Friday Fantasy: Emirikol Was Framed!

The narrow streets of the city are cast in chaos as men and women flee screaming. Some are cut down by the crossbow bolts fired by the bat-winged and hooting apes from above. Some writhe in agony, set alight by the bearded and hooded wizard sat astride his black stallion with its flaming eyes. The city watch seems powerless to stop this seemingly random assault. The wizard Emirikol, resident of the Shifting Tower in the north of the city, has struck! As death and destruction rain down, the Player Characters are targeted by the flying beasts, and if they can defeat them, they have the chance to chase down the marauding wizard. Before they have the chance to defeat him, Emirikol disappears. Such is the way of wily wizards. The question is, why did Emirikol randomly attack people in the streets of the city? The Player Characters are given the opportunity to find out a day later, when the captain of the city guard approaches them and asks them if they will do what he cannot. This is to enter the Shifting Tower with its ever-changing appearance, investigate Emirikol’s activities, and confront the wizard in order to discover why he attacked the city.

This is the set-up for Dungeon Crawl Classics #73: Emirikol Was Framed!, the sixth scenario to be published by Goodman Games for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Designed by Michael Curtis for a group of six Fourth Level Player Characters, it is a city-based adventure that primarily consists of an assault on a wizard’s tower. If the name ‘Emirikol’ sounds familiar, then it should be. It first appeared in an illustration by David Trampier called ‘Emirikol the Chaotic’ in the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, depicting a wizard riding down a street attacking members of the city watch with a beam of magical energy as onlookers reacted with horror. The street itself, is based on a real location, the Street of Knights, part of the old Hospitaller fortress on the island of Rhodes in Greece. From this first depiction, Emirikol the Chaotic would go on to appear in subsequent editions of Dungeons & Dragons, most notably in the adventure A Paladin in Hell for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition, as a Twenty-Fourth Level Wizard! (There is an excellent history of ‘Emirikol the Chaotic’ here.) Dungeon Crawl Classics #73: Emirikol Was Framed! is obviously inspired by ‘Emirikol the Chaotic’ in many ways, most obviously the cover. However, as the title of the scenario clearly states, Emirikol was framed and is an innocent man—at the very least, of the most recent crimes people have accused him of. Whether he is innocent of anything else remains to be seen, but the fact that he is known as Emirikol the Chaotic suggests very probably not… In the meantime, if the title of the scenario is giving a big plot point away, what exactly is going on and what is the big plot point which is not being given away?

Once past the guard leopards or after having scaled its weird, ever-changing walls, the inside of the tower is delightfully weird and non-linear—non-Euclidean, even—making it a challenge for the Judge to navigate as it is for her players and their characters. The twelve floors of the tower are not arranged or presented in linear ascending order, so that as the Player Characters move from floor to floor, the Judge is tracing their route back and forth across the map in maze-like fashion. What this means is that the map will need as careful a study as the accompanying text does. As the Player Characters explore, what they find is a classic wizard’s tower full of trophies and projects, some of which are complete, some which are not, laced with traps and the weirdness found in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. These include a workshop packed with incomplete golems, a library of skulls containing secret knowledge that the Player Characters can access, and an upside-down waterfall which is the only means of accessing the next floor up—which means that the Player Characters will need remove any heavy armour they are wearing! The traps include tower floorplans which animate and attempt to smother the overly curious Player Character and the incomplete Golems themselves which can suck the souls of the Player Characters into them and force them to proceed in entirely artificial bodies. There is also an odd alien plant whose tendrils are embedded in the bodies of several prisoners allowing it to feed on the human bodily fluids and produce a nectar that can be sucked out of the plant’s stalk that provides both sustenance and healing! This is only one of the signs in the tower that Emirikol is Chaotic (and evil) and there are penalties for any Lawful Player Character who makes the woeful choice to imbibe any of this nectar. There is some fun treasure to be found, including Ruin, Chaotic magical sword with a hatred of man, a liquid metal hilt, and the ability to increase both the wielder’s Critical Range and die size when rolling fumbles. Ruin rewards ambition and success, not failure, so has a nasty to sting to it.

Eventually, after having traversed most of the Shifting Tower’s floors, likely having been denuded of heavy armour and possibly occupying now complete Golem bodies, the Player Characters will find their way to Emirikol’s Inner Sanctum. This is a hall of mirrors, a cliché in itself—but one that Emirikol the Chaotic takes advantage of not once, but twice. First, with the Player Characters, who he is not pleased to see after their having ransacked his dwelling, and then, against Emirikol the Chaotic. This though, is not against himself, but Leotah, a rival and former lover who staged the attacks in the streets below. The end of the scenario devolves into a mass battle between the two Wizards and their cohorts, one of which the Player Characters will need to support if having both sides turn on them is to be avoided. The actual Spell Duel between Emirikol the Chaotic and Leotah is handled randomly rather being fought, although that is still possible, if complex. It is a big grand battle that will need careful handling upon the part of the Judge, but a fitting finale to adventure.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #73: Emirikol Was Framed! also includes four handouts, including images of both Emirikol the Chaotic and Leotah, and all six of the Golems complete with stats. Plus, there is the new spell, Altered Visage (used, of course, by Leotah to make her look like Emirikol the Chaotic), and ‘Four Scenes From A Conflict Eternal’. Written by Daniel J. Bishop, these are four scenes from the centuries spanning feud between the former lovers. They include the Library of the Order of the Blue Monks where they were said to study and first became lovers, an attempt by Leotah to assassinate Emirikol at the end of the world, and alternate world where, as the only humans, they renewed their romance until fate took another tilt at them. There is no advice on how to use these, the Judge being left to create his own links, but perhaps the most obvious one is have developed into mini-encounters and then stored in the library of skulls for the Player Characters to experience. All four will need some development to be turned into something playable.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #73: Emirikol Was Framed! is well done. The scenario is decently written and the artwork is overall good. The cartography is good, but problematic given its lack of linearity.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #73: Emirikol Was Framed! takes a classic situation—the need to assault or break into a wizard’s tower and find what has happened to the wizard himself—and adapts into a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. In fact, so much a classic situation, it is all but a cliché, right down to the Player Characters having to race out of the tower as it collapses behind them. Yet, Dungeon Crawl Classics #73: Emirikol Was Framed! is an entertaining treatment of a cliché, in turns weird and exciting, the result being a fun scenario that is really easy to insert into a campaign and run.

