and the flame. What hope have you, if not soldiers to field in battle and to protect the innocent, than to turn to that great knowledge—of science and of magic—and seek a remedy in that? As a member of the Council of Sages you have decided that if you cannot train and field an army in time to save Lannia, then you will create an army. Through ancient sorcery and desperate science, you will create soldiers that will serve Lannia and save Lannia, capable of standing up against the barbaric hordes of the Styrovites. In so doing, you have turned to ancient myths and legends for inspiration and named your creations after a spirit who killed the wicked. That spirit was called Orcus. Thus, your super soldiers will be called Orcs, and although you do not know it, they may well be your nation’s undoing and not the Styrovites!

This is the set-up for Dawn of the Orcs, a collective storytelling game played without a Game Master. Published by Lyme and Plasmophage, it can be played solo or it can be played by as many as eight players. It is designed to be played in about two hours or less and requires a six-sided and a ten-sided die to play. The rise of the orcs, the defeat of the Styrovites, and ultimately, the fall of Lannia is told over the course of eight chapters. In the first chapter, the players, as members of the Council of Sages create the Orcs, then in subsequent chapters, they send the Orcs to war and have a chance to modify the Orcs, either to improve their prowess or curb it if a trait is proving too difficult to handle. Whilst all of the members of the Council of Sages agree on the aims of creating the Orcs and using them to defend Lannia, there is scope for betrayal—at least in terms of what the Orcs are. Lastly, although the roleplaying game does not require a Game Master, the players do take it in turn to narrate the outcome of each chapter and break any ties if disagreements about what the council should do are deadlocked.

Each player in Dawn of the Orcs roleplays a member of the Council of Sages. He does not have any stats, but does have a descriptor, an area of expertise, and a title, as well as a motivation. These can be rolled for or created by the player and provide the basis for his roleplaying. The process is simple and fast.

Title: Assistant General of the West
Motivation: Wreak terrible vengeance for all that I have suffered

The Orcs are different. They have four stats—Numbers, Loyalty, Brute, and Clever. Their creation involves deciding how they are made and how they are bound in loyalty to the Lannia. So, if they are forged from sorcery and raw materials, they gain +1 Numbers, but +1 Loyalty if any Lannian can be turned into an Orc. Similarly, if they are bound in loyalty to one person, they gain +2 Loyalty, or bound in loyalty to nothing, they gain +1 to any other stat. In each, the players decide on the answer to a prompt, such as in the case of the being forged from sorcery and raw materials, what they are made from, and if they are bound in loyalty to one person, who that is.

Orcs
Numbers -1 Loyalty 2 Brute 1 Clever 0
Only children under five can be turned into Orcs
They are loyal to the Holy Mother

In subsequent chapters, the Orcs are sent into battle. For example, the first is ‘The Slaughter of Shrike Forest’ when the Orcs strike at an encampment of Styrovites in the middle of the night. To determine if the Orcs win, the Council of Sages decides on a stratagem. This is a value equal to the combination of any two of the Orcs’ stats, to which the roll of a six-sided die is added. If it beats the target set for the battle, the Orcs are victorious. At the end of the battle, the Orcs Warp and almost bodily learn from the conflict, as if in constant flux through the stress of combat. For example, the Orcs might learn to fly into a battle rage and gain +1 Brute or gain the ability to see at night and +1 Clever. The Orcs gain more of these Warps from victory than from defeat. In the aftermath of the battle, the Council of Sages can Shift the Orcs, each Shift granting a benefit as well as a penalty. For example, the Council of Sages could decide to educate the Orcs which means that they gain +1 Clever and suffer -1 Loyalty. The Council of Sages can choose as many or as few Shifts as it once, but they do balance each other out and they may also be cancelled if a Sage decides to betray the council to change a decision. Each Sage only gets to betray the council once.

The play of the game revolves around selecting the right stratagem—the combination of two stats—to add to the roll to defeat the enemy and win or lose each battle, and decide on what stats to improve afterwards. The catch is that once a combination has been used, whether that is Clever plus Numbers or Loyalty plus Brute, it cannot be used again. So, the players also need to improve as many stats as they can to defeat the invaders rather than focus on the one stat, since it can only be used a limited number of times. At the end of each chapter, the narrator will tell the story of what happened, whether the Orcs were defeated or triumphed.

After five chapters, which will see the Orcs fight the Styrovites again and again, eventually invading the Styrovite heartlands, the Orcs are no longer wanted in Lannia and no longer want to serve Lannia. They mutiny. The members of the Council of Sages can side with Lannia or with the Orcs and the outcome of the mutiny decided on the highest roll of the two factions. There are multiple outcomes for the result, depending upon whether the mutiny was successful and what the highest Orc stat is. For example, if the Orc mutiny is a success and Clever is their highest stat, they overthrow the government of Lannia, but if a failure and their highest stat is Clever, they form nomadic bands which serve as mercenaries. Each of the possible outcomes is accompanied by a narrative prompt.

Although there are eight different outcomes at the end of Dawn of the Orcs, there is limited variation in terms of the battles fought. To that end, Dawn of the Orcs includes four bonus chapters that can randomly replace the middle chapters of the campaign against the Styrovites. This adds further variety and replayability beyond the first few playthroughs of Dawn of the Orcs. The roleplaying game does include forms that the players can use in chapter, but they are not absolutely required to play.

Physically, Dawn of the Orcs is a short, clean and tidy book. It is easy to read and the artwork is decent. The forms for the game are slightly tight in their layout.

