Low Lovecraftian Fantasy

In a hobby rife with fantasy roleplaying games—from Dungeons & Dragons to Symbaroum, not to forget the Old School Renaissance, the question is, what sets Shadow, Sword, & Spell apart from all the rest? Published by Rogue Games, Shadow, Sword, & Spell primarily does two things. First, it does is humanocentric fantasy, that is, fantasy sans Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and so on. Second, it does Pulp Fantasy, that is, fantasy in the vein of Robert Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and H.P. Lovecraft. It is gritty, often grim, but invariably low in magic, high in adventure, wide of vista, and simmering with secrets, horror, and mystery. This is a roleplaying game in which men are men, women are women, and neither are necessarily truly heroic.

Within the setting of Shadow, Sword, & Spell, players are free to design the characters they want to play—this is very much a skills and spells, guts and sanity type of roleplaying game. This can be for a setting of the Game Master’s own creation or the two sandboxes provided in the rulebook. Thus tundra-born barbarians, crafty bureaucrats, astute merchants, curious scholars, stealthy hunters, shadowy thieves, louche gamblers, secretive sorcerers—all these are possible and more. Characters are defined by five Abilities—Brawn, Quickness, Toughness, Wits, and Will, plus Vitality and Sanity, two derived factors which represent a character’s physical and mental damage capacity respectively. A character can have any number of skills or spells, the only limitation being their cost to purchase. Both Abilities and the ranks for a character’s spells and skills range between one and twenty-four. A character also has several Hooks, descriptors which help pull the character into the story and the action and which can be used as negative factors to earn a character Action Points and then used as positive factors to allow a player to spend his character’s Action Points to get various benefits. Bonuses and penalties come from a character’s Background or culture and a Modifier, the latter qualifying the Background and pointing towards a character’s attitude.

To create a character, a player divides forty-five points between the five Abilities, with seven being average and Abilities above nine granting a bonus. Then he has forty points to divide between his skills and spells, the latter because each spell is treated as a skill in itself. After selecting a Background and Modifier, a player chooses two Hooks. For our character, the Civilised Background is appropriate since she grew up in the city-port of Bluff. This gives her +1 Rank in Bureaucracy, Diplomacy, and a non-native language. It also penalises her with -1 Survival and Subterfuge. Now for her Modifier, there are none that seem really suitable given in the book, since Jessen’s player wants her to have grown up on the streets. Advice is given in Shadow, Sword, & Spell on how to create your own. So, Jessen’s player creates a Modifier for her—Bluff Street Rat. This grants the following bonuses and penalties to various skill rolls—Subterfuge +2, Streetwise +1, Observe +1, Diplomacy -2, Empathy -2, Socialise -1 and Survival -1.

Jessen the Quick
Background: Civilised
Modifier: Street Rat
Brawn 08 (+0) Quickness 12 (+2) Toughness 08 (+0) Wits 09 (+1) Will 08 (+0)
Vitality: 40
Sanity: 40
Initiative: 11
Actions: 4 Action Points: 5
Skills: Acrobatics +2, Bargain +2, Bureaucracy +1, Defend +2, Diplomacy -1, Gaming +1, Languages (Street Argot) +1, Melee +2, Streetwise +1, Subterfuge +2, Survival -1

Hooks
You can take the Street Rat off the street, but not the street…
My brother is missing

Creating a character is relatively easy, but takes a bit of time as a player divides up the various points and makes a few choices. The resulting character will be quite focused in what he can do, at least if a player wants him to be competent in what he does. The resulting character also does not feel overly competent, but with a few adventures under their collective belts, that should change. Like character creation, , the core mechanic—the 12° System, also used in the publisher’s Colonial Gothic roleplaying game—in Shadow, Sword, & Spell is relatively easy. To undertake an action, a character’s player rolls two twelve-sided dice and adds the character’s Ability bonus and Skill values. The aim is to beat a Target Number, a Standard target number being twelve, a Challenging target number being eighteen, a Daring target number being thirty. Rolls above the Target Number generate Degrees of Success, whilst rolls below generate Degrees of Failure. In combat, Degrees of Success add to damage rolls, but out of combat they can be used to reduce the amount of time a task takes, improve its effectiveness, and so on. The effect of both Degrees of Success and Failure should not have too great an influence on a game and their exact effect is up to the Game Master to decide. One example of how Degrees of Failure is in measuring how scared a character is. Should a character fail a Fear Test, then the Degrees of Failure indicate how many points of Sanity a character loses. (It should be noted it is just as easy to recover Sanity as it is Vitality, and do so daily, so the tone is more Pulp than Purist in terms of the approach to Lovecraftian horror in Shadow, Swords, & Spell.)

For example, Jessen the Quick, Hifgrirr the Silent, and and Utolin the Learned have been hired to take an item from the tomb of Wuqor the Black. Utolin has found the location of the tomb in some old records and together they have broken into the tomb and located the sarcophagus chamber. Jessen has picked the lock to a rusty iron gate and as Utolin is about to step into the chamber, the Game Master calls for Observe Tests—Utolin first and then Jessen. Utolin’s player fails his, so it is Jessen’s turn. Jessen does not have the Observe skill, but it is an Untrained skill, so there is a -4 penalty on the roll. The Game Master sets the Target Number at Difficult or fourteen. Jessen’s player rolls the two twelve-sided dice, adds Jessen’s Wits bonus and bonus from her Cultural Modifier and deducts the penalty. The result is 4 and 12 on the dice, plus Wits bonus of +1, a modifier of +1, and a penalty of -4, to give a result of 14. Jessen succeeds, but only just! The Game Master states that Jessen just manages to spot and warn Utolin just in time.

In addition to a character’s skills, he also has Action Points. These can be spent to gain a Degree of Success, gain a +1 bonus to a roll, to edit and change aspects of a situation, and regain Vitality in an emergency. On top of these Action Points, a character also has Hooks, aspects which can be invoked along with an Action Point to gain a +2 bonus instead of the usual +1. For example, ‘I earned my freedom, none shall take it from me.’ might be used to gain a +2 bonus on an escape attempt. Hooks can also be used to earn a character Action Points, whether through good roleplaying upon the player’s part or the Game Master invoking the Hook.

