Quick-Start Saturday: Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age

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.

—oOo—

What is it?
Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is the quick-start for Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age, the latest version of the venerable fantasy roleplaying game first published in 1975 by Flying Buffalo, Inc. It is being published by Rebellion Unplugged, best known as the games arm of Rebellion, the publisher of long running British Science Fiction comic, 2000 AD, but in game terms for republishing the Games Workshop classics, Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One and Block Mania.

It is a thirty-two page, 730 MB full colour PDF.

However, it it does need an edit and the authors need to beg for forgiveness for the use of the word ‘stunting’ as a verb instead of the correct English language phrasing, ‘performing a stunt’.

The use of the word, ‘Knackered’, as a Tag though, is delightfully British, but in no way makes up for the erroneous error of ‘stunting’.

How long will it take to play?
Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is designed to be played through in a single session, two at the very most. This includes Player Character creation.

What else do you need to play?
The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide needs a handful of six-sided dice per player plus some tokens to represent Threat.

Who do you play?
The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide does not come with any pre-generated Player Characters. Instead, rules are provided for the players to create their own.

How is a Player Character defined?

An Adventurer the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide has six attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Willpower, Intelligence, and Charisma, as well as three stats—Luck, Mana, and Stamina. These range in value between two and four. He also has a Kindred, of which six are suggested. These are Humankin, Halfkin, Dwarfkin, Elfkin, Orckin, and Goblinkin. The Kindred is a Player Character’s background, whilst his Motto sums up his approach to life and his traits provide a once-per-session ability. A Player Character’s Kindred provides both a trait and a motto, whilst a second trait will come from his choice of Path. Six paths are given. These are Path of Might, Path of Shadow, Path of Endurance, Path of Spirit, Path of Craft, and Path of Wizardry.

The rules also cover the creation of the Player Character party, which explains why they are all together.

How do the mechanics work?

Mechanically, Tunnels & Trolls has always employed a dice pool system, whether that is rolled against the monsters’ dice pool (derived from their combined Monster Rating) or as a Saving Throw against one of a Player Character’s attributes. The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide also uses dice pools, but they are radically scaled down and both the players and the Game Master will be rolling more often rather than rolling more dice.

To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to an attribute. A roll of four or more is counted as a hit, whilst three or less is a miss. The aim is to roll as many hits as possible. Target Numbers range between one and five, with two being the standard Target Number. A Blessed roll means that hits are rolled on three and over, misses on two or less, whilst a Cursed roll means that hits are rolled on five and over, misses on four or less. Rolls of multiple values result in the dice pool exploding and a player being able to add more dice to the roll. A double adds two more dice to roll, a triple adds three more dice, and so on. An exceptional success occurs if three sixes are rolled, whilst a dramatic setback happens if three ones are rolled.

Luck can be spent to reroll dice on a one-for-one basis.

How does combat work?
Combat in the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide starts with initiative, with Player Characters who succeed on the roll going before the monsters, and those who fail, after. A Player Character can perform one action per round, either a ‘Strike’, ‘Shoot’, ‘Spell’, or ‘Stunt’ action. A Stunt can be physical or verbal, and could be swinging on a chandelier to get across a room, taunting a villain, or diving into a pool of water to avoid a blast of magical fire. A Stunt can modify another action or an action in its own right. Most monsters will perform the ‘Strike’ action, whilst enemies or monsters with the ‘Elite’ tag are likely to have more options. The round ends when everyone has acted. If the Player Characters decide to keep going, they can each either gain a point of Stamina or a point of Luck. If they decide on the latter, they also gain a point of Threat, up to a maximum of three. If the monsters decide to keep going, they can trigger their escalation abilities, which might be special abilities, call for reinforcements, and so on.

To perform an attack, the player rolls a number of equal to the appropriate attribute, whilst the Game Master will roll the enemies’ Monster Rating. An enemy’s Monster Rating ranges between two and the average mook all the way up to six and thoroughly dangerous. The roll itself is an opposed roll, the aim being to roll more hits than the opponent. Tags, whether from the weapons and gear used, from the situation, or the monsters’ abilities, will affect the number of dice rolled, the amount of damage inflicted, and more.

Both sides will also add extra dice equal to their opponents’ Threat to the dice they roll. In addition, enemies will tend to target opponents who have higher Threat.

If the attacker rolls more hits than the defender, he wins, and the difference in the number of hits rolled is the amount of damage inflicted. If the defender rolls more hits than the attacker, no damage is inflicted. Armour reduces the damage suffered. Damage reduces Stamina. If reduced to zero for a monster, it is defeated, but for a Player Character, it means that he is wounded. His Stamina is then reset, but whilst he is wounded, if it is reduced to zero again, he is dead. For the enemies, Monster Rating does not reduce.

How does magic work?
Magic in the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is primarily gained from the Path of Wizardry selected during Player Character creation. A Player Character on the Path of Wizardry begins play with the ‘Wellspring’ Talent that enables him to regain or increase mana by spending Luck. His bonus talent will either be ‘Hexology’ or ‘Weaving’. The latter provides the Mending spell, whilst the latter gives Blasting Hex. Mending is actually a healing spell, restoring Stamina equal to the number of hits rolled. Blasting Hex is a damage spell, requiring an Intelligence roll versus an enemy’s Monster Rating. Damage inflicted ignores armour and the spell requires the caster to yell out something like, “Take That You Fiend!” in a nod to classic Tunnels & Trolls spell of the same name. All spells cost Mana to cast, with each point cast also increasing the number of dice a player rolls. 

What do you play?

The scenario in the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is ‘Trouble Brewing’. The world of Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age is one of trolls. In ages past, during the Eclipse, the Trolls smashed the great kingdoms and empires of the time, burying their secrets, technologies, and magic deep in the earth, where they remain today. When the sun returned, the Trolls fled and the world was rebuilt. Both Trolls and the past remain underground where would be heroes might find them. In ‘Trouble Brewing’, the Player Characters have come to Rust Bucket, the very run-down and only tavern in Market Tharnley where they have heard there is a tunnel entrance to be found. It is a detailed, two-act affair, initially focusing upon interaction and investigation along with some roleplay, as the Player Characters attempt to find out more from the Owlfolk barkeep, the adventuring patrons, and the locals. In the second act, the barkeep hires/cajoles/blackmails the Player Characters into investigating the cellar, having a fight with some surprisingly tough rats, and discovering a troll tunnel.

‘Trouble Brewing’ is more of a means to showcase the new Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age rules in play rather than provide a complete story from beginning to end.

