Crime at Christmas

It is the time of year when a man’s mind turns to murder. Not because he have had enough of his family and his relatives for one year—and just in one day—but because it is traditional to enjoy murder mysteries, whether on the page or one the screen. And of course, such murders should be as cozy as possible. Then, if that murder is cozy, the detectives need to be equally as cozy. When not cooing and aahing over the very latest tragic death that has occurred under their noses, they like attending to their gardens, participating in the Women’s Institute, reading the next title to discuss as part of their book club, knitting something suitable for a grandniece or nephew, organising the next village fete, and singing in the church choir. These are the Matrons of Mystery, older ladies of leisure whose surreptitious and unobtrusive nature means that they get overlooked when investigating crimes and searching for clues, and eventually putting together a solution which unmasks the perpetrator! Matrons of Mystery is an investigative roleplaying game in which there are mysteries and there are clues to be uncovered, but there is no set solution. And if the Matrons do not get quite get their solution right the first time, they can investigate further and propose another solution!This is what Matrons of Mystery: A cozy mystery roleplaying game—and Brindlewood Bay, the roleplaying game by Jason Cordova it is derived from—both do.

Christmas Crime: Three festive mysteries for Matrons of Mystery presents three more mysteries for the Matrons to solve, but all with a Christmas theme. Each of the three comes with a description of the theme, sets the scene with a set-up, details of the victim, suggests ways in which the Matrons can get involved, and the Teaser, essentially that scene before the opening credits when everyone’s obvious relationships are established and then the dead body of the murder victim is dramatically revealed (cue dramatic music!). This is followed by seven or eight possible suspects, each with a description and reason to want to murder the victim. Lastly there is a lengthy list of clues to be found.

The trilogy starts with ‘Oh No They Didn’t’, which opens with the dress rehearsal for the village amateur dramatics society’s annual Christmas pantomime at the village hall coming to an abrupt halt when Willow Jackson, the lovely young actress playing the lead role of Cinderella, is found lying in the middle of the stage in a pool of blood! Ideally, one of the Matrons should be playing the role of the Fairy Godmother, but the murder mystery suggests other roles too. The second mystery, ‘Bake or Death’, takes place at the village’s annual baking contest with three contests being of note—best mince pie, best biscuit, and best cake. Of these, the best cake competition is subject to the fiercest rivalries. The victim is Lisa Monroe, relative newcomer to the villager and winner of the contest three years in a row. Unfortunately, she is unlikely to winner a fourth time after she is found dead with a cake ribbon wrapped around her neck! The Matrons can be the Judges, contestants, or the organisers. The trio comes to a close with ‘Slay Ride’ in which Bob Chandler, the owner of the local stable yard, who every year plays Santa Claus and provides a carriage as Father Christmas’ sleigh for the village Christmas fete, is found dead in the stables. The Matrons can be organisers of the fete, friends of Bob Chandler, or simply like horses. The teaser as a somewhat gruesome tone when it turns out that Rudolph the Horse’s nose is not red simply because, but because it has something red on it…*

* “Why Rudolph, you’ve got red on you.”

All three cases, the various suspects have secrets and reasons to kill the respective victims. Most of them are not all that nice and all of them are rampant stereotypes typical of the genre. So, there is scope aplenty here for the Game Master to ham up her portrayal of the NPCs, since these episodes—as per the genre—is being broadcast in the middle of the afternoon or the middle of the evening, the perfect cozy, easy spots for the genre. Further, the mysteries themselves are stereotypical, even clichés, of the genre. Or rather as they are properly called, classics. What lifts these classics up above the ordinary is the fact that there is not set solution to the murders. The players and their Matrons can discover the clues, question the suspects, verify alibis, and deduce the identity of the culprit and his or her motivations, and in the process provide a comfortably cozy entertainment, whilst the Game Master gets to portray a cast riddled with jealousies, insecurities, and secrets. Plus, just like the cozy murder mysteries themselves, the murder mysteries in Christmas Crime are just as undemanding when it comes to set-up.

Physically, Christmas Crime is neatly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated bar the Christmasy front cover. The only that it lacking is some locations for the mysteries to play out in, but the Game Master and her players should be able to improvise those.

What could be cozier than death at Christmas, than the comfortable clichés and mild murders of Christmas Crime: Three festive mysteries for Matrons of Mystery?

Ten Saves Nine

A Stitch in Time is both a campaign for Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition and not a campaign for Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition. It is a campaign in the sense that there is a connected thread that runs through all ten of its episodes, but not a campaign in the sense that there is no overarching plot or threat that the Player Characters will be aware of and must find a way to deal with by the tenth episode. Instead, the series arc is a threat that the Player Characters must deal with in the tenth episode—just as there is in every episode—but they will not be aware of it until the tenth episode and they will not be aware that they have been preparing to face it for the previous nine episodes. So rather than a campaign, what A Stitch in Time actually is, is a complete series that the Game Master can run for her Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game. Although written for use with Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition and thus ostensibly for the Thirteenth Doctor, the ten episodes can easily be run using any of the other Doctors and their Companions, or indeed the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions. Or, of course, it can be run using the players’ own Time Lord and Companions. It could even be run with another team of time travellers, using a means other than a TARDIS to travel through time and space, but although A Stitch in Time does include some advice on the changes needed to make it run without a Time Lord and his TARDIS, it is written with the assumption that the Player Characters include a Time Lord and have a TARDIS. Alternatively, A Stitch in Time could be used as an anthology of scenarios which the Game Master can draw from for her own campaign rather than use as a whole.

A Stitch in Time is published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment and will take the travellers back and forth across time and space, from Earth to outer space, and back again. From an English holiday camp in the here and now, a disused prison complex in the far future, and an animation studio in Burbank, California, 1932 to the Battle of Hastings, a hospital out of time, and a threatened utopia in the twenty-sixth century. On the way, the Player Characters will meet a Dalek, a Silurian, the Nestene Consciousness, a lot of Sontarans and Ice Warriors, a Time Lord, and more. Every episode follows the same format. It has an Introduction, a Call To Adventure—what gets the Player Characters involved, an explanation of What’s Going On, the three Acts of the story, and the Epilogue. The What’s Going On section ends with the ‘Series Arc’ explaining how the episode ties in with the ongoing story. These ties all take the form of objects—objects which all together can be used to defeat the threat in the tenth episode of A Stitch in Time. Effectively, as the Player Characters will eventually learn, they have been on an intergalactic scavenger hunt to defeat a gigantic threat. If the Player Characters have not collected all of the items needed by the tenth episode, then there is a solution. Time travel. Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition is a time travel roleplaying game, so there is scope for the Player Characters to go back and forth through time, although the does warn about the dangers of meeting themselves, which of course, is the Blinovitch Limitation Effect.

A Stitch in Time begins in slightly underwhelming fashion as the Player Characters protect some escaped political intergalactic prisoners who have crash-landed outside an English seaside holiday camp. There is some fun to be had to playing around with the traditional aspects of setting, but some of the nuances may be lost on a non-British audience, whilst a British audience is likely to want to shift the episode from the present day to the nineteen fifties. More so given that the episode is called, ‘Hi-De-Hide’. The action picks with ‘The Most Dangerous Monster’, which is set on a former prison complex, which has been refitted as a tourist destination in which the tourists come to hunt the galaxy’s most dangerous game. No guesses for what that is, but this a nice homage to the Ninth Doctor episode, ‘Dalek’. ‘Silver Screams’ takes place at an animation studio—that is very definitely not Disney—in 1932 in Burbank, California, where for some reason the film stock and the props take on a deadly life of their own. Cue fun with a giant Merry Mallard! In ‘Everything Most Go’, the time travellers find themselves at the biggest shopping complex in the universe and most find out why every customer is being evacuated except the Sontarans and the Ice Warriors. Just what they shopping for? None of them can come armed, so there is an amusing description of the Sontarans having armed themselves via the kitchenware department! In ‘Protect and Survive’, the timeline becomes imperilled when it is revealed what exactly lies beneath the Battle of Hastings and in ‘Emergency Ward 26’, the Player Characters find themselves in a tricky situation in time that makes it the hardest of the ten scenarios in the book for the Game Master to run. Later episodes include a classic museum heist in ‘The Great Sonic Caper’ and a Cyberpunk-style medical mystery in ‘Green for Danger’ before the series comes to a close with ‘Save Nhein’ which rounds off A Stitch in Time. (And yes, we know...)

