Quick-Start Saturday: Tom Clancy’s The Division – Quickstart Manual

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

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

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What is it?
Tom Clancy’s The Division – Quickstart Manual is the quick-start for Tom Clancy’s The Division: The Official Tabletop Roleplaying Game, the roleplaying game based on the video game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft, and its subsequent novels and comic book series.

It is a eighty-four page, 51.14 MB full colour PDF.

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

How long will it take to play?
Tom Clancy’s The Division – Quickstart Manual is designed to be played through in one or two sessions.

What else do you need to play?
Tom Clancy’s The Division – Quickstart Manual needs five ten-sided dice per player.

Who do you play?
Tom Clancy’s The Division – Quickstart Manual includes five pre-generated Player Characters or Agents. They consist of a sharpshooter and scout, a non-specialist soldier, an ex-member of the riot squad, a medic, and a leader. None of the pre-generated Agents have backgrounds.

How is a Player Character defined?

An Agent in Tom Clancy’s The Division: The Official Tabletop Roleplaying Game has three Attributes—Awareness, Dexterity, and Technique; skills and specialities in their associated Skill Domains, and three Traits—Resilience, Vigour, and Quickness, which are used to test an Agent’s speed, strength, or calmness. These all range in value between one and five. Each Agent also has his or her own specific Manoeuvre.

How do the mechanics work?

Tom Clancy’s The Division – Quickstart Manual—and thus Tom Clancy’s The Division: The Official Tabletop Roleplaying Game—uses what it calls the GRIS system. This is short for ‘Gather, Roll, Indicate, and Succeed’. Rolls will either be Trait or Skill rolls. The Traits are Resilience, Vigour, and Quickness, which are used to test an Agent’s speed, strength, or calmness. The number of dice rolled when a player wants his character to act are determined the points in Skill Domain, Skill, and Specialities for skill rolls and the Trait values for Trait rolls. In either case, this will be between one and five dice. The Difficulty value for any task will be between five and ten with seven being average. Modifiers apply to the Difficulty value only, and do not adjust the number of dice rolled. Once rolled, the player choses which die will be his Resolution die, which will determine the outcome. In most situations, this will be the highest die, but in certain circumstances, such as determining how much trauma an Agent suffers when taking damage it might be lower.

The result on the Resolution die will determine the outcome. A result of one is a fiasco, a roll less than the Difficulty value is a failure, a roll equal to the Difficulty value is a success, greater than the Difficulty value is a Tour de Force, and a result of ten which is higher than the Difficulty value is a Feat. The skills list possible Fiascos, Tour de Forces, and Feats. Outside of combat, this might be to generate a Strategy Point, an Inspiring Example which grants an ally a one-time bonus die, and even lowering the Difficulty value for that skill for the rest of the mission. In combat, it can do extra damage, but also generate a Strategy Point or an Inspiring Example. 

How does combat work?

Combat is intended to be fought out on the hex grid. Initiative is a Quickness roll. In a round, an Agent or NPC can move and either sprint, use a Manoeuvre, or an automatic action. The use of a Manoeuvre requires the expenditure of Strategy Points. Strategy Points represent powerful actions, are shared resource and in limited supply. Generic Manoeuvres include ‘Barrage’, ‘Precision Fire’, and ‘Suppressive Fire’. In general, a player will be rolling to see if his Agent hits and that will inflict damage. Damage is a straight value—four for a pistol, five for a submachine gun, six for a rifle or assault rifle, and so on. Armour worn reduces damage, whilst all Agents have ten boxes of Health. They have a Wound Threshold which when reached, means they are exhausted and/or in pain and suffer a die penalty to all rolls. An Agent is down when his Health is reduced to zero. This does not mean they are dead. In a Skirmish, they will be out of the fight, but not dead, whereas in a Confrontation, it can mean they are. There are tables for both Minor and Major Trauma suffered when this occurs. 

 

In general, the combat rules in Tom Clancy’s The Division – Quickstart Manual do feel underwritten and perhaps an example of combat would have helped. One thing that is clear is that Manoeuvres are special actions and should be selected with care. In another roleplaying game, a Player Character might be able to do them all the time and so gain the bonus. Not so here, where their use is likely to be narrative-based. In other words, the players should be asking themselves if now is the right time to use a Manoeuvre instead of later in the scenario.

What do you play?

The setting for Tom Clancy’s The Division – Quickstart Manual and also for Tom Clancy’s The Division: The Official Tabletop Roleplaying Game, requires some explanation. It is a near future post-apocalyptic setting in which a deadly bioweapon, known as the ‘Green Poison’ because it was primarily spread via infected bank notes, led to high casualty rates, civil unrest, the collapse of civil government, and near societal collapse, especially in the US cities of New York and Washington, D.C. Both cities are quarantined, populated by criminal gangs, separatists and secessionists, and worse, as well as refugees and communities surviving despite the chaos and disorder. In response, the President of the United States activates sleeper agents in the population who work for the Strategic Homeland Division (SHD; or simply ‘the Division’), who are ordered to enter the quarantined zones, render aid and assistance, and combat any threats within the bounds of the city which threaten the continuity of the USA. Tom Clancy’s The Division – Quickstart Manual provides an extensive background to and overview of the current situation in the roleplaying game including the factions on both sides in New York and Washington D.C.

The scenario in Tom Clancy’s The Division – Quickstart Manual is ‘Ashes of Murray Hill’. It is an introductory scenario and so does not use the full mission rules from Tom Clancy’s The Division: The Official Tabletop Roleplaying Game, though the Director could adapt it if he has access to them. There is advice on adjusting the story in palces as well. In ‘Ashes of Murray Hill’, the Agents are stationed in a fire station at Kips Bay on the edge of the New York City quarantine zone. The Joint Task Force, made up of police, fire-fighters, and emergency workers, has been sending medical and food convoys into eastern Manhattan to help civilians. Amidst a rainstorm, the Agents learn that one of the convoys has been hijacked, probably by the Rikers, a violent gang made up of former inmates at the infamous prison. The Agents have access to an ECHO or ‘Evidence Correlation Holographic Overlay’, from which they can determine what happened at the ambush site and track the culprits to the Murray Hill district. Whether they use stealth or a more direct approach, the Agents will be able to find the Rikers base of operations and with luck, rescue the survivors from the convoy. In the final scenes, the Agents have to escape the Rikers base of operations as it is attacked by a rival faction and get back to safe territory, only to discover what the Rikers’ true plan was all along…

Is there anything missing?
No. Not as written, but examples of play or combat would not have gone amiss.

