[Fanzine Focus XXXV] Keep It Together

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Similarly, the fanzine has been a popular format for Mausritter. However, the format has in the main, been a vehicle to provide specific support in the form of scenarios, rather than general content, such as Keep It Together.

Keep It Together – An Adventure Zine is a scenario for Mausritter – Sword-and-Whiskers roleplaying, the rules-light fantasy adventure microclone in which the very big and very dangerous world is explored from a mouse eye’s point of view. This is our world, but one in which the mice are anthropomorphic and can talk, as can other species. Beyond the walls of their home, the world is one of opportunity and adventure, fraught with hazards natural and unnatural, those untouched by mankind and those imposed by mankind. Using the base mechanics from Into the Odd, mice in Mausritter need to be brave, resourceful, and clever, as well as lucky if they are to survive. Scenarios for Mausritter tend to be location based. Either the mice having to explore a single location, which could actually be a tree stump, a human-sized suit of armour, a grandfather clock, or an abandoned human-made shack, as in Mausritter: Honey in the Rafters or a sandbox setting containing numerous locations, such as Mausritter: The Estate Adventure Collection or Mayfield. Keep It Together is sandbox setting, but with a twist.

Keep It Together – An Adventure Zine was published by The Necropede as part of ZineQuest #3. Describing itself as ‘An Adventure Area for Mausritter’, it details the area between two mouse towns—Willowthorpe and New Willowthorpe. There is a New Willowthorpe because nearby development by humans uprooted trees, diverted the stream, and destroyed an area nearby, and so the inhabitants of the village decided that they would be better off elsewhere. Packing their belongings, they moved three miles away, on the other side of a pond. However, some of the mice in Willowthorpe did not want to make the move, after all, Willowthorpe was their home and they were unsure of whether New Willowthorpe would be a success or not. Now it has, and the inhabitants of New Willowthorpe want their friends and neighbours from their old home to move into their new home with them. However, the journey to New Willowthorpe was dangerous and none of them feel ready to brave it again. Thus, they put out the call for adventurers. Can they make the trek across the wilds, including tall grasses and dangerous, to bring news of New Willowthorpe to old Willowthorpe, persuade the inhabitants to make the journey, and then lead them to their new home?

The Player Characters have two primary routes between the two towns. Either by sailing or rowing boat across the pond and along the streams, or through the grasslands. Both offer their own dangers and both are replete with their own encounters and locations. Travel by boat is simpler, but predators can more easily see the mice from the sky, whilst the grass is taller than the mice and harder going, it both hides the mice from predators from above and the mice from seeing the predators above. Of course, the weather and time of year will travel conditions too. Between the old and new towns lie the Great Log, hollow with end in the water, and the easternmost point of the nearby Rat Lady’s kingdom; an Old Graveyard where it is always cold and foggy, no matter the weather, and now beset by some strangeness; and field of rocks below there are caves where ancient treasures might be found. There are only a handful or two of such locations, but they are nicely detailed and each one comes with an encounter table.

At either end of these encounters stand Willowthorpe and New Willowthorpe. Of the two, New Willowthorpe is more briefly described, but there is more than enough information to support the Player Characters with rumours, rafts to use to get across the pond, and even some hirelings who will accompany them. Old Willowthorpe is described in more detail, as are its NPCs, and the village is also given a map as well. The seven mice still living in the village are simply and directly detailed, a handful of bullet points listing background, the reason why they have not yet left, views of the other mice, and so on, all providing the Game Master with sufficient information for her to portray them effectively. Each is also accompanied by a thumbnail portrait that the Game Master should use to show her players. There is also a table indicating the relationships between the remaining mice and a table for randomly determining what they might be doing day or night. Whilst each of the remining inhabitants’ homes and the village’s major businesses are detailed, another table provides random descriptions of the abandoned buildings.

Once the Player Characters have arrived in Willowthorpe, their aim is to persuade and then the remaining mice to New Willowthorpe. Some do not want to leave, some are scared of leaving, some do not want to leave anything behind, some do not want to leave anyone behind, and some want everyone to go elsewhere. The Player Characters will need to sort through who wants what and why, and then persuade to change their minds, all before making the journey back. This is all complicated by the interest of several external factions who have taken an interest in the current state of Willowthorpe. These factions, including the Rat lady and the Fey are described at the end of the adventure are the monsters that might be encountered. Plus, there is list of new spells, such as Calm water, Protection from Undead, and Float. Lastly these new spells as well as several items are provided as tokens to cut and slip into a Player Character’s backpack and so take up space.

Physically, Keep It Together – An Adventure Zine is a neat and tidy affair. It is well written and the artwork is good. The artwork is cute, though the look is sometimes more fifties suburbia than the usual medieval look of Mausritter.

