Free RPG Day 2018: A Cable’s Length from Shore/On a Bank, by Moonlight

Now in its eleventh year, Saturday, June 16th was Free RPG Day  and with it came an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Traditionally, what Pelgrane Press offers for Free RPG Day is not one, but two adventures combined in the one book. For Free RPG Day 2018, the two adventures are for the GUMSHOE System—Pelgrane Press’ clue orientated investigative mechanics—and both are Lovecraftian themed. The book is Free RPG Day – A Cable’s Length from Shore/On a Bank, by Moonlight. Both are quick-starts. One of these, ‘A Cable’s Length from Shore’, is for Cthulhu Confidential and thus designed as a GUMSHOE One-2-One Adventure to be played by the one player and a Game Moderator. The other is ‘On A Bank, By Moonlight’, which is a mission for the recently released The Fall of Delta Green.

As well as being written for use with Cthulhu Confidential, ‘A Cable’s Length from Shore’ is also set in another of Pelgrane Publishing’s settings, that of Bookhounds of London, in which the investigators attempt to keep the wolf from the door by tracking down the right books and finding the right customers for them. As a  GUMSHOE One-2-One Adventure, ‘A Cable’s Length from Shore’ comes with a single pre-generated character, Phyllis Oakley, a dealer in rare books. When not in the slightly odd bookshop she owns, Miss Oakley scours second-hand stalls, private auctions, secret bibliophile clubs, and more to find the special titles her clients want, sometimes turning to her contacts—lesser book-hunters and traders and barrow-rummagers—who might put a book her way. In return for a few quid that is… One of her best contacts was Alf Fulbrow. Unfortunately, he died six months ago, having drowned according to his daughter. Yet who left a rare occult book on Phyllis Oakley’s doorstep as the scenario opens?

What follows is a solid, well done plot, one that will not be unfamiliar to devotees of Lovecraftian investigative horror. This is no criticism though, for both said plot and the investigative process are presented with exceptional clarity and aplomb. Not just in the presentation of the scenario’s scenes—both core and alternate—but also the character of Phyllis Oakley, the challenges she might face, and the Problems and Edges she might acquire in the process. For the most part, an investigator in Cthulhu Confidential looks very much an investigator in Trail of Cthulhu, possessing a mix of investigative and general abilities. Her investigative skills allow her player to search for and discover core clues, whilst her general abilities represent more physical actions. Besides these, she also begins the scenario with four ‘Pushes’, each Push representing effort to gain more information, manipulate others, apply her knowledge, or change the narrative to her benefit. In addition, she can also call upon a Source, a NPC or acquaintance, upon whom she call for help and information. Though this can cost her a Push, it enables Phyllis to access a skill or knowledge she lacks. She has a handful of Sources, which nicely add to her background, as does the Problem she is suffering from. This might be debt or it might be a poltergeist haunting her shop, there being four to choose from at the start of the scenario.

Throughout the scenario, there are opportunities aplenty for Phyllis to gain more Problems as well as Edges, the latter being temporary advantages. These might last the entire scenario or they might last a scene or two. They are typically gained as the outcome of facing a challenge. These require dice rolls using Phyllis’ General Abilities and typically give three results—Advance (success), Hold (success, but), or Setback (failure). Sometimes there is a choice of Problems, but overall, the number of Problems that Phyllis can gain over the course of her investigations far outweigh the number of Edges she might gain.

‘A Cable’s Length from Shore’ consists of some twelve core scenes and some seven alternate scenes which together provide numerous paths of investigation and intrigue. Together they should offer one or two sessions of good roleplaying for Game Moderator and player alike. There are some nicely done creepy encounters too, which are only exacerbated by the fact that the Game Moderator and player are playing one-on-one, which makes for a more intense playing experience. Overall, ‘A Cable’s Length from Shore’ is a well-structured, well-written scenario that is easy to run and which deserves a sequel. In fact, Phyllis Oakley deserves an anthology of further adventures.

—oOo—

Where ‘A Cable’s Length from Shore’ is a quick-start for Cthulhu Confidential, ‘On A Bank, By Moonlight’ is a scenario for The Fall of DELTA GREEN, which adapts Arc Dream Publishing’s Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game to the GUMSHOE system. This is set in the 1960s when as the USA sends troops into Indochina and men to the moon, an authorised but unacknowledged national security black program known as Delta Green is tasked to hunt and destroy the Cthulhu Mythos. It might be the summer of love, but Delta Green agents must face unimaginable horror, learn things beyond the ken of man, and take actions which would damn their nonexistent souls, all to keep their family and their country from discovering the truth. What this means is that the investigators have more authority than in other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, but they have to be judicious with their use of that authority, primarily to ensure that their missions and the nature of the threats they uncover remain unknown to the public at large.

The quick-start includes an explanation of Delta Green and the GUMSHOE System in just five pages. It also includes six pre-generated investigators—two FBI Special Agents, a Treasury Department investigator, a Department of Veteran Affairs surgeon, a US Marine, and an archivist whose researches were just a little too left-field. One thing the players may need to do is define their investigators’ immediate family, but that is really only for roleplaying purposes in this quick-start.

The bulk of the quick-start is devoted to ‘On A Bank, By Moonlight’, a scenario which takes place in upstate New York in 1968. In the small town of Milltown two members of the same hippie commune die on the same night, one shot in self-defence by the police, the other in a car accident. Recovered from the scene was an idol similar to those found on previous Delta Green missions. The question is, how did they come to die, what were they doing with the idol, and does it have anything to do with the commune?

The investigation itself is not too complex and putting the clues together should not prove all that much of a challenge to the players and their investigators. Acting upon the information is more of a challenge—some of the commune members are surprisingly militant for hippies and there are other organisations with an interest in the commune too. Ideally, what should happen is that the investigators discover some of what is going on at the commune and infiltrate it just as whatever that is is coming to head and everything goes to hell in a hand-basket. And if the Game Moderator is not playing In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida as the investigators storm the compound, then she is not doing it right…

‘On A Bank, By Moonlight’ is written as an introductory scenario, designed to showcase the domestic—that is, the US mainland—side of Delta Green operations. Yet as a quick-start, it also introduces players to the investigative process and to the difficulties of handling the clean-up process, as well as introducing them to the true villains of the setting. It does a good job of all four.

—oOo—

Physically, Free RPG Day – A Cable’s Length from Shore/On a Bank, by Moonlight is well presented. In comparison, ‘On a Bank, by Moonlight’ feels more cluttered than ‘A Cable’s Length from Shore’, but it is given fewer pages. Thus, ‘A Cable’s Length from Shore’ feels more open and easier to run, certainly helpful given how the Game Moderator has to focus upon the one player. Of the two, ‘On a Bank, by Moonlight’ is let down by a couple of pieces of terrible artwork.

Free RPG Day – A Cable’s Length from Shore/On a Bank, by Moonlight presents two good scenarios and thus two good quick-starts. Both scenarios, and thus the book itself is worth getting even if you do not intend running either of them as quick-starts. In other words, Free RPG Day – A Cable’s Length from Shore/On a Bank, by Moonlight work as great additions to your campaign as well as a means to introduce their respective settings.