Is it easy to prepare?
Yes. Tom Clancy’s The Division – Quickstart Manual is easy to prepare.

Is it worth it?
Yes. Tom Clancy’s The Division – Quickstart Manual does give a good idea of that the roleplaying game will be like. Some players may be disappointed by the lack of tactical elements in the combat system and the combat mechanics may be too light for others, especially given the combat-focused game play of the video game it is based on. On the other hand the rules are not too complex, the background to the setting is surprisingly detailed in its explanation, and the scenario is decent.

Tom Clancy’s The Division – Quickstart Manual is published by Arkhane Asylum Publishing and is available to download here.

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Tom Clancy’s The Division: The Official Tabletop Roleplaying Game is currently being funded on Kickstarter.

Friday Fantasy: Altar of Madness

Altar of Madness is not a scenario per se. It is definitely not an adventure. It is definitely a book for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. It is definitely a place that the Player Characters are likely to visit again and again and it can be placed almost anyway in the known multiverse. So, what it is, is a single room. A large room, but a single room. A single large encounter that the Game Master can add to any dungeon. Given what it is though, it really works as an addition to a large dungeon. So good for a megadungeon. Or actually two megadungeons. This is because the room can move and as they explore a megadungeon, the Player Characters find might the entrance to this room on more than one dungeon level and later on, they might find the entrance in another altogether. So far, so many generalities. Which is entirely the fault of the encounter, because Altar of Madness has no plot, no beginning, middle, or end, and so none of that can be reviewed. Which leaves the description of what is a very detailed room to review and that is going to be difficult to review without giving away any spoilers because there is a great deal to spoil in Altar of Madness.

Altar of Madness is the final resting place of the mythical First Wizard and the good news is that it has been found. Who or what the First Wizard was is not known, but what is known is that he was interred with a splendid variety of magical treasures ripe for the taking. To which the blurb for Altar of Madness adds, “You are so, so fucked.” Which is entirely accurate, because what Altar of Madness actually is a deathtrap dungeon, or rather a deathtrap room. A room filled with features that are going to entice the players to have their characters investigate and search and play around with and have things go wrong, oh so wrong, that their characters are going to walk away changed. Changed. Cursed. Poisoned. Maddened. Scarred. Aware. Altered. Infested. Bleeding. Incensed. Undead. Armoured. Prescient. Bejewelled. Blinded and blinding. Unlucky. Colourblind. Deviated. All of these are entirely possible conditions that a Player Character can suffer in Altar of Madness. Essentially, this is a tomb with not so much traps as items and objects and spaces which if the Player Characters interact with them, they are going to suffer. This is one giant ‘screw you’ for the players and their characters if their curiosity and greed get the better of them—and it will because there are good magical items to be found—and touch things.

The Altar of Madness is a room one hundred feet in diameter and twenty feet high, with a five foot wide ledge running round the edge. Steps lead down to a bowl of thick phosphorescent mist out of which rises in the centre of the room is fountain topped with demonic skulls and filled with an oily black liquid. A ten foot high diameter hangs over the fountain. Spaced around the room is a statue of a naked woman holding aloft an actual bolt of lightning and a chain hangs straight up from the floor to a hole in space. To the left, there is writing in an unknown language on the wall, whilst to the right, there is a mural of a star-filled sky. In alcoves dotted around the room is an altar carved with human faces, a skeleton dressed in fine clothes lying on a couch, two sarcophagi in separate alcoves, and an eyeball floating in a jar, sitting on a table. There is more, but this is what is visible from the door.

All of this can be interacted with and all of it is described in a very great detail. As are the effects of what happens when the Player Characters do, those effects being rolled on the tables that are associated with each piece of furniture or dressing in the room. Some of the features in the room are connected, primarily through the treasures that they hide, but most are not. The result is that actually many of the features are more installations, almost pieces of art that are designed to screw with the Player Characters. They do not feel out of place as such, but they could be used in a dungeon of the Game Master’s design without any real issue.

This being a design for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, it should be no surprise that the content is intended for mature players. That said, some of the descriptions of what the Player Characters could do and what the consequences are, is prurient, if not distasteful, concerning as it does the molestation of a highly anatomically accurate statue and a pliant woman. To be clear, the author is not encouraging or condoning such actions, but rather explaining the consequences if a player has his character undertake such actions. The first reaction is to wonder quite who you are roleplaying with if a player does think of these actions and voices them, and then the Game Master allows it. The second reaction is to wonder if that content should have been in the book at all, to which the answer is no. Of course, the Game Master can ignore such content if she wants and not allow for the possibility of the players suggesting such ideas, but still… No.

Physically, Altar of Madness is well done. It has an arcane look to it with just the sigil on its front cover and no title or blurb. Inside the book is in black and white and full of dense text. This encounter does need a careful study to understand how each item in the room works.

Altar of Madness is an amazingly inventive exercise in ‘screw the characters, screw the players’ in deathtrap dungeon design. A comical circus of consequences for the overly curious.

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Lamentations of the Flame Princess will be at UK Games Expo which takes place from Friday, 29th to Sunday 31st of May.

Drawing Dungeons

To date, Loke BattleMats has become best known for its maps which it publishes as books. So far these have included the Big Book of Battle Mats: Rooms, Vaults, & Chambers, the Big Book of Cyberpunk Battle Mats, The Dungeon Books of Battle Mats, The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats, The Towns & Taverns Books of Battle Mats, and Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats. These are all big products, containing big maps, ready to play. Conversely, the Dungeon Designer’s Deck: 100 Cards to Level Up your Dungeon Game is quite small, but it can actually do quite a lot and is quite flexible. As its subtitle suggests, it is a deck of cards which can be used in multiple ways. This includes as a dungeon and adventure generator, a solo-adventure generator, and as a set of terrain accessories. The box does say that it is suitable for use with Player Characters of Levels One to Ten and it is compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. However, do not let the latter put you off. The Dungeon Designer’s Deck will work just as well with any retroclone.

