Your SHIVER Slasher Starter

Summer camp is a tradition. A chance for the parents to take a break from their children and a chance for the children to meet other children, enjoy the outdoors, engage in outdoor activities and have some fun, whilst for the camp counsellors, it is a chance to get away from their parents, take some responsibility, and maybe have fun with their fellow camp counsellors after their charges are all in their bunks. Summer camp is also a tradition of blood and tragedy, terror and death, as some seemingly random, unrelenting Slasher sneaks out of the surrounding woods and stalks the occupants of the camp, stabbing them, cutting them, hacking them, and putting them to death in murderously inventive ways. That is, until there is one ‘Final Girl’, a survivor who will somehow put an end to the Slasher’s rage-fuelled rampage, and then go on to live a life of happiness and love, untroubled by the trauma inflicted upon her by the monster that pursued her and her friends that night… Or perhaps not.

Camp Blood is a summer sleep-away camp located on the shores of Camp Blood, surrounded by the woods, with a dark history. In the sixties, its attendees, children and camp counsellors, were stalked by a Slasher known as Lopsy, and of the staff and camp counsellors, only three survived. Now, a decade later, they have returned to Camp Blood and led by camp counsellor, Cindy Beyers, have opened it up again and welcomed another group of children for another summer of exciting and educational activities which will definitely make the counsellors’ young charges learn and grow into better adults. Of course, after a month of Cindy Beyers recounting the legend of Lopsy at every fireside ghost story telling session, everyone is tired of hearing about the Slasher and looking forward to going home! Just one more sleep and summer will come to an end…

This is the set-up for ‘Return to Camp Blood’, the scenario in the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set, one of two themed starter sets published by Parable Games for SHIVER – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. The other is the SHIVER Blockbuster Starter Set. More specifically, the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set ties in with the campaign supplement, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder, in which the Player Characters suffer an attack by a Slasher and the survivors and their descendants will go on to suffer further attacks by different Slashers down the decades, from the twenties to the noughties, each decade highlighting a different style of Slasher film. What this means is that the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set can be run as one-shot, a classic Summer Camp Slasher horror film in the style of Friday the 13th, Sleepaway Camp, and Cheerleader Camp, but it can also be slotted into the full SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder campaign. This can be done as a flash forwards-style prequel to the full campaign, which then switches back to the beginning, if the Director does not have SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder or it can be simply inserted into the campaign if she does.

The SHIVER Slasher Starter Set contains two books, the ‘SHIVER Starter Rulebook’ and the ‘Return to Camp Blood’ scenario book, a set of seven pre-generated Player Characters, and a complete set of SHIVER dice. The ‘SHIVER Starter Rulebook’ is a concise version of SHIVER – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown rulebook and contains all of the rules necessary to run and play ‘Return to Camp Blood’. Player Characters in SHIVER can advance up to Tier Ten, but the ‘SHIVER Starter Rulebook’ only goes up as far as Tier Five. The SHIVER dice are of course, required to play, and one advantage of the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set is that once the scenario has been played through, the gaming group has another set of dice to continue playing the roleplaying game.

The seven pre-generated Player Characters in the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set match the roleplaying game’s seven Archetypes—the Warrior, the Maverick, the Scholar, the Socialite, the Fool, the Weird, and the Survivor—and each emphasises one of the six Core Skills and gives access to several Tiers of Abilities. The six Core Skills—effectively both skills and attributes—are Grit, Wit, Smarts, Heart, Luck, and Strange. Grit represents a character’s physical capabilities; Wit covers physical dexterity; Smarts is his intellect and capability with investigation and technology; Heart is his charisma and charm; Luck is his good fortune and the random of the universe; and Strange is his capacity for using magic, psychic powers, and so on. A Player Character also has a Luck Bank for storing Luck—one for all Archetypes, except for the Fool, who has space for three; a current Fear status—either Stable, Afraid, or Terrified; and a Lifeline—Weakened, Limping, Trauma, and Dead—which is the same for all Archetypes.

Mechanically, SHIVER uses a dice pool system of six-sided dice, their faces marked with the symbols for the roleplaying game’s six Core Skills—Grit, Wit, Smarts, Heart, Luck, and Strange. To these are added Talent dice, eight-sided dice marked with Luck and Strange symbols. When a player wants his character to undertake an action, he assembles a dice pool based on the action and its associated Core Skill plus Talent dice if the character has in that Core Skill. Further dice can be added or deducted depending on whether the Player Character has Advantage or Disadvantage, an Ability which applies, or the player wants to spend his character’s Luck, and on the character’s Fear status. The aim is to roll a number of symbols or successes in the appropriate Core Skill, the Challenge Rating ranging from one and Easy to five and Near Impossible. If the player rolls enough, then his character succeeds; if he rolls two Successes more than the Challenge Rating, it is a Critical Hit; and if a player rolls three or more dice and every symbol is a success, this is Full House. In combat, a Critical Hit doubles damage and a Full House triples it, but out of combat the Director can suggest other outcomes for both. If Luck symbols are rolled, one can be saved in the Player Character’s Luck Bank for later use, but if two are rolled, they can be exchanged for a single success on the current skill roll, or they can be used to turn the Doom Clock back by one minute.

A failed roll does not necessarily mean that the Player Character fails as he can use other means to succeed at the task if he rolls enough successes in another Core Skill for that task, though this requires some narrative explanation. However, a failed roll has consequences beyond simply not succeeding—each Strange symbol rolled pushes the Doom Clock up by a minute…

Combat uses the same mechanic with monsters and enemies—and the Player Characters when they are attacked—using the same Challenge Rating as skill tests. It is Turn-based, with the Director deciding whether each Player Character is acting First, in the Middle, or Last, depending upon their situation and what they want to do. Players are encouraged to be organised and know what their characters are capable of, the surroundings for the battle, and so on, in order to get the best out of their characters. With every Player Character possessing the same Lifeline (the equivalent of sixteen Health Points), combat can be simply nasty or nasty and deadly, depending upon the mode. Death is a strong possibility, no matter what the mode, and depending on the scenario, death need not be the end though. A Player Character could become a ghost and continue to provide help from the afterlife or even become an antagonist!

Fear in SHIVER uses the same Challenge Rating system and mechanics. A Fear Check is made with a Player Character’s Strange Dice, and if the player fails the check, the character becomes Afraid, and if Afraid, becomes Terrified. If Afraid, a Player Character loses one die from all Core Skills, and two if Terrified. This is temporary, and a Player Character can get rid of the effects of Fear by escaping or vanquishing the threat, steadying himself (this requires another Fear Check), or another Player Character uses an Ability to help him.

Narratively, SHIVER is played out against a Doom Clock. This is set at eleven o’clock at night and counts up minute by minute to Midnight and the Player Characters’ inevitable Doooommm! However, at ‘Quarter Past’, ‘Half Past’, ‘Quarter To’, and ‘Midnight’ certain events will happen, these being defined in the scenario or written in by the Director. Every scenario for SHIVER includes its own Doom Clock events. In general, the Doom Clock will tick up due to the actions of the Player Characters, whether that is because of a failed skill check with Strange symbols, a failed Fear Check, abilities for the Weird Archetype, Background Flaws, or simply interacting with the wrong things in game. What this means is that dice rolls become even more uncertain, their outcome having more of a negative effect potentially than just failures, but this is all in keeping with the genre. However, just as the Doom Clock can tick up to ‘Midnight’ through the Player Characters’ actions. It can also be turned back due to their actions. Rolling two Luck on skill checks, reaching Story Milestones, finding clues and important items, and certain Abilities can all turn the Doom Clock back.

‘Return to Camp Blood’ is the scenario in the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set. It casts the Player Characters as Camp Counsellors at the recently reopened, on another site (but nearby to the old one where the infamous massacre took place) Camp Blood. They have been serving as the camp lifeguard, assistant cook, and teachers of archery, nature, and crafts, and there is a camp roster of characters who can be linked back to the massacre at the original Camp Blood. There is a good explanation of its set-up and advice on how to run the scenario. It opens with the Player Characters sat round the campfire, chatting about their experiences over the summer, which sets up some nice little flashbacks that can be played through, such as stopping another counsellor picking on a young camp attendee or going in search of a missing member of staff. Not only does this allow the players to try out the mechanics of the roleplaying game before the action starts, it gives them their characters the opportunity to earn some merit badges—no matter the outcome—that can then be used by a player as a one-time bonus during the rest of the scenario.

