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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ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game was published in 1984 and would be the second licenced roleplaying game to be published by Chaosium, Inc. that year, the other being Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch. It came as a boxed set, used the Basic Roleplay percentile system, and was liberally illustrated using art from the comic books. Unlike that Science Fiction roleplaying game, it would be supported with three further supplements and a second edition, published as a single book rather than the boxed set in 1989. As a roleplaying game, ElfQuest has come in for some criticism by Sandy Petersen given its complexity of mechanics versus both the nature of the setting and the audience for the ElfQuest comic book series and thus the potential audience for the roleplaying game. Some of this criticism is justified as the rules are quite complex for anyone new to the roleplaying game hobby, being on a par with RuneQuest III, also published in 1984, but by Avalon Hill rather than Chaosium, Inc. However, anyone with experience of the Basic Roleplay system will have no issue learning to play ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game, the system being good enough that it plays today as well as it did in 1984.
The first edition of ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game was published as a boxed set. Inside can be found the eight-page ‘ElfQuest Box Contents’ booklet, the seventy-two page ‘Elfbook’, the thirty-six page ‘Worldbook’, the four-page ‘Example of Play’ pamphlet, the ‘World of Two Moons Map’, the thirty-two-page ‘Character Sheets’ booklet, and two twenty-sided dice and three six-sided dice. The ‘ElfQuest Box Contents’ booklet is not a booklet per se, but rather a sheaf of papers that actually consist of an ‘ElfQuest Box Contents’ and errata sheet, plus the ‘Reference Sheets’ for both character creation and running the game. The ‘Example of Play’ pamphlet depicts the situation that really begins the Wolfrider sage, the rescue of Redlance from the Humans about to sacrifice him. Liberally illustrated using the art from the scene in the comic book, the example of play deftly shows the game in play with a nicely action-packed scene. The ‘World of Two Moons Map’ depicts part of the World of Two Moons explored in the first twenty issues of the comic and is marked with the travel routes of the various characters in the story. It is also the only item in the boxed set to make any use of colour. The ‘Character Sheets’ booklet contains fifteen sample character sheets. They are notable for having nude silhouettes of Elves in various poses and two Trolls that the players can then draw on to depict their characters. Lastly, the two twenty-sided dice are marked with one to ten twice to be used as percentile dice.
The rules for ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game are contained in the ‘Elfbook’. This opens with an introduction from Richard Pini and an introduction to the World of Two Moons. Although the latter does mention Trolls and Humans, as well as the even tinier and odder Preservers, it of course, pays particular attention to the Elves, noting their origins, the different tribes (which of course, the Wolfriders are initially unaware of), their low birth rate, their magical abilities, customs, languages, and more. After this, the ‘Elfbook’ gives an issue synopsis for the first seventeen or so issues of the comic, before moving onto character creation.
However, one aspect of ElfQuest and ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game also covered in setting description is that of ‘Recognition’. This is the Elf instinct to find a mate and counter their species’ low birth rate. When two genetically compatible Elves meet, there is a chance they will form an empathic link and are driven by an inevitable and almost unavoidable biological urge to mate. This is Recognition. During character creation, there is a chance based on the age of the Elf that he begins play having undergone Recognition and may or may not still have a mate, which can be the Elf of another player. During play, there is a chance that when a Player Character Elf meets an Elf he has not met before, and is not yet Recognised, then Recognition can occur. This is represented by a roll against the Player Character’s Recognition score. It is important to note that the members of a Recognition couple do not have to like each other and so there is scope here for interesting roleplay between the two. However, the advice given for the Game Master is that this can be ignored for the purposes of the story, but the advice also states that the need to roll can be ignored and two Elves, whether a Player Character and an NPC or two Player Characters, can have Recognition between them for the needs of the story. Whilst there is plenty of story and roleplaying potential in such a situation occurring, places a great deal of power in the hands of the Game Master in terms of the emotions and relationships of both the Elves in question, and their characters. This is the one point of contention in ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game compared to the comic book and where the comic book and the roleplaying game greatly differ. It is undoubtedly faithful to the comic book and fans of the comic may well simply accept as part of the setting and even expect it to happen. However, some players may feel otherwise, and in that case, the Game Master is neither Richard nor Wendy Pini, and unlike them, does not, and should not, have the control over the fate of her players’ Elves. At least not without discussing it first and explaining to her players what Recognition is likely to mean in play. Of course, this is coming to the ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game with the benefit of another forty years of game design and roleplaying development, but Recognition could have been more sensitively and sensibly designed even in 1984.