Keep It Together – An Adventure Zine is a there and back again adventure for Mausritter – Sword-and-Whiskers roleplaying. The ‘there’ being a straightforward trek through the wilderness, whilst the ‘back again’ has the feel of pioneers on the frontier of the Old West, the Player Characters guiding a wagon train home. The scenario can be played through as is, but there is scope for expansion, which the Game Master may want to consider if her Player Characters want to go and investigate the caves and other locations. The Game Master may also want to add a little more treasure, as there is very little to be found in the pages of the adventure. Should the Game Master want to add Keep It Together – An Adventure Zine to an existing Mausritter campaign, the size and the scale of both setting and story make it very easy to add.

Overall, Keep It Together – An Adventure Zine is a solid adventure for Mausritter – Sword-and-Whiskers roleplaying.

The Other OSR: 10 Downing

Mausritter – Sword-and-Whiskers roleplaying is a rules-light fantasy adventure microclone in which the very big and very dangerous world is explored from a mouse eye’s point of view. It encompasses not only the world of nature, but also the world that the players themselves live in. This is our world, but one in which the mice are anthropomorphic and can talk, as can other species. Beyond the walls of their home, the world is one of opportunity and adventure, fraught with hazards natural and unnatural, those untouched by mankind and those imposed by mankind. Using the base mechanics from Into the Odd, mice in Mausritter need to be brave, resourceful and clever, as well as lucky if they are to survive. Scenarios for Mausritter tend to be location based. Either the mice having to explore a single location, which could actually be a tree stump, a human-sized suit of armour, a grandfather clock, or an abandoned human-made shack, as in Mausritter: Honey in the Rafters or a sandbox setting containing numerous locations, such as Mausritter: The Estate Adventure Collection or Mayfield. In being real places—or places inspired by the real world—there is definitely a sense of wonder about these locations because we are seeing and exploring them from a very different angle. Would this sense of wonder be invoked if the setting were real, and not only real, incredibly familiar to almost everyone in the world, let alone the country? What if a Mausritter campaign took place in a seat of power? What if a Mausritter campaign took place in 10 Downing Street, one of the most famous addresses in the world?

10 Downing: A Mausritter Campaign is set inside the cramped splendour of the Georgian townhouse that is 10 Downing Street, home to the Prime Minster of Great Britain and the seat of the government in office. In recent decades, it has been home to some colossal figures of British politics, including Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, and Boris Johnson. It is also notoriously infested with mice and other rodents and for several centuries there has been a cat in residence at 10 Downing Street, appointed as ‘Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office’. The current holder of the title—and the first to do so officially, is Larry. Having served through five premierships to date, Larry is the lord of all he surveys. His reputation as a mouser has varied over the years, but Larry is no fool. He knows that his presence is enough to instil fear in the mice also resident in 10 Downing Street and so in order to avoid undue chasing and catching of mice, he has come to an agreement with the mice. If they avoid making trouble and certainly avoid coming to the notice of the building’s many human inhabitants, he will leave them be. This leaves him with a mice retinue of servants and time to focus—at least occasionally—upon a more pressing problem: rats! This then, is the basics of the situation as describing in 10 Downing, which also presents the complete floorplans for all three floors of the house and numerous storylines and five ready-to-play quests and adventures involving six rival factions, eight new hirelings, new creatures, new treasures, and new spells. 10 Downing: A Mausritter Campaign includes everything a Mouse Master and her micey medley need to play through a mini-campaign of multiple mouse sessions.

10 Downing presents an overview of the house combined with the floorplans. These have been marked with the important locations, such as the Cocked Hat Rats stronghold, tunnels through the wall, and the Chief Mouser’s domain. These are briefly described as are the locations throughout the building, adding in details such as available quests to be started there and treasures to be found there. Some of these are thematically fun, such as the Flaming Churchill, a cigar which belonged to Winston Churchill and whose odour keeps cats away. The various factions, such as The House of Lordly Mice, the original mice in the house, or the Cocked Hats Rats, a gang of cockney rats, which are interlopers in the house. This sets up a social divide in 10 Downing Street over which Larry the cat lords it all. 10 Downing includes six quests, such as scavenging for food during a feast held in the dinning room, fomenting rebellion against Lord Mouse and his cabinet.

The quests and the adventure locations are given more detail. These include breaking into a bust in search of a powerful spell tablet or rescuing the nephew of the Lord Mouse after the Cocked Hat Rats have kidnaped him. Some of the quests have random elements and some also have the potential to change the balance of power in 10 Downing Street. All six quests are solid affairs, and supported for stats of the major NPCs and creatures. In addition, there new items in the forms of traps (to ensnare the corgis), new stealth spells, and treasures such as razor blade or teacup handle weapons and even Paddington’s Coat as armour.