As its subtitle suggests, Dungeon Designer’s Deck: 100 Cards to Level Up your Dungeon Game consists of one hundred cards. This includes sixty ‘Terrain Feature Cards’, ten ‘Quest Cards’, ten ‘Room Cards’, ten ‘Door Cards’, five ‘Enemy Generator Cards’, two ‘Random Loot Cards’, and three ‘How To Use Cards’. This includes sixty Terrain Feature Cards, ten Quest Cards, ten Room Cards, ten Door Cards, five Enemy Generator Cards, two Random Loot Cards, and three How to use Cards. In addition to this, there is a foldout map and a reference book. The map is double-sided and shows plain flagstones on one side and a simple room arrangement on the other. If the Game Master or player wants other room arrangements, the Terrain Feature Cards do work with other maps from the publisher.

The three ‘How To Use Cards’ are double-sided and in turn describe the card types, the core principles of using the Dungeon Designer’s Deck, how to use the ‘Random Dungeon Creation’, adjusting the deck based on party size and solo play, and explanations of the ‘Difficulty’ and ‘Damage’ keywords. For ‘Difficulty’ keywords, this sets the Difficulty Class values from First Level to Tenth Level, depending upon whether the task at hand is routine, difficult, very difficult, or near impossible. The ‘Damage’ keywords set the possible damage values in similar fashion depending upon whether it is minor, light, major, or lethal damage.

The ten ‘Quest Cards’ provide a mission, a backstory, clues and where to place them, the rooms the specific locations the missions requires and when to place them, where the finale takes place, any special rules, and rewards. They include a ‘Vault Heist’, ‘Tome Raiders’, ‘Rescue Mission’, ‘Loot and Run’, and more. Each of the ‘Room Cards’ details the ‘Encounter Cards’ to be drawn, extra ‘Clues’, and ‘Troops’ to be encountered, as well as a description of the ‘Finale Encounter’. They include a ‘Headquarters’, ‘The Kennels’, an ‘Evil Temple’, ‘Treasure Vault’, and even a ‘Sewage Plant’. The bulk of the cards in Dungeon Designer’s Deck consist of the sixty ‘Terrain Feature Cards’. Unlike the other cards, these are double-sided. One side depicts a feature of a room or furniture. For example, a ‘Stargazer Study’, ‘Sewer Pool’, ‘Reading Corner’, or ‘Skull Altar’. On the back a table of three or four random options, some flavour text, and a little extra detail. These  ‘Terrain Feature Cards’ will essentially be dressing the adventure. Lastly, each of the ten ‘Door Cards’ describes a door, such as a ‘Vault Door’ or a ‘Mossy Door’ with its stats and details on the back, whilst the five ‘Enemy Generator Cards’ have tables on them for randomly generating encounters.

The Reference Book replicates all of the content on the cards and can be used during play or during the designing of a quest or dungeon. The contents of the Dungeon Designer’s Deck can be used randomly. So ‘Encounter Cards’ can be drawn when a new room is entered and ‘Door Cards’ when a door is found, and this can be done randomly, whether the Dungeon Master is drawing it for her group of players and their adventurers or a player is drawing the cards for solo play. Unlike other solo and/or random dungeon generator tools, there is map making or drawing necessary, though there is nothing to stop the Dungeon Master or player from drawing a map. The Dungeon Master can use the cards to help her create a dungeon as part of her preparation. Alternatively, the ‘Quest Cards’ provide outlines of missions that can played solo and run for a group. These require some preparation and whilst the Dungeon Master might run the same ‘Quest Card’ more than once, there is still plenty in the box for the Dungeon Master to use, whilst a solo player might try again to see how well he can do this time.

Physically, Dungeon Designer’s Deck is a handy little boxed set. The writing is good and all of the art and cartography is excellent. The cards have a matte finish on the reference side and a gloss finish on the picture side. This does feel very slightly odd, but you get used to it.

The multi-purpose Dungeon Designer’s Deck: 100 Cards to Level Up your Dungeon Game has the potential to provide quite a bit of game play, whether from creating quests and dungeons for solo or group play and enhance that game play with attractive scenery that can be different each time it is drawn. The Dungeon Master will need to provide the connective tissue, that is, the narrative to the story generated and the corridors between locations, but that is her job.

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Loke Battle Mats will be at UK Games Expo which takes place from Friday, 29th to Sunday 31st of May.

[Fanzine Focus XLIII] The Travellers’ Digest Number 10

On the tail of the 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 how another Dungeon Master and her 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 be 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. However, not all fanzines written with the Old School Renaissance in mind need to be written for a specific retroclone. Although not the case now, the popularity of Traveller would spawn several fanzines, of which The Travellers’ Digest, published by Digest Group Publications, was the most well known and would eventually transform from a fanzine into a magazine.

The publication of The Travellers’ Digest #1 in December, 1985 marked the entry of Digest Group Publications into the hobby and from this small, but ambitious beginnings would stem a complete campaign and numerous highly-regarded supplements for Game Designers Workshop’s Traveller and MegaTraveller, as well as a magazine that all together would run for twenty-one issues between 1985 and 1990. The conceit was that The Travellers’ Digest was a magazine within the setting of the Third Imperium, its offices based on Deneb in the Deneb Sector, and that it awarded the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award. This award would be won by one of the Player Characters and thus the stage is set for ‘The Grand Tour’, the long-running campaign in the pages of The Travellers’ Digest. In classic fashion, as with Europe of the eighteenth century, this would take the Player Characters on a tour of the major capitals of known space. These include Vland, Capitol, Terra, the Aslan Hierate, and even across the Great Rift. The meat of this first issue, as well as subsequent issues, would be dedicated to an adventure, each a stop-off on the ‘The Grand Tour’, along with support for it. The date for the first issue of The Travellers’ Digest and thus when the campaign begins is 152-1101, the 152nd day of the 1101st year of the Imperium.