After hearing Cindy Beyers relate the story of how Lopsy attacked the original Camp Blood one more time, the action proper begins! The Player Characters are sent to check on some missing counsellors who have sneaked off like any true teenagers in lust at summer camp must. Of course, this being a horror scenario in the Slasher genre, the missing counsellors are going to be found, in the burnt out ruins of the original camp, and of course, dead, and with signs of terror on their faces! That is when the Player Characters’ own terror begins as arrows fly out of the darkness and they are stalked back to the new camp, and back and forth, Slasher known as Lopsy seemingly having returned to wreak havoc just as he did a decade before. Initially, the Player Characters have a chance to hide, but this is a Slasher horror film and Lopsy is not going to let anyone hide for long! In keeping with the genre, the Player Characters will be flushed out and go on search of a means to stop the unrelenting stalker. Ultimately, the Player Characters will be forced to face the Slasher in a final confrontation, and that is when ‘Return to Camp Blood’ pulls its twist. It is a fitting twist, one that perceptive or knowing players might work out a little earlier as there are hints in the scenario, but ups the ante and makes for a big battle when during which the merit badges earned earlier are going to come in really handy.

In addition to the advice on the set-up and running of ‘Return to Camp Blood’, the Director is presented with a variety of endings she can use, Doom Clock events the players and their characters can trigger, and a compendium with depictions of all of the Camp Blood Badges, equipment that can be found and used in the fight against Lopsy, including Snuffles the bunny (who deserves star credit), and stats for the various enemies, which of course, includes Lopsy. There is advice too on how to portray him and what he does in combat.

Physically, the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set is a good-looking box. The inclusion of the roleplaying game’s tables on the inside lid of the cover means that the Director has an easy rules reference and screen, whilst the dice do sit in their own niche in the bottom of the box. The books themselves are well-presented with excellent artwork done in a style similar to that of Mike Mignola and his Hellboy comic. The writing is clear, but could have done with an edit in places.

The SHIVER Slasher Starter Set is a solid introduction to SHIVER – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown, whether or not the Director wants to run the SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder campaign. If she does, then it is a worthy addition, fitting into a decade not covered in the sourcebook and campaign. If not, the scenario is still fun and the players can enjoy the clichés of the genre and the twist that ‘Return to Camp Blood’ gives them.

Slasher Serial

There is someone stalking us. Someone faceless or wearing a mask that hides his features, makes him anonymous, who wants us dead. He will catch us. He will slice us. He will stab us. He will play elaborate pranks on us. Pranks that do not make us laugh, but make us die. Then he will fade into the background, allowing a moment of respite to recover, only to come stalking out of the darkness, relentless, unstoppable. Picking us off, one by one. Perhaps always targeting the same person. Again, and again. All for reasons only he understands. Perhaps he has a weakness, something that will stop his unflagging hunt for you all. What will it take for you to survive? What will it take to stop him? What will you tell your family, your friends, your children about this determined horror? This ‘Slasher’ insistent upon bringing your life to end? Nothing? Or reveal the truth? Or let the trauma of your experience fall upon their heads until the Slasher from your youth comes looking for them and they realise that it was all real…

The slasher film is a subgenre of horror films that involves one or more killer stalking and killing people with knives and other sharp implements. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play, Scream, and I Know What You Did Last Summer are considered to be classics of the subgenre and most of them have spawned sequels and even franchises of their own, as well as books, games, and more. It is the idea of the Slasher film as a franchise complete with a returning Slasher such as Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and Chucky that is explored in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder.

SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is a stalking, slashing, stabbing sourcebook and campaign for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown, the horror roleplaying game published by Parable Games. It not only analyses the Slasher subgenre, but also provides six different scenarios all from the subgenre and different eras of the subgenre. These can be run as a single campaign with generational play, the players creating and roleplaying characters who are related to or descendants of the characters who were victims of a Slasher in the previous scenario. The playthrough of each film or scenario follows the structure of the Slasher film, with its advance and retreat format and its building of terror, all to a final confrontation with the Slasher. In turn, they take the Player Characters from the nineteen thirties to the twenty-tens, via the nineteen fifties, eighties, nineties, and noughties, forcing them to confront a different type of Slasher each time. Any one of the six scenarios in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder could be run as a single one-shot, but ideally not, because in-between, the survivors will pass on an inheritance to subsequent Player Characters. In effect, the entirety of the campaign in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder can be seen as one big Slasher film, with the inheritance interludes between each scenario as the only respite.

Although the campaign in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder has its own Slasher(s), the supplement handily categorises the various types as monsters that the Game Master can use them in scenarios of her own creation. So, for the Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers type there is the Unstoppable Force, the Supernatural Terror for Freddy Kreuger or the Candyman, and even the Apex for the Xenomorph or the Predator, which obviously points to a different interpretation of certain Science Fiction film series. There are full stats for all of these and discussion too, of possible attacks and signature weapons, and of course, resistances and weaknesses, the discovery of the latter typically enabling the Player Characters to defeat their Slasher. Lastly, there are some thought upon what the Slasher is going to look like, what makes his appearance iconic. The advice here is fairly broad, but in that, it certainly fits the horror subgenre.

The inter-generational nature of the campaign in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is handled via ‘The Inheritance System’. This starts with the players deciding upon why their characters or one of the characters in their group has inherited the ire of the Slasher stalking them. This can be due to a curse, a transgression, or a prophecy, but whatever the cause the legacy means that they will inherit two things—a Boon and a Cost. A Boon can be an artefact or wisdom, a Cost a certain trauma or a fear. An artefact might be a Lucky Rabbit’s Foot or a Diary; the Wisdom might be First Aid Skills or knowledge that ‘The Truth is Out There’; the Trauma could be Fear Paralysis or Panic Attacks; and the Fear could be of Fire or Masks. The campaign makes use of these and more.

The campaign in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder presents six very different scenarios. Each is very nicely formatted, including a set-up, suggested characters for use as both Player Characters and extra NPCs, a Classification Board, details of what the Director knows, enemies, weapons, and items, the epilogue, and the Doom Events. The Doom Events are the four events per scenario that can be triggered over the course of the script, whilst the Classification Board categorises the scenario. Actually the ‘SHIVER Board of Classification’, for each scenario it lists the length of play time, number of players required, Subgenre, Film Age Rating, Content Warning, Recommended Ability Level, and Watchlist. The latter includes the archetypal films that the script references and that the Game Master should watch for inspiration. The six are all quite linear in terms of story and lengthy too, so will probably take two sessions to play through.

The campaign opens with a prequel, ‘The Quiet Isle’. It is set in the 1920s and inspired by King Kong and Cannibal Holocaust. The Player Characters are the cast and crew of the groundbreaking film, The Lost Temple. Groundbreaking because it is going to be shot on film with the new technology. However, despite the director having sent out an advanced scouting party to get things set up on what is a lost world, by the time the Player Characters get there, it seems to have doubled down on being abandoned. Even getting to the base and the film sets is fraught with danger, and that is before things begin to go badly wrong. And that is all whilst the director is trying to get scenes shot. The scenario switches into a big chase sequence as the Player Characters try to get out of the ancient temple below the island. The scenario would be easier to run if there was a map of the sequence and it feels more Indiana Jones than King Kong in places, but it sets everything up for what is to come. This includes the villain of the whole campaign and a secret organisation with an interest in what he will doing in the next one hundred years! Its filmic nature also means that there is scope for a crossover with the publisher’s other anthology-campaign, SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream.