Dawn of the Orcs is a dark fantasy roleplaying game that tells the story of the desperate defence of a country and its possible victory and potential fall. The clarity of writing means that it is easy to pick up and play, and in fact, anyone with roleplaying experience will be able to play this from the page. The familiarity of the theme—a country in peril turning to desperate measures and the creation of Orcs as effectively, super soldiers—contributes to that ease of play, that theme almost being a twisted version of Saruman creating his army of Uruk-hai in The Lord of the Rings. To the point that the non-gamers will find it as easy to play as veteran gamers. Lastly, its size and brevity means that Dawn of the Orcs is easy to carry and play almost anywhere. Dawn of the Orcs is a very accessible and very easy to play storytelling game that needs no preparation and has a story that everyone can grasp.

Friday Fantasy: Blades Against Death

In the weird and otherworldly Bazaar of the Gods in Punjar, the City of a Thousand Gates, stand temples, chapels, and churches to gods, goddesses, and demi-gods of almost an unknown number. Cults and faiths have risen and fallen, been promoted and persecuted, banished and proselytised, yet still wide-eyed madmen stalk the streets pronouncing the end of days, heathens fall under mail-clad priests their skulls crushed underfoot, and pale, trembling virgins are offered up in sacrifice within soot-stained temples. Yet none of these cults and faiths have the power and will to challenge the greatest of mysteries and the last great step that every man will take—the terrifying finality of death! Death, though, has come to the company of Player Characters and perhaps they have the audacity to challenge that mystery and not only take that last great step, but come back to the land of the living. For this, they will need to approach the Witch of Saulim, for it is widely believed that this wretched crone, whose strange prophecies are often bewildering, but always unerringly true, holds the secret to stealing souls from death.

This is the set-up for Dungeon Crawl Classics #74: Blades Against Death, the seventh scenario to be published by Goodman Games for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Designed by Harley Stroh for a group of six to ten Fourth Level Player Characters, this is a swords & sorcery-style city-based adventure that takes place in Punjar, a city in the land of Aéreth, which previously appeared in earlier iterations of Dungeon Crawl Classics scenarios, mostly recently, Dungeon Crawl Classics #70: Jewels of the Carnifex. Where that scenario dealt with one aspect death in the world of Aéreth, Dungeon Crawl Classics #74: Blades Against Death deals with the other, so in some ways, it might be seen as a companion piece to Dungeon Crawl Classics #70: Jewels of the Carnifex. Consequently, it does suffer from the same issue as Dungeon Crawl Classics #70: Jewels of the Carnifex, and that is that the lack of information about Punjar readily available. Fortunately, the scenario does include some knowledge—common and uncommon—that the Player Characters might know, ranging from what serfs, peasants, and common freemen know to what priests, the nobility, and sages know. This at least, should provide the players and their characters with the basics. Also provided is another hook to get the Player Characters if they have not lost a companion to death and want to see him returned to the land of the living. This is a job offer by a pampered son of a merchant lord for the Player Characters to steal back his lover. Now, of course, as the scenario makes clear, Dungeon Crawl Classics is not a roleplaying game that has much truck with the dead coming back to life and even lacks the equivalent of a Raise Dead spell. So, a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game which does deal with the Player Characters bringing someone back from the dead has at least to be some different, if not something special, and definitely not to be taken lightly.

The quest consists of three acts. In the first, the Player Characters pay a visit to the Witch of Saulim, a seemingly mad old crone who will perform a reading for them using her tarot-like deck of cards, plaques of Thoth-Ruin. These predications both provide a course of action for the Player Characters and the direction of the scenario’s plot. The reading boils down to four cards—all nicely done as full-colour handouts that the Judge can lay out before her players—of which the Witch of Saulim informs them they must choose one. For the players there is no wrong choice. Whichever card they decide on, their characters gain an immediate blessing that lasts the whole of the adventure and also grants a permanent bonus if they survive. In the second act, the Player Characters undertakes the quest’s first task proper. This is to break or sneak into the Temple of the Moon and from there steal the cult’s most sacred relic, the Argent Falx. This is a legendary weapon said to be capable of cutting the chains of death. Stealing this is no easy task as the sword only manifests at the culmination of a ceremony held on the night of the full moon and so the players and their characters have to be both timely and clever if they are to carry of the heist. Staged in the great pyramid Temple of the Moon, this has an epic if sinister feel and once the Player Characters pull the heist off, they will have greatly enhanced their reputations in some quarters. If, however, the Player Characters are careless and leave clues behind as to their identities, the Temple of the Moon will send thief takers after them to capture them and bring them back to the temple for retribution!

The third is where the scenario crosses over with Dungeon Crawl Classics #70: Jewels of the Carnifex as the Player Characters descend into the Charnel Pits below Punjar’s streets. This is a place of foul unreality in which a combination of desire, madness, and revenge have gummed up the works, preventing hundreds of souls from crossing over into the lands of the dead, suffusing the house with ghosts and other undead. There is a tragedy at the heart of this act, one whose groundwork is laid at its start, that perceptive players and their characters can use to their advantage, but to do so, they must pick their way past a perverse bureaucracy and a Masque of the Red-like banquet for the undead. If the Temple of the Moon is ancient in its feel, then the Charnel Pits have a gothic tone of death and decay. Lastly, once the Player Characters have overcome the impasse prevents the dead from passing on, they can following in their footsteps and enter the Realms of the Dead. In gloriously classic fashion, here the Player Characters have to play a game of cards with Death’s concubine and vicereine (and if they dare it, even with Death himself), gambling with their souls for the return of their friend (or the mistress of the merchant lord’s son). The game makes use of the cards used earlier in the scenario in the Witch of Saulim’s reading. It is a great ending to the scenario.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #74: Blades Against Death is a tough adventure—well, the Player Characters are going up against Death—and it may be too tough for Third Level Player Characters. Like the earlier Dungeon Crawl Classics #70: Jewels of the Carnifex, it does feel as if it would be suitable addition to a campaign set in the city of Lankhmar as detailed in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set, though unlike Dungeon Crawl Classics #70: Jewels of the Carnifex, it is not directly inspired by the tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Again though, being designed for Third Level Player Characters for standard Dungeon Crawl Classics play, it is probably too tough an adventure, given the comparitive lack of healing and magic in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar, for similar Level Player Characters, but adjust that and the Judge will have a fine addition to her campaign. That aside, whether the Judge decides to set it in the city of Lankhmar or not, it is still a great Swords & Sorcery-style scenario.

