An Appendix N Short #2

For the most part, books and games released under the Old School Renaissance have been put by the small press, whether that is Labyrinth Lord from Goblinoid Games or Swords & Wizardry from published by Mythmere Games. To date, the only larger publisher to offer an Old School Renaissance RPG is Goodman Games with its Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. What set this RPG apart from just about every other RPG and every other fantasy RPG is that every player begins the game playing Zero Level characters—and lots of them! In going through their first adventure, there will perhaps, be survivors who will survive to achieve First Level and acquire an actual Class.

The Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, is though, published under the same Open Gaming Licence as other titles for the Old School Renaissance, which means that other publishers can release support for it. One such publisher is Brave Halfling Publishing, a small press outlet best known for its ‘White Box’ iterations of classic Dungeons & Dragons-style RPGs such as X-Plorers and Delving Deeper. Now, after a successful Kickstarter campaign, the publisher has released a small selection of adventures under the Appendix N imprint.

The first of these is Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #1: The Ruins of Ramat, a Zero-Level, ‘Character Creation Funnel’ designed to be played in a single evening or session. The second is Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #2: The Vile Worm. Like The Ruins of Ramat  this second scenario is designed to be played by between eight and twelve characters and like The Ruins of Ramat, this scenario has appeared for previous rule sets, as The Vile Worm of the Eldritch Oak for Swords & Wizardry in Brave Halfling Publishing’s Swords & Wizardry White Box, as The Vile Worm from Arcana Creations—again for Swords & Wizardry, and then again as The Vile Worm of the Eldritch Oak from Lord Zsezse Works for use with Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Which means that it has a bit of a publishing history and so must be worth reprinting.

In The Vile Worm, the adventurers are travelling in a forest when they encounter a hermit, a priest of nature, who offers them a chance to rest and partake of a meal. He is of course, nothing of the sort, being a crazed berserker who discovered the sacrificial site of an ancient cult and now sees it as his duty to capture and give up victims to the vile worm that the cult worshipped. Whether or not the adventurers accept his invitation, they will find themselves ambushed and wondering at the truth of this madman. This truth is revealed over the course of three rooms, each quite detailed, and two or three combat encounters. In the process, the adventurers will hopefully rescue the berserker’s current victims and thus save a family. The worm itself is a nasty oozing creature bent on turning the adventurers into hosts for its eggs.

As atmospheric and as detailed as the scenario is, this is all that is—an extended encounter. Unlike The Ruins of Ramat, there is not material here to take it much further into an on-going campaign. Like The Ruins of Ramat, this scenario comes with a pair of hand outs that the Judge can use to illustrate certain locations and these are nicely done. Similarly, the cartography is excellent.

Unfortunately, Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #2: The Vile Worm has a couple of problems. The first is the one that beset Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #1: The Ruins of Ramat. The ‘Appendix N’ element of the scenario’s title—Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #2: The Vile Worm—denotes the fact that it is inspired by ‘Appendix N’, the list of inspirational fiction found at the back of the original Dungeon Master’s Guide that so influenced Dungeons & Dragons and then Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. This designation leads to expectations that these fictional inspirations, whether it is Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth, will be discussed or at least made clear. Sadly, this is not the case, but perhaps in future releases such a discussion would be a worthy inclusion…?

The second issue that that Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #2: The Vile Worm is short. It is an extended encounter, but little more, and lacking the extra material that can be added to a campaign, The Vile Worm feels all too brief… Nevertheless, Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #2: The Vile Worm is a solid, if short, adventure that works for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game as much as it does for other RPGs for the Old School Renaissance.

An Appendix N Short #1

For the most part, books and games released under the Old School Renaissance have been put out by the small press, whether that is Labyrinth Lord from Goblinoid Games or Swords & Wizardry from published by Mythmere Games. To date, the only larger publisher to offer an Old School Renaissance RPG is Goodman Games with its Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. What set this RPG apart from just about every other RPG and every other fantasy RPG is that every player begins the game playing Zero Level characters—and lots of them! In going through their first adventure, there will perhaps, be survivors who will survive to achieve First Level and acquire an actual Class.

The Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, is though, published under the same Open Gaming Licence as other titles for the Old School Renaissance, which means that other publishers can release support for it. One such publisher is Brave Halfling Publishing, a small press outlet best known for its ‘White Box’ iterations of classic Dungeons & Dragons-style RPGs such as X-Plorers and Delving Deeper. Now, after a successful Kickstarter campaign, the publisher has released a small selection of adventures under the Appendix N imprint.

The first of these is Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #1: The Ruins of Ramat. This is a Zero Level adventure—or alternatively, it can be upgraded for play with higher level characters—that can be played in a single evening or session. Based on an earlier edition written for use with Labyrinth Lord, it has been adapted for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game as part of the Kickstarter. It is designed for use by eight to twelve characters, so at two characters each, it would work with four to six players. Physically, it comes as a digest-sized booklet with a detached colour card cover. Also included are two player hand-outs—the back cover blurb says four, but mine contained two—illustrations that can be shown to the players when they reach certain locations. The other issue with The Ruins of Ramat is that its introduction for the players is incomplete, so the book could have done with another edit.

The plot to The Ruins of Ramat begins with a lost dog. Or rather a scared little girl who comes running with the tale that a giant, clawed monster reached up out of the ground and grabbed her constant companion. The village has no-one to turn to for help, so when the player characters decide to volunteer, the villagers look oddly relieved. Once they do get up the hill, they find a hole in the ground and at the bottom of the hole, a complex of tunnels that has been there for centuries…

Although the monster that grabs the dog is nowhere to be found, the dog itself can be found. That is the good news. The bad news is that there are demons and the undead in complex—not too many given that this is an adventure for Zero Level characters—but more than enough to present them with a challenge. What they also discover is the remnants of an ancient monastery, once dedicated to the militant arm of the Church of Ramat, a Lawful deity, which they will hopefully learn was defiled by evil. The dungeon itself consists of just seventeen locations. With so few, it means that they are quite detailed and atmospheric as they build towards the scenario’s culmination.

Now the dungeon’s true history will not be apparent on a straight play through of The Ruins of Ramat, but an appendix includes two adventure expansions. The first is an option for one of the characters to study the teachings of Ramat and in doing so, become a Cleric. The second adventure expansion is a simple link to another location that the Judge can develop.

The ‘Appendix N’ element of the scenario’s title—Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #1: The Ruins of Ramat—denotes the fact that it is inspired by ‘Appendix N’, the list of inspirational fiction found at the back of the original Dungeon Master’s Guide that so influenced Dungeons & Dragons and then Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. This designation leads to expectations that these fictional inspirations, whether it is Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth, will be discussed or at least made clear. Sadly, this is not the case, but perhaps in future releases such a discussion would be a worthy inclusion…?

Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #1: The Ruins of Ramat is a solid, well written scenario. Its design is tight and should serve as the fun, challenging ‘Character Creation Funnel’ that a Judge is looking for.

West is Still Best

Having an interest in the Old School Renaissance and currently being engaged in an ongoing Legends of the Five Rings campaign, I was more than interested to take a look at Ruins & Ronin, a supplement from sword+1 productions based on the Swords & Wizardry White Box rule set that sets out to use the samurai movie as the basis for swords and sorcery adventure in a mythical, medieval culture that is almost like Japan. Its aim is not to create a culture game like the aforementioned Legends of the Five Rings or the classic Bushido, but one full of adventure and mystery in which Bujin, Shugenja, and Sohei explore strange ruins out in the wilderness and delve into deep dungeons below crumbling pagodas, encountering strange spirits and creepy monsters, and finding fantastic artefacts of great power. The idea behind Ruins & Ronin is that samurai should be allowed to go dungeon delving just as much as his Western fantasy counterpart. Unfortunately, Ruins & Ronin fails to live up to all of those aims.