What 10 Downing cannot really do is bring the human element into play. Of course, the many human locations that are the setting for other Mausritter campaigns and scenarios are busy places with many humans moving about, living and working, but in 10 Downing Street, the footfall is incredibly high. There are politicians, ministers, government officials, Downing Street staff, security, and even the Prime Minister’s family all moving about, and doing so through much of the day. Only once do the humans appear in the Encounters table, and even then, they are the cleaners, there after everyone else has gone—for the day, or to bed. That said, one of the quests does involve the Queen coming to tea—which of course, dates 10 Downing—and the Player Characters setting traps to prevent the corgis from causing any trouble. It gives the quest a delightful personal presence that everyone will enjoy. Yet it is disappointing that the personal presence comes from a visitor rather than anyone who is expected to be in 10 Downing Street. More so because we all have good idea who would be in the house, depending, of course, upon which Premiership the Game Master decides to set her 10 Downing campaign during. Now of course, the author cannot account for the five (actually, three if we want to be historically accurate since the Queen could really only have visited three of them for tea) Prime Ministers, the members of their cabinets, staff, or family. This is something that the Game Master will have to work into her campaign herself. Which will require some research upon the part of the Game Master.

Physically, 10 Downing is breezily presented. The self-penned artwork is cartoony, but the author mixes in a lot of public domain art too. The floorplans are a little small, but the PDF comes with larger maps that a little clearer.

10 Downing: A Mausritter Campaign has everything that the Game Master needs to run a campaign set in 10 Downing Street. However, it requires some research and development upon the part of the Game Master to fully bring out its political nuances and influences, but for a certain audience, 10 Downing: A Mausritter Campaign will give a chance for their mice to play when the Prime Minister is away.

Best of... Bernpyle YEAR ONE

Before the advent of the internet, the magazine was the focus of the hobby’s attention, a platform in whose pages could be news, reviews, and content for the roleplaying game of each reader’s choice, as well as a classified section and a letters page where the issues of day—or at least month—could be raised and discussed in chronically lengthy manner. In this way, such magazines as White Dwarf, Imagine, Dragon, and many others since, came to be our community’s focal point and sounding board, especially a magazine that was long running. Yet depending upon when you entered the hobby and picked up your first issue of a roleplaying magazine, you could have missed a mere handful of issues or many. Which would have left you wondering what was in those prior issues. Today, tracking down back issues to find out and complete a magazine’s run is much easier than it was then, but many publishers offered another solution—the ‘Best of…’ magazine. This was a compilation of curated articles and support, containing the best content to have appeared in the magazine’s pages.

1980 got the format off to a good start with both The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios and The Best of White Dwarf Articles from Games Workshop as well as the Best of Dragon from TSR, Inc. Both publishers would release further volumes of all three series, and TSR, Inc. would also reprint its volumes. Other publishers have published similar volumes and in more recent times, creators in the Old School Renaissance have begun to collate and collect content despite the relative youth of that movement. This includes The Gongfarmer’s Almanac which has collected community content for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game since 2015 and Populated Hexes Monthly Year One which collected the content from the Populated Hexes Monthly fanzine. The ‘Best of…’ series of reviews will look at these and many of the curated and compiled titles from the last four decades of roleplaying.

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Bernpyle is a fanzine dedicated to Mausritter – Sword-and-Whiskers roleplaying, the rules-light fantasy adventure microclone in which the very big and very dangerous world is explored from a mouse eye’s point of view. This is our world, but one in which the mice are anthropomorphic and can talk, as can other species. Beyond the walls of their home, the world is one of opportunity and adventure, fraught with hazards natural and unnatural, those untouched by mankind and those imposed by mankind. Using the base mechanics from Into the Odd, mice in Mausritter need to be brave, resourceful and clever, as well as lucky if they are to survive. Funded via a Kickstarter campaign, Bernpyle YEAR ONE collects the most interesting, the most popular, and the best content from first six issues. This includes a regional hexcrawl complete with eight adventure sites and locations, a selection of alternative mechanics inspired by a range of Old School Renaissance adjacent roleplaying games and even a non-Old School Renaissance, new weapons, spells and magic items, two playable species, and more.