Continuing the example, Jessen the Quick and Utolin the Learned have entered the sarcophagus chamber of Wuqor the Black. The sarcophagus appears to be sealed and Utolin is pouring over the seal wondering whether he can break the seal. The Game Master suggests that this will be a Lore Test with a Target Number of 22 or Formidable. Utolin’s Wits bonus is +1 and he has a skill of Lore +2, but his player asks if he can invoke of his Hooks—‘My Future Lies in the Past’—to gain a +2 bonus instead of +1. Utolin’s player describes this as having spent all of those hours in the archives researching Wuqor. The Game Master agrees, giving a total of +5 to the roll. Utolin’s player rolls 9 and 9, which together with the bonuses is enough for Utolin to work how to break the seal. Unfortunately, Wuqor left one last trap. As the seal breaks with a cracking sound, there is a shifting of rock both in front of and behind Jessen and Utolin—the iron gate comes sliding back down into position as on the other side of the chamber, two sections of wall slide into the floor revealing two alcoves. Out of both steps a warrior figure, wielding sword and shield, but devoid of flesh—skeleton guardians!

Combat uses the same mechanics, and whilst it allows for a variety of manoeuvres, such as bull rush, called shots, dirty fighting, and so on, it is designed to be reasonably quick and dramatic. Damage in particular can be highly deleterious and have an effect beyond that of simple Vitality loss. With weapon damage being determined by adding the Degrees of Success generated on the attack roll to the weapon’s damage value, high damage can be inflicted and with it penalties to all of a character’s actions—including attacking and defensive actions—until he is healed. There are two ways of avoiding damage. One is to wear armour, which soaks up the damage from blows until it falls apart, the other is for the target to avoid the attack. This is done by making Defend Tests against Melee attacks—the use of shields add to this and making Dodge Tests against Ranged attacks. Each Degree of Success rolled reduces the attacker’s Degrees of Success and if they can be reduced to zero, then the attack has successfully been dodged or defended against. One thing to take into account here is how many Actions a character has each round. Derived from the Quickness Ability, it is always a fixed amount which cannot be carried over to subsequent rounds. Actions are primarily used to make attacks, usually with the Melee or Ranged skill, but they are also needed to make Dodge or Defend Tests, so it is always a good idea to keep an Action or two in hand to ward off attacks.

Hifgrirr the Silent
Background: Barbarian
Modifier: Northern
Brawn 12 (+2) Quickness 09 (+1) Toughness 09 (+1) Wits 05 (-2) Will 09 (+1)
Vitality: 40
Sanity: 45
Initiative: 7
Actions: 3 Action Points: 5
Skills: Athletics +2, Defend +2, Diplomacy -2, Melee +3, Stealth +1, Survival +3, Tactics +1, Track +3
Modifiers: Illiterate

Hooks
Better to say nothing than say something foolish
The land speaks to me, I pray to the land

In the Sarcophagus Chamber of Wuqor the Black, the skeletons have stepped out of their alcoves and in the low light cast by Utolin’s luminescence spell, each looks at the three intruders who can see the strange green gem glowing on their foreheads—these can be no ordinary skeletons. The Game Master calls for a Fear Test from each of the three characters. The Target Number for this is Challenging or 18. Each player will add his character’s Will bonus to the roll to beat the Target Number, but unfortunately the Skeleton has a Trait of Fear -1 which is applied to each character’s roll. With rolls of 20 and 18 respectively, both Utolin and Hifgrirr pass, but with a roll of 6, Jessen fails miserably and worse, the twelve Degrees of Failure the roll generated has to be deducted from her Sanity. This is a lot and means that Jessen will suffer a -2 penalty to all actions for the day.

Now combat starts. Both the players and the Game Master rolls for initiative, equal to their Initiative Rating plus a roll of one die. The results are Hifgrirr 18, Jessen 14 (this includes the -2 penalty), Utolin 16, the Skeletons 6, so Hifgrirr is going first. The character with the highest Tactics skill gets to make a Tactics Test. Hifgrirr has Tactics +1, but a Wits penalty of -2. If his player makes the roll, then the Degrees of Success can be distributed to the other characters as an act of leadership. Unfortunately, Hifgrirr lives up to his sobriquet and is all too silent when it comes to giving commands—just at a time when Jessen could really do with some directions. In the meantime, the Northern Barbarian has three actions versus the Skeletons’ two each. His player decides that Hifgrirr will attack twice and use one to defend against the Skeleton’s attack. Hifgrirr’s player will add Hifgrirr’s Brawn bonus of +2 and Melee +3 to beat a Target Number of 18. He rolls 9 and 12, which with the bonus comes to total of 26. This is a good hit, giving Hifgrirr 8 Degrees of Success, but the Skeleton has to defend. Unfortunately, the Skeleton does not have the Defence skill, but it does have a shield, so the Game Master will be adding -2 for the Skeleton’s Quickness modifier, +1 for the shield, and -4 for the Untrained skill use, but even after rolling 10 and 12, the final result of 17 means that it cannot defend itself. Hifgrirr’s player add the Damage Value of 6 for the barbarian’s broadsword to the Degrees of Success for a total of 14 damage! This over half of the Skeleton’s Vitality!