Magazine Madness 33: Tortured Souls! Issue One

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

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Adventures—beginning, of course, with dungeons for Dungeons & Dragons—had long been a feature of roleplaying game magazines, such as the Dragon magazine and White Dwarf, but they had been included alongside other content such as news, reviews, and other supporting content. So, it was rare for any magazine to be devoted to entirely adventures and nothing. Of course, the long running Dungeon magazine from TSR, Inc. is the major exception, running for some two-hundred-and-twenty-one issues, in print and online between 1986 and 2013. Bootstrap Press published six issues of Adventures Unlimited in 1995 and 1996, but before both that and Dungeon, there was Tortured Souls!. Published by Beast Enterprises Limited—or ‘Beast Entz’—it ran for twelve issues between 1983 and 1988, providing support primarily for Advanced Dungeon & Dragons, First Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, but later RuneQuest.

Tortured Souls! stood out not just for its adventure-focused content, but also for its format. It was magazine-sized, but it was not quite professionally-presented enough to be a magazine like White Dwarf or Imagine, yet it was too professionally-presented to be a fanzine. Instead, it sat somewhere in between, a ‘pro-zine’ if you will. Part of this is due to the heavy look and feel of its style, unbroken by any advertising in the early issues, which at the same time gave it daunting appearance and acted as an impediment to actually reading it. The other oddity was Tortured Souls! was almost designed to be pulled apart, with its featured adventure often appearing the middle with coloured sections or on different-coloured paper more like an insert than a part of the magazine. This meant that adventures would often be split between before and after this ‘insert’ and that the magazine was not a linear read in that sense. 

Tortured Souls! Issue One launched with the following description: “TORTURED SOULS! is unique among fantasy publications, combing high quality module material with an inexpensive magazine format. Every issue contains solid gaming material, consisting solely of ready-to-play scenarios for the leading role-playing games systems, put together by some of the most experienced writers in the country.” That said, none of those writers are credited in the issue, but the editorial continued, “With four or more complete scenarios in every issue, we believe that TORTURED SOULS! gives you a much better deal than ordinary packaged modules.” In addition, issues of Tortured Souls! provided support for its Zhalindor Campaign, designed for experienced players.

Published in October/November 1983, Tortured Souls! Issue One contains three scenarios and one solo scenario, all for Advanced Dungeon & Dragons, First Edition. Two of these are for the Zhalindor Campaign. The first of the four adventures in the issue is ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’. This is designed for a beginning party of six to seven First Level Player Characters, although not totally beginning players and the introduction to the module makes much of the fact that it is not designed for players inclined to “[M]indless ‘hack-and-slay”, but for players who want a more challenging test for their roleplaying skills. Similarly, the Dungeon Master is advised that the adventure will require some development to bring its description to life as this has been kept to a minimum. What the adventure does make use of is the Dungeon Floor Plans series published by Games Workshop and the Dungeon Master is encouraged to use them and lay them out as shown in map, together with 25 mm miniatures, in order to keep the players interested. There are notes too, on running the scenario with more experienced players and their characters, suggesting two players with a Fighter and a Thief, each of second Level, as well as notes on how to incorporate it into a campaign and possible endings to the scenario.

The setting for ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’ is the market town of Greendale. It is notable as being besieged by a band of Orcs led by an Ogre some years ago, the siege being broken by a Chevalier challenging the Ogre to single combat and when he defeated the Ogre, the Orcs turned on him. The quietly conservative townsfolk repurposed an old temple to create a shrine for the fallen chevalier and forbid any townsfolk from entering the shrine or its garden whilst armed. However, as relayed to the Player Characters by a captain of the town watch after he takes them aside from their scandalous behaviour of drinking watered-down beer, something is amiss at the shrine. Since he cannot investigate armed, he asks the Player Characters to enter the shrine, determine what is going on and report back, promising to pay well. What is so delightful about ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’ is that it has a joyously, grubby and British feel to it. Essentially, the two clerics assigned to look after the shrine have got bored, seen the lack of nightlife going on in Greendale, and decided to turn the shrine into a private members’ nightclub for the town’s wealthiest and most bored inhabitants. This though, has led to further exploration of the shrine beyond hitherto unknown secret doors, dealing with the local Thieves’ Guild with plans for expansion, and an Octopus which would not mind going back to being worshipped as a god! What this means is that the Player Characters are attempting to get into a medieval nightclub and depending on what they find out during their investigations and when they try to get in, they may actually be able to just waltz in, having arrived at the right time when the club is actually open and the guards thinking them to be new members! The temple is one half nightclub, one half temple to a hungry octopus with delusions of grandeur, and both run by a pair of greedy, petty clerics.

The accompanying map of the temple—done using tiles from Games Workshop’s Dungeon Floor Plans is surprisingly colourful, though very orthogonal in its layout. The secret doors are not as obvious as they could be. There are multiple ways in which ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’ could end. The Player Characters could simply return with a report for the watch captain, they could end in a fight with the octopus, or they could find the membership for the ‘club’ and blackmail them! More altruistic Player Characters will doubtless want to free the dancing girls who are being kept prisoner in the temple. ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’ is unexpectedly different to almost any Dungeons & Dragons adventure, almost over the top in its banality, but brilliant at the same time.

‘The Crystal Keys’ is the solo adventure in Tortured Souls! Issue One. Designed for a party of five to seven Player Characters of Second and Third Level, it can be played with a single player controlling all of the characters, with a player reading out the entries and handling the descriptions and monsters the whilst the players control their characters (and in the process making one player roleplay his character and handle monsters!), or with the included notes, it can be run as a standard adventure with an actual Dungeon Master. There is quite a bit of backstory to the scenario, but it boils down to the party having recently come into possession of a Red Crystal Key whilst on an expedition for their friend, the Archmage Rabellion and had it stolen by a Thief. The key is one of three necessary to open Zamgardrar’s tomb which is said to hold a great treasure. To prevent this from falling into the hands of the Thief, the Player Characters are chasing after him north into the Orc and Lizard Men-infested Badlands. 

The set-up and the actual adventure are several pages apart in the issue of Tortured Souls! It consists of two parts. The first is descriptions of the two-hundred-and-thirty hex descriptions which make up the wilderness map. Each entry has numbers indicating which paragraph to turn to as you would expect for a solo adventure book—which were incredibly popular at the time given that The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was only published the year before—as the directions they lie in. If the hex has something of interest, an entry will also refer to a lettered hex type. There twenty-six of these, one for each letter in the alphabet, and each depicts an area of terrain that the player records on his hex map. There are a lot of brigands and the like preying on the locals and other travellers, as well as some annoying Orcs and Trolls, but despite the nonlinear fashion in which the information is presented, this half of the adventure is a decent hexcrawl in which the Player Characters may have the opportunity to find the other two Crystal Keys.