As with Swords & Wizardry’s core rules, Ruins & Ronin presents just the three classes. In Swords & Wizardry, they are the Cleric, the Fighter, and the Magic-user. In Ruins & Ronin, their analogues are the Sohei or warrior-monk, the Bujin or samurai or ronin, and the Shugenja. The bujin can perform a “Follow Through” manoeuvre, striking at another opponent delivering a killing blow, and is unrestricted in terms of what arms and armour that he can use, though the shield is not found in this setting. The Shugenja can cast spells, and like the Magic-User cannot wear armour and is restricted to using Tanto (daggers), Uchi-ne (throwing blades), or Bo (staves) only. Sohei can cast divine spells and turn undead, and cannot wear very heavy armour, or use a katana or a bow.

The playable races to be found in Swords & Wizardry, the Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings, are not present in Ruins & Ronin. Instead, it has the single playable race, Half-Ogres. As with the races to be found in Swords & Wizardry, Half-Ogres advance as Fighters or Bujin, and as you would imagine, Half-Ogres are very strong, do extra damage in combat, and resist disease and poison better. Similarly, neither Swords & Wizardry nor Ruins & Ronin have a Thief-like player class. Now while this is understandable given that Swords & Wizardry draws for its inspiration from the earliest of Dungeons & Dragons books that lacked the Thief class, surely in a game inspired by samurai movies, you would want to have the Ninja as a class? Were Ruins & Ronin to be a culture game based on Japan in which the role of the ninja is downplayed, its absence would be far from objectionable. Here, the lack of the ninja feels like a major omission. After all, the ninja is very much part of the genre.

In general, as can be seen from the example below, characters in Ruins & Ronin do not look very different those from Swords & Wizardry. Very simple and very easy, but lacking in flavour.

Megumi the Pious, Level 1 Sohei
Str: 6 (-1) Int: 14 Wis: 15 (+1)
Con: 12 Dex: 6 (-1) Chr: 4 (-1)
Hit Points: 4 Save: 14 (+2 vs. Death & Poison)
Armour Class: 5 Ascending Armour Class: 14
Masakari (1d6); Haidate, Hara-ate, Jingasa; 17gp

In terms of support, Ruins & Ronin comes with a complete spell list for both the Shugenja and the Sohei character classes; a complete set of monsters; and an array of magical items. Unfortunately, the spells on both lists appear to have been lifted wholesale from the lists for the Cleric and the Magic-User classes from Swords & Wizardry without either a single re-design or single re-naming. So another opportunity to add flavour to the game has been lost. That changes though, when it comes to the monsters and the magical artefacts. Classic monsters from Dungeons & Dragons, such as Black Puddings, Gelatinous Cubes, Hell Hounds, and Treants are joined by an Oriental bestiary that includes Bakemono-Toro, Fox Monks, Kyonshi (Hopping Vampires), Oni, and Tengu. Some classic Dungeons & Dragons monsters have been altered, such as the Lizard Samurai and the Naga, but on the whole, the number and type of monsters listed is impressive, even if it feels odd to mix them up so. The magical items are more straightforward. Basic weapons, wands, scrolls, potions, and so on, work in Ruins & Ronin just as well as they do in Swords & Wizardry, but the author adds items such as the Brush of Translation, which allows the wielder to understand any spoken language; the Dancing Fan, which gives the user a Charisma of 18 when dancing; and the Scholars’ Fan, which automatically swats flies, shields the owner from the sun, and flutters gently to provide a breeze. Thee really do add touches of detail and flavour to the game, and hint at the potential in a samurai themed Retroclone.

So far then, that is what is to be found in the pages of Ruins & Ronin. This leaves what is not to be found between its covers. The first of these is an adventure, so we have no idea how the game is meant to be played, an adventure being perhaps, the best way of showcasing this aspect of the game. The second of these is advice for the GM. Well, to be fair, Ruins & Ronin does include some advice for the GM. Yet that advice amounts to barely more than a page, and the rest that takes the advice for the GM up to a page and a half is a guide to when and how to hand out Experience Points. The actual advice though, can be best summed up as, “Make it up yourself.” Or rather, “Make everything up yourself.” Even then, it is not original, being another section reprinted from the Swords & Wizardry White Box rule set.