An Elf in ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game has seven attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Size, Constitution, Intelligence, Appearance, and Power—which range roughly between three and eighteen. Magic Points and Hit Points are derived from these as are Hit Points per location, Damage Bonus, Experience Bonus, Movement Rate, and Strike Rank values. He will also have a number of skills and Magic Powers. The latter include Sending, the telepathic ability common to most Elves; Magic Feeling, the ability to sense magic; and for the Wolfriders, Wolf-Bonding. A Wolfrider will have stats for his bonded wolf. In addition to his name known to everyone, an Elf has a Soul Name, typically only known to himself and his recognised mate. Creating an Elf involves rolling for attributes, deriving the various secondary abilities, rolling for age and determining the number of skill points to assign beyond the base values, and then rolling for magical abilities and special attributes or disabilities, effectively advantages and disadvantages. By default, the Player Characters are Wolfriders, but options are given for the Sun Folk, Gliders or Blue Mountain Folk, Go-Backs, Sea Elves, Desert Elves, Plains Elves or Plainsrunners, Trolls, and Preservers. These are further detailed in terms of the mechanics at the back of the ‘Elfbook’, along with stats and details of the many characters from the comic book series. The result can range widely in terms of skills as an Elf can range in age between two and twelve hundred years old. It is possible for older Elves to have higher characteristics, but the Game Master is given the suggestion that everyone create a younger rather than an older character.
Character Name: Seeker
Soul Name: Starbright
Species: Elf Tribe: Wolfrider Age: 60
Gender: Female
Weight: 37 lbs. Height: 2’ 11”
Special Abilities: Exact Sense of Direction, Affinity for Stargazing
Rolled Characteristics
Strength 11 Dexterity 19 Size 3 Constitution 16 Intelligence 15 Appearance 18 Power 15
Magic Points: 15
Hit Points: 10
Head (AP 0/HP 4), Left Arm (AP 0/HP 3), Right Arm (AP 0/HP 3), Chest (AP 1/HP 5), Abdomen (AP 1/HP 4), Left Leg (AP 1/HP 4), Right Leg (AP 1/HP 4)
Derived Characteristics
Damage Bonus: – Experience Bonus: +7 Movement Rate: 4
DEX Strike Rank Modifier: 1 SIZ Strike Rank Modifier: 3 Base Strike Rank: 4
Skills
Animal Lore 40%, Climb 54%, Communication 33%, Dodge 88%, Elf Lore 55%, Healing Lore 30%, Human Lore 30%, Jump 60%, Language Lore 30%, Manipulation 30%, Mechanical Lore 08%, Mineral Lore 15%, Perception 80%, Plant Lore 30%, Ride (Wolf) 76%, Stealth 84%, Swim 30%, Throw 30%, Troll Lore 15%
Magic Powers
Sending 80%, Magic Feeling 15%, Wolf-Bonding 65%
Weapon Skills
Weapon: Sword Damage: 1d6+1
SR: 1 Attack: 80% Parry: 88%
Weapon: Bow Damage: 1d6+1
Rate: 2 Attack: 80% Range: 90
Mechanically, ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game uses the percentile system of Basic Roleplay. Rolls are made against a skill or on the Resistance Table—a mainstay of the basic Roleplay system—with a roll under being counted as a success. A roll under a fifth of the skill or value is a Special Success, whilst a roll under a twentieth of the skill or value is a Critical Success. A Critical Success means that a weapon will inflict maximum damage, a climber clambers up a cliff all the faster, and a crafter makes an item that is better or more valuable. A Special Success might mean that a healer heals more damage or a sage knows something extra about Elf Lore. Conversely, the reverse of a Critical Success is a Fumble, being equal to one twentieth of the skill or value, but if the player rolls very high.
Combat is straightforward and complex. It uses Strike Ranks—first introduced in RuneQuest—derived from a combatant’s Strength and Dexterity, and then modified by the length of weapon being wielded, as the means of handling when combatants act. Weapon blows can be parried, the Parry skill for any weapon being separate to the skill for the weapon, and also dodged. Damage is suffered per hit location and can be quite deadly, especially given that Elves have relatively few Hit Points, let alone Hit Points per location, and armour is light, even if worn. In practice, what this means is that an Elf should have a good Parry skill for his weapons as well as a good Dodge skill, and when that fails, definitely have a healer among the group. This is partially offset by the fact that the Player Characters can be highly skilled, ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game is a roleplaying game that just like the comic book it is based on, in which a lot of combat takes place and the World of Two Moons is a brutal one. Yet it all feels too complex for what it is trying to portray and too complex for its intended audience, or at least the intended audience outside of the roleplaying hobby. There were simpler versions of the Basic Roleplay system available in 1984, such that derived for use in the Worlds of Wonder roleplaying game which might have offered an easier and faster set of rules, let alone more forgiving, especially for combat.