Where ‘The Crystal Keys’ gets complex is the over six-hundred-and-sixty-seven entries which detail the forty or so locations of the adventure’s dungeon. Complex because the individual entries not only have to include a description, but all the possible outcomes to the actions that the Player Characters might take. The dungeon is quite    detailed, built around puzzles involving the three Crystals and their different colours, but it is difficult to get a feel for, or an overview of, the dungeon because it is written in non-linear fashion. What this means is it is complex to play through because the player or players are acting as their own Dungeon Master, and even if run by a Dungeon Master, preparing the dungeon to be run means actually playing through it herself. Which is a time-consuming challenge all of its very own. ‘The Crystal Keys’ is cleverly done, but far more complex than most solo adventures were at the time or have been since.

The third adventure is ‘The Rising Tower’, which is the first of the two scenarios for the Zhalindor Campaign in the issue. It is intended for a party of three to eight Player Characters of Fifth to Eighth Level and takes place several hundred miles outside of the Empire in the Tumarian provinces in a valley in the Yagha-Tsorv foothills. (Unfortunately, neither the scenario nor Tortured Souls! Issue One as a whole give any further details as to the Zhalindor Campaign setting.) The tower was once the place of judgement and execution for a small kingdom, but has long since been abandoned, fallen into partial ruin, and been occupied by a small tribe of Fire Giants. The tribe has intimidated several tribes of lesser humanoids in the area into paying tribute, but the area beyond the tower is not detailed. The tower is described in odd fashion—from the top down rather from the bottom up. The upper part of the ramshackle tower is home to the tribe of Bugbears that serve and fight for the Fire Giants, whilst the later live on the lower floors and sleep in the underground rooms, making the tower’s former gaol cells their individual sleeping quarters. Underneath are the rooms where judgement and sentence were carried out in the past, and if the Player Characters are too inquisitive, find themselves being judged and sentenced whether they are guilty or innocent.

Unlike both ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’ and ‘The Crystal Keys’, what ‘The Rising Tower’ lacks is a hook to get the Player Characters involved, let alone anything in the way of plot. The dungeon, tower, and their inhabitants are highly detailed, the execution and judgement chambers in particular, such that the Dungeon Master would need to pay particular attention to how they work with the rest of the tower and how the Player Characters get to them. This is in addition to providing something in the way of plot or motivation for the Player Characters to want to explore the tower in what is otherwise is a big challenging situation rather than scenario.

The fourth and last scenario in Tortured Souls! Issue One—and the second for the Zhalindor Campaign—is ‘Tomb of Qadir’. It is written for a party of four to seven Player Characters of Second and Fourth Level and details the temple dedicated to the god, Ha’esha, which was turned into the tomb of its last priest, after which the cult he led died out. More recently, the tomb, which lies to the east of Eldenvaan on the edge of the desert, has been occupied by a band of Goblins. The Goblins have taken up residence following a failed uprising against their former chief in the Tsorv Mountains (as opposed to the Yagha-Tsorv foothills of ‘The Rising Tower’), but they are well organised and will put up a stiff defence against any attackers. The temple is ruined and run down, but has been fortified by the Goblins. They have also moved into the rooms under the temple, but have not explored the furthest extent of the tomb. There are some nice touches here, such as zombies that have a chance to overcome being Turned by a Cleric, who can then attempt to Turn them again, and so on… and a couple of nasty traps. Again, the adventure is nicely detailed, but much like ‘The Rising Tower’, there are no hooks or motivations given for the Player Characters to want to come to the tomb.

Physically, Tortured Souls! Issue One looks decent enough for a fanzine, but amateurish for a professional magazine. It does need an edit in places and the artwork varies in quality. The cartography is plain in places, but otherwise decent.

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Doug Cowie reviewed Tortured Souls! Issue One in ‘Games Reviews’ in Imagine No. 12 (March 1984). He said, “Tortured Souls represents amazing value. The quantity of material for the money  makes it a recommended purchase. The quality of that material makes it an essential purchase. My only worry is — can they possibly keep it up issue after issue?” In answer to that question, he added the following postscript: “(PS: I have just seen issue 2, and I must say that the quality seems to have been maintained and the physical components are improved in that the covers are now thin card rather than thick paper. Issue 2 contains four ref’s scenarios and one solo — all for the AD&D game. After a quick scan, I would say that it looks like  another good issue.)”

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Tortured Souls! Issue One contains a mix of the potentially good and the excellent. ‘The Rising Tower’ and ‘Tomb of Qadir’ are potentially good because in each case, the Dungeon Master needs to supply the hooks and the motivation. ‘The Crystal Keys’ is an excellent, if complex, solo adventure, possibly the most complex solo adventure then published given it was written for a party of Player Characters for Advanced Dungeon & Dragons, First Edition! Given the complexity of ‘The Crystal Keys’ and its format, it would be very challenging to run it as a standard scenario. That leaves ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’, which is undoubtedly the highlight of the issue. It comes with both plot and hooks and is not just an excellent scenario, but a fun one too. The overall quality of Tortured Souls! Issue One is good, providing the Dungeon Master with solid material to work with, but with ‘The Chevalier’s Shrine’, the Dungeon Master is really going to want to run that scenario and will have fun doing so.

Miskatonic Monday #336: Dead Body Shore

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.

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Name: Dead Body Shore

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Agata Brig

Setting: Scandinavia, 1925

Product: One-on-One Scenario
What You Get: Forty-six page, 2.24 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: When your Evil Grandpa is dead, he should stay dead

Plot Hook: Go climb a mountain

Plot Support: Staging advice, three NPCs, two dogs, seven handouts, one map, two Mythos spells, two Mythos tomes, and three Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# One-on-one scenario, but can be adjusted

# More Norse than Mythos

# Descent into the depths of Norse myth and betrayal

# Necrophobia

# Orophobia

# Apeirophobia

Cons

# Needs an edit

# Could be better organised

# Underwhelming Investigator hook
# Needs pre-generated Investigator(s)

# More Norse than Mythos

# The Lockheed Vega is a year out, so why not shift the scenario date?

Conclusion

# More Norse than Mythos

# Fear of the family is the greatest danger in a linear descent into Norse myth and betrayal

Companion Chronicles #10: Horse Racing Expanded

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, The Companions of Arthur is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon. It enables creators to sell their own original content for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition. This can be original scenarios, background material, alternate Arthurian settings, and more, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Pendragon campaigns.

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What is the Nature of the Quest?

Horse Racing Expanded is a supplement for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition.

It is a full colour, ten page, 1.45 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy and it is nicely illustrated.

Where is the Quest Set?

Horse Racing Expanded is suitable to run anywhere where a horse race, whether impromptu or at tourney, might take place.

Who should go on this Quest?

Horse Racing Expanded is suitable for knights of all types, but focuses on the Player-knight with a high Horsemanship skill.

What does the Quest require?

Horse Racing Expanded requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition rules or the Pendragon Starter Set. Graph paper and tokens may also be useful (but a simple grid of squares and pen works just as well).