Free RPG Day 2018: James Raggi IV’s Eldritch Cock

Now in its eleventh year, Saturday, June 16th was Free RPG Day and with it came an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Then there is the release from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, the Finnish-based publisher best known for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay and its scenarios like Death Frost Doom, A Red and Pleasant Land, and Bloodmother Skyfortress. Famously—or infamously—the publisher releases titles mature, if not strong, of content, designed to be used with the Old School Renaissance. In 2016, the Free RPG Day released was Slügs!, which asked the question, ‘Do you need a cornucopia of Slügs!?’, which was followed for Free RPG Day 2017 by Vaginas Are Magic!, a book devoted to magic that can only be cast by mothers. At the time, the publisher joked that his release for Free RPG Day 2018 would be a book called ‘Eldritch Cock’, which would be the masculine counterpart to Vaginas Are Magic! Despite it being a joke, it was what everyone wanted… So for Free RPG Day 2018, we got James Raggi IV’s Eldritch Cock. Make of the title what you want, but as my partner said, “I can’t believe they did a whole book about a knob joke.”

Well, here is the thing. The ‘knob joke’ comprises the back cover blurb, which consists not so much of double entendres, but single entendres, one after another. That out of the way, what the author makes clear is that he got bored with what he originally intended to write and that he wanted to write mature and interesting content accessible to anyone that he would enjoy writing. This is all explained in the forward, along with a commentary about society’s attitudes to such content. Given the nature and content of some of the books which Lamentations of the Flame Princess releases, the attitude which the author takes should be no real surprise and there can be no doubt that he backs up his slightly rambling polemic with content which is designed for use by adults. So instead of publishing a masculine magic system and a selection of masculine-based spells in the vein of Vaginas Are Magic!, what does Eldritch Cock deliver?

First, if not foremost, it presents the same magic system as first presented Vaginas are Magic! This is a stripped down magic system for Magic-users, one that does away with spell levels and the need for the Read Magic spell. Instead, a Magic-user has potentially access to any spells and can cast any spell that she knows at whatever Level she wants. So, a Fifth Level Magic-user could cast Magic Missile as a First, Second, Third, Fourth, or Fifth Level Magic-user. A Magic-user has a number of spell slots equal to her Level, but this limit is only for casting memorised spells safely. Once these slots have been exhausted, she can cast as many slots again, but with the chance that she might miscast them and thus have to roll on the Miscast Table each time she casts again. After that, a Magic-user must rest and memorise her spells again. A Magic-user at First Level knows three randomly determined spells and since spells have no Level limit, there is is no limit to how many can be learned. This then presents a very quick and easy magic system that expands a Magic-user’s choice of spells and has the potential to make him very powerful even at First Level. A First Level Magic-user with Cloudkill or Fireball or Teleport, anyone? Of course, there is little to stop a Games Master from adapting these rules to the other spellcasting Classes. All this is contained on the two pages inside the front cover, just as in Vaginas Are Magic!


The remainder of Eldritch Cock is devoted to some twenty or so spells, from Anywhere Out of This World and Arguments Against Design to The Voyagers Beneath the Mare Imbrium and You’re Just a Dream. Each is named after a song by a heavy metal band and each provided with a full page, full colour illustration and a full description. Roughly a third to half of each spell’s description is given over to its very own miscast table. Not surprisingly, the spells are weird. For example, Anywhere Out of This World transforms the caster’s torso into negative space where things and people can be stored for the duration of the spell and drawn out by the caster with a bit of fumbling around in the void so created. The duration ends when either when the caster loses consciousness or decides to end it. At which point everything is regurgitated back into the real world after having been in a timeless void. There is a chance of objects or persons being lost in the process. If miscast, the caster might connect to the anti-matter universe, be possessed by one of the people inside him, and so on, but a player can be quite inventive with this spell, whether that is having his Magic-user use his torso void to capture enemies, hide friends, store items, and so forth. ‘Saturn and Sacrifice’ is a more traditional defensive and offensive spell, surrounding the target with the same rings which encircle celestial  bodies like Saturn. The target gains a bonus to his Armour and Saving Throws, the rings will strike back at anyone who makes a mêlée attack against the target, can extend the rings to attack someone else, and if all of these benefits are given up, then the rings can be used to entrap another target. If miscast, the rings might not be stable, they might attract enemies, or even protect an attacker rather than the target of the spell.

Given the title of the supplement, it should be no surprise that the some of the spells are of an adult tone and have artwork to match. So Curses Scribed in Gore allows the caster to pull his own intestines out with a loss of most of his Hit Points and in return, the caster is harder to hit, takes minimum damage, and always makes Saving Throws. If miscast, the spell might have the opposite effect, might cause all of the caster’s guts out of his abdomen, to have the cut made to the abdomen never heal heal, and so on. The accompanying illustration is suitably gory. Similarly, there is some ‘eldritch cock’ in Eldritch Cock with The Thrash of Naked Limbs, which causes any male member within the vicinity of the caster to extend several feet with all of the downsides and none of the positives, to somewhat flaccid, demoralising effect. If miscast, the spell might have a positive effect rather than a negative effect, the members separate and become dangerous, they permanently gain a mouth and report on the owner’s emotional state, and so on.

Rounding out the hardback book is a set of playtest notes. Slipped inside the back cover, these are rules being considered for the next edition of Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay. They are very different to those typically used in Old School Renaissance roleplaying games, but are designed to be backwards compatible with the current versions of the rules.

Physically, James Raggi IV’s Eldritch Cock is well written, well presented, and well illustrated. Some of the artwork may be in questionable taste, let alone the design of the spells, but they are good illustrations nonetheless.

So the question is, have the joke of Vaginas Are Magic! and Eldritch Cock! worn thin? Probably, but the provocation has not. The content in both books is strong and mature, such that it is likely to find its way into only a few campaigns, but it at least is available to peruse and for a gaming group to decide whether or not to use it in their games. Of course, the author and publisher pushes the tone of spells and pushes the magnitude of the spells and their effects, but that is to be expected. Yet peruse these pages and there are spells which are useful, let alone weird. They may not be quite at home in your campaign, but James Raggi IV’s Eldritch Cock may be worth look nevertheless. Just like almost any other spell book.

Free RPG Day 2018: Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory – Blessings Unheralded

Now in its eleventh year, Saturday, June 16th was Free RPG Day and with it came an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory – Blessings Unheralded is an introductory scenario for the new roleplaying game to be published by Ulisses North America. The anticipation for this release echoes that of Shattered Hope, the introductory scenario for Dark Heresy released by Fantasy Flight Games in 2007 for Free RPG Day. Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory – Blessings Unheralded is perhaps the best appointed of any of the releases for Free RPG 2018, its folder including a map inside its cover, a set of counters for use on that map, the rules and a scenario in thirty-two pages, plus four pre-generated characters on four-page character sheets.

In the dark and terrible era of the forty-first millennium, the God-Emperor continues to sit immobile upon the Golden Throne of Earth, ruling over a galaxy plagued by the plans of the Dark Gods and rent by the Great Rift, an Imperium of Man tempted by corruption and chaos, and a civilisation rife with the violence and oppression necessary to stamp out the corruption, the chaos, and the temptation. This is the basic situation in Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory which will be familiar to fans of Warhammer 40,000 going all the way back to 1987. In Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory, players will roleplay members of a warband, not just members of an Imperial warband—though that is the obvious default and is the one provided in the scenario, Blessings Unheralded. The full game will offer a variety of roleplaying set-ups and options, from an unruly Ork mob battering and bruising its way to be top Ork to Eldar bands striking at chaos operatives to stave off the encroaching forces of the Dark Gods.

Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory employs a dice pool mechanic which requires six-sided dice, one of which must be a different colour. This other die is known as a the Wrath die. A typical dice pool consists of a character’s attribute and a appropriate skill. For example, the Agility attribute and the Ballistic skill to shoot a gun or Willpower and Intimidation to aggressively persuade someone to do something or answer some questions. A character has seven attributes—Strength, Agility, Toughness, Intellect, Willpower, Fellowship, and Initiative—and eighteen broad skills, from Athletics, Awareness, and Ballistic Skill to Survival, Tech, and Weapon Skill via Insight, Pilot, and Psychic Mastery.

When the dice are rolled, results of four, five, and six are counted. Results of four and five are called ‘icons’, whilst sixes are called ‘Exalted Icons’ and count as two icons. Each task has a difficulty number indicating the number of icons a player has to roll in order to succeed. A standard difficulty requires three icons, a challenging difficulty requires five, and so on. Icons can be rolled on the Wrath die, but when a six is rolled on the Wrath die, it generates a point of Glory. When a one is rolled on the Wrath die, the Game Master can add a complication to the game. The effects of the Wrath die always count, no matter the outcome of the other dice rolled.

If after succeeding at a die roll, a character has any ‘Exalted Icons’ left over, his player can ‘Shift’ them. An Exalted Icon can be Shifted to gain a point of Glory, but a Shift can be spent to increase damage in an attack roll, gain information, improve the quality of an outcome, reduce the time a task takes, and so on. As befits, the title of the roleplaying game, each character also has Wrath and Glory points. Wrath represents a character’s inner fire and resolve and each character has two Wrath points per session. They can be spent to re-roll failures, restore shock (damage) taken, or gain narrative declaration. They are gained through good roleplaying and accomplishing objectives. Glory represents the characters’ collective will to win and is a group resource. Gained by Shifting Exalted Icons or by rolling six on the Wrath die, Glory is spent to increase a character’s dice pool, increase damage, or seize the initiative. The Glory pool has a maximum depending upon the number of players and once this is reached, it cannot be added to, so the players have to spend Glory in order to make room for more.

Where the players have Wrath and Glory, the Game Master has Ruin. It is gained anytime a character fails a Corruption test or a Fear test, or when the Game Master rolls a six on her Wrath die. She can use Ruin to interrupt the player characters in combat—the player characters always act first—by just one NPC, to seize the Initiative Order and have the NPCs act before the player characters, to re-roll failures, restore Shock, or soak wounds. Ruin can also be spent to activate the Ruin abilities possessed by many NPCs, so for example, the NPC villain of the scenario possesses ‘Kneel Before the Dark Gods!’ which force others to fall prone before him.

The explanation of the core mechanics run to just five pages, whilst those for combat are nearly double that. The rules for combat cover are straightforward, though Initiative is always in the player characters’ favour, one player character acting and then an NPC; both minor monsters and NPCs can operate and attack as mobs, so that individually they are not so much for a threat, but together…; and suggestions are given for using an interaction attack rather than a melee or ballistic attack. So a character might intimidate the enemy, flip acrobatically to distract them, and so on. There is room here for the players to be clever with their characters. Much like the miniature rules that Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory – Blessings Unheralded are ultimately descended from, when characters suffer damage, they can attempt to ‘soak’ and slough off the damage they would otherwise take.

The last third of Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory – Blessings Unheralded is devoted to the scenario, ‘Blessings Unheralded’. This is designed for four players, who are members of the same Imperial warband, currently assigned to assist to a Rogue Trader. A few months ago, another member of the warband was grievously  injured and sent to St. Deploratus’ Sanatorium on the world of Enoch for medical treatment. Unfortunately, not all is well at the facility, for something is turning patients and visitors alike into Poxwalkers, whilst others are suffering from Abacys Syndrome, which causes them to chant random numbers. Are the two outbreaks connected? Can the warband determine the cause and perhaps save the reputation of the St. Deploratus’ Sanatorium? At just three acts, ‘Blessings Unheralded’ is quite short, offering no more than a single session’s worth of game play, but that session includes a mystery, Chaos splurgy bits—and plenty of them, a threat to Enoch, decent interaction, and of course, combat. The Game Master will need to check the Difficulty Numbers of the various tests as they look to be a little low, but otherwise it a nicely done adventure, worth playing with the pre-generated characters or characters of the players’ own creation once the Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory roleplaying game is released.

Four pre-generated characters are provided, each detailed on a full colour, four-page character folder. They include a fearless, heretic-hating Ministorum Priest, a fearsome and intimidating Imperial Commissar, a hardy Imperial Guardsman armed with a trademark lasgun, and a tactical space marine.

Physically, Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory – Blessings Unheralded is best appointed release of any of the titles published for Free RPG Day 2018. It is professionally presented, well written with plenty of full colour artwork. The separate pre-generated character are a very nice touch and make the adventure much easier to run. It even comes with a sheet of counters to use on the map inside the card cover for the adventure’s climatic battle.

Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory – Blessings Unheralded presents everything needed—bar dice—to try out the mechanics and setting of the new roleplaying game. The rules are clearly explained, the pre-generated characters nicely presented, and the adventure a decent introduction to desperately dark and corrupt world of Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory in which the heroes go to war. Overall, Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory – Blessings Unheralded is a great package and a solid introduction.

Free RPG Day 2018: Midnight Legion – Last Recruit

Now in its eleventh year, Saturday, June 16th was Free RPG Day and with it came an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August—or later, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Then there are outliers, something unexpected from a new publisher and something a little different. Midnight Legion – Last Recruit, which describes itself as ‘An Interactive Adventure Where You Decide What Happens Next’, is an introduction to a new roleplaying game, but not designed for a Game Master and her players, but just the single player. Published by Studio 9 Games, Midnight Legion – Last Recruit is a solo adventure book in which you train to survive the end of the world!

Essentially, Midnight Legion – Last Recruit is a prequel to Book 1: Operation Deep Sleep, itself an interactive story designed for solo play, but with a two-player option. That opens with the character waking to find himself on a medical bed, hooked up to a number of tubes, but with no idea where you are, how you got there, and worst of all, who you are. Midnight Legion – Last Recruit provides some of that information. You control the fate of a young man or woman who has been recruited into the Midnight Legion, a clandestine organisation dedicated to preserving human civilisation after its inevitable collapse. As a recruit, you have learned that the Midnight Legion has been preparing for years, laying plans, building fortified bunkers, and so on. Having recently been fired from your last job, you have signed up, knowing that it is a one-way mission. This is seen as crazy by the world at large and the Midnight Legion itself is seen as a cult rather than as an organisation offering a last chance to survive the coming disaster.

The adventure begins with the unnamed character on his last night before he joins. Depending upon the player’s decisions, a couple of seemingly random events occur—perhaps they might be connected to the wider storyline, perhaps not—and then it is onto Alpha Base for the character’s training and eventual graduation as an agent. Here there is opportunity for a little intrigue, this definitely tying in with future events, and a secret or two to be revealed about the setting. It does not make clear what the nature of calamity is, although it hints at some kind of ongoing war. 

Midnight Legion – Last Recruit amounts to just forty-one entries. It can be played through in about ten minutes—longer if a player decides to explore the other avenues presented in the story, although these are relatively few in number. The complexity is further reduced by there being no real mechanics or an action resolution mechanic. The one point where a character is tested, success or failure is measured on how well he has improved his few stats in previous encounters. This makes Midnight Legion – Last Recruit more akin to the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ series rather than a Fighting Fantasy adventure a la The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Anyway, this is what the  character I played looks like having gone through the events of Midnight Legion – Last Recruit.