Is there anything missing?
No. The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide has everything the Game Master and her players will need to play. However, the scenario is very much an introduction at only two scenes long and thus provides only a limited play experience.

Is it easy to prepare?
Unfortunately, the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is not as easy to prepare as it could have been as it is quite detailed and there is a lot to go through, including character generation, before play can begin. There is a greater number of factors—Luck, Mana, Tags, and so on—for the Game Master and her players to keep track off during play as well. Players of previous versions of Tunnels & Trolls will find a much changed game, although there elements present from those previous editions. The roleplaying game is also not as fast playing as those previous editions, but does offer more options in terms of what the Player Characters can do.

Is it worth it?
Yes—for the most part. The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide presents a solid introduction to the rules, including combat, character generation, and interaction. It is also supported by examples of both play and combat and there is advice for the Game Master. However, the included adventure, ‘Trouble Brewing’, is short and will only provide a limited play experience. 

The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is published by Rebellion Unplugged and is available to download here.

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.

—oOo—

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.

Miskatonic Monday #300: Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa: A 1930s Grindhouse Scenario is a chase scenario. A chase scenario across the width of Mexico aboard a party train at the height of the Great Depression in which a bunch of Hobos with the courier job of their dreams find themselves at the mercy of five different factions all wanting what they got and none of them wanting it for good. Drawn in by the promise of two weeks’ wages—if they had a proper job that is—they will find themselves literally hounded from one location to the next, visiting a smokeshop that is both the classiest and the seediest in all of Tijuana, finding respite at a Hobo shanty and getting served a bowl of Squattin’ Pete’s Mulligan Stew, and all that before a showdown on the dance floor! Imagine if you will, if Alfred Hitchcock decided to co-write From Dusk to Dawn with Quentin Tarantino and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen shot the resulting script instead of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and that just about gets the tone of Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa.

Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa is a scenario for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and the winner of the 2024 Gold Ennie Award for Best Community Content. From the author of The Highway of Blood and The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3, it is thus another scenario inspired by the grindhouse genre of cinema—low-budget horror, splatter, and exploitation films for adults such as Duel, I Spit on Your Grave, Last House on the Left, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, and the more recent Death Proof, which had their heyday in the seventies. However, it shifts the action to the Desperate and Dirty Decade of the thirties and the height of the Great Depression with the Investigators as Hobos, the signature figures of the period.

The scenario has quite a bit of background to go through, from all the way back to the first performance of The King in Yellow forward to The Carnival of Madness. There are also a lot of NPCs, on and off the train. The ones that the Investigators will have the most ongoing interaction with those wanting the MacGuffin they are ferrying across Mexico. They include a slinky Serpent-person Hybrid and her knife throwing circus minion, a maniacal luchador, a group of Deep One hybrids a la Peter Lorre, a private investigator who is probably going to be out of his depth as much the Investigators are, and the wolves of the title, icky, maggoty hounds that will chase the Investigators all the way to the climax of the scenario. Now many of the NPCs and all of the Investigators have a single special ability each. The Investigators include a Skywalker with the ‘Acrobat’ special ability, a Stage Actor with the ‘Bullshit Artist’ special ability, a Boxer with the ‘Sucker Punch’ special ability, and a Farmer with the ‘Bowie Knife’ special ability. The inclusion of these special abilities moves Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa away from traditional Call of Cthulhu and more towards Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos, but not all the way. An option for the Keeper might be to shift Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa all of the way to be playable as a Pulp Cthulhu scenario. In the meantime, Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa is more of a hybrid between the two.

Once the scenario gets started, there are some great scenes from San Diego to Tijuana and from there to Ensenada and finally Mexicali, aboard the Mexicali Express, a party train set up for tourists who had originally wanted to drink free of the limits of Prohibition, but that has changed by the time the Investigators board. This includes a scene in a Tijuana tobacco shop whose proprietor is quite willing to sell the Investigators a whole more (necessitating a mature themes label) and the actual showdown at a Mexicali night club, whose name, The Crossroads, might just well be too much on the nose. The NPC motivations and possible actions are all nicely detailed, as is the Mexicali Express itself, helping the Keeper a great deal to run these encounters. Should the Investigators decide not to take the train all of the way or miss the train there is advice too on getting them to catch up or back on track, if not the railroad, to Mexicali.

For the benefit of both the Keeper and her players, there are excellent handouts and background on hobo life. The handouts include some period menus and part of a Tijuana Bible that will have both Keeper and player wondering about the author’s browsing history. The background on hobos is quite short, but it is not the only scenario for Lovecraftian investigative horror that has featured hobos. Golden Goblin Press has published one scenario in which they feature, Riding the Northbound: A Hobo Odyssey and dedicated an article to them in Island of Ignorance – The Third Cthulhu Companion. Included in Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa is a list and explanation of Hobo Signs, to which it adds some new ones—one of which veteran Call of Cthulhu fans will appreciate spotting.

Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa is described as a ‘Sandbox on a Railroad’. This suggests a wide area where the Investigators are free to come and go as they please and that the whole of this sandbox is on a track with a definite beginning and a definite end. It is a description that only just about works because it is both narrowing and stretching the concept of a sandbox an awful lot to get it to fit what Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa actually is. Upon first glance, it looks like a railroad whose action takes place mostly on a railroad. The structure is more akin to the plot of a computer game in which the story is a thread which connects a series of cut scenes. Like most cutscenes there is exposition which moves the plot forward, but the actions of the Investigators are limited. They can ask questions, but little else. Where they can act is in the threads connecting these scenes, the scenes aboard the train. Do they hide from the train crew like any good hobo might or do they ride the rails like normal folk with a ticket and all? Which faction do they interact with? Which one do they fight? Which one do they run away from? And of course, once they get to the Crossroads, they have choices to make.

So, the question is, does this make Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa a bad scenario? If this was a traditional scenario of Lovecraftian investigative horror, then perhaps. Yet it is not that. It is a one-shot horror scenario designed to tell a particular tale, tell it at pace, and whilst there are points where the Investigators have little agency, there are plenty more where they do. The point is, the threats are coming to them, and it is how their players decide their Investigators react and decide what they do that drives the story forward as much as the Mexicali Express carries them forward.

Physically, Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa is very well presented. The artwork is decent and the handouts add a great deal to the atmosphere of the scenario. The scenario does need an edit in places.

Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa: A 1930s Grindhouse Scenario is a fast-playing scenario that works as a desperate one-shot or convention scenario. It is surprisingly direct in its confrontation with the agents and entities of the Mythos as they worry at the Investigators on a thrilling chase through the underbelly of 1930s Americana.