In addition to the main adventure, Dungeon Crawl Classics #74: Blades Against Death also includes a second adventure, ‘The Abbot of the Woods’, also by Harley Stroh. This is a mini-adventure for a party of five to eight Player Characters of First to Third Level in which they follow the legend of the Abbott’s Hoard, which tells of a high priest who led his congregation into the wilderness in search of a life free of vice and sin and who took with him much in way of treasure and relics. There are also whispers of heresy and rumours of the priest’s true aims, so more than enough to attract the Player Characters. In fact, it turns out that both whispers and rumours are true, for like many a villain in fantasy roleplaying playing, he sought out a way to live beyond his years and stave off death. What the Player Characters discover is a giant reliquary which contains both the treasures that the priest brought with him and the various parts of the priest that live on immortal. As the Player Characters investigate and loot, they quickly unleash him enabling him to take control of the dungeon and turn it against them. It is a really entertaining twist on immortal evil and mad NPCs and dungeons as the enemy, though slightly too tough an adventure, especially for Player Characters of First Level. They are recommended as being accompanied by a ready supply of Zero Level NPCs ready to step in case of Player Characters death, which suggests that the scenario is not quite suitable for player Characters of First Level. Nevertheless, ‘The Abbot of the Woods’ is an entertaining dungeon, which with its theme of immortality could carry on the theme of death from the main scenario in the book.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #74: Blades Against Death is well done. The scenario is decently written and the artwork is overall good as is the cartography.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #74: Blades Against Death takes what is almost a formality in some Dungeons & Dragons-style games and turns it into an adventure. In other words, instead of simply casting Resurrection to restore a Player Character to life, the other Player Characters have to go and rescue him from Death! And if they manage to do so, not only will they have had a memorable adventure, then they will also have cemented party comradeship. This is definitely a scenario that works better if the Player Characters have to rescue one of their own number, rather than doing it for an NPC because in the case the latter, the stakes are simply not as high. That said, what the player of the dead character who is being rescued is doing in the meantime is left for the Judge to address. In whatever way the scenario is run, it provides a great mix of combat, stealth, and roleplaying encounters.

Magazine Madness 34: Wyrd Science Issue 4

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.

—oOo—

Most magazines for the roleplaying hobby give the gamer support for the game of his choice, or at the very least, support for the hobby’s more popular roleplaying games. Whether that is new monsters, spells, treasures, reviews of newly released titles, scenarios, discussions of how to play, painting guides, and the like… That is how it has been all the way back to the earliest days of The Dragon and White Dwarf magazines. Wyrd Science is different in that it is about gaming and the culture of gaming as well as the games themselves rather providing support for specific titles—and Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 4 is different to the previous issues. Where both Wyrd Science Session Zero and Wyrd Science – Expert Rules adopted the ‘BECMI’ colour coding of the colours and the focus upon fantasy and the Old School Renaissance, and Wyrd Science – The Horror Issue (Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 3) focused on the horror genre, Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 4 comes with no announced theme. This does not mean that there are no themes with the issue, but rather that they are simply part of the issue rather than a feature. Thus, Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 4 is very much more of an ordinary issue, setting the standard for future non-special issues to come.

Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 4 was published in April, 2023 by Best in Show. It opens with a quartet of interviews. ‘PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED: SoulMuppet Publishing’ is with Zach Cox and explores how he co-founded the company and has developed it to the point where he began to experiment and begin to support authors from outside of the English-speaking hobby, such as with the ‘LATAM Breakout series’ for South American creators. Cox gives his views on the then changing nature of the hobby, how Kickstarter is being used by fewer and fewer would be publishers, who are then looking for other options. Nevertheless, he offers advice on how to run a successful Kickstarter project, but also highlights the difficulties in distribution that affect retail in particular. Although two years old, there is much within the interview that are still pertinent now. ‘CAST POD: What Am I Rolling?’ is part of the magazine’s regular series with podcasters, this time with Fiona Howat of the What I am Rolling? podcast, which hosts and runs one-shot games and in the process, showcases a wide variety of games. It is a nice introduction to the podcast and includes advice on trying new games and introducing new games to other players. ‘MAGIC GATHERINGS: Big Bad Con’ interviews the organisers of the California gaming convention which in recent years has shifted to offering a safer, more diverse, and inclusive space and encouraging the participation of persons from minority and LGBTQI+ groups. This showcases a fantastic effort to make the hobby a more welcoming place, one that should perhaps be looked to by other conventions.