The Game Master rolls for the Skeleton’s Melee +8, again to beat 18 and bash Hifgrirr with its sword. She rolls 2 and 9 to get a total of 19, which is two Degrees of Success. Hifgrirr’s studded leather armour gives him an Armour Value of 25 and so will protect him, but Hifgrirr is going to try and protect himself anyway. His player rolls the dice to get 7 and 9, and adds Hifgrirr’s Defend +2 and Quickness modifier of +1 as well as the +1 bonus for the barbarian’s shield for total of 20—two Degrees of Success. This will be deducted from the skeleton’s damage roll of a die roll and Brawn of 5 (a normal skeleton uses Quickness and the die roll, but remember that green glowing gem!), so that in the end, Hifgrirr’s Armour Value takes 9 points of damage…

Hifgrirr then gets to attack again as his third Action. In the meantime, Utolin prepares a spell and whilst she is much quicker than the skeleton she is facing, Jessen is still scared of the skeleton attacking her. This means that she just about manages to defend herself, but her shortsword seems no match for the skeleton’s shield blocking…

Magic in Shadow, Swords, & Spell comes in two flavours—Common and Arcane. Essentially, basic and advanced spells, the latter being more powerful. It takes the Magic skill to cast spells and there is no limit as such on how many times a spell can be cast, although Arcane spells do scrape at the caster’s Sanity. The primary limitations upon a mage’s ability to cast spells is that they are treated like skills, so need to be purchased and improved Rank by Rank and that Common spells take two whole rounds to cast. Arcane spells require more time to prepare and cast as some do require a ritual circle. The Common spells include Burn, Cause Gloom, Healing, Sleep, and so on, whilst the Arcane spells include Bring Forth Elemental, Contact (as in Elder God!), Destroy the Dead, Ward, and so on. There is not a huge number of spells, but starting wizards do not start the game with many spells anyway and one of their aims is find other spellcasters willing to teach them. The other form of magic in Shadow, Sword, & Spell is Alchemy, which allows a practitioner to create Ability boosting elixirs, create homunculi and manticores, brew poisons, and transmute things, and so on. It is a far more studious and less flashy than standard magic.

Utolin the Learned
Background: Advanced
Modifier: Sorcerous
Brawn 08 (+0) Quickness 08 (+0) Toughness 08 (+0) Wits 09 (+1) Will 12 (+2)
Vitality: 32
Sanity: 45
Initiative: 11
Actions: 2 Action Points: 5
Skills: Diplomacy -1, Empathy -1, Lore +2, Magic +2, Resist +1, Sense +1, Socialise +0, Study (History) +4, 
Spells: Ball/Bolt +2, Healing +2, Magic’s Luminance +1
Modifiers: -1 on social tests with ‘inferiors’

Hooks
My manners might be alien, but they are at least manners
My fortune lies in the past

Meanwhile in the sarcophagus chamber of Wuqor the Black, Jessen is just about managing to hold off the skeleton attacking her and Hifgrirr has smashed the skeleton he was to bits, including the green and glowing gem which was in its forehead. He has also come up behind the skeleton facing Jessen and thwacking it hard. The skeleton has taken a lot of damage, but is determined to continue attacking Jessen. After two rounds of concentration and recitation of the formula, Utolin is at last ready to cast his one offensive spell—Bolt. The Target Number is again Chalelnging or 18, so Utolin’s player rolls the dice to get 10 and 8, to which he adds Utolin’s Magic of +2 and Will modifier of +2 to get a total of 22. This gives him four Degrees of Success to add to the Rank of his Bolt spell, for six damage. The skeleton cannot resist this damage and Utolin’s player describes this as Utolin suddenly shouting out for everyone to duck as he unleashes a shard of ice that pierces the skeleton’s skull and sending it crashing to the floor.

Beyond the mere character, Shadow, Swords, & Spell provides rules for mass combat, including sieges and then for what it calls the ‘Endgame’. This is part in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons where the Fighter has reached high enough Level to build a stronghold and attract some followers, a thief to establish a Thieves Guild and recruit more thieves, or when Conan has become king and rules a country. It is the point when the characters become too capable to really go adventuring. It looks at three options—building and managing a domain, becoming a merchant princess or prince, and setting up a criminal gang—and covering retainers, morale, events, trade, terrain, and so on. It very nicely both extends the campaign and life of a group’s characters and covers the more mature aspects of the source material—settling down, politics, family matters, and so forth. It is supported by decent advice for the Game Master, which looks a little more at the genre inspiring Shadow, Swords, & Spell and how to create a setting. This is backed up with ‘The World’, a sample setting, essentially a large land mass to the south of which lies the mysterious island of Atlantis. The larger land mass is described in broad detail before the description switches to focus on a smaller region, the League of Merchants. Notably this includes the various gods worshipped by the inhabitants of the region, many of them of an elder nature. This provides something that the Game Master can use, take inspiration from, and so on.

Rounding out Shadow, Swords, & Spell is a lengthy bestiary, covering both threats and creatures. The former are men, ranging from bandits and barbarians to muggers and raconteurs, with many taken from ‘The World’. The creatures include demons, elementals, dinosaurs, and ordinary animals, as well as Lovecraftian things such as deep ones and serpent people. Between them are rules for the Game Master to design monsters of his own. Rounding out the book is a good reference section and a set of enjoyable designer’s notes.

Physically, Shadow, Swords, & Spell is a sturdy, digest-sized book. It is decently illustrated in a range of styles, but all black and white. Although it needs an edit in places, the writing is engaging and it lays the groundwork for playing the game with an explanation of system and how its works up front before delving into detail. It perhaps could have done with a few example player characters and perhaps an example scenario to really get the game going.

Of course, the obvious issue with Shadow, Swords, & Spell is the 12° System which looks a little odd with its use of pairs of twelve-sided dice. This oddity actually hides a solid set of mechanics which have been nicely developed to handle the Swords & Sorcery genre, especially in their push into the ‘End Game’ and the player characters’ later careers. Also, although pulp fantasy, the system allows for the effects of fear and encountering threats, and this pleasingly pushes the fantasy of Shadow, Swords, & Spell away from the type of fantasy atypical to roleplaying as does the focus on a humancentric feel rather than allowing a myriad of player character races. Overall, Shadow, Swords, & Spell presents the means to play in a lost age, a darker age, when gods and things stalked the shadows and from beyond, but an age when men and women had the skills and spells, guts and sanity to search out secrets, confront horrors—and if they survive, stake a claim to their own kingdoms.