Where will the Quest take the Knights?

Horse Racing Expanded is a supplement that that focuses on the one skill and a specific use of it. This is the Horsemanship skill and its use in races rather than in battle. The horse race, whether impromptu or taking place at an organised event is handled over the course of between two and four rounds with the players rolling Horsemanship tests for their knights and the Game Master for her NPCs each round. The position in the race for each Player-knight and each NPC is tracked on a grid with the result of the Horsemanship tests determining how many columns they move forward on the grid—two for a critical result, one for an ordinary success, but nothing for a failed roll and back one for a fumble—and thus, potentially, if they change their order in the race. At the end of the race, the Player-knight or NPC who is in the furthest column to the right wins the race.

It is simple enough, but there are modifications for the quality of the horses ridden and even the Size of the participants, and of course, a Player-knight or NPC is also free to invoke a Passion to Inspire their Horsemanship skill. At the end of the end of the race, the winner earns a Horsemanship skill check, prizes are awarded if the race is part of a tourney, and there are Glory awards too.

So far, so good, but Horse Racing Expanded does sound just a little perfunctory up until this point—and to be fair, it is. It also sounds as if it favours the Player-knight with the high Horsemanship skill—and to be fair, it does. However, what addresses this imbalance and gives a chance for participants with a lower Horsemanship skill to gain ground on the rider ahead of them are ‘Events’. Horse Racing Expanded includes a table of ten events which can occur during a horse race, the Game Master rolling randomly or picking something suitable to happen during one or more rounds of the race. Each event is given a simple description, the skill or attribute to be tested, and a list of the possible outcomes. For example, with Awareness or Hunting, the entry reads, “Up ahead, the road meets a wood bridge to allow easy crossing of a brook, but the old, neglected ford can still be seen beside it. A rider could gain time by galloping right through the shallows.” The outcome of this test result will grant a modifier to the Horsemanship skill test for the Player-knight or NPC for that round.

Some of the events are more fanciful than others, but they do two things and have one consequence. The events give a chance for Player-knights and NPCs with better skills other than Horsemanship to use them in the race and so give them a better chance against more skilled horsemen, and they make the race exciting. As a result, the race becomes a narrative rather than just a series of rolls.

Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?

Although there is nothing to stop the Game Master from using its rules and events for chases as well as races, with its limited focus, Horse Racing Expanded is more of a solid, serviceable supplement rather than a must buy purchase. If the Game Master has a player whose knight is good on horseback and wants to show off that skill, then Horse Racing Expanded will provide opportunities for that, whilst still allowing the other Player-knights to shine, and potentially, race almost as well.

1984: Conan Unchained!

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, and the new edition of that, Dungeons & Dragons, 2024, in the year of the game’s fiftieth 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.

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In 1985, TSR, Inc. published the Conan Role-Playing Game, the first of five roleplaying games to be based on the Conan the Barbarian stories of Robert E. Howard. Which means that it is forty years old in 2025, but this was not the first foray into the archetypal Swords & Sorcery genre by the publisher. After all, the Conan the Barbarian stories had always been an influence upon E. Gary Gygax, TSR, Inc., and Dungeon & Dragons, with stats for Conan actually appearing in Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes for the original version of Dungeons & Dragons, which was published in 1976. That though, was unofficial, whereas his appearance in two modules for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition was official. CB1 Conan Unchained! and CB2 Conan Against the Darkness! were both published in 1984 and both were designed for Player Characters of Tenth to Fourteenth Levels and to be played by the four pre-generated Player Characters included in each module, which of course, included Conan amongst their number.

Behind the eye-catching image of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan, CB1 Conan Unchained! provides not only a scenario set within the Hyborian Age, but also an introduction to the setting and the rules to run the scenario using Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. Although the image from the cover was taken from Conan the Barbarian, which was only released two years before, CB1 Conan Unchained! does not use any more images from it and it is not based on its story. Rather, CB1 Conan Unchained! takes its cue from the short stories by Robert E. Howard—‘Queen of the Black Coast’, ‘Red Nails’, and the unfinished ‘The Hall of the Dead’. It is from these stories that Conan himself and two of the three other pre-generated Player Characters come from. Besides Conan, they include Nestor the Gunderman and Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, whilst Juma the Warrior is inspired by later comics. All have weapon proficiencies and secondary skills, whilst Conan has a special ability which means he is very rarely surprised. Conan himself is a Thirteenth Level Fighter and a Seventh Level Thief, Valeria a Tenth Level Fighter and a Ninth Level Thief, Juma a Twelfth Level Fighter, and Nestor the Gunderman a Fourteenth Level Fighter.

One notable addition to all four Player Characters is that of Luck Points. This is the first of several new rules in CB1 Conan Unchained! Conan has twelve of these, Nestor and Juma have ten each, and Valeria has sixteen! These are included because, “Conan is sometimes able to do things beyond the range of the AD&D rules. These impossible actions are part of Conan’s special abilities. It is important for characters to be able to do the same things, so they are given Luck Points.” However, they are not spent by the player per se, but by the Dungeon Master. She is told to encourage the players to have their characters perform “…[H]eroic, amazing, or impossible feats…”, with a player expected to describe what his character is trying to do and the Dungeon Master then adjudicate the cost without the player being told how many Luck Points his character has left. For a single Luck Point, a Player Character can make an extra attack in a round, automatically hit an opponent, climb without falling, leap a chasm, and so on; whilst for two Luck Points, he can knock out a person with fist or weapon, spring back from a trap just in time, and climb while carrying another person; and for three Luck Points, do something heroic beyond the scope of the rules. They cannot be spent on a roll that has already been made, on a Saving Throw, or a Fear Check. Some opponents also have their own Luck Points.

To account for the lack of the Cleric Class in the Hyborian Age and thus the lack of healing magic, a Player Character always heals a single Hit Point per day and Hit Points equal to half the Player Character’s Constitution if he rests for a whole day.

The other major addition is the Fear Factor to found in certain creatures and monsters as well as magic effects and reflect Conan’s own instinctive reaction to the unnatural and things that defy explanation. Whenever a Player Character fails a Fear Check, he is struck dumb momentarily or flees for his life, until he overcomes his fear or is hurt again. Sources of Fear include monsters, spellcasters, and unusual magic items or situations and have a Fear Statistic ranging between one and ten. When a Fear Check is required, the Fear Statistic is multiplied by the Player Character’s Wisdom and the resulting value is rolled against on percentile dice. Succeed and the Player Character is unaffected, but fail and he is filled with fear.