There is a coda to A Stitch in Time which suggests directions in which the Game Master might take her campaign after completing the series it presents, whilst also wondering how the episodes are connected in ways more than the scavenger hunt it is. Is there someone or something manipulating the Player Characters? Are they being testing? The coda does not present any answers, so this is really prompts for the Game Master to think about where A Stitch in Time fits in her campaign and what it might link to. Perhaps though, Cubicle 7 Entertainment will answer these prompts in a future supplement?

Physically, A Stitch in Time is cleanly, tidily laid out, decently written, and illustrated with the Thirteenth Doctor and her Companions as well as the monsters that the Player Characters will meet in the course of the series. One of the issues with the ten scenarios in A Stitch in Time is that they are presented in narrative fashion. There are no maps or floor plans, and there are no illustrations of any of the NPCs in the scenarios. Which means that the Game Master has to work that much harder to visualise both locations and characters and impart that to her players.

A Stitch in Time is stronger as an anthology of episodes rather than as a traditional roleplaying campaign. It is also a decent series with many of its scenarios making for exciting episodes that you could imagine being made for the television screen rather than for playing around the table. Of the ten, ‘The Most Dangerous Monster’ and ‘Emergency Ward 26’ are classics, whilst there is room aplenty to lean into the comic potential of both ‘Hi-De-Hide’ and ‘Silver Screams’ with the Game Master and her players acknowledging the obvious inspirations for the pair. In whatever way the Game Master decides to use it, A Stitch in Time is solid support for her Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition campaign.

The Other OSR: Welcome to Strangeville

Strangeville is a town like any other, which means that it is beset by monsters and robots and dinosaurs and aliens, and because the adults never believe in monsters and robots and dinosaurs and aliens until it is too late, the only standing between the monsters and robots and dinosaurs and aliens and Strangeville’s doom are the kids! Young teenagers on bikes or skateboards or even roller-skates with the curiosity to notice that something strange is going in where else, but Strangeville! Welcome to Strangeville then, an Old School Renaissance compatible roleplaying game based on Knave. Published by Doomed Wizard Games, it is obviously based also on the television series Stranger Things as well as Paper Girls, The Goonies, and just any adventure film or television series set in the eighties in which the kids are the heroes. Being based on Knave it offers fast-playing stripped down mechanics, whilst also suggesting collaborative worldbuilding between the players and the Game Master. What it does not do is provide anything in terms of spells or monsters beyond advice on how to adapt them to Welcome to Strangeville. Thus, the Game Master will need access to a bestiary and a source of spells of some kind. That said, the Old School Renaissance is not exactly short of those.

In Welcome to Strangeville, a Player Character has six abilities—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma—each of which has a Check Bonus and a Save bonus. The Check Bonus ranges between one and six and is added to the die roll when a Player Character undertakes an action. The Save Bonus is equal to the Check Bonus plus ten, and it is what the Player Character rolls against when tyring withstand various dangers or effects. He has an Alignment, either Nark, Slacker, or Bogus. Nark indicates that the Player Character believes in the greater good rather than the individual, a Slacker cares more about himself, but can be roused to action, and if a character is Bogus, he is definitely selfish, if not downright evil. He has a number of Traits such as Age—between twelve and fourteen, Physique, Hair, Virtue, Vice, Speech, Parents, and Parent Occupation, and so on. He will also have some gear which will include either a bicycle, a skateboard, or a pair of roller-skates so that he can get around.

To create a character, a player rolls three six-sided dice for each ability and assigns the lowest rolled as the Check Bonus. He adds ten to the Check Bonus to get the Save Bonus for the ability. Having done this for each ability, selects an Alignment and rolls for Traits, Gear, and means of transport.

At thirteen Terrell Thompson is beginning to get big and broad, which has made him a pick for the high school football team. He tries to keep himself out of trouble, but as the new kid in the school—his mom having moved to Strangeville to work in the town pharmacy, together with his size, he feels he gets picked on when things go wrong. So, he is not always trusting, but when he does make friends, he stands by them.

Terrell Thompson
Level: One

Strength Check +3/Save Bonus 13
Dexterity Check +3/Save Bonus 13
Constitution Check +4/Save Bonus 14
Intelligence Check +2/Save Bonus 12
Wisdom Check +3/Save Bonus 13
Charisma Check +1/Save Bonus 11

Hit Points 8

TRAITS
Age: 13 Gender: Male
Physique: Towering Face: Wide Skin: Perfect Hair: Dreadlocks Clothing: Torn
Virtue: Loyal Vice: Prejudiced
Speech: Breathy
Misfortunes: Suspected
Parents: Widowed Mother Parent’s Occupation: Pharmacist
Alignment: Slacker

GEAR
Swiss Army Knife, lantern & oil, caltrops, perfume, skateboard

Mechanically, Welcome to Strangeville is straightforward. To have his teenager undertake an action, a player rolls a twenty-sided die, adds the appropriate ability check and if the result is fifteen or more, he succeeds. The target may vary—primarily in combat because the target is likely to have a different value for its Dexterity Save, but otherwise, Welcome to Strangeville uses the standard Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic. Strength is used for physical actions, melee combat, and extra damage, Dexterity for speed and reflexes, Constitution to resist diseases and poisons, Intelligence for anything involving concentration and precision, including tinkering with machinery or picking pockets, Wisdom for perception and ranged attacks, and Charisma whenever a character interacts with someone else. Thus, there are some minor changes in how the abilities in comparison to more traditional Old School Renaissance retroclones.

Combat uses the same mechanics, with the defender’s Save acting as the target. This can be to inflict damage, and Welcome to Strangeville suggests that firearms be extremely be hard to hold of as the Player Characters are teenagers, or it can be stunts such as disarming an opponent or knocking them over. Most weapons inflict a four- or six-sided die in terms of damage, whilst rifles and shotguns do more. When a Player Character’s Hit Points are reduced to zero, he is unconscious and if they are reduced to his Constitution Check as a negative value, he is dead, that is if he has a Constitution Check of +2 and his Hit Pits are reduced to -2, he is dead. Critical hits occur if the player rolls a twenty and a fumble occurs if he rolls a one.

Other rules are quick and easy. Stunts on bicycles, skateboards, and so on, require a Dexterity check, it is possible to subdue an opponent, and a Player Character has a number of item slots equal to his Constitution Save. There are narrative elements too. For example, Group Advantage can be gained for everyone’s next action two or more Player Characters declare a collective action and their players narrate how a previous incident helps them with this one, but the primary narrative element to Welcome to Strangeville comes in the set-up when the players and the Game Master work together to create and describe the town of Strangeville. During Session Zero, each player also creates a handful of rumours and urban legends about places in the town, monsters that lurk, houses said to be haunted, serial killers believed to stalk, and so on. The Game Master takes these and deicides which are true and which are false, using as many or as few as she likes to both establish a sense of mystery and weirdness about Strangeville, whilst also using some as the basis for adventures. Beyond this, the advice for the Game Master is fairly brief, primarily focusing on how to adapt and use monsters and spells from other sources, noting that a spell takes a slot in a Player Character’s inventory.

Physically, Welcome to Strangeville is a bit scruffy in places and the artwork does vary in quality. It is clearly written and anyone with any experience of the Old School Renaissance will grasp how it works with ease. The cover though, is good.

Although it uses the stripped back mechanics of Knave, what Welcome to Strangeville is not, is an introductory roleplaying game. It is not written as such, and is more aimed at the experienced Game Master who can develop the ideas suggested by her players during their Session Zero. Given that it does have to rely on other Old School Renaissance sourcebooks for its content, Welcome to Strangeville is underwritten in comparison to other roleplaying games in its genres and a group looking for a more rounded treatment of the ‘kids in peril’ genre may want to look elsewhere. However, for a group that prefers Old School Renaissance and is prepared to put the development work in to create their own setting and the Game Master their ‘kids in peril’ adventures, Welcome to Strangeville is a succinct little choice.

1984: Ringworld

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.

—oOo—

Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch was and is a rare beast in many ways. It is rare because it is a hard Science Fiction roleplaying game, published at a time when the genre leaned more towards the Space Opera subgenre. It is rare because it is one of publisher Chaoisum, Inc.’s only two forays into the Science Fiction genre, the other being the ‘Future World’ setting from Worlds of Wonder, published in 1982. Lastly, it is literally rare because it has long been out of print and copies are hard to come by. Published in 1984, Ringworld is primarily based upon the Larry Niven novel of the same name, published in 1970, which would win Nebula Award in 1970 and both the Hugo Award and Locus Award in 1971. Ringworld tells the story of a group of explorers in the mid twenty-ninth century who travel far outside of Known Space to determine if a massive astronomical object is a threat to their employer. This object is the ‘Ringworld’ of the title, a ring one million miles wide with the approximate diameter of the Earth’s orbit and the inner surface area equal to three million Earths. It is habitable, for it has a breathable atmosphere, rotates to provide gravity, a moderate temperature, and a day/night cycle provided by an inner ring of shadow squares. Ringworld and the ‘ringworld’ was the very definition of the term ‘big dumb object’, but what it presented was a wide-open space to explore, both in the novels and in Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch.