Bernpyle: Year One opens with ‘The Earldom of Bernpyle’, a hexcrawl of nineteen sub-hexes. At its heart is the large settlement of Bernpyle, once home to rats, but now home to twelve hundred mice and a minor kingdom where mice reside in some safety and trade is booming. To the west, the woods of the Feylands are home to the Faerie Queen and her people, once at war with the earldom, but now there is a tentative peace between them. To the east is the road that humans built through Cobblefence Park and The Great Spine mountain range. The earl hopes to find a way through the mountains to expand his economic reach into the grasslands on the other side. ‘The Earldom of Bernpyle’ includes a map of the region; a description, but no map of Bernpyle itself; a list of the factions present—including their resources and goals; and stats for all factions, notably The Six, the cavalier mice and their bird mounts, who aid the earl. This though, is only the start, as Bernpyle: Year One expands greatly upon the simple hexcrawl.

The major content starts with two big adventures. ‘A Grizzly Revelation at Badger Burrow’ is set in a series of caves and human-dug mine beneath The Great Spine mountains. A renowned wizard and teacher, a star-faced mole named Suetonius, known to live there, as is a tribe of shrews. However, when the mice venture into the caves, they discover not one tribe of shrews, but two—and they are at war. A religious schism has divided them and the tribes meet daily to battle each other in the caves. The scenario is one of exploration and diplomacy more than combat, with mice choosing the latter option likely to find themselves dead quite quickly. Various outcomes are covered, but to get to the best of them, the mice will need to solve difficult situation. If ‘A Grizzly Revelation at Badger Burrow’ is classic dungeon adventure, then ‘Murky Mysteries of Mice in Marshes’ is traditional hexcrawl—or rather diamond crawl, since it consists of a single hex divided into twelve equal, diamond-shaped segments. The hamlet/town (the fanzine is not quite sure) of Coypu sits on the edge of the Froschsumpf Marshes in the Feylands. The mayor is known for his extensive whisky collection, but has not been heard from recently. Could the swamp’s frogs under their tyrant Mudlord Swelcheeks have something to do with this? The resulting scenario is a boggy bayou horror-tinged affair with some revolting villains.

In addition to the stats for the monsters, NPCs, and treasures to be found in both scenarios, Bernpyle: Year One includes a description of ‘The Missing Wand of Suetonius the Wise’, whom the mice will probably have met in the first scenario. The wand is given quite a good list of its abilities, but an even longer list of magical maladies that can befall the user if he miscasts. There are descriptions, illustrations, and floorplans of the border towers surrounding Bernpyle, each previously used by humans to play something called ‘disc golf’. In ‘Traversing the Feylands’, the author takes inspiration from The Gardens of Ynn to turn the region into layers that the mice will in effect descend as they delve deeper into the forest. This is complicated by the fact that locations within the forest can move, so if the mice may not necessarily being going up or down but both during their delve. The idea is supported by a number of tables which the Game Master will use as prompts.

Separate to the ‘The Earldom of Bernpyle’, ‘A Not So Stille Nacht’ is included as one of the fanzine’s more popular pieces. It is a one-shot, in which the mice are celebrating Christmas at the North Pole when Belsnickel the barn cat and his Pixie allies invade Santa’s polar home. It is as twee as you would expect it to be and if your playing group is partial to that sort of thing, is a passable Christmas one-shot. ‘MausTrap’ is more interesting in that it takes the concept of the Character Funnel from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and applies it to Mausritter, only with a crueller touch. The mice are ordinary mice in debt, and to clear that debt they are being sent down a dungeon to return with enough pips’ worth of treasure to repay said debt. Each player has four mice and if any survive, they become First level and can begin play as normal. Tables are provided of occupations and occupational possessions, and the possible nature of their debts. ‘Rodents and Recreations’ adds a set of classic Dungeons & Dragons-style alternative backgrounds, such as wizard, assassin, and barbarian. They are primarily designed for creating mice on the go for one-shots, being ready-to-play packages that can be applied to a player’s mouse.

Other rules cover ‘Foraging Whilst in Human settlements’, whilst ‘Mouserules of Combat’ adds a ‘to hit’ roll where there is none in Mausritter with the intention of keeping players coming to Mausritter from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and mounted combat and movement is added with ‘Mauspanzer – A ‘tacti-cool’ brief for Warband Scale Mounts’. The rules cover finding or buying them, and using them in combat, which is only becomes possible after a mount has acquired a Prestige Level or two. ‘Scars’ gives a table of injuries and effects for whenever a mouse is reduced to zero hit points. They include ‘Battle Worn’, ‘Shaken’, ‘Jostled’, ‘Haunted’, and more. ‘Time and Resource tracking in the Veins’ is inspired by Veins of the Earth and adds rules to make Mausritter even harder when delving into deep into the underground. This does run counter to the light nature of Mausritter, but if the Game Master and her group are happy with that, their dungeon delves are going to be tough indeed. Alongside this, there are new spells in ‘Magic from Mayfield’ with a botanical theme, such as Petal Strike and Thorn Bramble, thistles turned into weapons, and even #’A Weapon from Maukbörg’, a big crossbow.