Friday Filler: The Fighting Fantasy Co-op

Funded via Kickstarter, Escape the Dark Castle: The Game of Atmospheric Adventure is a grim co-operative dice game which echoes the Fighting Fantasy series of solo adventure books from the nineteen eighties. Published by Themeborne, Escape the Dark Castle is designed to be played by between one and four players, aged fourteen plus, so just like those Fighting Fantasy books, it can be played solo. It can be played in thirty minutes or less—probably less because Escape the Dark Castle is a brutally challenging game to beat and offers plenty of replay value because of the number of cards it comes with and the random set-up each time it is played.

In Escape the Dark Castle, each player controls a prisoner who has been wrongly incarcerated below Dark Castle for more years than he or she can recall. Now there is an opportunity to escape and take up their old lives again, but between them and freedom stands some fifteen encounters or locations, as well as a boss responsible for their imprisonment. They will face traps, monsters, choices, and more, all of which they must work together to overcome if they are to escape. For if one of their number dies in the process, then they all fail. So, in Escape the Dark Castle, it is a case of ‘together or death!’

Escape the Dark Castle comes decently appointed. This includes six Character Cards, fifty-three Chapter Cards, five Boss Cards, and a Start Card, all of which are A6 in size. The thirty-five Item Cards are standard sized cards. The fifteen, large six-sided dice are divided between the nine black Chapter Dice and the six white Character Dice. A scorepad and several pencils are included to track the escapee’s Hit Points. The black and white rule book is just twelve pages long.

The Character Cards depict an Abbot, a Cook, a Miller, a Smith, a Tanner, and a Tailor. Each has ratings in three Traits—Cunning, Might, and Wisdom. The ratings each Character has in these Traits indicates how many times they occur on their Character die. So, the Smith has four in Might, three in Wisdom, and one in Cunning, and the corresponding number of symbols appear on the Smith’s Character Die. Some of the symbols appear twice on the face a Character Die and in shield. When rolled, this means that a Character is twice as effective, whilst the shield indicates that all damage has been blocked. The Chapter Dice simply show the three symbols twice.

The Chapter Cards depict monsters and challenges the Characters have to overcome and the horrors and choices they will face. Each Chapter Card clearly indicates what the Characters have to do, how many Chapter Dice need to be rolled if required, and how much damage the Characters will suffer if they fail. For example, the Characters might encounter a putrid captain sitting at a table, his face shrouded in shadow. He will suddenly rise and attack if the Characters try to get past him. They have two choices. They can flee, but suffer three Hit Points of damage in the process, if they fight, they must each roll their Character dice to try and match the symbols rolled on the Chapter Dice in order to beat the Captain. Each round the Captain remains standing, he inflicts two Hit Points of damage on all of the Characters.

The Item Cards are a mix of consumables, equipment, and relics. So, the Cunning Concoction is drunk to apply an extra Cunning result in a Chapter, the Infested Cheese Wheel is eaten to restore a Hit Point for everyone, the Rotten Shield reduces damage taken by one point, and the Decayed Blade allows a player to reroll his die once per round if he rolls Wisdom and choose the best result. None of the Characters have bags or pockets, so they can hold two items or a single two-handed item. Lastly, the rulebook is a quick read and the rules are easy to learn. (In fact, Escape the Dark Castle can be played within ten minutes of opening the box as it is very easy to teach.)

At the start of the game, each player chooses a Character, which should be done to ensure that together the players have a good mix of Characters favouring the three Stats. Fifteen Chapter Cards are selected at random and shuffled to form the Castle Deck. The Start Card is placed atop the Castle Deck, whilst a Boss Card is placed at the bottom. Everyone takes their Character Die and the game is ready to play. All this takes a couple of minutes to set up.

The game starts with a player turning over the Start Card and reading it. Then the first Chapter Card is turned over and play proper begins. There is no turn order, the players deciding who will turn over each Chapter Card and what they will do to overcome them. It can be important who turns over a Chapter Card as some have conditions which apply only to that player. From one Chapter to the next, the Characters might have to hack their way through thorny vines, fight a ghoul, aid or rob a nobleman, make a deal with a trader, steal from an empty guard room, avoid a set of three swinging axes, and so on. Along the way they will find items which will help them and if they are lucky, they will be strong enough to face the Boss at the end of the dungeon and defeat him to escape.

All this plays in thirty minutes. Which when combined with the quick set-up time makes for a quick playing experience. More importantly, it is a very luck-based experience. Not just the roll of the dice to determine the outcome of Chapters and combats, but also what Chapter Cards and Item Cards will be drawn. It is also a brutal playing experience as there are few easy Chapters and combat can be really nasty if the players do not roll the dice they need to defeat a foe. This also makes it tense experience as from one Chapter to the next, as the players are forced to make choices, balance their need to defeat foes to find Items versus their remaining Hit Points, and try keep their Hit Points high enough to survive facing the final Boss—if they get their far…

Physically, Escape the Dark Castle is really well produced. The Chapter, Boss, and Character Cards are large and really easy to read and understand. Each one is illustrated in Black and White, in a style which echoes that of the Fighting Fantasy series and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay last seen in the nineteen eighties. There really is a rich seam of nostalgia running through this game right down to the illustration of the Dark Castle itself, which echoes the castle of Citadel Miniatures. (That said, it is very, very British nostalgia, so it may not appeal to all gamers.)

Which all sounds well and good. Unfortunately, Escape the Dark Castle feels as if it should offer more complexity than it actually does. With just fifteen Chapter Cards each game and the choices limited to events described on those Chapter Cards, it never feels as if the Characters have any choice as to where they go—it is always forward, forward, forward to escape and the next Chapter Card. Similarly, none of the Characters really feel different to each other. Only the Stats differentiate between them and this makes them feel a bit flat. A special ability for each of the Characters might have been enough for them to stand out from each other. Nor are there any rules for scaling the game up and down to make it easier or more difficult to win. (The solution would be to decrease or increase the number of Chapter Cards.) Hopefully an expansion will add these options and so offset the game’s simplicity, making it a bit more appealing to a wider audience.