It leaps forward to the fifties with ‘Static Zone’. The setting is small town America and the inspiration is Stephen King’s It and Channel Zero. Thus, the Player Characters are children and the subject matter is the technological marvel of the age—television. They get to explore the town of Wayville and get a hint of what the lives are like for some of the adults in small town America. In this case, living in a box that is suburban and conservative. As children they do get see behind the façade, if only a little, and may gather a few clues that might be useful in the second part of the scenario. This takes place behind the television screen, first in an unreal reflection of the Player Characters’ own home life, then wider suburbia, and lastly, in a series of very dark versions of children’s television programmes. They will encounter dangerous mannequins, cartoon bullies, a killer pig, and Chippy, an axe-wielding maniac, who could be a man in a beaver costume or a big, animated beaver! Thematically, ‘Static Zone’ takes the conservatism of the fifties and gives it very scary twist.

The given inspiration for the next part is Alien and Stage Fright, but at times it touches a little on The Running Man as well as video nasties. Moving into the eighties, ‘Curse of the Owlman’ shares some of the unreality of ‘Static Zone’, but this time of film-making rather than television. The Player Characters are only a little older, teenagers in their school’s Audio/Visual Club who sneak into a film studio shut down following a series of on-set deaths, for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a never before released film. Unfortunately, there is a very reason as to why the film was never released, which the Player Characters discover as the Slasher on-screen climbs out into the screening room and begins chasing them through the studio, including across sound stages which are set up just like they have seen on the screen! There is more of a mystery to this scenario and some puzzles to be solved before the final confrontation and the Owlman is sucked back onto the silver screen!

As the title of the fourth scenario suggests, ‘Be Kind, Rewind’ is all about VHS video cassettes. Set in the nineties and inspired by Saw and Squid Game, the Player Characters are now adults, looking for a ‘get-rich-quick scheme and desperate to sign up for a business conference promising wealth and success, held at a rundown Las Vegas-style hotel undergoing renovation. The villain of the piece, Mister Flick, only appears on screen for most of the scenario as the Player Characters ascend the hotel being made to play one deadly game after another. The scenario does involve scenes of torture that the Player Characters will need to find a way to stop, typically by winning the various games.

A cross between Terminator and Bubba Ho-tep, though there also hints of the novel, The Thursday Murder Club, ‘Fear, Scream-Lined’ takes place in the noughties at Shaded Pines, a retirement village. The Player Characters are retirees, members of the ‘Midnight Mystery Society’ to stave off the boredom of life in the highly regulated community, when the leader of their group goes missing. Investigating—or rather, being overly nosy—ends with them all following in her footsteps and receiving personalised care in the Shaded Pines’ medical facilities. Investigating further reveals that the retirement home is a front for a secret project to create the next evolution in fear, a biomechanical homunculus capable of transforming into the other Slashers. Which in this case means those Chippy, Mister Flick, and the Owlman! Of course, the creation turns on the creator in the final scene before the Player Characters have to battle it in the laboratory. This is weirdly creepy and made all the more challenging by the players having to roleplay retirees.

The campaign comes to a head in the last and final scenario, ‘Re-Slasher-Ed’. Combining Cabin in the Woods, Monster Squad, and Freddy vs Jason, it brings back the Slasher for 2010s at ‘Slash-fest 201X’, a convention dedicated to the horror subgenre and the works of a late director renowned for his horror films. It unsurprising that this final scenario is self-referential, with room for Player Characters from previous instalments to star as attendees much as Slashers from those previous episodes do, and there are plenty of callbacks to those instalments along with room for more. These include a playdate with Chippy and facing Mister Flick in a virtual realm, all the Player Characters have a final showdown with the villain behind it all. It brings the campaign to a decent close, but is less useful as a standalone affair given that it references so much of the rest of the book.

Physically, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is another good-looking book from Parable Games. Although there are moments of respite, the artwork looms out of the darkness at you, cartoonishly horrifying in its depiction of the monsters and maniacs that will threaten one set of Player Characters after another. Unfortunately, it does need an edit in places and the writing feels a little rushed.

Unfortunately, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder does not work quite as well as the publisher’s other shared anthology campaign, SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream. Whereas in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, the players are roleplaying the same characters from one film or scenario to the next, although performing a different role each time, in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder, the players are not roleplaying the same characters in each of its scenarios. They are roleplaying different characters, some or all of whom are related to characters who appeared in a previous scenario. They are also playing in different eras, decades apart, with each scenario showcasing a different type of Slasher each time. Whilst there is the connection of the villain between scenarios, the overall connection between the scenarios is not as strong or as immediate because of the campaign framework. Obviously, the supplement has to showcase the different types of Slasher and different types of Slasher particular to each era, but this weakens the connections between the scenarios and the campaign, because unlike the film franchises which inspire the supplement, there is no horrifying realisation that Michael Myers or Freddy Kreuger has come back from the grave to hunt us down again.

Conceptually, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is a great idea, but the supplement really shows how difficult that idea is to bring to fruition and make it engaging for the players. This is not to say that the idea is unplayable or indeed, that SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is unplayable. Rather that ultimately, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is easier to run as an anthology of disconnected Slasher scenarios than as a connected campaign.

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Parable Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

Quick-Start Saturday: Sisterhood

Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
Sisterhood – Quickstart Guide is the quick-start for Sisterhood, a roleplaying game of ‘nuns with guns’ who fight demonic possession, cults, and other occult activities that threaten the world. It is published by Parable Games, best known for the horror roleplaying game, Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown.

It is a twenty-nine page, 2.88 MB full colour PDF.

How long will it take to play?
Sisterhood – Quickstart Guide is designed to be played through in a single session. Any longer than that and you are not punching the demons hard enough.

What else do you need to play?
The Sisterhood – Quickstart Guide needs a full set of standard polyhedral dice per player. Tokens (or possibly miniatures) are required to represent the Sisters and the cultists and demons they will face. In addition to the character sheets for the Sisters, the Mother Superior—as the Game Master in Sisterhood is known—will need to print out ‘The Way of the Cross’ battlemap.

Who do you play?
The four Player Characters—or kickarse Nuns—in the Sisterhood – Quickstart Guide consist of an ex-criminal, a seer, a brawler, and an ex-resistance fighter.

How is a Player Character defined?

A Sister in Sisterhood – Quickstart Guide has four stats—Faith, Cunning, Empathy, and Fortitude. These represent a Sister’s spiritual power, logical thinking, emotional capability, and strength and resilience, and are measured by die size, from a six-sided to a ten-sided die. Body and Spirit represent her physical fortitude and the fortitude of her Soul respectively. Her ability to call upon divine intervention is measured in points of Divinity, which has a variety of uses. She also has several skills. One of these is her ‘Past Skill’, picked up during her life before she became a Nun and one is her ‘Divinity Recharge’ by which she can recharge her Divinity Points after having used them. For example, in her Past, Sister Agatha was a Criminal. Her ‘Past Skill’ is ‘Illicit Activity’, which grants a bonus to Empathy challenges when dealing with crooks and her ‘Divinity Recharge’ is triggered when she kills an enemy from Ambush or Vantage. Each Sister has two further skills in addition to these.

How do the mechanics work?

Mechanically, Sisterhood – Quickstart Guide uses a Dice Challenge system. When a player wants his Nun to undertake an action, he rolls one his stat dice, whilst the Mother Superior rolls a Challenge die, which varies in size according to the difficulty of the task. A four-sided die is ‘Trivial’, a six-sided die is normal, an eight-sided die is ‘Difficult’, and so on, all the way up to a twenty-sided die or ‘Apocalyptic’! Whomever rolls the highest succeeds. A Sister can gain more dice to roll if another Sister helps her, as well as from Skills, Relics, and Blessings. In general, if a Sister is ‘Blessed’, her player rolls the next highest size die, but the next lowest die size if she is ‘Cursed’. Alternatively, the Sister Superior could simply set a target or Difficulty Class that the player and his Sister has to beat.

Combat in Sisterhood works slightly differently to that found in other roleplaying games. It employs ‘The Way of the Cross’ and is played out on a battlemap made up of the ‘Cross’ and the ‘Pentagram’. Different areas within the ‘Cross’ and the ‘Pentagram’ are marked with terms such as ‘Hidden’, ‘Flank’, ‘Brawl’, and more, which represent manoeuvres and tactics that both sides can move into and make use of, as well as range. A Sister can undertake three actions per turn, such as ‘Reposition’, ‘Attack’, ‘Assist’, ‘Use’, and so on. The Nuns will start a fight from the ‘Cross’, whilst the demons and their servants start in the ‘Pentagram’. In general, combat in Sisterhood has a tactical, if slightly abstract feel.