There can be no doubt that the inclusion of Luck Points and Fear Checks are radical changes to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, that certainly in the case of Luck Points take the roleplaying game far beyond what it is normally expected to do. In fact, what the inclusion of Luck Points highlights is that as much as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition is pitched as a roleplaying game of heroic adventures and fantasy, it is actually not as heroic as it could be. Arguably, the fantasy of Conan the Barbarian and the Swords & Sorcery genre is pulp fantasy, but if that is case, then given the fact that Dungeons & Dragons is inspired by Swords & Sorcery, what Luck Points show is that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition cannot do Conan-style, Swords & Sorcery as written without them. And since they encourage roleplaying in a particular style, they are actually the first roleplaying mechanic to appear in Dungeons & Dragons! (As opposed to Inspiration, which appeared in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in 2014!)

In fact, the inclusion of Luck Points in CB1 Conan Unchained! is not only a highly radical design choice for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and TSR, Inc., but also a very modern one. Top Secret: An Espionage Role Playing Game for 3 or more players, ages 12 to adult, published by TSR, Inc. in 1980 included an optional rule for Fame and Fortune Points which enabled a Player Character to overcome a fatal wound. It would be James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty’s Secret Service, published in 1983 by Victory Games, that developed the concept fully as Hero Points that could be used to adjust skill rolls, shrug off wounds and even death, and enable the Player Characters to be more heroic. However, in The Adventures of Indiana Jones Role-Playing Game, published by TSR, Inc. in 1984, only offered Player Points, which can only be spent to reduce the severity of a Player Character’s wounds or injuries. It is incongruous that in two roleplaying products from the same publisher and the same designer—David Cook—released in the same year, it is a scenario for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition that is given Luck Points.

If the Luck Points are a good addition, Fear Factor, less so. It is not so much a case of CB1 Conan Unchained! not needing a mechanic for handling fear, but rather a question of whether or not it needs a specific new rule for handling fear. Could not the Saving Throw mechanics of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition be used instead? That said, the Fear Check mechanic is simple and fast.

One other change that CB1 Conan Unchained! makes is to classify its scenes into several types. These are normal, random, and plot encounters. Normal encounters are those typical of an adventure, such as exploring a ruin or attacking a pirate ship, whilst random encounters are there to spice up the action. Plot encounters are scenes in which the Player Characters have to act through with only a limited number of choices in how they can act. The Dungeon Master is advised that they be handled with care lest the players feel forced in their characters’ actions. Unfortunately, ‘plot encounters’ like this were not well received at the time and are still looked at with some disdain, though more so in the case of DL1 Dragons of Despair—which came out the same year as CB1 Conan Unchained!.

The introduction to the Hyborian Age in CB1 Conan Unchained! is short, but informative. It highlights how the countries and peoples of the Hyborian Age are formed of different individual groups, each easily identified and with different attitudes and behaviours. The latter means that is often possible to identify someone in the Hyborian World just by their actions. Steel weapons are available, but armour is rarely more than chain or scale. Monsters like those of Dungeons & Dragons are very rare, with giant beasts and demons, elementals, giants, and golems being common. Magic in the Hyborian Age is practiced, but rare, confined to summoning, illusions, charms, and death spells, so greatly feared. Magical items are even rarer and invariably dangerous to those who wield them, though this does not stop sorcerers hunting for both them and dusty tomes of magic.

The scenario on both sides of the narrow Sea of Vilayet and opens with the adventurers as mercenaries in the employ of the Khan of Turan, hired to put down a rebellion by Kustafa, the governor of a city who has refused to pay the taxes that are due. However, a strange magical attack by darkness and shadows finds the army they were part of destroyed and the adventurers on the run. This is the first of the scenario’s four Plot Encounters, the second following close on its heels as the Player Characters are captured by the Mongel Horde-like Kozaki nomads who plan sell them to Stygian slavers. The problem with this Plot Encounter is that the Player Characters have to be captured for the scenario to proceed and given that this is at the beginning of the scenario, they have a lot of Luck Points to spend. Now the nomads do use lariats to capture them, but it is possible for the players to burn through an awful lot of their characters’ Luck Points before that happens and this is right at the start of the scenario.

The Player Characters are not expected to escape, but to prove themselves worthy of being one of the Kozaki and then over a series of events make themselves popular, and eventually, challenge the hetman of the group. There is a good mix of events and encounters to throw at the Player Characters throughout this process and they are given plenty of opportunity to prove themselves. There is even an encounter when a rival to the post of hetman attempts to assassinate a Player Character who looks like he is vying for the position. Of course, it also possible for the Player Characters to escape, but it is not nearly as interesting as what the scenario presents. Whether or not the Player Characters escape, or they become part of the Kozaki, they will in the third Plot Encounter of the scenario run into a female NPC. She will reveal herself as Costhiras, the mistress of the Khan of Turan, who was visiting the city that he sent the army that the Player Characters were part of to recapture it after it rose in rebellion and stopped paying taxes. She tells them that Kustafa, the governor of the city did not do this willingly. He has fallen under the influence of Bhir-Vedi, an evil sorcerer who searches for her still—and to enforce that fact, she is attacked by an Invisible Stalker that instant!

Costhiras begs for the Player Characters to help her and offers to guide them to The Citadel of Bhir-Vedi (or they can follow her if she was snatched by the Invisible Stalker). Either way, this leads them to travel with a band of pirates lead by a somewhat tiresome pirate captain (though he does fight with a sword blade attached to the steel cap on the stump of his wrist and if desperate, can fire it on a spring), but eventually the Player Characters will get to the other side the Sea of Vilayet and the entrance to The Citadel of Bhir-Vedi. There is a short maze-like cavern to navigate before coming upon Bhir-Vedi’s tower, a fairly standard sorcerer’s tower by any measure. There are a fair number of traps to avoid, mostly requiring a check to see if the Player Characters are surprised before they can spend Luck Points, and there is the strong possibility of them being captured after being put to sleep and then waking up to find themselves chained atop the tower ready to be sacrificed to some god or other by Bhir-Vedi. Hopefully, they will have retained enough Luck Points to break their chains (or at least make a Bend Bars/Lift Gates roll)! And after that? Enough points to kick Bhir-Vedi off the top of the tower!

Physically, CB1 Conan Unchained! is disappointing. It looks good, with good art and cartography, but the editing is poor with names constantly changing and inconsistent descriptions.

—oOo—

CB1 Conan Unchained! was reviewed by Steve Hampshire in the ‘Game Reviews’ section of Imagine No. 24 (March, 1985). He said, “The module itself also has some uniquely ‘Conan’ features. Normal AD&D monsters are almost totally replaced by various human opponents and potential opponents. Surprisingly, some of these are good enough to challenge Conan! The plot is simple and rather derivative, but it takes in some interesting settings and encounters. For most part it plays well, despite niggles like a ship that keeps changing its name, and monsters using their useless wings to fly into attack.” He concluded his review by saying, “The mood of this module is different form the normal run of AD&D material, and the players and referee really need to get into the swing of the thing. It helps if one is familiar with the Conan books or film. This scenario is good for introducing the characters, but stronger plotlines will be needed of there is to be series.”