Despite these issues, Escape the Dark Castle is still fun and still challenging to play. Indeed, overcoming the challenges of the Chapter Cards and defeating the final Boss really does feel as if the players and their Characters have achieved something. It is quick to set up and play through, making it a good filler. It is also possible to tell a story of desperation and heroism as Characters progress further towards the exit from under the castle—it is here that that the game really begins to echo the solo adventure books. Overall, this is a brutal filler which offers plenty of choices and challenges to face and plenty of cards to make you want to return to see if you can Escape the Dark Castle: The Game of Atmospheric Adventure once again.

Miskatonic Monday #9: An Invitation in Yellow

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share them with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was a Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise ofthe Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. 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 far reaches of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: An Invitation in Yellow: A Call of Cthulhu Scenario for 3-4 players

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.

Author: Patrick Viggo Moeller

Setting: Jazz Age

Product: Scenario

What You Get: 1.3 MB, 14-page black & white PDF
Elevator Pitch: Friends, Romans, countrymen, don't come to dinner.

Plot Hook: The investigators are invited to dinner by an old acquaintance who has scientific discoveries of a medical nature to share.

Plot Development: A bad dinner, madness, missing folk, and a frienemy.

Plot Support: Six NPCs; Six good handouts.

Production Values: Needs a edit.

Pros

# Short, self-contained investigation 

# Limited number of NPCs

# Simple, but weird plot
# Only one major NPC for the Keeper to portray
# Adaptable to the period of the Keeper’s choice# Good scenario for a Doctor investigator
# Adaptable to the Mythos entity (Yog-Sothoth?) of the Keeper’s choice

Cons

# Sanity rewards slightly high
# Sanity losses slightly high

# Fails to take advantage of the Sanity depleting effects of being under the influence

# Fails to take advantage of the horror effects of being under the influence
# Only one scenario hook given

Conclusion

# Decent one-session scenario

# Suitable for the new Keeper

Narcofiction Roleplaying

Cartel: Mexican Narcofiction Powered by the Apocalypse is a roleplaying game inspired by the television series Breaking Bad and The Wire and the film, El Mariachi. As its name suggests, it 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. It sets up archetypes, known as Playbooks—‘el concinero’, ‘la esposa’, ‘el halcón’, ‘el narco’, ‘la polizeta’, and ‘la sicaria’—who share one or more connections with each other and who is each involved somehow in the Sinaloa Cartel. 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. These also serve to replace the set-ups or scenarios which might be found in traditional roleplaying games, as well as establishing tensions and hooks aplenty. Which with all of that money, power, and obligation on the line, means that Cartel has potential for some great roleplaying.

Published by Magpie Games, 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, results of between seven and nine as a partial success—or ‘yes, but’, 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, ‘Propose a Deal’. When ten or more is rolled for this Move, the other person accepts the terms of the proposed deal or suffers Stress, but if seven, eight, or nine are rolled, then the other person either accepts the offer and declaims authority for doing so, accepts and adjusts the price, or suggests another interested party. To this roll is added a 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).

In a game ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’, what a character knows or can do—their Moves—are defined by their archetype or Playbook. Cartel itself gives six 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; and ‘La Sicaria’, the cartel veteran enforcer or killer who has managed to survive thus far. All six Playbooks have access to a number of basic Moves, including Justify Your Behaviour, Propose a Deal, Push Your Luck, Get the Truth, Pressure Someone, Turn to Violence, Size Someone Up, Strain Your Finances, and Help/Interfere. The majority of the Moves unique to a Playbook provide bonuses or enhancements to other Moves. So for example, La Esposa’s ‘Amor y Matrimonio’ grants them a +1 bonus when persuading a member of la familia to do the right thing. Others work more like the basic Moves, such as ‘Hermano’ for El Halcón. This gets El Halcón’s ‘Pandilla’ or trio of cohorts to follow his lead and do something dangerous. On a roll of ten plus, the Pandilla agrees to go along with El Halcón’s, following his instructions precisely without demanding cash or drugs; on a roll of seven, eight, or nine, they only agree to one of these conditions; and on a miss, the Pandilla simply argues amongst themselves and screws up El Halcón’s plans before they can be acted upon.

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, and La Sicaria his weapons and gear, which represent how they carry out his tasks. Each Key or Llave represents a means of a character gaining Experience Points. Thus El Narco has Dirty Hands, Family, and Paranoia. The first grants him Experience Points when he personally gets involved in a messy situation; the second when he violates the members’ boundaries to protect them; and the third when he gets the truth out of someone about their true loyalties. Earned Experience Points are spent on Advances which range from improved Stats and support options to new Moves and resolving support issues.

Character creation in Cartel is in part a collaborative process. Each player selects a Playbook—ideally Cartel should be played by six roleplayers as well as the Master of Ceremonies (as the Game Master is known)—and works 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 the NPCs and for an explanation of those she will need access to a copy of Apocalypse World. The advice in Cartel is short and to the point, covering her role and notably, what each of the Playbooks is looking for in play and providing an example of actual play.

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 is 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 can not 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…”

Damage in Cartel—and other ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ games—is handled 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 several examples of life living under the cartels.

Physically, Cartel is tightly written with a strong focus on its genre. The artwork available has a slightly cartoon quality, but works nonetheless. Notably, the book is written to represent a Latino view of the drug culture by being set south of the border and so uses a lot of Hispanic slang (which may not be familiar to every reader).

As it currently stands, Cartel is a game with a number of issues. The only versions available are the quick-start and the Ashcan. The former is a full-colour PDF, whilst the latter is a black and white booklet without the art. With either version, Cartel is not complete and the Master of Ceremonies at the very least should have access to a copy of Apocalypse World and some experience in the role. Also, as much as the game is inspired by the television series Breaking Bad—it is actually very easy to map the characters of that series onto the Playbooks of Cartel—it is not written to emulate that series. It is specifically written with Mexico and the Latino experience in mind, and that may well be alien to some of the game’s audience. Plus of course, the subject matter and the dramatic turns which the play of the game is likely to take, mean that Cartel is very much a game for a mature audience.