This is compounded by a pairing of dissonate statements from the designer. At the start of the ‘Combat and Hunting’ chapter in the ‘Elfbook’, he writes, “Combat and hunting are integral parts of the lives of the elves on the World of Two Moons.” and continues with, “The rules below attempt to recreate the excitement and wonderment of the combat and hunting in the ElfQuest story.” However, he then states, “There is an inevitable temptation to make combat the entire activity in any fantasy roleplaying game. This is contrary to the spirit of the spirit which this game attempts to emulate and unnecessarily limiting to everyone involved. Combat provides a seasoning which provides an occasional thrill, whilst the main emphasis of the game is roleplaying.” This contrasting pair of statements begs the questions, why then make the combat so complex and why devote so much to it in the ‘Elfbook’?
Magic is divided into a number of powers. The Wolfriders have access to Sending, Magic Feeling, and Wolf-Bonding, as well as Animal Bonding, Plant Shaping, and Healing. Other tribes have access to other Magic Powers, such as the Astral Projection of the Sun Folk, Gliders, and High Ones, and the Fire-Starting of the High Ones. The Magic Powers are divided between telekinetic and telepathic categories, and in addition to skills being required to use, their practitioners have to expend Magic Points.
The ’Worldbook’ provides background and advice for the Game Master. It opens with the advice which feels painfully thin. It suggests that ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game can be played as either one-shot episodes or as a campaign and that either way, the challenge for the Game Master is create content for her players that is true to the spirit of the original comic book series, whilst being entertaining and offering different adventures, but without simply replicating the plot of the comic books. A handful of campaign set-ups are suggested. It is possible for the players to take the roles of members of the Wolfrider tribe and play a campaign based around them, as stats and write-ups are given for all of them. This is either as playing them in an earlier time period prior to the events of the comic book or playing through at least some of the events of the comic book knowing that beyond the starting point, the campaign will diverge from the comic book. This approach is supported by the scenarios in the ‘Worldbook’. A third option would be to play Elves of another tribe, one of several seen in the World of Two Moons and detailed in the ‘Elfbook’. However, the fourth option is the one that gets the most attention as that is the one that was playtested by the designer. This is play as separate tribe of Wolfriders, the Game Master needing to decide what if any, connection there is between the Player Character Wolfriders and the Wolfriders of the comic book.
The rest of the Game Master advice is on running the game and is cursory at best. There is no advice on writing scenarios and adventures suitable for ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game and there is no advice on themes and ideas that either the comic book series explores or that the roleplaying game could explore. For the Wolfriders, as told in the comic book series, it is about the search for a new home and finding their place in the world, discovering secrets about their origins, meeting new groups and exploring similarities and differences between them, exploring the bonds between the Elves, and so on. None of this is discussed in ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game and the result is underwhelming, if not frustrating.
Elsewhere, the ‘Worldbook’ details all of the environmental hazards that the Player Characters might encounter from weather and asphyxiation to disease and exposure. The flora and fauna section covers a wide range of creatures and plants from the World of Two Moons, including bloodworms, bristle boars, dream berries, and strangleweed. Before coming to a close with a handy glossary, the ‘Worldbook’ gives the Game Master three scenarios. The first two of these are adaptations of encounters from the comic book series. Scenario One, ‘Rescue’, lets the Player Characters reenact the rescue of Redlance as told at the start of ElfQuest and also used as an example of play in the ‘Example of Play’ pamphlet. It is a simple affair, designed to get the characters into the action and show the players how combat works. ‘The Menace in the Woods’ details the hunt for the creature Madcoil and focuses on combat as well as the use of magic in combat. Both are encounters rather than full adventures and designed to get the players used to the mechanics or to be used as an addition to a campaign. The third scenario, ‘Lord of the Spiders’ is wholly new and designed to be used as part of a campaign. It begins with the forest home of the Wolfriders dying and the Player Characters being sent out to look for a new home. First, they have to cross some nearby plains, surviving and hunting as they go. One of the best entries included on the encounter table is with some hunters from the Plainsrunner tribe of Elves which will afford some opportunities for roleplaying—more than the previous two scenarios. Ideally this should have been made an optional encounter rather than a random one to highlight its potential and to bring into play the theme of meeting other peoples and the possibility of the Recognition. When the Player Characters do discover a potential new forest home, they find it twisted and changed, and overrun with spiders. If they proceed further, they will encounter one of the High Ones, the original Elves who came to the World of Two Moons, driven mad by his long life alone. The scenario does involve quite a lot of combat, but there is potential for interesting exchanges with its primary antagonist that will likely leave the players and their characters with more questions than answers. It is certainly the most sophisticated scenario of the three in the ‘Worldbook’, and certainly has the most scope for roleplaying.