Skills
Physical Conditioning 7
Stealth 5
Sixth Sense 7
Memory Points 10

Vitality Points 10
Energy Points 10

Physically, Midnight Legion – Last Recruit is decently presented. There is a character included inside the front and back cover, but it really is not needed unless the player is going to play beyond this prequel. The layout inside is clean and the sparse artwork is decent with a cartoon quality.

As well as introducing—or at least hinting at—the setting of Midnight Legion, there are a couple of things that Midnight Legion – Last Recruit also does. One is to serve as means of character generation. Each of the books in the Midnight Legion series provides rules for character generation, but Midnight Legion – Last Recruit also provides some past experiences too. The second is to provide some insights which may affect the events described in those subsequent books. Completing the story also unlocks an otherwise hidden scene in the last book of the Midnight Legion trilogy.

As an introduction to the Midnight Legion setting, Midnight Legion – Last Recruit is slightly underwhelming. The lack of mechanics mean that it does not feel as dangerous as you think it should and the lack of background sort of places it in a bubble. There is an explanation for this, but before then it does leave the player with a sense of helplessness. Nevertheless, Midnight Legion – Last Recruit is enjoyable to play and its hints are intriguing enough for the player to want to look at Midnight Legion further.

Free RPG Day 2018: Fifth Edition Fantasy: Beneath the Keep

Now in its eleventh year, Saturday, June 16th was Free RPG Day and with it came an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. As well as providing support for Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game  with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure, Goodman Games also provided support for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition with the scenario, Beneath the Keep as part of its Fifth Edition Fantasy line.

Fifth Edition Fantasy: Beneath the Keep is a ‘Level 1 Adventure Module’ meaning that it is designed to be played by First Level characters. The only requirements are that there should be a Cleric in the party and that the party should have access to silvered or magical weapons as some of the monsters are invulnerable to ordinary weapons. The adventure takes place in a keep on the frontier, home to a thriving community, but beyond its walls lies wilderness where agents of evil operate in secret from out of a hidden temple of unspeakable, well, evil. All of these features—the keep, the temple, and so on—are unnamed, making it easy for the Dungeon Master to add it to her campaign. The plot begins with the death of Garan—who is named as is the scenario’s antagonist!—a trader who is found dead in his shop. The keep’s watch has little capacity to really investigate, so enter the player characters, whether they are simply curious, employed by Garan’s family to investigate, or shanghaied by the watch into investigating.

This is a simple set-up which leads to an eight location dungeon. It is fairly linear in nature and contains a mix of quite detailed locations, some of which revolve around investigation rather than combat, but many of the many minor encounters involve traps which is slightly tedious and puts a bit too much of a focus on the Thief in the party. The adventure is quite tough in place, especially if the player characters are unprepared, but plenty of clues have been written into the plot to keep everything moving, in particular maps marking some of the dungeon’s secret doors. This keeps the adventure nicely moving along and prevents it coming to an impasse because the party cannot find a secret door. Beyond the adventure itself, there are links to the antagonist’s allies, but the Dungeon Master will have to develop that herself.

The adventure provides quite a tough opponent—who really deserves to make a comeback as a recurring villain, some fun little monsters, and a little treasure. Perhaps the best thing it provides are rewards for doing things other than killing monsters. Yet it has the potential for providing much, much more in terms of its story.

On one level, Fifth Edition Fantasy: Beneath the Keep is just a simple scenario, easy to run in the one session and easy to drop into a setting of the Dungeon Master’s choice. Yet, the inclusion of an unnamed keep located in the wilderness on the frontier with bandits, not too far from a temple of chaos suggests another use and another setting. Especially in light of the fact that in 2018, Goodman Games also published Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands Hardcover. This volume collected and provided updates of two classic scenarios for Basic Dungeons & Dragons—B1: In Search of the Unknown and B2: The Keep on the Borderlands—and it is the latter scenario which is important to Fifth Edition Fantasy: Beneath the Keep. For in B2: The Keep on the Borderlands there is a Keep, or castle, which stands on the frontier, not far from which can be a locus of evil, the infamous Caves of Chaos. There are bandits operating in the area too, just as there are in Fifth Edition Fantasy: Beneath the Keep, providing a link between its antagonist and her masters in the temple of chaos. 

Physically, Fifth Edition Fantasy: Beneath the Keep is nicely presented. The layout is clean and tidy, the map is clear, and it is all very readable. The only issue is the lack of handouts. The Dungeon Master should definitely take the time to drawn some handouts.

Fifth Edition Fantasy: Beneath the Keep is a nice little adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It has combat, it has action, it has a mystery, and it has a little investigation. The roleplay is another matter, so the Dungeon Master may want to work on that with some extra NPCs. Overall, it should provide a good evening’s worth of dungeoneering. Yet, Fifth Edition Fantasy: Beneath the Keep really comes into its own not as a dungeon, but as a plot and a story to add to B2: The Keep on the Borderlands. If you as a Dungeon Master is looking to run the updated version of B2: The Keep on the Borderlands from Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands Hardcover, then Fifth Edition Fantasy: Beneath the Keep is a must.

Free RPG Day 2018: Unknown Armies: Maria in Three Parts

Now in its eleventh year, Saturday, June 16th was Free RPG Day and with it came an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Atlas Games rarely contributes to Free RPG Day, but for 2018 offered us Unknown Armies: Maria in Three Parts. This is a quick-start for the 1998 roleplaying game of power and consequences in which broken and obsessed people risk everything to change the world. That world is just like ours, but Magick is real and essentially willpower multiplied by understanding equals what you wished for. Designed as an introduction to the Unknown Armies Third Edition Roleplaying Game funded on Kickstarter in 2016, explains the game’s concepts and rules, gives a short scenario to play through, and four pre-generated player characters to use with the scenario.

The Occult Underground can be found anywhere and is populated by all manner of fantastic and fearsome persons. Some of these creepy weirdos are Chargers capable of altering the world in ways no human can and so hold positions of power, whilst others are Checkers, those who seen the weird and the wonderful and are drawn to ‘check’ it out some more… Most player characters are Checkers, capable of performing certain magicks. Notable amongst these are Avatars and Adepts. The former aspire to become Archetypes—such as the Mother, the Naked Goddess, and the Mad Scientist—and the more like an Archetype an Avatar acts or imitates, then the greater his magic and the more he can bend reality. The latter can Do Stuff, but getting to Do Stuff relies upon an Adept’s obsession with something like sex, cars, guns, cleanliness, and so on. For example, of the four pre-generated player characters in the adventure, two are Avatars and two are Adepts. Vince Kirkland is an Avatar of The Guide and can always send someone in the right direction or give good advice, whilst Jada Parker is an Avatar of The Warrior and can pursue a purpose without suffering stress and inspire those around her. Ellen Kaloudis is a Fulminturgy Adept, a gunslinger who knows spells such as Serious Demeanour and .45 Caliber Exorcism, whereas Greg O’Neil is a Cinemancy Adept who can enforce cliches with spells like Stock Wardrobe and What Could Go Wrong? Their spells require Charges which can be generated by wearing a totem, like a gun for lengthy periods for the Fulminturgy Adept, and enacting movie cliches for the Cinemancy Adept. Essentially the differences between Avatars and Adepts are that Avatars have fewer magickal powers, but can use for free, whereas Adepts have more, but need to power them with Charges.