Where the interviews are conducted by John Power Jr., Stuart Martyn kicks off the first of the issue’s themes with ‘The Game is Afoot’. As the title of the article suggests, that theme is investigative games, Martyn highlights roleplaying hobby’s fascination with mysteries and investigations. It pinpoints the issues with this type of scenario—their inherent logic puzzle nature which can frustrate some players and the capacity to miss clues. The primary solutions are twofold. First is to make the clues easy to find or automatically found, as in the GUMSHOE System, or have the solution to the mystery determined through play, as in Brindlewood Bay. Both feature heavily in the article and show how to date, the hobby has yet to come up with any better for the investigative style of scenario. ‘Scry Me a River’ by John Power Jr. neatly complements ‘The Game is Afoot’ and continues the investigative theme. This is a look at Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game, which is based on the series of Urban Fantasy procedurals by Ben Aaronovitch and includes an interview with its creator, Lynn Hardy, exploring its genesis and development, made all the more interesting because the author has experience of gaming. There is even a list of tips from Hardy about running investigative games to go alongside it.

‘Bandes On The Run’ by Luke Frostick brings the investigative theme to a close with a look at and interview with Krister Sundelin, the creator of The Troubleshooters: An Action-Adventure Roleplaying Game, Swedish publisher Helmgast’s roleplaying game based on French and Belgian bande dessinée comics. This covers a wide range of inspirations from James Bond to the action-adventure television of the nineteen sixties and explores the heavier feeling mechanics. The Troubleshooters is a great little game that has not made the impact it deserved and it is nice to see it covered here. ‘Bad Moon Rising’, Mira Manga’s interview with Becky Annison, author of Werewolves of Britain for Liminal, continues the Urban Fantasy theme of Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game, in exploring her inspirations for the supplement, some of it quite personal, in creating a very good expansion for the game and its setting.

‘Now is The Time of Monsters’ takes interviewer John Power Jr and Dave Allen, producer for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition in a then totally different direction, something that the roleplaying game had been waiting decades for, despite the wargame it is based upon, visiting it more than once across its numerous editions. This is the supplement, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Lustria, which details the mysterious continent far away from the Old World. It quickly catches up with the history of the current edition in publishing what is a director’s cut of the classic campaign, The Enemy Within, and then moves beyond that. It explores what an updated version of the Lustria looks like for the twenty-first century hobby and how it presents the players and their characters to engage in different, but no less deadly environment.

Walton Wood’s examination of the retroclone, Errant, and interview with its creator, Ava Islam, ‘Dragons Are Fucking Cool, Man’ starts off in slightly abstract fashion, explaining it pushes away from the classic design of Dungeons & Dragons-style play, attempting to be rules light, but ‘procedure heavy’ in terms of scope. The explanation is not really clear enough, but once the article begins telling you what you play—downtrodden outcasts ever wanting to improve their lifestyles and fund the lifestyles they have combined with Levelling requiring high expenditure of gold pieces in acts of ‘Conspicuous Consumption’—it does impart a sense of what the is about at the least. Ultimately, what is clear is that Errant is the designer’s commentary on the Old School Renaissance movement and it is far from a positive one. This combined with often obtuse explanations upon the part of the designer and the reader is left feeling dissatisfied.

‘Veni, Vidi, Ludo’ by Ciro Alessandro Sacco presents a fascinating history of the Italian gaming and roleplaying hobby, beginning with the importation of Avalon Hill and SPI wargames in the nineteen sixties and seventies and moving through bootleg versions of Dungeons & Dragons to early roleplaying games such as Signori del Caos—or The Lords of Chaos—published by Black Out Editrice in 1983 and then most spectacularly, the Mentzer version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons by Editrice Giochi in 1985. It is a great introduction and it is a pity that there is not scope for further examination of these early Italian roleplaying games. The breezy article comes to a close all too soon, leaving the reader with any interest in the history of roleplaying games wanting more. It is followed by a short overview of some of the Italian roleplaying games and settings then available in English, including Lex Arcana, Fabula Ultima, and Brancalonia.

The last few articles in the issue explore a handful of boardgames that are very close to the roleplaying hobby, whether that is because of their subject matter or because their publisher also publishes roleplaying games. Three of them combine to give the magazine its second theme—dungeon crawling and board games. The first, ‘Dungeon Crawling Classics’ by Matt Thrower is not, as the title might suggest about the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game from Goodman Games, but a history of the dungeon crawler board game, from Dungeon!, published by TSR, Inc. in 1975 to Descent: Journeys in the Dark published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2005 and its more recent 2021 update, Descent: Legends of the Dark. Also discussed here is HeroQuest, the boardgame from Milton Bradley and Games Workshop that introduced dungeon exploration-style play to a wider audience in the early nineteen nineties. It explores the enduring appeal of the format—its familiarity, excitement, and camaraderie—combined with a physical format that leans into the roleplaying style of Dungeons & Dragons, whilst providing a ready realisation of the action that Dungeons & Dragons does not (at least not without a lot of extra accessories). There are a lot of dungeon crawler board games that the article could have covered and it would have been interesting to look at those options, but overall, this is good introduction to the genre.

Matt Thrower follows this up with ‘The Big Chill’ in which he interviews Isaac Childres, the designer of the mammoth dungeon crawler and adventure game, Gloomhaven, discussing its development and that of its follow up, Frosthaven. There is some similarity between this and other interviews with the designer, such as that which has appeared in the pages of Senet magazine. What this means is that there is not much being said here that is new, but for anyone unaware of Gloomhaven and its heft and effect upon the hobby, this is worth reading. Andi Ewington returns to the classic HeroQuest with ‘Quest Drive’ and how he brought the new version of the board game from Avalon Hill into his home and got his family, some of them slightly reluctantly. It is a fun piece that brings the theme to a close with large dollop of nostalgia.