As written though, Cartel is rich in possibilities and drama. The tensions and obligations leap off the page and beg to be played, the quick-start or ashcan edition providing material enough for a short, if intense campaign.

—oOo—

The full version of Cartel: Mexican Narcofiction Powered by the Apocalypse is currently being funded via Kickstarter.

Retrospective: 2001: A Space Odyssey

Perhaps the oddest licence to come out of E. Gary Gygax’s sojourn in Hollywood in the early 1980s was a pair of modules for Star Frontiers, TSR, Inc.’s Science Fiction roleplaying game of space opera and action-adventure. The licence was for one of the most revered Science Fiction films of all time and its sequel, the latter released in 1984, which probably explains why the licence was sought and won. The film was, of course, Stanley Kubrick’s highly regarded 2001: A Space Odyssey with the sequel being Peter Hyams’ 2010. As it is fifty years since the release of Kubrick’s classic, there is perhaps never a better time than now to review 2001: A Space Odyssey, ‘A Special Star Frontiers Adventure Module’.

Certainly, 2001: A Space Odyssey was special in terms of its support and production values. Not only does it include maps of the African Wilderness circa 4,000,000 B.C. and the Magnetic Anomaly Search Zone on the Lunar surface, but also a set of deckplans for the USS Discovery. The first of these on the inside of the module’s card cover, whilst the latter two are on the foldout poster map included with the module. The deckplans in particular are rather nicely done and do add atmosphere and verisimilitude to the 2001: A Space Odyssey scenario. In addition, the thirty-two page scenario is lavishly illustrated with black and white stills from the film, whilst the front cover is a full colour photograph, something that was rarely used by TSR, Inc. (Notable other uses include on the covers of the modules 2010 Odyssey Two and  CB1 Conan Unchained! and CB2 Conan Against Darkness, the pair of adventures written for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition prior to the release of David Cook’s highly regarded Conan Role-Playing Game.)

If physically well done, what then of the actual content and adventure? Written by Frank Mentzer for use with the Alpha Dawn Expanded Game Rules and Knight Hawks Campaign Book for Star Frontiers, the adventure takes place across four chapters. As with the film, these are ‘Dawn of Man’, ‘Lunar Excursion’, ‘Jupiter Mission’, and ‘Through the Star Gate’. Of the four, only the third and fourth are directly connected in terms of what the players will roleplay. In ‘Dawn of Man’ they will play the Man-apes evolved into hunter-gathers by the Monolith; in ‘Lunar Excursion’ they are freelancers racing to find a magnetic anomaly on the Moon; and in ‘Jupiter Mission’ and ‘Through the Star Gate’, they are the crew of the Discovery, first finding out about and then coping with HAL’s perfidy before entering the Star Gate.

To reflect the film, the 2001: A Space Odyssey module strips out the pulp sensibilities of Star Frontiers to present a dry, technical adventure. So no Void or Faster Than Light travel, and of course, no aliens in the traditional sense. What it does add is two new skills and three subskills. These are Astronomy and its subskills Identify and Calculate, and System Navigation and its Plot Course subskill. They are of course only used in the third chapter, ‘Jupiter Mission’. That said, there are suggestions as to how the module might be used with the other races to be found in Star Frontiers. The default is of course, for the player characters to be human and the events of the module to take place in the United Planetary Federation’s distant past.

The scenario opens with ‘Dawn of Man’, which takes place on the plains of the African Wilderness circa 4,000,000 B.C. The players take the roles of Man-apes, not far from extinction who must spend much of their day foraging for food and water, as well as contending with rival bands of Man-apes and carnivorous beasts. One day something is different—a strange slab of black rock stands in the valley—and this drives the Man-apes to change, to use other means to improve their chances of survival. This includes throwing rocks, using bones as weapons, realising the benefits of a carnivorous diet, and so on. And that is that, really. ‘Dawn of Man’ really does not give a great deal for the players to do. There is no carry over from this chapter to subsequent chapters and this is very much a vignette which simulates the events of the film. The suggestion that it might be a vignette is compounded by how ‘Dawn of Man’ is played and that is essentially as a wargame, using counters on the Africa Wilderness map. What this means is that there really is very little roleplaying involved in this chapter.

The wargaming carries over into the second chapter, ‘Lunar Excursion’. Now in the film, Doctor Heywood Floyd travels from the Earth to the Moon, is briefed about a magnetic anomaly in the Tycho crater, and when he visits it, it is revealed to be another slab of rock, a Monolith which sends a signal towards Jupiter. Here the players get to create their own characters and then have them hired by the American Office at Clavius Moonbase. The existence of a large magnetic anomaly has been detected and the Americans want to hire the characters as search teams to pinpoint its location. There is opportunity for roleplaying here as some of the characters may be contacted by the Chinese to locate the anomaly for them rather than the Americans, but what the act plays out as is a race from one crater to the next, scanning each crater for the anomaly, the aim being to find it before anyone else and claim it for whichever country the character is allied with, secretly, or not. There are also NPCs involved in this race, but their inclusion is all but irrelevant, for “If they reach the goal first, assume that they do not test it accurately and believe it to be a large (300-400 gamma) but not unnatural anomaly.” Again, it is a case of the player character actions not really mattering, a problem exacerbated by the fact that the players do not get to see the anomaly or see it send the signal.

The third chapter, ‘Jupiter Mission’, switches from player created characters to pre-generated characters, the crew of the USS Discovery. Initially, this will be Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, but later on, they will be joined by Doctor Walter Kaminski, William Hunter, and Peter Whitehead. There are two issues with this. First, the first half of the chapter involves just Bowman and Poole, so if the module is being played by more players, they have nothing to do… Second, there is very little to distinguish one character from another and so they all feel a bit flat. Fortunately, the chapter is far more involving and far more challenging, because as everyone knows, the HAL 9000 computer which runs the Discovery will try to kill the crew. So not only do the characters have to contend with that, they also have to fix and cope with the consequences of whatever HAL tries to do to them. This is probably the best chapter in the module, as it comes with some good advice on what HAL might do and there is a chance here that the characters might fail… There several points in this chapter which are lifted verbatim from the film, but much like the rest of the scenario, there is little that the players can do to avoid them.