To best run ‘The Grand Tour’, the Referee will need access to The Atlas of the Imperium, Supplement 8: Library Data (A-M), Supplement 11: Library Data (N-Z), Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats (or alternatively, Supplement 5: Azhanti High Lightning), as well as the core rules. In addition, other supplements would be required depending on the adventure, in the case of this issue, The Travellers’ Digest Number 9, that would only be Book 8, Robots. For ‘Reference Point’, the tenth part of ‘The Grand Tour’, the Referee will also want access to The Travellers’ Digest Number 8 and The Travellers’ Digest Number 9 for the subsector maps that appear in those issues. CHALLENGE Magazine No. 27 will also be useful. Of course, that was in 1987, and much, if not all, of the rules or background necessary have been updated since. The campaign is also specifically written for use with four pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of Akidda Laagiir, the journalist who won the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award; Dur Telemon, a scout and his nephew; Doctor Theodor Krenstein, a gifted-scientist and roboticist; and Doctor Krenstein’s valet, ‘Aybee’, or rather, ‘AB-101’. The fact is, AB-101 is a pseudo-biological robot, both protégé and prototype. Consequently, the mix of Player Characters are surprisingly non-traditional and not all of them are easily created using the means offered in Traveller or MegaTraveller. This is addressed within various issues of the fanzine.

The Travellers’ Digest Number 10 was published in 1987. One major change announced in the editorial is the magazine will no longer print the Universal Task Profile. In past issues, this has explained the mechanical format used in The Travellers’ Digest, but with the publication of and its application in MegaTraveller, it seems redundant. This gives the magazine two extra pages to play with! In previous issue, The Travellers’ Digest Number 9, and ninth part of ‘The Grand Tour’ brought the Travellers to Capital, the heart of the Third Imperium, and the Emperor’s court at ‘Before the Iridium Throne’. When ‘Reference Point’, the tenth part by Gary L. Thomas, opens, the Travellers found themselves with a problem. To get to Capital, the four Travellers were granted Imperial space-required travel vouchers. However, the Emperor’s largesse does not run in the opposite direction. Thus, they find themselves on Capital, the core of the Third Imperium, with nowhere to go and now way of paying for it! Fortunately, three of the four have transferable skills aboard ship and the other is a member of the Traveller’s Aid Society and so can begin make their way. They decide to see more of the Third Imperium and head Rimward towards Sol in the Solomani Sphere.

This is fun set-up, shifting the adventurers of the Travellers into something that is more peripatetic and more like a classic Traveller campaign. In ‘Reference Point’, the Travellers find themselves husbanding a difficult species from one zoo to another, pulling a few strings based on their various reputations, and so on, until they receive a message from Eneri Balan, who had been the protocol assigned to them on Capital. He has a task for them that he can pass on from the Moot, the primary deliberative assembly of the Third Imperium, composed of all nobles holding the rank of Baron or higher. The Baron of Wolton holds his patent on Kigaru in the Ilelish subsector, but it was destroyed along with other records in a fire. Fortunately, copies of all such records are held in the computers on the Scout Base underground on the world of Reference. Here, the records of the Third Imperium go all the way back to the First Imperial Grand Survey and the Second Imperial Grand Survey. Unfortunately, when copies of the records about Kigaru were returned, there was no mention of his barony and it was in fact, public property. This effectively strips him of his title, so he sought help from the Moot. The Travellers are to travel to Reference and investigate this discrepancy, as two of their number are computer specialists. Besides investigating this problem, the Travellers’ arrival on Reference will trigger another couple of plots, which though small, are quite interesting. The Referee will develop some of the NPCs and scenes in the mini-adventures that the Travellers will encounter and so bring them to life, ‘Reference Point’ serves up a thoroughly enjoyable slice of life with small stories that push the Travellers onwards on ‘The Grand Tour’.

‘Reference Point’ is followed by a second adventure, ‘Plague of Perruques’. This is by Gary L. Thomas and Marc W. Miller and is set in the Regina Subsector following the end of the Fifth Frontier War. The party, led by Baron Ganidiirsi hault-Reitan, are touring his holdings, surveying them for damage, when he has arranged a hunting trip for the Rebacked Slonth on Uakye in Regina Subsector. The scenario is divided into two parts. In the first half, the Player Characters go hunting, but in the second, they return to the capital to discover that a strange and unfortunately deadly plague has broken out. Its symptoms include grey fibres appearing at the roots of suffers’ hair and covering the skull in a few days, followed by a film growing over the eyes, leading to blindness and fever. It kills half of its sufferers. This is an investigative scenario in which the Player Characters need to travel to various locations, sifting rumour from fact. It is challenging and needs some set-up by the Referee to ensure that the players have some pointers to get started, but this is a solid scenario, and like ‘Reference Point’ before it, has its world data presented in same format as for The Grand Survey. Task details are provided for the hunting half of the scenario, and whilst the scenario was originally written as a tournament scenario, it does not come with any pre-generated Player Characters.

The ‘Library Data of the Core Sector’ is surprisingly extensive, paying particular attention to Cadlion and Chant Subsectors which are also detailed, compete with maps. There is a lot of detail here, and some of the entries are marked with Referee suggestions for their use. The ‘Playing the Characters’ series comes to close with an examination of Akidda Laagiir, the journalist whose Travellers’ Digest Touring Award at the start of ‘The Grand Tour’ sets the campaign off. This is useful, more so if the Referee is starting the campaign from the start. The ‘Traveller Q & A’ provides answers to the readers’ questions. These include a very detailed explanation of what MegaTraveller and Traveller: 2300 are and what the differences are between (and the original Traveller); why nobles are actually banned from taking anagathic treatments (useful in conjunction with the later article in the magazine); the stats for the Princes Lucan and Varian, and Margaret, Grand Duchess of Delphi; and much more. Some of the information here is quite technical, entirely in keeping with Traveller as a roleplaying game.