Solitaire: Rectify

In life, you were one of society’s reprobates or worse. You were evil, villainous, even. You committed murder. You committed acts of fraud. You stole. You dealt drugs. Your actions hurt people. In life you did one, more, or even all of them. You were a vile bastard and did not care. You got rich. You got high. It did not matter. In death, it is another matter. Ultimately, deep down, you knew what you were doing was wrong. Immoral. Evil. In death, the consequences are worse than might even have imagined, that is, if you thought about it. What matters now is that you are dead and you are in pain, lying bound under a blood red, burning sky, your lips sewn up. You hear many words, but understand only one, “Rectify.” Spoken by an oily, black thing that can only be a demon, it points towards an opening in the rocks of a giant black skeleton, an archway that could be a mouth, but is more like a drain or sewer… As you drag your desiccated body over jagged rocks that tear at your skin, you enter and work your deeper and deeper, almost as if lowering yourself down a throat, and ultimately, into the bowels… of Hell. Perhaps as the begins somewhere else anew, you will have the chance to ask yourself, “What did I do wrong?” and in answering that question, find a way to answer another, “What can I do to make amends?” In other words, is there a way for you to ‘Rectify’?

Rectify is published by Hansor Publishing, best known for The Gaia Complex – A Game of Flesh and Wires. Rectify though, is a journalling game in which the Player Character is a faced with the five trials of hell, undergoing excruciating punishments for past sins, and constantly being asked to atone for the transgressions. It differs from other journalling games in a number of ways. It is systemless. In fact, it uses no mechanics whatsoever. This is both in terms of character creation and action resolution. Most journalling games provide a means of creating a character, but in Rectify, a player really only needs to know what his character’s crimes were and to able to understand why he committed them. Similarly, most roleplaying games employ a range of prompts and ideas, randomly selected through either roll of the dice or drawing of a card. Rectify does neither. Instead, it asks only a handful of questions from start to finish, the most at the end of each trial—of which there are five—The Mouth, The Throat, The Gut, The River of Blood, and The Pit. Each is a well-done vignette that asks the player to contemplate the actions of the character, preferably in a cool dark place. This though is not whole of the Reflection which Rectify asks the player to undertake, and it is here that Rectify is the most radical.

Rectify is designed as an immersive solo roleplaying game. In Rectify, the immersion comes about because the player and the character are inexplicably connected. Not because the second is the creation of the first, though that is undeniably true, but because at each of the five stages of the character’s journey to atonement, the act, or Pledge, that the player must undertake for the character to ‘rectify’, is a physical one. This comes after a moment—or even longer—of ‘Reflection’, but it is an act that as written, is carried out in the real world rather than the fantasy of Rectify. The player is recording his experiences both at the start of a period of reflection and after, and this includes the experience of carrying out the Pledge and the experience of its consequences. It those consequences that radically shift Rectify away from a fantasy, because the consequences can be life changing.

For example, the first scene takes place in The Mouth, where the theme is one of accepting your fate and being silenced. In the period of Reflection, the player calms his mind, sets aside his fear, embracing what Hell is tormenting him with, and then swallowing his (character’s) guilt, ignites his senses. This is combined with the Pledge, of which there are three options. One is eat a handful of chilli peppers, including seeds and without drinking any water; another is to fill your mouth with as many ice cubes as possible, and keeping the mouth shut until they have completely melted; and third, have the tongue pierced (by a professional). Pledges at the end of later scenes include the player confessing to something that he has kept hidden for a long time; have sex with someone (consensually) or masturbate, but always be in the moment; go and get some dental work that you have been putting off; face your biggest fear head on; and so on. Some these can have cathartic, even beneficial effects, such as such as volunteering for a helpline or support group, like the Samaritans or a food bank, or watch a film that makes you cry and enables you to express your emotions, but most are not. The problem is that although these are often thematic, such as numbing the throat through chillis or ice cubes after the character has swallowed his guilt, the physicality of these actions is going to be uncomfortable at the very least, painful at the very most.

Effectively, the immersion at the heart of Rectify is too immersive. It negates the power of the imagination and it punishes the player for his imagination. Of course, the player has not committed murder or defrauded anyone or stolen anything, and so is not being punished with a fine or a prison sentence by the authorities. He is, however, being punished for thinking about having done those things. Rectify does carry a warning about it being for mature players. That though, may not be enough.

Physically, Rectify is well presented. Done in stark black and white throughout, with pages borders that seem to squirm. The look of the journalling game is constrictive and oppressive, though the art is decent.

Rectify feels more like therapy then roleplaying game, more like a punishment than a pleasure. It blurs the line between reality and fantasy, possibly dangerously so. There is scope to explore the atonement of the guilty and the wicked in roleplaying games, but that is best left to the fantasy and a line drawn between it and the reality. Something that Rectify fails to do.

2003: Book of Erotic Fantasy

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

It is curious to note that in 2003, two supplements were published which addressed the subject of romance, sex, sexuality, pregnancy, and more in roleplaying games—or rather, fantasy roleplaying games. One would pass by almost unnoticed, was written under the terms of the Open Gaming Licence, and was one that I was able to review. The other caused no little controversy, forced Wizards of the Coast to rewrite the terms of the d20 STL forcing publishers to comply with ‘community standards of decency’, has since passed into legend as one of the most notorious books of the roleplaying hobby, and was one that I was not able to review at the time. Indeed, it would take over a decade before a copy could be found and imported into this country—thank you Brendan LaSalle—to enable me to not only own a copy, but review. The one that I could and did review was Naughty And Dice: An Adult Gamer’s Guide to Sexual Situations, published by Sabledrake Enterprises. The one I could not review was the Book of Erotic Fantasy, published by Valar Project. Having forced a rewrite of the d20 STL to prevent Wizards of the Coast from being directly connected to the project and so tarnish its image and reputation, the Book of Erotic Fantasy would eventually published without the d20 System trademark of the Open Gaming Licence, but with the words at the top of the front cover, “This product is compliant with the Open Gaming Licence and is compatible with the world’s best selling Fantasy Roleplaying Game”. Thus, it arrived ready for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, but was not specifically written for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition.