‘Songvogel – A Maus’ Field Guide to Songbirds and other perching avian’ introduces the Songbird as a playable race, all small, and all hailing from Harmony Glade. There are just three Backgrounds—Soldier, Porter, and Companion. The Soldier gets armour, the Porter can carry more with his Traveller’s Duffle, and the Companion has a Saddle and Bridle, enabling a mouse to ride on his back. Songbirds do not have hands, so cannot use weapons. Instead, they use their beak attack and talon strikes. ‘Make a Fienkrieger’ provides another playable race, Fae Warriors whose love of Mauskind have led them to become Faerie Outcasts. The creation involves rolling for Former Occupation, Physical Look, Wing Type, Colour, and Weapon of Choice. Instead of spell tablets, the Fae have Tattoos, for example, Blood Dart, which lets a mouse or fae shoot a projectile out of his skin and Maus’ Paw, which grants the user a spectral paw with which manipulate objects at a distance. Rounding out Bernpyle YEAR ONE is ‘For Mouse, for Home, for Bernpyle!’, which lists all of the releases for Mausritter and even though Bernpyle YEAR ONE was published in 2022, there are a lot!

Physically, Bernpyle YEAR ONE is well presented. The artwork is excellent and the maps clear and easy to use. One issue is that the book does refer to other locations and content from other issues of Bernpyle, so in places the Game Master will need to locate other issues.

Bernpyle YEAR ONE is a lovely little book. It is really divided into the two halves—one devoted to Bernpyle as a location and the other a Mausritter miscellany. In truth, ‘The Earldom of Bernpyle’ content is better than the rest, being more focused and useable, and thus easier to bring to the table. It is a pity that more of Bernpyle as a location was not included. Bernpyle YEAR ONE has something for every Mausritter Game Master, something to play, something to try, and all nicely packaged.

The Other OSR—Chimneyhaus

Chimneyhaus is a scenario for Mausritter – Sword-and-Whiskers roleplaying, the rules-light fantasy adventure microclone in which the very big and very dangerous world is explored from a mouse eye’s point of view. This is our world, but one in which the mice are anthropomorphic and can talk, as can other species. Beyond the walls of their home, the world is one of opportunity and adventure, fraught with hazards natural and unnatural, those untouched by mankind and those imposed by mankind. Using the base mechanics from Into the Odd, mice in Mausritter need to be brave, resourceful and clever, as well as lucky if they are to survive. Scenarios for Mausritter tend to be location based. Either the mice having to explore a single location, which could actually be a tree stump, a human-sized suit of armour, a grandfather clock, or an abandoned human-made shack, as in Mausritter: Honey in the Rafters or a sandbox setting containing numerous locations, such as Mausritter: The Estate Adventure Collection or Mayfield. Chimneyhaus itself is a sandbox setting.

Chimneyhaus is published by Fey Light Studio. It details a single location and the surrounding area. The single location is the McRheetz Farm, a fairly isolated dairy farm which stands in the middle of County Langlade. Here the mice have made their home in a disused chimney stack on the farmhouse and inhabit a series of cliffside-like homes up the inside of the chimney, with a smoker at the top where the mice smoke cheese and a cheese cave and brewery at the bottom. Home to a family of some sixty mice, they have an odd relationship with the farmer and his family. They think the mice are fairies and so leave a pint of milk out daily, lest the ‘fairies’ turn the rest of his milk sour. Of course, the mice turn the milk into cheese! However, Frey, the McRheetz family cat, is always hungry and has both the run of the farm and the trust of the farmer! The farm itself is nicely detailed, and include the Haystack Market where traders met, the Sugar Maple Orchard where the mice regularly tap the trees the syrup for mead, and the Chicken Coop where the chickens are plotting a revolution, but their short-term memory means that they forget and must start again in the morning!

Beyond the boundaries of the farm, Chimneyhaus presents County Langlade, a complete mega-hex full of locations. The McRheetz Farm stands at the centre with places like a cave, home to a bear, but which has strange markings on its walls; a lake home to a frog prince; and a cemetery where ghosts wander in search of the living to leech heat from. There is a hamlet nearby too, the site of an abandoned well that was once home to mice and here the pigeons strut the streets. These are supported by details of the factions, such as a centipede army, the Queen B’s Hive, and Willy the Weasel, plus more detailed adventure sites. These expand upon their descriptions in the County Langlade write-up and come with complete with plot hooks, and encounters and things that the Player Characters might find. There are four of these, plus a short bestiary with new creatures for Mausritter, some new conditions, and a handful of new spells.