How does combat work?
Combat in Sisterhood works slightly differently to that found in other roleplaying games. It employs ‘The Way of the Cross’ and is played out on a battlemap made up of the ‘Cross’ and the ‘Pentagram’. Different areas within the ‘Cross’ and the ‘Pentagram’ are marked with terms such as ‘Hidden’, ‘Flank’, ‘Brawl’, and more, which represent manoeuvres and tactics that both sides can move into and make use of, as well as range. A Sister can undertake three actions per turn, such as ‘Reposition’, ‘Attack’, ‘Assist’, ‘Use’, and so on. The Nuns will start a fight from the ‘Cross’, whilst the demons and their servants start in the ‘Pentagram’. In general, combat in Sisterhood has a tactical, if slightly abstract feel.

How Divine are the Sisters?
A Sister in Sisterhood has access to the Divine in the form of points of Divinity. She has three of these at First Level and will gain more when she acquires another Level. Divinity can be spent to gain ‘Divine Intervention’ and an extra six-sided die to a result in a challenge; to trigger certain skills; to gain a ‘Dice of Divinity’ or twenty-sided that replaces a Sister’s main die, which requires every Sister to expend a point of Divinity; and to power certain relics and holy weapons. Spent Divinity can be regained by resting, through prayer, and a Sister using her ‘Recharge Skill’.

What do you play?

The scenario in Sisterhood – Quickstart Guide is ‘The Lost Covent’. The Sisters are tasked with investigating a former, but isolated convent to determine if it is being used for cult activities, recover a relic left, and then cleanse the chapel. It is a quick affair, beginning with an investigation of the former convent before a confrontation with the cultists in the chapel. The Sisters will barely have a chance to recover before the chapel is assaulted by even more heavily armed cultists—including Cultist Rangers(!) and a Machine Gun Team(!)—attempting to stop them from consecrating the chapel once more. It is very combat focused and probably needed a bit more investigation and a bit more room for interaction and roleplaying.

Is there anything missing?
No. The Sisterhood – Quickstart Guide has everything the the Mother Superior and her Sisters will need to play.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in the Sisterhood – Quickstart Guide are very easy to prepare. They are light and easy to use as much as they are to teach, although the players will need to to get used to ‘The Way of the Cross’ upon which combat is handled.

Is it worth it?
Yes—for the most part. The Sisterhood – Quickstart Guide presents everything you you need to play a brutal game of Nun-on-Demon action, with an emphasis on the action and combat and the tactics played out on the ‘The Way of the Cross’. However, this emphasis on action and combat means that there is more ‘nuns with guns’ than ‘nuns with anything else’ action in the scenario. More of the latter would have allowed the Sisters to shine out of combat and given scope for all of their past lives to be brought into play. The Sisterhood – Quickstart Guide is a fast and fun, but not quite all it could have been.

The Sisterhood – Quickstart Guide is published by Parable Games and is available to download here.

Solitaire: Ion Heart

In the far future, the Astral Union was invaded by the Strand Fleets of the Nephilim Colossi. It was totally unexpected and the enemy, having come another galaxy, unfathomable. Despite initial setbacks, the Astral Union drove the invaders out and the war was won. That was decades ago, and even today, remnants of the original invasion force, as well as individual Nephilim, can still be found lurking at the furthest reaches of the spatial translation Snap Rifts that bind the planetary systems of the Astral Union together. Perhaps the most significant technological development of the war was the mech. Before the war, it had been designed as an industrial machine for use in construction and mining, and later developed as a combat vehicle, but it rose to prominence during the defence of the Astral Union. Ion Core technology harnessed the latent psionic ability of all sentient beings using advanced A.I. systems to create a Sync-Bond between a mech and its user, enhancing the precision and dexterity of the Mech and enabling the Mech itself to develop a personality of its own and operate independently, but still linked to its Pilot. Today, Mechs are seen far and wide across the Astral Union, the bond between Pilot and Mech celebrated as they were a knight and his steed of old. Together, they adventure and explore, often helping where they can, like itinerant, if armed, ronin of old.

This is the future of Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG.It is a solo journalling game published Parable Games, best known for the horror roleplaying game, Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. In the roleplaying game, the player will take the roles of both Pilot and Mech, who together explore a universe ravaged by war and now recovering, growing together and strengthening their bond. The roleplaying game provides prompts that will drive the story of their adventures that the player will record in short mission logs. These missions typically take the form of an ‘Exploration Loop’—arriving on a planet, discovering a settlement, encountering a Story Circuit, and engaging in combat and travel encounters, as necessary. A Story Circuit is a narrative arc consisting of six parts. The player needs to play through a minimum of three of these before his Pilot and Mech can play out the finale of the Story Circuit, and so complete its narrative before moving. The Story Circuit is pre-written, but the rest is created at the beginning of each loop. To play, Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG needs nothing more than some six-sided dice and a means to record a journal.

Between them, the Pilot and the Mech are defined by Pilot Body and Pilot Presence, and Mech Brawn and Mech Reflex. Pilot Body is his physical capability and toughness, whilst Pilot Presence is his mental fortitude and reasoning skills. All of these start at zero, but are first modified by the Pilot’s Temperament and the Mech’s Weight Class. The Pilot is further defined by his Origin, either Apollonian, Varziss, Urvon, Chiros, Kirvae, and Mo’nau. The Apollonians are humans, whilst the rest are anthropomorphic species, roughly reptilian, ursine, bat-like—including being able to fly, centaur-like, and feline, respectively. The Pilot also has a Goal, either ‘Adventure forth’, ‘Return home’, or ‘Escape past’, and a Temperament, either ‘Outgoing’, ‘Reflective’, or ‘Mercurial’.

The Mech has a Class that can either be Light, Medium, or Heavy. This determines whether it favours speed, durability and powerful weapons, or a balance between the two, and thus its starting values for Mech Shielding and Brawn and Reflex modifiers. Each Mech has a Ranged Weapons System, Melee Weapons System, and an Auxiliary System, which will also help in combat. Since the end of the war with the Nephilim, all Mechs have been reconfigured or designed to have a civilian Specialisation and thus the capacity to be useful out of combat. This can be ‘Shepherd’, ‘Harvester’, or ‘Bridgebuilder’. All of this—for both Pilot and Mech—can rolled for or chosen by the player. Lastly, there is the Ion Core Sync Bond, which represents the connection between the Pilot and his Mech, and in play, determines how many Heroic actions or Ion Core engagements that can be conducted per day.

Pilot Name: Aeron
Pilot Origin: Kirvae
Pilot Temperament: Reflective
Pilot Goal: Escape Report
Pilot Presence 0 Pilot Body 0

Level 1
Ion Core Sync Bond 2
Mech Shielding 43

Mech Name:
Mech Weight Class: Medium
Attacks: 3
Mech Brawn 0
Mech Reflex 0
Weapons: Concussion Maul (Damage: 4+D6) [If you hit an enemy with this weapon add +1 to your defence rolls against them]; Auto Blaster (Damage: 3+D6) [You may make a free attack with this weapon when in ranged step of combat.]
Auxiliary system: Liquid-metal armaments
Battle Scars: 0
Mech Specialisation: Harvester
Mech Quirks: 0

At its core, Ion Heart is simple. When a player wants either his Pilot or his Mech to succeed, he rolls a single six-sided die and rolls of four or more means the attempt is successful. A roll of one is always a failure, whilst a roll of six is always a success. For the Pilot, bonuses can come from his Presence or Body as appropriate, but if he fails, the player can decide to have his Pilot undertake a Heroic Action. This automatically succeeds, but at the cost of a Sync Bond slot for that day. The Mech can operate by itself when the Pilot is not in the cockpit. In which case the bonuses for the Mech’s own Mech Brawn and Mech Reflex are used, and the roll required to succeed is still four or more. When a Mech has no instructions, it will revert to the Specialisation it has been programmed with.