This is followed by a series of departments, old and new. For the ‘Tech Briefs’ department, any player of Akidda Laagiir will be pleased to see that the device detailed is ‘Holorecorders’. This is a recording and playback device as well as an editing suite using holocrystals. It is a highly detailed description and also suggests other applications too, such as holographic recording robots for hazardous environments, medical imaging, police crime scene recording, and more. The next department is ‘The Gaming Digest—Referee’s Tips—Part 1’ for which Gary L. Thomas explores ‘More Effective Roleplaying’. He observes that the quality of roleplaying varies wildly, especially in Traveller, but points out that actually roleplaying is a skill and can be made better with practice. This is a surprisingly deep examination of roleplaying, exploring the differences between character and player, the limitations of player knowledge in what they know and do not know, tailoring content to players’ interests, and more. The article is aimed at both the player and the Referee and is actually informative and useful, possibly more so when the issue of the magazine was published.

‘Anagathics, the Drug of the Ages’ by Joe D. Fugate Sr. examines the development of the anti-ageing drugs and how they are obtained, what their possible side effects are, and more. Anti-ageing treatment becomes available at Tech Level 12 and rules are provided for this, and then again at subsequent Tech Levels up to 15. There are fewer side-effects as the science advances, but the article also examines what happens if a Player Character takes a break between treatments or runs out and suffers withdrawal symptoms. However, the article is more technical than social, so the social consequences are not explored, which is a pity. Otherwise, this comprehensive guide and useful should players have their character seek out anagathics. ‘Statistics From the Second Imperial Grand Survey’ brings the support for Traveller in the issue to a close. It consists mostly of numbers so is not that interesting.

The last few pages of The Travellers’ Digest Number 10 are devoted to Traveller: 2300. First, William Connors describes ‘Pentapod Constructs for 2300’, a number of biological devices available on the open market from the alien species. They include a ‘Breather’, a lifeform that when worn enables the user to breathe freely underwater (the lifeform does look like a Facehugger though…); the ‘Hibernation Inducer’, a black blob that when placed on the back of an injured person induces unconsciousness and a greatly lowered metabolism to enable the person to be transported to medical safety; and ‘Atmospheric Filter Symbiots’, tiny creatures that can be injected into the lungs to filter out trace elements that would normally harm the host. The ‘Briefcase Library for 2300’ by Robert Parker describes a briefcase-sized device that uses optical storage drives to store vast amounts of information suitable for personal use and transportation to the frontier. Of course, it looks vastly outdated by modern standards, being the equivalent of the modern laptop. Nancy Parker gives a very detailed breakdown of the ‘Medical Kit for 2300’, detailing what medical kit contains and must be carried by vehicles with a passenger capacity of thirty or more and also by emergency workers. Lastly, Robert Parker also describes ‘The Life Foundation “Squid” for 2300’, a relatively cheap and easily customisable submersible for frontier use. Unfortunately, there are no technical details or deck plans, but otherwise, this is a nice description.

Physically, The Travellers’ Digest Number 10 continues the physical improvement begun in the previous issue. The artwork is improved too and overall, this is a much more professional looking issue.

After the tumultuous events explored in The Travellers’ Digest Number 9 with the assassination of Emperor Strephon, The Travellers’ Digest Number 10 settles down and concerns itself with providing solidly gameable support for both MegaTraveller and Traveller: 2300. The scenarios in the issue are good, ‘Reference Point’, the tenth part of ‘The Grand Tour’ is really quite enjoyable. The Travellers’ Digest Number 10 is simply a good issue with good support for both roleplaying games from Game Designers’ Workshop.

[Fanzine Focus XLIII] The Valley Out of Time: Gods Walk the Valley

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 how another Dungeon Master and her 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 be 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 and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game from Goodman Games. 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. One such fanzine is The Valley Out of Time.

The Valley Out of Time is a six-part series published by Skeeter Green Productions. It is written for use with both the Dungeon Crawl Classics RolePlaying Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, ‘The Valley Out of Time’ is a ‘Lost Worlds’ style setting a la X1 The Isle of Dread, and films such as The Land that Time Forgot, The Lost World, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, One Million years, B.C., and others, plus the artwork of Frank Frazetta. Combining dinosaurs, Neanderthals, and a closed environment, it is intended to be dropped into a campaign with relative ease and would work in both a fantasy campaign or a post-apocalyptic campaign. It could even work as a bridge between the two, with two different possible entries into ‘The Valley Out of Time’, one from a fantasy campaign and one from a post-apocalyptic campaign.

The Valley Out of Time: Gods Walk the Valley is the sixth and final entry in the series. Unfortunately, it marks a return to form for the series. Unlike the fourth and fifth issues in the series before it, The Valley Out of Time: Tribes and Factions and The Valley Out of Time: Rotten at the Core it does not do anything more than just give the Judge one more dinosaur or megafauna or one more fight with one more dinosaur or megafauna. For the Judge that wants fights and monsters, the first three issues of The Valley Out of Time were perfect, and the good news is that in the case of The Valley Out of Time: Gods Walk the Valley, that Judge will find the issue equally as good. However, for the Judge wanting more, this sixth issue as well as the first three issues, will be a disappointment. What the series promises is set out on the back cover: “The Valley Out of Time is a series of ’zine-sized adventures from SGP. This valley can be placed in any ongoing campaign, and is set in the “Neanderthal Period” of development. Huge monsters – both dinosaurs and otherwise – and devolved humanoids plague the area, and only the hardiest of adventurers will prevail!” The problem is that the series failed to deliver on anything more than just dinosaurs and at best, very minor encounters, all of which emphasised combat rather than interaction or exploration. Certainly, until The Valley Out of Time: Tribes and Factions and The Valley Out of Time: Rotten at the Core, the series failed to provide what might be called an adventure as promised on the back cover.

One of the things that The Valley Out of Time: Gods Walk the Valley does do is address the issue of Player Character motivations. Unfortunately, in previous issues, the series has steadfastly refused to make any suggestions as to what they might be and leave the Judge to decide what they are—which in all fairness is the series’ signature design feature. Here though, they are included and they suggest that the Player Characters might have been cast through some random portal and ended up in the valley, found the valley deep into a mountain range they were exploring, or have found their way into a jungle enclave shut off from the rest of the world by some powerful entities who wanted to see how it developed free of outside influence, to protect the location of an artefact, to imprison dangerous creatures, or a mix of all four. Putting aside that it is strange to suggest these ideas so late in the series, it should be no surprise that having suggested them, the fanzine leaves it up to the Judge to develop which of them to choose and then develop.