Characters are defined by what they have seen—Shocks; what they can do—Abilities; what drives them—Passions and Obsessions; who they are—Identity; and who they know—Relationships. Shocks represent the mental trauma a character has suffered from the worst effects of Helplessness, Violence, the Unnatural, and so on. Measured on a set of meters, they track how a character reacts to them, the possibility being that they will become hardened to them and callous or burn out from the stress. Abilities are broad talents like Dodge, Knowledge, Notice, Pursuit, Secrecy, and so on. There are just ten of them. A character has three Passions—Fear, Rage, and Noble, as well as an Obsession, the latter typically tied to his Identity. This Identity is what the character does, typically a role like Police Detective or Taxi Driver. Identities can substitute an Ability where appropriate. So in a car chase, a character with the Police Detective Identity might use it to substitute the Pursuit Ability. Similarly, a character’s Relationships—Favourite, Guru, Mentor, Protégé, and Responsibility—can substitute an Ability or identity where appropriate. Abilities, Identities, and Relationships are all measured as percentiles, typically in the range of 20% to 60%.

Mechanically, Unknown Armies uses a percentile system. Rolls of 01 are critical successes, 00 of critical fumbles, whilst matched successes—successes in which doubles are roll—are unusually good, and matched failures—failures in which doubles are roll—are unusually bad. On occasion, such as when acting in accordance with a character’s Passion or rolling as part of his Identity, a player can flip-flop result, either to get a successful result or to get a better success. Beyond this, Unknown Armies: Maria in Three Parts covers the rules for Stress checks, coercion, combat, medicine, and therapy. Of these, Stress checks are a little like Sanity rolls in Call of Cthulhu, but designed to account for more types of shock and to have a more immediate effect upon what a character can do. The explanation for how the mechanics work are not as clear as they could be and Game Master will need to give them a very careful read to understand and be able to impart that to her players. Nevertheless, it is clear from the rules that Unknown Armies is a fairly brutal system and the setting quite harsh.

In comparison, the explanation of the abilities of the two Avatars and the two Adepts are much more clearly written and it is here that Unknown Armies: Maria in Three Parts begins to be more flavoursome. Good explanations of all four are provided as well as backgrounds for each of the Cabal, the quartet who make up the quick-start’s pre-generated characters. Character sheets are provided for each.

The flavour and detail continue in ‘Maria in Three Parts’, the scenario in Unknown Armies: Maria in Three Parts. It opens with all four characters receiving a text from Detective Renee Jefferson, a shared contact, requesting their aid. The local police department has come across the weirdness of the occult underground before and in response, which has led to the establishment of ‘Blue Line’. This is an unofficial network of law enforcement officials set up to help each other when dealing with the occult, which includes Detective Renee Jefferson. Contact has been lost with one of Blue Line’s more reliable consultants, so she wants the player characters to go check on her. The resulting scenario involves a good mix of investigation and manic action, hopefully culminating in confrontation with an entertainingly snazzy antagonist. It should provide a good or two’s worth of gaming, though part of the first session will taken up by a fair amount of explanation.

Although Unknown Armies: Maria in Three Parts is attractively presented, it is not as well organised as it could be. The problem is that the backgrounds for each of the four pre-generated characters are separate to their character sheets, and this is compounded by the fact that the magickal abilities for each of them is again presented separate to them. This means that the Game Master needs to do some physical printing and separating out, and then collating of the sheets. Certainly the layout of the booklet could have been better organised.

Of all the releases for Free RPG 2018, Unknown Armies: Maria in Three Parts is perhaps the most difficult and the most challenging to both run and play. The rules are quite intricate and need a careful read through as the concepts behind both feel underwritten and are far from easy to grasp, let alone pass onto the other players. Yet both rules and concept support a fun quartet of pre-generated characters and an engaging scenario, and this is where Free RPG 2018, Unknown Armies: Maria in Three Parts really shines.

Free RPG Day 2018: Kids on Bikes Free RPG Day Edition

Now in its eleventh year, Saturday, June 16th was Free RPG Day and with it came an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. The contribution from Renegade Game Studios is Kids on Bikes Free RPG Day Edition, a version of the collaborative storytelling roleplaying game just for Free RPG Day 2018. Funded via Kickstarter, Kids on Bikes RPG - Strange Adventures in Small Towns is a roleplaying game of small town life before there were smartphones in everyone’s pocket—so no access to cameras, the internet, and GPS which would make investigations into the mysterious and the unknown all the easier. Although the mysterious and the unknown may found around any corner and behind any door, it is the kids who are ready to believe and ready to investigate. The only way for them to investigate and confront such mysteries and unknowns is to work together, know their strengths, and be prepared to ride like hell when the mysteries and unknowns turn on them and their meddling!

The Kids on Bikes Free RPG Day Edition presents a cut down version of the full game. It starts by discussing the setting of boundaries, the Game Master and her players being expected to agree on what they want and do not want in their game—what they want to see, what they are okay with, what they want to gloss over, and what they want to avoid. The point is all about be being respectful to each other, especially in light of the fact the players are going to be roleplaying children. Kids on Bikes Free RPG Day Edition omits though, both rules for setting creation and character creation. In the full version of Kids on Bikes RPG - Strange Adventures in Small Towns, everyone collaborates on creating the small town where their kid characters will have their adventures. Here it presents a town called Undecided—sic!—so named because nobody could agree on an actual name and then on what to change it to. Undecided stands amidst miles of forest whose only other feature is a lake. On the edge of the town stands a mine entrance with a cemetery and pet cemetery on either side, whilst teenage life in town seems to revolve around the Space Lanes Bowling Alley and Flying Robot Arcade. Then with spring coming, so will the fair and its Fabulous Freak Show. That said, every player gets to add a single rumour to Undecided, the veracity of which may—or may not—be proved in game.

In place of character creation rules, Kids on Bikes Free RPG Day Edition includes four pre-generated Kids, four pre-generated Teens, and four pre-generated Adults. Each has six stats—Brains, Brawn, Charm, Fight, light, and Grit—which are attached to a die type, from a twenty-sided die for the character’s best stat down to a four-sided die for his worst stat. The ten-sided die represents an above average stat, whereas an eight-sided die represents a below average stat. A character also has a pair of Strengths, such as Lucky, which allows a player to spend two Adversity Tokens to reroll a stat check, or Treasure Hunter, which allows a player to spend one Adversity Token for his character to find a useful item. Each of the twelve characters also has two questions, such as “What do you remember most about your father?” or “What are two of your go-to jokes?”.  

In this quick-start, each player chooses a character and answering a question about the relationship his character with the character of the player to his left—good or bad (a list of twenty questions for each is included at the back). Then each player notes down his character’s motivation, fear, and what might be found in his backpack. Given that this is a quick-start, there is a surprising amount of advice for all four of these final steps, reflecting the complexity of the characters, whether Kids, Teens, or Adults.

Mechanically, Kids on Bikes RPG - Strange Adventures in Small Towns uses the full polyhedron panoply, with of a character’s stats being represented by a single die type. For a character to do something, player rolls the appropriate die for his character’s stat and attempts to roll over a difficulty number set by the Game Master, for example, between ten and twelve for an impressive task that a skilled person should be able to do. When a die is rolled and its maximum number is rolled, the die explodes and a player gets to re-roll and add to the total. A player only has to keep rolling exploding results until his character succeeds. The Game Master also decides whether an action is a Planned Action or a Snap Decision, although a player can attempt to persuade her either way. Primarily, a Planned Action allows a player to take the average of a character’s stat and so forego the need to roll, whereas with a Snap Decision, this is not possible. 