Combat uses the same core mechanic, but on attacks, a roll of six is critical hit and inflicts more damage. Similarly, a roll of six to defend against an attack is a critical and deflects part of the damage back at the attacker. A round consists of three steps—Ranged, Melee, and Disengage. A Mech’s Level determines the number of attacks per round, but if the Pilot or Mech decides not to attack, they receive a bonus to the rolls to defend themselves. Damage reduces the Mech Shielding, and this is both when the Pilot is out of the Mech and in the Mech. If the Pilot is out of the Mech, it means that Pilot is not taking damage as such, but his ability to pilot the Mech is being affected.

The Ion Core of a Mech and it’s A.I. means that it can learn over time as it synchronises with the Pilot and it can also overcharge the Mech’s systems. There is no truly safe way to do this, as even if the Pilot and Mech have enough Sync Bond points—which determines the number of times it can be done per day—engaging the Ion Core can still damage the Mech and will damage the Mech if the number of times it is done exceeds the Sync Bond points. When the Ion Core is engaged, it provides the player with a number of choices, such as the aforementioned ‘Heroic Push’, which allows a failed Mech Brawn or Mech Reflex check to succeed; ‘Shields! Full Power!’, which partially restores Mech Shielding; and ‘Meteoric Thunderstrike!’ which enables a single attack that round and has it automatically succeed with extra damage inflicted. In the long term, through play and combat, the latter if the Mech Shielding is reduced to zero and the Mech is disabled, the Mech can acquire Mech Quirks such as ‘Gallant Protector’, which grants a bonus to Defence rolls if Mech Shielding is seriously reduced, and ‘Ocular Misalignment’, damaging its targeting optics! If there is an issue with the Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG, it is that it is hard for the Pilot to improve in comparison to the Mech and the Mech is always more interesting than the Pilot as he has no special abilities or skills.

In terms of play and the ‘Exploration Loop’, Ion Heart provides the player with tables to generate its various parts. This includes its biome, a settlement and its amenities, which the Pilot can visit two of per day, Travelling Encounters-which can be friendly, neutral, or hostile, and a selection of enemies, from improved industrial units to one of the most feared mechs in the Astral Union, the Heriot Shieldbreaker. Together these establish a broad environment where the Pilot and Mech will adventure and explore, but what forms the basis the storytelling and the adventures are the Story Circuits. Two of these are provided in Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG, ‘The Mech Circus’ and ‘Protecting the Herd’. In the first, the Pilot and Mech encounters Marsha’s Mecha Circus and get to enjoy a night at the circus, but with a Mech! In the second, the Pilot and the Mech find a rural town whose farmers are concerned something or someone has been interfering with their herds of Malhoons, so the Pilot and the Mech have to find the robo-rustlers! Both of these Story Circuits are short and can be played through in single long session of no more than two hours or several, very short sessions in which a single event is played out and recorded.

Physically, the Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG is a nicely done roleplaying game. It is fetchingly presented in swathes of primary colours and easy to read and understand.

The Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG is a tough little game given that until a Pilot and Mech survives a Story Circuit and can go up a Level, there is not much in the way of modifiers to affect the dice rolls needed for many actions. This is why the Sync Bond and engaging the Ion Core is so important as it can get the Pilot and Mech out of a tight scrape, but it is more important early on in the game when there are fewer modifiers to skill rolls and fewer chances to engage the Ion Core with any degree of safety. However, careful play and some luck will get the Pilot and the Mech through some situations. In the process, the player will discover a rather charming little journalling roleplaying game, one that is engagingly optimistic in its tone and the stories presented in its Story Circuits, which makes the Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG a very welcome change in comparison to many other journalling games.

The Clouds Above

The Earth’s skies above are lost in a sea of roiling grey clouds, lit by lightning storms, and boiling with pollution. The world’s skies have been hidden for as long as anyone can remember and no one can remember why. There are those who are brave enough to leap into the air and explore what is to be above the clouds, piloting aeroplanes or dirigibles, searching for treasures said to be found there. Some do return with such treasures, but others come with none, or driven mad from their experiences. This is the setting of What Lurks Above, a micro roleplaying game of pulp exploration and danger in a neo-Victorian post-apocalyptic setting. Published by Parable Games—best known for the horror roleplaying game, Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown, it includes simple easy rules, including for both characters and vessels, and combat between them.

A Player Character in What Lurks Above has four stats—Fortitude, Courage, Intellect, and Agility. These are rated by die type. So, one has a six-sided, eight-sided, a ten-sided, and a twelve-sided die. It is as simple as that. He has a Vigour equal to his Fortitude die size.

The Cook
Fortitude d6 Courage d12 Intellect d10 Agility d6
Vigour 6

To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls the die for the appropriate stat and aims to roll high. The Skipper—as the Game Master is known—sets the difficulty by choosing a die type. The larger the die type, the greater the difficulty faced by the Player Character. If the player rolls higher, his character succeeds, but if the Skipper rolls higher, the character fails. The Vessel, whether an aeroplane or a dirigible, also has four stats, which again are assigned die types. The four stats are Hull Integrity, Engine Power, Radar Range, and Weapon Systems. Combat is also handled as opposed rolls, with the winner inflicting damage to the loser’s Vigour. Bare firsts inflict one point of damage, an antique sabre three points, a missile eight points, and so on. If a Player Character’s Vigour is reduced to zero, then they are dead. NPCs and bigger creatures can have higher Vigour values than the die types.

To power play, What Lurks Above offers a series of prompts in a set of tables. These consist of tables for ‘Discoveries’ and ‘Enemies’. Entries for the former include ‘A castle in the sky run by automata who continue to serve their long dead masters’ or ‘A basking shark with a city in its mouth’ and work as scenario hooks, whilst entries for the latter include a ‘Fog Brain’, a floating sphere of fleshy cloud with hanging moss tentacles, and a ‘Flock of Seagull Warriors’ with a penchant for everyone’s leftovers! The Skipper simply has to roll on both to have a prompt to get an adventure started.

Physically, What Lurks Above is a simple tri-fold pamphlet. It is surprisingly and decently illustrated and is an easy to pick up roleplaying game. Overall, What Lurks Above is a very bare bones game, but that allows room aplenty for the Skipper and her players to develop the world as they want.

Claustrophobic Chills

Imagine being in a cave. Deep underground. In the dark and the damp and the cold. It is easy to imagine. What though, if you were trapped there? What if there had been an accident and now you simply could not retrace the steps that led you into the depths of the earth and so make your way to feel free again under the light and warmth of the Sun and the vast openness of the sky? What will you do? How will you react? You are not alone. You have friends and colleagues with you, but what will they do and how will they react? You know you will survive and find your way out, right? Not everything is lost, and of course, people know you came down here, so the alarm is sure to be raised soon, right? So put a plan together, check on your resources, and set out to find a new route to safety. Then the sounds starts. The skittering of movement. The moans of something that has your scent. A shadow that seems to move out of your headgear lamp. The sense you are being followed… Does the fear rise? Are you terrified at being trapped here with it? Is that the sound of your friend’s screams or your own? This is the set-up for Squeeze: A Tabletop Game of Subterranean Claustrophobic Horror.

Squeeze: A Tabletop Game of Subterranean Claustrophobic Horror is a micro-game published by Parable Games, the British publisher best known for the horror roleplaying game, Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. It was funded as part of the publisher’s Parable Games ZineQuest RPG Buffet on Kickstarter. It pitches ordinary men and women who have delved deep underground and due to an unfortunate accident become trapped—and trapped with something else what will hunt them as they try to find a way back to the surface. It provides a set of tables for determining why and where the Player Characters, or Explorers, have ventured underground, as well as the nature of the accident, plus a table of environmental threats that they might have to overcome and a set of ten different monsters that will react to their presence. Combine this with a simple set of rules and means of character generation, and what Squeeze: A Tabletop Game of Subterranean Claustrophobic Horror provides is short, handy roleplaying game that can be pulled off the shelf and readied to play with very little preparation. It does require several four-sided per player, but other than that, this is a very imagination driven roleplaying game for the Game Master and her players who are happy to improvise.