The mainstay of this sixth and final issue of the fanzine is four, highly detailed encounters monstrous beings, the almost god-like things alluded to by the issue title. In ‘The Living Jungle’ the Player Characters are cutting their way through the jungle when it comes to life and attacks them. They must defend themselves against a Topiary-Thing and Animated Palm Trees (a variant of the Treant) lead by a Dryad whom the Player Characters have unwittingly angered in slashing their way through the jungle. Unfortunately, there is no way of resolving the situation other than with a fight. So no doing a service or task for the Dryad as restitution and therefore no opportunities for interaction or roleplaying. Worse, this is not the only encounter like this in this or previous issues of the fanzine. So, whilst the creatures might well designed and detailed, the encounter itself strikes a disappointingly singular note.

The second encounter, ‘The Summoning’ has more depth and detail, but that is because it is a bigger encounter. The Player Characters crest a hill to look down upon an enormous ziggurat at the base of which a ceremony is being enacted at the end of which it is clear that a sacrifice will be performed. This is to summon a prime ooze from beyond time and space (for Dungeon Crawl Classics) or activate a War-bot (for Mutant Crawl Classics) and with five hundred feet between them and the ziggurat, the Player Characters have time to act. The combat is broken down into a timeline that last several rounds which track what the enemy is doing. At the end of it, the Player Characters might find a great artefact, an Orb of Power (for Dungeon Crawl Classics) or Dimensional Orb (for Mutant Crawl Classics). The Orb of Power gives a statistic and spellcasting bonus, whilst the Dimensional Orb gives a bonus to the program checks and access to a patron AI. However, the possessor cannot let the artefact out of his sight, but beyond that, either artefact feels underwhelming.

In ‘Ancient Hero’ the Player Characters find a great stone slab on the side of a hill. If they can shift the slab, they find inside a tomb for a Skeletal Champion (for Dungeon Crawl Classics) or Scream Champion (for Mutant Crawl Classics). If the Player Characters can defeat this mighty monster and its companions, there is an equally mighty treasure to gained. This is The Bloody Hand, a cursed and Chaotic two-handed sword that causes those of opposed Alignment to bleed when wounded with it. However, the sword must take a life every twenty-four lest the wielder suffer actual damage or a statistic loss (the weapon is highly reminiscent of certain soul-sucking sword…). Following a rumour—which makes a nice change from just wandering into an encounter—about a flame that fell out of the sky, the Player Characters investigate which might be its crash site, the Isle of Golenmot, deep in the jungle. It turns out that the crater where it landed, now full of muck and water is actually home to a giant snapping turtle—and it is hungry. If they defeat it, the Player Characters may find the meteorite at the bottom of the lake, but other than that, the encounter is over and done with.

Beyond that, The Valley Out of Time: Gods Walk the Valley presents write-ups for all of the monsters that the Player Characters will have faced in the previous four encounters in Appendix A. Then in Appendix B, ‘Resources of the Valley’ reprints details of materials used in the valley rather than metal—bone, wood, and diamond. Between them, Appendix A and Appendix B, along with the article on materials, and the empty three pages of ‘GM Notes’, make up half of the issue, and add nothing to the fanzine. The unnecessary repetition of material here could have been put to so much better use, but instead, half of the fanzine is a waste of space.

So The Valley Out of Time: Gods Walk the Valley is essentially is four combat encounters. Four, big, bruising combat encounters, but nothing more, nothing less. And not one of them adds to The Valley Out of Time as a setting and not one of them an adventure as promised.

Physically, The Valley Out of Time: Gods Walk the Valley is well presented and well written. The artwork is of a reasonable quality.

As a series, The Valley Out of Time has continued to astound and astonish in the author’s steadfast refusal to explore the concept of a lost valley and the sense of a lost valley as a place, instead, presenting again and again, one combat encounter with a dinosaur or megafauna after another with nary an opportunity for roleplaying. It is as if the author found the concept of a lost valley, pointed the Judge towards it, and then lost the concept entirely, leaving the Judge to do all of the work to make it a gameable space. And that is not what a good fanzine should be doing.

In the meantime, there scope for someone to step up and write a lost valley setting for Dungeon Crawl Classics and/or Mutant Crawl Classics which has setting details, plots, motivations, NPCs, hooks, secrets, and more that the Judge can run for her players without having to do all of the heavy lifting, because The Valley Out of Time does none of that.

[Fanzine Focus XLIII] The Beholder Issue 8

On the tail of the 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 how 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 be 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. As new fanzines have appeared, there has been an interest in the fanzines of the past, and as that interest has grown, they have become highly collectible, and consequently more difficult to obtain and write about. However, in writing about them, the reader should be aware that these fanzines were written and published between thirty and forty years ago, typically by roleplayers in their teens and twenties. What this means is that sometimes the language and terminology used reflects this and though the language and terminology is not socially acceptable today, that use should not be held against the authors and publishers unduly.

The Beholder was a British fanzine first published in April, 1979. Dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it ran to twenty-seven issues, the last being published in July, 1981. It was popular and would be awarded ‘Best Games Fanzine’ at the Games Day convention in 1980. After the final issue of The Beholder, the editors would go on to release a number of anthologies which collected content from the complete run of the fanzine such as Beholder Supplement Glossary of Magic, which collected many of the magical items which appeared in the fanzine and collated them into a series of tables for easy use by the Dungeon Master, and Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2, the first of several scenario anthologies.

The Beholder Issue No. 8 was published in October 1979. The editorial notes that the range and number of articles in the issue grows (though there is increase in page count), such as ‘Developing Campaign’ replacing ‘DMs’ Corner’. It also notes that the number of Dungeons & Dragons fanzines on the market continues to grow, pointing to the increasing popularity in the United Kingdom of Dungeons & Dragons at the time such that its fans want to get involved in the hobby beyond simple play. Both editors—Michael G. Stoner and Guy R.J. Duke—point out that The Beholder, “…[I]s the only British D&D ’zine to appear each month and always on time, while containing highly commended articles. Plus, of course, we are the cheapest ’zine around.”