Finally, the issue comes to close with ‘Trading Places’. Here Emma Partlow talks to Max McCall from Wizards of the Coast to explore how Magic: the Gathering has with its ‘Universes Beyond’ line, produced expansions that draw on the intellectual properties of other publishers. For example, the television series, Stranger Things, and the miniatures wargame, Warhammer 40,000. It does point out that the response to these expansions have been mixed, some embracing them, others seeing them as a distraction from the more traditional fantasy releases for the collectible trading card game, but the point is made that the ‘Universes Beyond’ sets are attracting the interest of fans of the universes they are based on and thus attracting new players. The article is illustrated with some great artwork drawn from the series, but does not show how that artwork will be displayed on the cards, which would perhaps have sold the idea better.

‘LOOT DROP: Automatic Dice Roller’ and ‘LOOT DROP: More Random Treasure’ highlights some gaming knickknacks that might appeal to some gamers, the former also including an interview with the creator of the electronic dice roller from Critical Machine for those who want another means apart from rolling dice, whilst the latter includes a The Wicker Man-style effigy wax candle, complete with wax Sergeant Howe and the Win or Booze beer from brewery

Deviant + Dandy which has a game on the back of the label. The best though is the Githyanki action figure from Super7 based on the Erol Otus’s classic cover image for the Fiend Folio. More interesting though, is ‘Hit Points’, the reviews section which takes in a good mix of board games, roleplaying games, and books. The board games include Undaunted Stalingrad from Osprey Games and the magazine’s ‘Game of the Month’ and Rebellion Games’ redone Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One, whilst the roleplaying games reviewed range from Cy_Borg and The Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set to Out of the Ashes and A Folklore Bestiary. Of course, reviewing reviews is something of a busman’s holiday, so ultimately, although the reviews all both interesting and informative, the most interesting are those of the books, Alan Moore and Ian Gibson’s The Ballard of Halo Jones, and Michael Molcher’s I Am The Law about 2000 AD’s Judge Dredd and how it influenced modern policing, both from Rebellion, are the more intriguing.

Physically, Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 4 is clean and tidy, neatly laid out and well written. The artwork is well judged too and overall, the magazine looks great.

Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 4 is a good rather than great issue. It is at its best when exploring something lesser known like Big Bad Con in ‘MAGIC GATHERINGS: Big Bad Con’ and its diversity programme or the look at Italian roleplaying games in ‘Veni, Vidi, Ludo’, but also taking a sidestep to look at something familiar, the dungeon crawl style game, in a different format, the board game with ‘Dungeon Crawling Classics’ and ‘Quest Drive’.

Miskatonic Monday #344: Blackthorne Bridge Club: New Tricks

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. 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: Blackthorne Bridge Club: New Tricks

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Gavin Bastiensz

Setting: New York, 1924

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fifty-five page, 4.39 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Madness in an asylum, who would have thought it?
Plot Hook: Will it take half the corpse to put the plot together, or the whole body?

Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, thirteen NPCs, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# A sequel to Blackthorne Bridge Club

# More of a standard investigation than its predecessor

# Nicely detailed pre-generated Investigators, complete with secrets

# Intriguing showdown

# Pleasing sense of closure to one personal plot strand

# Chronomentrophobia

# Apotemnohobia

# Chronophobia

Cons

# Needs a slight edit

# A timeline would have helped with the structure

# What are the Investigators supposed to do with Theodore Roosevelt in 1923?

Conclusion

# Disappointing sequel that just feels a bit woolly

# Showdown has mammoth ramifications barely touched upon

Miskatonic Monday #343: Hope’s End

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. 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: Hope’s End

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Steen Stahlhut

Setting: New England, 1914

Product: One-shot
What You Get: Forty-six page, 4.74 MB PDF

Elevator Pitch: Can a zombie be guilty of making a false instrument?

Plot Hook: New England in a time of cholera.
Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, nine handouts, three NPCs, three maps, one Mythos tome, one Mythos spell, and two monsters.

Production Values: Underwhelming.

Pros

# Scenario near Lovecraft Country

# Easy to adjust to other locations

# Historically inspired scenario

# Mythos elements pleasingly hidden under another investigation

# Nosophobia

# Necrophobia

# Kinemortophobia

Cons

# Why are grave diggers in Call of Cthulhu always drunk?

# Needs a good edit

Conclusion

# Medical turned Mythos investigation undermined by poor presentation

# Potentially a very serviceable investigation

Your Imperium Maledictum Starter

The light of the Emperor’s divine might reaches everywhere—but not always. Only in recent years has the Great Rift begun to unseal and the mysterious Noctis Aeterna begun to recede, the Days of Blinding ended, and links reforged with worlds in the Marcharius Sector lost under its pall and beyond the sector itself. As communication, trade, and psychic links have been reestablished with Terra, the Imperium has worked hard to restore its rightful authority and ensure that no deviancy from creed has taken place in the Days of Blinding. Despite this still, heretics turn to the Dark Gods with their promises and falsehoods and corruption is rife, wasting the Emperor’s resources and wealth, and from without, there is always the danger of raids by Orks or worse, Tyranoids. Yet routing out such heresies and corruption is no matter, but an issue of politics and influence as well as loyalty and devotion. The Emperor’s great servants search out those they deem worthy to serve them and the Imperium, directing them to investigate mysteries and murders, experience horror and heresies, expose corruption and callousness, whether in in pursuit of their patron’s agenda, his faction’s agenda, the Emperor’s will, or all three. In return they will gain privileges far beyond that imagined by their fellows—the chance to travel and see worlds far beyond their own, enjoy wealth and comfort that though modest is more than they could have dreamed of, and witness great events that they might have heard of years later by rumour or newscast. This though, is not without its costs, for they will face the worst that the forces of Chaos has to fling at them, the possibility of death, and if they fail, exile and loss of all that they have gained. In the Forty-First Millennium, everyone is an asset and everyone is expendable, but some can survive long enough to make a difference in the face of an uncaring universe and the machinery of the Imperium of Mankind grinding its way forward into a glorious future.