The Book of Erotic Fantasy does not only cover sex and sexuality, but also conception, marriage, love, relationships, and more. That more includes relationships between different species, new Classes and new Prestige Classes, monsters, and organisations. It begins though, by discussing sex. The authors advise that, “Believing it acceptable to expose our audience to a variety of lifestyle choices, we did our best to include the broadest possible array of sexual choices, including celibacy, in the book.” But warn that, “At times, we found it a challenge to keep our own preconceived ideas from creeping in.” As a consequence of this, there is an open attitude to the subject that runs throughout the book, one reflected in a lot of the new mechanics and in some of the choices made by the authors. Further, despite the authors stating that “The world has changed and it is time for fantasy roleplaying to change and mature.”, theirs is not an attitude or outlook that was shared by all, even by their own society. Criticism from those what did not share that outlook was certainly one motivating Wizards of the Coast to rewrite the terms of the d20 STL, despite the authors warning over and over that the Book of Erotic Fantasy is aimed at mature adult audiences.

The supplement really gets underway with a discussion of why sex should be included in the game, how to handle it and roleplaying, and covering subjects such as romance, sex, seduction, sex and humour, and a lot more. It states that the point is not necessarily the sex itself, but rather that sex and romance can be used as means to add spice or flavour to campaign, to help create memorable plots and NPCs, to make it part of the story, and so on. Acknowledged here is that the bawdiness of sexual humour is okay, as it helps keep everyone relaxed, but it has its place. It suggests using the Motion Picture Association film rating system (of 2003) to measure the amount of sex in a campaign, and acknowledges the difficulties of bringing the subject into a game, clearly stating that, “Just as in real life, no means no.” and that relationships between Player Characters can become as fraught as those between adults. It means clear also, that mechanically, sexual orientation has no bearing on game, but like prostitution and marriage, it can have a cultural bearing. How a culture views sexual orientation, prostitution, and marriage varies from one to the next. So, one, two, or more of them might be venerated in one country, even sacred, whereas they might be reviled and even outlawed in another. Again, such attitudes can be used to enforce the cultural outlook of different countries, to bring the world to life, and be the basis of a plot or storyline.

Also worth noting is that any emphasis placed upon sex in a campaign is likely to affect the design of Player Characters and NPCs and that the contents of the Book of Erotic Fantasy are not aimed at the combat veteran or highly skilled wizard. Instead, the need to optimise the Player Character in Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition will require a campaign of its own, a campaign focused more on social (and now sexual) interaction. In general, the advice and discussion here is decent and mature.

Where the Book of Erotic Fantasy goes slightly awry is in illustrating the views on sex according to the Alignments of Dungeons & Dragons. So, a Lawful Good values honesty and respect and can be celibate or chaste, but when an adherent does have sex outside out of marriage, he is clear in what he expects and is offering, whereas a Lawful Evil simply uses as a means to accrue power. So, the paladin in the accompanying text engages in a romantic encounter, but leaves room for the other participant to withdraw, whereas for Lawful Evil, the character is bloody tyrant engaging sadomasochistic torture. It feels such a shame to have decent advice followed by such clichés. Chaotic Evil does not even get any accompanying text, but then the included quote sums the Alignment up nicely: “Fuck You! No, Fuck You! Fuck You All!” Similarly, though the attitudes of the various Races of Dungeons & Dragons follow expected patterns—Dwarves are conservative, but enduring; Elves are bisexual, adventurous in that they like to share, and have transitory relations over their long lives; Gnomes are even more adventurous, using self-built toys, and writing manuals like the Gnomish Kama Sutra(!); Half-Elves have problems because they mature too early for Elves and too late for Humans; Half-Orcs like it rough; and Halflings view sex like a party. Other Races are covered too, along with how pregnancy and childbirth occurs for each Race, even the Undead and Dragons. These are a bit more inventive though than the sexual backgrounds to the standard Player Character Races.

In terms of new rules, the Book of Erotic Fantasy starts with the addition of Appearance, a new attribute for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, at least, including adding it to all of the Races and species discussed so far. There are rules for sustaining sex, with a rising Constitution Difficulty Check after every ten minutes, and a list of new skills. There is the alternate use of Appraise and Bluff, along with new Knowledge skills and Perform (Sexual Techniques), complete with a table of possible results. Having already looked at the social and biological consequences of sex—marriage and pregnancy—another consequence, the possibility of disease is also discussed, along with a list of fantasy sample diseases. Included among them are Ghoul Fever, Lycanthropy, and Mummy Rot, essentially providing new vectors for old diseases. The others are equally unpleasant, such as Whore’s Delight, which causes the sufferer to excrete a paralysing poison and so freeze the other partner in place (obviously having acquired immunity to it in the meantime), allowing them to be robbed or taken advantage of… Here also, is a table indicating which Race can interbreed with which Race and a variety of new Feats. These are mix of Sexual Feats, such as Dominating Demeanour, Limber, and Quick Recovery; General Feats, like Chaste Life, Seductive, and True Submissive; and Background Feats, for example, Sexually Open Society and Sexually Private Society.

The Classes in the Book of Erotic Fantasy begin with the Imagist, a spellcaster who is both beautiful and reveres beauty itself, wanting to make the world a more beautiful place. The Class casts spells like a Sorcerer, but instead of Charisma, uses Appearance as the spellcasting characteristic. The Class’ spells are a mix of the arcane and the divine. The Kundala Class is similar to the Monk, but with spellcasting abilities derived from its sexual practices. Again, these are a mix of arcane and divine spells, but they can only be cast by a Kundala on others with great difficulty. Where it is not exactly clear how the sexual practices of the Kundala Class affect its spellcasting ability except being presumably lost if not engaged in, the Tantrist Class is more obvious. An arcane spellcaster, the Tantrist inscribes spells as runes on the practitioner’s body and must engage in sex to renew its magical ability, at least for an hour. Which of course, requires a willing partner and a ‘Sustain Sex’ endurance check. The Perform (Sexual Techniques) skill and Endurance Feat add bonuses of course, to the check, as does a high Constitution. Of the three, the Imagist feels underwritten, if not slightly flat; the Kundala Class underwhelming and too similar to the Monk; and the Tantrist, the best explained and possibly the most interesting to play as a flashy spellcaster.

The supplement’s Prestige Classes are the Disciple of Aaluran, the Divine Celibate, the Dominator, the Fey Enticer, Frenzied Disciple, Harem Protector, Knot Binder of Kaladis, Metaphysical Spellshaper, the Pierced Mystic (complete with a eyewatering list of piercing locations), Rake, Sacred Prostitute, and Voyeuristic Seer. The mix manages to be interesting in places as well as both good and bad. It is even unintentionally amusing in places, such as the box of text labelled ‘The Divine Celibate’s Mount’ (which of course, is the unicorn). However, the bad includes the Dominator and the Voyeuristic Seer, both of which are as clichéd and as distasteful as their names suggest. The Voyeuristic Seer is described as “Profoundly visionary or merely prurient, voyeuristic seers might be either or both.”, but definitely feels like the latter and is essentially a specialist in divining and scrying spells, so not that much different to a Wizard that specialises in either. The good includes the Frenzied Disciple, essentially a whirling Dervish-type which uses dance to enhance magical and combat abilities, and the Rake, a classic figure with plenty of roleplaying potential. Most though feel as they are better suited to NPC rather than Player Character use. This includes the Dominator and the Voyeuristic Seer, but is joined by the Harem Protector, which not only needs the Sterile Feat, but be castrated as a eunuch. This is not to say that none of the Prestige Classes in the Book of Erotic Fantasy can be taken by a Player Characters, but rather that some of them cross that line from tasteful to distasteful.