An Explorer in Squeeze has four traits: Head, Heart, Lungs, and Hands. They represent in turn, intelligence and experience, compassion and charisma, health and stamina, and strength and dexterity. They are rated between one and four. An Explorer also has a Health stat and a Calm stat. To determine the value of the four traits, a player either divides nine points between them or they can be rolled for. Lastly, a player rolls for two items of equipment.

Tony Wroe
Head 2 Heart 3 Lungs 3 Hands 2
Health 11
Calm 6
Equipment: Rope, Rucksack

Mechanically, to have his Explorer undertake an action, a player rolls a number of four-sided dice equal to the appropriate trait. The aim is to roll as many successes as possible, in order to beat a difficulty ranging between one and five, with five being considered impossible. A result of two is a failure, but three is a success. A roll of one is a critical failure and reduces the total number of successes rolled by one, whereas a roll of four is critical success and lets the player roll again and again as long as four is rolled each time. In combat, each success rolled inflicts a single point of damage. There will also be bonuses for damage from claws, mandibles, and so on (or even sharp rocks if the damage is environmental in nature.)

Squeeze gives guidance on how to use the mechanics to model the environment, such as using the Hands Trait to handle climbing, the Head Trait to identify safe routes up the climb, and even the Heart Trait if the climb itself is that high… It also shows how it might be used as a timing and distance mechanism, such as swimming and attempting to avoid the danger of drowning. However, what Squeeze does not do is really fully show how Panic works in the game. When an Explorer loses all of his Calm, he suffers Panic and loses a point from one of his Traits. If the Explorer can make a Lungs check, he can draw a deep breath and restore points of Calm, but another Explorer can also calm another panicked Explorer down and also restore points of his Calm. This is the mechanical aspect of losing Calm and it is really only what Squeeze covers. So, there is no advice on roleplaying this and worse, there is no guidance on how Calm is actually lost. It is a major oversight. What it means is that the Game Master is going to have to work out how this works herself. For an experienced Game Master this should be no problem, especially given how simple it is to run and play Squeeze.

In terms of creating a story, Squeeze includes a table of four story hooks and a table of four accidents, along with a table of eight settings. All the Game Master do is roll on these and she has the basics of the starting point for a game of Squeeze. Thus, the Explorers have descended into an abandoned mineshaft in order to search for a missing child, but are cut off from their route down by a cave-in, or be archaeologists looking for a sunken civilisation in some catacombs when someone sabotages the team’s way back. Environmental threats include falling stalactites or an underground lake, whilst the list of horrors includes Stone Spiders, Wall Crawlers, a White Wyrm, and the Shadowman. Overall, there are enough options here for a handful of games of Squeeze.

Physically, Squeeze is decently laid out and quick and easy to read. It is easy to learn and set up, and though it relies on a great of improvisation by the Game Master, it is not difficult to run. Or rather, it should not be difficult to run. The lack of rules on how Calm is lost so that Panic can be triggered is a major omission upon the part of author and publisher. It is not an insurmountable omission, especially for an experienced Game Master, but annoying, nonetheless. All it would have taken was another page to explain the rules and that would also have allowed space for a bibliography of horror films about being trapped underground far below the surface. Alas, Squeeze: A Tabletop Game of Subterranean Claustrophobic Horror is simply not complete and not what the publisher intended.

Screams on Screen

They say that if you want to make it big in Hollywood, you are going to have to sell your soul. Not necessarily the devil, but to some studio executive for certain. Life is hard trying to make it big in Tinseltown, but that does not stop a whole lot of people trying—and when they get there, from working just as hard to stay on top, or as close as they can get. Fame and fortune, and your name up in lights on the marquee at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard beckon if you work hard enough, have got the talent, and get lucky. Right now, you got some of that and more—a contract. A contract with Starfall Studios, where, “The Brightest Stars are brought down to earth, just for you!”. In truth, you are a B-List actor, perhaps on the way up, perhaps on the way down, and also in truth, Starfall Studios has not had a hit in years. However, you know you can change that, because you know you are good and with the new management and the new funding, this could be your chance to get noticed. If not make a big hit, then big enough to maybe get an award nomination, get picked up by a bigger studio, and get put in bigger pictures.

This is the set-up for SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, a cinema-themed campaign for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown, the horror roleplaying game published by Parable Games. In the campaign, the players take on the roles of actors working for a small film studio in Hollywood, trying to make some blockbusters and get noticed. It has five scripts, each bound to be a surefire hit in which the actors get to prove how good—or bad—they are and make Hollywood sit up and take notice! Effectively, each player is roleplaying an actor who is playing a role in five different films, so five times—and slightly more—the roleplaying as in any other campaign or roleplaying game, unless they always play the same role and play it to the camera. Then, the best thing of all, a roleplaying game like Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown and thus SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, has got a budget bigger than any Hollywood studio. So, it can make any film and it will never blow the budget!

Actor creation in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream works like that in Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. First, a player selects an Archetype, a Background, and a Fear. Then for SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, he selects a Starring Role. This can be ‘The Leading Hero’, ‘The Stunt Performer’, ‘The Thespian’, ‘The Heartthrob’, ‘The Love Interest’, ‘The Comic Relief’, ‘The Method’, and more. Each Starring Role has a Star Power and Audience Expectation. The Star Power is a unique ability that the Actor can perform once per quarter of the Doom Clock, whilst the Audience Expectation is something that if done on screen will gain the Actor the favour of both the audience and the Director, and so boost his career. So, for ‘The Love Interest’, the Star Power is a ‘A Healing Heart’ that enables the Actor to make a Heart Check and regain Hit Points if they perform a romantic scene, whilst the Audience Expectation ‘Break Heart/Bow Minds’ in which the Actor wants the audience’s favour to fall in love with them and so will make romantic confessions, and have moments of passion or tear-jerking moments to get the audience to love them.

Depending upon how well an Actor performed, he or she can receive an Accolade or a Review. Both are awarded by the Director. Engage in both Star Power and Audience Expectation and an Actor will earn an Accolade, but if not, he or she may be in line for a Bad Review. Accolades include the ‘Performance Award’, ‘Hall of Fame’, ‘Rabid Fanbase’, ‘Top Billing’, and so on, whilst Bad Reviews include ‘Hamming It Up’, ‘Worst Actor Ever’, and ‘Boring Performance’. Accolades provide a minor benefit, whilst Bad Reviews act as minor disadvantage. For example, ‘Performance Award’ gives the Actor a piece of armour to use in the next film, but once used, it is gone, whilst ‘Looking Fit’ grants Advantage on acts of athleticism. The Bad Review, ‘Diva Reputation’ means that if the Actor fails a Check that would advance the Doom Clock, if they also fail a Strange Check, they suffer Soul damage.

It is possible for a player to change his Actor’s Starring Role and the book suggests that if multiple players want their Actor to take a particular Starring Role, then they should audition! However, the awarding of Accolades and Bad Reviews is the purview of the Director and can be subjective. The problem is that they are effectively grading a player’s roleplaying skill and performance—good, bad, or indifferent—and that is not natural to roleplaying as a hobby. The advice on the matter is cursory, but nevertheless, this is a fun mechanic and enforces the film studio and life in pictures set-up of SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream. What the Director might want to do perhaps is encourage the input of the players in deciding the Accolades and Bad Reviews, possibly forming an association of Hollywood critics and roleplaying its members too to expand the roles that the players take?

Once set up, SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream presents five very different ‘scripts’ or scenarios. Each is very nicely formatted, including a set-up, a Classification Board, details of what the Director knows, enemies, weapons, and items, the epilogue, and the Doom Events. The Doom Events are the four events per scenario that can be triggered over the course of the script, whilst the Classification Board categorises the scenario. Actually the ‘SHIVER Board of Classification’, for each scenario it lists the length of play time, number of players required, Subgenre, Film Age Rating, Content Warning, Recommended Ability Level, and Watchlist. The latter includes the archetypal films that the script references and that the Director should watch for inspiration. Every film lists the roles required as well.