This is the set-up in Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum, the spiritual successor to Dark Heresy, the very first fully realised roleplaying game to be set within the Warhammer 40,000 milieu and published in 2008, the very first roleplaying game that Games Workshop had published in two decades. Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum is published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment and now it has its own introduction to the setting in the form of the Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum Starter Set. Given that this is from Cubicle 7 Entertainment, there is the likelihood that this is going to be a good product. After all, since the publication of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set, the publisher has been releasing one good starter set after another. Which begs the question, what is a good starter set? Essentially, it has to provide everything that the Game Master and her players need to play a good scenario that showcases the nature of the setting and what the players and their characters do in the game, explains the rules, and provide content that can be played beyond the confines of the box.

Open the Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum Starter Set and the first thing that the reader sees is a set of nice percentile dice and a gatefold pamphlet that screams, “READ THIS FIRST!”. This starts with a broad overview of the setting, shows you what is in the box, what Imperium Maledictum and a roleplaying game are, how you get started and what you need to play, and where to go next once the contents of the box have been played through. In four pages, it provides the reader—both player and Game Master with a solid introduction to the setting. As an introduction to roleplaying games, it is more basic, so the reader might want to look elsewhere. Nevertheless, this does not mean that it does not do a good job. Below this are six Player Character sheets, again done as gatefold pamphlets. On the front they explain who the character is and why a player might choose to roleplay that character, gives the character some quotes that player could use in play, whilst inside the actual character sheet for the character is presented, along with a breakdown of the sheet alongside it and a list of the character’s goals, connections to the other characters, and secrets. Lastly on the back of the character sheet is a full-page illustration of the character. These pack a lot of information into their three pages—four including the illustration—but the layout never threatens to overwhelm the reader, keeping everything to hand whilst the focus remains on the character sheet at the centre. The six include a Zealot, a Penumbra (a stealthy assassin and infiltrator), an Interlocutor, a Psyker, a surgeon of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and a warrior.

In addition, the box also contains a set of tokens that include the Inquisitorial Seal, a prop that is used to indicate who has possession of it in the game, Character Portrait and Environmental Trait tokens for use on a map (there are no maps provided Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum Starter Set), Superiority Tokens to track the party’s Superiority, and Fate Tokens. There is a set of reference sheets that in turn explain the basic rules, combat, criticals and wounds, conditions and environmental hazards, factions and influence, Warp and Psykers, and trading and gear. These are done on sturdy cards and contain rules and background needed for each aspect of the game, and all together serving as the rules booklet in the set.

The meat of the Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum Starter Set consists of two books, ‘Adventure Book: The Blazing Seraph’ and ‘Rokarth: A Guide to the Hive’. The ‘Adventure Book: The Blazing Seraph’ provides a full investigation in the depths of Hive Rokarth where the Player Characters’ patron, Inquisitor Halikarn, assigns them to investigate the site of a purported miracle, Acid Refinery Delta-64, which has exploded, leaving behind a possible survivor. The Adeptus Ministorum is investigating to determine if this survivor is a saint. The Player Characters have three days to investigate, locate the survivor, and confirm whether or not he is actually a saint, or merely very lucky. Inquisitor Halikarn also provides them with the details of a contact who can help, but before he does that, the Player Characters will need to find and rescue him. This is an opportunity for the Game Master to show how the game system works and how combat works in it, and thus for the players to get used to both it and their characters. The investigation takes the Player Characters from the dank industrial confines of the hive deep into its bureaucracy and out again to the governor’s table and further into the foul, fetid bowels of the hive to confront heresy and corruption.

The adventure is designed to provide a learn as you play experience and it certainly does that in its opening steps. It is a relatively straightforward investigation, though with marked changes of pace as the Player Characters navigate the labyrinthine bureaucracies of the Hive Rokarth and particularly in the council with the governor they have to attend. This is probably the most difficult scene to run. In the later scenes the Player Characters descend into the depths of the Hive are quite detailed and require careful preparation that perhaps might have been easier with the inclusion of a map. One element that the Player Characters do need to take into account of, is the fact that their patron does not want to reveal his involvement in the investigation. He does give them an inquisitorial seal as a sign of his authority, but he is never happy with its use. Further, its use will attract the attention of those who are likely to take exception to Player Characters’ presence.