If the module has so far felt like it was on rails, then that feeling is confirmed in the fourth and final chapter, ‘Through the Star Gate’. Here the surviving characters get to decide whether they want to stay aboard the Discovery or go through the Star Gate—and that is about that…

Oddly, given the licence, 2001: A Space Odyssey appears to have been released with little fanfare or press coverage at the time. Further, the module appears not have been widely released—certainly this reviewer only obtained his copies direct from an ex-TSR (UK), Inc. employee.

2001: A Space Odyssey is not a good scenario for too many reasons. One issue is the shift in tone it represents from Star Frontiers, dry and technical, rather than the excitement of its usual space opera and action-adventure. 2001: A Space Odyssey is hard rather than pulp science fiction and whether is that is a good fit for every group is another matter and a lesser matter in comparison to the adventure’s other issues.

Obviously, the adventure involves very little in terms of player character agency and roleplaying. Indeed, the first and second chapters involve little to no roleplaying whatsoever and whatever the player characters do by the end of chapter, it has real no effect upon the outcome of the module’s story anyway. This is because it adheres too closely to the plot and outcome of the film, with no opportunity for alternative events or ‘what-ifs’ to be explored, leaving it to run on rails. Further,  if the players have seen the film—a high likelihood even at the time of the module’s release—there is little incentive for them to play the module. There is also only the one real opportunity—in ‘Lunar Excursion’—for players to create and roleplay their own characters, so there is no opportunity for character growth or change. Even when the players  are given characters from the film to play, that is, the crew of the Discovery, they are just numbers and there are no backgrounds to any of the five crew. In fairness, three of the crew do not appear in the film and the two that do, are fairly buttoned down characters. As presented here, the quintet has a cypher-like quality.

As a technical manual for the film, the 2001: A Space Odyssey module has the details and deckplans of the USS Discovery to recommend it. As a scenario, 2001: A Space Odyssey is constrained by the limits of the film which fundamentally do not translate into a good playing or a good roleplaying experience. Whether this is due to the constraints placed on the project by the licensor is a matter of conjecture, but the end result is a simulation rather than a real roleplaying adventure.

Fanzine Focus X: Crawl-thulhu: A Two-Fisted ’Zine of Lovecraftian Horror Issue 1

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

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another popular choice of system for fanzines, is Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, such as Crawl! and Crawling Under a Broken Moon. Some of these fanzines provide fantasy support for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but others explore other genres for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game.

Black Powder, Black Magic: A ’Zine of Six-Guns and Sorcery is one such fanzine. Published by Stormlord Publishing, it takes Dungeon Crawl Classics to the Wild West and the Weird West of the 1880s. Crawl-thulhu: A Two-Fisted ’Zine of Lovecraftian Horror is another. What both do is introduce their settings and set them up for play with Zero Level characters by sending them through what is called a ‘Character Funnel’. In this, a feature of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, each player controls not one, but four Zero Level characters, and whichever one of them survives the ordeal of the scenario has proved themselves strong enough to advance to First Level and so gain a Class in the traditional Class and Level, Dungeons & Dragons set-up. In the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, the surviving characters go on to be Fighters, Thieves, Clerics, Wizards, and so on; in Black Powder, Black Magic, the surviving characters also go on to be Fighters, Thieves, Clerics, and Wizards—but with changes to them to reflect the combination of horror and the Wild West—as well as Gamblers and Prospectors; and in Crawl-thulhu, the surviving characters will go on to be Adventurers, Docs, Roughnecks, Scholars, and Socialites. This though, is the subject of future issues of the fanzine, for the inaugural issue concerns itself with just the Zero Level characters and their survival (or not).

Published by Discerning Dhole Productions, Crawl-thulhu Issue 1 presents the means to create Zero Level characters, the rules for probably sending them mad, and then sends them scampering around Dunwich on a day trip from hell as they react to the dread events of HP Lovecraft’s ‘The Dunwich Horror’. This being based on a Dungeons & Dragons-style game, means that both the approach to the Mythos and the game play is more Pulp than Purist. That said, the limitations of playing Zero Level characters means that there is relatively little scope for truly Pulp-style play, at least in the given adventure. That though, does not mean that this adventure, ‘A Horrible Day at the Dunwich Fair’, will not be fun—or at least horrifying!

There are two obvious issues with Crawl-thulhu Issue 1. One is that it requires the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game to play. In fact, despite it stating that it does, the Judge and players can really just get away with using the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure, at least for this issue. For future issues and adventures, the Judge will probably need the full rules. The other issue is dice. The Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game uses a lot of dice outside of the standard six polyhedral types, including three-sided, five-sided, seven-sided, fourteen-sided, sixteen-sided, twenty-four-sided, and thirty-sided dice. These do not quite make their presence known in Crawl-thulhu Issue 1, unless that is, one of the characters gets hold of a Thompson Submachine Gun. If they do though, the Judge may need to resort to an online random number generator unless he wants to buy a set of Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game.

An character in Crawl-thulhu has six attributes—Strength, Agility, Stamina, Perception, Intelligence, and Sanity. All are rolled on three six-sided dice and Sanity replaces Luck of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, as there is no Luck in this universe. Similarly, there are no Alignments as these are irrelevant. Hit Points start between two and four, which considering a small pistol does 1d6 damage, makes for a potentially deadly game. But this is the set-up for game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, so what you expecting? A table provides a list of first names and surnames common in the 1920s and an Occupation table. The Occupation, just as in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game provides a weapon and some kind of trapping related to said Occupation. Unlike Dungeon Crawl Classics, what a character does not have is an Augury, which modifies how a character’s Luck will work, as well, there is no such thing as Luck in this universe. Instead, it has a Celestial Alignment table, which determines the star under which a character was born and what the modifier from his Sanity ability applies to.