The setting for Ringworld is Known Space, an area roughly sixty light years across, and beyond in the twenty-ninth century. Earth is a stable society with citizens free to pursue their own ambitions and the time to do it, but need permission to procreate to prevent overpopulation. Scientific research is highly regulated to avoid the creation of weapons of mass destruction. The discovery of Booster Spice enables individuals to live for centuries without dying except via an accident. Psionic abilities such as telepathy and telekinesis—and most notably ‘luck’, are not unknown. Mankind has settled numerous systems and adapted to a number of different environments, and fought the Kzinti, a highly aggressive, male-dominated cat-like species, in a series of wars that would see humanity prevail each time. Hyperspace travel is common and most spaceships are built using one of several types of virtually indestructible General Products Hull, sold by the General Products company. General Products is owned by the Pierson’s Puppeteers, a highly intelligent non-humanoid species with three hoofed legs and two snake-like heads who are fanatical cowards. The Pierson’s Puppeteers hire the original mission to the Ringworld and have been secretly manipulating and influencing the course of both human and Kzinti development in order to protect themselves.

In Ringworld, the Player Characters are either Humans, Kzin, or Puppeteers. The original mission to the Ringworld—as described in the first book in the series—has taken place and the Player Characters have the opportunity to conduct follow up expeditions as well as explore far beyond the relatively small region visited by the original expedition. The scenario included in the roleplaying game, ‘The Journey of the Catseye’ will take the Player Characters to the Ringworld.

Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch came as a richly packed box which contained the then obligatory ‘What’s in this Box’ sheet, four books, a booklet of extra essays and character sheets, a sheet of ‘Explorer Figures’, and a set of dice. The four books are the sixty-page ‘Explorer Book’, the forty-eight page ‘Gamemaster Book’, the forty-four-page ‘Creatures Book’, and the thirty-six-page ‘Technology Book’. The booklet is the ‘Ringworld: Autopilot Print-Out’. Bar the book covers, everything is presented in black and white with some excellent illustrations by Lisa Free. Everything feels of the highest quality, at least for 1984, and this was reflected in the price, Ringworld costing $25 at the time. This was seen as expensive for a roleplaying game in 1984. In terms of source material, the Ringworld roleplaying game draws from the novels Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers, The World of Ptavvs, A Gift From Earth, Protector, and Neutron Star. Notably, the ‘What’s in this Box’ sheet explains why there is no map of the Ringworld. At the bottom of the sheet is a band, one-half-inch wide. If this represents one million miles—the width of the Ringworld, then the scale circumference of the Ringworld would be twenty-five feet! This it suggests, “…[W]ill give the players a very good idea of the actual proportions (and awesome size) of Ringworld.” The full credits and all those with an input in the creation of the Ringworld roleplaying game are listed on the back of the sheet.

The ‘Explorer Book’ introduces the setting of Known Space, the basic rules, descriptions of Earth and the worlds settled by humanity, plus the rules for creating characters. The latter includes Humans, Kzin, and Puppeteers. The Ringworld roleplaying game uses the Basic Roleplay System, so a character is defined by Strength, Mass, Constitution, Intelligence, Power, Dexterity, Appearance, and Education. These are on the same scale as other Basic Roleplay System roleplaying games, although Education can be much, much higher as Player Characters can be much older than the average in other roleplaying games. A character also has a home world which determines the gravity under which he grew up, a potential defect like albinism, boosterspice allergy, or hyperspace blindspot phobia, and an age. Notably, the age is split between actual age and physical age, as this differs depending upon when the Player Character begins taking booster spice. There is a chance that a Player Character has a psionic ability. Lastly, the Player Character will have a range of skills, which are divided into five categories—Agility, Communication, Perception, Knowledge, and Technical—and also divided between Single and Root skills. A Single skill has a straight value, but a Root skill has a base beyond which the Player Character must specialise. For example, the Hyperdrive skill, which handles spaceship piloting, has a base beyond which the pilot must specialise in Quantam 1 and Quantam 2 hyperdrives.

Player Character creation is a matter of rolling for all of these elements. This is apart from Education, which is an open-ended roll. The final value will determine the basic starting age for the Player Characters. After that, a Player Character can have one or more Occupations which grants access to particular skills, the number being based on years after completing education. A Player Character is given a number of points to spend on Education skills, Pursuits—or Occupations, and Special Interests—hobbies. The process is not difficult, but with older characters this means that the process takes longer and that it can lead to characters with widely varying ages and thus skill values.

Our sample would-be explorer is a journalist and tridee presenter. He has been hearing rumours of a spaceflight out to an unknown object beyond the borders of Known space. He wants to get the first footage and he wants to be famous because of it.

Name: Jonathon Leung
Species: Human
Homeworld (Gravity): Earth (Normal)
Age – Physical: 23 Age – Chronological: 47
Occupations: Journalist
Defect: None
Strength 14 Mass 16 Constitution 14 Intelligence 12 Power 17 Dexterity 15 Appearance 14 Education 26
Damage Modifier: +1d3
General Hit Points: 30
Health Roll: 42% Reasoning Roll: 36% Luck Roll: 54% Dodge Roll: 45%
Action Ranking: 4

SKILLS
AGILITY Root Maximum: 31%
Athletics 31% (Run 35%), Hide 30%, Sneak 25%, Unarmed Combat 20%
COMMUNICATION Root Maximum: 26%
Bargain 50%, Debate 65%, Fast Talk 50%, Fine Arts 25%, Orate 65%, Own Language (Interworld) 100%, Perform 26% (Tridee Presentation 85%), Psychology 26% (Human 65%)
KNOWLEDGE Root Maximum: 38%
Anthropology 38% (Cultural Anthropology 60%), History 38% (Known Space Conspiracy Theories 58%) (Spaceflight and Colonisation History 45%), Law 20%, Second Language (Kzinti) 20%
PERCEPTION Root Maximum: 31%
Listen 25%, Observe 45%, Search 45%
TECHNICAL Root Maximum: 27%

Mechanically, Ringworld is a percentile system as per the Basic Roleplay system. Roll equal to or under the skill or a Health Roll or Reasoning Roll, for example, and the action is a success. If the result is a fifth of a skill or a Health Roll, then it is a Special Success, but a Special Failure if the result is over the target value and in the top twentieth percent. A roll of ninety-six or above is invariably a failure, although this will be modified if the skill is above one hundred percent. In skill contests, the lowest, successful skill roll wins, whilst the Resistance Table is used for contests involving attributes. In addition to improving skills via the standard method of the Basic Roleplay system, it is possible to improve skills and attributes via virtual training in the Simweb (part of the scenario included in Ringworld includes the opportunity to train in the ship’s Simweb).

Combat in Ringworld is not conducted round by round as per traditional roleplaying games, but in Impulses. Each Impulse is a United Nations Standard second long. In terms of time, a character, whether a Player Character or an NPC, can take Minor Actions and Major Actions. Minor Actions include firing a ranged weapon, falling over, and standing up from a kneeling position. A Minor Action takes one second or Impulse to perform. Major Actions include aiming a ranged weapon, attacking with a melee weapon or unarmed, drawing or stowing a weapon, and so on. A Major Action takes a number of Impulses to perform equal to a character’s Action Rating, derived from his Dexterity. For a human, this Action Rating is typically between three and six. For a Kzin, it ranges between four and two. Once the participants in a fight have declared their actions, the Game Master counts the Impulses up and when she reaches the Impulse when an action for a Player Character or NPC triggers, the action will take place, with rolls being made, as necessary. Effectively, this is a continuous count up, allowing continuous freedom of actions rather than restricting actions to the confines of a single round.

The Impulse system for actions for Ringworld remains a radical design, it being very rare to see anything similar in other roleplaying games—Aces & Eights Reloaded from Kenzer and Co. being a rare exception. However, it does force a player and Game Master alike to focus on the constant action, as procedurally, there is never a break in the process as there would be where combat is conducted round by round, and it does favour Player Characters and NPCs with better Action Ratings.