Now that advice would have been fine in 1974 and Ruins & Ronin was my first RPG. Plus the fact that I had grown in Japan, and was well steeped in the chanbara movie genre. None of this is true, nor was it true for anyone in 2009 when this book was first published, and nor is it true for anyone reading this review right now. What is also true is that Ruins & Ronin is not trying to be a medieval Japanese culture game, a game of high honour in which tea ceremonies and the composing of haiku figure prominently, so the omission of such details are understandable. Yet the truth is that Ruins & Ronin is actually doing a genre, the chanbara movie genre, and the author omits any discussion of that genre. In doing so, he undermines his own work, because a discussion of the genre, and that would include a list of its inspirations much like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons’ Appendix N, would have explored the very point of Ruins & Ronin. That its fantasy is oriental in origin, and so is very different to the Western fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons or Swords & Wizardry. The difference between the two is why anyone would want to play Ruins & Ronin.

Physically, Ruins & Ronin is decently put together. The cover is excellent, but while the internal layout is clean and tidy, there is not another single piece of artwork in the book. None of the book’s new creatures are illustrated and neither are the new magical items. Which is a pity given how spacious the book is and how much of the book is devoted to the creatures, monsters, and spirits of the Orient, and that is before you get to the magical items.

Ultimately, Ruins & Ronin is a great title, but a wasted opportunity. It is a pity that this title has already been taken because it deserves more than what it been given here. It needs more development so that it has some kind of background beyond the mere suggestion that it is inspired by samurai movies; so that it has classes and rules that reflect that background; so it has a discussion of the genre that inspired the author which would then inspire the reader; and so that it has advice for the GM as to how to make a game of Ruins & Ronin different to that of the Swords & Wizardry White Box rule set.

Right now, Ruins & Ronin is a reprint of the Swords & Wizardry White Box rule set with renamed character classes and an extra set of monsters and magical items, and nothing more. Absolutely nothing more. The lesson of Ruins & Ronin is that if you want to present something different to a sector of the gaming hobby, even a sector that is inspired by stripped down Old School play, it should never be left up to the purchaser to do all of the work to explore your game’s differences.

White Box Fever III

Last month in September, we saw the re-launch of Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition from Wizards of the Coast with the publication of the Dungeons & Dragons Red Box Set, the first entry in the Dungeons & Dragons Essentials line. To celebrate that fact, Reviews from R'lyeh is running a series of reviews devoted to RPGs that aim to bring new players into the hobby. So far I have got to date with the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Starter Set for Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition, slipped back in time to look at the hobby’s second fantasy RPG in its most recent edition, Tunnels & Trolls v7.5, and come up to date with a look at Tower of the Stargazer and New Weird World, the two scenarios that come in Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, the very latest retroclone. This week we step forward to go back in time – or is that the other way around? – to review the original Dungeons & Dragons or an “Edition 0” retroclone of the original Dungeons & Dragons. The game in question is Swords & Wizardry: White Box Edition from Brave Halfling Publishing and based on Swords & Wizardry published by Mythmere Games.

Swords & Wizardry is essentially available in two forms. The standard core rules are available in print and at your local gaming shop, and present a game similar to the Dungeons & Dragons of the late 1970s and 1980s, Swords & Wizardry: White Box Edition apes the original of 1974. It does so to the extent that it actually does come in an A5 sized white box, the contents of which are a pamphlet, four little white books, a pad of character sheets, a pencil, and a set of good polyhedral dice. Bar the dice, almost everything is in black and white, greyscale being used to mark the tables and the sidebars that the author uses to provide further explanation, suggestions, and so on. The four books are Book I of IV: Characters, Book II of IV: Spells, Book III of IV: Monsters, and Book IV of IV: Treasure. Each is staple bound with a card cover, each has an excellent pen and ink cover, and together the four booklets are a nod to the “Little Buff Books” of the original Dungeons & Dragons.