Rick Swan reviewed CB1 Conan Unchained! in the ‘Capsule Reviews’ in The Space Gamer Number 73 (March/April, 1985). Of the new rules—the Fear Factor and Luck Points—he said, “D&D purists may freak, but the rules work and add to the heroic feel of the setting. Fans of R.E. Howard will happy to know that Cook has approached the source material with considerable respect and that Conan Unchained is generally consistent with the Hyborian world we all known and love.” However, he added that, “The basic problem is that Conan isn’t a particularly good choice for the D&D system. Compared to most D&D settings, Conan’s world is pretty barren. There’s no magic or interesting settings to speak off, and the adventure is nothing special (the characters are captured by slavers, negotiate their freedom, and rescue a fair maiden from a nasty castle).” He concluded that, “Conan Unchained can be played as part of a regular D&D campaign without Conan and associates, but what’s the point? There are plenty of better roleplaying modules available from TSR and elsewhere. Conan and D&D go together like peanut butter and tuna fish – it can be done, but you can bet there’s going to be a funny taste.”

—oOo—

CB1 Conan Unchained! suffers from several problems. Most obviously, if you going to play it, who plays Conan and why would you want play anyone else? Second, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition does not feel right for it and is not right for it, as evidenced by the inclusion of Luck Points which enables the heroic feats that Conan calls for and which Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition is not designed to do. In fact, what it highlights is how staid the design to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition was by 1984. Third, how poorly plotted it is. The adventure does not really start until the Player Characters get captured, so why does that have to be played out and the players waste their characters’ Luck Points? Then the sequence with the pirate captain is tedious, designed to barb the Player Characters into action. The plot really is most straightforward. Yet there are flashes of excitement to found in CB1 Conan Unchained! The sequence in which the Player Characters free themselves from the nomads and then take over is actually quite fun and the inclusion of Luck Points encourage the players to be a little more inventive than Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition necessarily might be in normal play.

Ultimately, CB1 Conan Unchained! feels rushed and underdeveloped, an attempt to bring fans of Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and fans of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition to Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer, but is not really good enough to attract either and ultimately, satisfies neither.

Mischief & Misadventures

It is definitely well before tiffin time, but the sun is bright, the day is before you, and your man Mayhew has coffee and kedgeree and bacon and eggs on the table—and if last night’s escapade with ‘Aggie’ Oakeshott, ‘Florrie’ Steggles, Orlando Pendlebury, and Horace Heppenstall were anything to go by, there’s a police constable’s hat with some flowers in it sat in the washstand and a hair of the dog on the beside cabinet. A good man that Mayhew and he will probably know what to do with the poor policeman’s helmet even as he is laying out your suit for the day. Refreshed, ready for the off, and full of good ideas, though not necessarily your own, you are ready to motor up to town and see what’s what with your chums at your social club in the heart of Peccadillo! It is the nineteen twenties and as that American writer that everyone seems to like, F. Scott Fitzgerald, said, they are roaring and there is Jazz on the record player, the Great War is over, women have finally got the vote, and there are Bright Young Things abroad! And you want to be one of them and dance and have fun with the other fine fellows of your social club. If that means hijinks and larks and making Hugo Pinker and Wilmot Butt and those other fools at the Spit & Polish, the rival to your social club look like bigger fools, then so be it! You heard from your cousin Honoria ‘Norrie’ Pinker—Hugo’s much better sister—that Hugo is thinking of entering a club team in the country gala hosted by their parents, Lord and Lady Pinker. So, you are thinking of getting your chums together and making Hugo and his fellows look like stinkers—and if that means your aunt and uncle might stop looking down their collective noses at you, all the better!

This is an episode from Flabbergasted! A Comedy Roleplaying Game inspired by Jeeves and Wooster, Fawlty Towers, and even Downton Abbey, in which the Player Characters—or Protagonists—are members of the same social club and get involved in all manner of scrapes and spots of bother, all in pursuit of keeping both themselves and their club in good standing and all whilst pulling the noses of those confounded arses at the rival club. Published by The Wanderer’s Tome following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Flabbergasted! is a narrative-driven, rules-light and light-hearted storytelling game set in and inspired by the nineteen twenties without being too historically accurate—and certainly not too socially historically accurate. It is designed to be played in episodes, like a television series, with each episode having an opening scene, the episode itself, and the closing credits, though of course there is more to it than that, and that a complete Season is made up of several episodes. Both the players and the Director—as the Game Master is known—are expected and encouraged to improvise during play as much as they use the roleplaying game’s rules.

A Protagonist is one of four Archetypes. The four are Aristocrat, Bohemian, Well-To-Do, or Staff. The Aristocrat comes from a titled family which will give him wealth and comfort; the Bohemian has eschewed materialism in favour of art and performance and a free-spirited life; the Well-To-Do has acquired social standing due to her wealth, whether she inherited it or earned it; and the Staff is a self-reliant and dependable member of the service industry, perhaps in service to an Aristocrat or Well-To-Do. A Protagonist will have a Memento, a Flaw, and a Dilemma. The Memento is an important item that the player can have his Protagonist bring into play, but which will not provide any mechanical benefits; a Flaw is a personality feature or a vice that will get the Protagonist into trouble, such as ‘Persnickety’ or ‘Tippler’; and the Dilemma is an ongoing problem that constantly causes problems, but will probably be resolved over the course of a season.

A Protagonist begins play with four ‘Scene Cues’ which enable a Protagonist to automatically affect a scene without the need to roll dice. However, they can only be used a limited number of times per session. For example, the Aristocrat has ‘Throw A Tantrum’ meaning that he will whinge and wine and kick up a fuss, drawing attention to himself, but eventually getting his way or ‘Virtuous Beyond Reproach’, his moral rectitude being famously strong enough for him to withstand almost any desire or temptation. All four Archetypes have multiple ‘Scene Cues’, allowing a variety of different Protagonist types to be created, and every ‘Scene Cue’ comes with a lovely piece of dialogue to show the reader how it works.

A Protagonist has four Character Traits—bravado & persuasion, culture & etiquette, wit & sharp, and creativity & passion—the nearest that a Protagonist has to attributes in other roleplaying games. Character Traits range in value between one and eight and a Protagonist begins with a point in three of them and two points in the other one, his Archetype’s defining Character Trait, representing his upbringing. The defining Character Trait for the Aristocrat is Culture & Etiquette, Creativity & Passion for the Bohemian, Bravado & Persuasion for the Well-To-Do and Wit & Sharp for the Staff. A Protagonist has access to Readies—the currency in Flabbergasted!—which can be spent to bribe someone, donate to a charity, patronise the arts, and upgrade the Social Club.