Physically, Chimneyhaus is short and succinctly presented. The conciseness of the writing means that not only is everything is easy to grasp, but there is space too for the Game Master to add her own content. The artwork and look of the book does vary in quality though. One illustration is at least too big, whilst the actual chimney where the mice live is charmingly illustrated in rich colours, the map of farm itself is terribly bland and uninviting.

Chimneyhaus is a charmingly rural sandbox for Mausritter which can be run on its own, or combined with other titles for Mausritter. There is certainly space in County Langlade for Mausritter: The Estate Adventure Collection or Mayfield. Equally, the Game Master has plenty of room to add her own content, or even developing something already mentioned in the supplement, such as the abandoned well in the nearby hamlet. In whatever way it is used, Chimneyhaus will be a classic player-driven sandbox which the players can explore at their leisure, their mice discovering in the process a world of magic, mystery, and menace, whether as a campaign on its own or expanded by the Game Master.

Magazine Madness 14: Wyrd Science – Expert Rules

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

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Most magazines for the roleplaying hobby give the gamer support for the game of his choice, or at the very least, support for the hobby’s more popular roleplaying games. Whether that is new monsters, spells, treasures, reviews of newly released titles, scenarios, discussions of how to play, painting guides, and the like… That is how it has been all the way back to the earliest days of The Dragon and White Dwarf magazines. Wyrd Science is different—and Wyrd Science – Expert Rules (Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 2) is different in comparison to Wyrd Science Session Zero. Neither contain a single monster, spell, treasure, review, scenario, or the like, but with Wyrd Science – Expert Rules gone is the organisation of ‘Common Items’ and ‘Rare Items’ of the inaugural issue. Instead, it is divided between a ‘Quick-start’ section providing reasonably short introductions to various aspects of the hobby, whilst the ‘Features’ provides even longer pieces that together look at the old and the very new.

Wyrd Science – Expert Rules (Vol. 1/Issue 2) was published by Best in Show in September, 2021 following a successful Kickstarter campaign. If Wyrd Science Session Zero took a little of its cue from the red box edition of Basic Dungeons & Dragons, then with its pastel blue cover and subtitle of ‘Fantasy Adventure Game Expert Magazine’, the second issue of Wyrd Science takes its cue from Expert Dungeons & Dragons—or rather the expert rules of the Moldvay/Cook B/X Dungeons & Dragons published in 1981 and which was forty years old in 2021. However, the modern reader should allay any fears that Wyrd Science – Expert Rules (Vol. 1/Issue 2) is all about the ‘Old School’. No, whilst this issue definitely looks back, it very much looks forward to the here and now with its coverage of current gaming releases outside of the Old School Renaissance. The result is a pleasing mix of contrasts and thoroughly engaging reads.

The ‘Quick-start Section’ dives straight in with a series of interesting interviews. ‘Cast Pod: What Would The Smart Party Do?’ interviews Baz Stevenson of the UK’s long running podcast, What Would The Smart Party Do? This follows on from ‘Zoom Of Horrors – The Smart Party On Gaming Online In 2020’ from Wyrd Science Session Zero which explained how they adapted to playing online in 2020 and how it came to dominate much of their social life and how they coped with so many roleplaying games competing for their attention. This article looks more at Stevenson’s experiences both playing and hosting the podcast, providing a good overview and introduction to the prospective listener. ‘Work In Progress: Coyote & Crow’ is an interview with Connor Alexander, the designer of the now released Science Fiction and fantasy roleplaying game set in a First Nations alternate future where colonisation never happened and created by Native authors and artists. This highlights some of the challenges of creating and then running a highly successful Kickstarter campaign—over one million dollars—and how that affected the design of the game, and again, another good interview.

If ‘Work In Progress: Coyote & Crow’ was looking at a modern design, ‘HEX LIBRIS: Jon Peterson – The Elusive Shift’ is the first article in Wyrd Science – Expert Rules to look back. The magazine’s third interview is with Jon Peterson, who has just then had published The Elusive Shift – How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity. This history explores early role-playing games evolved in the nineteen seventies whilst searching for that point where they became roleplaying games. Anyone who has read that book will still find much to be of interest in the interview, whilst anyone else should be intrigued enough to go find a copy.

‘ART OF DARKNESS: The 1000 Year Play-through’ follows on from Anna Maxwell’s ‘Quickstart – Alone In The Dark’ from Wyrd Science Session Zero, which explored the growth of solo play during the COVID-19 periods of lockdown, highlighting in particular the superb storytelling to found through playing Tim Hutchings’ Thousand Year Old Vampire. Here the magazine interviews the Wellington-based designer, Tim Denee, who began illustrating his play-through of the game. The interview is short and to the point, but is undone by only having two illustrations taken from that play-through. Thankfully, they can be found here, but another page highlighting them would not have gone amiss.

