Quick-Start Saturday: The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules

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?
The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules is the quick-start for The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG, the roleplaying game based on the Planet of the Apes film franchise. Specifically, it is based on the original 1968 film, Planet of the Apes, followed by Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, and Battle for the Planet of the Apes, as well as the 1974 television series and later novels and comic book series.

It is a eighty-six page, 55.08 MB full colour PDF.

It is decently written and the artwork really is very good.

How long will it take to play?
The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules is designed to be played through in two sessions.

What else do you need to play?
The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules needs a handful of six-sided dice, one of which must be a different colour to represent the Wild Die.

Who do you play?
The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules includes six pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of an ambitious Chimpanzee Statesape, a Gorilla Veteran scout, a Gorilla Constable, an Orangutan Lawgiver, almost muckraking Chimpanzee Journalist, and a Gorilla Serviceape.

How is a Player Character defined?

A Player Character in the The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG can be a Chimpanzee, Gorilla, Orangutan, Mutant, Human or Tribal Human, or even an ‘Astro-Naut’. In The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules needs, they are either Chimpanzee, Gorilla, or Orangutan. A Player Character has six Attributes—Dexterity, Knowledge, Mechanical, Perception, Strength, and Willpower—and their associated skills. They are rated by a die code, indicating the number of six-sided dice it has as well as a bonus, either ‘+1’ or ‘+2’. A Player Character will also have a memento that grants him a bonus under specific circumstances, background, and motive. In The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG, a Player Character can also have a Quirk, which enables to have a Remarkable Ability, but those in the The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules do not.

How do the mechanics work?

The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules—and thus The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG—uses a variant of the D6 System first seen in Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game published by West End Games in 1987. This variant is called the ‘Magnetic Variant’ or ‘D6MV’. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls a number of dice equal to the attribute, plus a skill, if appropriate. The result is compared to a Difficulty Number, ranging from five or ‘Very Easy’ to thirty or ‘Extremely Difficult’, with fifteen being ‘Average’, to determine the degree of success. If the result is equal to the Difficulty Number, it is a ‘Partial Success’, which means that the Player Character succeeds, but with a setback. If the result is greater than the Difficulty Number, it is an ‘Ordinary Success’, but if three times greater than the Difficulty Number, it is an ‘Exceptional Success’ and the action is achieved with greater speed, accuracy, or effect. Conversely, if the result is less than the Difficulty Number, it can be simple ‘Ordinary Failure’, ‘Exceptional Failure’, or ‘Catastrophic Failure’, depending on how low it is. With an ‘Exceptional Failure’, something bad will happen to the Player Character, but not immediately, whereas with a ‘Catastrophic Failure’, it happens immediately.

One of the dice rolled on an action is always the Wild Die. If it rolls a six, then the Player Character gains an advantage, which can be elevating a successful roll by one step, gaining Hero Points, or granting another Player Character a Hero Point. If the roll is a failure and the Wild Die result is still a success, a player can roll it again and hope that it rolls more sixes to add to the total. If the Wild Die rolls a one, then something bad happens, even if the action was otherwise a success. This can be to add a setback, lowering the degree of success by one step, and so on. Some of these options will grant the Player Character more Hero Points.

Hero Points are also earned from ingenuity or good play. They can be spent to double the Die Code for a single roll, to reroll a result, or to turn a Wounded, Incapacitated, or Mortally Wounded condition into ‘Just a Flesh’ wound.

How does combat work?
Initiative in combat is a group roll, either using the Reflex skill if the combatants are aware of the fight, or just Perception if not. It is rolled at the start of each round to reflect the back and forth of cinematic pulp action of the source material. Hand-to-hand attacks are rolled using the Brawl or Melee skills against the defender’s defence value. Ranged attacks use either the Marksmanship, Thrown, or Gunnery skills, the Difficulty Number determined by the defender’s defence value and the range. A defender—and thus a Player Character—has three defence values. These are ‘Surprised Defence’, ‘Ready Defence’, and ‘Psyche Defence’, each of which is derived from an attribute. Damage—whether from a combination of Strength and a melee weapon’s damage or a ranged weapon’s damage—is compared to the defender’s Strength to give a result of either ‘Stunned’, ‘Wounded’, ‘Incapacitated’, or ‘Mortally Wounded’. The rules in The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules also cover mental trauma and recovery as well as general recovery.