Melee or unarmed attacks can be parried or dodged, whilst ranged attacks in general cannot. Advanced weapons like the variable sword or the flashlight laser, are exceptions to this. Whilst a flashlight laser can be blocked by numerous surfaces, including armour, only a stasis field or the scrith material which the Ringworld is constructed of will stop a variable sword. If an attack is successful, the hit location is determined randomly, but can be adjusted by aiming. This adds an extra Impulse per change in location. Damage inflicted that exceeds a location’s Hit points will either render the limb useless, or render the character unconscious if the head, chest, or abdomen. If the damage suffered is more than twice a location’s Hit Points, a limb will be severed, bleeding or dying if the chest or abdomen, or dead if the head. Make no mistake, combat is deadly in Ringworld, especially given that a laser rifle will inflict ‘1d10+30’ points of damage, a flashlight laser anywhere between zero and fifty points of damage, and a variable sword ‘1d20+5’. Some armour is available, but it varies widely in its effectiveness. Ideally though, the Player Characters should not be engaging in combat unless they have to, and if they do, ultimately, they should have access to an autodoc which will provide effective, but slow healing for most damage suffered.

What is clear from Ringworld is that despite its size and the complexity of background, the rules themselves are not. A group with experience of the Basic Roleplay system will grasp them with ease, but at just eleven pages they are clearly explained and easy to understand. Character creation is slightly more, especially when taking into account the rules for creating Kzin or Puppeteer Player Characters found at the back of the ‘Explorer Book’.

Both the ‘Creatures Book’ and the ‘Technology Book’ provide more background and details of the setting. The ‘Technology Book’ covers all of the devices to be found across Known Space and beyond, some of which the Player Characters will be likely to equip themselves with or take to the Ringworld. It ranges from generators, computers, and medical equipment to vehicles, weapons, and protective devices. Weapons include Slaver disintegrators, hand beamers, flashlight lasers, the euphoria-inducing tasp, and more. Vehicles include the incredibly speedy flycycle as well as General Products Hull Types. All of it is highly detailed, especially the starships, and highly readable.

Similarly, the content of the ‘Creatures Book’ is also highly detailed and highly readable, if not more so in the case of the latter. It can be divided into five sections. The first details the ‘Aliens’ found across Known Space, such as the Bandersnatchi, Grogs, Kdatlyno, and more. Dolphins are also included, although they are not available as a Player Character species. The second presents a lengthy examination of the Pak, the aggressively xenophobic and protective species suspected of being the builders of the Ringworld. The third details the various ‘Hominids’ found on the Ringworld. These include the City Builders, Ghouls, Healers, Sea People, Vampires, and others. The last two sections are devoted to ‘Animals’ and ‘Flora’. The most notable of the latter includes the Slaver Sunflowers which targeted the first expedition to the Ringworld. All of the entries are accorded a full page’s worth of background and detail, if not more in several cases, presenting the various species as different in terms of both culture and biology.

The majority of the entries in Ringworld are essays, whether that is descriptions of the aliens and hominids in the ‘Creatures Book’ or guides to first Known Space, and then the Kzin, and the Puppeteers from the ‘Explorer Book’. This continues in the ‘Gamemaster Book’ and then in the ‘Ringworld: Autopilot Print-Out’. The latter includes essays about ‘Ringworld from Space’, the ‘Infinity-Horizon’ (since the Ringworld has no horizon), ‘A Day on Ringworld’, ‘The Darkside of Ringworld’, and ‘The Starry Night Sky of Ringworld’. The ‘Gamemaster Book’ describes the Ringworld in some detail, covering its physical structure, the technology that maintains it and can still be found on the Ringworld—especially on the rim, and the geography and ecosystem. There is background too on the City Builders, the species which most recently dominated the Ringworld, building floating cities and exploring and trading with other worlds, until a technological disaster caused the cities to fall out of the sky and other technologies to fail, as well as other Hominid Technology found on the Ringworld. These are all excellent essays containing a wealth of detail and background to the Ringworld. Perhaps the most obviously gameable here are the sections on ‘Puppeteer Secrets’ and ‘Ringworld Secrets’, the nearest that the roleplaying game gets to scenario hooks. There are rules for psionics as well.

The ‘Gamemaster Book’ comes to a close with ‘The Journey of the Catseye’. This is an introductory scenario designed to get the Player Characters to the Ringworld. The captain of the Catseye, a General Products No. 4 starship wants to employ a pilot and an engineer as well as security guards and scientists to join him on an expedition to a strange object outside of Known Space where his client hopes an alternative to boosterspice might be found. Both ship and crew are described in detail as is the journey, which gives the Player Characters the opportunity to test out the Simweb. Unfortunately, and much like the Lying Bastard in the Ringworld novel, the Catseye suffers catastrophic damage and is forced to crash land on the Ringworld. Much of the scenario revolves around making repairs to the ship and finding the parts needed, which will sometimes bring the Player Characters into conflict with the indigenous species. The scenario is detailed up to the point where it leaves the Player Characters at a moment of decision as to what they want to do next. There is no satisfying conclusion to the story and if the players have read Ringworld, the plot of ‘The Journey of the Catseye’ is worryingly similar. For all of the set-up, all of the detail, and all of the wonder to the Ringworld, ‘The Journey of the Catseye’ is quite mundane.

The scenario is not the only entry in the ‘Gamemaster Book’ to underwhelm. Not much more than two-and-half pages, the advice for the Game Master is much shorter than it needed to be. It tells the Game Master that she needs to create a logical campaign background with excitement to hold player interest. She is told it entails work and that she should plan for contingencies, but never quite told how. There is good advice on the challenge of how the Player Characters interact with the various natives and civilisations on the Ringworld, that is, to understand Ringworld is not a simple game of banditry in which they wander the land astride their great flycycle steeds ready to impose their will with their trusty flashlight lasers, and that even if they do, there will be someone on the Ringworld who can outfight them. Instead, the Player characters should rely on diplomacy and persuasion. Yet the ready access to highly powerful technology does give the Player Characters an advantage and the Game Master is going to need to work harder in creating scenarios and campaigns where violence is an option, but the least advantageous option. All of this takes place in an environment that has a surface area three times the size of the Earth in a setting that is highly technical and highly detailed technically. This is an issue with any roleplaying game that fits into the hard Science Fiction genre, the players are going to want the technical details and an idea of how things work. Often with a view to the technology providing a solution, which means that there is a tension between the players and their characters wanting to rely on their advanced technology, and the Game Master wanting to occasionally provide scenarios where its use is not as helpful. So, the Game Master needs to have some idea of how the technologies of Ringworld and Known Space work—and that is before writing a scenario or campaign.

The issue with Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch, ultimately, is what does a Game Master do with it? Everything about it is simply big—the enormous size of the Ringworld, the technology, and the questions about it. There are sixty questions listed in the ‘Ringworld Mysteries’ section, but none of them are really small and manageable. The idea of running Ringworld is already a formidable prospect, without a Game Master having to devise answers to questions that the creator of Known Space, Larry Niven, is best placed to answer. Overall, Ringworld needed more detailed and better advice on being an exploration roleplaying game, of handling technology so that it does not become a crutch, and so on.

Physically, Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch is very well presented. It is well written and all four books have their own contents listed on their respective back covers, which makes finding anything surprisingly easy. Inside, the black and white layout is dense, but still readable. The artwork is decent, but that of Lisa A. Free is excellent. It needs a slight edit in places.

—oOo—

Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch was reviewed by Phil Masters in ‘Open Box in White Dwarf Issue 59 (November 1984). He awarded the roleplaying game an overall score of six out of ten and said, “This game takes a superb background idea, applies a good system of mechanics to it, and comes back with a disappointing result. It may be that I was expecting too much; as a long-time Known Space addict I’ve been on tenterhooks since the first mention of the project, and (once the Companion appears to complete the system) I may well find myself running or playing Ringworld regularly, despite my feeling that the game as presented lacks the depth (as opposed as size) it could and should have possessed.”