The actual content begins with ‘The Anti-Paladin’. The article comments that the sub-class never seems to reach ‘official’ status, but the version here is exactly what you would expect. The Anti-Paladin can Detect Good, is immune to disease, emanates Protection from Good in a ten feet radius, can affect commands undead if he was two Levels lower, gains extra benefits from wielding an Unholy Sword, and can gain a Nightmare as a mount. Honestly, there is nothing outstanding about this version. More interesting is the ‘Monster Summoning’ article which presents a family of the Beholder, Genus Occulus. They are all descendants of the Globular Fungus, of which the Beholder itself and the Eye of Darkness are the most recent additions. The Globular Fungus is a fungus, immobile, but with a single tentacle with which it lashes out and attempts to implant spores. Its evolutionary descendent is the Eye Eater, a bulbous eye which moves around by leaping on its tentacles and then attacking its prey’s heads and sucking out of all of its vital matter through the eyes, whilst the Scuttling Orb which has spider’s legs and five eyes round its body from which can cast spell-like effects. The Eye of Darkness is the Chaotic equivalent of the Beholder, but has more teeth and does not radiate heat or cold. In addition, its touch causes Level Drain and it hates light. Originally submitted by A. Shellard, these add some variety to the concept of the Beholder and do that thing that many monsters in Dungeons & Dragons are designed to do, which is to surprise the Player Characters! There is some invention here and some coherency by making them an evolutionary family.

Traveller is one of the few other roleplaying games to be covered in the pages of The beholder. In D. Parrington’s ‘Traveller additions’, he presents expanded details of missiles from Traveller and its starship combat board game, Mayday. It describes mainly light and medium missiles and breaks down their Drive type, Technology, and what they can be fitted with. Stand missiles are light, medium missiles are so large that a ship’s turret needs to be modified and can only be fitted with a single missile. Warhead types run from minifusion to fission and fusion onto gravity bomb and antimatter bomb. There are stats for several starships—a thousand ton ‘E’ Type Cruiser, two hundred ton ‘C’ Type Corvette, one hundred ton ‘G’ Type Gun Boat, and thousand ton ‘T’ Type Transport—as well as heavy weapons like the Gasers, Plasma Bolts, Tractor Beams, Pressor Beams, and (magnetic field) Inductor. This is very much for the group that wants more detail for starship combat in Traveller. The weapons and ships are easier to use than the rules for missile construction which need to be worked through and experimented with to get right.

If you are bored with traditional Dungeons & Dragons Races, the eponymous ‘Leprechauns’ is the suggested option. The Leprechaun is cheeky, mischievous, and often annoying, with a love of wine. The Leprechaun can pick locks, has magic resistance, turn invisible once per day and cast the Ventriloquism Magic-User spell once per day. They tend to make better Thieves and Illusionists. They do not have high Dexterity or Intelligence, but low Strength and Constitution, and they must have either a Neutral or Chaotic alignment. Leprechauns are not an obvious choice, and the annoying aspect of their personality could grate very quickly.

In between, editor Guy R.J. Duke writes ‘Ficklemice’, a cartoon strip about dungeoneering mice. It is a bit cramped and a bit difficult to follow easily. Dave Richards’ ‘Snitch’ is a cartoon strip that is much easier to follow, but again is cramped. Quite literally called ‘Space Filler’, a very tiny article suggests that when selling magical items, Player Characters should not get list price and that if the item is desirable enough, the buyers who were successful might turn on the players. To which the answer is, well, yes. Similarly, ‘fearful phantasms ?’ suggests a way around an Illusionist or Magic-User casting a spell like Phantasmal Force or Polymorph Self in order to cause fear. The first is to ask if the Player Characters has seen the cause of the fear itself, sufficiently enough to be able to emulate it, and then ask if the target seen the same seen the cause of the fear? It also allows for some gradation in terms of that fear effect. Again, it is good advice. The discussion of Illusions continues later with ‘Thoughts on Illusions’. It tackles similar issues with Phantasmal Force as ‘fearful phantasms ?’, though in broader play rather than just in causing fear. The advice given is intended to prevent the players such spells by using them beyond their limits and if applied should do so.

The dungeon in the adventure is ‘Rala’s Block’. This is a four Level dungeon whose Levels ascend, built into a giant featureless stone block atop a hill by the ex-dungeoneer, Rala, to test and kill off younger dungeoneers. There are no exact guidelines as what Level Player Character the dungeon is aimed at, though it does say that a careful First Level Player Character could survive what is a challenging ‘death trap’ type dungeon. However, a mid-Level Player Character is probably better suited. This is a good mix of puzzles, traps, and monsters, though more of the first two than the last one, but this is very much a dungeon for dungeon’s sake. Which makes sense, since it is a test of sorts—but mostly a death trap for Rala’s amusement.

A. Shellard also contributes ‘Expressing Alignment’, which attempts a more accurate measurement of a Player Character or NPC’s alignment. It is plotted on a set of concentric circles with Neutral in the centre and the other alignments mapped onto the edges of the circle. The closer to the edge a character’s Alignment is, the more rigid or stronger it is. The diagram is also designed to allow easier movement that reflect radical changes in Alignment without going through true Neutral all of the time. The suggested system does complicate the Alignment system, so very much a case of a group needing to decide whether they wanted to adopt is as part of its house rules.

Penultimately, ‘INFO’ addresses some of the queries raised by the fanzine’s readers. Probably the most notable one is whether there were going to be future issues of another fanzine popular at the time, Underworld Oracle. The update and what the editors know is a bit gossipy, but it highlights the community that existed at the time around creators and editors of fanzines. Lastly, ‘Developing Campaign’, which provides ‘optional systems for your campaign’, ‘1. Archaic Colleges’ is a way in which Magic-Users can learn their spells. It is written to address this difficulty because the then newly published Advanced Dungeons & Dragons does not. In an advanced civilisation, the article’s solution is to establish colleges of magic that government can tax. There have been whole articles and supplements devoted to this subject in the years since this fanzine, but for the arcane spellcaster this is more loosely structured, enabling the Player Character or NPC to continue studying magic on a day release basis—or rather adventure release basis! Study, go adventuring, earn Experience Points sufficient to go up a Level and hopefully find enough treasure to fund learning a few more spells. This would have been reasonable solution in 1979 and more so if the other Classes had not entirely dissimilar ways and costs of gaining abilities as Levels were acquired.