What do you play?

The scenario in The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules is ‘The Deadliest Prey’. In this an affluent, but bored and ambitious Chimpanzee uses his position and connections to organise a lawgiver-sponsored hunt for one of the deadliest of predators to have appeared in years—a meat-eating, ape-murdering Human! So far, he has proved himself to be a highly deadly and elusive threat, and this is further enforced when the members of the current expedition—of which, the Player Characters are a part—are attacked and their supplies destroyed. The Player Characters are forced to rely on their survival skills as they attempt to track down the Human predator. The situation escalates as the Player Characters become the hunted as well as the hunters. The scenario is a sandcrawl in which the Player Characters track down the predators and explore the region. It is decently detailed, but is very much a ‘pull-and-push’ scenario as the LAWGIVER—as the Game Master is known—reacts to the actions of the Player Characters and pushes back at them with the very active threat that they face. The scenario also allows for a greater freedom of action upon the part of the Player Characters as they are free to wander wherever they want in the valley and on the hillsides where it is set. It means that ‘The Deadliest Prey’ is more complex to run than the typical quick-start.

Is there anything missing?
No. Not as written. However, it is disappointing that the quick-start does not use the rules for Quirks and Remarkable Abilities to show off better how special the Player Characters are. The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules includes a good introduction to the history and background to Planet of the Apes that also provides the general viewpoints of the various factions, starting with the apes. It also incudes lots of references to the full rules and what is to be found in the full rulebook for The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG. Which does become a little wearisome.

Is it easy to prepare?
Yes. The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules is easy to prepare.

Is it worth it?
Yes. The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules is a very good looking product that does a good job of introducing both the future that is Planet of the Apes and the rules to the roleplaying game, along with a solid adventure that gives the Player Characters more agency than most quick-start adventures and is thus more complex to run.

The Official PLANET OF THE APES RPG Quickstart Rules is published by Magnetic Press Play and is available to download here.

Primates Proud

The latest title from Goblinoid Games is Apes Victorious: Rules for Science Fantasy Adventures on a Planet Ruled by Apes. This is an Old School Renaissance RPG in which astronauts from a future that never was land on an Earth where humanity blew itself to hell in a nuclear war forcing them to regress to the state whilst apes have evolved to become the dominant species in the post-apocalypse. From the outset and from the sparse, but great artwork, it is clear what this RPG is. Simply, Apes Victorious: Rules for Science Fantasy Adventures on a Planet Ruled by Apes is the Planet of the Apes RPG. Now there have been ape-based RPGs before, most notably Terra Primate: Savage Roleplaying in a World Where Man is the Missing Link, published by Eden Studios, but they have been lightly inspired by the Planet of the Apes series, rather than being directly inspired by the franchise as Apes Victorious is. Even then, Apes Victorious is only inspired by specific parts of the Planet of the Apes canon, in particular, the 1968 film Planet of the Apes, the 1970 film, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and the 1974 Planet of the Apes television series and the 1975 Return to the Planet of the Apes animated series.

Apes Victorious then is an RPG set on the east coast of North America where the Apes have established a strictly racially divided society—Bonobos are social and serve as spies and diplomats; Chimpanzees are scholars studying both the past and the future; Gorillas are soldiers; and Orangutans are both politicians and members of the clergy, dictating policy for all aspects of Ape society, including science. What remains of Humanity on the surface of the New Earth consists of mute, simple herd creatures that often raid Ape-run farms and as a consequence when rounded up by Gorilla soldiers are either culled or put to simple, hard work. What remains of Humanity below the New Earth are the Underdwellers, long since adapted to live in the bunkers their ancestors survived the war in and advanced both technology and psionic powers. Though they rarely come to the surface as they are susceptible to ultraviolet rays from the Sun, they continue to monitor Ape activities, sometimes even going as far as send in ape-robot spies… Into this situation crashland Astronauts, star travellers from before the Nuclear War that brought about the New Earth who have been flung forward in time thousands of years. To them, the ‘New Earth’ is a strange new planet with weird parallels in evolution. They have knowledge of the past and advanced sciences, but face fierce opposition and suppression from an Ape society unwilling to countenance the idea that Humans might be able to speak, let alone be intelligent. Will they discover the truth of their situation and where they are and when they do, will they attempt to escape back to their past or stay and change the future?