Ringworld was the featured review in Space Gamer Number 71 (Nov/Dec 1984). Reviewer Steve Peterson described it as “A Missed Bet”, expanding on the statement by writing, “Really, the Ringworld universe is not an especially good roleplaying situation in the traditional sense. Most of Known Space is too civilized for true action and adventure. The Ringworld itself is “uncivilized” enough, but the technology of the explorers is so much better that they can walk right over most native threats, Think of starting out your D&D adventurers in the first level dungeon, only the adventurers are armed with +5 armor and vorpal swords. You’d quickly get bored.” He countered this with, “However, the Ringworld game is a good simulation, because the characters in the stories were more powerful than the natives. But the challenges of the Ringworld stories arose from situations that couldn’t be handled with a flashlight laser or a variable sword. Those neat weapons didn’t matter when the whole Ringworld was falling into its sun, as in Ringworld Engineers. The characters had to solve problems with their heads, not with their gadgets.” before continuing, “Unfortunately, the authors of the Ringworld game miss the point entirely. They come heartbreakingly close when they include a section on Ringworld mysteries – they discuss many of the very important questions left unanswered in the books. But they fall short when they don’t tell you how to use those mysteries to create scenarios.”

Peterson’s review included three useful sidebars, or rather sections of boxed text. The first was ‘For the uninitiated…’, which introduced the Known Space setting and Niven’s books for anyone new to either, whilst the second was a review of the Ringworld Companion. The third was particularly interesting. ‘What Niven Thinks About Ringworld’, which gives a short interview with the author. Notable is the fact that the publisher had the rights to explore some of the mysteries of the Ringworld and give its own solutions, though Niven would not be beholden to them. That said, Niven was interested in the roleplaying game’s background essays on the Kzinti and wanted to purchase the rights to those to use as a bible for authors working on the Man/Kzin series of anthologies. Peterson’s review concluded with, “My recommendation: Niven fans should buy it for the essays and background materials. Role-players should be prepared to do some work on scenarios; but if you do, you’ll have some terrific roleplaying in a beautifully detailed world. Science-fiction gamers who want to use it for source material probably won't get their money’s worth.”

Ringworld was reviewed in ‘Game Reviews’ in Different Worlds Issue 37 (Nov/Dec 1984) by Jeff Seiken. He commented that, “Ringworld is a difficult game to run in that it requires a skillful gamemaster to keep play (and the explorers) under control. The demands of running a campaign world roughly the size of three million earths compressed into such a small area are enough to tax the abilities of even the most experienced gamemasters.” and “In Ringworld, with explorers routinely traveling at speeds of 7000 km per hour across an ever-changing landscape, the gamemaster needs to be flexible and able to improvise quickly. Moreover, although the rules claim otherwise, gamemastering a Ringworld campaign requires at least some scientific background on the gamemaster’s behalf.” Despite these reservations, he awarded Ringworld four stars and concluded with, “As mentioned previously, the rulebooks contain numerous essays devoted to specific facets of Ringworld to assist the gamemaster in constructing a suitable (and viable) campaign. These essays are both well-written and invaluable. In fact, as befitting a product which owes its origins to a literary source, Ringworld stands out as an extremely literate role-playing game. Digesting the extensive amounts of factual information presented in the essays may demand a significant commitment of time and energy on the part of the gamemaster, but then the rewards of role-playing in the world of Ringworld will far outstrip the effort.”

Steve Nutt reviewed Ringworld in IMAGINE magazine, No. 21 (December 1984) in ‘Notices – Games reviews’. He said, “Altogether, Ringworld’s advantages and disadvantages stem from its campaign setting. The actual mechanics of the game are top quality, yet background and atmosphere are what make or break a campaign, and in Ringworld this aspect could be somewhat daunting to the uninitiated.”

—oOo—

Supported by the Ringworld Companion and the extra content in the aforementioned Different Worlds Issue 37, Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch did not remain in print for very long. Some of its content would form the basis for the background to the Man-Kzin War series of anthologies and Known Space received its sourcebook a decade later with The Guide to Larry Niven’s Ringworld. What this points to, certainly in the case of the Man-Kzin War series is that as a roleplaying game, Ringworld, was a great sourcebook for the setting. Richly detailed and informative enough for any fan of the Known Space series of novels. In fact, astonishingly good as a guide and bible to and for the setting. Yet that same detail made creating for the game beyond the given scenario a challenging consideration, even more so for a campaign. Which then becomes almost herculean given the underwhelming advice on creating for and running what is a technical and detailed setting.

Much like the story of the novel it is based upon, Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch is very good at getting the Game Master and her players and their characters to the Ringworld. Unfortunately, once they get there, the roleplaying game does leave them stranded and left to adapt and survive on their own.

—oOo—

With thanks to Lee Williams for the generous and all too lengthy loan of his copy of Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch. Without that loan, this review would not have been possible.

A Hobbity Holiday

One of the great things about The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings, the second edition of the acclaimed The One Ring: Adventures Over the Edge of the Wild published by Free League Publishing is The One Ring Starter Set. Why do you ask? Well, because it lets us roleplay members of the Hobbit community whom we not normally encounter. Drogo Baggins, Esmeralda Took, Lobelia Bracegirdle, Paladin Took II, Primula Brandybuck, and Rorimac Brandybuck, in many cases the parents or relations of three of the Hobbits who would form part of the Fellowship of the Ring decades later. Under the direction of the scandalous Bilbo Baggins, the quintet went off and had adventures of their own in the Shire, whilst at the same time The One Ring Starter Set presented the Shire for the roleplaying game itself. Sadly, the five adventures had to come to a close and with it the chance to play those characters again. Fortunately, there are available a number of sequel adventures, including Landmark Adventures, that can be run as part of, or after, the events of The One Ring Starter Set, or simply added to an ongoing campaign for The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings if it is being run in or around The Shire. The Ghost of Needlehole proved to be a sharp little ghost story, whilst the Mines of Brockenbores sent the Player-heroes to the far north of the Shire to inspect a mine, Sackville-Baggins Estates took them to the far south to explore a growing threat that comes to fruition at the end of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and in fourth Landmark Adventure, the Hobbits travelled to the most easterly of point in the Shire and beyond to The Withywindle and the House of Tom Bombadil! The next and fifth Landmark Adventure has the Hobbits sent hither and thither in a roundabout fashion, all before returning for a happy holiday.

A Hobbit Carol differs from the previous four Landmark Adventures and does not rely upon the half dozen pre-generated Hobbits from The One Ring Starter Set. This is because it takes place several decades after the events depicted in the campaign in The One Ring Starter Set, in 1389 S.R., by which time Balin has left the Shire to lead an expedition into Moria, Lobelia Bracegirdle has been married to Otho Sackville-Baggins for two or so decades, and Drogo Baggins and Primula Brandybuck, also married, have unfortunately both drowned, leaving young Frodo Baggins an orphan. Also, by this time, the One Ring, secretly in possession of Bilbo Baggins, has begun to weigh upon him and exacerbated by the death of his nephew and his wife, he has consequently grown cold, cranky, and bitter, matching the cold and bitter weather of that winter. Such is his change in character that Gandalf the Grey has warned Bilbo that he is certain to follow the path followed by Gollum if he does not heed the warnings of three spirits, representing his past, present, and future, that will come upon him. In what is effectively Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, they do and of course, Bilbo Baggins takes their words to heart and decides to change his ways by holding a big party. However, to do that, he will need help, which is where the Player-heroes enter the story.

With rumours rife about the crankiness of Bilbo’s character, the Player-heroes are hired by Hamfast Gamgee—nice to see him get a little time in the spotlight—to undertake three tasks. In turn, these are to go north to Bindbole Woods and there find a tree from which a large Yule-Log be made can be that be a great centre piece for the two-day Yule celebration Bilbo plans to hold; to head even further north to Hardbottle and barter or hunt for some fresh game for the feast; and lastly, to go to Buckland and escort the young tween Frodo Baggins to Bag End where Bilbo will make an important declaration about both his and Frodo’s future. This of course, is that he will make Frodo his sole heir. Naturally, Otho Sackville-Baggins is unhappy about this and will do all that he can to prevent this from happening. Otho Sackville-Baggins and his hooligan Hobbits are not only threats faced by the Player-heroes. The primary ones are time and the weather as the Hobbits do not have a great of time in which to accomplish the set tasks and the weather is very, very cold, and there is a chance of Hobbits suffering from it so, there are threats driven in from the wilds because of the weather, and there the Bounders, those Hobbits charged with patrolling and keeping the borders of the Shire safe, who can be very nosy when wanting to know why a band of Hobbits—and potentially queer folk like Elves, Dwarves, and Men—are wandering the Shire, especially given the bitterly cold weather.