It is possible to roll critical successes and failures as well as easy successes and failures. The former have long term consequences, whereas the latter have short term consequences. In general though, successes enable the player to collaborate with the Game Master to narrate the outcome, whereas the Game Master mostly gets to narrate the outcome if the roll is a failure. One other consequence of failure is that a player earns Adversity Tokens for his character. These can be spent to provide bonuses in stat checks, other players being able to spend theirs on another player’s stat check if it is a Planned action, as well as to trigger particular strengths. Combat employs these same mechanics, but for the most involves Snap Decisions and characters rolling against each other or NPCs to gain narrative control.

So far so good. If Kids on Bikes Free RPG Day Edition—and thus Kids on Bikes RPG - Strange Adventures in Small Towns—had been released prior to 2016, then its inspiration would not have been so obvious, but that is not the case and so the inspiration is obvious. That inspiration all but announces itself with the rules for ‘Powered Characters’. The Powered Character is not a player character though, but then nor is she or he an NPC solely roleplayed by the Game Master. Instead, the Game Master creates the Powered Character, deciding their reactions, powers, personality, and so on, but apportions each of these aspects out to the players so that they collectively control the Powered Character together with the Game Master. This further emphasises the degree to which the players have narrative control over the flow of events in a game of Kids on Bikes, but the Game Master can use the Powered Character to nudge events here and there. A few sample Powered Characters are provided for the Game Master to use—they include others besides the young subject of government experimental program, as well as places of interest in the town of Undecided, some NPCs, and plot hooks.

Kids on Bikes Free RPG Day Edition is plainly and simply presented, with just the single internal illustration. The writing in general is pretty good and it is all very readable. Overall, a good showcase what for what the Kids on Bikes RPG - Strange Adventures in Small Towns can do, there being plenty of gaming potential to be had in the pages of Kids on Bikes Free RPG Day Edition.

Free RPG Day 2018: Numenera: Ashes of the Sea

Now in its eleventh year, Saturday, June 16th was Free RPG Day and with it came an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. One of the regular pieces of support for an existing roleplaying game in 2018 is Ashes of the Sea, a scenario and quick-start use with Monte Cook Games’ highly regarded and award-winning Numenera roleplaying game.

Numenera describes a world a billion years into the future in the Ninth Age, drastically changed by huge advances in science, but whilst the evidence of those changes is all around, the understanding of the science has long been lost. This does not mean that it cannot be regained and Numenera is all about discovering the great secrets of the past and using them to make a better world. Examples of this technology include Cyphers, one-use devices that the player characters can freely find and use for strange magical-like effects and there are lots of Cyphers to find and use, so the player characters are encouraged to use what they find—there will always be more. In essence, Numenera re-invented Dungeons & Dragons-style play, but in a Science Fantasy setting and combined it with accessible, player facing mechanics that allowed the GM to focus on storytelling. With the inclusion of some fantastic artwork—and every release for Numenera is superbly illustrated in full colour—that beautifully portrays the far future world of Numenera, you have an RPG setting with both scope and grandeur.

Ashes of the Sea opens with the player characters exploring a prior-world ruin in search of numenera. It is clear that the ruins have been picked over by previous explorers, but when they unseal and explore a previously unexplored room, they accidentally activate a machine which sends them far away. They awaken to find themselves in a ruined building on the side of a mountain far above a green valley. The room has similar machinery, but it needs to be repaired before there is any hope that the explorers can transport themselves back to where they were. With no other obvious clues as to where they are or the means to make such repairs, perhaps answers and means lie in the valley below. Here the explorers discover the village of Bardak, its insular if friendly inhabitants, and the legends of how the village came to be. They also learn of the great six-armed icon to the north, which villagers describe as sitting above an entrance to the underworld and speak of as their protector.

With nothing in the way of technology—or cyphers—available in Bardak, the nearest place of interest for the explorers will be the Icon. Getting to the Icon will be relatively easy, whereas persuading the villagers, and especially the village Elders, to let them go to the Icon is another matter. This will require a fair degree of persuasion, setting up some side quests that if completed, may influence any negotiations in the adventurers’ favour. Of course, the explorers could just off without seeking permission, but that will probably make the trip just a little more difficult. Once there, it is matter of finding the right equipment, overcoming dangers, and thence home for tea. Or at least home to wherever they left from…

Ultimately, the ‘Ashes of the Sea’ adventure is a sidetrek, a diversion from whatever the player characters were doing in the first place. It does not involve anything in the way of villains or enemies and the main problems are really environmental and technological, although the player characters will need to use their powers of persuasion too. As an introductory adventure, it showcases the uses to which technology can be—and been in the past—put to make the world a better place, but it also highlights the dangers of meddling just a little too much. As a sidetrek adventure for an ongoing campaign, it does whilst also providing the explorers the chance to stock up with more cyphers and other numenera.

Throughout the adventure there are notes for Game Master to help her make GM Intrusions—a way of making life more awkward for the player characters, but also a way to reward them with Experience Points—and to adjust the difficulty as necessary. These are primarily aimed at ongoing campaigns, not being as suitable if ‘Ashes of the Sea’ is being used as an introductory adventure or as a one-shot.

The second half of Ashes of the Sea presents an explanation of the rules to Numenera. It is a good explanation and it will be familiar to anyone who has The Numenera Starter Set. In fact the material from The Numenera Starter Set is more than enough to play though this scenario. Physically, Ashes of the Sea is as well presented as you would expect from a book from Monte Cook Games. The layout is clean, the writing clear, and the artwork, although recycled from other products, is excellent.

If The Spire of the Hunting Sound for Free RPG Day 2017 was not an easy scenario to use, focusing a little too much on puzzles, then ‘Ashes of the Sea’ strikes a more balanced note. Less puzzles and more of a focus on exploration and technology with some good social and roleplaying elements along the way. Overall Ashes of the Sea is a solid introduction to the Ninth World of Numenera, but one that really works well as a sidetrek adventure.

Free RPG Day 2018: T&T Japan

Now in its eleventh year, Saturday, June 16th was Free RPG Day and with it comes an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. In the past, Flying Buffalo Inc.  has released support for Tunnels & Trolls*  on Free RPG Day, but like Tunnels &a Trolls Featuring Goblin Lake Solitaire Adventure, the result has not been of the highest quality or content. For Free RPG Day in 2018, Flying Buffalo Inc. has released something to tie in not with Tunnels & Trolls, but with a supplement for the venerable roleplaying game—T&T Adventures Japan.

* Note that this link is for a review of previous version of Tunnels & Trolls. A review of the latest edition, Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls will appear at some point in the future.

It appears that Tunnels & Trolls is big in Japan, where it appeared before Dungeons & Dragons. Group SNE not only publishes a translated version of Tunnels & Trolls, it also publishes its own content as well as a magazine in the form of TtT Adventures Japan. The supplement, T&T Adventures Japan collects some of the content from the magazine and translates it into English. Free RPG Day T&T Adventures Japan presents some of the Manga from TtT Adventures Japan, the mini-rules, a quartet of pre-generated characters, and a complete solo mini-adventure.