Characters in Apes Victorious combine Race and Class, just like Basic Dungeons & Dragons, Labyrinth Lord, and other retroclones. Thus all Astronauts are Human, all Gorillas are soldiers, and so on. Apes Victorious offers seven Classes—Astronaut, Bonobo Agent, Chimpanzee  Scholar, Gorilla Soldier, Humanoid, Orangutan Politician, and Underdweller. The Astronaut has survival skills, general technical and scientific knowledge and skills to understand the the technology of the past and the future, plus a field of expertise in say art, computers and electronics, and medicine. The Bonobo Agent is rarely surprised, has fast reflexes, is socially adept, and is trained in climbing and sleight of hand. The Chimpanzee Scholar specialises in either Archaeology, Behavioural Science, or Medicine and can conduct research into these fields of study. The Gorilla Soldier is physically strong and strong-willed, in particular against fear or Psionic effects. The Humanoid is tough, but mute, and is capable of surviving in the wilderness. The Orangutan Politician is a priest-scientist capable of conducting research like the Chimpanzee Scholar, but not as effectively, possesses some knowledge of the past thanks to their religious studies and can also order other apes to carry out tasks. The Underdweller has infravision and can see in the dark as well as having psionic abilities.

It should be noted that these nine Classes are fiercely underwritten.  The worst example of this is the Humanoid Class, which only has five Levels, but other Classes also suffer from a lack of depth and development. For example, the Gorilla Soldier simply has his strength and his Hit Points and does not grow or change in anyway, while the Underdweller has psionic abilities and little more. Compare this to the Bonobo Agent that can get sneakier and more conniving, the Chimpanzee Scholar who can study and learn more, and the Orangutan Politician who can rise in power and give more orders. Now this understandable given the source material and its tight focus in terms of storytelling, for there is not a huge canon upon which to draw. Which leaves the players with little to draw upon and a lot of effort to be made if such characters are going to be interesting.

Characters are created by the traditional method of rolling three six-sided dice for the six attributes, which in Apes Victorious are Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Charisma, and Psionic Potential. Various modifiers are derived from these stats, all taken from one single table which is not always clear in its meaning and involves a bit of flipping back and forth. Once done, a player decides on a Class, notes down his character’s Class abilities, agrees to his character’s starting equipment with the Ape Master—as the GM is known in Apes Victorious—and the character is done. (Equipment in Apes Victorious is divided between the three categories of the RPG’s Classes—Astronaut, Apes, and Underdweller.)

Doctor Erin Schaefer
First Level Astronaut

STR 09
CON 11 (Resist Trauma 85%)
DEX 16 (Defence Modifier -2, Missile Attack Bonus +2, Initiative Adjustment +1)
INT 14  (Research & Technology Modifier +5%)
CHA 15 (Reaction Adjustment -1)
PSI 10

Hit Points 5

Class Abilities
Foraging; Understand Underdweller Technology 55%; Aeronautics, Astronomy, & Earth Sciences 1-2; Medicine 1-2

Equipment
Pistol, knife, backpack, canteen, medkit, rations

One major advantage that Underdwellers do have is that of Psionics. The Underdweller Class has Illusory Projection and ESP as its basic powers, but each will have a randomly power in addition. These other powers include Empathy, Telepathy, Empathic Projection, Telekinesis, Hypnosis, and Telekinetic Attack. There are other powers listed in the book, but these are not available to player characters. Each power has a cost to use and as long as a character has Psi points available—equal to his Psi Potential attribute—he can continue using his powers. If a power is used against an NPC, then Psionic combat ensues, which consists of the combatants rolling under their respective Psi Potential stats, with the character with the higher Psi Potential stat having a bonus.