Magic in the Book of Erotic Fantasy includes new Domains, new spells, and new uses for old spells. The Body Domain and the Pleasure Domain are obvious, whereas the Perversion and Voyeur Domains, again, like some of the Prestige Classes seemed suited to NPCs rather than Player Characters. And there are the spells, some of which are amazing, though not in a good way, because this is where the Book of Erotic Fantasy goes awry, not badly awry, but seriously awry. Command can be used to force someone to masturbate or have an orgasm; Cursed Orgasm inflicts damage on the target whenever he has one; Disrobe undresses the target; Grope works in way that Mage Hand does not; Infestation inflicts a sexually transmitted disease on the victim and is accompanied by a ‘delightful’ image of a crotch infested with lover’s lice; Orgasmic Vibrations that can daze a target and force him to miss an action; and Wet Dreams… The problem with all of these spells is that they run counter to the supplement’s opening advice that “Just as in real life, no means no.” as the levels of consent required to include them in a game make their inclusion beggar belief. As does the fact that they are even included in the supplement since without that consent, they all have the potential to amount to sexual assault in one form or another. That potential would vary according to the context and degree of consent, but as written all of these spells are cringeworthily unpleasant. Yet there are spells in the selection which avoid any of this and would even be useful in a standard Dungeons & Dragons game not using the Book of Erotic Fantasy. Mirror Talk and Mirror Walk, for example, as well as Pleasant Dreams to give the target a restful and safe night’s sleep.

The equipment section covers everything from sex toys and aphrodisiacs to birth control devices and services. There are magical items too, including a Ring of Disease Detection, Staff of Holy Pleasure, Ghost Sheath (so you have intercourse with the incorporeal!), and more. It even lists the Book of Erotic Fantasy as an artifact in its own right! The Book of Erotic Fantasy should perhaps, have been on surer ground when it comes sex and deities, since the sexual activities of the gods have always provide fertile grounds for good storytelling, except that the book goes its decided way. Some of the gods, or versions of them, would have a place in many a campaign. For example, Alilial the Childbringer, Midwife to the Gods, Cevelis the Chaste One, Lady of Denial, and Kaladis the Binder, Guardian of the Sacred Vow, all of which are nicely done, but then there is Zanbos the Defiler, the Abusive One, who is the “[D]eity of wanton rape, brutality, and sexual cruelty.” Now it is stated that he is rarely worshipped, but that does not excuse his inclusion because again, it crashes into the supplement’s opening advice that “Just as in real life, no means no.” In a sex-based campaign, like the one that the Book of Erotic Fantasy, there is undoubtedly going to be a need for a dark or villainous or evil god, but the inclusion of Zanbos in this role so obviously, is horrifying.

The bestiary also adds creatures of passion such as Bliss Motes, Cherrubs—both Celestial and Fallen, and templates for variants such as Demonbreed, Devilblooded, Felids (essentially cat people), Feykissed, and more. Some of these do feel more developed than others. Penultimately, the book includes a list of one hundred adventures, all no more than a sentence and all very much in need of development by the Dungeon Master, followed by a handful of sample organisations, such as ‘Damio’s Companionship Service’, an escort service dealing in the exotic, ‘The Velvet Room’, a sample brothel complete with floorplans, and the ‘Seekers of the Eternal Sensation’, a cult of hedonists. All are quite well developed and include NPCs too. The Book of Erotic Fantasy is rounded out with a list of Appearance values for the creatures found in the Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition core rules, and a ‘What’s New with Phil & Dixie’ comic strip by Phil Foglio, which turns the opinions of games rules lawyers to the subject in hand…

Physically, the Book of Erotic Fantasy is cleanly and tidily presented. Then of course, there is the artwork, which includes photography, much of photo-manipulated, and which does involve a lot of nudity. Whether or not any of its is erotic is in the eye of the beholder, but none of it would have been regarded as being extreme in 2003, though not exactly tasteful, perhaps even a little boring and a little creepy in places, is the worst that can be said of it. Today it all looks a bit tame.

The Book of Erotic Fantasy is definitely a curate’s egg. The advice, given at the beginning of the book, is good. The rest varies wildly in tone and content, but ultimately it comes down to the spells in the book. All too many are distinctly unpleasant in their use and connotations, and indicative of how times have changed where those spells might have been acceptable then, they would not be in the here and now.

In the twenty years since the Book of Erotic Fantasy was published, there can be no doubt that attitudes towards sex and sexuality have changed—both in general and in the gaming hobby. In general, there is a wider acceptance of both and within the hobby, numerous roleplaying games, such as Green Ronin Publishing’s Blue Rose: The Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy and Bully Pulpit Games’ Star Crossed have explored romance and accepted LGBTQ+ characters into the hobby. Yet there really has been no other supplement like the Book of Erotic Fantasy or Naughty And Dice that has reached a wider gaming audience, for the subject of sex—especially in roleplaying—still remains a taboo subject, a subject matter or activity that we rarely want to cross over into and bring into our games. So, in that regard, little has changed. What it would take is a brave group of players—Dungeon Master and players alike—to want to explore and fully embrace what the Book of Erotic Fantasy presents, and it would mean all of the players and the Dungeon Master. After all, the Book of Erotic Fantasy is an ‘all-in, or none in’ kind of supplement. How many such groups there were prepared for what the Book of Erotic Fantasy offered at the time of its publication is debatable, and the same can be said of today. Which leaves the reader to wonder how many actually bought the Book of Erotic Fantasy to use and how many simply bought it for its notoriety? And then to hope that they never learn the answer to that question.