The second book, ‘Rokarth: A Guide to the Hive’, describes the setting for the adventure given in ‘Adventure Book: The Blazing Seraph’, the hive of Rokarth on the world of Voll. Surprisingly, it is only six centuries old, home to thirty billion souls who dedicate themselves through the Cult Imperialis to work that sees hive manufacture material and materiel for the Imperium of Man’s continuing war efforts. However, the facilities are being constantly corroded from without from Voll’s caustic environment and from within by the caustic waste product, as well as the corruption and criminal activity. The supplement provides details of the factions within the Hive Rokarth from House Castyx, the governing family on down. This includes the other noble Houses, the Adeptus Terra, which constitutes the vast bureaucracies and organisations that actually run the Imperium and to which every Player Character and their Patron is associated with, the guilds that hold monopolies on certain goods, and all the way down to the Infractionists, the gangs that control parts of the lower depths of the Hive, some of which have ties to the noble Houses. There are notes too on how commerce, the manufactorums, and how both the open and black markets work, noting that there is a silent trade in xeno artefacts smuggled into the Hive. There is a complete description of the hive from top to bottom, breaking it down from the Spire at the top down through the Upper Hive, Lower Hive, and into the Bowels & Beyond. All of these sections include a lengthy encounter table and descriptions of places and locations found there. Each of these locations is accompanied by a plot hook, and there are almost fifty of them! For example, the Player Characters might be asked by Sister Celestia of the Orders Hospitaller in the Upper Hive to move the last victim of the plague known as the Shivers so she can conduct further research; to find out for Lawrenca Parnam why her family secretly donates to the Cathedral of Obligatory Modesty—out of loyalty to the God Emperor or a shameful history; or either put down a gang war or broker a truce between in the wake of the events of the scenario in ‘Adventure Book: The Blazing Seraph’. Lastly, ‘Rokarth: A Guide to the Hive’ describes the presence and activities of the four Ruinous Powers and their cultists in the Hive. Of course, the plot hooks need development, but for the Game Master willing to make the effort, there is a lot to work with here.

Physically, Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum Starter Set is very well presented. The artwork is good and the books are well written. The inside of the box is illustrated with a map of the Marcharius Sector, whilst the inside of the box cover shows an image of Hive Rokarth, though it is not very clear.

There is a lot to like about the Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum Starter Set—the production values, a meaty scenario, and the combination of setting and extra plot hooks, but it is not quite as good as the earlier Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set. This is because it does not have the extended content, the mini campaign that is further supported with content in Ubersreik Adventures: Six Grim and Perilous Scenarios in the Duchy of Ubersreik and its sequels, instead giving the Game Master numerous plot hooks that do require development. What Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum Starter Set very obviously does provide is something that the Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum rulebook does not and that is a ready-to-play scenario. Hopefully, Cubicle 7 Entertainment will develop scenarios for the Marcharius Sector from this starter set in the same fashion as the Ubersreik Adventures.

Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum Starter Set is another good starter set from Cubicle 7 Entertainment, providing the Game Master and her players with everything necessary to start playing and learning the rules, along with a dark investigation into heresy and corruption.

Street Stories

Twilight 2000: Roleplaying in the World War III That Never Was opens with the Player Characters on the run, attempting to escape the last hurrah of the US 5th Mechanized Infantry Division near the city of Kalisz in central Poland or the 2nd Marine Division near the central city of Örebro in Sweden. Where do they go? Where do they find shelter? Where do they find food and water? Spare parts for their vehicles? Extra ammunition for their weapons? Published by Free League Publishing, Twilight 2000 presents an expansive sandbox setting that the Player Characters can explore, forage, loot, protect, and even settle. A sandbox setting consisting of a broken world, torn apart and poisoned by war and weapons of mass destruction, followed by disease and starvation. In the immediacy of the aftermath of the war, it is a grim setting where every day is a struggle to survive at best, a fight at worst. Urban Operations is the first supplement for Twilight 2000: Roleplaying in the World War III That Never Was, examining the status of cities and other settlements in the broken world of 2000, presents new rules and expanded details for playing within their confines, and provides encounters, plots, factions, and scenario sites that the Game Master can add to her campaign. Lastly, Urban Operations presents two ready to play urban centres that can form the basis of urban-centred campaigns and potential destinations for the Player Characters. As with the first edition of Twilight 2000 from 1984 and the supplement, The Free City of Krakow, one of these is the city of Kraków in southern Poland, whilst the other is the town of Karlsborg, to go with the new alternative setting of Sweden as presented in Twilight 2000: Roleplaying in the World War III That Never Was.

Urban Operations comes as a boxed set that contains a ninety-six page book, sixteen Encounter Cards, fourteen modular battle maps—ten for urban environments and four for close quarters combat, four scenario site battle maps with two being for close combat quarters, fifty-four battle map tokens, and two double-sided maps. One of the double-sided maps is a city travel map for example city of Kraków in Poland and the example town of Karlsborg in Sweden, whilst the other is a battle map for Wawel castle in Kraków and a battle map for Karlsborg Fortress in Karlsborg. Everything is done in full colour and most of the maps are marked in hexes, whilst the close quarters combat maps are marked sectors. In turn they depict a large housing complex, a church, a nuclear power plant, a bunker, an industrial site, a housing estate, a hospital, a park, even a housing complex where a passenger airliner has crashed, and more. These are ready to be used in the game, the Game Master needing only to add the details of what might be found at each location. The maps also work well with those found in the box for the core rules.

The ‘Urban Operations’ book opens with a discussion of what the Player Characters might find in a town or city. What it emphasises, of course, is the differences between the now of after the war and what it was like before. So, law and order varying from town to city—even devolving on anarchy, but now always at the point of a gun; bartering has replaced currency, whilst in organised towns and cities, citizens sometimes have ration cards and may have to give up their labour in return for this, sometimes willingly, sometimes not; transportation options are extremely limited; politics continues, but is more individualistic, often feudal in nature, the consensus of party politics having been destroyed in the war; and the infrastructure has been broken, so no power, no running water, and so on. Lastly, the survivors are traumatised, damaged by the loss of friends and family and the society that they once knew. Some cities remain uninhabited, too damaged by the weapons of mass destruction deployed in the war. This presents a good overview and introduction to the situations that might be found in the major settlements in post-war Europe, suggesting a variety of different circumstances that the Game Master can use to make places different in her campaign.