As befitting a retroclone, Apes Victorious employs a mix of roll high and roll low dice rolls. Skill rolls are roll low, attribute rolls are roll low, combat rolls are roll low (so that a roll of one is always a hit and a roll of twenty is always a miss), whilst saving throws are roll high. The game does not use Armour Class, but instead employs a single Character Attack Table wherein a character’s Class and Level determines his ‘Roll To-Hit’ number, which of course is modified by the attacker’s Attacks and Damage and Missile Attack Bonuses and armour possessed by the target—worn or natural. What this means is that Apes Victorious uses the equivalent of a descending Armour Class, but instead of then having to roll high as in Dungeons & Dragons, characters have to roll low. Now where it gets wonky is in the sentence, “In complete darkness or attacking against invisible creatures, there a penalty of -4 to hit.” This is a holdover from previous Old School Renaissance RPGs, but it is not entirely clear whether this should be applied to the ‘Roll To-Hit’ number (the equivalent of Armour Class) or the number rolled when making the attack. This is further exacerbated in the Armour description given in the bestiary where Armour is a modifier to attack rolls against a creature with a negative number representing natural armour or quickness and a positive number representing physical vulnerability or lack of speed. So what is the penalty applied to? If a minus number is applied to the roll, then that effectively improves the roll, not penalises it. If it is instead applied to the ‘Roll To-Hit’ number, then that makes more sense as that would would lower  the ‘Roll To-Hit’ number and thus make the attack roll harder, but it could have been made clearer in the text. That said, using a mix of roll low and roll high rolls does not help the situation.

Given that Apes Victorious is weird enough with the addition of talking apes and mutant humans, it pleasingly keeps it bestiary quite low key. The weird and the wacky beings and things to found in other post apocalypse set RPGs, are not to be found here. Its bestiary mostly consists of mutated creatures like the Coywolf, the Arctic Hyena, and the Giant Fanged Toad, but in the Forbidden Zone can be found Insectoids, Cerebral Jellies, and Robot Guardians. More attention is paid to the setting of Apes Victorious and its background, in particular examining the societies and technologies of both Apes and Underdwellers. There is plenty here to help the Ape Master portray them both as well as notes on playing a character from the 1970s if playing an astronaut. Various themes are discussed, each particular to the various character types. These are essentially campaign types, whether it is the Astronauts attempting to get back to their home and time or seeking the Underdwellers, the Apes hunting the Astronauts or investigating the Underdwellers, or the Underdwellers exploring their fantastic underworld whilst fending off interest from the surface world. There is some discussion too of groups made up mixed Classes, but the options for such groups are more limited, much like the source material. Various adventure locations are also described, including a map of the future North America, plus there is also a table of Ape names (unfortunately no table of Underdweller names).

Rounding out Apes Victorious is a scenario, ‘Escape Planet Ape’, which has the characters as Astronauts dropping onto a strange planet to locate the crew of another spaceship. It is a decent little affair, one that nicely introduces the setting and the difficulties that the intelligent Astronauts will face in world where Apes fear and hate them. Lastly, there are conversion tables for Goblinoid Games other titles, including Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, and Spaceships & Spacemen 2e. Of the three, Apes Victorious would work better with Mutant Future and Spaceships & Spacemen 2e, plugging more easily in terms of theme into Mutant Future.

Physically, Apes Victorious is a decent digest-sized booklet. It could do with an edit here or there, but for the most part is very readable. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is clear, simple, and excellent.

Apes Victorious is hampered by a problem or two. The first is that whilst they do work, the rules could have been better presented and explained, especially given their simplicity. Further it would have made more sense had the rules been simply roll one way for everything, not roll low for this and roll high for that. Perhaps the setting might even have been served by a more solid rules system, perhaps the ‘Pacesetter’ mechanics which Goblinoid Games has used in Rotworld: A Game of Survival Horror Against Undead Flesh Eaters and Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained is the other. The second is that some of the character Classes are very underwritten such that the players may left wondering what to do with them in comparison to other Classes. Again this might have been better addressed using another set of mechanics, but having one set of mechanics at least means that an Ape Master can easily adapt the content of Apes Victorious to a system of his choice.

Despite its problems, there is everything in Apes Victorious to get a Planet of the Apes-style campaign launched, though more support would be welcome. Perhaps some scenarios that focus on Ape, Underdweller, and mixed groups as well as Astronauts? In the meantime, the background and material the RPG presents is accessible and easily adapted or plugged into other settings and RPGs. Above all, Apes Victorious is a delightful emulation of its source material. Whilst there is no such thing as an actual Planet of the Apes RPG, there can be no doubt that Apes Victorious is the very nearest thing. You could almost say that Apes Victorious: Rules for Science Fantasy Adventures on a Planet Ruled by Apes apes the Planet of the Apes RPG that never was.