A Hobbit Carol comes to a close with a jolly party held in honour of young Frodo Baggins and is a decent adventure that is best used as a one-shot given that it is not set during the timeframe for either The One Ring Starter Set or The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings. One option, possibly, is to run it as a flashback, perhaps for older Player-heroes or as a story being told to younger Player-heroes. The scenario does include its own Journey Table for the travels of the Player-heroes back and forth across the Shire, but as a one-shot, it does not include a set of pre-generated Player-heroes or even suggestions as to what Player-heroes might be suitable. That said, A Hobbit Carol would readily suit a party of Hobbits as the adventure itself involves mild peril—there is some combat, but not a great deal—and hard labour in chilly conditions rather than confrontations with the dread Shadow.

Physically, A Hobbit Carol is cleanly and tidily laid out. The artwork, taken from the Artbook Compilation for The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings is excellent. However, the layout is a little untidy in places and the adventure does need an edit.

A Hobbit Carol is a good little adventure, which like the earlier Landmark, Sackville-Baggins Estates, nicely develops the backstory to events of The Lord of the Rings, which works better as a one-shot rather than as an addition to a campaign.

Companion Chronicles #7: The Adventure of the Craven Knight

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 Pendragon, Sixth Edition. This can 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.

—oOo—

What is the Nature of the Quest?

The Adventure of the Craven Knight is a scenario for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition.

It is a full colour, twenty-five page, 13.20 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy and it is nicely illustrated.

Where is the Quest Set?

The Adventure of the Craven Knight is set in the Counties of Bedegraine and Yorkshire. it is set in the Year 516, one year after the events of The Grey Knight.

Who should go on this Quest?

The Adventure of the Craven Knight does not have any particular requirements in terms of its Player-knights as written. The skills of Folklore, Horsemanship, and Swimming are likely to be useful in resolving the scenario.

What does the Quest require?

The Adventure of the Craven Knight requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition rules or the Pendragon Starter Set.

Where will the Quest take the Knights?

The Adventure of the Craven Knight begins with the Player-knights on the road in the County of Bedegraine when they come to the aid of passengers attempting to cross the River Trent after a fearsome beast has clawed at the raft. An injury to a young boy sends them to search for a local and renowned healer, Lady Annora, but whilst she is ready to help, she is reluctant for the Player-knights to remain. Investigating the subdued and run down nature of the manor, its animals and staff, reveals that her husband, Sir Garavil, has had a curse placed on him that has also affected his wife and his manor.

A knight from the county to the north, Sir Byard, has given the young Banneret Knight a Wound Eternal and laid the curse upon because he would not sell him the finest of his horses. Both will be lifted only when either Sir Garavil relents or Sir Byard is defeated in single combat on the grounds of his own castle. The difficulty here is that Sir Byard, the craven knight of the title, lives in isolation in a castle on an island in a lake with no access except by boat or by making a leap of faith astride an exceptional animal. This sets up the major challenge of the scenario as the Player-knights attempt to find a way across the lake to challenge Sir Byard and face him in single combat.

The Adventure of the Craven Knight is inspired by tale of Byard’s Leap and nicely engages the Player-knights in the folklore of the region and presents them with some interesting challenges. For the Player-knight with a high Horsemanship skill, there is also the potential for a very fine and singular reward. One good aspect of the scenario is that it does not favour any faith over another, but grants an advantage to a Religious knight, no matter their faith.

The Adventure of the Craven Knight can be played through in two or three sessions. It is easy to slip into a campaign as it begins as the Player-knights travelling on the road.

Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?

The Adventure of the Craven Knight is a richly detailed scenario with plenty of opportunity for the Player-knights to show off their knightly virtues, defeat a rotten varlet unworthy to be a knight, and restore justice to the stricken.

Miskatonic Monday #327: Flash Cthulhu – Christmas on Charon

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

—oOo—

Name: Flash Cthulhu – Christmas on Charon

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michael Reid

Setting: Charon, 2099

Product: One-Location, One-Hour Scenario
What You Get: Eight page, 3.28 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: This Christmas, the company broadcast is broadcasting more than cheer.

Plot Hook: “When your boss drops by, it’s like a surprise pop quiz, you never know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but you better be prepared to perform.”

Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, one floorplan, and ∞ Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# Simple and short

# Challenging to roleplay

# Aquaphobia

# Mysophobia

# Autophobia

Cons

# Needs a slight edit

# Needs ∞ Investigator Sheets

# Challenging to roleplay

Conclusion

# An ∞ number of reasons to hate your boss and why she hates you

# Massive sendoff for the ‘Flash Cthulhu’ series with an ∞ roleplaying challenge

1994: The Whispering Vault

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.

—oOo—

In your life, you came to realise the truth of the world. You saw beyond the five senses. Your world, our world, was the Realm of Flesh, woven together by the physical laws to provide form and substance. As one of the Enlightened you learned that there was another plane of existence in parallel that was free of those laws. This is the Realm of Essence. Between the Realm of Flesh and the Realm of Essence lies the Neitherspace, home to hordes of the creatures known as Shadows who desire to interact with both the Realm of Flesh and the Realm of Essence. The Shadows are ever watching the Realm of Flesh and there are those that would force their way into the Realm of Flesh. Some play a role in the lives of Man. They are called Awakened Shadows and they are dangerous for they do not think like us. Some to fulfil their alien passions. They are called the Unbidden and they are worse. They awaken Shadows and bind them to physical vessels as Minions. To the ordinary man and woman unlucky enough to encounter them, they are the monsters of myth and legend. As an Enlightened, you knew better. You dedicated your life to investigating their doings and to protecting the Realm of Flesh from their intrusions. And then you were Chosen. The Stalkers came for you, freeing you of your physical bonds, forging your Humanity into Five Keys, and giving you a gift from the Primal Powers. This is the Immortal Essence to serve as a Stalker. Combined with your mortal origins you have the ability to return to Realm of Flesh, your duty to protect its inhabitants from the Unbidden and mend the Enigma left behind by the Unbidden’s absence that if left unattended, will spread corruption that will infect the Realm of Flesh and more…

This is the set-up for The Whispering Vault, a horror roleplaying game published by Pariah Press in 1994. (A prerelease was published in limited numbers for Gen Con in 1993). In classic nineties style, the Player Characters are monsters, but monsters with mortal origins and attitudes whose understanding of mankind and their world, enables them to better protect the Realm of Flesh in their new form as they once did in their original flesh. As Stalkers, they exist beyond the Realm of Flesh, each residing in their own Domain the nature of which reflects what they were and did in life. When they return to the Realm of Flesh, their Avatar is woven into a Vessel, the Vessel hiding the oddly inhuman or horrific form that their Avatar takes. The search for the Unbidden—called a Hunt—can take a Stalker anywhere, so there is scope for a scenario in The Whispering Vault to be set anywhere and anywhen, the roleplaying game possessing a time travel element. The fact that The Whispering Vault has monsters entering different time periods via a body that can be rewoven each time creating a different body almost makes the roleplaying game sound like, ‘Quantum Leap with monsters hunting monsters’.

There is a duality to the Player Character or Stalker in The Whispering Vault, reflected in his Avatar and his Vessel. First though, a player must decide what his Stalker did during his mortal existence. This involves determining where and when he was born, who he was and how he lived, why he hunted the Unseen, and how he was recruited as one of the Chosen. Then he decides upon his Avatar, what he looks like as one of the Chosen, reflecting what he looked like in life, but still obviously supernatural, and his Domain, where his Avatar resides. The Avatar has four Attributes—Awareness, Insight, Presence, and Willpower—which range in value between three and seven, with ratings of four and five being seen as reliable. The Avatar has a number of Disciplines, special powers taught by the Primal Powers for the Stalkers to wield in the Realm of Flesh against the Unbidden and their servants. For example, ‘Conjure’ enables an Avatar to create small objects, ‘Dominate’ gives them mind control, and ‘Savage’ to inflict more damage in melee combat. It is possible to gain Mastery in a Discipline and gain access to wider powers and the ability to improvise with Inspirations. When on a Hunt, a Stalker can summon phantoms of Essence to serve him. For example, ‘Chronovores’ slow mortals, ‘Flits’ reduce the damage from ranged attacks, and ‘Rippers’ tear the Husks off Minions. A Vessel’s Attributes are physical—Dexterity, Fortitude, and Strength—and range in value between three and six, but can be more.

A Stalker has Five Keys, both symbols of his Office and his connection to the Realm of Flesh, granting him his powers, whilst anchoring him to what he was. The Five Keys are either Virtues, Flaws, or Memories, and a Stalker has at least one each. They are also a physical object that can be stolen and without them, a Stalker cannot use Karma or his powers. If someone else holds his Five Keys, a Stalker cannot directly act against them.