Ultimately, the Book of Erotic Fantasy has three problems. One is its subject matter, which not everyone is comfortable with, which in places is exacerbated by the second, that some of the content is more than enough make the reader recoil in distaste, let alone think about bringing it into play. The third is that its subject matter is very personal, even if the personal is via the construct of a Player Character in a roleplaying game. Not everyone, arguably very few, are willing to engage in the kind of intimacies that the Book of Erotic Fantasy calls for, even if they are the kind of intimacies involving a Player Character rather than the player, in the semi-public sphere of a roleplaying group. So, in 2003 the Book of Erotic Fantasy presented a final frontier that few were prepared to cross, which is understandable given that although it did include a basically mature treatment of sex and sexuality that for the most part belies its reputation, elsewhere its content crossed over into the unpleasant and distasteful for which the supplement fully deserved its reputation for tawdriness and unsavoriness. Ultimately, whilst some of its writing is mature and helpful, the Book of Erotic Fantasy is as unpleasant a book and as useless a book in 2023 as it was in 2003. It was a supplement that whilst fantasy, was very few gamers’ idea of erotic, and that nobody wanted in 2003 and nobody would want in 2023.

Crime & Consequences

It is the year 2007 and the Sinaloa Cartel, the largest drug trafficking organization in the world, operates a vast network of narcos, halcones, y sicarias whose sole purpose is to ensure the flow of drugs north across the border into Los Estados Unidos and the flow of dollars into the cartel’s coffers. Mexico is a narcostate in which the influence and corruption of the cartels has reached deep into every level of society, backed up by both bloody violence and corruption. One stop on that path is the Free and Sovereign State of Durango in northwest Mexico and it is here that the Sinaloa Cartel runs into primary enemy—Los Zetas. This rival cartel is renowned for its even greater, more obvious acts of cruelty than the Sinaloa Cartel to the point where both ordinary Mexicans and members of Sinaloa Cartel fear the Los Zetas, which mostly consists of ex-army special forces soldiers. The Sinaloa Cartel has few other enemies. Most of la Policía and los federales—the local police and the Mexican federal police—are in the pockets of one cartel or another, as are local businessmen and both local and national politicians. At the local level, that of a territory or plaza, the biggest dangers come from rival cartels, upstart gangs, and ambitious members of the cartel who more control of the drug trade in the area. Within the plaza, el narco wants everything to run smoothly and everyone to know he is in charge, el halcón wants to both protect the interests of his boss and have a greater involvement in it, el concinero wants to cook the drugs in safety, la esposa wants to protect her family even as it is in volved in the drug trade, la polizeta takes el narco’s money to protect his own life even as he giving information to los federales, la rata wants out of the cartel and has plenty of information to spill if she can last long enough, and la sicaria has been brought back to protect the interests of el narco and the plaza, but whose side is he on? All are desperate, all have made bad decisions and will likely suffer the consequences, and all will do their utmost to survive as their secrets and ambitions collide in Cartel: Mexican Narcofiction Powered by the Apocalypse.

Cartel: Mexican Narcofiction Powered by the Apocalypse is a decidedly mature and darkly themed roleplaying game published by Magpie Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Inspired by the television series Breaking Bad and The Wire and the films, El Mariachi and Siccario, this roleplaying game draws heavily on the stories about the manufacture and trafficking of narcotics—cocaine, crystal meth, and heroin—in Mexico and north across the border into the USA. The players take on the roles of archetypes or Playbooks, each of which is involved with the Sinaloa Cartel and has one or more connections with each other. A combination of these connections, the characters’ agendas, their obligations to the cartel, and the cartel’s agenda serves to drive the drama of the roleplaying game, establishing tensions and hooks that will drive the story in a playthrough of Cartel. Which with all of that criminality, money, power, and obligation on the line, means that Cartel has potential for some great roleplaying.

Cartel is ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’. What this means is that it uses the mechanics first seen in Apocalypse World, the 2010 roleplaying game which won the 2010 Indie RPG Award and 2011 Golden Geek RPG of the year and is from the designer of Dogs in the Vineyard. The core of these mechanics is a roll of two six-sided dice, with results of ten or more counting as a complete success or ‘strong hit’, results of between seven and nine as a partial success, a ‘weak hit’ or a success with consequences, and  and results of six or less counting as a failure with consequences—or ‘no, but’. The dice are rolled against actions or ‘Moves’. For example, ‘Get the Truth’. When ten or more is rolled for this Move, the player using the Move gains a ‘strong hit’ and picks two out of three option. The options are that the target of the Move cannot mislead with the truth, confuse with falsehoods, or stonewall with silence. If seven, eight, or nine are rolled, the player has achieved a ‘weak hit’ and can only select one of the three options. The character making this Move also loses a point of Stress, reflecting a lowering of tension as the target of the Move is forced to be honest. When the Move is rolled, the player adds the appropriate stat, which typically ranges in value between -2 and +2. The four stats in Cartel are Face (social influence), Grit (tenacity and good fortune), Hustle (fast talk and persuasion), and Savagery (violence and reading others).

For example, El Coninero, Yolanda, has problem—the shipments she is sending out are arriving short, so she wants to ask El Halcón, Pepe, if he knows anything about this. Having cornered Pepe, Yolanda says to him, “Hey, Pepe, my last shipment came up short. This isn’t the first time. What do know about it?” The Master of Ceremonies says that this is a ‘Get the Truth’ Move. Yolanda’s player has to roll the dice and add her Hustle, which is +1. Her player rolls six, but the +1 makes it a seven. This is not a complete success, but it is a hit and Yolanda does get to reduce her Stress (well, she is going to get some of the truth after all). The options are that Pepe cannot mislead Yolanda with the truth, confuse her with falsehoods, or stonewall her with silence. If Yolanda’s player had rolled ten or more, her player could have selected two of these options, but can only choose one because of the roll. Yolanda’s player opts for Pepe not confusing her with falsehoods, which means that Pepe cannot lie. He responds with, “Look Yolanda, it was me, okay? I’ve been selling it on the streets. I had too though… there’s some dumbass cop taking a bigger cut of my pandillo’s money. He’s not one of ours, so…”

Cartel has ten basic Moves, which every Player Character has access to. These include ‘Justify Your Behaviour’, ‘Propose a Deal’, ‘Push Your Luck’, ‘Turn to Violence’, and more. Two other types of Move are conditional. Stress Moves such as ‘Verbally Abuse or Shame Someone’, ‘Lose Yourself in a Substance’, or ‘Confess Your Sins to a Priest’ are triggered when a character is in danger of suffering too much Stress. Heat Moves are triggered when a Player Character wants to avoid the notice of, or entanglement with, la Policía or los federales. These are ‘Avoid Suspicion’, ‘Leave a Messy Crime Scene’, and ‘Flee from Los Federales’. The basic Moves are detailed in a two-page spread each, while the others are given just the one page each. Half of each description is given over to detailed and engaging examples of play.