All five adventures in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream can be played through in a single session, or two at the most. The first is ‘A Little Adventure’, which is inspired by Honey I Shrunk the Kids and The Incredible Shrinking Man and finds a family visiting Grandpa for the weekend only to find him missing and themselves suddenly shrunk into a big world where they must battle toys, pets, and insects from doll’s house across the garden to find a way to get back to the right scale. ‘Crossbones’ Treasure’ is inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean and The Goonies, and is a classic pirate tale that has the cast race across the Caribbean in search of pirate treasure and facing ghosts, undead, and a giant crab. The third scenario is ‘Intergalactic Planetary Temple of Terror’ is a Science Fiction film which is in parts Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars, and Flash Gordon. The Player Characters are galactic criminals who escape space prison and are chased by their robot masters known as the Authority all the way to an ice planet where they will be faced by a dilemma whose outcome will affect the universe! A combination of Lord of the Rings, Legend, and Clash of the Titans*, ‘Medieval Dead’ is a fantasy romp in which the Player Characters are would be heroes, apprentice members of the Adventurer’s Guild, who are forced to suddenly graduate to actual, proper heroes when at the annual Merry Heroism Festival, an army of skeletons and a skeletal dragon, led by the Necromancer kills them all. Plus, he also kidnaps the princess. So not only a revenge mission, but a rescue one too which pokes a little fun at Dungeons & Dragons too, all the way to Mount Gloom. The last scenario is ‘Deep Red Sea’ which is inspired by the Indiana Jones series of films, Jaws, and Atlantis: The Lost City. What starts as a shark hunt to improve the tourism of a Pacific coast town in 1941 turns into a confrontation with a big sea monster and an evil cult from under the sea!

* Hopefully the original and not the dire 2010 remake.

Now all five of the scenarios in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream are linear. This is to be expected, as after all, they are meant to be films being shot by a film studio. They could also be extracted from the book and run as one-shots, but that would be to ignore the meta-level written into the campaign, that is, the fact that the Player Characters are Actors. Where the players get to roleplay Actors in five different films over the course of SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, in between, they get to play the Actors themselves. Between each film there is an interlude. Starfall Studio is running a very busy schedule, so the Actors will have little time between wrapping up shooting on one picture and shooting the next, so will be confined to the Star Trailer Park. In the first interlude, between ‘A Little Adventure’ and ‘Crossbones’ Treasure’, the players get to introduce their Actors and what their Starring Role is and each is visited by their Agent for the dreaded Performance Review. This is when the Accolades and Bad Reviews are handed out. One odd issue perhaps is that the Actors all share the same Agent, but that does also suggest a certain creepiness to their situation and this is only enhanced by the ominous events which can occur to one or more of the Actors. These ominous events are inspired by the previous films which the Actors have just finished making and serve to add to the creepiness as more and more of them occur as more films are made. One option to offset the oddness of the single Agent, is to have the players roleplay the different Agents for their Actors, which will add another level of roleplay to the campaign and make it a little more like troupe play.

Over the course of the four interludes, life at the Starfall Studio lot gets more and more mysterious, like the scriptwriter on all five films going missing or a rabid fan running amok, until ‘The Last Reel’. Drawing inspiration from This is the End and Scream 2, in this campaign climax, the Actors are forced to step out of their heroic roles and become heroes themselves as they attend the Star Gala at Starfall Studios’ Ciné Star Megaplex and confront one big conspiracy and one big villain, who has been pulling the strings all along, proving, of course, just how evil Hollywood actually is!

Supporting the campaign in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream is ‘The Compendium’. This lists all of the NPCs and monsters which appear in the various films, plus the Inventory for each.

SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream is not just a collection of film-themed and film inspired horror adventures. It is more than that and in part, that is where the campaign comes alive, in having the players not only roleplay the cast of characters onscreen in the campaign’s five films, but also step back from that to have them roleplay the Actors performing as the cast of characters. It calls for more roleplaying upon the part of the players, which can be as hammy as they like, because, after all, the Starring Roles are archetypes. And if they want to be inspired by particular actors who resemble those Starring Roles, then all the better.

SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream is a really entertaining campaign that in presenting five films to make, offers lots of variety, and having the players roleplay both the film casts and the Actors, gives them lots of roleplay to get their teeth into—a clever, well-executed combination.

Horror House Hell

Have you wondered what would happen if a group of squatters looking for a place to stay or estate agents showing around prospective buyers got trapped in a haunted house? It is an intriguing idea, perhaps more interesting than the traditional trick or treating kids or new homeowners. After all, we already know how desperate either group is. The squatters desperate enough to break into an old house looking for somewhere to sleep and the estate agents desperate to make a sale and get the property off their books. If you are intrigued, then This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is what you want. This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is roleplaying game of ordinary folk being trapped in a haunted house, scared, petrified, and even dying from the frights that the spiritual trauma bound into the building are inflicting upon them. Initially uncertain, the protagonists—or victims—will over the course of three acts, suffer creepy events such as footsteps in another room or a music box playing by itself and then face obstacles like the lights going out and having to scrabble about in the dark or the faces in all of the portraits or photographs suddenly breaking into screams, before confronting the ghostly or ghoulish doings with a séance to appease a spirit’s woes or one of their number becomes possessed and begins to stalk everyone else in a murder spree!

This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is a micro-game published by Parable Games, the British publisher best known for the horror roleplaying game, Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. It was funded as part of the publisher’s Parable Games ZineQuest RPG Buffet on Kickstarter. It pitches very ordinary—quite literally, each one is an everyman—folk into a terrifying situation, puts them through the ringer, and sees which ones survive. And survival is the prize. It is designed to be played in a single session, is very light in terms of mechanics, and comes packed with a bunch of prompts to use at every stage of the game. Some preparation is required in terms of the Housekeeper—as the Game Master is known in This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED—deciding upon the type of haunted house the Player Characters will be trapped in. Will it be a classic gothic mansion, a crumbling castle on the hill, or some irritating millionaire tech bro’s mansion? The choice will help the Game Master decide upon the nature of the haunting and how it will manifest over the course of the game. Beyond that though, This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is a very low preparation roleplaying game, so good to have as a back-up or impromptu game.

In terms of the Player Characters, what the Game Master and her players need to decide is what the characters are. Several options are suggested, including the squatters and the estate agents, and beyond that, nothing. No Player Character has any skills to speak of, at least in a mechanical sense and the only stats are Harm and Will, like this:

Margorie Whittingham (Mrs.)
Estate Agent
Harm: 10
Will: 3

Mechanically, for a player to have his character overcome a challenge in This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED, he rolls two six-sided dice and attempts to get a result of seven or more. If he succeeds, fine. If not, he fails and bad things happen to him. The player is free to decide if his character is above average at this task or below average. In which case, he receives a bonus or penalty of one, respectively. The difficulty of the task can levy a penalty ranging from Difficult and -1 to Why Bother? and -4. Combat is primarily narrative driven, and since the Player Characters are ordinary folk, they rarely have the initiative or an advantage. If the threat is incorporeal, then the Player Characters will need to use the occult or some other means, to inflict harm upon them.

A Player Character suffers physical damage to his Harm and mental damage to his Will, including being scared. Both physical damage and frights can come from creepy events, obstacles, and confronting the danger itself, as well as from failing a roll on occasion. Reducing his Harm to zero will kill a Player Character, but when his Will is reduced to zero, he will become petrified. This imposes a further penalty on all rolls. However, if the player succeeds at a roll when his character is petrified, some Will is recovered and he is no longer petrified.

This is the extent of the rules to This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED, just two pages out of its twelve-page running length. The rest of the roleplaying game is dedicated to helping the Housekeeper create her haunted house and decide upon its nature. There is some advice, actually decent advice given the length of the game, and then lots of tables with lots of entries. These include reasons why the house is haunted and the ‘Minor Creepy Events’ for Act One, the ‘Haunting’ events for Act 2, and the nature of the final confrontation in the ‘Finale’ for Act 3. This is accompanied by a long list of ghostly enemies, from Poltergeist, Banshee, and Ghoul to Demon, Hellhound, and Legion. The Player Characters are supported by a list of possible weapons, from the mundane, like the rolling pin and the cleaver, and the magical, like the ritual dagger and Latin Dictionary (although the latter has a one-in-six chance of working, and a one-in-six chance of the Player Character failing in a Latin word salad).