The starting point for Swords & Wizardry: White Box Edition is the pamphlet, the author’s “A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming.” As much a manifesto as an introduction, this guides the reader through four “Zen Moments.” These stress the game’s lack of rules, the reliance upon the skills of the player versus those of his character, that characters are heroes rather than superheroes, and on the game world being an unbalanced world rather than being a balanced gaming experience. There are tips for both the player and the Referee, and where appropriate, there are examples, these being used to compare and contrast the modern gaming experience with that of old style. This gets the boxed set off to an excellent start, though not in my copy which has the front sheet printed twice... Anyway, the Primer is available to download for free here.

Starting with Book I of IV: Characters, the most obvious difference between Swords & Wizardry and the retroclone of your choice, is the lack of the choice. There are just three classes, the Cleric, the Fighter, and the Magic-user, and there are just the three races, Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings. Both Dwarves and Halflings advance as Fighters, but Elves can choose on a day-to-day basis to alternate between the Fighter or Magic-user classes, or in a variant, advance as a Fighter-Magic-user combination as in Basic Dungeons & Dragons. The variant casts fewer spells than the standard version. As with other retroclones, playing anything other than human means that a Level limit is imposed on the character.

Mechanically, the rules and numbers are kept simple. For example, depending upon how well a player rolls, his character can only gain a +1 bonus or -1 penalty from an attribute. Further, the Hit Dice for all characters is based on the humble-sided die rather the polyhedral dice as is standard. Similarly, all weapons do damage based on the six-sided, with a penalty or bonus added to the roll depending upon the weapon.

For combat, there is one interesting wrinkle. Armour Class can be ascending or descending according to the Referee’s whim. In other words, Armour Class can either get better as it goes down from 9 to -2 for descending, or better as it rises from 10 up to 21 for ascending. Of course the first, descending Armour Class is very in keeping with Dungeons & Dragons right up to the advent of the Third Edition, while ascending Armour Class is thoroughly modern, and while I prefer it, it feels at out of place in a Retroclone. Book I of IV: Characters is rounded out with a short example of play.

So having looked at Book I of IV: Characters, here is a sample character. Tainrach is a sickly, skinny fellow who had neither the brains to be a Magic-user or the calling to be a Cleric. He proved to be good with a bow, and so joined a company of bowman for several years before deciding to strike out on his own. He can hold the line as with any other man-at-arms, but is more effective at range.

Tainrach the Archer, Level 1 Fighter
Str: 10 Int: 13 Wis: 14
Con: 6 (-1) Dex: 15 (+1) Chr: 10
Hit Points: 5 Save: 15 (+1 vs. Death & Poison)
Armour Class: 4 (5) Ascending Armour Class: 15 (14)
Long Sword (1d6), Long Bow & 20 Arrows (1d6); Chainmail, Shield; Quiver; 20gp

My first impression of Book I of IV: Characters was of a lack of choice. The most obvious omission is the absence of a Rogue or Thief type Class. On the one hand this does limit choice, but to be fair this is very much a design choice upon the part of the author. The lack of the Thief Class enforces one of the “Zen Moments” discussed in the game’s “A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming,” as it removes the reliance upon character skills and forces a player to think his way around situations where a Thief and his skill rolls would normally shine. If the book lacks anything it is an example of character generation, and while I might dislike the use of the six-sided die as the basis for all character Hit Points and all weapons, both keep the game simple.