‘KICKSTOPPING: The Shipping Forecast’ examines the impact of the Pandemic on shipping and gaming—and the forecast is not good, whilst ‘CREDIT CARDS: MAGIC COLLECTORS In The Black’ highlights the recent rise in price at auction of some of the rarest cards for both Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon. Anna Blackwell examines another trend in ‘DESIGN OF THE TIMES: Small Games, Big Ideas’. This is the concept of designers challenging themselves to create playable games in as small a format as possible. These include on a business card, on a single page, and in mint tins and even jam jars! There is an emphasis here on the boardgame rather than the roleplaying game, but there are plenty of those to be found if you go looking. There are lots of examples given and these are useful pointers, though the article does lack illustrations. The ‘Quick-start Section’ comes to close with ‘Pierre Mortel’s CROOKED TALES: The Found Diary of a Crowman adventurer – Chapter 2’ which chronicles the further adventures of a hapless adventurer, whilst Mira Manga goes out with ‘MANGA’s MUSINGS: LARPing Around’ taking herself away from the computer screen (mostly) and back into the gaming world.

The Features section begins with coverage of the roleplaying game which inspired the issue—B/X Basic Dungeons & Dragons with a trilogy of articles. ‘Dungeon Life Begins at 40’ is an interview with the surviving members of the team involved in the creation of this version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons—David ‘Zeb’ Cook and Stephen Marsh—and explores the genesis of the edition and its continuing influence today. Along with some crisply produced piece of artwork from this edition, this captures the flavour and intent of the edition, laying the groundwork for the subsequent two articles. Peter Bebergal’s ‘Words Against Wizardry’ highlights how the ‘Inspirational Source Material’ in B/X Basic Dungeons & Dragons was in many ways better than that offered by E. Gary Gygax’s ‘Appendix N’ to be found in the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, whilst ‘B/X to the Future’ looks at how the Old School Renaissance came about and was really kicked off with Troll Lord Games’ 2004 Castles & Crusades, before coming up to date to examine the many retroclones and near-retroclones have been inspired by B/X Basic Dungeons & Dragons. At the head of them in 2020 when Wyrd Science – Expert Rules was published, and still there today, is Old School Essentials. The article points out that the Old School Renaissance is not all dungeon-delving, and that there are other options within with the movement when it comes to roleplaying and storytelling, such as Troika, Mausrítter, and MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror RoleplayingGame. Together this is a lovely trilogy of articles which showcase just influential this edition of Basic Dungeons & Dragons has been.

If the first part of the Features section is a trilogy of articles about one game and its influence, the next trilogy focuses on three, much more modern titles, starting with Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Romance is not a new subject in roleplaying, but for the most part, it has been explored in storytelling games rather than mainstream titles. Wyrd Science – Expert Rules leaps into the definite here and now with ‘Violence is Easy. Romance is Hard.’, Rob Wieland’s look at Thirsty Sword Lesbians. This roleplaying game not only brought romance front and centre, it put it into the mechanics, it puts it in the title too. It is a game which promises ‘Queer Action Romance’, and whilst that may not be for everyone, it is nevertheless a valid and exciting genre in which to roleplay, and this article not only makes that clear, it makes the prospect sound fun and entertaining. ‘Hammers Ready, Prepare to Smash!’ leaps into the future of the Warhammer ‘World That Was’ with an examination of Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, the heroic, action-orientated high fantasy roleplaying game. The Player Characters are the Soulbound, an ancient order of individuals granted a measure of a storm god’s power, drawn into bindings, and assigned missions to fulfil that god’s will. Combining an interview with its creative director at Cubicle Seven Entertainment, Emmet Byrne, it emphasises the strange mix of character types, Daughters of Khaine alongside Priests of Signar; whilst how they are heroes, they cannot necessarily solve every problem they are presented with; and a very different set of mechanics versus Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay as well as the change in tone. The third roleplaying game examined here is Wanderhome in ‘In Wanderhome, They’ll Be Okay, They’ll All Be Okay’, Aimee Hart provides an examination of the anthropomorphic and pastoral roleplaying game set in world that is healing following a great war in which the Player Characters wander and explore the world, as well as interviewing the designer, Jay Dragon. The Player Characters are involved in part of this healing, helping to ease traumas where they cannot solve issues, and where they can, very rarely resorting to violence or combat. Wanderhome comes across as a roleplaying game in which the Player Characters are definitely trying to make the world better, and sounds a fascinating prospect.