It opens with an excerpt from the manga, ‘Adventures in Tunnels with Trolls’, in which Laila the Elven Wizard breaks the fourth wall and introduces Tunnels & Trolls. It is all rather charming even if the goblins look weird, more like Deep Ones than goblins. Art from the manga is used throughout the Free RPG Day T&T Adventures Japan to illustrate various rules and situations and it all adds a bit of whimsy to the booklet. The mini version of the Tunnels & Trolls rules cover character creation, including attributes, kindred (Human, Elf, Fairy, or Dwarf), and Class (Warriors, Wizards, and Rogues). It then explains combat and magic, as well as the core mechanic for doing just about everything else—the Saving Roll. This is a simplified version of what is one the earliest roleplaying games and one of the least complex, more so given that Tunnels & Trolls only ever uses six-sided dice.

To roll up a character, a player rolls three dice for each attribute and assigns the results as he wants. Dwarves, Elves, and Fairies all get to add bonuses to various attributes. Humans are just lucky and get to roll failed Saving Throws a second time. Of the three Classes, Warriors are great in combat, Wizards get to cast throw spells, and Rogues get to do both, just not with as much proficiency. Rogues are not anything like the Thief Class of other roleplaying games. So Rogues and Wizards will also need to choose some spells, but all Classes need to determine their Combat Adds. These are the bonuses to any combat roll derived from a character’s high Strength, Dexterity, Luck, and Speed attributes.

Haruto
Class: Warrior Level: 05
Race: Human
Strength 51 Constitution 13
Dexterity 12 Speed 14
Intelligence 12 Luck 14
Wizardry 08 Charisma 15

Combat Adds: +43

Equipment:
Samurai sword 4d6
Dagger 2d6
Samurai armour 9 Hits

Tunnels & Trolls is not a game that relies heavily on skills and skill checks. What the game has instead is Saving Rolls, usually made against a set attribute, for example, Luck or Dexterity. Simply, two dice are rolled—doubles roll over and add—and added to the attribute in question to beat a set target. For a Level One Saving Roll or ‘L1SR’, this target is twenty, and then goes up by five for each level. So Haruto would really be in trouble if he had to make a L1SR on Wizardry, but then he is not a Wizard or a Rogue. For most of the other attributes, Haruto would be able to pass an L1SR with greater ease.

Combat in Tunnels & Trolls has changed relatively little in thirty five years. Each side involved rolls up their dice and adds the results to get a total. This total is compared with the opponent’s, the highest winning that round. The difference between the two rolls is inflicted on the loser! In fact, this was always so easy that it was very straightforward to write computer programs that would handle the process for you. Then again, rolling the handfuls of dice was always much more fun.

While monsters can have full statistics similar to that of player characters or NPCs, they can also be simplified to a Monster Rating or MR. A creature’s MR is rounded by the nearest ten to get the number of dice rolled each round, while half the MR is the value added to the roll as its ‘Adds’. So Waakeg the Ogre Magi with an MR of 44 rolls 4d6 and adds 22. When a player character suffers damage he takes it from his Constitution, whereas a monster takes it from its Adds, in effect, both reducing the equivalent of its Hit Points and its ability to bring its best to any fight. Think of this as the monster growing fatigued as a fight continues.

So for example, Haruto, comes across Waakeg the Ogre Magi menacing a caravan. With an MR of 34, we already know that the Ogre Magi rolls 4d6+22 in combat, while Haruto rolls 9d (for his sword and an extra die per Level as a Warrior) and adds 43. The Game Master rolls 2, 4, 5, and 6 for Waakeg the Ogre Magi, which with the Adds, gives a total of 51. Things are not looking good for the Ogre Magi as Haruto’s player rolls 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, and 5, when combined with Haruto’s Adds, gives a total of 72. Deducting Waakeg’s total of 51 from Haruto’s 72, gives a result of 21. This is deducted from Waakeg’s Adds, so that on the next Round, the Game Master will roll 3d6+1 for the Ogre Magi. Might be time for Waakeg to run for his life or surrender…

Magic in Tunnels & Trolls is a point spend system, a Wizard or Rogue spending Kreem—the energy which fuels spells in Trollworld—represented by points of their Wizardry attribute to cast their spells. The main difference between Wizards and Rogues is that Rogues know fewer spells, so need to be more careful in what dweomers they learn. Most spells also have a minimum Intelligence and Dexterity requirement before they can be cast. Famously, the name of the spells in Tunnels &Trolls are somewhat tongue in cheek and some of the more well known ones are listed here in Free RPG Day T&T Adventures Japan, such as It’s Elementary, Take That, You Fiend, and Poor Baby.

Free RPG Day T&T Adventures Japan also includes four sample player characters—the four from the manga and the examples earlier in the booklet, a little advice for the Game Master, and a treasure generator. Almost half of Free RPG Day T&T Adventures Japan is made up of ‘Coming Down the Mountain; a Mystic T&T adventure’ written by the roleplaying game’s designer, Ken St. Andre. It is designed for use with Warrior character of Third to Seventh Level, which really sets up the only real issue with Free RPG Day T&T Adventures Japan. There is no advice on creating a character for it. To be fair, it is a simple matter of creating a Warrior character and then adjusting it up from First Level to Third—or greater—Level, but the advice should have been included. If a player decides not to create a character, then one is provided although the adventure will be a tough challenge as it is only Third Level.

Consisting of some seventy nine entries, in ‘Coming Down the Mountain; a Mystic T&T adventure’, the player character is a samurai who is sent up Mount Kitsune by his daimyo to bring back a holy man who live atop the mountain. It contains a decent mix of martial and mystic challenges as well as matters of honour too. Overall, this is a decent solo adventure which should provide half an hour’s worth of play.

Decently presented, Free RPG Day T&T Adventures Japan gives a good explanation of the Tunnels & Trolls Mini Rules, an engaging introduction to Tunnels & Trolls Japanese style, and an enjoyable solo adventure full of Chanbara flavour. Of course it is a pity that no group adventure could have been included, but that down to a design decision and space. One other issue is that it never quite really identifies what makes a Japanese Tunnels & Trolls game different from an American one, but the adventure more than makes up for that by showing that it can be done. Overall, a good taster for Tunnels & Trolls and T&T Adventures Japan, but really only for the one player.

Free RPG Day 2018: Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure

Now in its eleventh year, Saturday, June 16th is Free RPG Day and with it comes an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Like the support for Free RPG Day in 2017, Goodman Games has released the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure, which provides an introduction to the publisher’s Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. It takes its cue from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Adventure Starter published in 2011, but has been expanded enough for the rules to cover characters from Zero Level to Second Level, provide two adventures, and introduce the key concepts of the roleplaying game. In the process, it has grown from sixteen to forty-eight pages.

As with the previous version from 2017, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure can be divided into three parts. The longest are rules, followed by a short introductory adventure and then by flipping the booklet over, a longer adventure. 

Derived from the d20 System, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game sits somewhere between Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in terms of its complexity. The most radical step in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game is the starting point. Players begin by playing not one, but several Zero Level characters, each a serf or peasant looking beyond a life tied to the fields and the seasons or the forge and the hammer to prove themselves and perhaps progress enough to become a skilled adventurer and eventually make a name for themselves. In other words, to advance from Zero Level to First Level. Unfortunately, delving into tombs and the lairs of both men and beasts is a risky venture and death is all but a certainty for the lone delver… In numbers, there is the chance that one or more will survive long enough to go onto greater things! This is what the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game terms a ‘Character Creation Funnel’.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure provides rules for the creation process, a player rolling for six Abilities—Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personality, Intelligence, and Luck—in strict order on three six-sided dice, plus Hit Points on a four-sided die and an occupation. The latter will determine the character’s Race—Race is a Class in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game just as it was in Basic Dungeons & Dragons, a weapon, and a possession related to his occupation.