Book II of IV: Spells is the second book for the players and lists all of the spells for both the Cleric and Magic-user Classes. The spells are listed alphabetically, and all have relatively clear and straightforward descriptions. The first book for the Referee is Book III of IV: Monsters, and besides listing all of the game’s monsters, discusses how to be a Referee, designing adventures and campaigns, and handling Experience Points. Again, this advice is kept short and simple, perhaps the most pointed being that Swords & Wizardry: White Box Edition is written for the Referee who is a good storyteller and likes to be creative on the fly. Otherwise, the game is not for you. None of the monsters are illustrated and the descriptions are perhaps a little succinct. Nevertheless, there is a good selection here, enough to keep a game going for some time.

Lastly, Book IV of IV: Treasure lists all of the loot that a party could want. There is everything here from the humble Potion of Healing to the fearsome Deck of Many Things with classic magical items aplenty. The book does not merely contain descriptions of the many items, but also contains a set of tables to help the Referee generate each monster’s loot. Primarily this loot will be in the form of coinage, but an interesting touch is that any magical items reduce the monies in the treasure pile.

If there is one thing that I would have liked to have seen in Swords & Wizardry: White Box Edition is another book, which would have been Book V of V: Adventures. Swords & Wizardry: White Box Edition feels complete, but a book of scenarios would have rounded it and made it a fuller game. Its minimalist approach though is refreshing and the inclusion of “A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming” not only highlights the differences between modern and old style gaming, but is an excellent introduction to roleplaying circa 1974. Which is, after all, what Swords & Wizardry: White Box Edition is. It is not an introduction to roleplaying, but an introduction to the beginning of roleplaying as much as it is an exercise in nostalgia, one that takes the modern gamer into the past.

In essence, Swords & Wizardry: White Box Edition exemplifies the “white box” game. It is utterly nostalgic and there is an air of mystery to it more than any “wow!” factor. This and the lack of colour is likely to be off putting for anyone new to the hobby, but for its intended audience is an fine introduction to, or a reminder of roleplaying when it began.

Roleplaying Upwards & Outwards in 1974 (Just Not Down).

If I have a complaint about the Old School Renaissance, it is that it tends towards the referential, that it often refers back to the Dungeons & Dragons of any when from 1974 to 1981, re-iterating what messers Arneson and Gygax did in yet another “Edition Zero” RPG. This is not to deny that many of the titles published under the Old School banner are really very good, many more deserving of our attention than the mainstream Dungeons & Dragons titles being published. My complaint though, is addressed in X-plorers: The role playing adventures of Galactic Troubleshooters! Published by Grey Area Games, the conceit underpinning this RPG is one big “What If?” That is, what if the creators of the first RPG, back in 1974, drew upon the Science Fiction of Heinlein, Asimov, Niven, and Anderson rather than the fantasy of Tolkien, Vance, Leiber, et al, to create their groundbreaking game of the imagination? The result is a Science Fiction game published years before TSR thought of doing one with the publication of Star Frontiers in 1982, and while Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World were earlier, in hindsight theirs is the Science Fantasy genre, not Science Fiction.

The setting for X-plorers is the year 2222 A.D. Earth along with the terraformed worlds of Mars and Venus are governed by the U.C.N. or United Corporate Nations. Far beyond the Solar System lies the Reaches, a dense star cluster home to numerous habitable worlds ripe for colonisation by the U.C.N., by the various corporations that make up the U.C.N., or by a myriad of political or religious groups. With opportunities for exploitation comes also opportunity aplenty for corruption, and the U.C.N.P. or United Corporate Nations Police can only do so much. In to this situation come the Troubleshooters (or player characters), employed by the U.C.N. or other organisation to undertake all manner of jobs, from cargo runs and anti-piracy patrols to exploration and investigations. This is about as detailed as the setting for the game gets, providing more theme than detail.

Characters in X-plorers are all assumed to be Human – the one thing that the game lacks is rules for creating player character aliens – and are created by rolling three six-sided dice for four attributes: Agility, Intelligence, Physique, and Presence. This can be done in any order and provides a modifier that ranges from -2 to +2 applied to the appropriate Skill Throws and Saving Throws as necessary. The Agility modifier is also used in ranged combat and the Physique modifier is used in melee combat, while the Intelligence modifier is used with nearly every skill bar the Agility modifier. Of the four attributes, Presence will probably be used the least, primarily because social interaction is not addressed in the rules.