Most importantly, a Protagonist has Social Standing. This has its own tracker, which determines if the Protagonist has a Scandalous or a Dignified reputation. Being caught making a bribe—such as paying a policeman to look the other way, will lower a Protagonist’s Social Standing towards a Scandalous reputation, whilst donating to charity or patronising the arts will raised towards a Dignified reputation. Using ‘Scene Cues’ will also affect a Protagonist’s Social Standing. Social Standing starts at zero, neither Scandalous nor Dignified. The benefit to having either a Scandalous or a Dignified reputation is social rather than mechanical. For example, too high a Scandalous reputation and the target of the Protagonist’s ardour might not want to be seen consorting with him, whereas her racy younger sister might! And if a Protagonist’s Scandal or Dignity on his Social Standing Tracker ever reaches ten, he will be invited to join a secret society. Eight of these are detailed in Flabbergasted! and being a member has some interesting, but secret, benefits.

Protagonist creation is really matter of making choices—picking Archetype, Memento, Flaw, and Dilemma, as well as the ‘Scene Cues’ from the Archetype. A player divides five points between the four Character Traits.

Name: Hortense Wiggins

Archetype: Staff
Occupation: Lady’s companion

Memento: My Albert’s war medal
Flaw: Ghastly Gossip
Dilemma: Has fallen in love with the lady’s brother
Social Standing: 0

Readies: 40

CHARACTER TRAITS
Culture & Etiquette 3 Creativity & Passion 2
Bravado & Persuasion 2 Wit & Sharp 3

SCENE CUES
Unflappable, This Way Please, A Stitch in Time, Speciality (Codes & Puzzles)

The Social Club is where the Protagonists get together. There are multiple Social Clubs in the city and each has a theme, name, description, slogan, and an emblem. Each Social Club also has a Rival Club. The players are free choose all of these and create one for their Protagonists or the Director can create one, but several example Social Clubs and Rival Clubs are included, such as the ‘Good Socie-Tea’ and its rival, ‘Java Jivers’, ‘The After Party’ and its rival, ‘The Cap And Gown Club’. Every Social Club begins play with a ‘Public Challenge’, often issued by a Rival Club, and will together with its members face more during the course of play. It might be to get the name of the Social Club into the newspaper before that of the Rival Club or last longer in a haunted house than the members of the Rival Club. Successfully overcoming a Public Challenge garners a Social Club Renown, which is initially set at zero and can rise as high as fifteen. Higher Renown enables a Social Club to spend its Readies to improve its facilities. It will start out as a single room, can go on to add a Trophy Room, Cabaret Hall, and even a Printing Press. Renown and membership numbers can go down as well as up, especially if a Social Club fails to deal with whatever Big Trouble is besetting it, but unless the Social Club suffers a series scandal, the primary consequences are more social in nature.

Mechanically, to have his Protagonist undertake an action in Flabbergasted!, a player rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to the Character Trait he wants his Protagonist to use. If the player can persuade the Director that the Character Trait and the way his Protagonist wants to use it is appropriate, there is nothing to stop from doing so. Every result on the dice that is a five or six counts as a Success. A Moderate Challenge requires one Success, Hard Challenge requires two Successes, and a Daunting Challenge requires three Successes. If the roll is a failure or the Protagonist requires more Successes and the Protagonist has earned one or more Lucky Coins—awarded by the Director for creative or helpful play, good roleplaying, and so on—he can flip these, call heads or tails, and hope to generate the needed Successes.

In terms of setting, Flabbergasted! not only details several Social Clubs and Rival Clubs, but also provides a good description of the city of Peccadillo, complete with notable landmarks like the world famous Pender’s Cricket Pitch or the city’s biggest dance hall, Revelry Hall, and a discussion of the things that the Protagonists can up to in the city and outside it. For the Director, Flabbergasted! includes seventy story hooks, two complete Seasons and a sandbox setting. Both Seasons come with a premade Social Club and a set of Protagonists, as well as the outline of nine Episodes. ‘The Sleuth Society’ focuses on solving crime better than its rival Gumshoe Society, whilst ‘The Best Buds’ is about growing and showing the best plants over its rival, ‘The Garden Grandmas’. In both cases, the Director will want to develop the outlines a bit more, whilst the sandbox setting, ‘Welcome to Brabble Manor’ presents the means to do location-focused, either as one-off mini-campaign or an addition to an existing campaign. Lastly, the appendices to Flabbergasted! provide a guide to the phrases and words common to the period, what to wear, what to eat and drink, and tables to generate names, and more, to add extra detail and flavour to a campaign.

If the support for the Director is good, the advice for player is very good, and the advice for the Director is excellent. For the player, this covers tone and failing forward as well as how to improve his improvisational skill, whilst the Director there is advice on the structure of the roleplaying game and her role in it, and how to adjudicate ‘Scene Cues’, Social Standing, Club Renown, and so on. In particular, the structure of play breaks down the individual episode into its three acts and what each should or could entail. For example, Act One or ‘The Opening’ should ideally include a recap of the last episode, some downtime scenes where each Protagonist is given solo time in the spotlight, and then the conflict for the episode is introduced. Whilst Act Two is the meat of the episode, Act Three, or the ‘Closing Credits’ is more a wrap up for the game just played rather part of the actual story of the episode. Here Renown is awarded to the Social Club, Readies are paid out, both Social Club and the Protagonists can be improved, so on. It is during this act that Nicknames can be awarded—as much as the Director as the players—depending on the actions of the Protagonists during play. A Nickname may change later, but if a Protagonist has one, it can be used as ‘Scene Cue’ once per session, although unlike a ‘Scene Cue’, the consequences of using a Nickname may not have the desired outcome. Overall, the advice is really very good and will help both player and Director get into the swing of Flabbergasted!’s play, whilst the combination example Seasons, the sandbox setting, and numerous examples, combined with refereeing advice really make learning to ‘direct’ Flabbergasted! such an easy task. There are some suggestions too, that Flabbergasted! can encompass other genres, like the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie or the occult, but neither are explored in Flabbergasted! That said, Flabbergasted! need not strictly adhere to the Jazz Age either as it could easily work in the nineteen thirties or nineteen fifties as much as the nineteen twenties, though again, that is outside the scope of the core rulebook.

If there is an issue with Flabbergasted!, it is that as presented as a large hardback, it looks like a bigger and more complex game than it actually is. Really though, Flabbergasted! is a simple storytelling game, actually easy to pick up and grasp once you get past its glad rags. In fact, mechanically, it is so easy to pick up, it is really easy to teach and that, combined with the familiarity of the setting and the comedic tone, means Flabbergasted! can be used as an introductory roleplaying game for new players. In that, it helps that it looks so good and that the Director has a lot of support.