Physically, ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game is well presented in a clean and tidy set of books and accessories. The production values are certainly good for 1984 and everything is very readable and clearly presented. Plus, of course, the artwork of Wendy Pini shows off the World of Two Moons, the Wolfriders and their foes and allies, and their age to great effect as well as making ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game one of the best-looking roleplaying games for its time.
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ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game was reviewed by Rick Swan in the ‘Capsule Reviews’ department of Fantasy Gamer Number 6 (June/July 1984). He began with the following statement: “Imagine a cross between Conan the Barbarian and the Smurfs and you’ve got an idea of what ElfQuest is all about.” He commented that, “Although a dream come true for ElfQuest fans, this is not a game for beginning roleplayers. There are over 100 pages of rules to digest, including 19 pages of relatively complex combat rules (which is strange, considering designer Steve Perrin states that combat is generally “contrary to the spirit of the story and should therefore be de-emphasized). There isn’t much in the way of magic, and the variety of creatures and encounters is also fairly limited. This is true to the setting of ElfQuest, but roleplayers used to the scope of systems like Dungeons & Dragons or Traveller may find this world too constricting. Those unfamiliar with the original sage may be at a loss as to what to do next; three scenarios are provided, but they’re actually little more than single situations used to illustrate the rules rather than full-fledged adventures.”Rick Swan concluded that, “Familiarity with the original ElfQuest is just about a prerequisite for the complete enjoyment of the game. Check out the books first (and since they’re a delight, you won’t be sorry). For those who are already fans of ElfQuest, waste no time in investing in a copy of this game.”It was reviewed in ‘Open Box’ by Murray Whittle in White Dwarf Issue 60 (December 1984). He said, “The game, utilising the simplicity of the RuneQuest characteristics and skills system, concentrates squarely on storytelling and the creation of atmosphere.” Before awarding the roleplaying game an overall score of nine out of ten, he concluded that, “This is not a game for the traditional wargamer, who will find a lack of emphasis on tactical or combat skills, which are relegated to the last section of the players’ book. The established RuneQuest player will also find little that he could not engineer for himself from reading the series. This is really the nicest RPG I have seen to give someone as a present. It would suit especially a new player or the parents of young children, who will undoubtedly love the elves wholeheartedly, but also any player who really cares about The Story.”Michael DeWolfe reviewed not only ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game, but also The ElfQuest Companion and The Sea Elves supplements, in the ‘Game Reviews’ section of Different Worlds Issue 46 (May/June 1987). He awarded the roleplaying game three stars out of five and said, “Overall, the entire game is well done.” and described it as an, “…[O]utstanding example of game design.” After reviewing both the roleplaying and the two supplements, he said that for the fans, “[A]ll three products add to an ElfQuest fan’s knowledge of the characters and the world.”, whilst for the gamer, “[T]his is a change of pace from normal role-playing games. It doesn’t focus on powerful sorcerers and multi-racial parties, nor does it involve towns and ancient castles. The setting is new but may become boring for not a few. A suggestion: don’t worry about rewriting the comic with your exploits, just don’t rewrite the setting or logic of the world. ElfQuest is a good game in most facets and can be recommended.”
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Ultimately, ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game is let down by its design and its mechanics that in many ways, do not fit the setting or source material. They feel too cumbersome and there is an emphasis on combat and on the intricacies of combat that not only runs counter the designer’s own advice, but makes the roleplaying game and potentially the roleplaying hobby a daunting prospect to anyone coming to ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game as a fan of the comic book series. This is compounded by a lack of advice for the Game Master on running the game and the failure to explore the themes of the comic book in the roleplaying game. Arguably, whether by intent or by effect, ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game is not designed at all for fans of the Richard and Wendy Pini comic book series who have never roleplayed, but for fans who do roleplay and for those who do roleplay and are intrigued enough by the roleplaying game to want to read the comic.
Nevertheless, ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game is playable as written. The mechanics and rules are serviceable and tried and tested. The details of the setting are all there. It is possible to play a good, even a great campaign of ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game, but that will be due to the input and development of many a great Game Master, along with her players, rather than the roleplaying game itself.
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The Kickstarter campaign for ElfQuest Classic Deluxe, the remastered fortieth anniversary boxed set of the ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game can be found here.
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