To create his Stalker, a player divides twenty-two points between the four attributes of the Avatar. Selects a number of Disciplines equal to the Avatar’s Awareness, and a number of Servitors equal to his Presence. Summoning a Servitor inflicts damage on a Stalker, unless he has Mastery in doing so. It is recommended that a player select a Servitor in which his Avatar has Mastery so that it can be brought into play without damaging him. He assigns points equal to the Avatar’s Willpower to the three physical attributes of his Vessel. Lastly, he defines the Five Keys for his Stalker. It is suggested that initially, the player defines only a few of these. The process is not difficult, but it involves making a fair number of choices, a process hampered, if only a little, by the terminology used in The Whispering Vault.

NAME: ‘Cagliostro’

When And Where Were You Born?

I was born in Lancashire in 1936

Who Were You And How Did You Live?

I was Harold ‘Harry’ Rawllins. I worked at the theatres as a mind reader. I read people. I was a fake.

Why Did You Hunt The Unseen?

I read someone who was not normal, evil even, and turned out to be something not human, but looked like it. I knew I had to stop him. There were more.

How Were You Recruited?

I encountered others like me, who could see beyond.

Domain: A replica of the Lancaster Grand Theatre

FIVE KEYS

Virtuous: Courage

Flaws: Pride

Memories: The applause of the audience

AVATAR

Awareness 6 Insight 5 Presence 6 Willpower 5

Disciplines: Delve (Mastery), Dominate, Foresight, Terrify, Ward

Servitors: Dreadwyrms, Ferretters, Glamours (Mastery), Gremlins, Trackers

VESSEL

Dexterity 5 Fortitude 4 Strength 4

Skills

Attack +2, Charm +6, Defend +2, Mask +4, Mend +2, Occultism +2, Prestidigitation (Focus) +4, Sensitivity +4

Vitality 10

Karma 5

Mechanically, The Whispering Vault is simple. To have his Stalker undertake an action, his player makes a Challenge Roll. The Difficulty of the Challenge ranges from Routine and eight to Very Hard and eighteen, and it can be altered by modifiers from ‘-4’ and Routine to ‘+5’ and Very Hard. The player rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to the Attribute being used and counts either the highest result on a single die or the highest total of the matching dice. To this total is added the value of an appropriate skill. A point of Karma can be spent to reroll any dice.

For example, Cagliostro and his Circle of Stalkers is tracking an Unbidden which is preying on wealthy widows. He has used his Trackers to locate at a country house where a party is being held. He decides to enter the house via the tradesman’s entrance. There is a member of staff on duty at the door, preventing those without permission from entering. Cagliostro’s player describes how he has been booked as the entertainment for the evening. The Game Master sets the Difficulty at Average or twelve, but applies an Easy modifier because the comings and goings make the staff member a little harassed. So, the Difficulty is reduced to ten. Cagliostro’s player will roll six dice for his Presence Attribute and apply his Charm skill. He rolls two, two, three, six, six, and six. This is an incredible roll and with the addition of his Charm skill, gives a final result of twenty-four! The Game Master rules that the staff member accepts everything that Cagliostro says and further, accepts the other members of his Circle as part of his troupe and directs other members of staff to help them inside.

Combat uses the same mechanics, but The Whispering Vault eschews the use of hard and fast rules for things like range modifiers, recoil, and reload times. Instead, conflicts are intended to be run as a narrative told by both the players and the Game Master, and both are encouraged to roleplay such situations. Where actions require resolution, Challenge Rolls are made, but to resolve an attack the Stalker makes an Attack Challenge against his opponent’s Defend Attribute, and to defend himself, a Stalker makes a Defend Challenge against his opponent’s Attack Attribute. Effectively then, in this, The Whispering Vault is player-facing in its mechanics—and player-facing in its mechanics a good twenty years before it became fashionable with designs such as Numenera.

However, The Whispering Vault actually pays more attention to the damage inflicted rather than the inflicting it. The emphasis is placed on melee rather than ranged damage since Shadows and the Unbidden take less damage from ranged damage. The base damage for a Stalker is based on his Strength Attribute, modified by the Savage and Rend Disciplines, and a player is expected to be inventive in how his Stalker actually attacks his opponents based on the Stalker he has created. The example given is a Stalker shooting chains from its eyes (so very Hellraiser, one of likely inspirations for the roleplaying game), but Cagliostro could shoot out streams of magic scarfs or throw playing cards or use magic rings to entangle and rip. In general, a Stalker relies on its own intrinsic weapons and those abilities granted by Disciplines rather than wielding weapons of the Mortals, and unless he has an appropriate Focus Skill, suffers an attack penalty when using them. Damage suffered by a Stalker (and other supernatural beings) is divided by his Fortitude Attribute before it reduces his Vitality, but once his Vitality is reduced to zero, the damage reduces his other Attributes. Which Attributes are reduced is up to the player, but if a Stalker’s Fortitude is reduced to zero, he is killed. In general, Stalkers are sturdier than Mortals, and there is a cap on the amount of damage that they can inflict on Stalkers, whereas Mortals are easier to kill. A Shadow can be damaged enough to destroy its flesh and force it back into the Neitherspace, whilst Unbidden needs to have its much weaker Vessel destroyed, forcing it to reveal its true, and much stronger, form.

The core of The Whispering Vault is its Disciplines which grant Stalkers to alter the Realm of Flesh. Some are more powerful than others, weakening the Vessel they reside and costing them points of Vitality. If a Stalker has Mastery in a Discipline, then he can improvise further uses of it, called Inspirations, his player describing the desired effect and the Game Master adjudicating it. Using an Inspiration costs Karma, but the Game Master can simply disallow an inspiration, nor does she have to explain why it does not work, the book suggesting that she tell that, “…[t]he Dream can only be stretched so far.” (The Dream being how the Primal Powers envision the Realm of Flesh.) Honestly, it would have been better to have the player and Game Master negotiate on the effects rather than the latter simply saying no. If successful, the player is encouraged to describe how the Inspiration works and similarly visualise and describe how the supernatural abilities of the Disciplines appear, as if they were special effects in a film. The Inspiration guidelines are underwritten and the advice could have been better.

Servitors are given a similar description as Disciplines. A Servitor costs Vitality to summon, and requires the use of the Evoke skill, but cannot be seen by those unable to see Essence. Some are less useful than others, such as ‘Cloudlings’ that absorb moisture from the air only to release it as a rainstorm later, but others like ‘Gremlins’ disrupt machinery and devices, ‘Flits’ that intercept ranged attacks, and ‘Devourers’ that consume nonliving matter. Much like the Discipline descriptions, the Servitors are often underwritten in terms of what they can do and are open to no little degree of interpretation. In the right hands, this can grant a lot of flexibility, but in the wrong hands, is potentially open to abuse. Conversely, the skills are better described and clearer in their use.

The Whispering Vault is played as a series of Hunts. A Hunt consists of a number of steps, which begin with the Stalkers being contacted by a mortal Supplicant—effectively what the Player Characters were before they became Stalkers—who is endangered by an Enigma. The Stalkers are transported to the Realm of Flesh by the Navigators, which bridge Flesh and Essence, via the Winding Path along which is a Barrier through which they have to pass, dismissing the Barrier’s Guardian to do so. Once in the Realm of Flesh, they enter their Vessels and look for the Enigma and Mend it, then search for the Unbidden and its Minions. They must be defeated, the Unbidden bound, judgement passed upon it, and after calling the Navigators to return them and their quarry to the Realm of Essence, banish the Unbidden into the ‘Whispering Vault’ of the title. There are some variations to this, depending primarily on the age of the Navigator summoned, as the mature ‘Old One’ Navigators can manifest a guide to help and interact with the Stalkers as they follow the path, but can also be infested with parasites that will likely attack the Stalkers.

Of course, the Game Master need not run her players and their Stalkers through all of the steps of Hunt every time she runs The Whispering Vault. In a one-shot certainly, but for long term play, perhaps the first two Hunts and then after that when it is part of the story. At each step, The Whispering Vault expands upon its weirder, wider universe, for example, should an Enigma not be mended, corruption will grow and grow until the affected area becomes one of the Shadowlands and is shifted into the Neitherspace. The primary cause of an Enigma is an Unbidden, and once that has been dealt with—defeated and bound—Enigmas can be repaired, so that Shadowlands can be interesting places in which to locate a Hunt. This is because Shadowlands are also temporally isolated and free of the constraints of the Dream, which means that the Stalkers do not have to worry about revealing themselves unnecessarily, but also allows free reign for the Unbidden to indulge in its passions.