Physically, Flabbergasted! A Comedy Roleplaying Game looks amazing. The artwork is joyously diverse whilst capturing the fun and frolics that lie at the heart of the game. The writing is excellent and a pleasure to read and supported with innumerable examples that capture and reinforce the tone and style of the roleplaying game.

Flabbergasted! A Comedy Roleplaying Game is an ever so hotsy-totsy duck soup. This is a ritzy, swanky roleplaying game that sets everything up for hijinks and hokum and then supports it with all of the accoutrements you should ever want. Flabbergasted! A Comedy Roleplaying Game is the bees knees and it should be everyone’s cup of tea.

Web Watch

Webworld is a disc-shaped planet spinning through the cosmos tethered to the web of the great spider, An’Ansee. It is a world of fantasy and magic, of dragons and dungeons and trolls and tunnels and orcs and oubliettes, where all manner of creatures and peoples can be found, but there is no better place to the start than the heart of the realm, the city that welcomes all visitors from next door and the next universe, which dangles at the centre of the web spun by An’Ansee, who hangs below. This is Heq Moreveg, whose inhabitants can look up to the fantastic disc from which their home hangs and out into the night sky of the universe from they came. Just as the disc dwellers have the pleasure of looking down on the Heq Morevegians! It is a raucous city of dwellers from hither and thither, who rub along at the best of times, brawl with each at other times, and riot at the worst of times. Under the shadow of the disc above, it is the dubious duty of the Dusk Watch to keep the peace, whether through hard graft, honest graft, or dishonest graft—and if that fails, through serendipity and stupidity. And sometimes, if a dusk’s patrol goes very, very badly, the members of the Watch have to descend into the Underweb… Unfortunately, on their very watch, some new members of the Dusk Watch are not only going to find themselves voluntarily being led into the Underweb, but they are also going to find themselves very involuntarily being thrown into it! And with the future of Heq Moreveg at stake, they are going to have to find their way back out again. This is the set-up for Orcs & Oubliettes, a scenario and mini-supplement for ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—the roleplaying game of fast, cinematic, action comedy. Published by EN Publishing, best known for the W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying System, as used in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, where previous entries in the series have tended to be one-shot, film night specials, here the given scenario (or scenarios) is more expansive.

Orcs & Oubliettes is actually very slightly more than a scenario and mini-supplement for ACE! In fact, it is actually a roleplaying game all of its very own within the various worlds of ACE! There are numerous points within the adventures set in these worlds when the Player Characters can relax, take time out of their own adventures, to play out fantasy adventures with characters of their own. (Even to point as in thirties-set Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark where roleplaying games would have been an anachronism.) The genre for Orcs & Oubliettes is, of course, fantasy, and in particular, as its ‘noun-ampersand-noun’ name suggests, the roleplaying game fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons. Yet, Orcs & Oubliettes is not fully a parody of Dungeons & Dragons, for it is also by inspired by another fantasy, that of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series of novels. It is not set on a disc-shaped world per se, but rather Heq Moreveg is suspended in the webs spun by An’Ansee below it.

Heq Moreveg is described in broad detail, noting that although ruled by a king, but that the role is not hereditary, chosen from the members of the ‘Brazen Yeopersons of the Elective Council of Keepers’—or ‘BY’ECK’, whose are themselves elected representatives from amongst the city’s many and varied trade bodies. The city is built on stone slabs suspended in the web and subject to the strange cycle of light and dark from a sun that loops around the disc above casting regular periods of day and night. The three main districts of the city swirl out from the city centre—the Monarch’s Spiral, which contains the government buildings, guild headquarters, and houses of the rich; the Residents’ Spiral where most Heq Morevegians live; and the Traders’ Spiral, where most of the city’s trade and business is conducted.

In terms of characters, Orcs & Oubliettes provides four pre-generated members of the Dusk Watch. One is an experienced Watch Captain, a silver-plated mechanoid with a heart, but the other three are totally inexperienced. They include a larcenous faerie Sprite, a teenage wizard, and an inattentive Troll, but details of the Sprite and the Troll are included for the players to create their own using the ACE! rules. There is also a list of equipment and gear to buy and find, all the way up to magical items like a Climbing Potion and a Riveted Rod that always stays in place, Bag of Storing and Lidded Eye lantern whose light reveals anything invisible, Bracers of Giant Strength and even a Lamp of Wishes!

More than half of Orcs & Oubliettes consists of the eponymous scenario. On their very first shift, the Dusk Watch’s newest patrol is caught up in a diplomatic incident. An emissary from a warlike and carnivorous plant species has been kidnapped and dragged into the Underweb, so they have to rescue the diplomat before war breaks out! Despite their efforts, the newest members of the Dusk Watch find themselves ex-members after the rescue attempt goes awry, the emissary turns on them in a murderous rage, and they are not only blamed for his death, but put on trial and found guilty too! Their sentence is to be thrown into the Orphic Oubliette, an interdimensional pocket where the city’s most notorious criminals and darkest secrets are dumped and forgotten. The Orphic Oubliette actually turns out not be quite as dangerous as its reputation suggests, and the Player Characters will find some help coming from unexpected quarters—at least in traditional fantasy roleplaying terms—a tribe of helpful Orcs, and be able to get back out with relative ease. They will also have found the means to clear their names, but that still leaves the question as to what is actually going on and who is responsible.

‘Orcs & Oubliettes’ clips along at a handy pace, a classic fantasy tale, slightly tongue in cheek in tone, of despicable plans and unbridled ambition. Along the way, the Player Characters will bargain with a demon, gain a mighty forgotten weapon, and uncover a grand conspiracy hidden within a grand conspiracy, all before facing a dragon, stopping the city from going up in flames, and so saving the day! The scenario itself should take a secession or two, to play through, three at most.

Physically, Orcs & Oubliettes is well presented with decent, if dark artwork.

Although Orcs & Oubliettes does indeed involve orcs and oubliettes, and does descend into dungeons—or oubliettes—not once, but twice, this supplement for ACE! is not the parody of Dungeons & Dragons that the title suggests it to be. Instead, this is more about the weird mélange of a city hung in strange circumstances above the oubliettes and the schemes and shenanigans going on there. The obvious inspiration and its familiarity may result in some players finding it too familiar and some finding that it is not familiar enough, so Orcs & Oubliettes is not going to sit—or like Heq Moreveg, hang—in everyone’s sweet spot. Nevertheless, Orcs & Oubliettes is an entertaining scenario that will provide a couple of fun sessions’ worth of play.