Further, players have access to Moves known only to their characters. These Moves, what a character knows or can do, are defined by their archetype or Playbook. Cartel itself has seven Playbooks. These are ‘El Concinero’, who cooks or manufactures the drugs; ‘La Esposa’, the spouse entangled in the lies of their partner; ‘El Halcón’, the ambitious young gang member; ‘El Narco’, the local boss in charge of an area or la plaza; ‘La Polizeta’, the cop corrupted by the cartel as much as he is trying to bring it down; ‘La Rata’ is the compromised mole in the cartel who wants out, but the only way is through the cartel; and ‘La Sicaria’, the cartel veteran enforcer or killer who has managed to survive thus far. The Moves in each Playbook are unique and thematically appropriate to the archetype. For example, the ‘Amante’ Move for ‘La Rata’ is made when the Player Character shares an intimate night with a lover, the player rolls and adds the character’s Face stat. On a strong hit, the Player Character can ask two questions of her lover, but only one on a weak hit. A hit also clear the Player Character’s Stress. On a miss, the Player Character reveals something about themself and so places themselves in danger.

Besides Moves, each Playbook has Extras and Llaves—or Keys. Extras represent a Playbook’s connections or resources, essentially their support. So, El Concinero has a lab where the drugs are cooked, La Esposa a family and obligations, El Halcón his loyal Pandilla or gang, El Narco a Plaza through which drugs are moved and sold, La Polizeta connections to an anti-cartel taskforce, La Rata his wretchedness at his situation, and La Sicaria his weapons and gear, which represent how they conduct his tasks. Each Key or Llave represents a means of a character gaining Experience Points. Thus, El Concinero has Secrets, Debt, and Arrogance. The first grants him Experience Points when he lies to someone close to him about his illicit activities; the second when he takes on a new loan or has to ‘strain your finances’ to meet family needs; and the third, when he uses his superior knowledge or experience to verbally shame or abuse someone they care about. Earned Experience Points are spent on Advances which range from improved Stats and support options to new Moves and resolving support issues. All seven Playbooks are highly detailed, including a guide on playing each Playbook, notes on each of the Playbook’s Moves, as well as a list of inspirations for the Playbook.

Character creation in Cartel is in part a collaborative process. Each player selects a Playbook and together work through the options it gives, deciding on a name, look, and gear as well as adjusting a Stat and deciding on Moves, Llaves, and connections or resources. Each player also establishes ‘Los Enlaces’ or links with other characters, ideally other the player characters, but NPCs are acceptable too. Guiding the players through this process is the Master of Ceremonies—as the Game Master is known in ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ Games—who will be asking questions and helping to build the relationships and backgrounds to each of the Player Characters. 

In play, this is the primary role of the Master of Ceremonies, to ask questions, push and prompt the players, and build their characters’ involvement in the setting. For this she has the Moves of her own, such as ‘Inflict stress’, ‘Escalate a situation to violence’, and ‘Lean on a secret’, but the most important one is more of a directive—to be always asking the Player Characters, “What do you do?”. The Master of Ceremonies’ Moves are not as extensively described as the others in the game, but they are not as complex. The advice for the Master of Ceremonies is extensive though, beginning with how to set up and frame scenes, and to keep them meaningful to the fiction. It also covers how to use and pace her own Moves, examining each Playbook, managing the player versus player interaction and conflict at the heart of Cartel, using NPCs, and how to set up, run, and end the first session. It is supported by a lengthy, six-page example of play.

Damage in Cartel is managed as either Stress or Harm. The first represents mental damage, whilst the second is physical damage. Both are greatly deleterious to a character’s wellbeing. Interestingly, whilst the outcome of the ‘Turn to Violence’ Move will inflict Harm on the intended victim, it also inflicts Stress on the person doing it. Should a character suffer from too much Stress or Harm, then a player can clear by undertaking certain related Moves. For example, ‘Verbally Abuse or Shame’ or ‘Lose Yourself in a Substance’ as Stress Moves and ‘When You Get Fucking Shot’ as a Harm Move. Most damage-related Moves inflict Stress though and when a character suffers enough Stress, a Stress Move is obligatory. Stress Moves invariably have negative consequences as much as they relieve a character of Stress and further add to the drama of the game.

In terms of background, Cartel offers details of the city of Durango in Mexico, located between Mexico City and the US border, near the Pacific coast. This is part of the Sinaloa Cartel’s territory, although there are rival cartels working the area. It is here that the Player Characters are supplying, working, operating, and protecting a plaza, essentially a personal territory they are responsible for. Both the cartels and the law are covered as well as a broad history of both Mexico and the Drug War, the major players in the Drug War, and the culture which has developed as a result of the Drug War. The city of Durango is described, though in more of an overview than any great detail, and here the Master of Ceremonies may want to conduct some research or gather some photographs of the city to help her players visualise where their characters are living and working.

Physically, Cartel: Mexican Narcofiction Powered by the Apocalypse is a very well-presented book. It is clean and tidy with a large typeface and excellent artwork throughout, often in the calavera or ‘Catrina’ style. One standout feature of the writing is the number of examples of play, typically two for many of the Moves. These clearly explain how each Move works and highlights not just how the game is played, but also how the Moves work the tensions in the game and thus its incredible storytelling potential.

However, as rich and as powerful as the storytelling possibilities are with Cartel, the roleplaying game has a number of problems. The most obvious of which is the subject matter, the players are creating and roleplaying characters involved in the drug trade and if not committing the acts of violence and savagery perpetrated by some members of the cartels, then very much connected to the cartels that do. This is different than merely reading about it in a work of fiction or watching it on television. The experience is not vicarious, but personal, often viscerally so. As much as Cartel does not glorify its subject matter or its protagonists, it demands a degree of involvement and complicity that some players will not want to engage in and that is understandable. Cartel is not a roleplaying game for them, but even those who are prepared to play a roleplaying game of this nature need to be aware of what they are playing and the maturity which that demands.

Another issue is that Cartel is specifically written with Mexico and the Latino experience in mind, and that may well be alien to some of the game’s audience. Especially outside of North America. Even the writing here is an issue given that although primarily written in English, there are a lot of Spanish phrases and Mexican colloquialisms used throughout (which in some cases turn out to be terms of abuse), and as much as this adds to the flavour and feel of the book, it can come across as slightly mystifying. A more expansive glossary might have helped, even if that meant publishing bad language in the book. Being able to portray the world of the cartels on the streets of Durango with any degree of verisimilitude, let alone accuracy—and to be fair Cartel is aiming to create the feel of the former rather than the latter—demands a lot of the player and his skill as a roleplayer.