Unsurprisingly, X-plorers is a Class and Level system, though it only comes with four classes, these being Scientist, Soldier, Scout, and Technician. While there is no difference between the classes in terms of Hit Dice, Base Hit Bonuses, and Saving Throws – their being the same at each level for all four Classes – what separate each Class from another are its skills. The Scientist knows Computers, Medicine, Science, and Sociology; the Scout knows Pilot, Security, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth; and the Technician knows Computers, Mechanics, Pilot, and Robotics. The Soldier class is slightly different in that he knows Demolition and Survival, he also knows Martial Arts, which improves his damage in hand-to-hand combat, and Weapons Specialist, which increases his Base Hit Bonus.

The skills work in a fashion similar to Saving Throws or this case, Skill Throws, all done with the traditional twenty-sided die. At each level a class provides Skill Throw target for each skill, which will fall as a character rises in level. Roll against the Skill Throw target with modifiers from the appropriate attribute. For example, the Intelligence modifier is used for Computers and Security and the Agility modifier for Sleight of Hand.

The system so far is clean and easy, the lack of alien player character races keeping the game balanced, while in keeping Hit Dice, Base Hit Bonuses, and Saving Throws the same between the classes also helps maintain this balance. The effect of this is to make X-plorers a very skills focused game, already pushing it away from the focus on abilities to be found in early Dungeons & Dragons. It does allow multi-classing though, enabling characters to cross train and so gain the skills that their primary class lacks. This is an expensive option though.

Anyway, a typical character looks like Greg below. He has signed on as a Troubleshooter to get some experience beyond the confines of the laboratory and the computer room. How he passed the physicals is anybody’s guess, but the mental aptitude tests were a whiz! While his theoretical knowledge will stand in good stead, his lack of practical skills might not ingratiate him with his team mates. With just 100 Credits to his name, he is going to be light on equipment.

Gregor “Greg” Ward

Level 1 Scientist

Male, 26, 1.65 m, 75 kg

Agl 12 (+0 Saves); Int 18 (+2 Saves);

Phy 5 (-1 Saves; To Hit/Dmg melee/unarmed; hp); Pre 13 (+1 Saves)

BHB: -1; Saving Throw: 15+; Hit Points: 4; Armour Class: 10

Class Abilities (+2 to all skills for Int)

Computers: 13+; Medicine: 15+; Science:  13+; Sociology: 16+

As is traditional, each character receives 3d6 worth of Credits to spend on equipment. Most of it is built into toolkits, such as Base Camp Kit or Sensor/Survey Kit. The equipment chapter includes robots, each being simply defined by Armour Class, Hit Points, Saving Throw, Movement, and the number of programs it can run. These programs simulate Class skills and enable a robot to fulfil a position not held by a character or to back another character up. Any player looking to use his robot as some kind of combat machine will be disappointed. Robots in X-plorers are under a “First Directive” that prevents them from doing harm to humans while always aiding humans.

Of course, most characters are going to want arms and armour, but it is expensive given how little starting money a character begins with. Weaponry does not get any more advanced than Lasers (so non-lethal weapons, which is a pity), and they are as deadly as they are expensive, the latter fact at odds with the suggestion that the most commonly carried weapon by Troubleshooter teams is the laser pistol, which costs 600 Credits! Even an Automatic Pistol costs 200 Credits!! What this means is that the Troubleshooters are going to undertaking their first assignments armed with Dungeons & Dragons weapons. I thought the point of X-plorers was that it was not doing Dungeons & Dragons?

Combat is as easy as the rest of the game, but it is deadly for the player characters. The loss of Hit Points for an NPC or a creature means its death, whereas a Troubleshooter has to roll on a Critical Table that can result in no effect, an adrenaline surge, or being knocked unconscious at best, or a fatal wound or instant death at worst.