In ‘Making Waves – Pamela Punzalan On The Rise Of RPGSEA’, Wyrd Science Session Zero gave space to voices not usually heard in the roleplaying community—those from South-East Asia. Wyrd Science – Expert Rules follows this up with a pair of articles that examine the roleplaying scene in Latin America. The first is ‘South of the Borderlands’, in which Diogo Nogueira examines the scene in Brazil. It is a good introduction to the state of the hobby in the country, noting that it began with imported and photo-copied editions of titles from the English-speaking market and how interest was spurred by the very popular Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. However, it only really mentions a handful of homegrown titles and it lacks a timeline or history that a better overview would have given. Certainly mention and highlighting more of the former might have served as a better hook for anyone intrigued by what might be available would have been useful. The second article, ‘What Was Written Must Be Destroyed’, an interview with the Argentinian designer, Gavriel Quiroga. This focuses on his then new dark Science Fiction fantasy roleplaying game WARPLAND in which science and learning has been shunned as the cause of a barely remembered, now-incomprehensible cataclysm, and in its stead, a hollow religion’s iron-clad fist forces ignorance on surviving members of humanity. This is to ensure that such a disaster never happens again. This is a brief overview of the game that looks to worth examining to really get a fuller idea of what it is about. This pair of articles point to the creativity brimming in Latin  America, but only really skims the surface. It deserves another, more comprehensive visit.

‘Let’s Open Up This Pit’ takes the issue into the realms of wargaming to looking at how that hobby has diversified with a range of new, often radical designs. The article points to shift to simpler styles of play and the shift in role-players entering or re-entering that hobby with the simplicity of designs such as Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City and its family of titles. Its coverage of the Indie design movement is backed up with a solid selection of examples. The article also mentions how wargamers miss the old Games Workshop title, Mordheim, of which Frostgrave is similar, and in ‘Streets of Rage’ Luke Frostick goes in search of that long-lost skirmish game to see it is still played and supported. Of course, with the Internet it is. This is an interesting little article which will have certain gamers getting out their boxes of Mordheim rules and miniatures once again. Continuing the miniatures theme on from his earlier ‘Model Behaviour – Luke Shaw On Building Miniature Communities’ in Wyrd Science Session Zero, Luke Shaw enters the community of figure painters to interview four professional miniature painters who offer video tutorials and run YouTube channels. Again, this is another solid article exploring an aspect of the hobby that is being enhanced by social media. The wargaming theme comes to a close with ‘Craft, Work’, Willard Foxton Todd’s lengthy interview with the prolific Science Fiction and Fantasy author, Guy Haley, best known for his Warhammer fiction. Another good piece.

‘A Space Where We Belong’ does feel pushed to the back of Wyrd Science – Expert Rules, which is probably not the intention. Ellen Knight’s interview with four women involved in the industry, including roleplaying and board games, explores some of the attitudes they unfortunately have to face, but it really explores what they are doing to change those and made either hobby a more welcoming space. That is no bad thing, but again, this piece could easily have been more upfront in the issue.

‘Escape to New York’ interviews Pontus Björlin, the Swedish designer of ALTNYC88, the fanzine roleplaying game inspired by The Warriors and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and set in the rundown New York of the nineteen eighties, whilst rounding out Wyrd Science – Expert Rules is over twenty or so review of board games, wargames, and roleplaying games. There is a decent mix here, although some games get more space than others, and then in ‘HIT POINTS: FILM/TV’, Will Salmon gives a round up of watchable content in 2020. Lastly, there is ‘TIMESLIP’, with which Ian Livingstone takes us back to 1976 and memories of Gen Con triggered by a very special photograph.

Physically, Wyrd Science – Expert Rules is impressively bright and breezy. The layout is clean and tidy, with decent use of photographs against pieces of art as more like spot fillers. The issue does need another edit in places though.

Wyrd Science – Expert Rules is less parochial than Wyrd Science Session Zero. This is not say that the first issue was bad, but rather that Wyrd Science – Expert Rules has broadened its coverage of the gaming scene, so less of roleplaying, boardgaming, and miniatures gaming in the United Kingdom, per se, but more of it around the world. Consequently, it feels less constrained, primarily because it is not written with COVID-19 in mind, although its influence is there as you would expect. It covers its broad range of subjects with what is for the most part, an excellent series of articles and interviews, never less than entertaining and informative. In places, it could have done with more history and more context, especially the Latin American article, which would have made the content of Wyrd Science – Expert Rules more useful. Nevertheless, Wyrd Science – Expert Rules contains an excellent mix of interesting and engaging articles that are a real pleasure to see in print.