Our sample character is Harold ‘Doc’ Reese, a former Classics academic who returned from serving in France in the Great War a broken and battered man. A gas attack damaged his lungs and shell barrages shattered his mind and he could not settle down to academic or normal life. For many years he has ridden the rails across the United States, more recently in the company of a dog. Harold is slowly recovering and has regained much of his mental acuity. He is terribly short of breath though and cannot run for any length of time.

Harold ‘Doc’ Reese
Zero Level Human Hobo
STR 16 (+2) AGL 12 (+0) STM 04 (-2)
PER 08 (-1) INT 17 (+2) SAN 11 (+0)
Hit Points: 2
Saving Throws
Fortitude -2 Reflex +0 Willpower +2
Celestial Alignment: Celaeno, Home of Universal Knowledge (spell checks)
Starting Weapon: Pocket Knife (1d3)
Trade Good: Cardboard box and a dog, Rex

Sanity in Crawl-thulhu is a multi-purpose tool. Rolled on a scale of three to eighteen, it can used, on a point for point basis, to improve any roll that involves an character. This is an expensive use of Sanity though. In the main, it is used as other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, to measure an character’s ability to come to terms with the true nature of the universe. Sanity checks are made on a twenty-sided directly against a character’s Sanity ability. Roll equal to, or under, then the Sanity check is made, but if the result is over, the check is failed. In which case, a player rolls on the Insanity table. The size of Insanity die to be rolled is determined by the degree of exposure to the Mythos—cast a spell and it is only a four-sided die, but encountering a Mythos entity means that it will be a six-sided or eight-sided die or more, and any encounter with a god of the Mythos, is always rolled on a twenty-sided die. The roll is adjusted by the character’s Sanity modifier. The result gives a variety of different effects, but primarily it involves the reduction in the affected character’s Sanity ability.

Rules are also given for firearms combat. These are kept simple and fast, their primary advantage being that they are quicker to use then the melee weapons of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. One notable feature of these rules is that characters have a greater difficulty using the Thompson submachine gun unless they have specifically trained in its use.

The second part of Crawl-thulhu Issue 1 and almost two thirds of its pages are devoted to the scenario, ‘A Horrible Day at the Dunwich Fair’. This puts the characters—who are all attending the annual fair in Dunwich—in the middle of the events described in ‘The Dunwich Horror’ as all hell, or rather, Wilbur’s brother, breaks loose and starts smashing up the town. As chaos reigns and the festival attendees panic and flee in search of refuge, the characters—four of them for each player—are first expected to join them before then setting out on their very first investigation. The scenario is built around just eight locations and the events that that take place over the course of the day. It is in effect a sandbox adventure with villagers and visitors running scared, the cultists trying to bring about their own plans, and the player characters trying to work out what is going on. Although there is no staging advice, it can be run in at least two ways. One is with all of the players’ characters together, much like a traditional investigation in a game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, working together to solve the mystery of what is going on in Dunwich that afternoon. The other is stage it as a series of cut scenes, with the Judge cutting back forth between each player and his characters as they conduct individual investigations at their location before hopefully, the survivors come together to finally deal with the problem. Even though they are Zero Level, the player characters are not wholly on their own as certain signature characters from elsewhere in Lovecraft Country do turn up to support the player characters’ efforts.

‘A Horrible Day at the Dunwich Fair’ is a fun scenario, nicely set up, and clearly presented to help Judge run its events. From start to finish, that is from rolling up characters—a quick process even at four characters per player—to playing through the whole of the scenario should not take more than two sessions at the very most. Indeed, it would even work as a convention scenario run in a four-hour slot. The other fun aspect of playing—and of playing a ‘Character Funnel’ in general—is that the players not only get to roleplay between each other, but also between their own quartet of characters. Given that a certain part of playing Lovecraftian investigative horror is all about characters going mad and given that each player has four characters and given that they are all Zero Level, that is four times the opportunity to roleplay the insanity!

Another thing that ‘A Horrible Day at the Dunwich Fair’ showcases is how spells work in Crawl-thulhu. In Crawl-thulhu, each spell gets its own table of effects, which are random each time someone casts said spell. So in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, the classic Magic Missile spell might manifest as a meteor, a screaming eagle, a ray of frost, and so on, and then its effect might be do a point of damage, standard damage, appear as multiple missiles, or a single one, so on. (The effect of this was increase the page count of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game a great deal.) Crawl-thulhu applies concept to the spells of the Mythos, although in Crawl-thulhu Issue 1, there is just the single spell—Commune with Yog-Sothoth. Its table presents just nine, wholly terrible options for what happens when this spell is cast, from utter failure and a loss of Sanity to becoming indispensable Yog-Sothoth… Of course, the outcome of casting any Mythos spell is bound to be terrible, but having the options gives flavour and detail. It is going to be interesting to see what the authors of Crawl-thulhu do with spells in future issues.

Physically, Crawl-thulhu Issue 1 is nicely put together. Although another edit would not go amiss, the issue is well written, well organised, and reasonably well illustrated. It is a pleasing little product. This inaugural presents everything a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror needs, including the rules to drive ordinary men and women mad, a spell, a monster, and a cult for them to encounter and thwart (or not), and more.

Now it has been a decade since there has been a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror based on the d20 System, not since Shadows of Cthulhu in 2008 and d20 Cthulhu in 2001, but Crawl-thulhu has the potential to fill that void. It hints at several interesting things, most obviously the new Classes and the way to hand spells, as well as providing everything needed to run the given scenario. In fact, the hints are interesting enough to suggest that Crawl-thulhu has potential as more than a simple fanzine, but would work as whole rulebook of its own, which would make a good stepping stone from the pure Dungeons & Dragons-style play of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game to the insanity inducing confrontation against the forces of Cosmic Horror in Crawl-thulhu, but with the mechanics of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Overall, Crawl-thulhu: A Two-Fisted ’Zine of Lovecraftian Horror Issue 1 is a fantastic first issue which does a good job of laying the foundations for future issues as well as presenting solid rules and a fun scenario.