New archetypes in Urban Operations include the Cop and the Criminal. Both are roles that can be created using the rules in Twilight 2000, but the archetypes enable the Game Master to create an NPC or the player a character quickly and easily without going through the full character creation process. The other new rules cover fog of war, city movement such as hugging walls, spotting shooters, breaching buildings and blocked hexes, and close quarters combat. These build on the wargaming aspect of Twilight 2000 and play out as a hex (or sector) and counter game. The rules are nicely supported by a decent set of examples. Similarly, the rules for city travel, which is harder than rural travel, are supported by decent examples. As well as the sixteen new encounters, Urban Operations adds Areas of Controls to indicate if a city hex is under the control of a specific faction, primarily replacing the military or marauder encounters with the local faction, whilst the actual encounters burning buildings, robberies, finding a spy dying in an ally, encountering the ‘Baker Street Irregulars’ gang of street kids, a pop-up market, and more. Other encounter tables cover situations when the Player Characters are stationary, radio chatter, and rumours. Four factions are described, three of which can be used in Sweden and three of which can be used in Poland. Each is given a plot and some notes, as well as a detailed description that includes goals and forces under its control. The Free Polish 6th Brigade is the one that can only be used in Poland, specifically tied in with the city of Kraków (though it could be used as a template for other local military forces in Poland), whilst the Life Regiment Hussars is the Swedish faction tied to the town of Karlsborg. The two factions that can used in both countries are the World Health Organisation and the Vorovskoy Mir, or ‘thieves’ world’. These two are also given two interesting NPCs as well.

The four factions are each tied into one or more of the plots described in the book. These are intended to provide a storyline that the Game Master can tie factions and encounters together rather than serve as a full adventure. To help this, each has a countdown of events and notes as to what factions and what sites—or rather maps—might be involved. The plots include a search by a group of fanatics for the lost and holy Spear of Longinus and the race to stop a new plague spreading in the face of desperate and brutal measures being used by the World Health Organisation (its staff in the post-apocalypse have mercenaries). Some are specifically tied to the locations described in the book’s appendices, such as getting involved in a mayoral election in Kraków or stopping a KGB power play in Karlsborg. The biggest plot is ‘OPERATION Reset’, which suggests that there were other aims than just military ones in this operation, which was to obtain secret Soviet technology. Only part of the whole plot is explained and available to play through here—the next part will play out in the supplement, Hostile Waters. Thus, ‘OPERATION Reset’ provides the beginning of an overarching espionage campaign that will carry over into several modules for Twilight 2000 and involve the CIA, DIA, KGB, and GRU at each other’s throats and the Player Characters caught in the middle.

The four scenario sites consist of a housing block where two gangs vie for access to the local resources and turf with the Vorovskoy Mir in between; a church whose flock looks to its faith for answers, but wonders if God failed to protect from the war or used it to punish them, whilst not every member of the clergy is honest; a nuclear power plant that is still operational, but are threatened by marauders and the staff believe it has a traitor amongst its midst; and a bunker, no longer a place of war or survival, but turned into a nightclub that offers many locals a few hours escape drinking and dancing, whilst behind the scenes is the target for a turf war. All four come with an explanation of the situation, rumours to fling about, a countdown of events, a description of the various locations within the site, and full descriptions of the major NPCs involved. Like the plots, these are not full ready-to-play scenarios, but rather storylines that can play out as the Player Characters get involved in them. They are all very nicely detailed, they all have their own scenario maps, and they can all be used in either setting for Twilight 2000—Poland or Sweden, Kraków or Karlsborg. Then again, like much of Urban Operations, they can be used in the city or town of the Game Master’s choice.

The last section in Urban Operations consists of a pair of appendices. These in turn, detail Kraków in Poland and Karlsborg in Sweden, after the events of the Twilight War. The descriptions begin with what the Player Characters might see on arrival before going on to give the history of the population centre, its current status, a handful of rumours, descriptions of its neighbourhoods, and its major NPCs. Kraków describes itself as the only ‘free city’ in Poland, a democracy on the verge of a new election in the face of an extremist political faction, a centre of commerce sat on the Vistula River which manufactures ammunition and various devices to trade for food whilst the Vorovskoy Mir smuggles in everything else, and the holder of one ace—a working Mil Mi-24 Hind helicopter, though fuel supplies are limited. At the heart of Karlsborg is the Karlsborg Fortress, back in control of Swedish forces and possibly the seat of the Swedish king, the town under the protection of a military which has very limited means to extend that protection, especially as more and more refugees arrive, and marauders control much of the surrounding area. Of the two, the description of the situation in Kraków is richer and deeper than that of Karlsborg, though this is understandable given that the authors had a previous work, The Free City of Krakow for the first edition of Twilight 2000, to draw from.

Physically, Urban Operations is very well presented. Everything is in full colour, the artwork is excellent, and the maps are clear and easy to use.

As much as Urban Operations provides further rules to run Twilight 2000 within the confines of the damaged and destroyed cities and towns of the aftermath of the Twilight War, what it really is, is a toolkit for the Game Master to run a series of plots in a variety of different locations in her own campaign, ideally in Kraków or Karlsborg. Each of the plots has its own scenario location and together they can easily be inserted into an ongoing campaign in whatever town or city the Game Master is using, or they can be run in one settlement after another as the Player Characters travel from one town or city or another. Either way, they offer several months’ worth of play as the Player Characters travel, get involved, survive, and build or move on. Lastly, Urban Operations does include the start of ‘OPERATION Reset’, a plot that will run through the next series of releases for Twilight 2000, so that there is an ongoing connection from one to the next. Overall, Urban Operations is an excellent expansion for Twilight 2000, providing the hooks and means to pull the Player Characters into the world around them, interact with the survivors, explore the consequences of a nuclear conflict, and hopefully make the world a better place.