Ernest Truss
Zero Level Human Herbalist
STR 08 (-1) AGL 08 (-1) STM 13 (+1)
PER 15 (+1) INT 12 (+0) LCK 12 (+0)
Hit Points: 4
Saving Throws
Fortitude +1 Reflex -1 Willpower +1
Alignment: Lawful
Birth Augur: Warrior’s Arm
Luck Benefit: Critical Hit Rolls
Weapon: Club (1d4)
Equipment: Herbs
41cp

Of the stats, only Luck requires any explanation. It can be used for various skill checks and rolls, but its primary use is for each character’s single Luck Benefit—in Ernest’s case, when rolling for critical rolls. It is burned when used in this fashion and can only be regained by a player roleplaying his character to his Alignment. The Luck bonus also applies to critical hit, fumble, and corruption rolls as well as various Class-based rolls. For example, the Elf receives it as a bonus to rolls for one single spell and a Warrior to rolls for a single weapon such as a longsword or a war hammer. Further, both the Thief and the Halfling Classes are exceptionally lucky. Not only are their Luck bonuses doubled when they burn Luck, they actually regain Luck each day equal to their Level. In addition, if a party has a Halfling amongst its numbers that Halfling can pass his expended Luck to other members of the party!

Mechanically, for a character to do anything, whether Sneak Silently, cast a spell, or make an attack, a player rolls a twenty-sided die and after adding any bonuses hopes to beat a Difficulty Class or an Armor Class. Rolls of one are a fumble and rolls of a twenty are a critical. The Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure includes a Fumble Table as well Critical Hit Tables for each of the Classes. Famously, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game also uses a multitude of dice, including three, five, seven, fourteen, sixteen, twenty-four, and thirty-sided dice as well as the standard polyhedral dice. Although penalties and bonuses can be applied to dice rolls, the dice themselves can get better or worse, stepping up or stepping down a size depending upon the situation. For example, a Warrior can attack twice in a Round instead of attacking and moving, but makes the first attack using a twenty-sided die and the second attack using a sixteen-sided die. Fortunately, neither of the scenarios in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure make much use of this full polyhedral panoply, but if necessary, dice rolling apps can be found which will handle such dice rolls.

Magic works differently to the Vancian arrangement typically seen in Dungeons & Dragons. Magic is mercurial. What this means is that from one casting of a spell to the next, a spell can have different results. For example, the classic standby of First Level Wizards everywhere, Magic Missile, might manifest as a meteor, a screaming, clawing eagle, a ray of frost, a force axe, or so on. When cast, a Wizard might throw a single Magic Missile that only does a single point of damage; one that might do normal damage; unleash multiple missiles or a single powerful one; and so on. Alternatively, the Wizard’s casting might result in a Misfire, which for Magic Missile might cause the caster’s allies or himself to be hit by multiple Magic Missiles, or to blow a hole under the caster’s feet! Worse, the casting of the spell might have a Corrupting influence upon the caster, which for Magic Missile might cause the skin of the caster’s hands and forearms to change colour to acid green or become translucent or to become invisible every time he casts Magic Missile! This is in addition to the chances of the Wizard suffering from Major or even Greater Corruption… Some ten spells are detailed Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure, taking up roughly, a quarter of the booklet.

One notable difference between the 2018 version of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure and previous versions is the inclusion of different spells. So no Magic Missile, but Choking Cloud and Colour Spray for the Wizard, for example. Certainly, the lack of any healing spells will change the players’ approach to either adventure in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure, but perhaps Resist Cold or Heat will prove to be useful in the second, new adventure.

Once past the funnel, the characters can move up to First Level and acquire a proper Class—either Cleric, Thief, Warrior, or Wizard, or one of the Races, Dwarf, Elf, or Halfling. Further information is provided so that a character can progress to Second Level. The adventures in Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure should be enough for a character to reach First Level. Getting to Second Level and the second adventure is another issue, at least with this version of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure includes two adventures. The first, which immediately follows the rules is ‘The Portal Under The Stairs’, which appeared in the original Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Adventure Starter back in 2011. This has the would-be adventurers venturing into an ancient war-wizard’s tomb after its entryway becomes open when the stars come right. Designed for Zero Level and First Level characters this is a short, just ten location dungeon primarily consisting of traps and puzzles with some deadly combat encounters thrown in. Its three pages are short enough that a group could roll up their characters and funnel them through the adventure to see who survives in a single session. The second scenario, located on the opposite side of Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure is ‘Man-Bait for the Soul Stealer’.

Now in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure from 2017, the scenario included was ‘Gnole House’. Inspired by the writings of Lord Dunsany, this presented a bucolic, genteel demesne, a lonely house full of detail and hidden horrors. Designed for characters of First Level, it provided a good mix of exploration and examination with some combat and a little roleplaying which could easily be run after the players have funnelled their characters through ‘The Portal Under The Stairs’ with some of them hopefully have survived to First Level. The scenario in the 2018 version of Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure is a little different.

‘Man-Bait for the Soul Stealer’ is a classic dungeon rather than the ‘house of horror’ that is ‘Gnole House’. It is also designed for between four and eight player characters of Second Level who have drawn to a lake in which stands Blood Smoke Island. Enshrouded in crimson smoke, the island is said to be home to a dragon, a demon, or even a mad wizard, but above all, the rumours tell of treasure and glory. On the shore stands a statue of a shield maiden and it is she who gives the adventurers their real motive for rowing across to Blood Smoke Island: She wishes to escape from the servitude of her master Odag, a centuries old wizard who is mining a strange meteor on the island. If the adventurers can find and smash his means of prolonging his life, then freedom will hers and a boon will be theirs!

This is not the only possible hook into ‘Man-Bait for the Soul Stealer’, but the Game Master will need to foreshadow any one of these hooks in a prior adventure. What follows is a short, eight-location descent into a steaming hell, with lots of fire and lava related themes and encounters. Each of the locations is nicely detailed beyond just the monsters and overall, it should take no more than a session or two to complete. It is relatively easy to add to an ongoing campaign for which it is really just a side trek.

As decent an adventure as ‘Man-Bait for the Soul Stealer’ is, as an adventure for Second Level characters, it does not work as a sequel to ‘The Portal Under The Stairs’. The latter will get the player characters, those that survive that is, from Zero Level to First Level, but not Second Level. There is nothing in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure to bridge that gap and no advice as to where to look for that missing link. In fact, ‘Gnole House’, from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure in 2017 would actually work as that link… That said, Goodman Games publishes numerous adventures for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, many of which could be used as that bridge.

Physically, the 2018 version of Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure is well presented, the writing is clear, and artwork is in general excellent throughout, echoing the style and ethos of the three core rulebooks for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Ultimately, the issue with it is the step between ‘The Portal Under The Stairs’ adventure and ‘Man-Bait for the Soul Stealer’. 

Although it is not quite perfect, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure is a good package. The rules are nicely explained, the style of game is nicely explained, the artwork is good, the two adventures are good, if disconnected. Any player or Game Master with any experience of Dungeons & Dragons will pick this up with ease and be able to bring it to the table with relatively little experience—and once the first adventure is complete, only a bit more preparation is required to play the second adventure. Perhaps not quite as good as versions released in previous years, The Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure is simply a good introduction to the game and a little bit more.