Starships and starship combat is built around character roles aboard ship. Scientists are good navigators; Scouts make good pilots; Technicians good pilots or engineers; and Soldiers gunners. Starship combat is a matter attempting to gain the range upon an opponent or to escape his range with each round broken down into four phases. In the Navigation Phase, the navigator makes a Computer Skill Throw to either determine the range of all nearby ships so granting a +1 bonus to all subsequent rolls in the round or to plot a multi vector to act against one or more ships – attacking or escaping. A successful Mechanics Skill Throw in the Engineering Phase will repair the ship, enhance its shields and Armour Class, or boot the engines for another +1 bonus for the pilot. Similarly, a successful Pilot Skill Throw will enhance the ship’s shields and Armour Class through evasive manoeuvres, increase the range between other ships, or gain a better attack position on the enemy and grant a +1 bonus to the gunner. No surprises for what the gunner is rolling for in his phase... Just as with ground combat, fights between starships is deadly, but the rules do keep everyone involved and the likelihood is that any fight will be a fraught affair.

For the GM, X-plorers provides some advice on running the game – if you think about it, probably more than would have appeared if the game had been published in 1974 – and a guide to creating interesting NPCs as well as all manner of strange alien critters, the latter supported with all manner of weird and wonderful beasties. The advice on creating planets and sentient alien species is arguably a little light, suggesting that the GM opt for what is playable. Lastly, there is a set of readymade Troubleshooters to get a game going, plus a little secret about the background.

The rulebook is rounded out with the scenario, “Cleopatra Station.” Designed for a single session it has the Troubleshooters employed to determine why contact has been lost with Cleopatra Station, a small wheel space station orbiting Phobos, Mars’ moon, aboard which Ra-Industries operates a research lab. The scenario partly solves the problem of starting equipment discussed earlier by having the team's employer assign them environment suits and laser pistols, and certainly this is the model that I would use if running the game - have the equipment on loan, but the characters be responsible for it.

Primarily, this adventure echoes the feel of films Alien and Aliens – the obvious nod being that one of the NPCs is named Ripley – with the characters having to fight off strange beasts as they progress through the station. Secondarily, the adventure actually echoes another scenario, “Death Station,” one half of Traveller Double Adventure 3: Death Station/The Argon Gambit, in which the player characters must board a silent laboratory ship (which just happens to be wheel shaped). While “Cleopatra Station” is far from being a sophisticated affair, being more of a “dungeon bash” in space, it serves well as an introductory scenario.

At just sixty pages, X-plorers is a relatively slim rulebook. The black and white interior is for the most part clean and tidy, with a variety of illustrations, some good, others a little too scratchy. Some of this artwork suffers from having too grey a background, often a problem with inexperienced publishers. The best of this artwork though, echoes the style of Classic Traveller.

Barring the range of sample critters, X-plorers takes its cue from the aforementioned Traveller in not being Pulp Sci-Fi in tone. Although its Science Fiction is dry in tone, it is not hard Science Fiction, nor is it Imperial in flavour, as is that of Traveller or Rogue Games’ Thousand Suns, or post-Imperial, as is in VSCA Publishing’s Diaspora. This is not say that X-plorers could not be run in any one of these flavours and that is one of the game’s strengths – the GM is free to use its rules to make the game his own. Another is its simplicity of rules, which are undeniably easy to pick up and play or run, while one more is its fundamental yet pleasing shift from an emphasis on abilities and powers to skills, that is, from what a character can do to what he knows and what he can do.

If there is a real problem with the game, it is that as written it does not equip the characters with the gear that they need. Others might gripe at its lack of non-human character races and the lack of rules for creating alien races and alien worlds, but with the latter, the author’s aim is to grant the GM the freedom to use his imagination to create his own. And that is the point of the game, because in going back to 1974 and re-imagining roleplaying anew in an entirely different genre, X-plorers: The role playing adventures of Galactic Troubleshooters! gives us a charmingly simple approach to playing Science Fiction once again.