Structurally, This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is played out over three acts. In the first act, the Player Characters explore the house and suffer minor haunting effects. By the end of this, they will realise that they are all trapped inside and cannot escape—and of course, there is a table for this—and then in the second act, the serious haunting begins. This is when the Player Characters scramble for resources to survive and the means to overcome the threat they will confront in the third act, the finale.

Physically, This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is simply, cleanly laid out and written. It is easy to read and the tables easy to use, since the Housekeeper is going to be referring to them on a regular basis. It is pitched as a fanzine, but really, that is only because the roleplaying game is short rather than the the format or inspiration.

This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is a quick and dirty horror roleplaying game—low preparation, easy-to-play, and packed with prompts and ideas. Perfect for a gaming group in need of a fast game now and for the Housekeeper happy to improvise.

Rat Rummage

A rash of strange businesses broken into and odd thefts leads the monstrous investigators in the city of Spireholm to a startling revelation. Under the very streets of the city, indeed under the very cellars and sewer tunnels of the city under those streets, there are tunnels that lead deep into the unknown. Is the rattish nature of the miscreants discovered in the initial investigation a sign that some villain dwells far below like a subterranean Doctor Moreau, sending his rodent servants to the surface for reasons that only he can divulge? Or is there something else in the tunnels and caverns to be found far below the city? This is the set-up for SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone, a companion campaign to SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm, which itself is a campaign and setting a supplement for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. Published by Parable Games, Shiver is a generic horror roleplaying game, designed to do a variety of subgenres, from modern slasher and cosmic horror to zombie outbreaks and Hammer Horror melodramas, using easy to build Player Characters archetypes and the Doom Clock as a device to ratchet up tension and push the story to a horrifying climax combined with its own dice mechanics. It is great for one-shots, especially ones inspired by horror films. If SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm showcased how it was possible to run and play SHIVER as a proper campaign, then SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone expands and continues that.

SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone does two things. First it introduces the new world below the city of Spireholm and its inhabitants and second it presents a campaign that involves both. It can be used in a number of different ways. One is a straight sequel to the campaign given in SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm. Another is as a secondary plot, essentially a ‘B plot’, that can be run alongside or interwoven with the campaign in SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm. And lastly, it can be used as an alternate plot that can be run whenever a player is unable to play the main campaign. This gives it some flexibility, although the ideal means of use is as the ‘B plot’ so that all of the players and their characters can participate. Another option is for the players to take the roles of members of the rattish race at the heart of SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone, although that does mean that many of the mysteries at the heart of the setting and the campaign will have to be revealed to them.

Inspired by works of fiction such as Neverwhere by Nail Gaiman and Weaveworld by Clive Barker, as well as a whole festival of films, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm takes the players and their characters into the Dregs, home to Scoriath, the kingdom of the Scorians. They are rat folk, twisted into intelligence by the alchemical wastes poured into the sewers and finding a home in the ruins of an ancient sunken settlement. Ruled over by the authoritarian Rat King, Rongeur Halftail, the Scorians are large, but still smaller than Humans, and have tough tails and a strong sense of smell. There is resistance to the Rat King’s rule, and the Delvers, who search for resources far below Scoriath, are divided as to whether they should explore Topside, even though the king has forbidden it. Meanwhile, the Church of the 7 Tails worships the rats’ time as four-leggers, whilst it should be no surprise that Scorians hold alchemy in high regard given their origins. Several Scorian Backgrounds are given for Scorian Player Characters, including Gutters who guard the city; Sneakers are spies and thieves; Alchemists specialises in poisons, concoctions, and bombs; Tail-Tellers are itinerant storytellers; Pale Seers are all but blind, yet have the gift of the foresight; Swarm Wardens can psionically control rat swarms; and Scurriers do all of the physical work in Scoriath. Besides possibly playing Scorians, the options for Player Characters include watch officers, urchins, concerned citizens, private citizens, reporters, monster hunters, and more. The inclusion of the Scorian Backgrounds also facilitates the easy replacement of Player Characters should one somehow die in the course of events of the campaign.

As a campaign, SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is shorter than SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm, consisting of seven parts rather than ten. Its chapters follow the same format though. Each is bookended by ‘What the Director Knows’ at the beginning and at the finish, ‘Doom Events’ which are triggered on the Doom Chapter for the chapter. In addition, the campaign supplement adds ‘Doom Tolls’ alongside ‘Doom Events’. These interact with the ‘Doom Calendar’, essentially events that affect the wider world around the Player Characters. Then, between the start and the end is the meat of each scenario, which varies from one chapter to the next, but will always include key clues and story text, the the key clues given as floating clues that the Game Master can place in the particular chapter where appropriate. In between the chapters are a series of interludes. These expand upon the overview of the Dregs as a setting, such as the background history of Rongeur Halftail, more information about the Church of the 7 Tails, Scorian terminology, and so on. These are not necessarily gameable content, but add detail to the setting.

SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone begins with the investigation. This leads the Player Characters into the foulness of the city sewers before descending into the tunnels below. Here the Scorians have set up a ‘Mantrap Maze’ to prevent anyone from Topside from trying to get into Rongeur Halftail’s realm. The maze though, is a bit of a problem. It consists of fifteen encounters, not quite linear, but playing through it will definitely feel like it. Although these encounters are inventive and some of them are fun, such as having a giant trashball chase the Player Characters a la Raiders of the Lost Ark and a trap that fills with water as they try to find a way to solve a rat-themed puzzle. Of course, the Game Master need not use all of the encounters here and she could easily save some for a later visit to Scoriath, suggesting perhaps that the Scorians are shifting rooms and traps around their ‘Mantrap Maze’ each time that there is an incursion from Topside?

By the time the Player Characters reach Dregstone, they will have gained the first of many allies they will be able to befriend and recruit in the course of the campaign. She is a human who has long been trapped in the Dregs and long been searching for her sister, and she will be able to put the Player Characters in touch with the Resistance. This sets off the main plot of the campaign, as first the Player Characters have to sneak around the city, poorly disguised as Scorians, undertake a task for the Resistance to gain the trust of its members. This is the first of the campaign’s big set pieces, the disruption of a public execution, the Player Characters having to set up a rescue of several Resistance members being sent to the gallows. This will lead to their arrest, being brought before Rongeur Halftail himself and sentenced to life incarceration in Pipehold Prison. Here the authors get to play with all of the clichés of prison life—as seen on the big and small screen—as the Player Characters are forced to other prisoners for the amusement of the guards, deal with a variety of different prison personalities, and of course, make preparations for, and then carry out a grand escape! All with the strangeness of dealing with anthropomorphic rats rather than human prisoners.

The last part of the campaign sends the Player Characters scurrying below the Dregs, into dark tunnels and into regions where the delvers fear to tread. Here, the Player Characters will discover that the Scorians are not the only anthropomorphic species to have been affected by the alchemical runoff from Topside—and that species has an even worse reputation for being dirty vermin! One minor scene here feels like a cross between Beetlejuice and Dune, set on a great alchemical salt flat, but ultimately the Player Characters will discover the source of the mutations in the subterranean world, a secret that will upend the society of Dregstone, and a very knowing nod to The Fellowship of the Ring. Surprisingly, the interlude ending this discovery does actually have some gameable content, all in readiness with the final showdown with Rongeur Halftail. This is a big battle which brings the campaign to a conclusion, although there are a few options given to help the Game Master play various concluding scenes to the campaign.

Physically, SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is presented in a rich array of colours and with plenty of cartoonishly rattish artwork. The campaign does need an edit here and there, and one or two more maps, such as of Dregstone would have been useful too.

SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is a better campaign than sourcebook. In fact, as a sourcebook for the Dregs, it presents enough information for the Game Master to run the campaign, but not really quite enough to develop her own content beyond that and in mostly confining it to the interludes, not in a fashion that makes it easy to use. That said, as a campaign, SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is fun, especially if you have a penchant for puns—especially rattish puns—and want a grand cinematic delve into an anthropomorphic world of adventure and mystery for your SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm campaign.