Physically, The Beholder Issue No. 8 is slightly untidy in places, but readable. The layout is tight and that does make it difficult to read in places. Both illustrations and cartography are reasonable.

The Beholder Issue No. 8 notes a marked shift to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which should no surprise given that the cost three books were then just available. It still some of the preoccupations as with Dungeons & Dragons though—Alignment, particular spell effects, character advancement, and so on—exacerbated by the publication of the then new rules. There is nothing truly outstanding in the issue, but its solutions to various issues and problems would have been read with interest and thought about and discussed, which is ultimately the point.

is interesting to read because it is a good snapshot of the hobby in 1979 and what the preoccupations of its players were. Notably more monsters and ways in which to test or surprise the players and their characters, and the eager anticipation with which the next big release from TSR, Inc. was expected. This is a solid issue, not necessarily great, but not bad either. It is interesting to see how the hobby occupies the attention of the editors and how much time they would have needed to devote to both it and the very regular releases of the fanzine.

[Fanzine Focus XLIII] Guide to Grunts

On the tail of the 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 how 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 be 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.

Guide to Grunts: Inspiration for Creating Fantasy Armies and Soldiers is a systemless sourcebook designed for fantasy games in general, rather than a specific roleplaying game. Which means that it will work with many Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games. Released following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is designed and published by Gonzo History Project, better known as James Holloway, the host of the Monster Man podcast, who also published The Magonium Mine Murders.

Guide to Grunts: Inspiration for Creating Fantasy Armies and Soldiers is a companion volume to the highly regarded Pamphlet of Pantheons: Guide to Creating Fantasy Myths and Religions. Where the latter helped the Game Master create pantheons, gods and deities, and religions, this supplement helps the Game Master create units and soldiers for fantasy armies. There are plenty of supplements that do this for fantasy roleplaying, often helping the Game Master create military units modelled using the same stats and details as a Player Character in Dungeons & Dragons, and then, providing rules to have them clash on the field of battle. Guide to Grunts is different and does not that do that.

Instead, Guide to Grunts: Inspiration for Creating Fantasy Armies and Soldiers focuses upon the ways and wherefores of a military unit. Who and what the unit members are made up of, why they fight, how they are paid, what is the unit’s obligation, whether they are conscripts, and so on. It defines the nature of the officers that lead the unit and what the unit is like, how it is equipped, and how it is led. It then asks what daily rations the unit is given and what its members consider to be a special treat, how they get paid, and what happens when they get hurt. If the unit has camp followers, the Game Master can define them, and if currently stationed somewhere, what its camp or fort is like. The first thirteen tables together give the Game Master prompts that when answered, help her create interesting military units, but without any stats. The process consists of rolling a few dice and asking how each element fits together to make narrative sense. The author admits that the inspiration for the entries is the European Middle Ages, but they are flexible enough to apply to other settings inspired by other periods of history or fantasy settings. What the tables do not cover is magic or the more fantastical elements of a setting. That is left up to the Game Master decide on her own, since every world is different.

What is interesting here is not just the nature of a military unit, but the fact that it exists in a world and is a creation of that world. As the author points out, “…[M]iltaries are social and political institutions.” So, who and what the unit is, what it is asked to do, and more can do something unexpected and that is ask questions and suggest ideas about the world and background to the unit. Of course, the Game Master is probably going to be adding a unit to an existing world, rather than creating a unit and building out to create a whole world, but that still leaves questions that in answering, the Game Master can make her setting more interesting and more coherent.

What is interesting here is not just the nature of a military unit, but the fact that it exists in a world and is a creation of that world. As the author points out, “…[M]iltaries are social and political institutions.” So, who and what the unit is, what it is asked to do, and more can do something unexpected and that is ask questions and suggest ideas about the world and background to the unit. Of course, the Game Master is probably going to be adding a unit to an existing world, rather than creating a unit and building out to create a whole world, but that still leaves questions that in answering, the Game Master can make her setting more interesting.

To help bring the unit to life, the fanzine has tables for random encounters and patrols so that the Player Characters can run into the unit during play. This is not the only way in which the Player Characters can run into a military unit. It can be part of a Player Character’s background and so there is a table for his military experience, who his old comrades were, what souvenir he has of his time in service, and what sort of soldier he was. Tie this into a specific unit created using the previous tables and the Player Character has even more background.

This supported by fully worked examples showing how seemingly disparate results from the tables can be worked together to create a coherent unit and suggest some story hooks. Some of them have NPC descriptions too. And again, the examples can be used as is or as inspiration for the Game Master. Plus, there is advice from start to finish on how to use the tables and interpret the results. As the author points out, the tables are much looser and less structured than in the previous Pamphlet of Pantheons: Guide to Creating Fantasy Myths and Religions, and the results thus more open to interpretation and harder to work with. The point though, is to create military units with backgrounds and cultures that whilst not necessarily weird or odd, are anything other than clichés and add to the world even before the Game Master applies numbers.

Physically, Guide to Grunts: Inspiration for Creating Fantasy Armies and Soldiers is clean and tidy. It is lightly illustrated with lightly cartoonish artwork which suits the tone of the fanzine.

Guide to Grunts: Inspiration for Creating Fantasy Armies and Soldiers is not quite as useful as Pamphlet of Pantheons: Guide to Creating Fantasy Myths and Religions and it is not as easy to use. It requires more input from the Game Master who has to be more inventive because more specifics have to be created. Yet just like the previous fanzine, with a few rolls of the dice, the Game Master can use Guide to Grunts: Inspiration for Creating Fantasy Armies and Soldiers to develop her campaign world and help bring to life.