 
Cartel: Mexican Narcofiction Powered by the Apocalypse is an incredible piece of design which brings to life the greed, desperation, and drives of men and women living and working in a narcostate that pushes them to make poor choices and suffer the consequences. It makes great demands of both players and the Master of Ceremonies, asking them to commit to telling tough stories, have their characters carry out terrible deeds, and pay for them. If not in their deaths, then emotionally. By any standards, Cartel: Mexican Narcofiction Powered by the Apocalypse is about roleplaying in a horrible situation with no clear paths to absolution or redemption, but that situation and its Player Characters—through their Playbooks—encourage, even demand, great roleplaying and powerful storytelling.

Friday Fantasy: Curse of the Daughterbrides

Curse of the Daughterbrides is a horror of a scenario, with a horrible set-up, a horrid plot, and a horrendous curse. First in the activities of the main NPCs, who break a terrible taboo, and second, in the unexpected effect of a curse cast upon the main NPCs that instead affects almost everyone else. Its set-up is likely to upset a few, thankfully, whilst there are likely to be more than that, much more, who will be upset by the effect of the curse, and then of course, there will plenty who will take offence at just everything to do with the scenario. Curse of the Daughterbrides is a scenario for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, and whilst the name of that roleplaying game is likely to arouse the ire of many people, let alone the fact that the scenario is written by the publisher, the likelihood is that the scenario’s subject matters are likely to anger them more. So as the title suggests, or at least hints, Curse of the Daughterbrides, deals with incest. That then is the taboo broken in the scenario. The effect of the curse is suicide, both by the NPCs—typically in front of the Player Characters—and because the curse spreads, by the Player Characters themselves. There is no Saving Throw. Given the way that the curse works, there is a strong possibility of a TPK—a Total Party Kill. Or rather, a Total Party Kill Themselves. However, it can be avoided, though doing so in the long term will be a challenge, and there are ways to potentially lift the curse. Which would solve the problem of the curse, but not the taboo.

Curse of the Daughterbrides, like other scenarios published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess it is set in the game’s default early Modern Period. Specifically, in 1630 England, so it would work well with several of the other publisher’s titles or equally easily adapted to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice. Though to be fair, it is very more of a one-shot and whilst the author suggests ways in which the scenario could be added to an ongoing campaign, he even states that the scenario is unsuitable for ongoing play. As the scenario opens, the Player Characters are visiting the Cornish village of Dammell Green—the scenario suggests that the Game Master come up with a reason—where the local festival is being held. Normally this would be pleasant, even jolly affair, but not this year. Pandemonium seems to have rained on the event and everyone there, man, woman, and child, including attendees and stallholders is dead. Almost fifty people dead and it seems by their own hand. As the Player Characters go about the small village they encounter surviving villagers, who do two things. First, they tell the Player Characters that they are screwed and second, they kill themselves using the nearest available means in front of the Player Characters. With that, the Player Characters know that they cursed, how the curse works, and that they are now vectors for the curse. A curse, remember, which will drive them to commit suicide under the right circumstances.

So what exactly, is going on in Dammell Green?

Not long before the Player Characters arrived in the village, a Wizard attending the festive encountered a family he had met before. A family he knew to practise incest, and, in his disgust, he cursed them. Unfortunately, the magical fortitude of family caused the curse to rebound affect everyone else nearby. Which it did. To terrible effect. Now the family—the family of the Daughterbrides of the title—can be talked and reasoned with. They are actually nice people. The elderly patriarch of the family, Daveth Nancarrow—he of the daughterbrides—will be protective of his family and simply want to move on. His daughters and his daughters and his daughters will defer to him, again, wanting to leave the village lest they attract trouble. The Player Characters can also find the offending and offended wizard, but is unlikely to be of immediate help.

Several solutions to the curse are suggested. The Game Master is free to choose whichever feels more appropriate. The Game Master is supported with a detailed background of the family and various members at the heart of the scenario, including a family tree, details of Neythan Liddicoat, the Wizard and his curse, advice on setting the scenario up rather than running it, a list of potential victims for the Player Characters to ensnare in the curse, and a description of the village.

There is even a Daughterbride Class given should a player decide he wants one of the brides of Daveth Nancarrow as his character in future campaigns. The anti-magical ability of the Class explains why the curse cast upon them by Neythan Liddicoat failed to work. The Class is not without its roleplaying challenges, but there definitely would have to be some lines and veils drawn for some scenes when playing her. Though of course, why would you?

Physically, Curse of the Daughterbrides is well presented. It is well written, the map is clear, and the image of an old-fashioned razor used over and over decent enough. To be fair, it is almost a relief that the various situations in the scenario are not illustrated.

The confluence of two wrongs at the heart of Curse of the Daughterbrides do set up a pair of moral quandaries that the players and their characters may have to find a solution for in the scenario. One is what to do with the Wizard whose curse went awry, and the other is what to do with the incestuous Daveth Nancarrow and his brood. Both are left up to the Game Master and her players to address, but if they can get to that point and if not necessarily deal with them both, then at least discuss the possible outcomes, perhaps there is at least some positive outcome to the suffering that the scenario puts everyone through.

Curse of the Daughterbrides does not revel in its subject matter. In fact, it is quite straightforward about it. Which makes it easy to run, and probably as a single-session one-shot. It is simple enough that it possible to envision it being played and potential outcomes explored. Yet why would you? The subject matters at the heart of the scenario are ghastly, genuinely capable of upsetting some people and disgusting others, let alone the fact that the potential outcome of the scenario could be frustrating from a play perspective or that the Game Master might have to describe fifty ways of killing yourself at a village festival. Which is unpleasant in its own way. The subject matters though, remain unpleasant and unpalatable, and for many—despite what the author says—unsuitable to be included in a roleplaying scenario. This is not say that that either subject is unsuitable to be included in a roleplaying scenario, but here there is no delicacy or subtlety. The author is unashamedly pushing it into the faces of both the players and their characters, and again, that is likely to be too much for many a player.

The set-up of Curse of the Daughterbrides is a case of dropping the Player Characters into, if not a no-win situation, then one that is very close, and forcing them to work out how to get out of it. There are plenty of scenarios like that, but here the subject matters just make it worse.

There are going to be some who will be happy to play through Curse of the Daughterbrides, and they are to be commended for their mental fortitude, emotional strength, and hardy stomachs. Others though, should definitely avoid what is a horridly horrible horror of a scenario, very likely with good reason.