When on a Hunt, the Stalkers are protected by the Veil, meaning that anyone unable to see or is sensitive to them and other creatures of Essence, will ignore their horrifying appearance or supernatural actions. A Stalker can shift from the Veil slightly by Masking, or casting an illusion on himself, appearing as that much more impressive, or he can even drop the Veil and reveal his true form for full effect. This is rare because Stalkers are expected to adhere to the Forbiddance to protect the Dream. Under the terms of the Forbiddance, the Stalkers cannot alter time and affect the lives of mortals unnecessarily—meaning effectively, protect the innocent and target the Minions of the Unbidden. There are consequences for breaking the Forbidden, right up to the Primal Powers interceding and destroying a Stalker’s Vessel and returning him to his Domain. A player is given the opportunity to undo an action that would lead to such an Intercession, but repeated actions that lead to further Intercessions will see the Stalker cast into the Whispering Vault (and thus out of the campaign).

After a Hunt, a Stalker can be awarded Karma and Experience Points. The latter are obviously spent to improve the Stalker, but another option is to purchase Group Powers. Every member of a Circle must agree to it and in narrative terms, the Circle needs to have gained the approval of the Primal Powers. They are expensive too, costing five Karma each. For example, ‘Blood Bond’ lets the members of a Circle share their Vitality with each other, whilst ‘Helping hand’ grants them bonuses on combined actions, typically for Banishing, Binding, Evocation, and Mending. If a Circle does exceptionally well, it may even be awarded a Group Power.

The campaign advice is more about the Group Powers than the help on running the game or campaigns, although there is the suggestion of a ‘Watchers’ style in which the Stalkers sit on a hotspot where places and periods of history invite the intrusion and presence of the Unbidden. This requires more effort upon the part of both the Game Master and her players to set up, but gives the Stalkers a base of operations—or Sanctum—within the Realm of Flesh. The rules cover the creation of the Sanctum, which can have its own Enchantments, but as interesting as this possible set-up is, there is no real advice on how to run such a campaign.

Roughly, the last third of The Whispering Vault is dedicated to the threats that the Stalkers will face, primarily the Unbidden. An actually has a life stage once it has reached the Realm of Flesh, beginning as Beast which has an overwhelming desire to hunt and eat. Once sated, it is free to indulge in the Passions which drove it to enter the Realm of Flesh, and when it transcends these Passions, it becomes an Architect, concerned with long term plans for its continued existence in the Realm of Flesh. Thus, there are different types of Unbidden with different actions and drives, which will affect the challenges that the Stalkers will face on a Hunt. Unbidden also have their own special abilities, enabling the Game Master to design and customise her own. There is also what is a guide to creating Shadows, and effectively of bestiary of them, including some very nasty, creepy creations, such the three-limbed, cameras-for eyes Rethrett, or ‘Cameramen’, which lurk in television sets and record your actions, except in Great Britain where they are repulsed by the BBC! Lastly, there is a guide to mortal threats, including a sample cult or two and some sample Stalkers.

Physically, The Whispering Vault is an amazing looking book. It is superbly illustrated from start to finish, with black and white, sometimes scratchy artwork that imparts a sense of horrifying weirdness. The book is both well written and not well written. There main text is accompanied by decent game world fiction and plenty of examples, but it uses a lot of odd terminology and obfuscatory phrasing, constantly leaving the reader to wonder quite what a term means, so that despite mechanical simplicity, the game is not as easy as it should be to learn or teach. It does not help that there is no index or actually, worse, no glossary.

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William Spencer-Hale reviewed The Whispering Vault in ‘Closer Look’ in Shadis Issue #14 (July/August 1994). He described the roleplaying game as, “…[A]n outstanding accomplishment for designer/author Mike Nystul…” and its set-up of having the players roleplay, “…[T]he otherworldly, immortal protectors of human’s reality.” as “…[A]n original and inspired creation that is a breath of fresh air in the roleplaying industry.” He concluded his positive review by saying, “All in all, The Whispering Vault is a game worthy of the attention of any fan of horror roleplaying. This game is a welcome addition to any library and, out of all the roleplaying materials that I own, this is one that I will actually enjoy playing.”

It is traditional in many of these cases for Dragon Magazine to review a roleplaying game not once, but twice. So it is with The Whispering Vault in the pages of Dragon Magazine, both times by Lester Smith. In ‘Role-playing Reviews’ in Dragon Magazine Issue #208 (August 1994), he reviewed the ‘Black Book’ pre-release edition released at the previous Gen Con and praised the roleplaying game’s “powerful new mythology” and said, “A strong atmosphere of brooding horror and heroic action is conveyed by the text, from vocabulary created, to creatures described, to setting depicted.” He noted that that there were things missing from this edition of the roleplaying game, such as the description of the Shape-changing skill (called the Morph Discipline in the first edition), details of the Five Keys, and so on. Before awarding The Whispering Vault a score of four out of six, he concluded, “From the taste given in this black book edition, I definitely recommend this game for anyone who likes heroic horror. It is one of the most inventive treatments of the subject I have yet encountered.”

Lester Smith followed up his initial review with one of the first edition in ‘Role-playing Reviews’ in Dragon Magazine Issue #217 (May 1995). He was as congratulatory in this review as he was in his previous review, launching it with, “I hope it won’t sound audacious for me to say that I think the CoC RPG finds its match in the WHISPERING VAULT* game.” He continued with, “The book’s presentation is excellent, nearly flawless… The attitude projected by both text and art is uniformly dark, brooding, and extremely strange. The end result is a virtually seamless presentation of Nystul’s vision of horror (except for Talon, a sample PC at the very back of the book, whose premise and art I didn’t think fit the rest in the original book, and who seems even more out of place in this version; but hey, that’s only one character sheet). And that unique vision is both shockingly strange and yet universal in scope.” Smith concluded his second review by awarding The Whispering Vault six out of six and saying, “This product is pure, distilled horror, with some of the most concise yet effective mechanics ever published; its relative slimness simply means that you’ll digest the game more quickly initially, and reference it more easily during play.”

Rick Swan would echo Lester Smith’s praise for The Whispering Vault in ‘Role-playing Reviews’ in Dragon Magazine Issue #218 (June 1995). In his review of Dangerous Prey, the first supplement for the roleplaying game, he said, “What’s WHISPERING VAULT, you ask? Only one of the smartest, spookiest horror RPGs that ever clawed its way from a crypt.”

William Spencer-Hale also reviewed The Whispering Vault a second time, but the second time would be as a ‘Pyramid Pick’ in Pyramid Vol. 1 #10 (November/December, 1994) and with exactly the same review. It can be found here.

Continuing the trend for double review reviews, The Whispering Vault was also reviewed twice in White Wolf Magazine. First was by Sam Chupp in ‘Capsule Reviews’ in White Wolf Magazine Issue 40 (February, 1994), who said of the ‘Black Book’ pre-release edition, “It would be easy to write this game off as “Call of Cthulhu with Super Powers,” but Mike Nystul’s game of supernatural hunters is a much deeper, much more artistic roleplaying game than that. You play angelic/demonic agents who hunt down the horrors that escape your level of reality.” before awarding it a score of four out of five and concluding, “The Whispering Vault will appeal to you if you like horror- or superhero-style games, but I think you’ll enjoy the elegance, uniqueness and atmosphere of the game even if you don’t play those games. 1 heartily recommend The Whispering Vault, prototype that it is.”

The second review appeared in White Wolf Magazine Issue 44 (June, 1994) and was a ‘Featured Review’ by none other than William Spencer-Hale. As with his review in Pyramid Vol. 1 #10, it was the exact same review as he had published in Shadis Issue #14.

—oOo—

The Whispering Vault looks and feels like a classic roleplaying game of the nineties, similar to that of Vampire: the Masquerade and Kult. It has the Player Characters as monsters battling other monsters, it has its own mythology that explains the universe and what the monsters really are, and it has fantastic artwork from some of the best artists of the period— Jeff Laubenstein, Earl Geier, Larry MacDougall, and others. And despite the often obfuscatory nature of the setting and its language, The Whispering Vault actually has a very simple set-up and it has surprisingly simple rules, that together make it more accessible than it should be. It is such a pity that The Whispering Vault has never received a proper second edition and more development, for it genuinely is a weird and creepy horror game, one that gives a lot of room for player and Game Master alike to affect the narrative and tell the tales of the true horrors from beyond.